Artificial intelligence is lowering the barrier to entrepreneurship, and one Roblox product director says it has the potential to upend the traditional path of work for companies.
Roblox product lead and content creator Peter Yang recently spoke on venture capital firm a16z’s podcast about the future of work in the age of AI. Yang said he wants his children, ages 4 and 7, to choose entrepreneurship over college and corporations.
“I want them to start their own business while still in high school. That way they can skip college and work life all the time,” Yang said.
AI has enabled a platform where users can build their entire business on one app and offer services like storefront creation and marketing. These “business-in-a-box” services are helping people quickly launch businesses with the potential for exponential growth, said podcast host Anish Acharya. It’s an alternative to being number one in a big company. For example, Postly is an AI-powered platform that lets you manage all your social media accounts in one place.
These AI-powered businesses can be run by small teams of as little as one person with the help of agents.
As a company grows, it can become a better place to work, Yang said. He recalled that long meetings at his former employer “wasted my life.”
There is now a path to help more people become founders and run their small businesses on their terms. He said that instead of a team of 10 people, an AI agent could support a product team of two to three people. Younger generations are realizing this, Yang said.
“I want more companies to stay small, and I think this generation of founders understand that they want to stay as small as possible,” Yang told Acharya.
The poor technology job market also gives people the opportunity to dream big, Yang said.
U.S. tech sector job cuts in the first quarter were the worst since 2023, with AI being a big reason.
“I may have lost my job, but now I can actually take care of myself,” he said.