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The first 5 or 6 billion years, conditions probably weren't possible to support life in any form. So maybe it's only been the last 3 or 4 billion years that a planet has appeared where life emerged, and then < 1B years for it to develop into sentience.
But if you think about how it took humanity 80 years to go from the invention of the light bulb to the Apollo landing, what would an alien civilization look like that is 1M years past the invention of their own light bulb? or 1B years?
What will humanity look like 10k years after the invention of our light bulb, i.e. the year 11,879 A.D.?