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At Google, You're Old and Gray At 40
theodp writes "Google faces an imminent California Supreme Court decision on whether an age discrimination suit against it can go forward. But that hasn't kept the company from patting itself on the back for how it supports 'Greyglers' — that's any Googler over 40. At a company of about 20,000 full-time employees, there were at last count fewer than 200 formally enrolled Greyglers working to 'make Google culture ... welcome to people of all ages.'"
I think the belief that IT workers are washed-up at 40 is fairly widespread. Some believe that the H1B flooding is actually designed to get rid of older IT workers.
Is it possible that this statistic is just due to the fact that Google is a young company? My hypothesis here is that they've just done the most hiring where there are the most candidates, straight out of school. I don't know whether this is sufficient to explain the numbers, but it's not like they can focus on retaining employees that have been with the company for twenty years. Anyone old at Google was hired old.
There is always the talk of how older people don't get new technology, but i think this only described the people who grew up without IT and were confronted with it at a late age for the first time.
This might be naive, but i think now is the time where people grew up in this high tech scenario and for the first time actually grew old with it, too. Society needs to understand that the "new old guys" are just as proficient in adapting new technology as the young ones because adapting is what they did their whole life.
This case is not cut and dried (the guy was already over 50 when he was hired), which is unfortunate because age discrimination is very, very real in IT and especially in the software industry.
If you in IT, and are at age 40, and have not been promoted to management, become an independent contractor, started your own business, taken a government job, or switched careers... well, you better look good in blue, because you are one pay check away from having no other choice but to become a Wal*Mart greeter.
"But they don't want it today, and that's why they make better employees, plain and simple."
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm no. It makes for self entitled employees who feel that because they have they should be.
Many younger employees get distracted by the hip and now not the stable and then....
Having older mature employees who have life experience typically provides a balance and insight that youth cannot provide or compensate for
I'm 43 and work in IT in Vancouver, Canada. Vancouver's version of Google is Electronic Arts (EA). EA has many employees in Vancouver, a 'cool' office and lots of perks, like Google. It also has a very young workforce with people like me generally not interested in working there. Why? Because there's very little life/work balance at EA. I'm married, I have a kid and another one on the way - I'm not interested in working 80 hour weeks in exchange for free breakfast and a basketball court. I'd rather go home on a summer evening and play frisbee with my kid - Not play ultimate with my co-workers, then go back to work for another 3 hours. Google builds cool stuff, but I suspect their culture just isn't skewed to provide those things that someone like me would want, i.e. a good life outside of the office. Doesn't mean they're a bad company, they're just not a good fit for people like me.
"Greyglers" sounds like pure HR bullshit.
Google sounds more and more like a crappy company to work for as time goes by.
Posting as AC because I'm too lazy to create an account.
The bad news is, I probably don't pick up new crap as quickly as I used to. The good news is, I don't need to because most of it is like the old crap I've already learned.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
A few months ago I left a job at a web hosting company, where at 24-25 years old, I was an "old man" by comparison. I was the only non-manager on the tech side of the company to have a degree, and had been programming C when most of the kids I worked with were in elementary school. Yet, they looked at me like I was some sort of "n00b" for not knowing PHP. Partly, I didn't have any desire to know PHP. My co-workers looked at "add more memory" as the solution to all their performance problems. Not one of them had ever programmed in a compiled language, never had to tweak out more memory, or anything like that. It was incredibly frustration when we were doing maintenance reboots against the memmap 0 bug that was out at the time and the senior admin and myself were the only two people in the department that knew why the bug was an actual problem, the difference between kernel space and userspace in memory, etc.
Anyway, I eventually left for a company that does its own hardware design, writes everything in C and Perl, runs FreeBSD instead of CentOS and has actual engineers. I'm the youngest, greenest person on the block again, and so I actually have to start learning again. Luckily, I'm learning in my own comfort level. They could have doubled my pay at the hosting company and I'd never have been happy there. Maybe I'm stodgy; maybe I'm a curmudgeon; maybe kids today really aren't as smart as they used to be. Frankly, though, I think that when you reach a certain point in your life, free pizza and the ability to keep a nerf gun next to your desk don't compensate for low pay, long hours and having to put up with idiots who are fat, white and loud yet somehow think they're ninjas. It's the difference between the kid running Ubuntu at home and a professional AIX admin. As you get older, your professional goals change, your life goals change, and you take a different direction. Most of the "cool" companies are started by kids who are still in their nerf war stage. A company like IBM or Juniper is probably a lot less "ageist" than one that uses terms like "agile" as if the term is domain-specific with no other meaning.
I'm not 40 yet, but I can attest that I don't have then energy that I used to. Not only that, but I can smell a crap idea earlier that I used to and I'm not afraid to make my opinion known. It does seem to me that a lot of the older folks are rather complacent, but appearances can be deceptive. That old dude who appears to be just idling along is possibly just very efficient. For example, with my experience now, I can do the work that would take two or three of me when I was in my 20's.
There is a perception that older employees are dinosaurs, which I think is wrong. I think it has more to do with shit management that doesn't know how to tap into those resources.
It's great that these middle-aged geeks are experienced and all but (and maybe I'm wrong) isn't creativity kind of important? It strikes me that the exact kind of person you are looking for is a young engineer. Sure 40-somethings can be creative and they probably have a better percentage of quality ideas than younger people. But they are also far less likely to bend the rules of computing and I imagine that's exactly what a company like Google wants.
You want 40-somethings to critique the ideas, not to make them. Management, not engineering.
has a built in karma
if you are white, you'll never be black. if you're a man, you'll never be a woman
but if you are 20, some day you WILL be 50. therefore, all of the hatred you dish out will be visited back on you... by your own self. karma still applies to sexism and racism, but it comes back in the form of other people's views of you. not the special hell of a self-created low self-opinion
if you are 20, and have a bad attitude towards the aged, someday, you will have a bad attitude towards yourself. self-hatred is something all of us carry around to some extent, but to have self-hatred gradually grow as you get older must be a terrible weight to bear, and it keeps growing
you can see it on the street: the guys with the ridiculous fake hair and the women with the ridiculous facial plastic surgery: this is self-hatred. who wants to walk around broadcasting their lack of confidence and stinking of desperation, to telegraph that you want to be something you can never be again? to worship youth, but then turn into someone old, must be a terrible experience to go through. to simply look at yourself in the mirror and be filled with anguish: built in karma for being an ageist. this also might explain some suicides by people in their 40s and 50s
meanwhile, if you always treated the elderly fairly and gracefully, then when you yourself are older you will still be confident, and still like yourself, because you will treat your older self the way you treat older others today. built in karma still applies, but in the positive: you age gracefully, and have a full happy life
so the cost of being an ageist is to have an unhappy older life
don't be an ageist. look at the elderly and see yourself as you will be someday, and smile, for the sake of your own future happiness. you want to age gracefully, you really do. so prepare yourself psychologically now for aging gracefully, by treating the aged you encounter today with the same grace you want to treat yourself with later
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Depends how you define risk. My experience has been that the practical definition is "over selling in order to make big money for salesmen and senior management, at the cost of developers' lives". You can call that jaded, or you can call it experienced.
Personally, I'd rather under-promise, leave at 5pm, and invest my still copious, stallion-like energy on my wife, kids and hobbies. While I still enjoy my time in the office, I don't live to work, I work to live. And that's not what a smart employer wants: they want people who live to work.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
The article seems misleading. It says that Google has 20,000 employees and fewer than 200 of them over the age of 40 are working to "make Google culture... welcome to people of all ages."
It makes it sound as if they are saying Google is a company of 20,000 with fewer than 200 employees of age 40 or over, but that isn't true. It's just that fewer than 200 of them have joined this specific group to make Google culture welcome to people of all ages. Seems like we've made a "news story" out of thin air. Slow news day?
If they're over 40 and good at what they do, senior technical people are a huge asset. They can spot the disaster before it happens, or cut through the complex requirements and identify what it is the customer really needs before you waste six months of development time. Because they've seen it before.
They also tend to be tired and kind of grumpy, because they've seen it before, but a savvy manager will cling to these folk for dear life.
The law aside, Google is making a mistake by not attempting to mix generations. A retired federal law enforcement officer who is like an uncle to me has a saying, "You can learn something from anyone and everyone." The older worker is often more disciplined with a better work ethic than someone fresh out of school. The older software engineer is more experienced and can thus produce better quality code. Why not foster an environment that mixes the youthful ideas and enthusiasm with the experience and wisdom of the older worker? Why not use the older worker as a mentor and guide? By automatically discounting someone based on age, you blind yourself to any good that said person has to offer. And before anyone says I am an OG (Old Guy,) I am 33 and have been able to learn a lot about best practices and network engineering from a 60 year old grandpa!! Because I gave him the time of day, I learned some techniques that could potentially avoid pitfalls and served me very well.
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the biggest reason that there aren't more people over 40 working in IT and software development. For me anyway, it was the realization that technology keeps changing but it doesn't really improve. Sure, there is more "eye candy" and "cool" interfaces but how is it really improving our lives? The challenge to get some technology to work when your young can very appealing but after a while you get tired of fixing the same problems over and over. Especially when the benefits of the new product is marginally better, or maybe even worse, than the previous product.
The problem seems to be phrased most of the time as "older people can't keep up with the technology" when the real issue is "people with experience realize the futility and silliness of most of the new technology". Technology like social web sites and mobile phones have become almost pure entertainment pretending to be a useful tool. The CEOs of these high-tech companies don't want people around that keep bringing up the fact that "the Emperor has no clothes". Young people can be easily entranced with shiny objects and not realize that there are wasting enormous amounts of their lives. Especially when they're getting paid to waste their time.
I'm sure cognitive dissonance will keep most Slashdotters from accepting any of this but if I can help free one mind then it will have been worth it.
"Meaningless!, Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless!"
I blame it on the current talent pool in the midwest. Most of the people we bring in now all have this "video game" degree from the nearby university. Not one of them understands the concept of designing practical solutions. They also do not understand testing. They seem to fall into the duct tape programmer category. Simple obvious decisions about user interface, input formatting, smart security decisions, anticipating user mistakes, these things just dont come with that degree they arrive with. The seasoned programmers here watch the same stupid mistakes getting made over and over again. On the one hand, we desperately need the help, there is so much work to get done and tons of money to be made, on the other hand, these kids that come in just make more work for us in the long run as we keep recoding and recoding the stupid shit that they do. In a few instances, these kids get a degree and find out its not really what they wanted to do with their life. They just got the degree because they liked playing with their wii and their parents were excited to have something their kids would actually pay attention through in school.
I would much rather bring in the mature, more experienced programmer that has been through it all and builds in ways that eliminates all the obvious problems, so we can stay focused on the bigger issues of a project.
For a while I thought that Google's short comings were the by-product of uber nerd hubris and the belief that they simply know the best way to do everything. Their lack of maturity shines through most visibly when it comes to support, documentation and long term planning. Their pre-sales processes are about the worst I have dealt with.
Wisdom comes from age. As people grow and mature, they tap into different sensibilities during different phases of their lives.
An older person might not have the grasp of complex search algorithms, or the glue that ties Wave together that a 30 year old engineer in their prime might have. On the other hand, that 30 year old super engineer probably knows fuck all about actually running a company, or balancing a departmental budget, or dozens of other things that have to be in place if a company will have long term success.
I use my dad as an example. He's a 65 year old retired Harvard MBA. He could be taking it easy but he enjoys what he does. He consults with startups and small businesses. He helps them establish the fundamental financial foundations that they need to be successful. There are plenty of people out there who are good enough at something to start a business doing it. However those businesses often falter and teeter on the bring of failure because the owner's brilliance in providing a service or inventing a widget doesn't translate into running a company. In his case, one of his assests is his age. He has been exposed to decades worth of macro economic trends and worked across different industries.
I'm not saying that Google should be snatching up 65+ year old retired folks simply because they have a lot of wisdom and experience. On the other hand, they could use some maturity. Take a look at the wifi debacle they're in. That is a great example of what happens when people lack maturity. They simply don't care about the consiquences of their actions, or if they do they minimize them. Personally I tend to agree with the prevailing thought process that if a person is broadcasting an unencrypted signal they shouldn't expect privacy. On the other hand, I have enough maturity to realize that the law is vague in those areas. I wonder if Google even bothered to have any competent lawyers review their plans, or if their conversation went something along the lines of,
"Hey, wouldn't it be cool if we just snarfed wifi traffic as we drove along?"
"Yeah! It would be like war driving on a massive scale!"
"Why not? We're already taking pictures of every square foot of property along side every paved surface in the developed world, we might as well map every wireless AP out there too."
The Chinese have a saying to the effect of, "At the times when things are going very well, that is when you have to be the most concerned about danger."
Google is entering that phase in their life. Their IPO is behind them. They are sitting on billions of dollars. They are introducing new products that are having some success. But now everyone wants a piece of them.
I worked at google for a few years.
I don't think google discriminates based on age.
The founders feel strongly that intelligence is more important than experience.
So they believe that they discriminate based on intelligence.
The problem I had working for google is that the company wants to employ only the "A" personality type engineer.
The "googly" engineer accepts no compromise, makes no mistakes and is driven to produce the best solution at any cost.
After 20+ years of working in the industry, I'm willing to compromise and to produce a great solution now until I can produce a better one tomorrow.
At google, the founders have stated that great is not good enough.
I'm an "AB" personality type and that "B" part is not good enough for google.
Google has amazing benefits and so working there is amazingly lucrative.
I would work there again if I could but I fear it would end the same.
At google, you need the approval of your peers.
The "A" personality types are the majority and as such they don't want any other types around.
(There are exceptions if you're charismatic or attractive but that is the same at other companies.)
Actually he is approaching it more rapidly than a 20 year old. See, the older you get, the faster time passes. When you're five, it's forever for Christmas to come. It's a full 1/5 of a lifetime, while for a 20 year old it's only 1/20th. A year goes by twice as fast for me as it does someone half my age, so the closer you get to 40, the more rapid the approach becomes.
Free Martian Whores!
Worker in their 40's and up are rather disinclined to work 120 hours/week and basically live on the Google campus, away from their spouse and teenage children. Free cokes and junk food only goes so far - about 26. So yes, there's a cultural mismatch: older workers have a life outside Google.
Edith Keeler Must Die
There's a difference between knowing programming languages and knowing how to program.
Similarly I've met people who could speak six languages but didn't have coherent thought to express in any of them.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Fine, I'm forgoing the mod points I've already spent in this thread, since there's so much damn cluelessness about the "value" of overwork.
For everyone who thinks habitual working hours over a sustainable 35-45 hour pace (which varies by individual) is a good thing, go read Tom DeMarco's book Slack. He neatly debunks the pointy-haired boss myths (and gullible, guiltable workaholic engineer myths) regarding overwork. Some examples: very quickly after working at maximum sustainable pace, your work output per hour starts to drop. Eventually, you've been pulling 60 hours or more for just a few weeks and you're not really getting any more done than you would have at your sustainable pace. For severe overwork, you're getting a LOT less done. Also, "undertime" becomes endemic at high workloads -- that need to "just pop out for a few hours" during working hours to deal with all of that life-stuff that's being neglected.
The larger points of the book surround how a concept of "slack" is vital to the success of any individual, team, and/or company that depends on knowledge work. This "slack" is an ingredient which supplies the ability to quickly respond to changing requirements, to seize opportunities, and to handle market shifts. One of my favorite distinctions that DeMarco draws in the book is between an organization's efficiency and effectiveness. In this context, efficiency is roughly defined as "how fast are we moving towards some goal?" while effectiveness is defined as "are we moving towards the right goal?" Many organizations optimize solely for efficiency -- moving forward at a breakneck pace -- and sacrifice effectiveness in so doing. The organizational ship becomes hard to steer, and often times ends up at the wrong goal.
Heck, Barbara Liskov (2008 ACM Turing Award winner) has a great quote on this topic... IIRC, to the effect of how she felt guilty for times when she worked less, until she realized that she was always more productive and energized during those times.
I think age often determines how you self-actualize. While a young people may seek to empower themselves through their workplace, older people realize that corporate entities don't really give a crap about them as business trumps any meeting any employee needs. A 40 something will seek to actualize through manageable and control-able means; hobbies, family, interests, etc. I think there are very few 20-somethings that are self aware enough to make the distinction of where they can achieve fulfillment.
I think it is possible to employ people of all ages if you can manage their needs which may differ by age as well as profession (power sources, social, behavioral types, corporate culture, etc).
You've confused correlation and causation.
Wisdom does not come from age, it comes from experience (and not in the sense of the same 1-year of experience repeated 30 times). While wisdom is highly correlated with age, it is not caused by it and it is both possible to find a young (20's or even teen's) person with much experience and possible to find an older (50's and up) person with very little experience.
I am 23, fresh out of college and working at the company where all of my colleagues are around 40. And i actually admire those people. They are experienced, confident and clearly know their way around. The project i was assigned to can be considered a "modern technology". And i am surprised how these older people who are supposedly out of touch with the newer stuff give me great insights every goddamn day of what will and won't work with this technology they don't know a lot about. I could have ignored them, dismissed their opinion on the grounds of their age and went on and learned the same things the hard way, i actually did some of that when i was just starting out. There is something about this outstanding experience level that let them see some kind of general things in technology and reach a point where you all new things just seem to differ in packaging. So basically i look up to those people, try to imitate their though process, decision making, try to learn how they think, the skills they have, etc. I still have some healthy criticism left, but it is gradually diminishing as things progress. I hope i have not just got into too much positive discrimination though.)
Wish I could mod you up.
AC said this: .com when I started feeling sick. I'd be DAMNED if I was going to call in sick 3 days into my 1st on-call so just tried to gut it out (pun pending). by Wed I finally called my Dr who basically said: you have APPENDICITIS, you F-tard! drop what you're doing & get to the nearest ER _NOW_!!!. after they took it out the surgeon told me it had "perforated" (analogous to running over nail vs having blow-out) & that I was lucky I didn't have peritonitis/wasn't looking at a much longer recovery or worse. I'm pretty sure they don't name buildings after or make holidays in memory of people who (literally) get themselves killed for their jobs...
I had recently started at & was on my 1st on-call week for a major
---
Notice- he almost died young for a company that probably no longer exists.
Don't give your loyalty or love to a company. ANY given day, your manager, (and their managers) can change and the company you knew is gone. Everyone upstairs walks out with tons of money and you get laid off as a cost cutting measure.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.