Comment by ethbr1
2 days ago
> hence I end up with $100 worth of stock in your company and it only cost me $25.
You also lost out on $75 worth of cash revenue (opportunity cost from selling the same thing to a different customer), so really you just took stock in lieu of cash.
It'd be different if Nvidia (TSMC) had excess production capacity, but afaik they're capped out.
So it's really just whether they'd be selling them to OpenAI and getting equity in return or selling to customers and getting cash in return.
If OpenAI thinks their own stock is valued above fundamentals, it's a no brainer to try and buy Nvidia hardware with stock.
Sure, but OpenAI doesn't have cash. It does have stock.
Even if Nvidia has capped production for now, increased demand still allows them to sell chips at a greater margin. Or, to put another way, presumably Nvidia is charging OpenAI a premium for the privilege of paying with stock.