OpenAI board chair Bret Taylor just confirmed what many suspected - we're in an AI bubble, and people will lose "phenomenal" amounts of money. But in a candid interview with The Verge, Taylor channels dot-com era optimism, arguing that bubbles and transformative value creation aren't mutually exclusive.
The AI industry's most influential insider just dropped a reality check that's both sobering and surprisingly reassuring. OpenAI board chair Bret Taylor isn't sugarcoating the current market dynamics - he thinks we're absolutely in a bubble, and it's going to hurt.
"I think we're also in a bubble, and a lot of people will lose a lot of money," Taylor told The Verge's Nilay Patel this week. The admission comes just months after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman made headlines with his own bubble warning, telling investors that "someone is going to lose a phenomenal amount of money in AI."
But Taylor's perspective carries unique weight. As both OpenAI's board chair and CEO of AI agent startup Sierra, he's sitting at the intersection of the industry's biggest bets. His company just closed a $350 million funding round at a $10 billion valuation - the exact kind of deal that defines bubble territory.
The former Salesforce co-CEO isn't panicking, though. He's drawing parallels to the dot-com era, when companies like Amazon and Google were born amid spectacular failures. "I think it is both true that AI will transform the economy, and I think it will, like the internet, create huge amounts of economic value in the future," Taylor explained.
Taylor's dot-com comparison isn't just historical nostalgia - it's strategic positioning. He argues that "all the people in 1999 were kind of right" about the internet's transformative potential, even as the bubble burst. The implication? Today's AI investments, even the losing ones, are betting on fundamentally sound technology.
This perspective matters because Taylor has credibility on both sides of the equation. Before joining OpenAI's board, he helped steer Salesforce through multiple tech cycles as co-CEO. He also co-founded FriendFeed, which acquired in 2009, giving him firsthand experience with both startup exits and big tech acquisitions.
