I've thought about this a lot before, and there definitely is some merit to it.
I worked retail as a teenager, and the managers would give more hours to an older employee because she needed them (I was told this explicitly). I was fine with it at the time, because yeah, I was still mostly living on my parents' dime. Working in a corporate setting now, if I was told someone else at my company was getting a big raise only because they just had another kid or bought a new house, and not due to the quality of his or her work, I'm not sure how I would feel. I guess it just breaks down to whether you think like a capitalist or a communist.
YEAH to staying forever young and being white, male and without kids! No, honestly we don't have enough context. Maybe there simply wasn't anybody around willing to do the job before and if somebody would need it like in your example then maybe startup guy would "get fired"? Who knows? Context.
That's a bit different, also, have you considered that the other people were more experienced and better qualified so the manager used the age and need as an excuse to spare your feelings/morale?
I worked retail as a teenager, and the managers would give more hours to an older employee because she needed them (I was told this explicitly). I was fine with it at the time, because yeah, I was still mostly living on my parents' dime. Working in a corporate setting now, if I was told someone else at my company was getting a big raise only because they just had another kid or bought a new house, and not due to the quality of his or her work, I'm not sure how I would feel. I guess it just breaks down to whether you think like a capitalist or a communist.