The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 could be considered the worst regulation of 21 century. It helped created behemoth corporations, where a single person can misallocate hundred of billon of dollars (Oh, hi Mark), they can buy out any competition.
Right now US economy is basically a centrally planned economy.
I've seen people use those three words to make a dig at zuckerberg before, but I never put 2 and 2 together and realized the quote until just now. I think the comma was essential, made my brain automatically read it correctly... Wiseau voice and all, lol.
More on-topic: I remain amazed by how the past quarter century of American legislation has included one overwhelming boon for corporations after another. Once corporations could give an infinitly higher amount of political contributions when compared to individual citizens, it became clear that the overall well-being and happiness of corporations was the only real political focus. Anything that doesnt directly or indirectly benefit a group of corporations is almost always designed to manipulate the electorate through invented/perceived/embiggened/non-cromulent "social issues".
Reflection AI was founded in 2024. Is it really consolidation when new companies spawn out of nothing and get acquired 2 years later? That's just normal M&A churn.
Back in the day, things like these were outlawed and the government tried to ensure competition in the markets:
> The major film studios owned the theaters where their motion pictures were shown, either in partnerships or outright. Thus, specific theater chains showed only the films produced by the studio that owned them. The studios created the films, had the writers, directors, producers and actors on staff (under contract), owned the film processing and laboratories, created the prints and distributed them through the theaters that they owned: In other words, the studios were vertically integrated, creating a de facto oligopoly. [...] Ultimately, this issue of the studios' then-alleged (and later upheld) illegal trade practices led to all the major movie studios being sued in 1938 by the U.S. Department of Justice.
As usual, Wikipedia has it backward. There were very few theaters in existence able to show films produced by the studios. They invested in theaters and found local businessmen to operate them, both as sole proprietors and as partners.
The investment was out of necessity, not interest in monopolies.
Writers and directors craved an audience, so they appealed to studios for funding. That’s opportunity meeting, not monopolistic practices.
Huh? new tech companies have proliferated in the US the last few years. M&A is just one side of the coin. Without an exit path -- IPO, acquisition or private credits -- there is very little appetite for new businesses.
Did you know that 151 companies were founded by SpaceX's alumni? Compare to 5 they've acquired (not including XAI)
It should be very clear that Nvidia is not interested in selling you GPUs to run models. But it’s very interested in selling data centers that you can use to run models in a way that everybody on their end “accepts”.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 could be considered the worst regulation of 21 century. It helped created behemoth corporations, where a single person can misallocate hundred of billon of dollars (Oh, hi Mark), they can buy out any competition.
Right now US economy is basically a centrally planned economy.
I've seen people use those three words to make a dig at zuckerberg before, but I never put 2 and 2 together and realized the quote until just now. I think the comma was essential, made my brain automatically read it correctly... Wiseau voice and all, lol.
More on-topic: I remain amazed by how the past quarter century of American legislation has included one overwhelming boon for corporations after another. Once corporations could give an infinitly higher amount of political contributions when compared to individual citizens, it became clear that the overall well-being and happiness of corporations was the only real political focus. Anything that doesnt directly or indirectly benefit a group of corporations is almost always designed to manipulate the electorate through invented/perceived/embiggened/non-cromulent "social issues".
The PayPal Mafia changed America.
have you heard of this dude named karl marx?
> It helped created behemoth corporations
What's the mechanism for this? Genuine question: I read an overview over Sarbanes-Oxley and it seems like a reasonable idea.
Reflection AI was founded in 2024. Is it really consolidation when new companies spawn out of nothing and get acquired 2 years later? That's just normal M&A churn.
If all successful new tech companies are absorbed into existing dominant tech companies, that would in fact be consolidation.
what are they going to do with all the free money people are investing on them?
Back in the day, things like these were outlawed and the government tried to ensure competition in the markets:
> The major film studios owned the theaters where their motion pictures were shown, either in partnerships or outright. Thus, specific theater chains showed only the films produced by the studio that owned them. The studios created the films, had the writers, directors, producers and actors on staff (under contract), owned the film processing and laboratories, created the prints and distributed them through the theaters that they owned: In other words, the studios were vertically integrated, creating a de facto oligopoly. [...] Ultimately, this issue of the studios' then-alleged (and later upheld) illegal trade practices led to all the major movie studios being sued in 1938 by the U.S. Department of Justice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pic....
Nowadays it seems like "vertically integrated" is something most companies openly aim for.
As usual, Wikipedia has it backward. There were very few theaters in existence able to show films produced by the studios. They invested in theaters and found local businessmen to operate them, both as sole proprietors and as partners.
The investment was out of necessity, not interest in monopolies.
Writers and directors craved an audience, so they appealed to studios for funding. That’s opportunity meeting, not monopolistic practices.
Citizen Kane type stuff
Huh? new tech companies have proliferated in the US the last few years. M&A is just one side of the coin. Without an exit path -- IPO, acquisition or private credits -- there is very little appetite for new businesses.
Did you know that 151 companies were founded by SpaceX's alumni? Compare to 5 they've acquired (not including XAI)
https://www.alumnifounders.com/stats
Would you prefer these companies going bankrupt and stop existing?
Competitive markets have creative destruction
I for one am excited by the prospect of a well-funded open-source competitor to Anthropic, OpenAI, and the Chinese models.
I don't love that it's Nvidia. They're already in some weird incestuous thing with two of those three (and the rest of the market).
I would be too. Where are we going to buy the GPUs though?
It should be very clear that Nvidia is not interested in selling you GPUs to run models. But it’s very interested in selling data centers that you can use to run models in a way that everybody on their end “accepts”.
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Eh, given the level of trading between NVidia and the established AI companies will it be a true competitor?
That can happen without consolidation, the funding is already so circular it's dizzying