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Comment by duxup | Hacker News Reader

I often wonder how does nobody say anything?

Then I remember when a recruiter told a friend on speakerphone that they thought he wasn't a culture fit and he asked what they meant and the recruiter said "Everyone here is young and they were worried you're too old."

I didn't say anything, he didn't ... at that time we needed a job / to break into the industry, not to get our names out there in a fight about a place that didn't want to hire guys like us. (We're both doing fine now.)

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It's amazing when cultures are so bad that people whose sole job is recruiting fail to follow the most basic federal regulations involved in their job (assuming your situation was in the US).

If you're going to be awful, at least...don't obviously violate federal law while being awful?

This may not have been a violation. Age discrimination is only illegal if the person is over 40. You could easily be “culture fitted out” for being mid-thirties when everyone at a startup is early to mid twenties. And yes, it really is that bad in SV (or at least was pre-COVID, not sure if anything has really changed).

> Age discrimination is only illegal if the person is over 40.

Sarcasm?

No, the law has a lower bound, and it's 40.

Fascinating; do you know what the logic was behind that?

The people with political power at the time were over 40 or expected to be discriminated against when they passed that age

No, fact.

That's federal - some states have laws protecting people less than 40 as well. Also, fun fact, but reverse age discrimination is 100% legal in every state. It's entirely legal to say "We gave X the job because he is 55 and you're only 45", but it is illegal to say "We gave X the job because he is only 45 and you're 55"

> "Everyone here is young and they were worried you're too old."

This is a really weird complaint to me. Maybe I was just always an old curmudgeon, but when I was a naive young computer boy I got along great with the old guys I worked with. Plus they have accumulated wisdom. Maybe disrespect for accumulated wisdom is one of the reasons software sucks so bad these days. Damned kids...

> Maybe disrespect for accumulated wisdom is one of the reason software sucks so bad these days.

What do you mean "maybe"?! It has always been the case.

I am not even that old -- 41y/o currently -- and I work professionally as a programmer ever since ~22 and I always noticed how 99% of all programmers I ever worked with, when faced with advice from seasoned veterans, were like "meh, this doesn't apply to us, we'll figure out our own solution" which, sadly, goes exactly like you think it would, at least 90% of the time.

It's probably not really about work itself. More like they like to get drunk after work, spend time together or whatever, and they don't expect someone older to do that with them. Basically, they want a new friend, not only a colleague.

Which is even less explicable to me. I get along with my coworkers, but I don't hang out with them after work because I have my own life and work is just the thing I have to do to support living it. Why in the hell would you want everyone you work with to be your drinking buddy? And what sense does it make for a company to give up access to all that experience for that?

SV business culture is truly insane.

It's not only in silicon valley. My first company (in Switzerland) was like that. It was a start-up, mostly with people in their 20s fresh out of uni, no family and often expats/not from the area. Basically, people without their own life there, so of course colleagues become friends, and people recreate the university lifestyle they've just left, except this time you're getting paid. I think the appeal is clear if you're in that situation.

my recruiter from Twilio said they were were ready to make an offer to me but was hesitant to give it to me because I was white. They wanted to wait until they interviewed more diverse applicants

I've seen a lot of similar shenanigans with tech companies bending over backwards to get hires that aren't white or asian males.

That is blatant age discrimination and should have been reported to the proper authorities.

> That is blatant age discrimination

Which is perfectly legal, as long as the target isn't over 40.

That does sound right

It is https://www.plbsh.com/how-the-law-protects-you-from-age-disc....

I thought about it but 1. I wasn't the person being discriminated against and 2. The friend wasn't going to report it for the reason I noted. I understood / respected that choice.

It still burns me up a little but at that point I 100% understood his call and honestly not sure I would want to go all the way down the road fighting it too...

Lots of things are blatant. However, it takes a lot of money to run something through the legal system, and, if you win, you may still not be in a better position.

This is what allows so much harassment (both general and sexual) to go unchecked. It's better to shut up, bag some amount of experience and move on to a better job than it is to actively fight against it.

You can say that on the phone in California, since it requires "two-party consent" for recording phone calls.

There is an exception for perjury. Although it’s unlikely that the company does not settle first, you could then try to have the recruiter deny saying so in a sworn statement. The two-party consent laws do not apply when used as proof that someone perjured themselves

Except he was on speaker phone and there were at least two people on the other line, which provides a witness to the statement and it is not just a he said/she said anymore.

What age are we talking about? And what is the concern? What are they worried about exactly?

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