At age 25, Brian Halligan moved to Hong Kong and started an Asian branch for the small startup he was working for.
That business grew to around 400 employees incredibly fast, Halligan tells Adam Bryant at The New York Times.
His own early success is exactly the reason why Halligan, now the CEO of marketing software firm HubSpot, has so much faith in young people and believes they have the ability to do more than they think they can.
"I take these young kids at HubSpot and I give them huge responsibility," he says. "Sometimes they mess it up, but more often than not they get it right."
Halligan goes on to say that "gray hair and experience are really overrated."
To attract and retain Gen Y talent, Halligan knows he needs to understand what they want. He says they want freedom to work in different locations, they care more about learning and less about money, and they get bored with their jobs about every six months.
"I just think cultures are stuck in the 1990s and don’t match the way Gen Y-ers work," he says.
So HubSpot makes sure to cater to the way young people work best. Halligan tells Bryant that his company makes certain there's a percentage of employees that moves between departments or new positions every three months to keep the young people interested in their work.
"If [the percentage] is flattening out, I get worried because I know these Gen Y-ers will leave if they’re not moving around," says Halligan.
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