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Some of reasons I’ve seen for ageism in startups are cost and “not a culture fit”. Cost I understand, but I believe more experienced people end up being cheaper

Some of reasons I’ve seen for ageism in startups are cost and “not a culture fit”. Cost I understand, but I believe more experienced people end up being cheaper in the long run when you account for speed, correctness, and long term maintainability. The culture piece stems from the “would I get a beer with this person” and will he/she work as “hard” as a younger candidate with less responsibilities. Startups need to start realizing that it’s okay to have diversity and different cultural groups. By putting yourself in the stereotypical startup culture box you greatly limit your ability to hire and create diversity. If everyone thinks and acts the same you miss out on valuable perspectives and ideas.

toomuchtodo 8y ago
Startups aren’t going to change. The goal should be to marginalize their influence and effects on tech hiring. They are simply not important enough (by hiring volume) to carry the weight they currently do.
- B0btheBuilder 8y ago
  >They are simply not important enough (by hiring volume) to carry the weight they currently do. Unforunately, they are. A large proportion of the tech industry is startups / small businesses. I'd be surprised if Google/Facebook/Amazon/Apple/Microsoft make up even 10% of tech workers.
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    Citation please. Startups are minuscule compared to total tech jobs. My current employer employees more tech workers than all YC startups combined, for example.
    - B0btheBuilder 8y ago
      Google - 85,050 employees (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google) Facebook - 25,105 employees (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook) Amazon has 566,000 employees (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(company)), but it's unclear how many of those are actually tech workers. Amazon has a lot of retail and warehouse workers, many of who with wages so low they qualify for food stamps. Apple - 123,000 employees (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc.) Apple's 2014 SEC filing said that half of their employees are retail workers, so let's give Apple 62,000 tech workers. Microsoft - 124,000 employees (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft) There are around 7 million tech workers in the USA (https://www.comptia.org/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/2017/04/03/us-tech-sector-employment-approaches-seven-million https://www.comptia.org/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/201...) Even if we pretended that all 566,000 Amazon employees were actually tech workers (they're not) and the above numbers were US-only employees (they're not), that would total to about 860,000 tech workers. 860,000 / 7 million = 12.3% That means that at least 87.7% of American tech workers do not work at Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, or Microsoft, despite these companies being five of the richest tech companies in the world.
      - toomuchtodo 8y ago
        None of this validates your thesis that startups and small businesses are the majority tech employers. If anything, it reinforces mine.
      - vonmoltke 8y ago
        On my phone on a train (so no numbers), but how about: Oracle Cisco IBM Dell HP Enterprise HP Inc. Lockheed Martin Northrop Grumman Raytheon General Dynamics General Electric Intel AMD Qualcomm Texas Instruments United Technologies Analog Devices Samsung Phillips Toshiba ... I'm gonna stop listing all the big tech companies I can think of. I madey point.
balabaster 8y ago
> when you account for speed, correctness, and long term maintainability And insight gained from a world of experience that a junior or intermediate devs doesn't have.
nobleach 8y ago
I agree. I'd like to see us quit romanticizing the SV Bro culture of 20-something startup hipsters. The goal of a startup is NOT TO BE a startup forever. Often, having a bit of 50-year-old wisdom is one of the best things one can do. Without that, we have 24 year olds "discovering" Lisp every couple of decades.
markkanof 8y ago
It is often very difficult to explain to non-developers how your first point could possibly be true. Even if you have regular discussions regarding the value of experience and the possible damage that could be done by a bad or inexperienced developer. I find that it is easy to agree at a surface level that those concepts make sense, but if someone has not actually had the experience of writing software, they have trouble really understanding this concept. Most people still see most jobs as doing x unit of work over y unit of time. So the more time that someone is willing to spend each day the better. We all know that a bad developer can actually produce negative gains for the team, but it is a hard concept to fully explain.
- logicfiction 8y ago
  I wonder if comparing it to home improvement type work would be a good universal analogy for most people. Would you rather hire the inexperienced person to come do your plumbing or the 30 year professional. The former doesn't give you a proper estimate but will work endlessly at a lower rate on the problem. This person eventually completely messes up and a water pipe in your ceiling leaks for days. Or you could have hired the other person who would almost certainly have completed it within the estimated time frame with professional quality and never caused the pipe leak.
reaperducer 8y ago
Some of reasons I’ve seen for ageism in startups are cost and “not a culture fit”. Cost I understand, but I believe more experienced people end up being cheaper in the long run when you account for speed, correctness, and long term maintainability. The culture piece stems from the “would I get a beer with this person” and will he/she work as “hard” as a younger candidate with less responsibilities. Most SV companies talk a big game about "diversity," but that never extends to diversity of age. It's funny how so many people in the valley don't understand that discrimination based on age is just as illegal as discrimination based on race or sex or any other protected class.
- aianus 8y ago
  > discrimination based on age is just as illegal Only if you discriminate against old people, it is legal to openly discriminate against the young. I guess I'm biased because I'm young but it's a little non-sensical since young people are the ones with student debt and record-high housing costs to pay for while 50-year-olds have decades of savings and stock market and real-estate appreciation to fall back on if they find themselves unemployed.
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    >50-year-olds have decades of savings and stock market and real-estate appreciation to fall back on if they find themselves unemployed. That's a lovely stereotype, but far from the truth; which is why so many people are working into their 70's these days and why reverse mortgages are on the rise. There was an article in the newspaper (You can Google what that is) recently that noted that more than half of Americans have less than $5,000 in retirement savings. A similar number live in apartments. The whole "decades of savings" thing is a cultural myth that Millennials use to make themselves feel like victims. Somehow they think they're the only generation that's ever been through hard times.
    - aianus 8y ago
      > Somehow they think they're the only generation that's ever been through hard times. Not sure how you inferred this from my comment. My parents went through much harder times when they were my age. However, unemployment would be a trivial inconvenience for them now at 50. They’d probably just retire and not bother looking for another full time gig. I don’t really know any 26-year-olds who could say the same. Edit: I looked at the data and the median 55-59 year old in the US has US$150k in net worth vs. US$19k for the median 25-29 year old. Why would the former need extra legal protections against employment discrimination and the latter not?
cfadvan 8y ago
Startups are often run like cults, and diversity of thought is anathema to running a cult.

toomuchtodo 8y ago

Startups aren’t going to change. The goal should be to marginalize their influence and effects on tech hiring. They are simply not important enough (by hiring volume) to carry the weight they currently do.

B0btheBuilder 8y ago
>They are simply not important enough (by hiring volume) to carry the weight they currently do. Unforunately, they are. A large proportion of the tech industry is startups / small businesses. I'd be surprised if Google/Facebook/Amazon/Apple/Microsoft make up even 10% of tech workers.
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  Citation please. Startups are minuscule compared to total tech jobs. My current employer employees more tech workers than all YC startups combined, for example.
  - B0btheBuilder 8y ago
    Google - 85,050 employees (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google) Facebook - 25,105 employees (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook) Amazon has 566,000 employees (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(company)), but it's unclear how many of those are actually tech workers. Amazon has a lot of retail and warehouse workers, many of who with wages so low they qualify for food stamps. Apple - 123,000 employees (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc.) Apple's 2014 SEC filing said that half of their employees are retail workers, so let's give Apple 62,000 tech workers. Microsoft - 124,000 employees (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft) There are around 7 million tech workers in the USA (https://www.comptia.org/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/2017/04/03/us-tech-sector-employment-approaches-seven-million https://www.comptia.org/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/201...) Even if we pretended that all 566,000 Amazon employees were actually tech workers (they're not) and the above numbers were US-only employees (they're not), that would total to about 860,000 tech workers. 860,000 / 7 million = 12.3% That means that at least 87.7% of American tech workers do not work at Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, or Microsoft, despite these companies being five of the richest tech companies in the world.
    - toomuchtodo 8y ago
      None of this validates your thesis that startups and small businesses are the majority tech employers. If anything, it reinforces mine.
    - vonmoltke 8y ago
      On my phone on a train (so no numbers), but how about: Oracle Cisco IBM Dell HP Enterprise HP Inc. Lockheed Martin Northrop Grumman Raytheon General Dynamics General Electric Intel AMD Qualcomm Texas Instruments United Technologies Analog Devices Samsung Phillips Toshiba ... I'm gonna stop listing all the big tech companies I can think of. I madey point.

balabaster 8y ago

> when you account for speed, correctness, and long term maintainability And insight gained from a world of experience that a junior or intermediate devs doesn't have.

nobleach 8y ago

I agree. I'd like to see us quit romanticizing the SV Bro culture of 20-something startup hipsters. The goal of a startup is NOT TO BE a startup forever. Often, having a bit of 50-year-old wisdom is one of the best things one can do. Without that, we have 24 year olds "discovering" Lisp every couple of decades.

markkanof 8y ago

It is often very difficult to explain to non-developers how your first point could possibly be true. Even if you have regular discussions regarding the value of experience and the possible damage that could be done by a bad or inexperienced developer. I find that it is easy to agree at a surface level that those concepts make sense, but if someone has not actually had the experience of writing software, they have trouble really understanding this concept. Most people still see most jobs as doing x unit of work over y unit of time. So the more time that someone is willing to spend each day the better. We all know that a bad developer can actually produce negative gains for the team, but it is a hard concept to fully explain.

logicfiction 8y ago
I wonder if comparing it to home improvement type work would be a good universal analogy for most people. Would you rather hire the inexperienced person to come do your plumbing or the 30 year professional. The former doesn't give you a proper estimate but will work endlessly at a lower rate on the problem. This person eventually completely messes up and a water pipe in your ceiling leaks for days. Or you could have hired the other person who would almost certainly have completed it within the estimated time frame with professional quality and never caused the pipe leak.

reaperducer 8y ago

Some of reasons I’ve seen for ageism in startups are cost and “not a culture fit”. Cost I understand, but I believe more experienced people end up being cheaper in the long run when you account for speed, correctness, and long term maintainability. The culture piece stems from the “would I get a beer with this person” and will he/she work as “hard” as a younger candidate with less responsibilities. Most SV companies talk a big game about "diversity," but that never extends to diversity of age. It's funny how so many people in the valley don't understand that discrimination based on age is just as illegal as discrimination based on race or sex or any other protected class.

aianus 8y ago
> discrimination based on age is just as illegal Only if you discriminate against old people, it is legal to openly discriminate against the young. I guess I'm biased because I'm young but it's a little non-sensical since young people are the ones with student debt and record-high housing costs to pay for while 50-year-olds have decades of savings and stock market and real-estate appreciation to fall back on if they find themselves unemployed.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  >50-year-olds have decades of savings and stock market and real-estate appreciation to fall back on if they find themselves unemployed. That's a lovely stereotype, but far from the truth; which is why so many people are working into their 70's these days and why reverse mortgages are on the rise. There was an article in the newspaper (You can Google what that is) recently that noted that more than half of Americans have less than $5,000 in retirement savings. A similar number live in apartments. The whole "decades of savings" thing is a cultural myth that Millennials use to make themselves feel like victims. Somehow they think they're the only generation that's ever been through hard times.
  - aianus 8y ago
    > Somehow they think they're the only generation that's ever been through hard times. Not sure how you inferred this from my comment. My parents went through much harder times when they were my age. However, unemployment would be a trivial inconvenience for them now at 50. They’d probably just retire and not bother looking for another full time gig. I don’t really know any 26-year-olds who could say the same. Edit: I looked at the data and the median 55-59 year old in the US has US$150k in net worth vs. US$19k for the median 25-29 year old. Why would the former need extra legal protections against employment discrimination and the latter not?

cfadvan 8y ago

Startups are often run like cults, and diversity of thought is anathema to running a cult.