Platformonomics TGIF is a weekly roll-up of links, comments on those links, and perhaps a little too much tugging on my favorite threads.
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We’re testing a new epigraph feature this week:
All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.
— Enoch Powell
The graveyards are full of indispensable men.
— Charles de Gaulle
News
The CAPEX Hype Cycle
The cycle to date:
- “Asset-light business models rule!” (CAPEX obsessives are lonely)
- “We are all now CAPEX obsessives!” (welcome!)
- “Look, I too have a CAPEX model!” (tourists with spreadsheets)
- “CAPEX harrumph!” (the glass is half full)
- Economist: Big tech’s capex splurge may be irrationally exuberant
- Goldman Sachs: GEN AI: TOO MUCH SPEND, TOO LITTLE BENEFIT? (includes four pages of disclosures and disclaimers)
- Sequoia: AI’s $600B Question (it ends with the standard VC lack of conviction and desire to maximize optionality “If you are building in this space, we’d love to hear from you”)
Next presumably is a voyage to the bottom of the disenchantment trench (hello Gartner!). This quarter?
Pollyanna Showdown
Thin-skinned fractional CEO Elon Musk, renowned for his ridiculously overoptimistic promises, has decided to build his own AI data center rather than rely on Oracle in order to be “faster than any other AI company”. Oracle has struggled to build data centers, despite its own overoptimistic promises. We’ll see if Elon is any better at turning wishes into functioning data centers than Oracle.
Our Platformonomics electricity correspondent in Tennessee says Elon has purchased an old Electrolux factory near Graceland, which should make for entertaining hero images and soundtrack suggestions if nothing else (A Little Less Conversation seems perfect for Elon).
Previous:
Elon Musk Threatens to Ban Oracle?,
Who’s Getting the GPUs? Elon Shell Game Edition, Platformonomics ClownWatch™: Tesla, Useful Idiots, Fellow Travelers and Unregistered Foreign Agents: Elon Musk Part II, Useful Idiots, Fellow Travelers and Unregistered Foreign Agents: Elon/Twitter, Company Killed By Its Customers, Elon Cashes in All the Trust He’s Banked with Twitter, Do Not Take a Dependency on Elon Musk: Chapter 147, Do Not Take a Dependency on Elon Musk: Chapter 148, Do Not Take a Dependency on Elon Musk: Chapter 149, Oracle Still Can’t Build Data Centers, Why Can’t Oracle Build Data Centers?, Oracle Moves to Nashville
Little Tech Indeed
Another asset manager is excited about GPUs as an asset class, even if just a tiny allocation. We will add them to the Platformonomics ClownWatch™ list of boutique GPU providers. It is still probably a better strategy than their previous cloud repatriation or metaverse real estate theses.
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David “Bronny” Ellison buys Paramount
The BS doesn’t fall far from the bull.
Remember “Don’t Be Evil”?
I can remember when antitrust authorities got all worked up about tying browsers to monopoly assets. Despite two separate US antitrust suits against Google, it is no longer a concern. But I have largely given up hoping for a coherent and consistent antitrust doctrine.
I can even remember when Google got all worked up about tying browsers to cloud services:
“We believe that tying Microsoft’s web search offering to its browser in this way would raise very serious issues under the antitrust and unfair competition laws of various jurisdictions”
Not Available in Europe: Stratechery Edition
Ben Thompson takes a long look at the superpower of cheese’s regulatory strategy and also concludes “Not Available in Europe” is the future:
Here’s the problem with leading the world in regulation: you can only regulate what is built, and the E.U. doesn’t build anything pertinent to technology. It’s easy enough to imagine this tale being told in a few year’s time:
The erstwhile center of civilization, long-since surpassed by the United States, leverages the fundamental nature of technology to regulate the Internet for the entire world. The powers that be, though, seemingly unaware that their power rested on the zero marginal cost nature of serving their citizens, made such extreme demands on U.S. tech companies that they artificially raised the cost of serving their region beyond the expected payoff. While existing services remained in the region due to loyalty to their existing customers, the region received fewer new features and new companies never bothered to enter, raising the question: if a regulation is passed but no entity exists that is covered by the regulation, does the regulation even exist? If only the E.U. could have seen how the world — and its place in it! — had changed.
You Can’t Spell “Struggle Session” Without “E” and “U”
The EU Digital Markets Act doesn’t set any legal standards. It is simply an excuse to rummage around US Big Tech companies, finding endless new “illegal” behaviors.
These struggle sessions will continue until Europe has a tech industry (i.e. don’t hold your breath) even as the beleaguered continent ignores its existential economic, energy and geopolitical challenges.
EU Tweets While Ukraine Burns
It seems failed French “tech” executive turned superpower of cheese busybody Thierry Breton has responsibilities beyond tweeting about the EU’s insane, useless, and/or uninformed tech regulations. Shocked, shocked to learn he’s failing at more existential duties:
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DevRel is Dead. Long Live DevRel
Existential Corner: What is the New York Times?
So the burning question is whether we should refer to the New York Times as “a digital gaming giant” or “a chocolate-chip cookie and crosswords colossus”?
Previous:
Living in a Glass House: The New York Times On Tech, Living in a Glass House: What is the New York Times?, Dying in Plain Sight, Aspiring Technology Company Neither Interested in Technology Nor Understands Technology, Existential Corner: What is OpenAI This Week?, Existential Corner: What is OpenAI?
Software Migration Alerts: Envestnet, Nasumi
Should private equity strike, it is time to take a hike!
Useful Idiots, Fellow Travelers and Unregistered Foreign Agents: Apple Part II
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Useful Idiots, Fellow Travelers and Unregistered Foreign Agents: Eric Adams, Elon Musk Part II, The Donald, Jeff Yass, Microsoft Bing, Microsoft Bing Part II, DC Lobbyists Part III, Hollywood, DC Lobbyists Part II, NBA, Warner Bros. Discovery, Germany, Elon/Twitter, The Hugo Awards, Harvard University, Wall Street, Apple, Edinburgh