ASML earnings, slowing cloud growth, and the Perplexity question

Welcome to Cautious Optimism, a newsletter on tech, business, and power.

• 📈 Trending Up: Musk’s spending on Trump’s campaign … startups in Europe? … Nordic venture capital … direct air capture … power availability in Florida …

• 📉 Trending Down: Trump’s shitcoin, which still has 96.2% of its pre-sale to go … chip stocks … mortgage demand … tech layoffs …

• Why ASML’s share price crashed: In the third quarter, ASML crushed its guidance. After telling investors that it expected total net sales between “n €6.7 billion and €7.3 billion,” the Dutch lithography giant turned in €7.5 billion worth of top line. It was super-profitable to boot.

  • So why are its shares cratering? A collapse in bookings:

  

  • Year-over-year, bookings at ASML are just about flat in the third quarter. But for a company expected to grow quickly, and from a higher revenue base, flat YoY bookings are soft. Down went the stock, bringing other chip companies with it.

Via Aryan R

• The New York Times sent Perplexity a cease and desist that the WSJ reports demanded “that the firm stop accessing and using its content.”

  • “Perplexity and its business partners have been unjustly enriched” by using the Times’ reporting, the company said.

  • Perplexity is sticking to its aw, shucks approach, saying that it wants to work with the Times and doesn’t want to antagonize publishers.

  • If that is the case, then why not stop using unlicensed material, and instead wait for commercial agreements before continuing? Because tech companies care about their IP, but view the IP of others as open-grazing. Perplexity is doing great with its current methods, so why change its approach?

  • If the Times does win a lucrative deal with Perplexity, expect other publishers to follow. Consider all this a reminder that the “we make the data” and “we use your data” groups remain at odds.

Can AI save cloud growth?

Venture firm Accel (Spotify, Snyk, others) has a new Euroscape report out this morning that I am still digesting, but I want to highlight a few datapoints this morning regardless.

First, how much has cloud growth slowed in recent quarters?