Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has now dismissed the fears of artificial intelligence bubble. In a recent interview with CNBC, Bezos said that even if the current frenzy around AI valuations and investments proves unsustainable, the long-term benefits will outweigh the risks. “Even if it does turn out to be a bubble, you shouldn’t worry about it because the bubble is driving investment and a lot of the investment is going to turn out to be very healthy,” Bezos said in an interview on Squawk Box. He also noted that the excitement around AI means that every experiment is getting funded, including questionable ideas. But he argued that the good ideas will pay for the losers and the society will benefit from the technological regardless.
Jeff Bezos likened the AI boom to the biotech bubble
Further talking about the AI bubble, Bezos drew references from the biotech bubble on the 1990s, when the investor enthusiasm led to a market crash but left behind life-saving drugs. “A lot of investors lost money on certain things, but we still got to keep all the life-saving drugs that they had invented,” he said.Hyperscalers including Amazon, Microsoft and Google are expected to spend more than $700 billion on AI infrastructure this year. Meanwhile, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has cautioned that investors may be “overexcited about AI,” as valuations soar — with OpenAI itself valued at over $850 billion.
Project Prometheus
Bezos revealed that much of his current focus is on Project Prometheus, a startup he launched in November with $6.2 billion in funding. Led alongside former Google X executive Vik Bajaj, the company is building AI models for physical tasks such as engineering, manufacturing, and drug design. Bezos described its goal as creating an “artificial general engineer”, a modern evolution of CAD software.He explained why Prometheus was set up independently of Amazon or Blue Origin: “It’s its own big idea, and Prometheus, you can get a lot of focus by having a separate company.”
What Jeff Bezos said about ending taxes for Americans
During the interview with CNBC anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin, Bezos referred to federal tax data to explain his position. He said the top one percent of taxpayers currently contribute around 40 percent of all federal income tax revenue while the bottom half contribute about three percent.According to Bezos, that three percent should become zero.“When people are starting out and they’re struggling, stop taxing them. We don’t need it. We live in the wealthiest country in the world,” Bezos said during the interview.He also used the example of a nurse living in Queens. Bezos said: “We shouldn’t be asking this nurse in Queens to send money to Washington. They should be sending her an apology. It really makes no sense.”
