Co-founder of online brokerage firm Zerodha and popular social media podcaster Nikhil Kamath shared excerpts from his recent interaction with US artificial intelligence (AI) giant Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and asked who the new consumer is in the modern automation- and technology-leaning world.
In a post on social media, Nikhil Kamath said, “Capital can no longer be a moat if increased productivity inevitably leads to deflation.”
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A quote from a career entrepreneur and investor comes to mind as Kamath challenges the world on how in this modern era of artificial intelligence (AI), capital alone can no longer serve as a long-term competitive advantage (also known as the economic moat) if productivity increases, leading to deflation in the economy.
What was Kamath’s question?
Nikhil Kamath questioned that AI companies that are still not profitable but have “cuckoo” valuations and if these companies are set to cut most jobs, where will the revenue growth come from and who will be the new consumer in a capitalist world if not the people themselves.
“One thing I asked is, for all the AI companies that aren’t really profitable yet and have great valuations; if they’re making most jobs redundant, including high-paying ones from consultants to programmers to doctors and engineers, where is the revenue growth coming from and who is the new consumer in the capitalist world we live in?” Kamath said on his post.
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Kamath’s opinion comes via X’s social media post on Wednesday, February 25, 2026, where he also said that if AI is going to change the world, right now Dario Amodei is at the absolute top of “this new world.”
Nikhil Kamath and Dario Amodei’s interaction comes as Anthropic recently launched its new AI tools along with announcements that shook Wall Street to its core and affected tech stocks like IBM in US markets.
“Is a tsunami catching up to us?” — Dario’s take on AI
In a podcast with Nikhil Kamath, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said that while today’s AI systems operate mainly in virtual environments, building capable robots is ultimately a technical skill that can improve over time.
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He also suggested that advanced forms of artificial intelligence systems can help humans improve at designing and developing robotics; however, it is a gradual process and people have to figure it out step by step and adapt to the technology.
“It’s like this tsunami is coming at us and it’s so close. We see it on the horizon and yet people say it’s not really a tsunami. It’s just a trick of the light,” Dario Amodei said in the podcast.
Amodei also said that if companies deploy AI “in the wrong way”, then there is a chance that humans can become “dumber”. He also mentioned in the podcast that AI is not bad from his point of view; it’s just that people need to point the technology in the right direction to benefit from it.
Speaking about the future of artificial intelligence, he acknowledged that the future may bring more disruption. “Now, that may not be true everywhere. And maybe over time AI will advance in areas where it hasn’t yet advanced. And maybe that will happen quickly,” he said.
