Why Millennials failed to transform work

Five years ago, while I was living in New York and working on a piece about Millennials’ workplace demands, I got a call from the CEO of Liftopia, Evan Reece, asking if I could interview him for the article. Reece’s start-up scooped up unpurchased ski lift tickets at a discounted price and then sold them to non-ski resort members. Evan told me while one goal was to let people shred on a budget, his broader ambition was creating a “new Millennial-inspired workplace.”

Confident that he was laying the foundation for a professional revolution, Reece offered to fly me out to San Francisco to show me his plans for transforming the dynamics of work. He explained that he and a number of Millennial start-up founders were going to modernize how we do our jobs, in-person and remotely.

I was then a young and naive Millennial worker myself. I still vividly remember a boss denying me time off after my father died. When I gave one company six months’ notice because I was attending graduate school, they tried to cut my salary in half. And two weeks after moving to New York, I was fired because my company changed their minds and wanted all the workers in Seattle (they now specialize in remote work solutions).

Thus, I was interested in attempts to change work for the better. I hopped on the next flight to see Reece in the Bay Area.

In the winter of 2017, I spent the week interacting with all the companies Reece was working with to transform the workplace for the next generation…