WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum
Seth Godin, marketer, lecturer, blogger, and writer points out that we rely too much on being picked by gatekeepers such as publishers or HR personnel, rather than picking ourselves. It is empowering to “understand that there are problems just waiting to be solved, once you realize that you have all the tools and all the permission you need, then opportunities to contribute abound,” he asserts. Many of the qualities that employers of high-salary workers covet such as leadership ability, adaptability, resilience, grit and perseverance are the same qualities that are required to be a successful entrepreneur or business builder. An example, from this week’s technology news is Facebook’s $19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp, the mobile messaging app. The cofounders of WhatsApp, Jan Koum and Brian Acton, worked at Yahoo for about a decade before they started their company. Ironically, after Yahoo both applied to work at Facebook and both were rejected.
The 21st century global knowledge economy presents a new reality of work and the workplace for Milleninals. The notion of work in American society is loaded with cultural ideas of one’s meaning and purpose. This is what anthropologist Katherine Newman wrote about when she characterized being laid off or downward mobility as “falling from grace.” Work is put in a moral or Biblical framework. As my ethnographic work unfolded I discovered that I was looking at something more profound than Millennials being victims of downward mobility or blocked entry into the professional labor market; I was witnessing Millennials both preparing to be employees in a new reality of a global knowledge economy, and acquiring skills to create their own jobs and jobs for others. In this new reality employees are treated more like free agents than permanent employees. 401(k) plans and portable healthcare are a part of this new reality. In another blog post I stated that increasingly employers are expecting that prospective employees be prepared to hit the ground running on day one. These employers thus are shifting the burden of training from themselves to higher education institutions and the prospective employees. This phenomenon is a part of the broader change in the relationship between capital and labor.
The old career paradigm of “fixed apprentice–to–master craftsman–to–management” has given way to a new paradigm of “free agency” whereby employees are increasingly becoming more responsible for managing their career path and skills acquisition, as well as managing employee benefits which were formerly the sole province of the employer: retirement savings and healthcare. Essentially, 21st century knowledge workers are taking ownership over their talent, skills, and work product. Another way to think about this phenomenon is that employees are being required to create value in order to maintain their jobs. The cohort that I have been studying during my research, innovators, designers, inventors and entrepreneurs, are the most desirable people for employers in all sectors of the economy.
Nevertheless this cohort has provided me with mixed messages about whether they intend to pursue an entrepreneurial career path or whether they were merely curious about entrepreneurship and were dabbling in it within the safe confines of an ivory tower. Regardless of their motivation for participating in innovation or entrepreneurial related activities, they were acquiring 21st skills and know-how that is coveted by employers of high salary workers: collaboration, self-direction, curiosity, persistence, high-energy, and on-going skills acquisition. An intellectual understanding of what is involved in creating a new digital product, service or device, and experiential experience in doing so, provides these students an ability to create value whether they work for someone else, or in an ownership capacity building something for themselves.
If risk and impermanence are intrinsic components of the “new mode” of employment, is it a rational choice to place yourself in a position to reap the rewards of the value you create?
Just finished the book with title, “Choose Yourself” by Altuscher, which I suppose you did too, given your title? It has the same message.
It’s kind of funny how Facebook rejected them for applying a job.
They both had a skill and experince in their jobs.
Sad but it’s true.
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