Gen Z is now making up 1 / 4 of the worldwide workforce, however the brand new foundational demographic of the office is hardly a monolith. Toto Wolff, CEO and group principal of Mercedes-AMG Petronas System 1 Staff, believes it’s unfair to make assumptions about your entire era’s working habits.
Wolff is aware of first hand what it appears to be like wish to work with Gen Z staff. In the beginning of the 2025 F1 season—and following the departure of veteran driver Lewis Hamilton to Ferrari—Mercedes up to date its driver lineup, tapping 18-year-old Italian rookie Kimi Antonelli to affix the extra seasoned 27-year-old Briton George Russell. Mercedes, which has gained eight Constructors’ Championships and 9 Drivers’ Championships, introduced on Wednesday the group would stick to the pairing for the 2026 season.
Whereas the drivers could share a youthfulness that places them each within the Gen Z bucket, Wolff stated working with the pair helped him see the era as having a large number of skillsets and desires.
“I have two very different drivers: a young English gentleman and an Italian rock-and-roller,” Wolff advised Fortune. “I think it’s a bit unfair to say they’re all the same, that Gen Zs are all the same.”
“It’s about the human, about their personalities, about their strengths and weaknesses,” he added. “I really enjoy working with either of them.”
Gen Z has developed a nasty rap within the office, even deemed “unemployable” by New York College Stern College of Enterprise adjunct professor Suzy Welch. The era, which has weathered a worldwide pandemic and unsteady economic system throughout their early life, has adopted the stereotype of being lazy and unmotivated, because of the rise of tendencies like quiet quitting and profession minimalism which have younger employees setting clearer boundaries between their private {and professional} lives.
However from Gen Z’s perspective, regardless of being the second most educated era behind solely millennials, younger employees face AI’s risk to the labor market and “youngist” prejudices held amongst hiring managers with preconceived notions concerning the era.
Wolff’s recommendation for younger professionals
F1 drivers—numbering solely 20 within the sport and at the moment with a mean age of 27—will not be typical staff. However even working with younger elite athletes, Wolff believes everybody ought to take it just a little simpler on the era.
“I believe that we mustn’t pressurize Gen Z so much by, ‘You’ve got to find your purpose, your passion, and work hard,’” he stated. “It’s important to understand that when you’re young, your interest can change, and as long as you give it all you have with enthusiasm, then there’s a pretty good chance in terms of success.”
F1 drivers sometimes start their racing careers within the single-digits, driving go-karts earlier than working their method up the single-seat racing sequence, profitable sponsorship {dollars} and races. However committing to a profession earlier than one has even left grade faculty shouldn’t be the norm, Wolff stated.
“Nobody expects a 25-year-old to have found the ultimate goal or job,” he concluded. “It was in my end-of-20’s that I started to find out actually what I wanted.”
Wolff himself had a winding profession earlier than changing into high brass for Mercedes’ F1 group. The 53-year-old CEO started a racing profession in 1992, then gained his class within the Nürburgring 24 Hours, a touring automobile race, in 1994. However Wolff left racing that very same decade, founding funding firms Marchfifteen and Marchsixteen centered on expertise ventures. He purchased a stake within the Williams System One Staff in 2009, becoming a member of its board of administrators earlier than changing into government director of Mercedes’ F1 group in 2013. He’s the longest-tenured F1 group boss within the sport at the moment.
Wolff has gained a surge of followers within the U.S. because of the rise of System 1, due partially to the hit Netflix docuseries Drive to Survive, in addition to the Apple movie F1 launched earlier this 12 months.
“Five years ago, nobody would have stopped Toto Wolff on the street. Now people stopped him on the street,” Werner Brell, CEO of autosport multimedia firm Motorsport Community, advised Fortune. “That’s obviously so America, so Hollywood. I think to me, that’s an unexpected outcome of how the content side and the side of the storytelling has improved the sport.”
