All the stories have been told
Of kings and days of old
But there's no England now
All the wars that were won and lost
Somehow don't seem to matter very much anymore
All the lies we were told
All the lies of the people running round
Their castles have burned
I see change
But inside we're the same
As we ever were
(1)
Mark Zuckerberg’s latest $100M+ hires for his superintelligence team have been read as a declaration of belief in AGI, as something to be surprised by.
In practice, it’s a bet with limited downside. I don't think he's spending enough yet. The sums sound extreme, but for a company whose quarterly profit exceeds them, they are small wagers on a prize that could rewrite the order of things.
People react with envy, suspicion, or derision, but no one knows what the return will be.
(2)
There are some whose skill bends the curve, whose work carries the weight of many. I have seen them, and their abilities shift outcomes in ways most cannot. The sums laid before them seem improbable until measured against what they might return.
Spoken aloud, those numbers serve another purpose: they draw others to the table and tell the market the house is serious. Fortunes are lost in a bubble, but sometimes fortunes greater still are made, most often by those who could afford the stake.
(3)
EV(p, V, C) = p × V − C.
A 10% chance at a $1T prize is $100B in expected value. Even 1% is $10B. If the cost is $1B in talent and time, the math is simple. The inputs are guesses, but they can be improved with the right people, the right pressure, the right timing. If the value is captured, the reward is not just the multiple.
How much is total dominance worth: all present and future cash flows? Everything?
(4)
The present wager is actually small enough to vanish into the ledgers. Even if it fails, the loss doesn't make its way into any analysis of the stock.
Well-fed incumbents can enlist infinite ranks of expendable gladiators, loose them into the pit, and cull until the last one stands. That is how value is captured in a bubble without blind luck or grifting. Maximum optionality, maximum resource extraction, "efficient" market (at least as far as the culling goes).
(5)
Bubbles prime the crowd for bigger and bolder grifts, each one harder to distinguish from the real thing. Great things come out of the ashes of a bubble, but death, acquisition, survival, and transcendence are divided by a thin line. The difference between capturing all value and becoming another trend-hopper lies in a deviation so small it’s almost invisible. I think Mark has seen enough cycles to know this is true and is positioning Meta (regardless of outcome) favorably.