Speaker 1: I met Ludlow in San Francisco. This is Bloomberg Technology
Speaker 1: coming up. Tesla cuts prices again, the electric vehicle maker,
Speaker 1: reducing the costs of more expensive models for the second
Speaker 1: time this year. We'll bring you the details, plus time
Speaker 1: to buy Apple. After sitting on the sidelines for the
Speaker 1: last six years, Goldman Sachs says it is time to
Speaker 1: jump in on the iPhone maker despite missing out on
Speaker 1: a three hundred percent advance. We'll discuss and the push
Speaker 1: to ban TikTok. Senator Mark Warner plans to introduce a
Speaker 1: bill this week to allow the US to systematically ban
Speaker 1: Chinese technology. That's including services like the social media giant.
Speaker 1: All that and so much more. Coming up. The first,
Speaker 1: Tesla down two percentage points after cutting prices here in
Speaker 1: the US on Model lesque a Model X including the
Speaker 1: plaid varietals over the weekend. For more, Let's bring in
Speaker 1: bloombergs Dana Hoole, who is reporting, where are the price
Speaker 1: cuts and what do we know about them? In the
Speaker 1: last twenty four hours? So Tesla cut the prices last night,
Speaker 1: they change the website, and the model S is now
Speaker 1: roughly five thousand dollars cheaper. Across both models, and the
Speaker 1: X is almost ten thousand dollars cheaper. Interestingly, now the
Speaker 1: plaid is the exact same for both the S and
Speaker 1: the X. And I think what significant is that we've
Speaker 1: seen Tesla tweak prices quite a bit. This is kind
Speaker 1: of a significant change to come in March. We have
Speaker 1: roughly three and now four weeks left in the quarter.
Speaker 1: Tesla definitely changes prices. But is this a demand question
Speaker 1: or is this just Tesla trying to cut costs for consumers? Well,
Speaker 1: let's jump in on that. We every day go to
Speaker 1: our audience and ask what do you make of this story?
Speaker 1: And the question is do these price cuts push you
Speaker 1: to buy what is a still very expensive vehicle? The
Speaker 1: results kind of mixed, actually, I would say, you know,
Speaker 1: almost fifty percent of respondents say no, these are too expensive.
Speaker 1: What has Tesla said so far in twenty twenty three
Speaker 1: about demand, because they tend to use price cuts as
Speaker 1: a lever, frankly fine, pockets of demand absolutely well. Musk
Speaker 1: said last week and Investor Day that demand for Tesla's
Speaker 1: cars is infinite and that the biggest, you know, the
Speaker 1: limiting factor is priced. So you know, but again, I
Speaker 1: mean the vast majority of Tessa's sales right now are
Speaker 1: the three and the Y, and you know, he's even
Speaker 1: said that the S and the X are kind of
Speaker 1: like antique models that eventually will go the way. You know,
Speaker 1: there's sort of like legacy models that they make because
Speaker 1: people are fond of them, but they are still quite
Speaker 1: expensive cars. The fact that they are cutting at this
Speaker 1: point in the quarter, to me, means that they are
Speaker 1: trying to stoke demand. They must have inventory that they're
Speaker 1: trying to move. You have a really terrific piece out
Speaker 1: newsletter or Bloomberg terminal piece, both newsletter and ternal piece
Speaker 1: value for money on this great deep bench of talent Tesla.
Speaker 1: I thought this was so important and worth taking a
Speaker 1: look at. Last week it invested day. Elon Musk is
Speaker 1: up on stage a site with familiar with that behind him.
Speaker 1: There you see it on the screen. Sixteen or so
Speaker 1: executives six. Yeah, I don't think we have time to
Speaker 1: go through all sixteen, but there are sort of a
Speaker 1: top three that you've picked out. Who are these new
Speaker 1: names behind Elon Musk? Yeah, So this is the first
Speaker 1: time that so many people have been on stage with Elon,
Speaker 1: and I think it's a clear sign that the company
Speaker 1: is trying to be like, Hey, even though Elon Musk
Speaker 1: bought Twitter, we have this deep bench of talent. Tom
Speaker 1: Zoo is clearly a rising star, as you've reported earlier
Speaker 1: this year. You know, Tom has kind of a growing
Speaker 1: remit within Tesla overseeing manufacturing not just in China, but
Speaker 1: in Texas and potentially in Mexico as well. I thought
Speaker 1: the presentation by Rebecca Tanucci, who oversees charging, was spectacular.
Speaker 1: She's like an executive that we've never heard of. And
Speaker 1: then Brendan Erhardt, who's the recently hired general counsel, came
Speaker 1: to Tesla from Dish. He briefly appeared on stage, and
Speaker 1: he's the first sort of big outside higher that we've
Speaker 1: had a Tesla in quite a while, just showing those
Speaker 1: kind of less familiar names on the screen. Then you're right,
Speaker 1: we've reported Tom ju now has kind of moved away
Speaker 1: from China where he was really focused, to globally looking
Speaker 1: at manufacturing air Heart Interesting. You and I have reported
Speaker 1: a lot on the turnover of legal names in Tesla.
Speaker 1: You've covered Tesla for so long and you've done so
Speaker 1: many of these events. Why was this one different? What
Speaker 1: was the kind of standout feature of it. Well, this
Speaker 1: was I mean, it was a four hour of it,
Speaker 1: so it was quite quite the long saga. It reminded
Speaker 1: me a little bit of a Battery day point two
Speaker 1: point er in which they were giving a lot of
Speaker 1: very detailed, highly technical information about their thinking, but there
Speaker 1: wasn't a clear product announcement. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: retail investors and Wall Street frankly were disappointed. They wanted
Speaker 1: to see a concept of the car. They didn't want
Speaker 1: to see like a future car under a white sheet,
Speaker 1: which is what the slide showed. But we didn't get
Speaker 1: to hear from a lot of people. And I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, part of Tesla's talent is people, and it's
Speaker 1: rare that they showcase people. Part of our talents of
Speaker 1: people too. Here at Bloomberg. Bloomberg's done a whole terrific
Speaker 1: reporting and all things Tesla. Now, let's stay in the
Speaker 1: world of evs and actually autonomous vehicles. Amazon's Zooks division
Speaker 1: is facing a federal inquiry into the self certification of
Speaker 1: its passenger vehicle as meeting safety standards. NITZA says it's
Speaker 1: launching an inquiry for more information on the data and
Speaker 1: testing the company used to certify it's a vehicle that
Speaker 1: was equipped with automated driver assistant software. The government didn't
Speaker 1: cite any problems or violations in the announcement. Zooks's general
Speaker 1: counsel told me in a statement, this is a request
Speaker 1: to gain an additional level of detail and information on
Speaker 1: the self certification test Zooks performed, which have met or
Speaker 1: exceeded government requirements. We are committed to working closely with
Speaker 1: NITZA on the questions they have and we remain confident
Speaker 1: in our self certification process and data. Now another story
Speaker 1: we're watching, Goldman Sachs says it's time to buy Apple shares.
Speaker 1: Goldman is taking a bye out of the Apple well
Speaker 1: Apple Shares. The firm is recommending the stock as a
Speaker 1: buy for the first time in nearly six years. To
Speaker 1: see what I did there. Analyst Michael Earn has taken
Speaker 1: over coverage of the stock, and he says Apple's large
Speaker 1: user base is going to help the iphonemaker grow its
Speaker 1: services business and because of its leading design fostering brand loyalty,
Speaker 1: Goldman think that Apple is able to reduce the number
Speaker 1: of users leaving the Apple ecosystem and to keep them
Speaker 1: making repeat purchases. So back to the last time Goldman
Speaker 1: had the equivalent of a buy on Apple twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: the stock has rallied more than three hundred percent since then.
Speaker 1: Goldman's price target one hundred and ninety nine dollars implies
Speaker 1: more than thirty percent upside from the last close. That's
Speaker 1: way above the average target of one hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: nine sixty one cents. So Goldman's done sitting on the
Speaker 1: sidelines with Apple anyone else. An interesting piece we put
Speaker 1: out there in social media because the stock also got
Speaker 1: a bit of a bump just in the session alone
Speaker 1: from that Goldman call. As we said in the piece,
Speaker 1: up more than three hundred percent since the last time
Speaker 1: Goldman had the equivalent of a buy. So let's think
Speaker 1: with that Apple. Because Apple is gearing out to launch
Speaker 1: it's next slate of laptops, desktops and including that new
Speaker 1: iMac Blue by Mark gum In here with those details
Speaker 1: you're writing in your news lesson this morning about what's
Speaker 1: to come? What do we expect? Yeah, so new Max,
Speaker 1: new Max are coming soon. There's going to be a
Speaker 1: new fifteen Inchmacbook Air. This is going to be the
Speaker 1: first time that Apple has made a larger size MacBook Air.
Speaker 1: That's going to be appealing to people who want a
Speaker 1: bigger screen size but in a quite a bit cheaper
Speaker 1: and more portable package. There's people like me who have
Speaker 1: the biggest MacBook Pro you can get not because you
Speaker 1: want the performance, but because you want the screen real estate.
Speaker 1: So now you'll be able to get that in a
Speaker 1: lighter and cheaper package. Also, a new thirteen Inchmacbook Air
Speaker 1: coming in the next few months later this year, the
Speaker 1: first update to the iMac right in about two two
Speaker 1: and a half years that will have an M three chip,
Speaker 1: their next generation processor. And speaking of new Apple products,
Speaker 1: there's also something coming sooner than these new max imminent,
Speaker 1: I'm told is a new iPhone fourteen color, so look
Speaker 1: out for this week. It's interesting because you and I
Speaker 1: started the year kind of really focused on the upcoming
Speaker 1: AARVR headset, but you forget that the cadence of new
Speaker 1: products and releases is quite closely tracked. And you wrote
Speaker 1: in the newsletter the most frequent question I get ahead
Speaker 1: of my weekly column is something along the lines of
Speaker 1: when is a new iMac coming out? Why is everyone
Speaker 1: waiting specifically on a new iMac. Yeah. The iMac is
Speaker 1: really what started Apple over again under Steve Jobs in
Speaker 1: the late nineteen nineties, right, And this all in one
Speaker 1: machine that now has become essentially an iPad with the
Speaker 1: twenty four in screen on a stand. It's not their
Speaker 1: most popular Mac those go to the thirteen inch MacBook
Speaker 1: Pro a base model as well as the MacBook Air.
Speaker 1: But it's very well received in schools, like in computer
Speaker 1: labs and such. People like to put them in their
Speaker 1: living rooms, in kids rooms, people who work from home.
Speaker 1: It's been a really hot buy for work from home,
Speaker 1: remote work setups, hybrid work environments. And that machine, like
Speaker 1: I said, has not been updated since April twenty twenty one. Right.
Speaker 1: So Apple fans, you know, they all want to know
Speaker 1: when that new models coming out because they don't want
Speaker 1: to buy an M one iMac, which from a processor standpoint,
Speaker 1: has been outdated already for you six to nine months,
Speaker 1: if not longer. They want to know when the new
Speaker 1: ones coming out. And I'm told it's reached an advanced
Speaker 1: stage called EVT. They're now doing test production of the iMac.
Speaker 1: They're gearing up for mass production in about three months
Speaker 1: from now it's going to look similar, have basically all
Speaker 1: the same features as the current model, but that faster
Speaker 1: M three chip, which is really going to dial up
Speaker 1: the performance, which is what you want for a machine
Speaker 1: with the twenty four in screen for people doing video
Speaker 1: editing and such. Well, that's where I was going to go.
Speaker 1: Let's talk Silicon just really quickly. Which chips did the
Speaker 1: new jen I MacBooks have? The ones that did due
Speaker 1: out imminently, right, So the next chip for Apple is
Speaker 1: going to be that M three chip. I don't believe
Speaker 1: that's going to arrive until later in the year, with
Speaker 1: either that iMac or that update to the thirteen inch
Speaker 1: MacBook Air. That this fifteen inch MacBook Air is going
Speaker 1: to come a bit sooner than the M three chips availability,
Speaker 1: So that's likely to have a variation of the M
Speaker 1: two or the M two pro chip that's already available
Speaker 1: in sort of those base MacBook pros and the thirteen
Speaker 1: inch MacBook Air today. But the M three chip, whenever
Speaker 1: that does hip, that's going to be a pretty considerable
Speaker 1: upgrade for anyone coming from an M one. That's the
Speaker 1: first time Apple is going to move from a five
Speaker 1: nanimeter production technology to a three nanimeter production technology that's
Speaker 1: going to allow Apple to dial up the speed a
Speaker 1: bit on the CPU side. But also because of that
Speaker 1: new production process through TSMC, the efficiency and battery life
Speaker 1: is likely to improve as well. Thing begs Markham and
Speaker 1: thank you smile. You're remember to subscribe to Mark's weekly column.
Speaker 1: You're on a hundre million Americans on TikTok ninety minutes
Speaker 1: a day. Even you guys would like that kind of return.
Speaker 1: Ninety minutes a day. They are taking data from Americans,
Speaker 1: not keeping it safe. But what worries me more with
Speaker 1: TikTok is that this can be a propaganda tool to
Speaker 1: basically the kind of videos you see would promote ideological issues.
Speaker 1: If you look at what TikTok shows to the Chinese kids,
Speaker 1: which is all about science and engineering, versus when our
Speaker 1: kids see, there's a radical difference. That was Senator Mark Warner,
Speaker 1: who plans to introduce a bill this week to allow
Speaker 1: the US to systematically ban Chinese technology, including services like TikTok.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's ky lines out in DC with more, Kaylee, what
Speaker 1: do we know about this particular bill, Well, we know
Speaker 1: it has bipartisan support because the co sponsor of Democratic
Speaker 1: Senator Mark Warner's bill as Republican John Thune from South Dakota.
Speaker 1: So this in theory supported on both sides of the
Speaker 1: Aisle here at least by some members, and it gives
Speaker 1: the US the authority on national security concern grounds to
Speaker 1: ban or prohibit certain Chinese technology here in the US.
Speaker 1: And when he was asked on that Sunday program he
Speaker 1: was speaking on about that, he said, yes, that does
Speaker 1: include Byte Dances TikTok, as you saw in the clip there.
Speaker 1: He has two concerns here, one about the potential propaganda element,
Speaker 1: the other about data security because as we're all swirling
Speaker 1: on TikTok, our data is being collected, and the concern
Speaker 1: is that Byte Dance, being a Chinese company, then would
Speaker 1: have that data being shared with the Chinese government. Now
Speaker 1: it's important to note Byte Dance has said it operates independently,
Speaker 1: that its data is secured through an alliance with Oracle
Speaker 1: when it comes to US customers. But there's been a
Speaker 1: significant amount of pushback against that, including from FBI Director
Speaker 1: Chris Ray, who has said that China controls the algorithm
Speaker 1: and China can access the data. And so this is
Speaker 1: the concern here with yet another potential legislation being introduced
Speaker 1: to prohibit or restrict TikTok in some form, that does
Speaker 1: appear to be momentum behind this initiative. On this program,
Speaker 1: we've been talking about some form of legislation around not
Speaker 1: just TikTok but Chinese technology generally for some time. Why
Speaker 1: is this bill different? I suppose well. Senator Warner has
Speaker 1: said he intends to design this bill so it can
Speaker 1: resist any kind of legal challenges, because we have seen
Speaker 1: other proposals put forward that have run into some resistance,
Speaker 1: like Republican Josh Holly's. For example, the No TikTok on
Speaker 1: United States Devices Act, would put a total ban on
Speaker 1: TikTok here in the US, prohibit allowing the President to
Speaker 1: prohibit the use and download of it. There has been
Speaker 1: some criticism that that actually is a violation of First
Speaker 1: Amendment rights to free speech because you're restricting the content
Speaker 1: people could put out there. So there are some kind
Speaker 1: of legal questions here that make it difficult for a
Speaker 1: measure like this to get over the finish line. Will
Speaker 1: have to see ultimately if it does. I will say, though,
Speaker 1: what we're talking about here is an expansion of bands
Speaker 1: on TikTok from the public sector to the broader US public,
Speaker 1: because you already have in place Congress spanning TikTok from
Speaker 1: government devices last year, in the White House last month
Speaker 1: mandating federal agencies remove it from phones and systems. Kaylee.
Speaker 1: The other big headline out of DC from a kind
Speaker 1: of oversight perspective, is what President Biden is considering doing
Speaker 1: in terms of executive orders and restrictions on China. What
Speaker 1: do we know, Well, we know from Bloomberg reporting that
Speaker 1: this is in the works, and we are expecting that
Speaker 1: funding for this program we're talking about will be included
Speaker 1: in the President's budget on March ninth, so we could
Speaker 1: get full details on Thursday. But it's essentially restricting US
Speaker 1: investment in Chinese technology, specifically technology that advances intelligence and
Speaker 1: military capabilities of the Chinese government. So while we don't
Speaker 1: know what exactly technologies are being specified here, we should
Speaker 1: get more details in the coming days. We don't know
Speaker 1: it from the reporting at this point, but think things
Speaker 1: like semiconductors or artificial intelligence chat GPT like products, as
Speaker 1: well as quantum computing. All of that is expected to
Speaker 1: be included in the scope here. And what is noteworthy
Speaker 1: and important to me is that when in these conversations
Speaker 1: that Bloomberg had with those working on this policy for
Speaker 1: the administration, something that was raised was the idea that
Speaker 1: this isn't just about money. It is also about talent
Speaker 1: and expertise that US individuals can share with Chinese companies,
Speaker 1: and they want to put restrictions around that. So, as
Speaker 1: you say, this is about a broader competition element between
Speaker 1: the US and China, and it's a story we're going
Speaker 1: to have to continue to follow and expect to get
Speaker 1: details from the President on in the coming days. Bloomberg's
Speaker 1: Katie lines Mountain DC, thank you now from TikTok to Twitter.
Speaker 1: This morning, the app suffered its second outage in a week.
Speaker 1: In response, Elon must called the platform brittle. Bloomberg's cut
Speaker 1: Wagner is here, Resident social media reporter, all Things Social.
Speaker 1: It was one of those mornings where it just happens.
Speaker 1: It's Twitter down, people ask I did? I wrote hiku actually,
Speaker 1: because it's like, you know, when you go on Twitter
Speaker 1: and twitters down, everyone is on the platform asking is
Speaker 1: Twitter down? That was my tweet. Sad gloomy Monday, a
Speaker 1: busy Twitter breaking sigh, the outages. That was pretty good.
Speaker 1: But this is more than just a sort of regular outage, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you have a first of all, you have
Speaker 1: a future here if the TV thing doesn't work out,
Speaker 1: writing poet, right. But yeah, I mean, look, we've I've
Speaker 1: been on this show. We've talked about this. Everyone who's
Speaker 1: fallow Twitter knows that over the last couple of weeks
Speaker 1: and months, the staff at Twitter has been slashed, right,
Speaker 1: I mean we're talking well over fifty percent of employees
Speaker 1: that were just a few months ago are now gone.
Speaker 1: And so when you know, we see that happen, and
Speaker 1: when those a lot of those people are engineers or
Speaker 1: site reliability folks, suddenly you you know, see these outages
Speaker 1: happening with more frequency. This is something that a lot
Speaker 1: of people thought would happen when Elon first took over.
Speaker 1: It didn't right away. You may remember, everyone was like, hey, look,
Speaker 1: Twitter seems to be working fine. Well, it's starting to
Speaker 1: catch up to the company. We did kind of get
Speaker 1: a response from Elon must that went some way to
Speaker 1: explaining what caused the outage. I think we can bring
Speaker 1: the tweet back up. But the point is is they're
Speaker 1: trying to make fixes with a skeleton staff. A small
Speaker 1: API change had massive ramifications. According to Elon Musk, this
Speaker 1: is happening regularly though, I mean, what are they trying
Speaker 1: to do that's causing this? Yeah, well, I mean this
Speaker 1: is the thing, right, I mean, when you go from
Speaker 1: having dozens, if not hundreds of engineers working on something
Speaker 1: to a very small group. You know, even just one
Speaker 1: little change, one little bug, you have to detect it,
Speaker 1: you have to go and you have to fix it.
Speaker 1: You have to push that change everyone like it's you know,
Speaker 1: maybe only down for an hour, but it's the kind
Speaker 1: of thing that might have gotten caught or fixed even
Speaker 1: quicker had there been more bodies in the room, right,
Speaker 1: And so I think we're just seeing the kind of
Speaker 1: price of all these cost cuts starting to happen to
Speaker 1: the platform in terms of its reliability. Still a platform
Speaker 1: that people are using. And then they're talking this about
Speaker 1: on putting Westcote Wagner, Thank you very much. Thanks. Now,
Speaker 1: coming up, we'll bring you the latest in tech news
Speaker 1: from China. As President Jijing Ping is emphasizing the country's
Speaker 1: investment in the tech sector. That's all Next. This is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg time now for talking tech, and let's get over
Speaker 1: to China. Baofan co founder of China Renaissance and one
Speaker 1: of the tech industry's star bankers, has vanished his firmish
Speaker 1: due to statement that he is cooperating in an unspecified investigation.
Speaker 1: The banker's disappearance is sending shutters through China's corporate class
Speaker 1: in spite of some pushback and some encouraging words from
Speaker 1: state media. Meanwhile, President Jijingping is officially backing the tech sector.
Speaker 1: In his opening remarks at the National People's Congress, he
Speaker 1: said the country will take forceful measures to support the
Speaker 1: development of high end manufacturing and emphasize the country's need
Speaker 1: to ensure it's self reliance in technology and as part
Speaker 1: of that grand projects, China also plans to create a
Speaker 1: central agency to manage the flow of data within the
Speaker 1: country and abroad that according to The Wall Street Journal,
Speaker 1: citing sources, Beijing intends to set up a new National
Speaker 1: Data Bureau that will become the top overseer of data
Speaker 1: related issues to strengthen its control over the valuable data
Speaker 1: generated by swaths of the economy, including the internet industry.
Speaker 1: I'med Ludlow in San Francisco. This is Bloomberg Technology now
Speaker 1: the private company's space races taking shape after venture capital
Speaker 1: firms spent more than six billion dollars on space related
Speaker 1: tech last year. SpaceX continues to dominate the market for
Speaker 1: lawn jan is growing its own constellation of starlink satellites,
Speaker 1: but competition and customers are heating up between smaller players
Speaker 1: like Astuanis and Andresen Horrowist Backs light Stop, most recently
Speaker 1: valued at one point four billion dollars. Joining me now
Speaker 1: is just trying to ceo. John Gedmark, Let's go back
Speaker 1: to basics. Tell me about this company, because the reason
Speaker 1: on your show is that you have this big moment.
Speaker 1: A satellite is built and it's moving from just down
Speaker 1: the road from where we're sitting now to Florida. Why yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me here on the show. So at Astronauts,
Speaker 1: we built a new kind of satellite. So this is
Speaker 1: a microsatellite for higher orbits, starting with a special orbit
Speaker 1: called geostation orbit. So this is an orbit where we
Speaker 1: can put a satellite up into space and basically park
Speaker 1: it over a country, providing continuous service with just that
Speaker 1: one satellite. So that allows us to provide service at
Speaker 1: very low cost compared to other types of satellite applications
Speaker 1: and compared to certainly the old school satellites that have
Speaker 1: come before. So today is a big day first because
Speaker 1: we're launching our We just shipped our first satellite out
Speaker 1: the door. Is arriving at Cape Canaveral as we speak,
Speaker 1: and there it's going to be integrated onto a SpaceX
Speaker 1: rocket for its ride to space. We're just showing those
Speaker 1: pictures on the screen of it being loaded into the
Speaker 1: container back of a big reag and off it goes.
Speaker 1: How does it get to space? We're going to be
Speaker 1: riding as a ride share on a Falcon heavy rocket.
Speaker 1: So this is a big rocket. The zeri's eight set. Yes,
Speaker 1: SpaceX is looking at the week of April eighth, so
Speaker 1: we've got a launch window. We'll have a more definitive
Speaker 1: datas we get a little bit closer. Yeah, and in
Speaker 1: this instance, this is a satellite that will provide capability
Speaker 1: for a commercial customer, private sect customer rights. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: So we have a private customer in the US state
Speaker 1: of Alaska called Pacific Data Port. They're an internet service
Speaker 1: provider there. We specialize at astronos in providing trunking and
Speaker 1: back haul capacity, so more for enterprise customers and ISPs.
Speaker 1: And this will actually be the first time that the
Speaker 1: state of Alaska has had a satellite dedicated just for them.
Speaker 1: So the satellite is it's not trying to cover all
Speaker 1: of the US, it's not trying to cover all of
Speaker 1: North America. It's actually just dedicated for that area of
Speaker 1: Alaska and our customer there. And that's what we do
Speaker 1: at Astronots. We put up dedicated satellites for our customers
Speaker 1: and provide really brought really low cost broadband communications. John
Speaker 1: one point four billion dollar evaluation in your last round,
Speaker 1: and you have some big name back as they clearly
Speaker 1: see potential in your business. This is just one satellite.
Speaker 1: But is this revenue generating? Does this mark sort of
Speaker 1: a substantive step forward for the business side of what
Speaker 1: you're doing. Yeah. Absolutely, So this is a fantastic proofpoint
Speaker 1: for us. Obviously this is our first satellite. They'll be
Speaker 1: generating substantial revenue and recurring revenue on a on a
Speaker 1: services basis, which is what we do, like a subscribe.
Speaker 1: What is the model for you, I mean long term,
Speaker 1: how to make money based on the satellites that you're building. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we put up these satellites, we own and operate them,
Speaker 1: and we least capacity so gigabits a second on an
Speaker 1: ongoing lease spaces. So that's what we do for our customers.
Speaker 1: And we have projects like that in work all over
Speaker 1: the world US about what might be coming next, and
Speaker 1: we have actually five satellites launching this year. This is
Speaker 1: just the first one, and then we're spooling up our
Speaker 1: satellite factory here in San Francisco as we speak, to
Speaker 1: get to get to the point where we can build
Speaker 1: actually two satellites a month, which is a huge production
Speaker 1: scale for this type of satellite. I want to get
Speaker 1: into production. But first he talked about the kind of
Speaker 1: cadence of satellites you how you to deployed for the
Speaker 1: rest of the year. Are those SpaceX as well. We
Speaker 1: have procured a dedicated launch on a SpaceX Falcon nine
Speaker 1: for later this year for a four pack of satellites.
Speaker 1: That'll be a first for us. This first time we've
Speaker 1: gotten a whole dedicated rocket just for us, So that'll
Speaker 1: be four of our satellites flying together on that just
Speaker 1: us and nobody else. So first time we'll be moving
Speaker 1: away from a rideshare launch and then for future launches.
Speaker 1: I guess, I guess we'll see from there. Well, what
Speaker 1: was that experience, like, you know, doing business with space X.
Speaker 1: How far in advance did you have to commit to
Speaker 1: securing that file from nine launch classity? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: you typically buy these rockets pretty far in advance, a
Speaker 1: couple of years in vance. Although they've been very flexible
Speaker 1: with us, and I'd say, honestly, they've been a fantastic
Speaker 1: partners as this new piece of space infrastructure that's been
Speaker 1: opening up space for companies like ours and other applications
Speaker 1: all over the space ecosystem. How much did it cost
Speaker 1: you to secure that file in nine? Oh, I'm not
Speaker 1: I'm not going to go into pricing here, but SpaceX
Speaker 1: has I think, you know, all things being equal, the
Speaker 1: rockets are incredibly affordable. Certainly, you look at what has
Speaker 1: come before some of the old school rockets, you know,
Speaker 1: the Atlas and Delta rockets that came before SpaceX. They
Speaker 1: were unbelievably expensive on just a dollars per kilar basis.
Speaker 1: So we found SpaceX to be incredibly affordable and they've
Speaker 1: been a great partner for us. You know, so that's
Speaker 1: one part of your business servicing private sector customers. The
Speaker 1: other side is the public sector, right, and you have
Speaker 1: existing relationships with the DoD or the military. How important
Speaker 1: is that to you servicing what are basically public requirements
Speaker 1: for connectivity in satellite pacity. Yeah, it's it's an incredibly
Speaker 1: important mission. And you know, the world has changed, and
Speaker 1: just the last year we saw a huge change in
Speaker 1: the global dynamic and now we've realized just how important
Speaker 1: it is to be able to serve these national security needs.
Speaker 1: I mean, just to give you one example in the Ukraine,
Speaker 1: when the Russians invaded, one of the very first things
Speaker 1: they did, I think it was actually on day one
Speaker 1: of the invasion, is they launched a massive cyber attack
Speaker 1: against one of the very large geosatellites and they took
Speaker 1: out this satellite in one fill swoop that was providing
Speaker 1: broadband coms all over Ukraine. So you know, when something
Speaker 1: like that happened, I mean that that was a real
Speaker 1: turning point I think in our industry, and it made
Speaker 1: the point of just how urgent a lot of this
Speaker 1: was for us to get better space infrastructure up and
Speaker 1: in place. It sounds like there is demand for your
Speaker 1: satellite saying no, Obviously your restriction is how quickly you
Speaker 1: can build them and deploy them into orbit. Is there
Speaker 1: a need to raise more funds to kind of bridge
Speaker 1: that gap, either privately or going to public markets. Sure,
Speaker 1: I mean we're right now. We're heads down getting this
Speaker 1: first satellite up and getting that to be successful. Certainly
Speaker 1: there'll be plenty of room to have that conversation later
Speaker 1: this year, after we get that up in operating, there'll
Speaker 1: be a big moment for us. All right, string John Gedmark,
Speaker 1: good luck getting to orbit. Thank you for joining the program.
Speaker 1: Now coming up, A key tool of the crypto industry
Speaker 1: is suspended as the silver Gate fallout continues. We'll discuss
Speaker 1: all the next This is bloom bag. AI is real.
Speaker 1: This is not not cryptone, that's not crypton. This is
Speaker 1: a technology which is staggering and we're fully engaged. And
Speaker 1: the other thing you have to keep about AI you
Speaker 1: need to be in the cloud to use the compute
Speaker 1: power fundamentally that you need for AI, and so that's
Speaker 1: why the cloud digital AII all kind of related that way.
Speaker 1: Some of JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Diamond's thoughts on
Speaker 1: AI speaking to the other British head, Ed Hammond, now
Speaker 1: earning more about Microsoft's generative AI strategy to take on
Speaker 1: the likes of Oracle and Salesforce, Microsoft plans to build
Speaker 1: a copilot that can answer customer calls, summarize sales meetings,
Speaker 1: and build marketing pitches. Bloomberg's Rachel Mets is here to explain. Rachel,
Speaker 1: welcome now for the audience. This is Rachel's first day
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg, long time artificial intelligence reporter, and while it's
Speaker 1: new to all of us, it's not new to Rachel's.
Speaker 1: So let's start with the basics. What on earth is
Speaker 1: Microsoft talking about. It is wanting to use AI to
Speaker 1: help companies do a whole range of tasks that could
Speaker 1: be answering some customer service questions or using it for
Speaker 1: campaigns like email based campaigns. It's going to be releasing
Speaker 1: it in a preview version, and it sounds like quite
Speaker 1: a number of companies are trying it out, or we'll
Speaker 1: be trying it out. This is called Dynamics three six
Speaker 1: five copilot. I don't want to put you on the spot,
Speaker 1: but why do all of these tools have such ridiculous names?
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, I wish I knew. A lot of the
Speaker 1: time you hear a name for one of these and
Speaker 1: you're like, what does that even meaning? Like like Google's
Speaker 1: barred no offense, and or like Meta going with Lama,
Speaker 1: which is an acronym, But even so it raises a
Speaker 1: serious point that you know. For a few weeks now
Speaker 1: and even longer for you, we've had a lot of
Speaker 1: folks on the show interested in generative AI. What's striking
Speaker 1: is so many of them are quickly pointing to sort
Speaker 1: of the enterprise application rather than some of the sort
Speaker 1: of consumer facing chat GPT things. What are you hearing
Speaker 1: about why enterprise is such a key battleground for AI?
Speaker 1: I mean, I think if we look at technology over
Speaker 1: the years, enterprise is a great space because that's where
Speaker 1: money tends to be from the start, right if you
Speaker 1: want to popularize the technology. A lot of the time
Speaker 1: it is companies that are willing to make those initial investments,
Speaker 1: and that's where you're going to be getting recurring revenue
Speaker 1: as well, So it's probably a good place to start. Finally,
Speaker 1: what's on your radar? Day one at Bloomberg covering our
Speaker 1: special intelligence What are you kind of looking at at
Speaker 1: the moment. Oh gosh. I mean everybody is looking at
Speaker 1: chat GBT and chat barts in general right now. As
Speaker 1: we know, they're not brand new, but we're going to
Speaker 1: be seeing I think a lot more of that, and
Speaker 1: generative content in general. Images videos are slowly, maturely coming
Speaker 1: on the horizon, or should say quickly at this point,
Speaker 1: so it should be an interesting year for generated content.
Speaker 1: Day one done, check check check. You can follow Rachel
Speaker 1: at Rachel Mets on Twitter Bloombo's Rachel Mets, Thank you
Speaker 1: very much. Let's turn to crypto, which just lost a
Speaker 1: key piece of financial plumbing for moving money in the industry.
Speaker 1: Silvergate Capital's exchange network has been suspended. There's the crypto
Speaker 1: bank frankly struggles to survive. Here to explain why that matters.
Speaker 1: And again Bloombog Shinali Basset shares under pressure this Monday.
Speaker 1: What's going on? Listen? Shares are further under pressure. Nothing
Speaker 1: like we saw last week ed when that going concern
Speaker 1: warning was brought up, a regulatory filing. But what is
Speaker 1: happening now? You see banking partners, you see exchange partners,
Speaker 1: you see more of the industry having distanced themselves in
Speaker 1: recent days from Silvergate, the closure of the Silvergate exchange
Speaker 1: network here the halting of this. Listen, Silvergate itself used
Speaker 1: to bring in deposits this way. It was essentially a
Speaker 1: way for the industry to almost instantaneously send money denominated
Speaker 1: in US dollars and europe sorry euros through what was
Speaker 1: known as SEN. It was really an essential piece of
Speaker 1: plumbing in the crypto industry. It's not really shocking now
Speaker 1: to see this step back in such a drastic way
Speaker 1: because we are talking about Silvergate here, which is almost
Speaker 1: like a commercial bank. It's a consumer bank that has
Speaker 1: advances from the federal homeloan bank and who operates under
Speaker 1: the jurisdiction of any typical bank in the United States.
Speaker 1: Would It's just there are just dozens of headlines on
Speaker 1: the boom bag terminal, the pension silver Gate to start
Speaker 1: the week. How did the bank get into this mess? Listen. Remember,
Speaker 1: so SEN was handling like a couple hundred thousand worth
Speaker 1: of transfers in the last couple of years and things
Speaker 1: started to come under pressure. Last year. Remember they bought
Speaker 1: that kind of a stable coin business that Facebook was
Speaker 1: working on. They had to delay that as well. You
Speaker 1: saw Silvergate go from two hundred twenty two dollars under
Speaker 1: pressure for real. But then you saw FTX happen and
Speaker 1: FTX had say, less than ten percent of its deposit
Speaker 1: base at silver Gate, so it was as meaningful client,
Speaker 1: but less than ten percent of the total, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, problems started to exacerbate. The industry became
Speaker 1: more concerned, and then that deposit pulling happened at a
Speaker 1: faster rate after that November event from FTX. Bloomberg has
Speaker 1: also reported about the investigations that now Silvergate is under
Speaker 1: as well because of its relationship with sam Bank and Freed,
Speaker 1: so investigations underway as well as a financial problem here
Speaker 1: with deposits being reined in, and you have Silvergate fighting
Speaker 1: a two frong war here when it looks at how
Speaker 1: it maps out its path forward. I bring this point
Speaker 1: up again that I made to you last week, that
Speaker 1: we've been talking about silver Gates issues for weeks, months actually,
Speaker 1: and it continues to get worse and be a surprise.
Speaker 1: What is the caution retail? I thought, actually first time
Speaker 1: around a few weeks ago, it was a caution retail.
Speaker 1: What is it now? Listen, people have certainly had their
Speaker 1: eyes on silver Gates since the FTX debacle had blown up.
Speaker 1: But now you have the White House even saying that
Speaker 1: they're aware of the situation and looking at the situation,
Speaker 1: And it goes back to that point that I was
Speaker 1: making ed that this is a bank like any other bank.
Speaker 1: This is part of the traditional financial system that took
Speaker 1: a chance on the crypto industry and now has to
Speaker 1: sell assets very cheaply just to pay advances from the
Speaker 1: federal home loan bank system. So you are looking at
Speaker 1: this firm where regulators gave it a pass to enter
Speaker 1: the crypto industry, and through its own potential missteps as
Speaker 1: well as broader industry issues here, you have a lot
Speaker 1: of questions among regulators about whether they will allow this
Speaker 1: kind of thing again. So it's about confidence in the
Speaker 1: future from US banking regulators as well as silver Gate
Speaker 1: itself and the removal of critical infrastructure for the crypto
Speaker 1: industry that enables so much trading to happen. BLUEMOTIONALI basse
Speaker 1: just terrific reporting constantly on top of this story. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Grinder reporting is fourth quarter earnings rising revenue year over year.
Speaker 1: They're adjusted a bit, dat fell by about four million dollars.
Speaker 1: Some of the other headlines top line growth of forty
Speaker 1: one in twenty twenty two. It's forecasting top line growth
Speaker 1: twenty five percent or greater in twenty twenty three. Let's
Speaker 1: bring in the CEO, George Harrison for more. You see
Speaker 1: there the stockdown almost eight percent. George, your was just wrapped.
Speaker 1: Is there something that the street's getting wrong? Well, I
Speaker 1: don't really pay much attention to what the stock does
Speaker 1: on in any given day. That's not where we should focus.
Speaker 1: We're in here for the long Hauld building I really
Speaker 1: awesome company for our users to use and creating a
Speaker 1: lot of shareholder value core stockholders over the long term.
Speaker 1: And I think the company had a really amazing year
Speaker 1: last year, you know from financials and or engagement metrics,
Speaker 1: when we had one hundred and eleven billion chat in
Speaker 1: one year, it's really incredible, and I think we're set
Speaker 1: up for a relief hypacit year this year. I've continued
Speaker 1: to really drive a lot of growth in the business
Speaker 1: with very strongly but the for the year one of
Speaker 1: the best in classy bit of frankly, and I continue
Speaker 1: to really focus on building a really great product. You talk,
Speaker 1: it's a lot on the earning score, and at least
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the earning score about your international users,
Speaker 1: and I'm really interested in that. How big is the
Speaker 1: opportunity for you globally and in maybe some markets that
Speaker 1: we discuss less here on blom Bow Technology. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: Grinder is a very pat of product. Obviously, we are
Speaker 1: very big in the United States and in some of
Speaker 1: the developing developed world, like in Europe, but we also
Speaker 1: have a lot of users all over the world, in
Speaker 1: one hundred and ninety countries around the world, and a
Speaker 1: lot of these countries society is changing the same way
Speaker 1: that being LGBTQ today in the US is a lot
Speaker 1: more acceptant than as say, twenty years ago. Parts of
Speaker 1: the world are now going to that same change today,
Speaker 1: and that's going to be a huge secular tale Grinder
Speaker 1: as we scale in the future, because there are countries
Speaker 1: now that are on the vergion, for example Magic Quality.
Speaker 1: After that Grinder will be a bigger presence in those
Speaker 1: countries inevitably, and so that's something that we're very much
Speaker 1: excited about to take advantage of. And Grind has always
Speaker 1: been a kind of important connective tissue or gay by
Speaker 1: and trans users, and it will continue to be in
Speaker 1: a lot of these countries in the years to come.
Speaker 1: A big theme for the industry in recent months has
Speaker 1: been the premium tier of subscription. Many of the platform
Speaker 1: forms experimenting with pretty high prices, right I know that
Speaker 1: you also talk about premium the removal of ads as
Speaker 1: an example, But how big a strategy is that for you?
Speaker 1: Is there demand for kind of a higher end product
Speaker 1: right now? So for us, I think it's both lower
Speaker 1: end and higher Because grinders historically had two price points
Speaker 1: and nineteen nine nine price point and thirty ninety nine
Speaker 1: price point. The nineteen nine nine price point is probably
Speaker 1: a little bit too high for a set of our users,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't make sense to have that be the
Speaker 1: entry point. So offering something on the lower end as
Speaker 1: the entry point, maybe with less adds than a couple
Speaker 1: of additional feature to some people really want us to do.
Speaker 1: We hear that from users directly, we hear it in
Speaker 1: our research, and then on the higher end there's definitely
Speaker 1: an opportunity. I think the reality is that finding the
Speaker 1: long term mate if you're gay or your buy is
Speaker 1: a lot harder than the US face persons and So
Speaker 1: there's a lot of really awesome mL based matching that
Speaker 1: we can do across the world or in the United
Speaker 1: States country as you're in, that is not available to
Speaker 1: you today, and I think people will be more willing
Speaker 1: to pay a higher price for that. So I would
Speaker 1: not be surprised if we do something on the lower
Speaker 1: end and we also do something on the higher end.
Speaker 1: What's so interesting about Grinder, George, is the LGBTQ database essentially, right,
Speaker 1: if you think about your users globally, I know you
Speaker 1: talked about artificial intelligence and machine learning on the call.
Speaker 1: How well positioned do you think you are to leverage
Speaker 1: those tools to boost the top and bottom line? But
Speaker 1: we have incredible data about our users, right. Like I
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, there are one hundred and eleven billion chat
Speaker 1: messages sent and Grinder last year. That's an incredible database
Speaker 1: of user behavior and what they want. We haven't really
Speaker 1: built anything to take advantage of all the information yet,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of really great mL, machine learning
Speaker 1: and artificial intensure they can deploy, whether it's for generative
Speaker 1: purposes to help users compose the right messages or from
Speaker 1: matching perspective, matching people better and helping them find the
Speaker 1: right relationships, or from the customer service perspective, managing the
Speaker 1: product to have less spam and less you know, not
Speaker 1: real profiles through mL. These are all huge opportunities and
Speaker 1: something that will be investing resources into in the quarters
Speaker 1: to come. George, real quick, have you spoken to open
Speaker 1: AI as an example? You know, people are trying to
Speaker 1: find tools for them and get moving on this. Who
Speaker 1: are you talking to We've not spoken to them. I mean,
Speaker 1: we're going to try to build as much as we
Speaker 1: can on our own, but there's some really awesome companies
Speaker 1: out there doing really cool things in AI and suddenly
Speaker 1: partnering with them as a possibility for us, But long term,
Speaker 1: we'd want to own all the AI we do ourselves
Speaker 1: because that's a proprietary people grinder. We're also super conscious
Speaker 1: about our users data. We have a lot of users,
Speaker 1: why they discrete and we need to get private with
Speaker 1: their information, and so we generally tend to do more
Speaker 1: things internally and then externally. Grinders CEO George Arrison, straight
Speaker 1: off the call, thank you so much for your Thank
Speaker 1: you very much. Great. So that does it for this
Speaker 1: edition of Bloomberg Technology. Don't forget check out the podcast,
Speaker 1: so much to recap from this show alone. You can
Speaker 1: find it wherever you get your podcasts, on the terminal,
Speaker 1: on Apple, Spotify, an i heeart. We're only one day
Speaker 1: into the week and already headlines across the world of
Speaker 1: AI apple markets, and so much more to come this week.
Speaker 1: Stay tuned into Bloomberg Technology. This is Bloomberg