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Dario Monde, the head of Anthropic, says, just because it's going to be so revolutionary and so disruptive, you're going to see a massacre of white-collar jobs, the people who do, you know, all the routine things in accounting and law and even consulting. What do you think? I would say if the world runs out of ideas, then productivity gains translates to job loss. But over the course of the last 300 years, 100 years, 60 years even in the era of computers, not only did productivity go up, employment also went up.
Now, the reason for that is because if we have an abundance of ideas, if we were more productive, we could realize that better.
Now, of course, in a world of zero-sum games, if you have no more ideas and all you want To do is this, then productivity drives down, it results in job loss.
So that is Jensen Wong being introduced, interviewed by Farid Zakari, I think, at the Aspen Institute, or he's talking on CNN, I should say. And he's talking about how, you know, with AI is coming, everyone's excited about it, but what's it going to mean for job loss?
Well, a lot of it comes to a lot of people going to be coming for the coders, according to Mike Rowe. They're not coming from the welders, the plumbers, the steam fitters. And it went on to say, and Mike Rowe said over at Aspen, that Larry Fink of BlackRock or Blackstone or something black says we need 500,000 electricians in the next couple of years. And that's not hyperbole. That is music to the ears.
And I told you so, has to be going through Mike Rowe's head. He is Mike Rowe from the Micro Works Foundation and the host of people you should know. Mike, what was it like at the Aspen Institute? They got you to wear a tie. Did you really just conflate BlackRock and Blackstone and then shrug it off as if a couple of trillion dollar companies are interchangeable?
Yeah, I think. In right respect. I appreciate that. Good for you. Yeah, you also conflated the Aspen Institute with the Energy AI summit, which just took place in Pittsburgh.
And it's an understandable conflation because every time you turn around, a room full of billionaires is convening somewhere in the country to talk about the existential threat that you and I have been discussing now for like 10 years. vis-à-vis our workforce.
So Look, I'm not one to take victory laps, but Brian. The headlines have caught up to us. In a way that is absolutely undeniable. Larry Fink at the Aspen Institute addressed. a a big crowd of swells.
And he was crystal clear: 500,000 electricians just in the $12 trillion portfolio that. That he oversees, right? These guys have a whole different look. at what's going on with our workforce.
Now, Yesterday and the day before in Pittsburgh, President Trump showed up. Uh along with An enormous crowd of people who raised ninety-two billion dollars in the room. To invest in building data centers, which, as Jensen Wang basically just described, are actually AI. Factories. This thing.
This is an enormous play by Pennsylvania and Senator McCormick and Fetterman, both of whom came together in a nonpartisan way to get behind this push. And I got invited simply to remind the crowd that. Creating jobs is very different than creating enthusiasm for those jobs. And I essentially begged them to carve off a little chunk of that money that was raised and use it to promote the opportunities at hand.
So basically, it's the same drum I've been beating for the last 17 years.
So, people that are panicking, you said, as you sent to me, they told you to, hey, if I think it was Hillary Clinton, they told a bunch of coal miners, learn to code. Yeah. Yes. And you said they're coming for the coders, they're not coming for the welders and the steam fitters. Do you want to explain that?
Yeah, that actually got an applause line. You know, we were at the Carnegie Mellon Institute. I mean, this is like a real pinnacle in an institution of higher learning. And these guys got the memo, too. We have, for the last 30 years, Been elevating Our white collar portion of the workforce at the expense of the blue collar.
Portion. And we have been sort of intimating that the robots and the technology that is certainly on the horizon, if not already here, is coming for the blue collar jobs. It's turning out to be something quite opposite. It's the white collar positions. I'm painting with a broad brush, but paralegal.
And anything creative, writing in general, these coding, these are looking very wobbly right now. The AI is going to. Come for those. And I agree with what Jensen was saying. There's disruption and there's going to be a result, I think, that's impossible to accurately predict long term.
But short term, we are entering the golden age of plumbing, steam fitting, pipe fitting, welding, HVAC. Those jobs are not going to be impacted by AI. And those are the jobs that are being created in Pennsylvania right now. And those are the opportunities that parents and guidance counselors ought to be zeroing in on. Have you noticed a change?
I know you want the change. You've been calling for the change. You predicted it. But have you noticed a change bringing vocational training back to schools? Have you noticed more people trying to apply for scholarships at MicroWorks?
Yeah, I mean, and that's truly a micro example, right? And it's anecdotal. I mean, my foundation is modest. We've given away about $13 million in these work epic scholarships, and this year we have 10 times the applicants that we did a year before. And if you look only at that, Brian, you could conclude: hey, you're killing it.
And modesty aside, We are in my little world. in macro works in the United States of America. I'd be ringing the alarm bell if I had one right now because not a week goes by where I don't hear from somebody like the American submarine industrial base who needs 140,000 welders and electricians. 140,000. The automotive industry needs 80,000 in collision repair and technicians.
Energy, don't even get me started, man. It's like 500,000. The numbers are mind-boggling, and it's awkward. To talk about this, especially at an event when I'm sitting there next to the president and we're announcing. all of these new jobs that are about to be created.
And I'm just sitting there. biting my lip going, look.
Somebody has to point out the fact that we have half a million open positions in manufacturing right now. Today. What are we going to do if we create 2 million manufacturing jobs? Where are you going to get the workers?
So, look, I'm going to testify on your show this weekend, on the TV and everything. And I'm probably going to rant and rave a little bit because I think. This is the missing piece. In all the conversations around job creation, going all the way back to Obama in 2009, when he promised 3 million shovel-ready jobs in the Highway Infrastructure Act to a country that was conspicuously ambivalent about picking up a shovel, it's the same thing now. You can't.
Like, we're just clinging to this depression-era artifact that says, Oh, you want to solve unemployment? Just create more opportunity.
Sorry. There are 7.6 million open positions in the country. Right now. We don't have an opportunity problem. And while we might have a skills gap, we also have a will gap.
And if we don't If we don't hit that thing head on, we're going to just keep pushing the boulder up the hill, I'm afraid. Member Week is here at Lowe's. Don't miss your chance to get up to 40% off hundreds of items like paint, faucets, vanities, doors, and more. Shop our exclusive deals happening in store and online now through July 18th. Not a member?
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Well, not only that, too, I think that the stat is there are 7 million people eligible to work that aren't working. Because that was the Medicaid conversation I was just having with that big bill that President Trump just passed. He's like, well, the problem is a lot of people are just getting insurance and they're refusing to work.
So we have to have a work requirement to get people moving. Yeah, Len, look, you're going to piss a lot of people off with that because it's going to get very political very quickly. And your friends on the right are going to tell you that this is a function of laziness and the human condition, and your friends on the left are going to say the jobs don't pay enough money, and you're dealing with great. Greedy, rapacious capitalist. Look, all I can tell you, again, anecdotally, Microworks has assisted 2,500 people.
The majority are making six figures. Many of them, they get a CDL license, and three weeks later, They're making 120 grand driving a truck. Six months later, they're making $150,000 welding.
So I tend to think with regard to that stat, which, by the way, comes from a book called Men Without Work by Nicholas Eberstadt that your listeners will love. Are they listeners or viewers, Brian? I can't keep it screwed up. We got both, because we're zooming. We're zooming.
How about that? Look, it's a terrific book. And what it really does is it it digs into something that's never happened in our country before, at least not in peacetime, where you've got seven million able bodied men who are not only not working, but not looking for work. That is amazing. And I'm not in either camp.
I'm not here to say they're lazy and I'm not here to say the opportunity. I'm just saying it's a real number. And isn't it interesting how 7.5 million open jobs kind of sort of correlates a bit with 7 million men who are not really interested in dealing with that?
So throw in immigration, throw in all the other hot button topics, and in the end, it's just math. And finally, here's the most chilling number: 7.6 million open jobs is a big number. How about five? And two. Five tradesmen retire every year and two replace them.
That's the ratio. Five out. 2N. It's been that way for a decade.
So you're dealing with bad math. You're dealing with downward demographic pressure. You're dealing with all the unintended consequences of yanking shop class out of high school. And now the chickens have come home to roost. And guys like Larry Fink at BlackRock and Blackstone and Wells Fargo.
I get calls every week now from big companies that don't have any direct skin in the game vis-à-vis blue-collar frontline workers, but they are highly motivated to see this problem. Corrected because if we don't do it, our workforce will remain out of balance, and now we don't have enough submarines. I know. In fact, we have to go outside our country with these contracts because we have to rapidly build ships and submarines. We do have that advantage right now of China.
I don't know for how much longer. But, Mike, when it came up in Pittsburgh and Aspen, around the country, have they connected the two?
So for example, we need five hundred thousand electricians, but did they just leave or did they say, this is my plan to get them? They like to plan for the future, getting rare earth and things to that nature to build the machines. But does the President realize this? Has this been has he's connected have people connected the dots? Look, I wouldn't Dane to look into the the mind of the president.
I think he surely must Have run some sort of calculus. I'll tell you, I think part of the solution is going to come from areas nobody's talking about. I met with a company in Pittsburgh called Impossible Minerals. These guys are going to be huge. They're mining, they've got contracts in place to mine the seafloor.
In an environmentally responsible way, but the resources that we're going to need are down there. And I've never heard of them before. And I think they're about to become a giant thing. I don't ultimately know what the solution is going to be here, but I'll just repeat: it's awkward because so many of us, especially our elected officials, they don't want to look into the lens and talk about a will gap. They don't want to talk about declining birth rates.
They don't want to, because it's just not flattering to our country and it doesn't get people elected, unfortunately.
So I just find myself constantly in this weird position. Position of saying, of course, I was rooting for Obama with 3 million shovel-ready jobs. Of course, I'm rooting for Trump with 3 million new jobs in manufacturing with all this reshoring. But I just hope to God somebody somewhere steps back and says, look, The opportunities alone are not enough to inspire, amplify, and motivate. this generation to run toward them and the money's not enough either.
If it were that simple, they would offer more money. And people would beat a pathway to their door. But I'm here to tell you that's. That's not what I've seen.
So there's there's something. Missing, and it has to do with PR communication. Messaging, and I'll leave you with this because I know you got to jump, but When these guys ask me where the skilled workers are, we've looked everywhere, Mike, says the Maritime Institute. We can't find them. Do you know where they are?
I say yes. They say where. I say the eighth grade. That's where they are. All right.
That's where you got to go, guys. And by the way, the Secretary of Education should be putting that back in. Just like pursuing anti-Semitism, we should be pushing for vocational training. Metal shop and wood shop. Mike Rowe, thanks so much.
I'll talk to you on Sunday night, 10 o'clock. You got it. This is the Brian. Kill me, Choe. Don't move.
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