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Generation Z faces survival issues career crisis, Billionaire OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says that in just 10 years, college graduates will be exploring the solar system, and those jobs will bring sky-high salaries. The tech leader even said he envied young people because jobs early in our careers can seem “boring” by comparison.
As artificial intelligence reshapes the workforce, many Gen Z college graduates are discovering the hard way that their degrees do not guarantee a smooth career.
Now, even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, one of the biggest leaders driving the AI revolution in Silicon Valley, admits the elephant in the room is real: AI will eliminate some jobs entirely. However, the tech billionaire insists the next decade could be the most exciting time in history to start a career, especially for those who have ever dreamed of working in space.
Not only would they be making sky-high salaries, but Altman said they would also “feel sorry for you and me that we have to do this really boring, old job when everything is going to be better.”
“By 2035, graduating college students, if they’re still in college, will likely be off on a mission to explore the solar system on a spacecraft and have some new, exciting, high-paying, super-fun jobs,” Altman told video journalist Cleo Abram.
While it’s unclear how far the scope of space exploration will expand in the coming years (given NASA’s overall goal of landing on Mars in the 2030s), aerospace engineers are growing faster than the national average for all jobs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. They take home an enviable annual salary of more than $130,000.
How artificial intelligence will reshape the workplace
Other technology pioneers have AI predictions that are more Earth-friendly but still attractive to workers. Billionaire Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, for example, said the technology could drastically shorten the working week as humans are no longer needed for “most things”.
‘What will work look like? Should we work two to three days a week?’ the tech billionaire tells Jimmy Fallon tonight show.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that artificial intelligence already gives employees “superhuman” skills – skills that will only increase as the technology advances.
“From my perspective, I’m surrounded by superhuman and super-intelligent people because they’re the best in the world at what they do. They do things better than I do. I’m surrounded by thousands of people. And yet, there’s never a day when I think, all of a sudden, I’m not needed anymore,” he told Cleo Abrams separately. huge conversation Podcast Series.
While Altman admits that his crystal ball is still blurry and the true direction of artificial intelligence is unclear, he actually envies Gen Z professionals starting their careers: “If I were 22 years old now and graduating from college, I would feel like the luckiest kid in history,” he added to Abram.
wealth OpenAI was contacted for comment.
Artificial Intelligence Will Create a One-Man, Billion-Dollar Company
After launching the OpenAI model GPT-5, Altman claimed that the world already had access to the equivalent of a “team of PhD-level experts.” As a result, the CEO said, it will be easier than ever for one person to create a business that used to require “hundreds” of people to participate — all that’s required is coming up with a good idea and mastering the AI tools.
“It’s like a crazy thing to potentially start a company now that’s a one-person company that’s going to be worth over a billion dollars and, more importantly, deliver amazing products and services to the world,” he said.
Billionaire Mark Cuban has taken his predictions a step further, saying artificial intelligence could give Elon Musk a run for his money as the world’s richest man.
“We haven’t seen the best or the craziest yet [AI is] will be able to do it,” Cuban told reporters high performance podcast. “I think it’s going to create not only a trillionaire, but maybe just a guy in a basement. That’s how crazy it is.”
A version of this story was originally published on wealth network August 11, 2025.
More information about the future of work:
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Forget the four-day work week, Elon Musk predicts you won’t need to work at all ‘in less than 20 years’
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Amazon founder Jeff Bezos says ‘millions’ of people will be living in space by 2045 and robots will travel to the moon on our behalf
This story originally appeared on Fortune.com