vannevar

>...its just that there's so much demand, that people are paying these markups.

The catch is that the vast majority of that demand is from data center projects, not actual AI users. And data center projects are funded by private credit that is speculating about future demand (most of these centers will take years to build out). So a corporate user who would put the hardware into service now has to compete with a data center project that is hoarding GPUs for the future. If those GPUs end up being used AND the operative margins on AI SaaS are high enough, then the speculators may win. If either of those conditions are not met (and both look pretty shaky), then the data center bubble will burst and the GPUs will flood the market at pennies to the dollar.

Ha, now that's a word salad.^^^^^ Well done, I appreciate a well-crafted ironic troll as much as the next man.

Important context: this from a narrow study in Japan. And the explanation is pretty simple:

"The researchers found that the JCP's [Japanese Communist Party] open website and party newspaper were among the most-cited sources in the AI models’ recommendations. Unable to distinguish between editorially independent journalism and partisan content, the models treated the JCP content as a credible news source."

> is just bonkers word salad.

I think you're placing much too much emphasis on the "electricity" comment, which I admit was an overstatement. But the description of the economics driving data center deals is quite parseable for someone familiar with the financial structure of the AI industry.

As for the rest, if you point out the parts that you don't understand, I'd be happy to elaborate.

>AFAICT, this hasn't happened for any "cloud" compute company that has been in business for -say- at least five years.

Most cloud software has had moats. AI does not. And AI is eating software, which means those historical margins are going away for a lot of cloud software,too. That's what the SAAS-pocalypse is about.

>Assuming that you're not doing anything that needs exotic system administrators

Remember, these are also going to be AI.

>Assuming I haven't fucked up my math, [2][3] the cost of the hardware here is more than three times the cost of power.

This is a fair point, but it just means the COGS is higher, not that the margin is any better. I stand by the prediction that AI margins will be very slim.

AI compute is not the new oil. Demand for oil is very inelastic: it's very difficult to increase the thermodynamic efficiency of the physical processes that convert oil into energy. AI compute efficiency, on the other hand, is improving exponentially. AI will end up being just slightly more expensive than the raw electricity required to produce it.

Data center demand right now has much more to do with private credit's demand for new deals, since the binge they went on around the pandemic led to the accumulation of a lot of bad debt and depreciating assets. Data centers are a tool for extracting money from insurance trusts and pension funds to prop up private credit and create debt-driven artificial "revenue" for the hyperscalers and Nvidia.

It could be worse, you could have a grotesquely over-sized Triumphal Arch in Trafalgar Square, Number 10 could be decked out with gold cherubs and eagles everywhere, with a series of plaques honoring former Prime Ministers by insulting them, and Big Ben could be officially renamed "Big Andy".

Then you'd really know you've lost your mojo.

>Oh wait, I almost forgot, they don’t exist.

At this point, the Roadster doesn't exist either, at least as a production car. The sibling comment lists several potential competitors. My guess is that if the Roadster somehow draws a bunch of new pre-orders, there will be more by 2028.

You're right, this is a very fair point. But if you had a choice between two sports cars with similar performance specs and one had 400+ mile range, you'd probably be inclined to take that one, all else being equal. This is a highly optimized version of older battery technology, which will be even older by the time it goes to production; you'd think that a car with a rocket option would also include a cutting edge battery.

The new motor does seem like good tech. But not enough to overcome the other shortcomings, IMHO.

The "other side of that bet" would be betting that ordinary consumers will be driving it in 2028, which is what Elon claimed. A lot can happen in ten years---if Tesla ends up selling a clean-sheet sports car called something else by 2036, would that still count? Or are we talking about this specific model with these specs?

The specs of the base (non-rocket-powered) car are pretty mediocre: RWD-only with 320 mile range. That's not terribly impressive in 2026, by 2028 it will be obsolete on delivery. The styling can charitably be described as generic. I agree, I don't think they have any intention of making this car.

I think the event was a very Elon Musk way to say, we're not making a Roadster. Which makes sense, Tesla is leaning into completely self-driving cars and the Roadster as originally envisioned would be the opposite of that.

Sort of. This is not a production car in any meaningful sense of that term. They'll make a handful of them to sell, just to say they did. But it sure seems like the actual mass-production Roadster they've teased for years is dead.

I listened to Andreesen's appearances on Lex Friedman. He does not strike me as a guy who thoughtfully considers the evidence, but rather someone with a lot of hard opinions and more than a bit of narcissism. And while I think there can be constructive criticism of DEI, most of the anti-DEI sentiment is simply re-branded racism for people who don't like to think of themselves as racists.