Speaker 1: From Mahard. We're Innovation, Money and Power Collie in Silicon Valley, NBN.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow.
Speaker 2: I'm Caroline heard at Bloomberg's world headquarters in New York.
Speaker 3: And alongsider for One more Day. I'm Ed Lovelow, also
Speaker 3: in New York. This is Bloomberg Technology.
Speaker 2: Coming up, we'll get a read on the health of
Speaker 2: the tech labor market that.
Speaker 4: As US jobs report comes in hot it is there.
Speaker 4: With the read through into Silicon Valley, we'll discuss last.
Speaker 3: We stick on the topic of jobs and new filing
Speaker 3: shows Apple slashed around six hundred rolls after scrapping its
Speaker 3: car and screen projects.
Speaker 5: Will bring you that. Bloomberg Reporting and.
Speaker 2: Meta changes its policies around artificial intelligence to allow more
Speaker 2: AI generated content to remain on its platforms. We'll discuss
Speaker 2: that and so much more throughout this hour. And what
Speaker 2: are you watching on more of the MACROPA Just the.
Speaker 3: Basics of the jobs numbers, three hundred and three thousand,
Speaker 3: that's hot, the estimate two hundred and fourteen thousand worth,
Speaker 3: noting that there was also an upward revision to twenty
Speaker 3: two thousand. Net for the prior two months on the
Speaker 3: money when it comes to.
Speaker 5: Wages or earnings.
Speaker 3: As you said, you know, we'll think about what this
Speaker 3: means for specific tech names.
Speaker 5: In just a moment.
Speaker 3: But I think that it's good news in the sense
Speaker 3: Corporate America is looking great, you know, powering the economy.
Speaker 3: But the concern clearly is the timing of a FED
Speaker 3: rate cut. Higher rates discount the present value of future
Speaker 3: cash flows, as we always say on this show, and
Speaker 3: the market right now pushing out that rate cut bet
Speaker 3: to September from July. That's kind of where my head's
Speaker 3: out right now.
Speaker 2: Certainly, let's just get our heads around what happened with
Speaker 2: the job's number, what it means for a labor force,
Speaker 2: particularly in the technology sector. LinkedIn Head of Economics America's
Speaker 2: Corey Katang is joining us for look your take on
Speaker 2: the numbers, because all we've had inbound wise is companies
Speaker 2: becoming more contained with their hiring, more focused on just
Speaker 2: the AIS part of the equation and ultimately letting people go,
Speaker 2: what do you make of the fact that still we've
Speaker 2: got such a resilient jobs market coin.
Speaker 6: Well, today's number was a solid number. It's important to
Speaker 6: keep in mind that the job's number in terms of
Speaker 6: total jobs added has actually been fluctuating on average between
Speaker 6: two and three hundred since June twenty twenty three. So
Speaker 6: we're actually seeing a fair amount of steadiness in the
Speaker 6: labor market in terms of the number of jobs added.
Speaker 6: When you think about what's happening in the tech sector,
Speaker 6: we're seeing that the tech sector has also been sort
Speaker 6: of stabilized since June twenty twenty three. Based on our
Speaker 6: data a LinkedIn, we've see that the pace of hiring
Speaker 6: at tech has leveled out.
Speaker 5: It's still well.
Speaker 6: Below what it was before the pandemic, but we are
Speaker 6: no longer seeing massive drop offs in terms of hiring
Speaker 6: in tech.
Speaker 5: Corey, let's stick with that.
Speaker 3: So the pace of hiring in technology has leveled off
Speaker 3: according to your data. Therefore, it's not a big contributor
Speaker 3: to that three to three we saw this morning.
Speaker 5: The sector.
Speaker 6: I mean, that's right, two thirds of that three oh
Speaker 6: three is coming from just three sectors. Government, leisure and hospitality,
Speaker 6: hospitals and healthcare. That's the case this month, that was
Speaker 6: the case last month as well.
Speaker 3: I'm also interested that in money, wages, earnings, call it
Speaker 3: what you will, Karen and I pointed out, you know,
Speaker 3: on estimates, but we're not hearing that, particularly in the
Speaker 3: context of AI.
Speaker 5: We heard from Brad light Cap.
Speaker 3: The COO of Open AI, on the show yesterday there
Speaker 3: is a talent war, and a net result of talent
Speaker 3: war is usually you've got to pay more, either in
Speaker 3: cash or in stock. What's your data telling you.
Speaker 6: Well, certainly for AI roles, we're talking about technical AI roles,
Speaker 6: not just roles that may use AI. For those technical
Speaker 6: AI roles, there's a shortage of supply of workers that
Speaker 6: has been growing. We've seen in LinkedIn data that the
Speaker 6: number of workers who have those technical AI skills has
Speaker 6: been rising and rising rapidly, but it hasn't been able
Speaker 6: to keep up with the demand for these workers. So
Speaker 6: that's driving wages up and companies are going to consider
Speaker 6: other options, right They're also going to look for other
Speaker 6: places like Brazil and India where can they find these
Speaker 6: workers with these technical skills in order to build AI
Speaker 6: tools in house to foster productivity and innovation, but also
Speaker 6: managed to keep some control on their costs.
Speaker 2: Interesting we're hearing of course that ultimately immigration is helping
Speaker 2: keep down that wage inflation pressure. That's happening here in
Speaker 2: the United States as well. I wonder how many of
Speaker 2: those are coming into the tech sector. Is their talent
Speaker 2: coming in from abroad at the moment, do you think?
Speaker 1: Coy?
Speaker 6: So right now we're not seeing a ton of talent
Speaker 6: coming into the tech sector, but we are seeing a
Speaker 6: recovery from the pandemic. So the pandemic really knocked off
Speaker 6: a lot of movement within the tech sector, and we're
Speaker 6: starting to see those numbers come back up.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 6: There is a gap that was created by the workers
Speaker 6: who didn't come in twenty twenty twenty twenty one, and
Speaker 6: so we're still not there in terms of making up
Speaker 6: the gap for those works, but it's starting to come
Speaker 6: back at a level at a pace that can help
Speaker 6: support that sector.
Speaker 2: What about diversity, I mean, this is something that we
Speaker 2: always need to keep a track on that ultimately the
Speaker 2: disparity in wages that are going to people to color
Speaker 2: versus white workers, women versus men.
Speaker 4: How are the demographics shaking out at the moment.
Speaker 6: So one thing we've actually recently seen at LinkedIn, we've
Speaker 6: done an analysis that says when the labor market slows down,
Speaker 6: we see less women hired into leadership and that's not
Speaker 6: a situation where less women are applying for leadership. When
Speaker 6: the labor market slows down, they're applying more, but they're
Speaker 6: less likely to make their way into the top levels
Speaker 6: of leadership. So as the labor market slows down, it's
Speaker 6: very clear that everyone is disproportionately impacted. For example, the
Speaker 6: pandemic wiped out about five years of gains in the
Speaker 6: Black White unemployment gap. So as we continue to see
Speaker 6: some of the air being let out of the labor market.
Speaker 6: Right now, it looks stable, but if we do continue
Speaker 6: to see some air light out as expected until we
Speaker 6: start to see interest rates cut, that is certainly going
Speaker 6: to proportionately impact workers.
Speaker 3: LinkedIn Head of Economics for America's Corey Contenga, it's great
Speaker 3: to have you back on the program.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Some important breaking headlines and an update. The FAA says
Speaker 3: there is a ground stop at JFK and Newark Airports.
Speaker 3: In a statement, the FAA says at four point eight
Speaker 3: magnitude earthquake in New Jersey may impact some air traffic
Speaker 3: facilities in New York, New Jersey, but also Philadelphia and Baltimore.
Speaker 3: Air traffic operations are resuming as quickly as possible, and
Speaker 3: for more real time information go to the official channels,
Speaker 3: but we'll keep you posted here on Bloomberg Technology as well.
Speaker 3: I'm one of those people due to fly back to
Speaker 3: the West Coast from one of those airports this afternoon.
Speaker 3: Let's see what happens and also stick with the job
Speaker 3: story for a moment. According to filings with the California
Speaker 3: Employment Development Department, Apple laid off more than six hundred
Speaker 3: employees as part of the decisions to end its car
Speaker 3: and smart watch display projects. More let's go out to
Speaker 3: Bloomberg's Mark German. This is based on the warn notices,
Speaker 3: a really important place to look.
Speaker 5: What ima.
Speaker 7: So we've known about the layoffs for quite some time. Obviously,
Speaker 7: we broke the news in February that the Apple car
Speaker 7: project was being ended, and we also broke the news
Speaker 7: that the Apple micro led display project related to next
Speaker 7: generation Apple watches was being ended. The display project is
Speaker 7: less known, so me explained it for a minute. This
Speaker 7: was an effort where Apple was custom designing its own
Speaker 7: screens for the first time. Typically they relied on designs
Speaker 7: from Samsung, LG, what have you. For the first time,
Speaker 7: they were designing and test building test manufacturing their own
Speaker 7: displays at facilities in Santa Clara in Silicon Valley, California.
Speaker 7: So both of those projects ending. The people are some
Speaker 7: of the people part of the projects being laid off.
Speaker 7: We've known that. Now thanks to the war notices, we
Speaker 7: have a number. The total was six hundred and fourteen
Speaker 7: people right in California. Now the layoffs are actually a
Speaker 7: lot higher than that. There was a big group of
Speaker 7: Apple car employees working out of a secretive facility in
Speaker 7: Arizona outside Phoenix, at an old General Motors facility, and
Speaker 7: then in Asia you had several hundred people also working
Speaker 7: on the display project. So in California, six hundred and
Speaker 7: fourteen people, but the layoffs probably a bit closer to
Speaker 7: one thousand.
Speaker 4: Mark.
Speaker 2: Can you give us the context of what one thousand
Speaker 2: is relative to how many employees Apple has?
Speaker 7: You know, Apple has about one hundred and eighty thousand employees,
Speaker 7: maybe a little bit more, a little bit less than that,
Speaker 7: but that is a rough estimate that that includes both
Speaker 7: corporate and retail employees. On the on the corporate side,
Speaker 7: it's probably closer to seventy thousand employees, right, So a
Speaker 7: couple percentage points of the company. Again, these are not
Speaker 7: the mass layoffs that you've seen from some of the
Speaker 7: other companies in Silicon Valley. We're not talking about ten, eighteen,
Speaker 7: twenty thirty percent here. But still for Apple, this is
Speaker 7: three major rounds of layoffs. And I say major major
Speaker 7: contextually for Apple because they just don't do this right.
Speaker 7: So you had San Diego in January one hundred and
Speaker 7: twenty one people. This was an office where they did
Speaker 7: annotation and testing and improvement to Siri. They offer jobs
Speaker 7: to those people in Texas, but you can probably count
Speaker 7: on one or two hands how many people will be
Speaker 7: moving from San Diego to Texas for this role. And
Speaker 7: so that's one hundred and twenty one people. Then in
Speaker 7: February another six hundred and fourteen people, plus the several
Speaker 7: other one hundred in Asia in Arizona. So it is
Speaker 7: quite notable for Apple that we've come to this point
Speaker 7: where they're killing R and D projects and they're laying
Speaker 7: people off.
Speaker 2: Mar Gooman, we thank you so much for coming on
Speaker 2: in a day where you're meant to be resting. Thank
Speaker 2: you for spilling the means when it comes to Apple.
Speaker 2: We've got some more stocks to watch for. At this moment,
Speaker 2: Paramount currently under pressure. Now this is what we see
Speaker 2: reporting coming from CNBC that sky Dance's unique offer for
Speaker 2: Paramount is a special committee has a company continuing to
Speaker 2: trade publicly.
Speaker 4: But get this.
Speaker 2: Ultimately, the offer coming from Skydance will mean that the
Speaker 2: new ecuity will be dilutive for existing shareholders, but will
Speaker 2: align voting in each economic control in a way that
Speaker 2: hasn't been the case with the Redstone family. Of course,
Speaker 2: this is as we see Skuydoance taking over that Redstone
Speaker 2: Sherry Redstone element of control over Paramount's parent company shares.
Speaker 2: Keep a close eye on this potential deal. We're down
Speaker 2: four and a half percent after a rally yesterday. This
Speaker 2: is Bluemo Technology. Let's just go to another key stock
Speaker 2: that's actually on the move today to the higher side, Meta.
Speaker 2: But this is as the company is actually announcing it's
Speaker 2: changing its artificial intelligence policies. It's going to allow for
Speaker 2: more content generated by AI to remain on its platforms
Speaker 2: for more.
Speaker 4: Let's bring in bluemos Kirk Wagner.
Speaker 2: For ultimately the policy nuance here, they're going to allow it,
Speaker 2: but they'll market.
Speaker 5: That's right.
Speaker 8: So a couple of years ago, they came out with
Speaker 8: this manipulated media policy which basically said, you know, if
Speaker 8: someone uploads a video that makes it look like you, Caroline,
Speaker 8: are saying something you didn't actually say, it's been AI
Speaker 8: generated to sort of mislead people, that they would take
Speaker 8: that down. And now what they're saying is they're going
Speaker 8: to leave it up, but they're going to label it.
Speaker 8: And the idea being that if those types of videos
Speaker 8: do not violate a different rule within the company, if
Speaker 8: the only sort of you know, issue is that it
Speaker 8: was AI generated, they're going to leave it up even
Speaker 8: if it is misleading. Now, these things could still be
Speaker 8: fact checked, right, so there's a couple different ways that
Speaker 8: the company could sort of label these as AI generated
Speaker 8: or misleading, but they are going to lead them up
Speaker 8: instead of taking them down.
Speaker 4: Kut. How does this differ from others, Well, you know.
Speaker 8: X as we've seen, has sort of they have a
Speaker 8: manipulated media policy as well, but it doesn't not necessarily
Speaker 8: convinced that they're able to enforce these things in the
Speaker 8: way that they say they are. You know, we've seen
Speaker 8: this happen with the twenty twenty election. We saw some
Speaker 8: manipulated videos and audio show up. We've already heard complaints
Speaker 8: that this might be an issue for twenty twenty four, right,
Speaker 8: So the reason we're following this news and why these
Speaker 8: policies matter, of course, even if it is a small
Speaker 8: number of actual post hosts that are impacted, it's that
Speaker 8: those posts could be you know, shared by President Trump,
Speaker 8: President Biden, major campaigns are that are trying to influence
Speaker 8: this election, and so it's important that the company figure
Speaker 8: this out before twenty twenty four happens.
Speaker 2: Okay, And this does come into such a political context,
Speaker 2: It comes in such context at the moment of just
Speaker 2: generative AI being the flavor de jure. And are we
Speaker 2: seeing ultimately companies having to front run politicians and indeed
Speaker 2: regulatory change at this.
Speaker 8: We are because there is no regulatory framework for how
Speaker 8: these companies shouldn't moderate AI posts, but specifically generative AI.
Speaker 8: And so we've seen Nick Klegg at Meta come out
Speaker 8: publicly several times already in the last couple months and
Speaker 8: say we need rules, We need you know, government and
Speaker 8: regulators to basically come in and put some guardrails on
Speaker 8: this thing, because otherwise it's up to the companies themselves
Speaker 8: and Meta you know, to its credit, is trying to
Speaker 8: be proactive, or at least that's what they seem to
Speaker 8: be doing. But you know, unless there's anybody holding them accountable,
Speaker 8: holding you Tube and X and other platforms accountable, it's
Speaker 8: just everyone for themselves here. And so you know they
Speaker 8: are doing this proactively because there is no framework from
Speaker 8: the US or other governments.
Speaker 4: Really, Wagner, we thank you.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to Bloomberg Technology.
Speaker 5: I'm ed LOVEO.
Speaker 4: I'm Caroline Hyde.
Speaker 5: Okay, a quick update.
Speaker 3: An earthquake rattled northern New Jersey on this morning, shook
Speaker 3: building offices in Manhattan, and was felt on Long Island
Speaker 3: and in New York's Hudson Valley. Preliminary reports say it's
Speaker 3: a four point seven magnitude tremor. New York Governor Kathi
Speaker 3: Hokel posting about the quake, saying her team's assessing impact
Speaker 3: and damage. Headlines also out that President Biden has been briefed.
Speaker 5: Caroline.
Speaker 2: You local San Franciscans are just going like, what are
Speaker 2: they worrying about?
Speaker 4: Ed, what have you got?
Speaker 5: Okay, check this out for a second.
Speaker 3: So it looks like I'm not the only Bay Area
Speaker 3: local spending some time in New York City this week.
Speaker 3: That was Levi CEO Michelle Gas ringing the bell at
Speaker 3: the New York Stock Exchange earlier today, just days after
Speaker 3: the company reported earnings, but also of significant milestone or
Speaker 3: anniversary since the IPO five years interesting lifting EPs forecast
Speaker 3: for the full year, reporting adjusted knit income for the
Speaker 3: first quarter that beats estimates discipline cost cutting. There's a
Speaker 3: bigger story out there, and it's Beyonce. Delighted to say
Speaker 3: that Levi Michelle Gas joins us on set.
Speaker 9: Thanks for having me, ed carolinem thrilled to be here.
Speaker 3: I think we should just get right to Beyonce. To
Speaker 3: those who are living under a rock or perhaps didn't
Speaker 3: see it, Beyonce dropped the track list first for her
Speaker 3: new album. One of the titles was Levi Eyes Jeans.
Speaker 3: There was next Trye in there. That must be quite
Speaker 3: a boost you got this week.
Speaker 9: Well, I mean, let me just we are just so
Speaker 9: honored that someone like Beyonce, who is a global icon
Speaker 9: of a culture shaper, would.
Speaker 4: Name a song after us.
Speaker 9: Completely organic by the way, ed so, but.
Speaker 5: We will hold it on. What do you mean by
Speaker 5: completely organic?
Speaker 9: That we didn't have anything to do with her?
Speaker 5: Naming a song after us.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but that being said.
Speaker 9: I will say, I mean to me, you know, one
Speaker 9: of the things that's so critical about Levi's. I mean,
Speaker 9: we've been around for one hundred and seven years, deep heritage, authenticity,
Speaker 9: but it's so important that we remain at the center
Speaker 9: of culture. Right We're very We're a very inviting brand.
Speaker 9: We resonate with so many different people to be at
Speaker 9: that center of culture and have that youthfulness and relevance.
Speaker 9: And there's no better testament to being at the center
Speaker 9: of culture to have someone like Beyonce actually on her
Speaker 9: own name a song after us.
Speaker 4: So we are just thrilled. Has that done two sales
Speaker 4: in the last week or so?
Speaker 9: Can you get so it's so you know, so so
Speaker 9: very early, But I think it's it's part of I
Speaker 9: think the bigger thing that's happening right now is Levi's
Speaker 9: is having a great moment. I mean, you just mentioned
Speaker 9: we were so pleased to start the year off so strong,
Speaker 9: exceeding expectations inside and externally, but underneath that a lot
Speaker 9: of goodness. The denim category, after some volatility the last
Speaker 9: couple of years, has stabilized. We're expecting the category to
Speaker 9: grow globally in the mid single digits. Importantly, Levi's is
Speaker 9: growing share, so in the US we're going share with
Speaker 9: men's and women's, with youth, with the middle income consumer,
Speaker 9: which is a great bell weather to the health of
Speaker 9: the consumer. And you know, as we think about our
Speaker 9: business kind of driving that optimism, I'd first say it's
Speaker 9: our direct to consumer that business up now for eight
Speaker 9: consecutive quarters, up eight percent. And also what's driving that
Speaker 9: is what's happening in Denham, Like Levi's is having a moment,
Speaker 9: Denim's having a moment. Head to toe denim dressing. We're
Speaker 9: leading in trends. So as we think about our men's
Speaker 9: and women's business, loose fits, baggy fits up forty percent,
Speaker 9: our tops are exceeding expectations, dresses skirts, denim skirts are
Speaker 9: triple digits.
Speaker 4: So really, when you look underneath the.
Speaker 9: Hood, there is a lot of great things to be
Speaker 9: excited about. Hence why we raised expectations for the year.
Speaker 2: And there's a lot to be said for the plans
Speaker 2: that you've put in place. Now, you say that you
Speaker 2: had nothing to do with Beyonce's naming of a song,
Speaker 2: but actually Levi's did back in the day because they
Speaker 2: were one of the only key brands that would affiliate
Speaker 2: themselves with Destiny's child, and so ultimately she comes from
Speaker 2: this place of authenticity.
Speaker 4: You come from a place of leveraging it.
Speaker 2: From an influencer perspective, we see how you read brand
Speaker 2: the Instagram handle for the day to be a double eye.
Speaker 2: What do you therefore do with the director consumer sort
Speaker 2: of online element of this because I now buy my
Speaker 2: Levi's via Amazon. How much have you been we're a
Speaker 2: tech show. How much has technology been where it's.
Speaker 4: At for you?
Speaker 9: No, I think that's great. I mean testaments who are
Speaker 9: really talented marketing and social media time team women. When
Speaker 9: that happened, instantly they got after it and to your point,
Speaker 9: leveraged that branding and social media. And we've had over
Speaker 9: a billion impressions since they.
Speaker 4: Got after that that day.
Speaker 9: Just to give you a sense, but peeing direct to
Speaker 9: consumer is really omnichannel. If you think about our e
Speaker 9: commerce business that was up with double digits on top
Speaker 9: of double digits, I mean that.
Speaker 4: Business is on fire.
Speaker 9: But it's all connected. And as we connect with our
Speaker 9: consumer online and our stores, all ships raise and you
Speaker 9: made a commona Amazon.
Speaker 4: We want people to.
Speaker 9: Buy Levi's wherever they want to. I mean, we love
Speaker 9: it when they're engaging in the store because they can
Speaker 9: see the full expression, right, they can see all.
Speaker 4: The new fits.
Speaker 9: Our talented stylists can help them find their next favorite
Speaker 9: pair of jeans or the next great top that goes
Speaker 9: with it. But you know, as many.
Speaker 4: Stores you will.
Speaker 9: We have three thousand stores now globally, a thousand which
Speaker 9: are company owned and operated, and we're intending to build
Speaker 9: a lot more one hundred Net News stores this year.
Speaker 9: One of which, by the way, is that we're relocating
Speaker 9: at the Champs des Age just in time for the Olympics.
Speaker 9: It's going to be a beautiful store this summer before
Speaker 9: the Olympics. And so we'll have those flagships stores, but
Speaker 9: lots of store that are coming into neighborhoods. But we're
Speaker 9: not going to be everywhere, so people can buy their
Speaker 9: their Levi's wherever they like to shop.
Speaker 3: Okay, so really quick, yes or no? Not answer if
Speaker 3: you won't give me a number. Did Beyonce result in
Speaker 3: an uptick of sales this week?
Speaker 9: I'm not going to give you a number.
Speaker 5: Kay, let me off.
Speaker 9: But Lego I just said, being in the center of
Speaker 9: culture is a privilege and we lean into it.
Speaker 5: Let me ask you this really quickly.
Speaker 3: You've talked about Paris, our city, San Francisco, is still
Speaker 3: facing location issues where people are shutting stores. Would you
Speaker 3: ever contemplate that in San Francisco?
Speaker 9: We well, first of all, our headquarters in San Francisco.
Speaker 4: We are here to stay.
Speaker 9: We've renewed our lease in our headquarters. We are deeply
Speaker 9: committed to San Francisco. We have a beautiful flagship store
Speaker 9: on Market Street and they're doing great, So we are
Speaker 9: we are committed to San Francisco and being part of
Speaker 9: the solution to bring back the vibrancy to this amazing city.
Speaker 2: It is so good to have you here talking with
Speaker 2: San Francisco, but in the house in New York, both
Speaker 2: of you flying back later today. It's a joy to
Speaker 2: have leave CEO Michelle Gas at this moment where well,
Speaker 2: Levi's on trend. Let's just talk about what else is
Speaker 2: top of mind for many of you who are about
Speaker 2: to fly out.
Speaker 4: Some updates on the earthquake here in the East Coast.
Speaker 2: JFK Airport posting on x that the airport does remain
Speaker 2: open and operational again. Preliminary reports say that a four
Speaker 2: point eight magnitude traumer rattle northern New Jersey, with Manhattan,
Speaker 2: Long Island Hudson Valley also feeling the impact.
Speaker 4: We're going to continue to monitor the headlines for you,
Speaker 4: bring you the latest.
Speaker 2: Most importantly for ED, because I know you're about to
Speaker 2: board a plane.
Speaker 3: I'm going to post on X. Responding to someone else
Speaker 3: who had posted the Reuters headline, Musk says Reuters is
Speaker 3: lying again in brackets. Reuters had reported that Tesla was
Speaker 3: scrapping plans for a twenty five thousand dollars or low
Speaker 3: cost EV in favor of favoring robotaxis Elon Musk taking
Speaker 3: to his own social platform X to say that they
Speaker 3: are lying.
Speaker 2: We will keep you up to date with all the
Speaker 2: goings on with Tesla. Now, let's get you all the
Speaker 2: goings on. When it comes to artificial intelligence and out
Speaker 2: in cloud, Flare is letting more developers bring their own
Speaker 2: AI applications from hugging Face onto its platform now. The
Speaker 2: company made the announcement this week, and it's also making
Speaker 2: its fervolous GPU powered inference known as workers AI, generally available.
Speaker 2: Let's bring in cloud Flair CEO Matthew Prints, So I'm
Speaker 2: so police can always make these things far more simple
Speaker 2: than some of the jug and that we have to say,
Speaker 2: and I'm more interested. Ultimately, there has been this desire
Speaker 2: by all companies to leverage the power of generative artificial intelligence,
Speaker 2: and what we keep having to talk about is not
Speaker 2: only how you integrate that within your workflow, but also
Speaker 2: how expensive it can be.
Speaker 4: You're trying to make.
Speaker 2: It less expensive, make it more easy to adopt, to
Speaker 2: build your own AI apps.
Speaker 5: Right, That's exactly right.
Speaker 10: There is not one AI solution for every company. We
Speaker 10: don't think it's one size all, and so we're excited
Speaker 10: to be partnering with hugging Face, which is effectively the
Speaker 10: marketplace for the latest AI models, and we've made it
Speaker 10: incredibly simple for a vast majority of the hugging Face
Speaker 10: models that are on that marketplace. Anyone who can bring
Speaker 10: anything to that marketplace, who with one click deploy those
Speaker 10: models across the cloud Flair network and get the best
Speaker 10: performance from those models, but also the best costs. How
Speaker 10: can you actually get the value of AI without blowing.
Speaker 4: Your budget your connectivity cloud company?
Speaker 2: What's brilliant about The perspective you have is a birds
Speaker 2: eye perspective. You can see where trends are actually meeting reality.
Speaker 2: And there is so much hype that we talk about
Speaker 2: on this program day in day out, Matthew, how real
Speaker 2: is that? How ye how much you actually see companies
Speaker 2: embrace jenerit to AI and make real differences.
Speaker 10: I think that you know the generator AI story, you know,
Speaker 10: pick your sports metaphor, but it is in its earliest
Speaker 10: innings and there's something real here. But I think it's
Speaker 10: going to take a while for us to take what
Speaker 10: are really great demos and turn them into really great products.
Speaker 10: So I think I think that the hype, the excitement
Speaker 10: is justified. But I also think that we're going to
Speaker 10: be in a period of time where companies are going
Speaker 10: to have to experiment. They're going to have to try
Speaker 10: different things, They're going to have to try different models,
Speaker 10: they're going to have to try things that make sense
Speaker 10: for them, and so it's critical to be able to
Speaker 10: bring the right AI that your company needs and do
Speaker 10: it in the most cost effective way. And that's what
Speaker 10: we're here to deliver at cloud Flair with our workers
Speaker 10: AI platform.
Speaker 3: What we're talking about is an AI supply chain. Yesterday,
Speaker 3: open Ais COO Brad Lightcap joined us on the show,
Speaker 3: and this is what he said about that AI supply chain.
Speaker 11: The supply chain will need to adapt to what we
Speaker 11: think is going to be this highly inflected and nearly
Speaker 11: exponential demand in the next ten years, and so we
Speaker 11: spend a lot of time thinking about ways that we
Speaker 11: can make sure that that demand is met. Part of
Speaker 11: it is just being able to bring our models to bear,
Speaker 11: but upstream of that is obviously making sure that the
Speaker 11: actual underlying hardware and infrastructure exists to be able to
Speaker 11: build the systems that we need to ultimately serve that demand.
Speaker 3: Here's the thing, Matthew, are you convinced that your potential
Speaker 3: customer base has even worked out in what form their
Speaker 3: demand is what they actually plan to do with generatord AI.
Speaker 10: I don't think that they've figured exactly out. I think
Speaker 10: everybody in the business world today is at least experimenting
Speaker 10: in this space. If you're not experimenting the space, you're
Speaker 10: really risk running behind. But we want to make sure
Speaker 10: that those experiments are as cost effective as possible. We
Speaker 10: don't want people to just be lighting money on fire
Speaker 10: when they're running AI experiments, and so we want to
Speaker 10: make sure that they have the models that make the
Speaker 10: most sense for their business, they're able to deploy them
Speaker 10: in the way which is the most cost effective for
Speaker 10: their business, and they get the local requirements that cloud
Speaker 10: Flares network gives. We've been able to deploy our GPU
Speaker 10: inference powered machines today in more than one hundred and
Speaker 10: fifty cities worldwide, making us the most widely distributed AI
Speaker 10: inference platform that's out there, and that's really powerful as
Speaker 10: we serve our customers all around the world who want
Speaker 10: to be able to do inference locally. Why hugging face
Speaker 10: how you think this is the de facto model for
Speaker 10: the de facto marketplace for where you distribute different AI models.
Speaker 10: If you want to experiment with various AI models, they're
Speaker 10: the place to go. It's sort of the gethub for
Speaker 10: AI today. And so they've been that place where developers
Speaker 10: are uploading those models, making it as easy as possible
Speaker 10: for anybody to be able to distribute the incredible work
Speaker 10: that they're building with these AI tools, and that partnered
Speaker 10: with cloud Flare's network, that makes now deploying that in
Speaker 10: those models and using them to solve real business challenges
Speaker 10: anywhere in the world. That's an incredibly powerful combination and
Speaker 10: that's something that we're excited to be doing with them,
Speaker 10: and I think there's a lot more that we can
Speaker 10: do together.
Speaker 2: What's interesting about the time of AI is some of
Speaker 2: the anxiety that is given to the workplace to whether
Speaker 2: they'll lose their roles. Now, Matthew, I want to dovetail
Speaker 2: into that something that you've experienced recently and actually tackled
Speaker 2: head on in a very transparent manner. People having to
Speaker 2: be laid off in the tech sector. Now, one of
Speaker 2: your employees, as a twenty seven year old, was laid off.
Speaker 4: And videoed how that occurred.
Speaker 2: It went viral and there was pushback as to the
Speaker 2: way in which people are being let go in the
Speaker 2: tech sector. You actually took to Twitter now x saying
Speaker 2: the video was painful for me to watch. Managers should
Speaker 2: always be involved. HR should be involved, but it shouldn't
Speaker 2: be outsourced to them. How have you seen response to
Speaker 2: your own response? How are you thinking about your own
Speaker 2: employee base that through more than three thousand that you
Speaker 2: have with them at the moment.
Speaker 10: Yeah, you know, I think across the entire industry. COVID
Speaker 10: was this really strange period of time where I think,
Speaker 10: for very reasonable and human reasons, a lot of companies
Speaker 10: just stopped firing people even if they didn't perform at
Speaker 10: their job. And so I don't want to talk about
Speaker 10: the specifics of any individual employee. That's not fair to them,
Speaker 10: but I will say that we think it's really important
Speaker 10: that we have a culture of performance, that we have
Speaker 10: a culture of where people who do well are rewarded
Speaker 10: for that, and people who aren't we get off the team.
Speaker 10: That doesn't mean that they're bad people. They might be
Speaker 10: great employees or else, but they may just not be
Speaker 10: the right fit for us. And what I'm encouraged by
Speaker 10: is that, you know, last year, we had over one
Speaker 10: point two million people apply to work for cloud Flip
Speaker 10: for about a thousand jobs that we hired for. We're
Speaker 10: way ahead of that trend through Q one of this
Speaker 10: year with a record number of applicants. We've never seen
Speaker 10: as many applicants, and so they're incredibly talented people who
Speaker 10: want to come work hard and deliver on the mission
Speaker 10: of helping build a better Internet, including delivering things like
Speaker 10: our partnership with Hugging Face and the AI platform workers AI.
Speaker 3: Okay, Cloud Fair CEO Matthew Prince. I appreciate the candor
Speaker 3: on the question that Caroline asked because on social media that.
Speaker 5: Was widely shared.
Speaker 3: But also you're doing something that I think we learned
Speaker 3: a lot about yesterday at Bloomberg Intelligence is AI Summit
Speaker 3: partnerships to add a new layer of AI access on
Speaker 3: top of cloud infrastructure.
Speaker 5: That seems to be thing. Matthew Frintz, thank you so much. Okay.
Speaker 3: US and EU officials were in Louven, Belgium for the
Speaker 3: final Trade and Technology Council ministerial meet before elections on
Speaker 3: both sides of the Atlantic. The Council, which is responsible
Speaker 3: for coordinating US and European tech regulation efforts, is working
Speaker 3: to set AI standards and to figure out how the
Speaker 3: two blocks can collaborate. Here's European Commission Executive Vice President
Speaker 3: Margaret ta BESTDAYA.
Speaker 12: When it comes to AI, we have had an agreed
Speaker 12: approach from the very first day, and I think that
Speaker 12: the likelihood that that would produce artificial intelligence that you
Speaker 12: can trust is so much bigger because artificial intelligence hold
Speaker 12: immense promise if the negative sides can be controlled.
Speaker 2: Yes, and Meanwhile, the two sides also announced a new
Speaker 2: dialogue between the USAI Safety Institute and the EU's AI
Speaker 2: Office that will explore tools and methods for evaluating technologies.
Speaker 2: Now here's the US Secretary of Commerce, Gina Romando.
Speaker 13: AI is changing the game again for everything and and
Speaker 13: AI collaboration between Theater Office and our Safety Institute is strong,
Speaker 13: will get stronger, all led by the TTC.
Speaker 3: There gonna be some more changes at Twilio. Spurred by
Speaker 3: pressure from activist investors, a software company is asking shareholders
Speaker 3: to change its board director terms to one year, down
Speaker 3: from three, beginning in twenty twenty five. The company also
Speaker 3: announced that Byron Dieter, directors since twenty ten, will not
Speaker 3: seek reelection at its upcoming annual investor meeting, and the
Speaker 3: board is going to be reduced to nine members from
Speaker 3: ten upon the end of his term. There's one man
Speaker 3: to talk to Bloomberg's Brody Ford. I actually kind of
Speaker 3: don't get this. Is this Twilio playing defense because there's
Speaker 3: a lingering threat, Like what's going on?
Speaker 14: Yeah, I mean what this is is Twilios seeking to
Speaker 14: avoid what happened with this, you know, a big public
Speaker 14: dispute with activists investors where they're airing dirty laundry and
Speaker 14: you have to go on Twitter and take out ads
Speaker 14: to say, hey, vote for us, all vote for the
Speaker 14: activist investors. What we're seeing here is a classic tale
Speaker 14: where a high growth software company hit a wall, right,
Speaker 14: They had their growth plummet all of a sudden, they
Speaker 14: had to do layoffs. Their future seemed uncertain. What happens
Speaker 14: activists investors show up, right. They have been agitating for
Speaker 14: changes for a couple of months now, and we've seen
Speaker 14: Twilio make a number of changes over the last couple
Speaker 14: of months to keep these activists investors happy and to
Speaker 14: prevent getting themselves into some kind of public proxy battle,
Speaker 14: which very few people are willing to take on.
Speaker 4: Proxy battles.
Speaker 2: Is where it's at in the news flow right now
Speaker 2: at the moment, Brody and I'm interested like this, of course,
Speaker 2: comes after Jeff Lawson himself CEO, had.
Speaker 4: To stand down amid all of this.
Speaker 2: Is there now a viewpoint that ultimately the fundamentals of
Speaker 2: the business will be changing and oft and swiftly enough.
Speaker 14: Well, that's a great question, because we've seen some changes here.
Speaker 14: As you mentioned, the well known founder CEO step down.
Speaker 14: They've changed some of the board terms. And when board
Speaker 14: terms are changed in this way where you can vote
Speaker 14: somebody out each given year, what that means is, hey,
Speaker 14: improve your business fundamentals, or we're coming back next year
Speaker 14: and we can vote your slate of candidates out very easily.
Speaker 11: Right.
Speaker 14: We saw a statement yesterday from one of the activist
Speaker 14: investors saying we will continue to put pressure on this business.
Speaker 14: And keep in mind, these activists were hoping that Blia
Speaker 14: would sell itself, they were hoping that it would divest things.
Speaker 14: I think they were hoping for more draftic changes than
Speaker 14: we saw. So you know the odds that we see
Speaker 14: some red headlines coming out about Twilio further, very.
Speaker 2: Possible, pretty forward, Always a joy, Thank you very much.
Speaker 4: Indeed. Meanwhile, Wow, thick and fast from the headline front.
Speaker 5: D Yeah, incredible, Friday.
Speaker 3: That does it for this addition of room bow technology,
Speaker 3: You're going to have to recap the whole episode to
Speaker 3: understand what happened on the pod.
Speaker 5: What a week here with you in Ny. This is
Speaker 5: Bloomberg