William Robinson
@williamrobinson.bsky.social
A government that cannot see itself clearly cannot fix itself. It becomes locked in a loop of self-congratulation and silent collapse.
Trump said he fired the BLS commissioner for making a huge downward revision on 2025 jobs data, saying the numbers were "manipulated for political purposes." Revisions are normal and expected, however — here's what to know.
Trump says he'll fire BLS chief over "faked" numbers. Here's why there are revisions
The Labor Department characterized revisions for job growth in May and June as "larger than normal."
www.axios.com
August 1, 2025 at 7:26 PM
A government that cannot see itself clearly cannot fix itself. It becomes locked in a loop of self-congratulation and silent collapse.
Calling it now: AI agents will be added to the jobs data. If we once accepted that “corporations are people” for legal and political purposes, it’s only a matter of time before “AI agents are workers” becomes the statistical equivalent — not because it’s true, but because it’s convenient.
Payroll growth plunged to 73K in July, undershooting expectations. Revisions also slashed estimates for May and June, from 144K to 19K and 133K to 14K.
August 1, 2025 at 4:34 PM
Calling it now: AI agents will be added to the jobs data. If we once accepted that “corporations are people” for legal and political purposes, it’s only a matter of time before “AI agents are workers” becomes the statistical equivalent — not because it’s true, but because it’s convenient.
Crowded AI longs (BofA) vs. a slowing economy (-0.3% LEI). If you’re still buying here, you’re exit liquidity.
US Leading Index (M/M) Jun: -0.3% (est -0.3%; prev -0.1%; prev R 0.0%)
www.conference-board.org/topics/us-le...
www.conference-board.org/topics/us-le...
US Leading Indicators
The Conference Board Leading Economic Index® (LEI) for the United States
www.conference-board.org
July 21, 2025 at 2:44 PM
Crowded AI longs (BofA) vs. a slowing economy (-0.3% LEI). If you’re still buying here, you’re exit liquidity.
Nvidia isn’t refusing H20 production for political reasons. U.S. policy made the chip a stranded asset with negative returns. The P&L forces Nvidia to reallocate every wafer to Blackwell’s higher margins. Policy sets the risk, capital efficiency does the enforcement.
Sources: after Trump let Nvidia resume H20 chip sales to China, Nvidia told Chinese customers it has limited stocks and doesn't plan to restart production (Qianer Liu/The Information)
Main Link | Techmeme Permalink
Main Link | Techmeme Permalink
July 19, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Nvidia isn’t refusing H20 production for political reasons. U.S. policy made the chip a stranded asset with negative returns. The P&L forces Nvidia to reallocate every wafer to Blackwell’s higher margins. Policy sets the risk, capital efficiency does the enforcement.
They claim America’s $320B AI build-out is to beat China. It’s a lie. The Nvidia waiver proves it.
The real goal is a "Surge Economy"—applying Uber's pricing algorithm to your power bill.
My latest op-ed explains:
open.substack.com/pub/williamr...
The real goal is a "Surge Economy"—applying Uber's pricing algorithm to your power bill.
My latest op-ed explains:
open.substack.com/pub/williamr...
Welcome To The Surge Economy, You Paid For It
You’re already paying for the A.I.
open.substack.com
July 16, 2025 at 7:21 PM
They claim America’s $320B AI build-out is to beat China. It’s a lie. The Nvidia waiver proves it.
The real goal is a "Surge Economy"—applying Uber's pricing algorithm to your power bill.
My latest op-ed explains:
open.substack.com/pub/williamr...
The real goal is a "Surge Economy"—applying Uber's pricing algorithm to your power bill.
My latest op-ed explains:
open.substack.com/pub/williamr...
The IT bubble was a bet on Permissionless Creation.
This "AI Bubble" is a bet on Permissioned Consolidation by 5-7 monopolies.
And with it, the death of market dynamism.
This "AI Bubble" is a bet on Permissioned Consolidation by 5-7 monopolies.
And with it, the death of market dynamism.
July 16, 2025 at 3:03 PM
The IT bubble was a bet on Permissionless Creation.
This "AI Bubble" is a bet on Permissioned Consolidation by 5-7 monopolies.
And with it, the death of market dynamism.
This "AI Bubble" is a bet on Permissioned Consolidation by 5-7 monopolies.
And with it, the death of market dynamism.
Meta's Principle of Concentrated Force
1. Datacenter “tents” = instant, elastic compute.
2. $200-300 M offers = instant, elastic talent.
3. The flywheel: More FLOPS per head → faster results → stronger recruiting pull → justification for the next GPU order.
Moat isn’t money; it’s compressed time.
1. Datacenter “tents” = instant, elastic compute.
2. $200-300 M offers = instant, elastic talent.
3. The flywheel: More FLOPS per head → faster results → stronger recruiting pull → justification for the next GPU order.
Moat isn’t money; it’s compressed time.
Mark Zuckerberg says Meta is building a 5GW AI data center
Mark Zuckerberg says Meta is building a 5GW AI data center | TechCrunch
Mark Zuckerberg says Meta is building out some massive data centers to power its AI ambitions and compete with OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic.
techcrunch.com
July 14, 2025 at 5:04 PM
Meta's Principle of Concentrated Force
1. Datacenter “tents” = instant, elastic compute.
2. $200-300 M offers = instant, elastic talent.
3. The flywheel: More FLOPS per head → faster results → stronger recruiting pull → justification for the next GPU order.
Moat isn’t money; it’s compressed time.
1. Datacenter “tents” = instant, elastic compute.
2. $200-300 M offers = instant, elastic talent.
3. The flywheel: More FLOPS per head → faster results → stronger recruiting pull → justification for the next GPU order.
Moat isn’t money; it’s compressed time.
Meanwhile enterprise CIOs are going “uhh no thanks” at 14 % actual AI rollout, but Peter Navarro is on CNBC demanding the Fed carpet-bomb rates so the bubble can keep inflating. What could possibly go wrong?
open.substack.com/pub/williamr...
open.substack.com/pub/williamr...
Zero-Gravity Rave, Meet the Recession Floor
Wall Street levitates on GPUs; Main Street braces for impact.
open.substack.com
July 8, 2025 at 9:17 PM
Meanwhile enterprise CIOs are going “uhh no thanks” at 14 % actual AI rollout, but Peter Navarro is on CNBC demanding the Fed carpet-bomb rates so the bubble can keep inflating. What could possibly go wrong?
open.substack.com/pub/williamr...
open.substack.com/pub/williamr...
The AI boom mirrors 2008: a mis-priced core asset, over-leveraged borrowers, and a rate reset that shatters the model. Different industry, same structure of risk denial…
The more I dig into this the more that everything keeps coming back to Anthropic. Premium column tomorrow or Monday
I am calling it: the great enshittification of AI has begun, and the Subprime AI Crisis is brewing. Cursor is jacking up prices and adding rate limits, seeing reports of similar things happening with Replit, very nasty stuff.
July 3, 2025 at 10:03 PM
The AI boom mirrors 2008: a mis-priced core asset, over-leveraged borrowers, and a rate reset that shatters the model. Different industry, same structure of risk denial…
The “Five Levels” paper is the gun OpenAI’s holding to its own head: publish it and everyone sees we’re stuck at Level 2 of 5, the AGI mystique evaporates, and Microsoft just shrugs.
Sources: an internal OpenAI paper on AI stages is affecting Microsoft talks by complicating OpenAI's ability to declare AGI and block Microsoft from its tech (Kylie Robison/Wired)
Main Link | Techmeme Permalink
Main Link | Techmeme Permalink
June 27, 2025 at 9:11 PM
The “Five Levels” paper is the gun OpenAI’s holding to its own head: publish it and everyone sees we’re stuck at Level 2 of 5, the AGI mystique evaporates, and Microsoft just shrugs.
