In our recent article on the New Gilded Age and what we now feel is a Second Gilded Age, we referenced this follow-up article on what a Personal Gilded Age is for each of us. Few of us will reach the wealth reached by Rockefeller, Carnegie, Buffett, or Bezos. But you do not have to get that level of wealth to live well, very well, in America.
The Zoomers
I have learned more about the Gen-Z group by watching them complain ad nauseam on YouTube about the lack of opportunity and how unfair things are today. I cringe as they ride in their cars, record on their $1,000 iPhones, and recount how unfair life is for their generation. It is our fault, not theirs that working 9 to 5 does not provide them with enough money to date, play, eat out, and live on their own.
Since World War II, each generation has enjoyed a better life in a stronger nation. Now, we have a generation that has never known hardship and has no sense of where they want to go or what they want to do. They define hardship as not having access to the Internet or the latest electronic devices.
You only need to see a few of these to understand how we have descended into a world where many young people have no goals, no vision of the future, and no sense of the sacrifice necessary for success (Video 1, Video 2, examples only, there are hundreds of them). This is the generation infected by colleges and high schools that are out of control or indoctrinating them into a culture of narcissism and failure, not success. This is the generation programmed by socialists and social reengineers. They are painfully discovering that hard work, vision, and dedication beat education. This is especially true if you have a degree in a nonsensical study area with no path to success and massive student debt.
Steve Jobs and the Second Gilded Age
In my first article about the Gilded Age, I mentioned individuals like Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Vanderbilt. A modern-day success story that the Gen Z crowd should relate to is that of Steve Jobs. Like the first Gilded Age success stories, Jobs started from humble beginnings. He became a financial success and was recognized as a technical visionary.
Jobs was invited to be the commencement speaker at Stanford in 2005 and took the opportunity to explain his life’s story. It is one of the best speeches any young person can watch and explains the opportunities available in America from hard work and dedication. If anyone could have wallowed in self-pity, it was Jobs. Instead, he took stock of his skills, the situation surrounding him, the opportunities before him, and chose to be successful. His success was a choice, not luck. According to Jobs, his story can be synopsized as:
- His mother was an unwed graduate student who did not want him and put him up for adoption.
- The first adoption family rejected him because they wanted a girl, not a boy.
- He was adopted by parents who were not college graduates but agreed to send him to college as a condition of adoption.
- He enrolled in Reed College only to realize it was not worth the money and just dropped out.
- He hung around college and “dropped in” on classes that interested him while sleeping on the floor in a friend’s dorm room.
- He collected Coke bottles, returned them for enough money to buy food, and ate one good free meal each week at the Hari Krishna Temple.
- After a few years, he started Apple Computers in his garage with Steve Wozniak, and they enjoyed enormous success.
- He was fired by Apple, the company he founded, and went on to found NEXT Computers and Pixar.
- He returned to run Apple Computers and became the person most of us remember.
- The effects of his hard work and genius are still present in Apple Computers and its products.
Jobs said his Stanford graduation speech was the closest he had ever come to graduating from any college. Jobs did not have the Internet or handheld electronics; he helped invent them. He saw the obstacles placed in front of him as opportunities for achievement. He outthought and outworked his peers and became a clear example of what can be done in America with self-confidence, vision, and effort.
Andrew Carnegie and the First Gilded Age
Andrew Carnegie’s story is worth noting in what most define as the real Gilded Age. Carnegie was born in 1835 and immigrated to the United States from Scotland with his family in 1848.
- He went to work as a “bobbin boy” in a cotton factory at the age of twelve.
- Recognizing opportunity, he began educating himself at night, and by age fourteen, he had become a messenger in a telegraph office.
- His hard work there paid off, and at 20, he advanced to become the private secretary of the superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
- He advanced to the superintendent’s job at age 26 and began making his first stock purchases.
- By age 30, his hard work advanced him again to a position where he made $50,000 annually (equivalent to $950,000 today).
- He could see business changing and decided steel production was a rising opportunity. So, he left the Pennsylvania Railroad and started working for the Keystone Bridge Company.
- At age 38, he founded a steel production company that became The Carnegie Steel Company.
- In 1901, he sold The Carnegie Steel Company to J. P. Morgan for $400 million ($372 billion today), making him the wealthiest person in the world.
- After he retired, he devoted himself to philanthropy and gave away about 80% of his fortune to causes in Scotland and the United States.
- The effects of his philanthropy are still felt today in cultural, social, and educational areas.
Carnegie was a tough, frugal, and hard-nosed businessman who overcame what many of his peers viewed as overwhelming obstacles and odds to become one of the wealthiest people in history. He could have easily viewed his lot in life as just too hard to overcome, but instead, he chose success over failure.
Neither Jobs nor Carnegie went to college; instead, they focused on opportunity and the value of hard work. Both men educated themselves, and their stories make one wonder about the value of higher education in their day and ours. They may be unusual in their intellect and ability to succeed in their environment, but they are by no means unique. There is a direct correlation between hard work, sacrifice, self-confidence, and success.
Paths of Great People Can Cross
In a strange twist of fate, the Carnegie Library in Washington, D.C., fell into disrepair over the years. In 2019, Apple Computers took over the building and renovated it as the Apple Carnegie Library. It was Apple’s most ambitious restoration and brought two giants of American industry together into one space.
Another Great Opportunity
All Americans have the privilege of living in the greatest nation on earth. This is why so many fight the odds to get here. We are at the dawn of a new technical revolution that will be ushered in by artificial intelligence, robotics, and quantum computing. These technologies are today’s version of railroads, steamships, steel plants, and personal computers. They, and associated businesses, are the open door to opportunity for all who work hard.
The Gen Z Generation needs to understand that history shows us that life is always hard for everyone. We are all busy working on our careers, our families, and the many challenges that come our way every day. No one cares about DEI, pronouns, safe spaces, gender fluidity, and lack of resilience. We wish you well, but you are in a mess of your creation. Your weakness is someone else’s opportunity, and if you do not seize the opportunities afforded you just by living in America, you will wonder years later why others succeeded where you failed.
Neither Steve Jobs nor Andrew Carnegie viewed themselves as victims. No one has ever become great by complaining about hard work amidst abundant opportunity. For most of us, a 9-to-5 job is a 7-to-11 job if we want to succeed, and we are glad for the chance to prove ourselves.
See the first article on The New Gilded Age.
Resources Unsed in This Article
Andrew Carnegie: American industrialist and philanthropist, by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica, britannica.com, Last accessed March 5, 2024.
Gen Z TikTok Girl Can’t Handle Working A 9-5 Job, YouTube:The Unreal Man, youtube.com, Last accessed March 6, 2024.
Gen Z Walmart Worker SNAPS on Biden Boomers, YouTube:Benny Johnson, youtube.com, Last accessed March 6, 2024.
One of the Greatest Speeches Ever | Steve Jobs, YouTube:Motivation Ark, youtube.com, Speech from 2005.
Steve Jobs: American Businessman, by Steve Levy, Encyclopaedia Britannica, britannica.com, February 29, 2024.
