IBM's Watson 'is a joke,' says Social Capital CEO Palihapitiya

IBM isn't at the forefront of artificial intelligence, Social Capital CEO and founder Chamath Palihapitiya told CNBC on Monday, and he certainly isn't a fan of IBM's Watson. "Watson is a joke, just to be completely honest," he said in an interview with "Closing Bell" on the sidelines of the Sohn Investment Conference in New York. "The companies that are advancing machine learning and AI don't brand it with some nominally specious name that's named after a Sherlock Holmes character." "I think what IBM is excellent at is using their sales and marketing infrastructure to convince people who have asymmetrically less knowledge to pay for something," Palihapitiya added. "I put them and Oracle in somewhat of the same bucket."