The fraud is there. Whether it surpasses Enron or not will be revealed in the future.

▲ arctic-true 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

To commit fraud you have to lie, deceive, or conceal. All of this bonkers financing is happening in broad daylight, announced to the markets, and met with rave reviews. I tend to agree with Zitron that the whole thing is a castle made of sand - not because the tech is bad or useless but because the financing, in its scope and structure, is so outlandish - but you can build a castle made of sand as long as you don’t tell anyone it’s made of steel.

▲ dgellow 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

So far NVIDIA has been very careful, it’s not actual fraud, at least based on public information. It’s a very unstable and extremely risky bet, that is very likely to blow in the face face of AI companies, but it’s not fraud

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windexh8er 9 hours ago | parent [-]

I think a lot of people (myself included) would love for it to be fraud. Because even if it's not fraud what is being done between NVidia, OAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, Meta, Musk and Google is funny accounting at the very least. It's hard to take any part of what's going on seriously in the US at this point and I feel like the bigger downside to all of this is that if/when they get away with this, and there are no repurcussions for any of the big names involved, then it erodes consumer trust that much further, pushing us deeper into a state of "doesn't matter anyway, why try".

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dgellow 9 hours ago | parent [-]

Yes, you can include me too. I’m aware enough of the details to know we don’t have any proof of anything fraudulent, but that whole situation is just so disgusting

	▲	Karrot_Kream 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Doesn't this ultimately boil down to: other people are spending their money on things I don't want them to? Which I mean, yeah I feel like this about tons of things all the time. I'm human too. But I know this is a petty part of me not a thoughtful part.

▲ tim333 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Patrick Boyle had a vid specifically on whether there was Enron style fraud. The conclusion was no, though he thinks things may be a bit bubbly https://youtu.be/NufJ7g63KSY

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misswaterfairy 5 hours ago | parent [-]

It's worth considering that it might not be 'Enron-style' fraud, because that's the best comparison have at the moment.

What event did people compare Enron to, before Enron became 'Enron'?

It's probable we're witnessing an entirely new fraud, we just don't have all of the details yet.

	▲	supern0va 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Why? If there's no evidence of fraud, why are you imagining some new category of fraud that these companies have independently conjured up? Suggesting that an entire industry is in cahoots to invent and participate in an entirely new fraud-like scheme, including companies that have lots of wealth and growth and much to lose from such an exposure...seems awfully conspiratorial, don't you think?

▲ jrflo 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

There is no evidence of fraud that I have seen beyond complete speculation from the likes of Zitron. He basically just says "Look how big the numbers are! It's so big it must be fraud!"

▲ dgellow 10 hours ago | parent [-]

Zitron himself doesn’t call it fraud and doesn’t compare it to Enron (he said no, with his reasoning when asked in interviews, multiple times)

▲ jrflo 10 hours ago | parent [-]

I was thinking of this article where he compares OpenAI to enron: https://www.wheresyoured.at/what-happens-if-openai-dies/

▲ dgellow 9 hours ago | parent [-]

Do you mean this section?

> If you are going to look at this and say “actually it didn’t” because of its Enrontastic accounting treatment, I also need to warn you — that identical guy in the bathroom is actually a thing called a “mirror,” a reflective surface that is showing you a reflection of you, not another person who is dressed like you and copies everything you do. I can’t imagine how scared you’ve been, and hope this has helped.

That’s his weird writing style, so I’m not 100% sure, but I don’t think he literally means that OpenAI is committing Enron style fraud. More of a stylistic way to say it’s a mess

	▲	jrflo 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		He also alludes to it here: >What follows may be an Enron-Lehman Brothers hybrid, one that leaves unbelievable destruction in its wake, an avoidable systemic risk empowered and enabled by a kneecapped media industry and sell-side analysts incapable of seeing further than two quarters in the future. He also mocks the financial statements from the companies in a way that alludes to them being fraudulent (from the OP): > February 2025: Anthropic making $34.5B in revenue 2027 is "is laughable on many levels, chief of which is that OpenAI, which made around twice as much revenue as Anthropic did in 2024, barely made a billion dollars from API calls in the same year." `Wrong (whether or not they make that in 2027, their 2026 ARR greatly exceeding that makes the 2027 estimate non-laughable)` > Oct 2024: OpenAI's forecast of $3.7B revenue in 2024 and $11.6B in 2025 and $100B in 2029 are absurd, "a statement so egregious that I am surprised it's not some kind of financial crime to say it out loud" `Wrong (2025 goal exceeded, 2029 TBD but not an egregious financial crime level of implausible)` I'm realizing that he is very good at alluding to gross financial crimes without outright accusing them of it (probably as a hedge against libel or something)