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Prediction◆Video · 39:42 — 41:23

The slowness and bureaucracy of institutions is actually a white pill because AI transformation will take 20+ years, giving founders time to build

Garry offers a contrarian optimistic view: all the doom about AI replacing jobs ignores that institutions are incredibly slow to change. Society, government, and corporations move glacially, so the AI transformation will unfold over decades, not overnight. ✦ AI generated

Garry Tan · a16z Podcast · 2026-08-12 · original ↗

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starts at this moment · 39:42

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“How many of these problems do you think are intelligence-bound? Like we need smarter models versus there will be other attributes of models that will unlock success.”

All of the bureaucracy and the slowness and the seven plus or minus two of like every company, every institution, every organization, all the middle managers in the world. That is actually the white pill. So you know these things are going to be slower than you think. Society is way slower than you think. Government is way slower than you think. Every company in the world is way slower than you think. And there are real moats to these things. Like there are structural reasons why a Microsoft isn't going anywhere... the white pill to me is like it's going to be 20 years and that's not a bad thing. That's actually a good thing.

verbatim transcript · starts at 39:42

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39:42white pill. >> Okay. >> So if you look at like the tenor of what's going on just broadly in the discourse about AI, it's all like this sort of doom and gloom like all white-collar jobs are going to go away. There's going to be a permanent underclass. >> Yes. >> And then uh funny enough what I think is >> Um >> all of the bureaucracy and the slowness

40:05and the seven plus or minus two >> Uh >> of like every company, every institution, every organization, all the middle managers in the world. >> Yeah. >> That is actually the white pill. >> 100%. >> So you know these things are going to be slower than you think. >> Yes. >> Right? Uh I looked at you know, we had 7,000 people. Most of them were 18 to 22

40:27years old. >> Amazing. >> And I looked in their faces and like they're all AI native. Like they were born more or less like, you know, they became adults in the time of ChatGPT. >> Yes. >> Uh and it's going to you know, and for us it's like now we, you know, run which is nice. >> That's great, right? >> But, you know, imagine us like 20 years

40:45ago. Like, you know, we were the ones who were native to the web. We were the ones who were native to mobile. Um and then now we run so then all of society runs on the things that we expected from when we were 18 to 22. So, I think that, you know, the white pill to me is like it's going to be 20 years and that's not a bad thing. That's

41:04actually a good thing. >> Yes. >> Um like society is way slower than you think. Government is way slower than you think. Every company in the world is way slower than you think. >> Yeah. >> Um and there are real motes to these things. Like there are structural reasons why a Microsoft isn't going anywhere. >> Yes. >> Um and then I guess this is sort of a

41:23little antithetical to what most, you know, most people in Silicon Valley would say like, "I want to start up to replace all of them." >> Yeah. >> Uh and the reality is like they won't, you know? >> They won't. I love it. Okay, I have two more questions for you. Um you know, one on this kind of sort of trying to envision the near future, what do you

41:41think the next computer looks like? What does a new computer look like? >> Oh, man. I think in the short term it'll probably keep looking like the way it is, but it seems inconceivable that um it'll stay that form factor. Like it's pretty clearly going to be voice. >> Yes. >> I think there's a lot around memory. Um it's going to take a while to you know,

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