Thinktank Methodology: Millenials, Boomers, and VC’s

I’ve been thinking a lot about the recent changes in our culture. There’s a big divide between the young and the old and how we interact with each other. I would like to sit down and source knowledge from people older than me; those went through the same situations as I am experiencing now. I would also like to source knowledge and ideas about the future from the younger generation.

The problem arises when we try to communicate. One party turns preachy, while the other feels unheard. The older generation learned to listen in their youth, stay in their lane until their time came. The culture wasn’t as dynamic. Access to capital and information was reserved for the elite. If you wanted to start a company you needed to be part of a rich family. Bill Gates got rich by booking a meeting with IBM through his mom’s company (and lots of hard work, but you get what I mean).

The older generation was educated in a single field and most likely stuck to that field until they retired. The younger generations aren’t lifers anymore. We see that in a recent LinkedIn study.

Their study found that millennials will change jobs an average of four times in their first decade out of college, compared to about two job changes by Gen Xers their first ten years out of college.
EdSurge

Further, from Gallup:

The majority of millennials (55%) are not engaged, leading all other generations in this category of worker engagement.
Not engaging millennial workers is a big miss for organizations. The millennial workforce is predominantly “checked out” — not putting energy or passion into their jobs. They are indifferent about work and show up just to put in their hours.
Gallup

I believe the root of the problem is that they have no voice; they aren’t heard by the older generation. They have so much access to information that they can learn the basics seemingly overnight, but why would they do that? What’s the motivation if no one will listen to them anyway? It’s on Google, so why would I waste space putting that into my brain? There’s nothing tangible for the younger generation; no purpose to their learning.

They aren’t the “agents of change” that a liberal arts education promised them. It shows with their general dissatisfaction with corporate culture. The older generations rationalize by saying they’re slowly learning the skills they need to be successful later in life, with the promise of a grand retirement package full of golf and gin and tonics.

The younger generation could care less. Life is now, not when you’re 65. They’re impatient and frustrated with the large corporations that defacto run the government regulatory regime. You can see it in the news, you can see it in voting patterns and you can see it in climate change debate. Check out Swede Greta Thunberg on climate change:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzeekxtyFOY

Both generations need to listen for real progress to be made.

A Liberal Arts Education

Let’s back up for a second. Who at eighteen-years-old knows exactly what they want to do with their lives? Why should you choose to go to a specialized school and get a specialized degree? Parents? Salary expectations? Because someone told you a high salary leads to a happy life?

I received a liberal arts undergraduate education. I switched my major from chemistry to biology to mathematics to computer science to economics. I received a minor in math with a degree in economics, struggling to finish in four years. I was one course away from a chemistry minor and two away from a biology minor. Guess what I did after college.

You guessed it: Bartender.

This style of education leaves graduates wanting. They know enough to know they need to know some more. The model doesn’t fit everyone, but it does lead to introspection and creativity. Creativity is what the world needs to connect the old and the new.

The economy exhibits the premium associated with being creative. From a Stanford study:

As of December 2013, our sample of public companies had 4,063 firms with total market capitalization of $21.3 trillion. Of those, 710, or 18%, of the companies are VC-backed. Their total market capitalization is $4.3 trillion (20%). These companies tend to be young and fast growing, which explains why their revenue is a relatively smaller fraction of the revenue of the total sample (10%), but their research and development is 42% of the total.
In 2013, VC-backed U.S. public companies spent $115 billion on research and development; up from essentially zero in 1979.
Stanford

FOURTY TWO PERCENT of all research and development expenditure in the US is generated from venture capital-backed firms. These are the newly created jobs based on creating something new. Jobs that didn’t exist 10 years ago. Think Uber, Airbnb, Instagram, Spotify, and Kickstarter. GPS on Smartphones didn’t even exist.

According to [the World Economic Forum], 65% of children entering primary school today will be employed in jobs that do not currently exist. In this brave new future, college graduates can expect to find their careers affected, if not defined by, these changes.
Huffington Post

The New New Product Development Game

The way businesses are formed today has changed for better or worse. The economy demands workers to be dynamic, wear multiple hats, and be creative. Curiosity is at a premium.

There’s a model called SCRUM, introduced by the Japanese and published in an article titled The New New Product Development Game in Harvard Business Review in 1986. It outlined a structure where one team works toward a goal with overlapping phases. The goal is speed and flexibility.

Non-traditional aspects are baked into the model: instability, self-organizing project teams, overlapping development phases, multilevel learning, subtle control from management.

Management acts like a venture capital fund, providing networking, capital and moral support at the outset. Management gets the right people in one place with one goal in mind and lets them have at it.

The project leaders then prioritize goals and come up with a strategy using the expertise provided in the team. Everyone keeps an eye on the market for their product. They’re all business oriented in addition to their chosen field of expertise.

My proposal is to get motivated people of all ages and backgrounds together to create something new. The older generations need to open up to sourcing market knowledge from the youth, and the youth need to wake up to the realization that nothing gets done without hard work.

Old and new ideas mesh to create. You can’t put eight 20 year-olds in a room and expect to create something huge. You need a backbone, someone(s) with contacts and expertise. Parties of all age groups feel their input is heard and they influence the group dynamic. The young provide innovation and market insight, while the old provide structure and expertise.

Enter: Thinktank.

More to come. Thanks for reading. Reach out with thoughts: fungiblethoughts@gmail.com

/tommander-in-chief

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