[br3w5]

I think the cheap work, long hours thing is critical because companies will see an older person and think more expensive which is true and the added cost is justified. I've seen companies turn down more expensive and experienced people in favour of less experience and cheaper, only to go back to the older and more experienced person once they realised the management overhead of dealing with less experienced staff.

I also think startups have less experience running a company so assume if a developer knows x language and some experience with dbs will be able to build anything but then wonder why they have so many bugs / made so many bad design decisions.