Why AI Taking Your Job Isn't the Real Problem, with Fmr. OpenAI Exec Zack Kass

Afford Anything | Make Smart Money Choices

Paula Pant | Cumulus Podcast Network

Entrepreneurship, Investing, Business

4.7 • 3.6K Ratings

🗓️ 9 January 2026

⏱️ 91 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

#679: Will you still have a job in five years? Zack Kass, former OpenAI executive and 16-year AI veteran, joins us to tackle the question that keeps knowledge workers up at night. Most people worry about the economics — who can pay the bills if AI takes their job? Kass flips the question: What happens when work no longer defines who you are? He argues we're heading for an identity crisis bigger than any economic disruption. In this conversation, Kass explains why everyone wants everyone else's job automated (faster legal services, cheaper healthcare) but nobody wants their own work to disappear. He shares why some jobs will vanish while others explode in demand, and which professions might actually benefit from AI disruption. You'll discover why the real threat isn't job loss — it's that we've become addicted to our devices and forgotten how to live without constant work. Kass reveals how financial illiteracy keeps people trapped in debt cycles that AI could help break. He explains why housing, healthcare, and education costs stay high while everything else gets cheaper, and what might finally change that dynamic. The conversation explores what happens when AI makes basic needs affordable for everyone. Kass predicts some people will pursue passion projects, others will double down on work, and many will struggle to answer a simple question: What do you actually want to do with your day? We discuss practical realities like how a 53-year-old attorney might reinvent herself, why accountants face bigger challenges than lawyers, and which human skills will become more valuable as machines get smarter. Kass shares his theory about competing on kindness rather than intelligence when AI can outthink us all. This isn't another doom-and-gloom AI prediction. Kass makes a compelling case that automation could free us to rediscover community, creativity, and purpose … if we can get past our addiction to both work and screens long enough to imagine what that life looks like. Timestamps: Note: Timestamps will vary on individual listening devices based on dynamic advertising run times. The provided timestamps are approximate and may be several minutes off due to changing ad lengths.  (0:00) Introduction (2:00) Zack's AI background at OpenAI (3:15) Will knowledge workers have jobs (4:52) Job automation is complex (7:53) Longshoremen strike over automation (9:06) Everyone wants others' jobs automated (10:14) Identity crisis bigger than economics (13:36) Lawyers might enjoy job loss (21:42) Societal thresholds stop automation (28:52) Bespoke services always find demand (41:34) AI won't replace human therapists (47:11) Dehumanization threatens physical connections (54:55) Financial illiteracy costs billions (1:03:21) Predatory lending traps explained (1:11:51) Housing healthcare education stay expensive (1:26:31) Screen time hides free time Resource: AffordAnything.com/financialgoals Share this episode with a friend, colleagues, the Permabulls and the Permabears: https://affordanything.com/episode679 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Will you still have a job in five years?
0:02.7	That's the question that keeps a lot of knowledge workers, white-collar workers, up at night as AI gets smarter every day.
0:10.5	What if it's the wrong question?
0:12.5	We're going to discuss that today with Zach Cass, one of the world's foremost authorities on applied AI.
0:18.6	He is a former executive at OpenAI, one of the first 100 employees at Open
0:22.7	AI, and he served as OpenAI's head of go-to market, meaning he built out the sales, solutions,
0:29.5	and partnership teams. While there, he played a key role in commercializing AI and large
0:34.6	language models and serving as an advisor to many executives who are deploying AI across their companies.
0:41.0	He is an advisor to many Fortune 1000 boardrooms, including Coca-Cola, Morgan Stanley, and Samsung.
0:46.5	He's an executive in residence at the University of Virginia's McIntyre School of Commerce.
0:51.7	And he is the author of a new book called The Next Renaissance,
0:55.7	which is all about AI in the context of the expansion of human potential. And in our upcoming
1:02.9	conversation, Zach makes the argument that the real threat from AI isn't economic, but rather
1:08.7	it's emotional. So the question isn't, will I lose my job,
1:12.1	but rather, who am I without my work? We discuss financial literacy, screen addiction, and why
1:20.8	housing, health care and education in particular, stay so expensive while many other things get
1:26.8	cheaper.
1:32.4	Welcome to the Afford Anything podcast, the show that knows you can afford anything, not everything.
1:38.3	This show covers five pillars, financial psychology, increasing your income, investing, real estate and entrepreneurship.
1:41.4	The acronym is Fire with two eyes, double I fire.
1:44.6	I'm your host, Paula Pant. I trained in economic reporting at Columbia.
1:50.6	And I very much wanted this conversation to be about that first letter I increasing your income.
	...

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