[cowanon22]

> So, maybe age-ism is a thing, but I'd also argue a lot of age-ism can be reduced to "I never even tried keeping up and hyper-specialized myself into a dying corner even when the signs became clear I'm becoming outdated, so why doesn't anyone hire me?"

My experience has been exactly this. I've read many such complaints in the last 20 years of working, and in every single case the author has pigeonholed themselves into a long obsolete corner of the industry. There is a difference between 30 years of experience and 5 years repeated 6 times.

It is important to get onto the right team to have a long lived tech career. Your business domain should be big enough so you organically have to move with the rest of the industry. By 20+ years, you should be in a senior enough position to help lead the change.

I've never met a tech guru who was up to date and didn't retire or move on to other things on his/her own terms.