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Episode details

World Service,26 Jun 2014,27 mins

Over the Hill in Silicon Valley

Assignment

Available for over a year

Silicon Valley is the global hub for e-commerce and for much of the world's technological innovation. You might also call it the world's most successful micro-climate of free enterprise: investors in California's Bay Area seem to have a special knack for picking winners - from Microsoft and Apple to Facebook and Google. Yet rumblings are afoot, as critics point to a growing obsession with youth. To be successful, they say, you need to be fresh out of a college engineering degree, and a total workaholic. Those over 30 need not apply. So is Silicon Valley ageist? For Assignment, the no longer totally youthful, Ed Butler has been to California to find out. (Photo: An office building in East Palo Alto, Silicon Valley California. Credit: Shutter Stock)

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