AI-Native Grads Will Outperform Junior Engineers, Says Box CEO Levie

Recent college graduates who are fluent in AI tools could become some of the most valuable hires at major companies, according to Box CEO Aaron Levie.

“Hire a bunch of these people,” he said in a Monday interview on the a16z podcast, “because they’re going to flip your company on its head in terms of how much faster the organization can run.”

“If you’re graduating, the thing I would be selling to any corporation some way or another is that if you’re AI-native right now coming out of college, the amount you can teach at a company is unbelievable,” Levie said.

Levie, who cofounded Box in 2005 and now leads a company serving more than 65% of the Fortune 500, said AI-literate graduates are better positioned to boost organizational efficiency than traditional junior engineers, and can do it faster.

“They will be able to show companies way faster ways of working,” he said. “If you’re a company, you should be prioritizing this talent that’s just like: ‘Why does it take you guys two weeks to research a market to enter? I can do that in deep research and get an answer to you in 30 minutes.'”

With AI tools like ChatGPT, Cursor, and GitHub Copilot becoming standard in developer workflows, Levie said the newest generation of engineers will rely on them from day one.

“The incoming class of engineers that you hire — they will literally not be able to code without AI assisting them,” he said. “And it’s not 100% obvious that’s a bad thing.”

While some tech veterans worry that AI tools will undermine foundational programming skills, Levie took a more pragmatic view: AI can speed up development, make software engineering more accessible, and help young engineers make meaningful contributions earlier in their careers.

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The AI talent war

Levie’s push to hire AI-native grads comes amid a full-blown talent war among tech’s biggest players — and tensions are rising.

Last month, on his brother’s podcast, “Uncapped with Jack Altman,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman accused Meta of trying to poach his top employees with signing bonuses of up to $100 million, calling the offers “crazy.” Meta hasn’t denied the claim.

In fact, CEO Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly taking a hands-on role in recruitment, personally hosting top AI researchers at his home as he builds out Meta’s new “superintelligence” unit, per Bloomberg.

The rivalry is about more than talent — it’s about who gets to define the next era of computing.

Last month, Meta poured $15 billion into Scale AI, bringing on CEO Alexandr Wang to co-lead its AI efforts.

OpenAI, meanwhile, is hosting private recruiting events for elite quant traders and academics, hoping to outmaneuver its competitors by offering a mix of mission and massive pay.