Starting your professional career is not easy. Bringing it to fruition, even less so. The job market has changed drastically since Warren Buffet and Michael Bloomberg made their first steps (they are 95 and 83 years old), but of course their professional trajectories, decisions and holding the unofficial title of best investor in history It gives them enough authority to give advice.
Because they also give them very good ones: Buffet has already spoken before about the importance of knowing how to say noas prioritize your professional goals either know how to focus. Well, Warren Buffet and Michael Bloomberg give a recommendation for Gen Z that is entering the labor market: pay attention to the environment.
The beginnings of Bloomberg. As the tycoon said on the podcast In Good Company by Norges Bank Investment Management, after finishing university in the 60s, Michael Bloomberg barely earned $11,500 a year (not bad, considering the time and that today would be equivalent to $114,000). But Bloomberg, with a pretty good CV considering he had an MBA from Harvard under his belt, had the option of earning more.
More money is not always better. Another company offered him $14,000, but he opted to stay at the Wall Street investment bank Salomon Brothers for the people. In fact, initially the bank had offered him $9,000 and a loan of $2,500, which he knew how to take advantage of by laying the foundations for his empire. He gave up that higher offer and it worked out fine.
“Don’t feel sorry for me, but I will never forget that people make the mistake of going to work where they get paid the most,” he concluded in the aforementioned podcast. For Bloomberg, at the beginning of your career the essential thing is: “You have to gain experience, you have to build friendships, you have to try things and see what works and what doesn’t.”
There are certain jobs you shouldn’t take. Warren Buffet also shared this same mentality of prioritizing people over pay. At its last shareholders meeting at Berkshire Hathaway was blunt: “Don’t worry too much about starting salaries and be very careful who you work with, because you will end up adopting the habits of the people around you” because “There are certain jobs you shouldn’t take.”
And it’s not the first time he’s said it. In fact, more than 20 years ago at another shareholder meeting of the same company, a 14-year-old boy (who was already a shareholder) asked the question “What advice would you give to a young person like me to be successful?” His answer: surround yourself with people better than you. “Choose collaborators whose behavior is better than yours, and you will end up moving in that direction.”
GenZ doesn’t have it easy. It must be recognized that the advice is good, but also that the youngest people face runaway inflation, an unstable and weak labor market threatened by AI and a pressing difficulty accessing housingso they need a good salary like never before. In any case, something has not changed from the generation of Buffet and Bloomberg to the genzetters: the fear of the unknown and uncertainty.
In Xataka | Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have the same answer when someone asks them “the secret to success”: focus
Cover | Bloomberg Philanthropies and Fortune Live Media (Flickr)
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