Dan Nathan interviews veteran tech investor Dan Benton about how tech investing has changed since Benton’s 1991 “20 rules” at Goldman Sachs and why he’s releasing new “2026 rules,” alongside launching a Substack. Benton contrasts a pre-internet, sell-side, information-advantage era with today’s commoditized data, retail tools, and faster markets, arguing investors now differentiate by identifying secular themes and sticking with them. He emphasizes tech as “the market,” the need to respect the Fed, and that momentum in tech is driven by multi-year estimate trajectories, revenue acceleration, and operating leverage, with valuation often secondary until growth decelerates. They discuss stock-based compensation distorting earnings quality, rotations within AI beneficiaries, crowding and risk-off selloffs, and uncertainties around hyperscaler CapEx and OpenAI’s private-market marks. The conversation covers SaaS disruption risk, Tesla and SpaceX “selling the future,” China’s advantages, and why markets are faster but not smarter.
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