Malcolm Gladwell oversimplifies things. There's nothing magical about spending 10,000 hours practicing a skill, but you'll obviously get better at anything you

Malcolm Gladwell oversimplifies things. There's nothing magical about spending 10,000 hours practicing a skill, but you'll obviously get better at anything you spend a lot of time on. To answer your question: it depends on your specific context. At 43, you could theoretically still gain the required qualifications for most careers and work for ~ 20 years (ex. you'd be 67/68 after 4 years spent earning a new degree + 20 years working). The more relevant consideration is will you actually be able to do that as a working 43-year-old with normal responsibilities? Another question you seem to allude to is "will ageism be a limiting factor?" That answer is also context-dependent. At a lot of trendy companies mentioned here on HN, I'd suspect that it would be. That said, those companies are only a fraction of the job market and I'm not sure more "boring" companies would be as concerned with age as with your skills. Outside of tech and some competitive (+ conservative) industries like finance or consulting, I don't think it would be as big of a deal.