Carter Grandbois is 18, removes junk for a living, and makes up to $15,000 a month since he used AI tools to write his own pricing software.
The story Nick Lichtenberg set out to test was whether Gen Z is spoiled, lazy or struggling. What he found instead was teenagers who had built profitable service businesses and then published the software that made them profitable.
"And instead I found a bunch of guys who are barely 20, 18 years old and they're building their own businesses from scratch."
Lichtenberg is Fortune's business editor and has been following the wave of business creation among Gen Z, interviewing the founders themselves as well as the chief executive of Jobber, the software company whose survey data he uses.
I listened to the full segment so you can skip it.
Here are the 6 takeaways that matter.
👤 Speaker: Nick Lichtenberg, Fortune's business editor, who has been reporting the magazine's coverage of Gen Z business creation and blue-collar career paths
🎙️ Host: Ellie Austin, who anchors Fortune Daily, the magazine's daily video show
📰 Published: 1 September 2026 on YouTube (Fortune Daily)
🔴 YouTube | 🟣 Apple Podcasts | ⏱️ 25 min
Key Takeaways
The software, not the truck, is what made an 18-year-old's junk removal business profitable He was struggling until he used AI tools to build a pricing calculator with no formal training
He runs two versions of the calculator and gives the weaker one away He told Lichtenberg he does not see it as a zero-sum game and wants other entrepreneurs earning
A 21-year-old landscaper is making around $300,000 with the same view of competition
Parents flipped on the trades inside three years, and by a wide margin 79% of Gen Z said their parents were pushing a 4-year college; 92% of parents now say they would back a trade
One founder's objection to school was that he was good at it without learning from it
The tools compress how long it takes a very small company to become a real one
1. The premise that didn't hold
Lichtenberg started from the criticism rather than the trend. He said he was interested in looking into whether Gen Z really is as spoiled, lazy or struggling as people have heard
What he found was the opposite of the premise. "And instead I found a bunch of guys who are barely 20, 18 years old and they're building their own businesses from scratch."
The reporting sits inside a longer run of coverage. "We have been following a wave of business creation and a growing interest in blue collar job pathways, especially among Gen Z, as they increasingly question whether a college degree is worth it."
2. A junk calculator at 18
The headline figure is the one Lichtenberg put on the profile. "Meet the 18-year-old junk remover who vibe coded his own pricing calculator and makes up to $15,000 a month."
The business was not working before the software existed. "But he told me that he was struggling to make his business profitable until he vibecoded a junk calculator." Lichtenberg defined the term for the audience: vibe coding is using AI tools to produce a software program without formal training
What the calculator does is decide which jobs are worth showing up for. Lichtenberg said Carter Grandbois used it to spec the quotes he was getting around his community, to work out whether the return justified getting in his truck and spending the hours to remove a particular load of junk
3. He open-sourced the tool
There are two versions, and the better one is the private one. "And the really interesting thing is that he's got two versions of this calculator. One for his business, which is a bit more advanced, and then another open-source one that he shares on social media."
His reason for giving it away was competitive, not charitable. "And he told me he doesn't see what he does as a zero- sum game and he wants to help other entrepreneurs like himself to get out there and start earning money in the economy."
4. Levi's $300K landscaping
The second founder is older, in a different trade, and further along. "Levi has a similar business, a landscaping business. He's 21 years old. He is making around $300,000."
His attitude to competition was the same one. Lichtenberg said Levi remembers breaking into landscaping as a teenager and thinking he could build his own business, because there was more than enough work to go around
5. Parents changed their minds
The survey data came from a software vendor whose customers are these businesses. Lichtenberg said his sources at Jobber gave him their blue collar report, and that he also spoke to the company's chief executive
The starting point three years ago was a strong push toward college. "79% of Gen Zers told Jobber 3 years ago that their parents were steering them toward a 4-year college, and only 5% were considering vocational school."
The same parents have now moved almost all the way across. "But now 92% of those parents are saying they'd encourage a blue-collar trade if their kid was into it."
The founder's own account of school was about the difference between grades and learning. Levi told him "Yeah, I mean I was a good student, but I was a good regurgitator. I didn't think that I was really learning anything." Lichtenberg said Levi told him he learns more through social media than he did in two years of college
6. Small firms mature faster
Lichtenberg's reason for following this is that it is not a repeat of something older. He said the future of work fascinates him because what is happening is surprising, unexpected and genuinely new
The claim underneath it is about speed. "These tools, these AI tools and social media tools are so democratizing that they're going to allow really small companies to develop into a pretty mature business really quickly."
He expects the entry age to keep falling. "We're gonna move into a future of work environment where lots of 15 year olds see a pathway to becoming their own boss by the time they're about 20 21 years old and then they just go out and do it." He said that will change society and culture a great deal, and that this is only scratching the surface
Bonus Insights
Lichtenberg's segment closed the episode. The host, Ellie Austin, introduced it as a report on Gen Z's turn to blue-collar work with a social media twist
The same episode carried Fortune's investigation into Temu's partnership ads on Meta and a report on Apple's new chief executive, both written up separately, and the host's own segment on Shein's public debut is covered in the Temu summary
Lichtenberg's bottom line is that the interesting thing about these founders is not that they chose a trade over college, but that the AI tools let each of them build the software their business needed, and that one of them then handed it to his competitors.
Products, Companies & Tools Mentioned
Jobber (The field-service software company whose survey data Lichtenberg used, and whose chief executive he interviewed)
Books & Resources Mentioned
Meet the 18-year-old junk remover who vibe-coded his own pricing calculator – Nick Lichtenberg (The Fortune profile of Carter Grandbois that this report is drawn from)
The Jobber Blue Collar Report (The annual survey of Gen Z and their parents that supplies the 79%, the 5% and the 92%)
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