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Google and many other tech companies and the investors that ultimately control them fear losing control of their business, in this case an extremely lucrative n

Google and many other tech companies and the investors that ultimately control them fear losing control of their business, in this case an extremely lucrative near-monopoly, to their employees, especially the technical employees. Thus they prefer young, relatively ignorant, naive, hard-working, compliant, inevitably more error-prone employees to more experienced employees, despite the apparent cost. It is a matter of political and economic control. Thus they have an unwritten rule to minimize the use of employees with more than ten years of hands-on technical experience. They will employ more experienced employees if they absolutely must, but otherwise they avoid it. Hence, there are some but very few technical employees with more than ten years of experience. The numbers trail off with increasing experience and age. There are also exceptions for more experienced employees from usually wealthy families affiliated with the investors. It is an irrational and hidden class system. It is costly. It is not fair. It almost certainly makes it very difficult to make technical advances and breakthroughs that require more experience, the wisdom of age, etc.

valas 9y ago
What do mean by 'loosing control of their business ... to their employees'?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- taormina 9y ago
  OP is claiming that they are more afraid of underlings their own age than a bunch of kids fresh out of school.
- hackits 9y ago
  Is anyone going to actually come to the table with some hard numbers here or is this constantly going to be a dick waving contest? Playing the devil advocate here I bet internally they have metrics telling them there isn't any value that people above 30 add compared to 20 year old straight out of college.
  - HarryHirsch 9y ago
    It's reasonable to assume that a young workforce is a cheap and compliant workforce, saying that the major employers have run the numbers isn't playing devil's advocate. The real question is: why does the garden-variety stereotype overachieving Stanford aspie with sociopathic tendencies defend the practice?
- rschneid 9y ago
  I'm not op but I can think of a few reasons why hiring older talent poses a risk to political control. 1) More capable of starting their own, competing business. Even if the old guys won't be eating google's lunch, they have money and connections to defect and start a consulting business with their expert insider knowledge of SEO/self-driving cars/whatever they were working on. 2) The greater breadth of knowledge they have about industry and their personal preferences means they're less likely to be shuffled quietly into a menial role that makes the company the best ROI. 3) Stronger personal definitions of morality. Need a morally questionable piece of code written? If you ask a young enough person they likely won't question the morality but if you ask an old enough person I could imagine them refusing. I think hiring young people has it's own risks, but they seem to be generally further down the line. Losing control can happen at many scales and to many degrees. I would expect many hiring managers at large companies to be intimately familiar with the different risks associated with different age employees, consequently discriminating in their profession. Short of some damning leaked documents or conversations however, I can't imagine how any would ever get convicted.
- mcrad 9y ago
  Younger means less politically aware, more fit for the Echo Chamber situation
crazygringo 9y ago
Can you provide any citations? Did you work on a Google hiring committee? This doesn't even remotely match anything I know about Google. Unless maybe you have experience with a particularly unique product area within Google?
- sbov 9y ago
  Me neither. My circle of friends are approaching their 40s, and several of them work at Google. Some of them didn't get hired until their mid 30s, after they had over 10 years experience.
SystemOut 9y ago
So early 40s here, hired at Google after I turned 40 into a senior individual contributor role. My team has a healthy mix of greybeards, middle aged and younger team members. There are some teams that definitely lean younger here and there are teams that lean older too. A lot of it seems to depend on the areas they are in and the projects they work on. Your assertions don't match my experiences at all here.

valas 9y ago

What do mean by 'loosing control of their business ... to their employees'?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
taormina 9y ago
OP is claiming that they are more afraid of underlings their own age than a bunch of kids fresh out of school.
hackits 9y ago
Is anyone going to actually come to the table with some hard numbers here or is this constantly going to be a dick waving contest? Playing the devil advocate here I bet internally they have metrics telling them there isn't any value that people above 30 add compared to 20 year old straight out of college.
- HarryHirsch 9y ago
  It's reasonable to assume that a young workforce is a cheap and compliant workforce, saying that the major employers have run the numbers isn't playing devil's advocate. The real question is: why does the garden-variety stereotype overachieving Stanford aspie with sociopathic tendencies defend the practice?
rschneid 9y ago
I'm not op but I can think of a few reasons why hiring older talent poses a risk to political control. 1) More capable of starting their own, competing business. Even if the old guys won't be eating google's lunch, they have money and connections to defect and start a consulting business with their expert insider knowledge of SEO/self-driving cars/whatever they were working on. 2) The greater breadth of knowledge they have about industry and their personal preferences means they're less likely to be shuffled quietly into a menial role that makes the company the best ROI. 3) Stronger personal definitions of morality. Need a morally questionable piece of code written? If you ask a young enough person they likely won't question the morality but if you ask an old enough person I could imagine them refusing. I think hiring young people has it's own risks, but they seem to be generally further down the line. Losing control can happen at many scales and to many degrees. I would expect many hiring managers at large companies to be intimately familiar with the different risks associated with different age employees, consequently discriminating in their profession. Short of some damning leaked documents or conversations however, I can't imagine how any would ever get convicted.
mcrad 9y ago
Younger means less politically aware, more fit for the Echo Chamber situation

crazygringo 9y ago

Can you provide any citations? Did you work on a Google hiring committee? This doesn't even remotely match anything I know about Google. Unless maybe you have experience with a particularly unique product area within Google?

sbov 9y ago
Me neither. My circle of friends are approaching their 40s, and several of them work at Google. Some of them didn't get hired until their mid 30s, after they had over 10 years experience.

SystemOut 9y ago

So early 40s here, hired at Google after I turned 40 into a senior individual contributor role. My team has a healthy mix of greybeards, middle aged and younger team members. There are some teams that definitely lean younger here and there are teams that lean older too. A lot of it seems to depend on the areas they are in and the projects they work on. Your assertions don't match my experiences at all here.