Platformonomics TGIF #28: October 27, 2023

By

Be sure to subscribe below and to the right to receive all my output via email

Q3 2023 Cloud CAPEX

Amazon $12.76B -19%
Google $8.06B +11%
Microsoft $11.2B +70%

(This is corporate level CAPEX, not just cloud infrastructure)

Amazon’s decline seems like the continued reduction in logistics/fulfillment spending. We’ll get a breakout of AWS CAPEX next quarter. The Google mystery continues: the normal server refresh is getting pushed ever further out with no sign of a ramp in GPUs (and hard to argue TPUs are cheap). Microsoft passing Amazon for total spend would be a milestone.

Previous: Q2 Cloud CAPEX, The Google CAPEX Mystery, Follow the CAPEX: Cloud Table Stakes 2022 Retrospective

GPUs as an Asset Class

I have suggested developing nations peg their currency to GPUs. We’re not quite there yet (Argentina, don’t miss your chance!), but the insatiable financialization impulses of Wall Street are turning GPUs into “a new asset class”. This will end poorly.

Previous: GPUs Are Better Than Any Financial Asset (For Now), Brother, Where Art Thy GPUs?
Related: GPUs’ Latest Magic Act: Securing Data Center Debt

Clown CAPEX

IBM is in the midst of a strategic transformation from a cloud 🤡 to an AI 🤡. The absence of CAPEX in either domain ensures you are a 🤡.

Previous: Bonsai AI, Follow the CAPEX: Keeping Up With The Clowns, Follow the CAPEX: Clown Watch, Follow the CAPEX: Separating the Clowns from the Clouds
Related: DXC Technology Hires Industry Veteran Howard Boville to Senior Leadership Team

Cloud Repatriation: The Search Continues

So the data center guys aren’t benefiting from cloud repatriation or AI… 🤔

Previous: Cloud Repatriation: Still Not a Thing, Platformonomics Repatriation Index™ – Q1 2023: Surf’s Up?, The Inexorable Attraction Between Terrible Things: Cloud Repatriation and Private Equity

The Amazon AI Inferiority Complex

Previous: Excellent Trolling by The Information, Amazon Now Forecasts They Won’t Be Competitive In Generative AI For Over 13,000 Years, Amazon’s AI Communications Clown Show: Cause or Effect?, Amazon Pauses Lectures on Generative AI, Three Steps into a 12-Step Program, Culture Clash Conjecture: Amazon and Anthropic, AWS: “It’s Day 0.1 in generative AI”, AWS: “We’re three rankles into a 10k rankle”, “Every Single” Amazon PR Team is Working on Generative AI (Part I’ve Lost Count), “Every Single” Amazon PR Team is Working on Generative AI, Titan or Titanic?, Amazon Pioneers LLM-less Generative AI, A PR Campaign About Nothing: AWS and Generative AI, Day Two of Amazon’s PR Campaign About Nothing, Amazon’s Relentless PR Campaign About Nothing
Related: Amazon Cranks Up Its AI Euphoria

Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud: AWS Edition

Considering revising “Two pizza teams are organizationally indistinguishable from Soviet spy cells” to something involving a million monkeys and Shakespeare.

Regulating Your Way to Prosperity

Once the European car industry is gone, what will be left? Wine, cheese, tourism, anything else?

Previous: The EU’s Reckoning Approaches, Collapsing Economic Models: German Edition, EU Rethinking Its Stance on Mercantilism, German Auto Industry Reaches Hail Mary Stage, How Do You Say “Burning Platform” in German?, Volkswagen’s Death Throes Continue, The Fate of the European Economy: Automotive Edition, Europe: Investing in Slave Labor

Software Migration Alert: EngageSmart

When private equity comes amalgamating, it is time to start migrating. Why? Because private equity ruins software companies.

Previous: Perfidious Private Equity

Get Updates By Email

%d