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387 points reaperducer | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.518s | source
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crazygringo ◴[] No.45772276[source]
This is such a strange article -- there's nothing particularly unusual going on here.

The first example basically stands in for all of them -- Microsoft invests $13B in OpenAI, and OpenAI spends $13B on Azure. This is literally just OpenAI purchasing Microsoft cloud usage with OpenAI's stock rather than its cash. There is nothing unusual, illicit, or deceptive about this. This is entirely normal. You can finance your spending through debt or equity. They're financing through equity, as most startups do, and they presumably get a better deal (better rates, more guaranteed access) via Microsoft than via other random investors and then buying the cloud compute retail from Microsoft.

This isn't deceiving any investors. This is all out in the open. And it's entirely normal business practice. Nothing of this is an indicator of a bubble or anything.

Or take the deal with Oracle -- Oracle is building data centers for OpenAI, with the guarantee that OpenAI will use them. That's just... a regular business deal. What is even newsworthy about this? NYT thinks these are "circular" deals, but by this logic every deal is a "circular" deal, because both sides benefit. This is just... normal capitalism.

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1. gdulli ◴[] No.45772664[source]
Sometimes additional context can take the same action that looks harmless in a vacuum and turn it into a bad idea or even a crime!
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2. crazygringo ◴[] No.45772730[source]
Then it would be great to have that context that shows criminality. Because that's an extraordinary claim you're suggesting, which is going to require actual evidence.

As for "bad ideas", businesses make tons of decisions every day that turn out to be good or bad in hindsight. So again, more specifics are needed here.

So what exactly are you suggesting? What context do you think the NYT chose to omit, and why would they omit it if it was meaningful?