Discussion

• @deanwball Dean W. Ball on x

  Regarding the future of SaaS as discussed in the Citrini article: basically what I think will happen is that the companies who purely provide software products and services will be cooked, but that, ironically enough given the name, that's not what a lot of SaaS firms actually

• @citrini7 @citrini7 on x

  I spent 100 hours over the past week researching, writing and editing the piece we just put out. It's a scenario, not a prediction like most of our work. But it was rigorously constructed, dismissing it outright requires the kind of intellectual laziness that tends to get

• @stevehou Steve Hou on x

  What a day that has been defined by the @Citrini7 essay! I wonder how many will still feel the same way about it when they wake up tomorrow as they do today. This is truly a thought-provoking piece, even more so than I had initially appreciated when we chatted about it. I can

• @emollick Ethan Mollick on x

  Like AGI 2027, this is “hard” science fiction - it is an attempt at scenario building (which is useful!) but not a fully plausible path. I think @alexolegimas's write-ups on the potential economics around AGI are a more useful basis for your predictions: https://aleximas.substack…

• @itzsuds Sudarshan on x

  Citrini mostly has it right - in a fast take off scenario, software and the trillions of dollars of economic value created from jobs that make & use it collapses to ~$0 He asked for push back so, 6 things to note: [1] This is *too* focused on a SaaS-first world. The “meta” will

• @realestaterahul Rahul Chhajed on x

  One of the most thought provoking pieces I've read in a while. Touches on everything from AI's relationship with labor, the zeroing of the intermediary economy, the practical effects on our financial system, and more. One thing is for sure, massive change is coming. Must Read!

• @loopify @loopify on x

  7,000 words in the most viral article today but I know you guys don't read so here is a summary: ∙ It's a fictional memo written from June 2028 looking back, exploring what happens if AI succeeds so well it actually crashes the economy ∙ AI coding tools get so good by late

• @cryptoklotz Doug Funnie on x

  this is prob the most depressing thing i've read in eons, simply through its plausibility would love to see someone cope-refute this just to feel better lol

• @tszzl Roon on x

  aggregate demand is a parameter our civilization tunes at will when we have the wherewithal to do so so none of this adds

• @benwfreeman1 Benjamin Freeman on x

  My favorite snip-it: “Over the past 50 years, the US economy built a giant rent-extraction layer on top of human limitations: things take time, patience runs out. Trillions of dollars of enterprise value depended on those constraints persisting... Agents removed the friction.” [i…

• @citrini7 @citrini7 on x

  Okay you can separate the reaction to the piece solely along the lines of people who understood the DASH point and people who somehow thought the point was that code was a moat for DASH (stupid). I am going to spell it out extremely simply. 1) Agentic commerce = agents are

• @goodguyguaranty @goodguyguaranty on x

  My old prediction that we'll all live in a generative metaverse while our physical surroundings degrade and a small group of overlords runs the simulation is looking pretty good right now. This is also the plot of Ready Player One which everyone should watch. Hits harder with AI.…

• @conorsen Conor Sen on x

  It's a good sci-fi read. One thought experiment is that if Jamie Dimon could push an AI button and fire half his company with no impact on profits would he do it? Because to me the answer is clearly no, he's smarter than that. And he's not alone.

• @borrowed_ideas @borrowed_ideas on x

  I have perhaps an odd reaction to this piece. Amidst most of the AI apocalypse narratives, I consistently feel Homo Sapiens is being underestimated relative to what we have accomplished as a species. We are hardwired to focus on a scenario that may make us increasingly irrelevant

• @charles0neill Charlie O'Neill on x

  I think the simplest, most likely reason this is wrong is that demand isn't fixed. The whole argument treats the economy as a fixed pool of cognitive tasks. If AI does more of them then humans do fewer then income falls and economy spiral. But that only holds if radically

• @cryptocyberia @cryptocyberia on x

  >AI didn't disappoint Bro, let's get real. We invested trillions because they said it would cure cancer, revolutionize all of science, automate most white collar work, put us on mars, discover immortality, and get me a girlfriend. AI has been a huge disappointment, objectively.

• @gergelyorosz Gergely Orosz on x

  So now the examples from two industries I know pretty well thanks to having worked there / been involved in them (travel agents + ridesharing/food delivery) read well but are just BS at the fundamental level... other parts I don't know well read well.... but what are the chances

• @deanwball Dean W. Ball on x

  This is probably the most believable piece of AI scenario modeling, positive or negative, I have ever read. Plenty of contestable assumptions, of course, but undoubtedly worth your time.

• @rhyssullivan Rhys on x

  Out of every example they could've chosen, they went with DoorDash? The barrier to entry for launching a delivery app is not and has never been software, it's distribution, restaurant adoption, user adoption Who is believing this stuff [image]

• @trungtphan Trung Phan on x

  A must read. Here is one section on how AI agents negotiating 24/7 for the user will massively drive down profit margins on professional services (travel booking, insurance renewals, financial advice, real estate agents etc). Any category where the value prop is “I will [image]

• @jon_stokes Jon Stokes on x

  This slaps if you have no idea how B2B SaaS works. (Apologies to all my smart mutuals who are impressed by this, but I just can't with it.) [image]

• @midnight_captl @midnight_captl on x

  Citrini is SPIKING everyone's CORTISOL levels through the roof 💀 BUT they're just jestermaxxing the SF ai doom narrative. TL;DR, this is how we think the game's going to play out: >AI will lead to massive deflation >To address this, the government will money print maximus [video]

• @econberger Guy Berger on x

  This was an interesting read but I'm not sure it's internally consistent. Main questions that came to mind: 1/ Those who own the agents - what are they doing with the money they're making? Why isn't THAT fueling employment, GDP and stock prices? 2/ interest rates: high or low?

• @citrini7 @citrini7 on x

  JUNE 2028. The S&P is down 38% from its highs. Unemployment just printed 10.2%. Private credit is unraveling. Prime mortgages are cracking. AI didn't disappoint. It exceeded every expectation. What happened? https://www.citriniresearch.com/ ...

• @tysonbrody Tyson Brody on x

  kind of confused by this piece. interesting stuff on the mechanics of financial contagion and firms unexpectedly vulnerable to AI. but the scenario described is a depression, not a recession? why would white collar flood into the service sector when no one is paying for services?

• @godsburnt Shibo on x

  This article is the most important thing you'll read this year and it's available to everyone. One thing. Just read it. Almost nobody will. And in a few months they'll wish they had.

• @gergelyorosz Gergely Orosz on x

  Eh. I just don't buy this because I actually understand specific examples all too well: 1. It paints a picture of DoorDash disrupted by vibe coded alternatives. Dude. DoorDash / Uber moat is NOT software!! It's real-world physical logistics. AI cannot disrupt DD... 2. (cont'd)

• @dvasishtha Dhruv Vasishtha on x

  Excellent pre-mortem that articulates exactly why there is so much anti-AI and anti-data center sentiment. And we as a tech industry need to chart the abundance counter factual. [image]

• @illscience Anish Acharya on x

  a different way this could go down: - a 20% productivity increase mostly shows up as a four day work week since its massively difficult to automate 100% of a job - deflation (not disinflation) drives real prices down in healthcare and education, as administrative work gets

• @citrini7 @citrini7 on x

  in America, it's illegal to think about bearish outcomes. even if you've been bullish for 3 years straight - consider a bearish scenario and you're excommunicated from the twitterati [image]

• @sammykoppelman Sam Koppelman on x

  Like a horror movie you can't look away from, @Citrini7 wrote an article here that hasn't stopped rattling around in my mind. If it's even 20% right... the world is going to look very different.

• @gergelyorosz Gergely Orosz on x

  2. The example of AI agents disrupting travel agents because AI agents can find cheaper travel deals than what travel agents offer. Also BS!! I worked at Skyscanner (massive airline + hotel + car rental aggregator.) Travel agents have the most of offering the cheapest tickets /

• @citrini7 @citrini7 on x

  If you want to read a piece that lays out the best bull/base case scenario, you should go read “Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital” by Perez. The book argues that every technological advancement follows the same framework as it relates to public markets. There's an

• @buccocapital @buccocapital on x

  Very well-written and very depressing science fiction. Worthy of your time to read and consider

• @splitcapital Zaheer on x

  7 million+ impressions on one of the most optimistic outcomes of AI being digested by white collar workers, globally. The surprising learning is that so many people are caught off guard by this outcome as if it wasn't abundantly obvious that employment would fall off a cliff?

• @jamesborow @jamesborow on x

  The new millennial in tech Sunday scaries is doomer content built to read at your kids basketball game.

• @___4o____ @___4o____ on x

  The whole economy is now blindly operating under the assumption that AI is accelerating on the AGI 2027 timeline. What a fucking joke. LLM psychosis clearly extends far beyond SF now. The normies have no idea how this technology actually works and have fallen for the Sam Altman

• @jesse_livermore Jesse Livermore on x

  Hell of a quote from @Citrini7 here: “We had overestimated the value of ‘human relationships.’ Turns out that a lot of what people called relationships was simply friction with a friendly face.”

• @discoplomacy Sam on x

  Absolutely fascinating piece. So many points I had never given significant thought to before. Wish more finance types took a stab at writing these sort of notes publicly and provocatively. [image]

• @danhockenmaier Dan Hockenmaier on x

  This piece shows a profound lack of understanding of how marketplaces work and why they are defensible. “A competent developer could deploy a functional competitor in weeks, and dozens did, enticing drivers away from DoorDash and Uber Eats by passing 90-95% of the delivery fee

• @econberger Guy Berger on bluesky

  As always w/ @citrini.bsky.social an interesting read but I'm not sure it's internally consistent.  —  Main questions that came to mind:  —  1/ Agent owners: what are they doing with the money they're making?  Why isn't THAT fueling employment, GDP ? stock prices?  —  www.citrini…

• @cameron.stream Cameron on bluesky

  AI is really going to fuck up markets in ways we probably can't imagine.  These folks wrote a decent speculative piece about it.  —  www.citriniresearch.com/p/2028gic

• @bill-of-lefts @bill-of-lefts on bluesky

  not endorsing the details of this scenario, but this is sort of what I was imagining  —  www.citriniresearch.com/p/2028gic [embedded post]

• r/slatestarcodex r on reddit

  The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis

• r/neoliberal r on reddit

  The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis

• @ericbalchunas Eric Balchunas on x

  Can you imagine the money they'd print in this situation? Biblical-level QE. Interesting thought experiment tho.. (altho I tend to think breakthrough tech creates new industries/jobs that are hard to see ahead of time even as it disintermediates others)

• @johnloeber John Loeber on x

  Contra Citrini7

• @geiger_capital @geiger_capital on x

  My favorite part of the @Citrini7 piece India is going to be absolutely decimated due to their entire economy being reliant on providing cheap white-collar workers to the West. Probably spot on, actually. [image]

• @hackteck Erik van Eykelen on x

  Citrini identifies the right risks, this counter piece identifies the right brakes. The outcome depends on which runs faster, and nobody knows that yet.

• @teortaxestex @teortaxestex on x

  chuckled on this but ultimately, although a good piece, it doesn't appreciate another part of the problem. It's not that we (Americans actually; most others are legit screwed) may run out of jobs, it's that many humans become unemployable. Tell horses about comparative advantage.…

• @jigarshahdc Jigar Shah on x

  Well argued. Captured my argument well. Also we are still short 2 million trades people.

• @stevenglinert @stevenglinert on x

  Amazing response. This whole article was just unbelievable gibberish.

• @indian_bronson @indian_bronson on x

  Not even mad anymore at how bad the Citrine essay is, I'm just disappointed in how many of you were taken in. It is not a good feeling to have one's estimation of even a single peer's intelligence revised downwards. Dozens? Almost unbearable.

• @arindube Arin Dube on x

  Provocative take. Here's a simplified Keynesian translation: automation redistributes income toward capital owners with lower MPC, weakening aggregate demand. Higher unemployment reinforces this through lowering wages further (wage Phillips curve). The shock pushes the economy

• @tmtlongshort @tmtlongshort on x

  If you're a PM and none of your analysts were imaginative enough to describe a scenario like Citrini just did months ago at a minimum ...as well as what the likely measures the govt would take to mitigate the probabilities in response... you are not properly equipped to deal with

• @can @can on x

  im sorry but the “ai in 2028” essay isn't good. you picked doordash as your “copied by ai” prime example?

• @sarthakgh Sar Haribhakti on x

  A large part of tech twitter experience is now going back and forth on AI boosterism <> doomerism spectrum via viral native articles

• @eric_seufert Eric Seufert on x

  Right. The AI doomer report is intellectually sloppy and belies a deep misunderstanding of the economics of consumer technology broadly but of agentic commerce specifically. Why would $DASH and $UBER not be the principal beneficiaries of agentic commerce by simply embedding

• @hedgedirty @hedgedirty on x

  If unemployment gets to 6.0%, the fed is cutting to zero. Above 6.5 the QE helicopter drops start. You might lose in real terms on assets by inflation but nominal values will rip because the financial system will have more liquidity than the Pacific Ocean

• @danhockenmaier Dan Hockenmaier on x

  @Citrini7 I understand the argument. There is a major flaw in it: Customers (or the agents acting on their behalf) don't just care about “getting the lowest price”. They care about: - Access to all of the best restaurants, full menus, accurate prices - Fast and reliable delivery …

• @cryptoklotz Doug Funnie on x

  JUNE 2028 You're a millennial who pivoted to cash, and was finally able to afford a home. You bag a 4 bedroom house in Austin for 250k, down from its original listing price of 1.1m There are dozens of former software engineers bidding to mow your lawn for $15

• r/BetterOffline r on reddit

  New article going viral among AI bros on Twitter: THE 2028 GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE CRISIS

• @fabknowledge @fabknowledge on x

  Okay finally read the Citrini piece. No one knows the future, and i think that theres a lot of disclaimers being like “yeah this is p speculative” but the core thrust of it is that information work itself has a real premium and pricing power that has been embedded into it, and

• @andyfang Andy Fang on x

  We definitely believe agentic commerce will be transformative to the industry. DoorDash will need to continue to earn the right to service customers (agents?) end-to-end (discovery, ordering, delivery, support, etc.). With agents, how customers determine their preferences, how

• @jackclarksf Jack Clark on x

  Figuring out what the trends will be for AI and employment feels like figuring out how deep learning might influence computer vision in ~2010 - clearly, something significant will happen, but there is very little data out of which you can make a trend.

• r/singularity r on reddit

  THE 2028 GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE CRISIS

• @thestalwart Joe Weisenthal on x

  The @Citrini7 selloff [image]

• @dmnd.me Jeremy Diamond on bluesky

  I know this is framed as a thought experiment and not a prediction, but this is simply not descriptive of what people value in these categories.  —  www.citriniresearch.com/p/2028gic [embedded post]

• @ljkawa Luke Kawa on bluesky

  Some proof this is the Citrini Research selloff:  —  The viral dystopian post is hitting everywhere!  —James van Geelen is top 3 in Bloomberg profile views over the past hour  —4.5M impressions, 2.1K RTs, 12K bookmarks on OG post (per X)  —  sherwood.news/markets/soft...

• @citrini7 @citrini7 on x

  This is the first article I've ever written with the express hope that I am wrong. People discussing the topics raised, becoming more proactive and being aware of the risks inherent to what's happening in technology is how that happens. I'm glad people are trying to prove or [ima…

• @gavinsbaker Gavin Baker on x

  Loved the @Citrini7 thought piece. However seems unlikely we will have enough compute for this scenario in 2028, or even the early 2030s. Distillation, quantization and Edge AI cannot bridge the gap. AGI is an event horizon with a significant compute dependence.

• @teortaxestex @teortaxestex on x

  the discourse around Citrini is blowing up because this is the specific piece that finally conveyed to the white collars what crappy artists have been going through in the last 4 years. So they lash out, like artists did. [image]

• @mweinbach Max Weinbach on x

  Wanna know why SaaS and security likely isn't dead with AI? When Crowdstrike took down Windows systems, hospitals, airlines, and basically every major service, those companies shifted the blame and liability to Crowdstrike. Can't do that with a vertical system

• @mweinbach Max Weinbach on x

  The idea that agents will autonomously make purchasing decisions with a person's money is far fetched, everyone wants to know how their income is spent. and the idea that brands are dead because agents make decisions are also not happening, it's purchasing for a person and that

• @michaeljburry Cassandra Unchained on x

  And you think I'm bearish. https://www.citriniresearch.com/ ... [image]

• @chrispainteryup Chris Painter on x

  Oh man, this is excellent. It feels like the first scenario I've read that fully plays out the economic implications of automating white-collar work, which is important given their political significance.

• @dystopiabreaker @dystopiabreaker on x

  okay opus 6.0, implement economic controls at the fed to solve the deflationary pressure and falling aggregate demand. make no mistakes.

• @skooookum @skooookum on x

  I read the whole thing. Great piece. Agree (thesis): we're building an economy on assumptions about labor income that are increasingly fragile, and the financial system hasn't priced that fragility Disagree (timeline): I think it's ~2032

• @stevehou Steve Hou on x

  I've been watching the responses to the Citrini piece all night. It's interesting that one of the most often mentioned “critique” is that they left out fiscal policy response. I find that the least interesting bit. Sure, fiscal policy will respond eventually, almost

• @sky.skymarchini.net Sky Marchini on bluesky

  so citrini wrote this article arguing that if ai succeeds it'll crush the market and people are MAD AS HELL about it www.citriniresearch.com/p/2028gic

• @carlquintanilla Carl Quintanilla on bluesky

  In case you were wondering why AmEx, Ralph Lauren and other “high-income” stocks are getting pinched.  —  @citrini.bsky.social $AXP $RL  —  www.citriniresearch.com/p/2028gic?  ut...  [image]

• @akshatrathi Akshat Rathi on bluesky

  Sci-fi now moves markets??  Here is the AI report that led to tumbling of DoorDash and Amex stocks. www.citriniresearch.com/p/2028gic [image]

• @mikeisaac Rat King on x

  there is probably a short sellers inverse ETF to be made based on every new software plugin released by anthropic and google, going down the list of different industries this type of headline is basically happening on a weekly basis now [image]

• @jasonlk @jasonlk on x

  The Last 12 Months for Leading Software Stocks [image]

• @schuldensuehner Holger Zschaepitz on x

  The software selloff continues, w/cybersecurity stocks particularly hard hit following the release of Anthropic's Claude Code Security due to fears that this code-focused tool will change the industry. This indicates that there is nowhere to hide when it comes to software stocks.…

• @goodalexander @goodalexander on x

  Citrini sent Amex -8% intraday and you're fading on chain agents???

• @conorsen Conor Sen on x

  Two people have called me in the last 30 minutes asking if this market move is really because of the Citrini report.

• @ljkawa Luke Kawa on x

  Some proof this is the @Citrini7 selloff: It's hitting everywhere! -He's top 3 in Bloomberg profile views over the past hour -4.5M impressions, 2.1K RTs, 12K bookmarks on OG post (per X) https://sherwood.news/...

• @apralky Yung Macro on x

  Ok, maybe posters do just run the world now? [image]

• @dalibali2 @dalibali2 on x

  Software giving me bank stock vibes during GFC

• @stocksavvyshay Shay Boloor on x

  SOFTWARE IS OFFICIALLY IN ITS BIGGEST PULLBACK IN 4 YEARS [image]

• @skooookum @skooookum on x

  podcastonomics

• @blondesnmoney @blondesnmoney on x

  That might've been the most market moving piece ever written

• @buccocapital @buccocapital on x

  I just keep trying to remind myself: these fucking psychos vomited Google, the greatest business in the world, down to 15x earnings It can always go lower. These are worse businesses at higher prices. It can always go lower

• @buccocapital @buccocapital on x

  I thought it was a nice, compelling piece of science fiction. I am genuinely, genuinely shocked by the market response This is “get me out at any price” action on already bombed out names I don't know what to do with that. Right now nothing. Just observing

• @conorsen Conor Sen on x

  For one day at least the Citrini piece has DeepSeek moment vibes.

• @jon_stokes Jon Stokes on x

  Turns out the real AI-driven deflation scenario is, “we vibe-coded a viral ‘research note’ and the resulting hallucination caused a big market selloff.”

• @natewitkin Nathan Witkin on x

  This is insane. Market should not be reacting like this to an economically implausible sci-fi story. That it is implies deep uncertainty and confusion surrounding AI.

• @josephwang Joseph Wang on x

  Bonds are the ultimate AI trade.

• @eliant_capital @eliant_capital on x

  We're now vibe coding American Express I see

• @edzitron.com Ed Zitron on bluesky

  Here is an annotated version of the Citrini Memo with my own intro.  It is analyslop - scare-fiction written to ingratiate AI boosters and analysts/traders with tales of ultra-automation and socialist data center policies.  Shameful that the markets reacted at all.  —  www.dropbo…

• @turnernovak Turner Novak on x

  Crazy that DoorDash, the company that exists because we're lazy, will be going bankrupt in 18 months because some dude was too lazy to order DoorDash and just had his agent build his own version

• @bearlyai @bearlyai on x

  Credit card stocks down big based on Citrini Research says AI agents will eventually transact on Stablecoin payment rails and bypass interchange. ▫️Visa -4.4% ▫️Mastercard -6.3% ▫️American Express -7.9% ▫️Capital One -8.0% [image]

• @buccocapital @buccocapital on x

  Software? Zero Card networks? Zero DoorDash? Zero Your job? Zero Your marriage? Zero The top of the K? Zero The bottom of the K? Zero The entire Indian subcontinent? Believe it or not...Zero

• @sadbusdriver Joe Fish on bluesky

  Tbh this article is a good reason why econ needs models.  The article is basically a very Marx-coded macro model where increasing amounts of labor-replacing capital kills off aggregate demand and causes mass unemployment.  Okay, but a lot of assumptions go into that!  —  www.citr…

• @carlquintanilla Carl Quintanilla on bluesky

  “.. It should have been clear all along that a single GPU cluster in North Dakota generating the output previously attributed to 10,000 white-collar workers in midtown Manhattan is more economic pandemic than economic panacea.”  —  #GhostGDP 👻  —  www.citriniresearch.com/p/2028gi…

• @cloud_opinion @cloud_opinion on x

  Claude Code for President - 2028 LFG!!!!

• @alexia Alexia Bonatsos on x

  Popular markets commentator Citrini7 who you just heard of for the first time today.

• @mr_derivatives Heisenberg on x

  Everyone thinks that Citrini article heard around the world spells doom for the stock market. But he said the $SPX will hit 8,000 before the so called doom. That's another 20% upside from here. Let's grab some drinks, come back to the dance floor, and let's talk to those