“Humans to employ, agents to deploy.” That is how my brother Van Jones describes the new business model, and the phrase stayed with me long after we stopped recording. Van is a CNN commentator, a Yale-trained lawyer, a former White House green jobs adviser, and now my co-chair for HOPE AI.

He came to this conversation straight from a gathering of the people building the next wave of technology, and he brought their message to our audience first. We have moved from chatbots that answer questions to AI agents that actually do work, and that shift means a small team with the right tools can build a business that once required a building full of people. As Van puts it, code is starting to stand in for capital.

Van is also honest about the gap between how fast the technology is moving and how fast people are adapting. He calls it the social unrest gap, and he makes the case for a new wave of social tech entrepreneurs who make sure abundance reaches the grandmother in Detroit as well as the coder in Silicon Valley. Along the way he offers a fresh way to think about time, and why being prepared to pivot is the survival skill of this era.

The part I want every young person to hear is his belief that the hustle, creativity and comfort with disruption that communities on the margins developed just to survive may be exactly what this moment rewards. Give an hour a day to learning these tools. It could change your business, your family and your future.

🎧 Listen now — wherever you get your podcasts, or simply click below.

Prefer to watch? The full episode is on YouTube.