Sebastian Leon Martinez had pounded the pavement for New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani from frigid 23-degree cold snaps in January to the 100-degree day in June when the young democratic socialist stunned the political establishment by winning the primary for the Democratic nomination.
That night, Martinez, a 20-year-old NYU student, found himself “sweaty, laughing, incredibly tired” at Mamdani’s victory party in Queens. It was a “monumental” moment, Martinez told me a week later. “A lot of people around me were crying and laughing,” he recalled. “Talking about how we’ve changed the political system, not only in New York City, but probably for the entire Democratic Party in the country.”
But as the 33-year-old candidate’s supporters cheered Mamdani’s win, business titans from Wall Street to Silicon Valley slid into panic mode at the thought of a socialist running New York City. Hedge fund billionaire Daniel Loeb warned of a “hot commie summer” in a post on X. Fellow billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman pledged to bankroll any New York City mayoral candidate capable of defeating Mamdani.
Is Gen Z rejecting capitalism outright, some wondered, as their millennial counterparts tried to do with the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011? Could Mamdani’s win spark a full embrace of socialism by the next generation, fulfilling dire predictions about the imminent demise of “late capitalism”?
In a word: no. That’s what I heard in a series of conversations with members of Gen Z and those who study them in the business and political spheres. Most scoffed at the notion that young people are rejecting capitalism on a large scale, or planning any kind of a revolution.
“We’re not seeing young people go live on communes,” said Shana Gadarian, a professor of political science at Syracuse University. “They’re working at banks, they’re starting gig economies, they’re working in high tech. If that’s not capitalism, I’m not clear what would be.”
If there’s a message for political and business leaders to glean from the youth movement buoying Mamdani, it’s perhaps a simpler one: Stop bullshitting us.
“What Gen Z is asking for is honesty,” explained Ziad Ahmed, the 26-year-old head of United Talent Agency’s Gen Z–focused marketing advisory practice, Next Gen. “If the world is on fire, tell me the world is on fire. Don’t tell me that actually, you might like the heat.”
I heard over and over that young people are deeply “discontented” or “disillusioned” with the status quo. Saad Amer, a New York–based climate activist and founder of the sustainability consultancy Justice Environment, said the next generation has been told a “fable” of how to succeed in America.
“What Gen Z is asking for is honesty. If the world is on fire, tell me the world is on fire. Don’t tell me that actually, you might like the heat.”
Ziad Ahmed, Head of Next Gen at United Talent Agency
“Young people are sold the story of, ‘Go to school, get good grades, go to college, and then you’ll get a great job, and you’ll own a home, and you’ll have a family,’” Amer said. “I look around at my peers, and that’s not true for any single one of them.” Instead, he said, he sees people “stuck in careers that they find unfulfilling—and that are also having disastrous impacts on their mental health and the planet at large. It’s clear that what we’re being told isn’t true.”
It’s not just liberal Gen Zers who feel this way. Rachel Janfaza, the 27-year-old founder of youth political culture newsletter The Up and Up, regularly holds listening sessions with young voters across the country. She has seen similar frustrations on the Republican side of the aisle, she said.
“I’ve certainly heard young people on the right who are very anti-billionaire and antiestablishment talk in the same way that we hear young people on the left,” she said. “This type of rhetoric exists on both sides. And I think there are a lot of similarities in why Trump resonates with young people and why perhaps Mamdani resonated with young people.”
Janfaza boils it down to one key issue: economic anxiety. And it’s not just in their heads. The average age of first-time U.S. homebuyers hit a record high last year at 38. In the country’s 30 largest metros, more than half of Gen Z renters are rent-burdened, spending more than 30% of their income on rent, Zillow found. And nearly a quarter of millennials and Gen Zers without children do not plan to become parents, primarily owing to financial stress, according to a recent report from MassMutual.
It’s no wonder, then, that instead of career politicians, Gen Zers are embracing outsider candidates who speak bluntly to this economic anxiety—a strength of Mamdani’s, and arguably Trump’s too. They’re done with dated rhetoric, PR talking points, and leaders “siloing themselves in boardrooms” instead of meeting Gen Zers where they are, Ahmed told me.
Business leaders, take note. Members of Gen Z aren’t just craving real talk—and action—from politicians; they’re also demanding it of their CEOs. Younger workers want the same things previous generations wanted: fair pay, rewarding work, mentorship, job security, a clear and fair path to advancement—and they’re not going to be content with kombucha-filled fridges or other office perks. This is a generation that has grown up with school shootings so frequent they’ve become normalized, with massive student debt, and in the shadow of a looming climate crisis. Of course they are demanding change—both from their politicians and their employers.
Charlene Li, an author who advises companies on digital transformation, told me that the two key value for Gen Z workers are honesty and fairness. Both require transparency: Leaders need to clearly state how success is measured and offer concrete opportunities and financial rewards to employees who meet these measures, she says.
Bleak outlook
Gen Z can’t take for granted the life milestones older generations expected to hit.
38 The record-high average age of first-time U.S. homebuyers in 2024
23%
Percentage of childless Millennials and Gen Zers who don’t plan to become parents, primarily for financial reasons Sources: National Association of Realtors; MassMutual
The word “purpose” is frequently used by consultancies and business advisors to describe what Gen Z truly wants in a workplace. But what does that look like in practice? At the Fortune Workplace Innovation Summit in May, Ahmed told me that workers should understand the “why” behind every business decision. Managers must clearly articulate their reasoning—to both their workers and customers, he said. “I don’t think it has to be as lofty as changing the world, because Gen Z also has a huge bullshit filter, and doesn’t want you to say that you stand for everything if you don’t,” Ahmed said. “Authenticity is everything.”
A good starting point would be a more straightforward discussion of diversity and equity, Li says. Instead of relying upon box-checking or acronyms such as DEI, she advises business leaders to take a hard look at the demographics of who is getting promotions and raises, and to think critically about company—and C-suite—makeup: “That’s what people are looking for, not just Gen Z,” she said. “We’re looking for some authenticity between what you have on your walls and on your websites and how you actually show up.”
Business leaders also need to listen to younger workers—their complaints, thoughts, and opinions about the business and the world. That doesn’t mean you need to hold a town hall tomorrow on the merits of Marxism, but it does require a certain level of respect and thoughtfulness, even for views that leaders disagree with.
“For Gen Z, politics are very personal,” Li said. “Work is going to be deeply personal to them. This is not something where they want to go in and just check off the list. So will you be ready to take that energy and bottle it and direct it?”
Mamdani’s win seems to have brought to the surface generational tensions and anxieties that had been simmering long before he became a political celebrity.
Elizabeth Spiers, a progressive digital strategist and journalist, said political and business leaders tend to conflate younger generations’ criticism of economic systems with political extremism. “They sort of treat capitalism like it’s a sacred cow that can never be spoken of in anything less than glowing terms,” Spiers said. But the precarities that young people face are real, she said: “They’ve grown up in an economic environment where a lot of those myths have sort of fallen apart in front of them.”
Addressing the disillusionment of young people who see corporate hierarchies as fundamentally unfair will take more than just better workplace communication; young people are also demanding real action to improve their economic prospects, both from politicians and from the business world.
Amer, who advises Fortune 500 C-suite executives on climate impact, said he has been “seeing the fear” in business leaders’ eyes when talking about how to work with and engage a young workforce.
“These corporations do have a role that they should be playing, and I think they are actively trying to figure out the role,” he said. “But to the younger generation, the role seems obvious: Do better.”
This articleappears in the August/September issue of Fortune with the headline “Gen Z’s wake-up call to corporate America.”
A bystander who rushed and disarmed one of the Bondi Beach attackers has won praise from leaders around the world, including US President Donald Trump and hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman, who announced a reward program for community heroes.
Extraordinary footage of the civilian’s actions began circulating on social media on Sunday, shortly after two men, later identified as a father and son, started shooting into a crowd gathered to celebrate the first day of Hanukkah. The massacre has left at least 16 people dead in the worst terrorist attack in Australia’s history.
In the mobile-phone video, which has not been verified by Bloomberg News, one of the attackers is standing near a tree and firing. A few meters away, a crouched man emerges from behind a parked car. He grabs the shooter from behind and wrestles the weapon from his hands. Local media named the bystander as Ahmed el Ahmed, a 43-year-old father-of-two from south Sydney. He was shot twice and is being treated in the hospital, according to reports.
He was also soon lauded for his feat. Trump said at the White House that Ahmed had saved many lives and expressed “great respect” for him. In Sydney, New South Wales Premier Chris Minns went further, describing Ahmed’s wrestle with the shooter as “the most unbelievable scene I’ve ever seen.”
“That man is a genuine hero and I’ve got no doubt there are many, many people alive tonight as a result of his bravery,” Minns said at a press conference late Sunday.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also praised Ahmed, and other bystanders who helped treat victims in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.
“People rushing towards danger to show the best of the Australian character,” Albanese told reporters Monday. “That’s who we are, people who stand up for our values.”
Pershing Square Capital Management’s founder Ackman called Ahmed “a brave hero” and said his hedge fund firm would establish a reward program for people who had carried out similar acts.
The top donor to a gofundme page set up for the “hero” who tackled the shooter is listed as William Ackman, who gave $99,999. More than $170,000 has been raised so far.
Salesforce Inc. Founder and Chief Executive Officer Marc Benioff also expressed his gratitude for Ahmed in a post on X.
Next year should mark a shift in the housing market after years of largely being frozen in place, according to Mike Simonsen, chief economist at top residential real estate brokerage Compass.
Home sales flatlined amid unaffordable conditions after rising demand collided with tepid supply growth, pushing up home prices. Would-be buyers became so discouraged that demand cooled and remains slow.
Prices are now becoming more favorable for house hunters, a trend that should continue in 2026 and change the narrative in the housing market.
“In the next era, that story flips. So sales are starting to move higher, but prices are capped or maybe down. Incomes are rising faster than prices, and so affordability improves for the first time in a bunch of years,” Simonsen told CNBC on Friday. “It’s not a dramatic improvement, but it’s the start of the new era.”
His view echoes a recent report from Redfin, which also cited stronger income and weaker homes prices as it predicted a “Great Housing Reset” in 2026.
In addition to potential buyers giving up on finding an affordable home, sellers have been giving up on finding someone willing to buy at the price they want.
As a result, the number of homes that were withdrawn from the market jumped this year. In June, these so-called delistings shot up 47% from a year earlier.
Simonsen said listing withdrawals tend to be owner-occupied homes, meaning they could be latent demand as well as supply. That’s because two transactions would be needed: owners want to buy a new home but must sell their current one.
“In an environment where conditions improve a little bit, we actually estimate that that’s a representation of shadow demand—people that want to move, people that have delayed moves for maybe four years now,” he said, adding that there are about 150,000 such homeowners.
His housing market outlook for a new era of improving affordability doesn’t depend on a steep drop in mortgage rates. In fact, a plunge might spur so much demand that prices would overheat.
Simonsen expects rates to stay in the low-6% range, allowing sales to grow while also keeping home prices in check as more inventory comes on the market.
The price environment is already showing auspicious signs for prospective buyers. More than half of U.S. homes have dropped in value over the last year, but homeowners can still sell with a net gain as values are up a median 67% since their home’s last sale, accordion to data from Zillow.
And a separate report fromZillow found that homebuyers are getting record-high discounts. While the typical individual discount remains $10,000, desperate sellers are increasingly offering multiple reductions as muted demand leaves homes on the market for longer. As a result, the cumulative price cut in October hit $25,000.
“Most homeowners have seen their home values soar over the past several years, which gives them the flexibility for a price cut or two while still walking away with a profit,” Zillow Senior Economist Kara Ng said in a statement last month. “These discounts are bringing more listings in line with buyers’ budgets, and helping fuel the most active fall housing market in three years. Patient buyers are reaping the rewards as the market continues to rebalance.”
A man who carried out an attack in Syria that killed three U.S. citizens had joined Syria’s internal security forces as a base security guard two months earlier and was recently reassigned amid suspicions that he might be affiliated with the Islamic State group, a Syrian official told The Associated Press Sunday.
The attack Saturday in the Syrian desert near the historic city of Palmyra killed two U.S. service members and one American civilian and wounded three others. It also wounded three members of the Syrian security forces who clashed with the gunman, interior ministry spokesperson Nour al-Din al-Baba said.
Al-Baba said that Syria’s new authorities had faced shortages in security personnel and had to recruit rapidly after the unexpected success of a rebel offensive last year that intended to capture the northern city of Aleppo but ended up overthrowing the government of former President Bashar Assad.
“We were shocked that in 11 days we took all of Syria and that put a huge responsibility in front of us from the security and administration sides,” he said.
The attacker was among 5,000 members who recently joined a new division in the internal security forces formed in the desert region known as the Badiya, one of the places where remnants of the Islamic State extremist group have remained active.
Attacker had raised suspicions
Al-Baba said the internal security forces’ leadership had recently become suspicious that there was an infiltrator leaking information to IS and began evaluating all members in the Badiya area.
The probe raised suspicions last week about the man who later carried out the attack, but officials decided to continue monitoring him for a few days to try to determine if he was an active member of IS and to identify the network he was communicating with if so, al-Baba said. He did not name the attacker.
At the same time, as a “precautionary measure,” he said, the man was reassigned to guard equipment at the base at a location where he would be farther from the leadership and from any patrols by U.S.-led coalition forces.
On Saturday, the man stormed a meeting between U.S. and Syrian security officials who were having lunch together and opened fire after clashing with Syrian guards, al-Baba said. The attacker was shot and killed at the scene.
Al-Baba acknowledged that the incident was “a major security breach” but said that in the year since Assad’s fall “there have been many more successes than failures” by security forces.
In the wake of the shooting, he said, the Syrian army and internal security forces “launched wide-ranging sweeps of the Badiya region” and broke up a number of alleged IS cells. The interior ministry said in a statement later that five suspects were arrested in the city of Palmyra.
The U.S. has had forces on the ground in Syria for over a decade, with a stated mission of fighting IS, with about 900 troops present there today.
Before Assad’s ouster, Washington had no diplomatic relations with Damascus and the U.S. military did not work directly with the Syrian army. Its main partner at the time was the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the country’s northeast.
That has changed over the past year. Ties have warmed between the administrations of U.S. President Donald Trump and Syrian interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa, the former leader of an Islamist insurgent group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham that used to be listed by Washington as a terrorist organization.
In November, al-Sharaa became the first Syrian president to visit Washington since the country’s independence in 1946. During his visit, Syria announced its entry into the global coalition against the Islamic State, joining 89 other countries that have committed to combating the group.
U.S. officials have vowed retaliation against IS for the attack but have not publicly commented on the fact that the shooter was a member of the Syrian security forces.
Critics of the new Syrian authorities have pointed to Saturday’s attack as evidence that the security forces are deeply infiltrated by IS and are an unreliable partner.
Mouaz Moustafa, executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, an advocacy group that seeks to build closer relations between Washington and Damascus, said that is unfair.
Despite both having Islamist roots, HTS and IS were enemies and often clashed over the past decade.
Among former members of HTS and allied groups, Moustafa, said, “It’s a fact that even those who carry the most fundamentalist of beliefs, the most conservative within the fighters, have a vehement hatred of ISIS.”
“The coalition between the United States and Syria is the most important partnership in the global fight against ISIS because only Syria has the expertise and experience to deal with this,” he said.
Later Sunday, Syria’s state-run news agency SANA reported that four members of the internal security forces were killed and a fifth was wounded after gunmen opened fire on them in the city of Maarat al-Numan in Idlib province.
It was not immediately clear who the gunmen were or whether the attack was linked to the Saturday’s shooting.
Politics8 years ago