Anirudh Devgan has a concept about why good individuals maintain making the identical errors.
Each technology faces a brand new wave of technological disruption and responds with the identical mix of overconfidence, short-termism, and reluctance to let go of what’s working. The web did it. The mainframe period did it. AI is doing it now.
“The technology always evolves faster,” he advised Fortune backstage at Nice Place to Work’s For All Summit in Las Vegas, when requested concerning the tempo of change. “There are more tools, but the human part is not different,” he mentioned.
What makes Devgan’s perspective uncommon is that he’s not a thinker: He’s an engineer on the heart of the AI build-out. As president and CEO of Cadence, the $90 billion-plus digital design automation firm whose software program underpins the chips in all the things from iPhones to AI information facilities, he has a front-row seat to probably the most consequential know-how increase in historical past. And he retains seeing the identical human tendencies play out—in company boardrooms, in Washington, and within the broader tradition of AI panic and AI hype.
AI vs. humanity
Onstage, in dialog with Nice Place to Work CEO Michael C. Bush, Devgan sounded the same tune about why he believes AI is a bit overhyped.
“There is some AI washing going on,” he mentioned, referring to the follow of attributing mass layoffs to AI efficiencies that will or might not exist or ever materialize. “It is a real thing. It is a big, big thing,” he advised Bush, referring to projections that the semiconductor market the place his prospects function was alleged to hit $1 trillion by 2030, however Devgan mentioned it’s set to hit $1.2 trillion this yr—spectacular when you think about that in 2025, international semiconductor gross sales had been roughly $793 billion, in line with the Semiconductor Business Affiliation.
“Because of AI, the whole industry is going much faster,” he continued. Devgan’s levity could also be an enormous a part of why Cadence ranked No. 11 on the 100 Greatest Firms to Work For record in 2026.
Backstage with Fortune, Devgan dismissed the concept AI is in contrast to something we’ve ever seen, at the same time as he hailed its breakthroughs. He stored coming again to a relentless chorus: People might be human, it doesn’t matter what technological modifications society undergoes.
Knowledge facilities aren’t the actual disaster
That framing helps clarify why Devgan is comparatively unbothered by one of many loudest anxieties in tech proper now: the concept AI information facilities will pressure electrical grids, spike utility payments, and in the end show energetically unsustainable.
He sees it as a traditional first-derivative mistake—projecting a straight line from present circumstances and ignoring the human ingenuity that all the time bends the curve. Calling it a “first-derivative projection,” he mentioned individuals extrapolate from the data-center increase onto a spike in utility payments, “but human innovation always saturates.” He predicted software program efficiencies alone—not quantum computing, not new power sources, simply higher algorithms—will ship the 10x enhancements in AI computation that make at present’s projections out of date.
“It always happens in software,” the Silicon Valley veteran advised Fortune. “One software change can give you 10x improvement.”
Steadiness sheet philosophy
Cadence is cautious with its stability sheet and debt. The corporate posted greater than 14% income development and roughly 45% non-GAAP working margins in fiscal yr 2025, making it one of the crucial worthwhile corporations in tech. And but even from that place, Devgan mentioned he intentionally units apart 20% of funding for what comes subsequent—latest bets together with a $3 billion acquisition of Hexagon’s design and engineering enterprise.
“The best time to do this is when you’re doing really well,” he mentioned, “because the typical mistake is when you’re doing really well, you will just try to milk what you have.”
What’s subsequent for tech
On the query of what comes subsequent, Devgan will get expansive. He referred to as Waymo “the biggest breakthrough in AI in the last five years”—a window right into a $3 trillion to $4 trillion international transportation trade on the verge of complete transformation. He estimated 25% of downtown Los Angeles at present consists of parking heaps—actual property that ought to turn out to be accessible the second self-driving goes mainstream. On protection, he mentioned he sees the trade being “completely redesigned for autonomous”—noting the absurdity of a $1 million missile being fired in Iran to knock down a $30,000 drone. Robotics and drug discovery are the following frontiers, for him: “We can’t even imagine how different the world is going to look.”
And but, in the identical breath, he returns to his anchor: Human nature doesn’t change. Children at present have the identical worries about careers and friendships that his technology did. The nostalgia for earlier eras is all the time misplaced. The warnings about disruption are all the time barely overblown, the timelines all the time barely incorrect—self-driving vehicles had been alleged to arrive in 2012, he famous, and so they’re solely arriving now.
Onstage with Bush, Devgan framed this not as pessimism, however as a sort of working precept. His largest fear about AI adoption, he mentioned, isn’t the know-how—it’s the disconnect between executives who’re enthusiastic and workers who’re skeptical.
“The enthusiasm is very high at the leadership level,” he mentioned, “but there’s more skepticism at the employee level—and that’s the real thing.” His recommendation to leaders: Cease positioning AI purely when it comes to margins and effectivity.
“We need to bring everybody along and do it in a truthful manner, right, in a transparent manner,” he mentioned. Not all the things needs to be positioned as a query of monetary positive factors or elevated margins, he added, however “also how it affects the whole organization.” (In different phrases, the human half.)
