sp527 parent
It's such an egregiously bad error, you almost have to wonder if Altman did it intentionally for publicity (which does seem to be working).
I think the stock market has just proven time and time again that a large proportion of investors (and VCs) do basically no due diligence or critical thinking about what they're throwing money at, and businesses actually making profit hasn't mattered for a long time - which was the only thing tethering their value to the actual concrete stuff they're building. If you can hype it well your share price goes up, and even the investors that do do due proper diligence can see that and so they're all in too.
By and large people do not have the integrity to even care that numbers are obviously being fudged, and they know that the market is going to respond positively to blustering and bald faced lies. It's a self reinforcing cycle.
Oh trust me I know. I worked at Palantir well before it was public and had firsthand experience of Alex Karp. He would draw incomprehensible stick figure box diagrams on a whiteboard for F100 CEOs, ramble some nonsensical jargon, and somehow close a multimillion dollar pilot. The guy is better at faking it than high-end escorts. It doesn't surprise me that this has fooled degens around the world, from Wall Street to r/wallstreetbets. Incredibly, even Damadoran has thrown in the towel and opened a position, while still admitting he has no idea what they do.
It’s vibes all the way down :)