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    Sebastien Naji

    Research Analyst at William Blair

    Sebastien Naji is an Equity Research Analyst at William Blair, specializing in coverage of technology sector companies, with a strong focus on semiconductors and infrastructure systems. He actively covers major players such as NVIDIA, Broadcom, Arm Holdings, Cisco Systems, and Astera Labs, and his research is recognized for its thorough analysis and actionable intelligence that enhances client portfolio performance. Naji began his career at Deloitte in strategic financial consulting before joining William Blair in November 2018, where he initially covered infrastructure software companies and developed his expertise in the broader technology space. He holds dual degrees in materials engineering and economics from the University of Pennsylvania, and his professional credentials include rigorous financial analysis and significant contributions to investment decision-making, leveraging both his technical background and industry insight.

    Sebastien Naji's questions to CISCO SYSTEMS (CSCO) leadership

    Sebastien Naji's questions to CISCO SYSTEMS (CSCO) leadership • Q4 2025

    Question

    Sebastien Naji of William Blair & Company asked about the long-term opportunity for Ethernet in scale-up AI connectivity and whether the Meraki-Catalyst platform integration would shift hardware purchasing behavior.

    Answer

    CEO Chuck Robbins acknowledged a potential future shift to Ethernet for scale-up, confirming Cisco has roadmaps to address it. Regarding the platform integration, he believes it will make Catalyst more attractive to customers wanting simple cloud management, thereby expanding its appeal rather than causing a shift away from it.

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    Sebastien Naji's questions to CISCO SYSTEMS (CSCO) leadership • Q3 2025

    Question

    Sebastien Naji of William Blair inquired about the adoption of white box solutions by hyperscalers and whether AI was driving a shift toward that model, given Cisco's flexible offerings.

    Answer

    CEO Chuck Robbins stated he has not seen a meaningful shift away from full systems, which remain the predominant purchase from hyperscalers. CFO Scott Herren supported this by highlighting that two-thirds of the quarter's AI orders were for complete systems, not disaggregated components, reinforcing the trend observed in the previous quarter.

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    Sebastien Naji's questions to Astera Labs (ALAB) leadership

    Sebastien Naji's questions to Astera Labs (ALAB) leadership • Q2 2025

    Question

    Sebastien Naji inquired about non-AI market trends, specifically PCIe Gen5 adoption in general-purpose servers, and asked for Astera's perspective on how emerging scale-up Ethernet solutions might compete with its PCIe-based offerings.

    Answer

    President & COO Sanjay Gajendra confirmed that the general-purpose compute transition is a growth driver for the Ares, Taurus, and Leo CXL product lines. CEO Jitendra Mohan positioned UALink and PCIe as superior for scale-up due to lower latency and higher efficiency, arguing the key differentiator versus scale-up Ethernet is UALink's open, multi-vendor ecosystem.

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    Sebastien Naji's questions to ARM HOLDINGS PLC /UK (ARM) leadership

    Sebastien Naji's questions to ARM HOLDINGS PLC /UK (ARM) leadership • Q1 2026

    Question

    Sebastien Naji from William Blair asked for an update on the Arm China business and whether recent U.S. export controls could boost its data center contribution.

    Answer

    CEO Rene Haas stated that recent export controls do not significantly impact Arm's business and that the China market's momentum tracks the rest of the world. CFO Jason Child added that China represented about 21% of revenue in Q1, up from ~15% in the prior quarter and ~14% a year ago, indicating strong growth.

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    Sebastien Naji's questions to Arista Networks (ANET) leadership

    Sebastien Naji's questions to Arista Networks (ANET) leadership • Q3 2024

    Question

    Sebastien Naji asked for a ranking of the opportunities across Arista's three AI networking product families: the 7060 series, the 7800 AI Spine, and the new 7700 Ethalink switch.

    Answer

    CEO Jayshree Ullal provided a qualitative ranking. The 7060 series is the most popular by unit volume. The flagship 7800 series is smaller in volume but the most strategic in revenue dollars. The new 7700 series, co-developed with Meta, is positioned as a 'best of both worlds' solution for mid-scale clusters up to 10,000 GPUs and has no direct competitor. Chief Platform Officer John McCool added that customers often mix these products to optimize deployments.

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    Sebastien Naji's questions to F5 (FFIV) leadership

    Sebastien Naji's questions to F5 (FFIV) leadership • Q4 2024

    Question

    Sebastien Naji asked about the mix of growth from new versus existing customers and inquired about the competitive positioning of the NVIDIA BlueField solution, including the risk of NVIDIA developing its own alternative.

    Answer

    President and CEO François Locoh-Donou stated that while new customer acquisition is strong, particularly for Distributed Cloud, the majority of growth comes from expanding within the existing customer base. Regarding the NVIDIA partnership, he emphasized that F5's unique L4-7 traffic management expertise is a key differentiator that is difficult to replicate, providing a compelling and early solution to the industry-wide problem of GPU utilization. He acknowledged the main work ahead is on the go-to-market model.

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