National Bestselling Author and Rutgers–Camden Professor Thomas Fewer on Why Meaningful Work Matters More Than Ever

As rapid technological change, economic uncertainty, and shifting career expectations reshape the future of work, many people are rethinking what success means and how to build a meaningful career. In The Mission Generation: Reclaim Your Purpose, Rewrite Success, Rebuild Our Future Rutgers School of Business–Camden Assistant Professor Thomas Fewer and co-author Arun Gupta explore how individuals can align personal purpose with professional ambition as they navigate an increasingly complex world. 

The book has resonated with readers who see their own questions about work, identity, and impact reflected in its pages, helping propel it to national bestseller status. It debuted at Number 7 on the USA TODAY Best-Selling Booklist, reached Number 1 on USA TODAY's Business/Careers list, and climbed to Number 6 on the Publishers Weekly Hardcover Frontlist Nonfiction list. 

In this Q&A, Fewer discusses the book’s inspiration and explains why purpose remains a powerful guide in uncertain times.

Q: The Mission Generation focuses on aligning personal purpose with professional ambition. What inspired you and your co-author to explore this theme, and why do you think it resonates so strongly right now?

Fewer: The inspiration came from something my co-author, Arun Gupta, and I kept hearing from students, colleagues, and people at different stages of their careers: the old “career playbook” no longer feels as reliable as it once did. By that, I mean the idea that you choose a field early, climb a relatively predictable career ladder, accumulate the right skills and credentials, and eventually arrive at some stable version of success.

Across these conversations, a few themes kept coming up. Artificial Intelligence is creating real uncertainty about what work will look like in the future. Burnout has become a common and expected part of professional life. Careers are also getting longer as people live longer, so the idea that someone chooses a path at 21 and simply follows it for the next 40+ years feels increasingly unrealistic and irrational.

I think the book resonates because a lot of people still want to build, lead, achieve, and succeed amid this uncertainty–but they want their ambition to be tied to something bigger than themselves.

Q: In both The Mission Generation and your earlier book, Venture Meets Mission, you examine mission-driven careers and leadership. How has your thinking on these topics evolved over time?

Fewer: Venture Meets Mission was much more focused on the system around mission-driven innovation. We were looking at how entrepreneurs, government, and companies can work together to solve major public problems. The question was: how do we use innovation for public impact?

With The Mission Generation, the focus shifts much more to the individual person doing the work. It is less about the innovation and more about the innovator.

That shift felt important because systems do not change themselves. They are changed by people who decide to work across sectors, take risks, and build careers that may not follow a traditional script. This book asks different questions: What draws people to mission-driven work? How do they figure out what problems they care about? How do they build sustainable careers without losing their sense of purpose?

Q: Many students and young professionals feel pressure to pursue traditional definitions of success. Why do you think that tension between ambition and purpose exists for so many people, and how can people begin to identify work that feels personally meaningful while still building sustainable careers?

Fewer: I think the tension exists because we still present career choices in a very narrow way. Students often hear, implicitly or explicitly, that they can either do well for themselves or do good for society. They can go into business and make money, or they can go into government or nonprofits and make a difference.

That framing is too simple, and I think it does a disservice to students. The world does not divide that neatly anymore. Some of the most interesting work is happening across sectors in companies solving public problems, in startups working with government, and in public institutions trying to become more innovative.

The challenge is that our academic institutions are designed to move students efficiently into careers, not necessarily to help them explore who they are. We ask students to choose majors, internships, and jobs before they have had much time to understand their values or the kinds of problems they care about.

I do not think the answer is to tell students to ignore practical concerns. People still need to earn a living. But meaningful work and practical career-building do not have to be in conflict. 

Universities need to continue preparing students with technical skills, while also creating space for students to understand themselves. That means more project-based learning, more reflection, more exposure to real-world problems, and more opportunities to test different versions of their future. 

Q: Your work often examines leadership during periods of disruption. What lessons can today’s organizations learn from the current moment?

Fewer: The biggest lesson is that organizations need to take mission more seriously, but in a practical way. Mission cannot just be something written on a website or repeated at an annual meeting. It must show up in how organizations make decisions, how they treat people, what they reward, and what tradeoffs they are willing to make.

Disruption has a way of exposing whether an organization actually knows what it stands for. When things are stable, organizations can rely on routines and incentives. But when there is uncertainty, people need a clearer sense of why the work matters.

I also think organizations need leaders who are better at working across boundaries. As we write, many of today’s hardest problems do not sit neatly inside one company, industry, or sector. They require collaboration between business, government, universities, and communities. That means leaders need to be translators. They need to understand different languages, incentives, and cultures, and build trust among people who may not otherwise work together.

Q: What do you hope readers ultimately take away from The Mission Generation after finishing the book?

Fewer: I hope readers take away that there is no single path for building a career with purpose. Purpose does not look the same for everyone. For some people, it might mean starting something new. For others, it might mean working inside a large institution and changing it from within. It might mean public service, entrepreneurship, teaching, investing, caregiving, research, or something that does not fit neatly into any category. The point is to build a career that feels connected to your values, your talents, and the kind of impact you want to have.

I also hope readers come to see uncertainty differently. Uncertainty can be scary, but it can also create space to rethink what success means. When the world feels unstable, purpose can become a stabilizing force. It helps you decide what to learn, where to spend your time, and what opportunities are actually worth pursuing.