A National Imperative: Ensuring and Expanding Opportunity at Scale
Friends and colleagues,
The speed with which AI is remaking our society is breathtaking—and so is the scale of change it’s expected to bring. Many predict that it will replace millions of jobs, including the middle-class jobs once seen as stable and reliably rewarding. The implications of these predictions for Americans are profound.
In a keynote address I delivered at the ASU+GSV Summit, a global education and workforce gathering, I asked: although no one knows what will happen, what would you do if you thought there was a decent chance those predictions would come true? Or, more accurately, what would you do if you believed that AI would throw gas on a fire that’s already alight? The fact is, a generation-long crisis in the decline of mobility and the cost of a decent life has already left millions of Americans scrambling and frustrated. AI could make things far worse.
It sounds dark. But I am fundamentally an optimist, a believer in the ability of this country to solve confounding problems. My belief comes not from blind faith, but from a recognition of our track record of overcoming dark times and how much we already know about creating opportunity and increasing mobility. Research has made it clear that young people’s trajectories have so much more to do with the environments, experiences, and relationships we provide them—their contexts—than we have ever fully acknowledged. When leaders put that knowledge to work, it has the power to change lives in specific communities and across the country.
That work, which we’re proud to support at Blue Meridian Partners, has never mattered more than in this moment of extraordinary challenge. The scale of the task is great, but so are the tasks we’ve taken on in this country before. We rebuilt this country from the Depression in the 1930s, and other countries through the Marshall Plan after World War II. As I argue in the talk, perhaps we need a “Moonshot” for this moment—one that would build a more inclusive economy, lower the cost of thriving, reinvent the safety net, and bring us together to make the kind of change we know is possible. We have choices before us—and the power to make the right ones.
With faith and resolve,
Jim Shelton, Chief Executive Officer, Blue Meridian Partners
Investee Highlights
CodePath is partnering with Anthropic to prepare young people for an AI-enabled future—redesigning computer science education and launching an open-source Knowledge Network on how AI is shaping education and employment pathways. Learn more.
Braven, in partnership with the University of North Texas, is launching a new “career accelerator” course that equips students with the skills, networks, and experience needed to land strong first jobs in business, technology, and communications. Learn more.