Cloud/IT Enablers

All,

I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately about the swirling concerns of global slowdown, and all these other gloomy projections. Who knows some of it may be right. All I know is projections are usually wrong but a recession will happen at some point.

Instead of just caving in and selling all my investments (like all the amazing market timers…sarcasm), I’m trying to think about how my companies might fare in a recessionary environment.

Lots of people have assessed that we are in a once in a generation type scenario with Cloud transformations and IT stocks. I agree with that sentiment and everything I’m seeing in my day job (Business Management & IT consulting) supports that as well.

No signs of weakening demand yet.

Anyways, here’s an email with some thoughts on a few of our companies and my simplified explanation of the value they offer their customers.

Very off the cuff so take it with a grain of salt.

I’m a huge fan of:

Nutanix (as you know): I think the future backbone of tech infrastructure is a combo of on and off prem. Nutanix is a clear leader. I’m excited to see Xi grow and keeping an eye on their federal business (i believe underappreciated by wall street)

TWLO: communications between companies and customers (and the over all customer experience) will always be crucial. Twilio takes care of all of that.

ESTC: enables internal search for companies/search between companies and customers (the Uber driver/rider example). This is and always will be a critical need for companies.

AYX: We are just cracking the nut on how important data analytics are and companies are beginning to learn how to use their data.

PSTG: I lowered my position size because I want to see my thesis begin to play out in order to make sure I’m not just in love with the story… but I think data will be key to all of the above.

TEAM: need to do more research on growth and saturation, but they offer the platform/products that are becoming ever more popular amongst the teams that are executing all these changes in IT and Cloud implementations.

I also own large positions in MDB and TTD but those are kind of different businesses in my opinion.

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*I don’t own TEAM but am considering a position and these are not all my positions. Just the ones relevant to this topic. See my Dec update or profile for all my positions.

Good group, my main concern in that list is Pure. As far as I am aware, you must own their hardware to use their software. NTNX saw this as a limiting factor for themselves and got rid of the hardware requirement, which opened up a lot of doors.

I would offer Zscaler as well. While my research is not complete and therefore my conviction not solid, I do believe companies will opt for software-defined-networking and firewall-As-a-service vs spending capital on traditional networking.

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