Tyler Brûlé on Interns and the Endless Young'uns Debate
I admire Tyler Brûlé. He’s a talented entrepreneur, thinker and writer, all things I aspire to one day to become. His magazine, Monocle, on top of being a great publication, is probably the most interesting thing to happen to the business model of magazines in a long, long while.
His latest column in the FT, however, deserves a good fisking which I won’t provide; I will only try to comment on a few disturbing aspects.
The most glaring flaw of the column is that it too easily boils down to “Everyone knows Generation N is better than Generation N+1. These kids today with their clothes and their rock n roll!” Young people are arrogant! They think they know everything! Also, the Earth revolves around the Sun and Barack Obama answers difficult questions starting with “Uh, look…”
But the deepest flaw is that Brûlé doesn’t address the differences between his generation and mine. Since the Boomers, each generation has been more spoiled than the last. This has woeful consequences but I believe my generation’s sense of entitlement has a happy, if perhaps unintended, flip side.
It’s that we’re ambitious, and we happen to live in a world in which tools to do ambitious things abound. Kids in college dormrooms have started companies that have changed the world (for better or for worse is another debate). “It’s not bragging if you can back it up.” – Muhammad Ali.
Brûlé describes as shocking examples of arrogance statements such as “I did an internship earlier and I was quite surprised that I was asked to help organise the library and file things”; “when I was at a creative agency earlier in the year I thought ‘let me have more input with the clients and do some writing’ but that didn’t happen, so that’s why I’m here” — I’m sorry, but these are legitimate reasons to quit internships, and legitimate things to say in interviews.
If you want to hire the best people — and I’m sure Brûlé knows there is no other key to success — you have to offer them the best. You have to let them be entrepreneurial. A friend of mine turned down an offer from Goldman Sachs because during his internship he was dressed down in public for showing up at work late one morning when he’d left the office at 7am that very morning. Sure, the macho i-bankers are going to say “Well, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Finance jobs are really demanding, but that’s why they pay us the big bucks. Them’s the breaks.” Sure. But the guy in question was the dream Goldman recruit. He’d been top of his class at every school he’d ever attended. He’d always wanted to work in finance. When I first met him, I didn’t know who he was or what he did, but I thought “Goldman guy.” A Goldman guy isn’t a Wall Street-type douchebag. He’s a nerdy, cautious, hyper-analytical guy, who owes more to Eric Schmidt than to Gordon Gekko, which explains why Goldman did so well out of the crisis while the guys at Bear were macho-ing their way to oblivion. This guy was the Goldman guy. And nevermind their quarterly results, but when Goldman repels guys like that, it’s the endgame for them, period. Goldman are the best on the Street only because they’re the smartest on the street, and it’s the same in every industry. In technology, it happened to IBM, then Microsoft, now possibly Google. If you don’t have a culture that attracts and retains the top talent, you’re a dead man walking. And, rightly or wrongly, my generation has grown more demanding.
Brûlé‘s other examples are more borderline: “I don’t really want to help sort out other people’s stuff as I’d like to come here to work on my projects”; “before I start I just need to tell you about my summer travel plans and when I’ll need to take time off”. If someone doesn’t want to be a team player, then yeah, they don’t belong in a good firm. But these statements are meaningless in and of themselves. They beg questions: “What kind of projects would you like to bring to us to work on? You do understand that we work as a team here, and though we’d love to see you experiment with your ideas you’ll also have to work with others on their projects — just as they’ll be happy to help you on yours.” “So you want to do some traveling? That’s good, I did that at your age, it’s the best time to do it. Where are you going? Is it part of some project? I’m fine with switching dates around but you do understand if you spend less time here you’ll have to make up for it in hard work?” What do you care if someone wants to leave early to take some RNR, as long as they’re going to make up for it while they’re there? I’d take 8 weeks of a productive intern over 10 weeks of a mediocre one any day.
Brûlé writes:
If you can juggle multiple phone lines, organise bicycles to be sent to photo shoots in Spain, get journalists rebooked on oversold flights out of Nairobi, charm visitors, keep the front of house looking spotless, help the accounts department track receipts from hotels in Seoul, write firm but diplomatic e-mails to employees enforcing house rules and also wield trays of beverages hot and cold and remember who ordered what in a packed conference room then there’s a very good chance you’ll graduate from our finishing school and take up a post elsewhere in the company.
That reminds me of the first half of The Karate Kid, where the old Sensei makes his pupil do menial housework, only to have him discover later that the moves he was learning were really karate moves. Except that the kung-fu movie approach to nurturing leaders doesn’t work in the real world. In the real world, organizations that enforce deference to superiors and elders fail, while those that encourage flat structures, audacity and internal disagreement win. Whoops.
There’s a difference between: “There are some thankless tasks that need to be done, and someone needs to do them, so I’m afraid you’ll be spending some of your time doing X but don’t worry because after that/the rest of the time you’ll be doing Y”, and “Listen boy, you don’t know nothin’ about the world so you’re going to do a ton of thankless stuff and, just maybe, after all that, we might give you something to do that’s not a total waste of your time.” The former is fine, but the latter is unacceptable. There’s a good amount of thankless, intern-type stuff in my work, but I do it, and I do it gladly, because whenever I suggest a strategy or an endeavor to my boss, his typical response is: “Hey, if you think you can do it, go for it.”
The worst part of it is that, with the Recession, our elders are taking advantage of my generation’s narrowing options. You think you’re so great with your Twitter and your Facebook, well now we’re going to make you regret your arrogance. With the crisis, plenty of people at my school are courting firms that used to be thought of as an embarrassment to work for — the Deloittes, the Accentures —, and their mellifluous recruiters make it hard to hide their glee as someone with two trading internships and a finance major on his resume explains that, really, his true calling is IT consulting. They push salaries down and squeeze them. “Oh, sure, you signed up for consulting in June, but it’s going to be auditing in September.” How loyal do you think these employees are going to be when the market picks up? Do you not see that you’re wasting an opportunity and shooting yourselves in the foot?
But look, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe today’s kids, including myself, are just exploding with arrogance and know nothing about the world. But it’s also not impossible that this generation is right to want more. The problem with Brûlé‘s column is that he skips the debate entirely. He doesn’t even engage with why a company might want interns as something other than free labor, and why interns might want more. It’s little more than a well-writen exasperated rant.
I’d love to see someone as gifted as Tyler Brûlé address that debate. But watching him yell at the kids to get off his lawn is unsatisfying.
Really nice post, PEG. You write:
But we’ll probably have to settle for less.
I don’t know how it was elsewhere, but the game my friends and I were sold had breezy constant ladders and shallow painless chutes. Now the ladders are falling apart or growing queues, and the chutes have proved to be sudden and devastating.
This is particularly true for the professional class. Many of my friends — lawyers and engineers and investment bankers who followed the rules, made top grades at top universities, owned instead of rented, and believed that life was a line of boxes you checked off while standing on an escalator — well, many of them currently find themselves proper fucked by cascading lay-offs and the proliferating bottlenecks at the top.
But it’s not all bad. A few of my friends are learning how to live with resignation. Which is good, right?
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Aug 1, 03:53 PM · #
My friends call me Keith, you can call me John.
— Tony Comstock · Aug 1, 04:04 PM · #
This is kind of a hippy song
— Tony Comstock · Aug 1, 04:15 PM · #
I think you have a point about the current young generation, and they should expect more and not settle for less. I agree that companies are missing a great opportunity to change the hierchical mindsets and fully benefit from the brain-power. In many ways we are experiencing a throttling of energy, innovation and drive. Technology in the information age has advanced to a point where we stand at threshold of transformation which can change everything, quickly, especially how we respond to the global economy, but we’re also stuck at a point where society has to decide if we’re going to free the energy, innovation and drive to go forward, or block the next revolution with special interest political initiatives which satisfy the status quo, old industries, unions, anti-capitalists, communitarians, anti-globalists and the rest who see technology and ambition as threats to societal order — and the ones who seek protection from competition. To free the energy, innovation and drive is to accept creative destruction and embrace an emerging order which can’t fully emerge under the thumb of central planning and nail-biting nannies, or patronizing curmudgeons.
— mike farmer · Aug 1, 05:32 PM · #
Who would ever let an intern near a client?
“our elders are taking advantage of my generation’s narrowing options.. someone with two trading internships and a finance major on his resume” – what does that mean “to take advantage of”? Someone who got a degree in finance is going to have to have rational diminished expectations like someone who was hoping to work at the GM union for their entire lives. Why should anyone kiss their ass because they bought in when the sector was highest and most bloated?
Someone thought that they’d become a millionaire at 30 using a Russian or Chinese mathematician’s program to guess stock prices for 30 seconds, and now they are not. God forbid they may have to do honest labor.
Deloitte is a solid company to work for, for whatever that is worth.
— Mike · Aug 1, 10:26 PM · #
Well a young man, ain’t got nothing in the world these days.
— Tony Comstock · Aug 1, 10:41 PM · #
Mike: Don’t get me wrong, I’m not making excuses for the gung-ho trader types, and I too feel some schadenfreude at their expense. But when you’re a recruiter, you should try to hide it a little bit and base your actions on something else.
And oh, I’m sure Deloitte is a solid company to work for.
— PEG · Aug 1, 11:24 PM · #
I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I dont know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog.
— supra shoes · Aug 2, 02:46 AM · #
“Since the Boomers, each generation has been more spoiled than the last. This has woeful consequences…”
Then you link to the US Debt Clock.
I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here. The explosion in public debt proves nothing about the generations after the Boomers – neither X nor the Echo Boomers had significant political power during the Reagan and Bush administrations.
— Travis Mason-Bushman · Aug 2, 04:50 AM · #
Travis: Good point, you’re right. However, the president who did most to widen the deficit has been Obama, and he’s also the president who has been most ardently supported by my generation, and I think we have some responsibility in his actions in that regard.
— PEG · Aug 2, 07:25 AM · #
Oh, and Mike:
My boss for one. And so far it hasn’t worked out too badly since I’ve made my company over fifteen times my salary in new sales in under a month. That’s not too bad for an inert intern. But hey, I didn’t prove myself by manning the reception desk and filling people’s coffee orders! Surely I suck!
— PEG · Aug 2, 07:28 AM · #
PEG, that Obama “did the most to widen the deficit” is arguable, given the economic conditions he inherited. And he surely hasn’t piled on the debt that the Reagan/Bush years have, although it’s possible that he’ll match up to them when all’s said and done.
And I don’t know you, Pascal, but I have to say that stuff like “[as an intern] I’ve made my company over fifteen times my salary in new sales in under a month” sounds arrogant as hell, and I’m wary of taking anyone who says such things seriously. My gut feeling is that it’s either A) somehow embellished or otherwise misleading, B) true, but not that uncommon for the industry, or C) truly exceptional, but if so, it seems like you’d let the accomplishment speak for itself rather than bragging about it on a blog.
Regardless, I humbly submit that such statements are perhaps why Brule is skeptical of you and your peers, and regardless of whether he’s right or not, it seems counterproductive to argue the matter with him, since he and his generation do have the money and the power at the moment. Disprove him by your actions, by all means, but an anecdote about some guy turning down what probably is a fairly lucrative job at one of the few remaining successful firms out there isn’t terribly impressive, nor do generational glories like Facebook and Napster hold up all that well compared to Dell Computers (or Apple, or HP, etc.)
— Chris · Aug 2, 08:47 AM · #
Chris:
Re: Obama, you’re right.
Re: the sales figure, it’s a bit of all. The multiplier is high also because my salary is very low. :) Not that uncommon for the industry I don’t think so, but not that uncommon for a company that is only starting to ramp up its sales operations. And you’re right about C, I want to try to let my accomplishments speak for themselves, but sometimes it’s hard to keep your cool in a comments thread. :) The point remains, which is that my employer was right to give me responsibilities very early on and put me in front of clients, because it has affected its top line and worked out to a very good return on investment.
How do you know how Facebook will hold up against Dell or Apple? (Might I point out that Apple was started by a 19-year old college dropout?). Maybe it won’t, maybe it will. I don’t know that, and you don’t know that.
— PEG · Aug 2, 11:05 AM · #
That’s not even close to true. What’s wrong with you?
— Chet · Aug 2, 03:35 PM · #
PEG-
Thanks for the clarification on the sales figure. And I have no problem with the idea that your company has benefited from giving you heavy-duty responsibilities very early on – there are plenty of engineering start-ups out there that have done as much, to good effect. But it’s worth pointing out that start-ups and large, established companies are looking for different things out of interns – the former have more work to do than people to do it, the latter far more people clamoring to do the job than positions to fill.
That being the case, it seems clear that the scut-work internships at a big company aren’t there to test ability – anyone who could get an interview with a big wall street firm could probably do the job fairly well – but test interns abilities to eat shit and deal with the hassles that surviving and thriving in that particular corporate culture involves. If you and your friend find that kind of winnowing unacceptable, then by all means don’t work for a big investment firm – but don’t kid yourself that said firms will suffer without you. (After all, it’s not like you’re going to start your own competing firms to Goldman anytime soon, and none of the other i-firms are any better in how they treat their employees.)
As for Facebook holding up to Dell, I think it’s obvious that they won’t – their growth has plateaued, and there’s no plausible way that their revenue can ever get up to Dell levels. And yes, Apple was founded by a drop-out, as was Dell, and that’s my point – your generation is hardly the first to start up important businesses in dorm rooms (literally, in Dell’s case). But your generation’s examples of doing so aren’t particularly impressive when compared to past generations.
— Chris · Aug 2, 05:57 PM · #
“In the real world, organizations that enforce deference to superiors and elders fail, while those that encourage flat structures, audacity and internal disagreement win. Whoops.”
That’s true, if you ignore all the examples where organizations that enforce deference to authority prosper and those that encourage audacity and internal disagreement flounder.
Mike
— MBunge · Aug 2, 06:40 PM · #
Chris:
I both agree and disagree. Yes, people like me don’t want to work for big investment firms, and we won’t. Working in finance at a high-level means a tradeoff between punishing work and high reward, and obviously not everyone wants that tradeoff, and plenty want that tradeoff for a couple years and then move on to more cushy work (this is especially true in consulting). That’s fine.
What I’m pointing to is (what I believe to be) a trend in the kind of graduates who are not only the people that these firms want to hire, but also the people who spent most of their college life gunning for positions like these and suddenly deciding, no, they don’t want to.
And I do believe this threatens companies like Goldman and others because their business model is not selling financial services but selling the brains of their employees. That’s their unique selling point: our guys are smarter than the other guys.
So no, I’m not going to start a competitor to Goldman tomorrow, but this trend (if it is real, and I believe it is, but I’m open to counter-arguments) could be a threat to them.
Nobody — nobody — knows what the financial services sector will look like 5 or 10 years from now, but many people are quite credibly positing that big investment banks like Goldman will be hobbled by increased regulation and that this will create opportunities for smaller, nimbler firms, be they investment banks, hedge funds or what have you. In such an environment, Goldman’s ability to attract and retain the very best graduates is, in the long term, literally a question of survival. It happens every day that a firm’s reputation drops and/or is gutted by the departure of a key team and ends up being gobbled up.
The work at a boutique is often even more punishing than at big i-banks in terms of hours, etc., but you also get more responsibilities early on. Lazard is famous for being perhaps the most punishing i-bank for graduates; a friend of mine who works there describes his first couple of years as a living hell, but now he has a (relatively speaking) more relaxed schedule and, more importantly, the kind of responsibilities that you only get after twice as many years in a place like Goldman.
Obviously Goldman is at the top of the world right now, and (again, if I am correct) it will take many years to affect Goldman’s business meaningfully, but Lloyd Blankfein doesn’t deserve to run a small business bank in Topeka if he’s not at least entertaining the possibility of this threat.
Again, agree and disagree.
I agree that people have started companies in dormrooms and garages forever (HP!). And my post being titled “the endless young’uns debate” does indicate that I’m aware that this kind of generational conflict happens with each generation.
What I was hinting at (and I should have made it more explicit), is that the constantly dropping price of starting a business, especially on the web, means that more and more people are doing it. I believe this is a trend that will only increase and that, in turns, it presents a significant challenge to companies that want to hire and retain the best people.
And I disagree about your assessment of Facebook. The assertion that its growth has plateaued is factually not true, and as far as increasing their revenue, I think they’ve only started. Advertisers are only starting to embrace their hyper-targeted self-serve ad platform, and there are many avenues of monetization that they’ve only dipped their toes into — ads outside their site, Facebook payments, classifieds, virtual goods…
Of course there’s a not insignificant likelihood that they’ll fail at all this, but to flatly state that there’s no way they can become a multibillion dollar business at this juncture strikes me as very short-sighted.
— PEG · Aug 3, 09:06 AM · #
Chet: Sorry. Peacetime president.
MBunge: Well, if you say so.
— PEG · Aug 3, 09:10 AM · #
“MBunge: Well, if you say so.”
It’s not my say so. It’s historical, observable fact. There’s never one way that’s always better than another. At certain times and certain circumstances, audacity results in death and/or destruction and encouraging internal disagreement results in defeat.
Mike
— MBunge · Aug 3, 03:04 PM · #
Oh, so the War on Terror, the Iraq war, and the war in Afghanistan all ended?
— Chet · Aug 3, 03:22 PM · #
All I can contribute to this is anecdotal reports from my friends, but I think they’re relevant. My sense, since as long as I’ve been aware of such things, is that my generation (I’m 25) has much less of a sense of entitlement than our parents. On the political, Obama’s spending lots of money, but not at my behest. Coming of age in the Clinton/Bush era, most of us are pretty skeptical of military spending and a lot of the old cash-guzzler “entitlements.” For example, most of us think universal health care is pretty obviously needed, but we’d also probably be fine with more economically sound ideas like taxing health benefits (which would make the whole thing easy to pay for). But not my parents, and he feeds these beasts because, despite our growing numbers, we’re still dwarfed by the boomers. Our numbers may win a general election against John McCain, but Obama doesn’t even get to Super Tuesday without the boomers.
On a more non-political level, our sense of entitlement is much more personal than what I see in the older folks. I expect my big salary and benefits and respectful treatment, but that’s because I’ve worked fucking hard. That’s the equation we’ve been taught since the first time we heard of the SAT. The boomers, on the other hand, think that their highways and pensions and 2.5 bathrooms and unrationed health care are just part of their basic rights. This notion of “This is America, of course we have X” is something I hear from boomers but almost never from my peers.
We’re arrogant, but also don’t expect much from the world that we don’t make for ourselves. Which is more like the greatest generation, I think, than the boomers.
— Joel Martin · Aug 3, 05:25 PM · #
I started out all ready to agree with you after your first few paragraphs, but then the arrogance and entitlement started to make me cringe. And then laugh. Sure, you may have plenty to contribute, but your tone would make me very reluctant to work with you. Your entire rebuttal serves more to support Brule’s point than counter it.
— Sunny · Aug 3, 06:18 PM · #