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Misleading title; Amazon is hiring experienced engineers for their experience. They can do this because they can afford it, and they are doing it because they w

Misleading title; Amazon is hiring experienced engineers for their experience. They can do this because they can afford it, and they are doing it because they want to enhance their services. None of this demolishes "the cult of youth". If you're running a startup, hiring young people with no families and the stamina to give 110% to their job is still the way to go. As experienced as James Gosling, Tim Bray, et al. are, they're not going to be working 12 hour days, nor are they critical to Amazon's survival.

Retric 9y ago
That's what most startups do. But, it's not clear if it's a net benefit because most startups also fail. Another way of looking at it is finding a group of motivated 20 somethings is almost trivial. Find a motivated group with 20 years experience is vastly harder because it's a smaller group who have less interest in joining a startup. PS: IMO, it would be a really interesting experiment, but I am not sure how you would go about it.
- throwaway40483 9y ago
  I think you're looking at this wrong. It's not that a startup chooses between young/inexperienced/cheap vs old/experienced/expensive. It's that a startup doesn't get to choose because startup life is brutal. It basically requires you to have no family and kids, so only young single people are willing to do it.
  - Retric 9y ago
    Being 40+ does not prevent you from being single. Further, long hours and lack of skill are related. I am not saying you would always rather have say ~35 hours a week from John Carmack vs. 80 hour weeks from 2 or 3 awesome 22 year olds, but adding 22 year olds also scales poorly.
  - ubernostrum 9y ago
    No, VCs have told you that "startup life" requires this, and you willingly believed them without question. It is possible to start a company without turning the first 10 employees into desiccated husks. It's just not possible to do that while also doing what your VCs think is necessary. Maybe that's a thing to work on changing...
- ShannonAlther 9y ago
  I don't think that demographic exists (really motivated people with 20 years experience). I remember Paul Graham saying something along the lines that he would never do the startup thing again even if he was dead sure it was a good idea because Viaweb took years off his life. Why would he go back and do it again? Why would anyone with a career and a family want to do that? It's hellish.
  - jamiesonbecker 9y ago
    This sort of demographic is definitely very rare, but it definitely exists.
    - ThrustVectoring 9y ago
      The problem isn't that that demographic doesn't exist. It's that you can't hire them on as employees. Driven, talented, experienced engineers have been paid six figures for a decade and presumably have saved some of it. If they don't want to do the start-up grind, they don't have to. If they do want to do the start-up grind, they can do so as founders.
      - jamiesonbecker 9y ago
        You're absolutely right, but that's not what I was responding to. Incidentally, that's one very solid reason to raise VC: the ability to attract and retain experienced team members that already have many options.
        ShannonAlther 9y ago
        I still don't believe it's possible, at least not often. Hiring a senior rockstar/ninja/10x whatever means you have to offer them more money than they're currently making (which you have to imagine is a lot) and/or they need to really be so invested in your idea that they're willing to drop everything and join you. I'm not saying this from a position of authority, I haven't founded a startup or anything like that. But the average age of a startup founder is mid-20s IIRC, and you'd have a hard time convincing an extremely talented individual, who's older than you, to sign on.
- DonHopkins 9y ago
  Finding motivated 20 somethings is even easier when they're motivated by the opportunity of working with someone like James Gosling. He convinced me to work at Sun when I was in my 20's, and that was years before Java.
GBond 9y ago
Yes. If AWS hired non-household names over 40 across the board, that would be a different story.

Retric 9y ago

That's what most startups do. But, it's not clear if it's a net benefit because most startups also fail. Another way of looking at it is finding a group of motivated 20 somethings is almost trivial. Find a motivated group with 20 years experience is vastly harder because it's a smaller group who have less interest in joining a startup. PS: IMO, it would be a really interesting experiment, but I am not sure how you would go about it.

throwaway40483 9y ago
I think you're looking at this wrong. It's not that a startup chooses between young/inexperienced/cheap vs old/experienced/expensive. It's that a startup doesn't get to choose because startup life is brutal. It basically requires you to have no family and kids, so only young single people are willing to do it.
- Retric 9y ago
  Being 40+ does not prevent you from being single. Further, long hours and lack of skill are related. I am not saying you would always rather have say ~35 hours a week from John Carmack vs. 80 hour weeks from 2 or 3 awesome 22 year olds, but adding 22 year olds also scales poorly.
- ubernostrum 9y ago
  No, VCs have told you that "startup life" requires this, and you willingly believed them without question. It is possible to start a company without turning the first 10 employees into desiccated husks. It's just not possible to do that while also doing what your VCs think is necessary. Maybe that's a thing to work on changing...
ShannonAlther 9y ago
I don't think that demographic exists (really motivated people with 20 years experience). I remember Paul Graham saying something along the lines that he would never do the startup thing again even if he was dead sure it was a good idea because Viaweb took years off his life. Why would he go back and do it again? Why would anyone with a career and a family want to do that? It's hellish.
- jamiesonbecker 9y ago
  This sort of demographic is definitely very rare, but it definitely exists.
  - ThrustVectoring 9y ago
    The problem isn't that that demographic doesn't exist. It's that you can't hire them on as employees. Driven, talented, experienced engineers have been paid six figures for a decade and presumably have saved some of it. If they don't want to do the start-up grind, they don't have to. If they do want to do the start-up grind, they can do so as founders.
    - jamiesonbecker 9y ago
      You're absolutely right, but that's not what I was responding to. Incidentally, that's one very solid reason to raise VC: the ability to attract and retain experienced team members that already have many options.
      - ShannonAlther 9y ago
        I still don't believe it's possible, at least not often. Hiring a senior rockstar/ninja/10x whatever means you have to offer them more money than they're currently making (which you have to imagine is a lot) and/or they need to really be so invested in your idea that they're willing to drop everything and join you. I'm not saying this from a position of authority, I haven't founded a startup or anything like that. But the average age of a startup founder is mid-20s IIRC, and you'd have a hard time convincing an extremely talented individual, who's older than you, to sign on.
DonHopkins 9y ago
Finding motivated 20 somethings is even easier when they're motivated by the opportunity of working with someone like James Gosling. He convinced me to work at Sun when I was in my 20's, and that was years before Java.

GBond 9y ago

Yes. If AWS hired non-household names over 40 across the board, that would be a different story.