Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

#381

Post by brookst » Wed, Dec 10, 2025, 3:25 AM UTC

Maxatar wrote: post #139

brookst wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying they would rather double stock price than double revenue?

If you're someone who owns Microsoft, what option would you prefer? 1. Stock price remains the same but revenue doubles. 2. Revenue stays the same, but stock price doubles. Assuming all else equal, and recognizing that this is absolutely a simplification, but if these were the two choices then it seems a no brainer that you'd go with option 2. Revenue is a means of increasing stock price.

That’s like asking whether you’d rather have a pizza with the same diameter but twice the area, or a pizza with twice the diameter but the same area. It makes no sense.

Stock prices were, are, and will always be rough approximations of the NPV of future profits. It’s not perfect, of course, but it’s roughly true.

Doubling revenue in any remotely sustainable way will have way more than a 2x impact on stock price because of exponential growth. So yeah, as a stockhodler, you’d rather double revenue with flat stock price because you’d buy the crap out of the stock when you realize the market has not factored revenue growth in to pricing.

Imagining that public companies care about stock price more than revenue is literally like saying a hungry customer care more about pizza radius than area.

Re: Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

#382

Post by brookst » Wed, Dec 10, 2025, 3:26 AM UTC

coldpie wrote: post #101

brookst wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying they would rather double stock price than double revenue?

Sure. Decision makers are paid in stock price, not revenue. They would rather do whatever increases the stock price the most, with the least effort/expense.

If only there was some correlation between stock price and revenue…

Re: Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

#383

Post by Eisenstein » Thu, Dec 11, 2025, 1:17 AM UTC

DontForgetMe wrote: post #380

Eisenstein wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Occam's razor says they are just bad at English grammar because it isn't their native language/dialect and their education probably wasn't that great. This is easily demonstrable by conversing with the scammers and noting that their actual English ability is the same as exists in the initial letter. Even when they have no chance of the scam succeeding and have been outed they write the same way. You can see plenty of…

Occam's razor says the sun orbits the earth, everybody dies from Sudden Unexplained Death Syndrome, and the correct way to spell Occam's razor is Okams Raza (in all languages, because lavishes other than English are difficult). It's literally a platitude. It's like the saying 'when the going gets tough, the tough get going': it's reallyemorable and descriptive and is maybe a good guideline in many situations. But usi…

> Legit assuming that everything is as simple as it can be, that the most obvious idea to occur to any untrained observer is the most accurate, is literally a guaranteed way to go though life without understanding anything, at all.

That's a misunderstanding of Occam's razor. Occam's razor says that if you don't know the answer then when you have a choice between competing explanations, pick the one that requires fewer assumptions.

The explanation that they are using incorrect grammar on purpose to screen out intelligent people is logically questionable, unproven by any evidence, and relies on a bunch of assumptions: sophistication, time is worth more than leads, good enough education and experience in English to write it well, and coordination between scammers.

The 'being bad at speaking a language or dialect they are not native in and having poor access to education' explanation is logically complete and requires far fewer assumptions.

Re: Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

#384

Post by danudey » Fri, Dec 12, 2025, 2:49 AM UTC

vladvasiliu wrote: post #352

danudey wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I can't tell if you're being sarcastic and it actually does disable the button, or if you're being jaded and cynical and it just hides it for six hours then it comes back. Either option seems equally likely at this point.

The button stays in the bar, only greyed out. Its dropdown is still functional, allowing you to turn it back on.

Honestly did not see that one coming.

Re: Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products

#385

Post by immibis » Fri, Dec 12, 2025, 6:07 PM UTC

PKop wrote: post #105

IcyWindows wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most users do not own two computers.

A huge percentage do, whether it's most or not would be a stupid metric by which to design a cloud storage product in such a way that causes issues when one does sign in on multiple devices.

Also, signing in on multiple devices is the entire point of a file sync app.