Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: We've been all in on Apple today.
Speaker 3: The company out with the biggest product launch of the year,
Speaker 3: the iPhone seventeen. A skinnier Air designed it improves durability
Speaker 3: and camera tech. As far as prices go, seven ninety
Speaker 3: nine is the starting price of the standard phone. The
Speaker 3: new air versional cost nine to ninety nine. The pro
Speaker 3: is going to go up by one hundred dollars with
Speaker 3: twice as much storage.
Speaker 2: I want to bring in Dan Ives.
Speaker 3: He's Global head of Technology Research at Wedbush Securities. He's
Speaker 3: also chairman of eight co holdings sort over three thousand percent.
Speaker 2: After announcing a planned to button the news just.
Speaker 3: A little bit by open eyes all. But that was yesterday.
Speaker 3: Dan's here on site at future Proof in Huntington Beach.
Speaker 3: We're going to talk about a co holdings in a minute,
Speaker 3: but first I just want to get your reaction to Apple,
Speaker 3: because you you actually I saw you you were on
Speaker 3: your laptop and then I got your most recent Apple
Speaker 3: note while we were doing our interview with Barry. You
Speaker 3: just you just you're maintaining your price target on Apple.
Speaker 3: You and the team at web Bush us to make
Speaker 3: their three hundred and fifteen million folks out there who
Speaker 3: are ready to upgrade their iPhones. Is the seventeam gonna
Speaker 3: gun to upgrade?
Speaker 4: Look, I think it's gonna move the needle. I mean,
Speaker 4: I think, especially in China, there's definitely what i'd pin
Speaker 4: up demand. I think street numbers continue to be pretty
Speaker 4: conservative to maybe low, and I think that's a great setup. Look,
Speaker 4: the reality is that this is not gonna be a
Speaker 4: super cycle. There's nothing here that makes you think that
Speaker 4: this is gonna be the game change that everyone's been
Speaker 4: waiting for. But I do believe given the install base,
Speaker 4: given some of the tweaks here, and ultimately on the
Speaker 4: on sort of the second half of this upgrade cycle,
Speaker 4: you will have an AI driven ecosystem I believe will
Speaker 4: be Google Gemini. This could be a sneaky upgrade cycle
Speaker 4: that I think surprises investors on the upside. What do
Speaker 4: you mean because right now, expectations New York City cab
Speaker 4: drivers barrish on Apple, and I think that what I
Speaker 4: like about the setup is it's all about it's kind
Speaker 4: of left behind. Now, A lot of that's been self inflicted,
Speaker 4: because every Apple event feels like it's a I feel
Speaker 4: like Michael J. Fox and back to the future. You know.
Speaker 4: So they continue to be left behind AI, but now
Speaker 4: with the Google DOJ issue in the rear view, they
Speaker 4: will double down ultimate in that Gemini partnership. And when
Speaker 4: you look at the install base, I think I think
Speaker 4: Street is underestimating what numbers look like for iPhone when
Speaker 4: you look out over the next six, nine, twelve months.
Speaker 4: And I think in big tech, I view Apple from
Speaker 4: a sentiment perspective relative to where I viewed Alphabet. Maybe
Speaker 4: about six months ago.
Speaker 3: You in your note ahead of the launch called Apple's
Speaker 3: AI strategy quote invisible. You said the elephant in the room,
Speaker 3: and is the black over the stock AI is invisible
Speaker 3: or Apple's invisible AI strategy? Did you get any more
Speaker 3: information today at the launch about its strategy?
Speaker 4: I mean, I think fundamentally it they're keeping it close
Speaker 4: to the vest right like you in the words, like
Speaker 4: it continues to be that black cloud. I think they're
Speaker 4: waiting for ultimately what's going to be Gemini, because I
Speaker 4: think they had a choice either go down the route
Speaker 4: with perplexity and ultimately look to acquire that or if
Speaker 4: it was a favorable ruling, then the Candlelight dinner with
Speaker 4: Google and sun Dar could ultimately start again and then
Speaker 4: you could actually double down that partnership, and that is
Speaker 4: I believe the direction. But look, Tim, they got it.
Speaker 4: It was a black eye moment a year ago when
Speaker 4: they weighed out the AI strategy made it's ninety five
Speaker 4: percent of that had a backtrack on it.
Speaker 3: Well now and now they've lost a lot of the
Speaker 3: senior executives that were working on that to not apply.
Speaker 4: And we've talked about there's a better chance to me
Speaker 4: playing Ryder Cup Beth Page than any internal AI strategy
Speaker 4: happening at Apple.
Speaker 1: But is that such a bad thing? And this is
Speaker 1: one of the things that Dan we talk a lot
Speaker 1: about that maybe Apple's just kind of watching. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of money slash around trying to figure out what
Speaker 1: ultimately are the standards, the methods the companies that really
Speaker 1: dominate right in terms of AI kind of protocols, and
Speaker 1: maybe Apple's like, I'll just watch and then we'll figure
Speaker 1: it out.
Speaker 4: Are that bad? I think it's bad. I compare it
Speaker 4: to like Saturday night in New York City, there's a
Speaker 4: restaurant where there's one person in there at eight thirty like, oh,
Speaker 4: they must know something everyone else does. I'd rather go
Speaker 4: to the place where people are lining up outside when
Speaker 4: it comes to ultimately AI, time's not on their side.
Speaker 4: Lookquid open AI, Look at Meta wartime CEO, look at Microsoft.
Speaker 4: Look what are Google's done? That's why you as an
Speaker 4: all time high. So I do believe cooks recognize this.
Speaker 4: But the problem is is that now it's a go
Speaker 4: time moment when it comes to AI and that look
Speaker 4: we've talked about, that's how you get the three twenty
Speaker 4: five three point fifty four hundred dollars stock is AI,
Speaker 4: you know relative to right now Apple, they're kind of
Speaker 4: on the outside looking in of that AI party where
Speaker 4: it's still ten pm going to four A.
Speaker 3: Everyone wants to know about what the heck is going
Speaker 3: on Over at eight Co Holdings, your chairman of this company. Now,
Speaker 3: I think it took a lot of people by surprise.
Speaker 3: It's a crypto treasury firm. And for those who aren't
Speaker 3: familiar with the way this works, so Michael Sayler strategy,
Speaker 3: but with a different cryptocurrency. This is world Coin backed
Speaker 3: by Sam Altman eyeball scanning stuff what is going on here?
Speaker 4: So I wouldn't have done this as chairman if it
Speaker 4: was just a regular token back strategy. The reason I
Speaker 4: did this it has to do with sam, It has
Speaker 4: to do with my view World is going to be
Speaker 4: a de facto standard for identification authentication in terms of
Speaker 4: human proof in AI world. This is much more of
Speaker 4: a tech infrastructure play than when i'd say the traditional
Speaker 4: crypto play. So obviously the reason I'm so excited about
Speaker 4: it is really this is going to become I think,
Speaker 4: a huge part of the story and the narrative. It's
Speaker 4: really an intersection of AI and crypto.
Speaker 1: Explain that damn.
Speaker 4: So what that means is, you know, as timped it's
Speaker 4: IRIS scanned the orbs. Right going forward in the future,
Speaker 4: especially in the robotic world, bots everywhere, you're not going
Speaker 4: to be able to just identify through a boot check.
Speaker 4: It's really going to be IRIS scanning. What they've done
Speaker 4: already fifteen million humans on the platform I believe going
Speaker 4: about one hundred million over the next year. That's going
Speaker 4: to be a form of identification that's probably the most
Speaker 4: privacy lock box out there, and it's secured by a token,
Speaker 4: a World token. So my view and our view as
Speaker 4: a team, this is early days in terms of where
Speaker 4: this is all heading. And that's why we want to
Speaker 4: do the strategy.
Speaker 1: Now, what's to prevent somebody else from doing the same
Speaker 1: thing they are.
Speaker 4: They're playing a different game than they They're Nvidia in
Speaker 4: twenty twenty two. And in other words, like relative to
Speaker 4: what Sam Alex and the team have built out, I
Speaker 4: mean from an infrastructure and authentication perspective, they are I
Speaker 4: think miles ahead. I don't see anyone that could catch them.
Speaker 4: That's why we bet on World as part of the
Speaker 4: acres strategy. And obviously having someone like Tom Lee and
Speaker 4: bitmnor you know, a big investor, that's another support that
Speaker 4: we're so excited to have.
Speaker 3: You've also got an ETF the launched back in June.
Speaker 3: It's the dan Ives webbush Ai Revolution ETF.
Speaker 2: It's up sixteen percent since launch.
Speaker 3: It's outperforming the S and P five hundred and the
Speaker 3: Nasdaq one hundred, Broadcom, Google and Video, TSMC, Apple, They're
Speaker 3: the top holdings. Somebody watching right now might be like, Okay,
Speaker 3: he's got a clothing company, he's chairman of this crypto
Speaker 3: treasury company. He has this day job at webbush How
Speaker 3: am I sure that he's going to manage this ETF
Speaker 3: and have the time and resources to manage the CTF
Speaker 3: in my interest.
Speaker 4: And that's a great question. I'd say, when you think
Speaker 4: about my chairman role, it's all related to AI in
Speaker 4: the infrastructure, and there was this is interrelated to my
Speaker 4: view of where the AI revolution gets built out. And
Speaker 4: the reality is that ninety five percent of my time
Speaker 4: has spent you know, three and a half million aire
Speaker 4: Miles Well, I was twenty five years. I think what's
Speaker 4: what's enabled to distinguish us is feet on the ground
Speaker 4: talk talking whether it's private public partners and really, you know,
Speaker 4: I think that's how investors have grown to do.
Speaker 2: You add do you add eight co holdings to the
Speaker 2: I E T F?
Speaker 4: No, No, that would be totally it's a total separate operation.
Speaker 4: You keep firewalls between it.
Speaker 1: Though, Like there's gonna be people who are saying, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course Dan's gonna talk up that he loves alphabet
Speaker 1: and that he looked loves Nvidio. I mean he's got
Speaker 1: an ETF like.
Speaker 4: I just how do we sure like and and and
Speaker 4: and part of how investors know us the ETF is
Speaker 4: all based on our ives A I thirty. It's all
Speaker 4: based on our research. So the reality is I think
Speaker 4: part of how we've gotten so you know that the
Speaker 4: the customer, I'd say from an investor perspective, we've had
Speaker 4: massive uh you know, I think reception for the ETF
Speaker 4: is because it's our thirty names that altimately we've used
Speaker 4: the winners and we and we change at every quarter.
Speaker 4: And that's I think you about ETF, what it's based on.
Speaker 4: It's all based on the research and got everyone here
Speaker 4: that knows dan ives they know like feet on the street,
Speaker 4: not sitting there in some Peter Malar fifteen to four
Speaker 4: of New York City office building. And the only time
Speaker 4: you travel is two times in San Francisco.
Speaker 2: You just got back from Australia.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I literally landed here from Australia.
Speaker 2: What were you doing there?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: So part part work, part pleasure. So it's fun because look,
Speaker 4: I mean we when we talk at AI revolution like
Speaker 4: in Sydney, in Melbourne pack meetings, because the reality is
Speaker 4: that this is not just us. And that's why I
Speaker 4: spend so much my time traveling around the globe.
Speaker 1: What might be the irrational exuberance part of kind of
Speaker 1: the trade today or the tech trade or the AI trade,
Speaker 1: and just got about thirty seconds.
Speaker 4: There's gotta be some fluff out. Just because you say
Speaker 4: AI forty times in a conference call doesn't make yourself
Speaker 4: an AI need Look just because like Tim he was
Speaker 4: wearing an AI shirt because he says it fifteen times and
Speaker 4: says Tim on the back AI, it doesn't mean. My
Speaker 4: view is you have to distinguish the winners and the
Speaker 4: real ones from the fake. And that's three out. And
Speaker 4: then look, that's what we spend all of our time doing.
Speaker 2: The one company you're most bullish on right now, public company.
Speaker 4: SCUAI volunteer that's going to a trillion next two to
Speaker 4: three years. And I always say the haters hated, hated, fifteen,
Speaker 4: despised eighties, say it's super expensive one point fifty, they'll
Speaker 4: be seeing the same thing at a trillion.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a company we've talked a lot about, I
Speaker 1: would say, in the last year, and then some tenives.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Always appreciate it. Glve Ahead of
Speaker 1: Technology Research at web Bush Securities