A Salesforce exec tells BI there's an even more important skill for employees than coding
Coding is no longer the most important skill in the AI era, said Salesforce's chief futures officer.
Peter Schwartz said in an interview that employees need empathy more than anything else.
"Parents ask me what should my kids study, shall they be coders? I said, 'learn how to work with others.'"
Coding is no longer the must-have skill of the AI era, said Salesforce's chief futures officer, Peter Schwartz.
"The most important skill is empathy, working with other people," said Schwartz in an interview with Business Insider at the Singapore tech conference ATxSummit.
"Parents ask me what should my kids study, shall they be coders? I said, 'learn how to work with others.'"
Schwartz said empathy is the ability to understand and relate to another human being, like with coworkers. It's the ability to "collaborate and to creatively work together."
"That will be the most important thing because the AIs can deal with all the routine stuff," he added.
When asked how to screen for it, Schwartz said it's hard to measure. "I don't have a good answer," he said.
"But that's what I am looking for. I look for that empathy that this is a person who's really going to be a great teammate, somebody I can work closely with," he added.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said earlier this year that his company might not hire software engineers in 2025 because of how much AI agents have helped boost some coders' productivity.
Schwartz called AI's impact on coding for Salesforce "huge."
"We've seen a massive increase in productivity of our coders because they have the tools to be able to do coding much faster — frankly, more creatively," Schwartz said.
During Google's third-quarter earnings call in October, CEO Sundar Pichai said more than a quarter of the company's new code was generated by AI.
As AI gets better at writing code, some product managers have speculated that AI will increasingly take on some technical coding tasks and circumvent their need for engineers. Job postings for software engineers on Indeed have hit a five-year low.
Some tech leaders said learning the fundamentals is still essential, while others emphasized the importance of soft skills in setting candidates apart.
Mark Zuckerberg said in a July interview with Bloomberg that he believed the most important skill was "learning how to think critically and learning values when you're young."
"If people have shown that they can go deep and do one thing really well, then they've probably gained experience in, like, the art of learning something," Zuckerberg said, discussing what he looked for in job candidates.
Read the original article on Business Insider
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
26 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Singapore members club 1880's staff In bid to revive firm: BT
By Yongchang Chin (Bloomberg) – The staff of Singapore private members club 1880 have made an offer to buy the club's assets with the backing of its landlord RB Corp, a member of RB Capital Group, according to The Business Times. The consortium has made an offer to buy 1880's assets, the newspaper said, citing one unnamed source. 1880's local business in Singapore was profitable, but the club had got into debt after its aggressive expansion into Hong Kong and Bali: BTT The Hong Kong outlet closed on May 30; the Bali outlet, a six-floor beachside hotel, never opened. The bid to revive 1880 will exclude any involvement from the three co-founders, Marc Nicholson, his wife Jean Low, as well as Luke Jones. More stories like this are available on ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Taiwan central bank says US debt rising too fast may impact trust in Treasuries
TAIPEI (Reuters) -Taiwan's central bank governor warned on Saturday that rapidly rising U.S. debt could be "unfavourable" to the outlook for U.S. Treasuries and that U.S. President Donald Trump's trade policies have made investors cautious. Taiwan's $593 billion in foreign exchange reserves are more than 80% made up of U.S. Treasury bonds, according to the central bank, which said earlier this month that Treasuries were "sound" and still favoured by investors. It added there were no worries about the dollar's position as the leading international reserve currency. Governor Yang Chin-long, in a speech posted on the central bank's website, said Trump's repeated criticisms of the U.S. Federal Reserve's monetary policy have caused concerns about its independence. "In addition, Trump 2.0's trade policy has made investors hesitant about holding U.S. Treasury bonds; Trump's budget, the 'One Big Beautiful Bill Act,' may cause U.S. debt to expand too quickly, which is unfavourable to the outlook for U.S. sovereign debt," he said. "All of these have had a significant impact on the international monetary system centred on the U.S. dollar and based on U.S. creditworthiness." Trump's sweeping tax-cut and spending bill is the centerpiece of his domestic agenda. The bill would lead to a larger-than-expected $2.8 trillion increase in the federal deficit over the decade, despite a boost to U.S. economic output, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected on Tuesday. Trump, in his first few weeks in office, also announced sweeping tariffs on a broad swathe of countries and trading partners, including Taiwan, only to pause them for 90 days in April to allow for talks to take place. Yang said Trump had been hoping the tariffs could resolve the U.S. trade deficit. "However, the tariff policy not only fails to solve the structural problems, it will also impact the U.S. economy, and threaten to further affect the outlook for global trade and the economy."
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Accenture is giving consulting a new name as it doubles down on AI: 'reinvention services'
CEO Julie Sweet said Accenture is doubling down on AI in an earnings call on Friday. She said the firm is creating a new business division focused on AI called "reinvention services." Sweet said that while bookings were down, revenue was up, and Accenture sees future potential in AI. After more than 35 years in the business, Accenture is giving consulting a new name: "reinvention services." The global consulting firm reported its earnings on Friday, highlighting a generally positive performance for the third fiscal quarter of 2025. The firm reported revenue of $17.7 billion, an 8% increase from this time last year. While new bookings were down 6% compared to the third quarter in 2024, Accenture CEO Julie Sweet told CNBC on Friday that the firm was "really pleased" with its bookings and that demand for its services could be seen in its revenue. Sweet said on the earnings call that AI is the firm's strongest bet for creating new demand and that to maximize AI's potential, the firm is consolidating its strategy, consulting, song, technology, and operations services into a single unit known as "reinvention services," starting September 1. "What we're going to do now is make it even easier to bring those solutions, embed data and AI, so we can really scale across our client base and into new markets using our reinvention services," Sweet told CNBC. What consultants do sometimes needs to be explained, and "reinvention services" is no exception. In both her CNBC interview and the earnings call on Friday, Sweet shared several examples of the company's AI-powered reinvention work, which — following its reorganization — the firm will be able to execute more efficiently, she said. In one example, she said Accenture is working with Italian shipbuilding company Fincantieri to launch the first AI-powered ship in 2025. Sweet told CNBC that the ship will be able to "predict its maintenance, manage its energy use on its own, and talk to the dock" before it arrives at its destination. She said Accenture's work to modernize the manufacturing process for Bel, maker of Laughing Cow cheese, would also fall under this new department, as would its collaboration with Brazilian mining company Vale to expedite environmental licensing and permits. She also said the firm is creating AI-generated 3D avatars of physical products for coffee brands like Nescafé, Dolce Gusto, and Nespresso to reduce the time and cost of developing marketing campaigns, which would also fall under the new reinvention services department. Sweet told CNBC that AI can be a "tool" to help companies navigate the future, but to reap the benefits, it will also need to be "disruptive." Read the original article on Business Insider Sign in to access your portfolio
