Key Takeaways
- • Mark Cuban tells Gen Z graduates to stop waiting for the perfect job and take any job, including fast food roles at McDonald's or Dairy Queen, as stated on The Diary of a CEO podcast.
- • Cuban says a major career upgrade can take two or three years, and that showing a future employer you moved up the line is the key signal that matters.
- • Cuban advises young workers to master scheduling, managing bosses, getting along with coworkers, and understanding how their employer makes money.
- • Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, speaking to Stanford graduates, argued that most early career decisions are less consequential than people think.
Summary
Billionaire investor Mark Cuban, whose early jobs included selling trash bags, slicing deli meat, giving dance lessons and bartending, is urging Gen Z workers to stop chasing the perfect role amid a difficult job market for recent graduates. "Don't get the perfect job because those are hard to find. Just get a job," Cuban said on The Diary of a CEO. He pointed to entry-level fast-food work, noting that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos once worked at McDonald's as a teenager, as host Steven Bartlett and Cuban observed, and that Cuban himself once worked a shift at Dairy Queen. The point, Cuban said, is not to stay in those roles but to demonstrate to future employers the ability to take on responsibility, do the work and move up.
Cuban said a meaningful career upgrade can take two or three years and that many people wrongly conclude they are stuck. He told Fortune that early-career workers should focus on working a schedule, learning to work for a boss, managing the stress a boss creates, getting along with coworkers regardless of differences, understanding the path to promotion, and learning how their employer generates revenue so they can help increase it.
The view is echoed by other technology leaders. Google CEO Sundar Pichai, speaking to Stanford University graduates earlier this year, said early career anxieties "are much less consequential than you might think," with choices such as selecting a partner, starting a family or making a major career pivot being the exceptions. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, whose first jobs included washing dishes and cleaning bathrooms at Denny's, told the same Stanford audience that low expectations build resilience, adding that "resilience matters in success."
Cuban said a meaningful career upgrade can take two or three years and that many people wrongly conclude they are stuck. He told Fortune that early-career workers should focus on working a schedule, learning to work for a boss, managing the stress a boss creates, getting along with coworkers regardless of differences, understanding the path to promotion, and learning how their employer generates revenue so they can help increase it.
The view is echoed by other technology leaders. Google CEO Sundar Pichai, speaking to Stanford University graduates earlier this year, said early career anxieties "are much less consequential than you might think," with choices such as selecting a partner, starting a family or making a major career pivot being the exceptions. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, whose first jobs included washing dishes and cleaning bathrooms at Denny's, told the same Stanford audience that low expectations build resilience, adding that "resilience matters in success."
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