12 ms·

Pixels don’t care

764 points by dpearson 14y ago

twodayslate 14y ago
Good for him. My brother had a similar experience selling things online. If you are able to write professionally, people are more willing to trust you - even if you are 13.
- robotmay 14y ago
  Back when I was 14 I played quite a lot of Phantasy Star Online on the Xbox (which had a very small community). My voice broke a year or two beforehand, and I was pretty respectful and eloquent. I had people constantly looking to me for advice and help, under the assumption I was significantly older (I have a pretty low voice). It was quite nice being treated as an adult years before people would treat me the same in person.
morisy 14y ago
I had the totally same experience with early online communities (Everything2, Slashdot), and for a long time made a conscious effort of keeping my avatar off the Internet. It's a little utopian, yes, but being able to deal with people based on their ideas, ideals, and quality of work, and develop fast friendships without ever being aware of so much (Great line: "How could the internet know you were gay? 80 years old? Hispanic? Transgender? Karl Rove? It just didn’t matter.") is what made the pre-Facebook net magical for me and so many others, and what, in many ways, makes the rash of so many social-mobile-local startups so boring: They trade personal flare for personal expression, let users show off badges instead of actual achievement.
- mjn 14y ago
  One thing I'm not quite sure what to make of is that I felt a lot of that aspect on the BBSs I started out on during high school, despite them being more local. Since there was free local calling but long-distance cost money (possibly a US-specific thing), I dialed up only local BBSs, which made for a certain location specificity. I liked that to some extent, because it made the local BBSs "special" in some way, kept the communities at a manageable size, and made it easier to develop an "audience", so to speak, in a little niche where you weren't competing with everyone on the whole planet for the same audience, like you are in the flat geography of the internet. But, at least in the circles I ended up in, nobody really tried to meet up, or wanted to know much about who you were IRL. So it had this odd feeling of both very cyberspacey, where you could be anyone you wanted online, but still a "clumpy" cyberspace where the clumps were related to RL location.
  - svachalek 14y ago
    I was also part of my local BBS community but many/most of us did meet up in person. It was kind of interesting seeing faces to match the online personas as I pretty much always guessed wrong. I never imagined that some of us were women, some were very young, some pretty old, and one was the 6'6" tattooed scary guy at school.
  - pasbesoin 14y ago
    I was part of an Internet based, but highly topical, forum. The experience was somewhat similar. Clumpy and fairly self-selecting. Some people did meet, out-of-band and/or in real life. But the nature of the community, and the worldwide physical dispersal, kept this rather limited. Actually, while the forum had a very specific topic of focus, people there got to know each other rather more generally. It's the one place where I wore an avatar. One of the cartoon character defaults. The anonymity and strong community ethic of respect for privacy actually facilitated communication. I find the "real name" initiatives ("now with photos") trending to the same sort of superficiality I run into "in real life". "Brogramming" and a lot of the rest of the "current trends" also come to mind. I think some of us are going to continue to look for those more intimate, even while more anonymous, communities. HN used to be (more than) a bit that way, before it exploded. (Where, too, people chose to reveal themselves to others, but on an opt-in basis.)
- mhartl 14y ago
  On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog—or at least, they didn't until Facebook came along. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f8/Internet_dog.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f8/Internet_dog.j...
  - russell 14y ago
    "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" is an adage which began as the caption of a cartoon by Peter Steiner published by The New Yorker on July 5, 1993. (From Wikipedia.) At least they ought to give credit.
    - BrandonM 14y ago
      It looks like that comic is signed, "P. Steiner"?
alabut 14y ago
Reminds me of the Malcolm Gladwell anecdote about how orchestra auditions are usually biased unless they hide the musicians behind a screen, so that the music is judged free from distraction. You can see the same principle at work on a new TV show called The Taste, where contestants cook up and serve a single bite of food that the judges eat without knowing who the contestants are. So far the home cooks have been not only holding their own but beating out the pro chefs.
- B-Con 14y ago
  The reality TV show "The Voice" is similar. The on-TV auditions are done such that the judges cannot see the performer and must select them for their season-long team based purely on their voice. It's worked well.
sergiotapia 14y ago
Good for him that he managed to get around that. But personal, face to face interactions are much better are gauging how a person is going to be when joining a team. Any sort of team. People on paper sound nice, but when you meet them they are a bit off. I have a scary knack for this and can call out caustic people after the initial interaction.
- kdaigle 14y ago
  Having worked on a lot of mainly (or entirely) remote teams, I think digital/chat interaction is just as good as face to face. Sometimes face to face personalities don't entirely match your chat persona but chat does a good job of passing along enough information to decide. I've worked with people for years while never having met them in-person. No need. Regardless of remote/in-person, a piece of paper should never be the sole hiring decision.
- neumann_alfred 14y ago
  It's not really that scary that you notice something that seems off to you, everybody has that. But how do you confirm your "gut feeling"? It's not like you hire the people you dismiss in that manner to see if you're proven wrong, so what makes you so sure?
- ChuckMcM 14y ago
  I may be wrong but I think you missed the point. If "working together" is code for "we both have commit access to the same repo and the same functional test criteria and same target ship date" then it really doesn't matter at all if the person likes to work in their underwear and tell cat jokes since you're only interaction with them is going be through commits. In a strangely wonderful way, people who have conditions that would make their 'productive' work in an office impossible have found work and even success as a remote team member on the other side of an email alias and irc channel. That said, managers are more comfortable when the know their folks a bit more, but they generally are watching for things to go off the rails and head that off rather than whether or not the code is up to standard.
  - potatolicious 14y ago
hjay 14y ago
I had more or less the same experience doing freelance work early on. Clients who judge you based on your age, instead of the value you provide to their business. Clients who are uncomfortable taking suggestions from a 20 year old, and instead, would rather get lower quality work from someone older, and more "experienced". Glad to hear you're doing well now, keep it up!
joshmlewis 14y ago
I've always heard of this happening but I never really had a problem with it. I thankfully learned early on about getting things in writing, agreements, etc. after seeing people getting screwed over. I learned that if people didn't want to work with you because of your age, you shouldn't want to work with them either. I heard Zeldman say that he only works with clients that he personally likes. Something to that effect, but it rang true for me even to today. Only work with people you like. Don't get stuck in a crappy job like OP. You can get out there and do it if you try hard enough. I'm 19 now and it hardly affects me at all. In fact I feel behind. I am cofounding a startup and working full time at another startup, and I still haven't had my great succes yet. I work hard everyday and that's all that matters. Work hard, meet the right people, and use your gut. What really inspirers me are the ones that have gone out there and just killed it at a young age, it means that it is possible if you find the right way.
- mpyne 14y ago
  > Work hard, meet the right people, and use your gut. I've done that all, and been successful out of it. But at least in my case there was one even larger element in play: Luck. And I can't even begin to list all the different ways that I've been lucky (and unlucky), but I always keep that in the back of my mind. I could have born in Somalia, or a Brooklyn ghetto, I could have tried to make my last career move a year earlier or later (when it would have been shot down for sure), or any of 80,000 other reasons I could have failed despite hard work, talking to the right people, and using my gut. It's easy to say you won't get screwed if you're careful, but be very sure that it isn't just that you've been lucky to interact with good people.
  - daeken 14y ago
    "I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it." - Unknown (tons of attributions) While some things are just random chance -- who your parents are, where you're born, etc -- but most things in life don't come from luck, much as we like to ascribe things to it. Most of the time it comes from hard work and -- probably more importantly -- tenacity. I've been "lucky" in a lot of ways, namely who has seen my work and decided to write about it, who's decided to hire me because of it, etc, but at the end of the day there were a dozen failures for every success. If I hadn't stuck at it, I never would've "gotten lucky".
kevin_rubyhouse 14y ago
Kinda crazy to think about, but when China gets up to speed and communications between our countries are open, the scale of what he mentioned at the end will be huge. Today, you could be one of the most sought out programmers in the west. Imagine competing against another intelligent millions of programmers from the east too. I can't wait.
FireBeyond 14y ago
What a strange claim. "Looking back", he can't help but feel discriminated against due to his height. It couldn't possibly be because of his "no formal eduction, no experience with any big clients", could it?
- suyash 14y ago
  Agree, the author has confused us and not disclosed his complete background.
- noonespecial 14y ago
  Height is actually a weird one when people get fixated on it. I worked with a guy once who was about 5,5 but was absolutely obsessed with "height discrimination". He filtered everything that happened to him through that lens and it severely warped his view on reality and it kept him from addressing real issues that would have made him a more hireable employee.
  - ajross 14y ago
    I think we've all met people like you describe. But let's not tar the author with that either. What he describes does indeed happen all the time, and you don't need to invoke irrational discrimination to explain it: employers offer lower salaries to the young and inexperienced because they can (these people are hungrier, "need" the jobs more, and have fewer options) and because it saves them money. That's maybe not noble but it's not insane either. This may be especially true in the web development world which (to my eyes as a 41 year old systems hacker) is populated by a much larger fraction of young and inexperienced developers. Unless you're a true rockstar, there are a half dozen candidates just as good as you willing to take that job.
  - dbattaglia 14y ago
    I'm 5'5" myself and rarely even think about it, other than to make the occasional self-deprecating joke about it. Everyone's life experience is different but I think you are right that people can focus on more insignificant "shortcomings" (har har!) to take focus off their real problems.
- 14y ago
mjs 14y ago
This is an argument that there's no discrimination in tech? Or less discrimination than in other industries?
- kevingadd 14y ago
  I think the suggestion is much simpler: That when everything happens electronically, it is less likely that discrimination will happen because people aren't even given an opportunity to apply their biases and stereotypes to you because they've never seen you in person, just read your text (or perhaps spoken with you over the phone/skype). In my experience this is true, even if it doesn't wholly eliminate discrimination.
JumpCrisscross 14y ago
Silicon Valley has a strange fixation on age which waffles between discrimination and fetishisation. I started working as a trader at a Swiss bank in New York when I was 20. There were lots of jokes cracked about "traders south of the drinking age" and the number mattered more to some than others, but in the end it was meritocratic. When I was 21 (after leaving the bank), I interviewed at a well-regarded Palo Alto-based tech firm and painfully remember every round of the interview bringing up that I didn't go to a prestigious enough university and that I looked "baby-faced". Granted, I look older in a suit, but it's a curiously consistent cultural artefact. You don't find anyone lauding over 22-year old hedge fund or energy venture founders as VCs do over over their 19-year old "rock stars".
- blablabla123 14y ago
  Yes probably 25 is the perfect age -- and even then some (unprofessional) professionals will still consider you too young to seriously talk to. But the most amazing fact is this: these kind of people who do this discrimination probably also discriminate against people who are older than themselves. And one day chances are they will be discrimininated against for that. This definitely must change, everywhere.
RandallBrown 14y ago
I had a similar experience when I bought my first new car. I was 23 at the time, but could have passed for younger. I went into the dealership and waited around until FINALLY someone came and talked to me. I talked a little, asked some questions and eventually got to do some test drives. I was already pretty sold on a certain car, but they didn't have any on the lot in the color I wanted. So I ask about it, the salesman tells me that what they have on the lot is all that's available (shipments were delayed by the tsunami in Japan) and that was that. I didn't buy a car that day. Now, at that point I was borrowing my parents car, and would need to return them the car at some point. Luckily the dealership in my parents town had the car in the right color (according to their website) so I called them up and said I wanted it. Unfortunately for me, it was already gone. But the guy bent over backwards for me trying to find a new one at other dealerships in the state that matched what I wanted and he eventually found one. I always wonder how the second dealer would have treated me if he would have seen me before we made the deal.
- cgmorton 14y ago
  Or, one was a good salesman and the other was not. Or maybe the second one was strapped for cash and really needed the sale. I'd rather not theorize until we get some more data points.
spot 14y ago
it's great that this guy got his job and all but let's not pretend it's just about the quality of his work. he was hanging out in a chat room with these people. plenty of personality shows through.
mduvall 14y ago
I'm lost - where in the post is the discrimination for being short, and not just having the proper credentials?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
dhaivatpandya 14y ago
I totally agree with the "too young" thing. I'm 15 and been freelancing since I was 12, and this gets in the way all the time. People try to take advantage of you once they realize that you're young(er) than most in the field.
- jakejake 14y ago
  I think it's fantastic that you're here, freelancing and making money. Under the age of 14, though, I think US companies could potentially get into legal trouble hiring you. Under the age of 18 there are laws regarding maximum hours and what hours you can work (so not to interfere with school, etc). I would agree that you should be paid based on your skill, though, not age.
  - dhaivatpandya 14y ago
    I mostly worked with small companies in India (only a few projects) before I was 14. And, I am working nowhere close to the amount which even comes close to max. hours.
- geon 14y ago
  Unless you are a prodigy, you simply haven't had the time yet to become really good at anything. Supposedly it takes 10.000 hours or so of exercise, which would be 9 years at 3 hours daily. I'm not trying to push you down, and anyone not paying you what your work is worth is definitely taking advantage of you.
  - dhaivatpandya 14y ago
    Very true. But, I don't think that applies to everything. I don't think it takes 10,000 hours of practice to design a decent Wordpress theme. In fact, I would say that most college graduates (even from top universities) would still be quite far away from 10,000 hours in a specific domain of CS/SE, yet, companies do hire them.
    - aaronbasssett 14y ago
Heliosmaster 14y ago
This is a great article. As a student of mathematics about to finish his studies and looking potentially at a job in software development, this gave me a boost in confidence, reminding me that I should not be afraid too much on competition from people that have the proper academic background (although one might say that I'm not that in a disadvantaged position, I do know a lot less about the technical core stuff of computing). Everything is still possible!
MattyRad 14y ago
I know how it feels... I'm 22, 5'4", and look like I'm 17. This post reminds me of the Hacker Manifesto, by The Mentor: we exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias.
- dbattaglia 14y ago
  I'm 32 and look like I'm 22 to most people. Trust me you start appreciating it more the older you get. :)
kerryfalk 14y ago
? I, too, am short. I'm 5'6". I have always worked on teams with people much older than me (seems like a 15-20 year average). When I was in my early 20s and in sales selling high dollar value equipment I recognized that my age wasn't going to help. It took a few moments to dispel that once I began talking with someone as I just needed to overcome the view that I was inexperienced (As that would be associated with my age). It definitely did not hold me back and I'm fairly sure that if I lost a deal it was because of something other than my height. We all face challenges and each are unique to us. I meet a lot of people and I don't know anyone who would actively discriminate against someone short. I read through the article and based on it alone I got the sense that these challenges my stem from within the author rather than something external. I didn't read an examples of a situation that you'd reason resulted due to his height. Just interpretations. "Ultimately, your greatest competition is yourself." - Guy Kawasaki
- sharkweek 14y ago
  >We all face challenges and each are unique to us. Completely random musing, but it reminded me of my height being disadvantageous when in perspective: I'm a pretty tall guy, a little above 6'4", and have an extremely large reach -- Also a pretty avid rock climber. I can rarely climb at my gym without someone commenting about how it must be so nice to be able to just "reach" for all the holds. Ignoring the fact that I probably weigh 30 more pounds than my sub 6' climber buddies, most route setters at our gym are probably closer to 5'10" and set/grade the routes accordingly; I often end up using sub-optimal (and tiring) form on the "crux" of the route as I end up cramped together awkwardly.
  - darkarmani 14y ago
    Agreed. That nice rest everyone gets on a "perfect" knee bar, just doesn't work for the taller people. Rock climbing strength doesn't scale with weight. And tendon strength which is so important develops so slow. After crimping on tiny holds so many times, I don't really want to hear about how my height is an advantage in climbing. Every once in a while you get to reach past the small holds to a nice big jug, but the rest of the time you're carrying the extra weight.
cale 14y ago
In interviews with agencies I've been told "You're not a designer" and "I hate personnel." In many cases the old agency curmudgeons are threatened by younger people with talent. This sounds like a similar example. On the up side, this is an excellent indicator that you don't want to work for these people. There's always a better option.
pnathan 14y ago
This is one of the most transformative things of the Internet. It is also one of the most definite things I dislike about, say, the post 2005 closed web. Age/gender matters so much to people, even hackery types. It didn't seem to matter as much.
mvleming 14y ago
If you look to history, you can see overtime we acquire new ways of changing ourselves. There was a time when there wasn't makeup, but nowadays people can use makeup and change their appearance. Same thing with dying your hair, getting a plastic surgery, or arguably even body building: by getting this down to a science, we can figure out how to best change our physique. But really, all of these methods are crude, really crude. But I'm super excited about what the next of couple of decades will do change this. I think we're on the verge of being able to completely define ourselves, and I don't just mean in the sense of designer children, i.e. genetics. I'm also thinking more along the lines of augmented reality and new bionic bodies. Even today, there is a woman, Aimee Mullins, who has prosthetic legs. In her TED talk (http://www.ted.com/talks/aimee_mullins_prosthetic_aesthetics.html http://www.ted.com/talks/aimee_mullins_prosthetic_aesthetics...), she talked about how she could redesign her legs however she wanted. For example, she could be 6 inches taller, or when she did a fashion shoot, she could have cheetah legs: http://img0.liveinternet.ru/images/attach/b/3/17/452/17452836_cheetah.jpg http://img0.liveinternet.ru/images/attach/b/3/17/452/1745283.... (NSFW?) At one point in the talk, a person from the audience shouted out "It's not fair!" And this is epochal, right? This is just a sign of what's to come. You look at Second Life and you see these avatars people have designed for themselves, they have control over how big their chest is, what skin colour they are, height, whatever. I can't help but dream of that being extrapolated to the real world, where we have complete control over how we express ourselves physically. Everybody would feel comfortable in their skin, everybody would look super-sexy, and we would find radical new ways of expressing ourselves (personally I would love blue fur). Now I know what some of you are thinking right now, isn't this really superficial? In Second Life we already see huge tits and perfect abs. In one sense, culture becomes magnified tremendously. The body almost becomes a blank canvas to extrapolate the mind onto. But also, it's not superficial at all, it's exactly the opposite. Let me explain it by posing you this question: what defines you? I've thought long and hard about this, and I've come to the answer: you are defined by what you can't change. When OP can't change how tall he is, he's defined by that, especially so in his workplace. On the flip side, when you can change something about yourself, that is a means of expressing who you are. We can change the style and the colour of our hair, and this is a huge part of culture: just look at all those hair magazines. So what we have here is you are defined by what you can't change and what you can change is a means of expressing who you are. But, and this is the point I'm trying to get at, when you can change something that you couldn't change before, what defines you becomes smaller. So when in the next couple of decades, when we can change our sex, skin colour, physique, species?, what will truly define us becomes an interesting question. And it is in this sense how it is exactly the opposite of superficial. There's a Buddha saying: "You are not your thoughts." And you are not your body either.
mnicole 14y ago
Echoing the article and everyone else that this was an issue for me as well. I had an interview at a small-town agency once with the two owners. They talked to me for awhile, and then walked out of the room to speak privately. When they came back, one of them said he loved my work and he'd hire me today, but his co-founder wasn't comfortable with hiring someone "so young without any formal education" and wanted me to come back after I'd done so (haha, right). They actually bickered quite a bit between themselves on the issue right in front of me (which made me feel good), but settled on not giving me the gig. I went about my way, happier that I didn't have to put up with someone who cared more about paperwork than work on paper. A few years later I was working at another agency where my art director was pleading with me not to go to college and to stay with the company (which, honestly I would have had it not been for the keylogger I found implemented by another manager). "School is a waste of time for talent," he said, "You'll be miserable. Stay here and do real work." Feeling like I'd rather see for myself than regret the opportunity, I went. It wasn't the private art schools I wanted (I couldn't afford something like that), so I ran into nothing but mediocrity and decade-old lesson plans. Underwhelmed, pissed, and broke, I went back to working. Meanwhile, a girl I know that spent the better part of 10 years receiving design/multimedia degrees has little to show for it by way of skills. While she acquires jobs easily, she doesn't keep them for very long as her talents are so many years behind what people are expecting that she can't do what she wants to/what her degree seemed to "promise" her. These days you'll see portfolios splattered with "~young designer~" or "~budding developer & entrepreneur~" and it completely goes against the spirit of being merited on your strengths rather than your accomplishments-by-age (ironically, I enjoy when kids/younger teens post their age in the titles of their ShowHNs). While it might make the kid feel more competent, acknowledging it is just asking to be underpaid because they know you won't know any better or inherently believe you aren't worth it.
- corporalagumbo 14y ago
  Or perhaps instead of trying to fight their age to project a defensive false equivalence with older workers, these kids are embracing and flaunting their age as a virtue - their precocity, enthusiasm, even naivety. You said it yourself - you look kindly on young kids with the balls to show off something cool they've made on HN. It's natural as an older person to feel charitable towards earnest kids, so what's wrong with leveraging that? I'm still pretty young and I often either genuinely come across as or play up a little an appearance of being incompetent and bewildered when I'm interacting with older, female shop assistants and office clerks in retail or bureaucratic environments. They like it, though they wouldn't necessarily admit it, and I get treated with faux-grumpy generosity. Works for me!
Stefan_H 14y ago
If I read this correctly, the main negative point was that the author was not paid as much as his colleagues, though he did get the position. The author suggests this is because of his height. To me (a young professional in the software development industry) that screams that the author did not know his own worth and therefore did not negotiate a high enough pay. I'm young for the positions I have held, and am roughly of average height, but you can be sure that I will get paid the same or more than my colleagues, because I understand how much I am worth and I am willing to say as much.
mikecane 14y ago
>>>For the first time in human history, it’s possible to be represented (almost) solely through the merits of your work. I don't want to detract from what he went through -- god knows short people and other physical "non-conformists" are too often treated differently (for bad and good) -- but Andrew Carnegie was short too. What we're all suffering under is image indoctrination from mass media, from magazines, movies, TV. Every time I hear someone say something like, "S/he looks the part," I want to reach for an imaginary gun. Life is not effin Central Casting. And it's all gotten worse in just the past 10-20 years, with everyone on mass screens seemingly all having the same damn jaws and jawlines, looking like they all came from the same limited gene pool. It didn't used to be that way. Anyway, Napoleon was also short. Don't let anyone push you around. EDIT: After reading a sales-related comment here, I was reminded that Ross Perot is also short. He made out OK.
- upquark 14y ago
  I'm not sure it's gotten worse in every aspect, particularly in terms of acceptance of foreign ethnicities and races. People do have an unrealistic model of the real world, and that model is being currently skewed by mass media, etc, but previously it was skewed by local cultural attitudes, religious doctrine, etc. I don't think people were ever objective in judging each other based on merits vs appearance.
danabramov 14y ago
I started doing freelance work when I just turned 17 and learned just the opposite thing: “It's up to you to tell the story.” I was able to turn my age into advantage, and the contrast between my obviously teenage avatar and a convincing portfolio helped me distinguish myself from most other freelancers. It was the same with my first job: I just approached a guy after he gave a lecture and asked him questions he found interesting. He was a CTO of an outsourcing company, and I asked if they were looking for C# programmers. I sent a very pompous resumé and got hired despite its silliness—it made them curious enough to land me an interview where I was able to show I'm a normal guy. If you're seriously different from the rest, you can turn this into an advantage as long as you stress this point and make it an integral part of your story—not something you hide. People appreciate honesty and some humour too, and that's especially true in freelancing. Exposing your vulnerability (yes I'm young, yes I'm a minority, etc) while showcasing your great work makes you look humane and more likely to be a great person to work with. You'll attract better customers—I experienced this myself. People you'll enjoy working for. Your work speaks for yourself in either case, but in the end it's how you market your work that determines if the one evaluating you feels excitement (“This guy's so young but his work kicks ass, he must be a real prodigy”) or doubt (“This work is great but he's so young so we shouldn't hire him”). Of course getting a lot of signed positive reviews is important, and pricing can be tricky too.
javajosh 14y ago
What a beautiful blog post. I think too often we lament the anonymity of the internet without understanding that there are some serious upsides, too. It's almost like a social Turing test: A good person is someone you identify as such based purely on messages written on slips of paper and passed under a door.
ajsharp 14y ago
Well put kneath, well fucking put :)
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
robotresearcher 14y ago
"For the first time in human history, it’s possible to be represented (almost) solely through the merits of your work." I enjoyed the piece, but this is overstated. Represented by an agent that protects anonymity, or just working by correspondence only, writers have enjoyed this ability for a long time. George Eliot and J.K. Rowling obscured their gender and let the work speak for itself.
- eru 14y ago
  Nitpick: `J.K. Rowling' might be obscuring gender, but `George Eliot' isn't just obfuscation.
  - robotresearcher 14y ago
    Yes it is. Mary Ann Eliot using George as a pen name obscured her gender. She didn't claim to be a man: she hid the fact that she wasn't. George isn't a uniquely masculine name and was more frequent for women in the past than it is now. http://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/0/George http://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/0/George
    - eru 14y ago
      Thanks!
pizza 14y ago
Late last year, an artist by the name of Captain Murphy dropped a mix tape, "Duality". Duality had phenomenal production quality and very talented rapping. Everyone from "future beats"-type listeners to gangsta-rap afficionados wanted to know who Captain Murphy was. Turns out, the biggest name in all of modern experimental hip hop, Flying Lotus, was behind the project, along with a wealth of his friends. When asked why he didn't release the music as Flying Lotus, he replied (paraphrased) that he didn't want people to say, "Oh, he's rapping now", and he wanted to be respected more for his talent than for his legacy, or who people thought he was.
austenallred 14y ago
I started out as a 13-year-old entrepreneur selling stuff on eBay (which was pretty new at the time). There was a loophole when they first opened where you could sign up under someone else's name and switch all of the records over to your name; that way you didn't have to be 18 to register. I first grew to love the Internet as the only real meritocracy I experienced in life. No one knew I was 13. When I talked to people in person I would get a pat on the head and a "you'll do great some day," but the little eBay company I had started was taken very seriously. It's still around today, and it makes just over $2 million/year in net profit (not on eBay any more). While the Internet is no longer as anonymous, and I am no longer with the aforementioned company, I believe product still speaks for itself. While it's true that investors may be looking for a dropout Stanford grad student, if you create something people love you can grow a company regardless of what anyone thinks about you as a person. Hell, I raised half a million dollars as an 18-year-old kid, not because I looked or acted like the quintessential entrepreneur, but because I could show numbers. If you can show someone, "Here's a black box where you put in $1 and $10 comes out," finding money isn't hard. Even if you're 18. You don't know who I am from this comment (unless you stalk my bio and find me on Twitter). If you like it you'll upvote it. That's exactly (one of the many reasons) why I love the Internet.
- chimeracoder 14y ago
  > While the Internet is no longer as anonymous > You don't know who I am from this comment (unless you stalk my bio and find me on Twitter). If you like it you'll upvote it. That's exactly (one of the many reasons) why I love the Internet. That's the one sad thing, though: as you yourself point out, the Internet is moving in a direction where this concept of an anonymous meritocracy is already becoming more and more difficult - and, eventually, likely impossible.
  - cheapsteak 14y ago
    The internet was a much smaller place. Instead of seeing the change in the way most of the web is used as invading this anonymous meritocracy, perhaps it would be more reasonable to say that the meritocracy is now surrounded by settlers who are using the land in a different way.
sliverstorm 14y ago
I'm going to hazard that they didn't pay you less because you were young- they paid you less knowing that, because you were young, that was your market value. In other words, they paid you a rate competitive with what they thought you could get elsewhere, which tends to be lower when you are younger. I'm still debating this in my head, whether it is discrimination or not if they are saying "This guy is young, his market rate is lower". (Rather than "This guy is young, he must be no good") Because it generally is an accurate assessment.
- cheapsteak 14y ago
  'Market value' does not exclude discrimination if most players in the market are ageist, sexist, or racist What would stop a company from framing any kind of discrimination as an argument from 'market value'?
  - sliverstorm 14y ago
    What would stop a company from framing any kind of discrimination as an argument from 'market value' Well, in theory the part where the employee goes somewhere else for a much better rate. 'Market value' does not exclude discrimination if most players in the market are ageist, sexist, or racist Basically my argument is that in that case it is the job market that is racist; individual employers don't have to be racist to match market rates, even if the market is racist. Or at least that's what I'm mulling over.
- waqf 14y ago
  Would it be discrimination if they judged that his market rate was less because of his skin color?
E_Carefree 14y ago
Daniel Suarez is this awesome writer who wrote "Dameon" which predicts a new form of government and organization that exemplifies this idea. In a type of augmented reality where you are no longer seen as a person with an age or skin tone, but rather a person with a simple feedback rating based on your previous interactions.
kneath 14y ago
(Author here) Just wanted to clarify, since it seems a lot of people seem to think I'm frustrated with being discriminated against. I'm not. It's a fact of life. I got over it pretty early in life. I love being short, it's fucking awesome. If ever you meet me, you'd probably agree I don't have an issue with it. I wrote this article to illustrate the power of the internet and this industry we work in. I used two examples of actual stories that I've lived through to show a dichotomy. This is not to say there were people set out on destroying me because I was short. That's crazy. I wanted to point out an amazing thing the internet has brought on, and especially how amazing it can be for people who deal in pixels for a living. That being said, if ever you find yourself telling someone who talks of discrimination that it's their problem, you should probably re-evaluate your stance. This is why discrimination is so difficult to counteract — it's rarely a conscious or malicious process. I discriminate against people every day, and I'm discriminated against every day. To think otherwise is absurd.
- callmevlad 14y ago
  Hey Kyle, great post! Not sure if you remember, but we worked at that same company at exactly the same time (and I'm pretty sure we're exactly the same height). I was more on the programming side of things at the time, but when I found out the difference between what I was paid and how my hours were billed to clients (also around 20x), I had the same sort of reaction. Since I was just barely starting college at the time (so no degree, but had the skills), I really think this was mostly just a function of the labor market around that area. I had younger/taller/thicker/balder/older co-workers who were similarly 'discriminated' with respect to their salaries as they were starting out there. The high multiple probably had a lot to do with the type of clients this company was able to land. If I remember correctly, they charged something like 10x market rate for managed hosting, and clients happily paid because of the nature of the product. Also, I'd say the unique thing about you that made (makes) you really stand out is not just the pixels, it's the glorious combination of both pixels and bits [1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicorn http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicorn
- kysol 14y ago
  > I discriminate against people every day, and I'm discriminated against every day. First thing I thought of when I read that line was: Well yes, dropping support for older IE versions could be called discrimination, but its needed, and justified :)
aaronbasssett 14y ago
I know some incredibly talented younger people. People who without a doubt will be brilliant developers, much better than me I am sure. Would I hire them into a senior position right now, no chance. Sometimes being good or even gifted is simply not enough. You need to know when to be pragmatic. When to let someone else win. When to look at everything, not just the lines of code or the pixels but the commercial implications of your decisions. For example: > For every hour I worked, the agency billed my time out at a 2,083% markup. To the client (who couldn’t see my height), my time was worth over 20x the amount I was worth to the agency. That's because they're not just billing for your time. They're billing for the time of the sales person who chased the lead, the time of the team who read the brief and developed the proposal, the time of the people who travelled to the client to deliver the presentation, the time of the secretary who handled the callback and the time of all the people who did all the same things the half a dozen other times where you DIDN'T get the job.
nerdfiles 14y ago
If pixels exist, they are certainly indifferent to resolutions.
ycuser 14y ago
sometimes age is on your side and sometimes not. If one thinks they are worth more than what they are getting they should go get their worth, period. You have to trust your ability and back it up with unflinching guts. We live in fabulous times where showcasing your work is easier and the reach global.
jwarkentin 14y ago
I've felt the same way for years. When I was younger I was on IRC all the time. I remember spending a bunch of time helping people out with Gentoo, and occasionally other code issues. It was funny one day after I helped a 35 year old guy out with a Javascript problem he was having for work, when he found out that I was 14. Haha, age has always felt like my biggest hurdle with my career, but it's not too bad, I'm far better off than others my age. I have always wished people would judge me more for my knowledge and abilities than for my age.
kysol 14y ago
Being self-taught, I too have had to deal with the lower than everyone else wage. It's hard work on a daily basis when you spend a portion of your time helping out other "learned" members of the team by fixing mistakes that you /facepalm at. What is worse are the ones that use your lack of a degree as evidence that you don't know what you're talking about... it usually comes back to bite them in the ass when their systems collapse due to the issues raised months prior, you know the ones they never listened to you about. If and when I get around to hiring my own staff, I will be doing it based on what they have done, not what they can do (on paper).
hexonexxon 14y ago
This is not news to me as I've had jobs offered by simply posting to debian and *bsd mailing lists from out of the blue once they read my posts on hunting kernel bugs. Mailing lists are still a secret gold mine for employment. I also didn't have to send a resume or anything was hired right away each time Also +1 for IRC. Thankfully something social still exists where you don't have forced real identities, a whole profile of bullshit musical interests nobody cares about (i don't care that you love obscure hipster sweater and beard acoustic), or forum circle jerking and post count worshipping. Plus it isn't monitored by your employers looking to fire somebody for slight twitter or fb breaches of conduct, and best of all the media and oprah have no idea what IRC is
nannasin28 14y ago
I had started was taken very seriously. It's still around today, and it makes just over $2 million/year in net profit . http://www.hqew.net http://www.hqew.net
deleted 14y ago
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corporalagumbo 14y ago
It's a perspective thing. I think he missed an alternate reaction to his position. He could have been pleased with the money he was paid, honoured by the responsibility he was given, and driven to do the best he could. Instead he spent most of his time feeling hard done by. That's the kind of attitude problem that people pick up on when they consider people for a position - will this guy work his ass off for me? Oh, he thinks too much of himself? No thanks.
- treerock 14y ago
  This is an attitude that employers work hard to cultivate. I don't think it's healthy for workers to 'work his ass off' for a company that isn't willing to reward those efforts. It's a weakness and employers will take advantage.
  - corporalagumbo 14y ago
    But he was being rewarded, no? And I imagine at a pretty damn good pay rate for someone so young and untested. and he was given a fantastic door into a high-power field. But he had to fixate on the fact that he was "only" getting X rather than Y. He had an opportunity to be thankful for what he was getting, but he chose to focus on the negative instead. a company that isn't willing to reward those efforts. What I'm talking about is not some sort of self-sacrifice, selling yourself into corporate slavery. It's the basics of what I would look for in an employee - is he going to work hard, do it without complaining - is he going to make my life easier or harder? Unfortunately people with a notably entitled what's-in-it-for-me attitude only make employer's lives more difficult. Not saying that that's for sure what this guy was like btw, but that's the impression I get.

764 points by dpearson 14y ago

Good for him. My brother had a similar experience selling things online. If you are able to write professionally, people are more willing to trust you - even if you are 13.

robotmay 14y ago
Back when I was 14 I played quite a lot of Phantasy Star Online on the Xbox (which had a very small community). My voice broke a year or two beforehand, and I was pretty respectful and eloquent. I had people constantly looking to me for advice and help, under the assumption I was significantly older (I have a pretty low voice). It was quite nice being treated as an adult years before people would treat me the same in person.

morisy 14y ago

I had the totally same experience with early online communities (Everything2, Slashdot), and for a long time made a conscious effort of keeping my avatar off the Internet. It's a little utopian, yes, but being able to deal with people based on their ideas, ideals, and quality of work, and develop fast friendships without ever being aware of so much (Great line: "How could the internet know you were gay? 80 years old? Hispanic? Transgender? Karl Rove? It just didn’t matter.") is what made the pre-Facebook net magical for me and so many others, and what, in many ways, makes the rash of so many social-mobile-local startups so boring: They trade personal flare for personal expression, let users show off badges instead of actual achievement.

mjn 14y ago
One thing I'm not quite sure what to make of is that I felt a lot of that aspect on the BBSs I started out on during high school, despite them being more local. Since there was free local calling but long-distance cost money (possibly a US-specific thing), I dialed up only local BBSs, which made for a certain location specificity. I liked that to some extent, because it made the local BBSs "special" in some way, kept the communities at a manageable size, and made it easier to develop an "audience", so to speak, in a little niche where you weren't competing with everyone on the whole planet for the same audience, like you are in the flat geography of the internet. But, at least in the circles I ended up in, nobody really tried to meet up, or wanted to know much about who you were IRL. So it had this odd feeling of both very cyberspacey, where you could be anyone you wanted online, but still a "clumpy" cyberspace where the clumps were related to RL location.
- svachalek 14y ago
  I was also part of my local BBS community but many/most of us did meet up in person. It was kind of interesting seeing faces to match the online personas as I pretty much always guessed wrong. I never imagined that some of us were women, some were very young, some pretty old, and one was the 6'6" tattooed scary guy at school.
- pasbesoin 14y ago
  I was part of an Internet based, but highly topical, forum. The experience was somewhat similar. Clumpy and fairly self-selecting. Some people did meet, out-of-band and/or in real life. But the nature of the community, and the worldwide physical dispersal, kept this rather limited. Actually, while the forum had a very specific topic of focus, people there got to know each other rather more generally. It's the one place where I wore an avatar. One of the cartoon character defaults. The anonymity and strong community ethic of respect for privacy actually facilitated communication. I find the "real name" initiatives ("now with photos") trending to the same sort of superficiality I run into "in real life". "Brogramming" and a lot of the rest of the "current trends" also come to mind. I think some of us are going to continue to look for those more intimate, even while more anonymous, communities. HN used to be (more than) a bit that way, before it exploded. (Where, too, people chose to reveal themselves to others, but on an opt-in basis.)
mhartl 14y ago
On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog—or at least, they didn't until Facebook came along. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f8/Internet_dog.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f8/Internet_dog.j...
- russell 14y ago
  "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" is an adage which began as the caption of a cartoon by Peter Steiner published by The New Yorker on July 5, 1993. (From Wikipedia.) At least they ought to give credit.
  - BrandonM 14y ago
    It looks like that comic is signed, "P. Steiner"?

alabut 14y ago

Reminds me of the Malcolm Gladwell anecdote about how orchestra auditions are usually biased unless they hide the musicians behind a screen, so that the music is judged free from distraction. You can see the same principle at work on a new TV show called The Taste, where contestants cook up and serve a single bite of food that the judges eat without knowing who the contestants are. So far the home cooks have been not only holding their own but beating out the pro chefs.

B-Con 14y ago
The reality TV show "The Voice" is similar. The on-TV auditions are done such that the judges cannot see the performer and must select them for their season-long team based purely on their voice. It's worked well.

sergiotapia 14y ago

Good for him that he managed to get around that. But personal, face to face interactions are much better are gauging how a person is going to be when joining a team. Any sort of team. People on paper sound nice, but when you meet them they are a bit off. I have a scary knack for this and can call out caustic people after the initial interaction.

kdaigle 14y ago
Having worked on a lot of mainly (or entirely) remote teams, I think digital/chat interaction is just as good as face to face. Sometimes face to face personalities don't entirely match your chat persona but chat does a good job of passing along enough information to decide. I've worked with people for years while never having met them in-person. No need. Regardless of remote/in-person, a piece of paper should never be the sole hiring decision.
neumann_alfred 14y ago
It's not really that scary that you notice something that seems off to you, everybody has that. But how do you confirm your "gut feeling"? It's not like you hire the people you dismiss in that manner to see if you're proven wrong, so what makes you so sure?
ChuckMcM 14y ago
I may be wrong but I think you missed the point. If "working together" is code for "we both have commit access to the same repo and the same functional test criteria and same target ship date" then it really doesn't matter at all if the person likes to work in their underwear and tell cat jokes since you're only interaction with them is going be through commits. In a strangely wonderful way, people who have conditions that would make their 'productive' work in an office impossible have found work and even success as a remote team member on the other side of an email alias and irc channel. That said, managers are more comfortable when the know their folks a bit more, but they generally are watching for things to go off the rails and head that off rather than whether or not the code is up to standard.
- potatolicious 14y ago

hjay 14y ago

I had more or less the same experience doing freelance work early on. Clients who judge you based on your age, instead of the value you provide to their business. Clients who are uncomfortable taking suggestions from a 20 year old, and instead, would rather get lower quality work from someone older, and more "experienced". Glad to hear you're doing well now, keep it up!

joshmlewis 14y ago

I've always heard of this happening but I never really had a problem with it. I thankfully learned early on about getting things in writing, agreements, etc. after seeing people getting screwed over. I learned that if people didn't want to work with you because of your age, you shouldn't want to work with them either. I heard Zeldman say that he only works with clients that he personally likes. Something to that effect, but it rang true for me even to today. Only work with people you like. Don't get stuck in a crappy job like OP. You can get out there and do it if you try hard enough. I'm 19 now and it hardly affects me at all. In fact I feel behind. I am cofounding a startup and working full time at another startup, and I still haven't had my great succes yet. I work hard everyday and that's all that matters. Work hard, meet the right people, and use your gut. What really inspirers me are the ones that have gone out there and just killed it at a young age, it means that it is possible if you find the right way.

mpyne 14y ago
> Work hard, meet the right people, and use your gut. I've done that all, and been successful out of it. But at least in my case there was one even larger element in play: Luck. And I can't even begin to list all the different ways that I've been lucky (and unlucky), but I always keep that in the back of my mind. I could have born in Somalia, or a Brooklyn ghetto, I could have tried to make my last career move a year earlier or later (when it would have been shot down for sure), or any of 80,000 other reasons I could have failed despite hard work, talking to the right people, and using my gut. It's easy to say you won't get screwed if you're careful, but be very sure that it isn't just that you've been lucky to interact with good people.
- daeken 14y ago
  "I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it." - Unknown (tons of attributions) While some things are just random chance -- who your parents are, where you're born, etc -- but most things in life don't come from luck, much as we like to ascribe things to it. Most of the time it comes from hard work and -- probably more importantly -- tenacity. I've been "lucky" in a lot of ways, namely who has seen my work and decided to write about it, who's decided to hire me because of it, etc, but at the end of the day there were a dozen failures for every success. If I hadn't stuck at it, I never would've "gotten lucky".

kevin_rubyhouse 14y ago

Kinda crazy to think about, but when China gets up to speed and communications between our countries are open, the scale of what he mentioned at the end will be huge. Today, you could be one of the most sought out programmers in the west. Imagine competing against another intelligent millions of programmers from the east too. I can't wait.

FireBeyond 14y ago

What a strange claim. "Looking back", he can't help but feel discriminated against due to his height. It couldn't possibly be because of his "no formal eduction, no experience with any big clients", could it?

suyash 14y ago
Agree, the author has confused us and not disclosed his complete background.
noonespecial 14y ago
Height is actually a weird one when people get fixated on it. I worked with a guy once who was about 5,5 but was absolutely obsessed with "height discrimination". He filtered everything that happened to him through that lens and it severely warped his view on reality and it kept him from addressing real issues that would have made him a more hireable employee.
- ajross 14y ago
  I think we've all met people like you describe. But let's not tar the author with that either. What he describes does indeed happen all the time, and you don't need to invoke irrational discrimination to explain it: employers offer lower salaries to the young and inexperienced because they can (these people are hungrier, "need" the jobs more, and have fewer options) and because it saves them money. That's maybe not noble but it's not insane either. This may be especially true in the web development world which (to my eyes as a 41 year old systems hacker) is populated by a much larger fraction of young and inexperienced developers. Unless you're a true rockstar, there are a half dozen candidates just as good as you willing to take that job.
- dbattaglia 14y ago
  I'm 5'5" myself and rarely even think about it, other than to make the occasional self-deprecating joke about it. Everyone's life experience is different but I think you are right that people can focus on more insignificant "shortcomings" (har har!) to take focus off their real problems.
14y ago

mjs 14y ago

This is an argument that there's no discrimination in tech? Or less discrimination than in other industries?

kevingadd 14y ago
I think the suggestion is much simpler: That when everything happens electronically, it is less likely that discrimination will happen because people aren't even given an opportunity to apply their biases and stereotypes to you because they've never seen you in person, just read your text (or perhaps spoken with you over the phone/skype). In my experience this is true, even if it doesn't wholly eliminate discrimination.

JumpCrisscross 14y ago

Silicon Valley has a strange fixation on age which waffles between discrimination and fetishisation. I started working as a trader at a Swiss bank in New York when I was 20. There were lots of jokes cracked about "traders south of the drinking age" and the number mattered more to some than others, but in the end it was meritocratic. When I was 21 (after leaving the bank), I interviewed at a well-regarded Palo Alto-based tech firm and painfully remember every round of the interview bringing up that I didn't go to a prestigious enough university and that I looked "baby-faced". Granted, I look older in a suit, but it's a curiously consistent cultural artefact. You don't find anyone lauding over 22-year old hedge fund or energy venture founders as VCs do over over their 19-year old "rock stars".

blablabla123 14y ago
Yes probably 25 is the perfect age -- and even then some (unprofessional) professionals will still consider you too young to seriously talk to. But the most amazing fact is this: these kind of people who do this discrimination probably also discriminate against people who are older than themselves. And one day chances are they will be discrimininated against for that. This definitely must change, everywhere.

RandallBrown 14y ago

I had a similar experience when I bought my first new car. I was 23 at the time, but could have passed for younger. I went into the dealership and waited around until FINALLY someone came and talked to me. I talked a little, asked some questions and eventually got to do some test drives. I was already pretty sold on a certain car, but they didn't have any on the lot in the color I wanted. So I ask about it, the salesman tells me that what they have on the lot is all that's available (shipments were delayed by the tsunami in Japan) and that was that. I didn't buy a car that day. Now, at that point I was borrowing my parents car, and would need to return them the car at some point. Luckily the dealership in my parents town had the car in the right color (according to their website) so I called them up and said I wanted it. Unfortunately for me, it was already gone. But the guy bent over backwards for me trying to find a new one at other dealerships in the state that matched what I wanted and he eventually found one. I always wonder how the second dealer would have treated me if he would have seen me before we made the deal.

cgmorton 14y ago
Or, one was a good salesman and the other was not. Or maybe the second one was strapped for cash and really needed the sale. I'd rather not theorize until we get some more data points.

spot 14y ago

it's great that this guy got his job and all but let's not pretend it's just about the quality of his work. he was hanging out in a chat room with these people. plenty of personality shows through.

mduvall 14y ago

I'm lost - where in the post is the discrimination for being short, and not just having the proper credentials?

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

dhaivatpandya 14y ago

I totally agree with the "too young" thing. I'm 15 and been freelancing since I was 12, and this gets in the way all the time. People try to take advantage of you once they realize that you're young(er) than most in the field.

jakejake 14y ago
I think it's fantastic that you're here, freelancing and making money. Under the age of 14, though, I think US companies could potentially get into legal trouble hiring you. Under the age of 18 there are laws regarding maximum hours and what hours you can work (so not to interfere with school, etc). I would agree that you should be paid based on your skill, though, not age.
- dhaivatpandya 14y ago
  I mostly worked with small companies in India (only a few projects) before I was 14. And, I am working nowhere close to the amount which even comes close to max. hours.
geon 14y ago
Unless you are a prodigy, you simply haven't had the time yet to become really good at anything. Supposedly it takes 10.000 hours or so of exercise, which would be 9 years at 3 hours daily. I'm not trying to push you down, and anyone not paying you what your work is worth is definitely taking advantage of you.
- dhaivatpandya 14y ago
  Very true. But, I don't think that applies to everything. I don't think it takes 10,000 hours of practice to design a decent Wordpress theme. In fact, I would say that most college graduates (even from top universities) would still be quite far away from 10,000 hours in a specific domain of CS/SE, yet, companies do hire them.
  - aaronbasssett 14y ago

Heliosmaster 14y ago

This is a great article. As a student of mathematics about to finish his studies and looking potentially at a job in software development, this gave me a boost in confidence, reminding me that I should not be afraid too much on competition from people that have the proper academic background (although one might say that I'm not that in a disadvantaged position, I do know a lot less about the technical core stuff of computing). Everything is still possible!

MattyRad 14y ago

I know how it feels... I'm 22, 5'4", and look like I'm 17. This post reminds me of the Hacker Manifesto, by The Mentor: we exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias.

dbattaglia 14y ago
I'm 32 and look like I'm 22 to most people. Trust me you start appreciating it more the older you get. :)

kerryfalk 14y ago

? I, too, am short. I'm 5'6". I have always worked on teams with people much older than me (seems like a 15-20 year average). When I was in my early 20s and in sales selling high dollar value equipment I recognized that my age wasn't going to help. It took a few moments to dispel that once I began talking with someone as I just needed to overcome the view that I was inexperienced (As that would be associated with my age). It definitely did not hold me back and I'm fairly sure that if I lost a deal it was because of something other than my height. We all face challenges and each are unique to us. I meet a lot of people and I don't know anyone who would actively discriminate against someone short. I read through the article and based on it alone I got the sense that these challenges my stem from within the author rather than something external. I didn't read an examples of a situation that you'd reason resulted due to his height. Just interpretations. "Ultimately, your greatest competition is yourself." - Guy Kawasaki

sharkweek 14y ago
>We all face challenges and each are unique to us. Completely random musing, but it reminded me of my height being disadvantageous when in perspective: I'm a pretty tall guy, a little above 6'4", and have an extremely large reach -- Also a pretty avid rock climber. I can rarely climb at my gym without someone commenting about how it must be so nice to be able to just "reach" for all the holds. Ignoring the fact that I probably weigh 30 more pounds than my sub 6' climber buddies, most route setters at our gym are probably closer to 5'10" and set/grade the routes accordingly; I often end up using sub-optimal (and tiring) form on the "crux" of the route as I end up cramped together awkwardly.
- darkarmani 14y ago
  Agreed. That nice rest everyone gets on a "perfect" knee bar, just doesn't work for the taller people. Rock climbing strength doesn't scale with weight. And tendon strength which is so important develops so slow. After crimping on tiny holds so many times, I don't really want to hear about how my height is an advantage in climbing. Every once in a while you get to reach past the small holds to a nice big jug, but the rest of the time you're carrying the extra weight.

cale 14y ago

In interviews with agencies I've been told "You're not a designer" and "I hate personnel." In many cases the old agency curmudgeons are threatened by younger people with talent. This sounds like a similar example. On the up side, this is an excellent indicator that you don't want to work for these people. There's always a better option.

pnathan 14y ago

This is one of the most transformative things of the Internet. It is also one of the most definite things I dislike about, say, the post 2005 closed web. Age/gender matters so much to people, even hackery types. It didn't seem to matter as much.

mvleming 14y ago

If you look to history, you can see overtime we acquire new ways of changing ourselves. There was a time when there wasn't makeup, but nowadays people can use makeup and change their appearance. Same thing with dying your hair, getting a plastic surgery, or arguably even body building: by getting this down to a science, we can figure out how to best change our physique. But really, all of these methods are crude, really crude. But I'm super excited about what the next of couple of decades will do change this. I think we're on the verge of being able to completely define ourselves, and I don't just mean in the sense of designer children, i.e. genetics. I'm also thinking more along the lines of augmented reality and new bionic bodies. Even today, there is a woman, Aimee Mullins, who has prosthetic legs. In her TED talk (http://www.ted.com/talks/aimee_mullins_prosthetic_aesthetics.html http://www.ted.com/talks/aimee_mullins_prosthetic_aesthetics...), she talked about how she could redesign her legs however she wanted. For example, she could be 6 inches taller, or when she did a fashion shoot, she could have cheetah legs: http://img0.liveinternet.ru/images/attach/b/3/17/452/17452836_cheetah.jpg http://img0.liveinternet.ru/images/attach/b/3/17/452/1745283.... (NSFW?) At one point in the talk, a person from the audience shouted out "It's not fair!" And this is epochal, right? This is just a sign of what's to come. You look at Second Life and you see these avatars people have designed for themselves, they have control over how big their chest is, what skin colour they are, height, whatever. I can't help but dream of that being extrapolated to the real world, where we have complete control over how we express ourselves physically. Everybody would feel comfortable in their skin, everybody would look super-sexy, and we would find radical new ways of expressing ourselves (personally I would love blue fur). Now I know what some of you are thinking right now, isn't this really superficial? In Second Life we already see huge tits and perfect abs. In one sense, culture becomes magnified tremendously. The body almost becomes a blank canvas to extrapolate the mind onto. But also, it's not superficial at all, it's exactly the opposite. Let me explain it by posing you this question: what defines you? I've thought long and hard about this, and I've come to the answer: you are defined by what you can't change. When OP can't change how tall he is, he's defined by that, especially so in his workplace. On the flip side, when you can change something about yourself, that is a means of expressing who you are. We can change the style and the colour of our hair, and this is a huge part of culture: just look at all those hair magazines. So what we have here is you are defined by what you can't change and what you can change is a means of expressing who you are. But, and this is the point I'm trying to get at, when you can change something that you couldn't change before, what defines you becomes smaller. So when in the next couple of decades, when we can change our sex, skin colour, physique, species?, what will truly define us becomes an interesting question. And it is in this sense how it is exactly the opposite of superficial. There's a Buddha saying: "You are not your thoughts." And you are not your body either.

mnicole 14y ago

Echoing the article and everyone else that this was an issue for me as well. I had an interview at a small-town agency once with the two owners. They talked to me for awhile, and then walked out of the room to speak privately. When they came back, one of them said he loved my work and he'd hire me today, but his co-founder wasn't comfortable with hiring someone "so young without any formal education" and wanted me to come back after I'd done so (haha, right). They actually bickered quite a bit between themselves on the issue right in front of me (which made me feel good), but settled on not giving me the gig. I went about my way, happier that I didn't have to put up with someone who cared more about paperwork than work on paper. A few years later I was working at another agency where my art director was pleading with me not to go to college and to stay with the company (which, honestly I would have had it not been for the keylogger I found implemented by another manager). "School is a waste of time for talent," he said, "You'll be miserable. Stay here and do real work." Feeling like I'd rather see for myself than regret the opportunity, I went. It wasn't the private art schools I wanted (I couldn't afford something like that), so I ran into nothing but mediocrity and decade-old lesson plans. Underwhelmed, pissed, and broke, I went back to working. Meanwhile, a girl I know that spent the better part of 10 years receiving design/multimedia degrees has little to show for it by way of skills. While she acquires jobs easily, she doesn't keep them for very long as her talents are so many years behind what people are expecting that she can't do what she wants to/what her degree seemed to "promise" her. These days you'll see portfolios splattered with "~young designer~" or "~budding developer & entrepreneur~" and it completely goes against the spirit of being merited on your strengths rather than your accomplishments-by-age (ironically, I enjoy when kids/younger teens post their age in the titles of their ShowHNs). While it might make the kid feel more competent, acknowledging it is just asking to be underpaid because they know you won't know any better or inherently believe you aren't worth it.

corporalagumbo 14y ago
Or perhaps instead of trying to fight their age to project a defensive false equivalence with older workers, these kids are embracing and flaunting their age as a virtue - their precocity, enthusiasm, even naivety. You said it yourself - you look kindly on young kids with the balls to show off something cool they've made on HN. It's natural as an older person to feel charitable towards earnest kids, so what's wrong with leveraging that? I'm still pretty young and I often either genuinely come across as or play up a little an appearance of being incompetent and bewildered when I'm interacting with older, female shop assistants and office clerks in retail or bureaucratic environments. They like it, though they wouldn't necessarily admit it, and I get treated with faux-grumpy generosity. Works for me!

Stefan_H 14y ago

If I read this correctly, the main negative point was that the author was not paid as much as his colleagues, though he did get the position. The author suggests this is because of his height. To me (a young professional in the software development industry) that screams that the author did not know his own worth and therefore did not negotiate a high enough pay. I'm young for the positions I have held, and am roughly of average height, but you can be sure that I will get paid the same or more than my colleagues, because I understand how much I am worth and I am willing to say as much.

mikecane 14y ago

>>>For the first time in human history, it’s possible to be represented (almost) solely through the merits of your work. I don't want to detract from what he went through -- god knows short people and other physical "non-conformists" are too often treated differently (for bad and good) -- but Andrew Carnegie was short too. What we're all suffering under is image indoctrination from mass media, from magazines, movies, TV. Every time I hear someone say something like, "S/he looks the part," I want to reach for an imaginary gun. Life is not effin Central Casting. And it's all gotten worse in just the past 10-20 years, with everyone on mass screens seemingly all having the same damn jaws and jawlines, looking like they all came from the same limited gene pool. It didn't used to be that way. Anyway, Napoleon was also short. Don't let anyone push you around. EDIT: After reading a sales-related comment here, I was reminded that Ross Perot is also short. He made out OK.

upquark 14y ago
I'm not sure it's gotten worse in every aspect, particularly in terms of acceptance of foreign ethnicities and races. People do have an unrealistic model of the real world, and that model is being currently skewed by mass media, etc, but previously it was skewed by local cultural attitudes, religious doctrine, etc. I don't think people were ever objective in judging each other based on merits vs appearance.

danabramov 14y ago

I started doing freelance work when I just turned 17 and learned just the opposite thing: “It's up to you to tell the story.” I was able to turn my age into advantage, and the contrast between my obviously teenage avatar and a convincing portfolio helped me distinguish myself from most other freelancers. It was the same with my first job: I just approached a guy after he gave a lecture and asked him questions he found interesting. He was a CTO of an outsourcing company, and I asked if they were looking for C# programmers. I sent a very pompous resumé and got hired despite its silliness—it made them curious enough to land me an interview where I was able to show I'm a normal guy. If you're seriously different from the rest, you can turn this into an advantage as long as you stress this point and make it an integral part of your story—not something you hide. People appreciate honesty and some humour too, and that's especially true in freelancing. Exposing your vulnerability (yes I'm young, yes I'm a minority, etc) while showcasing your great work makes you look humane and more likely to be a great person to work with. You'll attract better customers—I experienced this myself. People you'll enjoy working for. Your work speaks for yourself in either case, but in the end it's how you market your work that determines if the one evaluating you feels excitement (“This guy's so young but his work kicks ass, he must be a real prodigy”) or doubt (“This work is great but he's so young so we shouldn't hire him”). Of course getting a lot of signed positive reviews is important, and pricing can be tricky too.

javajosh 14y ago

What a beautiful blog post. I think too often we lament the anonymity of the internet without understanding that there are some serious upsides, too. It's almost like a social Turing test: A good person is someone you identify as such based purely on messages written on slips of paper and passed under a door.

ajsharp 14y ago

Well put kneath, well fucking put :)

deleted 14y ago

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robotresearcher 14y ago

"For the first time in human history, it’s possible to be represented (almost) solely through the merits of your work." I enjoyed the piece, but this is overstated. Represented by an agent that protects anonymity, or just working by correspondence only, writers have enjoyed this ability for a long time. George Eliot and J.K. Rowling obscured their gender and let the work speak for itself.

eru 14y ago
Nitpick: `J.K. Rowling' might be obscuring gender, but `George Eliot' isn't just obfuscation.
- robotresearcher 14y ago
  Yes it is. Mary Ann Eliot using George as a pen name obscured her gender. She didn't claim to be a man: she hid the fact that she wasn't. George isn't a uniquely masculine name and was more frequent for women in the past than it is now. http://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/0/George http://www.thinkbabynames.com/meaning/0/George
  - eru 14y ago
    Thanks!

pizza 14y ago

Late last year, an artist by the name of Captain Murphy dropped a mix tape, "Duality". Duality had phenomenal production quality and very talented rapping. Everyone from "future beats"-type listeners to gangsta-rap afficionados wanted to know who Captain Murphy was. Turns out, the biggest name in all of modern experimental hip hop, Flying Lotus, was behind the project, along with a wealth of his friends. When asked why he didn't release the music as Flying Lotus, he replied (paraphrased) that he didn't want people to say, "Oh, he's rapping now", and he wanted to be respected more for his talent than for his legacy, or who people thought he was.

austenallred 14y ago

I started out as a 13-year-old entrepreneur selling stuff on eBay (which was pretty new at the time). There was a loophole when they first opened where you could sign up under someone else's name and switch all of the records over to your name; that way you didn't have to be 18 to register. I first grew to love the Internet as the only real meritocracy I experienced in life. No one knew I was 13. When I talked to people in person I would get a pat on the head and a "you'll do great some day," but the little eBay company I had started was taken very seriously. It's still around today, and it makes just over $2 million/year in net profit (not on eBay any more). While the Internet is no longer as anonymous, and I am no longer with the aforementioned company, I believe product still speaks for itself. While it's true that investors may be looking for a dropout Stanford grad student, if you create something people love you can grow a company regardless of what anyone thinks about you as a person. Hell, I raised half a million dollars as an 18-year-old kid, not because I looked or acted like the quintessential entrepreneur, but because I could show numbers. If you can show someone, "Here's a black box where you put in $1 and $10 comes out," finding money isn't hard. Even if you're 18. You don't know who I am from this comment (unless you stalk my bio and find me on Twitter). If you like it you'll upvote it. That's exactly (one of the many reasons) why I love the Internet.

chimeracoder 14y ago
> While the Internet is no longer as anonymous > You don't know who I am from this comment (unless you stalk my bio and find me on Twitter). If you like it you'll upvote it. That's exactly (one of the many reasons) why I love the Internet. That's the one sad thing, though: as you yourself point out, the Internet is moving in a direction where this concept of an anonymous meritocracy is already becoming more and more difficult - and, eventually, likely impossible.
- cheapsteak 14y ago
  The internet was a much smaller place. Instead of seeing the change in the way most of the web is used as invading this anonymous meritocracy, perhaps it would be more reasonable to say that the meritocracy is now surrounded by settlers who are using the land in a different way.

sliverstorm 14y ago

I'm going to hazard that they didn't pay you less because you were young- they paid you less knowing that, because you were young, that was your market value. In other words, they paid you a rate competitive with what they thought you could get elsewhere, which tends to be lower when you are younger. I'm still debating this in my head, whether it is discrimination or not if they are saying "This guy is young, his market rate is lower". (Rather than "This guy is young, he must be no good") Because it generally is an accurate assessment.

cheapsteak 14y ago
'Market value' does not exclude discrimination if most players in the market are ageist, sexist, or racist What would stop a company from framing any kind of discrimination as an argument from 'market value'?
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  What would stop a company from framing any kind of discrimination as an argument from 'market value' Well, in theory the part where the employee goes somewhere else for a much better rate. 'Market value' does not exclude discrimination if most players in the market are ageist, sexist, or racist Basically my argument is that in that case it is the job market that is racist; individual employers don't have to be racist to match market rates, even if the market is racist. Or at least that's what I'm mulling over.
waqf 14y ago
Would it be discrimination if they judged that his market rate was less because of his skin color?

E_Carefree 14y ago

Daniel Suarez is this awesome writer who wrote "Dameon" which predicts a new form of government and organization that exemplifies this idea. In a type of augmented reality where you are no longer seen as a person with an age or skin tone, but rather a person with a simple feedback rating based on your previous interactions.

kneath 14y ago

(Author here) Just wanted to clarify, since it seems a lot of people seem to think I'm frustrated with being discriminated against. I'm not. It's a fact of life. I got over it pretty early in life. I love being short, it's fucking awesome. If ever you meet me, you'd probably agree I don't have an issue with it. I wrote this article to illustrate the power of the internet and this industry we work in. I used two examples of actual stories that I've lived through to show a dichotomy. This is not to say there were people set out on destroying me because I was short. That's crazy. I wanted to point out an amazing thing the internet has brought on, and especially how amazing it can be for people who deal in pixels for a living. That being said, if ever you find yourself telling someone who talks of discrimination that it's their problem, you should probably re-evaluate your stance. This is why discrimination is so difficult to counteract — it's rarely a conscious or malicious process. I discriminate against people every day, and I'm discriminated against every day. To think otherwise is absurd.

callmevlad 14y ago
Hey Kyle, great post! Not sure if you remember, but we worked at that same company at exactly the same time (and I'm pretty sure we're exactly the same height). I was more on the programming side of things at the time, but when I found out the difference between what I was paid and how my hours were billed to clients (also around 20x), I had the same sort of reaction. Since I was just barely starting college at the time (so no degree, but had the skills), I really think this was mostly just a function of the labor market around that area. I had younger/taller/thicker/balder/older co-workers who were similarly 'discriminated' with respect to their salaries as they were starting out there. The high multiple probably had a lot to do with the type of clients this company was able to land. If I remember correctly, they charged something like 10x market rate for managed hosting, and clients happily paid because of the nature of the product. Also, I'd say the unique thing about you that made (makes) you really stand out is not just the pixels, it's the glorious combination of both pixels and bits [1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicorn http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicorn
kysol 14y ago
> I discriminate against people every day, and I'm discriminated against every day. First thing I thought of when I read that line was: Well yes, dropping support for older IE versions could be called discrimination, but its needed, and justified :)

aaronbasssett 14y ago

I know some incredibly talented younger people. People who without a doubt will be brilliant developers, much better than me I am sure. Would I hire them into a senior position right now, no chance. Sometimes being good or even gifted is simply not enough. You need to know when to be pragmatic. When to let someone else win. When to look at everything, not just the lines of code or the pixels but the commercial implications of your decisions. For example: > For every hour I worked, the agency billed my time out at a 2,083% markup. To the client (who couldn’t see my height), my time was worth over 20x the amount I was worth to the agency. That's because they're not just billing for your time. They're billing for the time of the sales person who chased the lead, the time of the team who read the brief and developed the proposal, the time of the people who travelled to the client to deliver the presentation, the time of the secretary who handled the callback and the time of all the people who did all the same things the half a dozen other times where you DIDN'T get the job.

nerdfiles 14y ago

If pixels exist, they are certainly indifferent to resolutions.

ycuser 14y ago

sometimes age is on your side and sometimes not. If one thinks they are worth more than what they are getting they should go get their worth, period. You have to trust your ability and back it up with unflinching guts. We live in fabulous times where showcasing your work is easier and the reach global.

jwarkentin 14y ago

I've felt the same way for years. When I was younger I was on IRC all the time. I remember spending a bunch of time helping people out with Gentoo, and occasionally other code issues. It was funny one day after I helped a 35 year old guy out with a Javascript problem he was having for work, when he found out that I was 14. Haha, age has always felt like my biggest hurdle with my career, but it's not too bad, I'm far better off than others my age. I have always wished people would judge me more for my knowledge and abilities than for my age.

kysol 14y ago

Being self-taught, I too have had to deal with the lower than everyone else wage. It's hard work on a daily basis when you spend a portion of your time helping out other "learned" members of the team by fixing mistakes that you /facepalm at. What is worse are the ones that use your lack of a degree as evidence that you don't know what you're talking about... it usually comes back to bite them in the ass when their systems collapse due to the issues raised months prior, you know the ones they never listened to you about. If and when I get around to hiring my own staff, I will be doing it based on what they have done, not what they can do (on paper).

hexonexxon 14y ago

This is not news to me as I've had jobs offered by simply posting to debian and *bsd mailing lists from out of the blue once they read my posts on hunting kernel bugs. Mailing lists are still a secret gold mine for employment. I also didn't have to send a resume or anything was hired right away each time Also +1 for IRC. Thankfully something social still exists where you don't have forced real identities, a whole profile of bullshit musical interests nobody cares about (i don't care that you love obscure hipster sweater and beard acoustic), or forum circle jerking and post count worshipping. Plus it isn't monitored by your employers looking to fire somebody for slight twitter or fb breaches of conduct, and best of all the media and oprah have no idea what IRC is

nannasin28 14y ago

I had started was taken very seriously. It's still around today, and it makes just over $2 million/year in net profit . http://www.hqew.net http://www.hqew.net

deleted 14y ago

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corporalagumbo 14y ago

It's a perspective thing. I think he missed an alternate reaction to his position. He could have been pleased with the money he was paid, honoured by the responsibility he was given, and driven to do the best he could. Instead he spent most of his time feeling hard done by. That's the kind of attitude problem that people pick up on when they consider people for a position - will this guy work his ass off for me? Oh, he thinks too much of himself? No thanks.

treerock 14y ago
This is an attitude that employers work hard to cultivate. I don't think it's healthy for workers to 'work his ass off' for a company that isn't willing to reward those efforts. It's a weakness and employers will take advantage.
- corporalagumbo 14y ago
  But he was being rewarded, no? And I imagine at a pretty damn good pay rate for someone so young and untested. and he was given a fantastic door into a high-power field. But he had to fixate on the fact that he was "only" getting X rather than Y. He had an opportunity to be thankful for what he was getting, but he chose to focus on the negative instead. a company that isn't willing to reward those efforts. What I'm talking about is not some sort of self-sacrifice, selling yourself into corporate slavery. It's the basics of what I would look for in an employee - is he going to work hard, do it without complaining - is he going to make my life easier or harder? Unfortunately people with a notably entitled what's-in-it-for-me attitude only make employer's lives more difficult. Not saying that that's for sure what this guy was like btw, but that's the impression I get.