I wonder if we as an industry will continue to practice almost blatant age discrimination as the current generation of engineers grows older. If we continue to obsess over youth, the job market will be remarkably unpleasant 15 years from now.
Claims of age discrimination is like claims that there is untapped cheap labor in hiring women in first world countries. If the claims were true anyone could hire up all of the cheap labor and stomp their discriminating competitors. That doesn't happen. Either it's really a grand conspiracy like some claim or the situation is not so simple. I think it's more likely older people expect to get paid more for their exper…
Who is claiming that first world women are an untapped source of cheap labor? In what field?
> [older people] are less likely to start up their own companies like younger people are because doing so is risky.
Even if true, this is irrelevant. Age discrimination in this context applies to employee hiring.
> They are valuing risk takers
Is "risk taking" a criteria your company applies when looking for talent? None of the startups I've worked with have ever sorted engineering candidates by "risk taking".
> It is the same thing with women. Any sane businessperson would hire people no matter their gender if those people can make them more money, and anyone who is leaving value on the table by being discriminatory despite the lost potential leaves room for their competitors to destroy them.
The crux of your argument is that the market will punish bad behavior. I think this sounds convincing. However, it is a flawed argument. For one thing, the market can't reward new approaches if no-one tries them.
50 years ago you could probably have made the argument that outright discrimination against women and minorities was rewarded by the market. After all, all companies observed similar hiring practices - including the market leaders.
Taking a snapshot of current practices, and claiming they are some sort of epitome "because free market!" is simply a logical fallacy.