
The Shallowest Generation - tortilla
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2008/11/the-shallowest-generation/
======
ryanwaggoner
Interesting article, but the author's selective memory and faulty logic
continually undermines the point he's trying to make. My favorite was this
gem:

"Past U.S. generations invented the airplane; invented the automobile;
discovered penicillin; and built the Interstate highway system. The Baby Boom
generation has invented credit default swaps; mortgage backed securities; the
fast food drive thru window; discovered the cure for erectile dysfunction; and
built bridges to nowhere. No wonder we’re in so much trouble.

This completely ignores developments like the personal computer revolution,
the Internet, modern telecommunications, satellite technology, space
exploration, advances in biotechnology, dramatic reductions in global poverty,
etc, etc. I'm sure I'm forgetting some, but you get the idea.

The author would have done well to acknowledge that the reality of the
situation is more nuanced than the picture he attempts to paint.

~~~
ken
Also, half his examples weren't done by any "U.S. generation". The automobile
was invented by a German, and Penicillin was discovered by a Scot.

~~~
palish
The automobile was invented by a German, but it was popularized by Henry Ford.
Also, consider that if that German hadn't invented the automobile, Ford still
would have. i.e. Ford wasn't inspired by that German, because he was already
working on an automobile. His autobiography is very good:
<http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/hnfrd10.txt>

~~~
yummyfajitas
Lesson for startup founders: your competition built the prototype first. Maybe
you should still keep going forward, if you expect to have a solid competitive
advantage?

~~~
tom_rath
Perhaps more succinctly: The second mouse gets the cheese.

------
jd
Is it just me, or does the author use a lot of unintentionally funny
analogies?

Anyway, I'm going to chip in on the issue of CEO pay. Many, including the
author, are outraged that they're paid 500 times the wage of the average
worker. But the CEO job is generally given to somebody who

a) has proven himself (5mm <= net worth < 15mm)

b) is willing to work 80 hours per week

c) is willing to pick work over family/friends, no matter the circumstances

The CEO must:

a) focus on quarterlies at the expense of long term vision (maximize
shareholder returns per quarter)

b) focus on quarterlies at the expense of employees and the company itself

Aside from perhaps the prestige and power that comes with the job, it's not
going to be a lot of fun. So why would somebody who's already rich be willing
to do this? Money. And lots of it. Does that make them sellouts? I guess. But
if working for 2 more years means the CEO can retire and sustain his current
lifestyle for the rest of his life it's probably pretty tempting.

You shouldn't ask yourself - does the guy deserve 500 times the average
worker's salary? Ask instead - why did it take 500 times the average worker's
salary to convince him to take the job?

I think that the CEO should focus on generating true value, both in the short
and long term. And I don't think that's possible when you're only held
accountable for short term results. Only CEOs like Steve Jobs can work on
their vision, short term results be damned. His annual salary is $1. Why?
Probably just to prove his independence.

Everything boils down to incentives. Whether it's CEO pay, greed on wall
street or credit cards (ab)use. People do what's in their best interest. Fix
the incentives, and the rest should fix itself.

~~~
time_management
_But the CEO job is generally given to somebody who

a) has proven himself (5mm <= net worth < 15mm)

b) is willing to work 80 hours per week

c) is willing to pick work over family/friends, no matter the circumstances_

I'm not convinced that B and C are good things. Sometimes, it's necessary to
work 80 hours per week, but doing that for years on end is unhealthy and
counterproductive. Most of the long hours in upper-tier corporate result not
from any benefit to those extra hours worked, but rather from oneupmanship.

As for C, consider this. In a corporate environment, where one is working to
enrich other people, putting work ahead of family and friends is, generally, a
very _bad_ decision. After all, the probability of becoming CEO is very small,
and a person who laid up 70 hours per week only plateau at the VP level is
just a loser who made bad choices and wasted his life. The only difference
between the CEO and that moron is that the CEO won the lottery while the also-
ran lost.

Following the lottery analogy, you wouldn't take financial advice from a
crackhead who bought twenty Powerball tickets every night, and happened to win
$200 million. So, do you really think it's a good thing for large companies to
be governed by those who wasted their lives in a relatively pointless quest
for power?

 _So why would somebody who's already rich be willing to do this? Money._

Status. The status, in this case, comes from the money.

 _Ask instead - why did it take 500 times the average worker's salary to
convince him to take the job?_

It doesn't. People would gladly take the job for 10x. If you haven't figured
it out, corporate compensation is the result of a fellatio daisy chain. The
board is staffed by executives of other companies, who allow the CEO to raise
his pay, because he is on their boards and will vote in their favor if they do
so for him.

~~~
tortilla
"fellatio daisy chain"

If I could up-vote you more I would.

------
tortilla
Interesting Graph:

CEOs’ average pay, production workers’ average pay, the S&P 500 Index,
corporate profits, and the Federal minimum wage, 1990-2005 (adjusted for
inflation)

[http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-
content/uploads/2008/11/ceo-...](http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-
content/uploads/2008/11/ceo-pay.png)

------
krschultz
He clearly states his bias: "Our Government bureaucracy, which contributes
nothing to the advancement of our society, now is a larger portion of GDP than
manufacturing."

Somehow I don't think our past experience with trying to get roads, power,
plumbing, and the Internet into rural areas agrees with statement.

~~~
anamax
> Somehow I don't think our past experience with trying to get roads, power,
> plumbing, and the Internet into rural areas agrees with statement.

"trying" is the important word. And, the federal govt didn't have much
involvement in most of those things.

And, even if it did, do you really think that they explain or justify 30+% of
GDP?

------
theoneill
...so far. Wait till everything is run by the generation that grew up on
Ritalin and gaming.

------
sdurkin
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=160218>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=340482>

I'm going to do this every time one of these absurd stories is posted.

------
time_management
The problem's not that they're a shallow generation. Actually, I think the
Baby Boomers were a very idealistic generation, and this (paradoxically) has
led to the corrupt leadership. The civil rights activists, hippies, and
leftists (with a few exceptions) didn't swing around to become the yuppies,
sellouts, and corrupt political figures. Different people did.

My father's pretty similar to me in worldview, ethics, and politics. When he
was growing up, he couldn't have even imagined working at a hedge fund; the
concept of working for money was considered crass, if not repulsive. (He was
actually quite incensed when I first said I was interested in trying out
trading.) In 2007, it was perfectly normal for a liberal, idealistic young
person to go and work for an investment bank or hedge fund, because that was
seen as the best way to establish oneself and go far later (e.g. Jeff Bezos
worked at Shaw before founding Amazon).

I would note that the problem with the Baby Boom generation isn't that they're
"selfish". My parents aren't bad people. Nor were most of my teachers; they
were great. On the whole, the Boomers aren't worse than the rest of us. The
difference between them and us is that the better half of them almost entirely
eschewed the career paths that led to power-- finance and corporate
leadership-- leaving the shameless and greedy bastards to take control.

~~~
ojbyrne
I think this is orthodox Neoconism. The baby boomers were hippies who did
drugs, attacked the Vietnam war, questioned authority, promoted "free love",
and so on. Most importantly, their independence of thought is what makes them
"selfish."

Contrasting them with the "Greatest Generation," whose lives were basically
dictated to them when WW2 started, and supported the House Committee on
UnAmerican Activities. Can we call them the "Pleasantville Generation?"
instead.

~~~
anamax
< The baby boomers were hippies who did drugs, attacked the Vietnam war,
questioned authority, promoted "free love",

How'd that work out?

> Contrasting them with the "Greatest Generation," whose lives were basically
> dictated to them when WW2 started, and supported the House Committee on
> UnAmerican Activities.

And the Soviets later revealed that there were Communists in the US govt and
that they were trying to "influence" Hollywood.

> Can we call them the "Pleasantville Generation?" instead.

Whenever it comes down to "squares" vs "cool", you can be pretty sure that the
"cool" will screw things up more.

In other news, truth is not beauty and you have to be pretty stoned to think
otherwise.

~~~
ojbyrne
I think it's fairly well documented that in amongst the hippies doing drugs
were some key people involved in the creation of the computer, software,
networking and internet industries.

~~~
anamax
[http://www.amazon.com/Where-Wizards-Stay-Up-
Late/dp/06848326...](http://www.amazon.com/Where-Wizards-Stay-Up-
Late/dp/0684832674)

Also, long hair and drugs doesn't make you "cool". (If it did, meth heads
would be cool.)

------
mellow
'The Baby Boom Generation will never be mistaken for the Greatest Generation
that survived the Great Depression and defeated evil in a World War that
killed 72 million people', is one of the greatest opening sentences I have
ever read.

Almost as good as 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was
the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief,
it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season
of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had
everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to
Heaven, we were all going the other way'

