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First, ageism is not just a SV phenomenon. For example, see the very young White House aides in Clinton, Bush, & Obama administrations.[1] Second, the tech c

by jasode 9y ago

First, ageism is not just a SV phenomenon. For example, see the very young White House aides in Clinton, Bush, & Obama administrations.[1] Second, the tech companies that have a reputation for favoring 20-somethings will still hire older workers for certain positions. - Even though Mark Zuckerberg said, "younger people are just smarter", he hired an "old" person like Sheryl Sandberg to be COO at age ~38. - Bill Gates was ~32 when he hired Dave Cutler age ~46 to architect and develop Windows NT. - Google hired Eric Schmidt ~46, Guido van Rossum (Python) ~age 49, and Peter Norvig in his 40s - Netflix hired Adrian Cockcroft in his mid-40s The SV companies will exhibit "reverse-age-discrimination" for executive management and architect positions. Why? (And the obvious answer is "experience".) But then, why is "experience" not valued for the non-architect programming positions? We actually do discriminate against young people for many roles. I leave readers to sort out why we value experience selectively for different situations. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15350873 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15350873

slavik81 9y ago
> First, ageism is not just a SV phenomenon. For example, see the White House aides in Clinton, Bush, & Obama administrations. And the office of the president itself. The minimum age is 35.
humanrebar 9y ago
It's worth noting that the median age of an American is 41. That we're discussing people in that age range as counterexamples kind of proves the point.
- jasode 9y ago
  >median age of an American is 41. That we're discussing people in that age range as counterexamples kind of proves the point. Don't take my previous post as a complete dataset. It was only coincidence that I happen to list programmers in their 40s off the top of my head. Here are some more in their 60s: - Google also hired Vint Cerf (TCPIP) at age 62. - Amazon AWS recently hired James Gosling (Java) age ~62. - PayPal hired Douglas Crockford (Javascript book author) at age ~57. My point is that SV companies (and other industries besides tech) will actually discriminate against the young 20-somethings for certain roles.
  - mbesto 9y ago
    > will actually discriminate against the young 20-somethings for certain roles. Uhh that's not age discrimination, that's creating a job role "Chief Internet Evanglist" and hiring the best person for the job, "Vint Cerf". Do you think anyone other than the creator of the TCPIP protocol could fill that role regardless of age? Also, isn't there also an implicit age discrimination against younger people in any job spec when you say "X years experience"?
    - lmm 9y ago
      > isn't there also an implicit age discrimination against younger people in any job spec when you say "X years experience"? Yes there is, and it's lazy and wrong. Figure out how to test for the skills you need; how many years someone's been using something is only very weakly correlated with how well they know it.
      - mbesto 9y ago
        > Figure out how to test for the skills you need; If you know how to systematically do this for all hiring positions, I literally have thousands of businesses that would pay you serious money to help them.
    - jasode 9y ago
      >Do you think anyone other than the creator of the TCPIP protocol could fill that role regardless of age? Not to argue with you but if we want to have fun with question... it's not "Chief TCPIP Evangelist" but "Chief _Internet_ Evangelist". If "internet" is the key word, we don't have to be limited to an arbitrary point in the network stack and pick a person from it. If we go lower and more foundational to the "internet" which is "packet switching", maybe Leonard Kleinrock[1] is more appropriate "Internet Evangelist". If we go higher in the stack to http, maybe Tim Berners-Lee is the better fit for "Internet Evangelist". If we really embrace "internet evangelist", maybe the best person is none of the technical guys but a 19-year old college dropout from Africa. Conceivably, that type of person would have more to gain from a better internet so his brand of "evangelism" for internet's future growth would be more effective than any of the older white guys from 1st world countries. >Also, isn't there also an implicit age discrimination against younger people in any job spec when you say "X years experience"? Sure. One could also argue that there's stealth age discrimination when your job requirements list "Rust programming language experience" since more 20-year olds than 50-year olds will learn that language. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRlZcKUp2vo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRlZcKUp2vo
falcolas 9y ago
If I were to play the devil's advocate, they hired people who could fill the actual role requirements, or who had the right image they wanted in the company. The experience required to fill a COO role is going to be significantly higher than the experience possessed by a college graduate. The experience bar to have Guido van Rossum's image is also pretty high too. ;) But how many Guido van Rossum's can a company afford to hire; how many do they need to hire? I think the problem is that for the lesser jobs the minimum viable candidate is chosen because there's a relatively low perceived cost for choosing the wrong cog. Even Google, with their "Better to skip 99 good candidates than hire one bad one" mantra won't be impacted in any appreciable fashion by a less-skilled hire. In fact, any candidate with greater than the minimal viable skills (i.e. someone in the industry for 10+ years) is usually seen as being too qualified (thus, too expensive) for the role being filled. Why hire an architect to move gravel? They'll just be unhappy with the job, and immediately seek to leave the role they were hired for. At least, that's the perception.
walshemj 9y ago
So? by definition aides aka SPADS (special political advisors) are junior political wonks who want to make politics a career they do a PPE at Oxbridge work for a pittance for a party or MP/Congressman or Senator for a chance to climb the greasy pole.
- jasode 9y ago
  >by definition aides aka SPADS (special political advisors) are junior political wonks There must be some misunderstanding. Are you from the UK and unfamiliar with the USA? To be clear, there is no "by definition" that the office aide sitting next to the President of the USA must be a junior 20-something worker. There is no "junior" in the definition of that role. Theoretically, the gatekeeper desks can be staffed by a 49-year old or a 70-year old elderly person that wants to work at the White House. My point is that the 20-somethings will be favored over older workers in _non-SV_ jobs like that. People keep making the mistake that that ageism is mostly specific to Silicon Valley. It isn't. It's common everywhere in non-computer industries.
tehlike 9y ago
Tactical vs strategical. At implementation level, software throughput is higher when you are younger. Validating/killing ideas, making money at large scale do not require experience, not that much. At strategical level things change.

by jasode 9y ago

slavik81 9y ago

> First, ageism is not just a SV phenomenon. For example, see the White House aides in Clinton, Bush, & Obama administrations. And the office of the president itself. The minimum age is 35.

humanrebar 9y ago

It's worth noting that the median age of an American is 41. That we're discussing people in that age range as counterexamples kind of proves the point.

jasode 9y ago
>median age of an American is 41. That we're discussing people in that age range as counterexamples kind of proves the point. Don't take my previous post as a complete dataset. It was only coincidence that I happen to list programmers in their 40s off the top of my head. Here are some more in their 60s: - Google also hired Vint Cerf (TCPIP) at age 62. - Amazon AWS recently hired James Gosling (Java) age ~62. - PayPal hired Douglas Crockford (Javascript book author) at age ~57. My point is that SV companies (and other industries besides tech) will actually discriminate against the young 20-somethings for certain roles.
- mbesto 9y ago
  > will actually discriminate against the young 20-somethings for certain roles. Uhh that's not age discrimination, that's creating a job role "Chief Internet Evanglist" and hiring the best person for the job, "Vint Cerf". Do you think anyone other than the creator of the TCPIP protocol could fill that role regardless of age? Also, isn't there also an implicit age discrimination against younger people in any job spec when you say "X years experience"?
  - lmm 9y ago
    > isn't there also an implicit age discrimination against younger people in any job spec when you say "X years experience"? Yes there is, and it's lazy and wrong. Figure out how to test for the skills you need; how many years someone's been using something is only very weakly correlated with how well they know it.
    - mbesto 9y ago
      > Figure out how to test for the skills you need; If you know how to systematically do this for all hiring positions, I literally have thousands of businesses that would pay you serious money to help them.
  - jasode 9y ago
    >Do you think anyone other than the creator of the TCPIP protocol could fill that role regardless of age? Not to argue with you but if we want to have fun with question... it's not "Chief TCPIP Evangelist" but "Chief _Internet_ Evangelist". If "internet" is the key word, we don't have to be limited to an arbitrary point in the network stack and pick a person from it. If we go lower and more foundational to the "internet" which is "packet switching", maybe Leonard Kleinrock[1] is more appropriate "Internet Evangelist". If we go higher in the stack to http, maybe Tim Berners-Lee is the better fit for "Internet Evangelist". If we really embrace "internet evangelist", maybe the best person is none of the technical guys but a 19-year old college dropout from Africa. Conceivably, that type of person would have more to gain from a better internet so his brand of "evangelism" for internet's future growth would be more effective than any of the older white guys from 1st world countries. >Also, isn't there also an implicit age discrimination against younger people in any job spec when you say "X years experience"? Sure. One could also argue that there's stealth age discrimination when your job requirements list "Rust programming language experience" since more 20-year olds than 50-year olds will learn that language. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRlZcKUp2vo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRlZcKUp2vo

falcolas 9y ago

If I were to play the devil's advocate, they hired people who could fill the actual role requirements, or who had the right image they wanted in the company. The experience required to fill a COO role is going to be significantly higher than the experience possessed by a college graduate. The experience bar to have Guido van Rossum's image is also pretty high too. ;) But how many Guido van Rossum's can a company afford to hire; how many do they need to hire? I think the problem is that for the lesser jobs the minimum viable candidate is chosen because there's a relatively low perceived cost for choosing the wrong cog. Even Google, with their "Better to skip 99 good candidates than hire one bad one" mantra won't be impacted in any appreciable fashion by a less-skilled hire. In fact, any candidate with greater than the minimal viable skills (i.e. someone in the industry for 10+ years) is usually seen as being too qualified (thus, too expensive) for the role being filled. Why hire an architect to move gravel? They'll just be unhappy with the job, and immediately seek to leave the role they were hired for. At least, that's the perception.

walshemj 9y ago

So? by definition aides aka SPADS (special political advisors) are junior political wonks who want to make politics a career they do a PPE at Oxbridge work for a pittance for a party or MP/Congressman or Senator for a chance to climb the greasy pole.

jasode 9y ago
>by definition aides aka SPADS (special political advisors) are junior political wonks There must be some misunderstanding. Are you from the UK and unfamiliar with the USA? To be clear, there is no "by definition" that the office aide sitting next to the President of the USA must be a junior 20-something worker. There is no "junior" in the definition of that role. Theoretically, the gatekeeper desks can be staffed by a 49-year old or a 70-year old elderly person that wants to work at the White House. My point is that the 20-somethings will be favored over older workers in _non-SV_ jobs like that. People keep making the mistake that that ageism is mostly specific to Silicon Valley. It isn't. It's common everywhere in non-computer industries.

tehlike 9y ago

Tactical vs strategical. At implementation level, software throughput is higher when you are younger. Validating/killing ideas, making money at large scale do not require experience, not that much. At strategical level things change.