• Micha Kaufman told BI that AI use is now a baseline expectation at Fiverr.
• People using AI will displace those who are not, the CEO of the freelance marketplace said.
• Freelancers are ahead of the curve, often adopting AI tools faster than full-time employees, he added.

For many employers, AI skills are a nice-to-have. At Fiverr, they're non-negotiable.

Micha Kaufman, the CEO of one of the world's largest freelance marketplaces, told Business Insider he wouldn't hire anyone who isn't already using AI. Even candidates who say they're open to trying AI, but haven't actually used it, would be a red flag, he said.

"You can't wait to be taught something," he said, adding, "If you don't ensure that you sharpen your knives, you're going to be left behind. It's that simple."

In his view, people who use AI to amplify their work, not just automate it, will set themselves apart in today's job market. The real competition isn't with the technology itself, he added, but with the people who embrace it.

"There's less of a risk of technology displacing people," he told BI. "But I think there's more risk of people who are very versed in technology displacing people who are not."

A 'wake-up call' for everyone

Kaufman put forward this stance in a memo to Fiverr's 775 employees last month, warning that AI could threaten jobs at every level. "AI is coming for your jobs. Heck, it's coming for my job too. This is a wake-up call," he wrote, later posting the message publicly on X.

"It does not matter if you are a programmer, designer, product manager, data scientist, lawyer, customer support rep, salesperson, or a finance person - AI is coming for you," he added.

He told BI the memo wasn't about creating fear but about facing reality. "If you don't make that move, you're going to be out of work," he explained. "Not only in our company but also across the industry. There's not going to be a demand for people who are working like it was five years ago."

The Fiverr CEO isn't alone in this philosophy.

Klarna's CEO, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, said in January that AI could do "all our jobs, my own included," a prospect he called "gloomy," but one he said the fintech had fully embraced. Earlier this month, the company reversed its AI hiring freeze to hire humans again.

At Shopify, teams are now required to demonstrate that AI can't do a job before asking for more staff. CEO Tobi Lütke told employees last month in a widely shared internal memo to imagine what their teams would look like "if autonomous AI agents were already part of the team."

Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn recently told staff the company was replacing contract workers with AI, while Salesforce is using internal AI career coaches to help employees pivot into new roles as automation changes job requirements, instead of laying them off.

Humans still matter

So, which employees are safe from replacement in the age of AI?

For Kaufman, it's those who find ways to replace themselves.

"The people who are never going to be displaced or replaced are the people who are going to find ways to replace 100% of what they do now with technology," he told BI.

Kaufman said he would never replace an employee or freelancer with that mindset — "because that just frees up their time to focus on things that technology cannot provide right now."

Workers using AI is less about technical prowess or "checking boxes on specific tools," Kaufman explained, and more about having a mindset of "curiosity, adaptability, and a willingness to experiment."

Even as AI changes work, Kaufman believes there's a growing premium on human judgment and nuance.

"These new tools, these new models, agents, are able to provide us with a lot of work that was just taking time," he said. However, the "special human touch" remains essential.

"I want my people to focus on these more complex, nuanced human tasks rather than continuing to work like it's 2024," he added. "If you're still doing that, you're doing something wrong."

Freelancers as AI frontrunners

Kaufman said that freelancers are often better prepared for AI upending of the world of work because they are constantly upskilling.

Freelancers, he explained, often spend "days and days" experimenting with new tools — something many full-time employees might not have the time or incentive to do.

New roles like vibe coders, agent trainers, and ComfyUI consultants have quickly become top earners on freelance platforms like Fiverr, he added.

That shift is reflected in Fiverr's May Business Trends Index, which tracks millions of searches on the platform worldwide. Over the past six months, demand for "AI Agent" services surged by 18,347%, while "AI Video Creator" searches jumped 1,739%.

Kaufman's advice for anyone looking to future-proof their career is straightforward: master the latest AI tools, experiment widely, and stop waiting for formal training.

"If you don't realize the pace, the velocity, of change right now, you're at risk of being left behind," he said. "And being OK at something is not enough. It doesn't cut it anymore."

• AI investor Kristin McDonald was just promoted to partner at NYC-based Eniac Ventures.
• McDonald started her career in NGOs and worked at hedge fund Point72 before becoming a VC.
• McDonald says she's most excited about vertical AI startups that can take over entire industries.

Kristin McDonald's pathway to venture capital started at a climate NGO and included a stop at a rigorous hedge fund training program. McDonald's latest stop is as a newly promoted partner at Eniac Ventures, Business Insider has learned exclusively.

Now, she's taking lessons learned from both industries to her role at Eniac Ventures, a New York-based VC firm founded by Nihal Mehta, to invest in early-stage startups. McDonald, who's been working in various roles within Eniac for nearly six years, focuses on backing AI apps as well as vertical AI and some enterprise software.

She's written checks for early-stage companies like legal tech startup Tradespace and AI sales agent Attention, the latter of which was one of BI's Startups to Bet Your Career On in 2025.

Compared to her pre-VC career, McDonald says that at Eniac, she's found a sweet spot: she can apply the deep financial analysis work she honed at a hedge fund to early-stage founders.

And by moving to VC, McDonald said she's been able to lean into one of her special talents.

"I've learned not to lean out of things I'm good at, and in VC, that's being an empath and supporting someone," she said. "I like to see people who are put on this earth to build what they're building."

From Climate Advocacy to Wall Street to Venture Capital

After earning a degree in climate and environmental studies from Middlebury College, McDonald moved to China to complete two internships at non-governmental organizations or NGOs, focusing on project financing for renewable energy. Through the experiences, McDonald said she learned that despite having good intentions, NGOs weren't able to have as much impact — and were the "least effective and efficient way to get things done" — compared to the business sector.

For example, McDonald said that the real estate companies she encountered cared less about environmental concerns than her NGO, yet they achieved more than her team. The realization inspired her to rethink her career and consider jobs in the private sector, and she moved back to the US in 2015 to complete an internship at hedge fund Point72, where she was eventually hired as a full-time analyst.

She said she loved how the work was rigorous and intellectually stimulating and that the public markets provided an immediate feedback loop — after coming up with numbers-based thesis evaluations on companies, she'd instantly get feedback to refine her thinking.

At the same time, she was pulling 100-hour weeks, and she didn't like the pressure of betting against IPO-level companies.

McDonald switched gears again in 2019, joining Eniac first in a research and due diligence role before transitioning to a full-fledged investor driving her own deals. She quickly realized that compared to working as a hedge fund analyst, the best thesis doesn't always win — especially when it comes to early-stage companies.

"The most incredible founders are way more valuable even if they haven't proved out a great thesis," she said. "I've had to learn to under-index on theses and over-index on founders."

The future of AI is vertical

Nearly six years into her time at Eniac, McDonald has had a front-row seat to the AI boom. In addition to Tradespace and Attention, she's written checks for data infrastructure startup Cecil Earth, robotics startup Model-Prime, and AI mental health coverage platform Nirvana Health.

Looking to 2025, McDonald is particularly interested in vertical industries that have been slow to digitize — such as healthcare, insurance, and law — and finding startups that can revolutionize an entire field with AI.

"There are a ton of industries that haven't been updated or digitized in the last 20 years, and the lift for someone to go in and restructure a system of records, for example, is so high that the value you provide has to be an order of magnitude higher," she said.

McDonald added that the first team that can vertically crack into a 30-year legacy system has the potential to own the entire industry for at least a little while, and that thought of dominance is an exciting prospect for her as an investor.

"It's a go-to-market hack where if you're the first, you're going to be able to scale in a way you never could do with the traditional sales process," she said. "AI represents a once-in-a-generation, massive tech paradigm shift. There's a high appetite to try things and experiment."