Friend recently asked me something similar as he’s finalizing a divorce and has started dating again, though he’s a bit younger than you (and the girl is a bit younger than your example).
I forget exact ages but the half your age plus 7 rule was met. Say 42 and 29?
She worked in our industry and specifically the same role he did, but at a more junior level I have to assume.
Distilled down a but I essentially said if they like each other and they are together because of that, then it’s fine. They are both adults and can have fun together as much as they want. They need to keep that balance though. If it becomes a mentorship kind of situation then they probably both need to take a step back and reflect on what that means.
I mean I’m sure it was a mix. There are a lot of stories out there about how if you didn’t stay on top of your outsourced factory they would look everywhere to cut corners to save a few extra cents here and there.
You (used to?) have to constantly check production quality and make sure nothing was changed out for a low cost part or lower cost source material. Otherwise your product quality falls off and you’re losing money on warranties and repairs and losing customer goodwill.
The other thing that happened is these factories, once they had your design, would make the same thing with lower cost parts / materials as a knockoff and sell it unbranded, as they don’t care about US or European IP Laws. Word might get around that “hey you can get the same brand X product as brand Y or from Aliexpress and save 50%”. Now they’re undercutting you, and you lose customer goodwill because people think your product is overpriced. Then the knockoff fails and they are happy they never bought your product in the first place because they think yours would have failed too. Through word of mouth people say “oh that broke after a month” not realizing the offbrand was made with shoddy materials, less screws, cheaper batteries, an inferior screen, literally anything they can do to save money.