Emily Flippen

eight to 10%, let's say, of a return on our AI investments, is that actually more than the cost of our debt financing?

And even if we're not funding with debt, if we're funding with cash, and there's been some question marks about how much of this is being covered with cash,

I would challenge the perception that cash is actually free.

As an equity investor myself, I actually think that there's a massive opportunity cost that exists with these big, large organizations, tech companies that are using all of their cash and reinvesting into artificial intelligence.

I, as an investor, like to see more than 10%.

Mark Zuckerberg is probably the worst example because Meta has, in my opinion, performed well despite his capital allocation skills.

Zuckerberg has spent tens of billions of dollars investing into the Metaverse that has effectively gone nowhere.

But the Microsofts of the world

the Amazons, these businesses that actually get a really good return on investment by reinvesting either into their core business, but also potentially returning shareholder dollars through dividends, share buybacks, other CapEx expenses that are a bit more known versus data centers.

There's a million and one ways that businesses could be spending capital.

that have a more clear return on investment probability versus artificial intelligence.

Now, I will say, more clear does not necessarily mean more profitable.

And the leaders of these organizations see the risk and reward proposition that is building out data centers and say, I would rather potentially be wrong about artificial intelligence and invest the capital here because the risk of

of being right or being wrong in this case outweighs it.

And if they don't invest in artificial intelligence and they're wrong and artificial intelligence ends up being the future of whatever industry they're operating in and they don't make those investments and they could potentially just obliterate the relevance of their company in 10 years.

Well, I want to say, Travis, I was wondering why these stocks look so familiar, and now I feel like you're putting my portfolio on blast here a little.

Well, I appreciate it.

And we are flying blind here a little bit.

Travis, you told us, don't prep too much.

Come in with your organic thoughts, and now I know why.