Google likely the number one beneficiary of AI in the long run, says Light Street's Glen Kacher

Watch on YouTube ↗  |  January 12, 2026 at 21:17  |  5:02  |  CNBC
Speakers
Glen Kacher — Founder, Light Street Capital

Summary

Glen Kacher of Light Street Capital discusses Alphabet and Amazon as AI winners. He argues Alphabet is the likely top long-term AI beneficiary due to its TPU architecture, full-stack applications, advertising network, valuation, and Waymo optionality, and he says he has been buying and adding to the stock. He also likes Amazon's improving AI and advertising positioning. He closes with concerns about hyperscaler AI capex and OpenAI's financing needs.

  • Glen Kacher says Alphabet is likely the number one long-term AI beneficiary.
  • Kacher cites Google's TPU efficiency, Cloud enterprise reach, AI models, and Search/YouTube/Gmail/Maps ecosystem.
  • Kacher views Alphabet's valuation as attractive versus a hypothetical $1T OpenAI IPO.
  • Kacher has bought Alphabet since late spring and added recently on pullbacks.
  • Kacher likes Amazon's positioning as it emerges in AI-enabled advertising.
  • Kacher flags hyperscaler capex at ~73% of 2026 operating cash flow and OpenAI's large financing needs as issues for the market to digest.
  • Waymo is mentioned as long-term upside optionality that could disrupt autos.
Ideas
Glen Kacher Founder, Light Street Capital 0:46
Alphabet is top long-term AI winner.
Kacher believes the market misunderstands Alphabet's AI position. While OpenAI leads current ChatGPT usage, Google is coming up quickly with a more efficient TPU compute architecture, can resell Google Cloud to enterprise customers, has leading imaging and video models, and owns a full stack of applications including Search, YouTube, Gmail, and Maps plus an advertising/product network through Android, Chrome, and Apple search partnerships that can evolve into AI traffic partnerships. He also argues valuation is attractive: if OpenAI went public at $1 trillion or 25x forward revenue, Google trades at about 10x revenue, 29x consensus 2026 earnings, and is growing earnings 35%, with strong management, capital allocation, and optionality from Waymo. He has bought quite a bit since late spring and added recently on pullbacks.
GOOG HIGH
Glen Kacher Founder, Light Street Capital 2:54
Amazon emerging as AI ad winner.
Kacher likes Amazon's positioning. He says it has been slow and quiet on AI and has largely partnered with Anthropic, but it is starting to emerge as a winner in advertising, where AI can be used to improve the ad business; he likes its market positioning over the next five years.
AMZN MED
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This CNBC video, published January 12, 2026, features Glen Kacher discussing GOOG, AMZN. 2 trade ideas extracted by AI with direction and confidence scoring.

Speakers: Glen Kacher  · Tickers: GOOG, AMZN