I'm old, Valley-based, and I code. I have a very sketchy resume, filled with inexplicable voids and failed startups, plus one very caveat-filled partial success. I find it almost trivial to find well-paying work coding, and I seem to be able to develop great relationships with engineers half my age. The challenge in my case is to find work that is interesting, challenging, and has potential impact on the world at large, things which I care about more and more as I get older.

My sense is that there are quite a few people, both young and old, who find it hard to break into the 'valley scene'. I've felt that too at times, in spite of my (roughly speaking) successful career. The culture is insular and judgmental in a way that can be very intimidating. However, it should be noted that this is equally true in other areas, especially in what might be called "glamour" fields, such as film, music, fashion, writing, art, etc. In every one of these arenas, there is a clique mentality, where judgement can be swift and capricious, and being "in" is almost a binary value, based on a seemingly subconscious pattern-matching process that can at times feel like the result of a hive mind.

I guess the news flash here is that SV startup life is now officially glamorous. Pretty soon we'll have a raft of reality TV shows dogging our every move, and providing income to those of us who have fallen from the grace of the techno A-list.