Being a profitable school dropout is worn like a badge of honor for a lot of within the enterprise world. In spite of everything, a few of the wealthiest leaders—Mark Zuckerberg, Invoice Gates, and Larry Ellison—by no means completed their levels, and so they’re pleased with it.
Lauren Antonoff as soon as wore that badge, too. After her condominium burned down as a pupil at College of California, Berkeley, and he or she missed ending her diploma, she nonetheless managed to interrupt into tech, spending almost twenty years at Microsoft and later serving as a senior govt at GoDaddy. After constructing a profession with out the credential she was supposed to have, Antonoff took delight in proving she didn’t want it.
However after 25 years within the business, Antonoff turned burdened by what she felt was “unfinished business.” So in 2022, throughout a uncommon profession break, she was again in a UC Berkeley lecture corridor—this time as a 52-year-old peer amongst classmates half her age. Antonoff’s schedule was full of programs in rhetoric, political science, and even biotech.
Going again to high school wasn’t in the end revolutionary for her profession, she admitted to Fortune, but it surely did sharpen her perspective on adaptivity and staying centered on long-term targets—even when life takes sudden turns.
“There are probably some people who approach college from like, ‘I’m going to do the assignment and do what I’m told,’” she advised Fortune. “But the students I think that really thrive are the ones who forge their own path.”
Now, as CEO of Life360—the household location app value greater than $5 billion—she sees clear parallels between navigating a classroom and navigating the C-suite.
“That’s a lot of what CEOs do is look at the range of possibilities, figure out what the options are, and pick a path,” she added. “And pick a path knowing that you can’t know the future, knowing that you don’t get to know if you’re right until after and being the ones to shoulder that responsibility.”
Forging your individual path can typically be considerably of a privilege and may take time, Antonoff admitted. However, she mentioned, small steps can create momentum.
“I’m a big believer in finding your way in the world,” Antonoff mentioned. “That’s not just about getting a job; if you don’t have a job, start something. If you don’t have a job, go volunteer someplace. In my experience, being active and working on problems that you’re interested in—one thing leads to another.”
The key to succeed in the ‘highest levels of success’
Rising up, Antonoff thought she knew precisely the place her profession was heading: civil rights regulation. At UC Berkeley, she deliberate to check rhetoric and political science after which make the bounce to regulation faculty.
However after shopping for her first MacBook to write down papers, she discovered an sudden fascination in expertise—and started asking questions. That curiosity led her to the Berkeley Mac Consumer group, the place she realized tech could be greater than only a pastime.
Her recommendation for Gen Z echoes that early pivot.
“Do what you love,” she mentioned. “I think it’s very hard to reach the highest levels of success if you don’t have the energy and the passion. I think when you are excited about something, it sort of fuels those creative juices and those insights that allow you to chart the future and bring people along with you.”
In December 2022, Antonoff lastly walked throughout the stage and added one long-awaited line to her résumé: B.A., UC Berkeley. By the next Might, she had been named COO of Life360—and inside two years, CEO.
