GOOGL is a strong long-term investment; its core fundamentals remain solid despite recent market weakness.

Where does Alphabet really fit into the big picture? What's its standing in the market at this point in your opinion? Well, you know, Alphabet's standing, and thank you for having me, is is, you know, it's something that's a little bit lower right now than I think you would have seen a few weeks ago.

But to me, it's a powerhouse long-term stock. It's got an amazing long-term record, and frankly, it's built for any weather. So, even though the stock has pulled back, I really don't think the core fundamentals of the business have, and I feel really excited about it.

we know that we talk about Google's Gemini versus Anthropic, and you know, there was a lot of worry about Google Search, whether or not it would stay afloat with AI. Um, how is it holding its own that makes you not worried?

So, uh, Gemini right now, And this to me, clearly, is two things. It's an enterprise play, and it's a catch-up play, right? It's trying to catch up with Anthropic, which has gotten a way out ahead in terms of what it's doing for coding, for workflow, and I'm okay with that.

I think not only is Google in the mix here, but because they've got the infrastructure, because they've got the scale, even being at pace with some of these firms is going to end up putting them way ahead because of their core business.

And let's talk about search for a minute, because everybody said that AI was going to eat search's lunch. And if you look at the last results, search is actually up from a revenue perspective 17%.

This is huge. Somehow, we're seeing that AI is actually helping search versus hurting. So, I think that the, uh, the downside risk here is way overblown.

So, I think that the nice thing about Google is that they sort of have, you know, a finger in every pie that the rest of the big seven is in, right? So, you know, I think they do ads frankly better than Meta.

I think they do video better than Netflix does. You know, we just talked about what's going on with Tesla. They've got Waymo that they're working on there. Um and they're competing against the OpenAIs and the Anthropic's of the world.

I really like this diversification because, look, I'll be honest, I don't know how the market's going to shake out with all the AI stocks and all the rapid growth we've seen in the next three to six months.

Correction, absolutely. But to me, Google is just an all-weather stock, right? You see every engine still firing pretty nicely. And no matter what shakes out at any one of those areas, I just see the risk as being lower than any of those other individuals.

So, I I think that CapEx right now, this is the entire debate around the valuation of the Google stock. And whether you like it or not, I think that this is just cost of doing business for big tech, right?

You've got to be putting out this these big dollars or you're going to risk being left behind. And I don't think Google is being left behind at all. Now, the reason I really like this is, look, if AI grows and it expands the way we think it is, Google's going to be super well positioned to be right in there and see exponential growth.

But, if the bubble ends up bursting, I still think that Google's got the cash cows in all their other businesses that outlast other casualties in this space.

cows is we we've got search. Uh by the way, one of the areas that we haven't talked about yet is I love their cloud business. Their cloud business is growing like crazy. I think it's graduated frankly from a growth story to a profit story.

We've seen their revenue in in the past year is up 82%. Their operating income is more than tripled. So, this is an area that people aren't talking about nearly enough. It's competing with AWS in the best of them.

And again, we've seen that YouTube is continuing to be a huge driver of their business. So, there's just a number of different areas here that are really really promising.

And to me, that risk for Google is just because it has the smallest downside risk of any of these Magnificent Seven stocks. So, if AI grows, this could be such a great launching pad overall, you said, right?

I mean, if we see a real burst in AI, really helps Google in the long run. You That's how you seem to be phrasing it.

I I think that's exactly right. If AI takes off and it transforms, you know, the economy and our lives the way that, you know, so many of these frontier labs are saying, I think Google's going to be super well positioned.

As we've seen, it's helping cloud, it's helping what we've got across their ad business. It's going to help things like Waymo, it's going to help Gemini, and they're going to be in on this.

They've got a share of the pie. And by the way, those massive capital expenditures, um we're seeing some of the investment returns from the stake they've got in Anthropic, for example.

So, they're going to be way out ahead. So, that to me is, you know, kind of the default position a lot of people are taking right now. But, as I said, good or bad, to me this is the stock that you need to be looking at.

Right. Okay, so obviously search, cloud, YouTube, and more um has all obviously made this the cash cow here. And as AI takes off, it's certainly a nice uh platform for Alphabet Google.

The The downside, one thing that I've been thinking about is tech overall. And one, the jobs report showed fewer tech jobs, right? As As AI's moving into the manufacture phase, more manufacturing, fewer tech jobs.

We did see that. And then I think about the rate environment. And if rates were to go up, what does it mean for tech names like Google?

Uh let me tackle those one at a time. So, for me, the job growth slowing in tech is bad if you're um you know, if you're a dev, if you're a coder. I think that's bad news as an individual level.

At a stock level, at a company level, I don't think that's bad news at all, right? Google has one of the most profitable businesses in history. If you look at the revenue generated, at the returns generated per employee, it's through the roof.

And if they think they can do that even more efficiently, more power to them. I'm not losing a lot of sleep over that from an investment perspective. I feel bad, you know, if there's layoffs coming.

Now, if we're talking about the rate environment, that's a completely separate question. I think that Google, you know, like everybody else, is subject to higher rates. I don't think that there's a way around that.

I think that the entire economy is going to see that. Is Google's impact from rates going to be outsized? No. I I think that it's frankly going to be a little bit lower than what we see with a number of other stocks just because they're so diversified.

So much of the spending that they're getting, you know, as I said, in their ad businesses, in what's going on with cloud, those are those are all-terrain businesses, right? Even if we start to see a pullback in some different areas in consumer spending, those are going to be some of the last that are hit.

Yeah, that's actually well said. I so we understand it better now. So, if the rate environment were to move higher, right, and that seems to be the trend of late, maybe Google would even be better positioned than some of its peers because of its diversification.

At the same time, um I think about operating margin, and that's been growing. So, they've been doing things, I guess, uh more efficiently.

You know, they have, and I think that's partly the AI play that's tied to what we're seeing around head count. And look, this is a mature business. It's well-run, they know what they're doing, and they have so many different lines of business that they're continuously optimizing.

Every year they're finding ways to squeeze more out of this, but they're also growing the pie, right? This isn't having stagnant revenues and squeezing more out of it, it's figuring out how you can grow and more efficient.

And that's sort of management and organizational discipline. It's extremely rare, and it's extremely valuable. And so, that comes back to something I said off the top. This has been an exceptional long-term play.

It's a company that's outperformed again and again, and to me, that kind of track record just speaks to why I'm so excited about it right now.