In a recent episode of the Big Technology Podcast, Mark Cuban shared what he would do if he was a soon-to-be college grad on the job hunt in the current turbulent market.
Cuban said young professionals shouldn’t look to big companies—which have already put a pause on hiring entry-level roles, especially for software engineers and programmers. Instead, he said, they should shift their focus to outsourcing their AI skills to smaller-scale companies.
“If I was graduating today, or if I was a 16-year-old looking for a job, I would learn everything there is to know about AI. And I would go to small and medium-size businesses and say, ‘Let me walk in the door,’” Cuban said.
As these systems constantly develop, they require modifications and updates. Cuban said that managing a company’s AI systems—or being the “buffer” that understands how agents work—is “crucial,” and a sound way to generate recurring income.
Cuban said he has preached the advice of becoming an AI expert to his daughter, who will graduate from college soon and work at a consulting company.
“If you’re not the person who knows how to do vibe coding or do all these different things with agents and Claude—whoever does is going to take your place,” he said.
Instead of buying into the AI hype, Cuban has been quite measured with his comments around artificial intelligence, as well as vocal about the technology’s potential pitfalls. In the past, he called AI agents the equivalent of a “hungover intern.”
But the billionaire entrepreneur said AI has had a “major impact” and acts as a “great democratizer of knowledge, like we’ve never seen before.” Still, he casts a distinction between people who use AI to expand their skill set versus those who use AI tools to speedrun through tasks.
“You will always have an edge over everybody around you if you’re using AI to learn,” Cuban said. “If you’re just using it just so you don’t have to do the work and it’s your drunk intern, I mean, you’re going to struggle.”
As someone who has been around for the advent of major technologies, Cuban believes that those who are not using a large language model (LLM) or don’t have knowledge about AI agents will fall behind. Considering that many workers feel resentful and fearful of company AI policies, this is a real risk.
“There was always a group of people that were first and always a group of people that were naysayers,” he said. “And the people that were first typically ended up getting further ahead, and I think it’s the same with AI today.”
In the next three years, Cuban said that there will be two types of companies: those that are great with AI, and those that went out of business.
In the process, he said, there is “no question” that job displacement will impact many people. But, Cuban said, “If you’re a critical thinker, there’s always going to be a need for you.”
In Cuban’s eyes, whoever learns how to use automation tools the best will win in the AI era. Everyone else might get left behind.