In Chapter 11 of 16 in his 2010 Capture Your Flag interview, University of Pennsylvania graduate Slava Rubin answers "What Were Your Career Ambitions Entering the University of Pennsylvania and How Did They Change By the Time You Graduated?" Rubin highlights how his career goals changed while attending the undergraduate Wharton School business program. While studying abroad in Belgium, Rubin rethinks his values and finds he is less interested in Wall Street banking work. Leaving behind his high school ambition to be the next "Wall Street" Gordon Gekko Michael Douglas character, Rubin instead secures a management consulting job and begins his career.
Slava Rubin is CEO and co-founder of Indiegogo, the world's largest crowdfunding platform. Indiegogo empowers anyone, anywhere, anytime to raise funds for any idea—creative, cause-related or entrepreneurial. Prior to Indiegogo, Rubin worked as a management consultant. He earned his BSE degree from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Transcript:
Erik Michielsen: What were your career ambitions entering The University of Pennsylvania and how did that change by the time you graduated?
Slava Rubin: When I was applying to colleges I was pretty sure I knew what I wanted to do in life. I wanted to be pretty rich, pretty powerful. I wanted to be a banker and I kind of wanted to be in that Wall Street role, you know ``Wall Street`` the movie with Michael Douglas. And as I went to Penn I was surround, I think, by a lot of those characters. I actually went to Wharton Undergrad, which is a lot of cutthroat individuals and I actually figured out that I wasn't as cutthroat and desiring the money and the power as the people around me, which was kind of surprising. That, along with my Belgium experience just taught me maybe I don’t want to be doing exactly what all these other people want to be doing. Which, don`t get me wrong I didn't turn into a quote in quote a liberal arts fluffy job person, I became a strategy consultant, which is not so far away from being a banker. It was pretty important to figure out what my values were and I think college, I learned a lot about that.