Billionaire Mark Cuban, who started his career selling garbage bags, advises Gen Z not to chase the ‘perfect job’

Mark Cuban, who co-founded a video portal when he was 36, sold it to Yahoo for $5.7 billion in 1999, and eventually listed himself on the billionaire list, has some career advice for Gen Z. And it's more in line with what he did before that, like selling garbage bags door to door when he finished college, giving dancing lessons, and even bartending.

For those who are planning to start their career, and want a dream role in this difficult job market, Cuban’s suggestion for them is to start with anything.

“Don’t get the perfect job because those are hard to find. Just get a job,” Cuban said on The Diary of a CEO. “And when you have a job, just work to be really good at it,” he added, referring to people who feel stuck in an unwanted role, 9-5, are living paycheck to paycheck, and have very little savings.


For Mark, who now has a minority stake in the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, the second part is about getting a job, being brutally honest with yourself. “Because nobody looks at the job they're doing and says, ‘I suck.’ Right? They're like, ‘Oh, I'm great at this,’ he said.

And when someone lands in even the worst possible job, maybe “working at a McDonald's, at a Dairy Queen, but there's a path,” they can follow to climb the ladder, he said in the podcast.

“Even though your life mission isn't to be the manager of a McDonald's or a Dairy Queen or whatever, the fact that you can show a future employer that you moved up the line.” And there comes the referencing part, when a new employer asks for it from the previous one and gives a good one, it surely helps, he thinks.

When they asked for a reference, and if it came out like, “Stephen (touching on the host of The Diary of a CEO) was incredibly valuable; we're really sorry, you know, that he's leaving, we tried to keep him, that's what you need and that can happen in 2 3 years,” he explained saying it's just most people don't want to think like these.