OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has criticised what he sees as the tendency of many MBA graduates to pursue yesterday’s trends instead of embracing new opportunities created by artificial intelligence, calling it his ‘chronic disappointment’ with business school students. According to a report by Fortune, speaking during an interview with Stanford Graduate School of Business, Altman said AI is set to transform large parts of the job market, but argued that the disruption will also create unprecedented opportunities for ambitious workers and entrepreneurs willing to think differently. “It’s totally true that huge numbers of tasks that people do today will be done better, cheaper, and faster by AI – and completely differently,” Altman said, adding that wide swaths of existing jobs could eventually be handled by AI technologies. The transition, however, is likely to take time rather than happen overnight, according to the OpenAI chief.
‘They always want to do the thing that was cool five years ago’
Altman reserved some of his sharpest comments for MBA students, arguing that many focus on following established career paths rather than exploring emerging opportunities. “My chronic disappointment with MBA students is that they always want to go do the thing that was cool five years ago rather than try something new,” Altman said. “I think this is a great time to go do the new thing.”The comments come at a time when AI is reshaping industries ranging from software development and customer service to healthcare, finance and education, creating uncertainty over future job roles while simultaneously opening new business opportunities.
Sam Altman: AI creating a new generation of companies
According to Altman, AI is creating conditions for entrepreneurs to build companies that would have been difficult or impossible to launch just a few years ago. “There are many companies that can be built on top of the technology OpenAI has put out into the world that will be much bigger and, I hope, more important than OpenAI,” he said. The executive pointed to periods of significant technological change as being among the best times for ambitious individuals to start careers or launch ventures.“If you’re heading into the world right now to work on something, I think you want to start your career at a time of the greatest change, when the playing field is most open,” Altman said. He added that people with strong ideas, new skills and unconventional ways of looking at problems often perform best when industries are undergoing major shifts.
A founder’s perspective
Altman has built companies from scratch. He dropped out of Stanford, where he studied computer science, in 2005 to co-found the location-based social networking start-up Loopt, which was later acquired. He then joined the start-up accelerator Y Combinator and served as its president from 2014 to 2019. He now sees AI as a chance for a new generation of founders to tackle problems that once seemed out of reach.
Other tech leaders share similar views
Altman’s optimism about AI-driven entrepreneurship is shared by other technology leaders. Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit, has argued that startups created in the AI era have an inherent advantage because they are designed around the technology from the beginning rather than retrofitting it into existing business models. Meanwhile, billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban has repeatedly urged founders to view AI as a core business capability rather than an optional tool. “If you’re not using AI to move faster or make smarter decisions, you’re behind,” Cuban previously told Fortune.
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