‘If all software engineers are out of work’: Sridhar Vembu sees power shift, warns of hoarded gains

If robots take your job, don’t panic — just become a farmer or a musician. That’s the blunt future envisioned by Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu, who says the real threat from AI isn’t mass unemployment, but a broken economic system that could let tech monopolies hoard all the gains.

In a post on X, Vembu tackled the doomsday scenario of full AI-driven software automation. “We are nowhere close to that goal,” he clarified, but asked: if machines one day replace all coders, “how do people afford all the goods that pour out of automated factories that employ no workers?”

The solution, he argued, isn’t technological — it’s economic. One path is that robot-made goods become so cheap they’re essentially free. “Breathing air costs us zero and we don’t complain about it,” he noted. But the more likely outcome? The few human-centered jobs left — from caregiving to agriculture — become the new high-paying work, because people will still value what machines can’t replicate.

“Taking care of children, home cooked meals, nursing sick people… local live performing musicians… forest restoration specialists” — all these, Vembu said, could become premium professions if the economy adjusts properly.

On the subject of AI and jobs: Hypothetically, if all software development were to be automated – I want to emphasize that we are _nowhere_ close to that goal – and all software engineers such as myself are out of work, it is not like human beings will have nothing to do.

The…

— Sridhar Vembu (@svembu) June 7, 2025

That adjustment, however, hinges on governments. “One key part is for governments to crack down on monopolies, particularly tech monopolies,” he wrote. Only then, he argues, will automation’s benefits be widely shared and prices reflect AI’s ultra-low production costs.

Vembu’s post ends on a provocative note: “There will be at least one country in the world that would get the political economy right.” The message? AI won’t decide who wins in the future — policy will.