"
I don't know what his being an assistant prof has to do with anything—almost all young professors start out as assistant profs."

The Wire? Breaking Bad? Not recent enough?

*misplaced reply*

Are you a humanities grad student? Just because you don't know any 26 year old ASSISTANT (mentioned in the episode) professors doesn't mean they don't exist. In fact, they are not at all unusual in some fields (e.g. engineering, computer science, economics). You don't even have to be a genius: finish college at 21 or…