Are You Experienced?
Finding Career and Purpose after 50
There’s that scene in the archetypal Twilight Zone episode where Burgess Meredith, the librarian and bibliophile at the end of the world, finally is all alone and can read his beloved books. And he stoops over, and his reading glasses crash to the ground, and he crushes them.
This is a metaphor for finding work after you’re 50: You’re in the prime of your experience. You still have energy. You are ready for most situations. But…you’re 50! Nobody wants to hire you.
You’re ready to go, and the very thing that makes you ready to go, is the reason nobody will give you the chance.
The moment you have the freedom to build from your experience, the world steps on your glasses.
Not to mention the poignancy of those reading glasses.
The day you turn 49, you can’t see shit anymore.
When you start looking at job boards expressly aimed at the over-50 set, you quickly realize you are now referred to as “experienced workers.” Kind of drips with back-handed sarcasm.
Hence the name of this newsletter. Are you experienced?
“Experienced workers” sounds like something you’d want as a hiring manager. They probably will make fewer mistakes, they won’t need to learn on the job (as much, or they’ll do it much faster), they’ve seen this movie before.
But from the other side of the desk, there’s a whole host of concerns, and risk abatement is paramount in business:
They’re more likely to get sick and need time off.
They’re much more adjusted to work/life balance, and probably believe the old, and cliched adage, a lack of planning on your part does not dictate an emergency on mine.
They’re now in a protected class, so the risk of litigation is higher.
They have kids and other interests and they’re not going to consider your AI-for-pet-food startup a life consuming mission.
And to be honest, I agree with a lot of that. To an extent.
I’ve been on both sides of the desk. And some of this is true. However, it’s a fair tradeoff for the amount of time, money and energy you will spend nurse-maiding a 29 year old. Even if they are prima facie cheaper.
(That’s latin for “on the face of it” which I learned because I’m old)
“You’ve been out of the game too long,” a VC and founder told me once.
“Guys like you come off a conveyor belt,” somebody else said.
“You’re past your fuck by date,” a music industry demon (who still owes me money) said to me, laughing.
And here I am, standing on a corpse strewn pile of dead tech startups, a record label I started *after* attempting to murder the music industry, an aerosolized pancake batter almost-hit, and a vanity juice company, whose main investor sits in prison for federal bank fraud.
But that experience is rich. And offers a lot, especially to an early stage startup. I’m the king of risk-aversion. I’ve innovated. I’ve sold records, a music encyclopedia, waffle batter, and cold pressed juice that tasted like a sock that stepped in a swamp full of other socks, plus cucumber.
In other words, I can sell anything. And I can make sure you don’t make all the mistakes I already did.
But, finding career purchase after 50 was hard enough before AI started sucking up all the air in the room. Especially in technology; tech is a young person’s game, even though there are thousands of fellas at Burning Man who would argue otherwise. If they could form words through the ketamine.
And so here we are. This newsletter is intended to talk about finding career and purpose as you get older. Whether you’ve been out of work for a while, find yourself suddenly redundant, or simply are attempting a new chapter, this is for you. But it’s also for me, so it’s going to be about things I care about, whether it’s the gains or pains of growing older, or just things I want to talk about. I’ve spent my time in the music industry, at film festivals, launched countless products, been in grocery supply chain and generative AI, in editorial and in operations.
I’m going to share that experience with you. And, for the folks who, eventually, want to support this thing with some ducats, I’ll be adding more community features for job seekers and employers. I imagine a sort of curated job board, as well as a space to trade leads, advice, and connections.
I’m finding that being over 50 is substantially better than I’d imagined it would be. It doesn’t have to be tough or lonely or mind-boggling to start fresh, or re-enter the workforce. Well, it will be, but let’s pretend otherwise.
Welcome to Are You Experienced.
Hey Jett, that's a lot to plow through. But I agree with the gist - all that experience doesn't need to be obsolete or unimportant. I want to see that change, actively.
These new “challenges” are no accident.
The monetary system of the entire globe has been hypothecated into the fiat mess we are currently engaged in.
The so-called leadership has deferred to it and is running away, forgetting that “if you are going to lead, you’ve got have some place to go”…and the question right now, that is the imperative, is…”
Where are we going?”
Why would you follow any one of these people if they do not have a direction worth following?
At the dawn of the 21st Century, I read corporate manifestos filled with promise, excitement and I dare say…vision.
I recalled reading a piece by Stone Yamashita called “Seismic” back in 2002. It was filled with energy, encouragement and actual ideas about the future of business leading the way to help benefit mankind.
Even as far back as when people like Edward Bernays was alive, he encouraged corporations to be actively “leading the public” with new visions for the masses of how our societies could look & function, in the future.
These leadership values were planted within the public consciousness and encouraged productivity along all demographics.
Now the Globalist messaging is not of vision or positivity but of “doom” as well as “You better get use to the future where you will have nothing and have to accept that.”
Just 20 years later! Meh?
Meanwhile making way for the youth, just because they are the ones who are the demographic that “I guess” has the most disposable income and are the main purchasers out there in the market. Is a recipe for temporary success and not long term stability.
Catering to their desires in this moment seems to be occupied with not a lot consistency nor any vision. Other than a “dead end” for that future ahead of them.
Then there are people like myself wondering why all of a sudden our “adult gathered acumen” is no longer needed or worse has any merit in moving society forward?
Is it because the youth are afraid of getting old, which they inevitably will?
While a few sit atop of their algorithmic monopolies (old people) sucking up all the money, free from worry because they got there’s and you will just have to take more classes, get more certifications and really hone your resume so it ranks high…only to receive a cookie cutter response of, thanks but we found someone more tailored to our needs.
I find it hard to believe that all that knowledge and leadership is now, obsolete.
To me playing that type of game is a sure fire way to disintegrate the once robust engine of innovation and ideas that drives a well functioning economy.
But all signs show that this is the current case and climate we are in. Maybe that is the new vision of leadership. If so, I don’t see any vision.
Now that we are once again, like a 100+ years ago, in an environment of Monopolies, with no signs of anyone trying to rectify this…the options are to try and work outside of this and create new paths of innovation outside of the algorithmic and fiat money printing behemoth or give into it.
I for one do not believe youth has all the new ideas and that seasoned people should just move on.
If the world was that fantastic because of that reason, I would. But I don’t feel obsolete. In fact I feel necessary.
And the leadership today I feel has got it wrong and should be the ones stepping aside because they’ve had 20+ years to prove themselves in the 21st Century and to be honest…
I would never follow most of these so-called visionaries into a bathroom never mind the the bleak future they are asking us to all settle for.
These factors I feel cannot be ignored and should be a part of this conversation as well.
Please feel free to respond…I’m durable due to my experience in this thing called, Life. I’ve taken over 50 excursions around the Sun and I’ve seen a lot of what is good and bad about planet Earth.