Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. Bloomberg Tech is live
Speaker 1: from coast to coast with Caroline Hide in New York
Speaker 1: and vow into San Francisco.
Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg Tech Coming up.
Speaker 3: We sit down with the Care We've CEO Michael and
Speaker 3: Trader to discuss the company's earnings as it.
Speaker 2: Builds out data center capacity.
Speaker 3: Plus, we break down the jobs report and the impact
Speaker 3: of AI on today's workforce with Clara Schai from the
Speaker 3: New Work Foundation, and we bring down more earnings with
Speaker 3: LIFT CEO David Risher. As a company spends on international expansion,
Speaker 3: but first we check in on these markets that are
Speaker 3: moving on an international basis. Looks we still have eyes
Speaker 3: towards some sort of peace still being broken between the
Speaker 3: US and Iran, but the focus is also on optimism
Speaker 3: round jobs. Data coming in stronger for the first back
Speaker 3: to back gain we've had at least a year in
Speaker 3: terms of month and month non f perils. But tech
Speaker 3: I'm afraid down for sixty straight months in terms of
Speaker 3: jobs in the information technology area. We're at one point
Speaker 3: seven percent though, even as consumer confidence lags and it's
Speaker 3: about the AI trade is about big tech, but there
Speaker 3: is a lagged out there, and I just want to
Speaker 3: shine light and what's happening with Core.
Speaker 2: We've ropt by twelve percent.
Speaker 3: The context is this company was up, let's say, ninety
Speaker 3: percent year to date. In the run up to these earnings,
Speaker 3: we see profit taking. We also see some anxiety as
Speaker 3: we see the forecast perhaps sort of living up to
Speaker 3: some of the higher expectations. CEO Michael and Trader joins
Speaker 3: us now in the studio. Michael, earnings are always tough
Speaker 3: when the market has built up a lot of optimism
Speaker 3: around the business.
Speaker 2: So why do you think they're.
Speaker 3: A little bit concerned about the full looking guidance when
Speaker 3: it comes to revenue, when it comes to operating profit.
Speaker 4: So look, I think this was, and I said this
Speaker 4: in the earnings call, a transformational and extraordinary earnings for us.
Speaker 4: You know, the company really hit on all cylinders. We
Speaker 4: you know, we beat on our revenue. You know, we
Speaker 4: reafforted our annual revenue targets from a nominal perspective, we
Speaker 4: reaffirmed our twenty twenty six ar are operating margin targets.
Speaker 5: Really a great.
Speaker 4: Quarter for us by the numbers, but also you know,
Speaker 4: extending our product you know, we can't keep up with
Speaker 4: demand from existing customers, which are you know, historically been
Speaker 4: AI labs and AI native and cloud. Now they're expanding, yeah,
Speaker 4: and we're just being overwhelmed by new verticals that are
Speaker 4: coming in and integrating AI at scale into their workflows.
Speaker 5: Right. And so you know, you heard me talk.
Speaker 4: A little bit about some of the the trading and
Speaker 4: finance companies like Jane Street and Hudson River Trading. You
Speaker 4: know that's adding to you know, JP Morgan and Morgan
Speaker 4: Stanley who are already clients. You know, you heard me
Speaker 4: talk a little bit about some of the physical AI
Speaker 4: into the robotics space, you know, where where you know,
Speaker 4: great new clients coming on to our infrastructure. It's really exciting.
Speaker 4: You know, Stock's going to bounce around. You know, we
Speaker 4: understand that. But but you know, one of the you know,
Speaker 4: one of the best things about being a founder and
Speaker 4: a CEO, and one of the best things about and
Speaker 4: one of the hardest things about being a founder and
Speaker 4: CEO is you know, I try to keep my eye
Speaker 4: on the parts of the business that are succeeding and
Speaker 4: growing and expanding. And you know, we're winning the day, right.
Speaker 4: We drove down our cost of capital, We expanded our
Speaker 4: backlog by forty billion dollars. We we did all the
Speaker 4: things that we needed to do. So I'm thrilled with
Speaker 4: the quarter. I think was fantastic. You know, seemingly there's
Speaker 4: a little bit of trepidation around next quarters revenue?
Speaker 3: Do you Yeah, how do you get next quot And
Speaker 3: indeed the second half people are optimistic that you're saying,
Speaker 3: I'm optimistic the profitability will.
Speaker 2: Ramp up in the second half. How does that happen?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 4: So, you know, I mean, look, we're we it's almost
Speaker 4: mathematical at some point, right like where you know you're
Speaker 4: building infrastructure, that infrastructure takes time to bring online.
Speaker 5: We are going through a massive build out across the
Speaker 5: company right now.
Speaker 4: It's why the the operating margins have compressed this because
Speaker 4: we're going through this enormous scaling exercise. As you push
Speaker 4: through that, all of that infrastructure comes onto billing. And
Speaker 4: once it comes on to billing, you are going to
Speaker 4: see a sequential expansion of the operating margins until we
Speaker 4: go from you know, one percent in Q one all
Speaker 4: the way up through low double digits by Q four.
Speaker 4: And you know that's sort of baked in because of
Speaker 4: the infrastructure coming online, the software capacity to deliver that infrastructure.
Speaker 4: You know, we're highly confident we're going to hit those numbers.
Speaker 3: There was anxiety about another company a kind not hitting
Speaker 3: internal numbers, and I'm talking about open And Look, Sarahphry
Speaker 3: has come on and spoken to colleagues here at breoing
Speaker 3: revenues and pushed back against that, saying they're seeing a
Speaker 3: wall of demand. But how confident are you that your
Speaker 3: clients are seeing that demand and are good for the
Speaker 3: money for the buildout.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So one of the things I talked about yesterday during
Speaker 4: Ernix call is that.
Speaker 5: The demand for our.
Speaker 4: Paper in the debt markets has been nothing shy of astounding.
Speaker 4: You know, we did a one of our delayed draw
Speaker 4: facilities closed two days ago. The clients in it were
Speaker 4: cohere and open Ai exclusively, and the two things happened. One,
Speaker 4: it was five x oversubscribed, which is enormous. It also
Speaker 4: closed fifty basis points below the marketed range, and that
Speaker 4: is a clear indication of enormous buying interest for financing the.
Speaker 5: Paper with regards to paying.
Speaker 4: Look, you know, open Ai is extraordinary company, right, One
Speaker 4: in ten people on the planet use their product.
Speaker 5: Every year.
Speaker 4: But you know, and we think that they're in a
Speaker 4: wonderful position. But we've also built an incredibly diversified portfolio
Speaker 4: of companies that use our infrastructure.
Speaker 5: This this quarter.
Speaker 4: We announced Anthropic, We announced a massive deal twenty one
Speaker 4: billion dollars with Meta. We announced, you know, a six
Speaker 4: billion dollar deal with Jane Street. You know, like the
Speaker 4: number of clients that are using our infrastructure are expanding,
Speaker 4: you know, the diversification is expanding.
Speaker 5: Open Ai is an important client, but one of many.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about an important partner and in your supply chain,
Speaker 3: and that's in Video. How confident you are with the
Speaker 3: strength of your relationship there and videos made deals with you,
Speaker 3: invested in you, but also doing that with shall I say,
Speaker 3: even competitors in the space.
Speaker 2: Is that ever an anxiety?
Speaker 4: No, I take that as an incredible affirmation of the
Speaker 4: fact that the world needs more of this infrastructure. And
Speaker 4: the demand and for the infrastructure and the product that
Speaker 4: we deliver is you know, overwhelming. And you know, at
Speaker 4: the end of the day, you know, in Video has
Speaker 4: got to do what it's got to do for its business.
Speaker 4: I really focus on my clients and my clients are
Speaker 4: coming back to us and they are saying again and again,
Speaker 4: you deliver the best product the way that your software
Speaker 4: stack enables our engineers to use it most efficiently, that
Speaker 4: most cost effectively, and most successfully, and therefore we want
Speaker 4: to buy more. And so the problem that I've got
Speaker 4: is how do I bring on enough infrastructure to sate
Speaker 4: and to deliver the infrastructure that my clients are clamoring.
Speaker 3: Dig into the problems because there have been delays at
Speaker 3: times with certain of them coming online. And that's to
Speaker 3: do with a partnership. What is the biggest chokol for
Speaker 3: you the matter?
Speaker 4: So you know, Core is becoming a massive player in
Speaker 4: the space, and you know we are currently approaching fifty
Speaker 4: data centers that were delivering infrastructure from There is no
Speaker 4: single data center provider that represents more than seventeen percent
Speaker 4: of our infrastructure. We have a massive effort internal to
Speaker 4: the company to go through self builds so that we
Speaker 4: have greater operational control over the delivery of data center capacity.
Speaker 4: You know, we're doing all the right things by diversifying
Speaker 4: to ensure that no single data center can materially impact
Speaker 4: the trajectory of the company.
Speaker 5: That is further.
Speaker 4: Reinforced by just the size and scale of the installed capacity. Right,
Speaker 4: So you know, if you have a gigawatt worth of
Speaker 4: capacity and a data hall represents you know, fifty megawats,
Speaker 4: you know, you know, and you're bringing a fifty megawat
Speaker 4: the impact of a week delay on fifty megawats in
Speaker 4: a gigawatt environment is very different than earlier on when
Speaker 4: you're bringing on fifty megawats and you only have fifty
Speaker 4: megawats online. A week delay rattles your entire ability to
Speaker 4: project where you're going.
Speaker 5: And we no longer have that problem.
Speaker 4: We have achieved escape velocity, both in terms of our
Speaker 4: data center capacity as well as our revenue, as well
Speaker 4: as our ability to provide guidance into the back half
Speaker 4: of this year.
Speaker 5: We're super excited about that.
Speaker 3: We'll wait for the investors maybe to just react to
Speaker 3: some of your longer term perspective, Michael Intrader.
Speaker 2: They're the CEO of Courwave on the back of theirnvembers.
Speaker 3: Now we're also watching shares a cloud flare after their
Speaker 3: own planning's report. Look, they're saying they're going to slash jobs.
Speaker 3: About a fifth of all jobs are going to go
Speaker 3: they're giving a forecast for revenue that fell short of
Speaker 3: analyst expectations. This is again and lean into AI, but
Speaker 3: it comes sadly at the expense of people and the
Speaker 3: workforce for them. We'll currently see the shares of twenty
Speaker 3: four percent as the really the revenue and the forecast
Speaker 3: is what is concerning people at the moment.
Speaker 2: Coming up, we'll.
Speaker 3: Discuss further that issue of AI, of tech, of jobs,
Speaker 3: of unemployment on the back of the jobs report and
Speaker 3: indeed of the likes of cloud Flare. Clara Shies with
Speaker 3: Us New Work Foundation doesn't blum beg tech. US payrolls
Speaker 3: beat most expectations in April was actually the first back
Speaker 3: to back game for payrolls in a year, but tech
Speaker 3: jobs have fallen for sixteenth straight month and that's in
Speaker 3: many ways being blamed on AI. Let's talk about the
Speaker 3: AI story here because learning artificial intelligence is becoming more
Speaker 3: and more crucial for workers to get hired. Forty two
Speaker 3: percent of recent grads are still underemployed. Tara Shies with
Speaker 3: Us found our CEO of New Work Foundation, former head of.
Speaker 2: Business at Meta.
Speaker 3: Your CV stands out and look, you're saying you want
Speaker 3: AI to be profitable not just for businesses, but everyone,
Speaker 3: including the millions of twenty five year olds currently unde
Speaker 3: employed or unemployed. Kara, you've founded this what's happening with
Speaker 3: the labor market right now.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Carolyne. Great to see you, gen Z. American
Speaker 6: workers are graduating in the worst job market in thirty
Speaker 6: seven years. As you said, forty two percent are underemployed,
Speaker 6: so they're bartending, they're working gig jobs and taking other
Speaker 6: work that don't require their degree. And it's because traditional
Speaker 6: pathways are drying up, and today's young Americans are graduating
Speaker 6: without the skills, tools and information they need to get
Speaker 6: hired in this AI economy.
Speaker 2: So the skills the tools they need.
Speaker 3: You're bringing that to bear, how because there is a
Speaker 3: sudden anxiety that people need to realign themselves for the
Speaker 3: future of work.
Speaker 6: Well, absolutely, And I look at the colleges in America
Speaker 6: and CA to twelve education. There is rightful caution around
Speaker 6: using AI, but many of these young people are actively
Speaker 6: being discouraged from using AI and learning AI while they're
Speaker 6: in school, and so they're graduating not knowing how to
Speaker 6: direct these systems, not knowing how to properly set up
Speaker 6: context engineering and how to apply these AI workflows in
Speaker 6: transformational ways, whether they're applying for a mar marketing job,
Speaker 6: software engineering, or accounting accounting.
Speaker 3: I think of just an industry that is being shaken
Speaker 3: up significantly by new AI products. This isn't just gen
Speaker 3: Z that are suffering. And the moment we see yet
Speaker 3: more and more layoffs being announced cloud Flair. Today we've
Speaker 3: had Block coming out with its numbers and showing the
Speaker 3: rewards it's gaining from having left almost half of its
Speaker 3: entire employee based coenbase this week.
Speaker 2: You think they just keep on building.
Speaker 3: Thirty three thousand tank jobs have been cut in April.
Speaker 3: What do you think the tech sector is going to
Speaker 3: look like in the future, Clo, It's.
Speaker 6: Really hard to say, but I think what we're trending
Speaker 6: right now is really much more usage of AI and
Speaker 6: specifically AI agents to do a lot of the work
Speaker 6: that traditionally entry level workers did. And again that's why
Speaker 6: it is so important that we equip our young graduates
Speaker 6: with a tool and information they need and the experience
Speaker 6: they need to get hired.
Speaker 2: Is there a backlash?
Speaker 3: I mean, I've thought of how you and I've sat
Speaker 3: down over the years, and you've talked about the tools
Speaker 3: you're using, the way you're leaning into a gender KI
Speaker 3: or just generator writ large.
Speaker 2: You then see the response to a Reese Witherspoon.
Speaker 3: Trying to say that maybe people who look like you
Speaker 3: and me, women in particular, should start using AI a
Speaker 3: little bit more. The people are worried about the cost
Speaker 3: of the environment, the cost of creativity and royalties and payouts.
Speaker 3: How do you navigate that amongst gen z who maybe
Speaker 3: coming to AI kicking and screaming yes.
Speaker 6: And as we've done this work with a New Work Foundation,
Speaker 6: one of my co founders Samantha, she is part of
Speaker 6: gen Z, and what I've heard from her and her
Speaker 6: friends is a lot of young people today do have
Speaker 6: these moral objections and concerns around AI. And so what
Speaker 6: I would say is these are the exact people we
Speaker 6: want being part of building the solutions, so that we
Speaker 6: can capture their concerns and creatively build the right path
Speaker 6: forward that addresses what they want but also doesn't leave
Speaker 6: them behind in this new economy.
Speaker 3: You've got this initial set of free AI tools. Job Claw,
Speaker 3: you've got one of them, Field Report. I want to
Speaker 3: go into they really do, but there is a lot
Speaker 3: of free tools out there. IBM has them, Amazon has them. Look,
Speaker 3: if you wanted to lean into understanding and building your
Speaker 3: own repertoire of AI talent, you can do it. So
Speaker 3: why did you have to design something different?
Speaker 6: Well, I think we have to address the legitimate moral
Speaker 6: questions that gen Z has, just like we said, but
Speaker 6: then also beyond that, it's almost overwhelming how much information
Speaker 6: is out there about AI. There are hundreds of thousands
Speaker 6: of hours of AI courses, certifications, some of them free,
Speaker 6: but some of them very expensive, and it's very hard
Speaker 6: for anyone of any age actually to navigate this. And
Speaker 6: so what we wanted to do is NEWWAAR Foundation is
Speaker 6: going job by job, going across the most common entry
Speaker 6: level white collar roles that young people are applying for,
Speaker 6: and we're breaking down exactly what it takes to become
Speaker 6: AI native in doing that job. So whether it's marketing,
Speaker 6: whether it's software, whether it's investment banking, whether it's legal,
Speaker 6: whether it's it's some other role. We're talking to hiring
Speaker 6: managers that are using AI, asking them to describe in
Speaker 6: clear terms how what they're looking for has changed in
Speaker 6: the last twelve months. As a result, of AI and agents.
Speaker 6: And we're also interviewing other gen Z workers who had
Speaker 6: been struggling to find work but have recently found a
Speaker 6: job in that particular role, so that they can share
Speaker 6: their tips and.
Speaker 2: Tricks our shy.
Speaker 3: I'm sure music to many A person's there, if they're listening,
Speaker 3: if they are among that gen Z cohort New Work Foundation.
Speaker 3: We appreciate your time today, taking a look now at
Speaker 3: your day's big number. Six billion dollars. That's what SoftBank
Speaker 3: is now targeting for a loan backed by its open
Speaker 3: Ai stake, after facing some hesitation from creditors. It's all
Speaker 3: according to people familiar with the matter. It's down from
Speaker 3: an initial target of ten billion dollars that it was
Speaker 3: originally planning. Part of the investor concerns deal with the
Speaker 3: difficulty of reaching a valuation for an unlisted company like
Speaker 3: open Ai, which has been reported as facing some challenges
Speaker 3: and meeting some internal targets and internal goals, a point
Speaker 3: that Sarah Fryer has pushed back on when joining our
Speaker 3: colleagues on Bloomberg News. Let's talk about SpaceX now rival,
Speaker 3: though its rival is ast Space Mobile, and it's searched
Speaker 3: to roughly twenty five billion dollar market cap despite generating
Speaker 3: just seventy one million dollars an annual revenue. It's fueled
Speaker 3: in large part by devoted retail investor community known as
Speaker 3: the space Mob.
Speaker 2: For more his Sana Frashanka.
Speaker 3: With today's Big Tay, it is one of the most
Speaker 3: red stories across our platform today. Sarah, so tell us
Speaker 3: a little bit of what's happening. Who are these people
Speaker 3: who are loving AST?
Speaker 7: Yeah, so, AST has thousands of retail investors. As you mentioned,
Speaker 7: the space Mob, and you know, there are a little
Speaker 7: reminiscent of the crowds that used to rally around Munstock
Speaker 7: side game stop in AMC. Except the space mob really
Speaker 7: believes in AST Space Mobile. They think it's going to
Speaker 7: become the next trillion dollar company. And they're not in
Speaker 7: it to make a quick hit. They really believe in
Speaker 7: the technology. AST is pioneering directed device technology, which are
Speaker 7: satellites that beam cellar section directly to your mobile phone,
Speaker 7: which is something that satellites traditionally have not done. And
Speaker 7: so they have, you know, rallied around the stock. They
Speaker 7: fixate on every shred of corporate intel from the company.
Speaker 7: They track their regulatory filings. You know, the planes that
Speaker 7: ship the company satellites. So they're about as devoted as
Speaker 7: a fan base to a company as you can get.
Speaker 3: And that devotion means the stock is out nearly six
Speaker 3: percent over a twenty two month period. We're looking at
Speaker 3: it on a one year basis right now. Talk to
Speaker 3: us about some leadership amongst the Space Mob.
Speaker 2: Cock who is Kuck?
Speaker 7: So the quuk is a He's a California based private investor.
Speaker 7: He wants to remain anonymous, but he has just a
Speaker 7: ton of money in as space Mobile. His family's money's
Speaker 7: in it, you know, for his kid's money, everything, And
Speaker 7: so he really leads the space Mob. He is one
Speaker 7: of the most prominent figures around the Space Mob. And
Speaker 7: you know, if you follow his ex post, he's very
Speaker 7: emotionally invested in it, and you know, you can track
Speaker 7: his mood based on how the stock is doing. And
Speaker 7: so he's really a zany character that you know a
Speaker 7: lot of the other Space mobbers follow and watch four
Speaker 7: signs of his emotional mood and sometimes you can see
Speaker 7: that reflected in the stock price as well.
Speaker 3: And he's bottom apparently, Tanna Ottaway, I mean, an extraordinary character.
Speaker 3: Shine light on his life savings into ast stock. Sana Fashanka,
Speaker 3: go read this story. Thank you for joining us on it.
Speaker 3: We appreciate you coming on now. Intel shares would largely
Speaker 3: flat for months after CEO Libhutan took the helm in
Speaker 3: March of last year, but have since climbed as you
Speaker 3: can see, to record highs as he built ties with
Speaker 3: some of the biggest technique is Anacle's President Trump still
Speaker 3: core challenges persist for the chip maker. Bloomberg's Big Tech
Speaker 3: reporter Sarah Fry joins us now because what's so interesting
Speaker 3: about this story is we've got this conversation to sit
Speaker 3: down with Lipbutan and one of people making of his
Speaker 3: leadership styles.
Speaker 8: Sarah well Ian King talked to many current informer employees
Speaker 8: and got the picture of that. While Liputan has succeeded
Speaker 8: in rallying this optimism around Intel's future from the likes
Speaker 8: of Donald Trump, Elon Musk, we have that potential customer
Speaker 8: deal with Apple and others, there still has to be
Speaker 8: a major change in how the company thinks about its products,
Speaker 8: how it develops them to be high quality, the quality
Speaker 8: of its factories, all of the work internally still needs
Speaker 8: to be done to really deliver on that optimism going forward.
Speaker 8: And so Intel, you know, we have these record highs,
Speaker 8: we have wall streets backing. Now we need Liputan to
Speaker 8: look inward and rally the company around a vision for that.
Speaker 3: And he's trying to look in his first interview, CEO
Speaker 3: telling inking, you got the technology, We've got the talent,
Speaker 3: we've got the scale to lead again, what leadership has
Speaker 3: earned through execution? Is he on site enough for that execution?
Speaker 3: That seems to be a bit of a concern amongst
Speaker 3: those that I interviewed.
Speaker 8: Yes Ian found that really he's spending or has spent
Speaker 8: at least a lot more time with customers than he
Speaker 8: has internally at Intel. And when he does spend time
Speaker 8: at Intel, he doesn't really go into the details with people.
Speaker 8: He's not a micromanager by any sense of the imagination.
Speaker 8: He is much more of a high level strategy thinker.
Speaker 8: When he hears somebody's strategy, he sort of quizzes them
Speaker 8: on the industry from a broad sense, and then if
Speaker 8: he likes how they think, he backs them and he
Speaker 8: undoes roadblocks for them and supports them, sort of like
Speaker 8: his role as a venture capital investor and board member. Right,
Speaker 8: But at Intel. The details really do matter because when
Speaker 8: you're you're thinking about the efficiency of these chips, about
Speaker 8: the ability for a customer to spend to make a
Speaker 8: bet on using one of your one of your factories,
Speaker 8: it has to go right. It has to be.
Speaker 3: Effective, particularly when the yield rates are only about sixty
Speaker 3: five percent versus eighty percent over at t SMC, Sarah
Speaker 3: Fryar brilliant editing on a really crucial story.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining on it. Welcome back to Bloomberg Tech.
Speaker 3: It's another day, another new record high for then as
Speaker 3: that one hundred, we continue to power on. Maybe the
Speaker 3: jobless claims a rosier look on the labor market, even
Speaker 3: though it's not a rosier look for tech jobs. Sixteen
Speaker 3: months of declines for the tech industry and jobless claims,
Speaker 3: but I mean not in jobless claims, in non vom payrolls,
Speaker 3: but consumer sentiment also low. Nevertheless, we're looking at earnings
Speaker 3: that have been thriving in certain parts of the business,
Speaker 3: and I want to dial into some of those earnings
Speaker 3: that we got overnight and in the morning, I'm looking
Speaker 3: at three point three percent games for Airbnb. Look, they're
Speaker 3: dialing up the growth expectations of the investor base right
Speaker 3: now because they're seeing good growth in the United States.
Speaker 3: They're even reinvesting, of course, putting money to work to.
Speaker 2: Diversify the business.
Speaker 3: We're seeing block well liked up six percent as they
Speaker 3: just announced forty percent more than job cuts. Well, that's
Speaker 3: already because AI is making such a difference to the
Speaker 3: coding within the business and the software stack within also
Speaker 3: the ability to serve clients, and we're seeing profitability being
Speaker 3: guided higher at that particular company, Coinbase, though they're also
Speaker 3: announced layoffs earlier this week and revenue sinking. Clearly the
Speaker 3: turbulance in the crypto market is still hitting summer. Coinbas's
Speaker 3: metrics are off by more than a percentage point. DraftKings
Speaker 3: up two point eight percent. There was some relief in
Speaker 3: the numbers as they see revenue coming in some seventeen
Speaker 3: percent higher and some signs of growth when it comes
Speaker 3: to the predictions market. But let's stick with earnings more broadly.
Speaker 2: And shares.
Speaker 3: A right hailing company, well Lift, we're currently up two
Speaker 3: point one percent. That's called it after the company reported
Speaker 3: first called a profit. Actually, so there's some anxiety among
Speaker 3: Wall Street about the expectations, but it was all being
Speaker 3: ramped up by spending on international expansion. Maybe that's what
Speaker 3: was hitting in the near term, the profitability metrics. I've
Speaker 3: got to talk to the person who knows all Lift CEO,
Speaker 3: David Risher. Look, we've had a volatile trading day for Lift.
Speaker 3: There was some pressure as people worried about well, the
Speaker 3: amount that you're spending to grow, But you're managing to
Speaker 3: push back on that. You see to investor base that
Speaker 3: this is the right use of capital.
Speaker 9: I really think it is.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 9: I mean, look, we had a record quarter, which is
Speaker 9: always wonderful, almost five billion in bookings. You bit up
Speaker 9: thirty seven percent year on year, one point one billion
Speaker 9: dollars of free cash flow.
Speaker 5: So that's great.
Speaker 9: So when you're in a position like that, that allows
Speaker 9: you to grow and grow even more. And as you noted,
Speaker 9: we've done some international acquisitions just in fact, one announced
Speaker 9: a couple of days ago get in the UK. Look,
Speaker 9: I think it's a great time to be frankly, the
Speaker 9: rights your business because we're a really important part of
Speaker 9: a lot of people's lives and we're growing.
Speaker 3: Like a weed, growing like a weed. Mandy Blueberg Intelligent
Speaker 3: Sort of saying that supply growth for lift perhaps is likely.
Speaker 2: To trail some larger peers.
Speaker 3: I mean, I talked to us about the adoption rate,
Speaker 3: the adoption rate of your offerings, but the adoption rate
Speaker 3: in particular of autonomous vehicles that you're starting to dabble in.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 9: So look, I think if you zoom, weigh in, you
Speaker 9: can always find little things, right. So we delivered about
Speaker 9: two hundred and thirty seven million rides this last quarter.
Speaker 9: That's a lot of rides, a lot of commuting rides,
Speaker 9: a lot of rides to the airport and so forth.
Speaker 5: Now, the quarter started.
Speaker 9: Off a little bit slow. There's some really intense storms,
Speaker 9: particularly in New York City where you live. As you know,
Speaker 9: that brought you ride share and beg share to.
Speaker 5: Sort of zero.
Speaker 9: So that was an early, you know, kind of headwind.
Speaker 9: But look, Valentine's Day, Saint Patrick's Day, Super Bowl, these
Speaker 9: were all all time highs. And then we had our
Speaker 9: highest ride month ever in March. So I think that
Speaker 9: there's a lot of reason to believe that there's still
Speaker 9: a huge, huge amount of growth here. And then, as
Speaker 9: you say, autonomous vehicles, that's a great product and that's
Speaker 9: going to be one of the next big kind of
Speaker 9: growth vectors up.
Speaker 3: Mart Mahine over Evercore really liking the fact that you've
Speaker 3: got a record six straight quarter in.
Speaker 2: Terms of active riders.
Speaker 3: But I think what he's liking to see is maybe
Speaker 3: consumer incentives to just moderate a little bit.
Speaker 2: Are you being able to do that, David.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we are.
Speaker 9: We've gotten a lot of you know, we think of
Speaker 9: it as a sort of leverage off of consumer incentive.
Speaker 9: And I'll tell you a particular thing that I'm starting
Speaker 9: to see more. I think if it is rewards maxing. Okay,
Speaker 9: so oh no, you've got right there, you go, there,
Speaker 9: you go. Be careful about where we're going to go
Speaker 9: with this one. So anyway, No, but look, we've got
Speaker 9: to deal with United right, which allows people to both
Speaker 9: earn points and also spend points on left. We have
Speaker 9: a deal with Hilton, we have an arrangement with alask Airlines.
Speaker 9: We have an arrangement with door Dash are super super
Speaker 9: important program there that just expanded to Canada. And so
Speaker 9: what we're seeing people do is they're you know, they're
Speaker 9: they're taking lift rides, they're earning points and they're spending
Speaker 9: them elsewhere, or they're even spending them back on our platform.
Speaker 5: And yeah, I think it's.
Speaker 9: Going to be a thing, and I think it's one
Speaker 9: of the reasons why we're seeing high margins sort of
Speaker 9: like black and luxury rides rise. Even with some consumer concerns.
Speaker 9: Still this rewards maxing thing, I think is working for people.
Speaker 3: Rewards maxing, of course is a play on all the
Speaker 3: maxing that we have. We looks maxing, all the tons
Speaker 3: of phrase that gen Z use.
Speaker 2: Is it gens? I mean, I mean, how much do
Speaker 2: you see?
Speaker 3: How much you seeing the idea of different age groups
Speaker 3: responding to your new offerings, because in many ways I
Speaker 3: see the more premium offerings coming to a to an
Speaker 3: older cohort, a more obviously a wealthier cohort, in many ways,
Speaker 3: a corporate cohort.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 9: I think that's something that's changing over time. I think,
Speaker 9: you know, back when I was, you know, early in
Speaker 9: my career, you know, you didn't have an Amex you know,
Speaker 9: platinum card or Chase Sapphire Reserve card until you're you.
Speaker 5: Know, old like me now. But no, it turns out.
Speaker 9: Actually a lot of kids, a lot of sort of
Speaker 9: gen Y gen Z folks are early in that ecosystem
Speaker 9: because they realize that there's a lot of value to
Speaker 9: be unlocked if they kind of play the game. And
Speaker 9: I think a lot of them think of it a
Speaker 9: bit of as almost to play in the game, like
Speaker 9: how can I how can I do this rewards maximine
Speaker 9: thing to be able to afford a lift black even
Speaker 9: when I'm in my in my twenties.
Speaker 3: Savvy is what they are, and I'm interested, David, and
Speaker 3: how savvy you are about the landscape for M and A.
Speaker 2: Right now?
Speaker 3: You've made acquisitions, this is where you've been spending your money.
Speaker 2: Is there more to come?
Speaker 9: You know, you never say never about these things. It's always,
Speaker 9: you know, fool's game to predict M and A. But
Speaker 9: I will say that it's a part of our strategy. Now.
Speaker 5: We were not a very inquisitive company for a long time.
Speaker 9: But now that we've got you know, the fastest pickup times,
Speaker 9: great pricing, great service levels all around, we're really thinking
Speaker 9: of bringing that abroad. And that's really where our M
Speaker 9: and A focus has been is overseas.
Speaker 2: Any warries about the consumer right now?
Speaker 9: No, no, And I know that sounds glib. Of course,
Speaker 9: people are feeling some pain. Our drivers feel a lot
Speaker 9: of pain at the pump, and so that's why we
Speaker 9: were the first to get out there with a nice
Speaker 9: cash back program at the pump saves about a dollar
Speaker 9: a gallon. So you know, there are reasons, I think,
Speaker 9: of course, are to be concerned, but when we look
Speaker 9: at the data, you know, we're not seeing that play out.
Speaker 3: It's been a week where I feel that you haven't
Speaker 3: actually mentioned AI yet much. I mean, autonomous vehicles is
Speaker 3: inherently AI. How much there were your workforce using it,
Speaker 3: how much your workforce responding to having to use it?
Speaker 3: And is there any stretch at which point you are
Speaker 3: able to reduce your headcount or hiring on the back
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 9: You know, I love this question, and I think it's
Speaker 9: really important for people to sort of get their arms
Speaker 9: around this. Absolutely, are something like eighty six percent now
Speaker 9: of our developers, our software engineers are using actively, like
Speaker 9: every single day, using AI to write code for them.
Speaker 9: We're also using it in customer care. We're using all
Speaker 9: over the place. But I think there's a way of
Speaker 9: thinking about it which is not so much about cost
Speaker 9: reduction but about velocity increase and capacity building. You know,
Speaker 9: our imaginations are huge and we're a customer obsessed company,
Speaker 9: so we have no shortage of great ideas to innovate
Speaker 9: on behalf of customers. I think that's really where AI
Speaker 9: is going to give us a big edge.
Speaker 2: Not so much on this sort I mean cost.
Speaker 9: Sure, we can maybe save a little bit money, but
Speaker 9: there's so much more value if we can figure out
Speaker 9: new great ways for riders and drivers to use our platform.
Speaker 3: Is it a more competitive backdrop right now? To say
Speaker 3: one more time, is it a more competitive backdrop right now?
Speaker 9: Well, it is, you know, but only in the following sense.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 9: Remember there one hundred and sixty billion rides that people
Speaker 9: take in their private car every single year, and I
Speaker 9: think that's ultimately going to be the real competition for us. Look,
Speaker 9: it's fifty thousand dollars to buy a car eight hundred
Speaker 9: bucks a month plus insurance, plus gas, plus maintenance, whereas
Speaker 9: lift is you know, twenty bucks a ride. So in
Speaker 9: a funny way, I think the competition is going to
Speaker 9: shift a little away from the other guys and a
Speaker 9: little bit more towards what are good ways for you
Speaker 9: to spend your money and how can you live your best.
Speaker 2: Life and rewards?
Speaker 9: Max and rewards. Max exactly, I'm glad you picked up on.
Speaker 2: That I shouldn't have done. David H. We love having
Speaker 2: you on the show. Thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Indeed, the CEO of Lyft coming up, we take a
Speaker 3: look at Enhanced. There's a Pewter teil back to elite
Speaker 3: sports competition and performance products company.
Speaker 2: It's gone public today.
Speaker 3: More Next, this is a Blue Beg Tech, an Olympic
Speaker 3: style sports event that welcomes performance enhancing drugs, set for.
Speaker 2: Later this month in Las Vegas.
Speaker 3: Today, the company behind that endeavor went public in a
Speaker 3: merger with a blank check company with Enhanced now as
Speaker 3: you see, trading up eight point eight percent following the transaction.
Speaker 3: One point two billion dollars in this back and has
Speaker 3: backing from like Sir Peter Tiill and former coinbased CTO
Speaker 3: Large Shunavessan.
Speaker 2: Now the company CEO now.
Speaker 3: Joins us Maximilian Martin from the Flora of the New
Speaker 3: York Stock Exchange.
Speaker 2: So go on public? Why why need it?
Speaker 10: First of all, hello and thank you to having me
Speaker 10: on the show today. We're going public because Enhanced there
Speaker 10: is a movement and we want the people in that
Speaker 10: movement not just to be part of it by watching
Speaker 10: the sports or buying enhancement products through a live enhanced platform,
Speaker 10: but by owning a piece of it too. This is
Speaker 10: why we've decided to go public and which we're very
Speaker 10: excited about having done and concluded the transaction today.
Speaker 2: So there's a is it a retail investment play? Here?
Speaker 3: More broadly, Maximilian, is it the people that you want
Speaker 3: to purchase not only the products so called longevity products
Speaker 3: maybe they're peptides, but also those who are then going
Speaker 3: to come and watch the enhanced games?
Speaker 10: Sorry, can you repeat the question? I didn't catch that fully.
Speaker 3: Is it a retail investor that you're most focused on?
Speaker 2: Ah?
Speaker 10: Yes, yes, so I think enhanced there's a stock opportunity
Speaker 10: is really for everyone, but I think particularly exciting for
Speaker 10: retail too, because sports traditionally isn't as investable for retail
Speaker 10: as it is for, for example, more institutional like players.
Speaker 10: This is why we're very excited about retail particularly getting
Speaker 10: focused on the opportunity that's ahead of them now with
Speaker 10: us listed on the exchange here.
Speaker 3: If you look at past media attention on the games,
Speaker 3: in particular people who sort of called it Olympics on steroids,
Speaker 3: Why is it not that from your perspective, Maximilian.
Speaker 10: Yeah, because steroids is a term that has very many
Speaker 10: negative associations with it. Many people associated with it to
Speaker 10: be also illegal, and that is not true for the
Speaker 10: setup that's been created at the Enhanced Games. What the
Speaker 10: athletes can actually take at the Enhanced Games are FDA
Speaker 10: proof substances under a doctor's supervision. And they also all
Speaker 10: independent of them enhancing or not, need to pass medical
Speaker 10: screenings that we do with them over time to determine
Speaker 10: whether they're ahealthy and be safe to compete. So steroids
Speaker 10: is really for people thinking about happening in the garage,
Speaker 10: in the backdoor locker room of a gym, etc. But
Speaker 10: that's not it. This is out all in the open
Speaker 10: with pleregulation around it that makes enhancements for the athletes,
Speaker 10: but then also the consumers that we offer it to safe.
Speaker 2: Fascinating.
Speaker 3: Your aim is to evolve mankind into a new super humanity.
Speaker 3: We'll have you back, Maximian Martin, thank you very much
Speaker 3: for joining us today. The CEO of Enhanced Now stable coins.
Speaker 3: They promised to make cross border payments cheaper and nearly instantaneous,
Speaker 3: but it remains a tiny part of the global payment
Speaker 3: system today, the Genius Act set to take effect and
Speaker 3: banks eyeing the space. The Wall Street Week team to
Speaker 3: a deep dive into whether the use of the blockchain
Speaker 3: technology is truly starting to scale.
Speaker 11: So you'll hear in the media the trillions of dollars
Speaker 11: of stable coin payments today. Ninety nine percent of that
Speaker 11: is crypto related, not the sort of payments we think about,
Speaker 11: which is company to company or even paying remittances person
Speaker 11: to person. And so we look at this situation today
Speaker 11: and say how much real payments volume is there out there,
Speaker 11: and we think it's probably the order of a billion
Speaker 11: or two a day, which is tiny. The late assessments
Speaker 11: we have are three hundred and ninety billion dollars in
Speaker 11: the total year, and that compares with several trillion dollars
Speaker 11: of regular payments per day.
Speaker 9: So a SMaL mart right now, how does it compare
Speaker 9: with last year, and how does it compare with forecast
Speaker 9: for next year.
Speaker 11: The data shows that the volume of real payment transactions
Speaker 11: using stable coins probably doubled over the last year. When
Speaker 11: you look at the volume of stable coins in circulation,
Speaker 11: that went from around one hundred and fifty billion dollars
Speaker 11: to three hundred billion dollars today it's doubling, which by
Speaker 11: any measure is substantial in terms of growth.
Speaker 5: How much of that is cross border international? Essentially? How
Speaker 5: much of it is domestic?
Speaker 11: The vast majority is cross border. It's interesting. We've been
Speaker 11: looking at the geographic source of those payments with our
Speaker 11: research partner, Artemis Analytics. What they founders about sixty percent
Speaker 11: originates from Asia, and that surprises a little bit because
Speaker 11: a lot of the talk has been in North America
Speaker 11: or Europe about the potential of stable coins.
Speaker 3: March the full Wall Street Week episode later today at
Speaker 3: six pm Eastern three pm Pacific time. Now, cybersecurity fears
Speaker 3: are sweeping through global campuses after hackers disrupted a portal
Speaker 3: used by thousands of colleges, including Harvin Princeton.
Speaker 2: Look Infrastructure, which.
Speaker 3: Runs the Canvas service used by students, was forced to
Speaker 3: suspend the system, sparking warnings that sensitive student data our
Speaker 3: messages may have been stolen for extortion. Earlier this hour,
Speaker 3: we understood that Cornell University said its own Canvas access
Speaker 3: has been fully restored. Three Mile Island, the site of
Speaker 3: the most famous US nuclear accident, is coming back online
Speaker 3: as soon as mid twenty twenty seven that's powered by
Speaker 3: a long term deal by Microsoft and Constellation Energy to power. Yes,
Speaker 3: you've guessed it, AI applications, chatbots, much more.
Speaker 2: Bloombergs.
Speaker 3: Wild Wade is here with any extraordinary deep dive into
Speaker 3: what has now been rebranded unsurprisingly, but remind those what
Speaker 3: three Mile Island means to many and why it's so
Speaker 3: important that comes back online.
Speaker 12: Okay, to many, it means nuclear disaster. Nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 12: it was the site of the worst nuclear accident in
Speaker 12: US history. But let's keep in mind nineteen seventy nine
Speaker 12: was like a long time ago.
Speaker 2: No, last night.
Speaker 12: I actually told my son, Hey, I have this big
Speaker 12: story coming out on Three Mile Island.
Speaker 2: He's like, what's that?
Speaker 12: So for a lot of us it has a lot
Speaker 12: of meaning, but for younger people it has no meaning
Speaker 12: at all.
Speaker 2: Well, you don't talk about your job nearly enough at home.
Speaker 3: Quite clearly, it's a nuclear reporter reporting on the sector.
Speaker 3: Sin's twenty nineteen, when initially it was all about closures,
Speaker 3: You're now into this area where it's about reopenings.
Speaker 2: Yeah, nuclear renaissance.
Speaker 3: What did you learn by going into what is the
Speaker 3: rebranded crane Clean Energy Center.
Speaker 5: You know what's really fascinating.
Speaker 12: And if you see the pictures on the story.
Speaker 2: Yeah it looks old, it doesn't.
Speaker 12: It looks really old schools because it is because it
Speaker 12: was like designed and built like the sixties and seventies,
Speaker 12: and so much of the US nuclear power plants date
Speaker 12: back to, you know, the last century, because we really
Speaker 12: haven't built very many of them at all. But right
Speaker 12: now there's just this insatiable demand for electricity from the
Speaker 12: big tech companies. It's for AI. It's all for AI.
Speaker 12: You know, a while ago they're like, we want nuclear
Speaker 12: because it's clean, it's going to help us save the
Speaker 12: world from climate change, and that sort of was a
Speaker 12: little bit of a motivation. But really the motivation now
Speaker 12: it's from tech, it's from AI. It's because there's money involved.
Speaker 2: A lot of money.
Speaker 3: I think thirty billion has been invested in nuclear since
Speaker 3: twenty twenty. But what about the waste, Like, what how
Speaker 3: has that changed since nineteen seventy nine, Well, that hasn't
Speaker 3: changed at all, So what are they going to do
Speaker 3: with it? They're going to do what they've always seen energy.
Speaker 12: If you go to any nuclear power plant, if you
Speaker 12: go out back, there's these giant casks where they store
Speaker 12: the waste. They've always been there, and there's been talk
Speaker 12: of creating a central repository in the US. It's been
Speaker 12: stalled for political reasons. So that's just not happening.
Speaker 3: So isn't it funny that the very edge of innovation
Speaker 3: is sort of being fueled by something that doesn't seem
Speaker 3: to be innovating for very much at tool we're relying
Speaker 3: on a nineteen seventy nine building. How is it innovating?
Speaker 3: How are we seeing SMRs come into play? Will we
Speaker 3: get a new type of nuclear offering?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 12: See, that's a good question. There is a lot of
Speaker 12: innovation in the nuclear space. There's companies developing all kinds
Speaker 12: of new reactor designs. There's new big ones, there's new
Speaker 12: small ones. There's new really really small ones. They want
Speaker 12: to put them on a shipping container and deliver them
Speaker 12: to military bases in the middle of nowhere. There's a
Speaker 12: lot of innovation. It's not here yet. I really do
Speaker 12: think it's coming. There's just so much motivation to make
Speaker 12: this happen. So what are we twenty twenty six, twenty thirty,
Speaker 12: twenty thirty, mid twenty thirties. I think we'll see some,
Speaker 12: but not for the next several years.
Speaker 3: It's wholly world of uranium in Richmond, and you've got
Speaker 3: so many amazing stories to tell about it. We'll wade
Speaker 3: here with us on the latest. You've got to go
Speaker 3: and read it the Big Take today. Now we're going
Speaker 3: to move on and talk about a key company behind
Speaker 3: Thailand's national AI effort, now.
Speaker 2: Called Obon Corp.
Speaker 3: It's suspected, though, of helping to smuggle servers containing advanced
Speaker 3: and video chips to China. That's according to sources who
Speaker 3: say some of the two and a half billion dollars
Speaker 3: worth of service sold by Obon obo n allegedly went
Speaker 3: to Chinese AI leader Ali Bubba. This comes as US
Speaker 3: officials are walking a pretty delicate line when it comes
Speaker 3: to the Trump administration's approach to Beijing. Earlier this year,
Speaker 3: the Pentagon added Ali, Baba and Baidu to a list
Speaker 3: of companies that aid the Chinese military, and then promptly
Speaker 3: declared the list unpublished. So Wilimag's tech editor in DC,
Speaker 3: Michael Shepherd, joins us now with this previously unreported details
Speaker 3: of what is happening with this so called blacklist.
Speaker 13: Well, Caro let's turn the clock back to that day
Speaker 13: in February. It was Friday the thirteenth. Then you and
Speaker 13: I on this program. We're trying to pick our jaws
Speaker 13: up off the floor, figuring out not only the import
Speaker 13: of this list being published, but the mystery behind why
Speaker 13: it was abruptly withdrawn minutes later.
Speaker 5: What was going on?
Speaker 13: What would that say about China policy. Well, our colleague
Speaker 13: Cato Keef here in Washington set out to find out
Speaker 13: the backstory, and it's revealing. It turns out that the
Speaker 13: Pentagon had withdrawn two names from the list. Dropped two
Speaker 13: names from the list Chinese chip makers YMTC and CXMT.
Speaker 13: They're producers of memory products that are really in demand
Speaker 13: these days, of course, as we know, and the White
Speaker 13: House of one of them kept on when the list
Speaker 13: was published, the names weren't there. The White House was furious.
Speaker 13: The Pentagon quickly moved to pull it back in. Since then,
Speaker 13: we have not seen this list republished, and in part
Speaker 13: because we are in such a delicate moment in this
Speaker 13: trade truce between Washington and Beijing. That's the one that
Speaker 13: President Donald Trump announced with Shi Jimping in Lei October
Speaker 13: after their meeting and of course they have a meeting
Speaker 13: coming up next week, and this is just the kind
Speaker 13: of misstep that really can upset the apple cart heading
Speaker 13: into such a high stakes encounter between leaders of the
Speaker 13: world's two largest economies.
Speaker 3: So let's think about next week, because there is talk
Speaker 3: that maybe even future rules of generative AI and the
Speaker 3: latest greatest LLM might be something's discussed by Treasures actually
Speaker 3: beston and others as reporting around that mind, how interested as.
Speaker 2: To what you think will be achieved and.
Speaker 3: What names will be announced or working together or working
Speaker 3: apart from each other?
Speaker 13: Well, it's a great question, Carol. And the war in
Speaker 13: Iran really has overshadowed any of the other initiatives that
Speaker 13: might be put on the table between presidents She and
Speaker 13: Trump as they sit down to talk. You know, absent
Speaker 13: the war, we might have seen more talk about access
Speaker 13: to American design chips, like from Nvidia and AMD. The
Speaker 13: President and his team have cleared the release of the
Speaker 13: H hundreds from Nvidia and comparable products from A and
Speaker 13: D for sales to China. But the big asterisk is
Speaker 13: that Beijing so far is really not letting too many
Speaker 13: of those products in and we haven't seen very many
Speaker 13: licenses issued from the US side either, so there is
Speaker 13: clearly some sort of a log jam and perhaps they
Speaker 13: could get to the bottom of that. Iran, of course,
Speaker 13: could stand in the way. And then there are the
Speaker 13: complaints from American AI developers Open Ai, Anthropic and Google
Speaker 13: that Chinese rivals have been distilling unfairly the results of
Speaker 13: their models to produce rival chatbots at a fraction of
Speaker 13: the cost. And this is prompted and outcry on Capitol
Speaker 13: Hill and also steps from the White House to try
Speaker 13: to rein in and address that practice. So we could
Speaker 13: also see that come up as well. And then of
Speaker 13: course there is the question of rarer scro which really
Speaker 13: lies at the heart of the conflict between the US
Speaker 13: and China.
Speaker 3: Well said most Mutch Sheppard a feeling we might be
Speaker 3: retricing some of those talks as we look ahead to
Speaker 3: next week too.
Speaker 2: With you.
Speaker 3: That does it for this edition of Boomberg Tech. Don't
Speaker 3: forget to check out our podcasts. You can find it
Speaker 3: on the terminal as well as online Apple, Spotify, iHeart
Speaker 3: wishing you.
Speaker 2: All a very wonderful weekend. See you Monday. This is
Speaker 2: Boomberg Tech