Four falsifiable indicators of whether the AI investment boom is being financed in a way that can absorb disappointment — the live companion to chapter 9 of The Price of Thinking. Every number is drawn from a public primary source: SEC filings, FRED, and the GPU rental marketplace.
Doubt the boom if the ratio keeps widening while revenue growth stalls.
Chips age like fish: watch for assumed server lives shortening toward the sceptics’ 2–3 years. Each value is extracted from the latest 10-K with its source sentence preserved.
A boom funded from cash flow can absorb disappointment; one funded by debt cannot. Above the dashed line, capex exceeds operating cash flow.
Falling rental prices for top-end chips would be the first hard evidence of overcapacity.