> "I am 53, but I am full of energy. I spent the past couple of days bouldering v8-v9 problems in Lake Tahoe, which is something that not many twentysomethings can do"
He's stronger than most of twentysomethings.
"What makes me tick is not the desire for more money, I really have all I need. "
He's rich.
"The happiest times of my professional life happened when I was in a room with people I liked and respected, thinking about solving problems that mattered to us."
Like no one else, he's kind of an exception that likes to do what he likes to do.
From his website:
"Our focus is to develop and deploy powerful and resilient infrastructure for Artificial Intelligence (AI) software companies, ensuring they are equipped to counter common and industry specific threats and cybersecurity breaches. "
That doesn't mean anything, but at the same time "There is a war for machine learning talent, and the quickness with which people accept our rates make me think we should be charging significantly more! ". So he doesn't need money, but thinks he should be charging more.
"In this context, does it matter that I am in my 50s? Not really, but I thought it would make for a good hook in the title. If I can remain healthy and work sane hours (which is not hard when you had good partners and know how to delegate)"
You're fucking 53, not 80, stop making it seem like you are on the brink of dying of old age. And "to know how to delegate" is just to make people work for you and get the reward.
" I can see myself doing this while my brain remains sufficiently sharp."
I'm surprised at the saltiness, jylam. I see nothing wrong in any of the quotes you posted. I think the author is reacting to two things:
* The meme that startups are a young person's game. Hell, some people even say that technology is a young person's game.
* The fact that most people do slow down in the second half of their career, for various reasons (kids, or because they've reached their financial goals, etc).
It's not clear at all why his post was offensive to you. Maybe what you're really angry about is the notion I mentioned above, which is unfortunately common, that people "age out" of strong or interesting work?
I am in my mid 50s. While I am certainly not at death's door, I have had some medical issues recently for the first time in my life. My energy is not what it was.
Starting an innovative company is something that would be a big challenge and certainly not something to be sneered at.
Because nobody will hire an >50yo in tech. Yes, there are exeptions for managerial roles (not tech, just tech adjacent at best) or extremely rare competences (live in memory AS/400 debugging anyone?).
Tech is the most agist sector, well, ok, maybe behind olympic sports or lingerie modelling.
There are plenty of opportunities for older people in boring tech. I’m in my 40’s working for my local government and the majority of my coworkers are in their 50s and 60s. Great benefits but of course our salaries are not competitive.
In my 40s and my job interviews were very easy the last couple of times I've switched jobs, because my battle scars are extremely valuable to companies.
The only time I've felt awkward about the age difference was an interview with 19-year-old startup founders who had retained an executive search firm for a VP Eng. We did not click at all, but in truth I don't actually know if that was the age gap or just an energy mismatch between us (they were pretty quiet).
Hired at 60 for marketing/tech and, after that job went away as the company itself was near death, again at 63 in a purely IT role (first one in my life, although I’d been doing IT-ish stuff as part of my other jobs for most of the previous 25 years). Retired from that one on the Friday before my 66th birthday.
Hired at 54 for a deep tech job, still at 3 years later. On the hardware side, mostly systems level C. On the software side, full stack JS (node and React). Loving it.
Hired at 54 for a deep tech job, still at 3 years later. On the hardware side, mostly systems level C. On the software side, full stack JS (node and React). Loving it.
I imagine the same reason most tech companies are started by people in their 40s-60s: because it takes that long to accumulate the experience, contact network, and wealth to start a company.
Just for context to the non-climbers - climbing a v8-v9 is like being able to run a 5 minute mile or play golf with a zero handicap, and climbing at that level in your 50s is even more impressive.
Cool. Wishing you good luck. Many founders/CEO’s are in there 20’s/30’s starting in the hype riddled world called tech. When you are that age you are still discovering many things in life and maybe being the CEO of a tech company is not that right. More ‘older’ CEO’s will create a more stable, slower, environment to create lasting products
Has a product that solves a real problem that it's customers (that aren't just other companies that the PE firm that actually owns the company acquired and forced to buy the solution) use day to day for years.
AI enabled micro transit crypto quad copters = hardcore
A site that connects consumers with suppliers in some niche market = softcore
Is building a product that uses OpenAI considered hardcore? I think he'd have to be building his own LLM from scratch for it to be considered hardcore.
He's stronger than most of twentysomethings.
"What makes me tick is not the desire for more money, I really have all I need. "
He's rich.
"The happiest times of my professional life happened when I was in a room with people I liked and respected, thinking about solving problems that mattered to us."
Like no one else, he's kind of an exception that likes to do what he likes to do.
From his website: "Our focus is to develop and deploy powerful and resilient infrastructure for Artificial Intelligence (AI) software companies, ensuring they are equipped to counter common and industry specific threats and cybersecurity breaches. "
That doesn't mean anything, but at the same time "There is a war for machine learning talent, and the quickness with which people accept our rates make me think we should be charging significantly more! ". So he doesn't need money, but thinks he should be charging more.
"In this context, does it matter that I am in my 50s? Not really, but I thought it would make for a good hook in the title. If I can remain healthy and work sane hours (which is not hard when you had good partners and know how to delegate)"
You're fucking 53, not 80, stop making it seem like you are on the brink of dying of old age. And "to know how to delegate" is just to make people work for you and get the reward.
" I can see myself doing this while my brain remains sufficiently sharp."
What, you are 53.
What a fucking clown.