5 ms·

A big difference is that modern kids are conditioned to do what they're told, work hard and choose a safe path in life. To get into a good school now you have

by rb808 8y ago

A big difference is that modern kids are conditioned to do what they're told, work hard and choose a safe path in life. To get into a good school now you have to spend your time studying hard to pass the standardized tests. Previously kids playing around, got bored, chasing girls/boys, leaving home as soon as possible, maybe joined the army, married young. So a 25 year old already had a lot of life experience. Able to take the responsibility to follow dreams and start up a new firm. Today's kids at 25 are just leaving school and still dont really know much about the real world. Great candidates to get a safe job in a company, not so great at starting a firm.

c12 8y ago
I honestly think you have hit the nail on the head with this. It is an unfortunate consequence of a modern education system that is set up to produce worker bees.
- hnisgroupthink 8y ago
  They aren't bees. They are indentured servants ripped from their communities to make money for oligarchs.
rmshea 8y ago
I can attest to this. I'm currently working my way through the college application pipeline, and my peers are laser focused on what it takes to get into a good college. Rather than pursuing what interests them, many choose challenging courses just to have a favorable transcript, and standardized test stress is an epidemic. Anxiety about "getting in" to a good school supersedes any dreams of starting a venture or pursuing an option that isn't a 4-year prestigious university. The disappearance of new ventures can be attributed in some way to this new way of thinking. I've been told that college anxiety didn't exist 20 years ago -- maybe it's time to go back to those days. High school, in my mind, is a time to experiment and find what actually interests you: not to manifest into a homework bot that's dominated by stress. This isn't always the case, though. The 25-year-old with life experience and a past of experimentation still exists, it's just not the norm anymore.
- varrock 8y ago
  I've done some serious reflecting on exactly what you've said. I'm on that "safe" route. I went through the college anxiety, the GPA worries -- all of that was my mantra. To this day, I still admit to being a "resume" builder. I want things on a paper for a sense of achievement. This scares me, though. I'm starting to realize that is not what it's about. It's about making a difference. Sure, you can indeed make a difference doing what you and I have described. A company needs people like that. But I always wonder, could I have made an even bigger difference doing something else? I'm not even talking about my education. I've even thought about this for sports. For instance, I grew up playing baseball religiously because I had already invested a lot of my time with it. I didn't want to adhere to anything else for the fear of wasting my time. Here I am, years later, realizing I would've been an even better tennis player had I actually been open to trying something that would've given me more success, but potentially been less safe (starting a new sport in the middle of being so devoted to one already). Here I am, hitting with racquet on every volley, wishing that I had bought into the sport earlier because I know I could've been better at it than I was baseball.
  - orbifold 8y ago
    What matters in addition to grades is personality and people you know. Things stay anonymous in university during undergrad for the most part, but if you are really good professors will start to notice you and then you get invited to join seminars, do internships etc. Especially in intellectually very competitive fields like math and physics everyone recognizes that tests do not really matter, they are nescessarily trivial or test only a small subset of skills you need to do research.
  - pteredactyl 8y ago
    I hear you. I believe it's most rewarding, in general, to create your own path. You will fail. Embarrass yourself. 'Let down' family and friends. But you'll know those that really care about you. And you'll find out what you're made of. Oh, and have some good stories along the way. “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”
- e40 8y ago
moorhosj 8y ago
This is an excellent point at the lower end of this age range. I do still think there is something in the fact that today's tech companies have very high profit-per-employee numbers. This allows them to pay higher skilled workers more money and those people become less likely to leave and start something on their own (a financially risky choice). It's possible that golden handcuffs (equity, etc.) are pushing this number down as well.
bontaq 8y ago
Yes, it is probably, "modern kids," who are conditioned to do what they're told. I think you've solved it. Also, they're immature and haven't even lived in the real world until at least 28.
- heurist 8y ago
  Is this sarcasm? Plenty of "kids" deal with reality long before 28.
  - addicted 8y ago
    I’m pretty sure it’s sarcasm lampooning the “Kids these days” trope used in the post being replied to.
  - rabidrat 8y ago
    Yes but they don't have enough life experience to be an elected representative.
s73v3r_ 8y ago
No. I think it's more that the mythos of the startup has been busted. Most of us probably know someone (or had it happen to them) that joined a startup, and got completely fucked on equity while getting paid peanuts and being worked 80-90 hours a week. Why would they want to go work for a startup, or give most of their startup to VCs, when they can work in a much lower stress environment for far more money, and actually get to go home at the end of the day?
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  Exactly.
LyndsySimon 8y ago
I have no idea if the data support this, but it intuitively rings true for me. My background - I failed out of college in 2003 due to clinical depression, and spent a few years getting my life together and learning how to function. I'd met my wife at 14 years old and we've been together since, which has been a huge factor in my life. Both she and I describe ourselves as "hustlers" - meaning that we pretty much always have at least one side hustle going on to generate income, and usually have several. It as 2007 before I was really able to function as an adult and got a "real job" with an actual career path. By that time I'd been: an electrician, a photographer, a photo technician, an assistant on a dairy farm, a web designer, a PC technician, and a retail clerk. My wife had been a hair and makeup artist, a dance teacher, a graphic designer, a videographer... you get the idea. A couple of years ago my wife was doing volunteer work as a member of our local Junior League, and the discussion turned toward career plans. Her peers in her age group (late 20s/early 30s) were in many cases either just graduating school after having achieved an advanced degree or were "paying their dues" working their first real jobs. Most of them were single and many had never had a serious relationship. That struck her as very odd - by 30, we had gone through a number of milestones for which her peers felt they still weren't prepared: careers, marriage, children, moving across the country, etc. By and large, they seemed to feel like they were finally wrapping up their education and "young adulthood", and were about to embark on their life. I figure a lot of this was because of our backgrounds - my wife and I grew up in a poor area in Arkansas where it was extremely common to be married with children by twenty, and at the time we were living in central Virginia where the median family income was over 300% higher than where we grew up. I do wonder though how much of it is simply generational. It seems like a lot of people I know in their twenties not only aren't yet fully responsible for themselves (financially and socially), but don't feel like they are expected to be yet. That's completely foreign to me, but it appears to be a common perspective.
- TimJYoung 8y ago
  Similar situation with my wife and I: I was working in IT directly out of high school (late 80s), and met my wife at the same company. Fast-forward a bit, and I'm married with my first kid at age 22, we started our first company when I was 26, and then started our current company when I was 28 (by then we had two kids and a new house). I see "kids" today that are 30-32 and just getting married, getting a house, and say "what took you so long ?". :-) Edit: downvoters, it's a joke, okay ? I have many close friends that are in that situation (I'm not that old), and I understand the forces that are conspiring against people to prevent them from "starting" their lives earlier.
sidr 8y ago
I strongly disagree with this idea. And the romanticizing of of the "maybe joined the army, married young" path. For one, the world is a little different now than when this path was normal - things are mass produced and menial jobs are outsourced to third-world countries, work that doesn't require specialized training is being automated. You can't open a mom and pop retail store around the corner and expect to survive in the age of Amazon and Walmart. It's also more expensive than ever to start a business - healthcare costs are through the roof, and big businesses have managed to finagle tax breaks that you won't get. Also since OPs comment was referring to the businesses started by those with master's degrees and higher, factor in student loans which have skyrocketed (increasing the risk you're taking on). Also, factor in housing costs in cities, which is where you need to be if you want to start something niche and technical. The fact is economic incentives are set up so that it's just way way more beneficial for a 25 year old to join a big company than to start their own (and definitely more so than joining someone else's startup...which makes hiring for startups harder - and round and round it goes). You can reply with polemics about the joys of working for yourself etc., but clearly there must be a point where the financial beating you take from doing so makes it not worth it. To me, this data indicates that we have reached that point.
- pteredactyl 8y ago
  You can be a 'mom and pop' store and survive. Just don't plan on selling cheap shit from China. Your other points. Yes.
awinder 8y ago
I thought we had been dogging millenials for ages for bring dynamism to the workplace through not wanting to do what they are told? These kids can not do right, no matter what. I would love to mount the Mr. Holland’s Opus defense here. Maybe the problem is not that kids are rule-followers / lemmings, but maybe through removing free time, attacking the arts, etc., we have raised one of the smartest generations without giving them opportunities to become impassioned about what they could make in this world.

by rb808 8y ago

c12 8y ago

I honestly think you have hit the nail on the head with this. It is an unfortunate consequence of a modern education system that is set up to produce worker bees.

hnisgroupthink 8y ago
They aren't bees. They are indentured servants ripped from their communities to make money for oligarchs.

rmshea 8y ago

I can attest to this. I'm currently working my way through the college application pipeline, and my peers are laser focused on what it takes to get into a good college. Rather than pursuing what interests them, many choose challenging courses just to have a favorable transcript, and standardized test stress is an epidemic. Anxiety about "getting in" to a good school supersedes any dreams of starting a venture or pursuing an option that isn't a 4-year prestigious university. The disappearance of new ventures can be attributed in some way to this new way of thinking. I've been told that college anxiety didn't exist 20 years ago -- maybe it's time to go back to those days. High school, in my mind, is a time to experiment and find what actually interests you: not to manifest into a homework bot that's dominated by stress. This isn't always the case, though. The 25-year-old with life experience and a past of experimentation still exists, it's just not the norm anymore.

varrock 8y ago
I've done some serious reflecting on exactly what you've said. I'm on that "safe" route. I went through the college anxiety, the GPA worries -- all of that was my mantra. To this day, I still admit to being a "resume" builder. I want things on a paper for a sense of achievement. This scares me, though. I'm starting to realize that is not what it's about. It's about making a difference. Sure, you can indeed make a difference doing what you and I have described. A company needs people like that. But I always wonder, could I have made an even bigger difference doing something else? I'm not even talking about my education. I've even thought about this for sports. For instance, I grew up playing baseball religiously because I had already invested a lot of my time with it. I didn't want to adhere to anything else for the fear of wasting my time. Here I am, years later, realizing I would've been an even better tennis player had I actually been open to trying something that would've given me more success, but potentially been less safe (starting a new sport in the middle of being so devoted to one already). Here I am, hitting with racquet on every volley, wishing that I had bought into the sport earlier because I know I could've been better at it than I was baseball.
- orbifold 8y ago
  What matters in addition to grades is personality and people you know. Things stay anonymous in university during undergrad for the most part, but if you are really good professors will start to notice you and then you get invited to join seminars, do internships etc. Especially in intellectually very competitive fields like math and physics everyone recognizes that tests do not really matter, they are nescessarily trivial or test only a small subset of skills you need to do research.
- pteredactyl 8y ago
  I hear you. I believe it's most rewarding, in general, to create your own path. You will fail. Embarrass yourself. 'Let down' family and friends. But you'll know those that really care about you. And you'll find out what you're made of. Oh, and have some good stories along the way. “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”
e40 8y ago

moorhosj 8y ago

This is an excellent point at the lower end of this age range. I do still think there is something in the fact that today's tech companies have very high profit-per-employee numbers. This allows them to pay higher skilled workers more money and those people become less likely to leave and start something on their own (a financially risky choice). It's possible that golden handcuffs (equity, etc.) are pushing this number down as well.

bontaq 8y ago

Yes, it is probably, "modern kids," who are conditioned to do what they're told. I think you've solved it. Also, they're immature and haven't even lived in the real world until at least 28.

heurist 8y ago
Is this sarcasm? Plenty of "kids" deal with reality long before 28.
- addicted 8y ago
  I’m pretty sure it’s sarcasm lampooning the “Kids these days” trope used in the post being replied to.
- rabidrat 8y ago
  Yes but they don't have enough life experience to be an elected representative.

s73v3r_ 8y ago

No. I think it's more that the mythos of the startup has been busted. Most of us probably know someone (or had it happen to them) that joined a startup, and got completely fucked on equity while getting paid peanuts and being worked 80-90 hours a week. Why would they want to go work for a startup, or give most of their startup to VCs, when they can work in a much lower stress environment for far more money, and actually get to go home at the end of the day?

toomuchtodo 8y ago
Exactly.

LyndsySimon 8y ago

I have no idea if the data support this, but it intuitively rings true for me. My background - I failed out of college in 2003 due to clinical depression, and spent a few years getting my life together and learning how to function. I'd met my wife at 14 years old and we've been together since, which has been a huge factor in my life. Both she and I describe ourselves as "hustlers" - meaning that we pretty much always have at least one side hustle going on to generate income, and usually have several. It as 2007 before I was really able to function as an adult and got a "real job" with an actual career path. By that time I'd been: an electrician, a photographer, a photo technician, an assistant on a dairy farm, a web designer, a PC technician, and a retail clerk. My wife had been a hair and makeup artist, a dance teacher, a graphic designer, a videographer... you get the idea. A couple of years ago my wife was doing volunteer work as a member of our local Junior League, and the discussion turned toward career plans. Her peers in her age group (late 20s/early 30s) were in many cases either just graduating school after having achieved an advanced degree or were "paying their dues" working their first real jobs. Most of them were single and many had never had a serious relationship. That struck her as very odd - by 30, we had gone through a number of milestones for which her peers felt they still weren't prepared: careers, marriage, children, moving across the country, etc. By and large, they seemed to feel like they were finally wrapping up their education and "young adulthood", and were about to embark on their life. I figure a lot of this was because of our backgrounds - my wife and I grew up in a poor area in Arkansas where it was extremely common to be married with children by twenty, and at the time we were living in central Virginia where the median family income was over 300% higher than where we grew up. I do wonder though how much of it is simply generational. It seems like a lot of people I know in their twenties not only aren't yet fully responsible for themselves (financially and socially), but don't feel like they are expected to be yet. That's completely foreign to me, but it appears to be a common perspective.

TimJYoung 8y ago
Similar situation with my wife and I: I was working in IT directly out of high school (late 80s), and met my wife at the same company. Fast-forward a bit, and I'm married with my first kid at age 22, we started our first company when I was 26, and then started our current company when I was 28 (by then we had two kids and a new house). I see "kids" today that are 30-32 and just getting married, getting a house, and say "what took you so long ?". :-) Edit: downvoters, it's a joke, okay ? I have many close friends that are in that situation (I'm not that old), and I understand the forces that are conspiring against people to prevent them from "starting" their lives earlier.

sidr 8y ago

I strongly disagree with this idea. And the romanticizing of of the "maybe joined the army, married young" path. For one, the world is a little different now than when this path was normal - things are mass produced and menial jobs are outsourced to third-world countries, work that doesn't require specialized training is being automated. You can't open a mom and pop retail store around the corner and expect to survive in the age of Amazon and Walmart. It's also more expensive than ever to start a business - healthcare costs are through the roof, and big businesses have managed to finagle tax breaks that you won't get. Also since OPs comment was referring to the businesses started by those with master's degrees and higher, factor in student loans which have skyrocketed (increasing the risk you're taking on). Also, factor in housing costs in cities, which is where you need to be if you want to start something niche and technical. The fact is economic incentives are set up so that it's just way way more beneficial for a 25 year old to join a big company than to start their own (and definitely more so than joining someone else's startup...which makes hiring for startups harder - and round and round it goes). You can reply with polemics about the joys of working for yourself etc., but clearly there must be a point where the financial beating you take from doing so makes it not worth it. To me, this data indicates that we have reached that point.

pteredactyl 8y ago
You can be a 'mom and pop' store and survive. Just don't plan on selling cheap shit from China. Your other points. Yes.

awinder 8y ago

I thought we had been dogging millenials for ages for bring dynamism to the workplace through not wanting to do what they are told? These kids can not do right, no matter what. I would love to mount the Mr. Holland’s Opus defense here. Maybe the problem is not that kids are rule-followers / lemmings, but maybe through removing free time, attacking the arts, etc., we have raised one of the smartest generations without giving them opportunities to become impassioned about what they could make in this world.