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NEW BLOG: How to be a central banker
The 10 rules of central banking.
(this time with a free link that actually works without signups etc)
hub.tslombard.com/download/P……
Spent the week writing a note about what an AI capex crash would look like.
At least let me finish it first 🤣
People are so focused on what an AI crash might do to the top of the K, they have forgotten about the bottom. Think of all that pent up non-tech demand. Not saying it would prevent a downturn, but it is the basis of an eventual recovery #crowdingIn
Heard on Bloomberg- someone from Goldman arguing that a slowdown in AI capex would actually be bullish for stocks. Yeah GLWT
Why is the yield that will crush the stock market always a round number? 6% is now the new 5%... but why not 5.59 or 5.87?
says the guy who told us QT was necessary
BOE’s Bailey berates social media platforms for allowing fraud bloomberg.com/news/articles/… via @PhilAldrick
I found this really useful, as a bull case for the AI buildout. Not seen this outlined before - most investors are just bullish because "line go up". My main reservation is that it reminds a bit of an IMF paper I read in 2006 arguing that US house prices were sustainable...
1) Trying again.
TLDR: Everyone can win. Open-source, frontier labs, infrastructure, applications and most importantly the American people.
I understand all of the jitters about Anthropic losing share, real rates, spreads and second derivatives. Still think the most likely future outcome is a hybrid, multi-model future where almost everyone wins, open-weight tokens are likely the overwhelming majority of tokens, the dominant frontier model companies still do well albeit perhaps not the outcome that seemed possible in May and AI infrastructure/applications benefit immensely from the increased fragmentation, competition and lower margins at the model layer.
Lower margins at the model layer mechanically drive higher compute demand as long as someone is willing to pay for the training. And Jensen is obviously willing to be the “trainer of last resort.” As below-market compute contracts signed in 24/25 roll-off and reprice higher, cloud and neocloud revenue should continue to accelerate which will help address financing fears; I think we may be near peak external financing for this buildout. Noteworthy that using data from 3Fourteen Research, B200 clusters will generate a 37% IRR *if* their rental price declines 40% per year. Prices are still going up, but that IRR math is too ridiculous to print. 37% IRRs available at scale should get funded.
Re: this weekends controversy about MOUs, Anthropic’s $413 billion of real contractual commitments sounds scary. Reality is that it works out to roughly $31 billion of annual cloud spend, which is easily internally financed given their reported ARR, and $161 billion of spend at Broadcom which will be financed by Broadcom and private credit.
Continue to believe fragmentation at the model layer is the best outcome for ordinary Americans and humans everywhere. As I have said before, do not trust any 5-20 individuals to make the best possible decisions about the direction of this technology. I want as many AIs as possible to maximize the odds that they encompass the diversity of human values across the world and richness of human variation. And I want an AI that shares my own personal values. Safety, freedom and the maximization of human agency through democratization, distribution and diffusion vs. centralization. History has spoken on the dangers of the latter path.
Finally, from my perspective anything that slows this buildout down is net positive over the long-term as the biggest risk and worst outcome is an *actual* overbuild. We are structurally short watts, wafers and increasingly capital. That is all good. God forbid we were still in ZIRP, TSM ramped capex to 3x their current plan and we weren’t short turbine blades: there would almost certainly be an overbuild and a bubble. That would be terrible. Slower and smoother for longer is better both for investors and for the world. A terrible cyber event is the most plausible near term bear case IMHO, but AI cyberdefense ramping quickly and I was happy to hear Sholto say that cyber probably becomes defense dominant in the near future.
Longer, threaded version follows:
But Chinese cars are so cheap..........
Alfa Romeo has created a stunner! This is the new Cuorerosso buff.ly/cqT3tg2
every fund manager I have spoken to in the past 3 weeks, "is it time to add duration yet....?"
ok NOW its time 🤣
just so happens I found out...
hiking 25bps at full employment, with jobs accelerating, inflation above target, and the bond market daring you to do it. SO BRAVE
The Goldman piece on Fed communication is interesting
goldmansachs.com/insights/to……




















