Worries about Cerebras's IPO, the never-ending crisis at Boeing, and nuclear power
Welcome to Cautious Optimism, a newsletter on tech, business, and power.
Rest easy, Steve: Yesterday, Sifted reported that Steve O’Hear died at age 49. Steve was a former TechCrunch scribbler, Zapp executive, and PR pro. TechCrunch has words here.
He was so fucking kind. During my first day at TechCrunch, he worked late so that we could get my first story out, even if he wrote most of it. That’s a tiny example, but one that stuck with me. I had just turned 24, and he had no reason to know, let alone care, about me. And he did, of course, from across an ocean and several time zones. That’s just how he was.
I think this video is the last time that Steve and I intersected professionally. Gone too soon. May his memory be a blessing to us all.
📈 Trending Up: Goldman Sachs … Bank of America … Citigroup … $400M VC … Kairos Power … saber rattling … Aerleum
📉 Trending Down: Passwords … shutting up … AI chip access in the Middle East … YouTube … Bechtel ..
Boeing: Back in 2020, Boeing raised $25 billion worth of debt due to concerns of a “multi-year slump in air travel because of the coronavirus pandemic.” More recently, Boeing raised $10 billion after burning “$3.93 billion in free cash during the first quarter as production of its best-selling jet declined.”
This April, Barron’s wrote that Boeing had too much debt, and might have to issue shares, risking dilution for existing shareholders. Then Boeing got into a strike with tens of thousands of workers, and is now looking to raise $25 billion more.
Whoops!
We still have jails, right? TD Bank is set to pay billions in fines after facilitating money laundering. “By making its services convenient for criminals, TD Bank became one,” Attorney General Garland said. And yet, despite “allegedly failed to monitor $18.3 trillion in customer activity over a six-year period, allowing three money laundering networks to move millions of dollars through its accounts” as The Hill wrote. I have yet to read anywhere that people are going to jail. Jail, the place where we put criminals, you know?
Time to learn the name of every nuclear startup or scale-up in the world: Google is getting in on the, ‘“Oh shit, where are we going to get all the power we need for data centers? Guess it will have to come from nuclear” train.
Microsoft is working to get sweet, sweet low-carbon nuclear power too, as is Amazon. There are a number of startups building nuclear power systems — expect a list shortly.
Can Cerebras go public?
A few days ago CO dug into Cerebras’ IPO filing. The company, which builds chips that compete with Nvidia and other companies’ offerings, had lots of growth to crow about in its S-1. It also had, as we noted, massive customer concentration concerns.
Here’s how Cerebras explained its customer revenue mix in its IPO documents: