Donald King, 26, was a rising star in PwC’s AI team after winning an OpenAI hackathon with his fleet of AI agents that automated manual tasks. But just eight months into his role, he received the news that he was being laid off – leaving him stunned and questioning what went wrong.
King’s experience mirrors the struggles of other companies, which have been slashing staff in recent years. As someone who built AI agents for major corporations like Oracle, King began to wonder if there were any nefarious intentions behind his layoff. He points out that some Fortune 500 clients he served started implementing staffing cuts the year after he left.
King believes that his AI agents may have played a role in the layoffs, especially since they automated tasks that entry-level jobs often performed. However, the young entrepreneur took this experience as an opportunity to pivot and start his own marketing agency, AMDK, which has already gained clients from small companies to billion-dollar enterprises.
After being let go from PwC, King realized that he was happier pursuing a path of entrepreneurship rather than a corporate job. He’s determined to build a swarm of AI agents that help companies with their back-end operations, but is being cautious about the potential ramifications of his creations.
Source: https://fortune.com/2025/11/20/26-year-old-gen-zer-laid-off-dream-job-pwc-building-ai-agents-worried-tech-he-made-more-job-cuts