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How the Valley treats experienced people

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Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#131

Post by sokoloff »

sbov wrote: post #115
nikanj wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there’s an element of expectation there. The college hire might grow to be a grand wizard in 10 years, and become a massive asset to the company. It is still possible the older person is going to become a wizard later, but the question is: if they have it in them, why aren’t they a wizard already? College hires are seen as unscratched lottery tickets, older workers are seen as known variables. I’m not saying…

> It is still possible the older person is going to become a wizard later, but the question is: if they have it in them, why aren’t they a wizard already? The vast majority of coders are not and will never be a "wizard". And that's OK. You can still be valuable to a company if you aren't a recent college graduate or a wizard. Edit: also, be ready to pay through the nose for any actual wizard you want to hire. They ca…

My experience over 25 years suggests that wizards can readily command 1.5-2x and deliver beyond 10x. If you can find and engage them, they're one of the best semi-secret bargains in tech.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#132

Post by happythought »

leemailll wrote: post #78
shmat wrote: post #68

Sometimes you don't make enough money to retire early from a combination of bad luck and poor financial decisions. In my career, I followed a pattern of going to a company just a bit too late to get the really low priced options. I've ended up with dozens of former co-workers who are multimillionaires. I had a family and was (in hindsight) too conservative about when I went to a company. I also was a "paper" milliona…

That sounds quite unfortunate for your stock options. But why don't you sell your options, pocket it, and set up an investment portfolio to reduce risk after the first crash?

Op admitted to being unwise financially, so your comment kind of seems like rubbing salt in the wound.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#133

Post by matwood »

gaius wrote: post #47
avip wrote: post #36

Ageism is real in many verticals. It is healthy to acknowledge that. It’s equally important to face facts related to age: I am noticeably less focusable, and my memory is not as good. I slowly become less fluent in adopting new tech, and it shows (or feels). Most importantly, I have many out of work responsibilities - parents (not getting younger) and kids (not getting older in sufficient pace). Consequently, odds of…

slowly become less fluent in adopting new tech, and it shows For me, it's the exact opposite. Containers? Oh yeah, they're just like zones on Solaris. Kubernetes? Works like a VAXcluster. Cloud? Been there, done that, let's not make the same mistakes. ML? Well we used to call it predictive statistics, the only real difference now is we run it on GPU not CPU. I pick up "new" techs easily because I can step back and se…

Same. At 40 years old, learning something 'new' is much easier now than when I was 20. First, there is not very much that comes out that is completely new and not built on existing foundational knowledge. Second, I can focus on the part that really is new, and not get tripped up on learning all of the foundational elements needed to understand said new thing.

The OP mentioned not having time, but I've noticed as I've aged I have more discipline and thus more time.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#135

Post by int0x80 »

WalterBright wrote: post #15
cathames wrote: post #13

Luck is a huge part of success. It's mythology that if you work hard enough for long enough that the world will become your oyster. Sweat and ingenuity are often necessary but not necessarily sufficient means to financial gain. No one launches from the same starting line nor runs along the same track. And don't forget that all the other smart folks out there are ravenously competing against you for those hotly desire…

It's not about working hard, and never was. It's about working smart. And people make their own luck. You can't get lucky if you're not in the game swinging. I've known plenty of people who just sat at their desks, doing as little as possible, waiting for the boss to direct them, reading hackernews(!), watching the clock till they could go home. They were never going to get lucky. Then there are the ones who are alwa…

I agree with this thoughts very much. The attitude you mention is key, at least in my reduced and anecdotical experience. It is true, however, as others say, that you have to start from a reasonable and relative good baseline and that part is just pure luck.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#136

Post by bluejekyll »

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #127
slics wrote: post #88

If one thinks 35+ is to old to code, well I have news for you. At 35+ you learn how to manage time and prioritize better. Life throws another ranch in your bucket of problems, marriage and children. When you are young, you are hired as an engineer to work 40 hours, which we all know very well that working for startups that means 80 hours or you are not putting good effort. Well with a family that’s not possible, as y…

Life throws another ranch in your bucket of problems Did you mean "wrench", as in "throw a wrench in the works"?

Raising kids feels like having a ranch at times, there's definitely a lot of corralling going on.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#137

Post by mcguire »

I dunno.

Maybe it's because I was just sitting here reading Ian Stewart's chapter on Sally Clark and pondering probability, but I rather suspect that the probability that you're over 50 and suck is much higher than the probability that you are over 50 and are a badass.

Mostly because the probability that you suck is incredibly high.

And I'm saying this as someone who is over 50, with a phd, a bunch of programming languages and blog posts, and crap on GitHub. And I know I suck. Hell, the primary advantage I have over most of the people I've worked with is that I know what a badass looks like in the wild.

I think I'm going to get some more coffee now.

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#138

Post by gizmodo59 »

Ageism is a real factor in tech companies but as the demand grows and tech companies have been around for decades this might go down a bit. May be not for startups but FAANGs definitely will have more aged developers. It’s also important to realize the other factors play in this. Where you are born, your race matters a lot more than many people think. Two people of same age and equal talent but different race aren’t treated the same way in almost any country in the world (Not trying to generalize but it is prevalent)

Re: How the Valley treats experienced people

#140

Post by mcguire »

slics wrote: post #88

If one thinks 35+ is to old to code, well I have news for you. At 35+ you learn how to manage time and prioritize better. Life throws another ranch in your bucket of problems, marriage and children. When you are young, you are hired as an engineer to work 40 hours, which we all know very well that working for startups that means 80 hours or you are not putting good effort. Well with a family that’s not possible, as y…

"If you have no time to socialize and network or raise a good family, soon we will be left with a society that only focuses on how to better themselves and not mentoring or preparing the next generation of smart people."

I suspect that there is no "bettering themselves" going on in that scenario. That only happens if you close the loop. Running open loop is just a random walk into crazy-town.

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