<story><title>Stressful lives of older tech workers</title><url>http://www.businessinsider.com/stressful-lives-of-older-tech-workers-2015-11?_lrsc=e525de47-81f1-48b4-bc62-2a1e336af828</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>KirinDave</author><text>Silicon Valley likes young people because they tend to accept worse employment contracts and accept the idea of longer hours. Folks with family responsibility immediately put counter-pressure on this.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m 38. And I feel &lt;i&gt;enormous&lt;/i&gt; pressure to be smarter than everyone around me to be relevant. People &lt;i&gt;expect&lt;/i&gt; you to be incredible both at management and engineering as you get older. I&amp;#x27;m very lucky my career path has given me opportunity here, because but for a few chance encounters I&amp;#x27;d be much, much worse at both and that&amp;#x27;d be awful. I&amp;#x27;m quite worried about what people will expect of me when I&amp;#x27;m 45. I&amp;#x27;m working hard to add data science to my resume because I think that &amp;quot;mathy&amp;quot; roles have less discrimination against them than pure engineering roles, and I want to stay ahead of it.&lt;p&gt;I do a lot of stuff that is tactical as well. For example, today I&amp;#x27;m wearing a uniqlo-nintendo collaboration t-shirt with Pikachu on it. I&amp;#x27;m doing so on the day I&amp;#x27;m giving an interview. Because I know, tactically, this shirt is silly and irreverent and paints a picture of someone younger at heart.&lt;p&gt;And maybe that is naturally me (pika pika, ban lylat!) but I&amp;#x27;d be lying if I didn&amp;#x27;t continue to do it tactically to appear more relevant and &amp;quot;with it&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;What&amp;#x27;s interesting to me is that outside of the SV startup world, every computer scientist and great engineer I respect is a person over 40. Especially in academia, where women and men of &lt;i&gt;astounding&lt;/i&gt; intelligence are doing work that in 10 years will probably reshape the industry (put forth, naturally, by breathlessly enthusiastic 21 year old &amp;quot;devrel&amp;quot; folks mis-attributing the work of 2 generations of academia to the brilliance of the senior technical staff at that company).&lt;p&gt;So yeah, it sucks. It&amp;#x27;s real. And there is a reason in the older white male-ish segment you find more awareness of other types (gender, racial) discrimination in the industry: people over 40 directly experience age discrimination and it&amp;#x27;s not at all theoretical even to white men in that cohort. If it can happen to older white dudes, it surely can happen to anyone else.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>groby_b</author><text>Counterpoint: I&amp;#x27;m 48. I work in the Valley. I do wear suits and dresses because that&amp;#x27;s what I like. (Some days, you can catch me in jeans and t-shirts. It&amp;#x27;s rare). I don&amp;#x27;t pick up hobbies I don&amp;#x27;t care about just because &amp;quot;everybody does it&amp;quot;. (Looking at you, bicycling!). I&amp;#x27;m not even male.&lt;p&gt;I still (just verified :) ace my interviews. I&amp;#x27;m well respected at my job. I&amp;#x27;ve got a decent income and a decent set of responsibilities.&lt;p&gt;Maybe I&amp;#x27;m an exception. But, alternative thought, maybe the &amp;quot;youth obsession&amp;quot; is also partially created because everybody thinks it exists.&lt;p&gt;Yes, I&amp;#x27;m wondering what happens when I get post 50 as well. But mostly I&amp;#x27;m thinking that because everybody &lt;i&gt;tells&lt;/i&gt; me it will be bad, not because I&amp;#x27;ve seen actual evidence. I&amp;#x27;ve got wonderful colleagues who are 50+, and nobody would dream of firing them. I&amp;#x27;ve got industry contacts who are 50+. So, I guess I&amp;#x27;ll find out in about two years.</text></comment>
<story><title>Stressful lives of older tech workers</title><url>http://www.businessinsider.com/stressful-lives-of-older-tech-workers-2015-11?_lrsc=e525de47-81f1-48b4-bc62-2a1e336af828</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>KirinDave</author><text>Silicon Valley likes young people because they tend to accept worse employment contracts and accept the idea of longer hours. Folks with family responsibility immediately put counter-pressure on this.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m 38. And I feel &lt;i&gt;enormous&lt;/i&gt; pressure to be smarter than everyone around me to be relevant. People &lt;i&gt;expect&lt;/i&gt; you to be incredible both at management and engineering as you get older. I&amp;#x27;m very lucky my career path has given me opportunity here, because but for a few chance encounters I&amp;#x27;d be much, much worse at both and that&amp;#x27;d be awful. I&amp;#x27;m quite worried about what people will expect of me when I&amp;#x27;m 45. I&amp;#x27;m working hard to add data science to my resume because I think that &amp;quot;mathy&amp;quot; roles have less discrimination against them than pure engineering roles, and I want to stay ahead of it.&lt;p&gt;I do a lot of stuff that is tactical as well. For example, today I&amp;#x27;m wearing a uniqlo-nintendo collaboration t-shirt with Pikachu on it. I&amp;#x27;m doing so on the day I&amp;#x27;m giving an interview. Because I know, tactically, this shirt is silly and irreverent and paints a picture of someone younger at heart.&lt;p&gt;And maybe that is naturally me (pika pika, ban lylat!) but I&amp;#x27;d be lying if I didn&amp;#x27;t continue to do it tactically to appear more relevant and &amp;quot;with it&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;What&amp;#x27;s interesting to me is that outside of the SV startup world, every computer scientist and great engineer I respect is a person over 40. Especially in academia, where women and men of &lt;i&gt;astounding&lt;/i&gt; intelligence are doing work that in 10 years will probably reshape the industry (put forth, naturally, by breathlessly enthusiastic 21 year old &amp;quot;devrel&amp;quot; folks mis-attributing the work of 2 generations of academia to the brilliance of the senior technical staff at that company).&lt;p&gt;So yeah, it sucks. It&amp;#x27;s real. And there is a reason in the older white male-ish segment you find more awareness of other types (gender, racial) discrimination in the industry: people over 40 directly experience age discrimination and it&amp;#x27;s not at all theoretical even to white men in that cohort. If it can happen to older white dudes, it surely can happen to anyone else.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jasode</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt;Silicon Valley likes young people&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;People get the wrong impression that it&amp;#x27;s a SV thing. 
 It&amp;#x27;s not just SV.  Lots of employers (who are themselves age 40+) like to hire 20-somethings.&lt;p&gt;As one example, there was a reddit thread with a woman in Tennessee trying to start a hot sauce business.  In one of her replies, she wrote: &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;I wanted my company to be young and hip, so I hired young and hip -- okay, ‘hip’ might be subjective, but we’re definitely young.&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt;[1]&lt;p&gt;It was fascinating to watch an honest moment of communication because she later deleted that reply.  However, others had already quickly replied to it which left her original comment for prosperity.[1]&lt;p&gt;In another example, the aides that sit directly adjacent to the President&amp;#x27;s oval office are traditionally staffed by 20-somethings.[2]  There&amp;#x27;s nothing in the job description that says the gatekeeping work can&amp;#x27;t be done by senior-citizens but every WH Chief of Staff always wants the high energy of a recent college grad stationed there.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not just programming.  Whether it&amp;#x27;s packaging up food sauce in Tennessee or filtering visitors into the President&amp;#x27;s office in Washington DC, employers want the vibe of a young crew.&lt;p&gt;[1] original text still in a reply: 
 &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reddit.com&amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;pics&amp;#x2F;comments&amp;#x2F;4hiipf&amp;#x2F;update_hi_reddit_my_name_is_sue_sullivan_and_six&amp;#x2F;d2q4ddr&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.reddit.com&amp;#x2F;r&amp;#x2F;pics&amp;#x2F;comments&amp;#x2F;4hiipf&amp;#x2F;update_hi_redd...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] Bush aides:  &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;lNhpsPvMYAE?t=5m37s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;lNhpsPvMYAE?t=5m37s&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Obama aides:  &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;p-U0-0anzV0?t=28s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;p-U0-0anzV0?t=28s&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Clinton aides:  &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;uzZ-gfvXN-c?t=25m17s&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;youtu.be&amp;#x2F;uzZ-gfvXN-c?t=25m17s&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>