A rational conversation on where AI is actually going | Benedict Evans

**Benedict Evans** (0:00)
My most controversial opinion is that I think that AI is as big a deal as the internet or mobile, and only as big a deal as the internet or mobile.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (0:06)
What's your gist on the coming job parklips?

**Benedict Evans** (0:09)
Every time we have a new technology, it automates away a bunch of jobs, and then that automation unlocks a bunch of new jobs. And you don't know the new job because it doesn't exist yet. We've had that process over and over again.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (0:17)
Even just looking at the most advanced AI companies throughout Big OpenAI, everyone's increasing headcount.

**Benedict Evans** (0:22)
You talk to these do-mers on Twitter, and they would act like every big company is going to buy ChatGPT tomorrow, and then in two weeks' time, they'll fire all their staff. These people are morons. You can't predict which things are going to be exposed. You can't look at a senior partner at a law firm and say, well, 17% of their work could be automated. This is horseshit.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (0:40)
I'm curious if you're following the anti-AI sentiment.

**Benedict Evans** (0:43)
It's a big fuzzy mess. Yes, this will change a bunch of stuff and we'll need to worry about it, but that's kind of a constant. We've always had that.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (0:50)
What would be a couple of things you recommend people do to be more successful in this future?

**Benedict Evans** (0:56)
Don't stick your head in the sand and say, I hate all of this stuff. That gives you a great feeling of moral superiority and you can go on Blue Sky and shout at everybody about how evil AI is, like, great, I'm happy for you, but that's not going to help. What helps is you diving into this and coming out understanding what you can do with it.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (1:15)
Today, my guest is Benedict Evans. Benedict was a longtime partner at A16Z as their in-house analyst and resident thinker. Before that, he was a longtime equity researcher, and for the past six years, he's been an independent analyst tracking the most important tech trends and sharing what he's learning. Most recently, as you'd expect, he's spending all his time on how AI is changing our lives, and in his words, AI is eating the world. In this conversation, we go deep on what we're still not pricing in on the impact that AI is going to have on our lives and our work, the rise of anti-AI sentiment, the impact on jobs, where in the value chain most of the value will accrue, and tons more. If you are worried about AI or just confused about where things are heading, this conversation will teach you a lot and also make you feel better. Before we get into it, don't forget to check out lennysproductpass.com for a year free of some of the most amazing, hottest, most well-crafted AI products in the world available exclusively to Lennys Newsletter subscribers. With that, I bring you Benedict Evans.
Benedict, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the podcast.

**Benedict Evans** (2:27)
Thank you for inviting me.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (2:29)
You just put out this deck called AI's Eating the World. I want to ask you the flip side of this of we all know it's a big deal. Knowing that, what do you think people are still not fully pricing in when they think about the change that they're going to experience to their lives and their work?

**Benedict Evans** (2:46)
An interesting way of thinking about it. I did a podcast last year with someone where I said my most controversial opinion is that I think that AI is as big a deal as the Internet or mobile and only as big a deal as the Internet or mobile because clearly there's a bunch of people in tech who think, no, this is more like the industrial revolution or something. And there are a whole bunch of people underneath saying, well, he thinks this is just as big as, does he not understand how big this is? And I'm like, smartphones were quite a big deal. The Internet was quite a big deal. We wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't for the Internet. So, there's like one layer of, but then if you dig into that, like if you're going to make the Internet comparison, it's like we're in 1997 Like it's very exciting. Most stuff kind of doesn't work yet. Most of the stuff that people are going to do hasn't been built yet, and it's not really clear how any of it's going to work when it does work. And the people who have already got it, who have already taken whichever pill it is, I forget which, sort of imagine that everybody in the world is already there. And the truth is you've got this kind of very wide distribution. So there's people in tech who've bought their cluster of Mac minis and don't use Google anymore. And then you look outside tech and setting aside the idiots who think that this isn't real.