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Judges Reinstate Charges In Google Age Discrimination Suit
theodp writes "A California appeals court has reinstated former Stanford prof Brian Reid's age-discrimination suit against Google, ruling that a lower Court erred in siding with Google and rejecting Mr. Reid's claims. From the Court Decision (PDF): 'We conclude that Reid produced sufficient evidence that Google's reasons for terminating him were untrue or pretextual, and that Google acted with discriminatory motive such that a factfinder would conclude Google engaged in age discrimination.' As side notes, helping Reid make his case is CS Prof Norman Matloff, while Google's actions are being defended by Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati of pretexting-was-not-generally-unlawful fame."
As a geek, I like to be in favor of strong employment laws that give the government full audit power over every corporation's decision to fire any one whatsoever. However, I don't like when it gets used against good guys, like Google.
Hey, at least I'm honest about my favoritism.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Sounds like The Office last night.
> untrue or pretextual
Wow! I've been on the internet since it was pregraphical. But pretextual! That must have been a really long time ago. No wonder they fired him for being old.
I am the only one who read "Google Age" like "Space Age"? I think it's about time we've moved on.
Make love, not sigs
"'We conclude that Reid produced sufficient evidence that Google's reasons for terminating him were untrue or pretextual, and that Google acted with discriminatory motive such that a factfinder would conclude Google engaged in age discrimination.'"
:p
So much for "Do no evil" (of course, Google has acted contrary to that self-righteous and self-congratulatory credo for years now. Looks like in the future slashdotters will be able to refer to Google as 'convicted discriminator' in each and every Google story.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
I just turned 40 and am a well paid system administrator. Is it really feasible to work in technology past the age of 50? It's harder to keep up with every new tech and some of the buzzwords of today are really annoying. Most social networking sites feel like reality TV.
Google _is_ evil
ultraparanoid.wordpress.com
I might not agree with the conclusion, but I've found this article to be a worthwhile read.
SIG: TAKE OFF EVERY 'CAPTAIN'!!
Disclaimer: I am a believer in nearly an absolute right of freedom of association, so I support the right to fire employees for stupid reasons including racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism, failure to keep kosher/halal, etc.
At 54 he may be a real asset to the company in other areas of the company that aren't bleeding edge. He may be the sort of guy you want working on some very difficult, but not sexy, problems like getting better performance out of their products. Just because his ideas aren't new, doesn't mean that he is useless. To the contrary, his experience may be worth several times the vision of a young employee.
The IT industry deserves its problems. It deserves to have to deal with labor shortages if it is young to be a cult of youth. No other industry treats its senior engineers with as much contempt as much of IT. No mechanical engineering outfit in their right mind would trade a person with 30 years of solid experience for a whipper snapper or two with vision, but no experience. It would be product suicide.
So, do we now add this to the growing list of how Google is becoming evil? I don't see how you can avoid it.
Why can't a non-government institution be allowed to choose their employees however they see fit?
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
By the way, what reasons are accepted for firing someone? In the European Union firing an employee is very hard because of the EU's strong social laws. But we know the US is a capitalist country, so how about the US?
I guess "Discrimination" against people doesn't fall under the heading of "Do no evil" - the official Google motto.
2 cents,
QueenB
HDGary secures my bank
As long as the government is not the one discriminating, or intentionally sponsoring the discrimination. And no, I'm not white.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
.nt
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I'm fifteen and I suffer from a lot of age discrimination when looking for work. Most employers don't dare tell why they won't hire me. Others just say flat out that they are discriminating against me. My grandmother has the same problem. She was fired from her teaching job after she hit 84 for her age.
Stop discriminating!
We really need government affirmative action to stop the age discrimination.
At Stanford tenured people retire after 70. Two of my neighbors are Stanford professors and over 80, they both retired at 70+, but still go every day to work, publish lots of scientific papers, have research grants and hire other people to work for them, etc. Sure thery dont receive salaries from Stanford anymore but otherwise they are like any tenured Stanford employees retired or not, have nice offices, unrestricted accounts, secretaries, etc.
The guy should have stayed at Stanford. He wanted big money from Google and got what he deserved.
Go figure - someone who runs around saying "I'm cool I'm good I'm hip" is really just a bottomline driven corporate husk.
He didn't get what he deserved. You don't ever deserve discrimination.
Fuck Google.
"Looks like in the future slashdotters will be able to refer to Google as 'convicted discriminator' in each and every Google story."
I suspect that Google would actually have to be convicted first.
I guess that minor detail eluded you in your eagerness to rush to judgment.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
Time flies, in no time you'll be 54 too and get fired for being too old(?).
You still can't discriminate if Florida. I know this from personal experience (dealt with a ton of ADA claims in a previous job) so, no, even in Florida age discrimination is illegal.
The difference is, you don't have to give cause. So you could fire someone, give no reason, and the onus would be on them to make a case for discrimination.
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
Google obviously doesn't consider age descrimination to be evil (probably seeing it as being good for business and hence good for the economy and hence in direct service to the greater good).
So they are still holding true to their motto.
Though perhaps it should be clarified as follows:
Do none of what Google considers evil.
It seems that besides being a good engineer you have to be "culturally fit".
I kinda agree: a pessimistic or unsociable person could endanger the spirit and the enthusiasm of others. I would not like to work with a highly intelligent but depressive person, if his depression would affect my everyday mood. Not to mention if the guy is the PM.
On the other hand, I would be fucking upset for being fired because of not fitting into the company's social standards.
"I don't see how you can avoid it."
Well, you could wait until they're actually convicted of something, that's one way.
What's with you people and your obvious desire to hate on Google? Is it really that hard to avoid making dubious claims of "evil" behavior until the case is actually made?
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
Discriminating is the act of choosing among different possibilities. Google is discriminating against athletes by by hiring mostly good programmers instead of professional skateboarders. That what discriminating means: choosing.
Politicians have turned the meaning towards : discriminating on criterions we don't judge relevant to do the job. There are two problems with that.
- Mind your own business. If I hire someone to do a job, it's my money I am free to choose whatever absurd criterion I like. By hiring someone I am buying a service. Who are you to tell me to whom I can or can't buy that service.
- Firms generally know more about the relevant criterions than the lawmakers. Maybe Google employees are more productive if the age dispersion is small: they can relate more to each other and enjoy working there more. A firm that picks irrational criterion reduces its pool of potential applicant and end up having to pay higher wages, it might think twice before doing so. Another example that might have a lot of sympathy is that of a firm that would only hire handicapped people. It would be able to pay slightly lower wages since there is less competition to hire these workers and would save on the fixed costs of providing wheelchair access. If that company is not free to discriminate, the handicapped will have lower wages. If the government tries to ensure that handicapped cannot be discriminated against, all companies will have to pay the fixed costs which mean everyone's wage will eventually be lower and the price higher.
\u262D = \u5350
Why? because we percieve the ratio between a time interval and your current lifetime. Remember, when you were only 4, a year felt like an enormous amount of time, it was 25% of your lifetime. A year feels much shorter whewn you are 30 (1/30 of your lifetime) and even shorter when you are 54 (1/54)
In general d(perception of time) ~ dt/t, that is perceived time ~ ln(t), or t = exp[Ct. (perceived time)]. That is, the phyisical time increases exponentially with the percieved time.
Young people who fire old people just because they are old, beware! Because of this exponential law in no (perceived) time you'll be old too and get fired.
The law says that you cant discriminate against anyone because of their age... as long as they are over 40.
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 ( ADEA ) protects individuals who are 40 years of age or older from employment discrimination based on age
I love the hard lower limit, it would be a shame to protect all people equally.
IMO it should eb ruled unconstitutional, but of course nobody under 40 votes, so that will never happen.
"Hire him? Hell no. He's a Nigger!!"
When did the mods here become complete fucking morons?
Vint Cerf is a joke, he's been flogging his minor role for decades. He's like Zsa Zsa Gabor or Paris Hilton for the IT world - a celebrity, but for reasons that barely have any relevance and certainly without contributing a novel thought in decades.
Good marketing tool, though.
Just throwing out an idea -- maybe companies "prefer" younger workers because they're cheaper? Don't know this to be all-encompassing, but I've found, anecdotally, that most 28 year olds, in most industries, makes less money than most 58 year olds. Don't lambaste me, but respond if you have evidence or other ideas.
Please don't use "umm" or "err" or "erm".
It's as good a reason as any. I know whenever I interview someone, I try to get a feel for what they'd be like to work with. I'll pick a less qualified candidate with a better manner over a more qualified jackass. It's not just their output you have to consider...It's everyone's output.
Corporate culture is more of an ephemeral. They clearly want people to fit in and participate, and that's understandable. I think, however, that they need to be more up-front about it.
I work with a lot of people who are older than me, and it's definitely a drain. Not because they're any less competent, but more because there is enough of a generational disconnect that we can't really associate from a common viewpoint.
I don't think per se that Google is ageist, but I do think that they're cliquish and snobby, and like all such groups, rather than just saying, "Nothing personal, but you're not one of us" they invent a reason, in this case, the guy's age.
I agree with some of the above posters. The guy was an idiot to leave his university job. You chase the dollar signs, you lose.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
'nother middle-aged-Google-applicant here: I concur, although I didn't make it past the phone screen.
In the course of every project, it will become necessary to shoot the scientists and begin production.
"Not an USAian"
What the fuck is a "USAian"?
Did you mean to type "American" and didn't realize your mistake? Or did you want to look like a fucking idiot?
Because you do.
Don't worry, pretty soon Google will be getting old in Internet years and we will soon discriminate against it for a younger "more hip" search engine.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
They said his ideas where old. If that is the literal truth, then Goggle probably did the right thing. The article also states that his co-workers thought he was a fuddy-duddy (stupid phrase), so it may be that he just didn't fit the culture.
I am getting to be one of the older employees of the places I work, but I come in with fresh ideas and I challenge the status quo. I don't care how old someone is, if they stop believing that things can be better they become useless.
Angleyne: You can't bend that girder - it's unbendable! Bender: Well I don't know anything about lifting, so that ju
"As a geek, I like to be in favor of strong employment laws that give the government full audit power over every corporation's decision to fire any one whatsoever. However, I don't like when it gets used against good guys, like Google."
Brian was hired about a year before Google went public and beefed up the org chart (which helps for an IPO) because looks great on paper: invented the firewall, altavista, the PAIX, Scribe (which begat sgml which begat html) and quickly rose up the ranks to be director of engineering or vp of ops or something fairly high up. His only written review was glowing. Very very shorly before Google went public he was fired for "not fitting in with Google's youthful culture" thus saving Google from granting his significant stock options.
That's what it's really about: the money.
Even Gates and monkeyboy havn't done anything this capricious and arbitrary with employees as far as I can tell.
Net result: Google more evil that Microsoft, much as it pains me to say it.
Suck on that, fanboy.
Need Mercedes parts ?
availAble to othe8s what to
And also the Federal government gives corporations the very right to exist, period. Without those provisions in the Constitution, corps would not exist, and there would only be private individually owned, and partnership commercial entities.... come to think of it, that would probably be a good thing, since the owners could then be held more liable for their misdoings.
Looks like you need help with your reading comprehension skills, as my post clearly indicated speculation on future events.
;)
Examine the title of my post:
"Google to become 'convicted discriminator?"
Note the "to become"; that implies future events. Note the '?'; that implies speculation. The combination suggests speculation on future events.
Examine the sentence you quoted:
"Looks like in the future slashdotters will be able to refer to Google as 'convicted discriminator' in each and every Google story."
Note the "Looks like"; that suggest speculation. Note the "in the future" and "will be"; those suggest future events. Combined, they suggest speculation on future events.
See how that works?
BTW, according to the court's words, "We conclude that Reid produced sufficient evidence that Google's reasons for terminating him were untrue or pretextual, and that Google acted with discriminatory motive such that a factfinder would conclude Google engaged in age discrimination.", Google is indeed heading down the path to "conviction". Sure, the path could change, but attacking me for speculating that conviction is in the offing is baseless.
Of course the term "conviction" doesn't apply to civil cases, but that never stopped slashdotters from using that word for civil cases in the past, now has it?
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
Those questions in an interview isn't about being smart or knowing something. It just shows if you are prepared or not (just like the SATs, GRE etc). "Snot-nosed" college kids don't like those questions either, just their college consolers told them the rules of the game and they came prepared.
One of the best policies is used on the set of the TV show Scrubs. Bill Lawrence set it down before they got started. It's a "no asshole" policy. I could care less about someone's age, sex, orientation, race ...., but if they are an asshole they have to go. I guess if every company used that though unemployment would skyrocket and we would have a severe shortage of middle managers.
I'm 50 now, and (for me) the answer is Hell Yes. My rates are back where they were just before the dotcom bust (not the insane $150+ per hour rates, but the reasonable market ones back then). I'm turning away work again in Silicon Valley.
I find that I've gotten far, far better with age. You may have heard of the old mainframe guy with 30+ years of experience who can look at the output and tell you what the problem is. Well, I'm there. With the Linux/Unix kernel and other system work. I find that I'm the person who the younger guys come to with their questions, as I've worked on most of the code at one point or another. And I certainly get the toughest problems to debug.
So yes, if you keep your skills up and are hard working, there are indeed companies which value results over bigotry. A pity that Google isn't that way.
However, if you don't, you end up like the guys on the Dice board. You'll find a lot of people moaning that they can't find work, and that things are dead slow in Silicon Valley, yadda yadda. IMHO, things are hot, and those guys are missing the bus. Yes, they are probably smart. But the market for mainframe systems guys has long dried up. And IBM is doing their best to kill it.
Take the postings on Dice with a LARGE grain of salt; they are highly skewed. The Dice moderators are absolutely insane, deleting many posts without cause, and generally driving away the good commentators. It's rather telling that the only ones who can put up with that nonsense are the guys without jobs.
If anyone knows of a good board which discusses technical and contract issues, please do post. Dice absolutely sucks.
So, in summary, yes, the market is alive and well. But I'd get into development, because I see a lot of cheap button-pushers in IT. And most companies seem to not want to understand IT issues. They think that all they have to do is to push a button (E.g. Microsoft Exchange) and all their issues are solved. And the fact that certain architectures will bite them later on isn't an issue.
But that's most companies, not all. I'm at a hot, bright startup, and we've tried hiring a top notch IT person. It is tough. So there is demand out there, and probably always will be. But you have to keep your skills up.
He didn't get tenure at Stanford. Probably because he was too practical and commercial for Stanford CS of that period. (Back then, Stanford CS was part of Arts and Sciences and dominated by logicians and "expert systems" types. CS was moved to the School of Engineering around 1985). So he went to DEC, which used to have a very good research facility in Palo Alto. He ran their network R&D. When Compaq (remember Compaq? IBM PC clones?) bought DEC, they phased out software research, because Compaq didn't do much software. So he went to Bell Labs in Silicon Valley, which also shut down as Bellcore retreated from research.
Google hired him because he'd done AltaVista, the first big search engine. (Which, amusingly, was done as a demo for the DEC Alpha CPU.)
It's no longer fun being a theoretical computer scientist in Silicon Valley. All the great corporate labs are gone. Along with the ones mentioned above, HP Labs, PARC, and IBM Almaden have also tanked. Google, Microsoft, and Intel still do a little theoretical work, but not that much.
Keeping up with the tech and buzzwords isn't hard. What's hard is that most IT jobs regard frenzied, pointless, 24 hour a day activity as the epitome of fine workmanship, at the expense of common sense and experienced judgment, and a lot of them encourage off hour fraternizing, which isn't feasible or even enjoyable for non-single people who've grown up and have other interests besides work.
This is probably the core of the Google lawsuit. Google is a company where workers are rewarded for having no life outside the company. Just like hundred of others.
Fortunately, my current job doesn't fall into this category. I am still on call 24x7x365, but after 20 years of sysadmin experience I make sure nothing ever happens off hours.
Sooner or later I'll be unemployable, but only after I leave my current job, and 100% or IT jobs have finally turned into pointless tweaking sweatshops.
Oh, your only not allowed to discriminate against old people. God know as 23 year old I've never been denied jobs because I wasn't old enough to "handle that type of responsibility". I was pretty sure that age based discrimination was the only legal type. There are 100 of laws designed solely to screw over younger people. Drinking laws, housing laws, driving laws, Medicare and Draft laws. I guess he is "too old" to remember getting the short end of the stick for being too young.
I was working on the KVM (like xen a virtual machine for linux) at home and posted some questions to the linux mailing list.
Google contacted me and after back and forth discussions asked for a resume. When they figured out approximately how old I was (I am 51) from the resume work history they said I didn't meet their qualifications and they were not interested. Kind of strange as they contacted me out of the blue. Its not like I tried to get a job with them.
I find that sort of action very insulting.
I have seen similar actions from many companies.
If they notice me doing something and contact me then discover my age and say something is wrong with me, isn't that an act of violence or a hate crime?
Could be worse. I'm precardial and worked at a place where computers were programmed using patch panels. The "upgrade" used punched cards.
And I'm 7 years younger than Brian.
Need Mercedes parts ?
No, but it may well be a violation of federal law. I'm posting anonymously, since I'm involved in an age discrimination case right now.
The trouble is that it's hard to prove age discrimination. What I've got right now is that I have a prima facie case (they interviewed me, didn't hire me, and I'm over 40), and the reasons they gave to not hire me (once I filed suit) are clearly not the real ones, since they don't fit the timeline. If they contacted you, and were interested until they found out your age, there's almost certainly no way to prove discrimination.
Of course, there's limits to how many people Google can be jerks to and still keep their reputation. Right now, I've got them pegged as the new Evil Empire somewhere in the range of 2010-2015, after Microsoft loses relevance. The frightening thing is that they've got far more potential for document lock-in than Microsoft.
Which, of course, would represent the Apex of Stupidity, if it were not, as many people already pointed out, a tool for ensuring that your employees belong to a certain social/age group.
Or to put it another way: this is the equivalent of asking questions about the sexual habits of sea cucumbers, after having put out a word on the University campus that this will be the required "curriculum". Uncritical students, having been indoctrinated in memorizing any odd crap the teachers demand, would simply subject themselves to this kind of treatment. Anyone with any sort of real-life experience would go: WTF?! And subsequently fail the "Interview" for being "unprepared" after having assumed that this must be some sort of a joke because no one with two neurons to rub together would ever consider this being a method of selecting skilled personnel. And the joke is on them, for, of course, this is not a method of selecting skilled personnel. It is a way to expand your circle of "cool kids".
In short, the "rules of the game" are rigged by Google (as they are rigged by the college teachers to their own ends) but unlike that of colleges, Google's "rigging" runs contrary to the Labour Laws. Oops!
I also interviewed at google and agree completely. The questions were not only college exam type, but the college exam type where the instructor knows the One True Answer and will accept only that. And I was easily the oldest person in the room at lunch and got very odd looks (and overheard a couple of comments about my age).
Don't bother applying there if you're over about 35.
Does this make them evil? No. It does make them more than a bit shortsighted and it indicates that the quality of the management is not what it should be. Still their search is great.
At least it is my experience that it is mostly older people who value memorized data, while younger people put relatively more value in knowing how to find the data.
I agree with everything you say until the last paragraph.
The rules are not rigged in favor of young people, you are not playing the game because you think the rules are stupid. A young person on the other hand doesn't know any better and assumes everyone asks the same stupid questions (which is becoming more and more true).
Er, where in the article did you read that he wasn't hired for not answering stupid questions in his interview?
It truly is all about money IMHO but even beyond those good points already mentioned. There's also this perception that a young person would be more likely to come up with something radically new which could be incredibly profitable or cost-reducing. I certainly don't agree with it and my technology staff is diverse in every respect including age as those gentelemen and women have a wealth of knowledge and experience (I'm the head of IT and not a business-person per se.)
However, in America it's about the stock market, patent trolling, gambling and thousands of other ways to make maximum profit from minimal effort. Most Americans would rather play the lottery every day in hopes of making it big (regardless of how unlikely it is) than save or invest the same small amounts over time. We truly do think 10 minutes ahead and rotating in young staff is like being a new lottery ticket to them while ensuring at least the bottom line is reduced (which of course it's not.)
The heart of the problem IMHO is all about measurement. Many business people still measure a web presence's success solely on 1990s approaches such as number of hits. I could go through a ton of inaccurate if not completely incorrect ways to do measurement at the business level which are still in practice today and staff utilization is certainly one of them. But, it's virtually a lost cause as it's always translated into "that will cost more (insert resource here) and what we have is good enough." Even as overly litigous as we are here in America I believe suits like this are healthy and great to see. Too bad it came out of California as it's already notorious in business as heavily favoring employees over employers...
That's just my POV... no more, no less.
I was referring to what, apparenly, is a general attitude at Google, of which this latest article is just a sample. Accusations of this sort have been coming out very regularly for years now, in different shapes, forming a steady pattern which at this point makes Google's denials sound rather hollow.
Infosys INSISTS that you put your high school graduation date on resumes sent to them.
Given this kind of corporate behavior, I INSIST on lying to them. I worked my way through college in 11 years-- if the company requires a high school graduation date, I put a date 5 years before my college graduation date. They can validate the college date but my high school hasn't existed for a long time.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Albert Einstein never bothered learning his phone number. He found that if he needed it, he could always look it up in the phone book.
By your criteria, you'd never hire him.
I don't think the less intelligent one here is Einstein.
fwiw, I don't think I've lost a job offer, in the past, due to not 'cramming'. ok, so google was the first, I guess, for me ;)
I believe in truth-in-advertising and so I NEVER cram before an interview. I show them my thinking skills and the fact that I can solve job-relevant problems well.
if I can't get a job based on who I am, I don't really want it based on some just-memorized buzzwords that impressed the interviewers.
I know what you're saying and most people do seem to agree with the 'cram before interview' method but it just doesn't seem like you are being honest with your self or your employer.
its interesting to note that the filter works both ways. perhaps its better that I not work for google. I don't want to be at some place that wants only young abusable ('you must work ALL waking hours for us') eggheads and shuns those of us with a few grays in our beards.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
if its the same guy who worked at DEC in palo alto many years ago, then I worked with the guy for a very short period of time on a (amazingly enough) network management project! I was in DEC back in Maynard (at the Mill, actually) and brian was part of DEC west. he was VERY well respected as an 'IP god' of sorts ;) this was back in the late 80's - around the time that I left the boston area and moved out to the sf bay area.
again, I only worked with brian for a very short time and only on 1 netmgt project, but his reputation was one that I'd be proud to have, myself. if he couldn't 'pass muster' in google's eyes I would guess that it was google that was in the wrong and not brian.
sheesh. this is weird. and a bit upsetting, too.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Uh huh. He's smart so he can't ever do anything stupid? I've known people so smart that they were often mistaken for being mentally retarded...Intelligence doesn't necessarily have anything to do with being able to make a good decision, and often the smartest people are hopeless when it comes to day to day decision making.
In short, smart people do stupid things all the time; if you haven't noticed this, you don't know many smart people.
He got pursued by a young, hip company, to fix a specific problem. That would ring alarm bells for me, especially if I'm upper middle aged, and I've (apparently) just left the lab environment. I personally have been hired full time to do project work...The reality of it is, that project is your job, and when it's done, so are you. It's definitely a less secure choice.
Now he's out of a job and stuck in a lawsuit against a wealthy, well-lawyered company, which probably means he doesn't have people lining up to hire him. The lawsuit isn't going all that well either...I mean, this is a victory for him, because now the suit can actually go forward, but that they got it dismissed at all suggests he's got a long fight ahead. They'll keep him tied up in it for years to come.
Just a fricking mess. So yea, I think it was a dumb decision. Mind you, if I'd been cheated out of a share of the google IPO (and fired 9 days before it is cheated, no matter how you cut it), I'd sue too.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Old people = old ideas.
Old people = no innovation.
Old people = old ways.
This has been the way of things when the Romans were looking for some new chariot designs. The concept that there are lots of "new" things with computers has led to this being more rigorously enforced.
The biggest problem with this are things like file systems, memory management and such where experienced people are passed over for "new innovation" from younger people with no experience. Then we get to see the same problems that were fixed in 1970 being recreated and needing to be fixed again.
I don't see it having much to do with salary. It is the idea that older people do not have anything to contribute because somehow we have moved past all of the things that the old people know about. The thinking goes that now we have new problems and need younger people uncorrupted by old problems and old solutions to solve these new problems. Then they find out that these "new" problems aren't so new after all and they only reason they are cropping up now is that some inexperienced person didn't research things well enough to know about existing solutions.
But still we have managers that want "younger, energetic people" to work for them. Yup, older people are a rarity in the IT world. And I don't see that changing anytime soon.
I'd say it really depends on the individual. For myself, technology is a lifestyle, and as such I'm continually learning new things and (doing my best at) staying up-to-date. I know a lot of old hats at any jobs - and tech is a big one for this - that have the attitude of "this is the way it's always been" or have the assumption that "because of my experience, I know best." The problem is, that these individuals lose the will to learn, which can be death in the IT industry.
Where I work, a lot of the long-term techs, who were trained on Novell Netware, insist that it is better than the Linux systems being implemented. One in particular will take every opportunity to point at a server problem, or whatever, and say "this isn't an issue with Novell" (while completely ignoring that the issue might actually be user/admin-error, or that there were a host of *other* issues with the previous system). Now that Novell has gone to Linux that's quieted down a bit, but it still comes frighteningly close to email flamewars between her and the pro-linux techs. Personally I'm all for replacing the Novell boxen because they're old, cost licensing fees, and don't support newer hardware (in other words when the physical equipment fails, it's toast), but try to step to aside when the vitriol starts spewing back and worth. The fact is though, that people who were "trained with system X" are often unwilling to try "alternative Y."
In some cases this is good, because there are plenty of people that want to try "Y, Z, and A B C 1 2 3" and are constantly hopping on to new bandwagons. The voice of reason, and experience, can prevail indicating the need for solid cost/benefits analysis, infrastructure analysis, and transition plans. The voice of experience can organize, and has many skills to top off the technical ones.
So you have two contrasts here. The older, more experience admin that still has a strong cabinet of experience to offer the company VS the older, outdated admin who is fast in holding on to "what he knows" VS "what does the job best." You can have either one, or both in one package. I'm not sure which of these the gentleman in question was.
**Note: For simplicity I have used a masculine reference in this comment, apologies to all the female sysAdmins and techs out there. If you are under 30, single and cute, please accept this diamond ring and my proposal as apolo... er, I mean, have a nice day.
I don't think a profession's core knowledge is trivial. Since "knowledge is power" and power is defined (in Physics) as work per unit time, a person with more knowledge can work faster.
An architect must understand how an arch supports weight.
An industrial engineer should know that hydrostatic force is proportional to the dam wall's area, and not the total water volume.
A world-class heart surgeon should know what the aorta & superior vena-cava are without reading a book mid-operation.
Why shouldn't a software engineer know the binary search or quicksort algorithms?
Why shouldn't a software engineer know the binary search or quicksort algorithms?
Because it's enough in real life that I know that quicksort is O(n log n), and that I can get it all coded and debugged for me as qsort(). Sure, when I was an undergrad I coded it up and analyzed it. Wasn't a waste of time then, I learned some things, filed away the important bits (see above) and moved on. Since then I have repurposed those neurons for more useful information. As the GP points out, the important thing is knowing what bits to assemble, and where to get them. This leaves more neurons free for solving new problems instead of reinventing the wheel.
If I were interviewing someone who proposed that coding up quicksort was likely the best solution to a sorting problem, I'd likely wash him/her out right then and there.
We need to support the Mprize (www.mprize.org) goal of slowing and then stopping and periodicaly reversing aging (first mice models, then in people) so that we can eventualy develop advance nanoech and really elimnate and reverse aging in even old people.
Ironicaly, even Google has been interested in the Mprize and invited it's founder (Aubre de gray) to give several talks on the Mprize and the research program SENS (www.sens.org) to accoplish this feat.
Cost: about 100 million to 1 billion, a fraction of the war budget in Iraq (over 1000 billion and counting!).
Perhaps even Google could and should support its workers and it's "do-no-evil" policy and suport the Mprize and show that it indeed cares about it's current world force and won't throw them to the wolves when their "clock" hits 45 to 50 years rang (like in that movie: Logans Run" !!)
Us techies know of moors law and how it doubles progress every year or so for computer tech, well, now biotech is entering an age of computerization, (DNA sequencers, gene chips, MIT biobricks etc), and is really starting to take off with eventually nanotech robots will be fixing our cells and making old people young again.
After all, Bill Gates himself could not have got his genes sequence 20 years ago, now, in less than a few years everybody could get their genes sequenced for about $1000 in their doctors or local testing labs offices, the future is hapenning now and we need to support it and make it grow. After all, if we were to develop this tech and offer it to the middle east, I bet there would be a lot less war (who would want to die in pointless war?)
Most employees were treated as just a resource, no much different to a server or a desk. In many cases people don't even have a permanent desk. If you left for a trip, you could find your desk with someone else when back. Google makes sure that you undestand that working for them is a privilege and if you don't agree, some else will instead of you.
Then you have the "culture" which to be honest felt suffocating. Everything is google here, google there... People are called googlers, new employees nooglers, you wear google clothes, you use goobuntu or goobian, you eat google cakes in the google cafeteria... Unless you are semi-retarded, it feels embarrasing and gets to your nerves. At the end, when I left and came back to the "real world" it was like a breath of fresh air.
By the way, my interview process was also the most stupid I have had in my life, including this interview where I had to solve a cards game or solve questions totally unrelated to my skills.
It is surprising, but I also got my PhD after 30 and even did an internship at google during the course of it. They offered me to go through what they call "conversion process" to become a regular employee after the internship finished. Everything seemed to be in order but the hiring committe did not approve my manager's hiring request. They never disclosed the motivations (actually, once that happens, everybody at google stopped answering to my e-mail, even people I thought were my friends, but that's another story about their "culture") but the only issue I could think of was my age.
As a programmer with 30 years of experience, solid or otherwise.
How useful is a Cobal programmer today? I wouldn't pay any more for someone with Fortran experience than without, because it's entirely irrelevant. Maybe it'll settle out, but it hasn't yet. A 54 year old programmer is almost guaranteed to just be old and in the way. If they can keep a youthful mindset (and hours), great. If not, there's the iceberg, fuck off.
You're a failure. That's all there really is to it.
It sounds like you work in a mid sized company with a stagnant IT department.
I pity you.
Experience counts. I can't tell you how many kids I've seen who only know Linux and think there is nothing better because they simply haven't even seen the alternatives. They spend countless hours trying to hammer everything in sight when they needed a screw driver. That old guy has probably forgotten more than you've ever known.
Here's a thought for you: I was here before Linux existed, I'm here now doing Linux, and I shall be here after Linux is gone and only pushed by old guys who only knew Linux and refused to learn anything else. Don't be one of those guys.
Linux is just the thing now. Tech moves fast and being inexperienced is not the advantage you seem to think it is.
And finally, a cliche for you to ponder as well, "What is old is new again".
Nothing is ever new in IT. Just new to you.
Is your Kool Aid blue or the original red?
I know everyone else is really loving the new blue Kool Aid but I'm a traditionalist so I always go for the red.
Do No Kool Aid! That's my motto!
I have long been leery of some of the things Google has done, all the while saying "Do no evil". I know the concept of discrimination being evil has already been discussed here, but that is just the icing on the cake they have been baking for years.
Google has collected and archived so much personal data -- much of it collected in ways that could honestly be called "sneaky" -- that they practically invited the government to subpoena their records... which it did. They did not record that personal data for the benefit of their users. It is for the benefit of themselves, and their corporate customers who pay for that data. When you factor in their methods and intentions, that definitely falls on the "evil" side of the fence.
Google agreed to help China censor its internet, claiming that "we would lose business otherwise" and "if we did not do it, someone else would." Now, wait... since when is one allowed to just dump one's ethics for those reasons? People of higher integrity (or less greed) would have said "No!" Trading ethics for money is "classic" evil behavior. There are so many stories and movies and even ancient fairy tales about that, you would think people would see it coming...
Their youth does not impress me. They have behaved like a bunch of greedy young punks. Their "new" services are things that people have been talking about for many years but never bothered to actually do... for good reasons! They were bad ideas. Anybody who wants to do word processing on someone else's web server is an idiot. That is just one example, of course, but other than some searching and Google Maps (which was really just an incremental improvement of what Microsoft was already providing), they are not doing anything I want. And I think I will go back to Yahoo for my searches.
Google had a very good idea in their original search algorithms... then they took that idea and grew it into a behemoth of a company that is unethical, of little interest, and hardly worth my time.
I joined Google some months ago. My experience has been very pleasant. We do *not* get told to "work all waking hours". I actually tend to arrive at the office at 11 and leave at 7. I think it is quite the opposite, specially compared with my previous experience at a big name software company (one of those 3 or 5 that show the most in Slashdot).
I did not prepare for the interviews in any way, other than the obvious "get good rest" or "make sure to have paper/pencil for phone screens". I always got the feeling that the interviewers wanted to see if I could quickly compute the complexity of *ANY* algorithm (once I understood the algorithm), *NOT* if I could remember the complexity of any particular algorithm. Sure, people who can't compute the complexity of, say, quick sort will whine that knowing the complexity of qsort or reimplementing qsort is irrelevant, but I think the point was to see if, given a reasonable task, you can quickly computer an algorithm to solve it and then estimate its complexity.
Furthermore, during my interviews I very often replied to questions stating that I didn't know the particulars for something and that I would look them up in a manual. The interviewers would often just tell me what I would find. For example, I would say "uh, I don't remember exactly the parameters that system call foo takes, I know it receives at least the quux and a bar, but I think it receives some more things, right?" or "Well, I don't remember the specific order of the columns in the output of the foo command, but I would find the one that has quux". The focus, again, was not to see if I was familiar with the details, it was whether I would be able to solve a larger problem (and the interviewers were happy to give me any details I needed).
I will very soon have to start interviewing candidates myself and I think I will do interviews pretty much like the ones I had, with the goal of being able to tell whether a given candidate has all the skills required to do a job similar to the one I do. For that, I think interviews like the ones I had are an excellent tool. I won't care if you can *remember* the complexity of qsort, but if you can't even solve a basic algorithmic problem like reverting a list or shuffling a vector or, well, sorting a vector, and then state the complexity of your algorithm, I don't think your skills would be a good match for the requirements of the type of job I have.
I just turned 50 this summer, and I've never felt more appreciated as an engineer than the last couple of years.
As other people here have commented, the real secret is to simply be _very_ good at what you do: Keep up your old skills, and make sure you learn (i.e. teach yourself) something brand new every year or two.
Over the last 5+ years I've been the "IT Fire Brigade Chief" in the Fortune 500 company I work for, i.e. I get all the really interesting problems, all the cases that none of the others can figure out, and all the bleeding edge stuff that doesn't fit nicely into one of the existing departments.
I also get to spend discretionary time writing and optimizing system code, so I really don't see any reason to complain. (I've worked on one of AES contenders http://www.adastral.ucl.ac.uk/~helger/research/aes/, the windows port of NTP http://ntp.org/, HD-DVD decoding, Ogg Vorbis optimization as well as lots of other kinds of code. I am also the Scandinavian coordinator of the Confluence Project http://confluence.org/.)
My role model within the company retired a few years ago, 67 years old, and he's still enthusiastic about brand new technology.
OTOH, living in Norway I also know that it would be effectively impossible to fire me, unless I completely stopped coming into work, and started doing drugs instead.
Terje
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"
The court proceedings make them look like they have no clue about how to handle the situation. If the case goes to trial, more stuff will be disclosed that reveals their lack of organization.
I've been thinking about this issue a lot lately, as I've recently hit a new decade. It's all about the context. Put someone with just slightly more experience in with a bunch of newbies, and they'll be a natural leader who can guide them forward. Put someone with tons more experience in with the same bunch of newbies, and it'll be a disaster.
Just imagine if the (smart) CEO of the company was dropped into the middle of an IT or development department. At the first meeting where they debated whether to use this or that methodology, the CEO would probably tell them it doesn't make the slightest bit of difference -- the most important thing for this department is to hit this deadline, get this feature close enough to finished that the salespeople can add it to their checklist, or conform to some obscure government regulation to avoid months of red tape for some other department. Doesn't matter how true it is, that viewpoint wouldn't be welcome.
Think of some area where you have many years of experience -- XML, Java, coding standards, Linux, whatever. Chances are you have dealt with aspects that have been the subject of heated community debates. Chances are also good that you have evolved your position over time, maybe to the point of reaching precisely the opposite conclusion than you originally would have. Or maybe you've even switched back and forth several times. (It's better to get code correct than make it fast; but fast code delivered early can make a good first impression in the market; but sloppy code is hard to refactor; but well-planned code can be refactored successfully.) So what happens if that if you are only a little more experienced than your peers, maybe you can convince them that your counterintuitive suggestion makes sense. But if you are a lot more experienced, it's hard to get across the reasoning for your counterintuitive suggestion, if that involves thinking through several levels like that.
One of Google's pet interview questions is "what is the biggest challenge you've faced". If you've got a couple of years of work experience, you've probably only had one challenging project and the answer is a slam dunk. If you've got many years of experience, it gets more complicated -- do you want the biggest teamwork challenge, the toughest code to write, the most ridiculous deadline...? And some of the most impressive accomplishments don't really fit that answer, because by now it's routine to crank out great code under ridiculous deadlines while dodging company politics. Google might prefer to hear that your last startup crashed and burned, but now you've really learned your lesson. (Lesson #2 of 50 that the old-timer has internalized.)