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As a partner at , isn鈥檛 shy about speaking his mind.

The investor is vocal about his belief that AI is a massive threat to entry-level jobs, or what he views as a shifting social contract in the modern workforce.

He would know about AI鈥檚 impact. Choi has led investments in several AI-first companies.

Known for a founder-first conviction, he鈥檚 also backed enterprise software and fintech infrastructure companies.

Prior to joining Khosla in 2024, Choi was a partner at , where he led and managed high-profile growth investments in companies such as , , (which was acquired by ), and . Before Accel, he worked at , backing companies such as (acquired by ), , and (acquired by ).

I recently spoke with Choi to hear more about why he thinks entry-level jobs could be disappearing, why he鈥檚 flipped his investing philosophy, and how he鈥檚 gone from growth-stage investing to being stage-agnostic.

This interview was edited for brevity and clarity.

附近上门 News: You鈥檝e had a prolific run the past couple of years, leading deals in , , , , and others. How are you managing that volume?

Choi: It has been an intense stretch. About seven deals happened just last year, which was an insane year by any standard. This year has been a bit calmer as I focus on settling in with the companies I鈥檝e invested in.

You鈥檙e currently researching the disappearance of entry-level jobs. As a parent, that sounds a bit scary to me. What are you seeing?

AI is a massive conundrum. I鈥檓 seeing it in my own workflow. I use the models to get up to speed on technical capabilities 鈥� asking about Clickhouse鈥檚 indexing methodology versus 鈥檚 in voice mode while I鈥檓 driving. It鈥檚 pulling from research papers and documentation faster than any human could. I describe it as feeling like I have an “Ironman suit” on.

The problem is that if I can do the work of a junior associate myself, almost instantly, those roles vanish. We鈥檙e facing a world where the base-level work we used to rely on young folks for is now table stakes.

If the “on-the-job” training era is over, where does that leave students and universities?

The burden of the first three years of 鈥渓earning how to be a professional鈥� has to shift to the universities. I look at the traditional U.S. model of general education requirements and think, 鈥淲hy are we doing this?鈥� We did that in high school. Universities should be places where you use AI to actually build things and apply knowledge to the real world.

If you’re a computer science major today, you need to graduate looking and delivering like a third- or fourth-year engineer. The bar has been raised for everyone. While schools like and are leaning into an 鈥淎I-first鈥� curriculum, many elite institutions are still silent, trying to figure out how to adapt.

Khosla is known for being contrarian. How does that translate to the growth stage in such a competitive market?

I鈥檝e actually evolved to be stage-agnostic. While people still put me in the 鈥済rowth鈥� bucket, I鈥檓 doing much more seed and Series A. In this era, the metrics a company has today don’t guarantee where they’ll be in two years because the rate of change is so high.

I鈥檝e flipped my philosophy: it used to be 80% metrics and 20% founders. Now, it鈥檚 90% founders. The only constant is how special the founding team is and how quickly they can adapt. If code is being created 10x faster, a company might face 50 years of change in a single decade. You have to back the people who can handle that stress.

You鈥檝e predicted “mass carnage” for some software companies. Who survives the transition to an AI-native world?

We are moving from trading on revenue multiples to trading on free cash flow and PE multiples. That鈥檚 a painful transition. The market now needs to believe that a company is AI-native 鈥� that its revenue is moving toward inference- and usage-based models rather than just old-school seat licenses.

I expect carnage for lightweight, horizontal applications and mid-market companies that can’t attract applied AI talent. I have a ton of respect for founders like those at or who are 鈥渂urning the boats鈥� to reinvent their entire businesses. It鈥檚 incredibly difficult, but in this market you either reinvent or you get replaced by someone building natively from day one.

With your background in fintech infrastructure, where do you see the next 鈥渦nconventional鈥� opportunity in financial services that most growth investors are currently overlooking?

It’s now become somewhat consensus, but I still believe it’s fairly unconventional that systems of record can be ripped out, whether it be in financial services or in other categories.

For example, we recently invested in , which is seeking to replace and the core accounting system, which is the last system of record I would have thought might be under threat. We’re seeing that with AI, startups can build migration paths that didn’t exist before, and also the depth and breadth of incumbent platforms in a fraction of the time.

often talks about 鈥渃hallenging the conventional wisdom鈥� of founders. Can you share an example of a time you had to steer a growth-stage founder away from a 鈥渟afe鈥� path toward a much larger, albeit riskier, vision?

In general, there are many times when a founder is thinking through a very risky but potentially game-changing product addition or acquisition. While I view part of our job as investors and board members as helping identify and manage potential risks, the most important thing we can do is give them the courage to take risks that are transformational to the business and the category they are in.

You鈥檝e noted that talent density is the most important variable for success. In a market where AI is automating routine work, how has your criteria for what defines an 鈥渆lite鈥� executive hire changed?

Perhaps somewhat ironically, one of the main differences in criteria is whether this exec has “IC’d” (individual contributor鈥檇) themselves and can do most of the work required out of the gate with their own two hands plus AI.

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