Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch's flagship podcast about the business of startups.

I'm Rebecca Bilan, and this is the episode where we bring on industry experts to help us explore a trend in the tech world and dive deep.

Generative AI is reshaping the way people work, from full-time employees to freelancers.

As coding co-pilots, design assistance, and AI-powered writing tools become more capable and accessible,

creative and technical roles alike are starting to shift, if not become eliminated entirely.

The pressure to adapt is strong. Meeha Kaufman, CEO of Fiverr, isn't sugarcoding it. In a recent open letter

to staff, he warned that AI is coming for everyone's jobs, and the only way to stay relevant

is to embrace AI tools and automation. In short, get better, get faster, or get left behind.

Today, he's joining us to help unpack what all of this means for the future of work,

be it freelance or employed, and what you can do to survive.

Mika, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me, Rebecca.

So you made headlines a few weeks ago when you sent out a memo, it was in early April,

and then you tweeted it yourself, didn't want any staff leaking it to the

press. And you talked about the unpleasant truth of AI coming for your jobs. Heck, it's coming for my

job too. You wrote, this is a wake-up call. What prompted you to send that out? I think that this was

boiling in for a while. Having heard how my team actually speaks about this,

whether you're a marketeer or a programmer, I think most people are actually asking themselves

if they have a future in their profession. I think it's a fair question. And if anything,

this was a validation for them. But this was a wake-up call because I think my feeling was that people weren't adopting fast

enough.

And it's like the deer caught in the headlights of the car that is coming to hit them.

...