“The IT department of every company is going to be the HR department of AI agents in the future. Those digital employees are going to work with our biological ones, and that’s going to be the shape of our company in the future.” — Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA (CES 2026)
If the Godfather of AI is right, the future of work isn’t just better video calls—it’s managing a hybrid human + digital workforce. While the market wrote Zoom off years ago, the company has quietly repositioned itself as the natural “HR Department” for those agents.
Investors are still psychologically scarred. Mention Zoom and the ticker probably triggers 2021 PTSD. Just the mention of the ticker probably feels like a personal attack. Even Cathie Wood fully liquidated her position in late 2023, but what if her investing thesis was correct, just early? While the market is staring in the rear-view mirror, they are missing a fortress balance sheet and a hidden AI stake that could soon rival the company’s entire current valuation.
The Cash Fortress (The Valuation Floor)
Forget the hype. Let’s look at the math. This is where the margin of safety lives:
You are buying a premium SaaS platform—a global brand with 140k+ enterprise seats and sticky workflows—at ~7.5x FCF. For context, boring hardware companies and legacy retailers trade at higher multiples. The market is pricing Zoom for a slow death, but the cash flow says it’s thriving.
This is the definition of “Dirt Cheap.” Even without a major catalyst, the downside is protected by a mountain of cash and a business that produces liquidity.
The Anthropic Windfall: A “free” Home Run
In 2023, Zoom quietly invested $51 million in Anthropic at a $4 billion valuation. Fast forward to February 12, 2026: Anthropic closed a $30 billion Series G at a $380 billion post-money valuation.
Analysts peg Zoom’s stake at $2.5–$4.5 billion today. If Anthropic IPOs at the rumored $750B+ range this year:
The Math: Zoom’s stake could hit $10 billion+.
The Proxy Play: Amazon owns more of Anthropic, but because AMZN is a $2.5T behemoth, the stake only moves their needle 3-5%.
The Impact: For a giant like Amazon, that’s a rounding error. For Zoom, it’s nearly 50% of its current market cap. When you buy Zoom today, you aren’t just buying a software company; you’re buying a massive, liquid stake in the leading “reasoning” AI- for almost nothing.
The Gen Z Factor & The “War Chest”
As Gen Z enters the C-suite, the “Microsoft-only” era is fading. 2026 data show that Gen Z and Millennials (who now make up over 60% of the workforce) prefer the low-friction and video-first nature of Zoom. They want a “System of Action,” not a “System of Record.”
The Competitive Advantage (vs. Salesforce/CRM): CRM is a giant, but it has virtually no cash compared to Zoom’s hoard. Zoom is lean, founder-led, and has a $7.8B war chest to acquire high-growth AI startups to force that return to 15% revenue growth.
The “Anti-Microsoft” Pivot: The Orchestrator of AI
The bear case is simple: “Microsoft Teams is free, so Zoom is dead.” But the data shows a “David vs. Goliath” moment is happening in the Enterprise:
Enterprise Revenue: Grew 7.1% last year (Q4 FY26), triple the rate of the small-biz segment.
The Fortune 10 Win: Zoom recently displaced Cisco in a 140,000-seat deal. Why? Because giants are tired of “Microsoft Lock-in.
The Federated AI Approach: While Microsoft locks you into OpenAI, Zoom’s AI Companion 3.0 is a “conductor.” It switches between Anthropic (Claude), OpenAI (GPT-5), and its own Small Language Models in 0.1 seconds. It’s “Best-of-Breed” vs. “Whatever Microsoft bundles.”
Metric
Salesforce (CRM)
Zoom (ZM)
Why This Favors Zoom
Market Cap
~$179.7B
~$25.3B
Lower Bar: Easier for a $25B company to 2x than a $180B giant.
Net Cash
$8.4B
$7.8B
Acquisition Firepower: Zoom’s cash is 30% of its market cap. CRM’s is only ~4%.
Enterprise Seats
~150,000 Companies
~220,000 Companies
Upsell Runway: Zoom has more “doors” to walk through to sell Phone/AI/Contact Center.
AI/Agent Displacement
High Risk
Lower Risk
Salesforce relies on “human” seats (Sales/Support). Zoom’s video/phone is “infrastructure.”
Debt Load
$7.6B
$0
Flexibility: Zoom has zero “interest rate heartburn.”
Why Zoom Wins the “Agent” War Yuan Saw First
While Salesforce’s Marc Benioff spent 2025 screaming about “Agentforce,” Eric Yuan was already there in June 2024. In his Decoder podcast interview nearly two years ago, Yuan laid out a “prophetic” vision of “Digital Twins.” He envisioned AI agents that don’t just summarize meetings but attend them for you, negotiate contracts on your behalf, and make decisions based on your specific “First Principles.”
At the time, the market laughed it off as sci-fi. Today, it is the north star for the entire industry. Zoom wins here because:
The System of Action: AI agents don’t want to navigate 20 layers of a legacy CRM. They want to “join the meeting,” take notes, and execute tasks. Zoom is where the work actually happens.
The Switzerland of Tech: Zoom doesn’t force you into one LLM. Your digital twin can pick the best engine without vendor lock-in.
Zoom Phone just crossed 10 million paid seats. It’s the “wedge” that’s breaking open massive platform deals.
Rare Asymmetry with Minimal Capital Risk
This is a very clean, asymmetrical setup in tech. Zoom doesn’t need Microsoft or Salesforce to implode. It doesn’t need another pandemic. It just needs a founder-led company with a history of delivering during uncertain times to keep executing and achieving a very attainable 10-15% growth rate. Even a 20-30% growth, though wishful, is not delusional.
The Risks? This thesis will be tested. The primary risk here isn’t the total loss of capital—at 7.5x FCF, the floor is remarkably solid. Instead, the risk is opportunity cost. We don’t know how long it will take for the market to wake up and re-rate this “pandemic relic” into a “2026 AI powerhouse.”
In my view, the risk of losing principal is surprisingly low, but the patience required to see the thesis materialize is high.
Disclosure: I am not bearish on Microsoft; in fact, I own shares in MSFT. I am not bearish on CRM (Salesforce), though I currently own no shares. I simply believe Zoom is a mispriced anomaly hiding in plain sight.
The market currently treats Duolingo like a “dead app walking,” terrified that AI will turn language learning into a relic. They are playing the math of a utility company while ignoring the psychology and network effects of a platform. The argument that Duolingo is headed to zero is dumb. The argument that AI language tools make learning a new language obsolete is even dumber.
Part 1: The Blackjack Blunder (Panicking Over a 6)
In Blackjack, if the dealer is showing a 6—the statistically weakest card in the deck—and you are sitting on a Soft 18 or a 7, you don’t surrender. You double down.
The Table Panic: Right now, the market is “surrendering” because they are convinced the dealer has a King or an Ace hidden under the cards. They are sweating over a ghost.
The Reality: The dealer (the bears) has a weak hand built on vague fears about AI. Meanwhile, your hand is a 40% revenue grower with $1.1 billion in net cash and zero debt. The market is surrendering a winning hand because it’s spooked by a bust card. When a stock is down 70% from its high, but the business is still growing revenue at 41%, the market is no longer pricing the business on facts—it’s pricing it on fear.
Part 2: Dirt Cheap—The Valuation Gap
The quants are missing the forest for the trees. Let’s look at the actual damage:
The “Gift” Multiple: Duolingo is trading at an EV/Sales of ~4.2x. For a 40% grower, that is an absolute anomaly. Most software companies growing this fast trade at 8x to 12x revenue.
The Cash Rebate: With $22 per share in net cash, you’re buying a world-class growth engine at a “distressed asset” price.
Part 3: The Platform Moat (Robinhood, Spotify, and Bad Bunny)
Comparing Duolingo to titans like Meta or Netflix might be a stretch in scale, but the logic is identical: platforms that own the “habit” win.
Engagement is a Moat: In Q3 2025, Duolingo crossed the massive milestone of 50 million Daily Active Users (DAUs), growing 36% YoY. People aren’t just downloading the app; they are addicted to it. A translation tool is a utility; Duolingo is a habit.
The Spotify/Robinhood Parallel: Remember 2022? The “smart money” said Spotify was dead because of Apple Music. They said Robinhood was a “zero” because of Fidelity. They were wrong. They ignored the UX and the habit. Same with edtech rivals like Babbel or Rosetta Stone. Duolingo’s network effects (social sharing, leaderboards) make it the iPhone of apps: sticky in a way pure utilities aren’t. AI might commoditize translation, but it can’t commoditize community. Duolingo has 100M+ total users sharing streaks; that’s a flywheel no chatbot can spin alone.
The 35% Spike: Look at the “Bad Bunny Effect.” Following his Super Bowl LX appearance, Duolingo saw a 35% week-over-week spike in Spanish learners. People don’t just want to “understand” culture; they want to participate in it.
Part 4: The “Utility Fallacy” (Why AI Can’t Kill Art)
The argument that AI translation makes learning a language obsolete is the single dumbest take in modern tech. It treats language as a “data transfer” problem, ignoring the soul of human behavior.
Language = Social Status: Treating language like a pure utility is an enormous misreading of human nature. Just like food is more than just fuel, and the clothes you wear go beyond just functionality, language is a signal of effort, intelligence, and respect.
Soul Can’t Be Translated: People don’t listen to Bad Bunny because they need to translate his lyrics into a technical document. They listen because they like the music, the rhythm, and the slang. You don’t learn a language to “get the data”—you learn it to inhabit the soul of the culture.
The Attraction Factor: A survey found that 79% of adults find bilingualism more attractive than monolingualism. Using a translator app to impress someone you’re attracted to has zero “oomph.” It’s the difference between a “fancy restaurant” and “buying ingredients at the store.”
The Restaurant Logic: Saying AI kills language apps is like saying people will stop eating at restaurants because groceries are cheaper. We don’t eat out for the calories; we eat out for the experience and the connection.
Let me be clear: Those arguing that AI will turn language into a utility are engaging in one of the silliest “intellectual” debates I have ever heard. It is shockingly ridiculous. It assumes humans are robots that only care about the shortest path from Point A to Point B. In the real world, we take the scenic route because that’s where the value is. And here’s the kicker, bears forget: Duolingo is AI. They’re building the moat higher while rivals play catch-up. Their Duolingo Max tier (powered by GPT-4) rolled out AI-driven “Video Call” and “Roleplay” features last year, letting users practice real conversations with an AI that adapts on the fly. It’s not replacing the habit; it’s supercharging it.
Part 5: The 5-10x Opportunity (The Bottom Line)
Investing is most rewarding during difficult times when sentiment is at its lowest. Even if you don’t believe Duolingo returns to its peak 45x revenue multiples, this is an opportunity worth taking. With earnings dropping on February 26 (just two weeks out), hint at it as the “next card flip.”
Asymmetric Risk: the downside is protected by a billion-dollar fortress.
The Path to $1,000: For Duolingo to reach $1,000, it needs to become a $47 billion company. In the tech world, that’s just a “successful mid-cap”—the size of Workday or Lululemon. Given its AI-powered “Personal Tutor” narrative, this is a very plausible outcome over the next 5-10 years.
I started a position last week. An opportunity based on a SaaS apocalypse, which feels irrational given that Duolingo is not even a SaaS company. I will look like a visionary or an investor in complete denial.
The Verdict: You’re being offered a “Royal Flush” opportunity. By the time the math proves Duolingo is a $50 billion company, the stock will already be at all-time highs. Betting against the Owl is betting against human nature. I’ll take the other side of that trade every time.
Most investors are still fixated on the smoking crater of the 2022 bubble. They haven’t refreshed their mental models to reflect Lemonade’s evolution from a cash-burning startup to a data-driven compounding machine. That lingering skepticism? It’s pure alpha.
The Pivot to Profitability
Lemonade has long been a tantalizing story, but the big “if” was always profitability. Now we’re witnessing the “how.” The narrative has flipped from raw growth to ruthless operational efficiency. Key highlights from Q3 2025:
In-Force Premium (IFP): Reached $1.16 billion, up 30% YoY—their 8th straight quarter of accelerating growth.
Loss Ratio Mastery: Gross loss ratios have plummeted from 73% down to 62%. In insurance, that 11-point swing is the difference between a straw house and a fortress.
Efficiency at Scale: Loss Adjustment Expense (LAE) ratio—the cost to process claims—dropped to 7%, below legacy players like Progressive or Geico (typically 9-10%).
Reinsurance Revolution: Primary quota share ceded fell from 55% to 20%. Lemonade’s finally retaining the “juice” instead of outsourcing most profits to reinsurers.
The Coiled Spring: The Tesla Shot of Adrenalin
A coiled spring demands a spark. Enter the Autonomous Car Insurance launch: Arizona on January 26, 2026, and Oregon in February. By plugging directly into Tesla’s Fleet API, Lemonade delivers ~50% per-mile discounts with Full Self-Driving (FSD). This isn’t just insurance; it becomes a viral customer magnet.
The “X” Factor: Tesla influencers’ publicity and Elon Musk’s orbit have generated millions of organic impressions. In a world where a Super Bowl ad costs $7 million for 30 seconds, Lemonade effectively ran a “digital Super Bowl campaign” for free.
The Safety Edge: Lemonade’s data shows FSD-assisted driving is roughly 2x safer than human driving. They are pricing risk with high-resolution telemetry that traditional insurers simply can’t touch.
The 10x Revenue Multiplier
The hidden gem? Premium per Customer is now $403 (up 5% YoY). As the “Lemonade generation” matures from $15/month renters to $150/month car/pet/home bundles, revenue per user could 10x while acquisition costs hold steady. It’s the flywheel legacy insurers envy.
The Bottom Line
I am extremely bullish. This isn’t the same as buying the hype at 70 in 2020. Over 5 years later, the company is dramatically more efficient, and “Car” is a proven engine rather than a theoretical startup.
The Lemonade thesis was never about a sleeker app; it was about a fundamentally superior information architecture. While the legacy giants like State Farm or Geico price based on broad ‘buckets,’ Lemonade is finally proving it can price at the individual level.
With the stock retracing under 70 (currently hovering around $63–$64 after a volatile start to the year), we may be in the final throes of disbelief. Q4 2025 Earnings Call on Feb 19th is just days away. The data is trending toward a triple-threat: accelerating growth, massive margin expansion, and a clear path to profitability. With the recent winter storms being less catastrophic than feared, the pathway for Lemonade to run in 2026 and 2027 is wide open.
A Zoom court hearing in Michigan involved a defendant who was allegedly caught driving with a suspended driver’s license.
I invest in both companies.
I see solid fundamentals and strength in both businesses.
It is important to remember that the growth is still early in markets that are still evolving. Evaluating these companies based on traditional valuation metrics is problematic because these industries are far less static than other sectors. Both have bright futures, but Zoom would have a slight edge if I had to choose the better long-term investment based on a risk and reward estimation. This suggests a potential for high returns, inspiring optimism in potential investors.
Zooming in: Misunderstood as a one-product company:
Company
Revenue (Billions)
Gross Profit (Billions)
Earnings (Millions)
Palantir
2.23
1.8
209.8
Zoom
4.53
3.5
637.5
1. Core Functionality & Additional Services:
Zoom offers foundational features like video conferencing (Meetings), chat, and phone calls.
But on top of that, they provide additional services built around this core functionality like:
Rooms – dedicated video conferencing hardware for meeting spaces.
Events – hosting large-scale virtual events.
Contact Center – cloud-based call center solutions.
2. Openness and Integrations:
A key feature of platforms is openness. Zoom offers a Developer Platform (https://developers.zoom.us/docs/), allowing third-party developers to create custom applications that integrate with Zoom’s core services.
This extends Zoom’s functionality and caters to specific user needs. Imagine a Zoom app for scheduling meetings directly from your calendar.
3. Diverse User Base and Use Cases:
Zoom caters to a wide range of users, from individuals to large enterprises.
The platform’s flexibility allows it to be used for various purposes, such as business meetings, virtual classrooms, telehealth appointments, and even social gatherings.
In essence, Zoom provides a foundational communication platform and allows users and developers to build upon it to create customized experiences. This is a core difference from a product company that offers a fixed set of features.
Zoom has a larger TAM and a much easier pathway toward highly profitable growth.
According to the most recent reports, Zoom boasts 191,000 enterprise customers. While the exact number might fluctuate, Palantir has several hundred enterprise customers (1,300-1,500), significantly less than Zoom’s reported customer count.
Palantir primarily targets large enterprises, providing software platforms for data integration and analysis, often with over 10,000 employees and significant revenue. Zoom has a much broader customer base with businesses of all sizes.
One company targets a niche market of government agencies and large corporations with specific complex enterprise software solutions. The other offers a communication and collaboration solutions platform to businesses of all sizes, with its bread and butter being video conferencing.
Zoom is available in the Education, Financial Services, Government, Healthcare, Manufacturing, and retail industries. Palantir targets many of the same sectors; however, its platform is bulkier and has no actual application use for smaller enterprise businesses. Palantir’s software is generally considered expensive, with some estimates suggesting hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars per year. Zoom offers a freemium model with tiered pricing plans, different features, and user capacities for businesses and government agencies.
A significant market opportunity ahead with an exceptional product:
Zoom saw 325.81% revenue growth in 2021 due to the pandemic. It is safe to say they will never see this type of year-to-year growth again, but it doesn’t need to.
Zoom is riding a consistent growth trend that began long before the pandemic. Work-from-home or Remote Work, whatever you want to call it, is the inevitable increased globalization of work. Fast Company coined the term “Gen Global” For Gen Z, who prefer “work from anywhere” and prioritize travel over education. Young workers grew up on social media and are more comfortable communicating via video conferencing.
Working full-time in the office is a dying trend. The new long-term trend is a form of hybrid work, from which Zoom will likely reap the rewards. As technology improves, the migration from On-Prem to the Cloud continues, and older CEOs phase out, companies will become more receptive to Zoom’s platform. Hybrid work is inevitably the future and growing; companies that resist the trend will lose out on talent, leading to a loss in profits. Zoom’s strategy to capitalize on this trend is to continue improving its platform and expanding its customer base, particularly in the government and healthcare sectors.
Zooms provides cloud-based products that the next generation of workers will use. Meetings offer a better mousetrap for workers and are becoming an essential product for employers to provide as an efficient way to communicate with each other.
It is popular among most workers who see it as a “perk.”
Reduced costs for real estate
Expanded pool of recruitable talent
Increased worker retention.
Adopted over time as hardline proponent CEOs of returning to work retire.
Fundamentals vs. Valuation:
Zoom and Palantir have been public for less than five years, so evaluating past performance based on limited data is difficult. With companies like these, it is more helpful to first zone in on the fundamentals to make an educated guess about the future.
The Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP) is promising. I am a believer; however, the pathway is far from certain. Palantir’s commercial business is nascent, with even its most ardent supporters having to take a leap of faith that it will grow. Selling a product that companies don’t even know they need is almost impossible to map out five years out.
Palantir has a long sales cycle. Learning its solutions takes much longer because the learning curve is high. It will likely take a year before their platform shows any meaningful ROI.
AIP is intriguing and ambitious. The presentation deck is broad and alluring. It captures an investor’s attention when you help uncover human trafficking rings or battle the Russian army. I have determined the risk is worth the rewards as an investor, but valuing this as an investment is problematic because it assumes high optimism in a new space without a clear track record.
Can Palantir expand its commercial business and attract a broader and more diverse customer list? It is too early to know if the path is certain. A longer track record of low churn and increasing profits is needed to make a better determination.
Zoom’s software has already penetrated multiple enterprises, organizations, and businesses. However, its platform still has a lot of room to grow. Many analysts dismiss Zoom’s government business, which is largely untapped, more so than Palantir.
Another lockdown may not happen again, but the residual effects of the lockdown are seeing permanent work behavioral changes despite the pandemic being over:
Columbia University went fully remote due to Palestinian protests.
School districts in many U.S. cities went remote during the winter due to the flu/Covid outbreak.
Flu/Covid outbreaks will continue in the future.
Someone even had a Zoom court hearing while driving with a suspended license.
MLB’s league offices use Zoom Meetings, Zoom Rooms, Zoom Phone, and Zoom Webinar, while Zoom’s all-in-one collaboration platform is integrated across several MLB clubs, platforms, and broadcast outlets.
For a platform critics say is dying, people still use it daily. Zoom’s client list ranges from news broadcasts to hospitals, school districts, colleges, and courts. Its partnership with MLB is one of the best case studies of how Zoom’s suite of products can provide a large, multifaceted enterprise with various solutions.
The two biggest fundamental questions that I will be closely watching for the near future:
(1) Leadership execution, mainly if they can make intelligent acquisitions of smaller technology companies to complement and grow their existing businesses. Zoom has a large cash pile and will likely search for an acquisition target to grow its business.
(2) Increased sales and marketing. The CEO & Founder, Eric Yuan, acknowledged this on a previous earnings call: “One thing I think we did not do well, as I mentioned even before, is we did not do well on the marketing front. A lot of customers and users do not know Zoom has a greater presence in Team Chat functionality at no additional cost. And it works extremely well.”
Yuan has proven he can make great products, but Zoom must enter wartime sales mode. Zoom must ramp up S&M spending and sacrifice profits for growth. Zoom has a significant edge over Palantir because it has far more brand recognition. Conceptually, learning how Zoom’s products can help a business is easy. Practically, there is a low learning curve, with Meetings & Chat being extremely user-friendly. Foundry is a much more challenging platform to use and understand. Palantir would need to make Foundry less heavy to address many lukewarm and bad reviews. It’s an early and fixable problem but a potential red flag for future growth.
Both companies have potential opportunities, but Zoom has a bigger total addressable market. Despite the pandemic being over and Zoom becoming a target for other companies to criticize, Zoom’s platform is already becoming a mainstay in the enterprise ecosystem. The story is still early for its commercial and government businesses.
Low vs High Expectations and Sentiment
From a Price-to-Earnings Ratio and other traditional financial metrics, Palantir is an expensive stock. Is it overvalued? That depends on whether it can meet or exceed high expectations. Zoom is the opposite, an inexpensive stock with low expectations.
In the short term, Zoom has a low bar to jump. Analysts would view 5-10% YoY growth in 2025 as wildly optimistic and likely cause the stock price to double from today’s price. For Palantir, anything under 25%-plus overall growth would be disappointing and likely not well-received from Wall Street.
A company with high expectations can exceed them, but Zoom likely has better odds of meeting its target projections.
So why mention expectations? I discuss this to reflect the nuisance of investing and how to become a better, well-rounded investor. Suppose you are an investor and only consider the company’s qualitative aspects. That strategy probably works out in the long term, but you must ask yourself: Is there a compelling reason to buy the stock where it trades today? The better-discounted price you get, the more likely you have a higher return.
Analyst ratings for both companies are pretty tepid. Remember, Palantir traded above 35 in early 2021, and Zoom traded above 555 in 2020. Many bitter retail and institutional investors are underwater on their investments if they are still holding, but this is where the behavioral aspect of investing plays a factor. The mood of the market and macro environment was completely different during the pandemic than today.
The past is the past. An investor cannot change the price at which you bought the stock last year or five years ago. The company’s valuation is different, but if you are down 30-80% on your Zoom or Palantir shares, it doesn’t mean the company is 30-80% worse. Palantir has seen significant growth in its commercial business. Zoom is a high-quality company trading at a rare reasonable valuation with solid fundamentals. Zoom has yet to see its revenue decline, which likely would have happened if its platform was a pandemic fade. The low sentiment has manifested skepticism about the viability and feasibility of the Zoom platform. This creates a potential opportunity for patient longs who do not care about the lack of momentum. Shares for both companies are not overbought according to the relative strength indicator (RSI), a momentum-oriented technical analysis tool.
Final Thoughts:
Both of these companies have compelling evaluations. They meet the criteria for quality companies. I give the edge to Zoom because it trades more at a discount. Both companies have an opportunity because their balance sheets look healthy, and their cash flow is growing steadily.
I may seem down on Palantir, but as I said earlier, I invest in both companies. Although it looks fairly valued today, Palantir is not an overhyped AI company. I could be underestimating its fundamentals, meaning it is grossly undervalued today.
I love the fundamentals, but valuation matters. Can you ignore the possibility of an economic slowdown, a hiccup, or a U-turn in sentiment or the story’s narrative? Can you invest successfully, ignoring risk and assuming a large meteoric rise based on already-priced assumptions? I don’t have enough conviction to go all in on one name, but I do have enough of a risk appetite to stay on the ride and let it play out. Zoom’s sentiment today is low, and all the momentum it had during 2020 and 2021 seems to have evaporated. Although not dirt-cheap, Zoom appears like an inexpensive stock with better odds of overperforming.
Invest in Myself 