'Original White Collar Displacements': Mark Cuban Compares AI Taking Jobs to When There Was '2 [Million] Secretaries' Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban says AI might take your job, but it will lead to more "total" employment.
By Erin Davis Edited by Sherin Shibu
Key Takeaways
- Billionaire Mark Cuban thinks the "AI taking jobs" headlines are overstated.
- Cuban said AI will replace jobs, but like how technology once replaced millions of "secretaries" and dictation roles.
- Earlier this week, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said half of entry-level, white collar jobs could be eliminated by AI soon.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei told Axios this week that AI could eliminate half of all entry-level, white-collar jobs within the next five years, and people "should be worried" about it. Meanwhile, a new report from SignalFire, a venture capital firm that monitors the job movements of over 650 million employees on LinkedIn, found that advances in AI have already led big tech companies to reduce the hiring of new graduates (down 25% from 2023 to 2024).
But billionaire investor Mark Cuban thinks everyone is missing the bigger picture.
Cuban responded to an article about Amodei's comments on Bluesky, noting that technology has led to numerous changes in the workplace over the last century.
"Someone needs to remind the CEO that at one point there were more than 2 [million] secretaries," Cuban wrote. "There were also separate employees to do in-office dictation."
Someone needs to remind the CEO that at one point there were more than 2m secretaries. There were also separate employees to do in office dictation. They were the original white collar displacements. New companies with new jobs will come from AI and increase TOTAL employment.
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban.bsky.social) May 28, 2025 at 4:00 PM
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Cuban has long advocated for AI and offers a free AI bootcamp for high school students. Cuban noted that technology will continue to change how we work and what roles we will need in the future.
"They were the original white collar displacements," Cuban continued. "New companies with new jobs will come from AI and increase TOTAL employment."
AI is already coding at Meta and Google and handling HR tasks at IBM, and the back-and-forth debate about how it will affect he workplace has been raging for years.
Mark Cuban speaks onstage during the 2025 SXSW Conference and Festival at Hilton Austin on March 10, 2025, in Austin, Texas. Julia Beverly/WireImage Getty
Victor Lazarte, general partner at venture capital firm Benchmark, said on a recent episode of the podcast "The Twenty Minute VC" that big companies are downplaying how AI will affect their jobs, echoing Amodei's comments.
"It's bulls---t," Lazarte said. "[AI is] fully replacing people."
