[hangonhn]

China has the reverse of ageism: the Chinese tend to worship the old. A noted Chinese thinker commented that in China, the praise is "He is young but acts old." and in the West the praise is "He is old but acts young."

So in that environment, you can imagine how someone in his twilight years might have an easier time succeeding because people are more willing to listen to him. For the exception of people like Knuth, Lamport, Stallman, Pike, Thompson, etc. most of us in tech have our ears tuned to a much younger population. It might change as our industry gets older.