Speaker 1: We're from Marhart where innovation, money and power Collie in
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley, NBN. This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde.
Speaker 2: And Ed Ludlove.
Speaker 3: I met Ludlow in San Francisco. Caroline Hyde is off.
Speaker 3: This is Bloomberg Technology. Coming up, we have full coverage
Speaker 3: of the first presidential debate and discuss the state of
Speaker 3: crypto with former Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswami. Plus we'll
Speaker 3: break down Apple's business in China as iPhone shipments jump
Speaker 3: forty percent following discounts, and a new survey shows Tesla's
Speaker 3: design changes are confusing customers and undercutting its quality. Will
Speaker 3: discuss that and so much more through the hour. Happy Friday,
Speaker 3: June twenty eighth, twenty twenty four, Let's get right to
Speaker 3: financial monde markets. The S and P five hundred and
Speaker 3: new all time high, the NASDAK one hundred, a new
Speaker 3: all time high, briefly breaching the twenty thousand mark for
Speaker 3: the first time, yields a little higher, and Bitcoin, even
Speaker 3: though we kind of have this risk on, sentiment softer
Speaker 3: by a percentage point below sixty one thousand US dollars
Speaker 3: per token. The main factor in the markets this morning
Speaker 3: is not the first presidential debate, but the PCE reading decelerating,
Speaker 3: the PCE being the Fed's preferred gauge or measure of inflation.
Speaker 3: That's kind of the discussion on the week. I also
Speaker 3: want to take a look at one specific name in
Speaker 3: the context of what we are about to talk about,
Speaker 3: which is the presidential debates, and that is Trump Media
Speaker 3: and Technology Group. This morning, we actually traded significantly higher,
Speaker 3: maybe more than three and a half percent. You see
Speaker 3: that we're now down six tenths of a percent. This is,
Speaker 3: of course the parent company, a true social that a
Speaker 3: company went public via a spack with ownership ties to
Speaker 3: Donald Trump. We will get to this in due course,
Speaker 3: but for now, let's get a recap of the first
Speaker 3: presidential debate hosted by CNN that took place in Atlanta
Speaker 3: last night.
Speaker 4: There's more to be done. There's more to be done.
Speaker 4: Working class people are still in trouble.
Speaker 5: He has not done a good job, He's done a
Speaker 5: poor job. And inflation's killing our country. It is absolutely
Speaker 5: killing us.
Speaker 4: Price of eggs, the price of gas, the price of housing,
Speaker 4: the price of a whole range of things. That's why
Speaker 4: I'm working so hard to make sure I deal with
Speaker 4: those problems. I was recently in France for D Day
Speaker 4: and I spoke to all about those heroes that died.
Speaker 4: I went to the World War II cemetery, World War
Speaker 4: One cemetery. He refused to go to. He was standing
Speaker 4: with his four star general and he told me, said,
Speaker 4: I don't want to go in there because they're a
Speaker 4: bunch of losers and suckers. My son was not a loser,
Speaker 4: was not a sucker. You're the sucker. You're the loser.
Speaker 5: There's nobody that's taken better care of our soldiers than
Speaker 5: I have. The money that we're spending on this war,
Speaker 5: we shouldn't be spending. It should have never happened. I
Speaker 5: will have that war settled between Putin and Zelensky as
Speaker 5: president elect before I take office on January twentieth. I'll
Speaker 5: have that war settled. If we had a real president,
Speaker 5: the president that knew that was respected by Putin, he
Speaker 5: would have never he would have never invaded Ukraine. Israel
Speaker 5: would have never been invaded in a million years by Hamas.
Speaker 5: You know why, because Iran was broke with me. I
Speaker 5: wouldn't let anybody do business with him.
Speaker 4: Everyone from the United Nations Security Security Council straight through
Speaker 4: to the G seven to the Israelis and Netnaw himself
Speaker 4: have endorsed a plan. The only one who wants the
Speaker 4: war to continue is Hamas under Roe v.
Speaker 5: Wade, you have late term abortion, you can do whatever
Speaker 5: you want. Depending on the state, you can do whatever
Speaker 5: you want. We don't think that's a good thing. We
Speaker 5: think it's a radical thing. We think the Democrats of
Speaker 5: the radicals, not the Republicans.
Speaker 4: It's been a terrible thing, what you've done. The fact
Speaker 4: is that the vast majority of consuls and scholars support
Speaker 4: ROW when it was decided support it ROW, and that
Speaker 4: was that's this idea that they are all against. It
Speaker 4: is just ridiculous. This guy's three years younger and a
Speaker 4: lot less competent.
Speaker 5: Well, I took two tests, cognitive tests. I ast them.
Speaker 6: I just won two club championships.
Speaker 3: Bloomberg's Kaye Lines joins us with more from DC and Kaylee,
Speaker 3: I just want to read you the headline of the
Speaker 3: most read story on Bloomberg this morning, Biden's disastrous debate
Speaker 3: accelerates doubts over candidacy. Let's start with how poorly Biden
Speaker 3: is perceived to have performed relative to Trump in that.
Speaker 6: Debate incredibly poorly.
Speaker 7: Edin you have bipartisan lawmaker's political strategists saying that this
Speaker 7: morning Joe Biden, at eighty one years old, very much
Speaker 7: showed that he is an octogenarian president. The White House
Speaker 7: has now said that he was battling a cold, but
Speaker 7: his voice was raspy at times, his speech was halting,
Speaker 7: He took many long pauses, misstated facts, at one point
Speaker 7: actually saying that he beat medicare dis not adequately articulating
Speaker 7: his own policy in many instances, which gave Donald Trump
Speaker 7: many openings to attack him. Donald Trump, for his part,
Speaker 7: seemed much more energetic focused, uncharacteristically so perhaps for the
Speaker 7: Donald Trump that we typically see at campaign rallies, working
Speaker 7: within the format of this debate, which of course was
Speaker 7: Mike's cut off when it was not your turn to speak,
Speaker 7: lack of a live studio audience. Things that the prevailing
Speaker 7: notion was might help Biden more going into the debate
Speaker 7: actually turned out to potentially be advantageous to Donald Trump.
Speaker 7: That said, Donald Trump did lie repeatedly throughout this debate
Speaker 7: on things like economic statistics under his administration, like the
Speaker 7: lowest black unemployment rate of all time that actually happened
Speaker 7: during the Biden administration. He said that tariffs would not
Speaker 7: cause higher inflation, something that almost every single economist.
Speaker 6: We speak to would dispute.
Speaker 7: He also said that he didn't say things that he
Speaker 7: has said on tape right again about the outcome of
Speaker 7: the twenty twenty election, and yet was not fact checked
Speaker 7: by the moderators and was struggling Joe Biden struggling to
Speaker 7: fact check him himself. He repeatedly called him out for
Speaker 7: lying many times, but then could not articulate what the
Speaker 7: actual truth of the matter was. So all in all,
Speaker 7: it was a very difficult night for Joe Biden, and
Speaker 7: there is a lot of talk here in Washington this morning,
Speaker 7: including from those within the Democratic Party, as to whether
Speaker 7: or not he can actually go forward as the nominee.
Speaker 3: The placement of the debate, as well as the words
Speaker 3: Joe Biden on Google trends, for example, is interesting. Unsurprisingly,
Speaker 3: all of the names involved are trending on x, the
Speaker 3: platform formerly known as Twitter.
Speaker 6: We've woken up to.
Speaker 3: A world this morning, perhaps different to what we expected,
Speaker 3: where we are debating President Trump's candidacy and what might
Speaker 3: happen next. It's a long way to go to the
Speaker 3: next debate in September ahead of the election in November.
Speaker 6: What are you hearing in Washington, d C.
Speaker 7: Well, there is this idea that considering this was a
Speaker 7: very early debate, this happened in June before either Trump
Speaker 7: or Biden are officially their party's nominees. At this point,
Speaker 7: they're still just presumptive nominees. There is a question of
Speaker 7: when we get to that Democratic Convention in Chicago as
Speaker 7: to whether or not it might be an open convention.
Speaker 7: Of course, that is his decision only President Biden is
Speaker 7: able to make. He already has had the adequate number
Speaker 7: of delegates to secure the nomination pledged to him. They
Speaker 7: have to remain so unless he decides to drop out
Speaker 7: of the race and direct them to cast their votes
Speaker 7: for someone else. Of course, that is a decision that
Speaker 7: the President those close to him, including the First Lady
Speaker 7: Joe Biden, will have to make. But that is a
Speaker 7: very real conversation that is happening here in Washington, and
Speaker 7: was happening in Atlanta last night, where a number of
Speaker 7: the surrogates that were there in the spin room for
Speaker 7: the Biden campaign included those who potentially the prevailing thought
Speaker 7: is could be someone who is the nominee instead of him,
Speaker 7: like California Governor Gavin Newsom, who was swarmed when he
Speaker 7: hit the spin room floor after the debate. Now, he
Speaker 7: did say Joe Biden is going to be the nominee
Speaker 7: that he has as full backing. Other potentials like Michigan
Speaker 7: Governor Gretchen Whitmanner have said the same within the last
Speaker 7: twenty four hours. But it certainly is a great difficulty
Speaker 7: that the Democratic Party at largest space as they struggle
Speaker 7: with this idea that Donald Trump does seem now to
Speaker 7: be even farther ahead in this race, if betting markets
Speaker 7: are to be believed, than he was heading in.
Speaker 6: To this debate.
Speaker 3: Finally, Kayley, and quickly, you know what I see on
Speaker 3: social media, beyond the memes and endless clips that have
Speaker 3: been shared, is a frustration from American voters that they
Speaker 3: didn't learn anything. There was actually no answer to many
Speaker 3: of the questions posed from a policy or platform perspective.
Speaker 3: Going into a presidential election campaign.
Speaker 7: No frequently, and they did not answer the questions that
Speaker 7: were directed at them at all, instead pivoting to entirely
Speaker 7: different subjects. Certainly you saw social media in a tizzy
Speaker 7: not even fifteen minutes into this debate, many Democrats expressing
Speaker 7: exasperation with the performance of Joe Biden, but many others
Speaker 7: still calling into question how the US ended up with
Speaker 7: these two as candidates. We know that voters are very
Speaker 7: unhappy with these choices. They are hoping for any other choice,
Speaker 7: which is why you are seeing other third party camp
Speaker 7: and it's like RFK Junior gaining more support. But certainly
Speaker 7: there is a lot of frustration among the voting populace
Speaker 7: as to what they saw last night. And I would
Speaker 7: just point out when voters wanted to hear about the issues,
Speaker 7: even issues that Joe Biden, what we understood from his campaign,
Speaker 7: were planning to drive home on hit Donald Trump hard
Speaker 7: on like abortion or democracy. Many of those moments were missed.
Speaker 7: At one point, when he was talking about abortion, it
Speaker 7: spiraled into a story about immigration and a woman who
Speaker 7: had been murdering. It got very confusing at times. It
Speaker 7: was really difficult for policy to break through for either
Speaker 7: of these candidates at all. And of course, even under
Speaker 7: direct questioning, Donald Trump was asked repeatedly if he would
Speaker 7: accept the results of this election, no matter what the
Speaker 7: outcome was, and he would not give a straight yes
Speaker 7: or no answer.
Speaker 3: Bloombo's Katie lyones out of Washington, d C. A late
Speaker 3: night for you. Grateful to have you with us on
Speaker 3: Bloomberg Technology. Surprise for many to the world we woke
Speaker 3: up to this morning. But we'll keep the conversation going
Speaker 3: because coming up we will be joined by former Republican
Speaker 3: presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswami for his take on last night's
Speaker 3: presidential debate. Bloomberg has reporting that mister Ramaswami is close
Speaker 3: to Trump and the Trump team and advising on some
Speaker 3: areas of tech policy. That's the conversation we're going to have.
Speaker 3: This is Bloomberg Technology. Let's break down the presidential debate
Speaker 3: from last night with Vivek Ramaswami, a former Republican candidate himself.
Speaker 3: He joins me now from Atlanta. Mister Ramaswami, Good morning
Speaker 3: to you this Morningberg Technology. We're a technology show and
Speaker 3: I've wanted to ask you to come on following the
Speaker 3: debate because of your background, because of the reporting of
Speaker 3: your relationship with former President Trump and the Trump campaign team.
Speaker 3: But we should talk about last night so the floor
Speaker 3: is yours.
Speaker 6: Your reaction to that debate, Well, look, I was.
Speaker 2: In Atlanta last night, got back to my home in
Speaker 2: Columbus today, and after sleeping on it, my conclusion is
Speaker 2: the same as what we saw last night, which is
Speaker 2: this was sad for the United States of America to
Speaker 2: see the current President, Joe Biden in the mental state
Speaker 2: that is actually in. There was a lot of joking
Speaker 2: about drug testing or were they going to drug him up?
Speaker 2: It looked more like he had a lobotomy, and I
Speaker 2: just think that that's a sad thing, speaking as an American,
Speaker 2: regardless of partisanship, when you think about the country that
Speaker 2: has produced the greatness of innovation and the leaders leading
Speaker 2: companies in the private sector. To see the person who's
Speaker 2: leading the federal government himself be as absent as he
Speaker 2: was yesterday, I think is really a damning indictment of
Speaker 2: the modern Democratic Party now the president.
Speaker 3: Yep, mister Ramswami, may I just jump in, and it's
Speaker 3: interesting that that you ran as a president's candidate for
Speaker 3: the Republican Party. You're representing former President Trump, but you
Speaker 3: started by speaking about President Biden's performance.
Speaker 6: Any of frustrated this morning.
Speaker 3: That we actually didn't hear any answers to the questions
Speaker 3: posed to former President Trump about what he would do
Speaker 3: if re elected, what some of his policy platforms were.
Speaker 3: What did you learn about what former President Trump might
Speaker 3: do were he to be re elected to the White House.
Speaker 2: Well, he asked me about my impressions. And I think
Speaker 2: the number one most salient thing about the debate for
Speaker 2: anybody who watched it was in needed the surprise of
Speaker 2: Biden's performance, which is why I commented on it in
Speaker 2: response to your question. But I agree with you it's
Speaker 2: much more productive to talk about the policy vision of
Speaker 2: the man who's likely to be the next president, which
Speaker 2: is Donald Trump. And I think one of the things
Speaker 2: we took away from yesterday was talking about the revival
Speaker 2: of American success and a focus on the economy. The
Speaker 2: fact of the matter is President Trump, I think demonstrated
Speaker 2: that despite being a member of a different economic class
Speaker 2: than most Americans as a billionaire, he is still somebody
Speaker 2: who understands prices have gone up but wages have remained flat.
Speaker 2: And I think that part really landed. I wish the
Speaker 2: debate had gone into greater depth on policy. Frankly, if
Speaker 2: Biden had shown up with great mental acuity. We might
Speaker 2: have had that opportunity. In many cases, the things he
Speaker 2: said were incoherent. That stopped that debate for me as
Speaker 2: useful as it could. But what do we learn last
Speaker 2: night and then the combination of recent speeches that President
Speaker 2: Trump has given. Economic growth is a core objective for
Speaker 2: Donald Trump. That's not a left leaning message or a
Speaker 2: right leaning message. Economic growth is an inherent and worthy objective.
Speaker 2: From bringing down the tax burden, to the regulatory burden,
Speaker 2: to drilling for oil and natural gas and increasing the
Speaker 2: supply of energy to bring down costs. Those are core
Speaker 2: issues that I think matter not only to business owners
Speaker 2: and economically minded voters. It's a factor that matters to
Speaker 2: all voters. And that was one of the more powerful
Speaker 2: things that came out of last night was the discussion
Speaker 2: about the economy and the economic vision for the next
Speaker 2: four years.
Speaker 3: Mister Remeswome, may I just point out what you said
Speaker 3: on prices and also wage inflation. You said prices have
Speaker 3: gone up, what wages have remained flat? That is no
Speaker 3: longer true. If you look today. We saw inflation in
Speaker 3: May down fractionally almost company to be ages we're up
Speaker 3: seven tenths of a percent. I just want to get
Speaker 3: the latest dates me out. Let me just comment on
Speaker 3: that in direct response to you. So your numbers, guy,
Speaker 3: I like that, as you well know.
Speaker 2: I believe you well know. Inflation is accumulative, right, So
Speaker 2: that is the inflation rate.
Speaker 6: But inflation over.
Speaker 2: The course of the last several years. You want to
Speaker 2: look at actual mini consumer goods and products are up
Speaker 2: by over fifty percent since the time Biden took office.
Speaker 2: How much does a carton of egg cost? How much does
Speaker 2: a car cost? How much is your electric bill? Those
Speaker 2: are undoubtedly higher than when Joe Biden took office, and
Speaker 2: it is a hard fact that wages have not gone
Speaker 2: up at the same rate. So I don't want to
Speaker 2: play this verbal jiu jitsu of the last month's numbers.
Speaker 2: If you want to get into facts, I'm all in
Speaker 2: favor of it. Those are the hard, indisputable facts, and
Speaker 2: we don't have to argue the facts because most Americans
Speaker 2: who pay those bills already have a deep understanding of that.
Speaker 2: And I do think that is going to be a
Speaker 2: guiding force in what we see this November.
Speaker 3: Mister Ramasami, you and I both agreed on one thing,
Speaker 3: which is that we will talk about technology and policy
Speaker 3: from it from a technology standpoint. You mentioned energy and
Speaker 3: oil in particular. One of the things that I reported
Speaker 3: was that you act as almost in intermediary between former
Speaker 3: President Trump and Elon Musk, and it seems as if
Speaker 3: the former president in Elon Musk are now speaking.
Speaker 6: Or at least have spoken.
Speaker 3: Where do you see them finding middle ground and an
Speaker 3: influence if former President Trump were to return to the
Speaker 3: White House.
Speaker 2: I respect the two of them individually, both as people
Speaker 2: who have succeeded in this country through the private sector.
Speaker 2: I think we all share a belief, all three of us,
Speaker 2: that we need more of those voices in American politics
Speaker 2: driving change, not as professional politicians, but people who look
Speaker 2: at political problems through the lens of an entrepreneur and
Speaker 2: a business leader objectively. And so I think that that's
Speaker 2: a common cause that I would say is formIn basis
Speaker 2: for the friendship with both of them. The reality is
Speaker 2: one of the things that we're all rooting for as well,
Speaker 2: is not only an economic revitalization of the US, but
Speaker 2: a revitalization of innovation in the United States of America.
Speaker 2: I think we have seen a decline in the rate
Speaker 2: of innovation in the US. But that is ultimately our
Speaker 2: competitive advantage in the end is the ultimate innovation and
Speaker 2: the innovative spark of starting the greatest companies known to mankind,
Speaker 2: generally here in the United States, which then has collateral
Speaker 2: benefits of creating jobs and creating wealth. But it's also
Speaker 2: the founding spark of American exceptionalism. Right Our founding fathers
Speaker 2: were the likes of Thomas Jefferson, who not only wrote
Speaker 2: the Declaration of Independence, he also invented the swivel chair
Speaker 2: and the polygraph test. Benjamin Franklin. I think of Elon
Speaker 2: Musk as a modern Benjamin Franklin type of figure. Invented
Speaker 2: the lightning rod and the Franklin stove. Yet these were
Speaker 2: also the people who led the country politically and set
Speaker 2: it into motion. So I think we have a chance
Speaker 2: to revive that seventeen seventy six kind of spirit. And
Speaker 2: I think there's a role for a modern Washington, a
Speaker 2: modern Jefferson, a modern Benjamin Franklin. I think in many
Speaker 2: ways Donald Trump is stepping up to be the modern
Speaker 2: George Washington of our time. Elon Musk reminds me of
Speaker 2: the Benjamin Franklins of their day, and so I think
Speaker 2: we found different common cars in our love of this
Speaker 2: country to revitalize that founding spirit. Even though each of
Speaker 2: us have had our own successes separately in the private sector.
Speaker 2: And I'm biased, but I'm of the view that we
Speaker 2: need actually more of those people stepping up to play
Speaker 2: different roles in defining the future of our politics in America.
Speaker 3: Mister Ramaswami, can I ask just very quickly, is as
Speaker 3: a matter of checking, have you spoken to the former
Speaker 3: president since last night?
Speaker 2: I haven't spoken to him since last night. No.
Speaker 3: The reason I ask is about your role with him
Speaker 3: directly and also his team. You know, one of the
Speaker 3: areas of reporting of focuses been discussions you may have
Speaker 3: had with him around crypto and the role that crypto
Speaker 3: may play if former President Trump returned to the White House.
Speaker 3: Could you tell me a bit about that and the
Speaker 3: conversations that you've had someone that.
Speaker 2: Started actually after I left the race. I left the
Speaker 2: race after the Iowa caucus, but before the New Hampshire primary,
Speaker 2: and I could tell you one part that was sort
Speaker 2: of totally public on that stage was in New Hampshire
Speaker 2: began my conversations with Donald trum about why in my
Speaker 2: campaign I had been opposed to a central bank digital
Speaker 2: currency a CBDC. And one of the things that impressed
Speaker 2: me about President Trump was his intellectual curiosity about that issue.
Speaker 2: I've met a lot of politicians, including Republicans, who have
Speaker 2: heard the vague acronym CBDC, but don't know the first
Speaker 2: thing about what it actually means, but they pretend like
Speaker 2: they do. Donald Trump was the opposite of that. He
Speaker 2: actually said, what the heck is that? Tell me what
Speaker 2: it is? And then he asked me what are the
Speaker 2: best arguments for why they're actually supporting it? And I
Speaker 2: thought that was a mark of a good leader who
Speaker 2: wanted to understand the best arguments for the other side.
Speaker 2: And later on he said it from the campaign stage
Speaker 2: and an event, so I feel comfortable sharing this part
Speaker 2: of it where he came out then after a thoughtful consideration,
Speaker 2: after careful study of the issue of his opposition to
Speaker 2: a central bank digital currency, and he explained why it's
Speaker 2: the threat to liberty. The flip side of that is
Speaker 2: why you might favor decentralization and alternative options from people
Speaker 2: just staying tethered to the dollar of holding the FED
Speaker 2: accountable by having other options in the marketplace of alternative currency.
Speaker 2: So I think there's been a number of productive conversations
Speaker 2: he and I have had. And one of the things
Speaker 2: that I look at this for is it's not a sector.
Speaker 2: I don't look at cryptocurrency as a sector. To the contrary,
Speaker 2: I look at the first principles of the United States
Speaker 2: of America, founded on competition and choice and financial freedom,
Speaker 2: and I think those principles are certainly what motivated my
Speaker 2: interest in these issues in the campaign, and I think
Speaker 2: that's what's also helped a lot of my conversation with
Speaker 2: the President Trump is let's start with first principles of
Speaker 2: what's right for America, not what's good for one sector
Speaker 2: or another. But then let's adopt the kinds of policies
Speaker 2: that actually allow America to remain the beachhead of innovation
Speaker 2: rather than playing from behind.
Speaker 3: Mister Rameswami, just one item on the idea, the president
Speaker 3: has to block anything or anyone from doing CBDC. I
Speaker 3: think the FED is said clearly many times that it's
Speaker 3: not going to introduce one unless mandated by Congress. Now
Speaker 3: that that's the Fed's position on that, I want a
Speaker 3: little about.
Speaker 2: And just since we're closing the loop on that, Jennet
Speaker 2: Yellen has certainly stood for her advocacy and Executive Raffan
Speaker 2: sponsors legislation that goes through Congress. That's other things work
Speaker 2: in Washington, DC. But I do think it's good to
Speaker 2: have a president, one way or another that's clear about
Speaker 2: his position, and I think that Donald Trump adopted the
Speaker 2: right position in his clarity.
Speaker 3: I would like to talk about artificial intelligence, and I
Speaker 3: appreciate that this was not a question posed last night,
Speaker 3: but any of the policy questions posed weren't really answered
Speaker 3: by either participant. But when former President Trump was in office,
Speaker 3: we weren't talking about the idea of an existential threat
Speaker 3: from a large language model in the many hundreds of
Speaker 3: billions of parameters. We weren't talking about the need to
Speaker 3: regulate AI. So former President Trump doesn't have the experience
Speaker 3: of that. But do you think that he has the
Speaker 3: sort of academic study enough or he's thought about it,
Speaker 3: because going into office, if he were to regain the
Speaker 3: White House would be an issue to consider.
Speaker 2: I do wish this had been a topic both at
Speaker 2: that debate and even in the Republican primary debates. Where
Speaker 2: this issue did not come up once as well, even
Speaker 2: though I suggested it many times. It's an important issue
Speaker 2: for the future, and it falls outside of traditional partisan boundaries,
Speaker 2: So I'm glad you're bringing it up. Is President Trump
Speaker 2: going to claim to be a domain expert in AI
Speaker 2: or something that he's not a domain expert in? Knowing
Speaker 2: that's what I love about him, But I think he's
Speaker 2: going to be able to attrack the best minds around
Speaker 2: him to set rational policy that at once allows the
Speaker 2: US to be a leader in innovation while at the
Speaker 2: same time acknowledging a different kind of risk than we've
Speaker 2: faced in the past from different types of generative AI. Personally,
Speaker 2: one of the things that I think makes a lot
Speaker 2: of sense as a first step rather than creating some
Speaker 2: sort of central government bureaucracy to handle this, is just
Speaker 2: treat it the same way you treat other sectors. Just
Speaker 2: in the same way that you're a chemicals manufacturer and
Speaker 2: you can't dump in somebody else's river. If you're the
Speaker 2: developer of a protocol or an algorithm that has unpredictable
Speaker 2: but nonetheless realized negative effects, that you're liable for those effects.
Speaker 2: Basic principles of the law that we already use elsewhere,
Speaker 2: but to use them in this new domain. Well, and
Speaker 2: what I have seen from President Trump, it's the same
Speaker 2: question that came up even in the last topic we discussed.
Speaker 2: Is a level of intellectual curiosity somebody who has been
Speaker 2: an executive, somebody who, unlike Joe Biden frankly, from seeing
Speaker 2: what we saw last night, is still intellectually with it
Speaker 2: enough to be able to go deep on the details,
Speaker 2: attract the best people, and make the rational policy decision.
Speaker 2: Not in an ideological or ideologue driven manner when it
Speaker 2: comes to AI, but in a manner that is driven
Speaker 2: by our actual understanding of the facts. And so I
Speaker 2: do have confidence in his ability to lead here.
Speaker 3: Mister Ramaswami, I'm sorry instructs you a shorter time, and
Speaker 3: I want to make the most of it. Have you
Speaker 3: been asked to submit documentation for vetting for a potential
Speaker 3: cabinet position in the event of a Trump White House.
Speaker 2: We've got a lot of conversations about the future. I've
Speaker 2: not been asked to be the vice president, but whatever
Speaker 2: it is, I'm going to look at what maximizes the
Speaker 2: impact on the country and how we make sure that
Speaker 2: second Trump term is as good as it possibly can be,
Speaker 2: and I am hopeful that we're going to see the
Speaker 2: strongest ticket not just of the century, but of my lifetime.
Speaker 2: I think after last night, we have a unique opportunity
Speaker 2: in this country for this not to just be a
Speaker 2: fifty point one election. We've had a lot of thin margin,
Speaker 2: thin ice elections. This could be a Reagan nineteen eighty
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty four style landslide, remixing minorities, Hispanics, Blacks, young people,
Speaker 2: creating a new coalition in this country that's pro American
Speaker 2: and goes beyond the boundaries of the traditional Republican Party,
Speaker 2: whilst from those America First principles that Trump ran on.
Speaker 3: So that's what I'm rooting for. I appreciate that answer.
Speaker 3: I am out of time, but I need to ask
Speaker 3: you about BuzzFeed, but also the idea I'm being told
Speaker 3: over and over your interests in a media company something
Speaker 3: like a vice. You know you've been buying up BuzzFeed shares.
Speaker 3: It's reported your statement, what happens? What are you aiming
Speaker 3: to do here?
Speaker 2: Well, look, I'm now the second largest class A shareholder
Speaker 2: at BuzzFeed. I've been very public in my letter that
Speaker 2: this is a company that has struggled and failed for
Speaker 2: reasons that I still think are fixable. A lot of
Speaker 2: people know what BuzzFeed is. They don't know what the
Speaker 2: what the brand is actually stands for. And I think
Speaker 2: they have a historic opportunity to do what many in
Speaker 2: the mainstream media have an opportunity to do, build a
Speaker 2: brand centered on trust and the pursuit of truth by
Speaker 2: saying that you know what, we platform all voices left right,
Speaker 2: doesn't matter across the cultural spectrum, and use that to
Speaker 2: define a coherent and powerful brand that I think audiences
Speaker 2: are hungry for, especially of younger audiences today that are
Speaker 2: sick and tired of yesterday's legacy media, but want authenticity,
Speaker 2: want to trust content creators. So I've given in the
Speaker 2: context of the letter that I sent to their board,
Speaker 2: I've also proposed three directors mister Ramsa joined the board,
Speaker 2: a direction strategy that I hope will create the value
Speaker 2: of a company.
Speaker 6: That sadly has performed a Ramaswam me. I'm sorry to
Speaker 6: cut you off. We are out of time that Ramaswami,
Speaker 6: thank you. This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to Bloomberg's Technology at Ludlow in San Francisco.
Speaker 3: I want to check in on Apple, Chaz. It's an
Speaker 3: resting position. Apple finds itself in up for a fifth
Speaker 3: straight day, kind of recovering under the radar. It's a
Speaker 3: name that we've had a lot of concern about with
Speaker 3: regards to valuation. We've been debating about whether the AI
Speaker 3: strategy with Apple is understood by investors, if they've given
Speaker 3: the stock too much credit about AI or too little.
Speaker 3: But really what's driving trading is data round in China
Speaker 3: that shows shipment's up forty in the month of May,
Speaker 3: a continuing short term recovery after a really tough first
Speaker 3: three months of this year where sales weren't great and
Speaker 3: domestic handset makers were taking market share. Then we entered
Speaker 3: this period of the year in China, which is such
Speaker 3: a key market for all electronics providers and makers, where
Speaker 3: they did a lot of discounting, you know, special holiday sales,
Speaker 3: things like that. But the stock interesting over a five
Speaker 3: day basis, I would say that it's the longest streak
Speaker 3: since June eighth, which was the end of an eight
Speaker 3: day winning streak, and it's kind of on the verge
Speaker 3: of re taking the crown of the world's most valuable company,
Speaker 3: which it had lost to Microsoft and briefly to Nvidia.
Speaker 3: Let's bringing blue Miss Mark German the perfect correspondent for this.
Speaker 3: Talk to me about the China data because it's official
Speaker 3: data that we kind of crunch the numbers on and
Speaker 3: I'm trying to extrapolate a story out of it.
Speaker 6: Is this a recovery?
Speaker 8: The story definitely is a recovery. Right in the first
Speaker 8: couple months of twenty twenty four, you saw iPhone shipments
Speaker 8: declined quite significantly in China. But you know, around the springtime,
Speaker 8: some interesting things happen. Apple started offering some promotions on
Speaker 8: some of the higher end iPhone models. Some of the
Speaker 8: resellers and online sales channels for the iPhone started offering discounts.
Speaker 3: There.
Speaker 8: They have several different holidays shopping holidays in China that
Speaker 8: offer discounts not only in the iPhone but several different products.
Speaker 8: And so what you've seen here is in uptick in sales,
Speaker 8: and based on our calculations, based on the data that
Speaker 8: comes officially from China, you sell forty percent growth in
Speaker 8: the last month or so, and so that's quite significant
Speaker 8: for Apple and the smartphone market is growing quite strongly
Speaker 8: in China right now. It's not just Apple, it's Huawei
Speaker 8: some of the other Chinese phonemakers. But China was a
Speaker 8: real concern for investors in Apple earlier this year and
Speaker 8: last year. In with the sales uptick, a lot of
Speaker 8: those concerns are being mitigated. And this is happening at
Speaker 8: a really great time for Apple because the summers are
Speaker 8: usually slow season for iPhone sales, given the anticipation of
Speaker 8: the new models to come in September. So what you're
Speaker 8: seeing right now is a strong uptick in the current
Speaker 8: iPhones in the months leading up to the next iPhones,
Speaker 8: and then you're going to get another big push come
Speaker 8: September October when the new iPhones roll out. So right
Speaker 8: now things in China for Apple in terms of the iPhone,
Speaker 8: they're as good as they've been in several months.
Speaker 3: Mark, Can we talk a little bit about the big
Speaker 3: picture strategy in China. You reported, for example, June twenty first,
Speaker 3: that Apple was halting its AI rollout in Europe because
Speaker 3: it was concerned about the regulatory environment. There By comparison,
Speaker 3: do we have a good sense of what the AI
Speaker 3: roll out will be in China and whether it will
Speaker 3: just mirror what they plan to do in the United States.
Speaker 8: So, as you know, there's three facets to Apple Intelligence.
Speaker 8: There's an on device large language model right for some
Speaker 8: of the more minor tasks like notification prioritization. There's a
Speaker 8: cloud component which is also run through Apple for more
Speaker 8: advanced things like writing tools and summarizing information. And then
Speaker 8: the third part is the chatbot. That's the whizbang feature
Speaker 8: that is going to be most exciting to a lot
Speaker 8: of people. And in the US you get open Ai
Speaker 8: as a partner, but in China you're going to need
Speaker 8: another partner. So they've talked to Alibaba, they've talked to Baidu,
Speaker 8: they've talked to some others, but they don't have an
Speaker 8: agreement in place there. And until they're able to get
Speaker 8: an agreement for that third party chatpot integration, they're not
Speaker 8: really going to be able to roll out Apple Intelligence
Speaker 8: in a meaningful way. I would expect that to come
Speaker 8: together sometime by the middle of next Europe.
Speaker 3: Just point out that in the duration of Mark's report
Speaker 3: here with us on bluebo Technology, Apples actually raised its
Speaker 3: Friday game in this flat But as we showed is
Speaker 3: up on the week, Bloom Moost Mark German Goods, catch
Speaker 3: up Happy Friday. In benched capital news, the firm Kleiner
Speaker 3: Perkins announced today that they have raised more than two billion.
Speaker 6: Dollars for two new funds.
Speaker 3: The first eight hundred and twenty five million dollar funds
Speaker 3: will target young startups and another one point two billion
Speaker 3: dollar will be allocated towards a later stage fund. Klinda
Speaker 3: Perkins will look for startups that are leveraging AI for growth.
Speaker 3: Now for a look at the state of the tech
Speaker 3: M and A market, Ali Love, partner of M and
Speaker 3: A and technology at Deba, Vois and Plimpton, joins us
Speaker 3: for more. It's been an interesting few weeks actually in
Speaker 3: the world of M and A, particularly when I speak
Speaker 3: to bench capitalists, they might actually be more upbeat that
Speaker 3: some of their latest stage venture back companies are more
Speaker 3: likely to be acquired than go public. That there's kind
Speaker 3: of some energy there is that something that you see
Speaker 3: from your desk as well.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I think that there's
Speaker 9: a lot of optimism in the market right now. If
Speaker 9: you look at the last you know, three to four years,
Speaker 9: you obviously had a massive uptick in twenty one and
Speaker 9: twenty two, and that dropped off precipitously, with valuations dropping
Speaker 9: in twenty two, end of twenty two, all of twenty
Speaker 9: twenty three, and to some extent to the beginning of
Speaker 9: this year. And we have you know, probably three major
Speaker 9: groups of acquirers that will acquire venture back technology companies.
Speaker 9: You have private equity, traditional tech acquirers, and what I
Speaker 9: like to refer to as non traditional tech acquirers. Those
Speaker 9: are older industries, you know, looking at private equity. Obviously,
Speaker 9: the rise and interest rates made them nervous, but if
Speaker 9: you go back in history, private equity is very used
Speaker 9: to operating at double digit interest rates. So have they
Speaker 9: dusted off their old place books reminded themselves how do
Speaker 9: we do this again? Absolutely, and they've become increasingly active
Speaker 9: in the first two quarters of this year. Going to
Speaker 9: traditional tech acquirers. A lot of them sat out the
Speaker 9: first couple of years of the boom. They didn't want
Speaker 9: to spend cash at that level. They didn't want to
Speaker 9: you know, uh, you know use that I mean, sorry,
Speaker 9: go ahead.
Speaker 6: No, no, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: I just wanted to jump in and ask about you know,
Speaker 3: there's the mechanics of it using cash. I particularly understand
Speaker 3: the private equity side of that equation. There's also like
Speaker 3: a little bit of a psychological side of any transaction.
Speaker 3: What's interesting about your firm is you're you're on both
Speaker 3: sides of the table, right, buyer and seller. What are
Speaker 3: attitudes right now to sitting down and hashing out a deal?
Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things that
Speaker 9: we work with our clients right now a lot on
Speaker 9: is both for traditional non tra traditional tech acquirers, understanding
Speaker 9: the mindset of founders and of boards. You know, in
Speaker 9: a lot of instances, these are companies that were two
Speaker 9: individuals in a garage. They've grown their companies to multi
Speaker 9: billion dollar companies, but along the way, they've underpaid themselves.
Speaker 9: They haven't bought houses, they haven't gotten married, they haven't
Speaker 9: had children, you know, they haven't gone on vacation. And
Speaker 9: any buyer that loses sight of that isn't understanding the
Speaker 9: company that they're buying.
Speaker 3: So something really interesting is happening in what I would
Speaker 3: call non tech companies as well. Right This idea that
Speaker 3: in a world of AI. For examples, we just discussed
Speaker 3: that new kind of Perkins fund you've got to have
Speaker 3: some sort of AI tool or your investor base or
Speaker 3: your employees won't believe you and they'll leave. And I
Speaker 3: see that happening in all kinds of sectors, you know,
Speaker 3: oil and gas, utilities, even construction saying uh oh, we
Speaker 3: better buy a solution here.
Speaker 6: That must be a boon for business to you.
Speaker 9: That's exactly right. And you really have two separate things
Speaker 9: going on here. So first, speaking specifically to AI, I
Speaker 9: think it's a mischaracterization to say that there's a lot
Speaker 9: of AI M and A activity. There aren't enough AI
Speaker 9: platform companies for there to be consolidation. Now, there are
Speaker 9: a lot of companies that do something else. They do cybersecurity.
Speaker 9: Maybe they are an HR platform, maybe it's a fintech company,
Speaker 9: you know, are they adding AI to what they do
Speaker 9: to improve their products? Absolutely, those products are getting smarter,
Speaker 9: they're going faster, they're more attractive to their customer base.
Speaker 9: But those aren't fundamental AI platforms, you know. On the
Speaker 9: flip side, the other thing that we're seeing is a
Speaker 9: lot of as you said, some non traditional tech acquirers
Speaker 9: come deeper into the tech space. Another area where they're
Speaker 9: doing that is cybersecurity. If you go back to the
Speaker 9: beginning of the pandemic, everybody may remember they were say,
Speaker 9: massive pipeline hack on the Eastern seaboard that woke up
Speaker 9: a lot of the oil and gas companies to say,
Speaker 9: we've not invested enough in technology, We've not invested enough
Speaker 9: in cybersecurity, in protecting these infrastructure projects. And so a
Speaker 9: lot of companies in theory could build those solutions, those
Speaker 9: cybersecurity solutions, but some older industries are not equipped to
Speaker 9: do that.
Speaker 6: So what do they do.
Speaker 9: They go out and buy them wholesale. They buy a
Speaker 9: company to create a product just for them. And so
Speaker 9: that's what a lot of some of these older industries.
Speaker 9: It could be oil and gas, it could be agriculture.
Speaker 9: You know, to some extent, even banking is still behind
Speaker 9: the ball for some of these technologies.
Speaker 3: Ali, what you just said on consolidation was really interesting.
Speaker 3: It almost contradicts kind of what we'd been hearing. What
Speaker 3: I wrote about a few weeks ago, which was based
Speaker 3: on comments from hugging face that you know, hugging face
Speaker 3: is a platform that hosts loads of large language model providers,
Speaker 3: and the smaller players needed help.
Speaker 6: They've run out of cash. It's an expensive enterprise.
Speaker 3: You seem to be saying that actually at the platform level,
Speaker 3: that isn't happening because there aren't enough platform level providers
Speaker 3: right now.
Speaker 6: Just give me a bit more on that.
Speaker 9: Yeah, So to be clear, there is a ton of
Speaker 9: investment going into AI and AI platform companies one hundred percent,
Speaker 9: and I think you see that with the Kleiner Perkins
Speaker 9: fund that was just announce But what you're not seeing
Speaker 9: is the exits. There aren't enough of those companies for
Speaker 9: there to be consolidation. Yes, absolutely there are some, but
Speaker 9: not to the volume that you see in other subsectors of.
Speaker 3: Alie love from Deba Boys and Plimpton. It's great to
Speaker 3: have you on the program. From the M and A
Speaker 3: side appreciate it.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Let's zero in on the field of climate tech and
Speaker 3: how AI can help and bring in Juan Maldoon, a
Speaker 3: partner in co Head Adventures. It energized capital. The firm
Speaker 3: focuses on climate solutions one point four billion dollars of
Speaker 3: capital to play with. Let's actually just thought with what
Speaker 3: Ali was talking about. From the M and A perspective,
Speaker 3: I have had sort of thematically specialized.
Speaker 6: Vcs come on the show.
Speaker 3: In recent weeks and months and say, pretty good outlet
Speaker 3: for us because they either provide a very clear technology
Speaker 3: platform to a bigger beast in the energy field, for example.
Speaker 6: What did you make of her comments?
Speaker 2: I sort of agree.
Speaker 10: So I actually think that we're seeing a lot of
Speaker 10: growing interest from traditional industrial companies that are looking for digital.
Speaker 2: Technologies and pockets of growth.
Speaker 10: And frankly, in our space, the software meets climate intersection
Speaker 10: brings both. It brings digital technologies and it brings the
Speaker 10: growth pockets that a lot of these traditional buyers are bringing.
Speaker 10: I think this interest isn't exclusive to AI companies or
Speaker 10: maybe even catalyzed, because I do agree that a lot
Speaker 10: of the AI specific companies are still early in their journey,
Speaker 10: but there's no doubt tech driven growth that is attractive,
Speaker 10: and I think the companies are looking for products so
Speaker 10: they can build outo their platforms and talent next generation
Speaker 10: that's going to help them pull forward to where the
Speaker 10: transition is actually going.
Speaker 3: And I think it's a surprise or audience that we
Speaker 3: have a bench caps they specializing in energy or climate
Speaker 3: tech talking about AI, but weed to understand how much
Speaker 3: of it is hype and how much is it if
Speaker 3: it's sort of having an actual impact, right, I was
Speaker 3: a battery and EV reporter for a really long time.
Speaker 3: Loads of examples where software makes a really fundamental difference.
Speaker 3: So to take that, give me case studies of where
Speaker 3: you're seeing AI impact your foot portfolio, companies, or the
Speaker 3: industry at large.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 10: No, absolutely, and actually think that AI is already having
Speaker 10: a big impact in our space in two primary ways.
Speaker 10: On the one hand, it's actually very computationally intensive, and
Speaker 10: it demands huge amounts of power, which is electricity to
Speaker 10: actually give rise to that compute.
Speaker 6: And this is a huge.
Speaker 10: Surge in the powerload in our world, and it's pointing
Speaker 10: to stress in our grid. So energy consumption is expected
Speaker 10: to grow seven to ten percent year on year compared
Speaker 10: to usually two to three percent year on year over
Speaker 10: the next several years. So that's a huge draw for
Speaker 10: power and it's a huge draw for potential AI applications.
Speaker 10: The second is that AI is actually enabling a wide
Speaker 10: set of opportunities to accelerate the energy transition, Like you
Speaker 10: were talking about workflow automation that can help reduce soft
Speaker 10: costs or generative tools that can help improve the development
Speaker 10: or the deployment of renewable projects. So, for example, batteries
Speaker 10: you mentioned, we have a company in our portfolio called
Speaker 10: Twice that can actually use AI engines to calibrate how
Speaker 10: batteries will age and degrade over time, so we could
Speaker 10: better predict battery behavior, better predict performance, better predict detailed
Speaker 10: insights into the state of charge and capacity, so to
Speaker 10: make sure that we can actually use those resources more
Speaker 10: effectively and more appropriately at scale.
Speaker 3: And I'm sure you will have watched the presidential debate
Speaker 3: last night. Infrastructure has been at the heart of President
Speaker 3: Biden's policy platform for the last three and a half years.
Speaker 3: How has that manifested in the real world for you
Speaker 3: in the areas that you invest in?
Speaker 10: The infrastructure The Inflation Reduction Act, which is really an
Speaker 10: infrastructure bill, has pulled the future forward in a lot
Speaker 10: of different ways. But at Energize, we don't really see
Speaker 10: a shift in political power as a particular threat to
Speaker 10: the energy transition. We see that that train is underway
Speaker 10: and the companies that we're investing are accelerating that. So
Speaker 10: it might change a little bit the pace, but the
Speaker 10: direction is not really changing.
Speaker 2: For me.
Speaker 10: I think it comes down to economics. The renewable transition
Speaker 10: technology that is viable today, wind solar, and batteries that
Speaker 10: come down and costs dramatically over the last ten and
Speaker 10: fifteen years, and that's going to continue. We've invested under
Speaker 10: Republican presidents and under democratic presidents either way. That train
Speaker 10: has really left the station, and we actually think that
Speaker 10: the directional arrow of progress is going to continue to
Speaker 10: follow better products and better economics and really better social
Speaker 10: outcomes around the world.
Speaker 6: You join us from Chicago, Illinois.
Speaker 3: I still think of the Bay Area in Silicon Valley
Speaker 3: as the hotbed of energy or climate related teg.
Speaker 10: Is that the case, there's a lot of innovation outsideide
Speaker 10: of Silicon Valley. For climate, climate is a global opportunity.
Speaker 10: The talent that is tackling the climate challenge is also global.
Speaker 10: We see a lot of innovation in Europe specifically where
Speaker 10: those power dynamics and that energy infrastructure is very very different.
Speaker 10: So actually, no, we see a lot of opportunity to
Speaker 10: invest outside of Silicon Valley, and we actually really like
Speaker 10: to be close to customers and so being in that
Speaker 10: Midwest the heart of industry is important to us.
Speaker 3: Quan Maldoon, partner and co head adventures that energize. Really
Speaker 3: great to have you on the program, and it's an
Speaker 3: area that I've been thinking.
Speaker 6: About a lot of late, so thank you now.
Speaker 3: Coming up, also on topic, a new survey shows Tesla
Speaker 3: no longer stands about the other electric vehicles in quality
Speaker 3: because of some specific head scratching design changes. It's got
Speaker 3: a really interesting discussion coming up. This is bloombog Technology,
Speaker 3: Time for Talking tech.
Speaker 6: Two quick stories in the news.
Speaker 3: Microsoft and open AI's thirteen million dollar partnership is set
Speaker 3: to face scrutiny EU and to trust What watchdogs are
Speaker 3: set to ask rivals and customers about the company's exclusivity clause,
Speaker 3: in which Microsoft's Azure is the sole cloud provider for
Speaker 3: open Ai, but worth noting no formal investigation has been
Speaker 3: opened yet. Plus, rain Ai recruits an Apple exec The
Speaker 3: startup backed by Sam Altman, made its second high profile
Speaker 3: higher this month, employing an Apple chip executive that once
Speaker 3: led hardware engineering. Rain Ai is hoping to design a
Speaker 3: new type of semiconductor, specifically for artificial intelligence.
Speaker 6: Okay.
Speaker 3: According to JD Power's initial quality study, Tesla no longer
Speaker 3: stands above other electric vehicles in quality because of head
Speaker 3: scratching design changes on its cars, such as removing the
Speaker 3: turn signal stalks. I want to bring in my friend
Speaker 3: and colleague bloombergs Keif Norton, who's the.
Speaker 6: Byline on this one.
Speaker 3: I found it so interesting to read because so much
Speaker 3: of the Tesla origin story was that its technology was great.
Speaker 3: It was a great product. But they've made some tweaks
Speaker 3: that on specific models. I think it's Model X and
Speaker 3: S after a certain year and then REFRESHMDEL three that
Speaker 3: actually have not gone them down well with the tesseronas.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: I did start in twenty twenty one with S and X.
Speaker 1: It's now migrated to three, which means it's hitting the
Speaker 1: mainstream buyer, and the mainstream buyer does not like giving
Speaker 1: up their turn signal stocks. What Elon is trying to
Speaker 1: do is trying to go stock free, so you lose
Speaker 1: the turn signal stock and you also lose the windshield
Speaker 1: wiper stock. On the other side, all of those have
Speaker 1: migrated to being buttons on the steering wheel.
Speaker 3: So, as regular viewers of been Bo technology know, I
Speaker 3: have a Model Y which I pay for myself, but
Speaker 3: it has the stalks. The one thing i'd observe is
Speaker 3: like the screen in the middle. There are no dials
Speaker 3: or buttons on the dash. I spend a lot of
Speaker 3: time looking at the screen and reading the JD report.
Speaker 3: I think that was a big point that many of
Speaker 3: the respondents made as well.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, JD Power said. The author of the study told
Speaker 1: me that the consumers report that they have much more
Speaker 1: eyes off the road time because they're hunting around for these,
Speaker 1: you know, ordinary functions. This isn't high level tech that
Speaker 1: people are looking for. They just want to beat the
Speaker 1: horn because something happened in front of them and they
Speaker 1: can't find it.
Speaker 3: We won't get into the whole idea about the future
Speaker 3: of Tesla and full self driving where to Elon Musk's mind,
Speaker 3: you won't need to pay attention anyway. But you've covered
Speaker 3: this industry for such a long time. You've written brilliant
Speaker 3: pieces at the product level. How impactful are these JD reports?
Speaker 6: Like does the average consumer pick it up and go? Well?
Speaker 6: This will inform whether or not I get a Tesla?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, JD Power and consumer reports, those two measures are
Speaker 1: the ones that carry the most weight with consumers. You
Speaker 1: can see it and the automakers advertising they'll you know,
Speaker 1: run the JD Power Seal if they're one of the
Speaker 1: preferred brands. And tess Law has always been the highest
Speaker 1: ranked EV. Now all the other evs, Ribban, the legacy automakers,
Speaker 1: they've all caught up with Tesla, primarily because of these
Speaker 1: rudimentary functions that have been put on the steering wheel
Speaker 1: and taken away from their usual locations.
Speaker 3: In the story, there's a chart of problems per one
Speaker 3: hundred vehicles. But it's also a quality survey. Can we
Speaker 3: just quickly talk about the quality part of this discussion?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, I mean quality is defined in a couple
Speaker 1: of ways. One is things that break, that don't go well.
Speaker 1: But also quality in this survey now reflects what consumers
Speaker 1: are having trouble operating. It might be functioning as designed,
Speaker 1: but if the driver can't figure out how to use it,
Speaker 1: then that's a quality problem. And so that's what's showing
Speaker 1: up on Tesla here. These are things The buttons work
Speaker 1: if you can find them, but can you find them
Speaker 1: in an emergency situation? And others have pointed out if
Speaker 1: you're in a round about, the way the turn signals
Speaker 1: work out. There's a couple of directional arrows and steering
Speaker 1: wheel during a roundabout and you're in the middle of it,
Speaker 1: your steering wheel's upside down and you don't know which.
Speaker 2: Errow to push.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's a problem. Bloombergs Keith Norton.
Speaker 3: It's great to catch up and see you here on
Speaker 3: Bloomberg Technology.
Speaker 6: Thank you. That does it for this edition of Bloomberg Technology.
Speaker 6: Check out the podcast. What an episode.
Speaker 8: It was.
Speaker 3: Happy Friday to everyone all around the world. This is
Speaker 3: Bloomberg Technology.