“Nvidia’s growth is why the bubble is inflated,” Zitron said. “If their growth goes down, the bubble will burst.”
He also warned of broader consequences: “I believe there’s a depression coming. I believe once the markets work out that tech doesn’t grow perpetually, they’re gonna flush the bathroom aggressively on Silicon Valley.” This connects to his larger thesis: that the tech industry has run out of real hyper-growth opportunities and is trying to fabricate one with AI.
“Is there anything that will falsify your premise of this bubble and crash happening?” I asked. “What in case you’re unsuitable?”
“I’ve been answering ‘What in case you’re unsuitable?’ for a year-and-a-half to 2 years, so I’m not bothered by that query, so the thing that will need to prove me right would’ve already needed to occur,” he said. Amid an extended exposition about Sam Altman, Zitron said, “The thing that will’ve needed to occur with inference would’ve needed to be… it will need to be hundredths of a cent per million tokens, they’d need to be printing money, after which, it will need to be far more useful. It could need to have efficacy that it doesn’t have, the hallucination problems… would need to be fixable, and on top of this, someone would need to fix agents.”
A positivity challenge
Near the top of our conversation, I wondered if I could flip the script, so to talk, and see if he could say something positive or optimistic, although I selected essentially the most difficult subject possible for him. “What’s the most effective thing about Sam Altman,” I asked. “Are you able to say anything nice about him in any respect?”
“I understand why you’re asking this,” Zitron began, “but I wanna be clear: Sam Altman goes to be the explanation the markets take a crap. Sam Altman has lied to everyone. Sam Altman has been lying perpetually.” He continued, “Just like the Pied Piper, he’s led the markets into an abyss, and yes, people must have known higher, but I hope at the top of this, Sam Altman is seen for what he’s, which is a con artist and a really successful one.”
Then he added, “You recognize what? I’ll say something nice about him, he’s really good at making people say, ‘Yes.’”