In this week's Better Offline, Ed Zitron is joined by Robin Wigglesworth of the Financial Times to explain how both corporate and sovereign bonds work, why you should care, and what you need to know about the tech industry’s growing debt.

Rob Wigglesworth: A Fabulous Debt: The Epic Story of How Bonds Built the Modern World
https://www.amazon.com/Fabulous-Debt-Story-Bonds-Modern/dp/0593719182
https://x.com/RobinWigg
https://www.ft.com/robin-wigglesworth

Save $10 off a year of my premium newsletter: https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/gzqwkv54e1

YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-offline and use code FREE99 for free shipping on orders of $99 or more.

---

LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks

Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/

Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at

Ed's Socials:

https://twitter.com/edzitron

https://www.instagram.com/edzitron

https://bsky.app/profile/edzitron.com

https://www.threads.net/@edzitron

Email Me: ez@betteroffline.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron talks about the brittle state of Australian AI data center company Firmus’ IPO, its dodgy underlying numbers, and how the Australian media has set an example of how you should actually cover an AI company.

NOTE: This IPO was officially postponed shortly before going to press. The content still rocks.

Newsletter: Credit Crunch: https://www.wheresyoured.at/credit-crunch/https://www.afr.com/technology/firmus-blockbuster-ipo-finds-itself-in-a-36-hour-spiral-of-doom-20261008-p613ul
https://www.afr.com/markets/equity-markets/hedge-fund-uncovers-30-red-flags-against-firmus-20261008-p613t7

Save $10 off a year of my premium newsletter: https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/gzqwkv54e1

YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-offline and use code FREE99 for free shipping on orders of $99 or more.

---

LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks

Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/

Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at

Ed's Socials:

https://twitter.com/edzitron

https://www.instagram.com/edzitron

https://bsky.app/profile/edzitron.com

https://www.threads.net/@edzitron

Email Me: ez@betteroffline.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, Ed Zitron is joined by Steve Burke of GamersNexus to talk about NVIDIA’s “cycular” financing, Trump’s “superintelligence” accord, the growing bubble in the gaming industry, and the Steam Frame VR headset.

Save $10 off a year of my premium newsletter: https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/gzqwkv54e1

YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-offline and use code FREE99 for free shipping on orders of $99 or more.

---

LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks

Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/

Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at

Ed's Socials:

https://twitter.com/edzitron

https://www.instagram.com/edzitron

https://bsky.app/profile/edzitron.com

https://www.threads.net/@edzitron

Email Me: ez@betteroffline.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron talks about Anthropic’s $413 billion in non-cancellable compute commitments, and how its future depends on the impossible task of borrowing $50 billion to $100 billion a year from a bond market that’s already strained by endless AI data center debt.

Link to details on contracts: https://bsky.app/profile/edzitron.com/post/3mwoc3p2b2s2m
Newsletter: Dead Money: https://www.wheresyoured.at/dead-money/

Save $10 off a year of my premium newsletter: https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/gzqwkv54e1

YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-offline and use code FREE99 for free shipping on orders of $99 or more.

---

LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks

Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/

Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at

Ed's Socials:

https://twitter.com/edzitron

https://www.instagram.com/edzitron

https://bsky.app/profile/edzitron.com

https://www.threads.net/@edzitron

Email Me: ez@betteroffline.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this week's Better Offline, Ed Zitron walks through Anthropic’s 2025 financials, covering how it spent $2.75 to make a dollar, and how it was, at least last year, a worse business than OpenAI.

Dead Money: https://www.wheresyoured.at/dead-money/
Anthropic story from Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/anthropics-ipo-prospectus-shows-sweeping-ai-vision-surging-costs-2026-09-28/

Save $10 off a year of my premium newsletter: https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/gzqwkv54e1

YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-offline and use code FREE99 for free shipping on orders of $99 or more.

---

LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks

Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/

Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at

Ed's Socials:

https://twitter.com/edzitron

https://www.instagram.com/edzitron

https://bsky.app/profile/edzitron.com

https://www.threads.net/@edzitron

Email Me: ez@betteroffline.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron talks about how $200bn to $300bn of AI GPUs are sitting in warehouses, how hyperscalers like Microsoft are overstating their AI capacity, and why the AI data center overbuild is magntiudes worse than the Dot Com era fiber buildout.

Where’re All The AI Chips? https://www.wheresyoured.at/wherere-all-the-ai-chips/
Dario quote: https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/dario-amodei-2#:~:text=Basically%20I%E2%80%99m%20saying,that%20much%20compute

Save $10 off a year of my premium newsletter: https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/gzqwkv54e1

YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-offline and use code FREE99 for free shipping on orders of $99 or more.

---

LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks

Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/

Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at

Ed's Socials:

https://twitter.com/edzitron

https://www.instagram.com/edzitron

https://bsky.app/profile/edzitron.com

https://www.threads.net/@edzitron

Email Me: ez@betteroffline.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this week’s Better Offline, Ed Zitron is joined by economist Paul Kedrosky to talk about how AI is distorting the bond markets to the point that it’s changing the price on US Treasuries, how AI data center economics don’t make sense, and the troubling signs he’s hearing out of Anthropic.

https://paulkedrosky.com/
The Nick, Dick and Paul Show: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFbDiETo29GTIjg6Lk4imig

Save $10 off a year of my premium newsletter: https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/gzqwkv54e1

YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-offline and use code FREE99 for free shipping on orders of $99 or more.

---

LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks

Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/

Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at

Ed's Socials:

https://twitter.com/edzitron

https://www.instagram.com/edzitron

https://bsky.app/profile/edzitron.com

https://www.threads.net/@edzitron

Email Me: ez@betteroffline.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this week's Better Offline monologue, Ed Zitron delivers a simple message: if Dario Amodei truly believes that Anthropic is building dangerous AI, he should stop any and all cybersecurity model training runs, halt his IPO, limit Claude to only the safest possible functions, or shut the fuck up.

Anthropic “80% gross margins” story https://www.ft.com/content/4564e6a5-69e9-40a6-bf0f-a888f2f4f002?syn-25a6b1a6=1

Overcharging story:
theinformation.com/newsletters/applied-ai/anthropic-customers-find-errant-charges-auditing-startup-says

Save $10 off a year of my premium newsletter: https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/gzqwkv54e1

YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-offline and use code FREE99 for free shipping on orders of $99 or more.

---

LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks

Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/

Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at

Ed's Socials:

https://twitter.com/edzitron

https://www.instagram.com/edzitron

https://bsky.app/profile/edzitron.com

https://www.threads.net/@edzitron

Email Me: ez@betteroffline.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.