Better Offline - AI Is Worse Than The Dot Com Bubble: Part Four

Episode Date: January 30, 2026

In the final part of this week’s Dot Com Bubble series, Ed Zitron walks you through to the logical endpoints of his arguments about the AI bubble - a 40%-90% collapse of NVIDIA’s revenues, tens of billions of dollars of impairments for hyperscalers, an existential contraction in venture capital, the near-collapse of Oracle, and $200 billion or more in unpaid data center debt. Please support me by subscribing to my premium newsletter - here’s $10 off your first year of annual https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/84rt762qen - it features an in-depth version of my dot com bubble analysis here: https://www.wheresyoured.at/dot-com-bubble/ YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-offline and use code FREE99 for free shipping on orders of $99 or more. --- LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/ Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/  Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at Ed's Socials: https://twitter.com/edzitron https://www.instagram.com/edzitron https://bsky.app/profile/edzitron.com https://www.threads.net/@edzitron Email Me: [e-mail] omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you. you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the I-HeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone, it's Ryder Strong and Wilfredel from PodMeets World. And now the Podmeets

Twirled podcast. We're two men who were completely clueless to reality TV, and we're gearing up for the season finale of Survivor. I know we annoyed a lot of our listeners by our severe lack of survivor knowledge. That is the point of the show. I'm just going to remind you. Again, we are experts. Listen to Podmeets Twirl on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your husband is not who you think he is.

Your body is not what you thought it was. Your identity is formed by a secret history. I'm Danny Shapiro. and these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring on the 14th season of Family Secrets. He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move, and he went out the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off, and that was the last time I saw him.

Listen to Season 14 of Family Secrets on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Also Media. Hello and welcome to Bear Offline. I'm your host, Ed Zittron. Today is the final part of Bubblewomen. week and our four part.com bubble special. I am warringly invested in this show. I put so many hours into it. This is the most I've done in the January. I'm having the time of my fucking life. But

this four part has been rough. And it's not been rough for the recording. It's rough because every time I go over these details, they fill me full of anxiety. I don't enjoy being right here. Sure, I get the satisfaction. Sure, I get the clicks and all that. But like, it, it sucks. It sucks. I'm really fucking worried. I'm not doing this to be contrarian. I'm seeing these things and I'm worried more people aren't seeing them and I'm worried that the after effects will be so much worse than the dot-com bubble. So this four part was somewhat drawn from a premium piece I did a few weeks ago called inventively, this is worse than the dot-com bubble. I really suggest you subscribe to my premium newsletter or be in there. But if you don't, I've had a little mustard on it and truncated it for this because it needed to be different. invoice. Nevertheless, you should subscribe. But when I was writing that, I actually went into it trying to prove myself wrong. I spent hours and hours reading old articles through broken paywalls and archive.org links in the hopes that I'd find some sort of positive spin, a way that the AI bubble wasn't as bad, some sliver or nugget of joy, some shred of hope, and everything I've read

has made me more worried, not less. The real problem is that there are similarities, but only with the worst parts of both bubbles. We've got stupid amounts of money being sunk into stuff. We've got stupid companies that want a IPO. We've got hopeless startups juiced up by credulous venture capitalists and marketed by even more credulous journalists. Except this time we have the worst margins this side of a vineyard planted in Las Vegas, Nevada and despicable boosters that will go to war with you to try and prove you're wrong using ghost stories, fairy tales and bixie dust. I realize I'm being a little cavalier and colloquial about this and that's because I feel emotionally drained. is the way I'd put it. Things are so much worse than I thought. I really thought I'd find something good. I'd dig into the past and find that there were direct obvious similarities that would say, okay, these GPUs will be useful. There will be something we've built here. I can't find it. I'm actually now convinced that things are going to be much worse. The dot-com bubble was relatively distributed and created useful infrastructure. The ideas of some of the most prominent dot-com startups were valid,

but based on stupid hypergrowth business models that didn't make sense and were only sustained through mass hysteria and ignorance. By comparison, AI startups are fundamentally illogical, selling unreliable software that's best known for its consistent mistakes in active harms backed by the corrosive and ever-worsening infrastructural costs of GPUs. And they're the customers of the largest company on the stock market that can only keep its valuation, on which the markets depend, by selling more of it an expensive to buy and more expensive to install item that only appears to lose its customers' money. There is no squaring Nvidia's circle. It is inevitable, even if AI somehow worked out that companies will have to stop buying as many GPUs, and Nvidia cannot afford for them to slow down at all. They must speed up, and they must do so forever. There's also no other business model for GPUs that scales. None. There is no use case. This is not useful infrastructure. Once the AI bubble bursts, these data centers cannot be used for other things, at least not things that are going to make more than a couple of single digit millions in total. They will have to be emptied out and replaced with useful gear. They will be those that are

finished, and I think there's going to be a bunch of undone construction. They're going to be powered shells, which are just empty buildings with power attached. And really, I don't think that's going to be across the board. I think we're going to have a lot of failed construction. And throughout all of this bullshit, the rest of the Magnificent Seven has seen their stock values saw off the back of pure hype, because they weren't making a dime of profit from selling artificial intelligence services, and they've done so by acquiring hundreds of billions of dollars of physical assets. The whole point of these fucking companies was that they were asset light and cash heavy. Now they're full of fucking GPUs that depreciate.

This is a fucking calamity. I am fucking terrified, because everything I've read about the past makes me certain that this will be worse, the harms will be longer, and nobody seems to want to accept the true logical end point of my arguments. So I'm going to kind of lay them out. Depending on how right I am, I'm worrying about the following things. Nvidia will lose anywhere between 40% and 90% of its revenue in a relatively short amount of time, a couple of quarters maybe, which will annihilate the value of the S&P 500, because the stock will go down because the market will go, ah, Microsoft, Google and Amazon will face massive multibillion dollar impairments within the next few years. Forgot to say meta, but they're included too.

Now, this one is funny, but will still be bad. Oracle will potentially face bankruptcy, or at least a severe horrendous series of layoffs and restructuring efforts to try and write the sheer after agreeing to $248 billion in lease obligations and $56 billion in debt, primarily to build data Centers to get the revenue from its $300 billion, five-year-long deal with Open AI, a company that's going to run out of money in the next year. Venture capital is going to take such a severe haircut from the AI bubble that it will effectively kill any chances of raising a round off the Series B for many, many years. I'm really worried about the reported $178.5 billion in US Data Center deals going underwater. I don't think they're going to be paid, and it's going to lead to massive losses of private equity in banks,

which will lead to a chill in effectively all debt markets, and massive job losses across the many, many construction projects that have started as a result of the AI bubble. And if Open AI and Anthropic can actually manage to go public, I think every investor is going to lose out as they collapse under the weight of their bullshit assumptions. Every partner, every company relying on them, every infrastructure partner, every AI starter built on their tech will be burned. I also believe that we as a society will face a violent paradigm shift

as the result of the AI bubble bursting because it revealed how many people just don't understand stuff. The amount of bosses, influences, movie stars, politicians, and other individuals have known that have fallen behind generative AI and claimed again and again

that it can do things that it can't have perpetuated myths that will lead to massive societal harms both today and in the future have revealed themselves to be fucking frauds. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite.

Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends, me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan. to Bob Odenkirk, to David Letterman, help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter.

There's that worst singer in the group? The worst? Yeah. Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, you only got in because your parents made a huge donation. The group. The yard birds, right?

That's the name. The Harvard yard, but they're open to change. Do you have a name suggestion? We're open. Since you guys are middle-aged, one erection. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Humor me. I need some jokes to make me seem funny.

Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ads supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHearts twice as large as the number of next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus, only IHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business.

Think IHeart. Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Call 844-844-I-Hart to get started. That's 844-8-4-i-heart. Hey, everyone, it's Ryder Strong and Will Ferdell from PodMeets World. And now, the Podmeets Twirled podcast. We're two men who were completely clueless to reality TV, who now have covered Dancing with the Stars, traitors, and we're gearing up for the season finale

of Survivor. So yeah, now we're experts. I know we annoyed a lot of our listeners by our severe lack of survivor knowledge. That is the point of the show. I'm just going to remind you, I have watched some Survivor. I obviously haven't watched enough. Did people not like it? Yeah. Just because we? Yeah. We'll be recapping the big conclusion in the 50th season from the final attempts at gameplay, to the desperate pleas of finalists, to a bunch of ha, who, ha, ha, ooh, ha, ooh. Again, we are experts. So make sure to tune into Pod Meets Twirled for all our Survivor 50 takes.

Listen to PodMeets Twirled on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There are times when the mind becomes a difficult place to live. This is David Eagleman with the Inner Cosmos podcast, and for Mental Health Awareness Month, We're dedicating a series to understanding the mind when it struggles. I'm joined by doctors, researchers, and those with lived experience. We'll talk with singer-songwriter Jewel about anxiety. I started living in my car, and then my car got stolen.

I was shoplifting. I was having panic attacks. I was agoraphobic. And making it through hardship. To be present is a learned skill, and it's hard to be present. We'll talk with John Nelson about clinical depression and the brain implant that saved his life. What I learned is that procedure made me happy because I'm disease-free.

And we'll talk with leading experts like Judd Brewer about anxiety and John Hirschfield about obsessive-compulsive disorder and the science of how the brain can change. This is a month of deeply personal and honest conversations about what happens when the brain goes off course and what we can do about it. Listen to Inner Cosmos on the IHeartRour. radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

It's been obvious since 2023 that Generative AI flat out does not do what many people say it does or will do, and obvious since 2024 that the economics didn't work. Yet still, every single goddamn day we are surrounded by people screaming in our faces that AI is the future, that AI will replace us, that AI is the panacea to every fucking problem, even though it only seems to create new ones. I also believe that AI psychosis is a prevalent thing on a scale. that few people want to discuss. There's something about the process of using a large language model that convinces people that AI is powerful because they manage to bonk it on the head enough

times to make something useful come out. Seemingly intelligent people will spend hours and hours making Claude, burp out quasi-useful, quasi-functional software, claiming that the productivity gains are obvious, even when, if you sat down and worked out how long it took them and how much the API rates for the software would be if they weren't being subsidized, they could probably have just learned to code in the first place or paid someone else to do it. And no, please stop this thing of, oh, it's cheaper than hiring a developer. Did you go out and ask a developer? Did you actually get a quote? Do you actually know what you're talking about? Do you know a fucking thing about what you're talking about? You see, I think large language models are a global gaslighting experiment where the test is to see whether inefficient and questionably functional software can convince you that it works because you manage to manipulate its handles with the right prompts, explaining away failures as you go, and getting increasingly agitated with those who don't agree. with you that you're living in the future. This series forced me to live in the past for hours and hours and hours, and all it taught me

is that people are desperate to compare this era to another as a means of explaining away the bad habits and specious ideas of a tech industry run by fucking influences and management and soans. By comparison, the dot-com bubble was relatively sensible, built on good ideas executed by greedy people rushing to do things based on ideas they didn't understand and analyses that were utter bullshit. The AI bubble is happening in a remarkable era of digital information and connectivity that allows us to process and analyze details at scale and with speed, and everybody who inflated this era should, and by my fucking sword will be made to, experience inextricable, permanent

shame for the horrors that follow as a result. And believe me, even if I'm half right, things will likely be so much worse than when the dot-com bubble burst. I don't see a scenario where anything survives the collapse of Coreweave, let alone the collapse of OpenAI. I don't see a scenario where any more than a few AI stop survive, if any, and if that happens, there won't be any customers for those GPUs, not that anywhere near enough existed to fill even a tiny percentile of the demand that currently exists or for the capacity we've already built. On some level, I hope I'm wrong. I just don't know her anymore. I really don't. Thank you so much for listening. It's been an intense January with this, with CES, with the

and shit of financial crisis. I'm probably going to take the week off next week and run a cool zone media rewind to give my aching brain and lungs a break. Thank you so much for listening. Who knows, though? Some bullshit will probably happen because it's earning season when this runs. Some crazy shit will happen.

Or maybe it'll be normal. I could just rest. And if that happens, I'll probably end up oinking and squawking into the mic, as I always do. Regardless, you'll hear my voice one way or another. Thank you so much, everyone. This has been Bubble Week. you for listening to Better Offline.

The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Mattersowski. You can check out more of his music and audio projects at Mattisowski.com. M-A-T-T-T-O-S-O-S-K-I.com. You can email me at EZ at Better Offline.com or visit Better Offline.com to find more podcast links and, of course, my newsletter. I also really recommend you go to chat. Where's Your Ed dot at to visit the Discord and go to R-S-Better-O-Line to check out our Reddit. Thank you so much for listening. Better Offline is a production of Cool Zone Media.

For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smigel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman

help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everyone, it's Ryder Strong and Wilfredel from PodMeets World. And now the PodMeets Twirled podcast. We're two men who were completely clueless to reality TV, and we're gearing up for the season finale of Survivor. I know we annoyed a lot of our listeners. by our severe lack of survivor knowledge. That is the point of the show.

I'm just going to remind you. Again, we are experts. Listen to Podmeets Twirled on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your husband is not who you think he is. Your body is not what you thought it was. Your identity is formed by a secret history. I'm Danny Shapiro.

And these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring on the 14th season of Family Secrets. He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move. And he went out the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off. And that was the last time I saw him. Listen to Season 14 of Family Secrets on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your 20s can be so exciting, but they can also be really overwhelming, confusing, and honestly, just kind of lonely.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and the psychology of your 20s is breaking down the science behind the biggest roadblocks we face. I was six years into my career, the 80-hour weeks, and just the first one in, the last one out, and I ended up burning out. There was a large chunk of my 20s that I, like, was just so wanting to, like, be out of that phase out of my skin, and I just, like, really regret not living in the present more. You don't need to have everything figured out right now. You just need to understand yourself a little bit better.

Listen to the psychology of your 20s on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human