Too late to get PhD, Google AI team founder says people achieve much more by working outside of academia

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The world of artificial intelligence is moving so fast that a PhD may no longer be worth the effort, according to Jad Tarifi, the man who founded Google’s first generative AI team.

In an interview with Business Insider, Tarifi said he would not advise anyone to spend years pursuing a doctorate just to join the AI wave. “AI itself is going to be gone by the time you finish a PhD,” he said. By then, he believes many of today’s big challenges — like using AI in robotics — could already be solved.

Tarifi, who completed his own PhD in AI at the University of Florida in 2012, joined Google the same year and spent nearly a decade building teams there. In 2021, he launched his own startup, Integral AI. Reflecting on his academic journey, the 42-year-old was candid: “Doing a PhD is an ordeal that only weird people, like I was, should take on. It’s five years of your life and a lot of pain. Unless you’re obsessed with the field, I don’t think anyone should ever do it.”

Instead, Tarifi suggests that people can achieve much more by working outside of academia. He points out that real-world learning is faster, more adaptive, and better aligned with the pace of technological change. Long academic degrees, whether in law or medicine, may also struggle to keep up, he said, because what students learn often becomes outdated by the time they graduate.

So what skills does he think people should develop in the AI age? Not necessarily technical ones. Tarifi believes social skills, empathy, and self-awareness will matter just as much. “The best thing to work on is more internal,” he said. “Meditate. Socialize with your friends. Get to know yourself emotionally.” He argues that while the technical side of AI can be learned, using it effectively requires good taste and emotional understanding.

Importantly, Tarifi stressed that one doesn’t need to know every detail to succeed in AI. “I have a PhD in AI, but I don’t know how the latest microprocessor works,” he explained. “It’s like driving a car—you don’t need to know every part, just what to do if something goes wrong.”

He’s not alone in this view. Paul Graham, founder of Y Combinator, recently said low-level programming jobs are already disappearing because AI can handle routine tasks. His advice: focus on doing something so well that AI can’t replace you.