vannevar

6 ms·

31.
by vannevar 2mo ago
No one has claimed that. Only that there is a risk that semiconductor manufacturers will be incentivized to overcommit, resulting in collateral economic damage when they fail to deliver.
32.
by vannevar 2mo ago
Yes, it happens all the time. Sometimes it's actual fraud, sometimes it happens due to unforeseen supply chain issues. Sometimes it's a gray area in between, where production is possible but the supplier hides relevant risks in or
33.
by vannevar 2mo ago
>Commodities like corn have been managing this for a long time… what’s special about chips? Chips aren't grown, for starters. They require very expensive facilities that take a long time to plan, build and start up. And ag firms are
34.
by vannevar 2mo ago
"Demand destruction" doesn't literally mean all demand is destroyed; it refers to the demand curve you reference. But as a sibling commenter notes, real business is rarely as clean as an econ textbook. In the real world, a su
35.
by vannevar 2mo ago
The problem isn't the price. No matter how much you pay, you can't take delivery of a chip that doesn't exist. Now, you could raise prices to the point where you destroy demand. But that's a tricky window to maneuver thr
36.
by vannevar 2mo ago
We could say that about a lot of infrastructure that has been recklessly placed on the open Internet because it was cheaper than more secure solutions. I would say the same about home security systems, for instance.
37.
by vannevar 2mo ago
>As the memory industry is still recovering from the challenging environment in 2023, this tight supply environment will help drive the considerable improvements in profitability and ROI (return on investment) that are needed to enable t
38.
by vannevar 2mo ago
The article focuses specifically on the economic effects of tax cuts, concluding that they have little overall positive effect on economic or job growth. This is consistent with meta-studies looking at the relevant research. To the extent t
39.
by vannevar 2mo ago
Apparently there were healthcare strikes in February that depressed the numbers there, which were resolved by March. Also maybe data center and World Cup hospitality hiring. But hard to say. As others have noted, there are big error bands o
40.
by vannevar 2mo ago
I would hardly call it a sudden reversal, looking at the downward trend in the numbers over the last six months or so. https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/non-farm-payrolls
41.
by vannevar 2mo ago
It has to get bigger. As soon as it starts shrinking, the next round of debt will no longer be able to cover the prior round of commitments. What is happening in AI is essentially a gigantic version of what is happening in consumer auto l
42.
by vannevar 3mo ago
Anecdotal evidence notwhithstanding, EVs have much lower long-term maintenance costs. See eg, https://www.energy.gov/cmei/vehicles/articles/fotw-1190-june... https://advocacy.consumerreports.org&#x
43.
by vannevar 3mo ago
>But you haven't even articulated what the loophole here is. I did, but here it is again: if you book revenue for sale of an asset where you guarantee the ROI on that asset (not on the entire business, you keep confusing those two v
44.
by vannevar 3mo ago
The right analogy here is not the auto industry, but the music industry. Regulation might "win", but margins will be driven down to commodity levels. That is not the assumption that current US AI company valuations are based on.
45.
by vannevar 3mo ago
A more useful comparison would be the share of new emissions that data centers represent, and a comparison of the growth rates of various sources of marginal new emissions (eg, from cement, or ammonia). Besides their visibility, the reaso
46.
by vannevar 3mo ago
>We don't know what the maximum is because some of the terms are confidential. So we agree on something: the $6.3B is not the cap: we don't actually know what the cap is. (And for the record, I never spoke confidently about the
47.
by vannevar 3mo ago
>Nvidia's backstop is capped at $6.3 billion... You keep saying this. That is not what the article says. It says the backstop is currently valued at $6.3B. That is not the cap. >Q1 2027 revenue of $81.6 billion is not a made
48.
by vannevar 3mo ago
I have no opinion one way or another how SF should be zoned. I'm just saying that how it is zoned is a second- or third-order effect on the rate of home-building. Land, labor and materials are the first-order effects. Now, maybe SF is
49.
by vannevar 3mo ago
You can certainly make a better case for the sentience of fish than for an abstract legal fiction like a corporation.
50.
by vannevar 3mo ago
I think you're making the same mistake the article did, focusing on the regulatory environment. My argument is that the zoning and other regulation is not the main reason Austin has more housing starts than San Francisco. The main reas
51.
by vannevar 3mo ago
>There's a problem here: you haven't actually quantified how much CoreWeave is spending versus the value of the backstop. You seem to be suggesting that for every dollar CoreWeave spends on Nvidia chips, it's getting a dol
52.
by vannevar 3mo ago
No---did you read the original article? The comment and the parent will make more sense. Basically the article compares Austin and San Fransisco and attributes the difference in building rates entirely to disparities in regulation. Which is
53.
by vannevar 3mo ago
I think the definition of an accounting loophole is something that is technically legal but nonetheless suspect because it lets you appear to get something for nothing. According to your best-case scenario, Nvidia helps CoreWeave get a loan
54.
by vannevar 3mo ago
>> ...the arrangement incentivizes Coreweave to buy chips it doesn't need >You state this as fact but this is just cynical speculation on your part. Whether CoreWeave actually bought chips it doesn't need is speculative
55.
by vannevar 3mo ago
>Austin is surrounded by empty flat land. San Francisco is surrounded by water and was built out many decades ago. This^^^. The idea that housing starts are solely (or even substantially) impacted by regulation is a case of control bias,
56.
by vannevar 3mo ago
>Screaming "accounting subterfuge!" when this is simple GAAP accounting is a different matter. Looking back up the thread, I don't see anybody screaming about anything. And I think "accounting subterfuge" is a br
57.
by vannevar 3mo ago
>CoreWeave is buying chips from Nvidia, paying Nvidia full price I'm not sure this is the case. They are agreeing to pay them some price, it's not clear whether they are getting them for cash or credit but I strongly suspect
58.
by vannevar 3mo ago
Good explanation. But whether it's GAAP compliant or not, the arrangement incentivizes Coreweave to buy chips it doesn't need. You're assuming that Nvidia will have some business need for the excess capacity, but there's
59.
by vannevar 3mo ago
>CoreWeave is using debt to make the purchases but the backstop provided by Nvidia ostensibly helps it get better loan terms. According to the article, the $6.3B is a floor, not a ceiling. And it's not clear whether CoreWeave is act
60.
by vannevar 3mo ago
It sounds like Nvidia is not only supplying GPUs first to neoclouds, it is also supplying them for free if they cannot be resold: "Furthermore, in the case of CoreWeave, Nvidia has also provided a significant financial backstop against

More ›