How do we thrive?

Accept that change happens. Be equal parts curious and critical about the new stuff.

That is not the solution. One cannot thrive if one cannot be seen or has been discarded as a relic no matter how up to date that person is. They will never be granted the opportunity to thrive as they have before as an employee. Their only hope to thrive is if they (magically) gain all the skills and networks necessary to be an entrepreneur that can do it all themselves. Nearly a unicorn.

Meantime while trying, they burn through what savings they have on the hope and dream of "being relevant again" and have about a 5% chance of success.

Maybe the author is misunderstanding the gist of the original article. Regardless, he raises an obviously accurate assessment of those who hold the hiring power. When I was recently out of college learning my craft, it was a common sarcastic refrain of either, "What could be so hard about it, it's all 1's and 0's" or "What's taking so long - you're just typing on a keyboard".

This has been a problem since long before I graduated from college (when classifieds called for 10 years experience on an IBM system that was released two years ago) (see, things don't change so much - names and places, sure, but not much else). People who are in leadership positions, who think they're better and smarter than most everybody else, frequently belittle those who do the grunt work, both physical and mental. It's gotta be a corollary to dunning-kruger theory (or maybe an example of it).