Asymmetric Bets
Hedge Fund Analyst, Private Company CFO, Idiosyncratic Stocks & Accelerating Fundamentals
IREN is not worth re-entering after pivoting to enterprise customers rather than hyperscalers, which undercuts the hoped-for mega deal. The setup had looked better, with Sweetwater energized, the Mirantis deal, NVIDIA financing, Exemplar status and $700M of co-CEO RSUs seemingly ahead of a big deal, but governance is a clown show. @Skeptical1704 flagged the enterprise pivot. BRUN, growing faster from a smaller base, Exemplar certified and with a CEO owning 50%, is the better enterprise play. x.com x.com x.com x.com
IREN's low-margin bare-metal business is being financed on uncontracted future capacity, so rising opex and added financing will pressure it. A Goldman Sachs report now flags exactly that: extra financing supports a material amount of uncontracted capacity, the Secured Power metric IREN touts. Most AI data center leasing models will be pressured in some way, and IREN is the most obvious example. x.com
IREN looks like an absurd management money grab, with compensation that carries zero performance hurdles. x.com
IREN's deal economics, not the Anthropic name alone, will determine whether locked-in demand earns good returns. The reported deal is good news, but its terms remain unknown, and a buyer that large can negotiate hard on price. IREN should do well: it still has more capacity to sell and is expected to charge a premium for it. x.com
IREN's predatory management and markedly weaker execution than Nebius make it hard to take seriously while Mike Alfred remains on its board. Barring an oversold bounce, IREN looks cooked big time with more time. x.com x.com
IREN keeps falling behind Nebius: it misses estimates, its story keeps getting pushed back, and despite its capacity it fails to sign contracts or bring in meaningful revenue. Its management, software and engineering are all weaker, and it has not beaten Nebius on any front in recent years. @SpoonKidnapper counters that IREN is still converting its Canadian sites from bitcoin mining to AI, so ARR doesn't yet reflect where it will be in a quarter or two. x.com
IREN's long-term appeal rests on its standing as one of the best vertically integrated AI neoclouds. In the short term, the stock has not been this oversold since 2022. x.com
IREN's commercial momentum looks weak because it has more sponsorships than signed deals, suggesting promotional partnerships are outpacing customer commitments. x.com
IREN looks like a joke company for spending on sponsorships and giving away executive shares without announcing deals. It sponsors sports teams and the All-In podcast while giving its CEO and brother tens of millions of free shares tied to no performance metrics. x.com
Open-source models likely wrecked the heavy-capex thesis behind IREN. Debt CDS and falling token prices make the still-bullish view definitely less so. Unlike Roku, a previous long-term hold with a unique, massive user base, low capex and positive free cash flow, IREN lacks a clear path forward; without one, it is better not to hold it. If Warsh remains hawkish, a full exit from IREN is very likely. x.com x.com
IREN's lack of transparency on its biggest contract makes it hard to underwrite. It signed a multi-year deal with a leading frontier AI lab without naming the lab or the value, so the credit risk could be OpenAI's or a far weaker lab's. Nebius names and sizes its deals with Microsoft, Meta and Reflection. NDAs are usually the customer's demand, but the thesis rests on contracted revenue converting while IREN lost $684 million last quarter and funds its buildout partly through a $6 billion ATM. … Show more