Google's oldest employee is over 80 years old

There's a myth that tech companies in Silicon Valley prefer to hire younger employees.

In fact, recent data from Stack Overflow even suggests that the average age of a developer is 28. Another report from The New Republic last year said that even tech industry workers in their 20s were seeking Botox treatments to look younger.

But Google's human resources chief Lazslo Bock doesn't believe this to be true at all. In fact, the oldest employee at Google is over 80 years old.

Here's what he said in his Ask-Me-Anything (AMA) thread on Reddit on Tuesday when a Redditor asked what advice he would give to a developer in his 40s that was concerned about being a too old to be a good fit at a company like Google:

Google hires people of every age ... our oldest Googler is over 80! Best advice is to make clear the impact of your work. Basically, for all your accomplishments use the format "accomplished X by doing Y as measured by Z." Please apply!

It's not clear who the oldest 80+ Googler is, although Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf is up there at the ripe age of 71.