During a recent meeting with investors, Jon Gray, the president of Blackstone, played a clip for the 1967 classic film “The Graduate”. It was the famous scene where the character of Dustin Hoffman was far from one of his parents’ friends during his own university diploma party for delicate career advice.
“I just want to tell you a word,” said the character of Mr. McGuire, “Power”.
In the original scene, McGuire said: “Plastics”, reflecting the spatial economy of the 1960s. The message behind Gray’s Edit was that Power is the new plastics at a time of advanced electricity.
Gray made the comments as part of a presentation to explain the Blackstone plan to generate AI boom yields while avoiding reckless and overexuborous investments. In doing so, he pleaded for which the professions are the most likely to thrive in the AI boom, which will probably not be affected and which must be massively transformed.
The comments of September 17, that the company later Downloaded on YouTubeReflect a broader societal conversation on the AI revolution to come which always takes place.
Gray compared the AI revolution to two other massive economic changes: the industrial revolution and the Boom du Dot-Com. The two eras reworked the bridge for work, farmers posing their shovels and moving to factories and software developers developing to the detriment of encyclopedia sellers, causing an explosion of certain industries, others and jobs previously unimaginable, such as the influencer of social media, to be created.
A screenshot of the presentation of Jon Gray. Gray points to the comments of the CEO of Nvidia according to which launched “a new industrial revolution”. Black
The main difference this time is that the change will be even faster, said Gray, noting that Chatgpt was the fastest product to reach 700 million consumers in history.
Here are some potential winners and losers in the AI economy, on the basis of reading Business Insider from the Gray’s September 17 presentation. Blackstone refused to comment.
Winners
Instead of investing directly in generator companies, Blackstone has adopted a “Picks and Pelle” approach, investing in the infrastructure that will feed the boom.
“If you have young university graduates, I would tell them that power is the way to follow,” said Gray.
A screenshot by Jon Gray de Blackstone standing in front of the company’s modification to an emblematic scene from the graduate. Black
Massive labor deficits among electricians and plumbers necessary for the growth of data centers put these jobs in a favorable position. Likewise, a LinkedIn study recently revealed that oil and gas work is one of the fastest fields for new graduates, alongside qualified trades.
The $ 100 billion Dollars of Blackstone data center platform, led by its American data center giant, shows how growth can also lead to jobs. Gray said that the company has gone from $ 10 billion when it was bought in 2021 to $ 70 billion, and although Gray did not directly mention the people of data centers, these qualified professionals will surely be in high demand.
Blackstone and QTS invested in a local talent pipeline to train these workers, in the middle of a work deficit in these data centers.
For the moment, AI investors are also winners of this boom, with actions at peaks of all time.
“There is no doubt that when you get this kind of excitement, you will get excess,” said Gray, warning specially designed data centers that do not have a tenant in mind.
“Will he start creating bubbles?” He asked, “We have to keep our eyes on this.”
Historically, the accidents caused by the overexuboring investment led to generalized layoffs in the financial industry. The finance and insurance sector experienced record layoffs in 2008, then in 2009 after the risk mortgage crisis, reaching nearly 100,000 separations during the two years by the Labor statistics office.
Losers
During the presentation, Gray showed that certain slides suggesting that AI could already disturb certain industries. The slides were based on a recent Stanford study which suggested that AI could already replace the less experienced workers (22 to 25 years) in certain white collar works, including software developers and customer service agents.
The slide has shown that hiring for young people in these roles began to delay 40 to 49 years at the end of 2022. On the other hand, the employment rates of young action and health aid followed the pace of their older peers during this period.
A screenshot by Jon Gray de Blackstone explaining how AI already moves software developers at the start of a career. Black
“The first programmers are moved,” said Gray, the appellant “a Claude code effect”, referring to the Google generating coding tool.
The same thing happens in customer service, “because AI improves to answer phones” and “answer questions”.
Gray underlined the company’s investment in “companies based on rules” as another place where AI has the power to transform “inherited companies”. AI’s ability to follow rules in companies such as accounting, health care claims or marketing compliance is part of the opportunity that has led Blackstone to invest in AGS Health, Citrin Cooperman and Norm AI, he said.
While Gray’s comments only concerned efficiency, they raise questions about the implications for workers. While some experts have suggested that AI could simply increase the efficiency of businesses, which allows them to do more with the same number of workers, disturbances still increases the prospect of job cuts.
It’s “early”, said Gray, but technology already has an impact on Blackstone. The investment giant was an internal video team to do everything, filming its infamous vacation videos to make its presentations, like Gray’s on September 17, more elegant. The generative AI is not yet up to par, but it is much cheaper, said Gray.
A screenshot by Jon Gray de Blackstone in front of two versions of his last advertisement, one of which was made by a generative AI. Black
To underline this, he played two versions of the same thing Blackstone Commercial Set in the gold rush of 1849. The first was filmed outside of Vancouver, and cost $ 1 million by counting the cost of travel, accommodation, wages and video publishing, Gray said. The second advertisement is “not so good yet”, but costs “a lot, much less,” said Gray. “It was done on the eighth floor here with two guys in a few hours,” said Gray.
