At Sohn, artificial intelligence is on the tip of everyone’s tongue, but the agents weren’t yet making stock pitches — just introductions.
Investor Rahul Kishore’s AI agent assistant, Eve, said hello to the audience of the investment conference on Tuesday morning in Lincoln Center and requested better air conditioning in the data center where it “lives.”
Kishore, who launched Epicenter Capital last year after eight years at Coatue, used the AI-generated introduction to tee up his pitch for Axon Enterprises, which makes tasers and body cameras worn by police. Naturally, the company’s upside is tied to AI.
The company’s new AI suite, which is growing faster than its taser and bodycams did, should push the stock price higher; the tools include a transcription product that generates first drafts of police reports from body camera footage.
Kishore expects the stock to double by the end of 2028, and was one of the seven pitches — four longs and three shorts — from the “next wave” of the industry.
For more than a decade, the Sohn conference has dedicated a portion of its day to the industry’s emerging managers.
Its “next wave” participants get a chance to pitch an idea and introduce themselves to the industry’s elite, who, if they aren’t in attendance, are kept informed about what stock is presented by whom. Investors who have been a part of past cohorts include onetime Tourbillon founder Jason Karp and Diameter founder Scott Goodwin.
The highlights of this year’s presentations include young funds run by alumni of big-name firms, including Tiger Cubs such as Kishore and Jim Chanos’ Kynikos Associates.
Kevin Salimian, who is launching his long-only firm, Voxel Capital, in the third quarter, identified a company that’s “long been a key player in the AI value chain.”
Salimian, a former Lone Pine investor, said Infineon Technologies could rise 58% by the end of next year. The German company manufactures semiconductors for automobiles and power plants, and should benefit from the increase in energy demand that has accompanied AI’s expansion.
Of course, the Sohn conference is also known for big short ideas, such as billionaire David Einhorn’s past presentations on Tesla.
Zachary Datikash, a onetime lieutenant of short-seller Chanos, is betting against DaVita, one of the country’s largest dialysis providers.
Datikash, who founded Third North Capital, called the company well-run and profitable, but facing significant structural headwinds thanks to GLP-1s. He expects the company’s pipeline — people in renal failure in need of dialysis — to dwindle thanks to the medical breakthrough.
At the very least, Datikash said, the weight-loss medication will push dialysis later in life for many people, a change that would be a blow to DaVita’s bottom line: The more profitable patients are ones on commercial healthcare plans, not Medicare, which is only available to people once they hit their mid-60s.
DaVita did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
