Kenneth Gawrelski

Ken Gawrelski of Wells Fargo asked about the evolving competitive dynamics in the alternative accommodation market and whether the integration of hotels into alternative accommodation search will become standard, seeking an update on Expedia Group's progress in this area.

Answer

CEO Ariane Gorin reiterated Vrbo's focus as a vacation rentals pure play, emphasizing new features that strengthen its value proposition. She confirmed that Expedia is integrating vacation rentals into its lodging flow with good results, taking a measured approach to ensure a positive traveler experience. Additionally, she noted the expansion of vacation rental distribution through B2B partners.

Ken Gawrelski asked about the evolving competitive dynamics in the alternative accommodation market, particularly regarding the integration of hotels within alternative accommodation search, and Expedia's position in this trend.

Answer

CEO Ariane Gorin reiterated Vrbo's focus as a vacation rentals pure play, strengthening its value proposition with new features. She confirmed that vacation rentals are being integrated into Expedia's lodging flow, with a measured approach to ensure a positive traveler experience. Gorin also noted the expansion of vacation rental distribution through B2B partners, which is well-received by owners.

Ken Gawrelski inquired about Roblox's efforts to promote genre diversity, the role of the recommendation engine in surfacing new hits, and any concerns regarding concentration in specific game genres or mechanics.

Answer

David Baszucki (CEO, Roblox) highlighted platform diversity with seven titles exceeding 10 million DAUs, five of which are new. He explained that the discovery system optimizes for long-term ecosystem health, surfacing new creators and genres. It's moving towards transparency, sharing signals with creators, and uses Sponsored Tiles and curated sorts to promote new types of gaming, including RPGs, shooting, racing, and battle sports.

Ken Gawrelski requested an update on the Google advertising partnership, including the implementation timeline and the potential for adding other third-party demand sources.

Answer

Founder and CEO David Baszucki reported that the rewarded video ad beta has been expanded to more creators, with a strong focus on performance and seeing good initial adoption. CFO Naveen Chopra confirmed that bringing in additional ad partners is part of the long-term vision as the business scales and noted that nearly 100 publishers are already onboarded.

Ken Gawrelski asked for an update on the Google advertising partnership, including the implementation timeline, the scale of the opportunity, and plans for bringing on other third-party demand sources.

Answer

CEO David Baszucki confirmed that the beta for rewarded video ads has been expanded to more creators, with strong initial pickup. CFO Naveen Chopra added that while they are in the early days with nearly 100 publishers onboarded, they envision bringing on additional ad partners as the business scales.

Kenneth Gawrelski asked for an update on the Shopify partnership and the broader strategic importance of the e-commerce opportunity for Roblox in the long term.

Answer

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.

Kenneth Gawrelski of Wells Fargo asked about developer feedback on new AI tools and their adoption rates, and also requested a breakdown of the puts and takes within the Q1 bookings guidance.

Answer

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.

Ken Gawrelski asked Mark Zuckerberg where he believes value will accrue in the evolving AI ecosystem, specifically whether it will be with platforms or scaled first-party applications, assuming Meta has a leading frontier model next year.

Answer

CEO Mark Zuckerberg discussed the broad value creation in AI, acknowledging success in hardware (NVIDIA) and cloud partners. He emphasized Meta's strength in building and scaling apps to billions of people, which delivers consistent wins in the core business through improved recommendations and unified models. He believes this will lead to significant value creation in both existing and new businesses, whether through advertising, commerce, or paid services.

Ken Gawrelski (Wells Fargo) asked CEO Mark Zuckerberg about where he believes value will primarily accrue in the evolving AI ecosystem, specifically whether it will be with platforms or scaled first-party applications, assuming Meta has a leading frontier model next year.

Answer

CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that there is significant value to be created with AI across the ecosystem, noting success for hardware makers and cloud partners. He emphasized Meta's strength in building and scaling technology advances into products with network effects to billions of people, which he believes will deliver substantial value to the core business through improved recommendations, service quality, and unified models. Mark Zuckerberg also anticipates new businesses and products, supported by advertising, commerce, or paid models, will emerge and scale, driven by the confidence gained from current core business returns.

Kenneth Gawrelski asked about the timeline for AI capabilities to drive business messaging adoption in higher-cost labor markets and what the revised 2025 CapEx outlook implies for spending in 2026 and beyond.

Answer

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.

Kenneth Gawrelski of Wells Fargo & Company inquired about any potential internal or external constraints on Meta's 2025 CapEx plan and asked for insight into future hiring needs beyond 2025, particularly for technical roles.

Answer

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.

Kenneth Gawrelski asked about the expected timeline for a proliferation of third-party consumer AI applications and how Meta positions itself as both a key application provider and an underlying infrastructure player.

Answer

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.

Ken Gawrelski asked about Lyft's pricing strategy for addressing lower-cost use cases to accelerate the replacement of personal car ownership, particularly outside of major cities.

Answer

CEO David Risher reaffirmed the long-term goal of replacing car ownership. He outlined a multi-pronged approach to lower effective prices over time, including the fundamental cost structure change from AVs, ongoing work to manage insurance costs with state regulators, and product innovations like Price Lock. He also highlighted the potential for third-party subsidies, like the media business or brand partnerships, to offset ride costs for consumers.

Kenneth Gawrelski asked about Lyft's positioning against competitor affordability initiatives and its pricing outlook, as well as its broader international ambitions following the FREENOW acquisition and Canadian expansion.

Answer

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.

Kenneth Gawrelski sought clarification on Q4 cost of revenue drivers beyond insurance and asked about the 2025 pricing strategy, balancing lower Prime Time with initiatives like Price Lock.

Answer

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.

Ken Gawrelski asked about Airbnb's AI strategy regarding an open vs. closed platform and questioned the focus on Experiences/Services instead of doubling down on the larger accommodations market.

Answer

CEO Brian Chesky clarified the strategy is "and," not "either/or." He stated Airbnb is moving "significantly more aggressively into hotels" to supplement supply and sees Experiences/Services as potential multi-billion dollar businesses. On AI, he said that while open to integrating with external agents for lead generation, the focus is on building a superior, AI-native application first, as Airbnb's platform is not a simple commodity to be booked externally.

Kenneth Gawrelski asked if Airbnb hosts have more pricing flexibility on ADRs compared to hotels during periods of weaker consumer spending, and how the company views the balance between ADR and room night volume.

Answer

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.

Kenneth Gawrelski asked about the fixed versus variable cost components of product investments beyond 2025. He also inquired about the elements that could improve the price-to-value equation for consumers in urban markets dominated by hotels.

Answer

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.

Kenneth Gawrelski asked about the strategy to grow Gemini usage—whether through marketing or deeper product integration—and about the future monetization opportunity beyond subscriptions, such as advertising.

Answer

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.

Kenneth Gawrelski asked whether Google's various AI-powered search interfaces (AI Overviews, AI mode, Gemini) will remain distinct or eventually converge. He also sought clarity on what is driving gross margin expansion beyond TAC and depreciation.

Answer

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.

Kenneth Gawrelski asked why Google doesn't offer two distinct search experiences (agent vs. traditional links) and inquired about the consumer environment outlook for Q4.

Answer

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.

Kenneth Gawrelski asked about adaptations made by traditional publishers like Walmart that are aiding redemption activity, and whether CPID penetration or traditional sales improvements are the key to unlocking more offer supply.

Answer

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.

Kenneth Gawrelski asked when management expects to have confidence in the CPG offer supply for 2025, and how offer inventory is prioritized between the D2C and third-party platforms during periods of supply-demand imbalance.

Answer

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.

Kenneth Gawrelski asked about the drivers behind accelerating impression growth and declining ad pricing, specifically requesting color on the trends within the mature U.S. & Canada region.

Answer

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.

Kenneth Gawrelski questioned the expected contribution of the new Performance Plus ad suite to 2025 growth and whether its primary impact would be attracting new advertisers or improving conversions for existing ones.

Answer

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.

Kenneth Gawrelski asked for an assessment of the overall online dating industry's health and what external markers investors should use to monitor the progress of Match Group's product-led turnaround.

Answer

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.

Kenneth Gawrelski asked about the potential impact of affordability initiatives on mobility margins for the second half of the year and requested a more detailed view of the global autonomous vehicle landscape.

Answer

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.

Kenneth Gawrelski asked about DoorDash's strategy for entering European markets through Deliveroo in a #2 or #3 position, given that consumer preferences differ by country, and inquired about the associated investment profile.

Answer

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.

Kenneth Gawrelski inquired about the advertising business roadmap and its readiness to scale, as well as the current Dasher supply environment and any segmentation of Dasher tasks like in-store picking.

Answer

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.

Kenneth Gawrelski requested more color on the April DAU growth trend, asking for a breakdown between U.S. vs. international and logged-out vs. logged-in users, and whether there was any disruption in March.

Answer

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.

Kenneth Gawrelski from Wells Fargo & Company asked about the progress made in growing the advertiser count in late 2024 and the initiatives planned for 2025, including the role of self-serve. He also inquired about how search intent signals can improve conversions across the entire platform.

Answer

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.

Kenneth Gawrelski asked how to reconcile Etsy's favorable positioning regarding tariffs with its moderating GMS guidance for Q2, and also inquired about the path to improving buyer frequency.

Answer

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.

Kenneth Gawrelski asked for color on the progression of advertising performance throughout the first quarter and into April, specifically requesting details on any changes observed in specific advertiser categories or geographies.

Answer

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.

Kenneth Gawrelski of Wells Fargo asked about two aspects of the advertising business: first, whether the weakness in upper-funnel brand advertising has broadened beyond previously mentioned categories; and second, regarding the doubling of lower-funnel advertisers, what the typical ramp-up period is for them to reach a full spending run rate.

Answer

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.

Kenneth Gawrelski asked about the primary objective of the simplified app launch, questioning the priority between engagement and monetization, and what is needed for advertisers to allocate larger, more flexible budgets to Snap.

Answer

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.

Kenneth Gawrelski asked if Booking is seeing partners, particularly large hotel chains, lean more into the OTA channel amid macro weakness in the U.S., and about the potential for ADR volatility in alternative accommodations versus hotels.

Answer

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.