
Ask HN: Does startups hire above 35 years old employees?  - JamesAdir
Every time I take a peek at a startup profile page on their website you can only see 20 something in the frame. I know that many startups are created by people at this age, but as the company grow (25-50 employees) I wonder why I can&#x27;t still see some older people there. I&#x27;m not talking at all about people who are 50 plus with some grey hair that are missing entirely from the pictures.
======
christiangenco
Friendly grammar lesson[1]:

"Does" vs. "do" can be a difficult distinction[2]. Your choice depends on
whether the sentence subject is singular ("he _does_ like cake") or plural
("bob and alice _do_ like cake").

A good trick to make the distinction easier (and to properly identify the
subject, which I still find difficult in some cases) is to rearrange the
sentence as a simple affirmation:

* Startups _does_ hire above 35.

* Startups _do_ hire above 35.

The only exception to this rule is that you always use _do_ when the subject
is "I," "me," or "you": "I do," "you do," "do you?", "do I?", "do startups
hire me?," etc (even though "I," "me," and "you" are singular).

1\. The vibe I've gotten from HN and /r/programming (and from my own
experience communicating in another language) is that, in general, ESL
individuals find it helpful for others to point out when they make grammatical
mistakes. Hopefully JamesAdir feels the same, and actually is ESL (or I'm sure
I'll come out looking like a jackass), so I apologize in advance if the above
is not true in this case. 2\. [http://data.grammarbook.com/blog/verbs/what-
does-or-what-do/](http://data.grammarbook.com/blog/verbs/what-does-or-what-
do/)

~~~
noir_lord
I'm English and that was still a fascinating read.

It was also the friendly "grammer-nazi" post I think I've ever seen.

~~~
troels
friendliest.

sorry ..

~~~
noir_lord
Don't apologise, the predictive type on the Nexus 4 is fun :).

------
flurdy
They do, I was 35 when I got hired by my current startup.

But they are less likely to hire 35+ for many good reasons.

A 35+ is more likely to be have a higher salary demand due to more expertise
and experience. An early bootstrapping Startup usually offer low salaries
(although sugared with share options) and can only hire people very early on
their salary ladder, or the ones who are not so good...

A more successful Startup often able to offer better salaries and do hire 35+,
however only few startups are successful.

That is a good filtering.

A not good filtering is that a 35+ due to experience will probably know that
80 hour weeks, crunch modes etc are counter effective and are less afraid of
saying no. And therefore 35+ are less attractive to entrepreneurs who are
looking for people to put in their entire life into the company as they do
even though they only own a tiny part of it, if that.

On top of this a 35+ often have families, hobbies, a life etc and rarely
can/will do more than 40 hours per week and will not apply to startups job ads
that quickly smells of continuous crunch mode.

------
deletes
Startups are looking for people with as much free time and energy as possible.
And the older one gets the more probable it is that they have a family, and
cannot sustain a heavy schedule. So younger people are hired on average more
often. Individuals that fit the "startup schedule" should not worry about
their age.

~~~
dasil003
I wasn't 35 and I didn't have kids when I joined my current startup, but I am
and I do now. I'd have to say a startup that is looking for my skillset would
be very foolish to pass on me for a 25-year-old who worked 80 hours at half
the price. That sort of focus on cost and hours rather than value delivered
and mistakes avoided will drive a startup straight into the ground.

~~~
JPKab
Exactly. That's the problem I've noticed: Do you really want to hire someone
who takes 80 hours to accomplish something that takes 8 hours for someone
else? I think we've all seen this happening. I was brought in to a parallel
team one day because they were about to miss a deadline. Turns out 25 year old
guy was trying to build a graph database from scratch. He didn't know that he
was building a graph database, and wasn't really aware they existed. He just
knew what he needed, and went about building it. He spent a huge amount of
time building his own awful, non-performant implementation. I told the team
lead to get Bob to help. Bob has kids who are in their mid 30's. Bob sat down,
logged into the VM, and a few hours later had an instance of Neo4J running and
hooked into the app.

But hey, he thinks foosball tables don't belong in offices, so why hire him at
a startup?

------
officemonkey
Fun fact: In the U.S., you can age discriminate (ie: not hire people
under/over a certain age) all you want, as long as the person isn't over 40.

So you can certainly legally not hire people over 35 years old, as long as
they're not yet 40.

Once they're 40, you can not discriminate against them because they're too old
(eg: Fred can't do that job, he's 50 years old) or too young (eg: We can't
hire Joe for the CEO job, he's only 42.)

Of course there are many reasons to hire/not hire someone, but if you're using
age as a criteria, you are on very shaky ground legally.

~~~
StavrosK
In practice, though, since hiring decisions are so subjective, couldn't one
justify it with "we felt that they wouldn't be a good fit" and be off the
hook?

~~~
officemonkey
If the person isn't "a good fit" then yes, as long as the record (your emails)
supports that decision. Email saying things like "he's so much older than the
other applicants" or "he's got school-aged kids, so his head won't be in the
game" will be found in discovery and will lose your case.

Another thing to consider: people who file discrimination lawsuits usually do
not prevail on the discrimination claim, they prevail on the retaliation
claim. It is often quite easy to show retaliation, especially if it is an
employee and not an applicant.

~~~
StavrosK
Ah, interesting, thanks. So these laws aren't as unenforceable as I thought,
that's good.

~~~
sethammons
Why is that good?

~~~
officemonkey
Because discrimination against criteria that have nothing to do with job
performance is bad.

~~~
StavrosK
More generally, I think those criteria are proxies for actual performance. For
example, you can infer information about someone's performance from their age,
absent of any other information, but when you _do_ have the extra information
and still rely on proxies, it's bias.

~~~
officemonkey
>you can infer information about someone's performance from their age

I would argue that you can not infer much about someone's job performance
based solely on their age.

~~~
StavrosK
Sure, not much, but some.

~~~
officemonkey
I completely disagree.

------
zt
It is partially due to assortative matching. Startups don't advertise to (or
maybe even want) older candidates, while many older candidates don't actually
want to work at startups. Laying blame just on the companies doesn't quite
make sense to me.

Of the several hundred applicants we've gotten at Standard Treasury, the
median age is likely a little less than the founding team (we're all 27-28).
That age is likely even higher than most other startups that go through YC as
we build enterprise software for banks -- it's not the sexiest topic in the
world. Well, it is to me but you get my point.

We've hired some people that skew older compared to most other startups we
know but that only seems to our benefit, frankly.

------
StavrosK
Well, where I currently work (Silent Circle), we have many people over 35,
with many being in their 50s. I find that the older coworkers tend to really
know what they're talking about, so I always consult them when designing
something.

I guess it depends on the person, but, in my limited experience, hackers get
better with age.

~~~
JPKab
I agree with you. I'm 32, and my biggest complaint at my current team is the
lack of more experienced people to learn from. I think the "team full of 20
somethings" brings a dangerous lack of diverse thinking.

------
jshq111
When you get a little older your risk profile often changes. You have kids who
you hopefully think are far more amazing than work and providing a secure
lifestyle for them becomes more important than a potential lottery ticket of
super-riches. You probably find it a bit harder to "drink the kool aid" that
your tech project - while really really cool - is in fact "changing the world"
and deserving of "passion." If you take a big risk in your mid 20s and blow up
you have a long lifetime to recover. Past your mid-30s you become more aware
that you have less time to recover financially from big setbacks.

As an almost 40 geezer I think it's amazing the startup ecosystem exists for
the younger crowd and wish it was more fleshed out when I was at that point in
life. But I just have different priorities for myself now.

------
ilaksh
Should be said. Older people often don't have as much experience with some of
the newer technologies. For example I am 36 and even though I feel that I am
up on Node.js and CoffeeScript and ToffeeScript and some NoSQL and Three.is
and some other stuff that I think is still relatively new, I have little to no
mobile dev experience. Part of that might be related to the fact that mobile
dev was sort of niche for a significant part of my programming career. I have
a lot of experience with many different technologies but not the same ones as
younger developers so I don't quite share their programming worldview.

I have also spoken to a number of developers older than me who are far behind.
Like they didn't understand the point of Ruby or Node and thought Php was just
fine. Or they thought that all of the organizations code should go in two
giant repos like the old svn way.

So the reality is that sometimes older people aren't up to date or don't share
your culture.

Having said all of that I personally believe that in most respects younger
developers are just as far behind as the older developers and often lacking
quite a bit if perspective. Whereas older developers need to update their
perspective.

Obviously it depends on the person so generalizations like those are usually
going to be counterproductive because the best developers are in their own
category

~~~
codelap
Should be said, black people are lazy, and Asians are good at math!

I want you to repeat that statement any time you feel like you have a valid
stereotype that must be said. Because it should help to remind you that a
stereotype is not a truth.

Don't help promote ageism. Some people make development a job, others make it
a lifestyle. Age has nothing to do with that. I have devs anywhere from 25-30,
and I'm often disappointed by their lack of exposure or passion for the new
tech out there. But they will all go home at the end of the day and read
comics, or watch TV. I'm 39, and I come home and play with a new technology or
build a new product. Your age doesn't define you, your passion does.

~~~
JPKab
Thanks for pointing this out. You said it better than I could: "Some people
make development a job, others make it a lifestyle. Age has nothing to do with
that. I have devs anywhere from 25-30, and I'm often disappointed by their
lack of exposure or passion for the new tech out there. But they will all go
home at the end of the day and read comics, or watch TV. "

Well said. A colleague of mine who had no GF, no family, no responsibilities
at 27 continued to disappoint me on a regular basis with his lack of drive to
learn. He had zero growth since joining our team, and has just signed on with
a startup who made the mistake of not doing a technical interview. Whoever the
team lead is who gets stuck with him is screwed. On a side note, I learned how
important rigorous technical interviews are. When he told me he got the job
and said it involved business intelligence/data warehousing, I mentioned to
him that he had never worked with these things, and asked him if he indicated
this in the interview. His response: "Well, I know SQL, and I looked at star
schemas on wikipedia and it doesn't look that complicated." I then asked him
(this was him giving me a 2 weeks notice) if he had contacted the team lead to
find out what the tech stack was so he could start reading up on using any
tools he wasn't familiar with. This hadn't even occurred to him.

Lack of passion spans the age groups.

------
jkg
Simply put, people in their 30s, 40s and beyond are more likely to have kids
and a mortgage, and be averse to the risk that a startup carries.
20-somethings are more likely to be in a position to work for a company that
might not be meeting payroll obligations reliably -- and to reap the benefits
that (can) come with that risk

------
rbrcurtis
In my last company/startup, when I was more actively involved in the hiring,
the best candidate we saw of the 100+ interviewed was 40 yo. He declined the
offer because we couldn't pay him enough even though he was _obviously_ worth
the money.

At my current startup, around the time I joined we were explicitly only
looking for senior developers who were generally at the top of their game. As
a result we _mostly_ hired people who were at least 28, and often
significantly over 30 because that seems to be about the time you hit that
point. Needless to say, we hired a lot of people with kids. I personally had
my first kid one month after hire, and I was very open about that timing in my
interviews.

So yeah, it depends on the startup, but it seems to me that any startup that
isn't willing to hire "older" developers is discriminating their way out of
many of the top candidates.

------
irremediable
It's complicated. Older people are likely to be in a higher position, and I
think are less likely to look for a job through the company's careers page,
because they're likely to have a more extensive network of contacts and
possible employers. As such, older people tend to join startups later than its
first non-founding employees, because they're likelier to be distinguished
experts in their field, who need to be sought out and need more pay.

On the other hand, I've known plenty of startups who're happy to hire older
people for junior roles. They just get fewer old applicants.

I don't know if there's also a significant bias against older employees. I can
believe there is. Either way, I'm certain that it's not the _biggest_ reason
startups tend to hire young people.

------
ayanb
Technically it should be the best woman/man for the job and often it depends
on two things -

1) What profile is the startup trying to fill in? Adult supervision (read COO)
at a fast growing venture backed company run by barely out of teens? You might
want to poach someone like Ms. Sandberg.

2) Which sector and industry is the startup plying in? Is it enterprise
software? Hiring for a VP engineering or an Engineering Manager? Hadoop or
Solr specialist? Need years of experience/ deep knowledge. 20 somethings might
not be the best fit. Enterprise startups like Altiscale, BitGlass,
BrightFunnel, were in the news this week (funding rounds, launch) .. look at
their about us pages, plenty of experience and grey hair.

Horses for courses work fairly well, inside and outside the startup world.

------
iamwithnail
In my experience, as some of the others have said, yes, they do. The developer
at my last company was in his 40s and still had that mentality. What you will
find, though, is that there's a tradeoff there, because not everyone does; as
you get older, you're less inclined to work 80 hours a week for a project
(unless it's your own.)

At the new company, we hire for cultural fit, and this means we tend towards
(but aren't exclusive) people around our own age (27, on average). But we have
a fairly wide distribution around that.

------
aw3c2
Yes, of course "they" do.

It depends.(tm)

------
troels
In general, I don't think it's the startups that discriminate against older
people, as much as it's the other way around.

Most older people would tend to have a better skill set and the startups would
love to get that, but they wouldn't want to pay for it. Furthermore, older
people might be more risk averse (Will this company stick around for more than
3 months?).

All very broad generalisations, understood.

------
loladesoto
[un]conscious self-selection bias? you're going to be spending 100 hrs/week
with your co-workers at a startup, so people will hire those they can relate
to as part of cultural fit.

that said, there are roles that require more experience/industry
relationships/gravitas as a company matures (e.g., Sandberg as COO) and that
often correlates with age.

------
arbernat
It seems like it depends on the field. I joined my current startup at 36, and
there's a lot of people older than me - also, some younger. Some with kids,
some without. But that's in the storage industry, not web apps, so there might
be some institutional bias or lack thereof.

------
gexla
So, I assume the founders in the images are young also. If the company is
small, then maybe it's a case of the founders mostly pulling people from their
own social groups. Obviously this group would be young if the founders are
young.

------
JamesAdir
Do startups hire people who are 35+ years old? Sorry for the grammar.

And I've asked myself this because of this picture of MixPanel employees:
[https://mixpanel.com/jobs/](https://mixpanel.com/jobs/)

------
jiggy2011
If the startup is started by people in their early 20s, perhaps older people
are less likely to work there because it feels weird to have a boss who is 10
years younger than you.

------
TimLangley
YES ABSOLUTELY

TBH Attitude is far more important than age (and skills)

~~~
werner34
I know loads of hairdressers that have a good attitude.

~~~
TimLangley
lol - just saw this

I think you're mis-reading the intent of my comment

Of course skills matter (I'm unlikely to hire a hair-dresser who has never
done anything other than cut hair for a development role - but I have hired
"career changers" like this for other roles - like support / sales).

HOWEVER if I'm judging two candidates with suitable (define as you will) skill
sets then the one with the better attitude will always get the role

TBH this is even more important when it comes to internal promotions than for
initial hiring (but now we're going slightly off topic)

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Attitude criteria are often proxies for culture fitting; you are basically
making a call on whether they are extroverted/emphatic or not, vs. checking
skills or anything.

For internal promotions, it's called "being visible" and "managing up", where
again, appearance is more important than capability.

------
lutusp
> Does startups [sic] hire above 35 years old employees [sic]?

That depends in part on whether the 35-year-old is functionally literate.

------
nfriedly
Mine does :)

[http://www.sociablelabs.com/careers/](http://www.sociablelabs.com/careers/)

------
octatone2
Yes.

------
digitalzombie
At least in California, they cannot ask you your age during interviews.

------
u86433
a startup with age limit is a dead startup!

