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If the job is something with such a steep learning curve and plateau (maybe due to periodic technical revolutions?) that someone with 20 years experience is onl
by rdl 8y ago
If the job is something with such a steep learning curve and plateau (maybe due to periodic technical revolutions?) that someone with 20 years experience is only insignificantly better than someone with 5 years experience, economics would support paying them the same. If we want to artificially subsidize some more expensive older workers, they should be subsidized directly by society, not by forcing employers to do so.
(There are a lot of jobs where 20 years gives better performance, or where being 51% good va 50% good would be worth a huge premium, but not all.)
Where this really gets complex is startups which are growing in headcount and shrinking in equity offer size. An early hire there might be objectively worse than a new marginal hire but has an equity vesting package which makes him vastly better paid for each month today. IIRC it was Zynga which tried to forcibly renegotiate this (instead of just firing people who were presently underperforming, the usual route).
- sgift 8y ago> If the job is something with such a steep learning curve and plateau (maybe due to periodic technical revolutions?) that someone with 20 years experience is only insignificantly better than someone with 5 years experience, economics would support paying them the same. Good news then that this isn't how tech jobs work, where about 99% of all "technical revolutions" are just renaming old things which had fallen out of fashion and use them again.
- rbanffy 8y ago> about 99% of all "technical revolutions" are just renaming old things which had fallen out of fashion and use them again Remember how thrilled web developers were when they discovered MVC the last couple times?
- kevin_thibedeau 8y agoFine but then don't create housing bubbles that lock lower paid younger workers out of the market. I have to relocate in the not too distant future because local rent and home prices eclipse my frozen salary.