6 ms·

I suspect that ageism in tech also contributes to higher levels of risk taking - if we know or believe we will be put out to pasture at 40, it makes it more urg

• imh 11y ago
  I would have thought the opposite. The more attempts I can make, the more I can play the odds, regardless of risk. If I only have a few tries, I'm going to want to take a less risky position.
  • ryandrake 11y ago
    My guess is that the original poster's point is: Take two workers whose goal is a comfortable retirement. One of them knows their career will be 20 years long, the other one knows their career will be 50 years long. The one with the longer career can take a less risky path and "milk it" for half a century, whereas the one with only a few chances needs to take a risk and go for the higher payout since he has 30 fewer years to save. I look at it this way. Everyone's career is a baseball game. Most workers get 5 or 6 at-bats throughout their lives, and can afford to just go for base hits. A tech worker gets 1 or 2 at-bats so he has to swing for the home run if he wants to score.
    • atomic77 11y ago
      Pretty much exactly what I was intending (except I'd have used a hockey analogy instead of baseball :) Notice that many of the arguments presented here about why younger workers are favored would equally apply in more conservative professional fields, like law - it's certainly not the 50y old partners doing all-nighters on a regular basis. But there does seem to be a certain level of inter-generational respect among lawyers that is absent in tech. Why, I don't know.