There is definitely an inverse power log sort of thing where the number of people who have gone right from college into startup success is really small, and the number of people who have gone from school to startup success in 10 years is pretty large.
A typical trajectory seems to be move here working for some current 'big' tech company. Build a network of the cool people there and figure out where you eventually want to live, then show your stuff at BigCorp while people who have been there longer start peeling off. Most people know who are the 'good' people and who are the not so good people at their previous employment, if they have you in the 'good' category and they've gone off to do a startup you find interesting, you can often follow them there. Then get your feet wet in a startup early employee to exit (death, buyout, what haveyou). During that time you get known by the VCs in the company and your peers there, perhaps you recruit people. You prove you can be effective in a small environment. Then using your connections with investors or other people you've met you go in as a really early group of already more seasoned people, which ideally has a solid outcome, and at that point 10 - 12 years have your graduation from school you are ready to start your own thing. The graphs in this chart [1] match my experience. People doing a lot of the founding are in their 30's.
Up until you're the founder though, success or failure is rarely on you, its on the founders. And even then depending on how it failed well that can actually be a positive if it was shooting for the stars and only making it to the outskirts of the solar system.