Bill 'Latency Lord' Brennan
Fundamental Growth Investor, B2B/Sector Leaders & Picks-and-Shovels
Rubrik is in a dangerous place, one deceleration away from growth in the 20s while still sub-scale. Palantir is a better company at a much better multiple and is accelerating while sustaining triple-digit growth. Rubrik would be worth a solid bet in the $60s or $70s, but on current fundamentals it shouldn't be more than a 5% position. x.com
Rubrik is too expensive now against a $70-80 valuation, even though its very strong platform drives nearly 40% growth that can continue for many years as a cybersecurity and data-recovery play. x.com
Continued improvement in fundamentals and technicals could carry Palantir to megacap scale. A $1 trillion market cap is a realistic destination for strong growth companies, and Palantir appears on that path, though its timing is uncertain. Drawdowns remain opportunities to accumulate until the thesis changes. x.com
Rubrik is a decent way to own cybersecurity at about 9x next-twelve-month revenue, while CrowdStrike, Cloudflare and Palo Alto Networks valuations look ridiculous. It still needs to improve margins and reduce dilution. x.com
Rubrik belongs in the too-hard pile until it proves it can make money and stop diluting shareholders. @InvestingVisual notes that net losses, dilution and stock compensation as a share of revenue are shrinking each quarter, but trending in the right direction is not good enough for a large investment; continued proof over time could prompt a rethink. x.com x.com
Palantir's government contract activity is growing sharply, supporting its resilience despite the share-price pullback. Its $2.1 billion in 12-month obligations is up 184% from the prior year, among the strongest increases tracked. The Cryptic Bottom Index remains green despite the pullback. Its score is among the highest in the Cryptic Research System, led by growth and profitability, though catalysts and valuation score weakest. x.com x.com x.com
Rubrik should not be compared with SentinelOne because Rubrik generates real free cash flow. SentinelOne began decelerating before reaching $1 billion of revenue, while Rubrik is likely to exceed $2 billion and still grow at around 20% a year. Concerns about subscription billings timing miss the point; the past three years of cash generation show the trend. x.com x.com
Palantir's roughly $500B market cap and 80x sales make it prudent to trim exposure despite continued affection for the company. Its tenfold run has already delivered substantial gains, not just the beginning; smaller speculative positions are getting crushed in this environment. x.com x.com
Combining estimated NTM revenue growth with trailing GAAP EBITDA margin makes Palo Alto Networks, Datadog, JFrog, Rubrik and Snowflake look overvalued against forward EV/sales. Zoom, Alphabet, Oracle, AppLovin, Microsoft, Fair Isaac, Adobe, Amazon and Teradata remain undervalued on this Rule of 40 comparison; Palantir, Cloudflare and CrowdStrike remain overvalued. x.com
Rubrik's high switching costs and emerging AI-security demand underpin growth that looks attractively valued. At 12.9x forward EV/sales, it trades below the cybersecurity peer median relative to expected revenue growth. Subscription ARR grew 32.6% YoY and net dollar retention reached 119%. Agentic AI security adoption remains early; non-GAAP operating margin hit 7.8%, though GAAP net income remains negative partly due to stock-based compensation. x.com
Palantir's valuation leaves it vulnerable to a nasty reversal. Its attached metrics show 178.8x trailing earnings, 80.1x trailing sales on an enterprise-value basis, and 110x next-twelve-month earnings. x.com
