When I became CEO, I just didn't think about my age too much. I'm sure many people did think that my age mattered, but I didn't. That was probably because of my age.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I hadn't grown up always aspiring to be a CEO.
At 25, I made many companies. I was thinking more like a businessman or entrepreneur than a CEO. I created many companies, small companies, medium companies. I tried to be involved in many kinds of activities, in finance, in real estate, in mining.
Because I'm in an adult world and I'm really working, my age is just a number. It's not really who I am.
There's nothing about Lynn Good at age 30 or age 35 that would have said, 'I am setting my sights on being a CEO.'
I was 25 when I was made director of marketing at 'Newsweek.' I was 29 when I was made chief executive officer of Kaplan Educational Centers. I was raised to be confident.
I never really felt like my age stopped people from wanting to work with me. I was speaking at conferences and lecturing at universities at 18, and I think that was mainly because web developing and management was a really young industry.
When you're young, you don't especially think of yourself as being young. You're just alive and everything's interesting and you don't think of things in terms of age because you're not conscious of it.
Age doesn't mean anything. Age doesn't mean I can't work as hard. Age doesn't mean I can't do as well as everyone else. It's just a factor. It's just there.
21 years as CEO is a long time. I was and probably still am the longest serving CEO in America. Certainly I am in the media industry, bar none.
It turns out that if you're a 24-year-old whose only line on their resume says CEO, you are totally unemployable.