Peter Thiel: “AI in 2024 is like the Internet in 1999”

“It’s clearly going to be important, big, transformative, have all kinds of interesting social and political effects - maybe even effects about how humans think about themselves. But on a business level, it’s very, very treacherous. There were a lot of different Internet businesses that failed, and even the ones that succeeded, it was quite a rollercoaster.”

He gives Amazon as an example. In 1999, it hit $113 a share, but by October 2001, it declined to $5.50.

“If you’d held it from December 1999 to today, you would have made 25x your money, but you would have first lost 95%. And then if you’d bought it in October 2001, you would have made 500x. So in some sense, Amazon was the obvious Internet company to invest in, and even that was quite a roller coaster.”

He continues:

“My suspicion is that that’s roughly where we are in AI. It’s correct as a technology, but extremely bubbly and crazed as a company-building thing or as a sector to invest.”

Full video: Triggernometry “"The Real Risk is Totalitarian World Government" - Peter Thiel“ (Jul 2024)

P.S. We’ve put together a YouTube playlist with every Peter Thiel insight we’ve ever shared. You can watch it here: “Best startup advice from Peter Thiel”