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Twenty years ago, as Morgan Stanley banker Michael Grimes was helping lead the public offering for the young company behind the Google search engine, one of the most anticipated IPOs of the decade, he was among the first people offered a new email service. He had his pick of any identifier he wanted, so he asked for michael@gmail.com.

Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founder, chimed in. Grimes remembers Brin telling him, “Oh no, you don’t want that. Gmail is going to be big. You’ll be spammed forever.” 

Grimes told CNBC he does regret passing up the email address. But the IPO helped cement his reputation as “Wall Street’s Silicon Valley whisperer,” just as the tech industry began to reshape investing globally.  

He calls the IPO of Google, which has increased by 7,600% over the last two decades, “momentous.” 

The cumulative market value of companies Grimes has taken public is in the trillions of dollars. Some were more tumultuous, like Facebook‘s IPO in 2012, and some pioneered innovative new structures, like Spotify‘s direct listing in 2018. But Google’s was groundbreaking.

“It was the start of the next era,” Grimes said. “Google [and other megacaps that followed] changed the way that we work, live and play. They did it in bigger ways than we all thought and now these are trillion-dollar companies right up at the top.”

Big Tech: too big to split

Now operating under parent Alphabet, the company is worth more than $2 trillion. No longer just search and advertising, the tech giant counts YouTube, Pixel smartphones, cloud computing, self-driving cars and generative artificial intelligence among its many business units. It’s a technology company so expansive that the Department of Justice may be looking to split it up.

Alphabet wasn’t immediately available to comment.

At the time of Google’s IPO 20 years ago, the tech industry was still reeling from the dot-com burst of the early 2000s and investors were cautious. Rather than going with a traditional offering, Google decided on a process called a Dutch auction, intended to democratize the IPO process by allowing a broader range of investors to participate. 

The founders’ IPO letter began: “Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one.” It also introduced Google’s “don’t be evil” philosophy.

Grimes said Brin and Larry Page wanted a level playing field for their IPO: “Their point of view was: Wait, if a young engineer sold some of her vested stock from Cisco or wherever and she wants to put $10,000 into Google, why should she get told she only gets $500 worth or none? Especially if she’s willing to pay one dollar more than the institution.” 

“The auction allocations,” Grimes said, “would be determined by price and size. Not by who you are, and that was the fun. That was the fundamental breakthrough.” 

Grimes added that some banks and institutions cautioned Google’s co-founders against the unusual process and told them it wasn’t the way things were done. But others, like his team, said they’d build with them. 

Winning the coveted “left lead” on the IPO was and still is a competitive race. The Morgan Stanley team embraced the format, built a prototype and tested for a billion bids. 

For the road show,  they split into three different teams. Co-founders Brin and Page each led their own, and CEO Eric Schmidt led the third. 

By most accounts, the IPO was successful. Google overcame a weak IPO market and an unproven offering model to generate a solid first-day return and a market capitalization of over $27 billion. From there, the stock kept appreciating.

But it would take more than a decade for the principles behind Google’s IPO to take off. Consumer technology brands like Facebook (now Meta), Twitter (now X) and LinkedIn (now owned by Microsoft) would go the traditional IPO route. But several of the high-profile listings between 2019 and 2021 did incorporate elements that aligned with Google’s democratizing intent. Airbnb offered hosts the opportunity to buy shares at the IPO price. Uber and Lyft made shares available to its drivers, and Robinhood gave customers access to its IPO.

Assessing the impact of Google’s “don’t be evil” credo — and how it’s aged — is more complicated. Grimes declined to reflect on the Google of today, saying he can’t talk about clients.

Google now stands accused of stifling innovation by U.S. and European regulators, and although the company is at the forefront of the generative AI platform shift, search and advertising — still its bread and butter — is facing its biggest existential threat in decades.

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World’s largest chipmaker TSMC says it has discovered potential trade secret leaks

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World's largest chipmaker TSMC says it has discovered potential trade secret leaks

TSMC workers walk down a hallway in a chipmaking fab in Taiwan. The company is building three such plants in Arizona.

TSMC

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. said on Tuesday that it had detected “unauthorized activities” that lead to the discovery of potential trade secret leaks.

The world’s biggest semiconductor manufacturer told CNBC that it has taken “strict” disciplinary action against the personnel involved and that it has also launched legal proceedings.

“TSMC maintains a zero-tolerance policy toward any actions that compromise the protection of trade secrets or harm the company’s interests,” the company said.

“Such violations are dealt with strictly and pursued to the fullest extent of the law. We remain committed to safeguarding our core competitiveness and the shared interests of all our employees.”

Semiconductors have grown in strategic importance in recent years as they have become the key pillar in the boom in artificial intelligence models and applications. Rising geopolitical tensions has put the spotlight on the competitive technological advantages of major firms in the chip supply chain like TSMC and other leaders across the board.

TSMC, headquartered in Taiwan, dominates the market for the manufacturing of the world’s most advanced chips and counts major tech giants including Apple and Nvidia as clients.

As the case is now under judicial review, TSMC is unable to provide further information, the firm said.

TSMC identified the issue early due to its “comprehensive and robust monitoring mechanisms,” the company said, adding that it carried out swift internal investigations.

Nikkei Asia, citing multiple sources familiar with the matter, reported on Tuesday that several former employees of TSMC are suspected of attempting to obtain critical proprietary information on 2-nanometer chip development and production while they were still working at the company.

Production of the 2-nanometer chip is among the leading edge manufacturing processes in the semiconductor industry currently. TSMC said it did not have any additional information to share when asked by CNBC about the Nikkei report.

As the world’s leading chipmaker, TSMC has a treasure trove of intellectual property. By its own account, the company has previously said it has more than 200,000 trade secrets recorded in its internal system.

It is not the first time that TSMC has been the target for potential theft. In 2018, a Taiwanese court indicted a former employee for copying trade secretes related to the 28-nanometer fabrication process, with intent to transfer them to a semiconductor company in mainland China.

In 2023, ASML, which makes machines that are required to manufacture the most advanced chips, said that it discovered that a former employee in China had misappropriated data related to its proprietary technology.

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Hims & Hers stock falls 10% on revenue miss

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Hims & Hers stock falls 10% on revenue miss

The Hers app arranged on a smartphone in New York, US, on Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025. 

Gabby Jones | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Shares of Hims & Hers Health fell 9% in extended trading on Monday after the telehealth company reported second-quarter results that missed Wall Street’s expectations for revenue.

Here’s how the company did based on average analysts’ estimates compiled by LSEG:

  • Earnings per share: 17 cents adjusted vs. 15 cents
  • Revenue: $544.8 million vs. $552 million

Revenue at Hims & Hers increased 73% in the second quarter from $315.6 million during the same period last year, according to a release. Hims & Hers reported a net income of $42.5 million, or 17 cents per share, compared to $13.3 million, or 6 cents per share, during the same period a year earlier.

For its third quarter, Hims & Hers said it expected to report revenue between $570 million to $590 million, while analysts were expecting $583 million. The company said its adjusted EBITDA for the quarter will be between the range of $60 million to $70 million. Analysts polled by StreetAccount were expecting $77.1 million.

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Hims & Hers has faced controversy in recent months over its continued sale of compounded GLP-1s, which are cheaper, unapproved versions of the blockbuster diabetes and weight loss drugs. Compounded drugs can be mass produced when brand-name treatments are in shortage, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced in February that ongoing supply issues had been resolved.

Some telehealth companies, including Hims & Hers, have continued to offer the compounded medications. It’s legal for patients to access personalized doses of the knockoffs in unique cases, like if they are allergic to an ingredient in a branded product, for instance. Hims & Hers has said consumers may still be able to access personalized doses through its site if clinically applicable. 

In June, Hims & Hers shares tumbled more than 30% after a short-lived collaboration with Novo Nordisk fell apart. The drugmaker said Hims & Hers “failed to adhere to the law which prohibits mass sales of compounded drugs” under the “false guise” of personalization.

Hims & Hers reported adjusted EBITDA of $82 million for its second quarter, up from $39.3 million last year and above the $73 million expected by StreetAccount.

Hims & Hers will host its quarterly call with investors at 5 p.m. ET.

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YTD chart of Hims & Hers Health.

–CNBC’s Annika Kim Constantino contributed to this report

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Palantir tops $1 billion in revenue for the first time, boosts guidance

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Palantir tops  billion in revenue for the first time, boosts guidance

Palantir reports $1 billion in revenue for the first time

Palantir topped Wall Street’s estimates Monday, surpassing $1 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time, and hiking its full-year guidance.

Shares rallied more than 5%.

Here’s how the company did versus LSEG estimates:

  • Earnings per share: 16 cents adj. vs. 14 cents expected
  • Revenue: $1.00 billion vs. $940 million expected

The artificial intelligence software provider’s revenues grew 48% during the period. Analysts hadn’t expected the $1 billion revenue benchmark from the Denver-based company until the fourth quarter of this year.

“The growth rate of our business has accelerated radically, after years of investment on our part and derision by some,” wrote CEO Alex Karp in a letter to shareholders. “The skeptics are admittedly fewer now, having been defanged and bent into a kind of submission.”

The software analytics company also boosted its full-year outlook guidance. For the full year, Palantir now expects revenues to range between $4.142 billion and $4.150 billion, up from prior guidance of $3.89 billion to $3.90 billion.

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For the third quarter, Palantir forecast revenues between $1.083 billion and $1.087 billion, beating an analyst estimate of $983 million. Palantir also lifted its operating income and full-year free cash flow guidance.

Palantir’s U.S. revenues jumped 68% from a year ago to $733 million, while U.S. commercial revenues nearly doubled from a year ago to $306 million.

The software analytics company has seen a boost from President Donald Trump‘s government efficiency campaign, which included layoffs and contract cuts. Palantir’s U.S. government revenues jumped 53% from the year-ago period to $426 million.

“It has been a steep and upward climb — an ascent that is a reflection of the remarkable confluence of the arrival of language models, the chips necessary to power them, and our software infrastructure,” Karp wrote in a letter to shareholders.

During the quarter, Palantir said it closed 66 deals of at least $5 million and 42 deals totaling at least $10 million. Total value of its contracts grew 140% from last year to $2.27 billion.

Net income rose 144% to about $326.7 million, or 13 cents a share, from about $134.1 million, or 6 cents per share a year ago.

Palantir shares have more than doubled this year as investors bet on the company’s AI tools and contract agreements with governments.

Its market value has accelerated past $379 billion and into the list of top 20 most valuable U.S companies, surpassing SalesforceIBM and Cisco to join the top 10 U.S. tech companies by market cap. Shares hit a new high Monday.

At its size, buying the stock requires investors to pay hefty multiples.

Shares currently trade 276 times forward earnings, according to FactSet. Tesla is the only other top 20 with a triple-digit ratio at 177.

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Palantir one-day stock chart.

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