‘If you’re doing the same job as a software engineer today that you were doing five or 10…or even two years ago… you’re probably already out of a job’ – Quinn Slack, CEO, Sourcegraph

AI is already replacing workers across industries, but not in the way you might think, according to Sourcegraph CEO Quinn Slack. 

Speaking at Collision in Toronto, Quinn said: “Where you are already seeing the impacts is not firing current staff, but who is not being hired because of AI.”

Quinn’s comments come amid ongoing job cuts and hiring freezes across the tech sector.

“Facebook is lowering their future hiring plans by one hundred thousand people. That’s one hundred thousand people that they’re not hiring in the future. And that’s the kind of impact that we’re already seeing. You’re not gonna see people saying I was laid off because of AI, but you’re still seeing people that are saying, I’m not able to get that attractive kind of offer that I was getting a year ago because of AI.”

Speaking on Collision’s FullStk stage, the Sourcegraph CEO was asked whether he thought people should still consider learning to code: “There is still a lot of code to be written and that way of thinking is still really valuable. Also, coding is so fun.”

Quinn also pointed out the importance of computer science beyond coding: “Even if you’re not actually writing code, all the things that computer science and coding teaches you is how to think through something in a really structured and logical way”,  adding that ”the fastest growing major of fortune 500 CEOs is computer science”.

When asked how best to prepare for the increased threat of AI in the tech job market, Quinn’s advice was to keep adapting: “If you’re a software engineer, you’re already so used to change […] most of you have already adapted in a way that would feel completely radical to someone in a totally different field.”

However, the Sourcegraph CEO did not see AI as an immediate threat to most developer jobs, pointing out that “the most popular AI assistance is being used by 1.5 percent or less of all the devs”. He went on to make a comparison with another much-hyped feature of AI: “Self-driving cars have been the next thing for the last 25 years and look where we are.”

Quinn’s comments were made as part of a wider discussion on the impact of AI at Collision, which is returning to Toronto for its sixth year. Global founders, CEOs, investors and members of the media have come to the city to make deals and experience North America’s thriving tech ecosystem.

More than 1,600 startups are taking part in Collision 2024 – the highest number of startups ever at a Collision event. 45 percent of these are women-founded, and startups have travelled to Toronto from countries including Nigeria, the Republic of Korea, Uruguay, Japan, Italy, Ghana, Pakistan and beyond.

In total, more than 37,800 attendees have gathered at the event, as well as 570 speakers and 1,003 members of the media, to explore business opportunities with an international audience.

739 investors are attending Collision, including Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures; Wesley Chan, co-founder and managing partner of FPV Ventures; and Nigel Morris, co-founder and managing partner of QED Investors, as well as nine companies on the Forbes Midas List, and 12 investors from those firms.

Top speakers at Collision include:

• Geoffrey Hinton, Godfather of AI
• Maria Sharapova, entrepreneur and tennis legend
• Aidan Gomez, founder and CEO of Cohere (an AI for enterprise and large language model company, which raised US$450 million at a US$5 billion valuation in June 2024)
• Raquel Urtasun, founder and CEO of Waabi (a Canadian autonomous trucking company)
• Jeff Shiner, CEO of 1Password
• Dali Rajic, president and COO of Wiz (a cloud security platform)
• Alex Israel, co-founder and CEO of Metropolis (an AI and computer vision platform)
• Jonathan Ross, founder and CEO of Groq (an AI chip startup)
• Keily Blair, CEO of OnlyFans
• Autumn Peltier, Indigenous rights activist

About Web Summit: 

Web Summit runs the world’s largest technology events, connecting people and ideas that change the world. Half a million people have attended Web Summit events – Web Summit in Europe, Web Summit Rio in South America, Collision in North America, Web Summit Qatar in the Middle East, and RISE in Asia – since the company’s beginnings as a 150-person conference in Dublin in 2009.

This year alone, Web Summit has hosted sold-out events in Qatar, which welcomed more than 15,000 attendees, and in Rio, where more than 34,000 people took part. Our events have been supported by partners including the Qatar Investment Authority, Snap, Deloitte, TikTok, Huawei, Microsoft, Shell, Palo Alto Networks, EY, Builder.ai and Qatar Airways. 

Web Summit’s mission is to enable the meaningful connections that change the world. Web Summit also undertakes a range of initiatives to support diversity, equality and inclusion across the tech worlds, including Impact, women in tech, Amplify, our scholarship program, and our community partnerships.

Useful links

• Collision website: https://collisionconf.com/ 
• Collision media kit: https://collisionconf.com/media/media-kit  
• Collision images: https://flickr.com/photos/collisionconf 
• About Web Summit: about.websummit.com