Gerstner questions why OpenAI took a dilutive $10B round at roughly $30B valuation.
“what was their motivation to take such a dilutive round, know, the 10,000,000,000 at what was the valuation at 30?”
Gerstner compares foundation models to search engines in 2000, saying value capture is uncertain.
“It is almost impossible to know with any certainty, much like it was with the search engines in ninety nine, two thousand, who's going to emerge, where the value capture is going to be.”
Gerstner reports Satya Nadella told him Copilot is Microsoft's fastest growing product ever, beating Windows and Office.
“Satya, the CEO of Microsoft, who I saw last week, said to me that Copilot is the fastest growing product in the history of Microsoft.”
Gerstner says the accounts would grow to $12,000 by age 10, giving kids ownership stakes in major companies.
“At 10 years old, you'll have $12,000 in that account. You see that you own a little bit of Tesla, of of Microsoft, of UnitedHealthcare.”
Gerstner says Nadella predicted fifteen years before ChatGPT that Microsoft needed answers, not links, to beat Google.
“Fifteen years before ChatGPT started producing answers, Satya knew that that's where they had to get to if they were going to leapfrog Google.”
Gerstner recounts that Satya Nadella bought his company Faircast for Microsoft in 2008 when running Bing.
“The person who bought Ferricast in 2008 for Microsoft was Satya Nadella. Oh, He was running Bing at the time. Right.”
Gerstner says MANG (Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia, Google) went from near-zero VC investing to $25 billion last year.
“we have this explosion in venture capital investing coming out of four companies, right? He called them MANG. Microsoft, Amazon, know, Nvidia and Google.”
Gerstner forecasts Microsoft, Amazon, and Snowflake will accelerate growth rates, calling this unprecedented at their scale.
“We expect our forecast is that Microsoft and Amazon, you know, Snowflake, they'll all accelerate their growth rates this year. Right?”
Gerstner argues MANG participation is distorting market prices compared to arm's length transactions with financial investors.
“I do think that it is a really important thing that you're pointing out, which is at a very minimum, I think we can say that the participation of MANG, Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia, and Google, is distorting the price in the market in a way that wouldn't occur if it was all arm's length transaction with financial investors.”
Gerstner says MANG (Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia, Google) went from zero to $25 billion in VC investing in six years.
“He called them MANG. Microsoft, Amazon, know, Nvidia and Google. And so as you can see on this chart, we go from almost no venture capital investing, you know, out of these folks six or seven years ago to all of a sudden this $25,000,000,000, last year in VC investing.”
Gerstner argues MANG participation is distorting AI startup valuations beyond what arm's length financial investors would pay.
“I think we can say that the participation of MANG, Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia, and Google, is distorting the price in the market in a way that wouldn't occur if it was all arm's length transaction with financial investors.”
Gerstner says Altimeter's best AI bets over the past two years were NVIDIA, Microsoft, and Snowflake.
“the best bets on AI over the course of the last eighteen months or two years, we were fortunate to be in, were NVIDIA and Microsoft, Snowflake.”
Gerstner says he was concerned a year ago that Microsoft's OpenAI partnership would cause Amazon customers to switch to Azure.
“A year ago, I was concerned and some others were whether or not Microsoft's early lead because of their partnership with OpenAI would cause a bunch of customers to leave Amazon and go to Azure in order to take advantage of the benefits of OpenAI.”
Gerstner cites Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta all confirming massive AI inference and future infrastructure investments in NVIDIA.
“It's up because Susan Lee from Meta just told us yesterday that they're going to make huge future investments in infrastructure, read NVIDIA, in order to support all of these initiatives.”
Gerstner says Amazon saw almost no customer churn to Azure despite Microsoft's OpenAI partnership advantage.
“A year ago, I was concerned and some others were whether or not Microsoft's early lead because of their partnership with OpenAI would cause a bunch of customers to leave Amazon and go to Azure in order to take advantage of the benefits of OpenAI. We didn't see that. We saw almost no customer churn.”
Gerstner says only a few companies can afford 100,000 GPU clusters that Microsoft, Elon, and Meta are building.
“I think the latest discussions, whether it's Stargate out of Microsoft, a 100,000 GPU cluster, Elon's talking about a 100,000 GPU cluster, Mark is talking about that.”
Gerstner notes 64% of Fortune 500 companies are Azure OpenAI customers.
“64% of Fortune 500 customers are Azure OpenAI customers, which I thought was pretty extraordinary.”
Gerstner says Microsoft and NVIDIA remain relatively safe investments for AI exposure amid uncertainty.
“I think that if you're an investor, owning some of the companies that you think you're really confident are going to continue to compound and benefit from AI, the Microsofts of the world, the Nvidias of the world, seems to me like a relatively safe place.”
Gerstner identifies AWS disadvantage risk if Microsoft's OpenAI access proves decisive and Amazon lacks equivalent.
“I think there is a lot of worry about, you know, if Microsoft has access to OpenAI and Amazon doesn't, is that going to put them at a disadvantage if open AI is a runaway winner?”
Gerstner notes Satya called AI a supply-driven wave with much experimental work, creating reset risk.
“Satya very quickly said this is a supply driven wave. And I think up to date, that is true. We're we're building ahead of demand.”
Gerstner proposes dedicating individual nuclear reactors at Diablo to major tech companies for their data centers.
“I could imagine if you had four more reactors sitting here, right, if you could land them at the right price, you could have one reactor for Meta, one for Amazon, one for Microsoft, one for Nvidia, you could have the data center sitting right next to them.”
Gerstner reports Oracle, Amazon, and Microsoft are all moving forward with nuclear-powered data center projects.
“Amazon is buying this nuclear powered Talon data center facility, and now Microsoft this week announces with CEG that they're going to bring 3 Mile Island out of retirement.”
Gerstner says Microsoft's Azure is growing 34% on $66 billion base and expects acceleration in Q1 and Q2.
“Think about that, Bill. Azure is growing at 34% on a $66,000,000,000 base, And they say they expect it to accelerate.”
Gerstner reports Microsoft expects Azure revenue to accelerate despite already growing 34% on a $66 billion base.
“Microsoft, which is on $66,000,000,000 run rate at Azure, has said they expect q one and q two Azure revenue to accelerate. Think about that, Bill. Azure is growing at 34% on a $66,000,000,000 base,”
Gerstner argues GPU capex sustainability depends on hyperscalers generating commensurate inference revenues, citing Satya's disciplined approach.
“It all comes down ultimately to the revenues that are generated by the people who are making the purchases of the GPUs. Right?”
Gerstner says Invest America could pass by July 4, 2026, giving 40 million children ownership in Apple, Berkshire, and Microsoft.
“If the president signs this into law as part of reconciliation on July 4 of this year, that means on our two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, 07/04/2026, we can have 40,000,000 children, 40,000,000 families.”
Gerstner calculates Microsoft could reach $7 trillion market cap in ten years growing at just 7% annually.
“the largest company, Microsoft, today is like 3 and onetwo trillion. Let's say that Microsoft, I don't know, doubles in ten years. It would only be growing at 7% per year.”
Gerstner states Microsoft has invested $13-14 billion in OpenAI for 27% ownership on a fully diluted basis.
“Microsoft started investing in 2019, has invested in the ballpark of $1,314,000,000,000 dollars into OpenAI. And for that, you get 27% of the business ownership in the business on a fully diluted basis.”
Gerstner cites Microsoft's $400 billion in remaining performance obligations as booked business that continues growing.
“you talked about 400,000,000,000 it's an incredible number, of remaining performance obligations last night. You said that, you know, that's your booked business today. It'll surely go up tomorrow as sales continue to come in.”
Gerstner notes OpenAI has not built data centers while Microsoft, Oracle, CoreWeave, and SoftBank are building them.
“I haven't heard them break ground on any data center. I hear Microsoft building data centers, Oracle building data centers, CoreWeb building data centers, SoftBank building data centers.”
Gerstner says every child will have an app showing ownership of shares in NVIDIA, Walmart, and Microsoft.
“Every child is gonna have on their phone an app. They're gonna see. They own a little bit of NVIDIA, a little bit of Walmart, a little bit of Microsoft.”
Gerstner says the US is financing nearly a trillion dollars in annual AI capex privately, unlike China's government subsidies.
“I think it's extraordinary that we're financing almost a trillion dollars of capex a year to build out the the entire AI infrastructure without any money from the US government.”
Gerstner counters slowdown narrative, calling OpenAI and Anthropic the fastest growing companies at scale in history
“@IbrahimAjami Really? OpenAI & Anthropic are the fastest growing companies at scale in history. And cooking - arguably extending their research leads & gaining share of wallet / economics. Open source is also thriving which is grt - but not zero sum. 🧐”