[deleted]
Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias
171–180 of 261 posts
Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias
#172[deleted]
Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias
#173Dirty 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 in my 40s now, and the number of times I've been brought into a startup suffering under the plague of 20-something founder's grandiose ideas of how things should be done vs. the nearly 20 years of real world experience that says otherwise would surprise you. Youth might fuel the launch of your product, but experience will help it keep flying.
I've been meaning to write an article on this for awhile, but there's really no substitute for age diversity on a team. Having worked for the past year at a place with a fairly smooth gradient from just-out-of-school to used-COBOL-professionally, I can say from experience that it has been a benefit for both the older and younger employees.
Of course, the key is still, as always, cultural fit. You have to have youngsters who are willing to take to heart a hard-learned lesson from a graybeard, and veteran devs who are willing to keep an open mind to a new technology espoused by the younger generation.
Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias
#174I 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…
> people who become adults after smart phones were commonplace have an entirely different worldview. Care to elaborate?
As an example: It's entirely possible that they've never been lost. With a gps-enabled smartphone and mapping, that whole concept goes away.
Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you seriously saying that keeping up with fashion is an indicator of being able to adapt to new tech?
They're not so different these days, especially in SV, I think. Apple, for one, has made itself on being a fashionable product. If one of a company's goals is to be fashionable, does it make sense to hire people who don't care about a core portion of the company's vision?
there's a correlation causation issue to consider.
jobs wore black-t-necks to be anti-fashion
ives is a designer, fan of colour etc.
people that make fasion != people that follow it (or: victims, slaves, etc)
Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias
#176Dirty 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…
Doesn't shit-talking Nutrivise in a public forum kind of reflect poorly on both of you? I'm always weirded out by people who call-out their employer in a public space like that...
You are the weird one doing the calling out. Flagged.
Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias
#177Is 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.
Because the norm is working at a startup in SV?
Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias
#178When I started in IT I found that it had alot of skilled people, though the bias was against younger people. As I grew older I saw the levels of talent drop and the age lower with a bias towards younger people. The real crux is not the ability to do the job but the HR cock-blocking of anybody who has more skills than the job at hand, which is in general older people. This and the mentality of dumbing down wages also bias towards getting younger people in.
The whole situation has now got to the stage that companies shun talent if it is over a certain age over getting somebody younger for a cheaper price. They then find it hard to find somebody with the skillset who will take the job for the wage they offer and then cry skill shortage.
There are exceptions, as with any rule but you will notice alot of talented mid-life IT professionals changing career just becasue they are sick of the office politics.
I have worked with old and young managers, both good and bad but the real difference was the good ones knew or had done the job they are managing and the ones not so good had as much IT skill as most school leavers but are great at dealing with HR and in that HR love them.
Only real way is to start your own company, your own rules and with that age is what you make it.
Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias
#179When you get older, several things work against you to jump into SV culture: - You are not as easily impressed by or eager to try new technologies. (many of which are new spins on old ideas you've seen before.) - You fail to see the appeal of the types of technology younger people are using. Or, you see the switching costs as too high to move away from what you are using now. - Your lack of ignorance leads you to (of…
I think the best way to fight against ageism is to make an effort to retain an open mind and curiosity. The problem is that doesn't fight ageism. It panders to it. Ageism is when you don't get treated fairly just because of your age - no matter how curious and open minded you may or may not be. If somebody things I'm closed minded and incurious because I'm in my forties they are being ageist. They are the one with a…
I dunno if "pandering" is the word I'd use to describe those who intentionally take on an attitude of openness and curiosity.
The fact is, most of the older people I know (my parents, grandparents, etc) still listen to the music they were listening to at age 25. Many of them (such as my aunt) are still working at jobs that use technologies they learned 30 years ago. It's not because they are incapable of evolving. I think it is because they never made it a point to sharpen their openness & curiosity.
If I saw a 55 yo engineer with a Github portfolio of Ruby and Python projects, hell yes I would interview that candidate. But the reality is that when I've interviewed older candidates in the past, they are in general more likely to be behind the curve when it comes to speaking the language of the latest tech and developments. My hunch is that complacency breeds this attitude. It is hard to constantly learn new tech for 40+ years, because so much of the learning process is about being wrong repeatedly.
My solution personally is to try to constantly force myself to understand and appreciate the zeitgeist of music, programming, and design as I age. In terms of personal empowerment, it seems to me one of the most sensible routes to fight ageism.
Calling out others who promote ageism is good too, but it doesn't directly address the fact that someday we will all be old, and we'll need an actionable strategy to succeed in spite of that.
Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias
#180When you get older, several things work against you to jump into SV culture: - You are not as easily impressed by or eager to try new technologies. (many of which are new spins on old ideas you've seen before.) - You fail to see the appeal of the types of technology younger people are using. Or, you see the switching costs as too high to move away from what you are using now. - Your lack of ignorance leads you to (of…
Can substantiate your three bullet points in any way or are you just listing some qualities of a few people you've observed?