# What the Trades Don't See (But We Do) | Aaron Witt, BuildWitt

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-lost-art-of-the-skilled-trades-6923648/what-the-trades-don-t-see-but-we-do-aaron-witt-buildwitt
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-lost-art-of-the-skilled-trades-6923648/what-the-trades-don-t-see-but-we-do-aaron-witt-buildwitt.md
Podcast: [The Lost Art Of the Skilled Trades](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-lost-art-of-the-skilled-trades-6923648)
Published: 2026-04-14T22:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://the-lost-art-of-skilled-trades.captivate.fm/episode/what-the-trades-dont-see-but-we-do-aaron-witt-buildwitt
Audio file: https://episodes.captivate.fm/episode/876fcb54-647e-4434-a3ce-319071eb1ba4.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-lost-art-of-the-skilled-trades-6923648/episodes/what-the-trades-don-t-see-but-we-do-aaron-witt-buildwitt
Duration seconds: 3414

## Resource

What the Trades Don't See (But We Do) | Aaron Witt, BuildWitt Aaron Witt of BuildWitt has visited job sites on 5 continents. His take: the trades' biggest problem isn't negative perception — it's invisibility. Most people in the trades blame the younger generation. They say Gen Z is lazy, college-obsessed, or soft. But Aaron Witt — who showed up to his first construction job at 18 with zero background — says the real problem is structural. The industry built its entire training model around workers who grew up in the trades. Now a whole generation is showing up without that baseline knowledge, and the industry is yelling at them for it instead of teaching them. Aaron Witt is the founder of BuildWitt, a media and workforce development company that travels the skilled trades world — from Arctic diamond mines to Saudi Arabia — to tell the stories of the people keeping the world running. He's spent 13 years inside the industry as an outsider, and that vantage point gives him a clear view of what the people inside the fishbowl can't see. This conversation is for employers who keep losing workers within 90 days, for 17-year-olds trying to figure out their path in an AI-disrupted world, and for anyone who wants to understand why the trades pipeline is broken — and what actually fixes it. IN THIS EPISODE (00:00) – The Fishbowl: Why being outside the trades gives Aaron and Andrew a clearer view of what the industry is missing. (06:00) – Not Even in the Race: The trades don't have a perception problem — they have an invisibility problem, and the industry doesn't realize the difference. (15:00) – 5 Continents, One Truth: How BuildWitt went from Instagram posts on a road construction site to visiting a diamond mine near the Arctic Circle — and what Aaron sees that's the same every…

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