This is a true fourth industrial revolution, and those that don't recognize it, it's dangerous because it creates the opportunity. You've probably wondered whether the next wave of technology will create opportunity or leave you behind. AI innovation and market disruption are moving faster than ever, making it harder to separate headlines from what truly matters. Today I'm joined by one of the world's most recognized technology analysts, Dan Ives. With more than 25 years on Wall Street, Dan has become a trusted voice on AI, big tech, cyber security, cloud computing, and the future of innovation. He regularly appears on CNBC, Bloomberg, Fox News, CNN, and countless global media outlets. In this conversation, we dive into the AI revolution, why Dan remains bullish despite uncertainty, what investors can learn from companies like SpaceX, why America has regained its technological edge, and how innovation, optimism, and even a bold sense of style can shape lasting success. This is a conversation about seeing tomorrow before everyone else and finding more joy, confidence, and purpose in the opportunities that lie ahead. I'm Larry Sprung, your host for the Mitlin Money Mindset and founder and wealth adviser of Mitlin Financial. Let's dive into the show.
Well, I am so excited today to have Dan Ives, partner and senior managing director at Wedbush Securities with us today. Welcome to the show, Dan.
It's so great to be here. Again, I'm a core Long Island roots, so it's always great to be with a fellow Long Islander. I love the shirt and, you know, I'm just glad me and you were doing this. I love all the stuff you do and just to actually kind of dive into everything. Super excited.
Yeah, thank you. Fresh off of a CNBC appearance and we're doing this now. So, listen, I want to dive right in. So for people who may not know about you, know about your background, can you share a little bit about, you know, your background and what led you up and who you are today?
Yeah. So I grew up in Long Island, remember, not far from where you are and went to Penn State, you know, huge Penn State fan, huge Big 10 fan. Met my wife there actually Penn State. And look, I started off corporate finance working at HBO in New York City in the mid 90s. Went to business school, University of Maryland, and then really in the late 90s as the tech boom was really starting to accelerate at a firm called SDR, which at the time was extremely small, I just started covering tech stocks as an associate. So, so my knowledge of tech was actually pretty, you know, pretty superficial. And then I kind of made it my path or my mission to really build out a strong ecosystem, understand where the trends were heading. And I think our career has been built, you know, call it 26 years on Wall Street by trying to identify trends in companies early, you know, whether it was Apple or the iPhone or, you know, Musk and Tesla or Jensen or Palantir, whatever it may be. It's like you're going to be wrong some of the time. But I think that's how people know is trying to maybe see around corners.
Yeah. So, so basically it sounds like you kind of moved into this and just really leaned into and it's become a passion of yours.
It had, I mean the reality is like when I started I had no technology background. So I recognized that the only way that I was going to be successful, I had to basically pour my life into it. And three and a half million air miles later, you know, here we are. So I think but part of it is just like a lot of travel, a lot of passion, a lot of dedication and that's something where I think people they feel that in terms of that passion. I think that's why many that have followed me. It's understanding that we're spending all of our time trying to separate the fiction from the, you know, from the fact.
Right. Yeah. So, you know, one of the things you're, you know, extremely passionate about what you do and I feel like you're really optimistic, too. And as one of Wall Street's most prominent tech analysts out there, you know, what are you most worried about today given the landscape we're in?
Yeah. And I'd say to some extent too is like by covering tech, you have to be almost an optimist. You have to be a technologist because if you're more negative and you look at everything around spreadsheets and valuations, that's how you've missed basically every transformational tech stock the last call 25 years. But if you said to me like my biggest worry is not capex, circular financing, Fed, the use cases and AI. The biggest thing that I worry about is probably government intervention when it comes to AI, midterm elections, data center like local, you know, in terms of moratorium things like that because Larry, myself, like that spend so much time in Asia, you shut down data centers, guess who wins? China. So I think the biggest thing that I worry about especially into this midterm election year is the politicalization or the grandstanding, whatever you want to talk about when it comes to data center, that's probably the thing I'm most concerned about.
So you're concerned more about what the businesses necessarily can't control than what they can control.
Yeah. Because I spend so much time in DC and meet with so many politicians and there's a lot of misinformation when it comes to data centers. It's like not in our backyard. But it's the amount of jobs that are going to be created from AI. It's an innovation boom that's happening in this country. For the first time in 30 years, the US is ahead of China when it comes to tech. I mean those are things that you know for so much of my career I would be in a, you fly from Taiwan or wherever where you see them eight hours a day putting together fabs, the technology, the engineering talent and then you land at Newark airport and there's a fist fight at Dunkin Donuts and you wonder why we're 17th in math in the world, right? So now for the first time, US is number one when it comes to tech because of Jensen, because of OpenAI, because of Palantir and I just don't want the political environment to cut that off at their knees.
Yeah, that makes sense. So, one of the things I've heard you talk about is, and you know, obviously you talk a lot about AI, but one of the things that I've heard you talk about AI specifically is that it has a PR problem. Why? Why do you think that is?
Because if you tell people publicly that you're going to wipe out every white collar job in 18 months and people coming out of college are not going to be able to get jobs and it's almost more like you get to the top of the building and then you stop the elevators or you stop the ladder. You know, maybe the perception that what's happened in tech created a lot of PR problem because of more dystopian view, negative view and I think that's something that's been a huge, I think shooting themselves in the foot because now if the average person thinks that they're going to lose their job and their electricity bill is going to go higher, why would they be passionate about AI? And I'm saying go back to internet, it was all about like okay you AOL messenger, you contact your friends, internet, Facebook, social media, change, you know, just for the average person, right? And the amount of opportunity too. I think the reason it's a PR problem because more jobs in my opinion are going to be created by AI than taken away but the PR issue is huge because now that's also, I don't care the state, the town, the data center piece is that's on the tops of minds of people naturally. I think there's you're seeing a change from I think a lot of the tech leadership in terms of maybe some of the narratives and I think that's very important.
Yeah. I mean do you think obviously there's two sides of this coin and they vary widely. I mean you think and I think that's what you, I think this is what you said. But I just don't want to put words in your mouth that you feel like the AI boom is going to actually create more jobs than actually that it wipes out.
The amount of innovation that's going to happen is still being massively underestimated the scaling scope. If you're 22 right now or 50, whatever it may be, you don't need 20 million in seed funding to start a company because of AI and other technology. The amount of innovation that you could do and whether it's apps or whether it's use cases and my view is that you know someone myself spent so much time on the road globally and especially in this country there's so many towns that used to be 75,000 people, now they're 20,000, the factory left went to China, you know, somewhere else, Mexico, whatever it may be. Now they had education issues, drug issues, people have left, you know, those now it's an innovation boom that's happening and there's a lot of people in this country that have almost been squeezed out maybe to some extent relative to some of the innovation. I believe we're going into what's going to be an innovation boom in this country that's going to create a mass amount of jobs not just on the data center sides but in terms of engineering, software, services and I think that's something especially when it comes to physical and robotics and autonomous they're being way underestimated in this market.
Okay. So, so hopefully they could correct that PR problem and get it moving in the right direction. I mean, that's what I'm hearing. So, and it sounds like some of that is...
You have to do it. I mean, I don't think you're going to see, I think you're seeing a clear shift that tech companies have recognized it, but you can't, this is not about scare tactics. It's about companies embracing AI, about universities embracing in terms of the way they tweak. It's about in a healthy way of doing it for kids in a way that could actually like increase skill sets. I think it's a look, it's a very fine balance in terms of this technology boom that we're seeing.
You know, we have a frequent guest of the show and he's also a good friend of yours, Ryan Dietrich. And you know, Ryan...
Yeah. Ryan has been, you know, bullish for a long time now. And I guess you talked a little bit earlier about your bullishness around technology. Does that like filtrate through the rest of the markets as well because you feel that you know technology has such a great impact on it or are you just simply bullish on technology or the markets in general?
Look, my view is that the most innovation in the world's happening in the United States. So when you think about the market, of course you're going to have things like in Korea, the massive unbelievable stuff that's going on with like memory chips and SK Hynix and of course there's other place in the world to invest, but in terms of this innovation boom, it's a Goldilocks bull market. I think and Ryan talks about it. I think we're still, it's a young bull market. I mean, it's been our view this is third year of an 8 to 10 year buildout. And I just don't understand how you could be negative when you have five to six trillion of capex next three to four years that's going to be spent and the multiple and the ripple effect on that. Are there things like commodities, Fed, overall economy, recession navigating? Of course, that's so important relative to the framework, but that's also why I look at people like Ryan or Tom or Belski and, you know, Adam Parker and so many others that I try to look toward as well when it comes to macro. I think it's really important.
Yeah, I agree. I agree. I think we're in a very young bull market.
Let's pause for a moment. What actually brings you joy? It's something most people never think about, yet it shapes how your life unfolds. You're busy. You make responsible choices. You even plan ahead. But have you slowed down long enough to ask if what you're building supports a life you enjoy living? That's the reason I built my YouTube channel, to help you bring more joy to your money journey. Sure, we'll talk about all the essentials, but my real goal is to help you connect your finances with what brings you joy. Because money is the tool that funds the moments that matter. If you want to explore that connection more deeply, visit my YouTube channel at Larry Sprung.
Now I want to talk about something that happened recently. You know recently the SpaceX IPO was all over the news, right? You know what are your thoughts around the IPO and what's the lesson, is there a lesson in it for investors?
Look, if you go back to like early days of Facebook IPO, Amazon IPO, if you looked at it just over the course of like three months or six months, Facebook broke IPO price. Let me go back to it on the transformational ones. You have to have a multi-year view. If you get caught up in near-term lockup narratives, I think a lot of times that's not why you should own these stocks. And I think when it comes to SpaceX as an example, it's going to take years for Musk to prove that vision out. You have to be a believer in space. You got to be a believer in AI revolution. And in terms of data and where that's heading in terms of like lessons learned, well clearly like Anthropic, OpenAI and others like they're watching it carefully. It's very complex in terms of the indexing, the nature of how big this IPO was, the market digesting it, but just like Rome wasn't built in a day. I think it's very, it's dangerous sometimes like when you look at some of these companies and you just kind of try to judge them over three to six months.
Yeah. Do you think that IPO will have an effect or a ripple effect on other IPOs and what happens with them and how they're perceived or you know even invested in the future or no?
I mean, I think if you look at overall just the IPO and the reception, what you saw, whether it's, you know, a B+ or a what, however you want to put a grade on it, but not a C or a D, right? I mean, the point is like that's probably something that further validates companies to go public. And it just comes down to like companies with the right business models and the right valuation will go public and the ones that have hubris or flawed business models they won't. I think that's the one thing like when you go back to like dot com bubble and some like myself back then relative to like where we are today. The market obviously is a lot more scrutinizing in terms of making sure what ultimately sees the public market.
Yeah. Yeah. How much of their success or failure is tied to like Musk in his case like the founder of the company? Do you feel like a lot rides on that in these situations?
Yeah. I mean, you're betting on Musk because he's a modern day Albert Einstein. People could love him, hate him, right? But the reality is like anyone that's buying these names, they're betting as much on him as they are the actual companies. Like you could say like, but look I could say like for so many companies like whether it's like Jensen and Nvidia, Satya and Microsoft, go back to like Cook and Apple and now turn, I mean Lisa Su and AMD, risk however you want to call it. It's obviously more dramatic when it comes to Musk, but that's something that we've seen across tech.
Right. Yeah, I think that's right. There is a big impact there. You know, you talked about earlier and I've heard you say, you know, that for the first time in I think 30 plus years, the US is ahead of China in terms of tech. Which I think is important and people, you know, pro-US, they're loving that, right? And they're getting behind it. But you know on a greater scale why do you think that's so important that we are ahead of them for the first time and we've made that leap?
Well, so much of it's based on Nvidia because there's one chip in the world fueling the AI revolution, but it's also why Jensen wants to sell into China is by not selling to China, who do you think benefits? Huawei and other, I mean they ultimately get more and more powerful. But the innovation in China is eye-popping especially when it comes like robotics. They have mass amount of power. Government is obviously huge sort of tailwind for that market. Maybe a few years ago wasn't and the big brothers when it comes on the US side like hyperscalers, OpenAI, Anthropic, think about the chip players from Nvidia to AMD and others and then you look on the software side, Palantir, Snowflake, cybersecurity, CrowdStrike and others so it's just it's an innovation boom but guess what like if you start to restrict into China you start to get more government intervention then that could quickly change and that would change our leadership in that space now you're saying as well, right? But that's what it's like be careful like what you wish for type thing like you know it's very easy to especially on the political side you get into like data centers, midterm, I don't care it's red, blue, green, you know, whatever your political affiliation, it just comes down to like this is a true fourth industrial revolution that's happened and those that don't recognize it, it's dangerous because it creates the opportunity but if you stifle it with the political sort of machine I think that's where you get into the danger zone.
What are like, what's the major, what are like one or two benefits that you see of us being leaders in this space and taking over that lead role from China, you know what are those massive effects that we would expect if we can maintain that level long term.
