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CoreWeave went from one graphics card on a pool table to $104 billion in AI contracts and $35 billion of debt. Here's why CoreWeave stock is dropping.
In 2016, two natural gas traders started mining Ethereum with a single GPU in their Manhattan office. Ten years later, CoreWeave rents Nvidia chips to OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft and Anthropic, has 4.2 gigawatts of power under contract, and is one of the biggest names in AI. But the build-out runs on borrowed money: $35 to $39 billion of spending this year, an interest bill of about $640 million a quarter, and in October 2026 its bonds yielded close to 15% while the stock fell about a quarter in a single week.
We explain the CoreWeave business model (think AWS, but built purely for AI), how CEO Michael Intrator turned a crypto mine into a GPU-backed lending machine with special purpose vehicles and take-or-pay contracts, and what Nvidia gets out of being CoreWeave's supplier, investor and buyer of last resort.
Then the real question: is this the AI bubble's weakest link, or a trade that works? We weigh the risks (pricier loans, three customers making up 72% of revenue, chips that may age faster than their loans) against the case for CoreWeave, and four ways it could get out of this without slowing down.
0:00 One GPU on a pool table, $35 billion of debt
0:49 What CoreWeave actually does: AWS built for AI
1:44 The natural gas trader behind CoreWeave
2:42 ChatGPT, Nvidia and the first GPU-backed loan
4:01 The CoreWeave IPO, $187,
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