Speaker 1: I'm Caroline Hyde, Bloomberg's world headquarters in New York. Ludlow
Speaker 1: were three days into our New York reunion. This is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Technology coming up this hour. Ed we're grounded the
Speaker 1: f A a halted flight departures nationwide after a key
Speaker 1: pilot information system failed. What technology exactly failed us? We
Speaker 1: have the details and more Apple supply changes first chips,
Speaker 1: now screens, plus some plans for a touch screen mac book.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's Mark German on all of this week's scoops, and well,
Speaker 1: where are the best companies to work for other than
Speaker 1: with us? Right here? Glass Door just came out with
Speaker 1: their annual list, but some of the Silicon Valley darlings
Speaker 1: they did not make the cut this time. The story
Speaker 1: of the day was flights grounded throughout the nation. Pre
Speaker 1: market we were lower. Most of the airlines actually, look
Speaker 1: at that screen now so much green. Many of the
Speaker 1: airlines recovering at the market open on Wednesday. Just a
Speaker 1: single name down in the road with Southwest. You know
Speaker 1: a lot of problems to Southwest coming out of that
Speaker 1: storm and busy holiday period, down seven tents of one percent.
Speaker 1: There's so much to discuss here. What on Earth went wrong.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a technology story and it's very hard
Speaker 1: ed because the systems of Love, as the ticker is
Speaker 1: known Southwest, have been a key thorn in this side.
Speaker 1: But now the Federal Aviation Administration halting thousands of flights nationwide,
Speaker 1: as you just saying. It all happened early Wednesday, and
Speaker 1: it was a pilot notification system that exactly failed. But
Speaker 1: now we've got lawmakers worrying about investigating this and they
Speaker 1: want to see how this is going to influence course
Speaker 1: some major upcoming aviation bills that are going to be
Speaker 1: assessed by these lawmakers. It's bringing George Ferguson, who's our
Speaker 1: senior airline analyst over at Bloomberg Intelligence, and George just
Speaker 1: tell us exactly what failed, what went wrong from a
Speaker 1: tech perspective here, and so the no term system noticed.
Speaker 1: The Airman system is a system that does so many
Speaker 1: the information to flight crew, lets them know what what
Speaker 1: outages there might be at the airports they're arriving at, right,
Speaker 1: they might arrive at an airport that doesn't have an
Speaker 1: instrument approach that's working quite right, lets them know airspace restrictions.
Speaker 1: So it's I mean it's all about safety. And so
Speaker 1: that system seemed to be broke down earlier today. And
Speaker 1: when that happens, I think out of an abundance of caution,
Speaker 1: they stop all flights because they can't be sure they're
Speaker 1: feeding flight crews the right information to go into uh
Speaker 1: you know, airports all over the country. And so that
Speaker 1: was the breakdown, probably a technology breakdown. I don't think
Speaker 1: it's people. I think it's you know, they collect this
Speaker 1: information from flight service stations around the country, uh, and
Speaker 1: then they disseminate it back to the pilot. So it's
Speaker 1: a big sort of collection and dissemination uh, you know
Speaker 1: process system, right. Um, So I think that's what probably
Speaker 1: broke down. George, I'm one of those guys, you know,
Speaker 1: I walk out into the street, I look up in
Speaker 1: the sky, look at the airplanes overhead. I marvel about
Speaker 1: what's happening every day of the year, hundreds thousands of
Speaker 1: flights all around the world. Old. Is it just that
Speaker 1: we rely on an archaic system to manage all of this?
Speaker 1: I mean we're talking here about this technology as somebody
Speaker 1: that researches looks at the fundamentals of this industry. Are
Speaker 1: you really concerned was this just an unfortunate glitch. I
Speaker 1: think it was an unfortunate glitch. I think I think, Um,
Speaker 1: we won't continue to see problems like this, but we'll
Speaker 1: always see tech problems in this business, right because the
Speaker 1: tech is kind of always catching up with the business.
Speaker 1: I mean, we've we've been flying airplanes for over a
Speaker 1: hundred years now. Really commercial air travels come, you know,
Speaker 1: come into its golden age mid last century. You built systems.
Speaker 1: Those systems need to migrate over time. People that know
Speaker 1: I T systems know it's hard to plug the newest
Speaker 1: technology sometimes into the old technology. That migration is a challenge. Um.
Speaker 1: I've heard that there was some work being done in
Speaker 1: the no TAM system, so maybe that was part of
Speaker 1: the challenge here. But it's always a constant migration of
Speaker 1: bringing old technology to new bringing the best to the front.
Speaker 1: It takes time in the government doing it, and they
Speaker 1: don't always have the most minded to do it, so
Speaker 1: it probably moves on a slower scale than business. George
Speaker 1: ferguson bloom meg Intelligence, we thank you. Edit Do you
Speaker 1: actually do that? Do you actually like walk out and
Speaker 1: go wow? I do I'm a business traveler. I'm somebody
Speaker 1: that you know, I'm fascinated by the underlying technology of
Speaker 1: something that every single day you look up and when
Speaker 1: something like this happens, is a consumer is a technology?
Speaker 1: Does you ask what we just started? George? How on
Speaker 1: Earth or something like that happened? His answer, probably a glitch,
Speaker 1: you know, It's just it's incredible. Have they tried turning
Speaker 1: it on and off again? Right? Moved to the cloud? Whatever?
Speaker 1: I love her to Your Eneggie just brings me so
Speaker 1: much joy. Meanwhile, let's let's kick out a little bit
Speaker 1: more because we've got to talk Apple and it's planning
Speaker 1: to start using its own custom displays and mobile devices
Speaker 1: as early as and on top of that, maybe in
Speaker 1: the future those devices with those screens you can touch
Speaker 1: them even on a Mac computer. Let's bring in on
Speaker 1: the scoop Generator. That's Mark German and Mark, I mean
Speaker 1: you're out with another one. That start with the Macnews
Speaker 1: because I thought that Tim Cook was going to follow
Speaker 1: in his predecessors viewpoint on this and not want to
Speaker 1: have touch screens on computers. This is very significant. Now
Speaker 1: they won't fly, so ED won't be able to marvel
Speaker 1: at them in the air, but they will get touch
Speaker 1: screens right. Apple has a project. They have multiple teams
Speaker 1: working on effort to bring touch displays to the Mac
Speaker 1: for the first time. This is the first time where
Speaker 1: they're actually serious about this. They've explored in the past,
Speaker 1: but work has ramped up on these new machines and
Speaker 1: this is a big u turn from what Apple has
Speaker 1: done in the past. They've talked about how the iPad
Speaker 1: is the best experience for touch. They talked about how
Speaker 1: mac os, the Mac operating system doesn't work well with touch.
Speaker 1: They talked about the ergonomic concerns about that, but the
Speaker 1: reality is is that consumers want touch. The Mac can
Speaker 1: run iPhone and iPad apps now, but they don't have
Speaker 1: a touch screen, so they don't work very well. Kids
Speaker 1: these days have grown up on touch screens, iPhones, iPads,
Speaker 1: Apple watches, Amazon, Kindled table, It's you name it right.
Speaker 1: The next generation of people who are going to get
Speaker 1: laptops and desktops, get computers, get max they are used
Speaker 1: to touch. So Apple has to think about that new
Speaker 1: generation and that learning curve and what this new generation
Speaker 1: of potential buyers is used to. So touch displays are
Speaker 1: important to the future of the Mac, and that's why
Speaker 1: Apple is going to go down this road in a
Speaker 1: few years. Let's pivots your other big scoop, which is
Speaker 1: the starting with high end Apple Watch and later the
Speaker 1: iPhone handsets, Apple wants to move to in house technology
Speaker 1: for the displays. Uh, you know the currently l G
Speaker 1: and Samsung are the big supplies when it comes to
Speaker 1: those displays. What have you learned in the course of
Speaker 1: your reporting? So right now, the iPhone and the Apple Watch,
Speaker 1: both you use what is known as an ol end display.
Speaker 1: Those are supplied primarily by Samsung. They get some from
Speaker 1: Japan Display LG. They're also working with a company called
Speaker 1: BOE in China and source displays from there too. But
Speaker 1: that underlying technology that's made by those manufacturing companies that
Speaker 1: make those displays, right, Apple can tweak and customize them.
Speaker 1: The underlying technology has not been developed by Apple. Now
Speaker 1: they're developing the underlying technology and that manufacturing process. So
Speaker 1: now no longer will Apple be competing with Samsung but
Speaker 1: also sourcing parts from Samsung for one of the most
Speaker 1: important components inside of their products. All right, bloombergs Mark German,
Speaker 1: thank you very much. Well, let's talk about some progress
Speaker 1: being made when it comes to executive searches, Walt Disney
Speaker 1: in fact electing a new independent director, Mark Parker, as
Speaker 1: the chairman and the board. Now. Parker already been on
Speaker 1: the board for seven years now and he was, of
Speaker 1: course still executive chairman of Nike. Says some big roles
Speaker 1: he's got under his belt. He's succeeding Susan Arnold, who
Speaker 1: will not be standing for re election. Student too, what
Speaker 1: is a fifteen year term in it under Disney's board
Speaker 1: tenure policy, shares likinginess. I mean he had a cool,
Speaker 1: storied career over at Disney, I mean over at Nike now,
Speaker 1: says a chair. But his main priority, ed, he says,
Speaker 1: is to be getting a new CEO. Who is that
Speaker 1: going to be? He says? Already the searchers upon it.
Speaker 1: There is a so a deeper story here, which is
Speaker 1: that Nelson Pelts and Tree and an activist investor we
Speaker 1: found out in November eight million dollars state they were
Speaker 1: trying to get a board seat and the board rejecting
Speaker 1: that idea. But the reason why is that Nelson Pelts
Speaker 1: and Tree and they did not want Bob Iger to
Speaker 1: return as CEO, which again was a shock in itself
Speaker 1: when those headlines broke. So there's things happening behind the
Speaker 1: scenes here at Disney, but at least they have some
Speaker 1: certainty now about the new board chair chat GPT. Yes,
Speaker 1: we're talking in again and there's a lot of fanfare
Speaker 1: around the AI powered chat pot that's gone viral in
Speaker 1: recent weeks. But there's some negative connotations here potentially posing
Speaker 1: propaganda hacking risks. Now, this is all according to a
Speaker 1: report published by researchers on Wednesday. Here's the thing. Two
Speaker 1: of those authored the study actually worked at open ai,
Speaker 1: and one of them, however, has since left there. Not
Speaker 1: for profit and blog accompanying the report stated quote, Our
Speaker 1: bottom line judgment is that language models will be useful
Speaker 1: for propagandists and will likely transform online influence operations. Joining
Speaker 1: us now to discuss the risks as well as the positives,
Speaker 1: the use cases, the future of the technology. Street Or Ramaswamy,
Speaker 1: co founder CEO of the ad free private search engine Neiva,
Speaker 1: and we're going to go into the what Neiva does
Speaker 1: and the way in which you use natural language in
Speaker 1: a moment, you know, but just talk to us first
Speaker 1: and foremost about what you made of this discussion about
Speaker 1: the fear of propaganda about misinformation being used within AI
Speaker 1: because also on the flip side, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: positives the way in which you can actually uncover who's
Speaker 1: behind certain cyber attacks at least two. So large language
Speaker 1: models are one of the most exciting developments in the
Speaker 1: last few years. These are models that have been trained
Speaker 1: pretty much on everything that's been written down, everything that's
Speaker 1: on that page. Um. The results of that is that
Speaker 1: they have enormous fluency. Can ask chat DPD too write
Speaker 1: a look form or a story and it will do
Speaker 1: an amazing job. Um. It doesn't know right from wrong
Speaker 1: or truth from falsehood. So you know, the word that
Speaker 1: we use for that is halstening um. But it is
Speaker 1: incredibly prolific. I think of these large language models as savants. Um.
Speaker 1: They can say very convincing things. They can say things
Speaker 1: in the voice of somebody like you're writing if you
Speaker 1: give it enough of a sample. Um. So it's not
Speaker 1: surprising obviously that they can be used for propaganda or misinformation.
Speaker 1: That's a problem that we face online anyway. I know
Speaker 1: what I see something I always look to see, well,
Speaker 1: is this from Boomberg? Is this reputable? So I think
Speaker 1: those kinds of risks are going to go up, but
Speaker 1: I think there's also a lot of positive potential that
Speaker 1: come from these models. Do you know what's interesting is
Speaker 1: we went to our own audience earlier in the day
Speaker 1: using Twitter a pole, and we asked them, look to
Speaker 1: these sorts of reports about the ability to incite propaganda
Speaker 1: put you off from using chat gypt Interestingly, most still say, look,
Speaker 1: they're going to be continuing to use it despite these reports.
Speaker 1: But about said, no way, I'm not going to be
Speaker 1: using it from your perspective. Is this where you step
Speaker 1: in Because one of the fixes perhaps that neither has
Speaker 1: for chat GPT is by allowing us to know what
Speaker 1: the sourcing of the information is that we're reading. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was one of our big goals. We wanted to
Speaker 1: integrate the fluency of these large language models into search.
Speaker 1: Right now, search is pretty hard to put in a keyword.
Speaker 1: You have to go click on a link, figured out
Speaker 1: what's there, um, and then come back maybe it goes
Speaker 1: somewhere at else um. So we wanted the fluent answers
Speaker 1: of chat GPT, but we wanted to be done in
Speaker 1: an authentic way. So we set out to make sure
Speaker 1: that every sentence he wrote had its source clearly put there,
Speaker 1: so there's a citation. UM. We also wanted to make
Speaker 1: sure that we could take into our count real time information.
Speaker 1: This is what we launched earlier UM last week, and
Speaker 1: it's been exceptionally well received because two of the biggest
Speaker 1: problems that GPT has old information it's sort of hallucinate,
Speaker 1: sort of makes a fact or addressed to a large
Speaker 1: degree by our ability to combine a search engine, which
Speaker 1: is all about finding you authentic, believable information UM with
Speaker 1: the fluency of a large language model. So we are
Speaker 1: at the very much the beginning inning of how large
Speaker 1: language models are going to be integrated into various functions,
Speaker 1: including search engines, so they can be put to very
Speaker 1: very positive views. Just like the Internet. The Internet is
Speaker 1: great for finding things, but obviously a lot of misinformation
Speaker 1: and bad things also happened, so we should think of
Speaker 1: these language models as being the same. But it's a tool. Hey, Sea,
Speaker 1: we're so grateful for you joining us from Munich, Germany
Speaker 1: or attending d l D. I know you're surrounded by
Speaker 1: people who understand the underlying technology, but there are so
Speaker 1: many people out there that do not, And I know
Speaker 1: that it's not straightforward, but could you try and explain
Speaker 1: to our audience what large language models are in Layman's terms,
Speaker 1: how do they work? Yeah, so language models understand the
Speaker 1: structure of how we write and speak um, and you
Speaker 1: should really think of them as this intermediarly. Just like
Speaker 1: the keyboard takes the strokes that you put on it
Speaker 1: and produces sentences, these language models can take your input, um,
Speaker 1: but they're able to respond back to you um with
Speaker 1: writings off their own because they've been trained on so
Speaker 1: much text. UM. But these writings by themselves, like don't
Speaker 1: always have meaning. If you ask you to write a poem,
Speaker 1: you know, should it will write a poem. It will
Speaker 1: be fun. On the other hand, it might not know
Speaker 1: true from false, or like what is a fact and
Speaker 1: what is believable and things like that. So this technology
Speaker 1: is very much developing, but right now you should think
Speaker 1: of this the same way, um you do. You think
Speaker 1: of like any interface or you know, like an interpreter
Speaker 1: um that can listen to you in English and translate
Speaker 1: it into into German. They have that kind of a skill,
Speaker 1: but they need to be augmented with you know, other
Speaker 1: things from real world to be truly useful and those
Speaker 1: things are going to come up sew. We're talking about
Speaker 1: chat GPT for a reason, right because of the news
Speaker 1: cycle Bloomberg reporting that Microsoft is looking at investing maybe
Speaker 1: ten billion dollars into open Ai and chat GPT over
Speaker 1: a series of years. And it seems like, you know,
Speaker 1: the common sense conclusion is that they would use chat
Speaker 1: GPT to improve being as a search engine, make it
Speaker 1: more competitive against Google as somebody that operates in search.
Speaker 1: You know, what's your read on that piece of news. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: you know, being as clearly a number two in the
Speaker 1: search space, and they want to leave pragu over, you know,
Speaker 1: just like we want to leave prob over and create
Speaker 1: a better search experience. It absolutely makes sense that Microsoft
Speaker 1: would want to do that. Um. But we should remember
Speaker 1: that Microsoft actually a juggernaut in things like work communication,
Speaker 1: personal communication. Um. And these language models are going to
Speaker 1: be helping any time we write an email, any time
Speaker 1: we want to consume a document, auto web page. So
Speaker 1: the use cases for the language models are truly massive
Speaker 1: and clearly microsof us being very smart by making a
Speaker 1: big early bet in the space. Should you make bets
Speaker 1: for living to your venture partner at Greylock as well
Speaker 1: as of course co founder of this business. Neither talk
Speaker 1: to us about where the money is being made in
Speaker 1: your business if you're not going to have ads, and
Speaker 1: and if we're trying to visualize what a language format
Speaker 1: would be in terms of search that gives you a
Speaker 1: perfect answer and not only the links to click on
Speaker 1: what what's the what's the money's been ahead? Well, so
Speaker 1: this is real. It actually gets really exciting for Neiva
Speaker 1: because we have a subscription search engine, be said, or
Speaker 1: to create a search engine that was all about you,
Speaker 1: the user. UM, And we have a premium model. You know,
Speaker 1: people pay for premium features like being able to connect
Speaker 1: their email or works like to them, so our model
Speaker 1: is perfectly aligned. UM. I can imagine a scenario in which, yes,
Speaker 1: there is a chat like interface but some of the
Speaker 1: sentences are sponsored. Maybe, UM, but I think the one
Speaker 1: answer format it doesn't really jive all that well with
Speaker 1: with advertising. But there will be other cases. You know,
Speaker 1: people are going to use these models to create like
Speaker 1: personalized advertising for each and every one of us. So
Speaker 1: you're going to lose some there are other places where
Speaker 1: you're going to live in as well. In advertisement. All right,
Speaker 1: Suda Ramaswami really smart analysis of this. Nascent Space co
Speaker 1: founder and CEO of Neiva, thank you so much for joining.
Speaker 1: Now coming up, what's new in well Elon Musk's world,
Speaker 1: from new potential deals to being grand favorite at Goldman Sacks.
Speaker 1: Will have the latest and everything Tesla everything you need
Speaker 1: to know. This is Bloomberg. Now let's get to the
Speaker 1: news in the world of Elon Musk because sources say
Speaker 1: Tesla is close to a prelim deal to set up
Speaker 1: a factory in Indonesia, a nation where reserves of key
Speaker 1: battery metals. Multiple facilities in the country could be serving
Speaker 1: different functions like production across the supply chain. That's according
Speaker 1: to one source, and the plant could produce as many
Speaker 1: as one million cars a year in him with Tessa's
Speaker 1: ambitions for all of its factories globally to eventually reach
Speaker 1: that capacity. But the deal is not signed it could
Speaker 1: still fall through, according to sources. Meanwhile, Tesla remains of
Speaker 1: technology leader in EV's and three top pick in the
Speaker 1: auto industry for Goldman Sacks, with the firm emphasizing that
Speaker 1: the Inflation Reduction Act will have a positive impact on
Speaker 1: the EV maker. The brokerage maintains Tesla at a bye,
Speaker 1: though it cut its price target for the second time
Speaker 1: in less than a month last week to two five
Speaker 1: dollars per share. That's down from a target of four
Speaker 1: hundred dollars a share a year ago, when the firm
Speaker 1: also called Tesla a top pick and to boot Caroline
Speaker 1: Elon Musk is the subject of Wednesday's Big Take, and
Speaker 1: what a big take? Was? The big take all about
Speaker 1: money or Musk Casa CEO. And he called himself, of
Speaker 1: course chief twit. What else has he called himself across
Speaker 1: the years? But he might never reclaim perhaps the title
Speaker 1: as the world's richest person overall aid This entire take
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg is about the way which he paid a
Speaker 1: self basically, and the way he's being taken to task
Speaker 1: in the courts an example, the way in which he
Speaker 1: was compensated. And the whole point was he was compensated
Speaker 1: by options and certain ways in which he had to
Speaker 1: meet certain targets. Huge growth in the share price. But
Speaker 1: for many a shareholder, they're basically saying, look, the idea
Speaker 1: is to lock you in and keep your attention on Tesla,
Speaker 1: but his attention isn't on Tesla. So the Moonshot awards
Speaker 1: so much money, lots of options, but he borrowed against
Speaker 1: it margin loans to invest in other things. When Tesla
Speaker 1: stopped was buoyant. Well it's not now, So now we're saying, well,
Speaker 1: what about margin calls? Will he ever get back to
Speaker 1: top spot? A really fascinating read from our team at
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News. I mean, I think the only person who
Speaker 1: got to the wealthy heights that he did and then
Speaker 1: the only person who have lost it. What is it?
Speaker 1: Two hundred two hundred billion dollars? Welcome back to bloembog Technology.
Speaker 1: I'm Caroline Hyde in New York and I'm Ed Ludlow.
Speaker 1: Also in you special tree this week only for one
Speaker 1: week only though. Meanwhile, well the more updates aid at
Speaker 1: the moment on FTX is bankruptcy case advisors. Well they
Speaker 1: found some money, indeed, about five billion dollars worth in
Speaker 1: casual crypto assets that may help repay creditors RESUS saving
Speaker 1: emotion anti us is here to explain, Well, how far
Speaker 1: this is actually going to go? Yeah, exactly five billion
Speaker 1: dollars is probably not enough for the nine million accounts
Speaker 1: that are owed money. At the end of the day,
Speaker 1: and the bankruptcy advisors did advise as much. Caroline. Now
Speaker 1: remember that number, that sheer number of customers that they're
Speaker 1: dealing with here as they go through this bankruptcy process
Speaker 1: is important because of course there are of all different sizes.
Speaker 1: We know that they have asked earlier on to keep
Speaker 1: the names silent of especially the fifty largest which have
Speaker 1: much more at stake. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: once you're spreading the love around the money back to
Speaker 1: the clients, it's not as much as you would get
Speaker 1: back as if you're going to be paid and whole.
Speaker 1: Remember also, they are also saying that above and beyond
Speaker 1: that five billion dollars, there are a lot of illiquid
Speaker 1: sets here that they're dealing with. So in addition to
Speaker 1: the assets that they have said about five billion dollars
Speaker 1: or so, the question is how much is in crypto,
Speaker 1: how much is in cash, and how much of that
Speaker 1: is still worth five billion dollars at the end of
Speaker 1: the day. O pationally one of the more obscure headlines
Speaker 1: across the Bloomberg terminal. Salana based bunk in neu n
Speaker 1: f T surge tenfold after mint, but listing attracts criticism.
Speaker 1: Very simple question, what is the controversy around bunk? A
Speaker 1: simple question without a very simple answer, because at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, Bonk, what was interesting about it
Speaker 1: is really when it made this n f T mint,
Speaker 1: if you will, And a lot of it happened on
Speaker 1: Magic Eden, which remember has been closely tied to Salana.
Speaker 1: They had recently raised money here. A lot of it
Speaker 1: comes back to the purpose of the bonk itself. Of course,
Speaker 1: you have this idea here that the meme stock or
Speaker 1: the mean crypto crazes back in some ways the idea
Speaker 1: of having fun in the industry again, which even Mark
Speaker 1: Cuban wanted. But what happened at the end of the
Speaker 1: day is after the listing here of the n f
Speaker 1: T s in particular and Magic Eden, a question then
Speaker 1: became very very straightforward and simple, that question of royalties
Speaker 1: and where it goes, and what controlled the exchange has
Speaker 1: over those royalties, as well as governance of the token
Speaker 1: itself that is uh perennially linked here in some fashion,
Speaker 1: but doesn't govern the n f T community itself or
Speaker 1: the broader kind of what do you call it? There
Speaker 1: are many communities around here to think about but the
Speaker 1: governance of the of the n f T community and
Speaker 1: its relationship to Bonk has gotten very confusing after the
Speaker 1: listing itself has pursued. Not complex at I tried, but
Speaker 1: here it's only been a day. It is the reality.
Speaker 1: It was these it was fifteen n f T s
Speaker 1: here and again I want to reiterate here the purpose
Speaker 1: was largely without utility. The purpose was largely for art,
Speaker 1: and so the governance and the royalties that are associated
Speaker 1: with them becoming as complicated as they are and therefore
Speaker 1: leading up to the decline and value of the bonk
Speaker 1: is important. Shanali, thank you for breaking that all down.
Speaker 1: Let's get back though to Salana based Bonk can actually
Speaker 1: here to discuss that story. Is Salana's head of strategy,
Speaker 1: Austin Federer. Thank you for joining us, Thank you for
Speaker 1: being here with us in New York. Straightforward question to start,
Speaker 1: I guess what is Salana's response to all of this
Speaker 1: with the shale is just outlined for us. You know,
Speaker 1: the last half of this year has been a tough
Speaker 1: one for the global crypto community, uh and for some
Speaker 1: users on Salana as well. I think when you're looking
Speaker 1: at Bonk you're looking at people having fun with blockchain. Again,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a meme coin that got air dropped
Speaker 1: to people two thousands and thousands of wallets on the ecosystem,
Speaker 1: and it's something that the community is kind of galvanized
Speaker 1: behind and been able to sort of dig into and
Speaker 1: really find a lot of fun in it. You see
Speaker 1: volumes pick up on the back of it. Is certainly
Speaker 1: helping breathe excitement around Salana again. But I'm interested when yes,
Speaker 1: it's Joe, Yes it might be a feel good But
Speaker 1: when something has no utility and everyone at the moment
Speaker 1: is saying, prove to me the use case of crypto,
Speaker 1: Why hasn't just eroded wealth but in fact it's being
Speaker 1: built for a force of good. What are your response then,
Speaker 1: when the next thing we're talking about is a meme token? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so memes are fun um, but memes are also a
Speaker 1: proxy for community, and one of the utilities of crypto
Speaker 1: that's often overlooked is that it is a system for
Speaker 1: galfanizing community. And so the excitement around Bonk is on
Speaker 1: one level, Yes, it's a meme. Yes it doesn't actually
Speaker 1: specifically do something, but it is a it is a
Speaker 1: token of community, and especially after an ecosystem that's been
Speaker 1: through you know, a rough few months, Yes, to say
Speaker 1: the least, and let's go there because we thank you
Speaker 1: for coming on to talk about what is a rough
Speaker 1: few months. Because Solana became very intertwined with the downfall
Speaker 1: of FTX with Samamma Reed had very much been sort
Speaker 1: of a driving force in some ways the Salana become
Speaker 1: so popular, but they held a lot of it and
Speaker 1: there's a worry that your price would fall on the
Speaker 1: back of force selling. What's your experience how do you
Speaker 1: move past the fallout of ft X. Yeah, if you
Speaker 1: look at the beginning of November, a lot of the
Speaker 1: headlines were doom and gloom for the Salanta network, and
Speaker 1: what we've really seen since then, we're about what two
Speaker 1: months out from from that initial news is active addresses
Speaker 1: are up, more people are using the network than we're before.
Speaker 1: There's actually more validators on the network than before FTX collapsed.
Speaker 1: So we've seen is the community and developers all around
Speaker 1: the world really come together and replace the parts of
Speaker 1: the ecosystem that had ft X involvement and then expand
Speaker 1: from there. So if you look at active addresses, each day,
Speaker 1: Salana is higher than all other box chains. At this point,
Speaker 1: that kind of goes somewhere into answering my next question,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, the Salana network, there was the
Speaker 1: market volatility, the kind of lack of faith in crypto assets, cryptocurrencies,
Speaker 1: and then this is the debate about the underlying technology, right,
Speaker 1: and when it comes to the Salan network, I think
Speaker 1: the idea is security and resistance against sent to ship.
Speaker 1: How do you kind of restore faith in the technology
Speaker 1: part of that story? Forget the markets for a second. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: the interesting part is the technology actually wasn't part of
Speaker 1: what happened at all, Right, from a technology standpoint, what
Speaker 1: was kind of you know, I guess perception is to
Speaker 1: the outside of perception, right, Yeah, But the fundamentals of
Speaker 1: the network are actually just the same as they were before,
Speaker 1: which is that Salona's vision is to be the fastest
Speaker 1: settlement layer for the global ecosystem, right, And whether that
Speaker 1: means you're talking about fast finality of transactions tens of
Speaker 1: thousands of transactions per second being able to go through
Speaker 1: the network, what we're really getting at is a technology
Speaker 1: platform that can handle loads at other places, can't I
Speaker 1: have to ask you about Sam Bankman Freed the relationship
Speaker 1: or historic relationship between SPF and Salana. What are you
Speaker 1: doing to move past that relationship? How what is the
Speaker 1: relationship in present day? Sure? So you know in about
Speaker 1: in summer of that was when Sam and ft F
Speaker 1: Scott involved in the Salanta network and they were building
Speaker 1: real infrastructure on the network that couldn't be built on
Speaker 1: any other blockchain network. Serum, which was a central limit
Speaker 1: order book built on chain. It was the first central
Speaker 1: limit order book deployed on a blockchain. That code has
Speaker 1: been taken over by the community and relaunched a something
Speaker 1: called open Book. And so that's kind of what I
Speaker 1: was talking about about the community healing parts of the
Speaker 1: ecosystem that f t X and and Sam were involved in.
Speaker 1: I think moving past it though is really it's on
Speaker 1: chain metrics, right, It's that users are still here, developers
Speaker 1: are still building, and there's a lot of excitement around
Speaker 1: what's getting built on the network. And as well said that,
Speaker 1: you say building because in and of itself, the blockchain
Speaker 1: isn't finished. It's not a final product. You're still iterating,
Speaker 1: still improving Salana. Just talk to us about Therefore, your
Speaker 1: own network stability outages that have occurred, which you know
Speaker 1: this happens when one bill is just look at the
Speaker 1: f a A today, talk to us about what you're
Speaker 1: doing to ensure that you continue to its rate, and
Speaker 1: then it becomes a stronger product moral. So one of
Speaker 1: those biggest investments is a second validator client, which is
Speaker 1: really a second copy of the system that runs the network,
Speaker 1: and so that means if one system goes down, there's
Speaker 1: a second system that can can step in. That client
Speaker 1: is being built by Jump, which is a high frequency
Speaker 1: trading firm. So there's all sorts of additional benefits that
Speaker 1: come from that, such as high performance. So they're they're
Speaker 1: testing system right now. It's been benchmarked at about one
Speaker 1: point two million transactions per second. I don't think we'll
Speaker 1: see something like that in actual production environments when it
Speaker 1: actually gets onto the network, but we're talking about a
Speaker 1: lot of performance optimizations that allow people to build new
Speaker 1: kinds of products and services built on blockchain that are
Speaker 1: just as performant as the web. Two counterparts. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about products and services because that's what everyone's waiting for.
Speaker 1: The kill adapt the finally that we start to use
Speaker 1: crypto not just as an asset or a means of exchange,
Speaker 1: but something more with utility. Yeah, exactly what is what
Speaker 1: is the that you almost excited about? What are the
Speaker 1: areas that are being built on and one of the
Speaker 1: aren't means. So if you look at two in general,
Speaker 1: apart from the price, it's very hard to not look
Speaker 1: at the price, but the technology is really why most
Speaker 1: of us are here. It was a breakout year for
Speaker 1: blockchain globally. We saw web two companies for the first
Speaker 1: time build real user facing products. They've all had some
Speaker 1: back end experimentation for a while, but you know, from
Speaker 1: Google to Amazon, to Meta to Starbucks, they're all launching
Speaker 1: products built on blockchain at this point. And so the
Speaker 1: types of products and services are starting to become much
Speaker 1: easier for people to engage with, and they're starting to
Speaker 1: be things that change the relationship from I have to
Speaker 1: understand exactly how a blockchain network works to use this
Speaker 1: to something that's that's getting closer to the experience of
Speaker 1: downloading and app and installing it. Austin, great test in
Speaker 1: time with you. Thank you Austin for the here's a Salana,
Speaker 1: head of strategy. We thank him. Meanwhile, coming up the
Speaker 1: rise of women's healthcaps with the Camel, co founder of Peppy,
Speaker 1: just raised forty five million dollars. Even in this environment,
Speaker 1: this is Blomberg. I think, you know, actually the jury
Speaker 1: is out a little bit on exactly what telemedicine has
Speaker 1: given us. I think it's solved a couple of key gaps,
Speaker 1: but a lot of the telemedicine swing in particular has
Speaker 1: swung back to in person and a preference for in person,
Speaker 1: a recognition that a lot of patients need in person
Speaker 1: procedures and care that requires physical um, the physical presence
Speaker 1: and a physical infrastructure. That being said, I think especially
Speaker 1: in pockets of of our ecosystem, including the way in
Speaker 1: which we run clinical trials, the availability of virtual care,
Speaker 1: and the ability for patients, UM and providers to connect,
Speaker 1: make decisions, take steps, try new therapies and monitor UM
Speaker 1: you know, patient performance on those therapies telemeds. In that
Speaker 1: discussion point with Andrews and Harrow, it's general partner Finita Aguala. Meanwhile, well,
Speaker 1: the healthcare platform Peppy just announced a forty five million
Speaker 1: donor Series BE funding round is led by albim VC
Speaker 1: and plenty of others at that tier to discuss. It's
Speaker 1: the co founder, co CEO and PhD Mao Della Paray.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us at the moment, Madela,
Speaker 1: and talk to us about your vision for Peppi. You're
Speaker 1: using forty million, it's going to be investing. You're already
Speaker 1: pretty forceful there in Europe. You're coming to the United States.
Speaker 1: What sort of offerings are you providing at the moment,
Speaker 1: High Caroline. So, what Peppi does is we provide support
Speaker 1: two employees during health stages in their life which are
Speaker 1: very disruptive and can be disruptive to them both at
Speaker 1: home and at work. So you talked about menopause. That's
Speaker 1: certainly a big product of ours and what we will
Speaker 1: be launching with in the US. But we've offered we've
Speaker 1: also launched other services around episodes that we've seen in
Speaker 1: the market, things like going through a fertility journey, becoming
Speaker 1: a parent, and then we've also launched our mental health service,
Speaker 1: the first of its kind as an employee benefit and
Speaker 1: also women's health service, and we'll be bringing some of
Speaker 1: that to the US as well. So you already got
Speaker 1: clients Accenture, Adobe, Canada, Life, Disney to name but a few.
Speaker 1: What's the growth are you seeing, particularly as we worry
Speaker 1: about a downturn in the economy, we think about perhaps
Speaker 1: companies putting back on benefits. What do you say to
Speaker 1: that sort of narrative. So we've seen as a business,
Speaker 1: like you said in in Europe, we've grown almost four
Speaker 1: x UM this year, and what we are really seeing
Speaker 1: is companies taking much more seriously the reasons that keep people, um,
Speaker 1: maybe out of the workplace, absent from in the workplace,
Speaker 1: or less you know, causing present heer is um as well. UM. Really,
Speaker 1: when you look at these factors such as fertility, becoming parents,
Speaker 1: menopause and so on, or maybe living with a long
Speaker 1: term gynecological condition, the business case kind of speaks to itself.
Speaker 1: None of these are niche things. So, for example, in
Speaker 1: the US of the u S workforce are women aged
Speaker 1: over forty five, typically the age of which you would
Speaker 1: expect to see menopauseal or perimenopause or symptoms appear with them.
Speaker 1: So none of these are niche. They're all hiding in
Speaker 1: plain sight in any organization of any size, and that
Speaker 1: makes the business case for itself. Talk to us just basically,
Speaker 1: how your tech company in and of itself then, because
Speaker 1: you know, we think about treatment. We were just hearing
Speaker 1: from A sixty and Z talking about how people perhaps
Speaker 1: are returning to wanting to have face to face in
Speaker 1: person meetings with some of their clinicians. How are you
Speaker 1: seeing that you're solving a problem that wasn't solved before.
Speaker 1: So what we realized with Peppie is that, yes, traditional
Speaker 1: healthcare does a phenomenal job at the point at which
Speaker 1: you are walking into a doctor's office, be that virtual
Speaker 1: or physical. And as many that were saying, you know,
Speaker 1: people are wanting to return back to physical and that's
Speaker 1: necessary in so many cases, whether that's the examinations, diagnostics, etcetera.
Speaker 1: But upstream of that, there is a huge gap, and
Speaker 1: that is a universal gap, regardless of what health care
Speaker 1: system you're in. So think about you know, when you
Speaker 1: first out have concerns, questions, niggles about your health, there's
Speaker 1: often weeks, months, sometimes even years before you think that's
Speaker 1: concern is big enough that it warrants the effort, the time,
Speaker 1: the inconvenience of going to see your doctor about it.
Speaker 1: That's really the gap that PEPPI is filling. So what
Speaker 1: we do is we provide access to expert support. So
Speaker 1: typically nurse lead, nurse practitioner lead, but they are experts
Speaker 1: in these areas. So whether that's menopause, their women's health specialists,
Speaker 1: whether that's fertility nurses, whether that's midwives for baby. What
Speaker 1: we can do with Peppy and what the tech enables
Speaker 1: is for you to communicate with those specialists in the
Speaker 1: way that suits you best. And that could be a
Speaker 1: video console, but there are so many other options. You
Speaker 1: can chat to them, you can join virtual events. We
Speaker 1: have of our own content team that works with our
Speaker 1: clinicians to put out written video audio content. So you
Speaker 1: can imagine the barrier to actually accessing help with Pepper's
Speaker 1: really low, and that's what the tech is enabling. It
Speaker 1: can be a simple message sent off when you're waiting
Speaker 1: at the bus stop, or you know, just because when
Speaker 1: you think of something at BED you browsed through some content,
Speaker 1: but always with access to real health care professionals on
Speaker 1: the other end. How hard is it moving from European
Speaker 1: healthcare provision to US healthcare provision navigating a different regulatory landscape?
Speaker 1: How do you envisage that? Yeah, so the regulatory roundscape
Speaker 1: is a you know it's certainly something that needs navigating.
Speaker 1: We are now able to offer the Peppy service in
Speaker 1: all fifties states, which we're really proud of for our clients,
Speaker 1: and that's important for our clients. As you mentioned that
Speaker 1: some of the leading enterprise as globally UM. That is
Speaker 1: one difference, but like I said, the really the need
Speaker 1: that Peppy's addressing sort of independent of what the health
Speaker 1: care system is. Recognizing that the US health care system
Speaker 1: and I lived in the States for a while, UM
Speaker 1: is very different to what a lot of what we've
Speaker 1: seen in the UK be that NHS private medical insurance.
Speaker 1: Like I said, Peppy's designed to complement and supplement traditional healthcare.
Speaker 1: We don't overlap, we don't replicate the services that you
Speaker 1: would get from your doctor, from your specialist or a
Speaker 1: primary care physician. Really, what we're about is helping you
Speaker 1: in that time where you maybe don't need a doctor yet,
Speaker 1: or nudging you to go and seek that care if
Speaker 1: you're may be hesitant or not sure or you're you know,
Speaker 1: our practitioners think that there's something to be concerned about,
Speaker 1: and also being there for you when you come out
Speaker 1: of that medical care, be surprised you're able to raise
Speaker 1: this money in this environment or as health care fantech
Speaker 1: just in its own niche At the moment, I'm delighted,
Speaker 1: I mean, especially to have the you know, continued support
Speaker 1: of our investors, some of whom have been with us
Speaker 1: for a number of years now and Albion who've known
Speaker 1: us for a long time, as well as some of
Speaker 1: the others that you mentioned. Look, I mean we raised
Speaker 1: this round in a context where the business was growing
Speaker 1: incredibly well. We grew a tex one, we grew almost
Speaker 1: four x in twenty two. Yes, the market is more difficult.
Speaker 1: I think there is much greater scrutiny of our financial
Speaker 1: financial performance you're and so on, But underlying, you know,
Speaker 1: the numbers really did speak for themselves. Great has some
Speaker 1: time with the peppy co founder of course, doctor or
Speaker 1: PhD as we called Chicoli Jolla poor a stay well
Speaker 1: thanks to staying up late over in the UK as well.
Speaker 1: We appreciate it going viral. It is glass doors Analysts
Speaker 1: are the best places to work. This year, forty one
Speaker 1: of the top one companies were still surprise, but some
Speaker 1: big names matter. Apple Zilo not in the top one
Speaker 1: hundred anymore. You have to go back to two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: the last time when records began for Apple to not
Speaker 1: be in the top one meta two thousand eleven, layoffs,
Speaker 1: changing times, changing names, Mark Zuckerberg, under pressure. It's a
Speaker 1: different it's a different companies the one you and I've
Speaker 1: been covering over the last decade or so. And what's
Speaker 1: interesting the meta though, is that they haven't changed their
Speaker 1: work from home policy, and some would say, particularly the
Speaker 1: CEO of glass Door, was calling out that actually, note
Speaker 1: of the winners are the ones that are more flexible
Speaker 1: in their working approach, still giving the good benefits. So
Speaker 1: it's not that that's hitting metal. Although Apple did change
Speaker 1: its work from home approach, they're wanting people to come
Speaker 1: back three days in a week. I wonder if that
Speaker 1: sort of in some way affecting. And then I wonder
Speaker 1: what game site is really of what is it? What
Speaker 1: are they doing? The making groundbreaking? And it's interesting in video.
Speaker 1: And then this is cat shout out my California people
Speaker 1: in an out Burger in the top ten places to work.
Speaker 1: Not a tech company, but interesting to see nonetheless, and
Speaker 1: Google a store work, I guess, and I would say
Speaker 1: in an out burger important because female CEO and actually,
Speaker 1: when you go to the list of the top CEOs
Speaker 1: on class door, you have to get till number twenty
Speaker 1: do you actually get the CEO is deemed one of
Speaker 1: the best and a female. So that's interesting that some
Speaker 1: of these companies are still coming out top but they're
Speaker 1: female leadership is singing. There's a long way to go
Speaker 1: in that respect. You great chat, but that does it
Speaker 1: for this addition of bloom Meg Technology, You're going to
Speaker 1: stay tuned for Tomorrow Thursday. We have Kate Ventures Managing
Speaker 1: director Monique Woodard. Don't forget check out your podcast apples, Spotify,
Speaker 1: our Heart, wherever you get your podcast has been fantastic.
Speaker 1: A few days in New York. This is Boomberg