Why Demand for Compute Is About to Explode With Alex Kantrowitz
July 31, 2026
AI Summary
5 min readThe AI Compute Boom and the Battle Over Where Value Will Land
Alex Kantrowitz, founder of the Big Technology newsletter and podcast, joined The Compound and Friends for a wide-ranging conversation about the state of AI in early 2025. The throughline of the episode was straightforward: AI adoption is accelerating faster than almost anyone anticipated, but the question of who captures the economic value—the model builders, the cloud providers, the application layers, or the data owners—remains wide open. The conversation covered OpenAI's explosive growth, the implications of Chinese open-weight models, the shifting dynamics between Microsoft and OpenAI, Meta's risky AI bet, and the surprising ways companies like Apple and Reddit might end up as winners.
The Speed of Adoption Is Unprecedented
Kantrowitz opened with a set of charts that put the current moment in perspective. When he last appeared on the show in June 2024, ChatGPT had fewer than 200 million weekly active users. By early 2025, that number had crossed one billion. More striking was the revenue trajectory: OpenAI and Anthropic went from essentially zero revenue in 2024 to a combined expected $80 billion this year, with some projections suggesting it could exceed $100 billion. "We may never see anything like this again," Kantrowitz said. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime speed of adoption."
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What you'll learn
- 1 Timestamped Outline
- 2 (00:00) **Opening Banter: The Startup Tattoo Story** - A viral story about a YC founder offering job interviews to anyone who gets the company logo tattooed at a party
- 3 (03:49) **Instagram vs. TikTok and the Attention Economy** - The hosts analyze how Meta is struggling to compete with TikTok and the addictive nature of short-form video
- 4 (07:06) **Meta's Legal Exposure and Addiction Lawsuits** - A look at the growing legal costs Meta faces from addiction-related lawsuits in state courts
- 5 (13:02) **Introducing Alex Kantrowitz and His Approach** - The guest is introduced as the founder of Big Technology, a newsletter and podcast covering major tech companies
- 6 (16:38) **ChatGPT's Explosive Growth by the Numbers** - Alex presents three key charts showing the pace of AI adoption since his last appearance in June 2024
- 7 (18:22) **The Coding Revolution Is Already Here** - Discussion of how AI coding tools have become ubiquitous in the tech industry in just one year
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Guests on this episode
Show Notes
On episode 253 of The Compound and Friends, Downtown Josh Brown and Michael Batnick are joined by Big Technology founder, Alex Kantrowitz, to discuss: OpenAI and Anthropic’s explosive growth, the threat to traditional software companies, soaring cloud demand, agentic AI, and the diverging strategies of Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Apple, Google, and other tech giants. Plus, where AI profits may ultimately accrue, and whether today’s massive spending boom can deliver lasting returns.
This episode is sponsored by ProShares. Learn more at proshares.com.
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