I'm sorry, this may sound like a stupid thing to say given that I understand absolutely nothing about the maths involved in this joke/parable/whatever-the-fuck-this-is, but seriously, "Fire the oldest employee who is not making six figures?!" I must be missing, something, right? Seriously? Please god someone explain to me how this isn't as unbelievably dickish as it sounds.

What sort of terrible, euthanasia-based, Logan's run-like, horrific fascist company are you describing in this bizarre little parable, and how come more of you people aren't looking at this with horror?! Are you so interested in the maths that the fact that the narrative surrounds it is so completely fucked invisible to you?! It's like a bloody survivalist post-apocalyptic zombie horror company. I'm surprised none of you are advocating mulching the thirty-five year old and using him to fertilize the office plants!

Why don't we shift it around a bit, Republicans are a bit dumb, right? And they care about money a lot. So if they're not earning 100k, they're definitely shit! Or maybe women? Not many of them are engineers, so clearly if they're earning too little, it's probably because their breasts get in the way of the keyboard.... Oh hang on, no, those things I just said were crazy insane. Like firing a thirty-five year old who doesn't earn very much.

There are people in the world who don't want loads of responsility, don't want to rise up a company and still do good work. People who want to spend time with their family and not work twenty-four seven and still do good work. There are people who are valuable holders of institutional knowledge, but are content to be junior engineers or whatever. If they do a good job, who the fuck cares how old they are?! How is that even relevant?!

And while we're at it, have you ANY idea how entitled this makes engineers in Silicon Valley sound?! I mean, engineers in the rest of the US don't make half as much money as the ones in the Bay Area. Even in London, a very expensive city, most engineers are not earning the equivalent of $100k within a few years of leaving college.

This story and the responses to it WEIRD ME OUT. It sounds like something that young dicks in the banking industry would talk about to make themselves feel really important. "Yah cos like he was only bringing home like three-hundred grand and he was like thirty five, so what a loser, right? Ha Ha. We totally got him fired and laughed at him because he's like totally old and by the time I'm thirty five, I'll be totally different because I'm really amazing and special and important, right??"

This whole thing is so depressing. Ive been wondering to myself for a while why it is that such a large proportion of twenty-somethings in tech around SF behaved like such idiots, and this has made me wonder even more. I'm halfway seriously thinking after reading this that all sensible companies should start thinking about how you should always fire any engineer under thirty earning more than 100k because, lets face it, they're fucking precious, self-important, entitled, whiny little unproductive fuckers who can't keep their genitals to themselves, get drunk too often during the week, and who've never had to do an honest days work for a reasonable salary and will remain smug, boorish twats until the day a proper grown up gives them the spanking they so clearly need.