NextGen Leaders

This AOL article highlights the success of one Gen Y entrepreneur, Farrah Gray. Gray crew up in inner city Chicago and from an early age spotted opportunities and turned them into dollars. He was a millionaire by age 14, which makes him a “NextGenLeader.”

This term refers to the entrepreneurial spirit of GenY and was coined by Carol Sanford, the CEO of InterOctave, a firm specializing in organizational development. We’ve written about GenY entrepreneurs on this blog before. The question everyone seems to be asking is: what makes Gen Y more entrepreneurial that the previous generations?

Many people point to the recession and lack of stable jobs.  College graduates today do not have the same reassurance that their parents did, with the possibility of staying at the same job for their entire career. This is consistent with Farrah Gray’s advice to young people:  “You have to create your own job. You can’t wait to rely on Exxon or Wal-Mart to hire you.”

However, after many interviews with young entrepreneurs, Sanford says that what NextGenLeaders have in common is not necessarily the job market but rather their innate drive and unique visions.  Combine this with Gen Y’s authentic confidence and successful entrepreneurs attaining celebrity status (think Oprah, Mark Zuckerberg, Donald Trump), perhaps its no wonder that 40% of people aged 18-24 have expressed a desire to be their own boss.

Could it be that the Gen Y entrepreneurial spirit is more a product of social and cultural factors, rather than recent economic ones? What do you think?