Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news from Mahard.
Speaker 2: We're Innovation, Money and Power Collie in Silicon Valley, NBN.
Speaker 3: This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow.
Speaker 4: Live from New York and San Francisco. This is Bloomberg
Speaker 4: Technology coming up. President electrom and Elon Musk are in
Speaker 4: Washington today. We dissect the tech founder's extraordinary political role.
Speaker 5: Plus we speak with a key investor in Swiggy about
Speaker 5: the latest landmark Indian IPO.
Speaker 4: And SoftBank will be the first to build a supercomputer
Speaker 4: with chips using Nvidia's new Blackwell design.
Speaker 5: President electromp is due to meat with President Biden. Let's
Speaker 5: get out to Washington, DC and Bloomberg. Katie Lyones, who
Speaker 5: joins us from right outside of the White House. A
Speaker 5: meeting there was telegraphed. We've known about it being on
Speaker 5: the schedule for a few days. But significant, Kayley, Yeah.
Speaker 6: It is significant, Ed, mostly because this is not something
Speaker 6: we saw in twenty twenty. Donald Trump did not extend
Speaker 6: an invitation to Joe Biden to meet him at the
Speaker 6: White House like this, as is American tradition. But now
Speaker 6: Biden has done the same or rather, she was in
Speaker 6: differently as he invited Donald Trump to be here with
Speaker 6: him today for what is a typical part of the
Speaker 6: transition process. This administration, of course, has pledged that there
Speaker 6: will be a peaceful transition of power for President elect
Speaker 6: Donald Trump. As for what they will talk about in
Speaker 6: this meeting, the White House has been pretty tight lid
Speaker 6: about that. The Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre yesterday and
Speaker 6: the Press briefing was asked about the subject matter and
Speaker 6: she said they prefer to keep private conversations private. As
Speaker 6: for some educated guesses as to what they could talk about.
Speaker 6: In addition to of course domestic issues preserving American democratic institutions,
Speaker 6: there could be some foreign policy in this meeting as well,
Speaker 6: as we've seen in the past, like for example, in
Speaker 6: twenty sixteen when then President Barack Obama met with Donald
Speaker 6: Trump after his first election victory. So we'll wait to
Speaker 6: see if we get any characterization of this meeting from
Speaker 6: either the current president or the President elect. But obviously
Speaker 6: it is going to be an important photo opportunity and
Speaker 6: assigned to the American people that the democratic process is
Speaker 6: working as usual.
Speaker 4: Kayleie involved in toe Leta with House Republicans is el
Speaker 4: mask Can you just tell us a little bit about
Speaker 4: what you're hearing with a relationship that and who else
Speaker 4: Trump president elect Trump is assigning roles.
Speaker 6: Well, certainly we got some big news pertaining to Elon
Speaker 6: Musk and another high profile Republican Vivek Ramaswami, who of
Speaker 6: course ran against Donald Trump during the primary campaign earlier
Speaker 6: this year. They will be heading up together the Department
Speaker 6: of Government Efficiency or DOGE you might be able.
Speaker 7: To call it.
Speaker 6: Essentially given until July fourth, twenty twenty six, to help
Speaker 6: cut waste in government and deregulate things. Present a proposal
Speaker 6: essentially for how that can be done. I would just
Speaker 6: point out though that this of course is not a
Speaker 6: direct government role. It may avoid some of the conflict
Speaker 6: of issues or conflict of interest issues that could arise
Speaker 6: if Elon Musk was given a more direct role in
Speaker 6: government by Donald Trump, but by and large they will
Speaker 6: not actually have the power to exercise these spending cuts.
Speaker 6: That is still going to be up to the appropriators,
Speaker 6: which is Congress. Is they set their budgets and appropriate
Speaker 6: the money that is there to be spent accordingly. So
Speaker 6: while they can make recommendations, this isn't necessarily giving him
Speaker 6: direct clear power over the way in which money is
Speaker 6: spent or not in the federal government. All that said,
Speaker 6: it does clearly underscore the very close relationship that Donald
Speaker 6: Trump now has with the richest man in the.
Speaker 4: World, Katie Lines outside the White House, we appreciate it.
Speaker 4: Let's bring more on this growing clout that Elon Musk
Speaker 4: has over in Washington. Bluembgs, Michael Shepherd is with us
Speaker 4: and to that point, the doge or doge however, we're
Speaker 4: going to be discussing it. Michael, just where do you
Speaker 4: think the rubber hits the road from the perspective of Washington.
Speaker 4: Because we all know Elon Musk demon mode. We know
Speaker 4: how focus he can be on stripping out costs, how
Speaker 4: he can really focus in and hone a particular issue
Speaker 4: and manage to ultimately provide, whether it be cars or
Speaker 4: whether it be rockets. But what about efficiency cuts and
Speaker 4: two trillion dollars worth.
Speaker 8: Well, it's a great question, Caroline, and it really cuts
Speaker 8: to the heart of whether this effort will actually produce
Speaker 8: the kind of results that Elon Musk expects and may
Speaker 8: be seeding with Donald Trump in expectation of his own
Speaker 8: that he would be able to replicate what he has
Speaker 8: done in the private sector here in the public sector.
Speaker 8: And the truth is, every expert who understands government spending
Speaker 8: and government performance sees a vast difference between how an
Speaker 8: agency operates and how a corporate entity is run. In
Speaker 8: many ways, the differences are so historic when it comes
Speaker 8: to how employees are contracted, paid, what they're judged on,
Speaker 8: but also just simply what kind of service or good
Speaker 8: or product they're trying to provide.
Speaker 5: Michael, I want to be clear with a Bloomberg Technology
Speaker 5: audience that the Department of Government Efficiency, per the details
Speaker 5: that President elect Trump team put out, is not a department.
Speaker 5: It acts outside of government, which is interesting, right. There
Speaker 5: are lots of questions about whether must continues the CEO
Speaker 5: of TESLA, But what is it that he's going to
Speaker 5: target from outside of government?
Speaker 8: Well, again, there are so many questions about this initiative
Speaker 8: that still have to be answered, the structure of it,
Speaker 8: how many people will be working on this effort to
Speaker 8: see it through, who will write the recommendations, Will Musk
Speaker 8: be pulling in people and the Vekaramaswami be pulling in
Speaker 8: people from their own ventures and entities and maybe structuring
Speaker 8: some of these quests for efficiency in a way that
Speaker 8: benefit the companies that they work at. For instance, Tesla
Speaker 8: and SpaceX are heavily regulated and overseen by agencies including
Speaker 8: NITZA and the FAA, And these are things that Elon
Speaker 8: Musk has complained about, and he has said, Look, if
Speaker 8: I want to get the MARS, I need the shackles
Speaker 8: of regulation removed.
Speaker 2: But at the same time.
Speaker 8: People out there in the countryside really do benefit from
Speaker 8: those regulations when it comes to environmental protections, when it
Speaker 8: comes to other things that maybe breaks misbehavior in the markets,
Speaker 8: for example. So some of what he is seeking in
Speaker 8: terms of efficiency could actually create harms for people who
Speaker 8: don't have the same degree of insulation from some of
Speaker 8: life's inconveniences that the world's richest man does enjoy.
Speaker 4: Mike, it was said that Peter til reminded us to
Speaker 4: not take President electrom literally, but to take him seriously.
Speaker 4: Now do we take literally a cunt of at least
Speaker 4: two trillion dollars that Elon Musk said while out on
Speaker 4: the campaign stage, or is that more we take it seriously?
Speaker 9: The direction of.
Speaker 8: Travel, The direction of travel certainly is something to watch.
Speaker 8: But in terms of taking it seriously or literally, that
Speaker 8: is going to be a very difficult number to reach.
Speaker 2: And here's why.
Speaker 8: That is more than the government spends annually on operations.
Speaker 8: They simply can't find enough savings at all the agencies
Speaker 8: to be able to hit that number. You would have
Speaker 8: to start cutting into benefits that are considered sacred here,
Speaker 8: really Medicare, social Security, veterans aid, all of those things,
Speaker 8: and people out the voters who put Donald Trump in
Speaker 8: office would very quickly see the pain and feel the
Speaker 8: pain back home in their own lives. So it's more
Speaker 8: a direction of travel, more notional target. And again that
Speaker 8: was something he said at Madison Square Garden. Now putting
Speaker 8: that onto paper and making it a goal and over
Speaker 8: how long too, I mean two trillion dollars, maybe over
Speaker 8: ten years might be something a little bit more achievable,
Speaker 8: depending on what they decided to.
Speaker 5: Go after Bloomberg's Michael Shepard, thank you very much. Mike
Speaker 5: mentioned Knitzer the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. This morning,
Speaker 5: that agency communicated a sixth recall via Tesla for the
Speaker 5: cyber truck, the six prequel they've done in the last
Speaker 5: twelve months.
Speaker 7: A physical defect.
Speaker 5: But again one of the agencies that one of Musk
Speaker 5: companies is subject to. The stock down one percent having
Speaker 5: opened significantly higher. Carro will keep an eye on it's
Speaker 5: important coming up what lies ahead for tech M and A.
Speaker 5: We speak with Sam Stovell of c RFRA what you got.
Speaker 9: Let's have a look at other earnings.
Speaker 4: Spotify decidedly higher, up more than nine percent, two and
Speaker 4: fifty two million paying subscribers, better than had been anticipated,
Speaker 4: six round and forty million monthly active users. And they've
Speaker 4: been cost cutting, stripping out people and it's proving itself
Speaker 4: in the margins. This is bloombog technology.
Speaker 5: We're waiting a potential outcome or comments from the meeting
Speaker 5: between President Biden and President elect Donald Trump at the
Speaker 5: White House. You see the images there of the White
Speaker 5: House in Washington, DC, and we will bring that to
Speaker 5: you as soon as we have it. In the meantime,
Speaker 5: Caroline much more in the financial markets when it comes
Speaker 5: to tech.
Speaker 4: When it comes to media stocks and M and A
Speaker 4: ed on again or off again, Direct TV intending to
Speaker 4: terminate its planned acquisition of Dish Network in ten days
Speaker 4: if bondholders don't agree to a dead exchange. Remember that's
Speaker 4: Echo Stars Dish TV bondholders we all turn our attention to. Meanwhile,
Speaker 4: Charter announced its planned to buy a Liberiting broadband in
Speaker 4: an all stock deal earlier today. There is so much
Speaker 4: focus post the election last week of what M and
Speaker 4: A means. Let's dig into it, Sam Stovell, chief Investment
Speaker 4: stratechers at CFRA, Look, M and A is happening, and
Speaker 4: A potentially been put on ice. What do you see
Speaker 4: for the next administration in terms of allowing M and
Speaker 4: A to become well more fervent here in the United States.
Speaker 10: Well, we certainly think that with the lifting of the
Speaker 10: regulations restrictions that that should be very beneficial to these
Speaker 10: companies involved in M and A, the asset managers and
Speaker 10: investment banks, et cetera. We recently raised prior to the
Speaker 10: election our outlook on KKR, But we also have strong
Speaker 10: investment recommendations on other companies like Black Rock, like Alliance Bernstein,
Speaker 10: et cetera. So our belief is that financials in general,
Speaker 10: but these type of companies in particular, should do well.
Speaker 4: Let's hone in a little bit more on the technology trade,
Speaker 4: and ultimately we're seeing risk on perpetuate whether you're looking
Speaker 4: at crypto, whether you're looking at Tezza down on the
Speaker 4: day but up significantly since the election results.
Speaker 9: Any areas of technology.
Speaker 4: That you think haven't been in the eye of the
Speaker 4: storm post election, Well.
Speaker 10: Obviously the eye of the storm really for tech is
Speaker 10: whether the mag seven is going to continue to be
Speaker 10: a leader, whether we are going to be seeing companies
Speaker 10: in the system software, the semiconductor area continue to lead
Speaker 10: the pack if they have, or whether we end up
Speaker 10: more with cybersecurity and other areas like that. So companies
Speaker 10: such as the geogroup, Core Civic, other companies in the
Speaker 10: defense area, especially if it has to do with security,
Speaker 10: we think will do fairly well.
Speaker 5: Sam, you wrote in your latest research titled Waves and
Speaker 5: Tides that this was all wrapped up pretty quickly the
Speaker 5: political process. When you think about the technology investors' perspective,
Speaker 5: what's the risk of a surprise going forward? Do you
Speaker 5: have a high degree of conviction that you understand the
Speaker 5: world we're now operating in.
Speaker 10: Well, we still have an overweight recommendation on tech. It
Speaker 10: is a group that shows the greatest growth potential in
Speaker 10: our opinion. In calendar years twenty four, twenty five, and
Speaker 10: twenty six, which is where most of our analysts are
Speaker 10: focusing their valuation attention. Certainly, near term tech looks a
Speaker 10: bit pricey. It's trading at a near sixty five percent
Speaker 10: premium to its longer term forward pe. That compares also
Speaker 10: with the forty percent premium we see in the market itself,
Speaker 10: numbers that rival where we were just before the eight
Speaker 10: and a half percent pullback in July of this.
Speaker 5: Year, Sam, do you need to be quickly in names
Speaker 5: like Tesla?
Speaker 7: If Mosk is going to have a role in this government.
Speaker 10: Well, we have a hold recommendation on Tesla, but I think,
Speaker 10: certainly knowing that he has not only the president alects Eir,
Speaker 10: but probably a spot in the guesthouse, that Tesla is
Speaker 10: something that is going to be in the news on
Speaker 10: a daily basis.
Speaker 9: Sound stoveall calling it. We thank you as cfra ed.
Speaker 9: What have we've got coming up?
Speaker 5: Yeah, we've got some news headlines coming up on the show.
Speaker 5: And first off, in Talking Tech in videos, Jensen Huang
Speaker 5: announces a huge partnership in Japan.
Speaker 7: Listen to this.
Speaker 2: I have a very big announcement to Mike.
Speaker 7: Today.
Speaker 2: We're announcing that we're partnering with SoftBank to bring and
Speaker 2: to build an AI infrastructure for Japan.
Speaker 5: And in Video's AI summit in Tokyo, Quang unveiled new
Speaker 5: plans for SoftBank's AI supercomputer build out. They're set to
Speaker 5: usefuse new Blackwell chips and we're part of a larger
Speaker 5: effort to create an AI grid that runs across Japan.
Speaker 5: Plus Apple's readying a smart home push. According to sources,
Speaker 5: the tech giant is set to announce a new command
Speaker 5: center wall mounted display to control appliances, handle video, and
Speaker 5: use AI to navigate apps. This is the company hopes
Speaker 5: to catch up with the likes of Alphabet and Amazon
Speaker 5: in the smart home space, and shares.
Speaker 7: Of just Eat are soaring. The food delivery company announced
Speaker 7: it will.
Speaker 5: Sell grub Hub to Mark Laws Wonder Group for an
Speaker 5: enterprise value of six hundred and fifty million dollars. Wonder
Speaker 5: will pay one hundred and forty two million dollars in
Speaker 5: cash and take on five hundred million dollars in Grubhub debt.
Speaker 7: The deal is.
Speaker 5: Expected to be completed during the first quarter of twenty
Speaker 5: twenty five.
Speaker 4: CARA, of course, the all important meeting which is currently
Speaker 4: occurring between President and Electrump going back to the White
Speaker 4: House to meet with President Biden a historic moment.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean this is unorthodox, but let's listen in
Speaker 5: to the comments that dis is tough.
Speaker 11: And it's many cases not a very nice world, but
Speaker 11: it is a nice world today, and I appreciate very
Speaker 11: much a transition that's so small it'll be as smooth
Speaker 11: as it can get.
Speaker 2: Very much appreciated that job you are, Thank you all.
Speaker 5: President elect Donald Trump meeting with President Biden in the
Speaker 5: White House carry the key line around politics being tough,
Speaker 5: but President elect Trump appreciating a peaceful transition, and the
Speaker 5: written correspondence very early following the election result also talked
Speaker 5: about peaceful transition from both President elect Trump's camp and
Speaker 5: also that of President Biden, who has already spoken with
Speaker 5: Trump more than once in recent days.
Speaker 4: The chaos of the political gaggle that currently groups itself,
Speaker 4: and for that historic moment, as you say, we really
Speaker 4: get to see how the sausage is made. From a
Speaker 4: media perspective, we also have an awful lot to do
Speaker 4: be discussing when it comes to artificial intelligence.
Speaker 9: What we do day in, day out on the show.
Speaker 5: Yeah, day in, day out, and is subject to change
Speaker 5: under this coming administration, but.
Speaker 7: The struggle is real.
Speaker 5: Open AI, Google and Anthropic, the key leading names are
Speaker 5: all facing roadblocks and seeing diminishing returns from their costly
Speaker 5: efforts to develop newer models. And these setbacks rights Bloomberg's
Speaker 5: Rachel Mets raised doubts about the heavy investment in AI
Speaker 5: and very feasibility of one day reaching so called artificial
Speaker 5: general intelligence. Bloomberg's Rachel Mets has been writing about this,
Speaker 5: and when we posted on social media that you were
Speaker 5: coming on, I was a bit surprised really by the
Speaker 5: number of questions and reaction. But if you could distill
Speaker 5: what the single challenges between those leading names, what is it.
Speaker 12: It sounds like bigger is not always better for the price,
Speaker 12: and data is increasingly becoming an issue having enough data,
Speaker 12: the right kind of data.
Speaker 4: It's really interesting, Rachel, that we've had sort of Samalmon
Speaker 4: discuss this, that it's become this weird Moore's law within
Speaker 4: AI general to AI that just the more you bombard
Speaker 4: the data, the more you throw at it, the more
Speaker 4: sophisticated the large language models have become. But does it
Speaker 4: feel like we're hitting a point here and add to
Speaker 4: your point, do we need more synthetic data. Is it
Speaker 4: any clear clarity coming from Anthropic or open AI as
Speaker 4: to what the limitations are.
Speaker 12: Yeah, I mean it sounds like there are some problems
Speaker 12: and there's also some solutions. Like this, This is not
Speaker 12: the end of the road RAI development, but what it
Speaker 12: does mean is that companies we should expect to see
Speaker 12: companies concentrating more on the kinds of things that they
Speaker 12: do later in the process of building these models, what's
Speaker 12: often known as post training, the things that they do
Speaker 12: to treat the models, fine tune them, get them ready
Speaker 12: to be released to the public. Open Ai released a
Speaker 12: model called one that does what it calls reasoning. This
Speaker 12: is doing some compute near the end of the process.
Speaker 12: I guess you would say. It takes in a prom
Speaker 12: from a user and then it does a bunch of
Speaker 12: calculations before it gives the result. So I would expect
Speaker 12: to see more of that. Sam Altman also recently talking
Speaker 12: in on Reddit about agents. We also know that Anthropic
Speaker 12: is an an agent. There's been some reporting that Google
Speaker 12: is working on a similar kind of thing, So I
Speaker 12: would expect that we see people working a lot more
Speaker 12: on later on in the process here.
Speaker 4: Maybe patients is what we're all going to have to
Speaker 4: have a little bit more of Rachel mess We appreciate it,
Speaker 4: Thank you so much. Meanwhile, sticking with large language models
Speaker 4: and actually language AI because the company deep L is
Speaker 4: releasing a pair of new features that are meant to
Speaker 4: help break down language barriers. One feature provides real time
Speaker 4: translated captions during virtual meetings. The other is targeted on
Speaker 4: one on one conversations happening in different languages as well.
Speaker 4: Here with more deep L CEO and founder Jerk Kurtilowski.
Speaker 9: Now, Jerk, just talk us through what these two.
Speaker 4: Products are that you're releasing and how different they are
Speaker 4: from what's already on the market.
Speaker 7: Yes, hi, Caroline.
Speaker 13: So deepel has been since twenty seventeen facilitating businesses to
Speaker 13: communicate much better with text translation. So think about the
Speaker 13: email that you want to send to a customer on
Speaker 13: the other side of the ocean, or think about document
Speaker 13: that you've just received which is in Japanese, and we've
Speaker 13: been helping our customers with that. And the next logical
Speaker 13: kind of frontier for us has been spoken language.
Speaker 7: Think of all of those.
Speaker 13: Meetings that you might be in where there is a
Speaker 13: person who doesn't understand English, and how can they follow,
Speaker 13: how can they be included that in that conversation. This
Speaker 13: is something that we're really focusing on right now. The
Speaker 13: second challenge out there, we have people who are kind
Speaker 13: of coming in into retail stores, coming maybe to a
Speaker 13: healthcare provider, and they have to they have to participate
Speaker 13: in a conversation in a language that they potentially do
Speaker 13: not know. Technology can solve that, and with the quality
Speaker 13: that we have that that improves it quite a lot.
Speaker 5: Yeah, in the context of the one on one conversation
Speaker 5: and translation, I'm so interested in that. You know, when
Speaker 5: I was at Medacan act frankly, I've seen it already done,
Speaker 5: but the form factor was the ray band, Meta smart glasses. Right,
Speaker 5: So Zuckerberg's on stage, he speaks in English that the
Speaker 5: person stood in front of him answered in Spanish, etc. Again,
Speaker 5: going kind of back to the carriage question, how is
Speaker 5: yours any different to what's been demonstrated already.
Speaker 13: Yeah, I think what we are doing here is we're
Speaker 13: applying the quality of textual translation that you bel is
Speaker 13: known in the market for, bringing in the security functionalities
Speaker 13: that we have. We are providing our services to a
Speaker 13: broad range of industries which are highly regulated, be it
Speaker 13: financial or legal, and bringing that now to the realm
Speaker 13: of voice translation.
Speaker 9: So security is your edge.
Speaker 4: Perhaps already the market that you own with certain clients
Speaker 4: is already your edge. Where next and how ultimately difficult
Speaker 4: is this, Yrek. We can all suddenly be like, oh, well, translation,
Speaker 4: and why do I am I not getting better and
Speaker 4: quicker and voice translation rather than it just written. But
Speaker 4: how difficult is this to train your latest large language
Speaker 4: models on the variety of languages out there.
Speaker 13: Spoken language is so much inherently more complicated than written language.
Speaker 13: It's just the sentences are much more unclear. There's like
Speaker 13: even finding out where the comma where the full stop
Speaker 13: is in a spoken sentence, it's it's It's much more complicated,
Speaker 13: and therefore the technology still has to develop over the
Speaker 13: next years to get to a level where we'll be
Speaker 13: fully confident in having those conversations. But already now for
Speaker 13: our customers this is bringing a lot of value in
Speaker 13: their daily lives.
Speaker 5: Deep l CEO and founder Yarak Kutilowski, thank you very much.
Speaker 5: I mean, look at how zoom change meetings around the world.
Speaker 5: Can you imagine simultaneous AI translation.
Speaker 4: Welcome back to Blue Bag Technology. I'm Caroline Hide in
Speaker 4: New York.
Speaker 5: Alamed Ludlow in San Francisco. President Elect Trump has met
Speaker 5: with President Biden.
Speaker 4: Also in Washington today is Ela Musk and we want
Speaker 4: to discuss his role in politics. We understand he's going
Speaker 4: to be meeting with House Republicans with Donald Trump a
Speaker 4: little bit later the President elect.
Speaker 9: Let's bring in lumoxt Tom Jiles.
Speaker 4: I mean, I jokingly say that we almost anticipated Leland
Speaker 4: Must to be sat next to Donald Trump in that
Speaker 4: meeting with Biden. He has literally been by his side.
Speaker 4: And he's not getting a formal role in the government
Speaker 4: from a cabinet perspective, but he is taking a leadership
Speaker 4: role from a cost cutting perspective.
Speaker 14: He is all over the place, he's on calls with
Speaker 14: world leaders. And yes, he's going to head the Department
Speaker 14: of Government Efficiency, whatever that means. And if you could
Speaker 14: make it a cabinet level, why not whatever level it is,
Speaker 14: whatever they're going to call it, it's really going to
Speaker 14: be about coming in and shaking things up and really
Speaker 14: disrupting government agencies that he sees that they together see.
Speaker 14: Don't forget vivek Ramaswami will be part of this in consultation,
Speaker 14: presumably with the President.
Speaker 2: Where can we find efficiency?
Speaker 14: Now, on one level, there's probably a lot of fat
Speaker 14: you can cut. On the other hand, taking the ax
Speaker 14: to a government agency is nothing like what it's like
Speaker 14: to cut jobs in the private sector, like he's done
Speaker 14: at Tesla, like he's done at X.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean that is the easiest case study in
Speaker 5: terms of coming in and shaking it up Twitter, the
Speaker 5: company now known as X comparisons Tom in the actions
Speaker 5: he took in the days following that acquisition.
Speaker 14: He came in and wielded an axe with so much
Speaker 14: force that the workforce was cut dramatically, to the point
Speaker 14: where they actually had to try to rehire some workers later.
Speaker 14: But the way they went about it was so dramatic,
Speaker 14: so comprehensive, and almost willy nilly taut, taking out entire sections.
Speaker 14: There was pr was eliminated, marketing, things like content.
Speaker 2: Moderation were completely removed.
Speaker 14: Wholesale they and in many cases the employees allege and
Speaker 14: they're alleging it.
Speaker 2: In court, they weren't paid.
Speaker 14: There was no sense of they weren't even given the
Speaker 14: disseverance that they're worth.
Speaker 2: And the result has.
Speaker 14: Been a company, as we've talked about before, that has
Speaker 14: lost tremendous value. Sure you can cut costs, Sure there
Speaker 14: were probably efficiencies, there was probably some bloat, but that
Speaker 14: company is a shadow of its former self. It is
Speaker 14: valued eighty percent less than it used to be, and
Speaker 14: it's become a very different business and one that's not
Speaker 14: operating well as a business.
Speaker 2: Do you want to have that same impact on the
Speaker 2: federal government.
Speaker 5: To We made clear earlier that the Department of Government Efficiency,
Speaker 5: per the release that was put out from the Trump camp, will.
Speaker 7: Work outside of government.
Speaker 5: But it is a big question whether this will be
Speaker 5: an advisory or formal role and where the musk can
Speaker 5: stay at the helm of Tesla.
Speaker 7: And then some news out.
Speaker 5: Today KNITS communicating a recall on cybertruck sick in the
Speaker 5: last twelve months, NITSA also being an agency that musk,
Speaker 5: I guess we'll look at explain it.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 14: There are problems with the cyber truck, and you have
Speaker 14: to ask the question, would they be encountering some of
Speaker 14: these same issues if you had somebody at in leadership
Speaker 14: who was dedicated to who knows the product, who cares
Speaker 14: about the product, and the way that Elon Musk deeply,
Speaker 14: deeply cares about the products that he says, he cares
Speaker 14: about what's happening at SpaceX. He cares about the quality
Speaker 14: of the cars and the vehicles that come out of Tesla.
Speaker 14: That passion is really important, that mission, sending that mission,
Speaker 14: making it clear to all of your employees. Can you
Speaker 14: do that at multiple companies and working at the government
Speaker 14: at the same time. Right now, things seem to be
Speaker 14: going well at some of these companies. Again not at
Speaker 14: X if you look at it from a business perspective,
Speaker 14: But at what point do Tesla's shareholders take a look
Speaker 14: at any problems that emerge and say, we need Trump, sorry,
Speaker 14: we need Elon back at the helm And what's he
Speaker 14: doing at the government getting on these calls with Zelenski.
Speaker 14: He should be running this business that we are shareholder,
Speaker 14: We are owners of.
Speaker 9: Tom Giles breaking it down. Great to have him in
Speaker 9: New York. We thank you.
Speaker 4: Now let's just talk about another election impact, this time
Speaker 4: on crypto, because boy, bitcoin just continues to rise today
Speaker 4: above ninety thousand at one point in excess of ninety
Speaker 4: three thousand.
Speaker 9: It's just below that level at the moment.
Speaker 4: Coelect Jovon putre is with US, founder and managing partner
Speaker 4: of Future Perfect Ventures and an early stage VC fund
Speaker 4: investing in decentralized technologies. You focus on crypto, you focus
Speaker 4: on AI, focus on blockchain technology. And the moment, I
Speaker 4: have a feeling you're very absorbed with the price points
Speaker 4: across decentralized finance. What do you make of whether the
Speaker 4: too much is priced in right now?
Speaker 1: Well, after the atfs were approved earlier this year, we
Speaker 1: saw the price rise, we saw demand continue to grow
Speaker 1: for bitcoin, and then the Ethereum ETF but there was
Speaker 1: the election still looming, and then there's a lot of
Speaker 1: uncertainty on whether we would have a crypto friendly ad
Speaker 1: administration here in the US. The answer is a resounding yes,
Speaker 1: And so I think we're seeing all this pent up
Speaker 1: demand the fact that we continue to see it rise.
Speaker 1: I mean, we've seen a little bit of profit taking,
Speaker 1: but overall, Ethereum, Bitcoin, Solana, which is the base of
Speaker 1: a lot of these DeFi applications, They're all up significantly
Speaker 1: and continue to rise. So I think we're going to
Speaker 1: continue to see a lot of demand here.
Speaker 4: I hate to say it, but doze up ten percent
Speaker 4: on the day, extraordinary rally the Department of Government Efficiency
Speaker 4: happens to spell out doge do you think that there's
Speaker 4: any real fundamental reason you should be in that particular
Speaker 4: project and protocol right now?
Speaker 1: We personally don't hold any at Future Perfect Ventures. There's
Speaker 1: been an explosion of meme coins, people looking for speculation
Speaker 1: and assets. I mean, obviously dochecoin was kind of endorsed
Speaker 1: in some ways by Elon Musk and everything that Elon touches.
Speaker 1: As you know the previous segment mentioned is arising, so
Speaker 1: you know, we don't see fundamentals personally there, but I
Speaker 1: think there is obviously a momentum move and if your
Speaker 1: interested in mean coins, the certainly have the momentum right now.
Speaker 5: Okayl like Jeman Puncher, a founder and managing partner of
Speaker 5: Future Perfect Ventures. Great to have you back on the program.
Speaker 5: Thank you very much. So coming up on the program
Speaker 5: Swiggy's big IPO debut in India. Next back a Process
Speaker 5: two billion dollars we speak a Process Group Chief Investment
Speaker 5: Officer irv Into. That's next. This is Bloomberg Technology.
Speaker 4: Chinese internet giant Tencent reported revenue growth for the third
Speaker 4: quarter with its domestic gaming business, Real Bright spot.
Speaker 9: Let's bring in Bloomberg's Henry Ren.
Speaker 4: Interestingly, the ADRs traded here in the US are off
Speaker 4: by about six tens percent, so there with some worries
Speaker 4: about basically the consumer sentiment in China still Henry Yeah.
Speaker 15: So there are certainly something good and bad for both
Speaker 15: the balls and the beers for this result. So we
Speaker 15: start from the more positive part, which is the domestic
Speaker 15: gaming business. That segment grew revenue by fourteen percent year
Speaker 15: over year during a quarter, and that's helped by some
Speaker 15: newly released games, including the Dungeon and Fighter mobile game,
Speaker 15: which was released in the summer. Now, the company said
Speaker 15: that that will go through some consolidation period for that
Speaker 15: game going forward, but in the Lunar New Year period
Speaker 15: of next year they will push out to new content
Speaker 15: to drive more user engagement. The more worrying part, however,
Speaker 15: is about their fintech and payment business. So that part
Speaker 15: of business is hurt by a weaker MAC environment and
Speaker 15: weiker consumer spending.
Speaker 7: It's not the news.
Speaker 15: Actually last quarter the company has already said that the
Speaker 15: gross has been slowing down, but this quarter we're seeing
Speaker 15: further gross moderation and that part of business is growing
Speaker 15: just two percent year over year in terms of revenue,
Speaker 15: which is the slowest pace we've been seeing since the
Speaker 15: COVID lockdown days of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 5: Bimbogs Henry ran out of London. Thank you very much
Speaker 5: that stick with tech. In Asia, Swiggybacker Process saw a
Speaker 5: two billion dollar gain from its investment in the Indian
Speaker 5: food delivery platform. This is Swiggy made its stock market
Speaker 5: debut in India with a seventeen percent gain. For more
Speaker 5: Process Group, Chief Investment Observing too joins us in you know,
Speaker 5: it's a significant moment for you, clearly a good return
Speaker 5: on an investment, but a significant moment all the same
Speaker 5: for the markets and the technology sector in India.
Speaker 16: Your reaction person, It's great to be with you in
Speaker 16: the audience here today. It is an important day, I
Speaker 16: would say, principally an important day and a milestone for
Speaker 16: the company. So we should applaud and celebrate the company's
Speaker 16: achievement to get to this step in the journey. And
Speaker 16: for us as a long term investor, we think about it.
Speaker 16: The topic very much is our long term one, right
Speaker 16: and we consider the potential here and when we think
Speaker 16: about today, we talk about the magnificent seven. No one
Speaker 16: talks about their IPO evaluation, right, we want to be
Speaker 16: in the future ten years, hence twenty years, hence considering
Speaker 16: what the valuation Squeaky can be then and not just
Speaker 16: where it went public at. Today, So an important day,
Speaker 16: and yet I know we and the company are also
Speaker 16: focused on the future, which is promising.
Speaker 5: Ivan we're talking about an Indian company listing in India
Speaker 5: and for our Bloombog technology audience watching here in North
Speaker 5: America or Europe, wherever it may be. Why was that
Speaker 5: an important step for a domestic name to look inward
Speaker 5: for its listing.
Speaker 17: Well, I think you alluded to the topic in your
Speaker 17: first question. Right, the Indian markets are healthy, but there's
Speaker 17: nothing better than seeing a class of exceptional companies go
Speaker 17: public to signify further health in a market. And while
Speaker 17: the strength of the Indian economy and the trajectory of
Speaker 17: growth is well understood, I think from a capital market standpoint,
Speaker 17: seeing successful companies list and trade well, today was a
Speaker 17: successful day, but we've all seen the proof of we
Speaker 17: in putting we hope they will continue to trade well
Speaker 17: over time. That's also an important signifier of a market.
Speaker 17: And then accounting itself.
Speaker 4: You hold winning bets for the long term. Ervin you
Speaker 4: hold Tencent. That is how we associate process in many ways,
Speaker 4: like it all Loathed is that you made an extraordinary
Speaker 4: early bet on Tencent and now it is the biggest
Speaker 4: giant in China. How do you keep on replicating these hits?
Speaker 4: Where are the exact areas? It seems to be a
Speaker 4: commerce with ten Cent, it's gaming and just the whole
Speaker 4: of China's focus on a consumer.
Speaker 9: Where else do you repeat?
Speaker 17: Well, it's not an easy task, and we dedicate a
Speaker 17: lot of effort to try and to find exceptional companies
Speaker 17: wherever they are outside of China as well. You say
Speaker 17: we are most well known for investment intents, which represents
Speaker 17: a large percentage of our map today, but our NAB
Speaker 17: is one hundred and fifty hundred and sixty billion and
Speaker 17: we have thirty five and change billion of other stuff
Speaker 17: which is important and growing, and we look to find
Speaker 17: those opportunities in growth markets around the world.
Speaker 7: In India like Swiggy.
Speaker 17: In Brazil we have a company called Ifood.
Speaker 2: In Europe we have.
Speaker 17: A classified platform called OLX, and so we seek growth
Speaker 17: in exceptional founders and companies wherever they are. You're right,
Speaker 17: it's our goal to try to find the next tensent.
Speaker 17: It's not easy, but we think we're making progress.
Speaker 4: Okay, let's hone in on the exact areas you want
Speaker 4: to be aiming and putting money to work, because you
Speaker 4: have now of course e commerce and fast delivery with Swiggy.
Speaker 9: Is it about fintech?
Speaker 4: Is it about areas of growth in the emerging markets
Speaker 4: that you cannot get that sort of out side return
Speaker 4: here in the United States.
Speaker 17: Well, I'd say you name a couple of them, right,
Speaker 17: Fintech is very important to us, so to food delivery.
Speaker 13: As a sector.
Speaker 17: Now we think about food delivery is broader than just food.
Speaker 7: It's a local commerce play. If you've talked to Tony.
Speaker 17: At door Dash and Dara at uber or long Seeing
Speaker 17: at Maitland, they'd say the same thing. So don't just
Speaker 17: take my word for it. But it's a way of
Speaker 17: taking a high frequency, high engagement offering, which is food.
Speaker 7: Everyone needs food, and.
Speaker 17: Broadening that to a whole suite of services and offerings
Speaker 17: that people also need. So, yes, food, what we think
Speaker 17: about is local commerce, yes, fintech and beyond. I think
Speaker 17: marketplaces generally we still believe have a lot of growth
Speaker 17: in them. We will look to find opportunities which can
Speaker 17: connect to our broader ecosystem of businesses. We have over
Speaker 17: one hundred positions to both enhance our ecosystem and hopefully
Speaker 17: our ecosystem can enhance them as well.
Speaker 5: Evan has the risk profile of some of those technology
Speaker 5: names and geography. Geography is like India and China changed
Speaker 5: following the outcome of the US election, I.
Speaker 7: Think it's too early to tell.
Speaker 17: I mean, there's a lot of speculation about where the
Speaker 17: administration will go. When we've seen some of the cabinet
Speaker 17: positions start to fill at least the names start to
Speaker 17: be floated, and we saw the announcement of course related
Speaker 17: to Musket Rahmaswami overnight. So it's too early to tell
Speaker 17: whether that will have an effect on where markets go
Speaker 17: and the risk profile of those markets.
Speaker 7: All we can control.
Speaker 17: All we're focused on is ensuring that we do the
Speaker 17: best job we can to find those exceptional companies and
Speaker 17: ensure that the performance under our watches as strong as
Speaker 17: it can be, and.
Speaker 4: Find those extraordinary companies at the right valuation. Evn, what
Speaker 4: sort of valuations you're seeing when you're first getting into
Speaker 4: these businesses.
Speaker 9: It as lofty, is it? Here's the US if it's
Speaker 9: AI related.
Speaker 17: Yeah, So it's a very rich topic for a discussion,
Speaker 17: because yes, the US is expensive, not just in the
Speaker 17: public domain, but of course in the private domain, particularly
Speaker 17: with respect to a opportunities. We're looking at them, we're
Speaker 17: monitoring closely, and at the same time we think there's
Speaker 17: better risk reward outside of the US. Think Latin, think Europe,
Speaker 17: think India. Of course, yes, valuations are also more elevated
Speaker 17: in India, but we think the risk of war in
Speaker 17: some of these other markets is more promising, which is why,
Speaker 17: as a matter of relative effort and attention, we're spending
Speaker 17: more time there.
Speaker 4: Come back when the next IPO is up, when the
Speaker 4: next investment is made of into a process. We thank
Speaker 4: you for joining us. Now turning our attention to Europe
Speaker 4: for a moment, because there's IPO news there as well.
Speaker 4: We just filed Klana for an IPO in the United States,
Speaker 4: though the number of shares to be offered and the
Speaker 4: price range for the proposed offering has not yet been determined.
Speaker 4: The move ends months to speculation that the European company
Speaker 4: was readying a stock market listing.
Speaker 7: Ed Okay, coming up on the program.
Speaker 5: Could brain implants help restore site for the blind?
Speaker 7: We'll discuss next. This has been bag.
Speaker 5: Restoring site for the blind. It's a science fiction like ambition,
Speaker 5: but a growing number of tech style clubs are now
Speaker 5: plowing resources into that new field. Bloomberg Sera McBride is
Speaker 5: here and has been writing about it. I mean, when
Speaker 5: we think about this sort of let's call them brain
Speaker 5: implant companies, we've discussed all kinds of use cases, largely
Speaker 5: related to movement in the human body.
Speaker 7: Now, Site, what prompts you to write about that?
Speaker 9: Well, just what you said.
Speaker 3: There's been so much focus on movement, but Elon Muskin
Speaker 3: particular keeps talking about all the other uses these implants
Speaker 3: will have, and some of them are very remote telepathy
Speaker 3: and so on. But Site did seem like a next
Speaker 3: step where a number of companies were working and achievable.
Speaker 3: Some of them have made some really exciting breakthroughs. And
Speaker 3: there's some thought that working with the visual cortex it's
Speaker 3: going to take a few years, but there have been
Speaker 3: some experiments with it for twenty years, and the more
Speaker 3: electrodes you put in your visual cortex. Perhaps the better
Speaker 3: you can help people see.
Speaker 9: So let's talk about those strategies.
Speaker 4: Very often we get all consumed with Neuralink, but there
Speaker 4: are a breadth of other companies that you've highlighted in
Speaker 4: your story, but also a breadth of strategies.
Speaker 9: Can you just talk us through some of the most promising.
Speaker 5: Sure.
Speaker 17: So.
Speaker 3: One of the most promising strategies UH is actually not
Speaker 3: to put electrodes in the brain, to start by putting
Speaker 3: them on the retina, and that's been happening for some time,
Speaker 3: in particular for conditions like macular degeneration. One company Science,
Speaker 3: which is run by the former president of Neuralink who
Speaker 3: left the company a few years ago, just unveiled some
Speaker 3: quite promising UH data based on an experiment with a
Speaker 3: few dozen people who had implants in their retina and
Speaker 3: were able to focus on letters and see much larger
Speaker 3: letters and read in a way in many cases that
Speaker 3: wasn't possible before. Other companies are working on techniques that
Speaker 3: might help people who are completely blind, and for a
Speaker 3: lay person who can see reasonably well. Some of these
Speaker 3: breakthroughs seem very kind of baby steps. It's just getting
Speaker 3: people to be able to see flashes of light, for example,
Speaker 3: rather than fully formed images. But these technologies just kind
Speaker 3: of take it one step at a time, and they're promising.
Speaker 5: Bloomberg Sarah McBride with a must read out on Bloomberg today.
Speaker 7: Thank you very much, Caro.
Speaker 5: I want to quickly go to shares of AMD, the
Speaker 5: chip maker, down two percent. News in the last hour
Speaker 5: or so that AMD is cutting about four percent of
Speaker 5: its workforce, largely focused on cuts in sales and marketing positions.
Speaker 5: Interesting a company that has around twenty six thousand staff,
Speaker 5: so four percent, what about headcount reduction of a one thousand.
Speaker 5: But it's tough out there in the market for AI accelerators,
Speaker 5: this deep push into data centers and now them trimming
Speaker 5: in some areas, as I said, in sales and in marketing.
Speaker 4: Keep and I on AMD as we wrap up this show.
Speaker 4: That is the end of the addition of Bloomberg technology
Speaker 4: from the White House from Washington across to some of
Speaker 4: the latest developments in brain technology.
Speaker 9: Extraordinary show.
Speaker 5: Yeah, an important image of President elect Trump sat next
Speaker 5: to President Biden in the White House.
Speaker 7: Brief comments. But as we've.
Speaker 5: Reported, our sources say Elon Musk is also in DC
Speaker 5: and may likely meet with House Republicans alongside President elect Trump. Wow,
Speaker 5: there's a lot to recap therefore, so you must check
Speaker 5: out the Bloomberg Technology podcast and you know exactly where
Speaker 5: to find it on Apples, Spotify, iHeart, and all the
Speaker 5: Bloomberg platforms. Thank you, Team New York. Thank you to
Speaker 5: everyone here in San Francisco. Much more to come this
Speaker 5: week on Bloomberg Technology. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Im