Emily Flippen

I'm running from this bear.

I think we're all perfectly fine just blaming AI.

I can blame AI instead of blame Gartner if I have to.

I appreciate the fact that there are legitimate threats against this business and all consulting businesses from AI.

In the case of Gartner, my concerns have less to do with AI.

The reason I'm running from it is actually more of how management has

kind of position their business here.

They're very cyclical.

A lot of their revenue come from these big events.

And those are the first thing that get cut whenever there are like downturns.

So it's not necessarily something where they have it set up like a nice subscription style revenue for a good portion of their sales.

And I don't love the way that management's managing their capital.

They just keep issuing tons and tons of share buybacks.

And that's been good over the short term, but I actually don't know if management

is doing valuation on their stock so much as they are putting their hands up and saying, we don't know where else to spend this capital.

So we're just going to try to return it to shareholders in the interim.

And to me, that shows a lack of long-term vision, which when you are experiencing potentially an existential threat from AI, it's like, okay, well, maybe stop sitting on your hands and do something about it.

I really appreciate that.

You have me second-guessing myself, Lou, because you're right, there's a lot of uncertainty with this business.

The reason I think I'm maybe more willing to hug this bear here is because there is a fair bit of visibility into AI spend and data center spend, which is ultimately what's driving Supermicrocomputer over the course of the next year or so.