How Gen Z Can Get Rich in 2025: Crypto, Startups, and Wealth Hacks
A deep dive with Alban Jerome, strategic wealth architect and GP at Tasenda Capital, revealing how Gen Z can build generational wealth through unconventional strategies, startup investments, and understanding family office dynamics in an AI-first world
The greatest wealth transfer in human history is happening right now. Over $100 trillion is moving from older generations to younger ones in the next 5-8 years. While most people are chasing quick wins and crypto moonshots, the real opportunity lies in understanding how wealth actually works at the highest levels.
Today's guest has cracked the code on something most financial advisors never see: the inner workings of family offices and generational wealth preservation. Meet Alban Jerome, a strategic architect who advises ultra-high-net-worth families and serves as General Partner at Tasenda Capital, where he's invested in 60+ startups in just five years.
His unconventional journey from event management to wealth advisory reveals the hidden patterns of how real wealth is built, preserved, and transferred—insights that could reshape how Gen Z approaches money in an AI-first world.
Key Takeaways: The New Rules of Wealth Building
The Wealth Transfer Opportunity:
- $100+ trillion transferring to younger generations in next 5-8 years
- Traditional wealth managers unprepared for Gen Z clients
- Massive opportunity for those who understand both sides
Investment Strategy Revolution:
- Family offices experiencing 74% cybersecurity breach rate due to resistance to change
- Immigrant and outsider founders disrupting traditional industries
- Infrastructure plays over speculative investments (Web3 building blocks, not altcoins)
AI's Impact on Wealth Management:
- Data and research becoming commoditized
- Human wisdom, diplomacy, and narrative building remain irreplaceable
- Those who master AI tools will replace those who don't
Q: Your journey from event management to advising generational wealth is unconventional. How did this transition happen?
Alban: Honestly, my journey into investing and advising was completely accidental. I started with an MBA in event management and got some incredible projects - I did Rahul Dravid's farewell, Microsoft tech events, even movie launches. But the crazy working hours made me realize I needed to specialize.
I somehow found a job selling telecom collaboration tools, which gave me my first exposure to global markets. I was this kid from Bangalore suddenly selling to MNCs in New York and the UK. I discovered something about myself - I love working in niche industries where no one's heard of the industry.
Then a friend introduced me to a neuroscience startup, and I learned about neuroplasticity and decision-making science. This completely changed how I understand people behavior, especially critical thinkers like founders and investors. I discovered that investors and founders have very unique personality overlaps - they love experimental tools built for performance and growth.
🔥 ChaiNet's Hot Take: The most valuable skill isn't technical expertise - it's pattern recognition across industries. Alban's diverse background lets him see connections others miss.
Q: You mentioned that 74% of family offices have experienced cybersecurity breaches. How do you explain this paradox of having breaches but still resisting technological change?
Alban: You have to understand the context. Family offices believe in having control - they're not moving their wealth to wealth management firms, they're managing their own money. They prefer to manage everything A to Z with their own ecosystem.
But there's also a generational gap. People who started managing this wealth did it on maybe Outlook, Microsoft, and they've used the same password for 45 different accounts. The guy running their tech is usually someone they knew for 20 years - probably the first person to install a PC in their office.
These guys are battle tested, don't get me wrong. But they're not cybersecurity experts. When they first have a breach, they make assumptions like "I used the wrong password" or "I left the door unlocked." They don't usually look at it as a systematic problem.
🔥 ChaiNet's Hot Take: Legacy wealth's biggest vulnerability isn't market crashes - it's digital literacy. The families who adapt fastest to new security protocols will preserve wealth better than those clinging to old systems.
Q: How do you convince someone that the very thing that made them successful might be their biggest threat?
Alban: You don't want to go in and frame it as saying you're wrong or you're missing the train. You frame it as "what got you here won't get you there."
A lot of change resistance happens because they're not familiar with new markets or technologies. I still remember someone telling me, "If I'm going to invest globally, can I just go to the Cayman Islands?" And I'm like, "Yeah, but they don't really exist the way you think they exist anymore."
We work with them to understand what their idea of the future is. Wealth preservation means something unique to each family. For some, it's holding onto the family brand - like how the Tatas ran Tata Group for years until they brought someone else in because there was no Tata to run it. For others, it's giving opportunities for the next generation to do whatever they want.
Sometimes this means asking tough questions like: "Are you really sure this is what your future should look like?"
🔥 ChaiNet's Hot Take: The hardest conversations create the most value. Challenging assumptions isn't confrontation - it's clarification of what truly matters for the next generation.
Q: Can you share an example of one of these uncomfortable conversations?
Alban: I had a client - a multi-jurisdictional family with wealth in different parts of the world. The grandfather built an amazing manufacturing business in Pune, but all the grandkids are based in North America. None living in India who can take over.
But the grandfather was convinced: "My grandkids are going to fly down and live in India, in the same 12-bedroom house I built 35 years ago."
I asked him: "When is the last time they visited you for a long period?" Then I said: "You've built an amazing empire, dealt with every market change, every tariff, every licensing raj. But your grandkids are living in a digital world. They don't understand your language. If your empire doesn't evolve to fit their world, it becomes junk in the attic. Are you willing to accept that as a legacy?"
He wasn't happy initially. But after more conversations, he came back asking: "What can I do so my grandkids still run my company?" It boiled down to - he didn't want a manager running the firm. He just wanted his grandkids to own his legacy, even if they weren't living in the same country. He wanted them to be owners, not necessarily operators.
🔥 ChaiNet's Hot Take: Legacy isn't about control - it's about continuity. The families who understand this distinction are the ones who successfully transfer wealth across generations.
Q: You describe yourself as seeking "structural blind spots" that others overlook. What does this mean in practice?
Alban: I avoid chasing hype. When I talk to a client, I look for what I call structural blind spots that others overlook because they look very niche, very early market, or too complex.
When you're dealing with risk-averse clients, especially in legacy wealth, you can't say "this is new, this is shiny." You have to look at asymmetric advantages - something that might seem obscure and small, not even geographically connected to the larger picture, and say "this is a pivot point, a leverage point that will change the playing field."
Interestingly, however conservative somebody is, they always look for the next advantage. Most of them made their money being the first person in a new market or leveraging that first relationship.
We look at regulatory gaps no one's examined, asset classes no one's worked with, and what others call insignificant market trends. We don't have a catalog of offerings for everybody - we do it very bespoke, very unique to each person's requirements.
🔥 ChaiNet's Hot Take: The biggest opportunities hide in plain sight, disguised as "too niche" or "too early." While everyone chases obvious trends, fortunes are built in the overlooked corners of emerging markets.
Q: You've invested in 60+ startups in five years through Tasenda Capital. Why specifically target immigrant and underrepresented founders?
Alban: It started partly because when I first came to Canada, I was an immigrant myself. But there's a deeper strategic reason: it's often the immigrant entrepreneur who's looking to change markets - the outsider looking at an industry saying "I can do this differently and better."
For every startup we invest in, we turn away 20-30 of them. We go very early and look at niche industries. Some of the coolest investments: underwater drones that operate in Canada's cold weather, a biotech company doing dissolvable micro needles that release medicine over delayed time periods.
Take Henry Ford - he built his industry by hiring people who were competent but outsiders to the industry. The way we make plated glass industrially today was built by people who had never stepped foot in a glass factory.
Or look at Elon Musk - he's not a rocket scientist, not an automotive engineer, but he's shaken up two different markets because as an outsider, he sees things without falling into the traps others have.
🔥 ChaiNet's Hot Take: Outsider perspective isn't a disadvantage - it's a superpower. The most disruptive innovations come from people who don't know what's "impossible" in an industry.
Q: You built a 200,000-person community in Bangalore. How does that experience help with exclusive wealth management circles?
Alban: First, I can't take full credit - I worked with a team of people. We had a common goal: not building a large community, but doing right by the few people we knew and helping them through critical growth phases.
Bangalore has an advantage as India's startup capital - we were spoiled for choice. There's literally a place in HSR where they say if you throw a stone, you hit 20 entrepreneurs.
We realized you don't have to sell anything to make a community great. You just need to bring value and connection, and momentum builds from there. It's compound interest - trust brings more people, more people means better quality skills in the ecosystem, and that balloons the community.
We weren't building anything artificial - we were nurturing organic growth like farmers. Prune the unwanted parts, nourish what's working well. That translates to wealth management: find the right places to put capital and take things out of places that aren't helping the bigger picture.
🔥 ChaiNet's Hot Take: Community building and wealth management operate on the same principle: create genuine value first, optimize for long-term relationships over short-term gains, and let compound effects do the heavy lifting.
Q: Looking at wealth management through an AI lens, what traditional functions will completely disappear?
Alban: Once upon a time, wealth management was successful because they were gatekeepers to knowledge and information. Today, AI has completely eroded that barrier. You can ask ChatGPT for market recommendations, predictions for next month - the predictions are close enough that you can figure it out.
Research teams are basically jobless now because ChatGPT does that job. So you need to look at the next set of skills:
First: The wisdom to know what's the right signal at the right time for that particular client - having discretion in knowing which is the right thing.
Second: Diplomacy. AI can give you data but can't get stakeholders in a room aligned on logic that matters to them. You need diplomatic skills to charm people into agreeing with you.
Third: Narrative building. Everyone has their personal journey and goals. You need to find a common future people can commit to and build towards. AI can tell you what's possible based on data, but humans decide what's desirable and what makes us tick.
🔥 ChaiNet's Hot Take: Data is becoming commoditized, but wisdom is becoming more valuable. The future belongs to those who can transform information into insight and insight into action.
Q: How can analysts and consultants stay relevant when AI handles most analytical work?
Alban: AI is not going to take away your job. Someone who knows how to use AI is going to take away your job. So become an expert on all the AI tools coming out as soon as possible.
An analyst looks at thousands of data streams, and AI can make it easier to grasp. But when it comes to making recommendations and finding hidden gems, it's human intuition - because all this data reflects another human's activity across multiple industries. AI can't connect those emotional decision-making factors.
Case in point: we had a guy in the Philippines so irritated with a customer care person in India that he canceled his entire export contract. AI can't predict that. It took another person to call back and say, "I know you're upset with that team, but don't worry, we'll handle this." But that disruption cost a supply chain guy hundreds of thousands because someone else was charging higher.
Always keep the human element because you need to understand that emotional triggers create all this data.
🔥 ChaiNet's Hot Take: The future of consulting isn't human vs. AI - it's humans with AI vs. humans without AI. Master the tools, but never lose sight of the human psychology driving all the numbers.
Q: You say "work quietly with intent" versus "move fast and break things." How does this approach help?
Alban: When Steve Jobs says move fast and break things, I don't think he meant break things loudly. His message is valid - we tell founders we don't care if you have a crappy MVP. If you're embarrassed with your MVP three months after launch because it's bad, that's normal and expected.
But "work quietly with intent" means focus on building and creating. Don't fall into the trap of performative work - do impactful work. Don't announce you built 30,000 lines of code today; just get results to market.
Our industry is wealth management - we can't put a list of all our clients anywhere because it's confidential. Our business is always keep things quiet, under the radar, and give great returns. We don't advise on what to invest in, but we create pathways for clients to make the best investments within their tax structures.
🔥 ChaiNet's Hot Take: In a world of constant noise and social media performance, quiet execution becomes a competitive advantage. Results speak louder than announcements.
Q: What's your hardest truth you've told a traditional business leader?
Alban: The most common and hardest thing is telling a business leader: "You should get out of the business you've built for the last 20 years because it's dying."
Remember shorthand? People used to be professionally licensed typists who had to learn it. My dad had books on this. People ran schools for this - you had to be licensed to get jobs as typists and clerks. Today, that's an antiquated job.
When we see clients in industries heading toward obsolescence in the next 2-3 years, if they don't pivot or exit, we have tough conversations: "You brought us in for the right advice. Our advice is this is where your business and wealth is heading."
We don't tell them to sell. We say maybe it's time to reinvest that asset into a different asset class. Some choose to sell, some pivot their entire company. It becomes very personal because it hits people's core identity.
🔥 ChaiNet's Hot Take: The businesses that survive aren't necessarily the strongest - they're the most adaptable. Sometimes the greatest act of preservation is knowing when to let go.
Q: You've launched Numxa, an AI-first accounting platform. Why build this?
Alban: We realized while managing wealth management clients that they were still using older accounting models built decades ago. Everyone slapped AI onto existing products as features, but no one built accounting from scratch for an AI world.
We launched Numxa in mid-July - it's free accounting and bookkeeping software at numxa.galton.com. It's simple, multicurrency, multi-jurisdiction. We're keeping it free because that's not our main business.
It helps companies streamline accounting for tax purposes, especially in North America. There are grants giving tax credits for startups like SRED, but people don't get them because their bookkeeping is so bad they can't compile reports. We built Numxa with that in mind - if you want to scale up in an AI-first world, your tools should be AI-first.
🔥 ChaiNet's Hot Take: The most valuable products solve problems their creators personally experienced. Building tools for your own ecosystem creates authentic product-market fit.
Final Thoughts: The New Wealth Playbook
The bottom line: We're living through the greatest wealth transfer in history, but most people are playing by old rules. The families and individuals who understand that preservation requires evolution, that outsider perspective drives innovation, and that AI amplifies human wisdom rather than replacing it - these are the ones who will build and maintain generational wealth.
Whether you're Gen Z looking to build wealth, a founder seeking investment, or someone trying to understand how money really moves at the highest levels, the key insight is this: true wealth isn't about having money - it's about understanding the systems that create, preserve, and transfer value across generations.
The opportunities are massive, but they require thinking differently about risk, relationships, and what it means to be "conservative" with money in a rapidly changing world.
Q: How can people connect with you and learn more about wealth building strategies?
Alban: I'm active on LinkedIn - that's the best place to connect and see what I'm working on professionally. You can also check out our free accounting platform at numxa.galton.com if you're building a business and need AI-first financial tools.
For those interested in understanding wealth management and family office dynamics, I'm always open to sharing insights about how these systems really work behind the scenes.
Final words: The wealth transfer happening right now isn't just about money changing hands - it's about entirely new approaches to building, managing, and preserving value. The question isn't whether traditional wealth management will change, but whether you'll be part of creating the new systems or left behind by them.