alt Hacker NewsYour point is valid, but there is a flaw in the premise. They don't need to pay off the $5 trillion in 20 years. They just need to be able to service it. If they can use that debt to bootstrap the company, as long as they can pay the interest and issue new debt, they can keep that $5 trillion on the books longer than either of us will be alive
I suspect if you go back to look at say, Microsoft's books from when they went public to today they have never been debt free
All of the data up to this thread show that there is not enough revenue on the current uptake trajectory to service this debt, nor will there be (through some combination of generative AI not being that revolutionary from a productivity perspective and open weight options).
Could this change? Maybe. That's the bet.