We have a ‘generational opportunity’ to stop using that phrase

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The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

Thomas Jefferson’s (probably lifted) phrase is seldom more true than when it comes to corporate speak, or whatever you want to label the finance industry’s endemic proclivity for linguistic defecation.

So Alphaville was disturbed to learn from our ears on the street of the nascent rise of a new horror phrase: “generational opportunity”.

Admittedly, it is seriously early days . . . 

. . . but the phrase has been deployed by several large businesses, including Salesforce — the $200bn market-cap paragon of puffspeak — and BlackRock, which *checks social media* owns most of the planet.

Language crimes are quick to metastasise, so we thought we’d try to stop this one early. To that end, we’ve compiled a list of “generational opportunit[ies]” that have come up in recent transcripts. To be clear: DON’T do this.

To invest in fixed income . . . 

“We’ve increased our target for our bond ETFs to more than triple to $2.5 trillion not just because of the generational opportunity for fixed income, which Rick will discuss, but because ETFs are delivering benefits to clients at an accelerating pace.” Salim Ramji, ETFs head, BlackRock

To harness the asset class . . . 

“Our sophisticated investors recognize that real estate is cyclical and there’s a generational opportunity to invest in the asset class in a meaningful way, and they simply do not want to miss out on this vintage.” Chase Fitzsimmons Moran, SVP, Brookfield Asset Management

To be a spine . . . 

“Restaurants operate in a competitive, rapidly-evolving industry, with thin profit margins, magnifying the importance of technology. And with the value of our industry-leading platform can offer, we see a generational opportunity to serve as the industry’s technology backbone.” Christopher Comparato, chair and CEO, Toast

To do things ESG-ly . . . 

“So, there’s — the board’s know ESG is real, Europe knows it’s real. And we’re really seeing it, like I’ve always said, a generational opportunity for us. So, the macro is there.” Martin Vanderploeg, non-exec chair, Workiva

To utilise genAI . . . 

“The Internet may have been, or the world wide web, might be the greatest library in history, and with this GenAI opportunity we may have the greatest researcher in history who can sit right next to us when we’re doing our jobs every day. And I just think that’s just astounding how quickly this technology has developed and how practical its use can be. And we really do think of it as a generational opportunity for all of us and for us to help our customers. That’s tremendous.” Stephen Tulenko, president, Moody’s Analytics

To digitise . . . 

“The digitisation of everything is accelerating, and I believe what happens in the next 10 years is going to define the rest of the century. Similar to what happened in the industrial revolution, except now digital content and data are going to be the fuel of the digital economy. This is a generational opportunity, and we’re talking about unlocking trillions of dollars of economic value in the global economy.” Daniel Durn, [ex-]SVP, Adobe

To “gain trial” [us neither] with millennials . . . 

“So what we’re here to talk to you today is about a generational opportunity that we found that we had at First Republic, and that opportunity was for us to gain trial with the millennial generation.” Patrick Macken, executive managing director, First Republic Bank

To ride the megaproject tailwinds . . . 

“[As] we’ve discussed previously, we do think that it really is a generational opportunity with some of these megaproject tailwinds, but they’re going to be a bit stretched out.” Kevin Murphy, chief executive officer of Ferguson

To exploit the (multi)-generational Alzheimer’s opportunity [Alphaville thinks keeping it contained largely to the older generation is a better downside outcome but wtvr] . . . 

“Yeah, this is our next-generation Alzheimer’s drug. Just like in obesity, we’re going to continue to innovate in Alzheimer’s. I see this as a multigenerational opportunity for us.” Daniel Skovronsky, chief scientific and medical officer, Eli Lilly

To—oh god, it’s Salesforce . . .