The AI boom has turned the standard profit margin model on its head, according to Apollo Chief Economist Torsten Slok—and it’s making the industry’s growth unsustainable.
Together they’re on the hook for over a trillion dollars in lease payments, so far, that haven’t started yet. They’re counting on turning a profit before they need to start paying that back. That’s why they’re shoving it down our throats, they either make this shit work or they go down in flames.
I’m betting they go down in flames, base on the absolute shit-show “AI” has turned out to be. They keep claiming they have fixed it, or they will fix it, and then it shits the bed again in some public, spectacular way.
For some reason, I find this satisfying and funny. The landscape has been changing. The open-weight models from Chinese labs are getting really good and becoming a serious threat to the closed models from American AI companies.
Interestingly, Google, Meta, and Microsoft — who all have revenue streams outside of AI — recognize the threat are getting more supportive about open-weight models. Anthropic and OpenAI support keeping models closed for “safety” reasons.
I mean that’s 4 companies though, so we’re like saying “Microsoft has something like 250 billion in leases”… But they are “worth” over 3 trillion and hold assets worth 2-3 times those leases. Don’t think it’s enough to sink those large companies, it’s just general investing at their scale now I guess.
Personally I think they are all overvalued, but unless all their shit flops quickly, they’ll be around in 10 years still.
Together they’re on the hook for over a trillion dollars in lease payments, so far, that haven’t started yet. They’re counting on turning a profit before they need to start paying that back. That’s why they’re shoving it down our throats, they either make this shit work or they go down in flames.
https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/ai-data-centre-race-builds-1-trillion-lease-burden-big-tech-2026-08-04/
I’m betting they go down in flames, base on the absolute shit-show “AI” has turned out to be. They keep claiming they have fixed it, or they will fix it, and then it shits the bed again in some public, spectacular way.
I bet they get bailed one last time by the government, then people start dying fast.
For some reason, I find this satisfying and funny. The landscape has been changing. The open-weight models from Chinese labs are getting really good and becoming a serious threat to the closed models from American AI companies.
Interestingly, Google, Meta, and Microsoft — who all have revenue streams outside of AI — recognize the threat are getting more supportive about open-weight models. Anthropic and OpenAI support keeping models closed for “safety” reasons.
I think when they start feeling the flames, they’ll also pull us into it. Like selling LLMs meant for exploits and cyberwarfare to the public.
I mean that’s 4 companies though, so we’re like saying “Microsoft has something like 250 billion in leases”… But they are “worth” over 3 trillion and hold assets worth 2-3 times those leases. Don’t think it’s enough to sink those large companies, it’s just general investing at their scale now I guess.
Personally I think they are all overvalued, but unless all their shit flops quickly, they’ll be around in 10 years still.