Episode Overview
Pete and Peter promised a lighter episode this week, and they mostly deliver. First up: a new Goldman Sachs report asking whether an “AI jobs apocalypse” is coming. Goldman’s take is more measured than the headlines suggest, spreading disruption over roughly 10 years and concentrating it in entry-level roles. MIT economist and Nobel laureate Daron Acemoglu takes a harder line in the same conversation, predicting job displacement in the millions and pointing out that “no general law of economics says that job creation must match job destruction.” Pete and Peter disagree on the timeline (Pete thinks it happens faster than 10 years) but agree entry-level workers are exposed first, since their tasks are the easiest to automate.
From there, they talk through a live AI phone auto-attendant demo they sat in on this week, a Deutsche Bank report claiming AI productivity gains are still years away (Pete and Peter push back hard on that one), and why adoption looks so uneven across early adopters, cautious testers, and companies that haven’t started at all.
Then the good news: ZipRecruiter data shows apprentice-trained trade workers earn a median $91,000 a year versus $65,000 for self-taught workers, construction jobs are up 34% year over year, and manufacturing is up 32%, even as most white-collar hiring stays flat. Pete and Peter dig into why trade schools still lag colleges on marketing and admissions, and why that gap matters more now that AI is squeezing entry-level office jobs.
They also cover the NFIB small business index, where 84% of small businesses actively hiring say they can’t find qualified applicants, and close with a wild Wall Street Journal story: a co-founder at Barnhill Investments who helped write the company’s return-to-office policy got fired under that same policy for not coming in.
Key Takeaways
- Goldman Sachs on whether an AI jobs apocalypse is coming, and Daron Acemoglu’s pushback
- AI phone auto-attendant demo and what it means for entry-level roles
- Deutsche Bank says AI productivity gains are years away; Pete and Peter disagree
- Trade jobs are booming: $91K median for apprentice-trained workers vs. $65K self-taught
- Construction up 34% YoY, manufacturing up 32% YoY
- NFIB data: 84% of actively hiring small businesses can’t find qualified applicants
- A co-founder fired under the RTO policy he helped write
32 minutes
