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At The Money: Preparing for a Career During in Age of Artificial Intelligence · Masters in Business

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  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios.
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  Speaker 2: Podcasts.
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  Speaker 1: Radio.
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  Speaker 2: News.
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  Speaker 1: In the age of artificial intelligence, how should students prepare
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  Speaker 1: for this job market? Let's bring in Harvard professor Nitin Nuria.
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  Speaker 1: He's former dean of the Harvard Business School. His new
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  Speaker 1: book is The CEO, The Role, The Reality, and The Responsibility.
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  Speaker 1: He's also executive chairman at Thrive Capital. which is the
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  Speaker 1: venture firm run by Joshua Kushner. So let's start with AI.
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  Speaker 1: If artificial intelligence is attacking that entry rung of the
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  Speaker 1: career ladder, how should recent college grads build their skills
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  Speaker 1: and judgment that used to come from those entry-level jobs?
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  Speaker 2: So I think that first, students should continue to use
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  Speaker 2: their time during their education to even be more determined
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  Speaker 2: to cultivate critical thinking, the capacity to interrogate themselves. When
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  Speaker 2: I teach cases now, one thing I've started to do
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  Speaker 2: is to ask students, so tell me what AI said
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  Speaker 2: about this case. Actually, read to me, not just even
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  Speaker 2: tell me, read to me what your AI agent said
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  Speaker 2: to you about this case. Because I want them to say,
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  Speaker 2: you can use this you can use these tools. In fact,
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  Speaker 2: you'd be required to use these tools when you get
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  Speaker 2: to work. And then I asked them the second question,
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  Speaker 2: what did you agree with? What did you disagree with?
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  Speaker 2: What further questions did you ask to get your thinking
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  Speaker 2: to be improved? I think this form of critical reasoning
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  Speaker 2: where we rely upon AI to inform ourselves, but then
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  Speaker 2: we interrogate it deeply. We learn how to think alongside it.
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  Speaker 2: This is a capability that they will be required to do, uh,
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  Speaker 2: And I think the best students will prepare themselves this way.
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  Speaker 1: So your preference is rather than just become a very
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  Speaker 1: inch wide, mile deep domain expert, really have the broad
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  Speaker 1: meta skills, critical reading, critical thinking, and more intelligent form
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  Speaker 1: of learning and working with AI? Is that the takeaway?
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  Speaker 2: I think so. I think that you have to, my
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  Speaker 2: view increasingly is that you should think of AI as
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  Speaker 2: a very much like in the Marvel comics. Each person
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  Speaker 2: can develop their own superpower. You don't need a Marvel suit.
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  Speaker 2: AI becomes the equivalent of your Marvel suit. But you
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  Speaker 2: have to tune it to yourself, right? Like everybody, it's
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  Speaker 2: not like all Marvel heroes have the same superpowers. You
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  Speaker 2: will develop your own superpowers and that'll be your distinctive edge.
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  Speaker 2: And how you use this extraordinary capacity to distinguish yourself,
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  Speaker 2: to make yourself special, That will be the new edge
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  Speaker 2: that people will have to find.
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  Speaker 1: So undergraduate, does the major a student takes really matter?
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  Speaker 1: Should they be, you know, we saw such a push
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  Speaker 1: towards STEM, but now it seems a lot of those
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  Speaker 1: technical skills are getting commoditized. How should a student be
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  Speaker 1: thinking about what they should be studying, how they develop
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  Speaker 1: judgment and communication skills? How important is the major?
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  Speaker 2: So I think that, again, in the same metaphor that
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  Speaker 2: I used about you have to find what your unique
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  Speaker 2: Marvel superpower is, expertise could be one of them, right?
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  Speaker 2: So it's not the case that expertise disappears. So if
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  Speaker 2: you end up being the person who has dug deep
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  Speaker 2: into computer science and you can therefore answer questions... about
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  Speaker 2: the right way to program using AI, about the right
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  Speaker 2: way to create safety, all of the questions that are
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  Speaker 2: now being done by the leading researchers at the top labs,
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  Speaker 2: that's not something that I, who doesn't have that same
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  Speaker 2: level of intuition, experience, expertise will be able to do.
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  Speaker 2: For others, it may be writing. For others, it may
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  Speaker 2: be history. So I do think that a major will
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  Speaker 2: continue to be important, but then there will be people
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  Speaker 2: who take interdisciplinary majors like social studies at Harvard who say,
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  Speaker 2: I'm not going to differentiate myself on expertise because that
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  Speaker 2: would be for some people. I'm going to be the generalist.
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  Speaker 2: And I think that being a generalist is going to
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  Speaker 2: be deeply important in this world too.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt. So let's talk about that first job,
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  Speaker 1: which when I was coming up was described as the
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  Speaker 1: all-important first job. Is that still the case? Should, should
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  Speaker 1: people think about that first gig out of college as
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  Speaker 1: something that's a little bit of an experiment to figure
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  Speaker 1: out what they like and what they're good at, or
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  Speaker 1: should it be a commitment to the company, to the industry,
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  Speaker 1: to their bosses and just jump in with both feet or,
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  Speaker 1: or somewhere in between?
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  Speaker 2: In my experience, having taught for now almost 40 years, uh,
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  Speaker 2: I have found, and I teach mostly business school students
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  Speaker 2: who are graduate students, but I've also had an interaction
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  Speaker 2: with lots of undergraduate students. I find that students are
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  Speaker 2: two types. There's people who somewhere very early in their
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  Speaker 2: life know exactly what their life's mission is. I've always
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  Speaker 2: said to those people, get on with it. Find a place, commit,
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  Speaker 2: dig deep, because you already know what you want to do.
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  Speaker 2: Don't waste time trying. flitting around, running experiments. The experiment
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  Speaker 2: of your life is already known. Now you have to
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  Speaker 2: find a way to deliver on it. And there are
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  Speaker 2: other people who, and I will put myself in that category,
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  Speaker 2: who didn't have a clue about what I wanted to
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  Speaker 2: do when I joined an undergraduate institution, didn't even have
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  Speaker 2: a clue of when I went to graduate school, and
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  Speaker 2: had to discover through experimentation what it was that we
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  Speaker 2: were going to be good at. And for those people,
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  Speaker 2: I say, don't be afraid of experimentation. Don't get anxious
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  Speaker 2: that you don't know exactly what you want to do.
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  Speaker 2: But when you get the signal that this is what
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  Speaker 2: you want to do, listen hard. Your body, mind, and
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  Speaker 2: heart will tell you that this is what you were
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  Speaker 2: meant to do. And when that happens, lock in and
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  Speaker 2: pursue it with all your heart. But don't get impatient
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  Speaker 2: if you don't know very early on what it is
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  Speaker 2: that you want to do and cut yourself some grace.
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  Speaker 1: Really interesting advice. So you're executive chairman of a venture
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  Speaker 1: capital firm. I've played around in that space over the years.
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  Speaker 1: And one of the things I'm kind of fascinated by
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  Speaker 1: is how often startups, really very new companies, pivot from
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  Speaker 1: the initial idea to a variation, to a derivative of
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  Speaker 1: the original technology. And sometimes it's to something entirely different.
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  Speaker 1: How should students and new grads think about those career pivots?
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  Speaker 1: How should they think about hey, is this just tough
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  Speaker 1: and I have to fight my way through or am
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  Speaker 1: I really more interested in this adjacent area of practice?
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  Speaker 2: So I think for entrepreneurs, there's a level of persistence
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  Speaker 2: and the willingness to pivot as needed because there's such
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  Speaker 2: a determination to come up with the right solution for
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  Speaker 2: a problem that may initially have presented as A, but
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  Speaker 2: over time looks like it's its adjacency A colleague of mine,
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  Speaker 2: Amar Bhide, did this research at Harvard Business School of
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  Speaker 2: hundreds of entrepreneurs, and he found that in 80% of
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  Speaker 2: the cases, as you said, where they ended up was
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  Speaker 2: a distant cousin at best of what they started, even
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  Speaker 2: when they were successful. I think that's not very different
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  Speaker 2: from people who pursue careers. Even if you're not an entrepreneur,
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  Speaker 2: where you start may not be where you end up.
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  Speaker 2: In your career, you may start as a consultant because
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  Speaker 2: that feels like the right way to gain some experience.
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  Speaker 2: And you may start as a journalist and, you know,
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  Speaker 2: you could end in very different places. So I think
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  Speaker 2: people should remain permanently open to explore adjacencies that they're
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  Speaker 2: drawn to. Certainly to recognize when what they're doing is
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  Speaker 2: a dead end and it's not going to actually yield anything.
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  Speaker 2: It's the hardest thing for people to do sometimes is
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  Speaker 2: to recognize a dead end. But I also say to people,
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  Speaker 2: don't be too quick to allow irritations or frictions that
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  Speaker 2: appear to be seen as a dead end. So I
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  Speaker 2: say to people, if you're unhappy, allow yourself to be
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  Speaker 2: unhappy for at least three to six months before you
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  Speaker 2: decide that this is a dead end. Because if you
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  Speaker 2: switch every time you experience unhappiness, you're just never going
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  Speaker 2: to have the persistence to work through the things that
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  Speaker 2: you have to work through in almost any job or
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  Speaker 2: any career.
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  Speaker 1: That persistence reminds me of a quote I've heard about
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  Speaker 1: so many different areas. I want to see how much
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  Speaker 1: it supplies to a career. It should be treated as
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  Speaker 1: a marathon, not a sprint. True?
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  Speaker 2: 100%. And yet, as you know, a marathon is not
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  Speaker 2: run at the same pace. If you see the great
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  Speaker 2: runners in a marathon, they try and set the pace early.
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  Speaker 2: So sometimes you want to actually set the pace early.
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  Speaker 2: In the middle of the race, you might slow down,
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  Speaker 2: but you're always trying to set a pace. At times,
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  Speaker 2: you want to run with the group. you want to
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  Speaker 2: run alone. So just as a marathon is not, yes,
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  Speaker 2: it's a long race, but it's not run at the
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  Speaker 2: same cadence throughout. I think that's what a good career
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  Speaker 2: looks like as well.
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  Speaker 1: Tell us about experiential learning. How should universities and students
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  Speaker 1: design higher education so that students really get the most
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  Speaker 1: out of their four years or so in college and
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  Speaker 1: are best prepared for a career?
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  Speaker 2: I'm a huge proponent of experiential learning, but full disclosure,
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  Speaker 2: I'm very biased in this regard. I think the case
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  Speaker 2: method that we taught by at Harvard Business School was
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  Speaker 2: an opportunity for students to confront experience in the classroom
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  Speaker 2: because we bring, in many ways, I used to think
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  Speaker 2: of it as the best flight simulation that you could
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  Speaker 2: have in business. We can't possibly put you into 100
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  Speaker 2: business situations in the real world, but we can give
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  Speaker 2: you 90 minutes of simulation of different business problems. But
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  Speaker 2: in each case, you have to act as the protagonist.
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  Speaker 2: You have to think about the problem with no solution given.
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  Speaker 2: So that's one form of experiential learning. But then in
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  Speaker 2: my time as dean, we ask students to, every one
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  Speaker 2: of our students to travel abroad, to get involved in
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  Speaker 2: real company situations. I think the only way to test
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  Speaker 2: whether the ideas that you're learning, how do they play
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  Speaker 2: out in practice? How do you apply your judgment? You
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  Speaker 2: can only do that through experiential learning. And I believe
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  Speaker 2: that in an age of AI where the knowledge that
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  Speaker 2: you have available will be at your fingertips. Learning how
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  Speaker 2: to apply it in practical, experiential contexts will be the
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  Speaker 2: one profoundly powerful way in cultivating the kind of critical
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  Speaker 2: thinking and judgment I started our conversation with.
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  Speaker 1: You know, I was speaking with Bob Michael. He's the
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  Speaker 1: head of fixed income at J.P. Morgan. And he has
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  Speaker 1: this quote that he tells his interns, the way to
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  Speaker 1: differentiate yourself is mastering AI tools the way my generation
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  Speaker 1: had a master of the spreadsheet. Good advice?
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  Speaker 2: Very good advice.
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  Speaker 1: All right. Our last two questions, and because you were
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  Speaker 1: dean at the Harvard Business School, these are going to
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  Speaker 1: be a little tailored to that. What is the prestige trap?
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  Speaker 1: What is the issue with chasing brand name employers? Is
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  Speaker 1: that a sound strategy?
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  Speaker 2: So brands are brands because they reflect something real. I
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  Speaker 2: don't think that brands can sustain themselves if they don't
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  Speaker 2: reflect real opportunities. So if you go to Goldman Sachs,
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  Speaker 2: there is something that you will learn at Goldman Sachs
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  Speaker 2: that's important. Or if you go to JPMorgan Chase in banking,
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  Speaker 2: if you go to consulting firms like BCG, Bain, McKinsey,
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  Speaker 2: These are brands that carry cachet because they're important. If
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  Speaker 2: you are interested in media, you go to Bloomberg or Disney.
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  Speaker 2: And these are places that are good places to go
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  Speaker 2: to because the brands carry something. But I think increasingly,
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  Speaker 2: I find at Harvard Business School that many of our
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  Speaker 2: students have learned that there's a lot to be learned
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  Speaker 2: in places that are not brands. So the courage that
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  Speaker 2: people now have to start in places that aren't already
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  Speaker 2: established brands has dramatically increased. And the reason why that increases,
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  Speaker 2: I think these people have come of age where Great
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  Speaker 2: companies have been built in front of their eyes, like
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  Speaker 2: who knew what Facebook was going to be, who knew
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  Speaker 2: what Google was going to be, right? So in the
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  Speaker 2: span of 10, 15 years, extraordinary brands have been built.
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  Speaker 2: And so I think our students have become much more
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  Speaker 2: comfortable saying that while a brand provides some assurance of
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  Speaker 2: a good learning experience, I can also get a great
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  Speaker 2: learning experience if I put myself in a setting where
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  Speaker 2: there's a lot more risk. But if it succeeds, it
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  Speaker 2: can succeed in an extraordinary way.
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  Speaker 1: And the question I'm very curious about, you've not only
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  Speaker 1: taught decades of students at Harvard and elsewhere, as well
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  Speaker 1: as the business school. I'm curious, what career paths of
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  Speaker 1: alumni from the Harvard Business School really surprised you?
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  Speaker 2: I think the thing that has constantly surprised me is
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  Speaker 2: when do our students decide to stake out their own
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  Speaker 2: entrepreneurial journey. 50% of our business school students by the
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  Speaker 2: end of their careers will have chosen an entrepreneurial path.
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  Speaker 2: And it can be from opening their own small consulting
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  Speaker 2: firm to at some point deciding to start their own
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  Speaker 2: investment shop to buying a small company or even sometimes
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  Speaker 2: returning to their family company and deciding that I want
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  Speaker 2: to run this company. So it's interesting in the end,
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  Speaker 2: people want to have the opportunity to feel like I
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  Speaker 2: am reporting to no boss. This is, I have ownership
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  Speaker 2: over what I'm building. And yet some people will do
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  Speaker 2: it as soon as they graduate from the school. Some
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  Speaker 2: people would do it 25 years later. And what has
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  Speaker 2: constantly surprised me is what's the trigger that finally causes
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  Speaker 2: someone to say, okay, I now need to have the
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  Speaker 2: opportunity to be an entrepreneur. And it's amazing the different
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  Speaker 2: ways in which people arrive at that decision.
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  Speaker 1: Really, really fascinating stuff. Thank you for being so generous
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  Speaker 1: with your time, Professor Noria. We have been speaking with
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  Speaker 1: Nitin Noria, author of the new book, The CEO, The Role,
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  Speaker 1: The Reality, and The Responsibility, and former dean of the
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  Speaker 1: Harvard Business School. You've been listening to Bloomberg's At The Money.