To clarify, and provide a citation here, IE 11 is supported. It is only IE10<= that are not supported by Microsoft.
microsoft.com/en-us/WindowsForBusiness/End-of-IE-…
It's not about being dependent on IE, it's what our customers demand. I lot of banks won't or don't upgrade from older versions of IE due to 'security' concerns. It's important to note these browser versions are not evergreen, which makes them harder to manage and account for so there will always be some users on these outdated systems. More specifically companies that use older systems, users tend to always go with whats easier.
As for the android support, it actually varies from version to version - I believe it's around v5 (lollipop) that isn't supported by security updates anymore, but still supported by API services. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_version_history
It's also not about hiring 'old-fashioned' developers and more about understanding customer requirements and thus hiring developers who can do modern stuff as well as understand where we've come from and support older technologies if required, That being said, any developer that any developer who 'refuses' to use something just on the basis that it's new and without some kind of analysis is not a good developer. I would also take into consideration the affect of the rate of change of technologies. Jumping on everything new is a bad idea, but similarly not recognising new things is also a bad idea. It's all about being aware of whats out there and analysing those things in order to select the best stuff for the job.
I agree old technologies can be frustrating, increase code base size and increase code complexity; but these are sometimes necessary.
I also wouldn't jump the gun on automata and AI just yet. There's still a lot to be figured out.