Learning to code was once the fast-track ticket to success. It’s the self-taught skill that launched the careers of Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk. Even former President Barack Obama urged young people to learn to code. But according to one former Google CMO who started coding at 12, AI has just killed it.
Alon Chen built a $2 billion product line at Google by 28, walked away from a seven-figure equity package, and went on to found Tastewise—an AI food intelligence company now trusted by PepsiCo, Nestlé, and Mars. He knows better than most what it takes to make it in tech. And he’s no longer recommending coding as the way in.
“Coding is becoming obsolete. It’s not needed today,” Chen told Fortune. “What’s needed today, more than ever, is creativity and resourcefulness and execution. There is no need to write code anymore.”
His explanation for why is simple: it’s not that technical skills don’t matter. It’s that the tools have democratized them. “You can operate an extremely successful business without having any ability to write even one line of code,” he said.
He’s got a point: Zuckerberg said that AI will be writing all code by this year. At Microsoft, AI is already writing 30% of the tech giant’s code.
And it’s not just coding, Chen went as far as to say all “technology [skills] is almost becoming obsolete.” He suggested Gen Alpha would even be better off leveraging their ice skating skills in the current climate.
Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg don’t just have coding in common—they also started out as teenagers
If not coding, then what? Chen’s answer is less Silicon Valley and more old-fashioned: follow your passion, and follow it hard. “What’s needed today, more than ever, is creativity, resourcefulness and execution.”
Take Chen, for example. After teaching himself to code, he built computers while other kids played—by 15, he already had a thriving business, selling computers to small- and medium-sized businesses across Israel.
Like him, Gates learned to code around 13, sneaking into his school’s computer lab at night to practice. Zuckerberg had built his first networked software, “ZuckNet” at 12. Musk taught himself BASIC at 10, sold his first video game two years later for $500.
That early hunger for ambition, Chen said, is far more valuable than any single technical skill. “Starting young with a lot of responsibility was something that built up my characteristic today as an entrepreneur,” Chen said. “You need so much resilience, if at 15 years old, you have so many clients calling you because their business cannot be running and operating, and you need to troubleshoot…”
The tools will change. The skills will evolve. But being able to see an opening, teach yourself what you need, and launch before your competition is still in class is a sure-fire way to get ahead.
He points to his own nephew as proof. At 15, the teenager spotted a gap in the gaming market and started buying and selling player profiles across Telegram and Instagram—no tech degree, no investors, just a niche he cared about. “That’s his passion,” Chen says. “His passion is gaming, and he really thought it was a good idea to make a business out of it.”
His advice to Gen Z? Copy him, Musk, and his nephew. Find a passion—and go hard on that as early as possible. Thanks to AI, he says, this has never been easier. “Are you a roller skater? Do you love fashion? Can you 3D print? Technology is almost becoming obsolete—it’s all about finding what’s really motivating you, and going all the way.”
AI has turned creativity into the new competitive edge
Creativity is the new coding. Chen is far from alone in making this case—and it’s a long-overdue win for the skill that corporate America spent decades telling people wasn’t serious.
Billionaire former PayPal CEO Peter Thiel previously warned that AI is a bigger threat to technical roles than to creative thinkers. And the data is already proving him right.
IBM’s research highlights that there is now a “premium on creativity,” with innovative thinking among the most prized qualities in the workplace.
It’s a shift Snowflake’s CEO predicted in Fortune late last year: once AI handles execution, the only thing left to compete on is the quality of your thinking. “In 2026, as execution becomes commoditized, strategic thinking and vision will separate high-performing organizations from the rest.”
It’s already showing up in the jobs market too. LinkedIn’s Skills on the Rise 2026 report—which tracks the fastest-growing skills in the U.S.—found surging demand for communication and creative thinking. In fact, a LinkedIn spokesperson told Fortune that job postings mentioning “storytellers” have doubled over the past year alone.
In a sharp U-turn away from STEM, the arts kids are having their moment—and the salaries are finally catching up.
Anthropic was just hiring for a head of product communications with a listed $400,000 salary; Netflix was offering between $656,000 and $1.2 million for a senior director of communications; And McKinsey global managing partner Bob Sternfels recently told Harvard Business Review that AI has a problem solving limit, so now it’s “looking more at liberal arts majors, whom we had deprioritized, as potential sources of creativity.”
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