Ben’s Portfolio update end of July 2026

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Ben’s Portfolio update end of July 2026

Returns and portfolio holdings:

Portfolio Notes
2022 -15.6%* *Jul-Dec, since I started posting my portfolio on Saul’s and fully adopting my version of Saul’s investing approach.
2023 77.8%
2024 31.7%
2025 24.9%
2026 YTD Month
Jan -8.2% -8.2%
Feb -15.9% -8.3%
Mar -14.7% 1.3%
Apr -9.4% 6.3%
May 25.2% 38.1%
Jun 28.9% 2.9%
Jul 31.3% 1.9%

These are my current positions:

July 2026 June 2026 First buy*
Cloudflare 22.0% 19.7% 11/2/2020
Datadog 19.2% 19.0% 5/13/2020
Nvidia 15.8% 16.1% 5/13/2020
Crowdstrike 12.9% 13.1% 5/13/2020
Snowflake 12.5% 11.1% 2/8/2021
Axon 6.0% 6.5% 4/2/2024
Astera Labs 3.8% 6.0% 11/18/2025
AppLovin 3.4% 4.5% 11/18/2025
Samsara 2.8% 2.5% 1/8/2024
Zscaler 1.5% 1.4% 3/4/2021

*held through today

Company comments

Crowdstrike:

Crowdstrike reported Fiscal Q1 2027 on 06/03/26 that built on the momentum established in Q4, highlighting exceptional operational leverage and a healthy go-to-market motion. Let’s dig in: The top line easily cleared my $1373M target, landing at $1386M for a 25.6% YoY growth rate. With a 1.7% guidance beat revenue is accelerating from last quarter’s 23.3% and is up also significantly from last Q1’s 19.8% YoY growth. While Net New ARR of $256 million came in a bit below my $289M expectation, representing a sequential drop, the broader context is important. This print follows that massive Q4 Net New ARR pull-forward of $330M, so seeing a regression to the mean isn’t alarming, especially considering that $256 million still represents a 32% YoY growth rate and factoring in the net new ARR seasonality, where net new ARR has been down sequentially in pretty much every Q1 Crowdstrike ever reported. Total ARR is now at $5.51b, up 24% YoY, and management’s tone on the call was highly confident, pointing to AI-driven demand and platform consolidation as ongoing tailwinds.

The forward-looking metrics and guidance updates provide a reassuring setup for the rest of the year. I now interpret the Q2 revenue guide of $1439M to result in about 25% YoY growth, implying another 1.7% guidance beat. Most notably, management raised their full-year FY27 guidance by 0.5% - the first time we’ve seen a full-year raise in four quarters. This is a strong signal that the visibility issues and conservative guides following last year’s outage are in the rearview mirror. When looking at the underlying booking metrics, total RPO did slip sequentially by 2.2% to $8.8b, but a deeper dive shows this was driven entirely by a drop in backlog rather than deferred revenue, which remained flat. Current RPO (cRPO) hit $4.58b, making up 52% of total RPO (interestingly up from 51% last Q) and growing 29.4% YoY. The analyst Q&A provided good context here: as Crowdstrike leans heavier into their Falcon Flex consumption model - which added over 300 accounts this quarter and grew ending ARR by 99% to $1.9 billion - traditional RPO naturally becomes a less informative metric. Customers are signing up for flexible consumption rather than rigid forward commitments, which obscures the booking backlog but accelerates actual platform adoption.

The profitability metrics this quarter were excellent, demonstrating the exact kind of operational leverage we want to see. Operating income reached $326M, good for a 23.5% margin and comfortably beating my $316M target. Growing operating expenses by just 16.5% YoY while revenue expanded by 25.6% proves how efficiently they are scaling. Net income followed suit at $283M (a 20.5% margin), and free cash flow was a positive standout, generating $468M. That expands the FCF margin by 800 basis points YoY to a very strong 33.8%. On the customer front, we won’t get an official NRR update until Q4, but management explicitly noted "continued strong retention rates”, suggesting we are holding close to that 97% gross retention mark. The cross-selling motion remains very healthy, with all multi-product cohorts ticking up by 1% sequentially. Seeing 51%, 35%, and 25% of the customer base now utilizing 6+, 7+, and 8+ modules, respectively, validates that the consolidation narrative remains intact.

As for newsworthy developments since the June 3 report, there are a few items that fit right into our long-term thesis. On July 16, CrowdStrike announced a major expansion of their strategic partnership with Schwarz Digits to deliver the Falcon platform on STACKIT, a European sovereign cloud. As part of this, they are acquiring the intellectual property of XM Cyber, which should further bolster their exposure management capabilities - a nice strategic tuck-in. Finally, Frost & Sullivan just named them the 2026 Global Company of the Year in Identity Threat Detection and Response, which comes on top of Gartner’s top positioning reinforcing that their identity modules are being recognized as best-in-breed in the wider market. The thesis remains fully intact and the execution is top-tier.

CRWD_Gartner_Endpoint_Protection
CRWD_Gartner_Endpoint_Protection1294×1382 102 KB

Source: Crowdstrike’s 1Q27 earnings presentation.

In my mind, the biggest narrative update for Crowdstrike is what Kurtz called the “Mythos moment” for cybersecurity, pointing to a reality that drastically raises the stakes for every enterprise. While securing new AI models from prompt injections and data leakage is an incredibly important capability, as showcased by the truly massive 250% sequential ARR growth for their AI Detection and Response (AIDR) module, the other critical implication is how bad actors are utilizing AI to weaponize the existing threat landscape. Malicious AI agents are compressing the time between a vulnerability’s discovery and its widespread exploitation from weeks down to mere minutes. This means the existing vulnerabilities that hundreds of thousands of companies are sitting on can now be exploited far more quickly and easily at scale. Legacy, human-speed security tools simply cannot keep up with this, leaving Crowdstrike’s real-time, AI-native architecture as delivered by the Falcon Platform uniquely positioned to stop these machine-speed attacks before they breach a system. For investors, the key takeaway is that malicious AI is accelerating the obsolescence of legacy security, turning the Falcon platform into a mandatory infrastructure layer to survive the new speed of cyber threats.

Overview of how Crowdstrike performed versus my prior expectations:

  • Revenue expectation: $1373M (5.2% QoQ, 24.4% YoY), implying a 0.8% beat this Q.
    → Revenue was $1386M (6.1% QoQ, 25.6% YoY), a 1.7% beat.
  • Q2 new revenue guide: $1435M (4.5% QoQ, 22.7% YoY) which I would interpret as $1448M (5.5% QoQ, 23.9% YoY), expecting roughly stable YoY growth.
    → new Q2 guide was $1439M (3.9% QoQ, 23.1% YoY), which I now interpret as $1439M (5.6% QoQ, 25.2% YoY), implying a 1.7% beat; They also raised their FY guide by 0.5%, the first FY guide raise in 4 quarters.
  • Net new ARR of around $289M (-12.7% QoQ and ARR +5.5% QoQ).
    → net new ARR was $256M (-22.6% QoQ and ARR went up +4.9% QoQ).
  • I would like to see around $9.45b RPO (5% QoQ, 39% YoY); cRPO around $4.73b (50% of RPO, 33.6% YoY).
    → RPO was $8.8b (-2.2% QoQ, 29.4% YoY) and cRPO was $4.58b and 52% of RPO, which is up from 51% last Q. cRPO grew 29.4% YoY.
  • I would like to see NRR greater or equal to 115% (not reported until Q4).
    → we’ll have to wait for Q4 to see this number.
  • I would like to see about $316M operating income.
    → Operating income was $326M, 23.5% of revenue, expanding OM by over 5% YoY. In large part thanks to growing operating expenses by 16.5% YoY, while revenue rose 25.6% YoY, displaying amazing operational leverage.
  • I would like to see about $280M net income.
    → Net income was $283M, a 20.5% margin, up from 16.7% last Q1.
  • I would like to see no multi-product customer decline.
    → all multi-product customer cohorts grew by 1%, with 51% of customers having 6+ products, 35% of customers having 7+ products and 25% of customers having 8+ products.
  • I would like to see gross retention close to 97%.
    → a number was not given but an earnings call reference stated “This strength is reflected in our continued strong retention rates”.
  • Thoughts from previous quarter: Crowdstrike’s 4Q26 earnings recap.

Zscaler:

Zscaler reported Fiscal Q3 2026 on May 26, 2026. Revenue came in at $850.5M (4.3% QoQ, 25.4% YoY), which was just a hair under my $852M expectation, but still represented a 1.9% beat against their own guidance. This perfectly maintains that standard ~2% beat cadence I highlighted last quarter. Their new Q4 revenue guide of $876.5M is setting up a similar dynamic, although i’d like to see a slightly bigger beat this Q4, potentially driven by increased demand for Agentic AI security products. Implying a 2.6% beat to achieve that, I interpret their new guide as roughly $899M (5.7% QoQ, 25.0% YoY). Reaching that would also tell me top-line growth is holding steady and isn’t decelerating, which would be reassuring.

However, looking under the hood of the current quarter, like the customer metrics, the inorganic acquisition hangover I called out in Q2 is still very real. Net new $100k+ ARR customers came in at 117 (3.0% QoQ growth), slipping further from the 132 we saw last quarter, but actually quite a bit higher than I had expected. On the other hand they only added 20 new $1M+ ARR customers, down from 30 in Q2. ARR landed slightly short of my $3.56b target at $3.53b (4.9% QoQ, 25.1% YoY), and once again, management completely omitted NRR from the headline numbers. This confirms my yellow flag from last quarter: hiding key retention metrics wasn’t a temporary issue. It is becoming increasingly clear that organic ARR growth is trailing the headline figures, and the large Q1 growth spike was entirely juiced by the Red Canary and SPLXAI acquisitions. RPO and cRPO grew decently, but without NRR, tracking the true health of their existing base remains frustratingly opaque.

The biggest shock of the quarter came in the profitability metrics, specifically cash flow. While operating income was solid at $196M (a 23.0% margin, fueled by good operational leverage and decelerating OpEx), free cash flow fell off a cliff. FCF came in at just $136M, or a 16% margin. Before the call, I wondered if the FCF drop was just a new seasonal trend. Unfortunately, the reality is much worse. The drop wasn’t just seasonal; management actually slashed their full-year fiscal 2026 free cash flow margin guidance down to 22.8% - 23.3%, a significant cut from their prior 26.5% - 27% outlook. This deterioration is being driven by capital expenditures accelerating into the high single digits as a percentage of revenue. This is a severe structural shift that completely contradicts the capital-light cloud narrative that has historically justified Zscaler’s premium valuation. (The market’s reaction was brutal, with shares plunging roughly 24% the day after earnings.)

Management spent the first half of June doing damage control across their conference circuit - presenting at Baird, Bank of America, ZenithLive, and FBN. At ZenithLive specifically, they unveiled new Agentic AI security products and expanded their AI-Guardian platform. Their core defense for the CapEx spike is that this heavy infrastructure investment is required to support these new AI solutions and scale their Zero Trust SASE offerings. To make up for sluggish enterprise customer additions, they continue to lean heavily on consumption pricing and Flex bookings to squeeze more growth out of the existing base. While this is helping hold the top line up, I am quite a bit skeptical, waiting to see if management can actually rein in CapEx in Q4 and restore cash flow margins.

Since the earnings call, the news flow hasn’t offered much of a reprieve. On the noise side, Nasdaq announced in mid-June that Zscaler would be booted from the Nasdaq-100 index during its June 22 rebalance to make room for newer names like Astera Labs. This triggered a wave of passive selling pressure from index-tracking funds. Operationally, they did announce a solid partnership on July 28 with Schwarz Digits to deliver a Sovereign Cloud Security platform in Europe, which is a nice regional win. Ultimately, with NRR still hidden, organic customer adds slowing, and the capital-light thesis at least in question (operating income still strong, but FCF tanked), the investment case here has gotten significantly muddier since Q2. I’m definitely starting to think about re-allocating those funds, but might give it one more quarter to see how things develop in a world where we have a sudden exploding demand for Agentic AI security products such as those new ones Zscaler unveiled.

Overview of how Zscaler performed versus my prior expectations:

  • Revenue expectation: $852M (4.4% QoQ, 25.6% YoY), implying a 2% beat.
    ->Revenue was $850M (4.3% QoQ, 25.4% YoY), a 1.9% beat.
  • Q4 new revenue guide: $883M (3.7% QoQ, 22.8% YoY) which I would interpret as $900M (5.7% QoQ, 25.2% YoY) expecting slight YoY deceleration.
    → new Q4 revenue guide was $876.5M (3.1% QoQ, 21.9% YoY), which I now interpret as $899M (5.7% QoQ, 25.0% YoY), implying a 2.6% beat.
  • I would like to see ARR of around $3.56b (6% QoQ, 26.4% YoY).
    → ARR was $3.53b (4.9% QoQ, 25.1% YoY).
  • I would like to see RPO growth of around 7% QoQ (to $6.47b) and cRPO of about $3.0b (27% YoY).
    → RPO grew 6.8% QoQ to $6.46b and cRPO was $2.97b (24.4% YoY).
  • I would like to see >100k ARR customer growth around 2.5% QoQ (~97 net adds).
    → 100k+ ARR customers grew 3.0% QoQ (117 net adds).
  • I would like to see >1M ARR customer growth around 3% QoQ (~22 net adds).
    → 1M+ ARR customers grew 2.7% QoQ (20 net adds).
  • I would like to see an operating income around $188M (22% margin).
    → operating income was $196M, a 23.0% margin, fueled by good operational leverage where operating expense growth fell to 23.5% YoY from 24.4% YoY last Q, while revenue grew 25.4% YoY.
  • I would like to see an FCF around $179M (21% margin).
    → FCF was $136M (16% margin), a sharp drop from last Q’s 20.7%, but could be part of new seasonal trend as FCF margin in the previous Q3 was also lower at 17.6% compared to 22.1% in Q2 last year.
  • Thoughts from previous quarter: Zscaler’s 2Q26 earnings recap.

Samsara:

Samsara reported Fiscal Q1 2027 on June 4, 2026, and it was another clear illustration of their durability as a compounder. They comfortably cleared my top-line expectations, delivering $479M in revenue (up 7.8% QoQ and 30.5% YoY) for a 5.2% beat. It’s great to see that YoY growth rate actually accelerate slightly from Q4’s 28.3%. Their Q2 revenue guide of $483M looks light on the surface, but applying their standard beat cadence, I interpret this as $508M. That would represent 6.0% QoQ and 29.7% YoY growth, implying another 5.1% beat. Simply put, growth is holding remarkably steady right around that 30% mark even as the numbers get much larger.

Looking at the underlying business momentum, they delivered $101M in Net New ARR, ending the quarter just shy of the $2 billion mark at $1.99B. While the net new ARR was a step down sequentially from the big Q4 finish, it was essentially right in line with my $106M target for a Q1, accounting for typical seasonality. RPO grew to $3.99B (up 5.9% QoQ) and cRPO came in at $1.73B (up 31.9% YoY). The backlog keeps building. Under the hood, they added 169 net new $100k+ ARR customers, bringing the total to 3363. With core customer NRR remaining rock solid at 115%, the expansion motion within existing accounts is still doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Emerging products are a big part of that story, once again driving over 20% of net new ACV for the second straight quarter. Management also noted that international is contributing well, making up 18% of net new ACV. It’s clear that their platform approach is landing well with large enterprises, highlighted by big Q1 wins like Hertz and the State of Connecticut.

On the profitability front, the operating leverage story continues to play out beautifully. Operating income came in at $91M, which translates to a 19.0% margin. This easily beat my 17.4% target and is a great hold following the 20.7% we saw in Q4. They also notched their third consecutive quarter of GAAP EPS profitability. Because they are getting so much efficiency out of their R&D and go-to-market motions, management actually bumped their full-year fiscal 2027 operating margin guidance up to 20%. They are proving they can sustain ~30% top-line growth while consistently dropping more money to the bottom line.

Since the earnings report, we also had their Investor Day on June 24, which provided a great look at where the narrative is heading. Management laid out a multi-phase approach to the business, moving from basic data collection (Phase 1) to AI insights (Phase 2), and now into “agentic” automation (Phase 3). They launched Agent Studio, allowing customers to build custom AI workflows, and introduced a disposable, consumption-priced Tracking Label for shipment visibility. That last piece is a big deal because it opens up the supply chain market for them, expanding their total addressable market to $175 billion. The market clearly liked these updates, pushing the stock up nearly 16.9% in the weeks following the event. Just recently in July, they evolved their branding around the concept of “Physical AI,” which perfectly captures their transition from just tracking trucks to optimizing the entire physical economy. Overall, the thesis remains fully intact: Samsara is firing on all cylinders.

Overview of how Samsara performed versus my prior expectations:

  • Revenue expectation: $475M (7.0% QoQ, 29.6% YoY), implying a 4.5% beat.
    → Revenue was $479M (7.8% QoQ, 30.5% YoY), a 5.2% beat.
  • Q2 new revenue guide: $483M (1.5% QoQ, 23.3% YoY) which I would interpret as $504M (6.0% QoQ, 28.7% YoY).
    → The new Q2 revenue guide was for $483M (0.9% QoQ, 23.4% YoY), which I now interpret as $508M (6.0% QoQ, 29.7% YoY), implying a 5.1% beat.
  • I would like to see net new ARR around $106M (total ARR around $2.0b).
    → net new ARR was $101M (total ARR was $1.99b).
  • I would like to see RPO around $3.91b (3.9% QoQ) and cRPO around $1.72b (31.3% YoY).
    → RPO was $3.99b (5.9% QoQ) and cRPO was $1.73b (31.9% YoY).
  • I would like to see core customer NRR around 115%.
    → core customer NRR was 115%.
  • I would like to see around 160 new $100k+ ARR customers (3354 total, 27.1% YoY).
    → we got 169 new $100k+ ARR customers (3363 total, 27.5% YoY).
  • I would like to see around $82M operating income, corresponding to a 17.4% operating margin.
    → Operating income was $91M, a 19.0% margin.
  • Thoughts from previous quarter: Samsara’s 4Q26 earnings recap.

Expectations for upcoming earnings

In the following I summarize my expectations for the companies reporting this earnings season. The goal of this exercise is to come up with reasonable earnings expectations. The goal here is not to be absolutely accurate, but to be able to identify when a company surprises in either a good or a bad way. That way it will be easier for me to identify if a change in conviction level is warranted. Also, just because a company exceeds or performs below my expectation with a single metric, that doesn’t necessarily mean my conviction has to change. Really, what this exercise does is it helps me to think about my companies holistically. Therefore, I think it is valuable to come up with these expectations before they report as it will help me to keep the companies (and myself) accountable and minimize any cognitive bias once the results are out.

A practical way for me to come up with those numbers is by asking a couple questions. For example “what revenue growth rate would continue the trends the company is currently following?” (Looking at revenue growth trends AND other metrics.) And then when I have a number in mind, I ask myself “If the company reaches less than this number, would I be negatively surprised?“; “If the company reaches more than this number, would I be positively surprised?” If the answer is yes to both questions I write it down below. Same goes for all other quantitative metrics below.

Cloudflare:

  • Reporting Fiscal Q2 2026 on 8/6/26.
  • Revenue expectation: $684M (7.0% QoQ, 33.6% YoY), implying a 3.0% beat.
  • Q3 new revenue guide: $726M (6% QoQ, 29.1% YoY) which I would interpret as $746M (9.0% QoQ, 32.7% YoY) expecting YoY growth rate to slightly decelerate.
  • I would like to see NRR at 119%.
  • I would like to see large customer growth around 5.1% QoQ (~224 net adds, compared to last Q2’s 185 adds).
  • I would like to see RPO grow around 6.0% QoQ to $2.70b (36% YoY).
  • I would like to see cRPO grow around 6.7% QoQ to $1.75b (34% YoY).
  • I would like to see Gross Margin greater or equal to 73%.
  • I would like to see operating income around $100M (14.6% margin vs. 14.1% last Q2).
  • I would like to see a FCF margin around 14.0% ($97M) and Capex around 11% of revenue ($75M).
  • Detailed thoughts: Cloudflare’s 1Q26 earnings recap.

Nvidia:

  • Reporting Fiscal Q2 2027 on 8/26/26.
  • Revenue expectation: $95095M (16.5% QoQ, 103.4% YoY), implying a 4.5% beat; they beat two years ago’s Q1 guide by 8.5%, Q2 guide by 7.3%, Q3 guide by 7.9%, Q4 guide by 4.9%. Then last year’s Q1 guide by only 2.5%, their Q2 guide by 3.9%, their Q3 guide by 5.6% and their Q4 guide by 4.8%. And this year’s Q1 guidance beat was 4.6%.
  • Q3 new revenue guide: $105000M (10.5% QoQ, 84% YoY) which I would interpret as $109400M (15% QoQ, 92% YoY), expecting that Q2 will have been the peak YoY growth and that we’ll see slow YoY deceleration from here on out.
  • I would like to see GAAP gross margin around 74.9%.
  • I would like to see non-GAAP gross margin above 75.0%.
  • Detailed thoughts: Nvidia’s 1Q27 earnings recap.

Snowflake:

  • Reporting Fiscal Q2 2027 around 8/26/26.
  • Product revenue expectation: $1460M (9.4% QoQ, 33.9% YoY), implying a 3.0% beat; $108M net new product revenue.
  • Q3 new product revenue guide: $1518M (4% QoQ, 31.1% YoY) which I would interpret as $1562M (7% QoQ, 34.9% YoY), implying a 3% beat and that revenue growth will slightly accelerate YoY.
  • NRR around 126%.
  • I would like to see RPO around $10.6b, corresponding to 34.8% YoY growth and cRPO around $5.1b, corresponding to 34.8% YoY growth.
  • I would like to see total customer growth around 5% QoQ (~696 adds) and $1M+ customer growth around 7% QoQ (~55 adds).
  • I would like to see stable edge customer growth very roughly around 5.5% QoQ (~321 adds), market place listings growth very roughly around 7.5% QoQ (~298 adds) and AI adoption to reach around 16000 accounts assuming “customers” and “accounts” are distinct and not yet saturated.
  • I would like to see continued strength in profitability margins, with OM ~13%, NM ~12%, FCFM ~5%.
  • Detailed thoughts: Snowflake’s 1Q27 earnings recap.

Datadog:

  • Reporting Fiscal Q2 2026 on 8/6/26 before the market opens.
  • Revenue expectation: $1118M (11.1% QoQ, 35.2% YoY), implying a 4.0% beat.
  • Q3 new revenue guide: $1152M (3% QoQ, 30% YoY) which I would interpret as $1196M (7% QoQ, 35% YoY) expecting YoY growth will stay close to 35%.
  • My Q2 revenue expectation implies about $111M raw sequential revenue increase (up from $65M last Q2).
  • I would like to see RPO at around $3.58b (3% QoQ, 47.5% YoY growth) and cRPO YoY growth at 40%.
  • I would like to see Billings at around $1.13b (10% QoQ, 33% YoY growth).
  • I would like to see QoQ customer growth around 2.5% (~830 new) and for the $100k+ cohort, around 2.5% QoQ (~114 new).
  • I would like to see continued multi-product adoption progress with 2+, 4+, 6+, 8+ and 10+ products cohort percentages to stay stable at 85%, 56%, 35%, 21% and 12%.
  • I would like to see NRR around 122.5% (low-120s %).
  • I would like to see OM ~20%, NM ~24%, FCFM ~21%. Furthermore, I’d like to see operating expense YoY growth below revenue YoY growth.
  • Detailed thoughts: Datadog’s 1Q26 earnings recap.

Zscaler:

  • Reporting Fiscal Q4 2026 around 9/2/26.
  • Revenue expectation: $899M (5.7% QoQ, 25.0% YoY), implying a 2.6% beat.
  • Q1 new revenue guide: $962M (7% QoQ, 22.1% YoY) which I would interpret as $980M (9% QoQ, 24.4% YoY) expecting slight YoY deceleration.
  • I would like to see ARR of around $3.77b (7% QoQ, 25.1% YoY).
  • I would like to see RPO growth of around 15% QoQ (to $7.43b) and cRPO of about $3.34b (25.7% YoY).
  • I would like to see >100k ARR customer growth around 4% QoQ (~160 net adds).
  • I would like to see >1M ARR customer growth around 4.5% QoQ (~34 net adds).
  • I would like to see an operating income around $216M (23.8% margin).
  • I would like to see an FCF around $150M (16.6% margin).
  • Detailed thoughts earlier in this recap.

Crowdstrike:

  • Reporting Fiscal Q2 2027 around 8/27/26.
  • Revenue expectation: $1463M (5.6% QoQ, 25.2% YoY), implying a 1.7% beat this Q.
  • Q3 new revenue guide: $1522M (4% QoQ, 23.3% YoY) which I would interpret as $1547M (5.7% QoQ, 25.3% YoY), expecting roughly stable YoY growth.
  • Net new ARR of around $303M (18.4% QoQ and ARR +5.5% QoQ).
  • I would like to see around $9.06b RPO (3% QoQ, 26% YoY); cRPO around $4.71b (52% of RPO, 26% YoY).
  • I would like to see NRR greater or equal to 115% (not reported until Q4).
  • I would like to see about $365M operating income.
  • I would like to see about $312M net income.
  • I would like to see no multi-product customer decline.
  • I would like to see gross retention close to 97%.
  • Detailed thoughts earlier in this recap.

Samsara:

  • Reporting Fiscal Q2 2027 around 9/4/26.
  • Revenue expectation: $508M (6.0% QoQ, 29.7% YoY), implying a 5.1% beat.
  • Q3 new revenue guide: $513M (1% QoQ, 23.3% YoY) which I would interpret as $538M (6% QoQ, 29.4% YoY).
  • I would like to see net new ARR around $139M (total ARR around $2.13b).
  • I would like to see RPO around $4.31b (8% QoQ) and cRPO around $1.87b (33.7% YoY).
  • I would like to see core customer NRR around 115%.
  • I would like to see around 184 new $100k+ ARR customers (3547 total, 28% YoY).
  • I would like to see around $101M operating income, corresponding to a 19.8% operating margin.
  • Detailed thoughts earlier in this recap.

Axon:

  • Reporting Fiscal Q2 2026 on 8/5/26.
  • Revenue expectation: $888M (10% QoQ, 32.8% YoY), implying that YoY growth slightly decelerates from Q1 and same 10% QoQ growth as last Q2.
  • Q3 revenue expectation: $968M (9% QoQ, 36.2% YoY).
  • I would like to see around $104M net new ARR (total ARR to ~$1.60b).
  • I would like to see RPO around $15.3b.
  • I would like to see NRR around 125%.
  • I would like to see adjusted gross margin greater than 61.6%.
  • I would like to see adjusted EBITDA around $226M.
  • Detailed thoughts: Axon’s 1Q26 earnings recap.

AppLovin:

  • Reporting Fiscal Q2 2026 on 8/5/26.
  • Revenue expectation: $2017M (9.5% QoQ, 60.2% YoY), implying a 4.5% beat.
  • Q3 new revenue guide: $2148M (6.5% QoQ, 52.9% YoY) which I would interpret as $2239M (11% QoQ, 59% YoY).
  • I would like to see a GAAP Gross Margin of 88-89%.
  • I would like to see a FCF margin around 63%.
  • I would like to see an Operating margin around 78%.
  • I would like to see a Net margin greater or equal to 62%.
  • I would like to see an adjusted EBITDA margin greater or equal to 84%.
  • Detailed thoughts: AppLovin’s 1Q26 earnings recap.

Astera Labs:

  • Reporting Fiscal Q2 2026 on 8/4/26.
  • Revenue expectation: $382M (23.8% QoQ, 98.8% YoY), implying an 6% beat.
  • Q3 new revenue guide: $435M (14% QoQ, 89% YoY) which I would interpret as $458M (20% QoQ, 98.6% YoY).
  • I would like to see a Gross Margin around 76%.
  • I would like to see an Operating margin around 37%.
  • I would like to see a Net margin around 40%.
  • Detailed thoughts: [Astera Labs 1Q26 earnings recap.]( Ben’s Portfolio update end of June 2026 )

Wrap up

Hard to believe, but this month marks four years since I started posting my monthly portfolio recaps here on Saul’s board. Navigating the markets over these last 48 months has been an incredible journey. We have gone from the painful valuation compressions and macro headwinds of 2022 to the historic, high-conviction earnings acceleration we are witnessing today. Through it all, the core philosophy of this board has remained my North Star: focusing strictly on high-execution businesses, letting the underlying operational numbers guide our allocations, and ignoring the macro noise. Thank you to Saul and this entire community for the compounding of both knowledge and capital over the last four years:

Performance Our portfolio S&P 500 QQQ WCLD
4-year CAGR 31.5% 16.0% 21.5% 4.7%
3-year CAGR 36.5% 17.7% 21.5% 1.0%
2-year CAGR 42.1% 16.5% 20.9% 6.0%
1-year CAGR 22.8% 18.2% 21.8% 1.4%
YTD CAGR 59.9% 17.0% 21.5% 2.4%

Wishing you all a great August!

Ben

Past recaps

2022: Jul 2022 | Aug 2022 | Sep 2022 | Oct 2022 | Nov 2022 | Dec 2022

2023: Jan 2023 | Feb 2023 | Mar 2023 | Apr 2023 | May 2023 | Jun 2023 | Jul 2023 | Aug 2023 | Sep 2023 | Oct 2023 | Nov 2023 | Dec 2023

2024: Jan 2024 | Feb 2024 | Mar 2024 | Apr 2024 | May 2024 | Jun 2024 | Jul 2024 | Aug 2024 | Sep 2024 | Oct 2024 | Nov 2024 | Dec 2024

2025: Jan 2025 | Feb 2025 | Mar 2025 | Apr 2025 | May 2025 | Jun 2025 | Jul 2025 | Aug 2025 | Sep 2025 | Oct 2025 | Nov 2025 | Dec 2025

2026: Jan 2026 | Feb 2026 | Mar 2026 | Apr 2026 | May 2026 | June 2026

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