Azeem Azhar's Exponential View

Azeem Azhar

4.9 (607)
Technology

How will the future unfold? What is the impact of AI and other exponential technologies on business & society? Join Azeem Azhar, founder of Exponential View, on his quest to demistify the era of exponential change.

15h ago

Boom, crash or takeover: Anthropic's IPO and the future of the AI economy (ft. Noah Smith)

Anthropic's S-1 looks healthy: distributed customers, improving efficiency and no sign of an imminent crash. So I went live with Noah Smith, to discuss what happens next. His worry isn't that Anthropic blows up; it's that it succeeds too well. We weighed Google's push for recursive self-improvement, cheaper Chinese models and the chance that one lab takes a share of every market, gaining power no company has had before. And if AI-driven super-science finds patterns no human can explain, what is left for us to understand? We discussed: 00:00 Is the AI boom about to crash?03:31 Chinese AI is Android, Claude is the iPhone05:46 How Anthropic could out-compete its customers08:33 Could Claude outgrow the government?10:31 Google, OpenAI and the self-improvement race14:45 The best model takes it all17:07 Google is disrupting itself20:16 "One company could rule them all"22:47 Lessons from the Reformation26:58 Super-science: beyond human understanding30:31 "We summon a djinn"33:17 Claude's project 📈 Anthropic: From a lab to a real business: https://www.investmentbrief.ai/p/anthropic-from-a-lab-to-a-real-business📈 AI Investment Brief: https://investmentbrief.ai Where to find Noah:Noahpinion: https://www.noahpinion.blog/X: https://x.com/Noahpinion About Exponential View: Welcome to Exponential View, where Azeem Azhar examines how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping the future. Each week, Azeem shares his analysis or speaks with an expert guest to shed light on frontier shifts across technology, business and society. To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this channel or the newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ To keep up with our AI economy research, subscribe to https://www.investmentbrief.ai/ Where to find me: Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azeem/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem Production by EPIIPLUS1. Production and research: Baba Films, Marija Gavrilov. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
3d ago

Anthropic's S-1: the AI lab that became a business

For the AI Investment Brief, the team at Exponential View has distilled the S-1 into 39 charts, to help you see where the revenue comes from, where the compute goes and whether the numbers add up. I think Anthropic has crossed from lab to business: its revenue has grown roughly 31x since early 2025 while its compute costs have grown about 6x, and well over half the Fortune 500 now pays Anthropic. What the S-1 leaves open is duration: about 12 weeks of contracted revenue set against more than 12 years of signed compute, a mismatch the filing itself acknowledges. In this live breakdown of the S-1, I discuss:00:00 Is AI a real business?02:00 The P&L: revenue outrunning compute04:06 Why the customer-concentration worry was overblown05:39 Half the Fortune 500 is already paying08:14 New models drive the revenue12:20 Scale is paying off: revenue 31x, compute 6x13:52 Where a dollar of revenue goes16:20 "Irresponsibly large" compute bets17:30 12 weeks of revenue, 12 years of compute18:54 Can Anthropic pay for its compute?20:36 Values over profit maximization21:39 Who controls Anthropic: Class F shares23:00 "One of the seminal moments in human history"24:11 Q&A: why most compute goes to training26:37 Q&A: is the AI race just a race for capital? A note on the numbers: at 17:56 I mention $587bn of compute commitments. That is the figure on June 30, 2026, the end of Q2 and the last date the S-1 reports in full. About $400bn of it can’t be cancelled. Deals signed in Q3 have since taken the total to roughly $775bn. 📄 Anthropic's S-1 in charts: https://www.exponentialview.co/p/anthropics-s-1-in-charts📈 AI Investment Brief: https://investmentbrief.ai About Exponential View: Welcome to Exponential View, where Azeem Azhar examines how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping the future. Each week, Azeem shares his analysis or speaks with an expert guest to shed light on frontier shifts across technology, business and society. To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this channel or the newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ To keep up with our AI economy research, subscribe to https://www.investmentbrief.ai/ Where to find me: Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azeem/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem Production by EPIIPLUS1. Production and research: Baba Films, Marija Gavrilov. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Oct 22

Inside the $110 billion AI economy (and who is really paying for it)

The AI economy is real, substantial and growing three times faster than the internet, mobile phone or cloud computing. But is it sustainable? Our forensic analysis from June of this year of 1,000+ companies reveals that over $70 billion in revenue is coming from Main Street enterprise adoption, rather than loss-making labs or VC-funded startups. However, we’re still in the foothills: even as models get cheaper, corporate bills keep rising; and hyperscalers are only just covering the costs of the data center buildout, with margins still years away. In this Q&A about the state of the AI economy, I discuss: 00:00 The AI economy is real00:35 Who’s really paying for AI, and how we checked02:53 Will AI infrastructure spending pay off?04:36 Creating a “Brent crude” for tokens05:47 Cheaper models, bigger bills06:38 What AI leaders spend per employee, and why it matters07:38 When a cheap open-source model is all you need08:30 Congestion: the biggest problem CEOs hit with AI09:49 What life looks like when intelligence is cheap10:54 Why it doesn’t matter who wins the AI race12:04 Is AI really making us stupid?13:24 China’s efficiency moat Note: this was recorded before our latest tracker update and the annualized run rate has since grown to $229 billion. For an updated measure of the AI economy, see sources below. 📄 Full report: https://intelligence.exponentialview.co/📈 The latest revenue figure: https://www.investmentbrief.ai/p/ai-investment-brief-monday-3 About Exponential View: Welcome to Exponential View, where Azeem Azhar examines how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping the future. Each week, Azeem shares his analysis or speaks with an expert guest to shed light on frontier shifts across technology, business and society. To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this channel or the newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ To keep up with our AI economy research, subscribe to https://www.investmentbrief.ai/ Where to find me: Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azeem/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem Production by EPIIPLUS1. Production and research: Baba Films, Marija Gavrilov. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Jun 4

Why AI isn’t showing up on your bottom line

Welcome to Exponential View, the show where I explore how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping our future. I’ve been studying AI and exponential technologies at the frontier for over ten years. Each week, I share some of my analysis or speak with an expert guest to make light of a particular topic. To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this channel or to my newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ — More than three years after ChatGPT's release, only 27% of executives say AI has met their ROI expectations. The history of factory electrification explains why — most companies are at the light-bulb stage, adding Copilot licenses rather than reconceptualizing their businesses around AI. In this episode I map the three stages of AI adoption, and show what it actually takes to move from chatbots to the autonomous company — the only stage where the moat becomes real. I covered: (01:40) Ford's electricity playbook: why AI adoption needs a complete rethink (03:51) The congestion problem: why AI gains stall (05:45) Chatbot to autonomous company: your three-stage roadmap (06:40) Why individual productivity gains won't build a moat — and what will (10:17) Which companies are getting AI transformation right (14:12) My 2029 AI adoption forecast — and how to stay ahead Read my essay "Why AI isn't showing up on your bottom line" on Substack: https://www.exponentialview.co/p/why-ai-isnt-showing-up-on-your-bottom-line — Where to find me: Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azeem/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem Production by EPIIPLUS1. Production and research: Baba Films, Chantal Smith, Marija Gavrilov. About Exponential View: Welcome to Exponential View, where Azeem Azhar examines how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping the future. Each week, Azeem shares his analysis or speaks with an expert guest to shed light on frontier shifts across technology, business and society. To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this channel or the newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ To keep up with our AI economy research, subscribe to https://www.investmentbrief.ai/ Where to find me: Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azeem/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem Production by EPIIPLUS1. Production and research: Baba Films, Marija Gavrilov. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Apr 1

Karpathy’s autoresearch could make scientists of us all

Welcome to Exponential View, the show where I explore how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping our future. I’ve been studying AI and exponential technologies at the frontier for over ten years. Each week, I share some of my analysis or speak with an expert guest to make light of a particular topic. To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this channel or to my newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ ---- Published in early March 2026, Andrej Karpathy's autoresearch AI tool makes autonomous scientific experimentation cheap and easy — but it was designed to solve machine learning problems. I wanted to see if I could apply its loop architecture to my own work: refining my worldview, testing arguments, solving business problems. In this video, I share how I adapted Karpathy’s autoresearch loops for problems that aren't easy to quantify, how to avoid the local minima trap, and the broader impact of these kinds of methods. I covered: (02:11) The Karpathy Loop: what is it and how does it work (07:54) Extending the loop into business and thinking (09:46) The local minima trap (12:20) The escape harness: getting beyond “good enough” (16:05) What I’ve learned after 30 days (18:47) The loop economy: from doing to judging ---- Where to find me: Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azeem/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem Production by EPIIPLUS1. Production and research: Baba Films, Chantal Smith, Marija Gavrilov. About Exponential View: Welcome to Exponential View, where Azeem Azhar examines how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping the future. Each week, Azeem shares his analysis or speaks with an expert guest to shed light on frontier shifts across technology, business and society. To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this channel or the newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ To keep up with our AI economy research, subscribe to https://www.investmentbrief.ai/ Where to find me: Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azeem/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem Production by EPIIPLUS1. Production and research: Baba Films, Marija Gavrilov. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Mar 25

What NVIDIA’s bet on OpenClaw means for the future of AI and your token budget

Welcome to Exponential View, the show where I explore how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping our future. I’ve been studying AI and exponential technologies at the frontier for over ten years. Each week, I share some of my analysis or speak with an expert guest to make light of a particular topic. To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this channel or to my newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ ---- Last week Jensen Huang shared the numbers from NVIDIA’s order book: AI compute demand has grown a millionfold in two years. Much GTC coverage focused on chips, robots, data centers in space, but I think Jensen revealed something far more important in his keynote: “the inference inflection has arrived,” and this is about to transform how all companies should manage their budgets. The inference era is already the operating assumption of the world’s most valuable company. In this week’s podcast, I cover: (1:20) NVIDIA's $1 trillion order book (1:56) OpenClaw: our era's web browser (7:54) Training vs Inference: how AI is changing (12:50) Pre-fill vs. decode: the technical split (18:06) The Harness: why OpenClaw changes everything (18:59) The engine is useless without a car (22:21) From 100M to 870M tokens per day (24:29) Meet my agent R Mini Arnold's team (26:16) AI focus group simulations at $10–50 a run (29:36) Jensen's self-interest (and why he's still right) (33:07) AI governance: token budgets don't belong with IT (35:07) From training economy to inference economy Read my essay "Magnitudes of Intelligence" on Substack: https://www.exponentialview.co/p/the-hundred-million-token-day Access the solar supercyle model here: https://www.exponentialview.co/p/solar-supercycle ---- Where to find me: Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azeem/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem Production by EPIIPLUS1. Production and research: Baba Films, Chantal Smith, Marija Gavrilov. About Exponential View: Welcome to Exponential View, where Azeem Azhar examines how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping the future. Each week, Azeem shares his analysis or speaks with an expert guest to shed light on frontier shifts across technology, business and society. To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this channel or the newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ To keep up with our AI economy research, subscribe to https://www.investmentbrief.ai/ Where to find me: Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azeem/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem Production by EPIIPLUS1. Production and research: Baba Films, Marija Gavrilov. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Mar 18

Why I changed my mind about Apple and AI

Welcome to Exponential View, the show where I explore how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping our future. I've been studying AI and exponential technologies at the frontier for over ten years. Each week, I share some of my analysis or speak with an expert guest to make light of a particular topic. To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this channel or to my newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co ---- Apple may have stumbled into one of the most defensible positions in AI. This was not on my radar – just two months ago, I was describing a credibility crisis at the company; they appeared wrong-footed on the most important technology of our times and an acquisition was their only plausible way out. In this episode I work through what I and many other commentators missed – and what road lies ahead for Apple. I cover: (01:16) Why I was wrong about Apple (02:40) What's behind the Mac Mini shortage (04:07) China goes OpenClaw crazy (06:28) Perplexity builds on a Mac Mini (07:12) The edge case for Apple (09:05) Apple Moat 1: hardware (11:31) Apple Moat 2: privacy (15:47) The K problem: when good enough beats genius (18:08) Privacy, sovereignty & the diary problem Read my old position on Apple: https://www.exponentialview.co/p/ev-515 For more practical info about my OpenClaw stack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCG3dFRF3ek ---- Where to find me: Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azeem/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem Production by EPIIPLUS1. Production and research: Baba Films, Chantal Smith, Marija Gavrilov. About Exponential View: Welcome to Exponential View, where Azeem Azhar examines how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping the future. Each week, Azeem shares his analysis or speaks with an expert guest to shed light on frontier shifts across technology, business and society. To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this channel or the newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ To keep up with our AI economy research, subscribe to https://www.investmentbrief.ai/ Where to find me: Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azeem/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem Production by EPIIPLUS1. Production and research: Baba Films, Marija Gavrilov. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Mar 13

How to think well with AI: signals, quietness, and the argument engine

Welcome to Exponential View, the show where I explore how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping our future. I've been studying AI and exponential technologies at the frontier for over ten years. Each week, I share some of my analysis or speak with an expert guest to make light of a particular topic. To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this channel or to my newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ ----- AI has become so embedded in how I work that I can no longer cleanly separate it from my thinking. That raises a question I find genuinely unsettling: is intensive AI use making me a sharper thinker, or quietly doing the opposite? In this episode I pull back the curtain on my full research and writing process — the custom tools, the friction points, and the places where I'm still not sure I've got it right. For Ezra Klein, having AI summarize material is a disaster for original thought. But my AI systems are designed to protect the cognitive work that has to stay human, while they handle everything else. Knowing where to draw that line turns out to be the hardest and most important question. I covered: 00:00 - Is AI worsening our thinking? 02:35 - Ezra Klein on AI and the death of original thought 04:02 - Cognitive offloading vs cognitive surrender 09:20 - Signal detection at scale 11:06 - Why I use several AI personas to scan for different insights 13:37 - AI tells me what NOT to think about 16:25 - The value of quietness 19:07 - Small notebooks, small ideas 20:01 - Writing reveals what you don't yet know 23:24 - The golden thread 25:20 - Speaking drafts aloud 28:05 - How I stress-test my arguments before publishing 29:35 - Using AI to stress-test my own house views 31:44 - Stylometer: my AI style and grammar tool 33:10 - Did AI make the thinking better? For more on this week’s topics, subscribe to my newsletter https://www.exponentialview.co/ ----- Where to find me: Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem Production by EPIIPLUS1 Production and research: Baba Films, Chantal Smith, Marija Gavrilov. About Exponential View: Welcome to Exponential View, where Azeem Azhar examines how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping the future. Each week, Azeem shares his analysis or speaks with an expert guest to shed light on frontier shifts across technology, business and society. To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this channel or the newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ To keep up with our AI economy research, subscribe to https://www.investmentbrief.ai/ Where to find me: Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/ Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azeem/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem Production by EPIIPLUS1. Production and research: Baba Films, Marija Gavrilov. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See All (232)

Azeem Azhar

Host

4.9

out of 5

607 Ratings

Very Interesting Tech Discussions!

05/02/2025

Cnaloha

Appreciate the global perspective.
The Future of Meat.

09/13/2023

Smegma53

This episode was recommended by NY Times. I was very interested, but the guest barely speaks English. I attempted to concentrate but his accent is incomprehensible. Maybe his interview should be read by A.I ?
Great forward thinking listen

11/04/2022

MacManiacATL

After listening to several podcasts by this author I really enjoy the futuristic forward thinking of the guests. We are learning a lot of information about the future and the exponential advance of information and how it affects us all.
Absolutely mind-blowing 💥

03/17/2022

LisaIsHereForIt

Azeem is brilliant and an incredible interviewer. No matter the topic, you’re guaranteed to gain something from every episode - can’t recommend Exponential View enough. 🙌

How will the future unfold? What is the impact of AI and other exponential technologies on business & society? Join Azeem Azhar, founder of Exponential View, on his quest to demistify the era of exponential change.