Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Bloomberg Tech is alive
Speaker 1: from coast to coast with Caroline Hyde in New York
Speaker 1: and Vla Loow in San Francisco.
Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg Tech coming up. President Trump's families getting
Speaker 2: into the mobile phone business with the Trump branded service
Speaker 2: plus Meta.
Speaker 3: We'll start showing ads in WhatsApp and offer paid subscriptions
Speaker 3: for the first time.
Speaker 2: And robotics firm one Ex Technology says it can evaluate
Speaker 2: a robot's performance without deploying it into the real world.
Speaker 2: But first, President Trump is attending a Group of Seventh
Speaker 2: summit in Canada today. This amid tariff uncertainty, a Middle
Speaker 2: East crisis between Israel and Iran. Let's go over to
Speaker 2: the G seven summit where Bloomberg's and Marie Horden is
Speaker 2: standing by AMH. What do we need to know?
Speaker 4: Well, certainly this is going to be a packed summit
Speaker 4: and what's going on in the Middle East is certainly
Speaker 4: taking center stage now really topping the agenda. We are
Speaker 4: waiting for President Trump to have a first bilateral meeting
Speaker 4: before the summit really kicks off. In earnest with Mark Karney,
Speaker 4: the Prime Minister of Canada, and really the Canadians here
Speaker 4: are trying to avoid what happened in twenty eighteen. You
Speaker 4: may remember that viral photo and the President was sitting
Speaker 4: with his arms crossed looking up at Angela Merkel, the
Speaker 4: then German Chancellor. She was surrounded by a number of leaders,
Speaker 4: the only one that's lasted since a fence, and then,
Speaker 4: of course President Trump pulled the US out of that
Speaker 4: joint communicate. So Mark Kearney's taking a different approach this time,
Speaker 4: looking at different statements that they can have a common
Speaker 4: thread for specifics, not one communicate for wide range of topics,
Speaker 4: maybe something regarding artificial intelligence, critical minerals. Potentially there will
Speaker 4: not be an agreement from all of these countries when
Speaker 4: it comes to things like the war in Ukraine, things
Speaker 4: like climate change, or even when it comes to what
Speaker 4: is going on with Iran and Israel. That is certainly
Speaker 4: going to be top of the agenda today. The President
Speaker 4: was speaking about as he left the White House yesterday
Speaker 4: and his way to Canada, and he was saying that
Speaker 4: these two may have to fight it out, but in
Speaker 4: the end he wants a deal.
Speaker 2: Bloomberg's Amory Horden will stick with what's happening in the
Speaker 2: G seven throughout the day. Thank you. Let's go with
Speaker 2: Donald Trump and over to DC to talk about some
Speaker 2: news in technology. The President's family launching a Trump branded
Speaker 2: mobile phone service that will rely on wireless networks and
Speaker 2: hardware quotes made in America, Bloomberg, Kelsey Griffiths here with more.
Speaker 2: The idea is that they're not building the network from
Speaker 2: the ground upright, They basically licensed capacity from the three
Speaker 2: major US carriers. But what else do we know about
Speaker 2: Trump Mobile? That's right ed?
Speaker 5: So the Trump family's mobile service is they say they're
Speaker 5: going to rely on the three major US telecom networks that.
Speaker 6: Have already been built.
Speaker 5: And this is a pretty common strategy that we see.
Speaker 5: Meant Mobile is one of the pretty well known so
Speaker 5: called mv and os that was eventually acquired by T Mobile.
Speaker 5: We also saw some celebrities last week looking to get
Speaker 5: into the mobile game, launching their own mv and O.
Speaker 5: So the Trump family is following a pretty popular tradition
Speaker 5: here by getting into this.
Speaker 6: Business, Kelsey Popular.
Speaker 3: Last time I checked, there were one hundreds, more than
Speaker 3: one hundred here in the United States of mobile virtual
Speaker 3: network operators.
Speaker 6: But what they're trying to tap into.
Speaker 3: Here is the Trump narrative, the Trump brand. How will
Speaker 3: it be priced versus other competitors in the space.
Speaker 5: That's right, So the brand is it's going to cost
Speaker 5: about just under fifty dollars. I think it's a forty
Speaker 5: seven to forty five per month, and I would say
Speaker 5: that is pretty competitive with the space. These mv and
Speaker 5: os tend to target these niche markets that are looking
Speaker 5: at customers that maybe don't want to or can't pay
Speaker 5: one hundred dollars or or you know, somewhere in that range.
Speaker 5: So I do think that there is a chance they
Speaker 5: will be targeting this niche that you know, maybe other
Speaker 5: operators aren't necessary.
Speaker 2: Are you looking at Kelsey? It's a competitive field, right
Speaker 2: when you're looking at any carrier. When I was reading
Speaker 2: the news from Trump Mobile, they're including everything that you'd expect,
Speaker 2: unlimited text, data, voice protection, overseas call. Just give us
Speaker 2: the basics of the plan.
Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly. So there are going to be some of
Speaker 5: these value added services on top of your mobile services
Speaker 5: that you would expect. There is going to be some
Speaker 5: sort of roadside assistance, there will be international calling thrown in,
Speaker 5: and there's also going to be the opportunity to purchase
Speaker 5: a mobile device that will also be branded with the
Speaker 5: Trump family logo. It will come in a gold variety,
Speaker 5: which you know, I'm looking forward to seeing.
Speaker 3: Kelsey Griffiths puts us perfectly onto our next discussion because
Speaker 3: we want to talk about the hardware perspective. Bomberg's Dana
Speaker 3: woman is, hey, with US four hundred and ninety nine dollars,
Speaker 3: you're going to be able to get it as soon
Speaker 3: as September. You can put one hundred dollars down for
Speaker 3: initial well, name.
Speaker 6: On a list. But can they make that in America?
Speaker 7: Never say never, but certainly the smartphone industry is not
Speaker 7: really making phones here in the US right now, and
Speaker 7: it's unclear from the report so far and what we
Speaker 7: know so far who exactly are with what partners Trump
Speaker 7: and his family would be making these devices. All that
Speaker 7: we know, as Kelsey has said, is that the advice
Speaker 7: would be golden color, which is very on brand for Trump,
Speaker 7: and that it will be caught, that it will be
Speaker 7: priced at four hundred and ninety nine dollars, which even
Speaker 7: before recent inflation, was a pretty budget price for a
Speaker 7: phone and seems especially low these days. So not knowing
Speaker 7: anything about the hardware, we can at least say safely
Speaker 7: these are probably not phones offering the most advanced features.
Speaker 7: And maybe that's not the point, as Kelsey said, for
Speaker 7: this particular niche right.
Speaker 2: The point, Jiner is that this is built as being
Speaker 2: designed and built in America at a time where the
Speaker 2: President is putting pressure on Apple to build the iPhone
Speaker 2: in America or face tariffs of as much as twenty
Speaker 2: five percent. I think it's really notable that it's going
Speaker 2: to run Android OS as well.
Speaker 6: Yes, absolutely, as we said.
Speaker 7: As I said, it's unclear exactly how the Trump organization
Speaker 7: would make this phone come to pass so quickly in
Speaker 7: the US, just knowing from Apple and other manufacturers as
Speaker 7: well all of the human resources, the human labor and
Speaker 7: physical resources that just are lacking here in the US.
Speaker 7: And by human resources, I mean specialized talent that know
Speaker 7: how to use this particular manufacturing equipment. A lot of
Speaker 7: the equipment itself is abroad. So it's unclear exactly how
Speaker 7: the team plans to surmount those challenges that other smartphone
Speaker 7: makers either haven't tackled or just seem to be avoiding.
Speaker 3: It's interesting who ultimately it'll be competing against because we've heard.
Speaker 6: Him take aim President Trump.
Speaker 3: This is of course the phone being made by President
Speaker 3: by Trump organization in his family. But President Trump himself,
Speaker 3: the administration of taken aim at Apple front and center.
Speaker 3: Bring your manufacturing back to the United States, but at
Speaker 3: a four nine to nine price point. Yeah, I might
Speaker 3: compete against an iPhone se but really it's going against
Speaker 3: other Android phones. It's going against the pixel AA for example.
Speaker 7: Yes, maybe perhaps not even the pixel A line, perhaps
Speaker 7: even more budget, sort of bargain basement phones that I'm
Speaker 7: not able to recite offhand, and most of us can't
Speaker 7: recite offhand.
Speaker 6: And I think one.
Speaker 7: Key question is how many does the organization plan to produce.
Speaker 7: I think one of the key lines in our story
Speaker 7: is that smartphone makers aren't producing.
Speaker 2: At scale in the US.
Speaker 7: So it's that, to me, is a really key question.
Speaker 7: Could you produce a small, really sort of limited run
Speaker 7: number of phones here in the US, probably more easily
Speaker 7: than Apple could produce its whole iPhone line. So I
Speaker 7: think the volume that they're expecting is an unknown detail,
Speaker 7: but seems like an important one to me.
Speaker 2: Motorola tried to build the Moto X in Dallas Fort
Speaker 2: Worth in twenty thirteen, and they shut the plant a
Speaker 2: year later. It was an Android based phone because the
Speaker 2: costs were too high. I mean, that's what we're talking
Speaker 2: about here. Karen made a really interesting point in our
Speaker 2: group chat earlier about like what is four nine nine
Speaker 2: relative to the field. It's like iPhone se It's like
Speaker 2: that kind of mid tier of Android smartphone. But making
Speaker 2: it and the number of components go into it. That's
Speaker 2: like the key question here if they can have a
Speaker 2: business in it.
Speaker 8: Yes, absolutely, data on all right, Bluebergs, go for it.
Speaker 2: Cara, I'll wrap it up.
Speaker 3: We've talked so much all things about the future of
Speaker 3: actual hardware and software. But let's take a look at
Speaker 3: what's happening in the world of crypto now ed because
Speaker 3: there's some Trump action there too.
Speaker 6: Let's hina light what's happening with DJT.
Speaker 3: Now we know that we were reporting last week about
Speaker 3: how they're going to be starting to by bitcoin in
Speaker 3: the treasury. Well, now we understand that they're pivoting with
Speaker 3: true social filing to the SEC with an s one
Speaker 3: saying they want a bitcoin in ethereum etf Now they've already.
Speaker 6: Looked at a Bitcoin ETF.
Speaker 3: But this is scaling out to Ether as well. Bitcoin's
Speaker 3: up two point seventy five percent. Ether is up more
Speaker 3: than five percent. Remember perhaps bouncing back after last week's
Speaker 3: sell off amid some of that risk aversion. But check
Speaker 3: out what's happening with Circle, the latest crypto ipo is
Speaker 3: just going from.
Speaker 6: Strength to strength throughout more than twenty percent.
Speaker 3: As we all anticipate that the latest Genius Act that
Speaker 3: will put into legal clarity stable coins is likely to
Speaker 3: occur this week.
Speaker 6: I also want to.
Speaker 3: Say that Tron is being reported in the ft that
Speaker 3: Tron my ipo here in the United States via a
Speaker 3: reverse merger, and that's sending other companies, particularly higher.
Speaker 8: Ed coming up. Robots.
Speaker 2: They're just like us now, possibly more so, as robotics
Speaker 2: firm one X Technologies launches a world model that will
Speaker 2: teach robots to anticipate and understand the physics that's all
Speaker 2: around them. That's coming up next. This is Bloomberg technology
Speaker 2: companies like Tesla betting their future on humanoid robots that
Speaker 2: fill labor shortages, particularly in manufacturing. Today, robotics firm one
Speaker 2: X Technologies is out with a new world model it
Speaker 2: says can evaluate a robot's performance without deploying it into
Speaker 2: the real world. The models are data driven simulator of
Speaker 2: humanoids with the grounded understanding of physics of their surrounding world.
Speaker 2: The CEO and CTO of one X Burn Burnick joins
Speaker 2: us here in San Francisco. You would claim that this
Speaker 2: world model is the first of its kind, and you
Speaker 2: have the data from it that that proves its effectiveness.
Speaker 2: But the main point is validation of capability without collecting
Speaker 2: the real world data.
Speaker 8: Kind of yes, you got to model the right.
Speaker 9: So what had really does us is it gives us
Speaker 9: the ability to basically see the future with respect to
Speaker 9: what would happen if the role what actually takes these
Speaker 9: specific actions. And this allows us to really test at
Speaker 9: scale where these new AI models that we're actually creating
Speaker 9: will be better than the previous ones, right, and that
Speaker 9: really allows us to climb this and really to create
Speaker 9: better and better our models for physical labor.
Speaker 2: I wrote in the Tech and Depth newsletter this morning
Speaker 2: that if you look at particularly manufacturing jobs data, there
Speaker 2: is a need there. You know, it's hard to fill
Speaker 2: those roles. Why does this world model open a path
Speaker 2: to a world where humanoid robotics are genuinely useful, deployable
Speaker 2: in manufacturing or other logistic settings where a human is
Speaker 2: currently needed.
Speaker 9: So I think like taking a step back to us,
Speaker 9: like you know, we're a consumer company. Seen often ask
Speaker 9: right now, but to us, it's really about how do
Speaker 9: you create an actual abundance of artificial labor as quickly
Speaker 9: as possible, which means going into factories, going into enterprise
Speaker 9: services and everything right. But to get there and get
Speaker 9: your robos to be intelligent enough to solve these tasks,
Speaker 9: you just need this incredible diversity of data.
Speaker 8: And that's why we're going to the home first. And
Speaker 8: if you're deploying.
Speaker 9: These robots at scaling to homes, living and learning among us,
Speaker 9: then we also need to be able in a safe
Speaker 9: manner to test how will our models perform? And this
Speaker 9: is really what the world mode allows us to do.
Speaker 9: It allows us to take all of this data that
Speaker 9: we're gathering, create new models, and then see if we
Speaker 9: deployed these to our fleet of robots, how would it
Speaker 9: actually perform, Would all of the behaviors that it do
Speaker 9: actually be safe? Would it be able to do things
Speaker 9: that couldn't do before? And kind of really benchmark the
Speaker 9: models so we can progress.
Speaker 3: How soffiscated is the hardware right now, we're talking about
Speaker 3: how the models and the software is going to really
Speaker 3: bring it to bear. What are they already doing in
Speaker 3: the home those that are out in beta.
Speaker 9: So the hardware is actually really getting there. So I
Speaker 9: have one in my home, for example, and it's doing
Speaker 9: like tidying, cleaning, vacuuming, some laundry, different kind of tasks.
Speaker 8: The whole are on the home.
Speaker 9: And of course also the social aspect of this, right
Speaker 9: being able to have this AI companion together with you,
Speaker 9: which does not allow you doesn't actually require you to
Speaker 9: look at your phone all the time to be able
Speaker 9: to interface with AI. Now, currently this is still pretty
Speaker 9: brittle and the magic is there, and then maybe it
Speaker 9: lasts for a minute and then you need someone to
Speaker 9: nudge it in the right direction. Right, but it's really
Speaker 9: getting to where you see where this will go and
Speaker 9: the hardware can do it. And now it's really about
Speaker 9: how do we gather the data that allows us to
Speaker 9: automate all this behavior. And that's also really what we're
Speaker 9: doing this year, right, So when we're talking about the
Speaker 9: goal being by end of year, we're actually going to
Speaker 9: have this commercially out in the market. In homes, it's
Speaker 9: really important to do expectation management because this is not
Speaker 9: the consumer product at that point that everyone will have
Speaker 9: at home. This is the big beginning of a journey
Speaker 9: where we're inviting people in on our mission to really
Speaker 9: almost like adopt an neo into your family, have it,
Speaker 9: live and learn among us, and have a lot of
Speaker 9: fun around fun along the way.
Speaker 2: Okay, see your.
Speaker 6: Pitch, it's still early adopted here.
Speaker 3: Basically you're pitching an earlier adoptor in the home. Go
Speaker 3: to outside the home for a moment. I really want
Speaker 3: your expertise. When we're talking about having robots help manufacture
Speaker 3: here in the US, President Trump wants to build Apple
Speaker 3: phones here in the US. Is robotics at a level
Speaker 3: in the next few years where we could ever make
Speaker 3: that achievable.
Speaker 8: In the next few years.
Speaker 9: I think like this is going to happen a lot
Speaker 9: sooner than people might think. But it's not happening this year.
Speaker 9: But we are a few years, not a few decades
Speaker 9: away from where actually, most importantly to me, robots can
Speaker 9: build robots, meaning we can have robots build more robots,
Speaker 9: We can have robots build out the energy infrastructure, the
Speaker 9: data centers, the chip fabs and really enable us to
Speaker 9: get this.
Speaker 8: Multiplier on the workforce for artificial labor.
Speaker 9: Which will allow us to automate all kinds of factory
Speaker 9: work across the US. And I think this can have
Speaker 9: a tremendous impact on our GDP right and how we.
Speaker 8: Can grow our way out of the current deficit.
Speaker 9: But I also wanted to just do expectation management and
Speaker 9: say like this is years away, but years it's not
Speaker 9: that long in the ground picture of things, it's not.
Speaker 8: Okay, you first.
Speaker 2: Came on our radar in Video GtC. You had this
Speaker 2: sort of very prominent place, and I know that the
Speaker 2: one X exchanged jackets with Jensen, etc. What is the
Speaker 2: unlock bin from Nvidia? You know they always talk about
Speaker 2: how they work in multiple ways, not just providing the
Speaker 2: basis for training, but the localized silicon for the robot
Speaker 2: itself and then simulated or virtual data. Just to explain
Speaker 2: the relationship.
Speaker 9: Yeah, sure, and Video is an amazing partner, right, and
Speaker 9: we're working very deeply together both with our engineering team.
Speaker 9: We're using their hardware, we're using their simulators, and I
Speaker 9: think they've done an incredible job in just enabling the
Speaker 9: ecosystem and all of the things you've touched upon.
Speaker 8: We are using right.
Speaker 9: So they're very fast simulators that allow us to learn
Speaker 9: a lot in simulation before we have to go into
Speaker 9: the real world. It's really valuable for us. We had
Speaker 9: some great results we published last week from our reinforcement
Speaker 9: learning and our work on how to use the entire
Speaker 9: body like you can see here to robot actually using
Speaker 9: its entire body to do tasks, and this is training
Speaker 9: nvidas simulators. The compute on Border robot actually is nvida's harbor,
Speaker 9: and they've done a great job in creating very good
Speaker 9: embedded compute that can allow us to run the robot
Speaker 9: fully kind of enclosed. Right doesn't actually need to be
Speaker 9: connected to the internet to do its tasks. And of
Speaker 9: course we're training on the infrastructure from NVIDA like everyone else.
Speaker 2: We're talking a lot about your model world model today,
Speaker 2: but we're showing also pictures on the screen of the
Speaker 2: hardware side. What is different, what is your different mission
Speaker 2: statement to a figure, AI, agility, TESLA and optimists all
Speaker 2: the things we've been talking about for many weeks.
Speaker 9: Sure, so of course I don't want to speak on
Speaker 9: other's behalf. But I can see like my view on this,
Speaker 9: so I'd actually say it's pretty different because most of
Speaker 9: the companies in this field they're focusing on how can
Speaker 9: we be useful as quickly as possible in manufacturing or
Speaker 9: some kind of enterprise, while to me, it's actually all
Speaker 9: about how can we make robots that are safe so
Speaker 9: they can live and learn among people, because that's how
Speaker 9: we get to truly intelligent machines. And if you want
Speaker 9: to put them in consumer they need to be extremely affordable.
Speaker 9: So you need to have this combination of something that's
Speaker 9: very safe but still affordable and very capable, and then
Speaker 9: you can have this living and learning among people.
Speaker 8: And basically solve the full problem, right, how do we.
Speaker 9: Get robots that are as intelligent as us so that
Speaker 9: we can easily instruct them in how to do labor
Speaker 9: across society at scale? So I'd say like we're betting
Speaker 9: to go directly to the goal instead of going through
Speaker 9: the factories.
Speaker 3: Ben Berneck, it's been great having you CEO and CTO
Speaker 3: of one X Technology is fascinating.
Speaker 6: Thanks.
Speaker 3: It is time now for talking tech and first up
Speaker 3: shares a Roku surging today. Now the company has announced
Speaker 3: a partnership with Amazon Ads that it says will allow
Speaker 3: advertisers access to more than eighty percent of US households
Speaker 3: with Amazon Connected TVs.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 3: The full integration and roll out to all advertisers that's
Speaker 3: expected by Q four of this year likely drive more
Speaker 3: demand for Roku's US inventory.
Speaker 6: Analysts A plus.
Speaker 3: Imax, while it is set to expand it screens aggressively
Speaker 3: across China, i'm act as Chinese arm alongside partner Wonder Films,
Speaker 3: says they will replace twenty seven screens in IMAX's jumbo screen.
Speaker 3: Imax will currently operate eight hundred screens in China, and
Speaker 3: it drew a record twenty two million customers from January
Speaker 3: to May.
Speaker 6: And Taiwan's International.
Speaker 3: Trade Administration has added Huawei and Smith it's list of
Speaker 3: blacklisted companies. It's a move that undercuts China's efforts in
Speaker 3: developing AI chip technology locally ed.
Speaker 2: Turning to Tesla, the company's full self driving tech stack,
Speaker 2: alongside their ability to scale, is proving to be a
Speaker 2: tailwind against drivers like Weaimo is the robotaxi race ramps up.
Speaker 2: That's the latest from Bloomberg Intelligence Steve Man, who led
Speaker 2: the research, joins us. Now, the kind of key headline
Speaker 2: from the REACT piece is that Tesla's vehicle costs is
Speaker 2: about one seventh of Weaimo's. Why were you so focused
Speaker 2: on that, Steve Well?
Speaker 10: I think is the critical piece in getting it on
Speaker 10: a commercial basis, on a mass scale basis. And also,
Speaker 10: you know the.
Speaker 8: Payback is also important.
Speaker 10: If you can produce the cars at a fraction of
Speaker 10: the price, Look, you can get more of these vehicles
Speaker 10: out on the road. And also you know, whoever is
Speaker 10: running can actually make their money back much sooner.
Speaker 3: The issue you really highlight is the lack of production
Speaker 3: of real vehicles by Weimo versus. Tesla just has hundreds
Speaker 3: of thousands of millions on the road already.
Speaker 6: Is that the key dividing factor?
Speaker 10: Histey, that's one key dividing factor. I think technology is
Speaker 10: also important. Look, I don't want to discount Weymo technology.
Speaker 10: I think you know they've have had a number of
Speaker 10: cars on the road.
Speaker 8: It's working.
Speaker 10: You know, there's always going to be some issues here
Speaker 10: and there. But look, I think if you look at
Speaker 10: Tesla's technology and their approach with using cameras, it's just
Speaker 10: much easier to scale and especially now if you look
Speaker 10: at the recent news, you know, the Chinese are actually
Speaker 10: opening up the market, opening up the market for them
Speaker 10: and allowing them to export some of that data, training
Speaker 10: data out of China. That's a huge that's a huge
Speaker 10: win for Tesla and scaling over the long term.
Speaker 2: Steve I used full self driving supervised the latest version
Speaker 2: this morning to go to thirty miles from my house
Speaker 2: to the studio. I do it every day. You stay
Speaker 2: very clearly it's still a level two system right on
Speaker 2: a technical basis, do you see the jump to a
Speaker 2: software platform that how is a vehicle with no one
Speaker 2: in the driver's seat at all?
Speaker 10: That's that's gonna be a while. I have to admittedly
Speaker 10: say it's going to be a while. I think the
Speaker 10: consumer needs to gain confidence. It's going to be a
Speaker 10: gold standard. It's going to be you know, if if
Speaker 10: a car is ninety nine point ninety nine percent accurate,
Speaker 10: I think then the consumer will be more confidence. Before that,
Speaker 10: I think there's going to be always some level of
Speaker 10: monitoring from from the consumer. We're not at that stage
Speaker 10: where we see you know, this is not like the
Speaker 10: Eye Robot movie that that Will Smith was was on
Speaker 10: a long time ago, where you know cars are actually
Speaker 10: driving itself and making decisions on their own. We're not
Speaker 10: at that at that moment yet. But what's really important
Speaker 10: is the training data, and that's where Tesla also comes
Speaker 10: in as well, where they have just tons of training
Speaker 10: data from around the world.
Speaker 6: Steve Man of BlueBag Intelligence is a great read. Thanks
Speaker 6: for coming on.
Speaker 3: Now coming up Meta, it has to start showing ads
Speaker 3: in WhatsApp, it's private messaging services. We'll find out what
Speaker 3: the change means for users and for the social media giant.
Speaker 3: This is Bloomberg Tech. Welcome back to Bloomberg Tech. I'm
Speaker 3: Caroline Hyde in New York.
Speaker 2: And I met love Loow in San Francisco.
Speaker 3: Quick check on these markets said, because look, we are
Speaker 3: powering back after selling off on Friday and mid geopolitical anxiety,
Speaker 3: we rally as we all eyes atturn our attention to
Speaker 3: Iran Israel and of course what's happening at the g
Speaker 3: seventh summit. But under the hood, chip makers having a
Speaker 3: really nice day, AMD leading the charge up more than
Speaker 3: eight percent after it's unveiled last week of GPUs and
Speaker 3: some analyst notes on the back of that. But move
Speaker 3: on to Meta because it is one of the key
Speaker 3: points contributors, the second biggest points contributor.
Speaker 6: On the day, we're up three percent.
Speaker 3: Why because the announcements when it comes to advertising ED YEP.
Speaker 2: Announce it's introducing ads as well as some new features
Speaker 2: into WhatsApp. It marks a change for the privacy focus
Speaker 2: messaging platform. Blue most Riley Griffin joins us, this is
Speaker 2: all about the updates tab and what people maybe outside
Speaker 2: of America actually don't appreciate. It's like one and a
Speaker 2: half billion visits per day to this updates tab. What's
Speaker 2: the ad strategy here for Meta? Because clearly the shares
Speaker 2: are higher. This is something the markets es is positive.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 11: Meta has begun introducing ads to various outlets other than
Speaker 11: Instagram and Facebook, the platforms that we know really well,
Speaker 11: and here with WhatsApp, they're introducing those ads starting today,
Speaker 11: rolling that out over time into the updates tab, which
Speaker 11: is much like stories. You're able to get other kinds
Speaker 11: of information there, and they're not actually introducing it to
Speaker 11: the conversations the messages that you and I might be
Speaker 11: having ED.
Speaker 6: But this is a new revenue line. They're introducing it.
Speaker 11: While at Con this week, advertising is the name of
Speaker 11: the game, and more to come in terms of how
Speaker 11: big of a share of revenue this world pull in.
Speaker 6: Rnie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, got to walk that fine line that they don't
Speaker 3: invade what we feel is very personalized and private conversations,
Speaker 3: the going down the updates route, but also subscriptions. In
Speaker 3: the longer term, the business communications is really going to
Speaker 3: be where it's at.
Speaker 11: No doubt they've been using the platform to bring businesses on.
Speaker 11: You can communicate with airlines, with shops. But a really
Speaker 11: important point that you made, Caroline is that this was
Speaker 11: not the intention of the original WhatsApp owners when met
Speaker 11: about the company in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 6: Even before then.
Speaker 11: The co founders had said that they would never introduce
Speaker 11: ads to the platform. So this is a market change
Speaker 11: and one very specific to Mark Zuckerberg.
Speaker 2: The main thing about Meta right now is that ads
Speaker 2: is still the core. It's still the bread and butter business.
Speaker 2: But success and growth and top line growth all justifies
Speaker 2: investment in AI. I think that's still the formula.
Speaker 6: Absolutely.
Speaker 11: We know that Meta might be spending more than seventy
Speaker 11: billion on AI this week. This comes on the news
Speaker 11: last week that Meta is finalizing a deal for Scale
Speaker 11: AI that is more than fourteen billion investment to be specific.
Speaker 11: But ads are going to be improved by AI, no doubt.
Speaker 11: And that's the conversation in comm this week.
Speaker 6: And it's a perfect set up.
Speaker 3: Riley Griffin, we thank you because let's go out to
Speaker 3: CAM right now and talk about social media advertising more
Speaker 3: with Rachel Tippograph founeracy of Mick Matt. You're out there
Speaker 3: taking a step out of the sam for a moment
Speaker 3: to be with us. Rachel, just talk about the well
Speaker 3: euphoria around how generative AI is going to be helping
Speaker 3: the AI offering and advertising offering.
Speaker 6: But is it going to impact companies and people?
Speaker 12: So everyone's in agreement that AI is going to lower
Speaker 12: the barrier to entry for advertising. Where has all the
Speaker 12: friction been in the creative and ad buying process, generating
Speaker 12: creative figuring out where you're going to invest your dollars,
Speaker 12: launching those ads and auto optimizing experiences and ultimately getting
Speaker 12: reporting back. Where the friction is in the conversation right
Speaker 12: now at con with CMOS is that they absolutely agree
Speaker 12: that there are efficiency disease to be had in the
Speaker 12: process that I just describe, but what they feel cannot
Speaker 12: be outsourced is creative ideas that break through culture. And
Speaker 12: so it's interesting that Zuckerberg has been very bold in
Speaker 12: his statement where he's essentially said, by the end of
Speaker 12: twenty twenty six, all human intervention will be removed from advertising.
Speaker 12: I believe that fifty percent will be removed, but not
Speaker 12: one hundred percent. And the biggest cmos in the world
Speaker 12: share the same sentiment.
Speaker 6: What about the social media companies?
Speaker 3: The biggest in the world is TikTok, is it on
Speaker 3: veilzez It's general to AI offering also as bullish as
Speaker 3: Mark Zukobog.
Speaker 12: Absolutely, there's a place to lower the barrier to entry
Speaker 12: in terms of creative What's interesting with TikTok's announcements this
Speaker 12: week is that they even said that they're going to
Speaker 12: help generate influencer content, which raises the question around authenticity.
Speaker 12: So while AI is going to help lower the barrier
Speaker 12: to entry increase productivity, it's also going to create new
Speaker 12: questions in advertising.
Speaker 2: Is this real?
Speaker 12: How much is an advertiser willing to spend on a
Speaker 12: agentic impression? Will they spend the same amount on a
Speaker 12: human impression. It's going to create a whole new opening
Speaker 12: and advertising for new companies to come to market to
Speaker 12: define what the standardization is in terms of ad buying
Speaker 12: measurement in forms of agentic AI and creative experiences.
Speaker 2: Rachel, what are people talking about on tiktoking? Can there's
Speaker 2: a June nineteenth deadline for sale shut down? We haven't
Speaker 2: yet gotten an extension. What are you hearing?
Speaker 12: Everyone has come to the point in this journey where
Speaker 12: they believe TikTok is here to stay. When we look
Speaker 12: at mickmac data, it's essentially held as our third most
Speaker 12: traffic channel on any given day Meta number one, Google
Speaker 12: Search number two, TikTok number three. When TikTok went dark
Speaker 12: on January nineteenth, it did take about until March first
Speaker 12: for advertisers to get back to Q four levels of traffic.
Speaker 12: By May, we saw it surpass Rach on any given
Speaker 12: day in May, just going to seventy percent of traffic.
Speaker 3: Rachel typograph keeping it global. So good to have you found, Racio, MIKEMP.
Speaker 2: VC firms are continuing to step up their investments in
Speaker 2: AIAI Expentsures is one of those early stage VC firms
Speaker 2: doing just that. Sean Johnson, co founder and general partner
Speaker 2: AIX menures joins us now earlier in the show one X.
Speaker 2: On the robotics side, we've been thinking a lot about
Speaker 2: scale AI data on that side, agentic AI. What they
Speaker 2: all have in common, to my mind is that the
Speaker 2: cost of getting towards this level of intelligence is coming
Speaker 2: down and down and down. How do you invest in
Speaker 2: the early stage to kind of rite that wave?
Speaker 13: Yeah, and thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 13: Absolutely, we think a lot about this new era where
Speaker 13: the cost of intelligence, just as you called out, is
Speaker 13: going to zero, and so what does that mean for
Speaker 13: the new world we're going to live in. That means
Speaker 13: that you're on the consumer side, you're going to have
Speaker 13: ready access to tutors doctors. On the enterprise side, you're
Speaker 13: going to see more and more knowledge workers be augmented
Speaker 13: and some replaced by AI. And so we invest at
Speaker 13: the early stage, you know, first check. We are looking
Speaker 13: at founders with big visions looking to change the world,
Speaker 13: that want to move very fast to bring that disruption
Speaker 13: to market. And that's how we've positioned the fur.
Speaker 3: What's interesting is there's big visions coming from big companies. Sean,
Speaker 3: we can't help but sort of draw the attention that
Speaker 3: it's phenomenal amounts of money coming from just a few
Speaker 3: key players, whether it be Amazon, whether it be Meta.
Speaker 3: And of course, reports that open Ai might be snapping
Speaker 3: up one of your portfolio companies, Weights and Biases has
Speaker 3: already been eyed as well and bought by call Weave.
Speaker 6: Is M and A going to happen for these smaller
Speaker 6: companies a lot?
Speaker 13: Absolutely? I mean so, I'd say two things there. The
Speaker 13: first is it makes sense for the large companies to
Speaker 13: get a lot of attention. They make a lot of revenue,
Speaker 13: they have large market caps. Venture capital is a business
Speaker 13: that's focused on small companies that start with no revenue
Speaker 13: and then have much smaller prospects in the short term,
Speaker 13: but can grow quickly and under the radar to an
Speaker 13: extent of the large companies. Now, large companies are certainly
Speaker 13: focused on building AI native teams, bringing AI throughout, refusing
Speaker 13: that sort of mindset throughout their organizations, and M and
Speaker 13: A is very important for that. And it's going to
Speaker 13: happen at all stages. It's going to happen at startups
Speaker 13: that are really just getting started. It's also going to
Speaker 13: happen at startups that are fairly far along to.
Speaker 2: Perplexity. We just showed some of the portfolio companies on
Speaker 2: the screen that this thesis building that they're almost peerless.
Speaker 2: They get talked a lot about in the context of
Speaker 2: Google and Search, also get towards about in the context
Speaker 2: of sort of those working on the on the frontier model.
Speaker 2: Just your your thesis on them, please sure.
Speaker 13: So you know, Arvind and the team have been setting
Speaker 13: their sights on building an iconic business. And we all
Speaker 13: know one thing's true in AI as it moves very fast.
Speaker 13: You know, if you never know what's going to be
Speaker 13: launched tomorrow, what's going to be launched the next day.
Speaker 13: And the amazing thing about Perplexity in the team is
Speaker 13: they have a group of some of the world's foremost
Speaker 13: practitioners executing at you know, the speed of light, if
Speaker 13: you will. And so they're all focused right now on,
Speaker 13: you know, redefining what knowledge knowledge engine looks like. But
Speaker 13: then also you're going to see Commet their new browser
Speaker 13: come out very soon, and that's going to redefine again
Speaker 13: what Argentic Solutions can bring you.
Speaker 3: Of course, yourself were very much helming product design at
Speaker 3: startups before you came onto co found aix bench as Sean,
Speaker 3: what'sn't only one question people are coming to your founders
Speaker 3: coming to you at the moment.
Speaker 6: Is it about talent? Is it about taris what is
Speaker 6: it a app?
Speaker 13: Yeah, that's a really good question, Caroline. Founders often talk
Speaker 13: to us about, you know, number one, how do you start,
Speaker 13: you know, connecting with early customers, early prospects. It's all
Speaker 13: about product market fit, and that can be elusive for
Speaker 13: many years into the journey. You know that is an
Speaker 13: entrepreneurs and so what we do is orient ourselves around
Speaker 13: the founder and we think a lot about how do
Speaker 13: we get to product market fit with the founder through
Speaker 13: lots of customer conversations, hiring a team, thinking about business
Speaker 13: strategy execution, but then also connecting with the next wave
Speaker 13: of venture firms will that will continue to back the founders.
Speaker 3: Jean Johnson of AI Expensions, we appreciate you coming on today.
Speaker 7: Thanks.
Speaker 3: Now let's just talk about one time login codes. You
Speaker 3: probably have them a lot that meant to be security
Speaker 3: and verify users identity that may not actually though, be
Speaker 3: all that private. Millions of those codes sent via text
Speaker 3: pastor into madiories, making it possible for entities to actually
Speaker 3: see their content and most, Ryan Gallagher is been really
Speaker 3: needing the charge. This is an investigation, a deep one, Ryan,
Speaker 3: just showing how actually we shouldn't really be using TECHSSMS
Speaker 3: as our form of two factual authentication. That's right.
Speaker 14: Yeah, we looked in depth at this issue because I
Speaker 14: think a lot of people don't realize that when you
Speaker 14: log into whether it's a banking app or whether it's
Speaker 14: Google or Meta, when you receive one of these logging
Speaker 14: codes via SMS, it isn't actually coming directly from the
Speaker 14: tech company or the platform that you're logging into is
Speaker 14: routed through intermediaries all across the world, and there's very
Speaker 14: little oversight of who actually handles those messages. So that's
Speaker 14: what we set about to do is to show look
Speaker 14: who is actually looking at these security codes and is
Speaker 14: there a potential vulnerability in terms of the people who
Speaker 14: are accessing the codes. And that's what we found that
Speaker 14: there's some concerns around some of the entities that are
Speaker 14: handling them.
Speaker 2: Ryan, what's the alternative then to SMS? We just have
Speaker 2: thirty seconds.
Speaker 14: The alternative is to use, for example, an authenticator app
Speaker 14: on your phone which actually gives you the code on
Speaker 14: your phone. You don't have to rely on SMS. It
Speaker 14: doesn't go across any network. It's just on your device
Speaker 14: all the time and it stays there. So authenticator apps
Speaker 14: Google those and you'll find plenty of options.
Speaker 3: Ryan Allagher, it's a really thoughtful piece. We hurt you
Speaker 3: to go and read it from a business perspective, from
Speaker 3: a security perspective. Now that does it for this edition
Speaker 3: of Bloomberg Tech ed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, astonishing way to start the week. Don't forget to
Speaker 2: recap through the podcast. You know where to find the pod.
Speaker 2: It's on the Bloomberg terminal all the Bloomberg platforms, as
Speaker 2: well as online on Apple, Spotify in iHeart all right,
Speaker 2: strong way to start the week. From San Francisco, New
Speaker 2: York City. This IS's Bloomberg Tech