no, it only seems that way because the powerful silicon valley and finance giants are the only ones with access to the top-tier young talent. the rest of the young people out there are inexperienced and not that smart, and definitely aren't worth a six figure salary.
so everyone else just hires older people, but it isn't sexy and marketable to the impressionable technology crowd.
You also can't get away with demanding the same work conditions or work/life balance from an older person than you can from a 21 year old CS graduate who's very eager to impress and has little other commitments to attend to.
I can't imagine you'll find many older, experienced devs willing to put up with the "we need to ship so you've got to put in 80 hours this week. You build it, you support it so keep your phone and laptop by you at all times outside of work" shtick that a lot of tech companies beat the young guy devs with.
> I can't imagine you'll find many older, experienced devs willing to put up with the "we need to ship so you've got to put in 80 hours this week.
Yes, because we've fallen for that bullshit before, killed ourselves to meet the deadline, and found that the asshole manager made it artificially short to "motivate" us, and the other teams aren't even finished yet :)
so everyone else just hires older people, but it isn't sexy and marketable to the impressionable technology crowd.