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Comment by falcolas | Hacker News Reader

I do think. Probably the same unconscious ageism in action: if you are having trouble getting hired and you're over 40, it's obviously because your skills are out of date.

Hiring involves a lot of "People Like Us" evaluation, consciously in many cases. And if you're over 40, you're probably not like "Us" in SV.

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I don't see it a lot different than sexism. "If you having trouble getting hired, act more like men. Dress a certain way. Talk a certain way. This will reduce your chance of being rejected".

> "People Like Us".

Usually called "culture fit". I've seen candidates rejected because of "culture fit". So I dug a bit deeper, inquiring what they meant. And it was just plain old racism and ugly stereotypes. I guess one is not supposed to question "culture fit" rejections, it might be very unpleasant what lies there.

The only way I'm not like the "Us" in silicon valley (if we're talking about 20-30 year olds as represented on HN) is that I have more current skills (takes time to learn languages, knowing 5 currently popular languages takes more time than the person just out of college has invested.) I also have experience building things at scale. Projects that take 5 years to do you can't have done too many by the time you're 23. But I've done several.

My code is being used by probably a billion people right now (how many people are using windows?) How many people play on the playstation network? I'm currently working in a blockchain startup. Is that an out of date skill?

I don't mean for this to sound arrogant- as I said elsewhere wisdom and enthusiasm are very useful.

I think the correct mix for any engineering team I build is a range from junior, or even interns, to senior people.

Well put. Especially on 5 yr project thing. I'll add that even nature balances what types of us there are for innovation and resilience. The idea that one, narrow type will be ideal for all startup or tech work is absurd in comparison.

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