Recent commencement speeches praising AI ended with boos, not applause. Graduates recognize the tool, but reject the replacement rhetoric. Breaking Points host Saagar Enjeti notes Ken Griffin’s Citadel now uses AI to automate PhD-level work. Polls show 70% of Americans think AI is moving too fast.
Nathaniel Whittemore on The AI Daily Brief says the doom narrative is hitting a data wall. Software engineering jobs, the roles most exposed to AI, have accelerated to their highest level since late 2023. Anthony Pompliano sees new college grad hires rising 5.6% over the past year.
“If bricks become cheap and easy to lay, you don’t use fewer builders; you build structures that were previously too expensive to justify.”
- Ezra Klein
It’s Jevons’ Paradox in action. Economist Eldar Maximov’s research shows employment grew faster in occupations heavily adopting computers. Cheaper code expands demand for builders.
The income isn't spreading. Jason Calacanis on This Week in Startups reports OpenAI and Anthropic now take 89% of AI startup revenue, a duopoly gaining share monthly. Infrastructure providers are winning; application-layer startups fight for scraps.
“College graduates fear AI not out of simple anxiety but from feeling betrayed by tech leaders who they believe have bad intent.”
- Jason Calacanis
Anthropic’s explosive growth marks the pivot from SaaS ‘seats’ to agentic ‘tokens.’ SemiAnalysis reports its annual recurring revenue jumped from $9 billion to over $44 billion, doubling every six weeks. Inference margins hit 70%.
This shift makes old software valuation frameworks obsolete. Ming Li notes AWS took 13 years to reach $35 billion; Anthropic passed that in months. The ‘token factory’ model redefines the economic ceiling.
Whittemore sees a vibe shift. Noah Smith calls Sam Altman’s recent statements about augmenting people a “huge messaging pivot” for an industry that once explicitly aimed to replace humanity.
Andre Karpathy’s move to Anthropic cements that pivot. Calacanis, on This Week in AI, argues CEO Dario Amodei’s fixation on ‘p-doom’ fueled regulatory panic. Karpathy, a master educator, makes the frontier feel accessible rather than apocalyptic.
The backlash is rational. Graduates used ChatGPT for two years to finish degrees. They watched 100,000 tech layoffs this year. When leaders talk of ‘optional work,’ they hear their skills liquidated before their careers start.
