- But you tell me — should companies strive for age diversity, even in a field as innovation-crazy as tech?
No. If the benefits of diversity outweighed the negatives of hiring more young people, companies would be hiring more older people, rather than sticking to those exposed to newer technologies and more willing to work longer hours while sacrificing their family life. To force them to choose something else will just undercut our companies and allow others to out-compete them.
Diversity for the sake of diversity does more harm than good. Diversity should never be the goal in hiring decisions as this tends to give less skilled people a leg up based on genetic traits over others who may be more skilled. The rest of the team who has to work with these diversity hires end up resenting that person/race/gender/whatever because of the unearned advantage they were given.