Christopher Mims 🤌 (@mims) / X

Christopher Mims 🤌

538 posts

Christopher Mims 🤌

@mims

WSJ tech columnist and author of How to AI, the no-nonsense guide to what AI actually is and how to actually use it, for the rest of us

Baltimore, MD

amazon.com/Arriving-Today…

Joined March 2007

Pinned
Christopher Mims 🤌
@mims
Nov 16, 2025
I wrote a book about how to actually get real value out of AI. It's for CEOs and solopreneurs and skeptics and enthusiasts alike. It's the no-nonsense, bullshit-free guide that a lot of people need, but were afraid to ask for. You can pre-order it now.
19K
Christopher Mims 🤌
@mims
Aug 1, 2025
The AI infrastructure build-out is so gigantic that in the past 6 months, it contributed more to the growth of the U.S. economy than /all of consumer spending/ The 'magnificent 7' spent more than $100 billion on data centers and the like in the past three months *alone* 1/🧵
1.1M
Christopher Mims 🤌
@mims
Sep 19, 2025
I got A LOT of pushback when I wrote -- in June -- about how America's rejection of the world's best and brightest is leading to a "brain gain" for the rest of the world. But if this $100k fee on H-1B visas actually happens, expect that phenomenon to go into overdrive.
100K
Christopher Mims 🤌
@mims
Jun 21, 2025
I don’t think it’s sufficiently appreciated how much the insular circles of the extremely online have fostered a generation of smart people talking about unworkable futures based on plausible but unhinged fan fictions about how the world actually works.
76K
Christopher Mims 🤌
@mims
Aug 1, 2025
Replying to @mims
As @pkedrosky has written, as a % of GDP, spending on AI infra has already exceeded spending on telecom and internet infrastructure from the dot-com boom—and it’s still growing. One explanation for the U.S. economy’s ongoing strength is that this spending is so big it’s acting
Honey, AI Capex is Eating the Economy
From paulkedrosky.com
83K
Christopher Mims 🤌
@mims
Aug 26, 2025
economics is complicated & the fact we don't teach it in the U.S. starting in like, the 6th grade means we may all be far poorer in the future
Justin Wolfers
@JustinWolfers
Aug 26, 2025
A careful study of every populist episode since 1900 finds catastrophic consequences, which play out slowly. On average, incomes fall behind by nearly 15% over 15 years. For the U.S., this is a cost of about $13k per person per year. Over a lifetime, that's million bucks.
32K
Christopher Mims 🤌
@mims
Oct 17, 2025
THREAD The AI bubble will continue to inflate, and will reach a scale few can comprehend. This increases the downside risk that will follow in the wake of it popping. It's being fueled by two things. 1/🧵
142K
Christopher Mims 🤌
@mims
Aug 1, 2025
Replying to @mims and @pkedrosky
In an almost too-perfect parallel to the bygone age of John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie and J.P. Morgan, some of today’s power-hungry data centers are actually being put on the sites of former steel mills, because of their proximity to energy sources. 3/🧵
Can Pittsburgh’s Old Steel Mills Be Turned Into an AI Hub?
From wsj.com
39K
Christopher Mims 🤌
@mims
Aug 1, 2025
Replying to @mims and @pkedrosky
The lesson in all this: When there isn’t much regulation, and competition is limited to a handful of coexisting hegemons, the biggest threats come from overseas. The U.S. and China are, of course, locked in a contest for global industrial dominance. America once had an easy
Silicon Valley’s New Strategy: Move Slow and Build Things
From wsj.com
34K
Christopher Mims 🤌
@mims
May 17, 2024
In ten years of writing about tech, I've gotten *many* things wrong. Some of these mistakes are surprisingly common. Here, gleaned from a decade of taking my lumps, is a thread about the 5 most common mistakes people make when thinking about the future: 1/🧵
205K
Christopher Mims 🤌
@mims
Mar 6, 2025
Yesterday it became public that a bunch of my colleagues on the WSJ tech team were let go in a reorg. I want to emphasize that these are *fantastically* talented, smart, deeply sourced reporters. Anyone scooping up talent right now, I'm happy to make an intro:
Here are the WSJ tech journalists whose jobs were eliminated - Talking Biz News
From talkingbiznews.com
30K
Christopher Mims 🤌
@mims
Aug 1, 2025
Replying to @christymaginn
seems like AI is not impacting jobs except as cover for CEOs to fire people they wanted to trim anyway
12K
Christopher Mims 🤌
@mims
Aug 23, 2025
Something surprising is happening -- despite Trump admin's rollbacks of incentives for EVs and related tech: America's fast charging infrastructure is exploding. We'll see a 3x increase in chargers in just the next 4 years. I hit the road to experience it first hand.
97K
Christopher Mims 🤌
@mims
Aug 1, 2025
Replying to @McAuliffeRory
will it tho? I have no insight into this. at some point they need the (actual) profits (from end consumers) to justify this spend (and they need to be making money on every token)
16K