How Sam Altman fooled Sundar Pichai — and pushed Google into cannibalizing itself
Sam Altman of OpenAI has led a significant strategic miscalculation that is impacting Google. Sundar Pichai's reactive response to Altman's moves has resulted in Google cannibalizing its own business model. The current AI boom is characterized by high expenditures and low returns, raising concerns about its sustainability.
- ▪Sam Altman has reframed the market perception of AI, leading to a miscalculation by Google.
- ▪Google is investing heavily in AI, which may undermine its core advertising business.
- ▪The tech industry is facing a potential financial crisis due to unsustainable spending on AI infrastructure.
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| Original publisher | Fortune |
| Canonical URL | https://fortune.com/2026/05/27/sam-altman-fooled-sundar-pichai-google-ai-search-bust-sunil-sharan/ |
| Publication time | Wed, 27 May 2026 12:30:00 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-27T12:42:59.418Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-27T12:42:59.418Z |
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| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
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Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
What we are witnessing right now is a massive, multibillion-dollar strategic miscalculation led by Sam Altman of OpenAI. For the past three years, Altman has built a market consensus around AI as an intelligent mind capable of running global commerce. In reality, AI is not a thinking intellect; it is an expensive, automated pattern-matching system prone to significant errors and inconsistencies. Yet, through a masterful reframing, Altman reshaped the market — and Sundar Pichai of Google responded in ways that may prove catastrophically self-defeating.Recommended Video Having spent years inside the energy and technology industry — including directing GE Energy’s Smart Grid Initiative — what I am documenting is a case study in executive panic and corporate self-sabotage at one of the…
Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Fortune.
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