Throughout the startup world, there is very little in the way of advice for middle-aged / mid-career folks who are looking for a fresh start, or even successful examples of people doing so. If you’re not young or haven’t proven yourself in any notable way by a certain age, the message seems to be that you’re damaged goods.
Maybe I’m deluded. Perhaps 36 really is too old and that’s the harsh truth that no one has the heart to express?
Does anyone else feel this way?
The average age of a business founder in America: 45.
https://hbr.org/2018/07/research-the-average-age-of-a-succes...
Who cares what you think Paul Graham or San Altman might think? Do you imagine they solely have the power to decide who succeeds or fails, or what age you can decide what to do? One thing successful people don’t do is worry about what other people might think.
He said he didn't like the uncertainty of being a musician, which required constant auditions, as well as the ephemeral nature of the performances.
He started taking masonry classes, worked up to a certain grade in the specialized subfield, and pretty quickly started getting jobs. He now has more offers of work than he can take on, and is a qualified instructor.
He's 70, and he loves what he does.
36, you have just graduated out of being a kid (Source: Age 42). You got plenty of time to do things. Age is not your issue. In fact, use the experience you now have to your advantage.
FWIW, I am much older than you and retiring soon and am contemplating a career change. My grandfather went from sales to programming in his early 70s and made a literal fortune[1] contracting.
1. Many millions USD, doing programming on IBM platforms around Y2K. Coincidentally, 2036 [2] and 2038 [3] are coming up.
2. http://www.lieberbiber.de/2017/03/14/a-look-at-the-year-2036...
If you want to do something, have realistic expectations/goals and do it for you. Anything else is setting yourself up for failure.
That said, if you're not willing to put in time _practicing_ and _learning_ in your off-hours, it will be very difficult to break through and be successful on the job at work. And to be hired, you'll need more than a generic code boot camp portfolio.
Although ageism is a real thing in tech, cross-disciplined developers bring a lot of soft skills and creative solutions to teams, at any age. Many companies recognize this.
My larger concern is why you would think this at your age. I hope you don't hold hidden biases against people that are over 40 and attempting to restart their careers.
Why do you even care what Sam Altman and Paul Graham think? What's your goal here? There's a world of difference in how much you need to impress someone to have a stable, rewarding career earning four times the median salary of any other industry that isn't finance or pro entertainment performer compared to trying to convince a VC firm they should give you 9 figures so you can hire a few hundred other people and expand your own business globally.
The harsh truth is actually that you could do a computer science undergrad, complete a master's degree, and start a PhD, and still be younger than I am now!
Many of my clients didn't pick up steam for their biggest projects until they were in their 50s, 60s, or even 70s, because that just happened to be the age that they started feeling like they had to start working towards them.
Put differently, you're going to turn 37 whether or or not you try, so wouldn't you rather be older and at least have tried doing tech?
Potential is worthless, otherwise we'd be ruled by burned out child geniuses.
Someone at 36 has at least 2x more work ahead of them than behind them.
They do need to pick their work and projects carefully. Thirties is when it is fair to expect that someone knows their own self to a degree, has some basis for understanding the perspectives of others, is responsible about commitments, knows to a degree what they know/can do and don't know/shouldn't do, when working with others. In short, an adult.
An adult tackling a problem in a responsible way is how things in the world actually get done. Welcome! You are now in that club.
There are many lucky savant children in the world, who are good at one thing and idiots at many, and for whom drama is a way of life. One of the joys of working with adults is just not having the drama, staying focused on the issue at hand.
It was pretty tough to get my foot in the door. I had nothing on my resume since 2007. But the abbreviated version is that I put together a portfolio and kept trying and eventually got something. Then that went well, and I got another. Hoping to keep the momentum. Will see how it goes I suppose. Keeping my practice going in a smaller capacity just in case and will maintain my license probably forever. I may go back to school as well but I’d prefer to avoid that at this age as I’m a little older than you
Initial jobs were fairly simple automation tasks and from there moved towards my niche which is data analytics/data science. I was given the advice to try to pick a niche and stick to it rather than just do whatever and jump all over the place so I tried to stick to that. It was helpful I think; in the initial stages when I didn’t stick to that I ended up researching and learning a bunch of stuff that wasn’t really relevant to my end goals. Hth
So I don't think it's impossible.
Even if you feel that you have some weakness in technology, you might have some strengths that other people in technology won't have.
No network. No achievements. No notable educational or professional institutions on the CV. Just what feels like an ever-narrowing path to any sort of career success.
You sound a little negative and self-defeatist about everything, whereas a lot of people would be able to spin even a startup failure as an amazing learning and growing experience.
I knew a guy in late 90' who worked in a factory floor. He started tinkering with computers trying to fix them, install software. He had no idea what he's doing at the beginning. He was 40 years old. In the coming years he became a tech wiz. Moved from factory floor to QA camera assembly and programming and on the side had a computer repair business. He started programming on the side as well and became pretty good at it. Real problem-solver guy. The kind of person you want if you're building something no matter hardware or software or both.
To answer your question: No, it's not to late!
At any rate I think a lot of people fail out of programming and into another tech career, so it's not really a bad idea for a 30 something from any field.
I feel great about my decision. I’m learning lots of new things. I’m exploring new skills, tactics, strategies. I’ll be 2 years in (next June) and be able to tell a great story about why I did this and all the great outcomes. And that’s despite all the headaches and stress that come taking the risk. Also, all that knowledge and work experience is definitely worth a ton.
Go for it. I remind myself daily of my little blurb and it’s a really quite a powerful motivator. Happy to help separate from HN too if you need it!
If your concern is more about whether you can actually get hired, you can.
However, as you mention him:
> In 1996, Graham and Robert Morris founded Viaweb and recruited Trevor Blackwell shortly after
At this point, he was 32.
Don't worry about it. The main reason that most startup founders are young is that older people are more likely to have responsibilities which make trying something new difficult for practical purposes.
Identify the skills you need. Acquire them. Identify people who need them. Show them.
Repeat until hired.
This works in every industry, to a certain extent, but in tech, it works very well.
Unfortunately, now, I want to get out of tech, or transfer from ecommerce to a utility company or something. Having a classic mid-life crisis where I look back and think "boy, tech hasn't been terribly fulfilling."
People will doubt you if you doubt yourself.
