Meta, Microsoft and Alphabet All Report Earnings - podcast episode cover

Meta, Microsoft and Alphabet All Report Earnings

Oct 29, 202532 min
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Watch Carol and Tim LIVE every day on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF.
Meta Platforms Inc. said it expects total expenses to significantly increase in 2026, and the company will continue to spend at historic levels on data centers and other equipment to fuel its effort in artificial intelligence. The shares dropped in extended trading.
The company also reported third-quarter net income of $2.71 billion, which included a one-time, non-cash income tax charge of $15.9 billion due to the implementation of the tax bill signed into law in July, Meta said in the statement. Without the accounting charge, Meta said net income would have increased 19% to $18.6 billion.
Meta reported third-quarter sales of $51.2 billion, which beat analysts’ average estimate of $49.6 billion. The company has used profits from the advertising business to fuel its AI ambitions. While Meta has argued that its AI investments are paying off now by helping the company better target ads and content, a slowdown in ad sales could damp investor enthusiasm for Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg’s long-term vision for AI.
Meanwhile Microsoft Corp. reported a steeper climb in spending than Wall Street expected, fueling anxieties about the high costs of providing AI infrastructure.
First-quarter capital expenditures including leases, an indication of data center spending, came in at $34.9 billion, up from $24 billion in the preceding quarter, the company said Wednesday.
Alphabet Inc. reported quarterly sales that beat analysts’ estimates, buoyed by the performance of its cloud unit, which is surging as artificial intelligence startups seek Google’s support and computing power.
Third-quarter sales, excluding partner payouts, rose to $87.5 billion, Alphabet said in a statement Wednesday. That topped the $85.1 billion expected on average by analysts, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Net income was $2.87 per share, compared with Wall Street’s estimate of $2.26.The company is investing record amounts to try to push progress in AI, and infuse answers and assistance from its large language model, Gemini, into its popular products including search. The company said capital expenditures for the year will be $91 billion to $93 billion, up from the $85 billion earlier estimate.

Today's show features:

  • Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Technology Analyst Anurag Rana on Microsoft earnings and Alphabet’s AI ambitions
  • Ivan Feinseth, Research Director and Chief Investment Officer with Tigress Financial Partners, with reaction to Wednesday's big tech earnings
  • Brooke May, Managing Partner at Evans May Wealth, breaks down Microsoft and Alphabet earnings
  • Bloomberg News Senior Technology Reporter Kurt Wagner, on Meta’s latest earnings

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Speaker 1

Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. This is Bloomberg business Week Daily reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay ahead with insight on the people, companies, and trends shaping today's complex economy. Plus global business finance and tech news as it happens. The Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast with Carol Masser and Tim Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio.

Speaker 2

Let's head out to our Chicago News bureau.

Speaker 3

That's where we find Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Technology analyst Ana agr anaag. We want to give you a little time to stew over this, walk us through what we've got so far from Microsoft, because investors seem a little disappointed.

Speaker 4

Yeah, I mean I don't I don't really find a whole lot of mistakes. And there's these numbers and you look at as your growth of thirty nine percent, I mean given that size, that's pretty good. The margins actually stood out way, you know, way higher than what we were anticipating. We thought there was going to be pressure on margins because of all the spending, and then the last league when you look at the capex number substantially higher than the thirty billion that they talked about now in.

You know, to some people, maybe that's a disappointment, but for us, that's a good thing because I think they have so much demand coming in. They're going to add more capacity this year and that's something that you know, we have been saying for a while.

Speaker 5

Well, you know, I'll ask you the same question that I asked Angelo Zino a little earlier. Maybe it's too early to tell me if we won't hear anything about on the call, but the cloud race between the three biggest providers out there, Aws, Azure, Google Cloud, is there an opportunity for Azure to get market share from companies that might have been affected by last week's AWS outage. Is that an opportunity?

Speaker 4

Well, I typically I would say no, because they are facing the same problem today. Frankly, so when you look at some of these large install bases, it's very difficult to change your applications. But what is the big opportunity, not just for Amazon or not just for Microsoft, but for all of them, including Oracle, is most companies eventually will have a backup cloud provider. They don't have it right now, but that is going to be one of the bigger growth drivers down the road. After the AI

boom is done, you know. So, I mean, from our side, the market is big enough for all of them to prosper very very well in the coming years.

Speaker 3

I mean, honor as you said that the Azure cloud computing unit posted a thirty nine percent revenue can in the quarter when adjusting for currency fluctuations. That did beat the street estimate of thirty seven percent. I'm reading some you know analysis that says, well, that was a disappointed the expectations were high. What what was there a whisper number in terms of growth on the street.

Speaker 4

No, the consensus was thirty seven. This is what the company said. Now there is if you really want to dissect it, you know badly, then you could say, well, Google Cloud growth accelerated in the quarter compared to the previous quarter, but Microsoft it was thirty nine. It's it's still at thirty nine. But you know, there are different basis. That one's you know, Microsoft is running at about seventy five percent,

you know, eighty billion dollars in annual run rate. You know, Google Cloud is still at thirty percent, and yet Azure growth is higher than Google's cloud growth. So, you know, I think people are probably just splitting hairs at this point.

Speaker 5

Yeah, and you reference that when you were answering my question. You reference the outage that Microsoft has having right now, this global Microsoft outage, So we should note that, Yeah, just cloud cloud companies are cloud companies, and sometimes it's AWS that has the outage. Sometimes it's Microsoft that that

has the that has the outage. Hey, the open Ai question, we talked a lot about this with you yesterday, and I imagine that on the call, investors will have a lot of questions about, Okay, this close to thirty percent ownership of open ai, the parent company of chat GPT, what is that going to do for Microsoft?

Speaker 6

See?

Speaker 4

I think from our site, the equity part is not what you know, for concerned, it's really the technology that Microsoft is holding on to that's really the critical piece because you know, one of the ways we think about is they will sell more products, they will sell more cloud services using that technology than they would just on the you know, share side of it. And that's a bigger thing for us because they have, you know, a hold of that for the next seven years.

Speaker 3

Hey, one of the things I want to ask you, and I know this isn't typically your coverage, but you know, you're smart to cover all things technology, but Meta Meta down almost eight percent here in the aftermarket as you see this, Uh, what's what's the problem. There's one tax one time tax charge. I guess we're still trying to figure this out. But is it all about that or is it just that we were caught off guard?

Speaker 4

See I think that could be a lot of the noise then the number, and you know, I'm very sure they're going to give clarity on that. But the big question of the overhand of Mega Meta always is, you know, how are you monetizing AI. You're spending all this money, where's the revenue you show for it? I think that's where management really needs to give and address that in a much more succinct way than they have. The other side is they don't have a cloud platform just like

Google does or Amazon does or Microsoft does. So Meta is the one that needs to explain these things far better than, frankly, the other three.

Speaker 5

I want to bring in Ivan find Seth, a research director and chief investment officer with Tiger's Financial Partners, got over five hundred million dollars in assets under management, and pose that same question to him about meta platforms the company, saying that the implementation of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act led to the recognition of a valuation allowance against our US federal deferred tax assets reflecting the impact of

the US Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax. The result of one time non cash income tax charge of fifteen point nine three billion dollars, shares Caroll down seven point eight percent. Ivan, You've had some time to dig into this a little bit on the meta platform side. What's going on here?

Speaker 7

Well?

Speaker 6

All right, so the Big Beautiful Bill caused the recognition of a deferred access set. It's actually a non cast charge. And there while it caused a spike in their tax rates eighty seven percent for the quarter, it actually goes down significantly going forward. I think this is really a non event. It's an accounting issue, and I think any weakness is a buying opportunity in the STOP because there's so many positive long term trends that will continue to drive the STOP higher.

Speaker 5

But is that why the stock is down right now because of this one time charge affecting the bottom line? Is that is that the concern? Or is it what Carol brought up? The idea of cap X going up next year and to spend.

Speaker 6

Well now we have seen investors make a mistake consistently in selling Meta Meta platforms. On capital investment increases, they continue to invest in driving their AI capabilities, which drives increased user engagement, it drives increase return on AD spend investment. So I like when they continue to invest, and we've seen this multiple times. If you listen to what Mark brig does every time he invests, from the beginning from changing the company from Facebook to Meta, and when he

was investing in mobile, the stock sold off. Now most of the people engaging in Facebook and Instagram do it on their phone, so you have to listen to him, and he says what he does, and he does what he says, and he continues to create value. So on any weakness over the increasing capex. And again this is positive because there's been a fear that we're going to see this AI bubble burst, that companies are not going

to continue to invest. We've seen all three companies reporting today, Alphabet, Microsoft and Meta all increasing capital investment in AI development. And that's positive for the companies, those three companies, and it's positive for the bullish AI investment theme.

Speaker 3

You know this fifteen percent corporate alternative minimum tax. Yeah, I'm googling some stuff here, folks, because I want to understand stand it.

Speaker 2

It came out of the.

Speaker 3

Inflyflation Reduction Act of twenty twenty two, and it generally applies, I think to corporations with our regenually just financial statement income exceeding a billion dollars every three consecutive years.

Speaker 2

Yeah, we're all going to be learning a little bit more about this. But tim you keep bringing up like why why aren't we seeing this with maybe some of the other ones?

Speaker 5

Yeah, why is metaplat? Why are we only talking about this with regard to meta platforms?

Speaker 6

They may be one of the ones that has the largest deferred tax asset and that has really to do with timing and expensing of things like R and D as an example.

Speaker 3

So, you know, we're talking about a lot of things, and I mean we want to get you know, your view on some of the other companies that have reported Anna Rag. We do want to ask you, though, what are you thinking that you want to You're going to be looking for on a call going back to Microsoft, if you will, As we continue to see that one trading lower here in the aftermarket. Let me just pull it up on my Bloomberg because we have seen some

pressure here the stock continuing. It's down still about three point four percent, is it? What do you want to hear.

Speaker 2

From this company?

Speaker 4

I think.

Speaker 2

Let me let me get Anaog first, forgive me Ivan, okay.

Speaker 4

All right, So the biggest thing for us, who's going to be you know, what's the back half the capic spending? The CAPEX and the first sport was very high, thirty five billion compared to thirty which they guided to. We want to know what is it going to be in the back half of the year. Are they going to slow down dramatically or is it going to keep pace? It where we are right now?

Speaker 3

All right, Anaag, we know you've got research to right We're going to let you go and look forward to reading that.

Speaker 2

Ivan, we want to stay with you for a little bit.

Speaker 3

We are talking with Ivan find Seth, research director and chief investment officer with Tiger's financial Partners on a ug run of course, our senior tech analyst here at Bloomberg Intelligence. I'ven other companies that reported Meta obviously caught our attention. We just talked with Microsoft, are talked about Microsoft at the anarog. What's your take on what we got from them, because that stucks down about three percent here in the aftermarket.

Speaker 6

Well, right now we're in an environment of you know, people who have been buying these stocks have headed results. They sell into the results. But I say, I'll say that this AI investment theme is powerful and the companies leading it are Meta uh, Google and Microsoft, and you got to buy on any weakness. I want to hear from Microsoft about increase AI driven uh application and engagement and subscription increases, how users are buying and implementing and

using copilot. Of course, you want to see growth in all key categories like cloud Azure.

Speaker 2

I mean Azure was up thirty nine. That's pretty good, right.

Speaker 6

Phenomenal, and that's their big growth engine and they have been announcing huge contracts so as Google. Unfortunately Amazon had that outage was it was uh disappointing, but didn't really set back the stock. But these are the growth drivers that the cloud hosted AI platforms.

Speaker 5

Yeah, I was, I was uh surprised to see hmas on stock actually higher that day, I know, but I think also speaks to the power of Amazon and like you got in a good understanding of how much it has. Remember the company is investigating outages. This is Microsoft is investigating out of office and game applications today also, so this kind of goes both ways. I've ben on Microsoft one more and then we're going to get back to

some more meta platforms I think. But a small one point two percent beat on adjusted diluted EPs on Microsoft for my You know, everybody the company does not give guidance in this statement. It does that on the conference call. It's doing that on the conference call. Is it like worth even talking about it without even having it? Oftentimes we wait for the call to get more information, but in this case, like forward guidance coming from the call, it's kind of a moot point.

Speaker 6

Well, the disconnect and the dichotomy that exists between companies and Wall Street is that companies planned for one, three and five years and Wall Street wants to measure everything on a quarterly basis. I mean, the guidance it's somewhat important, but you wanted to see consistent growth driven by their investments in technology, the adoption and use of their technology that creates their competitive advantage, and those are the key

things to look at. And we are in the first inning of the World Series of AI driven economic global economic growth, and this trend is going to continue, and it's going to be powerful, and it's going to be game changing. And I think that AI is going to enhance and create many more jobs than it will eliminate.

Speaker 3

Going back to the costing though, for Meta, you know, I'm just that operating margin for the third quarter down from forty three percent last year. Is that worrisome or you think manageable?

Speaker 2

Not really, okay.

Speaker 6

We've looked at companies that have had huge growth to directories while their margins we're contracting. In fact, Amazon doesn't focus on margin. They focus on revenue growth. They don't focus on return on capital actually, which is one of the key things we focus on. But they do drive a huge return. So you know, there are times where your growth margin can contract, but your economic margin can increase. And that is the economic margin is the difference between

return on capital and cost of capital. That is the most powerful driver of shareholder value creation. So it's not so much important by what happens with gross margin. It's in fact, I've seen many companies drive huge growth by lowering their growth margin because you're just becoming more competitive and they're actually making it up on return on capital.

Speaker 5

Okay, we're going to talk about alphabet with you in just a minute, Carol, reminding me that shares are surging higher in the after hours six percent. Okay, one more on meta platforms down eight point four percent in the after hours. Reality Labs losses for the third quarter four point four billion. It's about the same as one year prior. Obviously,

it's a huge investment area for meta platforms. In the press release, Mark Zuckerberg specifically calling out the success of the eyewear and saying, essentially, I don't have it in front of me. To be essentially said, if we think the future is going to be what it is, this is going to be the most exciting moment for meta platforms ahead of us. These will be the most exciting years for meta platforms. What is the opportunity that meta platforms has when it comes to eyewear.

Speaker 6

This is going to be a tremendous communication and interactive platform and it's only going to get better in a few years. We're going to look back on these original glasses, the ones that they've launched from ray Band, the recent ones from Oakleigh, and the functionality in a few years from now is just going to be more and more incredible. But this ability to engage with real time information, to share pictures and images and videos in real time with

other people that you're talking to. And while I'm up, Mark believes that the glasses are going to replace your smartphone. You're just going to keep your smartphone in your pocket and you're going to interact with data and information and people who you're communicating with these glasses. And eventually we're going to see ones. Meta just launched ones with displays. It's going to be all about having displays embedded in the lens so you don't even have to touch your phone.

So this is going to be a huge growth oup and this is going to be what the cell phone was in the mid nineties.

Speaker 2

No rose colored glasses.

Speaker 3

Though right now, because Medicinae is now down near their loads in the aftermarket, down about nine percent, I'm going to remember that.

Speaker 5

Ivan said this is going to be what cell phones were in the nineties. And by the way, he's not wearing any metaglasses right now.

Speaker 3

Well, and I will say our markerment really really likes him as well. Hey, we do have to ask you about alphabet because we are seeing this one actually up about six percent here in the aftermarket.

Speaker 2

What do you like? What's of note do you think in their release.

Speaker 6

Cloud growth, big cloud contract wins that they've had over the past few months with with Meta, with Open Ai, with other companies this you know that Meta, Amazon and Microsoft.

I'm sorry, Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft are building the AI and cloud infrastructure that everybody is connecting to and going to continue and increasingly coming are going to be connected cars as we move through to full autonomy, so we are going to need high speed, real time, constant connectivity to the cloud, and those are huge opportunities for the three major public cloud service providers Alphabet, Google and Microsoft.

Speaker 2

Well, and they're spending big.

Speaker 3

They're now seeing fiscally your capax ninety one and ninety three billion. They had seen about eighty five billion dollars.

Speaker 5

So, hey, you got to spend money to make money, Carol, You got to spend money to make money.

Speaker 3

They say, it's wild, right, like the number they also Gemini their app now has over six hundred and fifty monthly active users.

Speaker 5

Siry fifty million, six.

Speaker 2

Hundred and fifty million. Yeah, didn't I say that? It's a lot.

Speaker 3

How do we how do we know that this AI thing, How do we know that all this spend is going to pay off?

Speaker 2

Ivan, are we still a little exuberant?

Speaker 6

Well, because the functionality we see today is going to be blown away by the functionality in the future. More and more people are going to rely on this technology for all different aspects. And I do give credit to Tom Siebel, the founder of Seble Systems and C three AI, that I believe he said it that every company is going to be an AI company. Every company is to use AI on all aspects of their business, whether it's

to manage supply chain, manage pricing, target marketing. That the functionality is going to increase and people are going to, like you said when Carol, when you wanted to understand more about metas a tax charge, you googled it and we're going to get more information. I did also, I like perplexity. I looked up it, looked it up in Perplexity and kind of and I did understand what they said, but it gave me a little more detail.

Speaker 2

And uh right, it's right, yeah, is it right?

Speaker 6

Do I know what.

Speaker 8

Is right?

Speaker 6

Yes? Well, because I do understand that the tax that it's really the timing and charge, and of managing your tax payment and your tax liability that you tend to offset through capital investment, through R and D and other types of things that happen. So it's really timing issues on how you're a crude tax liability or your crude tax asset falls versus the taxes you will eventually have do or the tax credit you will eventually aren't.

Speaker 2

I just want to know is this soa?

Speaker 3

Is this really Ivan? Finds it, Seth? I just want to make sure it is really me Listen, perfect guest to talk about all of this so much coming at us, Ivan, Thank you so much, really appreciate it.

Speaker 2

I've in fine.

Speaker 3

Seth, Research director, chief investment officer of A Tiger's Financial Partners, over five hundred million in assets under management as of the middle of this year.

Speaker 2

Joining us right here in New York City.

Speaker 5

Stay with us more from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming up after this.

Speaker 1

You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from two to five eas during Listen on Apple Karplay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube.

Speaker 5

Okay, once again, got to bring in what's going on with these companies? Microsoft sliding after reporting that modest EPs beat. We're waiting for Microsoft's call to get forward guidance, so that's important to keep in mind. A small one point two percent beat on adjusted diluted EPs, Alphabet soaring as AI cloud demand, supercharges earnings, and then meta platforms. Looking at our live blog on meta earnings again, waiting for the call to start, sheares a meta platform still down

about seven and a half percent. We're going to talk to Kurt Wagner in just a few minutes and really get the details on this one time charge close to sixteen billion dollars because still got to get to the bottom.

Speaker 1

Of the well.

Speaker 3

And I can't ignore and you pointed this out this you know, expecting total expenses to significant increase in twenty twenty six, continuing to invest at historic levels in AI, so the spend is on.

Speaker 2

Let's see what Brooke May has to say.

Speaker 3

She's a managing partner at the independent wealth management and advisory firm Evans May Wealth. They have one and a half billion dollars in assets under manager. She is with us from Carmel, Indiana. Brook, nice to have you hear a lot of earnings. What jumps out especially among what We've got three of the MAGS seven out with.

Speaker 2

With the reports, So let me try that again. What jumps out at you?

Speaker 7

Yeah, you know it's mixed you really right now, with the street wants to see as that firms are able to spend on AI and monetize it, so those who can are going to be rewarded. When we look at the mag seven earnings expectation, earnings are expected to be up about fifteen percent this quarter, and as we saw, Tesla had disappointing earnings last week, and so we really want to see decent earnings growth from the other six names. We've got three reporting today, We've got Apple and Amazon

reporting tomorrow. And not only is it earnings growth, but it's what are they spending to improve the business, how are they investing in AI? And then how are they going to monetize it?

Speaker 2

So are these decent earnings in your view?

Speaker 3

From Meta, Microsoft and Alphabet because the only one that's really moving up in the aftermarket is Alphabet. So, as you said, we want to see decent earnings. So we got three of the big mag seven that reported, are they decent earnings? Because right now got Meta dropping in the aftermarket, and you also have Microsoft under pressure here in the after market.

Speaker 7

Yeah, Alphabet is the horse that I would put my money on right now. You know, they've blown their earnings out of the water. You know, not only did they have good earnings growth, but you know, the cloud growth was very strong. You know, search is strong. You know, the street wants to see that Jim and I can compete with not just Chat GBT, but other social media search engines, and you know we're seeing that. In addition to they want to see that AI driven ad performance

is improving. Plus YouTube you know what does what does the ad revenue look like? There? So there's a lot going on with each of these companies, but right now Alphabet is the one who's really knocked the ball, or knock the cover off the ball.

Speaker 5

But is that just is that? Is that just quarterly or you know we we just spoke to Ivan Findeseth and on rog Rana and I think it was on a rog who made the comment about these companies are planning for the next three to five years and Wall Street is looking looking at the next one to two quarters exactly.

Speaker 3

I think Angelo Zeno Angela He said it's not really so important this quarter, he said, you know, expect to double their revenue, like you know over I forget the timeframe, but that's the longer term for Microsoft in particular.

Speaker 5

So Brook is your is your comment just about this quarter? Is it about the long run? With Alphabet being the horse to pick?

Speaker 2

I think it.

Speaker 7

Varies quarter by quarter. You know, when we look last quarter the Max seven, they were expected to grow their earning similar to this quarter around fourteen percent, and artist growth is actually over twenty six percent. So it's going to be very quarter by quarter. These companies, you know, are evolving and the platform, the AI space is evolving very quickly, and some are figuring out. Some have been

late to invest in AI and now we're playing catchup. Alphabet, though, is one that we feel like really is a front runner in addition to Nvidia right now. If I had to pick two of the seven, that's where I would put my money.

Speaker 3

Let's talk Meta just real quickly, and we want to bring in Kurt Wagner Bloomberg News Senior Technology Reports.

Speaker 5

You're working I see in these working right now.

Speaker 2

We are too.

Speaker 8

We're trying to have a head z up Yer coming to me I'm over here sending emails.

Speaker 2

What's going on?

Speaker 3

Hey, making the sausage in front of everybody, because this is what it is. Long get we get a big drop of earnings. You can do it no matter what MENA do. You can you explain this Meta, MENA.

Speaker 4

I'll do.

Speaker 2

I'll do my best.

Speaker 8

I mean, the numbers weren't bad from a revenue standpoint. They beat Q three revenue. The guidance for Q four was right in line with what they've all, you know, what people were expecting for the holiday quarter, which is always the most important. I think the key here is that they said that they're spending in twenty twenty six is going to be way more. They were already spending, you know, between seventy and seventy two billion this year

in capital expenditures. The spending I think was up, you know, more than thirty percent. Now next year they said it's going to be meaningfully larger. So if you were sitting here, you know, trying to get comfortable with this idea that Meta is throwing tens of billions per year, hundreds of billions over the next decade on AI, you probably were hoping that the Q four numbers were going to be a home run, right, not just an inline sort of well, we'll do what we said we were going to do.

You want that to be a lot larger if you're going to hear that the spending is going to ramp up as dramatically as it will in twenty twenty six.

Speaker 5

So, Kurt, you think the increased projection for expenses or the is what's moving the stock lower rather than this one time tax charge, which yes, we're going to ask you about.

Speaker 8

That'd be that'd be my take because the one time tax charge is one time, one time, one time, and it's for a quarter that's now over and done with. And meta if you, you know, take them at their words, says that this big beautiful bill, which is what they attributed this one time tax charge too, is actually going to be the bill is going to help them tax

wise long term. So I think if you believe that to be the case, there was a one time accounting thing in Q three, And to me, the bigger flag is that they are, you know, again going to meaningfully increase spend here.

Speaker 5

That's really helpful. Look, you wrote the book on Twitter before it was called X. You cover social media platforms. You are not a tax attorney, but I'm still going to ask you this question. Sure, Why why is Meta Platforms the only one that's reporting this one time expense at least thus far?

Speaker 8

Should I go back to my phone pretend to be emailing so I don't know. I don't know. I'm told that this is something that actually the other companies are dealing with. I was told IBM and Broadcom similarly, who have already reported had similar tax things. I presume maybe at other companies will as well, so I don't think they're the only one. Perhaps it's sort of getting a little bit more of a tension than others. It's also possible that Meta is choosing. I believe they chose to

do this giant one time tax thing. It's possible others, maybe, the implication being that maybe they could spread this out. You're right, I'm not a tax expert, so I'm sort of offering a little bit of you know, guesswork.

Speaker 5

It's helpful, though, but.

Speaker 8

I do I don't think they're the only ones number one and number two. It's possible other companies are handling it in a slightly different way that That's what I will leave you with. I can't say for certain you know that, don't ask any follow ups.

Speaker 2

That's why IM going to say, right, maybe they thought.

Speaker 3

It was going to be a distraction from that they're spending more money. I don't know, but it's like really got me scratching my head, Kurt, do not go anywhere.

Speaker 2

We're going to come back to you.

Speaker 5

In just emails. We're coming back to you.

Speaker 3

Can okay, you come back in just a second. Hey, we want to go back to Brook May, managing partner at the Independent Wealth Management Advisory from Evans Maywealth. So, Brooke, is there an investment play off of what we got from Meta, Microsoft and Alphabet today?

Speaker 7

For you?

Speaker 3

You mentioned I think that Alphabet was the name you like, are you selling Meta? Are you selling Microsoft?

Speaker 2

On this?

Speaker 7

Microsoft is one I think we're going to have to reassess. When we look at Microsoft. You know, they're not cheap. They're trading it thirty four times forward earnings and when you compare that to their growth right, it's almost a three where you know there their pe is about three times their growth rate and to us, that's expensive. You know, we do want to continue to see momentum in their cloud business and we expect that revenue to continue to

be double digits. But you know, Azure, for example, is having a hard time keeping up with demand. The stock was only at four percent since the last earnings announcement, and it sounds like, you know, they might have wiped all of that out today. And so you know, we need a catalyst, and I don't necessarily see the catalyst in the near term for Microsoft to move meaningfully higher.

Speaker 3

And I should point out that shares and Microsoft have come off their lows in the aftermarket, still down, but just down about one point three percent, so not as negative as we saw earlier. Heybrook, thanks so much for breaking all this down with s Brook May, managing partner at Devans Maywelth joining us from Indiana.

Speaker 5

I want to bring back in Kurt Wagner. He's Bloomberg News senior technology reporter. He joins us from Denver, and Kirk, I want to talk about the smart glasses, the ray Ban, Metas or whatever super Intelligent is working on. This is what Mark Zuckerberg called out in the press release before this one time charge. He said, if we deliver even a fraction of the opportunity ahead, the next few years

will be the most exciting period in our history. The preceding sentence was Meta Superintelligence Labs is off to a great start, and we continue to lead the industry in AI glasses. Is this the next computing platform?

Speaker 8

I'm going to go ahead and say yes, because it's the only one that I think seems to be being built at the moment that I can think of. Like that is in the way that you know, you think of a phone, right or a tablet or a personal device, and so it makes sense to me that the phone would evolve into something else at some point. I do understand why they think glasses could be that thing. It's something people already wear its hands free, which I think

is a huge perk. I think the challenge is going to be, as with everything one, can you make the technology so small and subtle that wearing these glasses on your face doesn't feel weird or look weird because people aren't going to want to do it if they don't feel natural wearing the technology out in public. And then, you know, I think too, Meta's gonna have a lot of competition. We've already seen Apple, you know, coming up with their own device, Google coming up with their own device.

I'm sure there will be others. So you know, on the one hand, if everyone is building towards this, it makes me think that it's even more likely that this becomes the thing after the phone. On the other hand, it's going to be harder and harder for Meta to maintain that lead that I do think they have right now.

They're kind of the first one. You know, they're the first ones with like a mainstream kind of hit in terms of the Meta ray bands, but you know that has a lot of technological sort of steps still to go before it I think reaches that level that we were just talking about.

Speaker 3

So what's your number one question that you would ask Mark Zuckerberg today or he and his team.

Speaker 8

Well, I would want to know if he's got more investments coming in the AI space. And I don't mean just like investing in chips or invest in data centers, but like we've seen some of these other tech companies make become equity shareholders or equity stakeholders and other AI startups. And because Meta can't necessarily acquire a lot right now, you may recall they're dealing with a lot of anti trust stuff in DC. We spent several weeks at their

trial earlier this year. It feels like acquiring AI for them is going to be hard, but the idea of a mega investment seems more reasonable. So, you know, as we're talking about AI and spending, and I'd be curious to know, is all this going towards infrastructure or you, you know, you being Meta going to become a major shareholder in one of these other promising AI platforms.

Speaker 3

You know, it's interesting they do talk about continuing to build their own infrastructure and contracting with third party cloud providers.

Speaker 2

So yeah, I mean, this is how it's going to be, right, We're.

Speaker 3

Going to well, we'll look for some more news certainly on this when it comes to Meta and all of them.

Speaker 2

Kurt, thank you, Thank you.

Speaker 1

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