The numbers come first: Spin Master is a $2 billion company, and its cofounder Ronnen Harary was 23 years old when he launched it.
Harary, now 55, cofounded Spin Master in 1994 alongside childhood best friend Anton Rabie and university classmate Ben Varadi in Toronto, Canada. Their first product — a grass-growing novelty toy called Earth Buddy — was an unexpected hit. What followed was three decades of compounding bets: Etch A Sketch, ICEE makers, Mighty Beanz, Kinetic Sand, and today's flagship franchise Paw Patrol, a TV show airing in over 160 countries and 30 languages. The franchise's third feature film hits theaters this week.
In a recent Business Insider interview, Harary made the case that youth is not a liability for founders — it is a structural advantage.
'When you're 25, no one sees you as competition. When you're at 35, potentially people see you as competition,' Harary said. 'As a result of being in your 20s, you have so much energy, you have so much drive, determination, and will to get things done. When you hit your middle age, it decreases.'
Harary went further, saying he 'couldn't start' Spin Master at his current age — not because of skill, but because of energy.
He is not alone in that read. Jensen Huang, who founded Nvidia at 30 — a company now valued at $5.3 trillion — has called this 'the single greatest time to start a company' and said he is 'jealous' of what lies ahead for young founders. Kasriel, the former CEO of Upwork — valued at $1 billion — argued that launching right out of college is the 'best possible time' to build a career of choice, reasoning that by 35, mortgages and children make founders less willing to absorb risk.
The data, however, tells a more complicated story. According to the Harvard Business Review, the average entrepreneur starts a business at 42. Among the top 0.1% of startups, founders typically launch at 45. Software and tech skew younger, but 20-somethings have not yet become the statistical face of entrepreneurship.
Still, the roster of young builders is hard to dismiss: Microsoft and Dell Technologies were conceived in college dorm rooms; billion-dollar AI startups Scale AI and Cursor were built by Gen Zers.
CEO Times take: The market has already voted on this debate — and the verdict is split by sector. In capital-intensive industries, experience and networks matter. But in consumer products, technology, and media, the founder who moves before incumbents notice them is playing with a real edge. Harary's point about invisibility is underrated: established players do not mobilize legal, lobbying, or competitive resources against someone they do not yet perceive as a threat. That window is narrow, and it closes fast. Free enterprise rewards those who move when friction is lowest — and for a 23-year-old with no mortgage, no legacy costs, and nothing to protect, friction is about as low as it gets.
