Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news from the heart of
Speaker 1: where innovation, money and power collide in Silicon Valley and beyond.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow.
Speaker 2: Live from New York on Caroline Hyde and I'm much
Speaker 2: Shepherd in Washington in for Ed Ludlow.
Speaker 3: This is Bloomberg Technology coming up.
Speaker 4: The SEC goes after Elon Musk suing the tech billionaire
Speaker 4: over alleged disclosure violations with Twitter. Plus Elon Musk's other company, SpaceX,
Speaker 4: continues to make strides with two lunar roveroprobes headed for
Speaker 4: the moon.
Speaker 5: And we'll hear from.
Speaker 4: DC as we await a decision from the Supreme Court
Speaker 4: on TikTok's fate this week TSMC, I shine a light
Speaker 4: on TSM. These are the depository receipts traded here in
Speaker 4: the United States.
Speaker 5: Even as they traded.
Speaker 4: Lower in Asia, they're higher here in the United States.
Speaker 4: This as we get yet more focus coming from the
Speaker 4: administration of Biden trying to limit the access of TSMC,
Speaker 4: Samsung other chip makers into China, into Huawei, for example.
Speaker 4: But actually are some of these details around what the
Speaker 4: administration has announced actually better than the market had anticipated.
Speaker 4: Peter Elstrom can articulate it. Bloomberg Intelligence coming out with
Speaker 4: a note saying, actually, some of the limitations perhaps aren't
Speaker 4: that bad for phones, for PC chips in particular.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's right. So what we're seeing is that Biden
Speaker 6: administration is really rushing out a couple of last rounds
Speaker 6: of regulations before they leave office and hand off to
Speaker 6: the Trump administration. In the latest round, what we're hearing
Speaker 6: is that the Commerce Department is asking TSMC to I
Speaker 6: want Semi Inductor, which makes chips for Apple and Nvidi
Speaker 6: and also Samsung other foundries, to put new restrictions on
Speaker 6: their business with Chinese customers.
Speaker 7: In particular.
Speaker 3: The reason is.
Speaker 6: They know that there was a Chinese company that was
Speaker 6: an intermediarity for chips that were made by TSMC and
Speaker 6: then ended up in the hands of Huawei Technologies, the
Speaker 6: Chinese company that's been blacklisted by the US, and it's
Speaker 6: not supposed to be able to get these kinds of
Speaker 6: chips and instead they got that. So now the Commerce
Speaker 6: Department is asking for new regulations where these producers TSMC
Speaker 6: and Samsung will need a license from the US before
Speaker 6: they do business with certain companies in China for the
Speaker 6: most advanced semiconductors, Peter, do we.
Speaker 2: Expect these measures to get this same kind of unwelcome
Speaker 2: reception and objections that the ones unveiled on Monday regarding
Speaker 2: AI technology received.
Speaker 6: That was really an exceptional situation you're referring. There were
Speaker 6: a new round of AI restrictions that hit Nvidian particular.
Speaker 6: Nvidia issued a very sharply critical comment at that time, saying,
Speaker 6: this is not the time for the Biden administration to
Speaker 6: be putting in new rules, especially just days before they
Speaker 6: step out the door and hand off to another administration
Speaker 6: that may have different priorities. The Biden administration, to be fair,
Speaker 6: did give a very long comment period. Those rules are
Speaker 6: not going to go into effect Intel well into the
Speaker 6: Trump administration. But you raise a good question. These chip
Speaker 6: companies are not happy about seeing new rules kind of
Speaker 6: rolled out almost daily now that are going to affect
Speaker 6: their businesses going forward, especially from an administration that's not
Speaker 6: going to be around to enforce them.
Speaker 3: Bloomberg's Peter Elstrom, thank you.
Speaker 2: In other chip news, Intel, the once dominant chip maker,
Speaker 2: now struggling to revive its business and finances plans, to
Speaker 2: turn its venture capital Arm into a separate fund with
Speaker 2: a new name. Bloombergsey and King is here for more.
Speaker 2: I thank you for joining us. How much of a
Speaker 2: blow is this latest development for this storied company, this
Speaker 2: until the capital Venture Arm has invested and put money
Speaker 2: into the likes of ASML in VMware.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean, it's not really a blow for the company.
Speaker 8: It's more on an admission that we really need to
Speaker 8: be focusing what resources we have on the core mission,
Speaker 8: which is better products, better production, because those are the
Speaker 8: things that are going to go us back in the game.
Speaker 8: The venture capital Arm is kind of a prototype. It's
Speaker 8: a kind of the venture capital arm for corporations and
Speaker 8: been a model for years and something that they've used
Speaker 8: to promote other parts of the industry or other technologies,
Speaker 8: and so you could argue that it's kind of peripheral
Speaker 8: to the job at hand right now.
Speaker 4: The job at hand is, as you say, focusing in
Speaker 4: what then are the other moves in. You've ported a
Speaker 4: lot about the future of el Terra, for example, which
Speaker 4: it has a significant holding in.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean, it has these investments that it's made
Speaker 8: over the years, these companies that is brought in like
Speaker 8: al Terra, like Mobile Eye, And this started on the
Speaker 8: previous Pat Gelsinger. They're saying, look, these things aren't realizing
Speaker 8: the value that they should be doing, so we need
Speaker 8: to find a way to monetize them. So currently Alteria,
Speaker 8: which I think it paid about fifteen billion dollars for
Speaker 8: back in the day, it's looking for investors, people who
Speaker 8: will bring in money to own part of that as
Speaker 8: it tries to take that particular unit to an IPO
Speaker 8: along the in the future.
Speaker 2: I what is her timeline on a successor and then
Speaker 2: also when we might hear how this new venture arm
Speaker 2: being separated will be finally rebranded.
Speaker 3: They have a lot of moving parts right now.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean there's an awful lot to track with
Speaker 8: what's happening with this company. They have not given a
Speaker 8: timeline for when they need when they will bring in.
Speaker 3: A CEO, but they need to do that right.
Speaker 8: They need to do this quickly if they need if
Speaker 8: they're going to change direction and make it work, because
Speaker 8: it's not like things are getting better. In terms of
Speaker 8: what's happening with Intel Capital. They've said it's going to
Speaker 8: be really a separate entity by the second half.
Speaker 3: Of this year.
Speaker 8: They wouldn't answer our questions about what it means for
Speaker 8: the finances and where the money is going to come from.
Speaker 8: All they've said is that this will free this venge
Speaker 8: capital unit up to raise capital from external sources, and
Speaker 8: that obviously implies that they're not going to give it
Speaker 8: as much money as I had in the past, if
Speaker 8: at all.
Speaker 5: Thanking was the latest on Intel. We thank you coming up?
Speaker 4: Did Elon Musk just cheap Twitter shareholders and more than
Speaker 4: one hundred and fifty million dollars? The SEC claims, So
Speaker 4: we discussed the alleged disclosure violations that happened way back
Speaker 4: when he spent more than forty billion on Twitter. This
Speaker 4: is Blueberg Technology.
Speaker 2: Elon Musk is being sued by the US Securities in
Speaker 2: Exchange Commission. The SEC is claiming that the tech billionaire
Speaker 2: cheated Twitter shareholders more than one hundred and fifty million
Speaker 2: dollars by waiting too long to disclose his growing steak
Speaker 2: in Twitter as he prepared a takeover bid for more.
Speaker 2: We're joined by Bloomberg's Nicola White here in Washington. Thank
Speaker 2: you for all your reporting on this. This case has
Speaker 2: been building for a while, and yet it did not
Speaker 2: end the usual way that a lot of these do,
Speaker 2: which is with a settlement announcement too.
Speaker 9: Yes, and I think that's pretty on brand for Elon Musk, right,
Speaker 9: So normally these kinds of cases are usually settled because
Speaker 9: they are even though this has generated tons of headlines,
Speaker 9: it is a very very straightforward case. Did you file
Speaker 9: this form or not and did you do it on time?
Speaker 9: And Elon Musk did not, according to the SEC. And
Speaker 9: not only did he not file it on time, he
Speaker 9: did the wrong form. So the SEC said in the
Speaker 9: process he made one hundred and fifty million dollars, and
Speaker 9: you know that really didn't go over well for the.
Speaker 5: Rest of Twitter shareholders.
Speaker 4: One hundred and fifty million dollars not so well for
Speaker 4: Twitter shareholders. Nikola, you've done the mass expert. Of course,
Speaker 4: the lawyer Famsk is saying this is a sham. Ultimately,
Speaker 4: he was just a day late. He didn't mean to
Speaker 4: be doing any of this, and usually you get a
Speaker 4: sort of one hundred thousand dollar fine, not a lot
Speaker 4: more than that. So can you just take the other
Speaker 4: side of the question here, how much do we know
Speaker 4: that there was intent?
Speaker 9: Well, that's there's lots of questions. We don't know right,
Speaker 9: But according to that SEC, he knowingly was purchasing stockpiling
Speaker 9: all this stock while he was also considering a takeover,
Speaker 9: very very as it turns out to be very public
Speaker 9: takeover bid of Twitter. And while he was doing that,
Speaker 9: I mean that triggers just straightforward SEC disclosure requirements and
Speaker 9: he didn't do it. And that's where the SEC just
Speaker 9: comes down to a black and white case of did
Speaker 9: you do it or did you not?
Speaker 2: Nikola in fighting, this is Elon Musk hoping for a
Speaker 2: better deal under Trump. Trump has picked Paul Atkins, who
Speaker 2: has railed against some four and what he sees as
Speaker 2: high penalties in securities cases.
Speaker 3: Is he likely to.
Speaker 2: Get a better hearing with a new administration and new
Speaker 2: SEC chair.
Speaker 9: One would think that would be the case, But again
Speaker 9: there's a lot that we don't know, because when it
Speaker 9: comes down to it, this is a pretty straightforward case.
Speaker 9: The SEC could have taken a more controversial angle. They
Speaker 9: could have said you committed fraud, you allegedly committed fraud,
Speaker 9: and they didn't go that far. So it's a strict
Speaker 9: liability case that it's known in securities law, did you
Speaker 9: do it or did you not? So some securities lawyers
Speaker 9: that I've talked to have said, this is again pretty
Speaker 9: straightforward and may not be such a controversial thing for
Speaker 9: Paul Atkins to pick up.
Speaker 5: Now, Paul Atkins is.
Speaker 9: On record over his years and years in the public
Speaker 9: eye of advocating for lower penalties.
Speaker 5: So who knows, Nikolo White, We'll stay across it. Wait,
Speaker 5: thank you.
Speaker 4: Meanwhile, let's talk about another you know must company, SpaceX,
Speaker 4: continuing to make strides in rocket launches. The company successfully
Speaker 4: launched a pair of commercial satellites carrying two lunarovaprobes headed
Speaker 4: for the Moon.
Speaker 5: Here with more on the commercial space race.
Speaker 4: Chad Anderson, he's Space Capital managing partner joining us now,
Speaker 4: And look, we have perhaps got a slight pushback in
Speaker 4: the next SpaceX launch that we're anticipating. But let's just
Speaker 4: talk about these lunarovas in particular. What does this mean
Speaker 4: for the space industry?
Speaker 10: Sure, I mean, twenty twenty five is going to be
Speaker 10: a massive year for the space economy, and you don't
Speaker 10: need any more proof than what's happened in the first
Speaker 10: couple of weeks. Right, So, yesterday SpaceX launched one hundred
Speaker 10: and thirty payloads different satellites to orbit on a transporter mission.
Speaker 10: Our portfolio companies made up half of those satellites, so
Speaker 10: that was a lot of.
Speaker 7: Fun to watch.
Speaker 10: This morning, they launched two lunar rovers on the same rocket,
Speaker 10: one of which is a Japanese Lander and another is
Speaker 10: Firefly based in Texas and their robotic precursor missions for
Speaker 10: NASA in basically with sensors to do exploratory work in
Speaker 10: preparation for humans to go and land there. And there's
Speaker 10: another lunar mission that's launching next month, So while these
Speaker 10: landers are on their way to the Moon, we're going
Speaker 10: to launch another one as well. And like you mentioned,
Speaker 10: it was supposed to happen today, but it looks like
Speaker 10: weather's pushed it till tomorrow. SpaceX's next gen launch vehicle,
Speaker 10: massive fully reusable launch vehicle, is going to bring the
Speaker 10: price of accessing orbit way down, is going to transform
Speaker 10: the space economy and really accelerate all this growth that
Speaker 10: we're saying so far.
Speaker 5: So Starship we watch.
Speaker 4: We also anticipate one am today New York time, where
Speaker 4: the Blue Origin, which competes against FULK nine, maybe.
Speaker 5: A bit bigger in terms of payloads, is actually going
Speaker 5: to get up with its test flight.
Speaker 4: Yeah, what does that mean, this sort of introduction of
Speaker 4: yet more competitors in the space.
Speaker 10: Well, this is really important because at the moment, the
Speaker 10: SpaceX dominates, right, I mean yeah, I mean it's great
Speaker 10: for a lot of people who are invested in the company.
Speaker 10: They are launching the majority of rockets. I mean, twenty
Speaker 10: twenty four was a record year. SpaceX launched over half
Speaker 10: of the global launches. Last year they launched over ninety
Speaker 10: percent of all the mass that went to orbit went
Speaker 10: through SpaceX. Right, they are the best option on the
Speaker 10: market and in some cases the only option on the market.
Speaker 10: So to have other players and other competition is going
Speaker 10: to be huge. We've been looking at the interesting thing
Speaker 10: between SpaceX and Blue Origin is just you know, you
Speaker 10: got Bezos and Musk right to send to billionaires, but
Speaker 10: they were the companies were founded at the same time
Speaker 10: in two thousand and two. Up until a couple years ago,
Speaker 10: they had invested the same amount of money into both companies.
Speaker 10: And you look at what SpaceX has done over that period, right,
Speaker 10: just really dominated the market, enabled all of this entrepreneurship,
Speaker 10: innovation and private capital. Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos has been launching
Speaker 10: these sort of luxury trips to the edge of space
Speaker 10: with these small rockets. New Glen is their vehicle that
Speaker 10: is going to launch satellites and enable them to do
Speaker 10: all those things like lunar missions and everything else that
Speaker 10: Blue Origin wants to do. So it's really important that
Speaker 10: they get this vehicle up, and it's really important for
Speaker 10: the rest of us because competition is good. It ushers
Speaker 10: in innovation and brings prices down for everyone.
Speaker 2: Chad, what do you see the incoming Trump administration doing
Speaker 2: to help foster the space industry from your standpoint, and
Speaker 2: what are some of the things you would like to
Speaker 2: see the new president do when he takes office.
Speaker 10: Well, I mean, we'd certainly expect to see a greater emphasis,
Speaker 10: a greater promotion of the space economy, a greater integration
Speaker 10: of commercial capabilities into government programs. I think we've already
Speaker 10: seen in this transitionary period the geopolitical turmoil. I think
Speaker 10: a lot of that is going to spur additional growth
Speaker 10: and defense spending, a lot of which is going to
Speaker 10: go to space companies. There's going to be an increased
Speaker 10: reliance on the providers that that have the capability. SpaceX again,
Speaker 10: is chief amongst them. They're most likely to benefit here,
Speaker 10: not just because of his buddy status, but also because
Speaker 10: they have the best solution on the market and again
Speaker 10: in some cases the only solution on the market. So
Speaker 10: the government is going to rely even more heavily on
Speaker 10: Starshield and their government businesses, but others are going to
Speaker 10: benefit as well with more competition coming online, more novel
Speaker 10: new capabilities. We do expect to see streamlining of regulation,
Speaker 10: you know, and pro growth stances to really help some
Speaker 10: of these new and novel space capabilities come online this year.
Speaker 2: Chad, let's talk about some of those regulations and some
Speaker 2: of the regulatory pressures that the industry has faced. What
Speaker 2: are some of the specific areas of relief that the
Speaker 2: industry would like to see well.
Speaker 10: Regulation plays a key role in a lot of space activities. Interestingly, though,
Speaker 10: the US government has actually been very responsive to this.
Speaker 10: For example, I mean, there was an Australian company that
Speaker 10: launched a satellite that could look up and evaluate and
Speaker 10: see other satellites and what was going on there. You
Speaker 10: couldn't do that in the US and many other countries,
Speaker 10: but there was a regulatory loophole in Australia.
Speaker 3: That allowed them to do that.
Speaker 10: As soon as they launched that satellite, the US government
Speaker 10: responded and enabled US companies to be competitive, and we're
Speaker 10: now seeing a lot of that data coming down. So
Speaker 10: we've already seen responsiveness from a regulatory front. I think
Speaker 10: an interesting angle here is that we expect to see
Speaker 10: a sort of about face on climate policy, and so
Speaker 10: I think climate solutions are going to be a key
Speaker 10: area for private capital, as they were during his last term,
Speaker 10: for you know, companies to come in and provide innovative solutions,
Speaker 10: solutions funded by private capital.
Speaker 3: Chad Anderson of Space Capital, we thank you.
Speaker 4: As we all await a decision from the Supreme Court
Speaker 4: on TikTok, let's just look to the future of social
Speaker 4: media under the incoming Trump administration and perhaps an alternative
Speaker 4: to content moderation as we know it middleware. It's essentially
Speaker 4: software built into tech platforms which gives users, rather than platforms,
Speaker 4: the power to moderate their own social media experiences.
Speaker 5: One of the people who've been looking into it authoring.
Speaker 4: On it Renee darresta social media research at georgetownsmcurt School
Speaker 4: of Public Policy and co authoring the report on this
Speaker 4: very topic and what's so interesting is where the examples
Speaker 4: are being used and technically what this third party would offer.
Speaker 4: So is it already being used in decentralized platforms like
Speaker 4: are you Sky?
Speaker 5: And what exactly is it helping us do as a user?
Speaker 5: Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 11: I'm excited for talking about this publicly. It's been so
Speaker 11: much an obscure academic area of research for a long time.
Speaker 11: So middleware tries to give users the ability to better
Speaker 11: control their experience. The two areas that we talk about
Speaker 11: this really mattering in our content curation, meaning deciding what
Speaker 11: you're going to see in your feed, and then moderation,
Speaker 11: so deciding what you are not going to see in
Speaker 11: your feed, or what you're going to see less of or.
Speaker 7: What might have a label over it.
Speaker 11: Middleware right now is most visible on blue Sky because
Speaker 11: Blue Sky is providing an opportunity for users to go
Speaker 11: onto the platform and create their own feeds where you
Speaker 11: can subscribe to something like a topic where you say,
Speaker 11: you know what, I really want to follow a feed
Speaker 11: about my favorite sports team. I really want to follow
Speaker 11: a feed about like gardening books, you name it. Somebody's
Speaker 11: created that feed and they've curated the people in it
Speaker 11: and you can kind of you add a little emoji
Speaker 11: to a post that indicates that you want it to
Speaker 11: show up in the feed. It's just a really interesting
Speaker 11: way to get more granular and have more control. And
Speaker 11: on the flip side, you can do the same thing
Speaker 11: with labeling. If there's certain people that you don't want
Speaker 11: to see content from, if there's certain classes of content
Speaker 11: that you just don't want to see, you can subscribe
Speaker 11: to a labeler and that labeler will label content and
Speaker 11: take it out of your feed or hide it from you.
Speaker 11: So it's a really interesting opportunity to go there and
Speaker 11: to have this much more modular kind of create your
Speaker 11: own experience, Renette.
Speaker 2: This sounds like something that would have a fair amount
Speaker 2: of appeal for users who've been frustrated by their experiences,
Speaker 2: especially in the last year or so in some of
Speaker 2: the major platforms. But there does seem to be a catch,
Speaker 2: and that is you need interoperability and you need the
Speaker 2: buy in of those platforms, and the paper even makes
Speaker 2: note of that, how do you get past that hurdle?
Speaker 11: Well, one of the reasons why we did the paper
Speaker 11: now is arguing that the adoption on platforms like Blue
Speaker 11: Sky or even platforms like Mastodon.
Speaker 5: Which preceded Blue Sky.
Speaker 11: This protocol based social media provide an opportunity to experience
Speaker 11: it without trying to prevail upon the giants to do
Speaker 11: it themselves. There have been papers written about middleware in
Speaker 11: the past, Frank Fukuyama at Stanford rot One in twenty
Speaker 11: nineteen arguing that this would actually be a really effective
Speaker 11: tool to reduce centralized platform power right to devolve more
Speaker 11: power down to the user. I think you are seeing
Speaker 11: signs that platforms want to do that. You're seeing Elon
Speaker 11: Musk talk about giving users more control over the feed.
Speaker 11: You're seeing Mark Zucker makes some pretty remarkable pendulum swings
Speaker 11: in particular directions that's alienating a large part of the
Speaker 11: user base, saying like, hey, actually, here, you can control
Speaker 11: it yourself. I think it's something you're going to see
Speaker 11: from them. They're going to start to try to opt
Speaker 11: in in small ways and give users small opportunities. But otherwise,
Speaker 11: you're absolutely right. It is very much at you at
Speaker 11: the pleasure of the platforms that such a thing can
Speaker 11: exist when dealing with one of the large centralized giants.
Speaker 2: And we've seen some of those centralized giants that moderation
Speaker 2: has been a labor intensive endeavor. How would middlewere not
Speaker 2: suffer from the same sort of challenge, and who would
Speaker 2: do the heavy lifting?
Speaker 11: This is where I think the trade offs actually are. Obviously,
Speaker 11: we're starting to see people in the community who are
Speaker 11: doing this as almost a labor of love for their community.
Speaker 11: It's very much like, hey, I, as a member of
Speaker 11: this community, maybe a marginalized community, don't want to see
Speaker 11: content from these people who I think are likely to
Speaker 11: harass me. And so so you're seeing labelers exist to
Speaker 11: meet a very particular niche need. What we write about
Speaker 11: in the paper though, is that ultimately you do have
Speaker 11: to create some sort of economic means by which it's
Speaker 11: not just a volunteer labor of love in order for
Speaker 11: it to scale in any material way. So we tried
Speaker 11: to present as balanced a view as possible. Here's a
Speaker 11: vision for what's possible in the world. Here are the
Speaker 11: challenges in the ways that we need to get past it.
Speaker 11: But I think again, as you're noting, you're seeing a
Speaker 11: moment where people are fleeing. You know, people's fled x,
Speaker 11: I should say on the left because they didn't like
Speaker 11: Elon's changes to moderation and the vibes that are created.
Speaker 11: People had previously fled to parlor and truth social when
Speaker 11: they were on the right and didn't like certain you know, dynamics.
Speaker 11: So I think that you're starting to see users begin
Speaker 11: to realize that they don't have to commit to one site.
Speaker 11: And this is where I think there's a real interesting
Speaker 11: opportunity moment.
Speaker 4: And interest from the georgetownmccourt School of Public Policy bringing
Speaker 4: middleware into the border conversation.
Speaker 5: We appreciate you for it. Welcome back to blue Bok Technology.
Speaker 5: I'm Karin Hyde in New York and I'm.
Speaker 2: Mike Sheppard in Washington as we await the Supreme Court's
Speaker 2: decision on TikTok. We're joined now by Representative Rajah Krishna Morphy,
Speaker 2: a Democrat from the state of Illinois. Thank you so much,
Speaker 2: Congressman for your time. You were one of the co
Speaker 2: authors of the legislation that is now in the Justice's
Speaker 2: hands at the Supreme Court. Obviously, we're hearing from the
Speaker 2: arguments on Friday that it will likely break in favor
Speaker 2: of the law, assuming that it's upheld. What are your
Speaker 2: expectations for its enforcement under the Trump administration, which would
Speaker 2: be essentially responsible for it.
Speaker 12: I think the Trump administration will enforce the law. I
Speaker 12: talked to Michael Walls, the National Security Advisor, who's a
Speaker 12: friend and colleague of mine from the House, and they're
Speaker 12: as concerned as we are are about the CCP, the
Speaker 12: Chinese Communist Party, being able to control TikTok. We all
Speaker 12: want to see TikTok survive and flourish, but that requires
Speaker 12: Byte Dance to sell TikTok, which I hope they do
Speaker 12: as soon as today.
Speaker 4: You're on both the Intelligence and the China Select Committees.
Speaker 4: You've heard the evidence as to why you worried from
Speaker 4: a national security perspective, but we've also heard from Byte
Speaker 4: Dance time and time again. Then it's very difficult to
Speaker 4: separate and ultimately be able to sell off. And they're saying, look,
Speaker 4: we're going dark on Sunday. If this is upheld, you
Speaker 4: will not be able to access this app. Does that
Speaker 4: worry you for the user base?
Speaker 12: I think this is called negotiating tactics. At the same
Speaker 12: time that we hear this, we hear that thanks to
Speaker 12: your reporting at Bloomberg, the CCP is now entertaining a
Speaker 12: sale of the company. Look, we and the Congress don't
Speaker 12: have to legislate around the priorities or prerogatives of the
Speaker 12: Chinese Communist Party. Their decision making is up to them.
Speaker 12: But our law fires that Byte Dance sell TikTok, and
Speaker 12: I hope that they comply with the law soon.
Speaker 5: Would you like Ilo Musk to be that purchaser.
Speaker 12: Oh, I'm not going to make any decisions about who
Speaker 12: should be the purchaser. Let the free enterprise system along
Speaker 12: with our government regulators decide that. But suffice it to say,
Speaker 12: I think your previous guest is from the McCourt School
Speaker 12: at Georgetown and Frank McCourt, after whom that school was
Speaker 12: named as one of the big bidders right now for TikTok,
Speaker 12: as well as Kevin O'Leary of Shark Tank. There's a
Speaker 12: whole line of people waiting to buy TikTok if only
Speaker 12: Byte Dance would pick up the phone and answer their calls.
Speaker 2: Congress, what would a prospective buyer need to demonstrate to
Speaker 2: satisfy your concerns that there is a full and complete
Speaker 2: separation from China.
Speaker 12: There's some very specific requirements within the law, but for instance,
Speaker 12: one of the issues is likely going to be that
Speaker 12: the new buyer is not going to rely on the
Speaker 12: CCP's algorithm, and of course that there's real separation between
Speaker 12: the buyer and where they store the data of users
Speaker 12: and access from China. That was the whole problem, by
Speaker 12: the way, with Project Texas, which was the effort by
Speaker 12: TikTok to try to convince both the buying and the
Speaker 12: Trump administrations that American user data was safe from authorities
Speaker 12: in China. Repeatedly that was found to be untrue, and
Speaker 12: repeatedly TikTok executives came to Capitol Hill and told falsehoods
Speaker 12: about the separation that didn't exist.
Speaker 2: Congressman, we've seen as odds grow that TikTok will go
Speaker 2: dark indeed on Sunday, users talking about using other Chinese
Speaker 2: based apps, for instance, like Lemonade or Note. Did those
Speaker 2: present any sorts of security concerns for you and your
Speaker 2: colleagues on Capitol Hill?
Speaker 3: And would this law apply?
Speaker 12: After years of investigation of byte Dance, we know that
Speaker 12: byte Dance's applications are problematic. One of them is TikTok,
Speaker 12: as we've talked about, and others Lemonade. So Lemonade would
Speaker 12: also be covered by this particular law with regard to
Speaker 12: any other social media applications that might be controlled by
Speaker 12: a foreign adversary. A future executive branch determination would be
Speaker 12: needed to take action under the law, and so I'll
Speaker 12: leave that to the Trump administration and other future administrations
Speaker 12: to decide.
Speaker 4: This becomes, ultimately, though, a potential game of whack a mole.
Speaker 4: And also there's the ongoing argument that sure, you get
Speaker 4: rid of TikTok, maybe even lemonade, but ultimately China is
Speaker 4: able to observe us through other websites through the internet
Speaker 4: writ large.
Speaker 5: What else do you think needs to occur here?
Speaker 12: Well, one thing that doesn't get covered is the data
Speaker 12: broker law that went into effect the same day that
Speaker 12: this particular ByteDance divestitured law took effect as well, and
Speaker 12: that data broker law prevents basically data that's harvested from
Speaker 12: other websites in the United States from being sold to
Speaker 12: entities that are controlled by foreign adversaries. So implementation of
Speaker 12: that law will be crucial under the Trump administration and
Speaker 12: others to make sure that we can kind of help
Speaker 12: to wall off some of this data from the CCP
Speaker 12: and other foreign adversaries.
Speaker 4: More broadly, we've seen the market reaction from a potential
Speaker 4: movement away from TikTok. Meta shares done well on the
Speaker 4: back of it, So to have snapped. Does that raise
Speaker 4: concerns from a competition perspective for you?
Speaker 12: Well, I think that probably the market is responding to
Speaker 12: the fact that users are migrating to Instagram reels or
Speaker 12: YouTube shorts to snap and to other platforms of their
Speaker 12: own volition because they know that this particular platform may
Speaker 12: not be advisable to be on if bite Dance doesn't
Speaker 12: comply with the law. Now again, I hope byte Dance
Speaker 12: does comply with the law, and I hope that TikTok
Speaker 12: is able to survive and flourish. There's still time to.
Speaker 5: Do that, just without the algorithm.
Speaker 4: Rajah Christian Murthley, of course, Democrat Representative for Illinois. Great
Speaker 4: expertise there, We thank you very much.
Speaker 2: Coming up, Robert Hillmer, founder of Gowana Capital, will join
Speaker 2: us to discuss his firm's latest efforts to back some
Speaker 2: of the most highly coveted private tech companies.
Speaker 3: This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 2: Gowana Capital has announced plans to deploy one point three
Speaker 2: billion dollars. It's the most sought after private technology companies globally.
Speaker 2: These are the likes of SpaceX, Anthropic Figma. Gowana is
Speaker 2: one of the fastest growing investment firms focused on the
Speaker 2: private market, and for more on that, we're joined now
Speaker 2: by its founder, Robert Helmer.
Speaker 3: Robert, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 2: What is this secret to getting into these sorts of allocations?
Speaker 3: First of all?
Speaker 2: And then what are you looking at next in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five?
Speaker 7: Well, great to be here, thank you.
Speaker 13: So we address the marketplace through two key deal channels.
Speaker 13: So firstly, we invest directly in these companies through primary rounds,
Speaker 13: but uniquely we also invest via the secondary market, which
Speaker 13: involves providing liquidity to early investors and employees.
Speaker 7: So I wouldn't call it a secret.
Speaker 13: But what we uniquely packaged is the ability to partner
Speaker 13: with these great tech companies and provide them with growth capital,
Speaker 13: but also be a.
Speaker 7: Liquidity provider to owners of stock.
Speaker 13: And through both of those deal channels, we've built some
Speaker 13: pretty incredible portfolios.
Speaker 4: How much easier, Robert, is it to access byte Dance
Speaker 4: on the secondary market right now? How much are you
Speaker 4: focusing in on that company and the concerns around TikTok.
Speaker 13: Well, I don't want to comment on any particular company.
Speaker 5: Why not you own it?
Speaker 13: Yeah, I can't comment on any specific companies or fundraising
Speaker 13: at the moment, but what I can tell you is
Speaker 13: as a firm, we are laser focused on what we've
Speaker 13: called the global tech leaders.
Speaker 5: So why is it fight Dance therefore still a tech leader?
Speaker 13: Well, look, by Dance is obviously an incredibly large company,
Speaker 13: so it's been very successful with its business model amongst
Speaker 13: many other companies like Figma, Rippling.
Speaker 7: And Thropic.
Speaker 13: So we have these thirty companies that we've isolated that
Speaker 13: we think will accrue a disproportionate amount of value over
Speaker 13: the next ten years.
Speaker 4: You must have been taking calls though from investors that
Speaker 4: are perhaps worried about the geopolitical influence or some of
Speaker 4: these key names.
Speaker 5: Has that been a key concern for any of them?
Speaker 13: So the way we invest is we don't take any
Speaker 13: extremely outsized positions in our funds, So we have certain
Speaker 13: parameters around a percentage of portfolio, etc. So that any
Speaker 13: one company never represents twenty or thirty percent.
Speaker 7: Of a portfolio.
Speaker 13: So the feedback we've had from our investor base is
Speaker 13: that they want to continue backing Goanna, because as we
Speaker 13: look forward, in my opinion, there's never been a more
Speaker 13: exciting time to be investing in technology with these secular
Speaker 13: tailwinds AI, software, data infrastructure, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Robert, you just brought up AI that seemed to be
Speaker 2: such a focus in twenty twenty three and especially last year.
Speaker 2: But what about quantum computing. We did see a bit
Speaker 2: of a brushback pitch thrown at this technology by Jensen One.
Speaker 2: How does that affect your thinking toward quantum and toward
Speaker 2: other areas?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 13: Look, so, as I said, I can't focus or bring
Speaker 13: up any specific companies, but when we look across a
Speaker 13: number of sub sectors within technology, software, data, infrastructure, and AI,
Speaker 13: I think there is an amazing tapestry of opportunities over
Speaker 13: the next ten years. Some of those companies that we're
Speaker 13: really excited about are Rippling, Anthropic, Figma, amongst many others.
Speaker 13: And so where Laser focused, as I said, on these
Speaker 13: global tech leaders and partnering with our investor base on
Speaker 13: helping them get exposure to the those really important companies.
Speaker 2: Robert, how does the change of leadership here in Washington,
Speaker 2: the fact that you view the table of opportunities that's
Speaker 2: been set in front of you and your company.
Speaker 7: It's certainly very exciting at the moment.
Speaker 13: So I was just in Australia and Hong Kong, and
Speaker 13: what I can tell you globally, though, is there has
Speaker 13: never been more interest, at least in my career in
Speaker 13: investing in the United States and specifically investing in US
Speaker 13: private tech companies.
Speaker 7: The world right now wants more.
Speaker 13: Exposure to the US and US tech companies than I
Speaker 13: have ever seen.
Speaker 4: And yet the valuations are pretty frothy. If you're looking
Speaker 4: at yet more and more three trillion dollar companies that
Speaker 4: are publicly listed, are you starting to hear that there's
Speaker 4: a worry about we're hitting a top level with some
Speaker 4: of the market capitalizations on the private market.
Speaker 5: How long can we sustain these levels?
Speaker 13: I don't think so that's not too much of a concern.
Speaker 13: I think when you look at multiples in public markets,
Speaker 13: while they're certainly not cheap and they're full, I don't
Speaker 13: think they're bubbles at all. For the megacap, there's multiple
Speaker 13: companies that are around twenty times earnings, which is I
Speaker 13: think quite reasonable given the growth profile and the earnings
Speaker 13: they generate. To be clear, we obviously focus on private markets,
Speaker 13: not public markets, and so for us, our timeline is
Speaker 13: over the let's call it three to seven year type
Speaker 13: out look. So when we look at these companies, we're
Speaker 13: looking into the years, not the quarters. And as I said,
Speaker 13: when we look at the global tech leaders that we're
Speaker 13: focused on for the next few years, we've never been
Speaker 13: so excited.
Speaker 5: A couple of outlieres.
Speaker 4: There are the public markets like Palenteer or Tesla are
Speaker 4: trading one hundred and seventy times future earnings.
Speaker 5: So there are some outlieres.
Speaker 4: Obviously, and I'm interested as to whether or not you're
Speaker 4: frustrated that there aren't enough outliers actually going public.
Speaker 13: Well, we enjoy some of these companies staying private longer.
Speaker 13: Obviously that's the universe we focus on. So we're not frustrated.
Speaker 13: But I think what's important there is these decisions to
Speaker 13: list by some of these companies were made, let's say
Speaker 13: eighteen to twenty four months ago, when markets were very different,
Speaker 13: and so I think what you're going to see is
Speaker 13: the plans to list were made eighteen or twenty four
Speaker 13: months ago, and so I think for investors there will
Speaker 13: be a lot of exits for those in private markets
Speaker 13: over the next two to three years.
Speaker 4: Go on a capital founder Robert Helmer, very different model.
Speaker 4: We appreciate it, thank you. In other news, Microsoft is
Speaker 4: actually attempting to lure more people to use its AI chatbot.
Speaker 4: The company announced it will rebrand it's chatchbt rival from
Speaker 4: Microsoft co Pilot two, Microsoft three six five co Pilot chat.
Speaker 5: Basically, the company is hoping to move.
Speaker 4: Actually raising visibility the adoption that actually this is a
Speaker 4: chatbot making that evident. Colossal Biosciences it aims to de
Speaker 4: extinct species the left the earth long ago. Today the
Speaker 4: company is announcing a new two hundred million dollar funding
Speaker 4: round to further those efforts. Were welcoming benlam CEO and
Speaker 4: founder of Colossal Biosciences to the show. And you're now
Speaker 4: a deca Korn value of more than ten billion dollars.
Speaker 5: What are you going to be using the money for
Speaker 5: at the moment?
Speaker 14: Then, Well, our three flagship projects, the Manmate, the Thiascene,
Speaker 14: and the Dodo are all on track, and the Thylascene
Speaker 14: is actually ahead of schedule. So we're doubling down right
Speaker 14: now on the existing species. We're doubling down on some
Speaker 14: of our newer technologies like our multiplex editing genome engineering
Speaker 14: tools as well as our artificial wombwork. And then we're
Speaker 14: also looking at ways that we can accelerate some of
Speaker 14: those technologies in the conservation.
Speaker 4: I'll get to conservation in a minute, but you're of
Speaker 4: course renowned for using crisper technology to get us there,
Speaker 4: but also to be birthing animals x uterro. I mean
Speaker 4: then in the next steps and how would actually functionally
Speaker 4: get to a mammoth for example.
Speaker 14: Yeah, So where we are in the process of the
Speaker 14: mammoth in the thylacine.
Speaker 7: Is actually we're in the editing phase.
Speaker 14: We've collected all the ancient genomes, We've done all the
Speaker 14: ancient DNA assembly, we've done all the comparative genomics to
Speaker 14: the closest living relatives, which we also had to go
Speaker 14: build those genomes because they didn't exist in some server somewhere,
Speaker 14: And now we're using those targets from our systems and
Speaker 14: our AI to actually go make those edits.
Speaker 7: We're still a little bit further away.
Speaker 14: On the DODO, but since we're in the editing phase,
Speaker 14: we now feel that we could also devote more attention
Speaker 14: to the artificial womb side. All of our first species
Speaker 14: will be born through surrogacy, so that means through another animal,
Speaker 14: through a surrogate animal.
Speaker 7: But long term, we hope that not only.
Speaker 14: Are extinct species, but hopefully critically in dangered other species
Speaker 14: can be born x utero using these artificial wombs. So
Speaker 14: we have a seventeen person team working on the artificial
Speaker 14: womb work right now, and I think that hopefully if
Speaker 14: we're successful in the next two years, we'll be able
Speaker 14: to birth the first animal that's ever been born fully exhutero,
Speaker 14: which will be much smaller than a mammoth. Right, It'll
Speaker 14: be something from a lab like a mouse or marsupial.
Speaker 4: Four hundred and thirty five million is what you've raised
Speaker 4: so farther that's a lot for a seventeen person team.
Speaker 4: Where is that money ultimately having to be best placed?
Speaker 4: I'm sure expenses are huge, but is it labs? Where
Speaker 4: is the real expense here?
Speaker 14: Yeah, so we actually have one hundred and seventy scientists
Speaker 14: full time at Colossal seventeen, specifically on just that new
Speaker 14: artificial womb team, but then we also fund forty academic
Speaker 14: postdocs from seventeen at the top universities around the world.
Speaker 14: We have ninety plus academic advisors and partners around the world,
Speaker 14: and then we fund research in academic labs. So when
Speaker 14: you add all that up, it's about two hundred and
Speaker 14: twenty people that are actively working in kind of this
Speaker 14: global consortium towards this project. And then Colossal has two
Speaker 14: labs in Dallas, a lab in Melbourne, Australian, a lab
Speaker 14: in Boston, Massachusetts that's.
Speaker 7: All working on that.
Speaker 14: All of it needs the latest and greatest infrastructure and technology,
Speaker 14: go through genetics and engineering, and then also things like robotics.
Speaker 5: Look, I'm going to ask a pointed question. Roll with
Speaker 5: me here. But you're a man who's.
Speaker 4: Made his name in AI applications. That's so hot right now,
Speaker 4: in space in particular, so hot right now we're literally
Speaker 4: seeing You said you're interested in biodiversity ultimately in climate,
Speaker 4: and part of the West Coast is burning, and I'm
Speaker 4: interested as to why this is the best place to
Speaker 4: be putting your talents to be resuscitating mammoths into the
Speaker 4: world when we can't conserve what's currently living.
Speaker 14: Yeah, many people told me, given that I was in
Speaker 14: AI before school, in defense tech before school, that I
Speaker 14: should just stick to that and not move into this
Speaker 14: before some of these things. But you know what, we
Speaker 14: started the business, there was a trend line that was
Speaker 14: terrifying that we were going to lose up to fifteen
Speaker 14: one to five percent.
Speaker 7: Of all biodiversity between now and twenty fifty.
Speaker 14: Fast forward a few years, that's been re forecasted by
Speaker 14: external scientists to fifty percent five zero. We are going
Speaker 14: to potentially lose up to fifty percent of all biodiversity
Speaker 14: between now and twenty fifty. And so we know that
Speaker 14: modern conservation works hasn't worked the speed of which we
Speaker 14: are eradicating species and changing the climate and changing it
Speaker 14: and changing the planet.
Speaker 7: So we need new.
Speaker 14: Tools against the fight of loss of biodiversity. And so
Speaker 14: I view it as we need a the extinction Toolkit.
Speaker 14: It'd be better to have a the extinction Toolkit and
Speaker 14: not need it, then needed the extinction Toolkit.
Speaker 9: And not have it.
Speaker 14: So I felt like this was probably the best place
Speaker 14: for me to spend the next decade or so of
Speaker 14: my life.
Speaker 4: Well said, how many people are on that journey. From
Speaker 4: a VC perspective, t WG Global was easy to get
Speaker 4: more people to commit.
Speaker 14: You know, I'd say that the success that we are
Speaker 14: seeing both on the scientific discovery, so every single announcement
Speaker 14: that we make there's you know, not one, but typically
Speaker 14: you know two to seven scientific first and every single
Speaker 14: announcement that we make, which is pretty remarkable. I think
Speaker 14: that that it's a testament to the team that we've
Speaker 14: really brought together both internally and externally. That has given
Speaker 14: investors a lot of confidence on the progress that we've made.
Speaker 14: And so I've never had any raising capital be easy.
Speaker 14: I've heard stories about how people raise tons of money
Speaker 14: on Napkins and Silicon Valley. That's never been my life.
Speaker 14: But no, I think that that we've had tremendous support
Speaker 14: from Mark Walter and Thomas Tall and others that have
Speaker 14: been involved in the business for quite some time.
Speaker 4: And it's great to catch up with you. Come back
Speaker 4: when you've got your next scientific breakthrough. CEO of Colossal
Speaker 4: by Sizedness, we appreciate it. Another two hundred million dollars
Speaker 4: in the bank now. That does it for this edition
Speaker 4: of Bloomberg Technology Tomorrow, don't want to miss it. Andreil
Speaker 4: founder Palma Lucky joining Bloomberg Technology for live exclusive interview. Also,
Speaker 4: net't forget on our podcast You can find it on
Speaker 4: the terminal as well as online on Apple, Spotify, and
Speaker 4: iHeart from New York from Washington.
Speaker 5: This is Bloomberg Technology.