I'm reminded of an amusing encounter in Berlin. I went to meet a seemingly promising proto-startup, one associated with a prominent accelerator, at their well-known coworking space. I was interested in their CTO spot and had plenty of relevant experience. I could tell from the first handshake that my potential non-tech counterpart was not exactly amused by my lack of youth, which, as everyone knows, is crucial to CTO success. I was dressed the part - the standard-issue German uniform of polo shirt & jeans, nothing off-putting there. At some point not far into the meeting, he asked me what my GPA was. I kid you not. I graduated from a well-respected school, decades ago, have a long track record with startups, keep up to date on tech, but he emphatically wanted to know my GPA. I scratched my head and guessed, upon which he asked if that put me in the top 5% of graduates at the school. Color me mystified: not only did they not tell us that sort of thing upon graduation, I could not imagine why he would think it important. Not only did he think it important, he informed me, gesturing through the glass partition at the worker bees, "most of the people we hire are in the top 5% of their classes", and that was just something I should know. It seemed obvious that knowing one's GPA and class standing was a gating factor: it screened out both those who could not claim to be “elite”, but also those with enough age and experience for whom school performance had long ago become irrelevant.<p>I found it disturbing how much the Berlin startup community deifies SV, attempts to ape it, and maybe this encounter was just one facet of that. In general my impression was that Berlin companies seemed to be <i>less</i> inclined toward age discrimination than US ones, but I would be interested in hearing other opinions on that.<p>Edit: typo