- Gen Z’s career plan to go to college, land a white-collar job, and achieve financial security has been dashed. After just a few years in the corporate world, they’re already fed up with the nine-to-five lifestyle, with a majority of young professionals finding traditional gigs “soul-sucking.” They can take a page from the playbook of millennial and Gen X leaders helming Too Good to Go, Sweet Loren’s, Hella Cocktail Co., and Wellhub who also left corporate America.
Gen Z are watching their career plans go up in flames as entry-level jobs are being snubbed by AI, and white-collar salaries aren’t keeping pace with inflation. So they’re ditching their nine-to-fives to become their own bosses—and they aren’t the only ones.
White-collar Gen Z don’t have to look far to find success stories of people quitting their nine-to-fives to do something they actually liked.
From Too Good to Go’s Mette Lykke to Sweet Loren’s Loren Castle, these millennial and Gen X entrepreneurs ditched corporate America and haven’t looked back since—and now they’re running a trio of self-built getaways, leading a $120 million cookie dough brand, and spearheading sustainable food apps.
Just like Gen Z, these entrepreneurs hated the idea of working all day to make their bosses money. Plus, the work they were doing was simply unfulfilling—and they know life is too short to stick with careers they weren’t happy in.
Sweet Loren’s Loren Castle
Sweet Loren’s CEO Loren Castlenow leads a $120 million cookie dough brand stocking the refrigerated aisles of Target, Whole Foods, and Costco. But when she was fresh out of college and grappling with a cancer diagnosis, she tried her hand at a boutique PR firm, also juggling other restaurant-industry jobs. Ultimately she was unhappy working for someone else, and wanted to make the most out of a scary situation recovering from illness—so she quit her “real” job, and launched her own healthy sweets company.
“Life is short. I don’t want regrets. I was so keenly aware of my feelings. If I wasn’t in love with something, it was really hard to make myself do it,” Castle told Fortune. “It got to that point of, ‘I don’t like my boss, I don’t want to be making him money.’”
Dunlap Hollow’s Bryant Gingerich
Entrepreneur Bryant Gingerich was also uninspired in his engineering job, but quickly unearthed his true passion after discovering a swath of wooded land for sale. The millennial purchased the property with his wife Amy, and began building short-term rentals that are now part of his Dunlap Hollow business.
In the middle of reeling in success from his three home rentals—which raked in over $700,000 in 2024, with Gingerich taking home over $350,000 in net profits—he was finally able to ditch his engineering role.
“I don’t think I ever want a 9-to-5 again. I honestly haven’t even missed it one time,” Gingerich told Fortune. “I love every bit of what we’re doing here. I love that I get to design things and work with my hands, and not be sitting at a desk all the time. Working on our property in beautiful nature, and that’s just really life-giving for me.”
Hella Cocktail Co’s Jomaree Pinkard
Gen X entrepreneur Jomaree Pinkard had all the makings of a successful corporate worker. He held an esteemed Wharton degree, and had worked at $120 billion professional services firm Marsh & McLennan. But in his 30s, working as a consultant for the NFL, he started to pull away from his nine-to-five path to pursue his hobby making canned beverages and cocktail bitters.
After three to four years of scaling up his passion project, Hella Cocktail Co., with his two best friends and cofounders, he officially quit his NFL job to run his successful business full-time. The CEO was even tapped by $64 billion alcohol giant Diageo for his expertise—and hasn’t looked back on leaving his old corporate career since.
Wellhub’s Cesar Carvalho
Cesar Carvalho, the chief executive of $2.4 billion corporate wellness platform Wellhub, once had a budding corporate career. The millennial executive once held positions at consulting giant McKinsey & Co. and marketing research firm AC Nielson, even enrolling in Harvard’s prestigious business school—but he dropped out of the university, and took a complete career 180.
Carvalho left corporate America in pursuit of making it better: by bringing calm and exercise to white-collar workers. Wellhub now serves 26,000 employers across 13 countries, providing gyms, studios, and wellness classes to more than 20 million corporate workers.
Too Good to Go’s Mette Lykke
Too Good to Go’s CEO, Mette Lykke, also left McKinsey with her coworkers without much of a plan. The consultant-turned-executive had the itch to “quit and build something,” so after quitting her job without a coherent business idea, sat down and created a list of 10 start-up ideas. Lykke and her peers opted to launch a fitness community app called Endomondo—which was sold to Under Armour for $85 million in 2015. That was the start of her chapter as a serial entrepreneur, later scaling her sustainable food app Too Good to Go to a massive success.
“A lot of aspiring entrepreneurs are just sitting there in their corporate jobs waiting for that lightning moment when they have the great idea,” Lykke told Fortune. But she added a warning: “It’s not going to land in your lap, you just decide to go for it or you don’t. Once you decide to go for it, you will come up with something because you have to.”
Why Gen Z are already over their new corporate gigs
Just a few years into working, about 43% of American Gen Zers say they have no desire to work a traditional job, and 60% find nine-to-five roles “soul sucking,” according to a 2024 report from Credit Karma. This comes as 36% of the young professionals struggle to find a corporate gig, with some job-seekers sending out over 1,700 applications and searching for over a year with no luck.
Even Gen Zers who could snag a role, 65% say they’re unsatisfied because they’re not paid enough, and 61% think their pay hasn’t kept pace with the cost of living. And it’s weighing heavily on their psyche—nearly half say their jobs have had a negative impact on their mental health. Plus, by working for “the man,” they have less control over their schedules. About 41% say they’re unhappy with their gigs because it leaves them with no time to do anything else.
There are other underlying reasons why young people are so against the nine-to-five career pathway—and a part of it may come from observing those around them. Nearly half, 47%, of Gen Z say watching how obsessed older generations are with work has made them rethink their career paths, according to the report. And they’re also taking inspiration from their peers on TikTok and Instagram. Around 26% of Gen Z say social media posts have motivated them to quit their corporate jobs, and 39% identify as part of the FIRE movement, dead-set on retiring early while financially dependent.
