Let’s begin with the definition of Gen X from Wikipedia:
Generation X (or Gen X) is the demographic cohort following the baby boomers and preceding the Millennials. Researchers and popular media typically use birth years ranging from the mid 1960s to the early 1980s, with 1965 a widely accepted starting birth year… As adolescents and young adults, they were dubbed the “MTV Generation”… In the 1990s they were sometimes characterized as slackers, cynical and disaffected. Read more at Wikipedia.
Lots of discussion recently about the Boomer generation and-or versus the Millennial generation (i.e. #OkBoomer). Authors like Paul Taylor have recently written “The Next America: Boomers, Millennials, and the Looming Generational Showdown”, all skipping my generation, the Generation X.
So I wondered, but what about my generation, the Generation X? Are we really “slackers, cynical and disaffected.” What has my generation contributed to society?
Yes, I would agree that my generation is not crazy biased or centered on politics or religion, but Gen X has left behind quite a mark globally (for better or worst). There are plenty of examples but let me list a few: Google, Apple, true global adoption of mobile phones, iPhone and Android, true global adoption of the Internet, true global adoption social networks, Uber, SpaceX and other space travel companies, Tesla, Amazon, AI and ML, MTV, Perl Jam, Soundgarden, Quantum Computer, other…
I rest my case.
Gen X has brought the Web and Information to the masses. Gen X has transformed society as never before. A highly entrepreneurial generation, breaking the ice, applying science, tech and engineering, software and hardware, and impacting our daily lives in mayor ways. Shaping the future. But perhaps the most impactful of all of Gen X’s accomplishments is none of the above, but it is having raised the Millennial generation…
You are welcome…
/ceo