{"id":7431,"date":"2015-04-30T12:31:42","date_gmt":"2015-04-30T16:31:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?p=7431"},"modified":"2015-04-30T12:31:42","modified_gmt":"2015-04-30T16:31:42","slug":"mit-alumni-in-their-50s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2015\/04\/30\/mit-alumni-in-their-50s\/","title":{"rendered":"MIT alumni in their 50s"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I attended an MIT alumni gathering last week. There was a slight selection bias in that all those present were people whom an on-campus group was hoping to get donations from. Inadvertently it turned out to be an interesting look into what typical career paths look like once people are 50-60 (though remember that those who&#8217;d been complete financial failures had been screened out).<\/p>\n<p>The medical doctor was at the peak of his career and in no danger of being fired. The university professor had the security of tenure and was looking forward to a defined benefit pension starting six years from now. The corporate attorney was finishing up a prosperous career. The engineers who&#8217;d chosen to work in industry, however, were a varied lot. A woman who&#8217;d taken a job at a defense contractor was still there, 30 years later. The super-wizard Lisp Machine programmer was now in a senior\u00a0technical, but non-supervisory role, at a multi-billion dollar dotcom (not necessarily getting paid more than a competent 30-year-old, however). About half of the engineers, however, talked about being pushed into a financially uncomfortable early retirement and\/or not being able to find work. Aside from the government-related work, the world of these alums does seem be consistent with Dave Winer&#8217;s recent <a href=\"http:\/\/scripting.com\/2015\/04\/24\/iWouldHaveHiredDougEngelbart.html\">&#8220;I would have hired Doug Engelbart&#8221;<\/a> posting (summary: age discrimination is surmountable if you happen to have been one of the most successful engineers of all time (see <a href=\"http:\/\/web.stanford.edu\/dept\/SUL\/library\/extra4\/sloan\/MouseSite\/1968Demo.html\">The Demo<\/a>\u00a0from 1968, featuring everything that you&#8217;re using right now, except maybe for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.getpatchmania.com\/\">Patchmania<\/a>)).<\/p>\n<p>Lesson: Unless you are confident that your skills are very far above average, don&#8217;t take a career path that subjects you to the employment market once you&#8217;re over 50 (and\/or make sure that by age 50 you&#8217;ve saved enough for a retirement that begins at age 50 or 55 and during which you won&#8217;t have employer-provided health insurance for up to a 15-year gap between age 50 and Medicare age).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I attended an MIT alumni gathering last week. There was a slight selection bias in that all those present were people whom an on-campus group was hoping to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>MIT alumni in their 50s - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2015\/04\/30\/mit-alumni-in-their-50s\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"MIT alumni in their 50s - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I attended an MIT alumni gathering last week. 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