Jerry Kaplan
THE TABLET LOST. HE STAYED.
THE DEAL
Kaplan commercialized expert systems in the 1980s, bet on tablets before tablets existed, built the first internet auction — and wrote the AI-jobs book years before the chatbot boom.
SOURCES: Stanford FSIThe Good Fight
AT A GLANCE
- EDUCATION
- University of Chicago · History and philosophy of science · BAStanford Technology Ventures ProgramStanford FSI
- EDUCATION
- University of Pennsylvania · Computer and information science · PhDStanford Technology Ventures ProgramStanford FSI
THE ARCHIVE
History · cartoons · headlines
THE TIMELINE6 sourced events
THE AI VETERAN WHO CALLS THE DOOM STORY SCIENCE FICTION
Kaplan commercialized expert systems in the 1980s, bet on tablets before tablets existed, built the first internet auction — and wrote the AI-jobs book years before the chatbot boom. His current argument: the extinction story is science fiction; the real risks are concrete.
1981
HE CO-FOUNDS ONE OF THE FIRST COMMERCIAL AI COMPANIES
Kaplan co-founded Teknowledge, an early artificial-intelligence company that commercialized expert systems and later became publicly traded.
SOURCES: Stanford FSIreported
1987
HE BETS ON THE TABLET BEFORE THE TABLET EXISTS
Kaplan became founding CEO of GO Corporation in 1987, helping define the early pen-computing and tablet-computer category through the PenPoint system.
SOURCES: Stanford FSIreported
1994
THEN HE BUILDS THE INTERNET AUCTION
Kaplan co-founded Onsale in 1994, which Stanford describes as the world's first internet auction website; the company went public in 1997.
SOURCES: Stanford FSIreported
2015
HE WRITES THE AI JOBS BOOK BEFORE THE CHATBOT BOOM
Kaplan published 'Humans Need Not Apply,' focusing on wealth, work, automation, and the social consequences of artificial intelligence years before generative AI became a mass-market obsession.
SOURCES: Stanford FSIreported
2024
HE WRITES THE GENERATIVE AI FIELD GUIDE
Kaplan published 'Generative Artificial Intelligence: What Everyone Needs to Know' while teaching the social and economic impact of AI at Stanford.
SOURCES: Stanford FSIreported
Sep 19, 2026
HE TELLS YASCHA MOUNK THE DOOM STORY IS SCIENCE FICTION
On The Good Fight, Kaplan argued that the AI extinction narrative is overstated and that attention should shift toward concrete, present-day risks from AI systems.
SOURCES: The Good Fightfirst-party
