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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

#111

Post by chubot »

LastManStanding wrote: post #70
chubot wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

* citation needed

Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias

#112

Post by magicalist »

michaelochurch wrote: post #14

My first thought: narcissism . Narcissists hate being around older people because it reminds them that, some day, they'll be old and unable to do the sorts of things that narcissists tend to do on the weekend. I don't think that all founders are narcissists, but if you want to be able to hire narcissists (which 75% of execs are, let's be honest) then ageism becomes practical, sadly. Then again, I think some of it is…

er, ignoring the narcissism thing, which is bizarre (you want to hire narcissists, so better not hire old|ugly|disabled people!) your post seems to be arguing for the assumptions that the article is about: we can assume old people had to take shitty work in the past, therefore they are probably going to appear to be a poor candidate.

This completely ignores the evidence directly in front of us that all good engineers will one day start looking older and start having a lot more trouble finding job offers.

I don't really understand how you go directly from saying that it's unintentional and is "unreasonably harsh age-grading, coming from an inexperienced and privileged set of people who've never had to do grunt work" but then proceed to (try to) explain how it's perfectly logical that you can have a positive outlook of the future of your career, but actually you're going to have to take what you can get, which is the reason why "premature decline is far more common than it should be".

Maybe I'm missing the gist of your argument here? Are you suggesting we should be doing job interviews on a curve, excusing 20 years as a code monkey at some place you've never heard of because they probably had a mortgage? I don't know if that's your point, but it is definitely off base here: those 20 years might have created a middle-manager toady or they might have honed razor-sharp gut instincts and experience with relevant languages and tools. Either way, walking in with the assumption that "premature decline is far more common than it should be" means you're probably going to miss the truth of the matter, which is the whole point. No one is suggesting affirmative action for greybeards, they're saying that the kinds of things many in tech assume because a person has grey in their hair means that they don't get a fair shot, even when their experience is extensive and applicable.

Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias

#113

Post by reinhardt »

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…

"... by dumb happy newbies with no private life."

Interesting choice of words to attack ageism :)

Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias

#114

Post by jaggederest »

I think there's a fundamental divide between people who became adults before the internet existed in the modern form (circa 1995 or so), and after.

I also think that there is effectively another break point at the advent of the smart phone (circa 2007) - people who become adults after smart phones were commonplace have an entirely different worldview.

I think that if your focus is narrowly on facility with technology at hand, ageism is a natural consequence.

I also happen to think that's a bad idea - a diversity of viewpoints is a goal to be pursued in and of itself.

Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias

#115

Post by seiji »

michaelochurch wrote: post #97
chubot wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Older people are perhaps more likely to be successful. But there is less variance in their outcomes. We learn how to control our variance as we get older. (I'm 29, so I have no idea if I'm "young" or "old" by SV standards.) High-variance life isn't fun unless you hit an early home run. Otherwise, it's stressful and shitty. Experiences like getting fired because you were better than your CTO's-friend manager and made…

Can we anchor this comment to the top of the discussion? You've eloquently characterized the entire problem and a potential solution.

So many current work environments have self defeating dynamics. You're not allowed to be better than your boss. When that gets thrown away (e.g. startups -- you have no boss) everybody can thrive. Well, they can thrive if they haven't been trained over a lifetime to be risk averse due to shitty management.

Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias

#116

Post by chaostheory »

michaelochurch wrote: post #14

My first thought: narcissism . Narcissists hate being around older people because it reminds them that, some day, they'll be old and unable to do the sorts of things that narcissists tend to do on the weekend. I don't think that all founders are narcissists, but if you want to be able to hire narcissists (which 75% of execs are, let's be honest) then ageism becomes practical, sadly. Then again, I think some of it is…

I disagree. As I get older and see my friends who are programmers, I see a key issue: Becoming set in your ways for better or worse, which leads to... not as willing to change or learn new stuff.

To be fair there are exceptions. There are people who just enjoy programming for the sake of programming and building stuff. These programmers will most likely never be out of date. If you're not one of those people, then you need to force yourself to step out of your comfort zone and try to use something new at least every year if not more often.

Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias

#117

Post by ShabbyDoo »

minibus wrote: post #67

Hollywood is biased, too. At least it's honest about it.

Moviegoers are biased, and Hollywood wants to create products which sell. The people behind the cameras often are old even if the female stars on screen are barely out of high school. If I see ugly shirts in a store year after year, I don't blame the fashion house behind them, I blame the people who keep buying them.

Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias

#118

Post by [deleted] »

raldi wrote: post #87
cookiecaper wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's "family status"? AFAIK there is no protected "family status". The typical protected classes are race, sex, religion, age, and in some places, sexual orientation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class Bullet point #7. See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_discrimination_law_i...

[deleted]

Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias

#119

Post by mahyarm »

seiji wrote: post #52
sdoowpilihp wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of things do narcissists do on the weekend that would be specifically limited by age?

Many SV startups are proxies for being a close knit frat. Hiring for "cultural fit" has gone way off the wacko deep end. (Did google start this? "Oh, you don't have a degree? We won't hire you. Oh, but you do make your own beer and wear funny shoes? Cultural fit! Hired!") Your job description skills matter, but only if you also are a functional alcoholic who is addicted to playing online games for 30+ hours a week in…

I don't drink either, but I don't find it a barrier in hanging out with friends that do all the time. They have to get really drunk to start becoming obnoxious, which means they would be in no condition to play video games. As long as you don't act judgmental, many people will come to accept you not drinking.

Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias

#120

Post by eshvk »

samspot wrote: post #69
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.

I think rules are the same everywhere for management. The guy was going in for a CEO position one where he has to at least have the perception that he was in sync with the brand. Going even further, I think fitting in is appreciated everywhere, even in tech.

A couple of examples: Look at the whole anti-brogrammer movement: There were people conflating being fit, wearing polo shirts and dressing preppy with being obnoxious, sexist assholes. I am fairly certain that there were examples of such people but that doesn't necessarily mean that everyone who tries to be fit or dresses preppy is one. Personally, I don't like ironic graphic t-shirts and dressing in Cargo shorts and looking like a slob but that doesn't necessarily mean that I would go to a startup interview in a 3-piece suit. This is mainly because while I try to make an effort to dissociate the image you present with who you are, it doesn't necessarily mean that I should expect everyone around me to do that.

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