Tech's Big November Rally, Apple's Path Forward, The State of Tesla — With Dan Ives

Dan Ives is the managing director and senior equity research analyst at Wedbush Securities. He joins Big Technology Podcast for a broad discussion of the state of tech today. We cover: 1) Tech's November rally 2) Whether generative AI is Big data 2.0 3) Microsoft winning 80-90% of big AI deals 4) The state of Apple 5) How analysts like Ives estimate iPhone sales 6) The state of Tesla 7) Rivian's pickup truck 8) The Cybertruck's chances 9) 2024 Predictions 10) Elon Musk's future at X 11) Bitcoin madness returns. -- Enjoying Big Technology Podcast? Please rate us five stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in your podcast app of choice. For weekly updates on the show, sign up for the pod newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/6901970121829801984/ Questions? Feedback? Write to: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Alex Kantrowitz?

  A leading tech analyst joins us to talk about tech's November rally, the state of Tesla, AI, Apple, and more. All that coming up right after this. This episode is brought to you by Genesis. What does it actually take to put a Gentic AI to work across an entire enterprise? I recently spoke with Genesis chairman and CEO Tony Bates about why orchestration is emerging as a competitive advantage in customer experience and what companies need to get right in the AI era. Then I sat down with Adam Mitchell, head of enterprise business solutions at Voya Financial, to go inside a large scale agentic CX transformation, including the business decisions, trade offs, and lessons along the way. You can watch both conversations now on my YouTube channel today.

• 0:46Alex Kantrowitz?

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• 1:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  Welcome to Big Technology Podcast, a show for cool-headed nuanced conversation of the tech world and beyond. And today I am excited to welcome Dan Ives to the show. He's the Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Wedbush Security. He has his finger on the pulse of so many important tech companies, including Tesla and Apple. We like to go back and forth a little bit on CNBC. I think I'm a little more negative on Apple and he's pretty positive. So far, he's gotten the best of me in those debates. Dan, great to have you. Welcome to the show.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  Oh, it's great to be here. And it's just to be on with you. I think, I think you're one of the best technology minds out there. So this is just, I'm really looking forward to this.

• 1:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  Thank you, Dan. And likewise, I'm reading all your notes. You write prolifically about the tech world and it's always fun to talk with you on CNBC. And I'm grateful that you've chosen to spend some time with us here today. So thank you so much.

• 2:04Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, it's my pleasure.

• 2:06Alex Kantrowitz?

  So just to set the table, let's talk a little bit about what's happening in the market. So, you know, we're hovering with pretty high interest rates, right? So you would imagine that there would be a slowdown, but the S and P 500. Is up 20% on the year and not only that, it closed November up 9% and the NASDAQ was up 11%. So it was this very large rally. I mean, the year is unbelievable right now in the S and P, powered almost counterintuitively by big tech. What exactly do you think is going on there?

• 2:39Speaker 01

  Okay, I remember we went to lunch, tried for our earnings season. I think, look, I think the biggest thing is that institutionally, very negatively positioned into 3Q earnings season, expecting soft guidance, soft numbers, you know, a macro where, you know, a hard landing, I think we're still being baked in. And it's actually the opposite. I mean, we've seen tech be as resilient as really any other phase that I can remember going through, you know, a choppy macro like this. I think AI has gone from, you know, just Nvidia to now hitting the shores of tech in terms of real spend

• 3:20Speaker 01

  that we're seeing across from Microsoft to Amazon to Oracle and others. And when you go into next year, it's like, look, I think now we're going to have a Fed that cuts. You got so much money on the sidelines. Unless you have a telescope from a planetarium, it's hard to find that recession. And I think investors are now focused and be like, okay, like, is this the start of the new tech bull market? And I believe it is. I'm not saying we're not going to have some choppiness going into January, but I believe tech stocks will be up another 20% in 2024.

• 4:03Alex Kantrowitz?

  You now think that we're about to enter this big bull market in tech and in fact, you have a No Doubt Tuesday talking about how we're, we're on the way. That the subject line is heading into 2024, we see a new bull market for the tech sector and. What one of the things that really drives your thesis here is that you think that, you know, we might not see a lot more spending in enterprise, but cloud and AI driven spending is might be up 20 to 25% over the next year. Here's the thing that I really want to seize on though, you say that you there are use cases that are now exploding across the enterprise and consumer landscape. So Dan, what are the use cases that you're seeing?

• 4:44Alex Kantrowitz?

  Because I think for for people on the ground level here, like one of the big questions about AI is we're hearing so much about it, but we're not seeing it actually put into too many products outside of maybe like the big Microsoft Copilot type of things. So where are these use cases that you're seeing?

• 5:01Speaker 01

  So we, we, we've done surveys the last few months, we have over eighty use cases right now. And these are, these are enterprise. I mean, I just want to differentiate. I think it's head acts the amount of spending in enterprise as the consumer landscape. So when we look what's happened across financials, insurance, hospitals,

• 5:28Speaker 01

  regulate on the government side, on the cybersecurity side. It's, it's what I view as probably the biggest transformation we've seen ever.

• 5:38Alex Kantrowitz?

  I just heard Gene Munster, who's another analyst, talk about how like this is a 99 and the web is a 50 in terms of a one to 100 importance scale. I think maybe fire is 100 or something like that. I'm just not convinced this isn't big data 2.0. Like big data was this big revolution where like you all of a sudden could make sense of things that you couldn't before, and it would provide clarity and allow organizations to do what they couldn't do previously. So why is this so different?

• 6:06Speaker 01

  But I don't think you're wrong. I don't think you're wrong in that view. Like my, my view, it's, it's somewhere in between. So in other words, let's say I'm going after Alex as a customer. For 10 years, Alex is just paying maintenance.

• 6:26Speaker 01

  You know, every once in a while, buying a new module. Alex is a billion dollar company. With IT budget, that's let's say thirty, forty.

• 6:37Alex Kantrowitz?

  That's an accurate description of big technology, by the way.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, but but.

• 6:40Alex Kantrowitz?

  I'm kidding.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  And and I know yours.

• 6:43Alex Kantrowitz?

  Hypothetically, yeah.

• 6:44Speaker 01

  And I know at big technology, yours is a lot bigger. But let's just say hypothetically, you know. So, okay, so now all of a sudden, Alex is calling me the vendor. Being like, show me how I could spend. Where are the use cases for my company? So now Alex, that was just paying maintenance. You know, few modules a year incremental, I come in, you know, for a bake off once a year. Now you're calling me. I'm a vendor, I come in. That's why, when you look at Salesforce, Adobe, Oracle, you know, name your.

• 7:28Speaker 01

  These install base plays. It's your point like with the big data two dot O, it's opening the door to now conversations, deployments, beta. That was not that.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  Because, and now you actually have the functionality to present much more compelling ROIs than you had before. So I think it's somewhere like in, I think it's somewhere in between. I don't, and I don't think you're wrong at all. And I think there's, there's many that have that view. But it doesn't, it could be a nineteen ninety five moment. Or as you know, the way Gene puts it. Or, or the way that you put it. But either of those, that's going to be a huge talent to enterprise spend, like regardless of which word it is. But that's, I think at the end of the day, that's really the difference is like,

• 8:26Speaker 01

  it doesn't, like Tom Breed is not going to be Tom Breed every game. But over the course of a season, what does it look like?

• 8:35Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, no, I and I definitely allow for the fact that like it might look like big data two point O right now. But this technology has this opportunity, ability, opportunity to be exponentially more impressive than anything we've seen before. If it keeps improving at the rate that it has been improving. And you're saying that of all these companies, just Microsoft is kicking butt.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  Do they're like?

• 9:01Speaker 01

  It's unbelievable. Like, look, it's just, it's actually unbelievable. She's. Their ability to just win.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  What? Eight of every ten? Nine of every ten? Big AI deals?

• 9:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 9:18Speaker 01

  Because also like their their Microsoft shop.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  It's foundational on Azure. You have to pilot. You got to open it. Look, that's also why, like, for Jazzy and for Curry and at Google, for what we see to work with Safrah. It's it's playing catch up.

• 9:39Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right? Yeah, and I definitely wanted to go deep into this with you because, Dan, one of the things that I love about the work that you do is you go meet the customers, you go to China when you want to talk about, you know, what's going on with Apple. And it's very interesting to hear your perspective on this is especially as it relates to where the tech stocks are going to go next year. So let's just talk a little bit about the biggest tech stock, which is Apple. I mean, you make these trips out to the manufacturers to talk a little bit about like what demand is going to look like. I'd be curious to hear your perspective on the state of the company today.

• 10:21Alex Kantrowitz?

  iPhone fifteen has released. It's in market. I have one. I like the phone. But the thing that's coming that Apple's coming up against is the fact that the phones work well enough that people don't want to replace them as often as they used to. So. And we've seen, what have we seen? How many quarters of declining revenue did Apple had? Like maybe four, four or five in a row? And, you know, iPhone makes up such an important part of the company's revenue makeup that you just kind of wonder like, what is the trajectory of this company? You're a bull on the company, obviously. What do you? What do you think the answer is?

• 10:57Speaker 01

  Look at my, again, I've always, like, I always really take issue with everybody. People like odds declining, whatever. And I always be like, look, you have 600 bits of currency, Edwin, right? So like in actual, it's, you know, cons currency growing. But Mac, iPads, that's, that's not the focus, right? And there was like, now iPhone units are growing. The, the ASPs, you're going further and further upstream. Hard selling price. Yeah, nine 25, nine 50, maybe a year ago, E 25, E 50. And services is a key part to the monetization, right?

• 11:41Speaker 01

  I think service is now going back double digits. I think services is worth 1.4, 1.5 trillion. Look, you hit on like, no doubt, like, the biggest issue is that like, people become 99% keep their iPhone. They upgrade, they were upgrading every two years. Now it's close to every, call it three and a half to four years. You're going through a cycle here that clearly is going to be better than, I think, expected. At least you're going into it. But it's like, what's next? And that's why I think like, look, I think for Apple, like, what's next is like, you got to continue to hold a line in China. You know, they gained share, Huawei comes in, essentially what's called an iPhone 12,

• 12:27Speaker 01

  you know, from a technology perspective, Huawei's come in it with. You got to hold court. That's essentially what they've had to do in China and so far, so good. Right. But I think from a stock perspective, because I see on Twitter all the time, or from institutional investors, where I think people have miscalculated or underestimated is that when you have an install base like that, the ability to monetize is unparalleled. It goes back to like BlackBerry, Nokia, you know, everyone got to like the user growth, billion user, they were warning when mod has it, services, software. I think we're just in the, the next phase

• 13:10Speaker 01

  of the Apple growth story from a monetizing the install base.

• 13:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. I think it would be worthwhile to just talk a little bit about, this is a bit of kind of inside baseball, but I think it would be worthwhile talking to folks about how you come to your, your beliefs in terms of how many iPhones are gonna ship. I mean, you just said that you're, you have belief in this iPhone 15 and that it's gonna be a better cycle than people expected. You know, some people, when they say that, they guess, right? Like they triangulate based off of like five friends and they're like, well, three have 15, so it seems like it's gonna hit the number. But you'd actually go out to the manufacturers in China and Taiwan, I think. I mean, you talk a little bit about your process, because, you know, even though it's inside baseball, I think it's pretty fascinating.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  And that's across Wall Street. I mean, if you look like for any technology analyst, semiconductor analyst, typically they go to Asia four times a year, sometimes more. And it's really trying to understand, you know, and you could, if you look at the component parts, let's say the iPhone, there's basically a food chain. I mean, it's really, it's a bottoms up, it's essentially bottoms up way to come up with a guesstimate of where you believe demand is. So if you talk to, if you talk to suppliers and suppliers are not positive or they're not building out and they're actually cutting production, that's a negative.

• 14:46Speaker 01

  So I always view the checks that you do in Asia as directional, but not exact.

• 14:55Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 14:55Speaker 01

  So, so let's just go back to like, um, the, you know, everything that happened with the whole, like, the shadow ban, like that was going with the iPhone. Remember like when everything happened, like government shadow ban, like going into iPhone 15?

• 15:13Alex Kantrowitz?

  Well, let's actually, no, no, no, let's talk about what, what happened there.

• 15:17Speaker 01

  Articles come out that there's a shadow ban, that basically government employees within China are not being allowed to buy iPhone. Like, they can't bring them to work. Now, now this just goes back, like I'm just walking into like my, so I wake up in the morning, see it, I'm like, Like, how's that? Like, I'm like, in my mind, like, just being around the region for my whole career, I'm like, as a government employee, like, you'll never bring an iPhone into a gut. You typically leave it at home, you have another phone. That's always been like that, frap, like, they're always

• 15:54Alex Kantrowitz?

  In China.

• 15:56Speaker 01

  Like, within China. And I'm like, I haven't heard of anything like that. So I was like, that's one where like, we have to spend the day doing our work, you know, within the region to see if this is something that changes our thesis. And five, six hours later, I'm like, I'm not saying there can't be some sort of, you know, headwind, but I view it as kind of a fictional story.

• 16:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  Like, this was a Wall Street Journal story. I mean, how could they get it so wrong?

• 16:32Speaker 01

  I think they're right. I think they were right in terms of the premise.

• 16:38Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, but wrong that it's not new.

• 16:41Speaker 01

  That's

• 16:42Alex Kantrowitz?

  And then people said, aha, there's a ban, and there always a bit of policy in place.

• 16:47Speaker 01

  It was like, look, like,

• 16:48Alex Kantrowitz?

  But that even still, Dan, that's a, that's a terrible story to publish if that's the case.

• 16:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, but look, when you look, it is always, just like as an analyst, just like a journalist, it is so hard. That's like me calling a stock into that's always difficult, right? So there's always gonna be times where like, you could be right directionally, wrong, maybe in the thing. And, look, that, but that's what me, but just going back to like, that's what makes covering tech and covering these names so exciting is that there's all different opinions, right? Because that day,

• 17:34Speaker 01

  everyone, there, there might be someone that's been super negative on Apple and be like, You know, I mean, like when that happened, you know how many emails? And Twitter and calls I got being like? Told you.

• 17:50Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  It was gonna happen.

• 17:53Alex Kantrowitz?

  It's it is interesting that it's coincided also, though, with the fact that Huawei has overtaken Apple inside China, right, as the number one phone. And, you know, I don't know, maybe this wasn't something new, but it does seem like A, there's two things that are happening that that might be a cause of worry. One is

• 18:12Alex Kantrowitz?

  the Chinese economy is struggling. And you might want to go to a cheaper model there. It seems like it would favor Huawei. And two, for maybe, maybe this isn't brand new, but and who knows, maybe this has been reversed after Xi came to San Francisco and hung out with Biden. But there has been a move away from globalization in China. So that, you know, it seems like you take those two together and it is a moment of worry for Apple.

• 18:38Speaker 01

  But then also, but then I would go back to like, and this is why, like, look, if I called stocks from my 12th floor on a, you know, in New York City midtown.

• 18:50Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  I would have gotten 90% of my stocks wrong because I would just sit here on my spreadsheet.

• 18:56Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. It's why you make trips. Yeah.

• 19:00Speaker 01

  So by by by spending so much time in the region, you understand like China, like Apple is one of the most important employers in China.

• 19:10Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 19:10Speaker 01

  Especially mid to high end Chinese, they all want iPhones.

• 19:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 19:15Speaker 01

  And it comes down to like,

• 19:18Speaker 01

  you know, there's always going to be a push pull. Okay, if you want to call it like that, but it um, it's gonna be a worry. It's not going away. I just think at least now for iPhone 15, the worry was maybe much more pronounced than the reality.

• 19:37Alex Kantrowitz?

  Dan, when you go to these suppliers, do you just like walk up to the factory? Be like, hey, like, how many components are you producing? I mean, how did these meetings come together?

• 19:48Speaker 01

  No, I think that's all part of, you know, a lot of times these are investor meetings. These companies meet with investors, you know, all around the world.

• 19:57Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  And it's all, you know, I view it as a puzzle that you're trying to put together. Like, one data point is in itself, doesn't give you directional. But you have to listen to so many of these conference calls. You got to really follow Foxconn. I think Foxconn, you know, clearly as a supplier back is one of the most important ones. You know, in terms of trying to understand what's happening there. And that's also why we spend so much time Malaysia, Vietnam, a lot of these other countries.

• 20:39Speaker 01

  Cause you know, there's a lot of component players that play there and it's not try. I also think like, it's not always just trying to get numbers right. It's trying to understand like where the trends are going.

• 20:54Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 20:54Speaker 01

  Like I'm actually go back to years ago where I reviewed like, okay, like a foldable phone. There was not, you know, there was, there was not a ground swell that wanted a foldable phone within, within the whole supply chain. So when there was a view that Apple was going to come out of the foldable phone. You know, we viewed that as something that was not going to, you know, like we have.

• 21:23Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. What isn't it for these components manufacturers to speak with folks? I mean, it seems like they would put their relationship with Apple in jeopardy if they were to share, let's say, bad news. So how do you sort of take their incentive to speak with you? And their motivations and their angle in terms of like you're, you're then trying to process that and get to the truth.

• 21:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think you try to take it all with a grain of salt. Because a lot of it, you're trying to, because remember it's not even, you're doing it. It's not like Apple is just one piece of it.

• 21:59Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 22:01Speaker 01

  You're trying to understand where where the technology is going.

• 22:05Alex Kantrowitz?

  That's true.

• 22:06Speaker 01

  When it comes to like, so that that's actually, to me, I think that's that's probably the most important thing in terms of where it all heads, like in terms of where the technologies are going, 5G, 6G, like within within Apple owning their own silicon. Are they, are there other areas that they're gonna maybe try to bring further in? What does that mean for Samsung? What does that mean for Huawei? I think the biggest issue, look, I also think probably one of the biggest issues is just trying to understand like Apple in China, Taiwan. How much do they try to bring to India?

• 22:50Speaker 01

  How much they try to bring to Vietnam?

• 22:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, what is the state of their supply chain right now? Are they diversifying away from China?

• 22:56Speaker 01

  I think they're diversifying, but I think

• 22:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  But not quickly.

• 23:00Speaker 01

  Very carefully.

• 23:01Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, I see.

• 23:02Speaker 01

  Because because even like, you know,

• 23:06Speaker 01

  it's easy for someone sitting on their lounge chair to be like, oh, they should just diversify from China to India. Well, I mean, they have probably one of the most complex supply chains like in the world.

• 23:21Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. Exactly. Okay, so why don't we take a break and then talk about Tesla on the other side of this? Because I know you have a lot of thoughts about Tesla and I teased it at the beginning, so we'll be back here right after this with Dan Ives, managing partner at Wedbush Securities, also a senior equity research analyst. You've heard a lot about how he researches the equities. On the other side of this break, we're going to be talking about one of the more fascinating companies in the tech world this moment, Tesla. Back right after this. This episode is brought to you by Avpoint. Everyone's racing to roll out AI right now. Copilots, chatbots, agents doing real work. But here's the part nobody loves talking about. All that AI runs on your data.

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• 25:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  And we're back here on Big Technology Podcast with Dan Ives, the Managing Director and Senior Equities Research Analyst at Websh Security. Dan, let's talk about Tesla. I mean, it's kind of interesting. You are very pro Apple. I think you're generally pro Tesla, but they have been discounting the cars. And the last earnings call, their margins came down in a real way. And I think that you had some perspective on it that you sent out, basically like this is the opposite of a good earnings call, or just like this is a devastation disastrous thing. Because basically what's happening is Tesla's giving away the margin and giving away like, you know, kind of like the fruit of their business,

• 26:37Alex Kantrowitz?

  trying to sell more units. And you were not very happy with that. So they are selling more units and the Cybertruck is out. So where do you stand on Tesla today?

• 26:47Speaker 01

  Look, I mean, it's been one of our long-term bullish favorite names. But like a kid, where you're going to yell at the kid and if they don't do their homework, you're going to be honest, right? And I think that's always been our DNA. Like, we're going to call like we see it. Like, that was disaster conference call. The communication, especially around margins, was very unclear. Because the big issue here is, okay, you cut costs. Look, we wanted them to cut prices in China. You're in a price war. This is a time where like their margins are here. Everyone else's margins are here. It's a time you could squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, focus on units. That was the right poker move.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  That's why the stock went from 100 to 200, okay? Now, it's like, okay, well, how much more do you cut?

• 27:42Speaker 01

  Because investors need to get to a point where it's like, okay, line in the sand, we're not cutting anymore. And you didn't get that.

• 27:53Speaker 01

  And I think now ironically, look, our whole view is we're ninety five, ninety eight percent there. And if you look so far since earnings, since end of October, that evidence would be would support that. It was like you've actually had price increases rather than price decreases. So far China numbers look very strong. So it's our view like, look, the the electric vehicle industry. It's like price discovery. That's essentially what they're going through. We talked about Apple before, it was like. Price discovery and trying to figure out how much to charge for their cars.

• 28:31Speaker 01

  Exactly. And it was like, look, and realistically, like at seventy, eighty thousand, you're never going to get mass market. You need to be thirty, thirty five, forty thousand. Now they've been able to produce the cars so much cheaper. Obviously, in an interest rate environment, you could cut prices, interest rate rise. The consumer, there's really no impact, right? I mean, so it's like, that's that's the problem that all automakers have been going through. But my view on Tesla is it's much longer term. My view is like, we're still in the second inning of electric vehicles. Now, I'm there's definitely been moderation relative to me where we thought this was going to go.

• 29:16Speaker 01

  But they're going to own more and more from a battery technology perspective, from FSD, supercharger, some of the parts. I've always viewed them as a disruptive technology player, not an auto company.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  And I view this as more of an air pocket period for Tesla rather than.

• 29:42Speaker 01

  Like the like I view it more as like, okay, you're gonna go hyper growth, air pocket. And then I think.

• 29:48Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right. Quick drop and then back up to altitude.

• 29:50Speaker 01

  Look, and I think and I think the reason you see the stock, you know, why is the stock continue to move higher? Even though we had those margins, it's because investors, they're looking through to Q four into Q one into two Q. You go about Cybertruck, like, look, the fact that they're actually producing this at mass, like on the trajectory, that that started to know that they were never gonna be able to do this. Austin, that's why Austin is so important in terms of the broader build out. But Alex, like a year from now, they need to have a sub thirty thousand dollar vehicle.

• 30:33Alex Kantrowitz?

  Do you think they'll get there?

• 30:34Speaker 01

  I look, I think that's why Mexico is so important. I mean.

• 30:38Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  If you go back. The modern Mexico factor that's gonna build out.

• 30:46Alex Kantrowitz?

  Do you, are you a Cybertruck fan?

• 30:49Speaker 01

  I'm a look, I'm personally a Cybertruck fan.

• 30:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  Are you gonna, are you, do you drive a Tesla? What, what type of car?

• 30:56Speaker 01

  But I plan to buy Cybertruck.

• 30:58Alex Kantrowitz?

  You're gonna, okay, you gotta come by, Dan. We're gonna, we gotta swing, swing around Brooklyn together and hang out in that Cybertruck. I think it's a cool truck. Yeah, definitely.

• 31:07Speaker 01

  When I get it, I'm gonna pick you up, bro.

• 31:09Alex Kantrowitz?

  Sounds good.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  Put your shades on. Yeah, perfect.

• 31:12Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay.

• 31:12Speaker 01

  Nobody's like, but look.

• 31:15Speaker 01

  But, but with Cybertruck, my view is like, take a view of the market where F one fifty is.

• 31:22Speaker 01

  Nine hundred ninety fifty thousand per year.

• 31:26Alex Kantrowitz?

  The number one selling truck in the U, a car or auto in the US, right?

• 31:29Speaker 01

  Can you start to just chip away at that? I mean, that's really, that's what they're going for. And also they're going for like, okay. If, if you had a Tesla, do you buy a Cybertruck? It, it's a market opportunity that Rivian, I think successfully has gone after, but even Rivian, obviously the big issue is the, you know, if they're actually producing.

• 31:52Alex Kantrowitz?

  Oh, so, so I, by the way, I, I mean, I mentioned this on the show on Friday, but I just took a Rivian. They lent me the, the truck and drove it up to Boston over Thanksgiving and then back. I thought it was a great ride. It was super fun to drive that thing.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  What color, what color exterior was it?

• 32:12Alex Kantrowitz?

  Limestone.

• 32:14Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 32:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, it's nice. And I don't know, it just had, it felt like driving a small car. It was a pretty big pickup. It was just like very smooth ride.

• 32:24Speaker 01

  The way you are, like, you're, I could see you in the, like, you person out. I could definitely see you in a Rivian.

• 32:30Alex Kantrowitz?

  Think I'm a Rivian guy and not a Cybertruck guy, Dan? I don't know.

• 32:34Speaker 01

  I think, I think you could be both.

• 32:37Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 32:38Speaker 01

  But I definitely could see you driving around in sunglasses, doing your big tech podcast on, on the Rivian.

• 32:45Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, no, I, I, I thought it was a great truck. We're gonna have RJ Skerrin on. But I, but it's very hard to park in the city, so I don't think I'll be buying it anytime soon. Do you, do you, so when you said there's a production issue for them, what, what do you mean by that on the Rivian side? They, they just can't ramp? Is that what's happening?

• 33:04Speaker 01

  I mean, that's the biggest issue, and I, you know, huge respect for RJ and the team. The biggest issue since the IPO, it's just, there's, there's always been dog eat the whole market excuse. Look, it's hard to produce cars, right?

• 33:17Alex Kantrowitz?

  Right, totally.

• 33:17Speaker 01

  And I think when they come out since the, since their IPO, it's been a constant production issues. I think they, they've resolved a lot of that. Clearly, you know, they're building a new factory in Atlanta. That's gonna be, you know, key as we go into the next few years. Look, the demand's there. They've, they've created a phenomenal vehicle. You have that Amazon relationship on the commercial side, even though, you know, it's changed a bit. It's, it's now just capitalizing on the opportunity.

• 33:48Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yep. All right. Well, we're nearing an end of, of the show, and we're also nearing an end of 2023. You got any hot 2024 predictions you can throw at us?

• 33:58Speaker 01

  I think we are going to have a tidal wave of M and A in software.

• 34:04Alex Kantrowitz?

  Oh.

• 34:05Speaker 01

  I think massive M and A. I think financial strategic M and A. I mean, right now FTC con, no one fears anymore. Given you it's black eye after black eye. Of course, Microsoft, Activision, others. I think you see a lot of big deals. Strategic as well as financial. I think it's due for consolidation. So probably that's gonna be one big prediction. Um, two, I think we sit here a year from now and I think tech stocks are up another 20%.

• 34:37Alex Kantrowitz?

  Really? Okay.

• 34:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then I think third is that that I think AI. Cause right now, everything we're talking about is like, okay, the exploratory, like kicking the tire, beta. Deals are now maybe starting to get sized out a year from now. And you're probably gonna be at the forefront of this. It's really realizing like just how big and real the monetization is.

• 35:09Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah.

• 35:10Speaker 01

  And and fourth, fourth would be Mets make playoffs.

• 35:14Alex Kantrowitz?

  Mets make the playoffs. They better, man, at this.

• 35:16Speaker 01

  There's a fourth to be Mets make, but I'm, I'm a big believer in Cohen and everything he's doing. And we've been through battles, obviously, as Mets fan. But I do believe, I do believe Mets make playoffs 24.

• 35:28Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay. Well, if all this comes true, it's gonna be a great year. Okay. Two, two more things about about next year. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on. Does Elon Musk still own X at the end of 2024?

• 35:39Speaker 01

  He owns X, but he probably has others that have now get a bigger ownership stake. As he probably is gonna have to sell pieces of it. That would be my, just given it, it's an upside down structure in terms of the loans that have been taken out. It's probably worth less than 10 billion today. So there's definitely gonna have to be probably, I think, some change ownership structure. He's still owning it. But I think probably others will have to, you know.

• 36:08Alex Kantrowitz?

  I would imagine like the banks just get mad and demand the money.

• 36:13Speaker 01

  Well, also it's, it's upside down, right? Like in terms of the need. It's like, meaning I have a million dollar mortgage on a $200,000 house.

• 36:21Alex Kantrowitz?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 36:24Alex Kantrowitz?

  Exactly.

• 36:25Speaker 01

  And that's not a good situation.

• 36:27Alex Kantrowitz?

  Yeah, no, the banks tend to say something about that. So yeah, we'll see what happens there. All right. I don't know if you're in into crypto and anything like that, but but I am a stunned that Bitcoin is above forty thousand. Uh, maybe I shouldn't be. Do you think that's sustainable? Where do you think it ends next year?

• 36:43Speaker 01

  I don't know about like price point Bitcoin. I do believe the use key, because I'm a big fan of blockchain, like in terms of like the you. So I do believe the fact that after all the disasters we've been through with Bitcoin, you know, in terms of uh SPF and everything else and this and Bitcoin doing what it's doing, it's it's noticeable. I'm not, I'm not a huge believer in terms of like maybe where the price could go from here. But I do think the use cases are expanding across from a blockchain perspective.

• 37:19Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, well, we'll see what happens. Uh, it'll, it'll, it is astonishing to see what's happened with that. Although I don't know, it's had its ups and downs, so it's up again. All right, Dan, I thank you so much for joining me.

• 37:31Speaker 01

  Thanks so much for doing so much.

• 37:32Alex Kantrowitz?

  Great to hang out with you.

• 37:32Speaker 01

  For having me.

• 37:33Alex Kantrowitz?

  Always, always great to see you. So glad that you came through. Really appreciate your time. Thanks for being here.

• 37:37Speaker 01

  Great to see you and you do excellent work and great to be a part of it.

• 37:40Alex Kantrowitz?

  Likewise. Thanks again. Oh, where can people, if people want to follow you online, where's the best way to um?

• 37:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, so uh Twitter, the ads tech, LinkedIn, haters, lovers, I like to engage with everyone, so just hit me whenever.

• 37:54Alex Kantrowitz?

  Okay, sounds great. All right. Thank you, Dan. Thank you, everybody for listening. And we will see you next, we'll see you on Friday for a show breaking down the news and then uh stay tuned next Wednesday. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger will be here to talk a little bit about what's going on in that world. All right. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time on Big Technology Podcast.

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