Sam Altman’s ‘chronic disappointment’ with MBA students: ‘Was cool 5 years ago’- Why he wants them to try something new

OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman has urged young professionals and aspiring entrepreneurs to look beyond traditional career paths as artificial intelligence reshapes the job market, saying that the biggest opportunities may lie in building businesses around technologies that are only beginning to emerge.

Speaking in an interview with Stanford Graduate School of Business last week, Altman said AI would take over many tasks currently performed by humans, changing how entire categories of jobs operate. But he pushed back against predictions of an imminent jobs apocalypse, arguing that a period of rapid change could give ambitious young people an advantage.

“My chronic disappointment with MBA students is that they always want to just go do the thing that was cool like five years ago and not do the new thing,” Altman said. “And I think this is a great time to go do the new thing.”

Sam Altman acknowledged that artificial intelligence would perform many existing tasks more efficiently and cheaply, potentially transforming broad sections of the workforce.

“I don't think there's going to be like a job apocalypse in the way that many people talk about,” he said, while warning of substantial short-term disruption to the tasks people perform and to some types of jobs.

He added that the pace of change might be slower than some forecasts suggest. Nevertheless, he believes people entering the workforce now could benefit from starting their careers during a period when established business models and professional expectations are being challenged.

“If you're heading into the world right now to go work on something, I think you want to be starting your career at a time of the highest degree of change, and you want the most open playing field,” Altman said.

Sam Altman’s argument extends beyond adapting to changing workplace demands. He sees AI as an opportunity for founders to develop businesses that would have been difficult or impossible to build with earlier technology.

“There are many companies that can be built on top of the technology OpenAI has put out into the world that will be much bigger and, I hope, more important than OpenAI,” he said.

Also Read | Sam Altman is no Oppenheimer

His own career began with an entrepreneurial bet. Altman left Stanford in 2005 while studying computer science to co-found Loopt, a location-based social networking company that was later acquired. He subsequently became president of startup accelerator Y Combinator, serving from 2014 to 2019 before leading OpenAI.

Altman said people with drive, ideas, new skills and different ways of approaching problems could be particularly well positioned to succeed during periods of upheaval.

Other prominent entrepreneurs have made similar arguments about AI giving new businesses a competitive advantage.

Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit, has said companies established in the AI era can benefit because the technology is embedded in their operations from the outset, rather than being added to existing systems later.

Billionaire investor Mark Cuban has also encouraged entrepreneurs to use AI to work faster and make better decisions, describing the technology as a source of leverage in business.

The broader entrepreneurial trend is reflected in US business formation figures. Americans filed 5.7 million applications to start businesses in 2025, the highest annual total in the two decades tracked by the US Census Bureau.

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