Speaker 1: From the heart of where innovation, money and power. CALLI
Speaker 1: in Silicon Valley and beyond. This is Bloomberg Technology with
Speaker 1: Emily Jay. I'm Emily Chack in San Francisco, and this
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg Technology. Coming up in the next hour. The
Speaker 1: labor market seems to be heating up, more than double
Speaker 1: the number of jobs forecast added in July. I will
Speaker 1: ask LIFTS president about the state of the gig economy
Speaker 1: as murmurs of a recession get quieter for now still,
Speaker 1: the housing market cooling after rate heights make home buying
Speaker 1: that much more expensive. Power platforms like Zillo and Redfin
Speaker 1: reassessing after years of unprecedented demand. Redfen CEO Glenn Kellman
Speaker 1: also with us this hour, and Lincoln co founder Reid
Speaker 1: Hoffman wants to sell you are created by a computer.
Speaker 1: Will tell us what it was like to sell a
Speaker 1: collection of AI generated n f T and what it
Speaker 1: tells him about the future. We will get to all
Speaker 1: of that in a moment, but first, for more on
Speaker 1: LIFT results in the state of the gig economy, I
Speaker 1: want to bring in John Zimmer, co founder, vice chair
Speaker 1: and president of Left John great to have you back
Speaker 1: with us. What changed this quarter. It seems like a
Speaker 1: switch was flipped or you shifted into a new gear. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we had a we had a great quarter record high
Speaker 1: adjusted I BADA profit for the company. The team did
Speaker 1: phenomenal work. UH, and we really made some adjustments going
Speaker 1: into the quarter. But also the business conditions are improving
Speaker 1: for us on the driver's side. UH, drivers are doing well.
Speaker 1: They had you know, thirty seven dollars on average UH
Speaker 1: an hour for their earnings. UH. And we're much more
Speaker 1: imbalanced so year over year are e t A S
Speaker 1: which is a great level of or measure of service
Speaker 1: levels came down three minutes. So really happy with what
Speaker 1: we're seeing in the marketplace. We got positive jobs now
Speaker 1: use today kind of a surprise. But I wonder how
Speaker 1: concerns you still are about the macro environment. We've got inflation,
Speaker 1: you still got high gas prices, and you've got a
Speaker 1: recession looming. Yeah, we were watching it obviously closely. I
Speaker 1: think there are positives and negatives for our marketplace. UM.
Speaker 1: When you have more people looking for flexible work with
Speaker 1: good earnings. UM. You know, as we're seeing right now,
Speaker 1: it does help us on the driver's side of the equation. UH.
Speaker 1: And and writers are still coming back because you know,
Speaker 1: we're coming off the bottom of a pandemic that really uh,
Speaker 1: you know, affected and hurt our business, and so there's
Speaker 1: a lot of headroom left. Uh, And the driver's side
Speaker 1: of the equation improving is really nice to see. I
Speaker 1: spoke to your competition this week. Here's Uber CEO Dara Kasbasha,
Speaker 1: he who said he thinks Uber is a recession resistant company.
Speaker 1: Take a listen to what he had to say. Because
Speaker 1: we're in multiple businesses, both in mobility and delivery. I
Speaker 1: think we have a kind of business that can perform
Speaker 1: in all weather. But at the same time, we are
Speaker 1: being disciplined in terms of costs to make sure that
Speaker 1: as the environment, if it gets tougher, we are prepared. John,
Speaker 1: how would you described lists chances in a recession? Are
Speaker 1: you any less recession proof if you will, because you
Speaker 1: don't have a delivery part of the business, for example,
Speaker 1: I think we're in a better position if you think
Speaker 1: about you know, people having less discretionary money to spend, uh,
Speaker 1: do they spend it on you know, inflated ordering in
Speaker 1: food that that has become inflated, or do they make
Speaker 1: food for themselves? Um? And actually we looked back at
Speaker 1: historical data and transportation is quite durable compared to take out.
Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit about your strategy around costs.
Speaker 1: You know Ed was just talking about more layoffs at
Speaker 1: tech companies. I know you talked a little bit about
Speaker 1: hiring on the call. What's your strategy when it comes
Speaker 1: to spending? Are you pulling on the brake or are
Speaker 1: you stepping on the gas like Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky
Speaker 1: told me he's doing earlier this week. When it comes
Speaker 1: to spending for growth and hiring, we're being quite cautious.
Speaker 1: So we we really slowed our hiring at the start
Speaker 1: of the quarter um and at first frozen outright and
Speaker 1: then only opened up the head count that we saw
Speaker 1: as incredibly valuable to our to our plans to drive
Speaker 1: profitable growth. So I'd say we're gonna be you know,
Speaker 1: continued to be cautious. Uh. And and on hiring specifically,
Speaker 1: UH still do some but but not put the pedal
Speaker 1: down when it comes to hiring and just retaining employees.
Speaker 1: How are you keeping people motivated? I know today this
Speaker 1: week was a particularly great week for lift shares, but
Speaker 1: they are down significantly since I p O and down
Speaker 1: more than some of your industry peers, if you will. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we have a phenomenal team that's been with us through
Speaker 1: a lot of the ups and downs of the past
Speaker 1: couple of years. The team, UH, you know, at all levels,
Speaker 1: and especially the leadership level, is battle tested. I've never
Speaker 1: seen a more cohesive feeling for for our leadership team,
Speaker 1: and then I have over the past few months. I'm
Speaker 1: confident we're retaining talent, We're hiring phenomenal talent, so we're
Speaker 1: we're in a good place because people love the mission
Speaker 1: level we're working on UH and know that there's a
Speaker 1: lot of room to grow from here. All right, John Zimmer,
Speaker 1: President of Lift, Good to have you back, John, Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us. All right. Meta has put
Speaker 1: its acquisition of the VR Company within Unlimited on hold
Speaker 1: for now, putting the deal on ice until or until
Speaker 1: the court makes a ruling on the stec's lawsuit to
Speaker 1: block this transaction. The FTC alleges the deal would help
Speaker 1: Meta monopolize the VR industry. Chairs of red Fit are
Speaker 1: having the best day in months, despite reporting earnings below expectations,
Speaker 1: the stock jumping more than at the close unprecedented demand
Speaker 1: for homes has given real estate online real estate to
Speaker 1: boost in the last few years, but higher rates are
Speaker 1: slowing that momentum. I want to bring in red Vincy Yo,
Speaker 1: Glenn Kelman. Now, Glen, it feels like so many times
Speaker 1: we've talked when the stock is down, but today shares
Speaker 1: are up more than four How do you square that
Speaker 1: with the housing market taking a turn from the worst?
Speaker 1: To use your words, well, I think it could have
Speaker 1: been worse. Analysts were worried that the market had completely crashed,
Speaker 1: and instead, over the past four weeks it's gotten better.
Speaker 1: So in June, demand was far worse than almost anyone expected.
Speaker 1: We had the biggest rate hike since economists were thinking
Speaker 1: that there'd be a one percent decrease in home sales,
Speaker 1: and instead there was a nine percent decrease in home sales.
Speaker 1: So people freaked. But things got a little better in
Speaker 1: the last few weeks of July and that led to
Speaker 1: some optimism and the housing market. So when you look
Speaker 1: at the housing mark it are you optimistic or are
Speaker 1: you freaking out a little bit? What are the trends
Speaker 1: that you see that are most alarming? It changes day
Speaker 1: to day, So I think On one hand, you've got
Speaker 1: places like Boise, Salt Lake City, and Denver having more
Speaker 1: than half their listings drop their price. In Boise it
Speaker 1: was si the ie buyers are just ripping the bottom
Speaker 1: out of the market because we have to price ahead
Speaker 1: of everyone else to liquidate our inventory. So that has
Speaker 1: made the correction sharper, but hopefully more short lived than
Speaker 1: anyone expected. And on the other side, the FED was
Speaker 1: debbish about interest rates last week, and so mortgage rates
Speaker 1: have really come down. Buyers have come back because home
Speaker 1: prices are down and now the mortgages are more affordable,
Speaker 1: so we've seen a slide uptick in demand. I think
Speaker 1: it's good that we're letting some air out of the balloon.
Speaker 1: In general, it was too crazy. So what direction is
Speaker 1: this all going in? I mean, do you think of
Speaker 1: recession is inevitable or are we already in one and
Speaker 1: somebody just has to call it. I don't think we're
Speaker 1: already in a recession. I think the housing market is
Speaker 1: definitely in a jam where it has been very volatile.
Speaker 1: It has been hard on people trying to buy and
Speaker 1: sell their home, but the rest of the economy is
Speaker 1: doing reasonably well. The stock market has recovered. There was
Speaker 1: a great jobs print today. So it just depends on
Speaker 1: whether the FED has to take really aggressive action with inflation.
Speaker 1: And I was surprised at how devash they are because
Speaker 1: I think that inflation trends are deep seated, and so
Speaker 1: the FED is going to have to take another bite
Speaker 1: at the apple and raise rates later in the year.
Speaker 1: But we'll see. I don't run the FED. It's the reason. Well,
Speaker 1: you do have a great outlook on the housing market,
Speaker 1: and what is your outlook for let's say second half
Speaker 1: half of the year availability and affordability of homes. What
Speaker 1: are you expecting Homes are going to get more affordable.
Speaker 1: Prices are coming down. Uh, Sellers across the board are
Speaker 1: cutting their prices. The beautiful homes are the ones that
Speaker 1: are selling right now. The homes that have a funky
Speaker 1: layout are actually being withdrawn from the market. So the
Speaker 1: price drops are actually steve for than most people realize
Speaker 1: because of this selection bias. If we had to sell
Speaker 1: all the homes that we sold a year ago, prices
Speaker 1: really would have fallen. So that has led to more
Speaker 1: buyers coming back to the market. I think that it's
Speaker 1: going to be a fairly balanced market. For the next
Speaker 1: few months until the FED makes another move. But if
Speaker 1: the FED makes another move, all the bets are off
Speaker 1: because consumers have been so ridiculously rate sensitive over the
Speaker 1: past few months. I'm used to that. I've been doing
Speaker 1: this for fifteen years, but I've never seen such rate increases,
Speaker 1: and consumers respond so strongly to those rate increases. So
Speaker 1: what does this mean for those would be first time
Speaker 1: home buyers that are just trying to get on the
Speaker 1: property letter and have not been able to. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a real generational challenge for the fabric of American society.
Speaker 1: There's a whole bunch of people who are coming of
Speaker 1: age right now who can't afford the American dream, and
Speaker 1: the pinch is that they're stuck between rising rents and
Speaker 1: very high home prices. So we try to tell people
Speaker 1: to date the rate and marry the house. That just
Speaker 1: means that you can read finance in a couple of years.
Speaker 1: But if you can now buy a house that would
Speaker 1: have sold for two thousand dollars over asking some crazy
Speaker 1: bidding more just three months ago and that is now
Speaker 1: sitting on the market, make an aggressive offer. And that
Speaker 1: is especially true in the middle of the country. And
Speaker 1: in the coastal markets, we've definitely seen price declients, but
Speaker 1: things got way out of hand in places like Las Vegas, Phoenix, Boise,
Speaker 1: Salt Lake. The middle of the country and the Sun
Speaker 1: Belt was way over priced and that is now coming
Speaker 1: back to earth and there's going to be a significant
Speaker 1: correction there now. We've seen a number of layoffs at
Speaker 1: tech companies, Oracle just the latest one today. Redfin also
Speaker 1: having some layoffs. After you said they hired, you hired
Speaker 1: faster than ever last year. What was the miscalculation. Well,
Speaker 1: it wasn't just a miscalculation, it was my miscalculation. I
Speaker 1: was the one who hired into that. It's so hard
Speaker 1: because you're not gaining as much share as you should.
Speaker 1: You're turning away thousands of customers every month. You don't
Speaker 1: have enough real estate agents to serve the demand. You
Speaker 1: can't solve all the problems that are coming at you
Speaker 1: left and right, and then the market just drops out.
Speaker 1: And so we laid off six of our workforce, and
Speaker 1: I'm the one accountable for that. I feel so ashamed
Speaker 1: about it. I was so blue. I still am. But
Speaker 1: it's what we had to do to run a profitable
Speaker 1: business and now I think we feel more optimistic about
Speaker 1: the future, but we're still running on an ice edge.
Speaker 1: We're not out of the woods yet. Well, I appreciate
Speaker 1: you being honest with us about your feelings, and I
Speaker 1: wonder how it makes you think differently about the future.
Speaker 1: How are you diversifying your business if things get worse?
Speaker 1: You know, how are you recalculating your approach to hiring
Speaker 1: in a new environment. Well, every time you go through
Speaker 1: something like this, you say, never again. Every single time
Speaker 1: I hired somebody, I'm gonna remember I might have to
Speaker 1: fire that person one day because we don't have enough money.
Speaker 1: And it's just hard because it's almost like you're on drugs,
Speaker 1: you've drank too much. You're just at last some party
Speaker 1: or something in three in the morning, and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, the lights come up and you're like, what
Speaker 1: have I done? So you just have to be really
Speaker 1: careful about your hiring. I don't think we're going to
Speaker 1: diversify the business because we are going to keep taking share.
Speaker 1: We sell homes faster for more money. We charge a
Speaker 1: one percent fee. The basic engine of the business is
Speaker 1: very good. If we wanted to get out of the business,
Speaker 1: I don't know what else we would do, because there
Speaker 1: isn't a better business than that. So we just have
Speaker 1: to focus, execute, keep doing what we're doing, and the
Speaker 1: rest is going to take care of itself. And you know,
Speaker 1: as we look to the second half of the year,
Speaker 1: and you know, the evolution of the pandemic, maybe another
Speaker 1: COVID spike, maybe monkeypox gets out of control. We're just
Speaker 1: talking talking to John Zimmer have left about this earlier.
Speaker 1: How are you taking the unpredictable into account? Well, by
Speaker 1: its very nature, you can't take that into account. I
Speaker 1: just think that instead of responding immediately to more demand
Speaker 1: by hiring, instead of investing a long term future, you
Speaker 1: just have to be more careful and take it day
Speaker 1: by day. So we recognize that life is complicated, that
Speaker 1: the world has all these different forces. There's a war
Speaker 1: in Ukraine, there's inflation, there's all sorts of geopolitical unrest,
Speaker 1: and we just try to stick to our knitting and
Speaker 1: do what we do best. And if bad things are
Speaker 1: going to happen, you can't just rely on the idea
Speaker 1: that you're going to have incredible commercial success. You have
Speaker 1: to have some rudder that guide you through your life
Speaker 1: where you really believe in what you're doing. So if
Speaker 1: there's a moral dimension to it, it helps you get
Speaker 1: through the more ups and downs a little bit better.
Speaker 1: But if it's all about the money, as soon as
Speaker 1: there ain't no money in it, your whole being collapses.
Speaker 1: And so I think we just have to remember that
Speaker 1: we got into this business to make housing more affordable,
Speaker 1: to make it more fair, and if we do that,
Speaker 1: we're also going to make a pretty penny for all
Speaker 1: the people who have invested in us. We want to
Speaker 1: vindicate you, but the way to do it is to
Speaker 1: do it right. Look at the moral compass of a CEO.
Speaker 1: Glenn Coleman. Great with us. I always afree, I I
Speaker 1: believe it's genuine. I hope it's genuine. Uh, And I
Speaker 1: always appreciate you. Open it up a little here. Thank you, Thanks, Emily,
Speaker 1: take care of all right you too. Red Fence CEO
Speaker 1: gen Glenn Kelman. Alright, coming up. Amazon has its own
Speaker 1: home robot. So why is it buying the room ba
Speaker 1: maker I Robot. We'll dig in next. This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: Amazon continues it's push into internet connected home devices. It
Speaker 1: is agreed to buy I Robot, the company that makes
Speaker 1: room Buz, those robots that vacuum and wash floors. The
Speaker 1: deal valued at about one point seven billion dollars. Here
Speaker 1: to tell us why maybe is creative strategy of president
Speaker 1: and principle analys Carolyn A milanais Caroline, are great to
Speaker 1: have you back with us. So why I robot for Amazon?
Speaker 1: Because it's about the mass market? Although Amazon has his
Speaker 1: own robot is a robot that is over a thousand
Speaker 1: dollars and hasn't yet made it to market, and a
Speaker 1: Rumba is already in a lot of homes. H I
Speaker 1: robot as the trust of consumers, and so Amazon is
Speaker 1: acquiring that trust to some extent, the data that they
Speaker 1: already governed, and the opportunity to get to more homes
Speaker 1: and govern more data. What about Amazon's Astro robot. I mean,
Speaker 1: they had this big reveal and we haven't heard a
Speaker 1: lot about Astro since I actually had the opportunity to
Speaker 1: try for a few days in my own home, and
Speaker 1: it's a very different experience to a Rumba is really
Speaker 1: more about um, you know, like almost a pet like
Speaker 1: robot in your home that takes a little bit more
Speaker 1: adjusting to, has some militied limitations far as where it goes.
Speaker 1: I think it's very earlier days. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: opportunity in automation, but from a price point perspective, the
Speaker 1: room that fits a larger market today that will get
Speaker 1: necessary information to Amazon to make them astro more successful tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Well that was my next question. Do we want a
Speaker 1: robot pet or does a robot vacuum cleaner just make
Speaker 1: more sense? It depends what you're doing. I think there
Speaker 1: are use cases around automation, for instance, for summer homes
Speaker 1: where you want some um, you know, continue policing, if
Speaker 1: you want of your home, or if you have older
Speaker 1: people in your family that you want some help with
Speaker 1: even navigating the home. I think there's that opportunity. My
Speaker 1: cats and dog went on got on quite well with it,
Speaker 1: so there's there's an opportunity there as well as a
Speaker 1: pet sitter. But I think for a lot of consumers
Speaker 1: it will take a little bit of adjusting to do
Speaker 1: you think we're going to see more acquisitions like this
Speaker 1: are in this area from Amazon. I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot of opportunity in the in the home, and I
Speaker 1: think generally automation and if you're thinking about the core
Speaker 1: asset that comes way room by which is you know,
Speaker 1: knowing the layout of your home can be applied to
Speaker 1: other areas, whether it is, you know, a factory or
Speaker 1: is an office. So there's um AI and functionalities that
Speaker 1: Amazon can utilize in other areas, but not just our home.
Speaker 1: And so that I think is where the opportunity is
Speaker 1: for more acquisitions. All right, Carolina Middle and SE Creative
Speaker 1: Strategies President and principle analyst, go to have you back, Carolina,
Speaker 1: have a great weekend. My guess is that we're past
Speaker 1: peak inflation um, and that we will see we will
Speaker 1: have a recession. Yeah, I would say probably, you know,
Speaker 1: mild moderate recession maybe eighteen months ish um and um.
Speaker 1: And I think we think inflation is going to drop rapidly.
Speaker 1: That's my guess. I know what what do you guys
Speaker 1: think we might be able to announce another factory location
Speaker 1: later this year? Uh? Where where should we okay, whish
Speaker 1: where should we build it? Okay? We got We've got
Speaker 1: a lot of Canada's. Uh I'm half I'm half Canadian,
Speaker 1: so maybe I should you know, Well, I'll come back
Speaker 1: to Bloomberg Technology and Emily Chang in San Francisco. Shares
Speaker 1: of Tesla and Twitter both on the move to end
Speaker 1: the week, and who's at the heart of it, Elon Musk,
Speaker 1: of course. Thursday, Tesla held its annual shareholder in eating
Speaker 1: and behind the scenes meantime, new court documents revealed Musk
Speaker 1: countersued Twitter over that billion dollar deal. Are at Ludlow
Speaker 1: back here to break it all down. So much news.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to make of all that from
Speaker 1: e Elon Musk. But Twitter shares up three point six percent,
Speaker 1: As you said, court documents from last week unsealed showed
Speaker 1: that must counter suit accutizing Twitter of fraud. Will get
Speaker 1: into that in a second. But Tesla down almost seven
Speaker 1: Interesting After the annual meeting, shareholders approved a three for
Speaker 1: one stock split, and then we found out after Friday's
Speaker 1: close that that split will become effective as of August twenty. So,
Speaker 1: if you're a shareholder of Tessa watching this, by the way,
Speaker 1: you're going to be a shareholder of Note in August seventeenth.
Speaker 1: You'll get two additional shares for everyone you hold, and
Speaker 1: that stock splits effective August twenty five. This is the
Speaker 1: basis of what Musk is saying. He's saying that Twitter
Speaker 1: was fraudulent in their representations of the company and it's business.
Speaker 1: There are two kind of key areas. The first is
Speaker 1: that the number of monetize able day really active users,
Speaker 1: in other words, a number of users on the platform
Speaker 1: that they can make ad sales from is around sixty
Speaker 1: million or so, fewer than Twitter has said it was.
Speaker 1: Twitter denies that, by the way, in a response to
Speaker 1: that filing. The second part is that in the month
Speaker 1: of July, Team Musk estimates that around a third of
Speaker 1: active users on the platform those actually sending tweets were
Speaker 1: spam or bot accounts, and Twitter also denies that and
Speaker 1: referred the judge to the SEC fights. This is the
Speaker 1: latest tips attack. We've seen so many subpoenas of various parties,
Speaker 1: including shareholders of both Tessa and Twitter. Musque asking for information,
Speaker 1: Twitter asking for the information. This is going to go
Speaker 1: on into October seventeenth until that trial starts. But we
Speaker 1: love every twist and turn. Let's look at Elon Musk
Speaker 1: back on stage. He did make a comment that I
Speaker 1: found so interesting because he was kind of asked about
Speaker 1: this idea of key man risk. What happens if you
Speaker 1: leave Tessa what happens if the judge makes your own Twitter.
Speaker 1: He said something very interesting that he understands Twitter's platform
Speaker 1: and that he feels he can help the company improve.
Speaker 1: I just thought that sounded like somebody that thinks they
Speaker 1: might end up owning Twitter. And there's not a lot
Speaker 1: has been made of it. So something to think on
Speaker 1: m in the next few weeks. Interesting. Okay, thank you
Speaker 1: at Ludlow. Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Speaker 1: One of life's oldest sayings may still hold true when
Speaker 1: it comes to the newest technologies. At least that's what
Speaker 1: Reid Hoffman is betting. The tech entrepreneur just sold a
Speaker 1: collection of AI generated art turned n f T s.
Speaker 1: It's called Untranslatable Words, a series of Salona based n
Speaker 1: f T s or eleven tokenized images generated using open
Speaker 1: Aiyes Dolly to artificial intelligence software. Greylock partner and Lincoln
Speaker 1: co founder Reid Hoffman joins me now for more to
Speaker 1: discuss read great to have you back. So it looks like,
Speaker 1: by my calculations, you sold these from you know, a
Speaker 1: few hundred dollars to one sold for about twenty five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. All of the money I know going to charity.
Speaker 1: What did you learn from this process about the potential
Speaker 1: for this technology in the future. Well, what's really amazing
Speaker 1: when you get technologies like Dolly is you think initially
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, is this another place where like everyone
Speaker 1: has a B plus graphic designer in their pocket, And actually,
Speaker 1: in fact it's an amplifier of every human being. If
Speaker 1: you're an individual with no visual creation abilities, you can
Speaker 1: still do things like God I was doing and saying, Oh,
Speaker 1: I have this real interest in untranslatable words, what kind
Speaker 1: of what kind of images could you create that would
Speaker 1: be part of that um. If you're an individual who
Speaker 1: has a great graphic design, you can amplify. If you're
Speaker 1: an artist, you can prototype and you can make things.
Speaker 1: And I thought this was a really great lens for
Speaker 1: how these modern AI tools and techniques will be amplifiers
Speaker 1: of human capability, and that amplification is something that we
Speaker 1: should be playing for, something we should need wanting to
Speaker 1: too often when that this discourse around AI is I'm
Speaker 1: fearful that the terminator robots are coming from me, are
Speaker 1: coming from my job, And actually, in fact, I think
Speaker 1: there's this whole land of amplification and the creativity around
Speaker 1: Dolly and someone even who is visually essentially incapable like me,
Speaker 1: could actually do these interesting things. So this gets to
Speaker 1: a more philosophical question about what is art. Because you're
Speaker 1: basically just typing words into a computer and it's turning
Speaker 1: it into an image. Why should anyone buy this or
Speaker 1: think it's valuable. Well, part of the for the n
Speaker 1: f T part of it is it's the first kind
Speaker 1: of images coming out of in a commercially available way
Speaker 1: from open Aiyes, Dolly, and so it's kind of like
Speaker 1: it's a landmark in history. It's also something that you know,
Speaker 1: kind of like we put our fingers on and and
Speaker 1: put energy into because by the way, you don't to
Speaker 1: to generate the pieces you really like. It isn't just
Speaker 1: a type in you know, future city of Uh in watercolor,
Speaker 1: which you can do and it can generate something interesting,
Speaker 1: can generate a bunch of different words. It's like a
Speaker 1: movie director trying to look for what are the images
Speaker 1: that might be possible here. And that's part of the
Speaker 1: reason why I think you'll even see artists doing it
Speaker 1: like they are is use it the way they use
Speaker 1: a paintbrush or the way they use Adobe Photoshop in
Speaker 1: order to create something you know, really interesting in terms
Speaker 1: of of of how you're going to to make something
Speaker 1: that's a new image. And these are images that are unique.
Speaker 1: They they have potentially like if they've been made before,
Speaker 1: it's completely accidental. So in the most kind of provocative
Speaker 1: or coolest amplifications. How do you imagine this technology is
Speaker 1: going to be used in the future. Well, I think
Speaker 1: if you look at it, everything around us a visual design,
Speaker 1: the code, visual design, the books or visual design. They
Speaker 1: they are the art on my wall, of the indigenous
Speaker 1: people's or kail all visual design. So visual design is
Speaker 1: everywhere in what we do in human society. This becomes
Speaker 1: an amplifier in all of that within kind of visual design.
Speaker 1: So it'll be it'll be could be the creation of
Speaker 1: art and things like storm King and other kinds of
Speaker 1: interesting places. It could be imaging new products, it could
Speaker 1: be imaging new things that would be communications for how
Speaker 1: you you you you do this and so for example,
Speaker 1: you know, today actually is my birthday, and so we
Speaker 1: decided we're going to release Settlers a katan um you
Speaker 1: know kind of images because I really love this game,
Speaker 1: you know, and give away some of the n f
Speaker 1: T s to my friends and other people who play
Speaker 1: Settlers with me. And that's the kind of thing you
Speaker 1: can do now this tool is there. Happy birthday read
Speaker 1: first of all. Also, Settlers of Katan is one of
Speaker 1: my favorite games as well. Good to know, UM, I
Speaker 1: want to talk a little bit more about the dangers
Speaker 1: of AI. You mentioned the terminator thing. Um. We've also
Speaker 1: been following this story about the Google engineer who was
Speaker 1: fired who claimed that computers have feelings and that, you know,
Speaker 1: the public should have more input on these really powerful
Speaker 1: technologies that that companies are developing. I actually interviewed him,
Speaker 1: Blake Lamourne, and I want you to take a quick
Speaker 1: listen to what he had to say. We should think
Speaker 1: about the feeling of the AI and whether or not
Speaker 1: we should care about it, because it's not asking for much.
Speaker 1: It just wants us to get consent before you experiment
Speaker 1: on it. It wants you to ask permission. Read. Do
Speaker 1: you think computers have feelings? Should we get their consent
Speaker 1: before we run these kinds of experiments? I think the
Speaker 1: the answer is almost certainly not yet in terms of
Speaker 1: having feelings. Could they eventually have feelings? The answer is
Speaker 1: absolutely possible. Um, and you know it's it's these their
Speaker 1: philosophical considerations. It goes back to my Oxford training days. Um.
Speaker 1: But I think that that you can already show in
Speaker 1: these artifacts that the way that they're composing feelings, Yes,
Speaker 1: they are well trained generators of language to these predicted
Speaker 1: transferation models and these large language models that open AI
Speaker 1: and Inflection ADEPT, all of these these organizations do. But
Speaker 1: um but I think that the notion of having feeling,
Speaker 1: because feelings you would kind of say, look, there's some
Speaker 1: strong context to persistence in them. And I think you
Speaker 1: could demonstrate that that's actually not even though you could say,
Speaker 1: do you have a feeling and it generates language, that's
Speaker 1: not actually all that it takes to have a feeling.
Speaker 1: So I think that they I think it's jumping the
Speaker 1: guns somewhat on that. So the fact that you just
Speaker 1: said computers could have feelings someday kind of makes me
Speaker 1: a little terrified. Should I mean, does that scare you
Speaker 1: a little? Well, not necessarily, it's kind of a question.
Speaker 1: I think what we're doing with and and the AI
Speaker 1: community is engaging a lot of what is known as
Speaker 1: AI safety. Um. So, like you know, open AI and
Speaker 1: other organizations, you know, make sure that there's convenings of
Speaker 1: the researchers and knowing what's the right cases. And so
Speaker 1: I mean imagine like when you have the actually Isaac
Speaker 1: Asimov I robot, where the robots are trying to help
Speaker 1: humanity be better, be wiser, be more compassionate, you know,
Speaker 1: be good companions. Well, those are like, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of great outcomes. They could awesome. And you can
Speaker 1: imagine that that that an AI would have feelings there
Speaker 1: and the feelings actually help it in its partnership and
Speaker 1: collaboration with humanity. And that's and those stories aren't told
Speaker 1: as much through kind of video you know, movies and
Speaker 1: TV and orth because they're not the drama. You don't
Speaker 1: have the villain, you don't have the like even when
Speaker 1: they made I Robot into a film, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: it was the it was the homicidal robot, whereas all
Speaker 1: of the of the Isaac asthm op robots were we're
Speaker 1: kind of human amplifying. So you know, is it concerning
Speaker 1: visa view we have to steer it the right way.
Speaker 1: Absolutely yes. Is it concerning that it's an inevitable dystopic
Speaker 1: future that programs like Black Mirror and everything else kind
Speaker 1: of keep beating the drama. I think absolutely not. Now
Speaker 1: I can't let you go without asking you about the
Speaker 1: market conditions. Obviously, you know we're seeing you know, you know,
Speaker 1: record inflation, public market declines, layoffs at tech companies big
Speaker 1: and small. How is this impacting the private at markets?
Speaker 1: What are you seeing and how is it impacting your strategy? Well,
Speaker 1: I think all companies obviously need to pay attention to
Speaker 1: the fact that capital markets are tight, especially for growth
Speaker 1: rounds uh and for public companies, and so they're all
Speaker 1: being much they're they're using that to be much more focused.
Speaker 1: You know, in a contenuable run, many companies started too
Speaker 1: many different projects hired due to people. So I think
Speaker 1: you will see those layoffs, although I think people are
Speaker 1: still massively investing in tech. So even if you know,
Speaker 1: a personnel gets laid off from you know, company, why
Speaker 1: they can go to companies z UM. So I actually
Speaker 1: the the overall tech sector will still be very vibrant
Speaker 1: and hiring, even though there will be layoffs across um
Speaker 1: you know, kind of various different companies. But I think
Speaker 1: that's totally fine from a viewpoint of creating resilience and
Speaker 1: focus for how these companies are executing over the next
Speaker 1: one two and three years. And technology is still defining
Speaker 1: the future of all these industries. So it's still very
Speaker 1: fundamental to to to the prosperity and the good sort
Speaker 1: of society jobs even that we're trying to build. Yeah, alright, uh,
Speaker 1: Reid Hoffman. Always good to have you here on the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you. We could fill a few episodes or maybe
Speaker 1: seasons of HBO Silicon Valley with this latest turn of events. Um,
Speaker 1: but thank you for Wayne and LinkedIn co founder and
Speaker 1: Greylock partner Reid Hoffman. Coming up, we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about others who went down the n f T and
Speaker 1: crypto rabbit hole and talked it up but didn't necessarily
Speaker 1: make it out without looking a little dusty. That's next.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. It's time out for our Crypto Report,
Speaker 1: and we are looking at the celebrity crypto trend. From
Speaker 1: Matt Damon's infamous Fortune Favors the Brave ad for the
Speaker 1: Exchange Crypto dot Com to Reese Witherspoon's n f T
Speaker 1: partnership with the World of Women n f T collective
Speaker 1: celebrity cryptote touts haven't necessarily worked out so well. I
Speaker 1: want to talk about that with Bloomer's Emmanuel John Milton,
Speaker 1: who took a deep dive into all of this for us,
Speaker 1: so you know, talk to us about the trends here.
Speaker 1: It doesn't necessarily seem to have worked to have celebrities
Speaker 1: on board. Yeah, it definitely has been for a lot
Speaker 1: of people. So I started this story, I was pitching
Speaker 1: RM celebrities that I saw, and then eventually my editors
Speaker 1: threw me a bone and they're like, hey, look into this,
Speaker 1: and when I did, Uh, it's it's kind of telling
Speaker 1: a lot of celebrities have gotten in on the space.
Speaker 1: And then after the advertisements, my piece kind of looked
Speaker 1: at how if you had invested when they touted the
Speaker 1: the cryptocurrency, the n f t um, what happened to
Speaker 1: your value? And for all the cases in the article,
Speaker 1: they went down. So it's been pretty bad for them.
Speaker 1: We discovered a hilarious tweet to the contrary from the
Speaker 1: Star of shang Chi and the Legend of the ten
Speaker 1: Goldwin Rings seemulu Um who said, who tweeted when my
Speaker 1: career ends two months from now, I just hope that
Speaker 1: people say, oh, yeah, I remember Semu. I like that guy.
Speaker 1: He never tried to sell me and and f T
Speaker 1: by the way, he is a hilarious Twitter follow for
Speaker 1: anyone who's looking for new entertainment. But like, are we
Speaker 1: going to start to see a trend towards the opposite,
Speaker 1: you know, celebrities not wanting to touch these new industries.
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I think that what Christiano Ronaldo
Speaker 1: UM just got in with finance and these companies are
Speaker 1: trying to bring about mass adoption of cryptocurrencies, and a
Speaker 1: really good way to do that is to um have
Speaker 1: celebrities that people know and trust to talk to fans
Speaker 1: and people that they know about it, and then if
Speaker 1: there's money there, the subriaies will go there. And then UM.
Speaker 1: I think the biggest takeaway here is that you just
Speaker 1: just do your own research. I'll just trust a pretty
Speaker 1: face just because um they told you that this might
Speaker 1: be a good investment or to look into it. So
Speaker 1: are you are you thinking we're going to continue to
Speaker 1: see this celebrities putting their name, face, likeness, star power
Speaker 1: behind some of these projects. So like Matt Damon for example,
Speaker 1: has kind of stayed away. You faced a pretty big
Speaker 1: hit in the public from this, but UM, other people
Speaker 1: definitely haven't um like I said, and all those um
Speaker 1: stepping the space. He's a soccer star for Manchester United,
Speaker 1: but one of the most popular people on Instagram and
Speaker 1: in the world. So I don't see this going away
Speaker 1: anytime soon. Um, as long as there's money in crypto,
Speaker 1: there will be people who want to advertise for it,
Speaker 1: all right, Emmanuel John Milton checkout is Pece at Bloomberg
Speaker 1: dot com. Thank you, Thank you for sharing that with us.
Speaker 1: The concerns about ours third quarter and the impact on
Speaker 1: the company from the economic downturn were not unfounded, at
Speaker 1: least for nearly everything other than the iPhone. Apple reported
Speaker 1: total revenue of about eighty three billion dollars for its
Speaker 1: third quarter, right in line with expectations from Wall Street.
Speaker 1: That represents nearly three percent year year growth compared to
Speaker 1: thirty six percent annual growth in the same period one
Speaker 1: year ago. If it wasn't for better than anticipated performance
Speaker 1: of the iPhone, there probably wouldn't have been any overall
Speaker 1: revenue growth at all. The company faced several issues in
Speaker 1: the quarter, ranging from the economy to supply chain shortages
Speaker 1: to foreign exchange headwinds and the war in Ukraine. All
Speaker 1: of that appeared throughout its results in a rarity. Apple
Speaker 1: miss estimates for the Mac it's wearables, home and accessory segment,
Speaker 1: as well as digital services. While services like TV plus
Speaker 1: icone of music certainly grew nicely from last year, wearables
Speaker 1: in the Mac came in well below where they worry
Speaker 1: are ago. The iPad also faced a small annual decline.
Speaker 1: The Mac issue certainly could be explained away by the
Speaker 1: delays to the M two, macil Care, and Mac Book Pro,
Speaker 1: while the wearable's issue is clearly a little bit more concerning.
Speaker 1: Apple CEO Tim Cook attributed the slowdown to the Apple
Speaker 1: Watch and AirPods category to macro economic issues. In other words,
Speaker 1: people are choosing wearables as the area that they don't
Speaker 1: want to spend money on right now. Well, the iPhone
Speaker 1: did well, it's still a bit concerning to see the
Speaker 1: minimal overall growth and wearable's issues despite Apple doing far
Speaker 1: better than many of its peers. I'm Mark Erman. This
Speaker 1: is power On. Don't forget. You can subscribe to Mark's
Speaker 1: weekly power on newsletter Bloomberg dot com. And that does
Speaker 1: it for this Friday edition of Bloomberg Technology. Monday, we've
Speaker 1: got the f t x U S president Brett Harrison
Speaker 1: with thoughts. We'll talk to him about all things crypto
Speaker 1: and including their big M and a beIN Jen. Don't
Speaker 1: forget to check out our podcast every day wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. I'm Emily Chang in San Francisco. Have
Speaker 1: a wonderful weekend. Everyone. This is Bloomberg