I dunno if it's a sound strategy that involves repeatedly telling investors [1] ...

haldujai · 2026-08-06T05:41:09.000000Z

Backlog meaning RPO over 5 years. It’s not as if they would be able to collect 250B today from OpenAI and Anthropic if they were to have that compute.

In any case, my point is that the SpaceX deal specifically likely has ulterior motives.

keeda · 2026-08-06T16:18:39.000000Z

The RPO can be anywhere from 3 - 6 years, sure, but even on an annual basis that’s like a hundred billion now. It was already in the double-digit billions since before AI took off and has only been spiking since then, which tells us 1) it’s been huge for 3+ years, and 2) it’s still growing faster than they can collect it. This matches what all the other hyperscalers are doing.

My point is that an ulterior motive is not necessary to assume when all their actions and statements point to them being severely crunched for compute.

I mean sure, if they had a choice between say, CoreWeave and SpaceX, they’d choose the latter for the nice bump to SpaceX’s financials and their stake… but not just for that, not when it contributes to their cash flow turning negative and their own stock taking a hit.

haldujai · 2026-08-06T22:39:44.000000Z

It is very suspicious when they’re paying for GB300 more than they turn around and charge those out as a4x instances, it was announced a week before IPO and they have a 90 day exit option.

> The RPO can be anywhere from 3 - 6 years, sure, but even on an annual basis that’s like a hundred billion now.

OpenAI and Anthropic deals are mostly 5 year and Anthropic’s starts in 2027, accordingly these RPOs are sized for projected compute needs and run rate in 2027 not today.

The only way either lab could pay 1 year of RPOs today (~80B for anthropic and ~150B for OpenAI) is with a lot more debt or circular financing, the former of which is difficult in this market.

Everyone spending crazy money on capex right now says they have a crushing backlog and need more compute to protect their share price. I highly doubt the demand exists today at current prices if the big 3 hyperscalers magically had an extra 2-3GW of compute. It’s not like Anthropic and OpenAI are turning away customers offering to pay API pricing..

keeda · 2026-08-08T19:39:04.000000Z

Google literally limited Meta's Gemini usage because of capacity constrains, so yes paying customers are being turned away: https://www.ft.com/content/c5d52f72-71ef-40bc-bad3-61afdba8b...

> Everyone spending crazy money on capex right now says they have a crushing backlog and need more compute to protect their share price. I highly doubt the demand exists today at current prices if the big 3 hyperscalers magically had an extra 2-3GW of compute.

I don't get this though: The theory is all these hyperscalers are simultaneously spending buttloads of money on CapEx to the extent it affects their stock price, and then they would lie about the demand to protect their share price. Why would they do all that when they could just do nothing and keep their firehoses of existing business revenue untouched and maintain their stock prices on the upward trajectory they already were -- like Apple?

> It’s not like Anthropic and OpenAI are turning away customers offering to pay API pricing..

We don't know, but clearly Anthropic has been struggling to keep Claude's 9's better than GitHub's 9's even after paying through the nose for capacity from competitors like SpaceX and Google.

I suspect OpenAI is managing only because Altman scrounged for compute like a madman way in advance, and most of its traffic is free users who can be arbitrarily bumped down to weaker models whenever compute is low. Whenever Anthropic does that Claude Code degrades and people complain.

haldujai · 2026-08-14T15:44:06.000000Z

Paying customer at what price? My understanding of Meta’s request is API pricing per token (of course discounted for volume) for content moderation etc. which is a lower margin product than Gemini enterprise seats. They also prioritize internal training runs.

This doesn’t mean more compute at any price is worthwhile. It also doesn’t mean that the SpaceX compute deal would even be offered to Meta.

> I don't get this though: The theory is all these hyperscalers are simultaneously spending buttloads of money on CapEx to the extent it affects their stock price, and then they would lie about the demand to protect their share price.

It’s not lying - it’s optimistic revenue projections. Your Sam Altman point is an example, these RPOs are real but what’s questionable is whether the AI labs can generate enough premium token API revenue to actually pay those commitments. Today’s OpenAI annualized revenue estimate is only 40B. Will they actually be able to 10x that to pay those RPOs? I’m skeptical especially with offloading inference to cheaper models.

> Why would they do all that when they could just do nothing and keep their firehoses of existing business revenue untouched and maintain their stock prices on the upward trajectory they already were -- like Apple?

The hyperscalers with proven revenue streams and strong financials (Amazon, MSFT, Google, arguably Meta) benefit from making the game more expensive than everyone, will get at least 50% of their capex back from this peak supply/demand mismatch and maybe other than AWS could easily use any excess compute for internal needs.