[romaniv]

Ed Zitron[1] has a lot of articles and podcast episodes on these deals. The nice thing about it is that he occasionally revisits the old announcements to check what happened with them. Apparently a lot of these deals just evaporate after prolonged contact with reality.

[1] https://www.wheresyoured.at/

[davnicwil]

I think a tell that many of these deals likely aren't real and are basically just PR is the numbers are super round and digestable.

That's a clear signal that little analysis has gone into the numbers and, most generously, there's nothing but the shape of a deal the details of which will be ironed out and adjusted in practice.

I get that the amounts of funding and capital being sat on for the respective parties are collossal and lead to rounding that doesn't make sense from the point of view of an individual any more (what's a few million at this scale, just round up to nearest 10, etc) but deal sizes of literally round numbers of 100s start to stretch credibility on whether any real analysis was involved.

In fact it'd be a ridiculous coincidence if it had been. They're the kind of figures where you'd recheck your calculations to check it's right as it seems too perfectly round.

[lofaszvanitt]

That guy needs to chill down. You listen to it and then after the umpteenth episode you just turn it off. He enjoys his own voice very MUCH. And he repeats the same thing again and again and again, and it is very tiring.

[danielbln]

Ed Zitron is a terrible source, he is so staunchly anti AI that he is effectively blind. Once in a while he'll be right by pure chance, but I wouldn't rely on any of it.

[surgical_fire]

Eh, this is an ad-hominem. Ed being anti-AI does not adress the validity of his arguments.

I think he misses the mark when he insists on AI being useless. It is useful, although far from what the people hyping AI claim.

But when he delves in the numbers, his arguments are very solid (and I am still to see someone counter him on that).

[nateburke]

Agreed. Curious to know if any other prominent voices have delved into the numbers in a similar way?

[hnthrow0287345]

This stuff helps prevent the bubble popping, which means when they want the bubble to pop, they stop announcing these deals, giving them a great lever of profit.

Crazy how they can just lie to this extent without consequences. Or still get paid millions for making bad deals, meaning incompetence