What it means

Elihu is quoting the assumption he held going into the conversation: that older people, by virtue of their age and accumulated years, are naturally the wise ones who should speak first and be listened to. He's about to challenge that assumption — but here he's honestly naming it as the default expectation he started with.

For today

We carry this bias constantly. We default to the senior employee, the older parent, the long-tenured executive — assuming their years automatically equal insight. Meanwhile, a 24-year-old sees a broken system clearly, or a newcomer spots what everyone else stopped noticing. Age and experience genuinely matter, but they're not the same thing as wisdom. Seniority can also calcify into blind spots.

Takeaway

Before deferring to whoever has the most years in the room, ask whose perspective is actually seeing the situation most clearly right now.