The Ghosts at the Wheel of the Thinking Machine

Listen to Free Audio Version Here

Somewhere down the road, maybe thirty years out, a kid is going to find an old phone in a drawer and ask what all the fuss was about. Back when everybody swore the thinking machines would either save us or bury us. Back when every company on earth put “AI” on the label like hot sauce on a bad burrito.

I want to be the old man on the porch who can answer that kid honestly. So I’m writing this down for whoever reads it later, a note in a bottle with a sense of humor.

Here’s what I’ll tell that kid. The machines were never the whole story. The story was the people steering them. You’ve got to look at the CEOs.

Every gold rush in history has the same cast. A few builders, a few shovel sellers, a crowd of dreamers and at least one guy selling maps to mines that don’t exist. The thinking-machine rush was no different, except the maps could talk back.

Let me start with the builder. I believe Elon Musk will be remembered in the same breath as Einstein and Galileo, one of those rare names that outlives everyone who laughed at him. Is he a goofball? Without question. He’s the kind of genius who can land a rocket on its tail and then trip over his own sentence explaining it. History doesn’t care about the stumbles, though. History remembers who built the ladder off the planet. SpaceX, in my view, is generational. It’s the kind of company your grandchildren mention when they talk about where the family’s luck came from. That’s my conviction, not a promise. I’ve been wrong about plenty, but I don’t think I’m wrong about rockets.

Now the gallery of characters every good story needs. If Sam Altman doesn’t look like a Batman villain, then nobody ever did. Put him in a long coat in a dim warehouse, whispering about the future, and the comic book writes itself. In my opinion he’s a psychopath, and I say that as one man’s satire about another man’s poker face. He sells the newest model in a race where the prize is beating the next model. That’s a treadmill, and you never get to step off and count your winnings.

Then there’s Dario Amodei. I wouldn’t put him in charge of a hot dog stand. Within a week there’d be a warning label on the relish, a committee on mustard ethics and a line around the block of people still waiting for a hot dog. What makes me laugh, the way you laugh when the hearse gets a flat tire, is his sales pitch. My product could kill you. I’m not responsible. Now give me more money. A warning label isn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card. If you build the thing and tell the world it might end the world, you don’t get to shrug when it does. A confession isn’t immunity.

But every story needs grown-ups too, and the thinking-machine boom had a few.

Mark Zuckerberg knows how to run things. Laugh at his cartoon-avatar dreams all you want, but he built a place where billions of people show up every morning without being asked, and advertisers pay rent to stand in front of them. That’s not a product. That’s a landlord.

Jensen Huang at Nvidia is what a CEO looks like: the leather jacket, the command of the room, and the man who sells shovels to every gold digger in town. When the rush ends, the miners go home broke and the hardware store is still open.

Jeff Bezos has a great company with a hundred reasons for you to keep paying it, from the toothpaste on your doorstep to the servers holding up half the internet. The man himself is so careful and controlled that you’ll never hear what he really thinks. Asking Bezos for a straight opinion is like asking a vending machine for a hug. It’s a great machine, but don’t wait for the hug.

So here’s my high-end pondering, the thought that keeps me up past the point of good sense. The companies that last aren’t the ones with the flashiest machine. They’re the ones with a dozen reasons for you to keep paying them. Rockets and satellites. Ads and attention. Chips, servers and shipping boxes. Lose one round and they still have eleven ways to make rent.

The pure model makers have one reason, and it’s being smarter than whatever comes next. That means winning every single round forever. One clever rival in a garage somewhere, and the crown rolls under the couch. I’ve watched a lot of sure things become trivia questions.

The other half of the lesson is that a good business can still be a terrible stock if you pay too much for it. The finest steakhouse in town is a lousy deal if you pay for the whole building to eat one ribeye. Brilliant company, foolish price, and you’ve still lost your shirt, a very nice shirt.

So kid, if you’re reading this decades from now, here’s what happened. The machines got smarter, the money got louder and the people at the wheel turned out to matter more than the engine. The builders built, the shovel sellers got rich, the treadmill runners got tired and the man who warned you his product might kill you still wanted a check.

As for me, I’m a guy with opinions and a keyboard, not anybody’s broker. I’m just a psychosomatic psycho. I think I’m crazy, but it’s all in my head.

C. Rich