Alphabet IncGOOGTOP PICKFeb 24, 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.
One of the best business plans in the world. Advertising is all about a push business. If you want to advertise, you have to spend lots of money, and hopefully people will see it. On the other hand, if people want to look you up, all they have to do is Google you. This is the greatest advertising business model in the world. They make about 95% margin selling keywords. They are using the cash flow to make bets in other areas, which have huge markets such as networking, cable, Google glass, YouTube, etc. They are really under-reporting their earnings because they are investing so much in CapX and R&D. Their earnings would be a lot higher if they weren’t doing that. There is potential for them to start a dividend as well as share buyback.