Speaker 1: From Mahart where Innovation, Money and Power Collie in Silicon
Speaker 1: Vallet NBN.
Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlove.
Speaker 3: I'm Caroline Heine bluemgg's world headquarters in New York, and
Speaker 3: I'm Ed Ludlow in San Francisco.
Speaker 4: This is Bloomberg Technology coming up.
Speaker 3: We'll break down what we can expect from this cyber
Speaker 3: Monday shopping. CEO of a leading data platform, Clavier, is.
Speaker 4: With us and Elon Musk visits Israel after facing backlash
Speaker 4: for amplifying anti Semitic content on X. Will have the
Speaker 4: takeaways from his trip. After meeting with Israeli Prime Minister
Speaker 4: Benjamin and Yahoo.
Speaker 3: Class TikTok parent bike Dance plans to cut hundreds of
Speaker 3: jobs in Gaining.
Speaker 5: That's as it winds down.
Speaker 3: That focus will break down when it means in terms
Speaker 3: of the border context. And here in the now, Ed,
Speaker 3: let's just talk a little bit about how far we've
Speaker 3: come in terms of the tech stock rally and well
Speaker 3: who's been suffering on the other side of it. Notably,
Speaker 3: dividend ETF flows there near a record low. Joining us
Speaker 3: to discuss all of these pushes and pulls Eminie Graffair.
Speaker 5: It's great to have you with us. And one of
Speaker 5: the most red stories today.
Speaker 3: Is yours about well, who's done badly on the back
Speaker 3: of the tech trade, but just focusing on the tech
Speaker 3: trade and how far the rally has gone. We know
Speaker 3: actually that there's some writing out today that given the
Speaker 3: amount of buybacks, given how much Apple just for example,
Speaker 3: it has to fly back in terms of shares, we
Speaker 3: could still see this rally continue.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean a lot of.
Speaker 6: People are saying that there's still dry powder on the sidelines,
Speaker 6: and of course the seasonality really does fode well for
Speaker 6: the rally to continue. We know that big tech has
Speaker 6: really driven most of the gain. So I think when
Speaker 6: you look at this dividend story, it's just another example
Speaker 6: of just how much the rally in the stock market
Speaker 6: this year has been basically taken over by the gains
Speaker 6: in megacap technology.
Speaker 4: Stocks, you know, And part of the story is like
Speaker 4: about missing the boat I was crunching the numb is
Speaker 4: looking at the S and P five hundred year today,
Speaker 4: information technology or Telcom's subsect to year today, fifty percent
Speaker 4: gains in tech basically, but a lot of the strategies
Speaker 4: that you're writing about. They don't touch tech, so they
Speaker 4: kind of miss out.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's right, Ed.
Speaker 6: I found the port function on the Bloomberg terminal very
Speaker 6: high school in writing this story, because if you run
Speaker 6: that on a number of these dividend ETFs. You take
Speaker 6: a look at SDY, which is from State Street, they
Speaker 6: don't really have a large waiting to information technology. They
Speaker 6: have about a quarter of their waiting to consumer staples, utility,
Speaker 6: healthcare sectors that have declined this year and really haven't
Speaker 6: benefited from that AI euphoria that has powered the top
Speaker 6: of the S and P five hundred. Then you take
Speaker 6: a look at VIG that's Vanguard's dividend appreciation ETF, and
Speaker 6: port shows that they have about a twenty five percent
Speaker 6: weight for information technology and that's one of the best
Speaker 6: performing dividend ETFs up nine point six percent, So again
Speaker 6: underperforming the SMP and the Nasdaq, but at least that
Speaker 6: large concentration in information technology did help that ETA.
Speaker 3: What's interesting is it coolest this week we don't just
Speaker 3: have macro things been looking out for, but they're all
Speaker 3: they do singcrastic earnings, just being salesforce. For example, all
Speaker 3: we like to still see AI be the zuberant fols
Speaker 3: for those of the companies.
Speaker 5: I think so, Caroline.
Speaker 6: I mean, I think these companies are going to continue
Speaker 6: to juice out that theme at least for the rest
Speaker 6: of the year.
Speaker 5: It is interesting when we.
Speaker 6: Look at, you know, all of these sectors, are we
Speaker 6: going to see just like how the Internet at first
Speaker 6: kind of dominated tech and then it expanded and now
Speaker 6: pretty much every company uses this technology. Are we going
Speaker 6: to see that expand to other companies. Earlier in the year,
Speaker 6: we had like companies like Kroger kind of mentioning AI
Speaker 6: that seemed to fizzle out a little bit. But we'll
Speaker 6: have to see if these companies actually do manage to
Speaker 6: capture this technology that has been so beneficial for the megacaps, the.
Speaker 4: Microsofts, Bloomberg's Emily of Graffeo with pretty much the top
Speaker 4: story across all Bloomberg platforms this Monday, thank you very much. Meanwhile,
Speaker 4: it is a big day to day for many big
Speaker 4: tech companies in the e commerce business with cyber Monday
Speaker 4: in full swing. Joining us to discuss is Clavier CEO
Speaker 4: Andrew Bierlecki and Klavier, a leading data platform but in
Speaker 4: retail and the e commerce space. You went public earlier
Speaker 4: this year, and we'll get to that. There seems to
Speaker 4: be a lot of upgraded expectations for Cyber Monday based
Speaker 4: on how strong Black Friday was.
Speaker 7: Are you seeing that in your data as well?
Speaker 8: Yeah, Well, first off, thanks for having us. It's a
Speaker 8: super exciting week. It's the biggest week of the year
Speaker 8: for many of our customers. You know, we power smarter
Speaker 8: digital relationships, help businesses understand who their customers are and
Speaker 8: then communicate with them, build great experiences across email, SMS,
Speaker 8: and mobile. So it's a it's a great period for
Speaker 8: businesses to grow and we're seeing you know, as usual,
Speaker 8: Claudio was powering that on Black Friday. You know, we
Speaker 8: had more than three hundred million messages sent during our
Speaker 8: peak hour. And part of the way that we make
Speaker 8: the messaging and the experiences between businesses better is using
Speaker 8: artificial intelligence. Our product Recommendation engine generate over a billion
Speaker 8: recommendations that were embedded in those emails, and most critically,
Speaker 8: that resulted in real growth to these businesses. You know,
Speaker 8: in the peak hour on Black Friday, Clavial businesses generate
Speaker 8: over fifty million dollars in sales directly a tribunal to
Speaker 8: the message they were saying through Clavier and so interestingly,
Speaker 8: we found that the trend was a lot of people
Speaker 8: were sending messages earlier in the day, but the actual
Speaker 8: best conversion time was towards the middle. So we saw
Speaker 8: the most conversions, most customers buying between eleven and noon
Speaker 8: on Friday.
Speaker 4: So, Andrew, what is your expectation the Clavio expectation for Monday?
Speaker 4: Then right, we go off Adobe Analytics data as a proxy.
Speaker 4: They said nine point eight billion spent online Friday. Their
Speaker 4: expectation is twelve point four billion this Monday, Cyber Monday
Speaker 4: being the bigger window. Do you see a bigger window
Speaker 4: activity for you guys too.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Well, from the businesses that I've talked to and
Speaker 8: just you know, looking at our numbers, Black Friday was great.
Speaker 8: We're only part of the way through Cyber Monday, so
Speaker 8: we'll wait and see what happens the rest of the day.
Speaker 8: But one of the big trends that we've seen playing
Speaker 8: out is consumers are buying from brands they love. I've
Speaker 8: talked to a number of retailers that actually sold out
Speaker 8: on Friday, exceeded their expectations by marketing back to the
Speaker 8: businesses or to the consumers that they already have relationships with.
Speaker 8: So one of the big trends that we're really focused
Speaker 8: on is a lot of businesses in the past, you know,
Speaker 8: relied on advertising and marketplaces to drive demands. What we're
Speaker 8: finding is a lot of modern digital businesses, digital brands,
Speaker 8: they're going directs. They're building direct connections to consumers, and
Speaker 8: they're reaching them through email, through text messaging. They're using personalization,
Speaker 8: artificial intelligence, and they're measuring those results and that's driving sales.
Speaker 8: And that's a lot of what's going to power them
Speaker 8: through not just Black Friday and Souber Monday, but through
Speaker 8: this entire holiday season.
Speaker 3: Andrew, I almost think about my own sms is and
Speaker 3: I think almost one in every three is from a
Speaker 3: business of some sort.
Speaker 5: How many are opting.
Speaker 3: Out, How many people and consumers are pushing back on
Speaker 3: this sort of way of marketing.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Well, what we find is when you send really undirected,
Speaker 8: just kind of one size fits all messaging, especially in
Speaker 8: a channel like textoaging. You know, my text messages are
Speaker 8: pretty private, like I only have let a select number
Speaker 8: of brands into them. If you send one size fits
Speaker 8: all messaging, that doesn't work, folks opt out. But when
Speaker 8: you personalize those recommendations, you know, based on the products
Speaker 8: people have bought. Or what we often find is a
Speaker 8: lot of businesses when they're launching new products, they're first
Speaker 8: they're pre releasing that to folks that are subscribed to
Speaker 8: text messages. Consumers love that because they find out right
Speaker 8: away before things sell out, and that kind of marketing
Speaker 8: works really well.
Speaker 3: The global perspective here, I mean, I would say many
Speaker 3: might be surprised that there's such resilient consumer demand over
Speaker 3: the last weekend or so. As with the mac CEO,
Speaker 3: and he was saying, look, on Friday, it was much
Speaker 3: more about jewelry, about Kashmir, about gifting. But people aren't
Speaker 3: at the moment helping themselves. They're not particularly in a
Speaker 3: spirit of spending enthusiastically. No matter where are we seeing
Speaker 3: the sort of resilient consumer no matter where you are.
Speaker 3: Is it certain types of brands and certain types of geographies.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's a great question. So we're seeing it across categories.
Speaker 8: And the other thing that we've noticed is, you know,
Speaker 8: Black Friday, Cyber Monday, there historically we're more we think
Speaker 8: of those as US canti centric holidays, we're seeing those
Speaker 8: really expand globally. You know, we saw activity pick up
Speaker 8: across the Clavial platform starting you know, really early, you know,
Speaker 8: even in Asia. So one of the trends is I
Speaker 8: think that this is becoming more of a global holiday
Speaker 8: and less just domestically centered.
Speaker 4: There's been a lot of activity and some of the
Speaker 4: Chinese based platform's tea machine like really heavy discounting. Is
Speaker 4: that a data set or a marketplace that you track.
Speaker 8: So we have a lot we have businesses around the world,
Speaker 8: but specifically related to discounting. Wait and see what the
Speaker 8: numbers show us.
Speaker 4: But again I think what.
Speaker 1: Would because our.
Speaker 8: Thesis is all about businesses going to consumers that already
Speaker 8: have they already have a relationship with, I think that's
Speaker 8: that helps moderate some of that discounting behavior. These are
Speaker 8: customers that have maybe bought in the past or we're browsing,
Speaker 8: you know, they have some affiliation with this business and
Speaker 8: now they're ready to pull the trigger. So that's that's
Speaker 8: I think the shift in marketing that we're really focused
Speaker 8: on is how do you how do you take existing
Speaker 8: relationships and make more out of those. And one of
Speaker 8: the nice parts is I think that offset some of
Speaker 8: the discounting that's required.
Speaker 5: I'm interested.
Speaker 3: Of course, you're in this economic environment where actually, well,
Speaker 3: thus father numbers bearing pretty good over the last few days,
Speaker 3: of course, have recently gone public. You are trying to
Speaker 3: build this narrative to a new shareholder base of what
Speaker 3: it is that you do and ultimately how the pennant
Speaker 3: you are on certain companies and the macro environment. You
Speaker 3: were all about AI when it came to a listing.
Speaker 3: How is it being a publicly traded company. How are
Speaker 3: you finding the narrative going for you when the pushes
Speaker 3: and the polls.
Speaker 8: Well, honestly, we've got a mentality of just focus on
Speaker 8: helping businesses grow. You know, one of the one of
Speaker 8: the big trends that we love talking about is it's
Speaker 8: not just this move from commerce happening, you know, from
Speaker 8: brick and mortar to now everywhere online on your phone.
Speaker 8: But there's another big macro trend, and that's business is saying, hey,
Speaker 8: I'm going to drive demand to my store, whether it's
Speaker 8: you know, a digital store or a physical store. I'm
Speaker 8: going to drive demand not just through traditional channels through
Speaker 8: advertising through marketplaces, but I'm also going to do that
Speaker 8: by building direct relationships with consumers, and the technology to
Speaker 8: do that has gotten a lot better, and the personalization
Speaker 8: driven by artificial intelligence has gotten a lot better. So
Speaker 8: I expect over the coming years the next decade, we
Speaker 8: think is a long term trend. More and more brands
Speaker 8: are focused on how do they build up their database
Speaker 8: of direct connections with consumers that will drive sales, that
Speaker 8: will drive engagement, and if we keep executing on that,
Speaker 8: we'll do right by our customers and our shareholders.
Speaker 3: Thank you very much for joining us on the back
Speaker 3: of all that, Andrew Berlecki. Of course, the claviy O
Speaker 3: CEO joining us one is a pretty thick and fast
Speaker 3: cyber Monday. Meanwhile, coming up, we're going to talk about
Speaker 3: Elon Musk. He's currently in Israel. We'll have the latest
Speaker 3: on his visit with the meetings with Israeli Prime Minister
Speaker 3: Benjamin natin Yahu and other Israeli lawmakers. That's next, But
Speaker 3: before we head to the break, we just want to
Speaker 3: turn our attention. Of course, the backlash against Eenl Musk.
Speaker 3: It is continuing following well. It seems to have been
Speaker 3: an amplification of anti Semitic content on X. Just a
Speaker 3: few weeks ago, Musk in the UK Prime Minister whis Sunak.
Speaker 3: They shared a stage at the UKAI Safety Summit, and
Speaker 3: now Sunak has just weighed in on the issue in
Speaker 3: an interview with Bloomberg last night.
Speaker 5: Take a listen.
Speaker 9: I condemn anti semitism in all its forms. It doesn't
Speaker 9: matter whether you're Elon Musk or you're someone on the
Speaker 9: street who's shouting abuse at someone who happens to be
Speaker 9: walking past you. That's wrong in all its forms. Anti
Speaker 9: Semitism in all it's is completely and utterly wrong.
Speaker 3: Some pictures there, as you see a Venomsk earlier in
Speaker 3: conversation with Prime Minister avengerre in Netanyahu in Israel. He
Speaker 3: in fact also took to his own social media platform
Speaker 3: X to continue that conversation with Netanyahu. And we just
Speaker 3: want to sort of understand the context here and indeed,
Speaker 3: well whether or not it's basically helping the business of
Speaker 3: X at this moment, given the backlash about his seeming
Speaker 3: well signing on or at least amplification of some anti
Speaker 3: Semitic views across his platform.
Speaker 5: Joining us now is Max traffickin and.
Speaker 3: Max, this does ultimately feel like a bit of a
Speaker 3: pr exercise to go to Israel.
Speaker 5: Is that how it's been interpreted?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Absolutely.
Speaker 10: I mean Elon Musk is very much you know, of
Speaker 10: a piece with other He's almost like a world leader, right,
Speaker 10: he like in the same way that like a politician
Speaker 10: might fly to a war zone in order to like,
Speaker 10: you know, combat a crisis at home. We have X
Speaker 10: you know, the platform formerly known as Twitter, dealing with
Speaker 10: a huge advertiser pause, you know, tens of millions of
Speaker 10: dollars in potential lost revenue, and we have Elon Musk
Speaker 10: trying to combat these accusations of anti Semitism, you know,
Speaker 10: by showing up in Israel and doing an event with
Speaker 10: Prime Minister and Yahoo.
Speaker 4: I think what's interesting about this is that Musk has
Speaker 4: been tied, whether of his own volition or not, to
Speaker 4: the israel A mass war since the outset, right, Max,
Speaker 4: because he does have a tendency to weigh in on
Speaker 4: whatever the global issue of the day is. There are
Speaker 4: parallels with the war in Ukraine, for example. What has
Speaker 4: Musk's position been in all of this to this point
Speaker 4: or at varied points.
Speaker 10: Musk's position on the war in Israel and Gaza has
Speaker 10: been very, very squishy, and as you said, it's kind
Speaker 10: of like which is trying to put himself in the
Speaker 10: middle of it and when possible, using it to advance
Speaker 10: his own business goals. We actually had a meeting, you know,
Speaker 10: in the US, with Musk and Netnyaho amid an earlier
Speaker 10: kind of flap over anti Semitism.
Speaker 1: Musk made a bunch of comments.
Speaker 10: I think he said he was basically Jewish, or you know,
Speaker 10: he'd gone to a Hebrew preschool. He's tried all sorts
Speaker 10: of tactics to sort of say that he's not anti Semitic,
Speaker 10: short of actually apologizing for the comments that Caroline alluded
Speaker 10: to just now.
Speaker 5: Max.
Speaker 4: A technology story at the heart of this is Starlink.
Speaker 4: The Israeli Communication Ministry came out earlier and said that
Speaker 4: a understanding principle is out. We're looking at pictures of
Speaker 4: the Starlink map on its website and the darker blue
Speaker 4: shades are the coming soon. In other words, starlink not
Speaker 4: yet operational in Israel or the Gaza strip. But what
Speaker 4: do we know about those negotiations.
Speaker 10: I mean, this is part of a larger effort by Starlink,
Speaker 10: you know, which is like the communications armor of space
Speaker 10: X to find a business. You know, they launched this thing.
Speaker 10: It costs a lot of money. It has a consumer business,
Speaker 10: but I think Musk and others have realized that it
Speaker 10: also has you know, bigger say, defense implications. This could
Speaker 10: be something that could be could be sold to governments
Speaker 10: as a possible communications tool. So I think it's about,
Speaker 10: you know, trying to create a business here with an
Speaker 10: eye you know, to an eventual IPO in the future.
Speaker 3: And therein lies basically the breadth of what you and
Speaker 3: so many colleagues are trying to do on this podcast
Speaker 3: of elong Inc. It's basically he has so many different businesses.
Speaker 5: Ultimately a lot of what perhaps.
Speaker 3: He's doing personally on X has ramifications on.
Speaker 5: A lot of these businesses.
Speaker 3: How has stalink been something that people have been nervous about?
Speaker 3: I mean and reference that this has sort of been
Speaker 3: played out a little bit with Ukraine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean SpaceX in general.
Speaker 10: Elon Musk's aerospace investments have been kind of a bright
Speaker 10: spot over the last year or so, amid you know,
Speaker 10: questions about demand for for Tesla cars, amid you know,
Speaker 10: his craziness on his personal social media feed.
Speaker 1: But of course it started to bleed over.
Speaker 10: We had this kind of flap over Ukraine where the
Speaker 10: Ukrainians were accusing Elon Musk of like shutting off access,
Speaker 10: and of course you know, Musk is getting sucked into
Speaker 10: this like larger geopolitical issue. On the other hand, SpaceX
Speaker 10: super successful as a defense contractor. It kind of makes
Speaker 10: sense to find this as a market for starlink.
Speaker 4: So two things. Musk has stated that he is not
Speaker 4: antisemitic right following that post that media reports that he
Speaker 4: is a bogus. But it was interesting that Prime Minister
Speaker 4: Benjaminesssenia who didn't ask him about it on the twenty
Speaker 4: minutes spaces either Bloomberg's match Chafkin breaking down what is
Speaker 4: an ongoing situation with Musk in Israel. Now, speaking of content,
Speaker 4: Merion Webster chose authentic as its word of the Year,
Speaker 4: highlighting the spread of misinformation on platforms like Elon Musk
Speaker 4: X and the rise of AI. Merion Webster's editor at large,
Speaker 4: Peter Soukolewski said in a statement quote, the line between
Speaker 4: real and fake has become increasingly blurred as a result
Speaker 4: in social media and marketing authentic has become the gold
Speaker 4: standard for building trust.
Speaker 11: I'm very happy to see Sam back.
Speaker 12: He's uniquely positioned to for Stuard Chip of this very
Speaker 12: imprtant company.
Speaker 1: It's much more than just a company.
Speaker 12: It is benefit of AI to humanity in a much
Speaker 12: larger way over the next few decades.
Speaker 9: And I think we've restored the patch.
Speaker 4: That was Coastal Adventures found a Vinode Coastler there reacting
Speaker 4: to the news of Sam Altman's return to open AI.
Speaker 4: Coast Adventures was the first venture firm to back open A.
Speaker 4: Let's get into it all the open AI drama. What
Speaker 4: we know the latest blombost Rachel mets back with me
Speaker 4: on set. So I kind of guess the big unknown
Speaker 4: is this tender off aware employees can sell shares to
Speaker 4: investor is But what you and I kind of discussed
Speaker 4: on Friday, which seems like a world ago, is that
Speaker 4: like a lot of these staff were willing to put
Speaker 4: life changing amounts of money on the line to back
Speaker 4: Sam Outman.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 13: I mean that was part of what people were saying
Speaker 13: when they were signing that letter, saying, if you don't
Speaker 13: bring Sam Oltman back to the company, after he was ousted,
Speaker 13: we may leave and go to Microsoft, And part of
Speaker 13: what they were saying sort of implicitly there is we
Speaker 13: may be leaving behind a life changing amount of money
Speaker 13: as far as this tender offer is concerned.
Speaker 5: That hasn't yet been completed.
Speaker 3: That hasn't yet been completed, nor has an interim board
Speaker 3: to a permanent board. Does that still in negotiations? And
Speaker 3: ultimately is it going to get more diverse? Those are
Speaker 3: really good questions right now. We're still trying to figure
Speaker 3: out a little bit of that.
Speaker 13: I have been reaching out to people, and I know
Speaker 13: other people on our team have also been doing likewise.
Speaker 13: There are still like a few questions here about how
Speaker 13: many people are going to be on the board, what
Speaker 13: is the composition ultimately going to be, Is Microsoft going
Speaker 13: to have a seat on the board. Things like that,
Speaker 13: as far as I can tell, are being flushed out
Speaker 13: right now, and I'm hoping to know very very soon.
Speaker 4: Actually, after we had the hot emoji salute thing on X,
Speaker 4: there was another emoji salute which was a ship. So
Speaker 4: something actually happened on open Aye on the product side
Speaker 4: while we were all trying to work out what was
Speaker 4: going on behind the scenes.
Speaker 7: What was it?
Speaker 5: Are you you're talking about Q?
Speaker 1: Are you talking about Q?
Speaker 14: Okay?
Speaker 13: I just wanted to make sure it's it's been five
Speaker 13: or six days that turned into about three weeks.
Speaker 4: They basically I released this new Voice products. Is that
Speaker 4: with the the like we're still shipping things and they're
Speaker 4: like playing with the ship?
Speaker 13: Yes, yes, yes, okay, Wait so you're sorry you're talking
Speaker 13: about bringing Voice on chatt to all customers. Yeah, So
Speaker 13: I asked about that and I was told that that
Speaker 13: was that was something that was intended to be shipped
Speaker 13: out in advance. So this has it had nothing to
Speaker 13: do with the ousting of sim Molmon, but the timing
Speaker 13: is certainly nice.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 3: We'll see how back they are now and whether the
Speaker 3: products keep on rolling. Rachel Metz, I mean, what a
Speaker 3: long few days it has been. It's great to have
Speaker 3: her all over the coverage.
Speaker 4: Welcome back to Bloomberg Technology. Amid Ludlow in San Francisco.
Speaker 3: And Caroline hid in New York is about what twelve
Speaker 3: thirty in New York time, nine thirty over.
Speaker 5: There with you.
Speaker 3: Let's check on these markets. Halfway through the trading day
Speaker 3: in the US, and I'm looking at really managing to
Speaker 3: still hold on to two tens of percent gain on
Speaker 3: the Nasdaq one hundred. There has been caution around some
Speaker 3: wh of the macro data coming from China, for example,
Speaker 3: maybe just a bit of a cool well down in
Speaker 3: overall enthusiasm around the Magnificent seven since we've had such
Speaker 3: a run up in those stocks. Nevertheless, still a few
Speaker 3: of them managed to dominate the leadership boards.
Speaker 5: When it comes to the nas that one hundred five
Speaker 5: year yields a Shadne line on.
Speaker 3: Because we've got yet more auctions in the debt market
Speaker 3: today five year crucial Actually yields are coming down ahead
Speaker 3: of that sale. I'm looking at what's happening in the
Speaker 3: world of crypto. We're just off about a little bit
Speaker 3: thirty seven thousand. Those still where we're trading, even though
Speaker 3: we've got a weak US dollar. Many feeling the course
Speaker 3: of Federal Reserve is done in terms of its hiking cycle.
Speaker 5: Move on and have a look at what's.
Speaker 3: Happening in the individual names though, because as you pointed
Speaker 3: out a little bit earlier, it is a course. Cyber Monday,
Speaker 3: Black Friday through Cyber mona Monday seem to be better
Speaker 3: than many had anticipated. A resilient consumer that helps the
Speaker 3: course well, the likes of Shopify, which is helping some
Speaker 3: of those companies that want to access that consumer actually
Speaker 3: sell and they're having a record set of numbers and
Speaker 3: of course that increases their volumes. Were seeing up five
Speaker 3: percent on the trading day for Shopify. Amazon of course
Speaker 3: is going to be benefiting from some of the Cyber
Speaker 3: Monday deals, but also interesting really relationship building going on
Speaker 3: between Salesforce and indeed Amazon Web Services at the moment
Speaker 3: announcing that expansion of their partnership. The move like deepening
Speaker 3: the product integration across data and AI and for the
Speaker 3: first time we'll offer select Salesforce products on the AWS marketplace,
Speaker 3: so really making ADBs even more integral across the board.
Speaker 3: So a bit of a tie up there, and Salesforce
Speaker 3: doing well ahead of its earnings as well.
Speaker 11: Ed.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it is interesting to see Black Friday Cyber
Speaker 4: Monday move the needle on space stocks. We haven't seen
Speaker 4: that in a little while. Let's turn to the shopping
Speaker 4: that is taking place over this holiday weekend. According to
Speaker 4: Adobe Analytics, US shoppers will spend up to twelve point
Speaker 4: four billion dollars online during today's Cyber Monday event that's
Speaker 4: based on stronger than expecting spending on Black Friday just gone,
Speaker 4: and the popularity of buying now pay later features. Joining
Speaker 4: us now is Robgarth, VP and General Manager of Retail
Speaker 4: at Salesforce, and so Salesforce has its own parallel data
Speaker 4: tracking very similar to Adobe Analytics. You guys are also
Speaker 4: updating and upgrading what you expect this Cyber Monday based
Speaker 4: on the strength of Black Friday.
Speaker 14: Yeah, that's right, and we are Salesforce aggregate signals from
Speaker 14: billions and billions to the shoppers across our platform, so
Speaker 14: it gives us a bird side view of what's happening
Speaker 14: in the industry, and we're feeling really positive. We saw
Speaker 14: great results in Black Friday of nine percent in the US,
Speaker 14: totaling sixteen point four billion dollars and that's really rivaling
Speaker 14: Cyber Monday as the two biggest digital days. So yeah,
Speaker 14: we're expecting strong to digit growth and it's really correlated
Speaker 14: to discounts. Consumers are seeking value, they're being diligent, and
Speaker 14: with the increase of discount rates, we're seeing the digital
Speaker 14: volume sore.
Speaker 3: That's really interesting, isn't it roll, Because I mean, you're
Speaker 3: a man with twenty five years not to date you,
Speaker 3: but about twenty five years and experience across retail in
Speaker 3: all of its guys is and many would be like, oh, yay,
Speaker 3: numbers are up, But in the last few years maybe
Speaker 3: it's felt more the inflation number has been why we've
Speaker 3: seen numbers up. But now you're saying it's actually volume two.
Speaker 14: Yeah, that's a really good distinction. Because we saw this
Speaker 14: soaring happening in the digital surge around the pandemic, why
Speaker 14: we couldn't go in the physical store, So that created
Speaker 14: a whole new baseline. So the last eight quarters or so,
Speaker 14: much of the growth was from inflation, not increased consumer demand,
Speaker 14: and that's what we saw going into the holiday. But
Speaker 14: now we're actually seeing increase orders. We're seeing increased consumers demand.
Speaker 14: Now they are seeking discounts, but they're buying more.
Speaker 3: Finally, and is that sustainable? We know that this is
Speaker 3: almost seasonal. Have this bulk buying that happens in this weekend,
Speaker 3: then it all calls off for about ten days and
Speaker 3: then suddenly everyone gets to act together just before.
Speaker 5: The next round of holidays.
Speaker 3: Is that sort of consumer resilience worldwide going to be
Speaker 3: something we see in the next bountl shopping.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 14: I've been talking to hundreds of retail executives worldwide for
Speaker 14: the last couple months leading into the holiday. Nobody had
Speaker 14: an overly bullish forecast for this holiday. They're hoping to
Speaker 14: get out of it, create a nice foundation with their
Speaker 14: inventory levels, with their margin. But what we're seeing, what
Speaker 14: we're hearing is a sense of growth. Retail executives are
Speaker 14: really positive. They're feeling good about the resiliency of the consumers.
Speaker 14: Now we'll shift by verticals. There are some stronger ones
Speaker 14: than others, but they're feeling good about They're really leaning
Speaker 14: into the data they understand about their consumers, leveraging AI
Speaker 14: to build those personal relationships with those consumers because it
Speaker 14: is about retention at this point, it's about increasing margin.
Speaker 14: And they're feeling like especially with the surprising results in
Speaker 14: Black Friday and what we're expecting during Cyber Monday, coming
Speaker 14: out of the year and feeling really good looking into
Speaker 14: the next fiscal year.
Speaker 4: The consumer electronics market is really interesting here because you
Speaker 4: guys are talking about really big numbers on the overall
Speaker 4: spend and electronics have been really popular. But electronics have
Speaker 4: also been some of the most heavily discounted. You know,
Speaker 4: just explain that the causal link between the discount and
Speaker 4: then the pocket buying of those electronic items like TVs
Speaker 4: and consoles for example.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is a.
Speaker 14: Direct correlation between discounts and buying. There's been a lot
Speaker 14: of narrative about pulling the holiday earlier in the season,
Speaker 14: but the reality is it really kicked in during Cyber
Speaker 14: Week where retailers stepped up. And what happens each year
Speaker 14: at is this idea of the game of discount chicken,
Speaker 14: and consumers always win. The only year they didn't was
Speaker 14: in twenty twenty one where we had a shortage of products.
Speaker 14: Remember that containers were stuck in the port of La
Speaker 14: couldn't get into the domestic supply chain, so retailers didn't
Speaker 14: have to discount. But they do again, and they've stepped up.
Speaker 14: We're seeing discount levels on average at thirty percent across
Speaker 14: the board. Consumer electronics are slightly higher as they normally are,
Speaker 14: but we're also seeing it in health and beauty. We're
Speaker 14: seeing it in active apparel, We're seeing it in also footwear.
Speaker 14: Footwear seems to be a big category both for discounts
Speaker 14: and for purchases online this holiday season.
Speaker 3: Well go VP and General manager of Retail at Salesforce,
Speaker 3: really want to thank you great conversation and we want
Speaker 3: to stick with sort of the theme of e commerce
Speaker 3: and shopping because Entropy is a verification company uses AI
Speaker 3: technology to authenticate luxury goods in particular. In fact, it's
Speaker 3: recently partner with TikTok shop to verify goods sold on
Speaker 3: the platform. We want to be now welcoming the founder
Speaker 3: of the CEO of Entropy in is videos, Trinny Vessan
Speaker 3: and videos fascinating way in which we're seeing people now
Speaker 3: buying direct from their social media platforms and wanting to
Speaker 3: have that trust element.
Speaker 5: You're using answerch intelligence.
Speaker 3: Just to make sure what decades and you know of
Speaker 3: hundreds and hundreds of these goods, is that you're able
Speaker 3: to analyze.
Speaker 5: You can then and the click of a switch, be
Speaker 5: able to analyze the product that you're buying.
Speaker 7: Right, that's exactly right.
Speaker 11: We've been at this for years and our goals to
Speaker 11: be a trustworthy standard and we find this to be
Speaker 11: a massive need, especially in today's era of live, live
Speaker 11: commerce and social commerce, where there's a lot of influencer
Speaker 11: based marketing and influencer based sales. And one of the
Speaker 11: key questions that both TikTok and ourselves wanted to answer
Speaker 11: is what are the right trust signals that we can
Speaker 11: send to enable shoppers to have confidence in what they buy.
Speaker 11: And so we enable this service which is on demand,
Speaker 11: and the idea is to take a few images of
Speaker 11: different items that are in front of you, ideally if
Speaker 11: you're a seller of these products, and the verification happens
Speaker 11: on the cloud. It's all based on AI algorithms that
Speaker 11: understand the minutia between real and fake product, and the
Speaker 11: output of a really speaking is a certificate, and the
Speaker 11: key aspect of this is that certificate is verifiable. It
Speaker 11: is backed by a financial guarantee. And to me, it
Speaker 11: feels like TikTok is ahead of the curve in understanding
Speaker 11: that this trust is absolutely necessary when you don't know
Speaker 11: who you're buying from or what exactly you find video.
Speaker 4: If we were just showing pictures of what the experience
Speaker 4: is like from the consumer's perspective, let's go deeper explain
Speaker 4: the technology, how the underlying technology works.
Speaker 7: Sure, so when we started this.
Speaker 11: Certification platform, the idea was that there's got to be
Speaker 11: some differences between real and fake products, especially in an
Speaker 11: era where the genuine manufacturer of these products have vertically
Speaker 11: integrated all the way from raw material sourcing up to
Speaker 11: retail and selling that product. So the question was is
Speaker 11: there a different standard of production and manufacturing between real
Speaker 11: products and fake products?
Speaker 7: And we manage to answer that using AI.
Speaker 11: So we built algorithms that identified that fairly confidently identify
Speaker 11: or accurately identified these differences, and then we scale that
Speaker 11: by just gathering more and more data. So today we
Speaker 11: have tens of millions of unique items in the database,
Speaker 11: both real and fake product. We source fake product ourselves, unfortunately,
Speaker 11: from manufacturers from all over the world. And this benefits
Speaker 11: in a sort of a community policing way, right because
Speaker 11: we collect data from the community on real and fake
Speaker 11: product and then we also disburst the benefits of that
Speaker 11: using the AI service.
Speaker 4: But just how do you monetize that process? How do
Speaker 4: you make money through the app?
Speaker 11: It's a software as a service platform and customers pay
Speaker 11: a plat fee for item, and we also back that
Speaker 11: with a financial guarantee. Because when we started, the question
Speaker 11: was always around why would you trust AI? Why would
Speaker 11: you trust a machine. So we wanted to basically force
Speaker 11: ourselves to be a good enough and be trustworthy enough,
Speaker 11: so we back every single item with a financial guarantee,
Speaker 11: even though we aren't part of the transaction. And I
Speaker 11: think that has led to one a large distribution of.
Speaker 7: Customer.
Speaker 11: Basically have customers in about eighty different countries, from big
Speaker 11: brands all the way to tiny little pawn shops anywhere
Speaker 11: in the world. This benefits consumers ultimately.
Speaker 5: What's the hardest thing to identify? To verify?
Speaker 11: I mean the it has gotten harder across all brands
Speaker 11: because counterfeiters also seem to have a feedback loop where
Speaker 11: they actually work with.
Speaker 7: Consumers saying, tell us what we can do better.
Speaker 11: Yeah, it is a weird upside down world that we
Speaker 11: live in where people have also made it a little
Speaker 11: more socially acceptable to buy kind of fits. But I
Speaker 11: think that is also because of the quality of counterfeits
Speaker 11: have gotten better. But what is important to understand is
Speaker 11: they cause. Counterfeits seem like a victim's crime, but they
Speaker 11: cause many hundreds of billions of dollars worth of losses
Speaker 11: for everybody involved, from the manufacturer all the way down
Speaker 11: to consumers. We have tested products where one hundred percent
Speaker 11: of the samples we tested had lead and cadmium paint
Speaker 11: on them.
Speaker 7: So it's not a victim of crime. You as a
Speaker 7: consumer are the victims.
Speaker 11: So you need to know what you're buying and make
Speaker 11: sure it's verified and authenticated and you have a certificate
Speaker 11: with it.
Speaker 4: Video cineressan Entropy founder and CEO, thank you so much
Speaker 4: for joining us here on the show. Now, coming up
Speaker 4: on Bloomberg Technology, we're going to discuss the fate of
Speaker 4: China's gaming ecosystem as byt Dance plans to cut hundreds
Speaker 4: of jobs in its gaming division. That conversation coming up next.
Speaker 4: This is Bloomberg Technology. Okay, time for talking tech. First up,
Speaker 4: Chinese President Jijiping will visit Shanghai for the first time
Speaker 4: since its COVID lockdown. According to local media, he'll visit
Speaker 4: the Shanghai Futures Exchange and several tech giants operating in
Speaker 4: the megacity on Tuesday to try and boost a waning
Speaker 4: private sector sentiment and sticking with China, Ali Baba has
Speaker 4: shutted its quantum computing research lab, assigned that the Chinese
Speaker 4: e commerce and cloud operator is considering more cutbacks to
Speaker 4: bulk up the bottom line. The lab's closure will result
Speaker 4: in the loss of just thirty staff plus Ali Barba
Speaker 4: co founder Jack Mar has a new venture, hang jaw
Speaker 4: Mar's Kitchen Food, which he set up last week with
Speaker 4: an initial registered capital of ten million U one that's
Speaker 4: one point four million US dollars. The business involves the
Speaker 4: sale of package agricultural products. According to information from China's
Speaker 4: National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System.
Speaker 3: CARCT, let's stick on China in particular, let's talk about
Speaker 3: byte Dance because of TikTok that we know here, but
Speaker 3: it's also planned to cut hundreds of jobs in Gaining
Speaker 3: and wind down at Shope's brand Newverse in a major
Speaker 3: withdrawal from the sector, according to sources, now a closure
Speaker 3: that marks bike dancers biggest roctory from old booming gaming
Speaker 3: industry dominated a course by Tencent, and it's smaller faux
Speaker 3: Netti's for more already. Please be welcome, Lisa cosmas Henson,
Speaker 3: PRESIDENTCU of NICO Partners and Market Research and Consulting, from
Speaker 3: covering the Asia games market in particular and its consumers.
Speaker 3: You all be perfect voice Lisa, and ultimately, was this
Speaker 3: a game of market share, were they unable to take
Speaker 3: on the giant of ten Cent.
Speaker 2: Ultimately, it may have been that, but I don't think
Speaker 2: that the games industry has ever been Bite dance primary focus.
Speaker 2: You know, TikTok and Doen, as it's known in China
Speaker 2: are just huge forces to be reckoned with around the world,
Speaker 2: and Byte Dance entered the game space with New Verse
Speaker 2: several years ago, but it really doesn't have a strong
Speaker 2: percentage of their global revenues in any given year. They
Speaker 2: have some flagship brands that they acquired, such as Mouton's
Speaker 2: mobile legends Bang Bang, but that's really well known throughout
Speaker 2: South Stasia hasn't even launched yet in China. This could
Speaker 2: be just at the five year mark they're looking at
Speaker 2: what their five year plan might have been and saying,
Speaker 2: maybe we need to restructure a bit.
Speaker 4: It's good to set the scene because like Tencent is
Speaker 4: the giant, not just in China, is the gaming giant globally.
Speaker 4: And even if by Dance kind of pulls back from
Speaker 4: the content title side, TikTok is such an inn Every
Speaker 4: time I'm on TikTok, there is some video games related
Speaker 4: content in there. Do you feel like that's kind of
Speaker 4: the secret weapon that byite Dance has to make money
Speaker 4: in gaming.
Speaker 2: Definitely, I think that TikTok reaches so many eyeballs around
Speaker 2: the world, and that a lot of those eyeballs see
Speaker 2: those ads and the user acquisition techniques that bike Dance
Speaker 2: has for game published globally, and that even if byte
Speaker 2: Dance completely shutters nuvers, which is still not even confirmed,
Speaker 2: we should.
Speaker 7: Say clearly that they will still.
Speaker 2: Benefit from the games industry globally because they will be
Speaker 2: part of the machine that helps acquire users for publishers everywhere.
Speaker 4: Lisa, the big regulatory crackdown on gaming in China.
Speaker 1: Was very much.
Speaker 4: And a socialist mantra around what society is exposed to
Speaker 4: Does that regulatory risk remain in China if you're a
Speaker 4: video games maker.
Speaker 2: The regulatory landscape in China has always been in the
Speaker 2: twenty years I've covered that market and will always be
Speaker 2: the number one hurdle to a known entity for game
Speaker 2: companies anywhere, even if they're domestic and if they're international,
Speaker 2: certainly to be able to launch games and then have
Speaker 2: success in that market. But I think that most of
Speaker 2: the regulatory changes are behind us now and that people
Speaker 2: have some stronger footing to move forward.
Speaker 7: I think that as we.
Speaker 2: Look at regulations in China, as with all markets around
Speaker 2: the world, companies need to respect the laws of that
Speaker 2: country that.
Speaker 7: They're trying to enter.
Speaker 2: And then you know, there's still huge amounts of money
Speaker 2: to be made in the Chinese games market any given year.
Speaker 2: Leaven this year, it's almost fifty billion dollars in revenue
Speaker 2: in China alone, and so I think that that's a
Speaker 2: big part of the global market and there will be
Speaker 2: benefit there for all companies.
Speaker 3: And that's why we saw some pretty high profile acquisitions.
Speaker 5: I mean, notably by Dance made One itself.
Speaker 3: Well back in twenty twenty one, I think it was
Speaker 3: it spledged four billion dollars in buying up Shanghai mont
Speaker 3: On Technology. Bloomberg's reported that they're likely to spin off
Speaker 3: sell that at least. Is there a market to be
Speaker 3: selling into this environment at the moment? Are gaming studios
Speaker 3: very valuable or less so than prior to the regulatory crackdown?
Speaker 2: Well, I think that there's a lot of internationalization of
Speaker 2: Chinese companies to the rest of the world in terms
Speaker 2: of murders, acquisition or selloffs or more and if Byte
Speaker 2: Dance were to sell off Moontan, then that game, their
Speaker 2: game Mobile Lank Legends Bang Bang is very popular throughout
Speaker 2: the world, and I think that they would have a
Speaker 2: buyer waiting for it. There are rumors that they would
Speaker 2: sell off Moontan.
Speaker 7: Again, I don't.
Speaker 2: Think that's by Dance's mainstay business. And there has been
Speaker 2: a ripe appetite for acquisitions, particularly out of the Middle East,
Speaker 2: such as in Saudi Arabia, with the Public Investment Fund
Speaker 2: or Savvy Games purchasing recently scopely and already dedicating thirty
Speaker 2: eight billion dollars to investments of any kind of company
Speaker 2: or studio to be able to build Saudi Arabia's games industry,
Speaker 2: you know, probably with an eye on becoming what China
Speaker 2: has become. So it's not surprising that there would be
Speaker 2: acquisition around the world and that Mouton would be one
Speaker 2: of the brands that might be something.
Speaker 7: That people will be interested in.
Speaker 2: I was a bit surprised that Bite Dance might want
Speaker 2: to sell it off because it is a well known
Speaker 2: brand in that game Mobile Legends Bang Bang is one
Speaker 2: of the biggest mobile esports titles around and they're about
Speaker 2: to launch in China. So why they would sell that off,
Speaker 2: I'm not sure, and I'm not sure that they will.
Speaker 2: It really depends what the extent of the restructuring of
Speaker 2: New Verse really is.
Speaker 4: Lisa Costmas Hansen, President and CEO of Nico Partners, thank
Speaker 4: you so much for joining us wearables powered by artificial
Speaker 4: intelligence and generating some buzz this holiday shopping season and
Speaker 4: one startups. Aipin is at the heart of the conversations.
Speaker 4: I want to bring in bloombergs Ustin car who's writing
Speaker 4: about it in the Tech Daily. We had the Humane CEO,
Speaker 4: bethni Bon on the show the other day. They're not
Speaker 4: the only game in town. Everyone is now all about
Speaker 4: hand motion talk us through it.
Speaker 12: Yeah, So I think everyone's trying to figure out in
Speaker 12: this sort of new era of digital interact what's the
Speaker 12: next step beyond a keyboard, beyond a mouse, be on
Speaker 12: a touch screen. And with Humane their AI can they're
Speaker 12: using sort of a laser beam from an AI lapel
Speaker 12: pin beams up onto your hand and you sort of
Speaker 12: interact with it by motioning, clicking with your fingers and
Speaker 12: thumb and Apple meta. Everyone's following suit with trying to
Speaker 12: figure out what gestures, what interactions are going to work
Speaker 12: more quickly than actually touching buttons in person? And I think,
Speaker 12: you know, it remains to be seen whether this technology
Speaker 12: will be taking off. But for decades people have been
Speaker 12: really thinking about, Yeah, what's this new interaction model, what's
Speaker 12: this future of design.
Speaker 7: When it comes to virtual.
Speaker 3: Reality, And it's not always work these sorts of gestures.
Speaker 5: Just take Google's Nest Hub for example.
Speaker 12: Yeah, I mean, if you have a Google Nestthub, the
Speaker 12: sort of tabletop tablet right now, you can go interact
Speaker 12: with it using your hands to stop an alarm or
Speaker 12: press play on something. You can sort of push torn
Speaker 12: to screen. It's sort of like shoving a ghost. It's
Speaker 12: a little weird, a little unnatural. You might find using
Speaker 12: your voice is easier. A lot of different companies, Yeah,
Speaker 12: a lot of different companies are using different gestures to
Speaker 12: you know, clenching your fists to quit something. They're using
Speaker 12: computer vision to read how your hands are interacting. Or
Speaker 12: the Apple Watch even you can turn it on an
Speaker 12: accessibility mode in order to play a song or skip
Speaker 12: an alarm. Stop things have sort of an action button
Speaker 12: just with the click of your index finger and thumb so,
Speaker 12: you know, I think it depends on whether this technology
Speaker 12: is actually going to be useful again. Right now, it's faster, sometimes.
Speaker 7: You just click. We're so used to it.
Speaker 12: But the technology is coming in a lot of big
Speaker 12: name tech brands or really experiment to get Microsoft has
Speaker 12: been doing it since the twenty tens with their Microsoft
Speaker 12: Connect playing sort of video games. But it's been difficult
Speaker 12: to interact with some of these systems, but they're getting.
Speaker 7: A lot better.
Speaker 5: Shoving a ghost.
Speaker 3: That's a beautiful analogy to be visualizing with. Thank you,
Speaker 3: Bluemeg's Austin car appreciate it. Meanwhile, that does it for
Speaker 3: this edition of Blue Meg Technology.
Speaker 4: Yeah, a big thank you to all of you listening
Speaker 4: to the podcast, Apple, Spotify, and the Bloomberg platforms from
Speaker 4: SF in New York. This is Inbog Technology
Speaker 7: M