Brad Gerstner, Founder and CEO of Altimeter Capital, joins CNBC's "Halftime Report” to talk everything from markets, tech and how to navigate the flood of mega IPOs releasing this year.
What Brad Gerstner said
Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.
Brad Gerstner discussed Snowflake's blockbuster quarter, attributing 33% growth to AI token consumption accelerating core data infrastructure demand and products like Snowflake Intelligence and Cortex Code reaching critical mass. He defended moving Snowflake out of his public funds into Micron and Arm, both up 200% year to date versus Snowflake's 10%. Gerstner described his portfolio management heuristic of 30%, 60%, 90% position sizes, taking profits on parabolic moves. He argued Databricks, ClickHouse, and Snowflake compete in a massive TAM where data is the oil of AI. On the IPO flood, he advised a hypothetical $100,000 investor to deploy 30% now, citing SpaceX's rumored June 12th IPO raising $75 billion and the depth of capital markets. He warned of a possible 10-20% consolidation but maintained AI is the secular trend. He praised Elon Musk's data center and AI capabilities, calling the Anthropic deal a game changer for SpaceX's IPO.
Key takeaways
Snowflake reported 33% growth versus 27% consensus, with full-year guidance raised by more than the Q1 beat.
Gerstner recommends deploying 30% of new capital now, waiting for volatility to add more.
SpaceX IPO rumored for June 12th, expected to raise about $75 billion.
Micron and Arm are both up 200% year to date versus Snowflake's 10%.
A 10-20% market consolidation is possible and would be run-of-the-mill.
0:01What's going through your mind when you see that?
3:42To what degree is Snowflake, to use the words that Cramer used this morning, coming after Databricks, the competitive angle. Now, what does that mean?
5:02How would you think about that if you were that viewer?
7:46If the float becomes bigger and they can add more to the indices?
Deadline. And they do have a countdown clock here on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, which you probably saw when you were last with us on the Cerebrus IPO day. Let's talk some stocks because, you know, when you were last on we talked Snowflake. We knew the earnings were coming. You had said you were still a huge holder of it personally, but no longer in your public fund. My goodness. What's your reaction to this? You know, all you can do is chuckle when you look at moves like this. What's going through your mind when you see that?
Well, first and foremost, when I was on your show, I think you remember that I said, Scott, I think it was about two weeks ago. I said the data infrastructure companies like Snowflake, Databricks and ClickHouse, they're all in the token flow. What do I mean by that? As more tokens are consumed, it accelerates their core data business. I suggested I thought they would have a great quarter and wow, they had a blockbuster quarter. Hats off to the team at Snowflake and to Sridhar for doing this. This is a very different story than software apps like, for example, Salesforce that more directly compete with the AI model companies. But if you peel back the covers on what they reported, 33% growth, accelerating growth versus consensus of 27% growth, they took up their full year guide by more than their Q1 beat. And the massive beat really came from these two trends. AI is accelerating their core, more tokens, faster growth in their core. And number two, their products like Snowflake Intelligence and Cortex Code hit a critical mass in Q1. So I expect this growth to continue. We're seeing it as well in other companies that we own, like Databricks and ClickHouse. But Snowflake continues to be a very, very large personal holding for me. We moved out of it in the funds because I'm in the business, I have to manage this stuff. Year to date, Snowflake is up 10% even including today's moves. Compare that to what we moved the money into like Micron, which is up 200% year to date, or Arm, which is up 200% year to date. So for our investors, for our shareholders, that was the right thing for us to do. Even though today is an absolute spectacular, well-deserved blockbuster day for Snowflake.
So a couple of things. So you're not taking any profits, for example, in Micron, given the crazy move that we've even seen since we last spoke, just as you said two weeks ago. Let me deal with that first. And I have another question about Snow and Databricks.
Great. So yes, we are actively managing our portfolio. Scott, I can't give you every tick and trade. But I will say with these parabolic moves, we absolutely are making sure that we're taking down some of our exposure in names that exceed our price targets, rotating it into other names. But remember, you know, on the All-In Pod we have this phrase, let your winners run. So a key in this business is that you got to let the best companies continue to compound. You've heard me say it on this show before, a simple heuristic for the people watching at home. Think about a size. Think about managing your portfolio in three sizes: small, medium, and large. Okay? And when things are all washed out, when everybody's despondent like they were earlier this year over the start of the Iraq war, maybe you take your portfolio to a large position. When everybody gets euphoric, you may want to take your portfolio from that large position to a medium-sized position. In my parlance, I call it three, six, nine, 30%, 60%, 90%. So of course, when we see these types of moves, we take a little off the table that we can redeploy when we see volatility in the market. You know, that's our job.
So back to Snowflake for a minute, because you put it in the same category as Databricks, which you're an investor in, obviously. And we wait for that to go public. To what degree is Snowflake, to use the words that Cramer used this morning, coming after Databricks, the competitive angle. Now, what does that mean?
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Gerstner, B. (2026, May 28). Brad Gerstner on the market, tech and the flood of mega IPOs [Interview transcript]. CNBC Television. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/945685/
MLA
Brad Gerstner. "Brad Gerstner on the market, tech and the flood of mega IPOs." CNBC Television, 28 May. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/945685/.
BibTeX
@misc{gerstner2026_945685,
author = {Brad Gerstner},
title = {Brad Gerstner on the market, tech and the flood of mega IPOs},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, CNBC Television. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {may},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/945685/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
