The Ryan Vet Show

Ryan Vet

To lead well today, you have to understand the forces that shaped yesterday and the ones reshaping tomorrow. You were made to Inspire Forward...and every episode helps you do just that. The Ryan Vet Show is where leaders come to understand why the world, and the people in it, work the way they do. Hosted by Ryan Vet, USA Today bestselling author, generational futurist, and contrarian leadership thinker, the show blends research, lived experience, and narrative to help you navigate tomorrow with more insight, perspective, and practical wisdom. Each week, Ryan explores the ideas shaping today’s workplace and culture: Generational dynamics and the behaviors that form each cohortLeadership and organizational psychologyChange management and the forces driving adaptationEntrepreneurship and real-world decision makingCommunication, influence, and human behaviorHow the past explains the present and the present shapes the future The show features two core formats: Long-form interviews with leaders, thinkers, entrepreneurs, and creators whose stories reveal the “why” behind their work, decisions, and impact.Weekly readings of the COLLIDE newsletter, where Ryan breaks down cultural shifts, generational insights, and leadership lessons with a story-rich, research-backed lens. Whether you’re an executive, a manager, an entrepreneur, an educator, or simply navigating cross-generational tension, The Ryan Vet Show gives you the insight and tools to lead with clarity, curiosity, and intentionality. If you want a show that’s intellectually grounded, practically useful, and deeply human — welcome. This is your place to understand the world more clearly and lead it more thoughtfully.

  1. 1d ago ·  Video

    Kevin Stinehart: Rebuilding Recess and Why Play Is a Developmental Need, Not a Want

    We engineered the friction out of childhood, then acted surprised when kids could not handle it. Kevin Stinehart, the third grade teacher and play advocate featured in chapter 11 of Jonathan Haidt's The Anxious Generation, joins The Ryan Vet Show to make the case that play is not a want. It is a developmental need. Kevin Stinehart teaches third grade at Central Academy of the Arts in Pickens County, South Carolina. He is a District Teacher of the Year, a South Carolina State Teacher of the Year candidate, and a Golden Apple Award winner. He also founded his school's Let Grow Play Club, a before and after school program with no budget and no curriculum. He opens the playground and lets kids play. In this conversation with host Ryan Vet, Kevin walks through what happens when you give children back unstructured time, and why the results are anything but soft. The data is the part that stops people. Inside the Play Club, physical incidents dropped from about 65 in one year to 32 the next, cut by more than half. The school hit 100 percent parent approval on its report card, a number that almost never happens in public education. And Kevin reframes the behavior conversation entirely. A lot of what gets labeled a discipline problem, he argues, is really a design problem. The third grader who cannot sit still after an hour of math is not misbehaving. He is doing what a developing brain is wired to do inside a system that was never built around healthy child development. Ryan connects this directly to his Loss of Friction thesis. Every scraped knee, every argument with a friend, every game where the rules break down is a rep. That is where kids build the capacity to adapt. Remove the friction and you remove the practice. Kevin's fix is not expensive, it is a mindset shift: stop being the cruise director, start being the park ranger. As he puts it, he is not there to control the wildlife, he is there to cultivate what is already growing. The conversation closes on why this matters more now, not less. AI will do the fast, factual work faster than any human brain. The capacities built through play, creativity, adaptability, and self direction, are exactly the things that get more valuable from here. Play was never frivolous. It is how kids become capable. In this episode: Why protection can quietly turn into overprotection, and how to tell the differenceThe Let Grow Play Club model: no budget, no curriculum, just unstructured play before and after schoolThe data behind the club: physical incidents cut from about 65 to 32 in a single year, and 100 percent parent approval on the school report cardWhy a lot of behavior issues are not behavior issues at all, but a consequence of school systems not designed around healthy child developmentFinland's 45-15 model: 45 minutes of instruction, 15 minutes of recess, all day longThe American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation of 60 minutes of play a dayThe park ranger versus cruise director mindset for parents and teachersHow friction in play builds the capacities kids cannot learn any other wayWhy play and the skills it builds, creativity and adaptability, become more important in the age of AI, not lessWhat it means to treat play as a fundamental need rather than a reward to be earnedReferenced in this episode: The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt (Kevin is featured in chapter 11)Let Grow: letgrow.orgCentral Academy of the Arts, Pickens County, South CarolinaFinland's 45-15 recess modelAmerican Academy of Pediatrics: 60 minutes of play a dayConnect with Ryan Vet: Website: ryanvet.comCOLLIDE Newsletter: ryanvet.com/collideLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ryanvetInstagram: instagram.com/ryancvetBook Ryan as a Keynote Speaker: ryanvet.com/generational-speakerSubscribe to The Ryan Vet Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever you get your podcasts. The guest era continues every Monday at 6am ET. Next week: Lenore Skenazy, founder of Free Range Kids and president of Let Grow, on why we stopped trusting kids with independence and how to give it back. The COLLIDE essay podcast continues every Thursday at 7am ET. Send us Fan Mail About Ryan VetRyan Vet is a USA TODAY bestselling author, futurist, and international keynote speaker whose insights on generations, culture, and the future of work have been featured in Forbes, Financial Times, ABC, NBC, and CBS. His research helps leaders understand emerging generational patterns and anticipate societal shifts before they fully unfold. Join 20,000+ Leaders for Weekly InsightsIf you want deeper research and behind-the-scenes insights on generations and the future of culture and society, join Ryan’s weekly newsletter: 👉 https://ryanvet.com/collide

    38 min

  2. 5d ago ·  Video

    The Mothers Who Kept the Window Open: What We Lost When We Took Away the Village

    The hardest part of modern motherhood isn't the work. It's that we now do it alone. The work was always going to be hard. The village was the part we could have kept. Generational futurist, USA Today bestselling author, and keynote speaker Ryan Vet starts at a high school production of Peter Pan, with the image of a mother lying on a windowsill, waiting fifty years for her son to come home. That ache is old. The conditions around it are not. In this episode, Ryan traces what happened to motherhood across the last half-century and makes a quiet, data-backed case: mothering has always been hard, but a century of trying to make it easier has, in many ways, made it lonelier. For most of human history, mothers did not raise children alone. The work was distributed across siblings, aunts, grandparents, and neighbors, with a baby passed from one set of arms to the next. Ryan walks through what replaced that village: a child daycare industry now worth roughly $74.7 billion a year, early-care enrollment for three- and four-year-olds climbing from 9.5% in 1964 to 52.4% by 2011, and a $1.7 billion universal childcare plan announced in New York in 2026. When the family, church, and community leave the room, somebody has to fill the chair. Increasingly, that somebody is paid, scheduled, and unrelated to the family. Then he takes on the cost of being alone. A 2024 Ohio State University survey found 66% of parents say parenthood sometimes or frequently feels isolating and lonely, and 38% report no support at all. Postpartum depression diagnoses nearly doubled between 2010 and 2021, from 9.4% to 19.0%. The first mothers carrying both loneliness and PPD at scale are also the first cohort who came of age inside social media. And Ryan applies the Friction Doctrine to mothering: every tool we built to remove the difficulty, from fertility apps to delivery services to overnight monitors and milestone trackers, carried a quiet weight in return. We now have more information about our babies than any generation in history, and we have often mistaken that information for wisdom. In this episode: The Peter Pan windowsill image that reframes love, loss, and hope in motherhoodWhy mothering has always been hard, and why a century of making it "easier" made it lonelierWhat we lost when we traded the village for institutions, apps, and convenienceThe loneliness epidemic among parents, and why mothers report it most acutelyThe doubling of postpartum depression, and the first generation of mothers raised on social mediaThe Friction Doctrine, Mother's Edition: how every labor-saving tool carried a hidden costWhy we now have more data about our children than ever, and have mistaken data for wisdomMotherhood happening later and less often, and the question hidden inside the fertility declineWendy, the Lost Boys, and why children look for mothers even when they pretend not to need oneWhat it actually looks like to become part of someone else's villageReferenced in this episode: Hunt, Gather, Parent by Michaeleen Doucleff (2021)The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, National Survey on the Loneliness Epidemic Among Parents (Gawlik et al., 2024)Trends in Postpartum Depression, JAMA Network Open (Bruno et al., 2024)Pew Research Center, survey on U.S. adults who don't have children (2024)CDC/NCHS, Births: Final Data for 2023 (2025)COLLIDE Newsletter by Ryan Vet: ryanvet.com/collideFull essay version of this episode: https://collide.ryanvet.com/p/the-mothers-who-kept-the-window-openConnect with Ryan Vet: Website: ryanvet.comCOLLIDE Newsletter: ryanvet.com/collideLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ryanvetInstagram: instagram.com/ryancvetBook Ryan as a Keynote Speaker: ryanvet.com/generational-speakerSubscribe to The Ryan Vet Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever you get your podcasts. New COLLIDE essay episodes release every Thursday at 7am ET. Guest era episodes release Monday mornings at 6am ET. Join the COLLIDE newsletter at ryanvet.com/collide for the research, reflections, and frameworks behind every episode. Send us Fan Mail About Ryan VetRyan Vet is a USA TODAY bestselling author, futurist, and international keynote speaker whose insights on generations, culture, and the future of work have been featured in Forbes, Financial Times, ABC, NBC, and CBS. His research helps leaders understand emerging generational patterns and anticipate societal shifts before they fully unfold. Join 20,000+ Leaders for Weekly InsightsIf you want deeper research and behind-the-scenes insights on generations and the future of culture and society, join Ryan’s weekly newsletter: 👉 https://ryanvet.com/collide

    12 min

  3. Jun 8 ·  Video

    Mike Schneider of Acre Homes: The Generational Housing Question, the Broken Affordability Math, and Shared Ownership

    The affordability math from the 1970s, 80s, and 90s is broken. Mike Schneider, founder of Acre Homes and longtime real estate operator, joins The Ryan Vet Show to walk through what actually happened to home ownership in America, and what comes next. Mike Schneider has spent the last decade and a half rebuilding the math of home ownership. He co-founded First in 2012, using machine learning and AI to predict who would sell their home, and sold that company. He is now the founder of Acre Homes, a shared appreciation model that lets people own without taking on a $670,000 mortgage. In this conversation with host Ryan Vet, two Durham millennials walk through how home ownership got this expensive, why blaming Wall Street is missing the real story, and what a generation of would-be buyers actually needs. The episode opens with the conversation that started this episode: Ryan spotted Mike walking down a Durham street wearing wired headphones. Two millennials, both Durham-based, both quietly recalibrating away from the trendy and back to the durable. That instinct, going analog, is showing up in housing too. Mike unpacks the three primary drivers of the affordability crisis (broken income-to-price math, delayed household formation, the disappearing starter home), the data on which generations are actually buying houses (Gen Z is outpacing millennials at age 28), and why the 50 or 60 year mortgage is a political move that does not solve the underlying problem. Then Mike walks through the shared ownership model. In the United Kingdom, Zillow's equivalent lets you filter for sale, for rent, or shared ownership. In the United States, that third option does not exist. Acre Homes is building it. Five percent down for fifty percent of the appreciation. No transaction costs on the front end. Lower total cost of ownership through what Mike calls the "Costco effect" of bundling debt, insurance, and operations across thousands of homes. Mike explains why two-thirds of Acre's customers are not first-time buyers (as expected) but previous homeowners who have lived the pain of buying and selling under the current model. The conversation closes on the data Mike thinks gets buried under the doom headlines. American home ownership is at 65 to 66 percent, higher than the 1980s. Eighty-three percent of Americans still prefer to own rather than rent (Lending Tree, October 2024). The country is between 1.5 and 5 million homes short on inventory. The American Dream is not dead. The math just needs new models. In this episode: Why the housing affordability math from the 1970s, 80s, and 90s is broken (the income-to-price multiple has gone from 2x to 6x or higher)The three primary drivers of the modern affordability crisis: broken math, delayed household formation, the disappearing starter homeWhy Gen Z at age 28 is outpacing millennials in home ownership (38 percent vs 36.8 percent), and what that says about the great financial crisis effectWhy blaming Wall Street is missing the real story (institutional investors bought less than 1.6 percent of homes)Why the 40, 50, and 60 year mortgage proposals are political moves, not solutionsHow shared ownership works in the UK and why the United States is behind on the modelThe Acre Homes model: 5 percent down, 50 percent of appreciation, no transaction costs on the front, lower total cost of ownershipWhy two-thirds of Acre's customers are previous homeowners, not first-time buyersThe transaction costs nobody talks about: why you walk across the threshold of your new $500,000 home already underwater until it appreciates 6 to 8 percentThe starter home problem: why we have built bigger homes and where the entry point disappearedThe data buried under the doom headlines: 65 to 66 percent home ownership rate, 83 percent of Americans prefer to own (Lending Tree, October 2024)Referenced in this episode: Acre Homes: acrehomes.comAziz Sundirji, economist focused on housing and household formationCharlie Munger's line: "The renter never washes the rental car"David Ogilvy on marketing: "Comfort the afflicted or afflict the comfortable"Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek ThompsonLending Tree study, October 2024: 83 percent of Americans prefer to own over rentConnect with Mike Schneider: Acre Homes: acrehomes.comLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mikeschneider3Connect with Ryan Vet: Website: ryanvet.comCOLLIDE Newsletter: ryanvet.com/collideLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ryanvetInstagram: instagram.com/ryancvetBook Ryan as a Keynote Speaker: ryanvet.com/generational-speakerSubscribe to The Ryan Vet Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever you get your podcasts. The guest era continues every Monday at 6am ET. Next week: Kevin Stinehart, the elementary school teacher and play advocate featured in chapter 11 of Jonathan Haidt's The Anxious Generation, on rebuilding play and recess inside the modern school system. The COLLIDE essay podcast continues every Thursday at 7am ET. Send us Fan Mail About Ryan VetRyan Vet is a USA TODAY bestselling author, futurist, and international keynote speaker whose insights on generations, culture, and the future of work have been featured in Forbes, Financial Times, ABC, NBC, and CBS. His research helps leaders understand emerging generational patterns and anticipate societal shifts before they fully unfold. Join 20,000+ Leaders for Weekly InsightsIf you want deeper research and behind-the-scenes insights on generations and the future of culture and society, join Ryan’s weekly newsletter: 👉 https://ryanvet.com/collide

    33 min

  4. Jun 1 ·  Video

    Michaeleen Doucleff: Hunt, Gather, Parent, Dopamine Kids, and What Modern Parenting Gets Wrong

    What if everything we know about modern parenting is wrong? NPR global health correspondent and bestselling author Michaeleen Doucleff joins The Ryan Vet Show for the first guest episode of year two, on Hunt, Gather, Parent, Dopamine Kids, and what parents actually have power to change. Michaeleen Doucleff spent nearly 12 years as a global health correspondent at NPR, covering infectious disease outbreaks from Liberia during the Ebola crisis to rural villages on every continent. Then she became a mom, and realized something that would change her life and her work: the parents she met in Maya villages in the Yucatan, with Inuit families in the Arctic, and in Tanzania weren’t struggling the way she was. They were calm, their kids were helpful, and the whole model of family life looked different. That observation became Hunt, Gather, Parent, a New York Times bestseller that has sold more than a million copies in over thirty languages. Her follow-up, Dopamine Kids, takes on the science of screens, ultra-processed foods, and what they’re actually doing to children. In this conversation with host Ryan Vet, Michaeleen walks through what cross-cultural parenting research reveals about cooperation, conflict, and what kids actually need from the adults in their lives. She challenges the seventy-year-old myth that dopamine is the pleasure center of the brain (it’s not, it’s the wanting and craving system), and explains why that distinction matters for every parent dealing with screens, apps, or kids who can’t seem to put the iPad down. She talks about the ultra-processed food environment that nobody chose but everybody is living in, the Harvard research on why these foods are designed for overconsumption, and the practical sanctuaries parents can build at home to take their power back. Ryan and Michaeleen also discuss the loneliness of modern parenthood, the mental health crisis among kids, and why so much of what passes for parenting advice today is based on twenty-five-year-old research that hasn’t kept up with the science. The conversation closes with Michaeleen’s hope for Gen Alpha and Gen Z, and the early signs that a generation is starting to recognize what’s been lost. In this episode: How Michaeleen went from PhD chemist to NPR global health correspondent to bestselling parenting authorWhat the Maya, Inuit, and Tanzanian parents she lived with taught her that California couldn’tWhy “your kids are being born into their world, you’re not being born into theirs” is the most important parenting reframeThe cooperation model: including kids in adult work instead of orbiting your life around theirsWhy dopamine is not the brain’s pleasure system, and why that distinction matters for every parentHow ultra-processed foods, apps, and devices are designed to crank dopamine while killing pleasureThe five practical tools from Dopamine Kids for weaning kids off screens without leaving them empty handedWhy food cues, not hunger, drive most eating, and how parents can use that science in their favorThe case for sanctuaries: protected spaces and times in the home where devices don’t enterMichaeleen’s hope for Gen Alpha and Gen Z, and what the early data is showingReferenced in this episode: Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans by Michaeleen DoucleffDopamine Kids by Michaeleen DoucleffHarvard research on ultra-processed foods and appetite regulationRyan Vet’s COLLIDE essay on the loneliness of parenthood: ryanvet.com/collideConnect with Michaeleen Doucleff: Website (she is intentionally not on social media): michaeleendoucleff.comConnect with Ryan Vet: Website: ryanvet.comCOLLIDE Newsletter: ryanvet.com/collideLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ryanvetInstagram: instagram.com/ryancvetBook Ryan as a Keynote Speaker: ryanvet.com/generational-speakerSubscribe to The Ryan Vet Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever you get your podcasts. The guest era continues every Monday at 6am ET. Next week: Mike Schneider on the generational housing question and why some millennials are going back to wired headphones, home phones, and analog life. The COLLIDE essay podcast continues every Thursday at 7am ET. Send us Fan Mail About Ryan VetRyan Vet is a USA TODAY bestselling author, futurist, and international keynote speaker whose insights on generations, culture, and the future of work have been featured in Forbes, Financial Times, ABC, NBC, and CBS. His research helps leaders understand emerging generational patterns and anticipate societal shifts before they fully unfold. Join 20,000+ Leaders for Weekly InsightsIf you want deeper research and behind-the-scenes insights on generations and the future of culture and society, join Ryan’s weekly newsletter: 👉 https://ryanvet.com/collide

    31 min

  5. May 28 ·  Video

    Is the American Dream Dead or Just Different?

    The American Dream isn't dead. It's been redefined. And the generation rewriting it isn't asking permission. Generational futurist, USA Today bestselling author, and keynote speaker Ryan Vet traces the rise, the reality check, and the reframing of the most powerful idea in modern American identity. From historian James Truslow Adams coining "the American Dream" in 1931 to the Baby Boom suburban script of cars, mortgages, and the white picket fence, to Gen Z trading possessions for possibilities and collectivism for individualism, this episode follows the arc of an idea that built a nation and the cultural shift now rewiring what success even means. Ryan walks through the perfect storm that made the mid-century Dream feel statistically normal: postwar productivity nearly doubling, homeownership jumping from 43.6% to 61.9% between 1940 and 1960, the 1956 Interstate Highway Act funding 41,000 miles of road, television going from 9% of households in 1950 to 85% to 90% by 1959, the pill reshaping who could pursue a self-directed life starting in 1960. Then he zooms in on the present: real median earnings for 25 to 34 year olds matching Gen X at the same age, household wealth under 40 climbing about 30% from 2019 to 2024, fertility down to 1.6 children per woman, marriage ages climbing, and a generation defining wealth as flexibility, mobility, and experience instead of square footage. And he takes on the contradictory survey data head on. Only 27% of Americans told ABC News/Ipsos in 2024 that hard work still reliably gets you ahead. Yet 53% told Pew the same year that the American Dream is still possible. And 69% told the Archbridge Institute in 2025 that they have achieved the Dream or are on their way, with freedom of choice and a good family life ranking far above wealth as the markers of having made it. Three surveys. Three different stories. One country. Ryan explains why, and what it means for anyone trying to lead, hire, sell to, or raise the next generation. In this episode: Where the phrase "the American Dream" actually comes from, and why James Truslow Adams wrote it in the depths of the Great DepressionThe R.E.S.P.E.C.T. framework and how nearly every pillar of generational momentum accelerated the mid-century DreamWhy the Baby Boom Dream wasn't just a story Americans told themselves, it was a statistically normal outcome for a large share of the populationThe data that quietly refutes the "young people are poorer than their parents" narrativeWhy housing affordability is only part of the reason Gen Z and Millennials are delaying or skipping the suburban starter homeHow three major 2024 and 2025 surveys produce three different answers about whether the American Dream is dead, and what that contradiction revealsThe shift from collectivism to individualism, and why that single move reframes work, family, faith, geography, and ambitionWhat leaders, parents, and organizations get wrong when they assume the next generation is chasing the same Dream their grandparents wereReferenced in this episode: The Epic of America by James Truslow Adams (1931)Generations by Jean M. Twenge (2023)Pew Research Center, 2024 survey on the American DreamABC News/Ipsos, 2024 poll on hard work and getting aheadArchbridge Institute, 2025 American Dream SnapshotFederal Reserve Distributional Financial Accounts (2024)COLLIDE Newsletter by Ryan Vet: ryanvet.com/collideFull essay version of this episode: Is the American Dream Dead or Just Different?Subscribe to The Ryan Vet Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever you get your podcasts. New COLLIDE essay episodes release every Thursday at 7am ET. Guest era episodes release Monday mornings at 6am ET. Join the COLLIDE newsletter at ryanvet.com/collide for the research, reflections, and frameworks behind every episode. Send us Fan Mail About Ryan VetRyan Vet is a USA TODAY bestselling author, futurist, and international keynote speaker whose insights on generations, culture, and the future of work have been featured in Forbes, Financial Times, ABC, NBC, and CBS. His research helps leaders understand emerging generational patterns and anticipate societal shifts before they fully unfold. Join 20,000+ Leaders for Weekly InsightsIf you want deeper research and behind-the-scenes insights on generations and the future of culture and society, join Ryan’s weekly newsletter: 👉 https://ryanvet.com/collide

    13 min

  6. May 25 ·  Video

    Start Here: What Shapes Us, and Where Are We Going

    What shapes us? And where are we going? This is the Start Here episode of The Ryan Vet Show, the line in the sand between the essays that built this podcast and the conversations that will define what comes next. Generational futurist, USA Today bestselling author, and keynote speaker Ryan Vet introduces the next chapter of The Ryan Vet Show, a podcast about generations, culture, leadership, and the forces actually shaping the future. After more than a year of solo essays on generational change and what forms a culture, the show is expanding to include conversations with researchers, founders, reporters, educators, New York Times bestselling authors, and people with remarkable stories to tell. This episode is the bridge. Ryan walks through why generational labels like Boomer, Gen X, Millennial, and Gen Z so often fail us, why formation matters more than chronological age, and what it actually looks like to lead, parent, work, and build across generations in a culture that increasingly confuses disagreement with danger. He shares his personal origin, from incorporating his first business at fourteen years old to writing AI algorithms on napkins in 2009, long before the current generative AI wave. He sets the ground rules for how the show will handle conversation, curiosity, and disagreement in the next chapter. He also previews the guests joining year two of The Ryan Vet Show, including NPR global health correspondent and bestselling author Michaeleen Doucleff (Hunt, Gather, Parent and the dopamine kids book), Lenore Skenazy (founder of Free Range Kids and the TED speaker once called America’s worst mom), a third-grade teacher rebuilding play and recess, Facebook’s employee number 57, a digital nomad on his eighth country, an expert on private equity’s role in youth sports, and more. In this episode: Why The Ryan Vet Show is expanding from solo essays to guest conversations in year twoThe label lie, and why Boomer, Gen X, Millennial, and Gen Z shorthand misses what actually forms peopleHow formation, not chronological age, shapes a generationRyan’s personal origin, from his first business at fourteen to early work in AI and machine learning starting in 2009The disagreement ground rules for the next chapter of the showWhy curiosity is one of the few real defenses against modern manipulationWhat guests are coming next in year two of The Ryan Vet ShowReferenced in this episode: Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns GoodwinCOLLIDE Newsletter by Ryan Vet: ryanvet.com/collideSubscribe to The Ryan Vet Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes of the guest era release Monday mornings at 6am ET. The COLLIDE essay podcast continues every Thursday at 7am ET. Join the COLLIDE newsletter at ryanvet.com/collide for the research, reflections, and frameworks behind every episode. Send us Fan Mail About Ryan VetRyan Vet is a USA TODAY bestselling author, futurist, and international keynote speaker whose insights on generations, culture, and the future of work have been featured in Forbes, Financial Times, ABC, NBC, and CBS. His research helps leaders understand emerging generational patterns and anticipate societal shifts before they fully unfold. Join 20,000+ Leaders for Weekly InsightsIf you want deeper research and behind-the-scenes insights on generations and the future of culture and society, join Ryan’s weekly newsletter: 👉 https://ryanvet.com/collide

    12 min

  7. May 21 ·  Video

    Gen Z Is Ungrounded and Going Back to the Mall - The Generational Pendulum Swings Back to In-Person

    The most digital generation is going back to the mall. Generational futurist Ryan Vet explains why Gen Z's IRL revival is a leadership signal. Ryan Vet, generational futurist, expert in generations, and AI keynote speaker, unpacks the resurgence of physical retail, the Generational Pendulum, and what Gen Z's return to malls, bookstores, and coffee shops reveals about how this generation was formed. A generation that was tracked, supervised, and over-scheduled is now hunting for the unstructured, in-person moments older generations took for granted. The workplace is next. Key Takeaways Gen Z's foot traffic at malls is up 57% year-over-year, and 82.2% of Gen Z mall-goers say they are there to socialize, not to shop (Placer.ai, 2026).The Generational Pendulum is swinging back: 83% of 18-to-24-year-olds say social retail environments improve their sense of connection (Lightspeed, 2026).Gen X was rarely watched. Gen Z has been over-watched. That difference is formative, not cosmetic.The mall was practice. It taught budgeting, trade-offs, self-control, and watching peers make bad decisions in real time. A generation that skipped that practice arrives at work without those reps.Gallup (2025) reports Gen Z is the loneliest generation at work, nearly twice as likely as Gen X to say they experienced loneliness a lot of the previous day.Leaders cannot replace lived experience with a Slack onboarding checklist. Workplaces need more unstructured time, multi-age interaction, and real apprenticeship.The recalibration has already started. Gen Alpha (currently 1-13) may be the generation whose parents intentionally design a more analog childhood.Research and Sources Cited Lightspeed. (2026). Gen Z wants more than products: 83% of 18-24-year-olds say hangout stores boost connection.Placer.ai. (2026). How malls can win in 2026.Pew Research Center. (2014). Generation X: America's neglected middle child.Pew Research Center. (2025). Americans' trust in one another.Gallup. (2023). Gen Z voices lackluster trust in major U.S. institutions.Gallup. (2025). State of the global workplace: 2025 report.Starbucks. (2025). Starbucks coffeehouse designs enter a new era.City of St. Charles, Illinois. (n.d.). Charlestowne Mall redevelopment.Business Insider. (2025). Starbucks plans to phase out its mobile-only stores for a future with more warmth and human connection.Connect with Ryan Vet Read the full essay: Gen Z Is Ungrounded and Going Back to the MallSubscribe to Collide: www.RyanVet.com/collideWebsite: www.RyanVet.comLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ryanvetYouTube: @RyanVetBook Ryan to speak: ryanvet.com/bookingAbout Ryan Vet Ryan Vet is a generational futurist, USA TODAY bestselling author, international keynote speaker, and host of The Ryan Vet Show. As an expert in generations and an AI keynote speaker, he helps leaders, parents, and organizations make sense of how Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, Gen Z, Gen Alpha, and Gen Beta are reshaping work, family, and culture. Collide is his weekly research-backed newsletter on generational leadership, read by 21,000+ leaders. #GenerationalFuturist #GenZ #GenX #GenAlpha #Loneliness #ThirdPlaces #Mentorship #Leadership #ExpertInGenerations #RyanVet #CollidePodcast #AIKeynoteSpeaker #FutureOfWork Send us Fan Mail About Ryan VetRyan Vet is a USA TODAY bestselling author, futurist, and international keynote speaker whose insights on generations, culture, and the future of work have been featured in Forbes, Financial Times, ABC, NBC, and CBS. His research helps leaders understand emerging generational patterns and anticipate societal shifts before they fully unfold. Join 20,000+ Leaders for Weekly InsightsIf you want deeper research and behind-the-scenes insights on generations and the future of culture and society, join Ryan’s weekly newsletter: 👉 https://ryanvet.com/collide

    15 min

  8. May 14 ·  Video

    What the Class of 2026 Is Really Bringing to the Workforce: Loneliness, AI, and the Mentor Gap

    The Class of 2026 is the loneliest generation ever to walk across a graduation stage, and the workforce is not ready for them. Generational futurist Ryan Vet, an expert in generations and AI keynote speaker, unpacks why the college Class of 2026 is unlike any cohort before it. They are the first traditional graduating class whose entire college experience was shaped by generative AI, whose adolescence was marked by political polarity, and whose childhood absorbed the aftershocks of the Great Recession. In this episode, Ryan answers the questions leaders are actually asking. What makes the Class of 2026 different from previous Gen Z graduates? They were born in 2004, the same year Facebook launched. ChatGPT became free to the public the same semester they began college. They are the first cohort whose entire undergraduate experience was rewritten in real time by generative AI. Why is Gen Z the loneliest generation at work? Gallup's 2025 State of the Global Workplace report found Gen Z employees are nearly twice as likely as Gen X and three times as likely as Boomers to report daily loneliness. Only 23 percent of remote-capable Gen Z workers prefer fully remote work, lower than every older generation. What does Gen Z actually want from the workplace? Mentorship. 83 percent of Gen Z workers say a workplace mentor is important, yet only 52 percent have one (Adobe, 2023). Deloitte's 2025 Gen Z and Millennial Survey found most Gen Z employees feel their managers are too busy with tasks to offer real guidance. How should leaders talk to new graduates about AI? The honest conversation is not, "Don't worry, AI won't take your job." It is, "Here is what AI is going to change about this role, here is what I still need a human to do, and here is what I am going to teach you that no model can replicate." The biggest takeaway: this generation does not need more flexibility. They need more meaningful connection. Read the full essay: www.ryanvet.com/collide/what-the-class-of-2026-is-really-bringing-to-the-workforce Subscribe to the Collide newsletter: www.ryanvet.com/collide Send us Fan Mail About Ryan VetRyan Vet is a USA TODAY bestselling author, futurist, and international keynote speaker whose insights on generations, culture, and the future of work have been featured in Forbes, Financial Times, ABC, NBC, and CBS. His research helps leaders understand emerging generational patterns and anticipate societal shifts before they fully unfold. Join 20,000+ Leaders for Weekly InsightsIf you want deeper research and behind-the-scenes insights on generations and the future of culture and society, join Ryan’s weekly newsletter: 👉 https://ryanvet.com/collide

    12 min
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

To lead well today, you have to understand the forces that shaped yesterday and the ones reshaping tomorrow. You were made to Inspire Forward...and every episode helps you do just that. The Ryan Vet Show is where leaders come to understand why the world, and the people in it, work the way they do. Hosted by Ryan Vet, USA Today bestselling author, generational futurist, and contrarian leadership thinker, the show blends research, lived experience, and narrative to help you navigate tomorrow with more insight, perspective, and practical wisdom. Each week, Ryan explores the ideas shaping today’s workplace and culture: Generational dynamics and the behaviors that form each cohortLeadership and organizational psychologyChange management and the forces driving adaptationEntrepreneurship and real-world decision makingCommunication, influence, and human behaviorHow the past explains the present and the present shapes the future The show features two core formats: Long-form interviews with leaders, thinkers, entrepreneurs, and creators whose stories reveal the “why” behind their work, decisions, and impact.Weekly readings of the COLLIDE newsletter, where Ryan breaks down cultural shifts, generational insights, and leadership lessons with a story-rich, research-backed lens. Whether you’re an executive, a manager, an entrepreneur, an educator, or simply navigating cross-generational tension, The Ryan Vet Show gives you the insight and tools to lead with clarity, curiosity, and intentionality. If you want a show that’s intellectually grounded, practically useful, and deeply human — welcome. This is your place to understand the world more clearly and lead it more thoughtfully.

Information

  • Creator
    Ryan Vet
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    31
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The Ryan Vet Show
  • Show Website
    The Ryan Vet Show

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