Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the City of London, the City of the City,
Speaker 2: the City of London. Please mind the gap between the
Speaker 2: and the financial heart of the country.
Speaker 3: The city, the city.
Speaker 4: Welcome to in the city, stand clear of the downs.
Speaker 2: I'm Francis Laqua and I'm David Merritt.
Speaker 1: And it's that time of your day in the city,
Speaker 1: in the mountains, in the snow.
Speaker 2: It's our favorite time of the year. It's the busiest
Speaker 2: time of the year. It's the most sportest time the
Speaker 2: especially as we limp crawl towards the finish line of
Speaker 2: the World Economic Forum. It's Thursday afternoon. We thought it
Speaker 2: was probably about time to get our heads together, pick
Speaker 2: over the remains of what's been a very busy week
Speaker 2: and what the vibes of What are the big.
Speaker 1: Takeaways So geopolitics, of course, a lot of what's happening
Speaker 1: with AI, but all the conversations continue to return to
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. Less about the president himself, but more about
Speaker 1: his policies and his rhetoric will be interpreted putting America
Speaker 1: first and leaving the rest of the world behind him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a couple of hours after we take this. He
Speaker 2: is beaming in apparently var zoom into the main plenary hall.
Speaker 2: He's going to be taking some questions, so rumors have
Speaker 2: been swinding that he is going to shop. Looks like
Speaker 2: that's not going to happen, but everyone's still hanging on
Speaker 2: what his words are going to be. The softenoon.
Speaker 1: There's one man we need to speak to. He's Bradstone.
Speaker 1: He's editor of Bloomberg Business Week before that, senior executive
Speaker 1: editor for Global Technology at Bloomberg News. Also the author
Speaker 1: of four books on Amazon, but also talking about Uber, AIRBNBN,
Speaker 1: the battle for the new Silicon Valley. Brad, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for joining us.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Francine, thank you David.
Speaker 1: I mean, basically the week has been just trying to
Speaker 1: figure out AI and the US chief executives are extremely
Speaker 1: bullish on what happened to them, and the Europeans just
Speaker 1: being a bit depressed.
Speaker 3: I think the conversation here has been on two tracks.
Speaker 4: AI is one, Trump and the global economy or another.
Speaker 4: But certainly AI last year the forefront of everyone's mind.
Speaker 4: Last year it was kind of Sam Altman's coming out party.
Speaker 3: We had him at the Blueberg House. That's right. This year.
Speaker 4: Dario Amoday, he's the CEO of Anthropic. He kind of
Speaker 4: represents the one of them. He has a partnership with
Speaker 4: Google and Amazon. But look, this year, even more than
Speaker 4: last year, I think there's a feeling that we are
Speaker 4: on the verge of something. You could call it super intelligence,
Speaker 4: you could call it AGI. In any event, the kool
Speaker 4: aid is being handed out amply, and everybody's talking about
Speaker 4: it and what it means for labor and the global
Speaker 4: economy and full employment.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: I remember last everyone was sort of badging themselves a
Speaker 2: day without really knowing what it might meant. But this
Speaker 2: year we put some dollar numbers on it all. And
Speaker 2: of course not you know, in Washington we had this
Speaker 2: announcement from Trump about this big new investment initiative with
Speaker 2: some provots apport on switch, but a big number. Okay,
Speaker 2: I love the night.
Speaker 3: Let me provide some context.
Speaker 4: First of all, Stargate and they bandied about these numbers.
Speaker 4: A five hundred billion, probably last dollar investment in a
Speaker 4: series of data centers and energy sources. So Oracle is involved,
Speaker 4: open Ai is involved, and apparently Massi Son is raising
Speaker 4: the money. And then Donald Trump of course giving the
Speaker 4: rabbinical blessing to it. But what's so interesting here, and
Speaker 4: Mark Venieff came to the Bloomberg House and talked a
Speaker 4: little bit about it yesterday, is the rivalries, the divides
Speaker 4: that are emerging in this rush to super intelligence. Microsoft
Speaker 4: was supposed to be open AI's partner at the dance,
Speaker 4: and there's Larry Ellison, and there's a lot of personality
Speaker 4: clashes and philosophical divisions around how we build this infrastructure,
Speaker 4: what it means, and who is going with kind of
Speaker 4: who to develop it.
Speaker 1: But who really has the money? Because there was also
Speaker 1: it was the first facts that we saw, you know,
Speaker 1: between Elon Musk and I mean it was via open AI,
Speaker 1: but actually it was almost a dig at Donald Trump
Speaker 1: and say, yeah, it's great announcing this, but who has money.
Speaker 1: There's no money to build this yet, right.
Speaker 4: And we should say here, we are in Davos, and
Speaker 4: the conversation is really revolving around things that are happening
Speaker 4: in DC.
Speaker 3: So I do think that's interesting.
Speaker 4: So you're right, Elon Musk, an ally of the presidents
Speaker 4: comes out and tweets or posts on.
Speaker 3: X that maybe open A doesn't really have the money.
Speaker 4: Now that there's a lot of bad blood between alt
Speaker 4: men and Elon Musk because you know, long story there
Speaker 4: and so, but he does raise and I think Elon
Speaker 4: Musk is right that there's a little bit of vapor
Speaker 4: around these announcements. Do you remember seven years ago Donald
Speaker 4: Trump opening a macindosh plant in Texas with Tim Cook
Speaker 4: that had been in operation for eight years. It's the
Speaker 4: kind of thing that we're going to get a lot of.
Speaker 4: I think these sort of quasi announcements where we're really
Speaker 4: trying to interpret what are they trying to tell us?
Speaker 3: But what is the reality behind the presentation?
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I just love that, you know, we've since
Speaker 2: the election, we've been debating when know that when is
Speaker 2: this alliance of tech leaders and Donald Trump kind of
Speaker 2: start to salah? Are we seeing that ready?
Speaker 3: No signs of it yet?
Speaker 4: I mean, and that, you know, that is something I'm
Speaker 4: taking away from Davas, particularly the US CEOs. Francine you
Speaker 4: were mentioning that it's quite a different story among the
Speaker 4: European business leaders, but for the American business leaders, they're
Speaker 4: putting forth a sense of optimism and excitement that they
Speaker 4: are bought into this idea that it is time to
Speaker 4: build realistically, it's probably the taxes are coming down, the
Speaker 4: regulations are going away, and who knows, you know, when
Speaker 4: he starts to overheat the economy and the bhond yields
Speaker 4: go up and the market crashes, if there will be
Speaker 4: a different tune. But we're in week one and everybody
Speaker 4: seems to be on board in.
Speaker 2: Front and your conversation. I mean, I heard you talking
Speaker 2: to now I think, and he said, what was the line?
Speaker 2: He said, I've never experienced such pessimism about Europe. I mean,
Speaker 2: isn't that. I keep hearing that this way, and you've
Speaker 2: been hearing that in all the conversations, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was funny because because Larry Think I
Speaker 1: think tongue in cheek was also saying it's a good
Speaker 1: entry point. And then I've also heard you know, you
Speaker 1: could have collateral benefits from the US, because if Donald
Speaker 1: Trump completely rips up or gets rid of the money
Speaker 1: that was meant to go into Ira, then it could
Speaker 1: go actually to Europe, where you could have some kind
Speaker 1: of you know, jealousy from the Europeans saying what they're deregulating.
Speaker 1: But my concern when you speak to chief executives, especially
Speaker 1: off the record is they understand AI, but they don't really, right,
Speaker 1: So AI is everything. It's Strava like telling me what
Speaker 1: route I've taken or not taken because I don't run.
Speaker 1: But it's also the super human artificial intelligence which could
Speaker 1: really change everything, like personal robots. So what are we
Speaker 1: actually talking about, Francine.
Speaker 3: That's a really pesky question, but it is.
Speaker 4: It is the good question, right, I mean right, because
Speaker 4: how do we get from the chatbots right to what
Speaker 4: Benioff was talking about yesterday, which is the we f
Speaker 4: app will tell you what they think you're interested in,
Speaker 4: because they're using salesforces Einstein to suddenly prognostications of a
Speaker 4: super intelligence that is smarter than humans. Dari or Mody
Speaker 4: coming to the Bloomberg House and saying we're going to
Speaker 4: get there by twenty twenty seven, Sam Altman saying it's
Speaker 4: going to happen during Trump's next current term.
Speaker 3: You know, to be honest, I do think there's some handwaving.
Speaker 4: I think you're right, And maybe it's not being described
Speaker 4: all the well because we don't exactly know what it is.
Speaker 4: But the idea is, and it's very much in vogue
Speaker 4: here at Davos that the technology goes and it does things.
Speaker 3: For us, we don't have to supervise it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but we've heard lots of people say this here
Speaker 2: as well in after interview, that everyone does need to
Speaker 2: get the chief executives need to start understanding the applications
Speaker 2: and the companies who are applying AI in their organizations.
Speaker 2: They're going to be more efficient, they're going to have
Speaker 2: better customer service, they're going to have a better bottom line,
Speaker 2: and those who don't and then get left behind. And
Speaker 2: so to keep coming back to the US Europe thing,
Speaker 2: but it does fail to what you just said about again,
Speaker 2: the Americans are kind of zooming over the horizon here,
Speaker 2: leaving the Europeans in a kind of dust, don't they.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean there are some you know, national or
Speaker 4: continental champions. The CEO of Miss Strall was here. Did
Speaker 4: you talk to him this week, prent He did have
Speaker 4: good boots.
Speaker 1: I noticed that, and like orange boots because Mistral, you
Speaker 1: know the logo is like orange and black.
Speaker 4: That's right, so you know, and of course they are
Speaker 4: making their play an open source, which is you know,
Speaker 4: powerful technology.
Speaker 3: So all is not lost.
Speaker 4: But you know, Trump coming in here and even this
Speaker 4: week his first week making it clear that this is
Speaker 4: a national security issue, that the rivalry is with China,
Speaker 4: and that he will put the muscle of the US
Speaker 4: government behind open Ai and the other national champions of Yes,
Speaker 4: I think we have yet to see that in Europe.
Speaker 3: And it is somewhat concerning.
Speaker 1: Deep Mind is deep Mind you you know British company.
Speaker 1: I know they're owned by Google, but they still have
Speaker 1: the headquarters there. Dennis's British. He thinks about things from
Speaker 1: more from a European perspective.
Speaker 4: And yet because of the ownership by Google, because the
Speaker 4: brains of deep Mind are our power, the Gemini large
Speaker 4: Language model, I think we can really more realistically think
Speaker 4: about it as US technology at this point.
Speaker 2: And you mentioned China. Just another thing that has been
Speaker 2: really striking to me has been kind of the absence
Speaker 2: of China from this form and in its place a
Speaker 2: huge presence by India. They have not one but two
Speaker 2: houses on the promenade, they have many Ministers of State.
Speaker 2: He Modi is not here himself, but the theme of
Speaker 2: India as an investment choice is the growth engine in
Speaker 2: APAC and potentially then in the world. Has been coming
Speaker 2: across Loud and Clay and on the tech side as well,
Speaker 2: with the skills and the talent that's emerging in India.
Speaker 2: That's something that I've taken away.
Speaker 4: I will say that one thing that I'm coming away
Speaker 4: from this week is an interest and a curiosity in
Speaker 4: learning more about a Chinese company called deep Seek, a
Speaker 4: lot of people are talking about in the tech community
Speaker 4: here at Davos.
Speaker 3: It's a former hedge.
Speaker 4: Fund I believe, based in Beijing that has a large
Speaker 4: language model that in some ways people are saying this
Speaker 4: is just as powerful as the Western model.
Speaker 3: So don't really know a lot about it yet.
Speaker 4: They're very private, they're not here, but it's something that
Speaker 4: is on my radar as business to get the job done.
Speaker 1: But I think, you know, the fact that the Chinese
Speaker 1: has a significant less presence than in the past may
Speaker 1: be telling of things to come. Because if you're kind
Speaker 1: of in the you know, in the eye line of
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, I mean, you don't want to be seeing
Speaker 1: too much. You kind of want to stay behind the radar.
Speaker 1: And some of the most interesting conversations that I've had,
Speaker 1: you know, in Davos's chief executives that are not American
Speaker 1: that are trying to figure out what you do with
Speaker 1: a Trump presidency. So first you need to try and
Speaker 1: understand the difference between policy and noise or negotiation tactic.
Speaker 1: But also you don't want to be targeted. So do
Speaker 1: you stay below the radar? Do you try and find meeting?
Speaker 1: You know, do you try and and actually get some
Speaker 1: FaceTime with him? How do you communicate with him? So
Speaker 1: it's really interesting as people lattery, but you also have
Speaker 1: to be remembered unless it's for something bad. I mean
Speaker 1: it's very complicated, is it. Yeah, study psychology, it is.
Speaker 3: But I think you know I was talking about the optimism.
Speaker 4: I mean it's the Trump psychology, which is why everybody's
Speaker 4: so rosy. They know that this is a transactional president
Speaker 4: and everyone's got their bouquet of roses and is putting
Speaker 4: it at his feet right now.
Speaker 2: I mean you've you've interviewed him, Brad, right, I mean,
Speaker 2: does that pers Nanci come frough, you know, sitting around?
Speaker 3: I mean there's an interesting juxtaposition. You know. We interviewed
Speaker 3: him BusinessWeek no video.
Speaker 4: Cameras in mar Lago in August and it was a
Speaker 4: great conversation. And then our colleague John Micklethwaite interviews on
Speaker 4: stage on camera, and it's a much more different, more
Speaker 4: pugilistic Donald Trump. So it is it is interesting when
Speaker 4: he has an audience, he plays to it. When it's quiet,
Speaker 4: he's a little bit more solicitous of the media.
Speaker 2: Do you think across all the interviews here to say
Speaker 2: on camera fromt Scene and Brad, when you've been interviewing
Speaker 2: people on stage at the house or here on the
Speaker 2: TV set, the impression I g is people are just
Speaker 2: more resident this year to say anything ready. They don't
Speaker 2: want to put their heads about the parapet is this
Speaker 2: part of the Trump offeit.
Speaker 1: But I think it's because they don't know. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's because they're trying to be coy or don't
Speaker 1: want to say anything. I think it's really uncertainty. We've
Speaker 1: seen in the markets right it's been quite wild because
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, you know, tech stocks will do fine,
Speaker 1: We're good. There's security issues with China. Stocks are down.
Speaker 1: So I think we're a little bit in the way
Speaker 1: and see situation especially you know for businesses that want stability.
Speaker 1: We're not really one hundred percent sure what these executive
Speaker 1: orders mean. I mean, the crypto can, I don't know
Speaker 1: where it ends up if it's about DOGI and having
Speaker 1: you know, memes. We're going to do a dogie of
Speaker 1: Dave Marra that's my next project, or whether you know
Speaker 1: it'll be more infiltrating with blockchain in the whole of
Speaker 1: the financial system. I don't know that.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I know they can't go wrong with flattery. I think
Speaker 4: they're holding their tongue on crypto and the Trump coin
Speaker 4: and the Milania coin. I think there's probably nobody wants
Speaker 4: to say it, but you know, there's a little bit
Speaker 4: of drifting right now.
Speaker 3: It's very hard, it's very.
Speaker 4: Hard to rationalize, but you know, nobody wants to be
Speaker 4: left behind. Trump is freeing the technol the AI race
Speaker 4: as a as a national security initiative, and an everybody
Speaker 4: is going.
Speaker 3: To their respective teams right now.
Speaker 1: The other concern is that, you know, there's only one
Speaker 1: show in town, and that's Donald Trump. And if you're
Speaker 1: a leader, you spend so much time dealing with the
Speaker 1: Trump administration in terms of how to respond what he's saying.
Speaker 1: You know, don't you know put your head above the
Speaker 1: parapet that you may lose sight of what's going on
Speaker 1: at home. And this is against some of the things
Speaker 1: that I've been here in the corridors is that you know,
Speaker 1: he's there's there's one show. He likes to be the
Speaker 1: center of tension. He likes talking, he likes being provocative,
Speaker 1: and that could, you know, take away attention from important
Speaker 1: matters for leader in chief executive.
Speaker 2: I certainly know the big political interviews we've had here
Speaker 2: this week. President Selenski, who spoke to John Mirkalthwaite yesterday,
Speaker 2: made it very clear that Trump is the key, of
Speaker 2: course to any resolution, but also the involvement of American
Speaker 2: troops in any sort of peace deal. He made that
Speaker 2: very clear as well. So Trump is the ultimate player
Speaker 2: in any sort of resolution.
Speaker 1: And Argentina and I'll just the script to make a
Speaker 1: deal with Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: I also just want to add that you know, these
Speaker 4: business leaders their weather veins.
Speaker 3: They point in the direction that the winds are blowing.
Speaker 4: And back in the US right now, we've seen the
Speaker 4: emergence of a sort of very conservative feeling among the
Speaker 4: American populists. There are not great protests on corporate campuses
Speaker 4: in universities, despite the executive orders of the of the
Speaker 4: first week. So I think a lot of business leaders
Speaker 4: have their finger up to the wind, and they are.
Speaker 3: They're playing to their constituencies.
Speaker 2: And a remarkable ability to pivot.
Speaker 4: Mark Bennioff, as staunch a Democrat as you could find,
Speaker 4: had nary award of criticism yesterday at the Bloomberg House
Speaker 4: to say about Donald.
Speaker 2: Fatty song were in about everything that names and.
Speaker 4: I'm sure his private feelings made different from his public posture.
Speaker 1: One of the other things that you know, we've been
Speaker 1: thinking about is because Donald Trump likes a deal, we
Speaker 1: don't really know what deals he's making with whom. So
Speaker 1: something that could be confrontational or not, do you political
Speaker 1: means that it would be in exchange for something else.
Speaker 1: So TikTok for me is quite interesting or what he's
Speaker 1: you know, he walked down in terms of like, ah,
Speaker 1: is it really dangerous if it's just a bunch of
Speaker 1: kids looking at crazy videos? Does he need China for
Speaker 1: something else? Or do we ever really know what he's thinking.
Speaker 3: It's difficult. He introduced the idea of a TikTok ban.
Speaker 4: There is bipartisan consensus that TikTok is biased towards the
Speaker 4: priorities of the Chinese government. So sure he's getting something
Speaker 4: it may not be from China, maybe for some of
Speaker 4: his donors who are major investors in TikTok's owner.
Speaker 1: By dance just on TikTok. What happens because the Chinese
Speaker 1: have to agree to whoever they sell it to, right,
Speaker 1: so they said no to a number of people because
Speaker 1: it's my understanding that if they sell it, they also
Speaker 1: have to give the algorithm, and that's the loss of
Speaker 1: the Chinese want.
Speaker 3: We have reported a bloomberg.
Speaker 4: They appear to be warming up to the idea that
Speaker 4: they're going to have to sell the social network, maybe
Speaker 4: not the algorithm, and then we should probably prepare for
Speaker 4: Trump to steer it towards his allies like Larry Ellison
Speaker 4: and Elon Musk.
Speaker 1: I was just going to say, Elon Musk, how we
Speaker 1: had the brother here yesterday and again there was a
Speaker 1: rumor that he show up with Elon lost that would
Speaker 1: have been rumor which has since been.
Speaker 4: I don't think Elon has great things to say about Davos.
Speaker 1: Well, they had a fat right on ax like a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago. I feel like the next twelve
Speaker 1: months are going to be pretty volatile and pretty bumpy.
Speaker 1: I mean, Brad's already thinking about what we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about next year in Davos.
Speaker 2: I'm the worst crystal ball guys there is, and you know,
Speaker 2: think about its sitting at last year, we had no
Speaker 2: idea what was to come. So I'm going to I'm
Speaker 2: going to demur on that. Apart from the one the
Speaker 2: big serieslit geopolitical question that we've had to see, we
Speaker 2: have a ceased in them. At least clearly something is
Speaker 2: going to move in Ukraine. So perhaps there's less conflict
Speaker 2: in the world.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean my question if the US is withdrawing
Speaker 4: as the world's policeman, you know what other conflict will
Speaker 4: we see? Power abhors a vacuum. Trump has shown very
Speaker 4: reluctant to deploy American troops. I have a feeling next
Speaker 4: year we will be talking about Donald Trump, because that
Speaker 4: is first rule of the Trump presidency. You talk about
Speaker 4: Trump and there it will be something that we have
Speaker 4: not yet imagined in terms of global conflict.
Speaker 1: It'll be interesting to see if the Europeans are banks.
Speaker 1: We also didn't have We had one European leaders who's
Speaker 1: going to election on twenty third of February because they're
Speaker 1: just not strong enough at home and.
Speaker 2: If Larry think is right. Maybe you know that the
Speaker 2: inverse devils indicator that excess pessimism here means that it's
Speaker 2: time to buy Europe. Maybe that's there.
Speaker 1: Brad thank you so much for joing here.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to this episode of In the City
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg. It was hosted by me Franklin Lackwell with
Speaker 1: Dave Merritt, was produced by Sammersati and Moses, and sound
Speaker 1: designed by Blake Maples. Special thanks to Bradstone. Please subscribe, rate,
Speaker 1: and review wherever you listen to podcasts. Cool that's done.