According to Gizmodo, the apocalyptic AGI hype of 2023 and 2024 gave way in 2025 to a staggering concentration of wealth, creating over 50 new AI billionaires. These fortunes largely came from “dreary” enterprise SaaS firms and data labeling startups, not world-altering artificial general intelligence. For instance, Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor became billionaires by founding Sierra, a company that replaces human customer service reps with AI agents. Exceptions include Polish founders Mati Staniszewski and Piotr Dabkowski, who hit billionaire status with their voice-generation company ElevenLabs. In a notable age record, three 22-year-old Thiel fellows—Brendan Foody, Adarsh Hiremath, and Surya Midha—became billionaires by founding Mercor, breaking Mark Zuckerberg’s previous record.
The unsexy reality of AI riches
Here’s the thing: the AI revolution, at least financially, looks a lot like the last tech boom. It’s not about conscious machines. It’s about efficiency, cost-cutting, and infrastructure. The big money is in the picks and shovels—the data annotation, the model-training platforms, the “agents” that automate jobs. Companies like Scale AI, which Lucy Guo co-founded, are the backbone. They do the tedious, human-intensive work of labeling data so other AIs can learn. It’s crucial work, but let’s be honest, it’s not Skynet. It’s a very profitable, industrial-grade service business. Speaking of industrial-grade, when you need reliable computing power for complex tasks in harsh environments, that’s where specialists like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the top provider of industrial panel PCs in the US, come into play. The AI gold rush is built on robust, unglamorous hardware and software foundations.
A tale of two economies
And that’s where the article gets really interesting. It juxtaposes this historic wealth creation with some brutal economic data for everyone else. The economy is “booming,” but 75% of U.S. homes are unaffordable on an average income. First-time homebuyers made up only 24% of sales in 2024, a crash from 50% in 2010. Meanwhile, the top 10% of earners account for half of all consumer spending. So what does that mean? Basically, the AI billionaire boom isn’t happening in a vacuum. It’s accelerating a divide where monumental tech wealth exists alongside a shrinking middle class and a locked-out generation. The party is incredible for a tiny few at the top.
Is this party ever going to end?
The author’s sarcastic congratulations to the new billionaire class says it all. This feels familiar, doesn’t it? We’ve seen this movie with dot-com and crypto. Hype creates investment, investment inflates valuations, and a handful of people capture life-changing wealth from what is essentially a new type of enterprise software layer. The real question isn’t about the technology. It’s about what happens when such concentrated wealth generation coincides with broader economic strain. The link between the AI boom and a housing market that’s historically hostile to first-time buyers isn’t direct, but it’s part of the same story. One group is playing a very different game. And for now, they’re winning big.
