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this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2025
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Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.
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i have mixed feelings here. on the one hand, a lot of the article hinges on the suggestion that zitron is somehow concealing that he works with AI companies. i've listened to his podcast, i've read his articles, he is pretty up front about what his day job is and that he is a disappointed fanboy for tech. the dots are 1/1000th of an inch apart. it also devotes a remarkable amount of time to remarks from casey newton and the like, who have nothing to offer the world.
on the other hand, i do find it genuinely repulsive that he'll work with a company like DoNotPay. while it might be hackwork to suggest he's concealing it, I don't like the association whether he's open about it or not.
on the... third hand? when i've read his posts, i've found myself totally unable to evaluate his financial claims. the evidence always seems unimpeachable, i just do not know whether the conclusions he draws from that evidence make sense, so i never cite him. i think a more honest and interesting version of this article, one that went further than trying to insinuate he's an ignorant fraud, would involve collaborating with someone with a lot of financial expertise and examining how rigorous his work actually is. but wired apparently wasn't interested in trying to make that article happen
@sc_griffith
He, or someone, should work with Bethany McLean on checking Zitron's work. She cowrote The Smartest Guys In The Room about Enron in 2003 and a book about the 2008 financial crisis. In 2001 she wrote about thinking something was hinky about Enron's financial filings.
I think Zitron has posted that none of these companies is profitable. Midjourney claims to be making a profit since 2024 although that depends on not paying for the IP they use etc. etc. etc. (and private companies can claim all kinds of things about their balance sheets without the CEO going to jail if they are creative).
his conclusions are a lot more complex than "none of these companies is profitable"
When faced with a long complicated argument outside your competence, its a really useful heuristic to spot-check a few sections and assume that if they are wrong the whole structure is flawed. And at least as many readers will take away the soundbites like "none of these companies is profitable" and "pathetic revenues" as any nuanced version that is hidden in there. At critics of spicy autocomplete go he is really far on the "pundit" end of the "academic to pundit" scale (well past our David Gerard).
i see. i misunderstood your previous post, thought you meant that "none of these companies is profitable" is essentially his only conclusion and that you considered it justifiable enough
I think Zitron has some important analysis mixed up with the clickbait and the populist rhetoric. I thought he was trying to be a full-time blogger but now I see he runs a one-person PR business (!)
looks pretty good to me, I'd be delighted to produce this sort of work and he's doing loadbearing work on the numbers here - that the finance press is faintly catching up to a year later.
Its too bad that Patrick McKenzie sided with the promptfondlers because he was a useful ally calling "we need more reporting on cryptocurrency by journalists who can read a balance sheet and do arithmetic"
For comparison I've only read Ed's articles, not listened to his podcasts, and I was unaware of his PR business. This doesn't make me think his criticisms are wrong, but it does make me concerned he's overlooked critiquing and analyzing some aspects of the GenAI industry because of these connections to those aspects.