Speaker 1: I'm Caroline, had a Blomberg's World headquarters in New York,
Speaker 1: and I made Ludlow in San Francisco. This is Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Technology Caroline. Momentum in technology stocks halted, a big week
Speaker 1: of earnings, and nervousness also driven by geopolitics, certainly is
Speaker 1: let's get straight to it ed Coming up, the US
Speaker 1: China tech tension intensifies the Biden administration waging cutting off
Speaker 1: Hua away from US suppliers, while the CEO of TikTok
Speaker 1: has been called to testify before US lawmakers. Then by
Speaker 1: do the so called Google of China implementing generative AI
Speaker 1: into its own search engine. Plus our conversation with Brian Johnson,
Speaker 1: you must have read the story a forty five year
Speaker 1: old entrepreneur who has committed to reverse aging. But first
Speaker 1: geopolitics at play, and let's get to that, one of
Speaker 1: the most read stories of the Bloomberg Today. Our tech
Speaker 1: exact of editor Tom Giles hate to break it down
Speaker 1: when it comes to the world of China versus US. Really,
Speaker 1: the theme the tension continues to constantate. Really it feels
Speaker 1: like and just talk to us about whahwai, Why we're
Speaker 1: really trying to shut off any supplies from US manufacturers
Speaker 1: to Huahwei. This is all about isolating Wahwei. This is
Speaker 1: a company that for years the US US presidents, US
Speaker 1: federal government has singled out Huawei as being a potential
Speaker 1: source of a threat to UH to our national security.
Speaker 1: There's concerns about what happens with the equipment that we
Speaker 1: buy from Huawei. There's concerns about US enabling Hahwei to
Speaker 1: become a bigger and more powerful player with with the
Speaker 1: components that US companies sell to Huawei. This would be
Speaker 1: yet another step by the Biden administration to isolate Hahwei,
Speaker 1: to cut it off from vital US supplies. There's a
Speaker 1: hardening of stance under Biden even for what it was
Speaker 1: under President Trump's and President Trump put Huawei on the
Speaker 1: nity list. But you could get licenses to do business
Speaker 1: which US names are impacted by all of this, because
Speaker 1: there are US tech companies doing business with Huawei, or
Speaker 1: or at least looking for exceptions. That's right. A lot
Speaker 1: of the business that we do with the U S
Speaker 1: businesses to do with Wahwei had already been caught off,
Speaker 1: but there were still some exceptions for instance, Intel and
Speaker 1: qual Calm. To the companies that would be affected by
Speaker 1: this move, those two companies still sell Intel seals chips
Speaker 1: for laptops and are made by Wahwei, and Qualcom sales
Speaker 1: chips that are used in some of the iPhones, some
Speaker 1: of the phones excuse me, the phones that Wahaway's cells.
Speaker 1: So you were still having some US companies do business
Speaker 1: with Whahwei. This is an instant. This is an example
Speaker 1: of the Biden administration being under tremendous pressure from Republicans
Speaker 1: in Congress to stay tough on China and not show
Speaker 1: signs of letting up, not show anything that the Republicans
Speaker 1: consider to be a sign of weakness, and then to
Speaker 1: be tom Of course, this is going into national in
Speaker 1: terms of the administration looking to the Netherlands to Japan.
Speaker 1: That was last week's story, wasn't it, trying to get
Speaker 1: other countries to put similar tough stances on China. You
Speaker 1: can't do this alone, even though the U s is
Speaker 1: a major leader in chip making capabilities technologies. You can't
Speaker 1: do it alone because an XP, for example, from the
Speaker 1: Netherlands sells some ship making equipment into China that is
Speaker 1: highly specialized, highly very technical and very lucrative for an
Speaker 1: XP and it's a technology that you just cannot replicate easily.
Speaker 1: China certainly can do it, so the US cannot fully
Speaker 1: isolate China. And remember, the US wants to make it
Speaker 1: hard for China to become a powerhouse in chip making capabilities.
Speaker 1: This is something that the Chinese have been have fallen behind,
Speaker 1: the have been behind the US for time memorial. They
Speaker 1: have made it a commitment. They have made a commitment
Speaker 1: to spending the money that it takes to become a
Speaker 1: leader in ship making technology. And the US is saying
Speaker 1: no way to that. Bloomberg's executive edit of Technology Tom
Speaker 1: Giles across that big breaking headline the staff to do. Now,
Speaker 1: let's dive into the world of TikTok because the CEO
Speaker 1: show Chew Caroline is going to testify but before the
Speaker 1: House Energy and Commerce Committee on the company's privacy policies,
Speaker 1: the impact on children, and the company's relationship with the
Speaker 1: Communist Party. Want to bring in Alex Brinka on this. Alex,
Speaker 1: what to expect. You can expect potentially a bit of
Speaker 1: a spicy hearing here. This is the very first time
Speaker 1: that TikTok CEO Shoo Chew will actually be testifying before
Speaker 1: a committee that's been known in the past for grilling
Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg on the Cambridge Analytical scandal and for really
Speaker 1: digging in on details around child privacy and around data sharing,
Speaker 1: and as we've talked about before, the Republicans in Congress
Speaker 1: are really concerned about the company's connection to China during
Speaker 1: Chinese parent company, so you can expect question done all
Speaker 1: of those things. We also often see in these House
Speaker 1: committee hearings uh the representatives pushing the executives to make promises,
Speaker 1: to agree to do things. You can see some questions
Speaker 1: potentially around cutting off data or around um, you know,
Speaker 1: putting up some blockades with their Chinese parent company. And
Speaker 1: it's just remind us where we are because the administration
Speaker 1: in many ways is meant to be leading this. Cypius
Speaker 1: is meant to be leading this. This is meant to
Speaker 1: be in many ways, you know, a deal with Oracle.
Speaker 1: We're all discussing where are we in that timeline. Similar
Speaker 1: to the Waldby situation, this is another situation where Congressional
Speaker 1: Republicans are putting a lot of pressure on the Biden administration,
Speaker 1: who in the background for years has been going through
Speaker 1: a national security review looking at TikTok, looking at connections
Speaker 1: with its Chinese parent company that our sources tell us
Speaker 1: is getting there um, but there were some hiccups with
Speaker 1: particularly some members of the Department of Justice who are
Speaker 1: on the committee, who are not comfortable with some of
Speaker 1: the concessions of the company was bringing to the table
Speaker 1: in the negotiations. So it seems like a lot of
Speaker 1: Republicans in both the Senate and the House are saying, look,
Speaker 1: we need to wrap this up, or we're going to
Speaker 1: take this into our own hands. We're gonna introduce bills,
Speaker 1: which they have done, the first of which will come
Speaker 1: to a vote to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs
Speaker 1: next month. Just before this hearing with the CEO going
Speaker 1: down to d C Alex. What surprised me and are
Speaker 1: reporting around this is that it's the first time that
Speaker 1: TikTok CEO too appears formally in a hearing. We've heard
Speaker 1: from other executives. He was on stage, of course, earlier
Speaker 1: in the year with one of our CEDIA leadership or
Speaker 1: senior editors here at Bloomberg. What do we know about
Speaker 1: his ability to feel these kinds of questions and basically
Speaker 1: engage with US lawmakers. Well, he has basically been operating
Speaker 1: behind the scenes thus far. My colleague in d C
Speaker 1: and I wrote a big story last Fault looking at
Speaker 1: their lobbying efforts, which were kind of behind closed doors.
Speaker 1: He was down there, he was taking meetings. Now, I'll
Speaker 1: tell you the company has taken kind of a change
Speaker 1: in stand We've seen them get pretty loud and much
Speaker 1: more forward about what they're doing, describing some of the
Speaker 1: data security policies that they're looking to put in place,
Speaker 1: and this will really be the first time that he's
Speaker 1: up front. We've seen Vanessa Papas, who is the chief
Speaker 1: operating officer. She has been kind of the de facto
Speaker 1: face for TikTok here in the US. She did testify
Speaker 1: at Congress, made a bunch of promises about data security controls,
Speaker 1: basically tried to put forth a message of unique to
Speaker 1: trust us that we're not sharing any any information with
Speaker 1: the Chinese government. Now, there have been some kind of
Speaker 1: critical reports over the last month, including the company admitting
Speaker 1: that some employees of its parent company Byte Dance access
Speaker 1: the data of US users, including a number of journalists,
Speaker 1: so that trust has obviously been degraded, which again is
Speaker 1: probably the reason we're seeing some heightened heat coming out
Speaker 1: of DC against this company. Fimberg's atting Spurrinka terrific, repulleting
Speaker 1: around what is a focus for everyone right now TikTok
Speaker 1: and whether it's going to have a future here in
Speaker 1: the United States. Not back to me. In San Francisco,
Speaker 1: where Twitter made its first interest payment on the twelve
Speaker 1: point five billion dollars of debt that Elon Musk used
Speaker 1: to take the company private. Last year, Twitter paid a
Speaker 1: group of seven banks led by Morgan Stanley roughly three
Speaker 1: million dollars, according to sources and Bloomberg calculations. Questions over
Speaker 1: how the company will pay off its debt remain since
Speaker 1: they must take over. Twitter has failed to pay millions
Speaker 1: of dollars in rent, been sued by contractors over unpaid services,
Speaker 1: and of course auctioned off items not necessarily to raise money.
Speaker 1: Before the release of chat GPT, many people had been
Speaker 1: underestimating the progress that AI has been making over the
Speaker 1: last few years. I actually think the UK is one
Speaker 1: of the most interesting places in the world for artificial intelligence. Today.
Speaker 1: We have to get governments to think about how best
Speaker 1: to regulate this new, very past emerging industry. A lot
Speaker 1: of other orange companies are figuring out what are they
Speaker 1: going to do. Google is the most notable one on
Speaker 1: our sideline. I think they have bigger regulatory headwinds. People
Speaker 1: want regulation for AI, they want to feel safe. Microsoft's
Speaker 1: ambitions are going to continue to expand far outside of
Speaker 1: just enterprise software, so there's gonna be a lot of
Speaker 1: progress over the next couple of years. I think it'll
Speaker 1: be pretty pretty fun to watch, and we are going
Speaker 1: to keep on talking about it at the rise of
Speaker 1: Generative AI, and we know actually quite a lot about
Speaker 1: the US based work on that front. But this is
Speaker 1: an international project, right Yeah. Really fascinating reporting from Bloomberg
Speaker 1: out of China, and according to a Bloomberg source, by
Speaker 1: Do is working on something very similar to chat GPT.
Speaker 1: It was interesting because at one point in Monday session,
Speaker 1: the US listed shares or a d R s of
Speaker 1: Biden were up almost two and a half percent. All told,
Speaker 1: we closed down four tenths of a percent, but there
Speaker 1: was some kind of momentum behind the stock. Based on
Speaker 1: this reporting, we don't know a lot. What we do
Speaker 1: know is that it could come as soon as March
Speaker 1: and what by do we do? And remember By does
Speaker 1: the so called Google of China. But they're planning to
Speaker 1: embed this artificial intelligence platform into their existing services. And
Speaker 1: you know, what we know from a design perspective, in
Speaker 1: terms of capability perspective, is that by dues chat tool
Speaker 1: or Chat ai would basically give you a conversational response
Speaker 1: just like chat GPT is down. But this is really interesting.
Speaker 1: You and I've been talking a lot in recent weeks
Speaker 1: about China's move into artificial intelligence, the hype around artificial
Speaker 1: intelligence here in North America and beyond the Luckily we
Speaker 1: have just the right person to discuss the hype in AI.
Speaker 1: Dr Alex Hannah, director of Research at the Distributed Ai
Speaker 1: Research Institute. Where should we start. Let's start with that
Speaker 1: news and China, right, it's not surprising that by you
Speaker 1: would go ahead and try to work on a chair
Speaker 1: GPT type product. This thing has taken English langue English
Speaker 1: language towards by storm um it would make sense. And
Speaker 1: by do being China's Google, they have the amount of
Speaker 1: data that it takes actually train one of these very
Speaker 1: large models. This is a kind of AI model known
Speaker 1: as a transformer. So by you would naturally go into
Speaker 1: that space. It makes something about the height. You are
Speaker 1: an academic researcher in this field, when you see a
Speaker 1: name like by Do moving into this space, do you
Speaker 1: think that they are a credible player? Do you think? Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm interested in what they're working on here. They're definitely
Speaker 1: a credible player. I mean, they have mass stores of data.
Speaker 1: They are already in so many different spaces. Google's in
Speaker 1: that space, Microsoft, Facebook and whatnot, And so it makes
Speaker 1: sense that they're going to take these kinds of technologies
Speaker 1: and move into the space where they're building these models
Speaker 1: that can generate language at such a large scale and
Speaker 1: take a massive amount of queries. I mean, much has
Speaker 1: been written over the years about the race in AI
Speaker 1: between US and China, and many they were thought that
Speaker 1: China was ahead, particularly when you think of all the
Speaker 1: language basis, the way in which they have connected devices
Speaker 1: in the home. I'm interested, Dotana in what about the
Speaker 1: ethics race here? I have a feeling that many would
Speaker 1: say the US is thinking about them, But are they
Speaker 1: thinking about it quickly enough? Are they thinking about some
Speaker 1: of the biases that are baked in within artificial intelligence?
Speaker 1: Are they trying to think and get ahead of that
Speaker 1: as it starts to take us by store. I think
Speaker 1: they're trying to find out what's happening. But as we
Speaker 1: see with chad GPT, when you feed it some kinds
Speaker 1: of inputs, especially around race and gender, it produces these
Speaker 1: bias outputs. And this has been shown time and time again.
Speaker 1: Since we don't have a lot of visibility into what
Speaker 1: Baidu is doing, we're not sure what's going to happen there.
Speaker 1: We've seen their uses of ai B bias against certain
Speaker 1: ethnic groups like the Weaers UM, so it's not quite
Speaker 1: we don't know necessarily what kind of biases are going
Speaker 1: to happen there and how it's going to exacerbate a
Speaker 1: few further inequality there. Is it exacerbating racial, gender, class
Speaker 1: inequality at the moment in the US already or are
Speaker 1: people managing to tamp down or at least start to
Speaker 1: learn ensure that that's the models on building that in
Speaker 1: I think there's a potential for it. Definitely in English
Speaker 1: language there's less of that possibility just because there's been
Speaker 1: these issues have been documented by many people before UM.
Speaker 1: But as these things are being used in other domains
Speaker 1: where we don't have a good idea of what kinds
Speaker 1: of biases maybe baked in, especially when it starts getting
Speaker 1: away from English language. There's not enough data that really
Speaker 1: is there, and not enough regulators or legislators focusing on
Speaker 1: that to prevent that from happening. Let's talk hype. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I think that Caroline and I have gone
Speaker 1: over with you in the show in recent weeks worries
Speaker 1: about plagiarism or how aficial intelligence might contribute to inequality
Speaker 1: across race, gender, but everyone's talking about as ficial intelligence.
Speaker 1: Nonetheless there's an interest to use it. Does that worry
Speaker 1: you or excite you? It does both. It is me
Speaker 1: because I think the way that we think about artificial intelligence,
Speaker 1: we think about artificial intelligence as this kind of separate
Speaker 1: consciousness that is going to emerge as this thing of
Speaker 1: science fiction. We talked to chat GPT like it is
Speaker 1: an actual person. But really what it is it is
Speaker 1: something that's taking existing data and reproducing and patterns that
Speaker 1: had seen before. UM. But it has a lot of
Speaker 1: ways in which it could be denerative. It could be helpful.
Speaker 1: It could help human flourishing, especially when we're thinking about
Speaker 1: ways in which language technologies could be useful, especially in
Speaker 1: places that don't have a lot of good translation. UM.
Speaker 1: That collaboration could be really fruitful with affected communities. UM.
Speaker 1: But right now as it is, especially as it's being
Speaker 1: controlled by players like open Ai, Microsoft and buy Do,
Speaker 1: it's probably going to reproduce a lot of those inequalities
Speaker 1: that we've seen before. Go to Hannah, it was interesting.
Speaker 1: Is that of course your dare itself just read today
Speaker 1: I Research Institute. It sort of comes at it from
Speaker 1: a community t based focus. You're trying to move away
Speaker 1: from what is called in your website big text pervasive influence.
Speaker 1: What about the startup the seeds scene, the smaller players
Speaker 1: within AI that are building something really exciting. We talk
Speaker 1: a lot about open ai and Microsoft. We know the
Speaker 1: power that alphabet has within the realm of AI. Who
Speaker 1: else is doing this on a smaller scale but with
Speaker 1: really interesting outcomes. We've seen this less, i'd say, on
Speaker 1: the seed scene at least for what we see the
Speaker 1: major players feeding, especially in venture capital in the US.
Speaker 1: But we've definitely seen projects like Massa Kani, which is
Speaker 1: a collective of African researchers using AI for machine translation
Speaker 1: on the continent also lesson AI who's one of their fellows,
Speaker 1: ashmalash Uh Techtile works with us and doing machine translation
Speaker 1: and automatic speech recognition for some some languages that are
Speaker 1: less represented. And so the more and more we see
Speaker 1: AI being done with community players as a means of
Speaker 1: sourcing groups that are have been less resource I think
Speaker 1: those have been some really exciting uses and deployments of AI. UM.
Speaker 1: I think there's a push to rush towards doing things
Speaker 1: that big tech is doing is doing. We've actually seen
Speaker 1: a mass exodus from places like Google where people have
Speaker 1: gone ahead and start to try to develop these large
Speaker 1: language models, but it tends to be in English, and
Speaker 1: it tends to be in a way that's going to
Speaker 1: attract the most eyes from vcs, in ways that they're
Speaker 1: going to get the most investment. So UM, these community
Speaker 1: based projects I think are really interesting. Just quickly mass exodus,
Speaker 1: can you quantify that? I don't have the numbers off
Speaker 1: the top of my head, but I did see a
Speaker 1: story about something like thirty researchers that were coming from
Speaker 1: Google Brain, which is an organization that I came from,
Speaker 1: had left the company since I want to say, in
Speaker 1: the past two years, UM mostly to found things that
Speaker 1: we're focused on AI language technologies and they're afforded that
Speaker 1: kind of nimble nimbleness and going into the startup space,
Speaker 1: they can get that seed funding, they can kind of
Speaker 1: produce a produd that might be quicker to market than
Speaker 1: a place like Google that is a little slower to
Speaker 1: react in those In those cases, Dr Alex Hannah, thank
Speaker 1: you for your time, Director of Research and the Distributed
Speaker 1: AI Research Institute. Great to have you in the studio. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: coming up the ev price wars and building up forward
Speaker 1: now slashing one of its own prices following Tesla. More
Speaker 1: on that, it said, sweet Spot, it's a bloomberg. Is
Speaker 1: this the start of an evy price wark Ford is
Speaker 1: now cutting prices in the US on the Electric Mustange Marquee.
Speaker 1: The move is meant to counter Tesla's price cuts earlier
Speaker 1: this month, which were is the and according to Elon Musk,
Speaker 1: that did spur new demand for Tesla. Now across all
Speaker 1: of Ford's Marquee versions, it's an average trim of dollars,
Speaker 1: but the more significant cuts are on the most expensive visions.
Speaker 1: The g T Extended Range, for example, drops to start
Speaker 1: at sixty three. The move brings the Marquis in line
Speaker 1: with new caps on EV prices, which qualify for a
Speaker 1: federal tax credit of up to seventy dollars under the
Speaker 1: Inflation Reduction Act. Ford's also offering discounted financing rates as
Speaker 1: low as five point three. Now, last year, Ford was
Speaker 1: the number two e V seller in the US, but
Speaker 1: that was way behind Tesla, which controls almost two thirds
Speaker 1: of the market. As always your first and foremost with
Speaker 1: all this sort of news and and just talk to
Speaker 1: us about why Ford is doing this. Of course, many
Speaker 1: would say it's because of the Tesla response. Some would
Speaker 1: say it's actually to try and make it more available
Speaker 1: to certain subsidies. Right, Yeah, I think a number of
Speaker 1: analysts are saying this is just a response to Tesla.
Speaker 1: But my point in that pieces while they're cutting prices
Speaker 1: where the vehicles already most expensive, which would give evidence
Speaker 1: that they're trying to make them eligible for this seventy
Speaker 1: dollar tax credit and take advantage of that. So it's
Speaker 1: an interesting one. But Ford kind of talks a big
Speaker 1: game right about how demand is outweighing their ability to
Speaker 1: supply right now because they didn't build that many of
Speaker 1: them last year and So to that point, I mean,
Speaker 1: what's interesting in the story. It shows that this was
Speaker 1: sort of already a loss making type of car anyway.
Speaker 1: So ultimately, are they just deciding to take a hit
Speaker 1: to margin where necessary on certain types of one about
Speaker 1: the rest of the EV vehicles that they want to
Speaker 1: be coming out with. Yes, So, so Ford had planned
Speaker 1: for the Marquees to be profitable from unit one. That
Speaker 1: just didn't happen. It's unprofitable because of rising input costs commodities.
Speaker 1: But their plan now ramp up volume production, make more
Speaker 1: of them and improve margins to offset these price cuts.
Speaker 1: Heard that before, what is it? It seems to be
Speaker 1: volumes over margins at the moment. Over at Tesla's the
Speaker 1: way to go? Did you get a video gamer Christmas?
Speaker 1: If so, whoever gives you to debts got off? Cheap
Speaker 1: Prices for game storys and hobbies fell four eight percent
Speaker 1: in the year to December. That's mostly due to cheaper
Speaker 1: computer games, according to the UK Office for National Statistics.
Speaker 1: So what happened in December? Three things. First, a lack
Speaker 1: of releases in twenty twenty two. New games tend to
Speaker 1: be more expensive, so since there weren't that many hot
Speaker 1: pricey launches, people simply had more discounted titles to choose from.
Speaker 1: To be fair, there were a few new games in December,
Speaker 1: but none of them made it to the top of
Speaker 1: the charts. For example, the latest Need for Speed was
Speaker 1: the best performing in fourteenth place, but sales for the
Speaker 1: first five weeks were fourty percent lower than twenty nine version. Second,
Speaker 1: holiday discounts gaming companies ren their typical Black Friday and
Speaker 1: Christmas deals, toper sales for existing games. Look at FIFA
Speaker 1: twenty three to top game in December in the UK,
Speaker 1: which was discounted as much as seventy percent. And Third,
Speaker 1: despite cheaper prices, fewer people were buying games. It looks
Speaker 1: like quality, not price, is keen even in the cost
Speaker 1: of living crisis. So does that mean video games are
Speaker 1: getting cheaper? Well, the short douser is probably not. Two
Speaker 1: was a corrective year after two exceptional years of lockdown
Speaker 1: fueled growth for the entire gaming industry, so prices will
Speaker 1: probably rise again. That's, of course, if all launches go
Speaker 1: as planned. That was quick takes Arena and how so
Speaker 1: let's stick with gaming news. Caroline Meta reported to have
Speaker 1: cut contracts with at least two hundred gaming creators. According
Speaker 1: to the information, Meta ended the relationships in the second
Speaker 1: half of two and also cut contracts with streamers who
Speaker 1: weren't successful building an audience. The Information said, citing a
Speaker 1: META spokesperson, It's also a big week for the giants
Speaker 1: of the industry, with Electronic Arts e A reporting earnings Tuesday,
Speaker 1: and we get a read out on PlayStation demand when
Speaker 1: japan Sony reports numbers on When's day. So let's get
Speaker 1: into it with Josh Chapman, co founder and managing partner
Speaker 1: at Convoy and early stage gaming investment firm recently launched
Speaker 1: a one d and fifty million new funds which will
Speaker 1: take in assets under management to around two million dollars.
Speaker 1: And you're out with a new report on the state
Speaker 1: of the gaming industry. See see how much is going
Speaker 1: on right now Josh in the world of gaming. I
Speaker 1: think what's interesting for me is that the conclusion of
Speaker 1: your report is that there is a pathway to growth here.
Speaker 1: Talk us through what you found, absolutely and thank you
Speaker 1: again for having me on the show. So where we
Speaker 1: noticed in two is essentially three things. One is that
Speaker 1: gaming investment is up about two x where it was
Speaker 1: pre pandemic levels. So gaming investment is increasing while the industry,
Speaker 1: as your great segment just showed, continues to increase. The
Speaker 1: second thing we noticed that that there's about forty five
Speaker 1: billion dollars in cash sitting on the corporate balance She's
Speaker 1: of gaming companies today, creating an incredibly healthy gaming in
Speaker 1: a environment. The third thing that we're noticing is given.
Speaker 1: As you all well know that the I p O
Speaker 1: markets are closed, late stage investing in the gaming market
Speaker 1: has slowed almost to a grinding halt, while early stage
Speaker 1: continues to grow. As you see in this chart, gaming
Speaker 1: will continue to grow and is expected to continue to
Speaker 1: grow over the next five years. We had a report
Speaker 1: last year that showed that gaming over the last two
Speaker 1: recessions was incredibly resilient. So no matter where we're at
Speaker 1: right now, we think that will continue to thrive as
Speaker 1: an industry. Josh, I'm interested to go back to the
Speaker 1: consolidation point. There's a lot of cash on balance sheets,
Speaker 1: but there's also a lot of regulation about where that
Speaker 1: cash is put to work. We just think about microstos
Speaker 1: often activision. Is that deal going to go through? Does
Speaker 1: that matter? Do we see more waves of this? Absolutely
Speaker 1: so the FTC is absolutely during their job and trying
Speaker 1: to protect the gaming market. Our opinion is that there
Speaker 1: objections to this M and A acquisition is actually unfounded.
Speaker 1: One it's based on what might happen and not what
Speaker 1: is happening, and that's a really key thing to highlight here.
Speaker 1: We think this acquisition should go through. We think it
Speaker 1: will go through. We believe that this is absolutely a
Speaker 1: fair acquisition. You know, it's worth highlighting the post acquisition,
Speaker 1: the gaming revenue to Microsoft would be around twenty one
Speaker 1: billion dollars. That would be about eleven percent of the
Speaker 1: entire gaming market. But right now Sony makes about eighteen
Speaker 1: billion in the market, and there's actually a lot of
Speaker 1: competitors there in that similar range. So we think the
Speaker 1: FTC is worried about what might happen, and we think
Speaker 1: that sets a very dangerous precedent for M and A
Speaker 1: across not only gaming, but broader entertainment and i P
Speaker 1: in general. So we think this should go through. We
Speaker 1: think it will go through after it gets through all
Speaker 1: the objections. But certainly an intense environment order entertainment is
Speaker 1: an interesting one because we know that Netflix has been
Speaker 1: making eyes at the view of getting into gaming mall,
Speaker 1: and we've seen it is evident these are sort of
Speaker 1: companies that stop picking off interesting companies and what kinds
Speaker 1: of companies do you see this consolidation occurring in absolutely questions?
Speaker 1: So Netflix is actively building out of games business. Basically,
Speaker 1: this is in reaction to the fact that passive entertainment
Speaker 1: is losing out to interactive entertainment. Passive entertainment, which is
Speaker 1: one way like Hulu or HBO Go or Netflix, is
Speaker 1: losing out to to interactive entertainment, which gaming has been
Speaker 1: a professional app for fifty years. So this interactive entertainment
Speaker 1: is where a lot of groups like Netflix and Amazon
Speaker 1: and Google are moving towards. You're even gonna see Disney
Speaker 1: eventually enter the space in a much bigger way. I
Speaker 1: think that a lot of the cash on the balance
Speaker 1: sheet of broader tech companies is not only going to compete,
Speaker 1: but likely entering new ways into the gaming industry alongside
Speaker 1: the active forty five billion in cash that gaming companies
Speaker 1: like the traditional ones like Activision, Blizzard, and Nintendo have.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because you cite those numbers in your report,
Speaker 1: right you look at the cash some of the mega
Speaker 1: cat tech companies have and the conclusion your drawers. There's
Speaker 1: still a healthy M and A environment. And yet Caroline
Speaker 1: and I are here waiting every day for some updates
Speaker 1: around activision Microsoft. Will it happen, won't it happen? What
Speaker 1: will the regulators do? Do you think it will happen?
Speaker 1: I do? I do In the short that I do,
Speaker 1: and the reason why it is because the objections are
Speaker 1: based on the theoretical of what might happen in the future.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's gonna win out in court. I
Speaker 1: think it's that's a dangerous precedent for future M and
Speaker 1: A across all of entertainment, not just gaming, of well,
Speaker 1: we might become a monopoly, so therefore we should stop
Speaker 1: this M and A. The FTC later could retroactively, if
Speaker 1: their fears become realized, can step back in and and
Speaker 1: try to slap the hand of Microsoft and say hey,
Speaker 1: you need to vest or you need to separate. So
Speaker 1: they could always step in later if their fears are realized.
Speaker 1: But right now it's a really tricky environment and it
Speaker 1: would set a weird precedent across all of the FTCs.
Speaker 1: Scrutiny of different markets. Okay, Josh, your funds your new
Speaker 1: ones where is then ripe to invest. There's essentially gonna
Speaker 1: be a few areas that a lot of hype is
Speaker 1: going to be generated around AI, so around gaming. One
Speaker 1: of those these artificial intelligence people are talking about artificial
Speaker 1: intelligence that's going to make the creation process much easier.
Speaker 1: We think that is absolutely gonna play out, but it
Speaker 1: will be very tricky how this is gonna exactly gonna
Speaker 1: play out from a tech standpoint, and whether it will
Speaker 1: be investiable to build billion dollar companies so question mark,
Speaker 1: But that will be investment. The second is Web three.
Speaker 1: People are waiting for Web three and blockchain technology to
Speaker 1: really provide a monetization addition to the gaming industry in
Speaker 1: the same way that we saw free to play back
Speaker 1: in the emergence of mobile. The third is probably gonna
Speaker 1: be around you know, new marketplace dynamics and in the
Speaker 1: virtual reality space. So as virtual reality continues to be adopted,
Speaker 1: I think they'll be continued investment. Some of the areas
Speaker 1: that we're most excited about as a firm is things
Speaker 1: around the intersection of gaming and education, gaming and healthcare
Speaker 1: and gaming and UH and VR. That's really kind of
Speaker 1: where we're seeing a lot of exciting opportunities. All right,
Speaker 1: Josh Chatten and Convoy, how you founder and managing partner Caroline,
Speaker 1: Those that I've been wanting to have this conversation for
Speaker 1: weeks months, purely about video gaming. Let's talk again in
Speaker 1: a few months time and see how it goes now
Speaker 1: from video gaming to my other passion, streaming. Paramount has
Speaker 1: announced that Showtime will merge with its Paramount Plus service.
Speaker 1: The merge will be across both linear and streaming platforms,
Speaker 1: resulting in a rebranding of the pay TV channel to
Speaker 1: Paramount Plus with Showtime bit of a mouthful. The updated
Speaker 1: offerings and Showtime name change will launch later and only
Speaker 1: affect the premium tier of Paramount Plus and the Showtime
Speaker 1: linear network in the US. Carrow. Meanwhile, we've got to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about well, maybe both of our passions, Crypto,
Speaker 1: bitcoin and the entire digital asset class. They're having their
Speaker 1: best start for the year in a decade. Visit blom
Speaker 1: Bug so far jumped Monday after announcing plans to reach
Speaker 1: profitability in three shares searched off to the company posted
Speaker 1: record revenue across all three business segments lending, technology, platform
Speaker 1: and financial services. Bloom Bagsnali Bastic discussed all of those
Speaker 1: results with so far Ceo Antony note earlier it's really
Speaker 1: a reflection of our strategy coming to Fruition. UM. We're
Speaker 1: building a digital platform where members can come and do
Speaker 1: all their financial business with us. We're helping our members
Speaker 1: borrow better, say better, spend better, protect and invest better.
Speaker 1: And that one stop shop approach has allowed us to
Speaker 1: develop a diversified business where in certain markets, UM, some
Speaker 1: businesses can do well off setting others. And that's what
Speaker 1: you see today, really strong growth in our checking saves
Speaker 1: accounts business, which is helping drive our deposits, and we're
Speaker 1: reading those deposits of fun loans that we're getting good
Speaker 1: returns on a good credit performance. And then we're also
Speaker 1: continuing to see great growth in our invest business as
Speaker 1: well as credit card business. So it's all of this more.
Speaker 1: You told me a little earlier today that you're looking
Speaker 1: to be the biggest in the country when it comes
Speaker 1: to checking and savings. Who are you really competing with
Speaker 1: and is there anywhere in particular you're gaining share? Uh
Speaker 1: name names here? Who are you competing with? Sure we
Speaker 1: are we have aspirations to be the biggest in each
Speaker 1: each of our business checking savings account is one where
Speaker 1: we're currently winning share from the large um you know,
Speaker 1: most well known banks in the United States. Uh. The
Speaker 1: growth that we're seeing there is not just strong and
Speaker 1: absolute number, but also high in quality. Of our deposits
Speaker 1: are from direct deposit. Customers were attracting them because we're
Speaker 1: giving them an unprecedented value proposition. We're giving two point
Speaker 1: five percent interest on checking, which is significantly higher than others.
Speaker 1: We also have complete functionality on your phone. You can
Speaker 1: pay with your phone, you can do person of person payments,
Speaker 1: you can use debor transactions UM and we give you
Speaker 1: rewards for activities within checking and say things no fees,
Speaker 1: free overdraft and free roundups. And you're remember at so
Speaker 1: far and get all the rest of our benefits on
Speaker 1: savings on savings what were offering three percent later this week,
Speaker 1: up from two point five percent. So it's a really
Speaker 1: unmatched value proposition and that's helping us win share and
Speaker 1: drive really high quality members with great stickiness because of
Speaker 1: the direct depositive Anthony three is significant based on what
Speaker 1: you're seeing out there in the market. Do you think
Speaker 1: it's problematic? I know you gain share as other rates
Speaker 1: are lower. But do you think it's problematic that the
Speaker 1: banks are not really passing on those rates to their clients. Um,
Speaker 1: we have a structural advantage. We have both a lower
Speaker 1: cost of capital now lower cost of funding because we
Speaker 1: have UM the bank license, but we also lend UH
Speaker 1: those deposits, and so when we have deposits coming in
Speaker 1: at two and a half or three and a half percent,
Speaker 1: we're letting them out at a much higher percentage, and
Speaker 1: that's driving economic value for us. If another bank is
Speaker 1: driving deposits but they're not lending, and many of them
Speaker 1: do not lend UM, then they're not getting a return
Speaker 1: UH and those deposit gains and they'll have lower return inequity.
Speaker 1: And so we have a great combination of businesses where
Speaker 1: that those deposits can be used to drive higher are
Speaker 1: we and that's what we look maximize. That was so
Speaker 1: far CEO and C note and meanwhile carry things are
Speaker 1: actually looking up to crypto's largest asset. Yeah. Remember so
Speaker 1: far has been trying to get into the crypto wave
Speaker 1: a little bit as well, and maybe the wave is
Speaker 1: coming back Bitcoin. Just check out the o g of
Speaker 1: the crypto space. Best January in fact, ut in thirty days. Look,
Speaker 1: it's more base the rally and virtual coins like they
Speaker 1: managed to pump through some of the fallout and the
Speaker 1: collapse of sam Bagmen, freeds, f t X. We know
Speaker 1: that of course they managed to shake off. The latest
Speaker 1: news in Genesis you can see lit the smaller coins
Speaker 1: to Selana hundred percent. That's called actually infinity to do
Speaker 1: with the gaming up so many some percent the central
Speaker 1: and look it's still at point seven three five, but
Speaker 1: that's up almost a hundred and fifty. So two hundred
Speaker 1: eighty billion dollars is about how much digital assets have
Speaker 1: climbed over the course of January. Yeah, and there's an
Speaker 1: element of inevitability. But it's not just the digital assets themselves,
Speaker 1: blockchain or crypto related stocks also on the end since
Speaker 1: the fd X fiasco. I mean, when you talk about correlation,
Speaker 1: there's no sort of higher degree of correlation between cryptocurrencies
Speaker 1: and the stocks whose companies only do crypto related underlying
Speaker 1: technology or the assets themselves. Well said, though correlation, these
Speaker 1: are risk assets, and indeed the risk universe has been
Speaker 1: going higher. We've seen the NASDAC outperformed too, but it's
Speaker 1: notable they really have managed to come back. Look, it's
Speaker 1: no secret that people are willing to spend big on
Speaker 1: their health and Lebron James spends up with one and
Speaker 1: a half million dollars per year on his body. Tom
Speaker 1: Brady invest in what he sees as age defying supplements,
Speaker 1: but their health routines look like child's play compared to one.
Speaker 1: Brian Johnson, the tech entrepreneur behind braintreing payment solutions, He's
Speaker 1: got thirty doctors and health experts monitoring is every bodily
Speaker 1: function while following an extremely stringent daily routine, which he
Speaker 1: calls the Blueprint. Forty five years old, Johnson says he's
Speaker 1: slowed his space of aging by and managed to reduce
Speaker 1: his biological age by five years already. He's on track
Speaker 1: to spend the two million on his efforts this year.
Speaker 1: Johnny asked to discuss the Blueprint. CEO, the founder of
Speaker 1: Brian Johnson, Wow, I mean, tell us, what effects have
Speaker 1: you seen so far? It was pretty remarkable. We didn't
Speaker 1: really know what to expect when we started. At the
Speaker 1: five point one year age reversal for epigenetics was interesting,
Speaker 1: and then slowing the speed of aging by twenty was
Speaker 1: something that we found really exciting. It's it's probably exceeded
Speaker 1: our expectations when we say stringent one thousand, seventy seven
Speaker 1: vegan calories a day, two dozen supplements and medicines, exercise
Speaker 1: an hour day plus high intensity, three times a week's
Speaker 1: sleep at the same time every night after two hours
Speaker 1: of wearing glasses and block blue light. I don't think
Speaker 1: I particularly want thirty three thousand images of my bowels,
Speaker 1: But you were doing this for for another reason, a purpose.
Speaker 1: Where does this go in terms of next stage therapies?
Speaker 1: The idea behind the project was if you could measure
Speaker 1: all seventy plus organs of your body and enable each
Speaker 1: organ to speak your heart and lungs and liver and
Speaker 1: pecreas and express what they need to be in an
Speaker 1: ideal state, and then take those needs, look at gold
Speaker 1: standard scientific evidence, and then create a protocol. And I've
Speaker 1: agreed to go through that process. And so we make
Speaker 1: hundreds of measurements my body every few months, and we
Speaker 1: just references the scientific literature, and we do this again
Speaker 1: and again, and we try to fine tune it. And
Speaker 1: so we're trying to basically create the perfect diet and
Speaker 1: health protocol. And so I've spent millions of dollars developing
Speaker 1: this with world class group of scientists and doctors, and
Speaker 1: I've made it all available for others at no cost,
Speaker 1: that people can implement it, improve upon it, they can
Speaker 1: record their own data. It's really meant to push the
Speaker 1: entire field forward. Well, and that's that's the point. I'm
Speaker 1: fascinated by the reaction. We've been showing your morning routine
Speaker 1: on the screen. You'll exercise your calorie targets, be fair,
Speaker 1: it's not that much differ in the mind. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm definitely aging quickly. But do you sympathize with the
Speaker 1: reaction to this story that actually, for most everyday people,
Speaker 1: this is not a reality, This is not an accessible
Speaker 1: method of reversing the the effects of aging. I absolutely do,
Speaker 1: And I mean it really started when I was in
Speaker 1: a pretty bad situation. I was I'd had chronic depression
Speaker 1: for a decade. I tried everything to fix it, and
Speaker 1: I was feeling hopeless. And there was one particular version
Speaker 1: of myself and I playfully referred to him as evening Brian.
Speaker 1: Seven PM. Brian would roll around and the day's stress
Speaker 1: would be very heavy, and he would inevitably eat too
Speaker 1: much food or the wrong food, and then that would
Speaker 1: cause poor sleep, and it would cause the next morning
Speaker 1: feeling groggy and I'd be overweight. And so one day playfully,
Speaker 1: I said, evening, Brian is fired. From five pm to
Speaker 1: nine pm or ten pm. This version of myself has
Speaker 1: no authority to decide if he's going to eat. And
Speaker 1: it was the first time I really understood me as
Speaker 1: different versions of myself. And so while I do understand
Speaker 1: that the protocol I have now is pretty daunting for
Speaker 1: most people, the basic principle I think is true for everybody.
Speaker 1: We all have these versions inside of us where we
Speaker 1: commit the self destructive behavior, and we do so again
Speaker 1: and again, and oftentimes some of the biggest gains can
Speaker 1: be made if we just stop someone's more self destructive behaviors. Brian,
Speaker 1: we are so our audience what they were willing to
Speaker 1: do to achieve longevity. I suppose if you're not thinking
Speaker 1: about aging in reverse, and this is what they had
Speaker 1: to say, pretty split. You know, a third of respondents
Speaker 1: all my money, and so don't you laugh, and then
Speaker 1: you know thirty six percent nothing Yolo, I think actually
Speaker 1: again touches on this in this story about how doctors
Speaker 1: praised you for what you've done, but actually for the
Speaker 1: everyday person, it's not achievable. What of all the things
Speaker 1: that you did are the simplest that you felt This
Speaker 1: is an easy change that has really helped me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, first of all, the expectation of blueprint is
Speaker 1: not that the individual person is going to be able
Speaker 1: to do all these things. The objective is to show
Speaker 1: that if this protocol is in lamented, you can achieve
Speaker 1: remarkable results in slowing the rate of aging and reversing aging.
Speaker 1: And then if that's the case, it really is a
Speaker 1: contemplation I find interesting is could we do this as
Speaker 1: a society, make the standard where we don't ask people
Speaker 1: to go out and navigate McDonald's and algorithms are trying
Speaker 1: to addict them and every everywhere they turn. And so
Speaker 1: this is really about trying to create change, a change
Speaker 1: in society. But for the basic simple things people can do.
Speaker 1: Prioritize sleep, eat more vegetable nuts and berries, and stop
Speaker 1: self destructive behaviors and you're off to a pretty good start.
Speaker 1: Ron Johnson have found a come back. Tell us how
Speaker 1: it's all still going? That does it? From this edition
Speaker 1: of Bling Bag Technology and Yeah Tuesday, nekal CEO, you
Speaker 1: don't want to miss it. A big sit down for us.
Speaker 1: This is bloom Bag