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by himata4113 8 hours ago
R&D cost is static, converting all subscription customers to api customers would yield 10x boost in revenue immediately so the demand is there, of course we will probably see demand expand more than that the question is if it's 10x (break even) or 20x (justifying trillion dollar evaluation.
1 comments

> R&D cost is static

since when? do you think their R&D in 2026 is the same as in 2022?

22->26 was scaling up, right now they're at their peak R&D spending from today onwards for the next forseeable future until nvidia starts rolling out their new room-sized systems this will be the upper limit of what can be trained without diminishing returns to where you're just burning money for less than single digit gains. R&D grows because you have more money to spend, not because the R&D costs are increasing, therefore assuming current R&D costs are enough to keep up with competition (which they very likely are) R&D will remain static or (ideally) shrink.

95% or more of current R&D costs are compute, same as cost of revenue.