The Pomp Podcast - 85% Of The AI Boom Is Still Ahead Of Us | Dan Ives

Episode Date: October 22, 2026

Dan Ives is a partner at Yorkville Ives and one of Wall Street’s most-followed tech analysts. In this conversation, we break down what he saw on the ground in Korea and why he thinks the AI bears are wrong. We also discuss the potential Tesla and SpaceX merger, CoreWeave and AI debt fears, the midterms, interest rates, and where the stock market goes from here.======================Arch Public is an agentic trading platform that automates investment strategies across Stocks, Commodities, ETFs and Crypto. Whether you’re rotating into AI & Gold, allocating to the S&P 500, or accumulating Bitcoin, Arch Public executes your plan 24/7 without ever taking custody of your assets or funds. Sign up today at https://www.archpublic.com, and start your FREE automated trading strategy! ======================Need liquidity without selling your crypto? Take out a Figure Crypto-Backed Loan, allowing you to borrow against your BTC, ETH, or SOL with 12-month terms, 8.91% interest rates, and no prepayment penalties. Or check out Democratized Prime (https://figuremarkets.co/pomp) and earn ~8.5% APY on real world assets. Unlock your crypto’s potential today at Figure! https://figuremarkets.co/pomp Figure Lending LLC dba Figure (NMLS 1717824). Loans subject to approval. Crypto collateral may be liquidated. Terms apply - see full disclosures at https://figure.com/disclosures/ ======================Simple Mining makes Bitcoin mining simple and accessible for everyone. We offer a premium white glove hosting service, helping you maximize the profitability of Bitcoin mining. For more information on Simple Mining or to get started mining Bitcoin, visit https://www.simplemining.io/pomp======================0:00 - Intro1:08 - Report from Korea & AI chip demand4:51 - Market sell-off & what the AI bears get right9:25 - Why Wall Street is underestimating AI growth15:06 - Midterms & data centers 16:46 - Rate hikes, CoreWeave & Oracle debt19:00 - What could slow AI demand?20:53 - Tesla & SpaceX merger33:06 - How investors are playing the merger35:52 - Market concentration, earnings & the bear narratives41:34 - AI agents & the future of investing45:22 - Political risk & a message to the bears

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Take a trip to Korea, Taiwan, see what the demand looks like. And see if you come back here and you're still as bearish. I think that's the one thing. I think a lot of times when I talk to some of the very, very bearish investors, I'll be like, have you ever been to Taiwan or Korea before? They're like, no, but. So I think that's the one thing I would say is that... What's going on, guys?

Today we have an excellent conversation with Dan Ives, the goat. He is here to tell us all about the AI trade. He's a partner at Yorkville Ives, and he just went to Korea, and he was on the ground. This is a report from the front lines of what he saw, where the demand is coming from, and why all the AI bears, they are. wrong. On top of that, we talk about SpaceX and Tesla. Is the merger going to happen? What are the ramifications? How should investors think about actually playing this? Then we get into what's going on with CoreWeave and what maybe Dan actually agrees with the Bears on, why he thinks that it's not

as big of a deal as the Bears believe, and then he takes a step back and he looks at midterms, interest rates and many of the other themes that are going to influence the stock market into the end of the year. I think you're going to enjoy this conversation. Here it is with Dan Ives. All right, Dan, you recently went to Korea. Let's get a report from the front lines. Korea seems to be one of the most important countries when it comes to the AI trade and a lot of the kind of momentum that's going on in the stock market. What did you find when you went there? I mean, memory, if I look at demand,

it's probably up about 30% in the last four to six weeks. So to me, you know, when you think about the nervousness, the jitters are seeing core weave AI trade, it all comes down to like what demand looks like from a chip perspective. And I think memory, that's front and center. There's, you can name the amount of memory players on one hand. And obviously Korea front and center there. And look, I just think what's happening here

is investors are skittish on the trade, but the fundamentals are telling a much different story. And that's why I just came away from there even incrementally more bullish relative to demand. And I think what we'll see this tech earnings season, we've already started to see it, it further validates, I think, the AI story. So Korea is interesting because it does have a number of companies

that are very important, but it also has the retail traders. And they seem to be very enthifted. you're like a legend over there with the retail traders. Is that like a chicken or egg, like you had to have the companies and then you get the retail traders? Or is it just no Korea generally is very kind of retail-driven and they just happen to have these memory players? Oh, I mean, it's, I think it kind of goes hand in hand

because the industry there, especially bill around Samsung, SK, call it, you know, Hyundai women, amount of companies, but they basically own the memory market. And as more and more, maybe if you go back years ago, you'd have to look up Cosby on Google to understand what it is. Now today, like New York City cab drivers, like, is the Cosby up or down? But that fed into the retail environment in terms of trading. There's so many Finfluencers.

Because there, I mean, when we need to make Korea, it's like K-pop and stocks, almost the equivalent of, like, the Yankees, right? You know, there's, like, that's their passion. And I think it feeds a market where the volatility, it may be overreact. overstretches on both sides. Right now, I just think it is like way detached from fundamentals. It's the sell-off in Korea is eye-popping, and I continue to believe, like, the K-KOSP will make new all-time highs

when we go into next year. Now, K-pop in stocks, pretty good tagline for them. Sounds fun. Is the sell-off driven by leverage? Is it driven by just the skittishness in retail investors? Like, what is the driving force? I think, and you saw that E-Slice, which is a sort of small neocloud. When that IPO came and, you know, it was down 30% and that kind of feeds into the

whole narrative with core weave and just neocloud. Look, I think part of it is definitely leverage in the system. I think the other thing is that you saw just so many retail investors that have sort of piled in. And Korea for many years, like that market really did nothing. So part of it is just almost being discovered, that market is being discovered globally. And that's the difference, too, is that KOSP now has really become, I think, a big conversation among global investors. But I think maybe it got overstretched on the upside. It got way oversawl now on the downside. And it's just they're sort of navigating a new environment because the reality is like, look, Micron is training, what, five times earnings?

U.K.S.K.S.K. and now listing also dual on the U.S. I think that's actually the start of Korea today's memory, but I think it's going to expand over time to much more from neoclouds to software, to what I view is like the broader ecosystem. So if we take the lessons from Korea, we bring it to the United States, we saw the sell off and people were freaking out. They were predicting Black Monday. I mean, just crazy, crazy stuff, right? And what I maybe saw is the turning point was, I think, one or two Fridays ago, the

SMP put buying was second highest in history, NASDAQ, third highest in history. The second everyone kind of goes all in on the consensus put buying, you're like, well, what if the stock market goes up? And everyone's got to rush to cover. Basically what happened, right? Now, that doesn't alleviate the concerns around some of these CDS's blowing out or the coreweaves of the world or whatever. So, like, there's price and then there's the fundamental, you know, worries.

What do the bears have right? Or, like, are there anything that they're saying that you're like, hey, you know what? Actually, we do need to watch that. There is some risk there. Yeah, I think, look, with yield. going up, there's no denying that that puts more pressure, because it's called about 20% of the build out is going to either have to be debt funded

or some sort of, you know, equity convert rate. So there's no doubt, like, does that raise the cost capital, of course? So they're right, I think, directionally, in terms of that being an issue, and you saw that with CoreWeave, I think where they're wrong is, even when you look at CoreWeave, the debt that they're taken on relative to their backlog is minuscule. And that's why Jensen always says. Like, they're almost healthier today

than they were six months ago or a year ago. I think it reminds me a lot of times, like very similar, like, SaaS Apocalypse earlier this year. It's almost like a SaaS apocalypse moment narrative for infrastructure. Now, I also think it comes down to, like, the bears, a lot of the naysayers, the last call, and a lot of them been consistent in the last three, four years.

you could be negative when you're on Metro North or in the 20th floor in New York City office building. But when you see it like I do globally in Taiwan, in Korea with the hyperscalers, the KAPX dollars, they're happening. So in the words, like for every dollar spent in KAPX, five, six dollar multiply across the rest of the tech. It goes back to my view, like Street is underestimated

earnings 15, 20, 20. 20, 25% next 12 to 18 months. But as that plays out, I think that's what sends the bears back in the harmonization. It's the fundamental stories. And we saw with SpaceX. We've seen what meta. We'll see what the hyperscalers. That continues to be my view.

What's interesting is the stocks are getting cheaper, yet people are getting more bearish. Like, that blows my mind that that's happening. Because I think there's just the narrative, like this standard dinner poll lounge or Fort Charles, like, you know, like 20 minutes in after the house everything, it's like, oh, could this be a 99 bubble moment? It feels like it's got, but then my whole view is like, let's just go back, like tech companies are trading 30 times revenues now 21 times earnings and getting cheaper. And the use cases are further getting built out. It's getting more validated. And even when you tell them out on the consumer side, that's why Apple,

Rock or Gibralto the way at stock train because market's telling you they will now start to monetize the consumer piece. Look at meta is another example. Like the reason that that is because of muse and because me and you've talked about narrowing the gap versus an Anthropic Open AI. And the view where anthropic eye went from $2 trillion to a half, look, the reality is that it just goes back to SpaceX and the narrative that SpaceX was going to suck up all the liquidity in the market and that was going to be a sort of, you know, this black swan event.

But it wasn't. And I just think we're going to have to continue to like fight narratives in this market. But it goes back to like, this market would be like flying from New York, California. And you had a crazy thunderstorm over the Midwest. Someone next to you think they're going to crash and their texts and their relatives, you know, where their stuff is in their, you know, in their drawers. the other person's watching Netflix drinking Cabernet. The point is, like, this market,

you're going to go through these moments, but you cannot have the panic and the narrative, just like Sasspocalypse, surgure financing, I think dictate your investments. What are the things that, when you're talking to your friends at those dinners and they're worried, what are the, like, two or three anecdotal conversations that you've had where you're like,

well, so-and-so told me X, and so that doesn't, you know, I'm not worried. Yeah. To me, the thing that validates for me is like, A, it's seeing where the demand is in Asia. Because that is the telltale sign. Like, that's no different than, like, getting a grade on a test.

That's, you could have worked hard. That's the grade. That shows where the demand is in terms of the supply chain. And two, when it comes down to like, Like, when I talk to CIOs, I talk to so many enterprise IT, and you're seeing it, the AI use cases, they're multiplying by the day. And you see that more like a Pallentier specifically,

you see with Snowflake specifically, terms on the software side. That now speaks to like the next phase of this AI, the monetization, the use cases is now starting to play out. But it takes time for it to happen. It doesn't happen overnight. So when you go from the CAP-X piece to modernization, there is a gap in there, and we're getting toward the end of that gap where the monetization is going to play out.

And I think that, to me, like, it speaks to what I told you. It's like six months ago, someone told you, oil is 105-110, and the 10 years at 5 in Warsh's hiking rakes, they, you say, where's SMP? And they probably say 65 to 6,800. And instead, you know, it's upwards toward what I believe it will be 8,000 this year. But I think that the market's telling you

that the growth is being underestimated by the street. Why do you think that happens? It's just hard for people to wrap their head around that it could be this good. Because we've never been in something like that. So, like, when I go to dinner or when I'm like with so many investors, whether it's here in New York or around the globe,

it's like, well, this reminds me of 98. This reminds me of 07. This reminds, because it's snake-bitten because of what happened. This core weave is, the build-out is very similar to when fiber was getting built out in terms of the late 90s and, you know, ether

and some of those. So there's a lot of those comparisons. But this is different because the data centers are getting built. The use cases are there. It's big, tech funding it with a trillion dollars in the balance chain, three or four hundred billion a year of free cash flow.

And that's why, like, was Jensen being, like, more of a calming force where you've seen the Dell and others, we've never been through this. You can't explain to me, like, a nayser that, like, 30% of cars in the next three, four years are going to be autonomous. You can't explain, like, in terms of physical AI, the concept of SpaceX and tests on why they're going to merge. And then it comes down, like, first time in 30 years,

the U.S. is ahead of China when it comes to tech, which I also think the nervousness is around the midterms, and if there is a blue wave, a whole-co-type moratorium, could that put a huge dent on the AI revolution? I think that's... Do you think that could be a dent? I think that's definitely, like, playing into it, that narrative,

like, the worry, like, okay, then all of a sudden, like, if you have a blue wave and you send it, and House is overtaken by Democrats, that would be hugely negative for Takanei, which I think at first blush, I would agree. But as we've seen, as this plays out, it comes down to, like, a lot of that bar could be worse and bite.

And the reality is, is that if we slow it down based on regulatory or moratoriums or whatever, the biggest winner is China. And the reason China market, if you looked up to Zepardium, you see a picture of the China market the last year is because U.S. technology is years ahead of China. And I think that's what the market's telling you. Today's episode is brought to you by figure. If you're under Bitcoin, you already know.

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If you want to check it out, I've got a link in the description that you can go to, or you can go to figure markets.co slash pomp. When you go and you look at the midterms themselves, how much of it is the uncertainty leading into the midterms versus people actually worried about Democrats in the moratorium? Like, one argument I would make is once the midterms actually occur, regardless of who wins, we just know who won,

and therefore, okay, cleared for takeoff. You know, we kind of head back up because people then are like, I have certainty around what is going to be the playing field for the next two years. I think there is a lot of unturned because no matter what you read online, social, put on TV, it's all data centers. Because data centers have become one of the biggest talking points in terms. I say on both sides at some extent when it comes to AI and it comes to the broader elections.

But then as it actually plays out, as we know in politics, the talk is a lot different than the reality. Because then if you're a senator in a state and you ultimately try to, you know, vote down data centers, then those data centers move to other states that are friendly. And that's where the jobs go. And that's where the tax dollars go. So I think some of this is the uncertainty. And then look, a lot of it is just, it's fear of unknown. But there's no doubt like Democrats, by definition, are much more cautious on the data center

buildout, definitely more, you know, I think aggressive in terms of talking, you know, you know, toward what we see in terms of this build-out, AOC, Bernie Sand, there's some, you know, obviously the more, you know, the left side of the party. But that's, that is playing into part of what we're seeing here. When we go and we look at interest rates in particular, you mentioned if Warsh was hiking interest rates, then the stock market would be lower.

He did hike interest rates and the stock market went higher. What do you read into that? Well, I read in that, Humus needed to kind of, to some extent, like send a shot across the bow. The bond market was saying he had a raise and he raised. But it also speaks to like wire rates going up. Like why is there inflation?

Okay, you could say oil and other, but a lot of it is because we are in an unprecedented Fourth Industrial Revolution AI CapEx boom. That's US tech funded. So I think part of it there comes down to like, like, okay, you could have another hike on the horizon. But unless you think the 10-year is going massively higher Jimmy Carter style, like a 50, 75-bit, maybe 1% of data centers that would impact, half a percent. But it's not, that's not going to significantly slow down what we're seeing.

So I think you have to put it all in context. But I think it just creates jitters. and you see it in the core weave CDS, you see it in Oracle. I think Oracle and CoreWeave really being poster childs in terms of those two names, taking on a lot of debt disproportionately to build out what they need to do.

But for them, it comes down to like, that's what they've chosen. Hyperscalers are clearly in such a better position because of their capital situation because it's just, you know, just obviously their install base. But for a lot of these companies, like, specifically the neoclouds, like, this is what they need to do. I still believe you need more neoclouds.

Jensen talked about that today. I mean, that speaks to our view. Like, demand will be much more than supply. I know I did the Gardner. There was some commentary in terms like the neoclouds, things like that. Look, it's what makes a market, but I'll bet against the negative narrative here. I mean, what would it slow down demand at this point? It's, I don't know.

You're smarter than me, so maybe you know something that would slow down demand. But every time that one of these products gets released, Grockbot is amazing. Instinct is amazing. Muse is amazing. Now Anthropics shows up with their, you know, persistent, personal assistant type AI. It's amazing. And we, inside of all of our companies, I mean, we see it, we are using AI for video editing. We're using it for coding.

We're using it for growth analytics, for SEO. I mean, every single aspect of our businesses, we're using this stuff. And frankly, I think that people who, six months ago were like, I know about AI, I'm basically using it as like a Google replacement, now they're head first in the deep end. Give me more of this, right?

How do I now implement this across everything I do? We're not, you know, Albert Einstein over here. So we, I take us as a indicative of other companies, but also five years from now, the people who aren't the early adopters, they're gonna be doing the same, and they're a way bigger group than what's doing it today. I mean, you've talked about tokenization prices as they come and the models ultimately become more commoditize

or that enable the gates open up more do AI. The reason Mewis is so important is because that's mainstream for the consumer. And I just think physical AI hasn't even started today. So it speaks to my view, like, we're less than 15% through where we are. And I believe, like, we don't have the equilibrium until 2009. So as you go into that scenario, the market will grind higher, and I think numbers will continue to move up,

despite these sort of white knuckle moments that definitely cause a lot of jitters. Let's talk about Tesla and SpaceX. To me, this is the story. Elon Musk, he's had a massive week. He had earnings. He had a flying car. He launches now one out of every two rockets launched in the world come from SpaceX. And now there is not only talk of, but confirmation from Elon and the team at SpaceX that there are special committees at both companies who are looking at it.

I think the phrase that was used is it's like tap dancing through a minefield to try to get this done. We're supposed to give my regulatory. But they definitely want to get it done. Oh, it's a matter of when, not if, in my view. Because first off, like, okay, so now it's just like strategically why. One, it's data. If you think about Tesla today,

the data that they would bring into the SpaceX story, for SpaceX trying to become a hyperscaler, that would turbocharge their ambitions and their ability. Two, cross-pollination engineers. It's, I mean, you already see it, you saw on the roads through and others, but that, I think is very important. Three, for must have all the AI technology now, under one hood, like all under, and then,

as a shareholder, Tesla has been a major underperformer this year. The reason is they got from an EV player to what I view is in AI, in terms of optimist, autonomous, you know, really the future. The stock, I think in a deal, it would have to be five to $5.50 in terms of the price for Tesla to get this done. So it's like a 30 to 40% premium to partake from where we are now.

Because I couldn't see a deal happening sub-500-hour price. And you could argue, you'd have to go first. into where Tesla will be in terms of justifying that. And the thought process here is that a higher price alleviates a lot of the conflict of interest because it's very hard for the Tesla shareholders to argue. We didn't get, like it was a sweetheart deal

because we got paid 30 plus percent more than what the stock was trading. Well, I know also apart from a Tesla perspective, from a Tesla shareholder perspective, it's like, look, as the stock's been under reform, because they're transitioning from an EV player to an AI player, all that. all the capbacks, don't focus on deliveries,

it's all about the future, and that is the right strategy. But the stock is, I want to say artificially, but it's depressed because right now it's an investment year. I'm surprised it's not higher. But I would go back to like, even during, like, the Twitter saga, there were so many points where I'm like, I'm not an ARB, but Musk is gonna buy Twitter despite antics,

But yet the stock was trading way below where I think, you know, it ultimately ended up happening. This would be a similar situation. There will be those that would say regulatory given Tesla in China. How would you then have that in SpaceX, given national security? Depending on what happens politically, I mean, there will be a line or regulators. You know, I mean, it would almost be a pretty thing they have in line trying to like poke holes in this relative to, You know, is it too big? Are there concerns?

It's probably the biggest merger in history? Yeah, because when you think three and a half trillion, if it actually happens, it would have to be between four to five trillion. And then you could argue once it happened, the SpaceX would have a long to be the biggest company in the world. So really, you have the largest merger in history between two of the most disruptive, innovative companies. companies in history run by probably the best entrepreneur,

definitely of our lifetime, if not one of the best in history. And so all lies are on this thing. And then add in just as a little like cherry on top of the Sunday or Game of Thrones or however you want to think about, then obviously must being so like politically involved, especially in the midterms, taxes and others, that goes back to like, okay, do you get this done during Trump minister? during Trump administration.

I mean, he has to. No, so you have basically, you know, call it a year and a half, two years to get this done. It speaks to why, like, you hit the clock, it's time to do it. But also, SpaceX is behind, if you didn't know where SpaceX is, Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, SpaceX,

relative to being a hyperscalor. Oracle's trying to do it with debt. that market doesn't like that. And you see Oracle, stock base, Google, go down every day. SpaceX, massive, except where they are, with Starlink and just a broader, you know, just doing them at the A.

On this point in particular, I mean, people almost, it's like a hand wave when it comes to Musk because I think he's become so polarizing. But to me, if you think of SpaceX two years ago, and you asked what the SpaceX do? Unequivocally, they launch rockets. Sure. If you ask 12 months ago,

they launch rockets, and they have this internet thing that looks interesting. You ask today, and you just look at, whatever, Q2 results, is an AI company that happens to have rockets. Totally. I mean, he has completely transformed this business

in 24 months, and he owns what used to be Twitter. He owns what used to be cursor, right? He's got the SpaceX business. He created Starlink from scratch. Like, you're like, dude, this is, guy took one of the best companies in the world and was basically like, this is too small, I need to go bigger, and now is in a market that he feels like is exponentially larger and more valuable and it's working.

And when you think about Starlink, whether it's like on the carrier side, the threats, even think about what's happening like on the airline industry, like, good luck being on like your dial-up Wi-Fi Delta when you're in Starlink on United. So the point is like, how many we've, you know, membership on Delta, whatever, go to United. So I'm just trying to explain, like, he has that wand, but it's clear where it's all aimed at. It's trying to make this into the true AI behemoth. But it's hard to do that without Tassel. And I think also it's hard for him to.

to run Tesla, run SpaceX, two separate companies. And I think that that also plays him. He is notorious for, he's taking the SpaceX, or sorry, the Tesla engineers at times, and been like, I need you for a week. Oh, yeah. Come over here and help me fix this X, you know, Twitter thing. Or SpaceX engineers, like, I think, if I remember correctly,

the SpaceX engineers at one point went to Tesla or the Tesla engineers went to SpaceX, and they were looking at the manufacturing lines. And they were like, oh, you screwed this up. We fixed it over here. And there's like some knowledge transfer. So he's already using what he's learning at different companies to help the other companies.

And it's one of the mean you always talking about shortages with engineers. That's actually one of the enticing things for engineers that you can work at that, but then also you could work with SpaceX. It's actually unique. Yeah. The other aspect is, so he has, you know, if you kind of think a full stack,

let's maybe just paint the picture of where this could go. Correct, the vertical, integrate, yeah. So I think about, okay, you got launch capabilities in the rockets. So now you can do Starlink, other payloads, but Starlink. So I can beam the internet down, maybe from a space data center. So I got my space data center, now I'm beaming the internet down. When the internet comes down, eventually do they have a phone? Maybe. Who knows?

Then what do I do on the phone? Well, now I have all the AI capabilities in terms of cursor, GROC, GROC, Brock, bot, you know, et cetera. And then, oh, by the way, all of that intelligence that is being run through their entire system is then also going into your car, the humanoid, the specialized robotics. Like, you're talking about a business.

I hear people saying it could be a $10 trillion business. I want to respond and say, why so bearish? Like this thing, why can't this thing be a hundred trillion dollar company? You know, they would have, they would have something that no one else had. And it would like the satellite piece, Especially when you think from a data perspective, that's the huge advantage because data is the new oil and new gold. And that's why Musk recognizes this is the time to go after this.

But then you just take a step back. You talk about core weave concerns, see the ass, the whole thing. Then think about what's happening with like gigawatt, GPU, data center buildout, capax, what you're hearing. These are not, when these are companies talking about, you can't just dismiss it because eventually A weeds to B, weeds, C, which that's bullish, NeoCloud's memory, chip, Nvidia, among others. Every person listening to this show, you probably own Bitcoin and you got it the same way. You paid full price on an exchange. But there's a smaller group of business owners, family offices, and investors with sharp CPAs, and they're quietly getting theirs a very different way. They own the machines that make it.

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Archpublic.com. How to hedge funds play this when you talk to investors? So there are some odds that are assigned. I've seen as low as 18, 20 percent on some of the prediction markets. I've seen much higher at different times. But SpaceX, Tesla, merger odds, or whatever they are. Do they go buy Tesla thinking that there's going to be some sort of closing of the gap between current price and acquisition price?

Do they buy SpaceX because they think that the combined entities of this will then lead to this huge company? Do they wait until there's an announcement? Like, how do they kind of navigate, knowing that everyone's got a different strategy, but like, what are you hearing? Well, right now moves to buying SpaceX. Like that's how in the initial quote-unquote trade is to buy SpaceX not just because of this, but because of what we see fundamental.

From a buying Tesla perspective, I think it's one, investors want to see like not just must talking, but now it's actually see some sort of deal. And I think that's something that continues to be, when I think with the biggest opportunity, it's by Tesla stock because for a stock that's at 370, 375, whatever it is, to what I believe will be probably 500 in a deal, that's something that will shift quickly as investors will look to that piece.

I own Tesla stock. I do not own SpaceX stock right now. And I put out a piece where I said, look, these are the five reasons or whatever as to why I own Tesla stock. And number five, I wrote this last, I think it was last year. Number five was SpaceX Tesla merger. And at the time, I think people were kind of like, ah, that's like a throwaway.

And I don't know, I didn't have more than 50% confidence, but it was like, hey, this is like an upside cherry on top if it happens, whatever. Now, I don't know, that might be the number one reason to buy Tesla stock is because a bunch of other people are gonna start speculating that it's gonna run into. It's an 80 to 90% chance that this deal happens.

So... And it'll run up to the decision point. And so if it's at 370 today, maybe it's 420, 4.50, and then if for some reason it doesn't happen, there's still a bunch of appreciation that's occurred leading into it. Totally. So my view is that this is one like the market still skeptical,

and you see that in the price, that there's a huge disconnect relative to what I, you know, we talk about 80 over the last year that this is going to happen, but now it's like, it would have to take something anomalous for this not to happen. I agree. I'm going to read you a couple of statistics. I just want your reaction to it. So Phil Rosen over at Opening Bell, he wrote, the 15 largest S&P 500 companies make up 46% of

the indexes total market value. The top 10 largest holdings are 40% of the index. Does that worry you? It would worry me if the spending and what we see was not spreading. So like when Rosen does that a year from now, that stat will be much more diversified in my... Because it's the big company is spending,

but now when it comes to like software, infrastructure, energy, cybersecurity, that will now take place over the next year. So it's kind of a broadening of the stock market holdings. But I think it's healthy because now, because it goes back to like the multiplier effect for every dollar spent on an Nvidia chip, every dollar of CAP-X goes throughout the rest of the tax. You can say the rest of the economy.

The next one is Mike Zucardi. He writes that 13% of S&P earnings are in, 88% EPS beat rate. What do you think? I mean, I think we're gonna see And Zuckart, he has great stats. That speaks to, like, investors underestimating the scale and scope of this,

what it's going to look like. We still have a very healthy economy that you start to get some piece in the Middle East through whether it was after midterms in some way or whatever in the game poker. You actually start to stop the hikes and you actually get holds to ultimate cuts. Who, like, over the next 12 to 8 to,

I just believe this market is set up to rip higher relative to earnings and what we see in the cap-back cycle. I think it definitely ended at the end of the year. There's a lot of strength. We'll see. But look, but that's, we always talk about bears. Like, the bears that have called 10 of the last two downturns, the catastrophists, usually they come out on Saturdays on social media.

No, because it's true, because a lot of times, like, bulls are, like, watching football with their family, touching grass. and the bears are talking about, like, some catastrophe is open for Sunday at 6 p.m. October 19th. You didn't hear October 19th is a Monday. It has to be Black Monday again. So it's always, but actually it plays into some of the narrative

because you have like, when you think, like, you know, Peter Tuckman and Einstein talks about us all the time, with the millions and millions of new retail investors that are in this market, that maybe they're in their 20s or they're, they're not experienced to go back. what happened 15 years or 20. So when they get scared, they think they have a thesis,

but these narratives, that's why, whether it's like bubble, core wheat, circular financing, geopolitical, whatever it may be. But it just goes to my view, like it's what makes a market. I think Andrew Ross Sorkin's 1929 book coming out

had way more influence on people's thinking than we all give it credit for. Excellent book. Incredibly well done. I learned a time. Sork and the Goat, of course. Right. But there's a bunch of people who they kind of take like little tidbits from it and they're like, oh, of course 1929 is going to happen again. And so it's like there's all of this kind of like influencing of a generation. But to your point, there are a lot of people who they weren't around in 2001. They weren't paying attention. They have no clue what 2000, 2001 felt like. They just hear somebody who, frankly,

is older claims that they live through it, and they're just like, well, must be the same thing. But that's also why I actually, a lot of investors, I think some of the best investors that I know, they've been through, whether they're like 87, dot-com bubble, financial crisis, like front and center,

you know, in terms of being through that. Because I think what it does is that it gives you, it gives you like the history, and like you have the scar tissue that makes you also understand how different this is. But narratives in, they matter. And in this market, you can't just dismiss them. And I think that's just the reality of like this,

we're going to continue to be like fighting narratives in this market. It could be like deep seek one moment, core weave another. Memory stocks. Cirque, you're fine. It's going to continue to be that. Lance Roberts has a chart that shows the S&P 500's PE to profitability ratio has declined toward the low end of its range since 2006, and that suggests that valuations are less stretched relative to corporate profitability. What do you think? Oh, I mean, I think it speaks to my view that, like, productivity is going to continue to increase. profitability could skyrocket over the company for companies,

but also it goes back to like, these are, like, when you look like corporate America relative to debt loads, it's a healthy economy, which AI is just going to increase productivity, but like me and you have talked about, it will create more jobs over the next five years then it takes away.

So one of the things that I've been thinking a lot about, you know, we're building Sylvia. And Sylvia is this personal finance-focused AI agent. Congrats. The part that becomes very interesting is when it comes to estate planning, tax mitigation, like true personal finance stuff, very obvious why you'd want to use AI. AI's great at navigating complexity.

And in our case, with Sylvia, if you have personalized insights versus Googling, how do I get my tax rate down? Much more valuable, right? So somebody going to sylvia.com is coming for an AI agent focused on personal finance. Makes sense. Then I hear tons of people.

You can imagine how many times a day I get pitched. When can Sylvia invest my money? When can the AI autonomously, I just give it. You know, it's like the joke, hey, Claude, make me money, make no mistakes, right? I'm now starting to see a couple of different iterations of this. I've got a friend who he's building something called benchmark AI. It's pretty interesting what they're doing there across all these different models, and they're really creating more like index-type exposure.

I've seen people who are trying to day trade with it. There's companies like autopilot out there, right? All these different players. How does that change the market, valuations? And we're talking about AI from like a productivity standpoint or changing the workplace. How are you preparing or talking to clients about, okay, as AI starts to make some of these investment decisions or it becomes more pervasive inside of the investment committees or the investment teams, do things change or is it actually just, no, they just make it easier for humans to make

these decisions? I think it's a combination. I think it does, it helps the investment process, just given the amount of data and complexity, I always think it's going to be some sort of combo human as well as, A, it could help like almost like in screens or based on preferences and risk. But I could argue over time, it creates more of like an efficient market. and I view it as a positive. Like, you know, I was like, I think also it's embracing technology.

It's no different than like being there in the 80s saying what happens when like, you know, electronic trading comes in. So I think it's one, like more people are going to embrace it. And I think ultimately it's actually going to get more investors in the market, which I view is positive. Mm-hmm. And it is funny because I was recently talking to one of the large fintech companies, and they were saying, look, at the same time that J.P. Morgan and all these different kind of legacy organizations, they're shutting off access for agents to come on their platform. They're not allowing the agentic transfer of money, trading, et cetera. This fintech and its peer set, they're racing to how do we open everything up? How do we create MCPs? How do we let the agents do as much? Robin Hood and Coinbase both have now like kind of, kind of, kind of, of segregated account.

So, you know, if you got 100 grand in your account, you can take 25 of it and put in the agent's account. And then the agent can go wild in there. And it almost feels like we're seeing whatever crypto was or, you know, these other technologies. Now people have to decide, am I pro-agent or anti-agent? And that's going to separate kind of winners and losers going for it. Well, and also I think part of it's like regulatory guard

rails like that, because especially when you start to deal, as you know, like, like, in such a regulated industry, and you're dealing with people's money, I think there's just, there's such a high bar relative to some of the regulations, and from, you know, from cybersecurity to bad actors, things like that. But look, it's like, it's changing the landscape,

but I don't view it as a negative, I view it as a positive. Mm-hmm. When you came back from Korea, did you walk by Starbucks and see two dudes fist fighting? Exactly. It's, you know, it's funny because especially like when you're, like, I find like being in Korea, being in Taiwan, like, you, and then you come back here, there's a difference than what it used to be, right? In other words, like, now you actually see, you really feel like technology, the innovation cycles happen in this country. But I think it's just one where it's exciting, you embrace it.

My biggest fear is that the political landscape, I don't care if it's red, blue, gray, whatever, like slows down innovation in this country. Because if that happens, China wins. That's not even a debate. Mm-hmm. What is your message to the Bears? Maybe we'll end with that. I mean, the message to the Bears is,

is try to, a lot of the bears have missed every transformational growth stock to the last 25 years. Because they don't see, like, whether it's valuation or catastrophism or sneak bitten, take a trip to Korea, Taiwan, see what the demand looks like, and see if you come back here and you're still as bearish. I think that's the one thing. I think a lot of times when I talk to some of the,

very, very bearish investors. I'll be like, have you ever been to Taiwan or Korea before? They're like, no, but. So I think that's the one thing I would say is that it's rooted. You have to understand what the demand and why this is different. Why the bears are so smart. They have great points on certain areas. And there could be, like, they're always going to be losers than the winners,

but you cannot paint them all with the same brush. just like SaaS Apocalypse with a lot of software stocks you know called 60% up from Luz. All right, where can we send people to find you online? Yeah, so Dives Tech on X, LinkedIn, hit me, and look, it's just good.

This is, it's a time to, you know, just have a flashlight in a tunnel type vibe. So it's always good to be doing this. And thanks for everyone always reaching out. Flashlight in the tunnel is pretty good, right? All right, guys. We'll see you next time.