The haves and have nots of the AI gold rush
The atmosphere around the current AI boom isn’t great, even in the tech industry a long post on social media from Menlo Ventures partner Deedy Das.
Das described San Francisco as “pretty hectic right now” because “the gap in outcomes is the worst I have ever seen.”
Using a “back of the envelope” AI calculation, he predicted that there are about 10,000 people—founders and employees at companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Nvidia—who have “achieved retirement assets well over $20 million,” while everyone else worries “that they can stay in their high-paying (but <$500,000) jobs all their lives and never get there.”
Moreover, “layoffs are in full swing” and “many software engineers feel that their life skills are no longer useful,” leading to confusion about the best career paths and “a deep malaise about work (and its future),” Das said.
This caused some eye-rolling on X, with entrepreneur Deva Hazarika argue that “most of the people in this post” are “incredibly happy and can simply make the choice to be happy.”
Another user suggested it is “pretty new and also kind of gross” that in the current cycle “the same technology is both fate and the thing that eats your relapse.”
