Blackstone president Jon Gray tells Gen Z to think like founders at work—but a growing number are skipping the corporate ladder to become one for real

Jon Gray leans while talking and sitting in a chair (Credit: Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)

Blackstone may manage more than $1.3 trillion in assets, but president Jon Gray doesn’t want the firm’s newest class of Gen Z analysts thinking like stereotypical employees at a Wall Street giant. To succeed, he says, they should approach their jobs like they’re working at a startup.

“Think about wherever you’re working, whatever capacity in our firm or elsewhere, how you can be an agent of change, how you can make things better, how you can serve clients in a better way,” Gray said in a recent address to Blackstone’s newest class of analysts, adding they should focus on “this idea of being entrepreneurial.”