Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: From Mahard where Innovation of Money and Power Collie in
Speaker 2: Silicon Valley, NBN. This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde
Speaker 2: and Ed Ludlove.
Speaker 1: Live from New York. This is Boomberg Technology coming up.
Speaker 1: Broadcom becomes the new Nvidia, as the latter falls further
Speaker 1: into correction territory. We'll discuss why plus TikTok CEO pays
Speaker 1: a visit to President Elect Donald Trump, what that means
Speaker 1: for the apps potential band, and a conversation with Senator
Speaker 1: Amy Cloversha on how to combat the rise of AI
Speaker 1: generated deep fake material online. But first I check in
Speaker 1: on these markets which come down from record highs. We
Speaker 1: digest the retail sales data that shows the US economy
Speaker 1: remains resilient as we look ahead to the FED meeting tomorrow.
Speaker 1: We're just on ten to hooks. But look, we date
Speaker 1: about a five ten percent dip lower on the NAZAQ
Speaker 1: one hundred after it has been record high after record high.
Speaker 1: Go into some of the individual movers. It has been
Speaker 1: chip stocks that have been dragging US lower somewhat again
Speaker 1: coming down from a significant run for Broadcon, for example,
Speaker 1: we're down more than five percent, but boy has it
Speaker 1: been on a big rally, up thirty eight percent in
Speaker 1: the previous two sessions in video, though off by two
Speaker 1: point two percent, we are further into correction territory. That
Speaker 1: means it's more than ten percent off of its previous
Speaker 1: high that was met in early November. And I'm looking
Speaker 1: at arm as somewhere in Delaware. Arm takes on its
Speaker 1: biggest client and indeed partner Qualcom. Once again. We got
Speaker 1: these two key influential chip designers and makes going head
Speaker 1: to head in an IP battle that has border rammifications.
Speaker 1: We dig into it. The Bloomberg's Ian King, the chip
Speaker 1: Master is here, and we've got a lot to talk
Speaker 1: about when it comes to chips. Let's just focus on
Speaker 1: in video to start with, because is there any real
Speaker 1: fundamental reason that we're suddenly getting in to a technical
Speaker 1: correction here?
Speaker 3: Nothing that you've seen any headlines on or seen any
Speaker 3: reporting on. As you remember, Carolyn, they've said we're sold out. Basically,
Speaker 3: their innings are essentially a product of how much they
Speaker 3: can get from their suppliers right now. So nothing fundamentally
Speaker 3: that would give anybody any pause. But obviously, as you
Speaker 3: pointed out a huge amount of money that has been
Speaker 3: poured into that stock.
Speaker 1: It's not more than one hundred percent, still one hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty percent over the course of the year. We
Speaker 1: then flip to maybe a wanna be in video and
Speaker 1: the making broad Coom really signaled the total addressable market
Speaker 1: here for its designs within data centers, and the crowd
Speaker 1: went wild. Can you focus in on broad Coom and
Speaker 1: maybe a bit of profit taking on the day, But
Speaker 1: what do they have to do to make this a reality?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I mean they have to work really hard. I mean
Speaker 3: what hot Tan gave wasn't a sales target, right, we
Speaker 3: need to be careful about that kind of As much
Speaker 3: as ninety billion that he was talking about was an
Speaker 3: addressable market for his type of chips, and that's by
Speaker 3: twenty twenty seven. So what he was saying is that
Speaker 3: we have line of sight to a huge increase in
Speaker 3: what we do, But that pales in comparison to in video,
Speaker 3: which is going to be one hundred and twenty billion
Speaker 3: in data center sales alone this year according to analysts.
Speaker 1: And when it comes to just enticing different kind of
Speaker 1: investors on board, I mean many were basically playing catch
Speaker 1: up to in video for the last two years. Is
Speaker 1: there a slight fomo trade here going on? Is that
Speaker 1: sort of what Hocktwan has to deal with, is that
Speaker 1: everyone's looking for the next in video.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that's absolutely part of it, and part
Speaker 3: of it might be the world if you think about it.
Speaker 3: Broadcoms making chips, it's designing chips for the Googles and
Speaker 3: the Microsoft's and companies like this who are basically designing
Speaker 3: their own chips so that they don't have to buy
Speaker 3: as much from InVideo. So there might be a kind
Speaker 3: of a switch trade here. But bear in mind that
Speaker 3: everybody who's been asked about this, mostly Hogtan most recently,
Speaker 3: has said, look, there's plenty in for everybody. This is
Speaker 3: a massive growth opportunity. Nobody's really taking anything away from anybody.
Speaker 1: Very briefly, qualcom arm how big is this.
Speaker 3: It's been sort of ignored. They need to settle, according
Speaker 3: to investors, both of them need each other. This is
Speaker 3: something that is very strange that they're on this collision course.
Speaker 3: Our analysis says they should be settling.
Speaker 1: They shouldn't be doing this. This is a jury trial,
Speaker 1: a lot at risk currently up one hundred percent for
Speaker 1: the year, at least on armshares in King breaking it
Speaker 1: all down, We thank you so much. You've are more
Speaker 1: chip news for you because Global Wafers, a Taiwanese maker
Speaker 1: of silicon wafers used in chip manufacturing, thanks a lot.
Speaker 1: It's finalized a deal to receive as much as four
Speaker 1: hundred and six million dollars in awards from the US
Speaker 1: Chips and Science Act is going to help build factories
Speaker 1: in Texas and Missouri. Now, the US Commerce Department says
Speaker 1: it will dull out the funds based on Global Wafers
Speaker 1: reaching certain milestones. We've got to get in to the
Speaker 1: whole breadth of semiconductors, but also ai what it's contributing
Speaker 1: to the market come twenty twenty five. Callycox has US
Speaker 1: Chief market strategistic Redhult's Wealth Management. Kelly, Look, we've got
Speaker 1: a lot on the move when it comes to chips
Speaker 1: on the downside today, but on the upside for the year.
Speaker 1: Is this a trade you want to remain in the
Speaker 1: semi conductor trade?
Speaker 5: Seeing today, Caroline and I'll just you know, toss a
Speaker 5: shout out to your prior guest, because I think he
Speaker 5: framed the story of the sector so perfectly. But what
Speaker 5: you're seeing is, you know, a trade that's stuck and
Speaker 5: rarefied air right now. I mean, the AI trade has
Speaker 5: been one of the big stories of twenty twenty four,
Speaker 5: and unfortunately, what that means is that when the AI
Speaker 5: story hits a bump, which to be clear, I don't
Speaker 5: think it's hitting up bump today, but there are some
Speaker 5: changes underfoot, clearly from what we saw on broadcomme earnings.
Speaker 5: You know, when the AI trade changes or hits a bump,
Speaker 5: then you could see some of these steeper pullbacks just
Speaker 5: because the sector has done so well. So right now,
Speaker 5: this is what we're warning client's about. Right Obviously, the
Speaker 5: AI stories quite encouraging. We're excited to see where AI
Speaker 5: goes in the coming years. But at the same time,
Speaker 5: tech is the most overvalued.
Speaker 6: Sector in the market.
Speaker 5: So even there are a lot of promising science, we're
Speaker 5: urging clients to, you know, think about balance in their
Speaker 5: portfolios and reallocating into more unloved sectors.
Speaker 1: Okay, so while before we get into going outside of
Speaker 1: tech more broadly into unloved within tech, is there a
Speaker 1: way of reorientating Many have talked about getting out of
Speaker 1: semiconductors into software. But has that trade actually already coured?
Speaker 1: Have you missed that boat?
Speaker 5: Well, if you're an AI investor, if you're all about
Speaker 5: the AI story, I think you start having you need
Speaker 5: to start looking at the picks and shovels, and I
Speaker 5: think many people are doing that. That's why chip makers
Speaker 5: have had such an amazing year.
Speaker 6: But I think it's even.
Speaker 5: Time to look outside of chip makers there, you know,
Speaker 5: looking at the companies that could utilize AI in their
Speaker 5: day to day operations.
Speaker 6: For example. You know, last year I really liked going.
Speaker 5: Through earnings reports and seeing which companies mentioned AI and
Speaker 5: how well they did, because there were definitely a lot
Speaker 5: of hidden gems toward the end of last year.
Speaker 6: That's an exercise I haven't done in a while, but
Speaker 6: I still think that.
Speaker 5: There's a lot of you know, hidden value there, especially
Speaker 5: in those smaller tech companies that haven't gained as much favor.
Speaker 1: Okay, does that remain when squarely the tech areas that
Speaker 1: become generative AI adjacent or is it looking to the
Speaker 1: healthcare implications to they? I mean, we've all looked at
Speaker 1: energy from an infrastructure play, but energy is an application
Speaker 1: to play as well, how you seeing other sectors adult
Speaker 1: AI and help their numbers.
Speaker 6: I'd speak clear.
Speaker 5: I don't look too far into AI usage beyond you know,
Speaker 5: those broader sector trends that I think every Mark Wall
Speaker 5: Street expert watches.
Speaker 6: But I think you're right.
Speaker 5: I think that there are a lot of applications that
Speaker 5: you could see, especially in healthcare, especially in energy. I
Speaker 5: think industrials are another interesting sector for the AI trade.
Speaker 5: But I think what investors need to remember right now
Speaker 5: is that this is a very long term story.
Speaker 6: You can't judge it by one day or a few days.
Speaker 6: This is going to take years to materialize.
Speaker 5: So if you're looking for those unlove stocks, if you're
Speaker 5: looking for those companies that might be dabbling in AI applications,
Speaker 5: you have to be thinking about holding them for years
Speaker 5: and years.
Speaker 1: How do you find them, Kelly? How do you find
Speaker 1: the unloved smaller stock that no one's been talking about?
Speaker 1: What is it that you're going to go into from
Speaker 1: a data perspective, from a signal perspective, Well, I.
Speaker 6: Think that there.
Speaker 5: I mean, I think there are still a lot of
Speaker 5: opportunities out there. Interest rates are quite high. That's led
Speaker 5: to a pretty thin rally over the past year or so,
Speaker 5: and because there have been because the rally has been
Speaker 5: so thin. To be clear, you know, I think that
Speaker 5: there are some some companies that are maybe on the
Speaker 5: cusp of you know, talking about AI more, you know,
Speaker 5: discovering applications for AI that haven't gotten that market love
Speaker 5: that other big tech, other more attention grabbing names have
Speaker 5: So I think you have to look at valuations first
Speaker 5: of all, look at valuations, you know, look at the
Speaker 5: plan for earnings.
Speaker 6: I don't think.
Speaker 5: Many AI companies or AI tent uh you know, AI
Speaker 5: tangential companies are you know, seeing earnings come from you know,
Speaker 5: AI AI applications.
Speaker 6: This is still a very early story.
Speaker 5: But I think right now, if you are a long
Speaker 5: term investor, you can look at valuations. You can look
Speaker 5: at you know, revenue signals that we've seen in Nvidio
Speaker 5: and Broadcon for example, and see if there are those
Speaker 5: early signs of uptake even management commentary. I think you
Speaker 5: can find some pretty valuable things there. But that requires
Speaker 5: having to you know, really parse through earnings reports and
Speaker 5: listening to these earnings calls.
Speaker 6: It takes a lot of work.
Speaker 1: It takes a lot of work. That's why you get
Speaker 1: paid the big bucks. But let's talk Kelly about the
Speaker 1: macro picture here, because while we are in this moment
Speaker 1: of valuations pretty high, run up significant, you've got a
Speaker 1: FED that we're looking to cut tomorrow. How much risk
Speaker 1: is there a macro policy.
Speaker 5: I think there's a lot of risk at the moment.
Speaker 5: And you know, right now, I still feel quite encouraged
Speaker 5: by the economy. The economy has been incredibly resilient over
Speaker 5: the past few years.
Speaker 6: But the risk I see, Caroline, is.
Speaker 5: The fact that we're leaning into this tech versus everything
Speaker 5: else trade again in the month of December.
Speaker 6: But you know, you still have a FED that isn't
Speaker 6: hasn't been quite clear.
Speaker 5: About where they will go into twenty twenty five, and
Speaker 5: we're about to get a lot of detail around that
Speaker 5: tomorrow when the FED releases its decision, and more importantly,
Speaker 5: Jay Powell comes out and holds his forty five minute
Speaker 5: press conference. I mean, this is a FED chair that
Speaker 5: loves to talk about scenarios going into the future, and
Speaker 5: I just I think markets and Wall Street are overestimating,
Speaker 5: you know, where inflation could be, how high rates could go.
Speaker 6: Because there still are signals of weakness in the job.
Speaker 1: Market helicops always taking US border. We thank you, Chief
Speaker 1: market strategist Harid Hold's Wealth Management Happy holidays. The EU
Speaker 1: it's investigating TikTok, suspecting it didn't do enough to stop
Speaker 1: fake accounts and foreign powers from interfering with the Romanian
Speaker 1: presidential election last month. Now, the probe will look at
Speaker 1: whether the app failed to prevent bad actors from manipulating
Speaker 1: recommendation system and if it correctly labeled political content under
Speaker 1: the block's Digital Services Act and stigma with TikTok here
Speaker 1: in the US, CEO show Cho met with President elect
Speaker 1: Donald Trump just weeks before The app is expected, of course,
Speaker 1: to be potentially banned if it's not divested in the
Speaker 1: US over national security concerns. Rehomrs Alexander Levine is here
Speaker 1: and everyone is a who's who of in and out
Speaker 1: at Mari a Lago at the moment, but showed Chu
Speaker 1: is notable considering what Trump said yesterday about the little
Speaker 1: place in his heart he has for TikTok.
Speaker 7: Absolutely, you know, we've seen legal blow after legal blow
Speaker 7: after legal blow for both TikTok and its parent company
Speaker 7: by Dance this month alone, just as they've been trying
Speaker 7: to fight off this law that's supposed to take effect
Speaker 7: in January. But in pulling out all the steps, we
Speaker 7: saw a show at Mari a Lago yesterday. And to
Speaker 7: your point, he's not the first tech leader. We've seen
Speaker 7: Mark zuckerbergo in recent weeks to talk to Trump and
Speaker 7: his team. We've seen Tim Cook as well. But the
Speaker 7: stakes are so much higher right now, with the ban
Speaker 7: just over a month away January nineteenth. The stakes are
Speaker 7: so much higher for show than they have been for
Speaker 7: really any of the other tech leaders that have visited
Speaker 7: so far.
Speaker 1: And at the moment it's being thrown at the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court store but what technically do you think of that
Speaker 1: argument the Supreme Court.
Speaker 7: Basically TikTok has now asked the Supreme Court to take
Speaker 7: the case because the DC Court had said that they
Speaker 7: know they will not pause the law from taking effect,
Speaker 7: and they basically upheld the law. When the Supreme Court decides,
Speaker 7: that's going to be likely two days before the band
Speaker 7: is supposed to take effect. And so you can be
Speaker 7: sure that regardless of what the Supreme Court says come January,
Speaker 7: that all these other companies that are going to be
Speaker 7: on the hook for actually enforcing it, including Apple and Google,
Speaker 7: most notably that preparations are definitely underway with getting ready
Speaker 7: for actually pulling the app off of the app stores.
Speaker 1: And before we get into how technically difficult and logistically
Speaker 1: difficult that is, go back to what the Moon music
Speaker 1: just seems internally externally when you do see Trump signaling
Speaker 1: that he likes the platform at least and doesn't want
Speaker 1: to fund young voters absolutely.
Speaker 7: I mean, yesterday to your point, we heard him say
Speaker 7: sweet spot for TikTok. I think we you know, you
Speaker 7: want to be able to take what he says at
Speaker 7: face value. But then you also have to take into
Speaker 7: consideration that he's stacking his team, his incoming team, with
Speaker 7: all of the most outspoken anti TikTok crusaders that have
Speaker 7: been in Congress and across the American government. And so
Speaker 7: there's a big question about whether once he is in office,
Speaker 7: and once he is surrounded by all of these people
Speaker 7: who had the knowledge of you know, the knowledge that
Speaker 7: got the legislation and the law across the across the
Speaker 7: finish line in the first place, whether they may be
Speaker 7: able to convince him not to keep the platform.
Speaker 1: Hard to know which line to discern from Alexandra Levine
Speaker 1: always had it putting us dissected. We thank you. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: US Citizenship and Immigration Services finalized new H one B regulations,
Speaker 1: actually overhauling eligibility standards for the primary visa program used
Speaker 1: by most tech firms. Really, the regulations issued today codify
Speaker 1: a policy of pride deference in deciding extensions of previously
Speaker 1: approved H one B visas. The first Trump administration had
Speaker 1: dropped that policy, significantly slowing visa extensions. Now, let's look
Speaker 1: at Mike Gallagher for a moment now as well, former
Speaker 1: Congressman turned Palenteer's head a defense and he said that
Speaker 1: the US Defense Department needs to overhaul its procurement process
Speaker 1: for a new era of modern warfare, and he's stepping
Speaker 1: up efforts to seed startups that can help restore the
Speaker 1: country's competitive edge. Remergs Lazette Chapman spoke with him and Lizette.
Speaker 1: It really feels as though this American dynamism, this defense
Speaker 1: tech euphoria post election, is just continuing here. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: spot on about that.
Speaker 8: Defense tech has been on an absolute tear for the
Speaker 8: past four or five years, and it's only set to
Speaker 8: accelerate now that there are many of these companies have
Speaker 8: reached a critical mass, like Palentteer, like SpaceX, and like
Speaker 8: some of the up and comers like andrel that we
Speaker 8: get into in the story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's get into the story, because ultimately you sat
Speaker 1: down with Gala. I mean, he's a famous China Hawk
Speaker 1: just thinking of what we were speaking with Alexandra, but
Speaker 1: a moment ago, and he can weigh in on TikTok.
Speaker 1: But how do you think we'll get more of a
Speaker 1: star top friendly Department of Defense in the US. What
Speaker 1: changes can be made?
Speaker 8: Oh, there's so many different changes that cadre of people
Speaker 8: on both the dem side and also the Republican side
Speaker 8: have been pushing for for years, going back even over
Speaker 8: a decade when Palanteer and SpaceX actually sued the US
Speaker 8: government for the right to compete to win contracts. Moving
Speaker 8: it up to date now, there are a lot of
Speaker 8: changes to the procurement process, the process of deciding what
Speaker 8: the different branches need, how it should be designed, making
Speaker 8: sure it's interoperable for the future, and then of course
Speaker 8: the process of selecting bidders and then ultimately selecting the winner.
Speaker 8: So that whole process they want to see it really
Speaker 8: contracted from the year's long process of doing something like
Speaker 8: an F thirty five fighter jet to something much shorter
Speaker 8: timeframe that better reflects the types of warfare that change,
Speaker 8: you know, every not in terms of years, but in
Speaker 8: terms of months or even weeks. Have we seen with
Speaker 8: the drone and a drones and AI and a lot
Speaker 8: of autonomous systems. In your story, they're looking to shorten that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in your story, you highlight how Elomas cooled well,
Speaker 1: the builders of F thirty five warplanes idiots. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's never short on wads and descriptions, but thatte What's
Speaker 1: interesting is about the way in which Pollenteer and Mike
Speaker 1: Gallagher in particular, trying to foster the startup ecosystem. How
Speaker 1: are they doing that right?
Speaker 8: They're reaching out to a lot of companies through something
Speaker 8: that they expanded they just recently expanded under under Mike Gallagher,
Speaker 8: who leads Global Defense now for Palenteer, and it's.
Speaker 1: To encourage software.
Speaker 8: Startups that want to do business with the US government
Speaker 8: to apply through Palenteer's fed Start program so that Palenteer
Speaker 8: can host their software for fee and deal with all
Speaker 8: of the accreditation issues, the different requirements all the software
Speaker 8: updates and monitoring and keeping them up to up to
Speaker 8: date and current. And that's a really big deal for
Speaker 8: a lot of startups who have different needs from different
Speaker 8: Every agency might have a different requirement to comply with.
Speaker 1: Now, first startup with only.
Speaker 8: Twenty people or maybe fifty people, that's very hard to
Speaker 8: set up that infrastructure that takes a long period of
Speaker 8: time they said years and you know, down to something
Speaker 8: shorter that they can handle. That's what fed Start and
Speaker 8: Palenteer are working to do. And it's in competition with
Speaker 8: other companies like second Front for example, that's also looking.
Speaker 1: To do that. Yeah, trying to reduce the compliance headache.
Speaker 1: Is that Chatmander is a great read. Go check it out.
Speaker 1: We appreciate you on today. Let's just talk about elsewhere
Speaker 1: in the VC ecosystem. Data Bricks raising ten billion dollars
Speaker 1: in new funding, a series J which brings US Software
Speaker 1: makes valuation to a whopping sixty two billion Data Brick
Speaker 1: stating it intends to invest this capital towards new AI products, acquisitions,
Speaker 1: and significant expansion of its international go to market operations.
Speaker 1: Now coming up some tech m and a news. Also
Speaker 1: in the startup space, Grammarly acquiring coder Grammarly's incoming CEO
Speaker 1: is going to be joining us next. This's is Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Technology Grammily. It's the maker of AI powered writing assistance software,
Speaker 1: and it's acquiring productivity startup Coda in a deal that
Speaker 1: will also bring in a new CEO, Shashi Marotra. It's
Speaker 1: currently the co founder and CEO of Coda and is
Speaker 1: lated to take over the top job at the combined
Speaker 1: Grammarly joins us now for more on the deal. So
Speaker 1: coming together productivity tools, what do you offer as one?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm really excited about this opportunity Coda joining with Germily.
Speaker 2: I've been personal user of the product for many years,
Speaker 2: really drawn to the innovative approach, passionate people. But the
Speaker 2: reason that's happened was the leaders of both companies that
Speaker 2: got together and just painted our vision for the future,
Speaker 2: what we saw with the future of AI productivity, and
Speaker 2: it just turned out that our view was near identical.
Speaker 2: We both saw the technology evolving to what we call
Speaker 2: user centered AI and a future world where the applications
Speaker 2: we use won't feel as isolated, siloed, rigid that we're
Speaker 2: used today, instead really focused on the user adapted to
Speaker 2: each person, their teams, their roles. So we're going to
Speaker 2: be building a user centered AI platform or the future
Speaker 2: for focused on applications and agents for everybody.
Speaker 1: It's a competitive space. I hear agents being named by startup,
Speaker 1: by large publicly traded business alike, and I hear of
Speaker 1: you know, Apple trying to integrate trying to make my
Speaker 1: email flow easier. How are you going to compete against
Speaker 1: big tech as well as startups?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, maybe just start with the term agent.
Speaker 2: I know, it's a hot term everybody is using these days.
Speaker 2: I think of Grammarly as actually the original AI agent.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's about forty million users use We use
Speaker 2: Grammarly every day, goes through about two hundred billion words
Speaker 2: a day, and one of the key things about that
Speaker 2: agent is that it works right alongside you. One of
Speaker 2: the big innovations that Garmley has worked on is that
Speaker 2: instead of forcing to go to some other place, it
Speaker 2: follows you into every different surface. About five hundred thousand
Speaker 2: different applications that have been integrated with with Grammarly. One
Speaker 2: of the terms the Granmarley team likes to use I've
Speaker 2: really loved is the idea that they've built this AI
Speaker 2: super highway and it's the gateway to have agents actually
Speaker 2: work with you in every other tool. But one observation
Speaker 2: is right now there's sort of only one car running
Speaker 2: on that highway that the Grammarly tool set today. It's amazing,
Speaker 2: but what it does is just help you with your
Speaker 2: with your proof reading. And one of the things we're
Speaker 2: going to do is we're going to take one of
Speaker 2: the most popular parts of the Code of Product, we
Speaker 2: call it Code of Brain, which is a network of
Speaker 2: hundreds of integrations into all your all of your back
Speaker 2: end systems, and we're going to turn them into agents
Speaker 2: on this platform. And so what you can imagine is
Speaker 2: instead of interacting with Grammarly as just a proof reading agent,
Speaker 2: you can imagine that now the suggestion that come to
Speaker 2: you will help you draft consents, can help you structure
Speaker 2: customer conversations, can help you update your CRM systems, and
Speaker 2: we can really bring agents right to the user's that's
Speaker 2: one of the main things we'll be working on.
Speaker 1: Shisha. You said how your goals of the two companies
Speaker 1: were basically completely in line. Is the goal and IPO
Speaker 1: in line as well. When you're looking at the changes
Speaker 1: made of Grammarly, new CTO from Instacart, new CFO coming
Speaker 1: from Hashi Corp. You with your background at YouTube and
Speaker 1: big companies as well as startups, it looks as though
Speaker 1: you're destined for an IPO.
Speaker 9: You know.
Speaker 2: I think I think the goal is to build an
Speaker 2: enduring company, and I think that in this sort of
Speaker 2: crazy world of AI changing everything we work on, I
Speaker 2: think it's a very smallest of companies that can have
Speaker 2: that meaningful platform to really be that that future of AI.
Speaker 2: I think the approach of Grammarly and now with CODA,
Speaker 2: I think we can really be at the forefront of that.
Speaker 2: And yeah, we'd like to be one of those top
Speaker 2: three or four companies that people think of when they
Speaker 2: think about the AI tools for for their world to share.
Speaker 1: Rotra, thank you for coming on incoming, CEO of Grammarly,
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the new meg Technology. Karen Hide in
Speaker 1: New York. Quick check on your markets. Look, we're all
Speaker 1: eyes on the FED tomorrow and digesting some retail data
Speaker 1: today that still shows the US economy is going strong.
Speaker 10: Go new.
Speaker 1: Sometimes bad news. Then as that one hundred fourth, sir,
Speaker 1: it's record high. We're off by just three tens and
Speaker 1: percent chip makers on the downside, in particular some profit
Speaker 1: taking over at Broadcom. Move on and have a look
Speaker 1: at what's happening in individual movers when it comes to
Speaker 1: the crypto space as well. Bitcoin still up at one
Speaker 1: point one hundred and eight thousand, We're one hundred and
Speaker 1: six thousand as we trade, are still holding onto those
Speaker 1: record highs. Micro strategy though, just seeing a bit of
Speaker 1: profit taking show, we say, after a five hundred percent
Speaker 1: run up this year, of course, basically a Bitcoin proxy
Speaker 1: entering the Nasdaq one hundred on Friday, many feeling this
Speaker 1: will be the beginning of a momentum trade. But how
Speaker 1: much of this is a priced in already? Much of that,
Speaker 1: of course, is because sectors like crypto are continuing to
Speaker 1: out following the election of Trump. How is broader hiring?
Speaker 1: How is startup optimism? Payrolls processing company Gusto has a
Speaker 1: bird's eye perspective. Hr startup has announced, in fact, a
Speaker 1: new partnership with zero. It's a leading accounting software platform
Speaker 1: for small businesses motally lad Let's ask Gusto CEO and
Speaker 1: co founder Josh Reeves, It's great to have you here.
Speaker 1: Pleasure to be here. Thanks, Carolyn. So let's talk about
Speaker 1: the partnership and why you're focusing on small and you're
Speaker 1: already a provider to an awful lot of small and
Speaker 1: medium sized enterprises, why furrow that even more so?
Speaker 11: We're thrilled to support and serve over four hundred thousand
Speaker 11: small businesses today. And one of the things we realized
Speaker 11: a couple of years ago is you have small businesses
Speaker 11: that are going to use Gusto directly, but there's a
Speaker 11: lot of small businesses out there served by existing platforms
Speaker 11: LEG zero and zero focuses like you mentioned on accounting.
Speaker 11: A lot of these other platforms do not want to
Speaker 11: go build things like payroll themselves, and so we created
Speaker 11: this industry called embedded payroll, which is basically the ability
Speaker 11: for folks legs zero and that's what we're announcing today
Speaker 11: to launch their own payroll products powered by Gusta, so
Speaker 11: more analogous to that stripe type business model, and we're
Speaker 11: really excited about it because it's a way for us
Speaker 11: to reach more small businesses where they're.
Speaker 1: At and are they ultimately underserved at the moment Because
Speaker 1: your startup space is a busy one, there are plenty
Speaker 1: of hr payroll startups trying to be the be all
Speaker 1: and end all to everyone. How are you finding that
Speaker 1: small medium sized enterprise space.
Speaker 11: Yeah, so I always loved reminding folks there's more dentist
Speaker 11: offices in the US than tech startups. So we really
Speaker 11: do obsess over and zero does as well, and a
Speaker 11: lot of our partners. Actually, we're thrilled to partner with
Speaker 11: a number of companies, including Chase Payment Solutions, to basically
Speaker 11: bring modern, delightful payroll to where they're at in a
Speaker 11: more accessible, intuitive way. Saves them time, saves the money,
Speaker 11: prevents mistakes, filing issues, and we've built now ten plus
Speaker 11: years of infrastructure processing over half a trillion dollars of
Speaker 11: payroll to really earn that credibility and be who these
Speaker 11: partners want to choose when they're building out their own
Speaker 11: payroll products.
Speaker 1: Interestingly, I don't think a dentist office is going to
Speaker 1: be hiring many people abroad, but you've been trying to
Speaker 1: focus on this making it easier to hire internationally. So
Speaker 1: we're getting the news today that H one b's, for example,
Speaker 1: are going to be overhauled and streamlined made easier by
Speaker 1: the current administration. How are people's propensity to hiring abroad
Speaker 1: at this moment, so.
Speaker 11: It really depends on industry. With Gusto, you do have
Speaker 11: the ability to hire both contractors and employees internationally. I'd
Speaker 11: say there's been more resonance on the contractors side, but again,
Speaker 11: many many products that we're expanding into International is just one.
Speaker 11: We offer a lot of functionality around time tracking for
Speaker 11: one K, business insurance, all the different pain points. It's
Speaker 11: really hard still to run and start a small business,
Speaker 11: and our job is to make that easier.
Speaker 1: It's hard to run a startup, even as successful as yours.
Speaker 1: You haven't raised money since twenty twenty one, ultimately because
Speaker 1: looking at your profitability you don't need to. But what
Speaker 1: is the pressure on you to IPO to have an exit?
Speaker 1: Is it? Are you finding that the competitive mode when
Speaker 1: your versus a deal or a rippling is getting harder
Speaker 1: or is it fine?
Speaker 11: We welcome the competition. We want to be the best
Speaker 11: product in the market. We believe we are. We're also
Speaker 11: just only one deck into this journey. We talk about
Speaker 11: it being a multi decade journey, so at some point
Speaker 11: in the future we will be public. Nothing to share
Speaker 11: there but really our obsession is on how do we
Speaker 11: give the best possible experience to those customers and do
Speaker 11: that through our actions, through the work we put in,
Speaker 11: and also through the partnerships we signed with folks like Zero.
Speaker 1: And the talent you have when you're lying in bed
Speaker 1: and you've got something on your mind, does it tend
Speaker 1: to be talent acquisition? Is it about general to AI?
Speaker 1: What are you thinking most about?
Speaker 11: Mostly thinking about team building and as we, like you said,
Speaker 11: have free cash flow, positive, a solid business model, real
Speaker 11: customer need that we're really delivering true value for We're
Speaker 11: being very aggressive reinvesting that capital, that free cash flow
Speaker 11: into building new products, building additional services for our customers
Speaker 11: to use, and so that usually means hiring. Team building
Speaker 11: and I'm doing a lot of time these days interviewing candidates.
Speaker 1: As is the life of a CEO. Josh, it's great
Speaker 1: to have you. Thanks for something by as you're in
Speaker 1: New York is of course the CEO of Gusto joshes them. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: coming up these spotlight upon us, we'll talk consumer investing.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty five, Shamin Walch is with US managing
Speaker 1: director at BAM Ventures Plus a conversation with Minnesota Senator
Speaker 1: Amy clovershah all about antitrust. You don't want to miss it.
Speaker 1: This is Blue Beg technology. We want to just take
Speaker 1: a look at consumer investing trends right now after retail
Speaker 1: sales looks so good today? Were they looking like into
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. BAM Ventures is going to join us
Speaker 1: in VC Spotlight. The firm's portfolio boasts some of the
Speaker 1: biggest names in consumer investing like Zolar nerd Walt, Wanderley,
Speaker 1: Band Ventures managing director Shaman Walt joins us for now
Speaker 1: for more. And it's interesting that maybe consumer bets we
Speaker 1: all know them because we use them, but perhaps they
Speaker 1: haven't got the valuations of semi conducted a software space
Speaker 1: of late. But what does consumer resiliency look like?
Speaker 4: Well, first off, Caroline, good morning, and I wanted to
Speaker 4: thank you for having me here and for those who
Speaker 4: may not be familiar with me. As Caroline said, I'm
Speaker 4: a managing director at dand Ventures. We're a pre seed
Speaker 4: and seed consumer focus fund based in Los Angeles and
Speaker 4: built by the founders of billion dollar public companies like
Speaker 4: Legal Zoom, an Honest Company. And then as you mentioned, yeah,
Speaker 4: you know the privilege of investing early in household names
Speaker 4: like sweet Grains, snaps, cope ly nerd Wallet, et cetera.
Speaker 4: And to your question, you know, it's interesting because I
Speaker 4: think valuations are what catch headlines, but we often underestimate
Speaker 4: the inputs that it takes to get to those numbers
Speaker 4: and also the equity breakdown. So, for example, you know,
Speaker 4: a company that exits for five billion dollars is an
Speaker 4: eye popping amount, but when you look at the cap
Speaker 4: table and you see that a founder, you know, on
Speaker 4: two percent of that business, they actually made less than
Speaker 4: a company where the founder owned twenty five percent of
Speaker 4: a five hundred million dollar exit. So the valuations are
Speaker 4: often you know, a particular on the brand side may
Speaker 4: not be there on the text, of course they do
Speaker 4: have that potential, but you know, the equity outcomes for
Speaker 4: the investors and the founder, as you'd be surprised to see,
Speaker 4: are often much better.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so you're very much trying to align oneself
Speaker 1: with the founder and with their own legal background. I'm
Speaker 1: sure you're ensuring that they maintain a lot of holding
Speaker 1: and serve themselves well by having ownership of the business
Speaker 1: as it matures and takes funding. What then about finding
Speaker 1: these diamonds in the rough. How are you deciding, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is a startup, a consumer facing startup that is
Speaker 1: it a pivot point is about to go up into
Speaker 1: the right.
Speaker 4: We have this internal mantra that we like to we
Speaker 4: say that we have to love the founder and not
Speaker 4: hate the idea at the stage that we invest it
Speaker 4: truly is about the founders, and you know we we
Speaker 4: we love what we call the silent assassins, the folks
Speaker 4: that are focused on building their business, who know their customer,
Speaker 4: who know how people actually operate. You know, there are
Speaker 4: a lot of things that we theoretically would like to
Speaker 4: exist or like to do. You know, I'd love to
Speaker 4: be the fittest woman in the world, but you know,
Speaker 4: maybe I won't put the effort and time into an
Speaker 4: exercise regime or counting my macro nutrients. And the founders
Speaker 4: that actually understand how people, you know, live and behave
Speaker 4: and what gets them to a purchase decision is really
Speaker 4: what we're looking for.
Speaker 1: And do they do that via EQ? Are they doing
Speaker 1: that through data? What do you want to see when
Speaker 1: one founder that you don't hate the idea of comes
Speaker 1: and pitches you.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think, I think it's both, and I think.
Speaker 4: More importantly it's around understanding not only their consumer but
Speaker 4: themselves as well what their strengths and weaknesses are.
Speaker 6: So, if there are.
Speaker 4: Incredibly data driven, maybe they have hire a team that
Speaker 4: is very EQ and brand driven, or vice versa. If
Speaker 4: they're incredibly brand driven, then they hire a team who
Speaker 4: understands operational efficiencies and knows that, you know, they need
Speaker 4: to hit their margins. And so I think the most
Speaker 4: important thing we look for is a founder who understands
Speaker 4: their customers, as I mentioned, but also who knows how
Speaker 4: to hire around them.
Speaker 1: Look, you've been at Angel Investing for more than seventeen years,
Speaker 1: You've been in your seat at bound benures for a
Speaker 1: number of years, and what are valuations like at this
Speaker 1: particular moment. How are you looking into twenty twenty five
Speaker 1: and thinking about whether these are the right sort of
Speaker 1: checks to be writing at the right valuation.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think that we.
Speaker 9: Are.
Speaker 4: In Valuations are very specific to the sectors right now.
Speaker 4: You know, you hear about the buzzwords of AI or crypto,
Speaker 4: and they can command a hefty evaluation. They also are
Speaker 4: very capital intensive, I think, to the point I was
Speaker 4: making it at the beginning around the inputs and the output.
Speaker 4: A lot of times funds will back into valuations based
Speaker 4: on how much they need to deploy, and it may
Speaker 4: be detached from how much a company itself.
Speaker 6: Is actually worth.
Speaker 4: If you're a large fund and you need to write
Speaker 4: ten million dollar checks and you love a particular category
Speaker 4: and you give them ten ten million dollars, then you
Speaker 4: need to back into evaluation from there, as opposed to
Speaker 4: investing in a company they may not need as much.
Speaker 1: It's interesting that you said crypto is sort of the buzzword,
Speaker 1: and sure, bitcoins have been the buzzword, micro strategy been
Speaker 1: in the buzzword. But all are we seeing more and
Speaker 1: more founders coming to you with a Web three adjacent
Speaker 1: company now or consume a focus that is building in
Speaker 1: Web three once again? Are we at that stage of
Speaker 1: the cycle we are?
Speaker 4: We see a lot of founders who have a Web
Speaker 4: three component. I do see it having come back into vogue,
Speaker 4: and like I mentioned, AI is the mode.
Speaker 1: Jour And to that point, when you're consumer founder, is
Speaker 1: it just that you want to see AI boosting productivity
Speaker 1: internally rather than trying to back themselves into a generative
Speaker 1: AI business.
Speaker 4: Do you mean what we look for as investors or
Speaker 4: what founders are pursuing these days.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what a founder's pursue. What are you seeing and
Speaker 1: what are you wanting? Briefly, Yeah, well what we're wanting.
Speaker 4: The way that we think about AI is the way
Speaker 4: we think about the Internet. You know, It's like if
Speaker 4: a founder came to us and told us they're building
Speaker 4: an Internet company. I think it's ubiquitous, it's necessary, it
Speaker 4: is the future for us. We're really looking at, you know,
Speaker 4: the other elements that will make you a successful business,
Speaker 4: what your distribution, your team, sales and marketing, the AI itself.
Speaker 4: For us particularly and at our fund size is not
Speaker 4: the sole determinant of whether a company is attractive or not,
Speaker 4: and I think founders are catching on to that as well.
Speaker 4: I think there was a period of time we're just
Speaker 4: adding a dot aih was they thought was changing things
Speaker 4: in terms of activeness. But I think at this point
Speaker 4: founders are starting to realize we need to show some
Speaker 4: differentiation beyond that.
Speaker 1: Well, said Schaman Welch, an Asian director at ban Benches.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your time today. Now let's
Speaker 1: just talk about Senate Judiciary Subcommittee set to here on
Speaker 1: anti trust and legal experts. Let's get to Kaylee Lines
Speaker 1: in Washington.
Speaker 12: I'd like to welcome our global Bloomberg television and radio audiences.
Speaker 12: I'm joined in conversation by Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota,
Speaker 12: live from Capitol Hill. Senator, thank you very much for
Speaker 12: being here. You are leading a subcommittee hearing today titled
Speaker 12: Continuing a Bipartisan Path Forward for Antitrust Enforcement and Reform.
Speaker 12: And I do wonder, in what will become January a
Speaker 12: Republican controlled Congress and bill members and White House, what
Speaker 12: that bipartisan path actually looks like.
Speaker 10: Okay, well, first of all, thanks for having me on, Kaylee.
Speaker 1: It's great to be on.
Speaker 10: And I think what you've seen in this area of antitrust,
Speaker 10: you've seen some broad bipartisan agreement on a number of
Speaker 10: these cases.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 10: For instance, the Google case started under the Trump administration,
Speaker 10: the first Trump administration, as did the Facebook case that
Speaker 10: was at the FTC. Google was at the Justice Department.
Speaker 10: Then it proceeded through the Biden administration. Biden administration also
Speaker 10: brought some major cases, for instance against Ticketmaster and other companies,
Speaker 10: and so you've seen a more aggressive anti trust enforcement
Speaker 10: over the last few years. Now you have a new
Speaker 10: appointees going in place, and at least one of them
Speaker 10: I have heard the belief is over at the Justice
Speaker 10: Department with some former Democratic anti trust enforcers that she
Speaker 10: knows what she's doing. I'm looking forward to meeting with her,
Speaker 10: Gail Slater, and I'm hoping that we will continue those cases.
Speaker 10: I love competition, Okay, I like capitalism. That's why I'm
Speaker 10: for anti trust enforcement.
Speaker 12: Well, you've mentioned Gail Slater. What about Andrew Ferguson. Do
Speaker 12: you think he loves the issue of competition in the
Speaker 12: same way that you do. Do you trust that the
Speaker 12: FTC will be in good hands under his leadership?
Speaker 10: You know, I am looking forward to meeting with him.
Speaker 10: Interestingly enough, we do not confirm that position because he
Speaker 10: was already on the commission. There is a new member
Speaker 10: that is being appointed on the Republican side. I'll note
Speaker 10: that he also he wrote a piece on the breakup
Speaker 10: of Ticketmaster in which he favored that. So I just
Speaker 10: think with anti trust because at its core, it is
Speaker 10: about competition, and it's been laggered for many decades, and
Speaker 10: as a result, we're seeing more and more consolidation. It
Speaker 10: isn't that big companies are bad. It's that sometimes when
Speaker 10: you have no competition, then you start getting less innovation,
Speaker 10: more high prices, et cetera, et cetera. So I'm actually
Speaker 10: really excited about this center. Lee and I are doing
Speaker 10: this together, this hearing center. Grassing and I have passed
Speaker 10: our bill together, and I think you're going to continue
Speaker 10: to see interest in tech. Fact Center, Cruise and I
Speaker 10: did a joint interview this morning and bill that we
Speaker 10: have gotten through the Senate on taking online porn off
Speaker 10: the Internet different than anti trust. However, You're just going
Speaker 10: to continue to see bipartisan work on tech.
Speaker 12: Well, I'm glad that you have brought up the Take
Speaker 12: It Down Act, which you co sponsored with Senator Cruz.
Speaker 12: Is that trying to tackle symptoms of an underlying disease
Speaker 12: rather than the disease itself. And the disease I'm referring
Speaker 12: to here is unregulated artificial intelligence.
Speaker 10: Thanks, I really would like to put in some rules
Speaker 10: of the road on AI. And this bill is actually
Speaker 10: broader than just AI pornographic is pictures. It's actually also
Speaker 10: real pictures as well as AI created ones. We're now
Speaker 10: seeing one in twelve Americans saying that they have been
Speaker 10: a victim or no, someone that's a victim of this.
Speaker 10: We've had twenty suicides in one year of young kids.
Speaker 10: Twenty suicides because someone a girlfriend, boyfriend, someone they knew
Speaker 10: put up their photo. They were embarrassed that their friends
Speaker 10: and their family would know, and they killed themselves. These
Speaker 10: are FBI statistics. So Senator Cruse and I came together
Speaker 10: to build us two things. One make it clearly a
Speaker 10: crime to use pornographic imagery of someone else, whether it's
Speaker 10: AI created or real. And then number two, that the
Speaker 10: platforms have to take it down. That's why it's called
Speaker 10: the Take It Down Act. They take down other violations
Speaker 10: of intellectual property and the fact that people can be
Speaker 10: abused in this way to the point of committing suicide.
Speaker 10: And in one case that I know of, Senator Cruz's case,
Speaker 10: he actually had a call Snapchat to get the image
Speaker 10: down after months of this victim from his state dealing
Speaker 10: with it.
Speaker 1: That's just wrong.
Speaker 12: Senator, I'd like to ask you about another one of
Speaker 12: your colleagues, your fellow Democrats, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts,
Speaker 12: wrote a letter we understand, to President elect Donald Trump
Speaker 12: asking for firm conflict of interest rules to be put
Speaker 12: into place. Related to Elon Musk, who, of course has
Speaker 12: been tapped to co lead this new Department of Government Efficiency,
Speaker 12: have you had any conversations with Senator Warren about that,
Speaker 12: or at the very least you share in that sentiment.
Speaker 10: Now, I haven't seen this letter, but I will say
Speaker 10: that I believe that we need conflict of interest rules
Speaker 10: in place for people who are making major decisions in
Speaker 10: the government. That is what our people have done voluntarily
Speaker 10: for years now. And you have a number of very
Speaker 10: wealthy people going into the Trump administration. There's been wealthy
Speaker 10: people as well under Democratic administration, but you have a
Speaker 10: number of them coming in and we need the conflict
Speaker 10: rules in force, and we need to know that the
Speaker 10: decisions they are making are not for their own interest
Speaker 10: but for the interests of the American people. And I
Speaker 10: would hope that President elect Trump agrees.
Speaker 12: Finally. President Elect Trump yesterday met with the CEO of
Speaker 12: TikTok Show Too at mar A Lago, after saying in
Speaker 12: a news conference Senator that he is a warm spot
Speaker 12: in his heart for TikTok. When asked if you would
Speaker 12: like to see the band go through or will try
Speaker 12: to stop it. Given some of the issues we have
Speaker 12: already discussed around technology in particular and what is propagated
Speaker 12: on these platforms, what is your view about whether that
Speaker 12: band should be enforced come January.
Speaker 10: Of course, this came out of Congress with strong bipartisan support,
Speaker 10: and there are two avenues here. One is that they
Speaker 10: can follow the law and divest and find a buyer
Speaker 10: for the company, and the second is that they still
Speaker 10: are appealing to the Supreme Court. So my view has
Speaker 10: been that we should have rules of the road in place,
Speaker 10: by the way, for all platforms. I have been way
Speaker 10: out there, as I think you know, in terms of
Speaker 10: getting not just pornography off the Internet, but other very
Speaker 10: very difficult things that are on there right now, and
Speaker 10: that we should have a better policing of that, and
Speaker 10: people should have the right to protect their own intellectual properties,
Speaker 10: and also that we should have antitrust enforcement. You just
Speaker 10: can't have, say, Google, with a ninety percent market share
Speaker 10: on the search engine and not have any competition and
Speaker 10: then allow them to self preference, as we see with
Speaker 10: Amazon and other companies their own.
Speaker 1: Products at the top.
Speaker 10: That's why the NFIB, which is not a liberal organization,
Speaker 10: the National Federation of Independent Businesses, is strongly supporting the
Speaker 10: bill that I have with Senator Grassley, which simply puts
Speaker 10: some rules in the road in place for a competition
Speaker 10: on the internet.
Speaker 12: All right, Democratic Senator Amy Klobaschar of Minnesota joining us
Speaker 12: live from Capitol Hill on Bloomberg Television and Radio. Thank
Speaker 12: you so much, and I'll send it back to you
Speaker 12: in New York.
Speaker 1: Kaylie Lyns, we thank you, Senator Amy Clobshaw on Minnesota
Speaker 1: as well. Let's just break all of this down politics
Speaker 1: intersecting with technology. We do that with Blue Meggs, Mike
Speaker 1: Shephard and just going to the bipath is in nature
Speaker 1: of anti trust focus, it does feel as though many
Speaker 1: interpret Trump administration well business friendly, but he's put some
Speaker 1: people in seats that have really critical eyes on companies
Speaker 1: such as Google.
Speaker 9: That's certainly been our sense as we've reported out Trump's
Speaker 9: selections for these key positions, including the head of the
Speaker 9: Anti trust division at the Justice Department and the person
Speaker 9: who would succeed Lena Kahn at the Federal Trade Commission.
Speaker 9: And now we've heard it from Amy Klobuchra herself, the
Speaker 9: Senator from Minnesota, who has really spearheaded efforts in Congress
Speaker 9: in the Senate on this area of competition enforcement, and
Speaker 9: she is signaling some optimism that the incoming Trump team
Speaker 9: will not divert too much from the playbook when it
Speaker 9: comes to cracking down on areas, especially big tech, where
Speaker 9: we've seen a lot of concentration of market power. We
Speaker 9: saw her reference Google at the very end of her
Speaker 9: remarks to our colleague Kayley Liones, Yeah, and.
Speaker 1: Saying that she's looking forward to meeting with Andrew Ferguson
Speaker 1: as well. Mike, I want to shift more broadly into
Speaker 1: the context of technology and the next administration, because there
Speaker 1: is a merry go round at Mara Lago at the
Speaker 1: moment of all the key names in tech, whether it
Speaker 1: be Netflix, we know, Bezos's jew we have just had
Speaker 1: show cho Is it really a key focus on technology
Speaker 1: in the future.
Speaker 9: Well, it really has been a parade of these high
Speaker 9: profile CEOs going in to meet with President elect Donald
Speaker 9: Trump to have their cases heard and to hear a
Speaker 9: little bit from him themselves so that they understand a
Speaker 9: little bit how to relate with him. Think of it
Speaker 9: as corporate diplomacy, but a two way Street. Trump really
Speaker 9: likes to exercise that sort of function of his office
Speaker 9: to reach out to CEOs in the way that a
Speaker 9: president would also reach out to heads of state. He
Speaker 9: likes that kind of engagement. We saw it in action
Speaker 9: so much during his first term in office, and now
Speaker 9: we're already seeing signs of it now as he prepares
Speaker 9: to return to the White House. And for these companies,
Speaker 9: it's a chance for them to be heard, especially for
Speaker 9: shout Chew. His company is facing this existential question of
Speaker 9: a band that could take effect as soon as January nineteenth.
Speaker 1: That is an existential question for TikTok other companies maybe
Speaker 1: going in and saying, look, my key worry here is
Speaker 1: talent and access to talent. One of the most read
Speaker 1: stories on the Bloomberg today and across the web is
Speaker 1: about h one B visas, how the current administration, how
Speaker 1: the current US decision and am Immigration Services are basically
Speaker 1: making final changes to making it easier, more streamlined. Is
Speaker 1: that something that might be upended by the next administration.
Speaker 1: What's hiring going to look like?
Speaker 9: Well, there is a risk of that happening, of course,
Speaker 9: And one of the concerns that companies, not just tech companies,
Speaker 9: but tech companies in particular in reference to the H
Speaker 9: one B program, they're only eighty five thousand visas available
Speaker 9: every year. They're really coveted. The competition is really really
Speaker 9: stiff for them. And tech companies need that workforce of
Speaker 9: skilled workers with a dance degrees to be able to
Speaker 9: propel their development of the latest technologies, and any change
Speaker 9: to their program is a disturbance and force and at
Speaker 9: risks impeding their progress. During the last Trump administration, they
Speaker 9: had dropped a policy known as prior deference, which helped
Speaker 9: grease the skids for some of these applications. And this
Speaker 9: policy was just codified reinstated with rules that were finalized
Speaker 9: today by the Customs and Immigration Service and the Department
Speaker 9: of Homeland Security. What we want to see, what we're
Speaker 9: looking for going ahead as a Trump team takes office,
Speaker 9: is what will they do there as they try to
Speaker 9: address the broader question of the border.
Speaker 1: Mike Shepherd bringing it all together for us from Washington.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Indeed, now that does it. From
Speaker 1: this edition in Bloomberg Technology, You do not want to
Speaker 1: forget to check out our podcast. Find it on the
Speaker 1: terminal as well as online on Apple Spotify and iHeart
Speaker 1: this is blue bag technology.