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It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley

bloomberg.com

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Re: It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley

#301

Post by nfriedly »

rubicon33 wrote: post #288
nfriedly wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in my 30's, married, have a son, and a mortgage. But I also have enough savings to pay off my mortgage in full today if it was an urgent need.

... how? Either your mortgage is very small, or you have somehow managed to save an incredible amount of money. It's really the latter that I'd like to know more about.

It's a relatively small mortgage, I bought it for $138k. (This was near the bottom of the mortgage crisis, but also the house is ~50 years old and outside of a small town in Ohio).

As I mentioned in the other comment, my savings rate has been trending upward for a while, and I now save about ~40-45% of my take-home pay.

But, even when I lived in the bay area, earned less money, and paid twice my current mortgage in rent, I was still saving ~15% of my income.

I don't consider myself deprived: we eat out, buy fancy phones, etc. We have a separate bank account just for giving that gets some money automatically transferred in each month. Our car is a 15-year-old civic that looks terible, but we don't drive that much and it still runs great. We'll probably replace it soon, but I kind of want to see how long it will go at this point ;)

Like I mentioned in my other comment, http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ has a lot of great advice. There's a few sites like that one, but MMM is my favorite.

Re: It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley

#302

Post by albertop »

oldmanjay wrote: post #98
albertop wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So when you talk about women in computing industry, you advice them to get a good professional headshot?

No. I advise them to become as good at what they do as they can, if they happen to ask me for advice. Otherwise I avoid pontificating. If you're insinuating that I'm some sort of tech sexist, to be frank, you can fuck right off. You know nothing about me or my situation.

It looks like you have not guts or think it is not proper to give that advice to women. Why do you think is fine to do it for older people?

Re: It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley

#303

Post by bigger_cheese »

rb808 wrote: post #123

I come from a family with a few generations of engineers of all types. Mechanical/chemical/electrical engineers have a similar problem that 30 years experience isn't much more useful than 10, wages tend to top out early and you're vulnerable to being laid off and never hired again in your 40s/50s. One advantage over software is that the skills change perhaps less frequently but that is offset by lower overall demand.…

I'm a Materials Engineer in my 30's I work with a lot of Mech/Chem engineers. The engineering world is a bit different to software world. I'd say the main reason for this is there is a much lower applicant pool (Fewer graduates entering workforce). From what I have experienced engineers change companies much less frequently and engineering companies tend to be more stable than software companies (Most of the engineers I know either work for consultancies or large mining/industrial companies).

Professional reputation is a big deal. If you have a good enough reputation you can basically negotiate for your own salary.

Younger Engineers (i.e fresh from university) do not get to work on the large projects and especially not in any kind of lead role. Mostly they work under other more senior engineers. Typically you'll work your way up until you get given lead on a small project. Eventually you will move onto managing medium to large projects.

Senior engineers (i.e 40's and 50's) are hugely valued. These are the people with professional reputations, contacts etc. Clients will know these Engineers by name and will often request them specifically.

What I've seen typically happen is for engineers in the 50-60 age range to semi-retire and move into consulting or Academia. Many Engineering lecturers at universities are retired former practicing engineers.

Several senior engineers I used to work with have moved into consulting and they get paid an obscene amount of money- more than I make in a years for a 3 month consulting gig in a country like Brazil, India, China etc.

We have a diversity problems for sure but it is gender not age.

Re: It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley

#304

Post by oldmanjay »

albertop wrote: post #302
oldmanjay wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. I advise them to become as good at what they do as they can, if they happen to ask me for advice. Otherwise I avoid pontificating. If you're insinuating that I'm some sort of tech sexist, to be frank, you can fuck right off. You know nothing about me or my situation.

It looks like you have not guts or think it is not proper to give that advice to women. Why do you think is fine to do it for older people?

I'm sorry, I have no idea what you mean.

Re: It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley

#305

Post by AndrewKemendo »

IMO it's because the majority of the companies getting funding in SV don't need DEEP expertise in a specific technical area. All of the companies mentioned in the article are mainly doing fairly "easy" tech around either well understood or new frameworks with low barriers to entry.

If you look at the age composition of companies that are working in Deep Learning, Computer Vision, Hardware they are significantly older than others - it's because you typically need a PhD or equivalent time working on the problems to actually build new stuff.

Until SV starts funding - enmasse - hard tech, which needs more experienced workers, I don't think you'll see much change there.

Re: It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley

#306

Post by wcummings »

emodendroket wrote: post #265
donretag wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep on thinking that surely this hops fad will die out soon, but it keeps on increasing. The West coast is especially big on hops. Even lagers from breweries like Lagunitas are extremely hoppy. No thank you. Hops are a cheap and easy way to disguise the taste of bad beer.

It's insane. I'd honestly rather have a Miller or something than Yet Another IPA.

I'll drink a miller just to troll the insufferable yuppie dbags that hate that shit

Re: It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley

#307

Post by rubicon33 »

nfriedly wrote: post #301
rubicon33 wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... how? Either your mortgage is very small, or you have somehow managed to save an incredible amount of money. It's really the latter that I'd like to know more about.

It's a relatively small mortgage, I bought it for $138k. (This was near the bottom of the mortgage crisis, but also the house is ~50 years old and outside of a small town in Ohio). As I mentioned in the other comment, my savings rate has been trending upward for a while, and I now save about ~40-45% of my take-home pay. But, even when I lived in the bay area, earned less money, and paid twice my current mortgage in r…

Thanks for the response.

What you're doing sounds like what I want to shoot for. I'm almost 30 now, and for the last 2 years I've REALLY ramped up my savings. My goal, is to retire sometime in my mid 40s, so that I can work full time on my own projects. Lofty goal to say the least. I also realize that to do that, I'll need to find a cheap home.

Been reading up on mrmoneymustache, some great tips there. Thanks for the link!

Re: It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley

#308

Post by karmajunkie »

mywittyname wrote: post #199
crimsonalucard wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most diversity initiatives are discriminatory by nature. Assuming your company hires people exclusively based on skill.... In order to artificially balance certain ratios your company must discriminate on who they hire. In the educational world this is called affirmative action.

I disagree. Diversity is about hiring people based purely on merit, rather than letting prejudices about gender/age/race taint the hiring process. Nobody's suggesting that we hire under-qualified women/elders/blacks, but they are saying the merely being such is not an indication of inferior ability or lack of "culture fit."

I think this is the first time I've ever seen someone argue that diversity is enabled through the meritocracy.

The big flaw in that argument is that "merit" is not an objective measure, which then leads to a very narrow and slanted version of "merit".

Re: It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley

#309

Post by slgeorge »

throw_away_777 wrote: post #58
oxryly1 wrote: post #46

Is this perhaps because older workers gravitate towards sane hours? Maybe because they develop interests, lives, families, etc outside of work that they commit to (moreso than most 20-somethings)? As a side note: I'm over 40 now, but I do recall being 27 and interviewing someone in their early 40s who was qualified and enthusiastic. I passed on them in part because I felt guilty hiring them; to work on my team the pe…

What you did was definitely illegal and immoral. It is not your decision to make on how someone should live their life.

What was illegal about it?

It was possibly immoral, if you think there's a moral requirement to hire the first person that fits the role. Though, employment is a relationship, and like any relationship there can be a host of reasons why they don't start or work out. It can simply be a matter of preference, on both sides.

It's not illegal to discriminate, it's illegal to discriminate for particular classes.

Re: It’s Tough Being Over 40 in Silicon Valley

#310

Post by gaius »

karmajunkie wrote: post #308
mywittyname wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Diversity is about hiring people based purely on merit, rather than letting prejudices about gender/age/race taint the hiring process. Nobody's suggesting that we hire under-qualified women/elders/blacks, but they are saying the merely being such is not an indication of inferior ability or lack of "culture fit."

I think this is the first time I've ever seen someone argue that diversity is enabled through the meritocracy. The big flaw in that argument is that "merit" is not an objective measure, which then leads to a very narrow and slanted version of "merit".

Hence the Github rug scenario.
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