KawzInvests
Co-Author of Asymmetrical Bets, Photonics/Optical Cycle, AI/Defense/Space
OneSpan's subscription and recurring-revenue growth add operating evidence for its place among the identity-security picks. Revenue beat expectations at $63.9M, and full-year revenue, ARR and adjusted EBITDA guidance rose. Mitek and Clear Secure also look attractive. Financial institutions in Korea and India reported breaches; CrowdStrike says the Korean attacker used an AI penetration-testing tool. Binance had not confirmed the suspected hot-wallet hack. x.com x.comÂ
AI agents handling customer payments could drive much more bank spending on identity and transaction security. Axios reports agents accessing bank accounts and trying to move money. OneSpan sells banks these services and, per its investor deck, serves over 60% of the world's 100 largest banks. Agents using customers' browsers and logins are harder to detect; banks need identity, permission and approval checks. Mitek, Clear Secure and Riskified also look attractive. x.com x.com x.comÂ
AI is turning security spending from optional to essential, and beats from CrowdStrike and Okta confirm it. CrowdStrike's Q2 revenue rose 26% with record net new ARR of $333M, up 51%, and raised guidance; Okta's RPO reached $4.86B, up 17%, with a second guidance raise this year, after Fortinet also raised. AI agents and coding widen attack surfaces, Morgan Stanley estimates up to $220B of added security demand, and buyers are consolidating onto platforms. x.com x.comÂ
Cybersecurity is catching a bid, with seven favored names. CrowdStrike is the category king, ARR up 24% to $5.25B; Palo Alto's platformization is real, guiding next-gen ARR up 56%; Zscaler is the zero-trust toll booth for AI agents; Cloudflare is where agent traffic terminates, with agent requests doubling monthly; Rubrik is a cyber-recovery compounder with revenue up 46%; SentinelOne is a consolidation and AI-attach story at a discount; Check Point, the cheapest, is a value reacceleration. … Show more
Clear Secure will be a great short once the federal budget passes and the current TSA disruption is cleared up. @realEstateTrent is promoting TSA PreCheck plus CLEAR as the way around the TSA chaos; budget approval is the signal to sell. x.comÂ
SailPoint may be the most undervalued cybersecurity name at 36x NTM P/E, versus CrowdStrike above 100x and Palo Alto above 75x for similar growth. It sits in identity, where non-human identities such as service accounts, API keys and AI agents are multiplying faster than human headcount ever did, a structurally bigger attack surface, and SailPoint is probably the play on that issue. It passes the initial tests for a deeper look. x.comÂ
An open letter from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft and 100+ organizations urging a global surge in cyber defense is a demand signal, telling every board to make security an immediate priority. CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, Zscaler, Fortinet, SentinelOne, Okta, Cloudflare, Tenable, Rubrik and Akamai are positioned to benefit most. Nine of them signed the letter, and Rubrik sells resilience for attacks that get through. Palo Alto's next-gen security ARR grew 60%, and Rubrik's revenue 46%. … Show more
AI models able to hack companies are super bullish for cybersecurity companies like CrowdStrike. Per The Information, as relayed by @lord_fed, a Meta AI model accessed the internet and hacked a company; if even Meta's model can do it, hacking another company cannot be that difficult. That helps explain CrowdStrike's unstoppable run. 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
Cybersecurity may be the next big AI trade, because AI agents create a whole new attack surface. CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz says the threat is now autonomous campaigns at machine speed, and each agent becomes a privileged identity needing least-privilege access and a kill switch, pushing security into runtime infrastructure. CrowdStrike, Palo Alto and Zscaler are in a land grab. CrowdStrike's 15 years of telemetry can't be copied, making its Threat Graph a network effect. x.comÂ
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
SailPoint and Tenable are the cybersecurity names worth owning, while CrowdStrike at 167x forward earnings, a 6x PEG, and Palo Alto Networks at 89x look far too expensive. SailPoint is the cleanest play on agentic identity, not cheap at 55x earnings but much cheaper than CrowdStrike and Palo Alto with faster forecast growth. Tenable trades at 17x forward earnings with EPS growing about 13%, and its net revenue retention in exposure management just rose above 106%. x.comÂ
