Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

SpaceX S-1

sec.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 404 posts

Re: SpaceX S-1

#261

Post by JimDabell »

foxylad wrote: post #221
neosat wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

has anyone done the math on: 1. cost to build out and run the data centers 2. cost of compute (hardware and energy) 3. depreciation of legacy GPU and thus value at the end of 3 years. And then compare the $45B revenue from Anthropic to see if it's mostly break even or if one of Anthropic/SpaceX came out ahead on the contract.

Ed Zitron https://www.wheresyoured.at/ has done the math, and it's pretty bleak. His somewhat voluminous rantings contain raw figures on investments, data centre builds, energy availability and depreciation. He believes Oracle has already signed it's own death warrant, and that Meta is close behind. MS, Amazon and Google have massive revenue streams to sustain them, but looking at the numbers, each has to earn from A…

> Ed Zitron https://www.wheresyoured.at/ has done the math, and it's pretty bleak.

Ed Zitron is constantly wrong and writes like a child having a tantrum, I don’t understand why you take him seriously?

https://www.theargumentmag.com/p/ais-biggest-critic-has-lost...

From a previous comment of mine – the quotes are all from a single article:

He comes across as just a ludicrously unpleasant, spite-filled person.

> I'm fucking tired of having to write this sentence.

> I am so very bored of having this conversation

> I don't care about this number!

> Shut the fuck up!

> This isn't the early days of shit.

> Didn't we just talk about this? Fine, fine.

> $3.25 billion a quarter is absolutely pathetic.

> This isn’t real business! Sorry!

> He said in one of his stupid and boring blogs that

> This man is full of shit! Hey, tech media people reading this — your readers hate this shit! Stop printing it! Stop it!

> It's here where I'm going to choose to scream.

> Dario Amodei — much like Sam Altman — is a liar, a crook, a carnival barker and a charlatan, and the things he promises are equal parts ridiculous and offensive.

> Why are we humoring these oafs?

> Despite Newton's fawning praise

> Nobody talks like this! This isn’t how human beings sound! I don’t like reading it!

> Ewww.

> I'm sorry, I know I sound like a hater, and perhaps I am, but this shit doesn't impress me even a little.

> I know, I know, I'm a hater, I'm a pessimist, a cynic, but I need you to fucking listen to me: everything I am describing is unfathomably dangerous

> expensive, stupid, irksome, quasi-useless new product

> I know this has been a rant-filled newsletter, but I'm so tired of being told to be excited about this warmed-up dogshit.

> I refuse to sit here and pretend that any of this matters.

> I'm tired of the delusion. I'm tired of being forced to take these men seriously.

When I read this kind of thing, it’s very apparent that this is being driven entirely by spite not insight. He’s just so angry about everything. There are 57 exclamation marks in this article!

— https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43085885#43086361

Pay too much attention to this kind of thing and it will poison your mind.

Re: SpaceX S-1

#262

Post by JimDabell »

theptip wrote: post #206
fooblaster wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how exactly can you assume they have unit profitability

Plenty of analysis on this point, the inputs are not secret. Check out Semianalysis for example. They have something like 70% margin on inference.

They had 40% margin on inference in 2025.

https://archive.is/aKFYZ

You can quibble about the exact numbers, but I think it’s fairly clear at this point that inference is profitable with decent margins. Like you say, unit economics are more interesting than the profitability of the company as a whole.

Re: SpaceX S-1

#263

Post by kgwgk »

burnerRhodov3 wrote: post #259
kgwgk wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no interest, as he was venture funded not debt funded. Who is "he"? SpaceX has $20bn of debt and $9bn in "other financing" corresponding to "obligations related to certain AI infrastructure assets recorded as failed sale-leaseback transactions."

Edit: Page 122 of the S-1. They are paying SOFR + 0.75%. So around 5.5% on the $20B. I'll keep the below for integrity sake: Well, i'm sure SpaceX bought Xai using some kind of prefered share/debt financing, but that's not to say that XAI had the original debt financing. We can never know what the exact details, and the exact financing is on this debt. Maybe it's tied to Elon's Tesla Shares, Maybe it's tied to a conv…

> We can never know what the exact details

If only there was some SEC filing available disclosing additional information about the 6-months $20bn bridge loan which was on the news four weeks ago…

Re: SpaceX S-1

#264

Post by protocolture »

bottlepalm wrote: post #237
darkwizard42 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to keep things in perspective, Uber IPO-ed for 82.4B. SpaceX is IPOing for over 10x more.

SpaceX easily has 10x the potential of Uber. SpaceX has its hands in so many up and coming industries.

SpaceX has the baggage of a bunch of elon brainfarts.

Re: SpaceX S-1

#265

Post by kristiandupont »

takinola wrote: post #184
Eldodi wrote: post #3

Crazy this company will IPO for >1B with such bad financials! That said, Starlink seems to be a real cash machine, not as good as ads but enough to support AI bets. 2025: - Revenue: $18.7B, up from $14.0B in 2024 - Operating loss: -$2.6B - Net loss: -$4.9B - Adjusted EBITDA: $6.6B - Operating cash flow: $6.8B - Capex: $20.7B Segment breakdown: - Starlink / Connectivity: $11.4B revenue, $4.4B operating income, $7.2B a…

Can someone ELI5 Starlink revenue sources? At the core, it's an ISP (but served from space). What does Starlink have that differentiates from any other ISP? Is it because the TAM is global? That may be true at the margin, but I am sure most eligible subscribers would prefer a land-based system (eg no one in SF is cancelling their Xfinity to use Starlink) so how much is really left for them?

For one thing, just about every airline in the world is a potential customer.

Re: SpaceX S-1

#268

Post by burnerRhodov3 »

kgwgk wrote: post #263
burnerRhodov3 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: Page 122 of the S-1. They are paying SOFR + 0.75%. So around 5.5% on the $20B. I'll keep the below for integrity sake: Well, i'm sure SpaceX bought Xai using some kind of prefered share/debt financing, but that's not to say that XAI had the original debt financing. We can never know what the exact details, and the exact financing is on this debt. Maybe it's tied to Elon's Tesla Shares, Maybe it's tied to a conv…

> We can never know what the exact details If only there was some SEC filing available disclosing additional information about the 6-months $20bn bridge loan which was on the news four weeks ago…

oh, nice! thanks for this. This confirms spaceX has $20B at a SOFR + 0.75%. So around 5%-5.5%. Found on page 122 of the S-1. I assume they will retire all debt with the $50B raised from the IPO, plus have $30B to... dominate with starship. If starship is around $100m per launch right now, they can launch 300 ships with the IPO. or 30,000T in orbit.

Re: SpaceX S-1

#269

Post by roer »

nickburns wrote: post #215
Jabbles wrote: post #51

If any company can put profitable data centers in space, it will be SpaceX. But I doubt that any company can. The difficulties of the physics and engineering of cooling seem like they will always outweigh the advantages of keeping your data center on Earth. I am annoyed by the insistence that the value of this company comes from something that no one has been able to show is possible yet without multiplying it by the…

You know 'space' is a vacuum, right?

I don't see how that would lessen their concerns? Exactly because space is a vacuum, cooling is harder since you can't do convection.

The math still checks out though. Scott Manley did a video on it, and the top comment has some corrections: https://youtu.be/FlQYU3m1e80

Re: SpaceX S-1

#270

Post by gpapilion »

pianoben wrote: post #65
TheAlchemist wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be interesting to know how much did it cost xAI to build it ? Ai says between $18-$40 billion to just build, without running cost, but no idea how close to reality this is.

Nobody pays MSRP at that scale

Yes and no. They paid what everyone else pays for those gpus. NVIDIA make the profit and leaves crumbs for the rest. For other components they paid less, but since the gpus are the majority of the cost…
Post reply on HN