Submitted 5 months ago by butterycroissant@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
With OpenAI hitting a $500B valuation, is there even any fair competition left for smaller AI companies?
I will note the inevitable bursting of this ridiculous bubble after every grotesque increase in the already grotesque market value of this dump without a sensible business model (copying Google results is not a sensible business model) with even a little more malicious glee.
This is the new gilded age with the difference every halfway sane person already knows it‘s not pure gold but shit covered in gold spray paint.
I think many of us will feel satisfied seeing it burst, but we might be too busy dealing with the side effects of that crash to be able to enjoy that satisfaction much. It will not simply bankrupt Sam Altman.
Ever valuation is a bubble…
Say a company is “worth” 100 million. That assume that 100% of the shares equal 100 million.
However, it’s a startup, so 90% of the stock will never see the light of day.
But you need capital to start so 5% gets sold for 50k a decade ago, that made the company worth a million, because 1% equaled 10k.
But today, another investor (for whatever reason) bought 5% for 5 million, that’s what made the valuation 100 million. The people who own 90% can now borrow money against their hypothetical 90 million, even tho if push came to shove, those shares are only worth what someone will pay for them… And if you increase supply by 10x you lower the price drastically.
Really “bubble” is overestimating how robust our entire economy is.
It’s all built on this shell game where no real wealth exists, but banks keep loaning our actual money out against the hypothetical wealth tied up in stocks.
Like, imagine if I owned a billion grains of sand, sold one single grain for $2 to my buddy, then claimed my net worth was 2 billion, and conned a bank into loaning me just 100 million, then invest that into my buddy’s start up.
Numbers keep going up, but absolutely none of it is real. It’s just a couple of assholes insisting they’re somehow “creating wealth”.
andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 5 months ago
I think they mean “raze”…
scarabic@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Oh that was good