Microsoft and Uber slam on the brakes of AI
In a Nutshell
Microsoft and Uber's high AI token costs sparked claims of an impending bubble and collapse, but the speaker argues these isolated spending cuts do not signal a broader slowdown. Even if valuations crash, Fortune 500 companies and VCs remain committed to AI, with the vast majority of planned data center buildouts still proceeding. Real signs of retreat would require investors declaring AI a mistake, which has not happened.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Microsoft has canceled all of its internal cloud use. Uber exhausted its entire AI budget in a few months after an internal leaderboard revealed token consumption. Reports indicated roughly $500 million in tokens used over 5 months. Some information came from leaks and some was allegedly tied to Amazon.
The unifying trend is that AI is viewed as too expensive to run. This has prompted widespread claims that the AI bubble is about to pop. Many observers state they are waiting for AI to go to zero in the same way Bitcoin was predicted to collapse.
An asset being dramatically overvalued qualifies as a bubble under colloquial usage. The speaker notes this is not the technically correct financial definition but is the simplest and most commonly applied one.
SpaceX is being prepared for an IPO expected to exceed one trillion dollars. Internet commentary labels the valuation a liquidity trap and claims it is dramatically overvalued. The price-to-earnings ratio and other financial metrics resemble those of Tesla or Anthropic rather than a traditional rocket company because xAI is now attached to SpaceX. The speaker states these valuations are not being priced like a rocket company or a car company but like an AI company.
Even if the bubble narrative is accepted and stock prices crash, with Anthropic falling from a trillion-dollar valuation to perhaps 20 billion and shifting from mega-cap to medium-cap status, the AI build-out would still proceed. Every Fortune 500 CEO is focused on AI as the most transformative technology of the decade. Every venture capitalist and Fortune 500 CEO remains committed to AI, so the performance of any single company does not alter the broader trajectory.
A crash might introduce some friction and slow momentum slightly, but the effect would be limited. This year, roughly $150 billion in data centers have been delayed or canceled. Planned data center build-outs for the year total approximately $750 billion, meaning less than one quarter of projects have been affected. Canceled projects in states such as Michigan or Illinois represent only a drop in the bucket relative to total investment.
Microsoft canceled internal cloud usage but continues to build its own AI tools and remains fully committed to AI development.
AI would only face a genuine slowdown if venture capitalists began stating they were wrong about AI, that it is not exciting, or that they are moving on to other technologies. The speaker concludes AI is not going to zero.
The speaker's main channel was permanently and irrevocably demonetized. The issue originated when another channel under the same YouTube Partner Program account was suspended for inactivity due to low view counts after being neglected. YouTube treats all suspensions identically, whether for policy violations, copyright infringement, or inactivity. A suspension on one channel causes all channels under the account to be suspended because the account is deemed a risk.
The speaker deleted the inactive channels to focus exclusively on the main channel. This action converted a standard YPP suspension into a serious violation, resulting in permanent demonetization of the main channel. No policy violations occurred on the main channel. The appeals process was fully automated; an appeals video posted unlisted received zero views and was never reviewed by a human.
The speaker is working on Labor Zero, a book scheduled for release in late summer or fall. Additional communities are being maintained. A new set of courses is being developed on the Kajabi platform.
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