Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn cofounder, says Gen Z graduates are highly attractive to employers for one reason

The rise of AI has sparked fears about job losses, but Reid Hoffman encourages young people to embrace AI during their job search.

The LinkedIn cofounder emphasized that AI knowledge makes young job seekers “enormously attractive” to employers.

Reid Hoffman, the venture capitalist who co-founded LinkedIn, believes that young people should use their familiarity with AI as an advantage when seeking employment.

“You are generation AI. You are AI native. So bringing the fact that you have AI in your toolset is one of the things that makes you enormously attractive,” Hoffman said in a video published on his YouTube channel on Thursday.

Hoffman was responding to questions from college students on how to best navigate their job hunt. Several students asked about the potential impact of AI on employment opportunities.

Hoffman acknowledged that AI’s impact on jobs is a “legitimate worry,” but he urged students to leverage AI to their benefit.

“On this side, it’s transforming the workspace, entry-level work, employers’ confusion,” he said. “But on this side, it’s making you able to show your unique capabilities. In an environment with a bunch of older people, you might be able to help them out.”

A representative for Hoffman did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

The rise of AI has fueled concerns that companies may hire fewer people in the future. Last month, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei stated in an interview with Axios that AI could eliminate half of all entry-level office jobs.

Amodei also suggested that unemployment could reach 20% within five years.

“Most of them are unaware that this is about to happen,” he said. “It sounds crazy, and people just don’t believe it.”

However, not all business leaders agree with Amodei’s grim prediction.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang disagreed with Amodei during an appearance at VivaTech 2025 in Paris. He told reporters that while some jobs might disappear, AI could also create new opportunities.

“I pretty much disagree with almost everything he says,” Huang said. “He thinks AI is so scary, but only they should do it.”

Huang explained that while AI may change certain jobs, it could also create new ones. “Do I think AI will change jobs? It will change everyone’s — it’s changed mine,” Huang added.

Mark Cuban shared a similar sentiment. The “Shark Tank” star wrote in a BlueSky post last month that AI would lead to job creation, not destruction.

“Someone needs to remind the CEO that at one point there were more than 2 million secretaries. There were also separate employees to do in-office dictation. They were the original white-collar displacements,” Cuban wrote.

“New companies with new jobs will come from AI and increase TOTAL employment,” he added.

Correction: June 13, 2025 — An earlier version of this story misstated Dario Amodei’s comments. Axios had paraphrased him as saying that the unemployment rate could reach 20% within five years, not that he expected it to rise by as much as 20% during that time.