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Palmer Luckey is the founder of Oculus VR， a start-up that Facebook bought for $2 billion. He is 21 years old. His company makes virtualreality headsets， which are marketed primarily to gamers. In fact， several Oculus staffers are people Luckey met in online-gaming forums when he was a teenager. On the “Careers” section of Oculus’site， large 1）candid photos 2）depict what one can only assume is the staff. They are overwhelmingly male. They are overwhelmingly white. And yes， a few of them are wearing hoodies. In a statement at the bottom of the page， Oculus 3）avers it is“governed on the basis of merit， competence and qualifications，” and its hiring decisions are not influenced by race， gender， or age.
It’s been a full decade since Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook and launched a thousand breathless trend stories about the code-fluent， postadolescent masses 4）flocking to Silicon Valley to change the world in Adidas 5）slip-on 6）sandals. But this youthful uniformity， once considered a feature， has become a bug. Tech， the The New York Times confirmed， has a “youth problem.” Writes former Facebook staffer Kate Losse， “Silicon Valley 7）fetishizes a particular type of engineer—young， male， awkward， unattached.” Or， as the New Republic put it， the tech industry’s “brutal ageism”means that if you don’t fit the 8）archetype—say， you’re over 35 and only wear hoodies when you’re exercising and have a few kids and a mortgage—you have to work twice as hard to get ahead. They’re stressed out and 9）ostracized by the“culture，” worried about their wardrobe choices， wondering if they should 10）freshen up with some subtle 11）plastic surgery， and struggling all the while to downplay their family lives.
While I 12）empathize， I found myself stifling a yawn as I read the Botoxed bros’ tales of woe. I’ve heard all of these stories before. It’s just that the storytellers are usually women.
If you think putting on a hoodie is rough， I wanted to tell these guys， try finding the line between workwear that’s not too sexy but also not too 13）schoolmarmish. If you’ve reluctantly taken up gaming in order to bond with your co-workers， now you know what it was like for women who learned to golf so they could meet male clients on the course. And ask any woman who’s ever huddled in her office hooked up to a breast pump： It’s not always so easy to be casual about the fact that you’ve got kids or the fact that you’re different. （Most of this stuff goes doubly and triply for people of color， gay people and those with disabilities.） Welcome， men， to the world of being hyperaware of how you’re perceived， every moment of every workday. Older men in tech are discovering the unseen work that women and people of color have done for decades. Fitting in is hard work—an additional， invisible task on the daily to-do list.“I had a really hard time getting used to the culture， the 14）aggressive communication on pull requests and how little the men I worked with respected and valued my opinion，” Julie Horvath， a 15）whistle-blowing former employee of the programming network GitHub， told 16）TechCrunch. For most of recent history， we’ve made it women’s responsibility to fit in. Despite the prevalence of equal-opportunity disclaimers， actual corporate culture isn’t changing fast enough （or at all）， so it’s on women to figure out how to succeed in workplaces that are not overtly sexist but still quite alienating. Think that sounds retro？ In another article， The Times offered some time-honored advice to women： “Moving Past Gender Barriers to Negotiate a Raise.”
Rather than offering tips to older male 17）entrepreneurs， the chroniclers of Silicon Valley ageism make a case that the industry is what needs to change. The tech world， which counts innovation and creativity among its core values， has created a culture of unparalleled uniformity. The appearance of daring （look—that co-founder is so young he doesn’t even need to shave every day！） has proved more alluring than actual diversity of background and experience. And this casual discrimination has been bad for business. Both pieces point out that consumers lose as a result of the industry’s narrow view of who’s got good ideas. The Times points out that Silicon Valley is missing all sorts of opportunities in the hardware sector because software is sexier to young entrepreneurs.
When it’s men who are 18）confronted by biases， we look at the bigger system. When women are， we put the 19）onus on them to get ahead. And when it’s people of color facing bias？ Well， that story is so familiar it barely makes headlines anymore. Journalists are paying attention to ageism in tech because it’s a new story that older white men， traditionally a very powerful 20）demographic in the white-collar world， are struggling with how to succeed in a collarless culture that claims to reward merit but rejects them due to factors beyond their control.
Maybe Silicon Valley has 21）inadvertently produced an innovation here： It’s“disrupted” discrimination， to use the industry 22）parlance. The tech-ageism stories， with their focus on culture rather than explicit policies， provide a new way of seeing the nowfamiliar stories about Silicon Valley sexism—and indeed， general workplace sexism， too. In most cases， companies aren’t actively alienating women. They’re rewarding people who match their deep-seated archetype of what “successful” looks like. That’s a difficult thing to undo with an equal-opportunity hiring policy. Just ask the shocking number of gay people who are still in the closet at companies that have received awards for their 23）LGBT-friendly policies. Or the women who dread telling their supervisors that they’re pregnant. Or take a look at the Oculus recruiting page and compare the text with the photos. Maybe now that a major industry is excluding a traditionally powerful group （older white men）， it will be easier to recognize that other groups’ failure to break into the highest ranks of corporate and political power isn’t a result of personal shortcomings or lack of ambition—it’s a cultural problem.
帕尔默·勒奇是Oculus VR公司的创始人，这家新兴公司被脸谱网以20亿美金收购。勒奇年仅21岁。他的公司主要制造虚拟现实耳机，主要针对游戏玩家市场。事实上，该公司的好几名员工都是勒奇在少年时代从网游论坛里结识到的。在Oculus网站的招聘板块，挂着大量的员工日常照片，让人印象深刻。他们绝大多数都是男性，绝大多数都是白人。没错，其中有些穿着连帽衫。在页面底部的说明文字中，Oculus极力声明他们的用人方针是“以个人优点、胜任能力和任职资格为基本原则”，聘任决定与种族、性别或年龄无关。
自从马克·扎克伯格创立脸谱网，已过去了整整十载。十年里，由他引发的让人咋舌的传奇故事一个接一个地上演，无数精通编码的后青春期少年穿着阿迪达斯便鞋成群结队地涌到硅谷去改变世界。但这种青春的一致性，一旦被定型为特征，就会产生问题。《纽约时报》证实了这种“青春问题”的存在。一位叫凯特·罗斯的脸谱网前职员写道：“硅谷盲目崇拜一种特定类型的程序员——年轻、外表笨拙的单身男性。”或者，如《新共和》杂志所言，科技行业“野蛮的年龄歧视”意味着如果你不符合这种原型——譬如说，你超过35岁，只在运动时才穿连帽衫，有孩子和房贷——那你就需要加倍地努力才可以获得成功。他们备受压力，被这种“文化”排挤，担心自己的穿衣选择，考虑是否需要来些微整形以焕然一新，同时还努力轻描淡写自己的家庭生活。
当读到打肉毒杆菌的兄弟们的悲惨故事时，虽然我同情他们，但我也感到无聊乏味。在此之前我都听说过这些故事了，只不过讲故事的人通常都是女性。
如果你觉得穿连帽衫很痛苦，我想跟这些人说，去试试找出别太性感和别太古板的工作着装之间的界线吧。如果你非常不情愿为了和你的同事打成一片而去学些小把戏的话，那你就会明白那些为了能在球场上遇到客户而去学高尔夫球的女性的感受了。问问那些曾经试过挂着挤奶器蜷缩在自己办公室里的任何一位女士：当你有孩子时，装作对此毫无芥蒂是否容易？或者你就是与别人不同时（有色人种、同性恋或者残疾人所受的压力是平常人的两三倍），对此一笑置之是否容易？男士们，欢迎来到这么个每时每刻你都高度在意别人对你看法的工作世界。
年长的科技行业男士会发现女性和有色人士在过去几十年里所付出的看不见的努力。努力去融入是件难事——是一项额外的、看不见的每日必做任务。“我在融入这种文化时经历了一段非常艰难的日子，提出请求时遭遇到充满敌意的交流，共事的男同事对我的意见毫不尊重和珍视，” 朱莉·霍瓦特对科技媒体TechCrunch如是说，她是揭发社交编程及代码托管网站GitHub公司内幕的前职员。在最近的历史里，我们都把去适应作为女性的责任。除了放弃平等机会成为一种普遍现象外，事实上公司企业文化也没快速跟上发展（也可说是毫无进展），所以要如何在没有那么男性至上但仍然十分疏离女性的工作环境中取得成功，这个问题还是要靠女性自己去解决。觉得这个问题听起来有点过时？另一篇刊登在《纽约时报》上的文章为女性提供了一些经久不衰的建议：“跨越性别歧视的障碍去进行交涉以取得地位提高。”
对硅谷历年来的年龄歧视问题所作的这些观察分析并没有给年长的男性企业家提供什么建议，只是有力地说明了该行业需要变革。科技世界，以创新和创造力作为其核心价值，创造出了一种空前一致的文化。大胆的外表（看——那个合伙创立人多年轻，他甚至不需要每天刮胡子！）被证明比真正多样的背景和经验更加吸引人。而这种随意的偏好已造成了商业上的损失。两篇文章都指出这种行业里关于谁能想出更好主意的狭隘判断视点给消费者带来了损失。《纽约时报》指出，由于软件领域对于年轻的创业者来说更有吸引力，硅谷错失了各种硬件领域内的机遇。
当男性遭遇到歧视问题时，我们就把目光放到更庞大的体系上去看。当女性遇到歧视时，我们只是指望她们自己去担当解决的责任。那当有色人种遭遇到歧视问题呢？好吧，这种故事大家已经太熟悉了，根本不能再拿来做头条吸引人。媒体记者们对科技行业里的年龄歧视如此上心不过是因为这个话题很新颖，因为年长的白人男子，传统上都是白领世界里强势的一群人，而如今他们却要在无领世界里为了成功而去拼命奋斗，这里号称奖赏个人价值，但却因他们无法控制的因素而排挤他们。
或许硅谷无意中在这个问题上做了一次创新：“扰乱了”歧视定势，以该行业的用语来说。这些科技行业年龄歧视的故事，叙述重点在文化上而不是在明确的政策上，为如今大家都熟知的硅谷针对女性的性别歧视提供了新的视角——当然，对于一般工作职场中的性别歧视问题亦如是。在大多数情况下，公司并非主动歧视开罪女性。只是，他们回报的是那些和他们心中根深蒂固的“成功人士”原型相符合的人。
仅以公平机会聘用政策来破解这样的歧视是相当困难的。不信问一下那些不敢出柜的同性恋者，其数目惊人，即便他们所在的公司曾因实行非异性恋友好政策而获奖。或者问一下那些害怕直接跟上司说她们怀孕了的女性。或者看看Oculus的招聘页面，对比一下文字和照片。或许是因为有这么一个重点行业在排斥传统上强势的一类人（年长的白人男子），我们更容易认识到其他人群无法进入企业或政治权力最高阶层的原因，并非因为个人的毛病或没有雄心壮志——而是文化问题。
It’s been a full decade since Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook and launched a thousand breathless trend stories about the code-fluent， postadolescent masses 4）flocking to Silicon Valley to change the world in Adidas 5）slip-on 6）sandals. But this youthful uniformity， once considered a feature， has become a bug. Tech， the The New York Times confirmed， has a “youth problem.” Writes former Facebook staffer Kate Losse， “Silicon Valley 7）fetishizes a particular type of engineer—young， male， awkward， unattached.” Or， as the New Republic put it， the tech industry’s “brutal ageism”means that if you don’t fit the 8）archetype—say， you’re over 35 and only wear hoodies when you’re exercising and have a few kids and a mortgage—you have to work twice as hard to get ahead. They’re stressed out and 9）ostracized by the“culture，” worried about their wardrobe choices， wondering if they should 10）freshen up with some subtle 11）plastic surgery， and struggling all the while to downplay their family lives.
While I 12）empathize， I found myself stifling a yawn as I read the Botoxed bros’ tales of woe. I’ve heard all of these stories before. It’s just that the storytellers are usually women.
If you think putting on a hoodie is rough， I wanted to tell these guys， try finding the line between workwear that’s not too sexy but also not too 13）schoolmarmish. If you’ve reluctantly taken up gaming in order to bond with your co-workers， now you know what it was like for women who learned to golf so they could meet male clients on the course. And ask any woman who’s ever huddled in her office hooked up to a breast pump： It’s not always so easy to be casual about the fact that you’ve got kids or the fact that you’re different. （Most of this stuff goes doubly and triply for people of color， gay people and those with disabilities.） Welcome， men， to the world of being hyperaware of how you’re perceived， every moment of every workday. Older men in tech are discovering the unseen work that women and people of color have done for decades. Fitting in is hard work—an additional， invisible task on the daily to-do list.“I had a really hard time getting used to the culture， the 14）aggressive communication on pull requests and how little the men I worked with respected and valued my opinion，” Julie Horvath， a 15）whistle-blowing former employee of the programming network GitHub， told 16）TechCrunch. For most of recent history， we’ve made it women’s responsibility to fit in. Despite the prevalence of equal-opportunity disclaimers， actual corporate culture isn’t changing fast enough （or at all）， so it’s on women to figure out how to succeed in workplaces that are not overtly sexist but still quite alienating. Think that sounds retro？ In another article， The Times offered some time-honored advice to women： “Moving Past Gender Barriers to Negotiate a Raise.”
Rather than offering tips to older male 17）entrepreneurs， the chroniclers of Silicon Valley ageism make a case that the industry is what needs to change. The tech world， which counts innovation and creativity among its core values， has created a culture of unparalleled uniformity. The appearance of daring （look—that co-founder is so young he doesn’t even need to shave every day！） has proved more alluring than actual diversity of background and experience. And this casual discrimination has been bad for business. Both pieces point out that consumers lose as a result of the industry’s narrow view of who’s got good ideas. The Times points out that Silicon Valley is missing all sorts of opportunities in the hardware sector because software is sexier to young entrepreneurs.
When it’s men who are 18）confronted by biases， we look at the bigger system. When women are， we put the 19）onus on them to get ahead. And when it’s people of color facing bias？ Well， that story is so familiar it barely makes headlines anymore. Journalists are paying attention to ageism in tech because it’s a new story that older white men， traditionally a very powerful 20）demographic in the white-collar world， are struggling with how to succeed in a collarless culture that claims to reward merit but rejects them due to factors beyond their control.
Maybe Silicon Valley has 21）inadvertently produced an innovation here： It’s“disrupted” discrimination， to use the industry 22）parlance. The tech-ageism stories， with their focus on culture rather than explicit policies， provide a new way of seeing the nowfamiliar stories about Silicon Valley sexism—and indeed， general workplace sexism， too. In most cases， companies aren’t actively alienating women. They’re rewarding people who match their deep-seated archetype of what “successful” looks like. That’s a difficult thing to undo with an equal-opportunity hiring policy. Just ask the shocking number of gay people who are still in the closet at companies that have received awards for their 23）LGBT-friendly policies. Or the women who dread telling their supervisors that they’re pregnant. Or take a look at the Oculus recruiting page and compare the text with the photos. Maybe now that a major industry is excluding a traditionally powerful group （older white men）， it will be easier to recognize that other groups’ failure to break into the highest ranks of corporate and political power isn’t a result of personal shortcomings or lack of ambition—it’s a cultural problem.
帕尔默·勒奇是Oculus VR公司的创始人，这家新兴公司被脸谱网以20亿美金收购。勒奇年仅21岁。他的公司主要制造虚拟现实耳机，主要针对游戏玩家市场。事实上，该公司的好几名员工都是勒奇在少年时代从网游论坛里结识到的。在Oculus网站的招聘板块，挂着大量的员工日常照片，让人印象深刻。他们绝大多数都是男性，绝大多数都是白人。没错，其中有些穿着连帽衫。在页面底部的说明文字中，Oculus极力声明他们的用人方针是“以个人优点、胜任能力和任职资格为基本原则”，聘任决定与种族、性别或年龄无关。
自从马克·扎克伯格创立脸谱网，已过去了整整十载。十年里，由他引发的让人咋舌的传奇故事一个接一个地上演，无数精通编码的后青春期少年穿着阿迪达斯便鞋成群结队地涌到硅谷去改变世界。但这种青春的一致性，一旦被定型为特征，就会产生问题。《纽约时报》证实了这种“青春问题”的存在。一位叫凯特·罗斯的脸谱网前职员写道：“硅谷盲目崇拜一种特定类型的程序员——年轻、外表笨拙的单身男性。”或者，如《新共和》杂志所言，科技行业“野蛮的年龄歧视”意味着如果你不符合这种原型——譬如说，你超过35岁，只在运动时才穿连帽衫，有孩子和房贷——那你就需要加倍地努力才可以获得成功。他们备受压力，被这种“文化”排挤，担心自己的穿衣选择，考虑是否需要来些微整形以焕然一新，同时还努力轻描淡写自己的家庭生活。
当读到打肉毒杆菌的兄弟们的悲惨故事时，虽然我同情他们，但我也感到无聊乏味。在此之前我都听说过这些故事了，只不过讲故事的人通常都是女性。
如果你觉得穿连帽衫很痛苦，我想跟这些人说，去试试找出别太性感和别太古板的工作着装之间的界线吧。如果你非常不情愿为了和你的同事打成一片而去学些小把戏的话，那你就会明白那些为了能在球场上遇到客户而去学高尔夫球的女性的感受了。问问那些曾经试过挂着挤奶器蜷缩在自己办公室里的任何一位女士：当你有孩子时，装作对此毫无芥蒂是否容易？或者你就是与别人不同时（有色人种、同性恋或者残疾人所受的压力是平常人的两三倍），对此一笑置之是否容易？男士们，欢迎来到这么个每时每刻你都高度在意别人对你看法的工作世界。
年长的科技行业男士会发现女性和有色人士在过去几十年里所付出的看不见的努力。努力去融入是件难事——是一项额外的、看不见的每日必做任务。“我在融入这种文化时经历了一段非常艰难的日子，提出请求时遭遇到充满敌意的交流，共事的男同事对我的意见毫不尊重和珍视，” 朱莉·霍瓦特对科技媒体TechCrunch如是说，她是揭发社交编程及代码托管网站GitHub公司内幕的前职员。在最近的历史里，我们都把去适应作为女性的责任。除了放弃平等机会成为一种普遍现象外，事实上公司企业文化也没快速跟上发展（也可说是毫无进展），所以要如何在没有那么男性至上但仍然十分疏离女性的工作环境中取得成功，这个问题还是要靠女性自己去解决。觉得这个问题听起来有点过时？另一篇刊登在《纽约时报》上的文章为女性提供了一些经久不衰的建议：“跨越性别歧视的障碍去进行交涉以取得地位提高。”
对硅谷历年来的年龄歧视问题所作的这些观察分析并没有给年长的男性企业家提供什么建议，只是有力地说明了该行业需要变革。科技世界，以创新和创造力作为其核心价值，创造出了一种空前一致的文化。大胆的外表（看——那个合伙创立人多年轻，他甚至不需要每天刮胡子！）被证明比真正多样的背景和经验更加吸引人。而这种随意的偏好已造成了商业上的损失。两篇文章都指出这种行业里关于谁能想出更好主意的狭隘判断视点给消费者带来了损失。《纽约时报》指出，由于软件领域对于年轻的创业者来说更有吸引力，硅谷错失了各种硬件领域内的机遇。
当男性遭遇到歧视问题时，我们就把目光放到更庞大的体系上去看。当女性遇到歧视时，我们只是指望她们自己去担当解决的责任。那当有色人种遭遇到歧视问题呢？好吧，这种故事大家已经太熟悉了，根本不能再拿来做头条吸引人。媒体记者们对科技行业里的年龄歧视如此上心不过是因为这个话题很新颖，因为年长的白人男子，传统上都是白领世界里强势的一群人，而如今他们却要在无领世界里为了成功而去拼命奋斗，这里号称奖赏个人价值，但却因他们无法控制的因素而排挤他们。
或许硅谷无意中在这个问题上做了一次创新：“扰乱了”歧视定势，以该行业的用语来说。这些科技行业年龄歧视的故事，叙述重点在文化上而不是在明确的政策上，为如今大家都熟知的硅谷针对女性的性别歧视提供了新的视角——当然，对于一般工作职场中的性别歧视问题亦如是。在大多数情况下，公司并非主动歧视开罪女性。只是，他们回报的是那些和他们心中根深蒂固的“成功人士”原型相符合的人。
仅以公平机会聘用政策来破解这样的歧视是相当困难的。不信问一下那些不敢出柜的同性恋者，其数目惊人，即便他们所在的公司曾因实行非异性恋友好政策而获奖。或者问一下那些害怕直接跟上司说她们怀孕了的女性。或者看看Oculus的招聘页面，对比一下文字和照片。或许是因为有这么一个重点行业在排斥传统上强势的一类人（年长的白人男子），我们更容易认识到其他人群无法进入企业或政治权力最高阶层的原因，并非因为个人的毛病或没有雄心壮志——而是文化问题。