Gen Z AI Millionaires and the Values Crisis We Aren’t Talking About
As highlighted in Pivot5 newsletter today; The The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that entry-level AI professionals are landing total compensation packages as high as $1 million. Companies like Databricks and Scale AI are hiring 23-year-olds into salaries and stock packages that rival (or even surpass) the lifetime earnings expectations of many doctors and lawyers.
Meanwhile, unemployment among new graduates in non-AI fields remains stubbornly higher than the overall rate. We now live in a world where 25 people under 25 can hold packages in a company worth $200,000 to $1 million before their brains have fully finished developing.
This isn’t just a labor market trend. It’s a values disruption.
The Privilege of Practicing Emotional Intelligence: Lessons from the MSCEIT²
Every month, I step into a circle of learning leading a certification in the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT², pronounced Mesquite). On paper, I am the facilitator, trainer, and guide. In practice, these sessions are an exchange: I give as much as I can, yet I always leave having received far more.
It is a privilege. Each cohort brings together people with different histories, cultural frameworks, and ways of making meaning in the world. They remind me that emotional intelligence (EI) is not just a personal skillset, it is a living, breathing dialogue across difference.
Why We Struggle With Emotional Intelligence and How to Reclaim It
Human beings have always been emotional creatures. Our emotions evolved as survival tools; fast, automatic signals designed to help us respond to threats or opportunities. As Dr. Paul Ekman’s pioneering research showed, these signals often operate outside our conscious awareness. They emerge in micro-expressions, subtle shifts in physiology, and rapid reactions to stimuli.