The scoop on Gen-Z and how they are rewriting the rules of the Internet

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Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.

Welcome to an old-school Equity tradition: the bonus show! Despite getting through our regular episodes this week, we have one more for you. Why the extra edition? Because Battery Ventures dropped an interesting report on Gen-Z and I wanted to talk about it.

So, I got Courtney Chow, a vice president at Battery and one of the report’s authors to chat with me about it. You can read the report itself here.

This is what we got into:

• The fracturing of culture: Gen-Z is large, and very diverse. The trend away from monolithic cultural primacy that began years ago has accelerated with the generation, making culture itself more personal, and more distinct. For startups, this means branding will become a different challenge if they want to reach this demographic slice.
• Everything is short-form video: Given massive usage of TikTok by Gen-Z and the popularity of other platforms that feature short-form video, we were curious how smaller companies can compete with incumbents that already have a Reels strategy, if you will.
• Ethical capitalism: One of the most interesting areas of the Battery report was its notes on how entrepreneurial Gen-Z is, and how diverse they are. Gen-Z also has expectations around goods and services they purchase relating to the actions of the companies behind the sale. So, if you want to sell to Gen-Z, you might need to care about climate change, for example.

Gone are the days when millennials were the punching bag of media, blamed for this, and blamed for that. Now we are ____

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, and we’ll chat Monday!

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