6 ms·

I find it fascinating that when there is a discussion about age discrimination, most commenters have "advice" for the old farts how to stay current, learn curre

• donretag 10y ago
  My company is undergoing a big diversity initiative. Although the company is 75% female, the first task to is increase the number of women in tech. Race is also a factor. When asked about what is being done about age discrimination, there was a roundabout answer that did not address anything. Age diversity is not trendy. EDIT: I should clarify that I have nothing against the diversity initiative in general, just pointing how despite all the work that is/was done, age discrimination was not even considered.
  • crimsonalucard 10y ago
    Most diversity initiatives are discriminatory by nature. Assuming your company hires people exclusively based on skill.... In order to artificially balance certain ratios your company must discriminate on who they hire. In the educational world this is called affirmative action.
    • mywittyname 10y ago
      I disagree. Diversity is about hiring people based purely on merit, rather than letting prejudices about gender/age/race taint the hiring process. Nobody's suggesting that we hire under-qualified women/elders/blacks, but they are saying the merely being such is not an indication of inferior ability or lack of "culture fit."
      • toomuchtodo 10y ago
        > I disagree. Diversity is about hiring people based purely on merit, rather than letting prejudices about gender/age/race taint the hiring process. What if that means you end up mostly with white males due to women and minorities being drastically underrepresented in the total tech employee pool? Diversity is great until you hit the statistics wall.
        • luis_espinal 10y ago
          Well statistics tells us two things: 1. Yes, minorities and women are underrepresented in the body of students pursuing tech careers. 2. That discrepancy does not explain the wider discrepancy found in tech employment. Everyone can take and pick bits of statistics to make up faux points (specially when they do not like the actual picture that comes when we use statistical data as objectively as possible.)
          • toomuchtodo 10y ago
            I don't agree with point 2, but we're just arguing opinions currently without data. As soon as you start actively seeking candidates based on underrepresented classes, you're practicing reverse discrimination in the name of "diversity".
      • renaudg 10y ago
        > Nobody's suggesting that we hire under-qualified women/elders/blacks How else are you supposed to meet arbitrary diversity quotas, when the pool of applicants is overwhelmingly white and male ?
        • gaius 10y ago
          But it isn't - unless you are counting Asians and Jews as "white".
        • mywittyname 10y ago
          They aren't arbitrary quotas, they are based on demographics, such that, randomly hiring qualified applicants should produce the desired results.
      • karmajunkie 10y ago
        I think this is the first time I've ever seen someone argue that diversity is enabled through the meritocracy. The big flaw in that argument is that "merit" is not an objective measure, which then leads to a very narrow and slanted version of "merit".
        • gaius 10y ago
          Hence the Github rug scenario.
    • hnbroseph 10y ago
      > Assuming your company hires people exclusively based on skill i would wager the number of individual hiring events that (at least ballpark) quantify "skill" is negligible.
• falcolas 10y ago
  I do think. Probably the same unconscious ageism in action: if you are having trouble getting hired and you're over 40, it's obviously because your skills are out of date. Hiring involves a lot of "People Like Us" evaluation, consciously in many cases. And if you're over 40, you're probably not like "Us" in SV.
  • 20yrs_no_equity 10y ago
    The only way I'm not like the "Us" in silicon valley (if we're talking about 20-30 year olds as represented on HN) is that I have more current skills (takes time to learn languages, knowing 5 currently popular languages takes more time than the person just out of college has invested.) I also have experience building things at scale. Projects that take 5 years to do you can't have done too many by the time you're 23. But I've done several. My code is being used by probably a billion people right now (how many people are using windows?) How many people play on the playstation network? I'm currently working in a blockchain startup. Is that an out of date skill? I don't mean for this to sound arrogant- as I said elsewhere wisdom and enthusiasm are very useful. I think the correct mix for any engineering team I build is a range from junior, or even interns, to senior people.
    • nickpsecurity 10y ago
      Well put. Especially on 5 yr project thing. I'll add that even nature balances what types of us there are for innovation and resilience. The idea that one, narrow type will be ideal for all startup or tech work is absurd in comparison.
  • rdtsc 10y ago
    I don't see it a lot different than sexism. "If you having trouble getting hired, act more like men. Dress a certain way. Talk a certain way. This will reduce your chance of being rejected". > "People Like Us". Usually called "culture fit". I've seen candidates rejected because of "culture fit". So I dug a bit deeper, inquiring what they meant. And it was just plain old racism and ugly stereotypes. I guess one is not supposed to question "culture fit" rejections, it might be very unpleasant what lies there.
• rdtsc 10y ago
  Yap. There are already implicit assumptions made before the question is even discussed. It is a bit like say telling women: "Don't dress as sexy, don't wear too much makeup, it will help you slip under the radar. Maybe you won't be propositioned as much, etc."
• maerF0x0 10y ago
  Bang on. Discrimination by sex is not socially acceptable. Discrimination by other protected factors is sometimes socially ok. (not that it should be). Edit to add: At a former company i became a bit of an outsider when I noted at a diversity meeting that diversity meant more than the big 3 that tend to get pushed around Gender, Orientation, Race. I noted that our office was young, had no parents, no ex convicts, no disabled people, few people who had not attended a top university (or no university for that matter) and few or no religious people... people basically said "Why you against <women, colored...>?" as though it was some kind of zero sum fight.
  • dba7dba 10y ago
    So true. Something diversity advocates conveniently forget and omit.
    • PhasmaFelis 10y ago
      Some diversity advocates forget, so other diversity advocates point it out to them. Don't paint this as diversity advocates being the bad guys somehow.
      • dba7dba 10y ago
        I was actually thinking of the press coverage. Advocates can advocate all they want but if they are not covered by the press, no one knows about it.
  • mwfunk 10y ago
    From what you described, to an observer it would have sounded like you were arguing with them against the whole concept of protected classes, rather than pointing out that they should add ageism (etc.) to the list of things to be wary of. Usually when people point out hypocrisy, people assume that they're making an indirect argument against the thing they're being accused of being hypocrites about. If you say something like "you seem to really worry about discrimination based on gender, but are ignoring ageism", that doesn't sound like you're trying to enlighten them about ageism. Rather, that sounds like you're trying to illustrate that the whole concept of protected classes is BS. Accusations of hypocrisy are easily misinterpreted because so many people use them as a terrible form of argumentation. For example, consider all the people who get mad about other people complaining about intolerance, and the best they can come up with is "but you're just intolerant against intolerance!". As if pointing out hypocrisy invalidates whatever else someone is saying. It's the dumbest possible approach to debating an issue, but 99.9% of the time when I hear someone accuse someone else of hypocrisy, that's what they're doing. That may not have been what you were doing in that situation, but I could totally see how everyone might have misinterpreted you.
• 20yrs_no_equity 10y ago
  And of course the funny thing is, I'm an "old fart", I have been levelling up for the past 20 years. I put the first Elixir app into production before Elixir hit 1.0- I'm staying current. I work long hours, for startups, I can handle that intensity. The assumption that we're slower, out dated and unwilling to put the hours in is kinda prejudicial. Some of us may be, but TBH I see a lot of foolishness, wasted time and nonsense from some younger people too. Enthusiasm and Wisdom are BOTH valuable. A trait that might be more common in one age group is not justification for rejecting the entire age group. But the hiring processes are totally discriminatory. I've been on the other side of it too often, seen bosses reject people younger than me as "too old" without even realizing it (or that they are creating cause for a discrimination lawsuit.) Last time I interviewed with bay area startups I had a %100 correllation-- visual interviews (eg: skype video etc) would not progress, even past the HR initial contact (eg: no technical interview at all) while ones done via audio (no visual) would progress. (I guess I don't look as young as I think I do!) We're talking well known companies like Digital Ocean and Stripe engaged in straight up age discrimination. After being discriminated against by Pebble a few years ago, I figured they were the exception (The guy who interviewed me was so young and so incompetent the he had the wrong answers for his trick questions and couldn't grasp my explanations, which the HR lady reported to me as "you need to get stronger on these things")... but the most recent round convinced me that it really is discrimination. I've got a lot of really valuable talents and relevant as I've stayed current. I interview very well- typically I can get a better job than I deserve by interviewing. I've been rejected lots over my career, sometimes just arbitrarily. I never would have thought that I was being discriminated against except that I noticed the correlation between visual interviews (and I'm certain that 5 years ago when I was rejected I was not being discriminated against.) Further, as a sexual minority, I had to deal with the possibility years ago that I would be fired if people found out. I decided that this was fine-- I don't want to work for a place that discriminates against me. I can make money on my own if I need to, I don't need a job. So it's no big deal. I'm just surprised at how poorly so many companies do it. And of course, I do tend to stop being a customer of companies that engage in discrimination. (That's me discriminating against them. :-)
  • dba7dba 10y ago
    It's not just software companies practicing age discrimination. I heard from a friend of a friend who worked at a very well known, trendy space rocket company. He recounted youngish engineers in a meeting would comment how they don't want to see too many with gray beard in the company...
• emodendroket 10y ago
  Well, I can't speak for everyone, but in both cases I think the commenters blaming workers are off-base.
• ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  SiVa is deeply zero-sum. Its ... mental heritage is that of the old New England style of progressivism, which had its agenda carved from ... (presumably New Hampshire) granite 200+ years ago. I think the elephant in the room is that a lot of "current hip tech" is bloated[1], overwrought and doesn't work very well. HTTP is a terrible protocol. Heck, TCP itself has some real problems. I'm perpetually having to explain to people what "reliable" means. It's akin to "no, having life insurance doesn't mean you can't die." [1] this is rapidly getting better, though. Too bad you'll be too old to participate in it :) The rhino in the room is that it'll take almost everyone at least 20 years to be any good at this. And no amount of social engineering will overcome this. Work longer hours? Please. It's only harder if you don't know what you're doing. And that's a thing; I respect that but let's not kid ourselves. That's not what this is usually. I've drawn to a few inside straights in my time. This is lazy management because absolutely nobody has time to learn both technology and management before they're sent to Carousel ( from "Logan's Run" ) to be "renewed". The way I work is: I very carefully describe the problem. I solve the problem ( or determine that it can't be solved given present constraints ), usually in about 40% of the alloted time. If you don't like the representation of the solution, I have plenty of time to make it look any way you want after the fact. Once I get a prototype working, it's pretty easy to morph it into another shape, on another platform, in a different language, whatever you want. Nobody even understands this approach. Frequently, they're offended by it. It's like doctors dependent on Aristotlean medicine. Well, I've been through the French Revolution and I know what works.