Professor Emeritus Thomas Kochan said: "With employers not clear on whether the economy is going to go into a recession, whether there's going to be more economic chaos in general, with layoffs of federal employees and maybe backlash from other decisions by the Trump administration, the uncertainty is going to create a softer labor market for college graduates this year than they've experienced in recent years."

Associate dean for climate and sustainability Christopher Knittel said: "The world is switching to electric vehicles, the world is switching to solar and wind and the less we do domestically, the less capability we build domestically to provide those clean energy resources, the worse off our industries will be in the future."

"Owning a sports team, or even a piece of it, is a crowning achievement," said senior lecturer Ben Shields. "It's the ultimate vanity asset."

Senior lecturer Egor Matveyev said: "Effectively, the huge pay package Alex Karp received was in 2020. They were designed as very long-term stock awards with a very long-term vesting period. Everything he's realizing goes back to that original grant. I would say this is on the higher end, when it comes to a company of this size."

The increased use of industrial robots may actually have a negative impact on the workforce, according to a study from Institute Professor Daron Acemoglu and co-author. "Our evidence shows that robots increase productivity. They are very important for continued growth and for firms, but at the same time they destroy jobs and they reduce labor demand. Those effects of robots also need to be taken into account," said Acemoglu.

Research scientist Christian Catalini said: "The stablecoin wars are in full swing, and new entrants are lining up with dotcom-era exuberance. Expect inventive maneuvers. Anyone chasing the market leaders will pull every lever the rulebook vaguely permits."

In choosing to piggyback on OpenAI's models rather than build its own, Microsoft was able to move quickly and secure an enterprise foothold. At this point, though, Microsoft's reliance on OpenAI is strategic dependence without full control, said visiting senior lecturer Paul McDonagh-Smith. "Risks include model access risk, innovation lag, brand subordination and market power shifts if OpenAI continues to scale independently. Competitive advantage or Achilles' heel? Time will tell," he said.

Associate professor John Horton joined this panel of the Bipartisan Policy Center and Anthropic to explore how AI is showing up in the labor market, what policymakers and AI developers should keep in mind as they navigate this transition, and what the public should consider as AI becomes more ubiquitous in society.

Speculation about new dominant currencies should be taken "cautiously," said professor Kristin Forbes, but there is more momentum behind the euro. "This feels like it does have more legs because it is a combination of a stronger, more unified Europe," she said. "At the same time, there are more problems emerging with U.S. dollar assets."

Professor Simon Johnson said: "There's no question that DC is going to be disproportionately affected by what's going on. The real damage, I think, is being done by the uncertainty about policy. A lot of people are hesitating to make big spending decisions."

Eric Rosengren, visiting scholar at MIT's Golub Center and former Boston Fed president and CEO, joined Market Domination to discuss how rising inflation expectations and uncertainty around tariffs could raise the risk of recession.

Senior lecturer John Parsons suggested that pinning hopes for a nuclear revival on individual states' willingness to shoulder the burden and risks of paying for another reactor ignores the necessity of state-driven funding and coordination. "I see a lot of people who want to somehow find a way to get around the cost problem," he said.

Professor Yasheng Huang said: "Chinese society has an incredibly high capacity for pain. There is one scenario in which stability breaks down and this is the scenario in which there is a serious split among top leaders, as happened in 1989."

Samara Oster (MBA '22) said: "Part of the journey as of late is, how do we explain this super unique, unexpected thing to people, some of whom are skeptical and really like beers."