Silicon Valley's Youth Problem

An anonymous reader writes "The NY Times has an article about the strange cultural rift around tech innovation in Silicon Valley. The companies getting all the press are the ones developing shiny new apps and attempting to reinvent their industry. This attention — and all the money that follows it — is drawing in many young, talented engineers. The result is that getting people to develop needed and useful existing technologies is a harder sell. 'For better or worse, these are the kinds of companies that seem to be winning the recruiting race, and if the traditional lament at Ivy League schools has been that the best talent goes to Wall Street, a newer one is taking shape: Why do these smart, quantitatively trained engineers, who could help cure cancer or fix healthcare.gov, want to work for a sexting app?' This is more evidence that the tech bubble is continuing to inflate: '[I]n the last 10 years in particular, there has been an exacerbation of the qualities for which it's been both feted and mocked: Valuations are absurdly high for companies with no revenue. The founders are younger; the pace is faster.'"

Excuse me?

[Jeremy Erwin]

Are you saying that King Digital, maker of the wildly popular Candy Crush Crush Saga (tm)(r)(c) isn't worth 7.6 billion dollars? [nyti.ms] Surely you jest.

whose lawn, now?

[turkeydance]

35 is the new 65.

Re:whose lawn, now?

[Sponge Bath]

Soon, pregnant women will squat over a cubicle and directly grunt out a new generation of techies trained in utero. Don't trust anyone over 3 months old.