Waymo's "Ojai" Launch, Nikon's Move Against ASML and Adyen's C-Suite Shift
Portfolio News #30
Hi All,
Welcome to our brief overview of portfolio news from the past few days.
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Alphabet
Clean Energy for Data Centers: Alphabet signed a 15-year power purchase agreement with Enlight Renewable Energy for 200 MW of solar energy in Oklahoma to power its data centers starting in 2029.
Waymo Dominates Autonomous Vehicles: Waymo has 577 registered autonomous vehicles in Texas, more than 13x Tesla’s 42 robotaxis. Capitalizing on this momentum, Waymo is also rolling out its next-gen “Ojai” robotaxi (built with Geely’s Zeekr) in major cities. While competitor narratives lean heavily on future promises, Alphabet is quietly building an insurmountable operational lead on the ground.
Autodesk: Stellar Q1 or Optical Illusion?
Autodesk dropped its Q1 FY27 earnings, and at first glance, the top-line performance looked phenomenal. Revenue jumped 18% year-over-year to $1.93B, non-GAAP EPS hit $2.99, and the business remains an absolute cash machine, with free cash flow surging 58% to $876M. Management even raised full-year FY27 guidance.
Yet, the stock slipped in after-hours trading.
Why the disconnect?
The 18% headline growth is heavily distorted by Autodesk’s transition to its new direct-transaction model. When you normalize the metrics and look at constant-currency growth adjusted for this accounting shift, core growth is projected at a much cooler 8–9% for the full year.
Simultaneously, Autodesk announced a $3.6 billion all-cash acquisition of MaintainX, an industrial maintenance and operations software provider. Strategically, this is brilliant long-term positioning, it bridges the gap between design phase software and real-world asset management, capturing a massive operational dataset to feed its industrial AI tools. We view the after-hours weakness as a classic case of the market digesting accounting noise rather than structural deterioration.
Other Key Updates
ASML: Japanese rival Nikon is making a targeted push to win back market share in semiconductor photolithography by undercutting ASML on price, leveraging an in-house component cost advantage to near purchase orders with major chipmakers in the US and Asia for its argon fluoride lithography equipment. While this pressures ASML’s lower-tier mature node revenues, ASML’s core investment thesis remains intact due to its absolute, unchallenged monopoly over the cutting-edge EUV and High-NA systems required for advanced AI hardware.
Intuit: Rolled out “Analytics AI” and a beta “AI Segment Builder” within its Mailchimp marketing platform to help businesses seamlessly analyze audience data. To further enhance its e-commerce AI marketing capabilities, Mailchimp has also expanded its integrations with Anthropic’s Claude, Wix, and WooCommerce.
Adyen: Chief Financial Officer Ethan Tandowsky is stepping down effective August 31 to pursue an opportunity outside fintech. While sections of the market were critical of Ethan regarding capital allocation strategy, core operational execution during his tenure was exceptionally strong. C-suite departures of structural executives always introduce near-term sentiment volatility, but the underlying payments engine remains fundamentally unchanged.
That’s a wrap. See you soon.
As a Mensch und Maschine shareholder I like the accounting change in Autodesk's model. Autodesk handles more of the non value creating parts of their relationship now.