
Silicon Valley ageism: ‘They were, like, wow, you use Twitter?’ - leothekim
https://www.ft.com/content/d54b6fb4-624c-11e7-91a7-502f7ee26895
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Powerofmene
It is a sad fact that ageism exists and has been rampant in many industries
but especially in tech. It exists in many ways as the article explains
including asking for age on applications.

It would be nice to see a group with as much influence and power as YC take a
step to show the industry that age is just a number. There are people over 31
with great ideas, ambition, drive and the ability to grow a hugely successful
startup.

It is not enough to just say you support equal opportunities and equal
treatment within the industry. Somebody needs to take the lead in putting
action behind their words.

Maybe a first step YC could take is by taking the request for an age of
founders off the YC application or creating a diverse funded pool. If the age
request is for a legitimate non discriminatory reason, such as making sure the
founders are of an age to legally enter into contracts, simply as that
question; are you 18 years of age or older? Or if mentoring a widely diverse
(by age) group is difficult, then maybe they could select a dozen or more
groups with founders over say 40 and fund and assist in growing those groups
independent of their usual groups. I know their have been many groups who have
terrific ideas that warrant a chance at success but are not submitted because
of the prevalent ageism.

It might be an interesting study to see a comparison on growth, profitability,
media coverage, ROI, etc. between the standard funded startups and more mature
funded startups. I don't see a downside to such an experiment.

~~~
brooklyn_ashey
"Maybe a first step YC could take is by taking the request for an age of
founders off the YC application or creating a diverse funded pool."

Absolutely. And not only are there people over 31 (I know you agree, just
adding to it) with great ideas, ambition, and drive, there are actually people
over 40, 50 and 60 with the same. Generation X fell into a terrible trap and I
don't see it written about much. When the Gen Xers were of what is considered
peak professionalism age now (early 20s), there were no jobs for them until
they proved themselves by going into massive debt to get multiple graduate
degrees. When they were finally done with that process, so they could "prove"
their worth, they were tacitly told that they were too old to work starting at
age 37 or so. As a Gen Xer, I've watched this happen to practically every
accomplished person I know. Those who have not been crushed under the wheel,
picked themselves and their two PHDs up off the floor and retrained themselves
in tech only to be treated like they know absolutely nothing, or are a poor
"culture fit". They seem doomed to have to prove themselves over and over
again to be shoved aside. When we speak of college debt, we only speak of
millennials, but GenX was the first suffering generation, and they got nothing
at all for that debt. The only way for GenXers to get a decent job these days
is either to lie about their age if they can or to depend upon connections and
get a job that isn't based upon merit. Let's face it, everyone needs a
connection, but the GenXers are surrounded by colleagues who are in the
process of lying and other millennial colleagues who use Botox already. So
many of these people are great at so many things, and yet companies pretend
that if someone has not been VP of social media marketing, they have no idea
how to write good copy. There is this strange need to have specialized in mico
professions that aren't lifetime pursuits as though they actually are great
art forms. It would be wonderful iif some of these accomplised folks could
have opportunities to use their accumulated skills instead of gradually
becoming homeless with advanced degrees.

