3 ms·

Ageism has always baffled me. In my pre-funding pursuits, I've always dreamed of hiring a team composed of top-tier talent. That typically means people who have

by rl3 7y ago

Ageism has always baffled me. In my pre-funding pursuits, I've always dreamed of hiring a team composed of top-tier talent. That typically means people who have been in their respective industry 20+ years. I'm in my early thirties and there's no one on my hire list that's younger than me. That isn't to say I wouldn't hire anyone younger than myself provided they've the skill—I absolutely would—it's just that age and experience (and thus skill) tend to be highly correlated. Presumably the motivation for the most common form of ageism is that young people are easier to exploit and abuse under the pretext of "saving money", but why the fuck would anyone ever want to run their company on that basis? It makes very little sense.

erikpukinskis 7y ago
> young people are easier to exploit and abuse under the pretext of "saving money", but why the fuck would anyone ever want to run their company on that basis? There are two ways to get more from your developer team: quality and quantity. Quality means you pay your people more and more as you grow. Grow from 10 to 20 over 10 years, while retaining most people and tripling their salaries. For that to work: - your revenue per employee must grow substantially - you need managers who are flexible, because you have to adapt your workplace to your employees needs rather than just hiring new people when they turn over Those are difficult things that not every owner can bring about in their company. The other approach is quantity: grow your dev team from 10 to 100 to 1000. For that to work you need: - Employees who can follow instruction without worrying too much about whether the tasks make sense - Employees who just want a standard job and don’t need much customization over their career - Efficient hiring processes, centered on a repeatable, consistent employee profile (not necessarily the most capable profiles) - Caps on wages The quantity strategy doesn’t require finesse. In fact it works better without it. You make coarse, aggregate decisions and let people turn over as needed. The turnover “cleans” the talent pool of people with special needs, which is crucial for the system to work. The quality strategy requires really smart management which is very hard to hire.
- rl3 7y ago
  The funny part about the Quantity strategy is that it eventually turns into such an unmotivated and directionless bureaucratic hellhole that often those same companies create teams or even startup-like subsidiaries following the Quality model. Ironic that, in order to achieve a modicum of quality, many large companies must insulate anything potentially valuable from their true corporate environment.
- woah 7y ago
  Tripling the salaries based just on seniority seems insane. Either you started way too low, or you're going to end up paying a lot. The developers that you were able to recruit with your low starting salary are going to end up working alongside people who came for the high salaries and may very well be quite a bit more talented. This will create a lot of friction. And at the beginning, either you are keeping your plans of an eventual 3x salary secret from employees, in which case it can not motivate them, you are promising it to them which as an employee I would view with great suspicion, or you are writing some kind of agreement about it which seems like it has all kinds of problems. Giving employees equity is a much better version of what you are trying to do and I'm puzzled as to why you didn't suggest it. - Employees get it when it's cheap and it literally represents the value of the company that you were hoping to give them in the form of higher salaries - It's not based on some kind of vague aspiration to be a good boss, it's a solid, well understood form of compensation - No new employee is going to resent a lower-skilled old timer for their equity- they earned it.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - erikpukinskis 7y ago
    > Tripling the salaries based just on seniority seems insane. That’s a little antagonistic. Your whole comment is weirdly antagonistic. > Either you started way too low, or you're going to end up paying a lot. Or 1) you start by paying what people are worth according to “market rates”, 2) at some point they break even on what they cost, 3) every year they bring in more revenue than the last and you share it with them. > The developers that you were able to recruit with your low starting salary are going to end up working alongside people who came for the high salaries and may very well be quite a bit more talented. Sure, but they’re paid on performance not “talent”. Work is not a talent show. The people getting more money have successfully deployed projects worth much more than their salary. That’s why their salaries were bumped. If this new person can do that they’ll earn the same salary. > And at the beginning, either you are keeping your plans of an eventual 3x salary secret from employees, in which case it can not motivate them, you are promising it to them which as an employee I would view with great suspicion, or you are writing some kind of agreement about it which seems like it has all kinds of problems. Seems simple enough to me. You do the math on how much revenue you think your work has brought in. I do my own math, and we negotiate a number every few years. > Employees get [equity] when it's cheap and it literally represents the value of the company that you were hoping to give them in the form of higher salaries Revenue-aligned compensation is very different from an ownership share, both materially and in terms of what they represent. > It's not based on some kind of vague aspiration to be a good boss Paying people according to their contribution to the business model is neither vague nor aspirational, although it does require you to have a business model that includes your workers. And equity calculations in my experience are pretty vague and aspirational. Not sure what you’re indicating at here. > No new employee is going to resent a lower-skilled old timer for their equity- they earned it. I’m not sure if what you’re describing is based on my actual advice or a misunderstanding so I’ll let you chime in if you think there’s still a resentment issue here.
blisterpeanuts 7y ago
(Disclaimer: I'm 60.) Young people are an excellent fit for technology jobs. They are quick to pick up new tech, enthusiastic, energetic, open minded. They're less likely to own a house and have a family to support, are hungrier for experience and learning curve, so can work for less money. More willing to settle for stock options that may or may not pan out some day. Can relocate at a moment's notice. Cons: very few. I would just say, today's young people, at least here in the U.S., seem not to have been trained to write and speak proper English. Their knowledge of history is shallow and they are lacking in some of the skills that my generation grew up learning -- fixing cars, wiring a light fixture, fist fights, cooking and cleaning. But some of them are backfilling from youtube tutorials so it works out.
- mav3rick 7y ago
  This is a refreshingly honest take. I'd love to hear your stories :)
- geowwy 7y ago
  > Young people are an excellent fit for technology jobs. They > are quick to pick up new tech, enthusiastic, energetic, > open minded. I just wonder much we really gain from all these new languages and frameworks. Do they actually help or are we just spinning our wheels? These days the majority of us work as web developers – our job isn't much more than pulling data out of a database, generating documents, and sending them over the network. We've been able to do that for decades.
turk73 7y ago
There's nothing that baffling about ageism. Corporations are like Skynet in the sense that they have a life of their own. They will do their best to drive away 40+ people and seek out H1Bs and anyone else they can exploit at low wages for long working hours. If they get even 50% of the quality, they're happy with that. Companies don't really want insightful people who will question anything, not outside of management anyways. Meanwhile, they will act all politically correct and virtue signal endlessly. Management views developers as a commodity resource, like fuel, or a truck. They use them up and buy more.

by rl3 7y ago

erikpukinskis 7y ago

> young people are easier to exploit and abuse under the pretext of "saving money", but why the fuck would anyone ever want to run their company on that basis? There are two ways to get more from your developer team: quality and quantity. Quality means you pay your people more and more as you grow. Grow from 10 to 20 over 10 years, while retaining most people and tripling their salaries. For that to work: - your revenue per employee must grow substantially - you need managers who are flexible, because you have to adapt your workplace to your employees needs rather than just hiring new people when they turn over Those are difficult things that not every owner can bring about in their company. The other approach is quantity: grow your dev team from 10 to 100 to 1000. For that to work you need: - Employees who can follow instruction without worrying too much about whether the tasks make sense - Employees who just want a standard job and don’t need much customization over their career - Efficient hiring processes, centered on a repeatable, consistent employee profile (not necessarily the most capable profiles) - Caps on wages The quantity strategy doesn’t require finesse. In fact it works better without it. You make coarse, aggregate decisions and let people turn over as needed. The turnover “cleans” the talent pool of people with special needs, which is crucial for the system to work. The quality strategy requires really smart management which is very hard to hire.

rl3 7y ago
The funny part about the Quantity strategy is that it eventually turns into such an unmotivated and directionless bureaucratic hellhole that often those same companies create teams or even startup-like subsidiaries following the Quality model. Ironic that, in order to achieve a modicum of quality, many large companies must insulate anything potentially valuable from their true corporate environment.
woah 7y ago
Tripling the salaries based just on seniority seems insane. Either you started way too low, or you're going to end up paying a lot. The developers that you were able to recruit with your low starting salary are going to end up working alongside people who came for the high salaries and may very well be quite a bit more talented. This will create a lot of friction. And at the beginning, either you are keeping your plans of an eventual 3x salary secret from employees, in which case it can not motivate them, you are promising it to them which as an employee I would view with great suspicion, or you are writing some kind of agreement about it which seems like it has all kinds of problems. Giving employees equity is a much better version of what you are trying to do and I'm puzzled as to why you didn't suggest it. - Employees get it when it's cheap and it literally represents the value of the company that you were hoping to give them in the form of higher salaries - It's not based on some kind of vague aspiration to be a good boss, it's a solid, well understood form of compensation - No new employee is going to resent a lower-skilled old timer for their equity- they earned it.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- erikpukinskis 7y ago
  > Tripling the salaries based just on seniority seems insane. That’s a little antagonistic. Your whole comment is weirdly antagonistic. > Either you started way too low, or you're going to end up paying a lot. Or 1) you start by paying what people are worth according to “market rates”, 2) at some point they break even on what they cost, 3) every year they bring in more revenue than the last and you share it with them. > The developers that you were able to recruit with your low starting salary are going to end up working alongside people who came for the high salaries and may very well be quite a bit more talented. Sure, but they’re paid on performance not “talent”. Work is not a talent show. The people getting more money have successfully deployed projects worth much more than their salary. That’s why their salaries were bumped. If this new person can do that they’ll earn the same salary. > And at the beginning, either you are keeping your plans of an eventual 3x salary secret from employees, in which case it can not motivate them, you are promising it to them which as an employee I would view with great suspicion, or you are writing some kind of agreement about it which seems like it has all kinds of problems. Seems simple enough to me. You do the math on how much revenue you think your work has brought in. I do my own math, and we negotiate a number every few years. > Employees get [equity] when it's cheap and it literally represents the value of the company that you were hoping to give them in the form of higher salaries Revenue-aligned compensation is very different from an ownership share, both materially and in terms of what they represent. > It's not based on some kind of vague aspiration to be a good boss Paying people according to their contribution to the business model is neither vague nor aspirational, although it does require you to have a business model that includes your workers. And equity calculations in my experience are pretty vague and aspirational. Not sure what you’re indicating at here. > No new employee is going to resent a lower-skilled old timer for their equity- they earned it. I’m not sure if what you’re describing is based on my actual advice or a misunderstanding so I’ll let you chime in if you think there’s still a resentment issue here.

blisterpeanuts 7y ago

(Disclaimer: I'm 60.) Young people are an excellent fit for technology jobs. They are quick to pick up new tech, enthusiastic, energetic, open minded. They're less likely to own a house and have a family to support, are hungrier for experience and learning curve, so can work for less money. More willing to settle for stock options that may or may not pan out some day. Can relocate at a moment's notice. Cons: very few. I would just say, today's young people, at least here in the U.S., seem not to have been trained to write and speak proper English. Their knowledge of history is shallow and they are lacking in some of the skills that my generation grew up learning -- fixing cars, wiring a light fixture, fist fights, cooking and cleaning. But some of them are backfilling from youtube tutorials so it works out.

mav3rick 7y ago
This is a refreshingly honest take. I'd love to hear your stories :)
geowwy 7y ago
> Young people are an excellent fit for technology jobs. They > are quick to pick up new tech, enthusiastic, energetic, > open minded. I just wonder much we really gain from all these new languages and frameworks. Do they actually help or are we just spinning our wheels? These days the majority of us work as web developers – our job isn't much more than pulling data out of a database, generating documents, and sending them over the network. We've been able to do that for decades.

turk73 7y ago

There's nothing that baffling about ageism. Corporations are like Skynet in the sense that they have a life of their own. They will do their best to drive away 40+ people and seek out H1Bs and anyone else they can exploit at low wages for long working hours. If they get even 50% of the quality, they're happy with that. Companies don't really want insightful people who will question anything, not outside of management anyways. Meanwhile, they will act all politically correct and virtue signal endlessly. Management views developers as a commodity resource, like fuel, or a truck. They use them up and buy more.