Titans of Industry with Cathie Wood

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Who's got it wrong, Cathie, public market investors or private investors?

Well, I think public market investors have it wrong for the most part, because they're looking backwards. As I mentioned before, I think private equity or venture capital investors have it more, right, because they're looking out, they're looking to the future. And they're looking long term. So our investment time horizon is five years. And we do that for public companies, most investors are looking at one year. Well, if you take a look at the difference between linear growth and exponential growth over five years, it's night and day, you know, the numbers will be very, very different. Whereas most investors are just looking at this year and the base level. If you're comparing an emerging trend to a well-established trend, you're going to probably be much more comfortable with the established trend because you're not looking far enough to see the explosive growth trajectories. It is interesting, even within the private markets, we're seeing significant corrections in some companies' valuations, but not in the truly differentiated, highly differentiated, sure, some of a correction. But in the public markets, we have seen 80% declines in companies. It's been shocking. I've never seen anything like it. And it makes no sense. So I think that the valuations in the private markets are more in keeping with what we think is going to happen long term.

This is probably one of the top Google trends search topics these days: recession. What's your take Cathie? Does this change your investing style, your pipeline, and the sorts of ways you're spending your team's energy and resources?

So we think we're in a recession. But what does that do to our research? Innovation solves problems. And so it gains more traction during tough times. And so, what we do is double down on our research and assume that some of our trends are going to be turbocharged here. As the global digitalization of work and life generally has been, if anything, it increases our confidence.