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Comment by alexchamberlain | Hacker News Reader

> ... Work of a 23-Year Old

This really bothers me. I understand the point of the article is that they're charging a lot of money for an inexperienced consultant and no bias (discrimination) was meant, however, age is irrelevant. There are a lot of very "experienced" 23 year olds, as long as you're asking them about the work they've done. There are a lot of people in their 50s with very little experience (as their actual experience is irrelevant to the topic at hand or their actual experience has been very repetitive).

I think we need to be a bit more conscious of unconscious bias towards age (in either direction).

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By definition a 23 year old can’t have 25 years of experience in anything, even tying shoes.

They can’t legally have worked full time in the United States for more than 7 years.

Unless they are a wild outlier, they can’t have an advanced degree and significant years of professional experience doing anything.

You kinda have a point but sensitivity to age discrimination towards the young in this sort of statement is a bit of a stretch imo. It’s also shorthand for absolute realities of time and space.

Edit: Age discrimination also isn't perfectly symmetrical because:

If you’re young, you will very likely get to be old one day.

If you are old, you never get to be young again.

> There are a lot of very "experienced" 23 year olds

By the definition of the word--no, there aren't. You can have talented, capable, and driven 23 year olds, but not "very experienced." Given a working adults life spans approximately 40-50 years, a 23 year old claiming that title is laughable (exceptions being musical prodigies and athletes who have trained from childhood).

I think the point is more like:

It's hard to imagine a recent college graduate understanding the machinations of corporate entities enough to give meaningful advice about how to run more "efficiently". It's a bit like when a SV company is promising to revolutionize farm equipment and the founders have no background in agriculture - weirder things have happened, sure, but you can see why people are a bit skeptical.

Yes, it's obviously a bit unfair because sometimes untainted eyes can be the most beneficial, but hopefully you can also see why there's a bit of skepticism.

There's a lot of truth to this, but the fact remains that a 43 year old will have twenty additional years of experience in life and various fields, not merely a narrow subject. This can improve a project's chance at success.

For an example young folks can relate to, rate your current self against self-five_years_ago for an important task.

In all kindness, let me ensure you that experience is rarely gained until your forties. Early on we may feel on top and hold important positions, but it is not the same thing as understanding the other side. To gain wisdom, not there yet, probably take another 20 years.

I fully agree and believe it would be much stronger to say that this is a consultant with "x months of experience" than "23 years old" which could mean anything from 'worked in this field since I was 16' to 'hired yesterday'.

This isn't a matter of unconscious bias. People can (and, arguably, should) have a conscious, intentional bias, against inexperience, when it comes to selecting for skilled work. Age drops off as a useful proxy for experience once someone's been in the workforce for some time, but as others point out, a 23 year old is still going to be definitionally inexperienced in most domains.

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