October 31, 2025 • 11 mins
In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron takes a moment to discuss the current state of the bubble, and the way we’re all feeling at this time in history.
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The Register: Microsoft seemingly just revealed that OpenAI lost $11.5B last quarter
https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/29/microsoft_earnings_q1_26_openai_loss/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
A Zone Media, Hello and welcome to this week's Better
Offline Monologue. I'm your host ed Zetron, and goddamn am
I tired? I'm so tired of watching this routine, this
(00:22):
goddamn routine. Every single earnings, a big tech company talks
about the wonder of AI. They post growth of revenue,
and the finance media writes that that growth came from
selling AI, despite the fact that none of these companies
actually say how much they've earned from selling either AI
software or renting out GPUs. Isn't that weird? Isn't that
(00:44):
really weird? We're two years in, three years in, honestly,
and not a single one of them mentions how much
they make from AI. Microsoft did it two quarters running,
then they stopped. Not a problem, No need to check
in on the company that has now spent over two
hundred billion dollars since twenty twenty to building data centers
full of GPUs that they could make an amount of
revenue that they are deciding not to share, Like, just
(01:08):
are they shy? Are they shy? Are they? Is the
revenue too good? Oh? I couldn't possibly, I'm too shy.
I couldn't share me AI revenue perhaps somebody should report
this out sometime. In any case, everybody is aggressively intensely
ignoring the elephant in the room. Open ai, the billion
dollar baby that loves burning billions of dollars. Who both
(01:28):
the California and Delaware attorneys general decided to let convert
to a for profit entity, and guess one, open aiy
is already gearing up to go public in twenty twenty seven.
You know what, fuck him? Let them, Let them file
a goddamn S one. Show me the innards of this company.
I bet open Aiy's books are going to look like
a dog's dinner coming out of its asshole on Thanksgiving.
(01:49):
The Register reported earlier this week that has disclosed as
part of Microsoft's earnings, open ai lost over eleven billion
dollars in the last quarter. Why any of us pretending
this makes sense? Why why are we doing this? Why
are we pretending that open ai makes sense as a company?
What does this company do, what have they done previously
and what will they do in the future that justifies
(02:11):
any of this. I don't know if I have AI
booster listeners. I don't know if any of you are
really big AI fans. I don't know. If you are,
please contact me and tell me why you believe it's
worth it. And if your answer is well, companies burned
a lot of money to get to where they were
in the future, what has to come out of this
(02:33):
entity that will justify this expense? Because that's really the
thing that I'm rolling around in my mind. What justifies
all of this? What justifies the capex? What justifies the
open AI wants to raise sixty billion dollars at the
IPO in twenty twenty seven. It will never happen, but nevertheless, like,
what is it that justifies all that? Is it the
(02:56):
data centers? What will the data centers do? Nothing? It's
going to be more of the same. And that's before
you get to the fact that the demand isn't there.
It's just exhausting. I know, I'm repeating myself, I'm not
really gonna stop, though I might have no intention of stopping.
In fact, I think I'm gonna go harder. And I
know it's really easy at times like this, when the
(03:17):
world feels suffocating and illogical and unforgiving and dishonest and
frustrating and confusing, to turn our guns inward, to tear
down into disarm and disparage to fight back through isolating
ourselves further. But these are the motives and moves of
those who do not see a future, who crave an
eternal status quo where history must repeat the enrichment cycles,
(03:37):
the same mistakes that left us in a growth driven
near apocalypse for three straight years, that have empowered Charlatan's
like Altman and Amerday because they resembled stories of the
past heroes of the tech industry like Uber and Aws
enough to keep you warm and fuzzy every night without
worrying about whether gravity exists. Good sense and mathematics don't
need to matter when you're smoking enough copium that you're
(03:58):
already imagining your next trip to visit the remains of
the Titanic. So I'm gonna tell you something. I'm going
to tell you to do something dramatic, and yes, we
all know where this is from, but I want you
to say this out loud, as quietly as you want,
or as loudly as you want. Fuck these people. Doesn't
that feel good? Fuck these people? Fuck them? God, I'm
(04:18):
told I can't swear that you can't address this financial
insanity without anything other than the calm pois of a
fucking monk. But how else am I meant to react
to Sam Orman promising superintelligence for the umpteenth time, or
claiming in twenty twenty seven or twenty twenty eight will
have automated AI science, or signing deals for a trillion
dollars of stuff that this company can never afford. Am
(04:38):
I meant to applaud? Am I meant to be excited?
Look at the rest of the tech industry. I mean,
you can look at chat, GPT, but even outside of it,
our social networks look terrible. Facebook is a minefield of
scams and AI slop. Instagram is fifty percent ads or more.
Our email accounts are full of spam. I get five
spam calls a day. Everything needs a fucking account. Fuck
(05:01):
the future for a second. Can we just get the
things that we use every data fucking work again? Or
is that too much to ask in an era where
everything must grow eternally? I swear to God, the most
impressive technology anybody could launch this year is something that
actually does what it's fucking meant to. Pardon me for
being a little salty, but God, every day in the
news somebody talks about how are in the midst of
(05:22):
a glorious era of artificial intelligence, Yet the products we
use have never felt dumber. It's trite, I know, but
three years into a hype cycle specifically oriented around intelligence
software that changes our life, it feels like I should
have something anything that feels like it's measurably improved. Every
product feels worse everything. But aside how you may feel
(05:43):
about AI, and be real, is there something out there
that's actually improved for you? Is there a single thing
that's gotten better? And God, if you say, well, the
models have improved a bit, who fucking cares? What does
that do for you? In a practical sense? What exactly
has been done between twenty twenty two and twenty twenty
(06:04):
five that actually matters? What they fucking do? Chat GPT's
got a lot of free users. Well, some people use
it for codes, some people use it and feel deeply
buried mental health symptoms activate it. Some people use it
for search. This is where we're at, and this is
where we've been, and honestly, this is where we're always
going to be. Why exactly the big tech spender eighty
(06:25):
billion dollars in capital expenditures in the last quarter. What's
the point, why not sink some of that capex into
making your products better or your users happier. Why not
make your products work properly? And again, perhaps that's just
impossible for generative AI. Perhaps that's what co Pilot and
Gemini do. Maybe they just fuck stuff up. Maybe they're
(06:45):
meant to only half work great, they get to lose money,
their customers hate it. It's a real win win scenario.
And look, while open ai may claim to be building
the future, it's clear what they want to do is
continue the existence of the state quo, of those that
finance the status quo making money off of it, of
those that herald the status quot's latest ideas getting the clicks,
(07:07):
that continue the valley's rotten cycle of allowing companies to
consume as much venture capital as they want until they
can cash out. I think they've kind of given up
on the thing where it's like, oh, we make something
useful and sell it because it's good. Open aiy is
not interested in innovation. They want to be a social network,
a consumer tech startup, as software as a service company,
a business productivity company, or whatever form will make the
(07:29):
company grow as because they want even if said growth
is deeply unprofitable. All that matters is that it grows.
It's cancerous, it's depressing. It's frustrating when you meet people
who they can't help but go to bat for this
stuff that they claim it's amazing, but their justifications are flimsy,
and they get mad at you. They get so mad
(07:51):
at you for trying to burst that bubble, for trying
to make them talk in practical terms, because AI does
something to everyone that loves it. Sure that there are
some people, there are definitely some people that can use
it healthily. Fine, but I believe something about this product
because it makes you to make it do anything useful,
put in so much effort to gaslight yourself into believing
(08:14):
it's good that you simply must defend it, because if
you don't defend it, you have to admit that the
software is training you, not the other way around. And
the most vociferous boosters are so deeply deeply in the hole,
dig up stupid that they can't help but defend it.
They can't help but attack those who not defend AI
(08:37):
that they can't help but claim that the mediocre is
amazing and that the future will come from stuff that sucks. Shit,
and that's where we are right now. And in times
like this, it's easy to feel defeated and even easier
to feel depleted, but I encourage you to focus on
one thing, solidarity the news. May you think that darkness
(09:01):
is a monolith, that there are few people that feel
like you do, but they do, and they are everywhere.
They are your friends, your family, and even the members
of the Better Offline subredding. If you feel dark or lonely,
or lost or ground down by everything, know that many
of us do too. You may feel terribly lonely, but
even in our mangled, broken into it, there is community everywhere,
and even if you may not believe it, people love
(09:22):
you and feel the way you do too. Reach out
to me easy at better offline dot com if you
have want to chat. I can't promise I can read
and respond to every single one, but I try to,
and the subreddit is there for you too, and I'm
on there too. It may feel like the forces against
us are all powerful, but they are not. They're committed
to burning billions of dollars only because they know that
the second that they stop, the bubble will pop and
(09:44):
they will be revealed as the directionless Charlatans they've always been.
I believe now that every dollar spent on GPUs will
ultimately be a waste, as I can find no compelling
evidence that it's possible to make margin on them before
they die in what the four to six years that
they actually have any value, And I believe all of
you will feel vindicated in time. It will be much
(10:05):
easier to weather the difficult times we're in with friends
and allies, and even more fun to celebrate victory with company.
It's easy to give up. It's easy to feel discouraged
in the face of adversity, to feel separated from others,
to believe that isolation and turning inward is the only response.
But I want you to feel emboldened by sorrow, to
seek the comfort and energy of others, to make friends,
(10:26):
to break bread, to build solidarity, and realize that you're
never alone and will never be alone. You may feel
like backing down, that the pressure against you by powerful
forces is too much, and I tell you that it isn't,
and that the only reason that pressure exists is because
they fear and may even know that you are right.
Thank you for listening to this show, for giving me
your time, for giving me your patience and attention, I
(10:49):
deeply appreciate your kindness and support. Tomorrow I'm going to
put out a really important premium newsletter about how GPUs
may never be profitable, and the next week, believe it
or not, I may have something even better ago. In
any case, I could not ask a better listeners. Thank
you again,
A Zone Media, Hello and welcome to this week's Better
Offline Monologue. I'm your host ed Zetron, and goddamn am
I tired? I'm so tired of watching this routine, this
(00:22):
goddamn routine. Every single earnings, a big tech company talks
about the wonder of AI. They post growth of revenue,
and the finance media writes that that growth came from
selling AI, despite the fact that none of these companies
actually say how much they've earned from selling either AI
software or renting out GPUs. Isn't that weird? Isn't that
(00:44):
really weird? We're two years in, three years in, honestly,
and not a single one of them mentions how much
they make from AI. Microsoft did it two quarters running,
then they stopped. Not a problem, No need to check
in on the company that has now spent over two
hundred billion dollars since twenty twenty to building data centers
full of GPUs that they could make an amount of
revenue that they are deciding not to share, Like, just
(01:08):
are they shy? Are they shy? Are they? Is the
revenue too good? Oh? I couldn't possibly, I'm too shy.
I couldn't share me AI revenue perhaps somebody should report
this out sometime. In any case, everybody is aggressively intensely
ignoring the elephant in the room. Open ai, the billion
dollar baby that loves burning billions of dollars. Who both
(01:28):
the California and Delaware attorneys general decided to let convert
to a for profit entity, and guess one, open aiy
is already gearing up to go public in twenty twenty seven.
You know what, fuck him? Let them, Let them file
a goddamn S one. Show me the innards of this company.
I bet open Aiy's books are going to look like
a dog's dinner coming out of its asshole on Thanksgiving.
(01:49):
The Register reported earlier this week that has disclosed as
part of Microsoft's earnings, open ai lost over eleven billion
dollars in the last quarter. Why any of us pretending
this makes sense? Why why are we doing this? Why
are we pretending that open ai makes sense as a company?
What does this company do, what have they done previously
and what will they do in the future that justifies
(02:11):
any of this. I don't know if I have AI
booster listeners. I don't know if any of you are
really big AI fans. I don't know. If you are,
please contact me and tell me why you believe it's
worth it. And if your answer is well, companies burned
a lot of money to get to where they were
in the future, what has to come out of this
(02:33):
entity that will justify this expense? Because that's really the
thing that I'm rolling around in my mind. What justifies
all of this? What justifies the capex? What justifies the
open AI wants to raise sixty billion dollars at the
IPO in twenty twenty seven. It will never happen, but nevertheless, like,
what is it that justifies all that? Is it the
(02:56):
data centers? What will the data centers do? Nothing? It's
going to be more of the same. And that's before
you get to the fact that the demand isn't there.
It's just exhausting. I know, I'm repeating myself, I'm not
really gonna stop, though I might have no intention of stopping.
In fact, I think I'm gonna go harder. And I
know it's really easy at times like this, when the
(03:17):
world feels suffocating and illogical and unforgiving and dishonest and
frustrating and confusing, to turn our guns inward, to tear
down into disarm and disparage to fight back through isolating
ourselves further. But these are the motives and moves of
those who do not see a future, who crave an
eternal status quo where history must repeat the enrichment cycles,
(03:37):
the same mistakes that left us in a growth driven
near apocalypse for three straight years, that have empowered Charlatan's
like Altman and Amerday because they resembled stories of the
past heroes of the tech industry like Uber and Aws
enough to keep you warm and fuzzy every night without
worrying about whether gravity exists. Good sense and mathematics don't
need to matter when you're smoking enough copium that you're
(03:58):
already imagining your next trip to visit the remains of
the Titanic. So I'm gonna tell you something. I'm going
to tell you to do something dramatic, and yes, we
all know where this is from, but I want you
to say this out loud, as quietly as you want,
or as loudly as you want. Fuck these people. Doesn't
that feel good? Fuck these people? Fuck them? God, I'm
(04:18):
told I can't swear that you can't address this financial
insanity without anything other than the calm pois of a
fucking monk. But how else am I meant to react
to Sam Orman promising superintelligence for the umpteenth time, or
claiming in twenty twenty seven or twenty twenty eight will
have automated AI science, or signing deals for a trillion
dollars of stuff that this company can never afford. Am
(04:38):
I meant to applaud? Am I meant to be excited?
Look at the rest of the tech industry. I mean,
you can look at chat, GPT, but even outside of it,
our social networks look terrible. Facebook is a minefield of
scams and AI slop. Instagram is fifty percent ads or more.
Our email accounts are full of spam. I get five
spam calls a day. Everything needs a fucking account. Fuck
(05:01):
the future for a second. Can we just get the
things that we use every data fucking work again? Or
is that too much to ask in an era where
everything must grow eternally? I swear to God, the most
impressive technology anybody could launch this year is something that
actually does what it's fucking meant to. Pardon me for
being a little salty, but God, every day in the
news somebody talks about how are in the midst of
(05:22):
a glorious era of artificial intelligence, Yet the products we
use have never felt dumber. It's trite, I know, but
three years into a hype cycle specifically oriented around intelligence
software that changes our life, it feels like I should
have something anything that feels like it's measurably improved. Every
product feels worse everything. But aside how you may feel
(05:43):
about AI, and be real, is there something out there
that's actually improved for you? Is there a single thing
that's gotten better? And God, if you say, well, the
models have improved a bit, who fucking cares? What does
that do for you? In a practical sense? What exactly
has been done between twenty twenty two and twenty twenty
(06:04):
five that actually matters? What they fucking do? Chat GPT's
got a lot of free users. Well, some people use
it for codes, some people use it and feel deeply
buried mental health symptoms activate it. Some people use it
for search. This is where we're at, and this is
where we've been, and honestly, this is where we're always
going to be. Why exactly the big tech spender eighty
(06:25):
billion dollars in capital expenditures in the last quarter. What's
the point, why not sink some of that capex into
making your products better or your users happier. Why not
make your products work properly? And again, perhaps that's just
impossible for generative AI. Perhaps that's what co Pilot and
Gemini do. Maybe they just fuck stuff up. Maybe they're
(06:45):
meant to only half work great, they get to lose money,
their customers hate it. It's a real win win scenario.
And look, while open ai may claim to be building
the future, it's clear what they want to do is
continue the existence of the state quo, of those that
finance the status quo making money off of it, of
those that herald the status quot's latest ideas getting the clicks,
(07:07):
that continue the valley's rotten cycle of allowing companies to
consume as much venture capital as they want until they
can cash out. I think they've kind of given up
on the thing where it's like, oh, we make something
useful and sell it because it's good. Open aiy is
not interested in innovation. They want to be a social network,
a consumer tech startup, as software as a service company,
a business productivity company, or whatever form will make the
(07:29):
company grow as because they want even if said growth
is deeply unprofitable. All that matters is that it grows.
It's cancerous, it's depressing. It's frustrating when you meet people
who they can't help but go to bat for this
stuff that they claim it's amazing, but their justifications are flimsy,
and they get mad at you. They get so mad
(07:51):
at you for trying to burst that bubble, for trying
to make them talk in practical terms, because AI does
something to everyone that loves it. Sure that there are
some people, there are definitely some people that can use
it healthily. Fine, but I believe something about this product
because it makes you to make it do anything useful,
put in so much effort to gaslight yourself into believing
(08:14):
it's good that you simply must defend it, because if
you don't defend it, you have to admit that the
software is training you, not the other way around. And
the most vociferous boosters are so deeply deeply in the hole,
dig up stupid that they can't help but defend it.
They can't help but attack those who not defend AI
(08:37):
that they can't help but claim that the mediocre is
amazing and that the future will come from stuff that sucks. Shit,
and that's where we are right now. And in times
like this, it's easy to feel defeated and even easier
to feel depleted, but I encourage you to focus on
one thing, solidarity the news. May you think that darkness
(09:01):
is a monolith, that there are few people that feel
like you do, but they do, and they are everywhere.
They are your friends, your family, and even the members
of the Better Offline subredding. If you feel dark or lonely,
or lost or ground down by everything, know that many
of us do too. You may feel terribly lonely, but
even in our mangled, broken into it, there is community everywhere,
and even if you may not believe it, people love
(09:22):
you and feel the way you do too. Reach out
to me easy at better offline dot com if you
have want to chat. I can't promise I can read
and respond to every single one, but I try to,
and the subreddit is there for you too, and I'm
on there too. It may feel like the forces against
us are all powerful, but they are not. They're committed
to burning billions of dollars only because they know that
the second that they stop, the bubble will pop and
(09:44):
they will be revealed as the directionless Charlatans they've always been.
I believe now that every dollar spent on GPUs will
ultimately be a waste, as I can find no compelling
evidence that it's possible to make margin on them before
they die in what the four to six years that
they actually have any value, And I believe all of
you will feel vindicated in time. It will be much
(10:05):
easier to weather the difficult times we're in with friends
and allies, and even more fun to celebrate victory with company.
It's easy to give up. It's easy to feel discouraged
in the face of adversity, to feel separated from others,
to believe that isolation and turning inward is the only response.
But I want you to feel emboldened by sorrow, to
seek the comfort and energy of others, to make friends,
(10:26):
to break bread, to build solidarity, and realize that you're
never alone and will never be alone. You may feel
like backing down, that the pressure against you by powerful
forces is too much, and I tell you that it isn't,
and that the only reason that pressure exists is because
they fear and may even know that you are right.
Thank you for listening to this show, for giving me
your time, for giving me your patience and attention, I
(10:49):
deeply appreciate your kindness and support. Tomorrow I'm going to
put out a really important premium newsletter about how GPUs
may never be profitable, and the next week, believe it
or not, I may have something even better ago. In
any case, I could not ask a better listeners. Thank
you again,
Host
Ed Zitron
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