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> He told the BBC that the company owns what he called a “full stack” of technologies, from chips to YouTube data to models and frontier science research. This

by lesuorac 11mo ago

> He told the BBC that the company owns what he called a “full stack” of technologies, from chips to YouTube data to models and frontier science research. This integrated approach, he suggested, would help the company weather any market turbulence better than competitors. I guess but is it better for an investor to own 2 shares of Google or 1 share of OpenAI and 1 share of TSMC? Like I have no doubt that being vertically integrated as a single company has lot of benefits but one can also create a trust that invests vertically as well.

jmalicki 11mo ago
There may be firm specific risk etc., but there is also a concept of double marginalization, where monopolies that exist across the vertical layers of a production chain will be less efficient than a single monopoly, because you only get a single layer of dead weight loss rather than multiple. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_marginalization?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_marginalization?wprov=s...
pphysch 11mo ago
OpenAI going poof would have a negative impact on TSMC demand (revenue), right?
- wmf 11mo ago
  Yeah, TSMC demand might go down from 300% to 100%.
  - jaennaet 11mo ago
    So yes, it would have an effect; even with your imaginary numbers that'd be a 3x drawdown
    - convolvatron 11mo ago
      it might bring in the schedules, but since it probably wouldn't cause there to be an actual hole, its really more about long term fab build plans than anything else
      - JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
        > since it probably wouldn't cause there to be an actual hole, its really more about long term fab build plans than anything else Equities are forward looking. TSMC's valuation doesn't make sense if it doesn't have a backlog to grow into.
        jaennaet 11mo ago
        Exactly. A drop in the expected growth would absolutely cause a drop in valuation as investors reassess their holdings
nradov 11mo ago
OpenAI is privately held. Regular retail investors can't buy shares.
boringg 11mo ago
Well if AI goes poof - the equity markets take a really big bad hit. So I would probably move out of equity and into something more concrete and reinvest if you can time the market bottom. Nvidia earnings tomorrow will be the litmus test if things are going to topple over.
paxys 11mo ago
With those 2 shares of Google you are also buying a piece of their money printer, i.e. the advertising business.
Quotation1898 11mo ago
In more traditional industries investors seem to prefer less integration. One example being Siemens, who divested their Healthineers and Energy divisions and all their share values increased by a lot. Maybe this is because these industries are better understood and there is less risk involved, but I wonder if the current big software companies will take similar paths in the future.
- carefulfungi 11mo ago
  Investors often prefer stocks that are not themselves a portfolio (like AWS and Amazon retail being bundled; or your Siemens example). Lots of people would like to buy into AWS's margins without also buying Amazon retail's margins. But this is different from vertical integration that creates competitive advantage.

jmalicki 11mo ago

There may be firm specific risk etc., but there is also a concept of double marginalization, where monopolies that exist across the vertical layers of a production chain will be less efficient than a single monopoly, because you only get a single layer of dead weight loss rather than multiple. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_marginalization?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_marginalization?wprov=s...

pphysch 11mo ago

OpenAI going poof would have a negative impact on TSMC demand (revenue), right?

wmf 11mo ago
Yeah, TSMC demand might go down from 300% to 100%.
- jaennaet 11mo ago
  So yes, it would have an effect; even with your imaginary numbers that'd be a 3x drawdown
  - convolvatron 11mo ago
    it might bring in the schedules, but since it probably wouldn't cause there to be an actual hole, its really more about long term fab build plans than anything else
    - JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
      > since it probably wouldn't cause there to be an actual hole, its really more about long term fab build plans than anything else Equities are forward looking. TSMC's valuation doesn't make sense if it doesn't have a backlog to grow into.
      - jaennaet 11mo ago
        Exactly. A drop in the expected growth would absolutely cause a drop in valuation as investors reassess their holdings

nradov 11mo ago

OpenAI is privately held. Regular retail investors can't buy shares.

boringg 11mo ago

Well if AI goes poof - the equity markets take a really big bad hit. So I would probably move out of equity and into something more concrete and reinvest if you can time the market bottom. Nvidia earnings tomorrow will be the litmus test if things are going to topple over.

paxys 11mo ago

With those 2 shares of Google you are also buying a piece of their money printer, i.e. the advertising business.

Quotation1898 11mo ago

In more traditional industries investors seem to prefer less integration. One example being Siemens, who divested their Healthineers and Energy divisions and all their share values increased by a lot. Maybe this is because these industries are better understood and there is less risk involved, but I wonder if the current big software companies will take similar paths in the future.

carefulfungi 11mo ago
Investors often prefer stocks that are not themselves a portfolio (like AWS and Amazon retail being bundled; or your Siemens example). Lots of people would like to buy into AWS's margins without also buying Amazon retail's margins. But this is different from vertical integration that creates competitive advantage.