Bill Gates criticizes "hire the robot, fire the human" incentive

In an Observer interview published October 25, 2026, Bill Gates called business incentives wrong, quoting the mindset "hire the robot, fire the human and don't look back." He proposed reserving some jobs for humans, rebalancing taxes on labor versus capital, and a levy on AI use.

• Gates framed the quote as a critique of incentives, not a call to fire workers
• He proposed "Human Reserved" roles kept exclusively for people
• Gates floated an AI usage tax to help preserve jobs
• Stanford study: employment for ages 22–25 in exposed occupations is 19% below trend