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KC Ken Chenault On Newcomer Pod

“Having lived through the internet bubble, one of the fundamental differences is the very voracious demand. It's real. I'm not saying the valuations of every company are right, but what I am saying is that the demand is outstripping the supply.”

Newcomer Pod · Startups & Venture · November 2026

“Having lived through the internet bubble, one of the fundamental differences is the very voracious demand. It's real. I'm not saying the valuations of every company are right, but what I am saying is that the demand is outstripping the supply.” — Ken Chenault, Newcomer Pod

Context

Newcomer asked whether Chenault, the former American Express CEO, worries about an AI bubble. He separates the strength of AI demand from the valuations of individual companies, drawing on his experience of the dot-com era.

Transcript

Newcomer Pod Around 1:01:02 into the episode
Ken Chenault

…what you were doing with smaller companies, but some are decent size that they had done, this is going to be incredible. And I think what's really important is this could be a real tangible example of transforming a large company, driving growth, improving service, and not having massive layoffs.

Eric Newcomer

…about an AI bubble? Like, I mean, obviously, the roll-up depends on sort of the utility of AI. In some ways, the question is: is the utility so great that people's concerns about a bubble are misguided, or you two are sort of like, I don't know, the neo-clouds, whatever. There's some risk here.

Ken Chenault

It's a mixed answer. Here's what I would say. Having lived through the internet bubble, one of the fundamental differences is the very voracious demand. It's real. I'm not saying the valuations of every company are right, but what I am saying is that the demand is outstripping the supply. That's really important. What I'd also say, Eric, is as we have, and I've thought about as we've thought about AI, we came up in 2023, which I think was pretty early. And we got some criticism from people when we talked about responsible AI. And people were saying, I remember Hamat gave a talk where saying, Hamat, you're really against innovation. I mean, how can you say responsible AI? You're…

Eric Newcomer

to get that message to resonate with founders when you have a firm like Andreessen Hororitz saying, like, do whatever the hell you want? Or like, we've got your back. Look. No matter what. Like, don't worry about scruples. Like, I mean, they literally seem to have a professed negative view at times…

Ken Chenault

Yeah, I won't even comment. I won't comment on Andreessen. They

Eric Newcomer

like to do that. I know they do. Attacking your ad and everything. But

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

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