Yet Another Value Podcast All things AI, Power, and Corporate Governance with SemiAnalysis's Doug O'Laughlin
Oct 28, 2025
Doug O'Loughlin, a semiconductor and AI guru behind SemiAnalysis and Fabricated Knowledge, dives deep into the complexities of AI, capital cycles, and corporate governance. He explores whether AI is in a bubble and what factors will drive its next growth phase. Doug discusses the competitive edge of Google’s TPU over NVIDIA, and he highlights the power bottlenecks affecting industrial scalability. Additionally, he emphasizes the importance of understanding board behaviors and incentive structures in corporate governance.
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Debt-Fueled AI Buildout Feeds A Bubble
- The AI capital cycle is entering a bubble-like phase as firms shift from cash-funded to debt-fueled capex.
- Oracle's large debt-driven GPU spend signaled others to accelerate investments aggressively.
Capital Intensity Will Break P/E Comfort
- Price-to-earnings looks reasonable while businesses shift from capital-light to capital-heavy models.
- That shift will blow out price-to-free-cash-flow and compress valuation multiples over time.
TPU Can Compete With NVIDIA At Scale
- Google's TPU is a legitimate, scalable alternative to NVIDIA for large pre-training and inference at scale.
- TPU's architecture (slicing, mesh) gives price and scaling advantages that could win customers at the right price.