How AI Will Doom Your Kids
AI is advancing fast - putting college grads out of work. And, the worst part is...it's just getting started.
Friday, August 22nd, 2025
Writing to you from Uruguay
“I just graduated with a computer science degree, and the only company that has called me for an interview is Chipotle”
AI is a very real threat for those unprepared for it. Worst of all, it could be a threat to your kids future. AI is, to use the phrase that was forced on us during Covid, “the new norm”. But, this new norm is here to stay and it’ll shape more lives than the Covid-19 scare ever did.
The industrial revolution marked the beginning of our ever-quickening timeline. Cars, factories, and communications (to name a few things) sped everything up. And, each new technology was more easily built off of the last. Like the wheels of a steam locomotive - it’s hard to get ‘em moving at first, but once you gain some momentum it moves fast. And, things are moving even faster now.
Think about it, how many major newsworthy events happen in a day, a week, a month?
Well, AI is the new Industrial Revolution. A lot of unimaginable good can come from it, but many - perhaps millions - will be swept up in the wave of change. Those in my generation, some in college and some already graduated, are staring up at a tsunami that will, no doubt, come crashing down on us.
Zach and Manasi are already feeling its crushing weight…
AI is Stealing Jobs, With No Hope in Sight For Some
You just completed several years of college and gained your degree in computer science. Everyone was cheering you on, saying that your time in college would be your ticket to success. After stepping out the door with your cap and gown you’re ready to begin your life.
The whole point of college was to get a good job. And, now that you have a degree, you’re excited by the prospect of getting paid the big bucks.
You send out application after application. Anything that has to do with your degree - you’re applying for it. Slowly, you’re becoming concerned and desperate. “Why hasn’t anyone hired me yet?”, you say. Then, after years of searching, 5,762 job applications sent, and only 13 interviews (that amounted to nothing) you decide to give up.
That’s what happened to Zach.
“The electronics firm where he had a software engineering internship last year was not able to hire him, he said. This year, he applied for a job at McDonald’s to help cover expenses, but he was rejected “for lack of experience,” he said. He has since moved back home to Sherwood, Ore., and is receiving unemployment benefits.”
This is bad, but isn’t a freak occurrence. Let’s not forget about Manasi…
She was told that if she learned to code, worked hard, and got a degree in computer science she would be working for a company with a six-figure salary straight out of college.
After all, since the 2010s, presidents, billionaires, and tech giants were saying, “Just learn to code!”
Well, the degree wasn’t the golden ticket to success Manasi thought it would be. As she said, “I just graduated with a computer science degree, and the only company that has called me for an interview is Chipotle”.
Zach and Manasi wasted years in college - and they’d probably admit that themselves. Zach on unemployment and Manasi in a job unrelated to her degree is a glimpse into a grim future for young people taking the college route. Years of wasted time, likely 10s (if not hundreds of thousands) in debt, few skills, and little opportunity.
And, don’t forget, AI is just getting started.
“The unfortunate thing right now, specifically for recent college grads, is those positions that are most likely to be automated are the entry-level positions that they would be seeking,” said Matthew Martin, U.S. senior economist at Oxford Economics, a forecasting firm.
The timeline of history is speeding up. The Industrial Revolution changed the world in ways unimaginable beforehand. And, many who had specialized skills saw their jobs effectively eliminated by the enormous change. Here’s a few of those jobs:
Handloom weaver
Spinners and Carders
Hand knitters
Tailors and seamstresses (to a great extent)
Shoemakers
Cottage spinners and dyers
Canal boatmen and carters
Horse-drawn wagon drivers
Hand tool makers
Traditional blacksmiths (certain types)
And here’s where a lot of damage was dealt…
Threshers
Reapers and harvest laborers
General farm laborers
Today’s white collar workers are equivalent to pre-industrial revolution farm workers. In abundance and certainly needed one day…but dwindled down to a fraction the next when tractors and advanced farm equipment becomes part of the equation. But, any tractor will pale in comparison to AI.
What to do for your kids?
The walls are closing in for many of my peers in college whether they know it or not. AI will improve dramatically within the four years they are in college…man, within the last two years its already significantly better. By the time they step out into the real world it won’t just be a question of whether their degree holds the same prestige as it did before. No, it’ll be a question of whether or not they can be replaced by AI.
Four years of being left in the dark just to come out the other side and realize none of it mattered?
You might as well have a magic eight ball decide your fate…
The new path to success doesn’t come from delaying real-world experience (and adulthood for that matter) by specializing in one subject. Not to mention, everything one learns in college is only theory until it’s put to practice. The new path is about gaining competency is a wide array of areas from an early age - drastically increasing the number of future opportunities you have.
Instead of going to college, your kids can spend 4 years gaining real skills, expanding their range of knowledge, travel the world, and build a network of valuable and interesting people. All of which will turn them into a future-proof human - someone who isn’t seeing the walls close in on them, but is granted an ever-expanding horizon of opportunity.
And that’s exactly what they can do in The Preparation.
Within The Preparation, we outline 16 cycles - each cycle being equivalent to 3 months, and the total 16 being equal to 4 years. Within each cycle there’s one anchor course. For example, some of the anchor courses are: becoming an EMT, learning to sail around South America, getting trained as a chef in Italy, becoming a private pilot, learning to operate heavy equipment, welding…
The list goes on.
Along with that, each cycle contains specific academic courses to take, activities to do (scuba diving, sky diving, learning guitar, learning a second language…), and books to read.
The academic courses are taught by some of the worlds top professors. With The Preparation you get everything college offers and MORE.
And, we aren’t just telling you to do these things. We show you exactly what to do and where to go in all 16 cycles.
Each completed cycle builds opportunity. Not only will you be learning serious skills, but wild opportunities will be given to you. As a prime example: after becoming an EMT, I was offered a job to work on wildfires and take a 5-day rope rescue course in South Dakota. I took the job the following year and was paid $600/day.
You have a responsibility to your kids. If the future of AI (and how it can affect your kids) scares you - don’t put them on the college path…encourage them to start their own preparation.
P.S. I’ve been the beta tester for this program for the last two years. Since starting I’ve scuba dived in murky Texas lakes and cold Punta del Este water, learned the basics of wrangling horses from a man in Wyoming, learned to fly a plane in Colorado, worked long nightshifts on wildfires in Oregon as an EMT, been apprenticed to an Uruguayan gaucho who taught me how to drive tractors, shoe horses, fix fences, and raise and treat cattle.
I’ve written 10s of thousands of words documenting my journey and thoughts which helped me become a better writer. I’ve become a competent chess player, a Spanish speaker. I’ve spent several days in the Colorado mountains learning horse/mule packing from one of the most impressive men I have ever met…
I’ve climbed to the top of several 14,000ft mountains, sailed around the Falkland Islands and through the Strait of Magellan, hiked through the hot Nevada desert while working on a geophysics crew, became an EMT, and did additional wilderness first responder training in the high desert of Colorado…I’ve spent 5 days at a rope rescue course in South Dakota; studied economics, flying, copywriting, regenerative agriculture, and several different eras of history. Along with that, I’ve read more books than I can recall.
I’ve made money from writing, working at Office Depot, delivering pizzas, treating patients as an EMT on wildfires, and apprenticing on a geophysics crew. My passport is filling up with stamps from places I never thought I’d go. And, I’ve done all this before the age of 20.
So, I can tell you myself…this path not only works, but allows you to thrive.
-Maxim Benjamin Smith