The haves and have nots of the AI gold rush
Quick Answer
The current AI boom, characterized by significant investments and advancements, has created a stark divide between companies that can afford cutting-edge technology and those that cannot.
Quick Take
The current AI boom, characterized by significant investments and advancements, has created a stark divide between companies that can afford cutting-edge technology and those that cannot. While giants like OpenAI and Google push the boundaries with models like GPT-4 and PaLM, smaller firms struggle to keep pace, leading to a growing disparity in access and innovation within the tech industry.
Key Points
- OpenAI and Google lead the AI race with models like GPT-4 and PaLM.
- Smaller companies face challenges in accessing advanced AI technologies.
- The disparity in AI access is widening within the tech industry.
- Investment in AI continues to surge, but benefits are unevenly distributed.
- Performance gaps between leading firms and others are becoming more pronounced.
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~2 min readIn Brief
Posted:
The vibes around the current AI boom aren’t great, even in the tech industry, according to a lengthy social media post from Menlo Ventures partner Deedy Das.
Das described San Francisco as “pretty frenetic right now,” as “the divide in outcomes is the worst I’ve ever seen.”
Using a “back of the envelope AI calculation,” he projected that there are around 10,000 people — founders and employees at companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Nvidia — that have “hit retirement wealth of well above $20M,” while everyone else worries “they can work their well-paying (but <$500k) job for their whole life and never get there.”
Plus, “layoffs are in full swing,” and “many software engineers feel that their life’s skill is no longer useful,” leading to confusion about the best career paths and “a deep malaise about work (and its future),” Das said.
This prompted some eye-rolling on X, with entrepreneur Deva Hazarika arguing that “most of the people in this post” are “incredibly fortunate and can simply make a choice to be happy.”
Another user suggested it’s “pretty damn novel & also kinda nasty” that in the current cycle, “the same technology is both the lottery ticket & the thing eating your fallback.”
— Deedy (@deedydas) May 16, 2026The vibes in SF feel pretty frenetic right now. The divide in outcomes is the worst I've ever seen.
Over the last 5yrs, a group of ~10k people – employees at Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI, Nvidia, Meta TBD, founders – have hit retirement wealth of well above $20M (back of the envelope…
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