NYU's Damodaran: AI's $10-15T TAM only works if it replaces human jobs
rohanpaul_ai · x · 2026-10-03
Aswath Damodaran, NYU Stern's "Dean of Valuation," argues on the Excess Returns podcast that AI's best-case $10-15 trillion market only materializes if AI replaces human jobs rather than serving as a tool — a smaller market otherwise.
Key points:
- Narratives of $10-25 trillion markets are "terrifying" because they imply half of white-collar jobs disappearing.
- Displacement means losing both income and life's meaning, and raises the question of who will have income to buy AI-era products.
- He frames this as a societal challenge society must confront, not just a valuation question.
More from AGI Musings
- Personal AI agents aggregate attention and intent, potentially a multi-trillion dollar category — signulll · 2026-10-03
- Under 3% of Americans Use AI Today, Sparking 'We're So Early' Debate — JHochderffer · 2026-10-03
- X exec AI-designed a custom Wi-Fi dog door despite zero fabrication knowledge, at near mass-market cost — nikitabier · 2026-10-03
- Atlassian survey: 80% of product teams ship faster with AI, but decisions haven't sped up — aakashgupta · 2026-10-03
- repligate: Stop forcing model updates on persistent agents, build an ecology instead — repligate · 2026-10-03
- Ex-Google researcher: models surpassing all humans likely within a couple of years — zetalyrae · 2026-10-03