C (8:42)

Hi.

B (8:42)

Jim Kailey from Illinois here.

C (8:44)

Thanks so much for being here.

B (8:45)

Thank you for having me, Kaylie. I appreciate it. My question is this. With so much of our economic growth.

C (8:50)

And market value concentrated in these big.

B (8:52)

AI and semiconductor stocks, are we essentially.

C (8:55)

Unhedged as an economy? What happens if adoption and monetization don't pan out? And are these stocks at this point just momentum plays since valuations have gotten so high?

B (9:04)

Okay, let's take a look at that. I mean, if the momentum plays, then why can matter be at 26 times earnings? Why can Google be at 18 times earnings? We back out the cash. Why can Nvidia turn out to be around probably 24 times earnings? If you look at the future projections, these are stocks that are all below the market multiple. So I don't think that they're that expensive. Even Amazon's multiples come down a lot and Apple I think is going to have a great quarter. So I think that their P is probably going to be roughly just a little bit above the market multiple. All these companies are actually very big conglomerates and I know we speak to ge, that's a broken up conglomerate but I like the companies for what they have, which is different businesses that are firing all cylinders. Do I think that the data center is a problem? I think that Open Air has spent more money than it has. Until they started spending I was not. I really like the group. The Open Air spend is a little too high. But in the end these are the best companies in the world. They're nation states with good balance sheets. They're not momentum plays. And momentum plays are the are the companies that you see. I call them Sherwood Forest, the Robinhood plays that are over and overboard again. It's the quantum plays that are the problem. It's the nuclear plays that's promised, the derivative data center plays at the problem. That's where I worry about. That's what people aren't talking about. That and all the nonsense ETFs have been put together to play momentum. That's what has to go away. I'd Rather be on DraftKings and take a 14 parlay to see five tight ends to score touchdowns this weekend. Thank you. Yes. Hi Jim Julian from New York.

D (10:24)

Thanks for joining us. My question for you is with M.

B (10:27)

And A markets heating up, what are.

D (10:28)

Your top picks in health care? Are you more excited about the pharmaceutical.

E (10:32)

Companies that will be buyers in this.

D (10:33)

Market or the biotech companies that will be sellers?

B (10:36)

Well, it's a great question. I mean look, I think Amgen needs to do something because they've got to be broaden the portfolio where they need to be able to tell a little bit better story about some of the things that they have a lot of good medicines and they had really good quarter last night. Look, my Chapel Trust Homes Bristol looks like a mistake because I believed in Kobenphi which is a pretty good product but it's not selling well at all. 104 million scripts last quarter. I do believe that there are very few biotechs that I really want to buy right now because they're so picked over. Look, in the end there's Eli Lilly and there's everybody else. Thank you. Remember, if you trust the market, you take counsel of your opportunities. A day like yesterday, pretty good buying opportunity. Oh my. Tonight there have been a few greater corporate breakup stories than ge. I'm sitting down with the bankable CEO of GE itself, Larry Culp, here at his former stomping grounds at Harvard. Find out how he's managed to steer the ship so successfully. Then one of the biggest semiconductor deals we just announced setting both stocks soaring. I'm finding out about the deal with the CEO of Skyworks Solutions and Exxon fell majorly after earnings, but were the results really worthy of the sell off? I'm sorting it all out with the company's top brass for a company that I have championed for many years. So stay with Kramer. Very good. Don't miss a second of Mad Money. Follow imkramer on X. Have a question? Tweet Kramer Madmentions. Send Jim an email to madmoneynbc.com or give us a call at 1-800-743-CNBC. Miss something? Head to madmoney.cnbc.com on Fox 1 now.

A (12:24)

You can stream your favorite live sports.

B (12:27)

So you can be there live for the biggest moments. Touchdown. And catch history in the making. Fox 1 We live for lives Streaming.

C (12:37)

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B (14:16)

Over the past few years, we've seen one of the greatest value creation stories in history. It's the break of the old general Electric into three terrific companies. GE Aerospace, GE Vernova, NGE healthcare, Aerospace, Renova, which is the old power business, have practically been printing money. And all of it is thanks to the man right here, Larry Culp, the chairman and CEO of the old General Electric, who orchestrated this breakup and remains as the chairman and CEO of GE Aerospace, a stock that's now up more than 80% for the year. Wow. Seven years ago, before he joined the GE board and subsequently was named CEO of the company, Culp was senior lecturer here at Harvard Business School after a very successful tenure. CEO of Danaher, back when it was arguably the best run conglomerate in the world. So now that we're back at his old stomping grounds, we got a chance to reflect on his incredible comeback to the man himself. Mr. Polk. Welcome back to Man Money.

A (15:04)

Jim.

B (15:04)

Thank you. Okay, so Larry, you're teaching, you're on the board. You know, the situation is really, really hard. What the hell made you take this job?

A (15:12)

Yeah, I've got a great story there. But maybe before we start, I just want to acknowledge this is a tough day in our industry, in aerospace. Given the event last night with the UPS cargo plane in Louisville, our thoughts are clearly with those that have been most directly affected. Safety is the industry's number one priority. It's not something we compete on. So you've got an industry coming together to make sure. We take all the lessons from what happened in Louisville yesterday.

B (15:38)

And it's important to point out when you have your priorities, it's always the same. Safety, quality, delivery and cost. And always in that order.

A (15:47)

You've been listening. That's exactly right.

B (15:49)

Which is why what it means to.

A (15:51)

You want to just make sure we're, we're focused appropriately.

B (15:54)

Thank you. Okay, so it's a, it's a tough business. There are things that can go wrong. Of course, there were many things wrong financially when you took over. I don't know. I remember when you took over, I questioned it. I said, why would you ever want to do this? But you were willing, you were up to it?

A (16:10)

Sure, sure. Well, I was happily retired. I, as you know, thought I would never have another full time job again. But it was ge. And even though I was on the board, it was a company that I had long respected, studied. We studied here at hbs, right. Back when Walsh was CEO. I thought it was at least the industrial challenge of my generation. And it was clearly a company that was important and is important not only to our country, but I would argue, the world. You put those three factors together Even though it took me a while to come to the realization that it was something that I should do, that's really how I ended up there.

B (16:46)

Well, let's help everybody in the room and people at home. You came in and these are really tremendous companies. But the balance sheet had to be fixed. And if you hadn't fixed the balance sheet first, the company arguably would have gone under.

A (16:59)

Well, those were some dark days. Back in the fall of 2018, even though the Red Sox across town were winning a World Series. But we were really there looking at probably in excess of $100 billion of debt we really couldn't carry. And at the same time, we were struggling to just get our arms around what we were going to do operationally in support of that obligation.

B (17:21)

Well, but then you decided to sell Life Sciences to your old company. I was critical because that was the big. That was the future.

A (17:30)

That was the future and is a great business in its own right. But at times like the ones we were working through in 18 and 19, we had to focus, we had to prioritize. We had to make some tough decisions. Selling Biopharma was one of those. But let's remember that was for 21 billion much needed dollars. And the check came in literally a week before the world stopped. Back In March of 2020, you were.

B (17:53)

Down to 600 million in cash flow.

A (17:54)

If we had not seen that through, we didn't close in time. I can't even fathom what would have happened to us in March and April with the pandemic.

B (18:03)

Okay, when did you realize that you could have three companies? And I'm going to push back on this when you tell, because I want people to know what. What other people were saying about it at the time.

A (18:11)

Well, a lot of people were talking about that. And certainly, as we've acknowledged through the course of 2018, when I was on the board, we were thinking about a whole host of different computations and permutations. But not having our arms around what we were going to do in terms of free cash flow and earnings really made that an academic argument. We needed to focus on the deleveraging. We needed to focus on core operations and leave for another day. Those strategic conversations.

B (18:37)

But I remember you telling me at lunch, look, I'm going to split off power. And I said, power's poorly run. I don't understand the contracts. I don't think you can understand the contracts. I think this thing is better left dead. And you told me, no. Is it better to be lucky than good? Or did you see something that would have triumphed even if we didn't have the data center.

A (18:56)

Well, there were a lot of people who were saying, leave it behind, write a check if you can.

B (19:01)

Well, you said it was going to have to have a good credit rating. I thought that was impossible.

A (19:05)

But what I think, Scott Strasik, who now runs that business and the team did, was just get back to basics. There was a good bit of inheritance tax to pay off, but day by day, doing what you said a moment ago, focusing on safety, quality, delivery and cost, they got that business back up on its legs. And clearly as we work through the deleveraging, we're positioned to go out on their own. And now they are benefiting dramatically from their position in support of the AI buildout.

B (19:33)

Now, when I look at the the conglomerates these days, Danaher has gotten pretty pure. Playboy has now taken Honeywell into pure play. Dupont as of tomorrow. Pure play. Okay. Rtx. Pure play. Is it over conglomerate or is the new conglomerate, which is the Google's are Alphabet's arguably conglomerate. Amazon's already conglomerate. What about the structure? What is it that some people still are attracted to? And it sure didn't work for ge, did it?

A (20:04)

Right. Well, I throw the private equity firms in there as well.

B (20:07)

Right, Right.

A (20:08)

I think there are multiple ways to win. We did a lot of things at Danaher over 25 years and created tremendous value along the way. To me, the lesson here is at the end of the day, what matters most is focus on the customer. And when you're big and when you do a lot of different things, sometimes that focus can come in house.

E (20:26)

Right.

A (20:27)

It's all about synergies, perhaps, rather than real value creation in the eyes of customers. That was the operating model that we had at Danaher. That was something that we did here at GE to make sure we were improving core operations, foregoing perhaps some synergies to make sure we were doing all we could at Renova Healthcare and aerospace to lead and win in our markets. And that proved, I think, to be critical to the operational change.

B (20:51)

Well, let's talk about aerospace. And strictly again, because of where we are at Harvard Business School, I looked at it and I said it's good business. I don't think you can make any more engines than you can. Than you can. I don't think you can make any more money from an engine. I don't even know if you can get more money out of service at every step of that the way I was wrong. That's a wrong way to view it. You would walk the floor you would get with management, you realized that there were literally billions of dollars being left on the table.

A (21:17)

Well, I think in all three instances, particularly in aerospace, right, we were industry leaders, but there were things that weren't necessarily getting the full attention of our teams. And from a manufacturing perspective, I could see, I first saw this in power, I saw it later at aerospace. There were opportunities for us to be better in terms of shop floor safety, better in terms of quality outputs and yields on the factory floor, and in terms of improving our delivery. And if you do that, what tends to happen along the way? What my friend Jim Collins calls the genius of the anti you get cost, you get productivity benefits. And that's really what was so critical to the emphasis on lean and our lean operating model across these last seven years. And I think you see that bearing fruit not only in aerospace, but in the other two businesses.

B (22:03)

When does it end? I looked at last quarter, I couldn't believe I was speaking to, I said, oh my God, how did he get that much more out of it? And you said, there's still a lot more to come.

A (22:13)

Go back to lean, go back to Toyota, go back to Kaizen. Right. This idea of continuous improvement, if we say Jim is not going to get any better, guess what? That's probably a prophecy that will become self fulfilling. But if we take an honest look in the mirror, see what we did well, see what we could do better and get after those things that could be improved over time, the cumulative, the compounding effect there can be pretty significant.

B (22:39)

Earlier you said that we really couldn't do without GG's national treasurer, but we have a different government now and we have a government that I could argue is nationalistic to the point of wanting to help our companies. We have a government that I think needs a good and wants a good GE for aerospace. What are the interactions like? Because frankly, in a lot of ways it's pretty good for business.

A (23:01)

Well, certainly given the Trump administration's time thus far in 2025, all of my interactions have really been focused on aerospace. And I think the President and his team have been wildly supportive, not only with respect to opportunities to sell our engines, most frequently on Boeing aircraft all around the world, but also as we've looked at trade, people have forgotten that US aerospace enjoys a $75 billion annual trade surplus that's really been a function of zero tariffs across the Atlantic in both directions. So in each of the bilateral agreements, the President and the team were focused on that. You see it in the UK agreement, you see it in the Japan agreement, in the European deal where we have in those bilaterals a zero for zero tariff regime. And I think that sets America up to continue to lead in aerospace all around the world.

B (23:56)

We have a terrific audience here. It's my last question to you, which drives me crazy because I want to talk to you for hours, but any advice to young people who are about to go out in the world?

A (24:05)

Well, I think the advice that I gave students in a classroom like this and what I tell our young folks, be substantive. It's just, it's too easy in the age of PowerPoint and social media going to sound like an old guy here, Jim, to be superficial even when you don't mean to be. But be substantive in what you do. And I think that's still scarce in in the work world today. And as a result, if you can do that, I think you'll do just fine whatever path.

B (24:31)

Heck, that's Larry Culp is the Chairman CEO of GE Aerospace ge, one of the greatest executives of our time. Their money is back after the break.

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B (26:09)

You may be wondering why we're doing a deep dive on Larry Culp's journey at General Electric where he orchestrated a Three way breakup made of shareholders fortunes. After all, this is not mad business school, it's mad money. So let me tell you why. This morning when the market was down, my colleagues at Squawk on the Street, David Faber and Carl Canton were questioning me about whether we just return to the same old, same old growth stocks when we bounce. And more important, why do we do so? I said it's simple. These stocks I'm speaking of, things like the Magnificent Seven have growth in a market. Sadly, star for growth. And growth is what saves you, growth is what makes you money. Does that mean, David said, that there's nothing else that intrigues me? I said absolutely not. I'm drawn to companies that are doing new things, innovating, improving. But most companies just aren't doing that. I'm drawn to companies like the one Larry Culprit invented. The old General Electric, now GE Aerospace. He led an amazing turn and it produced bountiful gains for anyone who who believed it made you a huge amount of money. A life changer for all who got a piece of it. Most CEOs are content to just keep doing what they've been doing with some tweaks, maybe not much else. Maybe they claim they're AI. When they do something major though, it can be dazzling. What Larry created here, the three huge businesses that could have been, well, nothing if he hadn't taken drastic action is testament to what you can do if you're a thoughtful, hardworking, driven big thinker like Larry, the former Harvard Business School senior lecturer who saved one of the most storied companies on earth that was teetering on the precipice when he was when he got there. Sadly, this tale of reinvention doesn't happen very often but when it does, I celebrate it. For example, I really like what David Joyner is doing with the turnaround. CVS value creation is major, covering the front and back of the store. Along with the incredible comeback in health insurance. Ed Breen may be his last act. I don't know. At DuPont is endlessly bringing out buried treasury reports. Tomorrow the Om Kapoor is splitting Honeywell into three different companies. Greg Hayes at the old United Technologies, spawning RTX, Otis carrier. These CEOs created so much value, the kind of gauge we typically only expect from tech. But it's harder than it looks. Think about how difficult is to turn around a corporate chip that's struggling. Mary Dillon fixed Ulta making people fortunes but then she took over Foot Locker couldn't really pull it off a second time. Elliot Hill is trying his Darnish to turn around Nike. Even if it works, it's going to take a long time. Starbucks seems to be turning, but the value being created not yet evident. So we end up defaulting to groups where the growth never seems to quit. The great build out of huge warehouses filled with racks of supercomputers. Prosec certainly almost unrivaled. No, not totally. There are more. Larry Culp's out there creating wealth away from tech. They're just very darn hard to find now. I'm going to keep looking for them. In the meantime, there's nothing wrong with falling back on big tech and the magnificent Seven, the only assured growth behemoths in the entire market. Let's take some questions from Virginia. Yes, hi.

C (28:55)

Thanks so much for being here. My dad and I watch you all.

B (28:57)

The time growing up, so thank you very much. Thank you.

C (29:00)

My question is what happens when, when.

B (29:02)

Quantum computing becomes real? What advice would you give to those currently investing in infrastructure for quantum computing? Okay, first, I think there are only two quantums right now that are, that are actually real. One is IBM and the other is Google. There's a lot of others we've had D Wave on. You know, actually I'm not saying that, that they're all Joe, like Rigetti is a joke or as my friend, my, as my friend Downtown Brown said, Riggetti is spaghetti. It's not like that. I do feel that what's happened is, is that there are a lot of speculative stocks about quantum that are seven, eight, ten years away. IBM's got something that's going to work in the next year or two. It should impact all the power that we don't need. Nearly as much power with Quantum. But as Jensen Huang told me multiple times, he'll be in there too. You can't run the Quantum without the GPUs, so you can run them side by side. IBM is the inexpensive way. They do have eight machines that are currently working in Quantum. That's the way to play it. Nothing else right now. Okay. Nothing else. Yes.

E (30:00)

Hi Jim, thanks for being here. My question is Pfizer is one of.

A (30:04)

The world's most innovative pharma companies, yet its stock price is down more than.

E (30:08)

50% since its latest peak. It recently announced a deal to acquire.

A (30:11)

Medcera, which is a leading provider of next generation anti obesity drugs.

E (30:15)

And it recently announced the deal with.

A (30:17)

The Trump administration on drug pricing. My question is, is Pfizer a buy?

B (30:21)

No. Pfizer sells at eight times hers. Eight times her. Give you an example what Dr. Borle should have done. He should have done a preemptive bid and get that he really needs. He needs to go up again slowly. He does not have a growth engine. This. We're beginning to believe that cgen, which is the old Seattle Genetics acquisition, has not produced the results that we thought he had. Upside surprising both earnings and revenues. Revenues and the stock did not go up. That is what I call an uninvestable situation. Thank you. A corporate turnaround is harder than it looks. That's why you find an exec, you can pull it off. You stick with them. Much more we have money at including my suit with Skyworks Solutions. Patience paid off for shareholders of Skyworks and Qorvo after merger was announced. I'm hearing about it with this company CEO that Axon's rallied over 800% last five years but still sank today after earnings. What gives? I'm turning to the CEO to get the story straight. And of course oil calls rapid fire in a Harvard Business School edition of the lightning round. So stay with Kramer. Last week we learned of a big and I think long time coming merger in the semiconductor space. Skyworks Solutions buying Qorvo for $22 billion in cash and stock. In response, something crazy happened. Both stocks rallied more than 5% last Tuesday. Now normally the arbitrage guys push the stock to the acquired down but the market loved the deal so much Skyworks still rallied. So let's check in with Phil Brace, the president CEO of Skyworks Solutions to get a better sense of the quarter and the Corvo deal. Mr. Brace, welcome to Mad Money.

D (32:02)

Jim. It's exciting time to be here and thanks for having me on. It's a great time for both Skyworks and Corvo. So happy to be here.

B (32:08)

Well, I couldn't agree more, Phil. And I think one of the amazing things is when I saw the deal come together, I said, oh my, this is going to create a powerhouse. But I figured because of the arbitrage, yours, yours would be pushed, pushed down. It didn't happen. Obviously the market knows that you need scale, you need heft. And there are competitors overseas who want the business that you have with a lot of the cellular and also automotive. This could make it so that you are the powerhouse that people have to worry about.

D (32:34)

You know, I think one thing that really impressed me about both companies together, the companies and the products are much more complementary than I originally thought.

A (32:41)

Coming in.

D (32:42)

You know, I've known Bob at Portable for quite some time and I really thought highly of the company. And we came in it was like, wow, this is really complementary and the combination of the two. And you nailed it when you first the scale is fantastic with 7. 7.7 billion in revenue, 2.1 billion to EBITDA and then we get access to a whole new set of markets in defense and aerospace and automotive, Iot. I mean the combination is just fantastic. I couldn't be more excited.

B (33:06)

Now one of the things that I thought was most interesting was I initially said on air because I've been following the companies close enough, I thought there was a lot of overlap. That's actually wrong. I mean you just mentioned complementary. But the truth is you may be able to go and have a larger dollar amount per phone than you have now, which I've always felt is the best way to measure your success.

D (33:28)

Yeah, I think one thing that really was really became evident to me is the complementary nature of the technology portfolio should give us increased scale, less volatility, more predictability as we go through it. And frankly the operations side of the factory side should give us more stable gross margins. So on the mobile side this creates a powerhouse not just in handsets, but in RF in general. Because as I'd like to point out to everybody, the world is connected wirelessly and that's going to remain true for as far as the I can see. And then a non handset space we get defense and drones and automotive and all the other things are connected wirelessly. So for me it's just an incredible opportunity.

B (34:07)

Well, one of the things that, that I think the market got wrong in the last few days was a belief in your conference call that you basically said look, things are actually getting a little bit less strong as the year went on. I looked at it as being if we're going to play that game, if we're going to go month to month, we're missing the opportunity here, which is that if you create a company that's lasting, I'm wrong to think about how your largest customer may have, may or may not have a good January. Correct. That's one of the purposes of doing the deal.

D (34:35)

Yeah, look, I think from our largest customers point of view, right, the combined company can spend more on R and D together than we can individually as individual entities. So that's really one short term dynamics. Look, we see very strong demand on the handset side. You've seen that with some of the press. We've seen broad demand in our broadband, broad based markets as well. And so we benefited from increased units and mix a little bit. That favored us. And so it seemed to be a good, good quarter with a good guide. So.

B (35:03)

But you're confident about $500 million in synergies?

D (35:07)

Yeah, I think the synergies are meaningful and actionable. And when you look at synergies compared to other deals of this size, it's right in the center of the wheelhouse. We should be very confident we're delivering those. I think they're going to come mostly from, you know, look at where the overlap is. Think about a lot of the SGA side systems and stuff like that and then we've got some things we can do on the factory side as well. So I think the synergies are meaningful, but they're achievable and you know, the deal is going to be immediately accretive to our shareholders right out of the gate.

B (35:34)

Okay. I was concerned that, and I talked this over with my colleague David Faber who covers M and A for cnbc, that your answer about China was a little more certain than I would be in the sense that you said don't worry about the Chinese regulators, but we know that China's gotten fickle. What kind of assured sureness can you give the marketplace that, that China would most likely not reject this?

D (35:59)

Well, it's a good question, Jim. We do get a lot of questions from our investors about that. Let me try and give you some context. First, I feel very well advised. We've got some of the best antitrust advisors on the planet that have done some really recent things. Second off, because of the complementary nature of this, we think that we can actually create better products and the customer support is really what's enabled that. And we look specifically at China you mentioned that's a very competitive market and will continue to be a competitive market. Both Qorvo and I's our exposure into China has been shrinking over time. We're still going to be focused on the high end premium space where they think they're going to need our technology. But in general the customer support's been good. The combination is complementary and we're going to take a deliberate methodical approach to get through regulatory and I think there should be a path here.

B (36:44)

Good, good. I need to hear that now. I do want to know. I mean I spend far too much time like many others when they analyze your company or Corvo focused on on cell phones and don't ask enough about the other question of the other businesses as if somehow they don't matter. Can you tell me the tenor of how they're doing and how they can grow? Yeah, that's A great.

D (37:02)

I mean, I think you're 100% right. We're way more than just a handset company. And look at our exposure into automotive, into data center, into IoT. Frankly, we've seen good tailwinds through those businesses the last seven quarters that continued into this quarter. And I think what I'm most excited about the combination is it bringing aerospace and defense, which gives us access to a whole new set of tams that we haven't had before. So I kind of stand back and go, the world is connected wirelessly. This is going to be true for as far as the eye can see. And this combination really adds new scale and technology that's going to enable us to capitalize on that far into the future.

B (37:40)

All right, one last question. Do you think it's going to create jobs in America or do you think because there's a combination we may not be able to generate new jobs?

D (37:49)

You know, I think that that remains to be seen. My goal is to actually try and increase investment where we can to continue to be competitive. Obviously, when you go through a combination like this, there are going to be some duplications, but we're going to be thoughtful and disciplined how we approach that and make sure we balance getting the right customer cost structure, but also balancing what we need to do to invest to make sure we deliver competitive solutions for our customers. So there'll be a balance there.

B (38:12)

Thanks. All right. Excellent. That makes a ton of sense. I want to thank Phil Brace, who is the CEO of Skyworks Solutions, a company I've long followed and wanted a merger like this. And here it is. Phil, thank you for coming on the show.

D (38:25)

Thanks. Appreciate it. Talk to you soon.

B (38:27)

They have money back. Coming up, Kramer takes your calls. And the sky's the limit. It's a fast fire lightning round next.

E (38:46)

It is time.

B (38:47)

It's time for a very special harbor mystical edition of Light around mid b. Take this. I st ber GR so far you're plenty of sound. And then the lighting round is over. Are you ready, ski daddy? Lights on. Score Rago from Canada. Booyah from the great white North. Jim, my question relates to private equity involvement within health care. Earlier this year, KKR took a billion dollar stake in Henry Schein and appointed.

D (39:13)

Board members from the Heartland Dental deal. In your view, can private equity discipline.

B (39:17)

Transform this company or is this. They need to because, you know, they charge too much but they make a ton of money in that last quarter is really good. I've got to tell you, I was very surprised. Ran to the opening Bell, yesterday, I looked through the numbers again. I think it's good stock. You've got a good one there. Let's go to Brianna from California.

C (39:30)

Brianna, Hi, my name is Brianna and.

B (39:33)

I'm from San Francisco.

C (39:35)

If you were an HBS student today, what sector would you bet your career on.

B (39:43)

Right now? I know this is going to be really. It's going to be boring, but I would say still go with storage. That's the problem. Store. We just don't have enough storage. So anybody who has it, because I'm talking about sort of type derivatives, like BAM Research, like kla, like Applied Materials. Thank you. Yes, Jim, thanks for being here. Bloom Energy. Can the company grow, Damn it. You know, energy. I was against Bloom for so long, and I kept thinking that it's been 20 years. You know, it's been. They've only been public for about 10, but for 20 years they're trying to make a lot of money and they couldn't. And then boom, it clicked and it's going higher. This stuff works. It absolutely works. And it's been remarkable. Thank heaven they stuck with it. Congratulations to them. Thank you. Yes. Jordan, Tennessee. Hey, Jim, thanks so much for being here.

D (40:25)

I wanted to ask you about Tyler Technologies. The company's traded down recently, along with a lot of other application software companies.

B (40:31)

I don't like it. I'm curious where you see it goes from here. You know, this is, you know, you're in that sweet spot for the Bears. It's too hard. It's just too hard. Everyone's taking shots at them and still got a 40 p. E. Let's hold off. Okay. Let's go to Zachary from North Carolina. Zachary.

D (40:44)

Yeah. My question is simple.

B (40:46)

Is Boeing finally getting their act together? Yes. The answer is yes. And under 200, I want to buy it. I thought the last quarter was really very good. It had very positive cash flow. The reason bad people didn't like was because of charge that I actually thought everyone would do would come. And the fact that 777 has been pushed back a year. I think you buy. I think you buy Boeing right here and put it away. And I'm talking about by Boeing in size. Let's go to Ash from Jersey. Ash. Booyah. Jim, thank you for all that you do. Thank you.

E (41:09)

My question's on ticker.

B (41:10)

Tsla. Does it trade like an auto company.

E (41:13)

Or is it the future?

B (41:14)

No, it's entirely. It's entirely trading as if it's on autonomous drive and on robot, and therefore you got to own it. Look up another 17 today. I've got to tell you that it's a miracle. When the stock went down to 250, everyone said they hated it. Then it became. It morphed into what we're just talking about. And I think that as long as he wins that shareholder vote and stays, the stock can go up much higher. Let's go to Santiago from New Jersey. Santiago, Jim, Chipotle has been getting crushed. Where does the stock go? I don't know. I mean, Chipotle, I think, is probably settled down. It's probably go down to 23, 24 times earnings. Means you can still break down a little bit more from here. I don't like it. It's too expensive. That's what happened. Not executing well either. I sure wish it would. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the conclusion of the Lightning round. The Lightning round is sponsored by Charles Schwab. What the heck's happening to the stock of Axon Enterprise, the maker of tasers, police body cameras, whole suite of evidence management software. When Exxon reported last night, we got kind of a messy third quarter and the stock got hammered down roughly 9%. There's a lot to unpack here, so let's get right to it with Rick Smith, the founder and CEO of Axon. Learn more about what's going on. Mr. Smith, welcome back to Mad Money.

E (42:39)

Hey, it's good to be here, Jim.

B (42:42)

All right, so Rick, you know, we've known each other for years and it's the first time I've seen a miss, so to speak. And I just thought we'll go right at it. It had to do with some earnings, some, I guess a cost side in tariffs. Can you just explain it to us so that we understand what went wrong? Because it may have been flagged previously and people were just kind of caught unawares.

E (43:02)

Yeah, I know this is. This is far from a mess. We turned in a really strong quarter. And look, I've been doing this 25 years. This is the fifth time we've had a strong quarter. And then the stock drops. I think the thing people may have gotten confused about was gap eps. So we don't guide the gap because of our stock compensation. Right? We have stock that's tied to the compensation is tied to the stock price. So the better the stock does, the higher our stock comp goes. So what we got to is adjusted EBITDA. And we came right in at 25% adjusted EBITDA. And we gave guidance on this year a couple of years ago is going to be a $2 billion year, it's lined up to be 2.7 billion. So the thing that confused folks was between the stock comp and then the one big beautiful bill changed some of the tax accounting around R and D. And so that showed a gap net loss. But if you actually get rid of all the weird gap stuff, adjusted EBITDA is 25%. So we're maintaining profitability and still growing our seventh consecutive quarter over 30%.

B (43:56)

Okay. I want to be sure, though, you did say the tariffs would have an impact on the supply chain. That was on the May 7 call when we spoke last. And I want to be sure that it's not a serious hit to earnings. That because a lot of people were confusing the $17 versus $52 as a problem with tariff. I want to take that off the table if I can.

E (44:14)

Yeah, you can. We still hit our numbers. Now, we said that margins were less high than they would have otherwise been, but the adjusted EBITDA number still came in right where, you know, right where we said it would. So we're able to absorb that. Absorb that and still hit our operating numbers.

B (44:29)

Okay, so talk about these acquisitions, particularly the 911 acquisition, which I thought made a ton of sense, but some people were saying represented older technology. Again, I didn't understand the objection, but let's have a you tell people why this is a good acquisition.

E (44:43)

Yeah. So let's take a step back. Last year, 240 million phone calls were made to 91 1. And a 911 phone call comes in on a technology stack right out of the 1970s. Right. You could be doing this on a rotary phone. And 911 has no way to take video feeds, location feeds, et cetera. So we acquired a company called Prepared911 that has the most modern technology stack for taking 911 calls. We can layer in an AI agent that helps the human operator so that we can do real time translation. We can help keep real time summaries. We've got a whole bunch of AI tools that can alert people, like the Real Time Crime center, be able to dispatch a drone immediately. So the reason we made not just one acquisition this space, but two is because we've now, we now have the most modern technology stack for handling 911 calls. Our second acquisition actually not only layers in AI, but can replace the entire call center. You can run it from the cloud, and so that means, you know, you're not stuck on an old tech stack. We can move your entire tech stack to the speed of modern technology.

B (45:49)

Now, what's the reception. I am sure that some of these different police departments are a little bit high bound. Might not want to try this. How are you convincing them?

E (45:58)

Oh man. So we'll point them to. We had one major city this past summer that deployed prepared 911 right before a holiday weekend. And what did they see? Even though call volumes normally spike and their call volumes did spike, the number of calls that operators had to handle dropped 33% because I was able to take on all the non critical calls like a noise complaint. Look, you don't need a human operator during a busy weekend taking noise complaints. I can do that. So we're seeing tremendous interest from our customers. You know, we just made the announcement of the second acquisition yesterday. I can tell you the thing I focus on is customer reaction. And they're seeing that this is our opportunity to come in and totally disrupt the whole mission critical voice space.

B (46:41)

All right, so one less thing. The massive market opportunity slide. Hundred fifty nine billion against what I heard on a Motorola call, Motorola Solutions, last time they spoke where they say they now have a product that can compete with yours, svx, the AI driven assistant, and that they are starting to win business from you. Now. You are a competitive guy. What should I do with this Motorola conference call which says listen, we are in to win against Exxon?

E (47:07)

Well, Motorola won the RCMP, I think last year and the RCMP actually tested the tech and then ultimately canceled it and came to us. So, you know, we don't spend any time focused on our competitors. We focused on winning in the hands of the customer. And you know, when we do that, things work out. So I'm confident we have the best tech stack in the industry. And you know, the fact our competitors spend a lot of time talking about us, you know, is an indicator to me we're focused on the right things.

B (47:37)

All right, that's always. That's the most appropriate answer imaginable. Rick Smith, Exxon founder and CEO. Thank you for coming on, Rick. You always do and I appreciate it.

E (47:44)

Thanks, Jim.

B (47:46)

I like to say there's always a bull market somewhere. I promise I find it just for you right here on Money. I'm Jim Cramer. See you tomorrow. Thank you, Harvard Business School.

C (48:06)

All opinions expressed by Jim Cramer on this podcast are solely Kramer's opinions and do not reflect the opinions of CNBC, NBCUniversal or their parent company or affiliates and may have been previously disseminated by Kramer on television, radio, Internet or another medium. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Jim Cramer as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular, particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. Kramer's opinions are based upon information he considers reliable, but neither CNBC nor its affiliates and or subsidiaries warrant its completeness or accuracy, and it should not be relied upon as such. To view the full Mad Money disclaimer, please visit cnbc.com madmoneydisclaimer how will you.

B (48:45)

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