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Poll: How old are you?
For some reason I was wondering about this in the shower this morning. There may already be polls like this one but by now I'd assume they're outdated.
- TimothyBurgess 16y agoI'm also curious about the ratio of genders as well: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2175603 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2175603 Someone pointed out (in the gender poll) that HN allows more than 1 vote on a poll at a time so sorry for splitting it up! I had no idea.
- fedd 16y agothere must be a poll 'where are you from', i'd like to know how much people here are from Russia like i am. couldn't google it.. ?
- zachallaun 16y ago11-20 seems like a pretty uninformative range, assuming you want to draw conclusions (maybe you don't!) from the results, as it is in this range that you experience the most noticeable increase in both maturity and knowledge. 11-15 and 16-20 would have been significantly more telling. (As an aside, this is especially strange considering ranges such as 41-45.)
- TimothyBurgess 16y agoYeah I was just thinking the same thing. I'll change that. Thanks!
- Xk 16y agoMessage to the future: there were ~30 people who had voted 11-20 by the time the switch was made to break it up into two sections. To figure out the actual distribution of people, you'll have to subtract 30 from the 16-20 range and then compare that with the 11-15 range, and then add back in the 30 votes distributed correctly.
- zachallaun 16y agoI had looked at the poll just seconds after the switch had been made; There were only 11 people who had been transferred to the 16-20 range. (So the distribution isn't going to vary as significantly.)
- Xk 16y agoAlright. I had checked ten minutes later and it was ~30, and I wasn't sure if anyone else had taken a count right after the change was made.
- chc 16y agoIf we discount 30 votes from 16–20, at the current distribution (roughly 14 older teens to each younger one) that gives maybe two extra 11–15s.
- 51Cards 16y agoAll I know is that this post just made me feel a lot older. Good God, I'm a 'seasoned vet' at 40.
- alnayyir 16y ago22 and 4-5 years into my career. I can only hazard a guess at what I'll be doing in 20 years.
- wookiehangover 16y agoworrying about the end of unix time ;)
- keltex 16y agoIf you're happy doing what you're doing now, then my guess is the same thing. Like me. For over 20 years.
- alnayyir 16y ago>If you're happy doing what you're doing now Immeasurably. >Like me. For over 20 years. Fair chance I'd be retired by then unless I had a nasty divorce or something. But who knows?
- jaxn 16y agoah the idealism of youth... Possibly. The odds are pretty bad for retirement at 40 though. Seems to be those who are successful / lucky enough to exit (making an assumption about your retirement plan), are also the kind of people that tend to just start another company or be an involved smart-money investor. I used to think I would retire. I have enough mostly-passive income to live on, but here I am doing another startup. YMMV
- alnayyir 16y agoNot really idealism. When you get an engineer's salary and sock away ~60-70% of it, your options are pretty rosy. The entrepreneurial bug and divorce are the only things I foresee really jeopardizing that. That or being seriously fertile. Hard tellin'. I'll be happy either way, and regardless of whether or not I'm getting paid, I'll code 'til I die.
- Electrostar 16y ago32
- thefox 16y agoVery nice!
- mindcrime 16y ago37, here.
- emrahyalaz 16y agoHey Timothy, Emrah here. How did you set up this poll? I'd like to do one. (I answered both and found useful) Thank you:)
- TimothyBurgess 16y agohttp://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll http://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll Don't abuse it!
- zck 16y agoIt's worth noting that there's a karma minimum one must have to be able to create polls, so emrahyalaz won't be able to create one.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- emrahyalaz 16y agothank you:) YC tells me I have 7 karma, hmmm.
- emrahyalaz 16y agoThank you! Thank you! You are an honorable person of good taste:) I shall NOT abuse it. I respect this place too much, and PG is a hero of mine. I've been reading every word he wrote since the Dilbert Cube days. every. single. word:)
- golgo13 16y ago1977!!
- nhangen 16y agoWow, I really expected the demographics to tilt towards my age group (early 30's). Looks like I was wrong.
- jbrennan 16y agoOr they're actually being productive this afternoon.
- kgutteridge 16y ago30, nearly starting to come down the other side of this curve
- ErrantX 16y agoI'm going to guess that come twenty years time the curve will just have shifted with you. So, really, you're just at the cutting edge :)
- dustinupdyke 16y agoShout out to those > 66, may your passion for "teh codez" never grow old.
- pWneD 16y agoAlmost 16 :)
- acctng 16y agoAlthough I'm 57 I might as well be 27 for the amount of time I've spend developing and building start-ups. I played saxophone professionally until I was 40, then gave it up as just too much work. I must be a glutton for punishment.
- artiegold 16y agoI dunno. After spending a few years sitting at a keyboard with letters on it, workin' 'til two where they close the joint with the old "You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here," seems kind of attractive. Or would, if there weren't those little wetware alarm clocks always working their particular magic... (And I could still stay up that late on a consistent basis..)
- TheSOB88 16y agoThat (saxing the sax) sounds awesome. Do you have any stories?
- KeepTalking 16y agoAmazing to see there are 500+ ppl in the 20-30 range. Curios If i could link a poll of how many are married in the respective agr groups ?
- Raphael 16y agoExcept there isn't a 20-30 range, though I expected 20-24 and 25-29. The poll maker didn't use typical 0-based ranges and thus ended with the awkward 66+ option.
- tritchey 16y agoGet off my lawn!
- artiegold 16y ago51-55 Better than dead. Much.
- sabat 16y agoIt's funny how when you get here (I'm 47) you realize what a bunch of BS all the age complaints are. You appreciate life so much more, and -- speaking for myself -- are as full of energy and ideas as ever.
- tomjen3 16y agoBased on what I have seen of old people, people tend to become more of what they are so if you are generally a happy person, you should be more so as you get older. Which means I will be terrible in my old age...
- sabat 16y agoOr you can change. Now. It's not only possible, it's not really that hard.
- felipepiresxxx 16y agoim 20
- harold 16y ago45 and still love to code. I still feel like I'm 25. I attribute this to exercise, a sense of humor and beer. (not necessarily in that order)
- cgopalan 16y agoWill be this 39 in March this year and started a company. Planning to be a micropreneur and hopefully generate income from the company by 40. Self-sustaining by 41.
- younata 16y agoWoohoo, another ten years, and then I'll be in about the center!
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- jhuckestein 16y agoIt would be interesting to see how this curve developers over time. Is the audience getting older or are young people filling the ranks of older members that left the site?
- c2 16y agoFunny pattern in responses. People on the younger side (<25) tend to be eager to prove themselves by listing their accomplishments, and people on the older side (>30) seem to be humble and self-deprecating, but still with that unmistakable hacker spirit. I'm 28 myself, seems like 25-30 are the 'inbetweeners'.
- jbrennan 16y agoI'm 22 and I read HN purely to learn from the "older" ones. I've got brains, but they've got brains+experience. That's what I find so fascinating about HN, it's like one collective hacker who's seen it all.
- tjic 16y agoYou're just kissing up to us 39-year olds so that we'll upvote your comment. Well done. Upvote. ;-)
- jbrennan 16y agoHaha. I think the smartest thing I've learned so far in my "career" is to know I'm capable of learning just about anything, so long as I actually pay attention enough to those who already know. It's working well.
- rewind 16y agoI'm 36, but in internet years, you're two generations ahead of me, so go back to your retirement home, grandpa, and leave this technology stuff to us young'uns.
- ra 16y agoThat meme deserves an XKCD
- collypops 16y agoI feel the same way. I'm 25, and if I thought I knew it all, I wouldn't be here. I consider all of you my peers, and feel like I'm missing out on the HN experience by not engaging you all. I plan to rectify this in 2011. I feel like I learn a lot from the experiences of the 'older' crowd, as they seem to have enough stabilityto take more risks with their ideas, but I also learn a lot from the younger crowd who jump in regardless. Although I don't think there were any surprises in the poll, I wouldn write it off as a useless post, because like eveything else that hits the stream, it kicks off some great conversation. Thanks for your thoughts, everyone.
- wilkie 16y agoI think a second dimension on this discussion would be fascinating. "How old are you AND how old do you feel?" Although I'm not sure how to word that just right. For instance, capturing situations like: Are you a 65 year old grandfather that feels younger through the interaction with the core crowd here? Are you a 12 year old aspiring hacker that seeks the maturity of the seemingly 20-something base contrary to the peers of their own age?
- rcavezza 16y agoI'm 25 and I just upvoted everyone who had negative scores because they listed their age. :-)
- NicuCalcea 16y agoI'll be 17 in a couple of weeks.
- leif 16y agoMissing option: "I am eternal."
- epochwolf 16y agoChoose the 66+ option
- madeself 16y agoGlad to see I'm in the majority. Sometimes I feel on the old side of the industry at 26.
- kunjaan 16y agoTurned 26 yesterday! Started work last week. In a whole new category now!
- Nemisis7654 16y agoI'm 21 and will graduate with a degree in CS at the end of the year. I'm fairly new to the HN community (127 days to be exact!) and just wish I had found this a little earlier on in my college career.
- anonymoushn 16y agoI'm 20. I acquired a 4-year degree using black magic and work somewhere in Palo Alto.
- Raphael 16y agoAnd all this time I've been studying.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- heavenshallburn 16y agoThese kinds of polls seem to come up every few months/years here at HN[1]. It'd be nice if someone made a little page that kept track of these various polls (age, gender, etc) like Gabriel does with the StartupWiki[2]. [1]: http://searchyc.com/submissions/How+old+are+you http://searchyc.com/submissions/How+old+are+you [2]: http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive
- rh32010 16y agoI am 22 and still absorbing lisp, currently running through "ANSI Common Lisp" and learning how I can apply this language to potentially my own startup. Only been visiting ycombinator for a week now and I already love it! So much information that is useful. Finally registered today.
- jefe78 16y agoWhy were you wondering about this in the SHOWER?!
- AndyKelley 16y agoThe shower is a great place to think about all sorts of things. The constant din of the water falling down, the warm water, and the fact that you are forced to stop for a few minutes give your subconscious mind a bit of time to organize itself and reveal what it's been pondering.
- Silhouette 16y agoIs this the one time we old fogeys are allowed to complain that HN is getting more like Reddit every day? ;-)
- timr 16y agoInteresting comparison from 1998: http://slashdot.org/poll/421/My-Age-is http://slashdot.org/poll/421/My-Age-is In 1998, 22% of respondents were ages 16-20, 53% were in their 20s, 15% in their 30s and 5% over 40. As of this writing (and assuming that I did my arithmetic correctly), ~7% of respondents on this poll are ages 16-20, ~60% are in their 20s, ~25% in their 30s, and ~7% are over 40. Obviously there are a lot of caveats here, but the slight increase in the overall age of techies between these two polls is nothing like you'd expect if everyone who started in their 20s in 1998 stuck around until today. *edit: fixed arithmetic error. D'oh!
- tokenadult 16y agoAs I commented previously when we had a poll on the ages of HNers, the data can't be relied on to make such an inference. That's because the date are not from a random sample of the relevant population. One professor of statistics, who is a co-author of a highly regarded AP statistics textbook, has tried to popularize the phrase that "voluntary response data are worthless" to go along with the phrase "correlation does not imply causation." Other statistics teachers are gradually picking up this phrase. -----Original Message----- From: Paul Velleman [SMTPfv2@cornell.edu] Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 1998 5:10 PM To: apstat-l@etc.bc.ca; Kim Robinson Cc: mmbalach@mtu.edu Subject: Re: qualtiative study Sorry Kim, but it just aint so. Voluntary response data are worthless. One excellent example is the books by Shere Hite. She collected many responses from biased lists with voluntary response and drew conclusions that are roundly contradicted by all responsible studies. She claimed to be doing only qualitative work, but what she got was just plain garbage. Another famous example is the Literary Digest "poll". All you learn from voluntary response is what is said by those who choose to respond. Unless the respondents are a substantially large fraction of the population, they are very likely to be a biased -- possibly a very biased -- subset. Anecdotes tell you nothing at all about the state of the world. They can't be "used only as a description" because they describe nothing but themselves. http://mathforum.org/kb/thread.jspa?threadID=194473&tstart=36420 http://mathforum.org/kb/thread.jspa?threadID=194473&tsta... For more on the distinction between statistics and mathematics, see http://statland.org/MAAFIXED.PDF http://statland.org/MAAFIXED.PDF and http://escholarship.org/uc/item/6hb3k0nz http://escholarship.org/uc/item/6hb3k0nz I think Professor Velleman promotes "Voluntary response data are worthless" as a slogan for the same reason an earlier generation of statisticians taught their students the slogan "correlation does not imply causation." That's because common human cognitive errors run strongly in one direction on each issue, so the slogan has take the cognitive error head-on. Of course, a distinct pattern in voluntary responses tells us SOMETHING (maybe about what kind of people come forward to respond), just as a correlation tells us SOMETHING (maybe about a lurking variable correlated with both things we observe), but it doesn't tell us enough to warrant a firm conclusion about facts of the world. The Literary Digest poll http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5168/ http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5168/ http://www.math.uah.edu/stat/data/LiteraryDigest.pdf http://www.math.uah.edu/stat/data/LiteraryDigest.pdf is a spectacular historical example of a voluntary response poll that didn't give a correct picture of reality at all.
- artmageddon 16y agoI'll be 29 in a couple of months. Started programming in high school but didn't get really serious about it till college. Have been working professionally for 6 years. Overall I'm proud of what I've accomplished but after scouring this site for even my limited amount of time, I wonder if I've been slacking too much as I don't consider myself a senior developer. Some days I wonder if I'll feel like I'll ever reach that point, given just how much there is to know out there.
- alexbowe 16y agoFor background: I'm 23, starting my PhD. Have had about a year of industry work (including a game company - actual interesting work). I have a few startup ideas (trying hard to execute), and I'm interviewing with Google (although I failed last year, and I might just wanna do my PhD). I wasn't passionate about programming until last year actually, after I started reading more. People say that the smartest people are uncertain of their own abilities, because they see the bigger picture. They are the ones that can see just how deep this rabbit hole goes. Infinity can be a daunting thing. I guess it can either make you give up, or push harder. I'd hazard a guess to say you are on track (although who am I to say) :) never become a senior developer, just move along the spectrum of a curious, 'young' programmer mind. Happy birthday in a couple of months :)
- mnwcsult 16y ago56-60 Senior Software Engineer, still enjoying coding, hacking and figuring things out. Don't spend much energy on the good ole days, whatever they were. Still prefer C over everything else. Question: What is the best programming language? Answer: Whatever the client was sold on at the trade show. Wrote a really nice bash shell web scraper yesterday. Amazing to still get so much mileage out of sed,awk,grep, and others. All I did was setup a windows share and mounted the filesystem in ubuntu. I like the idea that there are so any platforms around and no one way to do anything. Tonight Labview and robot vision to do line following.
- john2x 16y agoInteresting that there are 10 year olds.
- kmfrk 16y agoI'd rather like to see pg answer what age demographics comprise YC's start-ups. That data would be awesome (and probably daunting).
- ilamont 16y agoIn one of the 2005 classes, everyone was 23 or younger: http://www.paulgraham.com/sfp.html http://www.paulgraham.com/sfp.html Not specific to YC, he has this to say about older startup founders: The other cutoff, 38, has a lot more play in it. One reason I put it there is that I don't think many people have the physical stamina much past that age. I used to work till 2:00 or 3:00 AM every night, seven days a week. I don't know if I could do that now. Also, startups are a big risk financially. If you try something that blows up and leaves you broke at 26, big deal; a lot of 26 year olds are broke. By 38 you can't take so many risks-- especially if you have kids. From: http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html
- johnnyjung 16y agoInteresting to see some young people here!
- csomar 16y agoSeriously, anyone in the 0-10 range?
- olalonde 16y agoAre there seriously 0-10 year old HN readers?
- sim0n 16y ago18 years old and been working professionally for almost 3 years (since I was 16) :)
- mkramlich 16y agoI can't wait til I turn 66 knowing that by my next birthday I'll become 11 again. ;)
- monkkbfr 16y ago53
- dennisgorelik 16y agoI suddenly feel so old at 36 :-O
- Jarred 16y agoI'm 15, seemingly a small minority.
- shriphani 16y ago19 years old. Currently working towards a bachelor's degree (I graduate in spring 2012 yay!). I'll be applying to PhD programs next semester and hopefully working at the boundaries of human knowledge will help me solve some cool problems :)
- akeck 16y agoSeveral close friends of mine are just about to finish or have just finished their PhDs. Before you go that route, you should track down postdocs in your field and then have an honest conversation with them about their job prospects and quality of life. In some fields, there are so many more postdocs in the workforce than available professorships and industry research jobs that new PhDs are barely making a living. Needless to say, they are also having trouble getting any research done.
- X-Istence 16y agoI'm 22, almost 23, and as such I am one of the young guys here. I've already done a lot at 22 years of age, but reading the posts here and seeing what some of the older people have accomplished is just simply amazing. It is always fantastic to read someone else's take on various different ideas especially those who are older than me. I currently work at a small startup with people who have been in the game for a long time (I along with 1 other programmer are in our 20's the rest of the team is 40's or more) and it is an absolute blast learning new things at an extremely rapid pace. It was after only 3 months at this small startup, in the middle of things (I'd done my own startup but this was when the ah ha moment happened) I realised that my passion was to be a part of a small team that changed the world, and not be stuck in a big corporation somewhere chugging away with no real way to differentiate myself from everyone else there. That is why I am really happy to be a part of the HN community where I can learn more information, and hopefully someday soon in the near future I too will have a successful small business with millions of dollars in revenue.
- mathnode 16y ago25 and not allowed to vote! DISCRIMINATION!
- timinman 16y agoI haven't tried, because I don't want to throw off the results, but it looks like you can vote more than once (only the arrow for your selection disappears). If that is the case, consider this a bug report.
- natmaster 16y agoYou can't be 20-26?
- stanislavb 16y agoWhere is 21-25?
- thingie 16y agoI'm 23 and it seems to me that this poll is missing 21-25 group. Or I'm indeed blind, that's also possible.
- Deestan 16y agoIt's there, but it's hidden for some weird reason. It's marked as [dead]. Edit: Go to your profile and enable "showdead", and you will be able to see and vote on it.
- collypops 16y agoI was wondering where my group was. Thanks for the hint!
- askar_yu 16y agoI'd expect this group to be the highest ranked... why would this be hidden/dead?
- TimothyBurgess 16y agoMaybe one of the admins are 26-30 and didn't want any competition!! I kid. :)
- partoa 16y ago26-30
- mimmo 16y ago21-25's death is poisoning results :)
- arethuza 16y agoI'd have thought that more appropriate ranges might have been: 8-15 16-31 32-63 Which are a bit broad, but why not: 8-15 16-23 24-31 32-47 48-63 64-95 96-127 Or something like that :-)
- hardik 16y agoIt just hit me that from last month I am in 26-30. And its scary.
- portman 16y agoBar chart of the results: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/58785/2175588.PNG http://dl.dropbox.com/u/58785/2175588.PNG
- ra 16y agoGreat to see some young folk lurking here. These whipper snappers will have a head-start over us 30/40/50 somethings. TL/DR: "There was nothing like Hacker News in my day"
- Unseelie 16y ago21-25 please?
- mumrah 16y agoWaited until this morning to respond so I could answer 26-30. Wouldn't want to be counted with all those "early 20-somethings"
- thomasfl 16y agoWould be great if someone made diagram out of this.
- 1reza 16y agoWhere is 21-25??? I'm 22.
- takameyer 16y agoLooks like we lost the 21-25 category.
- mconnors 16y agoI'm old :(
- rexreed 16y agoWhat happened to 21-25?
- pasbesoin 16y agoFWIW: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=126923 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=126923 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=342635 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=342635 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=517039 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=517039
- mannicken 16y agoIt should look this perhaps: 0 - 8 8 - 16 16 - 32 32 - 64 64 - 128
- hendrixjoe555 16y ago22-25
- AbyBeats 16y agoWhere is 21-25?