A good friend and colleague of mine, the ineffable Erik Schmidt (no, not Eric Schmidt of Google fame, but perhaps just as brilliant!), recently shared this article with me:
It’s well worth the read and a deep dive into the work-angst of the up and coming generation. But it got me thinking, I’ve heard this story before. Hell, I’ve lived it. Is this time really, truly, for reals different? Or are we just retreading the same well-worn path as our parents and grandpappy?
The story goes like this. A younger generation, disheartened at the world around them and the older generation’s unwillingness to fix it, takes on the establishment. They dress differently, have their own language, and basically eschew anything corporate - including work, consumerism, and tradition. The old folk, they wonder what’s happening to the world. “It wasn’t like this back in my day,” they say grumpily as they shake their head (or fist).
Sound familiar? For my parent’s generation, it was Woodstock and the hippie movement (though they missed the boat by a few years). Swarms of disenchanted youth giving up work, roaming the countryside, living in communes, and generally giving up on structured society and capitalist life. Where are most of them now? Baby boomers in middle management, with a house, kids of their own, and a cushy retirement plan. “There’s nothing more ironic than a Hippie in Versace” as the Barenaked Ladies song goes.
For my generation, it was the Grunge-Alt movement. Nirvana. Rage Against the Machine. Marilyn Manson. I was 16, had dyed hair and pierced ears, and had dreams of making it as a rock musician or maybe living off the grid. Me now? Good corporate citizen, C-level exec, house in the burbs, driving the kids to and from sports practice. My 16-year-old self is shaking his skull-earringed head in disgust. Rage Against Me.
So here we seem to be again. In the well-articulated article above, GenZ is following a similar path: post-consumerism, post-work. Prognosticators warn of a coming collapse of work and basically capitalism as large portions of the labor market simply opt out. Should we be freaking out? Heading for the exits?
Let’s consult our resident literary genius, Mr. Mark Twain:
History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes
One thing seems clear to me. To assume that GenZ’s angst will persist as they get older seems naïve at best if you believe in human nature (I, for one, do). The current talent gap and hiring war at its core is a need for talented people, and as young people build valuable skills, they will likely join the traditional workforce. Sure, you’ll have your RENT bohemian types mocking them from the sidelines, but having a cozy place to call home and food on the table is a hard thing to pass up.
If this is all there is to the story, we’re done, wrapped up nice and tidy with a simple explanation based on human psychology. Oh, but what’s that you say? What about technology? Ah, now we’re getting somewhere.
Yes, history repeats itself, but the environment we’re in today - and heading to in the near future - is FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT. I can’t stress this enough. We’re in a totally different world. While we humans will continue to act like humans, the gameboard has been ripped out from underneath us. Kansas went bye-bye.
When my grandparents were in the prime of their working lives, there were no personal computers. When my parents were in the prime of their working lives, there was no Internet. No social media. No virtual meeting technology. The economy was based on physical goods and services.
Then came the knowledge economy, ushering in my generation of work. Physical goods were replaced with content, media, and other digital goods and services. But there was still a link to the physical world. We printed and signed contracts. News websites still looked and felt like the newspapers they replaced. We paid and were paid in cold, hard cash (even when it was digitally transferred to a bank account).
As we enter the prime of GenZ’s working lives over the next few decades, what will their world look like? If Web3 comes to fruition as anticipated, many of the last vestiges, the final tethers to our physical world will disappear. Digital goods and services will happen entirely online, divorced of their physical counterparts. Companies, communities, and friendships will spring up without people ever physically meeting each other. Physical location will be largely meaningless in the future of work. And our monetary system will likely be fully digitized.
The physical institutions we have relied on to conduct business, entertain us, govern us, all become less relevant and increasingly slow-moving compared to digital counterparts. They will gasp, falter, and ultimately go the way of the Dodo. New entities and strategies yet imagined will appear.
But we people will persist as we always have. Some will be resourceful, adaptable, scrappy, carving out new jobs and extracting value (that’s YOU, our Changemakers). Others will get by, managing the best they can in a wildly different world. And yes, as in the past, many will suffer as they struggle to get by. And as good world citizens, we must take care of them (telling them to shut up and get a job doesn’t help).
The biggest shift will be that technology will handle ever more value creation, leaving fewer and fewer people able to work. The “creator economy” may help provide a soft landing, where people can make a reasonable living making digital goods for the direct consumption of others, without middlemen or the need for a practical purpose.
What will this all look like, when everything is said and done? Tech-utopia? Ready Player One dystopia? My bet is it will look a heck of a lot like the past. An older GenX shaking their head at a world they no longer realize. A middle-aged GenZ wondering what happened to their idealistic utopian world as they sip their latte and shuttle their kids to soccer practice in their self-driving car. And a young yet-to-be-named generation thinking how uncool their parents are, and how they - yes THEY - will do things differently…