I've had someone in a YC funded company flat-out tell me that it was going to be a problem for me. (43, and no, he wasn't in the process of hiring me.)
It's not clear from your comment if it was an interview situation, or if it was casual conversation. If the latter, you should call them out.
I'm a fellow 43-year-old. I invest in early-stage startups, and that includes YC companies. I wouldn't invest in a company with that attitude for a very simple reason: they are handicapping themselves. I know what I'm capable of doing right now compared to when I was 25. Maybe I would be a great complement to my 25-year-old self.
The attitude reminds me of this:
"Bill Gates recalls once being invited to speak in Saudi Arabia and finding himself facing a segregated audience. Four-fifths of the listeners were men, on the left. The remaining one-fifth were women, all covered in black cloaks and veils, on the right. A partition separated the two groups. Toward the end, in the question-and-answer session, a member of the audience noted that Saudi Arabia aimed to be one of the Top 10 countries in the world in technology by 2010 and asked if that was realistic. “Well, if you’re not fully utilizing half the talent in the country,” Gates said, “you’re not going to get too close to the Top 10.” The small group on the right erupted in wild cheering."
This is America. Get litigious! Things are illegal for a reason. They can't ask about your age or family status.
When your CEO gets up and says "We don't hire anybody over 28 years old," a dozen lawsuits should be filed within a week. It's amazing people let other people get away with ruling the world this way.
*edit: I had over/under switched in the CEO quote. Fixed.
Are the laws really that specific? I thought the way it generally worked was that discrimination based on age was illegal, but being young is viewed as a proxy for inexperience, so discriminating on that basis is OK. I didn't know there was generally a specific cutoff.
Under U.S. federal law, age discrimination not only protects exclusively the old against the young, it also protects only those over 40.[1] Discrimination in the workplace and in public policy against the young is a big problem (in the moral sense, perhaps not an economic sense) that really has, as far as I can tell, political recognition among essentially no one.
> The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) only forbids age discrimination against people who are age 40 or older. It does not protect workers under the age of 40, although some states do have laws that protect younger workers from age discrimination.
What's "family status"? AFAIK there is no protected "family status". The typical protected classes are race, sex, religion, age, and in some places, sexual orientation.
You shouldn't ask because you can't discriminate "because of marriage to, or association with, an individual of a particular race, religion, national origin, or an individual with a disability" (Title VII).
You don't know if the interviewee is married to a Muslim, an invalid, etc -- if they are, you're open to a lawsuit claiming that was the basis of your discrimination. Just don't ask!
Note that bullet point #7 only seems to apply to housing.
For the second link, it seems like most include protection for marriage status, but almost none for familial status. I'm not sure how that translates in this scenario.
Usually "married with kids" or "are going through a divorce" or "has really sick parents/children they take care of."
Note: It's completely acceptable to discriminate against your boss though. If your boss is going through his fourth divorce and has 8 kids, maybe you don't want to work there.
For what it's worth, it wouldn't be a problem for you at all here (MongoHQ). Anecdotally, I don't think it would be a problem at the more desirable YC companies either.
There are companies that are the opposite in the Bay Area. Almost everyone where I work is over 30, with a median age around 40. These companies tend to be in the suburban south bay and the peninsula although vs SF & Berkeley.
