Billionaire says kids are 'too busy on TikTok' to be able to have careers
He claims to have worked 70 hours a week in his youth
Amelia Jones
A 74-year-old billionaire business mogul has called out Gen Z for being 'too busy on TikTok' to work hard enough to start a career.
CEO of US supermarket chain Gristedes Foods and the Red Apple Group John Catsimatidis claims to have worked 70 hours per week in his younger days before he was able to get where he is now.
But the billionaire is convinced Gen Z is 'too busy on TikTok' to make similar time investments in their own careers as he slammed young people's work ethic.
He told The Daily Mail in an interview that was published Sunday (14 May): "That's one of the problems we are having in our country these days, the kids are busy playing TikTok."
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He explained that the hard graft came after his mother 'threw' him off the couch the summer he graduated high school.
"I was ready to sleep on the couch for the whole summer and watch television," he explained.
After putting in a schlep, Catsimatidis went on to partially own the grocery store he'd invested his time into and later extended the business.
Today, after a long career, Forbes has reported that Catsimatidis is worth approximately $3.3 billion due to owning Gristedes Food, a New York City grocery-store chain - the same sector he started out in - and a real estate and aviation company called the Red Apple Group.
His advice to the youth of today looking to further their careers? Simple: hire people who are smarter than you are, get an education, and stay out of trouble.
He told the Mail: "The harder you work, the easier it gets to win.
"Look at people only working three days a week, and I'll show you failures."
Outside of the daily grind, Catsimatidis has two children, is active in US politics as well as an avid Trump supporter.
While Catsimatidis has urged young people to work harder, research from the universities of Cambridge and Birmingham discovered that one in 20 workers are employed in so-called ‘bullsh*t jobs’.
The concept of ‘bullsh*t jobs’ was first put forward by the late American anthropologist, David Graeber.
It included doormen, receptionists, lobbyists and PR specialists, as well as corporate lawyers and legal consultants - essentially those who answered ‘rarely’ or ‘never’ to the statement: "I have the feeling of doing useful work".
There was also found to be a strong correlation between a worker perceiving their job as useless and their psychological well-being.