[mindcrime]

I think all of us could rattle off a list of 50+ year old "geezers" that could pull something like this off, but the reality is that many of them can barely use a cell phone.

What a load of crap. A 50 year old today could easily have been a 20 year old AI programmer in 1980, and he probably knows more about technology than the rest of us put together. Computers aren't actually that new, ya know, and are not the exclusive domain of the GenY kids.

I mean, for crying out loud, COBOL first appeared in 1959, LISP in 1958, FORTRAN in 1957, and ALGOL in 1960. There are folks around who have been programming longer than most HN readers have been alive.

There are technically literate and technically illiterate people of all ages, the 50+ thing is pretty much bullshit as any sort of generalization.

[cookiecaper]

Obviously I never meant to imply that there were no programmers who are 50+. In fact, I work with some of them, and I respect them greatly.

I don't have any hard data, but I can say, anecdotally, most 50+ are not "techies" and they don't know their way around a computer system. I believe this belief is rather common.

I think some 50+ year olds would make exceptional startup founders. However, an older person who may be founding a "social, local, mobile" startup because he's looking for a career change is going to have a credibility gap because of the general impression that older people are not technically minded. If the pitcher doesn't have a strong compsci background or history to counteract that notion, he'll have to make up for it in the presentation.

We are all free to pontificate on whether this is a fair generalization or not, but I think it is clearly that it is commonly held and something an older founder will have to face and address if he wants to succeed.

[mindcrime]

I don't have any hard data, but I can say, anecdotally, most 50+ are not "techies" and they don't know their way around a computer system. I believe this belief is rather common.

OK, that might actually be a fair point, if you're talking about the population of 50+ people at large. But in the context of "people founding tech startups," my guess would be that pretty much any "50+ tech startup founder" probably is a techie, or is at least pretty tech savvy.

Now if you had J. Random 50+ guy who had spent his entire career as a tobacco company accountant and he suddenly showed up saying he was founding "The Next Instagram," then maybe there would be some reason to go "hmmm... wait a minute." But, honestly, I think you could subtract the "50+" part of that and the point would be exactly the same. Would it matter if J. Random 25 year old tobacco company accountant showed up and said "I'm founding The Next Instagram?" Wouldn't the reason for the skepticism be the individual's background and experiences, and not their age?

We are all free to pontificate on whether this is a fair generalization or not, but I think it is clearly that it is commonly held and something an older founder will have to face and address if he wants to succeed.

Probably, but I wouldn't want to be in the business of helping perpetuate this kind of ageism.