"AI" is sucking up all the investment money, so unless you are working in "AI", you aren't likely to get funding. It's hurting the economy more than helping.
Investment capital isn't zero-sum...if/when AI generates outsized/large returns, it actually brings more money into the entire VC ecosystem. LPs who 10x their AI investments don't exactly hoard that cash, they reinvest and often diversify into other sectors.
Every major tech wave creates huge downstream opportunities. The internet "bubble" didn't just benefit search engines...it spawned e-com, SaaS, fintech, etc. AI is doing the same thing with robotics, new semiconductors, data infrastructure, and I'm sure other categories that don't even exist yet.
Also investors know they need portfolio diversification. Even AI-focused VCs are actively looking for contrarian bets in undervalued sectors precisely because there's less competition there right now.
Plus, AI advancement should (yes, I know there's hype and theses that may not play out) accelerate innovation everywhere else. Example: A biotech startup today has access to AI tools that were Google-only five years ago. This makes non-AI startups more attractive, not less.
We saw identical complaints during the dotcom era about "real businesses" getting ignored, but that period actualy coincided with growth across enterprise software, telco, and tons of other sectors.
>..if/when AI generates outsized/large returns, it actually brings more money into the entire VC ecosystem.
That's a BIG if/when. "AI" is just as likely to produce huge court cases (already is) that result in massive penalties. Google's "AI" summary is bordering on a liability right now, not to all the copyrighted material used to train the "AI".
>Plus, AI advancement should (yes, I know there's hype and theses that may not play out) accelerate innovation everywhere else. Example: A biotech startup today has access to AI tools that were Google-only five years ago.
Okay, so these tools have been around 5 years - where's the panacea of amazing breakthroughs enabled by "AI"? We've heard plenty about how "AI" is going to be a game changer, but after 5 years the game still seems basically the same.
>We saw identical complaints during the dotcom era about "real businesses" getting ignored,
The main thing "AI" today has in common with the "dotcom era" is that they were/are both bubbles, and just like the dotcom bubble burst, the "AI" bubble is very likely to also pop.
I just hope it pops before the power needs of "AI" raise the global temperature another 1C or 2C.
