Re:Ask HN: Been writing code for 40 years and can't get hired
by yesenadam on Friday December 31, 2021 @03:00AM
(#29745935)
This may be off topic, but I don't believe "most chess masters" are under 30, whatever MZ meant by that exactly. ("Chess master" is not a term used in chess.) Most top players seem to reach their highest rating between 35 and 45. Looking at ages of the current world top 100[0], about half seem to be over 30, half under. There are not so many players over 40 or 50 at the top these days though. A classical chess game often goes for 5,6,7 hours, and playing a tournament means doing that every day for a week or two. As most players reach 40 or 50, they start to fade after 5 or 6 hours play. It's stressful and tiring - a single mistake often can lose the game, and lose many hours work, sometimes lose weeks/months/years work.
I was aware of Mark Zuckerberg's comment which is why I brought up my age.
“I want to stress the importance of being young and technical,” he said. “Young people are just smarter. Why are most chess masters under 30? I don’t know. Young people just have simpler lives.” -- Mark Zuckerberg, Stanford University in 2007
https://www.quora.com/Is-that-true-that-Mark-Zuckerberg-dont...
Edit: I believe you when you say you don't age discriminate. That's because everyone is watching everyone else, including internal lawyers, to make sure you don't so as to avoid law suits. However, the person that called me was on a private phone call with me that wasn't being recorded, so they could get away with it.