Palantir Makes its Case Against Frontier AI

0:02Palantir takes shots at OpenAI and Anthropic today on Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing.

0:09Welcome to Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing. I'm your host, Tyler Crowe, and today I'm joined by longtime fools, Lou Whiteman and Travis Hoyam doing a little bit of mixing it up. You know, everyone's getting those last minute summer vacations in before the kids got to go back to school. So we'll probably see a lot of hosts shuffling and guests shuffling over the next couple of weeks. So we are deep in earnings season and we had three really big earnings reports today. A lot of kind of contrasting things going on in the market. And we want to start today with Palantir because as we're recording, shares are up 26%.

0:40The company reported earnings after the close yesterday that beat expectations handily. They increased guidance. Everything looked pretty good. Now, there's been a lot of beat expectation earnings so far this season, guys, but I have yet to see one that's really resulted in the market celebrating like we have seen with this one. So what exactly was it about Palantir's earnings? They just blew it out of the park. They're just fantastic results. I mean, you know, this is a company with a lot of hubris, and sometimes the hubris is justified. 93 % year-over-year top-line growth. If you want to look trailing 12 months, 79 % growth, just kind of, so this isn't an anomaly, 51 % cash flow margins.

1:21That's fantastic. The question forever here has been, there's no way you can justify the valuation here if it's a defense contractor. For all our jokes about the Pentagon budget, the Pentagon just doesn't spend money at the rate needed to justify Palantir's valuation. Commercial had been the laggard, but commercial was up 150%. This is exactly what you want. I can, Travis, I'm curious I just think I can sort of squint and maybe see remaining performance obligations were flat. So maybe that might be a dent. But even then, that could be, you know, commercials different than governments. That could be an adjustment.

1:59But I don't know. Tell me what's wrong here. This is just fantastic. Yeah, it's hard to quibble with any of the numbers. It is always hard for me to wrap my head around a company that's trading for 60 times sales because, and it's been over 100 times sales in the past year or so, So that typically does not end well for investors. But if you compound your revenue at 100 % year over year for multiple years, it takes that multiple down pretty quickly. So that's part of what we're seeing is just they are executing on exactly what the market has been pricing in for quite a while. As the shares have pulled back over the past few months, there's some of that, you know, maybe we are going to see a little bit of a slowdown.

2:39And then they went, you know what? Nope, we're going to we're going to accelerate that revenue growth. So hard to quote with anything, you know, Lou said the biggest number that jumped out to me. That's 150 % jump in U.S. commercial revenue. And customers aren't growing that quickly. So that means that the customers they do have are spending more. And that's impressive because it shows that they're not just testing it out and going, nah, we're not seeing any value here. They're actually saying, you know what, we want more from you guys. I think it's fair to say that CEO of Palatir, Alex Karp, is a bit of an acquired taste for investors.

3:10Some people absolutely love him. Some people might find him a bit off-putting with bombastic language, sometimes a little bit more aggressive and combative than a lot of other CEOs that you see in the market. You see it in his shareholder letters. You see it on the conference call. And he did use that kind of aggressive language a little bit when talking about the large language model developers like OpenAI and Anthropic. But I think he did get at a core point that he was talking about and something that I are really going to be thinking about and could really determine a lot of what happens in this AI race lately.

3:45And it's the building model agnostic AI tools, similar to what Palantir does versus these models that OpenAI and Anthropic are doing that end up, in some sense, building competing tools from their own customers after they've built a lot of their own data. And so one of the questions I have is, does he have a point and does that really bode well for the future of Palantir where they can make this argument that says, hey, do you not want OpenAI and Anthropic taking your data and building your own competitor while you feed them their data? Come to us. Is that a valid sales argument or is that just being defensive?

4:23Well, it's all of the above. It's their sales argument. He's talking his book. He's talking their business model. And he's trying to sell to customers. And you see similar things from Satya Nadella at Microsoft. But the way that he's talking about this, I just want to quote from the shareholder letter. The models have grown and thrived by essentially ingesting the entire written work product of our civilization and those models, as well as their creators now have their sights set on global industry. We have been the beneficiary of the revolt that is underway against submission of this way of working, end quote.

5:00that is basically declaring war against anthropic and open ai that is what carp is doing here and it's fascinating to see these business models play out because this is everybody is trying to win this ai game that's what we've got to watch who is actually going to get the customers who's going to get the revenue who's going to generate free cash flow palantir is making their case and they're making a pretty good one. You can always tell the CEOs who are classics majors, can't you? Stuff like that. Yeah. Look, you know, one read on this is he's worried that those models can do what Palantir can do.

5:37And this is actually a sign of weakness. I don't know if that's the case. I think you can make the case either way that the frontier models strengthen Palantir or they are a threat. The thing that strikes me, though, is we know Palantir's valuation. We know what philanthropic hopes to get and what open AI. Can they all exist together? Is there a zero-sum game here or a less-than-whole game? I feel like at some point something has to flinch and Palantir does have the advantage, I guess, with their installed base. Yeah, and to that point too, Travis, you're talking, Satya Nadella, talking about, you know, competing models and a lot of this.

6:19One of the things that he had mentioned in previous discussions, conference calls, whatever, is basically, you know, custom tailoring the type of model that you need and kind of custom fit to what the actual particular task is, where we're using these generic most powerful models in the world that cost a ton of money to, I don't know, organize your calendar isn't exactly like the best use of resources and stuff like that. So it'll be interesting to see kind of the resource allocation. And I think that might be where this, they all sort of make sense because they can fit a certain resource allocation for a business.

6:55You know, maybe we're a less expensive, but we don't take on the biggest tasks sort of thing. And that's how this kind of works in a world where everyone works in some way or another versus, you know, having only one winner in this open eye race. But speaking about open AI, we're going to talk about one of the picks and shovels companies that's doing spectacularly well. That's Caterpillar after break.

7:20They say leadership isn't just about where you're going. It's about the conviction it takes to get there. For those who demand the world and possess the drive to claim it, there's a vehicle of equal distinction. Dynamic by design and engineered for pure impact, the Range Rover Sport rises to meet you the moment you take the lead. This is the most advanced Range Rover Sport yet, a master class in uncompromised performance and unbridled agility. Inside, the innovation is seamless. You'll find an elegant 13.1-inch touchscreen that puts total control of the vehicle's systems right at your fingertips.

7:54But it's the refinement that sets it apart. Sculpted 22-way heated seating with built-in massage function ensures every journey is defined by peerless comfort. Whether it's through unique interior finishes or custom wheel options, the ways to personalize your Range Rover Sport are nearly unlimited. Command attention and experience ultimate luxury in motion. Exclusive offers are available now. Explore further at RangeRover.com. Moving on to other companies that are reporting earnings recently and doing incredibly well, it was Caterpillar. Earlier today, Caterpillar posted expectation-smashing results this past quarter, and the stock is up about 5.6 on the news as a result.

8:33It was up almost 10 % in early morning trading, so there was a lot to like here. So I was looking through it. Earnings across all of its segments were up, so it looks like everything's doing incredibly well. was that all the driving force? What were some of the other things I might have missed when I did my first class, guys? Well, I think the big thing here is that when you're spending a trillion dollars on building out data centers, there's a lot of demand to go around. So I don't know if Caterpillar is the second derivative of the AI trade or the third derivative, but it is definitely downstream of all that spending that's going on because that infrastructure is a lot of physical stuff being built.

9:06And that's what Caterpillar does. I mean, the big thing that it was construction equipment that was up 35 % from a year ago, but power, energy, energy, and resources also did well. The crazy thing is you can think about this all as one big trait, because these are all sort of related things. The fact that energy is doing so well is because AI is doing so well. So I don't know what to take from this loop besides the fact that just all this is like a huge rising tide that's lifting all of Caterpillar's boats. I think that's it. And let's talk about why, Because obviously you don't buy a new dirt mover for each data center, right?

9:43You don't like, all right, well, for every one of these things, we're going to buy all new equipment. But it's a lot like with John Deere with the farmers. We tend to see spending go up when it's a good year on the farm because the farmers are flush with cash. It's when they can. Similarly, with all of this demand, all his orders, this is causing the customers of Caterpillar to feel confident enough to place orders, to invest in their business. I think that's why you see the strength in construction. It wasn't just in the power systems. It wasn't just one thing. This is just the net impact of all of this cash, all of this investment going into the sector that they serve, kind of, you know, showing itself in confidence to order heavy equipment.

10:28They boosted their full year guidance and they had a record equipment backlog. The backlog is sort of a cat, always something to watch because, again, you get a lot of orders when things are good and then you see how long it lasts. But assuming that we don't stop building data centers, this is, again, just filling the industry they serve with cash. And you are going to see companies invest in their businesses when they can. So something it seems like we're kind of dancing around here, and we all kind of know it, is that Caterpillar is a cyclical business. Mining's doing really well. Orders go up.

11:02But all of its end markets are very cyclical. Power, construction, all of these things. My question is, obviously, AI is a big part of that cycle. Also, there's some other aspects as well. We were talking before the show, the idea of deglobalization and critical mineral mining, where it's being more localized and not dominated on a global scale, where you might see a lot of not typically redundant. It wouldn't normally happen in a globalized world, but you're going to have a little bit more redundant supply of construction materials because everyone wants to mine their own stuff. and stuff like that.

11:37So it's, I don't know how big that is, but it's certainly something to be playing the part here. So my question is, is we know it's cyclical, but could this just be an elongated cycle? Because it seems like normally with Caterpillar, one segment's doing relatively well, whether it's other end markets are kind of weaker. But right now we're in a point where all three segments are posting great results. Right. And look, this is why investing is hard. We can see something that looks obvious, but good luck getting the timing right, right? I mean, we should do a shout out or maybe a chill. Is anyone checking out on Michael Burry this morning?

12:12Because I agree with everything he's been saying about how it's all overvalued. But two of his biggest shorts were Palantir and Caterpillar. So, you know, the timing is everything. Caterpillar right now feels like a microcosm for the entire market. It's cyclical. It's up 100 % in a year. All of the signs are saying yikes. And yeah, it keeps working anyway. So it will until it won't. And that's what makes investing hard. Yeah, the word that comes to mind is super cycle. And this is just part of that super cycle. All of that money that's flowing from those giant Silicon Valley companies is flowing to companies like Caterpillar.

12:49And the question is, when does it stop or when does it even slow down? That's something that I've been thinking a lot about is as long as CapEx is growing for these data centers, as long as there's more demand for power, more demand for minerals, all of these things are going to do extremely well. But what happens when growth flatlines or heaven forbid falls? That's when paying 38 times earnings for a company like Caterpillar is going to be really rough for investors, but we're not seeing it yet. I mean, it's not the most recent example, but certainly I think we can all remember like the 2010s, China's economic development growth boom, 7%, 8%, 9 % annually was sending companies, mining companies, Caterpillar companies like this to soaring heights because of demand was just voracious.

13:36But the minute we started to see like slowing Chinese economy and kind of the slowing of the construction cycle, that was, I would assume like, yeah, 15, 16 years ago was the last like real super cycle with a lot of this sort of stuff. So it'll be interesting to see if this deglobalization and AI trade becomes the next big super cycle for these particular markets. Coming up after the break, one company that didn't do quite as good on the earnings perspective. That's Spotify.

14:03As a podcaster, my voice is heard by thousands of people. And now with Vanguard Investor Choice, I can be heard by the companies I invest in too. Vanguard Investor Choice makes it easy for eligible Vanguard fund investors to have a say in how their funds vote at company shareholder meetings. With just a few clicks, you can set your proxy voting preference and make your voice heard on topics like executive pay, board director elections, and more. Investor participation is the heartbeat of a healthy corporate governance ecosystem. You have a voice. Let it be heard. Visit vanguard.com slash investor choice to learn more.

14:41Vanguard investors own shares of Vanguard index funds and those funds own shares of the companies they invest in. Available for Vanguard index funds that participate in investor choice. Vanguard Marketing Corporation Distributor. You just found out that your sales team is at risk of missing quota. Don't panic. Just ask Rippling AI. Since it's built on your real-time people and business data, Rippling AI can pull metrics from Rippling and Salesforce into a meeting-ready dashboard showing quota attainment, headcount plan, and monthly revenue to quota by region. In seconds, you'll see exactly what's behind your quota risk and fix it before it's missed.

15:18Question answered, action taken, crisis averted. When you have critical business questions that need answers, don't just file a ticket and wait weeks for an outdated report. Describe what you need and have Rippling AI build it instantly from your live people and business data. Whether it's a dashboard with detailed charts or automated workflows with the right triggers, conditions, and approvals. Ready to rule your business? Head to rippling.ai slash fool to get the only AI built to give you full visibility and take complex actions across your entire organization. That's R-I-P-P-L-I-N-G dot A-I slash F-O-O-L.

15:54Sign up for exclusive access today, Rippling.ai slash Fool. Of the three companies that we're talking about here today, Spotify's earnings were definitely the one of these things is not like the other results. Company reported earnings after the close yesterday. And as we're right now, shares are relatively flat, but they were down quite a bit in early morning trading. The market seems to be doing it a little bit of a favor here. Now, Spotify hit some significant user milestones. Total daily average users and things like that were way up. And margin expansion was exceptionally good, but it did miss expectations for revenue and earnings per share.

16:29So, Travis, I know you follow this company pretty intimately. Was this just some sort of quarterly blip or is this kind of a trend in decelerating revenue and earnings? Well, this is what happens when a company goes from growth mode to we're now a mature company. And so the expectations are different. And the question is going to be, what do investors expect from the company? And then what are the investors that are going to be excited about that? I mean, Spotify grew their total monthly users by 12 % year over year. This is a company that has 777 million monthly active users. That is a massive number.

17:03They're also continue to grow their premium revenue 15%. But this is not going to be a company that's going to grow 20 plus percent year over year, like it maybe was. a handful of years ago, they're going to be more focused on things like margins and free cash flow. That's not necessarily as exciting. That said, management thinks that they can continue to grow their compound annual growth rate in that mid-teens range and get to a 20 % operating margin. That's a pretty darn good business. The question is, what are you going to pay for it? And that sort of seems to be the battle for investors today is a little bit like Caterpillar.

17:36If this is going to be just a mature cash generating business, what do you pay for it? Is 31 times earnings the right number? maybe it is, but you're going to have to decide, you know, what do you expect as an investor? Are you a growth investor or a value investor? I'm always amazed when they find more people that don't have the service that they can add that way. So good on them for that. But Jeff, I think you have it exactly right, is that sometimes with stocks, the stock isn't the problem. The investor base is that this is a fine company, but it is more mature than it used to. It's unlikely to be the growth story it was.

18:10it may take time for the investor base to just switch out, and that's going to cause volatility. I think it is a free cash flow story, and I think it has a great story to tell. I think it's a really, really attractive income slash growth hybrid investment from here, but it is going to be a different story than it was. And so I don't think you're going to see the growth-focused crowd saying wow to these results. That doesn't mean it was a bad quarter, though. You know, this kind of sounds similar to the conversation we've been having here on some Motley Fool live events around like Netflix as well as who is the investor anymore?

18:50Because, you know, these growth stories that all of a sudden are transitioning to, we're still growing, just not at these, you know, nosebleed level growth that we had been putting up. We're now profitable. We're throwing off quite a bit of cash. It changes the type of investor that gets involved in these sort of companies. And, you know, I don't want to preface this as saying like Spotify is a bad company now. It's just a different company at a different phase of its life. And when I look at it, it's a solid company. It's generating a lot of free cash flow. Revenue right now, you know, high single digits.

19:25Maybe you're going to get a low double digits on a growth, you know, surge, maybe a pricing increase. It's still a very quality business. but is that a company that sort of merits 32 times, 33 times earnings? That's the question here. And on that daily user growth, part of me almost says like, is there no more worlds left to conquer? Yes, it's growing, but it's become the dominant market share as to lose point. Like, who isn't using this service at this point? Funny, I'm not. So Spotify called me, but I get thrown in with my phone service. So I guess there are at least one more world to cover.

20:02But Tyler, I think you're exactly right. I will say shout out to Spotify because I think there's a better case here than there is for some. I mean, even, and I'm going to get nasty letters, but Starbucks and some of these companies, I just think good company, bad stock. I think this is still a stock that works because I think it is a hybrid growth. I think they do have some levers to pull. But yeah, I think that that's it. That probably two things can be true here. It's still a good investable stock, but the valuation might need adjustment from here. Yeah, 30 times earnings isn't crazy for a company that can continue to grow in the mid-teens.

20:38But I think you're right. This is now, how do you grow the business from here? And it's going to be a balance of how do you price a product where you have basically saturated the market? You're playing this game of do we want more monthly active users or do we want a higher price per user? Because there is some elasticity in that market. You have competition from products like YouTube. So I don't think, I think what we've learned with Spotify over the last few years is they're not going to be the next Google, for example. We're just going to keep tacking on new product after new product, add YouTube, add Waymo.

21:14Their ad product kind of stinks. It basically didn't grow year over year. So that's not a huge driver of their growth. Their video, I don't think, is what they thought it maybe could be. So it's just a solid business. It's just the kind of service that I'm going to sign up for and pay for for the next decade. And as my kids get older, they'll eventually graduate into buying their own accounts. You know, that's a good business to be. It can be fine for investors at 30 times earnings. I don't think it's a steal. So, you know, if they ever get to the point where it's so cheap that they decide that they're going to buy back a whole bunch of stock, that could be really interesting.

21:49But this is going to be a little bit more ho-hum for investors. And a lot of times that's not going to get a lot of headlines for you. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how, you know, you're saying that mid-teens growth is definitely worth playing. But as we were saying, you know, not quite there yet, but there are some levers to pull, maybe fixing around the margins, ads, maybe figure out video. These are new initiatives and some things, you know, aren't always perfect execution all the time. So there is a path there, but not quite in the cards yet. So, last question before we get out of here, guys.

22:19Of the three companies we talked about today, Palantir, Caterpillar, Spotify, I think based on what I've heard, I've got a good idea. Which of these three companies is most attractive to you right now? If I was to buy one today, it would probably be Spotify, but I don't know if I really want to jump into any of these three. uh yeah i agree it's the one that i own uh it's the one where i can actually wrap my head around the valuation and it's not as cyclical so it's more that i am not really interested in buying palantir or caterpillar today just so we're not boring if it's a long enough time horizon i'll take cat well we've got them on record everyone so you can lambast them in emails and comments later and we'll figure that out from there as always people on the program may have interest in stocks they talk about and the motley fool may have formal recommendations for or against so don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear.

23:10All personal finance content follows Motley Fool editorial standards and is not approved by advertisers. Advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. To see our full advertising disclosure, please check out our show notes. Thanks for producer Dan Boyd and the rest of the Motley Fool team. For Lou, Travis, and myself, thanks for listening, and we'll chat again soon.