In this week&#x27;s Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron runs you through how organizations are freaking out after having to pay the real cost of AI tokens, and how the surge of competitive open weight models could lead to the post-bubble locally-run future of LLMs. Save $10 off a year of my premium newsletter: https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/gzqwkv54e1 - I’d be so grateful! YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-offline and use code FREE99 for free shipping on orders of $99 or more. Buy our new “FUCK DATA CENTERS” shirts today! --- LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/ Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/ Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at Ed&#x27;s Socials: https://twitter.com/edzitron https://www.instagram.com/edzitron https://bsky.app/profile/edzitron.com https://www.threads.net/@edzitron Email Me: ez@betteroffline.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Monologue: Tokenpocalypse Now

Better Offline

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** Better Offline

## Participants

- **Ed Zitron** (Cool Zone Media)

## Transcript

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Hello and welcome to the second of this week's Better Offline Monologues. I'm your host, Ed Zitron. Better Offline. It's been a funny few weeks watching the little spurts of air coming out of the AI bubble. It's unclear when it will burst, what will burst it. Really, even what's going on half the time, they just all seem to be running around like a billion Mr. Beans.

But I get the sense that everything will accelerate dramatically based on one or two big events. Things that just knock the confidence of everyone. Maybe it's an AI company dying, or a funding round not coming together. Or maybe it's a hyperscaler cut in CapEx. Goldman Sachs analyst Rich Piratovsky said last week that he believed that everybody was spending simply to remain competitive. Fucking love that, don't you? And added that the first hyperscaler to signal that it can slow the pace of spending would likely see its share price rewarded.

If I had to bet, I think it's between Meta and Microsoft. The latter of which has made numerous noises about using cheaper AI models like DeepSeek in its co-pilot, co-work product. Yeah, and also I should add that Sachin Adela keeps doing interviews where he's like, yeah, no one company should have all that power. We shouldn't rely on one lab. One lab being able to be shut down at any time is bad.

It's really funny watching this guy change his tune, considering how a year and a half ago, a year ago, he was rock hard for OpenAI, and six months after that, rock harder for Anthropic. It's almost as if he's just doing random shit based on what he thinks might work. You know, like a fucking cargo cult. Well, anyway, as I've mentioned over the last few months, both Anthropic and OpenAI both started to...

Monologue: Tokenpocalypse Now

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.

Monologue: Tokenpocalypse Now

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.