Gerstner says memory trades at 5x earnings and NVIDIA at 13-14x fully taxed GAAP earnings.
“Think about memory as an industry is only trading at five times earning. In the case of NVIDIA, trading at 13 or 14, fully taxed gap earnings.”
Gerstner predicts NVIDIA will be the first $10 trillion company and still believes this in May 2026.
“I've said before, I think NVIDIA will be the first $10,000,000,000,000 company. I you know, as I sit here, you know, in in May '26, I believe that to be true.”
Gerstner says 80% of Altimeter's capital is in memory, logic, and compute companies like Nvidia, SK Hynix, and CoreWeave.
“80% of our capital has been in memory and logic and compute, you know, companies like Nvidia, companies like SK Hynix, companies like CoreWeave, etcetera. And so that's consumed a lot of capital.”
Gerstner notes Nvidia at $195 trades lower than six months ago at 13-14x earnings.
“At a $195, Nvidia is trading lower than it was six months ago. So it's hard to say at 13 or 14 times”
Gerstner asserts Nvidia is terribly under-owned and undervalued, and Altimeter is happy to hold it.
“I think NVIDIA is terribly, under owned. I think it's terribly, undervalued today, and so we're happy to sit in that and to own it.”
Gerstner mentions ChatGPT 5.5 trained on Blackwell chips and Vera Rubin rolling out later this year.
“On new Blackwell chips. We got Vera Rubin rolling out later this year. Notwithstanding all of the noise in the market,”
Gerstner cites a trillion dollars in Nvidia orders over the next six to eight quarters.
“But I think if you just look at the numbers, a trillion dollars over the course of the next, you know, six to eight quarters, I think speaks for itself.”
Gerstner says he wants his personal and fund net worth levered to AI, with NVIDIA as largest public position.
“I want my personal net worth. I want my funds net worth levered against AI because all human progress is gonna be derived from machines helping humans think and augment human thinking.”
Gerstner predicts Google's TPU will not match NVIDIA Rubin's token efficiency despite advantages.
“First, Google is a massive consumer of NVIDIA GPUs, Right? Not only for its own workloads, but also the workloads, you know, in Google Cloud.”
Gerstner cites 5x inference and 3.5x training performance improvements on NVIDIA Rubin chips.
“He just improved his inference performance by five x, not even including Grok, which I think will give him, you know, another huge boost.”
Gerstner notes NVIDIA consensus is 65% earnings growth in 2025 and 30% in 2027 at 25x multiple.
“The consensus estimate this year, I think, is that they're gonna grow earnings about 65%, maybe 30% in 2027. You said it's an earnings driven market, so they don't need to expand multiple.”
Gerstner notes NVIDIA added almost $200 billion of revenue in the last three years.
“You know, you've seen NVIDIA add almost $200,000,000,000 of revenue in the last three years. Yeah. Truly extraordinary.”
Gerstner argues NVIDIA at 23-24x forward earnings and Mag Seven at 25-30x are not bubble valuations.
“That is not the stuff that bubbles are made of. Right? I think the rest of the mag seven all trades somewhere between twenty five and thirty times, maybe met is at 21 times earnings.”
Gerstner reveals Altimeter invested in NVIDIA in December 2022, up 10x as revenue grew from $30B to over $200B.
“The stock's up over ten ten times. 10 x over that period of time as the revenue went from roughly $30,000,000,000 a year to over $200,000,000,000 a year.”
Gerstner says NVIDIA indicated a $100 billion run rate expected by end of next year.
“And they just told us that we should expect a run rate by the end of next year of a $100,000,000,000.”
Gerstner breaks down OpenAI's compute commitments: $500 million to Nvidia, $300 million to AMD and Oracle, $250 billion to Azure.
“with, you know, big commitments, 500,000,000 to Nvidia, 300,000,000 to AMD and Oracle, $250,000,000,000 to Azure.”
Gerstner notes NVIDIA dropped to $92 on tariffs but has recovered to $180.
“Remember the deep sea moment? Stock stock was down 25%. And then on the tariff moment, the stock got down to $92 a share. It's at a 180 today.”
Gerstner calculates 50% growth would bring NVIDIA to $300 billion datacenter revenue, about $8 per share.
“So the consensus for next year is 250,000,000,000 of data center revenue. If they grow up 50%, that's gonna be closer to 300,000,000,000 or closer to $8 a share.”
Gerstner argues NVIDIA's $40 billion China business keeps them on CUDA and export bans risk forcing Taiwan conflict.
“It's $40,000,000,000 business NVIDIA in China to keep them on the CUDA ecosystem rather than allowing them to have a monopoly on the Huawei ecosystem.”
Gerstner contrasts buying NVIDIA in fall 2022 based purely on tech fundamentals versus today's layered policy risks.
“What do I do as an investor? You know, what did I do in the fall of twenty two that led me into NVIDIA in the first place?”
Gerstner argues NVIDIA at 30 PE versus Cisco's 120 PE means comparison to 2000 bubble is uninformed.
“So you would have to think that there would be 70% PE compression from here or that their revenue was going to fall by 70% or that their earnings were going to fall by 70%.”
Gerstner says Jensen claims NVIDIA can scale business 2-3x while increasing headcount only 20-25% using AI agents
“This idea that Jensen can scale the business two or three times with, you know, increasing the headcount by, you know, 20 or 25%. Right?”
Gerstner notes NVIDIA's 2023 revenue was $60B versus analyst forecasts of $26B in January 2023.
“The forecast for Nvidia at that dinner in January 2023 was that you would do 26,000,000,000 of revenue for the year 2023. You did 60,000,000,000, right?”
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 argues consensus Nvidia forecast assumes market share drops from 55% to 26% by 2028.
“Okay, so the consensus forecast that has the stock at $700 a share assumes, if you believe this TAM to be accurate, assumes that their share will go from 55% today to 26% in 2028.”
Gerstner notes critics compared AI training spending to 2001 dark fiber, claiming pullforward had occurred.
“Everybody said at the last end of last year, we had pulled forward all of the training. You know, this was dark fiber from Internet in 2001.”
Gerstner says NVIDIA traded at 20x earnings, its lowest multiple ever, and is now up 25-30 percent.
“It was overvalued despite the fact it was trading at 20 times earnings, its lowest multiple in history. Now it's up 25 or 30% after opening, the year down.”
Gerstner notes NVIDIA traded at 20x earnings last year, its lowest multiple ever.
“So NVIDIA ended last year at 20 times earnings. Its lowest multiple of earnings it's ever traded at, despite the fact that it's the the the purest play AI name in in the space.”
Gerstner says NVIDIA holds 90% plus market share and trades at historical average multiples.
“So if you wanna express that bet, right, which is AI leadership at 25 to 30 times earnings, which is consistent with historical averages for NVIDIA.”
Gerstner argues NVIDIA at $400 from $100 looks expensive but trades only 20x next year's earnings.
“But the fact of the matter is on consensus forecast for next year, it's trading just over $20 or 20 times earnings.”
Gerstner says AI stocks including Nvidia are now at or within 10% of his year-end price targets.
“a lot of the AI related stocks are now at or within 10% of our end of year price target. And when you when you see that, take something like Nvidia,”