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Justin Gage is an analyst at Cornerstone Venture Partners and previously a data science major at NYU鈥檚 business school. You can follow him on聽.

Conventional wisdom states that we live in a . The rise of accelerator and incubator programs like Y Combinator, a robust VC ecosystem with more capital than it can deploy, and the (via the public cloud) help make starting a new company today much easier than it once was.

Technology is becoming more mainstream and normalized, as once small and darling tech startups have grown to represent the modern economic world, with the likes of Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple dominating the headlines.

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On the other side of the spectrum, exiting a startup, the process that runs the virtuous and necessary startup funding cycle, has never been more achievable. , like GE and Walmart, are snapping up tech startups to bolster their digital presences, an activity that was usually relegated to the tech giants themselves. Leaving aside some fluctuations over the past few quarters, tech M&A value is . The IPO market hasn鈥檛 been stellar, but recent months have seen some major tech companies go public. An overflowing pen of unicorns also means that we might be in for some exciting new tech IPOs in the near future, although that floodgate hasn鈥檛 opened quite yet.

So you can get funded and advised, set up infrastructure for little cost, raise capital when you need it, and bring liquidity to those investors; all the factors driving new startup formation seem to be in place.

In my conversations with VCs, this topic comes up all the time. They鈥檙e floored with how many quality, fundable companies there are today. In the words of successful , 鈥渋t has never been easier to start a great business.鈥�

If it鈥檚 easier than ever to start a company, you might expect the number of new tech startups founded per year to be pretty high. Surprisingly, the data tells us a different story.

What If Startup Activity is Actually Far Lower Than (Almost) Ever?

, a nonprofit focused on advancing education and fostering entrepreneurship, publishes a called the 鈥淜auffman Index鈥� that measures various facets of startup activity. The graph of startup density, or the number of startups per 1,000 firms, doesn鈥檛 look like the hockey stick that we might expect to see:

Barring a slight pickup over the past decade or so, there are two important observations to note here. First, startup density has been decreasing since the Kauffman Foundation started measuring it in 1977. And second, the financial crisis (or more accurately, the time period immediately before it) kicked off the most significant downturn in entrepreneurial activity since the chart starts.

And despite incremental progress since 2010, we鈥檙e nowhere near pre-2008 startup activity levels. Other Kauffman Index measures show some slightly more promising figures, but not what we might expect given the 鈥済olden age鈥� narrative that seems so prevalent.

Tech vs. The Rest

In all fairness, these Kauffman Index measures relate to all kinds of startups (such as bakeries and auto parts manufacturers). The growth factors that we鈥檙e talking about, like accelerators and cheap cloud computing, largely focus on tech startups.

But here, too, the data shows lower activity than expected. The Kauffman Foundation also published a in 2013 about high-tech businesses; the attached graph, where the blue line represents the number of high-tech startups founded in a given year, shows a similar decline since 2008.

(ICT stands for Information and Computer Technology, a more concentrated group of high-tech startups.)

Instead of spurring record numbers of new tech startups, our 鈥済olden age鈥� hasn鈥檛 really helped company formation much at all. It turns out that the real golden age for startup formation was actually the 90鈥檚 and the Dotcom era. And that鈥檚 despite the high, fixed cost of infrastructure and less mature funding environments.

Another surprising and emerging trend is the founder age gap. Moving back to the original Kauffman Index, there鈥檚 a notable divergence between younger and older founders. Companies are increasingly being started by older people.

Why might that be the case? In the words of Fareed Zakaria, who : 鈥淵oung people today dress like Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, consume technology voraciously and talk about disruptive innovation. But they want to work at Goldman Sachs, McKinsey and Google.鈥�

Why Aren鈥檛 We Founding More Companies?

So what鈥檚 going on? Why haven鈥檛 the amazing resources that today鈥檚 startups enjoy led to increased tech startup formation? I鈥檒l suggest a few possibilities, and then I will return to the importance of what the data tells us.

Kids Like Good Jobs

One reason why more people might not be founding companies is opportunity 鈥� especially for young people exiting school. Simply put, there are far more attractive alternatives to startups than there used to be.

Tech giants like Facebook and Google, who , are hot destinations for graduating software engineers and other relevant majors. These companies simply didn鈥檛 exist at their current scale (or at all, in Facebook鈥檚 case) during the dot com era.

And it鈥檚 not just software companies that are embracing younger workers and creating a more welcoming workplace. Traditional juggernauts like GE have created , and banks like J.P. Morgan have begun . And finally, even leaving large corporations aside, there are lots of mid-to-larger companies like Github and Airbnb that offer dynamic and exciting work environments. In short, people may be dis-incentivized to start new companies when their alternate employment options are so attractive.

Zombie Unicorns?

Another potential reason is the double edged sword of a robust funding environment. Companies that might have died in previous cycles can stay alive and in business longer.

With less VC funding available 20 years ago, your company, to stay alive, needed to do one of the following:

1. Raise money from a limited cadre of investors.
2. Make enough money to support yourself.
3. Go public or be acquired.

There鈥檚 a lot more VC money around nowadays at all different stages (), and that gives companies more runway and flexibility to push off profitability or exit. Founders and employees who might otherwise be starting new companies can stick around right where they are.

These two possibilities 鈥� better employment opportunities and potentially lower company turnover 鈥� may help explain why today鈥檚 鈥済olden age鈥� of startups hasn鈥檛 actually resulted in more startups.

But the conclusion stands: we might not be forming companies at the rate that we think. It鈥檚 my personal belief that within reason, more startups are good for the economy and entrepreneurship should be encouraged. I hope that these statistics and this article can spur some dialogue on how we can parlay today鈥檚 ease of starting a company into tangible growth.

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