It depends what you mean by getting shit done though. The thing about 40-year-olds is that they want fair compensation, have informed opinions, and some of the

It depends what you mean by getting shit done though. The thing about 40-year-olds is that they want fair compensation, have informed opinions, and some of them even have lives. Meanwhile, our industry works by raining money down on the glib or foolishly optimistic, who see engineers as mere implementors. So many managers prefer a compliant 20-year-old who will sacrifice sleep and life to execute on the latest "pivot". My manager at Google was exactly like this, by the way. Once, after a few drinks at a party, he mused on how he would achieve greatness, striding over the bodies of burnt-out twentysomethings. (Before you raise an obvious objection: yes, the code was in a shambles, before it even launched. But code quality has rarely been a crucial factor in career success in the Valley, as far as I can tell.)