The haves and have nots of the AI gold rush

Menlo Ventures partner Deedy Das warned that the AI boom has created extreme wealth inequality in San Francisco, with roughly 10,000 founders and employees at companies like OpenAI and Nvidia achieving retirement wealth above $20 million while others face layoffs and career uncertainty. Das described the city as "pretty frenetic" with the worst divide in outcomes he has ever seen, as software engineers question the value of their skills amid widespread job cuts. The post sparked backlash on X, with critics arguing that even those struggling are "incredibly fortunate" and that AI serves as both a lottery ticket and a threat to traditional careers.

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.”