How founder experiences Matter? investigating novel technology development in autonomous driving ventures

•Founder experiences guide technology ventures on novel paths in nascent industries.•We decompose founder experiences into path-conforming and path-shifting influences.•Experience in industry incumbency hinders novel technology development.•Diverse industry and university experiences foster novel technology development. This study investigates the influence of founders’ diverse prior work experiences on the development of novel technologies in autonomous driving ventures. Considering the multiple sources of work environments where founders’ experiences were formed, we make a distinction between path-conforming influence that pulls entrepreneurs towards existing paradigms and path-shifting influence that pushes them away from conventional norms. By investigating prior experiences from industry incumbents, industry diversity, entrepreneurship, and universities, we hypothesize their diverging implications for novel technology development. Analyzing patent records from autonomous driving ventures, we find that prior experiences from industry incumbency hinder the development of novel patents, whereas prior experiences from diverse industries and university research foster it. By decomposing the influences of venture founders’ prior work experiences into path-conforming and path-shifting camps, our research makes theoretical contributions to entrepreneurship research and offers practical implications for managing technology ventures in nascent industries.