Author: a16z New Media

Translation: Deep Tide TechFlow

Original Link:https://www.a16z.news/p/charts-of-the-week-dexit-real-or

Deep Tide Introduction: This week's chart report from a16z covers four topics, each worthy of an individual article: the decline in AI costs triggering the Jevons Paradox, the real scale of capital expenditures from tech giants, Kalshi's prediction market outperforming professional forecasting agencies, and the comprehensive delay in life milestones for people in their 30s in the U.S. The data sources are solid, and the perspectives are calm and restrained, making it a high-quality reference for understanding the intersection of current tech and macro trends.

DExit… Is it a Real Trend or an Illusion?

Delaware remains the preferred state for business registration in the U.S., but this status is quietly loosening:

According to Ramp data, Delaware's share of new company registrations has been declining since 2023, with a drop of about 10% in the third quarter of 2025.

History does not repeat itself exactly, but it often rhymes… perhaps.

Delaware has not always been the holy land for corporate registration.

About a century ago, Delaware replaced New Jersey—the original "mother of trusts"—to become the preferred state for corporate registration. New Jersey lost its edge because then-Governor Woodrow Wilson attempted to curb "corporate abuses," which drastically worsened the business environment in New Jersey. Delaware's corporate law was indeed modeled after New Jersey's laws before Wilson’s era, naturally welcoming companies leaving New Jersey, and later partnered with the Delaware Court of Chancery, spending nearly 100 years establishing a reputation as a mature and fair venue for resolving disputes between corporations and investors.

However, what took a century to build began to shake just a few years ago. Right or wrong, in recent years, the Delaware Court of Chancery has taken a more lenient stance on shareholder litigation (especially in several high-profile cases, including but not limited to Tesla), leading corporations to genuinely relocate their registration elsewhere. Good night and good luck, Delaware.

This is at least the mainstream narrative, but other data indicate a more complex situation.

First of all, even the foundational myth of Delaware is not entirely accurate.

It was not until the 1980s (about 60 years after Wilson’s governorship) that Delaware truly surpassed New Jersey to become the state with the highest number of corporate registrations in the U.S.:

New Jersey’s dominance lasted much longer than the mainstream narrative describes. The catalyst for Delaware's eventual overtaking was likely the passage of various laws related to board responsibility that made it particularly appealing to publicly traded companies, alongside a network effect that continually reinforced itself, forming its own inertia.

Secondly, regardless of what high-profile publicly traded companies (and the companies in Ramp data) are experiencing, Delaware overall still appears to be performing well, and not just well:

According to data published by Harvard Law School’s Corporate Governance Forum, Delaware's share of total U.S. corporations actually grew significantly from the end of 2024 to 2025.

In fact, if you want a clear "DExit" case, it’s likely this one, and it has nothing to do with Tesla but rather involves a specific corporate structure:

Wyoming’s LLCs began to rapidly grow around 2015.

Why? This is likely related to the specific asset protection and privacy clauses in Wyoming’s LLC laws, with the state promoting this company structure as a "cowboy cocktail."

In summary, the key point here is not to say that DExit is not happening (as at least some data indicates it is indeed happening—even if it’s just a few high-profile companies relocating, it holds significant meaning), but the actual situation is certainly more complex than the mainstream narrative presents.

The reality is that Delaware still enjoys the advantage of being the default option, not to mention all the associated network effects, which are difficult to shake.

We previously released an early version of this chart, but with more data, the effects have become increasingly astonishing.

Token costs are down, Token consumption is up:

Since the beginning of this year, the price of paid Tokens has dropped from about 90 cents per million Tokens to 50 cents, while the number of Tokens processed has nearly doubled, from about 6,000 to 12,000.

This is the classic Jevons Paradox. The cheaper AI becomes, the more we use it. Delightful.

Remember when people said that once newer and better GPUs came out, old GPUs would be unwanted?

It seems that’s not the case:

According to Silicon Data, rental prices for NVIDIA H100 and A100 have risen this year.

The market is far from showing signs of an oversupply of computing power; rather, it seems we haven't even scratched the surface of existing demand.

This comparison isn’t a perfect analogy, but if history can provide a reference, we may need some time to truly see what the "AI-driven" economy looks like:

From Faraday and Henry’s initial discussions on current to the actual explosion of industrial productivity in the first half of the 20th century, it took about 100 years.

Since the 1820s, the pace of technological iteration has indeed accelerated, but the variables involved in a platform-level transformation remain extremely numerous.

Roy Amara famously said, "We tend to overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten."

Capital Expenditure Viewed on the Axes

Let’s look at this set of data that will never go out of style: AI capital expenditure is substantial.

Here’s a comparison:

AI capital expenditure is expected to be close to the total net new loans from U.S. banks in 2025:

Capital expenditure is approximately 33% higher than total corporate income tax revenue in the U.S. and about three times the total tariff revenue:

Capital expenditure is about six times the total military budget of any non-U.S. G7 member country:

So yes, the scale of capital expenditure is indeed quite large.

Kalshi's Entry into Macroeconomic Forecasting

Federal Reserve researchers believe prediction markets are quite good.

At least on one metric, Kalshi's predictions on the federal funds rate have surpassed those of professional forecasting agencies:

For the prediction of the federal funds rate 150 days out (i.e., after three FOMC meetings), Kalshi's average absolute error is very close to that of professional forecasting agencies. However, unlike surveys that only provide a modal path snapshot every six weeks, Kalshi offers continuously updated complete probability distributions… We found that Kalshi’s median and mode predictions were flawlessly accurate on the day before the FOMC meeting, which is statistically significant improvement over the predictions from federal fund futures.

In other words, although all forecasters start from a similar point, Kalshi's "continuously updating" predictions optimize over time, ultimately achieving a "perfect prediction record" the day before the interest rate is officially announced. Additionally, Kalshi’s performance also exceeded that of futures market predictions.

Kalshi's advantages go beyond the federal funds rate. As noted by Federal Reserve researchers, due to macro indicators like inflation, growth, and unemployment rate lacking other options markets, Kalshi is the only place that can provide a "high-frequency, continuously updating, richly distributed benchmark" to reflect the "public's" judgment on the direction of these economic indicators.

Sounds quite significant.

Delays in Adulthood

This is a thought-provoking chart, accompanied by (a few) comments:

The proportion of people in their 30s achieving major life milestones has been on a steep decline since at least the 1980s.

Among those in their 30s, fewer are:

Living independently;

Having been married;

Living with children;

Owning their own home.

The only exception is college enrollment rates—the proportion of individuals in their 30s with a bachelor’s degree has nearly doubled since 1995.

So, is going to college worth it?

Milestone? More like a grinding stone, right?!

Maybe yes, maybe no, but the feeling of "buyer’s remorse" seems to be lingering in the air.