The Millennial Definition of Success

Wealthfront Team, June 2014

It’s hard to believe in 2014, but when I first considered joining LinkedIn in 2007, most of my colleagues had trouble seeing the value in a platform built on top of what looked like an online résumé. At the time, when I was asked why I joined the company, I would tell them that it had always been true that success in business was based on what you know and who you know.LinkedIn was just the modern incarnation of that powerful fact.

One of the most pleasant surprises in my current role at Wealthfront has been discovering how relevant career success is to millennial investors. As it turns out, every generation has grappled with the issue of how to find financial success, and millennials are no different.

What may surprise most people (including my compatriots in Gen X) is that more than any other generation, I believe that Millennials may have a lot to teach us. You see, it turns out that Millennials have figured out how to make that old adage actionable.

Who You Work With & What You Work On

Increasingly, as I talk to Millennials, some of whom who have found early success in their careers, and others who are just starting out, I hear the same things. This generation overwhelmingly associates success with control overwho they work with, and what they work on.

There is an old refrain in management that people join companies, but they leave managers. There is a kernel of truth in that statement. However, in the modern workplace, relationships with colleagues, managers and leadership all have a role to play. Increasingly, valuable employees ask:

• Am I learning from the people I work with?
• Are we succeeding together as a team?
• Do I share the same values as my colleagues?
• Will I fight for them? Will they fight for me?

Driven by Passion, Seeking a Mission

There have been numerous surveys and studies indicating that Millennials are overwhelmingly focused on “their passions.” I think, in some regards, this has trivialized a more fundamental and important trend.

Is it really surprising that more and more people have realized that what you are working on matters?

The old duality of your work life and your personal life have been hopelessly intermingled. Instead of arguing about whether you live to work or work to live, in the 21st century people are looking increasingly turning away from a purely mercenary view of their labor. They want to believe in the mission, believe their efforts are going towards something bigger than just financial reward. This is why you hear increasing anecdotes of young people choosing lower paying jobs, in some cases jobs that pay tens of thousands of dollars less, to focus on an organization that they draw more purpose from.

Success = Control

Not everyone has this luxury, and in some ways that is the point. What does success really mean, if it doesn’t mean that you get increasing control overwho your work with, and what you work on?

Wealthfront now has over 12,000 clients, and most of them are under 35. What I find striking is that, overwhelmingly, with every success in their financial lives, these young people seem to immediately focus on using their success to gain control over their careers. They don’t seek to optimize for title, or financial reward. Instead, they increasingly use their success to effectively fund the ability to work on a product they believe in, an organization they want to be part of, and a leader they want to follow.

As the CEO of a hypergrowth company, this leaves me with two pieces of actionable advice:

• Financial reward is not enough. If you want to attract and retain the best and the brightest, financial reward is somewhat of a commodity, and an undervalued one at that. Instead, expect potential candidates to look at your company and ask, “Is this a problem I want to work on?” and “Are these people I want to work with?”

• This is a networked economy. As Reid Hoffman has described, increasingly the value people build in their careers extends outside of your company. There is a material, and possibly essential difference, in a consumer business where your employees feel like they are punching a clock, versus a team that truly believes in what they are working on and the team they are working with. The influence of your employees, especially as your company grows, is under-measured, and as a result, under-appreciated. But in a huge networked economy, it may be the key to differentiated success.

Adam Nash is the President & CEO of Wealthfront, the largest & fastest-growing automated investment service with over $1.1 Billion in assets under management.