This article is wrong on the facts, but more dangerously offers wrong advice on life choices.<p>23 years ago, when I was 23 years old, I actually posted a Usenet question on this topic (archived somewhere?) asking where were all of the "old" programmers?<p>First off, people don't decpreciate, skill sets do. Of course someone making a high salary will be undesirable if their skills stay the same and become commoditized or less relevant. But the same would be true of a young person with the same salary/skills. Every time this happens the challenge becomes finding the next niche that is valuable, and that you like enough to devote lots of time to.<p>Secondly, a lot of older folks get siphoned off to management voluntarily. This can happen when a company doesn't have equal career ladders for tech and management. At good software companies you can advance as individual contributor up to a VP level, while other companies force a switch to management to continue progressing. And of course a few are natural leaders of people who want run a group, or try a cross functional gig. Some feel it's more prestigious to be director of whatever dept.<p>On age discrimination in tech, I hear about it anecdotaly, but haven't yet perceived it happening to me. Maybe it's just too early to notice, or maybe there will always be some people in tech who want to work with the best team possible regardless of age? Would I hire an 80 year old developer? They'd get the same questions as any 25 year old. Show me the code you've written over the last year. Shoe me how you communicate complex concepts in simple ways. Are you a dick to work with?<p>On being too expensive, the reality is there is an effective salary cap for everyone which is a function of company, role, skills, location, etc. You need to know what the cap is and realize if a company balks at going over it then it may have nothing to do with age. The calculus is what it is, older people are just more likely to hit the caps first.<p>Finally I must disagree with the comments I see about young people being less capable. Yes, experience is irreplaceable in certain contexts. However more often I notice the people doing really great work are a special minority of individuals that just have the right combination of smarts, drive, maturity, flexibility, luck, etc.<p>I'll try to remember to follow up on this post in another 23 years to discuss what has changed.