Q: What’s the biggest shift you’re seeing right now when it comes to AI and the American workforce?
Par: There’s a big debate going on, which is the impact of AI, agentic AI, and the loss of jobs in the American workforce. People are not going to work, restaurants are becoming automated, and the workforce is being replaced by autonomous machines, robots, and drones.
The landscape is very different than anywhere else in the world. If we get it right, it’s the start of a new American century. But without productivity, we’re not going to be able to compete with populous countries, with a billion people. Whether they’re communist or democratic doesn’t matter. They’ve got people who need jobs and a way of living, and that puts us at a disadvantage unless we lead.
Q: You mentioned the conversation around job loss can be misleading. Why is that?
Par: People talk about this like it is just a numbers game, that AI will eliminate this many jobs. But no one is asking what kind of jobs are going to disappear. I am of the opinion it is the mid-layer that is at risk.
People assume automation takes out the low-end jobs first, but that is not always true. Often, it is the middle layer that gets hit. The senior-most guys can do more with less, so they need fewer people in the middle. And those are not minimum wage jobs. I am talking about jobs between fifty thousand and one hundred fifty thousand dollars a year. Those are the ones in real danger. It does not matter what sector you look at. Across the board, the impact is going to be felt most deeply in that middle bracket. People do not see it coming because those roles have always been considered stable, but that is where the ground is shifting fastest.
Q: What’s your take on the real consequences for those who don’t adapt to this new AI-driven world?
Par: If you are 50, 55, 60 years old and you have not learned and you have not adapted, you are in a shitload of trouble. You cannot be comfortable when your job is not being outsourced, but in-sourced by productive engines that need less of us. For the first time, you can really code using auto-coding as part of the platforms. You can then do testing. You can do so many things that you could not even think about doing before.
Those are easily one hundred thousand dollar and up jobs, and these are not low-end tasks. These are jobs that were seen as skilled, protected, high-income positions, and now they are getting absorbed faster than people realize. If you are not in this space, and you are still relying on what worked five or ten years ago, that gap is only going to get wider. This is not theoretical anymore. It is happening right now.
Q: What’s fueling your optimism about this moment in history?
Par: We are in a very exciting time, if we do it right. This is the kind of moment that comes once in a generation. Companies like Nvidia, the growth engines, are not just building hardware; they are powering productivity at a level we have never seen before. The groks, the chipmakers, the new LLMs, especially the ones being trained with people working together, are where we have the lead. But it is not going to be easy.
We are going to have some pain. People will lose jobs. But we have been here before. After the Second World War, we rebuilt broken countries. And the side advantage? We do not have to launch wars to gain market share. We can do it peacefully by simply licensing our technology. That is our edge. That is how we win the century.
Q: Can you give an example of what makes this disruption different from past job cycles?
Par: When you look at how jobs have historically moved, it is very well known. First, the low-end blue-collar jobs move. Then you move to the next layer, and the next layer. And somewhere around the sixty to seventy thousand dollar mark, you used to see resistance to any migration. People felt those jobs were safer, more specialized, and harder to automate. But that taboo has been disrupted. It is broken.
Now, for the first time, you can really code using auto-coding tools that are part of the platforms. You can do testing. You can do so many things that you could not even think about doing before. Those jobs that were once considered stable, protected, high-paying, they are now exposed. These are easily one hundred thousand dollar and up jobs. This is a very different moment in the history of work, because what used to be out of reach for automation is no longer out of reach. The tools have caught up. And that middle tier of jobs, the ones people used to count on, is where the biggest disruption is happening.
Q: Why is now the time to talk publicly and consistently about these changes?
Par: Because this is the start of something massive. If we don’t talk about it, the migration of work, the new AI workflows, and how we retrain and reposition people… we’ll miss our window. This isn’t about reacting. It’s about owning the conversation before someone else writes it for us.
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Who Is Par Chadha?
Par Chadha is the Founder, Chief Executive Officer, and Chief Investment Officer of HGM, a family office formed in 2001. He brings over 40 years of experience in building businesses across the Americas, Europe, and Asia, with deep expertise in mergers and acquisitions, business integration, and public offerings. Through HGM, he has held director and executive roles in joint ventures with major financial and investment institutions, as well as in other portfolio companies. He currently manages investments in the evolving financial technology, health technology, and communications industries.
