Benchmark general partner Bill Gurley said Monday that the artificial intelligence wave is real and that many people have struck it rich, but he expects a “reset” to come.
“When people get rich quick, they get a lot of people who want to get rich too. That’s why you end up with a bubble,” Gurley said on CNBC’s “Money Movers.”
“Bubbles only exist if there are real waves,” Gurley said, referring to the work of economist Carlota Pérez, author of “Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: Bubble Dynamics and the Golden Age.”
The venture capitalist said that once a reset occurs, investors should keep in mind the prices of battered software-as-a-service stocks and “start gobbling them up.”
AI threatens to disrupt sectors across the economy, but software stocks have been hit particularly hard recently. sales force and ServiceNow Year to date in 2026, they are down about 25% each. iShares Expansion Technology & Software Sector ETF (IGV)generally tracks the sector, which is down about 20% this year.
Big investments in AI infrastructure and soaring memory costs are driving tech companies to spend at record rates. Spending on AI Amazon, Meta, google and microsoft This year it is expected to reach about $700 billion.
Benchmark was an early investor. UberGurley played a key role in the departure of then-CEO Travis Kalanick in 2017.
Gurley said it was “hugely disturbing” that Uber’s annual burn rate at the time he was involved was $2 billion, noting that today’s large model companies have much higher numbers.
“God bless them,” Gurley said of AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI that are running out of money. “That’s a horrible way to run a company.”
