“There are some positions where you actually want people that do not have the prejudice or the old way of working,” Chen tells Fortune. “because it’s just not relevant anymore.”
“I’m hiring entry-level because they have no boundaries or limitations in how they think about the world. They’re almost like AI natives themselves, having been born and raised in this new realm of opportunities. And I see some of the best ideas coming from the younger generation that have not yet been in the job market.”
Chen knows a thing or two about betting on unconventional talent. At 15, Chen had already started his own business, selling computers to thousands of small and medium-sized businesses in Israel.
And in an era where AI is moving fast, he says experience is no longer the currency it once was.
“The playbook is irrelevant today, because there are so many new ways to do this, the very same job,” he explains.
The more deeply someone has learned the old way of doing something, the harder it is to get them to see past it. Chen doesn’t have that problem with a 22-year-old who’s never had a way of doing things.
“When you come as someone who just sees the problem and finds the best way to solve it,” Chen says, “it’s sometimes better than someone who has been doing the same job for so long and may just try to redo what’s been working for them in the past.”
To be clear: Chen isn’t only hiring Gen Z. For R&D, he still wants seasoned people. But within certain departments, like customer insights—where employees help clients get more value out of Tastewise’s AI—he’d rather have someone who’s never done the job before.
And these entry-level hires aren’t just temporary—complete this job and then you’re out. Chen says they’re becoming “pivotal” across the company—moving fluidly among technology, business, and client in ways that more siloed senior employees simply aren’t.
And the cofounder of the $12 billion crypto company Paradigm, Matt Huang, is so convinced by his youngest hires that he’s been promoting them into the C-suite. His first hire in 2018 was Charlie Noyes, a 19-year-old MIT dropout who walked into his first 10 a.m. meeting five hours late. By 2025, before exiting the crypto company, he was a general partner at just 25.
For Chen, the message to Gen Z is simple: the door is open. You just have to be worth letting in.
“I would come to a job interview with a portfolio of what I’m able to do and show for,” he says. “Execution is everything.”
“I think there is actually an opportunity for younger people,” he adds, “if they are resourceful and can actually flag in some way that they’re better than others, and more determined to succeed than others.”
