{"id":4680,"date":"2026-04-24T01:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T01:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/?p=4680"},"modified":"2026-04-24T01:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T01:16:09","slug":"cadence-ceo-on-the-ai-boom-and-what-it-means-for-humans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/?p=4680","title":{"rendered":"Cadence CEO on the AI boom and what it means for humans"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Anirudh Devgan has a theory about why smart people keep making the same mistakes.<\/p>\n

Every generation faces a new wave of technological disruption and responds with the same blend of overconfidence, short-termism, and reluctance to let go of what\u2019s working. The internet did it. The mainframe era did it. AI is doing it now. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe technology always evolves faster,\u201d he told Fortune backstage at Great Place to Work\u2019s For All Summit in Las Vegas, when asked about the pace of change. \u201cThere are more tools, but the human part is not different,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

What makes Devgan\u2019s perspective unusual is that he\u2019s not a philosopher: He\u2019s an engineer at the center of the AI build-out. As president and CEO of Cadence, the $90 billion-plus electronic design automation company whose software underpins the chips in everything from iPhones to AI data centers, he has a front-row seat to the most consequential technology boom in history. And he keeps seeing the same human tendencies play out\u2014in corporate boardrooms, in Washington, and in the broader culture of AI panic and AI hype.<\/p>\n

AI vs. humanity<\/p>\n

Onstage, in conversation with Great Place to Work CEO Michael C. Bush, Devgan sounded a similar tune about why he believes AI is a bit overhyped. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere is some AI washing going on,\u201d he said, referring to the practice of attributing mass layoffs to AI efficiencies that may or may not exist or ever materialize. \u201cIt is a real thing. It is a big, big thing,\u201d he told Bush, referring to projections that the semiconductor market where his customers operate was supposed to hit $1 trillion by 2030, but Devgan said it\u2019s set to hit $1.2 trillion this year\u2014impressive when you consider that in 2025, global semiconductor sales were roughly $793 billion, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of AI, the whole industry is going much faster,\u201d he continued. Devgan\u2019s levity may be a big part of why Cadence ranked No. 11 on the 100 Best Companies to Work For list in 2026.<\/p>\n

Backstage with Fortune, Devgan dismissed the idea that AI is unlike anything we\u2019ve ever seen, even as he hailed its breakthroughs. He kept coming back to a constant refrain: Humans will be human, no matter what technological changes society undergoes.<\/p>\n

Data centers aren\u2019t the real crisis<\/p>\n

That framing helps explain why Devgan is relatively unbothered by one of the loudest anxieties in tech right now: the idea that AI data centers will strain electric grids, spike utility bills, and ultimately prove energetically unsustainable.<\/p>\n

He sees it as a classic first-derivative mistake\u2014projecting a straight line from current conditions and ignoring the human ingenuity that always bends the curve. Calling it a \u201cfirst-derivative projection,\u201d he said people extrapolate from the data-center boom onto a spike in utility bills, \u201cbut human innovation always saturates.\u201d He predicted software efficiencies alone\u2014not quantum computing, not new energy sources, just better algorithms\u2014will deliver the 10x improvements in AI computation that make today\u2019s projections obsolete. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt always happens in software,\u201d the Silicon Valley veteran told Fortune. \u201cOne software change can give you 10x improvement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Balance sheet philosophy<\/p>\n

Cadence is careful with its balance sheet and debt. The company posted more than 14% revenue growth and roughly 45% non-GAAP operating margins in fiscal year 2025, making it one of the most profitable companies in tech. And yet even from that position, Devgan said he deliberately sets aside 20% of investment for what comes next\u2014recent bets including a $3 billion acquisition of Hexagon\u2019s design and engineering business.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best time to do this is when you\u2019re doing really well,\u201d he said, \u201cbecause the typical mistake is when you\u2019re doing really well, you will just try to milk what you have.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s next for tech<\/p>\n

On the question of what comes next, Devgan gets expansive. He called Waymo \u201cthe biggest breakthrough in AI in the last five years\u201d\u2014a window into a $3 trillion to $4 trillion global transportation industry on the verge of total transformation. He estimated 25% of downtown Los Angeles currently consists of parking lots\u2014real estate that should become available the moment self-driving goes mainstream. On defense, he said he sees the industry being \u201ccompletely redesigned for autonomous\u201d\u2014noting the absurdity of a $1 million missile being fired in Iran to knock down a $30,000 drone. Robotics and drug discovery are the next frontiers, for him: \u201cWe can\u2019t even imagine how different the world is going to look.\u201d<\/p>\n

And yet, in the same breath, he returns to his anchor: Human nature doesn\u2019t change. Kids today have the same worries about careers and friendships that his generation did. The nostalgia for previous eras is always misplaced. The warnings about disruption are always slightly overblown, the timelines always slightly wrong\u2014self-driving cars were supposed to arrive in 2012, he noted, and they\u2019re only arriving now.<\/p>\n

Onstage with Bush, Devgan framed this not as pessimism, but as a kind of operating principle. His biggest worry about AI adoption, he said, isn\u2019t the technology\u2014it\u2019s the disconnect between executives who are enthusiastic and employees who are skeptical. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe enthusiasm is very high at the leadership level,\u201d he said, \u201cbut there\u2019s more skepticism at the employee level\u2014and that\u2019s the real thing.\u201d His advice to leaders: Stop positioning AI purely in terms of margins and efficiency. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to bring everybody along and do it in a truthful manner, right, in a transparent\u00a0manner,\u201d he said. Not everything has to be positioned as a question of financial gains or increased margins, he added, but \u201calso how it affects the whole organization.\u201d (In other words, the human part.)<\/p>\n

#Cadence #CEO #boom #means #humans<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anirudh Devgan has a theory about why smart people keep making the same mistakes. Every…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[245],"tags":[1715,9802,585,403,2571,1511,1610],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4680"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4680\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}