{"id":26937,"date":"2026-03-07T18:45:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T18:45:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=26937"},"modified":"2026-03-07T18:45:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T18:45:18","slug":"peter-thiel-warned-ai-is-coming-for-math-people-before-word-people-banks-see-smaller-payrolls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=26937","title":{"rendered":"Peter Thiel warned AI is coming for ‘math people before word people.’ Banks see smaller payrolls"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u201cIt seems much worse for the math people than the word people,\u201d he said in a recently\u00a0resurfaced clip\u00a0from a 2024 interview.<\/p>\n

He added that even in STEM fields currently untouched by AI automation, such as medical care, math skills will be less relevant as a barrier to entry.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to go to medical school, we weed people out through physics and calculus,\u201d he said, adding that \u201cI don\u2019t really want someone operating on my brain to be doing prime number factorizations in their head while they\u2019re operating on my brain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fast forward to last month, when fintech firm Block announced a 40% cut to its headcount, or about 4,000 jobs, and\u00a0cited AI models as a top reason.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Bank of America\u00a0CEO Brian Moynihan\u00a0has said\u00a0AI allows the company to \u201cdo more with the same amount of people or less people.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In an earnings call with Wall Street analysts in January, he suggested the bank isn\u2019t cutting jobs but can still reduce overall payroll. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe can just make decisions not to hire and let the headcount drift down,\u201d\u00a0Moynihan explained.<\/p>\n

Similarly, Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf said in December that the bank is doing a lot more because of AI. Though there haven\u2019t been any job cuts yet, he indicated it\u2019s possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are other places out there where we\u2019re gonna be able to look at and figure out, how are we able to do more with less people,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not going to totally replace humans, but does create an opportunity to do things significantly different.\u201d<\/p>\n

And in October, JPMorgan\u2019s CFO said managers have been told to avoid hiring people as the bank implements AI. <\/p>\n

In fact, JPMorgan has already deployed a large language model used by 150,000 employees weekly, and CEO Jamie Dimon acknowledged that productivity gains from AI could mean the bank will employ fewer people in the coming years.<\/p>\n

Also in October, Goldman Sachs told employees in a memo that it would \u201cconstrain headcount growth\u201d and lay off a limited number of employees.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo fully benefit from the promise of AI, we need greater speed and agility in all facets of our operations,\u201d CEO David Solomon wrote. \u201cThis doesn\u2019t just mean re-tooling our platforms. It means taking a front-to-back view of how we organize our people, make decisions, and think about productivity and efficiency.\u201d<\/p>\n

In recent weeks, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley have made payroll cuts, though they didn\u2019t cite AI. Outside the finance sector, Salesforce slashed 4,000 customer-support roles last year due to AI, and Pinterest laid off nearly 15% of its workforce to focus on AI-related roles.<\/p>\n

To be sure, Wall Street is growing more skeptical about layoff announcements tied to AI, with some analysts saying the technology is being used as a cover to correct for massive over-hiring that was done during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

But skills mastered by \u201cword people\u201d are in demand.\u00a0LinkedIn\u00a0released a study recently that found rising need for communications and creative thinking skills.<\/p>\n

\u201cCompanies are increasingly looking for great communicators, because strong writing, clarity, and judgment still matter,\u201d a LinkedIn spokesperson told\u00a0Fortune<\/em>. \u201cOn LinkedIn, we\u2019ve seen job postings mentioning \u2018storytellers\u2019 double over the last year.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

#Peter #Thiel #warned #coming #math #people #word #people #Banks #smaller #payrolls<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt seems much worse for the m… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26938,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[1555,3917,522,9092,15322,352,3526,3924,6135,11151,3242],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26937"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}