Over the next decade, advances in artificial intelligence will mean that humans will no longer be needed “for most things” in the world, says Bill Gates.

That’s what the Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist told comedian Jimmy Fallon during an interview on NBC’s “The Tonight Show” in February. At the moment, expertise remains “rare,” Gates explained, pointing to human specialists we still rely on in many fields, including “a great doctor” or “a great teacher.”

But “with AI, over the next decade, that will become free, commonplace — great medical advice, great tutoring,” Gates said.

In other words, the world is entering a new era of what Gates called “free intelligence” in an interview last month with Harvard University professor and happiness expert Arthur Brooks. The result will be rapid advances in AI-powered technologies that are accessible and touch nearly every aspect of our lives, Gates has said, from improved medicines and diagnoses to widely available AI tutors and virtual assistants.

“It’s very profound and even a little bit scary — because it’s happening very quickly, and there is no upper bound,” Gates told Brooks.

The debate over how, exactly, most humans will fit into this AI-powered future is ongoing. Some experts say AI will help humans work more efficiently — rather than replacing them altogether — and spur economic growth that leads to more jobs being created.

Others, like Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman, counter that continued technological advancements over the next several years will change what most jobs look like across nearly every industry, and have a “hugely destabilizing” impact on the workforce.

“These tools will only temporarily augment human intelligence,” Suleyman wrote in his book “The Coming Wave,” which was published in 2023. “They will make us smarter and more efficient for a time, and will unlock enormous amounts of economic growth, but they are fundamentally labor replacing.”

Gates is optimistic about the overall benefits AI can provide to humanity, like “breakthrough treatments for deadly diseases, innovative solutions for climate change, and high-quality education for everyone,” he wrote last year.

Talking to Fallon, Gates reaffirmed his belief that certain types of jobs will likely never be replaced by AI, noting that people probably don’t want to see machines playing baseball, for example.

“There will be some things we reserve for ourselves. But in terms of making things and moving things and growing food, over time those will be basically solved problems,” Gates said.

AI’s development does come with “understandable and valid” concerns, Gates wrote in a 2023 blog post. Today’s top-of-the-line AI programs are rife with errors and prone to enabling the spread of falsehoods online, for example.

But if he had to start a new business from scratch, he’d launch an “AI-centric” startup, Gates told CNBC Make It in September 2024.

“Today, somebody could raise billions of dollars for a new AI company [that’s just] a few sketch ideas,” he said, adding: “I’m encouraging young people at Microsoft, OpenAI, wherever I find them: ‘Hey, here’s the frontier.’ Because you’re taking a fresher look at this than I am, and that’s your fantastic opportunity.”

Gates saw the AI revolution coming nearly a decade ago: When asked which industry he’d focus on if he had to start over from scratch, he quickly chose AI.

“The work in artificial intelligence today is at a really profound level,” Gates said at a 2017 event at Columbia University alongside Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett. He pointed to the “profound milestone” of Google’s DeepMind AI lab creating a computer program that could defeat humans at the board game Go.

At the time, the technology was years away from ChatGPT-style generative text, powered by large language models. Yet by 2023, even Gates was surprised by the speed of AI’s development. He’d challenged OpenAI to create a model that could get a top score on a high school AP Biology exam, expecting the task to take two or three years, he wrote in his blog post.

“They finished it in just a few months,” wrote Gates. He called the achievement “the most important advance in technology since the graphical user interface [in 1980].”

Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC and NBC, which broadcasts “The Tonight Show.”

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For close to a decade, I’ve worked with hundreds of students and their parents as an extracurricular coach at Spike Lab. 

I’ve seen my students win major awards, raise venture capital, build businesses and launch impressive projects that helped them stand out in a college admissions process that prizes exceptionalism — both in and out of the classroom. They’ve gotten accepted into Ivy Leagues, including Stanford, Harvard and Princeton.

While working with these students, I’ve learned a lot about their family relationships. Here are four things I’ve noticed that their parents do early on.

Snowplow parenting is when parents clear a path to make things easier for their kids.

This could be something as small as coordinating logistics with me via email on their kid’s behalf (sometimes pretending to be them), to something as big as writing their kid’s college essay for them. 

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This well-intentioned but misguided trap prevents kids from developing agency. It teaches them that if they don’t do something, someone else will do it for them.

The most successful kids learn to take ownership, especially when it’s difficult. Instead of snowplowing, be a sounding board and guide that your kid can turn to for help only when necessary. 

Let your child face the natural consequences that come from their inaction. They will learn not to make the same mistake again. 

I’ve seen kids with a wide range of niche interests. I’ve watched them create incredible projects that deepen their hobbies in impactful ways, whether it’s building elementary school math curriculum grounded in baseball statistics or starting a knitting circle for jocks.

While many parents try to push their children in more serious directions, it’s better to let their interests lead the process. You never know what kind of success can come from supporting those passions and helping them flourish.

But not every hobby has to become a passion. And parents should never lead students toward activities just because they think it will look good on college applications.

Soccer practice. Singing lessons. Art class. Piano. It’s not uncommon now for elementary schoolers to have schedules as packed as high school seniors.

The result is that children today are busier than ever, often with activities that deprive them of valuable unstructured time. Research has found that the more time kids spend in less structured activities, the more they will develop independence.

Though structure has its place, allowing your kids to be bored and to take ownership of their time from an early age is one of the best ways to foster independence and creativity. 

One of my most emotionally mature students walked to school from an early age, which studies have shown has a range of developmental benefits. Even daily quotidian choices like what to wear and what to eat can flex decision-making muscles.

One of the single best habits a parent can form is modeling positive behaviors for their children.

Want your kids to not to be addicted to their screens? Don’t be on your phone all the time in front of them. Want them to be active? Let them see you exercise. 

Think about the person you want your child to become. Ask yourself: Am I demonstrating those traits in front of them? Is there anything I’m doing that opposes the values I want to pass on?

Be mindful of the examples you set for them. If you want them to grow up to be responsible, purposeful, hard-working, and above all, happy, embody those traits yourself. 

Theo Wolf is a writer and educator, with a focus on passion and purpose development in young adults. He is a co-founder of Spike Lab, a coaching program for high school students, and helped build Snowday, a free search engine for high school summer and extracurricular programs. Theo is a graduate of Cornell University and a mentor at Harvard University’s Lemann Program on Creativity and Entrepreneurship. 

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Marriage is one of the most rewarding yet challenging journeys in life. While we often enter it with high expectations, the reality is that marriage is a lifelong learning process.

As a psychologist who studies couples every day, I’ve worked with many people who only come to understand the toughest marriage lessons after they’ve experienced conflict, disappointment or a even divorce.

If you can accept these five hard truths about marriage now, you’re more likely to have a happy and successful relationship:

Many couples believe that as long as they love each other, everything else will fall into place. But love doesn’t automatically solve differences in communication styles, personal values or long-term goals.

What truly sustains a marriage is commitment, effort and the willingness to adapt. Love can help keep the spark going, but it’s the daily choices that really make a difference.

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How do you respond to conflict? How do you show up for each other? How are you continuing to grow together? These are the questions that determine how strong your marriage really is.

One of the biggest misconceptions about marriage is that truly compatible people don’t argue. But not only is conflict inevitable, it’s also essential. In fact, the absence of conflict likely means that important issues are being swept under the rug.

And it’s not the fighting that damages relationships — it’s how couples choose to handle their disagreements. Healthy conflict can bring partners closer by opening the door to deep, meaningful conversations about wants and needs, which can then lead to problem-solving.

My advice is to learn how to fight fairly. No blame games, no stonewalling and no personal attacks. Create a safe space where you can both be honest and open without judgment.

Many people enter a marriage thinking that their spouse will be their “everything” — their best friend, emotional support system, cheerleader and problem-solver. While it’s natural to lean on each other for support, expecting one person to fulfill your every need is unrealistic.

Healthy spouses recognize the importance of individuality. That means maintaining individual interests, friendships and goals. Nurturing a strong sense of self outside of the marriage helps prevent resentment and keeps the relationship from feeling suffocating.

Always remember that a thriving relationship is built on two whole, complementary individuals — not two halves trying to complete each other.

Many couples underestimate how much work it takes to have a healthy marriage.

The honeymoon phase may feel effortless, but over time, life’s responsibilities — work, kids, finances, health — often puts the relationship lower on the priority list.

You need to have regular check-ins and planned quality time together. Just as you wouldn’t expect a car to run forever without maintenance, you can’t expect a marriage to thrive without consistent care.

You can’t expect the person you marry at 25 to be the exact same person at 45. People evolve, priorities shift and life circumstances change.

By embracing change instead of resisting it, you’ll come to realize the beauty and privilege in being able to witness this evolution. 

The most successful couples are the ones who adapt and grow together. While partners drift apart, they find new reasons to keep loving each other every day. This means being open to new experiences and giving one another the space to evolve without feeling threatened by it.

Mark Travers, PhD, is a psychologist who specializes in relationships. He holds degrees from Cornell University and the University of Colorado Boulder. He is the lead psychologist at Awake Therapy, a telehealth company that provides online psychotherapy, counseling and coaching. He is also the curator of the popular mental health and wellness website, Therapytips.org.

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A lot of parents tell their children that can achieve anything if they work hard and apply themselves. But that doesn’t account for luck, which is a huge factor that many highly successful people have said they owe their careers to, points out Anthony Mackie, star of the 2025 movie “Captain America: Brave New World.”

“We are lying to our kids,” Mackie, 46, said in a recent interview with The Pivot Podcast. “We tell [them] … if they do right and they make the good grades and they go to the programs, they will become successful. ‘If you work hard enough, your work will [pay off].’ And that’s not true.”

In many cases, “success is given [and] not earned,” Mackie continued.

Mackie had been an actor for over 10 years before landing the role that many consider his big break, as Sam Wilson in 2014′s “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” he said. After graduating from the prestigious Juilliard School in 2001, he performed in both on- and Off-Broadway productions and in Academy award-winning films, like 2008′s “The Hurt Locker.” However, the New Orleans native struggled to break out in Hollywood’s highly competitive landscape.

Mackie estimates he “put in 10,750 hours of training” before landing that life-changing job. He was proactive, too: He wrote letters to executives at Disney’s Marvel Studios over a decade ago in the hopes of landing a role in one of the studio’s popular superhero films, he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2023.

While the letters didn’t result in any roles right away, Mackie eventually landed a meeting with directors Anthony Russo and Joe Russo. They offered him a part in an upcoming film, though they couldn’t share many details: ”[They said], ‘We can’t say what character you’re playing or who else is going to be in it. Would you do it?’” Mackie said.

The actor agreed because he liked the directors and believed joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up, he said. Fortunately for Mackie, the role of Sam Wilson proved popular enough to grow from a small character into a headliner.

Mackie is far from the only successful person to recognize the power of luck. You can be the smartest and most deserving person in the room, the billionaire and Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman Charlie Munger told students at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business in 2018, but there are no guarantees: “There’s also a factor of luck that comes into this thing.”

He added: “I did not intend to get rich. I wanted to get independent. I just overshot.”

Similarly, in 2023, Mark Cuban told GQ that any billionaire who says they could definitely start over from scratch is “lying their a– off.” That’s because a person also needs “luck” and good “timing” to run a highly lucrative company, particularly in the fast-moving tech industry.

If he’d been born three years earlier, he likely wouldn’t have the status that he has today, Cuban added.

Put simply, being in the right place at the right time, and having connections, can be as important as having the skills and experience.

People who benefit from luck the most have a few traits in common, according to Richard Wiseman, author of “The Luck Factor” and a psychology professor at the University of Hertfordshire.

1. They’re optimistic. Even when they find themselves in bleak circumstances, “lucky” people recognize that things “could have been far worse,” Wiseman wrote for CNBC Make It in 2022.
2. They always jump at new opportunities. Lucky people display an openness and adaptability that puts them in situations to network and make new connections, according to Wiseman.
3. They listen to their intuition. Too much time spent pondering can lead to “indecision,” he added, writing that lucky people tend to “make quick decisions …. By trusting their gut, they’re more likely to take action and expose themselves to new opportunities.”
4. They recover quickly from setbacks. This allows lucky people to remain positive when things don’t go how they’d hoped and “increases the likelihood of them continuing to live a lucky life,” according to Wiseman.

Embodying these four traits can help put you in a better position to make your goals a reality, he added.

The second and third traits in particular helped Mackie, who, in 2025, became a new face of the “Captain America” franchise, once led by former co-star Chris Evans.

“When you’re given a huge opportunity like that, you have to take into consideration that you might fail,” Mackie said. At first he was afraid, but he didn’t let that stop him. He had a network of mentors and supporters who could help, he realized: “I had to lean on those teachers and the people around me who got me to that point.”

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This story is part of CNBC Make It’s Millennial Money series, which details how people around the world earn, spend and save their money.

In 2008, during what would come to be known as the Great Recession, stories like Nicole Brewer’s were all too common.

At 27, she’d recently bought a condo on the South Side of Chicago with little money down and a loan that would likely stretch her mid-$30,000′s salary thin. Then the market research firm she worked for did layoffs, and she lost her job.

Amid a financial crisis, finding another one proved difficult. After collecting unemployment benefits for five of the allotted six months, Brewer, like many of her peers, was growing desperate.

“I remember I got scared and I was like, ‘OK, what are you going to do if your unemployment runs out? You don’t have a job,’” she tells CNBC Make It. “That’s when I started looking at opportunities. I said, ‘I’ll think outside the box, look at some teaching jobs abroad.’”

Brewer found a gig teaching English at a primary school South Korea, a move that would satisfy some wanderlust while she waited for the U.S. economy to bounce back.

But that’s where her story gets a little less common. After three years in Korea, Brewer took a college-level ESL job, this time in Nizwa, an ancient city in Oman about a 90-minute drive from Muscat, the nation’s capital. She’s been there ever since, living happily and traveling — and currently earning a salary of just over $40,000 a year, plus some side-hustle income.

“I have had such an incredible experience living here. I never even imagined that I would be here for 10-plus years, because I just felt comfortable here,” Brewer, 43, says. “My mental health has definitely been great here.”

A move abroad can be daunting — especially for someone in a precarious financial situation. But for Brewer, who’d moved to a new country with just two suitcases, things were surprisingly seamless.

“Fortunately at that time, being recruited to work for the education department in Korea, they helped set you up,” she says. That meant covering the cost of her flight and assigning her a liaison from her school who helped her find an apartment and transition into working life in Busan, a city of just over 3 million people.

Back home, things were still rough. The renter she’d found to take over payments on her Chicago condo lost his job too and soon fell behind. The bank foreclosed on the property.

That may have made life difficult for Brewer had she chosen to return to the States on her original timeline. But it didn’t take long for her to realize that expat life suited her.

Her home base in Korea, along with a modest cost of living, allowed her to see parts of the world she would have likely otherwise missed, including trips to India and the Philippines. “I was able to live comfortably and still travel a bit,” she says.

After three years, Brewer was looking for a change of pace, and initially thought she might like Dubai. While researching the region, she came across a posting for a job at a university in Oman. “After seeing that posting, I ended up researching on my own and I was like, ‘Wow, this is a very beautiful country,’” Brewer says.

She gave it a chance, boarding a plane in 2012, once again with two suitcases and plans to figure things out when she got there. Other than brief stints in Germany and South Africa to complete an accelerated masters program in international humanitarian aid, she’s stuck around.

Brewer’s main gig is still teaching English, a job which pays her about $3,400 a month, even when school is not in session. Over the years, she’s picked up some side hustles, too, as a freelance travel writer and part-time travel advisor. Those brought her an extra $3,400 in 2024.

Brewer is still an American citizen and pays income taxes in the U.S. And even though she doesn’t necessarily blend in with the locals — she doesn’t speak Arabic or practice Islam — her Yankee status comes with a certain level of respect. “I like to call it ‘passport privilege,’” she says.

Overall, she says, being a Black American woman doesn’t come with many of the burdens while living abroad as it might have back home. “I wouldn’t say that I deal with much or any racism, because I think it’s more so, you’re American — we take pride in having an American who loves living in Oman.”

Even though it took a while for Brewer to adjust to the conservative Omani lifestyle — and casual dating is still a struggle — she says she consistently feels welcomed by the Omani people.

“They welcome me. They say, ‘Oh, hello, sister,’ when I get in taxis. They call me sister like I’m one of them because I respect the culture,” she says. “It’s been very great. I wouldn’t have stayed as long as I had if it wasn’t a good life here.”

Despite the region’s reputation for opulence, Brewer’s day-to-day life in Oman is unostentatious and, by U.S. standards, inexpensive. Here’s how she spent her money in January 2025.

• Travel: $2,630 on flights and hotels for a trip to Bali, Indonesia
• Rent: $650
• Food: $348 on groceries and dining
• Cab fare: $277
• Discretionary: $133 on clothing, donations and various fees
• Health and wellness: $65 on spa treatment and prescriptions
• Netflix subscription: $15
• Phone: $10

Brewer’s two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment came fully furnished, and she pays 250 Omani rials — or roughly $650 — a month in rent, utilities included. She spends about $70 or $80 a week on groceries. Insurance, a major line item in most American workers’ budgets, is covered by her employer.

Living relatively modestly for most of the year allows Brewer to devote significant funds toward her life’s passion: travel. More than half her January spending went toward a trip to Bali during her school’s winter break.

She generally takes two or three big trips a year, and her location in the Middle East makes it easier to travel to some parts of the world than if she had stayed in the U.S. Trips to Namibia and the Seychelles, she says, are much more affordable with Oman has a home base.

“I’m able to travel to Europe, of course, as well, because it’s right there,” she says.

Even given her relatively low cost of living, traveling the world on a teacher’s salary means Brewer has had to put some financial goals on the back burner. Although her credit cards are paid off, she still carries about $24,600 in student debt from her time as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan.

And while she has about $22,000 invested across stocks and cryptocurrency, it’s hardly enough for her to feel like she’s on track for major financial milestones, like retirement.

“I do feel like sometimes maybe I beat myself up because I feel like I should have more in savings, considering how long I’ve been abroad,” Brewer says. “Sometimes I’m like, ‘Maybe I could have not gone to this destination and have a little more money padded in my savings.’ But the reality is, I’m grateful for every trip that I have been on.”

In the coming years, Brewer hopes to ramp up her savings enough to fund a semi-retirement of sorts in Portugal.

“In the perfect scenario, I would have a hostel. It would be a place where I can live, as well as have additional rooms to be able to rent out and make an income from the property,” she says.

For now, though, she has no plans to leave what she says is a fulfilling and peaceful life in Oman.

“It’s not an easy life to be on the other side of the world from your family, especially when emergencies and family situations come up,” she says. “You have to take the good with the bad. But overall, I do have a peace of mind living here because it’s so safe and people are really kind-hearted.”

Conversions from OMR to USD were done using the Bank of Muscat’s conversion rate of 1 USD to 0.3877 OMR on Jan. 1, 2025. All amounts are rounded to the nearest dollar.

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