Argumentative Statement On Millennials

Older generations are accusing millennials (people born approximately 1984 and after) of being entitled, narcissistic, self interested, unfocused, and lazy. One of the people supporting this claim about millennials is Simon Sinek, who is a British/American author, motivational speaker and marketing consultant. He has written numerous bestseller books, and he has earned a Bachelor’s degree in cultural anthropology from Brandeis University (“Simon Sinek”). In Sinek’s interview, he states that only things millennials want in life are to work in a place with purpose, make an impact on the world, and want free food and beanbags. He notices that millennials are not happy with what they want in life because they’re still missing something (Crossman).

He says, “Corporate environments care more about numbers than they do about the kids. They care more about the short term gains than the long term life of these young human-beings.” Sinek produces a persuading argument and explanation here, but he does not provide actual facts to back up his argument, and he over-generalizes corporate environments. For example, by saying, “They care more about…,” he is referring to all corporate environments. However, they are some corporate environments that care about their workers, for instance, Google. Google employees are given an abundance of job perks, such as free gourmet food, rides to and from work, on-site massages, free gym memberships, and so much more (Loudenback). Google also gives their employees flexibility to work on passionate projects and feed their creativity. Eighty-six percent of employees reported high job satisfaction (Loudenback). Therefore, Sinek needs to be more specific with his claims because he is making all corporate environments seem greedy and cruel.
Sinek may have given his opinion on millennials to inform and educate millennials and other generations on the problems that are wrong with this generation, but in doing so, he also offended a lot of millennials. I am a millennial and felt offended by his interview because many of the points he argued are problems that are wrong with society, not just millennials. In addition, Sinek was not brought up in the same era as millennials, so he does not know what it was like to grow up during this time. If Sinek was a millennial, not as many people would feel insulted by his