# AI Risk Warnings Predated Stock Options and Contracts by Ezra Klein > “If you believe AI has a ten-percent, maybe greater, chance of extinguishing or displacing humanity, it stands to reason that you would not work at a company trying to build it. But many of these people were saying the same things ten years ago. They were saying these things before they worked at these companies, before they had stock options and enterprise-software contracts.” > **— Ezra Klein**, *The Ezra Klein Show, September 2026* ## Sources and Context - **Timecoded episode recording:** [*The Ezra Klein Show* at 16:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjZ90V_JREk&t=981s) — recording and precise locator for the source object preserved in this Reminder. - **Reconciled source dossier:** [[research/Why Are We Sprinting Off the AI Cliff - Ezra Klein on Recursive Self-Improvement|Why Are We Sprinting Off the AI Cliff?]] — preserves broadcast order, speaker attribution, editorial conventions and the surrounding argument. - **Editorial treatment:** The poster text follows the reconciled source object without substantive alteration; spoken punctuation and transcript lineation are normalized for reading. - **Context:** Klein observes that many laboratory insiders articulated severe AI risk before their current financial incentives existed. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Simple Reminders|Simple Reminders]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] - **Article:** [[articles/We Cannot Un-Strike the Match|We Cannot Un-Strike the Match]] - **Article:** [[articles/Safety Discourse Is Transition Discourse|Safety Discourse Is Transition Discourse]] - **Article:** [[articles/The Immediate AI Risk Is the Public|The Immediate AI Risk Is the Public]] - **Article:** [[articles/AI Escape Is the Wrong Metaphor|AI Escape Is the Wrong Metaphor]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/AI Risk Communication|AI Risk Communication]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/AI Risk Communication|AI Risk Communication]] - [[wiki/Frontier AI|Frontier AI]] - [[wiki/AI Safety|AI Safety]] - [[wiki/Ezra Klein|Ezra Klein]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “If you believe AI has a ten-percent, maybe greater, chance of extinguishing or displacing humanity, it stands to reason that you would not work at a company trying to build it. But many of these people were saying the same things ten years ago. They were saying these things before they worked at these companies, before they had stock options and enterprise-software contracts.” — Ezra Klein, The Ezra Klein Show, September 2026 https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-ezra-klein-ai-risk-warnings-predated-stock-options-contracts ```