The Brutal Ageism of Tech

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117088/silicons-valleys-brutal-ageism

by deepakkapoor • 12 years ago

85 42 12 years ago

Dewie8• 12 years ago

One thirtysomething told me about a friend at Facebook who half-seriously claims to avoid sun exposure for fear of premature wrinkling.

From what I've read, there isn't much health-benefit from sun exposure. You have the vitamin D thing, but it seems that that can be taken care of with diet/supplements.

Obviously going for a Dracula lifestyle is a big inconvenience. But it seems that wearing a good dose of sun screen and trying to avoid tanning and sunburns might be a good investment if you want to avoid premature ageing, and, if you don't care about that, at least reduce the chances of skin cancer.

seren• 12 years ago

This is really off topic but I have just read recently something hinting that too much sunscreen could actually increase the risk of skin cancer [1], i.e. regular and safe exposure was a better strategy that going Dracula. The hard part might be to know when you are at risk and when not.

[1] http://nautil.us/issue/14/mutation/america-is-getting-the-sc...

Dewie8• 12 years ago

There doesn't seem to be much in this article that would discourage me from usually wearing sunscreen. There is this:

“There wasn’t and there still isn’t absolute evidence” that supplements are bioequivalent to sunshine.

which means that I can't necessarily get away with just vitamin D supplements. Other than that, the article hardly emphasizes Australia's stance on vitamin D supplements, only that right now only dark-skinned people are advised to take it. But they don't say if people were advised to take supplements when avoiding the sun, which might be a crucial thing to do if they were to avoid the sun altogether. So I can't be sure if the vitamin D deficit was due to lack of sun exposure, or mostly due to one-sided marketing (avoid the sun, but don't do anything else to compensate).

Last summer I read a chronicle by a doctor that said that 10 minutes of (naked) exposure was adequate. There was a lot of fuss about getting enough vitamin D.

People regularly exposed to daily sun have a lower risk of getting melanoma and also have a higher survival rate if they do3 because regular sun exposure protects against burning,

Well this doesn't actually seem to apply to someone who is mindful of the amount of sun exposure he gets. It is of course more sensible to have a little exposure over time to the sun to build up a tan than to spend spurts of time in the sun and risk getting sun burnt. But that doesn't really apply to a person who might be very careful to put on sun screen when he is spending more time in the sun.

axaxs• 12 years ago

From personal experience, no amount of supplements replaces the value of sun on the skin. Then again I'm approaching 30, so what do I know.

hessenwolf2• 12 years ago

My wife has darker skin and really obviously has to be in strong sunshine every once in a while to maintain healthy skin.

I, redbeard, read a book nearby under the sun umbrella.

watwut• 12 years ago

The efficacy of vitamin D taken from food and supplements is under discussion. It is not clear whether it is as effective as being exposed to sun.

Dewie8• 12 years ago

Well is it clear that vitamin D from the Sun is at least as effective as vitamin D from diet? ;)

collyw• 12 years ago

Is it not the case that Norway and dark places have a far higher suicide rate? I moved from the UK to Spain, took a salary cut, because I value the sun. It it less depressing waking up to sun rather than grey most days. That must have some positive impact on health.

Dewie8• 12 years ago

Is it not the case that Norway and dark places have a far higher suicide rate?

I don't know. Probably more occurrences of SAD. But then, it might be that only certain people are affected by it.

I've grown up in Norway and yes, it isn't very fun for me to wake up at 0700 in the winter, pitch black outside, and then go to school. My area also got a lot of overcast and rain in the winter which, though UV radiation might have come through the clouds, it only compounded the gloomy weather. I wonder if I'm actually more bothered by the chilly, rainy weather rather than the darkness. If there was more snow, it would be a bit lighter.

In return, you get more sun in the summer.

I lived in Spain for 5 months. I wasn't particularly happy during that time, though there were other factors impacting that. More sun and less rain was certainly nice.

dagw• 12 years ago

Is it not the case that Norway and dark places have a far higher suicide rate?

Not really. Norway has roughly the same rate is the US and quite a bit lower than France (but quite a bit higher than Spain). The whole darkness leads to suicide is largely a myth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_ra...

Htsthbjig• 12 years ago

In Norway you have no sun half of the year.

The other half you have more sun than in Spain.

The main problem in Norway are bone cracking because serious vitamin D deficit. They make children eat pills for that.

It is a great business for fracture specialists. :-D

michaelochurch• 12 years ago

Is it not the case that Norway and dark places have a far higher suicide rate?

Short answer: no. Longer answer: sort-of, but not recently.

In the mid-20th century, there was a lot of suicide in northern latitudes in the summer, which actually led some to believe that too much light (16-20+ hours per day) was the culprit. Spring and summer have always been the peak seasons for suicide, violent crime, and new mental illness. So why is there less of that in warmer climates? The culprit isn't sunlight (either winter's lack of it, or summer's abundance of it) itself, but alcoholism (which is a contributing factor to a shocking percentage of suicides). Harsh winter climates can contribute to alcoholism-- however, a lack of economic opportunity is more devastating-- which is a chronic problem once developed, and can lead to a summer suicide.

In 2014, the Nordic countries take alcoholism, mental health, and social services very seriously (much moreso than, say, the US) and don't have an unusually high suicide rate. In fact, people in Scandinavia and Canada are, on average, happier, healthier, and less suicidal than Americans.

Cthulhu_• 12 years ago

You call it "premature ageing"... but getting some sun like the average human being does isn't premature, it's normal / average / things people that don't really care do.

Dewie8• 12 years ago

On the other hand, it can be said to be premature for the kind of people who specifically seek out the sun, trying to get a deep and even tan, spend a lot of time sunbathing to that end, etc.

Maybe I shouldn't have said "premature". We don't really know what is more healthy, whether it is how people normally do things or whether they should take care to do something else. We've done some things historically, perhaps due to adaption or necessity, but that is just a testament to the fact that it works, not that the practice is healthy or optimal. So I'm not immediately sold on what is average or normal.

BSousa3• 12 years ago

I hate the sun as much as any other programmer, but I can safely say, after moving to a place with a lot of sunshine, my mood improved a lot. Even 10 minutes in the balcony just staring at a clear blue sky makes me more productive and calmer than any pill/supplement or exercise has done. And for my wife (suffers from SAD/depression) it has been a god send. Has been 2 years since any major incident, which corresponds exactly with the change of climate.

Do remember it isn't only the Vitamin D. The sun also helps regulate a lot of inner processes that artificial light mess up (circadian cycle being one of them).

Dewie8• 12 years ago

This seems to be a common sentiment. Personally I haven't noticed much of a difference in my mood between summers and winters. There might be a difference, but it hasn't been enough to be obvious to me.

hga• 12 years ago

I've found that light therapy can make a big difference, for me, getting 8 hours of sleep instead of 7. I use this very handy device: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001I45XL8/

mattgreenrocks2• 12 years ago

Where'd you end up?

credo• 12 years ago

This is a duplicate submission. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7455757 for the original submission (with 349 comments)

hitchhiker9993• 12 years ago

As a 38 year old who doesn't need to be hired:

I am infinitely more useful as a programmer now than when I was 18. I started when I was about 6, I had put in my 10,000 hours by around 18. I lacked so much.

I play on-line FPS to relax after a day of coding, I get to see the speed at which young people operate, and how they operate. It is limited.

It is hard to remain flexible as an adult, we can fall into the many 'slowdown' traps of ageing. If one doesn't, one can 'kick ass'.

Any community who thinks youth is exclusively valuable, lacks wisdom.

IMHO A combination of 80% experienced and 20% youthful energy appears to operate as the perfect catalyst for powerful progress.

I didn't realise SV was like this, what a shame.

wavefunction2• 12 years ago

There's a whole world beyond SV filled with companies that value experienced and reliable developers. I'm 35 and I'm the youngest dev at my current place, by quite a bit.

I've been around the block so many times now I can predict the majority of any new block. And spending your time outside of work doing things other than dev-related is great. I am adding a dog to my life on Sunday to help encourage me to keep up with my exercise regimen and get me outside. Enjoy life, we only have one!

hitchhiker9993• 12 years ago

Where are you? That sounds incredible.

I have 2 dogs, a wife and a new baby. I can lend you them for 3-4 years if you want ;) Nah, it's awesome. Thanks, and enjoy your new friend - great move!

ojbyrne• 12 years ago

Of course, the fact that you feel 38 is in any way, shape or form, old, is insane.

hitchhiker9993• 12 years ago

Haha thanks man, i'll get off your lawn now.

I don't feel old at all, honestly!!!! - I know I'm still a yoot basically, I have so much to learn. It was only meant in relation to the context given (the article)

Hermel• 12 years ago

Nick Stamos has no kids, few hobbies, and even fewer extravagances. He works all the time and is consumed by his company every second he’s away from it.

That of course always helps as entrepreneur. It might also be the hidden reason behind the ageism. I for one would not want to work as hard today as I did when I was younger and did not have a family yet.

thedufer• 12 years ago

To go a little off-topic, the jab at Outbox was horribly undeserved.

“This company sends out humans in Priuses three days a week,” one fortysomething programmer groused to me last year.

This was a soft landing for their customers after the USPS shut down their original system of having customers have their mail forwarded. Their long-term goals were 2-fold:

1) Allow customers to easily unsubscribe from unwanted mailings (incidentally, this is why USPS wanted them shut down - junk mail constitutes most of their revenue).

2) Fix USPS - they intended to get their automatic scanning technology into USPS itself, thus saving them delivery costs on mail for anyone who signed up to receive it digitally. This could potentially save them enormous amounts of money.

They originally wanted to do this with USPS, but quickly realized that they had much better chances if they started as a private company.

Great article on Outbox: http://www.insidesources.com/outbox-vs-usps-how-the-post-off...

wavefunction2• 12 years ago

The folks behind Outbox were attempting something that was way more ambitious and interesting than most of the SV startups I see mentioned here, and I agree that they got a bad rap from the press and the Postal Service.

Nursie2• 12 years ago

Not true everywhere.

As an older engineer you might not get the new, cool, bleeding edge project. But then you might also not be expected to work 15 hour days.

I call that a win.

(I'm mid 30s and while I may not put out as many lines of raw code as I used to, I understand what I'm doing far better, have a good understanding of development process and tools, and place high value on robust, supportable code as compared to most of the younger engineers I've worked with recently - i.e. I'm far more productive, even if I look like I'm doing less!)

Nursie2• 12 years ago

All that said, I've just been reviewing some code written by fellow not-in-their-20s engineers here and I think I'm going to have to go and vomit somewhere.

Maybe it's just fair to say that age can season, temper and improve a good engineer. It doesn't with all of them.

afarrell2• 12 years ago

Age does not equal wisdom. Age times paying attention equals wisdom.

afarrell2• 12 years ago

I have definitely observed this phenomenon in at least one startup CTO in Boston.

onmydesk• 12 years ago

When you get old enough you realise you wouldn't do what they do now not because you can't, but because it was pretty dumb.

personZ• 12 years ago

"When a company called PayScale recently surveyed the country’s 32 most successful tech companies, it found that just six of them had a median age over 35. (The median age at Facebook, Google, Zynga, AOL, and Zynga was 30 years or younger.) By contrast, the median age for all workers in the U.S. economy is 42 years."

Given that such an article is going to be dominated by anecdotes (which are interesting and sometimes entertaining, but very seldom illuminating broader trends. People often think whatever lot they are in is universal, and that what misfortunes or difficulties they face are always unfair externals), I looked for data and this was the best it had. It's a pretty common proof.

Only the 32 most successful tech companies have gone through generally enormous expansion. Most of them draw primarily from new grads, not least because such recruiting is easy: New grads are available, and are willing to relocate wherever you want them. Established workers are less likely to be interested, and often dramatically less likely to want to relocate.

If you simply polled tech workers across the US who were willing to relocate any distance, much less thousands of miles, the average age would similarly be very low.

I'm surprised the age difference wasn't much larger, to be honest.

paulhauggis• 12 years ago

My problem is that I'm not willing to go on coding death marches any longer. I also question decisions by management instead of forging ahead toward absolute failure.

eitally• 12 years ago

"Brutal", "Ageism", and "Tech" in this headline are all editorializing by the author. Beyond the tech bubble there are countless more traditional companies that depend to varying levels on internally developed software and are happy to employ competent folks of any age, especially those not likely to flee after 6-24mo (per a different post yesterday about how to make money as a programmer). In one of our offices the average tenure is >20yrs, with a couple of guys beyond 40yrs with the company. A few of them participated in the original authoring of a critical business system we wrote in the early 90s (it's been completely rewritten a couple of times since, but still), and having their deep knowledge is extremely important to us. But we're not a tech company and we are happy for folks to work a standard 40hr week, with comp time to compensate for on-call or extraordinary circumstances.

mattgreenrocks2• 12 years ago

There is another way: become a member of the Guild of technologists, and break away from the commoditized pop culture of programming.

In short, work somewhere where your ideas and skills matter more than LoC generated per day. There's tons of devs who are younger/faster/hungrier than you who will work for less. Actually, this whole system depresses wages for development as a whole and you should be pissed about that.

Ageism is unique in that it's a game you're guaranteed to lose eventually.

The Brutal Ageism of Tech

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