154 It’s different this time, we'll make it up on volume, and we’ll figure out how to monetize our users in the future are typically three of the biggest danger statements in business. That said, in technology investing every once in awhile they can be gold – Amazon, Alphabet (Google), Meta (Facebook), Tesla, Tencent, Alibaba, Palantir… In AI, it may indeed be different this time, and the leader(s) will make it up on volume and be able to monetize users in the future. Though now, ‘different this time’ also means that competition is unprecedented… We have never seen so many founder-driven / assisted (ex. Apple) companies* with market capitalizations in excess of $1 trillion – most with gross margins of +50% plus free cash flow – attacking the same opportunity at the same time in a relatively transparent world, adding in high stakes competition between global powers – China and the United States. Ernest Hemingway’s phrase gradually, then suddenly from ‘The Sun Also Rises’ applies to technology tipping points. The tipping point for personal computers was the introduction of Apple’s Macintosh (1984) and Microsoft’s Windows 3.0 (1990). With the Internet it was Netscape’s IPO (1995). With the Mobile Internet it was Apple’s iPhone App Store launch (2008). With Cloud Computing it was the launch of AWS (Amazon Web Services) foundational products (2006-2009). With AI it was the launch of NVIDIA’s A100 GPU chip (2020) and OpenAI’s public version of ChatGPT (2022). In effect, the global competition for AI kicked in with the launch of China’s DeepSeek (1/25) and Jack Ma’s attendance at Chinese President Xi Jinping’s symposium of Chinese business leaders (2/25). The money to fund AI’s growth (and losses) comes from big companies with big free cash flow and big balance sheets, in addition to wealthy and ambitious capital providers from around the world. No doubt, this dynamic combination of competition / capital / entrepreneurship will rapidly advance AI, a riddle is determining which business models will be the last ones standing. *Companies include NVIDIA, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet (Google), Meta (Facebook) & Tesla AI Usage + Cost + Loss Growth = Unprecedented