Comment by maxglute | Hacker News Reader

Comment by maxglute | Hacker News Reader

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>You're refuted.

No, the whole thesis is XYZ likely fail because REVENUE RECORDS is not enough to dig out of hole relative to MAGNITUDE MORE SPEND. Saying Zitron wrong because XYZ made $2 for every $10 it spends revenue needed to justify spending. Fixtaing on the $1-$2 is misdirection/innumeracy, the thesis is in reaching the $10 relative to time, i.e. that $2 has to be $10 in X time, but the current velocity suggest it will not be.

I agree with Zitron directionally on accounting, I in fact disagree with him on AI... I am extremely AI pilled, i.e. I think there is a future where AI is worth trillions and will capture large swatch of economy. The transformation will be extreme, unlike any past revolutions... but the accounting suggest that future isn't coming in time to rescue current AI incumbents from finance blackhole, which some may survive, i.e. bail outs, nationalization... but the $$$ suggest however we get there, there will likely be massive $$$ corrections involved irrespective of adoption.

You keep saying this. It doesn't mean anything to "directionally agree with Zitron" in the context of this Dan Luu piece. All you're saying is "you're skeptical of AI and the AI business model". Bully for you! Lots of people are. Nobody is dunking on you for having that skepticism. They're dunking on Ed Zitron for making a long series of patently risible specific predictions.

This just assumes Luu's piece has good argument that refutes Zitron's thesis when it doesn't. Saying Zitron is wrong because XYZ made $2 instead of $1 is different then Zitron staying XYZ is unlikely to make $10 in time when all signs still point to overperforming at $2 is not enough. It's a stupid reason to dunk.

That's a gross mischaracterization of what Dan Luu demonstrates in this piece as anybody can see for themselves simply by clicking on it. But the radical divergence of our premises (mine: based on the actual article; yours: unclear to me) explains why we're talking past each other.

It's not mischaracterization to point out limits of article is a poor basis to dunk on Zitron because it does not refute Zitron's broader thesis only nitpick what is really minutae/noise that can be explained by trillion dollar companies short term financial engineering / spreadsheet maxxing rosy picture. Even if Zitron short term forecasts/model sucks, it doesn't discount directional validity of his medium/long term thesis.

Someone in deep debt backstopping with maxing credit cards is not dunking on outside observer saying this arrangement ultimately not sustainable. The article is nitpicking over short term micro/liquidity when ultimate macro/solvency. Now maybe there's plenty of credit cards to max out, but systematically someone is going to end up holding the bag, and politically that could be public socializing costs. If folks want to use article to dunk on Zitron short term forecasts, it's whatever, but I think important to point out it doesn't refute his long term thesis around fundamentals, which again does not mean fundamentals cannot be overridden by non market means, but that's also a crux of the long term thesis - in lieu of correction/market clearing, we're going to see non market interventions to save current model from its fundamentals.

"Saying Zitron is wrong because XYZ made $2 instead of $1" is not a reasonable summary of the post we both just read and I don't think there's a point in trying to hash this out further if you disagree with that.

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