As leaders like Elon Musk predict that work will become optional in a few years, more workers may soon find themselves hanging out at a vacation spot of their choice. But at the same time, as the class of 2026 transitions from students into the latest workforce, people are looking for career paths that are not affected by artificial intelligence.
Regardless of the outcome, one area is likely to boom: hospitality.
Kurt Alexander, president of Omni Hotels & Resorts, which operates more than 50 hotels in North America, said finding a job in the field may be easier than it looks. What’s the gain? You have to bring the right attitude.
“We can teach you the hotel business,” he told wealth. “But do you have the attitude and the desire to serve people? Because that’s the business we’re in, and it’s hard work and it’s not sexy in a lot of ways, but it’s a good job and there’s a lot of dignity.”
The attitude-first hiring philosophy is echoed by business leaders, from billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who stress that cultural fit and a willingness to learn are often more important than other weaknesses. Alexander says the same mentality informs the way he evaluates talent in the hospitality industry, where technical skills can be taught but service orientation cannot.
But it’s also a philosophy he developed through his own unconventional way to the top of the hospitality industry.
Growing up, he dreamed of becoming an NBA player. But after realizing elite basketball wasn’t a possibility, he turned to finance, earning an economics degree from Duke University and a master’s degree in accounting from the University of Virginia.
He began his career as an auditor at Ernst & Young, working with major clients including Delta Air Lines. He later spent seven years at Atlanta-based investment bank VRA Partners before joining Omni in 2014 as director of strategic planning. By 2017, he had been promoted to chief financial officer, and in 2022, he assumed the company’s top position, president.
Remarkably, Alexander entered hospitality industry leadership with no actual hotel experience. During his first year in the leadership role, he immersed himself in every corner of the business – from checking guests in and working in the hotel restaurant to changing sheets and folding towels in the laundry room. The experience of working with the Dallas-based company’s current workforce of more than 20,000 employees has reinforced what he now believes in recruiting and leadership: Resilience and work ethic are still important.
“When genius doesn’t work hard, hard work defeats genius,” Alexander said. “But if talent works hard, talent wins.”
How Gen Z can succeed in an AI-driven world
Alexander believes that for young workers entering a labor market increasingly affected by automation, human skills are becoming more valuable, not less. This is part of the reason why hospitality can be considered an enduring career path in the age of artificial intelligence. Hotel chains are already using AI to complete tasks like answering common questions or streamlining the check-in process, but the industry still relies on jobs that are harder to automate: calming upset guests, checking in on rooms, making thoughtful recommendations or creating personal experiences that keep customers coming back.
Labor market data supports this demand. The latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that the accommodation and food services industry had the highest job vacancy rate of any industry in March 2026, at 5.5%. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that the industry will add more than 553,000 jobs from 2024 to 2034.
The employees who stand out, Alexander said, will be those who know how to use technology thoughtfully while still bringing a distinct sense of human judgment and curiosity.
“With the advent of artificial intelligence, I think asking questions is like a hugely underrated skill,” he said, adding that the people who are most successful are the ones who are best at pushing technology and have an intuition about what to improve.
Integrity and self-awareness also rank high on Alexander’s list of qualities he looks for in new employees. During interviews, he often asks candidates a thought-provoking question: “What are the flaws in your character?”
A willingness to answer candidly speaks louder than a polished resume, he said. Responses can also often reveal a person’s level of intelligence and insight — two traits he believes are becoming increasingly important in an AI-driven world but are still largely developed through relationships and real-world experience.
Although Alexander himself holds three degrees, including an MBA from Northwestern University, he said these lessons can be gleaned from a variety of educational experiences.
“I don’t care what school it is — it could be Duke, it could be community college — to me, being around relationships and engaging in the real world in a protected environment is how you learn wisdom and insight.”
Omni president says work-life balance is a ‘fallacy’
Developing this wisdom and insight also shapes how people think about ambition, priorities and the increasingly elusive idea of work-life balance.
For Alexander, work and life are not two separate buckets competing against each other—they are deeply intertwined.
“I think there’s a bit of a fallacy in the idea of ’you work here and you live here and we try to balance those two,'” he said. “I don’t think so.”
Instead, he believes people should first decide what is most important to them and accept the trade-offs that come with those choices. For example, if you want to make as much money as possible in a set amount of time, realize that your friendships and physical health may suffer. On the other hand, he added, people who prioritize travel, exploration or flexibility may not make as much as their peers who work 80 hours a week on Wall Street.
“I think about work-life balance in terms of ‘What’s important to you?'” he said. “Then set out to make that happen, because work is a part of life and a very wonderful part of life. If we don’t have the opportunity to work, we’re going to be miserable people. I’m very confident about that.”
For Alexander, achieving these priorities means waking up at 5:30 a.m., going for a run with friends, dropping the kids off at school, and then coming home from the end of the day around 6 or 7 p.m.
This perspective—less about balance as equilibrium and more about adjusting and accepting trade-offs—ultimately reflects how he thinks about implementation more broadly:
“Life will take you on journeys you can’t write for yourself,” he said. “But keep showing up, keep working hard, keep investing in relationships — to me, you end up doing something very fulfilling.”
This story originally appeared on Fortune.com
