Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev presented an optimistic view of artificial intelligence's impact on employment during a recent TED Talk, describing it as a potential catalyst for a "Cambrian explosion" of innovation and job creation.
"We're on a curve of rapidly accelerating job creation, which I like to call the 'job singularity,' a Cambrian explosion of not just new jobs but new job families across every imaginable field," Tenev said. "Where the internet gave people worldwide reach, AI gives them a world-class staff."
He stated that this shift reorganizes the future of work by providing individuals with capabilities once reserved for large firms. As AI tools handle tasks in engineering, marketing, research, operations, and customer support, people can operate with far less institutional support, lowering barriers to launching companies and new kinds of work.
"There's going to be a flurry of new entrepreneurial activity with micro-corporations, solo institutions, and single-person unicorns—which, by the way, I don't think we're very far from," Tenev said.
Research supports elements of this thesis. An October 2025 study from MIT Sloan School of Management found that firms adopting AI tend to grow faster and add jobs. A January 2025 analysis from the World Economic Forum estimated nearly 170 million new roles will emerge as AI use spreads.
Tenev described this job singularity as part of a long historical pattern where entire classes of work have disappeared as productivity through automation increased. "Job disruption is an essential quality of human evolution," he said.
He noted that what makes the current transition feel different is the speed at which AI is disrupting the job market. AI systems can now move beyond narrowly defined tasks and operate across domains in ways earlier technologies like the personal computer and smartphone could not.
This acceleration has fueled unease across the workforce as traditional career paths become less predictable. A February 2025 Pew Research Center survey found over half of U.S. workers are worried about AI's impact on the workplace, and roughly one-third believe it will reduce their long-term job opportunities rather than expand them.
Still, Tenev cautioned against assuming disruption means long-term job scarcity. He pointed to earlier technological scares that failed to materialize, including warnings in the 1990s that programming jobs would be outsourced and fears that chess would decline after IBM's Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov in 1997.
"So even where it seems obvious, sometimes our predictions of the future end up being completely off," he said.
Despite uncertainty surrounding AI's impact on jobs, Tenev said human societies have consistently adapted to technological change. "Humanity has always excelled at providing itself with meaning and purpose, even in the darkest and most uncertain of times," he said. "I feel very confident that the 20-year-olds of the future, perhaps in collaboration with AI, will continue to build new things that we're simultaneously scared of and excited by."