The Best Stocks To Buy This Week

Joseph Carlson After Hours

AI-assisted summary of The Best Stocks To Buy This Week — original source. Check the original for full context.

Source published: 2026-10-19

Key ideas

SpaceX approaches earnings boasting a $2.56 trillion market capitalization, driven by 65% annual Starlink growth and short-term xAI compute leases, though its valuation faces stark comparison against Amazon's $148 billion AWS enterprise engine. (2:24)
Netflix has pulled back 45% to trade near a 19 forward P/E and a 3.8% free cash flow yield, presenting a mispriced valuation window as Wall Street overly fixates on engagement concerns. (9:24)
Meta expanded total advertising revenue by 27% year-over-year behind 14% ad impression growth and four straight quarters of rising ad prices, demonstrating monetization power rather than standard pricing power. (18:17)
Altimeter Capital founder Brad Gerstner drew scrutiny for publicly championing the longevity of the AI trade on television while privately cutting portfolio exposure to multi-year lows across his $9 billion flagship hedge fund. (25:47)

Detailed notes

## Background Published on YouTube on October 19, 2026, by Joseph Carlson on his channel Joseph Carlson After Hours, this episode previews key corporate earnings and market trends. The show notes highlight Carlson's proprietary stock analysis platform, Qualtrim, and outline a lineup of topics including earnings breakdowns for SpaceX, Netflix, Meta, Tesla, and Moody's, AI bubble debates, Brad Gerstner's fund repositioning, and ESPN's controversial pivot into sports betting.

## TL;DR Joseph Carlson evaluates a heavy week of earnings reports, contrasting the narrative-driven market pessimism around high-margin compounders like Netflix and Meta with the stretched, highly speculative valuations of SpaceX and Tesla. He argues that Netflix at a 19 forward P/E represents an attractive opportunity, whereas Tesla's 154 forward multiple remains detached from operational declines and autonomous vehicle realities. Carlson also scrutinizes Altimeter Capital's Brad Gerstner for publicly hyping AI expansion on television while quietly de-risking and selling down his $9 billion flagship hedge fund. To conclude, he names ESPN and Disney the 'Fail of the Week' following an investigative journalist's resignation over the network's aggressive push into sports gambling sponsorships.

## Atmosphere & style The presentation is analytical, candid, and grounded in steady fundamental discipline, pairing financial screener charts with measured equity commentary. Carlson maintains a calm, common-sense delivery that sharpens into incisive skepticism whenever corporate hype or Wall Street posturing conflicts with verifiable numbers. Listening feels like sitting in on a rigorous, personal portfolio post-mortem where financial narratives are dismantled, hypocrisy is called out directly, and capital preservation takes precedence over market excitement.

## Bulletin - [02:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=144s) SpaceX approaches earnings boasting a $2.56 trillion market capitalization, driven by 65% annual Starlink growth and short-term xAI compute leases, though its valuation faces stark comparison against Amazon's $148 billion AWS enterprise engine. - [09:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=564s) Netflix has pulled back 45% to trade near a 19 forward P/E and a 3.8% free cash flow yield, presenting a mispriced valuation window as Wall Street overly fixates on engagement concerns. - [18:17](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=1097s) Meta expanded total advertising revenue by 27% year-over-year behind 14% ad impression growth and four straight quarters of rising ad prices, demonstrating monetization power rather than standard pricing power. - [25:47](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=1547s) Altimeter Capital founder Brad Gerstner drew scrutiny for publicly championing the longevity of the AI trade on television while privately cutting portfolio exposure to multi-year lows across his $9 billion flagship hedge fund.

## Key takeaways - [02:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=144s) SpaceX's operations span three distinct units—Connectivity (Starlink), Space (launch logistics), and AI (xAI Neocloud)—with Starlink identified as the most fundamentally attractive segment. - [05:47](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=347s) Evaluating SpaceX against Amazon reveals a severe valuation disconnect: SpaceX trades near $2.56 trillion on $12 billion in trailing revenue, whereas Amazon generates $775 billion overall with AWS alone producing $148 billion. - [09:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=564s) Netflix's forward price-to-earnings multiple compressed to roughly 19, matching historical trough levels seen during its 2022 crash despite retaining a 3.8% free cash flow yield. - [10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=600s) The market's negative sentiment trap filters every operational move by Netflix as a sign of competitive weakness against YouTube, mirroring the narrative overreaction that occurred in 2022 before the stock rallied 400%. - [12:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=736s) ASML demonstrated how narrative-driven earnings sell-offs create compelling entry points when its stock plunged 10% solely over geopolitical tariff uncertainty rather than fundamental business deterioration. - [14:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=873s) Netflix cutting roughly 1,000 jobs (6% of its workforce) reflects standard corporate streamlining rather than insolvency, as reinforced by internal company memos confirming full-year guidance targets. - [18:17](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=1097s) Meta displays formidable monetization power rather than basic price increases, continuously optimizing real-time ad bidding while accelerating impression growth across all global regions. - [20:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=1200s) Meta's upcoming earnings reaction will be determined by whether the market panics over raised capital expenditure guidance for AI infrastructure, though its core business remains solid enough to hold through the spending cycle. - [21:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=1268s) Tesla trades at an unsustainable 154 forward P/E ratio amid flat two-year revenue growth, shrinking vehicle deliveries, compressed margins, and stagnant free cash flow. - [21:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=1268s) The Tesla valuation relies excessively on the Robotaxi narrative, which faces stiff operational headwinds from established competitors like Waymo that already provide 500,000 weekly commercial autonomous rides. - [24:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=1484s) Moody's serves as a reliable, high-conviction portfolio compounder due to proprietary enterprise APIs, deep debt-market data integration, and clear long-term earnings visibility. - [31:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=1900s) Brad Gerstner's public framing of balancing hedge fund risk management with long-only venture positions is asymmetric, as his selling hedge fund manages approximately $9 billion compared to only $593 million in his long-only fund. - [34:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=2047s) ESPN earned 'Fail of the Week' following the resignation of veteran investigative producer Nicole Noren, highlighting Disney's ethical reversal in embracing sports betting partnerships. - [35:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=2130s) The saturation of gambling sponsorship throughout mainstream sports broadcasting structurally compromises investigative journalism, leaving independent creators as the primary voices capable of critiquing industry harms.

## Detailed walkthrough ### [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=0s) Earnings Season Ramps Up and AI Bubble Concerns

The second week of earnings season marks a dramatic escalation in market activity. A wave of headline companies across multiple sectors—including SpaceX, Netflix, Meta, Tesla, General Electric, Spotify, Lockheed Martin, and Bloom Energy—are all scheduled to report over the span of a few days. The onslaught of releases comes at a tense moment for the market, as market participants grapple with mounting unease over the massive capital expenditure cycles driving the artificial intelligence buildout.

Despite widespread chatter heading into the weekend predicting a dramatic "Black Monday" market collapse, that extreme crash failed to materialize. Nevertheless, skepticism surrounding the durability of the AI boom is escalating rapidly. Scrutiny is intensifying around specialized infrastructure players like CoreWeave, and even prominent, long-standing AI proponents like hedge fund manager Brad Gerstner have begun actively trimming their market exposure and locking in gains to protect client capital. Alongside corporate earnings and macroeconomic anxiety, the broader media and sports landscape faces ethical reckonings, highlighted by a veteran ESPN reporter abruptly stepping down after refusing to have "blood on her hands" amid the network's aggressive pivot into sports gambling.

[01:26](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=86s) The Qualtrim Platform and Community

To analyze public equities and evaluate complex business performance, Carlson points to his proprietary stock analysis platform, Qualtrim. The software suite includes core financial screening tools paired with a dedicated streaming-style video archive housing full-length portfolio reviews and institutional market deep dives.

- Membership pricing is set at $10 per month (or approximately $8.50 per month on an annual plan) with an initial seven-day free trial. - The platform includes access to a private, daily moderated Discord server dedicated to equity research and portfolio discussion. - Exclusive library content includes an hour-and-a-half-long October portfolio thesis update as well as deep dives analyzing Wall Street market mechanics.

[02:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=144s) SpaceX Earnings: Starlink, Launch Logistics, and xAI

SpaceX enters its earnings release as a newly public entity with only four quarters of public operational reporting. While the enterprise carries an intricate conceptual footprint, its core business divides into three distinct segments: Connectivity (Starlink), Space (launch logistics), and Artificial Intelligence (xAI and cloud hosting).

```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: SpaceX Three Business Segments accDescr: Diagram showing SpaceX broken down into Connectivity, Space, and AI segments with their primary functions.

subgraph SpaceX["SpaceX Operating Structure"] C["Connectivity: Starlink"] S["Space: Launch Services"] A["AI: xAI Neocloud"] end

C -->|"Consumer & Commercial Low Earth Orbit Data"| C1["65% YoY Growth; Airlines & Global Coverage"] S -->|"Orbital Transport & Satellite Deployment"| S1["Serves Third Parties & Deploys Starlink Fleet"] A -->|"Short-Term Compute Rental"| A1["90-Day Neocloud Leases to Anthropic, Google, etc."] ```

Carlson identifies the Connectivity segment as the most fundamentally attractive unit within SpaceX:

> "Out of these three businesses, I believe the connectivity is actually the best business."

Starlink leverages low Earth orbit satellite constellations to deliver broadband directly to consumer and enterprise hardware. Field testing the portable "Starlink Roam" and standard terminal units during outdoor camping trips confirms the hardware can draw power via USB or standard outlets and establish low-latency, high-speed streaming capabilities within ten minutes. This service bypasses legacy telecom cable infrastructure and secures major commercial aviation contracts to provide in-flight Wi-Fi across commercial passenger fleets. While Amazon is advancing its competing Project Kuiper (Leo) constellation, Starlink possesses a commanding first-mover advantage and generated 65% year-over-year revenue expansion in its connectivity line.

The Space launch segment functions essentially as an "Uber for space," handling orbital transport for national governments and private corporate payloads (including competitors like Amazon), while concurrently serving as the deployment backbone for SpaceX's own Starlink constellation. Finally, the AI segment (incorporating xAI) operates as a high-performance neocloud provider, leasing specialized compute clusters to leading model developers like Anthropic and Google.

[05:47](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=347s) SpaceX vs. Amazon: The Valuation Problem

SpaceX's AI unit captures immense revenue because it prices compute dynamically on ultra-short 90-day cycles rather than binding clients to multi-year commitments. Because AI developers face severe compute bottlenecks, customers willingly pay premium pricing well above broader market rates rather than forfeiting allocations, ensuring enormous near-term profitability. However, these lack long-term contractual lock-in if infrastructure demand normalizes.

The overarching problem with SpaceX as an equity investment lies in its opportunity cost when evaluated against comparable hyperscalers like Amazon.

Stacking SpaceX’s total trailing revenue directly against Amazon’s corporate top line produces a mere "charcoal sliver" on the comparison chart. Amazon Web Services (AWS) alone generates $148 billion in revenue—roughly three times SpaceX’s generous forward-looking revenue estimates—while serving as mission-critical enterprise IT infrastructure rather than an unbundled compute rental desk. Carlson explains:

> "I actually think it's the real deal. I think it's a great company. I still prefer my dollar going towards Amazon."

Wall Street is unlikely to price SpaceX's upcoming earnings release on standard price-to-earnings or price-to-sales ratios. Instead, share performance will hinge entirely on qualitative indicators: commercial aviation contract wins, Starlink subscription growth, and xAI compute lease volume adequate to offset mounting capital expenditure.

[09:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=564s) Netflix Valuation and the 45% Drawdown

Reporting in the exact same aftermarket window as SpaceX is streaming leader Netflix. Currently sitting as the eighth largest holding in Carlson's portfolio, the position experienced a deep 45% drawdown from its previous highs.

Despite the steep sell-off, Netflix's forward price-to-earnings ratio has dropped down to 19. This compressed multiple approaches the historical low multiples recorded during the catastrophic early-2022 streaming crash, opening up a compelling valuation window for long-term compounder investors.

[10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=600s) Netflix's Historical Crashes and the Shifting Narrative Trap

Reflecting on past market overreactions, Joseph Carlson recalls the major drama when Netflix collapsed by 70%, bleeding subscribers while prominent investors like Bill Ackman liquidated their positions and YouTube creators rushed out sensationalized "rise and fall of Netflix" videos. During that trough, Netflix's price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio dropped to approximately 17, an entry point where Carlson believed virtually every worst-case scenario had already been fully discounted. From that heavily skeptical baseline, the company engineered a dramatic operational turnaround: subscriber additions accelerated rapidly, the password-sharing crackdown proved to be an overwhelming hit, and an ad-supported subscription tier launched to broaden both monetization options and pricing plans. Consequently, the stock rallied from a P/E multiple around 15 up to roughly 50.

```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: The Shifting Market Narrative on Netflix accDescr: A cycle showing how operational updates get filtered through negative market sentiment regarding engagement. subgraph S1["Past Cycle: Maximum Pessimism to Recovery"] A["Stock drops 70% to ~17 P/E (Subscriber losses, Ackman sells)"] --> B["Operational Success (Password crackdown & ad tier)"] B --> C["Multiple Expands to ~50 P/E"] end subgraph S2["Current Cycle: The Engagement Narrative"] C --> D["Failed Warner Bros. Discovery Deal"] D --> E["Filtered Interpretation: 'Netflix is being killed by YouTube'"] E --> F["Every corporate action viewed as an engagement crisis cover-up"] end ```

The tone of the broader market shifted again following corporate developments like Netflix’s abandoned bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery. Investors began applying a psychological "aura effect," framing every single piece of company news through a singular pessimistic narrative: that Netflix is a struggling streamer bleeding engagement to rivals like YouTube. When Netflix attempted to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, skeptics dismissed it not as a standard library diversification play, but as a desperate attempt to patch an engagement hole. When Netflix reduced the frequency of reporting raw watch-time metrics—a shift aimed at prioritizing higher-value live events and engagement quality over sheer hours—the market immediately accused management of intentionally hiding engagement weakness. Valuations compressed from the 60 P/E range back down near the depressed levels of 2022 as Wall Street filtered every data point to fit its prevailing storyline.

- Bill Ackman famously dumped his entire Netflix stake during the 2022 collapse before the multi-year rebound. - Netflix's multiple expanded from a trough near 15–17 P/E up to roughly 50–60 P/E following the rollout of the password-sharing crackdown and advertising tier. - The canceled acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery triggered market speculation that platform watch time was deteriorating against competition.

[12:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=736s) ASML: When Short-Term Guidance Creates Massive Opportunity

Carlson draws a direct comparison between the negative sentiment dogging Netflix and the narrative-driven selloff he exploited in semiconductor equipment maker ASML, one of his favorite portfolio holdings with an exceptional historical return profile. In July 2025, ASML posted what Carlson viewed as rock-solid earnings, beating both revenue and earnings per share estimates. Nevertheless, the shares plummeted 10% in a single trading session entirely because of conservative commentary during the earnings conference call. Management stated that they could not confirm growth visibility for 2026, which triggered panic among investors who concluded that the company's growth trajectory had fundamentally broken.

In reality, management’s caution stemmed not from operational deterioration, but from geopolitical unpredictability beyond their control, specifically the shifting tariff environment under President Trump and changing export control restrictions. Tariffs of 30% were being enacted one week and revoked the next, leaving leadership unable to legally or operationally guarantee specific outcomes despite strong underlying demand. “That one line that management said caused a 10 percent sell off in one of the best companies in the world on something that was completely short term,” Carlson observes. Recognizing that the pullback was entirely narrative-driven, Carlson purchased ASML shares below $700, locking in massive returns for himself and his community when the stock inevitably rebounded.

[14:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=873s) Netflix's Engagement Reality, Layoffs, and Fundamental Valuation

Turning back to the modern panic around Netflix, Carlson points out that the uproar originates from an interview where the CEO offered measured, honest remarks on viewership metrics. Management emphasized that engagement is not uniform across all hours or content, noting that watch time still grew 2% on top of an enormous base of 200 billion hours. However, Wall Street had grown accustomed to double-digit growth in both revenue and audience size. When the CEO stated, “Yes, overall, we're not growing as fast as I want us to. And we're working on making that move faster,” the market seized on the quote as confirmation of a structural crisis.

This negative filter colored Netflix's subsequent announcement that it was cutting roughly 1,000 jobs, or 6% of its workforce. Pundits framed the downsizing as proof of a flailing company, completely ignoring the internal staff memo sent six days prior to earnings, which explicitly affirmed: “Our business is strong and growing and we remain on track to deliver our full year forecast.” Carlson highlights that corporate layoffs are not an automatic sell signal; when Netflix laid off 450 workers during the 2022 downturn, the stock went on to climb 400%.

While acknowledging that some uncertainty warrants a discount, Carlson argues that Netflix's current valuation offers compelling protection:

- **Forward Valuation:** Netflix trades at roughly a 19 forward P/E ratio. - **Cash Generation:** The stock offers a 3.8% free cash flow yield. - **Historical Analogy:** Laying off 450 employees in 2022 preceded a 400% surge in the share price. - **Workforce Cuts:** The recent layoff of 1,000 workers represents 6% of the company's employee base.

Although admitting that post-earnings price reactions are often a 4% to 7% coin flip in the near term, Carlson maintains his full position with cautious optimism. “I think Netflix is easily a mid-20s P.E. stock, not a 19; it may trade below a 20 for some time, but over time I believe that they're going to prove that they're profitable enough, they're secure enough of a business, they're a high enough margin business and reliable enough that they deserve a mid-20 P.E.,” he explains.

[18:17](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=1097s) Meta: Unpacking Monetization Power Over Pure Pricing Power

Looking ahead to mid-week earnings alongside Tesla, Carlson shifts focus to Meta, highlighting the social media giant's extraordinary financial engine. While Meta functions primarily as an auction-driven advertising marketplace rather than a SaaS vendor setting price cards, it possesses immense pricing strength. The average price per ad across Meta’s portfolio has advanced consistently for four consecutive quarters: jumping 9% in Q2 2025, followed by gains of 10%, 6%, and an impressive 12% in the most recent quarter. Crucially, these higher average prices did not come at the expense of volume. Meta simultaneously grew total ad impressions by 14% year-over-year, culminating in aggregate advertising revenue expansion of 27%.

| Metric | Year-Over-Year Growth | |:--- |:--- | | Average Ad Price (Q2 2025) | +9% | | Average Ad Price (Q3 2025) | +10% | | Average Ad Price (Q4 2025) | +6% | | Average Ad Price (Most Recent Quarter) | +12% | | Ad Impressions (Most Recent Quarter) | +14% | | Total Advertising Revenue (Most Recent Quarter) | +27% |

Carlson argues that labeling this dynamic traditional "pricing power" is technically misleading, because Meta is not unilaterally jacking up price tags like a traditional software vendor; advertisers are willingly outbidding one another in real time. Instead, Carlson characterizes it as "monetization power." Meta continuously optimizes its ecosystem by deploying agentic tools for targeting, improving ad conversion rates, and refining recommendations so users spend more time on the platform. “And I think in this case, monetization power is better than pricing power,” Carlson concludes, because it allows Meta to command more revenue per customer while simultaneously expanding total inventory.

[20:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=1200s) Meta Earnings: Advertising Power and the Impending CapEx Debate

Meta is not merely jacking up prices on a captive audience; it is methodically improving its underlying products, environments, and ad platforms, and advertisers are willingly opening their wallets. The operational numbers are astonishing: daily active people continue to expand across every region globally, and advertising impression growth is accelerating into 2025. Meta is extracting revenue from literally every quadrant of the globe where people have an internet connection.

```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: Meta CapEx Dilemma accDescr: Strong core metrics conflict with rising capital expenditures that could frighten Wall Street. subgraph Fundamentals ["Core Business Engine"] A["Accelerating Impression Growth"] --> C["Massive Global Ad Revenue"] B["Expanding Daily Active People"] --> C end subgraph MarketRisk ["Investor Reaction"] C --> D["Higher 2025 CapEx Guidance"] D --> E{"Wall Street Concern"} E -->|"Bear Case"| F["Spooked by Overspending"] E -->|"Bull Case"| G["Holding Through the Cycle"] end ```

Despite the pristine operational picture, this earnings report will hinge entirely on a single tension: capital expenditures. Meta is widely expected to lift its CapEx guidance again, which could easily unnerve the market as investors second-guess Mark Zuckerberg's immense AI spending commitments. Even with the near-term headline risk, the underlying fundamentals justify staying the course. As Joseph Carlson summarizes his stance: “And for me, I think this one is well worth holding through the CapEx cycle.”

[21:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=1268s) Tesla: Weak Fundamentals, Stalling Growth, and Narrative Overreach

Tesla reports earnings after market close on Wednesday alongside Meta, but its valuation presents a stark contrast to its actual operational performance. While Elon Musk's accomplishments in automotive design are noteworthy, the stock remains detached from fundamental realities. Tesla trades at a 154 forward P/E ratio despite flat revenues over the past two years, declining vehicle deliveries, substantial margin hits from price cuts and rebates, sharply reduced net income, and stagnant free cash flow. Paying four to five times the valuation multiple of Netflix for an enterprise with contracting core metrics simply does not add up.

The current share price leans almost entirely on the Robotaxi narrative—the promise that consumer-owned Teslas will transform into autonomous fleets that wipe out Uber. However, the real-world rollout of autonomous transport is proving to be a slow, heavily regulated, highly methodical grind rather than an overnight revolution. Compared to its peers, Tesla faces stiff resistance: Waymo is already executing roughly 500,000 paid autonomous rides per week across multiple cities, Uber is partnering directly with diverse autonomous fleets, and Chinese EV manufacturers are rolling out aggressive autonomous technology. If forced to choose an investment within Musk’s portfolio, SpaceX is far more defensible because it possesses a genuine technological moat with far less competitive friction.

The recent demonstration of the Tesla Roadster—performing acrobatic jumps, mid-air kickflips, and driving upside down along walls—was undeniably thrilling engineering theater. Yet the stock slipped 3% to 4% immediately after the reveal because investors could see no viable path to street legality or commercial monetization. Municipal governments are hardly going to allow civilian vehicles with rocket thrusters that can leap into the air and risk crushing adjacent cars. As Joseph Carlson notes regarding his discipline as an investor: “I can't just buy stocks of stuff I think is cool. I have to buy ones that I think I'm gonna make money, ones where I think that the future isn't already priced into the stock and so on.”

- Tesla Forward P/E multiple: ~154x - Deliveries & Net Income: Falling year-over-year amid price discounting - Two-Year Growth: Both revenue and free cash flow have remained essentially flat - Autonomous Competition: Waymo generating roughly 500,000 autonomous rides per week

[24:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=1484s) Moody’s: The Durable, High-Visibility Compounder

Moody’s reports earnings before the opening bell on Wednesday, and while it rarely generates the hype of consumer-facing mega-caps, it ranks among the highest-quality compounders in public markets. The market frequently doubts the stock over cyclical concerns, yet it overlooks the immense moat created by proprietary financial datasets embedded deep into enterprise workflows through core APIs.

Moody's brand name carries unmatched trust and pricing power in global debt markets and corporate analytics. In terms of earnings visibility, it is substantially more predictable and stable this quarter than high-volatility names like Tesla, Meta, or Netflix. Looking across a 10-year horizon, its compounding characteristics make it a prime candidate for sustained, double-digit total returns. With roughly 23% to 25% of Carlson's portfolio reporting this week and an overwhelming 55% slated for the following week, Moody’s serves as a rock-solid, high-conviction anchor.

[25:47](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=1547s) Brad Gerstner: AI Cheerleading vs. Hedge Fund Selling

The broader market conversation surrounding tech earnings is defined by persistent anxiety over whether enterprise AI demand can justify hundreds of billions in CapEx. Prominent hedge fund manager Brad Gerstner of Altimeter Capital appeared in a broadcast interview championing the longevity of the AI trade. Gerstner rebuked the skeptics by pointing back to his podcast interview with Sam Altman from the previous October, where critics doubted how a business doing $13 billion in GAAP revenue could commit to $1 trillion in capital spending. Gerstner argued that revenues ultimately surged past targets across the space—pointing to expectations that once pegged Anthropic at $30 billion while current tracking suggests it could reach $100 billion.

However, the interview exposed a glaring disconnect between public advocacy and real portfolio positioning. When the interviewer pressed Gerstner on his own firm’s actions, Gerstner admitted that he had reduced his hedge fund exposure to "medium, small" a month prior at the All-In Summit, and that Altimeter’s portfolio exposure had dropped to its lowest level in three years amid interest rate fears, inflation, and political crosscurrents.

It is deeply problematic when a fund manager goes on television to dismiss AI skeptics and hype revenue growth, while privately hammering the sell button and offloading tech holdings across his fund. As Joseph Carlson critiques the interview dynamic: “Sell, sell, sell, exit this position, trade out of this stock, trade out of this one. I don't want to be in this one right now. But then he goes on to national television and he's like, ah, those doubters. They've always doubted these stocks before and they've always done great.” While the eventual transparency was welcome, fund managers should lead with their own positioning rather than offering public cheerleading while quietly trimming their risk to multi-year lows.

[30:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=1800s) Brad Gerstner: Bullish on AI but Selling Stocks?

Joseph Carlson critiques an appearance by Altimeter Capital founder Brad Gerstner on CNBC, calling out what he sees as a deep disconnect between what Gerstner tells retail audiences and what he is doing with his capital. Gerstner attempted to rationalize his trading behavior during the interview by dividing his investment mandates into two separate spheres:

> “Remember, I live in two simultaneous but different worlds. One world is I manage money for people in a hedge fund. And so my job is to make sure I avoid some of the drawdown. In my long only fund and in my growth funds and venture funds, we're investing for the next five to 10 years. So I'm telling you, when I look at 27 and 28, I'm even more positive and we can get into why.”

Carlson points out that on television, Gerstner acts like a cheerleader for the AI trade, telling viewers that the secular thesis remains fully intact, that doubters have been repeatedly proven wrong, that demand is still skyrocketing, and citing the blistering growth of companies like Anthropic. Yet behind the scenes, Gerstner has been actively dumping positions across his hedge fund portfolios. While Gerstner excuses this divergence by framing his hedge fund as short-term risk management and his venture and long-only funds as five- to ten-year secular plays, Carlson notes that the interviewer asked specifically about the legitimacy of short-term market fears. Rather than disclosing that he had been de-risking and trimming exposure because short-term valuations looked stretched, Gerstner offered a glowingly positive assessment of the landscape to the public while quietly clicking “sell, sell, sell.”

```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Brad Gerstner's Public Rhetoric vs. Actual Capital Allocation accDescr: A diagram contrasting Brad Gerstner's public statements on television with his real-world portfolio positioning.

subgraph Public["Public Presentation on Television"] A["Bullish Spokesperson 'AI trade is on track' Highlights Anthropic growth"] B["Framed as Equal Split 50/50 balance between hedge fund risk & long-only vision"] end

subgraph Reality["Actual Capital & Execution"] C["Altimeter Long Opportunities Fund $593 Million (approx. 6%)"] D["Altimeter Partners Flagship Hedge Fund ~$9 Billion (approx. 94%) Heavy selling & trimming exposure"] end

A -.->|"Masks reality of"| D B -.->|"Misrepresents ratio of"| C B -.->|"Misrepresents ratio of"| D ```

[31:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=1900s) The Size of Gerstner's Hedge Fund vs. Long-Only Fund

Carlson digs into regulatory filings and asset numbers to demonstrate why Gerstner’s “two worlds” explanation is disingenuous. The capital breakdown between Altimeter’s strategies reveals an overwhelming asymmetry: - **Altimeter Partners Fund** (flagship hedge fund where he is actively selling): approximately $9 billion under management. - **Altimeter Long Opportunities Fund** (long-only vehicle where he claims to hold through volatility): roughly $593 million under management.

Because the hedge fund is roughly 15 times larger than the long-only vehicle, over 90% of Gerstner’s public equity capital is in the portfolio where he has been aggressively trimming exposure. Carlson argues that framing these two approaches as roughly equivalent halves of his strategy misleads the millions of retail investors watching on national television. When Gerstner addressed recent volatility, he dismissed his own selling as merely adapting to typical market friction:

> “So it doesn't surprise me at all that we've had some of that chop, some of that consolidation. Why am I getting more positive? Why am I leaning in and maybe start buying over the course of the next couple of weeks? Because I'm seeing prices come in and start to get enticing.”

Carlson criticizes Gerstner’s use of “chop” as a euphemism to mask major portfolio divestments, noting that retail viewers tune in to hear what seasoned money managers are truly thinking and doing with their own capital. Presenting a hyper-bullish face on TV while secretly selling off the vast majority of one's equity positions is, as Carlson puts it, "super lame."

[34:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=2047s) Fail of the Week: ESPN Embraces Sports Gambling

Turning to the regular “Fail of the Week” segment, Carlson targets ESPN and its parent company, The Walt Disney Company. The prompt for the award is the public resignation of decorated, award-winning investigative producer Nicole Noren, who stepped down after two decades at ESPN due to the network’s corporate embrace of sports betting.

Historically, Disney and ESPN resisted gambling, treating sports betting as a predatory vice that ruined families, promoted degenerate habits, and caused widespread financial wreckage. As corporate pressures mounted, however, ESPN completely flipped its stance, culminating in massive commercial partnerships and the launch of ESPN BET. Carlson laments that tens of millions of sports fans—especially young viewers—are now bombarded with gambling advertisements, sponsored odds, and player endorsements during every live broadcast, creating a public health and addiction crisis across the country.

[35:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=2130s) How Gambling Advertising Influences Journalism

Carlson underscores an even more insidious structural consequence highlighted by Noren’s exit: the death of critical, watchdog sports journalism. When betting companies become the primary financial sponsors of major media networks, news outlets become structurally incapable of investigating the harms of gambling addiction:

> “The only people who can really speak out on this right now are independent journalists. I empathize with people who work at large media companies. It's really risky in this landscape to speak out. What inspires me is that there is a growing movement of sports journalists, namely in the podcast space, who are not taking money from gambling.”

Carlson compares this commercial capture to the television advertising dominance of Big Pharma, where news programs funded by pharmaceutical commercials rarely run investigative pieces on drug harms. Noren, whose father, grandfather, and brother were all severely impacted by gambling addiction, warned that corporate journalists are silencing themselves to protect their salaries and 401(k) accounts.

Carlson adds his own personal experience as a creator. Companies like Polymarket and Kalshi relentlessly inundate his email inbox with lucrative sponsorship offers, even after he published a comprehensive video dismantling and criticizing their prediction-market products. Because Carlson operates his own subscription business, Qualtrim, he has the financial freedom to turn their money down. However, most media properties and content creators cave to the payout, establishing a landscape where no one dares criticize the industry paying their bills. Carlson concludes that if Disney—a brand historically built on wholesome family values—can completely capitulate to the gambling lobby, any corporation can, making ESPN the undisputed fail of the week.

## Notable quotes > [21:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY&t=1268s) I can't just buy stocks of stuff I think is cool. I have to buy ones that I think I'm gonna make money, ones where I think that the future isn't already priced into the stock and so on. — Joseph Carlson

## Mentioned Joseph Carlson, SpaceX, Starlink, xAI, Amazon, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Netflix, Meta, Tesla, General Electric, Spotify, Lockheed Martin, Bloom Energy, CoreWeave, Brad Gerstner, Altimeter Capital, Qualtrim, Project Kuiper, Anthropic, Google, Bill Ackman, Warner Bros. Discovery, YouTube, ASML, Donald Trump, Waymo, Uber, Moody's, Sam Altman, ESPN, The Walt Disney Company, Nicole Noren, ESPN BET, Polymarket, Kalshi

## Video description Join Qualtrim, the stock analysis platform I built and use, and join over 13,000 other paying members: https://www.qualtrim.com/

00:00 Earnings Season Heats Up & AI Bubble Fears 01:26 Qualtrim Membership 02:24 SpaceX Earnings: Starlink, Space & AI 05:47 SpaceX vs. Amazon: The Valuation Problem 09:24 Netflix Earnings: A Buying Opportunity? 12:16 ASML: When Market Narratives Create Opportunity 14:33 Netflix's Engagement Concerns & Layoffs 18:17 Meta Earnings: Advertising Power & AI Spending 21:08 Tesla Earnings: Robotaxis, Competition & Valuation 24:44 Moody's Earnings: A Long-Term Compounder 25:47 Brad Gerstner: Bullish on AI but Selling Stocks? 31:40 The Size of Gerstner's Hedge Fund vs. Long-Only Fund 34:07 Fail of the Week: ESPN Embraces Sports Gambling 35:30 How Gambling Advertising Influences Journalism

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[Source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BooxjnAfPY)

中文简报

本周最值得买入的股票 Joseph Carlson对财报密集的这一周进行了评估，将市场对Netflix和Meta等高利润复合增长型企业受叙事驱动的悲观情绪，与SpaceX和Tesla过高且极具投机性的估值进行了对比。他认为，远期市盈率仅为19倍的Netflix是一个极具吸引力的机会，而Tesla高达154倍的远期市盈率仍脱离了其业绩下滑与自动驾驶汽车的现实情况。Carlson还对Altimeter Capital的Brad Gerstner提出了质疑，指出其在电视上公开大肆宣扬人工智能扩张的同时，却在悄悄去风险并减持其规模达90亿美元的旗舰对冲基金。最后，因一名调查记者在该电视网大举推进体育博彩赞助后辞职，他将ESPN和Disney评为“本周败笔”。 SpaceX在财报前市值高达2.56万亿美元，这一估值受到Starlink 65%的年增长率以及短期xAI算力租赁的推动，但与亚马逊旗下规模1480亿美元的AWS企业引擎相比，其估值面临严峻对照。 (2:24) Netflix已回撤45%，当前交易价格接近19倍远期市盈率和3.8%的自由现金流收益率；随着华尔街过度纠结于用户参与度问题，该股出现了一个定价错误的估值窗口。 (9:24) Meta在广告展示次数增长14%以及广告价格连续四个季度上涨的推动下，广告总收入同比增长27%，展现出的是变现能力而非普通的定价权。 (18:17) Altimeter Capital创始人Brad Gerstner引发关注与质疑，因为他一方面在电视上公开力挺人工智能行情的持久性，另一方面却在其规模90亿美元的旗舰对冲基金中悄悄将投资组合敞口削减至数年低点。 (25:47)

Reading summary

Joseph Carlson evaluates key earnings reports and market sentiment, arguing that investors should distinguish between hype-driven narratives and fundamental business value across major tech, media, and infrastructure holdings. Evaluating SpaceX's Business Units Versus Hyperscaler Alternatives (2:24) SpaceX enters its earnings report with three distinct segments: Connectivity (Starlink), Space launch logistics, and an AI compute neocloud via xAI. Starlink represents the most attractive unit, delivering 65% year-over-year revenue expansion and securing commercial airline contracts. However, xAI leases compute on dynamic, uncommitted 90-day cycles to firms like Google and Anthropic, exposing the business to long-term demand risk if infrastructure bottlenecks ease. Carlson questions SpaceX's equity appeal when weighed against established cloud giants like Amazon. While SpaceX carries a market valuation of approximately $2.56 trillion on trailing revenue of $12 billion (with projected run rates between $40 billion and $50 billion), Amazon generates $775 billion in revenue at a $2.83 trillion valuation. Amazon Web Services alone commands a $148 billion run rate with deep enterprise lock-in, making it a more fundamentally grounded destination for investor capital. Exploiting Valuation Compressions in Netflix and ASML (9:24) Carlson highlights how shifting market narratives often distort operational realities. Following a 45% drawdown from recent highs, Netflix trades around a 19 forward P/E ratio with a 3.8% free cash flow yield. Wall Street interpreted a 1,000-person layoff (6% of staff) and modest 2% watch-time growth as signs of structural deterioration against rivals like YouTube. Carlson counters that management confirmed it is on track to meet full-year targets, drawing parallels to the 2022 collapse where the stock dropped to a 17 P/E before surging 400% after rolling out ad tiers and password restrictions. A similar disconnect occurred with semiconductor equipment supplier ASML in July 2025. Shares dropped 10% in a single session after management voiced uncertainty over 2026 visibility, driven entirely by shifting Trump administration tariffs and export rules rather than broken underlying demand. Carlson treated the politically induced dip below $700 as a narrative-driven mispricing, maintaining that high-quality compounders often trade at deep discounts due to temporary guidance hurdles. Meta's Ad Monetization Versus Tesla's Narrative Premium (18:17) Meta demonstrates what Carlson defines as 'monetization power' rather than simple pricing leverage. Instead of unilaterally raising price lists, Meta's ad auction system saw average ad prices rise 12% in the most recent quarter alongside a 14% increase in impressions, yielding 27% total advertising revenue growth. Although expected increases in capital expenditure guidance may trigger near-term volatility, Carlson considers the core business durable enough to hold through the spending cycle. In contrast, Carlson views Tesla as detached from fundamentals. Trading at roughly 154 times forward earnings, Tesla has seen flat revenue, declining vehicle deliveries, and compressed net margins over two years. Its valuation relies heavily on autonomous Robotaxi promises, despite Waymo already completing approximately 500,000 paid rides per week and autonomous commercialization facing severe regulatory headwinds. Stunt demonstrations like jumping Roadsters offer no clear path to commercial monetization. Institutional Divergence and Media Conflicts of Interest (25:47) Carlson identifies significant contradictions between public rhetoric and capital allocation among institutional figures. Altimeter Capital's Brad Gerstner appeared on television promoting the long-term AI trade and Anthropic's revenue targets, yet disclosures revealed his firm had trimmed portfolio exposure to three-year lows. While Gerstner framed this as a split between a hedge fund and long-term venture investing, Carlson notes that Altimeter's flagship hedge fund manages approximately $9 billion, dwarfing its $593 million long-only fund and indicating that over 90% of its capital was actively de-risking. Carlson also labels ESPN's deepening commercial embrace of sports gambling as his 'Fail of the Week,' prompted by the resignation of veteran investigative producer Nicole Noren. Commercial partnerships like ESPN BET present structural conflicts of interest, as networks dependent on betting ad dollars become financially incentivized to suppress investigative journalism into gambling addiction and industry harms. Carlson emphasizes that resilient long-term compounding requires prioritizing verifiable cash flows and fair valuations over unvetted speculative narratives, noting that upcoming earnings across 55% of his portfolio will test whether market volatility creates durable mispricings.

精炼阅读摘要

Joseph Carlson 认为，在财报季与人工智能资本支出引发的市场焦虑中，投资者应当穿透市场情绪噪音与叙事溢价，在坚实的自由现金流与估值性价比之间寻找确定性，同时对机构言行不一与媒体道德风险保持警惕。 SpaceX与亚马逊的估值权衡 (2:24) SpaceX 的核心业务包括 Starlink 宽带连接、航天发射物流以及以 xAI 为核心的高性能算力租赁。尽管 Starlink 在低轨卫星通信领域具备先发优势且实现了 65% 的年增长率，xAI 也通过 90 天超短期算力租赁获取了极高利润，但其整体估值依然承载了巨大的远期投机成分。相较之下，SpaceX 约 2.56 万亿美元的市值对应的是约 120 亿美元的过去十二个月营收（远期预期为 400 亿至 500 亿美元），而亚马逊约 2.83 万亿美元的市值拥有 7750 亿美元的总营收，其中作为企业 IT 底座的 AWS 年化营收即达 1480 亿美元。 Carlson 明确表示，尽管 SpaceX 是一家极具实力的优质企业，但基于沉重的资本支出周期与缺乏长期锁定的算力合约，投资者在风险与确定性对比上面对巨大的机会成本。Wall Street 在评估此类财报时，往往更关注 Starlink 用户增量、商业航空客机 Wi-Fi 合同以及算力租赁规模能否有效抵消庞大的 CapEx，而非传统的市盈率或市销率指标。情绪杀估值下的优质标的修复 (9:24) 在流媒体与半导体制造领域，过度悲观的叙事常常创造极具吸引力的估值折扣。Netflix 自高点回撤 45% 后，远期市盈率压缩至约 19 倍，自由现金流收益率达 3.8%。市场因其与华纳兄弟探索公司的并购落空、披露口径调整以及裁员 1000 人（约占员工总数的 6%）而陷入对 YouTube 争夺用户时长的恐慌叙事。但历史数据显示，Netflix 曾在 2022 年裁员 450 人、市盈率跌至 17 倍后，凭借打击密码共享和推出广告版订阅实现业务逆转，随后股价暴涨 400%。Carlson 认为公司具备高利润率与稳定性，应享有 20 多倍中段的市盈率估值。半导体设备龙头 ASML 同样经历过类似的叙事误杀。2025 年 7 月，ASML 在营收和每股收益双超预期的情况下，仅因管理层在电话会议中表示由于特朗普政府关税政策多变（单周实施 30% 关税又随即撤销）而无法确认 2026 年的可视性，股价便单日暴跌 10%。Carlson 强调，该波动完全是短期地缘不确定性引发的情绪抛售，而非基本面崩塌，为长期投资者提供了低位买入的窗口。 Meta变现韧性对比特斯拉叙事泡沫 (18:17) Meta 与特斯拉在周中同日披露财报，两者的基本面与估值呈现鲜明反差。Meta 展现出了极强的广告变现能力，其平均广告价格已连续四个季度上涨（由 9%、10%、6% 升至最近一个季度的 12%），且广告展示次数同比增长 14%，推动广告总收入增长 27%。Carlson 认为这种由代理工具优化、广告转化率提升和内容推荐驱动的生态竞价机制属于“变现能力”而非单边提价，哪怕市场对扎克伯格上调 2025 年 CapEx 指引感到焦虑，其基本面依旧支撑穿越投资周期。相比之下，特斯拉在过去两年中营收与自由现金流基本停滞，面对交付量下滑与降价返利对净利润的侵蚀，其远期市盈率仍高达约 154 倍。该估值几乎完全由无人驾驶出租车（Robotaxi）叙事支撑，但现实中 Waymo 每周已完成约 50 万次商业付费自动驾驶行程，加上 Uber 开放结盟及中国车企竞争，自动驾驶推进是一场漫长而严苛的监管拉锯战。虽然具有跳跃和倒挂行驶功能的特斯拉 Roadster 极具工程观赏性，但缺乏路权合法化与商业化路径，导致其发布后股价反而下跌 3% 至 4%。机构言行不一与体育媒体商业异化 (25:47) 市场情绪不仅受到叙事绑架，还充斥着机构利益冲突与媒体生态的变质。知名对冲基金经理 Brad Gerstner 在电视节目中大力鼓吹 AI 长期增长潜能（如 Anthropic 预期规模向 1000 亿美元迈进），反驳空头逻辑，但监管披露显示，Altimeter 旗下约 90 亿美元的旗舰对冲基金实际已将仓位削减至三年低点，而其唱多的长期多头基金仅有约 5.93 亿美元。Carlson 批评这种用约 6% 的资产规模为电视观众掩盖 90% 以上主要资金大举套现减仓的做法极不负责。与此同时，媒体公信力也在商业利益面前加速瓦解。ESPN 资深调查制片人 Nicole Noren 因抗议公司全面倒向体育博彩而公开辞职。随着 ESPN 推出 ESPN BET 并广泛植入赔率与博彩广告，主流体育网络已沦为博彩资本的宣传阵地。博彩赞助的大规模渗透使得大型媒体机构在调查赌博成瘾与社会危害时陷入结构性失声，传统以家庭健康价值观立足的迪士尼亦未能幸免，反映出整个传媒环境对高额广告资金的全面妥协。 Carlson 强调在宏观波动和大型科技股财报集中发布的窗口期，投资者需警惕基于单一概念的估值泡沫与机构的虚假唱多，应优先依靠具备深厚护城河、数据资产粘性及可预测现金流的高能见度企业（如穆迪等复合增长标的）来构建稳健的投资组合。

Source quotes

[21:08] Joseph Carlson: I can't just buy stocks of stuff I think is cool. I have to buy ones that I think I'm gonna make money, ones where I think that the future isn't already priced into the stock and so on.

Original transcript

[0:00] Today on the Joseph Carlson Show, we get into the second week of earnings season, and this is where things really start to ramp up. For example, we have companies like SpaceX and Netflix and Meta and Tesla all reporting over the next couple of days, plus a lot of other ones. We have GE and Spotify, Lockheed Martin, we have Bloom Energy, and many other interesting companies reporting this week. Now, I'll be going through giving you my thoughts on what's going to happen. What's going to happen with SpaceX or Netflix? What I think investors should be expecting this week. week because we have many investors that are becoming a little concerned about the AI build out. This is where it seems to be hitting some type of critical peak. Like just on Friday, there's a lot of people talking about how this is going to devolve into Black Monday, a big sell-off today. It doesn't look like that's happening, but there are growing concerns about the AI bubble, when things will finally start to break, what's going on with CoreWeave. Even some of the biggest promoters of the AI wave, people like Brad Gerstner that are on the inside, has taken a lot off the table. He's reduced his exposure for specific concerns in protecting his clients' gains. We'll be looking at an interview where he explains why he's doing this. So we have all of that to get into, plus the fail of the week, which in this case is ESPN. A decorated ESPN reporter recently quit because she doesn't want, quote, blood on her hands. We'll be looking at what ESPN has done to compromise its own values in the fail of the week. So this is going to be Qualtrum.com. The Qualtrum membership, I believe, is the best value membership on the market today. Not only do you get access to Qualtrum.com and the entire stock analysis suite, after building the software layer of Qualtrum, I didn't stop there. I also built a custom Netflix-like library for exclusive content. For example, the most recent exclusive video here is a full October portfolio update. It's about an hour and a half long. I go into an entire thesis overlooking the markets. Before that, I have an hour-long deep dive on the machine behind Wall Street, an incredible And in addition to all of that, included in the membership price is a moderated Discord community that I own. and I'm in every single day discussing stocks, so you also get access to that. When I list off the things that this membership includes, most people assume it will cost around $40, $50 a month. It's $10 a month. With a seven-day free trial, cancel any time, or you can get an annual plan for around $8.50 a month. Try it out now, risk-free, and I'll see you on the Discord. Now, to start things off, I want to jump into some of the biggest companies reporting earnings this week, and I'll start off with tomorrow aftermarket close. That's where we get into SpaceX and Netflix. into SpaceX. SpaceX is conceptually one of the most complicated companies on planet Earth, but if we look at the actual numbers, we can try to simplify things here. We have the revenue by segment. There's only four bars here because there's literally only four quarters worth of data that we have. It's a brand new IPO, but we can look at the data here. We have three different categories, connectivity, space, and AI. Out of these three businesses, I believe the connectivity is actually the best business. This is where you get into them providing internet access with low satellites all across planet Earth. I have two Starlinks. I have the Roam and then I have the Starlink 3 or something. I use them when I go camping. They are incredible. You plug them into USB or into a power outlet, and then in 10 minutes you have high speed internet connection. enough to stream movies, play games, do whatever you want. It's incredibly reliable. It's easy to use. You just need to have a clear view of the sky. Starlink is the real deal, and that is their connectivity. This has massive implications because up until now, there's been a couple big cable telecom companies that have really controlled that category, and Starlink presents a brand new risk to them, a brand new growth avenue. It's also going to offer internet to places that just could not get to internet before. It wasn't feasible. And they also have massive commercial contracts, with lots of airliners to have high speed internet in commercial airplanes and so on. And you're gonna see massive growth there because it's just a huge untapped market. Amazon is a competitor in Starlink. They have their Leo. It's not really as proven as Starlink yet, but they are well on their way. So it's not gonna be a complete monopoly. This is going to be a shared market, but it's still a very strong one for SpaceX, and they have the huge lead here. So I would say out of these three categories, I'm the most bullish on connectivity. Now, connectivity is this bottom dark blue part, 65% revenue growth year over year. So super fast revenue growth. The next one that we get to is space. Think of this as like the Uber for space. They're just taking rides and letting people use it to launch satellites, whether or not it's a private company like Amazon or whether or not it's a government entity. they're going to allow for transportation and take a fee for doing that. But I wouldn't look at this as an isolated category, because what they're doing really helps out with their connectivity business. So these are directly related with each other. Then you have AI, which is the XAI, that's now part of the company. They have essentially a neocloud business, allowing companies like Anthropic and Google to rent space on their clouds and infrastructure that they built out [5:00] The reason they're making so much money is they're not tying their customers into five-year agreements or even long-term contracts. The contracts that the AI category is signing are mostly 90 days. So Google or whoever could get out of these contracts relatively fast. And Elon with SpaceX knows the demand is so huge right now, these guys are not going to cancel their contracts. They're not going to say, hey, our 90 days are up. We want to get out. They're just going to keep paying. And they're paying far above market rates for the ability to cancel. So this is a very lucrative business. When I look at this business overall, the AI business is going to be the fastest growing by far. But it's also the one that's the most questionable long term. settle down a bit. Again, they aren't really tied to these long-term multi-year contracts. But in any case, in the next couple of years, it's going to make a fortune. When I look at the business, my biggest complaint about SpaceX is just the opportunity cost. For example, when we look at the market cap, it's at a $2.56 trillion market cap. It's around $2.5 trillion. In the last 12 months, the company did $12 billion of revenue. Now that's going to go up fast. It'll go up to $40 billion or $50 billion. But even if we round up a lot, let's say to $50 billion, I can buy whatever investment I want, and we have this opportunity to buy SpaceX at a $2.5 trillion valuation, and it's at $40 billion in revenue. Or we have Amazon. another opportunity that investors could consider that is a very similar company at its core. Amazon also trades at roughly the same valuation. All right, it's a couple hundred billion dollars more, but it's at 2.83. So you have 2.56 versus 2.83. Amazon is slightly more expensive in total market cap. But when you look at the amount of revenue that Amazon's doing, Amazon's not doing 40 or 50 billion. Amazon is climbing towards a trillion. In the trailing 12 months, they've done $775 billion in revenue. Now you may say that's low margin retail, but it's really not. A lot of that revenue comes from higher margin businesses, or even ones that are more technology focused, subscriptions, things just like SpaceX's Starlink, and things just like SpaceX's AI. Again, a lot of the revenue from SpaceX is coming from renting out servers. Well, Amazon has a pretty big business in renting out servers as well with Amazon Web Services. And if we look at just AWS, this company has done $148 billion. So even taking away everything else, all the retail, all the ads, all the subscription services, logistics, AWS alone, which is like XAI, but I would say it has even a bigger mode because AWS is not a neocloud. It is IT infrastructure that companies build their entire business upon. Just this business alone is three times the value of SpaceX's 40 or 50 billion dollar hypothetical revenue growth over the next year. And again, this is just a portion of Amazon. It's actually a minority of their total revenue. Now, maybe that doesn't bother you, but I think it's important to really understand this. just to illustrate the differences in the level of revenue these two companies currently generate. We have it right here. The best way that I could visualize this is actually just stacking SpaceX's revenue on top of Amazon's. so that you can see just by comparison where it would fit. So if Amazon was to acquire SpaceX let's say they were to buy the company somehow even though they couldn't because valuation so high But if they could this is how much revenue SpaceX would add to Amazon that charcoal sliver there That's what Amazon would technically gain in revenue if they acquired SpaceX now I understand SpaceX is growing really fast much faster than Amazon overall and SpaceX has a lot of opportunities to grow into But a lot of that growth is currently being priced into the market cap to the extent that when I look at these two different opportunities I actually think it's the real deal. I think it's a great company. I still prefer my dollar going towards Amazon. Going into this week, I don't believe anybody's going to judge SpaceX on specifically what valuation metric it trades at. I don't think anybody's looking at the P.E. ratio or the price to sales. They're looking at commentary of whether or not Elon Musk is growing and its connectivity, whether they're closing commercial deals, whether XAI is signing more deals, growing revenue faster and enough to justify their huge CapEx expenses. is all going to be around the direction of the business. And so long as it continues going the way that it has, I think investors will be fine. Now, next we get to tomorrow aftermarket close, the same time as SpaceX, we're also going to have Netflix drop their earnings results. Now, Netflix is a company that I'm actively bullish on and invested in. I'll show you in the portfolio, we have it here as the eighth largest position. It was a larger position, but Netflix has gone through a 45% drawdown. Now, there's something very interesting going on with Netflix. If we company. It's trading at a 19 forward P/E ratio. Now this is getting strikingly close to the P/E ratio that Netflix traded at back in 2022 after the major sell-down. [10:00] Remember the big drama Netflix dropped 70% they were losing subscribers, Bill Ackman sold out of the stock, YouTubers are making the rise and fall of Netflix videos. It was all very dramatic. So during this time period Netflix got down to a price to earnings. of around 17. Okay? This was a price to earnings that at the time, I thought that about the worst case scenario was likely priced into Netflix. There's already so much negative sentiment in the stock, so much skepticism about Netflix's future. Now the stock of course recovered. Netflix started to gain subscribers again and they started to gain them fast. Their password crackdown was a massive success. And of course, they introduced an advertising tear that broadened the array of ways that Netflix can make their plans and monetize their platform. So Netflix stock went from around a 15 up to around a 50 P.E. ratio. And then we had a change in narrative. Netflix tried to buy Warner Brothers Discovery. It didn't work out. They canceled the deal. And that got investors thinking that maybe they have an engagement problem. And then investors have this aura effect. A narrative, a story has taken over. The story goes like this: Netflix is a struggling company that needs engagement, that's being destroyed by YouTube. And every bit of evidence that we look at is interpreted through that lens. So everything you see in the news from Netflix, "Oh, is that an engagement problem?" "Is that an engagement problem?" everything is interpreted through the lens of netflix is struggling it needs engagement so no matter what it does That's a sign that it's lacking in engagement. For example, Netflix tried to buy Warner Brothers Discovery. Well, that wasn't to bolster their library and make it so that they have a more diverse content slate. That's to mask their problems with engagement. Netflix stopped reporting their watch time as frequently as before. That isn't because they're looking at quality of engagement and they're doing more live events and things that don't translate to as much watch time. No, that's not the reason why. The reason why is because they're trying to hide their engagement problems. This is what the market looks at. existing narrative. Everything is filtered and massaged until it fits in that narrative that is the engagement issue. And we've seen the stock valuation crumble, going from around a 60 PE ratio right back almost where it was in 2022. And this is where the market in some cases will give you really good opportunities. For example, there's another company that I really like. It's ASML. I'm a proud owner of ASML. It's one of my favorite companies that I own in my portfolio. One of the best return profiles I've had in my portfolio for the amount of time I've been invested in it. But part of the reason I had such particularly good returns on ASML was because I took advantage of another story. Another narrative about ASML. See, ASML about a year ago reported earnings, and their earnings, from what I could tell, were rock solid. They were super good, but the stock fell 10%. Stocks fall 10% on great earnings only when there's some type of narrative that investors don't like, and that's exactly what happened here. ASML, in July 16, 2025, reported great numbers. I think they beat on their revenue and their earnings per share, but the management had more of a cautious Thank you. the tone of the call, they said, "While ASML beat Q2 revenue and profit estimates, management cast doubt on 2026 growth visibility, stating they could not confirm growth for 2026 at this stage." Now, when management says we can't confirm growth, the market was like, whoa, hold up. We can't guarantee growth. They can't confirm it. Well, that's crazy. We're going to sell out of this stock. But if you actually look at what the management said, it wasn't even that bad. They're basically saying, we don't know what Trump's going to do. Maybe Trump will do something. We can't confirm it because we can't control President Trump. We didn't know what's going to happen with the tariffs, with the export controls, with any type of geopolitical concern. This was during a time where tariffs were being slapped on and on, tariffs that are 30 percent, taken on one week and taken off the next. So management was just saying, like, under normal conditions, we're going to grow just fine, but we can't guarantee it because we don't know what's going to happen. That's all they were saying. That one line that management said caused a 10 percent sell off in one of the best companies in the world on something that was completely short term. And this is where you get opportunities. I bought the stock after that sell-off. It bolstered my gains in ASML. It was sub $700 share prices that we were buying at that time. Many people in the community reaped huge rewards by taking advantage of this one little mention from management that threw the entire stock off. Now, I don't believe these situations are identical, but I do believe they're similar. We have the same type of situation where management has said something that the media a severe engagement issue with Netflix. And this is the phrase right here. This is what's being talked about. Meaning in that world, all revenue is equal, all profit is equal, all engagement is equal. And all engagement is not equal. So we are, first and foremost, we are growing engagement. [15:00] We're growing on 200 billion hours of watching. We grew 2%. in our last announcement. But 2% is not what people are hoping for out of you, right? They're used to double-digit growth, at least certainly in revenue, and to some extent even in viewership, they'd expect more. This is my... So here we have the setup for this line that the CEO of Netflix says that causes all of these issues. This is my point about the growth in general. Yes, overall, we're not growing as fast as I want us to. And we're working on making that move faster. We are... That's it. That's what he said. That's what all of these concerns recently have been based on. And remember the filter. Once there is a strong narrative like there is for Netflix, everything is filtered through the lens of that narrative. For example, Netflix recently announced that they're laying off 6% of their employee base, which is around 1000 jobs. So this is a big cutbacks, right? 1000 jobs is meaningful enough to mention in the news. But how do investors interpret this? Well, of course, Netflix is desperate. They're losing engagement and now they're cutting back jobs. It's all viewed through a very negative term. Netflix is going down. So we have the valuation of the company going down. Now, what do most of them leave out? What the actual memo said when they did these layoffs. They sent this letter out to every employee in the company. "Our business is strong and growing and we remain on track to deliver our full year forecast." So six days before this earnings, Netflix reaffirmed their guidance from management that they're going to meet their full-year forecast. This should be positive news. Should be a good thing. Netflix management just said, "We're still on track. We're still growing. Nothing has changed with our projections." But the market looks at this and goes, "Ah, they're laying off employees. That must be bad news." But is that really the case? Are layoffs really a terrible sign for a company? Sometimes, but not all the time. In fact, sometimes it really doesn't give us any signal at all. One of the times that Netflix did layoffs was in 2022. They laid off 450 employees. There's a good batch of employees at the time being laid off, and the stock proceeded to go up 400%. So in that case, layoffs may have been a good sign. Maybe it was a precursor to a massive rise in stock price. Now looking at Netflix, I don't think all the concerns are completely invalid. In cases like this, they usually aren't. There is a level of confusion and uncertainty with this company, and I think that should be priced in to some extent. The counter that I would give is that when you're looking at situations that are somewhat uncertain, like in the case of Netflix, I always come back to the valuation and try to ask myself how much of this is already priced into the stock. Netflix is at a 19 Ford PE. 3.8% free cash flow yield. When I go into this report with Netflix, I'm holding my full share of the company. I feel good about my position and I enter it with cautious optimism. I think it's going to be good, but with Netflix, there's no guarantees. It is a bit of a coin flip of how the market will react after earnings. There's always a chance it'll go down four to seven percent. That seems to be the territory of where Netflix trades. So it's a bit of a coin flip going in, but I believe it's only a matter of time until this one gets re-rated higher. I think Netflix is P.E. stock not a 19 it may trade below a 20 for some time but over time I believe that they're going to prove that they're profitable enough They're secure enough of a business. They're a high enough margin business and reliable enough that they deserve a mid 20 P.E. Next We move on to Wednesday aftermarket close and we get into Meta and Tesla Let's go ahead and take a look at Meta Meta is an interesting company because you view it as more of an auction company and but they have real pricing power. The prices of advertising on Meta's products continually climb every single quarter. Here's the average ad price year over year in the past four quarters. It went from Q2 2025 plus 9%, then plus 10%, plus 6%, plus 12%. Last quarter, it was plus 12%. So Meta is getting more money per ad on their service. Now, this is not because they're showing fewer ads. In fact, the opposite is true. They're showing more ads. getting more money per ad while showing more ads. Ad impressions are up 14% year over year. The average ad price is up 12%. Total advertising revenue is up 27%. It's a very powerful mix when you have a product that the price is getting higher and you're selling more and more of them every single quarter. Now I would call this pricing power, but that gives you the impression that Meta is like raising prices, like they're the ones deciding as if they're a software company, what advertisers will pay. It's just advertisers bidding against themselves. So instead of pricing power, I would refer to this as monetization power. Even though they're not directly raising prices, Meta is creating an environment where they get more money from more of their customers while selling more inventory at the same time. And they are doing that intentionally. They are doing it by making higher returns on their advertising, making it easier to advertise on their product, more gentic tools to create more targeted ads. They're making their service more entertaining so people stay on them longer, watch more ads in the process, and those ads convert better. And I think in this case, monetization power is better than pricing power. [20:00] Because this isn't a situation where meta has a captive audience and they are just edging the price up quarter after quarter. No, they are making the entire environment better, their products better, their services better. They're showing more ads and people are willingly paying more money for it. The meta numbers are insane. Their daily active people growth continues to grow. Their advertising impression growth continues to grow every single quarter. You can even see it start to speed back up in 2025. These are all the different regions. diversified. So this company is growing in every quadrant of planet Earth. They're making money everywhere where people have internet connections. Meta is widely adopted with different products across the globe. All of this looks amazing. But with this quarter, I think investors are going to go, all right, the business is amazing. Muse is amazing. All of this looks good. But how much money are you spending on CapEx? I think they're going to raise their CapEx guidance again. I think it's going to potentially spook investors. That's the big calculation I make this quarter. Going into it, but investors will be scratching their heads of whether or not Mark Zuckerberg is really spending too much on CapEx. And for me, I think this one is well worth holding through the CapEx cycle. Now, moving on from Meta, we have Tesla reporting Wednesday aftermarket at the same time. And Tesla's an interesting one. A lot of people love Tesla because they love Elon Musk. In my case, although I appreciate what Tesla's done, and I think they design great cars, I'm not interested in the company. I've really never been interested in Tesla to a huge extent, mostly because of the valuation. That's been one thing that's kept me out. For example, right now, Tesla trades at a 154 Ford PE ratio, which is crazy considering the company has a revenue that's been flat for about two years. Their car deliveries have gone down. rebates. Their net income is down year over year to a huge extent. Their free cash flow also has been flat for a couple of years. None of these metrics look particularly good, but for some reason it trades at four or five times evaluation of Netflix. That doesn't make much sense to me. When I look at Tesla, it's all based around the RoboTaxi theme that again the story here is so powerful teslas will all turn into robotic vehicles that can safely pick up passengers and drop them off and it will kill off uber now that's been promised for years and what we're seeing is the actual rollout of robo caps it's much slower much more methodical much more red tape than investors had anticipated previously and i think that's to be expected when i looked at tesla i did not think it was going to be one month where everything because Tesla's taken over. And I don't see that narrative happening today. So this quarter, I think is gonna be more of the same. It's gonna be a heavy focus on narrative over fundamentals, people that are glued to the storyline. If it were me and I was gonna pick between investing in Tesla and SpaceX, I would pick SpaceX. I think that the product is much more unique and defensible. I think it has a far bigger technological moat, and I think it's just less competitive. Tesla's having to deal with other car companies, Chinese companies, ones that are really good at making autonomous vehicles. Uber's already integrating multiple brands into their network. Waymo's already expanding into multiple cities. They're all over the place doing half a million rides per week. So this is already a highly competitive category that Tesla's operating in. investment much more defensible than Tesla. I did however appreciate the Roadster demo. It is insane to see a car jump up and do a kickflip and then land. It is just insane. Anybody that says that's not crazy, I think you're very biased because that is insane to see. Or to see one driving up a wall upside down. All of that is incredibly impressive. But I believe the reason the stock fell 3% or 4% after this presentation is because for it to be meaningful to investors, there needs to be some type of commercial application. commercial application in the future. And as much as I searched, I just don't see it. I don't think you're going to be able to buy cars that can jet up and potentially land and crush another vehicle anytime soon for street legal use. I think that local governments may have a few reservations before allowing that thing to be on the road, amongst a lot of other practical limitations. So while it's incredibly impressive, I personally enjoy these demonstrations a lot. I always look forward to Tesla and SpaceX demonstrations It still doesn't convince me to buy the stock. I can't just buy stocks of stuff I think is cool. I have to buy ones that I think I'm gonna make money, ones where I think that the future isn't already priced into the stock and so on. With Tesla, I believe it's gonna be more of the same, more of a heavily narrative-driven quarter with little focus on the fundamentals. Now, next we have to talk about Moody's reporting Wednesday before market open. This one hasn't been an exciting stock. It's gone up moderately, but I believe that Moody's still remains one of the best companies in the market. And I actually believe right now particularly strong investment. [25:00] When I look at Moody's, I just don't see the weaknesses that the market is concerned about. Moody's has proprietary unique data that they are They are integrating with enormous amounts of APIs in different businesses. The quality of their data is becoming paramount. They offer something unique, which is the trusted name of Moody's. When I look at this quarter, I think that Moody's is far more predictable than most companies reporting this week. I think it's more predictable than Netflix or Meta or Tesla. I also believe, looking out 10 years, that this company is still in a great position. It's likely going to have very attractive returns. So going along this week, we'll keep track of these earnings, seeing how they come in, because it's a precursor to next week, which is the biggest week in the market. While around 23 to 25% of my weighted holdings are reporting this week, around 55% are reporting next week. So that's also going to be huge. And this also is a time where investors are concerned about the AI trade. One of the investors that is seemingly concerned about the AI trade, even though he says he's kind of not concerned about it, is Brad Gerstner. Let's go ahead and take a look at this interview where he tries to outline what he thinks is important to pay attention to. We talked about this maybe a month ago, right? the AI revenues justify the CapEx build-out? I mean, frankly, it goes back to the conversation I had with Sam Altman on my podcast last October when I asked him the question, how can you make a trillion dollars of spending commitments when you have 13 billion in gap revenue? Well, what happened this year is revenues exploded higher, right? Remember, the forecast for Anthropic at the start of this year, $30 billion. Now, a lot of the reports have him doing at least $100 billion. We'll get into that. So far in this interview, Brad Gerstner is painting a very highlighting that the AI growth has been understated before. He's trying to say to the doubters that you've doubted before, and look how much the revenue's grown. Painting this as really not slowing down, that the AI trade is continuing on. a little bit today. But the fact of the matter is AI revenues exploded higher this year. And now we're in this phase of consolidation. People are starting to worry is open source commoditizing the frontier labs or the revenue sustainable. And at the same time, then they're hearing in the marketplace that things may have slowed down. So that plus higher rates, plus some of the political stuff going on in the background, background has people scared. I will tell you, I'm on the I'm on the more positive side of this. But people are scared because of interest rates. around, but Brad is on the more positive side of this. I think it's good. We have this churn in the market. It avoids bubbles. OK, you're more positive. You're on the more positive side. But your actions suggest that you are getting more cautious, don't they? I mean, you've taken your exposure down. Yes. I mean, I did, you know, a presentation at the All In Summit about a month ago. I said I had taken my exposure down to medium, small. I think I had shared that with you just the week before then. He's bullish on the AI trade. He's trying to say to the doubters that they've doubted before and it's only grown faster, but then asked about his own positioning. And he said he's taken his positions down to medium small a month ago. And we continue on talking about what he's doing with his own positions. bit. And it turns out there were even more fears that came along, inflation rates, et cetera. So our exposures are the lowest they've been in three years, right? Over the course of the last couple of months. The lowest they've been in three years. How can you then profess how sort of positive you still are? Now, this is the issue I have with this interview. Brad goes on and without even talking about his own portfolio or his own exposure, paints this big positive picture about the doubters have been wrong before and that revenue has exploded higher in every case, how there's still so much demand and on and on and on, But then when the host here, which does a great job, the host asks him about his own exposure, what Brad is doing with Brad's portfolio. He goes, well, I'm actually at medium small exposure. And then later he says, well, I've actually taken my exposure down to the lowest in three years. So Brad is actively hitting the sell button on his hedge fund. Sell, sell, sell, exit this position, trade out of this stock, trade out of this one. I don't want to be in this one right now. But then he goes on to national television and he's like, ah, those doubters. They've always doubted these stocks before and they've always done great. The AI trade is booming. Everything's great. Right after, he says a month ago, he's lowered his exposure to the lowest in three years. Now, I'm glad that he was eventually transparent with his own trades after specifically asked about it. But you'd think that'd be the type of thing that you would start off with, what you're doing with your portfolio, investors watching this. Now, Brad goes on trying to paint [30:00] this artificial dichotomy. Remember, I live in two simultaneous but different worlds. One world is I manage money for people in a hedge fund. And so my job is to make sure I avoid some of the drawdown. In my long only fund and in my growth funds and venture funds, we're investing for the next five to 10 years. So I'm telling you, when I look at 27 and 28, I'm even more positive and we can get into why. You see, Brad lives in two worlds. There's the one world where he's on He's kind of more of like a spokesperson saying that everything's good. The AI trade is on track. The doubters have been wrong before and there's still so much demand. Look how fast Anthropik is growing. That's the one world he lives in. Then there's the other world where he's actually managing money and his positions where he's hitting sell, sell, sell, sell, sell. And he's doing that for his hedge funds. Now, the hedge fund world seems to represent his actual thoughts a little bit more clearly than this other world. And Brad tries to paint this dichotomy. He tries to say, "Well, you see, I'm managing money in two different time frames." In the short term, that's like hedge fund stuff, but in the long term, I'm bullish on the AI trade. The issue I have with this is, first of all, he's on here to talk about what he actually believes is going on. He was asked specifically about the short term. So the host didn't say, where do you think AI is going to be in five years? No, the host said, do you think the concerns the market has today are valid about the short term concerns? So Brad was asked specifically about the short term environment, and he gave an answer that was glowingly positive. downs. The other issue that I have is that when we look at the size of capital that Brad's managing, this is the relationship here. The Altimeter Partners Fund, which is their flagship hedge fund, has about $9 billion in it. The Altimeter Long Opportunities Fund, which is long only, has $593 million in it. So his hedge fund, where he's been selling, is 15 times the size as his long only fund that he's referencing here. But he's talking about them like they're interchangeable. "Oh, I have some investments that I'm selling in, some that I'm long-only." It's kind of like they're 50/50. No, the huge majority of his money is in these hedge funds where he's been selling. That's like literally 90% of his money. There is a fragment or a fraction of it that's in a long-only fund. So where Brad actually is managing the bulk of his business, what he's doing with his actual business decisions based on his outlook today is reducing his exposure in all of these AI companies. And I think that that should be what he portrays. But he continues to try to kind of explain away saying this in the interview, how it But you have to acknowledge that there's going to be chop along the way. So it doesn't surprise me at all that we've had some of that chop, some of that consolidation. Why am I getting more positive? Why am I leaning in and maybe start buying over the course of the next couple of weeks? Because I'm seeing prices come in and start to get enticing. Well, I mean, Josh, that's. So here we see Brad use a euphemism. He calls selling in his largest portfolio, reducing his positions and exposure dramatically as chop. That's just a little chop. Market goes up and down. You know, why is that important to mention to the millions of people that I'm talking to on national television? Well, Brad, we're investors. We're wanting to see what your actual thoughts are. We don't want to see some type of muddled down public version of it. We want to see what you're actually thinking, what you're doing with your money. That's why people view these shows. That's why they view interviews. Now, I think it's fine if Brad went on to TV and said that even though I'm bullish in the long term, I've reduced my exposure because I believe the valuations are getting a little bit more difficult in the short term. That'd be completely acceptable. this big bullish viewpoint and saying that you're leaning bullish while you're actively selling is super lame. Now moving on, we get to the fail of the week, which in this case is ESPN, which is owned by Disney. And the reason that I'm highlighting ESPN as a fail of the week is because of this story and the broader story playing out here. This is about someone named Nicole Norin, a decorated ESPN producer who just quit working at ESPN. Now I don't know her work at all, to step down specifically because of changes happening to ESPN. So what are those changes? Well, basically, ESPN went from a company that was owned by Disney and had a very skeptical and even resistant outlook to ever endorsing or allowing gambling on their platforms. They looked at gambling as overall degenerate behavior that destroyed families and caused financial havoc on society, and so Disney did not want to align their brand with such a destructive activity. But with enough she stepped down, she did an interview highlighting her concerns about these companies as big as ESPN fully embracing gambling on [35:00] And one of the biggest concerns is not only the direct effects of convincing millions of people to start gambling routinely. In and of itself, that's unbelievably destructive to society. To have tens of millions of new people get encouraged to gamble every single day, every single sporting event. It's like you can't watch any sporting event without being inundated with gambling ads. Major athletes are now signing agreements left and right. But even outside of that, there's a concern that's possibly even bigger. that when an entire industry is paying every advertiser huge amounts of money to advertise, it naturally shields them from all journalism and criticism. The only people who can really speak out on this right now are independent journalists. I empathize with people who work at large media companies. It's really risky in this landscape to speak out. What inspires me is that there is a growing movement of sports journalists, namely in the podcast space, who are not taking They care more about their 401k than they care about journalism. I've been working with a few partners to start a sports betting and gambling addiction content initiative. It's a collaboration amongst journalists, content creators, and nonprofit health organizations to reach young audiences. So she's trying to do what she can to speak out against this issue. The fact that large companies are receiving enormous amounts of money from gambling companies. sponsors. This is very similar to the type of problem we've seen with pharmaceutical companies. Pharmaceutical companies are some of the biggest advertisers on television. So you have this relationship. When pharmaceutical companies can spend billions of dollars advertising on the airways, paying journalists huge amounts of money, that means that they are far less likely to receive critical journalism of their products, even when they're damaging. And now we see the same thing playing out with gambling. Almost everyone, seemingly, is in the pocket of some type of gambling organization sponsorships. Every one of them that doesn't have their own product. I have Qualtrum, so I don't need to take their money. I have other ways of making money besides taking on Polymarket. But believe me, They've tried. Kalshi has tried. My inbox is literally full of Kalshi and Polymarket contacting me, asking me to get on board. Even after I'm critical of them, like I did this big takedown, highly critical of them, they still want to advertise. They still want to pay me to change my mind and promote their product. They are relentless. They have more money than other advertisers. So it makes sense why so many creators are picking them up as sponsors. That also creates this environment where nobody can say anything negative. You just don't want to be negative about the company paying the bills. And that's not good for society. Big organizations that have held skepticism towards gambling are now being convinced to fully embrace it. For many years, there was a really strict line in the sand when it came to sports betting. Then the tide slowly began turning internally. It was very troubling for me to see normalization of betting and ESPN's complete acceptance of that. It worried me. I knew what gambling addiction could do to families. My grandfather, My father and one of my brothers were pretty much destroyed by gambling addiction. And you have to realize, if a Disney-owned brand, supposed to be family-friendly, can accept gambling in the manner that ESPN has, fully embracing it, then literally any company can. That is why they are the fail of the week. That's it for this episode. Hope you enjoyed. See you in the next one.