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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I made another appearance on the Telco in 20 podcast, where we talked about hundreds of billions of HyperCAPEX spend and asked what ever happened to the telcos? Is the telecom industry’s best strategic idea really to become small NVIDIA customers (sovereign cloud, AI-RAN)?
Such lack of strategic imagination is both pervasive and alarming. Too many entities make no effort to exert control over their destinies. I feel compelled to offer discounted consulting to groups suffering from this ailment: telcos, the Democratic Party, Europe, et al. Use code #STRATEGYBLIND.
News
They Don’t Have the Money: Oracle Capital Allocation Update
Previous:
Oracle “Beats”: Q3 FY26, They Don’t Have the Money: Oracle Update, Oracle; they’re taking the dilution, Oracle wants you to know things you weren’t wondering about until they mentioned it, Remaining CAPEX Obligation: Divestiture Edition, Allocating Oracle’s Capital, They Don’t Have the Money: Who Could Possibly Have Guessed?, Oracle Disappoints: Q2 FY26, Oracle’s Remaining CAPEX Obligation: Q2 FY26, Oracle Still Can’t Build Data Centers: Q2 FY26, Oracle: Not Even a REIT?, They Still Don’t Have the Margins: Oracle Edition, They Don’t Have the Margins, They Don’t Have the Money, They Don’t Have the Money: Oracle and Tik Tok, Why Can’t Oracle Afford Data Centers?, Follow the CAPEX 2025 Retrospective
The Unicorn of the AI Era
As we get ever closer to realizing the AI era’s ambition of a one-person company worth a billion dollars, keep in mind there are multiple paths to this goal. The default assumption is a solo project made incredibly productive with AI tools. But you could also start with 150,000 employees and need to lay them all off to afford your data center CAPEX. Remember Larry Ellison is very competitive.
UnfocusedAI: “Our Media Coverage has Slipped! Do Something! Anything!”
Don’t be Cleveland: Meta, Oracle, and Others Say “Bye Bob” (Ferguson)
Previous:
A Warning to Seattle: Don’t Become the Next Cleveland, Don’t be Cleveland: Howard Schultz Says “Bye Bob”, Don’t be Cleveland: Seahawks Edition, Don’t be Cleveland: More Inebriation in Olympia, Don’t be Cleveland: Starbucks Says “Bye Bob”, Don’t be Cleveland: Amazon’s Exit, Don’t be Cleveland: Drunken State Spending
Don’t be Cleveland: What if the “Budget Emergency” was Spending, not Revenue?
Local newsletter The Seattle Times sometimes likes to call rent-seeking “journalism”, but they’ve actually done some real journalism on where our tax dollars go (if too late for the recent tax debate in Washington).
Next do the City of Seattle and the legislators lining their own pockets with government spending!
Related:
The Pain in Maine Compounds
Bad energy policy leads to all kinds of performative contortions.
In the running for understatement of the year:
“Maine hasn’t been a magnet for Alphabet’s Google, Microsoft or other companies building hyperscale facilities for artificial intelligence.”
Quick(er) Hits
I am so looking forward to the Space Twitter S-1, especially as the mooted capitalization has now crept up to $2 trillion. The valuation metrics will be without precedent. Forget Mars, forget the moon, new mission is flying too close to the sun. This IPO could be the exit scam of all time and the ultimate test of Elon’s ability to distort reality.
Expert network (and insider trading facilitator) GLG sent me this solicitation: “My client is hoping to learn more about US Offal Processing | Protein Processor Insights. Given your background, I thought you might be able to add value here.” Guess they’re not fans of the blog.