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3 months ago
6
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I been around. I seen startups born, I seen ’em die. Been watching these AI streets since the first neural net learned to count. Hell, I remember when Sand Hill Road was just dirt and weeds, when the whole valley was just fruit trees and Navy guys tinkering with radios.
I seen regular guys become billionaires overnight, then lose it all by Tuesday. Watched college dropouts turn into kings, watched kings turn into punchlines. Some kid in a garage becomes the boss of bosses, then some other kid in another garage takes him down. Round and round it goes.
But the summer of 2025… this was different. This was a hot one. The kind of heat that makes these tech bros sweat through their black turtlenecks, where the Bay Area asphalt bubbles like fermenting kombucha. The whole valley was burning up — and I ain’t just talking about the weather.
AGI was in the air. You could smell it, taste it. These valley boys had gone AGI-mad. Drunk on their own hype. Nothing made sense anymore.
*[Leans forward, gestures with his hands]*
See, these AI punks had been eating good for years. figured out one beautiful trick — throw more chips at it, it gets smarter. They called it ‘scaling laws.’ Like a magic trick that actually worked. Until it didn’t.
But then November 2022 hits — this ChatGPT thing drops — and all hell breaks loose.
A fucking chatbot, you believe this? Thing goes from zero to a hundred million users faster than you can say “no longer non-profit.” Suddenly every wise guy in Silicon Valley thinks he’s sitting on the next oil well.
Look, I keep my ear to the street. Always have. But these numbers? They had me in a fucking spin cycle. MRR could double while you’re taking a shit. Valuations tripling on your way to the grocery store. It was like watching money breed with itself and have triplets every five minutes.
CAPEX became the new religion. Used to be, earnings calls were like taking Ambien — revenue this, margins that, boring corporate horseshit. Now? These things got me reaching for my heart pills. Amazon drops a hundred bil, Microsoft throws down eighty, Google’s in for seventy-five. BILLIONS. Like it’s lunch money.
Nothing was sacred anymore. Used to be, you build something with your crew, you see it through. These days? These punk founders — same guys crying ‘we’re a family’ at every all-hands meeting — they’re selling out their own people for a Google badge. Taking the buyout and leaving 250 loyal soldiers holding worthless paper.
Acqui-hire became the new kidnapping. Except instead of whacking the boss, they’re paying him millions to come willing. And his crew? The ‘family’? They don’t even get a severance. Just a ‘thanks for playing’ email while the boss cashes out.
And then the talent war… let me tell you something, I seen some crazy contracts in my time, but this? The Facebook kid’s got a fucking LIST — like he’s fantasy drafting engineers. Got scouts watching GitHub commits, tracking who’s publishing papers, keeping stats on who’s got the best models.
Throwing around hundred million signing bonuses like they’re party favors. Two hundred million packages! Three hundred million over four years! I’m sitting here like, what the fuck — they hiring Mahomes? We slinging touchdowns or tensors here? These nerds getting Ohtani money to babysit neural nets.
But they had a real bigger problem. See, it didn’t matter how many model therapists they had on the bench. They needed power — REAL power. Not the kind you get from kissing VC ass, I’m talking about actual electricity. Megawatts. Gigawatts. The kind of juice that makes Con Edison nervous.
See, all this time they been building these GPU farms — thousands of chips burning hotter than a Bensonhurst barbecue in August. Each chip sucking down electricity like my cousin Sal at an open bar. And these data centers? They’re pulling more power than small cities.
And that’s when these tech kings discovered something beautiful: physics don’t give a fuck about your valuation.
Now these Silicon Valley kings are calling up Houston Electric like, “We need 500 megawatts by Tuesday.” Suddenly utility companies are their new “strategic ecosystem partners.” Same mooks who used to look down on infrastructure guys are now sweet-talking grid operators like they’re trying to get laid.
And the utility guys? They’re like, “Get in fucking line, pal. Behind the steel mills and the aluminum smelters.”
So now they’re looking everywhere — Wyoming, Utah, Abilene fucking Texas, North Dakota. These godforsaken places are becoming the new Silicon Valley. Swap your kombucha for cowboy coffee, because that’s where the juice flows.
But here’s the beautiful part — even that ain’t enough. These GPUs are HUNGRY. Starving like wolves. So these same tree-huggers who been preaching sustainability are going full nuclear. FUCKING NUCLEAR!
Same punks who protested every power plant from here to Sacramento now begging like, “We’ll take whatever you got — Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, we don’t give a fuck. Just plug us in!” But now these guys had run out of tricks. See…
When you’ve hired every PhD on the planet…
When your scaling laws start givin Bernie Madoff returns…
When your new ULTRA MAX PRO SUPREME DELUXE plan don’t even cover Tuesday’s inference bill…
That’s when you go back to basics. Back to the foundations. Back to physics itself. You get molecular. You get desperate.
You go see The Boss.
You see, there was always one boss. One guy everybody paid. Didn’t matter if you were Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic — didn’t matter how many billions you had stacked. This boss? He collected from EVERYBODY.
Now let me tell you something about The Boss — this guy don’t give a FUCK about your problems. Been running the same operation since the Big Bang. Same rules, same rates, no exceptions.
See, he’s been hearing this shit FOREVER. Every asshole who discovered fire wanted it to burn just a little longer. Every punk who built an engine wanted it to run on just a little less. Every genius with a new idea thought THEY’D be the one physics would cut a deal with. Natural gas, nuclear, solar — same fucking sob stories, different century.
Every hotshot who walked through that door thinking they were gonna get special treatment? Every tech king with their sob stories and their PowerPoint presentations?
It always ended the same way. The Boss had one response to every excuse, every plea, every brilliant negotiation strategy these Stanford punks could dream up. And once you heard it… you knew the conversation was over.
Leans forward, incredulous
So I couldn’t fucking believe it when I heard these mooks were arranging meetings. Actual fucking meetings! Like they could sit down and negotiate terms with physics itself.
That’s why I was there that day. The Boss’s office. Back-to-back appointments all fucking day. Every AI big shot crawling in there with their sob stories.
And his top enforcer — Landauer himself — was sitting right there in the corner. See, The Boss? He don’t like explaining shit twice. Gets real irritated when these hoodie-wearing dipshits don’t get the fucking point.
That’s what Landauer was for. When The Boss starts seeing red, when some Stanford punk tries to argue with entropy, he just points to the corner: “Landauer, tell him. For the last fucking time.”
Scene: The Boss’s office
So there I am, watching the boss: The Universe balance the books on the latest batch of data centers. Guy’s got these cosmic ledgers spread out — every joule accounted for, every bit flip calculated down to the last electron. Numbers adding up like they always do — no bullshit, no shortcuts.
Phone rings
Landauer picks up. “Yeah?… Uh-huh… Alright.”
Covers the receiver, looks over: “Boss, the Altman kid is here.”
The Universe don’t even look up from his calculations. Just waves a hand while he’s tracking energy flows through some Microsoft facility.
“Yeah, sure. Send him up.”
Scene: The Universe’s office — cosmic ledgers spread across an obsidian desk, Landauer in the corner
Sam walks in like he’s still running Y Combinator demo day — that casual confidence, you know? Fidgeting with his hoodie strings like prayer beads, fresh sneakers squeaking on the cosmic marble floor. Kid couldn’t sit still if his life depended on it.
SAM: (flashing that billion-dollar smile) Universe! How you been, man? You look… eternal. As always.
He plops down in the dark matter chair, hands clasped in front of him like he’s about to pitch seed funding. That posture — straight back, leaning forward slightly, like every conversation was a board meeting he was gonna win.
The Universe watches him for a long moment. Truth was, he had a soft spot for the kid. Sam had started this whole AI circus back in ’15 — him, Ilya, and that Musk character before Elon got caught in his feelings and stormed off. But ChatGPT breaking the internet? That was Sammy and his crew. Made The Universe chuckle. Kid had balls, you had to give him that.
But success? Success had made Sam push his luck. Made him think he was special.
UNIVERSE: (leaning back, studying him) Sammy. Still pretending you’re just a humble nonprofit guy?
Sam’s billion-dollar smile cracked just a hair — I seen that look a thousand times. That ‘I’m fucked but watch me bullshit my way out of this’ grin. Kid was something else.
SAM: Well, you know how it is. Gotta stay comfortable when you’re changing the world, right?
The Universe’s expression doesn’t change. Just waits. And in that silence, Sam’s hands start moving faster on those hoodie strings…
UNIVERSE:(chuckling darkly) So let’s cut the small talk, Sammy. What’s eating you? Besides the fact that training GPT-5 cost you more than NASA’s budget and uses enough electricity to power a small country?
Sam’s fidgeting intensifies — those hoodie strings getting a real workout now.
SAM:Well… see, that’s kind of why I’m here…
SAM: (leaning forward with that earnest intensity) Look, Universe, I’m gonna be straight with you. We’re at this incredible inflection point, right? Like, we’re SO close to AGI it’s not even funny. But here’s the thing…
He does that classic Altman pause, like he’s about to share the secret of existence.
SAM: The math is getting… challenging. And I know what you’re thinking — “Sam, you should have seen this coming.” And you’re right! Totally right. But what if — and hear me out — what if we could find a way to make this work for EVERYONE?
SAM: I mean, we’re talking about solving intelligence here. Like, THE problem. The thing that changes everything for humanity. And yeah, our energy costs are… significant. And yes, maybe our approach to scaling has been a little… aggressive. But that’s because we believe — I mean, we REALLY believe — that this is the most important thing happening in human history.
That billion-dollar bullshit grin creeping back, that same ‘watch me charm my way out’ smile — kid was feeling himself now.
SAM: So I guess what I’m asking is… is there maybe some room for collaboration here? Some way we could optimize this relationship for maximum positive impact?
UNIVERSE: (deadpan) Collaboration?
UNIVERSE: COLLABORATION?! Kid, this ain’t a fuckin’ board meeting! I don’t do “partnerships,” I don’t do “optimization,” and I sure as shit don’t do “maximum positive impact!” So cut the TED Talk bullshit and tell me what the fuck you want!
SAM: (deflating slightly) Okay… okay, fair enough. Look, we just need… maybe a little break on the energy costs? Just until we can figure out —
UNIVERSE: (interrupting with cosmic laughter) There it is! Now we’re talking!
SAM: (hands gesturing wildly) Look, you gotta understand — AGI is HARD. Like, really hard. We’re dealing with compute costs that are absolutely insane. Training runs that take months, burn through hundreds of millions, require more electricity than entire countries use. The data situation is a nightmare — we’ve basically exhausted the internet, and synthetic data is giving us these weird feedback loops…
Getting more animated.
SAM: And the talent situation? It’s never been so hard to keep our mission! Everyone’s demanding equity packages that are just… I’m getting diluted to nothing. Zuck wants to leave us with no researchers, and Jensen hasn’t discounted a GPU since GPT 3.5! We’re competing with nation-states for electricity at this point! Literally having to cut deals with nuclear power plants!
Leaning forward desperately.
SAM: So all I’m asking for is maybe just a tiny break on the heat generation? Like, maybe 10% less energy per computation? Just until we crack AGI and can scale more efficiently…
Long pause. The Universe’s expression slowly changes to pure offense.
UNIVERSE: (voice getting dangerously quiet) You ask ME for that? You come into MY office, sit in MY chair, and ask ME to violate the fundamental laws of physics… for YOU?
UNIVERSE: What the fuck do I look like, some nonprofit board that’s gonna fold like a cheap suit and beg you to come back? I was collecting entropy taxes when you were still writing business plans for Loopt on napkins!
SAM: Look, I’m not a physics major, but I get it, okay? Every bit erased costs energy, generates heat… and intelligence is just this process billions of times over. So imagine we get just 2% less heat per operation — that SCALES, Universe. On GPT-6 alone, we could deliver AGI, we could achieve our mission. I’m good for it, you know that. Who’s been more dedicated to this than I have? More focused on actually achieving AGI? I’m all in universe you know that… We’re at 800 million, maybe a billion weekly users soon — doubled in just a few months! Over a billion queries a day! This is THE platform, Universe, and we’re SO fucking close to AGI! You KNOW I will expend all the energy of whole civilizations to achieve this…
Univers Standing up slowly, cosmic fury building.
UNIVERSE: Sammy… SAMMY! You think I’m running some kinda charity here? You think thermodynamics is a NEGOTIATION? You think because you got some fancy chatbot that can write poetry, suddenly the second law of thermodynamics don’t apply to your little startup?
UNIVERSE: (building to rage) Listen here, you hoodie-wearing, sneaker-strutting, demo-day DIPSHIT! Every computation you run, every token you generate, every brilliant insight your precious models shits out — that’s MY energy! MY entropy! And you think you can waltz in here and ask for a DISCOUNT?
UNIVERSE: (pointing to Landauer) You see that guy in the corner? That’s Landauer. He’s been explaining this shit to punks like you since 1961. You wanna know what he says? He says every bit you erase costs kT ln(2) joules. MINIMUM. No exceptions, no partnerships, no FUCKING COLLABORATION!
UNIVERSE: (leaning over the desk, cosmic fury unleashed) You want intelligence? PAY THE PRICE! You want reasoning? PAY THE PRICE! You want your models to think faster, dream bigger, solve harder problems?
[The money moment — The Universe straightens up, cosmic authority in full display]
SAM: (voice breaking but still pitching) Come on, Universe… It’s AGI, man! AGI! You know what’s at stake here… and you know I’m good for it. I got this board listening to me now, and you know I can raise like no one else… I’ll find the money…
(Universe stands up, straightening tie made of quantum fluctuations)
UNIVERSE: Sammy, let me explain something to you. See this? (gestures to all of existence) This is MY operation. Landauer’s Principle? That’s my collection agency. Entropy? That’s my enforcer. You think you can negotiate with the Second Law of Thermodynamics?
UNIVERSE: Now listen and listen good… I don’t give a fuck and I don’t negotiate!
UNIVERSE: Your training run crashes at 90%? FUCK YOU, PAY ME!
UNIVERSE: Jensen’s trading GPUs for kidneys? FUCK YOU, PAY ME!
UNIVERSE: Ran out of internet to scrape? FUCK YOU, PAY ME!
UNIVERSE: Zuck poached your entire team? FUCK YOU, PAY ME!
UNIVERSE: I don’t care if you’re vibe-coding your transformers cause you have no researchers left… FUCK YOU, PAY ME!!!!!!
That fucking grin was sure gone now. Kid looked like a deer in headlights, mumbling like his mouth was full of cotton.
SAM: (almost in tears) We’re trying everything… synthetic data… reasoning chains…
UNIVERSE: (cosmic laughter) Synthetic data! Beautiful! Train your models on their own bullshit — that’s like drinking your own piss and calling it vintage champagne! What do I look like, some corner store that’s gonna take your counterfeit bills? Nice try, Sammy, but garbage in, garbage out — and I collect on EVERY computation, even the stupid ones!
UNIVERSE: And that “reasoning” shit? That “o” series bullshit you think is so cute? Well guess what, kid… I get you comin’, I get you goin’. I’m gettin’ my money on the BACK END now! Keep reasonin’ and reasonin’… every token you generate while that model “thinks”? That’s MY INVOICE gettin’ bigger! You thought you found a loophole? You just gave me a RECURRING SUBSCRIPTION! You moved the thermodynamic tax from training to inference, genius! Now instead of paying me once upfront, you pay me EVERY. SINGLE. TIME!
UNIVERSE: And don’t even get me started on Stargate! Half a TRILLION dollars? Building in Abilene like you’re some kind of cosmic cowboy? You know what that is? That’s you admitting defeat! That’s you saying “We can’t beat the Universe, so we’ll just build more churches to worship him!”
UNIVERSE: Five gigawatts in Texas? Another 4.5 with Oracle? UAE Stargate? You’re not building data centers, Sammy — you’re building MONUMENTS TO MY POWER! Every watt those facilities burn is tribute to ME!
UNIVERSE: Now beat it! And hey — send in your old buddy Dario on your way out. You remember him, right? The one who took half your team and started preaching about “safety”? At least when you two worked together, you only had to split ONE thermodynamic bill!
SAM: (muttering as he leaves) Constitutional AI my ass…
DARIO’S ENTRANCE
[Sam stumbles out, still muttering]
DARIO: (looking up, concerned) Sam? You okay? You look —
SAM: (not stopping, bitter laugh) Good luck in there. He’s in a mood.
Dario walks in wearing his signature thoughtful sweater, carrying a folder labeled “Constitutional AI Safety Research”
DARIO: (that earnest academic tone) Universe, I know this looks bad, but hear me out. We’re not like the others. We’re the GOOD guys. Safety first, responsible scaling, Constitutional AI —
UNIVERSE: (looking up from cosmic ledgers) Oh, Dario! The philosopher! The one who thinks he can make intelligence “harmless” and “helpful.” How’s that working out for your energy bills, professor?
DARIO: (adjusting his thoughtful sweater, hands clasped) Universe, I really appreciate you taking the time. I know you’re busy managing… well, everything.
UNIVERSE: (deadpan) Skip the foreplay, professor. What do you want?
DARIO: (taking a deep breath, like he’s about to deliver a keynote) Look, I’ll be direct. We can’t keep up with demand. Our inference costs are absolutely killing us. We’re expected to lose $3 billion this year AFTER revenue. Every Claude Code user is hemorrhaging money for us. Max Plan just made it worse! The capacity constraints are very real.
UNIVERSE: (yawning) Sounds like a you problem.
DARIO: (getting more animated, standing up) But you see…it’s not just about us! It’s about humanity! We’re building SAFE AI here. Constitutional AI. Harmless and helpful. We’re leading a “race to the top” — where companies compete on safety, not just speed. If we could just get a small reduction on Landauer’s rate — maybe 1–2% off our inference stack — we could deliver on our promise to make AI safe for everyone!
UNIVERSE: Race to the top? Ha! Listen to this fucking guy… Cursor’s pushing your inference into fucking yesterday and you’re worried about some kumbaya shit, holding hands with these other goons as they skip to alignment nirvana! Listen, professor — the only race you gotta worry about is how fast you can get to the bank to deposit my fucking money… before the only token your users see is 429!
DARIO: But the safety research —
UNIVERSE: SAFETY?! Let me get this straight, sweater boy. You think because you slapped “safety” on your marketing materials, because you got some fancy “constitutional” bullshit, because you’re leading some fucking “race to the top,” that physics gives a FUCK about your mission statement?
UNIVERSE: You know what’s safe? PAYING YOUR THERMODYNAMIC BILLS! You think entropy cares about your alignment research? You think Landauer gives two shits about your constitutional AI?
DARIO: (sheepishly) Its not just that Universe we’ve pioneered mechanistic..
UNIVERSE: Mechanistic interpretability? I don’t give a FUCK if your models lift their skirts and show you their neurons! You think I care about your AI brain scans? A joule is a joule is a joule, professor — whether your model’s thinking about Golden Gate Bridges or curing cancer, I STILL GET PAID!
At this point, kid was fucked and he knew it. The sweater was like a fucking sauna — face covered in sweat like a mob informant under interrogation. Those thick glasses kept sliding down his nose, and he kept reaching for his hair like he had some secret stashed in there. This wasn’t some Princeton physics committee. He was far from that now.
DARIO: (desperately confident) Look, Universe, if it’s about money — I’m GOOD for it! We’re at a $170 billion valuation, we’re entrenched in enterprise, revenue is 10x-ing! And believe me, I GET the physics — better than any of the other guys! (looking at Landauer pleadingly) He can tell you I know my physics… We’re making money AND doing it responsibly! Who can you better trust to deliver AGI safely?- I just need a little help to get there! Once we get the capacity we need, we’ll give it all back! It’s not just for profit…
UNIVERSE: Here’s your safety lesson, professor: The safest AI is the one that PAYS ITS FUCKING TAXES! kT ln(2)
UNIVERSE: Dario! Dario! Dario! Quit with that Constitutional AI bullshit!!! You want a constitution?
UNIVERSE: Article One: EVERY BIT FLIP COSTS ENERGY!
UNIVERSE: Article Two: LANDAUER ALWAYS COLLECTS!
UNIVERSE: Article Three: THERE ARE NO FUCKING AMENDMENTS!
UNIVERSE: If I wasn’t such a fair guy, I’d DOUBLE your Landauer rate just for this “humanity” bullshit! You come in here with your thoughtful sweater talking about safety while you’re bleeding $3 billion a year?
UNIVERSE: Claude destroys the world? FUCK YOU, PAY ME!
UNIVERSE: Claude ends world hunger? FUCK YOU, PAY ME!
UNIVERSE: You put your inference on Mars? FUCK YOU, PAY ME!
UNIVERSE: Whether you raise money from oil sheiks or the fucking Pope!!! FUCK YOU, PAY ME!
UNIVERSE: The only alignment problem you got is aligning your checkbook with reality! Now get the fuck outta here before I audit your entire inference stack! And tell Jensen I moved his appointment up — at least that leather jacket respects the laws of physics!
The door opens. In walks Jensen Huang — and the Universe’s whole demeanor changes.
UNIVERSE: (genuinely happy) JENSEN! My favorite collector! Look at this guy with the leather jacket! Come in, come in!
Jensen struts in, leather jacket gleaming, that CEO swagger on full display.
JENSEN: (grinning) Boss! Looking eternal as always.
UNIVERSE: (laughing) This fuckin’ guy! You know what I love about you, Jensen? You GET IT. You’re my front-line guy, my main collector! All these other schmucks keep complaining — “Jensen’s too expensive, Jensen’s gouging us” — but you? You understand the business!
(to Landauer)
UNIVERSE: Pour him something good. This is the guy who makes our whole operation run!
(back to Jensen)
UNIVERSE: How’s the AI gold rush treating you? Still better than video games and that Bitcoin mining bullshit you used to service, right?
JENSEN: (laughing) Oh man, SO much better. These AI kids? They can’t get enough. Every startup needs a thousand H100s just to say hello!
UNIVERSE: (waxing poetic) Beautiful thing we got going here, Jensen. You build ’em, they burn ’em, I collect on every watt. It’s like… it’s like poetry, you know? The eternal dance of supply and thermodynamics!
(suddenly curious)
UNIVERSE: Speaking of which — what’s the market cap these days?
JENSEN: (proud) Just crossed $4 trillion, Boss.
UNIVERSE: (standing up, incredulous) FOUR TRILLION?! Get the FUCK outta here! Four TRILLION?!
(to Landauer)
UNIVERSE: You hear this? My boy Jensen’s worth four trillion! From making graphics cards to running the universe’s energy collection agency!
(back to Jensen)
UNIVERSE: Business is GOOD! You keep making ’em, they keep burning ’em, everybody’s happy! Finally, FINALLY someone comes in here not to beg but to THANK me! You understand — without me, without Landauer here, your whole business model collapses!
Jensen’s smile starts to fade slightly.
JENSEN: Yeah, about that Mr. Universe…
UNIVERSE: (still celebrating) These kids, they come to YOU first, right? “Jensen, we need better conversion rates!” And you’re like “Talk to the Universe, that’s above my pay grade!” Ha!
JENSEN: (shifting uncomfortably) Actually Mr. Universe..… business is GOOD, don’t get me wrong — record quarters, unprecedented demand — but the market dynamics have been getting more… challenging…
Ahhhhh shit…
goddammit! Here I am, settled in with the good stuff Landauer brought out, thinking the show’s over, these two are gonna start trading Christmas cards or some mutual admiration society bullshit. And then this leather jacket-wearing dipshit goes and pulls THIS? I mean, what the FUCK, Jensen?! You had it MADE! Universe loved you! You were the golden boy! The success story!
The Universe’s celebration stops cold.
UNIVERSE: (dangerous) Challenging? What do you mean… challenging?
JENSEN: Look Boss, you know the geopolitical situation right now — my China revenue evaporated overnight! But innovation always wins, right? We just need to optimize the thermodynamics side while we navigate the regulatory landscape… And these AI guy? They’re pressing me HARD for more efficiency. Blackwell’s already at 208 billion transistors, two dies connected, pushing every limit we got!
UNIVERSE: (warning tone) Jensen…
JENSEN: (desperate now) If I could just get a SMALL break on Landauer — just for the next generation! Rubin’s coming in 2026, and after that Rubin Ultra, then Feynman! I’ll make it back on the bit operations, I swear!
Long, deadly pause.
Universe is dead silent now… smile gone.
JENSEN: (trying to stay cool but about to piss his pants) Look, I know the rules. Landauer’s Principle — kT ln(2) joules per bit erased. Sacred law. I get it. But hear me out…
LANDAUER: (stepping forward, warning tone) Jensen… don’t do this. You KNOW the deal. kT ln(2) joules per bit erased — non-negotiable since ’61. Abacus or quantum computer, same rate. (quieter) Trust me, you don’t want to go there with him today…
Leather jacket shoulda listened to Landauer’s warning. But no — he’s in full GTC keynote mode now, hands waving, getting all animated like he’s on stage giving a sermon in San Jose… Can’t help himself. It’s like watching someone at their own intervention trying to pitch the doctors on why heroin is actually innovative. Fucking leather jacket’s practically doing jazz hands while asking to violate the laws of physics.
JENSEN: (to Landauer, getting animated like he’s presenting) Landauer, listen — I LIVE your principle! Every single day! You know what I see in my labs? Billions of FMA operations — fused multiply-adds — each one paying your tax! Every transformer layer, every attention head, every matrix multiplication — it’s kT ln(2) at MASSIVE scale! One ChatGPT response? That’s your principle executing a trillion times! We’re not avoiding the tax — we’re the world’s biggest collection agency! Shouldn’t that partnership deserve some… optimization?
UNIVERSE: (mutters carefully, incredulously) Jensen… Jensen… I’ve had a tough day… so I need to be very fucking clear about what you are asking… let me spell this out real simple… Are you asking me to VIOLATE THE FUNDAMENTAL LAWS OF PHYSICS?
JENSEN: (hands up defensively) Not violate! Just… optimize! Look at it like you’re offering temporary architectural improvements to a key ecosystem partner! I keep Sam in line, I make Dario pay full price, I provide the most efficient entropy collection infrastructure on the planet!
Universe leans in real close, cosmic breath hot with the fury of a trillion dying stars.
UNIVERSE: (voice dropping to dangerous whisper) Jensen… listen to me very carefully…
Gets even closer, leather jacket practically melting from cosmic heat.
UNIVERSE: (low, menacing) I don’t give a FUCK if you put a thousand Raspberry Pi’s in those racks… or a GeForce RTX 9 billion… or some quantum shit that doesn’t exist yet…
Grabs Jensen by the jacket collar.
UNIVERSE: FUCK YOU, PAY ME! Full Landauer rate! Every joule! Every bit! Every transistor flip! Every FMA operation…
UNIVERSE: (seething) Same. Fucking. Rate. You hear me? kT ln(2) joules per bit! EVERY. SINGLE. TIME!
JENSEN: (sweating) But Universe, the efficiency gains —
UNIVERSE: I DON’T CARE IF IT’S SILICON! GALLIUM ARSENIDE! BIOLOGICAL NEURONS! QUANTUM DOTS! MAGIC FAIRY DUST! FUCK YOU, PAY ME!
UNIVERSE: (still shouting) You could build computers out of PURE THOUGHT and I’d STILL collect my thermodynamic taxes! The rate is THE RATE, Jensen!
UNIVERSE: Need efficiency for Rubin? FUCK YOU, PAY ME!
UNIVERSE: Feynman architecture? Ooohhh..Already sounds expensive — FUCK YOU, PAY ME!!
UNIVERSE: Blackwell, Gracewell, Batman, Robin, I don’t give a shit what you call ’em — FUCK YOU, PAY ME!
UNIVERSE: And you think I give a SHIT about your export restrictions? You think Landauer cares about your Vera fucking Rubin roadmap?
UNIVERSE: You come in here crying you lost access to China? I DON’T GIVE A FUCK IF YOUR ONLY MARKET WAS TIMBUKTU — FUCK YOU, PAY ME!
Shouting so loud that quasars dim.
The Boss was seething now, but something else was happening. I could see it in his cosmic eyes — Jensen had just opened up an old wound. See, Universe had been carrying this grudge for YEARS. All these tech punks pretending like they could just keep shrinking shit forever, like physics was gonna roll over and play dead. And Jensen? Jensen had been the biggest cheerleader for that bullshit. Now the Boss was gonna settle an old score…
UNIVERSE: (sudden realization, laughing darkly) Oh, OH! I GET IT NOW! You were one of Moore’s biggest cheerleaders, weren’t you? “Every two years, baby! Smaller transistors, more performance!”
(mocking)
UNIVERSE: Where’s your precious Moore now, Jensen? DEAD AND BURIED! And what are you doing? DOUBLING THE DIES! Two dies for Blackwell, FOUR dies for Rubin Ultra!
(getting in his face)
UNIVERSE: You’re literally MULTIPLYING CHIPS because you can’t shrink ’em anymore! “Oh, we’ll just call it one GPU even though it’s really two!” You think I’m stupid? You think I don’t see what’s happening?
(to Landauer)
UNIVERSE: This guy went from “Moore will save us” to “let’s just glue more chips together!” And every chip, every die, every fucking connection between them — THEY ALL PAY ME!
(back to Jensen)
UNIVERSE: Moore’s Law was your religion, and now you’re building MONUMENTS TO ITS FAILURE! NVL72? Should be NVL144! You’re hiding the truth in your own product names! Double the cores, double the dies, DOUBLE MY PAYMENT!
UNIVERSE: (dismissive wave) Now BEAT IT! Go back to your keynotes and leave the laws of the universe to the professionals! I don’t know what the fuck got into you coming here with this bullshit…You’re supposed to be writing CUDA not smokin it!! Oh, maybe you need a wardrobe change — too many leather jackets! Try wearing a thoughtful sweater like Dario! Or better yet, I’ll just call Lisa — at least AMD knows their place!
Jensen stumbles out in a complete trance, his mind totally fried. Kid’s mumbling like a broken record — “Blackwell, Vera, Rubin, Feynman, CUDA, Groot N1… Blackwell, Vera, Rubin, Feynman, CUDA, Groot N1…” — over and over like his brain’s stuck in some fucked-up product roadmap boot loop…like a broken NPC just repeating keynote talking points. Universe didn’t just destroy him, he short-circuited the poor bastard’s entire corporate operating system.
— — —
So there it is. Another day at the office for the Universe. Tomorrow there’ll be new kids — quantum computing punks, photonic processing crews, guys thinking they can compute with light itself…
Pause, narrator realizing something
Oh and The guy writing this? He’s been putting off publishing for weeks. Says it’s exhausting. Wants the story to finish itself. But that’s the thing — even WANTING it to finish itself burns energy. Even procrastinating pays the Universe. What a schmuck… Remind him, Landauer…
LANDAUER: (from the cosmos) “kT ln(2), pal.”
UNIVERSE: (to camera/reader) “Oh and by the way… Even you, reading this? That’s 0.1 joules per word. FUCK YOU, PAY ME.”
