The Generation We Cannot Afford to Retire
Updated: Oct 5
Why Masterclasses Could Turn a Lifetime of Experience Into a Resource for Society
We spend a great deal of time talking about the next generation.
How do we educate young people? How do we prepare them for a rapidly changing world? How do we give them opportunities, networks, confidence and access?
These are important questions.
But perhaps there is another question we should be asking at exactly the same time:
What are we doing with the extraordinary knowledge of the generations that came before them?
Across our societies, there are former government leaders who have negotiated during moments of crisis. Entrepreneurs who have built companies from nothing, lost everything, started again and succeeded. Executives who have led thousands of people through periods of transformation.
There are scientists who have spent decades researching questions most of us are only beginning to understand.
Doctors who have treated thousands of patients.
Academics who have dedicated their lives to knowledge.
Diplomats who have sat at negotiating tables where a single sentence could change relations between countries.
Artists, architects, engineers, journalists, religious leaders, athletes and many others who possess something that cannot simply be downloaded, searched or generated:
lived experience.
And yet, at a certain point in life, society often begins to send these people a strange message:
Thank you. You have contributed. Now it is time to retire.
I believe we should question that idea.
Retirement From a Job Should Not Mean Retirement From Society
There is absolutely nothing wrong with retirement.
After decades of work, people deserve the freedom to decide how they want to spend their lives.
But retirement from an executive position, public office, university, hospital or company should not automatically mean retirement from relevance.
In fact, it may be precisely at that moment that a person’s accumulated experience becomes most valuable to others.
A former CEO may no longer want to manage a corporation twelve hours a day.
But perhaps she would love to spend ninety minutes with young entrepreneurs explaining the mistakes she made while building businesses.
A former foreign minister may no longer want the pressure of political office.
But imagine what students, executives and future diplomats could learn from an open conversation about negotiation, crisis management and leadership.
A retired surgeon may no longer want to operate every morning.
But decades of experience could be invaluable to younger doctors.
A scientist may leave a formal academic position but still have extraordinary intellectual curiosity.
An artist may stop performing professionally but have an entire philosophy of creativity to pass on.
The question therefore should not simply be:
“When will you retire?”
Perhaps we should ask:
“How can society continue to learn from you?”
The Masterclass as a Social Institution
This is where I believe the concept of the Masterclass deserves much greater attention.
When we hear the word Masterclass, we often think of a famous chef teaching cooking, a musician teaching performance or an entrepreneur explaining business.
But why should we limit the concept?
Imagine Masterclasses across every important area of society:
Leadership. Entrepreneurship. Medicine. Artificial Intelligence. Diplomacy. Education. Science. Engineering. Ethics. Journalism. Architecture. Sustainability. Finance. Culture. Sport. Art. Philosophy. Public service.
The principle is remarkably simple:
Find people who have accumulated exceptional experience — and create a structure through which others can access it.
Not another lecture.
Not another conference speech.
Not another presentation filled with slides.
A real conversation.
What worked?
What failed?
What would you do differently?
What did you learn that no textbook ever taught you?
What decisions kept you awake at night?
What advice would you give someone entering your profession today?
And perhaps the most interesting question of all:
What do you know today that you wish you had known when you were 25?
That is where knowledge becomes wisdom.
We Have Built Libraries for Books. Why Not Libraries of Human Experience?
Human civilization has always understood the importance of preserving knowledge.
We built libraries.
Universities.
Archives.
Museums.
Research institutions.
Today, we have created perhaps the largest information infrastructure in human history through the internet.
And now Artificial Intelligence can make enormous quantities of information accessible within seconds.
But there is still something fundamentally different about sitting across from someone who actually lived through an experience.
You can read about entrepreneurship.
It is different to speak with someone who has built ten companies and watched three of them fail.
You can study diplomacy.
It is different to ask someone who negotiated during an international crisis what really happened when the doors closed.
You can study medicine.
It is different to hear a doctor explain what forty years of treating human beings taught them about fear, hope and responsibility.
Information tells us what happened.
Experience can help us understand what it felt like, why decisions were made and what was learned from them.
That distinction becomes increasingly important in an age where information itself is becoming abundant.
The Older Generation Needs the Younger Generation Too
There is another side to this conversation.
This should never become a one-directional relationship in which older people teach and younger people simply listen.
The exchange works both ways.
Younger generations understand technologies, social behaviours, cultural changes and new ways of working that did not exist twenty years ago.
They ask different questions.
They challenge assumptions.
They see opportunities that established leaders may overlook.
Imagine the power of bringing those perspectives together.
A 70-year-old industrial leader discussing Artificial Intelligence with a 22-year-old technology student.
A retired diplomat speaking with a young entrepreneur building across borders.
An experienced doctor exchanging ideas with a researcher working with technologies that barely existed when that doctor began practising medicine.
This is not simply mentoring.
It is intergenerational exchange.
And both sides can leave the room knowing more than when they entered it.
From an Ageing Society to an Experienced Society
Many countries speak about an “ageing society” as though longevity were primarily a problem to be managed.
Perhaps our language is wrong.
What if we started talking about becoming an experienced society?
People are living longer. Many remain intellectually curious, professionally connected and socially active well beyond traditional retirement ages.
That represents an enormous reservoir of human capital.
The challenge is to create mechanisms that allow society to access it.
Masterclasses could be one of those mechanisms.
Universities could invite retired executives, scientists, diplomats and entrepreneurs into regular Masterclass programmes.
Companies could create intergenerational Masterclasses where former leaders exchange experience with younger employees.
Cities could establish public Masterclass programmes.
Professional associations could connect retired experts with emerging professionals.
Schools could expose students to people who have actually lived the history they are studying.
Business communities could make experience accessible to founders.
And digital platforms could make these conversations available across borders.
Suddenly, retirement would no longer represent an exit from the knowledge economy.
It could represent a transition:
from doing to sharing.
From managing to mentoring.
From achieving to enabling.
Experience Should Not Disappear Behind Closed Doors
There is also a human dimension.
For decades, someone’s telephone rings constantly.
People ask for decisions.
Colleagues seek advice.
Teams depend upon them.
Their calendar is full.
Their experience matters every day.
Then, sometimes almost overnight, the title disappears.
And with it, much of the structure through which society accessed that person’s knowledge.
That is not only a loss for the individual.
It is a loss for all of us.
We should create more opportunities for accomplished people to remain intellectually and socially engaged — not because they need another title, but because we need their experience.
And importantly, participation should always be a choice.
The objective is not to prevent people from retiring.
It is to ensure that retirement does not become the only path society offers them.
Perhaps Every Generation Has Something the Other One Needs
The next generation needs opportunity.
It needs access.
It needs knowledge, mentorship and sometimes someone who simply says:
I made that mistake too. Here is what I learned.
The older generation needs something equally important:
the opportunity to remain connected, relevant and able to contribute when they choose to do so.
Bring those two needs together and something powerful can happen.
The young bring questions.
The experienced bring perspective.
The young bring new technologies.
The experienced bring context.
The young bring ambition.
The experienced bring lessons learned through success and failure.
Neither generation has all the answers.
Together, they may ask better questions.
From the Salvator Mundi Café to a Global Masterclass
This idea is also influencing what we are building at Salvator Mundi Global.
When we originally created the Salvator Mundi Café, the concept was simple: bring interesting people together for meaningful conversations in an informal environment.
But something has happened.
The Café is increasingly becoming a Masterclass.
Former ministers and diplomats, entrepreneurs and executives, academics and scientists, religious leaders, experts and other personalities share not simply what they know, but what they have experienced.
And through our Salvator Mundi Next Generation initiative, we want younger people to have access to these conversations as well.
Not because we believe the older generation should tell the next generation what to think.
Quite the opposite.
We want generations to meet.
To question one another.
To challenge one another.
And to learn from one another.
Perhaps that is what the Masterclass of the future should really be.
Not a classroom.
Not a lecture.
Not one generation teaching another.
But a table around which experience, curiosity, knowledge and new ideas can meet.
Because one of the greatest resources in our societies may already be sitting among us.
Millions of people carrying decades of knowledge and experience.
We simply need to invite them back to the table.
And perhaps, instead of asking them when they are going to retire, we should start asking:
“What could you teach us?”
About the Author
Mario Diel
Founder & Chairman, Salvator Mundi Global.
A global entrepreneur with more than thirty years building businesses across multiple sectors and continents, he teaches entrepreneurship as a visiting professor.
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