"Tech investments are on a scale we've never seen before, and I don't see an economic model that supports this"
Gil Shwed, Chairman of Check Point, warns in an interview on the Calcalist Money Engines podcast that the investments by tech giants in AI, estimated at $800 billion this year, are unprecedented in scale, but he does not see an economic model that will support a return on investment in the foreseeable future. Shwed compares the current revolution to the dot-com crisis and estimates that it will take time for the economy to organize around the technology.
Gil Shwed, Chairman of Check Point, was interviewed in the first part of episode 400 of the Calcalist Money Engines podcast, in a conversation with Shai Salinas and Ori Greenfeld. Shwed, who founded Check Point in 1993 together with Shlomo Kramer and Marius Nacht, is considered the inventor of the modern firewall and received the Israel Prize in Technology in 2018. He served as the company's CEO for 30 years, the longest tenure of a CEO in a company traded on Nasdaq, and at the end of 2024 handed over the reins to Nadav Zafrir. Shwed warns that the investments by tech giants in AI, estimated at $800 billion this year and expected to cross a trillion dollars next year, are unprecedented in scale, but he does not see an economic model that will support a return on investment at this stage. He compares the current revolution to the dot-com crisis, in which many leading companies disappeared, and notes that other companies, like Google, ultimately prevailed. Shwed emphasizes that the potential of AI is enormous, but it will take time for the economy to organize around it. He also addresses the impact on programmers, explaining that writing code is becoming automated, but the true ability of a software company is to understand a market and solve problems, not just to program. Shwed is optimistic about the economic potential of AI, but stresses that the investments need to prove themselves.