Companies in general rarely hire older employees exclusively for their technical ability.
The typical 50 year old programmer has worked at numerous organizations, with dozens of teams, using at least as many technologies. This directly contributes to the development of non-technical skills such as communication skills, management skills, insight, and stronger perception. They're rarely oblivious to these skills (as demonstrated by the relatively low numbers of older professionals selling themselves as "programmers").
I find this not necessarily true at my company, in fact the oldest people in the engineering department are exclusively developers where the managers tend to be younger or the same age as them. This may depend on region, as well, the area I live in now is rather different than Silicon Valley where I think people wouldn't stick around for years and years as "just a programmer" but in lower-cost, slower-pace areas, I think programming is often just another job to people and its something that people will just continue to do for their entire career.
The typical 50 year old programmer has worked at numerous organizations, with dozens of teams, using at least as many technologies. This directly contributes to the development of non-technical skills such as communication skills, management skills, insight, and stronger perception. They're rarely oblivious to these skills (as demonstrated by the relatively low numbers of older professionals selling themselves as "programmers").