Prepared Remarks
Equity Investor, Macro Commentary
CrowdStrike is not worth buying at 40x revenue, and there are very few plausible scenarios in which it is ever worth that multiple. AI is not overhyped, but the argument that massive tech disruption justifies the price echoes 2021, when Covid was said to be changing how people worked. As in 300 years of technological change, there are likely far fewer losers than expected. x.com x.comÂ
CrowdStrike at 40x forward sales is hard to take seriously as a best idea into 2027. x.comÂ
CrowdStrike at 45x revenue is even sillier than its valuation back in 2020, when its fundamentals were far stronger: customer count grew 116%, revenue guidance beat the Street and sales and acquisition costs fell. There was a time to own it; that time is not now. x.comÂ
CrowdStrike is where the AI buildout ends, because rising AI demand expands the addressable market for security. Management said that since Anthropic's Mythos, growth has shown up in ARR, not just meetings or interest, and the threat landscape is not subsiding. The stock's move higher is a rerating: CrowdStrike can grow faster as it gets bigger, with no end in sight in an AI world, though the share price could wobble. x.com x.comÂ
CrowdStrike's AI risk is limited but real, because it is tied to white-collar workers and their devices. A prolonged fall in white-collar employment could cut Falcon agents deployed, and an advanced AI that clearly solved big parts of cybersecurity could squeeze budgets. Against that, its core has been machine learning from day one, and AI raises security spending as attackers use it; its CEO says Charlotte usage rose over 6x. It trades at 21x EV/ARR with ARR up 24% and 0% GAAP operating margin. … Show more
Anthropic and OpenAI's inevitable move into cybersecurity threatens CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks' valuations. They look like the market's biggest bubble stocks right now; CrowdStrike trades at 40x ARR despite 25% growth and negative GAAP EBIT. x.com x.comÂ
CrowdStrike's re-rating reflects a massively expanded market in which security seats are defined by AI agents rather than employees. The Mythos model announcement and a frontier model going rogue with cyber attacks changed the fundamentals since the stock was at $100. It is very expensive versus its history and peers, and @InvestingVisual notes it trades at 109x forward free cash flow, but that does not mean nothing has changed. x.comÂ
CrowdStrike's valuation of over 50x revenue is completely indefensible. x.comÂ
CrowdStrike and Palo Alto Networks need 50%-plus growth to deliver even a 10% IRR over a realistic horizon, but almost no conceivable case gets them there. They feel as dumb as Zoom and Peloton in 2021. Even if revenue doubles over four to five years, Palo Alto would still trade at 10x revenue and CrowdStrike at 20x, leaving little prospect of a real IRR; Palo Alto is growing in the teens today. x.com x.com x.comÂ
CrowdStrike may distinguish itself from an expensive cybersecurity group by showing more breakneck growth at earnings next month. Fortinet's slowing product revenue exposed how much relentless execution investors had priced into the group's extreme multiples, pulling CrowdStrike down in sympathy. CrowdStrike remains in a higher tier than Fortinet, which itself ranks above SentinelOne. x.com x.comÂ
CrowdStrike's 45x sales multiple on mid-20% revenue growth only works if multiple expansion continues in perpetuity, which no long holder can count on. x.comÂ
