Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman isn’t mincing words when it comes to companies replacing their youngest employees with artificial intelligence. Speaking with AI investor Matthew Berman, Garman delivered a blunt assessment of business leaders who think AI tools can simply substitute for junior staff.
“The dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” Garman said, referring to executives who believe they can fire junior workers because AI can handle their tasks. This perspective might surprise some, especially coming from the head of a company that’s heavily invested in AI development and promotes tools like AWS’s Kiro AI-assisted coding platform.
But Garman’s reasoning makes business sense. Junior employees are typically the least expensive workers on payroll, and they’re often the most enthusiastic adopters of new AI tools. More importantly, they represent the future of any organization.
“How’s that going to work when ten years in the future you have no one who has learned anything?” Garman asked during the conversation. His concern isn’t just theoretical it touches on a fundamental challenge facing companies as they navigate the AI revolution.
Why AWS Focuses on Developer Education, Not Code Quantity?
The AWS chief believes organizations should continue hiring recent college graduates and teaching them proper software development practices, problem-solving techniques, and critical thinking skills. The difference now is that AI tools can actually enhance this educational process rather than replace it.
Garman also pushed back against another popular AI metric that many companies use to measure success: the percentage of code written by artificial intelligence. He called this measurement “silly” because organizations can use AI to generate massive amounts of code, but quantity doesn’t equal quality.
“Often times fewer lines of code is way better than more lines of code,” Garman observed. “So I’m never really sure why that’s the exciting metric that people like to brag about.”
This perspective reflects a more nuanced understanding of AI’s role in software development. While AI can certainly increase productivity, the focus should be on creating better solutions, not just more code.
AWS, The New Era of AI-Enhanced Human Creativity
The numbers at AWS tell an interesting story about AI adoption. According to Garman, over 80 percent of AWS developers now use AI tools in some capacity. This usage spans various tasks from writing unit tests and documentation to actual coding and collaborative workflows with AI agents. The adoption rate continues climbing every week.
This broad-based integration implies that the future is not about deciding between human employees and AI, but about achieving the right balance. Developers are leveraging AI to be an effective personal assistant that performs the mundane tasks so that they can focus more on difficult problem-solving and innovative work.
Garman’s career advice for young professionals reflects this reality. Instead of focusing on learning specific technical skills that might become obsolete, he recommends developing broader capabilities.
“I think the skills that should be emphasized are how to think for yourself? How do you develop critical reasoning for solving problems? How do you develop creativity? How do you develop a learning mindset that you’re going to go learn to do the next thing?” he explained.
This is an acknowledgement that technological change is accelerating. The days when one can acquire a defined set of skills and drive a 30-year career are largely gone. Employees today need to be adaptive learners who can keep pace with technology rather than try to outrun it.
Prioritizing Critical Thinking for an AI-Based Workforce
Garman would like to see schools prioritize teaching students “how do you think and how do you break down problems.” He believes students taught these fundamental skills will be best positioned to thrive in an AI-based workforce.
The AWS CEO’s view is a healthy antidote to visions of AI displacing human employees. Rather than viewing AI as a threat to low-level work, he views it as an asset that can help make junior staff more productive as they learn to think critically and establish the habits that will characterize their careers.
To companies planning ahead for their AI future, the message is unequivocal from Garman: spend on the technology and spend on people. The companies that will succeed are those that use AI to enhance human capabilities and not replace them.
