Jim VandeHei: A letter to our kids on handling the coming hurricane of change (axios.com)

My note to my kids about AI went viral with many parents. I touched on the note this week while taping an NPR segment — the topic clearly hit a nerve. I asked lots of people why. Put simply, parents don't know what to say — and kids don't know where else to turn — with so much changing so fast. So here's another look at AI and beyond. Hey kid, we gotta talk. I want to be blunt — and insanely useful — in helping you navigate the uncertainty, fast change and new opportunity of the current moment. It's bolded because it's so easy to lose hold of hope and action, a dynamic duo. Don't. Ever. First, a gut check. It's normal to be anxious. I see what you see: AI eating up work , phones eating up attention, politics eating up hope. That's a lot. It's real. For better or worse, you're living through history, with once-in-a-century changes happening in technology, politics, media and how you work. I can't sugarcoat reality. I'm not here to lecture or scold. I want to provide a different, brighter way to think about this moment — and help you navigate it. You're not behind. You're early. Nobody knows what the hell they're doing with AI yet — not your professors, not your boss and not your friends. They simply know what you do: This is big, perhaps discovery-of-electricity big. The people who'll thrive in the next decade won't be the smartest or first to master it. They'll be the ones who use it smartly for their specific job. That lane is still wide open. It can still be you. It's fine to be skeptical or even a little scared of AI . It's not OK to ignore it. It would be like refusing to use the internet. Start using AI for something other than searching for an answer or rewriting a paper. Don't ask Claude or ChatGPT to do the work. Ask it to make you better at the things you don't want to do. Do that every day for 30 days. You'll be in the top 5% of your generation. Your major isn't your destiny. Yes, this is a tougher-than-usual job market . Yes, it's likely to get tougher as AI gets better. Yes, it will get more competitive to land your dream job. Whining or worrying about this does only one thing: It gives someone else a leg up. Most people take crappy jobs before finding good ones. Out-hustle your peers. Apply to more jobs than they do. When you get one, outwork them. Beat them to the office. Use AI better. Be the most competent person in the office and the kind of coworker others admire. The skills that compound aren't in course catalogs. They're writing clearly, thinking clearly, selling your ideas, handling hard conversations and learning fast when the thing you just learned goes obsolete. Do all of this and there's zero chance you won't eventually succeed. Build a bionic brain. Use your phone differently. Find smart people on social media or YouTube with smart, practical tips for doing what you want to do better. Replace your daily doomscrolling with that content. Things aren't remotely as gloomy as your TikTok algorithm might have you believe. This