>If so much value is being left on the table ignoring older workers, gather them all up into a company and beat the market.
That's actually exactly my plan should my startup receive funding. I'd say of the first 30 people I'd hire, most are probably above the age of 30. Most have families. All are at the top of their fields. In the Bay Area, those factors probably translate to an average salary of at least $250k, which is roughly double what a typical startup pays in its early days.
I tried this. Older workers are great if you have a stable problem (better than young workers on average), but are terrible if the job requires a lot of context shifting. Startups and stable problems are rarely found in the same room.
Yes. As you get older this gets much harder (I know from personal experience). I wish it were otherwise, but like grey hair and wrinkles it seems just part of getting older.
Well I'm 50 and my job involves a lot of context shifting, solving sudden problems with systems I'm not an expert at (thus requiring research) and generally being a jack of all trades.
I find it easier to do now than I did when I was younger, I see it as just what the job is. When I was younger, a sudden demand to do something different would have me annoyed because it was distracting me from what I really wanted to be working on.
Now I know that everything will be different in 5 or 10 years, so it doesn't really matter what I'm working on as it will be irrelevant soon.
What is your company? What does it do? Have you considered remote workers, aka: experienced older people who want to live in a better place for their families?
Put vaguely, delivers on the promise of future UI (think Iron Man), but does so solving some hard real-world problems in the process.
>Have you considered remote workers ...
Absolutely. While most already live in the Bay Area, there are several people from other countries. I'd have no problem with remote workers. There's definitely additional challenges involved, but nothing that can't be solved, especially with a mature team.
That's actually exactly my plan should my startup receive funding. I'd say of the first 30 people I'd hire, most are probably above the age of 30. Most have families. All are at the top of their fields. In the Bay Area, those factors probably translate to an average salary of at least $250k, which is roughly double what a typical startup pays in its early days.