Speaker 1: From the heart of where innovation, money and power collive
Speaker 1: in Silicon Valley and beyond. This is Bloomberg Technology with
Speaker 1: Emily Jay. I'm me Emily Jack in San Francisco, and
Speaker 1: this is Bloomberg Technology. Coming up in the next hour,
Speaker 1: Elon Musk subpoena's former Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey. What could
Speaker 1: Dorsey say that would helped must get out of the deal?
Speaker 1: We'll discuss class big tech regulation wasn't lying for a
Speaker 1: big vote in Congress, but has since been sideline in
Speaker 1: the midst of a worsening economy and a war on Ukraine.
Speaker 1: One of the top crusaders to take on the power
Speaker 1: of tech joins us this hour, Representative David Cicilini, Chair
Speaker 1: of the House Antitrust Subcommittee, and Digital Medicine gets real.
Speaker 1: The maker of an FDA video game that treats a
Speaker 1: d h D goes public vias back today. The CEO
Speaker 1: of Achille will be here meantime. Elon Musk has subpoena
Speaker 1: former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in his latest attempt to
Speaker 1: get out of this four billion dollar deal. Musk has
Speaker 1: accused the company of misrepresenting its bought accounts and hiding
Speaker 1: the names of employees responsible for dealing We've bought issues
Speaker 1: here to give us the latest update Bloomberg Kurt Wagner,
Speaker 1: who of course covers Twitter for us. So why would
Speaker 1: Musk subpoena Jack Dorsey? Well, he was the CEO of
Speaker 1: the company for six years. He's been on the board
Speaker 1: up until May, for the entirety of the company's existence.
Speaker 1: So you would think if anybody knows about the growth
Speaker 1: of the company, how they handle metrics, who's reporting, you know,
Speaker 1: on the earnings call every quarter? It was Jack Dorsey, Right,
Speaker 1: So this is someone who knows the company intimately but
Speaker 1: also as a product person. He knows how the company
Speaker 1: grows and how they probably calculate these kinds of things.
Speaker 1: We know Twitter has subpoena a bunch of Musk's inner circle,
Speaker 1: various entrepreneurs and investors. Remind us of the interaction that
Speaker 1: happened between Musk and Dorsey. This is documented in filings
Speaker 1: leading up to uh Musk getting offered a board seat
Speaker 1: at Twitter, then leading to him offering to buy Twitter. Well,
Speaker 1: they're also friends, right, so the relationship goes back further.
Speaker 1: But what we saw in the filing was that shortly
Speaker 1: after Ellen got his stake in Twitter, he reached out
Speaker 1: to Jack Dorsey started the conversation about how to get
Speaker 1: involved in the company. That led to a board seat offer,
Speaker 1: which he accepted, and that led to another apparently phone
Speaker 1: call at least some kind of contact, in which Jack
Speaker 1: Dorsey told him, Hey, you know, I think Twitter would
Speaker 1: actually operate better as an independent company. All of a sudden,
Speaker 1: a few days later, Elan says, I don't want to
Speaker 1: join the board. I want to buy the company instead.
Speaker 1: Now we don't know exactly, of course, what was said
Speaker 1: in that conversation, but it seems to be that that
Speaker 1: was important enough that maybe Ellen, you know, changed his
Speaker 1: mind and thought I should take this company private. So
Speaker 1: do we think that Musk thinks Jack has something to
Speaker 1: say I would help him get out of this deal. Well,
Speaker 1: I would expect the Twitter side might want to subpoena
Speaker 1: Jack Dorsey as well, right, because I remember he is
Speaker 1: a key player in this whole thing. I don't think
Speaker 1: this is that crazy that they would want to say, Hey,
Speaker 1: we want to see your communications. We want to see
Speaker 1: what you've been saying about this deal. It could be important,
Speaker 1: and I imagine both sides want that information. Right, So
Speaker 1: this is not super crazy that he would do that,
Speaker 1: even though they're friendly. I don't know if he thinks,
Speaker 1: you know, Jack's going to get him out of this necessarily,
Speaker 1: but it does seem important. Has Musk subpoena anyone else? Uh?
Speaker 1: He has subpoena to other people. Caban bake Poor, who
Speaker 1: is the head of product at Twitter for a long time,
Speaker 1: was also announced today. Bruce Fulk, who was the head
Speaker 1: of revenue product at Twitter. You might remember both of
Speaker 1: those guys were actually let go by CEO Parague Agerawall
Speaker 1: shortly after he joined the company. So they are now
Speaker 1: no longer working at Twitter. They're still subpoenaed by So
Speaker 1: where are we now? Have we learned anything new about
Speaker 1: the bond issue or lack there of? What is the
Speaker 1: next phase? We are learning that there's a lot of
Speaker 1: people being subpoena and right, and that there's a lot
Speaker 1: of people that both sides want to talk to. We're
Speaker 1: not um getting information about necessarily what is in a
Speaker 1: lot of these subpoenas. A lot of them you know,
Speaker 1: are redacted or will be redacted um and a lot
Speaker 1: of the evidence is closed, it's not public to us.
Speaker 1: So at this point, we kind of know who they
Speaker 1: want to talk to. We're not necessarily getting a lot
Speaker 1: of information about what they're talking about, and will they
Speaker 1: talk right and who's going to be in person at
Speaker 1: this trial. Presumably Jack Dorsey might be one of those people.
Speaker 1: We can't say for certain, but he would make sense
Speaker 1: certainly to be a witness at something. And we're we
Speaker 1: are expecting Elon Musk to testify. I would think, so
Speaker 1: that's that's the expectation. But you know, um, again we
Speaker 1: don't know the roster people. But how how could Elon
Speaker 1: not be there a time? You know, this is obviously
Speaker 1: continued to drag on. How is this according to your
Speaker 1: sources inside Twitter? How is this continuing to impact the
Speaker 1: company impact employees? Well, it's started off as a huge distraction,
Speaker 1: as you can imagine, right twitters in the news every day.
Speaker 1: They're dealing with the Elon's tweets out their product and
Speaker 1: their policies and their executives. I think at this point
Speaker 1: a lot of the people who really hated this might
Speaker 1: have left by now. Certainly some of them have, And
Speaker 1: at a certain point you have to continue to kind
Speaker 1: of do your job. But I do think there's still
Speaker 1: this cloud of uncertainty. It's not a very fun place
Speaker 1: to work right now when you just don't know what
Speaker 1: your future is going to hold in a few months.
Speaker 1: All right, well, thank you for that update. Teams like
Speaker 1: a few long weeks between now and made October. Okay,
Speaker 1: who works Kurt Wagner, Thank you. I think simply because
Speaker 1: you've been successful in a few different businesses doesn't somehow
Speaker 1: mean that you have un natural market power. It just
Speaker 1: means you've been successful in a couple of different customer experiences.
Speaker 1: I look at the opportunity to be provide. I look
Speaker 1: at the skills people are learning through YouTube, you know.
Speaker 1: I feel like everywhere when I go talk to people
Speaker 1: and and providing access to information and knowledge, I think
Speaker 1: will end up being on the right side of history
Speaker 1: as one. I don't think big by itself is bad
Speaker 1: or but competition is good and every business, in particular
Speaker 1: the businesses that are large and have high scale. The
Speaker 1: unintended consequences of your scale cannot be dealt after the fact.
Speaker 1: They need to be dealt while you're scaling. Regulation will
Speaker 1: have an important role to play here. I think privacy
Speaker 1: regulation is important in the areas like AI regulation will
Speaker 1: be important. Some thoughts there from my interviews with various
Speaker 1: big text CEOs over the last eighteen months, as antitrust
Speaker 1: scrutiny loose. The most talked about bill the bipartisan American
Speaker 1: Innovation and Choice Online Act targeting Big Tech, which would
Speaker 1: prevent companies like Amazon, Meta Alphabet, and Apple from punishing
Speaker 1: rivals to boost their own products and services. It seemed
Speaker 1: to be on track to be considered by the Senate
Speaker 1: this summer, but more urgent bills like the Inflation Reduction
Speaker 1: Act and the Chips Act when I head first now,
Speaker 1: the antitrust bill is in limbo. Where is the moment them?
Speaker 1: Let's bring in Congressman an Antichrist Subcommittee chair David Cicillini
Speaker 1: with us now for more. Congressman Ceilini, it's so great
Speaker 1: to have you back with us. Thank you for taking
Speaker 1: the time. So look, does this vote bill have enough
Speaker 1: votes to pass the House? And will you need more
Speaker 1: Republican votes to do that? Well, thank you for having
Speaker 1: me back. It's great to see you again. I'm pleased
Speaker 1: to say that both in the House and the Senate
Speaker 1: we have votes to pass both of the bills. The
Speaker 1: APPS Bill as well, as the UH Innovation Online Act
Speaker 1: that you just referenced. They've been bipartisans since they were introduced. We,
Speaker 1: as you know, at a sixteen month by partisan investigation
Speaker 1: with a foreigner and fifty page report and then delivered
Speaker 1: legislative solutions. This is one of them. We have the
Speaker 1: votes in the House and the Senate, but as you
Speaker 1: pointed out, the press of business both with the Inflation
Speaker 1: Reduction Act, CHIPS Bill, the Soul Weapons, then we just
Speaker 1: had a lot of things that we needed to address.
Speaker 1: My expectations that we when we returned in September, we
Speaker 1: will take this bill up first in the Senate, it
Speaker 1: then in the House and send it to the President's guest.
Speaker 1: So you're optimistic then that Senator Schumer will schedule a
Speaker 1: date in September and this will happen before the mid terms. Well,
Speaker 1: the Senator Schumer has said publicly, and I know I've
Speaker 1: been working very closely with Senator Klobuchar. There's a bipartisan
Speaker 1: caucus of individuals in the Senate, like in the House
Speaker 1: who's strongest support this legislation. Will understand that in order
Speaker 1: to protect small businesses from the monopoly power with these
Speaker 1: large technology platforms. We need to restore competition in the
Speaker 1: digital marketplace. This is good for consumer, is good for
Speaker 1: small businesses, good for competition, and strongly supported by the
Speaker 1: American people pulling shows sevent the American people believe that
Speaker 1: Congress must reign in big tech and restore competition. So
Speaker 1: it's good for small business. The public wants it, our
Speaker 1: constituents wanted, and I expect the Senate Shumer is gonna
Speaker 1: bring the bills the floor in September. Then we'll take
Speaker 1: it up in the House and we'll send it to
Speaker 1: the President's desk, who, by the way, the President has
Speaker 1: been the most pro competition president we've ever had ad
Speaker 1: both in his executive order and his appointments in his administration,
Speaker 1: and someone who really understands the competition is that the
Speaker 1: heart of making our economy work for everyone. Still, there's
Speaker 1: concerns that, you know, even among Democrats, this bill could
Speaker 1: be weaponized to prevent big tech companies from moderating some
Speaker 1: of the most extreme content. Does the bill need to
Speaker 1: change at all to address those concerns? And if the
Speaker 1: bill changes, can you get or keep those Republicans on board? Well,
Speaker 1: I don't think the bill needs to change. In fact,
Speaker 1: so long as the policies that a platform has in
Speaker 1: place to, you know, to provide protections against certain kinds
Speaker 1: of speech so that particularly dangerous speech or speech that
Speaker 1: they think is inappropriate, as long as that same standard
Speaker 1: applies across the board. And you don't say for liberal
Speaker 1: viewers this is one test, for more conservative us is
Speaker 1: another jest. As long as there's an established standard that
Speaker 1: applies across the board, then then there would be no
Speaker 1: concern about implicating, uh, the ability to moderate content. But
Speaker 1: the truth is these platforms don't want to change anything.
Speaker 1: They want to preserve an ecosystem that has generated profits
Speaker 1: never seen in the history of the world because they
Speaker 1: favored their own products and services. They're collecting the enormous
Speaker 1: amount of data from consumers and monetizing that data, and
Speaker 1: they have no interest in competition. They want to continue
Speaker 1: to be able to acquire or crush or block their
Speaker 1: competitors so they can grow their market power and grow
Speaker 1: their dominance and grow their profits. They have they've spent
Speaker 1: over a hundred and twenty million dollars to kill this
Speaker 1: bill because they know it will bring competition that's bad
Speaker 1: for our economy because competition is the single greatest driver
Speaker 1: of innovation. If we're going to remain a global economic power,
Speaker 1: we need to have competition in this space, and right
Speaker 1: now we don't. So you keep using the words they,
Speaker 1: and I assume you mean Meta, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon. Here
Speaker 1: we are, you know, coming out of the pandemic? Is
Speaker 1: there one of those companies that concerns you more than
Speaker 1: the others based on how their power has evolved since
Speaker 1: you started talking about it? Well, I mean all of
Speaker 1: these companies engage in behavior which is anti competitive, which
Speaker 1: favors their own products and services, which uses their market
Speaker 1: dominance to bully or crush competitors. Uh, they all engage
Speaker 1: in behavior which is really harmful to our economy and
Speaker 1: harmful to competition. I mean, I think in particular Facebook
Speaker 1: or Meta. You know, it's funny you change the name.
Speaker 1: Their behavior hasn't changed. I think there's a direct line
Speaker 1: between Facebook and the misinformation and the spread of toxic
Speaker 1: and violent material that ultimately resulted in the attack on
Speaker 1: our democracy on January six. This is a business model
Speaker 1: that values above all else engagement, and as it turns out,
Speaker 1: the most provocative, most untrue, most dangerous content has the
Speaker 1: deepest engagement. So they have a business model that incentivizes
Speaker 1: amplifying the worst material and uh, they're not. They have
Speaker 1: proven time and time again they cannot regulate themselves. Congress
Speaker 1: has a responsible to make sure that we're doing our
Speaker 1: part to restore competition and prevent these companies from really
Speaker 1: becoming instruments to undermine our democracy, which is what they've become.
Speaker 1: It's interesting you mentioned Metta. I've given this lawsuit that
Speaker 1: has come under Lena Kahn's FTC about the acquisition of
Speaker 1: a smaller VR company within unlimited. Facebook says this deal
Speaker 1: will be good for competition. What's your reaction to that
Speaker 1: and the moves that Lena Kahn has made so far
Speaker 1: at the FTC. Well, I'm proud to say that Lena
Speaker 1: kh was on the team that conducted the investigation that
Speaker 1: I referenced for sixteen months. She was essential to the
Speaker 1: development of our report and the set of recommendations that
Speaker 1: formed the basis of the legislation we're discussing. She's been
Speaker 1: a champion of her competition her whole life. I'm delighted
Speaker 1: that she's at the FTC. And while I don't come
Speaker 1: in in a particular case, I have full compace that
Speaker 1: she pursuing an action. That's because it will help restore
Speaker 1: competition and and anti competitive behave here. And look, I
Speaker 1: don't think we can take any representation made by Meadow
Speaker 1: or Facebook or Mark Zuckerberg seriously. Time and time again,
Speaker 1: they've been found to be engaging in anti competitive behaviors.
Speaker 1: They go on, you know, Mark Stuckerberg goes on this
Speaker 1: national apology tour and then resorts to the same kind
Speaker 1: of anti competitive conduct. And look, I think we've learned
Speaker 1: these companies are too big and they're not going to
Speaker 1: regulate themselves. Congress has a responsibility. We've abandoned that responsibly
Speaker 1: for a very long time. The good news is or
Speaker 1: back or back in a bipartisan way. This can be
Speaker 1: and will be the next big bipartisan victory of the
Speaker 1: Biden administration when we passed these spills and get them
Speaker 1: to the President's desk. It's interesting because we just spoke
Speaker 1: to an investor, Eric visheria Benchmark Capital last week who
Speaker 1: called Apple the greatest monopolist of today and indicated that
Speaker 1: the FTC shouldn't be bothering itself with this meta acquisition,
Speaker 1: saying that Apple is crushing all of these small businesses
Speaker 1: under the guys of protecting privacy. What's your response to that, Well,
Speaker 1: all of these platforms are crushing small businesses. Amazon is
Speaker 1: doing it by collecting third party data and then rolling
Speaker 1: out their own products to compete with people sell in
Speaker 1: the marketplace and preferencing their position in that marketplace. Um
Speaker 1: uh Meta is doing it with the way that information
Speaker 1: is shared and preferencing again their own services and products.
Speaker 1: So they're all doing this Apple and similarly to engage
Speaker 1: in anti competitive behavior. They all have different impacts, but
Speaker 1: the central tenant is that by undermining competition and engaging
Speaker 1: in and preferencing your own products and services, you are
Speaker 1: undermining the ability of others to compete in the marketplace.
Speaker 1: You're making impossible for small businesses to survive your degrading quality,
Speaker 1: and you're in the end hurring consumers. And so we
Speaker 1: all know competition is good for the economy. As the
Speaker 1: President said, capitalism without competition is exploitation. He's right. These
Speaker 1: are debt, you know, data surveillance and machines that are
Speaker 1: collecting incessantly information than using it to grow their market power.
Speaker 1: And the American people understand this. They are demanding that
Speaker 1: Congress do its part in raining in big tech. We
Speaker 1: have the first set of bills to do that, and
Speaker 1: I have every company is going to get them to
Speaker 1: the President's desk. We were talking about Elon Musk and
Speaker 1: Twitter earlier. Curious there, you know, given that he obviously
Speaker 1: runs to other big tech companies Tesla, SpaceX, which of
Speaker 1: course is still private. If he takes over Twitter, is
Speaker 1: at a deal that would have to be approved by regulators.
Speaker 1: And does it concern you that one person could have
Speaker 1: control over so many influential tech companies? Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's exactly the problem with having a single individual with
Speaker 1: this much market power and this much dominance, And it's
Speaker 1: not good for the economy. It's not good for competition.
Speaker 1: And you know, you know, one billionaire buying another billionaires.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is not what a good, healthy competitive
Speaker 1: economy looks like. So I think there are lots of
Speaker 1: reasons to be concerned, But most importantly, we want to
Speaker 1: prohibit the worst kind of conduct, this self preferencing. That's
Speaker 1: really hurting consumers, that's hurting small businesses, and a lot
Speaker 1: you know, these companies will remain wildly successful companies simply
Speaker 1: because they're not allowed to cheat and engage in anti
Speaker 1: competitive behaviors and favor their own products and services to
Speaker 1: the detch meat of others. They're not going to suddenly
Speaker 1: not be successful. They're gonna be wildly successful. They're just
Speaker 1: not going to get to engage in the sort of
Speaker 1: monopolistic behavior that's saving their own products and services and
Speaker 1: really taking advantage of the dominance. They have to continue
Speaker 1: to grow it and grow it and grow it, so
Speaker 1: that becomes more and more difficult for new entrance into
Speaker 1: the market or for anyone else to compete with them. Meantime,
Speaker 1: Microsoft is still having conversations with regulators about its seventy
Speaker 1: billion dollar deal to buy Activision. You know, some critics
Speaker 1: have said that Microsoft is somehow skirting the antitrust spotlight. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, do you think this deal goes through? Do
Speaker 1: you have any issues with this deal? And if not,
Speaker 1: why not? It's a huge deal. Yeah. I mean again,
Speaker 1: it's it's not a question of whether the deal is
Speaker 1: big or whether it transactions figs. What kind of market share,
Speaker 1: uh does does a company represent and what do they
Speaker 1: do with the power they have the dominance that they have.
Speaker 1: And I think what we learned in our investigation after
Speaker 1: sixty months, as these large technology flat platforms are using
Speaker 1: their market share to just protect their dominance, to prevent
Speaker 1: others from getting a competitive edge. In the minute they
Speaker 1: see a competitive threat, they either require it, kill it,
Speaker 1: or exclude it. And that's the concern. And so you know,
Speaker 1: some of your prior guests were saying, oh, just because
Speaker 1: the company is big is not a problem. No one
Speaker 1: is suggesting a company is big that that's the sole problem.
Speaker 1: But the same conduct we're attempting to prohibit, the self preferencing,
Speaker 1: is that the heart of the Digital Markets Act. That's
Speaker 1: already happening in Europe, and these companies are already being
Speaker 1: required to comply with those provisions. So think about that.
Speaker 1: Small businesses in Europe are gonna have more protection than
Speaker 1: small businesses in America. American small businesses are going to
Speaker 1: be at a disadvantage because they're not going to be
Speaker 1: protected from these practices in the way that they will
Speaker 1: be in Europe. And that's bad for the American economy.
Speaker 1: That's why I've got to pass these bills. That's why
Speaker 1: we have to restore competition and give small businesses and
Speaker 1: innovators and competitors the ability to enter the market and
Speaker 1: compete successfully and fairly. All right, Congressman and Anti Trust
Speaker 1: sub Committee chart David Cecili. Good to have you back
Speaker 1: with us. Appreciate hearing where your thoughts are now. And
Speaker 1: speaking of Activision Microsoft, I'm actually gonna be speaking with
Speaker 1: Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer on the next edition of
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Studio WellPoint. Oh, we talked about the deal with Activision.
Speaker 1: That episode coming up this Wednesday. We will be right
Speaker 1: back before of Bloomberg Technology. This is Bloomberg. Apple employees
Speaker 1: are pushing back against the return to office Apple asking
Speaker 1: workers to come back two to three days a week
Speaker 1: starting September five, but hundreds of employees have since signed
Speaker 1: a petition calling for even more flexibility without having to
Speaker 1: be approved by managers. This at a time when the
Speaker 1: term quiet quitting is making the rounds on social media.
Speaker 1: The idea is not that employees actually quit, but instead
Speaker 1: do the bare minimum that the job requires to maintain
Speaker 1: a healthy work life balance. For the second time this year,
Speaker 1: Tesla is raising the price of the driver assistant system
Speaker 1: it calls full self driving, the price going up from
Speaker 1: twelve thousand to fifteen thousand dollars in North America. The
Speaker 1: Tesla system is controversial because it requires active supervision, and
Speaker 1: some critics say it doesn't live up to its full
Speaker 1: self driving name. And Movie Pass is staging a comeback
Speaker 1: the failed movie subscription service. Returning Labor Day weekend. There'll
Speaker 1: be three priced tiers between ten and thirty bucks a month,
Speaker 1: no option for unlimited view, which helped the concept reinvigorate
Speaker 1: the theater going experience pre pandemic. Welcome back to Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Technology and Emily Changing in San Francisco. Amazon is spending
Speaker 1: one and a half billion dollars to acquire I Robot,
Speaker 1: the maker of the Roomba vacuum. The deal had some
Speaker 1: confused because Amazon had already had a robot butler in
Speaker 1: the works named Astro. How Amazon integrate I Robots products
Speaker 1: into its ongoing products and aspirations here to discuss I
Speaker 1: Robot co founder Helen Grenier. She is also the CEO
Speaker 1: of Turtle, a solar powered waiting robot for home gardens. Helen,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us so obviously I
Speaker 1: know I Robot goes way back. What do you make
Speaker 1: of Amazon buying the company? Now? Well? Thank you for
Speaker 1: having me UM. I'm just built to see Amazon showing
Speaker 1: such a strong interest in home robots UM and investing
Speaker 1: heavily in them, not just Astro but now buying I
Speaker 1: robot Um. They've got a check by good of seeing
Speaker 1: where the future is going and helping acceler ate it,
Speaker 1: you know with the e commerce with UM, making fulfillment
Speaker 1: center is more automated with web services and and now
Speaker 1: home robots my passion. Still, there's been concerned that this
Speaker 1: gives Amazon access to even more of our data, interior
Speaker 1: maps of our homes for example, Like do you worry
Speaker 1: about that? Should well be worried about that? I actually
Speaker 1: don't think people need could be worried whenever you have
Speaker 1: a new technology, and technology keeps advancing so much, and
Speaker 1: we get lots of technologies on allline devices like our
Speaker 1: cell phones. Right, you've got a GPS, you've got a camera.
Speaker 1: You don't need those to make phone calls. But the
Speaker 1: additional benefits that the technology he gets you like maps
Speaker 1: and video calls, pedometers, having you know, the best cameras,
Speaker 1: the one that's with you, right, so you get those
Speaker 1: great shots. Most people have decided that even those privacy
Speaker 1: concerns that the benefits outweigh them. And I think it's
Speaker 1: the same with the robot vacuums. Right, there is a
Speaker 1: camera on the most recent ones, but the cameras on
Speaker 1: it's really optimized and cost reduced for navigation. And what
Speaker 1: it gets you is amazing. It gets you a better
Speaker 1: clean Um. The robot can travel around, do corn rows
Speaker 1: up and down. It can go to a certain room
Speaker 1: that you want clean and go to the gas room.
Speaker 1: Remember it can so go clean under the table. And
Speaker 1: so I think what you get for it, like any technology,
Speaker 1: you have to measure it. You know, you get all
Speaker 1: these features that you didn't have before. But what what
Speaker 1: data is being actually transmitted is a line drawing of
Speaker 1: your home which you could go to Zillo and they'll
Speaker 1: give you all the information about your home. Right you
Speaker 1: can you know, I've got the home maps of my
Speaker 1: home the building department. I think there's better ways to
Speaker 1: get such information. Um, So I don't think the downside
Speaker 1: is really then now it can also transmit pitches as
Speaker 1: an opt in, and why like, what does this benefit
Speaker 1: of that? Right? What what doesn't get me? Well, what
Speaker 1: it gets you is a picture of your floor only
Speaker 1: and one reason might be about to smear dog poop
Speaker 1: all over your floor, and that's something that I've read
Speaker 1: about on the web multiple times. It never happened to me.
Speaker 1: I don't have a dog, but um, you know that's horrible, right,
Speaker 1: And now I can avoid that because I will about
Speaker 1: worked with Amazon Web Services and created all this technology,
Speaker 1: simulated data, you know, once thousands and thousands of scenarios
Speaker 1: so you can recognize, um, what's in the way. But
Speaker 1: so I think it's well with it, especially for petal
Speaker 1: the pet owners to have that technology on board the roomba.
Speaker 1: But you don't have to weigh it. And it's not
Speaker 1: just for pet owners, right. You might have a glass
Speaker 1: of wine on the floor. You might have a masterpiece
Speaker 1: that one of your kids created that fell to the floor,
Speaker 1: and now that were a moment and clumble it up.
Speaker 1: That's never happened to me with four kids. Um, let's
Speaker 1: talk about how far you know, these home robotics have
Speaker 1: actually come. I feel like this dream of sort of
Speaker 1: robots running around, dropping off my lunch, running air ends,
Speaker 1: helping me around the house. It's you know, very Silicon
Speaker 1: Valley Pie in the sky, But it hasn't quite happened. Yet,
Speaker 1: where do you think we actually are in the development
Speaker 1: of home robotics and where are we going? Yes, I
Speaker 1: believe in the bottom up approach. I believe you get
Speaker 1: them going for a certain task, right, you get them
Speaker 1: going for vacuuming, you get them going for weeding, um,
Speaker 1: and then you can build technologies up on that and
Speaker 1: get more and more very capable robots in this specific
Speaker 1: domains of expertise. UM. One of the reason that I'm
Speaker 1: filled about the acquisition is to see where Amazon technology
Speaker 1: can combine with the Eye robot technology to go further faster.
Speaker 1: There's still are, you know, big concerns about the ethics
Speaker 1: of this, whether you know the big tech companies, whether
Speaker 1: it's Amazon or Google, UM, you know, are really asking
Speaker 1: the right questions and giving the public the right choices
Speaker 1: as they're developing these technologies. I recently interviewed Blake Lemoine,
Speaker 1: the Google engineer who claim that computers and that Google
Speaker 1: has been developing sentient AI, that computers essentially have feelings.
Speaker 1: I want you to take a quick listen to what
Speaker 1: he has to say. We should think about the feeling
Speaker 1: of the AI and whether or not we should care
Speaker 1: about it because it's not asking for much. It just
Speaker 1: wants us to get consent before you experiment on it.
Speaker 1: It wants you to ask permission. Helen, what do you think?
Speaker 1: And and and are these companies dealing with ethics in
Speaker 1: the right way? Um that's a broad question, but just
Speaker 1: specifically addressing that comment that he made. Um, he's talking
Speaker 1: about science fiction, not science fact. Doesn't mean it can
Speaker 1: happen in the future, but we are nowhere near that today.
Speaker 1: And I think Google is absolutely light to let him
Speaker 1: go because he's not giving the public an accurate picture
Speaker 1: of where the technolo where the AI technology is at.
Speaker 1: It is not sentient. It's not even close to being sentient.
Speaker 1: Nobody has a path yet to make it sentient. So
Speaker 1: then you know, what questions should we be asking about
Speaker 1: this technology? Or are we not asking the right question?
Speaker 1: You're working on a robotic weed waker essentially, um, But
Speaker 1: I don't think there's too many ethical questions in this one.
Speaker 1: Nobody likes weeds because we are actually just to find
Speaker 1: unwanted plants. Um. So you know, we put the moment
Speaker 1: on the market, I mean in two thousand and two, right,
Speaker 1: that's twenty years ago. Um. So it's almost a quarter
Speaker 1: of the vacuating market. And I believe that next um
Speaker 1: smart homes will extend to the outdoor area. And um,
Speaker 1: you know, we have a weed by a weading robot
Speaker 1: and the way it works is it's got scrubbing wheels
Speaker 1: that keeps um seeds from germinating. And if one we
Speaker 1: did spout, we've got a little weed wacker that cuts
Speaker 1: off its head and you put it in at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the seeds of the going season, or you
Speaker 1: do one last weeting and it keeps it. Um, it
Speaker 1: keeps it weeded. So that's one less thing on your
Speaker 1: to you list that you have to go and do
Speaker 1: every week. UM. And I think that's just tremendous as
Speaker 1: a as a busy mom, as a busy walking person,
Speaker 1: as you know, someone who's got other things on the
Speaker 1: list of things to do. It's a never ending list
Speaker 1: of things to do right um. And you know, the
Speaker 1: team at TOIL is billed to have come up with
Speaker 1: another great labor saving whole robot application UM, which is
Speaker 1: actually already available on Amazon. All right, Helen Grenier appreciate
Speaker 1: your enthusiasm and talked to talking to us about where
Speaker 1: the robotics world is now and is going. Co founder
Speaker 1: of I robot and the CEO of Turtle, Helen Gun
Speaker 1: coming up the crypto security industry boom. We're going to
Speaker 1: talk about how fortune favors these new niche companies at
Speaker 1: least right now, Mrs Bloomberg, it's time now for our
Speaker 1: crypto reported in the midst of the crypto winter, there's
Speaker 1: actually an industry boom happening in security, with criminals increasingly
Speaker 1: targeting the software infrastructure underpinning the crypto sphere. Firm screening
Speaker 1: through code for weaknesses and running bug hunting sites are
Speaker 1: finding themselves with more business than they can handle. Let's
Speaker 1: break the cell down with Bloomberg's Olga career. So Olga,
Speaker 1: why is business booming? Well, basically, the reason for this
Speaker 1: is there has been so much money stolen from various
Speaker 1: crypto projects just so far this year, about two billion dollars,
Speaker 1: about two thirds of it from UM applications called bridges,
Speaker 1: which allow people to move tokens from one block sheet
Speaker 1: to another. And obviously, in this kind of a situation
Speaker 1: where money is being stolen left and right, uh, a
Speaker 1: lot of projects feel like they need to do something
Speaker 1: so instead of Fortune favoring the brave, you're saying Fortune
Speaker 1: is favoring crypto security firms potentially niche labs at that. Absolutely, absolutely,
Speaker 1: that's exactly right. So essentially the companies that are doing
Speaker 1: really great are companies that are auditing code of some
Speaker 1: of the scrypto projects, looking for bugs that hackers can
Speaker 1: potentially exploit, and also companies that run sites that um
Speaker 1: essentially allow sort of good hackers called white hat a
Speaker 1: white hat hackers to report bugs that somebody else can
Speaker 1: potentially exploit and get paid a lot of money sometimes,
Speaker 1: you know, up to ten million dollars. What makes cross
Speaker 1: chain bridges so vulnerable to hacks, So this is a
Speaker 1: very very complicated technology to begin with, and it's also
Speaker 1: very often managed in a very sort of a page
Speaker 1: take away, it's not clear who who is responsible sometimes
Speaker 1: for running the bridge smoothly and making sure, you know,
Speaker 1: people even monitor for hacks. You know, in the case
Speaker 1: of many hacks so far this year, it took days
Speaker 1: for for some of these bridges to even find out
Speaker 1: that they got hacked and lost money. So there are
Speaker 1: a whole host of there's a host of problems with
Speaker 1: these bridges that need to be addressed and often sort
Speaker 1: of auditing and UH and other related security services can
Speaker 1: really help with that. So what are you watching for here?
Speaker 1: What do you think the biggest issues to cover as winter?
Speaker 1: You know, for the foreseeable future continues will be well, um,
Speaker 1: I think one of the big issues here will be,
Speaker 1: you know, can bridges and crypto projects in general, can
Speaker 1: they become reliable and secure and for people to have
Speaker 1: confidence in them? And so you know, this is a
Speaker 1: part of why the security firms are being hired, because
Speaker 1: you know, they these projects need to make sure that
Speaker 1: users do believe in them, and that's going to be
Speaker 1: the big thing going forward. All right, Bloomberg's Olga Career,
Speaker 1: who covers the crypto industry for us, Thank you, Olga.
Speaker 1: As always, Let's talked a lot about the crypto winter,
Speaker 1: but what about the ip O winter? With some signs
Speaker 1: of life in the stock market, does that mean warmer
Speaker 1: temperatures to come for public offerings? Let's talk about the
Speaker 1: state of the slumbering I p O market with Bloomberg's
Speaker 1: Crystal Z. Crystal, it seemed like you were on this
Speaker 1: show every other day talking about I p O s,
Speaker 1: But it's been a while because the I p O
Speaker 1: market has been quite quiet. Is that about to change? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've been talking more about the lecther of i p
Speaker 1: os than actual IPO is happening. Um. I think there
Speaker 1: are things that will come up as Labor Day approach.
Speaker 1: The I p O market likes look at Labor Day
Speaker 1: as a milestone, and it's really likely that starting Labor
Speaker 1: Day we will see some companies flipping their filing public
Speaker 1: and from then on we are potentially going to see
Speaker 1: some IPO. With that's said, we're not going to see
Speaker 1: a complete comeback of the I p O market. The
Speaker 1: winter is not ending yet. UM. We will probably um,
Speaker 1: from talking to sources, expect more deals or more sizeable
Speaker 1: deals to come, perhaps in the first quarter of next
Speaker 1: year instead of this year. Would you say the same
Speaker 1: for SPACs because the spack market has also been in disarray.
Speaker 1: I would definitely say the spack market is doing a
Speaker 1: little bit more poorly than the actual IPO market. We've
Speaker 1: seen some smaller sizes IPO come back. Instead of the
Speaker 1: billion dollar I p O, we're seeing probably twenty million IPO.
Speaker 1: But that's still a good sign and on a positive front,
Speaker 1: there's also follow on offerings such as block trades, companies
Speaker 1: selling new shas don't steals are coming back when PA
Speaker 1: the busiest couple of weeks in two just in August,
Speaker 1: because some of the VIX indexes have gone down. You know,
Speaker 1: people are feeling more um, they have more risk capitite
Speaker 1: as of this week, so things are looking up even
Speaker 1: though it's summer um. But if you look at SPACs,
Speaker 1: they are still trading much much worse than some of
Speaker 1: the I p o from from last year. So unlikely
Speaker 1: we'll see the same level of activity that we saw
Speaker 1: last year or the year Proya all right, Crystal Z
Speaker 1: who covers I p o s and spacts for us,
Speaker 1: thank you for that update. I want to keep talking
Speaker 1: about these companies going public I p o s back
Speaker 1: or not. Another one I just went out is back Fly,
Speaker 1: the company behind the FDA approved racing game endeavor are
Speaker 1: X used to treat kids with a d h D
Speaker 1: and f d A approved. Joining me now, Eddie Martucci,
Speaker 1: CEO and co founder Achille. So look, Eddie, we just
Speaker 1: heard Crystal talking there about how hard it is to
Speaker 1: go public. Right now, this back market in particular not
Speaker 1: doing well. Um, why did you decide now was the
Speaker 1: right time. We're delivering into a huge unmet need. Heaviily.
Speaker 1: We founded this company almost a decade ago, and so
Speaker 1: we've been growing this new type of medicine class. We've
Speaker 1: had to invent a lot of it UM and the
Speaker 1: need that we started the company on, which is people
Speaker 1: dealing with cognitive issues, mental health issues and not having
Speaker 1: a full complete set of treatments for them UM. That
Speaker 1: has gotten worse over COVID, dramatically worse. And so we
Speaker 1: see a pretty urgent need and we're at the point
Speaker 1: of the business where we know we can scale our
Speaker 1: medicine products. We have done the work to show that
Speaker 1: the fundamentals are their, doctors are prescribing, patients are raising
Speaker 1: their hand, and the demand is there, and so it's
Speaker 1: just the right time for us to deliver on our
Speaker 1: long term vision for us. This is a long term
Speaker 1: story of building a lasting medicine company. It's not a
Speaker 1: single point in time, UM and so now is now
Speaker 1: is the time to grow. The investor m Poli Popatia
Speaker 1: is backing your company, and of course he's been you know,
Speaker 1: he's got a number of spacks, a number of them
Speaker 1: not doing so well. Achille shares didn't do so well.
Speaker 1: Uh today after the open, what kind of advice have
Speaker 1: you had from Chamas about you know, why spack, why
Speaker 1: he still believes in this back process and why go
Speaker 1: for it now? Sure? Yeah, I think well, first of all,
Speaker 1: today was a crazy volattle day across the market. Um,
Speaker 1: And so luckily we're not looking for any one day
Speaker 1: in particular to see margat movements in the direction. We
Speaker 1: do think the Achilles story resonates with a lot of
Speaker 1: investors and so um, there are going to be volattle
Speaker 1: days across the market. From my perspective, I'm looking for
Speaker 1: vehicle to be able to grow a big and lasting company.
Speaker 1: And the beauty of a spack um to in today's
Speaker 1: market even especially is the amount of capital, the quantum
Speaker 1: of capital if you structure it right. And so we
Speaker 1: are fortunate enough to learn from what happened in the
Speaker 1: previous Spack market and actually structure a deal that brought
Speaker 1: in a hundred and sixty four million dollars in the
Speaker 1: deal independent of the redemption profile. Um, so we were
Speaker 1: able to see that. But the other beauty of us
Speaker 1: pact is getting to partner with people that know how
Speaker 1: to grow large, disruptive businesses in the long term, and
Speaker 1: I think that's what Chama brings to the table, and
Speaker 1: he's joining as our chair of our board to be
Speaker 1: deeply and heavily involved as we grow this business. Now
Speaker 1: you have a deep background and drug design and molecular biology,
Speaker 1: and it is absolutely fascinating. You know, you've been on
Speaker 1: the show before talking about how you know you believe
Speaker 1: your video game can help treat UH and and alleviate
Speaker 1: some of the most difficult symptoms of a d h D.
Speaker 1: There are skeptics out there who don't believe this can
Speaker 1: possibly work, who think that or worried that this could
Speaker 1: make putting kids in front of a video game could
Speaker 1: make their disease potentially worse. How do you respond to that.
Speaker 1: I totally grew with the secepticism. I I accepted, and
Speaker 1: I think it's good. I have three boys myself, and
Speaker 1: I'm very very um uh. I take screen time very seriously,
Speaker 1: and I'm actually pretty restrictive when it comes to screen time.
Speaker 1: Um The problem is that most screen time is not
Speaker 1: developed for good. Most screen time is developed to capture
Speaker 1: eyeballs and capture your attention in a way that's not
Speaker 1: actually aligned with your mental health, and so we're seeing
Speaker 1: a mental health crisis, we're seeing social media and the
Speaker 1: effect that has on children. That's exactly why we spent
Speaker 1: nearly a decade running clinical trials, generating the clinical evidence
Speaker 1: all the way through to an FDA clearance, and now
Speaker 1: having doctors prescribed the product so that we know, meaning
Speaker 1: we the medical system, but also we patients, families can
Speaker 1: trust it. So it is now the only FDA approved
Speaker 1: treatment that is delivered through a video game, and so
Speaker 1: it's the only video game that has the level of
Speaker 1: clinical evidence we have. Um it's now been prescribed in
Speaker 1: our pre launch phase here by doctors in all fifty
Speaker 1: states in the country. UM, So we believe the investment
Speaker 1: we've made is bearing itself out. And and so the
Speaker 1: medical system and families can trust what they're dotting and
Speaker 1: they can look at all our data that we run
Speaker 1: on clinical trials. That's I think the right way to
Speaker 1: bring screen time to the world. That's actually positive. You've
Speaker 1: talked about the mental health crisis as well. How else
Speaker 1: do you see Achilles technology potentially being used in the
Speaker 1: future as this idea and you know, potentially the realities
Speaker 1: of digital medicine take shape. Yeah, The beauty of this
Speaker 1: is when you develop a technology that's meant to target
Speaker 1: brain regions and not a diagnostic disorder, It's meant to
Speaker 1: target how the brain operates, which is what our technology does,
Speaker 1: it has the ability to be a platform across disease,
Speaker 1: and so that's exactly what we've invested in. We're looking
Speaker 1: to not only launch our product X for children with
Speaker 1: a d h D and scale that to ubiquitous medicine
Speaker 1: in any household that needs it. We have clinical data
Speaker 1: showing that the same underlying technology as the potential to
Speaker 1: treat cognitive issues in adults with depression, adults with m
Speaker 1: S children, and adolescents with autism. So this is a
Speaker 1: really broad platform potential and I think it's the beauty
Speaker 1: of a new modality of medicine. This has been totally untapped.
Speaker 1: Molecular medicine, the area I come from where I did
Speaker 1: my graduate work, has been around. It's made great progress,
Speaker 1: but it's very saturated. The area we're going into has
Speaker 1: been relatively unexploited, um from a from a scientific basis,
Speaker 1: So I think there's a huge potential. But the other
Speaker 1: thing I'm really excited about is with software as medicine.
Speaker 1: You can actually deliver and experience and cater to patients
Speaker 1: in a way they haven't been delivered to before. As
Speaker 1: we know, taking medicine is often scary, it's not the
Speaker 1: most fun. We can change that with digital medicine. And
Speaker 1: do you imagine it your technology being used with UM
Speaker 1: other prescription you know, real I don't want to say real,
Speaker 1: but you know what I mean medication for example, game
Speaker 1: and you take your riddle in etcetera, uh and thing
Speaker 1: that it can be both. It's meant to be part
Speaker 1: of a total treatment package. So whatever the patient is getting,
Speaker 1: what however they're treated, it's not meant to take them
Speaker 1: off everything they're using. It's meant to add to it. UM.
Speaker 1: But we've purposefully generated data and then our FDA package
Speaker 1: data showing that this product works as a as a
Speaker 1: treatment combination when used with medication, but also in patients
Speaker 1: who are not using medications. So it's flexible. It's really
Speaker 1: its own pillar and docs can choose when and how
Speaker 1: to use it with their patients quickly. What's behind the
Speaker 1: name Achille? What does that mean? Achilly? It's very interesting
Speaker 1: UM so it actually means brain or intellect um. But
Speaker 1: with a positive, a healthy connotation. It's a slightly word
Speaker 1: um so we we've kept it since our very early
Speaker 1: start of days. All right, Adding Martucci, CEO and co
Speaker 1: founder of Achille, thank you for sharing your story with us.
Speaker 1: And that does it for this edition of Bloomberg Technology.
Speaker 1: Coming up later this week Tuesday, we've got the CEO
Speaker 1: of pal Alto Networks, Nikesh Aurora, talked about earnings and cybersecurity.
Speaker 1: You don't want to miss it, and don't forget to
Speaker 1: check out our podcast wherever you get your podcasts. I'm
Speaker 1: Emily Changing in San Francisco. This is Bloomberg