LBO_Guy

Pushing the limits of Microsoft Excel.

[LBO_Guy @The_Analyst_Lab]

Here is a brief NotebookLM video summary of Aggregator Wars.

The short version: AI agents go straight for the one asset that made the internet giants rich, the direct relationship with the customer. That is why nobody will take their foot off the accelerator. Data wins the customer, recurring cash flow keeps you in the fight, and profits migrate to hardware providers nobody can copy and to whoever owns the customer. Google and Meta are best placed, consensus has Meta upside down, and the AI labs and compute sellers face a funding squeeze into 2027 as capital markets run dry.

If you want a deep dive on what an aggregator is, how agentic AI changes legacy aggregation theory, who is best positioned to be the next aggregator, what each company's profit engine means in this capex cycle, what it means for AI labs and compute sellers, and where value migrates to, I recommend reading the full note. It is as condensed as possible, but packed with information.

I'd invite anyone to push back on any angle of this framework.

[LBO_Guy @The_Analyst_Lab]

https://t.co/c3cf7BYP3J

[LBO_Guy @The_Analyst_Lab]

@Atzaran3 @GavinSBaker Only thing i see cheap there is $MRL (Merlin Properties).

[LBO_Guy @The_Analyst_Lab]

Pretty amazing to see 99% of ppl lost and not getting what I was tryna say. Obviously thought we were all on the same page, but we are clearly not. So let me explain.

The focus has been on GPU rental rates and @GavinSBaker ’s “no dark fiber” argument, which basically is that unlike telecom in 2000, the infrastructure is being used. GPUs are busy. Demand must therefore justify the buildout.

If you look at my chart, around 72% of Anthropic’s compute/infrastructure spending goes to training, research and internal use. Only c.25% goes to serving paying customers. Thus today, around 1/4 is used to serve customers. This is really important, because training is essentially an investment in FUTURE demand, a bet that future demand will materialize.

Let's say today there's around 25GW in use, that means today we're using around 6.25GW for inference. As per @SemiAnalysis_ there's another 50 GW coming up in 2027. A 75 GW installed base would be roughly 12x that. So basically, what this tells you is that potentially supply to serve customers could 12x almost instantly, as inference/training allocation is an allocation decision that can be switched instantly. In the telecom bust, around 97% of dark fiber was dark, so that is 33x (from 3% to 100%). Not as extreme today, but it is pretty big still and something cuts pretty directly towards Gavin's argument of dark fiber, which up until recently I found really solid.

The take here is that supply to serve customers can increase much faster than ppl thought about due to this, and we do not need to wait to 2028 or beyond for new GPUs to arrive and be energized. If funding tightens (happening a bit) or the economics of training the next model deteriorate, that allocation can change pretty quickly. Suddenly, hardware that was already “fully utilised” becomes additional inference supply.

Two implications follow. First, inference supply can expand sharply without an equivalent increase in installed hardware. Second, rental rates tell you how tight the market is under TODAY’S allocation. They tell you much less about durable scarcity when a large pool of compute could be redirected instantly. I always found rental rates pretty useless as an indicator of future economics or pricing power durability and this dramatically worsens that argument. If you can 12x supply instantly pretty clear that prices will drop, a lot. Now the question is if sufficient demand is created by such drop in prices (you need to look at QxP).

This basically brings us back to the Q x P formula, which is more difficult to solve. Essentially the underlying question is pretty clear (not that the answer is): can downstream customer spending ultimately cover operating costs and provide an adequate return on ALL consolidated upstream capex? Every GPU can be busy while the system as a whole is earning an inadequate return and if market conditions tighten and you run out of money, well, you're gone, despite how useful that model or whatever you were doing with those GPUs was.

This is why I think hyperscalers are much more favoured as you at least have a massive printing press online today with really good balance sheets that can help finance all this while others need to see quicker results.

My concern here is that while I believe AI is utterly useful (and trust me I spend quite a lot of money as % of my income) there's lot of ppl that max out at $200/month and don't want to pay more. As @benthompson and many other's have pointed out, consumers do NOT pay for being more productive, they pay to be entertained. So if budgets are constrained and have a top, the question that follows is, where are we in the penetration cruve? how many users are spending $0-50 and can go to $200/month? It is pretty obvious there is no clear answer on this and due to the capex figures being thrown around for 2026 and 2027 the market is starting to get nervous.

$META cutting it's workforce by 15% YoY and $MSFT trying to cut 60k employees yesterday (27% of workforce) is an example even companies that never thought about "budgets" or "capital limits" are starting to see them.

I think in this environment, the players that have the biggest optionality in monetization and have massive cash gushing machines are better positioned than the rest, and will survive. For me these are $GOOG and $META followed by $AMZN and $MSFT (it has enterprise). $SPCX has certainly stepped up its game with Grok Bot and I believe it has "entered the chat". Probably at par with amazon and just behind $META . The rest are pretty much levered compute vendors that I personally wouldn't touch. In the meantime, as all star CEOs are keen on spending, and given they pretty much control their companies, memory players seem really attractive at today's valuations. They certainly will capture most of that spending among the whole value chain.

[LBO_Guy @The_Analyst_Lab]

Anthropic allocates 72% of compute to training. Crazy. This confirms what @insane_analyst and others have been saying about 75% going to training. Lot of compute not being used to serve customers but to improve models, LOL.

[LBO_Guy @The_Analyst_Lab]

@RandianCapital Thanks!

[LBO_Guy @The_Analyst_Lab]

This one is pretty easy. At 23 like Mike😉

[Jukan @jukan05]

What’s the best age to buy a Rolex?

[LBO_Guy @The_Analyst_Lab]

@jukan05 Bruv, pretty easy, 23 like Mike

[LBO_Guy @The_Analyst_Lab]

UPDATE. Ferrovial +10%.

Al parecer los de Ferrovial no estan tan locos. La pasta que tienes que adelantar es mucho menos de la que se pensaba la gente, lo apalancas un poco mas y ademas segun El Economista estan buscando socios (fondos de infra y de pensiones) para meterlos antes de empezar a construir, sobre todo en Atlanta, que es donde tienen mas exposicion. Lo mismo que ya hicieron en la I-77 con GCM Grosvenor y John Laing.

Cosa que parecia bastante evidente cuando nuestro querido Del Pino se juega toda su fortuna y ademas tiene mas datos que nadie sobre los queridos managed lanes en USA con un track record en rentabilizarlos bastante bueno. Mas likely eso que haya hecho 2 fat fingers seguidos (aqui no se hacen fat fingers) o que se les haya ido la cabeza a todos, no? Que es un poco lo que decia todo el mundo. En la I-24 de los famosos $24,8bn, durante la obra (2027-2033) solo se pagan $7,7bn, que es practicamente lo mismo que ofrecian en total ACS/Acciona ($7,25bn) y Sacyr ($7,4bn). El resto lo van pagando de 2036 a 2085 con los propios peajes. En valor presente todo junto son $21bn (no cambia tanto).

La diferencia de 3x, como mas o menos intuia, radica en lo que pueden cobrar a los conductores durante los 50 años. Aqui la unica liada (a toro pasado todos somos manolete) es que podias haber apretado mas en la subasta dado que el resto iba tan perdido. Por contrapartida, como es a sobre cerrado y no tienes otra oportunidad, si crees con tu numero ya tienes una buena TIR es mejor ir con eso que bajarlo por tratar de apurar y quedarte sin el negocio. Las empresas no estan para especular y hacer una TIR de 600%, con una del 15-25% vas que chutas.

Mañana call.

Lo que parece esta bastante clarinete es que cuando un tio con el 21% de la compañia y los datos de 5 managed lanes en la mano te hace un bid que nadie entendemos, lo mas probable es que los que no tenemos ni idea somos los que estamos en el otro lado. Ahora la gracia va estar en si se podia jugar asi en el pliego (reperfilar) o no.

[LBO_Guy @The_Analyst_Lab]

UPDATE. Ferrovial +10%.

Al parecer los de Ferrovial no estan tan locos. La pasta que tienes que adelantar es mucho menos de la que se pensaba la gente, lo apalancas un poco mas y ademas segun El Economista estan buscando socios (fondos de infra y de pensiones) para meterlos antes de empezar a construir, sobre todo en Atlanta, que es donde tienen mas exposicion. Lo mismo que ya hicieron en la I-77 con GCM Grosvenor y John Laing.

Cosa que parecia bastante evidente cuando nuestro querido Del Pino se juega toda su fortuna y ademas tiene mas datos que nadie sobre los queridos managed lanes en USA con un track record en rentabilizarlos bastante bueno. Mas likely eso que haya hecho 2 fat fingers seguidos (aqui no se hacen fat fingers) o que se les haya ido la cabeza a todos, no? Que es un poco lo que decia todo el mundo. En la I-24 de los famosos $24,8bn, durante la obra (2027-2033) solo se pagan $7,7bn, que es practicamente lo mismo que ofrecian en total ACS/Acciona ($7,25bn) y Sacyr ($7,4bn). El resto lo van pagando de 2036 a 2085 con los propios peajes. En valor presente todo junto son $21bn (no cambia tanto).

La diferencia de 3x, como mas o menos intuia, radica en lo que pueden cobrar a los conductores durante los 50 años. Aqui la unica liada (a toro pasado todos somos manolete) es que podias haber apretado mas en la subasta dado que el resto iba tan perdido. Por contrapartida, como es a sobre cerrado y no tienes otra oportunidad, si crees con tu numero ya tienes una buena TIR es mejor ir con eso que bajarlo por tratar de apurar y quedarte sin el negocio. Las empresas no estan para especular y hacer una TIR de 600%, con una del 15-25% vas que chutas.

Mañana call.

Lo que parece esta bastante clarinete es que cuando un tio con el 21% de la compañia y los datos de 5 managed lanes en la mano te hace un bid que nadie entendemos, lo mas probable es que los que no tenemos ni idea somos los que estamos en el otro lado. Ahora la gracia va estar en si se podia jugar asi en el pliego (reperfilar) o no.

[LBO_Guy @The_Analyst_Lab]

FERROVIAL: U MAD?

En dos meses Ferrovial ha ganado las dos mayores managed lanes de USA ofreciendo una pasta que triplica la de sus rivales (vuelve a leer esto). Los rivales btw no es que fueran unos paletos (ACS, Acciona y Sacyr).

Entre obra y canon, las dos concesiones suman unos $71bn de compromisos, de los cuales a Ferrovial le toca el 70% (65% en Tennessee, >75% en Atlanta), frente a un market cap de $35bn. Para los newbies, es una burrada. Ya se que no se pone de golpe, que parte es con deuda de proyecto y parte del canon se paga con los propios peajes durante 50 años, pero aun asi repito: es una burrada. De todos modos, lo que mas me sorprende no es el tamaño, que tambien, sino la diferencia con el resto.

1/🧵

[LBO_Guy @The_Analyst_Lab]

Pues bien, ahora que todo el mundo sabe lo buenos que son estos assets, hay que ponerse a hacer numeros. El problema es que nadie tiene estos datos menos Ferrovial y Transurban, y por tanto es dificil estimar estas cosas. Ademas, como esto tiene una duracion brutal a nada que toques un poco el trafico, precios o tipos te explota el NPV. Hay que hilar muy fino.

Sabiendo que Del Pino se juega el pellejo quiero pensar han pensado las cosas 2 veces y dudo se le haya ido la cabeza. Aunque puede pasar. Lo que si parece es que este tipo de activos son la gallina de los huevos de oro. Bastante curioso ver como evoluciona esto.

Lo unico que no me cuadra tanto es Atlanta, que con una tarifa maxima de $2,06/milla (que solo se puede pasar si el carril va por debajo de 45 mph que es bastante tough) y sabiendo la fase 1 son solo 2 carriles en 1 sentido no me salen muy bien los numeros. Y directamente no me salen si es como la prensa dice y hay que ir pagando el canon durante la obra. A no ser que vendas un stake del proyecto a un fondo o algo. Entiendo que la apuesta es que ese tope suba o desaparezca, y que les acaben dando las fases 2 y 3 (tienen exclusividad para negociarlas, pero GDOT no esta obligado a darselas). Aunque visto como esta la administracion y el tema del IPC por alli, me sorprenderia que quitasen los topes. Tambien es verdad que con los americanos nunca sabes.
6/6

[LBO_Guy @The_Analyst_Lab]

Anthropic will likely have around $100bn/yr in compute costs in 2027, so revenue better ramp up, because costs surely are.

[Wall St Engine @wallstengine]

Chinese 🇨🇳 tech giants Alibaba, Tencent and ByteDance are reportedly seeking long-term server memory supply deals with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.

Some customers are even requesting 10-year contracts extending through 2035, well beyond the usual 3-5 years.

The deals would cover DDR5 and LPDDR5 memory as Chinese cloud companies look to secure supplies for their expanding AI infrastructure.

[LBO_Guy @The_Analyst_Lab]

The $2.38bn figure is cost of revenue, which Anthropic says consists almost entirely of compute and infrastructure for serving customers. The $8.945bn figure is total compute and infrastructure expense recognised in H1 2026. Dividing the two gives you 26.6%. You should back out the small non-compute component of cost of revenue and add free-tier serving costs if you want to include non-paying users. Neither adjustment is separately disclosed, but the broad point holds, which is that roughly a quarter of compute spending goes towards serving paying customers, with roughly three quarters covering model development, research, internal use and free-tier access.

[LBO_Guy @The_Analyst_Lab]

Anthropic allocates 72% of compute to training. Crazy. This confirms what @insane_analyst and others have been saying about 75% going to training. Lot of compute not being used to serve customers but to improve models, LOL.

[Jukan @jukan05]

According to Korean media reports, SK hynix plans to announce a KRW 60 trillion (US$46.2 billion) shareholder return package at its third-quarter earnings announcement on October 28.

The package would include KRW 30 trillion in share buybacks and KRW 30 trillion in dividends.

Samsung is reportedly also pursuing a shareholder return plan totaling KRW 110 trillion (US$82.9 billion).

https://t.co/SdM0o2eo11

[BlindVia @blind_via]

I'm guessing the passenger of this cyber cab would be shitting his pants to see the car inching forward as an oncoming train approachs, like it wants to play chicken with the train.

[LBO_Guy @The_Analyst_Lab]

Now that we've cleared Brazil's black monday, and given the massive long positioning pre-elections, it is really useful to recall one of Bob Farrel's rules to remember:

"When all experts and forecasts agree, something else is going to happen"

[AP Research @AlphaPicks]

Ladies and gentlemen, Brazil.

-19.8%

[Jason Scharf @Jason_A_Scharf]

I think the battle for Autonomous Austin might already be over.

Source: @RtaxiTracker

[LBO_Guy @The_Analyst_Lab]

@flanagrama 🎯

[LBO_Guy @The_Analyst_Lab]

Ahora que en Madrid anochece a las 18.00 de la tarde y todos nos queremos tirar por la ventana uno entiende 2 cosas: la primera es porque cuando sale el sol en el norte de Europa o Londres la gente no pega palo al agua. La segunda es, por si nadie se había dado cuenta ya, la remada que es vivir en esos sitios.

[LBO_Guy @The_Analyst_Lab]

@MrtnzAlvrz El trade ha estado clarinete desde el principio: el equity del best in class (TEP) a FCF yield de doble digito o la deuda de algo que huele mal desde lejos? El resto de players no daban esos yields en la deuda...

[LBO_Guy @The_Analyst_Lab]

@dile_que_no @carnedelafinca barbaridad!

[LBO_Guy @The_Analyst_Lab]

@strictrope shait!

[LBO_Guy @The_Analyst_Lab]

LOL

[*Walter Bloomberg @DeItaone]

MICROSOFT TO OFFER BUYOUTS TO 60,000 WORKERS IN LATEST COST CUT