Guidewire ($GWRE) podcast mentions
Per Ticker.id: 5 Guidewire ($GWRE) mentions across 1 podcast (30 days) — timestamped, verifiable quotes, updated 2026-10-01.
I can go into examples if you'd like, you know, something like a Shopify, something like a Guidewire, something like a Gardener. FactSet, MSCI, an entire area of our portfolio have been, you know, beaten up and are on sale, even though the fundamentals remain strong. And we think that is starting to reverse.
Michael Baron · Excess Returns · They Beat All US Stock Funds Since 2003 | Michael Baron on the AI Winners Investors Miss · 2026-10-01AI doesn't work in a vacuum. It doesn't just work because you, you know, type it into Anthropic or Claude, whatever the mechanism might be. It only runs with data. And we find companies that have true proprietary data, whether it be like a Shopify that has 3.5 million customers and 20-year history of data with their merchants on their platform. Guidewire, the same kind of thing in terms of providing software to the insurance space. These are companies that are— FactSet, MSCI, a whole bunch of companies have this proprietary data that cannot be disintermediated because you just think AI can do it all for you. It's a very important thing that companies utilize AI and they can't just utilize it through Claude. They need to utilize it through one of these other mechanisms.
Michael Baron · Excess Returns · They Beat All US Stock Funds Since 2003 | Michael Baron on the AI Winners Investors Miss · 2026-10-01They need to utilize it through a Guidewire or through a Shopify. For us, we are utilizing it through FactSet. They're enabling companies to use AI, not being disrupted by it.
Michael Baron · Excess Returns · They Beat All US Stock Funds Since 2003 | Michael Baron on the AI Winners Investors Miss · 2026-10-01We are valuation focused across all our businesses. And, you know, whether it's the more disruptive type businesses like, like Tesla or SpaceX, down to some of the other businesses I mentioned, more core growth or financial-oriented business like a Guidewire or Gartner or FactSet? Valuation is tough, you know, but most people are thinking about valuation because they're thinking about today. You know, they're saying, hey, I want to get in at a price that is cheaper than what other people might value this thing for today. Each one of our investments it's looking about in the future and not just the future in terms of next quarter or next year. Our average holding period at Baron Capital is 8 or 9 years, and that's just average. That means when we have a successful investment like a Tesla that we started investing in in 2014, it can go significantly longer.
Michael Baron · Excess Returns · They Beat All US Stock Funds Since 2003 | Michael Baron on the AI Winners Investors Miss · 2026-10-01We're proud of all the businesses that we're investing in. You know, these are businesses that are truly changing the world, you know, not just the ones that are in the headlines like a Tesla and a SpaceX, but everything down from some of the other companies that have been beaten up that I was talking about from the backsets, the MSCI, Guidewire, Gartner enabling the AI that we were talking about a little bit earlier. You know, we're proud in terms of who they are, what they're going to become. The benefits they're bringing to, to society, as opposed to just saying, hey, let's buy something a little bit cheaper than maybe we can sell it for, you know, a week or a month or a quarter later. It's a fun environment to work at and you feel good about, you know, the companies that we're investing in.
Michael Baron · Excess Returns · They Beat All US Stock Funds Since 2003 | Michael Baron on the AI Winners Investors Miss · 2026-10-01So there was like year 10 to year 20 in the model Take Guidewire, you put 12% growth for 20 years, you're good to go. I think what happened in the SaaS apocalypse is people would start to put the growth rate of Guidewire in year 8 and year 9, year 10, year 11 down to 4% and 2% and 0% and -2%. And the impact of that on valuations, and we've played with this, is 30%. That was the SaaS apocalypse. I think the duration trade went out. I think then it was easy to pick on some other bad behaviors that software had for years, like giving out stock comp like candy is a huge problem. We don't do that at our companies, but the public markets do. The notion the public markets were running EBITDA margins of enterprise software at -2% during COVID +3%. Why is the industry for 20 years run at zero margin? That's absurd. Some of it was picking on bad behaviors that deserve to be picked on but were overlooked. Because of other tailwinds. Those were gone. So I think the market went through this wild spin of the duration trade, the bad behaviors. But I think even today, the notion that software on a PE basis trades at a discount to the S&P median for twice the growth rate and 80% gross margins is so absurd that, that has to revert itself over time. There'll be catalysts to that, I'm sure, which will just be continued good performance going through this. But I think that's the piece that's still not recognized. And that has an impact on the private business too, because it just scares people that have to hold companies throughout that period of time with an uncertain exit. So that's kind of the world we've been living in.
AJ Rohde · Joys of Compounding · A.J. Rohde: Living in the (Software) Limelight [Joys of Compounding, Ep. 38] · 2026-08-03