There’s something endlessly strange about how we, as a society, treat time – particularly when it comes to age and experience. We spend the early part of people’s lives telling them they’re too young to contribute meaningfully, dismissing their fresh ideas as naive and unseasoned. And then, as they move into later stages of their careers, we suddenly flip the script, suggesting that they’ve become outdated, that their wisdom no longer applies in a world moving too fast for them to keep up.
It’s a peculiar paradox, one that reveals our fundamentally flawed relationship with time. From the very outset, we seem determined to pit youth against age, innovation against experience, when in reality, we should be seeking ways to draw from both.
In the rush to label younger professionals as inexperienced, we overlook something critical: that experience is not the same as wisdom, and wisdom doesn’t always come with age. Innovation – the kind that disrupts industries, redefines how we live, and pushes the world forward – often comes from those who are young enough to imagine new possibilities unburdened by how things have always been done. But instead of nurturing that creative potential, we tell them they haven’t earned their place yet.
By the time they do “earn” it, by society’s standards, they’re often met with an equally dismissive message: now you’ve become obsolete. We shuffle them aside, whispering about a world that’s changing too fast for their hard-won knowledge to remain relevant. And just like that, we lose the opportunity to fully tap into the treasure trove of wisdom accumulated over decades.
This is where the real tragedy lies – not in the misjudgment of youth or the sidelining of older professionals, but in our inability to see that time, in and of itself, is neutral. It doesn’t make someone’s input less valuable when they’re young, nor does it diminish someone’s contribution as they grow older. Time is simply a vessel through which experience accumulates. And yet, we remain trapped in this peculiar obsession, wasting it as we debate how it should be spent, how it should be earned.
The real measure of experience should not be age, but rather the quality of insights, the depth of perspective, and the ability to adapt. After all, what we call experience is simply the sum of lived moments – each one an opportunity to learn, refine, and grow. And yet, we reduce this vast potential to a simple number, creating artificial barriers that stifle the contributions of those on both sides of the age spectrum.
Think of the countless stories we’ve heard over the years of young entrepreneurs disrupting entire industries – people in their twenties who are fearless in their willingness to challenge the old guard. Now think of the stories we don’t hear as often: the experienced leaders whose seasoned insights navigate companies through the darkest times, whose ability to read the room, temper emotion with reason, and see ten steps ahead only comes from a lifetime of honing that intuition.
Both of these archetypes – the daring innovator and the wise veteran – exist, and they matter. And yet, too often, we fall prey to binary thinking, valuing one over the other based on an arbitrary ticking clock. Why must we choose?
The future belongs to those who can marry these two forms of wisdom – the boldness of youth and the tempered insight of experience. This is not an age-related matter; it’s a question of adaptability and openness. Whether you’re just starting your career or have decades of experience behind you, what matters most is your willingness to keep learning, to stay curious, to remain humble enough to know that there is always more to know.
In organizations, this requires a profound shift. Companies need to stop seeing age as a disqualifier, at both ends of the spectrum. We need leaders who recognize that experience isn’t a static thing – it’s evolving, living. It doesn’t expire with age, and it doesn’t magically materialize the moment someone turns 30 or 40. Experience is what happens when learning is put to the test, when challenges are faced, and when growth continues despite the years that pass.
This brings us to an important realization: the future of work is not about young versus old, but rather about collaboration across generations. Imagine what we could achieve if we stopped siloing ourselves by age and instead leaned into the possibility of collective experience – if the fresh ideas of the younger generation were fused with the wisdom of those who’ve been through the fires before.
In this way, our real battle isn’t against time, but against our own limited thinking about what time gives us. Age, whether you have too much or too little of it, should never be the metric by which we gauge a person’s value. Instead, we should ask: What have they learned? How do they think? How do they respond to the world as it changes? Can they merge past wisdom with present challenges?
In a world that moves faster every day, where technology evolves at breakneck speed and the future seems uncertain, the only constant is our capacity to learn. The only age that matters is the age of your thinking.
If we can move past the narrow definitions of youth and age, we may find ourselves in a future where everyone’s contribution is valued – not because of the years they’ve lived, but because of what they’ve lived through and what they’re still willing to explore. And that, in the end, is the only kind of experience that truly matters.