A 74-year-old billionaire has criticised Gen Z for not working enough hours and spending too much time on TikTok. John Catsimatidis, owner of New York City supermarkets, Gristedes Foods, has faced a furious backlash online after recent comments he made about the younger generation.
Catsimatidis, born in Greece, boasts a 'rags to riches story' and now has an estimated net worth of around $4 billion (£3.1 billion). In a recent interview with the Daily Mail, the New Yorker blames Gen Z's love of TikTok as a reason why many are not achieving their goals and blasts them for not working longer hours.
Those who belong to Gen Z are born around the mid-to-late 1990s, up to around 2010. Despite Catsimatidis' comments, 'Gen Zedders' are regarded by many studies as the most financially astute living generation - due to facing near perpetual recessions and cost of living crises.
Unfazed by this, Catsimatidis told the Daily Mail: "One of the problems we are having in our country these days, the kids are busy playing TikTok. If you're working 100 hours a week, and it's not working, you'd better work 120."
In a five day week there are 120 hours, so either the billionaire is suggesting working every single hour Monday to Friday, or spreading this out over seven days. This would mean working around 17 hours per day.
The average US TikTok user spends around 53 minutes on the platform per day, that's more than typical users of YouTube and not far off Netflix in the battle for people's attention. Meanwhile, Gen Z is estimated to spend around one hour and 20 minutes on TikTok each day - a Hootsuite study found. That's well over a full day of TikTok usage per month.
Catsimatidis went on to describe his childhood during the summer holidays: "I was ready to sleep on the couch for the whole summer and watch television. My mother threw me off the couch, and I guess I’m a kid of extremes because I quickly ended up working 70 hours a week."
