It is if you’re a hardware company. Picks and shovels…
this post was submitted on 29 May 2026
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AI, in this case, refers to LLMs, GPT technology, and anything listed as "AI" meant to increase market valuations.
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Yeah, but how much of that is the money that nVidia "invested" in other companies so they can buy nVidia hardware?
Even the deals that might seem perfectly fine on the surface. Nvidia sells some hardware and the customer paid for them. However when we zoom in it's not that they actually paid for them, it's that payment is due sometime in the future. And it isn't that the hardware is actually delivered, it's what Nvidia calls buy-and-hold. This is a scheme where Nvidia holds on to the hardware till the customer has a data center ready to put them in. However it is since become clear that those data centers are never being built. And Nvidia has sold more than they have manufactured. And the customer doesn't have the funds to pay them. So on paper it's all fine and everyone is doing well, in reality it's all just a huge bubble.
And yes this is super illegal, but in the Trump era it's like the Wild West out there, utter lawlessness.
But even if those companies disappear overnight, and LLMs are blanket banned worldwide, aren’t they (pun intended) still in the green?
Their stock may drop, and they lose those investments, but at the end of the day they sold hardware and made a shit ton of cash, more than what they loaned out. And they end up where they were before the AI Bro Bubble.
But even if those companies disappear overnight, and LLMs are blanket banned worldwide, aren’t they (pun intended) still in the green?
No, because they don't actually have a giant bag of money.
They invest in companies who buy their product. But that product hasn't actually been made yet. Nvidia is writing it down as sale because the contract was signed, but no exchange was made.
So it's like me giving you 10 bucks to buy 10 bucks off product from me in two years in return for a few percent of your profit.
However, if you go bankrupt between now and actually buying my product, I will be down 10 bucks and my share of the profit.
Money is more fake every day
Yeah, any money says their books are cooked to high heaven. There’s no way whatsoever their numbers are GAAP compliant.
A hardware company deeply invested in these other companies...
you know.. investment so they buy in the hardware..
Even in this list of colossal losers, Meta manages to stand out.
Unlike Alphabet and Microsoft, Meta can't cram AI into a profitable product and pretend the profit is because of AI. They're also the only one not selling compute to other parties. It's very likely Meta is the most realistic one in the list for actual profit from selling AI.
Hey! Give Kaptain Ketamine a chance to catch up!
I've talked to some folks around the Cedar Rapids area where there's a Google data center being built. Apparently they're pulling in electricians from out of state and paying them 1/4 million dollar salaries +350$/day per diem for this two year project.
I'd bet the majority of that cash is going to the local strippers
Edit: and they deserve every penny 🙏