Ali Ghodsi, cofounder and CEO of Databricks, thinks AI will eventually be more transformational than the Internet and bring about the biggest changes since the Industrial Revolution. Ghodsi spoke at Money20/20 earlier this week and in an interview with Fortune expanded on his remarks.
“In my opinion, [we’re] in the beginning of the next big, giant revolution. I wouldn't compare it to the computer, I would compare it to the industrial revolution…This is the intelligence revolution,” Ghodsi said. However, he cautioned that these monumental changes won’t happen this year or next year but will likely take place faster than expected, he said.
Ghodsi was one of thousands of executives who descended on the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas for the Money20/20 conference, traditionally one of the biggest fintech events of the year. Large banks like JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup were in attendance as well as high profile fintechs like PayPal and Plaid.
Ghodsi along with Ben Horowitz, cofounder and general partner of Andreessen Horowitz, kicked off the event Sunday, giving separate talks on AI. Horowitz spoke about how he studied AI back when he was a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne in the 1980s. “We all thought it was never going to work,” he said.
AI has evolved and its potential power is “scaring people because it’s so different,” Horowitz said. “[AI] is the biggest change for us we’ve ever seen.”
Databricks’ Ghodsi told Fortune that there are risks with AI, but that society has to work hard to mitigate them. The right type of regulation is needed while companies need to make sure that the impact of AI on jobs is “done in a way that helps the general population,” Ghodsi said. Any new tech innovations, such as fire or the hammer, carried the risk that it could be misused, Ghodsi said.
Ghodsi, however, is an optimist. The Databricks CEO believes society will “overcome these challenges and we will see massive benefits to healthcare, education and science from this technology.”
He pointed to Regeneron, which discovered the genome responsible for chronic liver disease using AI. “These types of breakthroughs save lives,” he said.
Databricks is an analytics company that was valued at $43 billion over the summer. The company has been acquisitive this year. On Monday, Databricks agreed to buy Arcion, an enterprise data company, for more than $100 million. This followed Databricks’ $1.3 billion buy of MosaicML, a startup that is looking to disrupt the AI sector. Databricks is also considered a top candidate to go public. “Right now we have a huge demand on our business and we're focused on satisfying that. When the time is right, we will also go public. We don't have a date to share,” Ghodsi said.
Databricks has more than 10,000 customers, including Comcast and Condé Nast. In October, financial services became its biggest vertical, beating out healthcare.
He also dispensed a bit of career advice for anyone who is avoidant of the technology.
“In 10 years, I don't think you're eligible to be CEO of a Fortune 500 or Fortune 50 if you're not well versed in data and AI,” Ghodsi said.
See you tomorrow,
Luisa Beltran
Twitter: @LuisaRBeltran
Email: luisa.beltran@fortune.com
Submit a deal for the Term Sheet newsletter here.
Joe Abrams curated the deals section of today’s newsletter.
