Research Analyst at Mizuho
Gregg Moskowitz is Managing Director and Senior Enterprise Software Analyst at Mizuho, specializing in coverage of major public software companies such as Microsoft, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Adobe, CrowdStrike, Palo Alto Networks, and Cloudflare. He maintains a strong track record, achieving a success rate above 55% and average returns close to 10% across more than 400 published ratings, ranking him in the top 10% of Wall Street analysts for performance. Moskowitz began his career over two decades ago and has held senior analyst roles at Cowen and Company, Auriga, Level Global, and Susquehanna International Group before joining Mizuho in January 2019. He holds a BBA from the University of Michigan and an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business, and is registered with FINRA as a securities analyst.
Gregg Moskowitz asked how SailPoint will enhance Accelerated Application Management with Savvy assets and the competitive landscape.
CEO Mark McClain explained the multifaceted approach to accelerate application onboarding and the different levels of connection.
Gregg Moskowitz of Mizuho asked for a 3-5 year outlook on identity market convergence and whether enterprises will consolidate to one or two identity providers.
CEO Mark McClain predicted that while the SMB market may consolidate around access management vendors, the enterprise space will see access (SSO/MFA) become a commodity. He believes the strategic ground will be in governance and security, positioning SailPoint to be the single, consolidated platform for all identity types (human, machine, agent) in complex environments.
Gregg Moskowitz from Mizuho Financial Group, Inc. inquired about the reported uptick in customer commitment to Cortex AI, asking if usage is increasing meaningfully and what the primary use cases are.
CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy confirmed the trend, stating that primary use cases involve creating data agents that combine structured and unstructured data, such as a 'customer 360' chatbot. He provided examples like BlackRock and his own personal use for customer meeting prep. He noted the next evolution is agentic AI that can take actions, like updating records, which is where utility is rapidly increasing.
Gregg Moskowitz of Mizuho Financial Group, Inc. inquired about any changes in upsell or cross-sell rates among SMB and enterprise customers, and also asked about the early demand signals for Okta's newly introduced product suites.
CFO Brett Tighe stated that upsell and cross-sell dynamics were similar to recent quarters, with the pipeline remaining weighted toward existing customers, driving growth in large accounts. President & COO Eric Kelleher added that while it's early, the new suites are seeing the expected impact by simplifying the purchasing process for customers looking to adopt Okta's broader 'secure identity fabric' vision.
Gregg Moskowitz from Mizuho Financial Group, Inc. asked about the timeline for AI adoption, specifically when identity security for AI agents will become a mainstream requirement and how customer adoption will play out for Okta.
CEO Todd McKinnon agreed that the industry is just beginning to move from AI proofs-of-concept to production. He explained that agentic workflows amplify the existing, often-overlooked problem of non-human identities (NHIs). Therefore, Okta's products for discovering and securing NHIs are relevant now, even for customers in the POC stage, and he expects adoption to accelerate as more AI projects go live.
Gregg Moskowitz from Mizuho Financial Group asked about CoreWeave's success in repurposing older GPU clusters that have come off their initial contracts.
CEO Michael Intrator reported that older infrastructure, including H100 and A100 GPUs, is being successfully re-contracted for additional terms of one to three years. These repurposed assets are primarily being used to serve growing demand for inference workloads, demonstrating the long useful life of the hardware.
Gregg Moskowitz inquired about CoreWeave's success in repurposing older-generation GPU clusters, such as A100s and H100s, after their initial contracts expire.
CEO Michael Intrator confirmed that infrastructure from expired contracts is being successfully re-contracted for additional terms of one to three years, primarily to serve inference workloads. He pointed to the long-term OpenAI contract as evidence of the extended useful life and continued demand for previous-generation compute hardware.
Gregg Moskowitz questioned the adjusted operating margin guidance, which was below consensus, asking for the quantified impact of accelerated investments and whether this changes the company's long-term margin targets.
CFO Nitin Agrawal attributed the near-term margin pressure to the significant costs incurred from bringing large-scale infrastructure online before it begins generating revenue. To illustrate the scale, he noted that CoreWeave expects to more than double its total life-to-date deployed power by the end of the year alone. He did not comment on the long-term margin target.
Gregg Moskowitz from Mizuho asked how Atlassian plans to achieve 'wall-to-wall' deployments by convincing enterprises to adopt its tools for non-technical roles like sales, finance, and HR.
CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes explained that momentum is building through tool consolidation. He highlighted several factors driving business team adoption: the broader Teamwork Collection offering, usability improvements in Jira, the appeal of Loom for business teams, and AI capabilities like Robo search that connect workflows across third-party tools. He stressed that this expansion is happening alongside continued growth in the core technology teams.
Gregg Moskowitz of Mizuho asked how Atlassian plans to achieve 'wall-to-wall' enterprise deployments, specifically by convincing organizations to adopt its tools for non-technical roles like sales, HR, and finance.
CEO & Co-Founder Mike Cannon-Brookes responded that Atlassian is already seeing significant momentum in tool consolidation. He outlined a multi-pronged strategy: the broader appeal of the Teamwork Collection, usability enhancements in products like Jira for business teams, the adoption of Loom and Trello in non-technical departments, and new AI capabilities like Robo search that connect disparate business systems. He stressed that this expansion is happening alongside continued growth in technical teams.
Gregg Moskowitz asked two related questions: first, whether the back-end loaded timing of enterprise deals negatively impacted Q3 cloud revenue, and second, for context on how the change to one-year Data Center contract durations affected Q3 revenue and the Q4 outlook.
CFO Joe Binz confirmed that enterprise deals landing later than expected did impact Q3 cloud revenue, with that revenue expected to be recognized in Q4. For Data Center, he stated growth was driven by pricing but partially offset by cloud migrations and fewer multi-year deals, which reduced upfront revenue recognition in the quarter.
Gregg Moskowitz followed up on the enterprise opportunity, noting that while 85% of the Fortune 500 are customers, they represent only 10% of revenue. He asked how challenging it is to engage C-level executives to accelerate this penetration.
CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes asserted that it is not challenging to get in front of C-level executives; rather, they are actively pulling Atlassian into strategic conversations. He shared that executives at the world's largest companies are looking to deepen their partnerships with Atlassian due to its innovation speed and the platform's ability to solve complex collaboration challenges between technical and business teams.
Gregg Moskowitz noted Atlassian's consistently high R&D spend and recent surge in product innovation, asking if structural changes in the engineering organization could explain this increased velocity.
CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes stated there have been no major structural changes, attributing the innovation velocity to a long-term focus on developer productivity and, crucially, the maturation of the underlying cloud platform. He explained that this mature platform, built over many years, now enables the company to build more sophisticated products like Focus and Rovo faster and more efficiently, and to integrate acquisitions like Loom more quickly than ever before.
Gregg Moskowitz from Mizuho asked for Jay Kreps' perspective on his former company, LinkedIn, moving away from Kafka. He also inquired if competitive or pricing issues were contributing to the slowdown in Confluent Cloud growth.
CEO Jay Kreps characterized the LinkedIn situation as a 'non-issue,' explaining that LinkedIn has very custom internal infrastructure, made the change long ago, and their system is not open source, posing no competitive threat. On the competitive front, Kreps stated there has been no huge change in the dynamic. In fact, he believes Confluent's position against cloud provider offerings has strengthened, and new offerings like Freight and Enterprise Clusters are opening up new workloads and creating a significant opportunity.
Gregg Moskowitz asked for an update on WarpStream's traction since its acquisition and whether the revised guidance considered a potential further weakening of consumption trends.
CEO Jay Kreps reported 'really nice customer wins' for WarpStream, from both its existing pipeline and new Confluent-generated leads, stating it 'hit the ground running.' CFO Rohan Sivaram explained the guidance is prudent because it does not assume a near-term rebound in consumption, which is a departure from historical patterns. He added that the forecast does not rely on any back-half acceleration, providing a conservative setup.
Gregg Moskowitz asked whether the expanding portfolio of deployment options, including WarpStream and freight clusters, could introduce complexity that might lengthen customer sales cycles.
CEO Jay Kreps responded that this is not a major concern, viewing the diverse portfolio as a strength. He explained that having a tailored solution for every workload and TCO requirement is a sign of maturity for a cloud infrastructure provider and allows Confluent to present a superior offering across the board, which ultimately simplifies the customer's decision.
Gregg Moskowitz asked if the record net new Confluent Cloud ARR would still be a record without the one-time benefit, and whether Confluent Platform customers might adopt WarpStream.
CFO Rohan Sivaram did not quantify the benefit but stated they would have 'very handily' beaten expectations without it, attributing the strength to underlying business drivers. CEO Jay Kreps confirmed there is an opportunity for on-prem Platform customers to use WarpStream as a stepping stone to a more managed cloud offering, though it's not the initial target market.
Gregg Moskowitz of Mizuho Financial Group, Inc. asked about the recent sales leadership changes across ServiceNow's major geographies and CEO Bill McDermott's confidence in the current go-to-market organization.
Chairman & CEO Bill McDermott stated he feels 'fantastic' about the go-to-market team, describing the new leaders as proven executives with the scale experience ServiceNow now requires. He highlighted the strength of the new leadership in APJ and the Americas, the deep talent bench, and his confidence in Paul Phipps as the global field general.
Gregg Moskowitz asked about the trend of customers upgrading from the Standard to the Pro SKU as an intermediate step before adopting GenAI. He questioned if this is becoming a more significant trend and if it signals a potential "second wave" of future upgrades to Pro Plus.
CEO Bill McDermott confirmed he expects a "nice second wave" of upgrades. He noted that Pro continues to do well, and the value proposition of Now Assist is so strong that customers don't hesitate at the premium. He also identified the new Raptor DB as another significant global upsell opportunity, creating multiple avenues for customers to increase their investment for substantial performance benefits.
Gregg Moskowitz asked about the trend of customers upgrading from Standard to Pro SKUs as an intermediate step before adopting GenAI. He inquired if this is creating a 'second wave' of opportunity that is more pronounced now than it was in previous quarters.
CEO Bill McDermott confirmed he expects a 'nice second wave' from this trend, as Pro SKUs continue to perform well. He noted that the value proposition is so strong that customers don't hesitate at the premium for Now Assist. He also identified the new Raptor DB as another significant global upsell opportunity, given the immediate and substantial performance improvements it offers, which customers are eager to adopt.
Gregg Moskowitz from Mizuho Financial Group, Inc. asked about the incremental investment required to pursue the identity resilience opportunity and how Rubrik plans to market the new solution to prospective customers.
Co-Founder, CEO & Chairman Bipul Sinha confirmed that identity is a key area of investment, with a focus on identity security rather than identity infrastructure. He reiterated the strategy is to combine data and identity security capabilities to provide a complete understanding of business risk. Sinha framed the long-term vision as delivering 'the right data to the right user at the right time on the right platform for the right duration,' indicating continued innovation in this area.
Gregg Moskowitz inquired about feedback from European customers following the implementation of the DORA (Digital Operational Resilience Act) regulation and its potential impact on Rubrik's business.
CEO Bipul Sinha described regulatory requirements like DORA as a significant secular tailwind for the business, as they are a high priority for CISOs. He confirmed that Rubrik's cyber resilience and recovery capabilities help customers meet these compliance mandates. To illustrate, he cited a recent win with a European insurance company where DORA was a key factor in the purchasing decision.
Gregg Moskowitz asked if the CrowdStrike outage led to an increase in pipeline build for Rubrik and requested an update on the usage of the Ruby AI assistant.
CEO Bipul Sinha responded that while it's too early to gauge the direct financial impact of the outage, it is anecdotally prompting more board-level conversations about resilience. Regarding Ruby AI, he described it as a generative AI agent included with the Enterprise Edition to boost productivity for IT and security teams. He clarified it is a core part of the platform's value proposition and not a separately monetized product.
Gregg Moskowitz highlighted an awareness gap from a recent survey showing few consider machine identities to be privileged despite their access to sensitive data, and asked how CyberArk plans to close this gap.
CEO Matt Cohen stated that 'the moment is now' for closing this gap because CISOs are getting directly involved and demanding central authority over machine identity security, which was previously left to developers. He explained that CyberArk's role is to empower the CISO to gain this control, which is a more effective approach than general market education.
Gregg Moskowitz followed up on channel enthusiasm for Venafi, asking how quickly traditional CyberArk partners can be expected to resource and drive cross-sell activity.
CEO Matt Cohen explained that while the machine identity market opportunity resonates strongly with partners, enablement takes time. He estimated it takes one to two quarters to train the channel, and with a 6-to-9-month sales cycle for Venafi, significant channel impact is expected in the second half of the year, accelerating into 2026. He added that the 'flywheel is starting to kick in,' with some partners already contributing to Q4 business.
Gregg Moskowitz requested more color on why the U.S. mid-market seems particularly cautious, asking if customers are deliberating longer on vendor consolidation.
CEO Corey Thomas attributed the caution to general economic uncertainty, noting that the mid-market historically reacts faster to economic pressures. He explained that the specific concerns vary by industry—such as tariffs for manufacturers or margin pressures for healthcare—but the overall effect is a tendency to pause and wait, which is a pattern consistent with previous economic cycles.
Gregg Moskowitz sought clarification on the company's expectation for reaccelerated growth, asking if they anticipate further acceleration in fiscal 2026 beyond the modest acceleration guided for 2025.
CEO Corey Thomas confirmed that the company's strategic plan is designed for multi-year growth acceleration. He stated, "We do expect to see accelerated growth in 2026 off the base of this year, and that's why we're making the investments that we're making." He later clarified the expectation is for acceleration in 2025 over 2024, and again in 2026 over 2025, driven by D&R and expansion opportunities.
Gregg Moskowitz from Mizuho Securities posed a high-level question about what gives Rapid7 confidence it can be a long-term winner as a security platform consolidator against much larger competitors.
CEO Corey Thomas articulated that Rapid7's strategy is to be a 'focused consolidator' for security operations. He asserted that the company is best-in-class at collecting and integrating the most diverse data—from on-prem to cloud to third-party telemetry—to provide a complete view of the attack surface. This focus, combined with better economics and a superior value proposition in SecOps, is their key differentiator and path to long-term success.
Gregg Moskowitz asked if the impressive ARR growth from the AI-native cohort was broad-based or driven by a few large customers. He also inquired how sales productivity is tracking against expectations given recent investments.
CEO Olivier Pomel confirmed there is one particularly large customer in the AI-native cohort but noted that growth is also occurring across the rest of the cohort. CFO David Obstler stated that once sales reps are fully ramped, their productivity is tracking as expected and is similar to historical levels, giving the company confidence to continue adding capacity in targeted territories.
Gregg Moskowitz asked about the 'Zero Trust Everywhere' campaign, seeking to understand which customer segments are adopting it most and how the initial deal sizes compare to typical new logo deals.
CEO Jay Chaudhry clarified that the primary focus remains on large enterprises. He shared that over 130 enterprises have already adopted the 'Zero Trust Everywhere' framework, and the company has an ambitious goal to triple this number in the next 18 months. The initiative is gaining traction as CIOs look to avoid costly and complex legacy firewall refresh cycles.
Gregg Moskowitz highlighted the impressive $1 billion in sales through AWS Marketplace in one year and asked about the growth outlook for this channel, considering the law of large numbers.
CEO George Kurtz expressed strong optimism, stating he 'only see[s] it going up.' He attributed the success to the strong AWS partnership and noted that customers prefer using their cloud commitments to procure security. He identified significant future growth opportunities internationally and also pointed to strong performance with other partners like Google Cloud Platform, calling marketplaces a 'future way' for procurement.
Gregg Moskowitz noted the strong acceleration in RPO and RPO bookings growth and asked for perspective on cRPO performance and the implications for future revenue and ARR.
CFO Burt Podbere attributed the strong RPO growth primarily to longer deal durations. He explained that initiatives like the Customer Commitment Packages and CrowdStrike Financial Services are encouraging customers to sign larger, longer-term contracts, which is directly reflected in the higher RPO figures.
Gregg Moskowitz sought clarification on the customer commitment packages, asking if the strategy involves giving away modules for a period and if this is the 'seeding' that leads to muted upsell values.
CEO George Kurtz framed the strategy as doing the right thing for customers and solving their business problems. He emphasized that driving greater platform adoption is the goal, as historical data shows that customers who use more modules see more value, which benefits CrowdStrike in the long term.
Gregg Moskowitz from Mizuho Securities asked about the expected long-term adoption pattern for GitLab Duo, questioning whether entire workforces would be upsold or if a mix-and-match approach would prevail.
CEO William Staples conveyed his belief that AI will become an indispensable part of the developer experience across every stage of the software lifecycle. By stating that in a few years, developers will not be building software without AI, he implied an expectation of broad, wall-to-wall adoption rather than a selective, mix-and-match outcome.
Gregg Moskowitz from Mizuho inquired if GitLab is landing more frequently with its higher-priced Ultimate tier compared to 6-12 months ago, given its continued expansion as a percentage of ARR.
CEO Sid Sijbrandij confirmed that GitLab is increasingly leading with Ultimate in its sales approach. He explained that while it's the most expensive product, it offers the highest ROI (482% according to a Forrester study) because it enables customers to consolidate the most point solutions. The value comes from deprecating legacy tools and improving efficiency, making Ultimate the most compelling starting point for new customers.
Gregg Moskowitz requested more detail on the platformization go-to-market strategy, asking which specific tactics are resonating most with customers.
Chairman and CEO Nikesh Arora identified the 'elimination of execution risk' as the most successful tactic. By allowing customers to begin deployment immediately while paying only after their legacy vendor contract expires, Palo Alto Networks removes a major barrier to switching. He referred to this as a 'golden bear hug' that significantly de-risks the transition for customers.
Gregg Moskowitz of Mizuho Securities asked for the remaining performance obligation (RPO) growth in Q3 and the impact of the Cyberint acquisition on deferred revenue.
CFO Roei Golan reported that RPO grew by 8% in Q3. He clarified that while the Cyberint acquisition had no P&L effect in Q3, it did add approximately 1.5 points to the calculated billings growth figure due to its impact on the balance sheet.