Speaker 1: From Marhart where Innovation, Money and Power Collie in Silicon Valley, NBN.
Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow.
Speaker 3: I'm Caroline Hinde at Bloomberg's Weldtay quarters in New York.
Speaker 3: Ed Ludlow, He's off today. This is Bloomberg Technology coming up. Well,
Speaker 3: all the artificial intelligence throughout the show you need, from
Speaker 3: a potential bubble in AI stocks to an AI girlfriend,
Speaker 3: We've got you covered. Plus States versus companies will break
Speaker 3: down Disney's decision to pull back in Florida, look at
Speaker 3: the legal challenges facing Montana as TikTok users sue the
Speaker 3: state over the band. And in today's VC Spotlight will
Speaker 3: speak with the founder of Atomic Labs, one of the
Speaker 3: original backers of Hymns and hers Is. They announced their
Speaker 3: new three hundred and twenty million dollar fund. But first,
Speaker 3: let's check your on these markets and look nervousness. Nervousness
Speaker 3: about a debt ceiling demarcle continuing to erode some of
Speaker 3: that confidence as we go into a weekend. We're off
Speaker 3: by a tenth of a percent in terms of the NASDAK,
Speaker 3: just coming off of those lowers. But still worries about
Speaker 3: what Ja Powell is saying, of course, speaking the Fed chair,
Speaker 3: really looking as though he's in track for some sort
Speaker 3: of pause in June. That of course implicates what's happening
Speaker 3: with the two year yield and the ten year yield
Speaker 3: at the moment. Seeing a bit of a steepening of
Speaker 3: the curve, we're basically flapped down by about Wembus's point
Speaker 3: on the two year yield KBW Banking Index. Interesting one
Speaker 3: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen maybe hinting at further deals M
Speaker 3: and A needed in the banking sectors. So the small
Speaker 3: regional lenders they drop one and a half percent. Move
Speaker 3: it on. Let's dig into some of the individual movers though,
Speaker 3: because we have seen actually Apple managing to probably even
Speaker 3: got the biggest, most impactful stock on the green. It's
Speaker 3: going to be helping big tech in general. Apple sort
Speaker 3: of bouncing back a little bit. Cisco bouncing back after
Speaker 3: that erosion in its market capitalization yesterday as we worried
Speaker 3: about its future. Sales are up two percent. Amazon though
Speaker 3: down one point four percent as we worry more about
Speaker 3: the inflationary consumer environment upon us. And let's dig into
Speaker 3: the macro picture right here, right now, because we want
Speaker 3: to give you the perspective on the Hill GOP debt
Speaker 3: ceiling negotiators, we understand abruptly just well leaving a closed
Speaker 3: door meeting with the White House representatives soon after it
Speaker 3: began really throwing the status of how we avoid a
Speaker 3: US to fault into doubt once again. Bloomberg's Kaylee lines
Speaker 3: some polace to say, Russia is to set for us
Speaker 3: and what do you think at the moment, what we're
Speaker 3: expecting to come out of today's discussion.
Speaker 4: Well, up until we got these headlines crossed within just
Speaker 4: the last hour in Change, Caroline, it was feeling much
Speaker 4: more positive. The mood music seemed much more optimistic. Speaker
Speaker 4: Tomcarthy himself was talking about the idea of having a
Speaker 4: deal in principle by the end of this weekend. That
Speaker 4: all seems to have changed as of this morning, which,
Speaker 4: as you say, saw that the negotiators on behalf of
Speaker 4: the speaker, led by Congressman Garrett Graves, walked out of
Speaker 4: this meeting saying the White House was being unreasonable, and
Speaker 4: Graves went on to say he didn't know if they
Speaker 4: were going to be meeting later today or even at
Speaker 4: all over the weekend, So that clearly throws the timeline
Speaker 4: into a bit of luck here. And we have to
Speaker 4: keep in mind that at the end of this weekend
Speaker 4: as well, the President is scheduled to return on Sunday
Speaker 4: from the G seven summit in Japan, where he currently is.
Speaker 4: Where it is right now about one in the morning,
Speaker 4: he is in all likelihood sleeping at the moment as
Speaker 4: this is crossing. And I would point to a tweet
Speaker 4: from the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell saying it is
Speaker 4: only the President and Speaker McCarthy who can make a
Speaker 4: deal on this. They are the only two who can
Speaker 4: reach an agreement. Is past time for the White House
Speaker 4: to get serious. Time is of the essence, because remember
Speaker 4: Caroline Will less than two weeks away from June first.
Speaker 3: Well pointed out so sticking points that these two individuals
Speaker 3: need to unblok at the moment, Well.
Speaker 2: There's a few.
Speaker 4: One really big sticking point that seems to have emerged
Speaker 4: is around stricter work requirements for entitlements. This is something
Speaker 4: that Speaker McCarthy has previously described as a red line.
Speaker 4: It is something the President himself has signaled openness to
Speaker 4: except for in the cases of health related benefits like Medicaid.
Speaker 4: Yet many in the Democratic Party have pushed back against
Speaker 4: this idea. I've spoken with a number of progressive Democrats
Speaker 4: members of the Congression Black Caucus as well, who said
Speaker 4: they would vote no for any deal that included those
Speaker 4: stricter requirements. Then there's also just the question of spending caps,
Speaker 4: what the duration of them should be, where they should be,
Speaker 4: and Jivilie just the timeline for how long into the
Speaker 4: future the debt ceiling should be raised twenty twenty five
Speaker 4: after the elections of next year or sooner than that.
Speaker 4: So those are some of the points that need to
Speaker 4: be ironed out, and clearly they are having difficulty moving
Speaker 4: forward on those. As again, those negotiating on behalf of
Speaker 4: the speaker say that the White House is not being
Speaker 4: reasonable on this, will look for reaction from the White
Speaker 4: House negotiators themselves, Caroline.
Speaker 3: And reaction on market and asset prices at the moment
Speaker 3: then ASDAK bouncing off of its lows, but big implications
Speaker 3: for tech dot Colder is Kaylee brilliant, Thank you so
Speaker 3: much for joining us. Meanwhile, must turn our attention to
Speaker 3: the text stories that we've got to be digesting on
Speaker 3: the day Open Ai. It's bought that chatchebt genitor ai
Speaker 3: tool now to your smartphones more easily. We've got finally
Speaker 3: the iPhone version available of course to service Android Google
Speaker 3: owned Android devices in the future. Let's break it all down,
Speaker 3: Rachel met some place to say is here, and I'm
Speaker 3: sure it's a less clunky feel to sort of the
Speaker 3: user that is so addicted to chat GBT in all
Speaker 3: its forms at the moment. Just how broad is this going?
Speaker 3: Is it just in the US thus far? Yeah?
Speaker 5: Right now, it's just available in the US. It's a
Speaker 5: free app, but they said that they're planning to roll
Speaker 5: it out to more countries in the near future. And
Speaker 5: as you mentioned, there is an Android app planned in
Speaker 5: the near future as well.
Speaker 3: And yeah, the delay often companies make an Apple iOS
Speaker 3: app available before a Google Android. But is there something
Speaker 3: to be read into that in some way the competition
Speaker 3: of course between being Microsoft and Google in the like.
Speaker 5: Oh perhaps, I think that's actually a really good point.
Speaker 5: I mean, I think part of what we're seeing here
Speaker 5: is there's so many iOS users and they often you
Speaker 5: often have a lot of them that are using the
Speaker 5: same version of the souper at the same time, so
Speaker 5: it might be easier to hit a lot more people
Speaker 5: at the same time. Android can be a little bit
Speaker 5: more stratified.
Speaker 3: So that might be some of it. I think we'll
Speaker 3: have to.
Speaker 5: See when the Android out comes out with the difference is,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 3: And just as we still try and work out just
Speaker 3: the unrolling of this particular app. It's interesting and kind
Speaker 3: of ironic, right that Apple itself has done what many
Speaker 3: companies are doing and just putting pools on using Chatchipt
Speaker 3: within its own walls.
Speaker 5: I'm so sorry that I couldn't hear the end of
Speaker 5: what you said. Could you repeat that?
Speaker 3: Of course, Rachel is Apple itself. It feels kind of
Speaker 3: ironic that Apple is perhaps stopping its own employees use chatchipt.
Speaker 5: Oh yes, we yeah, we've heard that that is going
Speaker 5: on there. And I mean, on the one hand, that's ironic,
Speaker 5: but I think it also speaks to the fact that
Speaker 5: a lot of companies are really trying to figure out
Speaker 5: how and if they can use this software, you know,
Speaker 5: and they don't want employees pushing through either personally identifiable
Speaker 5: information or company secret kind of stuff. But yes, it
Speaker 5: is a little ironic. That then there is an app
Speaker 5: available through the app Store for iOS so which you
Speaker 5: know a lot of Apple employees use iPhones.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and just from a consumer perspective, of course, Open
Speaker 3: AI Chat GPT. It was the fuel to the far
Speaker 3: of why we now talk about artificial intelligence day in
Speaker 3: day out. It really called the consumer imagination. The people
Speaker 3: you talk with, the consumer is using it at the moment,
Speaker 3: Are they in any way worried about privacy about their
Speaker 3: own chats, about the way in which it follows them
Speaker 3: around from one device to the next and they can't
Speaker 3: delete them.
Speaker 5: I mean, I think it sort of depends on the person.
Speaker 5: I haven't looked at the app into the app settings
Speaker 5: yet myself that specifically, but you may be able to
Speaker 5: turn off of the like the gathering of the data
Speaker 5: by opening eye, which you can do on the web.
Speaker 3: It wouldn't surprise me if there's that kind.
Speaker 2: Of setting in there.
Speaker 5: I mean, I think people definitely are thinking about where
Speaker 5: is my information going when I'm using this, But sometimes
Speaker 5: it's like, Hey, I just really want to get an
Speaker 5: interesting margarita recipe, and I think to actually.
Speaker 3: Be ticking helping with that. That's what I was doing
Speaker 3: yesterday sir, you are speaking my kind of language. Rachel.
Speaker 3: Let's thank you as we head towards this weekend. Forever
Speaker 3: Voices AI, you would have been reading about it, of
Speaker 3: course in the last few days. They're best known for
Speaker 3: a forever companion service, but it's working with some of
Speaker 3: the hottest influences on social media to allow users to
Speaker 3: interact with them using I guess their artificial intelligence. Just
Speaker 3: announced a new partnership with the twitch star amaranth joining
Speaker 3: us now for more on the experience. How it's continued
Speaker 3: to Snowball is John Mayer's founder and CEO of Forever
Speaker 3: Voices AI. It all started with Karen Marjorie was the
Speaker 3: one that really caught my attention. She now has eighteen
Speaker 3: thousand boyfriends through her own AI. Just have you been
Speaker 3: surprised by the uptick The desire to be having these
Speaker 3: sort of really in depth conversations with is someone you
Speaker 3: feel that you know.
Speaker 6: We've been absolutely astonished. You know. This whole story started
Speaker 6: with me wanting to reconnect with my late father in
Speaker 6: AI form using his voice and his personality. It turned
Speaker 6: out that was such a powerful technology that we then
Speaker 6: apply it to influencers that have these large followings fans
Speaker 6: that we'd love to meet and talk to and interact
Speaker 6: with these people. And so with our latest launch today
Speaker 6: with Amaranth, one of the top Twitch streamers in the world,
Speaker 6: you know, we're sort of further defining this new era
Speaker 6: of AI to human interaction where you can interact with
Speaker 6: an AI copy of the person you admire most.
Speaker 3: How do you, in fact some of the technology behind this,
Speaker 3: John just ultimately, how are you producing these voices? What
Speaker 3: sets you apart from others?
Speaker 6: So what we've done here is we've taken a baseline
Speaker 6: large language model and we've applied these proprietary layers on
Speaker 6: top of that that we built, such as a personality
Speaker 6: engine that develops these immerse, deep personalities of ais in
Speaker 6: this case Amaranth or Karen that we launched last week,
Speaker 6: where they exhibit feelings, you know, they can connect with
Speaker 6: you on a deep level, they can share insights. So
Speaker 6: that's what our personality engine does. And then we also
Speaker 6: have our voice engine, which is really powerful. So that
Speaker 6: allows us to take really just about ten minutes, let's say,
Speaker 6: of audio of an influencer that we sign a deal
Speaker 6: with where we're getting their rights to their likeness and
Speaker 6: voice and actually replicate their voice in AI form to
Speaker 6: democratize access to their fan base, trying to interact with them.
Speaker 3: John, you share in a motive story as to why
Speaker 3: you first started this wanting to continue a relationship in
Speaker 3: an AI form with your late father. Similar story for
Speaker 3: the founder of Replica and her lost friend and a
Speaker 3: car crash. Now, a lot of Replica's viewpoint is this
Speaker 3: is about mental health as well as having companionship. I'm
Speaker 3: interested in the safeguards that you can in place because ultimately,
Speaker 3: if you'll, as you say, blurring the lines between reality
Speaker 3: and virtual interaction, there must be some super fans who
Speaker 3: could get a bit confused here.
Speaker 6: Absolutely. So what we've done is out of the conversations
Speaker 6: with our ais develop if you're speaking to our Karen
Speaker 6: AI or today now with amirants from Twitch, what we've
Speaker 6: done is we've implemented procedures that have automatic detection of
Speaker 6: a variety of situations from mental health situations to overuse,
Speaker 6: and so the AI will actually in real time either
Speaker 6: slow the conversation down if a conversation is going too long,
Speaker 6: or if it appears someone might be getting let's say addicted,
Speaker 6: And then what we've also done is built a mental
Speaker 6: health engine to detect various states of depression, anxiety, and
Speaker 6: soon to be even cases of bipolar disorder among users
Speaker 6: so that we can in real time connect them with
Speaker 6: human therapists and human RAN emerge hotlines if it's ever needed.
Speaker 3: Totally can understand the building of the business for i'mn
Speaker 3: for example, on only fans already just supplementing how much
Speaker 3: she can go out and build and profit from this.
Speaker 3: But who else are you speaking to? And how many
Speaker 3: actually celebrities are worried about their voices being generated without
Speaker 3: their rights involved. How people trying to get ahead of
Speaker 3: the curve with it.
Speaker 6: Well, you know, before this whole story went viral last
Speaker 6: week of us at Forever Voices AI turning you know,
Speaker 6: the first influencer into an AI girlfriend, we've seen hundreds
Speaker 6: of other influencers and celebrities reach out in a matter
Speaker 6: of you know, the first forty eight hours, and so
Speaker 6: there's been a bit of a transformation over this last
Speaker 6: you know, seven to ten days since since this whole
Speaker 6: story went around the world, that has opened up people's
Speaker 6: minds to the idea of replicating themselves in AI form,
Speaker 6: not only as a means of adding additional revenue to
Speaker 6: your you know, your content creator business, but as a
Speaker 6: way again of interacting with fans in this entirely new
Speaker 6: way via you know, this immersive two way audio experience
Speaker 6: and even soon to be video as well.
Speaker 3: In your original business, did you have rights to those
Speaker 3: celebrities when you were building those voices?
Speaker 6: So what we started with with Forever Voices was really
Speaker 6: a series of demos that you know, leverage the technology
Speaker 6: to show the world what is possible. And so what
Speaker 6: we've done is we simply donated any proceeds from let's say,
Speaker 6: an unlicensed demo of let's say Grimes before you know,
Speaker 6: we get a deal done with our to charity. But
Speaker 6: the core of our business is through these signed license
Speaker 6: deals with influencers and celebrities such as the one you
Speaker 6: know we're announcing.
Speaker 3: Today with m Own. Okay, so Grimes, there's a hint
Speaker 3: there that's discussions. What about your own discussions, what about
Speaker 3: your own fundraising? Because I'm sure there might have been
Speaker 3: a few vcs picking up the phone too as well
Speaker 3: as celebrities.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's been a whirlwind of a week. I mean,
Speaker 6: we've been in talk with everyone from you know, index to.
Speaker 3: And so on.
Speaker 6: And you know, we are in a position now where
Speaker 6: we're you know, really turning this into a hyperd scalable
Speaker 6: business where we see a future in the very near
Speaker 6: future and I'm talking next two years where every significant
Speaker 6: influencer that is, you know, looking to make a living
Speaker 6: off of content or you know, let's say YouTube, Twitch, Instagram,
Speaker 6: what have you, we'll raise their hand up and say
Speaker 6: I want to create an AI version of myself. We
Speaker 6: see every influencer having these in the next one to
Speaker 6: two years.
Speaker 3: John Mayer, keep us in the loop on it. Found
Speaker 3: our CEO Forever Voices AI. Thanks for your time there
Speaker 3: from Austin today. Meanwhile, coming up new voices and new
Speaker 3: moves from Disney that will reshape its business in Florida
Speaker 3: or amid an intense battle with the state's governor, Let's
Speaker 3: just take a quick check on Tesla, because we've got
Speaker 3: more on a key story of international growth or indeed
Speaker 3: supply chain for this particular business. How are they eyeing
Speaker 3: India at the moment? All in Talking Tech that's up
Speaker 3: next from New York. That's a bloomberg. It is time
Speaker 3: now for Talking tech. First up by Jews Alpha, one
Speaker 3: of India's hottest tech companies. It's been accused of hiding
Speaker 3: five hundred million dollars from its lenders now. The allegation
Speaker 3: came out of a court hearing on Thursday, where by
Speaker 3: Jews Alpha faces a lawsuit over who should control the company.
Speaker 3: The dispute is the latest setback for the self proclaimed
Speaker 3: biggest education technology company in the world. Meanwhile, sticking with India,
Speaker 3: a group of Tesla executives traveled to the country talk
Speaker 3: about locally sourcing components and government incentives, but stop short
Speaker 3: of proposing any sort of manufacturing its cars in the country.
Speaker 3: That's while Tesla will eventually look to establish domestic factory
Speaker 3: in India, sources say the automaker is actually still concerned
Speaker 3: about India's high tariffs on important cars. And another mask
Speaker 3: related news, his lawyer apparently has puned the CEO of Microsoft,
Speaker 3: accusing the company of violating its data agreement with Twitter.
Speaker 7: Now.
Speaker 3: The letter says that Microsoft has excessed to access to
Speaker 3: Twitter's data for an extended period of time and comes
Speaker 3: on the hills of course, the Microsoft moves to drop
Speaker 3: Twitter from its own platform. In a mask course, He's
Speaker 3: been pretty vocal critic of Microsoft's investment in Open Ai. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: let's just talk about Disney for a moment, because it's closing.
Speaker 3: That much discussed the luxury hotel at Walt Disney World
Speaker 3: in Florida. It's actually Nixon plans to relocate two thousand
Speaker 3: workers to the state, and it's all amid this embroiled
Speaker 3: battle with the governor DeSantis, and all is carrying on
Speaker 3: present to get us up to speak, Chris Maum Murray
Speaker 3: now joins us, of course, of Bloomberg and Chris, I
Speaker 3: remember the fanfare around that Star Wars related hotel. It
Speaker 3: was extraordinarily expensive. I seem to remember, why are we
Speaker 3: thinking it's being closed? Was it because it's Bob japex
Speaker 3: baby or it's too expensive?
Speaker 8: Certainly was Bob JPEG's idea. It began when he was
Speaker 8: heading the park, so even before he was CEO. It
Speaker 8: takes a long time to build those things. Okay, it
Speaker 8: was a risky project. And you know this totally immersive hotel.
Speaker 8: He doesn't even have windows in the rooms. You're going
Speaker 8: there for two days and just spend pretending you're going
Speaker 8: in space and a Star Wars experience. It was very expensive.
Speaker 8: Started at almost five thousand dollars a couple for two days.
Speaker 8: And so it started off initially, you know, pretty strong,
Speaker 8: but then very quickly you started to see plenty of
Speaker 8: dates available. They never lowered the price, which I thought
Speaker 8: was interesting, and I think it's just such an odd
Speaker 8: ball property, only one hundred rooms. There's not a lot
Speaker 8: you could do with that space. So right now they're
Speaker 8: just shutting it down and figuring out what's next.
Speaker 3: And at the same time, they're not going to be
Speaker 3: spending a lavish amount of money on new h well,
Speaker 3: new office digs. They're going to be amid this ongoing
Speaker 3: narrative that they've basically falling out big time with Rondo Sanders.
Speaker 3: We know that they've sued him. How is this all
Speaker 3: playing out in terms of just the relationship with such
Speaker 3: a key employer in the state of Florida.
Speaker 8: Well, Bob Iger Disney CEO's directly turning up the heat.
Speaker 8: I mean, he said on the earnings call last week
Speaker 8: that hey, folks, their jobs and investment dollars at State
Speaker 8: here at Florida, and this week he really backed it up.
Speaker 8: So total reversal on the plan to move two thousand
Speaker 8: employees from California to Florida, you as a governor. Desantisis
Speaker 8: spokesperson noted this is happening at a time general up
Speaker 8: people at Disney. They're looking for ways to cut costs.
Speaker 8: But you know, Disney's even flagged that they want to
Speaker 8: invest seventeen billion dollars in Florida over the next ten years.
Speaker 8: But maybe they won't be able to do that anymore.
Speaker 8: The reality is they have to keep investing in the parts.
Speaker 8: But if there's a project like this move that's unpopular
Speaker 8: internally and expensive, maybe they'll just mix that.
Speaker 3: Overall. How much do you think this is ultimately costing
Speaker 3: the company in terms of well, either distraction to a
Speaker 3: certain degree or just an unknown for those that they
Speaker 3: employ there.
Speaker 8: It's a huge unknown. You saw a Macquarie down grade
Speaker 8: to the stock today in Disney's down of bits. There's
Speaker 8: a lot of uncertainty. The traditional TV networks profits are falling,
Speaker 8: the streaming business still losing money. The parks have been
Speaker 8: the star, but how long can that continue? So there's
Speaker 8: definitely an impact on this when you enter the world
Speaker 8: of politics. There are some people maybe won't go to
Speaker 8: the parks, won't see their movies because of the stance
Speaker 8: the company is taking, and so it's it's a difficult
Speaker 8: world for Bob vigrating them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we see near ten uncertainties weighing on earnings, valuation
Speaker 3: and sentiment. So says Timothy Nolan, he's ever at mcquarie
Speaker 3: at the moment we reference. Do you think ultimately we're
Speaker 3: likely to see still focus on cost cutting, still worry
Speaker 3: of course about the issue of whether they have to
Speaker 3: far more talent and let go of more people. Are
Speaker 3: we through the worst of it now? Do you think
Speaker 3: in terms of the trimming down of this business.
Speaker 8: Well, there's no doubt Bob Iger's being very aggressive. A
Speaker 8: thousand people being laid off. We broke the news yesterday
Speaker 8: that they're pulling all these TV shows for Disney Plus
Speaker 8: and Hulu. These were shows that they've made in this
Speaker 8: great early push and this streaming to sign up as
Speaker 8: many subscribers as we can, and it's cost money to
Speaker 8: keep these shows on the service, So they're looking for
Speaker 8: ways to cut all over the company. My guess is
Speaker 8: that we'll start to see that improvement in you know,
Speaker 8: not this fiscal year next one, and so that may
Speaker 8: be the story for twenty twenty four. A Disney the
Speaker 8: great turnaround, but right now it's definitely work in progress.
Speaker 3: Chris, it's always great to catch up with you. Thank you,
Speaker 3: Chris Peal Murray on the enormous amount of business and
Speaker 3: issues that Disney is currently facing in Florida thus far.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to bloom Bag Technology. I'm Caroline Hyde in
Speaker 3: New York. Let's get a quick check on your markets,
Speaker 3: because we've got a macro story that is pulling back
Speaker 3: some risk sentiment today. It is the worries about the
Speaker 3: debt ceiling at the moment, and the news still coming
Speaker 3: thick and fast, and we understand the White House is
Speaker 3: saying there's real differences between the two sides on a budget.
Speaker 3: They're working hard on a bipartisan debt solution where they
Speaker 3: say the budget talks will be difficult. As far as
Speaker 3: we know that the negotiator sort of Republican Party, did
Speaker 3: just walk out of a very short meeting but an
Speaker 3: hour or so ago, Naszak off by three tens and percent.
Speaker 3: Mis seeing the ten yure yield react. We're getting a
Speaker 3: steepening of the yield curve, so heels coming down on
Speaker 3: the two year. We're up on the longer end maybe
Speaker 3: that's also something to do with some of the data
Speaker 3: that we continue to digest. The focus on j Powell saying, look,
Speaker 3: he will likely pause. That seemed to be the way
Speaker 3: he was spinning it in his conversation earlier today, felt
Speaker 3: as though who was looking very much at how far
Speaker 3: and how fast the Fed has already moved k dowly
Speaker 3: bank X. On the downside, that says Janet Yellen sort
Speaker 3: of been hinting behind closed doors with other bank executives
Speaker 3: that maybe more consolidation is to come that's hitting the
Speaker 3: regional lenders. Moving on, Let's look at was something in
Speaker 3: the world of crypto, because some great stories out today
Speaker 3: Yuchi Yang of our Bloomberg reporting team really talking about
Speaker 3: the lack of liquidity there is in this particular asset
Speaker 3: class dropping off, retrenchment from Jane Street, from Jump in particular,
Speaker 3: and as we see these market makers pulling back, it's
Speaker 3: really bad for the industry. So trade to say for
Speaker 3: the past five days, basically treading water at about twenty
Speaker 3: and ninety nine is where we stand. Let's get back
Speaker 3: into the world though of well states versus companies. Montana,
Speaker 3: of course, marking the first US state to ban TikTok
Speaker 3: now a diverse group of creators with hundreds of thousands
Speaker 3: of followers. They're suing to challenge the first state wide
Speaker 3: ban of the popular app arguing that the law violates
Speaker 3: through speech rights and will disrupt their livelihoods with us.
Speaker 3: Some always Bloomberg's Alex Barinka, and certainly TikTok was making
Speaker 3: that case. Do you think they've gone to their content
Speaker 3: creators to help win that over?
Speaker 2: It wouldn't be the first time.
Speaker 9: Back in twenty twenty, the League council for this suit
Speaker 9: was actually on another suit against Trump's ordered to block TikTok.
Speaker 2: So it is a little bit of deja view.
Speaker 9: This time we have five creators, a reiner, a veteran,
Speaker 9: someone who does Dei swimwear, a wide group of people
Speaker 9: who are coming forward basically saying that Montana is not
Speaker 9: only infringing on their freedom of speech First Amendment right,
Speaker 9: they're also running a foul of the fourteenth Amendment, the
Speaker 9: right to do process. And they're also saying, hey, Montana,
Speaker 9: I know that the governor is saying that they need
Speaker 9: to protect their residence from the Chinese Communist Party, but
Speaker 9: that's actually the federal government's job, and it also runs
Speaker 9: astray of the federal government's job to oversee national security
Speaker 9: and foreign policy and also interstate commerce. So this isn't
Speaker 9: the first time this is the argument TikTok has made,
Speaker 9: but this is the first real legal fight that will
Speaker 9: be set up in this latest kind of aim to
Speaker 9: ban TikTok from a number of US states.
Speaker 3: And at the moment, have we heard from all the
Speaker 3: voices sort of showing that this is going to be
Speaker 3: an incredibly difficult plan, whether it's legally speaking to argue,
Speaker 3: but also from just a way of actually doing it.
Speaker 3: Have we had yet from Apple and Google of course,
Speaker 3: to in many ways on the line if it does
Speaker 3: get banned from January first.
Speaker 9: These two companies have declined to comment, so they haven't
Speaker 9: actually gone out and said, you know what could happen here?
Speaker 2: And you're right, Caroline, the actual.
Speaker 9: Mechanism for putting this law in place is a little
Speaker 9: bit unclear. They're not actually saying that Montana would find
Speaker 9: users or users would run astray for using it, but
Speaker 9: Montana is actually targeting TikTok. Apple, Google, the App Store
Speaker 9: is saying, hey, if TikTok's able to be accessed able
Speaker 9: to be downloaded. We're going to find you ten thousand
Speaker 9: dollars a day. It won't start until January when this
Speaker 9: goes into effect. This legal process might actually slow that
Speaker 9: down if there is an injunction. But that being said,
Speaker 9: the onus will definitely be on the companies and not
Speaker 9: the users, even though we have the users here bringing
Speaker 9: this lawsuit forward and go back.
Speaker 3: To those users because we know that everyone perhaps can
Speaker 3: uses TikTok, loves the experience, but whats of businesses are
Speaker 3: being built on it. We've just been hearing about how
Speaker 3: someone's creating voice AI to be able to expand on
Speaker 3: that relationships with their fans, whether they're a Twitch influencer
Speaker 3: or Snapchat influencer. But how much money is being built
Speaker 3: by some of these influences on TikTok.
Speaker 9: Well, there's one hundred and fifty million users, and a
Speaker 9: slew of those are small businesses.
Speaker 2: I've chatted to a lot of them.
Speaker 9: You see it from the small businesses like the swimmer
Speaker 9: designer in Montana who's come forward as a part of
Speaker 9: the suit, but you also see it with large businesses.
Speaker 9: You might have a beter creator like Mikhaela and Mguera
Speaker 9: out of Boston post about Amascara from lorel and it
Speaker 9: sells out basically globally on all platforms. So the power
Speaker 9: and the money that actually moves through this platform is
Speaker 9: pretty large. And that's a little bit of the argument
Speaker 9: here saying, hey, you're actually taking away opportunities for creators,
Speaker 9: for businesses who are using this to find their livelihoods,
Speaker 9: or at least that's the argument that TikTok is putting forth,
Speaker 9: saying we're protecting them from national security risks. Don't take
Speaker 9: these things away from Americans who are finding opportunity on
Speaker 9: our platform.
Speaker 3: Alex Beranka, thank you so much for breaking that down.
Speaker 3: And I'm very places Alex is going to be covering
Speaker 3: for N and I next week as I head out
Speaker 3: to Kata. The Catter Economic Forum is almost upon us,
Speaker 3: and I'm lucky enough to be interviewing CEO of TikTok
Speaker 3: over there, so we'll get plenty of questions his direction
Speaker 3: after this move by Montana. Meanwhile, let's think about more
Speaker 3: social media activity this week, but in particular when it
Speaker 3: comes to deal making. I'm inactive, so two of some
Speaker 3: other businesses and pleas to say right here in New
Speaker 3: York is Katie Roof usually based out in La but
Speaker 3: you are deals focused kind of a woman. And I'm
Speaker 3: interested at the moment what you made of Twitter's deal,
Speaker 3: for example, because that sort of went under the radar.
Speaker 3: We're so busy thinking about what Elon Musk is creating,
Speaker 3: who's hiring, but he's also buying what a tech talent company.
Speaker 1: Exactly, And so it gave us a glimpse into the
Speaker 1: new direction of Twitter. Who wants this to be part
Speaker 1: of the X app, the everything app, and so it's
Speaker 1: a recruiting startup. They actually shut down the business in
Speaker 1: conjunction with this deal, so it's probably more of an
Speaker 1: Apple hire of sorts. He acquired Chris Fagy in his
Speaker 1: business life to be part of the new vision for Twitter,
Speaker 1: you know, pairing talent and jobs. And this comes right
Speaker 1: on the heels of the new CEO, Linda Yakarino taking over, Yeah.
Speaker 3: As he's been finding his own talent thus far. I'm
Speaker 3: interested in what's happening with Meta, another key company that's
Speaker 3: I'm sure thinking sadly of having to unwind a lot
Speaker 3: of the talent that it has in house. But well
Speaker 3: they've been unwinding all.
Speaker 1: The deals yeah, and so this is part of Meta's
Speaker 1: broader cost cutting measures. They are spinning off Customer, which
Speaker 1: they actually just acquired last year. They announced it a
Speaker 1: few years ago, but it took a while to get
Speaker 1: approved by regulators. And so after spending a billion dollars
Speaker 1: on this customer service software, which was designed to be
Speaker 1: for metas advertisers, they've decided to part ways and Customer
Speaker 1: is now going to be backed by its original VC
Speaker 1: backers all over again, full circle. They're going to be
Speaker 1: backed by Battery Venors and some others, and they received
Speaker 1: a new cash infusion of two million dollars as part
Speaker 1: of that investment.
Speaker 3: Since of Deja vous, I'm sure. What's also interesting is
Speaker 3: spinning off is a bit of a theme right now,
Speaker 3: and in particular I'm thinking what happened over with Ali Baba, right,
Speaker 3: I mean, how much is the focus on in particularly
Speaker 3: the cloud business, being one of government oversight or indeed
Speaker 3: just basic revenue at the moment. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Sure, So we got more details this week with Ali Baba.
Speaker 1: They had previously announced that they were splitting in the
Speaker 1: six different units, and so now they are going to
Speaker 1: fully divest their cloud unit. There has been a lot
Speaker 1: of oversight there. They also announced that they are going
Speaker 1: to be ipoing their grocery business as soon as six
Speaker 1: months from now, and they're going to also ipo their
Speaker 1: logistics business within the next eighteen months.
Speaker 3: I like that Baby Bubba's as they were being called.
Speaker 3: Talk to us a little bit about what's happening with
Speaker 3: the Russian tech giant. I mean, really, it was the
Speaker 3: only one that we associated with key success in Russia
Speaker 3: was Yandex Sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sometimes nicknamed the Google of Russia. Bloomberg reported today
Speaker 1: that a couple full of Russian billionaires could take a
Speaker 1: majority stake in this business. Vadimere Potentin, not to be
Speaker 1: confused with Wadimere Putin, is one of the potential bidders,
Speaker 1: which would have to be approved by the Kremlin. But
Speaker 1: they're valuing the business about seven billion, and it would
Speaker 1: include the ride healing business as part of the index.
Speaker 1: The company is actually headquartered in the Netherlands, fight it
Speaker 1: has a long history in Russia and targets the Russian
Speaker 1: market and is listed in Moscow.
Speaker 3: What a global conversation. Thanks for bringing it from the
Speaker 3: la here to New York to talk about around the
Speaker 3: world deal making. Katie Ruth, great to have some time
Speaker 3: with you. Thank you. We'll go sickly at global for
Speaker 3: a minute because the globe. The crypto investment firm Hashki
Speaker 3: Group plans to raise funds at evaluation about a billion dollars,
Speaker 3: seeking advantage of course, of Hong Kong's digital asset Push
Speaker 3: is trying to entice potential investors. Hashkei, which operates one
Speaker 3: of the city's only two licensed digital coin forses, is
Speaker 3: in some early stage talks to raise one hundred to
Speaker 3: two hundred million dollars. We understand that's all according to
Speaker 3: people familiar with the matter. Up. Well, we'll bring it
Speaker 3: back to the us atomics latest fund. We're joined via
Speaker 3: the CEO, Jack Abraham, on Well, why he thinks now
Speaker 3: is the best time in history to build companies. This
Speaker 3: is a Bloomberg. Let's talk about the venture studio Atomic
Speaker 3: It's just raised three hundred and twenty million for its
Speaker 3: fourth fund, bringing the firm to over seven hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty million dollars in total assets in management. Joining us
Speaker 3: now in today's VC Spotlight for more on the strategy
Speaker 3: for this new fund is Atomic Lab CEO and managing
Speaker 3: partner Jack Abraham. It's great to have you in town. Jack,
Speaker 3: great to be here. Thanks for having me split your
Speaker 3: time between Miami and New York. And I'm interested in
Speaker 3: just what was the funning environment like because it feels
Speaker 3: as we've got AI related everyone wants to be writing
Speaker 3: checks and to be putting into your funds. But what
Speaker 3: was what was the uptake like for you? How quickly
Speaker 3: could you raise?
Speaker 7: Yeah, the funding environment, I'd say it is a little
Speaker 7: bit of the haves and the have nots. We've been
Speaker 7: somewhat fortunate in our history because we have such a
Speaker 7: unique and differentiated strategy that most people have actually come
Speaker 7: to us asking to invest, including actually our largest investor
Speaker 7: reach out to us cold on LinkedIn. If you can
Speaker 7: believe that.
Speaker 3: No, who I can't say.
Speaker 7: I don't think I can say, but you would know
Speaker 7: them if I mentioned them to you. So for us,
Speaker 7: it was a great process and we're really happy with
Speaker 7: the outcome. We love our LPs and they're really enamored
Speaker 7: with our strategy.
Speaker 3: What sort of LPs are you talking about? Who wants
Speaker 3: to be putting money into startups and diversification in that
Speaker 3: way At the moment.
Speaker 7: It's a range of your usual cast of characters, you
Speaker 7: have you know, university endowments, foundations, you have insurance companies, corporations,
Speaker 7: but also sovereign wealth funds actually interestingly are wanting to
Speaker 7: employ a lot more capital into innovation, which I think
Speaker 7: is really smart for them.
Speaker 3: Anyone you wouldn't take money from. I had a conversation
Speaker 3: with Lexisirhonian, for example, who didn't want to take Souding
Speaker 3: money for example.
Speaker 7: Yeah, we'd be careful about anyone that we'd bring in. Actually,
Speaker 7: our processes, we like to get to know our LPs really,
Speaker 7: you know, three six months at a year plus in advance,
Speaker 7: so we would have to feel really comfortable and due
Speaker 7: diligence before bringing anyone into our fund.
Speaker 3: And then the unique selling point is that you basically
Speaker 3: help bring in talent and build businesses. How unique is
Speaker 3: that still, because I've been talking to a lot more
Speaker 3: of the growth funds for very early early stage funds
Speaker 3: who are basically bringing on want to be CEOs or
Speaker 3: people that they feel could build a business without actually
Speaker 3: the business idea in place.
Speaker 6: Yet.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's actually very unique. It's a model that we
Speaker 7: started in twenty twelve, so we created what's now called
Speaker 7: the studio fund model. There are now hundreds of these
Speaker 7: studios that have emerged, and I think what's unique about
Speaker 7: us is it's the only thing we do. We focus
Speaker 7: on it, we nail it right now. What's happened over
Speaker 7: time is technology risk has come down. So what you
Speaker 7: can build, you can build anything. Their building blocks are incredible.
Speaker 7: What you can solve is incredible. There's so much open source,
Speaker 7: there's a lot of AI that's available. Obviously, there's a
Speaker 7: lot of APIs that you can plug and Play's paramount
Speaker 7: is testing market risk. And what we've really validated is
Speaker 7: we have an exceptional process for validating and invalidating ideas
Speaker 7: early on how we'll do a combination of quantitative and
Speaker 7: qualitative analyses on markets. We have a team of seventy
Speaker 7: five people, which is pretty large for our fun size
Speaker 7: that we'll go and look into ideas and run tests.
Speaker 7: Oftentimes will actually pre sell products to customers, validate that
Speaker 7: there's demand so that we know, Okay, if we're going
Speaker 7: to spend all the time and the energy to build this,
Speaker 7: it's going to be worth it, and it's going to
Speaker 7: be worth scaling.
Speaker 3: Of course, one of the one that you're most well
Speaker 3: known for is hymns and hers. I've had a lot
Speaker 3: of reticence from vcs to do anything really with a
Speaker 3: consumer right now unless it's celebrity backed in some way,
Speaker 3: shape or form, or or Kim Kardashian. How are you
Speaker 3: thinking about where the opportunity is to build right now?
Speaker 7: I think that there's a really big opportunity right now.
Speaker 7: A lot of people are talking about AI things like chat, GPT.
Speaker 7: The consumer side of that is interesting and it's happening,
Speaker 7: and people are using that. It's really growing. But I
Speaker 7: think the bigger opportunity actually lies in the enterprise. I
Speaker 7: think AI is going to be deployed into every facet
Speaker 7: of work you can think of it.
Speaker 2: Every job to be.
Speaker 7: Done in a company, there's going to be some AI
Speaker 7: layer on it. Every function of a company, every industry,
Speaker 7: every vertical there is going to be some specialized implementation
Speaker 7: of AI, not generalized, but very specialized and unique to
Speaker 7: a company in an industry and a job that's going
Speaker 7: to make people faster and better at their jobs, more accurate,
Speaker 7: and ultimately increase productivity across the economy in a really
Speaker 7: interesting way. We're creating a lot of companies in that space.
Speaker 7: We have a history of creating companies like Replicant, which
Speaker 7: is used AI to automate call center technology like Butter
Speaker 7: that's used AI to help payments go through online and
Speaker 7: can increase companies revenue by five or ten percents with
Speaker 7: just plugging in technology for a twenty four to forty
Speaker 7: eight hour period. Imagine if your top line can go
Speaker 7: up that much. So there's going to be a lot
Speaker 7: more interesting ways to deploy that across every sector, in
Speaker 7: every place in the economy.
Speaker 3: This is as we sink a tougher environment from an
Speaker 3: economic perspective, and there's a lot of work that's been
Speaker 3: done to show out of the ashes of a difficult
Speaker 3: economy come some brilliant businesses. We've seen the latter day
Speaker 3: crop of Airbnb and Uber be born into that difficult environment.
Speaker 3: Where are you seeing this talent grow? Where are you
Speaker 3: seeing these businesses most fruitfully be built.
Speaker 7: Yeah, So in a downturn, there's more talent availability than
Speaker 7: in other periods of time. We have a flood of talent.
Speaker 7: We have thousands of people applying to build companies with us,
Speaker 7: which is incredible. And where's that talent coming from? Some
Speaker 7: is companies downsizing, but a lot of it is toward
Speaker 7: the end of the last cycle, people are really gravitating
Speaker 7: toward the growth stage. They were figuring, you know, look,
Speaker 7: I can go work at a company for a year
Speaker 7: or two. It's going to go public. I'll have a
Speaker 7: nice payday, and then I'll be done. Since then, you know,
Speaker 7: that's been delayed. Some of those stocks have come down.
Speaker 7: So all of that talent, which is an incredible group
Speaker 7: of talent that knows how to scale companies, they're boomeranging
Speaker 7: back to the early stage. So I think I think
Speaker 7: that's one thing. The second thing is there's dramatically less
Speaker 7: competition in an environment like this, as you'd imagine in
Speaker 7: a crazy environment, everyone's getting funded. People are copying your ideas.
Speaker 7: Every VC wants to fund number two, number three, number four.
Speaker 7: It can actually destroy the market, which is pretty bad.
Speaker 7: And then the third thing that I'd say, you know
Speaker 7: is really important in a downturn is you learn the
Speaker 7: right habits as a company.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're forced to.
Speaker 7: Actually half of the fortune five hundred companies were created
Speaker 7: in downturns or recessions. According to Morgan Stanley's are very
Speaker 7: unique discrete periods of time in our economic history. If
Speaker 7: you can measure unit economics, make sure it's a good model,
Speaker 7: make sure that it can scale on its own. You're
Speaker 7: bound to build a good business in good times in
Speaker 7: bad times, and we're really leaning into that as a firm.
Speaker 3: Come tell us about the ones that you're building in
Speaker 3: the future. Atomic CEO, Managing partment. Great to how you
Speaker 3: hear Jack's right, Abraham, Let's talk biotech. Describe Therapeutics a
Speaker 3: platform for chris genetic medicine. It's just locked in a
Speaker 3: deal with Prevail Lily to create genetic medicines for neurological
Speaker 3: for neuromuscular diseases. This is the company is actually getting
Speaker 3: ready to give a talk a little later today on
Speaker 3: the potential of its platform and of Chrisper technology more broadly,
Speaker 3: and the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy's annual
Speaker 3: meeting amid this busy day an afternoon with please say skribe.
Speaker 3: CEO Benox joins us now for more on all of this,
Speaker 3: and I mean then, just remind us what you're telling
Speaker 3: at this event, the power of this technology. Ultimately, your
Speaker 3: ex editor, what are you going to be saying? Makes
Speaker 3: it different?
Speaker 10: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So Caroline, great to be here with you.
Speaker 10: What we're actually talking about at the Merchant Society for
Speaker 10: Selling Gene Therapy later today is really laying out our
Speaker 10: crisper by design approach, which is an approach that I've
Speaker 10: been pioneering with Nobel Laurea, Jennifer GAWDNA and co founder
Speaker 10: of Scribe really for the past decade. Our approach has
Speaker 10: been to use holistic molecular engineering, or the ability to
Speaker 10: change these crisper molecular machines at every single location to
Speaker 10: create more active and more specific and therefore safer therapeutics.
Speaker 10: So one of our scientists will be laying that out today, and.
Speaker 3: You have designed by approach has been well Eli now
Speaker 3: working withl Eli Lilly of course as a parent company,
Speaker 3: exclusive rights really to focus on your technology and use
Speaker 3: it within a neurological and neuromuscular disease context. How is
Speaker 3: this going to drive this forward? Why do the deal
Speaker 3: now with this particular company?
Speaker 10: Yeah, so I think you know there's a couple of
Speaker 10: reasons here. First, obviously, our technologies have continued to advance
Speaker 10: and we've been proving them out in vivo models, really
Speaker 10: demonstrating their ability to be delivered into these organ systems.
Speaker 10: Namely you know, neurological and neuromuscular diseases more specifically, I
Speaker 10: think it also represents a change in the field and
Speaker 10: thinking about how we can start to apply these technologies
Speaker 10: for really more more complicated and more difficult to treat disorder.
Speaker 3: Sense of timing here, Ben, because much enthusiasm around Crisper
Speaker 3: and around how it can change medicine, But is all
Speaker 3: this happen in the next year, the next ten years?
Speaker 10: So I think it's somewhere in between the two. There's
Speaker 10: still a lot of work to do. And will I
Speaker 10: do not want to say that this is simple. That
Speaker 10: being said, we have seen Crisper go from really publication
Speaker 10: within the past decade to really making huge differences in
Speaker 10: patients more recently, and that is incredibly rapid. I think
Speaker 10: that just demonstrates the power of this technology. And that's
Speaker 10: the first generation, right, what we're building really you know,
Speaker 10: light years ahead of what's come before. We're very excited
Speaker 10: about our ability to move this rapidly and into diseases
Speaker 10: really at a much broader scale.
Speaker 3: Can you give us a sense of how it is
Speaker 3: to do that within America visa the other countries? How
Speaker 3: is this sort of technology being the ability to quickly
Speaker 3: start to target these sorts of illnesses, the sort of
Speaker 3: partners that you get. Where do you think is the
Speaker 3: most practical and most efficient to do it.
Speaker 10: Ah, that's a deep question and one that actually has
Speaker 10: many layers. Right, If we're talking about more basic technology
Speaker 10: building in the United States has incredibly powerful universities which
Speaker 10: we get to work with and we do quite regularly.
Speaker 10: So we have a very close collaboration with UC Berkeley
Speaker 10: obviously where Jennifer works, and the Innovative Genomics Institute as well. Now,
Speaker 10: when you start to think about regulatory and moving beyond
Speaker 10: just building these technologies, I think that's where the world
Speaker 10: is also moving very rapidly, perhaps in some instances even
Speaker 10: more quickly than we.
Speaker 3: Are in the United States. Thank you for keeping it
Speaker 3: global for us. Thank you for fitting us in on
Speaker 3: a very busy day for us. Subscribe CEO, Ben Oaks,
Speaker 3: we wish you well, Thank you very much. Indeed, Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: when that does it for this edition of Blomberg Technology,
Speaker 3: you do not want to forget to check out the podcast.
Speaker 3: The way that you can absorb all that we've been
Speaker 3: discussing in an audio way, of course, go to Apple Spotify,
Speaker 3: iHeart even of course, on Bloomberg dot Com, and stay
Speaker 3: tuned for next week. We're after Kata and bring some
Speaker 3: great conversations from New York. As a Bloomberg