The AI bubble debate: 17 business leaders, from Sam Altman to Bill Gates to Peter Thiel, weigh in

Become an Insider and start reading now. Have an account? . OpenAI CEO Sam Altman 's comments helped spark concerns about an AI bubble. Mark Cuban says he doesn't see similarities to the dot-com bubble. There's disagreement, even among business leaders and tech CEOs, around the existence of a bubble. The AI boom shows no sign of slowing down. Some top business leaders are concerned that a bubble is about to burst. In August, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman gave voice to those fears about the future of AI. Since then, other CEOs, including Nvidia's Jensen Huang, have dismissed concerns of an AI bubble. Wall Street is also worried about the increasing circular nature of Big Tech's spending spree. Here's what leading tech CEOs and business leaders are saying about what's ahead. Sam Altman Andrew Harnik via Getty Images OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that the AI market is in a bubble. "When bubbles happen, smart people get overexcited about a kernel of truth," Altman recently told reporters, per The Verge. Altman said this describes the state of play. "Are we in a phase where investors as a whole are overexcited about AI? My opinion is yes. Is AI the most important thing to happen in a very long time? My opinion is also yes," he said. Bill Gates Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates says AI is in a bubble - just not to the extent of Danish tulips. "The value is extremely high, just like creating the internet ended up being, in net, very valuable," Gates told CNBC in late October. "But you have a frenzy. And some of these companies will be glad they spent all this money. Some of them, you know, they'll commit to data centers whose electricity is too expensive." Gates said that the situation reminds him of dot-com bubble when overvalued internet companies sparked a crash. "Absolutely, there are a ton of these investments that will be dead ends," he said. Still, the billionaire said that AI remains a major breakthrough, calling it "the biggest technical thing ever in my lifetime." Mark Cuban Mark Cuban , who famously sold Broadcast.com just before the dot-com bubble burst, said he doesn't see similarities to the current situation. "There were people creating companies with just a website and going public. That's a bubble where there's no intrinsic value at all," Cuban told podcaster Lex Fridman in 2024. '"People aren't even trying to make operating cap profits, they're just trying to leverage the frothiness of the stock market, that's a bubble. You don't see that right now. " Cuban took particular notice of the quality of AI companies going public. "We're not seeing funky AI companies just go public," he said. "If all of a sudden we see a rush of companies who are skins on other people's models or just creating models to create models that are going public, then yeah, that's probably the start of a bubble." Mark Zuckerberg Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said AI could become a...

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