Franklin Templeton CEO on SpaceX, Anthropic, Circular Deals & the State of the Market

About this episode

Is AI in a bubble? What happens to circular AI financing deals, and why is one of the world's largest asset managers investing in SpaceX and Anthropic? I sat down with Jenny Johnson, CEO of Franklin Templeton ($1.8T AUM), at the firm's NYC headquarters to discuss today's market conditions, AI valuations, private markets, and the future of investing. We cover: AI Bubble & Circular Deals: AI infrastructure spending, revenue recognition, chip depreciation, and risks in long-term data center financing. SpaceX & Anthropic: Franklin Templeton's late-stage venture investments, the SpaceX IPO, and Elon Musk's ambitions. Market Conditions: Inflation, interest rates, geopolitical risks, and where Jenny sees opportunities. Building a $1.8T Asset Manager: 17 acquisitions in six years, the $4.5B Legg Mason deal, and Franklin's expansion into private markets. AI & Tokenization: 1,000+ AI agents, an 11% sales uplift, and why blockchain could transform financial infrastructure. Jenny also shares how she went from Franklin Templeton's mailroom to CEO, and why she believes Elon Musk is the modern-day Benjamin Franklin. Jenny Johnson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennyjohnsonfranklintempleton Molly O’Shea: https://x.com/MollySOShea Sourcery: ⁠ https://x.com/sourceryy 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊 YouTube: https://youtu.be/VmCKksLNmsM 𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒 • Brex —The modern finance platform, combining the world’s smartest corporate card with integrated expense management, banking, bill pay, & travel. https://brex.com/sourcery • Harvey —The AI platform built for legal work, is helping the best firms and companies close deals faster. More than 200,000 lawyers, 80% of the Am Law 100, and over 20% of the Fortune 500 build with Harvey. Visit: http://harvey.ai/ • Zone —develops next-generation data center campuses, partnering with AI companies, site developers and technology leaders to bring compute online faster and at scale. Visit: https://zonefrontier.com • Mercor —The human intelligence behind frontier AI. Frontier labs and leading enterprises use Mercor to turn the knowledge of 5M+ experts into the data, evals and benchmarks that make AI better at real work. Visit: http://mercor.com/sourcery • VCX —VCX is the public ticker for private tech, allowing investors of all sizes to invest in venture capital. View The Portfolio at http://GetVCX.com • Deel —Deel is the global people platform that helps startups hire, manage, pay, and equip anyone, anywhere. Trusted by more than 35,000 fast-growing companies, Deel is the people platform that just works, so teams can scale without the chaos. Visit: https://www.deel.com/sourcery • Public –Investing platform Public just launched Generated Assets , which lets you turn any idea into an investable index with AI. With Generated Assets, you can build, backtest, refine, and invest in any thesis with AI. Gone are the days of one-size-fits-all ETFs. https://public.com/sourcery Follow Sourcery for the latest updates! https://www.sourcery.vc Disclosure: Paid Ad. Agents are an experimental AI tool. Its output may be inaccurate and is not investment advice. Public Holding’s, Inc. makes no guarantees about its accuracy or reliability—verify independently before use. Brokerage accounts and services provided by Open to the Public Investing, Inc. See additional disclosures at https://public.com/disclosures/agenticdisclosures . 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 (00:00) Jenny Johnson, CEO at Franklin Templeton (01:08) Where is the market really headed? (05:34) Why AI is the biggest growth lever (08:10) Are we in an AI bubble? (11:28) How Franklin Templeton got into SpaceX and Anthropic (18:28) Closing a $4.5B deal in the middle of COVID (21:39) The strategy behind 17 acquisitions in 6 years (24:11) How Canvas grew from $2.5B to $30B (28:43) Why blockchain will rebuild finance (32:50) Will companies stop paying for top AI models? (37:08) Franklin Templeton’s 70-year climb (40:21) Who is the modern day Ben Franklin?