Make Hay While the Sun Shines

There was a couple of different ways I could have gone this week. I could have talked about Silicon Valley ascending the Tower of Mauron to meet with Trumplethinskin, which is happening right now. Or I could have discussed the official launch of Google's driverless car company, Waymo. For a brief moment I even thought about highlighting the public service the Hamilton Electors might perform on Monday, but the inevitable shitstorm wasn't worth the spike in @TNA"'s blood pressure.

Instead I decided to write about something near and dear to all our hearts: avoiding the indignity of being forced to perform back alley handies in our twilight years just to be able to afford cat food.

If you're in your 20's or 30's right now, take heed. These are the prime earning years of your life. Make hay while the sun shines, because it isn't going to last long. If current trends continue, you'll likely be forced to retire by age 50.

Thanks to the one-two punch of automation and disappearing borders, experienced old folks are no longer in demand. Ageism is present in almost every field today, and it's absolutely rampant in tech. Where a middle manager in his 50's would have been a sought-after hire 20 years ago, today he's corporate poison with his mortgage and college-aged kids. They're just too expensive.

What counts as expensive workers?

• Group A: Large populations of low-skilled workers (varying in age) who require lots of benefits. Companies will look to replace groups of ten or even hundreds of people with one computer to reduce costs.
• Group B: 20- to 50-year-olds who have the expertise and experience to manage people and machines. These people command a spectrum of salaries but are willing and able to work efficiently relative to their compensation expectations. They're still "expensive," but the ROI remains palatable since machines cannot run completely independently or manage people … yet.
• Group C: 50+ year olds who are extremely skilled and experienced workers. They can effectively manage people and machines but require very high salaries. Often, due to realities of aging, they cannot operate at same levels of efficiency as Group A or B. This makes them "expensive."

We've all had an elderly Uber driver or barista. While I'm sure a few of them like being there, most of them don't. And if you're on WSO, you definitely don't want some drunk 22-year old puking in your car when you're 50.

If you're good at your job, there will come a point when you price yourself out of the market. I'm not talking about Wall Street necessarily, because the odds of most of you staying on Wall Street for your career are pretty slim. But once you're in a corporate gig and you spend a few years climbing the ladder, you'll see that things top out for the majority of workers before age 60, and lately before age 50.

I realize that's grim, but forewarned is forearmed. Start saving a lot. For the love of all that is good and holy, develop a side hustle. It may end up being the thing you come to rely on in old age.

I got lucky when I was younger and made a bunch of money. But even I feel the crunch and I'm only 47 years old. For good or ill, I've held senior positions in the companies I've been associated with over the years, so I'm finding that I'm a bit pigeonholed when it comes to interesting projects.

Earlier this year I lost a cool opportunity to someone younger despite assuring the CEO I was fine with the compensation (which was admittedly mediocre, but it was interesting work). We recently connected at a cocktail party and I asked her where the wheels fell off and she told me they figured the money wasn't enough to keep me long term, and they didn't want to go through the process again a year or two down the line. As a non-profit, they'd have had to hire me at the top end of their range and have nowhere to grow from there, while they could hire who they eventually went with for considerably less and afford a few raises over the years.

Ironically, I've been volunteering there ever since, so they got me for free.

Anyway, as we wind down 2016 and you all look to what 2017 and beyond brings, be sure to calibrate your expectations to the reality that you might be out of work by 50. Here on Wall Street, it's what most of us shoot for anyway, so it shouldn't be a big deal. Seriously, though, start socking it away, investing, and side hustling your ass off. If this past election showed us anything, it's that we're deeply committed to applying 20th century solutions to 21st century problems, and that doesn't bode well for the average American.

Don't end up that creepy old guy with the callouses in the alley.