I’ve been in marketing for over sixteen years. That’s long enough to see trends cycle, strategies rebranded as innovation, and companies swear they’ve “cracked the culture code” more times than I can count.
And I can tell you this: something has shifted.
It’s not loud. No one walks into a meeting and says, “We don’t want older workers.” It’s subtler than that. It shows up in hiring language, in who gets spotlighted, in how compensation conversations feel heavier when you’ve got experience behind you.
You start noticing that the phrase “young energy” gets repeated a lot. You notice that when budget cuts happen, the higher-paid, more experienced professionals get looked at first.
After a while, you stop wondering if you’re imagining it.
Companies Love Experience — Until It Costs Them
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: companies love what experience produces, but they don’t always love what it costs.
Experienced professionals bring pattern recognition. We’ve seen launches fail before. We’ve seen markets swing. We know when something is about to go wrong because we’ve watched it go wrong already. That kind of awareness is valuable.
It’s also expensive.
A professional with 15 or 20 years of experience isn’t going to accept entry-level pay. They aren’t going to clap for unrealistic timelines without asking questions. They aren’t going to pretend every new initiative is revolutionary.
That maturity can look like friction in a culture that worships speed and optics.
So what do companies do? They start chasing “upside.” Younger employees cost less, stay longer on paper, and can be molded more easily. That’s not an attack on younger workers. It’s just how payroll math works.
But here’s the contradiction: companies still expect veteran-level output. They want the judgment, the foresight, the crisis management. They just don’t want to pay for it.
That tension is where a lot of middle-aged professionals start feeling squeezed.
The Cultural Shift Toward Youth
There’s also branding at play.
Modern companies market themselves as agile, innovative, forward-thinking. That branding often leans visually and culturally toward youth. When leadership teams constantly praise “fresh perspectives” and “next-gen leaders,” the subtext isn’t hard to interpret.
It’s not that experience is useless. It’s that it doesn’t fit the aesthetic.
I’ve sat in meetings where younger employees were celebrated for coordinating tasks while seasoned professionals quietly handled the fallout behind the scenes. Visibility wins awards. Stability rarely does.
If you’re an older worker and you’ve felt invisible despite carrying weight, that’s not insecurity. That’s pattern recognition.
Then There’s AI
Now we add AI into the mix.
From a business perspective, AI is incredibly attractive. It promises efficiency, scalability, and cost control. It doesn’t negotiate salary. It doesn’t take sick days. It doesn’t retire.
For decades, companies have fantasized about the “perfect employee” — high output, low cost, no friction. AI feels like a step in that direction.
Is AI fully replacing seasoned professionals today? No. But the investment tells you where leadership attention is focused. The conversation isn’t “How do we deepen human expertise?” It’s “How do we automate more of this?”
When automation enters the room, higher-cost roles naturally come under scrutiny. That’s not paranoia. That’s economics.
Experienced workers feel the pressure early because we understand how systems evolve. We’ve watched outsourcing waves, software revolutions, and cost-cutting cycles before. AI is another wave, and companies are riding it aggressively.
Why This Hits Men Hard
For many men, work is deeply tied to identity. It’s not just income. It’s competence. It’s contribution. It’s being the one who knows what to do when things go wrong.
When you start sensing that your experience is treated like overhead instead of value, it messes with you. You question whether you’re falling behind. You wonder if you’ve become “expensive” instead of essential.
That psychological weight doesn’t show up in spreadsheets, but it’s real.
Is This Illegal Ageism?
In some cases, yes, explicit age discrimination is illegal. But what most people experience isn’t a blatant policy. It’s structural bias.
When companies prioritize cost reduction and brand youth culture while aggressively investing in automation, older professionals can feel displaced without anyone saying the quiet part out loud.
It’s not always personal. It’s often systemic.
But systemic pressure still feels personal when it affects your livelihood.
So What Do You Do?
You don’t panic. And you don’t pretend nothing is changing.
You build leverage.
That might mean expanding into strategic skills that AI can’t easily replicate — judgment, synthesis, leadership. It might mean consulting on the side. It might mean building something small outside your employer so your entire identity and income aren’t tied to one organization.
Financial stability matters more in midlife than it did at 25. So does optionality.
The biggest mistake is assuming companies will suddenly reverse course and start prioritizing long-term loyalty over short-term efficiency. Businesses respond to incentives. Right now, those incentives favor cost control and automation.
That doesn’t mean experienced professionals are obsolete. It means we have to position ourselves differently.
You’re Not Crazy
If you’ve felt sidelined.
If you’ve noticed younger hires getting spotlighted faster.
If you’ve worried about AI creeping into your function.
You’re not imagining things.
There are structural shifts happening in the workplace. Some are economic. Some are cultural. Some are technological.
Acknowledging that isn’t bitterness. It’s clarity.
Experience still matters. But in today’s landscape, experience alone isn’t enough. You need positioning, leverage, and awareness.
If you want the fuller, unfiltered version of this conversation, watch the video embedded above. It’s not polished. It’s honest.
And if you’re an experienced professional navigating this phase of life, you’re not behind. You’re adapting.
That’s different.