Maybe? The type of diversity that companies care about (to contrast with the many strawmen out there) happens to be good for the bottom line. That is, a team with 5 men and 5 women is likelier to perform better than one with 10 men [1]. Some explanations I have heard are that diversity brings perspective that wouldn't be present in a monoculture, and that it improves psychological safety which is a huge determiner of team performance [2]. There are models out there made by actual social scientists of why diversity helps. See [3] for instance, has both elements.<p>It does seem like age-based discrimination would have a negative effect on psychological safety, as with any discrimination due to conscious or unconscious biases. Regarding perspective, an experienced individual could either bring in valuable insight from their experience or constantly veer towards the status quo, partly depending on how you want to look at it.<p>I think the answer is: it is complicated. You now have my ideas on why diversity is valuable. Does age fit that model? (Even if not, of course, age-based discrimination is not good.)<p>[1] <a href="https://news.mit.edu/2014/workplace-diversity-can-help-bottom-line-1007" rel="nofollow">https://news.mit.edu/2014/workplace-diversity-can-help-botto...</a>
[2] <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learn...</a>
[3] <a href="https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-diversity-can-drive-innovation" rel="nofollow">https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-diversity-can-drive-innovation</a>
[4] <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/1841060/redefining-diversity-new-global-workforce" rel="nofollow">https://www.fastcompany.com/1841060/redefining-diversity-new...</a> - bonus
Serious question: are you trolling? I hire programmers for a startup. When I do, we do not care at all how old you are. We care about attitude, skills, and aptitude.
Age based discrimination is a thing, but it is nearly orthogonal to the context in which corporations think about diversity. This orthogonal its is a product of senior folks supposedly expecting more pay, and lack of oversight using age as a metric of diversity.<p>At the tech giant I work at, older technical folks seem to either climb the corporate ladder a few rungs or get ground into contracting peons. It's not pretty...<p>I find that a lot of 'new' ideas in computing are just the latest iteration. So there's certainly value in having folks around who have seen many iterations.
Probably not as old (white?) male. But there is a simple way to increase your diversity.<p>You could start identifying as a woman, it is just a verbal identification, no other changes are required. This way you would also become lesbian.<p>In some countries you can legally change your race, by religious conversion (Sikht in UK). Again, religion is just a verbal identification.
What about me? (I'm young but feel old from all the js-framework-of-the-week/pico-services(a service for every non-constant value) /docker-in-kubernetes-in-vm/golang mumbo-jumbo)