With Generation Z facing existential career crises, billionaire Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, claims that, in just 10 years, recent graduates will be exploring the solar system — jobs that will pay huge salaries. The technology leader says he even envies young people, because our early career jobs will seem “boring” in comparison.
As artificial intelligence reshapes the job market, many young graduates are discovering, in practice, that a degree does not guarantee a smooth entry into a career.
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Now, even Sam Altman — one of Silicon Valley’s biggest leaders in the AI revolution — admits the obvious: AI will wipe out some jobs entirely. However, the tech billionaire insists the next decade could be the most exciting time in history to launch a career, especially for those who have always dreamed of working in space.
In addition to receiving sky-high salaries, Altman says they will also “feel sorry for you and me that we have to do this old, boring job while everything gets better.”
“In 2035, that student who is graduating from college, if they still go to college, could very well be going on a mission to explore the solar system in a spaceship, in some completely new, exciting, super-high-paying, super-interesting job,” Altman told video journalist Cleo Abram.
While it’s not yet clear how much space exploration will expand in the coming years — given NASA’s broad goal of reaching Mars in the 2030s — the number of aerospace engineers is growing faster than the national average for all occupations, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Employment Statistics. And they take home an envious annual salary of over US$130,000 (R$722,000).
How AI will reshape the workplace
Other technology pioneers have AI predictions that are more “down to earth” — but still appealing to workers. For example, billionaire and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has said that technology could drastically reduce the length of the work week, as humans will no longer be needed “for most things.”
“What will the jobs be like? Should we work two or three days a week?” the tech billionaire told Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show.
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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang echoed that AI has already given its employees “superhuman” abilities — something that will only increase as the technology advances.
“I’m surrounded by superhuman, superintelligent people, in my view, because they’re the best in the world at what they do. And they do what they do much better than I could. And I’m surrounded by thousands of them. Still, it never made me think, not for a day, that suddenly I wouldn’t be needed anymore,” he also told Cleo Abram, in her Huge Conversations podcast series.
While Altman admits that his crystal ball is still cloudy — and that the true direction of AI is uncertain — he says he is envious of young Gen Z professionals just starting their careers: “If I were 22 years old right now and graduating, I would feel like the luckiest person in all of history,” he added to Abram.
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Fortune reached out to OpenAI for comment.
AI will enable one-owner businesses worth billions
Following the release of OpenAI’s GPT-5 model, Altman declared that the world now has access to technology equivalent to “a team of PhD-level experts” literally in its pocket.
And as a result, the CEO said it will be easier than ever for a single person to create a business that previously required “hundreds” of people — just have a great idea and master AI tools.
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“Now it’s probably possible to create a one-person company that will be worth more than $1 billion and, more importantly, offer an incredible product and service to the world — and that’s really crazy,” he said.
Billionaire Mark Cuban went even further in his prediction, saying that AI could create someone who would compete with Elon Musk as the richest person in the world.
“We haven’t seen the best or the craziest of what AI will be able to do yet,” Cuban told the High Performance podcast. “And not only do I think it’s going to create a trillionaire, it could literally be a guy alone in the basement. That’s how crazy that could be.”
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