Reddit CEO Steve Huffman says he plans to 'go heavy' on hiring new grads because they are 'AI native'
· Business Insider
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- Reddit CEO Steve Huffman says his company will "go heavy" on hiring new college graduates.
- Huffman said new graduates, compared to other candidates, tend to be "AI native."
- New grads are navigating fewer jobs and greater competition amid a weakening job market.
To some, advancements in AI herald the end of entry-level jobs, which will mean a tough road ahead for young workers.
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, on the other hand, says the opposite is true for his company.
"The kids coming out of college right now learned how to program with AI. They're really good at it, so I think we will go heavy on new grads because they're so much more AI native," Huffman said during a recent episode of the "Sourcery with Molly O'Shea" podcast.
Huffman, in fact, says there will be stiff competition to hire new graduates.
"I think there are so many reasons to hire new grads. Also, the best new grads, if you don't hire them as new grads, you will never see them," Huffman said. "They will never be on the job market again. They're too valuable to ever let them be on the job market."
Despite his optimism, new college graduates are entering the job market at a tricky time.
More people have acquired bachelor's degrees than in the past, and companies have slowed hiring due to AI, leading to a less-than-ideal market. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the unemployment rate in February was 4.4%, or 7.6 million people. That's up from the same time last year, when the unemployment rate was 4.1% and 7.1 million people were unemployed.
Tech leaders like Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei have cautioned that AI could render half of entry-level white-collar jobs obsolete in five years.
Still, Huffman says he'll keep hiring new grads, particularly in engineering.
"We are building a company, so in order for the engineering head count to go down, we'd have to know everything we wanted to build," Huffman said during the interview. "Let's say AI makes our engineers 50%, 100% or even 10x more productive. We'll just build more stuff. Not do the same amount with less."
A Reddit spokesperson said the company has an Emerging Talent team focused on recruiting young professionals. The company said it is hiring for a variety of full-time roles across engineering, sales, and product. The company also has open intern roles — or "Snooterns" — in machine learning engineering.
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