“Synthetic” AI employees will lead to a new battle for the best human employees at startups

That’s the opinion of George Arison, a serial entrepreneur and CEO of Grindr, the $2 billion dating company aimed at the LGBTQ community.

In the near future, it will not be unusual for startups with only a few dozen employees to generate $100 million in revenue, Arison said in a conversation on stage at Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech conference on Tuesday in Park City, Utah. The rise of generative AI will mean that “synthetic employees,” as Arison called them, can take on much of the work that humans were once hired to do. That’s the good news for tech founders.

But that makes it more important than ever for ambitious startups to hire top talent alongside their AI colleagues right from the start. The founders’ core teams, Arison argued, must be “exceptionally good,” and there should be little room for mediocre employees. As a result, a new wave of competition for the best talent is emerging.

Arison’s comments at Brainstorm Tech came as the dating company seeks to evolve its product to offer more services to its users. Arison said the company will look to produce more use cases that help Grindr subscribers in areas ranging from travel to health and wellness.

“Loneliness and depression are widespread in our community,” he said.

Arison said his company is also working to better appeal to its over-40 user demographic, which tends to drift away from the app over time. “People are getting older,” he said.

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