I don't think that kids these days are awful. I think they're great - they're socially progressive, they're cultured, they have high aspirations and they work r

I don't think that kids these days are awful. I think they're great - they're socially progressive, they're cultured, they have high aspirations and they work really hard. I think that successive generations have let them down, due to a culture of parenting that is dominated by fear. I'm not a naysayer or a nostalgic pessimist. I think that there are clear trends in society, some positive and some negative. It's obviously great news that we no longer consider it acceptable to beat children or to smoke during pregnancy. There is a clear trend in parenting and schooling towards more structure, more pressure and far less independence. We have seen a huge increase in educational attainment and college admission which is overwhelmingly a good thing, but the greater focus on academic study has come at the cost of other skills. For every twentysomething who founds a startup, there are dozens of baristas with liberal arts degrees. A lot of those baristas might dream of founding a startup, but very few of them have the skills, experience and confidence to do so. Research indicates that the average age of an entrepreneur is actually 40; most successful businesses are founded by people with an established career and a great deal of professional experience. High rates of youth unemployment and underemployment are likely to have a significant impact on innovation in ten or twenty years. http://www.kauffman.org/what-we-do/research/2010/05/the-anatomy-of-an-entrepreneur http://www.kauffman.org/what-we-do/research/2010/05/the-anat...