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c0lo writes:
"New Republic runs a story on what seems (to me) to be an exaggerated obsession among Silicon Valley techs of needing to look young, even going to the extreme of undergoing cosmetic surgery.
Says the author:
In talking to dozens of people around Silicon Valley over the past eight months, engineers, entrepreneurs, money-men, [and] uncomfortably inquisitive cosmetic surgeons, I got the distinct sense that it's better to be perceived as naive and immature than to have voted in the 1980s.
The spirit seems to be captured best by the motto of a large I.T. services company operating in the bay: 'We Want People Who Have Their Best Work Ahead of Them, Not Behind Them.'
The story also cites Dan Scheinman, a former Cisco acquisition head who's proposal for Cisco to buy VMWare back in 2000 was not cleared by the Cisco's bureaucracy, who says that:
during a meeting with two bratty Zuckerberg wannabes, it hit him: Older entrepreneurs were 'the mother of all undervalued opportunities.' Indeed, of all the ways that V.C.s could be misled, the allure of youth ranked highest. The cutoff in investors' heads is 32. After 32, they [the V.C.] start to be a little skeptical.
The economics of the V.C. industry help explain why... Whereas a 500 percent return on a $2 million investment would be considered remarkable in any other line of work, the investments that sustain a large V.C. fund are the 'unicorns' and 'super-unicorns' that return 100x or 1,000x.
Finding themselves in the position of chasing 100x or 1,000x returns, V.C.s invariably tell themselves a story about youngsters. 'One of the reasons they collectively prefer youth is because youth has the potential for the black swan,' one V.C. told me of his competitors. 'It hasn't been marked down to reality yet. If I was at Google for five years, what's the chance I would be a black swan? A lot lower than if you never heard of me. That's the collective mentality.'
Speaking for myself, it almost makes falling for the sin of using cliches and exclaiming "Stop the world, I need to get off. I'm too old for this BS." What about you my fellow soylentnews netizens?"
(Score: 2, Insightful) by ngarrang on Monday March 24 2014, @12:46PM
Could it also be that young single programmers are willing to be paid less and work longer hours for the honor and glory of a new product? For being on the cutting edge? Older programmers will have families, less incentive to code for 40 hours straight, demand more money, insurance, etc.
(Score: 2, Informative) by dr zim on Monday March 24 2014, @01:13PM
So, in a word, exploitable?
(Score: 1) by ngarrang on Monday March 24 2014, @01:46PM
You can only exploit that which cannot fight it. These youthful programmers know they cost less and enjoy the additional work-risk. It is a rite of passage in some eyes.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Monday March 24 2014, @05:06PM
I don't think it's necessarily exploitation. Some of these startups sound like fantastic places to work. I'd love to have a job where I can code for 40 hours straight, and work with really smart people (although I would want the 'proper' pay and benefits).
I actually recently applied to one where I would have been the second oldest person in the company, and about double the average age. I didn't get the gig, although I don't think age was a significant factor.
(Score: 5, Informative) by VLM on Monday March 24 2014, @01:22PM
More reckless is the highest priority. If the point of the game is to play the lotto over and over to get 1000x returns off a zillionth of the investments and all the rest will fail, then you need players who are too dumb to understand the odds.
But you can't say in public that you invest your investors valuable money in risk taking lunatics, so its um... youth! Because there's a demographic group that's legendary for taking dumb risks.
If elderly programmers were legendary for taking idiotic risks so someone else can cash the lotto ticket if they somehow stumble accidentally upon one, then we'd be flooded with endless memes about how VCs "value the seasoned opinions of the elderly, and there's just something they manufacture Depends out of that makes their wearers inherently more successful".
Its actually very similar to the military. "Hey you dumb kids, go die taking that meaningless hill so I can get a great efficiency report at promotion time" And believe it or not, the kids are dumb enough to go do it! Tell that to a wise older guy like me and I'd be all "uh, you go first"