The Cerebral Valley conference, organized by Eric Newcomer in San Francisco, recently held its third annual event. This year’s gathering included over 300 participants comprising AI company founders, investors, engineers, product leaders, and media representatives. A significant portion of the conference focused on results from an anonymous audience survey regarding industry predictions.
Key survey results revealed expectations for OpenAI’s annualized revenue to reach approximately $30 billion by the end of 2026. Respondents projected Nvidia’s valuation to potentially hit $6 trillion within the same timeframe. Participants speculated on an independent committee of experts declaring the achievement of artificial general intelligence (AGI), with many anticipating this milestone could occur by 2030.
The survey also indicated which venture capital firms attendees admired most, with Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures, and Sequoia receiving top votes. When asked about investments in private technology companies, Anthropic, OpenAI, Cursor, Anduril, and SpaceX topped the list of preferred choices. Among companies likely to lead the LMArena web development leaderboard by 2026, OpenAI was ranked first, followed by Anthropic, Gemini, Grok, and Qwen.
Additionally, participants were asked which startups they would consider shorting; Perplexity and OpenAI ranked highest in this category. Notably, discussions at the conference highlighted some diminishing enthusiasm for AGI compared to previous years, with attendees appearing more focused on present business applications of AI rather than long-term AGI goals.
Conversations also touched upon the prevalence of “reverse acquihires” within the industry, driven by competition among large tech firms for top talent and the financial resources available for such moves. Overall, the events at the conference underscored shifting priorities in the AI sector and prompted questions regarding future developments and market dynamics.
Source: https://www.theverge.com/column/820664/cerebral-valley-conference-ai-anonymous-survey