1. Being a VP in these companies does not imply they have an understanding of financing, accounting or data-center economics unless their purview covered or was very close to the teams procuring and running the infrastructure.
2. That level of seniority does, on the other hand, expose them to a lot of the shenanigans going on in those companies, which could credibly lead them to develop a "big tech bad" mindset.
So on the one side, we have a famous widely-respected 70-year-old software engineer with a lengthy wikipedia bio and history of industry-impactful accomplishments. His statements on depreciation here are aligned with things that have been discussed on HN numerous times from my recollection; here are a couple discussions that I found quickly: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29005669 (search "depreciation"), https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45310858
On the other side, we have the sole comment ever by a pseudonymous HN user with single-digit karma.
How do his accomplishments (numerous as they may be) matter if they are only tangentially related to the topic he's discussing? The fact that his take aligns with many others' does not help if they are all outsiders ruminating on hearsay and innuendo about tightly guarded, non-public numbers. He may well simply be echoing the talking points he has heard.
I mean, per the top comment in this thread, he cites an article -- the only source with official, concrete numbers -- that seems to contradict his thesis about depreciation: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46208221
I'm no expert on hardware depreciation, but the more I've dug into this, the more I'm convinced people are just echoing a narrative that they don't really understand. Somewhat like stochastic parrots, you could say ;-)
My only goal here is to get a real sense of the depreciation story. Partially out of financial interest, but more because I'm really curious about how this will impact the adoption of AI.
From what I've seen, folks at that level have massive amounts of insider knowledge, a huge network of well-informed connections at every big tech company, and a stock portfolio in the 8 to 9 figure range. Personally I would strongly doubt he's simply aligning with "outsiders ruminating on hearsay and innuendo", but I guess believe what you'd like!
I really do not want to impose on anyone, but I do want different perspectives so I appreciate all these discussions!
I think we are actually in two bubbles -- see sibling thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46211400 -- 1) AI infra + hyperscalers, and 2) pure-play AI company / startup valuations.
My take is only the second one will pop and cause a temporary deflation in the first one, and the GPU depreciation story is going to influence when it happens, how painful it will be, and how long it will last.
However, I'm convinced this will be a temporary blip. By all the data points I can find -- academic studies, quarterly earnings, government reports, industry surveys, not to mention my daily experiences with AI -- the AI growth story looks very real and very unstoppable. To the extent I'm concerned for my kids' prospects when they say they're interested in software engineering!
2. That level of seniority does, on the other hand, expose them to a lot of the shenanigans going on in those companies, which could credibly lead them to develop a "big tech bad" mindset.