THE LONGEVITY PROJECT PRESENTS    WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2026

VOLUME 167

Neither snow, nor rain, nor a three-hour power outage at Stanford University will stop us from holding the Century Summit. Last week, amidst driving rain, lightning, and maybe even a little hail, we welcomed more than 200 in person and 1900 virtual attendees to Century Summit VI to explore the intersections of longevity, learning, and the future of work. Here are three takeaways: 

1. The Future of Work is Intergenerational.

Workers ages 55 or older have been the fastest-growing age group in the labor force for more than two decades and now make up roughly 24% of the U.S. workforce, up from 10% in 1994. In fact, if you want to slice the data more finely, the fastest growing segment is actually workers over the age of 75, despite persistent age discrimination against older workers. 



That might suggest a new era of generational conflict in the workplace, but speaker after speaker at the Summit cautioned that this is often more narrative than reality. Kevin Delaney, the editor-in-chief of the San Francisco Standard , said that “[t]enure is actually a bigger determinant of how people organize socially in workplaces [than age]. We often go to age or generation to put people in boxes, but that is not the biggest factor. The other myth is that there’s a war between generations, when in truth, there’s just a lot of anxious people in workplaces.” 

Anxious people perform better when they are part of multi-generational teams. Speakers shared research that indicates that multi-generational teams perform better, reflecting the value of different skill sets and experiences.   

It’s not all simple: a truly effective multi-generational workforce might rethink compensation so that it is not so tightly tied to seniority, and also might permit more authority-sharing across generations. 

2. Don't Confuse Education with Learning.

Sitting on the beautiful campus of Stanford, it is easy to equate education with learning. But Mitchell Stevens, a professor of education at Stanford, was quick to point out that our “education” system comprises traditional “schooled” formats but that “learning is what we do across the lifetime, including what we experience at work and the wisdom and expertise we accrue across a lifetime.” 

Stevens and other speakers argued that our current, credential focused system both undervalues the importance of our lifelong learning and fails to invest sufficiently in learning over the life course – often to the detriment of less economically favored groups, including older workers and workers without four-year college degrees. The good news: many of the innovators at the Summit described programs that are widening the lens of learning, providing new opportunities for those not usually favored in the educational system (Questbridge, Hope Chicago) or finding new ways to foster and reward learning across a lifetime of work (Riipen, Upskill America). And they argued that this is both a question of fairness (we need to create “systems that serve everyone — not just that small majority that traditionally have been served by these systems” said Mara Woody of Riipen) but also one of economic necessity, to ensure that more workers -- and their employers -- can develop and flourish across a lifetime.  

3. Don't Be Afraid of AI. Or Be Very Afraid. Take Your Pick.

If you want to find consensus at the Century Summit, ask a question about the need to innovate in learning to support people across their entire lives, not just during the first quartile of life. But if you want to hear a bunch of experts go at it, just ask them about the likely impact of AI on the future of work. 

At the Summit, Paul LeBlanc, the President Emeritus of Southern New Hampshire University, represented the camp that AI would change everyone’s work, while Peter Cappelli of Wharton took the more cautious view that some of the hype around AI might be overblown. And to be fair to Cappelli, his view has found some very recent support in a new economic report from Goldman Sachs that found that AI added “basically zero” to US economic growth last year.  

But we were most taken with the insights of Allison Pugh of Johns Hopkins, author of The Last Human Job, who argued about the importance of protecting connective labor, the jobs that put humans in contact with other humans. “We’re at a critical moment of thinking about what AI is for, and what it’s being deployed for. Because AI is being developed in profit-based companies, they’re focused on getting the user engaged and customer satisfaction.... that’s not the AI that we want. We need to impose a connection criterion and if the AI is impeding an actual human relationship, that’s AI we want to avoid.”  

And there was plenty more. We’ll be posting the videos from the Summit soon, or you can wait for our event report, planned to come out next month.  

Our thanks to everyone for not only the amazing discussions, but for handling the bad weather, power outages, and locusts in good humor. And we have it on good authority that the weather will be better for Century Summit VII.  

Which Not-So-Bad Thing surprised you the most? Let us know by sharing below!

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ken@longevity-project.com