In a recent episode of his podcast, Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath posed a bold question to Bill Gates:
“In a capitalistic future, say 10 years from now, is a large population an asset or a liability?”
While Gates didn’t deliver a simple yes-or-no answer, he painted a compelling picture of a world reshaped by artificial intelligence—where the conventional rules of capitalism may no longer hold sway.
“Fast forward 20 years,” Gates said, “AI will have disrupted the landscape so profoundly that our current capitalistic lens won’t be sufficient to explain how the world works.”
From automating office tasks to replacing human labor in factories and hotels, AI is poised to erase many of the labor shortages that have historically defined economic systems. “We’ve always been short on doctors, teachers, factory workers… but in the future, those shortages will vanish,” Gates noted. “It’ll be a transformational shift, allowing people to retire earlier or work fewer hours.”
This evolution, according to Gates, will demand a philosophical shift in how we view productivity, purpose, and time—especially when essential services like food production and healthcare are no longer reliant on large human workforces. “We’re on the brink of creating free intelligence,” he said, even suggesting that AI could match—or exceed—the cognitive abilities of medical professionals.
He used healthcare as a prime example: “India has more doctors than Africa, but still not nearly enough. AI can step in and fill that medical IQ gap, virtually eliminating shortages.”
Reflecting on his own upbringing in a world defined by scarcity, Gates admitted that it’s challenging to fully imagine a future of abundance. “Markets are built around scarcity… and I’m still trying to wrap my head around what happens when that’s no longer true.”
Whether this AI-driven transformation arrives in 20 or 30 years, Gates believes it’s coming fast—and will define the lives of future generations. “My kids—and definitely my grandkids—will be living in a very different world.”
