Why Incumbents Can Withstand AI Disruption

Mason Morfit is the co-CEO and CIO of ValueAct Capital and in this incredibly rare extended interview he outlines the unique investment approach that defines ValueAct - “quiet” but highly engaged activism, using long-term partnerships with management teams to transform great but drifting companies like Microsoft in 2013 and Salesforce in 2022.

Mason contrasts the short-term, transactional culture he saw as a young banker during the dot-com boom with ValueAct’s model of deep, long-term relationships focused on understanding management’s psychology and context rather than attacking them. 

According to Mason, ValueAct aims to provide a safe space for CEOs to pivot, avoiding berating or public confrontation, because that typically makes management defensive and less open to needed change.

Mason talks Wilf through some of ValueAct’s key positions including their 2013 investment in an out-of-favour Microsoft, then trading on a low multiple and seen as having missed search, phone and tablet. From his board seat, Mason helped highlight the billions in annual losses tied to devices and the Windows Phone, clarifying the opportunity to reallocate capital toward Office and Azure and supporting Satya Nadella’s strategic pivot. He uses this as a textbook example of what an engaged, analytical shareholder can add inside a boardroom that otherwise lacks a large, financially sophisticated owner at the table.

Mason also outlines ValueAct’s current core theme: “everything digitizes, everything organizes, everything automates,” arguing that the real bottleneck for AI isn’t flashy models but the messy middle step of organizing data and rights. Using Spotify as an illustration, he describes how the hard work was not digitizing music but building the global rights, standards, and audit infrastructure that then allowed automated recommendations and playlists to flourish. He then links those lessons and the Microsoft experience to Salesforce, where ValueAct pushed on unit economics, a clearer product matrix, and bundled pricing, helping drive a sharp margin and share-price recovery before the recent AI-driven SaaS sell-off. On the current fear that AI tools will “eat SaaS’s lunch,” he argues incumbents like Salesforce retain huge advantages in identity, permissions, compliance and long-term contracts, much as Microsoft Office ultimately outcompeted early cloud-native rivals.

Mason reflects on his most significant new position – BlackRock – as it transitions from a traditional asset manager into one of the industry's premier data and software companies. He views BlackRock as a dominant player in the "digitize, organize, and automate" megatrend and perfect example of a company whose opportunity set will expand further as it grows. He also discusses Disney and closes on his key investment advice - stay young in your thinking.

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