The CQ: When Your Technical Skills are Eclipsed & Bank of Mom and Dad Close
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By Forerunner
What We’re Talking About on Slack:
Small businesses are feeling more optimistic in 2024. A new American Express survey reveals that 85% of small businesses said they were satisfied with the success of their business during 2023, and 86% said they hit their goals. This year’s data is much more reassuring than last summer’s, when Amex’s report found that 80% of small businesses said that long-term financial confidence was “being negatively impacted by the economy.” “Stability looks like the main driver of increased optimism, after a few years of contending with the pandemic and subsequent economic fallout. The dust has settled to a large degree, after a bout of relatively high inflation and a series of interest rate increases, and business owners are able to get a handle now on the macro environment and plan accordingly.”
When your technical skills are eclipsed, your humanity will matter more than ever, says the New York Times. Now that technical and data skills are the ones most likely to be replaced by AI, those “soft” skills that have been undervalued for so long will become prioritized. That means how employees train workers and how colleges and universities educate students needs to adapt, placing less emphasis on fields like engineering, science, and data analysis as a means of attaining a lucrative job and bringing the same level of vigor to developing skills such as communication, critical thinking, empathy, and negotiation. While there will still be engineers in the future, they probably won’t be as focused on coding, but more so on collaboration and communication. “In the past, jobs were about muscles. Now they’re about brains, but in the future, they’ll be about the heart.”
The New Yorker asks, can the internet be governed? Big Tech has brought about a lot of concerns regarding privacy, politics, and mental health, and now with the advancement of AI, the call for government invention has heightened. There are about 30 U.S. states that are considering or have enacted digital privacy bills and more than 1,000 AI policy initiatives documented across 69 countries. “Despite an emerging consensus about the need for governance, policymakers, businesspeople, and citizens are left grappling with regulation’s numerous shortcomings. There’s the common, and not entirely unfounded, concern that regulation stifles innovation (‘More upstream governance translates to less downstream innovation’ as Andrew McAfee put it), and a growing recognition of what is known as law’s distributive effect—the fact that smaller companies are often disproportionately hit by the costs of regulatory compliance.”
Some families are shutting down the bank of Mom and Dad. With more adult children living at home (20% of men and 12% of women between 25 and 34 years of age—substantially higher than two decades ago) due to the rising costs of food and rent and lingering student debt, more than a quarter of parents who are offering financial support to their kids have said it has caused them to postpone retirement. And half of them have needed to cut back on living expenses. When it comes to setting financial boundaries, many parents are opting for a soft nudge: “Taking a gradual approach and framing the conversation around gaining financial independence gives it a positive spin. Telling your children you’re cutting them off suggests it is a punishment.”
Gen Z couples are more likely than older generations to keep finances separate, according to a new report. About 34% of Gen Z couples who live together combine their finances, 28% have a mix of “yours, mine, and ours,” and 24% keep finances separate. Meanwhile 44% of boomers fully combine their finances with their spouse or partner. This may be because young adults have lower incomes and may have anxiety around financial institutions and/or they may feel some shame about the amount of student loan debt or credit card debt they have. And since the younger generation has embraced technology, they also may be chipping in on expenses through apps like Venmo or Zelle.
Bloomberg reports that Gen Z is turning to social media for news, even as social media platforms are rolling back moderation, fact-checking, and policies aimed at reducing hate speech, misinformation, and harassment. The number of 18-to-29 year-olds who have some or a lot of trust in social media for information (50%) is almost as many as those who trust national news organizations (56%). In particular, news consumption is on the rise on YouTube (at 26%, from 22% in 2021), Instagram (at 15%, from 11% in 2021), and TikTok (at 14%, from 6% in 2021). “These platforms draw right- and left-leaning news consumers far more evenly than any national media outlet, yet hyperpersonalized feeds can create fragmented views of the world.”
Meet generation stay-at-home: Young adults are opting out of going out. For some, it’s a matter of limited funds and simply because they have everything at their fingertips at home—phones, gaming, premium TV, plus whatever else they need delivered right to their doorstep. Others argue that helicopter parenting may have made them more apprehensive to step beyond their comfort zone. Regardless of the reason, more Gen Z’ers have happily embraced staying in. “You don’t need to pay for a taxi or a ticket: you can sit at home, and if you’re feeling really fancy, have a vodka and Red Bull, and watch it on your phone. And that’s something this generation has adopted.”
The future of work depends on understanding Gen Alpha now. Fast Company made some predictions about the largest cohort in history (almost 2 billion people globally) based on the Fourth Turning theory, which says culture experiences recurs in 20-year periods: high, awakening, unraveling, and crisis. Since the current cycle is marked by chaotic events including Covid, climate change, the Trump presidency, and geopolitical conflict around the world, “the Fourth Turning theory tells us that Alphas are likely to seek structure, belonging and community. Having witnessed parents struggling with climbing mortgage rates, redundancies, and repeated financial crises, they’ll also be inherently cautious with money and prioritize economic stability.” This means that workplaces should focus on offering secure career paths with upskilling programs, as well as developing opportunities for building community and support, particularly among different generations.
The cost of car ownership is getting painful. Gas prices may have finally come down, but everything else is up, up, up. Want to know what the total annual cost of owning a new car is? Including expenses like gas and insurance, it has reached $12,182 in 2023 (it was only $10,728 a year earlier). As for how much you’ll shell out for buying a new car, the average transaction price rose from $39,813 in January 2021 to $47,358 last month. Car insurance premiums increased 20.6% from a year ago. Maintenance and repairs rose 6.5%; parking and other fees 3.8%. “Cars have become more sophisticated, driving up their values and the costs of fixing them. There’s also a lag between insurance pricing and economic conditions, which is why auto insurance costs have suffered from higher-than-expected inflation,” says one president of an insurance company.
AI is reshaping Google’s search page from a keyword-based search to a more conversational exchange that uses a search bot. Google has been working on its own version, Search Generative Experience (SGE), which appears on the results page alongside ads and links—and this may pose significant consequences for brands that depend on Google ads. “When a customer searches for “best midsize cars,” SGE will return a narrative summary of what it found, along with four or five examples of cars, a pros-and-cons for each car, and even some snippets of reviews about the cars. That package of results is probably more helpful for someone searching for a car than a list of links, but it’s also very opinionated (for example, saying that a given car is harder to maintain). If you’re the brand, you may wonder why you’re spending tens of thousands on internet advertising when Google’s search results are talking potential customers out of buying your product.”
Portfolio Highlights:
Chime tops Forbes’ Fintech 50 list for 2024. Also: Chime’s CFO Matthew Newcomb visits the Run the Numbers podcast discussing the company’s business model and more.
Then, Chime CMO Vineet Mehra chats about building a growth-enabled purpose on The CMO Podcast. Plus, financial therapist Dr. Traci Williams and Chime weigh in on who should pay for a first date in a U.S. News and World Report article.
Henley Vasquez, co-founder of Fora, is included as one of Travel & Leisure’s top travel advisors.
Business Insider includes The Farmer’s Dog 2023 ad in its ranking of the best Super Bowl commercials of all time.
Elle and USA Today Reviewed cover the launch of Glossier’s Cloud Paint Bronzer.
CNN, Men’s Journal, and Digital Trends review the Oura ring.