I think this is the arguable part. The more AI compute becomes valuable, the more reason there is to divest from their software moat. Their hardware is good, but not unassailable. I think their modest (by tech hype standards) P/E is recognition of this.
Those traits are table stakes for running a Fortune 50 company. Before 2019 when the AI boom came out of nowhere, what was going on? Nvidia was an okay company, but not a real over-performer.
Nvidia has been a high margin and great performing business for the last decade. Nvidia had better gross margins than apple by selling gaming GPUs only 10 years ago and that's in a market where you can easily exchange the card in a PCIe slot.
From 2015 till 2022, Nvidia had several years with 50-60% revenue growth. People only look at the recent 2 years and think that Nvidia was "OK" before but I'm invested since 2016 because Nvidia started the growth turbo back in 2014/2015.
Jensen decided decades ago that Nvidia is premium and he positions the company in that position. What many don't get, Apple has only 25% unit share but 75% profit share. So Apple basically concentrates the profit of the Smartphone business. Nvidia will do the same. They had better gross margins a decade ago than AMD has today. AMD might gain unit share but will never gain Nvidia's margins because AMD is a market follower and will never be able to set pricing unlike Nvidia with premium solutions.
Jensen also made CUDA possible. Intel on the other hand killed such projects and also their first GPU project. Intel also didn't invest in OpenAI and so on. Jensen is by far the best CEO and fortunately he doesn't get crazy like Musk does.
I like nvidia, I think they're doing good work, but I don't think their current trajectory is some sort of well-moated flywheel the way some others think it is. Selling shovels during a gold rush can make you rich, it doesn't mean you'll still be selling shovels in 100 years.
This is the best way to put it, it's exactly this.
Their P/E is approximately the same as the rest of the S&P 500 technology sector's average.
