Speaker avoids AKAM due to distressed/underperforming status and high net debt; potential value only if growth accelerates via acquisitions.

Here's a look at the one from Akamai. They have these edge POPs, points of presence, their core network as well. Akamai also provides some actual cloud services.

Akamai has largely built these extra products and services via acquisition.

So I started with Cloudflare, then Akamai, and then Fastly, and here they are. We've got some financial breakdowns of each, and this is pretty wild. Cloudflare now trading at over $110 billion market cap, compared to the far older, more mature, and frankly much larger by revenue company, Akamai, at just under $18 billion, and then the small upstart at under $5 billion, Fastly.

Yes, the revenue for Cloudflare is much smaller than Akamai's, but see how they're catching up so quickly. Revenue growth just over the last twelve months at 33.5%. They just reported, Q2 2026, and still north of 30% revenue growth.

So before too long, the market fully expects Cloudflare will far exceed Akamai's revenue because they're growing at a mid-single digit pace.

It's not hard to imagine this company's operating margin eventually far exceeds that of even legacy Akamai. And you can see it already in the free cash flow margin at 14% over the last twelve-month period, 22% for Akamai and Fastly at just shy of 7.5%, though that is also probably going to be improving here, as they pick up some steam again.

And then finally, net cash, or in the case of Akamai, net debt of 4.2 billion. I mentioned they've largely built their new next gen services via acquisition, including getting into cloud infrastructure and cloud compute services.

That is the result here, 4.2 billion net debt over cash and investments.

Especially on revenue, this is why the market has valued Cloudflare so high. The expectation is this revenue far exceeds Akamai over the course of the next decade and is robustly profitable, as they've steadily made progress on that front.

Now, of the three, Akamai is the one we're personally not interested in. Generally speaking, we don't try to purchase assets that could be labeled as distressed or underperforming.

However, perhaps those acquisitions are about to lead to an acceleration in growth as well. Maybe it will help them begin to repair their balance sheet and all that net debt, which would leave them at a long-term disadvantage, versus some of their younger, scrappier peers that have net cash on balance.

So if that were to happen, maybe that would be of interest, at least for us.

If you're looking for turnaround stories, if that's your style, Akamai may fit the bill. Maybe it's a potential value stock if they're able to reinvigorate some growth and some profit growth and begin to turn things around.