Don't Look Up

Again, Zitron provides the numbers for his theories and they’re very compelling.

I’m still not seeing any equally compelling arguments as to why this is not the case. Only accusations of doomerism and links to him calling the bubble collapse early.

Ctrl-F “amortiz”: Not Found

Microsoft’s total depreciation and amortization in Q2 2027 was $11B - not clear how much of this is AI related. Apparently they had $34B in AI ARR as of May.

So let’s say their AI capex amortization and revenue are about equal. Not amazing, obviously they’re relying on continued growth, but doesn’t seem like the end of the world?

Compare that to Ed’s framing - Microsoft has $34B in revenue but spent $116B in capex last year to “make it”. They’re doomed!

But that capex spend is to make future revenue. Clearly he assumes demand won’t increase in the future, and that future projected revenue is “fake”. And sure, it definitely might not increase enough to make profitability.

But his whole analysis hinges on that one assumption. The entire article, all the numbers he gish gallops at you, could basically be replaced with “I don’t think AI demand and revenue will increase much beyond today.” Yeah, we know.

> The other problem is the monstrous and abusive marketing campaign from the AI industry itself, and those who use AI on a regular basis. If you are against the consensus that AI will grow ever-larger every single quarter forever, you will be harassed and dogpiled across multiple social media platforms by everyone from AI influencers to actual journalists. The fact that it’s more professionally dangerous to critique the powerful than it is to align with them is disgusting, but I should be clear that these tactics only reinforce that I’m on the right track.

> As Nik Suresh noted in his recent piece, refusing to say that AI is giving you massive productivity benefits will lead to actual professional consequences, because so much is riding on the overall grift about what AI can do (which is much, much less than the boosters will promise). This runs antithetical to productivity or good sense, and everybody involved in it should be both eternally shamed and shunned from any sensible business.

> And while the AI industry and its fandom will claim that people like me are “skeptics” and “haters,” the outright hatred and vitriol that they spew for not falling in line behind a nakedly false narrative built on outright disinformation is disgraceful.

sigh