Scott Wapner sat down with Brad Gerstner, founder and CEO of Altimeter Capital, in San Francisco to discuss AI, the market and more.
What Brad Gerstner said
Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.
Brad Gerstner said the market's central question is whether AI revenues justify the capex build-out. He noted AI revenues exploded this year, citing Anthropic's forecast of $30 billion at the start of the year, with reports now suggesting at least $100 billion. Gerstner said he reduced his exposure to medium-small at the All-In Summit a month ago, and his exposures are the lowest in three years, due to concerns about AI stocks getting ahead of themselves in April and May and additional fears like inflation and rates. However, he remains positive for 2027 and 2028 and plans to start buying over the next couple of weeks as prices become enticing. He acknowledged the chop and consolidation in the market, arguing it avoids bubbles.
Key takeaways
AI revenues exploded this year; Anthropic's forecast went from $30 billion to at least $100 billion.
Gerstner's exposures are the lowest in three years, reduced to medium-small at the All-In Summit.
He remains more positive for 2027 and 2028 despite short-term consolidation.
Look deep into the AI trade, assess the risks and rewards of this societal transformation, and what the recent action in the stock market suggests about the road ahead for investors. Altimeter's Brad Gerstner is with me today for the hour. He's been in nearly every major meeting at the White House that they've held on AI. Snowflake CEO is going to join me as well today, as the future of software in this AI age remains a hotly debated subject. The investment committee with me as well: Josh Brown, Stephanie Link, Malcolm Etheridge. Can't wait to hear from everybody today.
You know what the market picture looks like, but let's show you because the Dow is up big, but AI stocks are not. I want to start with you. As we, you know, we think about semis. What's happening with CoreWeave? And we'll get to CoreWeave more specifically in a moment. Is this about AI slowdown concerns? Is this about debt levels and interest rates going up? Is this about choice? See all of the above. What do you think?
Yeah, of course it's all of the above. Well, first, great, great to be back here. We talked about this maybe a month ago, right? The number one question in the market today is: do the AI revenues justify the capex build-out? I mean, frankly, it goes back to the conversation I had with Sam Altman on my podcast last October when I asked him the question: how can you make $1 trillion of spending commitments when you have $13 billion in GAAP revenue? Well, what happened this year is revenues exploded higher, right? Remember the forecast for Anthropic at the start of this year, $30 billion. Now, a lot of the reports have them doing at least $100 billion. We'll get into that a little bit today. But the fact of the matter is, AI revenues exploded higher this year, and now we're in this phase of consolidation.
People are starting to worry: is open source commoditizing the frontier labs? Are the revenues sustainable? And at the same time, then they're hearing in the marketplace that things may have slowed down. So that plus higher rates, plus some of the political stuff going on in the background, has people scared. I will tell you, I'm on the more positive side of this, but I think it's good we have this churn in the market. It avoids bubbles.
Okay. You're more positive, you're on the more positive side, but your actions suggest that you are getting more cautious, don't they? I mean, you've taken your exposure down.
Yes. I mean, I did, you know, a presentation at the All-In Summit about a month ago. I said I had taken my exposure down to medium-small. I think I had shared that with you just the week before then. And the reason for that is I saw a lot of these AI stocks in April and May. We had the biggest move in semis in history, right? And that was that. The fuse was lit by the Anthropic revenue report in March of the year. And I just thought they got ahead of themselves, that we were going to consolidate a little bit. And it turns out there were even more fears that came along: inflation, rates, etc. So our exposures are the lowest they've been in three years, right? Over the course of the last couple of months, the lowest.
But remember, remember, I live in two simultaneous but different worlds. One world is I manage money for people in a hedge fund. And so my job is to make sure I avoid some of the drawdown in my long-only fund and in my, my, you know, growth funds and venture funds. We're investing for the next 5 to 10 years. So I'm telling you, when I look at '27 and '28, I'm even more positive. And we can get into why. But you have to acknowledge that there's going to be chop along the way. So it doesn't surprise me at all that we've had some of that chop, some of that consolidation. Why am I getting more positive? Why am I leaning in and maybe start buying over the course of the next couple of weeks? Because I'm seeing prices come in and start to get enticing again.
6 more exchanges in this transcript
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Gerstner, B. (2026, October 15). The AI trade in focus: Altimeter's Brad Gerstner joins 'Halftime Report' live in San Francisco [Interview transcript]. CNBC Television. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3067810/
MLA
Brad Gerstner. "The AI trade in focus: Altimeter's Brad Gerstner joins 'Halftime Report' live in San Francisco." CNBC Television, 15 Oct. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3067810/.
BibTeX
@misc{gerstner2026_3067810,
author = {Brad Gerstner},
title = {The AI trade in focus: Altimeter's Brad Gerstner joins 'Halftime Report' live in San Francisco},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, CNBC Television. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {oct},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/3067810/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
