The room burst into laughter. Sure, it was a funny moment, but it revealed a deeper problem that some CEOs would rather avoid. Ageism goes in both directions, and in tech, it is so routine that people laugh instead of questioning it.

A recent survey reinforces this point. 42% of hiring managers confirmed that a candidate's age affects their decision. 36% admit bias against Gen Z, and 34% admit bias against candidates over sixty. When almost equal bias exists at both ends of the age spectrum, it’s clear that the issue is not generational behaviour but how companies interpret it.

Why there’re so many memes about Gen Zs at work and what’s wrong about it

Hiring managers often rely on generational labels because they provide an easy explanation for complicated people's problems.

If a millennial job-hops, the assumption is that all millennials do. If Gen Z pushes for boundaries, the conclusion is that they “do not want to work.” If Boomers struggle with new tools, they are instantly considered “out of touch.”

So, without any other appropriate approaches to handle it, people invent … (wait for it) ... jokes. Now the internet is in the middle of changing control from millennials to Gen Zers – we see memes from millennials about Gen Z and vice versa.

These shortcuts simply let people avoid harder questions about their culture, leadership style, onboarding, or communication habits.

The real challenge, however, is not the generation you hire. The challenge is whether your organisation can integrate people who think, work, and communicate differently. Nobody can avoid it – simply because Gen Z will soon be the main workforce. Hiring older generations would be simply more expensive and less productive.

Bringing in talent from another age group is similar to hiring someone from another country. The friction comes from unspoken norms. It is part of our biological conditioning to be scared of something unfamiliar. It’s OK, but let’s pretend we’re still humans, the most advanced creature on Earth.

Do businesses really love diversity?

Startups and large corporations love to claim they value diversity, but often they only mean diversity that does not disrupt their existing rhythm.

Same with countries: they love diversity while their economies are in good shape (e.g. they announce how successful they are at integrating new people in their economy and culture). But when they experience issues, the very first thing governments typically want to fix involves pointing fingers at people who are “different.”

The point is that when a company lacks clarity about how it operates or what it rewards, it becomes easier to blame a generation than fix a system.

There is also a shift in what HR actually is. A long-long-long-long time ago (pre-iPhone era), HR used to be compliance, contracts, and policies. Today, it is psychology. Leaders must understand motivation, habits, feedback loops, and the emotional economy of work.

Every employee, regardless of age, sits on a personal spectrum between “work is just a source of money” and “work is something that reflects who I am.” If you misread where someone is on that spectrum, you will frustrate them. When they leave, it is tempting to say, “Gen Z is difficult” or “millennials have no loyalty.”

The truth is simpler. They did not see a place for themselves in the environment you created.

There is also the issue of meaning. Younger employees may talk more openly about purpose, but the desire for meaningful work is not limited to one group. Older employees want psychological safety, respect, and development. Younger ones want growth, clarity, and autonomy. These are not generational quirks, but human needs that show up more visibly in environments that lack structure or communication.

People quit cultures and values, not generations

It's true that, in every generation, you can find people who will work for a company that pays more. It’s just because for these people, “money” represents their “most important value”.

The thing is that if you communicate your company’s values, you’ll find people from all generations for whom these specific values are the core.

So, founders sometimes assume culture will form organically, but culture usually defaults to the habits of the loudest people in the room. That leaves little space for employees who communicate differently, need clearer expectations, or value different rhythms of work. When someone does not fit the dominant pattern, leaders often fall back on the language of generations because it feels objective. It avoids confronting the harder truth that the company has outgrown its cultural foundations.

Good talent rarely leaves because of age differences. They leave because they feel unseen, unheard, or misaligned with the organisation’s values and behaviour. They leave because the expectations are unclear or the goals shift too quickly. They leave because they cannot picture a long-term path inside a structure that feels improvised. None of these problems belong to a generation. They belong to leadership values.

The real questions leaders should ask

If startups want to fix their hiring challenges, they need to stop debating whether Gen Z is too difficult or millennials are too demanding. The questions that actually matter are far more basic, such as:

Can your company integrate people with different experiences, but common values?

What are your corporate values? (e.g. this question arises all the time when a new generation becomes the new main workforce).

Can you do it on scale?

Blaming generations will always be more comfortable than examining the health of a company’s culture. But it is culture, not birth year, that decides who stays, who leaves, and who thrives.

When you get the culture right, the generational debate disappears.

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