“When there’s a lot of change, there’s a lot of opportunity.”
This was Reed Hastings’ advice when he was asked how high school students can prepare
for an uncertain future that will be heavily shaped by artificial intelligence.
As co-founder and former CEO of Netflix, Hastings has harnessed technology for decades to transform the entertainment industry forever. But now his focus has shifted to one thing that is perhaps the most powerful piece of technology ever created. AI.
It’s no longer a hypothetical concept in some futuristic sci-fi movie. AI is here to stay and the questions on many young people’s minds are: What does my career path look like in an AI dominated future? What skills will AI replace? Which skills are inimitable?
Hastings, who serves on the board of Anthropic, shared his advice on what students should major in to be best equipped for an AI-driven future. He said students should “pursue the most broad and general education” possible.
“You’ll have three or four or five careers, kind of one per decade, as the world changes,” Hastings said. Because of that, he argued that students should avoid building their education around tools that may soon be replaced.
“How the world works in terms of human to humans will change very slowly because we humans change slowly,” he said. “Tech changes very quickly.”
In his view, specific quantitative skills such as coding become quickly outdated as technology changes. But the ability to understand people, organizations, conflict, leadership, and decision-making will always remain valuable across many careers. This is why Hastings thinks majors like history and psychology are vital because they help us understand patterns in human behavior.
In the classroom, Hastings is a strong proponent of encompassing AI into everyday assignments. Many schools have responded to AI by imposing strict bans on the tool.
Hastings argues, however, that educators should embrace it and redesign the classroom around the technology while also raising their expectations of students’ work quality.
“You can use AI, but you’ve got to increase the assignments and the quality and sophistication,” he said.
This fosters educational usage of AI and can be a potential solution to the widespread academic dishonesty that is currently occurring with improper usage of AI.
As an education philanthropist, Hastings is a strong proponent of AI offering individualized instruction, which could fill the gap many traditional classrooms struggle to provide. He stated in a perfect world, there would be “a teacher for each kid.”
For students entering college in the next few years, the common advice currently is to choose majors that are practical, technical and future-proof. But this can feel impossible to do when AI is developing so rapidly. In fact, Stanford University’s 2025 AI Index Report estimates that AI capabilities are doubling every 4-7 months.
AI is already writing code, drafting contracts, analyzing data, summarizing research, and completing assignments that once required hours of human work. And with top tech companies in the United States investing a staggering $650 billion into AI infrastructure this year alone, its potential seems endless.
This idea of AI-powered teaching has already been incorporated into some online educational platforms, such as Khanmigo by Khan Academy, a global nonprofit organization that provides free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere.
As Hastings works with nonprofit charter schools to innovate methods of educating, he’s also exploring the concept of a personalized AI teacher as a possible solution to many persistent learning gaps. In this system, teachers would take on a transformed role focusing more heavily on providing motivation, emotional support, and personal connection. And while this concept may seem greatly futuristic, the rapid rate at which AI is currently developing may bring about this day sooner than we think.
When asked about the potential risks of AI leading to rising unemployment, his answer was greatly optimistic but not dismissive of the risks. Hastings describes a job market being reshaped in two directions at once: AI may reduce the need for humans to complete certain tasks, but it may also stimulate more productivity, generating substantially more goods, services, and overall wealth. This could lead to an economic surplus and, as Hastings thinks, possibly lower costs, stimulate demand, create new industries, and produce forms of employment that do not yet exist.
Take building a house, for example. The expensive cost of human labor is one factor contributing to the astronomically high housing prices. AI-powered machines could eventually do this work for a much cheaper price and work around the clock. In the short term, the replacement of these construction workers may leave some unemployed. However, because of the reduction of labor expenses and construction delays, the cost of housing may dramatically decrease. This would positively impact society overall as everyone would benefit from more affordable housing. This demonstrates one of Hastings’ larger points: AI may negatively affect particular jobs while still increasing overall productivity and lowering the cost of important goods.
The future of work will almost certainly look different from today’s. Some jobs will disappear, others will emerge, and many will be transformed in ways we cannot yet imagine.
Yet Hastings believes the greatest mistake students can make is trying to predict every technological shift. Instead, they should invest in the skills that have always defined successful leaders: understanding people, thinking critically, communicating clearly, and remaining adaptable. AI may change what we do for work, but it does not change what makes us human. And perhaps that is where the greatest opportunity lies.
