Workday co-founder and CEO Aneel Bhusri has been a success. He started the human resources technology company in 2005 and has grown it to a stock market valuation over $40 billion. His own net worth is valued by Forbes in the billions. He sees technology playing a big role in the success of all workers in the future. In particular, machine learning and the blockchain.
"Blockchain is a technology looking for a problem to solve. We found one to solve, which is credentials," Bhusri told the anchors of CNBC's "Squawk Box" from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday.
"Employees can go from company to company and carry credentials with them in a private network. It can't be edited by an outside source," he said.
The blockchain would prevent the ability of job seekers to lie about their professional and educational histories, which has been a pervasive problem, even up to the level of CEOs, on platforms like LinkedIn and for background-check firms that work with hiring companies. Workday has a partnership with First Advantage for background-screening technology.
"Whatever information you want to carry ... it gives employees power over data," Bhusri said. "Universities can also make sure that diplomas cited by job seekers are real."
The education sector is moving in this direction. One example is Blockcerts, a platform developed at MIT that can be used for creating, issuing, viewing and verifying blockchain-based educational certificates.
While many talk about AI, Bhusri said he prefers to talk about machine learning and how its predictive power will change the job market of the future.
"AI gives people images of the Terminator, and that's not the world we live in. Machine learning lets you make predictions ... sifting through massive amounts of data. ... Humans are great at making judgments."
Bhusri said the predictive power of machine learning will allow humans to then make great judgments, and that process will become important to finding the right job fit.
"AI will predict the right next move in your career," Bhusri said.
The WorkDay CEO is not alone in focusing on this opportunity. IBM has in recent years been exploring ways its artificial intelligence technology, Watson, can lead to a revolution in the human resources department. IBM claims to have technology that can predict when an employee is going to quit, as well as matching employees up to better potential opportunities. Its CEO has claimed that the predictive technology works with up to 95% accuracy.
