I personally think you hit the nail on the head when you say " The most promising startup founders I know have 5-10 years of experience in an industry". Yes, there are exceptions, like any other thing in life, but experience in a sector is underrated by many of the recent graduates I meet who want to start a company. The problem I think is that youngsters only read TechCrunch and other similar blogs, which to me is like Warren Buffet trying to read insurance/risk management news on Seventeen magazine - flashy headlines with irrelevant information, in a world fuelled by cotton candy and hairstyles.