We are witnessing the slow, agonizing death of the “Employee Factory” model. For decades, the tacit agreement between universities and society was simple: “You give us four years and tuition fees; we give you a stamped degree and a place in the queue for a safe corporate job.”
This model worked when the world needed infinite compliant people for defined tasks. But in the age of Generative AI, “compliant processing” is the first thing to be automated. In the age of AI, ‘obedience’ is obsolete.”
If we continue to churn out millions of graduates trained only to follow instructions, we are not creating a workforce; we are creating a redundancy crisis. It is time to break the shackle of the “Placement mindset” and replace it with the “builder mindset.”
The misconception: “Everyone can’t be a CEO” When I propose that universities should act like Venture Studios, the immediate pushback is: “But Professor, if everyone is a founder, who will do the work? Who will they hire?”
This stems from a narrow definition of entrepreneurship. Being a “founder” doesn’t just mean registering a Private Limited company or raising VC money. It is a cognitive operating system.
In the AI era, the distinction between an “employee” and a “founder” is blurring. The entry-level coder who uses AI to do the work of three people is not just an employee; they are an Intrapreneur. They are managing their own workflow, optimizing their own “product” (their output), and delivering value, not just hours.
The companies of the future; the ones driven by the likes of Elon Musk or nimble startups; do not want “staff.” They want co-owners of the mission. They want graduates who look at a problem and ask, “How do I solve this?” not “Is this on the syllabus?”
From classrooms to venture studios So, how do we fix this? We must redesign the campus using First Principles.
- Stop grading memory, start grading MVPs: Why are we still asking students to write exams on theory that GPT-4 can recite in seconds? Instead, every semester should end with a “Ship Day.” Did you build a working prototype? Did you solve a local community problem? Did you write code that runs? In the real world, “effort” gets you nothing; “shipped product” gets you everything.
- The “just-in-time” learning model: The current model is “Just-in-Case” learning teaching concepts in Year 1 that might be useful in Year 4. This is inventory mismanagement for the brain. We need “Just-in-Time” learning. Give students a complex problem first and let them pull the knowledge they need to solve it. This mimics the actual life of a founder or a high-level executive.
- Redefining “failure”: In a university, failure is a red mark on a report card. In a startup, failure is data. We need to create safe sandboxes where students can crash their ideas, analyze the wreckage, and pivot. A student who has failed at starting a small venture is infinitely more employable than a student who has never risked anything.
The new “placement” India produces millions of engineers. We cannot rely solely on the Fortune 500 to absorb them all. We need to create a layer of high-agency builders who can either start the next 10,000 companies or transform existing legacy companies from the inside.
To the VCs and industry leaders: Stop looking for GPA. Look for the “Builders.” Look for the graduates who treated their education not as a ticket to safety, but as a launchpad for impact.
To the students: Don’t just look for a job. Look for a problem to own. That is the only career safety net that AI cannot cut.
Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the author’s own.
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