Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: From Mahard where Innovation, money and power Collie in Silicon Valley, NBN.
Speaker 3: This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlove.
Speaker 4: Live from New York. This is Bloomberg Technology. Coming up.
Speaker 5: Will Google be forced to sell off its Chrome browser?
Speaker 5: We discussed the latest in the historic Alphabet anti trust
Speaker 5: fight here in the United States, plus roadblocks enhances parental
Speaker 5: controls following criticism over child protection on its platform. We
Speaker 5: sit down with the company's chief safety officer and SpaceX
Speaker 5: ready for another starship launch with President elect Donald Trump
Speaker 5: set to attend.
Speaker 4: At first.
Speaker 5: We check in on these markets despite the geopolitical headwinds Russia, Ukraine.
Speaker 5: We push higher just about on tenth of a percent,
Speaker 5: let's call it on the Nazak, one hundred higher still
Speaker 5: on the Nasdaq. That's two straight days of gains when
Speaker 5: you're looking at big tech, and that more broadly is
Speaker 5: as we shake off what have been a big points
Speaker 5: drag on the day, which was Alphabet. Let's just go
Speaker 5: into the intricacies of what's happening with Google at the
Speaker 5: moment in terms of its price point, because we've started
Speaker 5: off the day trading lower, anxiety around the building, anti
Speaker 5: trust crescendo around this particular company, and then maybe we
Speaker 5: push into the green up four tenths of percent. Is
Speaker 5: there a slight relief rally that it's not being forced
Speaker 5: to sell off Android?
Speaker 4: We get into it now, were Bloomberg's Michael Shepherd in Washington,
Speaker 4: because it's an interesting stock market reaction here.
Speaker 5: Michael Many would say, Look, the clouds of anti trust
Speaker 5: concerns still sit on the valuation of Google, but get
Speaker 5: into what we are learning in terms of the DOJ
Speaker 5: looking to treat an anti trust issue from their perspective.
Speaker 2: Well, first credit to our colleagues Leonilan and Josh Cisco
Speaker 2: for breaking the news about what the Justice Department and
Speaker 2: state anti trust regulators are thinking about asking a judge
Speaker 2: in the way of remedies in this historic case. This
Speaker 2: dates to the August ruling in which judge here in
Speaker 2: Washington found that Google had illegally monopolized the search the
Speaker 2: market for search globally, and now they are looking for
Speaker 2: how to make this right for consumers and for website
Speaker 2: operators around around the world. The one step, of course,
Speaker 2: being considered is forcing them to sell off Chrome the browser,
Speaker 2: it's one of the world's most widely used browsers. But
Speaker 2: other measures being considered also include requiring the company to
Speaker 2: license its search results in data, and then also giving
Speaker 2: websites the option of opting out of having their content
Speaker 2: used to help Google build its artificial intelligence platforms.
Speaker 5: Once again, Google Alphabet, the power company of Google, speaks
Speaker 5: out saying thesis of radical steps being taken by the
Speaker 5: US government and sort of waiting down, putting their thumb
Speaker 5: on the scale is how Google has been articulating it.
Speaker 5: But more broadly, the intricacies around selling off data, about
Speaker 5: sharing data is a tough one.
Speaker 4: Many in the market.
Speaker 5: Say, look, a, this is going to take years to enforce.
Speaker 5: You're going to see an appeals process, but more broadly,
Speaker 5: you're also going to potentially see other remedies come into
Speaker 5: like that. Google could action first, perhaps April and August.
Speaker 5: What do we think Alphabet's own reaction will be.
Speaker 2: This will play out of for a long time, And
Speaker 2: I'm glad you've brought that up, Caroline. In terms of
Speaker 2: the clock here, the judges said a two week hearing
Speaker 2: in April to actually walk through some of the potential
Speaker 2: remedies that the DOJ and anti trust regulators at the
Speaker 2: state level are offering, and that will give the time
Speaker 2: that we'll give time to the company to think about, Okay,
Speaker 2: what could we offer perhaps as a settlement, what else
Speaker 2: can we do? What is is maybe a middle ground
Speaker 2: that could satisfy some of the concerns being or raised
Speaker 2: by government authorities. Likewise, the judge himself is not expected
Speaker 2: to rule until August twenty twenty five, that is almost
Speaker 2: a year from his original ruling, and then after that
Speaker 2: we'll go through an appeals process, and given the stakes
Speaker 2: for Alphabet in this case, they're likely to take this
Speaker 2: appeal all the way to the US Supreme Court eventually,
Speaker 2: because this.
Speaker 5: Would have a major business impact the way in which
Speaker 5: they can see who I am when I use Chrome,
Speaker 5: which has I think about sixty percent of the market
Speaker 5: from a browser perspective, and then go across to use
Speaker 5: the search function within it that's about ninety percent of
Speaker 5: the market and all the data they're in and they
Speaker 5: can target me better with ads. This will be a
Speaker 5: big business model change, and ultimately many out there are wondering.
Speaker 4: Who on earth would even buy Chrome if it was forced?
Speaker 2: Well, it's a great question. Again, and who would buy
Speaker 2: Chrome because the price for it would preclude many from
Speaker 2: even to pick it up, and a few buyers out
Speaker 2: there with the resources to pull it off, perhaps Amazon
Speaker 2: dot Com Inc. Or even Open Ai. An attempt by
Speaker 2: them to purchase this could also raise separate antitrust questions
Speaker 2: that the government may be eager to avoid. Likewise, as
Speaker 2: you pointed out, this is central to Alphabet's business. They
Speaker 2: use that user data, as you pointed out, to target
Speaker 2: advertising and promotions better, and they're also using it, as
Speaker 2: I mentioned before, to try to craft a better version
Speaker 2: of this Gemini AI platform that they're developing, and we
Speaker 2: saw it in their most recent results. They really pointed
Speaker 2: to search as something that is driving this bet on AI,
Speaker 2: and they really would like to keep this going if
Speaker 2: they can.
Speaker 5: AI overviews all anyone sees now when they're typing in
Speaker 5: for search.
Speaker 4: Michael Shepherd, we.
Speaker 5: So appreciate the breakdown from Washington for broader tech market
Speaker 5: prospective and indeed, well what the legal realities are here.
Speaker 5: Sarah Lamb is a senior fellow at the Tech Institute,
Speaker 5: and Sarah just put your thumb on the scales here.
Speaker 5: As Google is pushing back on the government for so doing.
Speaker 5: Do you think this has any chance of getting through
Speaker 5: that something is seismic?
Speaker 4: Is Chrome being sold off would happen?
Speaker 3: I think personally it's unlikely. It was unchallenged conduct in
Speaker 3: the decision. So if you go back and read the
Speaker 3: two hundred and eighty six page decision from August fifth.
Speaker 4: There is good for us because we know how to talk.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's discussion about the contracts and the pre loading
Speaker 3: of the Google Suite, and a little bit on the
Speaker 3: Chrome browser. But unchallenged conduct was the search bar in
Speaker 3: the Chrome window, and so that wasn't challenged at trial,
Speaker 3: and so you know, there would have to be fact
Speaker 3: finding and a discussion of the browser market. In the
Speaker 3: April hearing, like the prior speaker said, August twenty two,
Speaker 3: twenty five, is when a decision will come out on remedies.
Speaker 3: And also of note, Google has an opportunity to submit
Speaker 3: their proposed remedies December twentieth, So it really is an
Speaker 3: ongoing process. The last two big cases, Microsoft and AT
Speaker 3: and T took nearly a decade to resolve.
Speaker 5: And Microsoft appealed successfully at and T less. So, Sarah,
Speaker 5: do you therefore think some other changes could be made
Speaker 5: to fight the idea that Google is monopoly or monopolistic
Speaker 5: in search. What could Google enact here itself.
Speaker 3: Well, I think at issue are the contracts, so the
Speaker 3: way they contract with Samsung or the other OEM providers,
Speaker 3: that could change. But even so, there's so much dynamism
Speaker 3: in the market. Samsung uploads its own s browser and
Speaker 3: I read that in the decision. Other Android platforms they
Speaker 3: have their own browsers, and so I think right now
Speaker 3: the market is so dynamic too with AI search windows
Speaker 3: that you know, the way Google responds will have to
Speaker 3: reflect what's happening in the AI market.
Speaker 5: Let's just talk about AI and the data that maybe
Speaker 5: they'd be forced to license in some way. Would that
Speaker 5: be positive or negative for the rest of the market, not.
Speaker 3: Just Google, right, I think operationally that would be very
Speaker 3: difficult to work through, so that would also be a
Speaker 3: year's long process. I don't know how great lawyers are
Speaker 3: at product design. So to the extent that I mean,
Speaker 3: there is some talk that there might have frand f
Speaker 3: r A and D licensing terms in the proposed remedies,
Speaker 3: and that is something that is familiar in the intellectual
Speaker 3: property and standards development world. But to the level of
Speaker 3: data sharing and you know, opening that pipeline of AI
Speaker 3: data that would be a very new type of remedy
Speaker 3: that we.
Speaker 5: Can see from the share price that the market isn't
Speaker 5: freaking out about this, but there does seem to be
Speaker 5: a cloud over Google for the next few years, maybe
Speaker 5: even decade. As you were saying, Sarah, what about an
Speaker 5: administration change in twenty twenty five, does that bear any
Speaker 5: thought for you?
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 3: What's interesting though, is the first Trump administration brought the suit,
Speaker 3: so you have that, although Assistant ag make and del
Speaker 3: Rahim recused himself, so this case has a long history.
Speaker 3: So far, you hear kind of murmurs about the next
Speaker 3: administration wanting to continue activity.
Speaker 4: But at the.
Speaker 3: Same time, you know, they seem to be more pro
Speaker 3: innovation and technology. So we'll see what whoever is Attorney
Speaker 3: General and then assistant Attorney General, at least inside the Beltway.
Speaker 3: We're all kind of guessing who it could be, but
Speaker 3: who knows.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Sarah Alam, Senior Fellow at Tech Institute. We appreciate
Speaker 5: the time and analysis. Meanwhile, well, talking of regulatory landscape
Speaker 5: in the UK, Google's partnership with Aifomanthropic has actually avoided
Speaker 5: further scrutiny after the UK Antitrust watchdog concluded it doesn't
Speaker 5: qualify for a full blown investigation under merger rules. The
Speaker 5: CMA found that Google has not gained quote material influence
Speaker 5: of Anthropic as a result of the deal, which included
Speaker 5: a two billion dollar investment and a cloud agreement coming
Speaker 5: up scaling safe AI governance. We're going to be joined
Speaker 5: by Cudo AI CEO sa Rena Singh on a new
Speaker 5: partnership with Microsoft. This simply meg technology. Microsoft wants to
Speaker 5: make it easier to switch between large language models with
Speaker 5: its new tool as You AI Foundry, which can help
Speaker 5: cloud customers build and deploy AI applications, and the company
Speaker 5: is giving away the software in the hopes of persuading
Speaker 5: corporate customers to.
Speaker 4: Buy more of its cloud services.
Speaker 5: Greenberg's Diena Bas has more on what is being unveiled
Speaker 5: at the annual event in Chicago Ignite Dina and really
Speaker 5: the underlying process here is what what is the blocker here?
Speaker 5: People don't feel they can flip from one great model
Speaker 5: to another.
Speaker 6: The whole product is meant to help make it easier
Speaker 6: to get your models programmed up, running, deployed, but one
Speaker 6: of the biggest blockers is that, you know, we're seeing
Speaker 6: this constant drumbeat of new models coming out, whether it's
Speaker 6: open AI updating their models, and you know, one of
Speaker 6: them is good for better for reasoning, one of them
Speaker 6: is better for answering questions that are more conversational. And
Speaker 6: then there are you know, numerous competitors of Microsoft has,
Speaker 6: you know, seventeen hundred and eighteen hundred different models that
Speaker 6: are available through this Azure service. And so the issue
Speaker 6: is how do you figure out which is the right
Speaker 6: one and how do you switch if there's an update
Speaker 6: or or you want to try something different. So this
Speaker 6: foundry software basically has a bunch of different tools that
Speaker 6: allow you to experiment with different models, see which one
Speaker 6: works better, switch more easily track what's working and what isn't. So,
Speaker 6: for example, if you want to put your own corporate
Speaker 6: data into someone else's model in order to find tune it,
Speaker 6: and you want to know is that data really making
Speaker 6: a difference, Is it making the answers better or worse?
Speaker 6: Things like that are really hard to test right now,
Speaker 6: and it's imperative for Microsoft to make this easier in
Speaker 6: order to convince people to spend more money on Azure
Speaker 6: Services to build and deploy these AI applications.
Speaker 5: And they want people to spend more money because they're
Speaker 5: having to spend a lot of money invest certainly on
Speaker 5: chips for example, they're building their own. They're also showing
Speaker 5: off how in videos new aichips are going to be
Speaker 5: working within the systems.
Speaker 4: Can you talk us through their own offering?
Speaker 6: Sure?
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 6: A year ago at the same conference, they announced their
Speaker 6: first AI chip, and today they've said that it is
Speaker 6: now handling customer workloads in the Azure Open AI service.
Speaker 6: They also announced two new chips today and one of
Speaker 6: them is for security. It's going to go in Microsoft's
Speaker 6: own data center servers to better secure them. And one
Speaker 6: of them is a data process and unit, which is
Speaker 6: basically a networking chip that takes a bunch of the
Speaker 6: data crunching off of the other chips in order to
Speaker 6: make things faster. So they are now increasingly getting into
Speaker 6: a position that Amazon has been Amazon Web Services has
Speaker 6: been in for a while of really coming up with
Speaker 6: a bunch of their own chips for different types of
Speaker 6: tasks and you know, things inside the data center in
Speaker 6: order to make sure that Microsoft can do a much
Speaker 6: better job of training AI, you know, inferencing, serving applications,
Speaker 6: and a bunch of other things that you would use
Speaker 6: Microsoft Cloud for. They obviously still work very closely within Vidia.
Speaker 6: It's going to take a very long time, if ever,
Speaker 6: for as you're to be able to replace in VideA
Speaker 6: in its data center, even if they're putting some of
Speaker 6: the AI traffic onto this Azumaya AI chip. But at
Speaker 6: the same time they you know, I spoke to Ronnie
Speaker 6: Borcard their kind of chip design and development, and you know,
Speaker 6: she made the point that everything needs to be optimized
Speaker 6: at every leg in order to get the best possible
Speaker 6: performance because models are growing so rapidly.
Speaker 5: Dana bas aholl things Microsoftware, thank you for more on
Speaker 5: what's coming out of Microsoft and AI. We have CREDOAI
Speaker 5: announcing they are partnering with the tech Gient to power
Speaker 5: ENDAI governance for enterprise applications, which will help companies basically
Speaker 5: safely adopt these cutting JI solutions, but also ensuring that
Speaker 5: compliance is there with global regulations. Navrina sing joins our
Speaker 5: CEO of CREDOAI and how much of a blocker is
Speaker 5: the cloud around governance of AI?
Speaker 1: Caroline, great to be here today, you know, one of
Speaker 1: the things that we have found that there is a
Speaker 1: massive gap between innovative AI solutions and actually practical business applications,
Speaker 1: and the only way to accelerate that gap and bring
Speaker 1: AI innovations to it is through AI governance. So this
Speaker 1: is where we are very excited to announce our partnership
Speaker 1: today with Microsoft, Azure AI Foundry and Preto AI, as
Speaker 1: you know, is the leading provided a writer of.
Speaker 4: AI governance solutions.
Speaker 1: So I do want to just emphasize the three things
Speaker 1: that this partnership is going to bring to life. One
Speaker 1: is end to end governance of Azure AI apps, including
Speaker 1: generative AI and multimodal systems as well as RAG based
Speaker 1: use cases. Secondly, is this comprehensive unified control that Dina
Speaker 1: was just talking about, which is needed for both THEI developers.
Speaker 4: And governance leaders.
Speaker 1: And lastly, the support for governing especially these cutting edge
Speaker 1: systems that are really getting brought to life each and
Speaker 1: every day like GPT four, GPT four H and smallify models.
Speaker 1: So PREDAI is excited to partner with Microsoft to bring
Speaker 1: all these capabilities at scale through an independent governance layer.
Speaker 5: Just talk us through that governance layer, what is the
Speaker 5: technology that enables you to be monitoring consistently to ensuring
Speaker 5: that these models are doing what they say they're doing
Speaker 5: and doing them well with fair use case and ultimately
Speaker 5: no bias.
Speaker 4: For example.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely so, Caroline. One of the core things that
Speaker 1: we are finding with accelerating AI transformation and innovation is
Speaker 1: something called this AI alignment. How do you actually ensure
Speaker 1: that you're measuring the help of these AI systems against
Speaker 1: the policies, the principles, the regulations, AI standards that you
Speaker 1: as a company deeply care about. So this is where
Speaker 1: CREATOAI is pioneering solution in policy intelligence makes that really
Speaker 1: easy for your business experts as well as your AI
Speaker 1: experts to align on what that good looks like.
Speaker 4: And once you've aligned on what that good.
Speaker 1: Like looks like, really measuring your AI systems, your models,
Speaker 1: your data sets against those requirements and then lastly really
Speaker 1: putting that out in a continuous monitoring, risk management, and
Speaker 1: compliance engine so that you can make sure that you're
Speaker 1: always in alignment alignment. And as you can imagine, Caroline,
Speaker 1: this becomes really critical with the AI agents energenic systems
Speaker 1: that have started to take a lot of excitement in
Speaker 1: business organizations.
Speaker 5: Microsoft talking a lot about AI agents today in Avrena like.
Speaker 5: The real world impact is that we hear that people
Speaker 5: are actually kind of plateauing in their own use employees
Speaker 5: use of agents AI general to AI in the workplace
Speaker 5: largely because they're worried that they could be deemed lazy
Speaker 5: or they don't really understand what the guardrails are from
Speaker 5: those that are above them. Is management on top of this,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 1: The reason for the AI platu is because most of
Speaker 1: the organizations, more than seventy percent of them, don't have
Speaker 1: guardrails in place. And this is where predo AI like
Speaker 1: solutions become really critical, because we are converting you know,
Speaker 1: governance from a safety ness to really being a launch
Speaker 1: pad from a four AI innovations. So what we are
Speaker 1: finding in the companies that we work with, whether it
Speaker 1: is MasterCard, Regender and you know Booz Allen and others,
Speaker 1: is that when you have the clearly defined guardrails, employees
Speaker 1: actually are much more excited to use these.
Speaker 4: Technologies at scale.
Speaker 1: So with governance, what we are going to see is
Speaker 1: much more excited as well as rampant use of artificial
Speaker 1: intelligence and AI transformation within organizations.
Speaker 5: Do you think any of that regulatory outlook, governance, desires,
Speaker 5: and desires is going to change out of the next
Speaker 5: administration in the US.
Speaker 1: You know, one of the exciting things is that AI
Speaker 1: is actually central and core to the strategy irrespective of
Speaker 1: the administration. We are ready to actually engage with the
Speaker 1: new administration who is really looking at AI innovation much
Speaker 1: more holistically.
Speaker 4: So more to.
Speaker 1: Come on that, but right now, I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot of excitement on how do you actually use AI
Speaker 1: for transforming government as well as AI for making sure
Speaker 1: United States competitiveness in the world continues to stay at forefront.
Speaker 5: A finnessing, creative AI CEO on new partnership with Microsoftware.
Speaker 4: Appreciate you joining. Thank you.
Speaker 5: Let's check in on the shares of super Micro jumping
Speaker 5: after the company hired a new auditor filed a plan
Speaker 5: to come into compliance with the NASDAT listing requirements. Bloomberg's
Speaker 5: Brody Ford joins us small We're up thirty three percent,
Speaker 5: but we are still.
Speaker 4: Way off of our hives.
Speaker 5: From when the market cap was spiraling higher because of
Speaker 5: general to AI. Brody talk US through Hybdo for example,
Speaker 5: is now willing to work with super Micro computer.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's quite a dramatic episode. Backing up a little bit,
Speaker 7: super Micro missed a deadline to file financials back in August.
Speaker 7: Then their auditor ey resign saying we're not willing to
Speaker 7: be associated with these numbers. This is scary stuff. You
Speaker 7: don't see this too often, and so it was up
Speaker 7: to the wire here. Super Micro had to find a
Speaker 7: new auditor to get them in line with NASDAC rules
Speaker 7: to avoid delisting, and on the very last day, yesterday evening,
Speaker 7: they found BDO. It was a fairly major auditor. But
Speaker 7: it's worth noting they are not one of the Big four.
Speaker 7: They're the Big fifth or sixth, depending on who you
Speaker 7: listen to. But what matters is they are an auditor
Speaker 7: and they're willing to, you know, try to help super
Speaker 7: Micro get back into compliance, which buys them a couple
Speaker 7: more months before you know, another deadline.
Speaker 5: February is likely when the document deadline is going to
Speaker 5: be pushed to for this ten K filing. The risk
Speaker 5: here is when they're ousted out of the Nasdaq and
Speaker 5: therefore liquidity is going to be far more difficult.
Speaker 4: People will be forced to sell their holdings.
Speaker 7: Right yeah, February, three months from now and the news
Speaker 7: business sounds like forever and the accounting world it is,
Speaker 7: you know, very short, because they essentially have to go
Speaker 7: back through all of their financials and figure out there
Speaker 7: was some issue. Maybe it was around just processes. Maybe
Speaker 7: no restatement is needed. Even in that best case scenario,
Speaker 7: it's quite tight. Right. Let's say that they were delisted.
Speaker 7: What would happen is a significant amount of their shareholders
Speaker 7: would are passive, meaning it would be automatic selling. And
Speaker 7: it's possible that they would have to repay some of
Speaker 7: their bonds early. That's you know, about one point seven
Speaker 7: billion or so. Essentially. Super Micro is going to do
Speaker 7: everything within its power to avoid that scenario, and its
Speaker 7: odds just got a whole lot better after yesterday's news.
Speaker 5: Mean, while its still faces a DOJ probe, we understand, lady,
Speaker 5: for all across this company.
Speaker 4: Thanks, thank you. Welcome back to Bluemote Technology. I'm Caroin
Speaker 4: Hyde in New York.
Speaker 5: It's time now for talking tech and first up shares.
Speaker 5: A delivery Heroes Middle East unit tell About sold out
Speaker 5: min minutes after its subscriptions opened. The IPO value tell
Speaker 5: About and up to ten point two billion dollars in
Speaker 5: the final price of Talabas offer will be announced on
Speaker 5: November the twenty ninth, with shares set to start trading
Speaker 5: on December the tenth plus. Apple is offering Indonesia one
Speaker 5: hundred million dollars in investment as the company hopes to
Speaker 5: persuade the government in lifting a sales band on its
Speaker 5: iPhone sixteen. That's according to sources, the proposal is an
Speaker 5: increase of a prior offer of ten million dollars made
Speaker 5: last month. Indonesia's Ministry of Industry was not made a
Speaker 5: final decision on the revised offer, and Sony is exploring
Speaker 5: a takeover of publisher Karakawa, maker of the hit game
Speaker 5: elden Ring. According to sources, the two companies have held talks,
Speaker 5: with deliberations still ongoing. The purchase would allow Sony access
Speaker 5: to Kadakawa's expansive library of manga, anime, film, and gaming content.
Speaker 4: Let's stick with gaming now.
Speaker 5: Because roblocks has announced more protections to its platform for
Speaker 5: its youngest users, with new parental controls, restrictions on communication
Speaker 5: and the content that is accessible, as well as clearer
Speaker 5: content labels. This is all after Roblocks's child's safety policies
Speaker 5: have come under increasing scrutiny in recent months and following
Speaker 5: arrests of alleged child.
Speaker 4: Abuses using the service.
Speaker 5: Now, Matt Kaufman, who's chief safety officer at Roblocks and
Speaker 5: peaces Say, joins us now to discuss these changes and
Speaker 5: just go into some of the measures in particular that
Speaker 5: you think will make a real differference here.
Speaker 8: Sure, First, thank you for having me. We've waunched three things.
Speaker 8: The first is new parental controls that make it easier
Speaker 8: for parents to monitor and manage their kids accounts even
Speaker 8: when they're not sitting next to their kids. We've also
Speaker 8: updated how our younger users under thirteen can communicate on
Speaker 8: the platform, and finally, we've built in additional protections for
Speaker 8: our youngest users.
Speaker 5: Let's just talk about ultimately defining and working out who
Speaker 5: is thirteen and under. It's a really difficult lift if
Speaker 5: people aren't going to be always telling the truth. Are
Speaker 5: using technology here or is it really depending on the
Speaker 5: truth of the userbase.
Speaker 8: You know, if you're under thirteen and you sign up
Speaker 8: for an account online, we actually cannot ask you for
Speaker 8: additional information because of privacy reasons. So from a Roadblocks perspective,
Speaker 8: we work to make sure that everybody is on the
Speaker 8: platform is safe no matter what age they sign up at.
Speaker 5: So how therefore are you looking to if you kind
Speaker 5: of ask if you cannot get the data and their clarity,
Speaker 5: is there a fix?
Speaker 4: Is there something you're working on?
Speaker 8: Well, so what we do is we take extraordinary steps
Speaker 8: to keep everybody safe on the platform. For example, when
Speaker 8: you're communicating on roadblocks, we don't encrypt anything. We monitor
Speaker 8: all communication and we have an investigation team that's constantly
Speaker 8: looking into issues where our system detects that something may
Speaker 8: be violative to our process, our policies, and we have
Speaker 8: a lot of machine learning and AI systems that are
Speaker 8: running to keep everybody safe. And really that's part of
Speaker 8: our go ahead.
Speaker 5: Well talk through that AI, the machine learning how sopheificated
Speaker 5: is it becoming because the subtleties of grooming are so hard.
Speaker 4: To pick up on.
Speaker 8: That's true, and AI is advancing very fast, and we've
Speaker 8: made significant leaps in the technology. For example, our automated
Speaker 8: moderation systems for voice communication. Just earlier this year, we
Speaker 8: open source some of the models behind that technology and
Speaker 8: they're some of the most popular models in open source
Speaker 8: today for safety. So we feel that roadblocks is really
Speaker 8: at the leading edge of developing AI to keep people
Speaker 8: safe on the platform.
Speaker 5: Can you give that balance of AI and then the
Speaker 5: team that does the deeper investigation. Is it that you
Speaker 5: can ever more focus on technology being the fix here?
Speaker 4: How big is the team going to remain?
Speaker 8: Really everything is almost like a multi layered approach. You
Speaker 8: have AI systems that make initial decisions and act very
Speaker 8: fast and at super scale. But behind those AIS, you
Speaker 8: have a team of professional safety experts that are doing
Speaker 8: all sorts of things. They're the ones who are of
Speaker 8: course who are training the AI. They're also the ones
Speaker 8: that are handling appeals because sometimes the AI doesn't get
Speaker 8: things right. So if somebody says, hey, I feel like
Speaker 8: it made a mistake, we have our team of professionals
Speaker 8: who step in to make decisions, and of course that
Speaker 8: trains the AI. And then we also have that team
Speaker 8: of professionals handling the most complicated cases. So, for example,
Speaker 8: we have a team of investigators who are constantly looking
Speaker 8: at the platform trying to understand if there are bad
Speaker 8: actors and if there are, immediately removing them from the
Speaker 8: platform and working with our law enforcement partners to keep
Speaker 8: the platform safe.
Speaker 5: Yeah, focus in on the bad actor side. You've outlined
Speaker 5: how you're going to be protecting the users, the children,
Speaker 5: but the people who come on who aren't who they
Speaker 5: say they are, who are indeed the predators, what are
Speaker 5: you doing to innovate there?
Speaker 8: Sure, So let me step back for a minute and say,
Speaker 8: you know, roblocks has nearly ninety million users from one
Speaker 8: hundred and ninety countries around the world, and these users
Speaker 8: are enjoying experiences with their friends and with their families,
Speaker 8: and it's a really important part of their life. There's
Speaker 8: a very very small number of people in the world
Speaker 8: who are just they're bad actors, and so we have
Speaker 8: systems that automatically detect behavioral anomalies to determine when something
Speaker 8: might be violating our policy, and we try and act
Speaker 8: as quickly as we can. That notion of acting as
Speaker 8: quickly as we can actually applies to how people upload
Speaker 8: content to Roadblocks. First of all, when you're building a
Speaker 8: game on Roadblocks, we review every piece of content that's
Speaker 8: uploaded to the platform before anybody sees it. And when
Speaker 8: you're communicating using text on the platform, we actually block
Speaker 8: out and filter a lot of that communication before it
Speaker 8: ever transmits. To other people if we find that it
Speaker 8: is violated for our.
Speaker 5: Policies, So those sorts of changes that you just outline,
Speaker 5: are they new and they novel because I mean, very sadly,
Speaker 5: as you say, there are very few bad actors and
Speaker 5: a percentage perspective, but raw numbers of at least twenty
Speaker 5: four people being arrested since twenty eighteen because of abusing
Speaker 5: or abducting victims met through the platform, it's twenty four
Speaker 5: too many. As I'm sure you.
Speaker 8: Agree, I think anybody obviously who comes to any harm
Speaker 8: on roadblocks is one too many. And we take these
Speaker 8: situations incredibly seriously, and we do everything we can to
Speaker 8: keep the platform safe. It is our number one priority
Speaker 8: when it comes to the bad actors on roadblocks. We
Speaker 8: are constantly innovating, and we've actually this year alone have
Speaker 8: already had thirty major updates to our safety systems. So
Speaker 8: the release that we're talking about today and we announced
Speaker 8: this week is really about limiting exposure to some of
Speaker 8: our youngest audiences to content that's more appropriate to teenagers
Speaker 8: when we're talking about the actual, the really bad actors.
Speaker 8: We are constantly innovating on that front and constantly updating
Speaker 8: our systems.
Speaker 5: You talk about safety being your number one priority, and
Speaker 5: there have of course been accusations that there was growth
Speaker 5: that came first over safety. Do you still feel in
Speaker 5: any way that that's the case, or do you ultimately
Speaker 5: have to slow down sign ups in some way to
Speaker 5: ensure the number one priority is safety.
Speaker 8: You know, our number one priority is safety. I mean,
Speaker 8: I think that's just our first principle. And if you
Speaker 8: think about it from a company perspective, Roadblocks was founded
Speaker 8: nearly twenty years ago, where the audience was primarily kids
Speaker 8: in the beginning, and really since it's found, protecting the
Speaker 8: users on the platform has been our first priority, and
Speaker 8: it's good for our business, it's good for growth, it's
Speaker 8: obviously good for our users. Everyone at Roadblocks understands that, yes,
Speaker 8: sometimes we slow things down to account for safety issues.
Speaker 8: For example, when we first start developing new features, we'll
Speaker 8: sit down with those feature teams and talk about risks
Speaker 8: associated with the feature and make sure we address those
Speaker 8: at the very beginning, rather than waiting to tell the
Speaker 8: very end and trying to fix something we build safety
Speaker 8: in at the beginning.
Speaker 5: You're not the only company that, in many ways both
Speaker 5: has led a genie out of a bottle here because
Speaker 5: of those few bad actors. And I'm interested is ultimately
Speaker 5: how the focus shifts from being one where companies are
Speaker 5: the ones we turn to to fix this, or how
Speaker 5: much the onus is on the parents, on the children,
Speaker 5: on the users. Where do you think that balance lies, Matt, I.
Speaker 8: Think companies need to take a proactive stance to keeping
Speaker 8: their users safe on the platform. Obviously, we want to
Speaker 8: provide as many systems and controls and insights to parents
Speaker 8: as possible, but from our perspective, we need to make
Speaker 8: the assumption that parents aren't always in the room and
Speaker 8: aren't always involved, and that's okay. Parents are really busy.
Speaker 8: They're spread between their jobs and all kinds of different
Speaker 8: things going on, and we need to play a proactive role.
Speaker 8: I think when you're talking about like the larger problem
Speaker 8: that we face, I think it's almost like it's a
Speaker 8: problem across the Internet. And so the other thing that
Speaker 8: we think a lot about on roadblocks is how do
Speaker 8: we keep people safe on roadblocks? Knowing that our users
Speaker 8: also have accounts on other platforms, and they have phone
Speaker 8: numbers and cell phones and things like that, and we
Speaker 8: do our best to keep people on roadblocks, so we
Speaker 8: try and block people from sharing personal identifiable information. We
Speaker 8: try and block people from directing users to other platforms
Speaker 8: because we know that we can keep roadblocks safe and
Speaker 8: we know that we go through great ends to keep
Speaker 8: the platform safe, but other platforms don't operate at the
Speaker 8: same standards that we do, so it's very important for
Speaker 8: us to do what we can to make sure that
Speaker 8: people stay safe on roadblocks while they're there.
Speaker 5: Web Rocks Chief safety Officer Matt Kaufman, thanks for your
Speaker 5: time today on their latest protections being unveiled. Meanwhile, we
Speaker 5: shift from particular corporate story over to what's happening in
Speaker 5: the broader markets right now.
Speaker 4: We actually want to shine like what's happening in.
Speaker 5: Crypto because it is continuing to sustain it's rally. Bitcoin
Speaker 5: up to now ninety two thousand. We're off of that
Speaker 5: key high reached in the previous week, but we're still
Speaker 5: up a percentage point on the day. Micro Strategy extraordinary
Speaker 5: run more than four hundred percent higher over the last
Speaker 5: year trading.
Speaker 4: We're up another six percent.
Speaker 5: The company's going to be selling yet more convertible debt
Speaker 5: to be able to buy you guessed.
Speaker 4: It yet more bitcoin.
Speaker 5: They've just added more than fifty six thousand already, they
Speaker 5: have more than thirty billion dollars worth on their balance sheet.
Speaker 4: We're looking at backed holdings as well.
Speaker 5: Interesting story that maybe Trump True Social might well be
Speaker 5: purchasing backed of course, a marketplace for crypto coming up
Speaker 5: Trump that we have Trump Media currently off by seven
Speaker 5: percent on the back of that reporting.
Speaker 4: Tech firms, meanwhile, are.
Speaker 5: Racing to develop AI powered agents to help improve efficiency
Speaker 5: across sales industry, and one of the leaders in the
Speaker 5: field is Rocks Company CEO and co founder Shan Mukerje.
Speaker 4: It's going to be joining us. This is Bloomberg Technology.
Speaker 5: There is a wave of startups and bigger companies that
Speaker 5: are focusing in on developing AI powered agents, in particular
Speaker 5: for salespeople, all in an effort to more efficiently complete tasks.
Speaker 4: With minimal human supervision. One of them is Rocks, who.
Speaker 5: Today announces a fifty million dollar raise here with more
Speaker 5: Rock CEO and co founder Ishan Mukerji. Ishan, first things first,
Speaker 5: before we get to the exact details of the numbers,
Speaker 5: is how many companies do you estimate are out there
Speaker 5: building agents for enterprize.
Speaker 9: There's quite a few have a growing incumbent kind of
Speaker 9: market of vendors who are repositioning themselves as the I companies.
Speaker 9: And then because of the barriers of entry being lowered,
Speaker 9: there is always early stage companies entering the market.
Speaker 5: And yet Sequoia picks you, General Catalyst picks you. What
Speaker 5: are you offering that's different that Salesforce isn't already plowing
Speaker 5: money into Microsoft isn't doing or some of the other
Speaker 5: startups that are in the field.
Speaker 9: Yeah, at Rocks, we're building AI that focuses on accelerating
Speaker 9: revenue for the largest enterprises. Caroline, what we're seeing is
Speaker 9: every business owner across every vertical is blowing out the
Speaker 9: revenue targets for next year. Some of our customers are
Speaker 9: doubling the revenue targets when none of them are doubling
Speaker 9: the team size. So the interesting thing about sales is
Speaker 9: it follows the power law. Ninety percent of the revenue
Speaker 9: in a scaled enterprise comes in through your largest enterprise customers,
Speaker 9: which is supported by a top fifteen percent of your employees. Okay,
Speaker 9: we have to w revenue. You have to get more
Speaker 9: out of like the top fifteen percent of the employees.
Speaker 5: Okay, so you're saying with your technology, with your AI agents,
Speaker 5: you're sort of super powering, augmenting the humans that are
Speaker 5: currently being hired. But my question remains sort of why
Speaker 5: wouldn't someone do that through Microsoft? How can you ensure
Speaker 5: you continue to build your pipeline of users and indeed,
Speaker 5: with a fifty million that you currently raised, be able to.
Speaker 4: Tackle that.
Speaker 9: To be essential to an enterprise and essentially securing and
Speaker 9: growing their customers. Like, the core advantage of AI is
Speaker 9: to be able to deeply couple with the data layer.
Speaker 9: So at Rocks we build the first enterprise ready AI
Speaker 9: agent swarm that's powered by a warehouse native system of record.
Speaker 9: So Rocks we've seen amazing kind of early adoption because
Speaker 9: of the part of the data that we aggregate that
Speaker 9: fuels these agents.
Speaker 5: Co founder Shan Muckergee, we appreciate you coming on to
Speaker 5: talk about the rays and the company. Meanwhile, Huawei's ambitions
Speaker 5: to create more powerful chips, FRAI and smartphones has hit
Speaker 5: some madjor snags because of US sanctions. This is the
Speaker 5: Chinese firm is designing its next to ascend processors. It's
Speaker 5: answered basically to Nvidia's dominant accelerators and so all, according
Speaker 5: to sources who say this means that the firm's marquee
Speaker 5: chips will be stuck at aging technology until at least
Speaker 5: twenty twenty six. Meanwhile, let's talk about innovation over it
Speaker 5: in video, it's teaming up with Google to pursue another
Speaker 5: technology once well relegated the science fiction quantum computing. Bloomberg's
Speaker 5: Inking has the details. We were just talking about quantum
Speaker 5: computing with a market analyst yesterday, and here we have
Speaker 5: a new deal being forged.
Speaker 4: Between in Video and Google.
Speaker 5: What are they going to be doing together to progress us?
Speaker 10: Well, this is basically in Video saying hey, this is
Speaker 10: another use of our technology RAAI chips and systems and software,
Speaker 10: and hey look there's a really important company called Google
Speaker 10: that you've heard of that's using this to try to
Speaker 10: push the whole quantum computing world forward early stages. But
Speaker 10: basically Google is going to be using an in video supercomputer.
Speaker 5: Okay, in videos supercomputer will then be able to strip
Speaker 5: out so called noises. You say, what exactly adds to
Speaker 5: the noise? What is it that the innovation we're seeing
Speaker 5: right here right now that can cut that down or
Speaker 5: indeed understand how it impacts the future of quantum computing.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean, we're using the phrase quantum computing and
Speaker 10: everybody throws it around, but it doesn't really exist. There
Speaker 10: are components, or the early stage components that are attempts
Speaker 10: to use quantum mechanics to basically represent information and to
Speaker 10: replace standard semiconductors. We're at the really early stages of
Speaker 10: that and actually deciding what is information and what is
Speaker 10: just random noise generated by the environment.
Speaker 4: Is it really difficult?
Speaker 10: What in video is saying is hey, use our technology
Speaker 10: and you'll be able to develop components more quickly that
Speaker 10: can do that by simulating that environment.
Speaker 5: So when video wants to ensure that we still think
Speaker 5: of it going forward past into quantum computing.
Speaker 4: Google meanwhile is in on the app.
Speaker 5: Just because of the sheer force of data processing that
Speaker 5: will be achieved under this what is currently still in
Speaker 5: the bounds of fiction.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 10: You said we'll be achieved, and some people would say
Speaker 10: that's an inevitable future. Jensen Wang I believe said, you know,
Speaker 10: a couple of decades, more than a decade. Others have
Speaker 10: said never, So you take your pick. But certainly in
Speaker 10: video is definitely covering its bets and again trying to
Speaker 10: push forward this idea that hey, we have this incredible
Speaker 10: system for accelerating whatever it is you're working on, even
Speaker 10: if it's something that will replace what we do, we
Speaker 10: can get you there use our stuff.
Speaker 5: Or the narrative that builds ahead of their earnings in
Speaker 5: little more than twenty four hours time. In King's going
Speaker 5: to be all across it. We thank you with the
Speaker 5: latest don in video. Later today, SpaceX it slated to launch.
Speaker 5: It's got Gamchuan starship rocket once again out of South Texas,
Speaker 5: and it's a key test that is expected to include
Speaker 5: a guest visit from.
Speaker 4: President elect Donald Trump and begs. Lauren Crush joins.
Speaker 5: Us right here when New York come luckily enough to
Speaker 5: say yes, So what is.
Speaker 4: It that they're testing that? Is it going to be
Speaker 4: a repeat the.
Speaker 5: Chopstick fun incredible viewpoint that the whole internet went well, right, Yeah,
Speaker 5: that's stunning booster ketch that everyone was shocked over.
Speaker 11: They're going to try and do that again and we're
Speaker 11: probably going to see that happen many, many times. The
Speaker 11: goal of these tests is to make it so that
Speaker 11: is perfect right, and so they're going to see if
Speaker 11: they can do it again perfect that booster ketch as
Speaker 11: well as launch Starship around the world and then also
Speaker 11: bring that back to Earth through the atmosphere and hope
Speaker 11: that it survives its fiery plunge.
Speaker 4: Just remind us how difficult this is.
Speaker 5: Just how much bigger a rocket that it currently is
Speaker 5: compared to what's already been tried.
Speaker 11: Right, Starship is by far the most powerful, the largest
Speaker 11: rocket that humans have ever developed. I mean, it's the
Speaker 11: key to what SpaceX was formed for, right, to send
Speaker 11: humans to deep space like the Moon and Mars. It's
Speaker 11: it's a behemoth of a vehicle and it has, you know,
Speaker 11: dozens of engines.
Speaker 4: At its base.
Speaker 11: So you know the fact that they can do this
Speaker 11: alone is a feat. But really they need to get
Speaker 11: to a place where they're comfortable with doing this over
Speaker 11: and over again. I mean just last week, President Gwnschotwell
Speaker 11: said that she anticipates launching Starship up to four hundred
Speaker 11: times over the next four years. You know, So this
Speaker 11: is this is something that they want to make routine,
Speaker 11: four hundred.
Speaker 5: Times to do what exactly like this is where the money,
Speaker 5: the revenue stream comes in we just sort of phenomenal valuation.
Speaker 4: For the company. Part of that is the government contracts
Speaker 4: they can win, right.
Speaker 11: I mean, essentially Starship is going to replace the vehicles
Speaker 11: that they're currently using to launch humans and cargo to orbit.
Speaker 4: That won't happen for a while.
Speaker 11: But they want to use Starship to send their next
Speaker 11: generation Starlink satellites into orbit. For instance, the goal is
Speaker 11: to use this as a lander for NASA's Artemis program
Speaker 11: to land people on the Moon and then eventually to
Speaker 11: send humans to Mars somedays. So it really is going
Speaker 11: to be kind of the crux of SpaceX's business plan
Speaker 11: moving forward.
Speaker 5: On which might well be helped by the fact that,
Speaker 5: you know, Musk is so close to the president of
Speaker 5: that Trump who might well be there to view.
Speaker 4: All of this.
Speaker 5: What is the next technological feat that's necessary? Can't even
Speaker 5: get in this current capacity to someone.
Speaker 4: Light mod so glad you asked. So.
Speaker 11: As impressive as these test flights are, there's still quite
Speaker 11: a long way to go. So to get to deep
Speaker 11: space destinations, for instance, space our starship has to refuel
Speaker 11: in orbit, and that's something that's never really been done
Speaker 11: at this scale before, so Essentially, what they'll have to
Speaker 11: do is launch starships and then launch multiple back to
Speaker 11: back starships that will dock in orbit and refuel kind
Speaker 11: of like you know, filling up at the gas tank
Speaker 11: over and over again, and then once it has enough fuel,
Speaker 11: then they can.
Speaker 4: Go on to the moon.
Speaker 11: But that's still a while away, you know, and.
Speaker 4: They still need to perfect this booster catch.
Speaker 11: They need to make sure that starship can come back
Speaker 11: to Earth in one piece. I mean, they were able
Speaker 11: to do that last time, but we still saw some
Speaker 11: pieces of it burning away, so you know, it's it's
Speaker 11: still a.
Speaker 4: Work in progress.
Speaker 11: But that's what each of these tests are for, right
Speaker 11: It's one step forward into that direction. But yes, it's
Speaker 11: going to be some time before anyone is launching on
Speaker 11: this vehicle, let alone going to the moon of Mars.
Speaker 5: All Eyes around five pm today Eastern Lauren Grush, so
Speaker 5: great to have you here.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 5: I Meanwhile, that does it for this edition of BLUEBG
Speaker 5: Technology June. In tomorrow, we've got a great interview with
Speaker 5: the quillcom Cio Cristiano.
Speaker 4: I'm on on all things you guessed it, chips and AI.
Speaker 4: This is Blue meg Technology