![](\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/GettyImages-2208724209-e1766158061847.jpg?w=2048\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
As some Gen Z graduates find themselves iced out of the job market, millions have slipped into so-called NEET status (not in employment, education, or training), unclear as to when their careers will finally be able to take off. For Roblox CEO David Baszucki, that sense of professional drift is familiar.<\/p>\n
Although today he helms the $60 billion video game platform\u2014and has a $5 billion net worth to go with it\u2014when he graduated from Stanford University in 1985, he said his career prospects were anything but clear.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Like today\u2019s aspiring professionals, it was tempting for him to lean on the advice of mentors, professors, or friends to figure out how to jump-start his career. But Baszucki warns that mindset could leave you worse off. In fact, looking back, he says the best advice he ever received was to actually stop overvaluing what others think.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of my development has been trying to, over time, ignore advice I\u2019ve been given,\u201d Baszucki recalled to students at his alma mater. Instead, when you\u2019re having a rough time, listen when people say, \u201cTrust your gut.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even though Stanford has a reputation as a launchpad for billion-dollar companies\u2014from Snapchat to Databricks\u2014Baszucki hit a wall after graduation. His dream job didn\u2019t materialize, and his r\u00e9sum\u00e9 was thin: One of his only work experiences was window-cleaning with his brother one summer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can remember in this terrible time right out of college trying to figure out what I was going to do,\u201d Baszucki shared with an audience of Stanford business students.<\/p>\n
\u201cRather than trusting my intuition, I can remember having a spreadsheet of nine potential careers and then all these metrics\u2014\u2018it\u2019s really good for this, but it\u2019s not so good for this.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was, like, a really weird way to try to figure out your career,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
It was then that Baszucki first learned about the need to trust your own instincts. <\/p>\n
After landing a postgrad salaried role, Baszucki spent the next two or three years in what he now calls the \u201cabsolute worst jobs in the world\u201d where he faced \u201cmassive disappointment.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Eventually, he took a step back to listen to his gut\u2014and the reset paid off. Baszucki went on to carve his own path and create Knowledge Revolution, an educational software company that sold for $20 million in 1998. After the sale, he expected to get poached for a CEO job. When he didn\u2019t, he found himself once again adrift and needing to forge his own path.<\/p>\n
\u201cTime and time again, you have to participate in making your own reality,\u201d he told Fortune<\/em> earlier this year.<\/p>\n A few years later, he began building what would become Roblox, now a global gaming platform with over 150 million daily active users.\u00a0<\/p>\n Fortune <\/em>reached out to Roblox for further comment.<\/p>\n During a time when data and data-driven decision-making is all the rage in the workplace, leaning on intuition might sound misguided. However, many executives still lean on their instincts to guide even major business decisions.<\/p>\n \u201cBe able to balance a lot of different people\u2019s opinions, but at the end of the day, you have to have your own conviction deep down and make decisions for yourself,\u201d LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky said when asked to give career advice.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to know what\u2019s right, you have to care about what\u2019s right, to be passionate about what\u2019s right,\u201d Roslansky added. \u201cAnd if you\u2019re going to put yourself out there and decide to dive into the crowd, it should be because you want to \u2026 not because someone else is telling you to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n Skims cofounder and CEO Jens Grede also recently echoed the importance of trusting your gut\u2014as long as you exercise it.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can feed [intuition] by being a curious person,\u201d Grede said on his wife Emma\u2019s Aspire<\/em> podcast. \u201cYour gut is really your collective memory, your collective experience and learnings \u2026 Every book you read, every article, every conversation, every wrong or right decision you\u2019ve made, that becomes your gut.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Roblox #CEO #David #Baszucki #window #cleaner #billionaire #tech #leader #secret #success #trusting #gut<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As some Gen Z graduates find t… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5286,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[4892,2375,2005,1979,542,529,624,4894,4891,300,4896,2045,4378,3611,1609,953,4895,4876,4890,1981,4893],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5285"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The best career advice: Trust your own instincts<\/h2>\n