Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: You just got out of speaking with the folks at
Speaker 2: Y Combinator. Talk to us a little bit about who
Speaker 2: you're speaking to and why you're here.
Speaker 1: What's the message.
Speaker 3: Well, thanks so much for having me, Emily, And an
Speaker 3: important part of my job is going around the country
Speaker 3: and hearing from Americans across markets, across sectors to understand
Speaker 3: what are the pain points that they're seeing in the
Speaker 3: markets that they're trying to work in, compete in, buy in.
Speaker 3: And so I'm so glad to be here in San
Speaker 3: Francisco meeting with folks across the tech community, including founders,
Speaker 3: including vcs, including startups, and trying to understand, you know,
Speaker 3: how do we make sure that our free and fair
Speaker 3: enterprise system can remain robust and that innovation and competition
Speaker 3: can thrive, especially at this moment of technological change and
Speaker 3: a potential inflection point.
Speaker 2: Obviously, how AI will play out is very much top
Speaker 2: of mind here. I just spoke with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg,
Speaker 2: who unveiled the largest open source AI model ever this week,
Speaker 2: and really double down on what he thinks are the
Speaker 2: benefits of the open source approach. Take a listen to
Speaker 2: what he had to say.
Speaker 1: The way that we can control our own destiny on
Speaker 1: this and make sure that we have access to leading
Speaker 1: AI is by building it and having it become an
Speaker 1: industry's standard. But it actually gets stronger by being able
Speaker 1: to share it and have the ecosystem around it.
Speaker 2: Where do you stand cher con on Meta's open approach
Speaker 2: versus closed source competitors like open AI and Google and
Speaker 2: Zuckerberg's remark specifically, well, look, without.
Speaker 3: Weighing in on any specific company. As a general matter,
Speaker 3: historically we've seen that openness and open source can be
Speaker 3: a critical vector of innovation, right. I mean, what happens
Speaker 3: traditionally when you render some of these ecosystems more open
Speaker 3: is that it can lower barriers to entry, It can
Speaker 3: lower costs for entrepreneurs and startups and really enable them
Speaker 3: to innovate much more freely. And so we want to
Speaker 3: make sure that that tradition continues. We are watching very closely.
Speaker 3: I think there's still an open question around what openness
Speaker 3: really means in the AI context. Our team has been
Speaker 3: focusing on this idea of open weight models, which we
Speaker 3: think could similarly engender a lot of competition and innovation
Speaker 3: and make it easier for startups and entrepreneurs to compete
Speaker 3: on a level playing field. Of course, we need to
Speaker 3: really closely understand what are any restrictions licensing restrictions that
Speaker 3: are being included here and could those be fore closing competition.
Speaker 3: More generally, we also need to be aware of how
Speaker 3: there are significant incumbents that may have an outsized role
Speaker 3: to be playing because they have key control over the
Speaker 3: raw material and key inputs, and so we need to
Speaker 3: be aware of the broader potential competition issue us or
Speaker 3: bottlenecks or choke points that could emerge in ways that
Speaker 3: could inhibit innovation and inhibit competition. And so that's what
Speaker 3: we're going to be talking with founders and vcs and
Speaker 3: others about today.
Speaker 2: Something else you've been looking into more recently is surveillance pricing,
Speaker 2: which is how AI is being used to rapidly change
Speaker 2: pricing based on consumer behavior. And there are some really
Speaker 2: dystopian concerns here about how this could lead to dangerous
Speaker 2: financial targeting. What are some examples you've seen of this
Speaker 2: and what are you hoping to find.
Speaker 3: So as you know, for years now, Americans have had
Speaker 3: their personal data and information closely tracked and surveilled by
Speaker 3: a whole set of companies in ways that can really
Speaker 3: threaten people's privacy. What we see now is that firms
Speaker 3: could also be using this enormously personal data about people
Speaker 3: to also set person specific prices based on what they
Speaker 3: know about you, based on what you're feeling, who you're seeing,
Speaker 3: what you're browsing, and so we want to make sure
Speaker 3: that we are looking under the hood and understand what's
Speaker 3: going on here. So, for example, you can imagine that
Speaker 3: a hotel that knows you've already bought plane tickets may
Speaker 3: show you a higher price than they show somebody who
Speaker 3: hasn't really decided on where they're going to visit. You
Speaker 3: can imagine a restaurant that knows you have a one
Speaker 3: hour lunch break could hike prices for you during that hour.
Speaker 3: And so these are just some of the types of
Speaker 3: practices that we could see take hold if this type
Speaker 3: of surveillance pricing is allowed to develop.
Speaker 2: Interesting we're all still feeling the effects of this crowd
Speaker 2: strike outage, and so many people are shocked about how
Speaker 2: a company that is so small could just shake up
Speaker 2: the world like this. What's your take on this and
Speaker 2: is there something to investigate here.
Speaker 3: So as a general matter, I think this really underscores
Speaker 3: the trade offs between kind of fragility and resiliency, and
Speaker 3: how when you have more centralization, or when you have
Speaker 3: enormous dependence on just one firm or a very small
Speaker 3: number of companies, that can make it so that a
Speaker 3: single disruption can have cascading effects and really lead to
Speaker 3: all sorts of breakdowns. And so as a result of
Speaker 3: this one incident, for example, we saw over three thousand
Speaker 3: flights grounded. We saw doctors that were no longer able
Speaker 3: to prescribe medicines for their patients, We saw courthouses that
Speaker 3: had to close off proceedings, and so the impact here
Speaker 3: was significant, and it's really underscoring the importance of making
Speaker 3: sure we have resilient markets and resilient systems so that
Speaker 3: a single crash like this doesn't lead to so much
Speaker 3: outsized disruption.
Speaker 2: I do have to take a moment to talk about
Speaker 2: the presidential election. A number of prominent tech folks have
Speaker 2: endorsed President Trump for a variety of reasons, but I
Speaker 2: have heard specifically multiple tech executives and investors complain about
Speaker 2: how they can't do deals on your watch, you have
Speaker 2: any concerns that your agenda has that all alienated the
Speaker 2: tech community or could impact the impact of your agenda
Speaker 2: going forward.
Speaker 3: You know, it's been such an honor to serve and
Speaker 3: then Biden Harris administration, and you know, we're just focused
Speaker 3: on doing our work. What I oftentimes hear from the
Speaker 3: business community, including small businesses, including entrepreneurs, is that they
Speaker 3: want markets to be more open and more fair and
Speaker 3: more competitive, rather than incumbents being able to squash out
Speaker 3: maason competitive threats. I mean, our free enterprise system is
Speaker 3: one where the best ideas are supposed to win, and
Speaker 3: we've historically seen that it's the disruptors and entrepreneurs that
Speaker 3: have been a key vector of innovation. And so our
Speaker 3: job at the FTC when we enforce the antitrust laws
Speaker 3: is to make sure that our markets stay open and
Speaker 3: fair and competitive. And that's something that you know, most
Speaker 3: businesses and most entrepreneurs should really be able to get behind.
Speaker 2: Former President Trump's running mate jd Vance has actually praised
Speaker 2: your work. In fact, I believe he said that you're
Speaker 2: one of the few people in the Biden administration that's
Speaker 2: doing a pretty good job. In his opinion, what do
Speaker 2: you make of the irony there? And you know, how
Speaker 2: do you see the FTC moving forward in the next administration.
Speaker 3: So I will speculate about what's going to happen in November.
Speaker 3: I do think we see enormous bipartisan agreement that we
Speaker 3: need to reinvigorate and double down on anti trust enforcement.
Speaker 3: We need to make sure that monopolies can't illegally use
Speaker 3: their power to jack up prices for consumers, to really
Speaker 3: undermine workers, or really stamp out entrepreneurs in small businesses.
Speaker 3: And so that bipart is an agreement around the importance
Speaker 3: of open, fair competition to protect our free and fair
Speaker 3: enterprise system is absolutely critical. I mean, you know, just
Speaker 3: the other week, the FTC release an interim staff report
Speaker 3: looking at the practices of the pharmacy benefit managers and
Speaker 3: some of our initial findings. And that's an area, for example,
Speaker 3: where we see enormous bipartisan concern on both sides.