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The Diversity Issue Silicon Valley Isn't Trying To Fix: Age Discrimination (medium.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The tech industry has recognized it isn't as welcoming to women or minorities as it should be, and is loudly taking steps to solve that issue. Major companies are now releasing diversity reports to highlight their efforts. But as Stephen Levy points out, none of them seem interested in doing something about a different diversity issue that's been pervading Silicon Valley for years: age discrimination. He says, "One company, Payscale, does supply some estimates. Looking at its numbers in 2012, Payscale noted, 'The typical tech employee wasn't around for the original release of Star Wars. And as of last year, the average age at Google was 30; at Facebook, 28; LinkedIn, 29, and Apple, 31. In comparison, the average age in more traditional tech industries like data processing or web publishing was almost 10 years higher than Silicon Valley/Internet firms. In my view, age information should be included in those diversity reports, to underline the need for change— and, even more important, those in charge of company cultures should view age diversity as a plus. Right now, that's not happening."
An average age of 30 would suggest a pretty robust distribution of workers up to 40 as well. Those people would have gotten degrees in the late 1990s. I did my EE degree in the early 2000s and back then CS was still considered a bit of a specialist degree with uncertain career prospects compared to engineering. Of course since then the industry has absolutely exploded.
Could the reason for the lack of above 40 workers be that there are simply far less CS people in that age group? I mean, going forward to 50 year olds and you are talking about the very few people who thought studying these new personal computer things in the 1980s was the way to go. If you were that forward thinking you are probably retired in Belize by now or in a cushy management position at Microsoft.