Forget Jobs — This Is How You Actually Get Rich in the AI Era

Summary

Episode Overview

Podcast: Earn Your Leisure
Episode Title: Forget Jobs — This Is How You Actually Get Rich in the AI Era
Hosts: Rashad Bilal and Troy Millings
Date: May 4, 2026

The episode dives deep into practical financial strategies for building wealth in the AI-driven economy. Targeting college students, recent graduates, and young professionals, the discussion centers on the importance of mindset, adapting to a rapidly evolving job market, the value of saving and investing early, and which fields are still resilient—and lucrative—in the age of automation and artificial intelligence.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The “Broke College Student” Mindset: Foundation for Wealth

• Importance of Frugality Early On
  • The conversation opens with a critical emphasis on maintaining a frugal attitude post-college.
    • “That mindset, that frugal mindset is so valuable when you first come out of college because it allows you to practice living below your means.”
      — Financial Expert (02:24)
  • Early discipline in budgeting and saving, even before extensive investing, is highlighted as a differentiator on the road to wealth.
  • Personal anecdote: The financial expert describes their own post-college life, laser-focused on saving—even to the detriment of personal relationships.

2. Navigating the AI Era: Mindset and Market Readiness

• AI's Impact on the Job Market
  • Hosts and guest discuss the rapid evolution brought by AI, which will “shift the job landscape significantly.” (04:19)
  • Key Insight: AI can process data, but it “can’t verify that the results are 100% right,” meaning human expertise—especially in analytics and industry knowledge—is vital.
    • “AI is programming better than the best coders out there… You need people that can disseminate the data.”
      — Financial Expert (05:12)
  • Advice for Young People:
    • Move towards areas where human judgment, creativity, and contextual understanding add value.
    • Focus on industry knowledge, not just generic coding skills.

3. Degrees and Skills with Enduring Value

• Top Recommendations for Young Professionals (08:45)
  • Analytics and Data Science:
    • “The study of data and how to process and understand data.”
  • Healthcare Fields:
    • Rising demand as populations age; AI will enhance healthcare, but cannot replace every role.
  • Construction Management:
    • Despite automation, infrastructure and real estate require hands-on leadership and oversight.
  • Real Estate:
    • Ownership, property management, syndications; “AI is not going to buy apartment buildings.”
  • Quote:
    • “Those are just a few.” — Financial Expert, as he underscores a list of resilient sectors.

4. The Power of Saving and Investing Aggressively

• Compounding Wealth Over Time (06:46)
  • The financial expert advocates putting at least 25% of income away early in your career.
    • “Putting 25% of your income away is just the start for these college grads. You could do it and not even feel it coming out of college.” (07:27)
  • Math Behind Retirement Goals:
    • “25 times your desired salary”—the amount you’ll need to retire, following the 4% rule.
    • Example: “If you want to make $200,000 a year, you’re going to need about $5 million put away. Because you take 4% of 5 million, that gets you 200,000.” (07:27)
  • The expert warns against waiting for higher earnings before saving; lifestyle inflation usually outpaces savings rate increases.

5. Real Estate and Ownership

• AI Can’t Replace Owners
  • The discussion returns to real estate as a time-tested pathway to wealth.
    • “AI is not going to really...buy an apartment building, so it’s still going to take owners and people are going to still need a place to live.” (05:53)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Mindset:
  “That’s where that [frugal] mindset—that’s just so key to young people. If they could start that way, man, when they come out of college, continue that knowing that they’re going to be rich sometime, that’s going to put them on the road way ahead of everybody else.”
  — Financial Expert (03:13)
• On AI & Job Security:
  “AI is programming better than the best coders out there, right? So there’s no purpose in really having coders. You need people that can disseminate the data.”
  — Financial Expert (05:12)
• On Investing Aggressively:
  “You really need to put that kind of money away. It’s a serious thing.”
  — Financial Expert (08:23)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [02:00] The broke college student mindset explained
• [03:41] Transition: Preparing for AI’s disruption in the job market
• [04:19] Jobs AI can’t replace: the value of analytics, data science, and industry knowledge
• [06:30] Investing 25–50% of income—why and how
• [07:27] The “25x your salary” rule for retirement explained
• [08:43] Degrees and fields to pursue in the AI era: a concise list

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Conclusion: Episode Takeaways

• Retaining a frugal, savings-oriented mindset straight out of college sets the stage for long-term wealth.
• AI will reshape the job market, but deep expertise, especially in data science, health, construction management, and real estate, remains future-proof.
• Start saving aggressively—ideally at least 25% of your income—and invest early to benefit from compounding.
• Real estate and ownership will never be fully automated: These remain key vehicles for multi-generational wealth.

This episode provides a no-nonsense, strategic perspective for anyone navigating the intersections of personal finance, technology, and career in the 2020s and beyond.

Transcript

[Podcast Host]

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[Interviewer]

Podcast Network first we started off with, you know, the millionaire blueprint and I want to talk to college students and that just the college maybe people that just got out of college because I know you, you know, you talk about what a broke college student mindset really means, right? And why it's important to keep that even, keep that, that level of hunger. So what is, what is a broke college student mindset? What does that mean? And what and talk about that, you

[Financial Expert]

know, when you go to college and you gotta eat ramen noodles cause you ain't got no money, you know it's like that mindset, that frugal mindset is so valuable when you first Come out of college because it allows you to practice living below your means. And so, you know, one of the things that, you know, when we go to college, we come out, we're excited about not being a broke college student. So we think of all the things that we can buy. But to be honest with you, that is the mindset that young college students need to have graduating. That's exactly the mindset I had when I came out of college. I was living on a very, very tight budget. I was saving everything I could. I wasn't investing much in the stock market at the time because I didn't start until a little bit later. But the point is, I was saving like crazy because I wanted to, you know, I wanted to kind of build wealth. I wanted to follow the footsteps of my millionaire mentors. And I was saving money. I got married right out of college and I was saving. My ex wife was saving like crazy. That's probably why I didn't stay married, is because I was too intense about living on this budget and not spending much, much money. And I bought a condo right out of college. So that was, that's where that mindset that's just so key to young people, if they could start that way, man, when they come out of college, continue that knowing that they're going to be rich sometime, that's going to put them on the road way ahead of everybody else.

[Co-Host]

So part of what we're seeing, and Sid, I want to get your opinion, is if we look at the overall market, right, we talk about AI, we talk about a lot here on the show. We talk about how disruptive is going to be. Obviously you're an entrepreneur. You've navigated 30 years of business. How should people be looking at this market?

Right?

Like first is having the mindset of being frugal, like that college, that broke college student. But now going into a space where you might be walking out into the career field and there's nothing there for you. How should we be preparing our young adults, our young students, our children?

[Interviewer]

Right?

[Co-Host]

Like you have children who are in this space to walk into this new job market.

[Financial Expert]

Yep, that's a great question. I think the, you know, AI is going to change. You guys been reporting on this for years. It's going to shift, you know, the, the job landscape significantly. But the one thing that we all know that AI can't do is that it can't verify that the results are 100% right. So it's going to require people that have, you know, analytics skills and data science skills. And really industry knowledge. You know, for example, there are people who work in the medical field, so to speak, and they have industry, they know what the data means, you know, so, you know, AI and computers are just basically machines that process information based on how they're programmed. But they can't, you know, to this point create meaning around that. And that's where the real opportunities are going to be, you know. You know, my degree was in computer science And I took AI back in, you know, the early 80s on a program called Lisp. But, you know, there wasn't processing speed, there wasn't enough data to basically leveraging it. Now, you know. You know, I have a buddy whose son that wants to go to Howard and he's looking to major in computer science. He got accepted there. And I says, you know, you might want to shift that really more to data science, more to, you know, something related around analytics. Because AI is programming better than the best coders out there, right? So there's no purpose in really having coders. You need people that can disseminate the data. In fact, that's exactly what my son is doing. He's going into medical informatics and getting a master's in that area. The other areas, like I said, is healthcare is going to be strong. AI is going to enable, you know, health care to another level. But you still need nurses, you still need caregivers, people in that space as well. Another thing that people don't think about is construction management. There's still going to be a need to construct and build things. AI is going to help in terms of, you know, project management and being able to predict when you can get things done. And also, you guys talk a lot about real estate. You know, AI is not going to really, you know, it's not going to buy an apartment building, so it's still going to take owners and people are going to still need a place to live. So there's a few things that people should kind of focus or look into, but they should really focus on the data side of things.

[Co-Host]

One of the things I get a lot of pushback on is when I tell people you got to take 25% or 50% of your money and put it away into the market. It's one thing we really have always connected on. Can you talk to the men about why that's important? Maybe taking a half a decade or a decade to do so?

[Financial Expert]

Yeah, it's so huge that you know, that 25%. I mean, here's the best, best way to describe it, Ian. If you put 10% of your income in the market and you, you, you put 10 of your market for a 43 year career. Right? Now you basically have, you know, 10% times, you know, times a career of 43 years would probably have you at about four years in retirement, 4.3 years of retire. Now you add compounding to it now maybe you got eight to 10 years. That's just not enough.

[Co-Host]

Yeah, right.

[Financial Expert]

You need about 25 times your desired salary to have enough money to retire, assuming you're going to use the 4% rule.

[Co-Host]

Okay, can you give that math again for those who didn't catch it?

[Financial Expert]

So, yeah, 25 times your desired salary. Right. So, for example, if you want to make $200,000 a year, you're going to need about $5 million put away. Because you take 4% of 5 million, that gets you 200,000. The interesting thing about that, Ian, is that's today. So if you're going to retire right, 20 years from now, right. The future value of $5 million today could be closer to seven, seven and a half million. Now, a lot of people get afraid of those numbers. I know you guys have shared these numbers and people like, oh, it doesn't take all that. Yeah, you could back out some money if Social Security is going to be there. You could back out some money if you have multifamily properties. You could back out some money if you have a pension, which are quickly going away. But the reality is we're going to need real money to retire. And so putting 25% of your income away is just the start for these college grads. You could do it and not even feel it coming out of college. But when you talk to college grads, they're like, well, when I make more money, I'll save more money. But what happens when you make more money? You end up having more bills and you're not able to put that kind of money away. You really need to put that kind of money away. It's a serious thing.

[Interviewer]

So I want to ask you a question about real estate. But before, can you just list. This is important. You said the degrees that people need to be getting now.

[Financial Expert]

Yes. Just re.

[Interviewer]

Reiterate that.

[Financial Expert]

Right? I would reiterate. It's, it's analytics and data science. Right. So that's the, the study of data and how to process and, and, and manage and understand data. I think anything related to healthcare, the healthcare system, people are getting older. Like, my dad is 94 years old on May 1st. On Friday, he turns 94 years old. He's in great health, he's still driving. So people are living longer and healthcare workers are in great demand. Something that AI can't do. You know, construction management and working in construction. These are people that help manage the construction of buildings, whether or not they're homes or whether or not they are new office buildings. You know, that's something that AI has a difficult time. And then real estate in general, in terms of real estate, you know, property management or real estate ownership or you know, syndications along those lines. Those are just a few.

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