When I graduated from university in 2022, I wore rose-colored glasses. I thought businesses and investors made decisions with the benefit of the greater community in mind. I was rudely awakened to the stark difference between what’s real and what’s just plain marketing. When you look beneath all the mission statements, sustainability pledges, community commitments, and beautifully branded campaigns, one central formula matters above all -- ROI.

“ROI.” “ROI.” “ROI.”

It is simple. Show a return on investment, and a program, project, and business can continue to exist for years. Fail to show returns, and even a good idea with good intentions will dissipate. Whether you are operating in the public, private, or nonprofit sector, eventually, the money has to check out. It must make sense.

The rule is simple enough, but when sustainability, public health, and community well-being enter the equation, the calculation becomes much more complicated.

How do you put a price on preventing wastewater from entering a community’s water supply? How do you calculate the true cost of placing a massive data center; powered by polluting gas turbines, in a historically Black community?

How do you measure the upside? How do you measure the downside in a language spoken by people who primarily care about returns?

By my third year in business, I had just about thrown in the towel. You cannot force anyone to care. This is an old, old, old game, and many are content to continue playing it exactly as it has always been played. Consistent inputs produce consistent outputs.

I call bullshit.

These are safe bets, not smart bets.

Better Bets follows that journey to uncover the industries, companies, and investments where the dollars and the long-term vision make sense and not to our eventual demise.

Meanwhile, ICE raided home after home. School shootings blurred into background noise. Another Black body was lynched.

This wouldn’t be Discomfort Theory if we didn’t get uncomfortable. So, let’s dive in.

Every Black American can recall the air that left our lungs the morning Donald Trump was named President-elect in 2024. Because despite every outward sign of progress, we knew America’s foundation: a belief in white dominance. While Ezra Klein interpreted the Democratic Party’s losses as a tactical error, Black Americans recognized it for what it was — the resurfacing of the oldest truth in this nation’s DNA: white supremacy.

Ta-Nehisi Coates returned again and again to this historical throughline in this conversation with Klein — tracing the country’s current reality through slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Movement, etc. America, he reminded us, is a nation built on dominance, held together by the myth that whiteness is not only normal but necessary to preserve it.

Generation after generation, Black Americans have learned how to live beneath that myth. Our ancestors passed down rules disguised as wisdom: how to navigate white spaces, how to code-switch, how to protect joy from despair. That internal knowledge taught us not to see progress or equality as an end we will reach in our lifetime, but as a fight stretched across generations.

That, perhaps, is the sharpest contrast between Ezra Klein’s obsession with strategy and the Black understanding of endurance. Klein searches for the right move to “win.” We know winning is not the point. Living is.

The real work begins when we stop trying to fix America and start facing what America is. It begins with releasing the belief that white is better, white is smarter, white is safer for America. It begins when we refuse to let fear define our neighbors — the immigrant, the trans person, the person of color — and instead see them as living, breathing proof of what America could be.

And that, maybe one day, is what could make America whole.

When I graduated university in 2022 and went full time into my startup, I thought I was ready to transform recycling education with my app. I believed campuses would jump at the chance to recycle more. The reality? Most only cared if recycling boosted their bottom line. Somehow, a solution that was better for the community and the planet only really mattered if it came with a fiscal payoff.

That harsh wake up call made me think a lot about my interns and the rude awakening many of them may face after they walk across their graduation stage. The truth is, the world does not work the way we were told it would.

Gen Z grew up through tragedy after tragedy: the horror of Sandy Hook (maybe you were 11 or 12), the murder of Trayvon Martin, or the election of a soon-to-be felon and sex offender to the Presidential office. Each moment stacked on the last, leaving you asking: What kind of country do I actually live in? It’s not what we were promised; if anything, it’s much worse.

So, if this is the world we’ve inherited, the real question is: how do we create the one we actually want? Here’s the playbook I think we need to run, based on my three short years post-grad.

Know that You Are the Gap

The first step in fixing anything is knowing where you are. Gen Z, we are the gap. The awkward middle child between what is and what could be. We’ve seen the damage done by bad policy, outdated systems, and toxic habits. We’ve been shaped by social media, school shootings, mental health struggles, and addiction crises. We have a decision to make: keep going down the same road or change course. For better or worse, that decision is ours.

I like to start my mornings with a deep breath and journaling session to set my intentions for the day; the same can be done for how we decide to play our careers. Consider: what do I want this industry to look like when my work is done? What can I give to the next generation coming up so they are better off with what is left behind?

Know the Rules of the Current Game

People on TikTok say we’re in late-stage capitalism; defined by extreme income inequality, eroding workers’ rights, and rampant consumerism. And they’re probably right. But for now, we’re still in it. And I’m not just talking about the system itself, but the mindset it’s drilled into us.

In corporate America, everything must show a return on investment, even social good. Every initiative needs a justification, and that justification almost always comes down to dollars in the company’s bank account.

The dichotomy that you’ll find when building sustainable solutions is this: the most sustainable solutions might not bring the biggest ROI especially initially. And because of that, they’re rarely adopted. I don’t have a neat fix for this, but I do believe we must start designing solutions that deliver on both fronts; tremendous environmental impact and measurable economic value. Because, ultimately that’s the only way these ideas will scale.

So while we live in this gap between what is and what could be, remember this: knowing and playing the rules of the game isn’t selling out, it’s how you build the leverage to eventually change them.

Commit to Being a Change Agent

Once you know the rules, you can start rewriting them. But here’s the part nobody tells you: this is not a quick process. It’s not a “change the world in 5 easy steps” situation.

Change is slow. Sometimes painfully slow. But it’s built on one decision, one project, one conversation at a time. It’s showing up consistently even when the work feels invisible. It’s understanding that your first role out of college might not be your dream job, but it might teach you exactly how to dismantle a system from the inside.

So good-luck, Gen Z. You’ve got this.

This July, Gaza surpassed 60,000 casualties (Source), with many being women and children. At the same time, the United States has doubled down on winning the global race for AI (Source); while working to loosen environmental protections (Source), erecting data centers in under-resourced, often Black and Brown, communities (Source). While gutting healthcare for more than 11 million Americans (Source), the administration also simultaneously approved construction of a new grand ballroom at the White House (Source).

There’s a common theme here, one rooted in the fabrics of American history: There were mistakes made, but made for “the greater good.” And yet, this version of “greater good” has often included some, and excluded many. So what to do we do now; now that history is repeating itself? Do we allow it to continue or do we begin the work of re-imaging something better? Today, I’d like to make the case for what makes us human and why that fact is necessary for the world building of the future.

Let’s look at recent history. Just three months ago, Elon Musk appeared on the Joe Rogan podcast and stated, “The fundamental weakness of western civilization is empathy.” He went on to say: “Empathy can be good, but it’s too often weaponized to persuade well-meaning people to support bad ideas” (Source).

These statements are not novel. Musk mirrors arguments made by Dr. Gad Saad, a Canadian professor who wrote The Parasitic Mind. Saad claims that “idea pathogens” like postmodernism, cultural relativism, and modern feminism have hijacked our emotional and cognitive systems. He asserts that people wish to live “dignified lives rooted in the principles that made America great; namely personal agency, individual dignity, and meritocracy” (Source).

Ironically, I would say that this is a lifestyle everyone aspires to. But Saad clearly speaks to a version of dignity filtered through a white, Judeo-Christian lens. Ultimately, what he and Musk are purporting is that progress should be achieved in service of their communities’ interests; while ignoring its impact on everyone else’s. I argue that this isn’t just inhumane; it contradicts what we know about human beings at both biological and sociological levels.

The War on Empathy

This “war on empathy” is a carefully constructed front. Its purpose is to make the case that caring for others, especially those unlike ourselves is irrational. That recognizing the lived experience of someone else is a sign of weakness. But the truth is this: We are already part of a global community. With a few taps on our phones, we can witness lives and stories halfway around the world.

And that reality should be embraced. Because it highlights that there are fewer differences amongst ourselves than we might think.

Research supports this. Empathy is not just a learned behavior, it’s part of our biology (Source). It can be cultivated, nurtured, and expanded. As a social species, empathy is what allows us to form relationships, build trust, and thrive in community (Source). In the past, it may have been easier to ignore suffering. But now we can’t. And that visibility has expanded our emotional range; which simply is human evolution in action.

Technology has enabled this scale of connection. And that gives us an extraordinary opportunity.

Building With Empathy

Technology doesn’t have to erase empathy, it should certainly amplify it. Because if you truly understand who you’re building for you, you build better solutions, that stick.

It’s disappointing to see empathy reframed as a threat to logic or progress. It’s disheartening to see it weaponized. But let’s be clear: using empathy in our work, our technology, our systems, is not unnatural. It’s one of the most human things we can do.

Musk and Saad may argue that empathy weakens us. I would argue the opposite. Empathy, curiosity, and the belief in something greater than ourselves have always moved humanity forward.

So, my question for you today is this:

Can the next set of technological advancements really serve humanity well if they neglect what makes us human?

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