Agree on the long term concept, but there’s little comparison between Amazon’s early years and now. Amazon spent money on tangible capital infrastructure that was highly differentiated and long lasting (fulfillment centers, logistics networks). That costs a ton up front but can be used for decades. Folks struggle to compete with Amazon now because that infrastructure is a giant physical logistics moat that’s not easily replicated.

The AI bubble is far from that. Companies are spending tons on GPUs that have limited lifespan, building models that have limited lifespan, using algorithms that are all basically the same, in a space where someone can dump a “good enough” open source model on the market and blow up your business overnight. There’s very little lasting value in what’s being built and the “we’re investing for the long term” arguments don’t hold much water. It’s like saying you’re investing in real estate but then you keep tearing down the building and rebuilding it every 18 months. That just doesn’t work.

There might be some longer term fungible value from some of the baseline infrastructure investments (data centers, electrical upgrades) but those are undifferentiated and highly fungible.