Why the Graduates Booed and Why It's a Mistake

Eric Schmidt got booed at the University of Arizona this past weekend. It was crazy to watch.

I think the students were partly right. And I think they’re making a mistake.

Schmidt told 10,000 graduates that their fear was rational. He told them to shape AI rather than let it shape them. They booed him anyway.

Six days earlier, a commencement speaker at UCF called AI “the next Industrial Revolution” and got booed, too. She stopped mid-speech and said, “Woop, what happened? I struck a chord.” She obviously did.

I run an AI company. I have kids who’ll be sitting in those same seats within the next few years. So I want to say two things that don’t usually get said together.

The students are right to be scared! The job market they’re walking into has changed tremendously in a few short years. Entry-level work in writing, design, analysis, coding among others is getting harder to find. Telling these grads “AI will create more jobs than it destroys” is asking them to trust a promise that won’t pay off for years. They have rent due now.

I’ve spent the last decade as a CEO making hiring decisions, and I talk to a lot of other CEOs. Every business right now is looking for the same thing…operational efficiency. And the fastest way to get efficiency in 2026 is to hire someone who already knows how to use AI to create more efficient processes. These are the candidates who will get hired first.

I’m not some oracle. That’s what’s happening in interview rooms at this very moment.

Jensen Huang said it much better at Carnegie Mellon last week: “AI is not likely to replace you, but someone using AI better than you might.”

These kids got handed a less-than-ideal job market and an AI revolution they didn’t ask for. They have every right to be angry and disillusioned.

But anger, fear and booing aren’t a plan.

The question isn’t whether AI will shape the world. It has, and will. The question is whether you’ll be the ones shaping AI.