As one of OpenAI’s earliest investors, Vinod Khosla, with his keen insight and unwavering belief, has long foreseen and bet on the potential of the AI revolution. From its early investments in deep learning to its support for OpenAI, Khosla has been at the forefront of technological change. This article will delve into Khosla’s deep understanding of AI and his vision for the next generation of platforms.
He had already bet firmly on AI before it became a global consensus; When everyone questioned deep learning, he silently bet; In an era when general intelligence was still a “fantasy”, he became one of the earliest supporters of OpenAI.
Vinod Khosla, an engineer, entrepreneur, and investor who has worked in Silicon Valley for 40 years, has always been the one who “was the first to cross the wasteland when others were still hesitating.” ”
He has witnessed the ups and downs of the technology cycle from Sun Microsystems to ChatGPT, and has personally participated in the industrial transition from Daisy to Replit, from fusion energy to developmental biology.
In this era, when entrepreneurs who are coerced by capital are increasingly struggling to distinguish the line between ideals and business, Khosla has always maintained a rare clarity: technology is a tool to serve people, and the measure of life is whether you are loyal to what you love and live authentically.
Anticipate and bet on the AI revolution
In an era where most people still think of AI as science fiction, Vinod Khosla has a keen eye for the potential of this technology to reshape what humanity defines. Back in 2000, he publicly stated in an interview with The New York Times: “AI will redefine what it means to be ‘human’. ”
Although he didn’t go into too many details at the time to avoid being obtrusive, the remarks themselves represent his firm judgment on the future direction of technology. In that era when deep learning had not yet risen, this view was undoubtedly an “alien prophecy”, and even attracted the attention of many people in the technology circle.
Khosla is not on paper. He first ventured into deep learning investments around 2014, betting on Jetpac, an ImageNet-inspired startup.
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Although the project ultimately failed to become a market giant or even a success, this failure did not shake his fundamental beliefs. For him, failure is an acceptable variable in the path, not a denial of the direction of technology.
What really made the outside world remember was his attack on OpenAI in 2018. That year, OpenAI had not yet launched ChatGPT, and AGI was still widely regarded as an unattainable fantasy. From I/O to iO, Jony Ive will drive a new design movement – AI is rewriting computing paradigms and hardware definitions, and it is also a new battlefield after large models
But in Khosla’s view, the company has three key attributes: a good enough team, a high speed of technological innovation, and a clear vision for AGI.
He admitted, “Except for me, many people think their goals are ridiculous. But it was this “almost imaginative” spirit of adventure, which resonated with his technical mission, that made him get involved without hesitation.
This choice was also based on his long-standing knowledge and trust in Sam Altman. Khosla had already connected with Altman when he started Loopt, knowing each other outside of the YC system. The Loopt project itself was not successful, but Khosla saw in Altman’s distinct leadership potential and technical idealism, and the two have maintained close ties ever since.
He recalled: “OpenAI is a grand venture, and I am personally passionate about this innovation that can really drive structural change in society. ”
When it comes to the speed of AI development, Khosla not only doesn’t think it’s too fast, but thinks it should be faster. He bluntly said, “ChatGPT is only about two years old, and we are likely to see more progress in the next two years than in the past four years.” ”
He believes that most enterprises are still in the stage of “experimentation” and “mixing”, and users who truly understand the differences between AI and traditional data methods are far from widespread. This also means that the next three to five years will be a critical window period for applied education and system construction.
Regarding the question of “whether large models have entered a bottleneck period”, Khosla gave a completely different judgment. He believes that such voices often stem from the mechanism of the media’s “counter-tone”: when a direction becomes the mainstream belief, there is always a counter-tone that is deliberately amplified to satisfy the attention economy.
However, he firmly believes that the progress of AI will not stop there, even if the growth of the original path slows down, it will continue to evolve and embark on an acceleration curve through the superposition of new modules and new technologies. “I’m very excited about it.” He said.
The intelligent era that replaces humans
In Vinod Khosla’s view, the true transformative power of AI lies not in “improving efficiency” but in revolutionizing the way tasks are done.
AI will not only accelerate the adoption of robotics, but will also become a reality in the form of “general intelligence” in the next one to three years. “Not five years, seven years, but less time.” He said. This judgment is particularly bold in the current skeptical market sentiment.
He defined AGI as the ability of a system to do about 80% of human work. But the popularity of this ability will not happen overnight. He cited “AI accountants” and “AI oncologists” as examples, pointing out that such capabilities have become the focus of research and development in some of the companies he invests in.
The key is not the “agent itself”, but how to wrap the appropriate “workflow” and “scene coat” for this type of AI – the underlying intelligence is the “main dish”, and the process and system are the “sauce”.
In his view, many companies have not seen results after using AI, and the problem is often not that the model itself is not strong enough, but that the entire application process is not really built. For enterprise users, it is not enough to simply purchase a powerful model. Systematic restructuring around its upstream and downstream scenarios is needed to realize the exponential potential of AI.
Khosla also addresses the current prevailing misconception about AI in the industry: “Most people only understand ‘co-pilot’ and don’t see the real revolutionary change coming from ‘letting AI do the whole task itself’. ”
He pointed out that using AI tools to assist humans in writing code may increase efficiency by 20%. However, if you directly use AI to build an “intelligent programmer” that can be delivered independently, it may bring about a 200% or even 500% leap.
This paradigm difference is directly mapped to the current pricing mechanism of AI services. He mentioned that some enterprise AI services have begun to charge thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars per month.
OpenAI’s enterprise model is rumored to reach $20,000/month because it replaces a “doctoral-level workforce” who masters physics, chemistry, and mathematics at the same time. For enterprises, this kind of “all-round workers” are extremely valuable, and they are changing from “people” to “intelligent systems”.
However, Khosla does not expect this transition to be fully automated anytime soon. He believes that there will be a “safety period” in the short term: AI output needs to be reviewed by human experts, just like new graduates in firms need senior accountants to review accounts.
He envisions a near-term future where each senior expert is accompanied by five AI interns, and some teams even assign human interns to conduct control tests, gradually evolving into a “trusted decentralization” mechanism. This phase may last for years, but eventually, companies will let go of manual review when the pace matures and allow AI to truly “run automatically.”
What’s more, Khosla emphasized that AI’s biggest transformative effect will not first occur within the tech industry, but will permeate millions of traditional industries, small businesses, and marginal jobs.
“Imagine a boutique clothing store owner in Carmel who doesn’t know the technology and can’t afford to hire operations, marketing, finance staff,” he says. But they love their products – that’s what they do. The significance of AI is to give these non-technical practitioners the same “management capabilities” as Amazon, Google, and even Procter & Gamble, but without having to bear the cost of millions of annual salaries.
AI will be embedded in small business solutions in the form of a toolkit: from inventory and CRM to cash flow management and website building, general-purpose intelligent agents will become the “shadow experts” of these “little bosses”. Khosla envisions a future where “custom rather than standard templates” are “custom rather than standard templates”: people no longer need to adapt to systems, but systems evolve naturally around people’s businesses.
What Khosla values is not only the leadership of model performance, but also whether AI can be implemented in the hands of users at the most marginal of society at a reasonable cost and with a very low threshold. In other words, real AI disruption is happening not in Silicon Valley, but in corners where no one is paying attention.
The real paradigm shift comes from new companies
At a time when AI is sweeping the world, more and more traditional companies are beginning to realize that the current technological storm is not just an upgrade of “adding intelligence”, but a complete paradigm shift. In Vinod Khosla’s view, the true disruption of AI lies not in optimizing old systems, but in redefining the way systems themselves exist. From I/O to iO, Jony Ive will drive a new design movement – AI is rewriting computing paradigms and hardware definitions, and it is also a new battlefield after large models
He vividly described a small business as an example: a clothing boutique owner may not be tech-savvy at all, and he may not be able to afford a development team and professional consultants. However, it is still possible to use large model technology to build an exclusive e-commerce system, the website style is automatically updated daily according to the new update, the VIP customer page is tailored according to the consumption history, and the background automatically completes the management of inventory, CRM, and financial data. And all this requires almost no line of code, only a “conversationable” interface.
This is not an improvement at the software level, but a transformation of the entire business system from “operational tools” to “intelligent dialogue bodies”.
Khosla admitted that the real value of large models such as ChatGPT lies in the ease of use of their interfaces, which for the first time allow ordinary users to control the system with “language” rather than “learning” the system.
This change in experience will become the core driver of the reshuffle of the SaaS market. “Every SaaS tool we use, every enterprise application, is being reinvented. Any startup with an AI-first mindset, based on stronger interfaces and higher intelligence, could disrupt existing players,” he said.
In his view, SAP, Salesforce, and Workday will not disappear in the future, but humans will no longer need to control them. “Instead of spending time learning how to look up payroll information or add a line of Excel sheets, you should just tell the AI what you want to do.”
An investor can even “research this person and automatically generate an official website” with a single sentence, while AI can automatically retrieve all relevant information, organize opinions, and build pages. This is exactly what a next-generation platform should have as a “frictionless experience.” a16z platform strategy past and present life: from VC “reluctant to wipe ass” to “full-stack service”
Khosla emphasized that this refactoring will not start from existing giants. History has almost never been an exception, and it has always been a group of “outsiders” who have truly disrupted the industry: Airbnb rewrote the hotel industry, but Hyatt and Hilton did not go first; Uber disrupts mobility, but not from taxi companies or Hertz; SpaceX and Rocket Lab have broken through the old pattern of spaceflight, but Boeing and Lockheed have not yet stood on the new wave. The disruption of these industries often stems from new players with “no preset and no baggage”.
Large companies are experts in optimization, and small companies are the first to break the game. Khosla notes that traditional tech companies are good at incremental advancements, such as moving from 7nm to 5nm, which is certainly important, but it is far from a “paradigm shift”. And new companies dare to redefine the entire industry stack from language, logic, and interaction, just as AI-first startups are doing.
Regarding OpenAI’s leading position, he does not see a “winner-takes-all” pattern. He cited Lotus and Symantec in the 1980s as examples: they appeared to be competitors, but in fact they served different scenarios. The same is true in the AI space – big enough, divided enough, and more than one winner. OpenAI may be the biggest, but it will never be the only one.
Faced with questions such as “will AI replace creators and managers”, Khosla also gave a clear answer: technically, of course, but the real opportunity is not to replace fear, but to release the most real part of human nature.
He said that more than half of the people in the United States “work to live” and repeat manual labor that does not bring self-worth every day in factories, farms, and workshops. “These positions are not decent careers, but survival compromises.” The value of AI is to liberate people from the work they have to do and turn to the direction of “wanting to do”.
This also explains his consistent educational philosophy: not to “follow passion” as a starting point, but to constantly explore curiosity, dabble extensively, and finally find “sustainable love”. In the era of AI popularization, “following passion” may become a realistic suggestion: technology has made room for survival, and humans can ask “what kind of person do I really want to be”.
He obviously already has an answer to this question. At the age of 16, he jumped into technology entrepreneurship because he admired Andy Grove’s story of founding Intel in the United States. At the age of 25, he founded Sun Microsystems and led the company’s revenue to increase by more than ten times in 3 years. After 30, he went all the way from Daisy to Kleiner Perkins to Khosla Ventures, driving waves of technology.
And this road is not all smooth sailing. He shared his experience of nearly losing ComputerVision, an early Sun customer: after the company was officially informed of the cancellation, he stepped in and took the order back with sincerity and resilience with no sales experience. This story was later included in Stanford and Harvard as a classic business school case.
He said, “I was too naïve when I was young and didn’t know what ‘impossible’ was. That is why he does not accept the term “failure”. His investment motto has been pasted on the office wall by many entrepreneurs – “Success is important, failure is irrelevant.” “The names of many projects are destined to be forgotten; But as long as you don’t give up, the ultimate success will become a container of meaning for all failures.
Now at 70 years old, he is still running at full speed, even “harder than anyone else in the company.” In 2018, he invested in Convergent Fusion, a public transportation innovation company, OpenAI, at about the same time, and called it the year to “change the future path of the world.” He said that he still carries a larger L.L.Bean canvas bag into the office every day because there are too many things to learn and too much information to carry.
He admitted that he was “not interested in playing golf”, but what he enjoyed more was “a night of two hours of snow, eight hours of continuous study, and a glass of wine”. From fusion and AI to developmental biology, he continues to ask the world questions. And the real question is not whether he will be replaced, but who should the revolution start with, and you, are you ready to do that new company?
Find your comfort zone between family and love
Regarding life, he admitted that he does not regret every investment in the past, because he has long set his bottom line and priorities. “Family comes first, followed by dogs, and then learning.”
At the critical stage of his child’s growth, he set a goal of having dinner with his child 25 times a month, quantified it with data, handed it over to the assistant supervisor, and took a red-eye flight back to eat even if he was on a business trip. “I did everything I could.”
Behind this rigor is his dedication to “long-term companionship”. He believes that the most important thing in educating children is to teach them to judge independently from an early age, rather than being arranged for every choice.
He shared two parenting strategies: one is “10% decision at 12 and 90% at 18” and the other is “The answer is yes, what’s the problem?” “It is used to train children to organize requests and understand the consequences. It was this habit that led all four of his children to choose Stanford, ten minutes away from home, to go to school, and often went home, “even living at home for most of the time.”
Beyond this parenting philosophy, Khosla also exudes a deep gratitude for her partner. He and his wife met in high school and have been together for 55 years. “I have a strong personality, and she has always been tolerant. The success of this relationship is due to her, not me. Such frankness and softness are particularly moving in an entrepreneur who has long been regarded as a substitute for rationality and progress.
He further talked about his dual perception of “stability” and “change”: home is a consistent anchor, and career is a torrent of continuous change. Since 1986, he has lived in the same house where his four children were born and raised, and they will still live in their childhood room when they return.
He also wrote a “living specification” for the house, detailing what functional space he needed at the age of 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, “The only mistake I made was not writing down the needs at the age of 80 and 100 (laughs). ”
Under such stability, he always insisted on one thing: to follow internal drive, not to cater to external expectations. He didn’t care if he got into a big company, he didn’t care what car he drove, he never joined a private club. He likes skiing and hiking because it is a state that makes people think.
He loves to learn, and even at the age of 70, he carries a larger canvas bag to the office every day to hold a few more books to read. He believes that people do not retire because they are old, but because they retire.
On the final evaluation criteria of life, his answer was simple and powerful: “I hope that before I die, I will not say something like ‘I should have ……’.” This quote comes from an inner monologue when his dog died in the early 90s. At that moment, he realized that what is really worth pursuing is not what others expect you to be, but what you really want to be.
His philosophy of life is not complicated: do what you really love, as long as it can support your family. “It doesn’t take much to live happily. Basic expenses, education expenditures, and living security are enough. In this era of seemingly unlimited choices, he used “minimalist values” to build the most powerful life structure.
Because of this, Vinod Khosla’s life is not only a successful template for AI investors, but also a person who is always loyal to himself, dares to clear zero, is willing to devote himself and is tender, how to build a trajectory worth looking back on.
He was not overwhelmed by love or alienated by achievement. He just made the decision he wanted to make at every critical moment. Therefore, in the end, he was able to say so calmly: “I don’t regret it.” ”
