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Discussion · 2026-09-15

Pacing doesn’t slow models — but does it slow token revenue and capex?

Andrew Freedman of Hedgeye asks whether slowing the pace of frontier model development means slowing revenue…

Follow-up

Follow-up to Pacing the frontier means more compute, not less — at the labs' margins' expense — incremental development in the same debate.

The Debate

For vs against
Essence
Andrew Freedman of Hedgeye asks whether slowing the pace of frontier model development means slowing revenue and pulling back capex — the direct counter-argument to Gavin Baker’s bullish reframe of “pace the frontier” published hours earlier. The thread splits between bulls who say compute gets reallocated to adoption, safety and evals, and bears who say token revenue flatlines without new models, choking the labs’ ability to fund compute and pulling 2027 estimates into question.
For
  • Andrew Freedman (@HedgeyeComm): slowing the rate of model improvement doesn’t necessarily mean revenue and capex expectations are too high — the bigger opportunity is in scaling and driving adoption of what exists, and with RSI on the table the rate of improvement may even be set to accelerate.
  • Anthony Bardaro (@AnthPB): Bloomberg’s reading of Dario Amodei is poetic license — pacing, in Amodei’s own words, does not mean halting training or technical progress, but taking adequate time to align and safeguard models with third-party confirmation; compute spend need not fall.
  • Action Jackson (@AJacksonHole): if anything, more compute will be allocated to safety.
Against
  • Andy Constan (@dampedspring): if slowing model development means token revenue flatlines or falls as existing models don’t get replaced with better ones, token makers have less ability to buy compute without third-party lending — which slows revenue and pulls back capex.
  • Pythia Cap (@PythiaR): new models equal new use cases equal more revenue, so yes — slowing the rate of model development slows revenue.
  • Andrew (@AndrewhFX): the real worry isn’t the slowdown itself but a JDSU moment — customers losing access to cheap capital; it’s all about financing the marginal buyer.
  • Acesandfaults (@Acesfaults): it obviously slows revenue and capex, and 2027 estimates are a joke.

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The Tweets

4 posts
AFAndrew Freedman@HedgeyeComm · 6:47 AM · Sep 14, 2026X Post

People think that slowing down the rate of new model development means slowing down revenue and pulling back on capex spending?

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ACAndy Constan@dampedspring · Sep 14, 2026 (~14h before scan)X Post

If it means anything it means the revenue from selling tokens will flatline or fall as existing models do not get replaced with better ones. That means the token maker will have less ability to buy compute without third party lending which will slow revenue and pull back capex

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AFAndrew Freedman@HedgeyeComm · Sep 14, 2026 (~21h before scan)X Post

Just seems like there is larger opportunity in scaling and driving adoption of what exists… and that people's baseline is off, with RSI on the table that rate of model improvement actually set to potentially accelerate further. So by slowing the rate of improvement doesn't necessarily mean that revenue and capex expectations are too high. But just my two cents…

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ABAnthony Bardaro@AnthPB · Sep 14, 2026 (~15h before scan)X Post

> People think that slowing down the rate of new model development means slowing down revenue and pulling back on capex spending? fwiw, the Bloomberg inference excerpted below is significant poetic license from what Dario actually wrote - but also Dario's careful word choice having its desired effect (something everyone can read as confirming their priors given enough motivated reasoning)… @business : "Amodei insisted in his essay that 'pacing' the advance of AI capabilities won't necessarily translate into reduced spending or growth." (stratechery.com/2026/pacing-th) 👇 👆 @DarioAmodei : "To be clear, pacing does not mean halting model training or technical progress, but ensuring companies take adequate time to align and safeguard their models, and for third party evaluators to confirm this." (darioamodei.com/post/we-must-p)

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