OpenAI Investor Vinod Khosla Says Hollywood’s “Tunnel-Vision Creatives” Are Missing the Point of Sora

The billionaire venture capitalist argues that AI video will broaden—not shrink—the creator class, even as studios and unions brace for disruption.

Collision Conf, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, one of OpenAI’s earliest and loudest backers, says Hollywood’s backlash to Sora is history repeating itself. In his view, the same “tunnel-vision creatives” who once dismissed digital music and smartphone filmmaking are now resisting a tool that could eventually expand—not erode—the business of making visual stories.

Speaking after the release of Sora 2, OpenAI’s upgraded video generator that hit the top of Apple’s download charts within a week, Khosla framed the controversy in familiar terms: every medium starts messy before it scales. The short clips flooding social feeds—some impressive, others chaotic—represent, he says, the same growing pains that accompanied YouTube and TikTok’s early years. “People underestimate what happens when millions of hands get the tool,” Khosla argued, calling Sora’s rough start a “feature of innovation, not a bug.”

That argument carries weight because it points to where the money is moving. Venture firms are now pouring capital into companies that collapse the distance between idea and finished clip. A single creator can test ten storyboard versions in an afternoon; a small brand can generate a polished ad without renting a studio. For investors, that’s an irresistible efficiency play. For Hollywood labor groups, it’s an existential threat.

Even Khosla acknowledges that guardrails are required. OpenAI has promised more granular controls for copyright owners and is exploring revenue-sharing frameworks that would allow studios or artists to opt into training programs and earn royalties when their work helps power new content. The challenge, as ever, is execution: moderation, attribution, and enforcement all have to move at algorithmic speed.

Inside the industry, the cultural divide is widening. Traditional filmmaking depends on discrete crafts—camera, lighting, sound, editing—while generative tools merge them into a single interface. Unions see that as jurisdictional erosion; technologists call it liberation. The near-term outcome is likely hybrid: Sora automating pre-visualization, sizzle reels, and social-media promos long before it touches high-end narrative production. Audiences, not studios, may ultimately decide how fast the line blurs.

Khosla’s message cuts close to Hollywood’s insecurities. The business is expensive, the timelines slow, and new competitors—from TikTokers to indie AI auteurs—are moving faster. To investors, the next generation of editors, animators, and directors will be AI-native by default, just as digital cameras replaced film stock twenty years ago. The bet from Sand Hill Road is simple: creation will expand, not retreat—and the people who complain the loudest today will end up using the same tools tomorrow.