Why Gen Z Isn't Broken: What Parents of Stuck Grads Are Missing (with Ryan Vet)

So if you have a Gen Z college grad who's struggling and you don't know what's really going on with them, stay with me because we have Ryan Vett. He is a futurist. He is an author. He is a speaker. He's built and scaled companies. He's been on NBC, ABC, you name it. So today we're going to get some actual insights on what actually gets a college grad moving these days. And we'll also go into questions about the difference between generations. Welcome, Ryan. I'm so glad you're here.

Evan, thank you so much for having me.

So I want to start off by, a lot of parents I speak to are Gen Xers and they have no idea how Gen Z is thinking, especially as Gen Z is navigating this tough job market and, and the challenges With AI, what do Gen X parents really need to know?

There's just so many things that are unique about, uh, Gen Z that, that make it different than any generation we've encountered. Before we get too far deep into the generational labels, uh, obviously I study generations, so I use labels, but I use them very sparingly because every individual within that, uh, that span of years is— has their own story, has different parents of different ages, different siblings. But when you're looking at Gen Z, the way I define it is from 1997 to 2012. Those are the birth years. And really, you see in that timeframe some of the most formative years being shaped by technology. Now, millennials, of course, were exposed to technology throughout their entire life. But what makes Gen Z so interesting is they don't know life without technology being really a part of our everyday life. And when I say technology, I'm not just talking about internet, I'm talking about the smartphone, and I'm talking about social media in particular, which created a whole new experience for a generation. And we didn't really know what technology was doing, what they had access to, until in many cases— I don't like using the term too late because I don't ever believe it's too late— but we didn't realize the impact that it had on their lives in their formative years until much later.

It's really interesting because Gen X, grew up without technology and then with technology.

Right.

And Gen Z never saw that.

You're exactly right.

So they don't know what Blockbuster is.

Sadly, they don't. Blockbuster is, uh, well, thanks to, uh, maybe Stranger Things or some of these other movies and sitcoms and, uh, TV shows set in, in the '80s, maybe. But what, what you're starting to see with Gen X is you hit the nail on the head. Gen X, uh, is not afraid of technology because of the way they were raised. They, they were raised, you know, they could be outside till the streetlights came on. They had, in many I argue, the best childhood in recent history. And they still had arcades, they had Pac-Man, they had technology, they had more than one screen in the house, which is a big moment. We have to think about that too. They started to see, especially later-born Gen X, maybe 2 TVs in the house, or, you know, one in a basement and a family room area. So they did start to see this evolution. So it did start with them, but we really saw this uptick really even past millennials when it came to to the smartphone is probably one of the biggest indicators. Jonathan Haidt in The Anxious Generation does a fantastic job marking 2012 as sort of this monumental year. I don't think that's the whole story, and I don't think that characterizes every person within a generation, but you do see this generation that has grown up completely watched, completely expected to basically fake it till they make it and fake it in front of their friends, which creates all sorts of issues with trust and ways they communicate. They often come across as disengaged or disrespectful, which might not actually be the true story underneath all of those labels.

What is the true story between all those labels? Because from the Gen X perspective, to your point, they can be seen as disrespectful or not interested or not caring.

Yeah. There's quite a lot that goes on. And I think one of the biggest things that people have to remember, and I bring this back to millennials, so let's skip back a generation. When you look at millennials in 2008 and 2009, all of the headlines were reading, why are millennials not buying houses? Well, the reality is most of them didn't even have a driver's license yet. There were some millennials, very few, old enough to legally buy a house. We're talking about 18, 19 years old. But what 18 or 19-year-old's buying a house? There's not many of those around. And so we started to cast these labels on why aren't millennials buying houses? Why are millennials lazy? Why are they delaying jobs? All of these questions. But the reality is the whole generation wasn't even old enough to hit some of these markers. So when we talk about Gen Z, if you're looking at that cohort by definition, some of them are teenagers still. They haven't even thought about college yet. And some of them are entering high school for the first time this year. So we've got some that are in that bucket, but then you fast forward to the earlier born Gen Z, the ones born in the late '90s, they're already into the workforce and now they're starting families. So you have a large range of individuals that are there. And so I think one of the things we have to be so careful with is characterizing and say, hey, they're all lazy, they're all disengaged. But then we also have to think about how they were raised. So when you think about formation, when you're staring in front of this device the whole time, your communication, your whole technology becomes what you're looking at right here in front of your face. You learn to write really well, or at least write quickly and respond quickly. A lot of it's in shorthand, but you're more comfortable with a written word than a spoken word. And the great thing is right now, if you ask me a question and I just stare at you, your listeners are going to think their screen froze and they're going to start hitting refresh. However, in text communication or even Facebook Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, you name it, you don't have to respond right away. And so it creates this barrier, and Gen Z often gets accused of not communicating well, not communicating back. You have the Gen Z stare, which is a real phenomenon I documented in one of my essays. But all these things in large part are due to technology, and it doesn't mean that the generation is broken. It means that as leaders and as parents, It's our job to figure out where those gaps are in the formative years and how do we bring them along.

Yeah, and how do we bring them along? Because Gen X is looking at this from a very dated viewpoint of like, well, when I was your age, I was out of the house and getting a job and no problem. And now a lot of these kids are stuck at home and The parents are like, what's wrong with this kid? And, and—

I think you just said one of the, the worst things that anyone can say, but it's so easy and we all do it. It's, what's wrong with kids these days? Or, when I was your age. And, and we do that so often, and I'm guilty of it. You know, when I was your age, to my Gen Alpha kids, um, you know, when I was your age, we didn't have to do this. Or, uh, you know, if I got a splinter, I'd figure out how to take it out myself. Don't come running to me. We're always tough on the next generation, but if we really stop and look at some of the data, I often share what I call the generational prism. That generational prism looks at 3 factors. It looks at the age someone is, the moment in time that they exist, and then after that, a prism reflects or refracts light, and that's the answer. One of the big things I look at is everyone says millennials— I'm rewinding a generation again because there's more data that full generations in the workforce. They said millennials are job hoppers. They're hopping everywhere and all of that. Well, if you go back, millennials only hopped jobs 0.3 times more than boomers or Gen X by the time they were 25. 0.3. They didn't have 10 more jobs. They didn't have 3 more jobs. They had 0.3 more jobs than both their parents and maybe their grandparents, depending on where they were born in that spectrum. And so everyone's like, wait, that doesn't make sense. Well, we often don't remember what those moments were like when we were younger. And if you look at it, that's the age component is by age 25. You look at the moment, well, baby boomers had almost no child labor laws in the United States, so they could work at 12, 13, 14. You have Gen X that started to have some child labor laws depending on where you were. And so you're looking at 15, 16 for first jobs, sometimes 14. And then most millennials, they didn't start their first job till about 22 after college. So did they hop more jobs in a finite amount of time? Absolutely they did. So there is truth to that, but we have to look at it as— You know what? You were trying to get your reps when you worked at Dairy Queen or when you worked at Target or when you worked at wherever it was and you realized you didn't like that boss and you didn't like that work environment and you didn't like dealing with customers in that way and you had the paper out and you cleaned the toilet. You didn't like sales and whatever it was, you learned all of those things over a longer period of time. Gen Z didn't work. And that's a gross generalization, but most Gen Zers didn't have to lift a finger, especially if they were in middle or upper middle class. They were expected to go to college. That was the expectation as a whole. Then when they get out to the workforce, they're going to have bad bosses. I know for a fact you and I have both had bad bosses. We've had bad clients. We've had all sorts of bad toxic work environments. Now all of that's getting compressed into what you're expecting someone to come to the workforce for the first time, but they didn't flip burgers at McDonald's. They didn't get the oil spatter on their hands and get yelled at by somebody and see drugs being dealt out of the back. I'm not saying that happens. at McDonald's, but growing up, you know, I had that experience. So all of those things, um, you know, all those things play into what shapes and forms us as individuals. And if you don't have those formative experiences and all, all your formation is happening from Instagram and TikTok Reels here on your phone, you're not going to get that robust, uh, experience that, that some of the previous generations did. So we've actually done a disservice to Gen Z, and now it's our job to come in and I don't want to say fix it, but at least provide the opportunities for them to fall down and learn and fail and tell them it's okay.

Yeah, that's one of the big things I teach is that, you know, they don't trust their own judgment yet at this age. And so they have to make the mistakes. They have to fall down. And when they're older, we're like, oh, well, they're 22, 23, 24. They should know all this stuff by now. But they don't. And, and I love the way you put that because I think that it's really important for parents to understand that they didn't have the same experience that, that they did. And so, you know, now they're getting into the workforce and they're being seen as disrespectful where they didn't realize— they didn't know what a bad boss was.

Exactly. You said trust. You brought up that idea, and I think that's such an important idea because Each generation trusts differently. For boomers, they wanted stability. For Gen X, they wanted more reliability in people, whereas boomers, it was stability in institutions. And millennials, they wanted information. That was their source of trust. Like, the more information they could consume, the better. Well, Gen Z had too much information, so they said they wanted authenticity, and they, they want this authentic view of trust. But you said they don't trust themselves. And I think there's a large part of that that's accurate because they haven't had to think for themselves. I think, again, that's where— I don't want to blame parents. I'm a parent. You always second-guess and we're not perfect. But as a society, we didn't give this whole generation an opportunity to earn trust. We wouldn't let them leave the house without tracking devices or leave the house at all. We'd just stick them in front of the iPad because it was safer and nothing bad would happen if they weren't playing outside. They couldn't get stung by the bee or get that splinter that they'd have to figure out. They never learned how to trust themselves, how to trust others in the way that previous generations did. Not saying all the previous generations got it right, but they, they had different experience that, you know, Gen Z just never had because we didn't allow them to have it in, in the hopes that we were keeping them safer and giving them a better future.

I think, I think Gen X and I'll speak to my own parenting experience, I definitely overcorrected.

Mm-hmm.

Right. I didn't want them to have the same bad things that happened to me as a child, as a teenager and stuff like that. So I did my best to protect them. But I felt like I overcorrected so much. And now, you know, when I asked my kids to get their car inspected, it's like a big thing.

They didn't have parents or the community or even society trusting in them to do that. I mean, when your kids were growing up, think about this, mall restrictions came in, you couldn't be under 18 at a mall. That was formative for Gen X, and you were 9, 10, 11 at the mall. But now if you walk into, you know, some of these big box retailers unsupervised, They get security out there and ask where your parents were. And so it's just a totally different experience. And then it's not just parents, it's society. We're looking at these kids, right, as, as kids still, and they're adults, but we never gave them the opportunity to, to experience in a safe environment the hard— the hardness that life brings.

There were some good parts about being Gen X.

Yeah, absolutely.

There absolutely were. But there are also some downsides. Because nobody was emotionally connecting with us. You know, kids were to be seen, not heard. I mean, that was still back in the era where the TV was like, it's 10 o'clock, do you know where your children are? Yeah, sort of thing. And, and now we've kind of overcorrected. And so, and then we're just like, and then we put these labels on them as disrespectful or lazy or things like that.

Mm-hmm.

But that's not really the case. We're not looking at it through the right prism, to your point.

Yeah. And I mean, there is an element where they are— they do show more disrespect. Our rules for respect are different by generation. We each respect differently. One generation was respect the title, respect the institution. That was Boomers. Gen X was respect the adult, because if not, you're gonna go get taken out back and, you know, you're gonna, uh, have some corporal punishment. And then for Millennials, respect totally changed. And that was the first generation we saw that because You could access anybody. Again, going to the phone, millennials could slide into the president's DMs if they wanted to, or any celebrity they wanted to. Are they gonna get a response? Probably not. But there was no barrier. You no longer had to pick up the phone, go through the white pages, dial an operator, and, you know, meet with the gatekeeper. It's all one step away, even professionally with LinkedIn. And so you saw them drop titles like Dr. and Mrs. and Mr. and go casual first-name basis. Even with school teachers and professors, we saw this huge decline with millennials because the rules of respect changed. Not saying they should have or shouldn't have, but then you fast forward to Gen Z and that just continues on the pattern. Yeah.

I love the way you put this all together because it really does highlight the differences of the generations. And, you know, as parents, we get in our own heads about, well, that's the way— I mean, even if we don't say it out loud, like when I was your age, even, even that sort of like energy that they can feel that. Yeah, they can feel that kind of like judgment or disappointment or shame when they're not able to do things us Gen Xers were at that age. And I think that that's a real lack of understanding on our part. We need to do a better job of meeting them where they are.

And giving them opportunities to, to build some of those experiences and some of those life skills. I mean, you used, uh, overcorrect twice now, and that's part of the pendulum that I often write about. It's First, we experience something and then we often challenge it. We don't like the way it is. We push against it. That's usually in our formative years. And then as parents, we often overcorrect. And then finally, society recalibrates. So we're even seeing that with Gen Alpha and now Gen Beta. Gen Beta started being born in 2026. We're starting to see it come back where Gen Z parents and younger-born millennials, they're not allowing their kids any screen time. They're forcing them to go outside. They're engaging in schools that are more skills-based. They're totally transforming those early years because they're saying, I was messed up because of my parents, so let me overcorrect. And somewhere in there is the— now the conversation that I have so often is AI. How's that impacting kids and what's that going to do to them? We thought we were worried about social media. What's AI going to do? And there's some really scary stats we can unpack there with Gen Z and AI use already.

Let's save that for the next episode. Well, we'll leave it there. Thank you so much for being on the podcast, Ryan. I, this has been fantastic. It's really like changed my framing and helped me be more understanding. For people who want to get in touch with you, what's the best way to get in touch with you?

Yeah, the best way is to head over to my website, ryanvett.com. You can access The Ryan Vett Show, uh, my podcast. You can access, uh, any of my books that I've written. There's a free newsletter that comes out weekly called Collide that does a lot of this research in a much more in-depth, accurately stated. You know, I do things from the top of my memory on podcasts. I try to keep it accurate, but you can get the actual stats and data there on the Clyde newsletter too. Yeah.

And I subscribe to that newsletter and I love it. It teaches me so much. So, and I read your book, The Millennial Code, and that was amazing too. It's just like, again, getting inside these prisms of how generations work. So thank you again for being on the podcast.

And we'll talk soon.