If you're talking about dodgy accounting at hyperscalers, a larger worry might be that they are overstating profits by depreciating their assets (such as datace

If you're talking about dodgy accounting at hyperscalers, a larger worry might be that they are overstating profits by depreciating their assets (such as datacenters and CPUs/GPUs) too slowly. Estimates are that this could overstate profits by tens of percent. (However, this only allows earnings to be "pulled forward" - sooner or later the servers must be written off and the accounting catches up.) See e.g. https://deepquarry.substack.com/p/depreciation-of-gpus-between-useful https://deepquarry.substack.com/p/depreciation-of-gpus-betwe... https://www.ft.com/content/0dbfe94f-2136-432c-b075-4587092dee58 https://www.ft.com/content/0dbfe94f-2136-432c-b075-4587092de... Michael “The Big Short” Burry: > Understating depreciation by extending useful life of assets artificially boosts earnings -one of the more common frauds of the modern era. https://x.com/michaeljburry/status/1987918650104283372 https://x.com/michaeljburry/status/1987918650104283372