Why the Markets Are Pricing AI Wrong | Gavin Baker — Transcript
Full transcript
- 0:00I want to be scared, you know, I don't
- 0:01want to feel like a lunatic watching
- 0:04these stocks get more cheaper thinking
- 0:07the expected forward returns are growing
- 0:09up. I may be kind of missing out here
- 0:12this week.
- 0:13>> pressure test?
- 0:14>> Yeah.
- 0:14>> Yeah.
- 0:15>> Find tell me something negative, but I
- 0:18haven't been able to find one that is
- 0:20like a quantitative metric. The
- 0:21underlying fundamentals are improving.
- 0:24Uh and stocks Nvidia's actually has we
- 0:27record this
- 0:28at its lowest forward PE of the last 10
- 0:32years. The market 100% thinks they're
- 0:34significantly overvalued.
- 0:48>> Gavin, [music] it's only been 2 months
- 0:49like the model release cycles, the gap
- 0:52between our podcast episodes are
- 0:54shortening.
- 0:55>> [laughter]
- 0:55>> We're basically you and I are basically
- 0:57on a model release cadence at this
- 0:58point.
- 0:59>> Well, I was I was sensitive to criticism
- 1:01that um
- 1:02that I think somebody pointed out that
- 1:04um our podcasts were coincident with
- 1:07like
- 1:08local market peaks.
- 1:10>> [laughter]
- 1:11>> And nobody can say that after this.
- 1:14>> What's on your mind? It's been a crazy
- 1:16crazy month.
- 1:18>> Yeah, I would describe
- 1:19um
- 1:20July as 2022
- 1:22in a month.
- 1:23>> Yeah.
- 1:23>> There are some fundamental negatives
- 1:25which you which we should talk.
- 1:27But like on on the whole, the balance of
- 1:30fundamentals I think is improving
- 1:33significantly. Loads of AI names are
- 1:36down 50 60% from their highs. We'll call
- 1:40it 40 to 60% in a month in a straight
- 1:44line.
- 1:45And I asked you before we started,
- 1:47you've you've been out here for the
- 1:48summer. Have you heard a single negative
- 1:53quantitative metric about AI?
- 1:55>> Yeah.
- 1:55>> A single instance of deceleration.
- 1:57>> Nothing.
- 1:58>> Nothing.
- 1:59In fact, every metric is accelerating.
- 2:02>> And to your point, not just blind
- 2:03optimism from people excited about AI.
- 2:06Here's some data that they can show you
- 2:08and from their different vantage points.
- 2:09>> Absolutely. I mean, however you cut it,
- 2:12whether you cut
- 2:13GPU availability, whether you cut GPU
- 2:15retail pricing,
- 2:17I mean, whether you cut like the spot
- 2:19price of DRAM this month,
- 2:22token growth,
- 2:24everything is actually accelerated.
- 2:27And I do think a big part of the problem
- 2:30is
- 2:31one, the market does not have visibility
- 2:35into Anthropic, OpenAI, and then I would
- 2:37say these open-source inference clouds
- 2:39that monetize inference here in America,
- 2:41Fireworks, Baseten, Model together.
- 2:44>> [snorts]
- 2:44>> And the picture looks very different
- 2:46when you see that. Because open-source
- 2:49is accelerated massively because of GLM
- 2:515.2 KiB K3.
- 2:53And then, you know, Neurotron continues
- 2:56to kind of chug along. We had a great,
- 2:58you know, very small American
- 3:00open-source model release. OpenAI has
- 3:02accelerated.
- 3:04Anthropic continues to grow
- 3:06really strongly
- 3:08and is almost certainly pumping out
- 3:10significant amounts of free cash flow.
- 3:13And I just think if, you know, there's
- 3:14this chart that everybody looks at of
- 3:17semiconductor cash flow going like this
- 3:20and hyperscale cash
- 3:22free cash flow going like that,
- 3:24and is you're missing these private
- 3:26companies. And then, I also think that
- 3:28that chart,
- 3:30um,
- 3:31misses something very important, which
- 3:34is just that you have everyone in '24
- 3:36and '25 thought, even if you were really
- 3:39bullish, you thought that GPU prices, if
- 3:41you were really bullish, you thought
- 3:42they would to price around a GPU would,
- 3:45you know, decline slowly. You know, if
- 3:47you're bearish, you thought it would
- 3:48decline precipitously.
- 3:51I I think anyone in 24 or 25
- 3:54thought that the prices of old GPUs
- 3:58would still be would be going vertical
- 4:01in 2026.
- 4:03Yeah, and so everybody thought hey,
- 4:05we're going to be smart. We're going to
- 4:07sign these long-term contracts.
- 4:09And to some degree like a lot of the
- 4:10deal clouds had to do that because they
- 4:12needed an off-take agreement to finance
- 4:14the GPUs.
- 4:16And so essentially you have the
- 4:18contracted base of installed compute
- 4:22trading at a massive discount
- 4:25to the current spot market.
- 4:27And
- 4:29has those
- 4:31contracts roll off and compute gets
- 4:33repriced higher.
- 4:35It's spot could decline and compute will
- 4:37still get repriced higher.
- 4:40You know, I think you're going to see a
- 4:41lot of acceleration that's going to
- 4:43answer these ROI questions.
- 4:45You've started to see that this quarter
- 4:46if we look at operating cash flow, not
- 4:48free cash flow. Operating cash flow
- 4:51from Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon has
- 4:53reported accelerated from 28 to 32.
- 4:56There were some actually pretty big
- 4:58unusual items now like these
- 4:59hyperscalers they always seem to have
- 5:02like
- 5:03billions of dollars of legal expenses
- 5:05that are unusual.
- 5:07Mostly fines to the EU.
- 5:10But there was an unusual amount of
- 5:12one-timers this
- 5:14this quarter. If you adjust for that, we
- 5:15went from 28 to 35 and that's that's a
- 5:18that's a material acceleration at this
- 5:20scale.
- 5:21And that's really before
- 5:24like they start to light up the Rubins
- 5:26which will come at a meaningful premium
- 5:28before these contracts reprice. It's
- 5:32been a it's been a it's been a
- 5:33challenging month that it's almost um
- 5:37you know, like is it helpful to kind of
- 5:38like walk through the month? How we got
- 5:40here? You know, so first there's Meta is
- 5:43going to rent out compute. And this is
- 5:45seen as like very bearish. They have
- 5:47excess capacity. They're going to cut
- 5:49CapEx.
- 5:50This is a disaster. This is not at all
- 5:53what it was. They just reported. They
- 5:55didn't cut CapEx. What it was is they
- 5:58saw SpaceX have a big installed base of
- 6:01compute
- 6:02and sell some big trading optimized
- 6:05clusters into the market at a truly
- 6:08massive premium to these contracted
- 6:10rates.
- 6:11And
- 6:13you know, at least the at least at least
- 6:15analysts like that, they saw an
- 6:16opportunity. There's a lot of
- 6:18speculation they're going to raise
- 6:19capital. So, like
- 6:21you know, maybe what they're thinking is
- 6:23like, "Hey, we will show on a small
- 6:25chunk of capacity that we can generate
- 6:28really strong IRRs. Then we'll go raise
- 6:31equity capital and and we'll and we'll
- 6:33be off to the and we'll be off to the
- 6:35races and probably raise CapEx."
- 6:37It doesn't look like what that's what
- 6:39they're doing. But nevertheless, the
- 6:41market sold off because it interpreted
- 6:43this very negatively.
- 6:45And
- 6:46I was really sure it wasn't negative.
- 6:49You know, there's a lot of telemetry
- 6:51into Meta's CapEx plans. None of that
- 6:53telemetry had shifted at all. If
- 6:56anything, it was, you know, continuing
- 6:58to or continued to get more aggressive.
- 7:01And then shortly after that, they
- 7:02released their best model in a long
- 7:04time, use 1.1, which is actually really
- 7:07a very good model. I mean, it was
- 7:08overshadowed by Grok 4.5,
- 7:11but it was a good model.
- 7:12Um way better than anything in two
- 7:15years. So, just
- 7:16no chance they're taking their foot off
- 7:18the gas. Then Kimi comes out.
- 7:21And then there's this huge freak out
- 7:23about open source. And at the same time,
- 7:25this silica data
- 7:27token index kind of dips and flattens.
- 7:31And the two are connected. What the
- 7:32silica data token index captures is mix.
- 7:36And they don't see all the tokens, but
- 7:38because of GLM 5.2 and and and and then
- 7:41Kimi, all of it took a while to layer
- 7:43in.
- 7:44There's kind of a
- 7:45a mix shift in this data from more
- 7:48expensive frontier tokens, which
- 7:50probably have an inference margin
- 7:52we can debate whether it's 80, 90, or
- 7:5495.
- 7:55>> Yeah.
- 7:55>> But super high.
- 7:57Towards open source tokens.
- 8:00And for whatever reason, the market
- 8:02thought this was negative, but the
- 8:03reality is a token is a token, and you
- 8:05need the exact same amount of compute
- 8:08to make a token all else equal. Takes
- 8:10the same amount of flops, the same
- 8:12amount of memory,
- 8:14the same amount of watts. Now, tokens
- 8:16are not equal, but broadly speaking,
- 8:18all open source taking
- 8:21share does is kind of
- 8:23take margin dollars
- 8:26out of the
- 8:28uh frontier model layer
- 8:30and effectively by
- 8:32thereby, you know, there there is
- 8:33elasticity, thereby driving token
- 8:36demand.
- 8:37You need more demand for compute. And
- 8:39the margins, you know, Anthropic and
- 8:44open source, they all run on the same
- 8:46underlying cloud providers
- 8:48who charge the same amount of compute.
- 8:51You know, so you're literally just um
- 8:53taking margin from frontier models and
- 8:56essentially driving more margin dollars
- 8:58into the AI infrastructure layer. And
- 9:01like I think that's
- 9:03>> That was the catalyst. This this
- 9:04combination of things.
- 9:05>> Well, yeah, then it kept it it's it's
- 9:07like Jenson is the world's largest
- 9:09supporter of open source.
- 9:11Do we really And he's like a super
- 9:13idealistic guy. He's a patriotic
- 9:14American.
- 9:15I think he always does what's right.
- 9:19But is it does it really stand to reason
- 9:23that Jenson would be the world's biggest
- 9:25supporter of open source if it was bad
- 9:27for his business?
- 9:29>> [laughter]
- 9:30>> He'd still support if it was the right
- 9:31thing for the world.
- 9:32>> Yeah.
- 9:33>> But maybe it wouldn't be a signature
- 9:35issue.
- 9:36>> Yeah.
- 9:36>> And by the way, I think open source is
- 9:37really important to world where there's
- 9:39just one or two dominant for tier
- 9:40bottles that charge like
- 9:4290% margins.
- 9:44It's not good for humans. It might not
- 9:46be good for society. And I think we want
- 9:48a lot of bottles as we've discussed
- 9:50before.
- 9:52So then it's like, okay, the market
- 9:54digests that comes through with it. Then
- 9:55China has a DUV machine and this causes,
- 9:59you know, everybody said these baskets
- 10:00has caused a huge sell off in semi-cap
- 10:02equipment.
- 10:04And then we get to what I think is
- 10:07in a lot of ways,
- 10:08um
- 10:10like the real concern, which is real
- 10:12yields have gone up, which makes sense,
- 10:14you know, we're investing a lot
- 10:16to fund this investment and for sure
- 10:18credit is an increasing part of it even
- 10:21if the majority is still funded over
- 10:23what the majority is still funded out of
- 10:24operating cash flows.
- 10:26And so real yields go up and spreads
- 10:29widen. Meta Meta priced, um
- 10:32a bond last week and, you know, it it it
- 10:36did not price where you would think a
- 10:37meta bond would price. And this just
- 10:40shows that the credit market
- 10:42>> And the media CDS was was blowing
- 10:44>> All of these CD CDS for everybody is is
- 10:46blowing out.
- 10:49And, you know, very smart private
- 10:51capital people just like that, hey, this
- 10:53is just exactly
- 10:55what you would expect. These are just
- 10:56banks, you know, kind of hedging
- 10:58hedging their commitments. But
- 10:59nonetheless, it doesn't look good and
- 11:01these are undeniable facts. CDS is up,
- 11:03spreads are widened, real yield real
- 11:05yields are up.
- 11:07And that is that would be really really
- 11:09scary if we needed debt
- 11:14to finance this build out.
- 11:16And that's where I think it's this
- 11:19differential between spot and contract
- 11:22pricing for the installed base of
- 11:24compute is so important.
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- 12:32[music]
- 12:33>> It's so important to understand what the
- 12:35financing will be like for the next 6
- 12:37months or something.
- 12:38>> The degree to which this buildout is
- 12:42going to require credit.
- 12:44>> Right.
- 12:44>> Which would be the classic like capital
- 12:46cycle, and then we start to overextend
- 12:48ourselves with debt, and that's where
- 12:49things get dicey.
- 12:49>> 100% to the, you know, debt-fueled
- 12:52buildouts, you know, they demand
- 12:53immediate repayment. Yeah. So, if supply
- 12:55and demand get a little bit out of
- 12:57whack, things can unwind very, very,
- 12:59very quickly. That's what happened to
- 13:00the internet.
- 13:02And so,
- 13:04if
- 13:06one believes as I do, rightly or
- 13:08wrongly, and I'm like, after this month,
- 13:09I'm super open,
- 13:11you know, I'm I'm looking like I've been
- 13:13pressure testing all of these, and like,
- 13:16I really went deep on credit because,
- 13:18hey, this is real, it's undeniable.
- 13:21And if we need credit to fund this
- 13:24buildout,
- 13:26this is like a significant negative.
- 13:28>> [snorts]
- 13:29>> And
- 13:30if you model it out,
- 13:33has
- 13:35if you look at the amount of gigawatts
- 13:36that are supposed to come out
- 13:39in consensus estimates
- 13:41for hyperscalers, they're effectively
- 13:43modeled and these are gigawatts of
- 13:45Blackwell and Rubin.
- 13:47Rubin being Nvidia's next chip,
- 13:49Blackwell being the current chip.
- 13:52They are essentially modeled
- 13:55to monetize roughly at the rate of
- 13:57Ampere,
- 13:58which is two generations behind. Not at
- 14:00Hopper, but Ampere. So, there's 1.3
- 14:03trillion and 1.3 to 1.4 trillion in
- 14:05hyperscale operating cash flow.
- 14:08If you just assume that they
- 14:11they're not I I think it's very unlikely
- 14:12they monetize at the rate of Ampere and
- 14:14we can we can go into why. Some of it
- 14:16comes from just, you know, seeing what
- 14:18is happening on the ground with demand
- 14:20here for real quantitative metrics.
- 14:24But, like, let's just say they monetize
- 14:25at a discount to current Blackwells.
- 14:28Then it's more like 2 trillion of
- 14:31operating cash flow
- 14:32and that kind of takes 700 billion of
- 14:36credit demand out. Um
- 14:40and, you know, and then obviously these,
- 14:43you know, ironically, has, you know,
- 14:45that improves all the credit ratios, has
- 14:48these installed bases of compute
- 14:50reprice.
- 14:53We're going to continue accelerating.
- 14:54Consensus is modeling in a deceleration,
- 14:56which I think is unlikely.
- 14:58Um then the credit metrics look better
- 15:00and then all of a sudden
- 15:01it gets easier to finance with credit.
- 15:03Now,
- 15:04whether they whether they they choose to
- 15:06do that or not, we'll see, but this this
- 15:08is all a little bit, um you know, I
- 15:10think we spoke
- 15:13>> 2 months ago.
- 15:14>> No, but the time before that about kind
- 15:16of the risks of a Blackwell air pocket
- 15:18where you're spending
- 15:20hundreds of billions of dollars on
- 15:21Blackwells. they're mostly being used
- 15:23for trading initially. Trading does not
- 15:26generate, you know, a return.
- 15:29And that this could be a risk. And
- 15:34we actually really saw that kind of it,
- 15:36you know, in the first quarter.
- 15:38And
- 15:39I think one reason, you know, like to
- 15:42the podcast two months ago,
- 15:44I I got comfortable with that risk was
- 15:46just that you were seeing such
- 15:48incredible things out of Anthropic.
- 15:50And then it's like, "Okay, well, the
- 15:51market's kind of going to look past
- 15:53this."
- 15:54And it did look past it in April, in
- 15:56May, in June.
- 15:58And then in July, because of this kind
- 16:00of confluence of things, stopped looking
- 16:03past it.
- 16:04Just as the operating cash flow
- 16:07started to really accelerate. And it's
- 16:09this is just a fact. It is accelerating
- 16:12at big scale.
- 16:14Um
- 16:15and you know, like Microsoft, they
- 16:17brought out a huge slug of capacity in
- 16:19the month of June. That didn't even show
- 16:21up in the second quarter.
- 16:24So essentially, what this
- 16:26all comes down to is do you believe that
- 16:29the kind of
- 16:31quantitative demand signals
- 16:34seeing on the ground here in Silicon
- 16:36Valley from from private companies are
- 16:38going to continue such that
- 16:41the installed base of compute reprices
- 16:44higher as contracts roll off.
- 16:46>> Operating cash flows go up.
- 16:47>> Yeah, operating cash flows go up and you
- 16:49can fund this out of most of this out of
- 16:51operating cash flows. Maybe all of it.
- 16:53Like if it reprices at current rates,
- 16:56you could probably fund all of it for
- 16:58the next several years.
- 17:00It's so it's it's been a it has been a
- 17:03very un-
- 17:05usual episode in the market.
- 17:09And
- 17:11you know, in some ways, the fact that
- 17:14and we should talk about what the
- 17:15fundamentals are that are getting better
- 17:16that I'm talking about.
- 17:18You know, technicians would say it's
- 17:20actually in '22,
- 17:22okay, the market is worried about a
- 17:23recession,
- 17:24rates going up,
- 17:26you know, inflation. That's what the
- 17:28market was worried about in '22. You
- 17:30knew exactly what it was. Okay, deep
- 17:31seek, you know what it's worried about.
- 17:33Liberation day, you know what it's
- 17:34worried about. Uh there's something very
- 17:36clear and it in a weird way that's that
- 17:39is comforting reassuring. And here, you
- 17:41know, we talked about a lot of specific
- 17:42things, but it just feels all those
- 17:44specific things with the exception of
- 17:46credit
- 17:48like are are just kind of ridiculous.
- 17:51Um it's to the fact that it is still
- 17:54going down.
- 17:57You know, a technician would say, "Hey,
- 17:58that's
- 18:00that's a little scary. You know, it's
- 18:01definitionally the bullet you don't see
- 18:04that gets you." You know, I think we've
- 18:05talked before about how like I think the
- 18:07three most important words in investing
- 18:09aren't margin of safety, but I don't
- 18:10know.
- 18:13But just, you know, I've you've you've
- 18:15been out here for 2 months. I've been
- 18:16out here, you know,
- 18:17I literally spoke to a company this
- 18:19morning who rented a cluster of several
- 18:23and this is one of, you know, kind of
- 18:25sexiest startups that people want to be
- 18:27in business with.
- 18:29And they had rented a cluster of several
- 18:30thousand block wells.
- 18:32And we'll just call it, you know,
- 18:34somewhere in the mid $2 per GPU hour.
- 18:37They're renting the exact same cluster,
- 18:40exact same size cluster,
- 18:42essentially identical in every way,
- 18:44B200s. Said, "No no differences."
- 18:47And they're hoping
- 18:497 months later
- 18:51to pay just under $4.
- 18:54Like you know, just you hear this today.
- 18:56And that's
- 18:57like that's pretty crazy because again,
- 18:59you would just you would expect a really
- 19:02like a gentle decline in prices would be
- 19:05bullish.
- 19:06Instead, you know, we're up, you know,
- 19:08depending on the starting point
- 19:1050 to 60% in 6 or 7 months.
- 19:15And it just there've been so many
- 19:17anecdotes like that. Like I think one of
- 19:20the inference clouds
- 19:21I think it was based in I'm not sure.
- 19:23They went on a podcast and they
- 19:24essentially said
- 19:26we are planning to pay 100% more
- 19:30for Blackwell's when our contract
- 19:33expires. And that just means that
- 19:35essentially all the hyperscalers are
- 19:36under running.
- 19:38And I haven't like my main kind of
- 19:41mission out here this week
- 19:43>> It's like pressure test?
- 19:44>> Yeah.
- 19:45>> Yeah.
- 19:45>> Find tell me something negative, you
- 19:48know? Like you know, the question I
- 19:50asked you, have you is there one
- 19:52negative quantitative metric you've
- 19:53you've heard? Has been what I've been
- 19:56asking everyone.
- 19:58>> The main thing people are saying is the
- 19:59Anthropic like the third-party data
- 20:01suggests that the Anthropic like curve
- 20:03started to
- 20:04go off of its trajectory a little bit.
- 20:06That's like the only thing that I
- 20:08>> I think I think that's I think that may
- 20:10very well be true, but then you have
- 20:12OpenAI and open source massively
- 20:15accelerating.
- 20:17And if you look at the sub
- 20:19it is not accelerating. Maybe I don't
- 20:22know that it looks the same. I think it
- 20:24may have accelerated. Like I think open
- 20:26source is a little bit of a
- 20:28you know, they talk about dark matter in
- 20:30the universe. Like open source is kind
- 20:31of dark matter to the public markets.
- 20:33You know, it's hard for public markets
- 20:35to measure it.
- 20:37But like if you just track what these
- 20:39inference clouds are saying
- 20:41and you know, these are people saying
- 20:43things on podcasts or people saying
- 20:44things in meetings
- 20:46they're not you know, audited financials
- 20:49but like demand is clearly accelerating
- 20:51which makes sense cuz you had this huge
- 20:53capability leap which you learn 5.2 and
- 20:55KBK3
- 20:57which I think we're going to see
- 20:58continue. I think you're going to see
- 20:59Nvidia bring Neobtron steadily closer to
- 21:03the frontier. It has been a very like
- 21:05it's been a hubbly
- 21:07challenging month and but just
- 21:11it's also like wow, I've kind of
- 21:12pressure tested every assumption.
- 21:16The underlying fundamentals are
- 21:18improving.
- 21:19Uh and stocks Nvidia's actually as we
- 21:22record this
- 21:23at its lowest forward PE of the last 10
- 21:26years.
- 21:27>> Crazy.
- 21:28>> The only time the Sibbys have been
- 21:30cheaper were liberation day deep seek
- 21:32and that was
- 21:34those were kind of uh V bottoms.
- 21:36Um
- 21:37>> And that means to you just that the
- 21:38market thinks they're significantly over
- 21:40earning?
- 21:41>> Yeah, the market 100% thinks they're
- 21:43significantly over earning.
- 21:45And you
- 21:47we need to be humble.
- 21:48>> Maybe they are.
- 21:49>> Maybe they are.
- 21:50Um
- 21:52but like my kind of mission out here
- 21:53this week was to look
- 21:56for negative data points as hard as I
- 21:59could. I normally come to Silicon Valley
- 22:02and you know, there's a mixture of like
- 22:04okay, here's here's something negative,
- 22:06here's something positive, da da da. On
- 22:08balance, it's positive, you know, tech
- 22:11it creates value over time.
- 22:13But I haven't been able to find one that
- 22:15is like a quantitative metric. Other
- 22:17like that that Anthropic third-party
- 22:19data, I would say that seems to be a
- 22:21hotly contested by the um
- 22:24by the Anthropic shareholders who are
- 22:26like
- 22:26>> [laughter]
- 22:27>> who are bound or kind of like chopping
- 22:30at the bit to tell you what they know.
- 22:32They're also very scared they're not
- 22:33going to get an IPO allocation
- 22:35>> [laughter]
- 22:35>> if it gets back to the company that
- 22:37they're the ones who said, "Actually
- 22:39things are great." You know, you can
- 22:40just see Anthropic shareholders
- 22:43like they want to be like, "It's not
- 22:44true." You know.
- 22:45>> [laughter]
- 22:47>> I mean, it's hard for me to believe that
- 22:50um
- 22:51open source and open AI have accelerated
- 22:52to the extent they did and but yeah,
- 22:54Anthropic is clearly, you know, kind of
- 22:56in the
- 22:57in the pole position. And oh, by the
- 22:58way, you know, Grok and Cursor have
- 23:01also, you can see from third-party data,
- 23:04like July was a pretty transformational
- 23:06month with um
- 23:08Grock 4.5 Grock builds coming out. So,
- 23:12it has been a tricky month and um
- 23:18and I have I have a friend um
- 23:20I have a friend at Fidelity
- 23:22who just says the way to have navigated
- 23:25like the last 3 years
- 23:28is just do the dumbest, most superficial
- 23:32thing as quickly as possible and just
- 23:35cycle between them.
- 23:36>> What is that? What is that now?
- 23:39>> Well, that's just that has been to cut
- 23:40risk
- 23:41all month in response to these
- 23:44kind of narratives that just
- 23:47like factually except for credit
- 23:51are not true and the work we've done
- 23:53makes me think that credit just isn't
- 23:55going to matter has this reprice. Let's
- 23:57just say you do need credit
- 24:00to like build the flops we eat. Well, if
- 24:02credit's not there, it just means the
- 24:04flops that are there
- 24:06are going to be even more valuable cuz
- 24:08there is an interesting like essay that
- 24:10got sent sent to me.
- 24:12You know, I think we've talked before
- 24:13about Mike Mauboussin's theory that like
- 24:15a breakdown of diversity is kind of what
- 24:17leads
- 24:18you know, to bubbles and crashes.
- 24:21And essentially everyone I know in the
- 24:22public equity investment business,
- 24:24whether retail or institutional
- 24:27everything immediately, every piece of
- 24:29news gets fed into Claude.
- 24:32And Claude Claude code, sometimes, you
- 24:35know, a Claude agent
- 24:38and you know, Claude it's probabilistic.
- 24:41There's probably not that much variation
- 24:43in the way it's interpreting this news.
- 24:46It's uh it's almost like we're back to
- 24:49um
- 24:50you know, in stock market terms
- 24:52like the like there's never really been
- 24:54this way in the stock market before, but
- 24:55people talk about the fragmentation of
- 24:57media and how it used to be like Walter
- 24:59Cronkite was the only voice of truth and
- 25:02now we don't have that anymore.
- 25:04It's like Claude
- 25:06is kind of Walter Cronkite for the stock
- 25:08market and everybody just believes
- 25:11>> Whatever it says.
- 25:11>> Whatever it says. [laughter]
- 25:13And this is leading to like
- 25:16>> really and and by the way, it's really
- 25:18smart,
- 25:19but it's not
- 25:21always right. It's not
- 25:24um it's interpretation isn't always
- 25:26correct. And with the stock market, you
- 25:29are fundamentally dealing about, you
- 25:30know, a probabilistic Bayesian
- 25:32interpretation of the future.
- 25:34And so it just it feels like
- 25:37in the market, there is this
- 25:40Here's this piece of news. It gets fed
- 25:42through Claude. Claude interpreted this
- 25:44way.
- 25:4590 a huge chunk of people
- 25:48trade on Claude's view.
- 25:50Um
- 25:51And so you've seen stuff. There's this
- 25:52guy uh TBU, TBU. He's like part of like
- 25:57the autonomous semiconductor mafia, but
- 25:59he posted this amazing chart of Japanese
- 26:01capacitor stocks.
- 26:03And he said we've had a capacitor an
- 26:05entire capacitor cycle in 6 weeks. And
- 26:08it's true, you know, the stocks like
- 26:10whether they double, triple, or
- 26:11quadruple, I don't know, but like
- 26:13vertical.
- 26:14And then whoosh, you know what I mean?
- 26:17Like the actual fundamentals haven't
- 26:20even hit. And yet you've already had
- 26:23what probably would have normally been a
- 26:243-year cycle
- 26:26in like 6 weeks.
- 26:28>> What's your sense of being out here
- 26:29especially it makes me especially
- 26:30curious about this, the innovation that
- 26:33is going on here to improve the
- 26:36efficiency and every aspect of serving
- 26:39inference, of training models, et
- 26:40cetera, and how that will affect like
- 26:42public markets over time. Like have you
- 26:44learned anything interesting about like
- 26:46the long lead time innovation type stuff
- 26:48that has you especially excited or or
- 26:50curious?
- 26:51>> Yeah, I am very curious. It was
- 26:54like all there seemed to be
- 26:58like a lot of people seem to feel like
- 27:00they're very close
- 27:03to solving continual learning and
- 27:04sample-efficient learning, which we've
- 27:06talked about before. And it is possible
- 27:09that if those are solved that, you know,
- 27:12could that be like a temporary like kind
- 27:16of like discontinuity?
- 27:18You know, it demand if it's that of, you
- 27:20know, having to like I think somebody
- 27:22told me that the uh
- 27:24like I was traded on effectively 20
- 27:27billion tokens, and then it's like these
- 27:29models are traded on 300 trillion
- 27:30tokens. And if, you know, you could
- 27:33trade something on 10 trillion tokens
- 27:35and then let it out into the world and
- 27:37learn sample efficiently,
- 27:39you know, that that doesn't sound good
- 27:41for trading demand, but like trading as
- 27:43a percentage of
- 27:45semiconductor demand and compute
- 27:47is going to asymptote to something not
- 27:50approaching zero, but very small. But I
- 27:52would say that is the most kind of
- 27:54interesting, and you know, who knows if
- 27:56it's long horizon or short horizon.
- 27:58You know, SSI says that they're going to
- 28:00come out, you know, with their their
- 28:01model in in August. You know, there's
- 28:04this whole generation of new labs that
- 28:06are focused on this.
- 28:08>> And this would be good for the world.
- 28:09>> This would be amazing for the world,
- 28:10yeah. This would be awesome for the
- 28:12world.
- 28:12>> Yeah, we all want we want this, right?
- 28:13>> Yeah, we want this. It would be amazing
- 28:15for the world, and it's just it's hard
- 28:17for me to believe that that would
- 28:18actually be negative for AI
- 28:20infrastructure demand. But again, trying
- 28:23to be really, really open-minded. I I
- 28:25would say that was probably
- 28:28like the biggest like what what do we
- 28:30call it? Scientific or technical
- 28:32takeaway.
- 28:34But it's just, you know, it's also
- 28:35>> We still don't know.
- 28:36>> Well, yeah, and also like Nvidia is
- 28:38heavily involved with
- 28:40all of these startups.
- 28:42>> So, what would like if I was forced to
- 28:44if If just forced to come up with
- 28:47the set of circumstances that would
- 28:49really switch you around and get you
- 28:51really scared.
- 28:52Is it would it just be
- 28:54that this operating cash flow thing
- 28:56doesn't play out and therefore we just
- 28:57need to debt finance this whole thing?
- 28:58>> cash flow does not continue to
- 29:00accelerate. That that would be negative.
- 29:03Um it that to some degree is going to be
- 29:06a function of how Anthropic, Open AI,
- 29:10Grok Cursor, we should call it Grok, and
- 29:12open source
- 29:14you know, if like if there was a pretty
- 29:16dramatic like
- 29:19contraction in GPU prices that was kind
- 29:22of sustained, I mean the market would
- 29:24react to that instantly. That would be
- 29:26worrisome. If it started to get to be
- 29:27really easy to get GPUs,
- 29:30I mean have you heard anyone say they
- 29:32have too many GPUs?
- 29:35>> [laughter]
- 29:35>> Like not not a single person. And it's
- 29:37not like it's the opposite. It sounds
- 29:38like a drug market or something. It
- 29:40really does. It's just wild. But yeah, I
- 29:42mean I think there's a long list of
- 29:44pretty obvious things. You know, if like
- 29:45Anthropic, Open AI, if the sum of these
- 29:48labs
- 29:50plateaus or you know, starts to decline,
- 29:53that's really negative unless it's just
- 29:55because open source tokens
- 29:58are not growing the pie and taking
- 30:00share. Uh and I do really think the
- 30:02future is like multi multi model.
- 30:05Yeah, I think particularly for the AI
- 30:07natives, they're going to want
- 30:11to take an open source model. It's got,
- 30:13you know, all these inference clouds
- 30:14have got really good at um you know, at
- 30:18supervised fine-tuning and reinforcement
- 30:19learning. So you can take your data,
- 30:21customize an open source model, and then
- 30:24get something that you can
- 30:26put behind a router, and the router
- 30:28routes it to often first your model, and
- 30:31then Claude, a frontier model, whatever,
- 30:34Claude, Grok, um checks it, and you can
- 30:38in a lot of cases get slightly better
- 30:41outcomes
- 30:43at half the cost.
- 30:45But again, that half the cost, I think a
- 30:47lot of people hear that, they're like,
- 30:48"That's bad for AI demand." It's
- 30:49actually not at all because the cost the
- 30:53user pays has
- 30:54you know, it's just a function of the
- 30:56margin on the tokens, and you're
- 30:58literally just shifting
- 31:01tokens from really expensive tokens with
- 31:04like 90% gross margins to tokens with
- 31:07maybe, let's call it a 30% gross margin.
- 31:10And that's where the savings are coming
- 31:11from, but the tokens cost the same
- 31:13amount of compute
- 31:15to produce.
- 31:16And then also all these things are kind
- 31:18of happening
- 31:21at kind of um at different cycle times.
- 31:24You know, all these, you know, big
- 31:26public companies are like, "Oh my god,
- 31:27my AI spend is 20x. I've burned my
- 31:29budget in 3 months." So, they set up a
- 31:32router,
- 31:33and that actually cuts their AI spend,
- 31:37but it doesn't really impact. It may
- 31:39actually increase the amount of tokens
- 31:43that they are generating just by
- 31:44shifting them to these cheaper
- 31:46open-source tokens, and that's just more
- 31:48compute.
- 31:49So, you know, a company getting smarter
- 31:51about which model to use for which task,
- 31:56that you know, that may lead to a a a
- 31:59stabilization of their spend or even a
- 32:00decline, but it actually has nothing to
- 32:03do with the amount of
- 32:05you know, GPU compute hours
- 32:08they are effectively consuming
- 32:11behind
- 32:13you know, these the these model layers
- 32:15of this router. The GPU compute hours
- 32:17probably are going up as you, you know,
- 32:20shift to these cheaper tokens you can
- 32:21use more of.
- 32:24So, and then, you know, that's happening
- 32:26to like a cutting-edge of public
- 32:28companies,
- 32:29and then you have this whole wave of AI
- 32:31natives, and
- 32:34like they're leading into this so hard,
- 32:37and they're not hiring
- 32:39humans. They're just really putting it
- 32:41mostly into tokens. And so, they're not
- 32:44slowing down. And then you have
- 32:45companies on the East Coast of America
- 32:48who have like barely adopted AI,
- 32:50companies, you know, broadly speaking,
- 32:52on other, you know, not on the coast who
- 32:55maybe aren't as cutting and then Europe
- 32:57who's like just trying to figure out how
- 32:59to regulate AI,
- 33:01>> [laughter]
- 33:01>> before using it.
- 33:02>> Yeah, so just like there's kind of these
- 33:04differential differential kind of waves
- 33:06of adoption all happening at the same
- 33:08time.
- 33:10But the thought I can't get out of my
- 33:11mind is like I think I said it maybe
- 33:13last time, but just Yoc's estimate like
- 33:15I don't know,
- 33:16500,000 people in the world, 250,000
- 33:20maybe are using a genetic AI.
- 33:23And we're in a cute compute shortage.
- 33:27That's
- 33:28Do you know there's seven or eight
- 33:29billion people on the planet?
- 33:31What happens when we go from 500,000
- 33:34>> to 1%
- 33:34>> 100 billion, you know, to 500 billion?
- 33:39And then I do think it's it it it is
- 33:41interesting, you know, a lot of people
- 33:42are just like, okay, well, you know, I I
- 33:44do think it's like helpful to post on X
- 33:46to see the pushback.
- 33:48And a lot of people are saying, well,
- 33:50you know, where
- 33:52fundamentally is the Okay, we accept
- 33:55your argument that hyperscalers are
- 33:58under earning in this compute re-prices.
- 34:00Are their operating cash flows going to
- 34:02accelerate and maybe we can fund this,
- 34:03but like
- 34:05who Where is that operating going to
- 34:06come from? Where is the customer?
- 34:09And kind of definitionally it has to
- 34:11either come from, you know, faster
- 34:13economic growth through productivity
- 34:15kind of Satya's comments like either
- 34:17we're going to start growing 10% or
- 34:19we're not.
- 34:21Or labor substitution.
- 34:23And for sure, I think in a lot of these
- 34:26AI natives,
- 34:28you're seeing labor substitution, but
- 34:29not because they're
- 34:31firing people, they're just not hiring
- 34:33nearly as many humans. You know, the
- 34:35gross profit dollars per FTE and you
- 34:37know, A16Z iconic, a bunch of companies
- 34:40that have done this work,
- 34:41you know, they're you know, they're
- 34:43they're vertical
- 34:44uh particularly relative to
- 34:46past generations of startups.
- 34:48And then it is interesting, you know,
- 34:50like are you kind of doing any surveys
- 34:52of
- 34:53your companies that their tokens bid
- 34:55relative to labor spend?
- 34:56>> Oh, yeah. I mean, it's always reported
- 34:58as a percent of percent tokens as a
- 35:00percent of like total comp spend or
- 35:02something like that.
- 35:03>> what are the ranges you've seen?
- 35:05>> I mean, like in the really pill
- 35:06companies, like it gets really high.
- 35:0820%, 25%, something like that.
- 35:11>> Well,
- 35:11our
- 35:12our your our friend Dylan Patel at
- 35:14Jasper
- 35:15>> [laughter]
- 35:16>> So, he's an ASI maxi, but he's at 30%.
- 35:19>> Yeah.
- 35:20>> Uh
- 35:20>> He probably that's probably the highest
- 35:21one I've heard.
- 35:22>> Uh I've actually heard a 50.
- 35:24And there's 25 trillion dollars in
- 35:26knowledge work. And so, let's you know,
- 35:29let's say that that's you know, let's
- 35:31take your 20% number.
- 35:33That's 5 trillion and that either comes
- 35:36out of labor substitution or faster
- 35:38economic growth.
- 35:40And we really, really, really want to
- 35:42have, you know, humans it to come from
- 35:44faster economic growth.
- 35:46>> One interesting thing I heard this
- 35:47morning from one of the great like
- 35:49leading technology CEOs has founded
- 35:51several companies that if you look at
- 35:52the founder letting controlled companies
- 35:54and adjust for some of the like COVID
- 35:56era, you know, over hiring, like
- 35:57nobody's really laying people off. Like
- 36:00these are the people that would probably
- 36:02be most quick to adopt AI to you know,
- 36:05become more efficient or whatever. Like
- 36:06they're not really doing jack aside like
- 36:09huge scale layoffs, which probably tells
- 36:11you something about where they think
- 36:13there will be lots of opportunity to
- 36:14still have people plus
- 36:15>> 100%
- 36:17well, the bull case
- 36:18>> So, growth not labor not labor growth.
- 36:20>> the bull case and you know, you've seen
- 36:21charts from Cognition, Ramp and Stripe
- 36:24that the companies that are spending the
- 36:26most on AI are growing growing
- 36:27meaningfully faster.
- 36:28>> Yeah, I love that cognition index.
- 36:30>> Yeah, the cognition index is wild. Now,
- 36:32all the skeptics will point out
- 36:33rightfully, it's not really controlling
- 36:35for industry, but then if like you dig
- 36:37down into it,
- 36:38you know, I think one of them gave an
- 36:39example of I forget if it was a plumber
- 36:41or an HVAC contractor, but like, you
- 36:44know, and everybody who's a blue-collar
- 36:46workers doing great cuz of AI.
- 36:49By the way, something that I think we
- 36:50should touch on and we we could do it
- 36:51now or later
- 36:53is just everybody is citing these LTAs.
- 36:56So, that we're everything is at a
- 36:58shortage. Everything is at a shortage
- 37:00right now. You know, if if there's
- 37:01weakness, it's just cuz we can't
- 37:02energize the gigawatts fast enough. The
- 37:05gigawatts are going to get energized
- 37:06like it, you know, regulatory policy is
- 37:08moving in a in a good way. You the
- 37:10turbine manufacturers, the diesel gen
- 37:12set manufacturers, you know, they're
- 37:14ramping up.
- 37:15>> You're you're you're ripping
- 37:17turbines off old airplanes and, you
- 37:19know, reconditioning them and then
- 37:21repurposing them. There's crazy things
- 37:23happening. Capitalism is very, very good
- 37:24at this.
- 37:25But I do think one of the most important
- 37:27questions in the market
- 37:29and like a transition of the market that
- 37:31like I got wrong
- 37:34is we are shifting, particularly for
- 37:38particularly for memory more than
- 37:39anything else,
- 37:41from, you know, crushing numbers
- 37:45in in the short term
- 37:47to they are trading short-term upside
- 37:49for these, you know, what do they call
- 37:51them? Supply chain agreements, long-term
- 37:53agreements, LTAs,
- 37:55where they essentially, you know, agree
- 37:56there's there's many flavors, but the
- 37:57customer prepays
- 37:59and it's, you know, there's a floor and
- 38:01a ceiling.
- 38:03And this comes back to the
- 38:04point about labor because, you know, a
- 38:06lot of people after
- 38:08um
- 38:10you know, after kind of like firing,
- 38:13you know, too many people,
- 38:15were, you know, you during during COVID,
- 38:17were really reluctant to lay people off.
- 38:20And that, you know, they talked about
- 38:21labor hoarding if you remember a few
- 38:22years ago. You remember this?
- 38:25I'm just
- 38:27Let's just think about the game theory
- 38:28of breaking an LTA.
- 38:31So, there's four companies that like
- 38:34matter at scale. There's Amazon with
- 38:36their trade ups.
- 38:37There's Google with their TPUs.
- 38:39There's [snorts] AMD. And then there's
- 38:41Nvidia, who's like much bigger than
- 38:43everybody else combined. You know, let's
- 38:45just say it's 2027.
- 38:48It's very important to realize memory is
- 38:51The more memory you put
- 38:53with flop for a given unit of compute,
- 38:56the more tokens you get out. It's the
- 38:58single most important thing you could do
- 39:01to increase kind of token output per
- 39:03unit of compute. And then that obviously
- 39:05definitionally actually lowers costs,
- 39:08which is why the demand hasn't responded
- 39:10at all negatively. There's been no
- 39:12elasticity just because it's like kind
- 39:15of the only It's the axis that is
- 39:17dominating all others.
- 39:19Um And this is like at some level like a
- 39:22giant Game of Thrones or Imposters
- 39:24between these companies.
- 39:26And okay, it's 2027.
- 39:30You're like or 2028. You're vaguely
- 39:33tempted to break one of these LTAs. Try
- 39:36and get a lower price.
- 39:38But to a large degree, market shares are
- 39:41I think for the next several years are
- 39:43going to be determined by supply by
- 39:45supply chain allocations and kind of
- 39:48what you have
- 39:49kind of pre-purchased.
- 39:51So, if you break the LTA
- 39:53and you And this is This is assuming
- 39:56we're not in a severe oversupply
- 39:58situation.
- 40:00And but all the logic almost the game
- 40:02theory even holds in a severe oversupply
- 40:04situation. If you break your LTA
- 40:07and then in the next
- 40:10two or three years for any reason
- 40:13leverage shifts back to the memory guys,
- 40:16you're out of business. It's over.
- 40:19You know, like let's let's just say
- 40:20Google breaks an LTA. You know, there's
- 40:23there's an over there's an over supply
- 40:24of making this up in 28, 29.
- 40:27They break their LTAs. Well, if they're
- 40:29breaking their LTAs, it probably means,
- 40:30you know, you're over supply, prices are
- 40:32coming down. And then, you know,
- 40:33capacity that naturally contracts.
- 40:36Well,
- 40:37like what do you think's going to happen
- 40:39to Google's allocations? And then, you
- 40:41know, this is a cyclical industry and
- 40:43over supply is followed by under supply.
- 40:45What do you think they think is going to
- 40:47happen to their allocations next time?
- 40:49So, I just think given that this is like
- 40:52the access around which kind of
- 40:54everything is revolving,
- 40:57man, like you might blow up your entire
- 41:00business
- 41:01and your franchise by breaking an LTA.
- 41:04And that was never the case before, you
- 41:05know, Apple, who cares, you know,
- 41:07they're buying they don't have a
- 41:09competitor.
- 41:10They're the over they're overwhelmingly
- 41:12the largest purchaser. They know they
- 41:15can do whatever this is, you know, going
- 41:16back three, four, five years. They know
- 41:18they can do whatever they want with no
- 41:19consequences cuz their volume is so big,
- 41:22you know, that even if they like super
- 41:24screw Hynix, Micron will of course take
- 41:26them.
- 41:27This is this is just different, you
- 41:30know, you have at least four players.
- 41:33Then you have all the startups. You're
- 41:34an investor in Etched.
- 41:36And
- 41:37if you break an LTA,
- 41:40and that they just say, "Okay, fine. You
- 41:42know what? Great. You broke the price
- 41:44agreement.
- 41:46We're going to break the volume
- 41:47agreement. And, you know, screw you.
- 41:50We're going to give the volume to your
- 41:51competitor."
- 41:52You just you just lost share, you know?
- 41:55That's so I think the
- 41:56the you know, it like I think, you know,
- 42:00Nvidia's dominance I think is uh
- 42:05like I think
- 42:08the current environment they state to
- 42:09which it favors Nvidia,
- 42:12like it is a hard for me to understand
- 42:14why it's trading at such a low multiple.
- 42:16You know, in other words, like if you
- 42:17need to be able to finance the chips and
- 42:19you do, nothing's more financeable than
- 42:21an Nvidia GPU. Nothing.
- 42:24If you need to get, you know, land and
- 42:26power,
- 42:27well, they're doing a very good job of
- 42:30playing that chess game and and
- 42:31matchmaking.
- 42:33And then they've kind of rolled out this
- 42:34really clever, you know, new business
- 42:36model, which I would describe as kind of
- 42:37like a credit wrapper
- 42:39um with a revenue share if GPU prices
- 42:43are above a floor. Yeah. Um and this
- 42:46could lead to them like having a really
- 42:49giant cloud business effectively through
- 42:51royalties really quickly.
- 42:54And it is another way of kind of
- 42:56alleviating this um
- 42:58you know, cash flow mismatch. Like, hey,
- 43:00we're making all the cash.
- 43:03Yeah, and and like
- 43:04this isn't this isn't really vendor
- 43:06financing cuz they're not loading them
- 43:08the money. Somebody else is loading
- 43:11the GPU buyer the money. So, it's not
- 43:14quite vendor it's not vendor financing.
- 43:16It's um
- 43:18it's, you know, they're still making
- 43:19equity investments, but it's not it's
- 43:21not like you're just putting money into
- 43:22someone
- 43:24in return for them, you know, you know,
- 43:25and then some of that money, you know,
- 43:27is used to buy your chips, even though,
- 43:28you know, Nvidia said that they write
- 43:29into all their
- 43:31you know, equity investments that um you
- 43:33know, the money can't be used to buy
- 43:34Nvidia chips, but obviously money is
- 43:36fungible.
- 43:37And um
- 43:37>> Funny thing.
- 43:38>> What's that?
- 43:39>> like a funny little thing.
- 43:40>> Yes. [laughter]
- 43:41Um
- 43:42Yeah.
- 43:43But, you know, I think at some level it
- 43:45probably makes everybody feel better.
- 43:47Um
- 43:47>> What would you do if you were the memory
- 43:49like if you were the CEO of Hynix?
- 43:50>> I'd do the exact same thing Nvidia's
- 43:52doing right now.
- 43:54>> Which is?
- 43:55>> I I would be going
- 43:56>> I say, all right, I'm going to say
- 43:57>> be going to the buyers of GPUs, Radeon,
- 44:00and whoever
- 44:01and say, I'll participate in the Nvidia
- 44:05credit wrapper. Now, their business is
- 44:07just inherently less stable and
- 44:09predictable,
- 44:10but in some way, and maybe they just put
- 44:14up some cash up front, so it's like
- 44:16they're not on the hook. You know what I
- 44:17mean? I'm just making this up.
- 44:19But like,
- 44:20do something like you can because you
- 44:23have money now,
- 44:25and credit markets are revolting.
- 44:29There many, you know, like, you know,
- 44:31the the
- 44:32people, I'm sure the, you know, our
- 44:34friends at, you know, Blackstone and
- 44:36Apollo are suggesting some variant of
- 44:39this to the memory companies. But hey,
- 44:41we will like
- 44:43put up some amount of money from our
- 44:45cash flow today, and then it's gone.
- 44:48It's, you know, surety
- 44:50uh that they, you know, makes the the
- 44:52the person who's extending the debt feel
- 44:54better,
- 44:55but we want
- 44:56a some sort of a cut
- 44:59of the ongoing revenues as well. Right.
- 45:01Like that is like 100% what I would do.
- 45:05And it's almost like a logical extension
- 45:07of, you know, the LTAs where they're
- 45:09kind of trading upside for durability.
- 45:12Here, you know, you can
- 45:15you know, you can effectively get a
- 45:16royalty on recurring revenues. And that
- 45:18is that is what Nvidia is doing. And I
- 45:20do think that is very misunderstood.
- 45:24And I think it would serve Nvidia well
- 45:27to really
- 45:29explain this. One, they're really
- 45:32bullish on AI.
- 45:33Um
- 45:35Essentially, every time they haven't
- 45:36taken an equity stake in something, it's
- 45:38been a mistake.
- 45:39You know, I mean,
- 45:41they've taken equity stakes in
- 45:42everything essentially except the memory
- 45:44companies that for a long while
- 45:45Anthropic that they took an equity stake
- 45:47in Anthropic. But like, why not if you
- 45:50have cash flow and you're bullish on AI?
- 45:52And Jensen because he sees every lab. He
- 45:55knows all the advances, you know, like
- 45:57all these continual learning labs, you
- 45:59know, safe superintelligence is now
- 46:00working with them.
- 46:02You know, he he sees everything and like
- 46:04what he sees makes him bullish. Um
- 46:07So, what have some equity upside
- 46:09and then two, have a revenue share
- 46:12and you're generating hundreds of
- 46:14billions of dollars of
- 46:16um
- 46:18of free cash flow um and a helping
- 46:21to kind of bridge, you know, what what
- 46:24is clearly kind of a gap at least, you
- 46:26know, given everybody's gone free cash
- 46:28flow negative
- 46:29until the operating cash flow
- 46:30accelerates enough that you can
- 46:31internally fund this.
- 46:33It's almost like I mean it's um
- 46:36very opportunistic and it like
- 46:37significant and in a good way
- 46:40and it significantly increases their
- 46:42revenue per gigawatt. And then it also
- 46:44strengthens their competitive position.
- 46:46You know, that's you know, you and I, we
- 46:48both have startups, but okay, that's
- 46:49that's that's great. Use that startups
- 46:52chip. Um
- 46:54well, what prices are they paying big
- 46:56atomic to me? Higher than Nvidia and all
- 46:58these guys. What prices are they paying
- 47:00for um HBM D-Ram? Higher. Um
- 47:05Can you finance those chips easily at
- 47:06the same rate as Nvidia? No. And so it's
- 47:09always like, you know, there's there's a
- 47:11real burden, particularly
- 47:14if you use HBM D-Ram, like you're just
- 47:16you're in the crosshairs of this. Um
- 47:19unless like actually you you know, maybe
- 47:20actually like they made really different
- 47:24architectural choices. Everything that's
- 47:26happening
- 47:27is actually pretty good for hip. Just
- 47:30are going back to game theory.
- 47:33Entropic
- 47:34if they had been as aggressive on
- 47:36compute as OpenAI had been, they would
- 47:38have run away with it.
- 47:40And so now OpenAI is back in the game. I
- 47:42think Grok is in the game. Those are the
- 47:44companies on the Pareto frontier.
- 47:46>> And they have the compute.
- 47:47>> And do you think
- 47:49after watching that
- 47:51anyone is going to let off the gas?
- 47:54Cuz you just you know, it was
- 47:57I think 4 months ago that Dario was
- 47:59talking about how
- 48:01you know, it was a real it was a really
- 48:03thoughtful commentary, but he's like,
- 48:04it's really, really hard because, you
- 48:07know, if you buy too much compute, you
- 48:10could go bankrupt at the scale of these
- 48:11things.
- 48:12But if you don't buy enough, you could
- 48:13lose.
- 48:15Well,
- 48:15>> We saw it happen.
- 48:16>> OpenAI just got back into the game, and
- 48:18now SpaceX is in the game in a big way
- 48:20of Grok 4.5 and Cursor.
- 48:23And like, after watching that, from a
- 48:25game theory perspective, is anybody
- 48:28going to back off anytime soon,
- 48:30especially if it can be funded out of
- 48:32operating cash flow?
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- 50:19>> Have you met anyone in your travels out
- 50:20here that you would say is like way more
- 50:22bullish than you, and if so, what do
- 50:24they believe that you don't?
- 50:25>> I mean, essentially everyone out here is
- 50:27more bullish than me, man.
- 50:29>> [laughter]
- 50:29>> I like
- 50:31You know, I read this thing that
- 50:32Dworkesh wrote, and I was like
- 50:34>> The 3x compute price thing or whatever?
- 50:36>> Yeah, well, he was I forget what it was.
- 50:37>> No, no, it was like 15x or something.
- 50:39>> Yeah, but no, but just basically that um
- 50:42you know, renting an H100 for a year
- 50:44would cost $250,000.
- 50:47You know, um the salary
- 50:48>> that's 15x the current spot or
- 50:50something. Yeah.
- 50:51>> Exactly. Like, wow, you know, that was
- 50:54just like that
- 50:55>> in my book.
- 50:55>> That wasn't in my
- 50:58you know, forget my like Bayesian
- 51:00probability space of expected outcomes.
- 51:03That wasn't even in my
- 51:06>> [laughter]
- 51:06>> considered but dismissed as totally
- 51:09unlikely outcomes.
- 51:10You know, and then that guy is, you
- 51:12know, he's very Dworkesh, he's a very
- 51:13smart guy, he's very plugged in.
- 51:15And um
- 51:17and you know, and then he pointed out
- 51:18that like, hey, the you know, something
- 51:20like I think he just said margins on
- 51:23compute are going up, the amount of
- 51:24compute is going up,
- 51:26and inference margin's going up, and if
- 51:29you multiply those three, that's how
- 51:31you're getting this crazy acceleration
- 51:33in the sum of the labs plus open source,
- 51:35although obviously open source the
- 51:37margins on open source are not
- 51:40really going up. But I mean
- 51:41>> So, everyone's more [laughter] bullish
- 51:43>> Yeah, yeah, I like you know, I just
- 51:46I look at what's happening in the stock
- 51:47market and I feel like a foolish
- 51:49optimist.
- 51:51And then when I talk to people
- 51:55whether it's people at the labs, whether
- 51:58anyone in this ecosystem
- 52:00like I'm like bearish relative to
- 52:03essentially everyone.
- 52:04>> [laughter]
- 52:05>> Which is just a strange state of
- 52:06affairs. What do you make of the DUV
- 52:08news out of China where I've seen
- 52:10reactions really along a spectrum of
- 52:12like this is the equivalent of like what
- 52:14ASML had in 2001 or something.
- 52:17Or like no, this is actually the first
- 52:19bit of news in a a new story for how we
- 52:22should think about the global supply of
- 52:24cutting-edge compute.
- 52:25>> I think both could be true.
- 52:28You know, it's just like um
- 52:30like let's just make an analogy. Like
- 52:32let's just say
- 52:34a DUV machine was a jet turbine and now
- 52:36like an EUV machine is like warp drive.
- 52:39Um you know, or what whatever it's going
- 52:41to be, you know, a
- 52:43DUV machine is like a propeller plane
- 52:45EUV is like a jet turbine.
- 52:47Um
- 52:49but like they didn't have it before
- 52:52and
- 52:53now they allegedly do.
- 52:55And that is like a phase transition, you
- 52:57know, you it's like
- 52:59you've gone from like liquid to solid.
- 53:01Now that solid that you know, jet
- 53:04engine, prop plane, whatever is 25 years
- 53:07behind but still it's important and I
- 53:10don't think should be dismissed, but I
- 53:12also
- 53:14you know, it's kind of
- 53:15>> funny you just see this in the stock
- 53:16market, you know, it's like the stock
- 53:17market massively overreacts and then
- 53:20like if this ever hits ASML's orders,
- 53:23maybe it hits it in 5 years and like the
- 53:26market has forgotten about it, got
- 53:27worried about it, forgotten about it,
- 53:29got worried about it, forgotten about it
- 53:31multiple times um along the way. Um so I
- 53:36do think that was probably an
- 53:37overreaction, but we shouldn't dismiss
- 53:39that either.
- 53:41And if you're China, like this is like
- 53:44really important to you.
- 53:46Um and they're
- 53:48you know, there are some reports that
- 53:50like an EV machine had been smuggled
- 53:52into China.
- 53:53Um
- 53:55and I mean, what a feat of espionage cuz
- 53:57those things are like giant machines.
- 53:59They're
- 54:00they're [laughter] huge. Um I don't know
- 54:02if that's true. You know, there's some
- 54:03noise about it, but um
- 54:06you know, China, they're really really
- 54:08good. They're really really smart. They
- 54:10work brutally hard.
- 54:12And you know, they see this is super
- 54:13important for them as a country.
- 54:16Um
- 54:17but are they going to go from the year
- 54:202001
- 54:22to 2026
- 54:24or even 2000 and you know, 30?
- 54:27Are they going to it it cuz it really is
- 54:29it is
- 54:29>> It's a learning by doing.
- 54:30>> It's it's a learning by doing.
- 54:32And you kind of have to Yeah, if like
- 54:35like you can't you can't accelerate the
- 54:37doing. You can't you can't teleport into
- 54:39the future. You actually have to go
- 54:40through those learning cycles.
- 54:43So,
- 54:44is it significant? Yes. Did the market
- 54:47overreact? Probably. But like I think a
- 54:49lot of
- 54:51like I think it's it's very hard as an
- 54:53American
- 54:54to really understand what is happening
- 54:56in China and like have
- 54:59like total conviction and clarity, you
- 55:01know, like for
- 55:03for better or worse, like we are
- 55:05decoupling. And
- 55:07um
- 55:10just that is a process that is been set
- 55:13in motion.
- 55:14And at this point it almost feels like
- 55:17it's kind of self-reinforcing on each
- 55:19side.
- 55:20And you know, that's that's unfortunate.
- 55:23Um
- 55:25but
- 55:27we are where we are. And they're not
- 55:29they're not going to stop, neither are
- 55:30we.
- 55:30>> Any commentary on like every other
- 55:32company in America? Like I feel like
- 55:34right now it is 10 companies, couple
- 55:36private.
- 55:37>> Well, that that last month, I mean,
- 55:40everything but AI was vertical.
- 55:43And I do think open you know, open
- 55:46source getting closer to the frontier
- 55:49and companies like Fireworks making it
- 55:51really easy to customize a model such
- 55:54that you can get
- 55:56in some cases better than frontier for
- 55:58performance for meaningfully lower cost.
- 56:01That is a godsend for the software
- 56:03industry.
- 56:04And it's also a godsend for all these
- 56:06like, you know, there's there's a lot of
- 56:07AI natives and like all these AI
- 56:10natives, you know, it's like our friend
- 56:11Vashria, I think he said 2 years ago,
- 56:14I've never seen more companies go from
- 56:16like being founded
- 56:18to like $50 million a year in revenue
- 56:20and generating cash flow in like
- 56:22whatever it is, 9 months.
- 56:24And it's hard to know if any of them are
- 56:25durable because like back then, like
- 56:29it's like, hey, you know, these are a
- 56:30lot of people would dismiss them as chat
- 56:32GPT wrappers.
- 56:34Well, now with open source, you've
- 56:35actually you you've generated some data
- 56:38that's unique to your your use case,
- 56:40whatever your vertical you're going
- 56:42after has a wrapper is. Fireworks, they
- 56:44did come out with a really cool product
- 56:46called Nexus.
- 56:48And if you're using cloud code, open AI
- 56:50codex, grok build,
- 56:52it is literally three lines of code,
- 56:54like 20 words.
- 56:56And um Fireworks adjust your data
- 57:01kind of, you know, they can RL a model
- 57:03and then there's a router that sends the
- 57:06query and they've had amazing results.
- 57:10Um and this is kind of the solution
- 57:12for every AI native and that's why you
- 57:14saw,
- 57:15you know, Harvey
- 57:17uh before it was acquired, um Cursor
- 57:21leads so heavily into this. Harvey,
- 57:23Legora, all of them. Because if you can
- 57:27go from just using one, two, two three
- 57:30frontier models to use a
- 57:32>> Whatever's optimal.
- 57:33>> those frontier bottles for whatever it
- 57:35is, 30%
- 57:3660%
- 57:39of your token consumption and then use
- 57:41your own RL bottle, all of a sudden
- 57:43you're not a rapper. You're way more
- 57:45defensible.
- 57:46Um
- 57:47>> I was so interested by that cursor thing
- 57:49that came out. I think it was cursor
- 57:51where it's sort of like a AI speed
- 57:53running like what we've learned amongst
- 57:54humans, which is you could use the
- 57:55frontier model to plan and then farm out
- 57:58tasks to the dumber models.
- 58:00>> 100%
- 58:00>> And and it's 15 times more efficient or
- 58:02whatever the metric was.
- 58:03>> It it it may be that like
- 58:06if this is like super ironic,
- 58:09um
- 58:10but it may be that like lower margin
- 58:13open source tokens that are just
- 58:16a little bit behind the frontier and you
- 58:18know, we have a we have friends who
- 58:20believe that you know, frontier
- 58:21[clears throat]
- 58:22once a frontier model hits RSI
- 58:25it will actually have a dramatically
- 58:27lower cost
- 58:28>> to serve the local
- 58:30>> at at every
- 58:32at every level of intelligence by kind
- 58:34of distilling this and then there's no
- 58:36place for open source. I would say
- 58:38that's like a
- 58:40you know, a um
- 58:42Anthropic
- 58:43OpenAI Grok maximalist view. And you
- 58:48know, we should we shouldn't dismiss
- 58:49anything. I don't know or really
- 58:50important. Anything is possible. Like
- 58:53you know, we we we would have like be be
- 58:55very humble. I particularly want to be
- 58:57humble after the month I've had.
- 59:00But that doesn't seem that likely to be
- 59:04and
- 59:05>> Why?
- 59:06>> Well,
- 59:07um
- 59:08one because there are so many of these
- 59:10AI natives that have actually
- 59:14generated a decent amount of domain
- 59:16specific proprietary data.
- 59:18>> Yeah.
- 59:19>> And kind of before like
- 59:22open source had this moment to these
- 59:24inference clouds and these routers
- 59:26really developed like you kind of didn't
- 59:28have a choice. Like whatever the terms
- 59:30of service were, you accepted them. But
- 59:33if you can now kind of get off that
- 59:35treadmill,
- 59:36um that gives you a degree of
- 59:38independence,
- 59:39maybe durability, safety. But kind of
- 59:43going back to your point, it may be that
- 59:45these cheaper tokens
- 59:48just
- 59:50massively inflate the value of the most
- 59:52cutting-edge frontier tokens.
- 59:55Because if like today if you have I you
- 59:56know I'm going to make this up, you
- 59:58know, 120 IQ open-source models,
- 1:00:01um and they're really cheap to run,
- 1:00:05well, doesn't that make a 160 IQ model
- 1:00:08that can orchestrate them
- 1:00:11more valuable? And so just we talked
- 1:00:13last time about how
- 1:00:14I've been really surprised that you know
- 1:00:16so much of the economic returns have
- 1:00:17accrued to the frontier.
- 1:00:19Now that that is changing with what
- 1:00:21we're seeing with these kind of
- 1:00:22inference clouds. Um
- 1:00:25together, Modal, um
- 1:00:28uh Base 10 in a very cash-efficient way.
- 1:00:30What's shocking about those business
- 1:00:32models
- 1:00:34is they're growing almost as fast as the
- 1:00:36frontier labs in the early days,
- 1:00:39but burning very little cash.
- 1:00:42Like it's it's pretty extraordinary, you
- 1:00:44know, from like you know look to go back
- 1:00:46to silly SaaS metrics like the you know
- 1:00:49the rule of 40 perspective. Like
- 1:00:51these are crazy numbers.
- 1:00:53>> Do you think there's a lot of
- 1:00:54instruction in just like the
- 1:00:55distribution of pay inside of an
- 1:00:56organization? Like the CEO makes X times
- 1:00:59more than the median person at a company
- 1:01:01and maybe that's frontier tokens versus,
- 1:01:03you know, open-source tokens.
- 1:01:04>> Absolutely. Yeah.
- 1:01:05>> Something simple like we can
- 1:01:06>> Yeah, it may be that what we discussed
- 1:01:07last time where you know frontier tokens
- 1:01:10I think they may lose a like the pie is
- 1:01:13growing really really fast.
- 1:01:16They may continue to capture the
- 1:01:18overwhelming majority of economic value,
- 1:01:20but kind of not all of it the way they
- 1:01:21have been, and open source tokens might
- 1:01:24be the majority of token source tokens
- 1:01:25processed.
- 1:01:27It just again, going back, that's great
- 1:01:29for infrastructure demand because a
- 1:01:31token is a token and it
- 1:01:33takes the same amount of flops,
- 1:01:35watts,
- 1:01:37space, cooling to make.
- 1:01:40>> What's the worst thing that could happen
- 1:01:42in AI? Is it regulatory? Is it some sort
- 1:01:44of like
- 1:01:44>> I think regulatory has to be the biggest
- 1:01:46risk.
- 1:01:47Um
- 1:01:48I mean, it's the most obvious risk.
- 1:01:51And so that was kind of one reason I was
- 1:01:52excited to be here this week
- 1:01:54was to just like
- 1:01:56I
- 1:01:57I want to be scared, you know? I like I
- 1:01:59don't I don't want to feel like a
- 1:02:01lunatic, you know, watching these stocks
- 1:02:05relative to um you know, get more
- 1:02:08cheaper thinking the expected forward
- 1:02:10returns are going up.
- 1:02:12You know, while you know,
- 1:02:14it feels like the on the ground
- 1:02:15fundamentals have like pretty materially
- 1:02:18improved.
- 1:02:19Um
- 1:02:20in July relative to even June, but I
- 1:02:23still came come away thinking like
- 1:02:26you know, regulation, it just has to be
- 1:02:29the biggest risk. Like you just can't
- 1:02:30ignore New York
- 1:02:33making a data center moratorium.
- 1:02:36It just like we are we're living in this
- 1:02:38weird
- 1:02:40post-factual, post-logical political
- 1:02:43world.
- 1:02:44It
- 1:02:45you know,
- 1:02:46and I mean, I think the AI industry it
- 1:02:48has done a
- 1:02:49terrible job
- 1:02:52of PR, and I do think they're
- 1:02:54>> it at least realizes that now.
- 1:02:56>> Yeah.
- 1:02:56>> Maybe if not fixed it, it realizes it.
- 1:02:58>> Yeah, but like kind of the narrative in
- 1:03:00Washington, you know, that that that the
- 1:03:02political narrative, you know, I think
- 1:03:04amongst a lot of ordinary Americans is
- 1:03:05like data centers,
- 1:03:07they're going to raise your electricity
- 1:03:08prices, they're going to take all your
- 1:03:09water, and they're going to take your
- 1:03:11job.
- 1:03:11>> [laughter]
- 1:03:12>> And the reality is like given the deals
- 1:03:15that are being cut now, when a data
- 1:03:16center goes in, electricity prices
- 1:03:18actually generally go down for everyone
- 1:03:20around there because of behind the meter
- 1:03:22deals.
- 1:03:23This is that like data center pledge
- 1:03:25that kind of Trump asked people to to
- 1:03:27sign. Generally, the data center
- 1:03:29developer, you know, it used to be they
- 1:03:30just had to build a like, you know,
- 1:03:32whatever. They had to get the police
- 1:03:33department or the fire departments like,
- 1:03:36you know, new trucks and new cars and,
- 1:03:38you know, new body armor or whatever.
- 1:03:40Now, it's like, well, we're going to
- 1:03:42build you a hospital, a school, a new
- 1:03:44police station, and a fire station. And
- 1:03:46we're going to lower your power bills.
- 1:03:48How does that sound? And by the way, the
- 1:03:51jobs are ongoing because it turns out
- 1:03:53that you kind of need these plumbers,
- 1:03:55electricians, you know,
- 1:03:59HVAC contractors. And this is like data
- 1:04:02centers are like
- 1:04:03are in a lot of ways the best thing to
- 1:04:05happen
- 1:04:06for blue-collar wages in my lifetime.
- 1:04:10And yet, you have the Democrats who
- 1:04:11ostensibly
- 1:04:13represent the, you know, the blue, you
- 1:04:15know, these blue-collar workers
- 1:04:18taking their jobs away.
- 1:04:20Um
- 1:04:21And so, um
- 1:04:24it it also like
- 1:04:25it's it's just kind of wild how like,
- 1:04:28what is the phrase? Like a lie can go
- 1:04:30around the world
- 1:04:31>> Faster than the truth gets out of bed,
- 1:04:32yeah.
- 1:04:33>> Yeah, faster than truth gets out of bed.
- 1:04:35But an author made a mistake in a book
- 1:04:38and overestimated the amount of water
- 1:04:40usage in data centers by 10,000 X. Not a
- 1:04:43little bit. Like not one order of
- 1:04:45magnitude. Not two orders of magnitude.
- 1:04:47Not three, you know?
- 1:04:48Um
- 1:04:50and um
- 1:04:52she's admitted that mistake many times.
- 1:04:55I was completely wrong.
- 1:04:57It's like been super debugged.
- 1:04:59>> uh Popeye effect. Did you Did you hear
- 1:05:01that example?
- 1:05:02>> No.
- 1:05:02>> The the, you know, Popeye eats spinach.
- 1:05:05The reason was same deal in an academic
- 1:05:07in an academic book. They placed the
- 1:05:08decimal two things wrong. So, spinach
- 1:05:10does not have more iron than everything
- 1:05:12else. It was just this one source and
- 1:05:14then that propagated through people
- 1:05:16still say it has more iron.
- 1:05:17>> I literally had I thought it had more
- 1:05:19iron. [laughter] I mean that's wild.
- 1:05:21That's wild. I literally thought spinach
- 1:05:24had more iron.
- 1:05:24>> [laughter]
- 1:05:25>> That's amazing.
- 1:05:26>> Yeah, you learn something new every day.
- 1:05:27>> Same thing though.
- 1:05:28>> Uh yeah, it's the same thing and it's
- 1:05:30just
- 1:05:31So somebody just needs to tell the
- 1:05:32truth. Like like I I feel like the
- 1:05:35industry and I thought like jeez, maybe
- 1:05:37if nobody else is going to do it like
- 1:05:38I'll do it. Like there needs to be some
- 1:05:40sort of foundation. Maybe it's a pack
- 1:05:43that runs ads during the final four,
- 1:05:45during the NFL games, during college
- 1:05:47football games.
- 1:05:48>> Here's the virtues.
- 1:05:49>> World Series.
- 1:05:51Here's what a data center does. Your
- 1:05:52power a data center that signed this
- 1:05:55pledge in your community.
- 1:05:56>> Yeah.
- 1:05:57>> Your power prices are going to go down.
- 1:05:59They're almost certainly going to
- 1:06:02um
- 1:06:02you know
- 1:06:03like contribute to the community in a
- 1:06:05material way. You're going to see a
- 1:06:07massive influx of super high paying blue
- 1:06:11collar jobs
- 1:06:12that are going to persist and I think a
- 1:06:13lot of people thought that they were one
- 1:06:15time and they're just not. Like there's
- 1:06:17for sure a spike and then that moves to
- 1:06:18the next data center but there is an
- 1:06:20ongoing kind of
- 1:06:22you know, need for kind of RMA and then
- 1:06:25upgrades at these data centers and and
- 1:06:26technology is changing. So you're going
- 1:06:28to have more jobs, you're going to have
- 1:06:29cheaper power.
- 1:06:31You're going to have a wealthier
- 1:06:32community. Um there's going to be no
- 1:06:34impact on on water, no impact on the
- 1:06:38environment. You know, and it's easy to
- 1:06:39build the data center 10 miles out of
- 1:06:41town, you know.
- 1:06:42And so like that story needs to be told
- 1:06:45along with, you know, like there are you
- 1:06:47know, we we we we we heard a we we heard
- 1:06:49a story I think we talked about it last
- 1:06:50time about how AI is increasingly really
- 1:06:53saving lives, curing rare diseases.
- 1:06:55Like we um
- 1:06:57you know, I think I can't remember if it
- 1:06:58was I I think it was at ASCO this year.
- 1:07:01You know, the kind of vibe, you know,
- 1:07:03the the vibe was like hey, we've this is
- 1:07:06the most scientific breakthroughs we've
- 1:07:08ever seen
- 1:07:10at a single conference.
- 1:07:12And for sure some of that is due to AI.
- 1:07:14And so we need to like tell those
- 1:07:17stories. Like, you know, if you have a
- 1:07:18sick child, you know, a sick parent, uh
- 1:07:21a sick loved one, like
- 1:07:23AI meaningfully increases the odds
- 1:07:28of them recovering.
- 1:07:30Like if we just we we need it's
- 1:07:32everybody needs to tell this. And I
- 1:07:34think people out here
- 1:07:37it's all of this is so blindingly
- 1:07:40obvious to them
- 1:07:43that they they
- 1:07:44>> seems everyone else already knows.
- 1:07:45>> They they can't Yeah, they can't process
- 1:07:48that this is a
- 1:07:49true but wildly divergent view
- 1:07:53from most Americans.
- 1:07:57And so like I think the industry really
- 1:07:59needs to tell its story better.
- 1:08:01Cuz this is
- 1:08:04like
- 1:08:05New York, it just feels like it's the
- 1:08:06first of many and even in some of these
- 1:08:09deep red states, they're super
- 1:08:11pro-growth.
- 1:08:13They're just like, "Hey, you guys are
- 1:08:14not doing a good job telling your story.
- 1:08:17Then we can't we can't tell your story.
- 1:08:19If you tell your story though, we can
- 1:08:21retell it, but like you're the experts."
- 1:08:25Um you know, if you like
- 1:08:27like something I've if you do not speak
- 1:08:30your own truth, no one else will.
- 1:08:32>> [clears throat]
- 1:08:33>> Yeah. What have we missed with
- 1:08:34>> I think something that is missing from
- 1:08:36all of this conversation about compute
- 1:08:39is what is going to happen when you put
- 1:08:40these SRAM-based accelerators that are
- 1:08:43not constrained
- 1:08:44by HBM DRAM and are often made on older
- 1:08:47nodes that are not competing
- 1:08:50with like the latest and greatest GPUs.
- 1:08:53You can whether you there's when you
- 1:08:55disaggregate Fritz, there's people talk
- 1:08:58about prefill and decode, but decode has
- 1:09:00two parts, attention and feed forward
- 1:09:02network, and like the ultimate holy
- 1:09:04grail is if you could do pre-fill
- 1:09:07on one chip.
- 1:09:08Um it probably doesn't have HBM DRAM. Do
- 1:09:12the attention on a super high-powered
- 1:09:15chip with HBM DRAM, and then do the feed
- 1:09:18forward network on one of these SRAM
- 1:09:20chips.
- 1:09:21But like
- 1:09:23the ROI on adding these SRAM
- 1:09:27accelerators,
- 1:09:29uh
- 1:09:30to the existing install base of compute
- 1:09:31and and new compute.
- 1:09:33But like what we're seeing is like
- 1:09:36you do better. You just can't beat SRAM
- 1:09:40in particular for that feed forward
- 1:09:42network. And And you just almost you
- 1:09:44can't, no matter how much you try to get
- 1:09:46the ratio of compute to HBM DRAM
- 1:09:49to SRAM on the chip correct. Like the
- 1:09:52workloads are always changing, and
- 1:09:53there's different workloads.
- 1:09:55And like
- 1:09:56being able to disaggregate it to these
- 1:09:58three parts,
- 1:09:59uh
- 1:10:01like I think this is
- 1:10:03this is going to be really really
- 1:10:05positive for the ROI of AI.
- 1:10:07>> For some reason I just thought of a
- 1:10:08funny question, which I love their
- 1:10:09framing of Game of Thrones versus all
- 1:10:11these people. Can you imagine a player
- 1:10:13that is not currently on everyone's mind
- 1:10:15becoming relevant at like the major Game
- 1:10:17of Thrones scale? Like that could be
- 1:10:18like Micron all of a sudden, you know,
- 1:10:20it'd be like a sample answer to the
- 1:10:22question of someone that becomes as
- 1:10:24important as Anthropic, OpenAI,
- 1:10:26Microsoft, Amazon, you know, Nvidia,
- 1:10:29SpaceX.
- 1:10:30>> Yeah.
- 1:10:31So like a dark horse Game of Thrones
- 1:10:32player?
- 1:10:33>> that come to mind.
- 1:10:36Um
- 1:10:38like Li Bu is probably a dark horse.
- 1:10:41Um
- 1:10:44I do think um Lin at Fireworks, she is
- 1:10:49like a
- 1:10:50just an absolute killer.
- 1:10:54Um I think
- 1:10:56uh you know, our friend Scott Wool.
- 1:10:58>> Mhm.
- 1:10:58>> You know, cognition is kind of like uh
- 1:11:01>> Here, here to that one.
- 1:11:02>> Yes.
- 1:11:03Uh uh
- 1:11:04I think those are
- 1:11:08uh the most obvious names.
- 1:11:11>> What about SpaceX? What's it been like
- 1:11:12watching that be digested by public
- 1:11:15markets at least initially?
- 1:11:16>> Uh uh
- 1:11:17>> Do you think the market understands it
- 1:11:19as a company? The most important new
- 1:11:20company to be public?
- 1:11:23>> It doesn't really feel like it
- 1:11:26it does because it's kind of like such a
- 1:11:30it's such a
- 1:11:32like everything to me is
- 1:11:35the fundamentals have gotten better
- 1:11:36since it IPO'd. Like Rock 4.5, the
- 1:11:39Cursor acquisition.
- 1:11:40You know, Cursor
- 1:11:42uh has clearly accelerated meaningfully.
- 1:11:46And then they have showed that they
- 1:11:47could, you know, they've they've showed
- 1:11:49over the last 3 years they could bring
- 1:11:50out more compute faster than anyone
- 1:11:52at lower prices. And now we know that
- 1:11:54they could even adjusting for the spot
- 1:11:56first contract gap, like their big
- 1:11:58advantage was they came into the market
- 1:12:02you know, and just hit those spot highs.
- 1:12:05Uh uh
- 1:12:06And in a strange way, like one of the
- 1:12:07more bullish things for compute
- 1:12:09is like, you know, they put a vast
- 1:12:11amount of compute into the market
- 1:12:13overnight.
- 1:12:14And it wasn't even really a blip.
- 1:12:16It was like the market just
- 1:12:19utterly absorbed it, you know? Like just
- 1:12:22the free trade didn't sold out at all.
- 1:12:25Uh uh
- 1:12:26But you know, a you know, a Substack
- 1:12:28writer Wolfund Fund AI,
- 1:12:31they think that SpaceX is going to try
- 1:12:33and bring out 8 gigawatts of compute.
- 1:12:36I will never bet against Elon.
- 1:12:41But I mean
- 1:12:42that would be a truly incredible feat.
- 1:12:46And they are
- 1:12:48rates have gone up since they signed
- 1:12:49those last contracts, not down.
- 1:12:52And they're monetizing at something like
- 1:12:5450 billion a gig.
- 1:12:56And ConsenSys estimates for next year
- 1:12:58are 73 billion. So, forget Starlink V3.
- 1:13:02Forget Starlink direct to cell. Grok 4.5
- 1:13:06and Cursor, the sum of that probably
- 1:13:08hits a $10 billion ARR pretty quickly.
- 1:13:12For
- 1:13:13Forget all of that. Um
- 1:13:16you know, forget like the core base
- 1:13:18Starlink business.
- 1:13:20If they bring out anywhere near that,
- 1:13:23the ConsenSys estimate is 73 billion.
- 1:13:26And that's 8 gigs at 50 billion a gig.
- 1:13:28And obviously, that would not all be lit
- 1:13:30up at the beginning of '27.
- 1:13:33And it seems very implausible to me.
- 1:13:36Like, I almost don't believe the Funder
- 1:13:38report.
- 1:13:39Um
- 1:13:42but
- 1:13:44you it To this day, the only companies
- 1:13:46that have brought out more than 500
- 1:13:47megawatts
- 1:13:48of power
- 1:13:51in a year are the hyperscalers,
- 1:13:54Coreweave, Crusoe, and SpaceX.
- 1:13:57And SpaceX has kind of brought out the
- 1:13:58most the fastest at the lowest cost.
- 1:14:01And then
- 1:14:02people do actually really like their
- 1:14:04clusters.
- 1:14:05Um
- 1:14:08but again, it's kind of like the market
- 1:14:10is going to need to see that.
- 1:14:13>> That would not be the market's
- 1:14:14interpretation of SpaceX today.
- 1:14:16>> No, no.
- 1:14:17Um
- 1:14:18and it does feel like, you know, there's
- 1:14:19this There's There's a big New York
- 1:14:21hedge fund short case on it.
- 1:14:23And I think they think, you know, oh,
- 1:14:24the spot price for compute's going to go
- 1:14:26down 90% and, you know,
- 1:14:28you're going to bring out all this
- 1:14:30You're going to bring all this on all
- 1:14:31this compute. It's not going to
- 1:14:32generate, you know, nearly as much
- 1:14:33revenue as you think. Maybe, but also
- 1:14:35want to be really clear like
- 1:14:38Like, I have seen those I have seen
- 1:14:40Yolt's companies, you know, do really
- 1:14:41impressive things over the year. Pretty
- 1:14:44the Funder AI report of 8 gigawatts at
- 1:14:4618 months.
- 1:14:48I'm I'm just quoting that cuz it's
- 1:14:49public. It's available to everyone.
- 1:14:52Ooh, like that.
- 1:14:53>> yeah.
- 1:14:53>> That Yes.
- 1:14:56Um
- 1:14:57you know, I think one of Elon's phrases
- 1:14:59is we specialize in making the
- 1:15:01impossible late.
- 1:15:03>> [laughter]
- 1:15:04>> I've never heard that. That's great.
- 1:15:05>> Yeah. Um it you know, there's like kind
- 1:15:08of a lot of truth to that. Yeah, yeah.
- 1:15:10Um
- 1:15:12but I just think
- 1:15:14very little is built in
- 1:15:18from my perspective to that stock
- 1:15:22for the amount of compute
- 1:15:24that they might be able to bring on. And
- 1:15:27again, I don't think it's anywhere near
- 1:15:29eight.
- 1:15:30Um and it's going to be really hard and
- 1:15:32energizing these GPUs is really hard.
- 1:15:35But they've been good at it and it
- 1:15:37doesn't feel like that's in estimates or
- 1:15:39really in people's thinking.
- 1:15:40>> I'm thinking about that funny meme that
- 1:15:41says SpaceX, the data center company?
- 1:15:44>> [laughter]
- 1:15:45>> You said yes,
- 1:15:46absolutely.
- 1:15:47Um and then I would also just say like
- 1:15:51from
- 1:15:52Yeah, I did spend a lot of time at
- 1:15:53Starbase and
- 1:15:55um
- 1:15:56orbital compute feels more real every
- 1:15:59day.
- 1:16:00>> Pretty cool to see that Starship landing
- 1:16:01the other day.
- 1:16:02>> Pretty cool to see the Starship landing
- 1:16:04and then it's you know, it is funny.
- 1:16:05There's our friends at Benchmark. They
- 1:16:07funded Star Cloud and
- 1:16:09I don't know last time Star Cloud is an
- 1:16:10orbital compute company that like SpaceX
- 1:16:12is kind of partnering with.
- 1:16:14Um they're going to I think let them use
- 1:16:16the Starlink laser technology, which is
- 1:16:17really important for orbital compute.
- 1:16:19And like but I do think that's like kind
- 1:16:21of a good sanity check.
- 1:16:23Last time I checked, you know, the
- 1:16:24Benchmark guys were pretty smart.
- 1:16:27And they're not
- 1:16:29coming from the Elon ecosystem at all.
- 1:16:33And they chose to fund an orbital
- 1:16:35compute company
- 1:16:37at like you know, a decent valuation
- 1:16:41without the internal launch that SpaceX
- 1:16:43gets.
- 1:16:44And that's just to me that's a good
- 1:16:46like, "Hey, am am I
- 1:16:48>> crazy?"
- 1:16:49>> Am I crazy? And it's like, well, maybe
- 1:16:51I'm crazy and maybe Elon's crazy and
- 1:16:54maybe Benchmark is also crazy and maybe
- 1:16:57the SpaceX engineers are also crazy.
- 1:17:01But man, that just doesn't seem that
- 1:17:02probable to me.
- 1:17:05And I mean, we we should say should we
- 1:17:06say whose offices we're in?
- 1:17:08>> Yeah, we're sitting in the middle of the
- 1:17:09famous table.
- 1:17:10>> Yes, this is their famous table.
- 1:17:10[laughter] Yes, this is their famous
- 1:17:12table for their famous dinners. Um so
- 1:17:15thank you Benchmark. Thank you Benchmark
- 1:17:17for this episode. Yes, thanks Eric. Um
- 1:17:19and and she we should thank them all.
- 1:17:21>> Um Eric Eric coordinated for me so he
- 1:17:24gets a special shout out.
- 1:17:25>> Thank you, Eric.
- 1:17:25>> Thank you all of the partners.
- 1:17:26>> Thank you, Eric. Well, you know, just
- 1:17:28you know, we will see where all of these
- 1:17:29stocks are in a year.
- 1:17:32And the great thing is, you know, time
- 1:17:34will tell.
- 1:17:35You know, people are going to be right
- 1:17:37or wrong.
- 1:17:38You know, the future's probabilistic,
- 1:17:39but we are at like it's an exciting
- 1:17:41moment.
- 1:17:42>> Well, if we keep doing this on the the
- 1:17:44model release cycle, I'll see you in a
- 1:17:45couple weeks.
- 1:17:46>> [laughter]
- 1:17:47>> Yeah, it's crazy.
- 1:17:49>> As always a blast to do with you.
- 1:17:54>> You know how small advantages compound
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