THE AI BUBBLE IS BURSTING? ⚠️ 4 Tech Stocks I’d Hold No Matter What

0:00This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human Earners, what's up? Look, building wealth isn't just about making money. It's about knowing where your money is working for you. That's why we partnered with Empower. Empower is all about helping you invest well so you can go out and live a little. Their free Empower personal dashboard gives you a complete view of your financial life in one place. Track your net worth, monitor your budget, analyze your investments, set retirement goals, and more. You've worked hard for your money. Now make sure it's working hard for you. Download the Empower personal dashboard or visit Empower.com.

0:37Not an Empower client paid or sponsored. Earners, what's up? Look, when you think about discovering small brands, what store pops in your mind? Well, it should be Walmart. Seriously, Walmart has thousands of small brands and they're all in one place. Just go online or in-store, discover and shop. It could not be easier. Every one of these brands has a real story and real people behind it. They're true American success stories, and you can find them all at Walmart. Discover thousands of small brands at walmart.com today. When traveling for events or festivals throughout the country, every dollar matters.

1:14We compare flights, prices, hotel rates, and restaurant options. So why wouldn't we compare rides? Personally, I always check Lyft before booking a ride. Prices can change throughout the day depending on traffic, weather, and what's happening in the city. If you're headed to a concert, out to dinner, or catching up with your friends on a Friday night, taking a few seconds to check lift could leave you with more money to enjoy the experience. Save money. Check lift. Ernest, what's up? Look, if you've been sitting on a business idea, a side hustle, or a brand you wanted to launch, this is your sign to finally make it happen.

1:48Wix Harmony lets you create an entire website just by telling it what you want. Literally, you type it and it builds a site for you with business features already included. And the best part, you still have full control to edit everything yourself. It's fast, it's smart, and it makes building a website way easier than people think. Try it today at Wix.com slash Harmony. That's Wix.com slash Harmony. AI bubble warning. There's been a recent AI bubble warning issued, a new one. What's your thoughts on this? i don't know if bubble is the right term but a few institutions have issued this warning we'll get to alex in a second um i do think that the ai promise has not been delivered like i asked a question last week and it was slightly controversial for whatever reason after but um shout out to everyone at microsoft i love you guys daily from the bottom of my heart one of favorite companies of all time so i see one of my favorite ceos ever better than tim cook etc etc you can't run your business off co-pilot like for all the automations that we have and shot to perplexity and everything's tied down shot to alicia little still to this day i can't set up all these agents and then just go off to mexico and do no work for two weeks and come back and the agents have everything done the first company that provides that kind of premise and return they're going to and as a result with even ai not delivering as as well as it should it's obliterated the software category so bubble no i think people forget even in the dot-com era it took a while for things to be calibrated i don't think it'll take that long but I think we may be three or four years off from having systems of scale and tech at scale that really allows you to offload your workforce and the cost isn't so high to be able to do so.

3:49So I wouldn't say bubble, but it hasn't delivered on the return that it was initially promised. If you can lay off your workforce and enjoy more of your life and be off grid and just let the LLMs run in the background, like that premise isn't there. Do you guys know of anyone? I've asked this question to probably 200 people over the last year. No one is just leaving their business to be run solely by LLM. Yeah. Yeah. The idea, I mean, I think one of the greatest minds that has lived through both and his business has benefited tremendously because of it, spoke on this recently. Jeff Bezos was asked about the bubble.

4:33and he said, I want you to think of it like this. Right now, businesses are being done in terms of picks and shovels, right? Like people are manually doing the work. He said, think of AI as a bulldozer. So if you were digging with a pick and a shovel, well, a bulldozer is about to come and make everything happen a lot faster, more efficiently, and have more skill. And so the actual tax won't be replaced. how we get the task done will be altered. So companies will survive some, some will falter, but that's business. And that's what happens inside of revolutions, especially in the technology space.

5:16And he has a great vantage point because in 1997, look at what his company was. And in 2026, obviously he's not the CEO anymore, but look at what that company has grown to, right? Because he was able to adapt. he was able to use the technology to his advantage and he was able to scale it so that's how we got to have to look at it the ai bubble we've been talking about this thing for at least 18 months now man i'm like okay okay if there's gonna be a bubble let's find the companies that are going to be here when this so-called bubble bursts who will be the the standing companies i think we we're spot on with the ones that we've been saying for sure time will tell and i think we're going to be on the right side of it.

6:00Sean, what are your thoughts? Um, bubble is relative. I feel like, uh, yeah, there's a lot of companies that, well, we could, it just actually leads to the Alex Carp clip. Let's actually look, look, let's play this. Let's, let's play the clip from Atlas. Cause that just kind of just leads into this conversation. The Alex Carp go on CNBC last week and torch the entire AI business model. Like Becky quick had to stop a mid rant. Like you sound pretty angry. And his response, this is the voice of American business channel through me. I mean, his rants are usually pretty epic. But I think he hit on two sticking points that are really decide how AI diffuses through the economy.

6:37Number one is that enterprises are losing trust in a lot of these AI model companies. He's saying because they're not safe. And safe is a little bit different than you think. So let's hear him out. Safe because it doesn't touch your unlearned data. Safe because it prevents the large language model from caching your data and replicating your business. Safe because it doesn't transfer your IP of how to fight secret data, top secret data, or in a clinical context. And the second is that a lot of these large enterprise customers are now wanting to own the entire AI stack. Compute, models, their data, all of it.

7:05Again, take it away, Alex. Here's the structural problem that he's calling out. Your edge as a company depends on that proprietary data. Your AI vendor depends on their models getting smarter. And how do you think they do that? So there's a collision course. Because the labs aren't just selling tokens anymore. They're not.

7:23Okay. So, Alex Karp, he went on a whole rant on CNBC about AI, his frustration with a lot of AI companies. And he's been known to go on rants from time to time, a variety of different things. Okay. So back to the AI bubble thing. AI bubble, yeah, for sure. Because a lot of the companies are not built on anything foundationally strong. They're just putting in front of their name or just saying, are we going to do this? Are we going to do that? Like you said, I personally have yet to see AI do a variety of different things that people think it can do. Like even if you look at our world, like AI cannot create content.

8:09If it did, if it did, everybody would be a content creator. Yeah. I know, I know this firsthand. Is it yet or just, well until until it's done it we can't we can't it it can help you make content yeah it can't make it it can't future project it can go off the past it can make content it's not it's not it's not good it's not good enough not great it's not great it's not great but i can't you would stay okay i could just make i don't think i do no work i could just make a video, I'm going to have AI cut up and then it's going to get a million views and that's going to be my pathway to become the next Logan Paul.

8:50It has not happened. Ernest, what's up? Look, you probably think of Walmart as the store that carries just about everything under the sun and maybe not as the place to discover small brands. Well, two things can be true at the same time because Walmart is home to thousands of small brands founded by people who had an idea, took a chance and built something of their own. Behind everyone is a real story and a lot of hard work. So why not take a little time to recognize all the people building small brands across the country and support everything they're creating? Walmart is proud to give those brands a place on its shelves and online.

9:25It's never been easier to find and support small brands. So take a look at Walmart. You might come across something new, something unexpected, or a brand whose story speaks to you. You never know what you're missing until you look. Discover thousands of small brands at walmart.com. We talk a lot about ownership, and one of the most important assets you can own is your digital real estate. Too many entrepreneurs rely on social media platforms they don't control. Your website should be the center of your business. Framer helps you build a professional website without all the friction. It's more than a website builder.

9:58It's a complete website platform. Your entire team can collaborate in real time, make changes instantly, and publish updates in minutes instead of days. Framer's AI agents work alongside your team to create content, refine pages, manage your CMS, and optimize your SEO all in one place. And because everything stays editable on the same canvas, you maintain complete control over what goes live. That's why everyone from startups to Fortune 500 companies and brands like Perplexity and Miro trust Framer to power their websites. Learn how you can get more out of your site from Framer specialists or get started building for free at Framer.com slash earn for 30 % off a Framer Pro annual plan.

10:41That's Framer.com slash earn for 30 % off. Framer.com slash earn. Rules and restrictions may apply. Ask yourself, what are your best people spending their time on right now? Expense reports, receipt chasing, month-end close that takes weeks. You become what you spend on, and that's not what you're building toward. Brex is the intelligent finance platform that eliminates that work before it starts. AI agents that handle the manual stuff automatically, so your team can spend their time on what actually compounds. It's time to get Brex AF. Learn more at brex.com slash AF. He's dribbling the ball with everything on the line.

11:20He's driving down the pitch. He's facing price hikes and cuts past him. Carrier Contracts tries to block him. Oh, he leaves him in the dust. He's at the edge of the box. He cuts past the nonstop group chat trash talk. Bucky clears on goal. He shoots. No! Unlimited data for$25 a month forever. Visit your local Boost Mobile store today to get unlimited data with a price that never changes. Boost Mobile. After 30 GB, customers may experience lower speeds. Customers will pay$25 a month as long as they remain active on the Boost$25 unlimited plan. I like Opus Clip, but it's not. What happened for? I just...

11:54What happened for? I just watched an AI travel channel that has like 10 million followers, completely made up. She goes in history and takes you through history. And it feels like - I'll follow that page. Yeah. You follow that page? So like - Yeah, but even that, that's different. That's utilizing AI to give you - Like we have French Montana - I'm not saying that's what we do, but in terms of content. We can say that because we use AI for our content. So we have French Montana episode. A few of those clips, one clip went viral, had a million views. we use AI in it because it's narrating, telling the story.

12:28That's different. That's still an editor that actually knows what they're doing that's placing AI in it, utilizing. That's still work involved. I'm saying as far as the hands free pilot, I don't got to do that. Autonomous. Autonomous. AI is doing everything for me. That hasn't happened yet. The idea of AI I think is ahead of the reality of AI. the idea of ai is ahead of the reality of ai on in a lot of different in a lot of different places we still have we still don't have the jetsons car that we supposed to have 25 years ago still waiting for that to happen like there's still pilots in in the sky we're supposed to have autonomous planes by now like commercial i mean that's what that's what you would think would happen at this point in time in 2026 like that's that's that's what was the promise Based on what?

13:21In 90, the Jetsons came out in what, 70? Exactly. I'm saying AI, the current state of AI, the revolution that has happened over the past three years. We're just doing large language models right now. So what are you basing that off? Even the large language models are still being prompted. So what I'm saying, like what Ian said, there's still a person attached to it. This idea that humans are going to be not needed anymore, that's the narrative that's been pushed a lot. humans will be no longer needed. I haven't seen that. I haven't seen that. The idea of AI has gotten ahead of the practicality of AI.

13:59Of course, AI is going to be here. AI is going to change the world. AI is changing the world every single day. But there's a lot of companies that's just coming up with random ideas for AI and it's not going to work. And when that happens, a lot of these companies are going to fall by the wayside. and i'm not sure i agree but okay tell me why is far well i think we're so early in inside of i think the argument that's fair to make uh is that we haven't seen the revenue generated from the spend in ai and that takes time yeah right so we're still we still have infrastructure yet we still don't have energy yet the applications are still trying to software hasn't even been put out yeah you have a few models platforms that you use you have five now but like that's drastically going to change in the next five years right so i think we're so early that that argument i think still needs time to come to fruition right like obviously agentic will be here at some point in the near future, autonomous.

15:09It's going to happen. It's going to take time for it to happen. I think the fair argument from my standpoint would be, and I could agree, and kind of what Alex is saying here, is yes, the spend and the capex, where's the return? There's no return. For a lot of companies yet, right? You wouldn't say that for Micron. There's been a return. Yeah, they were the smart, them, SK Hynix, NVIDIA, but the premise of yeah but for open AI like I've been using chat since 20 into 21 or 22 even the premise there on the business side or consumer side a lot of the stuff that it said it could do it hasn't been able to do even like when Charlamagne made that post like Ian you're in trouble open AI out and Chose is like no you need human intuition like it can and even for investing open ai when you prompted it last invest fast for what the next stocks were going to be it got all of them wrong so i think there's a a way to go but i think the initial premise and promise for what is being spent in terms of like uh he talked about token pricing and then the thing i've been always asking how do you get five extra i said it with open ai okay going to okay why you need to sell five percent of opening off to the government if you got a machine that can replicate god well you're bullshitting on one side or another but we do and it's just and it's just elon musk you change a company from a car company to a robotic company there's no need to have a hundred million humanoid robots not going to happen it's a fairy tale that's a fairy tale it's not going to happen it's never going to it's not going to happen because if that's the case they would have just traded the arbitrage on if the model was that great to open the shot to open air but if the model was that great you would have traded arbitrage every day did not raise capital.

17:00That was the first sign to me that shit wasn't working. That's why I think does not have that issue. That's why I think the key word is yet, right? Because the one thing that we do know about the models is that even as we're talking, they're getting better, right? And so three years ago, we sat here to a T. Like you said, open AI would lead. You said open AI would lead. Is it our leader today? No, it adjusted. And that was the first one that said adjustment. That goes to the case that that models are getting better. right in a year we might not even say open ai is our leader it might be something different because something would have surpassed it so we're still early in this i think they already been surpassed and i brought up the event and also too the elon this is why i always be telling y 'all that beef it doesn't help the elon battle destroyed the company because the lint he was willing to go and then here comes anthropic they take the lead the model is but anytime they get the action for at 200 okay so i'm happy with it and that kind of ties back into the invented nvidia piece right i'm gonna put the capital i'm gonna give the compute and let's see who comes back with the thing that is going to leave i think that the alice i watched that thing live so it's a if you haven't seen it it's a seven minute segment but i'm glad we cut this piece because he keeps bringing the word up safe safe safe and if you think about safe i keep hearing him talking about in my mind He's talking about his own company.

18:26Why are we getting beat when these people aren't making money and we have the idea and the platform and the technology to keep... He was talking his own book, for sure. Right. We want to keep you safe, right? We have the government contracts. Our platform is the place. Those applications aren't ready yet. These people are trying to spend and spend. Now the AI model is, hey, we're going to build inside of our in-house, which, again, two things can be true. because I just read the report that Broadcom and Google, Google might say, hey, you know what? We're going to use our own silicone to build our own TPU.

18:58We may not need you anymore. At the same time, Apple says, okay, cool. Broadcom, you're going to be our partner into 2031, right? So people are saying, how can we keep the stack inside? The problem with that, Derry, is that how many companies can afford to keep the entire stack in-house? Not many, bro. Three, maybe, not even. Google, Amazon, maybe. Ernest, what's up? Look, you probably think of Walmart as the store that carries just about everything under the sun. And maybe not as the place to discover small brands. Well, two things can be true at the same time. Because Walmart is home to thousands of small brands founded by people who had an idea, took a chance, and built something of their own.

19:41Behind everyone is a real story and a lot of hard work. So why not take a little time to recognize all the people building small brands across the country and support everything they're creating. Walmart is proud to give those brands a place on its shelves and online. It's never been easier to find and support small brands. So take a look at Walmart. You might come across something new, something unexpected, or a brand whose story speaks to you. You never know what you're missing until you look. Discover thousands of small brands at walmart.com. We talk a lot about ownership, and one of the most important assets you can own is your digital real estate.

20:17Too many entrepreneurs rely on social media platforms they don't control. Your website should be the center of your business. Framer helps you build a professional website without all the friction. It's more than a website builder. It's a complete website platform. Your entire team can collaborate in real time, make changes instantly, and publish updates in minutes instead of days. Framer's AI agents work alongside your team to create content, refine pages, manage your CMS, and optimize your SEO all in one place. And because everything stays editable on the same canvas, you maintain complete control over what goes live.

20:54That's why everyone from startups to Fortune 500 companies and brands like Perplexity and Miro trust Framer to power their websites. Learn how you can get more out of your site from Framer specialists or get started building for free at Framer.com slash earn for 30 % off a Framer Pro annual plan. That's Framer.com slash earn for 30 % off. Framer.com slash earn. Rules and restrictions may apply. Ask yourself, what are your best people spending their time on right now? Expense reports, receipt chasing, month-end close that takes weeks. You become what you spend on, and that's not what you're building toward.

21:31Brex is the intelligent finance platform that eliminates that work before it starts. AI agents that handle the manual stuff automatically, so your team can spend their time on what actually compounds. It's time to get Brex AF. Learn more at brex.com slash AF. The official language of football is trash talk, late night group chats, memes, and unbelievable highlight clips. That's why Boost Mobile brings you our new global connection plan. The first plan ever made for WhatsApp. Get unlimited data, talk and text, international roaming, and calls to over 100 countries for just$40 a month. $40 price includes$5 a month auto pay discount.

22:12After 40 gigabytes of premium high-speed data, speeds will be lowered. Coverage not available everywhere. Visit store or BoostMobile.com for details. And Apple, they put up some money, but they won't. But they won't. So that's such a limited space of how many people can actually do that. Right. So it becomes not a monopoly, but I mean, it is a monopoly in a sense if I'm doing everything in house. So he's saying the right thing, but he's also promoting what they do. Right. Cause he's, why are we, why is the software space getting beat down?

22:45AI is software. That's the other funny part of that equation. For those of you who don't know, AI is software, but going back to the picks and shovels, yeah micron amd intel when they got selected they made a great return on capital conversation put this in chat every business is in a hedge fund business how much money can i make you how much can i save you how reliable can i be if i made you money please put yes in chat what open ai has not done they haven't done a great job of letting the consumer base know how much easier your life can be even like when open claw came out that was an issue deep seek was an issue and then also too we haven't had an american company that is open sourcing yet that's the real trojan horse and thread yes that could lead to enterprise growth kind of like But now we get into the Microsoft.

23:48We're going to open source it and let you be in our ecosystem. But we're open sourcing. There's going to come some IP and idea theft. It happened with Word. For those of you who don't know, even though Microsoft is my biggest favorite company of all time, the origins are still nefarious. So even if they open source, what platform will they build on? Where's the first place they're going? You got to go home, yo. you gotta go to the mothership so that so even the open source right you can see CUDA still being the software that they're gonna build yeah you gotta go to the mothership and that's why like the suppression of NVIDIA if we argue moats they literally have governmental moats on both sides they have the spend they have the hardware they have the platform the partnership and likeability.

24:42I don't get the compression. I really don't. But it's going back to people are just chasing a return and not chasing quality. I saw somebody in the chat said 300 by the end of the year. I'm not mad at NVIDIA in the 270s by the end of the year. I can see the path for it. The consolidation now, is it frustrating? Yeah. What's also frustrating is that people tell me like, yo, NVIDIA doesn't move. I'm like, what are we talking about? Yeah, because everybody's looking to trade. they're not looking to him but that shit breaks my heart because it's gonna you're gonna see me in like and one of them other countries or what another place and you're like me i should have listened you should have you should have it doesn't move for the gambler in you if you have some capital in it 50 grand 100 grand 200 grand it is a beacon of safety for sure what's the outlook for TSM?

25:38TSM is, for those not to know, the number one manufacturer and packaging company for semiconductors in the world. I think at this point, they produce 80 to 90 % of the world's semiconductors. And so when I talk about my favorite companies, this is at the top of the list. When we talk about the most important companies, obviously at the top of the list, they report on the 16th, which I believe is next Wednesday. Early expectations right now, they're looking at a 50 % jump in revenue, which is absolutely ridiculous. The future guidance looks like they're going to increase it as well. I think TSM, and I like that it reports early.

26:18It reports before everybody because it will tell us, are they getting orders from NVIDIA? How high? Last quarter, they said NVIDIA's orders were in such high demand that they pass Apple as their number one client. Right? So much so that TSM said, okay, we've got so much demand that we might have to offshoot some of our demand to some of these companies, which is why we talked about Amcor as a company that's going to be a beneficiary of that. There's another company, but it's a South Korean one, ACI, that we can't directly invest in. So we'll go with Amcor for now. But that demand story will be on the forefront.

26:55Is NVIDIA still having that same level of demand? Is Apple's demand? is the appetite still there is amd's demand still there amd is like i mean we're quiet was up 20 today just quietly at over i think it was at 570 today what does that demand story look like you're going to see the ai hyperscalers come to the forefront and if uh tsm is able to say hey demand has peaked again now we're going to see another start of ticking up of that semiconductor space in the technology space because capex hasn't slowed down in fact it's getting increased the demand hasn't slowed down have companies pulled back yeah have people taking profits yeah you know my favorite question has the story changed no tsm should be at 618 months um and we can argue if it was american born and bred it'd probably be number one we're getting closer for real like hold for the long term um and before we wrap i don't know if we're close to wrapping please put this in chat i only need four stocks to hold on to for a lifetime um i had an interesting conversation with a brother in stock club his granddad in 1980 shot stock club put yes in chat if you saw it in telegram um 80 shares if you would have held it through all the splits would have turned into 17 000 shares so even in the desire to want to sell off early some of these companies are going to have to split and then you go from having 100 shares to a thousand shares or 100 to 500 there's only upside potential if you're holding equities for a long period of time you only need four that you're going to marry.

28:47Like even Rashad talked about it earlier. Even with QQQ, you can't go wrong. I know some of you are going to go, what about TQQQ and what about TECL? Yeah, you can add the exotics on top of it, but your core four have to be ones that you never, like you never wake up in the middle of the night worrying about VL or VTI or VUG or QQQ. You only need four. My question for you is why are you not executing? Because you want to gamble. And if you gamble, you deserve to be broke. I think you deserve to be rich and wealthy. Whole for the long time. But at this point, I'm being real. Do what you want to do.

29:25If you want to blow through your money and mess up your money, I'm not. If you want to, I love that for you. You're right. You're right. You're right. Have it your way. Ernest, what's up? Look, when you think about discovering small brands, what star pops in your mind? Well, it should be Walmart. Seriously, Walmart has thousands of small brands, and they're all in one place. Just go online or in-store, discover, and shop. It could not be easier. Every one of these brands has a real story and real people behind it. They're true American success stories, and you can find them all at Walmart. Discover thousands of small brands at walmart.com today.

30:04Ernest, what's up? Look, building wealth isn't just about making money. It's about knowing where your money is working for you. That's why we partnered with Empower. Empower is all about helping you invest well so you can go out and live a little. Their free Empower Personal Dashboard gives you a complete view of your financial life in one place. Track your net worth, monitor your budget, analyze your investments, set retirement goals, and more. You've worked hard for your money. Now make sure it's working hard for you. Download the Empower Personal Dashboard or visit Empower.com. Not an Empower client paid or sponsored.

30:41When traveling for events or festivals throughout the country, every dollar matters. We compare flights, prices, hotel rates, and restaurant options. So why wouldn't we compare rides? Personally, I always check lift before booking a ride. Prices can change throughout the day depending on traffic, weather, and what's happening in the city. If you're headed to a concert, out to dinner, or catching up with your friends on a Friday night, taking a few seconds to check lift could leave you with more money to enjoy the experience. Save money. Check lift. Ask yourself, what are your best people spending their time on right now?