mattmaroon.com - Latest Comments in Don’t Mistake Ambition for Entitlement

Re: Don’t Mistake Ambition for Entitlement

Ben Rowe — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 05:33:24 -0000

Amen. Great post Matt. Great Post

Re: Don’t Mistake Ambition for Entitlement

Alaina — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 21:16:40 -0000

Indeed, and let us not forget that the monotonous "traditional" jobs the author insists we should accept have only been part of American culture since the 1830s. Before that, division of labor was considered un-American. (see Wilentz, Chants Democratic)

Re: Don’t Mistake Ambition for Entitlement

Bob Knightly — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 04:06:49 -0000

I agree with a lot of this, and in a way I welcome some of the cynicism since there needs to be some checks and balances with the "con game" that has gone on for generations.

But my question which I would love to see a follow-up post on--if you're so inclined--is what about the exceptions?

Apple, Pixar, etc. don't work 40 hours a week, and they are the peek of creativity and effectiveness. They are absolutely the best at what they do, creative without peer, and they are 60+ hour work weeks. (Minimum.)

I guess where you lost me was the absoluteness of this. At 41 hours a week, are you less productive? 42? 45? 48?

Also, I think the other piece is the attitude. Why do people assume they can be CEO or a leader of 100 people at the beginning. You say this is an area of weakness--and I think you are correct--but where is the common sense? In a way, I think this is where some of the criticism is. I

Anyway, thanks for the post. It was an interesting read.

Re: Don’t Mistake Ambition for Entitlement

Ashamed of my generation. — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 12:14:37 -0000

I'm part of the generation and let me say - we're lazy no wait - the majority of the generation is lazy and therefore I thank you because you are making it easier for me to move up the chain. Let me also point out that while jeans may "boost" productivity that is a childish mentality that I'll do less if I don't get what I want and just goes back to showing how spoiled you are and how much I don't want to hire you.

Re: Don’t Mistake Ambition for Entitlement

osbjmg — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 16:02:27 -0000

Casual dress, working smarter, no company loyalty - I agree to all of that. Unions...not so much, but I'm open to seeing it first hand. The truth is you will never make money while working for anyone else, unless maybe in sales. If you are better, you can be your own boss and save your money. If you are 9-5'ing it you may still be able to save enough, but the government being in charge of who gets what - bad idea. If you are entitled, ask for it at work - but don't bridge that gab into asking it of your government. They will gladly assume the role of coddling us at the expense of ourselves, until everyone is equal - regardless of effort and intellect. This is because we are afraid to publicly say: I worked harder, or I am smarter, I deserve to be paid more than you because of this.

Just sayin'

Re: Don’t Mistake Ambition for Entitlement

mattmaroon — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 13:20:23 -0000

As mentioned before, it's too soon. Give them the 15 years you've given the previous generation to get started. Even the earliest of ours has only been out of college for 5.

Also, you can't ignore economic factors. We didn't get the Bubble. The last few years have been good, but not like back then.

Re: Don’t Mistake Ambition for Entitlement

Wil Schroter — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 08:37:17 -0000

That's what I'm trying to get my head around. I' m seeing this entire new generation that inherently has a great deal of new, useful skills, thanks to growing up with the Web. I would think that they would have churned out 10x the volume of the previous generation in new companies since they can get more done in less time based on the toolset available to them.

I can't think of any industry other than the Web where you'd see more signals of this new level of productivity.

Perhaps I'm tying the premise of new company productivity exclusively to the Founders, and not the teams of workers within those companies. But even then, I'm not sure I'm seeing this generation of companies do anything any more spectacular than the last one.

Re: Don’t Mistake Ambition for Entitlement

whizbang2003 — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 07:22:20 -0000

You make some useful and partially correct observations.

When the employer no longer retains any sense of obligation toward the employee for a job well done except the employers short-term interest the 30 years ago model breaks down. A job well done doesn't get you a pension, a gold watch, or job security.

You pat yourself on the back a little too enthusiastically, and you have an inflated sense of self.

As an "old" who hand carved his first computer out of oak, I know more about software, networking, hardware, and how to be productive then you pompous little snot-rags with your superficial, narrow, and surface skillz.

Burn out. Don't make me laugh. You have a limited amount of experience, a limited amount of knowledge, a limited amount of patience, and if you can't solve a problem quickly the attention deficit kicks in and you give up. I WILL hang in there and fix things.

If only I could get a job.

Re: Don’t Mistake Ambition for Entitlement

mattmaroon — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 01:27:11 -0000

A lot of all generations are just plain lazy. That's not unusual. And the article was presumably speaking about professionals, which filters out most of the lazy.

Re: Don’t Mistake Ambition for Entitlement

Ismael — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 01:16:09 -0000

I completely agree. While most of my peers are being painted by the media (Frontline, I'm glaring at you) as some sort of tech-gods, most of them really don't give a damn about how any of that stuff works as long as they can put garish backgrounds on their MySpace profiles. They have no fucking idea how lucky they are or powerful they could be, or how anything works. They don't know the difference between anything until they run into a roadblock, and then they only come out of their bubble long enough to fix the problem. I hate to say it, but a lot of them are just plain lazy. It sometimes makes me sad.

Re: Don’t Mistake Ambition for Entitlement

mattmaroon — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 23:12:11 -0000

Late 70s. For some reason I thought Rose was older. So they're 3 years away from the early end. And they started those companies a few years ago.

I don't think you necessarily would see it much yet. I mean, if millenials make better IT workers than their parents, or graphic designers, or programmers (but not necessarily entrepreneurs, which I wouldn't claim) or any tech-intensive profession, where would you see it?

Re: Don’t Mistake Ambition for Entitlement

Wil Schroter — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 23:06:50 -0000

I'm pretty sure the founders of YouTube, MySpace, and Digg were all children of the 70's. I only used Internet startups because they seem to mature the fastest and benefit most greatly from the new tools that are available to them.

My original question was basically this - if the millennials bring more to the table than their parents did, where are we seeing it? I'm not condemning the generation, I love the entrepreneurial approach.

Re: Don’t Mistake Ambition for Entitlement

Ben Gray — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 23:05:24 -0000

I've worked physical activity at 45 hours a week and I've work 55 hours as an IT worker. You couldn't pay me to go back to lifting shit all day.
Also, I'd have to admit, no one "works" 40 hours a week in IT. They code a bit, get a coffee, walk around, clear your head, get back to it. Code a bit, check the news, etc.
Also, for every study that says "working more than 40 is counter-productive" or "casual dress brings more productivity", I've got a study that yells "Wear a goddamn tie and don't go home until the job is done".
BTW, I'm 27, I agree with a LOT of what's said here (I hate hearing this sort of blame-apportioning nonsense from the generation that proudly claims it will spend the kids inheritance), I just thought a few viewpoints were a little narrow perhaps?

Re: Don’t Mistake Ambition for Entitlement

Jon Kepler — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 22:38:33 -0000

I guess I see your point, and less than wonderful behavior often corrects itself over time as everyone gets older and wiser anyway.

I completely agree with your statements about us watching what has happened to our parents. I've based my entire career thus far around avoiding a fate similar to that of my parents and extended family, and so far it's working.

Re: Don’t Mistake Ambition for Entitlement

mattmaroon — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 22:07:17 -0000

I don't think that's arrogance so much as superficiality, worship of the consumerism they've had crammed down their throats all their lives (our generation has been blitzed by advertising on a greater level than ever before) and very poor spending habits.

If anything, it's the opposite of arrogance, since it stems from low sense of self worth. I've found that as my self-esteem increased from low to high, that behavior did the opposite.

Re: Don’t Mistake Ambition for Entitlement

Jon Kepler — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 22:03:54 -0000

I understand why you'd want to write a rebuttal and, being 23 myself, it's nice to see input from both sides. However, I still feel that there are an awful lot of unjustifiably arrogant Millennials out there. They're the ones who work in the fast food industry, live at home, and can't afford a car, yet buy Louis Vuitton handbags. Lil Wayne is also their idol-of-the-moment, though it's almost November so it's probably time for the next guy. Walk around any university campus and you'll see the Ugg boots and poorly modified Hondas as proof - the majority of them believe they are celebrities.

Re: Don’t Mistake Ambition for Entitlement

mattmaroon — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 21:41:56 -0000

I don't think internet startups are a good metric. But even if they are, plenty of successful ones have come from my generation, and we've had a decade or two less to work on them. YouTubers were either in my gen or very close to it. Facebook, Digg. Just a few off the top of my head.

More importantly, Google has a lot of my generation as employees.

Re: Don’t Mistake Ambition for Entitlement

Wil Schroter — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 18:47:45 -0000

Andrew, I'm not saying that at all. I'm asking whether all of the new tools and freedoms this generation has available has enabled them to create more quality output than before. It's not an indictment - it's an honest question.

If this generation is so capable, you would think the output would generate quite a bit more super companies than it has so far. Again, its early. I'm just curious what Matt's thoughts are on output.

Re: Don’t Mistake Ambition for Entitlement

Andrew Yates — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 17:02:27 -0000

Wil,

All your couching "let's and maybe" speak aside, your argument is that the millennial generation has produced only frivolous things, and that Gen X has produced the giants of the Internet, and therefore older people deserve the service of younger people.

Re: Don’t Mistake Ambition for Entitlement

Wil Schroter — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 10:58:29 -0000

Matt, I'm kind of missing part of this argument. There's no question that we can all get more done in less time, millennials or not. So let’s take that off the table just for a moment. I understand that the millennials are more likely to inherently have a strong aptitude for these tools whereas their parents would have to learn them. Granted.

But let’s go beyond that. Let’s talk about the output of this generation. Not in terms of getting an hour of work done in ten minutes because you know better tools and shortcuts. I mean the successful implementation of this output.

In the last wave of Internet companies, and I’m just using these as one mark since it’s something we all know real well, I feel like we haven’t seen a lot of bona fide success from this generation yet. Facebook was clearly a wonderful example of a company that truly crushed it, but I haven’t much at that level coming from the same generation.

Comparatively the Gen X’ers (and beyond), in their heyday, created Google, Netscape, Yahoo, eBay, PayPal, Skype, etc. I remember Gen X’ers (I’m one of them) being called the slacker generation, but I think the output of that generation was pretty great.

If the millenials and Y’ers had come up with ten Facebooks in the last five years, and could say “look, we’re better, faster, and output is substantially more valuable” then I would be real excited about the output of this younger generation. I’m just not sure I’m seeing it yet.

Maybe it’s market conditions, maybe it’s because it takes time to create big companies, maybe it’s because I’m using the wrong examples. I’m just trying to point to a trend that tells me this generation has earned their rights based on their substantial output, not their rate of input.

Re: Don’t Mistake Ambition for Entitlement

unconed — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 23:17:57 -0000

The truth is probably in between your blog post and the original article. While it is true that there are a lot of us 'millenials' who are extremely technologically savvy, I'm not so sure we are a majority in our generation.

Sure, a lot of us know how to im, blog, use facebook/myspace, etc... but how many truly understand how to leverage the power of modern digital communication to market, to educate or to evangelize?

Our exposure, at as young age, to a much wider array of topics (including adult ones) makes us more likely to speak our mind and ignore conventional hierarchies... but how many actually bother to do actual research – rather than just skim Wikipedia – to have an informed opinion?

As Shaun said above, this discussion only really applies to information technology workers. But outside that, there is another 'digital divide' forming that is alienating people who know how to do basic things on a computer (like surf or email), but fail to use those abilities productively and in an informed way. And that divide extends into the millenials too.

Re: Don’t Mistake Ambition for Entitlement

mattmaroon — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 06:39:09 -0000

I'm fairly sure that's the group the WSJ was referring to as feeling entitled.

Re: Don’t Mistake Ambition for Entitlement

mattmaroon — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 06:38:06 -0000

You're right, in a lot of ways they've hurt themselves. But they've also truly been attacked by the Republican Party.

Re: Don’t Mistake Ambition for Entitlement

Ben — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 04:12:23 -0000

In a startup, yes. At GM (or any other corporation), no. The CEO at GM has almost no risk. The worst thing that happens to him is he fucks up and the company tanks and he gets a few million in a severance package.

Re: Don’t Mistake Ambition for Entitlement

StaceyD — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 03:48:41 -0000

Matt Maroon I mean :)