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Why Draper Says His Team Is Growing
Workers worried about AI replacing them received a different message from venture capitalist Tim Draper on Sept. 22: His team is growing as it uses the technology, rather than downsizing and replacing workers. In a post on X, the founding partner of Draper Associates argued that AI users could outcompete people who ignore the tools.
His opening line, “AI will take everyone’s jobs,” set up his contention that people will invent new ones. Draper wrote:
“We’re not cutting our team because of AI. We’re GROWING it.”
Draper also asserted that his team can accomplish “10x more” with AI than without it. That figure is Draper’s assessment of his team’s productivity. His post reports team growth but gives no hiring count.
Draper qualified his opening claim immediately: “AI alone probably won’t take your job. But someone using AI might.” He argued that people would invent new jobs as AI changed existing work. His warning focused on competition between workers who use the technology and those who ignore it. Draper pointed to his growing team as an example of adopting AI while expanding the workforce.
A Changing Market for AI Skills
Draper divided reactions to new technology into three groups: people who resist it, ignore it, or adopt it. He urged workers to experiment with AI in their industries and warned that competing businesses could use it to serve customers faster and at lower cost. His comparison to workers adapting from horse-drawn transport to automobiles presents career change as a response to technological change, rather than a guarantee that every existing job will survive.
In June, 75% of tech job postings requested AI proficiency, up from 67% in March. The figures show how often employers listed AI skills in tech openings; they do not measure how many people were hired.
The International Labour Organization’s 2025 assessment found that one in four workers worldwide held an occupation with some exposure to generative AI. Its researchers concluded that most affected jobs were more likely to change than disappear, given the continued need for human input. Exposure measures the potential for tasks to change; it is not a count of jobs lost.
Job Growth and Displacement Could Happen Together
Employers surveyed for the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 expected AI and information-processing technologies to create 11 million jobs and displace 9 million by 2030. Those are projections across the surveyed labor market, not results already observed. They support a more qualified outlook than Draper’s opening line: New roles and lost roles can emerge during the same transition.
Draper has also linked AI to changes beyond conventional workplaces. In January, he described a future in which robots and AI work alongside people and use bitcoin for payments. His latest post focuses on workers and businesses, but both sets of comments reflect his expectation that new technology will change how work is organized.
AI and robots also sit at the center of a broader economic forecast from Elon Musk. The Spacex and Tesla chief predicted that AI and robots could more than double the global economy in less than 10 years, citing the potential for automation to increase production. Draper’s latest claim is more immediate and specific: He said his own team is growing while its use of AI increases what it can accomplish.
Draper’s earlier comments about machines earning bitcoin payments also give a concrete example of the work he expects AI to perform. AI agents are software that can carry out tasks and make decisions, including transactions through cryptocurrency wallets.
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