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Ben Yong
@bymyong.bsky.social
2.2K followers 1.4K following 950 posts
"Estimable" Sir Jonathan Jones KC

Associate Prof in Public Law, Durham Law School. Looks at how legislatures and govt works. https://www.durham.ac.uk/staff/benjamin-y-yong/

Mastodon: @bymyong@mstdn.social
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bymyong.bsky.social
💯
November 11, 2025 at 9:49 AM
bymyong.bsky.social
Zactly
November 8, 2025 at 11:06 AM
bymyong.bsky.social
this feels like a subtweet that I don't get
November 6, 2025 at 12:12 PM
Reposted by Ben Yong
edzitron.com
I need to be very explicit: there is not enough money in the world to fund OpenAI's $1 Trillion in commitments, and that's across the top 10 private equity firms, all US venture capital, and both Goldman and JPMorgan's direct lending funds. This is very bad.
www.wheresyoured.at/the-case-aga...
The World’s Private Credit and Venture Capital Cannot Afford OpenAI Here’s some alarmism for you: the longer it takes for OpenAI to die, the more damage it will cause to the tech industry. On Friday, when I put out my piece on OpenAI needing a trillion dollars, I asked analyst Gil Luria if the capital was there to build the 17 Gigawatts that OpenAI had allegedly planned to build. He said the following: No of course there isn't enough capital for all of this. Having said that, there is enough capital to do this for at least a little while longer. That doesn’t sound good! Anyway, as I discussed earlier, venture capital could run out in six quarters, with investor and researcher Jon Sakoda estimating that there will only be around $164 billion of dry powder (available capital) in US VC firms by the end of 2025. In July, The French Tech Journal reported (using Pitchbook data) that global venture capital deal activity reached its lowest first-half total since 2018, with $139.4 billion in deal value in the first half of 2025, down from $183.4 billion in the first half of 2024, meaning that any further expansion or demands for venture capital from OpenAI will likely sap the dwindling funds available from other startups. Things get worse when you narrow things to US venture capital. In a piece from April, EY reported that VC-backed investment in US companies hit $80 billion in Q1 2025, but “one $40 billion deal” accounted for half of the investment — OpenAI’s $40 billion deal of which only $10 billion has actually closed, and that didn’t happen until fucking June. Without the imaginary money from OpenAI, US venture would have declined by 36%. The longer that OpenAI survives, the longer it will sap the remaining billions from the tech ecosystem, and I expect it to extend its tendrils to private credit too. The $325 billion it needs just to fulfil its NVIDIA contract, albeit over 4 years, is an egregious sum that I believe exceeds the available private capital in the … Let’s get specific, and check out the top 10 private equity firms’ available capital! Blackstone, as of writing this sentence, has about $39 billion available to invest. An article from the Wall Street Journal from April said it had $177 billion available, which means it’s approaching the point where they just don’t have the cash to issue. KKR has, as of writing this sentence, has $55 billion available to invest. Carlyle Group has, as of August 2025, has $89 billion available to invest. Swedish PE firm EQT had around €50 billion as of July available to invest, or around $59 billion. It’s not clear how much Thoma Bravo has, but this release suggests it’s recently raised $34.4 billion. As of August, TPG had $63 billion available to invest. As of March 2025, CVC Capital partners had around 40 billion euro ($47 billion) in available capital to invest. It’s unclear how much HG Capital has available, but reports suggest it’s been trying to raise €24 billion (or $28.35 billion). It’s unclear how much Hellman & Friedman have available to invest, but it raised a $24.4 billion fund last year. It’s unclear how much Clayton, Dubilier & Rice have available to invest, but it raised a $26 billion fund in August 2023. Insight Partners closed a $12.5 billion fund in January 2025. It is otherwise unclear how much they have to invest. Assuming that all of this capital is currently available, the top 10 private equity firms in the world have around $477 billion of available capital. We can, of course, include investment banks — Goldman Sachs had around $520 billion cash in hand available at the end of its last quarter, and JPMorgan over $1.7 trillion, but JP Morgan has only dedicated $50 billion in direct lending commitments as of February 2025, and while Goldman Sachs expanded its direct private credit lending by $15 billion back in June, that appears to be an extension of its “more than $20 billion” direct lending close from mid-2024. Include both of those, and that brings us up …
September 29, 2025 at 5:37 PM