‘We're In A Bubble’: OpenAI’s Bret Taylor Compares AI Boom To Dot-Com Era, Warns Against Risks
OpenAI board chair Bret Taylor drew a parallel with the late 1990s dot-com era, when internet stocks soared before crashing.
OpenAI’s board chair, Bret Taylor, has said that artificial intelligence (AI) is caught in a speculative frenzy, but insists the boom is underpinned by lasting value.
Speaking to The Verge at a live session in California, the Sierra chief executive officer (CEO) said that he agreed with OpenAI boss Sam Altman’s view that “someone is going to lose a phenomenal amount of money in AI”.
“I think it is both true that AI will transform the economy, and I think it will, like the internet, create huge amounts of economic value in the future,” Taylor told publication. “I think we’re also in a bubble, and a lot of people will lose a lot of money. I think both are absolutely true at the same time, and there’s a lot of historical precedent for both of those things being true at the same time.”
Taylor drew a parallel with the late 1990s dot-com era, when internet stocks soared before crashing. While many companies collapsed, he noted that “all the people in 1999 were kind of right”, pointing out that the core technology ultimately reshaped the global economy.
The comments come after Altman himself raised concerns in August 2025 about investor overexcitement. “When bubbles happen, smart people get overexcited about a kernel of truth,” Altman said, according to The Verge. “Are we in a phase where investors as a whole are overexcited about AI? My opinion is yes. Is AI the most important thing to happen in a very long time? My opinion is also yes.”
Taylor’s own career path gives weight to his perspective on technology cycles. He was an early Google engineer before founding FriendFeed, a social network later acquired by Facebook in 2009, where he became chief technology officer. He went on to create the productivity platform Quip, selling it to Salesforce and eventually becoming the company’s co-CEO. He later exited Salesforce to start Sierra, which offers AI solutions to businesses for customer service.
Financial bubbles usually involve a rush of capital and inflated expectations that outpace underlying returns. For Taylor, this is not necessarily a sign of doom but of transition. The challenge, as history shows, is that while the technology may endure, not all investors may gain from the boom in a particular sector.
