Episode 21 · 26 July 2026 · 26 min

Your AI Contract has a 4th year you can't afford.

Artwork for Your AI Contract has a 4th year you can't afford.

Chapters

  1. Nobody can price year four
  2. Financial bubble versus tech bubble
  3. Ninety seconds on the money
  4. Capital cycle or pedagogical one?
  5. The ten-times-the-price test
  6. Three fragilities in every contract
  7. The June model shutdown
  8. Chinese models and both locks
  9. The LMS precedent replayed

Show notes

Nobody who signs a five-year enterprise AI agreement can tell you what year four costs. Dale Leszczynski and Nick McIntosh spend this episode on the question underneath the AI bubble talk: why the tools universities now run on are priced by someone else's fundraising round, and what happens when that round runs out. Along the way: Gary Marcus's distinction between a financial bubble and a tech bubble, the June export-control shutdown of Anthropic's Fable 5 and Mythos 5, the rise of Chinese open-weight models, and what the Blackboard–Moodlerooms–Anthology saga already taught the sector about vendor capture — if anyone wrote it down.


[00:00] — Nobody can price year four
[00:46] — Financial bubble versus tech bubble
[03:39] — Ninety seconds on the money
[04:47] — Capital cycle or pedagogical one?
[08:30] — The ten-times-the-price test
[09:57] — Three fragilities in every contract
[10:53] — The June model shutdown
[17:10] — Chinese models and both locks
[20:25] — The LMS precedent replayed
[23:04] — Price the exit before signing

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