Gen Z’s Traditional Swing & AI-Boosted Employer Leverage
Also: meet my 2025 summer internship cohort
Trends
The Return of Tradition: Why Gen Z is Playing it Safe
A growing segment of young Americans are bringing back the oldies. I’m talking organized religion, tennis, golf, and working for your dad.
The share of small businesses employing a young adult child of the owner has doubled since 2018. While still a small slice of the whole, the growth is notable—especially in a job market that feels increasingly bleak for new grads.
The highest level of golf participation is now 18 to 35-year olds. Apparently, “golf’s long history of exclusivity and elitism is part of its ascendent appeal among Gen Z.” There is comfort in trusting tried and true methods for spirituality and status during times of uncertainty.
The return to tradition stems, in part, from growing risk aversion.
There are many reasons for a risk-averse youth culture—a documented adolescence makes developmentally normal mistakes inescapable, the twenties became “a defining decade” as opposed to an experiment, and economic and social volatility make risks feel even risker.
Kyla Scanlon had an interesting take on Gen Z’s risk averse behavior in education. She writes:
“Students don’t trust that curiosity will pay off. They trust that optimization will— which is completely understandable. The result is a generation of workers trained to anticipate what’s expected, not to invent what’s needed.” She goes on to say that “today’s graduates struggle with ambiguity. They aren’t trained to think beyond the lines. And it’s not their fault. We’ve spent decades putting kids into little boxes, and turns out, that’s not what employers really want.”
In the comments section, an English teacher in Canada adds this sharp take:
“Kids don’t want to risk failing, the parents ensure that won’t ever happen, and teachers, who don’t want to risk the firing squad of students/parents/admin/gov., gradually submit to the “small surrenders” of inflated grades, reduced expectations/rigor, etc.” Yikes.
Risk aversion and a return to tradition aren’t just nostalgia—these are survival strategies. In an unstable world, young people turn to structures that offer clarity, hierarchy, and proven pathways. Leaders may want to rethink how they present risk and reward for young talent. Commission-based roles have already been hard to fill and I think that could continue. High expectations combined with high support cultures will have more luck. Stability, mentorship, and linear growth paths may have more appeal than ambiguous promises of “disruption.”
For individuals, the takeaway is more personal: we have to decipher between the traditions that provide grounding and the traditions that lock us in the past and stifle innovation. Some traditions are worth reviving and others were left behind for a reason.
Artificial Intelligence Update: Employer Leverage is Back
During a CEO roundtable in 2022, one executive told me that the unusually high compensation packages demanded by talent were unsustainable. The others at the table nodded in agreement.
2022 feels like a lifetime ago so let me jog your memory: Will Smith slapped Chris Rock, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez got married (and then divorced), and Elon Musk took over Twitter. But more relevant here: The Great Resignation was in full swing, and labor shortages gave workers unprecedented leverage. Employees could be choosy. They wanted flexibility, pet bereavement leave, paid parking, enhanced dental, and—most of all—more money. Employers complied because they had little choice.
I remember what I said at the time: these demands are unsustainable, and employees know it. If they’re going to lock in higher comp and better benefits, this is the window.
Well, the window has officially closed.
Unemployment remains low but companies continue to shrink their white-collar staff. AI is rapidly redefining what a productive worker can produce. A chasm is growing between super-employees—those who’ve harnessed AI to dramatically increase productivity—and everyone else. In 2022, employees had the leverage. In 2025, employers have it—and they’re using it.
A job seeker recently told The Wall Street Journal: “Companies want applicants to do so many tasks, a position is essentially three jobs in one.” Micha Kaufman, CEO of Fiverr, wrote in a staff memo last month that “AI is coming for your jobs. Heck, it’s coming for my job too. This is a wake-up call.” Tobi Lutke, the CEO of Shopify, wrote in a now-viral internal memo that no new hires will be made unless a manager can prove that AI isn’t capable of doing the job.
Young talent is is particularly vulnerable. According to the New York Fed, the labor market for young college graduates “deteriorated noticeably” in the last three months. Harvard economist David Deming discusses the new grad employment landscape with Derek Thompson on The Plain English podcast.
Just as employers once adjusted to meet the rising expectations of workers, today’s workers are adjusting to meet the heightened expectations of employers.
The power dynamics have shifted, but burning out workers with inflated job descriptions or creating fear-based environments can create short-term wins with long-term costs. Investing in upskilling and defining new career pathways in an AI-driven world will help great companies attract and retain the next generation of high performers.
Work
I recently joined a fireside chat with Dan Clifton, moderated by Chris Gold, Market President at BNY Mellon. Dan unpacked trade, tariffs, and policy with his usual clarity, while I shared insights on the generational breakdown of election results and what they signal about the future. It was a fascinating exchange. If you don’t already follow Dan’s work at Strategas Securities, I highly recommend it—he’s one of the few people who can actually make sense of the trade and tariff landscape.
I am thrilled to introduce my 2025 interns! Marley Pilkinton from UC-Chico, Maggie Ravine from Syracuse University, Olive Coles from Harvard University, Dylan Perlstein from UPenn Wharton School, and Anisa Chopra from the Ivey Business School in Canada. They will be with me this summer for the Gen Z research cohort. This is an incredible group of young people and I can’t wait to get started.
I’m still mapping out the curriculum but for anyone interested, you can see a draft of the topics we’ll dive into here.
This month I’m speaking/spoke in Minneapolis, Dallas, Charlotte, New York, LA, back to Charlotte, Toronto, then back to LA.
Great set of topics for interns to explore. Can't wait to hear what you / they learn!