Anecdotally, ageism seems to mostly exist in FAANG-type companies, web dev, and startups. If you look around at other industries like logistics, transportation, etc. there's less ageism.
Ageism is higher in companies in domains/work with lower barrier of entry, such as the ones you also identified like web dev, mobile apps and so on.
Ageism is less in domains that require ___domain expertise and hence have a higher barrier to entry for a newbie. Look at systems engineering, hardware, semi conductor, deep science and so on.
Ageism is a fundamental truism of all society throughout history. It's pretty much baked into the species via evolution.
* women are unable to reproduce until a certain age.
* women stop being able to reproduce at a certain age.
* NOTE: we need not delve any further into the inherent ageism of female biology.
* women select men for mating for a multitude of reasons, of which includes the dichotomy of dominant men.. who (for young women) tend to be slightly older then the men of the woman's own age group.
* men compete with each other for dominance, and age is a factor. Young men have a strength advantage, older men potentially have more experience.
* dominant men who grow older, become less dominant, etc... are no longer as useful for mating.
* older dominant women tend to have different selection criteria, they tend to select younger males who are less dominant then the other males of their own age, yet more so then the men of the woman's own age.
* this is not an exhaustive list...
Older men & women tend to be less useful beyond natural selection, but evolution is a great starting point.
Ageism is everywhere, but I'm surprised by your anecdote that it's more intense in FAANG-type companies. I wonder why?
Perhaps the FAANG working environment is competitive? Perhaps men & women are competing with each other for a kind of workplace dominance? hrm.....
