Nasdaq Euphoria is Hitting its Limit with Kai Wu and Ben Carlson
May 15, 2026
AI Summary
5 min readIn a single quarter, Anthropic’s revenue run rate reportedly went from $9 billion to $30 billion, and it is on pace for $50 billion by the end of next month. Its net dollar retention is over 500% on an annualized basis—meaning existing customers are spending five times more than they did the year before. These numbers are not from a public company’s earnings call; they are from a private AI lab whose first dollar of revenue came in March 2023. The episode opens with these figures because they frame the central tension of the conversation: the market is euphoric about AI in a way that feels historically familiar, but the underlying fundamentals look nothing like past manias.
The AI trade is real, but it is also the only trade
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What you'll learn
- 1 Nasdaq Euphoria is Hitting its Limit with Kai Wu and Ben Carlson
- 2 (10:18) **Episode Introduction** - Josh Brown and Michael Batnick welcome returning guests Ben Carlson and Kai Wu to discuss the red-hot AI-driven market
- 3 (13:16) **The AI Trade Returns as the Only Game in Town** - After Liberation Day, AI became the dominant economic story, with the Oracle scare quickly reversed by improving fundamentals
- 4 (14:45) **Anthropic's Insane Growth Numbers** - The scale of revenue acceleration at Anthropic is unprecedented, raising the question of where the money is coming from
- 5 (17:54) **Cerebras IPO and the AI Infrastructure Boom** - Cerebras raised $5.5 billion, opened at a valuation near $100 billion, trading at roughly 300 times revenue
- 6 (21:34) **Valuation Reality Check on Semiconductors** - Despite massive stock gains, forward P/E for the semiconductor index is only 27, not reminiscent of 1999
- 7 (24:19) **Nvidia's Sideways Digestion and the Competition Question** - Nvidia sat at $180 for six months despite monster beats, making investors wonder if the trade was over
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Guests on this episode
Show Notes
On episode 242 of The Compound and Friends, Michael Batnick and Downtown Josh Brown are joined by Ben Carlson and Kai Wu to discuss: Nvidia, Anthropic, software disruption, intangible assets, faster market cycles, and Ben’s new book Risk and Reward and much more!
This episode is sponsored by: Betterment Advisor Solutions and ClearBridge
- To learn more, visit https://www.betterment.com/advisors
- Rising geopolitical tensions, continued market uncertainty, stocks backed by can offer more predictable cash flows as volatility increases. To learn more, go to https://www.clearbridge.com/
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Investing involves the risk of loss. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be or regarded as personalized investment advice or relied upon for investment decisions. Michael Batnick and Josh Brown are employees of Ritholtz Wealth Management and may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this video. All opinions expressed by them are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management.
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