47 ms·

Does life end after 35?

530 points by hakkasan 13y ago

scrrr 13y ago
In the west everything is more focused on the individual. I have to succeed at X. I deserve Y. I have to put my stamp on the world. etc. etc. Not sure this is the best path to happiness.
- 6d0debc071 13y ago
  Is that focused on the individual? Putting your stamp on the world, success - those seem to me like they might be very social measures. By contrast, the only people I've found it worthwhile comparing myself with, on any sort of regular basis, are me yesterday, last week and last year. Am I stronger this year than I was last; do I know how to do more? And that, while being a highly individual focused way of doing things, seems to work fairly well. I don't get a crushing sense of not being as good as others or not measuring up to my potential; if I think I'm not as good as I should be at something, then I just get better at that for tomorrow.
  - rokhayakebe 13y ago
    There must be only a few behaviors more self centered than wanting to put your stamp on the world. It is all about you, even if you do not care for anyone to know, it is about you.
    - 6d0debc071 13y ago
      People seem to have certain tastes for what sort of mark they'd want to leave. How many people want the mark they leave on the world to be a scar - and if your answer to that is quite a few, how do you explain the relative absence of scars on the world? Of course one can argue that wanting to leave a positive memory is just as selfish as wanting to leave a negative one, but that would seem to me to be arguing in the same sense that wanting to donate to charity is an act of selfishness.
- hakkasan 13y ago
  I tried talking about this in an earlier draft of my article but found it to be a deep rabbit hole. I'd like to explore this more fully in a future post. I feel that will be more divisive in it's reception :-)
  - jusben1369 13y ago
    If you take this task you have to do an incredibly deep dive of China vs USA. The US is the global leader primarily because of this focus on the individual and individual achievement. European countries compare somewhat poorly as they're sort of focused on the individual but with huge dollops of government support/intervention. China however is completely unapologetic in its team driven focus and now has significant success to back up that this method can work. I'd be interested in someone who can contrast/compare there.
    - dwaltrip 13y ago
      You have fallen into the trap a little ;) what does it mean to be a global keader? What are the true goals? Scrrr's comment was discussing happiness. Neither China nor the US do nationwide happiness surveys AFAIK.
- kamaal 13y ago
  Unfortunately even though its not, its soon becomes for you when others start doing that. A few days back, I remember there was a story posted here about a fisher man living the good life, and having the best of time with family, friends and leisure. Only that later another fisher man helped by a business guy started working extra hours, sets up his own company, establishes a monopoly and employs the first fisher man. Soon the first guy sees though he didn't want any of it, he is now a part of that very system. For philosophical sort of happiness to work, we all need to go into some sort of equilibrium without ever breaking a few rules that are necessary to preserve the equilibrium. That is neither possible, nor good for the larger fate of our society.
deleted 13y ago
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- timje1 13y ago
  Wrap that shit in spoiler tags! Next you'll be telling us how Titanic ends ...
antjanus 13y ago
Awesome read. I feel like I struggle with that issue as well. As I'm approaching my birthday next week, I keep thinking about the 18 year olds that made multi-million dollar Apps, and those 20 year olds that revolutionized the tech industry with one idea or another. It's taking a lot of effort on my side to sit down and relax and realize that everyone on the planet has some achievements to show. Not just the "young". The best case for that is just browsing through Kickstarter projects. Yeah, sure, we're used to seeing people in the early 20s "changing the way everything works" but we also see the veterans coming back to make yet another shift.
- digitalsushi 13y ago
  I find it's easy to get over the million dollar teenager tech geniuses: Whether it's true or not, I just convince myself that more people have made more money by playing the lottery and winning. And then the lucky/smart/people-there-first that get their millions are just lottery winners and I forgive myself for being normal.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
mathattack 13y ago
I like that wisdom and patience mattered a lot to him.
digitalsushi 13y ago
35 seems like a nice round number for people to self-sort into two bins: people that decided yes, it's time to stop trying, there will be no more sunrises... and then the other set, who think this is just ridiculous and roll their eyes that age has anything to do with it. And even if the second set is wrong, and there is actually something about getting older that actually slows us down or makes us worth less, it's a terrible idea to believe in it. I see no value in thinking about it. How would anyone improve their life by deciding some threshold has been passed? Sounds like a good way to speed up decay.
- wobbleblob 13y ago
  Here's how I look at it. It's not the decimal number of years since your birth, but the phase in your life that closes doors. In tech, you constantly need to keep up to date on the latest technologies, read publications and go to conferences, because experience gets stale very fast. It's also easier (than in fields like medicine or law) for junior techies to get up to speed in experience, because they can skip the decades of now obsolete tech and fast forward to roughly where you are at. This is fine. It can be fun and it's definitely rewarding. Then by your early thirties, three things change at the same time: you get promoted to a busier, more responsible position, you have small kids, and you get fat. The (waking) time you have for yourself shrinks from 8-10 hrs to about an hour if you're lucky. You can use that hour to study and keep up to date, to do something about that gut and exercise, or you're so tired you just want to relax. Pick one. In my opinion, this is why middle aged people seem so lazy and boring.
  - digitalsushi 13y ago
    I believe (not through science, but just to make my world make sense) that time spent on exercising doesn't count against the wall-clock. I tell myself that every hour in the gym is an hour longer I'll live, and all the idle thoughts I have while I am in there are a consolation prize for suffering. It helps get me into the gym. It's petty but it is enough.
    - vidarh 13y ago
toblender 13y ago
Age is just a number. What you do with yourself each day is what counts.
japhyr 13y ago
I turned 40 last year, and I am loving it. I miss the physical resilience of being in my 20s, but I wouldn't trade where I am now to go back to my 20s. I grew up relatively sheltered in New England, and moved to NYC to teach as soon as I graduated from college. I spent my 20s teaching in the city and bicycling around North America in the summers. At 29, I moved to Alaska. I spent my 30's climbing mountains, doing mountain rescue work, and continuing to teach. I just turned 40, and I feel like this decade is about building some things that last. I feel like I came into more serious hacking at just the right time in my life. I now have the experience to know exactly what I want to build, and I have the long-term mindset needed to build important things. After having stood in front of NYC public school classrooms, bicycled around the continent, faced bears in the wild, and dropped out of helicopters onto steep mountains, dealing with servers and such is just another satisfying challenge to play with. Life is wonderful if you keep right on living.
- coffeeaddicted 13y ago
  Getting 40 made me just feel old. I no longer have as much energy, keeping my weight got harder and let's not forget the annoying loss of hair. Additional experience is somewhat nice, but doesn't make up for it. Then again I spend most of my 30's getting out of debt because of a failed startup. Which might have given me a more negative view on life (last time I could afford traveling around was ~10 years ago).
  - gadders 13y ago
    Shave your head. That's one problem solved.
    - datalus 13y ago
      Good advice, I'm in my latter 20s and I'm already there.
      - gadders 13y ago
        42 now, but I think I started at around your age.
talmir 13y ago
I am 30 and my career is just taking off :) I do very much hope I have more than five years in me
phaed 13y ago
Thanks, I needed this reminder.
Codhisattva 13y ago
I'm almost fifty and I feel like I'm just hitting my stride. But then I felt that as I approached 30 and 40 too. So yeah, you might not see it while in your 20s but nothing feels better than the combination of intelligence and experience. That is, the result of learning how to learn.
jmsduran 13y ago
Very inspiring article. Being 24, almost half-way to 30, these past few months I've been thinking to myself "what have I really accomplished outside of work and school"? I think this is due partly to the high expectations I set for myself, but I also believe part of it is due to the current tech culture, where it's easy for those new to the field to misinterpret that if they aren't moving as fast as everyone else, they must be doing something wrong. I'm coming to understand that everyone is unique, one's career/life progress is no better than another's. Thanks for the refreshing perspective OP.
- jganetsk 13y ago
  Half-way to 30 is 15.
  - jmsduran 13y ago
    Sorry, meant to imply half-way through my 20's.
- galfarragem 13y ago
  Focus in relationships. All the rest is not important.
- Spooky23 13y ago
  +10 galfarragem's comment. End of the day, focus on building strong relationships and you'll find that business gets easier. Don't be a 2D person.
steven777400 13y ago
Unfortunately, there are aspects to our culture that conflate personal value with success; that is, your value as a human being is based on your success. So it's easy to compare to the very visible milestones; Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, etc. Or to compare to people we know personally; the successful start-up founder with a nice exit, the entrepreneur who got his lifestyle business off the ground and now pays the bills with it. For me, it's easy to think "I am a failure" compared to these people, especially as the years pass and the number of successes I know increases, but I'm not "one of them". This is a severe error of conflating my external success with internal value. I prefer to recall the old Taoist saying, "Work is done, then forgotten."
- tluyben2 13y ago
  People actually compare themselves to Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg? That sounds rather sad to me to be honest.
  - foley 13y ago
    Aim for the stars, land on the moon. It's not the comparison that's sad, letting it define your worth is. It's something I struggle with, almost 30 still struggling through my degree and working on minor projects. But personally when I look back a few years painfully grinding through life addicted to meth it makes today's small successes feel like a billion dollars.
kyro 13y ago
I often worry about whether my startup clock is running out. I'm closer to 30 than 20, finishing up graduate school, and for the most part feel young. But other than the pediatrics ward, the only other time I start to feel my age is when attending some of these startup events. What I try to keep conscious of is knowing what's reported in the media and what isn't, which are often 2 completely different worlds. On TechCrunch, "kid genius makes $100m" is the story they want. It fits this age-old narrative of a child prodigy reaching success in half the time it takes a "normally smart" person to, like Mozart, Einstein. And that media draws in huge amounts of young people hoping to fit that narrative. But what's not reported are the companies that are typically working on much harder and more boring problems -- problems that require an understanding by people who've been in industries for years. Look at any CrunchBase newsletter about the day's fundraising and acquisitions, and you'll find yourself surprised at how many medical/B2B/etc companies are being bought for $100m+. These aren't companies started by 22yo grads, but by people with extensive industry experience. And the (startup) media doesn't really give a damn about them. That's not, in any way, to devalue startups started by younger people. There's little-to-no barrier to starting social apps and the like. They have their place in society and have shown to be successful, so I don't blame a fresh grad who wants to try his/her hand at it. But there is a whole world of other startups and companies that are working in more complicated and boring industries that could not have been started by people in their early 20s. Experience still matters, as unsexy as it is.
- japhyr 13y ago
  > Experience still matters, as unsexy as it is. Absolutely. I think what really makes the difference is whether people also carry the youthful mindset of always being ready to spot problems, and do something about it. I have seen plenty of people with more experience than I have, who have lost the sense that they can actively make things better. It's the people who have experience, and still feel they can shape the world around them, who make things happen.
  - matwood 13y ago
    Exactly. Treat every new project like your first, but also bring all your experience with you.
MichailP 13y ago
Very nice article, it resonated with me. It seems that talented people have a great burden, which comes in form of often asking yourself "have you done enough with all the talents you have?". It seems to be quite common, and it even made it to the Bible (I think it is called story about three servants). Funny that money in that story is called talent :)
damon_c 13y ago
I used to look at those "guitar player wanted (under 30 only)" ads on craigslist when I was in my late 20s and be confused about why there was such a hard line on the people's rock band aptitude. When I got to be around 35 I realized that if you want to be in a rock band, you need to be ok with working a lot for no money and spending your weekends in a van and those are things I just didn't want to do anymore and probably most people in their 30s have a tapering off tolerance for such things. But for stuff involving computers? They age much faster than we do and will never judge us by our ages.
- elmuchoprez 13y ago
  "Never trust anyone over 30" is a bit of a rallying cry among musicians. It's often attributed Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Jerry Rubin and a few others during the 1960's, but I'm not sure anyone really knows who said it first. I would guess that people are actually referencing that whole movement when they put it in the Craigslist ads rather than setting a hard and fast restriction. Or maybe it's a bunch of 22-year-olds who just want to hang out with people their own age.
  - typicalrunt 13y ago
    I wonder what kind of rationalization Bob Dylan, The Beatles, et al went through once they reached 30 years of age. Do they move the goal posts to not trusting anyone over 40? Or do they admit that they were youthful and wrong and state that untrustworthy people, at any age, are the only people that shouldn't be trusted.
    - mixmastamyk 13y ago
      Probably both. The concept in the 60's at least was partly due to change in culture between the young "hippies" vs. the older "man". People were realizing in a big way that "the man" was lying to us... Vietnam War, etc. Things haven't changed much in that regard, but the corporate/govt media "alliance" has become more sophisticated in dispersing/distracting such anger.
    - eruditely 13y ago
AhtiK 13y ago
As a flip side, life can also end tomorrow, for anyone of us.
zaidf 13y ago
His advice to me: Don't be in so much of a rush. Be easier on yourself. If you connect with this idea, you may want to check out the book The Inner Game of Tennis: http://www.amazon.com/The-Inner-Game-Tennis-Performance/dp/0679778314 http://www.amazon.com/The-Inner-Game-Tennis-Performance/dp/0...
- hakkasan 13y ago
  Thanks! I'll look into that. I've been trying to explore this topic in other domains recently. I find sports coaches have done a great deal of exploration into the effects of personal attitude especially in managing one's emotional reactions to outcomes.
StandardFuture 13y ago
Actually, maybe I am being short-sighted ... but what I get out of this article is that his grandfather WOULD (could) have been just as 'successful' as he was in his 60s much earlier in life if World War II and Mao had not ruined possibilities for his generation. If he had been allowed to do research from his early 20s wouldn't it still have been possible for him to be just as successful at it? Maybe his 30s would have been his heavy hitting decade? In general maybe we all get about a decade of heavy hitting and it just happens earlier or later for some? :P
- hobbes300 13y ago
  The point is that you can still be successful after your 30s.
  - StandardFuture 13y ago
    Sure, but the article does make this point as well: >My grandpa had no choice but to wait a long time for his opportunity. It's likely he would have achieved even more had be moved to the West.
- hakkasan 13y ago
  I think that it's fair to say he could have made a bigger contribution in a more permissive environment. What I had initial tried to do with this piece was explore the notion of how we define success. I think the success that my grandpa achieved late in his life was a happy byproduct of being able to apply him self through his career. The enthusiasm he poured into his work prior was the real personal reward and not necessarily the recognition he gained. These are still unpolished thoughts. I want to explore more fully in a future post.
Toenex 13y ago
For a start-up it's not age that matters but risk aversion. You need to be happy/able to take on the risks, which are mainly financial. However, there will typically be a relationship between age and risk with the most risk averse period in your 30's and 40's when you are probably having kids. So if you don't feel you succeeded in your 20's and early 30's, hang on in there 'cause you'll get another opportunity later in life.
selleck 13y ago
Great reminder. I am turning 32 early next year and started teaching myself programming this year. Sometimes doubt creeps up on me and makes me feel like I am wasting my time, but stuff like this helps. Onward!
- BigChiefSmokem 13y ago
  Yes, just keep going! I started programming relatively late (at age 26), after becoming unemployed during the recession, for a govt agency in a small town in Florida. But now, at my current age of 30, I have a very lucrative job working for a major movie studio in LA as a software engineer. I have a lot of ambition at 30 than I ever did at 20 and that has been motivated by my failures. I might of missed my "startup years" and hacker culture in general but I'm definitely on track for big things. I hope to soon finally settle down and raise a family as well.
  - faizdev 13y ago
    Nice! I'm just starting out as a softie too, also due to the economy, did you start out with the web too? What language, how long until you found the job that kickstarted your career?
- 72deluxe 13y ago
  Well done, keep it up! I am 30 in a few months and already a developer so it is great to see someone marginally older than me just taking it up. Out of interest, what did you do before?
  - selleck 13y ago
    Still currently in software sales. I am taking the long view and expect to be in sales for the next year or two or three as I begin applying what I am learning to actually building.
quaffapint 13y ago
I'm getting past 40 and I don't think the problem will necessarily be with me in the coming years as much as it will with employer bias. While you can keep up with the latest tech stuffs, some employers still don't want to pay for your experience or see your age as a liability vs being able to run a youngin' ragged. One other thing I took away is that the author seemed that if you didn't make a big world impact no matter your age then you didn't succeed. I get into that mindset every once in awhile and feel rather down about it. Then I realize I'm raising my family, and while I may never be remembered for that amazing startup, I will be remembered by the ones that in the end truly matter.
- hakkasan 13y ago
  Yes, the definition of success is something I want to explore more fully. The media/tech portrayal of success is extremely 1 dimensional and results in a great deal of dissatisfaction and anxiety. Personally, I think it has less to do with big wins or press worthy outcomes and more about consistently applying oneself in a manner that you can be proud of. You make sacrifices to fit all the things that are important to you in life and that's fine. Let the public have their judgements. Ultimately, you only have to answer to yourself.
everly 13y ago
"Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75." Benjamin Franklin
- david927 13y ago
  "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them." Thoreau
6cxs2hd6 13y ago
Top managers are traditionally drawn from the ranks of 50-somethings. Sure, that's partly due to a retirement age of 65, and partly a function of institutional ladder-climbing. But not just that. Someone in their 50s has a few decades of experience. Almost every situation or problem reminds them of something they've already seen or solved before. Intuition or gut instinct draws on experience, therefore it improves with experience. Now, I wouldn't argue that someone in their 50s (or older) is prima facie better than someone younger. Just that they're not automatically worse. p.s. You could argue that "too much experience" can be a bad thing, and blind someone to innovation. Although that's a good point I'd argue that the issue isn't too much experience, instead it's usually too narrow experience and/or too little ability to process it effectively.
- hakkasan 13y ago
  Yes, my grandpa actually said that when you are young you are freer creatively and take greater risks. This doesn't always lead to better outcomes but it gives you access to opportunities you wouldn't get later in life. Likewise, as you've pointed out, when you are older, your experience opens a different set of doors.
  - pjmorris 13y ago
    This echoes one of my favorite lines from Lawrence of Arabia, at the end, in Damascus: Lawrence of Arabia: Prince Feisal: "There's nothing further here for a warrior. We drive bargains. Old men's work. Young men make wars, and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men. Courage and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace. And the vices of peace are the vices of old men. Mistrust and caution. It must be so."
hangonhn 13y ago
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.
BigChiefSmokem 13y ago
Do this: stop comparing yourselves to Steve Jobs for a moment and go ask your parents, spouse, good friends, and confidants if you are a person of value (forget about "success"), and to give you some examples. This should clear it all up for you.
greenlander 13y ago
I worked as a manager at a major semiconductor company in Silicon Valley for many years. I interviewed thousands of candidates, many of who were older than me. I noticed that older engineers seemed to bifurcate into two groups: the ones who were curious about everything, and the ones who stayed in their box. The ones who were curious about everything remained great engineers. They tinkered with new technologies, read books about software project management, wrote cool little programs in unusual languages like Haskell or Scheme, etc. These guys were invariably great engineers, and their experience was just icing on the cake. The ones who stayed in their niche of writing x86 assembly, COBOL applications for mainframes or writing the same class of network drivers for Linux for fifteen years were usually awful. I don't doubt that there is actual ageism out there. However, when I did interviews I never cared. However, I also noticed that the "lazy engineers" hadn't really done anything in their career to expand their skill set beyond the minimum their employers required them to do, and I could see why they were not employable. The older "curious, passionate" engineers I hired worked out awesome.
- johnjlocke 13y ago
  The type of people you describe exist not only in the programming field, but in every single walk of life. We simply notice more because our field changes so quickly. There will always be people who remain curious throughout their lives, as there will always be people who stay close to what they know because they believe it to be safe.
- photex 13y ago
  This gives me hope for the future. :)
gotrecruit 13y ago
i'm 27 years old this year, and i graduated recently with a business undergrad degree. i've tried my hand at doing a startup throughout my undergraduate degree but failed, and if i'm being completely honest, i felt like i learned very little from that experience as i was not a technical founder. at 28 next year, i will be returning to school again for a computer science bachelor's and frankly, this 35 year old threshold keeps coming up in my head. years ago i set myself an ambitious goal of being a self-made millionaire by the time i'm 30, and a billionaire by 40. it's crazy talk to most people, but it was a goal i set for myself. obviously, it doesn't seem that plausible now - it's really more of a fantasy than anything at this moment but still... i find myself feeling old and having wasted many years of my life. this blog post lifted my spirits a little. i feel that if i begin working really hard now and make the next few decades of my life extremely, exceptionally and extraordinarily productive, i can probably still achieve enough to make up for the last few unproductive years of my life.
- hakkasan 13y ago
  Thanks for sharing your experiences. I feel this definition of what it means to be successful is something I need to address properly in a future post. Much of my anxiety in the matter stemmed from setting similar ambitions to your own. I don't think it was wrong of me to set these benchmarks, but today I find myself questioning the "why" more and more. Increasingly I try to look at success as a more fluid notion. I feel it has many dimensions that constantly evolve with my changing world view and life. It can be valuable to set goals but I think it's just as important not to be myopic to the rest of the world at their expense. I feel a lot of it comes down to attitude. My grandpa would still have been a happy man had he not had the opportunity to pioneer medical science. Prior to his 60s, his curiosity and willingness explore meant he had a fulfilling life. He wasn't expecting and waiting for a big success. He was focused on what he was able to do and made sure he did it to the best of his abilities. These are some quick thoughts on a bus and I apologise if it seem like I'm being preachy. I'm only 29 and very much still figuring it all out. I dare say I will be doing that until I die. Please share your thoughts, especially if they run counter to what I've written.
wting 13y ago
A similar question was asked on Quora recently: https://www.quora.com/Silicon-Valley/What-do-people-in-Silicon-Valley-plan-to-do-once-they-hit-35-and-are-officially-over-the-hill https://www.quora.com/Silicon-Valley/What-do-people-in-Silic... Some of the companies and founders' ages compiled from the answers: - Zynga: 41 - LinkedIn: 36 - Salesforce: 35 - Intel: 41, 39 - Qualcomm: 52, 50 - Juniper Networks: 42 - Wikipedia: 35 - Pandora: 35 - GigaOm: 39 - Zipcar: 42 - TechCrunch: 35 - Craigslist: 42 - Netflix: 37
- thatthatis 13y ago
  To clarify, that's founders age at founding. Not curret age of founder.
- eliasmacpherson 13y ago
  I know that LinkedIn culturally didn't work crazy hours to get where they were - does anyone know, are any others listed that started out as '9-5' organizations?
  - api 13y ago
    I am skeptical of the 60-80 hours thing. It seems like more of a macho thing than a real requirement. The problem is that when you workaholic yourself your productivity per unit time drops, so you're spending more hours but doing as much as you might do in shorter bursts of more focused time. In some cases it's worse... you get total burnout.
    - johnjlocke 13y ago
      The 60-80 hours thing is how computer peeps express their machismo. If we were jocks, we would do like 1000 pushups or something. If you need to spend that much time getting it off the ground, you are doing it wrong.
      - mcv 13y ago
        I see more value in accomplishing stuff in as little hours as possible. It's not about the hours, it's about what you get done. And once you get stuck, it can be more productive to leave the computer and get some sleep, eat, walk, take a shower, etc. The best ideas or solutions come to you when you're doing something else. To me, saying you work 60-80 hours means you're either doing something very simple, or you're not doing much at all.
frozenport 13y ago
Real Stories ->Chinese politics hampered innovation ->If you plan to change the world in Academia expect to do it in your 50s
onebaddude 13y ago
Add me to the list of people who sometimes feels this way. This is the most inspirational commentary I've read on HN.
segmondy 13y ago
If you believe you can, you can. If you believe you can't, you can't.
- johnjlocke 13y ago
  (this) === true;
special 13y ago
From the title I expected a wishy-washy, pseudo-inspirational blog post and instead my entire concept of success was shaken up and realigned. Great post.
- hakkasan 13y ago
  Thanks, that's kind of you to say. I admit, it's a bit "link-bait" but my other attempts at a title were either too cryptic or long winded.
ChuckMcM 13y ago
The key though from this story is this bit "Having only been allowed to complete his undergraduate degree, he spent decades doing whatever research and teaching came his way." One the key differentiators is whether or not people are willing to continue learning. People who learn continue to be useful, people who stop learning eventually aren't. (useful that is)
- hakkasan 13y ago
  Precisely. I think his continued application and exploration are the biggest personal rewards. The opportunity that appeared was fortunate and the acclaim a happy byproduct.
Merovingio 13y ago
I'm 42, and I've found much benefits from taking daily tablets of B-vitamin complexes http://www.my-lifespan.com/b_vitamincomplexforte.html http://www.my-lifespan.com/b_vitamincomplexforte.html Mostly they helped easing my back pain and headaches, because of their effects on nerves, but I've also found myself to be more energetic expecially in the morning, getting a more restful sleep with less insomnia. Give it a shot.
nealabq 13y ago
The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself. --Mary Schmich http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-schmich-sunscreen-column,0,4054576.column http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-schmich-su...
themodelplumber 13y ago
What a great article. I loved the Chinese idiom too (or whatever you call those four-character things). It's funny, I was watching a video on this today: http://www.wimp.com/getfit/ http://www.wimp.com/getfit/ That made me feel a bit more realistic about life. :-)
- dfjorque 13y ago
  Those idioms are called "chengyu" (成语) and there are hundreds (or thousands) of them. Some of them come from ancient Chinese stories and poems and are pretty allegorical in nature; others, like (seemingly) the one mentioned in the article, are self-explanatory (to a Chinese speaker).
gadders 13y ago
In terms of start-ups, career etc I don't think it's impossible to do it in your 40s, but I'd say you're more explicitly aware of the sacrifices involved and typically have more to lose.
tmbsundar 13y ago
Freud wrote his "Interpretation of Dreams" when he was 43. Colonel Sanders started franchising of KFC at 65. More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_bloomer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_bloomer
dzink 13y ago
The immigration process delayed the start of my startup and I'm sure many others are facing that too. Started at 28 even though I'd been in the US since I was 19.
trumbitta2 13y ago
I wish I could take this amazing advice for granted. I'm in my late thirties (36) and still can't afford having a baby. As you may guess, one cannot wait till his sixties for that... So, it really depends on what's the meaning of "successful" to you :)
- bippi 13y ago
  I know it is trite to say, "No one can afford having a kid." but it's really the truth. For me, sure daycare, toys, and food aren't putting me in the poorhouse, but there is no way I can bankroll everything I think my kids deserve.
  - trumbitta2 13y ago
    My problem is my house is 50mq with just one bedroom, and I can't still afford moving to a larger one. Where larger means 2 bedrooms. Context: in Italy you are supposed to own a house vs renting one. Everything in the society and regulations is organized towards owning it vs renting.
    - quaffapint 13y ago
      We lived in a small apartment when we had our first. It was simply a choice we made, we wanted to be somewhat younger when our kids grew up. Now we have a house, and I think not starting right off with everything made me appreciate things more. There's others that do it the other way too. It just depends upon your's and your other half's choice.
    - Kurtz79 13y ago
      Context: In Italy you have free education, healthcare and higher education is dirt cheap (and not necessarily bad) compared to other countries. It's by all accounts a first world country in terms of civil rights and development (regardless of what some italians, and non italians, think). There are way worse countries to raise a child in (economically speaking). I was raised there with a brother and a sister just with my father's (lower middle class) salary, and I had a fantastic childhood.
zhaphod 13y ago
If that were the case I would be dead just about now. And I haven't even done half the things I would like to before I die.
pneumatics 13y ago
If you're turning 30, you're entering your fourth decade, not your third.
JeremyMorgan 13y ago
Great story. I'm 36 and things only seem to be getting better for me, and I know things are only going to get way better. My greatest achievements are ahead of me, not behind me. Sounds cheesy but it's all in your outlook. Good on you gramps for teaching us yet another lesson in that.
pydanny 13y ago
My life finally kicked into gear when I was 38. NASA hired me. Since then I finally realized my dream to travel around the world professionally as a developer, participated in multiple startups, wrote a well-received book, found the woman of my dreams, and changed possibly hundreds of lives. Post-35 rocks!
antimagic 13y ago
Yes. On the other hand, I'm quite enjoying my existence as a zombie...
kamaal 13y ago
I'm working with a senior person off late. I'm in my late 20's. One of the things that he warned me against is hipster trends. These can really derail a good technically intensive career. Anyone who is glamorizing hipster practices over genuine experience should go out and build a few embedded systems, a car, or a pacemaker, or a dialysis machine, control system for a nuclear reactor, or a better routing algorithm etc. If you are busy building <insert yet another MVC site here> and refusing to look and learn from other software domains, you will likely never work on any technically meaty projects ever and soon fall victim to age related discrimination. Building great things requires experience. Its not about impatience, and that thing about 'fail quick, fail fast' - 'quick iterations'. Some of the most significant work happens only at a slow steady pace. With proper planning, fore though about quality/stability of systems you are trying to build. Most importantly its about the seriousness and the impact of the problems you are trying to solve. This takes time and with it you will age.
pnathan 13y ago
As I move towards 30 at a somewhat surprisingly fast rate, I find that my life has changed. I don't do stupid stuff like all-night coding sessions, because it produces bad work and a lousy morning. It always did, but previously the glory of the late night hack outweighed the lousyness of what I made. I've seen things again and again. I'm also fairly positive I am getting smarter, or at mentally more capable. I can conceptualize things today that simply were mentally out of reach for the 20 y/o me. I have a tremendous focus on self-improvement and learning, so I don't expect this to change a great deal in the metanarrative, but I expect to learn new types of things as I move forward with life and move away from learning certain kinds of details.
MattGrommes 13y ago
I turned 35 a few months back and I've thought the past couple of years were my best yet, with more best to come. I had kids early-ish (my daughter is about to turn 12) and people would always say I missed fun stuff in my 20s. The way I look at it is my kids will be out of the house in my mid-40s while everybody else is getting older _and_ dealing with kids. I'm living in my favorite city, doing kickass things at work, getting less afraid to do more interesting/scary things all the time. I laugh in the faces of kids who think life ends after 29.
dotcoma 13y ago
Yeah. I'm dead.
mark_sz 13y ago
PG - he's a good example that life doesn't end after 35:)
- gaius 13y ago
  "But I don't expect to convince anyone (over 25) to go out and learn Lisp" <--- http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html
BuckRogers 13y ago
"He recently Skyped me about co-patenting a new method of microwave cooking." PATENT TROLL! ALERT APPLE, SOMEONE'S TRYING TO GET IN THEIR MARKET!!! WE DON'T APPROVE OF INNOVATION AND PATENTS HERE ON HN
planetmcd 13y ago
A good life, yes. After that its mostly just changing diapers, paying mortgages , chatting about 401Ks, and dealing with loud music.
Imagenuity 13y ago
People are too obsessed with age. What is the point of telling yourself you CAN'T do something because an arbitrary counter reached an arbitrary point? Useless beliefs are what will limit you.
brothe2000 13y ago
I'd like to think that if you have an open mind and are willing to "think young", I think experience can provide you with a greater reach to build what you want. Young people have a belief everything is possible but may not always have the means. When you are older, you typically have more means but are too grounded in reality of what's possible. Age is a number not a limitation.
ascendantlogic 13y ago
I'm 35. I've worked for a couple small companies and I am at a startup now. I certainly hope my life doesn't end now. I certainly would love to get something started but I feel I'm old enough where I understand the value of family and sane time limits. Looking back I could see myself taking a shot in the dark on something but I'm not necessarily disappointed that I didn't. I've learned so much and continue to each day. If you want to be a billionaire by 25 you'll kill yourself. The odds are so astronomical it's almost funny. I say spend your years learning what you can, then start something when you have savvy and perspective. But that's just me.
nikatwork 13y ago
"In 63 BC as a quaestor in Spain, Julius Caesar is said to have broken down and wept in front of a statue of Alexander the Great, realizing that where Alexander had conquered most of the known world at thirty, Caesar at that age was merely seen as a dandy who had squandered his wife's fortunes as well as his own."
sainib 13y ago
Thanks for sharing and I always have this thought at the back of my mind. I am 36 and launched my first serious part-time(gotta pay bills) startup last Dec after working on it for over a year. This was after 2 attempts half-ass ideas with no solid business plan. This article definitely boosts morale.
sainib 13y ago
Thanks for sharing and I always have this thought at the back of my mind. I am 36 and launched my first serious part-time(gotta pay bills) startup last Dec after working on it for over a year. This was after 2 attempts half-ass ideas with no solid business plan. This article definitely boosts morale.
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anish_t 13y ago
end after 35? i am touching 39 and getting ready to start my real startup. My partners are all few years older than me. I never wanted to be in a job and have been running my services company for the last 12 years. While the current business is doing fine, past few years I had this increasing urge to break out from the services mould and "create" something of our own. Couple of months back I took the decision to take this plunge. We have structured our existing business so that it would continue to run in the hands of my partners while I am venturing out and doing our thing. So yes, to outsiders or even friends and family it might feel a little late to start out afresh I am all loving it and living every moment of it!
AnthonBerg 13y ago
No. Of course not. C'mon. Quite an annoying headline.
lelele 13y ago
Life does not end after 35, but your energy levels and stamina will be lower than in your younger years. Yes, even if you exercise and eat healthy (indeed, you'll have to stay fit just to keep going). Moreover, with age (hopefully) comes experience, and with experience may come a jaded view of society that can kill your dreams on birth. Qohelet wisely stated that "For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow." I hope you will be among the exception.

530 points by hakkasan 13y ago

scrrr 13y ago

In the west everything is more focused on the individual. I have to succeed at X. I deserve Y. I have to put my stamp on the world. etc. etc. Not sure this is the best path to happiness.

6d0debc071 13y ago
Is that focused on the individual? Putting your stamp on the world, success - those seem to me like they might be very social measures. By contrast, the only people I've found it worthwhile comparing myself with, on any sort of regular basis, are me yesterday, last week and last year. Am I stronger this year than I was last; do I know how to do more? And that, while being a highly individual focused way of doing things, seems to work fairly well. I don't get a crushing sense of not being as good as others or not measuring up to my potential; if I think I'm not as good as I should be at something, then I just get better at that for tomorrow.
- rokhayakebe 13y ago
  There must be only a few behaviors more self centered than wanting to put your stamp on the world. It is all about you, even if you do not care for anyone to know, it is about you.
  - 6d0debc071 13y ago
    People seem to have certain tastes for what sort of mark they'd want to leave. How many people want the mark they leave on the world to be a scar - and if your answer to that is quite a few, how do you explain the relative absence of scars on the world? Of course one can argue that wanting to leave a positive memory is just as selfish as wanting to leave a negative one, but that would seem to me to be arguing in the same sense that wanting to donate to charity is an act of selfishness.
hakkasan 13y ago
I tried talking about this in an earlier draft of my article but found it to be a deep rabbit hole. I'd like to explore this more fully in a future post. I feel that will be more divisive in it's reception :-)
- jusben1369 13y ago
  If you take this task you have to do an incredibly deep dive of China vs USA. The US is the global leader primarily because of this focus on the individual and individual achievement. European countries compare somewhat poorly as they're sort of focused on the individual but with huge dollops of government support/intervention. China however is completely unapologetic in its team driven focus and now has significant success to back up that this method can work. I'd be interested in someone who can contrast/compare there.
  - dwaltrip 13y ago
    You have fallen into the trap a little ;) what does it mean to be a global keader? What are the true goals? Scrrr's comment was discussing happiness. Neither China nor the US do nationwide happiness surveys AFAIK.
kamaal 13y ago
Unfortunately even though its not, its soon becomes for you when others start doing that. A few days back, I remember there was a story posted here about a fisher man living the good life, and having the best of time with family, friends and leisure. Only that later another fisher man helped by a business guy started working extra hours, sets up his own company, establishes a monopoly and employs the first fisher man. Soon the first guy sees though he didn't want any of it, he is now a part of that very system. For philosophical sort of happiness to work, we all need to go into some sort of equilibrium without ever breaking a few rules that are necessary to preserve the equilibrium. That is neither possible, nor good for the larger fate of our society.

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timje1 13y ago
Wrap that shit in spoiler tags! Next you'll be telling us how Titanic ends ...

antjanus 13y ago

Awesome read. I feel like I struggle with that issue as well. As I'm approaching my birthday next week, I keep thinking about the 18 year olds that made multi-million dollar Apps, and those 20 year olds that revolutionized the tech industry with one idea or another. It's taking a lot of effort on my side to sit down and relax and realize that everyone on the planet has some achievements to show. Not just the "young". The best case for that is just browsing through Kickstarter projects. Yeah, sure, we're used to seeing people in the early 20s "changing the way everything works" but we also see the veterans coming back to make yet another shift.

digitalsushi 13y ago
I find it's easy to get over the million dollar teenager tech geniuses: Whether it's true or not, I just convince myself that more people have made more money by playing the lottery and winning. And then the lucky/smart/people-there-first that get their millions are just lottery winners and I forgive myself for being normal.
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mathattack 13y ago

I like that wisdom and patience mattered a lot to him.

digitalsushi 13y ago

35 seems like a nice round number for people to self-sort into two bins: people that decided yes, it's time to stop trying, there will be no more sunrises... and then the other set, who think this is just ridiculous and roll their eyes that age has anything to do with it. And even if the second set is wrong, and there is actually something about getting older that actually slows us down or makes us worth less, it's a terrible idea to believe in it. I see no value in thinking about it. How would anyone improve their life by deciding some threshold has been passed? Sounds like a good way to speed up decay.

wobbleblob 13y ago
Here's how I look at it. It's not the decimal number of years since your birth, but the phase in your life that closes doors. In tech, you constantly need to keep up to date on the latest technologies, read publications and go to conferences, because experience gets stale very fast. It's also easier (than in fields like medicine or law) for junior techies to get up to speed in experience, because they can skip the decades of now obsolete tech and fast forward to roughly where you are at. This is fine. It can be fun and it's definitely rewarding. Then by your early thirties, three things change at the same time: you get promoted to a busier, more responsible position, you have small kids, and you get fat. The (waking) time you have for yourself shrinks from 8-10 hrs to about an hour if you're lucky. You can use that hour to study and keep up to date, to do something about that gut and exercise, or you're so tired you just want to relax. Pick one. In my opinion, this is why middle aged people seem so lazy and boring.
- digitalsushi 13y ago
  I believe (not through science, but just to make my world make sense) that time spent on exercising doesn't count against the wall-clock. I tell myself that every hour in the gym is an hour longer I'll live, and all the idle thoughts I have while I am in there are a consolation prize for suffering. It helps get me into the gym. It's petty but it is enough.
  - vidarh 13y ago

toblender 13y ago

Age is just a number. What you do with yourself each day is what counts.

japhyr 13y ago

I turned 40 last year, and I am loving it. I miss the physical resilience of being in my 20s, but I wouldn't trade where I am now to go back to my 20s. I grew up relatively sheltered in New England, and moved to NYC to teach as soon as I graduated from college. I spent my 20s teaching in the city and bicycling around North America in the summers. At 29, I moved to Alaska. I spent my 30's climbing mountains, doing mountain rescue work, and continuing to teach. I just turned 40, and I feel like this decade is about building some things that last. I feel like I came into more serious hacking at just the right time in my life. I now have the experience to know exactly what I want to build, and I have the long-term mindset needed to build important things. After having stood in front of NYC public school classrooms, bicycled around the continent, faced bears in the wild, and dropped out of helicopters onto steep mountains, dealing with servers and such is just another satisfying challenge to play with. Life is wonderful if you keep right on living.

coffeeaddicted 13y ago
Getting 40 made me just feel old. I no longer have as much energy, keeping my weight got harder and let's not forget the annoying loss of hair. Additional experience is somewhat nice, but doesn't make up for it. Then again I spend most of my 30's getting out of debt because of a failed startup. Which might have given me a more negative view on life (last time I could afford traveling around was ~10 years ago).
- gadders 13y ago
  Shave your head. That's one problem solved.
  - datalus 13y ago
    Good advice, I'm in my latter 20s and I'm already there.
    - gadders 13y ago
      42 now, but I think I started at around your age.

talmir 13y ago

I am 30 and my career is just taking off :) I do very much hope I have more than five years in me

phaed 13y ago

Thanks, I needed this reminder.

Codhisattva 13y ago

I'm almost fifty and I feel like I'm just hitting my stride. But then I felt that as I approached 30 and 40 too. So yeah, you might not see it while in your 20s but nothing feels better than the combination of intelligence and experience. That is, the result of learning how to learn.

jmsduran 13y ago

Very inspiring article. Being 24, almost half-way to 30, these past few months I've been thinking to myself "what have I really accomplished outside of work and school"? I think this is due partly to the high expectations I set for myself, but I also believe part of it is due to the current tech culture, where it's easy for those new to the field to misinterpret that if they aren't moving as fast as everyone else, they must be doing something wrong. I'm coming to understand that everyone is unique, one's career/life progress is no better than another's. Thanks for the refreshing perspective OP.

jganetsk 13y ago
Half-way to 30 is 15.
- jmsduran 13y ago
  Sorry, meant to imply half-way through my 20's.
galfarragem 13y ago
Focus in relationships. All the rest is not important.
Spooky23 13y ago
+10 galfarragem's comment. End of the day, focus on building strong relationships and you'll find that business gets easier. Don't be a 2D person.

steven777400 13y ago

Unfortunately, there are aspects to our culture that conflate personal value with success; that is, your value as a human being is based on your success. So it's easy to compare to the very visible milestones; Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, etc. Or to compare to people we know personally; the successful start-up founder with a nice exit, the entrepreneur who got his lifestyle business off the ground and now pays the bills with it. For me, it's easy to think "I am a failure" compared to these people, especially as the years pass and the number of successes I know increases, but I'm not "one of them". This is a severe error of conflating my external success with internal value. I prefer to recall the old Taoist saying, "Work is done, then forgotten."

tluyben2 13y ago
People actually compare themselves to Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg? That sounds rather sad to me to be honest.
- foley 13y ago
  Aim for the stars, land on the moon. It's not the comparison that's sad, letting it define your worth is. It's something I struggle with, almost 30 still struggling through my degree and working on minor projects. But personally when I look back a few years painfully grinding through life addicted to meth it makes today's small successes feel like a billion dollars.

kyro 13y ago

I often worry about whether my startup clock is running out. I'm closer to 30 than 20, finishing up graduate school, and for the most part feel young. But other than the pediatrics ward, the only other time I start to feel my age is when attending some of these startup events. What I try to keep conscious of is knowing what's reported in the media and what isn't, which are often 2 completely different worlds. On TechCrunch, "kid genius makes $100m" is the story they want. It fits this age-old narrative of a child prodigy reaching success in half the time it takes a "normally smart" person to, like Mozart, Einstein. And that media draws in huge amounts of young people hoping to fit that narrative. But what's not reported are the companies that are typically working on much harder and more boring problems -- problems that require an understanding by people who've been in industries for years. Look at any CrunchBase newsletter about the day's fundraising and acquisitions, and you'll find yourself surprised at how many medical/B2B/etc companies are being bought for $100m+. These aren't companies started by 22yo grads, but by people with extensive industry experience. And the (startup) media doesn't really give a damn about them. That's not, in any way, to devalue startups started by younger people. There's little-to-no barrier to starting social apps and the like. They have their place in society and have shown to be successful, so I don't blame a fresh grad who wants to try his/her hand at it. But there is a whole world of other startups and companies that are working in more complicated and boring industries that could not have been started by people in their early 20s. Experience still matters, as unsexy as it is.

japhyr 13y ago
> Experience still matters, as unsexy as it is. Absolutely. I think what really makes the difference is whether people also carry the youthful mindset of always being ready to spot problems, and do something about it. I have seen plenty of people with more experience than I have, who have lost the sense that they can actively make things better. It's the people who have experience, and still feel they can shape the world around them, who make things happen.
- matwood 13y ago
  Exactly. Treat every new project like your first, but also bring all your experience with you.

MichailP 13y ago

Very nice article, it resonated with me. It seems that talented people have a great burden, which comes in form of often asking yourself "have you done enough with all the talents you have?". It seems to be quite common, and it even made it to the Bible (I think it is called story about three servants). Funny that money in that story is called talent :)

damon_c 13y ago

I used to look at those "guitar player wanted (under 30 only)" ads on craigslist when I was in my late 20s and be confused about why there was such a hard line on the people's rock band aptitude. When I got to be around 35 I realized that if you want to be in a rock band, you need to be ok with working a lot for no money and spending your weekends in a van and those are things I just didn't want to do anymore and probably most people in their 30s have a tapering off tolerance for such things. But for stuff involving computers? They age much faster than we do and will never judge us by our ages.

elmuchoprez 13y ago
"Never trust anyone over 30" is a bit of a rallying cry among musicians. It's often attributed Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Jerry Rubin and a few others during the 1960's, but I'm not sure anyone really knows who said it first. I would guess that people are actually referencing that whole movement when they put it in the Craigslist ads rather than setting a hard and fast restriction. Or maybe it's a bunch of 22-year-olds who just want to hang out with people their own age.
- typicalrunt 13y ago
  I wonder what kind of rationalization Bob Dylan, The Beatles, et al went through once they reached 30 years of age. Do they move the goal posts to not trusting anyone over 40? Or do they admit that they were youthful and wrong and state that untrustworthy people, at any age, are the only people that shouldn't be trusted.
  - mixmastamyk 13y ago
    Probably both. The concept in the 60's at least was partly due to change in culture between the young "hippies" vs. the older "man". People were realizing in a big way that "the man" was lying to us... Vietnam War, etc. Things haven't changed much in that regard, but the corporate/govt media "alliance" has become more sophisticated in dispersing/distracting such anger.
  - eruditely 13y ago

AhtiK 13y ago

As a flip side, life can also end tomorrow, for anyone of us.

zaidf 13y ago

His advice to me: Don't be in so much of a rush. Be easier on yourself. If you connect with this idea, you may want to check out the book The Inner Game of Tennis: http://www.amazon.com/The-Inner-Game-Tennis-Performance/dp/0679778314 http://www.amazon.com/The-Inner-Game-Tennis-Performance/dp/0...

hakkasan 13y ago
Thanks! I'll look into that. I've been trying to explore this topic in other domains recently. I find sports coaches have done a great deal of exploration into the effects of personal attitude especially in managing one's emotional reactions to outcomes.

StandardFuture 13y ago

Actually, maybe I am being short-sighted ... but what I get out of this article is that his grandfather WOULD (could) have been just as 'successful' as he was in his 60s much earlier in life if World War II and Mao had not ruined possibilities for his generation. If he had been allowed to do research from his early 20s wouldn't it still have been possible for him to be just as successful at it? Maybe his 30s would have been his heavy hitting decade? In general maybe we all get about a decade of heavy hitting and it just happens earlier or later for some? :P

hobbes300 13y ago
The point is that you can still be successful after your 30s.
- StandardFuture 13y ago
  Sure, but the article does make this point as well: >My grandpa had no choice but to wait a long time for his opportunity. It's likely he would have achieved even more had be moved to the West.
hakkasan 13y ago
I think that it's fair to say he could have made a bigger contribution in a more permissive environment. What I had initial tried to do with this piece was explore the notion of how we define success. I think the success that my grandpa achieved late in his life was a happy byproduct of being able to apply him self through his career. The enthusiasm he poured into his work prior was the real personal reward and not necessarily the recognition he gained. These are still unpolished thoughts. I want to explore more fully in a future post.

Toenex 13y ago

For a start-up it's not age that matters but risk aversion. You need to be happy/able to take on the risks, which are mainly financial. However, there will typically be a relationship between age and risk with the most risk averse period in your 30's and 40's when you are probably having kids. So if you don't feel you succeeded in your 20's and early 30's, hang on in there 'cause you'll get another opportunity later in life.

selleck 13y ago

Great reminder. I am turning 32 early next year and started teaching myself programming this year. Sometimes doubt creeps up on me and makes me feel like I am wasting my time, but stuff like this helps. Onward!

BigChiefSmokem 13y ago
Yes, just keep going! I started programming relatively late (at age 26), after becoming unemployed during the recession, for a govt agency in a small town in Florida. But now, at my current age of 30, I have a very lucrative job working for a major movie studio in LA as a software engineer. I have a lot of ambition at 30 than I ever did at 20 and that has been motivated by my failures. I might of missed my "startup years" and hacker culture in general but I'm definitely on track for big things. I hope to soon finally settle down and raise a family as well.
- faizdev 13y ago
  Nice! I'm just starting out as a softie too, also due to the economy, did you start out with the web too? What language, how long until you found the job that kickstarted your career?
72deluxe 13y ago
Well done, keep it up! I am 30 in a few months and already a developer so it is great to see someone marginally older than me just taking it up. Out of interest, what did you do before?
- selleck 13y ago
  Still currently in software sales. I am taking the long view and expect to be in sales for the next year or two or three as I begin applying what I am learning to actually building.

quaffapint 13y ago

I'm getting past 40 and I don't think the problem will necessarily be with me in the coming years as much as it will with employer bias. While you can keep up with the latest tech stuffs, some employers still don't want to pay for your experience or see your age as a liability vs being able to run a youngin' ragged. One other thing I took away is that the author seemed that if you didn't make a big world impact no matter your age then you didn't succeed. I get into that mindset every once in awhile and feel rather down about it. Then I realize I'm raising my family, and while I may never be remembered for that amazing startup, I will be remembered by the ones that in the end truly matter.

hakkasan 13y ago
Yes, the definition of success is something I want to explore more fully. The media/tech portrayal of success is extremely 1 dimensional and results in a great deal of dissatisfaction and anxiety. Personally, I think it has less to do with big wins or press worthy outcomes and more about consistently applying oneself in a manner that you can be proud of. You make sacrifices to fit all the things that are important to you in life and that's fine. Let the public have their judgements. Ultimately, you only have to answer to yourself.

everly 13y ago

"Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75." Benjamin Franklin

david927 13y ago
"Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them." Thoreau

6cxs2hd6 13y ago

Top managers are traditionally drawn from the ranks of 50-somethings. Sure, that's partly due to a retirement age of 65, and partly a function of institutional ladder-climbing. But not just that. Someone in their 50s has a few decades of experience. Almost every situation or problem reminds them of something they've already seen or solved before. Intuition or gut instinct draws on experience, therefore it improves with experience. Now, I wouldn't argue that someone in their 50s (or older) is prima facie better than someone younger. Just that they're not automatically worse. p.s. You could argue that "too much experience" can be a bad thing, and blind someone to innovation. Although that's a good point I'd argue that the issue isn't too much experience, instead it's usually too narrow experience and/or too little ability to process it effectively.

hakkasan 13y ago
Yes, my grandpa actually said that when you are young you are freer creatively and take greater risks. This doesn't always lead to better outcomes but it gives you access to opportunities you wouldn't get later in life. Likewise, as you've pointed out, when you are older, your experience opens a different set of doors.
- pjmorris 13y ago
  This echoes one of my favorite lines from Lawrence of Arabia, at the end, in Damascus: Lawrence of Arabia: Prince Feisal: "There's nothing further here for a warrior. We drive bargains. Old men's work. Young men make wars, and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men. Courage and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace. And the vices of peace are the vices of old men. Mistrust and caution. It must be so."

hangonhn 13y ago

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.

BigChiefSmokem 13y ago

Do this: stop comparing yourselves to Steve Jobs for a moment and go ask your parents, spouse, good friends, and confidants if you are a person of value (forget about "success"), and to give you some examples. This should clear it all up for you.

greenlander 13y ago

I worked as a manager at a major semiconductor company in Silicon Valley for many years. I interviewed thousands of candidates, many of who were older than me. I noticed that older engineers seemed to bifurcate into two groups: the ones who were curious about everything, and the ones who stayed in their box. The ones who were curious about everything remained great engineers. They tinkered with new technologies, read books about software project management, wrote cool little programs in unusual languages like Haskell or Scheme, etc. These guys were invariably great engineers, and their experience was just icing on the cake. The ones who stayed in their niche of writing x86 assembly, COBOL applications for mainframes or writing the same class of network drivers for Linux for fifteen years were usually awful. I don't doubt that there is actual ageism out there. However, when I did interviews I never cared. However, I also noticed that the "lazy engineers" hadn't really done anything in their career to expand their skill set beyond the minimum their employers required them to do, and I could see why they were not employable. The older "curious, passionate" engineers I hired worked out awesome.

johnjlocke 13y ago
The type of people you describe exist not only in the programming field, but in every single walk of life. We simply notice more because our field changes so quickly. There will always be people who remain curious throughout their lives, as there will always be people who stay close to what they know because they believe it to be safe.
photex 13y ago
This gives me hope for the future. :)

gotrecruit 13y ago

i'm 27 years old this year, and i graduated recently with a business undergrad degree. i've tried my hand at doing a startup throughout my undergraduate degree but failed, and if i'm being completely honest, i felt like i learned very little from that experience as i was not a technical founder. at 28 next year, i will be returning to school again for a computer science bachelor's and frankly, this 35 year old threshold keeps coming up in my head. years ago i set myself an ambitious goal of being a self-made millionaire by the time i'm 30, and a billionaire by 40. it's crazy talk to most people, but it was a goal i set for myself. obviously, it doesn't seem that plausible now - it's really more of a fantasy than anything at this moment but still... i find myself feeling old and having wasted many years of my life. this blog post lifted my spirits a little. i feel that if i begin working really hard now and make the next few decades of my life extremely, exceptionally and extraordinarily productive, i can probably still achieve enough to make up for the last few unproductive years of my life.

hakkasan 13y ago
Thanks for sharing your experiences. I feel this definition of what it means to be successful is something I need to address properly in a future post. Much of my anxiety in the matter stemmed from setting similar ambitions to your own. I don't think it was wrong of me to set these benchmarks, but today I find myself questioning the "why" more and more. Increasingly I try to look at success as a more fluid notion. I feel it has many dimensions that constantly evolve with my changing world view and life. It can be valuable to set goals but I think it's just as important not to be myopic to the rest of the world at their expense. I feel a lot of it comes down to attitude. My grandpa would still have been a happy man had he not had the opportunity to pioneer medical science. Prior to his 60s, his curiosity and willingness explore meant he had a fulfilling life. He wasn't expecting and waiting for a big success. He was focused on what he was able to do and made sure he did it to the best of his abilities. These are some quick thoughts on a bus and I apologise if it seem like I'm being preachy. I'm only 29 and very much still figuring it all out. I dare say I will be doing that until I die. Please share your thoughts, especially if they run counter to what I've written.

wting 13y ago

A similar question was asked on Quora recently: https://www.quora.com/Silicon-Valley/What-do-people-in-Silicon-Valley-plan-to-do-once-they-hit-35-and-are-officially-over-the-hill https://www.quora.com/Silicon-Valley/What-do-people-in-Silic... Some of the companies and founders' ages compiled from the answers: - Zynga: 41 - LinkedIn: 36 - Salesforce: 35 - Intel: 41, 39 - Qualcomm: 52, 50 - Juniper Networks: 42 - Wikipedia: 35 - Pandora: 35 - GigaOm: 39 - Zipcar: 42 - TechCrunch: 35 - Craigslist: 42 - Netflix: 37

thatthatis 13y ago
To clarify, that's founders age at founding. Not curret age of founder.
eliasmacpherson 13y ago
I know that LinkedIn culturally didn't work crazy hours to get where they were - does anyone know, are any others listed that started out as '9-5' organizations?
- api 13y ago
  I am skeptical of the 60-80 hours thing. It seems like more of a macho thing than a real requirement. The problem is that when you workaholic yourself your productivity per unit time drops, so you're spending more hours but doing as much as you might do in shorter bursts of more focused time. In some cases it's worse... you get total burnout.
  - johnjlocke 13y ago
    The 60-80 hours thing is how computer peeps express their machismo. If we were jocks, we would do like 1000 pushups or something. If you need to spend that much time getting it off the ground, you are doing it wrong.
    - mcv 13y ago
      I see more value in accomplishing stuff in as little hours as possible. It's not about the hours, it's about what you get done. And once you get stuck, it can be more productive to leave the computer and get some sleep, eat, walk, take a shower, etc. The best ideas or solutions come to you when you're doing something else. To me, saying you work 60-80 hours means you're either doing something very simple, or you're not doing much at all.

frozenport 13y ago

Real Stories ->Chinese politics hampered innovation ->If you plan to change the world in Academia expect to do it in your 50s

onebaddude 13y ago

Add me to the list of people who sometimes feels this way. This is the most inspirational commentary I've read on HN.

segmondy 13y ago

If you believe you can, you can. If you believe you can't, you can't.

johnjlocke 13y ago
(this) === true;

special 13y ago

From the title I expected a wishy-washy, pseudo-inspirational blog post and instead my entire concept of success was shaken up and realigned. Great post.

hakkasan 13y ago
Thanks, that's kind of you to say. I admit, it's a bit "link-bait" but my other attempts at a title were either too cryptic or long winded.

ChuckMcM 13y ago

The key though from this story is this bit "Having only been allowed to complete his undergraduate degree, he spent decades doing whatever research and teaching came his way." One the key differentiators is whether or not people are willing to continue learning. People who learn continue to be useful, people who stop learning eventually aren't. (useful that is)

hakkasan 13y ago
Precisely. I think his continued application and exploration are the biggest personal rewards. The opportunity that appeared was fortunate and the acclaim a happy byproduct.

Merovingio 13y ago

I'm 42, and I've found much benefits from taking daily tablets of B-vitamin complexes http://www.my-lifespan.com/b_vitamincomplexforte.html http://www.my-lifespan.com/b_vitamincomplexforte.html Mostly they helped easing my back pain and headaches, because of their effects on nerves, but I've also found myself to be more energetic expecially in the morning, getting a more restful sleep with less insomnia. Give it a shot.

nealabq 13y ago

The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself. --Mary Schmich http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-schmich-sunscreen-column,0,4054576.column http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-schmich-su...

themodelplumber 13y ago

What a great article. I loved the Chinese idiom too (or whatever you call those four-character things). It's funny, I was watching a video on this today: http://www.wimp.com/getfit/ http://www.wimp.com/getfit/ That made me feel a bit more realistic about life. :-)

dfjorque 13y ago
Those idioms are called "chengyu" (成语) and there are hundreds (or thousands) of them. Some of them come from ancient Chinese stories and poems and are pretty allegorical in nature; others, like (seemingly) the one mentioned in the article, are self-explanatory (to a Chinese speaker).

gadders 13y ago

In terms of start-ups, career etc I don't think it's impossible to do it in your 40s, but I'd say you're more explicitly aware of the sacrifices involved and typically have more to lose.

tmbsundar 13y ago

Freud wrote his "Interpretation of Dreams" when he was 43. Colonel Sanders started franchising of KFC at 65. More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_bloomer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_bloomer

dzink 13y ago

The immigration process delayed the start of my startup and I'm sure many others are facing that too. Started at 28 even though I'd been in the US since I was 19.

trumbitta2 13y ago

I wish I could take this amazing advice for granted. I'm in my late thirties (36) and still can't afford having a baby. As you may guess, one cannot wait till his sixties for that... So, it really depends on what's the meaning of "successful" to you :)

bippi 13y ago
I know it is trite to say, "No one can afford having a kid." but it's really the truth. For me, sure daycare, toys, and food aren't putting me in the poorhouse, but there is no way I can bankroll everything I think my kids deserve.
- trumbitta2 13y ago
  My problem is my house is 50mq with just one bedroom, and I can't still afford moving to a larger one. Where larger means 2 bedrooms. Context: in Italy you are supposed to own a house vs renting one. Everything in the society and regulations is organized towards owning it vs renting.
  - quaffapint 13y ago
    We lived in a small apartment when we had our first. It was simply a choice we made, we wanted to be somewhat younger when our kids grew up. Now we have a house, and I think not starting right off with everything made me appreciate things more. There's others that do it the other way too. It just depends upon your's and your other half's choice.
  - Kurtz79 13y ago
    Context: In Italy you have free education, healthcare and higher education is dirt cheap (and not necessarily bad) compared to other countries. It's by all accounts a first world country in terms of civil rights and development (regardless of what some italians, and non italians, think). There are way worse countries to raise a child in (economically speaking). I was raised there with a brother and a sister just with my father's (lower middle class) salary, and I had a fantastic childhood.

zhaphod 13y ago

If that were the case I would be dead just about now. And I haven't even done half the things I would like to before I die.

pneumatics 13y ago

If you're turning 30, you're entering your fourth decade, not your third.

JeremyMorgan 13y ago

Great story. I'm 36 and things only seem to be getting better for me, and I know things are only going to get way better. My greatest achievements are ahead of me, not behind me. Sounds cheesy but it's all in your outlook. Good on you gramps for teaching us yet another lesson in that.

pydanny 13y ago

My life finally kicked into gear when I was 38. NASA hired me. Since then I finally realized my dream to travel around the world professionally as a developer, participated in multiple startups, wrote a well-received book, found the woman of my dreams, and changed possibly hundreds of lives. Post-35 rocks!

antimagic 13y ago

Yes. On the other hand, I'm quite enjoying my existence as a zombie...

kamaal 13y ago

I'm working with a senior person off late. I'm in my late 20's. One of the things that he warned me against is hipster trends. These can really derail a good technically intensive career. Anyone who is glamorizing hipster practices over genuine experience should go out and build a few embedded systems, a car, or a pacemaker, or a dialysis machine, control system for a nuclear reactor, or a better routing algorithm etc. If you are busy building <insert yet another MVC site here> and refusing to look and learn from other software domains, you will likely never work on any technically meaty projects ever and soon fall victim to age related discrimination. Building great things requires experience. Its not about impatience, and that thing about 'fail quick, fail fast' - 'quick iterations'. Some of the most significant work happens only at a slow steady pace. With proper planning, fore though about quality/stability of systems you are trying to build. Most importantly its about the seriousness and the impact of the problems you are trying to solve. This takes time and with it you will age.

pnathan 13y ago

As I move towards 30 at a somewhat surprisingly fast rate, I find that my life has changed. I don't do stupid stuff like all-night coding sessions, because it produces bad work and a lousy morning. It always did, but previously the glory of the late night hack outweighed the lousyness of what I made. I've seen things again and again. I'm also fairly positive I am getting smarter, or at mentally more capable. I can conceptualize things today that simply were mentally out of reach for the 20 y/o me. I have a tremendous focus on self-improvement and learning, so I don't expect this to change a great deal in the metanarrative, but I expect to learn new types of things as I move forward with life and move away from learning certain kinds of details.

MattGrommes 13y ago

I turned 35 a few months back and I've thought the past couple of years were my best yet, with more best to come. I had kids early-ish (my daughter is about to turn 12) and people would always say I missed fun stuff in my 20s. The way I look at it is my kids will be out of the house in my mid-40s while everybody else is getting older _and_ dealing with kids. I'm living in my favorite city, doing kickass things at work, getting less afraid to do more interesting/scary things all the time. I laugh in the faces of kids who think life ends after 29.

dotcoma 13y ago

Yeah. I'm dead.

mark_sz 13y ago

PG - he's a good example that life doesn't end after 35:)

gaius 13y ago
"But I don't expect to convince anyone (over 25) to go out and learn Lisp" <--- http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html

BuckRogers 13y ago

"He recently Skyped me about co-patenting a new method of microwave cooking." PATENT TROLL! ALERT APPLE, SOMEONE'S TRYING TO GET IN THEIR MARKET!!! WE DON'T APPROVE OF INNOVATION AND PATENTS HERE ON HN

planetmcd 13y ago

A good life, yes. After that its mostly just changing diapers, paying mortgages , chatting about 401Ks, and dealing with loud music.

Imagenuity 13y ago

People are too obsessed with age. What is the point of telling yourself you CAN'T do something because an arbitrary counter reached an arbitrary point? Useless beliefs are what will limit you.

brothe2000 13y ago

I'd like to think that if you have an open mind and are willing to "think young", I think experience can provide you with a greater reach to build what you want. Young people have a belief everything is possible but may not always have the means. When you are older, you typically have more means but are too grounded in reality of what's possible. Age is a number not a limitation.

ascendantlogic 13y ago

I'm 35. I've worked for a couple small companies and I am at a startup now. I certainly hope my life doesn't end now. I certainly would love to get something started but I feel I'm old enough where I understand the value of family and sane time limits. Looking back I could see myself taking a shot in the dark on something but I'm not necessarily disappointed that I didn't. I've learned so much and continue to each day. If you want to be a billionaire by 25 you'll kill yourself. The odds are so astronomical it's almost funny. I say spend your years learning what you can, then start something when you have savvy and perspective. But that's just me.

nikatwork 13y ago

"In 63 BC as a quaestor in Spain, Julius Caesar is said to have broken down and wept in front of a statue of Alexander the Great, realizing that where Alexander had conquered most of the known world at thirty, Caesar at that age was merely seen as a dandy who had squandered his wife's fortunes as well as his own."

sainib 13y ago

Thanks for sharing and I always have this thought at the back of my mind. I am 36 and launched my first serious part-time(gotta pay bills) startup last Dec after working on it for over a year. This was after 2 attempts half-ass ideas with no solid business plan. This article definitely boosts morale.

sainib 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

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anish_t 13y ago

end after 35? i am touching 39 and getting ready to start my real startup. My partners are all few years older than me. I never wanted to be in a job and have been running my services company for the last 12 years. While the current business is doing fine, past few years I had this increasing urge to break out from the services mould and "create" something of our own. Couple of months back I took the decision to take this plunge. We have structured our existing business so that it would continue to run in the hands of my partners while I am venturing out and doing our thing. So yes, to outsiders or even friends and family it might feel a little late to start out afresh I am all loving it and living every moment of it!

AnthonBerg 13y ago

No. Of course not. C'mon. Quite an annoying headline.

lelele 13y ago

Life does not end after 35, but your energy levels and stamina will be lower than in your younger years. Yes, even if you exercise and eat healthy (indeed, you'll have to stay fit just to keep going). Moreover, with age (hopefully) comes experience, and with experience may come a jaded view of society that can kill your dreams on birth. Qohelet wisely stated that "For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow." I hope you will be among the exception.