CURATED READS FOR GEN Z—AND THEIR Z-CURIOUS COLLEAGUES

first up

Welcome back—while some start-ups have seen their growth slow in recent months, the prospect of a billion-dollar idea still has a hold on Gen Z.

Ever had a great idea for a start-up? Well, it’s time to get it out of your notes app and make it a reality. More than a thousand start-ups have hit “unicorn” status (cheat sheet: that generally refers to start-ups valued at $1 billion or more), and up to 62 percent of Gen Z has expressed interest in starting their own company. Here are some bite-size takes on start-up success while you work on your own golden-ticket idea.    

Who do you have? Pakistan has the fourth-largest Gen Z and younger population in the world, with a median age of just 22. What do you get with a young, English-speaking crowd that’s also tech savvy? A country primed for start-up success, with many businesses growing fast on increased venture capital flows. 

What gap can you fill? The founders of Middle East ride-sharing app Careem—now part of Uber’s holdings—saw an opportunity to empower women. They heard there were upward of 2.5 million women in Saudi Arabia who wanted to work but didn’t have reliable transportation—and filling that gap helped drive growth too. 

How can you generate green (of all kinds)? Sustainability start-ups are making waves by scaling climate tech. One company, PsiQuantum, even plans to use quantum computing to tackle global warming. 

What can be done better? Ever dealt with a project that required a lot of manual work and thought, “There’s got to be an easier way”? You’re not alone. One founder in a similar situation used it as inspiration—and built a software company that racked up an $800 million valuation. 

What success can you replicate? If it’s not broken, don’t fix it—consider modeling your approach on one that’s already working. Analysis of the top 1,000 European tech start-ups unearthed four winning approaches: 

You can color outside those lines, but they’re a good place to get started … up.   

Want more? Explore a list of 15 unicorns started by McKinsey alumni. 

VISUALIZE IT 

Start-ups can have big impact beyond their doors: more take-off in Germany could create more value—and many more jobs. 

Wait, don’t scroll 

Improvise, adapt, overcome. There are tons of old-school management techniques that make up “how we do things” in business. But author Roger Martin argues that it’s time to throw out the playbook as those rules start to crumble. 

Let’s get meta. A great arena for start-ups: the metaverse, which has the potential to create $5 trillion in value by 2030. Are you ready to navigate all ten of its layers? 

Keep summiting. Silicon Valley’s Marc Andreessen explains the two modes of tech: you’re either wandering around in search mode looking for new problems, or you’re in hill-climbing mode, tackling those solutions. As smartphones plateau, what’s next? (Plus, he talks about AI, crypto, Web3, the downside of a Harvard MBA, and more.) 

Not us; still great 

Wolves of Wall Street? A study shows that the vast majority of Gen Z in the US say they believe they’ll be wealthy one day—72 percent, despite the threat of inflation, recession, and more. Older generations aren’t so optimistic. [TheStreet]

My starting salary is … One of the biggest questions for a start-up founder: What are you going to pay yourself? The salaries that the big cheeses take home can be telling about the health, wealth, and long-term goals of the start-up. [NYT]

Not all rosy. Despite the past years’ upward hiring trends, things are changing as the economy continues to struggle—for example, some major tech companies are eliminating positions, leaving recent grads scrambling. [Reuters]

WILL YOUR JOURNEY START TODAY?

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On our Careers Blog, Ayush, an expert associate partner who was previously a lead data scientist at a unicorn start-up, talks about growing a team into $100 million of impact

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— Edited by Sarah Skinner, Gen Z curation editor, New York