Silicon Valley’s Dark Secret: It’s All About Age (2010)

#1

Post by jrs235 » Sat, Jun 13, 2015, 1:28 PM UTC

Silicon Valley’s Dark Secret: It’s All About Age (2010)
techcrunch.com

Re: Silicon Valley’s Dark Secret: It’s All About Age (2010)

#2

Post by LoSboccacc » Sat, Jun 13, 2015, 1:45 PM UTC

silicon valley is plenty of dark or plain bad stuff https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2014/11/05/the-back-cha...

Re: Silicon Valley’s Dark Secret: It’s All About Age (2010)

#3

Post by jv22222 » Sat, Jun 13, 2015, 1:46 PM UTC

This topic keeps coming up. I think someone should start a community for older coders. A place to brainstorm and help each other out.

Edit: SilverFox (and Foxess)

Re: Silicon Valley’s Dark Secret: It’s All About Age (2010)

#4

Post by sigden » Sat, Jun 13, 2015, 1:49 PM UTC

I don't think this is much of a secret.

Re: Silicon Valley’s Dark Secret: It’s All About Age (2010)

#5

Post by ZanyProgrammer » Sat, Jun 13, 2015, 1:49 PM UTC

I wonder if there's a difference between the SF Bay Area and the rest of the country, as far as ageism is concerned in tech.

Re: Silicon Valley’s Dark Secret: It’s All About Age (2010)

#6

Post by bottled_poe » Sat, Jun 13, 2015, 1:52 PM UTC

Don't worry, I'm sure the union has your back. What's that? No union in the tech industry?

Re: Silicon Valley’s Dark Secret: It’s All About Age (2010)

#7

Post by r0naa » Sat, Jun 13, 2015, 1:52 PM UTC

LoSboccacc wrote: post #2

silicon valley is plenty of dark or plain bad stuff https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2014/11/05/the-back-cha...

I am an outsider, but this is true for pretty much anything in life. There is a always a "dark side" to things. Finger pointing SV as being the mother of all evils is a bit naive.

"The grass is always greener..." :)

Re: Silicon Valley’s Dark Secret: It’s All About Age (2010)

#8

Post by vermooten » Sat, Jun 13, 2015, 1:52 PM UTC

ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #5

I wonder if there's a difference between the SF Bay Area and the rest of the country, as far as ageism is concerned in tech.

How about 'the rest of the world'?

Re: Silicon Valley’s Dark Secret: It’s All About Age (2010)

#9

Post by PythonicAlpha » Sat, Jun 13, 2015, 1:53 PM UTC

I guess it is the same old fallacy that crept into some big software companies long time ago.

The fallacy is called "speed":

Some companies are just looking for young, smart people who can solve problems fast.

This fallacy has some correct side: Software development is most of the time about solving problems and when you can solve them faster, you will have the software faster.

The fallacy part is, that fast is the only quality you need.

With many, smart and young developers right of the college, you can create a huge pile of software in short time ... but you can also create a huge pile of problems in a short time. That is the reason, there are so many quality problems and security troubles around. Those young, smart people just lack the experience to make good design decisions ... and those decisions do not end, when the rough design is done.

Those people make fast decisions, but they just lack the experience to oversee the consequences of those decisions.

Without also having experienced developers around, which can share their experiences and guide other people, many companies are doomed to have bad quality software also in the future.

Re: Silicon Valley’s Dark Secret: It’s All About Age (2010)

#10

Post by sv_muppets_ » Sat, Jun 13, 2015, 1:55 PM UTC

Let's see - you can get these experienced engineers, who will build a proper platform, a robust architecture, a decent code base, and given the fact they have delivered before, a solution that will provide what the customers want. Or You can have these wet behind the ears fuckers straight from college who will just download a metric shit ton of code via gem install and npm, and then rebuild several wheels in JS, whilst spending all their time on the company engineering blog wanking about how great they are? And the vcs choose youth over experience every time.