Ouster vs The AI Giants: Why I’m Buying Now

Going Public With Ross Mandell

Ross Mandell presents a bullish investment thesis on Ouster (OUST), focusing on its transition from autonomous vehicle sensors to 'physical

Key takeaways

Ouster reported approximately 56% year-over-year revenue growth in Q2 2026.
The company has achieved 14 consecutive quarters of product revenue growth.

Main topics

LiDAR technology fundamentals
The shift from autonomous cars to Physical AI

Notable quotes

What good is the smartest machine in the world if you can't see what's standing three feet in front of it?

Conclusion

Ouster represents a strategic play on the expansion of artificial inte

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) For many of us, going further isn't a choice. It's a feeling we can't ignore. Because ambition has a way of outgrowing where it began. Turning dreams into direction. Every journey brings us closer to the life we imagine. So, where will your journey take you? Etihad. Beyond Borders. Speaker 1 (0:29) Right now, somewhere in America, a machine is doing a job that used to require a human being sitting behind the wheel. A driverless agricultural machine is moving through an orchard. A traffic system is watching cars and pedestrians approaching an intersection. A drone is flying into a dark industrial space that may be too dangerous for a person Speaker 2 (0:48) to enter. Speaker 1 (0:49) Different machines, different industries, different jobs, but they all have the same problem. They have to see. Everybody on Wall Street has spent the last few years fighting over the brain. of artificial intelligence. Speaker 2 (1:00) The Speaker 1 (1:00) chips, the models, the data centers, the software, trillions of dollars chasing intelligence. But let me ask you something. What good is the smartest machine in the world if you can't see what's standing three feet in front of it? Because AI is starting to leave the computer. When AI enters the physical world, it's going to need eyes. Now, there's one company building those eyes that I think investors need to know. Ticker symbol, O-U-S-T. Ooster, and I am bullish. Stay tuned and I will tell you why. What's shaking everybody? My name is Ross Mandel and welcome to Going Public. Today we're going to talk about Ouster. Ticket symbol O-U-S-T. And I don't want to start with the stock. I want to start with the story. This company has already lived through almost an entire Wall Street cycle. The dream, the hype, the collapse, the consolidation, and now possibly the comeback. Ooster was founded in San Francisco in 2015 by Angus Bacala and Mark Frickle. They were attacking a problem that was going to become increasingly important. How do you allow a machine to understand the physical environment around it? They call it LIDAR, light detection and ranging. Now forget the technical jargon for a second. Here's how I want investors to think about it. You walk into a room and your brain instantly understands the environment. There's a desk. There's a wall. Someone is walking toward you. The doorway is eight feet away. You don't calculate it. You see it. Machines cannot do that naturally. They need sensors. LiDAR fires laser pulses into the environment and measures how long those pulses take to return. Now, if you do it fast enough, millions of times, And suddenly, the machine can build a three-dimensional picture of the world around it. Distance, depth, movement, objects, people, roads, walls, equipment. The machine starts to see. And back when Ooster was getting started, the entire LiDAR industry became obsessed with one gigantic dream. Self-driving cars. Wall Street fell in love with that idea. Robo-taxis were coming. Autonomous vehicles were coming. The future was supposedly right around the corner. LiDAR companies went public. Capital flooded the sector. Stocks exploded. And investors started paying for a future that had not arrived yet. And reality showed up. Autonomous driving took longer. Technology was harder. Interest rates changed. Money became more expensive. Investors... Speaker 2 (3:55) For many of us, going further isn't a choice. It's a feeling we can't ignore. Because ambition has a way of outgrowing where it began. Turning dreams into direction. Every journey brings us closer to the life we imagine. Speaker 2 (4:18) So, where will your journey take you? Etihad, beyond borders. Speaker 1 (4:24) Lost patience. LIDAR went from one of the hottest stories on Wall Street to something close to a graveyard. The stocks collapsed. Companies ran out of money. Businesses disappeared. And most investors stopped looking. That's where this story starts getting sexy to me. Because while