[benched]

Looking back over my career, it seems to me that I mostly warm chairs and surf the web while in the offices of software companies. Occasionally they ask me to code something, and I do it. I'd say that accounts for less than 10% of the time I've spent in the office. This is across 4 companies and 15 years. I did the most work at the one that was a startup.

As for your feeling about your situation, I think there is a pretty clear pyramid scheme whereby older people get younger people to build their pyramids for them. The idea is that people with a lot of experience lead, and provide their workers an opportunity to gain experience. I think that's partly true, but it's equally true that there are elements of human nature, ageism, and taking advantage. Perhaps it's just positioning - whether it's the older leveraging the younger, the more vigorous leveraging the more passive, or risk-takers leveraging the risk-averse, no matter how you rationalize it, in the end you will find a small number of people in a position where they're either making huge amounts of money or expecting to, and a large number of people just making whatever the ordinary wage is for their job.

[russell]

It is not surprising that older risk takers lead the younger and risk adverse. I dont think that per se is ageism. They have accumulated the capital and connections to make a startup work. YC counters that somewhat. It's not necessarily for someone new to hone their skill and maybe be part of the founding team next time around.

That said, this industry is rampant with ageism. Once you get beyond 40, it takes longer and longer to find a new job. The presumption is that, if you are older, your skills development stagnated somewhere around the turn of the century.