[kronicum2025]

I see a lot of comments here criticizing the author, and I think both teams have a point. There's definitely a bubble, because companies are buying up infrastructure which doesn't need to be used right now.

But also, the companies are buying up this infrastructure because whoever controls the infrastructure also controls the industry in around 5 years time.

[giardini]

Nobody knows what will be happening "in around 5 years time"!

Economic and social predictions beyond 2 years are sketchy at best.

[danaris]

...if the bubble hasn't already popped by then.

[jstummbillig]

> There's definitely a bubble, because companies are buying up infrastructure which doesn't need to be used right now.

Source? Satya Nadella seems to disagree with your statement (at least as I understand both): https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-ceo-satya-nadell...

[Levitz]

Can Satya Nadella be honest regarding this subject?

"Ah yes we invested $13B into OpenAI but it's a bubble"

[keeda]

It's not just Satya, the CEOs of all the hyperscalers are consistent in their messaging over the last several quarters that they are backlogged on capacity. Not only are they saying it, they are putting their money where their mouths are by actively burning double-digit billions of their free cash flow on this buildout.

How probable is it that all these competitors are colluding on the same story while burning what would have otherwise been very healthy profits?

Occam's razor and all that.

[jstummbillig]

Being the CEO of a notable publicly traded company (and liable if caught lying about what they do with billions of shareholders dollars) surely a little more than random HN commentator without sources...?

[danaris]

And just when was the last time you saw CEO of a company as big as Microsoft "caught lying to shareholders" about anything actually face any punishment?

CEOs of big public companies lie to their shareholders all the time. It would be fantastic if they could be held accountable for those lies, but AFAIK when the SEC has tried, they always weasel out of it by saying things like "well, from what I knew at the time, it was true" or "if you interpret it this (ridiculous) way it was true". It's very, very hard to prove malicious intent—that is, prove what was going on in the CEO's head when they said it—with something like this beyond doubt, and that's effectively what's required.

[keeda]

> And just when was the last time you saw CEO of a company as big as Microsoft "caught lying to shareholders" about anything actually face any punishment?

Actually curious, when was the last time we saw a CEO of a company as big as Microsoft caught lying to shareholders?

The one instance I can recall offhand of big companies doing fraud were cases like Enron, which resulted in execs going to jail. More recent cases of CEOs were not large companies and they also ended up with them in prison, e.g. Nikola. (Sure the guy's out again, but that's been done, uh, outside the usual process of justice.)