Only it was 640K (the old IBM PC limitation), and Gates never said it (at least can't be verified from any source).

But even if he HAD said it, it's still a perfectly fine claim, since it spoke for users of the IBM PC of the time, given programs and common applications of the time. And as it's said to be told around 1980-81 it was totally write: it took half a decade or more for the limit to even matter to users. Obviously the hypothetical Gates would have perfectly known future PCs would need more memory, and there's nothing in the quote to imply it was meant as something that would be true forever.

Zuckerberg's line on the other hand is total BS. But then again his main claim is hitting the jackpot with the right crappy PHP app that appealed to the zeitgeist. So more of an "right idea at the right time" person than a real genius like Bill Joy.

Old people do tend to be wiser. When you are 20 you simply can't make up for the 10 extra years of experience you are missing against someone who is 30...and someone who is 50 and has used the last 20 years improving themselves (after having a decade of their 20s to make mistakes you can't imagine)...forget about it. No matter how smart you are you can't overcome the slow accumulation of experience that time brings.

I think what Goodenough says about not closing your mind as you age is key. Some old people stop learning, but if you combine a lifetime of learning and being willing to change your mind, it's remarkable what you can do. One of the great detriments to the tech industry is the youth movement. Giving college kids the world is detrimental to the world and ultimately those people. Adversity is good.

You can't know what you don't know?

The article is about genius, but the strengths you attach to the young here apply more to what I would consider being a good worker drone.

When considering the cases of both Goodenough and Zuckerberg, my takeaway is that when it comes to genius, age is a non-factor.

It's just a poorly managed/developed project. Plain and simple.

It appears to me that every bodily system slowly degrades as you age. Care to site any scientific studies showing that intelligence does not decline with age? That is a surprising claim to make.

All the stuff you mention, you can measure. How do you measure intelligence? The kind of intelligence/wisdom that leads to making new scientific discoveries?

I will posit that raw intellectual horsepower might decline with age (and even then, what the hell is this thing and how would we measure it?), but it's also clear to me that decades of accumulated wisdom and study can increase the likelihood of making a new discovery.

Of course eventually you start running up against mechanical limits and you decline. But that peak is much later than the peak in sensory bandwidth.

Studies show that older people are smarter. Despite your apparent youth, I'm fairly certain you can find the relevant studies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_and_crystallized_intelli... :

"In psychology, fluid and crystallized intelligence are factors of general intelligence, originally identified by Raymond Cattell."

Fluid intelligence peaks around 18 years of age, then declines.

Crystallized intelligence is your accumulation of knowledge and skill. It increases until age 65 then slowly declines.

Readers should be careful not to interpret this as meaning you're washed up at age 66. It means you're still close to your peak.

If peak physical condition was correlated with peak intelligence, we would expect 17-18 year olds to be making major changes in our world