'You Can Hear Me Now, or Pay Me Later': CEO Pushes Back on Boos Over AI Praise
Mentioning AI during 2026 commencement speeches has become a reliable way to spark strong reactions — and Scott Borchetta’s address at Middle Tennessee State University was no exception.
On May 9, the founder and CEO of Big Machine Records delivered a commencement speech at the same university that renamed its recording industry program in his honor last August after a $15 million donation. When Borchetta praised AI as a transformative force, he was met with loud boos from the graduating class. Rather than backing down, he confronted the reaction head-on.
**“AI is rewriting production as we sit here,”** Borchetta said. As the boos grew louder, he fired back: **“I know it. Deal with it. Like I said, it’s a tool. Hey, you can hear me now, or you can pay me later.”**
The sharp response drew laughter from the crowd and quickly went viral.
Lessons from Four Decades of Disruption
Borchetta opened his speech by reflecting on the massive changes he’s witnessed — and helped shape — across four decades in the music industry. He pointed to the arrival of Napster in 1999 as a pivotal moment. While panicked record executives sued their own customers (a strategy that famously backfired, targeting everyone from college students to a 65-year-old grandmother), Napster itself collapsed within two years. Yet the disruption it triggered permanently reshaped the industry through the rise of streaming.
“[AI] is admittedly a much bigger genie, and it ain’t getting back in the bottle,” Borchetta told graduates. “But it is a tool.”
He warned that skills learned in students’ first year of college may already be growing obsolete and urged them to focus on what cannot be easily automated:
> “Invest in the skill and art of creation and not the platform or the system. Platforms and systems come and go.”
Borchetta closed on an encouraging note: “Your judgment cannot be disrupted. Your taste cannot be automated. The mechanisms change. If they do, you adapt. We’re counting on you.”
A Growing Trend — and Growing Anxiety
Borchetta is not alone in facing backlash. At the University of Central Florida, healthcare executive Gloria Caulfield was booed for calling AI “the next industrial revolution.” Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt received a similar reception at the University of Arizona.
The pushback reflects deep anxiety among the Class of 2026. Entry-level job postings in the U.S. have dropped roughly 35% since January 2023, with some tech and data roles declining by as much as two-thirds. According to Revelio Labs, 42.5% of recent college graduates are underemployed — the highest rate since the pandemic. A Mercer survey also revealed that the share of C-suite executives planning to cut junior roles in the next two years has surged from 17% to 43%.
In a statement after the event, MTSU said it “understands and remains compassionate about our students’ concerns and questions about AI affecting their careers.”
While many graduates remain wary, Borchetta’s message was clear: AI is here to stay. The question isn’t whether it will change industries — it already is — but how the next generation chooses to adapt and create within it.