Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing - IPO Fever Heats Up For OpenAI and Anthropic

Episode Date: August 14, 2026

Demand for AI is exploding and two companies – OpenAI and Anthropic – are driving the industry forward. Everything from hyperscalers to neoclouds to memory stocks are hanging on the demand for tokens they need. We discuss that demand, how debt got involved, and what could go wrong. Plus, what sports franchise would you buy?Travis Hoium, Lou Whiteman, and Jason Moser discuss:- AI IPO Setup- Insatiable Demand- Debt Gets Involved- Restaurant Recovery?- Buying a Franchise- Radar StocksCompanies discussed: Quantum Computing (QUBT), Firefly (FLY), Alphabet (GOOG), Amazon (AMZN), SpaceX (SPCX).Host: Travis HoiumGuests: Lou Whiteman, Jason MoserEngineer: Bart ShannonAdvertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. The Motley Fool and its affiliates (collectively, “TMF”) do not endorse, recommend, or verify the accuracy or completeness of the statements made within advertisements. TMF is not involved in the offer, sale, or solicitation of any securities advertised herein and makes no representations regarding the suitability, or risks associated with any investment opportunity presented. Investors should conduct their own due diligence and consult with legal, tax, and financial advisors before making any investment decisions. TMF assumes no responsibility for any losses or damages arising from this advertisement. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're racing to the biggest IPOs in history. Motley Fool InGems Investing starts now. Welcome to Motley Fool InGems Investing. I'm Travis Hulley. I'm joined today by Lou Whiteman and Jason Moser. And guys, we've had a lot of earnings over the past couple of weeks, but the backdrop of all of these earnings reports seems to be Anthropic and OpenAI racing towards their IPOs.

They're trying to get as much compute as possible. they're trying to grow revenue as much as possible we've already seen spacex ipo this year got to i think it was a nearly a two trillion dollar valuation i don't know if it ever popped above that fell back uh pretty quickly after that but lou we did learn this week that open i open ai is starting to catch up to anthropic with their revenue because of you know a little bit more aggressive pricing they're also i think both these companies are willing to pay top dollar for a compute. So as we think about that, and I want to get to some of the neoclouds in particular in just a moment, but how should we be thinking about the growth of these companies and whether

or not it's profitable? Because it does seem a little bit like they're growing almost at all costs at this point. As they should. Yeah. And that is, and I, profits are not a requirement. They are not, as we saw with the SpaceX IPO, profits are not required now. Growth is required. So they are doing what they should do. Look, it could turn tomorrow, but as of now, there's a lot of source of capital. And as Anthropic and OpenAI go public, there's even more sources of capital. You need profits when the market tells you you need profits. The hard thing as a management team is, is that you don't necessarily get a exit sign three miles in advance. You don't get a warning. So you better be ready for profits when they come. But as of now, there is nothing that tells us that the market is worried about this quarter's results. They're curious about what you're building. So go out and build something and may it long continue for these companies, because I don't know when they're going to hit profitability. Jason is that how you see this because it does look a little bit like I think the neoclouds were a good example over the past week the numbers are phenomenal Lou's right the revenue numbers are great but every time I look at these companies I'm wondering what is sustainable and what isn't

because it does seem like we have this exponential growth to infinity I mean I even saw projections that uh that SpaceX could add 10 gigawatts worth of capacity which would be several hundred billion worth of end of customer revenue. I'm not sure exactly where that comes from, but it does seem like these companies are growing at an astronomical pace. And I'm not sure where the end of that is. Yeah. It makes me think of like, you know, that investing style GARP, right? Growth at a reasonable price. These businesses are just growth at all costs. And right now, I mean, the market is pricing these companies entirely on with no regard as far as margins are concerned.

And I mean, I get that. That makes sense today. The question mark is, how long will that be tolerated? My suspicion is it will be tolerated for a while. What's that old saying? The market can remain irrational far longer than you can remain solvent or something like that, right? I mean, this is going to, it may seem irrational and we're not exactly seeing the clear pathway to profitability because, I mean, you're right.

All of these investments in compute, I mean, they're paying up for it, of course, but what is the ultimate return? And I think that's what we're all kind of asking. It's probably easier to see at the enterprise level right now. But my bet is if you just go take a walk down the main street and just ask a random sample of people like, hey, how is AI impacting your life today? Most people would probably be like, I don't know. I mean, maybe they use an LLM, right? It makes customer support worse to interact with. Right. I mean, so I think that's, we need to sort of see that aha moment where we really understand how these dots all connect. And I don't doubt that we'll get there eventually, but until we do, you know, these companies

are just going to continue to raise money, spend on growth at all costs and hope, I guess, that profits come at some point. And I think the question mark for me is where do those profits really ultimately come from? Because, again, going back to just general society, most people are not paying for subscriptions to Claude or Gemini or whatever. I mean, it is just a very minuscule percentage of people that actually pay for those subscriptions. So that's not going to be a source of income. That's not going to be the solution. That begs the question, will it be advertising?

Well, I don't know. It's worked out well for Google, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see. It's hard to imagine a world where all of these companies are winners, which is really, really hard. Because even if I agree with you, Jamo, I mean, look, can you imagine Google trying to charge for search, even if it's AI search now? That's a non-starter. So it's going to have to be, you know, I don't know. Advertising, I guess, will change, but maybe stay. It's hard to imagine short of.

I mean, I've even seen these like personal assistant things and they, I don't think life or at least life for me isn't rigid enough to fit into the confines of a personal assistant the way they do them. So I think it's a real tough sell. It is for the enterprise who can gain traction. But even then, I haven't seen anything to suggest like, oh, we are just signing a 10 year deal with Anthropic or something like that. Even that feels very fleeting company to company. i there's definitely a there there like jason says there is definitely something is involving here there's something there but how it turns into sustainable profits for any of these companies i don't know i it's a weird moment as an investor because i both guarantee you travis that this is

not sustainable and it won't work for everyone and i wouldn't put your money out there betting against it right now because you know so so you're just kind of thank you i appreciate that yeah You're kind of stuck in this la-la land where I know it can't last forever, but gosh, it works right now. And that's a very, very unsettling, at least for me as kind of a conservative, I'm not a YOLO guy. And it's a very unsettling place to be where you kind of don't want to, you know, FOMO if you're not involved and you also know that there is another chapter to be written here and it's not nearly as exciting. Well, and it makes you feel good as an investor, like owning companies like Amazon and Alphabet, for example, where, yes, they're making these huge investments. And sure, there are question marks as to the return on that investment, but at least they've got these businesses to fall back on. Right. I mean, if this turns out to just not return what we all hope it will, at least they have these core businesses to fall back on these cash cows that they've already got. Whereas with an open AI, with an anthropic, that's more of a one trick pony right now. And it's not to say that'll always be the case.

I mean, they may be able to introduce a number of different revenue streams as well. I'm not saying they can't. But for now, I mean, essentially, they are just kind of one trick ponies in a market that seems to become just more and more commoditized by the day. Let's also bring in the risk that I think is new in the in the last six months, not entirely new, but we've kind of gone to a new phase where so much of this buildup is now being fueled by debt. so you have the hyperscalers which are now taking on immense amounts of debt tens of billions of dollars worth of debt even alphabet is now burning through all of its operating cash is now free cash flow negative but lou we talked about the the neo clouds they're sort of on the front lines here and the the piece that i think is so interesting is everybody is saying we have more demand than we can supply for this compute. So we have to pay whatever it takes for memory, we have to pay

whatever it takes for debt, some of those debt costs are going up. But you tie all of these pieces together. And CoreWeave says we have a bunch of demand, but that demand comes from Alphabet, or from Meta, or from Microsoft. And that demand for Microsoft and Alphabet and Meta ultimately comes from a couple of these companies that we talked about at the beginning that are looking to IPO, OpenAI and Anthropic. So it does all seem to come back to, is this a house of cards that's built on top of specifically those two companies

that are still in kind of this high growth mode, but we don't know what their profitability is going to be like. How do we think about debt layering into this? Because it does seem to take the risk to a new level. Right. Debt is a fantastic tool, assuming you pay the debt back.

And many of fortunes have been lost on that second part. Right. I mean, that is the thing that we all are living in houses today thanks to debt. So, you know, there are really good uses of debt. This is a house of cards or it's a solid foundation that all depends on whether or not they can come through. They don't even really need profits here. All of these companies, they don't need profits. You just need sustained cash flow. You just need to be able to sustain that revenue. For investors, you need the profits. But for the for the lenders, all you need is just cash coming in the door. uh it's and i mean we can get into there's other companies doing this but like for the neoclouds the good news is is that there's a lot of demand for compute power outside of ai so there is a fallback if you build it they will probably come but will they come to the extent that we are planning for right now when we are kind of at maximum stage with ai and also will there be any pricing power as far again about an investment it sounds like what i'm talking about is if you just build it it's out there that's how commodities will start getting formed so you know i think

pricing power so i i i do think there will be winners and losers i do think you have to tread carefully but i don't know if we are set up for the worst case scenario where just everybody defaults on their loans because i do think i i do think i see cash flow i just don't know if i see profits, which as an investor, at some point, unless I'm just investing in the lenders, I need to see profits as well. Yeah. Jason, the other piece that came out this week was Nvidia backstopping a bunch of debt from a number of institutional providers of debt. And the way that just in very simple terms, they're kind of cutting up the risk profile, the way that you do with a credit default swap or with securitizations of mortgages where there's somebody who's first

in line second in line third in line and nvidia is saying hey we'll be last in line we'll make sure you get your money back just keep buying our gpus it seems like we're entering a new phase with all this debt and now with even the supplier saying hey we'll backstop this yeah well i mean that's that's been the big question mark for a while right it's just sort of the interrelatedness of of all of these different entities these different companies investing in each other to try to ensure each other's success. And ultimately, it's like, well, where is all of the money going to come from?

And like with NVIDIA, for example, at least we know they have this deliverable, right? Their technology is something they can deliver on and that should continue for the foreseeable future. But, you know, I look at these neoclouds, for example, and think, well, I mean, consolidation, I think, is ultimately going to have to happen, right? I mean, it just doesn't seem to make any real sense unless there's some sort of differentiation that you possess. I mean, the cost of compute is going to continue to come down. And these neoclouds that are riddled with debt and have these sort of questionable capital structures, that's going to kind of come to the surface, right?

The tide's going to go out. You're going to see who's swimming naked. And so my suspicion is we'll see some consolidation in that sector over the course of the next several years. Can I and maybe I'm too positive here, but can I give you the positive big macro spin? We need a little positivity. Yeah, because I mean, again, because because the obvious what we're dancing around is what happened the last time that that just got overwhelmed the system. That was 2008. I think I can squint and read NVIDIA coming out and doing this publicly as a sign that the lenders are doing their due diligence, that there is a need for NVIDIA to do this because there are people asking the right questions or there are people aware of all of these things. They're not oblivious to all of the issues. Look, again, it could still turn out terribly for some of the specific companies involved. But as someone who just doesn't want to see a repeat of 2008, I do think there are at least some signs that we have learned from those mistakes. And that's a very good thing, if so. Lots for investors to think about, but, you know, it will be exciting when we finally do get the numbers from OpenAI and Anthropic, hopefully later this year. When we come back, we're going to turn to some good news in the restaurant industry.

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advantage you can get like an ai solution that works for you not against you sap grow is built with ai embedded at its core working across every system and it's ready to go from day one so you can hit the ground running bring it with sap grow ai cloud erp for any size business welcome back to motley fool hidden gems investing we did get an interesting earnings report this week from kava i'm sad to say we still don't have kava where i'm at i hear such good things from you guys that's the opportunity jmo that's it there we go come to the come to the midwest uh but jason they had some pretty good numbers traffic was up uh spending per ticket was up there's been a lot of struggles in the restaurant industry so is this at least sort of a green shoot that maybe

things at least in certain pockets are getting a little better yeah i think so to a degree i mean I mean, there there are the restaurant business right now. It's obviously very difficult. We're starting to see the lines blur between traditional fast food. Right. And fast casual. I mean, the menu prices for traditional fast food are really starting to creep up there. I mean, going to get like a value meal from one of these McDonald's or Burger King or whatever. That's just it. It's not cheap anymore. And so I think the fast casual restaurants have a little bit of an opportunity right there to sort of keep close, at least in regard to pricing, while offering a higher quality meal. Right. And so Kava really rhymes with Chipotle. I think I mean, it was a good quarter. Right. I mean, the revenue up 31 plus percent. That growth was fueled by a nine percent increase in comps. They opened 17 new stores. They are seeing, as you mentioned, traffic up. That was better than five percent.

Another interesting data point that I found regarding the quarter, they saw their average unit volume, right? The average unit volume for their restaurants now hit, they cracked $3 million per year, right? And that's up modestly from around $2.8, $2.9 million recently. But that is on par with Chipotle now. Now, I think the caveat there is that we need to recognize the fact that Cava only has a handful of stores compared to the Chipotle, right? I mean, there's something like 350 Cavas versus 4,200 Chipotles. Now, that is, I think, at the end of the day, an opportunity. You mentioned you don't have them out there in Minnesota yet, at least where you live. And so maybe there is a nice runway of growth because, I mean, as a consumer, and I think Lou would agree, we do like what Kava has to offer. It's, you know, not terribly hard on the wallet. And it is something that I think could continue to grow for some time. So, Lou, is this one of those things where people are just eating a little bit healthier, maybe McDonald's not doing quite as well? I know I own shares of Portillo's.

That's not doing particularly well because those beef sandwiches apparently are falling out of favor to a salad bowl at this point. Salad sounds good. Look, I'm biased here, but I mean, I don't know. I think Kava is winning because they're well managed and they have a good product. And look, it's early. These growth stories don't last forever. But I do think, you know, it's a reminder that leadership matters and concept matters, that not all restaurants are the same. To your point, Travis. The other thing, and I know I don't want to like, you know, stomp on any, you know, just big narratives, but can we get over this GLP-1 is killing restaurants narratives? I believe in GLP-1s. I believe in that. But you're going to have to do runs of clinical trials to figure out why it doesn't stop us from craving Mediterranean, I guess. I do think that it's overstated. I think what's going on with restaurants is a little bit of macro. It's a little bit of oversaturation. Maybe it's a little bit of GLP-1s. But earlier in the year when we had all of these restaurant stocks that were struggling, it was just GLP-1 is stopping everyone from eating. I think that that is one of those just kind of the narrative overwhelms the evidence things. And I think good restaurants can still win is what we learned from Kava.

Lou, do you think that pricing pressure is going to be a challenge, whether it's on people spending money elsewhere? Grocery costs are still going up faster than wages are. Same thing with energy prices at this point. Is that something to at least worry about a little bit if you're a restaurant investor? Sure. And I think it always is on both sides, that their cost and whether or not consumers can afford it. Again, a well-run company can get through a downturn, but I'm not going to predict earnings next quarter, given what's going on in the macro. It will be interesting to see what happens with restaurants.

Always an area that I would like to invest more, but it's such a tough space. So don't find a new Chipotle every day. When we come back, we're going to go shopping for sports franchises. You're listening to Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing. new from Nespresso blend wellness into your coffee routine with a coffee plus range infused with functional benefits choose the coffee you love with added b vitamins like coffee plus b12 to help support immune function and coffee plus b6 to keep your day moving or go

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segment with investing. And this week with the news that Bob Iger, former CEO of Disney, and Josh Kushner, who runs Thrive Capital, one of the most successful venture capital firms over the past decade or so, are buying the Los Angeles Lakers for somewhere around $12.5 billion. dollars what's a few billion dollars between friends uh but that got me thinking if you were going to invest in a sports franchise and you were doing this just for investment purposes not because you necessarily love that specific team what would you be buying uh there's a lot of options out there but the prices are getting pretty crazy at this point not that they always haven't been very high Jason I want to start with the NFL if we're going shopping for NFL teams are

Are you going bargain basement? Are you willing to pay up for one of the big franchises? And, you know, there are so many different ways to look at this. You know, I did a quick search and it just by the numbers, you look at the Dallas Cowboys, they're the highest overall return on investment historically. I think Jerry Jones bought them in 1989 for something like one hundred forty million dollars. And the team is now, I think, value close to 16 billion dollars. So I kind of wonder if maybe I'm not sure how much juice there is left to squeeze there, to be honest with you, particularly given the team's lack of success through the years,

at least over the past couple of decades. Probably, you know, I could be a local here in Virginia and say I'd want to go with someone like the Ravens or the Commanders. They'll always be the Redskins to me. But I grew up in South Carolina, Travis. So I'm going to go with the Carolina Panthers because I think football in the Carolinas is beloved, right? You're getting down there in SEC country, but you're also benefiting from two states, North Carolina and South Carolina. They both love the Panthers. So I think you just have a tremendous opportunity there. The team, I think, is still somewhat reasonably valued. It's like $8 billion today.

I think there's plenty of opportunities. I'm going Carolina Panthers, and you're asking about who you want as CEO. Yeah, I also want a CEO. Who's running this operation? Well, I love watching football, college, NFL. It's great. We're getting to that time of year. I'm excited.

I'm the CEO of this bad boy. Wow. All right. I mean, I would love to do something like that. That would be awesome. you know what's fascinating about this is that this is like the two sides of a market because jmo and i have similar kind of life experiences and some kind of seeing the north seeing the south and we have jumped to opposite conclusions one thing that really struck me i used to live

in the north and i would hear nfl fans make fun of uh franchises in the south well they just don't like football because the falcons games are empty or whatever and down in the south it's and a college fans make fun of college teams up north. Like, you see, they don't like football up there because Rutgers doesn't draw and look at Georgia. So like, I don't know. My life experience is you are never going to be the big dog in the southeast if you're an NFL team. So if we're talking NFL, I'm heading for the north. Green Bay is the stereotype answer. Buffalo seems to have a rabid fan base but travis i am just going to do a shout out to your hometown yes all i saw when i was up there recently was uh i don't even understand school yeah i don't have to explain

that to me offline but uh i i love that the new stadium looks like a viking ship too i so i am i am enamored with that i am going north here and i'll take the vikings baby you know jason talked about regional dominance look at a map of the united states by the way i also thought it was funny that that you were saying that rutgers was north which is about where omaha is at from well i know but you know what i mean yeah well okay very far north boston college doesn't draw either we're god now we're gonna get letters but you want to talk about regional dominance you got not only minnesota north dakota south dakota nebraska you can go into wyoming montana you you got a long ways to draw from here in minnesota well sure territory but you're still getting like

one chicago suburbs where the people trim so yeah fair enough but we got a we got a lot of land no the other the other piece here is they built a phenomenal facility uh their practice facility and we were at uh training camp they they do a great job with that kids love going it's five bucks five bucks to get the kids in oh man get them excited about about football so uh love the shout out there, Lou, who's running the team now? So I want creative disruption because you don't want to start over, but you want to manage an existing business in new ways. And my go-to there is Alan Mulally, the former head of Ford, who is just a great CEO of like, look, he did not. Is he going to travel from San Diego to like he did when he was running for, he probably

wouldn't want to. And I mean, it is Alan. I don't know. I think Alan's still with us, isn't he? But he is, he did such a great job of Ford basically just kind of running the existing business, but also thinking about, you know, not like just resting on the existing business. I think that's what the NFL needs in general. I'll tell you the other thing about Alan Mulally, and I had the very good fortune to interview him on the floor at the North American International Auto Show in detroit i don't know back in 2012 he has just this uncanny you you cannot have a conversation with him and not walk away just fully inspired like i gotta believe he would just have a football team just chanting at the bit ready to go from from day one he is just a he's just one of those

guys get you get you seeing everything glass half full all right well i uh i appreciate the shout I think the Vikings would be a good buy, although they probably want a lot more than they paid for the team a decade or so ago. All right, if we are looking at NBA teams, the Lakers are now off the table. But Jason, who are you looking at? So I'm not the biggest NBA guy. I mean, thankfully, I got to grow up in the era of Jordan, watch the Bulls dominate, which was a lot of fun. But one of my best friends growing up, and this is down in South Carolina, he had moved there from Rhode Island. And so he brought with him his love of New England sports. And so we grew up watching a lot of Celtics basketball. And I think for me, I would look at the Celtics as a really fun opportunity to buy. I think it's the fourth or fifth highest valued NBA team, fifth maybe highest valued team in the league today.

i think there's still some opportunity there uh particularly given the rich history just this hardcore diehard fan base um yeah there just seems to me that a lot to like about the celtics so i think i think i'd go with them and who's running the team this is what i really want to hear oh i've got to go with shack i always loved shack as being a part of papa john's right back in the day he was on the board or whatever and he's like his brand is all about fun i mean Shaq is just such a character and obviously an intimate knowledge of the game. I think he would be a very astute and dedicated CEO. So that's my pick. It seems like he could be the kind of innovator that Jerry Buss was with the Lakers, what, 40 years ago or so. So I love that. Lou,

who do you got? So I'm going Homer here, but living in Atlanta for 20 years and seeing the way this city loves basketball unfortunately atlanta hasn't the hawks haven't given them much to root for until maybe recently jeffrey maybe but uh i do think that this is at this i know this is the hometown fallacy but there is a just pot of gold waiting to explode here if you look at joy look travis there's a really good player up in your neck of the woods that came from just just around the corner from me anthony edwards jaylen brown uh uh kcp a lot of great players from this area i am going with the hawks i'm gonna run them right and i'm gonna turn this thing into a gold mine because this city really really loves this basketball you remember how

electric the days were when spud webb was playing there yeah i so i wasn't there then but yeah with dominique is still i mean dominique is still around a lot when you go to games it's a look this city is built for basketball i think we actually run a league out of a downtown thing just a small little like a summer league and it's amazing the people you get to see going through there it's this this is a basketball city to just the all the football talk we forget about it it does it seems interesting with the nfl you could almost buy any one of these teams and you'd be just fine with the salary cap and you know people the fandom is kind of dispersed financially you probably do just fine with any of the teams but with the nba you do have this local people either

care or they don't care and these companies are either or these these franchises be either relevant or they're completely irrelevant you know think about like new orleans i i'm sure that's a very valuable franchise but there's no way that i would want want to be want to be buying that at this point all right let's end on this major league baseball lou i think you have a few more thoughts with mlb if you're buying a franchise what do you got i mean so this one is the most personal and i have to buy the baltimore orioles and figure out how to do it although i do like we have the carlisle guy david rivenstein owning them now but uh look i'm not gonna say this is the best buy but i just there's tradition there there's a rabid fan base the whole washington thing is behind us i'm going

with my heart here i'm buying the orioles just because my fantasy as a little kid was to turn was to pitch the orioles to back-to-back world series that's not happening so maybe i can buy and manage them to back-to-back to back-to-back world series appointing himself as ceo maybe although no okay can i just because it's such a complicated game with all the contracts and stuff you have to do so many spinning wheels you got to be good with money i'm just really going into the um archive here michael dunlop the guy who built melnet that he's like one of my heroes as a ceo i want michael dunlop to manage all of these things so there you go this is going to be the future billy bean i can't believe you didn't go with cal well no no honestly i don't think i want

cal running things but cal no or actually cal write me a letter that's fine all right jason who you're buying yeah man i tell you camden yards that's just a wonderful baseball experience i got to go see a game there books barbecue by the way oh yeah luke that's a book's barbecue um i got to many years back got to go to camden yards to watch the orioles play the red socks Pedro Martinez was pitching for the Sox. We had the Seas right behind home plate. It was really cool to see. And that leads me to my point, much like with the Celtics. I grew up with my buddy watching the Celtics, grew up watching a lot of Red Sox baseball. I'm a Red Sox fan. I love, again, just the history, the tradition, the rabid fan base. And so what I think is interesting, when you look at the Red Sox versus the Yankees, the disparity in the valuation there is pretty considerable. I mean, if you get the Red Sox today valued at something like $5 billion, Yankees, understandably, valued at something like $9 billion. Now, I do think it would be interesting to see if we hit in baseball some sort of salary cap.

Right now, it's kind of the Wild West and the teams that make the most money are able to spend the most money and get the most talent. And they tend to do, you know, obviously the best. I think those days are numbered, but I think that actually is something that would play out in the favor of your teams like the Red Sox and even the Yankees because of the lore, the history, the tradition. People want to wear those logos. Right. And they just have so much opportunity. I'm going with my Red Sox and leading the way. You know, I thought about this. If you go with something easy like a Tom Brady, just because people love him up there.

You know what, man? I'm going Brian Nickel because it seems like everything that guy touches turns to gold. And so maybe he could bring another championship there to Boston in the next few years. And imagine what would happen to the restaurants in Fenway. Oh, my word. Double dip in there. You're getting the best of both worlds. All right.

We got about two minutes left. Lou, quickly, if you're buying an MLS franchises, by the way, these have gotten incredibly expensive for the actual popularity of the league. But if you're trying to get in early, what are you looking at? You know, I'm going to go to Jamo's backyard. The Charlotte area for soccer,

just the Carolinas is so good. And I like the fact you're sort of getting in earlier, not getting, you're not going to pay the top dollar for MLS, but you are getting a great fan base and a great grassroots soccer. I'm going to go there. I don't know who I'm going to pick as CEO, though. Maybe, can I say Clint Dempsey? Just because he was my favorite U.S. men's player growing up.

Just a fantastic guy. I don't know if he'd do a good job or not, but I do respect guys. So Clint went to school in South Carolina. Let's just put him in charge and see what happens. Jason? Well, I admittedly, this is the area I have just the least file on. But doing a little bit of quick research, I think you've got to go Los Angeles Football Club, LAFC. I think when you look at the two clubs that are really the highest value today, you've got Miami and you've got LA.

The thing about Miami is I think that all really hinges on Messi, and he's not going to be around forever. I mean, I think the question as to whether he's going to be in the next World Cup, it's understandable. He's just time waits for no one. So I think I think L.A. football club is probably more durable of the of the two. And, you know, as far as CEO, I just I don't have really a strong feeling there. Again, it's not a sport I really follow, so I don't know who would necessarily be most suitable. Bring Jim McNerney in out of retirement, you know. Or how about this, Jason, your CEO's already there, David Beckham. There we go. I mean, there you go.

Or he's in Miami, but yeah. I think Beckham, obviously, yeah. You want to go with someone who has inside knowledge. And so, yeah, Beckham could make sense. Or, hey, I mean, you know, when Messi retires, maybe he's got another gig wait for him there. Yeah, that will be an interesting one to watch the valuations of some of these soccer leagues because the other ones are going crazy. So I'm sure the rich guy club is coming after soccer next as well. When we come back, we're going to get to the stocks on our radar.

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Bring it with SAP Grow, AI cloud ERP for any size business. as always people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about and the motley fool may have formal recommendations for or against so don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear all personal finance content follows the motley fool's editorial standards and is not approved by advertisers advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only to see our full advertising disclosure please check out our show notes we like to end the show with the stocks on our radar jason i'm gonna have you go first what are you're looking at this week? So a company I was digging into this past week had not really

dug much into it before, but was looking at it for our quantum leap service. The company is called Quantum Computing, ticker is Q-U-B-T. And quantum computing works in the photonics space by providing quantum machines to commercial and government markets in the U.S. And, you know, photonics, Right. That uses light instead of electricity, ultimately to generate transmit and process data. And so it just offers big benefits in speed, efficiency, higher bandwidth, yada, yada, yada. Right. So I you know, this is a company to me. It's interesting in that it's pursuing this quantum opportunity. Right. The quantum opportunities were still very early days.

Now, it's worth saying, too, that Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai just recently said that quantum today is where AI was five years ago. So, I mean, these are companies that really believe in what quantum computing is going to offer us in the future as far as the benefits to your traditional classical computing. But the company just reported results for the quarter. It really is important to note this is a company that is just starting to generate revenue drafts. It's not some company that's just bringing the money in. I mean, they generated $5.6 million here in the second quarter, and that was a massive jump from just $61,000 the previous year. And this is a company that today is valued at around $2 billion.

So the market is looking at a lot of these pure play quantum companies with a lot of optimism because of the language that we're hearing from a lot of these leaders and just the idea that maybe quantum sort of the next AI or the next leg of AI. That remains to be seen, but quantum computing is one that we'll continue to follow in the service and monitor its progress. All right, let's bring in Bart Shannon, who's filling in behind the glass. Bart, what do you think about quantum computing? Well, first of all, Jason's explanation made my brain hurt because I need to understand what a company actually does before I can fully embrace it. But if they don't name their first product

Ziggy, it's going to be a huge disappointment. But to quote Chevy Chase, I was told there would be no math. Yeah. Bart, the best way to think about it is remember when you used to hit up your neighbor across the street with a flashlight? Just imagine that at scale. Okay. Got it. There we go. That should be in the earnings presentation. Should be their tagline. All right. Lou, what are you looking at this week? Bart, I'm taking a look at Firefly Aerospace, ticker FLY. So they build and launch small rockets, among other things. They have a nice satellite business, too, which we'll get to.

This week, the company reported better than expected earnings, which is good. But more importantly, because this is a very young company, they had a strong $225 million in future bookings in the quarter and a new launch agreement with Lockheed Martin that runs through 2031. There's a lot of risk here. It is literally rocket science here. Breakeven is years away. But one constant investable theme is if you can get things into space, there is a market here, especially when SpaceX and Blue Origin are devoting so much of their launch capacity in-house. Firefly can get things into space.

They're using the revenue from their satellite business to build out launch. I really find this one intriguing. And we got a great ticker, Bart Fly. can't be beat and you can't go wrong with any company that names their company after a Joss Whedon

television show there you go which one's going on your watch list Bart I gotta go with Firefly Quantum I'm still wrapping my brain around congratulations to Lou

that's all the time we have today I'm Travis William for Bart Shannon Lou Whiteman and Jason Moser we'll see you here next time Thank you.