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$PANW and $DDOG both put something real inside the customer's systems that an AI lab cannot recreate by calling SaaS APIs. Palo Alto's install is still harder to replace with AI. 1. Datadog's agents mostly sit outside the traffic and watch production. A bad agent version rarely takes the business down the way a bad firewall rule can. 2. Palo Alto's firewalls and SASE cloud gateways sit inside the traffic and decide what to allow, deny, decrypt or inspect. A wrong allow or deny hits live traffic and live machines. 3. Many Datadog users start the day in a coding agent and open Datadog when something looks wrong. Many Palo Alto users start in its console and stay there through alerts, triage and response. For them, an outside AI agent is an add-on. Cybersecurity work splits two ways on AI risk. Work done before code ships ("shift-left") or from outside the traffic, such as scanning code, checking cloud settings and sorting collected alerts, gives answers that are easy to check. AI agents are already taking over more of it. Work in live traffic and on live machines ("shift-right") means judging whether an attacker is still inside and whether blocking them is safe. That is more ambiguous and mistakes cost more, so enterprises move slower and demand earned trust. Palo Alto is not risk-free. In our view its exposure is the easily checked detection and vulnerability work inside its platform, which AI agents can take over sooner. The threat is not an AI-native firewall startup.

Investor Letters

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Research Roundup Vol. LIV

Research Roundup covers AAON's data-center cooling ramp, Knife River's margin recovery, ChronoScale's Microsoft-backed neocloud buildout…

AAON $6.8BKNF $2.9B
Monte Independent Investment Research

Toll roads in the sky

Asia's elevator boom favors maintenance and modernization providers, with Otis deriving nearly 90% of operating profit from after-sales…

OTIS $24B
Asian Century Stocks 1 click
LULU · long

Lululemon Athletica INC

Lululemon Athletica, a high-end women’s sportswear retailer, is presented as a long investment.

LULU $11B
Value Investors Club

The Black Patch Tobacco Wars

The Black Patch Tobacco Wars show how American Tobacco’s buying power drove Kentucky and Tennessee farmers to organize against below-cost…

BTI $118B
Invariant

Clear the DEC?

Diversified Energy (DEC) has paid $21.84 per share in dividends since June 2017 and trades at $13.35 amid a bullish U.S.

DEC $950M
The Oak Bloke 3 clicks

Thinking Notes

AI capex rests on coding-centric benchmarks, cheap-model commoditization and circular financing: OpenAI’s $60 billion annual Oracle…

ORCL $419B
Bearstone

Groupon Built a Brain

Groupon is building an AI “Brain” to personalize its app for each user, turning its turnaround plan into a product initiative.

GRPN $815M
Mispriced Assets

Thoughts on PayPal Buyout Offer

PayPal faces a $60.50-per-share buyout offer from Stripe and Advent, with a rejection or counteroffer above $80 viewed as more likely.

PYPL $45B
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