Why would some of the most profitable companies in the world feel the need to load up on debt? Why would some of the most creditworthy companies in the world borrow money at a higher interest rate?

Back a couple of years or so ago, when the evidence of an AI bubble was just starting to accumulate, the standard rebuttal to skeptics broke down into two basic categories. One was that large language models were going to have such a huge impact and make so much money that a massive ROI was all but guaranteed. The second argument, specifically addressing the comparisons to the dot-com bubble, was…