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Paul Kudrowski

๐Ÿ‘ค Speaker
457 total appearances

Appearances Over Time

Podcast Appearances

Plain English with Derek Thompson
Plain English BEST OF: This Is How the AI Bubble Could Burst

So let's take that as a given.

Plain English with Derek Thompson
Plain English BEST OF: This Is How the AI Bubble Could Burst

It's, as you said, it's just part of the process of building out.

Plain English with Derek Thompson
Plain English BEST OF: This Is How the AI Bubble Could Burst

But the deeper issue is, are you going to get to a point where it's obvious that the companies are stretched in terms of, let's take, for example, most of the publics that we're familiar with, the hyperscalers, are spending as much as 50% of income on CapEx, which is unprecedented.

Plain English with Derek Thompson
Plain English BEST OF: This Is How the AI Bubble Could Burst

This doesn't happen.

Plain English with Derek Thompson
Plain English BEST OF: This Is How the AI Bubble Could Burst

Normally, if I did that as a Microsoft or an Amazon, I would absolutely be taken to the woodshed and beaten by investors because that's such an incredible investment, not just in terms of capital expenditures, but on one narrow slice of CapEx that you're going to be punished for that.

Plain English with Derek Thompson
Plain English BEST OF: This Is How the AI Bubble Could Burst

So they're not being punished for that.

Plain English with Derek Thompson
Plain English BEST OF: This Is How the AI Bubble Could Burst

So what are they doing instead?

Plain English with Derek Thompson
Plain English BEST OF: This Is How the AI Bubble Could Burst

And this goes to your point about what we should be watching for in a sense.

Plain English with Derek Thompson
Plain English BEST OF: This Is How the AI Bubble Could Burst

Yeah.

Plain English with Derek Thompson
Plain English BEST OF: This Is How the AI Bubble Could Burst

There's a way of thinking about it goes back to like economists like Hyman Minsky and others that what you start looking for are whenever the mechanisms that they use to raise money to do this become increasingly opaque.

Plain English with Derek Thompson
Plain English BEST OF: This Is How the AI Bubble Could Burst

So what I'm watching is how they're moving the financing off balance sheet.

Plain English with Derek Thompson
Plain English BEST OF: This Is How the AI Bubble Could Burst

Because that, for me, is a reflection of, I don't want the credit rating agencies to look at what I'm spending.

Plain English with Derek Thompson
Plain English BEST OF: This Is How the AI Bubble Could Burst

I don't want investors to roll it up into my income statement.

Plain English with Derek Thompson
Plain English BEST OF: This Is How the AI Bubble Could Burst

So what we're seeing increasingly are these SPVs, these special purpose vehicles being created where I have a stake in it as meta.

Plain English with Derek Thompson
Plain English BEST OF: This Is How the AI Bubble Could Burst

Some giant private debt provider, credit provider has a stake in it.

Plain English with Derek Thompson
Plain English BEST OF: This Is How the AI Bubble Could Burst

And yeah, okay, fine.

Plain English with Derek Thompson
Plain English BEST OF: This Is How the AI Bubble Could Burst

The data center at the end is under my control.

Plain English with Derek Thompson
Plain English BEST OF: This Is How the AI Bubble Could Burst

But hey, hey, hey, I don't own it, right?

Plain English with Derek Thompson
Plain English BEST OF: This Is How the AI Bubble Could Burst

And so you don't get to roll it back into my balance sheet in terms of assessing my credit worthiness.

Plain English with Derek Thompson
Plain English BEST OF: This Is How the AI Bubble Could Burst

It doesn't change my credit rating.