The secret? It’s never about the code. It’s about psychology. I’ve placed AI engineers who wrote world-class algorithms… but didn’t get the job. And others with average code but exceptional communication who got hired instantly. Technical skills open the door. Human skills keep it open. In 2025, the best engineers won’t just build; they’ll connect, collaborate, and communicate. The companies that win will be the ones that hire for both.

Chegg Inc. just fired 45% of its workforce. 388 people. The reason? ChatGPT made their $15/month homework help obsolete. This isn't a warning anymore. It's happening right now. ━━━━━━━ What You Need to Know 1️⃣ The Business Model Collapse Chegg's market cap fell from $14.7B (2021) to $156M today—a 99% destruction in value. Students realized AI solves calculus for free. 2️⃣ The Traffic Death Spiral Google's AI summaries + ChatGPT killed their organic reach. They even sued Google in February 2025. Didn't matter—revenue kept tanking. 3️⃣ The Pivot Nobody Saw Coming Dan Rosensweig returned as CEO (replacing Nathan Schultz after 6 months). New strategy: pivot to B2B "skilling market" worth $40B+. 4️⃣ Your Action Before Year-End If your business model depends on information arbitrage, you have 6 months max. Build AI-native offerings or get disrupted. ━━━━━━━ Wait, what? 🤯 A Needham survey found 62% of college students now use ChatGPT vs. 30% planning to use Chegg. That's not competition. That's extinction. This is the second mass layoff in 2025—they cut 248 people (22%) in May citing the same reason. Most founders won't see this pattern until it's too late. You vs. them? You're reading this. ━━━━━━━ 👉 Action tool: News analysis on steroids This is my unfair advantage ⏳ https://lnkd.in/daEhWsh6 🔥 Share/Save now—most people won't see this again. ♻️ Repost if this changed your view. ➕ Follow me Christian Schmidt ━━━━━━━ #AIDisruption #EdTech #BusinessStrategy #FutureOfWork #DigitalTransformation Sources: https://lnkd.in/gVrTZWPY https://lnkd.in/gAeviZUX https://lnkd.in/g_Mn-ngh

OpenAi has hired 100+ former bankers from JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Brookfield, Evercore as well as Harvard MBAs to train a financial-modelling tool. Here’s how: > $150 an hour to build models for IPOs, restructuring etc. > Three step process: 1) 20-minute interview with AI chatbot; 2) test to show financial statement knowledge; 3) building a model > Pace of 1 model per week (participants receive feedback and make changes) > Strong emphasis on industry norm formatting (margin size, italization) Almost no humans from OpenAI side is involved. *** Full read here: https://lnkd.in/gi38gks8

BREAKING: OpenAI has quietly hired over 100 former Wall Street bankers, including alumni from Goldman Sachs, JPMorganChase, and Morgan Stanley, to help train its AI on building financial models. Codenamed “Project Mercury,” the effort pays contractors $150 an hour to write prompts and create Excel-based models for IPOs, restructurings, and M&A deals. The goal? To teach AI how to replicate, and eventually automate, the tedious modeling and deck-editing work that dominates life for junior analysts. The project reflects Sam Altman’s broader push to make OpenAI’s tech indispensable to businesses, from finance to consulting to law, as the company chases profitability following its $500 billion valuation. Analysts may soon have a new competitor, one that doesn’t need coffee breaks, weekends, or “pls fix” emails.

Educators need to meet the challenge to provide young people with a set of skills that respond to the very real threat of AI

OpenAI hiring >100 ex-Wall Street bankers to train AI models (under a project called “Project Mercury”) to build financial models, valuations, IPOs, restructurings and the like. This is not shocking, but definitely a sign of what’s next. As someone in IR & finance, I see this less as a headline and more as a turning point. The lines between traditional finance skills and AI-driven capabilities are blurring faster than we expected. I have always believed that financial modelling is as much about judgment and storytelling as it is about numbers. If AI can handle the mechanics, human can focus on the interpretation, the “why it matters” part. But it also means no one can stay still. This is the time to up-skill, adapt, and stay curious, not because jobs will disappear overnight, but because the definition of value is shifting. For finance professionals, this could be a real roller-coaster: new roles, new expectations, new opportunities. Introducing artificial intelligence to such a tightly regulated industry could lay the groundwork for its adoption in fields like legal, accounting, and healthcare which should be no surprise. #Finance #InvestorRelations #AI #FutureOfWork #Leadership #Upskilling #Change

OpenAI is moving to automate parts of investment banking - hiring former JPM, MS, and GS bankers at around $150 per hour to build prompts for financial modelling and pitch-deck generation. This initiative is all apart of Sam Altman’s broader push to expand ChatGPT’s enterprise capabilities. But how might this affect investment-banking hiring? Typically these responsibilities will often fall to analysts on the team if those functions become semi-automated, banks may begin hiring fewer analysts, instead prioritising those who can interpret AI outputs, develop client relationships and demonstrate strong soft skills. Tip - make yourselves indispensable, analysts who combine technical know-how with emotional intelligence and adaptability will stand out. https://lnkd.in/gGmNWc7Z

I think this is inevitable and will ultimately help in making junior banker lives better. Junior bankers should know how to do the work without Al help, but should be able to leverage these tools whenever possible so they can save time and focus on more analytical aspects of the job. Big banks have always had internal tech teams working on tools to automate cumbersome tasks (10 years ago for example, I had excel plugins to auto-format slides and hyperlink between excel / ppt). This is just another wave of technological innovation that will help the industry as a whole. Junior bankers won't be fully automated out of jobs, they'll just be more efficient.

the foundations for a profound impact of AI in banking are being built now. Banks would do well to think about how to face this future - today

Long coming! Base level financial analyst roles may get democratised cutting down significant operation cost for investment banks. Leaving investment banks as a pure play of relationships! Similar roles in non-financial companies may still exist to avoid dependence on just an agent/software Anyhow, financial analysis may no longer be a job, rather it could become a small part of some other more valuable job.