Big Tech's Ugly Week, Getting Rich At Anthropic, AI Costs Plunge

Big tech companies face a significant market correction as massive capital expenditures on AI infrastructure clash with Wall Street's demand for profitability. While Google and Amazon report strong revenue, their core search and retail businesses show signs of shifting dynamics, with AI overviews potentially disintermediating traditional web traffic. Anthropic’s S1 filing reveals a highly cash-efficient business model, yet the massive equity distribution among employees and the reliance on discounted compute from partners like Amazon and Google raise questions about long-term unit economics. Meanwhile, an intensifying price war among LLM providers suggests that AI models are becoming commodities, potentially reducing the need for massive data center build-outs. These trends reflect a broader tension between the industry's aggressive pivot toward unproven AI-driven futures and the market's skepticism regarding the sustainability of current spending levels.