Simon van Teutem is a 27-year-old Dutch author, journalist, and Oxford graduate who has become a prominent voice in the global debate over how and why Gen Z talent ends up in elite corporate jobs that often feel unfulfilling. Instead of accepting lucrative offers from McKinsey and Morgan Stanley after graduation, he chose a different path: investigating the psychological, social and economic forces that steer the smartest students into a narrow set of careers.
The turning point: leaving the corporate fast track
Van Teutem studied politics and economics at Oxford University, where he saw his peers funnelled into consulting, investment banking and corporate law. What troubled him most was not the prestige of these paths but how inevitable they felt. In interviews, he has said that most students believed they had limitless choices but still selected from the same small handful of firms. After internships at BNP Paribas, Morgan Stanley and McKinsey, he realised that he too had become part of this pattern and decided to step away before it consumed his future ambitions.
The Bermuda Triangle of Talent
His book, The Bermuda Triangle of Talent (2025), explores what he calls the gravitational pull of prestige. Drawing on more than 200 interviews with graduates, recruiters and behavioural economists, he argues that young, highly educated professionals are taught to chase status, safety and constant advancement. Many plan to spend only a couple of years in high-pressure roles before switching to something more meaningful but rarely escape. As salaries rise and lifestyles expand, leaving becomes harder, and work that once seemed temporary becomes the entire career.
Investigating the insecure overachiever
Van Teutem’s key concept is the insecure overachiever, a person conditioned to measure success by continual validation. He says elite firms understand that mindset better than anyone, offering sophisticated but ultimately shallow challenges. He is not anti-corporate. Rather, his work highlights the opportunity cost when some of the world’s brightest minds spend decades producing slide decks or restructuring deals instead of solving public problems.Alongside journalism at the Dutch platform De Correspondent, van Teutem is pursuing a doctorate in politics at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. His early experience inside major financial and consulting firms provides the firsthand insight that underpins his critique. His aim is to reveal the invisible forces behind career choices, not to shame anyone who makes them.
