This is my second conversation with Dylan Patel. Dylan is the founder and CEO of SemiAnalysis, where he tracks the semiconductor supply chain and AI infrastructure buildout.

This conversation is about the supply and demand of tokens. On demand, Dylan describes something completely explosive. He explains why the frontier model is the only model anyone wants, and willingness to pay for it is nearly unbounded. His own firm has gone from tens of thousands of dollars in AI spend last year to seven million this year.

On supply, we walk through the bottlenecks across memory, logic, and fab equipment that will determine how fast any of this can scale.

We also cover Claude Mythos and what the leading labs need to do to fix their growing public perception problem.

For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. 

-----

Become a Colossus member to get our quarterly print magazine and private audio experience, including exclusive profiles and early access to select episodes. Subscribe at ⁠colossus.com/subscribe⁠.

-----

⁠Ramp’s⁠ mission is to help companies manage their spend in a way that reduces expenses and frees up time for teams to work on more valuable projects. Go to⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠ramp.com/invest⁠⁠ to sign up for free and get a $250 welcome bonus.

-----

Trusted by thousands of businesses, ⁠Vanta⁠ continuously monitors your security posture and streamlines audits so you can win enterprise deals and build customer trust without the traditional overhead. Visit ⁠vanta.com/invest⁠. 

-----

⁠WorkOS⁠ is a developer platform that enables SaaS companies to quickly add enterprise features to their applications. Visit⁠⁠ ⁠WorkOS.com⁠⁠⁠ to transform your application into an enterprise-ready solution in minutes, not months.

-----

Rogo is the AI platform for finance. They're building agents for Wall Street that are trained to understand how bankers and investors actually do work: from diligence and modeling, to turning analysis into deliverables. To learn more, visit rogo.ai/invest.

-----

⁠Ridgeline⁠ has built a complete, real-time, modern operating system for investment managers. It handles trading, portfolio management, compliance, customer reporting, and much more through an all-in-one real-time cloud platform. Visit⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ridgelineapps.com⁠.

-----

Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://thepodcastconsultant.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠).

Timestamps:

(00:00:00) Welcome to Invest Like The Best

(00:02:29) Intro: Dylan Patel

(00:03:09) Semi Analysis AI Spend: Zero to $7M

(00:05:16) Real-World Examples of Claude Code

(00:11:41) Token Demand: “Completely Explosive”

(00:14:48) Why Everyone Wants the Frontier Model

(00:15:36) Mythos: Biggest Model Capability Jump in Two Years

(00:20:54) Fear of Rapid Model Progress

(00:23:45) Robotics as the Next Demand Wave

(00:26:03) Scaling Laws & Compute Efficiency

(00:27:24) OpenAI vs. Anthropic

(00:31:33) Supply Side: Bottlenecks Across the Stack

(00:33:26) TSMC CapEx Could Cause a Shortage

(00:36:45) CPUs, ASICs, and FPGAs

(00:40:12) Tokenomics

(00:42:20) Protests & AI Backlash