AI, Economics, and the Future of Work: Navigating an Accelerating World

You need to be able to like fully leverage AI and add value to it. And if you can't, AI is just going to replace you.

The computer in front of you is the beginnings of a silicon based life form.

These tools allow companies to be extremely small.

Right.

That's why everybody's watching for the first single person unicorn.

Welcome to the Venture Capital Podcast. I'm John Bradshaw, this is Peter Harris, he's a VC with the University Growth Fund. I am a founder and today we're going to talk about how one AI is accelerating and, and talk about the economics of AI versus labor versus capital. And I do believe this episode will be more of a Peter.

Speech, dialogue, monologue. Yes, I hope not. So. So John, the reason I wanted to chat about this though with you and have it as, as a discussion is because I've been having a lot of conversations with people in the last few weeks and especially a bunch of VCs and the sentiment is like we're simultaneously super excited and absolutely terrified at the rate of change in the world of AI. And I think part of that's because in you and I talked a little bit about this before, but you know, I've been investing now as a venture capitalist for the last 16 years. More or less came into it right when like seven SaaS was just starting to become a thing, right? Most software was still on prem and, and people were just starting to make that transition to, to cloud and you know, went through multiple different iterations. Right. Like I remember growing up and even this was before my investment days, but you know, growing up with the Internet and seeing all the change because my dad was a computer engineer growing up and so we of course had computers, we had access to the Internet really early and so kind of grew up through all that. So I've seen all these, you know, big changes, right? Internet and then mobile and social and now we're into AI. And it's not so much that things have never like advanced this quickly, but they've never advanced this quickly across every single vertical all at once. Because AI just touches almost everything. Especially when you roll in robotics and the unlock the AI offers to robotics that wasn't possible before. And when I say AI, I mean specifically generative AI. And so it's creating this like, it's like I was talking to this one VC and he was, he was like, it's like a tale of two, two cities. On the one hand, there's going to be insane amounts of money being made in AI and you can see that happening like in today, like in this environment, there's so much potential that will be unlocked. And on the other hand, it is a potential existential threat to like our entire portfolio of companies pre AI, right. And it's kind of, I don't know, it's kind of scary, right? Like I wonder, like, what are my kids gonna do? Hopefully they do something, but I don't know exactly what it is they're going to do. I don't know. What are you thinking? You're on the founder side, you're working with clients, you're building product. You know, today we talked about how in, in our all hands staff meeting, we were talking a little bit about AI and how the unemployment rate right now for computer programmers is about 8%, which is about equivalent to graduating from college. Like this is like people straight out of undergrad, right? So they, they do they get a degree in computer science. What's the, what's their unemployment rate? And it's about the same as being an anthropology major, which is kind of crazy. And it used like just a few years ago it was, oh man, if you want to get a job you need to study like computer science. And now it's not clear that that actually is worth it. So anyways, what do you think and what are you seeing?

So before, before this whole AI wave took off, when I was starting Codebase, I had, I had kind of two thoughts about like the end of my career. One, I would never sell Code Base, but AI would eventually come and take over and the world would change and it would probably put Codebase out of business and. But I was thinking like when I'm 60, 70, 80 and that we would have robots. So when I'm in a nursing home because I'm like a 270 pound guy and I feel bad for any nurse that has to take care of me, but I'm like, we'll have robots at that point who can like lift me up and help me like you know, clean myself off, get dressed. And that's the world I've envisioned. And my guess is is that right now we're overestimating the short term and underestimating the long term. That's something that Jason Calacanis just said and kind of stuck in my head. It was one of his guests. But yeah, I mean there's probably about once a month we'll have like a 24 hour anxiety attack. I think we're just gonna, we can all be honest and, and free to talk about it. I do think that this, what we currently see With AI will be much like a calculator and Excel came about. I'm sure accountants at the time thought their jobs were done and yet we have more calculators, sorry, more accountants than perhaps before. There, you know, there's, there's more of a need and a use where those knowledge workers became more and more valuable. And I think that just like in software development, what software developers did 20 years ago, it will continue to change, that the roles will change and some may not exist, but they will continue to progress. I don't think we're. This wave is an AGI wave like everyone's saying. I think people who are saying AGI are doing it for personal clout reasons. They can get more followers, more clicks, just like news articles can.

But I do believe we'll get to AGI.

I do think we will. I think when you look at the laptop in front of you, when I grew up listening to pbs, they talked about carbon based life forms like humans and they said, well, it's possible that life might exist in like a silicon based life form instead of carbon. And my argument is the computer in front of you is the beginnings of a silicon based life form.

Okay.

It's the genesis, it's the embryo. So I definitely think we will. The question is when? Um, I do think you'll see more and more people go to, you know, what is it, the trades? I think you'll see a, you know, a shift back. Um, but I also think like the world will become much safer. I think we'll see better construction, safer houses.

It's always get more, less safe.

Right.

Because if people can't find jobs.

I think there will be things for people to do. But I also think it won't. I think in like a hundred years when kids are in school, they're going to be like, oh my gosh, like our parents work 40 hours a week and that'll seem barbaric. I think people typically historically fear change.

Yeah.

And I think even a world of AGI, I think there will be entrepreneurs and VCs who will learn to leverage it and chase opportunities that we could only dream of today. Like, I think one of the things that, that, that I am surprised by is, is that AI has helped us learn about ma new magnets that exist that aren't rare earth minerals. And I just think there are so many things happening all at the same time that in fact you could say there are more opportunities to chase these than, than, than ever. Yeah, more opportunities. And I think we also live in a world where there's, there's going to be much more specialization. I think we're, we're going into a world where doctors can be much more empathetic and focus on the human touch instead of having to worry about, you know, seeing 50 patients in a day or getting, you know, and if they don't get fired.

Yeah.

And so I mean, biased.

Right.

And because like, you know, they have limited data sets and limited time and can't remember everything. And I think we see biases.

One of the things you've talked about is I think we live in a divide where people stop learning to think for themselves as much, which is also scary.

Yeah.

I mean, it's the MIT study, Right. That showed, that showed that if people just relied on ChatGPT too much, uh, their cognitive brain function declined.

Oh, I've started doing a thing, I call it no AI Fridays.

Okay.

Where the emails and stuff that I write, I focus on, hey, I'm going to actually write this email myself.

Yeah, yeah.

And so that way you're, you're still exercising those muscles. But I think it's just like before. Like I used to spend a lot of time writing emails that were probably average. Now my emails I think are much better. I spend probably, I work probably about the same amount, but my output's better.

Yeah.

So before if I was going to spend an hour writing an email to a client, I'm still probably spending an hour in some instances. But now it's much more clear. I'm going through it. I've shifted from creating to brain dumping and editing.

Yeah.

And so like the work has changed but work still exists.

Yeah, yeah.

And more opportunities will exist than ever before. And I think that's the thing with some of these AI AGI doomsdayers are, are missing, is that I, I think we need to look and say there's, there's, there's just more opportunities than we'll have ever seen before.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, look, like what, 200 years ago, 95% of the U.S. population were farmers who, they probably worked like 120 hour weeks if you really counted up all the amount of time it took to produce enough food to stay alive for a year.

Right.

It was just like non stop work. And that feels barbaric compared to our 40 hour work weeks today. So as bad as it is, it's not as bad. And you know, there's no way that a farmer had any clue what like a social media manager was. I couldn't even dream of that job. So I, I Tend to agree with you. I think the thing that makes everybody a little nervous is just like how fast this transition is happening. We've never gone through a period of transition that's been this quick across every single vertical because part of it was always like, oh well, now we have the cotton gin, right. And manufacturing and so but it didn't telegraph, but it didn't hit everything all at once.

Right.

So you had like a small portion of the population that had time to readjust, retrain, you know, find other things. But theoretically this is going to hit every single sector. It is hitting every single sector at once. So while I agree with you, like there's a lot of opportunities than ever.

Before.

It'S also like a little bit nerve wracking in that is there time to retrain, retool and hit other things. And the other thing that's, that's interesting is, I mean you can, these tools allow companies to be extremely small.

Right.

That's why everybody's watching for the, the first single person unicorn. And there's some companies that have gotten super, super close to that already. And so then it's like, well, I don't need 500 people to achieve that result and 500 people in 10 years to get to a billion dollar house outcome. There are companies that are doing it in six months, 12 months.

Right.

And so with a very, very, very small team. So I don't know, it's, it's a little bit of like those other individuals need to kind of wake up. There's a lot of, lot of us that I don't know. I think we're in this like really interesting window where the people that are paying attention are taking advantage of the tools that exist and building all kinds of apps. And like there is huge value being created because they're the first ones or they're one of the very few that are doing what they're doing. And pretty soon there's going to be a billion other people trying to compete for that same thing. And all of a sudden it's going to be really hard to rise above the noise. So I actually don't know that like a single person company is possible. It's possible, but I think they're going to have to raise a lot of money just to raise, rise above the crowd and all the noise and everything else that's coming. And then I think about all these people. So recently we, I mean we're in the midst of recruiting right now for our, our fall cohort and some of the people that have applied I, I honestly just kind of worry about them because I'm like, the stuff you've produced is not that good. And in today's day and age, like the jobs, the, the like middle tier jobs and business that existed for frankly like kind of middle tier, you know, quality employees are not going to exist anymore in the world of AI.

Right.

It's like your accountant thing. You know, there were a lot of people that were literal bean counters.

Right.

And that was their job. And then calculators came out and wiped out all those jobs. And so you had to really up your game. And the thing I think that's terrifying is you've got these studies that are basically showing that the calculator today is making people dumber at the exact time when they need to be smarter in order to have an edge. So I don't know, those are some of the things that make me nervous. And it's something I pound on the table with our students. I'm like, if you are not able to think critically, you are going to be in a really tough situation in your career because you need to be able to like fully leverage AI and add value to it. And if you can't, AI is just going to replace you. So I don't know. Where do you think? Sorry, go ahead.

I think though that the end, just like with a calculator, those that learn the principles and learned how to think, like they're gonna have more of an advantage.

Yeah.

I also just think, I think you're right.

I think you need to be learning it. And that's, that's why I'm saying like we're in this interesting window where people are kind of sort of using it, but I don't think they're, they fully like wrap their arms around it and are using it to the extent they need to.

But I also think that they're like, some of this isn't just AI.

Uh huh.

I think a lot of the like, like look at, during the age of COVID where the government just handed out money. How many times in the, in your history has it happened? So you have a generation who's like, hey, if something's gonna happen, the government is going to step in. And I don't have to stress. And I look, when I look at myself versus some of my peers who maybe be five or 10 years younger, I feel like I have a much harder drive, partly because my grandpa went through, through the Great Depression and I would see him eat moldy, moldy pie and not throw stuff away. And I think Kids today that, like, would. They're like, oh, it's expired, let's toss it.

Yeah.

And so the, the. It's not just AI, It's. I think they, I think, and we've talked about this, like with millennials and Gen Z and whatnot, is that they've grown up in a society where there is no stress. Sterling. Sterling Snow posted on LinkedIn today. He said, sometimes fear and anxiety. Let me grab the link real fast. We were, we were talking about this. Where is that?

Well, I mean, you need stress. Stress is good, right?

So Sterling Stone says stress does not. But yeah, he says, you might not want to admit it, but stress is a performance enhancer. Desperation is a creative creativity machine. Fear is a powerful motivator. Anger is a great fuel. Doesn't always feel good, but sure works from what I've lived, observed. Lose those traits at your own peril. And there was, there was a lot of, like, debate about, like, about it. But I think at the core, I think what your students are missing is they, they grew up in an environment free from many of those things.

They're just coddled and they're weak.

I think that.

Be part of it. I think part of it, though, too, is that from my perspective, man, it's like, hard to keep up. Every. Everyone feels that way, like, five new killer apps, and it's like, wow, like, how do you, how do you stay up to date with these? Right? And one of the challenges is that, well, AI is amazing in terms of what it can do and the, the barriers that it lowers. It also is still not at a point where I can just roll into any app and immediately get full value out of it. It's. There's still learning curve. And so it's like there's all of these, these new companies, new apps popping up all the time, and there's not enough time to check them all out and get up the learning curve to, like, derive value from them. And so it's like, it's almost like this paradox of choice issue as well, where everyone. I'm just like, you know what? I can't even stay on top of it, so I'm not going to try.

Okay, but everyone's feeling that way.

I know, and that's my point, right? Like, everybody, we're all, like, overwhelmed with the speed of what's happening.

So what happens when, for the economic standpoint, when labor becomes free with robots and intelligence becomes free, assuming we hit like an AGI.

Well, so true labor is like, is like humans, right? So robots don't robots are just another form of capital. They're not actually labor.

But what happens. What happens when you have a robot so you no longer need 90% of your staff at a nursing home? What happens when robots are doing all the farming?

Yeah, right.

When human labor is more expensive.

Have you, you've been to, so a bunch of your teams in India, right?

Yeah.

How many things in India are done with manual labor that in the US Are done with?

Mm, a lot. So if, if it's not. If it's not Microsoft Excel.

Yeah.

A lot of indie companies don't use it.

Yeah.

Because it's cheaper to hire five or six analysts and the mistakes they may make than paying for a SaaS subscription. That's, you know, a thousand a month.

Yep, yep.

Right.

And so this is the trade off between capital and labor. So it's, it's not that like there aren't better solutions that already ex. It's that the marginal production of capital or the marginal value of production of, of capital compared to labor in different markets doesn't. It doesn't make sense. Like you're gonna just have the guy with the scissors go around and cut the grass rather than buy a lawnmower, because the lawnmower is going to cost you, you know, several hundred dollars and that guy's labor is going to cost you like $2 a day.

Right.

And so it's going to take a lot of days before you can recoup the cost of that lawnmower. And then you still have to have somebody that operates the lawnmower.

Right.

So I think there's a lot of fear around. Oh, man. Like all the jobs are going to immediately disappear. I think what's more likely to happen is you'll see. So as we have. I mean, really, what this AI technology does is it drives down the cost of capital.

Right.

And so as the cost of capital goes down, it makes the cost of labor also need to go down as well.

And.

But there will still be opportunities for people where there will be people that will be willing to make less money rather than, you know. Well, they, they'll. Rather than not make anything.

Right.

And I think what will also happen is technology. Technology has a deflationary effect on economies. So part of the reason why the US Is able to get away with borrowing so much money for so long is because our technology advantage gives us the ability to have a deflationary impact on our monetary system at the same time that we're printing money effectively, which has an inflationary effect. And so this probably just further accelerates that deflationary environment where the cost of goods and services declines by quite a bit. So that's either deflationary standpoint, and then it's okay if the cost of labor drops because you can still buy all the same amount of things with the same amount of labor and, and wages. Well, with a decreased amount in wages. And so I don't know. I don't, I don't know that like UBI is going to actually be a thing that makes sense, because I think there will be. There, There will still be enough jobs and opportunities for people to substitute their labor for capital and earn money in the same way that in India they don't pay for software, even though they could. It exists and the price of it's come down and you know, labor has. The price of labor has gone up. So there are some companies that are probably starting to buy that stuff.

Right.

But it's taken a while for those two things to occur.

Right.

And part of it is labor needs to be able to produce more. And one of the promises of AI is that it makes labor more efficient and more productive. And so I don't know, it's. It's an interesting debate, but the more I've thought about it, the more I. I'm less worried, I guess, that all of a sudden people are going to be completely out of a job because there will always be this trade off of capital versus labor. Just because the robot exists doesn't necessarily mean that it makes financial sense to buy the robot to do the things.

Right.

But I also think we're going to a phase where the phrase the riches are in the niches becomes even more prominent and more valuable.

Why do you think?

I think there's a lot of opportunities that weren't profitable before because they were just too cost prohibitive. And that's going to shift. So, like the other day I saw a robotic bricklayer machine and one person could lay an entire driveway where before you would need an entire team. And when I saw that in my mind, it clicked. That opportunities that never existed are now going to exist where you could have those 10 brick layers now instead of just working on one driveway. Working on 10 driveways.

Yeah.

So I think, I think the world drastically changes. Life gets easier.

But can you afford the bricklayer?

You won't need the bricklayer because you'll have the brick. You'll have an operator and a robot. Yes, because a machine is significantly cheaper then. But then look at like a car versus a horse, right? The costs they get Cheaper over time. It's economics.

Right.

Look how much a pencil cost.

A car today is far more expensive than a vehicle.

Maybe a car is more expensive than.

A vehicle, than a horse, but it.

Doesn'T do the same or go as far or last as long as.

Right, right.

The horse would, if, if the horse went to, if a horse took me to India every single year, I'd be, I wouldn't have gone. I would have been to India once or twice maybe.

Yeah.

Round trip. And the horses would have died.

Yeah.

And I would not have been able to chase more opportunities.

Yeah.

Right. So I think, I think what happens is you have nursing homes that are cheaper. You have, if you have robots that can do plumbing, they'll probably be human assisted for a very long time and that will be easier and cheaper. I think, you know, waste removal and all those things. There's other things people can do. And I think, I think again, just like we're not working 120 hours a day and we're working, the average American's probably working 40 to 55 hours a week. You know, I think that will continue to go down, but I think again, I think there's more opportunities than ever before that, that can, that, that will exist and pop up.

But do you think, do you think all these people will be able to take advantage of those opportunities?

I think.

Will they have the, the ability, the interest, the motivation, the intellectual capacity?

Well, I think it'll continue to shift as we have more and more abundance. It'll be easier for people to rift off of the system and especially as we live in a safer world where we don't have wars that physically reset the markets.

Yeah.

So I think you're going to see more and more people have wars.

I think what technology absolutely does, and I don't think anybody questions this, is that it concentrates wealth. And so I think you're going to have individuals that are trillionaires and there's going to be everybody else. And when the majority. It doesn't matter that your needs are met.

Right.

People still get angry.

Yeah.

We'll turn it. There'll be revolutions if there's too much.

Yeah.

So I think, I think the billionaires talk about this right now.

What?

The billionaires talk about this right now.

Oh, totally.

Yeah.

That's why they're all like, we need ubiquitous because we need to appease the masses so they don't come after us. But I don't think technology in of itself is going to result in less wars.

Do you think with AI is It a bad time to start a VC fund? Pulling it back to our core?

No.

Is it a bad time?

Thing about, here's the interesting thing about AI is NVC is that it used to be pre AI that it took 10 years to build a billion dollar company. And now as I said earlier before, like earlier now it takes like, it can take as little as a year or two, which then means that as a fund you can exit your position in a year or two and move on to the next thing or recycle or whatever it might be and you can just place a lot of bets. And so like theoretically this like feedback loop is like so much faster than it's ever been before. And so like there could be like tremendous opportunities.

Do you think that's a short term or a long term thing? Do you think what you're seeing is what's selling is like the Windsurfs and the Lovables and replit going from 1 million to 100 million in like 3 years. Are you. I look at those and I just see those as apps, not as true businesses that have got a short term advantage or boost because of OpenAI. And in the future when economies of scale balance out that, that will just.

We're going to go back to 10 years to grow.

Yeah, because there's just, there's been such a massive tidal wave that some people are going to hit the jackpot really fast. But that tidal wave doesn't last. When the rest of us figure out what the hell AI is, what is it not? Where are the opportunities? Granted, I think there's, there'll be more opportunities for millionaires to be created today than even like Amazon created. Yeah, but, but it's going to create a wave and, and a lot of these things like Lovable and Windsurf, I don't think will have, I don't think.

But that's like every wave, right. There's like a period of time where you can take advantage of it. I mean the joke was like the best time to be a VC of all time was during the dot com boom because there was so much money being raised and companies were being valued so highly so quickly that you could have a 5x fund return by being totally mediocre. That was the average. And so it was super easy to be a vc. And I feel like to a certain extent there's a little bit of that happening right now. If you know how to play the game right now, you're right. Eventually that goes away. Just like at the dot com bust.

Right.

That went away. So these things don't last forever. But you asked if, like, right now is a good time. It probably is a great time to have a venture fund to raise a fund and start deploying aggressively into AI. Well, these companies can scale super fast because again, I think it's like we mentioned earlier, we're in this window where there's a few people that are launching the first AI solution for their niche and they're, they're getting all the air in the room and in like six to 12 months, there's going to be literally like a thousand competitors banging down their door, chasing their heels.

Right?

Because it's, it's going to get easier and easier and easier to build product in those, all those different industries. So it's kind of like, yeah, fun stuff. Now let it scale super fast. Figure out a way to exit those investments or profit from them.

Yeah, I, I do think what my thoughts this week is, if I had had an app that just went gangbusters, I'm like, it's probably you take your chips off the table fast. If you get significant chips, take your chips off.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it depends on the app.

But yeah, yeah.

But it is crazy. The other thing though, that I think a lot about is that for VCs, what is super hard. And honestly, this happens every time there is a major new trend. The people that win, the funds that win are the ones that figure out what are the things that matter when deciding who to invest in. So for example, when, when marketplaces first became possible, because we had the Internet, we had mobile and we had social. So think about like Uber Benchmark was willing to pay a huge premium to get into Uber and lead that round this like on a comparative basis from like revenue and so forth, because they recognize based on their other marketplace investments and companies like OpenTable, what were the metrics that really mattered. So, for example, one of the metrics that really mattered was Uber being able to say with statistically significant authority that if somebody rode in their, their cars twice, they had them for life.

Right.

That they would keep coming back again and again and again and again. Once you know that and you know that, that's the only thing that really matters. To demonstrate product market fit, you can go all in really early and, and identify the winners. And so I think, you know, there are companies, there are funds out there that are, that are figuring this out. We don't know exactly who they are yet, but we'll know like eventually. But the thing that's really challenging as a VC is that all the other things that you're used to being able to point to as being green flags and proof of like, product market fit are potentially like, like just bait. Like they're not real. They're. They. They might actually be kind of red flags. So I think about like lovable, right? Lovable is growing super fast.

Right.

I think, I think they've reported like 100 million in ARR or whatever. But aren't they just maybe like one OpenAI demo day away from being out of business? And so even though revenue has grown incredibly fast over a relatively short time period, they still face massive existential threats that really, we haven't seen that before. Unless you had a few somewhat limited cases where maybe somebody built on Meta's platform and then Meta cut them off.

Right.

Things like that, which hasn't happened to.

Anyone in this room.

Yeah, it has never happened. Well, I, you know, look at Zynga, right? They built their whole business on Facebook and then Facebook kind of changed some things.

Tiny torch, my past business.

Yeah, yeah.

So, I mean, there have been, but those have been like, fairly isolated, whereas now like to fairly isolated to like certain verticals or certain platforms, but now it's like everything, Right. Because everything's built on just a handful of these, these big AI engines. So, yeah, and it's, and it's trying to figure out what is, what is the, what are the metrics, what's the approach that tells you, like, this company will ultimately be durable.

Right.

It's going to last for a long time. They built something that won't be, you know, AI ified away. And it's hard. I think it's. I think it's really hard. My impression is that it is. And we've kind of talked about this on kind of our thesis around AI and the impact it's going to have is that the things that will matter to a certain extent are the UX and the UI and the like, how much people are actually using it, engaging with it, putting in data.

Right.

The level of proprietary data, I think is super important.

And.

Also, like, what was I going to say? Oh, like this idea of what are the things that the company is doing that are not AI able, that when paired with AI, give them an advantage. So, for example, we're looking at this company and for this company, in order to close sales, they have to be there physically, in person, because that's the only way that people will buy the product. In that industry and all other industries, they'll buy it over zoom. But in this one, you gotta Be there in person. That's just the way they operate, the customers operate. And so it's like, okay, well if you have a business and you've optimized the whole thing around in person field sales, right, this could be really hard for AI to disrupt that too much because you know what, they're gonna like send off robots. Like that's not gonna work.

Right.

So I think things, things like that, where there's like this interpersonal component, which is also why like I'm not horribly worried about AI wiping out VC jobs because it's just so relationship driven at the end of the day.

Although I would argue if a robot came to me and said, John, here's a million bucks, will you invest? I'm Mr. Robotic B.C. i'd take it.

Would you though? Because like, how's the robot going to react when like you missed your numbers? Is it going to be understanding? Is it going to work with you? Is it going to like, is it going to pick up the phone at midnight and like commiserate with you? You know, and maybe you don't care. Maybe you're like, well, you know, the cool PR story. I mean people are using, you know, OpenAI and Claude for, for emotional therapy and support. The other thing though that I think is interesting about being a VC is, and, and I think this is the other thing where there is huge opportunity for individuals and companies is to become like a taste maker. So and VC really is kind of like the ultimate taste maker job, right? You, you meet with lots of founders and ideas and you, you kind of pick what the things are that you think the future will look like and you fund them and you help bring them into reality.

Right?

Like you are kind of a taste maker and I think you're going to see that across the board in every industry because in part we're going to get flooded with so much stuff that people that can highlight, identify the best stuff and are trusted because they're authentic are going to have a huge advantage.

We'll see. But I agree with all those points. I think, I agree with a lot of that. I think it's interesting when you, you, you're looking for things like closing sales in person, things like that. Like when I was with the, the Utah Angels, I felt like you would see, you would see trends as a, as an investor, like almost in waves. Like a good idea would represent itself in Utah three or four times at the, with no apparent connection to one another. Yeah, well, I imagine you're seeing waves like that now.

Oh, for sure. Yeah, you constantly see these waves, largely because it's like when you have multiple things hit at once or new technology against, you know, an existing technology or problem, it just unlocks opportunities that weren't available before. And generally, you know, lots of people see those opportunities.

Yeah.

At the same time and want to take advantage of them. So.

Yeah.

Which is always why the question is, like, why now? And then why you as a vc?

Right.

So anyways. But yeah, I mean, it's. It's simultaneously like, super exciting and terrifying what's happening. And I spend a lot of time thinking about, like, what are the things I need to do to help my kids be prepared for this new environment?

And what are those things?

Not sure what those things are yet. I'm still trying to figure them out. But I think part of it is now this is what we tell our students at ugf. Spend the time to do. Like to think critically about whatever your task is and attempt it to a certain extent on your own and then pull in AI to help you go, like, automate it, take it further, push your assumptions and get into the process of being able to work iteratively with AI to like, create incredible outcomes. But don't use AI as a crutch. It's like in the, in the good old days, it's, you know, in my econometrics course, it's being able to derive multivariate calculus right. In statistics and the equations and understand it. And then you get to use the software that does all the calculations for you automatically.

Right.

But you, if, if you do just the software, you don't understand the underlying math and it makes it really hard to push, push the boundaries on your research and the outcomes and understand how to operate better, optimize your models and so forth. So you kind of one before the other.

It's like college. Like your high school physics, Physics class, they give you 200 equations to memorize. When you finally take calculus, you realize that position is the, wait, the, like the second derivative of velocity, which is then the derivative of acceleration or like, vice versa.

Right.

But, like, there's these relationships and it makes more sense how things are connected and.

Yep, yep.

And like, look, if you can do that, then it allows you to actually think critically at a very deep level and actually add something to the conversation with AI and not get disrupted by AI.

That's why I think in the coming years, I almost think, like, college will be longer, Masters will become more the norm. Like, you'll have to get people to a higher level before they can become useful.

I mean, maybe. I mean, there's. There's always, like, limits to this, right? Like, developers are not taught how to do machine code anymore.

I would disagree that I think the best AI engineers probably have like a background in statistics, in mathematics, in linguistics. Like the. One of the individuals that presented at AIU today, today, he was a linguistics major. I don't know why he chose to be a linguistics major. And he did a lot of math and I don't know, like, it's kind of like he hit the jackpot. He happened to take the right majors and then AI just kind of like, took off and put him in a really sweet position.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm just saying that, like, there's a lot of things that we don't do anymore because we have enough technology to kind of do them and we have. There are people that are specialized in that stuff and there will always be. But yeah, I do think it will require you. Well, I mean, look, the innovate innovation is always the intersection of two things, right? So if you really want to stand out, having exposure to more things so you can see these interactions will become more and more valuable.

Amen, brother.

All right, well, tell us what you think down in the comments. AI, are you excited? What are you working on? How are you thinking about how to stay relevant and competitive in a world where AI can do everything that humans can do and potentially a lot more? And what do you think? Do you think everyone's going to be out of a job and we will be the pets of AI, or will there be lots of new and exciting job opportunities that we can't even dream of today?

Sounds good. Thanks for watching.