[pvnick]

There was an article on here yesterday that said something along the lines of "if you're older than 23 most startups won't even give you the time of day" or some tripe of the sort. I find that to be a negative, untrue stereotype, and it's nice to see the data back up my opinion.

[jborden13]

All of the developers at my startup are 40+. But I've always put a heavy weighting on experience being more valuable than being inexpensive. The indirect costs of younger developers can be, at times, quite high and staggering. Regardless of age/experience, if you can get shit done quickly and correctly then age is not relevant.

[jypepin]

yea it was in the article about why working in a big company http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/33111/7-Reasons-Why-You...

[tomphoolery]

What an awfully misinformed article. :(

[Cookingboy]

Care to elaborate? From my personal experience (currently working for Google and used to work for a YC startup, also worked for a 80 person small company and another silicon valley giant), that article is almost dead on.

You really DO learn a lot when you have more smart people around you to learn from.

[pvnick]

Yes, thank you, I didn't feel like digging around for it.

[dllthomas]

In what way does this data back up your opinion?

[pvnick]

For the following reasons:

1) assume that the HN readership satisfactorily correlates to the startup demographic at large

2) the majority of the respondants answered 26-30, as was also the case in the poll that tptacek referenced elsewhere in this thread

3) the longtail is heavily skewed towards the older folks, rather than towards the younger side

[dllthomas]

See, I worry that with 1 you are conflating two "startup demographics" - people who interact on HN are probably interested in startups, but many (most?) of them aren't working for startups.

[dlhavema]

i definitely fit in that category

[dllthomas]

Likewise. I'm working at a small company, and the tech's interesting, but it's really not a "start-up" in the sense used here for a host of reasons.

[iyulaev]

Kind of by definition though - I think there are more hackers at 30+25 = 55 rather than 30-25 = 5.

[DigitalJack]

The highest bin does not necessarily a majority make. Right now that bin is less than a third.

Just clarifying the facts. Not disputing your conclusion.