If AI gains flow only to the seven firms selling it, who should pay for the transition?
Apollo’s chief economist says AI has produced zero financial payoff for the 493 non-tech S&P 500 companies while the Magnificent 7 capture all the gains. If that pattern holds, is this a normal early-adoption trough that will eventually lift wages and margins everywhere, or evidence that AI is a value-extraction tool whose costs land on workers and ordinary companies while the benefits concentrate at the top?
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In today’s episode of Minds, Bodies, and Terawatts (October 26, 2026), the hosts dig into Torsten Slok’s weekend note showing flat revenue per worker and flat margins for the S&P 493 through the entire ChatGPT era, while the seven companies selling the tools post margins near thirty percent. They weigh two readings: that we’re in the expensive early stretch of an abundance J-curve where cheap later means expensive now, or that value is simply migrating from the buyers to the sellers and may never come back down. The conversation also pushes on what Slok’s data does and doesn’t prove, including the gap between his claim that firms are pulling back and the lack of any number behind it. Listen to the full episode and tell us which reading you find more convincing, and what it means for your own job or portfolio.
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