[nemomarx]

Google rents from SpaceX enough to show profitability, so that SpaceX can IPO and make googles early shares worth more than enough to pay for the renting they're doing.

Great deal for Google but they end up basically just paying spacex to pay them back, right?

[irishcoffee]

I believe you've described "investing with a hope for a profitable return" which is usually the point of investing.

Circular investing is a thing that is happening with all of these companies related to language models. Google hoping for a ROI isn't a great example of that.

[olyjohn]

Since when is leasing capacity in a datacenter considered investing?

[nonethewiser]

>Since when is leasing capacity in a datacenter considered investing?

You misunderstand. The comment notes Google's initial shares, which is referring to a roughly 6.1% stake in SpaceX.

[WorldPeas]

it's about squatting a percent that cannot be taken, there are many companies I know of who have large capacity reservations they don't use only because they hope to use it /soon/ and don't want to deal with cold start times. I remember when one used to be able to start a lambda labs on-demand h100 job and it'd start in 30 minutes, now you'd be lucky if it happened the same day

[irishcoffee]

Why does one lease something? To provide value equal or better to the cost, no?

[fwip]

If I lease an apartment for two years, that's not an investment.

[dmix]

In accounting terms it’s not an investment it’s an operating expense or in your example a personal expense, but if you leased a property and operated a business (ie an AirBnB for an apartment) it could be considered as part of an investment as it’s a means to make a profit.

[nemomarx]

that would be an investment in your own business, not in your landlord right?

[phil21]

I dunno, I’ve never leased space in a datacenter without considering it an investment.

And one I expected to perform significantly better than either the risk free rate or just passive investment into the stock market.

Same reason I invest in capital equipment to put into the space I lease.

[nemomarx]

Buying the 5 percent stake is investing, but is paying them to be sure they can IPO normal? It reminds me more of Microsoft paying apple or Google paying Firefox or something.