Key Takeaways
- Mark Cuban urges job-seekers to prioritize small businesses in their job hunt.
- He said AI will make it “easier and faster” for smaller firms to compete with larger companies.
- Cuban says many small businesses “need the help” or the AI expertise that recent graduates offer.
As AI changes hiring, billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban is urging recent college graduates to consider applying for jobs at small businesses.
In a post on X earlier this week, Cuban noted that small businesses create about 60% of new jobs every year. AI will allow them to compete with bigger companies in an “easier and faster” way, he said.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed that between the third quarter of 2020 and the third quarter of 2025, companies with fewer than 250 employees accounted for 51% of net job creation. The data revealed the role of small businesses in driving employment growth.
“The % of jobs created by Small biz every year will only increase,” Cuban wrote in the X post. “Start your job search with small businesses.”
Employers are dealing with AI’s impact on hiring
Cuban’s remarks echo his recommendations in November and come as employers wrestle with AI’s impact on hiring and headcount. Some large companies, like fintech firm Block, are already leaning on AI to justify automating routine work and slowing hiring plans. Block cut 40% of its workforce earlier this year, touting gains in AI.
“A significantly smaller team, using the tools we’re building, can do more and do it better. And intelligence tool capabilities are compounding faster every week,” Block CEO Jack Dorsey wrote in a letter to shareholders.
The move echoes forecasts that hundreds of millions of roles could be at least partially automated by AI over the next decade. Goldman Sachs research released in March estimates that around 300 million jobs globally are exposed to AI automation, and a quarter of all U.S. work hours could potentially be handled by AI systems.
At the same time, other data shows that AI will be more of a job-shifter than a job-killer. The World Economic Forum predicted last year that AI would create 78 million jobs, even factoring in job losses. The Forum highlighted emerging roles such as AI integration specialists, human-AI collaboration managers and AI ethics and oversight leads as examples of positions that exist today and barely existed a few years ago.
AI is also making workers more productive. One 2025 study cited by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis found that workers using generative AI saved an average of 2.2 hours in a 40‑hour workweek and saw about a 1.1% boost in overall productivity, with the largest gains among less‑experienced employees.
Cuban says small businesses need AI expertise
Cuban addressed comments questioning if small businesses needed junior employees. One X user doubted that AI would translate into more jobs, arguing that small businesses could simply stay leaner and hire fewer people. Cuban pushed back, noting that small firms would still need people to help them adopt and make sense of the technology.
“The smallest businesses don’t have the depth of expertise in AI,” Cuban wrote. “They need the help. Kids coming out of college have that expertise.”
Cuban also rejected the notion that small businesses would turn to AI primarily to shrink their workforce.
“They use it [AI] to do things they didn’t have enough time to do before,” he wrote.
Cuban was worth $10.3 billion at the time of writing, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Key Takeaways
- Mark Cuban urges job-seekers to prioritize small businesses in their job hunt.
- He said AI will make it “easier and faster” for smaller firms to compete with larger companies.
- Cuban says many small businesses “need the help” or the AI expertise that recent graduates offer.
As AI changes hiring, billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban is urging recent college graduates to consider applying for jobs at small businesses.
In a post on X earlier this week, Cuban noted that small businesses create about 60% of new jobs every year. AI will allow them to compete with bigger companies in an “easier and faster” way, he said.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed that between the third quarter of 2020 and the third quarter of 2025, companies with fewer than 250 employees accounted for 51% of net job creation. The data revealed the role of small businesses in driving employment growth.
