Heretate

@therealandrewwu @jiahanjimliu Nothing is ever necessary but results are usually better when positively motivated…regardless, Nvidia invests in these partnerships not for capital gains but for strategic reasons, which Iren now seems to follow dogmatically

@Heretaate @jiahanjimliu nvidia does not need to invest to coerce iren

$IREN Gold State Jersey: Why? As a software engineer, I dislike advertising spend. My first reaction was negative: why would IREN spend $20m a year on NBA advertising? The previous Golden State Warriors sponsor, Rakuten, had a 3 year 60 million contract to get their logo on the Golden State Warriors Jersey (1). Those were in GS's championship contention years but likely the price is still around that price range. Some people are mad at @danroberts0101 for communicating that IREN was targeting hyperscaler customers that don't need software or marketing. Both the Mirantis acquisition and the GS sponsorship are without a doubt not for selling to capacity to hyperscalers and Metas of the world but for small enterprise customers that currently need orchestration software. So why the sudden pivot? This comes back to Nvidia GPU allocation and Nvidia's incentives. Nvidia's mold of the Neocloud is one that competes with the hyperscalers. Nvidia is not going to allocate GPUs to IREN if all IREN is going to do is build out capacity for Microsofts and Metas of the world when both are attempting their own ASICs. Nvidia is going to allow IREN to sell some capacity to hyperscalers but they better also be benefitting the Nvidia agenda. To fit the Nvidia agenda, IREN needs to be compete against the hyperscalers for customers. You see, hyperscalers own the customer relationship and are attempting to swap out the GPU layer with their own ASICs ala TPU and Trainium. Nvidia need to hedge with a different store front for these small enterprise customers. Nvidia has worked very hard to secure HBM, with Jensen essentially going to Korea to kowtow to SK and Samsung for capacity and HBM is sold out for all of 2026 (2), so it's clear that GPU is sold out for 2026. GPU access is essentially HBM access since they are co-packaged. GPU access problem for IREN in 2026. In order to address this for 2027, Nvidia probably demanded the following: become a Neocloud that sells to small enterprise customers. IREN has no choice but to agree and make the pivot for half their capacity. This is clear in the sequence of events: 1. Nvidia sets up IREN to acquire Mirantis for orchestration software. 2. IREN becomes a Nvidia partner and Nvidia is given options to buy IREN stock contingent on GPU deliveries. 3. IREN has to show up and market to small enterprise customers. Showing up means acquire-hire of Awaken marketing company and sponsoring GS so that IREN will hav reach to small enterprise customers. Once Nvidia sees that IREN is getting traction with small enterprise customers, then Nvidia will be able to allocate IREN GPUs as it benefits Nvidia's long term strategy. Going forward IREN will sell both to large enterprises and small enterprises. Small enterprises to fit the mold that Nvidia has for Neoclouds. IREN has to fit the Nvidia mold to not repeat it's 2026 problem: GPU priority. IREN will be getting enough GPUs to fill out it's 3.7B but getting them later in the schedule delayed debugging of it's current buildout. I expect IREN to hand over H1 in late July or August and clear expectations for bring up. H1-4 will be IREN's large enterprise deliverable and IREN will likely have to sell to smaller enterprises for the 50k B300s ordered earlier this year. This will require the Mirantis acquisition to finish in August which also explains why the 50k B300s are un-contracted for now.

@therealandrewwu @jiahanjimliu I wonder if those warrants are as valuable to Nvidia vs to Robert. Its more fitting if Robert is actively trying to secure preferential treatment from Nvidia via ownership vs for Nvidia IREN is just a cheap call option for strategic purposes

1. & 2. as we agree, NVIDIA has supply leverage. equity is redundant for coercion and is self-harming. they already control the supply. so why invest and then push IREN toward lower-value enterprise deals that hurt that very stake? its unlikely those warrants get triggered at $70 without a very substantial contract. 4. coercing customer downstream conduct is textbook tying. they'd be ushering in the DOJ with a red carpet to investigate. why not do both hyperscaler/enterprise? A hyperscaler on IREN's fleet is running NVIDIA chips either way which is incremental demand. I think the delay in new deals comes down to having enough negotiating leverage to extract maximum value. that's why it makes sense to entertain enterprise

@Geo_papic Any thoughts on Randy retiring now of all times?

The last two calamities that investors have traded – pandemic and Ukraine – both found a bottom in equities well before they were over. That is all I am going to say about that.

And back down we go~!

@Citrini7 @stevehou Quite frankly sanity is little desired when there is still hope that America is just having a temporary seizure

@stevehou I think there existed a third way where instead of this or just being “conciliatory” there was a chance to demonstrate to the world that China is the saner alternative and open for business. But of course that’s probably not the most important thing to them rn

Well I guess it was not “conciliatory” after all but fight till the bitter end.

@playlostark Fake news, I just wasted 8 stones :)

today feels like a great day to be cutting some stones