"Now, I know what you’re thinking. Ed, isn’t that exactly what’s happening here? We’ve got overvalued startups, we’ve got multiple unprofitable, unsustainable AI companies promising to IPO, we’ve got overvalued tech stocks, and we’ve got one of the largest infrastructural buildouts of all time. Tech companies are trading at ridiculous multiples of their earnings-per-share, but the multiples aren’t as high. That’s good, right?

No. No it isn’t. AI boosters and well-wishers are obsessed with making this comparison because saying “things worked out after the dot com bubble” allows them to rationalize doing stupid, destructive and reckless things.

Even if this was just like the dot com bubble, things would be absolutely fucking catastrophic — the NASDAQ dropped 78% from its peak in March 2000 — but due to the incredible ignorance of both the private and public power brokers of the tech industry, I expect consequences that range from calamitous to catastrophic, dependent almost entirely on how long the bubble takes to burst, and how willing the SEC is to greenlight an IPO.

The AI bubble bursting will be worse, because the investments are larger, the contagion is wider, and the underlying asset — GPUs — are entirely different in their costs, utility and basic value than dark fiber. Furthermore, the basic unit economics of AI — both in its infrastructure and the AI companies themselves — are magnitudes more horrifying than anything we saw in the dot com bubble.

In simpler terms, I’m really fucking worried, and I’m sick and tired of hearing people making this comparison."

https://www.wheresyoured.at/dot-com-bubble/

#AI #GenerativeAI #LLMs #DotComBubble #AIBubble #VC #VentureCapital #BigTech

It's not #build, build, build to solve the problem of #affordable #rent and housing

It is providing #housing without market interest and #venturecapital

#Talk by @AndrejHolm at #ActNow #Conference in #Vienna
--
Es geht nicht um "Bauen, bauen, bauen" um die #Wohnungskrise zu lösen

Es geht darum, lebenswürdige Wohnungen ohne Marktinteressen anzubieten

#AndrejHolm auf der ActNow #Konferenz in #Wien

#Erbbauverein #Genossenschaften #degrowth #housingcrisis

It's not #build, build, build to solve the problem of #affordable #rent and housing

It is providing #housing without market interest and #venturecapital

#Talk by @AndrejHolm at #ActNow #Conference in #Vienna
--
Es geht nicht um "Bauen, bauen, bauen" um die #Wohnungskrise zu lösen

Es geht darum, lebenswürdige Wohnungen ohne Marktinteressen anzubieten

#AndrejHolm auf der ActNow #Konferenz in #Wien

#Erbbauverein #Genossenschaften #degrowth #housingcrisis

"One[ #OpenAI]must convince investors that losses exceeding 100billion dollars will eventually convert to profits large enough to justify a half-trillion valuation. The other[ #Google]already owns the distribution, the data, the chips & the users, trading at a 3rd…while printing tens of billions in annual profit.
If AI power centralizes inside platforms that control infrastructure rather than labs that rent it, the entire #venturecapital thesis underlying OpenAI collapses."
https://substack.com/inbox/post/179701197

"One[ #OpenAI]must convince investors that losses exceeding 100billion dollars will eventually convert to profits large enough to justify a half-trillion valuation. The other[ #Google]already owns the distribution, the data, the chips & the users, trading at a 3rd…while printing tens of billions in annual profit.
If AI power centralizes inside platforms that control infrastructure rather than labs that rent it, the entire #venturecapital thesis underlying OpenAI collapses."
https://substack.com/inbox/post/179701197

Angel Investors, a Field Guide

https://www.jeanyang.com/posts/angel-investors-a-field-guide/

#HackerNews #AngelInvestors #FieldGuide #StartupFunding #VentureCapital #Entrepreneurship #BusinessInsights

there is only one business model today:

Enshittification as a Service (EaaS).

Maximum Margins, Minimal Expenses. Global Maxima NPV.

Don't even bother pitching VC / PE if you can't show progress and acceleration enshittifying the market you are in.

If you get to the point where they ask what you need the money for, you tell them straight up: "I'm going to raise prices, make the product crappier, and convince people they love it even more."

#enshittification #SaaS #VentureCapital #Software

Het is ellenlang, maar de moeite waard om er de tijd voor te nemen.

Als je één tekst over de AI-zwendel leest, laat het dan deze zijn: https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-case-against-generative-ai/

#AI #Nvidia #OpenAI #EdZitron #TheAICon #VentureCapital

Het is ellenlang, maar de moeite waard om er de tijd voor te nemen.

Als je één tekst over de AI-zwendel leest, laat het dan deze zijn: https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-case-against-generative-ai/

#AI #Nvidia #OpenAI #EdZitron #TheAICon #VentureCapital

Yeah, I knew some lovely people who worked at Twitter too. And did you know they once had unfettered API access and anyone could create their own client? Some of us loved that so much we built things that helped legitimise them as an open platform. And then one day they just switched that off.

Legitimacy is gold to venture-capital-funded startups. They need people with it to convince everyday folks that this latest iteration of the same old rug pull is different. Until they’ve grown so much that they don’t need it anymore, that is. I guess we haven’t learned that much after all.

You want to understand Bluesky? Imagine if Google had invented email and scaled Gmail before allowing others to set up their own email servers, knowing that maybe a handful would and that they were large enough to make the rules ad infinitum. That’s Bluesky.

Don’t fall for the latest venture-capital funded Silicon Valley social network no matter who tells you it’s fine and no matter how many words they use to do so. Especially when we’ve had a noncommercial and noncorporate alternative for close to a decade now in the form of the fediverse.

I know it’s a low bar but can we please at least get it through our thick heads that venture capital funded Silicon Valley Big Tech does not deserve the benefit of the doubt.

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/115034545696148137

#BlueSky #BigTech #ventureCapital

Yeah, I knew some lovely people who worked at Twitter too. And did you know they once had unfettered API access and anyone could create their own client? Some of us loved that so much we built things that helped legitimise them as an open platform. And then one day they just switched that off.

Legitimacy is gold to venture-capital-funded startups. They need people with it to convince everyday folks that this latest iteration of the same old rug pull is different. Until they’ve grown so much that they don’t need it anymore, that is. I guess we haven’t learned that much after all.

You want to understand Bluesky? Imagine if Google had invented email and scaled Gmail before allowing others to set up their own email servers, knowing that maybe a handful would and that they were large enough to make the rules ad infinitum. That’s Bluesky.

Don’t fall for the latest venture-capital funded Silicon Valley social network no matter who tells you it’s fine and no matter how many words they use to do so. Especially when we’ve had a noncommercial and noncorporate alternative for close to a decade now in the form of the fediverse.

I know it’s a low bar but can we please at least get it through our thick heads that venture capital funded Silicon Valley Big Tech does not deserve the benefit of the doubt.

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/115034545696148137

#BlueSky #BigTech #ventureCapital

This is why I don't make "community contributions" to "open platforms" which don't have some very solid legal framework for governance in place.

They sell out to VC and rug pull hard on the community that provides the bulk of their data and value.

https://bikepacking.com/plog/when-we-get-komooted/

#enshitification#rugpull#VC #venturecapital

“Move fast and break things.”

The things:

- Human rights
- Our habitat
- Democracy

#BigTech#SiliconValley#ventureCapitalhttps://mastodon.social/@freakonometrics/114860155869573459

This is why I don't make "community contributions" to "open platforms" which don't have some very solid legal framework for governance in place.

They sell out to VC and rug pull hard on the community that provides the bulk of their data and value.

https://bikepacking.com/plog/when-we-get-komooted/

#enshitification#rugpull#VC #venturecapital

No one deserves this fate, even if they are the author of their own degradation

More, it's a cautionary tale for us all about the future of #society and #AI and its caustic effects on #mentalHealth

Even if this particular canary in the coal mine chose to place themselves into their predicament with enthusiasm, and is funding it

"A Prominent #OpenAI Investor Appears to Be Suffering a #ChatGPT-Related Mental Health Crisis, His Peers Say"

https://futurism.com/openai-investor-chatgpt-mental-health

#ventureCapital#vultureCapital

No one deserves this fate, even if they are the author of their own degradation

More, it's a cautionary tale for us all about the future of #society and #AI and its caustic effects on #mentalHealth

Even if this particular canary in the coal mine chose to place themselves into their predicament with enthusiasm, and is funding it

"A Prominent #OpenAI Investor Appears to Be Suffering a #ChatGPT-Related Mental Health Crisis, His Peers Say"

https://futurism.com/openai-investor-chatgpt-mental-health

#ventureCapital#vultureCapital

In this week's net.wars, "Cautionary tales", I consider becoming a child for the purposes of age verification, and Substack becomes a unicorn. Dare we predict enshittification? https://netwars.pelicancrossing.net/2025/07/18/cautionary-tales/#NetWars #OnlineSafetyAct#AgeVerification#Substack#VentureCapital#JHumanRights