would love to hear pg weigh in on this...
Well, pg didn't found the company that made him a millionaire until he was thirty years old...
Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias
231–240 of 261 posts
Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias
#232Earlier 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…
>> High-variance life isn't fun unless you hit an early home run. Otherwise, it's stressful and shitty.
Story of my life! +1 to that!
Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias
#233There are two countervailing trends here: one is the increasing level of experience and the other is the decreasing level of hipness (hear me out, please). As an older engineer (early 40's), I speak from experience. When I was young, I thought my designs were excellent, because they were the best things I had done so far. I was able to look around at amazing code (NT kernel, for example; open source was much less pre…
Bay Area technology startups are notoriously hard for just about anybody! Perhaps older people are just becoming more normal and balanced.
Thankfully, I have not encountered this problem yet :-)
Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias
#234if there is truly no difference in productivity from excellent programmers over 40 and "young" programmers why wouldn't there be companies that take advantage of this obvious bias and hire primarily older programmers? Wouldnt the decrease in market demand for older developers drive their salary levels down and thus provide a large market advantage to the company hiring them exclusively? (obviously assuming equal or better creative and productive output)
I know this is a classic laissez faire market argument.
Hypothesis: On the whole, older developers are not as productive.
Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias
#235Earlier 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 have a high-school degree and did two interviews with google, second of which followed up to live interview with MV engineers. didn't got hired because i wasn't good enough and i suck at interviews. always felt i was being judged by my talent, so i think that may be a myth ?
edit: smartphone typos and minor edit
Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias
#236Earlier 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…
Wow, I would have been a "poor fit" when I was 20-30 because (1) I can't stand the taste of most alcoholic beverages, (2) I can't stand being around drunks, and (3) I thought the purpose of having a job was to do some damned work, not find a social club.
For me, work is about doing something that produces value for the shareholders so they can afford write me a paycheck on a regular basis. When I've finished doing that, I'd like to use my time the way I see fit, thank you very much.
Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias
#237I'm 37, and honestly this has started to scare me over the past couple years.
I'm inclined to think 47% of Hacker News is 37.
Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
This line of thought doesn't make sense to me, because marketers are in the same business of getting into the heads of the 18-25 demographic and they seem to do pretty well at it despite not being 18-25-year-olds themselves.
Where did you get the stats that majority of successful marketers are not within 18-25 age range?
Common sense.
Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias
#239It's not exactly an "age" bias, it's a bias against people that aren't like them. If I was hiring a CEO, someone who would be my boss, I'm definitely going to pick someone that seems like a person I could get along with. If a guy walks into the interview with a suit on and I'm wearing jeans and a hoodie, it could be a sign that we aren't going to get along all that well. If the old guy came in and seemed like he coul…
The results of this are blatantly clear when you view any company's "what's it like to work here". Video. It's embarrassing to see companies trying to recruit and having their prejudices on full display. what is worse, is they are not smart enough to even realize that they made a video of 30 white male 24 year olds.
Re: Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
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'm in the same category. I don't enjoy drinking and I hate most video games, especially console ones and especially FPSes. The SV frat culture is such a turnoff.
As a 40-year-old with two small kids, I understand about the video games, but only because I took a hiatus for a few years. I love playing Halo (I just ordered Halo 4), but not to play against teenagers on XBox Live. I like it for the solo campaign...so I can blast the shit out of aliens and have fun. Then, I get back to RealVille and take care of my kids. Also, having a few beers while playing is fun for me, but I completely understand your point of view. Maybe it's a midwest thing...eat cheese, drink beer, play games...have fun. When you get older you relish the free time to screw around and not have to be productive.