Quora 最近有个热门问题是硅谷人超过 35 会做什么？(What do people in Silicon Valley plan to do once they are over 35?
http://www.quora.com/What-do-people-in-Silicon-Valley-plan-to-do-once-they-are-over-35)## Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia创始人)的回答：
I turned 35 the year I founded Wikipedia. 38 the year I founded Wikia (now ranked #30, quantcast).
我35岁创立了 Wikipedia, 38岁创立了 Wikia
The premise of the question is wrong. A better question might be: How can we in the tech community make sure that unusual success at a very early age is not mistakenly thought to be the norm?
这个问题的预设是错误的。一个更好的问题或许是：在技术圈子里，我们怎么确保一个在年轻时非凡的成功不被认为是普遍存在的？
## Frank Jernigan 的回答：
I joined Google’s software engineering team in 2001 when I was 55 years old. That’s right, I said fifty-five, as in five five. I was the oldest employee at Google for the entire four years I was there.
2001年，我以55岁的年龄加入 Google。你没看错，我说的就是55岁。之后的四年里，我一直是Google年老的工程师
What did I do? I was not an executive… and I was not a manager… I was simply a software engineer working alongside all my dear colleagues whose median age was probably 25 years younger than I was. My age never seemed to be an issue with anyone. I felt like I was just another member of the team and I felt I was accepted that same way.
我在 Google 做了什么？我不是一个执行官，不是管理者(经理)。我只是一个很简单的软件工程师，工作伙伴们大都比我年轻25岁
There is no such thing as being “over the hill.” There is only becoming irrelevant. To keep from becoming irrelevant, I never stopped learning. When I started my career back in 1975, we still used punch cards and mainframes, programming in Fortran and PL/1. In the 1980s, the promising new technology was applied artificial intelligence. I was fortunate enough to have a great teacher who recognized my abilities in a Lisp class and got me a job with his AI research team, where I not only learned more about software concepts, but also learned the importance of staying on top of cutting edge technologies as they appeared. I devoted myself to a life of constant learning.
世界上没有"走下坡路"这个事情. 人只会脱离时代(becoming irrelevant)。为了跟上时代，我从来没有停止学习。1975年当我开始我的职业历程的时候，我们还在使用打孔卡片和 Fortran以及 PL/1 语言。在80年代，一个很有前景的技术是人工智能。我很幸运，有一个能了解到我 Lisp 能力的老师给我了一份在人工智能研究团队的工作。在那里，我不仅学到了更多软件开发的概念，也学到了紧跟最新技术的重要性。因此我一生都在持续学习
In the mid-1980s I became intrigued with this new thing called object-oriented programming. I learned everything I could about it and wrote my master’s paper on “A Design Methodology for Use with Object-Oriented Programming,” which is probably now buried somewhere in the stacks at Boston University, if universities even still have stacks.
在80年代中期，我被一个叫面向对象编程的东西激发起了兴趣。我尽可能学习了关于它的一切东西，然后写了一份硕士论文《A Design Methodology for Use with Object-Oriented Programming》，现在那篇论文可能在 Boston 大学的某个书库里，如果大学现在还有书库的话
So after ten years of programming in Lisp, in 1990 I moved on to the new object-oriented language at the time, C++. Then a few years after that, the web burst on the scene and I moved into web development, using more new technologies like HTML and JavaScript. Learning, constantly learning, was the key to all these transitions in my career.
在经历了10年的 Lisp 编程之后，我于1990年转向了新的面向对象语言 C++。几年之后，web 开始热门，我开始转向 web 开发，技术则是 HTML和 Javascript。学习，不断地学习，是我的职业履历发生变化的关键
I watched as others my age either moved into management and starting climbing the corporate ladder and others simply became irrelevant and became unemployed or switched to whole new careers. At almost all of my early jobs, my managers would notice that I was a gifted software developer and somehow concluded that I should become a manager. Not knowing any better, I would accept the promotion but then time and again I learned that I hated being a manager. I loved developing software and that’s what I wanted to do. It all became crystal clear one day when my manager walked in my office and saw me working on a program and said, “What are you doing working on software? You’re a manager now!”
我看到很多跟我一样年龄的人，有得转向了管理，在公司里逐步往上爬，而有的人，则脱离了时代，失去了工作，或者转向了全新的职业历程。在我职业生涯的早期，所有我的部门经理，很多都意识到我是一个有天赋的软件工程师，然后得出一个结论就是我应该成为经理/管理者(manager)。在不了解自己的情况下，我可能会接受这些升迁，但是随着时间的流逝，我已经意识到我讨厌成为管理者。我喜欢开发软件。你可以想象得到某天我的 manager 走进我的办公室，看到我在写程序，然后说 "你在干吗呢？你现在已经是个 经理/manager 了! "
I had found what I loved doing, and I was very good at it. So why would I ever want to stop doing that and do something entirely different by becoming a manager? I was advised on many occasions that if I didn’t move up the ranks of the corporation, I would never be able to retire. But every time I tried moving in that direction, I hated it. It caused me a huge amount of stress and, besides that, I felt I was terrible at it. I occasionally tried taking courses to make me a better manager, but they bored me silly. I just wanted to go back to my computer and solve some problems by myself. Finally, I declared one day in 1996 that I would never manage anyone again. I didn’t care if it meant that I could never retire. I thought I’d just figure it out later.
我已经发现了我喜欢做什么，而且对我所喜欢的事情我很擅长。所以我为什么会停止做这个而转成一个经理/manager呢？我经常被人说，如果我不进入公司的上层，我就永远没法退休。但是每次我想转换一个职业方向，我都发现我很不喜欢这么做。它带给我很多压力，此外，我感觉到很糟糕。我不时地去参加一些经理相关的课程，但是它们太无聊了。我只想走回我的电脑，然后自己解决一些问题。最终，我在1996年声明我不再管理任何人。我不再关心这是否意味着我没法退休。而我觉得我应该更早意识到这一点
In 2000, I migrated from Boston to Silicon Valley with my newly acquired PHP skills for the dot-com boom that promptly turned into the dot-com bust right after I arrived. By then I was very used to working alongside people who were half my age. In fact, I loved it. I kept fully employed for ten more months, but then suddenly one day I got laid off.
2000年，我从 Boston 搬到了 硅谷，开始了在一家发展迅速的 dot-com 公司做 PHP 开发。我的工作伙伴年龄只有我的一半，但是我没觉得没什么不习惯。事实上，我很喜欢这样的工作。之后，我在那里工作了10个月，但是突然有一天我被解雇了
I friend of mine sent my resume along with his recommendation to this little company of about 200 employees that seemed to be one of the few companies left that had any promise of success. When Marissa Mayer called me to do my phone interview, I was very clear right up front that in spite of my age, I was not interested in being a manager. She assured me that they would not expect me to move into management. In fact, she said they had just decided that they wanted to hire some people with decades of experience but who did not want to be managers.
我的一个朋友把我的简历和他的推荐信发送到了这个只有200人的小公司(Google)，那个公司似乎是仅存的几个可以承诺成功的公司之一。当 Marissa Mayer 打电话给我做电话面试的时候，我很清楚地告诉她我不想成为一个经理，而她对我保证，他们并不打算让我进入管理的领域。实际上，她说他们已经决定了要雇用有数十年开发经验，而且不想成为经理的人
I got the opportunity of a lifetime precisely because I did not want to be a manager. It confirmed my lifelong belief that if you find what you love to do, then devote yourself to doing it the best that you can, then you will find a way to make that work.
我终于因为我不想成为经理获得了一次机会。这肯定我一生的信念：发掘你喜欢做的事情，然后用一生的时间去尽可能做好它，然后你将会发现这是可行的
Four years later, I retired with a wonderful life. I made many close friends along the way and still feel very close to my colleagues at Google as well as other places I’ve worked. I married the man of my dreams in 2008, before Prop 8 took away that right. We have traveled together, and I took up art, and, yes, I’m still learning new technologies simply because I enjoy it. In the past month, I’ve tackled Ruby and now I’m working on Ruby on Rails, picking up along all the other technologies every good Rubyist ought to know, like git, gems, and bundle. And just in case you haven’t done the math, I am now 69 years old.
四年之后，我退休了。我在 Google 以及其他我工作过的地方认识了很多好朋友，跟工作伙伴也很融洽。 I married the man of my dreams in 2008, before Prop 8 took away that right. 我们一起旅行， 我开始了艺术创作。还有，我依然在学习新的技术，因为我很享受它们。在过去的几个月里，我掌握了 Ruby，现在我正在学习 Ruby on Rails，以及其他优秀的 Rubyist 想要学习的东西，例如git, gems和bundle。对了，你可能还没计算过，我现在已经69岁了.
My advice is to keep doing what you love, never allow yourself to be diverted from it. Always be willing to help others along the way with kindness and generosity of spirit. And you do not ever have to fear becoming irrelevant.
我的建议是，一直去做你所喜欢的，不要离开你所爱的东西。永远保持一颗友好和慷慨的心态去帮助别人。这样你永远不需要去担心自己会脱离时代