It’s been a number of months since we returned from Hawaii, and surprisingly, my FOMO in regards to the AI tech increase has light. Positive, I nonetheless don’t have a job paying me gobs of cash as AI CapEx surges increased, however that’s OK. As a substitute, I’ve allotted sufficient cash to AI investments to the place I now not really feel the necessity to chase the trade from the within.
You see, my actual worry isn’t lacking out on one other AI unicorn. It’s elevating children in a crueler and harsher world—one the place, partly because of their identities, they get rejected from each top-50 college they apply to. Then, by the point they graduate from a so-so college, entry-level jobs have largely been automated away by AI.
This isn’t some far-off dystopia. CEOs of each main firm are overtly exploring or adopting AI. They’re implementing hiring freezes, slashing jobs, and lowering headcount by the 1000’s. Accenture reducing 11,000 jobs and Lufthansa reducing 4,000 jobs resulting from AI aren’t outliers, they’re harbingers. Anybody paying consideration can extrapolate how dire issues could possibly be 15–18 years from now, when my kids are coming into the workforce.
As an investor, it’s key to forecast the long run. As a dad or mum, it’s key to forecast potential misery to your kids. In each instances, in case you forecast even midway correctly, you’ll doubtless find yourself wealthier, calmer, and higher ready.
Jobs Are Actually Going Away Due To AI
Check out the S&P 500’s current efficiency in purple in comparison with Complete Job Openings in white. Discover the inflection level: investor optimism as AI guarantees profitability resulting from elevated productiveness, whereas job openings proceed to crater.
As an investor, my hope is the S&P 500 retains climbing—historical past suggests it is going to over the long term. As a dad or mum, my worry is that Complete Job Openings will proceed to break down to 2009 ranges or worse. I clearly bear in mind the 2008-2009 Global Financial Crisis—that’s after I launched Monetary Samurai after the seventh spherical of layoffs at Credit score Suisse. Concern was my motivator then too.
On the tempo we’re going, by 2032 we might simply see a situation the place the S&P 500 is at a document excessive, however job openings match the lows of the final disaster.
And but, after privately consulting with dozens of readers this yr, I don’t suppose most Individuals notice what’s coming. Positive, I could sound fatalistic, however a big a part of my wealth has come from recognizing and investing in long-term trends. And the AI bulldozer is actual.
Discover Your Minimal AI Funding Consolation Level
Simply as there’s a “Minimum Investment Threshold” the place work turns into optionally available and you’ll cease stressing about workplace politics, there’s additionally a “Minimal AI Funding Threshold” the place you’ll be able to cease worrying fairly a lot about AI wrecking your profession or your kids’s livelihoods.
This Minimal AI Funding Threshold is conceptually much like your Coast FIRE number. However in contrast to Coast FIRE, which is too dangerous for most people to rely on, the Minimal AI Funding Threshold is an lively hedge, not a passive hope.
Right here’s easy methods to calculate yours:
Plug into an AI device. Use a compound curiosity calculator or your favourite AI LLM to crunch the numbers for you.
Forecast the timeline. Estimate when your job might be eradicated resulting from AI, or when your kids will graduate highschool or faculty and enter the job market.
Estimate future residing bills. Take as we speak’s fundamental residing bills and challenge them ahead utilizing an affordable inflation price (2%–4%).
Select your cushion. Determine what number of years of fundamental residing bills you’ll need saved in AI investments—decide wherever from 1 to 10 years.
Low cost to as we speak’s {dollars}. Use a reduction price of two%–8% (decrease if conservative) to calculate how a lot you’d want to speculate now.
Instance Utilizing Our 8-Yr-old Son
Let’s take my 8-year-old son. Within the yr 2040, 15 years from now, he’ll be 23 and a brand new faculty graduate from a daily college.
An revenue that might cowl his fundamental wants is $40,000 a yr in as we speak’s {dollars}—equal to $62,319 at a 3% annual inflation price in 2040.
I estimate it might take him 2–4 years of job looking to appreciate that his goals of clicking buttons to optimize advertisements for giant tech firms are out of attain. At that time, he’ll most likely should take a trades job to make ends meet. (Electricians, plumbers, and basic contractors ought to be in large demand given all of the datacenters being constructed.)
So, I have to have about $125,000–$250,000 ($62,319 X 2 – 4 years) put aside for him by the yr 2040 to provide him that cushion.
Right here’s how a lot I’d want to speculate as we speak to succeed in $125,000–$250,000 in 15 years, relying on the low cost price:
| Low cost Charge | Wanted for $125,000 | Wanted for $250,000 |
|---|---|---|
| 2% | $92,877 | $185,754 |
| 3% | $80,233 | $160,465 |
| 4% | $69,408 | $138,816 |
| 5% | $60,127 | $120,254 |
| 6% | $52,158 | $104,316 |
| 7% | $45,306 | $90,612 |
| 8% | $39,405 | $78,810 |
Primarily based on a practical worst-case situation—him taking 4 years to appreciate his hopes and goals received’t materialize—at a 2% low cost price I’d want about $185,754 invested as we speak. That approach, by the point he’s 23, I’ll have secretly put aside $250,000 in AI investments alone to assist him survive.
It’s critical all mother and father NOT inform their kids precisely how a lot they’re saving and investing for them. You don’t need them to develop into gentle and develop an entitlement mentality.
AI Investing as a Psychological Hedge
A few of you might be scratching your heads: why spend money on AI in any respect if I’m solely assuming 2%–8% annual returns? With such modest expectations, I might simply make investments largely in Treasury bonds yielding 4%–5% sprinkled with some shares.
I hear you. However the level isn’t simply the mathematics. It’s the psychology.
Will you diligently make investments to your or your kids’s future particularly to hedge towards AI? Perhaps, possibly not. Additional, I’m attempting to be conservative in my assumptions.
By particularly investing within the very firms that will make your life and your kids’s lives tougher, it turns into simpler to really save and make investments for the long run. You now have a transparent why behind your delayed gratification. And when you will have a why, virtually something is feasible.
If you begin viewing AI as an unstoppable beast that might run you and your kids over, you get extra motivated to spend money on AI firms.
Concern and Accountability Drive Me to Make investments
In 2025, pushed by worry of a dire future and a powerful sense of responsibility to protect my kids, I launched into a brand new quest. I made a decision to speculate the Minimal AI Funding Threshold so I might scale back my fear and even begin rooting for the very expertise that might hurt my kids.
Step one was opening a new Fundrise Venture account earmarked for my kids with $26,000 in early August. (There was a promotion the place in case you invested over $25,000, you bought $500 without cost invested of their Flagship actual property fund.)
Then, as my Treasury payments matured, I saved funneling between $15,500–$50,000 at a time into Fundrise Enterprise to hit my Minimal Funding Threshold. Each switch I made into my account made me really feel higher.
Hedged In opposition to No matter Occurs
Solely time will inform whether or not investing $190,000 in 2025 in names like OpenAI, Anthropic, Databricks, Anduril, Canva, Ramp, and dbt Labs will pan out. In the event that they do, I’ll be thrilled—the $190,000 might develop to wherever from $256,000 to $2.87 million, based mostly on a 2%–20% annual return.
Which means one baby will both have all his or her bills coated for 4 years of job-hunting or maybe be set for all times.
Alternatively, I might doubtlessly lose 80% of my cash and find yourself with simply $38,000 after 15 years as a result of AI turned out to be an overhyped dud. Perhaps CapEx spend is just too excessive for the income. Perhaps the world realizes human oversight is extra important than ever—Jevons’ Paradox at work.
In that situation, I’d be much more thrilled if each my kids discovered livable-wage jobs they loved. As a result of as mother and father, it’s our accountability to lift kids to be self-sufficient adults. Needing to nonetheless relying in your mother and father after 25 slowly chips away at your sense of value.
With out the mission of defending my children from AI, there’s no approach I’d have invested $190,000 in threat property just like the S&P 500 in simply two months. Many of the cash got here from risk-free Treasury bonds after I bought my previous home earlier in 2025. Prior to now, I’ve dollar-cost averaged extra slowly, or invested in structured notes with draw back safety when valuations are excessive.
However as soon as I reallocated the cash from me to my kids, I prolonged the funding timeframe from “proper now” to fifteen years sooner or later. And when you will have such an extended runway to speculate, it turns into simpler to abdomen threat property.
Asset Allocation Issues Too
Lastly, when deciding your Minimal AI Funding Threshold, evaluate that concentrate on quantity to your overall asset allocation. The comparability may be to your whole investable capital or whole web value.
Personally, I’ve a goal of investing as much as 20% of my investable property in different investments comparable to enterprise capital. Not solely am I in an open-ended venture fund that invests in AI, I’m additionally invested in 4 different closed-end VC funds, and I’m contemplating two extra.
Positive, the Yale and Harvard endowments have ~40% of their property in personal fairness or alternate options. However you don’t have the dimensions, affect, or fringe of a multi-billion-dollar endowment. For the common DIY investor, allocating as much as 20% in alternate options is a lot.
The older (and hopefully wealthier) you get, the extra necessary correct asset allocation turns into to journey out volatility. Evaluate your targets, run new monetary projections, and keep disciplined. It’s simple to get caught up in hype, particularly in a bull market. However nothing good lasts eternally.
No Extra AI FOMO
I’m now not bummed I don’t have a job at a scorching AI startup rising triple-digits a yr. It felt like a waste not grinding it out whereas residing in AI central, San Francisco. I am additionally much less bummed that AI is stealing my content material on Monetary Samurai and never offering a correct hyperlink again.
However now that I’ve reached the Minimal AI Funding Threshold for each children, I’m extra at peace.
It feels nice to spend money on hungry founders and staff working 60+ hours every week for fortune and glory, whereas I play pickleball in the course of the day and write on Monetary Samurai. I’m grateful to be investing in AI close to the start of the revolution. Our youngsters aren’t as fortunate, which is why it’s as much as us to speculate for them.
So, for all you AI staff on the market, keep grinding and benefit from the journey. You can make monumental fortunes over the subsequent ten years—and I’ll be grateful in case you do. Now get again to work 8 a.m. to midnight, 7 days every week. Your riches await!
Readers, how are hedging towards AI destroying the livelihoods of your kids? Do you suppose most individuals are conscious of the dangers AI poses for his or her job safety? What are another issues we’re doing to assist our kids thrive in an AI world?
Simple Methods To Make investments In AI
If you need publicity to personal AI firms, take into account Fundrise Venture. The platform owns stakes in names like OpenAI, Anthropic, Anduril, and Databricks. AI is poised to reshape the labor market, eradicate thousands and thousands of jobs, and dramatically increase productiveness. Since personal firms are staying personal for much longer than previously, it is smart to allocate some capital to them if you wish to seize potential upside earlier than they go public. Fundrise has been a long-time sponsor of Monetary Samurai, and I’m personally an investor of their funds.
For public publicity, it’s also possible to simply purchase QQQ or shares of the Magnificent 7—Apple, Microsoft, Google, Nvidia, Meta, Tesla—plus Oracle, which has develop into a stealth AI play. The great thing about investing is that you just don’t have to stay in Silicon Valley to take part. From wherever on the planet, you should purchase a chunk of those firms main the AI revolution.
That mentioned, don’t overlook: there are no ensures when investing in threat property. Quick-growing firms may be extraordinarily unstable when downturns hit. For instance, Meta misplaced greater than half its worth in the course of the 2022 bear market earlier than recovering. All the time keep diversified, keep watch over your asset allocation, and ensure your portfolio matches your threat tolerance.
