Being in the lower age bracket of OP, I have to agree with OPs point. There is quite a considerable pool of experienced, motivated and not career, and no longer really money motivated, people out there. We can be had by all OP said. I'll add an incomplete, and highly personal, points: 1, give us hard problems to solve with smart people 2, spare us corporate BS, careerists and all that 3, listen to us and give us aithority to decide things 4, don't have us report to some people who's only professional experience is in your young start-up

Good news, we are avaiable on all levels in the hierachy. Less on C-level, or even just VP, but we are there. And to be honest, to get your company of the ground the last thing you want is an accomplished VP from big corp in your industry. Those career politicians are best suited for your board.

> but the characterization of appealing to burned-out engineers, especially older folks,

It's not just "older folks" that are burnt out from being effectively abused by employers for years or decades. I left my last employer after just shy of 16 years as I didn't have a cost of living increase in over a decade, worked over 400 hours of overtime in a calendar year and was constantly being asked for more, with every single thing I did being micromanaged with a time stamp down to the second with it going as far as some managers asking employees to notify them when they'd be AFK to use the toilet to justify a few minute gap in activity, while my CEO gave himself a 40-something million dollar annual raise (while being a multi-billionaire).

In the past year and a half roughly half of that office has quit, heck when I put in my notice one of my team leads had put his in day before and the one I directly reported to put in his the day after I did.

People are tired of being treated like crap, with or without "enough" pay.

Sometimes being trusted, being treated like an adult, and being given some amount of freedom is far more attractive than more money.