Speaker 1: From Marhard.
Speaker 2: We're Innovation, Money and Power Collie in Silicon Vallet Nbon.
Speaker 3: This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hide.
Speaker 4: And Ed Ludlow.
Speaker 5: I met Ludlow in San Francisco. Caroline Hides off today.
Speaker 5: This is Bloomberg Technology coming up. We'll bring you the
Speaker 5: latest updates in the Israel Hamas war and speak to
Speaker 5: a range of guests on the ground to discuss the
Speaker 5: state of technology, the industry, it's communities in the region,
Speaker 5: and we'll sit down with the CEO of payments firm
Speaker 5: Klara to discuss the company's investment in artificial intelligence. Plus
Speaker 5: we'll get a preview of the Bloomberg screen time event
Speaker 5: in Los Angeles that's bringing together executive and industry insiders
Speaker 5: to talk the state of streaming and so much more.
Speaker 5: Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Yahoo and opposition leaders have agreed
Speaker 5: to form a rare emergency government to see the country
Speaker 5: through its war with Hamas joining us now to talk
Speaker 5: through the situation not just in Israel, not just in
Speaker 5: the Gaza Strip, but in West Bank as well. Is
Speaker 5: Mona Steya, a non resident fellow at the Teria Institute
Speaker 5: for Middle East Policy. You come to us live from
Speaker 5: Ramala in the Central West Bank and that's where I'd
Speaker 5: like to start Mona based on your industry connections, the
Speaker 5: work that you're doing. What is the situation in the
Speaker 5: Central West Bank right now for the technology industry.
Speaker 6: Thank you Ed for having me here.
Speaker 7: So whenever we are talking about tech, as we are
Speaker 7: living in the West Bank, we cannot ignore that Palestinians
Speaker 7: are living on their surveillance state where different kinds of
Speaker 7: surveillance technologies have been developed. And this said on Palestinians
Speaker 7: in an open liberatory in the occupied Palestinian tertory in
Speaker 7: the West Bank and Gaza Strip and to stay, but
Speaker 7: not like this is not limited to. We are talking
Speaker 7: about CCTV cameras, facial recognition technologies, spywares, mail wars technologies
Speaker 7: such as Blue Wolf, White Wolf, and as well as
Speaker 7: red Wolves, drones, among other various technologies that have been
Speaker 7: developed by the Israeli government and the Israeli companies testing
Speaker 7: that on Palestinians before selling that worldwide to profit from that.
Speaker 7: And unfortunately sometimes major tech companies are investing in such
Speaker 7: companies in such surveillance companies to develop certain technologies, as
Speaker 7: happened like a couple of years ago with the Microsoft
Speaker 7: that tried to invest seventy five million dollars in any Virgin,
Speaker 7: which is an Israeli company, to develop facial recognition technique,
Speaker 7: testing that on Palestinians before start telling that worldwide.
Speaker 6: That like what part of that? Yeah, go ahead say no,
Speaker 6: I'm sorry to interrupt human.
Speaker 5: I mean, one reason we've asked you onto the program
Speaker 5: is your expertise in cyber security and emerging technologies.
Speaker 6: That's some of the work that you do.
Speaker 5: THEMEI, based on what you just outlined to us, is
Speaker 5: what you think is happening. How operational are technology startups
Speaker 5: in the West Bank? Has their day to day and
Speaker 5: ability to do business, whether they're a software focused company
Speaker 5: or a hardware focused company been impacted.
Speaker 7: Well, whenever we're talking about tech industries in the West Bank,
Speaker 7: it's different than the tech industry industries and Israel because
Speaker 7: I've started talking about cyber technologies like surveillance technologies that
Speaker 7: have been used. None of those technologies are basically developed
Speaker 7: or developed by Palestinians or in the Palestinian territory. All
Speaker 7: of those technologies are developed by Israel. A Leechno companies
Speaker 7: as far as I can remember, there are twenty eight
Speaker 7: surveillance companies in is Eight out of them are led
Speaker 7: by ex military people in Israel, and like this could
Speaker 7: give us like a clear example on how this is
Speaker 7: a military state. Even if those story, even if those
Speaker 7: technology companies are developing that it's also connected with the
Speaker 7: military expertise for their executives or senior executives. In so
Speaker 7: many cases, when it comes to the West Bank, like
Speaker 7: the whole startups scene is different.
Speaker 6: It's more about services.
Speaker 7: We've seen like delivery companies, is shopping companies, among other
Speaker 7: kinds of companies that are more about service, not exactly
Speaker 7: about developing technologies such as like surveillance technologies as I mentioned,
Speaker 7: whether it's hardware or software.
Speaker 5: Amona, you namechecked and mentioned Microsoft. We will reach out
Speaker 5: to Microsoft comment on that issue of cybersecurity surveillance in
Speaker 5: the region.
Speaker 6: Bear with me.
Speaker 5: I want to bring our audience another story which broke
Speaker 5: on Wednesday morning, and that is the European Union writing
Speaker 5: to Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive officer of Meta and
Speaker 5: asking the company Meta parent of Facebook of course, to
Speaker 5: look into disinformation around the situation in Israel and what
Speaker 5: is happening on the ground. You'll remember as well, Mona
Speaker 5: that the EU and Tel e Breton had already written
Speaker 5: to Elon Musk and asked X to explain what it
Speaker 5: is doing in fighting disinformation. Some of your research and
Speaker 5: your background is in social media. What role is social
Speaker 5: media playing there? From the West Bank perspective, we have
Speaker 5: reported on this program that on multiple platforms there are
Speaker 5: videos that are sharing being shared on those platforms purporting
Speaker 5: to show one thing, when in fact they are showing another.
Speaker 5: But what role broadly is social media playing here?
Speaker 7: So social media platforms are reflecting what's happening on the
Speaker 7: ground as soon as the escalations on the ground are starting,
Speaker 7: or we can witness more activism on social media platforms
Speaker 7: as well as more hate speech, insights for incitement, violent speech,
Speaker 7: as well as misinformation and propaganda speech on the social
Speaker 7: media platforms. In the current secuation, we can clearly see
Speaker 7: an increase and hate speech, violent speech and incitement against
Speaker 7: Palestinians on the social media platforms. And unfortunately, social media
Speaker 7: platforms are not investing enough fresources to prevent spreading such
Speaker 7: speech and they are relying on the limited resources ofvice
Speaker 7: society organizations communitory that and ccreate that to them, which
Speaker 7: basically contribute to the real world harm that Palestinians are
Speaker 7: exposed to.
Speaker 6: Now while we.
Speaker 7: Are speaking, while I'm speaking with you, there are is
Speaker 7: early settlers or are based in the illegal settlements in
Speaker 7: the West Bank are attacking some Palestinians and some cities,
Speaker 7: and earlier this year they were burning certain cities such
Speaker 7: as Hawaii. Are based on this incitement and hate speech
Speaker 7: on the social media platforms.
Speaker 5: And Bloomberg has not verified the incidents that you just
Speaker 5: outlined what I would just say, and we showed it
Speaker 5: a moment ago.
Speaker 6: We can show it again.
Speaker 5: Is that Ex's CEO Linda Yakarino senter memos the entire
Speaker 5: company overnight saying we are reminded of our consequential responsibility
Speaker 5: to protect the public. Conversation and action that shows that
Speaker 5: they are looking into this and taking it seriously.
Speaker 6: Mona.
Speaker 5: Finally, I want to ask you this question that's been
Speaker 5: debated on this program by technology industry participants in Israel,
Speaker 5: in the West Bank elsewhere, and it's the.
Speaker 6: Sort of symbiosis.
Speaker 5: Between Israeli tech and Palestinian tech. In other words, they're
Speaker 5: very closely tied. Is that something that you recognize that
Speaker 5: they actually act as a much broader but single industry.
Speaker 7: Yes, of course, because Ezra lc in the Palestinian workers
Speaker 7: as cheap vapor for them, so they could sometimes subcontract
Speaker 7: their certain works for Palestinians. And as you know, like
Speaker 7: with the limited, with the limited working opportunities for Palestinian
Speaker 7: young people as well as with the limited also access
Speaker 7: to the epayment services which basically affect Palestinians from accessing
Speaker 7: to the international market. For example, PayPal is not operating
Speaker 7: for Palestinians who are living in the West Bank, neither
Speaker 7: in the ignoring Godsplustrip. So as a result of that,
Speaker 7: Palestinians are not even allowed or able to work as
Speaker 7: a freelancers and then get paid by PayPal. As a
Speaker 7: result of that, they are forced sometimes to do contracting
Speaker 7: work for Israeli companies who are working on whether software
Speaker 7: or hardware technologies. But this is again we can't see
Speaker 7: this separately from the situation, from the political economic situation
Speaker 7: that Palestinians are living under, and from the poor asymmetry
Speaker 7: relationship between the Israelis and Palestinians in this region.
Speaker 5: Mena Schteier, a non resident fellow at the Career Institute
Speaker 5: for Middle East Policy coming us to us live from
Speaker 5: Ramala in the Central West Bank.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 5: Coming up on Bloomberg Technology, we will continue the conversation
Speaker 5: on the Israel Hamas conflict and speak to a venture
Speaker 5: capitalist who's focused on bringing Palestinian graduates into Israeli tech companies,
Speaker 5: an issue that Mona just touched on there. We're also
Speaker 5: looking at shares of Microsoft. This is a company that's
Speaker 5: put out a statement on Wednesday morning saying they have
Speaker 5: three thousand staff or personnel in Israel that they say
Speaker 5: are impacted by events. It's not doing anything to support
Speaker 5: or hinder the stock really in either direction. But Microsoft
Speaker 5: currently up half a percentage point. This is Gomberg technology.
Speaker 8: It turns into why the conflicts, say and that causes
Speaker 8: oil prices to go up. That does have an effect
Speaker 8: on the economies. When you look at the numbers, suppose
Speaker 8: oil prices it went up by around ten percent. Then
Speaker 8: for twelve months later you see inflation going up by
Speaker 8: around zero point four percentage points.
Speaker 4: Global outputs is low world by.
Speaker 8: Point one five percentage points, So it can have these
Speaker 8: kinds of effects, but again it's too early to tell.
Speaker 4: Exactly what's going to happen.
Speaker 5: That was the IMF's first Deputy Managing Director, Geita Goopinaff,
Speaker 5: discussing the economic implications of the Israel hamas War. I
Speaker 5: want to turn to an Israeli entrepreneur who spent the
Speaker 5: last decade devoted to helping build a stronger Palestinian economy
Speaker 5: and Israeli tech sector. Joining us now is Yadin Kaufman,
Speaker 5: a founding partner at Veritas Venture Partners who's also the
Speaker 5: founder of the Palestinian Internship Program, a professional development nonprofit
Speaker 5: that aims to empower Palestinian grads and professionals in developing
Speaker 5: and building their careers.
Speaker 6: And Yadin, let's start there.
Speaker 5: Your basic aim has been to take Palestinian graduates or
Speaker 5: professionals as we said, and put them into jobs in
Speaker 5: the Israeli tech sector. In the first instance, how have
Speaker 5: you been impacted by the weekend's attack and your ability
Speaker 5: to do that?
Speaker 2: Okay, well, the first thing, the first thing I want
Speaker 2: to say, just before we get into those specifics, is
Speaker 2: you know, I think, like every Israeli have been very
Speaker 2: impacted by what's happened here since about morning, since Saturday morning,
Speaker 2: and it's been an absolutely terrible time here. As you know,
Speaker 2: twelve hundred people killed, most of them civilians, Terrible atrocities committed, hostage,
Speaker 2: many hostages taken, and just absolute atrocities committed. So it's
Speaker 2: very hard to focus about focus on other things. But
Speaker 2: as far as the impact look, I believe that we
Speaker 2: still need to try to build a better future here
Speaker 2: and that by definition will involve Israelis and Palestinians working together.
Speaker 2: We both live in this part of the world, Neither
Speaker 2: of us is going anywhere, and we have to choose
Speaker 2: do we want a future like the past has been,
Speaker 2: including the events of the last weekend, or do we
Speaker 2: want to try to create something better. So in the
Speaker 2: immediate term, it's going to be extremely difficult to advance
Speaker 2: programs that have Israelis and Palestinians working together. Thing Israelies
Speaker 2: in the tech sector, which is where I've been working,
Speaker 2: many of them have been called up to reserve duty.
Speaker 2: Many of them are either zero or one degree of
Speaker 2: separation from someone who's been killed, and are very focused
Speaker 2: on unfortunately, burying the dead, grieving for the dead, and
Speaker 2: having to defend the country. So that's obviously job job
Speaker 2: one for everyone Secondly, I think it's important for us
Speaker 2: to distinguish between the West Bank and Gaza. The problems
Speaker 2: of this past weekend have been from Gaza, and it's
Speaker 2: going to be even more difficult than it has been
Speaker 2: until now to do any business between or do anything
Speaker 2: constructive between Israel and Gaza. That's going to take a
Speaker 2: while right now, as it rightly should. With the West Bank, however,
Speaker 2: I think things can be different. The West Bank has
Speaker 2: been for the most part quiet during this most recent
Speaker 2: turn of events. Obviously, there's no love lost between the
Speaker 2: PA and Hamas, so maybe it's not surprising. The things
Speaker 2: I've been doing have been focused on working with Palestinians
Speaker 2: from the West Bank and East Jerusalem to give them
Speaker 2: opportunities and to give them opportunities in the Israel tech sector,
Speaker 2: because there's really nowhere else for them to get those opportunities.
Speaker 4: And I'm happy to.
Speaker 2: Talk more about the programs, but you know, I think
Speaker 2: it's important to distinguish between the immediate term and the
Speaker 2: somewhat longer term, and of course that depends greatly on
Speaker 2: whether this conflict remains limited to the events of these
Speaker 2: past few days. The terrible events of these past few days,
Speaker 2: or whether it escalates to involve a broader regional war
Speaker 2: and then all bets are off.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Dean.
Speaker 5: Twenty four hours ago, we were joined by somebody called
Speaker 5: Mahmood kuoas he's the CEO of a company called tech
Speaker 5: Clinic based in East Jerusalem. But what he told us
Speaker 5: was that while he had operations in Jerusalem and Ramala,
Speaker 5: he did have a number of staff working from home
Speaker 5: in the Gaza strip, and he was explaining to us
Speaker 5: how they were impacted in their ability to do their
Speaker 5: day job.
Speaker 6: I just put that.
Speaker 5: To you so that I can ask about the talent pools,
Speaker 5: the Palestinian technology talent pools that you work with, principally,
Speaker 5: where do they come from and in what kind of
Speaker 5: roles are you placing them into.
Speaker 2: Okay, so again let's distinguish between the West Bank and
Speaker 2: East Jerusalem on the one hand, and Gaza on the
Speaker 2: other hand. Look, the Palestinian tech sector is still very
Speaker 2: very small. It's bigger and more advanced than it was
Speaker 2: when I and others started working on this, you know,
Speaker 2: fifteen years ago or so, but it's still very small.
Speaker 2: You can't think of it in terms of the Israeli
Speaker 2: startup nation, which is you know, one of the leading
Speaker 2: tech centers in the world. However, there are some young,
Speaker 2: for the most part, very talented, ambitious and exceptional Palestinian
Speaker 2: tech entrepreneurs. Again, my experience is mainly with people in
Speaker 2: the West Bank, and I think it's extremely important for
Speaker 2: all of us, for Palestinians as well as for israelis
Speaker 2: that we encourage those few entrepreneurs so that they'll set
Speaker 2: an example and be able to employ other Palestinians and
Speaker 2: show the way for other young Palestinians to go into
Speaker 2: tech entrepreneurship, which has transformed Israel, and I believe that
Speaker 2: it can perhaps similarly transform the Palestinian economy. So we
Speaker 2: have to give them the tools, and the programs I've
Speaker 2: started are aimed at giving young Palestinians the tools and
Speaker 2: the experience and the networks and the know how to
Speaker 2: go back and build up a robust Palestinian tech sector
Speaker 2: which can help drive the economy there. And I think
Speaker 2: change the regent help change the for all of us.
Speaker 2: We do that through the Internship program, which by the way,
Speaker 2: is not aimed at bringing Palestinians to come work long
Speaker 2: term at companies in Israel. The idea is to bring
Speaker 2: them for a short period, typically three months. Very often
Speaker 2: they're asked to stay on for an additional period and
Speaker 2: then give them those tools with which they can go
Speaker 2: back and help build the Palestinian economy as far as
Speaker 2: Gaza is concerned. You know, it's I mean, one's heart
Speaker 2: is broken here for many reasons. But two months ago
Speaker 2: we had a networking event. We do this once a
Speaker 2: year for the internship program that I started, and we
Speaker 2: bring together many of the Palestinians who've been interns, who've
Speaker 2: been in our internship program, who've been in the mentorship program,
Speaker 2: and we meet them up with many Israelis from the
Speaker 2: tech sector here and it is just an incredibly heartwarming
Speaker 2: experience every time we do it. As I said, we
Speaker 2: did it two months ago, almost to the day, August eighth,
Speaker 2: and there were about one hundred Palestinians from the West
Speaker 2: Bank and East Jerusalem who came. There were almost an
Speaker 2: equal number of Israeli tech folks, and there were four
Speaker 2: young Gozen tech entrepreneurs who managed to get permits to
Speaker 2: come to Hurtzlia and participate in this event. And you know,
Speaker 2: these are the kind of people that need to be
Speaker 2: given tools to, as I say, to develop their own
Speaker 2: economy for the benefit of all of us. Now, I
Speaker 2: obviously am paying to think about, you know, the prospects
Speaker 2: of those young Palestinians, of those young Gozins today, given
Speaker 2: what's going on. I'm sure they will not be having
Speaker 2: an easy time of it. But you know, I think
Speaker 2: we need to ask where one needs to look to
Speaker 2: place the blame for that unfortunate situation in the immediate term.
Speaker 5: Yadin Kaufman, founder of the Palestinian Internship Program, thank you
Speaker 5: for your time today, much appreciated here on Bloomberg Technology.
Speaker 5: Welcome back to Bloomberg Technology, Ed Ludlow here in San Francisco.
Speaker 5: Today we're going to take a look at the rise
Speaker 5: of AI image recognition tools and how it's impacting our
Speaker 5: shopping experiences, among other things. Similar to Google Lens, which
Speaker 5: directs users to suggestions based on items they capture on
Speaker 5: their camera, Swedish tech startup Klana is now entering the
Speaker 5: game with its own shopping lens and many other AI
Speaker 5: powered products. CEO Sebastian ci mai Atakovski joins us now
Speaker 5: for more. Sebastian, but before we get into the technology conversation.
Speaker 5: I want to ask you about Israel and the war
Speaker 5: with her mass Klana, if I'm right and saying shut it.
Speaker 5: It's operations in Tel Aviv in twenty eighteen, but you
Speaker 5: still have close ties to the country of Israel, A number.
Speaker 6: Of staff impacted.
Speaker 5: Please, could you just explain the company's re response and
Speaker 5: how it has impacted Klana?
Speaker 3: Well, I think you know, it's obviously terrible sad news.
Speaker 3: I was in shock myself on Saturday morning. And but
Speaker 3: I mean since we unfortunately don't have an office in
Speaker 3: Israela anymore, but we do have fantastic colleagues, many of
Speaker 3: us who joined us at the time we had an
Speaker 3: local presence. Obviously, the only thing I think we can
Speaker 3: have done is tried to extend you know, our you know,
Speaker 3: try to extend our the sadness and express the support
Speaker 3: to all of these colleagues internally. Not at least my
Speaker 3: CEO himself is Israeli, so I think on these circumstances, unfortunately,
Speaker 3: maybe that's the only thing we can really do.
Speaker 5: Especially and thank you for discussing that with me. We're
Speaker 5: here to talk about AI and this is a big
Speaker 5: move because not just on the lens product.
Speaker 6: Google is going for it.
Speaker 5: It's sort of consumer facing generative AI applications across multiple
Speaker 5: software use case is why.
Speaker 6: Did you do this? Why you so confident in doing
Speaker 6: it well?
Speaker 3: I think, first of allmost like, it's interesting to observe
Speaker 3: that in the US market, search for products has basically
Speaker 3: primarily been dominated by Amazon really not even Google to
Speaker 3: that extent. Google Shopping has had some more success in
Speaker 3: some European countries, but in twenty twenty one we acquired
Speaker 3: what is one of or maybe the leading and largest
Speaker 3: European comparison Product comparison website helps you find, you know,
Speaker 3: pricing the right price to right product with the right chipping.
Speaker 4: Time, et cetera.
Speaker 3: And ever since then we've been exploring this opportunity. And
Speaker 3: now with the acceleration of AI, we think that the
Speaker 3: gap between the content itself, I mean you watching a
Speaker 3: Netflix movie, are you seeing something in a newspaper ad
Speaker 3: or you seeing something in the physical world can actually now,
Speaker 3: you know, allow you to basically instantaneously make a purchase. Now,
Speaker 3: a lot of people have tried to your point, and
Speaker 3: someone failed, I mean Meta the least was trying with
Speaker 3: you know, with Facebook and Instagram shopping and shut that down.
Speaker 4: But we see that the technologies.
Speaker 3: There, we have you know, over fifteen million SKUs and
Speaker 3: products in our in our data basis, So there is
Speaker 3: now a fantastic opportunity to create a very different experience
Speaker 3: than what has been available and really close that distance
Speaker 3: between I see something I like and I have it
Speaker 3: in my main box.
Speaker 5: You're actually releasing thirteen different AI powered products. Are you
Speaker 5: building the foundation model large language models the power that
Speaker 5: yourselves or from a top technology perspective, you're agnostic and
Speaker 5: kind of going to established LM builders.
Speaker 3: Well, look, we've had a close relationship with open Ai
Speaker 3: that you know. I had a privilege to speak to
Speaker 3: Sam Laid back in February and since then we've had
Speaker 3: a great partnership. But we also obviously explore and look
Speaker 3: at the other Claude and other opportunities out there.
Speaker 4: We looked at Glubus as well. I think we are
Speaker 4: at Klana very like pragmatic.
Speaker 3: I see, if we think that we can do something
Speaker 3: better than somebody else than we do it ourselves. If
Speaker 3: we think that somebody else is doing it better, we
Speaker 3: much rather build on that and use that.
Speaker 4: And when it comes to a lot of the lms.
Speaker 3: I mean, the things that Opening, as an example, you know,
Speaker 3: allows us to do is amazing. What we are thinking about, like,
Speaker 3: how do we bring that to consumers to something that
Speaker 3: actually creates value for consumers on a day to day basis,
Speaker 3: combining the amazing technology that OPENINGI and others have developed
Speaker 3: with you know, the amazing technology that we have internally.
Speaker 4: So that's really been our focus primarily. Like there may
Speaker 4: be something.
Speaker 3: Where you know, you want to build your own LEM
Speaker 3: eventually or you know, specialized, but right now, what can
Speaker 3: we bring to consumers to help their lives become better?
Speaker 4: Like that's that's the key objective.
Speaker 6: Here, Sebastian.
Speaker 5: One of the data points that Klan is putting forward
Speaker 5: is that seventy six percent of consumers are still shopping
Speaker 5: in store. I would say there's probably a number of
Speaker 5: third party data sets that are all over the place
Speaker 5: in terms of how many people go to a store.
Speaker 6: But how high risk is that for you?
Speaker 5: What if people just return to online shopping and lens
Speaker 5: isn't needed.
Speaker 3: Oh well, I think that Like what we've seen is
Speaker 3: like you know, for a while there during COVID, we
Speaker 3: thought that nobody was going to return to physical stores.
Speaker 4: And now we've kind of seen that they have to
Speaker 4: a large degree.
Speaker 3: I think you'll have these fluctuations, but I think over
Speaker 3: time more and more so those two experiences will basically,
Speaker 3: you know, they will merge to some degree.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: I think the more and more we see what's happening
Speaker 3: in retail but also with product and brands, is that
Speaker 3: you will have pop up stores, you will have brand representation.
Speaker 3: A lot of brand stores are really also have amazing
Speaker 3: marketing capabilities for those brands, so you'll see more and
Speaker 3: more of that presence, just like Apple have been one
Speaker 3: of the amazing companies.
Speaker 4: To show the way.
Speaker 3: I mean Apple store is as much as marketing investment
Speaker 3: as it is an actual store itself, even though it's
Speaker 3: obviously one of the most successful retailers in that sense.
Speaker 4: But I think that, like so, we think those will merge.
Speaker 3: The point is that what we wanted to make sure
Speaker 3: we clon is that whether you're in physical store and
Speaker 3: using our photo lemths to basically either gone to scan
Speaker 3: the barcode or just take an image of the image
Speaker 3: of the item itself, or whether you're scanning and looking
Speaker 3: at something on your screen, on those two should really
Speaker 3: lead to the same opportunity of comparing alternatives, understanding who
Speaker 3: can shift that product fastest, at what price, what are
Speaker 3: the options that you have, and then allow us to
Speaker 3: combine that with the personal preferences that our consumers have,
Speaker 3: because they all are slightly different. I think it's very
Speaker 3: natural for a credit card payments company to play the
Speaker 3: role if you.
Speaker 4: Think about it to some degree.
Speaker 3: This was kind of the promise of the AMEX card,
Speaker 3: right you were supposed to weigh this card of a
Speaker 3: platinum whatever, and as a consequence, you know, your restaurant
Speaker 3: owner would say, oh my god, it's a platinum, so
Speaker 3: I'll bring you this wine or that you know, this
Speaker 3: kind of service. So like back that the payments company
Speaker 3: signals to the retailer, to the seller, who is this customer,
Speaker 3: what are their preferences, what could they be interested in?
Speaker 3: And then helps, you know, Greid the smoothest experience in
Speaker 3: that to accelerate trade for all of our immersions and partners.
Speaker 4: It feels like a very natural thing.
Speaker 3: But now with AI we can do it at a
Speaker 3: very different level than what was possible back in the
Speaker 3: amics days.
Speaker 6: Clan I C.
Speaker 5: Sebastian Simiyakovski. Greates, catch up, thank you for coming on
Speaker 5: the show. Much more ahead This is Bloomberg Technology. The
Speaker 5: largest public pension fund in the US, the California Public
Speaker 5: Employees Retirement System or KALPERS, is looking for a new
Speaker 5: chief investment Officer. I sat down with klper's CEO, Marcy
Speaker 5: Frost to talk about the pension funds investment strategy as
Speaker 5: it works to bring in that new COO. We spoke
Speaker 5: about the role of bench capital and whether there are
Speaker 5: potential limitations and how a pension fund can be able
Speaker 5: to get into that growth stage round.
Speaker 9: Have listen anton Orlik who is the head of our
Speaker 9: private equity team. That has been part of the playbook
Speaker 9: for him bringing in venture deals. Some of those checks
Speaker 9: can be smaller, but when you're pairing up with other funds,
Speaker 9: you can write a sizable check and still expect a
Speaker 9: nice return over time. But coming back into venture, we
Speaker 9: believe is the right strategy for the portfolio.
Speaker 5: We want to stay in the world aventure capital, but
Speaker 5: turn back see ongoing and developing situation in Israel. We're
Speaker 5: joined now by John Medved, the founder and CEO of
Speaker 5: our crowd global venture investment platform, Big scale in in
Speaker 5: the Israeli tech ecosystem. John, We've covered a lot of
Speaker 5: sort of the near term what's happening on the ground,
Speaker 5: But from your perspective, could you kindly give me the
Speaker 5: kind of bigger picture on what this does for venture
Speaker 5: back deals in the tech Israeli system over a matter.
Speaker 6: Of months or years going forward. Will this have a
Speaker 6: lasting effect?
Speaker 10: Well, if you actually take that sort of a frame
Speaker 10: of reference and you look several years down the road,
Speaker 10: there will be no question that will be bigger, stronger,
Speaker 10: more money invested. Israel has developed, as you know and
Speaker 10: been covering this incredible tech investment ecosystem. It's hard to
Speaker 10: find any significant venture players who aren't active in terms
Speaker 10: of backing Israeli companies. You know, Israel huge delegation of
Speaker 10: companies traded in New York Today, one hundred unicorns are
Speaker 10: operational in Israel. Our crowd is perhaps the largest democratic
Speaker 10: venture platform investing globally but investing from Israel.
Speaker 1: So clearly, over.
Speaker 10: The next couple of weeks and months, depending up on
Speaker 10: how long these hostilities last, we're going to be facing challenges.
Speaker 10: But unfortunately we have a lot of experience doing this
Speaker 10: and successfully and if you look at the past performance,
Speaker 10: every time we've gone through this unfortunate episodes and such
Speaker 10: as a war, it's hard to call it an episode.
Speaker 10: We emerge at the end of the process stronger, bigger,
Speaker 10: and I think that based on just listening to some
Speaker 10: of your guests today, Israel's strength in AI and in
Speaker 10: deep tech is going to bring lots of capital and
Speaker 10: lots of return to venture investors in the Israeli market.
Speaker 5: And I appreciate the sort of unique structure of our
Speaker 5: crowd how investors can get access to private startups four
Speaker 5: hundred and twenty seven direct pull photo companies, and then
Speaker 5: there are fund companies as well. Has there been a
Speaker 5: need for cash injection this week because of what's happened
Speaker 5: to continue to be operational?
Speaker 10: It's not, no, it's not like that kind of either
Speaker 10: send me money this week or in trouble. As you know,
Speaker 10: there's been a you know, quite market retraction in the
Speaker 10: amount of venture money committed by funds into venture.
Speaker 1: Backed startups worldwide.
Speaker 10: It's been fifty sixty seventy percent down year to year,
Speaker 10: depending upon which area Israel shares that downturn. So the
Speaker 10: problem we're facing is that, you know, we are already
Speaker 10: in a capital constrained environment where companies are cutting their costs,
Speaker 10: letting people go, you know, trying very very hard to
Speaker 10: make sure that they can you know, get to break
Speaker 10: even or close and then make sure they can continue
Speaker 10: to develop their businesses.
Speaker 1: Then this comes along, and this is.
Speaker 10: Not great in terms of a capital raising environment, but
Speaker 10: we're stepping it up. Okay, We're going to be you know,
Speaker 10: launching many new deals and bringing more capital in.
Speaker 1: And we're heartened by.
Speaker 10: What we've seen is the response of the global venture
Speaker 10: community to the Israeli tech community during the last several days.
Speaker 1: It's incredible.
Speaker 10: There's a site called tech Condemning Terror where they're simply
Speaker 10: this huge list of people who are supporting Israel and
Speaker 10: making actual commitments into the nonprofit sector to help families
Speaker 10: that have been stricken by this or people who are
Speaker 10: in need, and you know, leading funds like Inside or
Speaker 10: a General Catalyst, big companies, an Israeli company like Mobili
Speaker 10: are making in some cases multimillion dollar commitments okay, to Israel.
Speaker 10: So we hope that that won't just be on the
Speaker 10: nonprofit side, but there'll be an outpouring of support in
Speaker 10: terms of making investments, and it's traditionally been a great
Speaker 10: place to invest venture capital.
Speaker 5: John just very quickly, based on what you just said.
Speaker 5: It is worth noting that Hamas has been designated a
Speaker 5: terrorist organization by the US in the European Union. I
Speaker 5: want to end on asking what's unique about Israel's tech talent.
Speaker 5: I note that in Nvidia was due to hold its
Speaker 5: AI summit Sunday Monday of next week in Tel Aviv
Speaker 5: and canceled for obvious reasons. But from the AI perspective,
Speaker 5: what is it that Israel has that other countries or
Speaker 5: regions don't.
Speaker 10: We have resilience right In other words, today we're facing
Speaker 10: a crisis, but there are crises all over the world
Speaker 10: in the Ukraine and Asia, there's a food crisis, a
Speaker 10: climate crisis. But we are skilled at navigating through difficult
Speaker 10: times and we don't take no for an answer. We're
Speaker 10: pretty aggressive people, we're sweet, and we're loyal.
Speaker 1: We work really hard.
Speaker 10: And in terms of the AI area in particular, we
Speaker 10: have remarkable companies who are not only developing generative AI
Speaker 10: or broad platforms, but we have companies that are also
Speaker 10: developing incredible expertise in these vertical areas as the one
Speaker 10: such you've just spoke about in terms of AI for shopping,
Speaker 10: and I'm going to call Sebastians with some really interesting
Speaker 10: deals that we can talk about. But the reality is
Speaker 10: that we are going to We already are leaders in
Speaker 10: AI and Sam was just here from Open AI, but
Speaker 10: we are going to go beyond AI into all the
Speaker 10: areas where Israel is strong, whether it's cybersecurity, We're forty
Speaker 10: cents and every dollar is invested in Israel worldwide, whether
Speaker 10: it's ag tech or food tech. Where Israel more money
Speaker 10: was invested in alternative protein than the entire European Union.
Speaker 1: Okay, in the Israel alone, in the cloud, in sports.
Speaker 10: Deck, in mobility, and I think that this will continue
Speaker 10: to grow. We're going to get through this war successfully
Speaker 10: as we have for the last seventy five years.
Speaker 1: And we look forward to working with our global partners.
Speaker 5: John Medved, founder and CEO of Our Crowd, Thank you
Speaker 5: for your time here on Bloomberg Technology.
Speaker 6: Okay.
Speaker 5: Social media platforms like x and metas, Facebook and Instagram
Speaker 5: are facing criticism for the handling of misinformation amid.
Speaker 6: The Israel mass war.
Speaker 5: Joining for more and writing about it in Bloomberg BusinessWeek
Speaker 5: columnist Max Chafkin and Sarah Fryar, our editor here in
Speaker 5: SF the byline on this one, but outline what the
Speaker 5: Business Week article discusses.
Speaker 6: Max.
Speaker 11: Yeah, So the BusinessWeek article discusses the way that social
Speaker 11: media historically has been very useful both for journalists and
Speaker 11: for outside observers and even for people on the ground
Speaker 11: in sort of gathering information, uh, you know, either mid
Speaker 11: terrorist attacks or demonstrations or whatever. And what we saw
Speaker 11: over the last few days is instead of you know,
Speaker 11: a lot of you know, useful information being circulated, just
Speaker 11: this kind of torrent of kind of misinformation and confusion,
Speaker 11: especially on x you know, formerly known as Twitter, but
Speaker 11: also on Facebook and Instagram and some of the other platforms.
Speaker 11: You know, these social media companies have basically disinvested in
Speaker 11: news and and both in terms of moderating news and
Speaker 11: in presenting it in a you know, as I would
Speaker 11: would I would argue it would be a responsible way.
Speaker 11: And we're kind of seeing the results, which is which
Speaker 11: is a mixed bag. You know, there's obviously very good
Speaker 11: information out there, but it's kind of mixed in with
Speaker 11: a lot of nonsense.
Speaker 6: Max. Bear with me on two things.
Speaker 5: The first is that sources at X tell me they're
Speaker 5: working out how to respond to Thierry Breton, the EU
Speaker 5: Tech chief, who asked them what they're doing about misinformation.
Speaker 5: But also in the last ten minutes or so, we've
Speaker 5: heard from Meta pairent of Facebook, and they have responded
Speaker 5: to Thierry Breton's same request to them. This is what
Speaker 5: they say. After the terrorist attacks by Hamas on Israel Saturday,
Speaker 5: we quickly established a special operations center staff with experts,
Speaker 5: including fluent Hebrew and Arabic speakers, to closely monitor and
Speaker 5: respond to this rapidly evolving situation. Our teams are working
Speaker 5: around the clock to keep our platform safe, take action
Speaker 5: on content that violates our policies or local law, and
Speaker 5: coordinate with third party fact checkers in the region to
Speaker 5: limit the spread of misinformation. Will continue this work as
Speaker 5: the conflict unfolds. That is Meta's response. The other point
Speaker 5: that you make in the BusinessWeek article is that go back,
Speaker 5: there was a time where Meta and indeed the platform
Speaker 5: formerly known as Twitter, wanted to be the go to
Speaker 5: for contemporaneous and accurate information.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 11: Absolutely, So two things have happened. One is that both
Speaker 11: of these platforms Meta and X have been under pressure
Speaker 11: are from TikTok. TikTok's model is not news, it's you know,
Speaker 11: engaging videos, and we've essentially seen these platforms move towards that.
Speaker 6: That's why when you open up Instagram.
Speaker 11: These days, you'll often see posts that are weeks, if
Speaker 11: not months old. Even on Twitter, which has been known
Speaker 11: as kind of you know, real time news network, you'll
Speaker 11: see stuff that's from yesterday, the day before, last week,
Speaker 11: or whatever, and that makes it just much much more
Speaker 11: difficult to.
Speaker 6: Figure out what's going on.
Speaker 11: The Other thing is there are fewer journalistic players on
Speaker 11: these platforms. Used to have a lot of kind of
Speaker 11: community moderation happening. So on top of the kind of
Speaker 11: trust and safety types that we're hearing about in that
Speaker 11: Meta statement or that Elon Muskin and the X management
Speaker 11: have spent you know a lot of the last year,
Speaker 11: you know, cutting back on we had these We had
Speaker 11: journalists basically who are also on the ground, were able
Speaker 11: to kind of sort the wheat from the chaff in
Speaker 11: terms of what was true and what wasn't.
Speaker 6: And that is also gone.
Speaker 11: So it's not just that the companies have disinvested the
Speaker 11: community has disengaged.
Speaker 6: Thank yous.
Speaker 5: Bloomers, Max chaff Kid and X would point out that
Speaker 5: community notes is now in sort of tens of thousands
Speaker 5: of posts monitoring this. Starting tonight, Bloomberg's screen Time will
Speaker 5: bring together industry leaders at the intersection of Hollywood and
Speaker 5: Silicon Valley. Here's a preview of what to expect screen
Speaker 5: Time Hollywood. Bloomberg's bringing together leaders, entrepreneurs, celebrities, and moguls
Speaker 5: to speak about the future of the business of culture.
Speaker 5: And we're doing it here right in the heart of Tinseltown.
Speaker 5: Screen Time is where Hollywood and Silicon Valley collide. Content
Speaker 5: is getting more expensive to make, the number of platforms
Speaker 5: fighting for eyeballs is growing. There is more choice than
Speaker 5: ever before. And top of mind is how artificial intelligence
Speaker 5: is going to change the game for cinema, streaming, live sports,
Speaker 5: and video games. Let's kick it off with looking at
Speaker 5: the new Netflix. Ted Sarando's co CEO of Netflix, takes
Speaker 5: to the stage to explain how Netflix is figuring out
Speaker 5: its next chapter of growth. What about the content creators?
Speaker 5: YouTube CEO Neil Mohen talks to us about creator culture
Speaker 5: and YouTube's new ambitions across podcasts, and music. After weeks
Speaker 5: of negotiations between studios, actors and writers overpaid. What does
Speaker 5: the future hold for Hollywood? Is it finally back to
Speaker 5: business as normal? We speak to the head of one
Speaker 5: of Hollywood's biggest talent agencies, CIA and writer, actor and
Speaker 5: producer is A. Ray talks about making an impact in
Speaker 5: Hollywood and growing a portfolio. And sure you've heard about
Speaker 5: the big numbers behind the box office, but what about
Speaker 5: the billions of dollars that the video games industry brings
Speaker 5: in when a new title's launched. We'll look at the
Speaker 5: future of gaming with leaders from across the industry, including
Speaker 5: Electronic Arts Laura Meel and a discussion on the confluence
Speaker 5: between video games and the business of culture, Which hit
Speaker 5: video games titles make for good TV films and shows
Speaker 5: how many virtual worlds is AI going to bring to life?
Speaker 5: Riot Games CCO Brian Wright and Minecraft's Helen Chiang discuss.
Speaker 5: Along the way, we'll get insight on the performance of
Speaker 5: sound from Foley Artists, entertainment industry veteran Sarana Kelly, as
Speaker 5: well as the reveal of Bloomberg Business Weeks Ones to
Speaker 5: watch list Join the filmmakers, writers, producers, and executives that
Speaker 5: are changing the industry, and the investors that are funding
Speaker 5: that change.
Speaker 6: This is Hollywood, just not the one you remember. This
Speaker 6: is the future of Hollywood.
Speaker 5: That does it for this edition of Bloomberg Technology, don't
Speaker 5: forget check out the podcast wherever you get your podcasts
Speaker 5: on the Bloomberg platforms, Apple, Spotify, and iHeart. From here
Speaker 5: in San Francisco on our way to Los Angeles. This
Speaker 5: is Bloomberg technol Ology.