Sam Altman's Advice for Young Workers: Learn AI Tools and Try the New Thing

What is Sam Altman's advice for young workers?

Sam Altman's advice comes down to two points: get really good at using AI tools, and pick new paths over the ones that were fashionable a few years ago ^{[1] [2]}. The OpenAI CEO repeated the second point in an interview with Stanford's Graduate School of Business, reported in October 2026 ^[1].

He frames the current job market as an opening, not only a threat. This article gathers what he has said in interviews and on stage since March 2025, and adds some context on how to read it.

What did Altman say at Stanford in October 2026?

Altman told the Stanford interviewer that huge numbers of tasks people do today will be done better, cheaper and faster by AI, and in completely different ways ^[1]. He said "wide swaths" of current jobs, as they are done today, will be handled entirely by AI ^[1]. He also cautioned that the change will not happen as quickly as many people expect ^[1].

The line that made headlines was about business school students. "My chronic disappointment with MBA students is that they always want to go do the thing that was cool five years ago rather than try something new," he said, adding: "I think this is a great time to go do the new thing." ^[1]

Some headlines presented this as a complaint about Gen Z as a whole. In the reported quote, Altman was talking about MBA students specifically ^[1].

Why does Altman think now is a good time to start a career?

His argument is that big changes reward newcomers. "If you're heading into the world right now to work on something, I think you want to start your career at a time of the greatest change, when the playing field is most open," he told Stanford students ^[1]. He added that people with "high potential, drive, ideas, a new way of looking at things, and new skills tend to do relatively well when the ground is shaking the most" ^[1].

He made a similar point in August 2025 on Cleo Abram's Huge If True podcast. If he were graduating college at that moment, he said, "I would feel like the luckiest kid in all of history" ^[4]. In the same conversation, he said he was more worried about a 62-year-old who does not want to retrain than about a 22-year-old graduate ^[4].

What skill does Altman tell graduates to learn first?

AI tools. In March 2025, Stratechery's Ben Thompson asked him for career advice for Gen Z students graduating from high school that year. "The obvious tactical thing is just get really good at using AI tools," Altman answered ^[2]. He compared it to his own high school graduation, when the obvious move was to get really good at coding, and called AI tools "the new version of that" ^[2]. Fortune noted that, unlike coding, it is a skill students can pick up without spending years on it ^[2].

For a casual reader, this is the most practical part of his advice. You do not need a computer science degree to follow it. Using an AI assistant for real tasks in your current job or studies, such as drafting, summarizing or planning, is the kind of practice he is pointing at.

Will AI take entry-level jobs?

Altman has been direct that AI is reaching entry-level work. On a June 2025 panel with Snowflake CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy, he said AI today is "like an intern that can work for a couple of hours," and that at some point it will be like an experienced software engineer who can work for a couple of days ^[3].

He also described how different age groups use ChatGPT. Older people use it as a Google replacement, he said at Sequoia Capital's AI Ascent event, while people in their twenties and thirties use it as a life advisor, and college students use it as an operating system ^[3]. His point was that younger people already treat AI as part of how they work.

Should young people start their own company?

Altman clearly thinks it is a good moment to try. At OpenAI's DevDay in October 2025, he told interviewer Rowan Cheung that he is envious of today's 20-year-old dropouts, because "the opportunity space is so incredibly wide" ^[5]. He said running OpenAI takes up so much of his mental space that he does not get to think about a new startup, which he called "a little bit sad" ^[5].

At Stanford, he went further. He said many companies can be built on top of the technology OpenAI has released, and that some could be much bigger and, he hopes, more important than OpenAI ^[1]. Altman speaks from experience here: he dropped out of Stanford in 2005 to cofound Loopt, a location-based social networking startup ^[1].

How should you read Altman's advice?

Keep two things in mind. Altman runs OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, so he has a direct interest in more people using AI tools ^{[1] [3]}. His own path, dropping out to start a company, worked out for him, but it is one path among many ^[1].

The parts that hold up for most people are modest. Learning to use AI tools well costs little and helps in almost any office job ^[2]. Choosing work because it is new and growing, rather than because it was the safe pick five years ago, is a reasonable filter when a field is changing fast ^[1].

What can you do this week?

Pick one task you do every week, such as an email, a report or a study summary, and try doing it with an AI assistant. Compare the result with your usual version, and keep the parts that save time.

Then look at the roles or courses you are considering, and ask whether each one is growing or was simply popular a few years ago. That question is the core of what Altman told the Stanford students ^[1].