This week, Idealab founder Bill Gross launched Idealab.ai, a free platform that makes more than 1.2 million AI-generated business ideas searchable, with tools to test and build them. His aim is to help create a million new businesses and 100 million jobs, offsetting those AI may displace.
It’s great timing for those just starting out. In our August survey of 1,007 Americans aged 18 to 25, 47% worried that AI would make it harder to land an entry-level job in their field. Nearly one in four (24%) are starting or considering starting their own business because of concerns about AI, and 36% would use time freed up by AI to build a side hustle. With 52% of corporate leaders and 58% of investors expecting fewer entry-level roles in the next few years, I expect these numbers will only increase going forward.
It may also produce better businesses. Gen Z has long said it wants more than a paycheck: in Deloitte’s 2026 Gen Z and Millennial Survey, about 40% of respondents have turned down a potential employer that didn’t match their personal ethics or beliefs, and 68% of Gen Zs say their current job allows them to make a meaningful contribution to society. Combine that motivation with a platform built around real-world problem solving, and you get entrepreneurship aimed at what Americans really want from AI; pathways to a better future.
Business and academia are already lining up behind it. Cloudflare is offering $100,000 in credits to every startup built on the platform. Mercury is providing the financial infrastructure founders need to take investment and invoice clients. Arizona State University will give all its students access and showcase the top ten businesses they build. And RAISE US, led by former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, will work with states and community business leaders to bring these tools to workers adapting to the AI economy.
I’m hoping Just Capital and Idealab.ai will soon find ways to partner. In the meantime, see my latest Forbes piece for more on entry-level roles and other AI risks leaders should watch.
Be well,
Martin
34% of those earning under $50,000 expected AI to improve their lives, compared with 44% to 48% in higher brackets. Explore the data here.
Charter released the results of their new AI Pulse survey on how AI is redefining work. The most surprising stat? Executives are two times as likely to trust AI over a knowledgeable colleague, and nearly twice as likely as their employees to trust AI output.
The Wall Street Journal breaks the news that AI found a bug that could threaten up to 70% of the world’s websites, and now there is a race to patch it before hackers can take advantage of it.
Politico reported on Anthropic’s proposed federal AI safety legislation, which has sparked debate over the future of AI regulation. Critics argue the proposal could weaken existing safeguards and limit states ability to regulate AI risks.
Axios reports that leading AI companies, including Anthropic and OpenAI, are increasingly taking AI regulation and wealth redistribution into their own hands amid limited federal oversight.
Gallup reveals that 8 in 10 employers still prefer hiring employees with a college degree to those without.
The Wall Street Journal looks at how – despite being in high-demand – nurses are quitting their positions in droves across the U.S.
Bloomberg speaks to the head of Groundwork Collective, a non-profit tracking when CEOs brag about price hikes and using that data to run experiments that “out” companies, like revealing Instacart was using dynamic pricing against U.S. customers.
The Washington Post reports that Meta will have to pay $25 billion to New Mexico for misleading users on privacy, the largest payout of its kind.
Elon University’s latest poll shows that LLM users are worried about AI hollowing out the meaning of work in various fronts. Read the full paper here.
