I got to ask you, what stands out to you? What was the big picture takeaway?

So great to be with you, Alex.

Thanks for having me.

This is such an interesting company.

I'm so used to covering tech, but we saw from GameStop a record-breaking quarter.

In fact, the biggest number, Q2, that they've had is since 2002.

We saw operating income for the period highest since 2008. like I said, 2002, net income was up.

Lisa, not only are they invested in it, but does it still matter, I guess? Is that still a possibility? I mean, I think eBay kind of shrugged off the request, but is that still maybe happening or is that probably a little bit too big of a, I guess, an item for them to bite off?

I mean, what do you make of, you know, gross margin guidance right now?

So I think it's weird, I don't know if the right word, dynamic, I guess, right now.

You mentioned the partnerships, and that's something that jumped out at me when I was looking at what have they been doing like the last month.

And they're in this flywheel.

Are they in it? Are they spinning it? Where at the same time, they're benefiting from the hundreds of billions invested in AI infrastructure.

At the same time with partnerships, I'll mention in a second, they're really working to kind of help create more demand for that.

So they're kind of in the middle there because we know Jensen talks a lot about AI factories and that requires a ton of upfront investment.

I mean, has the bar just become so high that the hammer can't do anything but fall and pummel it down?

Uh, how is the fact knowing that they can still communicate with him during that process registering with them?

I think that's, um, that's paramount.

Like, that's the most important thing, is that they can still have that communication.

And, I mean, if it sounds as much likely as possible, that's...

I mean, I think our situation is already, um, challenging.

And to make it as, I guess, to ease the transition, um, it's easier and it's better for them, I think, to just have that ability to still talk to him and to still communicate.

Lisa, what do you hope this research will do for people who are in situations like your family?

All they can do is go forward.

You said at this point, though, it may actually bring more investments so that AI security is improved.

Yeah.

And the thing about AI and cybersecurity is it's, it's a paradox because the same capabilities that make AI agents potentially harmful are the same capabilities that make them really powerful cyber defenders.

Companies I follow, like Palo Alto Networks, Unit 42, they call AI, and I think this is a great, uh, phrase, uh, a force multiplier for attackers because it makes existing threats faster.

They can scale easier.

But AI is also becoming a force multiplier for defenders, Nicole.

So CrowdStrike, they're talking about the emergence of the agentic SOC.

And I don't mean the stock, I mean in your opinion as a person in technology, do they seem to have clear leaders?

It's the the unexpected price increases the announcement of this new leasing program there were a lot of questions swirling about the future of apple what were your takeaways and were you expecting the reaction that it got when you saw the numbers come out yesterday

I was expecting that yesterday afternoon.

I think the most important story coming out of Apple isn't that it's not about iPhones, the story of the quarter.

Revenue grew considerably.

You mentioned Tim Cook is leaving a company that when he took over, it was about $350 billion.

Now it's $5 trillion.

He talked about, even in June, the memory shortage as like the 100-year flood he described it.

How are you looking at Tesla and what kind of company is Tesla? Is Tesla still, do we still say automaker or has that ship sailed and we're talking AI? And next year when we have this conversation, will Tesla exist or will it be a super company?

But really, what does the company need to show tonight to prove that this level of AI investment is warranted?

guys great to have be on the program thank you for having me so we know google is its foot is heavily on the ai spending pedal so investors all eyes on the size of spending as you mentioned but also the return they're asking can google monetize ai will doubling ai capex will it pay off for google stock you mentioned jenny the plan to spend up to $190 billion on AI infrastructure.

That's this year.

Here we are in the end of July.

Management says, as you've alluded to, more spending next year.

Look at last quarter.

Google Cloud grew 63%.

Where do you kind of rank that? ALPHABET WHEN IT COMES TO SORT OF THESE AI MODELS? NO ONE IS THINKING IT'S ANTHROPIC AND CLAWED, BUT IS IT CLOSER TO THAT THAN IT WAS A COUPLE YEARS AGO?

basically played just about every week it feels like for a year having gone to the end of the season deep into June with Toulouse straight on the Lions tour and then he's back in another semi-final with Toulouse this month probably you would suspect going all the way to the top 14 final again so I guess that probably Lisa is a sensible decision to give blair kinghorn the summer off and grant kilchrist as well who they're i think they're trying to keep him on cotton wool for the world cup at 35 years old

yeah definitely like i say i think it's definitely looking ahead to how important the next 18 months are going to be so making sure these guys are in as best contention as they can to fight for these spots and obviously like you mentioned the grant kilchrist is a somewhat slightly older gentleman and playing up in the forwards and how much of a physical toll that you know it's taken on him it's making sure that he's in the right place physically mentally game time wise that he can put a good account of himself going in because we know how important he is how much um experience he has within that second row which at the moment looking at the squad that's been selected is relatively light on the ground other than Johnny Gray in that second row at the moment so having him available later down the line is going to be key and imperative and and like you say with with Blair Kinghorn as well the sheer amount of rugby that boy who's been playing, whether that be Scotland, Lions, Toulouse, he's got a lot on his plate and it is about player management and player welfare now, just the sheer amount of games and high standard of games these guys are playing week in, week out.

There's no real off weeks for them that they can kind of take their foot off the gas because especially in the top 14, Every game is difficult.

Every game is a physical challenge.

So, yeah, it's definitely looking a little bit, like I said before, those next 18 months to put as many players in strong contention so that Greta has some difficult choices to make come that World Cup squad.

But like you said, with the two uncapped hookers coming in and Seb Stephen and...

Gregor Hiddleston as well.

And that all in the space of three weeks with a player pool that a nation like Scotland has is a massive, massive challenge.

So as a sort of NASA scientist turned tech analyst, what is this company? Is it a rocket company or is it an AI company?

I think it's both.

I think the bigger story here is that space is, as we look at like terrestrial data centers, space is becoming really deeply connected to the future of technology, of AI, and global infrastructure.

And a lot of investors think, well, SpaceX, is it a tech platform? Is it an AI? I think increasingly honestly, the real asset here isn't just the rockets, I think it's the data, uh, the infrastructure ecosystem around the Rockets.

Uh, Starlink if we look at the kind of di- you know, dissect it gives SpaceX and its global communications network, right, over 10 million users worldwide.

Then we look at Starship, that could really, really reduce the cost of deploying infrastructure into orbit.

And I think what caught investors' attention on Wednesday with the SEC filing was the emphasis on both AI and orbital compute connectivity.

Then how much of it is about the execution and the cadence of actually getting this stuff up there and creating that link, as you say, of Starlinks which is gonna create the data centers?

And we also think about autonomy and partnerships and things that these companies are doing to really add to the bottom line.

Now what stood out to me, Nicole, I was looking this week at Uber, DoorDash, Instacart, I use all of them, is really how they've evolved.

I mean, they were companies that were like convenience apps a few years ago, and they are far beyond that now, right? They've become like essential core digital infrastructure woven into our daily lives.

And for one thing, what they're sitting on is a ton of real-time consumer data, logistics data, and they're leaning heavily into AI, machine learning, because they're looking to optimize everything from pricing to delivery routing to personalization.

And all that, it's not only improving the customer experience, it's actually helping them to improve margins and really drive business outcomes that investors want to see, like operational efficiencies.

They're seeing AI help reduce idle driver time, optimize delivery batching, and better match supply with demand in real time.

But if we look at the hood here, It's a massive cloud infrastructure store that's powered by like the hyperscalers, for example.

When you look at some of these names and how they're evolving from what they used to be into something AI-driven or something autonomous, give us more examples about what you're watching when it comes to tech and how that will continue to grow and probably add to the markets as well.

Google now is really, they're saying, what, 20%? I mean, they're really giving Google some big market share numbers now.

Yeah, so they just made one thing really clear yesterday, Nicole, great to be with you as always, is that the future of enterprise software, it's not co-pilots, it's autonomous AI agents.

And so yesterday, Sundar, he leaned into this agentic era, that's AI that doesn't just assist, but it actually executes workflows across the enterprise.

I hear that from companies I talk with every day, but it's not about better chatbots.

What Google is doing here with the 8th generation TPUs is they're positioning AI to run business processes.

This isn't just about supporting them.

At Google, they're not competing on models.

And, you know, where are we seeing some of that that can likely happen, more of that?

But when it comes to Scotland and you've got to call a player in, they don't have the PWR riches that England have, and this is what the difference is.

Yeah.

It, it just shows the, the depth that we're really having to, A, try to build because, like you say, having an em- injury to Emma Orr was bad enough.

Now we're having another injury to Evie Wills, and we're really looking at our 13 options being like, well, like you say, either Holly McIntyre, who is uncapped, relatively inexperienced at, um, international level, international caps, and then we're putting Lucia Scott in there, who is a great player, but she's not a 13.

You've got Rachel Phillips, who's also in the squad, who can play 13, but again, plays 13 completely differently.

Um, it, it's going to be a massive, massive struggle now to see, A, what they think the option's gonna be now going forward, and B-I think their game plan's gonna have to change somewhat slightly.

We're not gonna have a 13 who can maybe go as much of an outside break or is gonna be that- that key linking player that we- that we've had with Emma Orr and Evie Wills.

He's gonna have to think about his strategy ahead of what is gonna be a massive game away to Italy next Saturday.

Um, what does this mean about Scottish rugby and its approach to women's sport going forward?

I think it's just setting the bar and setting the standard of this is what we can achieve, so actually how do we therefore then push it even higher and even better and not just kind of sit on our laurels of, "Oh, we've done it once.

That's great.

We're never gonna do it again." I think it's solely looking at that transition of can we have more games there at Murrayfield.

We've shown we can fill out the bottom of the bowl.

Can we fill out more of it? Um, but it also, it shows that there is a real desire and want and drive from Scotland as a country to watch women succeed in sport.

Um, obviously off the back of the World Cup, they've seen them, um, progress to the quarterfinals.

I mean, uh, the, the numbers go on, Gallagher These are all names that are first on the team sheet.

But what the biggest takeaway for me for investors would be from that event given the reaction we've seen.

Yeah, Sam, great to be with you.

Thank you for having me.

The biggest shift from last week is that we've clearly moved from AI experimentation to AI production.

Last week at GTC, the conversation, it wasn't about prototypes.

It was about scaling infrastructure to support real ongoing workloads in production.

So NVIDIA is now delivering with its ever-growing ecosystem, very strategic, full-stack AI system.

What are you keeping an eye on?

Your thoughts.

Great.

Nicole, great to be with you.

Thank you so much for having me.

I think Salesforce tells us what's happening with enterprise software budgets broadly.

When they report, it's not just about a company, it's really a temperature check on enterprise spending.

And is AI translating into real revenue? Is it still just headlines? Salesforce is really the enterprise bellwether.

And how do you feel about Snowflake, Lisa? I mean, you know, is it similar or different to what you saw with Salesforce, for example?

So which is it? How are you feeling about tech weakness and the sell-offs? Are they opportunities or no?

There are opportunities.

Nicole, great to be with you.

Happy New Year.

It's great to be on the show.

I think the tech slump that we saw last week, the week of January 12, it looks more like a reset than a real warning.

We've seen this huge AI driven run recently.

Are you concerned about Adobe?

But Lisa, are you concerned now about the build-out and doesn't catch up? So why, how and why does that slow us down?

Well, the scale of the investment is staggering.

If you look at what JP Morgan estimates, um, in terms of annual funding needs for data center AI infrastructure, they say this might reach by 2026 $700 billion.

2026 is around the corner.

They say this will exceed 1.4 trillion by 2030.

Uh, but the boom about the AI data center and funding, it's not just about tech companies.

We need to kind of expand this.

Um, what are your thoughts, Lisa?