Editor’s note: A recent investigation into ageism across Silicon Valley by The New Republic triggered the question: Is ageism a problem in the Triangle? WRALTechWire asked Insider columnist Joe Procopio to check it out. His findings may surprise you in this exclusive story for WRALTechWire Insiders.

DURHAM, N.C. –  At first, I really didn’t want to do this article.

The more I read New Republic’s recent investigation of ageism in Silicon Valley, “The Brutal Ageism of Tech,” the angrier I got. It magnifies, investigates, and holds up to be true almost every stupid stereotype I hate about startup. In a manner reminiscent of the Satoshi Nakamoto bitcoin fiasco in Newsweek, it’s like they went looking for the worst perceptions of startup and were hell-bent to find them, whether the evidence was empirical or not.

To encapsulate, the New Republic article pivots from its provocative-but-founded-in-reality headline into anecdotal tales of twenty-somethings resorting to weekend plastic surgery to stay in the startup/tech game.

The reason you weren’t aware of the plastic surgery trend is because it likely isn’t even a trend. While the article talks about young male techies walking in for weekend laser and botox adjustments, it only hints at the practice being borne out of a fear of ageism. A better explanation is modern-day male-hipsterism taken to its logical extreme.

By the way, it never mentions young women going under the laser, and in fact ignores entirely the issue of sexism or ageism as it pertains to women.

The investigation then delves into personal stories of founders and angels and off-the-record tech “greybeards” telling stories of opportunity lost to bro-grammers with snotty attitudes towards their elders. Throughout, it sprinkles in out-of-context quotes from Zuck and Paul Graham and others to create the perception that the younger-is-better mentality that lurks in the fringes of tech and startup is much, much worse than conventional wisdom would have you believe.

In any event, what irked me the most is the fact that there are indeed ageism, sexism, racism, and probably other ism issues out there, but they’re not exclusive to startup or tech, and they certainly aren’t new.

Is There Anything There? Or Here?

But I love to be proven wrong. Did that New Republic article uncover something we’ve all been blind to, or is it just another Silicon Valley outlier phenomenon exploited by Silicon Valley style journalism?

The first place I went was a couple offices down the hall. I’ve been with Automated insights for four years, since a time when thirty-something founder Robbie Allen and myself and a handful of programmers (mostly 20s, but not all) were cranking out automated content pre-Series-A.

“The only selection bias I’ve seen toward younger folks is with the Y-Combinators or TechStars of the world,” Allen said. “They’re trying to find the next Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates drop out. But I think those are very rare.”

That brings up a very good point. Is the very premise that younger founders have a better chance at ultimate success in startup even valid?

“I’d love to see a study that shows the number and size of exits from the past few years correlated with age. There have been many recent exits from companies started by thirty-or-forty-somethings,” Allen said.

If you’re in your thirties or later, you’re probably only starting a company because you have more than a guess at its viability. You’re not in it to wear the hoodie and crank out press releases for vaporware. Nor are you willing to spend too much time throwing junk at a wall to see what will stick.

So what about here? And by “here” I not only mean the Triangle/Southeast but anywhere that isn’t Silicon Valley. In other words, any place that doesn’t have a reputation for drawing Zuckerberg wannabes into its system with lottery-startup promises of easy VC cash and no experience required.

“I don’t see ageism, but I am sure it exists here,” said Chris Heivly who, along with Dave Neal, runs the Triangle’s most capitalized accelerator, The Startup Factory. “I have seen it in hiring, not in funding. The majority of investors are used to looking past that. If it does exist, it exists in the opposite here – young people can’t get funding while experienced people do.”

Dave Neal agreed. “I’ve read the articles about Silicon Valley but I’m not aware of such a system operating here.”

And Allen added, “If anything, in the Southeast, VCs optimize for mature businesses, which take time to build.”

Don’t Mistake Anti-Age for Anti-Irrelevancy

I’ll easily admit this. I know droves of men and women I came up with who are now either slinging 15-year old code or reviewing TPS reports written by a team of people 15 years younger than them, and they’re scared out of their minds.

But that’s not an age issue. It’s a relevancy issue.

“This is nothing new in tech,” said Mark Easley, a now-local investor and advisor who spent the ’80s at HP and Intel. “I think the cycle goes like this: The first decade is the creative decade, figuring out new ways to build on the work of others. The second decade is the efficiency decade, figuring out how to improve and apply this new technology layer to as many markets and customers as possible. The third decade is the advisor decade, giving guidance to those still in the first and second decades.”

Here’s a second admission. Tech sucks at leadership.

A story that has always stuck with me is from when I was consulting for an enormous organization and one of its tech leaders, one on the cusp of retirement, scoffed at my notion to give his team more opportunity to make their own decisions about the tech.

“Why would I do that?” Said the short-sleeve-and-tie-wearing 60-something who had punched his last line of code decades earlier. “They have no idea what they’re doing.”

This is a prevalent attitude in experienced tech. There’s a reason why Office Space was such a cult hit. And unfortunately, tech still substitutes Masters degrees, butts-in-seats-style management, and reams of productivity reports and formal project management methodologies as leadership.

As the next generation of tech leadership comes up, of course they’re rebelling against this. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

“Knowing your blind spots and shortcomings is the thing, at any age,” said Groundfloor co-founder Brian Dally. “And there will always be blind spots and shortcomings in our line of work.”

For whatever reason, older tech workers believe they have to relearn technology all over again after 10-15 years in. Failing that, they find a nice windowed office in a nice non-descript office park and invest in 10-12 pairs of khaki pants.

Or, put better by Spreedly CEO Justin Benson, “The closest thing I’ve heard to ageism is the grumbling that older tech workers with mortgages and nine-to-five lifestyles won’t leave the bigger cushy tech companies here to take a chance with startups.”

He added, “Not sure if that’s ageism though.”

Scott Moody recently started K4Connect after exiting Authentec. He’s also an investor.

“Ageism is different than wondering if someone that has been a VP for 20-30 years in a big company can in fact do a startup,” he said. “The issue is not age, but the competencies and experiences gained as that high level big company executive do not translate to an early stage startup. That is not to say they can not — I was a VP in a big company before AuthenTec — but it is a legit question.”

The Answer Is: You Probably Need Both

“It’s a tradeoff,” said Allen. “It is often the case that people straight out of college have a lot of energy, but they also don’t have as much experience. A forty-something might not be as high energy — although that’s not always the case — but they also have more experience.”

If you look at startups, even anecdotally, from initial success to massive success, you almost always find a point where a young management team is bolstered by bringing in experience. This happens at any and every position, from board member to V-level to replacing the CEO.

Some even do it earlier.

Jon Colgan is the 28-year-old co-founder of CellBreaker. He’s high energy, and comes from an environment where he was the youngest, by far, on any given team.

“My co-founder, Mike, is older than any tech co-founder in the area that I’ve met,” he said. “Does his age matter? Yes. He has four decades of software experience, both building and managing it.

“On the other hand, does he approach interpersonal situations the same way I do? No.

“This interpersonal adjustment is not the sexy part of founding a startup — that’s not something people sign up for. But I bet failed interpersonal adjustment lies at the root of about 50% of instances of ageism.”

And that crystallizes my final point. There are several reasons why a jaundiced eye could be cast at older tech and startup people, but none of them should be automatically lumped into ageism. If a company truly has bias against age, you have to imagine that’s going to limit the success of the company. And if an investor truly has a built-in bias against older founders, you have to wonder how much of their thesis is tied to making a return on their investment?

Adds Colgan, “It’s not just that we need to understand each other, it’s also that we want to understand each other. He was interested in what we were doing, and I wanted his advice. I both needed and wanted to understand his perspective–and still do.”