Tech Explained: Who is Alap Shah? The investor whose AI “crisis” report sparked a global tech sell-off in Simple Terms

Alap Shah did not intend to become a standard-bearer for what some on Wall Street have begun calling the “AI scare trade.” Yet in a matter of days, a dense macroeconomic scenario he co-authored ricocheted from trading desks to corporate boardrooms and policy forums, unsettling investors already struggling to price the economic consequences of artificial intelligence.

As markets wrestle with what AI could mean for employment, margins and growth, Shah has emerged at the center of a debate that is as much about capital allocation as it is about code.

A graduate of Harvard University with honors in economics, Shah spent 15 years in professional investing. He began in public markets, working on global equity portfolios at Viking Global and Citadel, two of the industry’s most prominent hedge funds. He later moved into private markets, participating in leveraged buyouts and growth equity at Castanea Partners and backing early-stage companies including White Ops, Wiser, Earnest Research and Powerlytics.

In December 2011, he shifted from allocating capital to building companies, co-founding Sentieo, an artificial intelligence-powered financial research platform designed for hedge funds, mutual funds, investment banks and corporations. Shah served as chief executive until September 2020 and as chairman until May 2022. Over that period, Sentieo raised more than $70 million before being acquired by AlphaSense in 2022. He also co-founded Thistle, a health food subscription service, in 2013 and continues to serve as its chairman.

Since 2011, he has been managing partner at Lotus Technology Management and, from September 2024, chief executive of Littlebird in the New York metropolitan area.

A Scenario That Shook Markets

The recent market tremor can be traced to “The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis,” a report published by Citrini Research and co-authored by Shah and James van Geelen. The document presents itself explicitly as a scenario, not a forecast. Even so, its articulation of a possible AI-driven economic shock struck a nerve.

The report introduces the concept of “Ghost GDP,” in which productivity and corporate profits climb even as wage growth falters. It outlines an “Intelligence Displacement Spiral,” a feedback loop in which automation reduces payrolls, weakens consumer demand and prompts further cost-cutting. It also questions whether traditional software-as-a-service companies can preserve their margins if AI agents begin replicating core functions internally at far lower cost.

For India, the implications are pointed. The report argues that the country’s information technology services model — long built on cost arbitrage — could face structural strain if AI coding agents push marginal costs toward the price of electricity. It envisions contract cancellations at large firms and pressure on the rupee should the services surplus narrow.

Investors did not treat the exercise as purely theoretical. Software, payments and delivery stocks saw sharp sell-offs. In the United States, shares of IBM recorded their steepest single-day decline in 25 years after the report’s release. A software-focused exchange-traded fund fell nearly 5 percent in one session.

In India, technology stocks came under pressure as traders assessed the warnings about contract cancellations and pricing power. What had been, until recently, an abstract conversation about productivity gains became a more immediate reckoning over valuation, risk and the durability of business models in an AI-saturated economy.