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PredictionVideo · 67:28 — 70:29

AI will not cause mass unemployment: it will bring enormous productivity gains, but it is much easier to train than to retrain, so the young who grow up 'mentally plastic' with these tools gain a huge edge over older, vertically knowledgeable but less adaptable workers.

David rejects the mass-unemployment fear, forecasting big productivity gains instead, but warns that 'train vs. retrain' makes youth an advantage — 22-year-olds tinkering in dorm rooms outpace 45-year-old specialists like 'Simon and Claire' whose only edge is vertical knowledge. ✦ AI generated

David Frankel · 20VC · 2026-08-08 · original ↗

starts at this moment · 67:28

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Do you buy the commonly stated concern about smaller teams, job displacement, and a concerning future for human participation in labor forces?

Do I think that we're going to have mass unemployment because of AI? ... No. I think we're going to see tremendous productivity gains. I think like every wave there the halves and the have nots and if you're not training and playing it's a little bit why youth has an advantage because out of college... you are familiar with the tools... My worry is it's much easier to train than it is retrain. And actually the 22-year-olds coming out of university who are tinkering in dorm rooms with Claude... they're mentally plastic to it... versus Simon or CLA who are 45. They've always done their job in accounting and they just are not so mentally plastic. So the only advantage that Simon and Cla have is they are very vertically knowledgeable and relevant... So sometimes in terms of sales... there'll actually be very good salespeople.

verbatim transcript · starts at 67:28

Transcript · around this moment

67:28know, when we went from servers to cloud and that was like, wow, like I get all of this for free, right? Like I don't have to do any of that, right? Like security and servers and like forget that I just do cloud, right? If you look at like where AI and where this foundational platform layer kicks you off, it is incredible what you can do with very few people. And we are looking

67:52at certainly sub 10 people. Companies achieve a lot. Do I think that we're going to have mass unemployment because of AI? And you're seeing a lot of leadership now agree with the viewers. No. I think we're going to see tremendous productivity gains. I think like every wave there the halves and the have nots and if you're not training and playing it's a little bit why youth has

68:15an advantage because out of college and that if you're tinkering and playing right like you are familiar with the tools you can use the tools and it used to be the halves and the have nots were like have data I talked about this with Noah Glass and Olo all day long going like the value of having data and using that data and by the way it's yours to

68:37lose if you don't enrich that data. Now, the value of having these tools, it's becoming more and more binary, but I do believe you'll see swaths of people retrained on this. And I I think you're seeing it globally. I think you're seeing this as a opportunity in lowcost environments in places that are not Europe, not the US, not the north where you can skill people up and you can

69:03provide these skills to the rest of the world at tremendous cost advantage. My worry is it's much easier to train than it is retrain. And actually the 22-year-olds coming out of university who are tinkering in dorm rooms with Claude and kind of they're not super AI pill, but that they're mentally plastic to it and they they're going to be pretty good versus Simon or CLA who are

69:2445. They've always done their job in accounting and they just are not so mentally plastic. >> So the only advantage that Simon and Cla have is they are very vertically knowledgeable and relevant. So sometimes in terms of sales, like if you're selling to yourself, there'll actually be very good salespeople. This is a theme that I'm kind of interested in services business where you won't buy that from you. You you you want to see

69:50your auditor at some point. You're prepared to say I know AI will do an amazing job, but at some point you want me to come see you and just kind of like go, you know, I I haven't like left this whole thing to AI, right? Like I actually know what I'm doing. So I think there will be people who are vertically relevant who be able to sell and there

70:08are many industries where the relationship still matters. At a certain point if you've got litigation and $100 million you can get AI to write that little contract for you where it's $1,000 on the line but you've got a $100 million litigation you want to look at me and say like Dave your 10 years of experience I need it right now. So I think there are times where knowing a

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