Transformative impact of AI on technology and the economy

So almost all of our GDP growth really needs to come from productivity. And if you go study electricity, what did the electricity do to global productivity? It added roughly 1% a year to the global GDP statistics for 32 years. I think AI is going to beat that handily. I mean, 1% a year for 32 years I actually think is a low bar for what AI can do. And why is that? It's because AI is a one-to-many technology, right? It leverages our capabilities.

The area that we're seeing it most right now is in digital semis, right? Where is this showing up in the stocks and the revenue? It's in digital semis. And why is that? It’s because the compute processing of AI—we've talked so much about it being so high and the compute intensity being so high.

Dominic Rizzo:

Look, I always take a step back with technology. I say, OK, where are we with valuations? The global technology universe is trading at roughly 25 times earnings today. Historically, that will peak at 26 to 28 times earnings. So we're at that upper end of the range, but we're not nearly at the extreme levels that we saw during the ’90s, where you would see over 30 times earnings. And you know, I have the saying internally: You know, AI has the potential to be the biggest productivity enhancer for the global economy since electricity. Productivity-enhancing technologies are usually accompanied by speculative bubbles.

Our job is to navigate speculative bubbles responsibly through an investment framework. I don't see a speculative bubble today. I see names that are at the higher end of historical ranges, but not absurdly expensive. When I look at demand drivers, software, we talked about agentic AI. When I look at semis, core auto industrial potentially bottoming, smartphone, PC potentially bottoming, accompanied by the strength of AI chip spend, internet getting very high ROI on this capex. You put it all together, and I actually think it’s a really nice outlook for technology for 2025.

Anthony Wang:

Yeah, I agree. I think that, you know, a lot of strength has been really driven by earnings growth and not valuation. So that's, you know, the “Mag Seven” looks reasonable to me. And then, I think that you've got the kind of bouncy compounders continuing to look good and grow. If we get a better accelerated economy, that should be a tailwind. As well as the stuff the Accenture’s, that IT services have been really kind of depressed because of weak economic data. As well as broad-based semis, that should also be good.

So, I'm optimistic. I know we're going on year three of a really strong tech rebound, but I think just given everything that's happening in AI, I do think that can prolong this cycle.

We had a robust discussion on crypto.

And the first negative I always hear with crypto is it's used for illicit or negative activities. And I would say:

Number 1: The number one currency for illicit activities is the U.S. dollar today, and

Number 2: The dollar doesn't have a blockchain, which you could follow every single transaction. So actually, I think crypto is more secure over time rather than less. 

The next thing I hear is that the government won't support crypto because it means the end of dollar dominance. I think that is actually completely opposite of the truth. I think that that's totally wrong. I think that crypto will accelerate the dominance of the dollar over time. And there's really two reasons. 

One, we have all of these new assets in the world that are primarily priced in dollars. So look at Bitcoin, primarily priced in dollars. I think it's one of the top 10 largest assets in the world today. It's effectively like adding a whole other gold or new oil commodity base that is primarily priced in dollars around the world. 

Second, I think the big use case for crypto overtime is stablecoins. And what is a stablecoin? 

My name is Dominic Rizzo. I'm Italian American obviously, and I carry a lot of cash in my pocket. It literally burns a hole in my pocket every day because I'm not getting my 4% interest that I could be getting in the bag. With the U.S. dollar stablecoin, if I could just pay with the U.S. dollar stablecoin every day, I would be able to collect my 4% interest and pay. So I'd get all the benefits of cash, but I'd be able to be collecting interest along the way.

It's effectively like a money market fund that you can spend. And today, stablecoins are the eighth-largest buyer of U.S. Treasuries in the world. Think about that: the eighth-largest buyer of U.S. Treasuries of the world. The new secretary of commerce, former CEO—the CEO of Canner. Canner does all the custodialization for Tether, which is one of the two big stablecoins in the world. 

So, I think we're going to see an explosion in stablecoin demand, and that's going to really all benefit the crypto ecosystem.

And the third benefit of crypto is just speed and low cost of transaction. Five years ago, you didn't have the benefits of something like Base, which is a layer 2 on Ethereum, or something like a Solana that sped up the transaction cost and bought them down dramatically. And now we bought basically internet scale speed to money. 

And so I think that's why crypto should do really well over time.