Alphabet IncGOOGBUYJul 09, 2018Stock price when the opinion was issued
As of Jul 31, 2026. Market Open.
That was an eye-opener. The Mag 7 has peaked, and it could be a multi-year peak due to the negative free cash flow. GOOG is one of the winners in AI. Once the PE declines or AI spending slows, the stock could react better. The street would be very disappointed if only the core businesses of the Mag 7 were generating free cash flow growth and AI was not. It's tough to look through AI spend and invest the Mag 7 which remain great companies, but now face the biggest risk in years.
He trimmed a little early this year, but likes it. Their relationship with the customer is strong across its platform. Secondly, growth is remarkable. Also, the valuation is reasonable. Their AI model is not the best, but it's competitive. Can you keep your eyeballs on a Google product? Yes. Gemini is integrated in their search, so that removes the threat to their search.
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%.
Google vs. Alibaba: He owns both. Both have leadership in the West and China, respectively. Under 25% of Google's revenue stream comes from the search engine, then they re-invest it. The search engine is like a piggybank and takes up a huge proportion of overall online advertising revenue. Similarly, Alibaba is dominant in China. They have long runways (as noted in how Google reinvests revenue from searches). As for Trump's tariffs, these are nickels and dimes against the big scheme of themes--unless the tariff war escalates.