The Pomp Podcast - Is AI Taking Money & Attention Away From Bitcoin? | Dan Ives

Episode Date: May 20, 2026

Dan Ives is a Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Wedbush Securities and one of Wall Street's most prominent tech analysts. In this conversation, we break down the SpaceX IPO, the AI trade across chips, software, and infrastructure, the US vs. China tech race, and what bitcoin's performance means as capital rotates into tech.====================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 ~9% APY on real world assets, paid hourly. 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 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====================Uphold is the easiest way to buy and sell crypto unlike any other platform allowing you to trade in just one step between any supported asset. Check them out at https://www.uphold.com/pomp/ This video includes a paid sponsorship with Uphold. I’m compensated by Uphold for promoting its products and services and may receive commissions from referrals. Terms apply. Not available in all jurisdictions. Digital assets are risky and may result in the total loss of your capital.====================Arch Public is an agentic trading platform that automates the buying and selling of your preferred crypto strategies. Sign up today at https://www.archpublic.com and start your automated trading strategy for free. No catch. No hidden fees. Just smarter trading.====================0:00 - Intro1:00 - SpaceX IPO & the birth of a new sector3:23 - SpaceX + Tesla merger thesis5:51 - The AI backlash & Big Tech's PR problem11:53 - US vs. China: who's actually winning in AI?15:03 - Robotics, self-driving cars & physical AI19:55 - How to invest in AI: chips, software & infrastructure28:34 - New Fed chair, rates & macro risks32:45 - Bitcoin vs. AI: capital rotation37:55 - On-the-ground intel from Asia & Taiwan40:06 - Any concerns with AI?44:18 - Apple's AI strategy & Tim Cook stepping down46:52 - The Ives AI ETF & portfolio construction

Remember, what Anthropic's done is unbelievable, but you start that type of fear. That's the thing. Then all of a sudden, data centers don't get built. You have politicians get more focused on regulation of models. You start to go closer to Europe from a data privacy. Meanwhile, China at that point is like foot on the pedal going. That's the thing that to me that I worry about the most is the self-created PR problem. What's going on, guys?

Today, we've got a great conversation with Dan Ives. He's the head of tech research at Wedbush. And in this conversation, we dive deep into the AI trade. He explains what he's excited about, what he's worried about. He shows you where there is actual capital flowing. And then he takes us around the world as he goes on a trip and he tries to understand what's happening on the ground. We also talk about the impact from the macro environment,

what's going on with Bitcoin and crypto. And then Dan zooms out and explains what needs to change in order for AI to become more adopted globally and actually usher in the age of abundance that everyone's so excited about. Here's my latest conversation with Dan Ives. Dan, let's start with SpaceX. Obviously, everyone is anticipating this IPO. It's supposed to be the biggest IPO in history.

How do you view the positives and negative impact of this company coming public? Look, I mean, this is really, it's defining what's going to be a new sector. No different than tech or retail, it's space. And I think there's misnomers because to me, SpaceX is going to be about defining space in terms of data centers in space. the business components not necessarily we're talking like joy rides in space for you know 20 seconds and it's really gonna be almost a convergence of tech and this new sort of you know what i view is like like a spatial revolution it all starts with spacex but there's so many

names like planet labs rocket labs voyager whatever and this is just the start but it comes down like for musk it's it's a watershed moment not just for him but what i view is kind of for the market and really it's starting to now create a whole nother category in terms of what this is going to mean so the company started off as just rocket launches and trying to make reasonable rockets and cheaper launches but now it went into satellites and then there's almost this like big promise of the orbital data centers and it seems like that's coming right at the time where everyone on earth is like, hey, we may not have enough space or power or data centers. And so how much of this is evaluating the existing business versus people buying into the future

vision of what it could be? 80% of it, future. Interesting. If you look at it currently, would you have $2 trillion or $1.5 trillion? No. In other words, it goes back to what will this become? But then it comes down to if you bought intel when you know u.s put at stake it wasn't just on that it was like can they become a player in ai with nvidia it wasn't just about like going after ai is like what eventually will happen if they're able to not just monetize enterprise but create physical ai when it comes to chips so i think that continues to really be the focus for spacex because it's musk and then we've talked about. We view it, we've said 80%, that SpaceX to merge eventually with Tesla in 2027.

Yeah. So you think 80, 85% of SpaceX, Tesla merging in 2027, not just some point in the future, but literally by next year. Because I think it's important that... So just take a step back. Why is there a trial Musk-Altman? Despite personal beef and just all the things that have happened there i mean a lot of it really comes down to anthropic open ai then down here it's like xai or space x and so now it's like how are you gonna converge no different what is google done with gemini data data is the new oil and gold you converge merge spacex and tesla from a data perspective forget all the hyperboles and everything like biggest IPO ever. This would really create from a data perspective, something that would be unmatched

that I believe would enable Musk to really narrow the gap from a model perspective versus an anthropic open AI. It's hard to tell how much this is like a master plan that he had versus he's just going, building these companies, identifying areas that need to be solved and then expanding into them. But let's say these two companies do come together and it's, I don't know, musk industries or whatever you want to call it but basically he's able to launch at a very low cost into space so he can get both satellites and data centers up there he then is able to use all the solar capabilities from tesla and solar city and all of that uh in space capture the energy of the sun create the compute in space in those orbital data centers then beam it down via the

satellite technology he has with starlink and then he goes all the way to the end consumer where he is literally talking about humanoid robots and self-driving cars and crazy and that also tech companies whether it's google and microsoft tech companies ultimately how else are you getting the space like the the palm spaceship like the point is like never know i mean with the new studio but the point is like it comes down to like that will start to be you saw it like from a technology partnership perspective in terms of where SpaceX is ultimately going. And that's why I view SpaceX or just that broader sector as almost like second, third, fourth derivative plays off AI revolution that's happened in tech. I don't view them as separate. And I actually think when you think

about a theme being five, 10, 15 year theme. Now, one of the things I find interesting is there's so much like anti-AI narrative out there. There's both the data centers, which people are worried about electricity costs, water, noise, environmental impact. I also think that there's maybe some distrust of, oh, I've heard this before, if you're going to create jobs or economic activity. At the same time, there is a lot of just plain anti-AI narrative, right? Not even the data center stuff, just like, I don't think this is good, or I think this is going to take my job, et cetera. How do you think that we overcome that, right? Well, first off, I think a lot of it is actually self-created by the industry.

When you have Dario from Anthropic saying 20, 30% job loss, Mustafa from Microsoft saying like, we're going to all white collar, you know, white collar sort of jobs are ultimately going to be, you know, done relative to AI in the next 18 months. Guess what? You do that. That's where you continue to go further and further down the tunnel when it comes to survey data, because it comes down to the average you as consumer what's in it for me i'm gonna lose my job my electricity bill is gonna be higher

huge pr issues and guess what when you create that you have a lot of issues in the beltway regulatory then you gotta get build the data centers locally has to get approved you continue to do this data centers don't get built so now you're not talking about like in our lifetime you go back multiple lifetimes like the only mean is polio right can you cure cancer dementia partners with ai that's obviously huge positive there's gonna be more data centers you know that are built today than active data centers the jobs the ripple effect the restaurants so many towns throughout the u.s but that's not being talked about a lot of it is pr issues that you And I've told some of these companies, like, that can never talk externally because that is a negative for the industry.

And I think that a lot of it is self-created. There's fear, AI fear. And that's why you saw it with the Schmidt, like the commencement speech and the booing. Yeah, of course. I speak in many colleges around the country. I would tell people, like, there's going to be more jobs over the coming years created. But right now, it is a huge issue. What's fascinating to me is I saw Iron, the data center provider and power generation company, they just bought a marketing and kind of branding studio. And I've got to imagine that is specifically because they realized that a huge part of the future success of their business is going to come down to how do they communicate to local communities or local politicians about what they're trying to do.

hundred percent and then also it's like let's say pomp industries okay company all of a sudden like get everyone together in all hands meeting we're we're we're gonna launch quad as a test trial run what is the average consumer or the average person in that company think does that mean my job's at risk no see that's part of the problem you need companies be like efficiency monetization how we're going to be able to do it that's a huge part of the issue that i hear not just but it's for investors as well and you need this to be something that's viewed as like it's an arms race us versus china and we said first time in 30 years us is ahead you know when it comes to tech versus china but they need they need to get their act together broader tech

in terms of the communication ironically when you look at like what's going on i think a lot of that 78 of that is self-created and you create the narrative you don't go on 60 minutes to you know you know talk about a cartoon right like the point is like when you go on there and you scare people like dario did that's that's part of the issue yeah it's so fascinating because one of the things that i'm very focused on is showing people how do you connect the adoption of artificial intelligence product to you making more money and my whole theory has been if everyone is telling you you're going to lose your job there's all these negative impact then you have to look at ai as a tool and so it's it can hurt some people but those who adopt it and use it correctly are

actually going to be able to benefit and so we were talking beforehand you know this product sylvia that we built people go to cfosylvia.com they attach their portfolio and they start talking to an artificial intelligence model that is personalized to their portfolio and we see in in the data. The more they talk to it, the faster their net worth grows. 70% of the use cases that we see on enterprise are monetization, revenue enhanced. They're not cost-cutting. Now look, there's going to be a lot of companies that use it as kind of like to whitewash, right? It'd be like, we're going to- Do you believe the CEOs who are saying they're firing people because of AI? 20% of it.

20%. So 80% of the CEOs who say they're firing someone because of AI is actually just overhiring or mismanagement previously. The point is, but guess what? Eventually, models become commoditized. If company A has the same models as company B, C, D, what differentiates it? It's what goes up and down the elevator every day. It's the engineering talent.

It's the product. So the point is you're going to see a lot of companies that went way over. And we're not talking about big tech where these companies essentially hired cities over the course of the last four or five years. But that's why me and you have talked for years about like you got to separate like reality versus you know fiction the point is like this is something

from a productivity perspective to monetization to the jobs ultimately that will be created from data centers from build up from new companies you could be a 23 year old right now you don't need 20 30 million to see capital you got claude you have an engineer or two who knows what you could build democratization that's happening across the board and for the first time in 30 years u.s is ahead of China when it comes to tech, which is very, very important in terms of what this all means. You've said that twice, that the United States is ahead of China now when it comes to artificial intelligence. How do you measure that? I mean, a lot of it comes down to what there's one chip in the world fueling the AI revolution. It's godfather of AI, Gen Z, and NVIDIA. A third

rate NVIDIA chip is a year and a half, two years ahead of Huawei, like an H200. When you think about anthropic the hyperscalers the software palantir among you look when you go to china robotics they're leading power because the nuclear they're leading that's where i kind of stop so you think that china is leading when it comes to the hardware and application of ai for robotics and then you think they're leading when it comes to power generation but you think the united states is winning in terms of the models and the software. The models, the software, and the chips. That's also why when Trump and Xi meet,

they recognize, I need you, you need me. Because guess what? Middle East, India, obviously everyone's trying to think who's going to be the number three player. This is third inning, one out in a nine inning game. The point is that's where we are relative to AI and it speaks to my overall bull thesis. And we've talked about it, is that you're going to go through these, whether it's Liberation Day, Iran, 10-year wars coming in, whatever.

But the reality is this is a multi-year bull market relative to what's happening in tech, but also it's the derivatives because that will go across financials, health care. Utility companies, you're like, what? They're trading it. it. Because now all of a sudden it's not necessarily a utility company. It's a derivative of AI. Multiple is going to increase across the board. Those companies that don't embrace it, dude, typewriters, they're epic. This computer thing's a joke. Dude that was doing horses back before mile two. Yo, this whole car thing's a joke. The point is that will play itself out for those companies. Today's episode is brought to you by Figure. We're living in a world of

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whether they are trying to write software in an asset light model and then get it into the production of other people manufacturing cars trucks and i'm even seeing a lot of these like semis and kind of long-haul trucking self-driving cars is that the first area where the average is going to interact with like robotics is actually in self-driving cars yeah so and even take a step further back like the average consumer okay you've played around with chat gpt anthropic different models but where it all will start like when apple ultimately releases the gemini in terms of the model that that will be on you know um at wwdc that'll be the start of what's going to happen like eventually miles will be on the phone storage applications are going to

get built, AI driven applications, healthcare, financials, fitness across the board. So that's where you're going to see more and more used from a consumer perspective. But when it comes to physical AI, it's autonomous. I mean, that will be the first true interaction with a, and some obviously have done Waymos in different cities, but that's why Tesla and RoboTax is so important. But then also it comes down to regulatory. Because regulatory right now, it's state. You need federal. You need executive order from Trump to make this on the federal side. And I think that's a huge missing piece versus what we see in China. One of the things people are excited about at the federal government level, but also there's a lot of critiques about, are there are a lot of technologists and private sector individuals who have gone into the federal government. And so I think that the people who are excited about this would argue, hey, these people understand the technology, they understand kind of how important private industry is, and they are trying to streamline, get rid of waste, and accelerate a lot of the innovation industries. On the other hand, I think that the critiques are, hey, there's a bunch of people who are going in, they're investors in a lot of companies, they've got a lot of connections and friends.

And there's all these, you know, kind of complexities of them being involved, given that Trump now has just about two years left in office. Is this a thing where if we have a pro innovation, pro technology administration, they should accelerate and get as much of this done as they possibly can from a regulation standpoint, because there's a worry that maybe the next administration won't be as friendly? Or do you think that this is now reached a point where it doesn't matter, you know, red or blues in office, it's going to be people embracing technology? Look, I think people are going to embrace technology, but it is political sort of navigation is very important because it goes back to you need a pro-innovation administration. And that's why when you see Jensen and Cook and Musk and obviously the other CEOs in the China trip, I view that as bullish. They understand technology as well as the best perch in the world if you start to put you know sand in the gears and slow it down look at europe they're building blockbuster videos there because of regulatory because of you know just worry about data private and i see the frustration firsthand in europe because like if you're an innovator

entrepreneur a lot in europe is like do you have to move to middle east u.s you know asia so it's very important it's foot on the pedal on ai guess what because look at china and you fall behind but then a key part of that is data centers that's why it all kind of goes what we start started to talk about is like when you go like anti data center because of pr protest demonstrations i love a i love data centers just not in my backyard that's a huge piece because guess what the way this is all works, it's data center. Without data centers, it's the hearts and lungs of AI. So it just, it all kind of factors into what's going on here. It'll be a big thing in terms of midterms. And of course, you know, when we go into like, you know, presidential election,

but this is like a key time because I just keep going back to like so much of my life, Spent time like in Asia, you know, you're in Taiwan, you see the fabs, you see the efficiency, you see, you know, and then you come back here, like I said, land in New York airport, go to Dung and Donuts and there's like a fist fight at Dung and Donuts and then you went to our 17th in math. So the point is like now for the first time, we're ahead. Now, when we think about so much of this industry accelerating, it's great to talk about the fundamentals and the trends and the adoption, but people ultimately want to know, how do I make

money? And so if we go and we look in the public market, there seems to be, you know, kind of the hyperscalers, there's some very large tech companies, but now most of the conversation is about going and finding which companies can be the release valve for various shortage pressure. So whether it's memories or chips or, you know, et cetera, just walk through maybe when you look at the public market, how do you break down the different sectors or verticals of how someone can invest in the AI trade and then where are you more excited than maybe other areas.

And then on the other hand, I quote what's happened with software. So to me, it all starts with like chips at the epicenter. Of course, it's been NVIDIA, but then you have to think, so I'm just like walking you through. It's like, okay, like meta

for every 10 chips they need, NVIDIA is going to give them three because of supply. Where do they get the others? Is it Google? What about AMD? what about intel what about where micron plays sand this the memory the component you have to think about like it's all it's all a puzzle and all the work we do is what is the man's pilot

like in memory then it's a super cycle are there multiples that are high relative to historical yeah but street underestimates the growth okay in terms of what that's going to look like then you start to view whether it's like a G-Venuva, an IRA, and like where, who are the ultimate players that maybe investors aren't seeing. But then there are trades when it comes to like the street gets wrong, but there are opportunities. I'll just give you an example. Like we're at RSA conference in March, you know, in San Francisco. That's where like anthropic mythos comes out the view like anthropics going to eat cyber security going to eat software but that that was a narrative that if you talk to customers you know it's wrong look at crowd

strike stock today versus where it was in march look at palo alto it's a good example of like narratives create opportunities if you do the work you go back a year ago new york city cab drivers bearish an outfit. DOJ is going to break it up. AI is going to crush search. Gemini is nowhere. Now look, victory parties. I'm just trying to explain in this market, it's a multi-year bull market. We're in year three of a 10-year build out of AI. And it's very important to try to pick who the winners are, do the work, because I think that's you're able to ultimately make money in these markets what do you look at like a bill ackman buying microsoft and basically saying look we still think this is an amazing company that's

just dislocated from price and value and therefore we're going to go and put a position on couldn't agree more because that's because then it comes down to like microsoft basically every enterprise in the world runs on microsoft as they move to ai as they move to azure as i believe nadella one of of the best CEOs out there. Copilot has been under, you know, underwhelming. Yeah. Are they training wheels with open AI? Yeah. Is there a lot of noise? Yeah. But I, like we've talked about like stock closer to 400, I think it's worth closer to 550 to 600. And like, but that's a good example of like, you have to be able to see around corners in this market. And then whether it's liberation day, Iran, oil, wars coming in, 30-year hitting a certain level, yen,

you have to be able sometimes to like, I get the worries there, but tune that out to understand where are the opportunities in front of you. One of the hardest parts I think about investing in these accelerated bull markets is when you look at a certain stock, you may look at the last six months or 12 months performance and be like, wow, that's up a lot already. And so I'll give you some examples. Micron's up six, seven, 800%. A company like Marvell is up 100% in six months. And so I hear people talking about, I'm interested in this company. I think they solve part of the problem for X, Y, Z, part of the industry or a shortage. I'm just really nervous at buying in at 100% higher than it was six months ago. And then the fear is like, it's

a musical chair. You don't have a chair. Everyone heads for the elevators. You're waiting. So it's like that fear definitely is there but then i give you like on the other side you have it on the whiteboard you didn't own it stock gets hit fall on knife stock gets hit again oh it's done negative sentiment whatever it's very easy to miss the but go back to march in terms of like where did nvidia go in iran look i remember like being in miami early march i'm speaking at a conference and you know sentiment so negative because like the iran thing oils and i remember like people like taking pictures in south beach be like oh i can't believe people they don't realize the longer i'm like yeah i've done this since like late night you start to go

down that path you'll miss in every geopolitical you'll miss every sort of opportunity and look at where the stock traded first week or two of march and it's may again we're not talking like 10 years ago one of the other things i find interesting um is how global this phenomenon is and so for example we saw roundhill go and launch the uh dram or memory etf uh they had a 10 billion dollars get added in like two months. And a huge part of that was just they gave access to American investors to certain companies that they couldn't otherwise do. And so how does that play out? Do we just get consolidation where you're going to see more and more ADRs or ETFs with swaps and things where American investors are going to be able to really invest globally, but it's going to be

through American vehicles? Look, it's a democratization of investing, democratization of information flow people want access to how they could play certain themes and that's what that does right and obviously there's the active manage piece as well you know in terms of like you know depending on who it is you know where they play that well but i think we're going to see more and more of this right in terms of just like it's a globalization i just see it travel in world. My conversations with people in Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, whatever, Middle East, are very similar at times to somewhere in Midtown Manhattan. So that's the opportunity where investors want to play a lot of the global theme. Now, how do you think about the experienced

investors take the Stanley Druckenmillers, kind of the legends of Wall Street? They seem to be all over this trend, rightfully so. Paul Tudor Jones was on CNBC recently saying, hey, I bought a bunch more AI stocks. But then there are people like Leopold and others who frankly have no experience as investors, but they seem to be young, very in tune with what's happening. They have access to a lot of information from the private market that's informing their investment decisions. And so it doesn't feel like you can put anyone in a box where experience is a liability or an advantage. But also like Drunk Miller at one point was like in his 20s. Like Buffett at one point was in his 20s. Like I don't think you could just look at

things like this is good this bad experience is good i think a lot of it's based on like the individual look experience i believe there's so much value with experience that i think investors poo-poo sometimes but then on the other hand there's different ways of understanding this market where you can discount newer investors that have had a huge track right because i could go back my whole career and investors being like you know who's this hedge fund or tiger or whatever now look at that like you could go back to like you know the legit whether it's cohen or others and and what they did but at one point they had to prove it and i just think in a market like this you have to digest all the information and it's ultimately it's ones that you think from an event

from a PM perspective or an investor perspective, you take that into your process to help you pick ultimately the winners, good or bad. So we know that the AI trade has been working. Investors are very excited about it. The rest of software has been struggling a little bit. And I think that the broader market generally has been just lagging kind of the AI trade. Now, one of the concerns is as the Iran war continues and we see oil spike, energy prices go up, you get this kind of persistent inflation risk. And we have a new Fed chairman that's coming in. And now people are saying, hey, maybe six months ago, we were all advocating for rate cuts. And we really thought that kind of true QE was coming. Now there's more talk actually of rate

hikes instead. And so how do you think of the relationship between monetary policy and maybe the AI trade and how investors should think about it? Yeah. And like, if you look at the number and Tom Lee talks about like the first like three or six months when a new Fed chair comes in, like stock markets down like the first three to six months x percent so it's like you know it tends to be like a readjustment for the market look he's coming in at such a complex time because of where the 10-year what we see happen in japan what you know obviously what we see in terms of the uk and then because of oil and this sort of like you know impasse relative to iran and what what we're seeing here. I just think it's going to be a volatile period and we could have sell-offs

based on what Warsh says, getting used to him and his sort of wording and is there a sort of tightening. But I do believe this will be ultimately a temporary relative to oil and then he'll have more flexibility on the other side to cut. And I just think as a Trump appointee, I just cannot believe Walsh comes in as some hawk. That's sort of like my view. But look, but the market's going to adjust to it. But as the market adjusts to geopolitical and Fed and other issues that happen from a macro perspective, you cannot lose sight of what's happening in terms of the tech trade. Now, one of the other areas I find very fascinating is I look at artificial intelligence, Bitcoin, robotics, all this stuff. It's just

really the age of automation. We are essentially automating a bunch of parts of the economy. We're squeezing inefficiencies out. And I feel like there's a group of companies that maybe I'll use figure technologies. And I know it intimately because I was an investor from the private market. But they basically said, look, how do we automate a huge part of the HELOC market? And then the secondary trading of these assets and the securitization, et cetera. It feels like now Wall Street has woken up and whether they call it crypto or they call it AI or they call it automation, there is this like software is going to eat finance game going on. And so how do you look at that bucket of companies, which they may not actually fall in the pure AI trade and they

may not fall in the pure like crypto trade either. But there's a monetization that's happening, And I think you see the world adjusting to these technologies. And I think it's something where it's going to make companies just that much more efficient. But also, there's going to be software that comes in and it's wake-up calls for different companies that's going to create their own proprietary technology with their people. And that's going to make them that much better. So I think it's an arms race that's going on between Numa's new AI tech versus traditional. I think if there's any best example, it would be SaaS apocalypse, software, ServiceNow,

Salesforce, Oracle, Workday, where they sit. I do believe that a lot of that is disconnected relative to how it's going to ultimately play out. But it's been a huge wake up call for Benioff for Salesforce, like what they're going to have to do. But I think also the view that these models are broken or the new kid on the block is going to change, whether it's Wall Street or whether it's corporate America, those are also easier said than done. And I think it's just, it's all part of like, who are the winners and trying to discount what's baked into the stocks at the end of the day. Now, as we see this all play out, another question that I think immediately people look at is something like Bitcoin. And we've seen Bitcoin actually operate, I think, a little bit differently than people thought it was going to. So since the Iran war, it's up, not down. Over the last 90 days or so, it's up about 15%. It's up more than gold and S&P over the last three years, but it's also struggled over the last year. And so you can pick different timeframes and you can twist the data to tell different stories. One thing I think a lot of critics would argue is that there is a tension in capital that is being diverted from Bitcoin to the AI trade. And so how do you look at the relationship between

this? I was literally going to... I think that's... You think what? Exactly that. I think risk assets, if you have a dollar, do you put it in this bucket, this bucket or this bucket and i think that is something that's playing out in the broader crypto market from an asset allocation perspective in terms of globally because when it comes to like the ai trade and what's happened in tech and the level of disruption it's we're talking like a once in like 100 year type of cycle. So I think investors, whether it's FOMO or whatever, it's like, okay, do I want to

invest here or maybe I can make whatever is 15, 20% or whatever, wherever you think that goes. Whereas here, that's where some of the generational names, but it's all relative. You could pick the wrong name here and then you're like, I should have stayed in crypto. Today's episode is brought to you by Simple Mining. Bitcoin mining has a reputation for being complicated,

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life check out uphold today go to uphold.com to learn more uphold.com go check them out today do you think that uh this is just mere momentum and so you know kind of crypto or bitcoin in particular had momentum in 2020 through 2022 then people kind of rotated over to ai and it comes back i think it's a pendulum i think these things like look crypto's not going anywhere like it's going to continue to be, I think among many, a part of their portfolio. But I think you go in pendulum shifts. And I think as part of the pendulum shifts, it's very easy to get caught up in those narratives. I could say a big pendulum shift for a while, if you go back in November, is the tech trade done? Is there a rotation? Is it financials that are going to lead? Is it

at traditional industrials, look at Walmart's multiple relative to Amazon. I'm just saying that's another example of think about that narrative. So I think it's also you cannot get so caught up in narratives. You have to be able to, whether it's individually or for whoever is investing, to figure out what's the one that makes the most sense for them. You recently went on a couple of trips that I think are pretty interesting. And maybe you can give us some like on the ground truth as to what you saw that maybe is different than the public narrative yeah um you went to asia and spent a couple of weeks there uh talk a little bit maybe about going to the fabs in taiwan and what you learned on this entire trip i mean to me it's

like that's how you're both that's how like we are so bullish in like memory and chips and when you with this before earning season but it's like it's why like a lot of times people be like oh you're so bullish no matter what. I'm like, no, because you're bearish sitting on Metro North or in 35th floor in your New York City office building,

but you're just bearish based on narratives, people in your circle and spreadsheets. If I see the demand in Asia, that's what makes me bullish. When you say you see the demand, what do you see? You see the demand. You see what's happening in terms of production.

You see the supply. you see the component issues. You have a better understanding of what's happening in hardware from NVIDIA to memory to chips to other components. Then you're able to kind of like triangulate that with what you're seeing from companies, what they're spending on, budgets, whether it's cybersecurity, whether it's software, whether it's broader tech infrastructure. That's why I think those trips are so important. Then even like, you know been europe a few times in different trips and like i could tell you like just came back from poland like the amount of spending around like defend spending while they're coming

out of ukraine but just like that you're seeing in eastern europe ai really just starting to get started who's going to be the european country that like pops out and we i think poland could actually be. I mean, you can see maybe even France, but that continent is not just a zero in terms of opportunity. At one point when they wake up and regulatory or whatever pushes back, there's going to be massive opportunities. So I think investors trying to figure out where the opportunities are, specifically when it comes to either tech or defense tech. What are the areas where you're concerned in the AI trade? Maybe where you think investors are allocating capital and they're maybe misplaced.

My biggest concern goes back to how we started this. Is that tech companies, it's about them tripping over their own shoelace, having the hubris, talking about job cuts, like it's like not reading the room, saying that their technology is going to, you know, is going to wipe out, whether it's lawyers, you know, different areas and financials for young people.

that dude you do that you just shot yourself in the foot but i think a lot of people hear you say this right and um i think i've got a unique view as to i've got a lot of friends who they know nothing about finance they know nothing about technology these people work as about as average american you know lifestyle as you could imagine they're very happy right sometimes i think i'm even jealous of how uh how happy they are but they would say oh dan just doesn't want them to say what they actually think on the other side understanding what the data is showing us Is that job growth is actually happening, et cetera? It's not what they think.

Talk about what AI is going to do to pharmaceutical in this country as more is brought into the US and the drug discovery that could happen when it comes to pharma, biotech, and others. Talk about how many towns... I've been all around the United States for 30 years. How many towns had 30,000 people now have 10,000 because the factory left and it went to mexico indonesia wherever and now they have like

education drug issues wherever in a lot of those towns but data centers jobs a renaissance a retraining of the workforce it's a renaissance in this in this country so that's why it's very like it's very like it's it's almost more not even the stock perspective which is as an american I see the opportunity it's we're talking about like something that's generational that will I'm not talking about just like wealthy people making money on stock I'm talking like what this can do democratization data so it's frustrating more than frustrating when I see these tech companies in these certain areas about job cuts and guess what politics get involved regulatory You know how many politicians I saw at Milken?

A lot. Okay? And what are they focused on? Regulatory, there's job group. They're not just going to watch this take place. That's why it's important. Then data centers have to get built. If they're not built in the towns and approved,

that's the thing that worries me the most. Is it fair to say that you think Dario is wrong when he says that all these jobs are going to get wiped out? A hundred percent. Explain. Because the reality is, is that like the view and, you know, you could hear from like major banks to market to whatever, what's going to separate companies, the technology, there's massive efficiencies, but ultimately the models over time are going to get more commoditized. You're going to have hundreds of models, LMs that will be across US, across the world. As that data set gets commoditized, what separates company A from B to C to D? It's the people. It's the engineering. It's the mark. So the thing is, to have that, like, dystopian-type view,

remember, like, what Anthropic's done is unbelievable. But you start that type of fear, that's the thing. Then all of a sudden, data centers don't get built. You have politicians get more focused on regulation of models. You start to go closer to Europe from a data privacy. Meanwhile, China at that point is like foot on the pedal going. That's the thing that to me that I worry about the most is the self-created PR problem that a lot of big tech has done.

And I think that has to be course corrected. Otherwise, that would be the thing that I fear the most. Data centers don't get built, then a lot of like... We're in trouble. Dude, we're in trouble. So that to me is what I fear the most. Let's talk about Apple. I think Apple is one of those companies that people obviously respect as a big business

that has been very successful. Tim Cook is stepping down. But I think a lot of people are looking at Apple saying, hey, what's your AI strategy? Are you guys behind? How do you evaluate that business? Yeah, way behind. But I mean, 1.5 billion iPhones, 2.5 billion iOS devices. You don't have to be first when you have that.

you could be late to the game because they they're almost uh they're thinking about them like they're you know on the highway the u.s consumer highway the global highway they're basically a toll collector they're going to get their share the way 20 of the world is going to access ai through an apple device that's why wwdc in june is so important for them to launch that strategy with Gemini, start to actually now make sure that they're not watching this game from the outside. And I think it's very important to not get so caught up in narratives where these companies, they're done.

Google was done a year ago. Look at them now. So I just think Apple is like a sleeping giant relative to where I believe they're going to be able to monetize on the consumer side. Cook, it was obviously a surprise at the time. But when I look at Ternus, core Apple veteran and innovator, someone that I think will also double down services.

So it's a very important time for Apple. But watch that stock. I continue to think that's probably the one is large cap, probably on large cap tap, probably the one that's like the most mispriced, along with Microsoft not being factored in. And so I think the narrative for a while was like the big companies, they have distribution, they have data, they have very large teams. they're going to get the bulk of the benefit from AI? Do you still believe that? I still believe that. And I think that's why, but also those companies are

shifting quickly. If you look at what's happened at Meta, you look what's happened at Amazon, I think they're also going to have to significantly, not just partner with the Anthropodope and AI, they're essentially going to build their own vertical stacks. the power. It goes back to the circular financing fears. They got to plant their flags with those partners. They got to create their own ecosystem. But it's democratization of data. There will be companies that we have never heard of. Two years from now, could they be the next Anthropic? I think that speaks to the opportunity now that we see in this world. Let's talk about the ETF that you have. Talk a little bit about the portfolio

construction. Because I think a lot of people, they're convinced of the AI trade. And what they're trying to think about is, should I have three to five stocks? Should I be diversified across the individual sectors? How should I think about rotating my capital? And some of them, frankly, I think just say, well, I don't know. And so is there some sort of external party that I can go and I put my capital with? So talk a little bit as to how you guys- Yeah. And that's all based on our research and it's managed separately from the Wedbush side. but it's the Ives AI30. It's our research. It's basically, it's putting out on all of our clients that we started to do a year ago, who are the 30 names that are going to benefit in AI?

Derivative, from chips to software to infrastructure to cybersecurity. And that, you know, every quarter we switch that out relative to some of the names, the 30 that come in, some come out based on all the data and the research that we do. And what I've liked about the Ives AI30 research as well as the Ives AI30 power that we've come out with, it's trying to just give a roadmap to our clients, our investors. It's not just about these one, two names. It's about you have to be able to figure out who the second, third, fourth derivatives are. When you look at so many of these investors are now taking control of their own capital, and they're saying, I'm not going to go to RIAs or to financial advisors. I want to invest myself.

How do you see them using the AI tools to actually become better investors? Are there things you guys are doing internally on the research side? Are there things that you're seeing in conversations with people? I mean, I would just say, just obviously, I've been in so many conferences, RIA. I mean, the value of RIAs are extremely important, you know, based for so many people. And I also think, like, there's so many people, like, everyone could look like a genius when stuff, then all of a sudden, like, you know, you hit choppiness. That's also where, you know, like, it's very, it's a dangerous time too.

Look, I think there's a flattening of data. There's more information out there. but i think it comes down to like for investors it's also making sure like diversify portfolio making sure you understand risk because a lot of people like they think they this is where like when you go back to like the drunken miller and the buffets and the paul tudor jones and the other they understand see there might be like names that they're bullish on that don't work but The thing with a lot of them that makes them so elite, and Steve Cohen among others, is that they understand risk. Risk is the key piece.

And that's something from an individual perspective. A lot of investors, I think they under-calculate or mis-calculate some of this risk. And then what about just the NASDAQ as a beta to the market? It seems like if you go back for the last 10 years, that's been a pretty good bet. You should have just bought the index and maybe didn't even have to do any work. Yeah. I mean, look, people do that, right? And I get it because it plays the broader view. And I think it just depends on what themes you want to play and how you want to do it. And I think more and more younger people investing, more and more of the population is invested in terms of

the market. And I think it's a positive thing because also you want to see wealth creation across the board. That's, to me, what makes me happy when I see... When you hear about investors that they could pay off their college loans or they pay off their house or whatever it is by being on the right side of it. I think those are the things that bring me joy when I hear about All right. Where can we send people to find you on the internet? Yeah. So I'm on X, Dives Tech, LinkedIn. Many know how to contact me. And look, we just try to just be one. We do the work and we try to communicate that to our clients and investors because there's a lot of haters out there. And it's very important in these sort of

markets to just sometimes have a light in a dark tunnel sometimes. And I think that's very important, especially in a market that's very confusing. Do you have a book suggestion for anybody? I mean, look, I'm more of a historian when it comes to books. I read a lot about American history and world history. And the one thing I will say, a lot of times books, investors are like, oh, this is like a liar's poker, you know, the typical, like, wall. I actually think a lot of times, like, understanding, like, history,

whether it's U.S. history or American, it actually gives you good perspective when you even triangulate with the market in terms of just understanding, like, different generations and ultimately what happened, especially over the last, you know, 150, 200 years. Yeah, I like it. All right, thank you so much for doing this.

No, thanks so much. Awesome. Great. Thank you.