
I Joined Airbnb at 52, Here’s What I Learned About Age, Wisdom, and Tech Industry - miraj
https://hbr.org/2017/04/i-joined-airbnb-at-52-and-heres-what-i-learned-about-age-wisdom-and-the-tech-industry
======
ChuckMcM
Here you go, the secret to relevance throughout your career: _" I’ve spent a
lifetime being curious about people and things, which, I guess, means I’m
well-read and well connected."_

In my own experience being naturally curious has led me down interesting paths
to meet interesting people and learn amazing things. As a parent I tried (and
apparently succeeded) in nurturing the natural curiosity in my children, never
shutting down a legitimate[1] 'why' question with a curt answer.

If you have forgotten how to be curious it can be hard to rekindle but I think
it is more a habit than a permanent change to one's brain. If you practice I
like to believe it is possible to rehabilitate curiosity (even if I don't have
any research to back that up.)

[1] It helps to distinguish the difference between when your child doesn't
understand the answer and when they simply don't like the answer. And the best
way to do that is to toss it back to them as "What part of the answer didn't
make sense to you?"

~~~
lj3
Survivorship bias. There are plenty of older engineers who are still quite
curious on the unemployment line.

~~~
mcguire
Note that the author isn't an engineer; he's the ex-CEO of a hotel company.

One believes the situations to be somewhat different.

~~~
lexap
Yeah, hello? This is the most atypical model possible for older tech workers.
A hugely successful hospitality CEO joins a tech startup disrupting the global
hospitality industry. How is that experience instructive for anyone except
Chip Conley? Emotional intelligence in Mr. Conley's world apparently doesn't
require any sense of irony. How hospitable.

~~~
mch82
My typical co-workers have always been 20-30 years older. The ones that stand
out and have been the most productive teaming across generations have taken
Chip's approach. The older engineers that focus on "how to technically
implement a feature" miss out on (and often suffocate) the potential
creativity of younger engineers.

------
dlwdlw
This just feels irrelevant to me. Ageism is directed towards older individual
contributors, not higher level executives whose job is mostly strategy. (And
unofficially, providing meaning and perspective to the younger workers)

It even seems to provide proof that being an older IC makes you irrelevant
because the success story is not a coder. The lesson is that as you age it's
either up or out. You either learn higher level skills or slowly fade into
irrelevance as your ideological baggage acts as an achor distancing you from
keeping pace with the now constant supply of young grads. (Now that coding is
"cool")

At the very very abstract level, companies are divided into people seeking
meaning and those that provide it. Upper level executives provide meaning in
work for the ICs. For the middle level executives they provide meaning in the
"company".

As you age, you're expected to be more wise and knowledgeable. Staying as an
IC is a black mark of sorts that you've plateaued at some point. You either
need to move into a meaning providing (or meaning enforcing) role, or stay as
an IC but provide meaning in the form of technical wisdom. Otherwise, all else
being equal, you stand out amongst the younger workforce.

Previous rewarding specialization does not mean future rewarding
specialization. The world can shift in a way so that your skills and
ideologies and perspectives are useless. The ageism prevalent in silicon
valley is that it's unkind to equally skilled low level people with one lerson
being older.

If your an older person and your skills are actually in great demand but low
suppl(strategy and meaning making)y, the ageism doesn't apply.

~~~
neves
What is IC?

~~~
jdcarr
Individual Contributor

~~~
kpil
Ah, the strange impenetrable language of corporate America.

------
dlevine
It's interesting to see this sort of perspective. I would like to see more of
it.

I'm not 52, but I'm in my late 30s and as an engineer who works at startups, I
find myself unable/uninterested in doing the things I did in the past. For
example, I find myself having to work smarter rather than just putting in more
hours than everyone else (which is what I did in my 20s).

It's also important to bring my perspective from 15+ years in the industry
while at the same time coming into each job with a fresh set of eyes (he
touches on this in the article). Just because I've seen a lot doesn't mean
that there isn't still a lot to learn.

~~~
pcurve
I'm in your same age bucket, and when I hear comments like "work smarter
rather than just putting in more hours", I wonder if that's not just
rationalization for simply not wanting to work longer hours because people in
that age group generally have other life obligations, and eventually become
overpaid and uncompetitive status.

You can't always work smarter day in day out, and expect to beat someone who
is both smarter and willing to put in more hours.

~~~
mistersquid

      > when I hear comments like "work smarter rather than just
      > putting in more hours", I wonder if that's not just
      > rationalization for simply not wanting to work longer hours
      > because people in that age group generally have other life
      > obligations, and eventually become overpaid and
      > uncompetitive status.
    

When people advise to work smarter than harder, it's often a nod to the fact
that longer hours generally produce negative results. [0]

Working smarter generally means planning before writing code, thinking about
how one's work will integrate into the larger system and how to make that code
reliable, maintainable, and extensible.

It also means picking your battles and directing effort where it will count.

With experience coders learn that endlessly coding generates errors and
shortsightedness. Sure, there is a small percentage of coders who can code
error-free for much longer than most, but most coders will be most productive
when keeping to a regular 40-hour work week. And even super coders are
susceptible to burnout. [1]

[0]
[http://www.igda.org/?page=crunchsixlessons](http://www.igda.org/?page=crunchsixlessons)

[1]
[http://www.alistapart.com/articles/burnout/](http://www.alistapart.com/articles/burnout/)

EDIT: format link list.

~~~
mbell
> Working smarter generally means planning before writing code, thinking about
> how one's work will integrate into the larger system and how to make that
> code reliable, maintainable, and extensible.

I have a largely different opinion on this, working smarter just means doing
the right thing instead of the wrong thing. I realize that is vague and I
think the reality is vague here. Investing the time to write 'reliable,
maintainable, and extensible' code is the right thing to do when it's the
right thing to do, it's the wrong thing to do when the it's the wrong thing to
do. Being older shouldn't mean that you always write 'reliable, maintainable,
and extensible' code, it should mean that you realize when it's warranted and
when it is not. My experience is that this isn't the case, 'older' coders (and
I safety quote older because I'm not convinced that age is the true
differentiator) tend toward 'reliable, maintainable, and extensible' at all
costs. That just isn't the right answer all the time. I'd venture a guess that
some of the stigma that exists about 'old coders' is related to this.

~~~
mirchiseth
The journey of right someone told me

\- do the thing \- do the right thing \- do the right thing the right way

------
cyberferret
One thing that people don't seem to talk about is that with age, usually comes
a broad network of colleagues and people that you know in an industry. Never
underestimate the power of a network.

A 50 year old engineer sitting alone in a remote location on the other side of
the world is going to find employment and opportunities much harder to come by
than a 50 year old engineer who has lived and worked in Silicon Valley for
decades. (Ask me how I know... ;-) )

Just the power of a warm referral, or someone in a meeting to say "Oh, I know
so-and-so is really great with database security - I worked with him about 10
years ago...We should get him on board for this project..." can work wonders
for a career.

------
kstenerud
I'm 42 now, still highly employable, although not at all companies. And that's
fine. They want someone who can churn out cheap but perhaps not so good code,
more power to them. That's not what I'm interested in, anyway.

But I know what I'm worth. I know that my code is top notch. I know that my
standards are above most things out there, and it shows.

I've released almost half a million lines of code for free as open source
projects. I've gotten emails from people in the most remarkable industries,
asking questions about something I'd written decades ago (for example,
[http://ftp.lip6.fr/pub/linux/sunsite/system/network/daemons/...](http://ftp.lip6.fr/pub/linux/sunsite/system/network/daemons/ringconnectd.lsm)).
I've posted the more useful of them to my github account, and that's the first
place potential employers look to see if I'm worth my fee. And I am.

Age only becomes a problem if you stop drilling down into the technologies
people use and REALLY understand them, and what lies underneath. Otherwise you
really aren't worth any more than the guys coming out of college with no
experience.

~~~
beokop
That you write "top notch code" isn't really a selling point for most
organizations. Management tends to just want to get things done ASAP.

Now, if you're in a field that REQUIRES well written code (mission critical
systems etc.) then being able to do so is of course a merit. But using good
coding skills as an argument for higher salary at your average tech company
just doesn't make sense.

~~~
mixmastamyk
Good coding is not just code but design as well, and has a huge effect on
outcomes even if many business people don't appreciate that. Some do however,
and I believe the niche is much bigger than "just NASA."

------
alain94040
I think this is great advice regardless of your age:

> I asked a lot of "why" and "what if" questions, forsaking the "what" and
> "how" questions on which most senior leaders focus

~~~
rhizome
Maybe it's just my delivery, but in many contexts I've found people who react
to "why" questions as confrontational. So much so that of the 6 W's [sic] I
think "why" is the line of inquiry most requiring of diplomacy.

~~~
Clubber
In my experience:

1\. "Why" is the most important question you can ask, and understand the
answer to.

2\. If someone is defensive to being asked why, it's because they can't answer
it well.

3\. If you can't answer it well, you haven't thought it through enough.

~~~
bayonetz
All true in isolation but...

1\. Sometimes "why" can lead to analysis paralysis and procrastination.
Sometimes "how" is better -- as in how do we best move on to a solution?

2\. It depends on how the "why" is asked. If the asker is confrontational and
implies the burden of proof is on the receiver, then the defensiveness might
be warranted. In other words, sometimes people ask "why" because they are
being contrarian dicks with axes to grind.

3\. Sometimes you need time to think it through but the "why" asker expects
your answer immediately and if you don't have one yet, uses this line of
reasoning to conclude you must not have a good answer at all. It can be hard
to have presence of mind in a situation like this and realize this fallacy is
being thrusted upon you. Not a very fair setup.

~~~
Clubber
Yes, those are all problems with asking why and usually show up in a bad
environment. Even with all that said, it's the most important question. Your
list is a great example as to why having a toxic work environment will kill
innovation; because people are afraid to ask and understand, "why."

1\. The "how" is often formed by the "why," as in "why are we writing this
software?" What problem are we solving? If you can't answer this well, the
"how" is irrelevant. Don't get me wrong, the "how" is important too, but the
"how" is dependent on the why.

2\. I agree some people are dicks about it. The best way to counter that is
have a good answer to the "why," then ask the person if they have anything to
add. If they are just doing it to be a prick, they usually don't have an
answer, or come up with something stupid. If they have actually been thinking
about it, they might contribute something you haven't thought of, and you'll
just have to deal with their abrasiveness to get it.

3\. You absolutely need to think about your "why." If you don't have a
complete answer, then say so, but add that you are still "chewing on it." It
is intimidating, that's why you should always have a good answer.

------
danderino
"Many young people can read the face of their iPhone better than the face of
the person sitting next to them. I’m not saying young people don’t understand
emotions. Our digital world is full of emojis, and the term “emo” didn’t exist
back in my schoolyard days. But emojis don’t create interpersonal, face-to-
face fluency."

I am really tired of statements like these.

~~~
angersock
_> I am really tired of statements like these._

Sure, but is it _wrong_?

~~~
danderino
Yes I think so.

Even if it isn't, I don't think there is any evidence to suggest that its
actually true.

The bit about emojis in particular however seems completely out of touch.

------
skmurphy
This was the best take-away for me:

    
    
       I also learned that my best tactic was to reconceive my bewilderment as curiosity, 
       and give free rein to it. I asked a lot of “why” and “what if” questions, 
       forsaking the “what” and “how” questions on which most senior leaders focus. 
       [...]
       My beginner’s mind helped us see our blind spots a little better, as it 
       was free of expert habits. We think of “why” and “what if” as little kid 
       questions, but they don’t have to be.

~~~
place1
I often try to ask 'why' and 'what if' questions. Maybe I just suck at talking
to people but they often become defensive and think i'm trying to question
their solutions when i'm really trying to understand how their solution works
(i'm young).

------
tracker1
Constant curiosity and learning are two of the things I love about software
development... Most people gain and hone knowledge and experience in a
particular sector or industry, and usually not very broad. With software
development you hone your own craft, with a breadth of knowledge, experience,
tools and techniques. You will be exposed to project management knowledge and
techniques as well. But beyond all of this, in a career you will have the
ability to work with any number of industries and areas of business. From
eLearning materials for aircraft engines to business security in banking. It's
an incredible opportunity.

The one thing I have learned, is I'm not very interested in pursuing
traditional management roles... I've dipped my toes in and hated it. But being
able to work with some amazing people, be challenged by very opposing views
and ideas and the opportunity to constantly learn from all angles is
incredible.

The work itself is often rather mundane, but what you get out of it isn't just
the process of making something work.

------
bitterolddev
This guy is both non-technical--which I correctly assumed, given that his
essay was published in the HBR--as well as a former executive. His life
experience is of little relevance to the average 40-something (or is it
30-something, now?) software engineer stifled by ageism.

------
oh_sigh
Chip has his own wikipedia page....I think he may be an outlier. It isn't like
he is joining airbnb as a Sr developer...

------
jypepin
Reminds me a little of the movie "the internship". That's a good story.

------
paulcole
>And yet we workers “of a certain age” are less like a carton of milk and more
like a bottle of fine wine

What a classically "Baby Boomer" statement. Confusing age with wisdom.

Yeah as a white male boomer you grew up in an insanely prosperous era with
basically everything stacked in your favor.

Like if you'd didn't come out of that on top, WTF was wrong with you?

Edit: Now that I've finished reading, this also stands out:

>Wisdom is about pattern recognition. And the older you are, the more patterns
you’ve seen.

LOL, coming from an older person, this seems awfully convenient.

