Every single job will either be replaced or enhanced by AI, and it may be an acceptable outcome for GDP, profit margins, and wages to grow even while employment does not.
Rowan states Apollo operates under the working assumption that AI will touch every job, and floats the idea that an economy could grow without corresponding employment growth. ✦ AI generated
Marc Rowan · a16z Podcast · 2026-05-27 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 30:06
We operate under the assumption that every job is going to be replaced or enhanced. Every single job. And I think that's what is going to happen. I mean, a world where GDP grows, where profit margins grow, where wages grow, but where employment does not, maybe is okay.
verbatim transcript · starts at 30:06
30:06every job is going to be replaced or enhanced. Every single job. And I think that's what is going to happen. I mean, a world where GDP grows, where profit margins grow, where wages grow, but where employment does not, maybe is okay. >> Maybe that's the consequence of having an older workforce or not having as many workers per retiree or not having as much immigration. >> How we balance this as a country, how we
30:34balance this as a world, how we balance this as a city, I think is going to be the interesting challenge. >> Totally. you know, a a lot of our audience, you know, obviously are are entrepreneurs kind of in the tech ecosystem. You know, many of whom maybe haven't had experience working with Apollo yet. Um, you know, how should how should entrepreneurs listening to this think about when and how to engage with you
30:55>> early and partner? I mean, this is who we are. The ability and willingness to focus on any one transaction for an entrepreneur is just about the two resources we have, time and money. And of those two, time is the one that is short in shortest supply right now. And so the ability to engage us and to paint a picture of not just where you are, but
31:19where you're going and how we can win together, I think is where the world is going. And this is happening in places that require specified knowledge. Defense, where we're spending an awful lot of time. >> Yep. >> You do not get to come out and just show up in defense. You have to know a lot about the ecosystem. and the environment and everything else. But it's also
31:40showing up in the whole notion of capital being limited. >> Great entrepreneurs who have created things of value have had a choice historically which is wait to the public markets as their exit. Now the world is changing so fast. Maybe what they want to do is to have an interim private liquidity event where they then get to recycle their capital back into the much higher rate of return and participate
32:04with the private capital event going forward. and eventually getting to a public exit or getting to a full monetization. >> We're seeing all different manner of this take place across our ecosystem. The number of partnerships I believe that are going to sprout up, whether it is the OpenAI ecosystem that they're building to be able to democratize their LLM or it is the anthropic ecosystem that is being built to democratize their