I don't have an MBA or anything but is it common practice to describe "revenue - capex" as "profit"?
Is AI Profitable Yet?
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Re: Is AI Profitable Yet?
#42So Nvidia is basically farming everyone else?
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Re: Is AI Profitable Yet?
#43It’s weird to me that people here suddenly seem to care about profitability for relatively early stage companies just because they’re “AI”. I know a traditional SaaS company I worked for that IPO’d years ago and still has no signs that they can be profitable (and many others like it) and nobody seems particularly concerned.
It’s weird to me that profitability is so thoroughly dismissed by the software tech industry because of an assumption that the tech industry will always be “early stage” and “high growth.”
We can look at a “success story” like Uber and it is still net negative over its entire existence. This is a business that’s in a literal monopoly/duopoly status in most markets it operates in with vastly reduced regulatory burden compared to the industry disrupted. Literally the ideal scenario for printing money and yet it hasn’t made any. It’s the poster child for the unicorn exit that founders dream of.
The end result is that Uber and companies like it are a financial instruments that transfer dollars away from one set of investors to another set of investors.
If Uber hasn’t yet made its investment back, I struggle to wonder how some of these AI ventures will ever make that money back when their expenditures make Uber look like a small little side project.
Meta has spent almost 4 years worth of its net income for FY2025 on AI going by this website’s data, and counting.
We are decades since Web 2.0 took off, almost 20 years since the iPhone launched, 50 years of Apple Computer. Software isn’t some new industry anymore. There isn’t an industry left that hasn’t completed its digital transformation. These spray and pray economies would have died off years ago if it wasn’t for the fact that software companies have uniquely low cost structures where they don’t need to build factories or distribution networks to get their products to their customers. These low cost structures might just be concealing the fact that it’s not going to be a growth industry forever.
Re: Is AI Profitable Yet?
#44It’s weird to me that people here suddenly seem to care about profitability for relatively early stage companies just because they’re “AI”. I know a traditional SaaS company I worked for that IPO’d years ago and still has no signs that they can be profitable (and many others like it) and nobody seems particularly concerned.
What do you mean suddenly? People have been talking about it for as long as relatively early stage LLM companies have been noteworthy.
Re: Is AI Profitable Yet?
#45It’s weird to me that people here suddenly seem to care about profitability for relatively early stage companies just because they’re “AI”. I know a traditional SaaS company I worked for that IPO’d years ago and still has no signs that they can be profitable (and many others like it) and nobody seems particularly concerned.
The AI Bubble – No One's Happy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48230753 - May 2026
Re: Is AI Profitable Yet?
#46It’s weird to me that people here suddenly seem to care about profitability for relatively early stage companies just because they’re “AI”. I know a traditional SaaS company I worked for that IPO’d years ago and still has no signs that they can be profitable (and many others like it) and nobody seems particularly concerned.
Well seeing how they've all collectively spent over a trillion dollars and American citizens still don't have medicare for all, universal childcare, free school lunch, a publics job program, or universal education; it's quite easy to see why the American public has soundly rejected this technology where some are even trying to inflict violence to stop it.
Re: Is AI Profitable Yet?
#47It’s weird to me that people here suddenly seem to care about profitability for relatively early stage companies just because they’re “AI”. I know a traditional SaaS company I worked for that IPO’d years ago and still has no signs that they can be profitable (and many others like it) and nobody seems particularly concerned.
These companies are spending more money than budgets of many countries enough to add 2+% to the US GDP so the amount of loss for if it comes all crashing down will be huge.
Re: Is AI Profitable Yet?
#48For a rapidly growing new line of business, this isn't bad at all.
Yeah, my first impression when I saw this was: if this is accurate, the situation is not nearly as bad as I thought. I do wonder why Nvida is included, though. If you include the company that all of the frontier models are pouring money into, of course the net (expenditure - profits) of the collective is going to be closer to zero :-)
Yeah they should also include the power companies for that matter.
Re: Is AI Profitable Yet?
#49It’s weird to me that people here suddenly seem to care about profitability for relatively early stage companies just because they’re “AI”. I know a traditional SaaS company I worked for that IPO’d years ago and still has no signs that they can be profitable (and many others like it) and nobody seems particularly concerned.
Well seeing how they've all collectively spent over a trillion dollars and American citizens still don't have medicare for all, universal childcare, free school lunch, a publics job program, or universal education; it's quite easy to see why the American public has soundly rejected this technology where some are even trying to inflict violence to stop it.
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Re: Is AI Profitable Yet?
#50It’s weird to me that people here suddenly seem to care about profitability for relatively early stage companies just because they’re “AI”. I know a traditional SaaS company I worked for that IPO’d years ago and still has no signs that they can be profitable (and many others like it) and nobody seems particularly concerned.
dot-com bubble? It's less about black or white, and more about how much of it. Nothing weird to me about caring given how it all also impacts peoples lives and much wilder all these numbers are becoming.
Difference is that Amazon, Microsoft, Google or Oracle are not going out of business if it all collapses. Neither chip or hardware manufacturers will be harmed.