Insight from my extended sojourn:
I am glued to Instagram. It teaches me tennis, shows me mammals in Africa. I watch Ospreys catching their dinner. And it makes me laugh.
There isn’t a man reading this blog, who doesn’t enjoy his little helper in his car.
Getting rich in an AI boom
AI is getting better, faster, cleverer every day. As it gets smarter we will use it more and more.
There is no limit to its smarts or its usefulness, nor to the number of people in the world who will use it.
I don’t have a real job — except managing my investments — but I use AI every day.
I actually pay money — $20 a month — to Perplexity.ai. I will pay them more as it gets better and they charge more — coming soon.
My big investments are all AI related — from the obvious ones– NVDA, AVGO, META, GOOGL, PLTR, TSM — to the data centers — CRWV — to the ones providing the power for the data centers — OKLO, GEV, GE, etc.
My investing “strategy” has changed dramatically since I bailed in April. I don’t know which stocks are going to skyrocket from one day to the next. So I now own a lot of stocks — 96 in total.
I’m my own ETF. I bail on individual stocks when they do something stupid. But very few of them are stupid, remarkably.
After all, it an AI-fuelled boom.
You can see all the stocks I own in the right hand column of this blog. Skim through the list. You will find a nugget, or two. (Yes, I do own GLD, B and NEM.) Click here.
Jensen did a nice interview yesterday (Wednesday, October 8) at 8:00 AM on CNBC’s Squawk Box. You can find it if you have YouTubeTV, which I love.
Jensen said all his engineers are using Cursor. I asked Perplexity how many people are using Cursor. It said “over a million users” — a milestone reached 16 months after its launch.
ChatGPT launched in November 2023. By October 2025 (that’s today), it has over 800 million active users, and is on track to reach one billion weekly users by year end.
Our planet has about 8 billion people.
I asked Perplexity what are the key stocks benefiting from the AI boom?
It answered:
Several stocks are leading beneficiaries of the AI boom, spanning both chipmakers, software platforms, and infrastructure providers, with many delivering substantial returns and revenue growth in 2025.
Leading AI Chipmakers
Nvidia (NVDA): Remains a core AI chip supplier with advanced deep learning chips and continues to post strong revenue and market performance.
Broadcom (AVGO): Benefits from surging AI demand for semiconductor solutions, reporting robust earnings and growth outlook.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD): Supplies chips crucial for high-performance AI workloads, with strong growth in data center segments despite market volatility.
Marvell Technology (MRVL): Specializes in networking and data center chips with a strong position for generative AI growth.
Micron Technology (MU): Highly rated for its AI-related memory solutions, showing notable price and earnings growth.
Top AI Software and Platforms
Palantir Technologies (PLTR): Delivers data analytics platforms pivotal for AI applications, with significant revenue and EPS growth.
ServiceNow (NOW): AI-embedded workflow automation platforms position it for high EPS growth projection.
Salesforce (CRM): Major player in AI-driven software as a service, driving sales and process automation.
AppLovin (APP): Mobile advertising optimization using AI is driving strong stock appreciation and growth.
High-Momentum and Specialty Stocks
Quantum Computing Inc (QUBT): Leading one-year performance, reflecting explosive demand and speculation in quantum AI applications.
CrowdStrike (CRWD): Dominates AI-powered cybersecurity, with impressive profitability and market share.
Cerence Inc (CRNC): AI speech recognition and automotive intelligence with strong annual returns.
SoundHound AI Inc (SOUN): Specialized in voice AI, showing rapid performance growth.
Hut 8 Corp (HUT): Benefits from AI-driven data center and computing services for blockchain and cloud.
Other Major Beneficiaries
Meta Platforms (META), Oracle (ORCL), Snowflake (SNOW), and Lam Research (LRCX) are also seeing substantial AI-linked gains driven by cloud, data, and infrastructure spending.
Now to protecting my Windows 10 laptops from the bad guys.
99% of computer bad stuff that rips you off is self-inflicted.
A bad guy sends you a clever email…You owe some money. You spent money on something. You have money in a Nigerian bank. The “come-ons” get more creative with each passing day.
Here’s what I do:
+ I don’t open attachments.
+ I look at the sender’s email address. If it looks weird — it’s not from the company — it’s fraud. I delete the email.
I could include at least 100 fraudulent emails I’ve received in the last month alone. But that would give boredom a whole new meaning.
Will I “upgrade” my laptops to Windows 11
The simple answer is NO. Win 11 is a Microsoft marketing ploy get you onto a monthly subscription for service, software or storage. Or all three.
Windows 11 won’t run some of my favorite software. It’s klutzy and clumsy.
“Support” for Windows 10 will expire in five days. I am assured by all my techie friends (and Microsoft) that my Windows 10 machines will work just fine for the next 20 years, if I live that long.
I can buy “proection” like Malwarebyes for three laptops to $25. And maybe i will.
But the best protection according all my friends in cycberseurity is not to be stupid. See above.
Harry (that’s me) needs your help on hearing aids
My son, Michael, says my $200 Amazon hearing aids do a lousy job in noisy places — like restaurants.
He’s right. But…. All my friends complain about their hearing aids doing a lousy job in restaurants — whether they spent $200 or $7,000.
Maybe — just maybe — there’s a pair of hearing aids that do a good job in noisy restaurants.
Do you have such a magic pair? What make, model number and approx what you paid? Please.
My family is driving me nuts. They think because I can’t hear them, I don’t find them interesting any longer.
Now what could give them that impression?
Send me an email if you have magic hearing aids that work in unmagic places.
Longevity has become big business
Everybody wants to live forever (including me). And now everybody can attend a Longevity Clinic and spend megabucks eating, exercising and sleeping efficiently.
My keys to living forever are exercise (tennis daily), simple food, no booze, “social interaction” and lots of naps.
I love sleep.
The New York Times did a big piece “Can Supplements Actually Extend People’s Lives?” The answer was a resounding NO. One doctor quoted said Longevity supplements could harm your wallet more than anything?
The article ended “If you really want to know something that’s proven to change biologic aging and eipgentic aging,” Dr Topol said, “it’s exercise.”
To read the whole piece, click here.
Favorite New Yorker cartoons
Depressed by your TV, by your family, by your neighbors?
Sixty six years ago, The Kingston Trio sung The Merry Minuet
66 years and counting. We’re still here
That’s it.
The world is what it is.
I promise to return more quickly. — Harry Newton
