Alphabet IncGOOGCOMMENTFeb 06, 2015Stock price when the opinion was issued
As of Jul 10, 2026. Market Open.
Fears that AI would eat its lunch. Harder for Anthropic to monetize a new tool than for GOOG to take AI and apply it to a business model that it already monetizes. Muscle memory of the populace gravitates to GOOG to find information. Probably thrives in the new AI world, until something more disruptive comes along.
AI monetization is happening, and AI Mode has been a game changer. Stronger cloud growth (revenue grew 63% YOY last quarter, tremendous), broader monetization across platforms. Search and advertising remain strong, lots of cashflow. Also a great ecosystem.
Good growth, but relatively decent valuation. Yield is 0.25%.
A year ago, consensus was that Search was going to die. Seems ridiculous now. Gemini is overtaking ChatGPT. Data centre business is growing faster than before. Still not that expensive. He hasn't sold any shares yet, but may take some off the table from the long-term holding and put toward one of the Mag 7 laggards.
They have the dominant share in search and online advertising. Have invested a tremendous amount of money in the business. $35 billion in CapX and acquisitions over the last 3 years, and he is not sure that he can see the benefit of that. EBITDA margins have come down over the last few years as the business mix is shifting. The momentum behind desktop search is slowing somewhat. It is more the mobile search and mobile advertising that has the advantage.