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in high school, Kenan Saleh is watching the movie Social network, the dramatized account from the early days of Facebook. He decided, just then and there, that one day he would start his own company. “It was the first movie I watched that showed you could be young and still be the most successful person in the room,” he says. “I was definitely imitating Mark Zuckerberg in a way.
In Zuckerberg’s true way, Saleh did set up company from his dormitory room at the University of Pennsylvania. He raised $ 500,000 as he competed for the finals and then sold the company to Lyft in 2019, the year he graduated. Along the way, Saleh realized he needed a new role model. He no longer wanted to be like Zuckerberg, who had been trapped in a series of scandals. Many people liked Steve Jobs, but Jobs was dead, and reading his biography was as appealing as reading a history book. Larry Page, Sergei Brin, and Bill Gates were still alive, but their contribution to Silicon Valley already felt like ancient history. Saleh wanted a hero who is now making history.
Young people love to worship their predecessors. Jobs has been Silicon Valley’s favorite idol for decades, but for the next generation of startup founders, his legacy looks as old as Web 1.0. Genius boys like Zuckerberg and Evan Spiegel, who became billionaires by the age of 25, fell out of favor. There are technology oligarchs like Jeff Bezos. “We don’t look at these fools,” said Mark Bagadjian, the 22-year-old founder of a dating company. “Just because you’re a billionaire doesn’t mean you’re making a difference.”
Instead, both Bagadjian and Saleh are now worshiping Elon Musk, whom they see as a billionaire with an ethical mission. “He showed that you can do the best for the world and reap the benefits at the same time,” said Saleh, who began watching videos of Musk while in college.
WIRED asked more than a dozen young start-ups between the ages of 15 and 30 who inspired them. More than half raised Musk. Others mentioned techno-optimists such as Sam Altman and Patrick Collison, who seem to believe technology can solve the world’s biggest problems, or philanthropic entrepreneurs with lesser-known startups. None of them had read history books on Apple, Google, or Amazon; they said they were more inspired by forward-looking companies trying to solve the world’s biggest problems.
Olav Sorenson, who has taught entrepreneurship at UCLA and Yale, says his students tend to admire people who have been “successful without being sold.” Some cite Seth Goldman, the founder of Honest Tea, who now chairs the Beyond Meat board, as a source of inspiration because “he focused his energy on investing and supporting the business with an ethical mission,” Sorenson said.
“This generation is looking at all the problems and trying to say, ‘How can we start to be part of the solution to the problems that the older generation has created for us?'” Said Lori Rosenkopf, vice dean for entrepreneurship at the university. from the Wharton Business School in Pennsylvania. Rosenkopf says she has noticed a change in the way students talk about entrepreneurship over the past few years – not only as a career alternative to banking or consulting, but also as a way to start a business with a “much bigger social perspective”.
For many young entrepreneurs, Musk is a great example of this way of thinking. “Elon Musk is literally taking into account the mistakes made by other generations,” said Bagadjian, who read Ashley Vance’s biography of Musk in high school and has considered him a hero ever since. Bagadjian says that while companies such as Amazon and Apple have created major innovations, Musk’s work with electric vehicles and solar energy has been much more important.
Other young people were inspired by the image of the startup’s founder struggling on the road to success. One of them mentioned that Musk was sleeping on the floor at Tesla’s headquarters, which they said showed firmness. Several also mentioned the story of Airbnb founder Brian Cesky, who ran out of credit and ate shoulder noodles in the early days of the startup.
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