Day: November 1, 2025

• 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.

Here’s what leading tech CEOs and business leaders are saying about what’s ahead.

Sam Altman

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.”

Jensen Huang

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang doesn’t see a bubble.

“I don’t believe we’re in an AI bubble,” Huang told Bloomberg TV.

Huang said that instead of overspeculation, AI is part of a transition from an old way of computing.

“We’re going through a natural transition from an old computing model based on general purpose computing to accelerated computing,” he said. “We also know that AI has become good enough because of reasoning capability, and research capability, its ability to think — it’s now generating tokens and intelligence that is worth paying for.”

Nvidia is skyrocketing amid AI-fueled hope. In late October, the chipmaker became the world’s first $5 trillion market cap company.

Huang said Nvidia is happy to pay for AI for its employees, name-checking Cursor, an AI coding agent, as one of many services for which his company pays.

Mark Zuckerberg

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said AI could become a bubble, but there will only be a crash if companies fail to keep making advancements.

“If the models keep on growing in capability year-over-year and demand keeps growing, then maybe there is no collapse,” Zuckerberg told the “Access” podcast in September.

Zuckerberg said there are risks that the AI boom becomes like the dot-com bubble.

“There’s definitely a possibility, at least empirically, based on past large infrastructure buildouts and how they led to bubbles, that something like that would happen here.”

For Meta, Zuckerberg said the real risk is not spending enough.

“The risk, at least for a company like Meta, is probably in not being aggressive enough rather than being somewhat too aggressive,” he said.

Bret Taylor

Like Altman, OpenAI chairman Bret Taylor says we’re in an AI bubble.

“I think it is both true that AI will transform the economy, and I think it will, like the internet, create huge amounts of economic value in the future,” Taylor told The Verge in September. “I think we’re also in a bubble, and a lot of people will lose a lot of money.”

Taylor, who is also CEO of Sierra, also sees some similarities to the dot-com bubble. He also said that some of the internet companies that failed in the 90s were just ahead of their time.

“Even things like Webvan, there’s now, as the internet became more distributed, really healthy businesses like Instacart and DoorDash and others that were built now that the smartphone and the scale of the internet has matured,” he said. “So even some of the specific ideas were actually not that bad, but maybe a little early.”

Jeff Bezos

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble, but not in the way everyone might think.

Bezos called the current situation an “industrial bubble.” The world’s third-richest person said there are similarities now, including the frenzy of investments.

“The good ideas and the bad ideas. And investors have a hard time in the middle of this excitement, distinguishing between the good ideas and the bad ideas,” he said in October during a conference in Italy. “And that’s also probably happening today.”

Bezos said that hoopla shouldn’t overshadow the reality that “AI is real” and will change society.

“The [bubbles] that are industrial are not nearly as bad,” Bezos said. “It can even be good, because when the dust settles and you see who are the winners. Societies benefit from those inventions.”

Eric Schmidt

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt said just because it looks like a bubble doesn’t mean that it is.

“I think it’s unlikely, based on my experience, that this is a bubble,” Schmidt said in July during an appearance at the RAISE Summit in Paris. “It’s much more likely that you’re seeing a whole new industrial structure.”

Schmidt said it takes solace in where the hardware and chips markets stand.

“You have these massive data centers, and Nvidia is quite happy to sell them all the chips,” he said. “I’ve never seen a situation where hardware capacity was not taken up by software.”

Pat Gelsinger

Former Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger says AI is in a bubble, but it won’t pop for “several years.”

“Are we in an AI bubble? Of course. Of course we are,” Gelsinger told CNBC in October. “I mean, we’re hyped. We’re accelerating. We’re putting enormous leverage into the system.”

Gelsinger said that businesses are just beginning to reap the benefits of AI.

“As Jensen (Huang) talked about, and I agree with this, you know that businesses are yet to really start materially benefiting from it,” he said. “We’re displacing all of the internet and the service provider industry as we think about it today — we have a long way to go.”

Joe Tsai

Alibaba cofounder Joe Tsai has voiced concerns about the scramble for data centers needed to help power the next generation of AI models.

“I start to see the beginning of some kind of bubble,” Tsai told the HSBC Global Investment Summit in March, Bloomberg News reported.

Tsai said he’s worried the building rush might outpace demand.

“I start to get worried when people are building data centers on spec,” he said. “There are a number of people coming up, funds coming out, to raise billions or millions of capital.”

Ray Dalio

Hedge fund icon Ray Dalio voiced concerns about a bubble earlier this year, when DeepSeek’s rollout led analysts to rethink AI’s outlook.

“Where we are in the cycle right now is very similar to where we were between 1998 or 1999,” Dalio told the Financial Times in January. “There’s a major new technology that certainly will change the world and be successful. But some people are confusing that with the investments being successful.”

At the time, Dalio cited high stock prices and high interest rates. The good news is that Wall Street widely expects the Federal Reserve to cut rates during its September meeting.

Tom Siebel

Billionaire tech CEO Thomas Siebel said there is “absolutely” an AI bubble and that it’s “huge.”

“So we have this similar thing going on with generative AI that we’ve seen with previous technologies,” Siebel told Fortune in January. “The market is way, way overvaluing.”

Siebel, who leads C3.ai, singled out OpenAI in terms of overevaluations.

“If it disappeared, it wouldn’t make any difference in the world,” he said. “Nothing would change. I mean, nobody’s life would change. No company would change. Microsoft would find something else to power Copilot. There’s like 10 other products available that would do it equally as good.”

Lisa Su

AMD CEO Lisa Su says the bubble talk “is completely wrong.”

“For those who are talking about a ‘bubble,’ I think they’re being too narrow in their thinking of, what is the return on investment today or over the next six months,” Su told Time Magazine in 2024. “I think you have to look at this technology arc for AI over the next five years, and how does it fundamentally change everything that we do? And I really believe that AI has that potential.”

• Erik Heintz is a producer who found stability in micro dramas after being laid off from Disney.
• Micro dramas, popularized in China, are gaining traction in the US via apps.
• The shoots are fast-paced and require quick thinking, but provide jobs in a contracting Hollywood.

This as-told-to essay is based on conversations with Erik Heintz, 49, a producer in Burbank, California, about his experience working in the booming micro drama business. The trend grew out of China and has taken off in the US via popular apps like ReelShort and DramaBox. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I’m from Massachusetts, and I’d moved to California for the Coast Guard. I’d been pursuing a career in music when I landed a job in Hollywood through a film producer friend. One thing led to another, and I became a talent manager. I did a lot of cold calling, getting the mail room treatment, doing crazy tasks for talent.

Fast forward a few years, and after freelancing for production companies that serve Disney, I was brought on as a permanent employee, supporting ABC, Hulu, Freeform, and Onyx, on creative marketing campaigns. It’s feast or famine in Hollywood, and I was blessed to get more of a permanent thing. I have three kids, and my wife is in entertainment, too, and there were often times one of us wouldn’t be working.

Then I got laid off in 2023. It was definitely an existential crisis moment. So many people were getting laid off. The competition to get similar roles is really tough. I did a bunch of different things: consulting, marketing, business development.

I got introduced to vertical dramas through one of the production companies we used at Disney, Snow Story, that brought me on as an executive producer. First, I had my misgivings because micro dramas were known for having low budgets and arduous schedules. But when I got on set, I saw a lot of the crew that I had been working with over the years. So I’m, like, fully in.

The first one I made was “Keys to My Heart.” It’s sort of a countryfied version of “A Star is Born,” for an app called Shortical. I’ve worked on 25 so far and have 10 more in development, for ReelShort, DramaShorts, and other apps.

I’m super grateful to be working in micro dramas. They keep the lights on and pay the mortgage. It’s hard to get a 9-to-5 job, and freelancing is tough. Everybody’s really feeling the pinch. I’m using all my skills in this job. I could be driving an Uber, but luckily, I’m doing what I love.

Fast-paced shoots, quick decisions

The hours are similar to a traditional Hollywood shoot — 12 to 16 hour days — but the pace is different. Instead of shooting six pages a day, you’re shooting 12 to 14, so you don’t have as many takes.

We have to be really creative and be problem solvers because you’ll have to make decisions on the fly. For example, one time our location fell out because it was double-booked. So, we chose a different angle of the room and redressed it as a café.

Another time, we had to show an heiress landing on a private plane and the plane set we booked fell out. So our director got a toilet seat and we put a green screen behind it and made it look like a window. It was one of the most engaging moments of the film, and you can’t tell it’s a toilet seat.

I think the appeal of mini dramas is that you’re watching them on your phone, the same place where you get dopamine hits from scrolling on social media or TikTok. I don’t think it’s as big on the coasts. But I’ve definitely met people in the business who watch them — they’re the same people that like soaps or telenovellas or romance novels.

I’ve seen people in Hollywood look down on them. And nobody wants to be another Quibi. It grew too big, too fast, whereas their counterpart, Vine, with those six-second videos, wasn’t highly produced. I feel like we still shouldn’t go that top-heavy just yet.

Now, large studios want to go where the eyeballs are. The production quality has gone up. I’m using an LED volume wall in the film I’m working on now — something I used at Disney. We used a real Harley-Davidson in another.

Studios are talking about using verticals to make companion content between seasons. We’ve seen that with television shows doing mobile-only content. There’s also interest in faith-based films and having more diversity in front of the camera. And we’re going to see a lot of brand integration. Maybe the big streamers will put a vertical video player in their app for streaming content. It’s like a little gold rush.

After Kahlil Lalji closed the first funding round earlier this month for his new AI company, Natural, one of the first things he wanted to do with the money was embark on a rite of passage for new tech founders: Buying a billboard around San Francisco. He quickly found out he would have to be patient.

“If you want to buy billboard space, you have to wait six to nine months,” Lalji said, adding it was even worse when he tried to secure prime space around Y Combinator’s outpost in the Dogpatch or Jackson Square, the home of many startups. “It’s already been completely sold for all of 2026, and there’s no clear date as to when I could ever have those billboards.”

Low-tech billboards for high-tech companies along Interstate 280 and 101 have long been part of the Bay Area landscape, but their popularity has soared this year as the AI boom has increased the number of well-funded companies needing to stand out. There is also a shift in marketing, as enterprise startups adapt a consumer marketing playbook. And, San Francisco has roared back to life with apartments, office space, and yes, billboards, in high demand.

The only better business to be in right now than selling advanced chips to AI companies is selling them billboards, joked Keith Messick, Vercel’s chief marketing officer.

“The San Francisco billboard market is so hyper competitive right now,” said Messick. “It’s really amazing.”

AI, the World Cup, and the Super Bowl drive ‘insane competition’ for billboards

As little as two years ago, billboard companies frequently called Messick, offering steep discounts for unsold inventory, known as remnant rates. Now the leverage has shifted. In the rare case space opens, Messick says he gets a call to pay top dollar and has to make a decision in less than 24 hours, or a competitor will snap up the deal. That has led to hoarding.

“Most people are trying to lock them down for as long as possible,” Messick said. “It’s an interesting dynamic because there is this phenomenon of worrying if you let a billboard go, you won’t be able to get another one.”

Demand is so strong that Clear Channel Outdoor cited San Francisco as a key driver for its US revenue growth earlier this year.

Rates vary greatly, though they are increasing by as much as 40% next year in some locations, according to Heather MacKinnon, head of brand at Mercury, which provides banking services to startups.

“There’s obviously insane competition with all of the AI companies right now, which are definitely driving up demand for these units,” MacKinnon said. “But also next year, San Francisco is hosting the Super Bowl and the World Cup, and those events have driven people to plan out a lot longer because bigger brands are coming in wanting that space.”

Clear Channel and Outfront Media, the other major billboard owner in San Francisco, declined to share pricing. Michael Marvin, Outfront Media’s sales director, would only say, “We are a supply and demand business.”

He added that “prime inventory”— essentially anything from the San Francisco airport to downtown — is sold out for the next year.

Marketing has ‘gone back in time’

Most people, even in San Francisco, would be hard-pressed to tell you the difference between Vanta (security and compliance) and Vercel (developer tools and web infrastructure) — despite both companies being worth billions.

Vanta plastered San Francisco with playful billboards that read “Compliance that doesn’t SOC 2 much,” a reference to an arcane security certification that would likely soar over the heads of most people driving by.

But it got them talking about the company, according to Terrence Rohan, an early investor in Vanta.

“It’s effective when you’re clever and memorable,” said Rohan. “The value is in brand building.”

Investors poured $35.7 billion into AI startups last quarter, according to Crunchbase data, which VCs say makes standing out all the more important.

“There are so many startups and branding is an incredible way to differentiate yourself,” said Abstract VC’s Anthony Heckman. “These details matter now more than ever. And having a memorable billboard is absolutely one of the ways founders can build their brands.”

Vercel’s billboards have tried to grab eyeballs with simply a line of code: “~/ npm i ai.”

“There’s a shift where everything feels like consumer marketing, even if you’re selling boring enterprise tech,” explained Vercel’s Messick. “People are thinking about getting attention.”

Billboards also serve as a “reinforcement” mechanism to convey a company’s success, according to Messick.

“There’s an implied idea that if someone has a lot of billboards, they’re doing really well,” he said.

A strong physical presence can also be helpful when hiring is so competitive, according to Ray Wu, managing partner at Alumni Ventures.

“A lot more VC dollars are coming into the AI space, so everybody is trying to hire the best people and the Bay Area is the talent pool,” Wu said. “It brings legitimacy to a company.”

Far from being a Vanta or Vercel, Natural, which is building payments infrastructure for AI agents, is not even three months old. Spending $250,000 on billboards will be worth it if the company acquires just 100 customers, says Lalji.

“In the payments, the lifetime value of a customer is quite high, said Lalji. “Backing out that math is not impossible to make it seem rational.”

As hard as it is to buy prime billboard space, the tougher task comes from designing something that will actually get people talking as part of a complete marketing strategy, according to Mercury’s MacKinnon.

“Right now, if you drive the Skyway, it’s a bunch of black and white billboards all saying something about AI that all blend together,” she said, referring to an elevated section of Highway 80 that runs through downtown San Francisco. “I don’t think that a standalone billboard like that is going to do anything for you other than make the founder and the team happy when they drive by it.”

Some see the flood of billboards as yet another sign of an AI bubble, amounting to little more than an expensive vanity project.

“If it starts the right conversations, great,” said Ashu Garg, general partner at Foundation Capital. “If not, the founders just paid for a giant selfie.”