Broadcom CEO compares AI investors to casino gamblers, Moneta’s Devitt pushes back

The company selling the shovels just suggested the gold miners might be gambling. Broadcom CEO Hock Tan, whose firm booked $16.7 billion in AI revenue last quarter, compared many AI investors to casino gamblers at the DBS Asia Future Forward Conference on October 12, 2026. Markets took the remark personally. The iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) fell around 3% that same day, and Broadcom’s own shares slipped about 2%. Not everyone accepted the premise. Aoifinn Devitt of Moneta pushed back, arguing that the current AI market correction is a natural one and that the casino comparison overstates the risks investors are actually taking on. What Tan actually said Tan also likened enterprise spending on AI tokens to kids at an arcade, burning through tokens quickly and walking away having learned nothing. Tan also aimed some skepticism at the AI labs themselves. Many of these labs lose money, and he questioned whether that model holds up over the long run, even with healthy revenue coming in now. He pointed to OpenAI as an example of strong near-term numbers. According to Tan, the company’s annualized revenue run rate reached approximately $50 billion by September 2026. Perhaps his most c...