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It seems the author is not aware of past examples. Google hired Eric Schmidt at age ~46. Facebook hired Sheryl Sandberg at age 38. As for engineers, Microsof

by jasode 9y ago

It seems the author is not aware of past examples. Google hired Eric Schmidt at age ~46. Facebook hired Sheryl Sandberg at age 38. As for engineers, Microsoft hired Dave Cutler age ~46 to develop Windows NT. Google hired Guido van Rossum ~age 49. Peter Norvig was also hired in his 40s I believe. Netflix hired Adrian Cockcroft in his mid-40s. Basically, as startups mature into more established companies, they will hire older 40+ for specific needs. Same thing that Amazon/AWS has done. This doesn't change that fact that new garage startups and YC Demo Days will continue to be dominated by 20-somethings.

monkchips 9y ago
@jasode all excellent examples. i wasn't trying to be comprehensive but rather point to a few recent ones. Cutler is a fantastic example. He got a shout out at Microsoft Build, for "still slinging code" on one of the teams. i don't expect startup/VC culture to change. I just hope more firms value experience a bit more. Also though 61 is a fair bit older than 41.
jacques_chester 9y ago
> It seems the author is not aware of past examples. Because the author is plucking one set of anecdata and comparing with another plucked set of anecdata. Nowhere in the entire article is any actual demographics about any of the companies. All of them publish staff demographics (EEO-1 reports) for gender and race. As far as I can tell, none publish for age. Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/b?node=10080092011 https://www.amazon.com/b?node=10080092011 (search for 'demographic') Google: https://www.google.com/diversity/ https://www.google.com/diversity/ Facebook: https://fbnewsroomus.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/eeo-1_2015.png https://fbnewsroomus.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/eeo-1_2015....
- CobrastanJorji 9y ago
  Exactly. Basing an article entirely on famous people over 30 that companies have hired is stupid, but even if you wanted to use that as your yardstick for some stupid reason, AWS still doesn't win. Sure, they have James Gosling (age 62), but Google has Vint Cerf (age 73).

by jasode 9y ago

monkchips 9y ago

@jasode all excellent examples. i wasn't trying to be comprehensive but rather point to a few recent ones. Cutler is a fantastic example. He got a shout out at Microsoft Build, for "still slinging code" on one of the teams. i don't expect startup/VC culture to change. I just hope more firms value experience a bit more. Also though 61 is a fair bit older than 41.

jacques_chester 9y ago

> It seems the author is not aware of past examples. Because the author is plucking one set of anecdata and comparing with another plucked set of anecdata. Nowhere in the entire article is any actual demographics about any of the companies. All of them publish staff demographics (EEO-1 reports) for gender and race. As far as I can tell, none publish for age. Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/b?node=10080092011 https://www.amazon.com/b?node=10080092011 (search for 'demographic') Google: https://www.google.com/diversity/ https://www.google.com/diversity/ Facebook: https://fbnewsroomus.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/eeo-1_2015.png https://fbnewsroomus.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/eeo-1_2015....

CobrastanJorji 9y ago
Exactly. Basing an article entirely on famous people over 30 that companies have hired is stupid, but even if you wanted to use that as your yardstick for some stupid reason, AWS still doesn't win. Sure, they have James Gosling (age 62), but Google has Vint Cerf (age 73).