Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei says the AI boom is entering a phase where multi-billion-dollar decisions are being made on incomplete visibility, creating risks that could shake the entire industry.
Speaking at the New York Times DealBook Summit, Dario Amodei says AI labs are being forced to lock in massive compute orders years before the revenue arrives, with no reliable way to know if those bets will pay off, calling it the “cone of uncertainty.”
According to Amodei, the one-to-two-year lag in building out data centers means AI companies must now decide on the amount of compute they want to purchase, long before they know how large their customer base or margins will be. He warns that the path carries real danger, where falling short in compute means turning customers away, while overspending means risking collapse.
“One is that if I do not buy enough compute, I will not be able to serve all the customers I want. I will have to turn them away and send them to my competitors. If I buy too much compute, of course, I might not get enough revenue to pay for that compute. And in the extreme case, there is kind of the risk of going bankrupt.”
Amodei says the size of the safety margin depends entirely on a company’s economics.
“If I have 80% margins, I can buy $20 billion of compute, and it could serve $100 billion of revenue. But because the cone is so wide, it is hard to avoid making a mistake on one side or the other.”
He then shifts to competitors who are taking far greater risks with far less certainty.
“Let’s say you have a consumer business model. Your margins are not as certain. And let’s say you are a person who just kind of constitutionally just wants to YOLO things or just likes big numbers, then you may turn that dial pretty far.”
Amodei says the instinct to go big creates systemic danger because no company wants to fall behind. Pressure from rivals and from global geopolitical competition is pushing spending higher.
“There is an inherent risk when the timing of the economic value is uncertain. There is an inherent risk of underreacting or overextension. And because the companies are competing with each other, and frankly, we genuinely need to compete with our authoritarian adversaries, there is kind of a lot of pressure to push things.”
He also warns that some companies are already gambling too aggressively.
“And then I think there are some players who are YOLOing, who pull the risk dial too far, and I am very concerned.”
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