Lisa Kalayji<p>"Amazon has a sky-high price/earnings ratio – about triple the ratio of other retailers, like Target. That scorching P/E ratio reflects a belief by investors that Amazon will continue growing. Companies with very high p/e ratios have an unbeatable advantage relative to mature competitors – they can buy things with their stock, rather than paying cash for them... Being able to buy things with stock instead of money is a powerful advantage, because money is scarce and exogenous (Amazon must acquire money from someone else, like a customer), while new Amazon stock can be conjured into existence by typing zeroes into a spreadsheet.</p><p>But the downside here is that every growth stock eventually stops growing... That's where "AI" comes in. The hype around AI serves an important material need for tech companies. By lumping an incoherent set of poorly understood technologies together into a hot buzzword, tech companies can bamboozle investors into thinking that there's plenty of growth in their future."</p><p><a href="https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/15/altering-the-deal/#telescreen" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">pluralistic.net/2025/03/15/alt</span><span class="invisible">ering-the-deal/#telescreen</span></a></p><p><a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/Amazon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Amazon</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/Privacy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Privacy</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/Surveillance" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Surveillance</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/Capitalism" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Capitalism</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/InfoSec" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>InfoSec</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/Data" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Data</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/Tech" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Tech</span></a> <a href="https://infosec.exchange/tags/AI" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>AI</span></a></p>