The DrJ Show

Dr. Josh C. Simmons

Tech industry analysis for people who are sick of being lied to. I cover layoffs, corporate dysfunction, AI hype, and the economic forces that are crushing the middle class. And I bring the data. blog.drjoshcsimmons.com

Episodes

  1. Nvidia's $20B Groq Panic Buy Proves the AI Bubble is About to Pop

    12/27/2025

    Nvidia's $20B Groq Panic Buy Proves the AI Bubble is About to Pop

    Nvidia just spent $20 billion to buy a company that missed its revenue target by 75%. This panic acquisition of Groq signals the beginning of the end for the AI bubble - here’s why the money is running out in 2026. Timestamps: 0:00 - Nvidia’s $20 Billion Panic Buy0:43 - What is Groq? (Not Elon’s Grok)1:21 - How LPUs Work vs GPUs2:09 - The Grocery List Metaphor3:24 - GPUs vs LPUs Explained3:54 - Groq’s Product Market Fit4:50 - Formula One Use Case5:34 - Groq’s Insane Financials6:03 - $1.5 Billion Saudi Investment7:25 - 75% Valuation Haircut in 4 Months8:27 - Nvidia Buys Groq for $20 Billion9:16 - Why This is Bubble Behavior10:18 - The AI Hardware Crisis11:19 - Nvidia’s Monopoly Problem12:01 - The Power Grid Bottleneck13:13 - Electricity Cost Increases 250%14:52 - Data Center Deals Explained16:11 - Who Pays for AI Power Usage17:01 - Senate Investigation (Won’t Matter)17:51 - Unit Economics Breaking Down18:02 - The Circular Money Flow19:37 - Nvidia’s Vendor Financing Scheme20:30 - OpenAI’s $100B Nvidia Investment22:17 - 24x Return on Investment23:26 - OpenAI is Not Profitable24:32 - $75 Billion Annual Burn Rate26:05 - Needs $200B Revenue to Break Even27:01 - The Grok Lifeboat28:08 - Labor Displacement Reality29:29 - H-1B Visa Strategy31:04 - Megacorp Layoff Pattern33:14 - Salesforce CEO Walks Back Claims34:34 - AI Tracking in Performance Reviews37:01 - MIT Study: 95% Zero ROI38:15 - Nvidia Crashes 3.5%39:08 - Signs of the Bubble Pop40:01 - Timeline: Q1-Q2 202641:21 - AI Isn’t Going Away42:01 - Final Thoughts & Substack Get full access to Dr. Josh C. Simmons at blog.drjoshcsimmons.com/subscribe

    42 min
  2. AI Will Replace You? NO - Here's Why the Nvidia/OpenAI Bubble Pops 2026

    12/21/2025

    AI Will Replace You? NO - Here's Why the Nvidia/OpenAI Bubble Pops 2026

    We're in an AI bubble. Everyone feels it. The fakeness underlying the hype around Nvidia, OpenAI, and Silicon Valley AI startups is palpable. Here's how the money actually flows and why this whole thing collapses. The Circular Funding Loop OpenAI needs Nvidia GPUs to run ChatGPT. Nvidia needs massive data centers to house the GPUs. Microsoft and Oracle build and operate those data centers. Microsoft is also OpenAI's biggest investor. So Microsoft funds OpenAI, who buys from Nvidia, whose chips go into Microsoft's data centers, which OpenAI rents compute from. Money sloshing around in a closed loop, valuations inflating at every step. The "Replace Workers" Narrative ChatGPT is genuinely more capable than median IQ Americans at certain knowledge work tasks. No shame in that, just math. But the narrative that LLMs will wholesale replace humans is overhyped. They're useful tools. They're not general intelligence. The quantity-over-quality approach works for some jobs, not most. Yet the entire valuation premise depends on the "replace all knowledge workers" story being true. What This Means for Regular People Unaffordable housing. Unaffordable energy as data centers spike electricity costs. No privacy in computing since everything runs through centralized cloud infrastructure. Intellectual dependency as people outsource critical thinking to chatbots. The government is already setting up bailout infrastructure for when this pops, prioritizing OpenAI and Nvidia over American workers. Why It Pops Same pattern as crypto. Bitcoin had legitimate promise, interesting tech, real use cases. Then FTX happened. One big scam exposed, public sentiment snapped, market crashed. AI is following the same trajectory. Too many hucksters and grifters piling in. Someone major will get caught overpromising and underdelivering. Media turns, public turns, investors panic sell, musical chairs for the exits. My prediction: this happens mid-2026. It will make 2008 look like a blip. Get full access to Dr. Josh C. Simmons at blog.drjoshcsimmons.com/subscribe

    25 min
  3. 1.1 Million Layoffs

    12/14/2025

    1.1 Million Layoffs

    1.1 million layoffs announced in 2025 alone—a 54% increase from last year. Tech is getting decimated. Both political parties are failing workers. And the government's response? More surveillance, more control, and hoarding Bitcoin while you struggle.In this video, I break down what's really happening to American workers and why the system is designed to keep you trapped.📌 TIMESTAMPS0:00 — They Replaced You. They Trapped You. They're Watching You.0:25 — 1.1 Million Layoffs: The 2025 Numbers1:44 — Why AI Isn't the Real Reason2:34 — The H-1B Controversy No One Will Discuss 4:15 — Russia Importing Indian Workers Too?5:02 — They Trapped You: The Two-Income Trap7:05 — Elizabeth Warren's 2004 Prediction8:32 — Why Dual-Income Families Are MORE Vulnerable10:14 — Conservatives Don't Actually Support Trad Wives11:05 — Housing, Healthcare, Student Debt: The Full Picture12:43 — Childcare Costs More Than College Now14:01 — A Message to Those Struggling Right Now14:57 — Both Parties Ignore This Inconvenient Truth16:40 — They're Watching You: UK Surveillance Laws17:40 — Mandatory Spyware on ALL Phones21:23 — VPN Bans for Minors Explained25:33 — Why This Matters for Whistleblowers27:18 — The Real Perverts Are in Government30:29 — They're Saving Themselves: The Bitcoin Reserve32:26 — The One Way Out: Breaking Down Barriers33:08 — ID Software Unionizes Across Disciplines35:14 — The "Temporarily Embarrassed Millionaires" Problem37:03 — What You Can Actually Do🔔 Subscribe for more tech industry analysis and worker advocacy content.#techlayoffs #layoffs2025 #techworkers #twoincome #elizabethwarren #surveillance #bitcoin #unions Get full access to Dr. Josh C. Simmons at blog.drjoshcsimmons.com/subscribe

    39 min
  4. 12/12/2025

    The 2025 Tech Collapse No One Wants to Admit Is Happening

    00:00 How December 2025 became the month everything changed in tech00:34 The AI jobs apocalypse finally arrives01:08 Why new grads are getting boxed out while seniors thrive02:07 The impossible Catch-22 for anyone trying to break in02:32 Amazon’s culture meltdown and 14,000 layoffs03:16 Microsoft’s AI-driven cuts and the $500M researcher bonus pool03:54 Google quietly trims teams and shifts resources to AI04:46 Banks plan to cut junior analysts by two thirds05:32 The real reason companies want “return to office”06:28 How forced RTO quietly replaces formal layoffs07:12 When CEOs weaponize the narrative and shift blame08:13 One in four bosses admit they do this on purpose08:41 Elon’s government role and the political push for RTO09:33 Amazon’s surreal layoff justification quote10:22 Why cities and commercial real estate love RTO11:10 The talent drain these companies are pretending not to see11:30 Cloudflare, GitHub, and Microsoft outages11:55 Corporate obsession with micromanagement and time policing12:30 The rise of AI-powered employee surveillance13:01 A 6.9 billion dollar industry built on watching workers13:35 Employees are already fighting back with defeat measures14:48 Why productivity paranoia is accelerating15:44 The part of surveillance that should actually worry you16:23 Meta and Amazon tracking AI usage as a performance metric17:16 Why “AI usage” is a terrible thing to optimize18:20 When your ChatGPT history becomes a psychological profile19:49 The data trail no one thinks about20:12 Story time: learning the concept of the panopticon21:39 Tech giants are building the modern workplace panopticon22:46 The sunk-cost AI bubble and why employees get pushed to use it23:55 What happens when the merry-go-round stops24:39 The coming power shift away from legacy giants25:01 Why AI will be useful but not the worker-killer they’re betting on25:20 Workers are starting to organize25:48 Google and NYT Tech Guild wins26:16 Even legacy groups like the Teamsters are entering tech26:37 Project 2025 and anti-union policies27:21 Why hyper-capitalism broke the incentives28:07 Action items: how to protect yourself in this environment28:31 The AI bubble will correct—here’s why29:16 Build savings and ride out the turbulence29:38 Bridge the silos: engineering, product, finance, HR30:19 Push back on surveillance however you can31:03 Get curious about workplace organization32:00 Why ICs still hold the real power32:51 How executives became insulated from consequences33:41 The $37 million CEO example34:30 Your leverage as a builder34:47 Closing thoughts Get full access to Dr. Josh C. Simmons at blog.drjoshcsimmons.com/subscribe

    46 min
  5. 01 How to Become a Giga-Cracked Software Engineer

    10/20/2025

    01 How to Become a Giga-Cracked Software Engineer

    Overview Dr. J talks about what it actually means to become “giga-cracked,” a term used by engineers to describe someone who is exceptionally good at their craft. He explains how the label came to him from Bay Area friends and why it represents more than raw coding skill. The session builds on his Substack post about lessons he wishes he could tell his younger self and turns them into a direct guide for engineers who want to level up fast. Key Ideas 1. Be Restless Don’t stay in one place too long early in your career. When you stop learning, move on. Your growth rate should be steep in the first few years, and each new job should teach you something new about systems, languages, and teams. Optimize for learning, not money, until you’re established. Be open to switching languages and stacks; getting paid to learn is the fastest way to mastery. Stress is part of the process, just as it is in any high-earning, high-pressure field. 2. Find the Right Environment There’s a huge difference between working at a company that is a tech company and one that merely has a tech department. True engineering environments treat software as creative work. You want to be around people who build things for the love of it, not in rooms dominated by bean-counters obsessed with budgets. Seek companies that give engineers freedom, room for experimentation, and time for unstructured thought. Creativity, not bureaucracy, produces breakthroughs. 3. Don’t Be Insecure You’ll often feel out of your depth, especially early on or when switching jobs. That’s normal. The key is to admit what you don’t know. Saying “I don’t know” is the shortest path to learning. It removes ego, speeds up your growth, and earns respect from real engineers who love to teach. Curiosity and honesty compound faster than false confidence. Other Takeaways The software industry has room for everyone. You can coast comfortably or chase mastery; both are valid choices. Being “cracked” takes trade-offs in time, mental energy, and comfort. It’s the same deal as any elite profession. Grind hard early. Those years buy freedom later. Stay around people who genuinely love the craft. Their passion will keep you sharp. The principles remain true even in the AI era. Tools change, fundamentals don’t. Closing Three rules to internalize: Be restless. Choose the right rooms. Drop the insecurity. Follow Dr. J on Substack for the written version and future livestreams with Q&A sessions. Get full access to Dr. Josh C. Simmons at blog.drjoshcsimmons.com/subscribe

    26 min

About

Tech industry analysis for people who are sick of being lied to. I cover layoffs, corporate dysfunction, AI hype, and the economic forces that are crushing the middle class. And I bring the data. blog.drjoshcsimmons.com