Believe it or not, I still have a few haters on Instagram, who send me negative comments. AI is bad, they say, and so am I for writing about it. I may look like an enthusiastic booster of AI because I write about the new wave of creative tools, but at my core, I am deeply suspicious of the AI arms race and the tech behemoths who are pouring billions into it to gain a competitive advantage. Last week I raised the question that Big Tech might no longer be a safe career choice, and today I’m going to double down on that view. The term “ Gilded Age” is used historically to refer to a period in the United States (late 19th century) of rapid economic growth and great disparity between the very wealthy and the poor. And this week Fortune Magazine has an interesting piece where they say “We are essentially in a new Gilded Age’: As workers get laid off, CEOs and shareholders gobble up hundreds of billions in profits”. The Fortune article is paywalled, but it’s based on a report from Oxfam America, which you can read here.
The returns of my 401k are doing fine because it’s tied to the S&P 500 which is at an all time high largely due to the gains made by ‘the Magnificent Seven’ (NVIDIA, Meta, Tesla, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Apple). While not all of these companies are cutting jobs AND posting record profits, most of them are. For those of you who are new here, I’m a graphic design professor in Seattle and I started this newsletter as a means of providing insight to our students and alumni who are navigating these tumultuous times. After that instagram post, an alum reached out and asked, “Do you think those jobs are coming back?” Now I’m not an economist, and hope this isn’t to dark and ominous, but I’m going to give it a flat out “NO”. Based on what I’m reading this week, I think large tech companies are much more concerned with increasing shareholder value and they are best suited to reap greater efficiency from AI.
Will there be new jobs that will take their place? Absolutely. Microsoft, Google, IBM, Amazon, and LinkedIn all offer some sort of free AI skills training to help prepare the workforce of the future. So if you are not currently upgrading your skillset, you’re at a competitive disadvantage. I’m going to stick to my original claim, big tech is no longer a safe career path. For those of you living (or looking) in the Seattle area, you can see what Geekwire has to say about this.
Are There Innovative Companies to Work For?
While many of got into design because we wanted to be creative, the increased efficiencies of late-stage capitalism, design systems, and principles such as Jakob’s law has diminished much of that luster. People frequently ask me, “Are graphic designer jobs going away?” My short answer would be ‘yes’, if we’re talking about skills like layout and typography, but ‘no’ if we’re talking about a need for creative people. Business will always have a need for innovative people who can help solve customer-communication problems. If you have a grasp on how to leverage that with the new AI tools, you probably will have a better shot at remaining employed. If you’re thinking about the future of your creative career, perhaps a better goal would be just to work for an innovative company. If you’d like an inspirational shot in the arm, you should read Fast Company’s guide to the 50 Most Innovative Companies in the World. I can’t go into detail about all of them, so I’ll just discuss a few of them here.
If you’re a regular reader of this newsletter, you know that I frequently discuss Anthropic’s Claude and how Perplexity’s threat to Google.
Taco Bell “We shouldn’t just be a great quick-service restaurant brand, we should be a great global brand, period. I put us in the same category as Google, Apple, Nike, and Netflix. All the great brands in the world—we should desire to compete with them.” ~Sean Tresvant, Taco Bell CEO
National Women’s Soccer League “Women’s sports is an historically under-invested asset class. Investors are starting to put their money into the league, and we’re just at the beginning of our growth.” ~Jessica Berman, Commissioner, NWSL
Zipline The first drone delivery company cleared by the FAA to deliver packages beyond the line of sight. That’s just the start.
So if you’re a big picture thinker, and you accept that the world is changing rapidly, I still think there is a lot of possibility for a rewarding and creative career.
Groundbreaking Study Reveals How AI is Transforming the Creator Economy
Bonus: Midjourney vs. Recraft
I made a vector image library with each tool and compared the results in this Medium post. Let me know which one you like best. Or you can checkout the Figma file
Thank you so much for reading this post. I hope you’re getting a ton of value out of this newsletter. If you ever have any questions, suggestions, or requests, send me a message.
Thanks for keeping an eye on the job trends and updating us.