13 ms·

35 Over 35

358 points by danso 7y ago

automathematics 7y ago
Love this. People like to think they can't do anything as they get older. That mental state will be a self fulfilling prophecy!
- incomplete 7y ago
  seconded. thirded. this is great!
- yumraj 7y ago
  Exactly. I'm 45 and on my n-th startup attempt as a founder, after n-1 failures, where 5<n<10. I'll see what lasts longer, me or my failures. :)
  - p1esk 7y ago
    What are you working on? :)
    - yumraj 7y ago
      Little too early to disclose the details, but it's in the eCommerce content marketing space currently dominated by the likes of BazaarVoice, PowerReviews ... >$5B TAM (for overall marketing automation space) and a CAGR of 15-20%.
      - p1esk 7y ago
        Are you a domain expert in that space? How did you come up with the idea?
        yumraj 7y ago
        Not domain expert. Personal experience, research, observations of the market dynamics, conversations with others who shared the pain led to identification of the problem space and corresponding hypothesis. Borrowed elements of proposed solution from adjacent spaces. Currently in pre-seed stage, so still a lot of work to do.
        p1esk 7y ago
        I’m graduating with a phd in deep learning in 3 months, trying to decide whether to join FAANG or do my own thing. What is the most valuable lesson you learned from your failures?
        yumraj 7y ago
        @p1esk replying to your question as reply to my own comment as for some reason I'm not seeing the "reply" link below your comment. Unfortunately all failures have their own nuances. In some cases it was the issue with market dynamics, in others I think the idea itself was not good enough. I think we always underestimate the inertia of a market, healthcare and anything to do with government are prime examples of that. Of course I'm sure I also lack something but I try to make it up with tenacity. Disclosure, some of the attempts were side projects while I was willing to full time, which, while financially better, had its own issues. Regarding your situation, I'll say take a look at two things, your financial situation and what idea you have. Not sure if that's what you're looking for but I'd be happy to shoot you an email to chat offline.
        p1esk 7y ago
        Thanks. Unfortunately I don’t have any good ideas at the moment. And what’s even worse I don’t see anyone around me I could partner up with.
      - mrmonkeyman 7y ago
        eCommerce content marketing. What an incredible heartbreakingly depressing topic to focus your life's precious little energy on. But whatever floats your boat and I wish you good luck of course.
- freyr 7y ago
  Do people really think this way, besides young people and tech managers? I'm over 35 and my productivity and capacity to learn new things has only continued to grow over time. It's true that many exceptional artifacts have been produced by people when they're relatively young. I think this is more a byproduct of ignorance (i.e., seeing the world with a fresh pair of eyes). But as this list shows, maybe age isn't the critical factor -- maybe it's about diving into something new and unfamiliar.
  - BigJono 7y ago
    I think maybe it's possible that given a very smart programmer with 1-5 years experience, the value of not having had time to learn the wrong way of doing things far outweighs the value of another 10 or 20 years experience. A lot of our 'best practices' seem curiously tailored toward keeping mediocre developers in check and producing consistent rather than extraordinary results. Maybe our industry just grinds the greatness out of you by 25 or 30 unless you actively fight it.
    - AQuantized 7y ago
      What do you think is an example of such a "best practice"?
      - BigJono 7y ago
        I mean the classic Java > Lisp decision that Paul Graham is always talking about surely fits the bill.
    - taneq 7y ago
      I think if someone's better with 5 years' experience than 20 years' experience then they have a very low skill ceiling for the task at hand. Part of that 20 years' experience, of course, is learning to ignore 'best practices' that actually aren't 'best' at all (or more likely, are 'best' for some situation you're not actually in).
    - Swizec 7y ago
      > Maybe our industry just grinds the greatness out of you by 25 or 30 unless you actively fight it. Maybe people just get tired of churning out CRUD apps after 10 years and want to do something else. A lot of stuff loses its charm after you see behind the curtain.
- moksly 7y ago
  I’ve met some people with this mentality, and it’s really kind of heartbreaking, because it’s never too late, especially not at 35. Most people who are 35 haven’t even lived half their life, in some countries you’re only half-way to retirement age. I think ageism is a growing problem though, and I’m not sure why. This is anecdotal, but I’ve been the examiner for a quite a lot of young CS students and it’s extremely rare to meet one who isn’t at least five years from being truly useful. It happens of course, but in general, I would much rather hire someone older and more experienced. Yet there is this idea that young developers are better, not every where, but a lot of places. One of the major IT companies in Denmark (KMD) was recently caught having a hiring practice of only hiring people below 36. It’s illegal, but what’s really interesting is that they’ve done this for a decade, and they’re now one of the most struggling major IT companies with heaps of scandals, dataleaks and delays. I know you can’t rightly blame that on their practice of hiring young people, it could be happening for lots of reasons, and their management is probably questionable considering how their hiring practices break the law. Hiring young didn’t help them avoid their troubles though. To get back on track though, I’ve know people who switched careers as they got older and excelled where they ended up. My mother in law got her PHD after 55, and is currently using it vividly to influence and teach around the country. She was a high-school teacher for 20 years before she got into research. If you look beyond anecdotes though, research has shown that the most successful company founders are 40-49[1]. I’m sure a lot of those people have been trying since they were in their 20ies. As I’ve said I think experience is usually an advantage, but that doesn’t mean it’s a requirement. I don’t think it’s ever too late to go for it, I mean, you probably won’t win the Tour de France in your 50ies, but you don’t have to be successful. There are a few Danish authors who are successful that started late, that you’ve never heard of because they aren’t successful enough to make it on a list like this. They make a living doing what they love though. [1] https://hbr.org/2018/07/research-the-average-age-of-a-successful-startup-founder-is-45 https://hbr.org/2018/07/research-the-average-age-of-a-succes...
wenbin 7y ago
reminds me of this quora question and excellent answers What do people in Silicon Valley plan to do once they are over 35 since most will neither make it big nor move up the management chain of command? https://www.quora.com/What-do-people-in-Silicon-Valley-plan-to-do-once-they-are-over-35-since-most-will-neither-make-it-big-nor-move-up-the-management-chain-of-command https://www.quora.com/What-do-people-in-Silicon-Valley-plan-...
- angarg12 7y ago
  This is something I'm battling with right now. As I get older, it's more common to see people younger than me being more successful. When you are starting your career, you only see all the possibilities to fulfill your goals. As you age and don't get quite there, you start to question if you are good enough, and wonder if you'll ever reach your goals, or should just give up. It takes a lot of discipline to keep the right state of mind.
  - Swizec 7y ago
    As someone going through this right now (turning 32 in October, eek) I've come to realize a few things that have helped. "Good enough" is an all encompassing set of criteria. You can be the most brilliant person in the world, but if you are unable or unwilling to take the necessary risks to achieve X, then you re not good enough. If you're too risk taking, that's also not good enough. Everything plays into that. Like a former F1 driver whose name I can't remember said in a podcast once: "Yeah I was good. I was really good. On my best days I was faster than Schumacher, Senna, Prost, and all of them" ... "So why weren't you champion?" ... "Well that's the thing. I was amazing on my good days. The real champions, the ones that make history, they don't have bad days or good days. They're _always_ at their best." The other realization: You play the cards you've got, not the cards you wish you had. Wherever you are right now, whatever you've got in terms of skill, assets, connections, etc ... that's what you've got to work with. Focus on playing the hand you have the best way you can.
  - mrtksn 7y ago
    Just update your goals. Who says that one accomplishment is better than the other? You are not a quitter or a failure only because you did not complete a goal that was arbitrarily created by a younger you or someone else. Surely some material success needs to be accomplished but it is proven that above a certain level the returns of it in term of happiness diminish. You can also forget about goals that younger you imposed on you. I am sure that even younger you imposed even sillier goals that you just outgrew. Maybe you aspired to be the best in Counter-Strike, date the most popular girl/guy in high school or becoming a great PHP developer who works for Yahoo? Who knows but nobody cares anymore. You can outgrow the current ones too. Opportunities and aspirations come and go as we grow, age, get sick or well, poorer or richer. Don't stick to the old ones and explore the ones that are appropriate to your situation.
copperx 7y ago
A famous writer once said that no one should write a book before 40. So it's not a totally crazy idea.
- webwielder2 7y ago
  That’s a pretty dumb thing to say given all the excellent books written by younger people.
  - ekianjo 7y ago
    Outliers. Most of the books written by younger people who have no experience in life will sound immature to anyone above their age.
    - baroffoos 7y ago
      How many of those great books written by over 40yo authors had never written books before that age allowing them to develop their writing skills?
      - ehnto 7y ago
        Writing books is how you get good at writing books, and young people read books too, so it's no loss if an older reader feels it's immature. Perhaps in their wisdom, the older reader could find some empathy for the younger writers current lens that they are writing through.
      - boffinism 7y ago
        Goodness, if only someone compiled an article's worth of authors who only first got published after 35. Maybe around 35 of them would be enough to answer your question.
    - nguoi 7y ago
      Good writers are outliers, most books will sound immature. When the author's gatekeeping would get rid of much of Shakespeare's output, maybe it's too much?
acutesoftware 7y ago
Good article, it is obvious that as we get older we (statistically) have a lesser chance of success in winning an Olympic medal or out twitching the best FPS gamers - but for writing and IT work - age doesn't come into it. What does come into it (and why this bias continues) is that perhaps a highly percent of older IT workers are behind the times or irrelevant - some people simply stop wanting to learn and grow.
- jjeaff 7y ago
  I think a bigger part of it is that older IT and developer types are less likely to live at the workplace and allow themselves to be taken advantage of. They are more likely to have one of those pesky families that get in the way of absolute, total devotion to the company. They might even be so "uncommitted" to the work that they go home by 6pm.
  - c0nducktr 7y ago
    Also, when some of the "growth" comes from learning the new, but not actually better way of doing something, it's understandable that older workers might be less enthused than people who haven't been around the block a few times already.
- dwd 7y ago
  Define learning and growth. Do you mean being proficient with the flavour of the month shiny new language or framework; applying the latest syntax in a specific language, adding an additional domain of knowledge you can write code for or being up to date with any of the multitude of skills around writing code? Often older IT people will recognise a dead-end idea that they have tried before which failed and are hesitant for good reason.
- danielscrubs 7y ago
  Haven’t met any that stops growing, what many do though is focus more on the business side and less on the coding, because it’s easier to get money that way. Starting freelancing with their own tax schemes, becoming a power point knight, short IT architect stints. When you are young you want to dazzle people with your own projects, when you get old you want to have money enough that you get time to dazzle people. But in the end we never really dazzle people like we did when coding young, because we want to make younglings to feel encouragement, especially before college.
hydrox24 7y ago
What a good list. Most Australians would tell you if you asked them that you can achieve something extraordinary, or begin something new after the age of 35. But I think people are just trying to say the right thing. They know it's true in their heads, but I am not sure that their hearts know. I am under the age of 25, so well under 35, and I am hoping to live out this advice, and spend my early years learning to learn, and constantly try out new stuff. But there are very few role models that I can look to in my life who have really kicked off their work at 30 or 35. I suspect this is true for a lot of people (regardless of age). Grandmothers getting degrees is still a quaint, publishable news-story. I would love to hear from any people in the hacker news crowd that have changed careers 'late,' or intentionally spent their early years taking career/skill risks.
- josephdviviano 7y ago
  I didn't do any of this intentionally. I studied psychology in undergrad and graduated the year of the great financial crisis. Also had a bad GPA, 3.0. I had lots of ideas but there was always a big skills gap between what I wanted to do and what I knew how to do (and what my degree said I could do). I am obsessed with fixing problems in medical decision making (back then it was specific to diagnosis, now I'm more general). I fumbled for a few years before worming my way into a middle-ranked graduate department of Neuroscience. Learned how to work an MRI and how to hack scripts in Matlab. Realized I could think in maths/stats even though none of my transcripts suggested I could (my only undergrad math course was calculus, I took it twice, and the second time I got a 67). I went to a conference in 2012 and saw a Harvard Business Review article on big data in the airport on my way home. I thought to myself "no one is going to care about my MRI research but I bet I can become a data scientist without a PhD". So I found a lab-tech job post-MSc for a bit and then I became a "research methods specialist" and worked in a research hospital for 4 years. I learned a lot about high-performance computing, the kinds of models used for pre-clinical trials, and methods development for clinical research. I ended up on a lot of papers. My CV now rivals many PhD grads I know. Then through some networking and persistence, I find myself at the tail end of a professional MSc in computer science at a top-ranked machine learning institute. I have successfully survived both core CS coursework and graduate courses in reinforcement learning and deep learning. I'm currently working on multiple deep learning research projects and getting to know some really interesting people doing biomedical startups. 10 years ago I was living in my dad's basement, a psych grad who couldn't math and showed pretty much zero aptitude for these kinds of endeavors. I never would have believed that I would be in the kind of program I am in now. I'm only 32, and my story isn't done, but I'm sure if I make it onto any list, it will be one for people over the age of 35.
fouc 7y ago
I was expecting a list of entrepreneurs rather than authors, still a good list. Also I didn't realize it was going to be "those that started after 35 & then achieved success" which is a great idea.
- Alissia17 7y ago
  Rate my young hot ass, pls - https://ezo.no/kitty17 https://ezo.no/kitty17
VeninVidiaVicii 7y ago
I'm starting my PhD in genetics later this month, and I'm 34. So, this is good news!
- codezero 7y ago
  Good on you! I bailed out of. PhD at 32 and found a new career. You can always have a new start.
kevindeasis 7y ago
I read this description, `These writers got their start after age 35—there’s still hope for you`, and I was like man this is amazing. But, when these people we're mentioned to have published after 35, it kinda tells me that these people have been writing for quite some time Another list that I would like to see is people, who just started writing extensively after 35 and getting published after 35 : )
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  Here's one: Mary Wesley. Only turned to writing in her late 50s. Ten bestsellers after 70. Took about a dozen years to get her first novel published, which finally was aged 71: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Wesley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Wesley
sunstone 7y ago
Alister MacLeod wasn't published until he was forty and didn't publish the fabulous novel "No Great Mischief" until he was 63.
crispyporkbites 7y ago
It takes about 7 years on average to achieve proficiency in a given domain. Usually 3-5 years of study and 2-4 years of real world experience. If you really want to you can have 5 or 6 different careers in life. Are you 35 and want to become a doctor? An architect? An engineer? An actor? Go back to school and you’ll get there by 42. The problem is that most people either have financial commitments or too much pride to go back to the start again.
benj111 7y ago
I've found a bug: "These writers got their start after age 35" "crop of “Best 35 Writers Under 35,” " What about the actual 35 year olds?
Alissia17 7y ago
Rate my young hot ass, pls - https://ezo.no/kitty17 https://ezo.no/kitty17
tjbiddle 7y ago
I don't understand: Is 35 normally considered too old to make something of yourself by society? I'm turning 28 this month and I feel like I'm quite far ahead compared to my peers, yet feel like I'm absolutely still fumbling through life. And when speaking to friends older than me, the majority seem to still be fumbling through as well. Every rotation around the sun my opinion is solidified that we're all just wingin' it, no matter the age and success can happen whenever.
- inflatableDodo 7y ago
  Everybody is either copying something someone else made up, or making it up as they go along. Most people only try the second strategy when the first one fails. In regards to this article, I would not be at all surprised if the average age of first publishing for successful authors was well above 35. Is apparently around 45, for successful startup founders. 'Research: The Average Age of a Successful Startup Founder Is 45' - https://hbr.org/2018/07/research-the-average-age-of-a-successful-startup-founder-is-45 https://hbr.org/2018/07/research-the-average-age-of-a-succes...
- arethuza 7y ago
  I think it's a reaction to the published lists of people who are under something like 35. NB Regarding the "fumbling through" feeling, I'm 53 and I think one of the comforting things about getting older is realising that it's not just you but that, in general, everyone is pretty much making life up as they go along :-)
  - donkeyd 7y ago
    > everyone is pretty much making life up as they go along :-) This has also been my observation at 30. I've worked with people all ages and people of all statures and most people are just doing what they think is right and not much is based on facts. Even high ranking people at fortune 500 companies are just doing what feels right to them and often their success is more related to people below them working their asses off than their leadership. The only difference between people who are in control and people who don't, is often that the former don't have a realistic view of why they're successful. And, as a nuance, there are of course people who are really good at what they do and that have a lot of knowledge. A lot of people, however, just were really lucky (or really good at networking) to get where they are. Even some Nobel Prize winners just got lucky: http://www.physics.org/featuredetail.asp?id=71 http://www.physics.org/featuredetail.asp?id=71
wickerman 7y ago
I always remind myself that Paul Gauguin started painting for the first time at 35, and almost at 40 decided to stop being a wealthy stock broker to live as a painter. Regardless of the ethics of that decision (he did leave everyone in his family behind, after all) I do think it's pretty impressive that he picked up a profession like that so late and developed it in such an impressive way (I love his artwork, I think it's incredibly beautiful).
- chumali 7y ago
  > decided to stop being a wealthy stock broker to live as a painter He lost everything after the 1882 market crash and eventually moved to Tahiti to pursue the allure of the 'free-spirited and noble savage'. Whilst there he took three teenage brides and infected them with syphilis, from which he himself eventually died.
  - wickerman 7y ago
    Yep, fully aware of his pedophilia. But the thread is not about morally upstanding people, rather of people who chose to start something in their middle age. You might also want to point out that by the time he became a full time painter sale of paintings was also super low so it wasn't that the decision was purely because stock brokering was a less desirable outcome. He knew he was choosing a life of poverty.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
nickjj 7y ago
I find that I like learning and writing at 35+. I didn't even start making technical video courses until I was 35 which involved writing close to 1 million words in a few years. That would be roughly 4,000 pages of content in book form. Come to think of it, 35 is when I started writing a blog too.
JansjoFromIkea 7y ago
It really depends on the medium. Writers can continually improve and refine their skillset throughout their lives and that seems to be the case throughout history. Whereas musicians seem to either lose inspiration or interest as they get older, maybe it's just a medium that benefits a lot from the enthusiasm and discovery of youth. That being said, I do suspect there will be a much greater number of people emerging at older ages over the next few decades as more people opt to not go down the typical path of obligations and more flexible work situations allow for more time to focus on passions (for those who can afford to not be working all the time)
scottlocklin 7y ago
This is just bizarre. A collection of contemporary nobodies and actually famous authors who happen to be over 35. We're not talking mathematicians here or sprinters; these are (mostly) novelists. Of course there are a lot of them over 35.
hackernews7899 7y ago
If anyone is reading this in dread, there is a recent book that addresses this: https://www.latebloomer.com https://www.latebloomer.com I have no connections to the book. Just recently came across it and it addresses many of the topics in this thread. "We live in a society where kids and parents are obsessed with early achievement, from getting perfect scores on SATs to getting into Ivy League colleges to landing an amazing job at Google or Facebook–or even better, creating a startup with the potential to be the next Google or Facebook or Uber. We see software coders becoming millionaires or even billionaires before age 30 and feel we are failing if we are not one of them. But there is good news. A lot of us–most of us–do not explode out of the gates in life. That was true for author Rich Karlgaard, who had a mediocre academic career at Stanford (which he got into by a fluke), and after graduating, worked as a dishwasher, night watchman, and typing temp before finally finding the inner motivation and drive that ultimately led him to start up a high-tech magazine in Silicon Valley, and eventually to become the publisher of Forbes magazine. There is a scientific explanation for why so many of us bloom later in life. The executive function of our brains don’t mature until age 25–and later for some. In fact, our brain’s capabilities peak at different ages. We actually enjoy multiple periods of blooming in our lives. Based on several years of research, personal experience, and interviews with neuroscientists and psychologists, and countless people at different stages of their careers, Late Bloomers reveals how and when we achieve full potential–and why an algorithmic acuity in math is such an anomaly in terms of career success."
rglover 7y ago
As long as you're breathing and can do the thing you want to do, your age doesn't matter. Go do what you want to do.
cafard 7y ago
A very odd list. Yes, Lampedusa had been dead for a year when his book was published--but how old was he when he wrote it? U.S. Grant was otherwise occupied for much of the time before he began his memoir, wasn't he? Burgess's Little Wilson and Big God shows that he did quite a bit of writing before he got Time for a Tiger published.
sharadov 7y ago
Ok, they wrote their magnum opus or the book that got them famous after 35, but it says nothing about all the writing they were probably doing before that. A lot of writers slave away in obscurity while holding down other jobs. Then they might publish that book which makes them famous.It does not mean they just woke up one day and wrote that book ( may happen in a few cases..). You may be writing for unknown journals, or may be writing but never have the contacts to get it published, or you may be writing, but never think your work is good enough to be read...
glonq 7y ago
Sure, but did any of them get started after the age of 47? Asking for ... um ... a friend.
r34 7y ago
Ancient Greeks called the life period when one is about 40 "akme". It is a period of greatest mental skills (can't find it on English Wiki, but here is German: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akme https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akme). The "I'm 30, so I'm to old" syndrome is a consequence of very natural social phenomenon - society wants one to be well defined and established, easy to predict.
- yters 7y ago
  Yes, Plato didn't think anyone should engage in philosophy, considered the most intellectually demanding pursuit, until at least 40 and having undergone a long holistic education and serving in the military.
thorstenn 7y ago
Strange nobody mentions the value of domain knowledge. My opinion is that there's little difference between young and old developers, but a difference in their domain knowledge. Valued software developers understand not only software but also their problem domain.
erikig 7y ago
I like this but I also wish they'd do a "75 over 75" or a "90 over 90" - I think those has more longer term value.
rurban 7y ago
William Gaddis published his first novel (Recognitions) with 33, his next (JR) with 53, his third (Carpenter's Gothic) with 63, his fourth (A Frolic of His Own) with 72, and his fifth and last (Agapē Agape) with 80. That's it. He was one of the world best novelists. Good things need time. Many even thought he is Thomas Pynchon, but his style is imho much better than Pynchon's. No comparison.

358 points by danso 7y ago

Love this. People like to think they can't do anything as they get older. That mental state will be a self fulfilling prophecy!

incomplete 7y ago
seconded. thirded. this is great!
yumraj 7y ago
Exactly. I'm 45 and on my n-th startup attempt as a founder, after n-1 failures, where 5<n<10. I'll see what lasts longer, me or my failures. :)
- p1esk 7y ago
  What are you working on? :)
  - yumraj 7y ago
    Little too early to disclose the details, but it's in the eCommerce content marketing space currently dominated by the likes of BazaarVoice, PowerReviews ... >$5B TAM (for overall marketing automation space) and a CAGR of 15-20%.
    - p1esk 7y ago
      Are you a domain expert in that space? How did you come up with the idea?
      - yumraj 7y ago
        Not domain expert. Personal experience, research, observations of the market dynamics, conversations with others who shared the pain led to identification of the problem space and corresponding hypothesis. Borrowed elements of proposed solution from adjacent spaces. Currently in pre-seed stage, so still a lot of work to do.
        p1esk 7y ago
        I’m graduating with a phd in deep learning in 3 months, trying to decide whether to join FAANG or do my own thing. What is the most valuable lesson you learned from your failures?
        yumraj 7y ago
        @p1esk replying to your question as reply to my own comment as for some reason I'm not seeing the "reply" link below your comment. Unfortunately all failures have their own nuances. In some cases it was the issue with market dynamics, in others I think the idea itself was not good enough. I think we always underestimate the inertia of a market, healthcare and anything to do with government are prime examples of that. Of course I'm sure I also lack something but I try to make it up with tenacity. Disclosure, some of the attempts were side projects while I was willing to full time, which, while financially better, had its own issues. Regarding your situation, I'll say take a look at two things, your financial situation and what idea you have. Not sure if that's what you're looking for but I'd be happy to shoot you an email to chat offline.
        p1esk 7y ago
        Thanks. Unfortunately I don’t have any good ideas at the moment. And what’s even worse I don’t see anyone around me I could partner up with.
    - mrmonkeyman 7y ago
      eCommerce content marketing. What an incredible heartbreakingly depressing topic to focus your life's precious little energy on. But whatever floats your boat and I wish you good luck of course.
freyr 7y ago
Do people really think this way, besides young people and tech managers? I'm over 35 and my productivity and capacity to learn new things has only continued to grow over time. It's true that many exceptional artifacts have been produced by people when they're relatively young. I think this is more a byproduct of ignorance (i.e., seeing the world with a fresh pair of eyes). But as this list shows, maybe age isn't the critical factor -- maybe it's about diving into something new and unfamiliar.
- BigJono 7y ago
  I think maybe it's possible that given a very smart programmer with 1-5 years experience, the value of not having had time to learn the wrong way of doing things far outweighs the value of another 10 or 20 years experience. A lot of our 'best practices' seem curiously tailored toward keeping mediocre developers in check and producing consistent rather than extraordinary results. Maybe our industry just grinds the greatness out of you by 25 or 30 unless you actively fight it.
  - AQuantized 7y ago
    What do you think is an example of such a "best practice"?
    - BigJono 7y ago
      I mean the classic Java > Lisp decision that Paul Graham is always talking about surely fits the bill.
  - taneq 7y ago
    I think if someone's better with 5 years' experience than 20 years' experience then they have a very low skill ceiling for the task at hand. Part of that 20 years' experience, of course, is learning to ignore 'best practices' that actually aren't 'best' at all (or more likely, are 'best' for some situation you're not actually in).
  - Swizec 7y ago
    > Maybe our industry just grinds the greatness out of you by 25 or 30 unless you actively fight it. Maybe people just get tired of churning out CRUD apps after 10 years and want to do something else. A lot of stuff loses its charm after you see behind the curtain.
moksly 7y ago
I’ve met some people with this mentality, and it’s really kind of heartbreaking, because it’s never too late, especially not at 35. Most people who are 35 haven’t even lived half their life, in some countries you’re only half-way to retirement age. I think ageism is a growing problem though, and I’m not sure why. This is anecdotal, but I’ve been the examiner for a quite a lot of young CS students and it’s extremely rare to meet one who isn’t at least five years from being truly useful. It happens of course, but in general, I would much rather hire someone older and more experienced. Yet there is this idea that young developers are better, not every where, but a lot of places. One of the major IT companies in Denmark (KMD) was recently caught having a hiring practice of only hiring people below 36. It’s illegal, but what’s really interesting is that they’ve done this for a decade, and they’re now one of the most struggling major IT companies with heaps of scandals, dataleaks and delays. I know you can’t rightly blame that on their practice of hiring young people, it could be happening for lots of reasons, and their management is probably questionable considering how their hiring practices break the law. Hiring young didn’t help them avoid their troubles though. To get back on track though, I’ve know people who switched careers as they got older and excelled where they ended up. My mother in law got her PHD after 55, and is currently using it vividly to influence and teach around the country. She was a high-school teacher for 20 years before she got into research. If you look beyond anecdotes though, research has shown that the most successful company founders are 40-49[1]. I’m sure a lot of those people have been trying since they were in their 20ies. As I’ve said I think experience is usually an advantage, but that doesn’t mean it’s a requirement. I don’t think it’s ever too late to go for it, I mean, you probably won’t win the Tour de France in your 50ies, but you don’t have to be successful. There are a few Danish authors who are successful that started late, that you’ve never heard of because they aren’t successful enough to make it on a list like this. They make a living doing what they love though. [1] https://hbr.org/2018/07/research-the-average-age-of-a-successful-startup-founder-is-45 https://hbr.org/2018/07/research-the-average-age-of-a-succes...

wenbin 7y ago

reminds me of this quora question and excellent answers What do people in Silicon Valley plan to do once they are over 35 since most will neither make it big nor move up the management chain of command? https://www.quora.com/What-do-people-in-Silicon-Valley-plan-to-do-once-they-are-over-35-since-most-will-neither-make-it-big-nor-move-up-the-management-chain-of-command https://www.quora.com/What-do-people-in-Silicon-Valley-plan-...

angarg12 7y ago
This is something I'm battling with right now. As I get older, it's more common to see people younger than me being more successful. When you are starting your career, you only see all the possibilities to fulfill your goals. As you age and don't get quite there, you start to question if you are good enough, and wonder if you'll ever reach your goals, or should just give up. It takes a lot of discipline to keep the right state of mind.
- Swizec 7y ago
  As someone going through this right now (turning 32 in October, eek) I've come to realize a few things that have helped. "Good enough" is an all encompassing set of criteria. You can be the most brilliant person in the world, but if you are unable or unwilling to take the necessary risks to achieve X, then you re not good enough. If you're too risk taking, that's also not good enough. Everything plays into that. Like a former F1 driver whose name I can't remember said in a podcast once: "Yeah I was good. I was really good. On my best days I was faster than Schumacher, Senna, Prost, and all of them" ... "So why weren't you champion?" ... "Well that's the thing. I was amazing on my good days. The real champions, the ones that make history, they don't have bad days or good days. They're _always_ at their best." The other realization: You play the cards you've got, not the cards you wish you had. Wherever you are right now, whatever you've got in terms of skill, assets, connections, etc ... that's what you've got to work with. Focus on playing the hand you have the best way you can.
- mrtksn 7y ago
  Just update your goals. Who says that one accomplishment is better than the other? You are not a quitter or a failure only because you did not complete a goal that was arbitrarily created by a younger you or someone else. Surely some material success needs to be accomplished but it is proven that above a certain level the returns of it in term of happiness diminish. You can also forget about goals that younger you imposed on you. I am sure that even younger you imposed even sillier goals that you just outgrew. Maybe you aspired to be the best in Counter-Strike, date the most popular girl/guy in high school or becoming a great PHP developer who works for Yahoo? Who knows but nobody cares anymore. You can outgrow the current ones too. Opportunities and aspirations come and go as we grow, age, get sick or well, poorer or richer. Don't stick to the old ones and explore the ones that are appropriate to your situation.

copperx 7y ago

A famous writer once said that no one should write a book before 40. So it's not a totally crazy idea.

webwielder2 7y ago
That’s a pretty dumb thing to say given all the excellent books written by younger people.
- ekianjo 7y ago
  Outliers. Most of the books written by younger people who have no experience in life will sound immature to anyone above their age.
  - baroffoos 7y ago
    How many of those great books written by over 40yo authors had never written books before that age allowing them to develop their writing skills?
    - ehnto 7y ago
      Writing books is how you get good at writing books, and young people read books too, so it's no loss if an older reader feels it's immature. Perhaps in their wisdom, the older reader could find some empathy for the younger writers current lens that they are writing through.
    - boffinism 7y ago
      Goodness, if only someone compiled an article's worth of authors who only first got published after 35. Maybe around 35 of them would be enough to answer your question.
  - nguoi 7y ago
    Good writers are outliers, most books will sound immature. When the author's gatekeeping would get rid of much of Shakespeare's output, maybe it's too much?

acutesoftware 7y ago

Good article, it is obvious that as we get older we (statistically) have a lesser chance of success in winning an Olympic medal or out twitching the best FPS gamers - but for writing and IT work - age doesn't come into it. What does come into it (and why this bias continues) is that perhaps a highly percent of older IT workers are behind the times or irrelevant - some people simply stop wanting to learn and grow.

jjeaff 7y ago
I think a bigger part of it is that older IT and developer types are less likely to live at the workplace and allow themselves to be taken advantage of. They are more likely to have one of those pesky families that get in the way of absolute, total devotion to the company. They might even be so "uncommitted" to the work that they go home by 6pm.
- c0nducktr 7y ago
  Also, when some of the "growth" comes from learning the new, but not actually better way of doing something, it's understandable that older workers might be less enthused than people who haven't been around the block a few times already.
dwd 7y ago
Define learning and growth. Do you mean being proficient with the flavour of the month shiny new language or framework; applying the latest syntax in a specific language, adding an additional domain of knowledge you can write code for or being up to date with any of the multitude of skills around writing code? Often older IT people will recognise a dead-end idea that they have tried before which failed and are hesitant for good reason.
danielscrubs 7y ago
Haven’t met any that stops growing, what many do though is focus more on the business side and less on the coding, because it’s easier to get money that way. Starting freelancing with their own tax schemes, becoming a power point knight, short IT architect stints. When you are young you want to dazzle people with your own projects, when you get old you want to have money enough that you get time to dazzle people. But in the end we never really dazzle people like we did when coding young, because we want to make younglings to feel encouragement, especially before college.

hydrox24 7y ago

What a good list. Most Australians would tell you if you asked them that you can achieve something extraordinary, or begin something new after the age of 35. But I think people are just trying to say the right thing. They know it's true in their heads, but I am not sure that their hearts know. I am under the age of 25, so well under 35, and I am hoping to live out this advice, and spend my early years learning to learn, and constantly try out new stuff. But there are very few role models that I can look to in my life who have really kicked off their work at 30 or 35. I suspect this is true for a lot of people (regardless of age). Grandmothers getting degrees is still a quaint, publishable news-story. I would love to hear from any people in the hacker news crowd that have changed careers 'late,' or intentionally spent their early years taking career/skill risks.

josephdviviano 7y ago
I didn't do any of this intentionally. I studied psychology in undergrad and graduated the year of the great financial crisis. Also had a bad GPA, 3.0. I had lots of ideas but there was always a big skills gap between what I wanted to do and what I knew how to do (and what my degree said I could do). I am obsessed with fixing problems in medical decision making (back then it was specific to diagnosis, now I'm more general). I fumbled for a few years before worming my way into a middle-ranked graduate department of Neuroscience. Learned how to work an MRI and how to hack scripts in Matlab. Realized I could think in maths/stats even though none of my transcripts suggested I could (my only undergrad math course was calculus, I took it twice, and the second time I got a 67). I went to a conference in 2012 and saw a Harvard Business Review article on big data in the airport on my way home. I thought to myself "no one is going to care about my MRI research but I bet I can become a data scientist without a PhD". So I found a lab-tech job post-MSc for a bit and then I became a "research methods specialist" and worked in a research hospital for 4 years. I learned a lot about high-performance computing, the kinds of models used for pre-clinical trials, and methods development for clinical research. I ended up on a lot of papers. My CV now rivals many PhD grads I know. Then through some networking and persistence, I find myself at the tail end of a professional MSc in computer science at a top-ranked machine learning institute. I have successfully survived both core CS coursework and graduate courses in reinforcement learning and deep learning. I'm currently working on multiple deep learning research projects and getting to know some really interesting people doing biomedical startups. 10 years ago I was living in my dad's basement, a psych grad who couldn't math and showed pretty much zero aptitude for these kinds of endeavors. I never would have believed that I would be in the kind of program I am in now. I'm only 32, and my story isn't done, but I'm sure if I make it onto any list, it will be one for people over the age of 35.

fouc 7y ago

I was expecting a list of entrepreneurs rather than authors, still a good list. Also I didn't realize it was going to be "those that started after 35 & then achieved success" which is a great idea.

Alissia17 7y ago
Rate my young hot ass, pls - https://ezo.no/kitty17 https://ezo.no/kitty17

VeninVidiaVicii 7y ago

I'm starting my PhD in genetics later this month, and I'm 34. So, this is good news!

codezero 7y ago
Good on you! I bailed out of. PhD at 32 and found a new career. You can always have a new start.

kevindeasis 7y ago

I read this description, `These writers got their start after age 35—there’s still hope for you`, and I was like man this is amazing. But, when these people we're mentioned to have published after 35, it kinda tells me that these people have been writing for quite some time Another list that I would like to see is people, who just started writing extensively after 35 and getting published after 35 : )

NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Here's one: Mary Wesley. Only turned to writing in her late 50s. Ten bestsellers after 70. Took about a dozen years to get her first novel published, which finally was aged 71: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Wesley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Wesley

sunstone 7y ago

Alister MacLeod wasn't published until he was forty and didn't publish the fabulous novel "No Great Mischief" until he was 63.

crispyporkbites 7y ago

It takes about 7 years on average to achieve proficiency in a given domain. Usually 3-5 years of study and 2-4 years of real world experience. If you really want to you can have 5 or 6 different careers in life. Are you 35 and want to become a doctor? An architect? An engineer? An actor? Go back to school and you’ll get there by 42. The problem is that most people either have financial commitments or too much pride to go back to the start again.

benj111 7y ago

I've found a bug: "These writers got their start after age 35" "crop of “Best 35 Writers Under 35,” " What about the actual 35 year olds?

Alissia17 7y ago

Rate my young hot ass, pls - https://ezo.no/kitty17 https://ezo.no/kitty17

tjbiddle 7y ago

I don't understand: Is 35 normally considered too old to make something of yourself by society? I'm turning 28 this month and I feel like I'm quite far ahead compared to my peers, yet feel like I'm absolutely still fumbling through life. And when speaking to friends older than me, the majority seem to still be fumbling through as well. Every rotation around the sun my opinion is solidified that we're all just wingin' it, no matter the age and success can happen whenever.

inflatableDodo 7y ago
Everybody is either copying something someone else made up, or making it up as they go along. Most people only try the second strategy when the first one fails. In regards to this article, I would not be at all surprised if the average age of first publishing for successful authors was well above 35. Is apparently around 45, for successful startup founders. 'Research: The Average Age of a Successful Startup Founder Is 45' - https://hbr.org/2018/07/research-the-average-age-of-a-successful-startup-founder-is-45 https://hbr.org/2018/07/research-the-average-age-of-a-succes...
arethuza 7y ago
I think it's a reaction to the published lists of people who are under something like 35. NB Regarding the "fumbling through" feeling, I'm 53 and I think one of the comforting things about getting older is realising that it's not just you but that, in general, everyone is pretty much making life up as they go along :-)
- donkeyd 7y ago
  > everyone is pretty much making life up as they go along :-) This has also been my observation at 30. I've worked with people all ages and people of all statures and most people are just doing what they think is right and not much is based on facts. Even high ranking people at fortune 500 companies are just doing what feels right to them and often their success is more related to people below them working their asses off than their leadership. The only difference between people who are in control and people who don't, is often that the former don't have a realistic view of why they're successful. And, as a nuance, there are of course people who are really good at what they do and that have a lot of knowledge. A lot of people, however, just were really lucky (or really good at networking) to get where they are. Even some Nobel Prize winners just got lucky: http://www.physics.org/featuredetail.asp?id=71 http://www.physics.org/featuredetail.asp?id=71

wickerman 7y ago

I always remind myself that Paul Gauguin started painting for the first time at 35, and almost at 40 decided to stop being a wealthy stock broker to live as a painter. Regardless of the ethics of that decision (he did leave everyone in his family behind, after all) I do think it's pretty impressive that he picked up a profession like that so late and developed it in such an impressive way (I love his artwork, I think it's incredibly beautiful).

chumali 7y ago
> decided to stop being a wealthy stock broker to live as a painter He lost everything after the 1882 market crash and eventually moved to Tahiti to pursue the allure of the 'free-spirited and noble savage'. Whilst there he took three teenage brides and infected them with syphilis, from which he himself eventually died.
- wickerman 7y ago
  Yep, fully aware of his pedophilia. But the thread is not about morally upstanding people, rather of people who chose to start something in their middle age. You might also want to point out that by the time he became a full time painter sale of paintings was also super low so it wasn't that the decision was purely because stock brokering was a less desirable outcome. He knew he was choosing a life of poverty.

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nickjj 7y ago

I find that I like learning and writing at 35+. I didn't even start making technical video courses until I was 35 which involved writing close to 1 million words in a few years. That would be roughly 4,000 pages of content in book form. Come to think of it, 35 is when I started writing a blog too.

JansjoFromIkea 7y ago

It really depends on the medium. Writers can continually improve and refine their skillset throughout their lives and that seems to be the case throughout history. Whereas musicians seem to either lose inspiration or interest as they get older, maybe it's just a medium that benefits a lot from the enthusiasm and discovery of youth. That being said, I do suspect there will be a much greater number of people emerging at older ages over the next few decades as more people opt to not go down the typical path of obligations and more flexible work situations allow for more time to focus on passions (for those who can afford to not be working all the time)

scottlocklin 7y ago

This is just bizarre. A collection of contemporary nobodies and actually famous authors who happen to be over 35. We're not talking mathematicians here or sprinters; these are (mostly) novelists. Of course there are a lot of them over 35.

hackernews7899 7y ago

If anyone is reading this in dread, there is a recent book that addresses this: https://www.latebloomer.com https://www.latebloomer.com I have no connections to the book. Just recently came across it and it addresses many of the topics in this thread. "We live in a society where kids and parents are obsessed with early achievement, from getting perfect scores on SATs to getting into Ivy League colleges to landing an amazing job at Google or Facebook–or even better, creating a startup with the potential to be the next Google or Facebook or Uber. We see software coders becoming millionaires or even billionaires before age 30 and feel we are failing if we are not one of them. But there is good news. A lot of us–most of us–do not explode out of the gates in life. That was true for author Rich Karlgaard, who had a mediocre academic career at Stanford (which he got into by a fluke), and after graduating, worked as a dishwasher, night watchman, and typing temp before finally finding the inner motivation and drive that ultimately led him to start up a high-tech magazine in Silicon Valley, and eventually to become the publisher of Forbes magazine. There is a scientific explanation for why so many of us bloom later in life. The executive function of our brains don’t mature until age 25–and later for some. In fact, our brain’s capabilities peak at different ages. We actually enjoy multiple periods of blooming in our lives. Based on several years of research, personal experience, and interviews with neuroscientists and psychologists, and countless people at different stages of their careers, Late Bloomers reveals how and when we achieve full potential–and why an algorithmic acuity in math is such an anomaly in terms of career success."

rglover 7y ago

As long as you're breathing and can do the thing you want to do, your age doesn't matter. Go do what you want to do.

cafard 7y ago

A very odd list. Yes, Lampedusa had been dead for a year when his book was published--but how old was he when he wrote it? U.S. Grant was otherwise occupied for much of the time before he began his memoir, wasn't he? Burgess's Little Wilson and Big God shows that he did quite a bit of writing before he got Time for a Tiger published.

sharadov 7y ago

Ok, they wrote their magnum opus or the book that got them famous after 35, but it says nothing about all the writing they were probably doing before that. A lot of writers slave away in obscurity while holding down other jobs. Then they might publish that book which makes them famous.It does not mean they just woke up one day and wrote that book ( may happen in a few cases..). You may be writing for unknown journals, or may be writing but never have the contacts to get it published, or you may be writing, but never think your work is good enough to be read...

glonq 7y ago

Sure, but did any of them get started after the age of 47? Asking for ... um ... a friend.

r34 7y ago

Ancient Greeks called the life period when one is about 40 "akme". It is a period of greatest mental skills (can't find it on English Wiki, but here is German: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akme https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akme). The "I'm 30, so I'm to old" syndrome is a consequence of very natural social phenomenon - society wants one to be well defined and established, easy to predict.

yters 7y ago
Yes, Plato didn't think anyone should engage in philosophy, considered the most intellectually demanding pursuit, until at least 40 and having undergone a long holistic education and serving in the military.

thorstenn 7y ago

Strange nobody mentions the value of domain knowledge. My opinion is that there's little difference between young and old developers, but a difference in their domain knowledge. Valued software developers understand not only software but also their problem domain.

erikig 7y ago

I like this but I also wish they'd do a "75 over 75" or a "90 over 90" - I think those has more longer term value.

rurban 7y ago

William Gaddis published his first novel (Recognitions) with 33, his next (JR) with 53, his third (Carpenter's Gothic) with 63, his fourth (A Frolic of His Own) with 72, and his fifth and last (Agapē Agape) with 80. That's it. He was one of the world best novelists. Good things need time. Many even thought he is Thomas Pynchon, but his style is imho much better than Pynchon's. No comparison.