I wouldn’t call it “alleged” hype. Sam Altman said, with his own mouth, that GPT can just tell him how to make OpenAI profitable. People predicted based on this and other things that SaaS was over because why would you pay for anything when you can just vibecode it. Those kinds of ideas are exactly what drove so much of this massive investment in AI, and that is exactly why the farmer analogy is inapt.

It’s also why the original question about why model vendors don’t just start their own companies remains pertinent. We had an historic IPO for an unprofitable AI company earlier this year. Another one is hypothetically coming soon, and a third got put on hold but is still waiting in the wings. All for valuations that are only possible because the hype is real and ongoing, and only sensible if the hype is also valid. In that context, asking questions about the ideas upon which these expectations of historic future profit for companies that are, to date, historically unprofitable isn’t just complaining. It’s basic due diligence.