I just ran into the same problem. Turned out that that my OS is a 64-Bit Ubuntu System and the compiler is a 32-Bit program.
I followed the instructions given here https://askubuntu.com/questions/454253/how-to-run-32-bit-app-in-ubuntu-64-bit :
To run a 32-bit executable file on a 64-bit multi-architecture Ubuntu
system, you have to add the i386 architecture and install the three
library packages libc6:i386, libncurses5:i386, and libstdc++6:i386:
sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
Or if you are using Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin) or below, use this:
echo "foreign-architecture i386" > /etc/dpkg/dpkg.cfg.d/multiarch
Then:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libc6:i386 libncurses5:i386 libstdc++6:i386
If fails, do also
sudo apt-get install multiarch-support
After these steps, you should be able to run the 32-bit application:
./example32bitprogram