Silicon Valley has a strange fixation on age which waffles between discrimination and fetishisation.
I started working as a trader at a Swiss bank in New York when I was 20. There were lots of jokes cracked about "traders south of the drinking age" and the number mattered more to some than others, but in the end it was meritocratic.
When I was 21 (after leaving the bank), I interviewed at a well-regarded Palo Alto-based tech firm and painfully remember every round of the interview bringing up that I didn't go to a prestigious enough university and that I looked "baby-faced". Granted, I look older in a suit, but it's a curiously consistent cultural artefact. You don't find anyone lauding over 22-year old hedge fund or energy venture founders as VCs do over over their 19-year old "rock stars".
Yes probably 25 is the perfect age -- and even then some (unprofessional) professionals will still consider you too young to seriously talk to. But the most amazing fact is this: these kind of people who do this discrimination probably also discriminate against people who are older than themselves. And one day chances are they will be discrimininated against for that.
I started working as a trader at a Swiss bank in New York when I was 20. There were lots of jokes cracked about "traders south of the drinking age" and the number mattered more to some than others, but in the end it was meritocratic.
When I was 21 (after leaving the bank), I interviewed at a well-regarded Palo Alto-based tech firm and painfully remember every round of the interview bringing up that I didn't go to a prestigious enough university and that I looked "baby-faced". Granted, I look older in a suit, but it's a curiously consistent cultural artefact. You don't find anyone lauding over 22-year old hedge fund or energy venture founders as VCs do over over their 19-year old "rock stars".