An individual who, with no resources or special standing or institutional support, simply goes online, does his research, and starts writing, diligently digging into important subjects that, for some inexplicable reason, the mainstream press has chosen to downplay or ignore entirely, at least until that lone voice starts to have an impact.
One of the most exciting and daunting aspects of blogging has always been the lack of rules. There are no constraints on length or on stylistic conventions. You can talk about anything that strikes your fancy. Posts can range from an objective recitation of statistics and events culled from news outlets, to angry editorials, to autobiographical anecdotes, to usually satiric fiction. A post could consist of pictures, or videos, or any other media you can embed. There are no external standards and practices, no editorial hoops to jump through. The only rules you have to follow are those you make yourself.
Zitron has made his reputation based on angry, thoroughly researched, epic-length posts generally running over ten thousand words. He can be ranty and repetitive, but his posts are highly informative, and he has proven amazingly prescient over the years, not just about the AI bubble but about the state of the tech industry in general.
Can also be a great deal of fun. I love the last helicopter out of Nam metaphor here.
And when those fail, what do you think Perplexity does? How about Harvey? Cursor got the last chopper out of ‘Nam with the SpaceX acquisition (assuming it actually happens), but what, exactly, is Cognition, or Glean, or Sierra, or really any AI startup meant to say to compel investors to believe in them once OpenAI dies? That they’re different? That they’re gonna work it out after the company that got given basically everything it needed failed?
I also enjoyed this introduction to his recent post on AI debt.
The year is 2026, and you are a hyperscaler CEO. You zip up your Patagonia vest, type UPDATE ME ON CALENDOR TOODAY into ChatGPT, and see that you have a meeting with your CFO. They tell you that while they love all those GPUs you’re buying for those data centers that will absolutely get built and totally agree that you should buy more, your company cannot actually afford to buy them at the current pace.
“But we’re one of the single-largest cash-generating companies in the world!” you scream so hard that your horribly-trained Shiba Inu starts chewing on the side of your Aeron chair. “We’ve been doing AI for years! Where is the money?”
The CFO furrows their brow. “Well, that’s the thing. We’re not actually generating that much cash from it, and actually appear to be losing money. Why do we want to buy more GPUs? We still haven’t installed most of the ones we bought-”
You begin to shake uncontrollably. “To. Do. Artificial. Intelligence. What. Is. It. You. Don’t. Understand. Why. More. GPUs. Now.” The Shiba Inu is now tearing into your Eames chair, but you’re too angry to notice.
Your CFO, thankful that there’s a Microsoft Teams window between the two of you, seeks to calm you down, and asks ChatGPT to give them a script to calm you down. “I understand that you didn’t like what I said — and that’s on me. I have a really great solution for you that I think will solve the problem — we’ve got great credit, and we’d be able to raise in all sorts of ways. It’s not just a solution — it’s a strategy.”
You stop shaking. Your idiot Chief Financial Officer had a great idea. You ask ChatGPT to vibe code a dashboard of potential options and it crashes your Chrome browser. “I just ran the numbers. You’re right.” Your CFO smiles as they see your Shiba Inu empty its bladder in the background.
He frequently engages in profanity-filled rants which, while entertaining, never sink to the level of performative. There is a genuine sense of moral outrage informing these pieces, making them something more substantial than a Lewis Black routine.
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