
Studies suggest that many inventors do their best work at later stages - rafaelc
https://qz.com/954368/startups-worship-the-young-but-research-shows-people-are-most-innovative-when-theyre-older/
======
19405
The research they cited just says that older people tend to file more patents.
This is just one component of innovation.

~~~
pithic
It's also a biased component. Patent-filing opportunities mostly go to senior
or above engineers at larger firms.

~~~
Radle
Or to private people who have money.

Guess what most twenty year old don't have?

~~~
DonaldFisk
I'd be very surprised if more than an handful of cases fall into that
category. Do you have any data showing that is significant?

~~~
sndean
Vox had an article on something related to this [0], but you'd have to take an
extra step to say this means these the inventors, at 20-years-old, were or
weren't obtaining patents because of parent income.

[0] [https://www.vox.com/2015/3/16/8225165/patents-innovation-
soc...](https://www.vox.com/2015/3/16/8225165/patents-innovation-social-
mobility)

------
dvddgld
I would have assumed that innovation increases with experiences, knowledge and
resources.

One of the reasons startups target the young is surely naivety, e.g. stock
options, altruistic work, and so on. While older workers are happy to take
their stable, high wage senior jobs. Only branching out into innovation when
its under their own terms and they have a solid plan.

What does everybody else think?

~~~
pmorici
I agree. Maybe it is just the obscene cost of living in SF but I can't figure
out for the life of me why a rational person would take a startup job there.
Whenever you look at the salaries these companies pay they aren't the least
bit competitive with companies in less expensive cities after accounting for
the 50% higher cost of living.

I was much less aware of these more sublet factors when I was younger and just
out of school. It's impossible to ignore now that I'm older though.

~~~
askafriend
The cost of living is only prohibitively higher if you have a wife and 2 kids.

There are a ton of other scenarios where you earn and save a lot more in a
city like SF.

I have roommates for example and my rent is pretty cheap. I also don’t have a
car - I just use Uber or Lyft. Saves a ton of money.

~~~
tfmatt
how do you get groceries? you uber to whole foods and back?

~~~
devdad
The whole response thread of this question reads as satire.

~~~
askafriend
How so? Is it the delivery aspect? Grocery delivery is huge in other parts of
the world already. In fact, some grocers run their own services - like
Morrisons in the UK.

The US is the one that's behind and if I were to take a guess, it's the
suburban sprawl that makes last-mile delivery prohibitive in many parts of the
mid-west, etc.

~~~
devdad
Op states that it's ridiculously expensive. Others respond that it's not a
problem since you can always shack up with friends or strangers and use
different food deliveries to save money.

~~~
askafriend
Living in a denser urban environment is just a completely different lifestyle
than living somewhere in the midwest - you can't have the same set of
expectations when comparing them. Just as living in Japan is completely
different from living in Texas. Neither is better, and you don't have to force
yourself to like one or the other.

But you wouldn't go to live in Japan and expect a 2 story house with a
backyard, and space to keep 3 Ford F-150s in a garage would you? In the same
way, the entire lifestyle of living in SF/NYC is completely different than
living elsewhere. Why use the same metrics to compare the very different
lifestyles without taking into account that they are in fact different and
can't so easily be compared?

You must be willing to make adjustments to your lifestyle. If you are not
willing to do this and you only compare different places against what's
familiar - then just stay where you're comfortable - you'll never be happy
anywhere else.

I'm lucky enough to have lived in many many different types of environments
throughout my life and I see the value in all of them.

By the way, for what it's worth I love my current roommates - I much prefer
living with them to living alone.

------
tritium
Let's dispense with the facade. Younger employees typically do more for less,
and are sought for their energy, flexibility and/or willingness to entertain
new ideas, and not necessarily because they _invent_ the new ideas.

It used to be that fast food chains hired teenagers because they could pay
them less, and in exchange the kids got to feel like adults usually for the
first time, even if the environment was dubious.

Startups are running a similar game, only the skills needed are rare enough
that the price tag is sky high compared to ordinary jobs, and only because
there really have been a few unicorns and the calculated risk of investment in
these sorts of salaries is potentially worth the gamble.

~~~
ownagefool
I'm neither particularly old or young in this context, and whilst I would
typically agree that young people put in more hours, I'd argue many of those
hours are wasted.

Personally I'd rather hire the guy who's already done it and have a lower risk
of delivery, but I find that much of the management layer in tech just want
someone who'll say yes.

They don't see that they're building the wrong thing, or reinviting the wheel,
but they often don't care because putting tasks in Jira and them marking them
done looks like they're achieving things.

------
sverhagen
I probably bought into the myth too much then. I assumed there was something
about the young and fresh folk to be uninhibited, able to think outside of the
box, and thus be able to come up with something that's truly refreshing
(innovative?) Also, I may have imagined that there's "only so many
earthshattering ideas" anyone is bound to have, so let's squeeze these out of
them ("before anyone else does")? Yeah, I know, it sounds silly, when I
actually write it down. They sucked me in.

------
briga
I'm sure if you live a full life where you are constantly learning new things
and having new experiences you can reach old age with a lot of mental
elasticity and a wide-ranging perspective. Problem is, many people seem to
narrow their perspective and close off to new experiences after a certain
point, usually after they have children--at least the older people in my life
do. So I suspect what's going on in the study mentioned is a bit of sample
bias.

The great advantage of youth is that there are endless possibilities you can
be molded into. Which is probably something SV investors look for.

~~~
homarp
misquoting you

> youth [...] can be molded

Older people tend to ask why before jumping and offers their past experience
(e.g. gravity... )

------
j7ake
This is obviously field dependent. A counter example is mathematics, where the
significant break throughs are often done in the earlier part of career rather
than later.

~~~
speedplane
In the legal profession, you start off as a grunt, but with gray hair comes
more competence, respect and money. Tech is definitely a better choice for the
first 5 years in career, but I'm not sure long term.

~~~
ryandrake
Tech has a notorious compensation plateau after about 5-10 years, particularly
for individual contributors. Much more so than law, business, etc. Unless
you’re ok with yearly raises that don’t even track cost of living, you’re
probably needing to move into management or something after 10 years. It is
not a field for “ladder climbers” or anyone who wants a fairly linear
progression throughout their career.

~~~
speedplane
Compensation is important, but not the only factor. The fact that older
developers are viewed as obsolete but older attorneys are viewed as an asset
makes a different too. Commanding respect and admiration over time is an
intangible that tech lacks relative to other professions.

~~~
greenhouse_gas
A lot is connected to the massive amount of churn in the tech industry. And I
don't mean the infamous "JS churn". I mean that just twenty years ago,
multicore computers were a rarity outside niche players, and twenty five years
ago optimizing compilers were horrible at their job. So skills useful then (C
+ asm) are much less useful now.

On the other hand, law 25 years ago is fairly similar to law now.

------
philippeback
48 here. Best time ever. And innovation is definitely easier now that I have
the means to fund my ideas and their implementations. I work with young people
but because they are not as ossified as a lot of older ones. They are the
future in a sense. I find that link invaluable.

------
erikb
Startups work because nobody in them already knows their value.

I'm now over thirty and expect a big desk, two computers, free fresh coffee,
free lunch and a real paycheck. Can't build a start-up with that kind of
requirements.

------
dilyevsky
Most startups aren't doing rocket science and younger people are generally
cheaper, doh.

------
danieltillett
As someone who has been young (and unfortunately oldish now), I was much more
innovative when younger. The one thing the old(er) version of me has over the
younger version is I am now able to see better what is a good idea and what is
a good idea that can be implemented.

~~~
Spearchucker
As someone who was young (and very fortunately oldish now), I'm much more
innovate when older. Everything the older version of me does is more
insightful, considered and most importantly, likely to succeed. Experiences
are more profound because I'm more aware of the moment. I'm no longer
interested in the newest-model car or phone, am amazing at social interactions
(super-goofy when young) and pursue fun and meaningful activities - in work
and play. I have more good ideas than I know what to do with, and pass those
onto others, if there's opportunity.

~~~
danieltillett
I am not sure I would agree with you that it is fortunate to be old(ish), but
I do agree age gives you the ability to better judge the quality of your
ideas.

~~~
DonaldFisk
> I am not sure I would agree with you that it is fortunate to be old

It's better than the alternative.

------
jokoon
Well you cannot innovate without experience. Innovation means to bring
something new. You can't bring something really new if you don't know what is
already there, and why what you want to do doesn't exist. There often are
reasons.

------
keiferski
This completely depends on the field.

 _For example, a 2016 study (pdf) by the Information Technology & Innovation
Foundation that looked at the demographics of over 900 individuals who have
made high-value meaningful, marketable contributions to technology-heavy
industries in the US._

In mathematics, for example, innovation is typically done by the young. In
architecture, by the old.

~~~
danieltillett
I think this difference is down to the barriers to entry. To innovate in
mathematics all you need is pencil and paper, to innovate in architecture you
need to convince old rich bastards to build your idea.

~~~
ordu
I think, that mathematics constructed by the way, that makes it difficult to
be experienced adult and innovative. Math needs fresh idea, new angle to look
on old problem, but the more you study math, the more you are bound to already
discovered angles of view.

Not every area of knowledge has this property. I believe the less formal
theory in particular area, the more valuable adult as innovator. When there is
no theory to structure experience by the way everyone does, you would need to
invent your own personalized informal theory. Such a personalization is a key
to unique ideas and therefore to innovation.

Though this is just one more factor, like "old rich bastards". Reality is much
more complex than that.

------
austinjp
There appears, to me, to be an ongoing narrative that pits the older against
the younger. Memorably it came to a head in the UK with "analysis" of the
Brexit vote and correlation with age [0].

Needs and desires change as we age, of course they do. But there's little
value in placing a binary filter over this picture. The devil is in the
details. Removing the nuance leads to polarised perspectives, and these turn
into battle-lines.

From the comments here, it's clear that some people feel more creative in
their youth, some with age. There's no right or wrong. It varies by
individual, circumstance, and a ton of other correlations.

Articles such as this may purport or intend to uncover interesting data and
conduct useful analysis. Unfortunately (probably due editorial direction and
pressure to shift units) they ultimately simply encourage ongoing polemic.
Perpetuating simplified, harmful world-views does little to improve things.

This article in particular simply cherry-picks a bunch of "studies" to support
a tenuous conjecture that is not closely examined. Any valid point is weakened
by a lack of analysis, lack of robust questioning, and lack of constructive
"what do we do with this information?" angle. Why was this piece commissioned
and written? What is its value? Is there a problem here, and if so is a
solution indicated?

I don't doubt that "startup culture" overly values and exploits the young. But
this piece does nothing except fan the flames.

TLDR; click-bait.

[0] [https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-
interactive/2016/jun...](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-
interactive/2016/jun/23/eu-referendum-live-results-and-analysis)

------
ageofwant
It is because the young are cheap and stupid.

I could have stopped at cheap, but clever obedient monkeys demanding peanuts,
throwing poo at their keyboards, is a better value proposition for a venture
that has a 5% chance at success, than a higher grade simian.

Pro tip to cheap monkeys: Understand your value proposition, and get expensive
fast.

~~~
dang
On HN, would you please not post like this on inflammatory topics? We're
hoping for better here, so comments like this are destructive. I notice we've
had to ask you something similar before.

