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Studies suggest that many inventors do their best work at later stages

140 points by rafaelc 9y ago

dvddgld 9y ago
I would have assumed that innovation increases with experiences, knowledge and resources. One of the reasons startups target the young is surely naivety, e.g. stock options, altruistic work, and so on. While older workers are happy to take their stable, high wage senior jobs. Only branching out into innovation when its under their own terms and they have a solid plan. What does everybody else think?
- pmorici 9y ago
  I agree. Maybe it is just the obscene cost of living in SF but I can't figure out for the life of me why a rational person would take a startup job there. Whenever you look at the salaries these companies pay they aren't the least bit competitive with companies in less expensive cities after accounting for the 50% higher cost of living. I was much less aware of these more sublet factors when I was younger and just out of school. It's impossible to ignore now that I'm older though.
  - askafriend 9y ago
    The cost of living is only prohibitively higher if you have a wife and 2 kids. There are a ton of other scenarios where you earn and save a lot more in a city like SF. I have roommates for example and my rent is pretty cheap. I also don’t have a car - I just use Uber or Lyft. Saves a ton of money.
    - tfmatt 9y ago
      how do you get groceries? you uber to whole foods and back?
      - Morizero 9y ago
        (not op) I live in Boston. I have 3 grocery stores (2 supermarkets, 1 Korean grocer) within half a mile of me. One is directly on my bike route home. I walk or bike roughly once or twice a week and pick up a few days worth of food. Each visit lasts maybe 15 or so minutes. When I lived in the Midwest, I'd drive once a month and make it an all afternoon ordeal. Doing it the "Boston way" is probably a little less time on average, about the same cost (actually cheaper with the car cost), and yields a far fresher+healthier diet. When I lived in the Midwest, most produce would be rotten in a couple of weeks, most meat would end up at some point in my deep freezer, and dry goods (like box/can foods & starches) were the base of most meals. Now I eat fresh greens daily, rarely eat box foods, and shaved 5 points off my BMI.
      - nzjrs 9y ago
        I had to laugh. This is the most HN comment I have seen in a while.
      - htormey 9y ago
        I live in SF. Uber pool to Costco is ~$5. I have a Safeway around the corner and instacart isn’t that bad re price.
      - zghst 9y ago
        Usually what I see is people walking groceries back, just a couple bags, but there's always Lyft/Uber or even services like Zipcar or Getaround.
      - randomsearch 9y ago
        Do Americans not have food delivery services? Most people I know under 40 in the UK use supermarket delivery. Ordering once a week takes about 20 mins, delivered more or less when you want to the nearest hour.
      - devdad 9y ago
        The whole response thread of this question reads as satire.
        9y ago
    - pmorici 9y ago
      What you are really saying is that the only people who can reasonably make it work are young people who have no family obligations and can live in ultra lean conditions. I guarantee you that anything you can do in SF to save money be that having lots of roommates, forgoing a car, etc... you can do in other metro areas of the US. I'm not knocking people who make the choice to do that but don't delude yourself; on a purly financial basis it is not a rational choice.
      - askafriend 9y ago
        I can do that in other metro areas, but I can't earn >$200k a year easily in other metro areas - not even close. Also don't forget about the beautiful weather year-round. I will have retirement money in my mid 30s and by 40 I can comfortably retire provided that I don't get hit by a car or suffer one of life's many random tragedies. If I have a significant other who is also a high earner, then ironically both of our cost of living will go down because of things like splitting rent, splitting groceries, making food at home (easier to shop groceries for 2+ people). A dual income household in SF with good career trajectories can easily put you in the half-a-mil a year range. It's the kids that make this infinitely more difficult. At that point I'd probably consider moving to a lower COL place. But I'm not sure I want kids - that's a decision for later. As much as people love to knock on SF, I have a great life here and so do so many others. It's absolutely possible if you're a decent software engineer which is the lens through which I write this comment. Obviously if you're making $60k a year in a commoditized career, you're going to have a bad time. Also if home ownership is that important to you for some reason, then SF probably isn't the place for you either.
        pmorici 9y ago
        Here is one example that I'm aware of. I have friends who live in Baltimore and make over $200k+ as software engineers. One guy likes to be thrifty so he bought a house for $150k because it was cheaper than renting. You can't tell me that he would be better off in SF. He would need to be making over $300k to be in a similar financial position. No Startup is going to pay him that kind of money. I agree the weather is often nice and I love visiting SF but that's a non financial reason.
  - greggman 9y ago
    As others have said before are we talking just salary or total compensation? My last company's stock did well so my total compensation was SF Salary * 4. The stock kept doing well so if I had stayed it would have been * 8. I don't know if that's more common in SF than else where and/or how lucky I was, my only point is it's good to know what's really being compared.
    - speedplane 9y ago
      Congratulations, you're a successful investor, most aren't. Doesn't say much about being an engineer though.
    - ryandrake 9y ago
      You're probably an outlier, but congratulations nonetheless. For most non-executives in tech, vested sellable equity is a minuscule part of the compensation package. I've been in technology for going on 20 years (~7 years in SF) and my equity compensation has not once been even 20% of my salary.
      - greggman 9y ago
        that my point though. AFAICT all the major bay area companies have bonuses to salary in the 50% to 100% range and more of they are doing well. they give you a yearly bonus and they give you some kind of equity. They do this because it's what the local competition for employees requires. So ... to reiterate ... the person I was replying to seemed to only be looking at salaries. You need to compare total comp not just salaries
- greenhouse_gas 9y ago
  I would actually put it stronger: most startup tech is quite mundane (or could easily be made mundane). Facebook started on a classic LAMP stack.
  - mattgreenrocks 9y ago
    That was the most galling thing about the whole James Damore boondoggle: the insinuation that $GOOG’s work is so intellectually taxing that gender differences actually have an impact. I’m sure they have lots of difficult problems. And I’m also sure they have a lot of run-of-the-mill problems.
- josephagoss 9y ago
  I completely agree especially regarding older workers willing to branch out on their own terms. I've often found startups (anyone and any organization really) will often present their opportunity as very one sided to an extent. "This is what we offer, this is what is required and no, you have no wiggle room here". I've also found as I've aged and have more financial stability I'm less likely to get suckered into an arrangement that really doesn't benefit me. Also as I've aged I am less likely to fall into the FOMO trap. (Fear of missing out.) Just my 2 cents.
- xellisx 9y ago
  Younger me: "Yes I can do that, and I'll have to you in an hour"... 3 weeks later, less hair and a horrible implementation that "works". Older me: "Yes, but..."
- ronilan 9y ago
  It is simpler than that. There is a social link between age and authority. For the first third of your life almost anyone you interact with who has authorarive power over you is also older than you. Think parents, teachers, coaches, managers etc. A VC (or incubator mentor) will most likely have a stronger authorarive stance and feel more comfortable with younger founders. Founders will feel same with younger employees and so on down the hiring ladder. It requires maturity and confidence to "unlink" age and authority. In a culture as driven by "macho posturing" as the Silicon Valley startup world is, this, in most cases, ain't going to happen. Thus startups are young.
  - dvddgld 9y ago
    I can see how that would account for a big part of the trend. We seem to be good at self-organizing into particular patterns. I do wonder how difficult it is to fight against such internal biases, and whether it's even worthwhile...
- B-Con 9y ago
  > Only branching out into innovation when its under their own terms and they have a solid plan. I think there's a lot to this. The young are more free with their energy and are more willing to throw it around haphazardly, everything is new to them. The older have been there done that and more adverse to wasting their time, thus more likely to only innovate when they believe they have a good idea and the means to execute on it.
- curun1r 9y ago
  It probably depends on the kind of innovation you're talking about. IIRC, most of the advances in mathematics come from younger mathematicians. Just like you're less likely to find innovative chess play in older players. So I'd imagine that most innovation that relies on pure ingenuity would come from younger folks. On the other hand, innovation that has a more social component to it or relies more on life experiences would probably favor those who've had more opportunities to hit on the right experience to trigger their innovation. The term "innovation" is probably too broad/generic to make any meaningful conclusions. It needs to be subcategorized to be useful in the way the article is positing. And from the sound of it, the research is using patent applications as a proxy for innovation which seems somewhat biased towards older people who understand the importance of getting all the legal ducks in a row, not to mention how many patents are anything but innovative. It also seems overly narrow since it misses lots of innovation that doesn't get codified as an invention.
  - dvddgld 9y ago
    Agreed on all points, I meant "innovation" in the context of the study, which is certainly different to...well, actual innovation.
- QML 9y ago
  I've always heard it is the younger scientists and mathematicians who make the groundbreaking discoveries / innovative breakthroughs -- but on the shoulders of giants indeed.
- bob_theslob646 9y ago
  > One of the reasons startups target the young is surely naivety, e.g. stock options, altruistic work, and so on. While older workers are happy to take their stable, high wage senior jobs. Only branching out into innovation when its under their own terms and they have a solid plan. What about having different responsiblities ? I would argue, younger people have less responasibilites than a older person, who on average does not like change and is less likely to change than a young person due to the pain of change.(It's very difficult to move a family across the country if you are married and have kids and I would bet on average, the older you get, the less likely you are to do so ,on average) When I say " change" , I mean take risk. A younger person can afford to take on risk younger in life than an older person due to age bias in hiring practices.
19405 9y ago
The research they cited just says that older people tend to file more patents. This is just one component of innovation.
- gautamdivgi 9y ago
  Agreed - and this coming from a person likely considered "older" in technology (i.e. > 40 yrs). I think the criteria for "innovation" is flawed or at the very least needs to be expanded. It should include research published (pay-walled or otherwise) and high impact open source contributions at the very least. Patents are typically filed by folks working for large(ish) corporations or universities. For corporations its almost a given that someone senior up the chain is on the patent. In a university - its generally the professor(s) leading the lab that will always be on a patent filed on behalf of the lab irrespective of the work they've put into it. That behavior in itself is a bias towards having an older population be on more patents.
  - fapjacks 9y ago
    Published research also has bias. How many first authors actually did the innovating? Versus ran the lab the innovation happened in or advised the innovator. Depends on the field, but I think most people can reasonably agree that those folks are listed as authors on the publication for reasons other than having actually innovated. But let me nip this in the bud: I am not saying those people don't deserve credit for their part, just that published research has its own share of bias.
  - DonaldFisk 9y ago
    The highest impact open source contributions were for non-innovative work. Linux is a rewrite of Unix, GNU Emacs is a rewrite of earlier versions of Emacs. > For corporations its almost a given that someone senior up the chain is on the patent. In my experience that isn't true and in cases where it did happen it would be an abuse of process. As a rule, royalties from patents are assigned to the employer, so there's very little to be gained by being an inventor that's tangible. All I and my co-inventors got were a few low denomination US and Canadian bank notes.
ageofwant 9y ago
It is because the young are cheap and stupid. I could have stopped at cheap, but clever obedient monkeys demanding peanuts, throwing poo at their keyboards, is a better value proposition for a venture that has a 5% chance at success, than a higher grade simian. Pro tip to cheap monkeys: Understand your value proposition, and get expensive fast.
- dang 9y ago
  On HN, would you please not post like this on inflammatory topics? We're hoping for better here, so comments like this are destructive. I notice we've had to ask you something similar before.
j7ake 9y ago
This is obviously field dependent. A counter example is mathematics, where the significant break throughs are often done in the earlier part of career rather than later.
- speedplane 9y ago
  In the legal profession, you start off as a grunt, but with gray hair comes more competence, respect and money. Tech is definitely a better choice for the first 5 years in career, but I'm not sure long term.
  - ryandrake 9y ago
    Tech has a notorious compensation plateau after about 5-10 years, particularly for individual contributors. Much more so than law, business, etc. Unless you’re ok with yearly raises that don’t even track cost of living, you’re probably needing to move into management or something after 10 years. It is not a field for “ladder climbers” or anyone who wants a fairly linear progression throughout their career.
    - speedplane 9y ago
      Compensation is important, but not the only factor. The fact that older developers are viewed as obsolete but older attorneys are viewed as an asset makes a different too. Commanding respect and admiration over time is an intangible that tech lacks relative to other professions.
      - ryandrake 9y ago
        Totally agree--I think the compensation problem is a direct consequence of the "respect and admiration" problem.
      - greenhouse_gas 9y ago
        A lot is connected to the massive amount of churn in the tech industry. And I don't mean the infamous "JS churn". I mean that just twenty years ago, multicore computers were a rarity outside niche players, and twenty five years ago optimizing compilers were horrible at their job. So skills useful then (C + asm) are much less useful now. On the other hand, law 25 years ago is fairly similar to law now.
dilyevsky 9y ago
Most startups aren't doing rocket science and younger people are generally cheaper, doh.
tritium 9y ago
Let's dispense with the facade. Younger employees typically do more for less, and are sought for their energy, flexibility and/or willingness to entertain new ideas, and not necessarily because they invent the new ideas. It used to be that fast food chains hired teenagers because they could pay them less, and in exchange the kids got to feel like adults usually for the first time, even if the environment was dubious. Startups are running a similar game, only the skills needed are rare enough that the price tag is sky high compared to ordinary jobs, and only because there really have been a few unicorns and the calculated risk of investment in these sorts of salaries is potentially worth the gamble.
- ownagefool 9y ago
  I'm neither particularly old or young in this context, and whilst I would typically agree that young people put in more hours, I'd argue many of those hours are wasted. Personally I'd rather hire the guy who's already done it and have a lower risk of delivery, but I find that much of the management layer in tech just want someone who'll say yes. They don't see that they're building the wrong thing, or reinviting the wheel, but they often don't care because putting tasks in Jira and them marking them done looks like they're achieving things.
otempomores 9y ago
Incremental Innovation.. yes. Also older people tend to have more power in hierarchical organizations thus that study might just show the bias of hierarchical Organisations against disrupting ideas and the power of endurance. We have the most variation ofexperience as young ones. Nature when we cut the social navel sends us into a society where every good hunting ground and every big prey is already taken. Thus we rebel to fight for a chance or to generate a resource we innovate by leap. The youth is the only force to gain by disruption.
briga 9y ago
I'm sure if you live a full life where you are constantly learning new things and having new experiences you can reach old age with a lot of mental elasticity and a wide-ranging perspective. Problem is, many people seem to narrow their perspective and close off to new experiences after a certain point, usually after they have children--at least the older people in my life do. So I suspect what's going on in the study mentioned is a bit of sample bias. The great advantage of youth is that there are endless possibilities you can be molded into. Which is probably something SV investors look for.
- homarp 9y ago
  misquoting you > youth [...] can be molded Older people tend to ask why before jumping and offers their past experience (e.g. gravity... )
erikb 9y ago
Startups work because nobody in them already knows their value. I'm now over thirty and expect a big desk, two computers, free fresh coffee, free lunch and a real paycheck. Can't build a start-up with that kind of requirements.
philippeback 9y ago
48 here. Best time ever. And innovation is definitely easier now that I have the means to fund my ideas and their implementations. I work with young people but because they are not as ossified as a lot of older ones. They are the future in a sense. I find that link invaluable.
- deleted 9y ago
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sverhagen 9y ago
I probably bought into the myth too much then. I assumed there was something about the young and fresh folk to be uninhibited, able to think outside of the box, and thus be able to come up with something that's truly refreshing (innovative?) Also, I may have imagined that there's "only so many earthshattering ideas" anyone is bound to have, so let's squeeze these out of them ("before anyone else does")? Yeah, I know, it sounds silly, when I actually write it down. They sucked me in.
keiferski 9y ago
This completely depends on the field. For example, a 2016 study (pdf) by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation that looked at the demographics of over 900 individuals who have made high-value meaningful, marketable contributions to technology-heavy industries in the US. In mathematics, for example, innovation is typically done by the young. In architecture, by the old.
- malloryerik 9y ago
  I've wondered how much of the youthfulness of math has to do with burnout or other factors that are unrelated to the age of a brain. By this logic, maybe someone who started late in math could be highly innovative later in life, as or more innovative than if they'd started young.
- danieltillett 9y ago
  I think this difference is down to the barriers to entry. To innovate in mathematics all you need is pencil and paper, to innovate in architecture you need to convince old rich bastards to build your idea.
  - ordu 9y ago
    I think, that mathematics constructed by the way, that makes it difficult to be experienced adult and innovative. Math needs fresh idea, new angle to look on old problem, but the more you study math, the more you are bound to already discovered angles of view. Not every area of knowledge has this property. I believe the less formal theory in particular area, the more valuable adult as innovator. When there is no theory to structure experience by the way everyone does, you would need to invent your own personalized informal theory. Such a personalization is a key to unique ideas and therefore to innovation. Though this is just one more factor, like "old rich bastards". Reality is much more complex than that.
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jokoon 9y ago
Well you cannot innovate without experience. Innovation means to bring something new. You can't bring something really new if you don't know what is already there, and why what you want to do doesn't exist. There often are reasons.
danieltillett 9y ago
As someone who has been young (and unfortunately oldish now), I was much more innovative when younger. The one thing the old(er) version of me has over the younger version is I am now able to see better what is a good idea and what is a good idea that can be implemented.
- sqldba 9y ago
  I think I'm equally innovative as when I was young. But when I was young I was working for young small companies that didn't have any rules and you could do anything. Every company I work for now is absolutely groaning under the weight of bureaucracy and rules that prevent everything. You know - innovations generally don't fit in there well. I've got a mortgage. I care about getting fired over a technicality. So if you've got rules that stifle innovation then you won't see innovation. Amazingly, I do see young people in the company doing stuff, and being applauded by management. Those things ALSO break ALL of the rules. Management doesn't care. Ethically though I have a problem with breaking the rules just because I think I will get away from it. I'd rather they get rid of the damned rules. I guess I'm bitter that way and that bitterness has grown with age. When I was young I laughed at rules.
  - danieltillett 9y ago
    I like to think my ideas are as good as they were as when I was younger, but I suspect this is just a lie I tell myself. The huge difference between being young and old(er) is you have a so much more to lose. When I was young all I had to lose was my dignity, today I have a wife, children, house, and security. I can’t complain in anyway as I have been very successful and answer to nobody but myself. Despite all of this I still miss the raw and angry innovation of my younger self.
- Spearchucker 9y ago
  As someone who was young (and very fortunately oldish now), I'm much more innovate when older. Everything the older version of me does is more insightful, considered and most importantly, likely to succeed. Experiences are more profound because I'm more aware of the moment. I'm no longer interested in the newest-model car or phone, am amazing at social interactions (super-goofy when young) and pursue fun and meaningful activities - in work and play. I have more good ideas than I know what to do with, and pass those onto others, if there's opportunity.
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austinjp 9y ago
There appears, to me, to be an ongoing narrative that pits the older against the younger. Memorably it came to a head in the UK with "analysis" of the Brexit vote and correlation with age [0]. Needs and desires change as we age, of course they do. But there's little value in placing a binary filter over this picture. The devil is in the details. Removing the nuance leads to polarised perspectives, and these turn into battle-lines. From the comments here, it's clear that some people feel more creative in their youth, some with age. There's no right or wrong. It varies by individual, circumstance, and a ton of other correlations. Articles such as this may purport or intend to uncover interesting data and conduct useful analysis. Unfortunately (probably due editorial direction and pressure to shift units) they ultimately simply encourage ongoing polemic. Perpetuating simplified, harmful world-views does little to improve things. This article in particular simply cherry-picks a bunch of "studies" to support a tenuous conjecture that is not closely examined. Any valid point is weakened by a lack of analysis, lack of robust questioning, and lack of constructive "what do we do with this information?" angle. Why was this piece commissioned and written? What is its value? Is there a problem here, and if so is a solution indicated? I don't doubt that "startup culture" overly values and exploits the young. But this piece does nothing except fan the flames. TLDR; click-bait. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2016/jun/23/eu-referendum-live-results-and-analysis https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2016/jun...

140 points by rafaelc 9y ago

I would have assumed that innovation increases with experiences, knowledge and resources. One of the reasons startups target the young is surely naivety, e.g. stock options, altruistic work, and so on. While older workers are happy to take their stable, high wage senior jobs. Only branching out into innovation when its under their own terms and they have a solid plan. What does everybody else think?

pmorici 9y ago
I agree. Maybe it is just the obscene cost of living in SF but I can't figure out for the life of me why a rational person would take a startup job there. Whenever you look at the salaries these companies pay they aren't the least bit competitive with companies in less expensive cities after accounting for the 50% higher cost of living. I was much less aware of these more sublet factors when I was younger and just out of school. It's impossible to ignore now that I'm older though.
- askafriend 9y ago
  The cost of living is only prohibitively higher if you have a wife and 2 kids. There are a ton of other scenarios where you earn and save a lot more in a city like SF. I have roommates for example and my rent is pretty cheap. I also don’t have a car - I just use Uber or Lyft. Saves a ton of money.
  - tfmatt 9y ago
    how do you get groceries? you uber to whole foods and back?
    - Morizero 9y ago
      (not op) I live in Boston. I have 3 grocery stores (2 supermarkets, 1 Korean grocer) within half a mile of me. One is directly on my bike route home. I walk or bike roughly once or twice a week and pick up a few days worth of food. Each visit lasts maybe 15 or so minutes. When I lived in the Midwest, I'd drive once a month and make it an all afternoon ordeal. Doing it the "Boston way" is probably a little less time on average, about the same cost (actually cheaper with the car cost), and yields a far fresher+healthier diet. When I lived in the Midwest, most produce would be rotten in a couple of weeks, most meat would end up at some point in my deep freezer, and dry goods (like box/can foods & starches) were the base of most meals. Now I eat fresh greens daily, rarely eat box foods, and shaved 5 points off my BMI.
    - nzjrs 9y ago
      I had to laugh. This is the most HN comment I have seen in a while.
    - htormey 9y ago
      I live in SF. Uber pool to Costco is ~$5. I have a Safeway around the corner and instacart isn’t that bad re price.
    - zghst 9y ago
      Usually what I see is people walking groceries back, just a couple bags, but there's always Lyft/Uber or even services like Zipcar or Getaround.
    - randomsearch 9y ago
      Do Americans not have food delivery services? Most people I know under 40 in the UK use supermarket delivery. Ordering once a week takes about 20 mins, delivered more or less when you want to the nearest hour.
    - devdad 9y ago
      The whole response thread of this question reads as satire.
      - 9y ago
  - pmorici 9y ago
    What you are really saying is that the only people who can reasonably make it work are young people who have no family obligations and can live in ultra lean conditions. I guarantee you that anything you can do in SF to save money be that having lots of roommates, forgoing a car, etc... you can do in other metro areas of the US. I'm not knocking people who make the choice to do that but don't delude yourself; on a purly financial basis it is not a rational choice.
    - askafriend 9y ago
      I can do that in other metro areas, but I can't earn >$200k a year easily in other metro areas - not even close. Also don't forget about the beautiful weather year-round. I will have retirement money in my mid 30s and by 40 I can comfortably retire provided that I don't get hit by a car or suffer one of life's many random tragedies. If I have a significant other who is also a high earner, then ironically both of our cost of living will go down because of things like splitting rent, splitting groceries, making food at home (easier to shop groceries for 2+ people). A dual income household in SF with good career trajectories can easily put you in the half-a-mil a year range. It's the kids that make this infinitely more difficult. At that point I'd probably consider moving to a lower COL place. But I'm not sure I want kids - that's a decision for later. As much as people love to knock on SF, I have a great life here and so do so many others. It's absolutely possible if you're a decent software engineer which is the lens through which I write this comment. Obviously if you're making $60k a year in a commoditized career, you're going to have a bad time. Also if home ownership is that important to you for some reason, then SF probably isn't the place for you either.
      - pmorici 9y ago
        Here is one example that I'm aware of. I have friends who live in Baltimore and make over $200k+ as software engineers. One guy likes to be thrifty so he bought a house for $150k because it was cheaper than renting. You can't tell me that he would be better off in SF. He would need to be making over $300k to be in a similar financial position. No Startup is going to pay him that kind of money. I agree the weather is often nice and I love visiting SF but that's a non financial reason.
- greggman 9y ago
  As others have said before are we talking just salary or total compensation? My last company's stock did well so my total compensation was SF Salary * 4. The stock kept doing well so if I had stayed it would have been * 8. I don't know if that's more common in SF than else where and/or how lucky I was, my only point is it's good to know what's really being compared.
  - speedplane 9y ago
    Congratulations, you're a successful investor, most aren't. Doesn't say much about being an engineer though.
  - ryandrake 9y ago
    You're probably an outlier, but congratulations nonetheless. For most non-executives in tech, vested sellable equity is a minuscule part of the compensation package. I've been in technology for going on 20 years (~7 years in SF) and my equity compensation has not once been even 20% of my salary.
    - greggman 9y ago
      that my point though. AFAICT all the major bay area companies have bonuses to salary in the 50% to 100% range and more of they are doing well. they give you a yearly bonus and they give you some kind of equity. They do this because it's what the local competition for employees requires. So ... to reiterate ... the person I was replying to seemed to only be looking at salaries. You need to compare total comp not just salaries
greenhouse_gas 9y ago
I would actually put it stronger: most startup tech is quite mundane (or could easily be made mundane). Facebook started on a classic LAMP stack.
- mattgreenrocks 9y ago
  That was the most galling thing about the whole James Damore boondoggle: the insinuation that $GOOG’s work is so intellectually taxing that gender differences actually have an impact. I’m sure they have lots of difficult problems. And I’m also sure they have a lot of run-of-the-mill problems.
josephagoss 9y ago
I completely agree especially regarding older workers willing to branch out on their own terms. I've often found startups (anyone and any organization really) will often present their opportunity as very one sided to an extent. "This is what we offer, this is what is required and no, you have no wiggle room here". I've also found as I've aged and have more financial stability I'm less likely to get suckered into an arrangement that really doesn't benefit me. Also as I've aged I am less likely to fall into the FOMO trap. (Fear of missing out.) Just my 2 cents.
xellisx 9y ago
Younger me: "Yes I can do that, and I'll have to you in an hour"... 3 weeks later, less hair and a horrible implementation that "works". Older me: "Yes, but..."
ronilan 9y ago
It is simpler than that. There is a social link between age and authority. For the first third of your life almost anyone you interact with who has authorarive power over you is also older than you. Think parents, teachers, coaches, managers etc. A VC (or incubator mentor) will most likely have a stronger authorarive stance and feel more comfortable with younger founders. Founders will feel same with younger employees and so on down the hiring ladder. It requires maturity and confidence to "unlink" age and authority. In a culture as driven by "macho posturing" as the Silicon Valley startup world is, this, in most cases, ain't going to happen. Thus startups are young.
- dvddgld 9y ago
  I can see how that would account for a big part of the trend. We seem to be good at self-organizing into particular patterns. I do wonder how difficult it is to fight against such internal biases, and whether it's even worthwhile...
B-Con 9y ago
> Only branching out into innovation when its under their own terms and they have a solid plan. I think there's a lot to this. The young are more free with their energy and are more willing to throw it around haphazardly, everything is new to them. The older have been there done that and more adverse to wasting their time, thus more likely to only innovate when they believe they have a good idea and the means to execute on it.
curun1r 9y ago
It probably depends on the kind of innovation you're talking about. IIRC, most of the advances in mathematics come from younger mathematicians. Just like you're less likely to find innovative chess play in older players. So I'd imagine that most innovation that relies on pure ingenuity would come from younger folks. On the other hand, innovation that has a more social component to it or relies more on life experiences would probably favor those who've had more opportunities to hit on the right experience to trigger their innovation. The term "innovation" is probably too broad/generic to make any meaningful conclusions. It needs to be subcategorized to be useful in the way the article is positing. And from the sound of it, the research is using patent applications as a proxy for innovation which seems somewhat biased towards older people who understand the importance of getting all the legal ducks in a row, not to mention how many patents are anything but innovative. It also seems overly narrow since it misses lots of innovation that doesn't get codified as an invention.
- dvddgld 9y ago
  Agreed on all points, I meant "innovation" in the context of the study, which is certainly different to...well, actual innovation.
QML 9y ago
I've always heard it is the younger scientists and mathematicians who make the groundbreaking discoveries / innovative breakthroughs -- but on the shoulders of giants indeed.
bob_theslob646 9y ago
> One of the reasons startups target the young is surely naivety, e.g. stock options, altruistic work, and so on. While older workers are happy to take their stable, high wage senior jobs. Only branching out into innovation when its under their own terms and they have a solid plan. What about having different responsiblities ? I would argue, younger people have less responasibilites than a older person, who on average does not like change and is less likely to change than a young person due to the pain of change.(It's very difficult to move a family across the country if you are married and have kids and I would bet on average, the older you get, the less likely you are to do so ,on average) When I say " change" , I mean take risk. A younger person can afford to take on risk younger in life than an older person due to age bias in hiring practices.

19405 9y ago

The research they cited just says that older people tend to file more patents. This is just one component of innovation.

gautamdivgi 9y ago
Agreed - and this coming from a person likely considered "older" in technology (i.e. > 40 yrs). I think the criteria for "innovation" is flawed or at the very least needs to be expanded. It should include research published (pay-walled or otherwise) and high impact open source contributions at the very least. Patents are typically filed by folks working for large(ish) corporations or universities. For corporations its almost a given that someone senior up the chain is on the patent. In a university - its generally the professor(s) leading the lab that will always be on a patent filed on behalf of the lab irrespective of the work they've put into it. That behavior in itself is a bias towards having an older population be on more patents.
- fapjacks 9y ago
  Published research also has bias. How many first authors actually did the innovating? Versus ran the lab the innovation happened in or advised the innovator. Depends on the field, but I think most people can reasonably agree that those folks are listed as authors on the publication for reasons other than having actually innovated. But let me nip this in the bud: I am not saying those people don't deserve credit for their part, just that published research has its own share of bias.
- DonaldFisk 9y ago
  The highest impact open source contributions were for non-innovative work. Linux is a rewrite of Unix, GNU Emacs is a rewrite of earlier versions of Emacs. > For corporations its almost a given that someone senior up the chain is on the patent. In my experience that isn't true and in cases where it did happen it would be an abuse of process. As a rule, royalties from patents are assigned to the employer, so there's very little to be gained by being an inventor that's tangible. All I and my co-inventors got were a few low denomination US and Canadian bank notes.

ageofwant 9y ago

It is because the young are cheap and stupid. I could have stopped at cheap, but clever obedient monkeys demanding peanuts, throwing poo at their keyboards, is a better value proposition for a venture that has a 5% chance at success, than a higher grade simian. Pro tip to cheap monkeys: Understand your value proposition, and get expensive fast.

dang 9y ago
On HN, would you please not post like this on inflammatory topics? We're hoping for better here, so comments like this are destructive. I notice we've had to ask you something similar before.

j7ake 9y ago

This is obviously field dependent. A counter example is mathematics, where the significant break throughs are often done in the earlier part of career rather than later.

speedplane 9y ago
In the legal profession, you start off as a grunt, but with gray hair comes more competence, respect and money. Tech is definitely a better choice for the first 5 years in career, but I'm not sure long term.
- ryandrake 9y ago
  Tech has a notorious compensation plateau after about 5-10 years, particularly for individual contributors. Much more so than law, business, etc. Unless you’re ok with yearly raises that don’t even track cost of living, you’re probably needing to move into management or something after 10 years. It is not a field for “ladder climbers” or anyone who wants a fairly linear progression throughout their career.
  - speedplane 9y ago
    Compensation is important, but not the only factor. The fact that older developers are viewed as obsolete but older attorneys are viewed as an asset makes a different too. Commanding respect and admiration over time is an intangible that tech lacks relative to other professions.
    - ryandrake 9y ago
      Totally agree--I think the compensation problem is a direct consequence of the "respect and admiration" problem.
    - greenhouse_gas 9y ago
      A lot is connected to the massive amount of churn in the tech industry. And I don't mean the infamous "JS churn". I mean that just twenty years ago, multicore computers were a rarity outside niche players, and twenty five years ago optimizing compilers were horrible at their job. So skills useful then (C + asm) are much less useful now. On the other hand, law 25 years ago is fairly similar to law now.

dilyevsky 9y ago

Most startups aren't doing rocket science and younger people are generally cheaper, doh.

tritium 9y ago

Let's dispense with the facade. Younger employees typically do more for less, and are sought for their energy, flexibility and/or willingness to entertain new ideas, and not necessarily because they invent the new ideas. It used to be that fast food chains hired teenagers because they could pay them less, and in exchange the kids got to feel like adults usually for the first time, even if the environment was dubious. Startups are running a similar game, only the skills needed are rare enough that the price tag is sky high compared to ordinary jobs, and only because there really have been a few unicorns and the calculated risk of investment in these sorts of salaries is potentially worth the gamble.

ownagefool 9y ago
I'm neither particularly old or young in this context, and whilst I would typically agree that young people put in more hours, I'd argue many of those hours are wasted. Personally I'd rather hire the guy who's already done it and have a lower risk of delivery, but I find that much of the management layer in tech just want someone who'll say yes. They don't see that they're building the wrong thing, or reinviting the wheel, but they often don't care because putting tasks in Jira and them marking them done looks like they're achieving things.

otempomores 9y ago

Incremental Innovation.. yes. Also older people tend to have more power in hierarchical organizations thus that study might just show the bias of hierarchical Organisations against disrupting ideas and the power of endurance. We have the most variation ofexperience as young ones. Nature when we cut the social navel sends us into a society where every good hunting ground and every big prey is already taken. Thus we rebel to fight for a chance or to generate a resource we innovate by leap. The youth is the only force to gain by disruption.

briga 9y ago

I'm sure if you live a full life where you are constantly learning new things and having new experiences you can reach old age with a lot of mental elasticity and a wide-ranging perspective. Problem is, many people seem to narrow their perspective and close off to new experiences after a certain point, usually after they have children--at least the older people in my life do. So I suspect what's going on in the study mentioned is a bit of sample bias. The great advantage of youth is that there are endless possibilities you can be molded into. Which is probably something SV investors look for.

homarp 9y ago
misquoting you > youth [...] can be molded Older people tend to ask why before jumping and offers their past experience (e.g. gravity... )

erikb 9y ago

Startups work because nobody in them already knows their value. I'm now over thirty and expect a big desk, two computers, free fresh coffee, free lunch and a real paycheck. Can't build a start-up with that kind of requirements.

philippeback 9y ago

48 here. Best time ever. And innovation is definitely easier now that I have the means to fund my ideas and their implementations. I work with young people but because they are not as ossified as a lot of older ones. They are the future in a sense. I find that link invaluable.

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sverhagen 9y ago

I probably bought into the myth too much then. I assumed there was something about the young and fresh folk to be uninhibited, able to think outside of the box, and thus be able to come up with something that's truly refreshing (innovative?) Also, I may have imagined that there's "only so many earthshattering ideas" anyone is bound to have, so let's squeeze these out of them ("before anyone else does")? Yeah, I know, it sounds silly, when I actually write it down. They sucked me in.

keiferski 9y ago

This completely depends on the field. For example, a 2016 study (pdf) by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation that looked at the demographics of over 900 individuals who have made high-value meaningful, marketable contributions to technology-heavy industries in the US. In mathematics, for example, innovation is typically done by the young. In architecture, by the old.

malloryerik 9y ago
I've wondered how much of the youthfulness of math has to do with burnout or other factors that are unrelated to the age of a brain. By this logic, maybe someone who started late in math could be highly innovative later in life, as or more innovative than if they'd started young.
danieltillett 9y ago
I think this difference is down to the barriers to entry. To innovate in mathematics all you need is pencil and paper, to innovate in architecture you need to convince old rich bastards to build your idea.
- ordu 9y ago
  I think, that mathematics constructed by the way, that makes it difficult to be experienced adult and innovative. Math needs fresh idea, new angle to look on old problem, but the more you study math, the more you are bound to already discovered angles of view. Not every area of knowledge has this property. I believe the less formal theory in particular area, the more valuable adult as innovator. When there is no theory to structure experience by the way everyone does, you would need to invent your own personalized informal theory. Such a personalization is a key to unique ideas and therefore to innovation. Though this is just one more factor, like "old rich bastards". Reality is much more complex than that.

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jokoon 9y ago

Well you cannot innovate without experience. Innovation means to bring something new. You can't bring something really new if you don't know what is already there, and why what you want to do doesn't exist. There often are reasons.

danieltillett 9y ago

As someone who has been young (and unfortunately oldish now), I was much more innovative when younger. The one thing the old(er) version of me has over the younger version is I am now able to see better what is a good idea and what is a good idea that can be implemented.

sqldba 9y ago
I think I'm equally innovative as when I was young. But when I was young I was working for young small companies that didn't have any rules and you could do anything. Every company I work for now is absolutely groaning under the weight of bureaucracy and rules that prevent everything. You know - innovations generally don't fit in there well. I've got a mortgage. I care about getting fired over a technicality. So if you've got rules that stifle innovation then you won't see innovation. Amazingly, I do see young people in the company doing stuff, and being applauded by management. Those things ALSO break ALL of the rules. Management doesn't care. Ethically though I have a problem with breaking the rules just because I think I will get away from it. I'd rather they get rid of the damned rules. I guess I'm bitter that way and that bitterness has grown with age. When I was young I laughed at rules.
- danieltillett 9y ago
  I like to think my ideas are as good as they were as when I was younger, but I suspect this is just a lie I tell myself. The huge difference between being young and old(er) is you have a so much more to lose. When I was young all I had to lose was my dignity, today I have a wife, children, house, and security. I can’t complain in anyway as I have been very successful and answer to nobody but myself. Despite all of this I still miss the raw and angry innovation of my younger self.
Spearchucker 9y ago
As someone who was young (and very fortunately oldish now), I'm much more innovate when older. Everything the older version of me does is more insightful, considered and most importantly, likely to succeed. Experiences are more profound because I'm more aware of the moment. I'm no longer interested in the newest-model car or phone, am amazing at social interactions (super-goofy when young) and pursue fun and meaningful activities - in work and play. I have more good ideas than I know what to do with, and pass those onto others, if there's opportunity.

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austinjp 9y ago

There appears, to me, to be an ongoing narrative that pits the older against the younger. Memorably it came to a head in the UK with "analysis" of the Brexit vote and correlation with age [0]. Needs and desires change as we age, of course they do. But there's little value in placing a binary filter over this picture. The devil is in the details. Removing the nuance leads to polarised perspectives, and these turn into battle-lines. From the comments here, it's clear that some people feel more creative in their youth, some with age. There's no right or wrong. It varies by individual, circumstance, and a ton of other correlations. Articles such as this may purport or intend to uncover interesting data and conduct useful analysis. Unfortunately (probably due editorial direction and pressure to shift units) they ultimately simply encourage ongoing polemic. Perpetuating simplified, harmful world-views does little to improve things. This article in particular simply cherry-picks a bunch of "studies" to support a tenuous conjecture that is not closely examined. Any valid point is weakened by a lack of analysis, lack of robust questioning, and lack of constructive "what do we do with this information?" angle. Why was this piece commissioned and written? What is its value? Is there a problem here, and if so is a solution indicated? I don't doubt that "startup culture" overly values and exploits the young. But this piece does nothing except fan the flames. TLDR; click-bait. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2016/jun/23/eu-referendum-live-results-and-analysis https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2016/jun...