How I Think About AI as an Investor
There are very few moments in history where you can clearly feel that something fundamental is changing.
Most of the time, progress happens gradually, almost invisibly. Businesses evolve. Industries adapt. Technology improves in small increments. The change is real, but it does not announce itself. You often only recognize it clearly in hindsight.
Every once in a while, something different happens.
The Industrial Revolution was one of those moments. The early days of the internet were another. Both periods created extraordinary opportunities. Both also permanently disrupted things that previously looked stable, durable, and safe.
AI feels like one of those periods.
What makes it distinct is that it is not a single invention. It is the culmination of decades of progress in computing, data, and software, all reaching a point where they begin to interact in ways that were not previously possible. That convergence is what creates the sense of a step change rather than a continuation.
And step changes cut in two directions simultaneously.
New industries will emerge. Productivity will improve. Entire categories of businesses that did not exist before will be created. That is real, and it deserves to be taken seriously.
But the other side is equally real.
Whenever a meaningful technological shift occurs, it tends to weaken things that previously looked strong. Business models that seemed durable can change very quickly. Competitive advantages that took decades to build can erode faster than anyone expected.
We have seen this before.
Newspapers once held powerful local monopolies with predictable, resilient economics. Then the internet arrived, and quietly, those advantages disappeared. The economics of an entire industry changed, not overnight, but irreversibly. The businesses looked fine until they did not.
AI has the potential to create similar outcomes across a far broader range of industries, and with considerably more speed.
So the way I think about it is not as a choice between opportunity and risk. Both are happening at the same time. The challenge is not to get carried away by the narrative on one side or the fear on the other, but to stay grounded in how value is actually created and sustained over long periods.
Periods like this are genuinely exciting. But they also require a little more humility than usual.
Three Takeaways That Still Guide My Thinking
1. Step changes create opportunity and disruption simultaneously.
The instinct is to frame a major technological shift as either a threat or an opportunity. In reality, it is always both at once. The businesses that will be built on AI are real. So are the businesses that will be quietly undermined by it. Staying clear-eyed about both sides is what separates disciplined thinking from narrative-driven investing.
2. Durable-looking advantages can erode faster than expected.
Newspapers did not look fragile until they were. Competitive advantages that took decades to build can weaken quickly when the underlying economics of an industry shift. AI is accelerating that dynamic across a broader range of sectors than most disruptions have before. The question worth asking is not just who benefits, but whose position quietly depends on things staying the same.
3. Excitement and humility are not opposites. They are both required.
The worst investing mistakes in transformational periods come from leaning too far in one direction. Pure skepticism causes you to miss genuine creation of value. Pure enthusiasm causes you to overpay for narratives that may not survive contact with economics. The right posture is engaged, grounded, and honest about how much genuine uncertainty exists, even when the direction of change feels clear.