People have the option of just not buying stuff. I sold my Tesla in 2021 for a stupid price, drove a beater for two years, and bought another new car a couple years later. Now, certainly not everyone has that luxury, but this is computers, not real estate. Prices will crash.
Unless you know, your main and only PC/notebook just died and need a replacement ASAP.
> Prices will crash.
Does your crystal ball also say when exactly? If my laptop broke, then I need a replacement now in the overpriced market, not in X years when prices will crash.
I hope so. I feel so, so, so terribly guilty for not building my wife a computer for her in 2023. She is rocking a 1080ti, and I really wish I had at least upgraded her system, but now I just straight cannot afford to even consider it, given the price of rent, food, gas, energy, all on top of the actual hardware prices.
And I am a SWE.I am not making bad money. I can't imagine what others are going through.
Way to miss the whole point of the article and fail to understand the point. Do you think if significant part of US industry goes bankrupt because they can't source parts for their products, work machines and consumers disappear... you'll still have luxury of running around in a Tesla?
I think the epic mistake was made by investors and executives who bought tales about imminent super-intelligence about to displace millions of knowledge workers from entire industries replacing them with AI datacentres.
These people are the main reason why AI companies have unlimited funding, and can afford to buy global RAM supply for years in the future despite their expenses exceed revenue by billions.
The same thing was said 4 years ago about NVIDIA on HN, that it's stock it's outrageously overpriced, given it's $20 bln revenue, that it should have at least 10 times more revenue to justify that stock price, which is fantasy, that there is no plausible way for such demand no matter what you think about GPT-2.
I'd come at this from a different angle: we still want this to be market system, so we need to make this priced into the market. How can we price this in?
I would try to solve this by making the market structure reflect the underlying difficulty: we have to decide what capacity to produce years in advance, to construct the memory fabs. So this should be a futures market, and a capacity crunch would affect short-term-futures, but leave full term futures at the same price. Because the companies supplying the memory can just construct more capacity to fill those futures at the same cost regardless of the AI demand.
ah yes, adding a futures market to a sector heavily invested in AI certainly won't lead to catastrophic over-speculation that will collapse the industry entire
For one, they could have could have not massively scaled back consumer memory manufacturing as a matter of duty to customers. But money and greed must prevail.
Isn't it the case that public companies owe a primary legal/fiduciary duty to shareholders over customers?
The question of choice between a profitable vs unprofitable venture is easy. But yeah, to what extent is choosing profitable instead of VERY profitable a breach of duty to shareholders?
As far as I am aware, the answer to your question is ‘no’[0].
> Contrary to what many believe, U.S. corporate law does not impose any enforceable legal duty on corporate directors or executives of public corporations to maximize profits or share price. The economic case for shareholder-value maximization similarly rests on incorrect factual claims about the structure of corporations, including the mistaken claims that shareholders “own” corporations, that they have the only residual claim on the firm’s profits, and that they are principals who hire and control directors to act as their agents.
>Isn't it the case that public companies owe a primary legal/fiduciary duty to shareholders
The shareholders own the company. It is their property. They paid for it, they own it, and likewise they can do whatever they want with it.
It would be crazy if I proposed you let me drive your car to work everyday. Why? Because you own your car, it's your property, and it works for your own interest. Basically every human agrees with this logic, but somehow "the company is just focused on pleasing shareholders" escapes this.
> How should the memory companies have acted differently?
Same way nVidia did through the crypto insanity - make sure they're supplying enough to the consumer market so it doesn't get completely destroyed and pulls down the other parts of the consumer market they're reliant for long term success.
> Should we blame this on memory companies or the AI companies bidding for memory?
Blame doesn't change the outcomes, neither does it improve the negative consequences. Think in terms of "what does destruction of our consumer market mean for my prosperity?" not "oh, how do defend poor companies again?"
This comes at a perfect time. The public doesn't need computers, they can just use their phones.
If the consumer had access to this RAM, they might all just run local or semi-local AI. It's important to outbid them so you can rent AI to them, and extract money from them in a million other ways while they use it.
Yes, but zoom out more. Wealth inequality and the k-shaped economy are the real culprit.
When a few people have so much wealth that they are no longer price-sensitive, they bid up the price of everything and anything of value be it stocks, real estate, computer hardware, fine arts, sports teams, etc.
The result is that a business which tries to make quality products at reasonable prices will fail. They aren’t luxurious enough for the people with money. They aren’t cheap enough for the people without. Customers in the middle hardly exist. Any valuable good that is genuinely scarce will inevitably become a luxury.
> We are all Capitalists, until the Market comes after the stuff we love.
Anyone with half a brain isn't a "Capitalist" (with a big C, like in your example) which is why every single prosperous nation (including USA) regulates markets to avoid destruction of their prosperity and society.
People have the option of just not buying stuff. I sold my Tesla in 2021 for a stupid price, drove a beater for two years, and bought another new car a couple years later. Now, certainly not everyone has that luxury, but this is computers, not real estate. Prices will crash.
>People have the option of just not buying stuff.
Unless you know, your main and only PC/notebook just died and need a replacement ASAP.
> Prices will crash.
Does your crystal ball also say when exactly? If my laptop broke, then I need a replacement now in the overpriced market, not in X years when prices will crash.
I hope so. I feel so, so, so terribly guilty for not building my wife a computer for her in 2023. She is rocking a 1080ti, and I really wish I had at least upgraded her system, but now I just straight cannot afford to even consider it, given the price of rent, food, gas, energy, all on top of the actual hardware prices.
And I am a SWE.I am not making bad money. I can't imagine what others are going through.
Way to miss the whole point of the article and fail to understand the point. Do you think if significant part of US industry goes bankrupt because they can't source parts for their products, work machines and consumers disappear... you'll still have luxury of running around in a Tesla?
> Memory companies
Someone misspelled "Altman", https://www.mooreslawisdead.com/post/sam-altman-s-dirty-dram...
Should we blame this on memory companies or the AI companies bidding for memory? How should the memory companies have acted differently?
I think the epic mistake was made by investors and executives who bought tales about imminent super-intelligence about to displace millions of knowledge workers from entire industries replacing them with AI datacentres.
These people are the main reason why AI companies have unlimited funding, and can afford to buy global RAM supply for years in the future despite their expenses exceed revenue by billions.
You can short them and make a lot of money (to buy RAM with?) if you feel this way and are correct.
No?
Shorting doesn’t only require you to be right. It requires perfectly timing when the market will realize you’re right.
You can buy long term put options.
That still requires perfect timing. Getting the timing right on a long-term contract is even harder than with a short-term contract!
Can I? Neither OpenAI nor Anthropic are publicly traded.
The same thing was said 4 years ago about NVIDIA on HN, that it's stock it's outrageously overpriced, given it's $20 bln revenue, that it should have at least 10 times more revenue to justify that stock price, which is fantasy, that there is no plausible way for such demand no matter what you think about GPT-2.
The main tool to fix this is to forbid companies to sell below cost price. It is part of antitrust law.
I'd come at this from a different angle: we still want this to be market system, so we need to make this priced into the market. How can we price this in?
I would try to solve this by making the market structure reflect the underlying difficulty: we have to decide what capacity to produce years in advance, to construct the memory fabs. So this should be a futures market, and a capacity crunch would affect short-term-futures, but leave full term futures at the same price. Because the companies supplying the memory can just construct more capacity to fill those futures at the same cost regardless of the AI demand.
ah yes, adding a futures market to a sector heavily invested in AI certainly won't lead to catastrophic over-speculation that will collapse the industry entire
For one, they could have could have not massively scaled back consumer memory manufacturing as a matter of duty to customers. But money and greed must prevail.
Isn't it the case that public companies owe a primary legal/fiduciary duty to shareholders over customers?
The question of choice between a profitable vs unprofitable venture is easy. But yeah, to what extent is choosing profitable instead of VERY profitable a breach of duty to shareholders?
As far as I am aware, the answer to your question is ‘no’[0].
> Contrary to what many believe, U.S. corporate law does not impose any enforceable legal duty on corporate directors or executives of public corporations to maximize profits or share price. The economic case for shareholder-value maximization similarly rests on incorrect factual claims about the structure of corporations, including the mistaken claims that shareholders “own” corporations, that they have the only residual claim on the firm’s profits, and that they are principals who hire and control directors to act as their agents.
[0] https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2012/06/26/the-shareholder-v...
>Isn't it the case that public companies owe a primary legal/fiduciary duty to shareholders
The shareholders own the company. It is their property. They paid for it, they own it, and likewise they can do whatever they want with it.
It would be crazy if I proposed you let me drive your car to work everyday. Why? Because you own your car, it's your property, and it works for your own interest. Basically every human agrees with this logic, but somehow "the company is just focused on pleasing shareholders" escapes this.
No, and I don't know who keeps teaching you that nonsense.
fiduciary duty doesn't mean you always have to do what makes the maximum profit
avoiding the destruction of good faith with consumers is a legitimate business interest
Good faith with customers also has a monetary value, even if it is hard to calculate. This is still maximizing profits.
> How should the memory companies have acted differently?
Same way nVidia did through the crypto insanity - make sure they're supplying enough to the consumer market so it doesn't get completely destroyed and pulls down the other parts of the consumer market they're reliant for long term success.
> Should we blame this on memory companies or the AI companies bidding for memory?
Blame doesn't change the outcomes, neither does it improve the negative consequences. Think in terms of "what does destruction of our consumer market mean for my prosperity?" not "oh, how do defend poor companies again?"
both of them
memory companies could have attempted to protect consumers, at least a little, but the AI money machine goes brrrr
> How should the memory companies have acted differently?
Well if your thesis is that they should have acted differently, then we should blame the laissez-faire capitalists.
This comes at a perfect time. The public doesn't need computers, they can just use their phones.
If the consumer had access to this RAM, they might all just run local or semi-local AI. It's important to outbid them so you can rent AI to them, and extract money from them in a million other ways while they use it.
Yes, but zoom out more. Wealth inequality and the k-shaped economy are the real culprit.
When a few people have so much wealth that they are no longer price-sensitive, they bid up the price of everything and anything of value be it stocks, real estate, computer hardware, fine arts, sports teams, etc.
The result is that a business which tries to make quality products at reasonable prices will fail. They aren’t luxurious enough for the people with money. They aren’t cheap enough for the people without. Customers in the middle hardly exist. Any valuable good that is genuinely scarce will inevitably become a luxury.
Same for small business or any small buyer.
> The DRAM and NAND flash manufacturers at fault for the ongoing RAM, SSD, and GPU price increases
Yes, it's the manufacturers fault, not the unbelievable market demand.
We are all Capitalists, until the Market comes after the stuff we love.
> We are all Capitalists, until the Market comes after the stuff we love.
Anyone with half a brain isn't a "Capitalist" (with a big C, like in your example) which is why every single prosperous nation (including USA) regulates markets to avoid destruction of their prosperity and society.