Speaker 1: From Mahard where Innovation of Money and Power Collie in
Speaker 1: Silicon Vallet NBN.
Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow.
Speaker 3: I'm parline Heid at Blombug's world headquarters in New York
Speaker 3: Nowmed Ludlow in San Francisco.
Speaker 4: This is Bloueberg Technology coming up.
Speaker 3: This hour paramount. It officially agrees to a deal with Skydouts,
Speaker 3: but shares whipsaw amid one of the industry's most dramatic acquisitions.
Speaker 3: We have details of the complex transaction.
Speaker 4: And all change in Europe.
Speaker 5: We assess the impact from elections in the UK and
Speaker 5: France on the technology sector.
Speaker 3: ANAI startup Heavier raises one hundred and thirty million dollars
Speaker 3: from Andresen and others. A conversation with the CEO as
Speaker 3: enterprises search for AI agents, but first set's check in
Speaker 3: on these markets, and there's some volatility in the direction travel.
Speaker 6: Of the benchmarks.
Speaker 3: While we're seeing ongoing political volatility in the US France,
Speaker 3: we get a shot reaction in terms of the national
Speaker 3: rally coming third way off that first originally predicted the
Speaker 3: Nastak holding onto gains. We only just led by the
Speaker 3: chip stocks. I'll take us through ed. The cat forty
Speaker 3: in France had been higher in midday's training. We're now
Speaker 3: falling back as we head towards the close, as people
Speaker 3: really trying to get a grip on what it means
Speaker 3: for French policymaking, gridlock on everyone's watchword pound look after
Speaker 3: its political clarity that we got at the end of
Speaker 3: last week, the poundmen remains the best performer from a
Speaker 3: G ten perspective. The dollar is a little lower, we
Speaker 3: get CPI, we get to course ched Chair of the Fed, J.
Speaker 3: Powell Tuesday Wednesday, move on to see what that means
Speaker 3: for the world a bitcoin because actually it's not so
Speaker 3: much for fundamentals what's happening with the US and macro policy.
Speaker 3: It's more about what's happening with mant goox to supply,
Speaker 3: with perhaps the German States selling off some of its
Speaker 3: holdings in bitcoin were not by one point eight percent
Speaker 3: fifty six thousand. All about some of those daily moving
Speaker 3: averages and where the technicals pointer said, Ed, what are
Speaker 3: you watching on the micro.
Speaker 5: Just four quick movers, because there's a lot to get
Speaker 5: into the show. Lucid bringing up the rear with quarterly
Speaker 5: ev deliveries twenty one hundred produced twenty four hundred or
Speaker 5: just shy of delivered to customers. Clearly, that's boosting the stock.
Speaker 5: There's still low volume, but that was a record for
Speaker 5: the company. Then I'm looking at Tesla analogous, But there
Speaker 5: was that great story on the terminal in the last
Speaker 5: twenty four hours about if you were a hedge fund
Speaker 5: that was short Tesla ahead of last week's quarterly deliveries
Speaker 5: for them, then you got burned because of the big
Speaker 5: run up in that stock that we've had following quarterly deliveries.
Speaker 4: Then just two names, Intel and Video.
Speaker 5: Intel was six percent higher on track for its biggest
Speaker 5: jumps in April. I don't see any news out there,
Speaker 5: but it's on a pretty decent run right now and recovering,
Speaker 5: and a video is caught up as part of that.
Speaker 5: Probably our top story is Paramount, so Paramount shares lower,
Speaker 5: we get a combination finally with Skydance. It's a complicated deal,
Speaker 5: right carry. The terms are complicated, the players are complicated.
Speaker 5: We've been waiting a long time down two percent off
Speaker 5: session lows.
Speaker 4: Let's get into it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because people clearly questioning this deal. If the stock
Speaker 3: is still well below some of the price points. Let's
Speaker 3: get to it, Lumage. Lucas Shaw busy this weekend. Lucas,
Speaker 3: what does the deal spell out?
Speaker 7: Well, look, David Ellison gets his way right, he will
Speaker 7: acquire National Amusements, which is Shay Redstone's holding company, and
Speaker 7: then Paramount will will merge with sky Dance, which is really,
Speaker 7: you know, a Paramount acquisition of sky Dance, since paramounts
Speaker 7: a larger company, but since it's the sky Dance team
Speaker 7: that's taking over, it's sort of seen as a as
Speaker 7: a merger. And then he tries to turn around Paramount.
Speaker 7: It's been a media company that has been in decline
Speaker 7: for several years now. They had a call with investors
Speaker 7: this morning with a presentation where David Ellison and his
Speaker 7: deputy Jeff Shell and kind of some other members of
Speaker 7: his team explained why they think they can have more
Speaker 7: luck with it.
Speaker 5: Lucas, we explain in the Bloomberg News story about the
Speaker 5: kind of background the saga that is a think it's
Speaker 5: worth explain to audience who is David Ellison and what
Speaker 5: is sky Dance.
Speaker 4: They are a big name behind some big things.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's funny that you say that because there was
Speaker 7: a portion of the call that started with that. Where
Speaker 7: you guys know a lot about Paramount, you probably don't
Speaker 7: know as much about Skuydance, you know. David Ellison first
Speaker 7: got known to people because of his father, Larry Ellison,
Speaker 7: who is one of the richest people in the world
Speaker 7: thanks to Oracle and Larry's two kids. David and Meghan
Speaker 7: both got into Hollywood around the same time, producing movies.
Speaker 7: Megan sort of made art house movies. People Hollywood loved
Speaker 7: her at first because she was bankrolling all these big filmmakers,
Speaker 7: but financially it was sort of a ruinous plan. David
Speaker 7: went in the opposite direction, where he made these big
Speaker 7: commercial popcorn movies and has worked with Paramount for more
Speaker 7: than a decade because he is a financier and producer
Speaker 7: on the Mission Impossible movies, on Star Trek movies, on
Speaker 7: many of the biggest films and franchises at Paramount, and
Speaker 7: sort of used his success with those early movies to
Speaker 7: build a larger enterprise, certainly not as big as Paramount,
Speaker 7: but he makes television shows, he makes animated movies. He
Speaker 7: has a partnership at the NFL to make sports programming
Speaker 7: he's got a nascent video game business, and sky Dams
Speaker 7: is one of the larger independent studios out there.
Speaker 5: The team did a really good job going through the
Speaker 5: minute shure of the deal because it is complicated. But
Speaker 5: the bit that I kind of trips up on was
Speaker 5: the numbers. So there's a deal value, But it seems
Speaker 5: like a lot of cash has to be injected into Paramount,
Speaker 5: and I'm trying to understand why Lucas. Is it that
Speaker 5: they just need to kind of have a revamp.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, I think part of the pitch that
Speaker 7: David Ellison and Jerry cardinally had one of his big investors,
Speaker 7: made to share Redstone that appealed was we're going to
Speaker 7: buy Paramount. We're going to mostly keep it together. We're
Speaker 7: going to sell some non strategic assets that you probably
Speaker 7: would have sold anyways, but we're also going to invest
Speaker 7: billions of dollars into the business to give it a
Speaker 7: realistic shot of competing because Paramount has been held back
Speaker 7: by the fact that it it has a decent amount
Speaker 7: of debt, at least relative to its earnings, and it
Speaker 7: just doesn't have as many resources. You know, it's a
Speaker 7: much smaller company than Disney or even then a company
Speaker 7: like Warner Brothers Discovery.
Speaker 4: And some of that is that, you know, it's sort of.
Speaker 7: The source of all the Redstones worth, so they only
Speaker 7: have so much money that they can put into it. So, yes,
Speaker 7: it's a complicated deal because not only is Ellison and
Speaker 7: his backers putting money into buy National Amusements and then
Speaker 7: the deal to merge with Paramount, but they're investing additional
Speaker 7: capital and they're doing some kind of tricky stuff trying
Speaker 7: to allow regular shareholders to feel like they're not getting
Speaker 7: screwed in this deal, because in the initial proposal, a
Speaker 7: lot of people felt like it was a good deal
Speaker 7: for sharing Redstone, but less good for other shareholders, and
Speaker 7: that's one of the reasons why this has been drawn out.
Speaker 3: And to be specific, non Redstone voting shareholders can get
Speaker 3: twenty three dollars a share or roll their shares into
Speaker 3: the new company. Non voting shareholders get fifteen dollars a
Speaker 3: share in cash or one share in the new company.
Speaker 3: Because you're breaking it all down so brilliant, as he
Speaker 3: always does for us, and we're going to get into
Speaker 3: the nitty gritty of ultimately why perhaps shareholders unbuying this
Speaker 3: deal today with John clin See of Hang Media for
Speaker 3: more on Ultimately we can talk about the vision and
Speaker 3: the AI proposition and the technology in a moment, John,
Speaker 3: But I am interested as to why so much the
Speaker 3: shares are selling off and why perhaps these non voting
Speaker 3: shareholders don't like it, don't buy it, don't think it
Speaker 3: all go through.
Speaker 8: Well, there's all this uncertainty still, it's been such a
Speaker 8: messy deal getting across the finish line, and there's still
Speaker 8: the chance of another party coming in. They've got a
Speaker 8: shopping period where you know, who knows, Garry Diller could
Speaker 8: jump in or Edgar Bronfman has said to be interested also.
Speaker 8: So uncertainty always causes that sort of phenomenon, and they've
Speaker 8: got to make.
Speaker 9: Sure investors have to make sure that this is actually
Speaker 9: going to happen.
Speaker 3: Okay, So we continue to question whether regulatory go through
Speaker 3: and ultimately whether we'll get the deal done. On if
Speaker 3: the deal does get done, what are the positives from
Speaker 3: your perspective? We go to you with your keen eye
Speaker 3: on what technology can do for the media industry.
Speaker 8: Well, everybody's talking about David Ellison, but let's not forget
Speaker 8: Jeff Shell, who is a phenomenal operator is going to
Speaker 8: come in and get his hands.
Speaker 9: On the moving parts of this business, and he's just
Speaker 9: first rate.
Speaker 8: And so you know, in terms of the blocking and
Speaker 8: tackling stuff, the operational initiatives and efforts that have to
Speaker 8: go into it, they've got a fantastic operator there. And
Speaker 8: then in Ellison, they've got a visionary and enthusiastic owner,
Speaker 8: which is always a huge plus because it means that
Speaker 8: you know, he'll put effort and money into things. Ellison
Speaker 8: talked today about re emphasizing their core competency in storytelling,
Speaker 8: and he also talked about bringing them up to speed
Speaker 8: on technology.
Speaker 9: So those are two worthwhile goals.
Speaker 8: But when you talk about storytelling today, you've got to
Speaker 8: be looking at YouTube. YouTube has changed the definition of
Speaker 8: what powerful storytelling is because hundreds of millions of people
Speaker 8: a week come there and they watch short form video
Speaker 8: that they love. And as Lucas was just saying, Ellison
Speaker 8: has made his name with the premium blockbuster type titles,
Speaker 8: and it's going to require a shifted mindset to understand that.
Speaker 9: Even if you're in the movie.
Speaker 8: Business, you can't ignore the fact that YouTube is watched
Speaker 8: by far more people than watching anything else anywhere, and
Speaker 8: so that's going to be a mindset challenge for them
Speaker 8: to not not impossible to unachieve, but that's a challenge.
Speaker 5: So what do they do with the eight billion that
Speaker 5: they're getting paramount to emulate that YouTube success?
Speaker 8: Well, you know, he talked about technology, and when you
Speaker 8: talk talk about technology, you're talking about direct to consumer.
Speaker 8: That is what dominates all media today, whether you're making
Speaker 8: Hollywood blockbusters most of which are watched on a small
Speaker 8: screen in your home, and technology means AI and it
Speaker 8: means direct to consumer, and those fit together. The AI
Speaker 8: of it all also impacts the storytelling because you can
Speaker 8: do more, different, less expensive programming using AI now and
Speaker 8: that's only going to become even more powerful by next week,
Speaker 8: let alone next year when this deal finally comes through.
Speaker 9: So he'll be looking for cost savings.
Speaker 8: They've already said they're going to shake out two billion
Speaker 8: dollars in energies and then they're going to put money
Speaker 8: behind some sort of content initiatives powered by technology.
Speaker 9: That would be a smart thing to do.
Speaker 8: I mean, having run an AI platform that Apple acquired,
Speaker 8: you know there's a lot of.
Speaker 9: Complexity in it, but there's a lot of Upside with
Speaker 9: it as.
Speaker 3: Well of course as president of Lenix as well well
Speaker 3: Links even We thank you so much with all the
Speaker 3: Xai expertise and tech. John Client, CEO of Hang Media,
Speaker 3: we appreciate it. Mean while coming up, we're going to
Speaker 3: be joined by Sima Shah, chiefs Global strategist at Principal
Speaker 3: Asset Management that says chip stocks they're trying to pull
Speaker 3: the market higher but failing thus far.
Speaker 4: And what are you watching?
Speaker 5: A story out of Germany? I spotted Sunday kind of
Speaker 5: weekend buried news the stocks down six point seven percent
Speaker 5: on Delivery Hero, they disclosed that they might face up
Speaker 5: to a four hundred million eurofine from the European Commission
Speaker 5: over alleged anti competitive or antitrust practices. Stock have been
Speaker 5: down as much as eighteen percent, but it's paired some
Speaker 5: of that decline and Delivery Hero saying it's going to
Speaker 5: cooperate with European Commission stay with us.
Speaker 4: This has Bloomberg technology.
Speaker 3: Stocks kicking off the week back at all time highs,
Speaker 3: benchmarks being like higher by chip stocks in particular, Siemashageu
Speaker 3: status to Principle Asset Management is here to delve into
Speaker 3: these markets. Well, what's soaring a bit on the day
Speaker 3: seemer but in general, in Vidia, Intel, some of the
Speaker 3: chip stocks playing well. A key part once again, is
Speaker 3: this the ongoing narrative.
Speaker 2: It certainly seems to be the case. You know, It's
Speaker 2: funny because when we came into the year, the expectation
Speaker 2: that this would look very, very different to twenty twenty three,
Speaker 2: that you'd have a broader set of rallies, not just
Speaker 2: focused on those big tech companies, and then fast forward
Speaker 2: six months and actually this year looks so much like
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, where those megacaps are still carrying the market.
Speaker 2: I think the one slight difference in which I think
Speaker 2: we're going to build on a narrative for the second
Speaker 2: half of the year, though, is that whereas it you know,
Speaker 2: the megacap firms are still expected, we expect them to
Speaker 2: continue to do really well. We are expecting to see
Speaker 2: that risk appetite and ernie's delivery broaden up beyond just
Speaker 2: those tech companies. So you see them companies joining in
Speaker 2: with this positive news.
Speaker 4: Sema, heads ED and San Francisco.
Speaker 5: So I'm just back from like a classic July fourth
Speaker 5: long weekend in the US where we sit around the table.
Speaker 4: And people say, hey, have you seen in video? Like
Speaker 4: what's what's that thing about in video?
Speaker 5: And then they bring up interest rates and then they
Speaker 5: brought up the election. But I think the fair thing
Speaker 5: say is everyone was kind of asking in financial markets,
Speaker 5: what is the thing right now that's the main driver
Speaker 5: or is it a combination of all three?
Speaker 2: Well, so I think you know, at the moment, for
Speaker 2: equity markets in general, clearly the major driver is still
Speaker 2: that megacaps you know in video, the mag seven They
Speaker 2: continue to really be those major foundations for the equity
Speaker 2: market rally. At the same time, you are still seeing
Speaker 2: some kind of optimism feeding into the market with these
Speaker 2: expectations for bed rate cuts, which we would certainly agree with,
Speaker 2: and then with the US election, that's adding volatility. But
Speaker 2: we don't think that volatility would be sustained so much
Speaker 2: beyond the elections. So not something that we continue to
Speaker 2: be worried.
Speaker 3: About, seemago global because we know you can and that's
Speaker 3: why we love you. Look, UK just had elections, France
Speaker 3: were still trying to work it out. Us we have
Speaker 3: that anxiety. Is us the place to play for equities
Speaker 3: and indeed suppons Yeah.
Speaker 2: So the election uncertainty that you've seen an unfold in
Speaker 2: Europe has been somewhat damaging. I think when we think
Speaker 2: about Europe, investors for the first time in years, actually
Speaker 2: just about three months ago, solid to get really interested
Speaker 2: in Europe again, started to see some earning delivery, some
Speaker 2: slight cycnical opturn and had become interested. And then what
Speaker 2: you see now is that this political terminal seems to
Speaker 2: unravel some of that optimism that have been feeding through.
Speaker 2: So now we're looking back to the US. Now, obviously
Speaker 2: the US has its own election volatility on the rise
Speaker 2: in the last couple of weeks, and certainly we would
Speaker 2: expect that to continue through to November. But actually when
Speaker 2: you look at over another you know, not just focusing
Speaker 2: on the next six months, we're really taking more of
Speaker 2: a long term perspective. That secular bull run that you
Speaker 2: see for the US, which is really built on these
Speaker 2: technology companies, we think that we'll still be sustained. So,
Speaker 2: you know, of courses opportunities elsewhere, it always makes sense
Speaker 2: to diversify and try and get exposure to other markets.
Speaker 2: But actually, as a foundational element of a portfolio, we
Speaker 2: still think that the US is the one that really
Speaker 2: deserves the overweight.
Speaker 5: Semashar, chief strategists at Principalsset Management.
Speaker 4: Good to catch up. Thank you.
Speaker 5: President Joe Biden says he's determined to remain in the
Speaker 5: US presidential race, challenging dissenters to end talk of his
Speaker 5: removal from the ballot. In a letter to lawmakers, the
Speaker 5: president wrote, quote, I am firmly committed to staying in
Speaker 5: this race, to running this race to the end, and
Speaker 5: to beating Donald Trump. It's less than five months until
Speaker 5: the presidential election. Let's discuss where the candidates stand on
Speaker 5: AI and the future of AI regulation with Narena Singh,
Speaker 5: CEO of Credo AI and AI governance platform that streamlines
Speaker 5: responsible AI adoption by automating AI oversight. Mavarna also serves
Speaker 5: on the Biden Administration's National AI Advisory Committee. Welcome back
Speaker 5: to the program. I want to start with a difficult question.
Speaker 5: We had Vivet.
Speaker 4: Ramaswami on the program.
Speaker 5: He is a surrogate for the Trump campaign and he said, look,
Speaker 5: when Trump was in office, this wasn't happening. Biden has
Speaker 5: been through several years of this AI thing. But does
Speaker 5: Biden have a firm grasp on it to your mind
Speaker 5: well ed.
Speaker 10: Thank you so much for having me. There's a lot
Speaker 10: up in the air, especially with the upcoming elections, but
Speaker 10: one of the core things that we have found in
Speaker 10: the past, especially two years, is the policymakers have actually
Speaker 10: taken a very proactive stand in understanding artificial intelligence, but
Speaker 10: also how do you put right guardrails around it so
Speaker 10: that we can ensure responsible years. And so I would
Speaker 10: say that what we are seeing, especially our stakeholders and
Speaker 10: government have done a great job in a he's trying
Speaker 10: to understand. Are they experts? Absolutely not. And this is
Speaker 10: where we come in as industry to make sure that
Speaker 10: there's this public private partnership to ensure understanding of artificial
Speaker 10: intelligence as well as thoughtful.
Speaker 3: Regulations, and that thoughtful regulation has to be global as well.
Speaker 3: And I'm interested in reading we bring you on also
Speaker 3: because over in Washington there's a NATO summit is coming up,
Speaker 3: as if Biden wasn't busy enough already, and I'm interested
Speaker 3: in your perspective on whether we're seeing a global narrative
Speaker 3: form a Western global narrative on governance AI.
Speaker 10: This is a pivotal week in DC, primarily because NATO
Speaker 10: is celebrating seventy five years of bringing together heads of
Speaker 10: states and heads of government and Carolyn, as I always tell,
Speaker 10: it's you know, the only constant is change and AI.
Speaker 10: This year, so we are expecting to see not only
Speaker 10: a thoughtful debate and discussion on what is artificial intelligence
Speaker 10: role in national security and defense on a globe scale,
Speaker 10: but more importantly, it's responsible use. You know, it's been
Speaker 10: fascinating to see NATO since twenty twenty one actually having
Speaker 10: something called as Principles of Responsible Use. They've engaged with
Speaker 10: the industry, including CREEDOAI, which is an AI governance and
Speaker 10: risk management and compliance platform that helps organizations deliver on
Speaker 10: the goals of responsible AI. So what we are going
Speaker 10: to see coming out of the NATO summit is not
Speaker 10: only going to be our belief, is not only going
Speaker 10: to be a firm attention to artificial intelligence, but also
Speaker 10: more international cooperation on standards and evaluations.
Speaker 5: I find this fascinating. NATO is a coalition of thirty
Speaker 5: two member states to North American, thirty European, and within that,
Speaker 5: the United States is probably the market leader in developing
Speaker 5: large language models. Generative AI strong plays in France, the
Speaker 5: United Kingdom, How do they agree on anything when it
Speaker 5: comes to a sets of rules given the cross jurisdictional
Speaker 5: assembly of that group.
Speaker 10: You know ed this work has been in motion for years.
Speaker 10: It is not a question and discussion happening right now.
Speaker 10: So especially for the past four and a half years,
Speaker 10: and I've been on the National Air Advisory Commission now
Speaker 10: for almost two years, there's been a very strong international
Speaker 10: cooperation on what is good artificial intelligence governance and standards
Speaker 10: across artificial intelligence look like. And just as a case
Speaker 10: in point, in August, Europe's first Artificial Intelligence Act goes
Speaker 10: into effect and as you can imagine, that has really
Speaker 10: focused extensively on AI risks but also rights of citizens.
Speaker 10: So we are already seeing across the need to allies
Speaker 10: a lot of discussion but also collaboration and understanding on
Speaker 10: how paramount it is to focus on artificial intelligence risks
Speaker 10: but making sure it actually serves the citizens of all
Speaker 10: these nations. And there's already been a lot of consensus
Speaker 10: I believe in coming up with the right frameworks to
Speaker 10: put gos nafrino.
Speaker 3: Whenever I post anything on guardrails, on protection, on governance
Speaker 3: of artificial intelligence, on Lincoln or wherever else I'm throwing
Speaker 3: my ideas. I get so much vitrial and fight back
Speaker 3: saying you can't even use a word like guardrail when
Speaker 3: it comes to artificial intelligence. I'm sure you get that too.
Speaker 3: What's your response? And people are cynical on.
Speaker 10: It, you know, I think cynics is what drives the
Speaker 10: innovation forward, is what I would say, Carolyn. One of
Speaker 10: the big narrative shifts that we've seen in the past
Speaker 10: few years, and especially you know, Credo AI created the
Speaker 10: word our AI governance, and the shift that we've seen
Speaker 10: is governance is actually not a barrier to AI innovation.
Speaker 10: Now it's becoming a critical component of making sure AI
Speaker 10: actually works for the businesses that are investing in it.
Speaker 10: You know, if you just look at the past earning
Speaker 10: calls from most of the organizations, whether it's Meta, Microsoft,
Speaker 10: Adobe and others, there's been one man so focus on
Speaker 10: investment and artificial intelligence. But as of last week, the
Speaker 10: financial reportings now also include AI risks and making sure
Speaker 10: there are right governance structures not only at the business
Speaker 10: level but at the AI systems level. So the narrative
Speaker 10: I would say has shifted, and also the investments is
Speaker 10: shifting from just AI adoption to now making sure responsible
Speaker 10: AI adoption is paramount to business success.
Speaker 3: Verena. Always great to have you in the building. Thank
Speaker 3: you so much, Neverna saying credo AI CEO busy on
Speaker 3: all things AI. Welcome back to me, Meg Technology.
Speaker 4: I'm Caroline had in New York.
Speaker 5: I met love Low in San Francisco. Carolin, what do
Speaker 5: you see in the markets right now?
Speaker 3: I mean a little bit of volatility, I mean to
Speaker 3: be expected. We get a big CPI print this week,
Speaker 3: we get J Powell, of course giving testimony for two
Speaker 3: straight days. We're up two tens percent. We're actually at
Speaker 3: record highs once again. We try to flip into the red,
Speaker 3: but the NAWA one hundred back on top once again.
Speaker 3: Chip makes help there. I'm looking at a CAC forty,
Speaker 3: though more affected by politics at this very moment. We're
Speaker 3: off by about five tenths percent at the moment, so
Speaker 3: clearly worries about really what France is able to achieve,
Speaker 3: and we're going to dig into that in a moment. Ed,
Speaker 3: But it's affecting stocks a little bit. Bitcoin off by
Speaker 3: one and a half percent. This is more about a
Speaker 3: supply side issue. We're also hitting some technical levels where
Speaker 3: we see US trade lower into the second half of
Speaker 3: the year. Remember it's been a phenomenal performer for the
Speaker 3: first half. Let's move on and to look at the
Speaker 3: individual companies that.
Speaker 4: I've got an eye on.
Speaker 3: Socks, chip stocks, benchmarks rising higher, looking Video doing very
Speaker 3: well once again up top leading US higher. From our
Speaker 3: points perspective, we're also seeing Intel do incredibly well.
Speaker 4: Some of these.
Speaker 3: Companies that many feel have been left out of the
Speaker 3: AI trade actually saying start to play in there and
Speaker 3: get ahead of any sort of short squeeze. Super micro
Speaker 3: Computer one of those at more than eight percent on
Speaker 3: the day. This is about a server perspective and an
Speaker 3: AI glow. But Meta on the downside more than a
Speaker 3: percentage point off now it rallied hard on Friday. Maybe
Speaker 3: we've got some profit taking happening as we get Webbush
Speaker 3: and some other key names saying look upgrade your price
Speaker 3: targets here. But we are also seeing Bernstein putting out
Speaker 3: a thoughtful note saying, look, maybe we've got Meta not
Speaker 3: performing well. If Trump came to power. Let's dwell a
Speaker 3: bit more on geopolitics and political landscape now and.
Speaker 5: Yeah, let's head over to France, which is heading into
Speaker 5: an extended period of political gridlock after a shock defeat
Speaker 5: for Marine La Penz far right in Sunday's election. A
Speaker 5: left wing alliance will be the biggest group, but the
Speaker 5: divided parliament has no clear majority. Here to discuss Bloomberg's
Speaker 5: Oliver Krook in Paris, there is an AI startup ecosystem
Speaker 5: conversation to be had here, Oliver.
Speaker 4: But let's start with the basics.
Speaker 5: Where do we stand in what will be I guess
Speaker 5: protracted coalition building and political bargaining over the coming weeks.
Speaker 11: Yeah, that's right, and in protection, protect and protracted a
Speaker 11: political bargaining and coalition building in a sort of nation
Speaker 11: that is not really accustomed to that sort of thing. Right,
Speaker 11: is really a presidential system where generally you have some
Speaker 11: kind of majority within the parliament, the president appoints the
Speaker 11: prime minister and you sort of move along. It's quite unprecedented,
Speaker 11: in fact for the president, as macoln did, to dissolve
Speaker 11: the parliament and call these sort of snap elections. And
Speaker 11: though this sort of great fear for the mainstream of
Speaker 11: politics within France was that the far right was going
Speaker 11: to sweep. That is not at all the story that
Speaker 11: we have today, but it is not any simpler. As
Speaker 11: a result, you now have this left coalition that is
Speaker 11: composed of people with very different views on the political spectrum,
Speaker 11: the very far left Jean Driuquemino Chanp is among them,
Speaker 11: and none of them have an outright majority. So there's
Speaker 11: going to be a lot of discussions. The Prime minister
Speaker 11: attendered his resignation today, Macohlen refused to acceptly, say you
Speaker 11: need to hang on, So he's going to be there
Speaker 11: for at least another couple of weeks. There are just
Speaker 11: not the votes right now, or is not any clear
Speaker 11: path to how this government gets formed.
Speaker 3: Oliver, What then is corporate France's reaction, because interestingly, there's
Speaker 3: a lot of very big international businesses within the CAP forty,
Speaker 3: but what has been the domestic viewpoint?
Speaker 11: Yeah, so listen, there's going to be this is by
Speaker 11: this is not even close to the sort of worst
Speaker 11: case scenario for business and for Marcus for what's come
Speaker 11: out here. This gridlock situation, though it's not sort of ideal,
Speaker 11: falls short of some of these sort of other issues
Speaker 11: that you would have had. There is also, though a
Speaker 11: great consciousness within France and across Europe, particularly with you
Speaker 11: have the far right rising as it is about the
Speaker 11: question of immigration, and particularly in France and in my
Speaker 11: home country where I live, Germany, this question of where
Speaker 11: is the labor? There is just not the labor in
Speaker 11: the market to build a lot of the businesses that
Speaker 11: people need to be building, and a lot of the
Speaker 11: policymakers in the mainstream politics see the answer there as immigration.
Speaker 11: Though the far right did not sweep the elections, let
Speaker 11: us not fail to mention that they got the They're
Speaker 11: the number one party right now in French Parliament. They
Speaker 11: have set a record. So in terms of actually creating
Speaker 11: a stable environment for business, this is not an ideal outcome,
Speaker 11: though it falls somewhat short of the worst case scenario.
Speaker 5: Let's take that and focus at a micro level and
Speaker 5: the tech sector. Then you know, this immigration center point
Speaker 5: is not unique to France, but there is a debate
Speaker 5: around talent oliver and being able to bring talent into
Speaker 5: a market where you know, France sees itself as an
Speaker 5: AI leader for example, what do the startup level conversations
Speaker 5: tell you about the outcome of this election?
Speaker 11: Absolutely, I mean it wants to be a nimble economy.
Speaker 11: And that's sort of what Macon sort of promised when
Speaker 11: he came into power, to try to make this economy
Speaker 11: a little bit less stale, a little bit more dynamic.
Speaker 11: I mean, it's home to Misscid, which is sort of
Speaker 11: one of the great AI hopes here within Europe, you know,
Speaker 11: where there are not a great many of these sort
Speaker 11: of chech leaders to choose from. And this is coming
Speaker 11: at a moment ed where Europe is really, you know,
Speaker 11: in a slow burning kind of existential crisis in terms
Speaker 11: of its own competitiveness. I mean, they worry at the
Speaker 11: French level, but they're really worried at the EU level.
Speaker 11: How do you boost French competitiveness and European competitors at
Speaker 11: a time when you really see global blocks fragmenting with
Speaker 11: the United States Inflation Reduction Act, It's Chips Act, China
Speaker 11: that is doing a lot of helping of its own
Speaker 11: businesses with its own domestic economic policy. Where does that
Speaker 11: leave Europe. One of the solutions that McColl puts forward
Speaker 11: and the mainstream of Europe is a more robust European market,
Speaker 11: a capital markets union, banking union to try to get
Speaker 11: that capital flowing across borders. When you have McColl basically
Speaker 11: just you know, his power taken out from under him
Speaker 11: at the EU level, it makes it much harder to
Speaker 11: move forward that, particularly when you have the far right
Speaker 11: and the far left, neither of whom are really big
Speaker 11: fans of a bigger and stronger Europe.
Speaker 3: Oliver Crook, we really appreciate you staying late. They're in
Speaker 3: Paris for us on what has been a long weekend
Speaker 3: of coverage. Thank you very much. Indeed, and look, it's
Speaker 3: not the only political story. I've got to get to
Speaker 3: the UK and discuss the recent elections there. As new
Speaker 3: Prime Minister Kis Starmer focuses on economic growth, what role
Speaker 3: does technology play in all of that? Preece So welcome
Speaker 3: Julian David Cee of k for more on this.
Speaker 4: So, Julian, what does the investments.
Speaker 3: Landscape look like for technology now? From a perspective?
Speaker 1: Well, it's really interesting. I mean, the tech sector in
Speaker 1: the UK is a success story already, it's already grown
Speaker 1: twenty five percent over the last ten years and investment
Speaker 1: is coming in and we've we're now one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty billion pounds GBA to the whole economy. So the
Speaker 1: starting point is in a great place, Caroline. What was
Speaker 1: interesting today I was at Rachel Reeves, the new Chancellor,
Speaker 1: first female chancellor by the way, historic moment, giving a
Speaker 1: speech about what is the plan for growth, how they're
Speaker 1: going to go about it, and it was very much
Speaker 1: about changing planning, It was about investment, it was about reform.
Speaker 4: Julian.
Speaker 5: The conversations I've had with the tech industry over the
Speaker 5: weekend and good morning to you from San Francisco is
Speaker 5: that there's they're big on hope in the UK based
Speaker 5: on a Keir Starmer government with Rachel Reeves at the Treasury,
Speaker 5: but thin on detail.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 5: I went back and read the Labor manifesto and they
Speaker 5: write about AI right, fostering a competitive AI industry.
Speaker 4: But one complaint is that.
Speaker 5: Actually they don't explain how they're going to do that,
Speaker 5: particularly when it comes to getting data centers built, talent
Speaker 5: on the ground.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so really interesting because this morning as an illustration
Speaker 1: of the new powers to do with planning, because the
Speaker 1: Deputy Prime Minister was there as well, Angela Rayner, and
Speaker 1: Rachel Reeves said the first two decisions that she's calling
Speaker 1: in under her new powers as definitely Prime Minister to
Speaker 1: review had two planning permissions for data centers that were
Speaker 1: turned down under the previous government. So that's quite an indicator.
Speaker 1: I think of them treating the tech sector importantly, but
Speaker 1: there's more to do and we want them to now
Speaker 1: start to publish how are they going to use AI.
Speaker 1: There's some good indicators ed, I mean, there's quite a
Speaker 1: bit set out about the way they're going to try
Speaker 1: and use AI to reform health provision. There's some talk
Speaker 1: about more use of AI across education and skills and
Speaker 1: continuing to look at how we bring in more tech investment.
Speaker 1: And that's another meeting that's tomorrow morning. They're caning thick
Speaker 1: and fast at the moment these engagements for the new government,
Speaker 1: and a lot of it is about tech.
Speaker 3: It's notable it should be about tech because despite so
Speaker 3: called turmoil worry about Brexit, we still have a notable
Speaker 3: amount of unicorns in the United Kingdom with resolute maybe
Speaker 3: iiring an IPO for example, But a key question for
Speaker 3: me has to be talent, Julian and whether or not
Speaker 3: it is going to get any easier to get talent
Speaker 3: from abroad into the UK. If that is necessary for
Speaker 3: the ecosystem.
Speaker 1: Well, we need world class talent from around the place.
Speaker 1: That's how tech thrives, and we're willplace to get there.
Speaker 1: But we also need to grow our own talent, Caroline
Speaker 1: and the other thing that was interesting today was a
Speaker 1: much more flexible approach to the apprenticeship levy, which business
Speaker 1: has been complaining about for many years now, to actually say, Okay,
Speaker 1: how do we get more flexible use of skills, how
Speaker 1: do we get lifelong skills, how do we get returners
Speaker 1: and retrainers, how do we open up our industry. It's
Speaker 1: something we and our eleven hundred members at tech UK
Speaker 1: are very passionate about. I think we're in good shape
Speaker 1: for this. I mean, yes, the arguments about migration. I
Speaker 1: heard you talking in respect to the French elections, but
Speaker 1: we ended up with a centrist government and I think
Speaker 1: a sensible approach to this is going to be one
Speaker 1: that says, get the skills we need globally available and
Speaker 1: grow our own and keep doing that.
Speaker 5: Julian, the City of London is fascinating to me. You
Speaker 5: have a basically emboldened labor mayor in partnership with now
Speaker 5: a labor government who's talked about devolving more power to
Speaker 5: the mayor's office. Do you think that brightens the prospects
Speaker 5: for that city?
Speaker 1: Yes, I do, and I also think that you know
Speaker 1: how to say this, A lot of talk was about
Speaker 1: growing other parts of the.
Speaker 4: UK, seemly once formally.
Speaker 1: Yeah, seemingly not talking about continue to grow London, as
Speaker 1: if London could look up itself. And I think that
Speaker 1: will change now that does seem to be the case.
Speaker 1: So we're certainly thinking that they the view of London.
Speaker 1: I mean Elon Musk was recently talking about the fact that,
Speaker 1: apart from the Bay Area, London is the next biggest
Speaker 1: center for a talent already. So those kind of things
Speaker 1: are working for us if you put that together with
Speaker 1: an active industrial strategy, a real focus on skills. And
Speaker 1: there's an investment conference, as I said, where we're actually
Speaker 1: saying how do we get some of the people who
Speaker 1: wont to investor around it? Well, come and look at
Speaker 1: the UK. It's stable, it's very tech friendly, it's got
Speaker 1: lots of talent and it's got some really great industries
Speaker 1: like the city.
Speaker 5: Julian David, CEO of Tech UK, fresh reaction to a
Speaker 5: busy weekend of government forming Thank You Right, a story
Speaker 5: we've been watching overnight. Turning to Samsung. Thousands of workers
Speaker 5: have walked off the job today, staging a rally to
Speaker 5: demand better pay. It's the biggest organized labor action in
Speaker 5: the South Korean company's half century history. Negotiations over pay
Speaker 5: and vacation time collapse last month. According to union leaders,
Speaker 5: strike aims to drive home their demands by disrupting production
Speaker 5: at one of the company's most advanced chip facilities.
Speaker 3: Caro fascinating labor story. Meanwhile, coming up, we're going to
Speaker 3: be joined by the CEO of an aiagent startup heavier
Speaker 3: on the company's latest funding round as Next AI Agents
Speaker 3: as a Bloomberg Technology Heavier, it's an LM platform which
Speaker 3: handles really complex multi step questions. Well, it's raise one
Speaker 3: hundred and thirty million dollars in a series b led
Speaker 3: by Andrews and Horowitz.
Speaker 4: Here to discuss how.
Speaker 3: The company will use those funds. Heavy A founder CEO,
Speaker 3: George Savelka, George's great to have you here, New York
Speaker 3: based company. You're looking to raise funds to what how
Speaker 3: do you build up what it is that you're currently building.
Speaker 6: Thanks so much for having me A really important thing
Speaker 6: to understand about what Heavier does and who we are
Speaker 6: is something broader about the larger AI landscape. We fundamentally
Speaker 6: think that there's a problem in AI right now, and
Speaker 6: you have thousands of companies going out and building chatbots
Speaker 6: or search engines or things that are really great at
Speaker 6: one off tasks. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 6: the way that we work is much more complex. And
Speaker 6: HEBIA is building and has really built an AI analyst,
Speaker 6: which is amazing at doing a variety of complex tasks.
Speaker 6: It understands the way we work, breaks it down into
Speaker 6: single steps and then can execute complex work and to end.
Speaker 3: So your problem is that, look, we're all getting hyped
Speaker 3: about AI and AI agents, but very few of them
Speaker 3: are able to do very much complex at all.
Speaker 6: I think that's true. Last year was this year of experimentation,
Speaker 6: But this year people are really trying to get serious
Speaker 6: value and quantifiable value out of these AI systems, and
Speaker 6: it's quite hard to find unless you have things that
Speaker 6: can do more complex work. A chatbot can rewrite an
Speaker 6: email or help your kids cheat on their homework, but
Speaker 6: at the end of the day, what we have to
Speaker 6: do we have to go and create AI agents that
Speaker 6: can do complexity, that can tackle the interesting parts of.
Speaker 12: What we do.
Speaker 5: George, I've been reading a lot about what you've built.
Speaker 5: When I think about my own sort of day to
Speaker 5: day workflow, if I'm using Slack or Google Drive, I'm
Speaker 5: interacting with files in multiple mediums, right text in documents,
Speaker 5: but also video, audio, and often I want to find
Speaker 5: things across all of them. How difficult was that to
Speaker 5: build something that can work across multiple mediums and search
Speaker 5: across them.
Speaker 6: Commonly, You're seeing a trend in AI right now where
Speaker 6: a lot of the things that people are building, a
Speaker 6: lot of the research that people are undergoing is all
Speaker 6: around embracing multimodality, and Heavier is a model agnostic.
Speaker 4: It's hard for.
Speaker 6: Any firm to actually go out and say I'm going
Speaker 6: to make a serious bet on one model or another model.
Speaker 6: And part of the benefit that Heavier provides is that
Speaker 6: the minute that multimodal models are released, or the minute
Speaker 6: that anything new happens in AI, you can leverage it immediately,
Speaker 6: very easily understandable way. And when multimodal models came out
Speaker 6: heavy it was one of the first places where leading
Speaker 6: financial firms asset managers and Fortune one hundred companies actually
Speaker 6: ended up using those models in production for live, quantifiable
Speaker 6: use cases that drove value.
Speaker 5: George Bliombeck reported that this deal values that around year
Speaker 5: around seven hundred million dollars. You know, tell me about
Speaker 5: how quickly you've scaled the business side of the company,
Speaker 5: your sales, your operations, and how big a challenge that's been.
Speaker 6: One of the really exciting things about Heavier is just
Speaker 6: how fast we've grown. We now work with over a
Speaker 6: third of the top fifty largest asset managers by AUM,
Speaker 6: and we're really planning on kind of continuing to grow
Speaker 6: out and use this funding to become the de facto
Speaker 6: leader in generative AI for financial services, while also going
Speaker 6: out to a variety of different verticals like the legal vertical,
Speaker 6: where we have a variety of new customers and those
Speaker 6: really arge Fortune five hundred companies that I've previously mentioned.
Speaker 6: At the end of the day, we're coming off of
Speaker 6: eighteen months where we grew fifteen x in our revenue,
Speaker 6: our head count when tuppled over the last year, and
Speaker 6: I don't think it could be more exciting time to
Speaker 6: be building an AI company right here in New York.
Speaker 5: George Saboka, founder and CEO of Heavy, thank you for
Speaker 5: your time here.
Speaker 4: I'm bliembags technology, appreciate it.
Speaker 12: As Apple approaches the decade anniversary of the debut of
Speaker 12: the original Apple Watch, the company is preparing major updates
Speaker 12: to its smart watch line for later this year. Apple's
Speaker 12: working on an apple Watch Series ten, an apple Watch
Speaker 12: Ultra three, as well as a third generation version of
Speaker 12: the apple Watch sc The biggest changes to the Apple
Speaker 12: Watch line this year will be coming to the Series ten.
Speaker 12: For the first time in several years, Apple's planning to
Speaker 12: make the Apple Watch quite a bit thinner. It's also
Speaker 12: planning to increase the screen size on the series models
Speaker 12: for the first time since the Series seven launched in
Speaker 12: twenty twenty one. The new Series ten high end version
Speaker 12: will come with a display that approaches the screen size
Speaker 12: of the Apple Watch Ultra. It's also planning update to
Speaker 12: the Ultra but that will retain the same design that
Speaker 12: launched in twenty twenty two. Both the Series ten and
Speaker 12: the Ultra three will get a new processor that will
Speaker 12: be a big focus of the company's introduction. There's also
Speaker 12: going to be a new lower end Apple Watch SSE.
Speaker 12: The company has considered moving to a plastic casing for
Speaker 12: that device in order to bring down the cost and
Speaker 12: better compete with lower and smart watches from Samsung and
Speaker 12: other providers. I'm Mark Ermann.
Speaker 4: This is power on.
Speaker 3: Let's just talk about a corpors story. Now that Microsoft
Speaker 3: is ordering its China based employees so the androids iPhones,
Speaker 3: an internal memo entertained by Bloomberger, workers will be required
Speaker 3: to use only Apple devices to verify their identities on
Speaker 3: work computers or their phones. In fact, starting all in
Speaker 3: September now, the move is set to impact hundreds of
Speaker 3: workers across mainline China and is meant to ensure staff
Speaker 3: use the Microsoft authenticator when logging in a cyber focus. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: let's turn our touch to Bitcoin down slightly today as
Speaker 3: concerns grow about the possible sale of the tokens by
Speaker 3: creditors of the failed mount goox exchange all the way
Speaker 3: back years ago. Is fueling though these concerns that maybe
Speaker 3: this crypto bullrum that started last year is waning yet
Speaker 3: further promotion. Ali Bassik has been across all of the
Speaker 3: moves or down another two percent. We've done five percent,
Speaker 3: five percent lower and it feels though it's a supply
Speaker 3: side issue rather than anything else.
Speaker 13: That is largely what the problem is. You have remember
Speaker 13: the Mount Garx overhand, this is about eight billion worth
Speaker 13: of bitcoin. You're a sizeable chunk that is really being
Speaker 13: repaid to creditors here about a decade after the Mount
Speaker 13: Garkx bankruptcy. But think about how much pressure this has
Speaker 13: recently put off the market. After the initial exuberance of
Speaker 13: those bitcoin spot ETFs in the United States started, you
Speaker 13: now have bitcoin plunging below that fifty six thousand dollars level.
Speaker 13: And remember that is almost twenty four percent off the
Speaker 13: high that we saw just a little earlier this year.
Speaker 13: So when you have the supply overhang compounded by let's say,
Speaker 13: the lack of excitement around the asset class right now,
Speaker 13: you do have a tough summer here for the cryptocurrency,
Speaker 13: particularly when you think about other catalysts that should have
Speaker 13: been more exciting, think, for example, an ethereum spot ETF.
Speaker 13: Tough to have an overhang like this for this.
Speaker 9: Market right now.
Speaker 5: I was reading the Bloomberg story and it's it's Monday,
Speaker 5: but it says in the story, if this decline carries
Speaker 5: through Sunday of like seven days from now, it'll be
Speaker 5: five straight weeks of declines. Like who starts a week
Speaker 5: by saying that, But we're trading our last levels since February.
Speaker 5: What other dates are we looking at like ETF outflows?
Speaker 13: Where it's interesting that you asked that, because one thing
Speaker 13: that I have, for example, is many people who invest
Speaker 13: in bitcoin have alerts. They wake up in the morning
Speaker 13: and oh my god, bitcoin's down in another six percent. Now,
Speaker 13: most people are used to volatility in this asset class.
Speaker 13: But to your point here, it's been weeks now where
Speaker 13: we haven't really seen a strong bit in the market
Speaker 13: and some significant forces when it comes to selling. Also,
Speaker 13: and what is a harder struggle to find is what
Speaker 13: that next catalyst is? What is that next market moment
Speaker 13: for a bitcoin? When are people going to get energized
Speaker 13: about where.
Speaker 3: This goes next.
Speaker 13: There weren't those stories at the beginning of the year,
Speaker 13: like the happening like the spot bitcoin ETF that exists
Speaker 13: for this cryptocurrency. Now, if you talk to most people
Speaker 13: in the crypto market, they take a macro view, this
Speaker 13: idea that US fiscal spending, for example, will be a
Speaker 13: bigger catalyst for bitcoin. But what does that draw interest
Speaker 13: in the near term.
Speaker 4: Into the asset. Bloombacks Sonali Basek. Great to have you
Speaker 4: on the show. Thank you so much.
Speaker 5: So that does it for this edition of Bloombay Technology.
Speaker 5: Just a quick programming, Caroline, there is no Bloomberg Technology.
Speaker 5: For the next couple of days, Boomberg Open Interest will
Speaker 5: be carrying FED Chair Drone Pal's testimony to the Senate
Speaker 5: Banking Community. But BTEK is back on Thursday. You will
Speaker 5: be in New York and I will be in San Francisco,
Speaker 5: and from those cities this is Bloomberg Technology.