[rpeden]

When I read things like this, I have to wonder if the people saying it are really naive or sheltered enough to believe it:

"You want to be in the tech game, because in time it will be the only game in town."

Well, no...because tech won't be big enough to employ more than a relatively small percentage of the population. And it won't matter that companies want to pay tech workers to help automate people out of jobs. Because once everyone is unemployed, no amount of tech will keep a company in business if nobody is making enough to buy its products.

Without a doubt, things are going to change. Just like they always have. Some industries will gain, and some will lost. Some people will find their skills in high demand, and some will find their skills obsolete. We won't, however, end up in world where you either work in tech or you're unemployed.

[meric]

http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

[MaysonL]

Mechanical Turk will have an endless supply of two-bit tasks...

[rscale]

It's an especially odd statement coming from the founder of a company that employs people to run errands for other people.

[justin]

I guess my point was that I'd rather be the guy making the software that directs people around running errands then one of the guys running errands. To that end, I needed to have software engineering and product skills (otherwise I wouldn't have had the opportunity to even be in the position to start this company).

To the grandfather's point, I might be naive but when we automate away large numbers of people's jobs of course we will have to figure out some sort of wealth redistribution to give those people spending power (we do this right now in social welfare). However, my bet is that if you are one of the people doing the automating you'll be a lot better off than one of the people on welfare, because we've never in the history of humankind had perfect wealth redistribution.

[wtvanhest]

exactly. Everything they do will be replaced by machines.