In a conversation with The Examiner, Vinod Khosla spoke about his vision of an AI utopia and why he opposes activists
Vinod Khosla has little patience for critics of OpenAI or the artificial-intelligence technology it’s helping promulgate. An early investor in the San Francisco-based firm that’s one of the nascent industry’s leaders, the prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist said he envisions big things for the company and a potential AI-powered utopia for society — if only the critics and activists will get out of the way.
In a fireside chat at TechCrunch’s Disrupt 2025 conference at San Francisco Moscone Center Tuesday, Khosla argued that by 2040, education, health care and legal services will all be free AI-powered services. Drawing on a kind of manifesto he wrote last year, he said that as long as policymakers put in place policies that redistribute the vast amounts of wealth he expects will be generated by the technology, humans will be freed from having to work dangerous or soul-killing jobs to pursue their own interests. Khosla, of course, has an incentive to paint a utopian future for the technology. In addition to investing in OpenAI, he is a backer of numerous other AI companies. He also has cause to dislike activists. For about 12 years, he has been contending with lawsuits over public access to Martins Beach spurred by public discontent over his decision to close the only road leading to it. Other experts who are keeping an eye on AI and its effects aren’t betting on a post-jobs paradise. In fact, the early evidence suggests AI isn’t destroying jobs but changing them, and businesses are seeing little or no payoff from investing in the technology. Meanwhile, given the ongoing dysfunction in Washington, D.C., it’s hard to believe policymakers could come together anytime soon to protect workers from AI. Following his TechCrunch session Tuesday, Khosla spoke with The Examiner about the critics of OpenAI and AI in general, what will be needed for AI to produce a utopia and — as a former supporter of President Joe Biden — what he thinks President Donald Trump’s administration is getting right. The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.Why do you think this is important, this restructuring? Well, it’s now a regular company and keeps its nonprofit objectives with one of the largest foundations and is free to compete in the marketplace with other . So it’s a really good thing for everybody. Some of the activists, of course, would disagree with that. I don’t care about activists. They can go shove it. And you can quote me. Their concern is that OpenAI has not been adhering to its nonprofit’s mission, and that this is going to make things worse. Tell them to screw off. ... They’ve never done anything useful in their life, built anything. Don’t know how things are built and how you create value. They just know how to object to anybody else doing anything useful. You can quote me on all of that. I think that they would be concerned about some of the things that OpenAI has built, and people dying by suicide after allegedly being encouraged by ChatGPT. I think they need to get their head in place. There’s people committing suicide with or without ChatGPT. Look, OpenAI announced that they’d be connecting to therapists, all that. No new technology’s without problems, and you have to then develop solutions. So OpenAI is taking it seriously, and the activists would rather nobody did well in life, period — that there was no progress.I hear you. You’re obviously really bullish on AI. What do you make of the studies that have been done, like the one from MIT Sloan recently, and others that indicate companies aren’t seeing a return on their investment in AI? So, that’s a long conversation. That’s silly studies. You know, these technologies are not easy to deploy. You have to have the expertise. You know, if an old-time software guy in Iowa tries to use that technology — which is what a lot of corporations are doing, is using the existing people to learn this technology — it’s going to take them four iterations of getting it wrong before they get it right. Ex // Top Stories Five bucks goes far at biannual downtown book fair The Trinity Alley $5 Book Fair brings 15 merchants to small thoroughfare between Bush, Sutter streets Citywide reading program celebrates anniversary with timely book choice Stanford University researcher Fei-Fei Li’s memoir, ‘The Worlds I See: Curiosity, Exploration, and Discovery at the Dawn of AI,’ is the 20th One City One Book selection Internet Archive relishes its ‘phenomenal, fabulous success story’ The nearly 30-year-old San Francisco institution, which has been mired in lawsuits recently, marked the preservation of its 1 trillionth web page last week If they’re using an outside outfit — say, Distyl, one of our portfolio companies — almost all their projects are successful. In fact, I can tell you that a lot of people are unsuccessful in these projects, and then call in somebody who knows what they’re doing, like Distyl, and they’ll do well. So they have to learn, and they can learn it themselves by making lots of mistakes, or go to somebody who’s already made the mistakes and knows how to use the technology. You know, some of it is like people driving a car and saying, “Oh, I don’t know how to brake or steer, but I caused a crash.” It’s like the rough equivalent of that. But in terms of deploying AI — for it to have the trillion-dollar effect that people like you think it’s going to have on the economy, isn’t it the person in Iowa that’s going to have to deploy it and that is going to have to be taught how to use it? There’s lots and lots of people who know how to deploy it. They tend not to be in Iowa. Everybody will learn, but they’ll have to make their share of mistakes if they’re going to learn or go through proper training on how to use it, not just say, “I’m a software engineer, so I understand AI,” which is the mistake a lot of people are making. You were outspoken last year in your support for Biden, but also your criticism of Lina Khan. You talked on stage about what you think that the Trump administration is doing, and not doing for the tech industry. At this point, we’re obviously just nine months or 10 months in. How would you evaluate the two administrations? Which do you think is better? Well, I talked about that. done well on AI. They’ve done very poorly in skilled immigration. That’s permanent damage to the US.And you don’t think Biden was trying to do that. I think much more conservative. The picture you painted of AI-spurred job losses sounds pretty dystopian to me, as somebody that’s a professional. If what you envision comes true — that radiologists and oncologists and people that are well paid and highly trained are losing their jobs — what’s to stop there from being a revolution? There may be. I think the politics will determine what solutions are adopted. I address it in some detail in my September 2024 paper. I cover both dystopia and utopia. I think it will be societal choices. I do think most of dystopian choices are social choices we make — hopefully without activists. So it should be just tech entrepreneurs that make those choices? No, I think there’s real policy questions to be decided, and it’s too short a time right now to cover it, but I cover it fairly extensively. It’ll be a country-by-country choice. There will be good and bad, there will be a lot of turbulence, and we will have to take care of people who need taken care of. So, I talked a lot about empathy on stage. The need for empathy will be significantly higher than we have today. Do you think that as part of taking care of that, we’re going to need a wealth tax? Possibly. I think there’s many, many solutions. I jokingly said 10% of the stock market or 20% should end up in a pool for Americans who are displaced. But it’s not totally crazy. But there’s other solutions. Bill Gates at one time proposed a robot tax. People have proposed wealth taxes. People have proposed other solutions, like free basic level of services from the government. And I talked about free medicine and free AI education, free legal services and a bunch of things. So one last question: the Martins Beach case, which I know you’re involved in — I can’t comment on that.If you have a tip about tech, startups or the venture industry, contact Troy Wolverton at twolverton@sfexaminer.com or via text or Signal at 415.515.5594.
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