Equity

Karen Hao, the bestselling author of "Empire of AI," has watched OpenAI go from a nonprofit “laughingstock” into a $90 billion powerhouse chasing artificial general intelligence at breakneck speeds. Hao, who first profiled the company back in 2020, says early visions of building AI “for humanity’s benefit” were quickly overtaken by a familiar Silicon Valley mindset: Move fast, break things, and let scale be the measure of success. This week, Hao joined TechCrunch’s Equity podcast to unpack the direction the AI boom is going and who’s paying the price. Hao argues that, like historical empires, today’s AI giants rely on resource-hoarding and exploitative labor to amass political and economic power, and they’re doing so at the expense of the environment. For investors and founders, it’s a clear signal that AI’s current path carries real risks, and that there’s room to build a better model. Listen to the full episode to hear: How OpenAI's three internal "clans" warred to shape the company's trajectory