

Ageism in silicon valley: a foreign perspective - karaten
http://karaten.posterous.com/ageism-in-silicon-valley-a-foreign-perspectiv

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T-R
In Japan there's a combination of things that support hiring discrimination
against anyone who hasn't just graduated from college, spanning all fields.

The RECRUIT monopoly has pushed a significant amount of hiring into large
recruiting events which commoditize applicants with unified application forms
and an overemphasis on testing and school names (students have to start
looking for jobs in their sophomore year). Job applications also require
photographs.

There are also several incentives not to leave a job, such as the general
assumption (read: requirement) by other companies and institutions of lifetime
employment (e.g., my Gym doesn't have a way for someone to join who isn't
employed or a student, and upon changing jobs, I lost my housing contract,
even though I was paying for it - granted, I'm a foreigner). It's harder to
leave a job, in a culture that's generally considered pretty risk-averse, and
so companies are less willing to hire those who have. Moreover, there are many
taiiku-kei companies, where work and social life are intertwined, which would
likely favor hiring fresh out of college.

Certainly many companies don't discriminate by age, but there's a whole lot
more in place to support a company that does. I'd imagine there'd be a good
deal of value in reaching out to an untapped labor market in either location.

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patio11
SEs wrote all code that functioned at my employer, though it is true that
management thought this a great waste of resources. I listened to an older SE
explaining the grand scheme to make us a software firm without anyone
programming in house.

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staunch
What's age got to do with it? American corporate software development is just
as broken. Even the corporate ladder isn't _that_ different. Programmers
either move up as they age or are considered losers.

The difference is that the US has that dysfunctional system, but it also has a
highly innovative system: startups and companies run something like startups
(Apple, Google, Facebook, etc).

Japan simply doesn't have a startup ecosystem. Essentially no other country
does.

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gaius
Indeed. The key factor is, there is no-one who is a manager in a technical
organization who doesn't consider management to be "better" than hands-on
technical work - it's not as if there are pressgangs of board members roaming
the halls, to move into management, you have to _want_ to.

Now obviously these people consider themselves to be "successful", after all,
they got promoted didn't they? So it follows logically that anyone with the
same number of years of experience who isn't a manager must be "unsuccessful"
and who wants to hire an unsuccessful person?

Some companies talk about creating a "technical" career track but in my
experience that's never more than lip service, handing out a few job titles
like "senior this" and "principal that".

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baguasquirrel
The problem with "age" is really a problem of attitude. We'll be crippling
ourselves if we go by this proxy variable of age instead of looking at the
real problem, because there are plenty of people under 30 who are a lot more
cynical about new tech (e.g. JSON, NoSQL, advanced/mature FPs) than people a
decade older than them.

Will there be some BS in the new tech? Sure, but that's because it's new. Too
often, some wise-ass with a pretty degree or a major accomplishment at an
early age thinks that they'd already seen everything under the sun.

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T-R
I think it's important to note, though, that ageism in Japanese recruiting
isn't restricted to Programming by any stretch of the imagination.
Additionally, there seems to be a view of Programming as more of a vocational
field here - likely related to the small number of schools with 4 year
Computer Science programs. I think it's kind of apples-to-oranges, but
definitely some food for thought.

~~~
nandemo
As far as I know, every engineering school in Japan has a 情報工学 (Information
Engineering) program which is equivalent to Computer Science.

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kiba
Anecdotally, I saw a neat open-source cryptocurrency system that come from
Japan. From hearsay, I heard he is a cryptography researcher since he
published a nice professional looking technical paper on his system. Other
than that, nobody knows who he really is.

Other than that, I used the Ruby programming language. There's not much else
that I knew come from Japan in software. If they did come out though, they are
pretty awesome.

~~~
patio11
_There's not much else that I knew come from Japan in software._

If you routinely play video games, use consumer electronics, or travel via
automobiles, odds are quite good you have used Japanese software recently.
Don't worry: you are hardly the only person who forgets to count those.

The other category of software Japan is big in is Big Freaking Enterprise
backoffice ware, which is overwhelmingly sold to Big Freaking Japanese
Enterprises and a few foreign customers who have to interoperate closely with
them. (Totally hypothetically speaking, imagine you had a large automobile
manufacturer whose supply chain could practically apply for membership to the
United Nations. Their backend software might have significant uptake among
companies who enjoy pleasing their #1 customer.)

We're really, really behind the US curve in the consumer web space, though.
(Working on it!)

~~~
gaius
The article says, embedded software is completely different.

~~~
kls
And it is, for some reason, maybe higher barrier to entrance, embedded seems
to foster an older alumni it is also far more rewarding to those who stay on a
technical tract.

The way I see it, in pure play software dev, it up or out or freelance (which
is really management but you get to sling some code). I chose the latter after
doing a stint in embedded and later executive management. The problem with
embedded is that there just are not a lot of opportunities in the states
outside of some concentrated areas.

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fungi
thanks for all the career advice HN... but i'm finding this discussion really
depressing and attitudes really off-putting.

i really really respect you guys but i for one am coding until my eyes fall
out of my head... social constructs be damned.

~~~
danbmil99
I think the point of this & related threads is simply to make people aware of
the attitudes defacto policies that exist, so you can be aware of them if your
life choice is to remain what is euphemistically called an "individual
contributor" into your middle and later years.

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julian37
From the article: "On[e] exception [to non-age discrimination in silicon
valley?] is YC, but PG did make clear about the chance of anybody above 35 in
one of his essays."

Does anyone know which essay this refers to? A quick google search only
brought up [1] which says: "Paul [...] said that while this [young grads fresh
out of college] was more common, they fund the full age spectrum."

[1] <http://www.cloudave.com/link/at-age-35-mozart-was-dead>

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kqr2
<http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html>

    
    
      The other cutoff, 38, has a lot more play in it. One 
      reason I put it there is that I don't think many people 
      have the physical stamina much past that age. I used to 
      work till 2:00 or 3:00 AM every night, seven days a week. 
      I don't know if I could do that now.
    
      Also, startups are a big risk financially. If you try 
      something that blows up and leaves you broke at 26, big 
      deal; a lot of 26 year olds are broke. By 38 you can't 
      take so many risks-- especially if you have kids.

~~~
loup-vaillant
That seems to imply that young people are so awesome that they can be more
productive by working crazy long hours (compared to the standard 40 hours
work-week).

Somehow, I doubt it. I understand his point, but when I see studies[1] that
says that on average, working as little 60 hours a week is less efficient than
40 hours a week on the (not so) long term, I don't see how anyone can be more
efficient by working even _more_ than that. Even if they are still young and
healthy. Even if they are driven like only messiahs have any right to be.

[1]: [http://www.lostgarden.com/2008/09/rules-of-productivity-
pres...](http://www.lostgarden.com/2008/09/rules-of-productivity-
presentation.html)

~~~
arethuza
I'm pretty sure Sir Ranulph Fiennes says in one of his books that he preferred
candidates for his expeditions who were in their 30s as he found them a lot
mentally tougher than younger folks.

I suspect he knows a lot more about how people work under extremes of pressure
than most.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranulph_Fiennes>

------
known
I suppose all IT companies should be registered as
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partnership>

