Eric Schmidt didn’t know what he was getting himself into when he agreed to speak to the 2026 graduating class of University of Arizona.

The former Google CEO proudly informed his audience that Time Magazine had chosen “the architects of AI” (collectively) as its latest “person of the year.” The grads erupted in booing—and didn’t stop for the rest of his speech.

He pressed forward with his rehearsed remarks through a pained, wincing grin. With every phrase he uttered, the audience’s cries grew louder, angrier, and more horrified.

So today we stand on this edge of another technological transformation, one that will be larger, faster, and more consequential than what came before. It will touch every profession, every classroom, every hospital, every laboratory, every person, and every relationship you have. I know what many of you are feeling about that. I can hear you.

At this point, the raucous jeers had escalated into a collective roar, cutting off his speech altogether. The footage went viral. It was memorable, not just as a graduation speech gone off the rails, but as a scene that captured the social conflict behind the AI backlash more broadly.

The anxious class of 2026

Here was a tech billionaire lecturing a debt-shackled generation as they enter the worst job market college grads have ever faced. His audience hears a grim message: the machines are coming, they will impact every aspect of your lives, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. Then he stands there, puzzled as to why they’re not cheering this impending “technological transformation.” 

“There is a fear in your generation,” he tells them. You think? 

Never before has the jobless rate among recent graduates remained higher than the national average for so many years. Never has the horizon seemed so dim under capitalism. Instead of looking forward to a future of financial stability, the class of 2026 sees only a desperate struggle for survival. Instead of a fulfilling and comfortable career, they find themselves well educated yet jobless in a high-inflation, low-growth economy.

When they started college four years ago, nobody had even heard of ChatGPT. Since then, over 600,000 tech jobs have disappeared. Nine in ten companies have started using AI screening tools to filter and reject job applicants. Three separate polls this year by the Federal Reserve, the University of Michigan, and Gallup have reported the lowest level of confidence in the job market of all time.

But all this fear and negativity is just a mirage, the business leader tells the students. “That fear is amplified by social media algorithms that have learned that fear earns clicks and that anxiety drives engagement.”

As someone who amassed a $64 billion fortune from those very algorithms, Eric Schmidt is a particularly tone-deaf messenger.

The billionaire and his Manor

The market has rewarded Schmidt handsomely. He recently bought his 14th trophy property—a French chateau–style mansion known as “The Manor” in the affluent “Platinum Triangle” west of Los Angeles.

Schmidt bought “The Manor” last August for $113 million, making it the second-most-expensive home purchase in the US last year. / Image: Eric Beteille, Flickr

Larger than the White House or the Taj Mahal, The Manor has 27 bathrooms, a tennis court, movie theater, bowling alley, gym, barbershop, aquarium, flower-cutting room, nightclub, and multi-car garages with parking accommodations for over 100 vehicles. 

Schmidt bought it last August for $113 million, making it the second-most-expensive home purchase in the US last year. Before that, England’s current king, Charles III, used to spend time at The Manor as a guest of its previous owner, the entertainment tycoon Aaron Spelling. 

Schmidt now faces a dilemma: how to divide his time between The Manor and his other 13 villas. For example, when he was preparing his recent speech, did he travel to one of his island properties off Miami Beach to clear his head? Did he spend a weekend at his ski resort in Colorado collecting his thoughts, reflecting on how to connect with his young audience? Maybe he preferred revising his draft in the quiet study of his Holland Park mansion in London?

Whatever he did, it didn’t work. Schmidt became a meme. An out-of-touch robber baron of the new Gilded Age, drowned out by the class of 2026. Those students can hardly dream of owning a home of any size. They have other preoccupations, like landing a job interview with a real human.