What It Actually Takes to Lead a Brand Built on Youth Culture

There’s a version of leadership that assumes you can understand the future from a distance.

From reports. From briefings. From the right rooms.

And those inputs matter.

Last week, I was at the Semafor World Economy Summit — participating in conversations shaping how we think about global markets, power, and what comes next.

Hours later, I was at Coachella.

Same week. Same job. Very different signals.

Why both matter—especially if you serve the next generation

If you’re building a brand for Gen Z and Gen Alpha, you don’t get to choose one vantage point.

You need both:

• The rooms where ideas are debated, defined, and scaled

• And the environments where behavior shows up before it’s explained

Because younger generations don’t separate culture from commerce.

They move between them seamlessly.

You can’t outsource proximity

There’s a temptation in leadership to rely on interpretation.

To read the report.
To hear the summary.
To get the distilled version.

But if your customer is shaping culture in real time, secondhand insight isn’t enough.

You have to see it as it’s forming.

Not perfectly. Not neatly. But honestly.

In how people show up.
What they choose to engage with.
What they ignore completely.

Being early doesn’t look like strategy at first

Most of what becomes meaningful later doesn’t arrive clearly.

It’s fragmented.
Sometimes contradictory.
Easy to dismiss if you’re looking for certainty.

Which is why many brands wait.

They wait for validation.
For scale.
For something to “prove out.”

But by then, the opportunity isn’t the same.

The role of a CEO in this environment

Leading a brand built alongside youth isn’t just about decision-making.

It’s about pattern recognition—before patterns are obvious.

It’s about knowing when something matters
before it has language around it.

And that only happens if you’re willing to move between very different environments—and take both seriously.

Not as a contradiction.

But as a requirement.

Why this matters more now

The cycle between culture and commerce has compressed.

What resonates in one moment can move into product, partnership, or platform almost immediately.

Which means the distance between observing and acting has never been shorter.

The real work

The real work isn’t choosing where to spend time.

It’s understanding why each space matters—and how they connect.

Because if you’re building a brand meant to disrupt, not follow,
you can’t afford to show up late to either conversation.

And increasingly, the brands that stay relevant won’t be built for the next generation —
they’ll be built with them.

That’s the philosophy behind “Co-Created”, debuting May 12th.