Top all-time · #98
Ed Zitron
Personal blog · wheresyoured.atbusinessaistartups
Ed Zitron's personal blog at wheresyoured.at covers business, ai and startups. Since 2023, 377 different Hacker News readers have linked it 566 times, most often “The man who killed Google Search?”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-28, and you can follow it by feed.
Rarely recommended · 5 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers cite his pieces on OpenAI and Anthropic finances and on Google search decline, often as support for their own points, and a few call them good or worth reading.
- Recommended for · 5 comments
- 'A good one', 'very good analysis', 'a decent case', 'nobody tells it like Zitron', 'might appreciate' it.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
The Words of Ed Zitron, a PR person and writer.
Most-linked posts?
- The man who killed Google Search?49 people · 54 mentions · first linked 2024-04-23
- /16 people · 17 mentions · first linked 2024-11-28
- Anthropic's "Profitability" Swindle16 people · 16 mentions · first linked 2026-05-21
- OpenAI Losses Increased Nearly 8X in 2025, with Spending Hitting $34B14 people · 16 mentions · first linked 2026-06-16
- The Hater's Guide to the AI Bubble13 people · 14 mentions · first linked 2025-07-21
- Never Forgive Them12 people · 14 mentions · first linked 2024-12-16
- How Much OpenAI Spends on Inference and Its Revenue Share with Microsoft11 people · 13 mentions · first linked 2025-11-12
- OpenAI Is a Bad Business11 people · 12 mentions · first linked 2024-10-02
- The Subprime AI Crisis10 people · 12 mentions · first linked 2024-09-16
- How Does OpenAI Survive?9 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2024-07-29
What Hacker News says?
> As discussed previously, OpenAI lost $5 billion and Anthropic $5.3 billion in 2024, with OpenAI expecting to lose upwards of $8 billion and Anthropic — somehow — only losing $3 billion in 2025. I have severe doubts that these numbers are realistic, with OpenAI burning at least $3 billion in cash on salaries this year alone, and Anthropic somehow burning two billion dollars less on revenue that has, if you believe…
Comment linking /why-everybody-is-losing-money-on-ai/
on “Anthropic acquires Bun”Submitted The man who killed Google Search? as a story · 1884 points
HN discussionWe know exactly why google went to shit years ago. It's not a perception/"people used to be more techie" issue. https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/
Comment linking /the-men-who-killed-google/
on “When did Google get so weird?”Submitted The Generative AI Con as a story · 370 points
HN discussionIf you read any work from Ed Zitron [1], they likely cannot remain sustainable. With OpenAI failing to convert into a for-profit, Microsoft being more interested in being a multi-modal provider and competing openly with OpenAI (e.g., open-sourcing Copilot vs. Windsurf, GitHub Agent with Claude as the standard vs. Codex) and Google having their own SOTA models and not relying on their stake in Anthropic, tarrifs comp…
Comment linking /oai-business/
on “Claude 4”Submitted OpenAI Needs $400B In The Next 12 Months as a story · 268 points
HN discussionhttps://www.wheresyoured.at/reality-check/
Comment linking /reality-check/
on “Claude 4”Submitted The Hater's Guide to the AI Bubble as a story · 219 points
HN discussionThis was a good one: https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-rot-economy/
Comment linking /the-rot-economy/
on “The man who killed Google Search?”Submitted OpenAI Is Just Another Boring, Desperate AI Startup as a story · 218 points
HN discussionThey might generate 10b ARR, but they lose a lot more than that. Their paid users are a fraction of the free riders. https://www.wheresyoured.at/openai-is-a-systemic-risk-to-the...
Comment linking /openai-is-a-systemic-risk-to-the-tech-industry-2/
on “LLM Inevitabilism”Submitted Are We Watching the Internet Die? as a story · 189 points
HN discussionI'd describe Google as focused on the bottom line after they put the ads guy in charge of search. I'm referring to this article that was posted here recently: https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/
Comment linking /the-men-who-killed-google/
on “Veo”Submitted How much Anthropic and Cursor spend on Amazon Web Services as a story · 164 points
HN discussion> What it means is that barring a significant breakthrough, cheap ChatGPT-like services are simply unsustainable. This is the basic premise of Ed Zitron's article https://www.wheresyoured.at/to-serve-altman/ and others written around the same time. A lot of what he's written seems to be coming to pass, e.g. unfathomably large investments (~$100 billion) by tech giants in OpenAI and other AI startups to keep them goi…
Comment linking /to-serve-altman/
on “ChatGPT Search”Submitted How Does OpenAI Survive? as a story · 151 points
HN discussionFor me it feels like Google is adding "buy" keyword to every search. Part of the answer is here - https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/
Comment linking /the-men-who-killed-google/
on “ChatGPT Search”Submitted Reality Check as a story · 129 points
HN discussionThere are probably several, but one of the ones that made the rounds a while ago is "The Man Who Killed Google Search" by Edward Zitron: https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/
Comment linking /the-men-who-killed-google/
on “ChatGPT Search”Submitted The People Deliberately Killing Facebook as a story · 127 points
HN discussionWith Google, at least, it was one division losing the battle with another division. https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-11/417557.pdf Searching some terms from this PDF (not in Google) brings up https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/ , which has a clearer narrative.
Comment linking /the-men-who-killed-google/
on “The Fed says this is a cube of $1M. They're off by half a million”Submitted OpenAI is a systemic risk to the tech industry as a story · 123 points
HN discussionMicrosoft already effectively owns OpenAI. Their investments in OpenAI have granted them a 49% stake in the company, the right to sell any pre-AGI OpenAI products to Microsoft's customers, and access to all pre-AGI product research. Microsoft's $10 billion investment in early 2023 (after ChatGPT's launch massively increased OpenAI's operating expenses) was mainly in Azure compute credits rather than cash and deliver…
Comment linking /to-serve-altman/
on “OpenAI to become for-profit company”Submitted The Era of the Business Idiot as a story · 120 points
HN discussionJust going to put this here: https://www.wheresyoured.at/wheres-the-money/
Comment linking /wheres-the-money/
on “GPT-4.5”Submitted Sam Altman Is Full of Shit as a story · 111 points
HN discussionHere is an article that discusses why those numbers are misleading[1]. From a high level, "run rate" numbers are typically taking a monthly revenue number and multiplying it by 12 and that just isn't an accurate way to report revenue for reasons outlined in that article. When it comes to actual projections for annual revenue, they have said $2b is the most likely outcome for their 2025 annual revenue. [1] - https://…
Comment linking /howmuchmoney/
on “Anthropic agrees to pay $1.5B to settle lawsuit with book authors”Submitted In Response to Google as a story · 109 points
HN discussionThis very good analysis estimates 73%, which includes team and enterprise. Given that enterprise access is limited and expensive, it seems Plus and Teams are mostly carrying this. The whole financial breakdown is fascinating and I’m surprised to not see it circulating more. https://www.wheresyoured.at/oai-business/
Comment linking /oai-business/
on “Canvas is a new way to write and code with ChatGPT”Submitted The Subprime AI Crisis as a story · 102 points
HN discussion
