The a16z Show · Thursday, September 10, 2026
The conversation suggests that the current AI cycle could generate significantly more market capitalization than the previous cycle, which created $25 trillion. Speakers anticipate that new categories will emerge, and the scale of outcomes, like those seen with SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic, may approach or exceed $100 billion.
“And each one of these subsequent waves gets bigger than the prior one. Yeah. And so our expectation is, take the $25 trillion and it's going to be a larger number.”
“Like, so the top Tesla outcomes used to be $10 billion and now they're like $40 billion. Yeah, maybe something approaching $100 billion by the time Anthropic and OpenAI come out.”
“And look, this makes sense, right? The last cycle created $25 trillion of market cap, new market cap. And a bunch of that went into incumbence. Yeah. A lot of it went to startups and new startups and each one of these subsequent waves gets bigger than the prior one.”