

Forbes: Entrepreneurship (Or Lack Thereof) In Millennials - bigthboy
http://www.forbes.com/entrepreneurs/2008/12/10/melliennial-barack-obama-ent-manage-cx_sb_1209berglasmillennial.html

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prospero
Little known facts about millenials:

* They are younger than the average person reading this article

* They know how to use computers

* They play well with others, except when they don't

* If placed in a well-lit room and given plenty of water, they will blossom (singing to them sometimes helps, too)

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strlen
So there are articles saying "millennials" can't just smoothly blend into the
corporate environment (and are a problem for corporate recruiters) - because
they've been coddled and want to do "their own thing" - and there are articles
saying "millennials" can _only_ blend into the corporate environment (and are
great for corporate recruiters) because they've been "coddled".

All of these articles appear in magazines of similar bent like WSJ and Forbes.

Logically, they're saying

"Millennial" implies "Coddled" ;

"Coddled" AND "in corporate hierarchy" implies "can't succeed" ;

"Coddled" AND NOT "in corporate hierarchy" implies "can't succeed" ;

So either they're (WSJ, Forbes) claiming A) millennials _MUST_ fail in any
environment (whether corporate or not) or B) these people (writers for WSJ,
Forbes) are being emotional and not logically consistent.

If A is true they need to have statistics that all things being equal
millennials (and I assume those possesing a BA/BS degree from a university and
coming from a middle class background, i.e. "coddled" ones) are more likely to
be unemployed (while not being enrolled in education or training) than their
peers from other generation. I don't seem to find this to be true...

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comatose_kid
There's a lot of emotion, but not a lot of data (in the original article, or
in our discussion).

The sole data point I can think of to support his point is Richard Branson.
Check out how he was raised (an extreme amount of independence/autonomy) in
his biography.

That said, there are 2 serious issues in this article:

1) He assumes that millennials are more coddled than other generations. How
can he prove this?

2) How can he prove that there is an inverse correlation between the amount of
coddling and entrepreneurial outcomes?

Until he provides hard data, he ends up sounding like a typical social
'scientist'.

Anyways, the article provided at least one benefit for me in that it raised
the question: are there things we can do as parents to help our children
become more entrepreneurial?

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time_management
Horrible.

 _That generation, born between 1946 and 1964, had a collective fascination
with butt-kicking, entrepreneurial achievement._

Look at where all the "butt-kicking" corporate warriors got us!

 _So-called millennials, born between mid 1970s and 1990s, have received a
radically different message--one captured in part by President-elect Barack
Obama's stance on the benefits of "spreading the wealth around."_

The author seems to suggest that cleaning up the messes of power's previous
custodians, as Barack Obama will have to do, couldn't _possibly_ be
preparation for anything useful in the corporate world.

 _Not that millennials are damaged goods. Corporate recruiters drool over them
for their ability to adapt and fit into bureaucratic enterprises.
Overachieving, nobody-tells-me-what-to-do entrepreneurial types don't go so
gently into that good night._

I thought the complaint about our generation was that we had sharp elbows,
demanding to assert our individualism at work and be treated "as colleagues
rather than as subordinates".

If any generation is bureaucratically-inclined, it's the Baby Boomers. We've
accepted that there's no point in climbing corporate ladders that are going to
vanish as we attempt to traverse them.

 _Rather than seeking to come out on top in zero-sum games, millennials strive
for consensus._

Is that a bad thing? Although driven by competition, isn't business supposed
to be positive-sum? It's only "zero sum" in stagnant corporations that have
given up on measuring and encouraging production and, instead, fall back on
political success for allocating rewards.

 _Dr. Steven Berglas spent 25 years on the faculty of Harvard Medical School’s
Department of Psychiatry. Today he coaches entrepreneurs, executives and other
high-achievers._

So he's a professor and a life coach, and he's berating us for our lack of
entrepreneurial spirit?

~~~
potatolicious
Agreed. Yet more alarmist "the next generation sucks!" drivel, backed up by a
lot of big claims, and no data.

I am current in college (a few months from graduation), and let me just say
that myself and many of my fellow students are all very entrepreneurial. More
than a few of us have launched products, sites, and services to make money on
the side, and going into business for yourself is a constant topic of
conversation.

Yes, millennials are entrepreneurs - sometimes out of necessity. We no longer
have the prospect of a cushy pension to look forward to, nor a predictable
climb up a corporate ladder. The playing field has changed, and IMHO it now
favors the bold.

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ajkirwin
I've never read such a crock of shit since the last time I read something like
this.

I'm sorry, because we don't subscribe to the model of "Grab all you can and
fuck the other guy", somehow we're going to be useless entrepreneurs and crap
at starting The Business of Tomorrow?

Fuck you, sir, and the boat you sailed in on. I and many others like me, have
a great drive, but not for our own self-gratification, but for the betterment
of many and I think that's a far greater thing than wanting to create the next
IBM or Wells Fargo or whatever the hell.

~~~
azanar
>I and many others like me, have a great drive, but not for our own self-
gratification, but for the betterment of many and I think that's a far greater
thing than wanting to create the next IBM or Wells Fargo or whatever the hell.

Drive rooted in self-interest and self-gratification isn't a universal evil.
The problem really is the broken philosophy that screwing over the other guy
is the only high odds way to gain. It only works until all the potential gains
from what we've already created are realized. At that point, supply and/or
demand dry up, and we end up in big trouble economically. People who push for
this describe economics as a zero-sum game. They say fuck their neighbor
because the only way to acquire wealth is to steal some of his/hers. They
neglect to account for the decay term caused by the decrease value in what has
already been made; they assume scarcity is a constant, or attempt to make it
artificially so. They also neglect to account for the growth term, which is
new things being introduced into the market, adding to the overall wealth of
what we've created. Someone driven by self-interest would do better to
increase this growth term, but that tends to be hard work and the short-term
payoff, if that's what they need to stay motivated, is rarely there.

