GEN-Z IN 2024

They make up one-fifth of the labor force, they have strong entrepreneurial inclinations, and they’re not afraid to make their voices heard—especially when they feel they’ve been wronged. The members of the generation born between 1997 and 2012 are coming into their own and changing the face of the workplace in the process. It’s no wonder why, in 2024, we just couldn’t stop talking about Gen-Z. This year, Inc. paid close attention to this cohort of entrepreneurs and employees. We’ve taken notice of their drive for change, as editor-in-chief Mike Hofman sat down with the youngest honorees of this year’s Inc. 5000 to understand how Gen-Z business owners are shaping workplace culture. We’ve also dug into the growing pains Gen- Zers are facing as they step into the corporate world for the first time: why they’re “consciously un-bossing,” getting fired from their first jobs, feeling unsatisfied, and quitting as a result. For these reasons, we’ve shared advice for business owners to better hire—and, critically, retain—their Gen-Z talent. As this generation has increased its buying power, we’ve also paid close attention to its digital habits (as it fueled the seemingly never-ending brat summer) and figured out the ways brands could better market to it, giving in to unhinged content that is decidedly not demure. With 2025 just around the corner, we’ll be keeping an eye on how this generation continues to reshape the working world—and paying close attention to the Gen-Z entrepreneurs who are building some of the most world-changing companies. There’s a lot to look forward to as Gen-Z continues to carve its own path forward. —Rebecca Deczynski, senior editor at Inc.

How Top Cybersecurity Firms Are Scaling Faster and Smarter to Win in 2025

The cybersecurity market continues to take off—and so does the competition. With global spending on information security projected to hit $212 billion by 2025, according to consultancy Gartner—a 15 percent increase from 2024—cybersecurity companies face a relentless battle on two fronts: defending against evolving threats and outpacing rivals to seize market share. The opportunity is massive, but so is the pressure to deliver. In cybersecurity, the buying process is inherently nonlinear. Buying cycles are unpredictable, threats evolve daily, and missed revenue signals can cost millions. For companies chasing growth, IPOs, or exits, the game has changed. To stay ahead, top cybersecurity companies are modernizing go-to-market strategies, zeroing in on high-growth segments, and creating repeatable, predictable wins. As CEO and co-founder of Clari, an enterprise revenue platform, I work alongside Fortune 500 companies—including cybersecurity clients Fortinet and Okta—to drive predictable revenue growth. Here’s how they’re doing it: Scaling revenue growth exponentially In a hyper-competitive market, predictable revenue growth is the result of discipline, data, and decisive action. To achieve this, companies need a reliable revenue baseline to accurately assess the probability of closing a sales opportunity, identify warning signs to weed out no-decision and slipped opportunities early, and follow rigorous forecasting and sales principles to drive more predictable business outcomes. Fortinet, a global cybersecurity leader, tackles this problem head-on by centralizing revenue operations (RevOps) data. The company integrates information from separate platforms—like emails, calls, and calendar invites—into a single system. This unified data creates a shared source of truth, enabling Fortinet to build a consistent revenue process. This isn’t just about centralization, it’s about transformation. Armed with advanced forecasting capabilities and historical trend analysis, Fortinet gains an edge. Automated insights into future performance allow the entire revenue team to take action proactively earlier in the quarter. With this rigor, Fortinet achieved 97 percent forecasting accuracy. Fortinet’s leadership can make confident decisions about resource allocation, capacity planning, and reinvestment. For a market as high-stakes as cybersecurity, this level of precision doesn’t just drive growth—it gives companies a competitive edge. Fortinet has proved that when companies eliminate guesswork and operate with precision, growth becomes scalable and success becomes repeatable. Predictable growth: command and control revenue Before its IPO, Okta had a problem that most high-growth companies face: the chaos of unreliable forecasting. Sales reps relied on best-guess numbers, rolling up inconsistent estimates into leadership reports. This manual, time-consuming system was destined to break under the weight of Okta’s rapid growth—and for a company racing toward an IPO, that level of unpredictability wasn’t an option. Okta’s leadership knew that to sustain their momentum, they needed to overhaul not just their processes, but their entire approach to revenue alignment and execution. They implemented a structured, scalable forecasting framework and brought every critical team—sales, marketing, and customer success—into lockstep. The shift wasn’t just operational; it was cultural. A consistent cadence of pipeline reviews and forecast meetings became the backbone of their revenue strategy, driving collaboration and accountability across the organization. The results were transformative. Okta gained the visibility and consistency needed to navigate its IPO with confidence. And leadership had clarity and trust in their revenue data, empowering teams to make data-driven decisions that balanced short-term priorities with long-term growth. By turning forecasting into a disciplined, cross-functional process, Okta didn’t just solve a pain point—it built a foundation for predictable, scalable growth. The story illustrates that when teams align around a shared revenue strategy, chaos becomes control, and growth becomes achievable. Why operational excellence will define the next cybersecurity leaders The cybersecurity industry is operating under relentless pressure: Threats are evolving, competition is fierce, and the margin for error is razor-thin. Cybersecurity IPO winners have proved that staying ahead requires more than innovation—winning demands operational excellence across the entire revenue team. By unifying data, aligning teams, and modernizing forecasting, they’ve used data and technology to deliver precision. For cybersecurity firms aiming to grow, scale, or go public, the lesson is clear: Operational discipline isn’t a choice—it’s the new standard for success. EXPERT OPINION BY ANDY BYRNE, CEO, CLARI

I Called 1-800-ChatGPT and Talked to the AI Chatbot. It Might Be the Smartest Idea I’ve Seen Yet

This morning, I spent 15 minutes on the phone with ChatGPT. You probably know by now that OpenAI released the ability to dial 1-800-ChatGPT to interact with the chatbot via voice call. And, so, for your sake, after my kids left for school, I sat down and made a phone call. It’s a weird thing to consider, partially because—as a general rule—I try as hard as I can never to talk to anyone on the phone other than my wife or kids. Beyond that, I’d almost always rather communicate by text, or email, or Slack, or anything that doesn’t involve a synchronous voice conversation. Also, I’m not sure the last time I dialed a 1-800 number that wasn’t to call an airline. I’d pretty much assumed they’d all been taken. Though considering the amount of money OpenAI paid to buy the chat.com vanity url, I imagine this was a bit easier. I came prepared with a list of questions to see how the experience is different from all of the other ways you can interact with ChatGPT. On the one hand, it’s a lot less useful than visiting chat.com or using one of the various apps. It’s more of a novelty or party trick that you might pull out because, hey, why not make a phone call to a chatbot just for fun? On the other hand, it works exactly like ChatGPT, except more friendly and more polished than voice mode in the app. I used the iOS 18 feature that lets you record phone calls, and when my iPhone gave the “this call is being recorded” alert, ChatGPT responded, “Great, let’s talk!” Then, I asked what seemed like an obvious question for mid-December: “What are some common things that kids do to try to have a snow day?” “Kids have some classic snow day rituals,” ChatGPT replied. “They might wear their pajamas inside out, flush ice cubes down the toilet, or even sleep with a spoon under their pillow, all in the hopes of a snow day miracle.“ Which, to be fair, is exactly the correct answer. If you had asked any of our four children, they would have given you that answer almost word for word. Of course, you could get the same information via any of the other ways you can interact with ChatGPT, so why a 1-800 phone number? Apparently, a lot of people think it’s a great idea. While OpenAI wouldn’t give specifics, CEO Sam Altman tweeted that “Wow people really love 1-800-CHATGPT lol.” It’s hard to measure the success of a product or feature on the basis of a vague tweet from a CEO, but it’s not surprising to me at all that a lot of top people would want to try this out. Again, even if for no other reason than party trick. I think it’s pretty clear that I am not the audience for this. I have a ChatGPT Plus account, and I regularly use ChatGPT on my iPhone and Mac. I even changed my default search engine in Brave to the ChatGPT extension. I’m not likely to make a phone call to talk to a robot unless it’s just for fun. In fact, I’ve written before that my least favorite thing in the world is when companies force you to have a conversation with a customer service bot instead of just letting you talk to a real human. That’s not fun. Fun, it turns out, is a pretty important part of this—and we’ll come back to it in a minute. One thing, however, did surprise me: ChatGPT is very good at understanding voice prompts. Much better than other voice assistants, at least in my experience with the phone version. Which, honestly, is kind of brilliant actually. It does not seem far-fetched that, over the next few weeks, as people get together for the holidays, someone will have a conversation or ask a question, and someone else will say, “Hey, I know how we can get the answer to that.” How fun will it be at that moment to just dial 1-800-ChatGPT? If you do, you’ll be demoing ChatGPT to a bunch of people who have probably heard of the chatbot but have never used it in any meaningful way. This is why this is so brilliant. It’s fun, and it reduces the friction involved with downloading an app or navigating to a website and creating an account. In that sense, it’s exposing an entirely new audience to ChatGPT, in a fun and accessible way. That’s one of the smartest ideas I’ve seen yet. EXPERT OPINION BY JASON ATEN, TECH COLUMNIST @JASONATEN

Gen-Zers Are Big on Side Hustles, and They’re Using AI to Juggle It All

The gig economy is still very much alive, thanks in part to Gen-Z and Millennials. A new survey from Intuit finds that nearly two-thirds of people between the ages of 18 and 35 have either started or plan to launch a side hustle. And, increasingly, they’re leaning on artificial intelligence to do so. Gen-Zers are opting for a more entrepreneurial approach to their careers. And this, writes Intuit, represents “a material shift in how younger generations approach work, purpose, and financial independence.” Gen-Zers and Millennials have a strong desire to be their own boss, according to the survey. Nearly half of the 1,000 people Intuit spoke with said they wanted to be in charge of their own destiny. Another 42 percent said they were pursuing their passions with these side gigs. The flexibility of these jobs and the chance to build something personal and unique were also key motivators. Gen Zers’ status as digital natives, the first generation to grow up with the internet as a part of daily life, is a big part of the embrace of side gigs as well. Some 80 percent of Gen-Z business owners started their businesses online or had a mobile component. Social media is also a tool they’re employing, with 44 percent relying on platforms, including Instagram and TikTok, to market their side hustle’s services and raise brand awareness. “There’s an entire cultural renaissance happening on social media where creators, business owners and side hustlers are finding their target audience, customer or next gig all in the palm of their hand whenever or wherever they decide to work,” Intuit’s Consumer Trend Expert Marissa Cazem. The side hustles, for now, are being run alongside a regular job. And while 65 percent of those surveyed who are operating one currently say they plan to continue doing so in 2025, figuring out the timing remains the biggest challenge. That’s where AI comes in. The advances the technology offers in reducing the time required for certain tasks has been a boon for Gen-Zers. They are using AI for things like content creation, customer service, and even logo creation and web design. Some Gen-Z founders are even leaning on AI to exit their side hustles. In 2018, Ben Zogby launched HighStrike, which offers educational resources and webinars to help people learn how to invest. He worked on the business during nights and weekends after finishing his 9-to-5 engineering job. Eventually, it found an audience—and earlier this year, the 27-year-old Bostonian sold the business for $1.8 million. Zogby was able to exit for that impressive amount thanks to Flippa, an online platform that uses AI to connect founders with potential buyers, suggesting valuations in as little as 30 minutes. The tool’s large database of buyers also let Zogby locate targeted bidders, saving the time that might otherwise have gone into looking for the right person to buy the business. In the end, HighStrike found itself the subject of a bidding war, which resulted in the $1.8 million exit. Just 3 percent of Gen-Z workers with side gigs say they have failed. Most pivot, Intuit said, when things aren’t working. The gigs can be lucrative, as well. On average, side hustles are profitable after three to six months. And a separate study from Bankrate found the average income of these gigs is $891 per month. “Gen Z and millennials are reshaping the economic landscape,” wrote Cazem of Intuit. “They’re not just participating in the gig economy—they’re leading it, armed with digital tools, entrepreneurial spirit, and a drive for autonomy.” BY CHRIS MORRIS @MORRISATLARGE