Kenneth Gawrelski • Wells Fargo & Company

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CEO Sundar Pichai attributed Gemini's growth to product improvements, increased accessibility via apps, and partnerships like the one with Samsung. Regarding monetization, he stated the current focus is on the free tier and subscriptions. While they have ideas for native ad concepts, the priority is user experience, with potential for more options over time, similar to YouTube's model.

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CEO Sundar Pichai suggested that Search and Gemini will remain distinct efforts serving different use cases. Within Search, AI Overviews will scale to all users, while AI mode will serve as the 'tip of the spear' for innovation, with learnings potentially flowing back. CFO Anat Ashkenazi explained that gross margin improvement was driven by a favorable revenue mix shift, with high-growth Search revenue and declining Network revenue, which has a higher TAC rate. She noted this helped offset rising depreciation in Q1 but reiterated that depreciation will accelerate.

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CEO Sundar Pichai responded that Google's goal is to evolve its single search product to meet changing user expectations, viewing the current moment as an opportunity to serve new use cases. CBO Philipp Schindler commented that Q3 saw broad-based strength across verticals, with a slight tailwind from election-related ad spend, particularly on YouTube.

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Bryan Leach, Founder and CEO, highlighted user experience improvements at Walmart, such as phone number-based checkout, as a key enhancement. He clarified that unlocking supply is a two-pronged effort: both improvements in core sales execution and the rollout of the CPID value proposition are expected to drive sequential supply growth. He noted that while CPID is a powerful 'wildcard,' the company is supply-constrained even with its current publisher base, underscoring the significant room for growth.

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CEO Bryan Leach stated he has high confidence in the 2025 supply, based on 12 years of historical precedent and direct client conversations about budget resets in the new year. He clarified that there is no prioritization of inventory; the company focuses on maximizing overall redemption revenue. He confirmed that the D2C segment's softness is a direct result of its smaller user base competing for the same pool of offers as the much larger and faster-growing third-party network.

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CEO David Risher emphasized that Lyft's focus is on driving preference through innovation, such as Lyft Silver and Price Lock, rather than competing solely on price. On international strategy, he highlighted strong Canadian growth and the FREENOW acquisition, stating the near-term focus is on integrating FREENOW in its existing markets before considering further expansion.

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CFO Erin Brewer confirmed no other significant drivers in Q4 cost of revenue. She reiterated the strategy of maintaining competitive pricing, noting that gross bookings per ride can be influenced by factors like Prime Time reduction and seasonal shifts in the bikes and scooters mix, which was lower in Q3 and is expected to shift in Q4.

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CEO Brian Chesky agreed, explaining that since most hosts offer primary or secondary homes, their income is supplemental, providing more pricing flexibility than hotels with fixed cost bases. He noted that host tools, used by 80% of hosts, encourage competitive pricing. CFO Ellie Mertz added that internal tests show lower prices are often more than compensated by increased volume, aligning host success with guest value.

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CFO Ellie Mertz indicated that with the multi-year tech stack rebuild largely complete, future product development can increasingly focus on consumer-facing growth features. CEO Brian Chesky addressed the urban market question by focusing on four areas: making booking more frictionless, improving reliability, adding a suite of services, and highlighting affordability, particularly for group travel.

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CFO Julia Donnelly explained that the global trend is primarily a result of international mix shift, as the company monetizes new regions with naturally lower ad pricing. She stated that the trends for the U.S. & Canada region alone are 'far less pronounced' and would 'tell a very different story' than the global aggregate figures.

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CEO Bill Ready explained that Performance Plus is in its early days, with a multi-quarter adoption cycle expected to build throughout 2025. He stated it addresses both opportunities: its simplicity (50% fewer inputs) helps attract smaller advertisers, while its effectiveness (20%+ CPA improvement) drives better performance, higher spend, and allows advertisers to get value from a wider swath of their product catalogs.

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CEO Spencer Rascoff stated the online dating category is 'clearly challenged,' but believes the issues are self-inflicted due to a lack of innovation and failure to adapt to Gen Z's needs. He asserted that by improving trust and safety and prioritizing user outcomes over short-term revenue, Match Group can fix the category, similar to how Uber's turnaround improved the ridesharing category. For external markers, he pointed to MAU (Monthly Active Users) as the single best metric for investors to track progress.

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CFO Prashanth Mahendra-Rajah reiterated a commitment to steady year-over-year margin improvement while balancing investment for growth, declining to give specific H2 guidance. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi detailed the AV industry's evolution towards flexible large transformer models that separate software from hardware, highlighting the innovation from partners like Waymo and Momenta as indicative of a promising, scalable future for the technology.

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CEO Tony Xu explained that scale is more critical to profit generation than relative market position. He noted that by adding scale in Europe and introducing new products, DoorDash sees a strong ability to generate great investment returns, similar to the playbook successfully executed with Wolt over the past three years.

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CEO Tony Xu explained that the ad business's growth is deliberately managed to protect the consumer experience, as a healthy marketplace must precede a healthy ad business. He described Dasher supply as 'really good' and noted that while Dashers have different preferences, the platform's goal is to offer maximum flexibility by adding more types of tasks.

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CEO Steve Huffman stated that search traffic, a source of volatility, is mostly logged-out and more U.S.-based. He reiterated to expect some 'bumps' due to the evolving search ecosystem and deferred providing more detailed breakdowns until the next quarter.

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COO Jen Wong reported healthy growth in active advertisers, driven by ease-of-use improvements and a managed approach to the mid-market and SMB segments rather than a pure self-serve focus. She outlined 2025 initiatives like Reddit Pro and partnerships to generate leads. CEO Steve Huffman added that search provides a powerful, explicit signal of user interest, which is foundational for improving user retention and has incredible monetization potential.

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CEO David Baszucki described the e-commerce opportunity as 'augmentative and important' to the long-term vision of reaching one billion daily active users. He stated that the Shopify integration is still in its early phases but represents an interesting future opportunity, including the potential to create virtual shopping experiences and close the loop on advertising attribution for physical goods.

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CEO David Baszucki described AI as a 'fourth multiplier' for developer economics, on top of market growth, increased revenue share, and platform efficiency. CFO Mike Guthrie explained the Q1 bookings guidance of 22-24.5% growth is based on strong Q4 exit rates but noted that comps get tougher in March due to the timing of Easter. He also set expectations for the full year, with H1 growth likely to be stronger than H2 due to a very tough Q3 comp.

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CFO Susan Li explained that Meta is testing business AIs with a limited set of businesses, focusing on tools for customization and control to support the entire customer funnel. She noted encouraging feedback on time savings. Regarding future CapEx, she stated it is too early to discuss plans beyond 2025, calling infrastructure a very dynamic planning area due to AI advances and strong internal demand.

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CFO Susan Li acknowledged that supply availability is a factor influencing 2025 CapEx but offered no new updates, stating it's too early to determine long-run capital intensity. She confirmed that employee compensation is the second-largest expense driver, with hiring focused on technical talent in priority areas like infrastructure, AI, and Reality Labs. She emphasized the need to invest to win while maintaining overall efficiency.

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CEO Mark Zuckerberg highlighted Meta's own consumer AI products like Meta AI and AI Studio, and noted that Llama will enable many third-party apps. He introduced a key future trend: AI-generated or summarized content becoming a new category in feeds, similar to how creator content was added to friend content. While not a 2025 impact, he expressed high confidence this will be an important application over the next several years.

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CFO Lanny Baker attributed the softer Q2 GMS outlook to weaker macroeconomic conditions in international markets and tougher year-over-year comps due to holiday timing. CEO Josh Silverman addressed buyer frequency by explaining that foundational work on search quality and app real estate is largely complete. The focus now is on optimizing these new features with richer data and personalization to drive growth throughout the year.

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CFO Derek Andersen reiterated the strong Q1 performance, driven by ad platform improvements that boosted DR growth and active advertisers. For Q2, he noted that while the business is still growing, some headwinds have emerged early in the quarter. He cited the impact of changes to the de minimis exemption on some advertisers as one example but cautioned it's difficult to parse all the drivers this early.

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CFO Derek Andersen explained that upper-funnel weakness remains concentrated among a small number of large advertisers, and the focus is on reigniting growth through product innovation like Sponsored Snaps and agency partnerships. For the lower-funnel, he noted that while many new advertisers are smaller, the key to revenue growth is providing an easy onboarding process and delivering strong ROAS via the improved DR ad stack, which encourages retention and increased spending over time.

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CEO Evan Spiegel emphasized that the 'North Star' for the redesign is improving the product experience for the community, as the app has become complex. He believes that unifying the content experience and enhancing discovery will benefit users and creators first, which in the long term creates more valuable opportunities for advertising partners.

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CFO Ewout Steenbergen confirmed that some U.S. suppliers are seeking additional help, creating partnership opportunities. He also noted the company's financial strength allows it to invest more in performance marketing during downturns. Regarding ADRs, he stated there is no large economic difference between alternative accommodations and hotels, pointing out that faster growth in alternatives has not negatively impacted overall ADRs or EBITDA margins.

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