Key Notes
- Altman urged MBA students to explore new AI businesses rather than follow career trends that were fashionable several years ago.
- His optimism about entrepreneurial opportunity is a forecast, while the same interview acknowledged substantial changes to existing tasks and jobs.
- Gallup’s spring survey found regular AI use among young Americans alongside concern about workplace risks, showing that adoption and confidence are different measures.
Sam Altman wants MBA students to stop following an outdated career playbook and start exploring the businesses AI makes possible. The OpenAI chief executive framed technological upheaval as an opening for ambitious founders, even as his company’s products change the work graduates are preparing to do.
Speaking with Claudia Chen at Stanford Graduate School of Business, Altman described his “chronic disappointment” with students drawn to what was “cool like five years ago.” Stanford published the interview on October 21. His criticism concerned MBA career choices, with an emphasis on creating something new.
Altman’s recommendation was to build businesses using the emerging technology. When Chen pointed out that AI itself was now fashionable, he discouraged simply copying OpenAI and argued that companies built on its technology could eventually become larger and more important.
Opportunity in a Shifting Job Market
He expects AI to perform many existing tasks more effectively and at lower cost, while arguing that the broader transition will take longer than some expect. He also rejected predictions of a general employment collapse. Those are his forecasts about the economy, rather than evidence that every displaced worker will find a better role.
The business argument is straightforward: when the cost of doing a task changes sharply, established ways of selling that work can become vulnerable. A smaller company may be able to offer a service that previously needed more staff, or address a market that was too expensive to serve. Finding customers and earning their trust remain separate problems from producing an AI-generated result.
Altman also has a commercial stake in that direction. More businesses building around OpenAI’s technology expand the market for its products. His advice therefore combines a view of how careers may evolve with the perspective of a technology supplier seeking the next generation of customers and entrepreneurs.
The wider Stanford conversation, which we examined earlier, also covered human control, education and robotics. The career exchange sits within that larger discussion about how people should work alongside increasingly capable machines.
Gen Z Is Using AI, and Worrying About It
Young people’s relationship with AI is more complicated than a simple choice between embracing it and refusing to adapt. A Gallup survey published in April found that 51% of Americans aged 14 to 29 used generative AI at least weekly. The research, conducted with the Walton Family Foundation and GSV Ventures, surveyed 1,572 people from February 24 to March 4.
Among employed Gen Z respondents, 48% said AI’s workplace risks outweighed its benefits, while 15% took the opposite view and 37% considered them roughly equal. Regular use and enthusiasm were different measures: the survey found continued adoption alongside growing skepticism.
That research describes a broad U.S. age group rather than Stanford MBA students, and it does not establish why a particular graduate chooses one career over another. It does, however, show why treating caution about AI as evidence that young people simply do not use it misses part of the picture.
For workers, the calculation includes the availability of training, a reliable income and the chance to develop experience. Companies face their own adjustment problems: our recent rehiring coverage examined employers rebuilding human expertise after automation fell short of expectations.
Altman’s pitch is aimed at people willing to build into that uncertainty. The opportunity he sees is to discover a useful new business while established practices are changing. Whether that produces a durable career depends on demand for the work and the value customers place on it, beyond the novelty of using AI.
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