THE NEW RULES OF GEN Z

THE GENERATION NOW ENTERING THE WORKFORCE REJECTS THE STATUS QUO. WHAT SHAPED THEM, WHAT THEY WANT FROM WORK, HOW TO LEAD THEM, AND MORE.

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1 WHAT WORKZ

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW THE CORPORATE CULTURE THAT GEN Z DESIRE, LOOK AT WHAT THEY'RE BUILDING.

BY SHALENE GUPTA

WHEN CHARLIE DURBIN took a job in investment banking after graduating from Princeton in 2019, it felt more like something he was expected to do than what he wanted to do. With his economics degree, and his history playing on Princeton's lacrosse team, Durbin couldn't have been more of a dream target for a global firm focused on strategic merger and acquisition deals. He was happy to have the job, but M&A work wasn't exactly his passion; he'd been a member of the Princeton Entrepreneurship Council and became interested in crypto in 2017. Soon his reticence proved prescient. The hours were crushing due to what he calls "a massive culture of face time." No one felt they could leave work in case anyone more senior needed anything.

He didn't love how assignments were made, either. "The work is distributed based on the perception of how busy you are," he says. It had very little to do with his existing assignments, his body of knowledge, or his interests. "My whole life had been school and sports, and then work," says Durbin, 26. "I'd never had time to explore my passions." In 2021, Durbin was promoted to senior analyst, but he quit soon after to cofound Decent, an NFT infrastructure protocol that helps artists earn money from their creations.