Alphabet IncGOOGTOP PICKApr 04, 2016Stock 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 own Search and are monetizing exceptionally well. Margins are starting to come higher. They are getting the earnings growth that they have wanted for a long time. Generating free cash flow and redeploying it into very strong acquisitions. On top of that, they own the best and one of the largest operating systems in the world, the Android Operating system. They are giving this away for free right now, but at some time they will monetize this.