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Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

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Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#161

Post by daemonologist »

loeg wrote: post #49
mlsu wrote: post #11

Moves like this should be illegal. It's becoming increasingly clear that OpenAI is going to get lapped by Google on technical merits. So this is the "code red" solution? Supply shenanigans? They are getting beat in the developer market by Anthropic. And getting beat on fundamental tech by Google. This is a company whose ostensible mission is to "benefit all of humanity" ...

> Moves like this should be illegal. Should be, as in, new legislation should criminalize it? What's the generalized principle? Or should be, as in existing law should cover it? And if so, what law / how?

Should be investigated as anticompetitive behavior under the FTC Act. Of course that's unlikely to happen. Maybe also market manipulation under the Commodity Exchange Act.

Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#162

Post by daemonologist »

behnamoh wrote: post #149
am17an wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's bad for consumers period. A deal that hampers 40% of global supply shouldn't be a thing, it's predatory. I know DRAM is not a necessity, but considering that PCs are going to be affected means this affects real things like schools and hospitals. There's being smart while making a deal and there's knee-capping the market with your leveraged to the tits business

but where do we draw the line? Would 39% be okay? and who's gonna draw the line and enforce it?

The line imo is the amount of DRAM OpenAI actually needs/can use. If they end up piling some of it in a warehouse just so nobody else can use it, lock em up.

Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#163

Post by rootusrootus »

jpgvm wrote: post #133
rootusrootus wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> buying a car for $60k when other countries, whom you are also competing with, get buy similar cars for $10-20k from China I'd love to hear your examples of this happening. For $22K you can get a BYD Dolphin Surf in Europe. And that's a pretty small car. What are you paying $60K for in the US that's the same size? Maybe let's try a different match up. The BYD Atto 3 seems to start around 40K in Europe. It's smaller…

Atto 3 is $19.3k USD in Thailand. So it's really just tariffs and taxes making it that expensive elsewhere.

Right, so we are never going to see it for 20 grand in the US. Maybe because of tariffs and taxes, as you say, or maybe just because BYD isn't going to set the price at 20K in a market with 10x the average income.

Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#164

Post by baking »

jordanb wrote: post #103
semiquaver wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law you refer to applies only to markets for securities. RAM is very clearly not a security, it fails the Howey test. There are similar laws prohibiting the manipulation of commodity markets but I do not believe a US court would find RAM to be a commodity.

How is RAM not a commodity?

It may be a commodity, but there is no established commodity market for RAM in the US, as there is for energy and agricultural products. The laws relate to the manipulation of a commodity market. Commodity markets are usually established where the products are produced, not where they are consumed.

Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#165

Post by arjie »

behnamoh wrote: post #136
arjie wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you can have a "free and global market" when countries participate in large-scale state industrial policy. Given those constraints, you have to either enforce a zero-subsidy environment (the US has no power to do this) or you have to accept that trade control is one arm of your foreign policy goals and surrendering it entirely is unlikely to help your aims. For the most part, free and open trade is bene…

> Think of it as did AI write this?

Boy, am I glad I wrote a killfile for Hacker News.

Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#166

Post by bigstrat2003 »

roadbuster wrote: post #114
hamandcheese wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The implication here is that the primary goal is to corner the market, not to use the supply. If you aren't going to use them anyways then of course it is silly to pay for them to be finished. Do you think that's fine, or do you think that implication is wrong and OpenAI does actually plan to deploy 40% of the world's DRAM supply?

> The implication here is that the primary goal is to corner the market You have no evidence of that. Even at face value, the idea of "cornering the market" on a depreciating asset with no long-term value isn't a war strategy, it's flushing money down the toilet. Moreover, there's a credible argument OpenAI wanted to secure capacity in an essential part of their upstream supply chain to ensure stable prices for thems…

> the idea of "cornering the market" on a depreciating asset with no long-term value isn't a war strategy, it's flushing money down the toilet

OpenAI's entire business strategy thus far can be summarized as "flushing money down the toilet", so that isn't actually as unlikely as you're making it sound.

Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#167

Post by michaelmrose »

roenxi wrote: post #150
AlotOfReading wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DRAM is one of the categories of advanced semiconductors that the US considers important enough to national security that exporting it to China is forbidden. It's a fundamental industrial product.

Yeah. Companies like OpenAI need a lot of RAM. That is why they just bought up what is apparently a material chunk of the market. There is a certain level of crazy that crowds can find when people identify something as a fundamental industrial product critical to national security and simultaneously someone is calling for companies buying a lot of it [0] to be made illegal. If something is critically important to ind…

They didn't actually buy up the finsished product they actually require. Arguably they raised the price of an input they cannot immediately use hurting themselves by raising the price for what they do actually use in order not to serve a need but to hurt others including the 99.9% of households that use devices with RAM.

It is the malicious purpose and the clear harm to most of America that ought to provide motivation to enforce any law this is at odds with.

Pretending computing is a luxury in 2025 is nonsense as is ignoring the obviously manipulative purpose that is so clear.

Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#168

Post by overfeed »

rootusrootus wrote: post #163
jpgvm wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Atto 3 is $19.3k USD in Thailand. So it's really just tariffs and taxes making it that expensive elsewhere.

Right, so we are never going to see it for 20 grand in the US. Maybe because of tariffs and taxes, as you say, or maybe just because BYD isn't going to set the price at 20K in a market with 10x the average income.

> Right, so we are never going to see it for 20 grand in the US

To be fair, @dmix explicitly mentioned the $20k price was for other countries

Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#169

Post by popol12 »

machomaster wrote: post #131
embedding-shape wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I thought that was our open goal. Is the goal also to hurt South Korean businesses and all businesses in the world, just to "pwn China" basically?

What better way to hurt the designated enemy and make others bare the cost? Trump's America First in practice relies on a near-sided and overly simplistic understanding of the world (Win-lose, whatever is benefitting others must be a hinderance to the USA). Hence fighting the tariff wars against allies (Canada, Eu). Hence destroying Nato' credibility that was carefully built for 70 years. Hence ceasing to be Ukraine'…

« to bear the cost », not « to bare the cost »

Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#170

Post by torginus »

jpgvm wrote: post #133
rootusrootus wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> buying a car for $60k when other countries, whom you are also competing with, get buy similar cars for $10-20k from China I'd love to hear your examples of this happening. For $22K you can get a BYD Dolphin Surf in Europe. And that's a pretty small car. What are you paying $60K for in the US that's the same size? Maybe let's try a different match up. The BYD Atto 3 seems to start around 40K in Europe. It's smaller…

Atto 3 is $19.3k USD in Thailand. So it's really just tariffs and taxes making it that expensive elsewhere.

I read that's not really the case - there's a bunch of equipment on EU-spec (and some other market) BYDs that comes from EU vendors such as Bosch. It additionally has a completely different AC unit as the kind of refrigerant BYD uses in China is illegal in the EU.

I'm not saying it justifies the price difference, but there are changes between the cars.

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