Wouldn't the problem with the FT graph be that for tech, capex and cash flow are increasingly the same thing with current vendor financing arrangements? I'd be curious what happens to the top line when accounting for this.
(you're doing amazing work compiling all this reporting btw!)

This comes on top of a longstanding move among big tech firms to vertically (re)integrate by bankrolling custom sillicon. CapEx and vertical integration as the end game of erecting ever-higher walls around the garden? www.fabricatedknowledge.com/p/the-tech-m...

Thank you! Glad you found it useful.

Wow, thanks for sharing! The fascinating thing for Europe is that its predicament (stuck in diversified quality production, lack of scale in platforms) is now turning out to be its strength: a strong manufacturing base and coercion power over U.S. tech platforms.

But even here the story is complex. In response to Covid and Russia's invasion, supply chains have increasingly regionalized to cushion (geo)political shocks. Companies have developed all sorts of strateiges to circumvent sanctions and export restrictions - no doubt they will try the same now.

Meanwhile, most firms will suffer from either paying the tariffs or switching to domestic suppliers. But these are not the companies in Trump's orbit. Even if they manage to coordinate, it's questionable whether they'd be heard.

For why business hasn't (yet) pushed back, I think it's important to note that the pains and gains aren't equally dispersed. Big tech's 'asset-light' model feeds on cross-sectoral control more than high profits. Their extraction of information-rents makes them less vulnerable to tariffs.

Super interesting thread! Trump's strategy seems to favor unilateral instruments (tariffs, withholding funding) that create a patrimonial relationship between business and the state. It empowers his whims, and he seems set on pushing this through even at the cost of economic ruination.

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Bottom line: these models provide unprecedented scale to augment research and it is easier than ever to get started. However, the community must take seriously open-source and locally deployable models in the interest of open science principles. Replication code: github.com/joshcova/LLM...