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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bill Zebub" data-source="post: 9892662" data-attributes="member: 7031982">If you're investing in startups you wouldn't be able to buy stock.  You'd be doing some kind of early-stage private equity investment, e.g. "angel" investing (direct investment of your own money) or through a venture fund.And the math behind determining the value of an early stage company is kinda funny.  What you do is estimate...guess, really...at what value you think the company will have at the end of some time period, and work backward.  So let's say that you think the company will...or could...be worth $100 million in 5 years, and they are raising $1 million today.  You want to make 20x your money (because in venture investing you assume you'll lose most of your investments, so the ones that succeed have to have fabulous returns).  To get back $20m on a $100m sale you need 20% of the company, so it's "value" today must be $5m in order for your $1m to buy 20%.  (There's a lot of fine print, but that's the gist of it.)It's all kind of voodoo.It has to do with amortization, i.e. for how long the investment costs can be spread out.  Amazon's investments build infrastructure that will, in theory, serve them far into the future.  Even the trucks, which don't last forever, at least have some number of years of life.  The question with these LLMs is whether the operating profit will replace the amount invested in them before they become obsolete.</blockquote>