The Minutes of Gavin Baker on ai capex https://minutesof.com/gavin-baker/on/ai-capex/ Everything Gavin Baker has said on AI capex: 55 verbatim quotes between November 2019 and August 2026, each with a timestamp and a link to the recording… en Sun, 30 Aug 2026 16:21:41 +0000 Baker calculates 20% token spend on knowledge work implies $5 trillion addressable market. https://minutesof.com/q/97cbfdba-ab42-4e33-a2d7-dfef4623b92f/ https://minutesof.com/q/97cbfdba-ab42-4e33-a2d7-dfef4623b92f/ “There's 25,000,000,000,000 in knowledge work. And so let's, you know, let's say that that's, you know, let's take your 20% number. That's 5,000,000,000,000.” — Invest Like The Best Tue, 04 Aug 2026 12:00:33 +0000 ai capex Baker reports AI stocks down 40-60% in a month despite no negative quantitative metrics or deceleration. https://minutesof.com/q/d7be6f16-b01e-405f-bf98-4894a50c98fd/ https://minutesof.com/q/d7be6f16-b01e-405f-bf98-4894a50c98fd/ “Loads of AI names are down 60% from their highs. We'll call it 40% to 60% in a month in a straight line.” — Invest Like the Best Tue, 04 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000 ai capex Baker says no one predicted old GPU prices would go vertical, everyone expected gradual declines. https://minutesof.com/q/0b20c2f9-3c26-4495-8ebb-ac7e506821ad/ https://minutesof.com/q/0b20c2f9-3c26-4495-8ebb-ac7e506821ad/ “I don't think anyone in '24 or '25 thought that the prices of old GPUs would be going vertical. Everybody thought, hey. We're gonna be smart. We're gonna sign these long term contracts.” — Invest Like the Best Tue, 04 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000 ai capex Baker argues contracted compute trades at massive discount to spot, repricing will accelerate cash flows and a https://minutesof.com/q/c85f4400-5d03-4327-a817-cfa56c88e0a0/ https://minutesof.com/q/c85f4400-5d03-4327-a817-cfa56c88e0a0/ “And so, essentially, you have the contracted base of installed compute trading at a massive discount to the current spot market.” — Invest Like the Best Tue, 04 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000 ai capex Baker reports hyperscaler operating cash flow accelerated from $28B to $32B despite unusual legal expenses. https://minutesof.com/q/978729d0-58b1-4960-8a4f-e5ef94383ed3/ https://minutesof.com/q/978729d0-58b1-4960-8a4f-e5ef94383ed3/ “Operating cash flow from Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon has reported accelerated from '28 to '32. There are some actually pretty big unusual items now like these hyperscalers.” — Invest Like the Best Tue, 04 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000 ai capex Baker says adjusting for one-time items shows hyperscaler operating cash flow accelerated from $28B to $35B. https://minutesof.com/q/cb3e3303-15a7-44f3-b0ac-646dac4d09d8/ https://minutesof.com/q/cb3e3303-15a7-44f3-b0ac-646dac4d09d8/ “But there is an unusual amount of onetimers this quarter. And if you adjust for that, we went from 28 to 35. That's that's a material acceleration at this scale.” — Invest Like the Best Tue, 04 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000 ai capex Baker says incredible Anthropic results made him comfortable with Blackwell air pocket risk. https://minutesof.com/q/b66f155d-c49c-4b33-86f4-72831629b0a8/ https://minutesof.com/q/b66f155d-c49c-4b33-86f4-72831629b0a8/ “I think one reason to the podcast two months ago, I got comfortable with that risk was just that you were seeing such incredible things out of anthropic.” — Invest Like the Best Tue, 04 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000 ai capex Baker explains breaking memory LTAs could destroy companies by losing allocations when market tightens again. https://minutesof.com/q/1c68adab-c7db-487c-a37a-3d17c27ea19c/ https://minutesof.com/q/1c68adab-c7db-487c-a37a-3d17c27ea19c/ “Well, if they're breaking their LTAs, it probably means, you know, your oversupply, prices are coming down, and then, you know, capacity naturally contracts. Well, what do you think is gonna happen to Google's allocations?” — Invest Like the Best Tue, 04 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000 ai capex Baker suggests memory companies should copy NVIDIA's credit wrapper model while they have cash and credit mark https://minutesof.com/q/f8a1ce63-0c20-4776-b362-c6e16f7a9165/ https://minutesof.com/q/f8a1ce63-0c20-4776-b362-c6e16f7a9165/ “I'm just making this up. But, like, do something. Like, you can because you have money now and credit markets are revolting.” — Invest Like the Best Tue, 04 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000 ai capex Baker cites analysis showing compute margins, quantity, and inference margins all rising simultaneously, drivi https://minutesof.com/q/273fa3f1-13d3-4f0d-9774-ac10ff1c4250/ https://minutesof.com/q/273fa3f1-13d3-4f0d-9774-ac10ff1c4250/ “The amount of compute is going up and inference margins going up. And if you multiply those three, that's how you're getting this crazy acceleration into some of the labs plus open source,” — Invest Like the Best Tue, 04 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000 ai capex Baker cites report that SpaceX plans to bring on eight gigawatts of compute in eighteen months, calling it inc https://minutesof.com/q/2cbe2ec5-4ba8-4401-9e50-95a7fe2050a5/ https://minutesof.com/q/2cbe2ec5-4ba8-4401-9e50-95a7fe2050a5/ “A Substack writer will fund the AI. They think that SpaceX is gonna try and bring on eight gigawatts of compute over the next eighteen months.” — Invest Like the Best Tue, 04 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000 ai capex Baker calculates eight gigawatts at $50B per gigawatt implies $400B revenue versus $73B consensus for SpaceX. https://minutesof.com/q/3598c618-46c5-4911-bda9-726bf23a067e/ https://minutesof.com/q/3598c618-46c5-4911-bda9-726bf23a067e/ “If they bring on anywhere near that, the consensus estimate is 73,000,000,000. That's eight gigs at 50,000,000,000 a gig. And, obviously, that would not all be lit up at the beginning of twenty seven.” — Invest Like the Best Tue, 04 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000 ai capex Baker says Anthropic added $11B ARR, comparing it to the entire SaaS revolution's $5-10T value creation. https://minutesof.com/q/9c12cc3b-5c54-4a50-9c06-e4d2d16091b9/ https://minutesof.com/q/9c12cc3b-5c54-4a50-9c06-e4d2d16091b9/ “Anthropic, they added $11,000,000,000 of AR. And what is astonishing to me about this is that the SaaS and cloud revolution it created, we'll call it between 5 and $10,000,000,000,000 of value.” — Invest Like the Best Wed, 20 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000 ai capex Baker says Anthropic added $11B ARR in one month, matching what Palantir, Snowflake, and Databricks built in t https://minutesof.com/q/bc5a5566-b96e-4ba5-8fbb-169a20af1672/ https://minutesof.com/q/bc5a5566-b96e-4ba5-8fbb-169a20af1672/ “And these three companies employ thousands of people, tens of thousands collectively. They've all spent ten years building their businesses and Anthropic added their combined businesses in one month.” — Invest Like the Best Wed, 20 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000 ai capex Baker says Anthropic adding $11B ARR in one month is unprecedented in capitalism's history. https://minutesof.com/q/82588e90-fe83-47b1-a16e-aafdc15f56df/ https://minutesof.com/q/82588e90-fe83-47b1-a16e-aafdc15f56df/ “Anthropic added their combined businesses in one month. Nothing like that has ever happened in the history of capitalism.” — Invest Like the Best Wed, 20 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000 ai capex Baker estimates Anthropic would be doing $100-150B ARR if not compute-constrained, versus current $50B. https://minutesof.com/q/52541184-dd18-482e-b266-0236fe4216b1/ https://minutesof.com/q/52541184-dd18-482e-b266-0236fe4216b1/ “And I think maybe a true statement is that Infantropic could just wave a magic wand and get all the compute they wanted. They'd probably be doing well north of $100,000,000,000 today, maybe 150.” — Invest Like the Best Wed, 20 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000 ai capex Baker argues America will consume all available compute, reducing edge AI bear case concerns. https://minutesof.com/q/c36d1b7b-a557-4ecb-b855-6610596f9fe3/ https://minutesof.com/q/c36d1b7b-a557-4ecb-b855-6610596f9fe3/ “And I just think the same is true of compute. It's why I'm probably less worried about like an edge AI bear case than I was.” — Invest Like the Best Wed, 20 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000 ai capex Baker argues America will consume all available compute, making him less worried about edge AI bear cases. https://minutesof.com/q/c36e87b2-cd1e-4c19-b84d-b929d673346d/ https://minutesof.com/q/c36e87b2-cd1e-4c19-b84d-b929d673346d/ “It's why I'm probably less worried about like an edge AI bear case than I was. We're going to consume as much compute as we can.” — Invest Like the Best Wed, 20 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000 ai capex Baker argues Taiwan Semi's capacity constraint prevents AI bubble; NVIDIA could sell $2-3T GPUs otherwise. https://minutesof.com/q/9fba209e-eb21-4dc0-af16-f50081fc3610/ https://minutesof.com/q/9fba209e-eb21-4dc0-af16-f50081fc3610/ “If Taiwan Semi did what Jensen wanted, I think Nvidia could sell $2,000,000,000,000 of GPUs in '26 or '27, maybe 2,500,000,000,000, maybe 3,000,000,000,000.” — Invest Like the Best Wed, 20 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000 ai capex Baker argues NVIDIA could sell $2-3 trillion in GPUs if TSMC expanded capacity, but TSMC's restraint prevents https://minutesof.com/q/1def0bff-3374-41a1-8cc6-b9c33c78c1e2/ https://minutesof.com/q/1def0bff-3374-41a1-8cc6-b9c33c78c1e2/ “If Taiwan Semi did what Jensen wanted, I think Nvidia could sell $2,000,000,000,000 of GPUs in '26 or '27, maybe 2,500,000,000,000, maybe 3,000,000,000,000. But there is a limit where consumers would consume so much.” — Invest Like the Best Wed, 20 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000 ai capex Baker argues Taiwan Semi's capacity discipline is single-handedly preventing an AI bubble. https://minutesof.com/q/fb324547-3123-4b57-aa99-0d2aa4293cda/ https://minutesof.com/q/fb324547-3123-4b57-aa99-0d2aa4293cda/ “So Taiwan Semi, if we don't get a bubble, we need to throw a party for them because they will have single handedly prevented a bubble.” — Invest Like the Best Wed, 20 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000 ai capex Baker identifies Taiwan Semi's capacity decisions as the single most important indicator of AI bubble risk. https://minutesof.com/q/3849c4ea-56aa-49aa-a1e8-f08ea309f02e/ https://minutesof.com/q/3849c4ea-56aa-49aa-a1e8-f08ea309f02e/ “The pace at which they expand capacity. If I were to watch one thing to understand where there's a bubble, it's Taiwan Semi's capacity decisions.” — Invest Like the Best Wed, 20 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000 ai capex Baker says understanding frontier AI now requires enterprise usage-based plans, not $250 monthly subscriptions https://minutesof.com/q/42fa040e-9f02-4acf-911f-dfbc9a85a96b/ https://minutesof.com/q/42fa040e-9f02-4acf-911f-dfbc9a85a96b/ “To understand what Frontier AI is capable of today, even for a non coding use case, need to have Cloud Code or Codex five point Codex.” — Invest Like the Best Wed, 20 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000 ai capex Baker says AI shifting from flat pricing to usage-based is extremely bullish as people consume more AI. https://minutesof.com/q/4b52026f-d927-4a34-90b9-14245a9cc937/ https://minutesof.com/q/4b52026f-d927-4a34-90b9-14245a9cc937/ “AI is just shifting from all you can eat to pay by the drink. Then it turns out people really like to talk to their friends long distance.” — Invest Like the Best Wed, 20 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000 ai capex Baker argues GPU useful lives will extend to 10-15 years due to inference disaggregation, contradicting AI ske https://minutesof.com/q/d42a1b86-60fc-431a-8a6b-892fc8405b51/ https://minutesof.com/q/d42a1b86-60fc-431a-8a6b-892fc8405b51/ “The disaggregation of inference means that I think these GPUs are going to have ten or fifteen year lives. The AI skeptics are like, oh, these companies are all cooking their books.” — Invest Like the Best Wed, 20 May 2026 08:00:00 +0000 ai capex Baker says he would take the over on every AI capex and demand number given by other speakers. https://minutesof.com/q/3de08092-6158-4e51-8455-aa99d5b8c989/ https://minutesof.com/q/3de08092-6158-4e51-8455-aa99d5b8c989/ “And I would just say, I take the over on every number that they gave. Every single number. As what I think, you know, they're conservative guys.” — Sohn Conference Foundation Fri, 15 May 2026 18:17:41 +0000 ai capex Baker takes the over on every AI capex and memory forecast number given by other speakers at the conference. https://minutesof.com/q/d4f2a0f4-56a2-49b1-b256-38a58d9467ac/ https://minutesof.com/q/d4f2a0f4-56a2-49b1-b256-38a58d9467ac/ “And I would just say, I take the over on every number that they gave. Every single number.” — Sohn Conference Foundation Fri, 15 May 2026 18:17:41 +0000 ai capex Baker argues this may be the first true capacity cycle and that fundamental shortages help avoid a destructive https://minutesof.com/q/eaa2c07f-36b4-496d-a802-6a49e559de0a/ https://minutesof.com/q/eaa2c07f-36b4-496d-a802-6a49e559de0a/ “This may be the first true capacity cycle. And I and and I and I do think that these fundamental shortages are good for us as investors.” — Sohn Conference Foundation Fri, 15 May 2026 18:17:41 +0000 ai capex Baker believes NVIDIA could sell $11.52 trillion in chips next year if TSMC tripled capacity but bubble risks https://minutesof.com/q/5844eeb0-1c90-4b36-a1d3-14fdd317f440/ https://minutesof.com/q/5844eeb0-1c90-4b36-a1d3-14fdd317f440/ “And if they doubled or tripled capacity, like, NVIDIA could probably sell $11,520,000,000,000 worth of chips next year. I really believe that. But the other side of that might be very painful for everyone.” — Sohn Conference Foundation Fri, 15 May 2026 18:17:41 +0000 ai capex Baker believes NVIDIA could sell $11.5 trillion worth of chips next year if TSMC expanded capacity sufficientl https://minutesof.com/q/17aeec53-9e20-4cc3-bb0b-f1d5fa03e8e1/ https://minutesof.com/q/17aeec53-9e20-4cc3-bb0b-f1d5fa03e8e1/ “And if they doubled or tripled capacity, like, NVIDIA could probably sell $11,520,000,000,000 worth of chips next year. I really believe that.” — Sohn Conference Foundation Fri, 15 May 2026 18:17:41 +0000 ai capex Baker says AI models shifting to usage-based pricing with overage reveals no ceiling on spending yet. https://minutesof.com/q/eb16479a-ee2b-4d2c-9779-1e7eb5762367/ https://minutesof.com/q/eb16479a-ee2b-4d2c-9779-1e7eb5762367/ “We're just moving from these all you can eat plans to usage based plans with overage, where those usage tokens cost a lot more, and we're finding out that there's we're nowhere near the amount of, you know, people ceiling price for how much they'll spend.” — Sohn Conference Foundation Fri, 15 May 2026 18:17:41 +0000 ai capex Baker emphasizes only 0.1% of the world uses AI models properly yet there's massive shortage despite trillions https://minutesof.com/q/20c46b63-3663-4f9f-9324-17a82821dfcb/ https://minutesof.com/q/20c46b63-3663-4f9f-9324-17a82821dfcb/ “And we're in an insane shortage despite spending cumulatively trillions of dollars. What happens when 5% of the world's population is using these models the way the cutting edge 10 basis points are?” — Sohn Conference Foundation Fri, 15 May 2026 18:17:41 +0000 ai capex What happens when 5% of the world's population is using these models the way the cutting edge 10 basis points https://minutesof.com/q/7c0eb714-2699-491f-b983-09b25778e0f7/ https://minutesof.com/q/7c0eb714-2699-491f-b983-09b25778e0f7/ “What happens when 5% of the world's population is using these models the way the cutting edge 10 basis points are? Like, it's just it's unimaginable. This is why orbital compute is a necessity.” — Sohn Conference Foundation Fri, 15 May 2026 18:17:41 +0000 ai capex Baker predicts Trainium will dominate 2026 like TPUs did in 2025, with Trainium 3 ramping in second half. https://minutesof.com/q/77488a06-75d9-432d-b0cd-0afa0e21f41f/ https://minutesof.com/q/77488a06-75d9-432d-b0cd-0afa0e21f41f/ “Tranium is going to be to 2026, especially in the second half of this year when Tranium three really ramps, as TPUs were to twenty twenty five.” — Sohn Conference Foundation Fri, 15 May 2026 18:17:41 +0000 ai capex Baker reveals Atreides could have invested over $50 million in CoreWeave at $1.1 billion valuation but was con https://minutesof.com/q/4bbf9d84-bae2-460e-a752-a60a13663534/ https://minutesof.com/q/4bbf9d84-bae2-460e-a752-a60a13663534/ “I could've Atreides could've invested over $50,000,000 in the round at 1,100,000,000, And I was conflicted out by Crusoe,” — Sohn Conference Foundation Fri, 15 May 2026 18:17:41 +0000 ai capex Baker predicts terrestrial data center buildout will stop within seven years, causing pain for power and cooli https://minutesof.com/q/37c6b2d5-a06c-4583-8cd8-bcefcb922043/ https://minutesof.com/q/37c6b2d5-a06c-4583-8cd8-bcefcb922043/ “And the years leading up to that are gonna be very painful for a lot of the companies and the power cooling spaces, you know, these industrial names,” — Sohn Conference Foundation Fri, 15 May 2026 18:17:41 +0000 ai capex Baker argues Google has a temporary pre-training advantage as the lowest cost producer of tokens using advance https://minutesof.com/q/e679ccc2-32ff-45bb-a011-17fece7abd5e/ https://minutesof.com/q/e679ccc2-32ff-45bb-a011-17fece7abd5e/ “So I think Google for sure has this temporary advantage right now from a pre training perspective. I think it's also important that they've been the lowest cost producer of tokens.” — Invest Like the Best Tue, 09 Dec 2025 15:05:00 +0000 ai capex Baker explains Google pays Broadcom a 50 to 55 percent gross margin for back-end chip design and Taiwan Semi m https://minutesof.com/q/181634e4-7c28-4e3e-8027-37df4f418718/ https://minutesof.com/q/181634e4-7c28-4e3e-8027-37df4f418718/ “And the managing Taiwan Semi is like stamping out that house like Lennar or, you know, D. R. Horton. And for doing those two latter parts, Broadcom earns a 50 to 55% gross margin.” — Invest Like the Best Tue, 09 Dec 2025 15:05:00 +0000 ai capex Baker says tech CEOs aren't thinking about ROI because they believe they're racing to create a digital god. https://minutesof.com/q/0f558539-ea5f-4335-90b1-230da6124058/ https://minutesof.com/q/0f558539-ea5f-4335-90b1-230da6124058/ “Mark Zuckerberg, Satya, and Sundar just told you in different ways, we are not even thinking about ROI.” — Invest Like the Best Tue, 27 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000 ai capex Baker predicts GPT-7 or GPT-8 will cost $500 billion to train, ending commodity status of models. https://minutesof.com/q/80043395-af77-4cbc-a5b7-76c39ad62953/ https://minutesof.com/q/80043395-af77-4cbc-a5b7-76c39ad62953/ “By the way, these models are commodities today, but I am suspicious once we get to scaling laws continue, GPT seven or eight literally cost $500,000,000,000 to trade.” — Invest Like the Best Tue, 27 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000 ai capex Baker says only three US locations can provide gigawatt power to data centers at 10x normal cost. https://minutesof.com/q/535090c8-2068-4740-9d62-3f36e9c09c8b/ https://minutesof.com/q/535090c8-2068-4740-9d62-3f36e9c09c8b/ “There's only basically three places in The United States today where you can get a gigawatt of power to a single data center that's reliable enough, I.” — Invest Like the Best Tue, 27 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000 ai capex Baker argues return on invested capital has risen for AI spenders, dismissing ROI skepticism. https://minutesof.com/q/54e32faa-2b0f-4c4e-8873-a20bcaecbf4a/ https://minutesof.com/q/54e32faa-2b0f-4c4e-8873-a20bcaecbf4a/ “These companies are all public, and there is something called return on invested capital. And ROIC has gone up for all of these companies since they ramped CapEx.” — Invest Like the Best Tue, 27 Aug 2024 08:00:00 +0000 ai capex Baker argues AI revolution stems from cloud computing power and mobile-generated data, not algorithmic advance https://minutesof.com/q/c6581532-cbbe-425f-bb38-995439fb7bb4/ https://minutesof.com/q/c6581532-cbbe-425f-bb38-995439fb7bb4/ “The only thing that has enabled the AI revolution that we're living through, which I think we're at the bottom of the first inning in, is one, we had the ability to do cloud computing, so just apply significantly more computational power to old algorithms, and then b, we had dramatically more data.” — Invest Like the Best Tue, 26 Nov 2019 10:30:00 +0000 ai capex Baker states data quantity is the single most predictive element of AI quality, not algorithms or infrastructu https://minutesof.com/q/32e64b43-db5d-48ee-815c-272156cf2971/ https://minutesof.com/q/32e64b43-db5d-48ee-815c-272156cf2971/ “The single most predictive element of knowledge about AI quality is the quantity of data used to train the algorithm.” — Invest Like the Best Tue, 26 Nov 2019 10:30:00 +0000 ai capex Baker cites research showing every 10x increase in training data doubles AI quality. https://minutesof.com/q/1c159533-7002-43df-a5db-be3d8cc9d824/ https://minutesof.com/q/1c159533-7002-43df-a5db-be3d8cc9d824/ “and it's been very well established in multiple papers from both Google and Microsoft research that for every order of magnitude increase in the data you use to train an algorithm, the quality of the AI doubles.” — Invest Like the Best Tue, 26 Nov 2019 10:30:00 +0000 ai capex