What was in the data, the earnings that has started this move?

Well, so I think what's really interesting is we, we've seen this over the past couple of quarters, where coming into the earnings announcements, you see the skepticism begin to rise.

You know, maybe profit growth won't be as good as it has been.

Maybe margins will finally start to come back in, and then they impress.

And for the most part, you know, the numbers are good.

They may or they may not be, but I think the market is focused on the fact that even if you exclude the equity investment gains from the overall earnings season number, you're still looking at earnings growth of 30%.

And so these are just unequivocally good numbers.

Is it the same story?

Um, and, or if not, where do you see it going? Where would you like it to go? What do you want to stick around and where do you want-

Well, everyone's talking a lot about AI, um, and if you're not watching The Comeback on HBO Max, you should watch it.

Um, start from the beginning, though, um, 'cause this season, it's like a th- they, they film the three seasons w- one season every 10 years, but now it's about AI.

Um, and there was a lot of talk about a year ago about AI's gonna take over food writing, um, recipe writing, um, but you know what? You really need a person to make a recipe.

A machine cannot create a recipe.

It could create a recipe, but you only know it's gonna work if someone makes it, a person who makes it.

I mean, a machine could make the recipe and add the flour, but it needs to be made.

Good place

Um, and everyone should go and make the Dave and Kate's brownies.

And I wanna just give a shout-out to King Arthur, who has done an amazing job over the years just promoting bakers, helping bakers, um, being a very, um, aware company as well, um, making sure, you know, keeping-- holding people together through baking, which is so important now, especially nowadays when things have become fractured.

Yeah.

Um, baking is something that really brings people together and is a joyful activity, but it's also, and I hate to use the word 'cause it sounds like a cliché, but, uh, nourishes our soul.

Um, but it's true.

So thank you, King Arthur, for, um, and everybody there, for being such good people-

He grew up in Connecticut in the 1960s as a typical prune-skeptical American.

In my grandmother's refrigerator, there was this cloudy sort of charcoal-colored prune juice.

And it was a source of a lot of snickering.

I never saw anybody drink it.

But I think people who did drink it did it in private, like in a darkened room with the doors shut.

But then as a young man, David began working at the restaurant Chez Panisse, Alice Waters' famous Berkeley-based locavore Mecca, where they would routinely take prunes grown locally just down the road and turn them into show-stopping menu items.

We would do things like poached prunes with kumquats in creme fraiche.

We would do this, it's called a pastis.

He grew up in Connecticut in the 1960s as a typical prune skeptical American.

In my grandmother's refrigerator, there was this cloudy sort of charcoal colored prune juice.

And it was a source of a lot of snickering.

I never saw anybody drink it.

But I think people who did drink it did it in private, like in a darkened room with the doors shut.

But then as a young man, David began working at the restaurant Chez Panisse, Alice Waters' famous Berkeley-based locavore mecca, where they would routinely take prunes grown locally just down the road and turn them into show-stopping menu items.

We would do things like poached prunes with kumquats in creme fraiche.

We would do this, it's called a pastis.

But then as a young man, David began working at the restaurant Chez Panisse, Alice Waters' famous Berkeley-based locavore mecca, where they would routinely take prunes grown locally just down the road and turn them into show-stopping menu items.

[upbeat music] We would do things like poach prunes with kumquats in crème fraîche.

We would do this, um, it's called a pastis.

It's a Gascon dessert.

It's prune puree with, like, wrinkled up phyllo dough around it.

It's very dramatic.

It looks sort of like the Sydney Opera House.

In fact, in France, prunes are thought to have terroir, like wine.

Away from AI, do you see productivity driving investment?

Exactly.

And so, you know, I, there are a couple of things that I would focus on.

One, i- it's not just about the AI itself, it's about how you apply the AI.

And I think that's where some of the headwinds are.

I think a lot of industries are still figuring out how to use this technology, but it is going to change the game, it is gonna support growth over the longer term, and importantly, it opens up this channel for more investment and it allows investors to benefit, not only in the big tech names that are doing a lot of the creation of this technology, but also over time, this should broaden out.

It should support financials, it should support materials, it should support utilities.

So David, you say in your notes, "Diversification isn't optional, it's essential." What's diversification for you guys?