So I was reading this thread about OpenAI and AMD’s new deal, you know, where OpenAI is basically getting a 10% stake in AMD in exchange for committing to buy a massive amount of their GPUs over the years. And the discussion around it is… well, it’s a whole mood. There’s this overwhelming sense of déjà vu, with a lot of people drawing direct parallels to past financial bubbles—like the dot-com crash and the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis. The core anxiety is that this isn’t just a tech bubble anymore; it’s starting to feel like a giant, incestuous circle of money where these companies are just investing in each other to keep the hype and stock prices artificially inflated. People are calling it a “circle jerk” or a “circular investment” scheme, where money from Nvidia flows to OpenAI, which then flows to AMD, and the worry is that it’s all just propping up valuations with “funny money” or “HopiumDollars.”
The sentiment is pretty cynical. There’s a strong belief that Sam Altman and OpenAI are essentially running a scheme to keep their “bubble” afloat, especially since OpenAI itself is famously unprofitable. The idea is that by making these splashy deals, they can keep the narrative going, secure more loans from banks, and allow insiders to cash out before the whole thing collapses. A lot of folks are worried this creates a systemic risk for the entire economy, not just the tech sector, if these “fake” companies tied to real assets fail. It’s like watching a modern version of “economists paying each other to eat shit,” as one person joked.
But it’s not all doom and gloom; there’s a layer of dark humor and resignation. People are already joking about the Netflix documentary that’ll come out of this, or watching it projected on a cave wall. Some are pointing out the sheer absurd scale—like Microsoft buying a nuclear plant to power a single data center—and the insane energy demands, with 6 gigawatts being compared to powering a small country. There’s also a practical, weary side to the conversation, with some admitting that while the whole thing seems mad, they’ll just keep collecting their paychecks in high-demand fields (like plumbing, apparently) while the money is still flowing. Others are deeply concerned about their own futures, with folks in their 40s and 50s worried about retirement savings and job security in an AI-disrupted market.
A few are trying to dissect the mechanics of the deals, explaining that it’s more about stock rebates and creative financing than straight cash investments, and that it might be a strategic move for AMD to secure a marquee customer. But even those explanations are often met with skepticism. The overarching feeling is one of suspicion—that this is a sign the bubble is running out of external capital and the players are just holding hands to delay the inevitable pop. It’s a mix of financial anxiety, gallows humor, and a belief that the rules just don’t apply to big tech, leaving everyone else to deal with the potential fallout.
