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Sam Altman really F'd Micron on DRAM
Posted on 3/31/26 at 7:42 am
Posted on 3/31/26 at 7:42 am
quote:
October 2025: Sam Altman flies to Seoul and signs simultaneous deals with Samsung and SK Hynix for 900,000 DRAM wafers per month. That's 40% of global supply. Neither company knew the other was signing a near-identical commitment at the same time.
Those deals were letters of intent. Non-binding. No RAM actually changed hands. But the market treated them as gospel. Contract DRAM prices jumped 171%. A 64GB DDR5 kit went from $190 to $700 in three months.
December 2025: Micron kills Crucial, its 29-year-old consumer memory brand, to reallocate every wafer to AI and enterprise customers. The company explicitly said it was exiting consumer memory to "improve supply and support for our larger, strategic customers in faster-growing segments." Translation: the AI demand signal was so loud that selling RAM to PC builders stopped making financial sense.
March 2026: Google publishes TurboQuant, a compression algorithm that reduces AI memory requirements by 6x with zero accuracy loss. Cloudflare's CEO called it "Google's DeepSeek." The entire thesis that AI would consume infinite memory forever just got a six-month expiration date on it.
Same month: OpenAI and Oracle cancel the Abilene Stargate expansion. The $500 billion data center vision that justified the RAM deals couldn't survive its own financing terms. Bloomberg attributed the collapse partly to OpenAI's "often-changing demand forecasting."
MU is now down ~33% from its post-earnings high. Revenue up 196% year over year, EPS up 682%, and the stock is in freefall because the company restructured its entire business around a demand signal that came from non-binding letters and is now being compressed out of existence by a research paper.
Micron bet the consumer division on Sam Altman's signature. The signature was worth exactly what the paper said: nothing binding.
LINK
DRAM shortage fears lead to price hikes on consumer RAM, and is why PlayStation raised its prices, and now Micron is without a consumer division
4
Posted on 3/31/26 at 7:55 am to stout
Stout, I read your quoted stuff, but not the link. I'm not exactly sure what the quoted area is trying to say. Call me an idiot, but what is the point?
Posted on 3/31/26 at 8:08 am to stout
Ya, I'm going to question this.
Why? I'm neighbors with a guy pretty high up in Micron, and based on our discussions, they've already sold every chip they're producing until the end of the fiscal year and are rushing like hell to get the new fabs online here in Boise. TurboQuant is pretty cool, but is still on paper. And Micron can revive Crucial (or rebrand it to whatever they want) just as easy as they killed it off.
Why? I'm neighbors with a guy pretty high up in Micron, and based on our discussions, they've already sold every chip they're producing until the end of the fiscal year and are rushing like hell to get the new fabs online here in Boise. TurboQuant is pretty cool, but is still on paper. And Micron can revive Crucial (or rebrand it to whatever they want) just as easy as they killed it off.
This post was edited on 3/31/26 at 8:15 am
Posted on 3/31/26 at 8:09 am to SaintEB
The point is that OpenAI signed a non-binding agreement that was widely taken as them potentially buying a massive share of global DRAM supply (some estimates went as high as ~40%).
To prepare for that kind of demand, Micron Technology shifted away from parts of its consumer business and toward AI-focused memory. That, combined with fears of future shortages, led to major price spikes in DRAM both DDR5 and even DDR4.
Since then, things have changed. Improvements like compression have reduced AI’s reliance on large amounts of RAM, and growth hasn’t come in as strong as expected. OpenAI has also stepped back from some data center plans, with Microsoft taking over more of that infrastructure.
Because of this, they are no longer expected to account for anything close to that level of DRAM demand.
This shift was only recently acknowledged publicly, but it had been building for a while and the impact to Micron and DRAM pricing had already happened.
Now we will wait to see if Micron restarts its consumer business, and if DRAM prices cool, if the shortage fears were all for nothing
It's too late for PlayStation since that price change is already in motion
In short, Sam Altman, being the scammer he is, F'd the whole world on DRAM. I really think he will end up in jail one day. There isn't anything honest about him.
To prepare for that kind of demand, Micron Technology shifted away from parts of its consumer business and toward AI-focused memory. That, combined with fears of future shortages, led to major price spikes in DRAM both DDR5 and even DDR4.
Since then, things have changed. Improvements like compression have reduced AI’s reliance on large amounts of RAM, and growth hasn’t come in as strong as expected. OpenAI has also stepped back from some data center plans, with Microsoft taking over more of that infrastructure.
Because of this, they are no longer expected to account for anything close to that level of DRAM demand.
This shift was only recently acknowledged publicly, but it had been building for a while and the impact to Micron and DRAM pricing had already happened.
Now we will wait to see if Micron restarts its consumer business, and if DRAM prices cool, if the shortage fears were all for nothing
It's too late for PlayStation since that price change is already in motion
In short, Sam Altman, being the scammer he is, F'd the whole world on DRAM. I really think he will end up in jail one day. There isn't anything honest about him.
Posted on 3/31/26 at 8:11 am to Centinel
I am sure they have sold out of the current supply. No one said they haven't, but this isn't just about the current market, but what will happen in the future as AI compression gets better and not all of the announced data centers are actually built.
OpenAI rescinding that agreement hurts the future. Not today
OpenAI rescinding that agreement hurts the future. Not today
This post was edited on 3/31/26 at 8:12 am
Posted on 3/31/26 at 8:15 am to stout
quote:
In short, Sam Altman, being the scammer he is, F'd the whole world on DRAM. I really think he will end up in jail one day. There isn't anything honest about him.
Thank you. I do not think this will affect prices just yet. Grok said this in the comments responding to someone asking about MU's stock price:
quote:
AI memory demand is still exploding: Micron's only fulfilling 50-66% of key customers' needs, just hiked FY26 capex above $25B (from $20B guide), and sees even bigger jumps in '27 for HBM/DRAM.
The recent 30%+ dip is classic semi volatility from efficiency headlines and Stargate tweaks, but fundamentals (196% rev growth) point to structural AI tailwinds winning out over short-term noise.
Posted on 3/31/26 at 8:17 am to stout
I don't see it that way.
But yes, Sam Altman is a slimy piece of shite that needs to be hung from a lamp post just on general principle.
But yes, Sam Altman is a slimy piece of shite that needs to be hung from a lamp post just on general principle.
Posted on 3/31/26 at 8:20 am to SaintEB
Yeah, ultimately Micron will be fine. Their fundamentals are still great
I am being greedy, hoping compression lessens the demand, so consumers see some relief
I do think the data center arms race is starting to cool down
I also think Apple is the AI winner by doing nothing at all and waiting it all out
I am being greedy, hoping compression lessens the demand, so consumers see some relief
I do think the data center arms race is starting to cool down
I also think Apple is the AI winner by doing nothing at all and waiting it all out
This post was edited on 3/31/26 at 8:36 am
Posted on 3/31/26 at 8:34 am to stout
quote:
MU is now down ~33% from its post-earnings high.
Still seems like a high buy-in price for this stock. Currently sitting around the same price it was to start the year. Think this will go lower?
ETA: All the "rating services" are calling this a "strong buy," which usually tells me I shouldn't buy.
This post was edited on 3/31/26 at 8:36 am
Posted on 3/31/26 at 9:36 am to stout
On 12/3, I posted this:
***
Posted on 12/3/25 at 3:41 pm to Ace Midnight
quote:
Except for graphics cards, mid-2025 was probably the best time to build a PC we're likely to see for a long, long time. Everything was at historic lows (except GPUs). Now, prices on ram have essentially doubled (already and will soon move higher - Crucial makes a lot of SSDs, too. Maybe Samung will pick up the slack on those, but they're a premium product that will do little to hold down prices.)
Yes and no. RAM is obviously a shite show now, but back then, CPU prices (of x3D chips gamers wanted) were still stubbornly high, and GPUs were (as you said) a catastrophe. While there might be a bit of an SSD crunch, the reality is that anyone already on an NVME drive really doesn't need to upgrade anytime. Hell, I'm on a couple of Gen 3 drives and mostly shrug at upgrading. I could be wrong, but I would be surprised if this RAM fiasco hasn't softened within the next six months, even with Crucial's exit.
***
We're coming up on month number four from that point, and we're starting to see articles like this: LINK
Here's to hoping that this isn't just a blip and that I got a bit lucky back then
***
Posted on 12/3/25 at 3:41 pm to Ace Midnight
quote:
Except for graphics cards, mid-2025 was probably the best time to build a PC we're likely to see for a long, long time. Everything was at historic lows (except GPUs). Now, prices on ram have essentially doubled (already and will soon move higher - Crucial makes a lot of SSDs, too. Maybe Samung will pick up the slack on those, but they're a premium product that will do little to hold down prices.)
Yes and no. RAM is obviously a shite show now, but back then, CPU prices (of x3D chips gamers wanted) were still stubbornly high, and GPUs were (as you said) a catastrophe. While there might be a bit of an SSD crunch, the reality is that anyone already on an NVME drive really doesn't need to upgrade anytime. Hell, I'm on a couple of Gen 3 drives and mostly shrug at upgrading. I could be wrong, but I would be surprised if this RAM fiasco hasn't softened within the next six months, even with Crucial's exit.
***
We're coming up on month number four from that point, and we're starting to see articles like this: LINK
Here's to hoping that this isn't just a blip and that I got a bit lucky back then
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