David Heinemeier Hansson

Apple's board and executive team have a high average age, with board members averaging 68 years old and executives around 60. The post argues that this older leadership might be out of touch with current trends and technologies, as illustrated by recent issues with AI features. In comparison, Meta's board has a younger average age, highlighting a potential difference in leadership dynamics.

Age is a problem at Apple

With all due respect to Apple, they have pretty much never been on the forefront of technology to the point of experiencing potential issues with it. Samsung achieved many things that Apple has prior to Apple, and still Apple has far surpassed Samsung. In this case, it is not necessarily that Apple is behind on the times compared to how it usually is; it just doesn’t need to. They never really have. What they promise as a company is a consistent and reliable product along with the reputation/prestige of having an IPhone. Not having AI is not going to make people switch away from Apple products, and they are already a 3 trillion dollar company. They simply do not have a reason to care, as they are nearly guaranteed to not drop in value unless an unimaginable innovation happened at Samsung or another competitor.

Not that Meta is much more trusted by anyone. Just take the comparison for Cook and Zuckerberg. I believe trying to be trendy and failing at it worse that just being just solid in product design.

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You need some people with a finger on the pulse, not just some bravely keeping one.
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Probably the funniest line I’ve read from DHH… Especially that “bravely keeping one” bit. 🤣

as a middle-aged computer engineer who has been at the forefront of technology his whole life, I don’t think age really matters. While it’s true that older people may not be so receptive to new ideas, that is something that can always be overcome with the right culture and attitude. Good leadership and the ability to understand what is going on around us are qualities that should actually improve with age :) In other words, there are good and bad executives, and the bad ones were already bad when they were in their twenties ;)

Opinions like this obtuse article beget agism, which is an issue that is especially prevalent in the tech industry. Just because one is older does not mean they are out of touch with trends. In fact, more experience better positions oneself to parse trends from fads. Good, experienced leaders will always listen to the opinions of staff and industry peers who are diverse across many factors, including age.