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AIPROPX ReportFortune · 3h ago
31-year-old millionaire has zero sympathy for unemployed Gen Z’s ‘excuses’—he says ‘it is scarily easy’ to build a business and…
Timothy (or Tim) Armoo became a millionaire before turning 30. Now, as Gen Z blames a brutal job market and AI for their struggles, the millionaire entrepreneur isn’t having any of it—he says this is actually the easiest moment in history to get rich.
“It is scarily easy” to build wealth right now, Armoo told Fortune . “This is the greatest era of wealth creation ever. And it kind of pains me when a lot of young people are like, “I’m bored.” How can you be bored? This is the greatest technology ever in history, and you’re not obsessing over it.”
“In 2026, if you’re talking about the small things (that you can do to become successful), one of the most obvious things is to build relatively small projects with AI,” he added.
Armoo knows more than most what it’s like to make it, despite the odds being stacked against you. Sent to live with his grandmother in Ghana as a baby, he described the start of his life as “uncertain and dangerous.” When he finally moved back to London, home became a council estate in the middle of gang violence and knife crime.
Yet despite arriving in the U.K. with no money, no network, and years of instability behind him, Armoo started his first business —a tutoring service —at just 14, scaling it to 65 tutors within six weeks. By 17, he already had an acquisition under his belt: the sale of his publication, Entrepreneur Express, to Horizon Media. In 2017, while most of his university peers were out partying, he spent his second year founding Fanbytes, an influencer marketing agency that went on to land clients like the U.K. government, Deliveroo, and Samsung . Brainlabs acquired it in 2022 for an eight-figure sum, when Armoo was just 27.
Armoo is putting his money where his mouth is—$6.7 million of it
It’s no secret that Gen Z don’t want 9-to-5 jobs . Research, surveys, and snap polls have consistently revealed that the latest generation of workers want to be their own boss —and Armoo says AI has made that dream more achievable than ever. He’s put real money behind the claim, too.
“AI enables you to think of an idea and put it out into the world,” Armoo added. “And social media means that you don’t need to pay someone in order to do it. You just need to spend time on the platform and just keep posting.”
And he’s backing that up with cash. Armoo’s just launched Legon Fund , where he’s committed £5 million (around $6.7 million) of his own cash to fund AI startups founded by minority entrepreneurs.
“The reason I did that was that my wealth wave was social media,” he explained. “Now I think the wealth wave is AI, and I don’t want anyone to say, ‘Well, I had the idea, but I didn’t have the money to distribute it.’”
“So now, you have no excuse, because you can learn—ChatGPT and Claude are virtually free—and if you’ve got something that’s working, here’s the money to get more customers for it.”
Gen Z is giving up on corporate jobs entirely—and increasingly betting on themselves
Entry-level hiring has slowed sharply as companies lean on AI, and Gen Z graduates are applying to hundreds, sometimes thousands, of roles without a single offer to show for it. But, Armoo isn’t wrong: It’s perhaps never been easier to ditch the corporate ladder altogether and become your own boss.
A generation ago, creating a shop front and marketing your business would have required renting a physical space and splashing out on ad space in your local paper.
Now entrepreneurs don’t even need to leave home to build a website on Squarespace, sell directly to customers on TikTok , and catch up with contractors or clients anytime on Zoom.
Gen Zers, the oldest of whom were born in 1997, have barely known a world without those tools.
“There’s so much more infrastructure available for people who want to create things of their own,” says Natasha Stanley, head coach at careers site Careershifters.org, previously told Fortune , adding that there’s been a “democratization of access to the entrepreneurial world.”
Chase Gallagher, the 24-year-old founder of $1.5 million a year CMG Landscaping, echoed that starting a business is “easier now than ever before because 20 years ago we didn’t have this here”—while pointing to his phone. “This device has made me millions of dollars because it’s helped me market my business.”
And in fact, plenty of Gen Zers are already ahead of the curve: The second-fastest-growing job title among the generation is “founder,” according to LinkedIn . According to Intuit’s Entrepreneurship in 2026 report , 43% of Gen Z are considering starting a business in 2026—more than any other generation.
“My generation doesn’t want to go work a consulting or banking job. They don’t even want to be an astronaut anymore,” Steven Schwartz, the Gen Z founder and CEO of the creator-commerce platform Whop, previously told Fortune . “They want to make content online, they want to find customers online.”
His advice? “The biggest learning is you have to just start a business if you want to. You can’t be successful in business if you’re not starting a business. That’s step one,” Schwartz says, laughing. “So I think just doing it is a huge thing and not really worrying about, ‘What if this doesn’t work?’ Because like, what if it does work?”
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