Amazon CEO Andy Jassy shares the No. 1 career mistake Gen Z is making in their 20s that’s easily avoidable

• CEO of Amazon Andy Jaci Gen Z tells about stopping anxiety About knowing how their career will look in their twenties. Instead, young people encourage focusing on learning what they want to do – a lesson that is well given to a head. Before now starting his professional life, which lasted approximately 30 years in Amazon, try functions such as sports broadcasting, football training and investment banking services.

A few topics raises a lot of discussion like what should look like the twenties. Some see that the contract is a chaotic struggle, while others look at a rare window of opportunities.

But from the perspective of Amazon and Jassy CEO, Gen Z must take off themselves and realize that they should not plan their entire lives in their twenties.

“I have a 21 -year -old son and a 24 -year -old daughter, and one of the things I see with them and their peers is that they all feel that they have to know what they want to do for their lives in that era.” How leads leaders With David Novak. “I really don’t think this is true.”

Although knowing what you want to do in your career can feel existential – especially during the time when artificial intelligence completely reshape the function scene – Jassy knows directly.

After graduating from Harvard University in 1990, he tried a number of functional tracks, including sports broadcasting, product management and entrepreneurship. He also worked in a golf retail store, trained football in secondary schools, and tried to investment banking services. In the end, he decided to return to school to give a master’s business in the field of entrepreneurship. It was only after graduating from Harvard Business College Was his role fell in the Amazon, just months ago.

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luck I arrived at Jassy to comment.

The value of failure – and asking questions

Explore interests is one thing, but for Jassy, ​​now 57, nothing is more important to succeed than asking questions. The presence of a high sum of “Why” – or “Whyq” is something he said helps professions in Amazon.

“We ask why and why not, constantly,” Jassi wrote in his last letter to shareholders. “It helps us to dismantle problems, reach the radical causes, understand the blockers, and open the doors that may seem unable to be penetrated before.”

For General Z in particular, curiosity – and working with the right mentality – can be a major stone for mobility for professions, as Jassy admitted.

“There is an embarrassing amount of how much your performance, especially in your twenties, is a relationship with the situation,” Jassi said in an interview with LinkedIn Ryan Roslansky.

Although finding success in the end also has an element of opportunities – and it may include multiple relapses – one day at one day may eventually fall into the corner office.

“I feel that my journey or adventure was a great luck, and I think it might not have been one of the things that I did in the best way,” he added to David Novak.

Executive chiefs who crossed the long road to the top

Although it might seem like the way to the top of the corporate ladder requires a professional path that focuses excessively, in fact, the journey can be long and exported-the fact that Jassy is just one example.

After graduating as a university student, Red Himingz, founder of Netflix, served in the Peace Corps as a math teacher in high schools in Aswini, a small country in South Africa. Only after his return, he returned to school and studying computer science at Stanford University before helping start a technology company worth more than $ 500 billion.

Moreover, Bob Egger, CEO of Walt Disney, began his career to predict weather as meteorological specialist at a local TV station in Ethaka, New York, before he became one of the most executive managers of the media.

Even Jassy Teacher, Jeff Bezos, started with an ideal teenage function: flipping the burgers in McDonald’s.

“You can learn responsibility for any job, if you take it seriously,” said Bezos for Code Tates, author of a book, Golden opportunity: Great jobs that started in McDonald’s. “You learn a lot as a teenager working in McDonald’s. It is different from what you learn in school. Don’t underestimate the value of that!”

This story was originally shown on Fortune.com

2025-06-09 15:12:00