Skip to content

David Cahn quote, Dec 3, 2025

Partner, Sequoia Capital · Dec 3, 2025 · Essay, AI in 2026: A Tale of Two AIs

In 2026, we’re going to see the emergence of a $0 to $1B club.

Primary source

Words found on the source page on Sep 25, 2026.

More from David Cahn

Quote
Dwarkesh Patel’s recent podcast interviews with Richard Sutton, Andrej Karpathy, and Ilya Sutskever are a demarcating line; the new consensus is that the AGI window will be in the 2030s, at earliest.Dec 3, 2025· Essay
My prediction, especially coming off of the successful Gemini 3 launch and hype around TPUs, is that the TSMC constraint could become material in 2026.Dec 3, 2025· Essay
On the one hand, it will be a year of delays, first in data center buildouts, many of which will fall behind schedule, and second, in the AGI timeline. At the same time, AI adoption will continue its relentless rise.Dec 3, 2025· Essay
AI’s $200B question is now AI’s $600B question.Jun 20, 2024· Essay
But we need to make sure not to believe in the delusion that has now spread from Silicon Valley to the rest of the country, and indeed the world. That delusion says that we’re all going to get rich quick, because AGI is coming tomorrow, and we all need to stockpile the only valuable resource, which is GPUs.Jun 20, 2024· Essay
GPU computing is increasingly turning into a commodity, metered per hour. Unlike the CPU cloud, which became an oligopoly, new entrants building dedicated AI clouds continue to flood the market. Without a monopoly or oligopoly, high fixed cost + low marginal cost businesses almost always see prices competed down to marginal cost (e.g., airlines).Jun 20, 2024· Essay
Quote
That’s a fair question at the dawn of the AI age when an app might take about as much time to build as editing a Youtube video. So this means average product retention will collapse, and the days of seeing >20% D30 will feel like a dream.Andrew ChenSep 8, 2026· Post
The future of marketing (and by extension, a large swath of product) is zero-sum and PvP - the abundance of apps/videos/pods/creators/experiences will mean we have infinity times more supply than demand.Andrew ChenSep 8, 2026· Post
The obvious AI variant is to let your users opt in to training your model on their interactions with it. Many will resist that, but if some don't, the model they get to use will outperform the vanilla one used by the others.Paul GrahamSeptember 2026· Essay
You own the customer relationship, and the model companies are in effect component suppliers. The question is how easy it would be for them to engulf you, or even your customers.Paul GrahamSeptember 2026· Essay
Founders running successful AI companies should all take a cold hard look at exiting in the next 12-18 months, which may be a value maximizing moment for outcomes.Elad GilApr 20, 2026· Post
The sum of random vectors is zero, but if you align your vectors, then you can go in a direction.Greg BrockmanApr 7, 2026· Interview
About this quote
Said by
David Cahn, Partner, Sequoia Capital
Where
AI in 2026: A Tale of Two AIs
Topics
Startups
Company
Sequoia Capital
Source
sequoiacap.com/article/ai-in-2026-the-tale-of-two-ais

A quote is one moment, not the whole argument. Read it in context at the source.

Sources: the primary source linked on each quote, checked weekly. A quote is one moment; read the source. Logos via logo.dev; trademarks belong to their owners.

New quotes by email

Fridays, only in weeks with new on-the-record quotes from data and AI leaders.

Double opt-in. Unsubscribe any time.