Jack Mardack, co‑founder of Oyster, argues that remote work rather than artificial intelligence (AI) is having a negative impact on young people’s hiring rates in the labour market. Oyster launched in 2019 as an HR‑tech startup built around a borderless workforce: the platform enables employees to work remotely for foreign companies while complying with local employment and tax rules. The company scaled rapidly during and after the pandemic and has become a unicorn.
Since its 2019 founding, Oyster has raised a total of 291 million US dollars across seven funding rounds. Its largest round closed in 2022, when the company secured 150 million dollars (about 48 billion forints at the time). Today Oyster operates in more than 70 countries, employs 550 people and still has no physical offices. The company also holds a B Corp certification, awarded to organisations that meet high standards of social and environmental responsibility, transparency and accountability.
Visit to Budapest and European outlook
Jack Mardack visited Budapest in early June for a panel discussion and spoke with Forbes.hu about Europe’s competitiveness, the transformative effects of AI and the future of the global labour market. He believes Europe is ready to catch up with the United States in the startup space, but that countries — including Hungary — must still cover significant ground to reach the most advanced ecosystems.
Mardack credits increased EU and European Commission funding and a stronger policy focus with helping Europe close gaps. He identifies three main barriers to scaling startups: access to capital (especially later‑stage growth funding), regulatory constraints that can slow rapid growth, and a more risk‑averse entrepreneurial culture in Europe that tends not to celebrate business success to the same extent as the US.
Remote‑first operation: principle or commitment?
Oyster’s decision to remain office‑less is framed by Mardack as a deliberate commitment. The company designs its processes to work without a central physical hub. He emphasises documentation, process discipline, and a "Follow the Sun" approach: preparing handovers so that colleagues in other time zones can pick up work without synchronous meetings. This model, he says, lets a globally distributed team operate efficiently despite time differences, and helps retain talent in their home countries — for example, allowing a Hungarian software engineer to work for an American employer without relocating.
At the same time, Mardack notes that remote work tends to favour more experienced hires who require less oversight, which can partly explain declining hiring rates for junior roles.
AI: risk and opportunity
Mardack sees AI as reshaping job categories rather than simply eliminating opportunities for juniors — especially once the distinct effects of remote work are accounted for. Skills now in high demand include prompt engineering, building AI agents and working with large language models. He advises young professionals to learn these tools, build AI agents and use them to boost productivity.
Like past technological shifts, AI will displace some roles while creating higher‑value positions. The key difference is speed and breadth: this transition is happening faster and across more industries than previous waves, which creates anxiety. Mardack recommends identifying automatable parts of one’s work and focusing on judgement and other aspects that cannot be compressed into automation. In his view, workers can become managers of AI agents, acquiring new competencies while remaining valuable to their organisations.
Founders and venture capital
Mardack argues AI democratises company founding, opening entrepreneurship to a wider range of people than historical archetypes. He believes that today, if you start a company, you should use AI in some way; avoiding the technology would be an odd choice. Oyster integrated impact into its pitch early: the company closed its first seed round in February 2020 after launching in late 2019, emphasising both commercial opportunity and social impact. According to Mardack, the impact investing market is substantial and growing.
Hungary’s prospects and the unicorn question
When asked why some countries in the region (for example Poland and Ukraine) have produced more globally recognised tech companies than Hungary, Mardack points to structural factors: access to capital, co‑founders and technological know‑how. He does not see a talent shortage in Hungary; rather, he asks why existing talent has not produced more global successes.
He thinks AI could help reduce regional disadvantages and increase the number of internationally competitive startups from Hungary. Nonetheless, the key obstacles remain: securing growth capital, adapting regulation to support scaling, and nurturing a culture that rewards entrepreneurial risk. Without progress on those fronts, Hungary’s path to producing its first homegrown unicorn will be more difficult, even if the available talent is strong.
Conclusion
Oyster’s trajectory and Jack Mardack’s comments illustrate how remote work and AI are reshaping the global labour market. Remote work can disadvantage junior hires in the short term, while AI creates new skills and business opportunities. For Hungary, the biggest challenges are not talent but the systems around funding, regulation and culture — areas that will determine whether more global‑scale startups and the country’s first homegrown unicorn will emerge.
