“Bits are easy, atoms are dogsht.” — Sun Tzu (probably)*
Amazon tried to build Skynet for snacks and got margin-rekt by physics.
Buy puts on reality.
INTRO: THE FUTURE? MORE LIKE FUTURELESS.
Amazon Go was supposed to be the giga-brain “walk in, walk out, get charged, no humans, no lines” revolution.
Instead it became:
“walk in, walk out, get charged months later, technology cries, store closes.”
Imagine burning billions so a camera can detect a banana.
Actually don’t imagine it — Amazon did it for you.
💸 THE COSTS: JEFF BEZOS SPEEDRUNS POVERTY
To open an Amazon Go store you need:
- 800 cameras
- 4,000 sensors
- 25 supercomputers
- 1 army of remote workers secretly correcting AI mistakes
- a priest to bless the store so the AI doesn’t misidentify a bag of chips as a laptop
Each store cost so much they might as well have gilded the walls with Ethereum.
Amazon wanted to automate retail.
Instead, they automated lighting money on fire.
🤡 THE TECH: CAN’T TELL A DONUT FROM A WALLET
The AI was supposed to be a god.
In reality it was a dyslexic Roomba with anxiety.
Customers: pick up soda, put it back
AI: “did this man just steal a human child???”
Kids walking around?
System explodes.
Two people swapping items?
Black hole.
Someone wearing a hoodie?
AI panic attack.
This wasn’t “Just Walk Out.”
It was “Just Pray My Receipt Makes Sense.”
🧍🧟 THE CUSTOMERS: UNSOLVABLE NPC PROBLEM
In software, users follow flows.
In real life, customers behave like GTA NPCs on meth.
- Pick something
- Put it back
- Pick something else
- Wander
- Block cameras
- Hold items for friends
- Hide stuff in pockets
- Touch literally EVERYTHING
AI systems: 🤯
Retail workers: 😐
Bezos: “JUST LET ME SPECULATE ON THE DOWNFALL.”
🪦 THE BUSINESS MODEL: MARGIN-RUGGED
Amazon thought it invented a money printer.
Turns out the printer printed negative money.
Retail margins already suck.
Add sci-fi surveillance tech and they suck so hard you hit a financial singularity.
They basically built a NASA mission for a convenience store.
🚗🤖 BONUS: WHY WAYMO, TESLA, AND OPTIMUS ARE ALSO SCREWED
Waymo
Stuck in like 3 cities.
Add snow and the car immediately files for disability.
Tesla Robo-Taxi
Will arrive “next year” every year until the heat death of the universe.
Optimus Robot
Great at dancing.
Totally useless at living.
Because again:
BITS ARE EASY. ATOMS ARE DOGSH*T.
🎯 CONCLUSION: BUY PUTS ON REALITY, GO SHORT ON TESLA
Amazon Go didn’t fail because Amazon is stupid.
It failed because the physical world is stupid.
If your business touches atoms, congratulations:
you’re competing against entropy, gravity, and human idiocy.
That’s why a Tesla that can’t sell cars is doomed

Leave a comment