Speaker 1: From Mahart where Innovation of Money and Power Collie in
Speaker 1: Silicon Vallet NBN.
Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlove.
Speaker 3: I'm Caroline Heindel Bloomberg's World headquarters in New York, and
Speaker 3: I'm Ed Ludlow in San Francisco.
Speaker 4: This is Bloomberg Technology coming out.
Speaker 3: We'll bring you the latest on the Israel Hamas conflict
Speaker 3: and explore the role of intelligence and cybersecurity amid the war.
Speaker 4: Plus we'll discuss the role social media plays in misinformation,
Speaker 4: is Elon Musk's ex faces backlash over changes to its
Speaker 4: content safety policies.
Speaker 3: And we'll return to the trial of Sam magmun Fried
Speaker 3: as it enters its second week, with a key witness
Speaker 3: taking a stand Israel Hamas the war fighting enters a
Speaker 3: fourth day. Joining us for the latest an updated bloom exactly, Alstein,
Speaker 3: and you're in Tel Aviv at the moment.
Speaker 5: Just bring us up to speed with what you're anticipating.
Speaker 6: Yes, so, I think, actually, good evening. I think actually
Speaker 6: the most interesting development that we're going to be seeing today,
Speaker 6: and this is not a short thing yet, will be
Speaker 6: that Israel is actually looking at a new government we've
Speaker 6: we've been getting messages this afternoon that Israel's ruling coalition
Speaker 6: said that it wants to form a rare emergency government
Speaker 6: with the opposition following Saturday's attacks by Hamas, and they're
Speaker 6: now finalizing the final details. So, you know, we cannot
Speaker 6: say that this is surely going to happen, but it
Speaker 6: does look like this is going to happen. And in essence,
Speaker 6: what this means is that the entire operation in Gaza
Speaker 6: that we're looking at and that Israeli officials are saying
Speaker 6: will be taking a long time, maybe several weeks or
Speaker 6: more than that ahead. Then that will be run by
Speaker 6: a very narrow small war cabinet that will be comprised
Speaker 6: of Prime Minister of Benjamin Kaniao's party and opposition leaders
Speaker 6: Benny Gunn's party, with the other parties that are parties
Speaker 6: that are were nationalists more far right out of the
Speaker 6: picture only for that only for the war operation, and
Speaker 6: then after the war we'll see what happens politically. But
Speaker 6: that's the most significant development that we're looking at today.
Speaker 4: Gali, you and your colleagues in our bureau, and actually
Speaker 4: on this program, we talked to some of those that
Speaker 4: have been part of the mobilization effort, three hundred thousand reservists,
Speaker 4: many of them technology industry workers. What is the latest
Speaker 4: sort of military response and action on the ground in Israel.
Speaker 6: Yes, yes, so that is an interesting question. And today
Speaker 6: we've been actually hearing a lot of Idea for officials
Speaker 6: speak to us about the focus now being aerial attacks
Speaker 6: on Gaza, and the chief Idea of spokesperson tells some
Speaker 6: this morning that the attacks that have been taking place,
Speaker 6: especially last night but throughout the last thirty six hours
Speaker 6: or so have been unprecedented, precedented in the terms that
Speaker 6: there are very fierce. What the air force now is
Speaker 6: doing is Gaza that they're striking in rounds that are
Speaker 6: taking place every every four hours. They're just going back
Speaker 6: and forth. They're striking thousands of targets over there. They
Speaker 6: have also reported that they have managed them to kill
Speaker 6: from with these aerial attacks to senior figures in Hamans
Speaker 6: this afternoon. So that's what the focus is on now.
Speaker 6: And they're also describing that they've sort of built a
Speaker 6: steel wall, that's what they call it, along the Gaza
Speaker 6: fence in order to stop any more possible infiltrations. So
Speaker 6: they've actually placed a lot of tanks over there on
Speaker 6: some aerial vehicles that are shooting down at anyone. And
Speaker 6: that's what they stress anyone who's trying to shoot across
Speaker 6: the fence, no matter who they are, And that's main
Speaker 6: focal point of what the Israeli are force is doing. Now,
Speaker 6: just in oneer sentence, I will tell you that obviously
Speaker 6: they are preparing for a much larger ground operation, and
Speaker 6: they're doing that by mobilizing a lot of soldiers and
Speaker 6: reserve forces towards the southern border and the northern border
Speaker 6: as well.
Speaker 4: Bloomberg's Galley Olstein one of many colleagues in Israel and
Speaker 4: the Middle East, Caro who are doing minute by minute
Speaker 4: reporting of what's happening. We're very grateful to have you
Speaker 4: here on Bloomberg Technology. Let's turn to the intelligence side
Speaker 4: of this conversation. How did Hamas get around one of
Speaker 4: the most sophisticated surveillance states to stage its attack against Israel?
Speaker 4: Joining US now is Kissed and Todd, the former chief
Speaker 4: of staff for the Cybersecurity in Infrastructure Infrastructure Security Agency SISA.
Speaker 4: There's the hard war, hard tech component, and then there's
Speaker 4: the soft power soft tech component. What have you learned
Speaker 4: about hamas is cyberactivity in what has been forty eight
Speaker 4: hours already since the attack.
Speaker 7: Well, first of all, thanks so much, Ed. It's incredibly
Speaker 7: early in this crisis. We're seeing just the increased escalation
Speaker 7: over the last few days. We're now seeing deaths, over
Speaker 7: a thousand, potentially over sixteen hundred hostages being taken, and
Speaker 7: the concern that there's going to be a second front,
Speaker 7: certainly on the northern side with Hesbela. What American intelligence
Speaker 7: officials need to be asking right now, they are asking
Speaker 7: is what direct role, if any, did Iran have in
Speaker 7: the supplying, the preparation, the encouraging of this attack. We
Speaker 7: know that Iran views its alliance with Hamas as a
Speaker 7: point of leverage as it's looking to destabilize and derail
Speaker 7: the engagements with Israel and Saudi Arabia, and so certainly
Speaker 7: civilian casualties on both side both sides would obstruct any
Speaker 7: attempt toward a type of agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Speaker 5: So the tools available to all.
Speaker 7: Sides are not just kinetic. It's not just the fierce
Speaker 7: fighting that Gleat just talked about. There are cyber weapons
Speaker 7: and cyber tools which we know everybody has access to.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about those cyber weapons cyber tools already being deployed.
Speaker 3: You say, it's very early days in the crisis. Already
Speaker 3: we've seen cyber attacks being aimed at both sides. Can
Speaker 3: you tell us sort of what these look like in
Speaker 3: the early iterations and whether they're going to be ram
Speaker 3: top as days go forward.
Speaker 7: It's hard to know where they will escalate to, but
Speaker 7: certainly right now we're seeing unofficial reports of DDoS attacks,
Speaker 7: the use of malware, defacement of websites we saw back
Speaker 7: in twenty eleven twenty twelve that are on use DDoS
Speaker 7: attacks against the United States financial sector. The capabilities of
Speaker 7: all nation states in cyber are enough. They're not necessarily
Speaker 7: as sophisticated as Russia or China, but we know that
Speaker 7: the capabilities exist, and that if there is a war
Speaker 7: that is going to access all tools that cyber could
Speaker 7: be used in lieu of kinetic weapons, but more likely
Speaker 7: in conjunction with kinetic weapons.
Speaker 3: I mean interested in real Joyce Director Cybercurity over than
Speaker 3: National Security Agency. He's saying, thus far, cyber component hasn't
Speaker 3: been that significant and it has been more of these
Speaker 3: denial of service elements, but they could ramp up.
Speaker 5: I'm interested as to how difficult it is to pass through.
Speaker 3: Who are activists, where are they coming from, and what
Speaker 3: really the end goal is here.
Speaker 7: Well, it's a great question because what we're looking at
Speaker 7: right now really is how can we be resilient? Rob
Speaker 7: is absolutely right. I mean, what we're seeing, we're not
Speaker 7: seeing any targeted attacks at this point, but what we
Speaker 7: want to be really aware of is how can we prepare,
Speaker 7: how can we be resilient against what could come. When
Speaker 7: we saw the imminence of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, SISA
Speaker 7: put out a shields Up advisory to critical infrastructure companies
Speaker 7: to say, heighten your awareness, heighten your vigilance, lower the
Speaker 7: threshold for reporting.
Speaker 4: What we're talking about.
Speaker 7: Now isn't necessarily what we know to becoming, but the
Speaker 7: importance of being prepared, being resilient, and being vigilant as
Speaker 7: we create a more resilient infrastructure for the United States.
Speaker 4: Kristin, you're talking about preparedness. Yesterday, Professor Chuck Freilich of Columbia,
Speaker 4: former Deputy National Security advisor in Israel, said that this
Speaker 4: wasn't a lack of intelligence. It was a lack of
Speaker 4: imagination that the security and intelligence forces just didn't think
Speaker 4: that something of that scale could happen because they could
Speaker 4: imagine it. Put that in the cyber context for us,
Speaker 4: you seem to be suggesting that a lot of that
Speaker 4: competence and know how would come from the Iran side
Speaker 4: or a third party actor, not necessarily Hamas itself.
Speaker 5: It's hard to know.
Speaker 7: Certainly Iran has these capabilities, and as I said, we've
Speaker 7: seen Iran use cyber capabilities. I think your point about
Speaker 7: failure of imagination is obviously.
Speaker 4: Not my points.
Speaker 7: Yeah, brings us, unfortunately back to nine to eleven. In
Speaker 7: what we look at as human nature, we often prepare
Speaker 7: for that which we know we can respond to. Our
Speaker 7: challenge is the ability to prepare for that which is
Speaker 7: more frightening, more devastating, more destructive. And so when we're preparing,
Speaker 7: we have to be thinking about how can cyber player
Speaker 7: role in this and what do we need to be
Speaker 7: doing again to prevent, to prepare, and importantly to be resilient.
Speaker 4: You were with SISA through July of this year. I
Speaker 4: want to ask you about Palenteer and the private public
Speaker 4: relationship that there have been loads of questions posed about
Speaker 4: Palenteer over the weekend. Do you have any experience you
Speaker 4: can draw on or opinion on the role that the
Speaker 4: private sector could play in the intelligence and cyberspace data
Speaker 4: related going forward.
Speaker 7: One of the things that I was so pleased with
Speaker 7: and proud to be a part of a SISA and
Speaker 7: with the federal government is the improved relationship between industry
Speaker 7: and government in threat intelligence, in the ability to share information.
Speaker 7: The solar winds attack that happened back in twenty twenty
Speaker 7: was identified by the company FireEye, and the ability then
Speaker 7: for the private sector to share information with government, for
Speaker 7: government to do the same in real time, so that
Speaker 7: we can create not a complete thread intelligence picture, but
Speaker 7: certainly a more comprehensive one so that coming together industry
Speaker 7: and government can respond. We know that one entity can't
Speaker 7: respond and retaliate on its own, respond and react that
Speaker 7: we've got to be able to work together.
Speaker 3: So great to get your sister experience and of course
Speaker 3: now a CEO of Liberty Group Ventures Kist and Todd,
Speaker 3: thank you for your time today. I meanwhile, coming up,
Speaker 3: we're going to be turning back to the markets. Look
Speaker 3: at just how these geopolitical moments are impacting all the
Speaker 3: investment space.
Speaker 5: At last, do stick with us.
Speaker 2: This is blombog technology.
Speaker 3: Now amid the current heightened geopolitical tensions central banks, they
Speaker 3: seem to be the catalyst for today's treating action at
Speaker 3: least joining us now to break down the short term
Speaker 3: the long term in terms of your technology to Hillary
Speaker 3: Fresh with a very police are welcome for senior research
Speaker 3: analystic technology software at Clearbridge.
Speaker 5: Hillary, give us your sort of bird's.
Speaker 3: Eye perspective right now when we are in the throes
Speaker 3: of major reactions. When we do see selloffs become something
Speaker 3: that is the immediate response to a geopolitical threat and concern,
Speaker 3: is that the right way to be thinking about your
Speaker 3: technology investments right now.
Speaker 8: It's a very good question. Thanks for having me, Carolina
Speaker 8: and Ed. It's good to be here. It's you know,
Speaker 8: what's interesting is we haven't seen that user excel off
Speaker 8: this time so far. I think the market is interpreting
Speaker 8: a relatively isolated circumstance. We'll see if that proves to
Speaker 8: be the case. At Clearbridge, we tend to be long
Speaker 8: term investors. We take a long term horizon and we
Speaker 8: like to use periods of weakness to add to key
Speaker 8: portfolio positions in technology specifically, well, I don't see Q
Speaker 8: three in particular as any kind of barnburner quarter or
Speaker 8: major catalyst either way from the sector. I do see
Speaker 8: a period between now and mid late next year when
Speaker 8: we should actually see technologies start to decouple in terms
Speaker 8: of growth from the broader economy. That's partly due to
Speaker 8: AI and a variety of other factors. But I do
Speaker 8: see technology as a place where investors will want to
Speaker 8: continue to invest and.
Speaker 3: Which particular drivers, which forces have changed do you focus
Speaker 3: in on When you think of an Nvidia which has
Speaker 3: had parabolic growth in terms of its overall market valuation
Speaker 3: based on an AI fundamental viewpoint, but it also is
Speaker 3: exposed to geopolitical tensions when it comes to China US,
Speaker 3: when it has to maybe even some exposure in terms
Speaker 3: of supply chain with Israel. How do you dissect what
Speaker 3: really ultimately means to be a long term view?
Speaker 8: Sure, well, in video side, because there are certain factors
Speaker 8: driving their results versus others. Most tech companies have exposure
Speaker 8: somewhere in the exposure in Israel. In such places and
Speaker 8: the long term of political situation is a dynamic one,
Speaker 8: but I don't see associated disruption as the primary concern.
Speaker 8: As we've seen from the markets, the primary concern has
Speaker 8: been the rising dollar and interest rates. They've had a
Speaker 8: better quarter than anyone else out there, and that puts
Speaker 8: near term pressure on translated revenues and earnings and also
Speaker 8: on valuations. But to the extent that these types of
Speaker 8: conflicts don't grow out of control, they tend to present
Speaker 8: opportunities to invest in long term trends. It's interesting because
Speaker 8: yesterday we saw security companies rallying. I think they're rallying
Speaker 8: again today. And security companies are some of the ones
Speaker 8: with the largest exposure to Israel. Some of them are
Speaker 8: based in Israel, or we're based in Israel and have
Speaker 8: dual headquarters. But in periods of rising to a political tension,
Speaker 8: there tends to be heightened adoption of security security solutions.
Speaker 8: So it's a push and pull between what that disruption
Speaker 8: looks like and what the outcome looks like in terms
Speaker 8: of increased revenues. And we live in a remote world.
Speaker 8: Technology pioneered remote work. They were doing it long before
Speaker 8: we were as a broader economy. With the pandemic so
Speaker 8: we've seen circumstances where companies can adapt fairly quickly, but
Speaker 8: it is a real they're deploying a lot of folks
Speaker 8: that are deploying a lot of reservists of working and age,
Speaker 8: so there could be some disruptions along the way.
Speaker 4: Hillary had ed in San Francisco. Do you like charts?
Speaker 4: You strike me as somebody that's a chart watcher that
Speaker 4: likes charts. I wonder what makes you say that?
Speaker 8: But I don't just like charts.
Speaker 4: Okay, let's bring up one chart. I want you to
Speaker 4: explain something to me. NASDAK one hundred against the S
Speaker 4: and P five hundred Software Index. Here today, the S
Speaker 4: and P five hundred Software Index is a very limited basket,
Speaker 4: but it has kind of enterprise SaaS Cyber and then
Speaker 4: Microsoft's in there as well. They're basically up the same
Speaker 4: amount year to date. What is it then that's driving
Speaker 4: those software names higher multiple or otherwise right now? If
Speaker 4: it isn't fed, if it isn't geopolitical risk, what is
Speaker 4: your outlook based on?
Speaker 8: Investors like to focus on higher technology multiples as though
Speaker 8: growth were equivalent between tech and the broader economy. But
Speaker 8: growth is not equivalent between tech and the broader economy.
Speaker 8: Technology is where nearly all of the growth has been
Speaker 8: coming from. So in this recent period where we had
Speaker 8: rising dollar and rising interest rates, tech actually outperformed the
Speaker 8: broader economy in SMP. With AI and the precursor investments
Speaker 8: to AI and a normalization of spending, an environment in
Speaker 8: tech which I believe has been in recession, a very
Speaker 8: mild recession over the course of better part of last year.
Speaker 8: That looks poised to be the case even more so
Speaker 8: going forward. Tech valuations with software as a proxy for
Speaker 8: enterprise tech are just at their five year pre pandemic average.
Speaker 8: They're just a hair above their tenure pre pandemic average,
Speaker 8: meaning excluding the pandemic period where evaluations really elevated. I
Speaker 8: think that's a decent backdrop for tech into twenty four.
Speaker 8: Were in second half, I expect AI to be much
Speaker 8: more of a catalyst. We could talk about that more
Speaker 8: if you.
Speaker 4: Like, Well, I think we're out of time. Unfortunately, Hilary
Speaker 4: Fish of Clearbridge, and that was a loaded question. I
Speaker 4: know you like charts. Who doesn't like charts exactly? But
Speaker 4: it is good to have you back on the program,
Speaker 4: will have you back very soon. It is time for
Speaker 4: Talking Tech and first off Ubersoft fell the most since May,
Speaker 4: after the French video game maker delayed the release of
Speaker 4: its new free to play game X Defiant, originally scheduled
Speaker 4: this summer. The company cited quote inconsistencies in the game
Speaker 4: experience as the cause of the delay, and worldwide personal
Speaker 4: computer shipments declined nine percent in the third quarter, hitting
Speaker 4: what Gartner analysts expected will be the low point in
Speaker 4: a two year market slump. Apple had the steepest drop
Speaker 4: among the major PC makers, with shipments falling twenty four
Speaker 4: percent from the same quarter a year earlier. Plus, the
Speaker 4: stock of China's biggest food delivery platform, Maitwe has almost
Speaker 4: halved since a peak in January, with global active fund
Speaker 4: managers offloading three point seven billion dollars of the company
Speaker 4: shares this year. This makes it the most sold Chinese
Speaker 4: tech firm during that period, according to Morgan Stanley Caroline.
Speaker 2: Great set of stories ed.
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, let's get up to speed of what's happening just
Speaker 3: over in another part of New York right now, someonemn
Speaker 3: Fried's trial. We want to get to be a MOTIONALI
Speaker 3: Bassack outside the US District Courthouse.
Speaker 5: In downtown Manhattan and Shanali. There's a pretty key witness
Speaker 5: that everyone's waiting for.
Speaker 9: With Beta breath, there are very many key witnesses hitting
Speaker 9: the stand right now. We were waiting on Caroline Allison
Speaker 9: to take the stand. Of course, she is the pivotal witness,
Speaker 9: both for the prosecution as well as the defense. We
Speaker 9: know that there may be some key evidence that also
Speaker 9: comes to light in the sake of this trial in
Speaker 9: the middle of her testimony. For example, diary entries that
Speaker 9: have been largely talked about the last couple of months
Speaker 9: leaked earlier to The New York Times. This idea here
Speaker 9: that she had a lot of discomfort in running Alameda,
Speaker 9: her own abilities to take a leadership role there, and
Speaker 9: conflicts with Sam himself. We know that Caroline and Sam
Speaker 9: had been on and on on and on again, off
Speaker 9: again dating. Remember she was his girlfriend, so knew a
Speaker 9: lot of the intimate workings of Sam at Alameda and
Speaker 9: in his personal life. Right now, the testimony of Gary Wan,
Speaker 9: who is also an FTX co founder, is also wrapping up,
Speaker 9: getting a lot of very interesting details about what happened
Speaker 9: in those dire days of November when FTX was about
Speaker 9: to fall, and then also even earlier when he was
Speaker 9: required to write the code that ultimately led to the
Speaker 9: back door that Alameda had used to take money out
Speaker 9: of FTX. You're also hearing about how he came to
Speaker 9: the agreement with prosecutors as well to which he had
Speaker 9: pled guilty and agreed to cooperate in this trial. So
Speaker 9: that is wrapping up inside as we speak. And to
Speaker 9: your point, Caroline Allison will take the stand just this.
Speaker 4: Afternoon, Shnalali, give me some of the drama and color
Speaker 4: of the core room I've stood where you're standing weeks
Speaker 4: and weeks in a trial like this. This is Caroline
Speaker 4: Ellison's first public appearance and it's important for prosecutors, right
Speaker 4: this is a big moment for them.
Speaker 9: This is the biggest moment. She is such a critical
Speaker 9: part of this trial. Remember, prosecutors themselves say only a
Speaker 9: very small number of people really knew what was going
Speaker 9: on inside of FTX and Alameda and the extent to
Speaker 9: which this alleged fraud was carried out. Now, remember when
Speaker 9: you think about Caroline and her role at Alameda, she
Speaker 9: was the CEO of the hedge fund in question here
Speaker 9: that has said to have been taking money out of
Speaker 9: FTX in two different ways, through the wallets and through
Speaker 9: FIAT itself. Now, remember you were talking about the star
Speaker 9: studed trial. Here Caroline speaking for the first time such
Speaker 9: a critical part of the defense.
Speaker 5: This is the second week.
Speaker 9: Of what will be a six while to which many
Speaker 9: many journalists from early in the morning seven am, many
Speaker 9: spectators have been outside waiting around the courthouse here. Now
Speaker 9: they're all inside, so you don't see them as we
Speaker 9: stand out here now, But yes, it has certainly been
Speaker 9: very highly watched. There has been a lot of commotion
Speaker 9: outside the courthouse itself, and there will be many more
Speaker 9: people coming to try throughout a couple of weeks, including
Speaker 9: Anthony Scaramucci, whose Skybridge had taken money from FGX in
Speaker 9: the form of a thirty percent stake.
Speaker 3: Well battled the traffic noise, Shannani stood out there for
Speaker 3: hour after hour.
Speaker 5: We really appreciate it.
Speaker 4: Welcome back to Bloomberg Technology, Ed Loblow here in San Francisco.
Speaker 4: One of the top stories that we're tracking on Bloomberg
Speaker 4: and Bloomberg Technology is X, the company and platform formerly
Speaker 4: known as Twitter, facing criticism over changes made to its
Speaker 4: content safety policies that have led to confusion misinformation around
Speaker 4: the conflict between Israel and hamas X has responded to
Speaker 4: our reporting saying this is the first crisis as X,
Speaker 4: and this means we're all eyes, hands, hearts on across
Speaker 4: all divisions and have put into place our crisis protocol,
Speaker 4: all teams, policy, product operations, escalation, and much more. I
Speaker 4: want to bring in Bloomberg's Asha counts. What we're talking
Speaker 4: about here is largely video content circulating on X and
Speaker 4: other platforms that purports to be one thing, but based
Speaker 4: on the research groups we spoke to and community notes,
Speaker 4: users flagging it is actually something completely different.
Speaker 10: Yeah, it's a huge problem, right, So as you just
Speaker 10: mentioned that excess response. The challenges is that some of
Speaker 10: these posts, videos and images have received millions of views.
Speaker 4: They've ended up.
Speaker 10: On TikTok and Facebook Q and on forums for o
Speaker 10: white websites, and it's not verified. And researchers have found
Speaker 10: time and time again posts are showing videos of conflicts
Speaker 10: that are from video games, are from other conflicts that
Speaker 10: are not this conflict. Big statements from the White House.
Speaker 10: I mean, it's a huge problem, and researchers are saying
Speaker 10: this is something that they haven't seen.
Speaker 5: It's unprecedented to the point that it's unprecedented.
Speaker 3: Is this suddenly well more significant use of artificial intelligence
Speaker 3: by those that are putting some of the disinformation out there?
Speaker 3: Is it a lack of well technology as a way
Speaker 3: to fight back at some of this misinformation target What
Speaker 3: are we seeing not only at X but across the board,
Speaker 3: whether it be TikTok, whether it be Facebook.
Speaker 10: I think it's a couple of things. It surely could
Speaker 10: be partially from AI. I think with X specifically, it's
Speaker 10: about the changes that Musk has made since he took
Speaker 10: off the platform. So the misinformation policy was rolled back.
Speaker 10: So the policy now is that things can stay up.
Speaker 10: Maybe the visibility is limited, but again, as we've seen,
Speaker 10: it hasn't really been that limited. If millions of people
Speaker 10: are viewing some of these posts. They've cut a lot
Speaker 10: of people on their content safety teams and electro and
Speaker 10: integrity people that are normally responsible for trying to see
Speaker 10: information on the site. They've made it harder for researchers
Speaker 10: to access data on the site.
Speaker 5: So it's all of those.
Speaker 10: Factors together that have made it really difficult. And then
Speaker 10: not even to mention the verification process and able to
Speaker 10: just buy a blue check mark, So it's hard to
Speaker 10: tell who was a trusted voice in.
Speaker 4: Some of these issues. Just not date for our audience.
Speaker 4: Linda Yakarino, who is the CEO of X, was due
Speaker 4: to speak at a WT Wall Street Journal event this
Speaker 4: week and has canceled it, I'm told so she can
Speaker 4: specifically be on hand to deal with this crisis. You
Speaker 4: mentioned verification just quickly. This isn't unique to X, but
Speaker 4: what we're seeing is verified users share across platforms. In
Speaker 4: the case of that false White House statement as an example, Yeah.
Speaker 10: Exactly right. There was a statement that someone put out,
Speaker 10: supposedly from the White House that said they were going
Speaker 10: to authorize billions of dollars and aid in Israel. Turns
Speaker 10: out what a researcher found was that that was actually
Speaker 10: a statement about Ukraine. At someone doctor to look differently,
Speaker 10: and to your point, you have verified users, so you
Speaker 10: might think that it's a trusted source because you see
Speaker 10: that blue check mark, and it's really not. It's just
Speaker 10: someone who paid eight dollars a month who maybe has
Speaker 10: not done any reporting or hasn't really looked in and
Speaker 10: tried to verify the facts or could it actually be
Speaker 10: a bad actor who's intentionally trying to spread miss leading
Speaker 10: information to increase engagement on the say ashaccounts.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much bringing us the latest when it
Speaker 3: comes to technology's role within well your consumption of what
Speaker 3: is news right or wrong. Let's talk about the role
Speaker 3: of social media within this war as we know it.
Speaker 3: Welcoming Yaile Eisenstadt, vice president at the American Defamation Lease
Speaker 3: Center for Technology and Society, and I'll great to have
Speaker 3: you here. Of course, you are with an institution that
Speaker 3: is all about, you know, holding disinformation to account in
Speaker 3: many ways, and anti hate organization is the key focus
Speaker 3: of your work. How are you seeing this difference, this
Speaker 3: particular moment different from what we've seen in prior episodes
Speaker 3: of conflict.
Speaker 1: Sure so, as you just pointed out at ADL, we
Speaker 1: have been tracking this kind of work, both anti Semitic
Speaker 1: incidents in the real world as well as how hate
Speaker 1: and disinformation proliferates online for decades and what we are
Speaker 1: seeing right now. I mean I used to just brought
Speaker 1: up some of the issues going on pticularly on X,
Speaker 1: but part of the problem is X used to be
Speaker 1: the place when it was Twitter that people went to
Speaker 1: in times.
Speaker 5: Of a real time crisis.
Speaker 1: Let's be clear, it was never perfect before, but it
Speaker 1: was at least a place where people knew who were journalists,
Speaker 1: people knew who were verified accounts, They had some sort
Speaker 1: of way of figuring out who to follow and what
Speaker 1: information may be more credible than others. And all the
Speaker 1: things we've been highlighting as really concerning changes at the
Speaker 1: company over the last year are now really showing why
Speaker 1: it matters. We are seeing not just disinformation and misinformation
Speaker 1: proliferate on the platform, but I mean, if I can
Speaker 1: just give you a few examples, So just yesterday I saw,
Speaker 1: you know, when team saw a video from an account
Speaker 1: I usually had brought up the verification blue check process,
Speaker 1: from a blue check bought as an automated account who
Speaker 1: pays eight dollars a months to get that blue check,
Speaker 1: which means he's prioritized in our news feeds with the
Speaker 1: fake video saying it was come us executing hostages. Now
Speaker 1: what's interesting is, not only is that video still up
Speaker 1: as of last I checked about an hour ago and
Speaker 1: been viewed hundreds of thousands of times, there is no
Speaker 1: way for a user to flag it as mis or disinformation.
Speaker 1: If you look at the drop down menu of how
Speaker 1: to flag content, there is no option for disinformation.
Speaker 5: But they would say that's community notes. How has that
Speaker 5: been helping hindering?
Speaker 1: From real perspective, they would say that, and while community
Speaker 1: Notes in and of itself might be a really interesting
Speaker 1: experiment to think about for the future, it is not
Speaker 1: the way to moderate content during a real crisis. And
Speaker 1: to be clear, it's not just about what's happening on
Speaker 1: the ground right now, but we at ADL are also
Speaker 1: concerned about the potential to proliferate anti semitism. Here at home,
Speaker 1: we have extremists and antisemit anti smites who were replatformed
Speaker 1: over the past year on X reveling in some of
Speaker 1: this violence, actually seeing some of the most horrendous antisemitic
Speaker 1: things online. And I really really am happy to see
Speaker 1: exce's statement that they are proactively going to monitor for this,
Speaker 1: but I just have to be frank, right now, I'm
Speaker 1: not seeing that yet.
Speaker 4: Well, thank you for joining us on the show. While
Speaker 4: we've been on air, X have sent us some data
Speaker 4: saying that community Notes has generated close to thirty million
Speaker 4: impressions and that five hundred unique notes on the x
Speaker 4: platform directly relate to the tach the attacks. That's based
Speaker 4: on three days of activity. What I really want to
Speaker 4: ask you about is the positive story of social media.
Speaker 4: A lot of the engagement that we've had on the program,
Speaker 4: and indeed some of the guests that have joined were
Speaker 4: through social media channels. There are people trying on various
Speaker 4: platforms to identify those that are missing. Have you any
Speaker 4: evidence or have you seen any positive use cases of
Speaker 4: social media in the Israel Hamas over the last.
Speaker 1: Three days, So to your point, I'll start with community
Speaker 1: notes again. Yes, I think it's actually a really great
Speaker 1: way for people to be able to crowdsource information to
Speaker 1: fact check in real time. The problem is it's putting
Speaker 1: the responsibility on the user for doing that, as opposed
Speaker 1: to the platform itself. So while community notes is definitely
Speaker 1: an interesting, positive potential step, it cannot be the only
Speaker 1: thing for curbing this kind of disinformation.
Speaker 5: And you know this might not fit the word positive.
Speaker 1: But it is really actually important to see just how
Speaker 1: horrific the crimes are right now that are happening on
Speaker 1: the ground in Israel, and that does happen on social media.
Speaker 1: And we can debate whether terrible images online is useful,
Speaker 1: but to be able to see some of the very
Speaker 1: on the ground reporting to know that a grandmother was
Speaker 1: murdered in her own home while they filmed it on
Speaker 1: her own phone and uploaded it to her own Facebook feed.
Speaker 1: That's the type of thing we can only see if
Speaker 1: we have people really being able to report in real time.
Speaker 5: So that is a positive use.
Speaker 1: You can get so many voices that are not normally
Speaker 1: the voices that might surface. The challenge though, is how
Speaker 1: to differentiate that from the noise, from the blue checks,
Speaker 1: from the people who are purposely glorifying violence or seating
Speaker 1: anti Semitic conspiracy theories.
Speaker 5: To change the narrative here, Yeah, thank you for your
Speaker 5: time here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, as in stat on the Anti Defamation League, we
Speaker 3: turn to you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we will keep this conversation going, and coming up
Speaker 4: on the show, we're going to look at the impact
Speaker 4: of the war on the region's tech scene, not just Israel,
Speaker 4: but broader than that. That's next. This is Bloomberg Technology.
Speaker 4: We continue to monitor what's happening in the Middle East.
Speaker 4: On today's VC Spotlight, we want to welcome mahmood Quois
Speaker 4: for his take on how the Israel Hamas war has
Speaker 4: got impact both the Israeli and Palestinian tech sectors. Mamood
Speaker 4: is a Jerusalem based founder and CEO of software company
Speaker 4: tech Clinic, which has operations in both Jerusalem and Ramala
Speaker 4: in the central West Bank. He's also a researcher at
Speaker 4: Harvard Kennedy School's Belfa Center for Science in International Affairs. Mood,
Speaker 4: Welcome to Bloomberg Technology. You have on the ground connection
Speaker 4: to what is happening to the technology sector in both
Speaker 4: the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. What can
Speaker 4: you tell us about the situation for the technology industry
Speaker 4: workers and founders that you know.
Speaker 11: Yes, well, thank you very much, and keviline for usting me.
Speaker 12: I would start saying that we learned a lot from
Speaker 12: COVID and we adapted very quickly. There was a shutdown
Speaker 12: of our services for one day or one and a
Speaker 12: half day. Then we recapped and our staff started to
Speaker 12: work from home and a serjective percent.
Speaker 11: Effort, not one hundred percent effort.
Speaker 12: We have people working from Gaza, people working from Romola
Speaker 12: and other people working from Jerusalem. So and the fact
Speaker 12: on the ground that the company is still running and
Speaker 12: other companies are also still still running.
Speaker 11: This situation in Gaza.
Speaker 12: This situation in Gaza and all the borders of Gaza
Speaker 12: has affected a lot of the economy, but with the
Speaker 12: tech it is less affected. I believe because of the
Speaker 12: type of services that we provide. As services, we don't
Speaker 12: go to factories. We work from our offices, from our
Speaker 12: home all over. What we need is a laptop and cloud.
Speaker 3: You're doing software development, outsourcing, testing, innovation, business development.
Speaker 5: I'm interested as to how intertwined.
Speaker 3: Those sort of supply chains, so dependencies that service is
Speaker 3: between Israel and Palestinians.
Speaker 5: How much are you seeing that they depend on each other?
Speaker 12: Well, I believe that most of the tech industry in
Speaker 12: Palestine depends on dements on Israeli, on the Israeli market
Speaker 12: together with the European and the US market, but the majority.
Speaker 12: I could claim that the majority are depending on the
Speaker 12: Israelio market, and there are lots of cooperation between the
Speaker 12: Palestinian tech companies and entrepreneurs with the Israelio market and entrepreneurs.
Speaker 12: There is no specific statistics that calculates this, but talks
Speaker 12: from the media and some sources from the articles in
Speaker 12: the media. There are some thirty one companies in Palestine,
Speaker 12: like in West Bank and Gaza, who are giving services
Speaker 12: to Israeli tech companies and multinational companies also operating from
Speaker 12: such as Nokia, Apple, Microsoft and other companies. So the
Speaker 12: dependency is very very high on the Israeli market. Now,
Speaker 12: during the situation, there was a little bit of not
Speaker 12: closing down but hold on with some projects. I was
Speaker 12: talking to some founders, some of their Israeli clients has
Speaker 12: stopped their operation for a while until things are not
Speaker 12: vague anymore, and I believe that life would go to normal.
Speaker 12: But with regards to the other clients in the US
Speaker 12: and in Europe, our team in Gaza are still operating
Speaker 12: under questions. Yes, it's a servisky situation, but they're still
Speaker 12: operating and providing services to our europe collect my mood.
Speaker 4: You recently stepped down in the last ten days or so.
Speaker 4: Is the chair of fifty to fifty, an accelerator a
Speaker 4: VC accelerator essentially that tried to back founders the work
Speaker 4: cross border Palestinian and Israeli. Do you have a sense
Speaker 4: of sort of the lasting impact of the talent poll
Speaker 4: and the guards of strip or indeed in the West Bank,
Speaker 4: you know, will we see technology startups coming out of
Speaker 4: those regions in the future.
Speaker 11: Oh yes, well, I do believe in that. For the
Speaker 11: last five years I was joining, I was on the
Speaker 11: board of.
Speaker 12: Fifty to fifty, and I've seeing the remarkable evidences on
Speaker 12: the ground of companies or co authored and co founded
Speaker 12: by Israeli and Parraslian co founders.
Speaker 11: Those companies are still are still running.
Speaker 12: Only this year in September, nine companies were established with
Speaker 12: two israel and Israeli and Parsinian co founders. And we're
Speaker 12: targeting the intellectual Parasceine and intellectual Israelis with masters and
Speaker 12: PhD degrees people would have who have patents and research
Speaker 12: on their ideas, and those they have lots of opportunities
Speaker 12: to win. Now let me let me also add that
Speaker 12: the Israel is more advanced in intech than than Palestine.
Speaker 11: And this is why I joined.
Speaker 12: This fifty to fifty and I was leading fifty to
Speaker 12: fifty in order to transfer some knowledge from from Israel
Speaker 12: into into Balastein and from the US also. And this
Speaker 12: is why we have partnered with Tel Aviv University with
Speaker 12: Israeli College of Engineering. Those are two leading Israeli academic institutions.
Speaker 11: Together with Northeastern University in Boston.
Speaker 3: Of course, bring your academia to the table. Of course,
Speaker 3: with your as a researcher for Harvard Kennedy Belfa Center.
Speaker 3: I'm interested is to your perspective on what what are
Speaker 3: the industries that we've seen really unique ideas come out
Speaker 3: of within tech from Palestinian entrepreneurs.
Speaker 5: What are they looking to solve?
Speaker 12: Well, there there are many Parstilians are human beings, same
Speaker 12: as really same as others.
Speaker 11: So it is what they like is the platform.
Speaker 12: That can have have them and incubate incubate them.
Speaker 11: Currently, the the incubator and the environment.
Speaker 12: In Palistine are not enabling enough for those ideas.
Speaker 11: But we're talking about.
Speaker 12: Innovation AI in computing and quantum computing, and agriculture, food tech, fintech,
Speaker 12: and many many other industries.
Speaker 11: It is the same as the whole world.
Speaker 12: We are very much exposed to the to the international
Speaker 12: community and to the international innovation and then the whole world.
Speaker 12: We are lots of our youth are part of the
Speaker 12: World Economic Forum and they join the many conferences all
Speaker 12: over the world. So we have different sources of knowledge
Speaker 12: that we bring into Palestine. And besides, besides that, parastinias
Speaker 12: are known of highly educated educated people, like the majority
Speaker 12: of parastilians.
Speaker 11: Have a BA degree like a bachelor degree. And this
Speaker 11: is a good.
Speaker 12: Pool of talents that we can contribute to the to
Speaker 12: the word solution truly.
Speaker 3: Cross Fader conversation, Mamood Grace, thank you so much, CEO
Speaker 3: of Tech Clinic, We thank you.
Speaker 4: The writers strike is over after a tough hot summer
Speaker 4: for Hollywood, but the troubles on over for Bob Eyger.
Speaker 4: Disney's legendary CEO, came out of retirement to save the
Speaker 4: company right into for its one hundredth birthday, but nothing
Speaker 4: has really gone his way so far. Let's break down
Speaker 4: the details with Bloomberg's Thomas Buckley. You've done this kind
Speaker 4: of big takedown in Business Week. Tell me about the
Speaker 4: magazine piece.
Speaker 13: Absolutely so. The magazine piece ed looks at the return
Speaker 13: of Chief Executive Officer of the Disney Company, Bob Aiker,
Speaker 13: who left the company in twenty twenty one as executive
Speaker 13: chairman before that as CEO in February twenty twenty. He
Speaker 13: came back to the helm of Disney in November of
Speaker 13: last year, and so far nothing at all has gone
Speaker 13: his way. I think that the TV business is in
Speaker 13: a decaying state that he had not anticipated fully. The
Speaker 13: streaming service is losing hundreds of millions of dollars every quarter,
Speaker 13: and he desperately needs it to be profitable by next
Speaker 13: year to honor a pledge the new mat to Wall Street.
Speaker 13: He has yet to find a successor, and speculation is
Speaker 13: rampant on Wall Street that he's looking to potentially break
Speaker 13: up the company to extract value in that direction.
Speaker 3: Absolutely fascinating take about whether or not he wants upon
Speaker 3: a time is looking for Apple to be the buyer,
Speaker 3: and indeed whether or not he saw his future really
Speaker 3: remaining with the business. Thirty seconds Thomas has he lost
Speaker 3: his allies?
Speaker 13: I think with a number of his allies during his
Speaker 13: first tenure that really helped shape with the success of
Speaker 13: his first tenure. Have Nelsonce left the company, He's actually
Speaker 13: got a few allies left of the company, and that's
Speaker 13: led him to reappoint two of his former successes in
Speaker 13: waiting to advise him on selling different parts of the business.
Speaker 4: So that's not to say.
Speaker 13: That he's lacking support from his employee based I think
Speaker 13: that most reliefs are most employees are still very really,
Speaker 13: but he is back. But nonetheless I think that he
Speaker 13: certainly doesn't have the cohor that he used to have
Speaker 13: supporting the success of his first tenure during his second term.
Speaker 3: I'm really urge everyone to go grab a cup of
Speaker 3: coffee sit down with this piece because it's a long read,
Speaker 3: but it's a great read. Bloom MoG's Thomas Buckley, we
Speaker 3: thank you so much for it. Meanwhile, some breaking news
Speaker 3: on Caroline Allison. She is indeed saying that Sam mcmnfree
Speaker 3: directed her to commit crimes. We have so much more
Speaker 3: in the Crypto Show coming up next on Bloomberg. You
Speaker 3: don't want to miss it.
Speaker 5: Silt back technology