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A comment on Nvidia Allegedly Engineered Scarcity by Funding AI Startups to Buy Its GPUs. Parent comment

Re:Nvidia Allegedly Engineered Scarcity by Funding AI Startu... by dumberquestions on Friday November 13, 2026 @11:46PM (#50494030)
I just am unable to understand whether it's a bad thing or not, you could frame it as being circular, but you could also see it as Nvidia simply giving hardware in exchange for startup equity, is that really fundamentally problematic, is it the scale at which it was done, or is it a valid but risky tactic?
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Re:Nvidia Allegedly Engineered Scarcity by Funding AI Startu... by dofm on Saturday November 14, 2026 @12:19AM (#50494237)
The scale is the largest factor, I think. If vendor financing is happening in a mature multi-vendor market on a small enough scale as to not constrain supply, it’s a less unhealthy situation than when there is only one vendor.
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Re:Nvidia Allegedly Engineered Scarcity by Funding AI Startu... by janalsncm on Saturday November 14, 2026 @04:12AM (#50495388)
There’s a ton of circular financing in AI but I don’t see this as part of that. Circular financing is more like companies passing IOUs around. This is more like VC funding which is pretty reasonable imo.
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Re:Nvidia Allegedly Engineered Scarcity by Funding AI Startu... by foo12bar on Saturday November 14, 2026 @05:17AM (#50495751)
It wasn't just startup equity. For example, they are backstopping agreements between customers and to-be-built data centers, so the companies building the data centers can get better loan terms from the bank.

All told there have over $500 Billion in equity deals and "future commitments" like above since July and even more after that.

Even for a $4 Trillion company, that's still quite a lot.

IMO Jensen's affairs might have been leaked because of him being out of control and making too many deals like this. The board might have wanted to fire him, but not say the real reason.

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Re:Nvidia Allegedly Engineered Scarcity by Funding AI Startu... by 2OEH8eoCRo0 on Saturday November 14, 2026 @10:20AM (#50497731)
Maybe it's their unique position as a bubble signal? Everyone is watching them for a sign.
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