You're getting downvoted for speaking painful truths. There is a lot in software that takes more than 3 years to learn: machine learning (real ML, not tweaking

You're getting downvoted for speaking painful truths. There is a lot in software that takes more than 3 years to learn: machine learning (real ML, not tweaking off-the-shelf algorithms) and compilers and the like. The problem is that the man-child oligarchy that has taken over Silicon Valley (and, because of SV's influence, the industry as a whole, at least culturally) doesn't value fundamental or technical work (as opposed to doing "make the thingy work with the other thingy" Scrum tickets for a PM barely old enough to drink) so there are so few people doing it, and the competition for positions in real programming is quite high (and the salaries, sadly, aren't as good). It's easier to get a real programming job at 30 than at 22, but fake programming jobs outnumber real ones by such a large margin. And when you're older and have a family to feed, being too old for the well-paid but fake programming jobs at the Hoolis becomes somewhat of a problem, because real programming jobs are so rare that it sometimes involves a cross-country move to get one. Ergo, you're old and out of touch and worthless and go live on a programmer retirement farm in iowa because you're not a culture fit with the 22 year old CEOs anymore. yolo, and you wasted it by not becoming a billionaire by 28. I think that attracting the "old" programmers to a specific city (possibly in the Midwest, say Chicago or Minneapolis, but possibly one overseas like Budapest) is the first step step in taking over the world. I'm not sure what the second is, but an industry that tosses people out just as they're beginning to get good at their jobs is (fuck this term in general, but here it applies) ripe for disruption.