---
title: 'Mike Rowe on the labor shortage nobody''s talking about'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=uHC2xAk6QKI'
video_id: 'uHC2xAk6QKI'
date: 2026-08-01
duration_sec: 2338
---

# Mike Rowe on the labor shortage nobody's talking about

> Source: [Mike Rowe on the labor shortage nobody's talking about](https://youtube.com/watch?v=uHC2xAk6QKI)

## Summary

In this interview, Mike Rowe, CEO of the Mike Rowe Works Foundation, discusses the U.S. labor shortage, which he argues is not just a 'skills gap' but a 'will gap.' He shares startling statistics about open jobs, men leaving the workforce, and the crisis in the skilled trades, while also offering insights into how we can reignite interest in these essential careers.

### Key Points

- **Work ethic is taught, not innate** [01:40] — Mike Rowe argues that people are not born industrious or generous; virtues like work ethic must be taught. Growing up with chores is one of the best things that can happen to a kid.
- **Henry Ford's advice** [03:30] — Mike recalls his father quoting Henry Ford: 'Chop your own wood and it will warm you twice.' The lesson underscores the value of hands-on work.
- **Ford CEO's 5,000 empty technician bays** [04:10] — Jim Farley, CEO of Ford, told Mike that he has 5,000 open technician bays and can't find people to fill the jobs.
- **Massive workforce demand in infrastructure** [06:20] — The government needs 400,000 workers for submarine construction, and data centers need 500,000 electricians. Larry Fink predicts a $10 trillion infrastructure buildout.
- **7.6 million open jobs** [07:41] — There are 7.6 million open jobs in the U.S., many of which require skilled labor but not a four-year degree. The 'skills gap' has become a trope.
- **6.9 million men checked out** [08:53] — Nick Eberstadt's book 'Without Work' highlights 6.9 million able-bodied men who are not working and not looking for work — unprecedented in peacetime.
- **Student debt vs. labor market mismatch** [10:06] — With $1.7 trillion in student debt and 7.6 million open jobs, Mike says we're training people for jobs that no longer exist.
- **Future workers are in the eighth grade** [13:47] — When a government official asked where to find 400,000 workers, Mike replied: 'They're in the eighth grade.' We need to start recruiting and training early.
- **Five retire, two enter** [16:47] — For every five tradesmen who retire, only two come in. This unsustainable math has persisted for 12 years.
- **NIMBY data centers** [17:30] — 75% of Americans have a negative view of data centers, yet they complain on devices that depend on those very data centers.
- **Removing shop class was a mistake** [22:39] — Mike draws a straight line from the removal of shop class in high schools to the current labor shortage, student debt, and workforce dropout.
- **Foundation success stories** [25:40] — Mike Rowe Works has trained 3,500 people; 40% are welders and many make six figures. Electricians in a Plano data center earn $240–280k a year with no debt.
- **The hidden world of critical jobs** [29:02] — Mike describes the dirty and overlooked job of artificially inseminating turkeys, illustrating how essential but invisible much of our critical work is.
- **10x increase in applications** [37:07] — Mike Rowe Works received 10 times more applications this year — a sign that Gen Z and their parents are finally getting the message about the value of trades.

### Conclusion

Mike Rowe argues that the labor shortage is a 'will gap' as much as a skills gap, driven by cultural stigma and the removal of vocational education. To fix it, we must reinvigorate the trades, tell better stories about these jobs, and start recruiting workers in eighth grade.

## Transcript

historic infrastructure build-out in this country. Data centers, people need cement, servers, all sorts of things. And to make these jobs happen, this generation is going to need to get their hands dirty. Like, grab a shovel, pick
it up, and like sling some dirt. I talked to Mike Rowe, of course he is the the legendary host of Dirty Jobs, about how we can get people into these jobs how we can get people into these jobs finally.
Power Players with Brian Sozzi is Mike Rowe, the CEO of Mike Rowe Works Foundation. Mike, off the jump, one, hello. Good to see you. And then number two, I'm just a big fan. I full stop. Big fan of your work for many years, my
>> Well, Brian, I mean, you're saying all the right things. And thank you. I had no idea. Power Player? When did I become a Power Player? ago. >> Well, this is very high cotton. Thank
>> Um, you know, I was thinking back. I'm like, how do I start off the jump? And I think for me it was like when I was like 7 or 8 years old, I was out there chopping wood.
My dad's like, you chop that damn wood, or you just don't eat. And even if you on the other end of that meal? It's a boiled hot dog. This is like late '80s. was a good alternative. >> So, you had chores. Where'd you grow up?
>> Uh, Long Island. And yes, uh, knew it. So many chores. And I just think it it really it got me thinking like in everything that you have represented for many years, of course, with Dirty Jobs, but like work ethic.
with you? >> Yeah, well, it's got to be taught, man. Like, just about every other virtue. We're not born industrious. We're born
lazy. Uh, we're not born generous. We're born selfish, you know? You watch a two-year-old, he wants the toy. He not little brother, he hits him over the head with it when he gets it, you know?
All that stuff has to be taught. And I know it sounds very Horatio Algerish, you know, and people kind of roll their eyes and, you know, hit you with the okay boomer thing, but the truth is growing up with chores
is a consummation devoutly to be wished. It's It's one of the best things, in my It's It's one of the best things, in my view, that can happen to any kid anywhere at any time. And you know, our house I
at any time. And you know, our house I grew up on a little farm type situation in northern Baltimore. And our house was heated by wood stoves. acres of woodland behind us. We didn't own it,
>> [clears throat] >> no one cared. It was It was just there and it was thick with trees and you know, that's where the fuel was. And my earliest memories are going back into the woods with my with my dad and my
granddad who lived next door to us. And I I remember like it was yesterday watching those two guys figure out how watching those two guys figure out how to cut the tree down so it fell exactly
in the right spot. Sitting there drinking hot black coffee from a thermos while the snow came down in big flakes and watching work, you know, and hauling it back to the wood pile and cutting it up and then putting it in the cart
behind the Massey Ferguson and driving it down to the porch and unloading it and feeding the wood stove. I can still hear my my pops saying he used to quote Henry Ford and the exact quote was "Chop your own wood.
>> Mhm. >> I mean my eyes. >> This much more observant as I've gotten a little bit older. I don't know. I just I
attention to things happening around me and I just see a world right now Mike, where the sub-20-year-olds are just so
engrossed in their phones and they're not doing the things that you and I grew up doing. And then I talked to my friend Jim Farley over at Ford, the CEO, and he says, "Brian, I've got 5,000 bays right now, technical technician bays open.
Uh I can't get people to do these jobs." You know, and I can't help but to think like if we were just teaching kids earlier on be filled and there'd be lines or applications overflowing to fill these
>> Without question. You know, I I hate to sound too certain or veer too far outside my lane, but I I think you're 100% right. I talked to Jim a couple months ago. I was on his podcast and we talked about that very
thing. In fact, we're going to take a little uh road show uh in the next month >> And I don't think he'd object. I I don't know if it's going to happen or not, but I would not be surprised if Jim Farley
um auto shops and training facilities under the Ford umbrella, just like Henry did 100 years ago. The uh the skills gap is so real right now. Uh those 5,000 empty bays are not
now. Uh those 5,000 empty bays are not anecdotal. I Not not a week goes by where I don't get a call from some industry leader, including Jim, who that that wants to talk about the extraordinary
extraordinary opportunities within their own silo. And it's changed. You know, I I 18 years ago when I started the foundation, more persuasive case for the
opportunities they had. But today, it's it's gone from micro to macro. Now it's like Wells Fargo is one of our biggest supporters because as a bank,
they were able to look across the whole country and see what was happening in a lot of these smaller towns that other other big banks don't serve. And they're they're super anxious to try and reconnect people to
the definition of work that I think you're talking about. The Department of War, good God, man. They have 400,000 openings in the submarine construction openings in the submarine construction game right now. Data centers, 500,000
face. And he and I probably don't see eye to this issue, you know, me and BlackRock are are you know, me and BlackRock are are aligned. There's There's a $10 trillion
infrastructure coming. And we do not have the skilled workers to make it happen. So whether it's Jim talking about 5,000 empty bays or Larry Fink talking about half a million uh open spots for electricians,
uh open spots for electricians, this is real and the reasons for the problem I think are are pretty complex, but a big one is precisely what you just but a big one is precisely what you just identified. We have come untethered
identified. We have come untethered from the definition of work that used to be universally agreed upon. And if we don't sort that out, pushing the boulder up the hill. >> Mike, I think you coined it and I I
loved how you coined this in um I I think the help is right. You called it You said the you know, I guess it was a recent interview, the will gap is real. It's It talk to us about that. >> Well, the skills gap gets a lot of
press, and right now there's 7.6 million open jobs, four-year degree. Many are in manufacturing, many more are in the skilled trades, but all of them require a mastery of some kind of a
skill. And the skills gap became kind of a trope, I guess, because the working assumption was, well, if we can just get people the skills they need, then the gap will close. But, of course,
our modern economy is a lot more complicated than it was back in the Great Depression, when you really could cure unemployment by creating more jobs. That ship is long since sailed. And why we spend so much time talking about
unemployment numbers as opposed to labor force participation is part of the answer to your question. Nick Eberstadt wrote a great book. I know your Without Work. So good, in fact, he wrote it back in
'05, but it a second printing came out during the lockdowns because everything he predicted just became so Well, it was so prophetic. And the thing that haunts
me from that book, and I talk about it a lot today, are the 6.9 million men, able-bodied men, alive and well in our country right now who are not only not working, they're not looking.
And that's never happened in America before, not in peacetime, anyway. And I guess you could argue that this is not exactly peacetime, but regardless, you've got nearly 7 million guys who have checked out. At the same
time, you have a little more than 7 million open positions. I I don't think that's a coincidence. And so, to answer your question, where is the will? Where is the will to do the work?
It's a fair question. It gets hopelessly politicized because hopelessly politicized because everything is a polemic in 2026, but it still needs to be asked. It still needs to be grappled with. And we ignore it at
our peril. >> What's the spark to get these men into these jobs? one of the devils that I try hard not to dance with is the temptation to paint
with too broad a brush, right? Part of the reason we're in this position we're in right now, and by the Let me just step back and say what I think is going on. You got $1.7 trillion in outstanding student debt.
You've got 6.9 million guys who have checked out of the workforce. You have checked out of the workforce. You have 7.6 million open jobs that don't require lending money we don't have to the generation you just mentioned who's
train them for a bunch of jobs that don't exist anymore. That's the problem in a nutshell. It's clear, it's present, and it's going to be, I think, a defining headline uh for the next for
And part of the reason we got into that problem is that we painted with too broad a brush. We told an entire generation that they were screwed if they didn't get a four-year degree.
Now, we didn't do that, I don't think, for the precise purpose of screwing up a whole generation and plunging the country into this extraordinary labor shortage that we're facing right now. We did it because higher education needed a
legitimate PR campaign. We needed more kids in the '60s and '70s to think about and so forth. And so there was a push toward the Ivy's. There was a push toward a four-year degree. But like most PR, we went too far.
We weren't content to simply say, "Look at the extraordinary Look what you could do with your life with this kind of credential." We said, "If you don't get this kind of credential, you're going to wind up
turning a wrench or laying pipe or cutting wood, right? Some kind of or cutting wood, right? Some kind of vocational consolation prize that is inherently beneath you." That's how we set the table. Our parents
bought it. Our guidance counselors bought it. And a whole generation of kids bought it. And when people say, "Mike, how did How did college get so expensive? How did college become in the history of Western civilization, Brian,
nothing has gotten more expensive than a four-year degree? Not healthcare, not real estate, not food, not even energy, nothing." How did it happen? Well, that's how it happened. You know, the very thing
implicit in your question, you know, why is there a will gap? skills gap, and we have a skills gap because we put our thumb on the scale and acted as if one path was the best path for the most people vis-à-vis
modern education. I think that's a big part of why we are where we are today. When you say, "What can you do to reignite the spark in the cohort that we're talking about?" I'm afraid the answer is not monolithic.
I'm afraid the answer is multi-dimensional, and you've got to meet these people where they are. And I'm not just talking about the 6.9 million able-bodied men who have checked out. I'm talking about the
the 16-year-old, the 18-year-old, the 20-year-old who's still legitimately trying to figure out what to do with the useful part of their their life. You know, the guy the guy that called me a couple months
ago from the government kind of in a panic about the submarine thing, right? They They need 400,000 welders, CNC operators, electricians. And And he said, "Can you help us find them?" I said, "It's pretty skinny out there. I
mean, how many do you need?" That's when he said, "400,000." And I I my cup. >> you back. "Seriously, Mike, we've looked
everywhere. Do you know where they are?" And I said, "Yeah, man, I do. They're in the eighth grade." And if you don't make a case for them there now, I get it. You need to solve your problem
today, but you need to walk and chew gum at the same time. This is a massive undertaking that Jim Farley is going to be a part of taking as we make a more be a part of taking as we make a more persuasive case to try and and reignite
talking about. But look, that's only part of it. The as Nick Eberstadt would say, "Well, what are you doing with 2,080 working hours a
year?" I mean, if you're not working, how are you spending your time? "Well, let me start by telling you what they're not doing. They're not volunteering with the JCs or the Kiwanis Club or the Rotarians.
church. They're not doing a damn thing to make better place. On average, they're spending 2,000-plus hours on their right. They're doom scrolling. They're Maybe
it's porn. It doesn't Whatever it is, they're inward. They're They're hopelessly inward. And I hope I'm wrong. I I hope it's not hopeless, but that's a very long way of of telling you I don't know how to reinvigorate the spark.
All I can do is show you the opportunity that is waiting. >> And this is a I don't want to make a I don't want to sound like a like a a
ass here, but like th- this This is crisis worthy. Every day, Mike, I We sit here at Yahoo Finance, we talk about the AI infrastructure build out, how Nvidia's making chips, uh how Intel's building foundries in
this country. And this is all great on paper, and the stock market goes up you can't put a data center in the ground? What if you don't have somebody don't have someone to pour concrete? Like, none of this stuff happens.
>> You've got You've got two giant impediments. The first is workforce. It hasn't gotten nearly enough press, and I really appreciate you spending some time listening to me ramble about it. It If I had an alarm bell here, I'd ring it. And
then I'd tell you about the CEOs who have told me somewhat somewhat quietly about how this thing is getting to DEFCON 1. Where's it DEFCON 5? What's me. >> They're all bad. [laughter]
>> Anything with DEFCON is like >> Anything with DEFCON is like >> They're worried, but they have a hard time expressing their true level of concern without either alienating their own HR departments or their own brand,
It's not a very flattering thing both for the country or for the individual companies in it to say, "We can't recruit. And so So, they don't really
love to talk about it. But but it has to be talked about, and it It's It's the will gap, and it's not just the skill gap. We're dealing with a math problem. I mean, for every five tradesmen that retire, two come in. It's
been that way for 12 years. Five out, two in. Five out, two in. And I I I I I don't think you need to be an an economist or a, you know, theoretical fractional mathematician to realize this is not sustainable. You know, plus the
population. Like, we're barely at replacement rate right now. 2.1 population is collapsing all over the world, right? So you've got fewer people and you also have an enthusiasm gap.
It's like it's it's tempting only to talk about workforce, but you and me, we're we're in a bubble of sorts. I I think everybody's in their own bubble, when I think about what you do day in and day out, you know, in in the
financial world, it's easy to forget that right now 75% it's easy to forget that right now 75% of Americans have a negative view >> Mhm. Who Who Who wants these things in their
backyard? >> I apparently no one. And the people who are complaining loudest are doing so on devices that wouldn't exist without data centers. >> Without the data centers, yeah. That's
>> And And And this is the other fault in our stars, right? And not to go off on a total tangent, but a lot of what I do with my foundation and a lot of what I this comes up is
the way we're disconnected from so many fundamental things. You can start with energy and just look at the whole relationship with fossil fuels and and this country would be way more comfortable if we were off them all
together or at least they say they don't they don't really want that, but they would prefer to import. They They're not They're not really gobsmacked or impressed with energy independence. Same thing with timber. We have more timber
anyone anywhere. And yet we import vast amounts of it. We don't We don't know how to manage our resource. Wait till you see what's going to happen with rare earths and polymetallic nodules and
the business of of deep sea mining, which isn't really mining. It's more about picking up the nodules and taking the copper and the cobalt and the lying there. It's been there for millions of years.
millions of years. Wait to you see what the NGOs do when when we start to think about ways to responsibly harvest that resource. My point is, we're at war, it seems,
with the people who provide us >> Mhm. >> And >> And we're in this endless feedback loop of growing to resent
that which we rely upon. And it's predictable. You could set your watch by it. But I think, like when you look at the $10 trillion infrastructure buildout that Larry Fink says is coming,
and I I'm not going to argue with him about that. It it seems pretty clear. If we're going to compete with China, if we're going to build a new grid, if we need the data centers, which means we need the plumbers, and we need the
coolers, and we need the uninterrupted power supplies, and we need hundreds of power supplies, and we need hundreds of thousands of electricians, and so forth. if you really believe that's coming, then you've got to reinvigorate the
trades on a national level, and you have to make a more persuasive case, not just for the inevitability of the data centers, but for the fact that the very people who are opposing them now depend upon them, just as surely as everyone
else does. If you can't If you can't win that war of public opinion, you know, you life is going to be really, really difficult. And final point, >> they didn't fight that war when they should have, two years ago. They They
didn't get in front of it. You know, and now AI and data centers and the cost of electricity, everything is bundled up into a big ball of uncertainty. And again, you just can't ignore public sentiment.
You either have to assuage it or change people's minds. persuasive case for a lot of things that you and I assume are probably going to >> Mike, you mentioned that before and it was really good point on how to address
you start the you start in the eighth grade. Now, you are probably you are probably way more connected to this than I am. But when I was in high school, I remember what I I had to build. It was like a little electric car made out of
wood. I also took I was in a ham radio class. I learned how to do Morse code. I this stuff now. I haven't thought about it in like 20 years, but maybe just seeing you on there is making me remember it. Um are those classes still
in school or are they still being taken out of school? I don't know if anybody who's taken a class like that out in the last 5 or 10 years. Most of the hollowing out happened in the '70s, '80s, and '90s. Um
it's hard to put the poop back in the goose. It's hard to put shop class back in high school. Um it's easier to build a whole separate
and put it adjacent to the school or build a new technical school. That's happening more and more. But to your point, I I can draw a fairly straight line, I think, to the conscious decision to
think, to the conscious decision to remove shop class from high school to the $1.7 trillion of outstanding debt, the 6.9 million guys who aren't working, the 7 million or so open jobs.
Not a perfectly straight line, but in my view, that decision will go down in the history of modern education as the most we ever made. It It And the reason is exactly what you
robbed a very specific cohort from getting a a good look at a vocation that could keep specifically employed for the rest of their lives,
their lives, we removed all optics of work, anything conversation thinking about your childhood cutting wood. It you know, it there were so many lessons for me in the business of doing that that I can't
imagine. You and I wouldn't even be sitting here if I didn't have to cut the >> Oh, I I am in firm agreement. If I was not out there freezing my ass off chopping wood at 8 years old while everybody else was
enjoying snowballs, I wouldn't be here. I I truly believe that. I full stop and I can't be shaken. >> So, look, if you if you take that chore or that activity and you try and organize it in your mind, it it's it's
organize it in your mind, it it's it's going to be one of the lower rungs on the ladder. But, what is a ladder without lower rungs? It's just a thing you can't possibly climb. So, when I think about
the chores that defined my youth and when I think about the things that I saw when I was in high school, just walking from English to math, I had to pass woodshop. I had to pass metal shop. I had to get right? And so, I could stick
my head into those classrooms and I could see something that looked a hell of a lot like work. And whether or not that triggered the And whether or not that triggered the synapses to to take me down a specific
path of of vocational education is not the point. The point is you had a shot. You had a glimpse at a portal. You got a taste of a thing. How do you know if you don't like a thing unless you get a taste of it, you know?
So, we took it off the tasting menu. We took took like the exact shortages that we have in our workforce right now that are the most profound and the most consequential
are the very skills that most of our workforce was first exposed to in shop rungs. >> And now, decades later, we're going, "Man, this is so weird. Nobody wants to
do this work." And then And then, you've got the stigmas and the stereotypes and are that are surrounding these same jobs. People don't They still don't believe me. We've had 3,500 people go through
>> Yeah, I wanted to ask you about the foundation cuz you're I mean, it is foundation is giving away. I mean, how many applications have you had to get this country? >> Well,
I was going to say that maybe 40% of the people we've assisted are in the welding trade. 35 40%. The vast majority are making north of six figures. People don't believe it. They don't They They don't believe the
electricians that I interviewed and met two months ago in a data center in Plano, all under 30, all making 240 to 280 grand a year, all with as much overtime as they want, none with any debt. All three of whom were poached
three times in the prior 18 months. They don't believe it. They can't believe it. So, I'm just making that point that the stigmas and the stereotypes that need to be overcome for parents and kids to feel good about exploring these careers,
And to your point, that's why I started MicroWorks. It It didn't begin as a a ad hoc PR campaign for a bunch of good jobs nobody seemed to want. Dirty Jobs was the number one
show on cable in 2008. We were in 140 countries. Our country went into a recession. And that's the first time that I remember thinking, "Wait a second. Every single day the headlines are look at how
many people are unemployed." But everywhere I was going on Dirty Jobs, it So, there was this other narrative in the the number of people who were out of work. It had to do with the number of
filled. So, that's why Mike Rowe Works started. It It was just to make a more persuasive case for those jobs. So, I went to Congress a few times and talked about the need for
God, I hate to say it, but it really comes just comes down to better PR. Like we need to do something to like your earlier question, how do you how do you reignite the spark in somebody to think enthusiastically about
an opportunity? Well, you got to meet them where they are. And PR is not the only answer, but it's a big part of it. These companies have to make a more opportunities. So, Mike Rowe Works began
as an attempt to help those companies with that issue. And it gave me, if I'm permission to promote my show through the lens of other than you know, an exploding toilet or a
had plenty of both. >> can't believe some of the stuff you got the show, I'm like, "I can't believe Mike's doing this stuff." >> I don't know if you can see this, but behind me, right there,
that's me artificially inseminating a turkey. that was it. >> I mean, there we did 330 different jobs and that that's really the only one I never I never really got over.
hearing it. >> Dude, I mean I Look, if you want to take a quick sidebar, I can tell you what's involved. listeners. >> Sure, fire away. Fire away. We got time.
>> All right. All right, so that's that's Oakdale Farms, right? This is in 2000 I Oakdale Farms, right? This is in 2000 I think it was 2008 or 9. And we had artificially inseminated virtually every barnyard animal known to man because the
can't get enough of seeing me coax the semen out of some creature. >> This is going viral. This is going viral. But continue, please. >> Um but the deal with turkeys, dude,
>> they're um they're their sexual organs are are in their in their rectums. It's called it's it's a cloaca, basically, and it's typical of uh avians. So, in order to stimulate a turkey, and
we should also point out that, you know, the there are no turkeys anymore that aren't the product of artificial insemination because we give them so many drugs and stuff and their their breasts get so big, they can't mate. So,
the only way to get more turkeys is to go through this process. And this turkeys, dude. >> [laughter] >> I didn't think I'd be talking about this today. But go ahead.
>> You put it upside down between your your your thighs and you and you close your thighs. So, now you got an upside down bird between your legs. And a guy hands you a um like a baby food bottle. And I know this because the Gerber baby was
still on the side of this bottle, right? And the top is screwed on, but there are And the top is screwed on, but there are two holes in the top. And in each hole >> Mhm. >> And so, you hold the the bottle in one
hand and you put one straw in your mouth. And then you take your thumb and you stimulate the cloaca until the rectum fills with semen. And then you take the other straw and you stick it in the semen.
And then you suck on the other straw and you create a vacuum in the little baby jar. And into that vacuum flows the semen, which just moments earlier was residing in the rectum of a turkey. Now, the
while all this is happening. And you're just you're just sitting his mouth sucking the semen out of a turkey's rectum so we can have more And um I keep that behind me because
it was it it was one of the all-time highest-rated things I ever did on the TV, but it also just people didn't know how to think about it. They didn't know what to do with the nature of that job once we showed it to them. I put it on
wanted to I just like the idea that people were eating turkeys while they >> [laughter] >> Thank you. But, you know, it it actually does have a a legit tie-in to to everything we're
talking about. It's a critical job that attaches us to our food supply in an undeniable way. It featured a couple of guys on a farm you've never
heard of in northern Minnesota who who are doing work that really will will now haunt your dreams, but you didn't know about it. It's It's out of sight and it's out of mind. And here's the point that I want to make to you. A lot of
people would look at that, you know, it was on a show called Dirty Jobs and they would say that that is just not a job I I aspire to because it's it's not dignified, right? It's not It's not dignified work. Well, bull crap.
It It's the very definition of a day. is such a thing as undignified work and we can talk about it if you want, but that's not it. Every job on Dirty Jobs that's not it. Every job on Dirty Jobs mattered because every job on Dirty Jobs
mattered because every job on Dirty Jobs was essentially a blessing of sorts for someone else. Right? It's It's we featured people who were doing work that was consequential, not just to
themselves, but to somebody else. So, look, the thousand ways to make a buck out there, and artificially inseminating turkeys is more lucrative than you might think. Weirder than you can imagine,
>> You know, I was going to send this episode to Jim Farley, but I don't know me have one more before I let you go, Mike. Um future, I'm going to guess that artificially inseminating turkeys may
not necessarily be the job, dirty job of the future, but maybe it is. Like, is there one job that you think um that is going to be mission-critical um that is going to be mission-critical over the next 10 years? Welding, sure, I
get, but is there something else on your horizon? let me riff very gently on cuz cuz I feel like the story I just
probably going to agonize over whether or not this can be made relevant uh for the audience in hand. Um and I will tell you that very, very early on in Dirty Jobs, I got called into my boss's office. I
had I had many bosses. And um there was a real concern at the network that the while it was rating through the roof, wasn't quite in line with the uh
what you call the single-minded proposition of the underlying brand right? And so, my boss is like, you know, what can't you take the show in in a smarter direction.
I mean, I guess, but I mean, there's a lot of intelligence in the show as it that way. And they're like, yeah, but we just you know, our brand is rooted in the future. We we want to show people something futuristic. And I said, well,
AI recently. And they were like, that's perfect. Ro- We we we love the robot thing here at Discovery. Get out there thing here at Discovery. Get out there and and like, yeah, dig into that. Now,
when I left my boss's office, I was pretty sure she didn't assume I was talking about artificial insemination. The other AI. But of course I was.
And and and that was the beginning of the conversation that led us down this crazy road of showing people where their food came from through AI, artificial
insemination. But look, if you want to be smart about go all the way back to Charles Bakewell in the 1700s when we first realized it and then drag it forward when you
realize we have no food supply in this country without the other AI. And and people don't even understand it. They don't know it. That's why that stupid poster is behind me because now now when we're talking about this AI,
we're really grappling with many of the same things. We we we don't quite understand what it is. We're sort of scared of it, you know? You don't really want to watch Dirty Jobs while you're having Thanksgiving
dinner, and maybe you don't really want to understand everything about a data center. You just want to log on and do your business, right? And your business, right? And our country is being forced to reckon
our country is being forced to reckon with the reality of the very thing that we need but don't want to need and it's happening so fast and I personally think that's that's why there's so much unease and
that's why there's so much unease and and unrest both in the workforce and in in the population. We just I question. I think the most consequential job in the next 10 years hasn't been
>> Mhm. >> I don't even know if it's been conceived of. But I will tell you right now my foundation got 10 times the applications we did last year
this year. And that's the silver lining that I can leave you with. There's I I don't know how it's going to play out but I do believe parents and guidance counselors and and Gen Z have
gotten the memo. The best path for the most people is not a four-year degree. It's a great path. It served me well but it's not going to serve everybody well and right now our country is not suffering from a lack of credentialed
academics. We're suffering from a lack of skilled workers with a work ethic allows them to get up early and stay late and become one of those
electricians in demand in that data center in Plano. There are many others like them and my job is to tell their stories as persuasively as I can. I'll leave you with this. I would pay good money
to see you and Larry Fink on a job site artificially inseminating a turkey. I say let's do it. That is appointment viewing, my friend. Appointment viewing. >> know what? If you can arrange it if if you provide the cameras, I'll call Larry
>> [laughter] >> but damn, it does conjure up a visual, >> Uh it's what I don't want and if going to leave we're going [laughter] to leave it there. Uh Mike, a big fan. Uh Look forward to staying in touch and thank
We really appreciate it. Good luck with the foundation. That's real good stuff. >> Anytime. Hey, look, I got a podcast too. Next time you're in Santa Monica, sit down with you. >> Uh duly noted. And that is much
everyone. Check out his foundation, doing some great work out work over thank you so much. Appreciate it. >> Anytime. episode of Power Players. Thanks so much.