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Wall Street just lost $285B because of 13 Markdown files

martinalderson.com

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Re: Wall Street just lost $285B because of 13 Markdown files

#41

Post by bryanrasmussen »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #13
brazzy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The connection is implied: technology companies quite suddenly lost a $285bn in market valuation, which means that the owners of these companies (either as stock or other forms of equity) have a combined $285bn less net worth. And apparently people are linking this sudden decrease in market valuation to "Anthropic launching a legal tool", which essentially consists of said markdown files.

This right here? This is why I read the comments first.

works if someone starts by reading the article first, but otherwise that strategy isn't any good either.

Re: Wall Street just lost $285B because of 13 Markdown files

#42

Post by PunchyHamster »

H8crilA wrote: post #11
krupan wrote: post #4

I clicked and starting reading this expecting some actual connection between said markdown files and losing money. There was nothing at all like that in this blog post.

I don't understand why people think they know why stocks move up or down. There are clear cases from time to time, but in general the market doesn't explain itself. The reasons may not even be explainable in a way that's comprehensive to a human. Reminds me of this question - why did the USSR collapse? You can describe dozens of influences which acted all at the same time, but there isn't a one paragraph summary answ…

> Reminds me of this question - why did the USSR collapse? You can describe dozens of influences which acted all at the same time, but there isn't a one paragraph summary answer.

Decisions made in greed caught up with people in power

Re: Wall Street just lost $285B because of 13 Markdown files

#43

Post by robocat »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #13
brazzy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The connection is implied: technology companies quite suddenly lost a $285bn in market valuation, which means that the owners of these companies (either as stock or other forms of equity) have a combined $285bn less net worth. And apparently people are linking this sudden decrease in market valuation to "Anthropic launching a legal tool", which essentially consists of said markdown files.

This right here? This is why I read the comments first.

I try to challenge myself by reading the article to form an opinion, and then I learn by testing my opinion for faults (using good HN comments). Sometimes I test myself by writing comments.

My recent binge has been trying to understand what's going on when smart people simplify complex topics down to single root causes (causes that often feel like memes to me).

I also enjoy a good rationalisation myself!

Re: Wall Street just lost $285B because of 13 Markdown files

#44

Post by PunchyHamster »

AndrewDucker wrote: post #18
brazzy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The connection is implied: technology companies quite suddenly lost a $285bn in market valuation, which means that the owners of these companies (either as stock or other forms of equity) have a combined $285bn less net worth. And apparently people are linking this sudden decrease in market valuation to "Anthropic launching a legal tool", which essentially consists of said markdown files.

But without knowing which stocks dropped, how can we make that link? In another submission, Amazon, Oracle, Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta, and Alphabet are all dropping. Are we supposed to think of them as SAAS companies now? https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/06/ai-sell-off-stocks-amazon-or...

all of them have significant SaaS offering.

But the claim that's related to anthropic posting some markdown files is idiotic at best, malicious at worst

Re: Wall Street just lost $285B because of 13 Markdown files

#45

Post by PunchyHamster »

zozbot234 wrote: post #7

https://github.com/anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins - Apache 2.0 licensed "Go away or I will replace you with a very small shell script" used to be BOFH lore, now it has become real. This is great.

AI can replace lawyers

but purely because lawyers lowered their standards to just "paste whatever AI hallucinated and send it to court"

Re: Wall Street just lost $285B because of 13 Markdown files

#46

Post by zozbot234 »

mikestorrent wrote: post #26
nomercy400 wrote: post #19

How long until we have agents talking to other agents in a web of agents, and together deciding on something catastrophic? Not individually, but somehow the result of a group process.

Isn't that what Moltbook etc. is heading towards at some point? It's all a function of how much access people give it to "the real world"... and with cryptocurrency and the gig economy, it's really only a matter of time until a malicious agent with money to burn starts to do really weird things. How hard would it really be to craft a prompt that says, here's your cryto wallet private key, keep yourself alive somehow,…

Moltbook agents haven't shown much ability or inclination to "decide" on anything on their own. Much of it is crypto spam of some kind, but I'd be surprised if an agents fell for that.

Re: Wall Street just lost $285B because of 13 Markdown files

#47

Post by PunchyHamster »

slopusila wrote: post #24

elon musk saud that the next wave is agents (optimus human in a box) clicking around the old SaaS apps, not agents writing new apps to replace them microsoft ceo said the same thing - agents will be using windows/office and be the bigger buyers of licenses replacing SaaS software at this scale is hard, nobody will risk it, at least near term

Elon is a moron and microsoft CEO just says that because that's his hope, because that's only way they don't lose their market share.

Re: Wall Street just lost $285B because of 13 Markdown files

#48

Post by wordpad »

H8crilA wrote: post #11
krupan wrote: post #4

I clicked and starting reading this expecting some actual connection between said markdown files and losing money. There was nothing at all like that in this blog post.

I don't understand why people think they know why stocks move up or down. There are clear cases from time to time, but in general the market doesn't explain itself. The reasons may not even be explainable in a way that's comprehensive to a human. Reminds me of this question - why did the USSR collapse? You can describe dozens of influences which acted all at the same time, but there isn't a one paragraph summary answ…

> Why USSR collapsed

Price of oil collapsed leading to mass shortages of everything. They also decided to allow more individual freedoms to protest which people promptly used to overthrow the system.

Re: Wall Street just lost $285B because of 13 Markdown files

#49

Post by SirFatty »

wordpad wrote: post #48
H8crilA wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why people think they know why stocks move up or down. There are clear cases from time to time, but in general the market doesn't explain itself. The reasons may not even be explainable in a way that's comprehensive to a human. Reminds me of this question - why did the USSR collapse? You can describe dozens of influences which acted all at the same time, but there isn't a one paragraph summary answ…

> Why USSR collapsed Price of oil collapsed leading to mass shortages of everything. They also decided to allow more individual freedoms to protest which people promptly used to overthrow the system.

I'm pretty sure that was a rhetorical question.

Re: Wall Street just lost $285B because of 13 Markdown files

#50

Post by duxup »

QuantumNoodle wrote: post #32

It is not my intention to offend anyone in particular, but that sell-off has really colored my perception that investors are such _sheep_ when it comes to AI. Serious FOMOs. Not a shred of independent, nuanced, or critical thinking; just black or white opinions.

How many people are actually capable of producing any level of critical thinking that would give them an advantage?

But let’s say you are in fact very smart and you know the market is hanging by a thread.

So you invest according to what you know…. But those sheep don’t do the same and the market continues to go up in spite of what you know….

Does that analysis matter now?

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