Primitive Ventures founder Dovey says AI is creating a "permanent underclass" as wealth splits widen in the U.S. and China
Primitive Ventures founder Dovey used a long-form essay to describe what she sees as a harsher social order taking shape in the AI era: enormous wealth creation for a narrow group tied to companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic, and shrinking security for a far larger pool of workers. Writing about San Francisco’s tech scene, she said the phrase “permanent underclass” has started circulating as hiring remains below pre-pandemic levels and roughly 50,000 tech jobs have disappeared in repeated waves of AI-driven cost cutting. She also cited estimates that upcoming IPOs at OpenAI and Anthropic could create more than 3,000 new fortunes above $10 million, including 800 above $100 million. The essay then widened into a comparison of household balance sheets and consumption patterns in the United States and China. Dovey argued that U.S. consumer resilience masks a split between high-income households supported by asset gains and lower-income groups relying more heavily on credit. For China, she said the collapse of property’s role as the core anchor of household wealth has pushed families toward saving and debt reduction, even as some income data remains positive. The piece ends by shifting from macroeconomics to philosophy, questioning whether work can still anchor identity and meaning in a period when career paths no longer offer the same stability.
