What the CEO of Ford Taught Me About Our Children’s Future

I was in a room of about 100 leaders from the tech industry - people like Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, and execs from Open AI and Google. But it was a quote from an old-world car builder that caught my attention.

According to the CEO of Ford, Jim Farley, AI is going to wipe out half of all white-collar jobs in the next 5 year. In his words "literally half “ of all us suits are for the dust heap.

Some say he's wrong of course. And that just like the industrial revolution, AI will create a whole set of new but different jobs.  Some say Farley is right and we shouldn't draw comfort from the industrial revolution: it's different this time.  

Who is right? I don’t know. 

But one thing I do know is this:  the kids with both the highest mental acuity and the kids who can embrace change and adapt, have the best odds of winning at whatever plays out.  The industrial revolution may have created more jobs in the end, but if you were a master weaver and you didn't like learning new things, you were going to be left pretty poor and cheesed off.

I wouldn't be betting the house on any one skills, knowledge set or career path.

Learning to learn.  Learning to think.  Curiosity.   Adaptability.  These have always been valuable qualities but if I had to bet, I’d guess they are about to become a lot more so.