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Comment by lend000 | Hacker News Reader

If age alone isn't a reliable factor in determining success, then why do most of the big Silicon Valley companies lean young? Shouldn't economics sort them out if they really aren't getting more bang for their buck with younger employees? Couldn't I get way more done by gaming the market (and therefore win) if I only hired older employees who were rejected by Google solely for their age? I see lots of conspiracy theories here, but none answer that question.

It seems to me like young employees may have a few properties going for them (on average), that may be less true as they age:

-motivation/drive/desire to put in hours

-low cost

-flexibility

-creativity/fresh ideas

-more likely to bond with other young employees, and participate in company culture (instead of having a family they need to spend time with).

To me, it basically means that for basic software engineering, at a certain point you actually do (on average) become less valuable as you age, unless you move up into system architecture, specialism/subject matter expertise, or management.

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This is the kind of argument you hear from free marketeers explaining that discrimination can never happen, because it's irrational for firms to not hire certain groups who are talented. And yet it does happen, so there is something that the argument is missing, namely that firms aren't perfect optimizers and there's a lot of politics within a firm that is often unhealthy. Far from doing everything optimally, real life firms (and people) really struggle even to get the second or third best option right. They have blind spots, customs, narrow minded people in key positions, etc. There is some level of age discrimination in the valley, but I think most larger firms try to professionalize their HR to avoid that. However, there are biases within the population of fellow engineers and managers that may be at play.

Having said that, I am not going to assume that they are guilty just because of the lawsuit -- let the lawsuit play out.

Or maybe the properties I mentioned are real, and aided by the fact that people like working with similar people. The tech workforce is expanding, so the largest groups of similar people are younger, and there is a positive feedback effect.

> They have blind spots, customs, narrow minded people in key positions, etc. There is some level of age discrimination in the valley, but I think most larger firms try to professionalize their HR to avoid that.

No firm is perfect, but the interesting here is the statistically significant tendency to display this exact property (youth) across many companies. Perhaps it is not statistically significant when accounting for the size of young vs old workforces, but I doubt it. This kind of statistically significant thing doesn't just happen and succeed on a huge scale unless there's something to it, so I speculated some potential reasons. I think it's a cop out to just say "everybody prefers young people and that's that."

In any expanding field, you will have more younger workers than older workers, because when the older workers were younger, there were fewer jobs in that field and so more went into other fields. That, combined with people having biases to be around those like them is an argument for age discrimination rather than against it.

I’ve always noticed a very sharp age divide in computer know-how. My age group grew up with computers. They were cheap enough they were most everybody had one, including internet access. Just 10 years before, they weren’t remotely common place, and the internet was in its infancy.

The way that the two side use the computers and think about computing is hugely different.

Not surprisingly, this is the age group of this lawsuit. My generation and younger was mostly or quite literally born into it. It’s a real advantage, even with equivalent qualifications.

Well, your age group used the internet, but people now in their 40s and 50s built the internet. I would say the difference is more in areas of expertise: I've noticed that older programmers tend to work more on system code -- operating systems, databases, routers, networking stacks, real time applications, etc. Stuff that's just a magic black box for most younger programmers, who focus on web applications and concentrate in javascript. The C/javascript divides separates older/younger programmers quite clearly, although of course many older programmers work in javascript and many younger programmers work in C. Now with WASM, things may be turning full circle, and then next generation will have grown up with Assembly!

But most older programmers also had access to computers -- they just weren't on the internet, they had to type their programs in from magazines (as hobbyists) or load them from magnetic tapes shipped from Berkeley :)

If you'd apply this exact reasoning to gender (Or sex? I don't know what's the correct term here, sorry), you'd get downvoted into oblivion.

Maybe younger people (or men, to further my point) are inherently better suited to do software engineering. Or maybe the way the whole system is set up just optimizes for young males to succeed, while others, objectively just as qualified, can't compete.

The thing is, should CS ever become a shrinking field, it will suddenly be skewed by older people because of the same dynamic, and then all these natural talent arguments will go out the window.

This is primarily a queueing problem for the industry as a whole. In the U.S., the median worker age is about 43, but the median age of software developers is 40, or 3 years younger than average. (https://www.bls.gov/cps/demographics.htm)

I really think this 3 year discrepancy is because of the queueing dynamics.

Now, in silicon valley, it's a bit of a different story -- maybe. But a lot of silicon valley developers live a bubble and are shocked to discover that 1) Almost all programmers in the U.S. live outside the valley, and 2) The median programmer age is not 29.

So then you have to ask yourself what is it about the valley that makes it skew younger. Then you look and see that it's not the entire valley that skews younger, but companies like Google skew much younger than firms like Oracle or HP. One might almost say that these companies have a younger "culture". Now all of a sudden, the natural abilities argument start to seem weaker.

Now, for gender, if the national skew of women/men software developers was 50/50, but at google it was 80/20, I'd be asking questions about what is going on with google. But Google has a similar skew to the national average. Therefore talking about large group differences is at least plausible.

So once the median age at google for developers is more in line with the median age of developers at other companies -- e.g. closer to 40 -- then we can start discussing whether the difference between 40 and 43 (median age of all workers vs. programmers) is due to group differences (which I don't believe) or just queueing effects.

Again, I don't want to say that Google is intentionally discriminating. Maybe developers stay in the same company, so older companies have older developers and younger companies have younger developers. I think there is some truth to that. There are many possible reasons. But whatever reason you give, the national median age of software engineers is a full 10 years older than the median age of software engineers at Google, and that's something that bears looking into.

Yes it does - young people are easier to exploit, you can make them work long hours and pay them in stock instead of cash, and if they burn out there's another fresh crop next year. Remember that for every Google or Facebook, there are 1000 startups that went nowhere. They were full of young people too.

Other countries do this too, tho' to a much greater extent. Why do you think your running shoes and electronics are so cheap...? Is that the kind of economic success we really want?

How do your arguments apply differently to any other profession?

If no family means: > motivation/drive/desire to put in hours > low cost > flexibility > more likely to bond with other young employees, and participate in company culture (instead of having a family they need to spend time with).

This will be truer for professions that require no expertise than for technical ones. The myth of young computer hackers comes from the fact that most developers were as young as the profession itself. So the typical software company was made of young people. As the profession gets older, this will disappear.

For the last one: > creativity/fresh ideas

I'm that guy that was the smart young developer that was innovating and getting new ideas (I started as a developer at 17, and I was helping people twice my age). Nowadays I'm still him, just I got 25 more years of professional and life experience. And I got a lot better at understanding problems (technical and human) and how to solve them.

The same people that think when they are young that their ideas are "fresher" are the ones that complain about "nowadays young" when getting older. It is just lack of empathy and understanding.

Trying to justify discrimination by age, gender, country of origin, etc. doesn't help anyone.

Older people are wiser. Young people quite often don't believe this, but that is because they don't know what they don't know yet.

Problem is, wisdom isn't necessarily a valuable commodity in rank and file. For instance, after many years and lots of faces a person starts learning how to work systems and people. Sometimes this takes the place of actually contributing. An older person who isn't management but who has well practiced political skills and extensive experience working systems for their own benefit is a bit dangerous to have around. Particularly if they aren't fully "on board" (and who is after seeing 20 years of nonsense?). And doubly so if they don't have good work habits or contribution ethics.

Young people in general have more energy and more stamina. They are faster. I think this is biological fact. Quite often they do foolish things, but this is probably overcome by the increased capacity to do. The flexibility. The lack of jadedness. The ability to get excited. The ability to be directed.

There's a reason the military only accepts younger people. And there's a reason you have to be a certain age to be president of the U.S.

I don't think we should pretend everything is equal between ages. It manifestly isn't. But I do think for a certain definition of "old" a person can perform most programming tasks at an equal or greater level than the average younger programmer (if they are dedicated and so inclined and have the experience). But if it's hype and rah rah and running all around and back and forth (which is not to knock these things, sometimes it is what's needed), ya, a younger person is better for that.

Over 40 myself. Pretty sure I'm a far better employee than I was in my 20's but also I wouldn't put up with a fraction of the crap and silly I put up with in my 20's. So I think there's probably different "best spots" for the place one is.

As far as Google, I don't know. They sure are a fat target lately. Every aggrieved group under the sun appears to have the knives out hoping for their pound of flesh. Which is a cost of getting big and rich it appears. I just hope the measures they take or are forced to take don't negatively impact their products. Because I don't really care who they hire so long as the search is good.

> Over 40 myself. Pretty sure I'm a far better employee than I was in my 20's but also I wouldn't put up with a fraction of the crap and silly I put up with in my 20's.

I think you are making many good points, but I personally see this one differently. I'm over 40 too, but I'm actually accepting more crap than when I was in my 20's. That's because I have learned to realize that no company is perfect, no human being is infallible and so there is a certain unavoidable amount of crap everywhere.

>Young people in general have more energy and more stamina. They are faster. I think this is biological fact. Quite often they do foolish things, but this is probably overcome by the increased capacity to do. The flexibility. The lack of jadedness. The ability to get excited. The ability to be directed.

>There's a reason the military only accepts younger people.

Sure, they are of course more fit and superior in anything "physical" (which is actually a large part of what a soldier has to do), more resistant to fatigue, long hours, etc. and usually much less prone to (say) ilnesses, backpain, or any other even slightly imparing condition BUT - not so casually - they are introduced in a very rigid schema with a set of very narrow rules and usually with a sergeant major shouting at them as soon as they even think to do anything minimally outside the said rules.

From the outside it seems to me like putting together a bunch of people in the early twenties with no or little rules and no strict supervision/discipline, while undoubtedly a "creative" environment tends to resemble more a uni fraternity than a business place.

I am just guessing, of course, but if you are over 40 and you started working 20 years ago or more you most probably started working in a place where there was a "dress code", some strict work times, a manager twice or more your age that would tell you what to do (but also possibly help you advising how to do it), some more experienced colleagues , etc., in other words some form of "forced" discipline and of mentoring.

And now I will introduce (being over fifty myself, so somehow self-qualified for it) another concept, seniority does NOT mean in itself experience, experience is the SUM of seniority with the attitude to learn, discuss and extract useful lessons from all the things that happened during the (many) previous years and be capable of adapt what was learned to changes that inevitably happen ove the years (be those changes in Law, society or technical matters).

I know quite a few people my age that notwithstanding having worked (often with some financial/personal success) for many years, learned nothing, i.e. are nowhere "wiser" than they were when young.

Experience leads to be wiser, seniority leads to just being older.

> I know quite a few people my age that notwithstanding having worked (often with some financial/personal success) for many years, learned nothing, i.e. are nowhere "wiser" than they were when young.

That's a pretty big deal.

Someone straight out of school has expectations matching someone straight out of school.

Someone with 20 years of experience has expectations matching someone with 20 years of experience.

However, someone straight out of school is, usually, straight out of school.

Someone with 20 years of experience..might have done nothing of value for 10 of those 20 years. Might not have kept up with technology. Might have poor quality experience. Might be bored with the profession, etc.

So very few people straight out of school are unfit for the job. A much higher percentage of people with a lot of experience would be unfit for a job (unless they're willing to take a few step back, at which point, why not take someone of the same level who is going forward instead of backward?)

Very good points.

But one doesn't often get through 20+ years without learning "something" (even if it's not the best things as far as an employer is concerned).

Shouldn't economics sort them out

You know the old saying that markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent?

http://danluu.com/tech-discrimination/

It’s true that markets have impose a cost on firms that discriminate. In the long run, that can put pressure on firms that discriminate, but as we’ve seen, that timescale can easily be longer than half a century.

In other words, a generation or more can pass while the discrimination continues. If you're OK with that -- and with the risk that it can happen to you! -- then you're OK with it. If not, consider that sometimes the market needs change forced upon it.

Also, tech companies "lean young" primarily because younger employees A) earn less B) put up with more mistreatment.

But your last sentence basically obliterates the reasoning behind the rest of your post:

> Also, tech companies "lean young" primarily because younger employees A) earn less B) put up with more mistreatment.

That's kind of the point. Companies aren't acting based on irrational discrimination, they are trying to get more output for less money, and if they can pay employees less and work them harder (what you refer to as "mistreatment"), then it's an economic advantage for them.

But your last sentence basically obliterates the reasoning behind the rest of your post:

I believe overworked/underpaid/mistreated people are cheaper to employ in the short term, but I don't believe that offsets the decreased effectiveness of them being, well, overworked, underpaid and mistreated.

That's why you swap 'em out regularly.

> then it's an economic advantage for them.

Breaking laws can be lucrative, of course. At least until you're caught.

Getting caught is a cost of doing business.

So which is it? Is the market irrational, or are employers getting away with more "mistreatment" and lower wages if they hire younger people?

If you believe people who are overworked and underpaid are more effective, you're free to believe that.

> -motivation/drive/desire to put in hours

Why is someone experienced considered less motivated/driven? Surely an unfounded biased assumption? Desire to put in hours? Surely you mean less inclined to accept exploitation of the worker?

> -low cost

You get what you pay for, pay peanuts: get monkeys.

> -flexibility

I'm over 40 and use my spare time to learn new things. Have worked for companies stuck on the same old, same old tech for 10+ years, it's why I have to learn the new stuff in my own time.

> -creativity/fresh ideas

Why the assumption that this automatically trumps experince? And who is to say that either new ideas have value simply because they are new or that experienced people cannot have new ideas?

> -more likely to bond with other young employees, and participate in company culture (instead of having a family they need to spend time with).

Absolute tosh. Again, you're assuming something rather silly that can be turned around to say "young employees struggle to bond with older employees and are more likely to be out on the tiles every night, staying up late watching reality TV (instead of being well rested and able to concentrate).

> To me, it basically means that for basic software engineering, at a certain point you actually do (on average) become less valuable as you age, unless you move up into system architecture, specialism/subject matter expertise, or management.

Absolute twaddle. A cursory glance back through history will show many people reach their greatest heights as they become older. Mathematicians, coders, authors, politicians, whatever their chosen career, there's an endless list of people who contributed something worthwhile after they turned 30. Perhaps you are the one who isn't connecting, who can't see the forest for the trees?

You seem to have taken this post very personally instead of analytically. I suggested some reasons that would explain why companies that hire younger tend to be beating companies that hire older, i.e. that there clearly is an economic advantage. What's your explanation for the phenomenon?

The secondary point I've brought up on this thread is that private employment discrimination is "absolute twaddle" to regulate in the first place, because it introduces the concept of a thought crime, which is quite Orwellian. That is, the employment decision (the action) is only a crime contingent on what the "perpetrator" was thinking while making the decision. This is completely different than normal laws, where the action is unequivocally a crime and it's a matter of whether it was committed by the defendant, with state of mind only taken into account as to alter the severity of the sentence. Even "conspiracy to commit" laws are in reference to actions which are crimes in and of themselves.

>Shouldn't economics sort them out if they really aren't getting more bang for their buck with younger employees?

You seem to be missing something really important.

That's illegal.

Just like it's illegal to discriminate against someone because of their sex or skin color. Being over 40 years of age puts you in a protected class in the US.

>That's illegal.

If there is a difference in value, then it isn't illegal to choose the superior candidate. I described characteristics which can be legally used in making a hiring decisions, because they affect value offered for the position. These characteristics tend to on average make younger employees more desirable for typical software engineering positions, all other things equal (like perceived programming skill).

For any individual case, where 25 year old Alice and 45 year old Steve have similar perceived programming value but Alice will (a.) work for less and (b.) seems like a better cultural fit, do you think Steve is entitled to the job? What if they are completely identical from a value and cost perspective, 'cultural fit' aside -- is Steve entitled to the job? Unless you can prove Steve was superior for the job and lost it anyway, which is highly arbitrary, there is no recourse for legal action. Which is why I think private discrimination laws are ridiculous, because they are effectively unenforceable. Most prejudiced employers will not print out a rejection letter stating the exact prejudice that led to the decision.

Laws are not the "word of God", and just because there is a law, it doesn't mean you stop discussing it.

EDIT: Quotes around "word of God," because it was apparently taken literally.

Laws are, when related to restricting companies, generally intended to address the difference between the interests of citizens/the state and the interests of corporates.

Many corporations would love to pay staff less money, provide fewer benefits, not worry about pollution, not pay any taxes or other things which cost them money but don't make them money.

Laws which restrict corporations or require them to do certain things are designed to change behaviour that would not occur in a free market, for the good of the country and it's citizens.

In this case allowing corporations to choose younger people, who can generally be acquired more cheaply, has been considered not to be in the interests of the USA or its citizens, so there is legislation to require companies not to discriminate in this fashion.

Seems logical to me.

As a citizen of a country I don't want to allow corporations to do whatever they want, given that their interests may not align with mine or those of the country I live in.

If there's an externality, I'm all for addressing it. With pollution, there clearly is. However, for discrimination, there are two issues: 1. challenges to freedom of association. 2. The fact that it is a thought crime, which I discuss in other comments on this thread.

Also, it's easy to hate on corporations, but these laws also apply to small family businesses, startups, etc.

I'd say that there clearly is an externality being addressed by age discrimination legislation.

It's not in the interests of the state to have corporations pushing down wages by favouring only younger staff.

Low wages == low tax receipts, which is objectively bad for countries and their citizens.

Also as citizens it's hardly in the interests of the group as a whole in allowing corporations to drive down salaries and make older citizens redundant. Every young citizen who might benefit from such actions now will become an old citizen who will get the downside later in life.

At the moment we're discussing the behaviour of a large corporation (google) so it makes sense to address that class of company.

To be clear, I don't hate corporations at all, but nor to I have any faith that they'll always act in the best interests of the country I live in, in fact I expect them not to do so where their interests diverge from the interests of the country and so I expect my government to address that with legislation.

> Laws are not the word of God, and just because there is a law, it doesn't mean you stop discussing it.

In America, government operates on the rule of law not the Word of God. Discussing an alternate universe in which America is a theocracy seems a bit off-topic for this particular thread.

> Which is why I think private discrimination laws are ridiculous, because they are effectively unenforceable.

Are you suggesting that the submitted article, to which this discussion thread is attached, is a figment of our imagination? That Google actually is not facing a class-action lawsuit made possible through age-discrimination laws?

> Most prejudiced employers will not print out a rejection letter stating the exact prejudice that led to the decision.

Are you unaware of cases (or unable to currently use Google) in which companies were found in violation of age discrimination laws?

> Discussing an alternate universe in which America is a theocracy seems a bit off-topic for this particular thread.

> Are you suggesting that the submitted article, to which this discussion thread is attached, is a figment of our imagination? That Google actually is not facing a class-action lawsuit made possible through age-discrimination laws?

I will try to clear up your confusion -- you are taking everything very literally. There have been many private discrimination lawsuits, and in my opinion, all of the legitimate ones were tied in with something other than discrimination (especially harrassment). There is almost never any hard proof of discrimination of the nature that is the focus of the lawsuit, even the ones that win, and I think it's too arbitrary a thing to try to control. Feel free to list examples to the contrary, where the defendant stated "I did not hire Mr/Mrs. Smith because he/she is X." It also raises questions of freedom of association in the private space.

Serious question: do you believe that all/most defendants who are convicted of murder have confessed to murder, or committed the murder in full view of a judge? Are you unaware that many convictions, criminal and civil, are built on cases that do not require confessions nor motive?

Fortunately for plaintiffs, "hard proof" can come in a variety of ways other than the defendant writing out "Let's break the law"

https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/8-22-11a.cfm

I didn't see any proof in your linked article, but it succinctly describes what we already know:

"The law requires employers to base employment decisions upon each person’s strengths and talents instead of relying upon generalized assumptions calculated around an employee’s age"

Also, this is a case of dismissal, which is more often tied to something tangible like a pension, vesting shares, etc., and can therefore be addressed as a contractual breach of faith instead of needing a new legal class to describe. I have mostly been focused on hiring but it applies here, too.

Serious answer: the difference is that the crime is what the employer was thinking while making the employment decision, where the action is only a crime contingent on the 'thought crime.'

Do you not see the difference between prosecuting an action and a thought? Sure, there are modifications like "premeditation" and "involuntary" but the core crime is an action, not the thought itself. Even with "conspiracy to commit" laws, the conspiracy refers to an action which is unequivocally a crime.

In the case of discrimination, it is the goal of the trial to determine whether the action was a crime based on what the "perpetrator" was thinking. Do you not see how that is in its own league? It's almost Orwellian, if not for the good intentions.

> Do you not see the difference between prosecuting an action and a thought?...Even with "conspiracy to commit" laws, the conspiracy refers to an action which is unequivocally a crime.

Again, it is a crime to discriminate on the basis of age. If you ignore that premise, then this discussion becomes pretty abstract. You could make the case that companies would (and have, in the past) save a lot of money by employing child labor.

I agree that prosecuting based on what someone is "thinking" could lead down the slippery slope of Orwellian dystopia. Which is why these prosecutions are not based on thoughts, but on actions. If I were a restaurant owner, I have the right to use Confederate flags and Nazi memorabilia as decor. But as soon as I refuse to serve Jewish and black people -- even if I think such persons aren't a great return on investment because I perceive them to order/tip less than other customers -- I am in violation of federal law.

> then this discussion becomes pretty abstract

You have hit the nail right on the head -- this is indeed meant to be an abstract discussion. I am discussing what ought to be and why, not debating which laws exist, which would not be very interesting. Apologies if that was not clear.

But I'm glad we can agree on how dangerous these discrimination laws are. Although I'm not sure if you are applying the logic consistently:

> Which is why these prosecutions are not based on thoughts, but on actions.

These actions are not inherently illegal, not crimes, not aggressions. No one is entitled to your service. However, in our current legal system, unfortunately that is not always the case. Your action could all of a sudden become a crime if a jury suspects your thoughts went a certain way in carrying out the action. That's a thought crime.

Well, I did say early on that such hypothetical discussions would feel off-topic in response to an article about an actual class-action lawsuit based on current law. Not off-topic as in verboten, but in the sense that such un-scoped discussions would probably be meandering and pointless.

I don't think too many commenters would have a hard time agreeing that younger employees would help many companies bottom-line; it's not like child labor came to be because people hated children. What is there more to discuss? You act as if discussing within the "limited" scope of current law is somehow anti-intellectual. But isn't it a bit anti-intellectual and ignorant on your part to think that anti-discriminatory laws came out of thin air, or happy feelings? The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 [0] Admittedly, this law was enacted with a Democratic president and Congress, though a Republican-led Supreme Court affirmed the law and sided with employees in a major 2008 case [1]. At the nation/state-level, these laws impose constraints, but ostensibly they do it for the benefit to the overall national and state health.

Google and other companies operate within the U.S. and California jurisdiction. This means they have to follow federal and state law. But it's not all about just following the laws, companies enjoy the benefits and services that come from being within the U.S. and California, which implies in part that what benefits U.S and California also benefits Google, in the long run. If you want to posit a scenario in which Google did not have to be constrained by American law, then for that discussion to have any intellectual worth, that scenario should also include a Google that does not receive any of America/California's benefits or protections, i.e. what would Google be today if it decided to move to New Hampshire? Or China? Or Andorra?

All interesting hypotheticals, I'm sure. At the same time, not particularly relevant to the article at hand.

[0] https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/adea.cfm

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/20/washington/20scotus.html

> Well, I did say early on that such hypothetical discussions would feel off-topic in response to an article about an actual class-action lawsuit based on current law. Not off-topic as in verboten, but in the sense that such un-scoped discussions would probably be meandering and pointless.

You are welcome to feel that way, but many disagree (I've had very many abstract discussions on HN less related than discrimination legal theory is to this article), so your opinion on irrelevance here is irrelevant. If you do not want to entertain any ideas which are not recapitulations of the content of the article and related sources / irrelevant facts about parties, dates, politics, etc., I cannot help.

That being said, child labor should be clearly irrelevant here, as adults are considered citizens with full rights who can legally consent to a contract. Especially when young in this context can be 30 years old.

I would gladly go into depth about alternative solutions to discrimination as a societal problem, which would be less in the category of thought crimes, if you are willing and able to entertain hypotheticals.

> That being said, child labor should be clearly irrelevant here, as adults are considered citizens with full rights who can legally consent to a contract.

Ah, my bad. I momentarily forgot that the people-are-adults-at-age-18 is not just some man-made standard that resulted from the imperfect legislative and political process, but is an immutable rule as universal and constant as π and enshrined in the word of God.

I am aware of a case where employee s performance was criticized in written form because "you are too old". I can't detail specifics because of confidential issues. But there are times that people put their bias in written form.

I personally think the phrase "cultural fit" should be illegal. Mostly because I get sick of hearing it but also because it sounds pretty blatantly discriminatory.

From my perspective, any company that has management using that phrase has an extremely unhealthy culture.

Cultural fit is a silly notion from the start. The dichotomy of arguing, as some in this thread do, that young people are better hires because they are less set in their ways, and then going on to reject diversity using the ol' 'cultural fit' idiom displays a logical chasm as wide as the Atlantic.

I'm sure many of us have worked somewhere where 'cultural fit' equates to back-patting self-congratulating group of borderline incompetents who spend all day telling one-another about a job well done while everyone else despairs.

I liked your other comment on this issue, but I have to strongly disagree here.

There are definitely such things as cultural fits and especially cultural misfits. And even in software engineering, the human interaction component is typically strong enough to have a large effect on the success of the organization.

Would you have all software engineers put our resumes into a government pool and be randomly assigned to companies?

The problem isn't finding someone introvert or extrovert to fit in with the rest of the crew, the problem is with a catch-all phrase that has lost all meaning except where it is used as a petty excuse not to hire the brown person or the older person or the person who supports the wrong football team.

Perhaps the fact that it's unprovable should give pause to entertaining thought crimes in the first place (i.e. discrimination cases, where the employment decision is only a crime contingent on what the employer was thinking while making it).

All throughout our legals system we have crimes where intention is absolutely instrument in determining the severity of punishment. Ex. Murder vs Manslaughter.

Why does no-one complain about any of those, but seem to be so upset about illegal discrimination having the same distinction?

There is a key difference. In all of those "normal" crimes, the action itself was unequivocally a crime, whereas with discrimination laws, the action is only a crime contingent on the intention / what the employer was thinking, which is borderline Orwellian in my opinion.

It's entirely arbitrary to say intention can change a sentence from 5-20yrs, but it cant change it from 0-5yrs.

Either intention matters or it doesn't.

No, there is an objective difference -- the difference between "a crime was committed" and "a crime was not committed."

For any other crime, there is no question that the action is criminal -- it's only a question of whether the defendant intended to/conspired to/did commit it.

However, when intention is the only crime and the action is perfectly fine unless the perpetrator had a certain thought when doing it, it's a thought crime, and not only are thought crimes much more impractical to regulate, but to even attempt to do so would impose a tremendous loss of privacy and freedom of expression upon society.

I'm all for addressing externalities in society, and perhaps there is an externality-centric justification for affirmative action/quota/discrimination laws. Perhaps certain types of publicly-traded corporations beyond a certain size can be considered public goods in certain ways and subject to such laws. However, when we cross into individual cases of thought-crimes, that is where the left has completely lost me.

I understand that you feel there is a distinction, but there isn't a substantive difference. A persons thoughts distinguish between criminality and non-criminality.

One of the most fundamental rights is a right of interpretation. If a person perceives themselves to been a risk of harm they have a right to commit otherwise criminal acts. The only reason they aren't deemed criminal is their state of mind and what they thought of the situation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_self-defense

> If there is a difference in value, then it isn't illegal to choose the superior candidate

The fact that there is a different in outcome produced by two groups, doesn't mean there wasn't discrimination as a root cause of it.

An example would be, group A and group B. Members of Group A when they join the team receive mentorship, feedback and constructive reviews. Members of Group B receive due to biases in the company. As a result members of group A perform better.

The fact that group A performed better doesn't mean that this isn't inequitable discrimination. Nor does it make it ok to excluding hiring members from group B because you know your company will successfully discriminate against Bs and cause them to perform worse.

I'm not saying this is what's happening here - I'm showing that your premise is false - that a difference in outcome doesn't mean discrimination isn't a root cause.

I believe that most of these value decisions are made from the speculative perspective of 'because Alice is 25 she will be a better cultural fit and open to working more hours' rather than any known candidate quality. I also believe that this a perfectly valid hiring judgement and if a mistake is made it is self correcting.

Older folks (myself included) shouldn't take this personally or get angry. Eventually we will all be working PT as retirees doing something totally different or consulting and/or owning our own business. That's the progression as I've seen it.

>If there is a difference in value, then it isn't illegal to choose the superior candidate.

I'm telling you it is. You will pay fines and legal fees. That's part of the recipe of this story. Google is breaking the law, and now the law should hurt Google for doing it.

>do you think Steve is entitled to the job?

Neither, because Alice is just going to get pregnant and leave soon anyway. She's just applying for the maternity leave. Everyone knows it. New company policy, no women allowed!

See how that sounds yet? I doubt it very much. You don't seem able to understand it. "A broken finger will get better without your cooperation, but not a broken personality."

Protip: don't go writing any screeds

the funnel in tech is growing and there's drastically more people now than there were 10-15 years ago. if you hired EVERYONE with a CS degree who didn't give up during the dotcom crash, you'd lean young too.

Many of their employees moved from another state. That's what young people do.

I really don't like how you characterize younger people able to work longer hours as something to do with motivation or drive. That's not the deciding factor, as many founders, including technical ones, of startups are well into their 30s. The reason older people can't work as long hours is simply because they often have families and other responsibilities when compared to someone in their early 20s.

I also disagree that they're less costly due to their age. It's due to the lack of experience that commands a higher salary. I also think creativity is not related to age, again because many startup founders are 30s or older.

As far as company culture, do you mean outings? You don't have to have a family to not want to participate in outings. Also for 'bonding': why do you think many younger professionals can have mentors well older than them?

The only thing I could think of that might be a factor is that as you age, it is somewhat more difficult to learn new things as your brain is less malleable, so you may be slightly slower at picking up something completely new if you're 40 compared to 20. I would argue this isn't a factor though because most programming languages and systems are pretty similar, especially at startups.

Many if not most people in positions of power are there because they know someone, not because of merit. I mean they have to be competent, but the person running the top company in the world, isn't the top CEO in the world necessarily.

How do you even gauge that? Who is the better programmer, Englebart or von Neumann? Hard to say, and even if I said it, it is easily arguable. Each would be better at different things. It's like asking what is the best video game? There is no score in programming.

Business has a lot to do with trust. I have a few people I've worked with for years that I prefer to continually work with. I know them, I know how they think, I know what to expect, I know they won't screw me over, I know I don't have to deal with petty bullshit. They might not be the best in the world, or even the best that I know, but they're the best for me to work with.

The same thing happens everywhere. To think any market is 100% efficient at anything, or even resembling that is extremely naive. A capitalistic market's only claim to fame is it's the most efficient way to allocate resources that we know of. That certainly doesn't mean it's near 100% efficient.

Add to that, Google is horribly inefficient. They can be though, they make so much money off search with little competition. They have a really good search engine, but many of their project ventures fail, and that's ok; but to consider them 100% efficient in hiring is just silly.

Finally, more often than not, young people are cheaper and more willing to suffer fools. They are eager to impress because they haven't been screwed over yet. They still believe success, and I mean big success, is based on their skills.

Yep, you can more easily push them around, which is very convenient. Also, there are a lot of seriously mediocre people in management and they don't want people who can see through them. And you are expensive because you can solve problems, except often people don't want problems solved, or just can't understand it and are afraid of your expertise.

That is my experience.

i support this only because i'm sure there's all types of groups that are underrepresented for one reason or another. hopefully next short people will sue. and then fat people etc. eventually the system will either be exposed as a scam or simply implode.

Or, more likely, much of that would turn out to be false if you bothered to check if your assumptions were true with a some research. A few companies like IBM and Google actually have tried to do such research, but most people just make it up like you're doing.

There's an exceptionally long history of companies making terrible assumptions about who to hire. Just look back a few decades ago at all the companies shocked to learn women did just fine.

Have you ever been on a team of mostly junior devs? Lord help us all...

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