Investor and Shark Tank personality Kevin O’Leary said CEOs who blindly pursue AI are “dead in the water”. But the winning formula, he said, is pairing AI with storytelling and critical thinking.
On Wednesday, in a post on X, O’Leary wrote: “In business, it’s about critical thinking and communication, period.”
He shared the comment alongside a clip from a recent Fox News appearance, where he discussed the renewed relevance of liberal arts degrees in the age of artificial intelligence.
Technical fields like computer science—once considered the safest bet for a stable, high-paying job—are increasingly on shaky ground. Rather than a specific set of technical skills that could become obsolete tomorrow, employers are now hunting for talent who can think critically, creatively, and contextually—the soft skills liberal arts majors have in spades.
“Liberal arts graduates can certainly cut through the noise,” O’Leary agreed on X. “But the real value is in the ability to tell a story, paired with AI talent. That’s where the smart money is going. Everything else is noise.”
Storytelling has emerged as a core skill over the past year, with U.S. job postings referencing “storytelling” doubling over the past year, according to LinkedIn data cited in The Wall Street Journal.
“The number one inflation is creators, like storytellers, writers that actually have AI talents,” O’Leary said in the clip. Those employees who once earned $48,000 a year, now are commanding $600,000 salaries, he said. This increased value can be measured through customer acquisition, according to O’Leary.
