## TL;DR
Joseph Carlson在节目中深入剖析了重仓股Netflix的财报真相，指出尽管表观营收增速有所放缓，但其创纪录的29亿美元单季自由现金流、强劲回购以及极低的用户流失率证明了其扎实的商业底盘；同时，解雇原CCO并引入好莱坞资深制作人皮特·赖斯，标志着平台正告别算法流水线、转向精品内容创作。此外，节目复盘了SpaceX在星链与AI算力双轮驱动下的惊人营收跃升，以及直觉外科主动降价抢占市场份额的护城河优势。最后，针对AI唱空代表人物Ed Zitron对黄仁勋等行业领袖的情绪化谩骂，Joseph提醒投资者应摒弃充满个人偏见与仇恨的研报，专注于客观数据与核心商业逻辑。
财报季第二周正式打响，当天迎来了多家重量级公司的财报披露，其中包括 Joseph 投资组合中的重仓股 Netflix，以及 SpaceX 和直觉外科（Intuitive Surgical）。尽管 Joseph 在 Netflix 上的持仓表现尚佳，账面浮盈约 15,000 美元，但当前围绕该公司的舆论和看法极其两极分化。市场上充斥着各种困惑与质疑：Netflix 的用户参与度（engagement）是否出现下滑？增长究竟是在继续推进还是急剧放缓？更有甚者，Netflix 近期裁员约 1,000 人，而且这并非普通的基层削减，而是解雇了多位核心高管，进行了一场彻底的内部“大清洗”。这种剧烈的人事地震让外界既看到积极转型的可能，也产生了巨大疑虑。
除了剖析 Netflix 的真实经营面貌、管理层变动深意以及长期财务走势，本期节目还将同步梳理 SpaceX 的最新财报进展。SpaceX 展现出惊人的增长动力，甚至有分析预期其年度经常性收入（ARR）到 2028 年可能向万亿美元迈进。此外，节目还设立了“每周翻车榜”（fail of the week），焦点对准了知名 AI 怀疑论者爱德·齐特隆（Ed Zitron）。这位长期唱衰 AI 泡沫即将破裂的代表人物近期在 Substack 上发文情绪失控、公开谩骂，“摘下了伪装的面具”，暴露出看空情绪背后的非理性。
在当下极端注重即时动能的宏观市场环境中，投资者对科技股的容忍度极低。Joseph 犀利地指出：“In today's market, it seems like really the only metric that matters is revenue.”（在当今的市场中，似乎唯一重要的指标就是营收增长。）在正常的价值评估体系下，每股收益（EPS）、自由现金流以及股票回购都是衡量股东价值的核心尺子；但眼下的市场几乎将营收同比柱状图的下滑直接视作致命利空，这种过度盯住单一指标的审美，导致 Netflix 遭遇了不成比例的估值惩罚。
> “The best evidence that we've got that we're delivering that value is churn.”
Joseph Carlson 进一步剖析了两个平台在用户生活场景中的本质差异。二者并不是零和博弈，完全可以共生共存：
```mermaid
flowchart TD
accTitle: YouTube vs Netflix Consumption Habits
accDescr: Diagram illustrating how consumers allocate attention to both YouTube and Netflix without cancelling either service.
subgraph Daily["日常零碎场景"]
A["碎片时间 / 通勤 / 午餐"] --> B["YouTube 消费"]
B --> C["游戏、个人博主、随选快节奏内容"]
end
subgraph Prestige["沉浸娱乐场景"]
D["周末休息 / 家庭共赏"] --> E["Netflix 消费"]
E --> F["深度叙事、电影、独家剧集"]
end
C --> G["保持日常高频使用"]
F --> H["每月 $8 订阅极具性价比"]
G & H --> I["双平台长期共存"]
```
面对缺乏爆款的严峻现实，Netflix 展开了高层洗牌，以实际行动展现纠错决心。原首席内容官贝拉·巴杰里亚（Bella Bajaria）已正式被解雇离职。她在加入 Netflix 之前操盘过《神烦警探》（Brooklyn Nine-Nine）、《明迪烦事多》（The Mindy Project）和《百味超市》（Superstore）等传统网络情景剧，升任首席内容官后主导了涵盖 WWE 赛事在内的全球化泛娱乐布局。然而，目前 Netflix 严重缺乏能够统领美国乃至全球文化风向的现象级旗舰美剧，眼睁睁看着 Apple TV 凭借《人生切割术》（Severance）等精品剧集不断抢占行业声量。
为了扭转局面，Netflix 聘请了资深好莱坞推手皮特·赖斯（Peter Rice）挂帅。赖斯自 1989 年入行，在二十世纪福斯、福斯探照灯（Fox Searchlight）以及迪士尼旗下 FX 拥有极度亮眼的操盘战绩，其主导与监制的优秀作品包括：
- **经典院线电影**：《罗密欧与朱丽叶》（Romeo + Juliet）、初代《X战警》（X-Men）、《红磨坊》（Moulin Rouge!）
- **探照灯文艺名作**：《杯酒人生》（Sideways）、《阳光小美女》（Little Miss Sunshine）、《朱诺》（Juno）、《贫民窟的百万富翁》（Slumdog Millionaire）
- **高口碑现象级剧集**：《我们这一天》（This Is Us）、《小学风云》（Abbott Elementary）、《大熊餐厅》（The Bear）、《幕府将军》（Shogun）
赖斯的就任释放出一个明确信号：Netflix 正在弱化对冰冷算法的依赖，愿意承担更高的艺术风险，全力打造具有 HBO 和 Apple TV 质感的优质剧集。此外，Netflix 还正在与华纳前高层巨头迈克尔·德卢卡（Michael DeLuca）和帕姆·阿布迪（Pam Abdi）深入接触。这两位重量级制片人操盘过《Gucci真相》（House of Gucci）等多部大制作，在好莱坞拥有极深的导演与演员人脉网络。
Joseph Carlson 指出，Netflix 当前绝大多数常规内容在烂番茄（Rotten Tomatoes）、Letterboxd 和 IMDb 上的评价惨淡，而公司手握雄厚预算，完全有能力重塑口碑。高层换血绝非寻常的裁员控费，而是一场从底层逻辑出发的品质革命。如果 Netflix 在当前平庸内容下尚能保持极强盈利能力，一旦精品内容创作重回正轨，其长期潜力将彻底释放：
> “Imagine how good this company would be if they genuinely get in a rhythm of generating extremely good content.”
奈飞当前的估值处于极具吸引力的位置，预期市盈率（Forward P/E）仅为 18 倍左右，即便计入股权激励（stock-based comp），其自由现金流收益率也达到了约 4%。在这一估值水平下，市场的悲观情绪和质疑已经基本被充分定价，下行风险相当有限。只要管理层能够纠正路线、让业务恢复快于预期的增长，上方就具备巨大的弹性空间。Joseph Carlson 明确指出：“A lot of the skepticism and pessimism is already priced in, and there's a lot of upside if Netflix can improve things and grow faster than expected.”
```mermaid
flowchart TD
accTitle: SpaceX Business Architecture
accDescr: SpaceX is split into connectivity through Starlink and AI compute infrastructure through server farms.
subgraph CoreEngines["双轮驱动模型"]
direction TB
Starlink["星链卫星互联业务<br/>(高现金流网络资产)"]
AICompute["AI 服务器与超算中心<br/>(满足庞大 AI 算力需求)"]
end
RevenueGrowth --> CoreEngines
```
在星链互联业务方面，用户规模从上一季度的 1,200 万增长至本季度的 1,360 万，单季净增用户达 160 万。与此同时，每用户平均收入（ARPU）也从上一季度的 66 美元小幅提升至 69 美元，实现了量价齐升的健康态势。至于传统的火箭发射与太空探索业务，Joseph 认为它更多是为互联网络提供发射支持的催化剂，而非独立的盈利引擎。而真正推动 SpaceX 估值与未来天花板的第二支柱，是埃隆·马斯克正在全力打造的巨型服务器集群和 AI 数据中心。正如 Joseph Carlson 所评价的：“SpaceX is basically a very profitable connectivity business with satellite internet... and the other side of this, really what's pushing the numbers, is the second half, which is AI.”
医疗器械领军企业直觉外科（Intuitive Surgical）交出了一份优秀的财报。虽然 Joseph Carlson 个人尚未建仓该股，但他计划未来在 Qualtrim 平台上对其进行深度拆解。直觉外科的核心竞争力在于它不仅仅是一家售卖手术机器人的设备商，而是一个具有极高认知转换成本的医疗平台生态。当医院采购达芬奇设备后，医生和外科团队需要接受漫长而严格的系统化操作培训，一旦熟练掌握，几乎不会转向竞对系统。
尽管财报公布当天直觉外科股价出现下跌，但 Joseph 认为这种市场反应并不合理。本季度直觉外科展现出了强劲的真实业务增长和扎实的经营杠杆。针对部分投资者担心的“设备在特定场景下主动降价”，Joseph 明确指出这绝非业务走弱的危险信号，而是管理层为了进一步扩大市场装机量、加速蚕食竞争对手份额的进攻性策略。正如 Joseph Carlson 所断言：“They showed real growth, real operating leverage. They're trying to take more market share, so they've lowered some prices of some machines in different circumstances. I don't view that as a red flag.”
[23:05](https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV15Mny6MEkd?t=1385s) 本周大败笔：AI 唱空者 Ed Zitron 的情绪化宣泄与偏见
在“本周大败笔”（Fail of the Week）环节，Joseph 点名了知名 AI 唱空代表人物 Ed Zitron。Zitron 长期在 Substack 上发表大量长篇大论，坚称整个 AI 行业是一场即将崩盘的世纪泡沫。然而，在他最新的一篇 Substack 专栏中，分析的理性外衣彻底褪去，演变成了针对科技领袖的污言秽语与恶毒人身攻击。
```mermaid
flowchart LR
accTitle: Biased Research Trap
accDescr: Emotion-driven analysis leads from pre-determined hatred to cherry-picked negative conclusions.
subgraph BiasedPath["情绪驱动型研究路径"]
A["预设个人仇恨与偏见<br/>('这些人是恶棍/骗子')"] --> B["筛选拼凑负面碎屑事实<br/>(无视企业真实生产力与价值)"]
B --> C["得出灾难性崩盘结论<br/>('一切都是泡沫与骗局')"]
end
subgraph ObjectivePath["客观理性研究路径"]
D["跟踪财报与财务数据"] --> E["评估技术壁垒与用户粘性"]
E --> F["得出兼顾风险的投资决策"]
end
```
Zitron 在文章中公然写道，要“操黄仁勋”（F. Jensen Wong），宣称内存与消费电子价格上涨全是因为黄仁勋制造的人为供应链危机，强迫客户提前提货 GPU，并辱骂黄仁勋是“贪婪、无趣、没有灵魂的蠢汉”（greedy, joyless, soulless oaf of a man），甚至抨击“每一个云巨头 CEO 都是一坨狗屎”（Every hyperscaler CEO is too... these scumbags drove the price of everything up）。面对这种极端言论，Joseph Carlson 犀利地反驳道：“He has pure hatred, unfiltered enmity towards these people... And this is supposed to be someone that's an investor, objective, clear-sighted, not having his analysis driven primarily by personal animus for different groups of people.”
Joseph 进一步对比了真实的企业家轨迹：黄仁勋早年在 Denny's 餐厅从端盘子、擦马桶做起，用一生心血创立并经营英伟达，使其成长为全球市值巅峰的伟大企业。更重要的是，黄仁勋在带领企业预判并押注游戏、加密货币、AI 等每一次算力浪潮的同时，造就了数以万计的百万富翁——民调显示约 70% 的英伟达员工已成为百万富翁，而他本人功成名就后依然勤勉热爱工作。反观部分唱空者，内心早有预设结论，所有的所谓“调研”不过是在为自己的仇恨寻找拼凑的证据。Joseph 总结道：“If your research or who you're following, their research is primarily driven by unfettered hatred towards different individuals, it's not likely to be the best research.”
## Notable quotes
> [20:00](https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV15Mny6MEkd?t=1200s) A lot of the skepticism and pessimism is already priced in, and there's a lot of upside if Netflix can improve things and grow faster than expected. — Joseph Carlson
> [13:17](https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV15Mny6MEkd?t=797s) The only way for Netflix to truly thrive is if they can offer entertainment worth paying for. — Joseph Carlson
> [23:05](https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV15Mny6MEkd?t=1385s) If your research or who you're following, their research is primarily driven by unfettered hatred towards different individuals, it's not likely to be the best research. — Joseph Carlson
> [01:45](https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV15Mny6MEkd?t=105s) In today's market, it seems like really the only metric that matters is revenue. — Joseph Carlson
[20:00] Joseph Carlson: A lot of the skepticism and pessimism is already priced in, and there's a lot of upside if Netflix can improve things and grow faster than expected.
[13:17] Joseph Carlson: The only way for Netflix to truly thrive is if they can offer entertainment worth paying for.
[23:05] Joseph Carlson: If your research or who you're following, their research is primarily driven by unfettered hatred towards different individuals, it's not likely to be the best research.
[1:45] Joseph Carlson: In today's market, it seems like really the only metric that matters is revenue.
Original transcript
[0:00] Well, yesterday we had a big day. It was the beginning of week two of earnings season. In this case, we had Netflix report earnings. This is a very large position in my portfolio. We have SpaceX reported as well as Intuitive Surgical. Now, I'm going to be spending some time going over Netflix's earnings report because, like I mentioned, it's a big position in my portfolio. And although I'm currently in the green on this one, I'm in the green by $15,000. It's done well so far. Netflix is a company that has a lot of opinions. A lot of people don't even know what's going on with Netflix. Are they struggling with engagement? Are they growing? Is growth slowing? Are they changing around everything with their company? Apparently, Netflix fired 1,000 employees. Now, that was big news in and of itself, but this wasn't a normal firing. They also fired numerous executives. They really cleaned house. Some things look really good on it. Some things look really questionable. And in this episode, we're going to be going over all of it. In this episode, I'm going to give you a clear picture of Netflix, what's actually going on with the management, the reason they're making these changes, a clear financial picture of the company, how their performance was this quarter and looking into the future. So we'll be going over all of it and trying to put this in context. And then, of course, we have SpaceX. They gave the report yesterday as well. I'll be going over that one as well, the changes they're making, the reason the stock's up, that SpaceX could do up to a trillion dollars in annual recurring revenue by 2028. And of course, we have the fail of the week, which in this case is the notable AI skeptic and bearer Ed Zitron. Ed has become popular by making lots of claims about how the AI bubble will collapse. And he just had a crash out on a substack this morning. It's really a taking the mask off moment. So we'll be going over that. Now, to begin, we'll start off with Netflix. Netflix knows that this was a dicey quarter. is about rock bottom on this company. Their stock price is cut nearly in half. There's many investors concerned about engagement, many investors concerned about YouTube. YouTube on the charts is just trending up. It continues to climb up. Netflix is going about level on viewership and even down. Now, before going into some of the context here on their content slate and competition with YouTube, I think it's important to understand how truly remarkable of a company Netflix actually is I have a series of charts here to illustrate this. Let's go ahead and start off with the first one here. This chart is not of the total revenue of the company. It's how much the revenue is growing every single quarter year over year. So you can see back in 2021, Netflix growth was growing really fast, but then they ran into a problem. Their growth basically came to a standstill. In fact, in 2022, there was one quarter they barely grew at all. They actually lost subscribers, so it was only pricing power growing them. Not a good situation, and of course, that's when the stock crumbled. Then Netflix instituted a series of price hikes. They also instituted ad tears, and that caused the growth to speed back up. In this category up here, 15% or above is really what Wall Street likes to see. These 15% grower companies get the premium valuation. But Netflix was growing that fast because they had a lot of tailwinds. top of the rapidly growing ad tier. So they had a lot of things moving in their advantage that caused them to grow above 15%. Growth is decelerating for Netflix based on just the past couple of quarters. And now we get to a point where it's growing between 9.8% and 10.5%, right on that double digit limit. And that's a little bit of a landmark for investors. They want companies that are growing above 10%, even if you're a mature company. So Netflix is now in this dicey territory where they're trying to still keep growth above double digits. Now, when I look at this on a closer timescale, let's go ahead and look at an annual one here instead of quarterly. This is what it looks like. 2025, they grew 16%. Then we have 2026. They're expected to grow this year around 13.2 to 13.3%. That's still healthy growth. I don't think any investor has really big concerns with how fast Netflix is growing this year. The problem is when we get into 2027. The big question going into 2026 is how much can they grow next year? How much can they grow in 2027? And the annual assessments today are around 10.9%. struggling to grow above 10%. Now, this level of deceleration is not terrible. Netflix went from a period of excessive growth now to a more moderate growth level. And normally, this wouldn't be such a bad thing. But in the market we're in today, investors basically only care about revenue growth. It's like the only thing that matters. In a normal market, all the financials matter. The earnings per share means something, or the free cash flow or buybacks mean something. In today's market, it seems like really the only metric that matters is revenue. So when we look at a chart like this and we see those bars of revenue growth year over year going down instead of up, That is bad news for now.
[5:00] But I don't believe the market will only care about revenue forever. I think that's just a temporary thing. Markets tend to care about free cash flow and profits over time, and Netflix is incredibly good at growing its profits. For example, in this past quarter, Netflix did a record amount of free cash flow on a normalized basis. They did $2.9 billion in free cash flow. Now, there's a quarter here that obviously beat it, but that's because of the Warner Brothers Discovery payout. That was $2.9 billion paid to Netflix. When you take out that additional payment, Netflix just broke its record of how much free cash flow it generated. This is really strong. Now, you can see it quarter over quarter here. When we look at this chart, we can see the free cash flow over time. Netflix is steadily marching its free cash flow higher over time. Now, what are they doing with their massive amounts of cash flow? Well, of course, they raise their content budget, so they're spending more on content than ever before, but they're also doing more in buybacks than ever before. Netflix is a company that's returning tremendous amounts of money back to the investor via buybacks. In fact, this chart here shows the growth of it. This is on a trailing 12-month basis. Now, again, some of this is aided by the Warner Brothers Discovery payout. But even if you factor that out, their buybacks are going to be at a record high this year. So right now, Netflix is buying back shares aggressively. And that's especially helpful when stock prices drop. The stock price dropping enhances the effectiveness of the share buybacks, which increases the per share free cash flow growth and the per share earnings per share growth. All of that's really good for the investor. So we're not in a situation where the stock price drops and there's nothing Netflix can do. No tools in their toolbox. No, if you're a long-term investor and the stock price drops, you can just wait around and watch them reduce shares continually, making it so that you have a greater stake in the company. All of this shows that Netflix is an extremely profitable, efficient company that can return a tremendous amount of dollars back to the investor. This isn't money that they're diluting by paying out stock-based comp and then buying back those shares, going on a treadmill. This is actually reducing the share count. Now, the next thing we can look Typically, investors think earnings per share is important. I know in today's market it's not stressed as much. But earnings per share is kind of the thing that's really important over time with the stock. Netflix is growing their earnings per share incredibly fast. This chart is misleading. The reason this chart is misleading is because it shows from 2025. into 2026, Netflix is going to have a massive step up in EPS. And then from 2026 to 2027, it appears like growth is basically halting. But this is not really accurate because again, we have that Warner Brothers Discovery payout that counted as net income that was part of their earnings per share. So we had an artificial boost from 2025 to 2026, making it look like the jump from 2026 to 2027 as not impressive. Here's another chart showing the growth rate every single quarter, year over year. And you can see again that during these time periods, this is back in 2024 and 2025, the growth rate was crazy. And then it looks like the earnings per share growth rate all of a sudden hit a wall. The growth rate did not hit a wall here. Even though this chart shows that these bars are growing around 6% per year, up to 21% year over year. The reality here is that if you take out the Warner Brothers Discovery merger, in 2026, they grew around 20%. In 2027, they'll grow around 20%. And then in 2028, they'll grow around 20%. That's what the true estimates are. You can see that better visualized on this chart. We're looking at the earnings per share growing over time. This is where we're at with the most recent quarter, and then you can see the analyst estimates. The reason that these four quarters are so big is because this is the trailing 12 months, and once that initial Warner Brothers Discovery payout is worked out of that trailing 12 months, you can see that the EPS projected goes down, then it starts to climb back up on a normal level. A way to visualize cutting out the Warner Brothers Discovery payment is just to pretend you chopped off four bars. If you did that, this is a picture of their organic growth. Now, I understand the financials of a company aren't everything. There's additional context that's very important beyond it. But what I see here is an incredibly impressive company, a super profitable one, one that is continuing to grow strong, generate strong returns, one that runs efficiently. It returns capital back to the shareholder without diluting it, one that even has good estimates in the future. It doesn't seem like there's too much trouble based on the numbers themselves. But like I said, there's about is all that additional context. What is going on with engagement and viewing hours that isn't captured in these numbers? Well, we can go over a couple things. The first thing is the media coverage right now is extremely negative for Netflix. Like super, super negative. We have... Articles like this, this is on the front page of the Wall Street Journal yesterday saying, Netflix America's dominant streaming service has hit a wall. In this article, there's a chart here that the Wall Street Journal featured. It's not too detailed of a chart, but it illustrates the point very clearly. The point is that YouTube is winning with view time. People are just watching more YouTube, and Netflix is actually faltering a little bit. So we just have this picture being painted.
[10:00] Now, while investors are looking at these numbers of YouTube viewership going up while Netflix is staying flat, it paints this picture that Netflix is a big loser. The stock is decelerating a little bit and the narrative spins out of control. And I could find a hundred other media coverage like this painting this incredibly bad picture for Netflix. But when I was looking at this, I think it leaves out some central questions. For example, when YouTube gains viewership, does Netflix really lose in that situation? And this is the central point worth making here. cancel Netflix because they watch more YouTube. They cancel Netflix when they feel like Netflix is not worth paying for. YouTube's viewing went up 14 percent. while Netflix grew revenue by 12%. So Netflix is growing alongside YouTube, and if it were the case that YouTube's additional viewership causes people to cancel Netflix, then the bears have some explaining to do. For example, why is Netflix's churn, which means the amount of people canceling, going down? Management just noted that this quarter, the most recent quarter, churn went down. Fewer people canceled than they did last year. The best evidence that we've got that we're delivering that value is churn. We've got healthy retention in every region. Q3 churn both globally and in the United States improved year on year. It's better than forecast. It's already industry leading. See, some investors look at this data and they're just mystified. They have no clue, no potential clue of how this can happen. How can this be? How can Netflix reduce churn and improve retention while YouTube is gaining more viewership? Is it possible for someone to spend more time watching YouTube while maintaining a Netflix subscription? Is that even a possibility? Wait a second. Maybe that is a possibility. Maybe a lot of people are spending more time on YouTube while also enjoying Netflix sometimes. That may actually be the case. And of course, when you think about it, it's obviously the case. People can spend more time watching YouTube as part of their daily routine, their commute. They can put videos on while they're eating lunch. And they can also have a Netflix subscription because there might be a TV series that they want to watch. Maybe they're in the east of Eden. I don't know. Maybe they're watching some different show. And if they're looking forward to watching a couple episodes this weekend, they might also maintain a Netflix subscription. See, this is the type of juxtaposition that doesn't help investors. Every time you show a chart of YouTube viewership going up, that does paint the picture that Netflix is losing, but that's not necessarily the correct takeaway. And I think that's the point here. Netflix is increasing its revenue. It's increasing its viewership. Churn is going down. Retention is improving while YouTube is growing. And part of the difference here is the purposes that these two things serve. gaming, personalities, frequent and casual viewing makes it a daily habit. Netflix, on the other hand, is for stories. movies, series, and shared household entertainment. If you're into the latest series, it's on TV. East of Eden or Below or whatever it may be. Maybe you're watching old reruns of The Walking Dead. They're all on Netflix. Maybe that one show is causing you to stick around to Netflix week after week. Because The Walking Dead is not on YouTube. That's why these can both exist in the same sphere. People put a high value on entertainment. Even if there's just a couple good shows, once in a while to watch on Netflix, for most people that justifies an $8 a month subscription. So to be clear, the argument that I'm making here is not that YouTube doesn't matter or it's not competitive at all to Netflix. I do think it offers people different opportunities of what to spend their time on. So it is a competition. But the bigger point here is that Netflix will be successful or not successful based on how good their content is. That's really what it comes down to. If people really feel like paying for a subscription is worth it, they will pay for it, even in addition to YouTube. The only way for Netflix to truly thrive is if they can offer entertainment worth paying for. And that has been the problem. When you look back just like a year ago, Netflix seemed to have huge cultural hits after huge cultural hits. It had like Bridgerton, which may not be your cup of tea, but it was a big cultural hit. We have Squid Game. Again, not for everyone, but it was incredibly popular. And then we had Stranger Things, which seemed like it was for everyone. Like, everybody watched that show. These are massive cultural hits. And then they just stopped. Like the Wall Street Journal said, it just hit a wall. And this is part of the risk with Netflix. It's a company that has creative risk. Whenever they release a series, they don't know how it's going to do beforehand. They have to just wait and see. And Netflix has been overreactive in some cases, canceling series prematurely, which has hurt their library. But it seems like Netflix is getting the message. They need better shows and they need them quickly. They need to change gears. They no longer can make mediocre, made-for-streaming television and movies. that Netflix has got this message is from these recent layoffs. If we look at what's actually going on here, I put together a little profile of the history of the individuals and
[15:00] laid off and the new people they hired. And it paints a picture that Netflix is really adapting to the feedback. The first one that's confirmed is Bella Bajaria is fired. She's completely gone. Now, in her career prior to Netflix, what she brought to the table, her slate of content were things like Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Mindy Project, Superstore, Bates Motel, Chicago Dramas. And she moved up in the ranks to the chief content officer since 2023, supervised a broad global slate around WWE so on this is part of the flywheel of Netflix making hit shows within the United States whether they're produced in the UK and Canada wherever if they're a hit in the cultural zeitgeist of the United States it carries through the entire world we've seen that many times before and that happened with shows like Squid Game the major point of criticism and where I think Netflix is actually changing gears here is is they want more breakout US television. We just have not had anything break out recently. Apple's running away with it. Apple has shows like Severance. They have Widow's Bay. They have all these shows that are doing really well. Netflix really doesn't have that much to speak of. The issue here is the frequency of must-see hits, shows that people feel like they have to sign up for to see on Netflix. So she's out. And who did Netflix bring on to replace her? They brought on someone named Peter Rice. Now, looking at Peter Rice's history, he has experience with 20th Century Fox and Disney and a really good side of Disney. These aren't like the little kids shows. He's on the FX side, and I really like his history here. He started off a long time ago, actually, when I was born, 1989. Romeo and Juliet, The First X-Men, Moulin Rouge. Those are all great movies. With Fox Searchlight, he led shows like Sideways, Little Miss Sunshine, Juno, Slumdog Millionaire. At Fox slash Disney, he was over shows like This Is Us, Abbott Elementary, The Bear, and Shogun. Now, why would Netflix want this guy? So he's not so much for like the mass market. The goal here isn't to find someone that can create content for every little local jurisdiction and spread, you know, daytime television type of shows everywhere. The goal here is to make it so that Netflix has the cultural hits, the must-see television, the Widow's Bay, the Severance shows, all these ones that people really sign up for services to see. Netflix wants them. This is their guy to try to help do that. One of the interesting things here is it looks like Netflix is becoming less algorithm driven and taking more creative risks with their big hits. So that's the biggest change that's been confirmed so far. Now, Netflix management won't come out and say, look, this person that we fired wasn't doing a good enough job creating original content and really cultural hitting shows. They're not going to criticize who they just let go. They want them to be successful, but they're clearly changing gears Warner Media or Apple TV, movies that feel like ones created by real directors taking artistic risk. That's the direction Netflix is going because they need those hits to generate continual growth throughout the entire world. Now, there's another change that they're potentially making. So this is speculative. We know that they're in talks with these two people, but Netflix is in discussion with two previous people that were really big wigs at Warner, and they're over a lot of great stuff. Michael DeLuca and Pam Abdi. With Abdi at Warner, they oversaw a ton of the Shows like One Battle After Another, House of Gucci, The Sinners, Minecraft Weapons, on and on. These two are the real deal. And I hope that Netflix is able to pick them up because the biggest thing that they have is a good relationship and connection with the rest of Hollywood. It'd make it so that Hollywood producers and big time filmmakers would seriously consider working with Netflix on films that they otherwise wouldn't. So you can see the direction Netflix is going here. This isn't just a run of the mill layoff by saving some margin this quarter. That's not their goal. It is a change in direction of their content to raise the quality of content, to make stuff that is truly art and not just optimize streaming service hits. Now, when I look at Netflix overall, I do think that this company has a genuine issue with its content. The majority of it is just not good. A lot of their shows are just not good. They get crushed by Rotten Tomatoes. They get crushed by Letterboxd. They get crushed by IMDB. And there are services like Apple that are knocking it out of the park. They're creating real prestige premium television. It's not that Netflix needs all of its content to be like that, but they need more of it to be like that than they're currently giving us. We need to feel like there's more HBO shows, more Apple TV level of quality shows on Netflix service. And the company has the budget to do this. The reason they're not is specifically because of management, which they're now changing. So when I look at Netflix, I view it in one simple way. The company is as good as it is today with the content it currently has. Imagine how good this company would be if they genuinely get in a rhythm of generating extremely good content. If that happens, this company could fly. The stock could soar far above what it's doing. And in the meantime, Netflix is trading at a low valuation, the Ford P.E. rate
[20:00] shows at an 18 right now. The free cash flow yield, even with stock-based comp, is at 4%. So this is one where currently I think the downside is rather limited. A lot of the skepticism and pessimism is already priced in, and there's a lot of upside if Netflix can improve things and grow faster than expected. Now, of course, at the same time, we also had SpaceX give their earnings report. It was very impressive. SpaceX is growing super fast, and that's really no surprise to anyone. It was expected to grow fast. When I looked at this again, this is why I mentioned that I think in a year or so, they'll have revenues of... $40 billion. So the numbers right now are a bit misleading. The quarter before, $7 billion. In the quarter, they posted $14.5 billion. That is fast growth. They're going to get up to $40, $50 billion quickly. When we look at the reasons for its growth, we can take a look at SpaceX and divide it up into two different parts. SpaceX is basically a very profitable connectivity business with satellite internet. That's one half of the business. And it's really good. I love this business. I can't stress that enough. We have subscribers going up from the previous quarter at 12 million. to now 13.6 million. So they added on an incremental 1.6 million subscribers in the quarter. They're doing a great job with it. We also have this chart here showing the SpaceX monthly average revenue per user. This y-axis does not start at zero, it starts at 66. So it just helps illustrate the trend that last quarter was at $66, then this quarter edged up to $69. Very good growth in both the number of subscribers and the average amount the subscribers are paying. Then we have the space business. I don't really count this as a business in and of its own. It kind of is, but it's really not that meaningful. And it's really there to be a catalyst for the connectivity business. But the other side of this, really what's pushing the numbers, is the second half, which is AI. Elon's building these giant computers, giant server farms that will fulfill on a lot of the AI demand. concerning about SpaceX's report. I thought it was good overall. And I think it gave investors exactly what they're looking for. Next up, we have Intuitive Surgical. This is a company I've not yet invested in, but I really like the stock. I think it's a great company. I plan on doing a deep dive on Qualtrum in it in the future. But basically, this company is a medical platform. They're not just a device seller. They sell a device. And then when the device is installed, installed. Doctors and surgeons also learn how to use it. Once they learn how to use it, there's a little bit of switching costs cognitively with learning a different system. So it becomes part of an entire ecosystem. And I won't go into too much detail in this quarter, other than saying, This is a great, great quarter for Intuitive Surgical. The stock price is down today. I don't think it should be. They showed real growth, real operating leverage. They're trying to take more market share, so they've lowered some prices of some machines in different circumstances. I don't view that as a red flag. I really think this is a strong quarter by Intuitive Surgical. Now, that's all we had yesterday, and I'll have more commentary on the reports that have come out today with Meta and others reporting later this week. Now, moving on, we get to the fail of the week, which in this case, I have to highlight Ed Zitron. Ed Zitron. He is a notable AI bear, and he comes up with a really extensive thesis on why all of this is a bubble and it's going to collapse. What we see today... is a part of Ed Zitron's post. This is from a sub stack. And I think this is the mask coming off the face. He says, side note, F. Jensen Wong. Now he uses different language there, but he says, F Jensen Wong, man. This means that increased prices of RAM and consumer electronics was a result of an artificial supply chain crisis created by Jensen Wong, pushing NVIDIA's customers to take early deliveries of GPUs. Jensen Wong is responsible for making life worse for everyone. What a greedy, joyless, soulless oaf of a man. Doing this requires you to be a certain kind of low that no money or status can ever fix. is a piece of shiz. Every hyperscaler CEO is too. So it's not just Jensen Wong, according to him. Every hyperscaler CEO is a piece of shiz. These scumbags drove the price of everything up so that they could help, they could all help Jensen Wong make more money. We did not need him to build all these GPUs. He just wanted to sell them to boost earnings. Everyone who participated in the early shipment of GPUs is a scumbag. All of that is a direct quote. I haven't changed the context it. He has pure hatred, unfiltered enmity towards these people. completely hates them. And it's been visible in interviews in the past. I've noticed that he completely hates anybody that's running these successful companies. But now it's really just, there's just no hiding it. He's not even attempting to hide it anymore, that he truly hates every one of these people. And this is supposed to be someone that's an investor, objective, clear-sighted, not having his analysis driven primarily by personal animus for different groups of people. He's calling.
[25:00] - Yeah. The most successful business people in American history, all of them, scumbags and saying F all of them. These are the people that have literally created the most successful businesses in the world, giving the United States a powerful position in artificial intelligence for our own uses, for our own advancement, for our own defense. And then the people like Jensen, who he specifically points out here. Jensen started as a Denny's employee. He was scrubbing toilet seats in part of his life. He continued to build a company, NVIDIA, and run it his entire life to become the biggest company in the world, making literally tens of thousands of millionaires with him. In fact, there's polls that show that around 70% of NVIDIA employees are millionaires. That's thousands of people that are made rich through Jensen. Through him creating this company, through him navigating it to have so much preparation for both crypto, AI, gaming, you name it, all the computation that would eventually happen. He created an incredible company, made tons of people rich at the same time, and instead of living a lavish life, he just keeps working. He enjoys working. But he's the bad guy. He's the evil one that you should hate. This is the level of analysis we're getting from the AI bears. Now, this should go without saying, but if your research or who you're following, their research is primarily driven by unfettered hatred towards different individuals, it's not likely to be the best research. It's not likely to be the most objective. It is motivation-driven research. You already have a motivation. You already have a conclusion in your mind. any scrapped piece of evidence together to get to that determination you've already made. Ed has figured out that these guys are evil, and so anything they do is bad, anything they do is evil, and it's all a bubble, it's all a scam, it's all going to explode. That's his thoughts. If that's the analysis you're following, good luck. That's it for this episode. Hope you enjoyed. See you in the next one.
