Habitually outlandish valuations, AI’s trough of disillusionment

About this episode

Welcome to Zero Shot, The Ken’s weekly podcast that interprets the latest big moves in artificial intelligence—in India and around the world.

This week, Praveen is on leave, but our two other co-hosts held down the fort. 

Brady took inspiration from the tagline of a game show, Whose Line Is It Anyway?, to consider some of the wild claims and projections made by OpenAI. Aside from CEO Sam Altman’s public statements, he considered CFO Sarah Friar’s past professional moves, where she made similar (but not as exaggerated) claims about revenue projections when she was Nextdoor’s CEO. It’s a bit of information that retail investors could consider when OpenAI prepares to go public.

Then, Rohin described how AI products lost their novelty in 2025, entering the trough of disillusionment as described by the Gartner hype cycle. This presents an opportunity for companies that can develop products with an “anti-AI premium”, where the absence of artificial intelligence could find fans in customers. 

The cover art of Zero Shot is generated by AI. Everything else is made by humans, just like all articles, columns, newsletters, and other podcasts created by The Ken.

If you have comments, critiques, or suggestions, you should share them with us! Write in at [email protected]. We respond to every listener who contacts us.

Additional Reading

Whose Line Is It Anyway?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whose_Line_Is_It_Anyway%3F_(American_TV_series)

Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre by Keith Johnstone
https://www.amazon.com/Impro-Improvisation-Theatre-Keith-Johnstone/dp/0878301178

Why OpenAI went into crisis PR mode (in November)
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/11/06/tech/openai-backtracks-government-support-chip-investments

Nextdoor secures dismissal with prejudice in securities class action
https://www.cooley.com/news/coverage/2025/2025-11-20-nextdoor-secures-dismissal-with-prejudice-in-securities-class-action

‘How to disable all the AI features in Firefox to increase performance?’
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1556081/how-to-disable-all-the-ai-features-in-firefox-to-increase-performance

The Gartner hype cycle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner_hype_cycle

Eugen Rochko: ‘I've finally switched to the @Vivaldi browser.’
https://mas.to/@[email protected]/115737483372515885

Meta tolerates rampant ad fraud from China to safeguard billions in revenue
https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-tolerates-rampant-ad-fraud-china-safeguard-billions-revenue-2025-12-15/

LG will let TV owners delete Microsoft Copilot after customer outcry
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-18/lg-will-let-tv-owners-delete-microsoft-copilot-after-customer-complaints