Cisco Shares Nears Dot-Com Highs

Summary

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Bloomberg Tech: "Cisco Shares Nears Dot-Com Highs"

Date: November 13, 2025
Host: Ed Ludlow (San Francisco), Caroline Hyde (New York)
Format: Daily news program focused on technology, innovation, and the future of business

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Bloomberg Tech explores Cisco’s surge to share price highs unseen since the dot-com era, fueled by a strong 2026 outlook and growing AI-driven enterprise business. The show features an in-depth interview with Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins on the company’s strategic evolution, followed by analysis of Disney’s earnings miss and succession questions, exclusive news about Tencent’s deal with Apple, breaking headlines from Tesla and the venture landscape, plus debate around the reality of an “AI bubble” and its impact on public and private markets.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Cisco: From Dot-Com Highs to the New AI Era

• Cisco shares surged to their highest levels since 2000, up c.4–4.6%, after raising their 2026 outlook and highlighting success in the AI/cloud infrastructure market.
• CEO Chuck Robbins Interview:
  • Celebrated “a record quarter” and possibly “the best year we’ve ever had.”
  • Drew parallels with the dot-com era but emphasized today’s stronger market fundamentals, with major “hyperscalers” as customers.
  • On Customer Base:
    • Signed new major US hyperscalers, plus sovereign deals in the Middle East (notably G42 in UAE and Humane in Saudi Arabia), and seeing growth in Europe and Asia.
    • Pipeline: Over $2 billion through the end of fiscal year in “NEO cloud, sovereign cloud, and enterprise.”
  • AI and Security Investments:
    • Security business making progress: next-gen firewalls saw “mid-teens growth,” Splunk's recurring revenue in “double digits.”
    • Shift to cloud-based Splunk created an “accounting issue” but is positive long term.
    • Stress on proprietary silicon development as key to hyperscaler wins since 2016.
  • M&A and Product Focus:
    • Emphasized more software, especially post-Splunk acquisition, and future focus on “security and AI.”
    • Open to both organic innovation and inorganic (M&A) deals.
  • On AI Bubble Question:
    • Robbins downplayed bubble fears:

      “The difference between now and 2000 is these are massive companies with strong financial performance... They view [AI] as existential.” (08:36)

    • AI's enterprise adoption just beginning—“huge opportunity ahead.”
  • On Forecast Conservatism:
    • Admitted forecasts are prudent in a “dynamic” world but expressed strong confidence:

      "We're very confident in the numbers that we put up yesterday.” (09:54)

Notable Quotes:

• “I think it'll just extend into the enterprise over time.” —Chuck Robbins (03:29)
• “If we did not have our silicon and design our own, we wouldn't be participating at all. It's black and white.” —Chuck Robbins (07:34)

Timestamps:

• [03:29] Reflecting on Cisco’s modern business model
• [04:19] Discussion of new hyperscaler and sovereign customers
• [06:14] Deep dive on the state of Cisco’s security business
• [07:34] Strategic importance of proprietary silicon
• [08:36] Are we in an AI bubble?
• [09:54] On the conservatism of Cisco’s guidance

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2. Disney’s Volatile Earnings, Streaming Bets, and CEO Succession

• Shares fell almost 10%, the worst drop since 2022, despite double-digit EPS growth guidance for 2026.
• Interview with CFO Hugh Johnston:
  • Contradicted market pessimism:

    “Overall, I thought the quarter was good and it actually allows us to end the year with a lot of momentum. EPS up 19% for the year.” (15:40)

  • Streaming Outlook:
    • Asserts confidence in continued streaming profitability through 2026, driven by a tentpole content slate including Zootopia 2, Avatar, and Toy Story 5, as well as strong TV ratings and improved DTC app experience.
    • Bundling seen as critical for “reducing churn, increasing engagement,” despite short-term lower operating income ($375M for Q1 2026).
  • Succession Concerns:
    • Board to name a successor to CEO Bob Iger “by end of March 2026,” pointing to a two-horse race between Dana Walden (creative) and Josh D’Amaro (parks).
  • Market Skepticism:
    • Analysts critique lack of stronger, more specific 2026 guidance given forthcoming content and business catalysts.

Notable Quotes:

• “The board has been about as transparent as any CEO succession I have ever seen in my long career.” —Hugh Johnston (19:04)
• “Bundling ultimately is a very profitable thing to invest in... increases retention, reduces churn, increases engagement. That’s not a theory, we have proof on that.” —Hugh Johnston (18:38)

Timestamps:

• [15:40] Disney’s Q4 and FY2025 performance with CFO Hugh Johnston
• [17:02] Streaming business confidence and growth drivers
• [19:04] Upcoming CEO succession and process transparency

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3. Tencent & Apple: A Strategic Truce with WeChat Mini Games

• Tencent and Apple have reached a deal: Apple will take a 15% cut (instead of usual 30%) from in-app purchases in WeChat Mini Games and apps—a major shift after years of stand-off and circumvention.
• Implications:
  • Opens a rare path for Apple into China’s massive super-app market; Apple has less leverage than in US/EU due to local alternatives.
  • Signals growing regulatory and business pressure on Apple globally to reduce App Store fees.

Notable Quotes:

• “It’s at least an entree for them into a China market that they really haven’t been able to tap that effectively in the past.” —Peter Elstrom (12:25)

Timestamps:

• [11:13] Analysis of the Apple–Tencent deal context and significance
• [12:25] How the agreement reflects China’s market power dynamics

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4. Tesla Embraces CarPlay—A Stunning Reversal

• Tesla is developing support for Apple CarPlay, despite CEO Elon Musk’s long-standing refusal—seen as an attempt to revive sagging sales amid intensifying EV competition.
• Motivation:
  • CarPlay is a highly requested feature; Tesla aims to address all major pain points driving customers to rival brands.
  • Potential connection to Musk’s $1T pay package, which is performance-driven (vehicle sales).
• Apple’s Perspective:
  • CarPlay is a sticky, consumer-facing feature that keeps iPhone users locked into the Apple ecosystem. No revenue exchanged with Tesla—benefit is indirect.

Notable Quotes:

• “People are not buying Teslas because of [missing CarPlay]... Tesla wants to hit every lever it could to improve sales.” —Mark Gurman (39:34)
• “Aligning Tesla with the iPhone brand... that's great for Apple whether they're making money directly on it or not.” —Mark Gurman (41:25)

Timestamps:

• [39:34] Mark Gurman on Tesla’s CarPlay reversal and rationale
• [41:05] The Apple-Tesla relationship and strategic calculus

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5. AI Bubble Debate & Private Market Trends

Market Analysis and Venture Capital Insights

• Chuck Robbins (Cisco):
  • Asserted that AI investment wave is different from dot-com bubble because the “customers... have incredible balance sheets, have incredible cash flow, have incredible profitability” and see AI as “existential.” (08:36)
• Philippe Botteri (Accel VC):
  • Called AI a typical platform shift—on historical pace with previous tech waves—but warned “not all companies are going to be winners.”
  • Noted $184B global VC to cloud/AI, with 60% to US-based models (OpenAI, Anthropic), and a robust, competitive ecosystem of native AI applications in Europe/Israel as well.
• On Valuations:
  • Private companies like Lovable and Synthesia are scaling fast, but public markets still hold the bar high ($500–700M ARR to IPO).
  • M&A primarily on the model side for talent; ambitious founders in AI apps are focused on building independent global giants.
• Concerns About Circularity and Volatility:
  • Brianne Doherty (Bloomberg Intelligence):

    “We do think we're not in the bubble camp. We do think that there's a lot of opportunity down the road.” (45:29)

    • Noted that public/private company valuations (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic XI) would put them among the world's 30 biggest public tech stocks if listed.
    • Advised investors to beware volatility and focus on indices/benchmarks when investing in times of disruption.

Notable Quotes:

• “The productivity improvement potential that AI is giving goes well beyond what any of the previous platform shifts have generated.” —Philippe Botteri (30:00)
• “Picking single individual winners and losers is really tough. When you're talking about investing through disruption, we really look at benchmark indices.” —Brianne Doherty (47:56)

Timestamps:

• [27:25] Philippe Botteri on the “AI bubble” question
• [28:37] Allocation trends in venture capital
• [31:41] The IPO pipeline for AI-native companies
• [34:53] European vs. US approach to capital and scaling
• [35:09] Risks around model innovation slowdowns
• [44:01] Jensen Huang (Nvidia): “The reason for that is we're going through a natural transition from an old computing model based on general purpose computing to accelerated computing.”
• [45:29] Brianne Doherty on OpenAI & the structure of AI investing

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6. Michael Burry Shutters Hedge Fund Amid “AI Bubble” Fears

• Michael Burry’s Scion Asset Management terminated its registration, possibly closing his fund to outside investors. Follows public bets against Palantir and Nvidia—positions that “defied fundamentals for so long.”
• Rationale: Burry, famous for “The Big Short,” has grown increasingly frustrated with trying to time the “exuberant” AI-driven market.

Notable Quotes:

• “Even Michael Burry is starting to lose faith in trying to time this bubble.” —Tom Metcalfe (23:36)

Timestamps:

• [23:00] Michael Burry background and latest fund developments
• [24:25] Insider details on Burry’s specific bets

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Noteworthy Quotes

“The difference between now and 2000 is that these are massive companies with strong financial performance... They view [AI] as existential.”
—Chuck Robbins, Cisco CEO [08:36]

“Overall, I thought the quarter was good and it actually allows us to end the year with a lot of momentum. EPS up 19% for the year.”
—Hugh Johnston, Disney CFO [15:40]

“Aligning Tesla with the iPhone brand... that's great for Apple whether they're making money directly on it or not.”
—Mark Gurman, Bloomberg [41:25]

“Picking single individual winners and losers is really tough… When you're talking about investing through disruption, we really look at benchmark indices.”
—Brianne Doherty, Bloomberg Intelligence [47:56]

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Segment Timestamps

| Topic | Speaker | Timestamp | |-----------------------------------------------------------------|-------------------------|-------------| | Cisco’s resurgence, CEO interview | Ed Ludlow, Chuck Robbins| 03:20–10:17 | | Disney earnings and streaming outlook | Ed Ludlow, Hugh Johnston| 15:30–20:50 | | Apple-Tencent WeChat deal | Peter Elstrom | 11:13–12:59 | | Tesla adopts CarPlay, market implications | Mark Gurman | 39:10–42:31 | | AI bubble debate – venture & public market trends | Philippe Botteri, Ed Ludlow, Brianne Doherty | 27:25–47:56 | | Michael Burry shuts his fund, bubble concerns | Tom Metcalfe | 23:00–25:31 |

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Memorable Moments

• Cisco’s Chuck Robbins on AI: Stressed that AI infrastructure is in its early innings and enterprise adoption will drive the next growth cycle.
• Disney’s CFO on Streaming: Made a strong case for bundling, unified apps, and blockbuster releases as the foundation for future profitability.
• Apple/Tencent détente: The 15% fee headline—half the US/EU App Store normal—signals Apple's flexibility in strategic overseas markets.
• Tesla’s CarPlay reversal: Mark Gurman framing it as a necessity in the face of customer demand and slowing growth.
• Market Uncertainty: Analyses suggest that, while some show bubble signs (e.g., Burry's frustration), robust fundamentals for leading AI infrastructure players set this era apart from 2000's excesses.

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Takeaways for Listeners

• Cisco is back in the spotlight with hyperscaler momentum, a sharpened AI/security focus, and an eye toward enterprise expansion.
• Disney’s streaming play faces skepticism, but bundling, DTC investments, and blockbuster content remain core growth levers.
• Tech giants are making strategic compromises: Apple adapts in China, Tesla bows to market features like CarPlay.
• AI remains a double-edged sword: Venture capital still flows, but picking winners is tricky and “bubble” worries oscillate.
• Iconoclasts like Michael Burry are struggling to read the current market, emphasizing how disruptive (and unpredictable) the AI wave is proving to be.

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Bloomberg Tech delivers another tightly packed rundown of tech's biggest stories and debates, with actionable insights for investors and tech watchers alike.

Transcript

[Chuck Robbins]

For every six Chinese people, there's a Ping an customer. We have accumulated a massive amount of the customer data, not just on the financial side, but end to end across channels thanks to our AI advancements.

[Ed Ludlow]

This is the Technology Empowered Growth at Ping an podcast. In our latest episode, Ping an is utilizing technology to provide integrated and personalized 24. 7 support for China's rapidly growing elderly population. Now available on Spotify, Apple Podcast and Ping An's website. The world is buzzing with AI tools, but instead of making things easier, they've made things overwhelming. There's a better way. Meet Superhuman, the AI productivity suite that gives you superpowers so you can outsmart the work chaos with Grammarly, mail and coda. Working together, you get proactive help across your workflow. No matter how you work, experience AI that meets you right where you are. Unleash your Superhuman potential today. Learn [e-mail] podcast that's superhuman.com podcast this.

[Chuck Robbins]

Is Jacob Goldstein from what's yous Problem? When you buy business software from lots of vendors, the costs add up and it gets complicated and confusing. Odoo solves this. It's a single company that sells a suite of enterprise apps that handles everything from accounting to inventory to sales. Odoo is all connected on a single platform in a simple and affordable way. You can save money without missing out on the features you need. Check out [e-mail] that's o d o o.com.

[Ed Ludlow]

Bloomberg Audio Studios podcasts Radio News Bloomberg Tech is live from coast to coast with Caroline Hyde in New York and Ed Ludlow in San Francisco. This is Bloomberg Tech coming Cisco shares gain after boosting its 2026 forecast showing progress in its effort to capture more air spending. We're going to discuss with the CEO plus shares of Disney. They're falling today as the company invests in its content slate and stream. Bundling our conversation with the Disney cfo.

[Chuck Robbins]

Hugh Johnston and Tencent strikes a deal.

[Ed Ludlow]

With Apple under which the iPhone maker takes a 15% cut for purchases in WeChat mini games and apps. But first we check in on these markets and maybe a little bit of chop as we try to discern when we get the government data what that will show the Federal Reserve can indeed do or do not when it comes to cutting in the future. The market a little bit uncertain at the moment. It seems as though that lifting of a government shutdown had been priced in. We're currently up by 1.4%. We're dragged down by the key names in Magnificent Seven but, Ed, you're looking at the company that's adding the most in points. Upside. Yeah. One of the big movers to the upside is Cisco shares, currently up around 4%. They'd open much higher than that.

[Chuck Robbins]

The key bit is they're trading at their highest level since the year 2000, after the company raised its outlook and showed progress on capturing more of the global air spend. Let's get the details with Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins. Chuck, in the year 2000, Cisco was one of the original Four Horsemen of technology. Based on the numbers you gave and what you said on the call, do.

[Ed Ludlow]

You feel like customers, the new ones, and investors now understand Cisco's place in this new era?

[Chuck Robbins]

Well, first of all, thanks for having me. And you know, I'm super proud of what the teams have accomplished. We had a record quarter and set ourselves up for what's likely going to be the best year we've ever had. So it was, it was just a great performance. And as I've been asked a lot over the last 24 hours, to reflect back on 2000, and it's, it's kind of an interesting comparison, but I think that, look, the hyperscalers are some of the most advanced customers in the world. They do the deepest analysis of the technology before they make decisions. And I think that their decisions to continue spending more with us speaks volumes about the innovation and the technology that our teams are building right now. So I'm really proud of them, and I think it'll just extend into the enterprise over time. Chuck, who are some of those new customers that you've been able to sign.

[Ed Ludlow]

In the air context?

[Chuck Robbins]

Well, we're just talking about the, the major hyperscalers, primarily in the United States, but we've also announced these sovereign deals in the Middle east with G42 in the Emirates, as well as Humane and Saudi Arabia. There's a lot of work going on in the NEO cloud space. We're seeing sovereign players start popping up now in parts of Europe as well as Southeast Asia and India. So it's a, it's a broad swath of customers, but the 1.3 billion that we talked about is strictly the top hyperscalers that, that we're doing business with. So you're talking about five companies, and.

[Ed Ludlow]

They'Re good for the money, as you can tell from the cash flow that they have. Chuck, that $200 million that you are expanding into sovereign, you are expanding into Enterprise and NeoClouds. How do you bake in some of the risks that the market just cannot get Enough of talking about this circular economy.

[Chuck Robbins]

Well, so we, we did talk about the fact that we have over $2 billion now in our pipeline through the end of the fiscal year. So over the next three quarters in NEO cloud, sovereign cloud and enterprise and we just, we see that continue to accelerate. We took $200 million in orders in Q1 and it's, it's just, it's a natural way. The technology, technologies have been evolving over the last decade or more. They start in the hyperscalers, they move through the telco space, in this, in this case the NEO clouds and the sovereign players and then into the enterprise. And it's happening exactly that way. And in our bread and butter over the years has been in the enterprise and we have lots of technical knowledge, we have a partner ecosystem, we have full stack solutions, we have security, we have all the things that they're looking for to actually build out AI workloads and deal with AI with confidence.

[Ed Ludlow]

Let's just go to that security. A little bit of a fly in the ointment let's say. I know you've talked clearly about perhaps how the booking of revenue can be misinterpreted, but how are you going to sell that more holistically? How do you think the security part of the offering can really start firing on all cylinders?

[Chuck Robbins]

Well, I started by saying clearly we're not pleased with where we are yet. But I will say over the last two to three years we've made a lot of progress. It's a major decision for customers to make big platform decisions in security. We've had a lot of great wins. I'm proud of what the teams have built and we saw our next generation firewalls. We saw mid teens growth in orders there. We saw double digit ARR growth in Splunk. We saw our new and refreshed products on the security side continue to show growth. And the issue we had in the quarter was really it's an accounting issue around how cloud delivered Splunk versus On Prem delivered Splunk. The cloud stuff is ratable and realized revenues realized over the life of the term and the on prem stuff gets recognized immediately. And we just had a major shift in how our customers consume it which is great for us in the long term that they're buying more cloud based solutions. But it creates a little bit of a challenge on revenue during the quarter. The good news is the networking businesses is doing incredibly well and can cover that for us. Chuck, it is fair to say a.

[Ed Ludlow]

Minimum that the Cisco today isn't the Same. Same as the Cisco of 2000. What you've done is kind of been open about the product lineup and you've used M and A to change the.

[Chuck Robbins]

Footprint of the company.

[Ed Ludlow]

What's your latest thinking on that? The products that you offer and what you need to do, either organically or.

[Chuck Robbins]

Inorganically, to offer what the world of I wants. I think the big things that we did, we obviously introduced a lot more software into our portfolio in areas that are strategic, like security. And the Splunk acquisition has been a great one. I think the other thing that's worth calling out is this. This investment that we started in 2016, to be clear on our silicon strategy, that is absolutely the reason that we're having success today in the hyperscaler space. If we did not have our silicon and develop and design our own silicon, we wouldn't be participating at all. It's just, it's black and white. And so as we look. As we look at both internal innovation as well as organic or inorganic opportunities, we're very focused on security, we're very focused on AI. We've made some tech and talent deals. Anything that can help us accelerate our solutions in those areas, we're open to look at.

[Ed Ludlow]

Chuck, I do not apologize for this next question.

[Chuck Robbins]

Are we or are we not in an AI bubble? Oh, it's just, it's so funny. Look, the customers that are buying the predominant amount of this technology have incredible balance sheets, have incredible cash flow, have incredible profitability. I think Caroline said it. They actually pay their bills and, and so. And they view it as an existential issue for them. That's, that's a really key element. They don't view this as something that's nice to. To have. They don't view it as something that is okay. If we, if we, if we're successful, great. If we're not, great. They view it as existential, which you see with the level of spending that they're putting into it. So it's, it's a lot and it's moving fast. And. But the difference between now and 2000 is that these are massive companies with strong financial performance and they believe in this 100%. So I don't think it's going to change. We haven't gotten into physical, physical AI. We have. We're just getting into synthetic training.

[Ed Ludlow]

Yeah.

[Chuck Robbins]

We haven't gotten into robotics. We haven't gotten into the enterprise in a big way yet. And so there's a. There's a huge opportunity ahead for all of us, I believe.

[Ed Ludlow]

Chuck, Bloomberg Intelligence analysis says your projections are conservative. Briefly, are they conservative?

[Chuck Robbins]

Well, I think you said that last quarter so you proved to be correct 90 days ago. But look, I think based on what we know today, we're 90 days into the year. We're taking what we, what we have in our backlog, what we see in the forecast. But again, we got we have three more quarters to play out. Lots of things can change. The world's very dynamic. But we're, we're very confident in the numbers that we put up yesterday.

[Ed Ludlow]

Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins, always a joy to catch up with you. Thanks for spending time. Meanwhile, let's have a look at some other shares on the move. JD.com, tencent, I want to shine a light on these ideas. They're under water a little bit like the rest of the market. But JD.com actually relieved many an investor with a 15% increase in revenue managing to show that maybe the investment in the food area is really building more broadly into the overall merchandise sales. We're looking at Tencent though social media app more cautious in AI spending, but it's making it work in terms of selling its overall products and the gaming strength really coming to bear. We're seeing again a 15% increase in revenue there as well. But 15% is an interesting number because it's a theme in the next story. $0.10 US shares trading choppy because at.

[Chuck Robbins]

One point point will hire in the session.

[Ed Ludlow]

Tencent has struck a deal with Apple that will see the iPhone maker handle payments and take a 15% cut of purchases in WeChat mini games and apps. Bloomberg's global tech editor Peter Ellstrom joins.

[Chuck Robbins]

Us for more that there's one of.

[Ed Ludlow]

Several stories actually about Tencent today.

[Chuck Robbins]

But let's start with the Apple one. What do we need to know? Yeah, so Tencent and Apple have been in this standoff for a number of different years. Tencent offers a bunch of different services including games, but they also offer for WeChat, which is really the original super app. It's a messaging app. You can do many other things within it too. Now, Tencent has wanted to offer different services and games through this super app. And they've allowed developers to circumvent the Apple Store to avoid some of the fees that you would typically pay by using the Apple Store. Apple Apple hasn't liked that. They want everybody to go through their Apple Store where they take a 30% cut of most things that are going on. So we understand from our sources this is a Bloomberg scoop that they've reached an agreement now where customers within the Tencent WeChat ecosystem are going to pay a fee of 15% to Apple, so about half of their usual fee. But they'll begin to reach some sort of truce between Tencent and Apple as they collaborate on games and other kinds of services.

[Ed Ludlow]

So, Peter, push us forward. Is this good for Apple because they can start to reap more rewards from these companies that are super apps, or is this a concern because everyone else is going to be looking at a 15% number?

[Chuck Robbins]

Yeah, it's a very good question. Certainly Apple faces this kind of pressure in many different markets. It's not just China. In China it's a little bit different though, because they don't have the kind of market power that they do in places like the United States or Europe for that matter, where they can just take their 30% cut. Regulators are looking at those fees. They'd like to bring them down. But in China they haven't been able to make that much progress because there are these alternatives like $0.10 ecosystem and other kinds of areas too. So this is at least an entree for them into a China market that they really haven't been able to tap that effectively in the past.

[Ed Ludlow]

Peter lstr all across the world of Tencent, we so appreciate it. Meanwhile, coming up, we're all across Disney falling today after what some investors are calling an underwhelming forecast. More on that next. Meanwhile, check out shares of Verizon. We have breaking news coming from the Wall Street Journal talking about how there could be some 15,000 job cuts on to come. Remember, we've had a relatively new CEO in place. Bloomberg reporting earlier that layoffs could be announced as soon as next week. According to people familiar as we have a major step in the transformation led by the new CEO Dan Schulman from New York. This is Bloomberg Tech.

[Chuck Robbins]

For every six Chinese people, there's a ping on customer. We have accumulated a massive amount of the customer data, not just on the financial side, but end to end across channels thanks to our AI advancements.

[Ed Ludlow]

This is the technology empowered Growth at Ping an podcast in our latest episode. Ping an is utilizing technology to provide integrated and personalized 24. 7 support for China's rapidly growing elderly population.

[Chuck Robbins]

Now available on Spotify, Apple podcasts and ping AD's website. This is Jacob Goldstein from what's yous Problem? Business software is expensive and when you buy software from lots of different companies, it's not only expensive, it gets confusing. Slow to use, hard to integrate. Odoo solves that because all Odoo software is connected on a single affordable platform. Save money without missing out on the features you need. Odoo has no hidden costs and no limit on features or data. Odoo has over 60 apps available for any needs your business might have, all at no additional charge. Everything from websites to sales to inventory to accounting, all linked and talking to each other. Check out odoo@o-o o.com that's o-o o.com managing multiple accounts and logins for your marketing needs is like managing multiple announcers for one ad. Confusing, but with mailchimp's new SMS features.

[Ed Ludlow]

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[Chuck Robbins]

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[Ed Ludlow]

Shares of Disney really falling today after.

[Chuck Robbins]

Posting fourth quarter earnings that missed estimates.

[Ed Ludlow]

And projecting fall forecasts that underwhelmed Wall street were down almost 10%.

[Chuck Robbins]

We spoke with Hugh Johnson, Disney CFO earlier today to walk through those results. I thought it was a good quarter Overall and frankly versus Wall street we beat expectations by 6 cents. So as you noted, the experiences business did very, very well. 6% revenue growth, 13% growth was terrific. So sports did very strongly while we were launching the new DTC product which is off to a great start. And then in terms of experience, the entertainment business, it was largely just the overlap of the of the film slate that that drove the numbers. I know the linear business looked a little bit soft, but that's primarily due to the fact that we had India in the numbers last year where we made 84 million bucks and wasn't in the numbers this year. Take that out apples to apples basis. Overall I thought the quarter was good and it actually allows us to end the year with a lot of momentum. As we think about where we are right now, we grew EPS 19% for the year and 19% CAGR for the last three years and that's why we both guided to double digit eps growth in 26 and on top of that doubled the share repurchase and increased the dividend by 50%. Hugh, good morning.

[Ed Ludlow]

On that momentum, the focus for a.

[Chuck Robbins]

Lot is streaming, right?

[Ed Ludlow]

And you have the confidence to say.

[Chuck Robbins]

Streaming is going to continue to be profitable through 2026.

[Ed Ludlow]

What are the factors behind that?

[Chuck Robbins]

What allows you to have the confidence.

[Ed Ludlow]

To have such visibility into how that streaming business is going?

[Chuck Robbins]

Well of course streaming always begins with the quality of the content that we have and the quality of slate that we have going forward. So, so if you think about the film slate we have right now, number one, we, we obviously have Zootopia 2, followed by Avatar, followed by the Devil Wears Prada 2, followed by Toy Story 5, Moana, and then we've got an Avengers movie as well. So if I look at all of that playing its way into the streaming service, certainly feel good about those tentpole events. In addition to that, our TV side continues to perform very strongly. The ratings are great, the number of hit shows are great. And then on top of that, we're investing in the product in a significant way, creating a unified app and in addition to that, improving our recommendation engines and improving the navigation within, within the DTC app. Put all of that together and what we really see is just a huge opportunity, opportunity for growth. We aspire to grow that business double digits along with the double digit margins we expect to achieve this coming year. And as a result, I think we're going to continue to see that business do really well and be a real growth driver for Disney.

[Ed Ludlow]

But the profitability, Hughes streaming operating income for the first quarter of 2026, you got to be $375 million. That's a lot less than the street was anticipating. Why is that?

[Chuck Robbins]

I think it's primarily due to the fact that we're investing in product in the business and we're investing in, in bundling. So we all know that bundling ultimately is a very profitable thing to invest in. It increases retention, reduces churn, increases engagement. And that's not a theory. We have proof on that. Hugh, is this the last earnings report.

[Ed Ludlow]

And quarter before Disney's board names a.

[Chuck Robbins]

Successor to Bob Iger as CEO? That's a great question. So what the board has previously indicated, and I will say the board has been about as transparent as any CEO succession I have ever seen in my long career. What the board has indicated is that will take place sometime during the first calendar quarter of 26. We report in in next February. Whether that'll be before or after will be up to the board, but we should have it done by, by the end of March.

[Ed Ludlow]

Part of our conversation with Disney's cfo, Hugh Johnson. Let's stay on Disney. Let's dig a little deeper into the numbers. Ethan Ranganathan is with us. Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Media Analyst. You've been writing. The overall view for fiscal 2026 is strong. We think guidance may be conservative given multiple levers, including the launch of two new cruises, multiple blockbuster theatrical releases, and greater operating leverage at streaming Driven by price increases. But Geeta, the market's not giving any sort of optimism here. Why are they beating up so hard on Disney? Yeah, I think after, you know, Caroline, you come off of fiscal 2025 delivering 19% EPS growth. You know, you obviously have some very solid momentum in the business. Yes, granted, fiscal, you know, first quarter of 2026 looks a little light. They're dealing with a lot of different cost issues, whether it's on the studio side in terms of launch costs for, you know, cruises. So there's a little bit of all of that that they have to contend with. But I think, you know, the street was really expecting, I think some, something much more specific and much more concrete, something better than just double digit eps growth for 2026, especially when they have the benefit of a lot of different catalysts that come in fiscal 2026. I mean, the stock's down 10%.

[Chuck Robbins]

Right. That puts it on track for its biggest drop since November of 2022.

[Ed Ludlow]

You heard the final question asked and answered to Hugh of what happens next with succession. Is that an overhang on the stock here? I think a little bit. And I mean, you know, we know that, you know, the Disney succession issue has really been, you know, bungled so many times right now. It's, this has been an ongoing question for them for, for almost a decade, I would say, you know, it seems like things are moving in the right direction. It's kind of turning into, I think a two horse race between Dana Walden, who heads the creative division at Disney as well as Josh Tomorrow, who heads the parks. And this has kind of been the eternal question for Disney. Do you have somebody who is at the head of creative, who can talk to talent, who can talk to all of those Hollywood executives? Or do you need somebody who, you know, heads the parks, you know, which is basically 60% of the company's profit. I really don't know how it's going to shake out. Maybe they have a co CEO structure like, like Netflix, like Spotify is doing. But again, we have to wait and watch till the end of March. Keith Ranganathan of Bloomberg Intelligence, great to have you back on Bloomberg Tech.

[Chuck Robbins]

Thank you so much. Breaking news from Bloomberg. Tesla is developing support for Apple's CarPlay.

[Ed Ludlow]

System in its vehicles. That's according to sources working to add.

[Chuck Robbins]

One of the most highly requested features by Tesla customers. Adding CarPlay would mark a pretty stunning.

[Ed Ludlow]

Reversal for Tesla and its CEO Elon.

[Chuck Robbins]

Musk, who have long ignored pleas to implement the popular feature. We're going to have much more Detail.

[Ed Ludlow]

Later this hour with Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Carrie, you've got another one of our top stories. Yeah. Everyone reading about the SEC filings revealed that Michael Burry's Scion Asset Management has terminated its registration status, raising the possibility that Barry could be shuttering his hedge fund or closing it to outside investors. At least now the move comes just one month after Barry warned about, about market exuberance, particularly in AI. For more, Bloomberg's Tom Metcalfe joins us. He cover financials, banking and what really do you think this is signaling that he just couldn't bet against this so called AI bubble?

[Chuck Robbins]

Yeah, I think your speculation is probably on the nose in terms of the, you know, this fund might well be.

[Ed Ludlow]

Closing and you know, that's what, you.

[Chuck Robbins]

Know, you read his message and he's always been saying he just cannot read this market. It's extremely exuberant and, and you know, it was hard to interpret these messages.

[Ed Ludlow]

Often like pictures of his character from the Big Short, for example.

[Chuck Robbins]

You do get a sense of the frustration and obviously he put out some shorts on Palantir and Nvidia quite recently. They were disclosed in the 13 Fs. So it's very interesting that you know.

[Ed Ludlow]

Relatively small fund but very closely followed and you know, the fact he has.

[Chuck Robbins]

Potentially taken a step does suggest perhaps even a Michael Burry is, is starting to lose faith in trying to time this bubble.

[Ed Ludlow]

I know that's what's so interesting really about the timing of it. He hinted that there's better things to come November 25th. So I'm sure we've not seen the end of this ride. But what clarification did we get in terms of the bets he's made against the likes of Palantir that has just defied fundamentals for so long?

[Chuck Robbins]

Yeah, that was one of the things he points out in his, his post which, which basically one, one image in the post said I sort of deregistered the firm without clarifying any further what that precisely means.

[Ed Ludlow]

But the other kind of lays out the precise nature of that bet he had against Palantir. So in the post he says he spent about $9.2 million effectively betting on.

[Chuck Robbins]

Palantir shares would sell, wouldn't fall. Sorry.

[Ed Ludlow]

And, and as part of that he's.

[Chuck Robbins]

Got to think until 2027 the option to sell those Palantir shares at I think it was $50.

[Ed Ludlow]

So you know, for a fund which is about, you know, 150 million a.

[Chuck Robbins]

At least it wasn't in March, that's a pretty Sort of striking bet.

[Ed Ludlow]

But yeah, of course as you look.

[Chuck Robbins]

At Palantir shares, it's sort of is on the wrong side of it at the moment.

[Ed Ludlow]

Tom, I think it's so great that you remind us that it is a relatively small fund and the reason it has outside interest is because many have read the Michael Lewis book, many have watched the movie. But why do we listen to what Michael Burry does?

[Chuck Robbins]

Well, I think, you know, the way he presents his theories and stuff is, is always entertaining for one. But, but most principally, you know, it's that incredible when he had back in the financial crisis, right, he really was out front and center on that huge effort to, you know, quintuple his investors money. So I think whatever he says, people do sit up and listen. And you know, he has built this social media following I think also with.

[Ed Ludlow]

The honesty, right, like he's made bets.

[Chuck Robbins]

When they've gone wrong, he's been happy.

[Ed Ludlow]

To kind of hold his hands up.

[Chuck Robbins]

So it's always been interesting to follow him.

[Ed Ludlow]

We most talk following him for us. We so appreciate it. Welcome back to Bloomberg Tech. Let's take a quick check on these markets, shall we? Because in fact we're on sell off Mode on the NASDAQ more broadly up by 1 1/2 percent. We've got anxiety around actually the government reopening. That's already priced in. But what does that mean in terms of data? What does that mean in terms of the Federal Reserve, its ability to cut into this market? We're up by one and a half percent. Some of the biggest tech names are on the downside. Let's go to where the earnings have led us because one of the key names in the red is indeed Disney. We're off by almost 10%. We're having a significantly poor day, worst in several years for Disney. This is as they actually pointed to still double digit earning per share growth into the fiscal 2026. But revenue was flat for their fourth quarter and actually earnings per share dropped a little bit. Maybe people wanting to see more of a narrative around the growth as they inject more investment into streaming, as they invest into their slate, as they invest into marketing and the like. We're looking at Cisco up by four and a half percent. Boy, Chuck Robbins on a tear as we see this company now trade at the highest since the previous bubble, 2000. Of course, Cisco currently up 4, 4.6% as they managed to beat and raise in terms of their earnings and they managed to really show the path that they're currently navigating and sell into in particular the hyperscalers. This is where we want to go to the questioning around AI. Is it a boom, Is it a bubble? But it's certainly fueling records in VC funding, public markets, as you've seen growth there, and indeed in infrastructure. But the questions are abound. Is in an AI bubble, how far can it run and what if it pops? Philippe Battaries with us, partner at Axcel and one of the authors of the firm's latest report published, which suggests there is still more room in spending. He joins us now. So bluntly, is there a bubble?

[Chuck Robbins]

Well, I mean, this is the question. I think it's interesting to put that in, in context. So if you look at NASDAQ stack In the past 15 years, like with every platform shift, which is every five years, so you had mobile, cloud and AI, the Nasdaq has doubled. So basically what we, where we are right now, where the NASDAQ is, is basically in line with historical trends. So yes, with every platform shifts, you know, you're seeing frosty valuation and we are clearly seeing that with, with AI and not all companies are going to be winners, but we're seeing tremendous opportunities here for value creation. And we think that the winners are going to, going to, going to take a large share of that value creation. So it's all about picking the right companies.

[Ed Ludlow]

Well, if we look at the public markets, the winners have been clear and you call them as the Super 6 that have really been generating real cash. That was something that Chuck Robbins just said to us. Look, my biggest demand has been coming from the hyperscalers and they're pretty good for the money. But then in the private markets, all winning bets have sort of been on a certain few names. OpenAI, for example, Philippe. Where else though are you seeing the money being allocated to, particularly in Europe?

[Chuck Robbins]

Yeah, I think it's, it's worth looking at where the venture funding is going in terms of, you know, cloud and I mean the total for Europe and Israel and the US is about $184 billion for this year. 60% of that is going into the models with, so that's OpenAI anthropic X. But the rest, 40% is going into a new generation of AI native, native application that are growing very, very fast and that are very exciting. So you have the cursor, the perplexity, the decagon in the US you have the Sierra, the lovable and a 10 and Syntaxia in Europe. And what's very interesting here is that if you look at the model Side, yes, the majority of the vast majority of the funding is going into US company, but if you look at the AI native application side, actually Europe fares very well against the U.S. because it's 30 billion in Europe versus 45 in the U.S. so that's about 2 third. And Europe had shown that it can really generate its shares of, of winner in this, in this category.

[Ed Ludlow]

And you've been backing some of those winners in particular, I think of Lovable, for example, that everyone has been very excited about the way in which vibe coding has taken over absolutely everything. But how do you know that you're not paying too much when getting into those rounds?

[Chuck Robbins]

Well, I mean, I think this is a question we, we ask ourselves every time we, you know, we invest. I think what we're, what we're trying to understand is like, how far can this business, this run? I think if you look at Lovable, yeah, it's vibe coding. What does Vibe coding mean? That means that any human on earth can start to code. I mean, we feel that is a pretty, pretty large market. And these, you know, this, it can be Vibe quarters, war creators, and there can be Vibe coders who are in the enterprise and who are trying to very fastly, you know, very quickly develop mockups of, of new product. So we actually think there's a lot of room to, to run in the case of Lovable. And as I said, I mean, I think valuation are where they are today. But I think if you look at the value creation for the winners, I think the opportunity we're seeing and that are unlocked with AI, I think are much bigger than what we have seen in the past, because the productivity improvement potential that AI is giving goes well beyond what any of the previous platform shifts have generated.

[Ed Ludlow]

Some of these companies are scaling so fast, and I feel like we've had the CEO Synthesia on plenty of times to talk about how he's just driving forward in enterprises at such scale and the ability to produce a real video that feels incredibly realistic. Philippe. But I'm interested as to you in your past and in the companies that you've helped navigate have gone public. You've seen it with DocuSign, we've seen it with UiPath. How will we see these companies eventually tap the public markets because they're getting enormous without needing to.

[Chuck Robbins]

Well, I mean, I think at some point, you know, getting public is in the natural path for, for companies. And I think the bar to go public now is much higher than it was, you know, five years ago. So to go public, you want Companies to be, you know, probably in the 500 to 700 million in, in annual recurring revenues. So there's still room for this company to, to grow into, you know, into these numbers. And you know, getting public is just like a financing milestone. So the fact that they remain private is not something that is preventing them to grow because they have access to the capital they need on the private market side as well.

[Ed Ludlow]

What's been interesting is a lot of these native applications, whether they've been snapped up for acqui hire purposes or they've been snapped up for the underlying technology. Philippe, they have been snapped up and by some of these super six, as you mentioned. Is that M and a trend going to continue and how are you ensuring that? Well, the founders protect the rest of the employee base. So they've been growing.

[Chuck Robbins]

Well, I mean, I think the, they're, you know, the, a lot of the M and A that we have seen so far have been more on the model development side with big six trying to kind of snap really big talents. I think on the application side, I think the founder that we're seeing extremely ambitious. They have global ambition and, and they want, want. They won't see how, you know, how much, you know how fast and how big their, their business can become. So we haven't seen this as, as any source of concern right now. And as I said, given that they have access to the capital that, that they need to, you know, to run the business and that they also have the opportunity to potentially sell some stock along the way through, through signal every sales. There's everything that's needed to keep them motivated to build big global businesses.

[Ed Ludlow]

Do they have to come to American capital markets or indeed American venture capital to scale if they are European, if they're Israeli based?

[Chuck Robbins]

Well, I mean, I think there's, there are two different things. There is a market that you address and there's where the capital is coming from. I think what we have seen out of Europe and Israel is great, great talent, great team, great engineering resources. And so what companies are doing is they are basically building their product and engineering team in Europe and Israel. And if they're selling software, I mean the biggest market for every dollar spent of software, 50 cents is spent in the US so then they have to develop their go to market in the US So I think from a market standpoint, yes, if you want to be a global leader in software and you have to be a leader in the US market now in terms of, you know, where the capital is coming from, I think there are big Pools of capital on both side of the ocean and European companies every is have been raising rounds of similar size and the U.S. so they are, they have access to the, you know, the same pockets of capital whether it's from Europe or.

[Ed Ludlow]

It'S from the US with global scape which is the enormous amount of research that you've managed to bring to us and you analyze trends and innovation and, and you go global, you think about funding levels. Where aren't we talking about enough?

[Chuck Robbins]

Well I mean I think what's going to be interesting to see is you know, how far can the models go? I think so far we have seen a pretty, pretty steep curve of innovation on the model side. And I think the big question is when are we, you know, is that improvement curve going to continue to accelerate or at some point are we going to tap out with the current architecture and, and then you know, I think if we tap out then does mean there's going to be a plateau until we get to the next level of architecture. But I think if I look at where we are right now we, we're just scratching the surface in terms of deploying the technology that we have today. So I have, you know, probably and if you look at the enterprise where we haven't reached the S curve in terms of the agentic adoption for, for different reason we think that's going to happen in the next, in the next couple of years. So I think we have plenty of room to, to grow and pretty of about plenty of opportunity opportunities for, for company to improve their productivity using AI technologies.

[Ed Ludlow]

Philippe Batari of Excel we are so appreciative of you coming on talking about the wealth of research that Accel has just done. Appreciate it. Now let's go into another area of AI because has been fueling chip makers in particular the memory side of the equation. But then we've just had results out of Japan's Kioxia holdings and it's putting pressure on Sandisk as you said, off by 13% Western Digital up by almost 4%. Particular Citi is out there writing that these Japanese results were somewhat negative. The market may react negatively to the way that near term earnings are undershooting consensus. But there is a strength of demand for solid state drives for air inference. So for now people trimming back on some big winners of late. But coming up we talk more about key Mag 7 names. Tesla in particular working to add Apple CarPlay support to its vehicles on that next. This is Bloomberg Tech.

[Chuck Robbins]

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[Ed Ludlow]

Funny how that works.

[Chuck Robbins]

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[Ed Ludlow]

We've got to get back to that News that Tesla is developing support for Apple's CarPlay system in vehicles, according to sources. Take a look at the shares. Actually, Apple managed to turn from negative into positive on the news. Tesla still much in the red, off by 6%. But Bloomberg's Mark Gurman joining us now help break the story. And I think the context is so interesting here because this feels a real about face. Why would now be the right time for the two companies to work together?

[Chuck Robbins]

Yeah, this is absolutely a huge reversal for Tesla. There's two things going on here. One, as we've discussed on this show many times, Tesla sales have not been as hot as they have been in years prior. There are a lot of new EV players. There's a lot of pressure on the company, particularly in China, to up its sales game. We saw some executives leaving earlier this year because sales have not been so hot. What is the most in demand feature in these right now when making purchase decisions? Well, it's Apple CarPlay. People like to walk into their car and have their iPhone interface projected onto their infotainment system. I use it in my car. People are not buying Teslas because of it. In some cases people are buying other cars because of the well integrated support. Tesla wants to hit every lever it could to improve sales. You do that with CarPlay. Right? And I would expect them to go down the list of all the requests that people have for wanting to buy a new car and hit those one by one to help sales. It's time for Tesla to do that as good as their infotainment system is. The second thing of course is Elon Musk's $1 trillion pay package, which includes some metrics particularly around selling a certain number of vehicles. And integrating CarPlay could potentially help with that. And so I think this is a good thing for Tesla. They have engineers developing support for this, testing support for this, and we anticipate a rollout unless it is canceled, of course, which Elon Musk is known to do with some features late in development in the coming months.

[Ed Ludlow]

Mark, you worked with Ed on this story and I'm interested as to, well, what is in it for Apple more broadly? Elon in many ways had refused to do deals because he didn't want the sharing of data. Particularly when Apple was basically building a competitor. At one point Apple backed away from that. Now how do they win by getting CarPlay within a Tesla?

[Chuck Robbins]

You know, from Apple's perspective, this is something that they don't really have to participate in. There's no agreements behind the scenes. Apple provides this functionality. It provides developer tools for carmakers to integrate this into their cars. So there's no money exchanged here. It's really CarPlay, a iPhone ecosystem feature. If consumers rely on their iPhone for use of their car. For Apple that keeps people buying iPhones, upgrading iPhones, keep keeping them locked into the ecosystem. So that's the business play for them. And Tesla has a, you know, over a third of the US EV market. They are a gigantic player in terms of car sales globally as well. And aligning Tesla with the iPhone brand and that's great for Apple whether they're making money directly on it or not.

[Ed Ludlow]

Do you think Elon's going to continue to criticize Apple on his platform and the like?

[Chuck Robbins]

Oh, I'm sure of it. But you know, his relationship with Apple has taken a turn since Apple stopped developing its own competitor. He relies on them very heavily now for distribution of Grok and X. So it's pretty critical for him to.

[Ed Ludlow]

Be on Apple's good side, remain on Apple's good side. We'll continue to see how the rollout continues and if indeed it does happen, as you said, sometimes Elon Musk can be prone to U turns. Mark Gurman we so appreciate it. Now it's time for talking tech. First up, JP Morgan is letting its managers use AI to help write performance reviews. Now, the bank's new guidelines allow supervisors to use an internal chat bot to draft their evaluations, but caution that the technology is, quote, not a substitute for human judgment. Plus, Google is facing a new EU probe. The European Commission alleges the tech giant unfairly demotes certain news results, violating the Digital Markets Act. The investigation could add another $11 billion to Google's growing tally of fines in Europe. And delivery startup Gopa. It's raised $250 million at a valuation of 8 1/2 billion, but that's down for $15 billion in its 2021 funding round. It's all according to sources. Now the company says the new funding will help accelerate its investment in AI.

[Chuck Robbins]

I don't believe we're in the eyeball. And the reason for that is we're going through a natural transition from an old computing model based on general purpose computing to accelerated computing. We also know that AI has now become good enough because of reasoning capability, research capabilities, its ability to think. It's now generating tokens and now generating intelligence that's worth paying for.

[Ed Ludlow]

That, of course, was Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang speaking with her own Ed Ludlow at gtc, just brushing off those concerns about an AI bubble. But the scale of spending for data centers and of course by AI startups continues to raise eyebrows. So we wanted to dig into it with Brianne Doherty, she's analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence. You've been putting out some great Rethinking of whether OpenAI has scale, has the financial wherewithal and whether there's risk within this. It's been some of the most read analysis I've seen. What is your takeaway as to the circular financing and whether this is a concern? I think that there's clearly a lot happening, right. And the integration that we're having between the private markets as well as the public markets is clearly something to be watching.

[Chuck Robbins]

It's a space that we follow very, very closely.

[Ed Ludlow]

We think that actually what we've been seeing with OpenAI's relationships is the fact that they're broadening them, they're creating structures that are allowing them to potentially IPO long term. That's obviously something that's been talked about, I think, over the last couple of weeks especially, and what we're thinking when we look at these big companies. So we've got a Few hectic ones.

[Chuck Robbins]

That we watch very closely.

[Ed Ludlow]

And actually corn Hector Corns talk us. I'm pretty sure it's a term over $100 billion. That's what we call them. We've got three of them in the data set that we track over 12 actually DECA corns that we also track really, really closely in our data sets. OpenAI Anthropic XI Naturally, right now, at their current implied valuations, they would rank in the top, top 30 if they were public and in our Bloomberg Benchmark.

[Chuck Robbins]

Index, which has over 120 equities in it.

[Ed Ludlow]

So the scale these companies is huge. The partnerships they are forming are critical. And we do think we're not in the bubble camp. We do think that there's a lot of opportunity down the road. As it relates to this, when someone then sits at a dinner table with you at a cocktail party and they're saying, I cannot see it, I just. Why on earth is AMD giving its stock to open air to seal these sorts of deals? What is your general narrative as to why we can avoid some sort of bubble? Is it just the sheer revenue that could scale for open AI? But you do have to have a bit of belief. Yeah, I think you do have to have a certain bit of belief. Right. I think what we've seen is even over the last year we've seen OpenAI's implied valuation more than double. Right. I mean naturally a lot has happened in that ecosystem and actually something that we've been really focused on, and Jensen actually said something the other day about this as well, is we're not just talking about where we are right now with AI, we're talking about an AI.

[Chuck Robbins]

To quantum continuum, right?

[Ed Ludlow]

We're talking about this continued acceleration and where we're going to see and continue to prove it. Right. So even if it's that you're thinking, okay, well what if some costs come down or what if the power needs come down? Well, the demand elasticity is just so strong that for every little bit of efficiency you gain, you're going to gain some extra demand that that's going to drive a next new evolution. So we're really looking at this as a continuum and investing through that type of disruption. I mean, it's not easy, it's not without tension. So while there's tons of opportunity, we are flagging. We've talked about this previously about this potential tension that can come with that in 2026. We're seeing over the last few weeks.

[Chuck Robbins]

We get a lot of pullbacks, right?

[Ed Ludlow]

We see a lot of optimism. What we're seeing is investors fear of missing out, right? Really wanting the innovation, but also every now and then pivoting to a risk off. And that tension is something that we think is going to persist through 2026. So ride the volatility. Expect the volatility. When you're thinking about the fundamental analysis, only briefly. Look, Michael Burry basically having to shut up shop on his hedge fund. It would seem the reporting is leading us there on his negative bets on some of these companies. You think it's impossible. Briefly. Nothing's impossible, right. And yes, it does make for good dinner side conversation. What we're like and the way we approach this is we look very much the theme holistically, right? Is one of the reasons why we say picking single individual winners and losers is really tough. When you're talking about investing through disruption, we really look at benchmark indices. That's one of the reasons why, you know, the way we create our work is very much looking at that benchmark approach, understanding that as these systems evolve, you're going to find new connections, new correlations. And that's really a way to continue.

[Chuck Robbins]

Investing through disruption without that vulnerability.

[Ed Ludlow]

Vulnerability. Rhian Amazing analysis. Go read it. Brian Doherty, Bloomberg Intelligence that does it for this edition of Bloomberg Tech. Check out the podcast.

[Chuck Robbins]

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