Social Contract in the Age of AI: The Future of Skills, Jobs, and Entrepreneurship
"Social Contract in the Age of AI - The Future of Skills, Jobs, and Entrepreneurship" will center on public policy: how we prepare workers for transition, preserve pathways to economic mobility, and make sure AI’s productivity gains translate into broader economic security. Amjad Masad, founder and CEO of Replit, and Julia Coronado, Associate Professor of Finance at the McCombs School of Business, will join as panelists, bringing a front-line view of how AI is reshaping software work and entry-level pathways.
About the Speakers
Amjad Masad
Founder and CEO of ReplitAmjad
Amjad Masad is a Jordanian American entrepreneur and engineer. He is the founder and CEO of Replit, the world's leading online programming environment and community. Before Replit, Amjad worked at Facebook, overseeing the JavaScript infrastructure team and building some of the world's most popular open-source developer tools. Before that, he was a founding engineer at Codecademy, the world's leading online coding school.
Julia Coronado
Julia Coronado
Associate Professor of Finance, McCombs School of Business
Julia is a Clinical Associate Professor of Finance at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. She has more than a decade of experience as a financial market economist including serving as Chief Economist for Graham Capital Management and BNP Paribas, and as a Senior Economist at Barclays Capital. After receiving her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Texas at Austin, Julia worked for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington D.C. for eight years where she regularly briefed the Board and contributed to the FOMC forecasts. She is a member of the Economic Advisory Panel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Economic Studies Council at the Brookings Institution and is former President of the National Association of Business Economists. Julia is also on the Board of Directors of Robert Half International and Dynex Capital and serves on the Advisory Boards of the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Pension Research Council at the Wharton School and the Cleveland Fed’s Center for Inflation Research.
Moderated by:
Dilawar Syed
Professor, LBJ School of Public Affairs & McCombs School of Business
Dilawar Syed is an entrepreneur, educator, and former senior U.S. government official working at the intersection of business, technology, and public policy. He serves on the faculty of The University of Texas at Austin's LBJ School of Public Affairs and McCombs School of Business, and founded the LBJ Business Policy Forum to advance ideas that strengthen American competitiveness. Following bipartisan confirmation by the U.S. Senate, Dilawar served as Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration. He helped expand access to capital and federal contracting, and coordinated the SBA's response to major disasters. Earlier, as Special Representative for Commercial and Business Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, he was America's top commercial diplomat, championing U.S. companies globally and mobilizing private-sector support for Ukraine. For over two decades, Dilawar has built and led ventures in Silicon Valley — as CEO of Lumiata, an AI healthcare company, and in establishing Freshworks' North American business ahead of its IPO. He currently serves on the board of and advises AI startups. He holds an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and a bachelor's degree from The University of Texas at Austin