If there’s one idea that united CES 2026 keynote speakers, it’s that AI is transforming technology at a pace and scale unlike any previous shift.
During a live recording of the All-In podcast on Tuesday, co-host Jason Calacanis spoke with Bob Sternfels, global managing partner of McKinsey & Company, and Hemant Taneja, CEO of General Catalyst. The conversation centered on how AI is reshaping investment approaches and the global workforce.
“The world has completely changed,” Taneja said, pointing to the rapid rise of AI-driven companies. He noted that Stripe took roughly 12 years to reach a $100 billion valuation, while Anthropic — another General Catalyst portfolio company — jumped from a $60 billion valuation last year to “a couple hundred billion dollars” this year.
According to Taneja, the emergence of trillion-dollar AI companies is no longer far-fetched. “That’s not a pie-in-the-sky idea with Anthropic, OpenAI, and a couple of others,” he said.
Calacanis asked what’s fueling this surge. Sternfels explained that while many companies are experimenting with AI, non-tech firms are hesitant to fully commit. He said McKinsey frequently hears the same question from CEOs: “Do I listen to my CFO or my CIO right now?”
CFOs, Sternfels said, often see limited short-term return on investment and push to slow adoption. CIOs, on the other hand, argue that failing to adopt AI is risky because “we’ll be disrupted.”
The discussion also turned to AI’s impact on jobs. Calacanis noted that many people fear AI will replace entry-level roles typically filled by recent graduates, and he asked what guidance Sternfels and Taneja would give younger workers.
Sternfels said that while AI systems can handle many operational tasks, human judgment and creativity will remain critical for success.
Taneja added that workers must accept continuous “skilling and re-skilling” as the new norm. “The idea that we spend 22 years learning and then 40 years working is broken,” he said.
Calacanis agreed, noting that in some cases it may soon take less time to build an AI agent than to train a new employee. To remain competitive, he said, people will need to demonstrate “chutzpah, drive, passion.”
Sternfels offered a preview of how this shift is playing out at McKinsey. He said the firm expects to have as many personalized AI agents as employees by the end of 2026, but that doesn’t mean fewer jobs overall. Instead, McKinsey is rebalancing its workforce — increasing client-facing roles by 25% while cutting back-office positions by the same amount.