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Something interesting happened 
the other day. 

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I was looking through our stats 
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other 55% of you are awesome. 
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No pay walls. 
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Thank you so much. 

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Jenny Johnson runs Franklin 
Templeton, which manages about 

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$1.7 trillion. 
She compared the current AI 

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stock frenzy to the early days 
of the California Gold rush. 

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She said she doesn't care if 
it's a bubble. 

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That stopped me completely cold.
This week at Abu Dhabi Finance 

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Week, some of the most powerful 
people in global finance 

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gathered to talk about AI, and 
they do not agree on what's 

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coming. 
Is AI the greatest technological

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shift of our lifetime? 
Or is it a disruption that could

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hurt the companies that are 
betting on it, like Google? 

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Johnson was not the only 
executive making bold statements

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in Abu Dhabi. 
Steven Schwartzman from 

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Blackstone talked about doubling
the electricity grid. 

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Chris Hohn, who runs a $60 
billion hedge fund, said the 

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uncertainty is off the charts. 
We're going to walk through what

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each of these investors actually
said, where they see the risks 

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and what the infrastructure 
plays look like right now, and 

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we'll get right into that after 
the short break. 

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Now, the world's largest money 
manager spent this week in Abu 

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Dhabi debating whether AI stocks
are worth their prices. 

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Alphabet, Meta and Oracle have 
all rushed to debt markets in 

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recent months to fund their AI. 
That spending spree is adding to

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unease about possible AI bubble.
The executives at this 

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conference had strong opinions 
and they split into mainly 2 

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camps. 
Jenny Johnson landed firmly in 

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the believer camp. 
She dismissed concerns about 

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high valuations to the scale of 
what's happening. 

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Her argument was simple. 
Only about 7 stocks are driving 

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the AI trade right now, but the 
tech itself could be one of the 

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greatest shifts of our 
generation. 

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Complaining about expensive 
valuations, he said, is like 

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complaining that picks and 
shovels got expensive during the

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gold rush and misses the point. 
Franklin Templeton manages $1.7 

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trillion, so her read on this 
carries a lot of weight. 

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She also added that we have not 
begun to see the real impact of 

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AI yet. 
It will take years before the 

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tech shows up meaningfully in 
company earnings. 

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Policy makers and economists are
still figuring out how AI 

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effects productivity and labor 
markets. 

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And here's the key point. 
Johnson is not saying buy 

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everything. 
She's saying the bubble question

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is the wrong question. 
The right question is whether 

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the underlying technology will 
matter, and she thinks it will. 

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Now Steven Schwartzman runs 
Blackstone, a trillion dollar 

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alternative asset manager. 
He focused on infrastructure. 

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AI now touches almost every part
of economic activity, he said, 

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and is creating massive capital 
expenditure demands. 

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The electricity piece is the one
that got my attention. 

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Swartzman said the country would
have to theoretically double the

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size of the electricity grid to 
support all of the AI. 

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That's not a small thing that's 
going to cost trillions of 

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dollars. 
To create that much electricity,

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a lot of other things have to 
happen across society. 

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New power plants, new 
transmission lines, new 

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regulatory approvals. 
And the AI build out is not just

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a software story. 
It's about energy now. 

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Keep going with me here. 
Not everyone at the conference 

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was bullish about this. 
Chris Hoen runs TCIA $60 billion

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hedge fund, and he offered a 
different view. 

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Hoen said certain AI companies 
and investments do not make any 

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sense at this stage. 
He didn't name any names, but 

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his reasoning was very clear. 
AI will be a force of 

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disruption, and disruption is 
not always a positive for the 

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companies in its path, said 
Forces of disruption are 

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increasing and the best universe
of investments is limiting and 

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shrinking. 
His most striking line was about

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risk. 
Uncertainty and risk factors, he

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said, are off the charts. 
That puts pressure on everyone 

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trying to pick winners in this 
space. 

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So what do we know? 
Right now? 

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The divide is not about whether 
AI matters. 

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Everyone agrees that it does 
matter. 

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The divide is about timing 
evaluations. 

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Johnson says the tech is so 
significant that expensive 

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prices are beside the point to 
spend money on it. 

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Hohen says prices have 
disconnected from reality, and 

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the disruption could hurt more 
than it helps. 

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Both manage enormous sums of 
money. 

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Both are looking at the same 
data now. 

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Raj Agrawal runs the real assets
division of KKR, which manages 

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$723 billion. 
He offered a middle path. 

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The best AI investment, he said,
is in data centers. 

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That's the infrastructure layer,
the physical buildings that 

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house the servers. 
But he added a warning. 

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You have to be cautious about 
paying big multiples that 

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require growth in a specific 
period to get your capital back.

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That echoes what Oracle is 
experiencing. 

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The company is investing so 
heavily in AI data centers. 

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That is free. 
Cash flow will be negative for 

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years, according to recent data.
Hold out of that detail, 

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Mubadala. 
The Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth 

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fund, said its approach to this 
is to stick to investment 

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principles and not chase 
aggressive growth. 

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That's a different posture than 
some of the American tech giants

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are taking. 
And, you know, there's a Abu 

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Dhabi Investment Council as 
well, another sovereign wealth 

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fund they're still buying. 
They said that they like AI and 

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biotech because they have been 
big winners. 

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They they expect them to keep 
winning. 

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The industry, they said, is in 
the middle of its journey. 

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If you believe AI is in the 
middle of its growth curve, 

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current prices might be 
justified. 

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If you believe it's closer to 
the peak, the math changes a 

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lot. 
Now. 

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The conference in Abu Dhabi 
service to real tension. 

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The people managing the world's 
largest pools of capital see AI 

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as transformational. 
You also see valuations that 

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make them very nervous. 
The optimists are betting on 

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decades of growth. 
The skeptics are watching 

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companies borrow heavily and 
burned through their cash 

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reserves. 
Now the infrastructure investors

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are looking for the safer way in
buying the data centers and the 

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power plants instead of the 
actual AI models. 

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None of these views are wrong 
right now. 

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They just reflect different time
horizons in different tolerances

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for risk. 
Hey, thank you so much for 

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listening today. 
I really do appreciate your 

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