Prof G Markets - The Biggest IPO In History Isn’t What You Think It Is

Episode Date: April 28, 2026

Sid Jain joins the show to discuss how emerging markets have quietly become an AI trade. Finally, Ed breaks down the truce between Microsoft and OpenAI. Patrick Boyle is a hedge fund manager, a unive...rsity professor and a former investment banker. Sid Jain is a Deputy Portfolio Manager at GQG Partners.  Get your tickets to the Prof G Markets tour  Subscribe to the Prof G Markets Youtube Channel  Check out our latest Prof G Markets newsletter Follow Prof G Markets on Instagram Follow Ed on Instagram, X and Substack Follow Scott on Instagram Send us your questions or comments by emailing Markets@profgmedia.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:01 Hey, I'm Matt Bouchelle, comedian, writer, and floating head you may or may not have seen on your FYP. And I'm starting a brand new podcast. Wait, don't swipe away. It's called, That Sounds Like a Lot. You know that feeling when you check your phone, read a few headlines and think, that sounds like a lot. I can't do this. Well, I can, and I'm going to get into it every Friday. You can watch on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcast. I'm going to start by breaking down whatever insanity is happening in the world. And then I'll sit down with a comedian or actor or writer or, honestly, anyone who responds to my DMs. This is not the place to get the news, but it is a place to get the news.
Starting point is 00:00:31 to feel a little bit better about it. That sounds like a lot. Coming May 1st, part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. More and more Americans are finding themselves taking care of their kids and their parents at the same time. Well, you know, I joke that there's a dark game which I was playing,
Starting point is 00:00:49 which family member will, like, disappoint today. How to care for others without burning out in the process. That's this week on Explain It to Me. Find new episodes, Sundays, wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Sally Helm. inflammation. It is something I've been seeing a lot of people talk about, especially on TikTok. And according to them, inflammation is basically the whole problem with our health. It causes heart problems, anxiety, acne. It is maybe even the root of all diseases. So how accurate is that? That's this week on Unexplainable. Today's number 90. That's how many seconds.
Starting point is 00:01:42 Russell Brand spent trying to find his favorite Bible quote live on Pierce Morgan before he finally gave up. The former comedian was on the show to discuss his new book, How to Become a Christian in seven days. Sources say step one is to be accused of sex crimes. money markets bad. If money is evil, then that building is hell. Welcome to Profi markets. I'm Ed Elson. It is April 28th.
Starting point is 00:02:16 Let's check in on yesterday's Market Vitals. The major indices were mixed, as Trump considered a proposal from Iran to end the blockade and open the strait of Hormuz, the S&P and the NASDAQ, edged up to new records, while the Dow fell slightly. Meanwhile, oil prices rose, and Microsoft stock fell early on the day on a renegotiated deal with Open AI. The stock later recovered to end in the green. More on that later. Okay, what else is happening? SpaceX is gearing up for the biggest IPO in history, but investors are starting to wonder what exactly they are being asked to buy. The company is targeting a $2 trillion dollar valuation, which would instantly rank it among the largest companies in the S&P 500,
Starting point is 00:03:02 but this is no longer just a space company. It's also a satellite internet company, a launch company, and increasingly an AI company with new bets and new acquisitions adding to the story. And for all of the hype, there are real questions hanging over what would be the market's biggest event in years, such as can space-based data centers actually work at scale? What happens to Elon Musk's control once the company goes public? And ultimately, can that $2 trillion valuation be sustained in the public markets? Well, here to help us answer many of these questions. We are speaking with Patrick Boyle, professor at King's College, London,
Starting point is 00:03:42 former hedge fund manager and host of one of the most popular finance YouTube channels. Patrick, so good to see you and so glad to finally have you on the show. I wanted to speak with you because this SpaceX IPO is set to be one of the most important events in a really long time in the financial markets. And you recently released a video titled, quote, the SpaceX IPO scandal. So I will start with the obvious question, which is, why did you describe this IPO as a scandal? How is this company being sold to investors? What are you skeptical of with this IPO? Well, the thing that's quite questionable about the way this IPO is being done is just the way that it is being forced into the NASDAQ 100 index almost instantly.
Starting point is 00:04:32 I think there's going to be a 15-day delay. And also the weighting that it'll be given is much higher than you would expect for a company with a very low flow. So in a funny way, the company goes public at a very high valuation. people will probably buy in. Firstly, there's a lot of people are just very excited about Elon Musk and his companies. They'll put money in, but then the expectation is that the indexes will be buying 15 days later. You know, at the current valuation they're talking about it would have a four and a half percent weight in the NASDAQ 100. there's also been talk about possibly S&P pushing for early inclusion as well. And that would essentially mean that there's just a frenzy if it been bought up, stuffed
Starting point is 00:05:25 into the portfolios of people who index, who are not really valuation sensitive. And it's the valuation they're talking about, to be clear, they're talking about 125 times sales. So that's not earnings, that's sales. And we don't even really know what the earnings are of SpaceX. There was, you know, Reuters published that they had EBITA of $8 billion. But EBITA is not earnings. It's earnings before essentially the cost of building satellites and building rockets, you know,
Starting point is 00:06:03 which for SpaceX you have to imagine is a significant cost. There's a famous quote from, I think, around 2002 where Scott McNeely, who was the CEO of Sun Microsystems, spoke about, you know, the price that people had invested in Sun Microsystems at. And he said, well, you know, what were they thinking? They invested at 10-time sales. And he said, you know, if you put your money in at 10-time sales, in order for me to return it to you in 10 years' time, I have to pay. all of the earnings out, or sorry, all of the sales out as dividends. And that assumes that I'm not paying any staff, that I have no R&D cost, that there's no manufacturing costs. He said there was no way people were going to get a return on investment at 10-time sales. Now we're talking about 125-time sales. And, you know, it's worth noting as well that SpaceX is, it is an exciting
Starting point is 00:07:05 company, it is growing, but it's not growing. You know, analysts expected to grow 25% next year. That's not good enough. Like Google went public, I forget how long ago, but they were growing at 240% a year, and they went public at 10-time sales once again. And so the price, it's not really, the question isn't whether it's a good or a bad company. A bad company can be a good investment, if you get in at a low enough price, and an amazing company can be a terrible investment if you overpay for the stock. So much in there to unpack.
Starting point is 00:07:46 I mean, I guess let's just focus on the price for a moment. Why is, I mean, when it goes public, you could imagine a world, if we lived in an efficient market's world, you could imagine a world where investors would say $2 trillion, that's ridiculous. I'm not buying. and the stock immediately plummets,
Starting point is 00:08:06 in which case, maybe it's not a problem. It seems as though in the private markets, there seems to be a little bit more BS available and you can command these kind of ridiculous valuations, I guess because the negotiations are a little bit more entrenched and Elon just says $2 trillion, and we say whatever, and we sign the contract. But I feel like there's a bit of a,
Starting point is 00:08:27 it's a harder bar, a hurdle to get over in the public markets. So I'm with you on all of this, but I wonder if maybe there's an argument to be made here, well, if it goes public, the markets will decide what the true valuation is, and therefore maybe there isn't a scam. Yeah, I mean, that is the purpose of markets, is to essentially weigh these companies. And in the long run, it doesn't matter. Like, in the long run, a good company that grows earnings will go up. But of course, in order to go up more than the market, it needs to surprise to the upside, right?
Starting point is 00:09:07 Like a company needs to be better than people thought it was to perform better than the market. If people are right about how good the company is, well, then it would expect to get standard stock market returns. So when you go public at such an extreme valuation, I mean the likes of which has never been heard of before. You know, it's funny because there's some analysts out there and they're saying, well, there's nothing to compare it to. And, you know, you can compare it to aerospace companies. You can compare it to technology companies. You can compare it even to, we'll say just companies like Nvidia that have a product that there's a lot of demand for. And, you know, and then you'd say, well, how much is Nvidia growing?
Starting point is 00:09:53 How much will SpaceX grow? Blah, blah, blah. But, you know, the problem is there's nothing to compare it to if you go with a valuation like this. If you went with a more, I don't know, moderate or, you know, earthbound valuation, there's plenty to compare a company that, you know, that is an internet service provider, you know, a very small AI company and, you know, delivers payloads, into space. Right. It almost seems as though, I mean, the markets will decide what the valuation is, but thus far, they have taken a few kind of shortcuts to achieve this valuation. And it seems that some of those shortcuts would include talking about data centers in space and talking about the future, and then merging XAI and putting that into the company, and then buying cursor and putting
Starting point is 00:10:51 another AI company into the thing so that you have to keep on growing and growing in, growing and growing. And then the other point that you make, which I up until now hadn't thought properly about, is the idea of just short-cutting your way into the NASDAQ, which I assume immediately puts more buying pressure on the stock because it's essentially inserted into people's portfolios, many 401Ks throughout the country, thus resulting in an elevated valuation. hence it seems like that's kind of where the scandal is, that it's employing all of these strategies to almost fake it. Yeah, like the, you know, the idea that, so firstly,
Starting point is 00:11:33 NASDAQ had to change all of their rules to allow this inclusion because normally a company needs to be, you know, there's a list of rules as to how they weigh, you know, a low-float company going into an index, how long it's been public, because the idea, it needs to be seasoned in the market and sort of find evaluation with real buyers and sellers. So normally you would expect it to take about a year at least to even consider adding it. 15 days is unheard of and then getting rid of the caps for the float on it.
Starting point is 00:12:08 And, you know, Reuters reported that this is because Elon Musk negotiated with Nasdaq and said, you know, we can list this thing on the NICE. list it on the NASDAQ, we can list it wherever we want. If you want it on the NASDAQ, you have to go with fast-tracked index insertion. And so that, you know, it's, I mean, obviously that's good for everyone who already owns SpaceX stock. But if you are a person who owns index funds, and it's worth noting, it's not even just index funds, because there's an awful lot of, you know, fund managers who claim to be active managers, but if you look at their portfolios, they look exactly like an index. And so apart from the indexes bind, there will be just a bunch of portfolio
Starting point is 00:13:02 managers who say, I can't afford to take the risk of not owning a stock that's four and a half percent of the NASDAQ if I'm being judged against the NASDAQ. And so, you know, in all honestly, it's a very smart way of maximizing demand for the stock right on the point of it going public. You know, it's questionably ethical from the perspective of the people at NASDAQ to sort of change all of their rules, you know, right around what is by far the, I believe it's the biggest IPO in history because before that we had Saudi Aramco where they did, I think they did a $29 billion. IPO. They're talking about $75 billion for this, you know, the public float. Yeah, a lot of the ethical questions do land on the NASDAQ here. And I'm reminded of when
Starting point is 00:13:56 the NASDAQ decided to include micro-strategy in the index. And as soon as I saw that, I was like, oh, now it's really a problem. It used to be that this was just a guy who had this Bitcoin treasury company, and it was kind of a bunch of BS. But if you bought it, you bought it, and that's okay. But as soon as we system it, and if you bought it, you got what you Right. But then suddenly you're putting it into people's hands who don't even know what it is or what they're actually buying. And I guess the question that I would ask is like, why is the NASDAQ incentivized to do this exactly? Why are they changing their rules? Why are they so desperate to include this company in the index? Well, it's a huge, it's going to be a huge company,
Starting point is 00:14:40 especially if it goes public at, what, $1.75 to $2 trillion, it will be, I think there's only five U.S. companies bigger than that right now. You're talking about like Google, Microsoft, InVVIDIA, like, you know, they will be listing a big company. There's all sorts of exchange fees, trading fees, whatever, that they earn off of this. Yeah. It would not be, they would be unhappy if it ended up on the NIC, for example. Yeah. just looking at the business itself. What do you make of SpaceX as a business?
Starting point is 00:15:15 I mean, clearly, you believe, and many believe that the valuation is a little bit nuts. It would be more valuable than Tesla. What do you make of this business? What do you make of the valuation? Well, the real question is, there's an awful lot of stuff in there that you would consider sort of lottery tickets, right?
Starting point is 00:15:33 Like where it's stuff that it seems a little bit unlikely this whole data centers in space thing. It's been tried. There's a company, I can't think of their name now, but they launched one Nvidia chip into space in a little satellite to run an AI program where I think it was meant to learn the works of Shakespeare or something like that. It constantly had to be shut down because it overheats,
Starting point is 00:16:00 because it's very difficult. You know, everyone says, well, space is cold, but it's also a vacuum and you need air blowing over. or something or water or whatever to cool it via convection, if it has to cool radiatively, you need these massive, massive cooling fins on it. And so the next version of this tiny, you know, Shakespeare satellite is going to have the second largest cooling array in space
Starting point is 00:16:29 behind the International Space Station, right? So we're talking about, you know, a very question, And to cool like an actual data center, the type of thing they build on Earth, I mean, you're talking about cooling fins that are miles and miles square. Like, I mean, it would be the largest man-made object in space by a long, long, long shot. So in terms of, like, could this ever work? It could. Like, I mean, you know, it doesn't violate the laws of physics,
Starting point is 00:17:02 but it might be very difficult to manufacture and to get up there in a time. manner. You know, there's also this kind of insane expectations around the real profit center, like 66% of the profits, at least as far as we know, of SpaceX come from Starlink, you know, the satellite internet company. And they have at the moment around 10 million paying customers, I believe. You know, there's some analysts out there and they said that they would reach 1.2 customers. Now, that's quite an amazing number when you look at the population of the planet who are, like, there's one billion people on the planet who aren't $35 a day, which comes to a bit under $12,000 a year. They will not be paying for, you know, $150 a month internet access,
Starting point is 00:17:57 right? Like the question is how big can Starlink get? And it's reasonable to think that maybe it's close to its capacity. And then when you even look at SpaceX's launch, they are the biggest launch provider in the world. Like they take the most stuff into space. But I think around two-thirds of what they bring into space, if not more, is Starlink satellites. Like it's their own stuff there. putting up there. So in terms of like how big the market is for other companies that want to put stuff in space, it's not obvious that it's a whole lot bigger than what's being launched right now. Patrick Boyle, professor at King's College, London, former hedge fund manager, host of a popular finance YouTube channel, Patrick, we're going to have to continue this discussion another time because there's so much to get into here. And it is going to be such an important event that people need to wrap their heads around and actually understand the details and a lot of those details that you bring up are massively important. So thank you very much for
Starting point is 00:19:05 joining us. Thank you for having me on. It's been a pleasure. After the break, why emerging markets are on a tear right now. And by the way, we are heading out on tour at the end of May. So if you want to come see us live, go to profjeemarketstore.com to get your tickets. Can't wait to see you. It's the family and friends event at Shoppers Drug Mart. Get 20% off almost all regular priced merchandise. Two days only. Tuesday, April 28th and Wednesday, April 29th. Open your PC Optimum app to get your coupon.
Starting point is 00:19:46 I'm Midge First, two-time Indiviselle champion, championship MVP, and forward for the U.S. Women's National Team. Before I went pro, I graduated from Harvard with a degree in psychology. Which comes in handy more than you think. Any athlete pursuing greatness knows there's a certain. mentality you have to have. What people don't know is what that costs. In my podcast, Confessions of an elite athlete, I sit down with the best athletes in the world and explore the psychology, mindset, and unseen battles on the path to greatness. So take a seat and learn from the confessions of an elite athlete on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm a Sted Herndon,
Starting point is 00:20:37 and this is America actually. We're all talking to each other to see what did we do wrong? What did we not see. I'm in Washington, D.C. this week to interview Ruben Gallego. He's a Democratic senator from Arizona, and he's been thinking openly about running for higher office. But he's recently running to some hot water because of his connection to Congressman Eric Swalwell. I have to learn from this, and I will learn from this. But for me, it's not a 2028 question. It's about what it means to be a better first boss in my office and also a better senator to my constituents. This week on America actually, we asked Gallego about predatory behavior in Washington, his plans for immigration reform and more.
Starting point is 00:21:20 We're back with Proffty Markets. Emerging market stocks are on a tear right now. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index hit a new all-time high yesterday, surpassing its February peak. The index is up about 16 percent this year. That's roughly three times the gains of the S&P 500. South Korea and Taiwan, are leading the move, driven by AI chip demand. This latest rally came on a report that Iran offered to reopen the strait in exchange for the US lifting its blockade of Iranian ports.
Starting point is 00:22:00 However, the oil markets remain on edge with Brent Crude still trading at around $110 a barrel. So here to help us unpack what we're seeing in emerging markets right now. We are speaking with Sid Jane, deputy portfolio manager at GQG partner. know, Sid, thank you for joining us on the show. Before we get into what's happening here, could you just remind us what emerging markets actually are? What is this category? What does it
Starting point is 00:22:29 entail? Absolutely. So emerging markets, it's a broad term generally includes countries that are less developed earlier on in their financialization. But frankly, from a market's perspective, a lot of countries that fall under that aren't what you would consider emerging. So, for example, Taiwan, South Korea. This is generally highly developed, high-income countries, but because of their legacy, they still get included under the emerging markets from a market's perspective. Yeah. I always think that we should create a new name for them. I just feel like emerging markets doesn't really do it justice. Either way, those markets are up 16% year-to-date. They sold off when the Iran War started, but they've now recovered all of it. And that's three times, more than three,
Starting point is 00:23:18 times higher than the S&P's gain so far this year. So they are massively outperforming U.S. markets at the moment. I guess the question is, why is that happening? Sure. So what's interesting with the current composition of the emerging market index is that it's really not a reflection on the underlying emerging market economies. It's basically become a bet on the AI CAPEX build out you're seeing. So the big drivers of the emerging markets for the last, better part of the last two, three years now have been the semi-connecture plays, specifically in Taiwan, TSM being the big one, and South Korea, the memory companies, SK. Hynix, and in Samsung.
Starting point is 00:24:03 And then once that, that's pretty mind-blowing is that if you look at it on a year-to-date basis, those three semi-conductor companies, TSMC, Samsung, SK. Hynix are driving almost 70% of the entire indexes' earnings growth. So this has basically become a one-way bet on the Capix build-out that you're seeing. We saw a similar thing last year where, again, emerging markets way outperformed the S&P. S&P was up 16%. Emerging markets was up 30% for the year. Kind of incredible performance. Was that the same story?
Starting point is 00:24:40 Was that a handful of chip companies in a few? of these less developed economies? So that was a big driver. And just based on how large these companies are as a portion of benchmark, it moves the needle. So for example, TSM alone has a higher weighting in this benchmark in the entire country of India. So it matters. But there are a lot of bright spots you're seeing across other non-semitter markets. So for example, 2025 was a fantastic.
Starting point is 00:25:13 year for pretty much every country in South America. Brazil be another large winner, not just in 2025, but year-to-date, where the countries are actually doing quite well, economies are improving, their stocks are incredibly cheap, and an important catalyst has been an electoral cycle where the countries are moving from the left on the spectrum to more of a right-wing business-friendly environment. You're seeing that dynamic. But by and large, I would say, a lot of these emerging markets have structurally improved versus what was the case 10 years ago.
Starting point is 00:25:50 10 years ago, these economies weren't a funk. Morgan Stanley had a term called a fragile five for a lot of these countries, but as these cycles go, they've turned around and growth is finally coming back after a long time. Do you think that this is something that we're going to see continue? I mean, it's been kind of a spectacular rally
Starting point is 00:26:10 for emerging markets last year, continuing into this year. And I feel like that was a big question at the start of the year, which is like, is, I mean, it was an anomaly that the U.S. was kind of outpaced by basically everyone else last year. The question for 2026 was like, is that going to continue to happen? So far, the answer is yes. Do you think that it will continue to be yes going forward? So I would say you do have to look at it from a country by country basis, because again, the index is so misleading, given how law. it is on AI.
Starting point is 00:26:43 If the AI topic story slows down or, God forbid, turns negative ever, then Indefs will be in a world of pain. However, outside of that, there's a lot of attractive bottom up stories. I mean, I talked about South America, India, we're finding opportunities, Eastern Europe. So there's actually quite a bit of exciting names. And I think what's, again, where we are in the cycle is so fascinating, where for the first time, you're seeing earnings growth in these countries actually look pretty strong, which was not the case pre-COVID.
Starting point is 00:27:18 So, for example, if you take in India, from 2010 to 2019, India earnings growth was basically zero on a dollar basis. Now you're getting low to mid-teens earnings growth and so it's fundamental change versus what was the case before. How much of this has to do with the sell America trade? which got a lot of, made a lot of headlines last year. It turned out not really to be Sell America. It was probably more like Hedge America.
Starting point is 00:27:47 You weren't really seeing that much selling pressure on US stocks, but ultimately you were seeing a lot of buying pressure on all the other stocks. How much of this is that versus, say, just the incredible performance of a handful of these AI companies? So I wouldn't characterize it as Sell America, but rather just people realizing how under-exposed they are to the rest of the world. Because for the better part of 15 years, the best earnings growth by far wasn't the U.S. There really was not many other options.
Starting point is 00:28:24 The TINA trade, so to speak, there is no alternative. That's kind of over. Where, yes, U.S. are some fantastic companies, but from a growth perspective, you're seeing it percolate to other parts of the world. And so does it make sense to have all your eggs in one basket where you can find better opportunities at generally lower valuations outside the U.S.? So it's more about rebalancing than a wholesale, let's get out of America. Yes, but certainly to do with it, it sounds like a rebound. I mean, so much exposure in the U.S. and then it's like, okay, well, we need to de-risk somehow. Just going back to Iran for a moment. As I mentioned,
Starting point is 00:29:04 there was this sell-off and then emerging markets recovered, and it seems as though this is largely a result of investor expectations about the supply chains of these chip companies, I think, though it's kind of hard to understand how the markets really feel about Iran and the straight-of-humor's. What can be said about what's happening in Iran and how it relates to the performance of emerging markets so far? What do we know about the relationship between the two? No, it's an excellent question. And I don't think it's just an emerging market question, but also a developed market question in the U.S. So the AI excitement has thus far overcome any potential down implications from this Iran conflict.
Starting point is 00:29:48 Because the view is AI is a structural theme and the compute shortage, so to speak, is worse than the oil shortage. That's the market perception. Our view is that the straits are still. very much closed. Brent oil is close to $110 per barrel. And if you look at the refined products of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, they're closer to $200 per barrel. And you're already seeing an economic slowdown across most Asian countries.
Starting point is 00:30:20 And our view is that the next leg will be in Europe. So we actually think the markets are being very complacent about the risk of an oil shock or a higher for longer oil environment. What do you, it's so interesting because I could understand why American investors feel this way, this complacency that we are, that some people believe is present in the markets right now as it relates to Iran. In America, there's an argument to be made that America is insulated, we're energy independent, this isn't going to be that much of a problem for the U.S. or for U.S. companies. But then I see the performance of emerging market stocks in areas where we are seeing a lot of
Starting point is 00:31:01 direct economic consequences where gas prices are rising far higher than we're seeing in the US, which makes me think, why aren't investors in those markets? Why are they feeling complacent? Why do they feel optimistic about the situation, despite the fact that on the ground, as you say, it isn't really getting better? Yeah, it's interesting because in a lot of the non-AI country, so to speak, you are seeing earnings get cut. And there is, like, for example, in India, Malaysia, Philippines, where there is quite a bit of nervousness when you talk to other market participants on the implication of energy shock. The nuance, again, going back to earlier point, is it hasn't really mattered yet at all,
Starting point is 00:31:49 actually, for the big chip companies. Right. So, for example, these companies took another big leg up on the back of Intel learnings a couple of days ago. And so if your view is that AI is structural, these companies, in theory, can grow through any sort of energy shock, although we find it skeptical if a lot of their customers are struggling, the people using AI or the people spending on digital advertising, there will be a ripple-on effect to the CAPEX you see. But that's the market view thus far, that these are secular growth stories. Yeah, it's so interesting. It seems as though, I mean, we talk a lot on this podcast about how AI is essential. the US stock market at this point.
Starting point is 00:32:30 And you can't, if you're investing in any index fund, even investing in corporate debt, you are exposing yourself to AI. I hadn't fully considered how much that is also true of emerging markets too, and of markets around the world. AI is literally everywhere. You cannot escape it.
Starting point is 00:32:50 I could talk about this for hours with you, but we're out of time. I'm going to let you go. Sid Jane, Deputy Portfolio Manager at GF. partners, Sid, we really appreciate your time. Thank you. Appreciate your time.
Starting point is 00:33:01 Thanks again. Some news in the world of AI. OpenAI and Microsoft have officially renegotiated the terms of their relationship and have reached what some are calling a truce. Just as a reminder, Microsoft and OpenAI have had a contractual relationship for many years, but recently that situation became contentious. part of the agreement was that in exchange for its compute, Microsoft would be the only cloud provider that could sell OpenAI's products.
Starting point is 00:33:35 In other words, the relationship between Microsoft and OpenAI has long been exclusive. But now they're changing that. OpenAI will be allowed to partner with other companies, which means they can now sell ChatGPT through other platforms, such as, say, AWS, which is Amazon's cloud unit, which effectively means that the relationship with Microsoft is now an open relationship. And that is why a lot of people are calling this a win for OpenAI, because they're no longer tied up in their sugar-dady relationship with Microsoft.
Starting point is 00:34:12 Kind of. And this is the part that investors seem to ignore in the morning when Microsoft shares fell, but slowly started to realize as the day went on. and that is that this is also a win for Microsoft, for a few reasons. In the old agreement, for example, Microsoft had to pay a percentage of their cloud revenue to Open AI because of this exclusive Open AI offering that they got to sell to their customers. Well, now they don't have to pay a revenue share to Open AI. And while it's no longer exclusive, they still get to sell Open AI's products to all of their
Starting point is 00:34:51 customers. In other words, Microsoft's cloud revenue just went up. At the same time, Microsoft still has significant control over OpenAI. Microsoft will still receive a percentage of OpenAI's revenue over the next five years. They will still maintain 27% ownership of the entire company, and they will still get unfettered access to Open AI's technology. Only the difference now is that this access will end in 2032 versus the previous contract where it would end as soon as OpenAI achieved, quote, AGI, artificial general intelligence. How did they define AGI? They didn't. In other words, Open AI could have ended that agreement basically whenever they wanted. Well, now they can't. So this is what we call a great deal. And that is both sides are equally happy with the situation,
Starting point is 00:35:48 but also equally unhappy with the situation. There are pros and cons to both. No one really comes out on top. And so the conclusion for Microsoft investors here is that the picture now is roughly the same. The company still needs to prove itself with Microsoft co-pilot. It still benefits from its relationship with OpenAI,
Starting point is 00:36:11 although it still shouldn't become dependent on that relationship. That was also true before. and its overall business, compared to the other hyperscalers, for example, is still significantly undervalued. Microsoft is trading at 22 times forward earnings, Alphabet's trading at 30, Amazon's trading at 32. So we land where we landed last week, and that is that Microsoft stock still looks pretty
Starting point is 00:36:37 attractive. As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, I bought it when the stock hit $400, and I bought again when it hit $380. It's now up to $425. We will find out more when the company reports earnings later this week, but as of today, it still seems relatively cheap. And this news doesn't do much to change that. Okay, that's it for today.
Starting point is 00:37:03 This episode was produced by Claire Miller and Alison Weiss, edited by Joel Patterson and engineered by Benjamin Spencer. Our video editor is Brad Williams. Our research team is Dan Chalon, Isabella Kinsell, Snow Donahue and Mia Solverio, and our social producer is Jake McPherson. Thank you for listening to Profg Markets from Profg Media. If you liked what you heard, give us a follow. I'm Ed Elson. I will see you tomorrow.

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