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SpaceX S-1

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Re: SpaceX S-1

#341

Post by inglor_cz »

rafram wrote: post #317
inglor_cz wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I suspect your definition of a lousy place to build infrastructure in might overlap with my definition of a relatively good place to live." Which is quite close to the standard NIMBY attitude: "I want good grid, cheap electricity and other infrastructure, but not in my backyard. Either someone else's, or somewhere where no one lives at all." Can't you see the fundamental problem with that attitude? We mostly live in…

Of course we need infrastructure. It’s annoying when a project that seems like a net good is held up due to environmental concerns, but this planet is very beautiful and I’d like to be able to continue to enjoy it.

In practice, everything is tradeoff. Your house, and mine, and everyone else's here stands in some place which was once a beautiful natural spot. But few people would support tearing their own homes down in order to restore that beauty.

A technical civilization of 8 billion people cannot exist without doing at least some damage to the environment, but most of the time, outright bans on further development are demanded instead of some reasonable mitigation.

Maybe you really deeply care about the environment. Most of the NIMBYs I met don't. When it comes to infrastructure, housing etc., the environmental concerns are quite often just a legal tool, and the real motivation of the people who wield them is more along the "I have mine, I don't care about yours, just sod off".

Re: SpaceX S-1

#342

Post by roryirvine »

burnerRhodov3 wrote: post #227
lumost wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Napkin math on 5 year depreciation is 5.5 billion per year for 28 billion. However the 28 billion is cash upfront, spacex is probably paying 10-20% interest on the 28 billion for another 2-6 billion per year. So net you are looking at finance expenses of 7-11 billion per year. The electricity costs will be significant on top of that, but harder to get a solid read on. Net of everything, spacex may be getting a 14-28…

5.5 year depreciation is only on the chips. Power, networking, cabling, the actual construction of the building is probably closer to 60% of that number. Also, they are only renting out colosus 1 ($10B), not colosus II ($18B). So, it's 10B, with $4b of that being attributed to a 5 year depreciation. The rest of the facility probably has a depreciation of around 20 years, and you can easily swap out GPU's, TPU's, Trit…

Generating your own electricity really isn't that much far below grid prices - you'd typically be looking at a central estimate of 15 years to get a return on investment for a large Combined Cooling and Power cogeneration setup.

But, crucially, there's a huge level of uncertainty. You're making bets on the relative cost of nat gas and grid power, both of which have historically shown extreme volatility over that sort of timescale.

The level of risk means that very few proposed schemes go ahead in full unless there's some other factor involved (lack of sufficient grid connectivity, availability of subsidies).

Re: SpaceX S-1

#343

Post by Zigurd »

erulabs wrote: post #240

Feels risky to push the S-1 a day before the latest starship launch. If there is a catastrophic failure OR a perfect success it feels like it would be material here. Also I’m concerned that if AI “works” (ie: country-of-genuses-in-a-box) that the moat of reusable rockets decreases substantially. What would stop Northrop from vibe coding their own starship?

That's an interesting use of the word material. The problem with the IPO is that it's vibes based. There's already a lot to doubt about starship. If there is some large failure on this flight, it won't change the actual material value, or lack thereof. But it would shift the vibes.

Re: SpaceX S-1

#344

Post by dgellow »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #304
roer wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

30% of terrestrial datacenter power use is cooling. Space cooling is easier!

What makes cooling easier in space? Isn’t it harder due to the lack of atmosphere?

Re: SpaceX S-1

#346

Post by clearstack »

first thing to look at in any S-1: revenue concentration. SpaceX has two businesses — launch and Starlink. if Starlink is >60% of revenue, the thesis is really just a telecom bet with a rocket moat

Re: SpaceX S-1

#347

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

JCTheDenthog wrote: post #252
lz400 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if we consider what they pay for colossus high (I've no idea, I haven't looked at the numbers), wouldn't this a bit be different from "investing in infrastructure"? They're not building the DC themselves, they're just renting, they can scale down to 0 anytime and not have pressure to recover costs, they don't have debt on the HW, etc.

At least from how it's described in the filing, it sounds like they're committed through 2029 on the deal with SpaceX. So they can't just pull out without a massive lawsuit from SpaceX.

Actually, what the filing says is:

"Pursuant to these agreements, the customer has agreed to pay us $1.25 billion per month through May 2029, with capacity ramping in May and June 2026 at a reduced fee. The agreements may be terminated by either party upon 90 days’ notice."

Re: SpaceX S-1

#348

Post by weregiraffe »

Analemma_ wrote: post #20
runako wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The numbers overall are worse than I expected. I can't believe Serious People are talking about putting this in the market at a trilly. > Starlink seems to be a real cash machine It has been said more than once that Starlink financials cannot be analyzed apart from SpaceX financials. Very easy to move the launch costs from one entity to the other depending on whether it is more beneficial to show more revenue for Spa…

I can't believe that my index funds are going to be looted to pay for this turd.

Short SpaceX to compensate

Re: SpaceX S-1

#349

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

electriclove wrote: post #83
nolta wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anthropic can cancel the deal on short notice: “The agreements may be terminated by either party upon 90 days’ notice.”

Sure, either side could cancel. But Anthropic needs compute, and they found it in SpaceXAI. Why would they cancel the deal unless they don't need more compute or if they could get compute for less elsewhere (but where would that be realistically)?

Anthropic have deals in place to get another 5GW from Amazon, and 5GW from Google, just that it is not available yet. For comparison the total of Colossus #1 and #2 is 1GW

Re: SpaceX S-1

#350

Post by throwaway85825 »

3eb7988a1663 wrote: post #207
electriclove wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are GPUs from 3 years ago being deprecated today?

I thought I saw a report from someone at Google saying that they were still running 7+ year old hardware because of demand. Even if it is not state of the art, if it generates more than the electricity costs, keep it running until it dies.

Likely legacy products are running on the old chips because the newer generations are capacity constrained.
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