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She says something more structural than that: there's a pattern, sold by the same people, with the same contempt to social consequences and democratic rules: Ge
by Juliate 6mo ago
She says something more structural than that: there's a pattern, sold by the same people, with the same contempt to social consequences and democratic rules: GenAI, multiverse, NFTs, cryptos; what else next?
Incidentally, each "wave" justifies massive investment in the same technology: GPUs, for transformations that do not materialise _at scale_.
That raises the questions: why? Who captures the value? Who bears the cost? Why are we always skipping the audit? What happens when the "GPU bubble" bursts?
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- layer8 6mo agoI don’t think the “GPU bubble” will burst, because linear algebra is widely applicable. It’s no particular mystery that GPUs have found universal applications. I feel sympathetic towards your first paragraph, but there is no conspiracy behind the success of GPUs.
- Juliate 6mo agoI don't mean burst like that (neither a conspiracy), rather a striking coincidence: there are huge applications for GPUs, true. But the inflation of expectations and investments in them because of GenAI, when this inflation bursts may impact everything and everyone.
- Aurornis 6mo agoAnti-tech critics love to cherry-pick overhyped tech from the past and then pretend like it was the only technology investments occurring. It's always the same story about crypto, NFTs, multiverse, then they draw a line to the new thing. Rewind the clock further and the contrarian play was to talk about how WebVan and Pets.com failed, proving that internet commerce was a fad that was going away. There were so many identical stories about how dumb investors were to be spending money on e-commerce after Pets.com and WebVan proved that nobody wanted to shop online and that delivery was unworkable. More recently I remember the endless stories about how ride sharing was going to fail and Uber and Lyft were going to disappear after the VC money ran out. There were blogs just like this one predicting that those dumb investors were going to lose all their money on such a stupid idea. This type of contrarian reporting always operates on a sliding window of recent failures, trying to convince you that the current thing they're on about is identical to past failures These articles get traction on HN, but when I read them there isn't a coherent argument inside. It's just a collection of different headlines and stories meant to imply that AI is bad across the board and nobody wants it, but there isn't an argument being formed. It's appealing to those who already have the conclusion in mind, but there is no convincing argument in this post
- Juliate 6mo agoThat's kind of proving my point here. E-commerce succeeded, but not in the form Pets and WebVan proposed, and not in the timeline their investors needed. The question is not: is it useful, but (as any investor asks): does this bet, at this valuation, deliver what it promises, in time? That's the audit we need. When the bet distorts global semiconductor supply chains, displaces workers, and rides on mass IP infringement... skepticism looks more like due diligence than contrarianism.
- Aurornis 6mo agoA few early companies failing to find product-market fit before the money runs out doesn't prove anything, other than that early stage startup investing is hard. Webvan and Pets.com were held up as proof that e-commerce couldn't work at all because nobody wanted it. What really happened is that we now have e-commerce at a scale that WebVan and Pets.com couldn't even dream of. Pets.com now goes to PetSmart.com which does basically what Pets.com was trying to do and has a successful business out of it. If your point is "some early investors will lose their money" then I agree wholeheartedly. That's not a novel claim, though. It's also not what the blog post is arguing.
- ThrowawayR2 6mo agoCalling the catastrophic dotcom bust that imploded ~50% of internet companies and caused a ~90% drop in combined market valuation for the remainder and nearly wiped out market leaders like Sun Microsystems and Cisco merely as side effects "A few early companies failing to find product-market fit before the money runs out..." is a very peculiar take.
- Aurornis 6mo agoNothing peculiar about it. You’re making the same category error as the blog: Trying to equate the failure of a few companies with the failure of a technology. You’re also trying to include companies which did not fail in your argument about the dot com bubble. Cisco is a very large and thriving company today and networking equipment is everywhere. Why would you use that as an example?