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Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias

reuters.com

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Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias

#61

Post by zevyoura »

southphillyman wrote: post #46

Is this essentially a Web 2.0/Bay Area issue? I recently went to a Java User Group meeting on the east coast where the presenter and about 60% of the audience....had grey hair. I think I may have been the 2nd or 3rd youngest person at the meeting and I'm 30.... I'm the 2nd youngest person at my current place of employment in the finance domain. I'm hoping that means by 40 yrs old there will be lot's of work and I can…

I would expect Java User Groups to skew much older than the average HN'er or start-up employee, or probably programmers in general.

Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias

#62

Post by RDDavies »

southphillyman wrote: post #46

Is this essentially a Web 2.0/Bay Area issue? I recently went to a Java User Group meeting on the east coast where the presenter and about 60% of the audience....had grey hair. I think I may have been the 2nd or 3rd youngest person at the meeting and I'm 30.... I'm the 2nd youngest person at my current place of employment in the finance domain. I'm hoping that means by 40 yrs old there will be lot's of work and I can…

I think that's also a "Java" deal. You could go to a COBOL meetup and see the same thing, that doesn't make it the norm.

Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias

#63

Post by killitwithfire »

codewright wrote: post #10

Dirty yes, secret no. Straight talk: I'm the CTO at a startup and I often have to call out the founders and employees for ageism. I resent that they say things that make me think they wouldn't take hiring an experienced engineer seriously. I resent that they think my profession is best served by dumb happy newbies with no private life. I refuse to tolerate this in any company I work for and I will ceaselessly call th…

"I'm the CTO" ... "I'm 24 years old"

mmmmmmkay....

Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias

#64

Post by LastManStanding »

jpdoctor wrote: post #45
LastManStanding wrote: post #19

They are calling this "a secret"? - more like overt bigotry from what I have seen. Isn't Y-Combinator one of the worst offenders? From what I have read Paul Graham brags actually about his age discrimination.

Eventually, some enterprising law firm is going to make a bundle. The legal culture in SV (WSGR and their ilk) are not steeped in class-action suits, several folks are going to get their asses kicked from the legal defense, if nothing else.

This should have happened long ago, and from what I have heard, Y-Combinator would be the best place to start.

Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias

#68

Post by finnw »

jpdoctor wrote: post #45
LastManStanding wrote: post #19

They are calling this "a secret"? - more like overt bigotry from what I have seen. Isn't Y-Combinator one of the worst offenders? From what I have read Paul Graham brags actually about his age discrimination.

Eventually, some enterprising law firm is going to make a bundle. The legal culture in SV (WSGR and their ilk) are not steeped in class-action suits, several folks are going to get their asses kicked from the legal defense, if nothing else.

You can get sued for firing someone, but I'm pretty sure you can't get sued for declining to invest in a company (that would be very scary indeed.)

Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias

#69

Post by samspot »

radicalbyte wrote: post #38

The thing is, Randy did get hired once he shaved his head and started dressing down. This isn't ageism, it's a filter against older people who are unable to adapt themselves to the changing environment. It's like classic cars: no-one is going to buy a neglected rust bucket that hasn't been serviced since the 1960s. Yet if the car is loved and cared for it can be worth millions ( http://www.topgear.com/uk/car-news/fer…

What I'm hearing from many posters in these comments is my level of fashion-conciousness indicates how innovative I am. I think it's a big mistake to judge a candidate's aptitude for the work by how hip they look. This is the last industry I thought we'd have to face this kind of thing in.

Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias

#70

Post by LastManStanding »

chubot wrote: post #49
seiji wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me ragechannel pg for a minute: People are not created equal. Some are much smarter and much more capable than others. Once you reach a certain age, if you haven't "made it," you aren't one of the smarter and much more capable people. Being younger, you both don't know what you don't know and you haven't become set in unchangeable broken ways yet. Google likes to hire young so they can brainwash you into being "g…

So I'm not a fan of ageism and I wouldn't ascribe it to pg without evidence... But given the "startup = growth" essay, where he says that only 1 company per cycle makes any difference to YC's returns, I can see the logic behind ageism. Young people (I'm not one of them anymore) just have more unpredictable outcomes. They are the Black Swans. The Black Swan theory is that the outliers shape our world. And that has bee…

No evidence? He is overt in bragging about his age discrimination. He is likely the "thought leader" who made this practice acceptable in Silicon Valley.
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