RT Mark Neuman, CFA
The challenges of AI:
1) Commoditization. Everyone can produce an encyclopedia now. So what! Look what happened to search engines, cloud storage, email. All prices trend to zero.
2) Is China getting fully entrenched in AI, like Deep Seek, etc? What happens to PnL then?
3) Homogenous output: 4 queries, 4 AI systems (Grok, Claude, Chat, Gemini, let's say.) Other than slight political bias inherent in the creators, how different is the output? I am saying 80% correlated, and I'm probably low. What's the moat?
4) Like any social media/clickbait/attention grabber, these AI systems want you to stick around. Why would they give you the best, perfect answer in round 1. Like, "ask me another question" type stuff is there to keep you engaged. Would they slow down retrieval? Would they create loops instead of endpoints? No, never, RIGHT??
5) Barely anyone reads newspapers anymore. Smartphones ended that. The info was ubiquitous, became free, nearly costless. How is this so uniquely different?
6) In the end, "We are the fastest, best, most unique, most trustworthy," and that's it? That's what everyone is chasing? (Like don't get me started on the 5000+ ETFs (a dozen SPCX ETFs now, like what's the distinguishing feature in any of them?)) Please.
7) All reeks of SUNW McNealy's "What were you thinking?" memo circa 1999-2000.
Henceforth, is anyone going to rely on just one system? How much pie is there to split? Especially if output values go towards zero, energy costs are higher, and there's a free version available that takes 20% longer. Time, money, value.
Does everyone know this, agree with this, or am I off base here? Just trying to read the room. I see deals left, right, and center and they are financing each other to buy more of each other's wares which are trending towards huge deflation.
Next up, where did all the FCF go?
ORCL FY2024 Q1 $9.5bln, FY2025 Q2 -$13.2bln.
AMZN Q4 2024 $38.2bln to Q1 2025 $1.2bln. FCF was negative for quarters in 2025.
GOOG 2024 $72.8Bln, 2025 approximately ZERO.
Sure it's nothing.
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AI 分析
Author retweets a critical analysis questioning AI's business model sustainability, arguing commoditization will drive prices to zero (like search/cloud/email), that output is homogenous across providers (80% correlated), and that moats are weak. Points to collapsing free cash flow at major AI infrastructure players (ORCL, AMZN, GOOG) as evidence capex is destroying value, drawing parallels to the dot-com bubble (Sun Microsystems 1999-2000). Questions whether companies financing each other's AI purchases in a deflationary environment is sustainable.