Vista Equity Partners' Robert Smith talks AI, tariff impact on tech

Yahoo

06-05-2025

00:00
Brian Sozzi
Yahoo Finance at the Milken Conference in California. Special guest joining me right now. That is Vista Equity Partners CEO Robert Smith. No stranger to Yahoo Finance. It's been a while, good to see you. Good to see you.
00:08
Robert F. Smith
Good to see you.
00:09
Brian Sozzi
So, let me just tick tick through a couple of these things. Sure. We had Liberation Day, hit tech stock valuations. The IPO market is ground to a halt. I think the last IPO I covered was CoreWeave down at the Nasdaq. Right. Level set for us. So, we're looking at a like a tech stock winter?
00:27
Robert F. Smith
It's a good question. I think that there needs to be a basic understanding, first of all, of what is the impact of generative AI across technology generally. That's not well understood. Um, we had our annual general meeting last week, and it was very clear in having conversations with our investors, that many of them were actually confused about what is the actual impact of generative AI. And so hopefully, we were able to explain to them what the impact is, what the opportunity set is. And it's got to manifest. It's got to actually produce some result. Do you not chat about briefly about Microsoft and some of the work they've done and seeing that you know their results. A lot of it is now starting to manifest in ways like other ways. Every single time there's a new change in paradigm and technology, it happens in waves. Hardware typically is the first beneficiaries, infrastructure providers second, software typically third. So I think we're just at that that point where people are really starting to understand, well, what is the impact? What is the implication? And what are the advantages of owning those securities in those stocks? And so it's going to take some time for that to play out. And it's going to be a while before the equity markets ready to receive those sorts of businesses. The what what is the impact Well, what is the risk to tech from tariffs?
01:53
Robert F. Smith
There is risk in the hardware aspects around around tariffs, not so far in software. Software is probably one step removed. They're like, they're the software experts. The good news is in enterprise software, we're not seeing tariff and indirect implications of of our businesses. You know, this is still an enabling an enablement tool. Gen AI is actually going to feed this enablement tool for people to become more efficient as you know, as they have to realign supply chains, supply lines, et cetera. We also get tremendous amount of data in evaluating. I was looking at shipping data. I was looking at aircraft, you know, air transportation data coming straight out of our systems to get an understanding of what the impact is. You are going to see some slowdowns in some sectors, no question about it. We're already seeing it. But in enterprise software, when you actually need to do more with less, if you actually need to expand your your your your your revenue opportunities in new markets, enterprise software is one of the most efficient ways to do it. And as you start to enable that with some agentic solutions, which will come, you know, pretty soon. You know, you'll actually see some pickup in that in that market space. Hardware, I think, is going to get impacted and you've got some geopolitical dynamics around there that are going to reshape the way that certain assets are are actually utilized and consumed across the planet. I should mention, of course, Robert, you're 89 companies are in the portfolio. You've been investing in tech for what 25 years. You just celebrate the 25th anniversary. Oh my god, that's crazy. 25 years. We sure did. Yeah, pretty exciting. What is the when you hear Apple get on its earnings call and say, hey, we're going to have we're going to get a $900 million hit because of tariffs, what's the downstream effect to tech from something like that? That's a huge number.
04:01
Robert F. Smith
Yeah, it is. You know, but you you'll see, look, they have a phenomenal management team there. You know, Tim is one of the most exceptional business leaders I've ever seen in my 25, 30 year history. Um, but there has been a reshaping of his supply chain. He's got There's a whole ecosystem around how they assemble those devices, build those devices, develop those devices, and now being forced to rethink that. You have to rebuild that ecosystem. It isn't just one group doing all the work. It's an ecosystem. So it'll take time. As that happens, there'll be a phasing in of new technology on top of those platforms. The good news in my world, enterprise software, you're basically not, you know, you can actually develop on top of platforms. But you can develop when the platforms are static as well. That's why it's been the most productive tool because you actually introduce a new platform, which is hardware, they actually have some utility, some life associated with them. Whereas in enterprise software, you can constantly innovate because you're now gathering data, insight information from the users of this technology and can develop new products and create new utility for those products without actually having to change the hardware platform. 89 companies within these 89 companies, are you seeing any slowdown customers pausing demand because of the macro uncertainty?
05:39
Robert F. Smith
I'm going to knock wood. So far, we have not seen it in the consumption of enterprise software. However, we have seen some effects because of reshaping in the US instance of our government contracts. Not that they've been canceled, but the people who needed to sign the contracts are no longer there. So Because of what, DOD? There's been some of that activity, some realignments. You know, get certain certain re restructuring of, you know, departments and government entities. We've seen that dynamic. Not at scale, but we have seen it. The other thing that's actually quite interesting is again, being able to evaluate the data sets of what's actually occurring globally. You do see slow down in certain certain segments, not in consumption of software, but in the movement of goods. And so people are, of course, looking how do they, you know, which is essential. So it doesn't actually impact the enterprise software world. We saw this in great financial crisis when we saw when they were bailing out the auto industry, our enterprise software businesses actually ticked up in terms of utilization, because people needed to be more efficient with what they do. And I think Satya spoke a little bit about that yesterday. It is the most resilient. It's the most durable. It actually gives you the opportunity to do more with less. Lastly, the Treasury Secretary Scott Bezkin gave a speech here earlier this morning. And he said China is catching up to the US on AI. You're an international traveler. You do work over various lines of business overseas. Is that gap really as close as he suggested?
07:49
Robert F. Smith
I might argue it's closer than he than he let on. Really? How so? China has some highly capable people, a vast amount of resources, a high frequency of engagement with innovation. Um you could just see it in the auto industry. Now I don't know when the last time you were there. I'm there. Like Xpeng, who's going to make flying cars now. Right. I mean, it's it's amazing what you see. I mean, there was things that I saw in AI in China in 2017 and 2018 that we were just scratching the surface on here. Now, generative AI, a different dynamic requires a different utility, a different in essence compute capabilities. But as you saw, you know, deep seek and different ways, that wasn't a surprise as to where they ended up. It was just a surprise of where it came from to most people. It wasn't a surprise to us. So part of it is, you know, as you travel around and you see, and you actually have relationships and evaluate, um, look, it is once we liberated, and I'll say this, compute to the world, it's not unsurprising that you're going to have instances where certain environments and people and countries actually are quite advanced in the work that they do. So this is not surprising.