Being older doesn’t always mean you’re wiser
There’s a poignant moment in the new stage version of All About Eve, starring the luminous Gillian Anderson, when, as ageing actress Margo Channing, she confesses that she’s turned 50 – before recollecting that she didn’t mean to say that out loud. She’s concerned that she is no longer eligible for the stellar parts, which require her to be 30-ish.
Margo should be thankful that she was only trying to maintain leading-lady status in New York theatre, not trying to get a job in today’s Silicon Valley. There, if you want to be boss in a start-up, you have to be in your 20s – and the tech industry faces the spectre of class-action ageism lawsuits.
But the former Airbnb executive Chip Conley, 58, has put the Valley’s current malaise down to the fact that startups tend to employ twentysomethings who don’t yet have the emotional intelligence to manage other people and acquire leadership skills.
For anyone who remembers the concept that you waited until after 6pm to ring someone, the temptation is to loudly proclaim that Conley is right. Clear the whippersnappers from the
management floor, and replace them with people who have been knocked about a bit by life and can bring a level of maturity to the workplace.
Except that I fear that Conley has made the fatal error of conflating age and wisdom. We’ve all worked with old heads on young shoulders, and those who, at 58, have less emotional intelligence than a nearby 28-year-old.
Mind you, I do like Conley’s rebranding of anyone over 30 as an “elder”, rather than simply old. It has a statesmanlike feel to it, which I could embrace. Having an “elder moment”, as opposed to a “senior moment” makes one feel like Mandela rather than a mad old bat.
That was, however, before I found out about Mr Conley’s Modern Elder Academy, which promises to help people navigate midlife. For a mere $5,000, you can enjoy a week’s retreat in Cabo San Lucas that includes coping workshops, burning stickers with ageist slurs, salt-air yoga and access to a shaman. To which the only possible response must be: does he think elders were born yesterday?