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Dan Ives
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Anthony Pompliano
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Dan Ives
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Dan Ives
The reality is like Anthropic and OpenAI, they're playing a whole different game. No one will compare from a model perspective to where they are. Especially when you think on the open source side. I think the investors, maybe industry, everyone keeps waiting for some crack in the armor. The reality is, is that what's going
Anthony Pompliano
on, guys, today we've got a very special treat. We have Dan Ives, the legend himself, here in the studio. He is now the partner and senior managing director at Yorkville Ives. It's a brand new MER merchant bank that he's building and he spills the tea on every single thing that you care about in the AI trade. We talk about the Chinese open source models. What's going on with Anthropic's revenue slowing down? Where are the big bottlenecks? What does he think about these companies that have seen their stock appreciate so much? How is he thinking about politics and all the regulation, the data center moratorium in New York City and so much more. All of that covered in this conversation with Dan Ives. All right, Dan, the AI Bears have all kinds of new things that they're worried about. Let's start with the Chinese open weight open source models. Now all of a sud, everyone thinks that they're going to take out the big model labs. What's your take?
Dan Ives
It's a mini deep seek moment in terms of the fears. But I mean, you have talked about this. The reality is like Anthropic and OpenAI, they're playing a whole different game. No one will compare from a model perspective to where they are. Especially when you think on the Open source side, I think the investors, maybe industry, everyone keeps waiting for some crack in the armor. The reality is that the models will get cheaper over time and there's going to be 5, 10x more models over the next few years. The value will be in the data and the moat and that continues to ultimately be. I think that's the game that Anthropic and OpenAI are playing. That's why they're so focused on the enterprise. That's the right move. Models and Karps talked about it will become more and more commoditized. But for the first time in 30 years, it's not even a question. The US is ahead of China when it comes to tech and I think that's just such an important point where we are now.
Anthony Pompliano
What's interesting to me is they're complaining that there's been this like distillation attack and that the Chinese models are essentially drifting or drafting off of, you know, these big American companies. But there's a lot of people in America like wait a minute, I think Anthropic just signed a $1.5 billion settlement with you know, 500,000 authors for, for taking the books. There's a lot of people complaining about. Didn't you kind of just like do a distillation attack off of the, the IP to be able to train the model originally?
Dan Ives
Yeah. People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Right. And I think just the reality is the models are built off content. I think when it comes from a model perspective, what China's doing, it's smart because look, they also have like one hand tie behind their back. They don't have Nvidia chips allegedly. But even if you do, you have called a third rate Nvidia chip. I mean you have Huawei, you have some, obviously some competition there. But the models need to get smarter and smarter. And I think what you've seen with the Gemini delay, look, Gemini has come, they've fallen back a bit. But I think that's why it speaks to the pressure capex raising capital, this arms race, it is not slowing down. It's third inning.
Anthony Pompliano
What I also find pretty interesting about this entire competition is that we basically have American closed source models and then we have Chinese open source open weight type models. I don't hear a lot of conversation about American open source, but I know that Jensen seems pretty all in on American open source being a big option.
Dan Ives
Well, I think the issue if you go back to what Zuckerberg and Meta with Llama, I mean Llama call that Like a shot at that from like an open source perspective, you know, that was one way I think they realized like back to the drawing board, I think Nvidia and Gentin, their view is, okay, we'll do an open source model. We don't, because that's not their game. Their game is like, we'll create one. That's fine because it's better for the industry. It goes back to like more open source, more people using it. Models are cheaper. Look, the biggest issue when it comes to Anthropic and OpenAI, a lot of it just comes down and over time the prices will get cheaper. It's the cost because cost is the inhibitor relative to AI adoption. So when you look at models getting cheaper, see, I'll take like the other side of it. I don't view it as a negative. I view more competition would drive prices down, which would drive adoption down. So I think that that's the broader view. Like if you're a bull in this market, AI revolution, chips, data center, you need the models to get cheaper.
Anthony Pompliano
When we go and we look at GROK and Meta, both of them in their latest releases of models or iterations, the leading thing they were putting forward was the cost. That is very different than OpenAI and Anthropic. They've been talking about performance mostly is this now kind of like your margins, my opportunity and these guys are just looking for an angle to be able to catch up. Or do you think that the entire industry now is going to shift from it's all about performance to it's about efficiency. Efficiency and cost is this big component.
Dan Ives
I think you're going to have the goyard or whatever you want to call it, the open anthropics. They're going to be, they're not lowering prices. There will be others that will come. If you go in pocketbooks, like, yeah, we have a great. It's going to be cheaper wallets. So when you look at Grok and when you look at Meta's done, that's sort of been their game. Grok. The thing is a lot of it just comes down to content, but it speaks to broader. SpaceX, Tesla, the what really musk is essentially building price will be. It's going to be a differentiator, it's going to open doors. But then it comes down to like, if you're an enterprise today, what are you looking. I mean you're, you're essentially ChatGPT or Quad. And quad has become pervasively probably the best model in the world.
Anthony Pompliano
Yeah, what I also Find interesting that we don't yet quite understand and we're going through this actively with the Silvia
Dan Ives
product that we're building is congrats and
Anthony Pompliano
we're dealing with finance and so. So you want the model to have capitalistic tendencies and answers and so this idea of cultural weights, if we were to go put an open source Chinese model to answer questions, do they have socialist type ideas or kind of eastern worldviews that are baked in that they may not even be explicit, they may be somewhat kind of lightly and implicitly put in which then starts to change the answers and influence behavior. It's been a big concern with TikTok and many other kind of feed or algorithm driven things. What's your take there?
Dan Ives
It's going to be bifurcated. It's almost two sort of worlds that will play side by side together. The models, the cross pollination between a Chinese model and ultimately US model and you're going to sort of have that cordoned off. There are social issues, there's capitalistic, there's worries about government relative to on a data perspective it's US and China today, but like as Middle east as eventually Europe, as rest of the world. And this is just, it's the beginning of what we're going to see as models. Because I could argue like two, three years from now, you go to Malaysia, they might have like their own countrymat they might have it specifically to finance and industrials and others. So then you are going to see that across the board, which is why the models are so important. As you start to see this fourth industrial revolution, the use cases, I mean you've seen front with what you're doing on the consumer side, on enterprise, all these data centers that are getting built, it's like a stadium you gotta fill with people, you gotta fill it ultimately with GPU with capacity and with use cases.
Anthony Pompliano
You know what I find interesting is it seems like the AI industry could learn something from the crypto industry, which usually those two groups have been somewhat separate, but there used to be this thing called the FAT protocol thesis in crypto and the entire idea was that all value was going to accrue to the protocol layer, whether that was Bitcoin, Ethereum, whatever. Obviously that's not what happened. Instead you got applications and then you got infrastructure, you got the protocol, et cetera. It seems like AI is going through the same thing. And I haven't heard anyone explicitly say it's like the FAT AI model thesis, but that's pretty much what people who are betting like the Models are going to eat the whole stack. I just don't see that world happening. I see it being very much fractured. And I think that's good because it ultimately creates a better performance, better applications, and lower cost for the customer.
Dan Ives
100. I think that, you know, we went through a period and I think some of that was maybe like the PR problem that AI created, but it was a view like anthropic, eating everyone's lunch. I mean, even go back to like cyber security. The view like AI was gonna, you know, in terms of anthropic was gonna eat cybersecurity. The reality is cyber security is gonna be. I'd say it's gonna. Budget's gonna double over the coming years because of AI. If you look from the SAS apocalypse, there will be software coming as disintermediated as with you. Is that I think right now, I think the biggest misconception or I think maybe the way that the mark is maybe, you know, misjudging how this is all going to play out, underestimating the scale and scope and the second, third, fourth derivatives of what's playing out today. Today. Is it a small number of players that are, that are the winners? Yeah, but this is, it's building the Las Vegas. It's like we're in Vegas 1955, building the strip. That's essentially what we're doing. So every one of these companies news on the hyperscale, like, we need our spot on the Strip. If we don't do that now, others will come in that you could be like, why are you spending so much money now? Goes back to the whole capex, you know, debate. They know this is year three of an eight to ten year cycle and you could argue a 20 to 30 to 40 year cycle when it comes to physical AI. That's right. Now this sort of tug of war that we're seeing in this market.
Anthony Pompliano
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Dan Ives
That's been our whole thesis. Like our whole thesis is there's a view like AI is just a takes away jobs and everyone's going to just use these to get rid of whatever white collar workforce where everyone. It's wrong. I'm not saying there's not disruption. The reality is, is that each you're going to see specific they could be using the same model but there's going to be so many specifications and so many different mousetraps that they build that's what's going to separate you from him or her or whatever it may be. I think the reality is is that that's more and more where companies are realizing the proprietary data workflow and what I'll call the model enhancements or maybe algorithms that are specific to companies whether it's financials, industrial manufacturing, go back to manufacturing, you take company A and B they're using the same model the reality is what's the differentiation if they're using the same model it's going to be the proprietary nature and what that's going to do it's going to create more companies but it goes back to it is an innovation boom that's happening in this country and I just think it's something where we're going to look back years from now and be like wow, that was just to be. I didn't realize that A, B and C was going to happen. I think that that's what makes it such an exciting time but it's also the tug of war that we see between capex and monetization well I think
Anthony Pompliano
now people have seen this chart of like the mag 7 free cash flow is basically just falling off the cliff. I mean it almost looks like a cartoon at the same time the semi semiconductor revenues have just exploded the opposite direction and we're literally taking money from the Mag 7 and we're just shoving it in all the semi companies. Is that sustainable? Do you worry about mag7 type companies doing this or what's your take?
Dan Ives
Look, my view is they're making 10 year, 20 year bets now granted they've had to take out little debt, do some equity raises, alfbend some others. Yeah but they recognize see the difference is the reason capex is not getting ultimately cut or you're not seeing hesitation as they talk to more of their enterprises, more of their companies they realize what the pipeline's gonna look like. Now of course Oracle being like maybe like the poster child for this like took on more and more debt stock obviously got crushed because OpenAI 300 billion call it another 300 billion of deals. So you're like where is the breaking point where companies need ultimately peel back. I just think it's one where we are talking about an 18 to 24 month period that will ultimately set the stage for the next decade and that's what these companies are doing and look investors Some will say, I'm done. No mas patient. I don't want to see this free cash. I want to see them pull back. But it comes back to 2022. Jensen, why are you spending on AI? You're, you're a gaming GPU company. Like, go back to like 2008 financial crisis. Apple, you released the iPhone. It was great in 2007. Now with the financial crisis, why would you continue to double down here? Everyone has blackberries, which is focused back on your core. Nadella, why go after cloud? You're not a cloud company. Just focus on new Key and the traditional Microsoft. Like, I'm just saying, you could go back to decades. And there were companies, they went through gut check periods. That's what the industry's going through right now.
Anthony Pompliano
And basically what you're arguing is they're making these bets. And I guess if you just extrapolate this out, if they're right, they're not investing enough. If they're wrong, then it almost isn't going to matter how much they invested because they're, they're blowing the money.
Dan Ives
But then to that point, if they were wrong, by this point in the cycle, they would have already saw wherever the smoke come out of the chimney, whatever the signs are like, whoa, they're not seeing the roi. They're not. But I could tell you like pom. I could tell you like, whether it's Palantir, whether it's Snowflake, whether it's what we see on cybersecurity, private companies, data bricks, data. You see it more and more that the companies, they're seeing the roi. That's why they're spending more. Whether it's insurance, financials, biotech, pharmaceuticals. Is AI ultimately going to be like the first true discovery to get rid of a Parkinson's, a cancer and Alzheimer's. Like, I'm just trying to walk through, like, I think there's a view today where it's just, okay, it's going to take away my job and increase my electricity bill. And that's a huge PR problem created by the industry. The benefits of this are just starting to be realized. And I think that look that speaks to the market. That's why every earnings season is so important. Validation, what demand. But I could just tell you from recent Asia trip, like, it's still, what, 12 to 1 demand and supply. When it comes to chips, when you
Anthony Pompliano
think of those bottlenecks, right, you go on these trips, you go and you visit the manufacturers. I think memory chips, we can go through all these different components where do you see the bottlenecks that are not getting solved?
Dan Ives
Memory's the biggest bottleneck because there's no office like a Palm Ives memory data that we're gonna build in New York or New Jersey, you're talking about, like, on one hand, the amount of memory players. That's why from SK to Micron to everything we see across Korea and you've seen in the Cosby, like, memory is the biggest constraint that we see. And you probably don't have equilibrium until 2028, 2029. Now, you could argue different stocks. What are they reflecting? Is it cyclical? Has this almost changed the cyclicality? Power is clearly the biggest constraint. And I think the biggest constraint is just data centers need to get built in the US for this all to happen. There's no gray as we go into midterm elections and political grandstanding and no data centers here. And whether it goes from if there was a moratorium in New York and then it goes down Tennessee or Texas, I think the biggest risk relative to US, China, it's a data center because there's no debate where we're winning on chips, models, hyperscalers, ip China, winning on robotics and energy. But if data centers are not built here, that's. That would be like a hospital not having surgeons or not having the technology to do what they do. So that continues to really be the bottlenecks.
Anthony Pompliano
What do you think about Hochul's moratorium in New York?
Dan Ives
I think it's so dangerous because the problem is me and you, we go to D.C. a lot, and there's some politicians that I've met with, whether senators, they get it. They're technologists. They understand not just the job creation, but what this ultimately means in terms of ripple effect. When you get into the political grandstanding argument about it, especially with black politicians that are still using blackberries, the problem is that it's dangerous because that's the limiting factor. Now I get some of the risks and some of the concerns, whether it's, you know, water cooling, sound, and other things that need to obviously get vetted. That's the danger because ultimately it's those jobs, they go to other states. That's why right now I spend more time going to Texas to see companies than a lot of times, Silicon Valley. I'm just saying in terms of the shifts. And I just think that it's very dangerous when the political piece gets in the technology piece, because it comes down, like, for the first time in 30 years. Like I said, US is ahead of China when it comes to tech. We don't want to cut ourselves off at the knees.
Anthony Pompliano
Now it feels like some of this is driven by local communities, but some of it is being driven by lobbyists and kind of the big machine. It is always fascinating to me that people who are yelling and screaming about climate change and then they're screaming about the next thing and now it's data centers. But when you go and you look at the data, they bring down property taxes in the most concentrated data center locations. The job creation, not just in the data center. Yes, there's not a ton of restaurants. It's just you get this huge thing. Obviously the construction industry explodes when you get this stuff happening. But I think the part that maybe people get the least understanding of is then you also like the latency that you get. The advantage you get by putting the data center locally ends up having this ripple effect throughout every single business that's there.
Dan Ives
And then companies move there. See, it's also, it's to go down to Austin, go within 40 miles of Austin in any direction because it's a ripple effect of companies that ultimately move there and then build businesses there. Around data centers. You're going to have a lot of parts specific, like in the Midwest where there were companies and I've seen like my whole career, right, like just going so much around the world, around this country, where there were cities that had a factory, whether it was GM4, whatever it may be, then all of a sudden got closed. Okay, that got shipped to Mexico, China, Malaysia, wherever it may be. You, the town. So many people lost their jobs, went from 70,000 people to 15,000. Education. So many other issues that have happened. Now all of a sudden there's opportunities where those could actually come back and get built. And I'm just saying, like this is a renaissance, it is a boom in this country. And that's probably the thing that like I'm most sensitive to. Where I get people could have different political views or whatever. But when it comes to this, it gets dangerous when it becomes a political game relative to the reality of, I think what it's ultimately going to be.
Anthony Pompliano
Well, the politics of this too, I think is you have. On one hand, it seems like the big model labs are basically begging the government to go and ban any sort of Chinese open source models, et cetera. Then you've got local communities that are basically begging the government to do moratoriums or ban data centers. I don't know. It kind of seems like all the people who were supposed to be in the free market, everyone's turning to the government and saying, play referee.
Dan Ives
Well, I think, look, part of the problem. The industry created a huge PR problem. I'm saying self, if you tell everyone, almost like, pull the ladder up once you're up there, it's like, this is gonna wipe out jobs. It's gonna be the crusher. We're gonna own everything. They were bragging. No, but you don't have to be Stephen Hawkins to figure out that's gonna be a huge issue. Then you maybe have seen a curtailing there. Because also the reality from a job perspective. Yeah. I get to speak in so many universities every year. It is a huge fear. But if people think that AI only means them not getting a job or losing their job and their electricity bill going higher, and it's only just a few companies that are successful because of it, I get it. Yeah. It's like a groundswell. So I think that's the first thing that needs to happen. You need to separate the reality from. The Fed talks about no technology last 100 years ever been a net job detractor. But it all comes down to, like, that's some of the. It's some of the battles that you're going through right now. And it's a dangerous time relative to if we shoot ourselves in the foot because for the first time now, we are in pole position.
Anthony Pompliano
When you think about these companies like Alphabet, et cetera, obviously their earnings, when these things start to come out, I think that people are evaluating them as, okay, Alphabet's making big AI bets, but they have search and they have YouTube and they have, you know, other things. When you go and look at the memory companies, maybe as an example, you could use, you know, S.K. look at Micron, all these different companies, their stocks, again, look like cartoons. Like, they just have exploded vertical. When you're talking to clients and folks like, should they be allocating? Should they not? How do you think about, you know, there's a shortage, but the stock's up, you know, 1,200%.
Dan Ives
I think part of it was like, as someone I spend so much time, like, in Korea. For years, Korea was almost like a forgotten market, but yet the memory was all there. That's why now, like New York City cab driver talks about the Cosby, but no one even knew what the cost was in terms, like a typical person a few years ago. I think it's probably. It's gotten a swing. It's probably gotten overdone on one side, you know, maybe not appreciate on the other. Relative to hyperscalers versus memory the reality is like the memory players, they will continue to be massively successful because of the hyperscalers but you can't just forget about the ones that ultimately will be probably the biggest winners in the whole thing in terms of big tech. Because remember without a lot of times There's a view Mag7's not important anymore. It's idiosyncratic. It's really more memory and chips that you have to focus on relative to the broader tech. I disagree because when you think about the end game here, the ones that will benefit the most are the hyperscalers versus just the when you start to segment it to like the memory or other players on the chip side.
Anthony Pompliano
And I guess as you go further and further through the stack, are there other places that maybe people are not talking about yet but you think will be big bottlenecks?
Dan Ives
Look, I just think the biggest bottleneck in this country is energy. I don't even think there's a debate and we can say we talk about the data center build out but I think energy continues to be the biggest debate because look we need 3 to 4x more energy to ultimately if we went to 20, 25% of companies fully embracing AI in terms like you need 3 to 4 acts more energy the way that's coming is it pipeline, is it grid, is it nasty centers? No, I'm saying is it like. Yeah, I mean obviously you talk about space but it's like nuclear and then you start to go to like fission, nuclear fusion. I think that right now is the biggest question because we have the technology but at one point you hit an energy shortage and I think that's something where that right now there's a race going on that probably look that doesn't happen for another call, two, three years but that will be like a big part of this build out when it comes to the energy and the infrastructure build out in terms of what's happened in this country.
Anthony Pompliano
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Dan Ives
But it's ultimately healthy over time because it speaks like just like you said, more models, more competition, pricing will get driven down. You can't just have one company owning the market OpenAI. They're obviously going to continue accelerate. You're seeing people picked off left and right in terms of the tech talent and I think it just shows this industry is more than just anthropic and OpenAI. It's spreading and you see, look, go back to Caterpillar or you could argue on the defense side where Lockheed Martin could be when it comes to defense tech relative to AI as almost like a third, fourth derivative. And I think investors now are starting to, I think better appreciate the scope of what this is all going to do.
Anthony Pompliano
When you think about your kind of position in the market, you've made a big jump, you're going to go and you and Yorkville are coming together to create kind of a brand new modern merchant bank. Explain what this is.
Dan Ives
Yeah. And look for me over 25 years in the street, I wanted to try to build something. I mean look, you've built, built so much stuff in terms of successfully and obviously it's unbelievable for me it's like I've never built anything and I really saw the opportunity the last few years in terms of a true merchant bank, one where it's an investment bank but you actually could skin the game. You actually have the capital to also invest in the companies as it's obviously siloed off and to create an end to end bank that I think there's a huge gap in the market. Yorkville and those guys I've known personally and professionally for decades. And for me relative to the fourth industrial revolution and where we are and the amount of capital that's going to be needed and so many small mid cap companies that are yelling from the mountaintops, no one's really paying attention to them. I think that's the opportunity that we see and why I'm just so excited to be building. This is really a modern merchant bank.
Anthony Pompliano
And when you think about that merchant bank, what you guys will do, investors, investment banking services, you have research and then you also make investments in certain deals as well.
Dan Ives
Exactly. And I think that's. Now if you go back to Thomas Wisel, Robbie Stevens Allen Co. You go back to the early days of what Hanward did at Jefferies. There are obviously a lot of examples of it. Goldman in the early, early days. I just feel like relative to where the market is, there's a huge opportunity to do with the right people. It's something in the right industries relative to tech, energy, infrastructure, potentially healthcare. And that's why I'm so excited. And for me it's like I knew like this was the time. It was like right time, right place, right partner for Yorkville Ives like to really do something where I feel like we'll have like anything you have skeptics, but I feel like something that we could really disrupt Wall Street.
Anthony Pompliano
And when you are successful. What does that look like? Is it that it's the number one merchant bank? Is it specifically focused on just AI? How do you kind of look at what the north stars?
Dan Ives
I mean, for me, the North Star is companies when they're looking to like whether like they want like phenomenal research, whether they want a company from birth to, you know, like, you know, from the beginning, from a private company into a public company as a trusted partner, investors to look at us as like the experts. Right. When it comes to AI, tech, energy infrastructure, are we going to have like, you know, hundreds of people? No, but we're going to be like SWAT team. We're going to be someone as a firm where we're going to have phenomenal people, great culture, entrepreneurial, and ones where when companies are looking for a partner, when investors are looking for a partner, they look at us. And for someone like me, that's done it for decades for your. That's done it for decades. We just feel like it's just like a unique combination that just makes us so excited.
Anthony Pompliano
I agree. I definitely agree with that. What are your predictions for the next six months or so through the end of the year when it comes to kind of the big AI trade?
Dan Ives
Yeah, I think we're going to continue to go through these gut check moments. Whether it's Chinese models, whether it's Capex debate. No mas. Investors are put in the white flag. They want companies to ultimately cut it instead of see the wait to actually see free cash flow monetization. But I just think it all comes down to the monetization. Bets will start to show in the second half of the year. And as that shows, whether it's on the hyperscalers, whether it's in software, whether it's really across the stack, that to me is the key to this market. Now of course, Fed oil, gold, crypto, you go through so many. But it's tech that will ultimately drive this market or if the market obviously gets hit, it's tech that is the bedrock. So I just think that we're going into like it's still third inning of the AI revolution. You could argue is it second, is it fourth? But those that say it's seventh, eighth, you haven't. It's Vegas 1955, you're just building the strip. And I think that's also why the debate relative like 99 bubble, is this another bubble? I just and mean you've talked about before is like they are vastly different markets and I would say much more confident that this is truly the fourth industrial revolution today than maybe a year and a half ago, as you've seen enterprise go down the route. So that's where I just think it's like. But we're going to have narratives, and it's very easy for investors to get caught up in narratives. And I think that's some of the danger too, in a market like this.
Anthony Pompliano
The part that I always find fascinating is as you get that volatility, it will scare away a lot of folks, but I actually think the best investors, that's why they want to play. Right. They want the volatility, but totally.
Dan Ives
But I think it's like, it's, it's scary. Especially me and you obviously like being on social media. And we see it's like, it's very easy to get like scared into certain narratives or what Nvidia does, you know, eight hours after they report a quarter as it sings. So I think it's one where you have to follow the breadcrumbs. You got to look at capex, what demand looks like in terms of from the chip and the memory players and obviously Nvidia, if you listen to other conference calls, I'm not just on tech, I'm saying just across the board, there's no debate. This is something where companies, whether it's financials, healthcare, you see it yourself in terms of what you're building, the transformative nature of it, and I think it's one. And even when it comes to physical AI, in terms of the future, will there be stocks that get ahead of themselves in the near term, will there be a lot of volatility? Of course, you're going through probably the biggest transformation we've seen in over, you could argue a hundred years, but I just think that's exciting. But you have to focus on your North Star, and I think that's the important part.
Anthony Pompliano
All right, where can we send people to find more about Yorkville ives?
Dan Ives
Yeah, so yorkvilleives.com, all my stuff's on. In terms of contacting me. We're just so excited to just be doing it at such an exciting time. And dives tech on X. Yeah, dives tech X. Remember, I only blocked very, very few people and then. And actually I unblock. I unblocked some, some people last week and then.
Anthony Pompliano
Why'd you unblock them?
Dan Ives
Also on LinkedIn. Yeah, just I felt like, you know, maybe a change of tune on this. You know, you got, you gotta give people a second chance. Yeah.
Anthony Pompliano
Why did they originally get blocked?
Dan Ives
Look, I think, you know, sometimes when I block people. It's just like, I understand, like, haters and everything, but then you take it
Anthony Pompliano
a step too far.
Dan Ives
It's like this. If you have a shih tzu and a terror. A shih tzu. But eventually, if you keep pulling the tail of a shih tzu, shih tzu is going to bite. Right. But then you got to settle down. And I also, I do the rare unblock, as my good friend Mark Freed says. The rare, rare unblock.
Anthony Pompliano
All right, well, hopefully to all the haters who took it a step too far, they were fortunate enough to get the unblock. Do it again in the future.
Dan Ives
Thank you.
Wall Street's Top AI Bull Reveals the Real Bottleneck (It's Not Chips) | Dan Ives
Date: July 27, 2026
Host: Anthony “Pomp” Pompliano
Guest: Dan Ives, Partner & Senior Managing Director at Yorkville Ives
In this episode, Anthony Pompliano sits down with Dan Ives—renowned Wall Street analyst and AI bull—to dissect the real bottlenecks in the current AI revolution. From model economics and global competition to regulation and Wall Street investment sentiment, the conversation dives deep into major industry forces shaping the future. Ives provides insider perspectives on data, memory, energy, and why physical infrastructure—not chips—represents the true constraint on scalable AI. The episode touches on open-source models, the long-term investment horizon for tech giants, politics’ effect on data center development, and Dan’s vision for launching a modern merchant bank focused on the “Fourth Industrial Revolution.”
“We’re in Vegas 1955, building the strip.”
— Dan Ives (09:24), likening today’s AI infrastructure build-out to the early risky construction of Las Vegas, signaling we’re still early in the cycle.
“Memory’s the biggest bottleneck… You probably don’t have equilibrium until 2028, 2029.”
— Dan Ives (18:45), pinpointing memory as the major hardware constraint, not GPUs.
“Physical infrastructure is the limiter, not the technology.”
— Theme throughout, reiterating that energy, data centers, and memory—not simply chips or models—may throttle U.S. AI leadership in the years to come.
“No technology last 100 years ever been a net job detractor.”
— Dan Ives (24:13), emphasizing that tech revolutions ultimately expand opportunities.
“If data centers are not built here, that would be like a hospital not having surgeons.”
— Dan Ives (20:24), on the existential risk of U.S. data center slowdowns.
“You need 3 to 4x more energy…that right now is the biggest question.”
— Dan Ives (27:35), forecasting the coming energy crunch as companies scale AI deployments.
Dan Ives was candid, high-energy, and bullish—consistently optimistic on U.S. leadership in AI, but realistic about the risks of infrastructure and politics. Pomp brought a skeptical but open-minded tone, probing for nuance and challenging simple narratives. Both used relatable analogies (“Vegas strip,” “stadium to fill with people”) and occasionally self-deprecating humor, making complex topics accessible.
If you’re an investor, technologist, or policy watcher, this episode is a must-listen for understanding how the AI revolution will be constrained or empowered by memory, data centers, and energy infrastructure in the coming decade. Dan Ives draws historical parallels to previous tech booms, urges pragmatism in the face of hype cycles, and reveals how politics—not pure innovation—could determine whether America retains pole position. The discussion also sheds light on the risks of regulatory overreach, the myths about AI and jobs, and the next generation of financial services to fund the industrial transformation.
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