How much of this is age bias, and how much of this is looking for the likely candidate to work for no money for 80 hours a week like this might turn into something huge?
Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias
181–190 of 261 posts
Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias
#182When 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…
Yeah sorry I worded that poorly. My point is that I'd guess most ageism is probably imaginary and is just older people not being hired by falling into the traps I mentioned above. I'm pretty skeptical that many startup entrepreneurs have a "if you're over 40 we don't want to talk to you policy" but instead decide based on 50 year olds coming into their door telling them in their interview how relational databases were figured out in the 70's and NoSQL is a fad. (Not that they're wrong :))
Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
>the idea that 25 years of experience automatically makes you a better programmer is wrong. Seriously? You think you can do something for 25 years without getting better at it?
Yeah, I do. I think the only constant thing in software engineering is that you need to be able to learn and adapt. If you spend 25 years at a single organization where you aren't forced to continuously learn and adapt, you'll be at a disadvantage when you are inevitably forced to do something outside of your comfort zone.
You are addressing the statement "a person with 25 years experience is always going to be better than a person with 5 years experience" - and I agree with you, that's not always the case.
But, I'm saying, all other things being equal (which is what I meant by "You think you can do something for 25 years without getting better at it?" I mean, I meant the /you/ specifically, but it applies to "any one individual")
I mean, there are a lot of other factors. I'm just saying, all other things being equal, you get better with experience. UNIX is far older than I am. So is C. Yeah, how you use both has changed a lot... but most people that have remained employed that long follow those changes.
>I think the only constant thing in software engineering is that you need to be able to learn and adapt.
Lisp, anyone? Most concepts in programming are older than I am. Many of the "new" concepts are rehashes of old concepts.
Actually, I think this goes back to what someone else was saying; It's harder to say "This time it's different" to someone with experience.
I know I've been watching these articles about how vc is switching to "enterprise" and away from "consumer" - My first thought was "wow, I remember the same thing in the very late '90s. they called it 'b2b' but it was the same thing- people eventually realized they needed to start making money."
Many companies seem to want employees that buy into the 'vision' even if that vision is clearly as ridiculous as selling dogfood over the internet. (I mean, selling dogfood over the internet is a valid business model, but it's not the billion dollar business that pets.com hyped it up to be. Just like facebook has a reasonable business model; it's just not the billion dollar business everyone thinks it is.)
Of course, I'm not sure how much that has to do with being old. I wasn't old enough to drink until after the first .com crash, and living and working through it, even as a kid, it was obviously ridiculous.
Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias
#184When 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?
People I've observed (myself included.)
So yeah, it's an opinion. YMMV.
Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias
#185OK Ok, I will bow to the pressure and shave my head if I get offered a $350K + options CEO spot. There it is, you win, ageist SV founders!
Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias
#186I find it amusing that today I took 14 pages of code from a 20-something developer and reduced to it to a single query and a one line function.
Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias
#187A couple of years ago I was eighteen, and I needed a job. So I went to a grocery shop and asked if they were hiring, and I got the reply, "We only hire 15 year olds."
Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're making serious accusations against an individual and a company based solely on things you have read about on the Internet or heard anecdotally. Wake up. Discrimination is not cut and dry, law is not cut and dry, and reality is not cut and dry.
I am not making any accusations against anyone - it is obvious that Paul Graham has an age bias - he says so all over the place, but there is no law against having a bias. Age discrimination is almost impossible to prove, but if it is being used in the decisions of who gets into Y-Combinator someone should look into it.
where has he said he has an age bias?
Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.)
> but I'm pretty sure you can't get sued for declining to invest in a company Try this for example: "Our VC firm does not invest in companies with black founders. We looked at the data, and companies with black-founders have a measurably lower ROI." Are you still pretty sure ?
Maybe a controversial thing to say, but I doubt illegal in the same way it's not illegal to decide you won't let people of a certain ethnicity into your home.
Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias
#190What I really want to know is whether this is a recent (last 15 years -- e.g. the internet boom years) phenomenon or whether "Silicon Valley" has been this way since, say, the 70's.
If things have changed, then why?