>ZIRP was the fuel, the lightener and your will are the "root causes". But with no fuel, no fire.
But the "Z" in "ZIRP" is literally zero% interest so your reply doesn't seem to address the gp's counter-examples of >0%. Other examples of non-zero% interest rate time periods include 1990s high-interest rates of +5% with Amazon in 1994 losing money for 7 years, PayPal 1998 losing money for 3+ years, Google 1998 losing money for 3+ years.
Those counter-examples means the simplistic narrative of "ZIRP is The Reason" does not explain everything. Those non-profitable companies were immediately scaling out to win the market and didn't wait for year 2008 ZIRP to do it.
Today, OpenAI (and other AI startups) are losing billions and expect to lose more billions in the upcoming years even though the current interest rate is ~4%.
>Today, OpenAI (and other AI startups) are losing billions and expect to lose more billions in the upcoming years even though the current interest rate is ~4%.
AI stuff is little different. If OpenAI and others hit AGI or anything remotely near it, the money is in theory massively endless. So investing when you could get 4% in a company that would return 10000% makes sense.
However, 4% in a company growing 15% in their field with profit margin of 10% means if only 1 in 5 survive, you have lost money so investors pull back.