“Xavier owns an apartment that he rents out at a loss of $1 billion/month. Seeing this success, he decides to make financial commitments to construct $850 bi...
AI's Economics Don't Make Sense
If you liked this piece, please subscribe to my premium newsletter. It’s $70 a year, or $7 a month, and in return you get a weekly newsletter that’s usually anywhere from 5,000 to 18,000 words, including vast, detailed analyses of NVIDIA, Anthropic and OpenAI’s finances,
Anthropic will pay xAI $1.25B per month for compute | TechCrunch
Elon Musk's xAI surprised the AI world when it made a deal to sell compute to Anthropic. Now we know how much it's worth.
Meredith Whittaker on Twitter / X
Now that even Goldman, Sequoia, and other major investors are calling it, it's good to remember that the shakiness of the AI market, and the mismatch between capex and ROI, has been clear for a long time to those of us who look closely at the political economy of AI. https://t.co/dLLNAcW5Sn— Meredith Whittaker (@mer__edith) July 30, 2024
AI is probably not a bubble
AI companies have revenue, demand, and paths to immense value
AI is probably not a bubble
AI companies have revenue, demand, and paths to immense value
AI Benefits - But at What Cost?
In 2026 we can all agree that AI and agentic development are certainly exciting topics which many see yielding great productivity gains. But as the investor-subsidized pricing of these services gives way to realistic and profitable business models, where will the real costs land?
Alex Imas on Twitter / X
Intelligence is not enough to flourish. You need intelligence and well-functioning economic institutions. Even as AI capabilities continue to massively improve, if they are confronted by sclerotic, inefficient, and outdated institutions, they will do far less for prosperity than… https://t.co/0ZhscpPypH— Alex Imas (@alexolegimas) August 9, 2026
AI Doesn't Have ROI
If you liked this piece, you should subscribe to my premium newsletter. It’s $70 a year, or $7 a month, and in return you get a weekly newsletter that’s usually anywhere from 5,000 to 18,000 words, including vast, detailed analyses of NVIDIA, Anthropic and OpenAI’s
AI can cost more than human workers now
When AI labs raise prices, big spending on AI could shift from a flex to a liability.
The Last Gasps of the Rent Seeking Class
Over the past fifty years, the U.S. economy built a giant rent-extraction layer on top of human limitations: things take time, patience runs out, brand familiarity substitutes for diligence, and most people are willing to accept a bad price to avoid more clicks. Trillions of dollars of enterprise value depended on those constraints persisting. – Citrini Research
AI IS CREATIVE BANKRUPTCY
AI Agents Will Be The Key To Achieving ROI From AI
AI agents are emerging as a crucial type of application for enterprises looking to derive more value from their AI investments in the near term.
Three-Dimensional Unit Economics: The Compute Cost of Retention
Why AI-native apps need a new financial framework. And a new metric to run it.
How Elon Musk's AI Empire In Memphis Became A Cautionary Tale
Dynamic pricing
Both AI and non-AI
AI 'surveillance pricing' under scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers
Canada Has a Precedent to Regulate Surveillance Pricing
Instacart’s AI-Enabled Pricing Experiments May Be Inflating Your Grocery Bill, CR and Groundwork Collaborative Investigation Finds via @ConsumerReports
Kroger Stores Overcharging Shoppers on Sale Items, CR Price Check Finds via @ConsumerReports
Different Prices for the Same Ride: How Uber and Lyft Use AI to Get More Money Out of You via @ConsumerReports