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I always found it funny, the idea that age or agism should in any way stop you from achieving cool shit in business. Entrepreneurship is a jungle. Your customer
by tw1010 8y ago
I always found it funny, the idea that age or agism should in any way stop you from achieving cool shit in business. Entrepreneurship is a jungle. Your customers, largely speaking, doesn't know your age or gender or whether or not you went to an ivy league school or anything else. Some career directions certainly do depend on that stuff, but that's mostly because they depend on other people for advancement. But building products is only a competition against forces that pull down quality, not a game of gatekeeper-signaling. If you want to succeed in business, you can either let that stuff affect you, or you can just build something that people buy and prove everyone who says there are fundamental barriers wrong.
- frockington 8y agoI found this oddly inspiring and zen. Made me want to break out and try something new
- gowld 8y agoWhat are some examples of successful businesses that launched and operate without person-to-person contact and negotiations? Purely automated online operations conceal identities, sure, but investors usually know who the entrepreneurs, and major clients and vendors and joint-venture partners do too.
- jdietrich 8y agoLots of SaaS companies were entirely bootstrapped and rely primarily or wholly on low-touch B2C or B2SME sales - most of the speakers and attendees at MicroConf would fall into this camp.
- dronescanfly 8y agoFunny how a lot of people assume that companies can only ever work with investor money...
- jrs95 8y agoIf only Rework was required reading... I honestly think you could make an entire college course just based on the stuff that the Basecamp guys have put out there. I don't necessarily agree with their perspective 100%, but it's valuable to consider vastly different viewpoints.
- codetrotter 8y agoLink for others: https://basecamp.com/books/rework https://basecamp.com/books/rework
- gowld 8y agoDid you mean to reply to a different comment?
- tonyedgecombe 8y agoI don't think they did because I read the same thing.
- dronescanfly 8y agoI was mainly hinting at the following: “but investors usually know who the entrepreneurs, and major clients and vendors and joint-venture partners“ Not every company/startup is dependent on investors or joint ventures. Building something and putting it out there. Grow by demand. Get buy offers by your ACTUAL performance, not by some investor money -> PR stunt -> hypetrain -> overestimation. I don't even mean to attack you. I just get the feeling that the general audience here assumes that an investor is NECESSARY for success
- cryptozeus 8y agoyou dont have to do those things by yourself. Can be delegated.
- amenod 8y agoIndependent mobile app vendors? Some pretty huge companies are not backed by VC capital or similar because there was no need for it at the start - and no reason to sell (yet) later.
- rasdfadsf 8y agoas i get older and if (potentially) gets harder to land clients i figure i'll just do more remote work. i think ageism is more related to visual bias than anything else edit: meaning cognitive bias kicks in after the visuals more than anything else -- although i highly doubt anyone would be jumping to hire an 82 year old (or even 70 year old) regardless of visuals. i'd prefer not to be coding for money at that age though.
- ddebernardy 8y agoMy hat goes to the old lady, but frankly, if you feel the need to code and market something at age 82 then the odds are you're either struggling to make ends meet, which might warrant giving a cold hard look at the pension system in place, or you don't have and never have had much of a life outside of work - no kids or grand-(grand-)children, no hobbies, etc.
- optimuspaul 8y agoouch, that's kind of harsh. You make a lot of assumptions.
- jrs95 8y agoThe idea that someone would do work because they enjoy it seems entirely foreign to the parent. Although I suppose that is a more western perspective as well. Sure we have that whole "do what you love" bit, but there seems to be an appreciation of "craftsmanship" for lack of a better term that the Japanese have and we seem to have largely forgotten.
- Odenwaelder 8y agoOr, she was just bored. Projecting the capitalist point of view on old japanese people is very naive.
- jdietrich 8y agoThe tech industry is full of people who don't need to work. Elon Musk could have comfortably retired in 1999 after Compaq bought Zip2. Would the world be a better place if he had done so? It's an unfortunate reality that many older Japanese people have no choice but to keep working; with that said, I applaud anyone who chooses to use their retirement to learn new skills, explore new opportunities and keep making a contribution to society.
- thereare5lights 8y agoThese are terrible assumptions coming from a very limited view of the possible circumstances.
- 8y ago
- gordon_freeman 8y agothis is so true. Listening to the story of how Bob Moore founded Bob's Red Mills in his 50s in How I Built This podcast today. And it seems the concept of age is just in our minds.