Leaders like Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon say experience trumps everything in business—including brains. But Ricardo Amper, the founder and CEO of $1.25 billion software company Incode Technologies, believes Gen Z’s naivety is a professional blessing rather than a career curse.
“My belief [is] that coming out with a fresh mind, first principles, is important. That’s why young people are particularly helpful in tech, because they’re less biased,” he tells Fortune. “I think too much knowledge is actually bad in tech: you’re biased.”
The Gen X entrepreneur knows exactly what talent he needs after spending more than two decades founding and leading companies to unicorn status. In 2000, Amper founded social network company La Burbuja Networks.
And just a couple of years later, he had a hit on his hands: the Mexico City-raised businessman launched functional beverage company AMCO Foods in 2003, and scaled it to a top market contender. The biggest bread company in the world, $263 billion titan Grupo Bimbo, acquired AMCO Foods in 2004.
Amper marked his third stint as a founder in 2015 when he launched AI-powered identity verification business Incode. For the past 25 years, he’s had a front-row seat in testing out what employee qualities drive success.
