Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. Bloomberg Tech is alive
Speaker 1: from coast to coast with Caroline Hyde in New York
Speaker 1: and ed Lo Loow in San Francisco.
Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg Tech coming up.
Speaker 3: Starships were meant to fly, but scrub SpaceX delays a
Speaker 3: critical test seconds before launch. Plus we'll discuss the space
Speaker 3: company's planned mega IPO with a SpaceX alumni and an
Speaker 3: early investor, and Lenovo saws post earnings on strong AI growth.
Speaker 3: We sit down for an exclusive interview with the world
Speaker 3: leading PC makers c FO Winston Chen. But first, SpaceX's
Speaker 3: twelfth Starship test flight.
Speaker 2: For now, scrub.
Speaker 4: Right, it is sounding like we are not going to
Speaker 4: be able to clear this issue in time.
Speaker 5: Today, So we are going to be standing down from
Speaker 5: a launch.
Speaker 3: SpaceX delaying a critical test of its massive Starship rocket
Speaker 3: after a pin tied to the launch tower mechanism failed
Speaker 3: to retract during the final countdown. The setback comes just
Speaker 3: the day after the company formerly filed for an IPO.
Speaker 3: Bloembokes Lauren grush back with us another attempt penciled for
Speaker 3: this Friday evening, But can you believe it? The tension
Speaker 3: the drama, the anticipation Lauren in one city, Ed Ludlow
Speaker 3: in another, and it's a piece of metal that stops
Speaker 3: us going of a whole tea minus forty seconds.
Speaker 2: Do we know what happened?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 6: So from what Elon said, it sounded like it was
Speaker 6: a hydraulic pin that controlled the.
Speaker 7: Arm on the launch tower. You know they mentioned a
Speaker 7: quick disconnect.
Speaker 6: You know, all these things need to move rapidly out
Speaker 6: of the way once the launch takes place so that
Speaker 6: the rocket can actually clear the tower.
Speaker 7: So it might seem all pretty important.
Speaker 6: That's just what makes rocket launches so exciting, right, One
Speaker 6: tiny little piece of technology could.
Speaker 7: Go wrong and you know, the whole thing gets stopped.
Speaker 8: So it sounded like there were also a number of
Speaker 8: other issues they were working too. Something with the flame
Speaker 8: trench also had stopped the countdown at one point two.
Speaker 8: This is all a new pad, right, So this is
Speaker 8: a new rocket, a new launch pad, and I think
Speaker 8: with this launch they definitely wanted to go well this time,
Speaker 8: just given all of the stakes surrounding their IPO and
Speaker 8: their filing that they had this week.
Speaker 7: So I wouldn't be surprised if there being.
Speaker 6: A little extra cautious this time than they have been
Speaker 6: with previous test missions.
Speaker 3: So new pad PAD two at star based Texas, Boku Chika, Texas.
Speaker 3: This is a test flight, twelfth test flight, but a
Speaker 3: brand new architecture for Starship. Right, basically, the hardware top
Speaker 3: to tail the Starship spacecraft at the top. That's the
Speaker 3: black pointy bit if you're looking at the screen right now,
Speaker 3: and the super head boost on the bottom.
Speaker 2: Why is that important, Lauren, Well.
Speaker 6: The anticipation has been super high for this launch because
Speaker 6: it's the debut of the third iteration of Starship, what's
Speaker 6: known as Version three or V three, and this vehicle
Speaker 6: is supposed to be the one that kind of achieves
Speaker 6: all of the dreams that Starship has laid out right,
Speaker 6: supposed to get to that really massive payload capacity of
Speaker 6: one hundred metric tons. It's also supposed to be optimized
Speaker 6: for total reuse, which is kind of the ultimate holy
Speaker 6: grail that they want to achieve with Starship being able
Speaker 6: to bring back both Starship and the super heavy booster
Speaker 6: intact so that they can rapidly refly them again.
Speaker 7: So this is kind of the version that's supposed.
Speaker 6: To do all of that, and so I think you
Speaker 6: know everyone is, you know, waiting on pins and needles
Speaker 6: to see if it will actually work as intended.
Speaker 3: Right, the prior iterations of Starship thirty five metric tons
Speaker 3: payload to lower for a bit. They want to get
Speaker 3: one hundred metric tons more. Bloobos, Lauren Grush, please don't
Speaker 3: go far, Thank you very much. Let's get more on
Speaker 3: SpaceX and why a new, re engineered, new architecture Starship
Speaker 3: matters with Laura Crabtree, CEO of Epsilon three. Laura spent
Speaker 3: more than a decade at SpaceX supported Milestone missions, the
Speaker 3: first Dragon launch, the company's first crewed.
Speaker 2: Mission to the International Space Station.
Speaker 3: I think you left prior to Starship really kicking off,
Speaker 3: but you understand why this matters.
Speaker 2: So let's start with the V three. Why does it matter?
Speaker 9: It matters because people have been waiting, as Lauren just
Speaker 9: alluded to, everyone's been waiting for this next iteration, for
Speaker 9: it to be operational, to be able to book a
Speaker 9: launch on Starship, and I think it will enable the
Speaker 9: next iteration of what we want to see as the
Speaker 9: space industry continues to grow and access to space continues
Speaker 9: to be easier, more affordable, et cetera. And we can
Speaker 9: take long larger payloads, we can take more people to
Speaker 9: the Moon, we can take lunar rovers more quickly, and I.
Speaker 10: Think everyone's been waiting for that for a long time.
Speaker 2: Now, Laurie, you'll understand.
Speaker 3: So SpaceX's S one went public and a main focus
Speaker 3: of it was that that larger future payload you're talking
Speaker 3: about being orbital data center. But the core mission, the
Speaker 3: kind of founding mission of SpaceX, is to make humankind
Speaker 3: a multiplanetary species.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: We haven't on the show talked as much about that
Speaker 3: human payload. Sorry if that's probably not the kindest way
Speaker 3: of putting it, But the human payload element of it,
Speaker 3: how would that work in Starship? You know, the idea
Speaker 3: is that, you know, if you're going to go the
Speaker 3: distance of Mars, but even in the near time the Moon,
Speaker 3: it is Starship that is the best technology platform to
Speaker 3: get us there. Is that the idea, That.
Speaker 10: Is the idea.
Speaker 9: And you know Elon has talked men many times at
Speaker 9: Company all Hands, and I'm sure you know also out
Speaker 9: in the public about the future goal of making humans
Speaker 9: multiplanetary species. So the ultimate goal of something like Starship
Speaker 9: is to make life interplanetary to enable that future.
Speaker 10: We want to see.
Speaker 9: As he said, you know, we don't want to be
Speaker 9: like the dinosaurs and we don't want to go extinct
Speaker 9: on this planet. And so there are a lot of
Speaker 9: pieces that SpaceX needs to achieve to get there, because
Speaker 9: the mission for SpaceX to be multiplanetary. But you have
Speaker 9: to have the building blocks of data centers, you have
Speaker 9: to have starlink, you have to have all of the
Speaker 9: things that we've built up to this point.
Speaker 10: And this is just the next piece of the puzzle.
Speaker 3: You are the senior mission operations engineer. You basically trained
Speaker 3: the crew and you oversaw and ran the Dragon spacecraft missions.
Speaker 3: So for the bloombt Tech audience, space getting humans to
Speaker 3: the International Space Station or into space so far has
Speaker 3: been Falcon nine with a Dragon capsule on top. I'm
Speaker 3: now showing Starship V three pictures right.
Speaker 2: Now, Laura.
Speaker 3: The bit that I think people I find it had
Speaker 3: to understand is within the design of the Starship spacecraft
Speaker 3: different to putting a capsule on Falcon nine.
Speaker 2: How would that work?
Speaker 11: Like?
Speaker 2: Literally where did the astronauts go?
Speaker 9: So there have been lots of design iterations and I'm
Speaker 9: not entirely sure where the design iteration is right now,
Speaker 9: But from the last I saw, the Starship would then
Speaker 9: take all the humans to the Moon, and there would
Speaker 9: be the complete payload would be human, so you know,
Speaker 9: it would be geared towards humans, so there would be toilets,
Speaker 9: there would be the pods for people to live in
Speaker 9: while they're being transported to the Moon. So that that
Speaker 9: is more the idea, I believe, And so that that's
Speaker 9: the thing that we still have yet to see. Until
Speaker 9: Starship is operational and many flights have taken place, I
Speaker 9: don't think we will know exactly the designs, and I
Speaker 9: believe SpaceX is probably waiting to unveil that in future versions.
Speaker 3: Could you try and take us inside SpaceX a little bit?
Speaker 3: You know, part of covering the almost launch of the
Speaker 3: twelfth test flight yesterday is seeing the sort of gathering
Speaker 3: of SpaceX staff and engineers, everyone that worked on the
Speaker 3: re engineering the new architecture. When you Long Mascow or
Speaker 3: the other leaders go to the team and say, let's
Speaker 3: rip up the script the blueprint and start again. What's
Speaker 3: that process like to get to get it onto the pad?
Speaker 9: Yeah, you know, it's a challenge in the industry. There's
Speaker 9: something called a challenge coin, So you get a challenge
Speaker 9: coin if you're going to work really hard on something,
Speaker 9: but it feels like is a challenge coin on the
Speaker 9: line all the time. So you're given somewhat insurmountable problem
Speaker 9: and you have to go and solve it. And I
Speaker 9: think the difference that most people are now noting is
Speaker 9: that within SpaceX and many startups that you see in
Speaker 9: the industry today, you are given more responsibility to make
Speaker 9: decisions than you would have in a traditional large aerospace company.
Speaker 9: And so you're given a problem, you go and solve
Speaker 9: the problem to the best of your ability, and then
Speaker 9: you come together test the problem, iterate.
Speaker 10: That's why you're seeing so quick.
Speaker 9: Of iteration from Starship, because the engineers are being pushed
Speaker 9: to continue to think outside of the box. You can't
Speaker 9: design something like Starship with the things that have been
Speaker 9: done in the.
Speaker 2: Past present day.
Speaker 3: Laura, you're the CEO of EPs on three, a software
Speaker 3: platform that if you are trying to pull off a
Speaker 3: high stakes operational testing manufacturing procedure, which I think Starship
Speaker 3: kind of is, right now.
Speaker 2: That's what you need.
Speaker 3: So I think you're in a good place to just
Speaker 3: tell us to end, we have thirty seconds. Just how
Speaker 3: difficult is what SpaceX is trying to do right now
Speaker 3: with this starship program.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I think Lauren alluded to this earlier, But there
Speaker 9: are millions of decisions that need to be made and
Speaker 9: millions of technical things that need to go right. So
Speaker 9: having one small thing like a pin and maybe a
Speaker 9: couple of out of family temperatures is actually miraculous. You
Speaker 9: can expect scrubs, you can expect some failure, but when
Speaker 9: you get to the end, you should have tested enough
Speaker 9: small things.
Speaker 10: And that's really what we know at.
Speaker 9: EPSOLON three want is to have the infrastructure built to
Speaker 9: test enough small things that when you get to the mission,
Speaker 9: you get to the final launch, that you have done
Speaker 9: enough that you have the most confidence that your mission
Speaker 9: will go well.
Speaker 10: And I think that's what SpaceX is doing.
Speaker 3: Laura Crabtree, CEO of EPSOM three, formerly Senior Mission Operations Engineer,
Speaker 3: alumni of SpaceX, thank you so much for being on
Speaker 3: Bloomberg Tech.
Speaker 2: Now coming up.
Speaker 3: Winston Cheng of Lenovo joins US following the company's just
Speaker 3: blowout results strong growth in AI for the world's leading
Speaker 3: PC maker. This is what markets look like on the week,
Speaker 3: and I'd forgive you if you forgot that in the
Speaker 3: middle of this week we had earnings from the world's
Speaker 3: most valuable company, and Video is down actually almost four
Speaker 3: percent on the week. Right then, as that one hundred
Speaker 3: is buoyant, a little bifurcation because in video was accountable
Speaker 3: for so much of the gain and rallying inequity markets
Speaker 3: in recent weeks. But over five days, that's the picture
Speaker 3: in Video. Kind of trailing behind this is Bloomberg Tech.
Speaker 3: Shares of Lenovo absolutely soaring in Hong Kong trading overnight
Speaker 3: again of twenty percent, was the biggest single day jumps
Speaker 3: since two two thousand and eight. This after the company
Speaker 3: reported strong growth in AI related earnings, offsetting challenges from
Speaker 3: you know what the challenges are rising component prices. Winston Cheng,
Speaker 3: CFO of Lenovo, joins us from New York City and Winton.
Speaker 3: It's great to have you on the program. Thankank you
Speaker 3: very much for the time. You know, everyone knows Lenovo
Speaker 3: leading PC maker in the world. But I think to start,
Speaker 3: I wonder if we could just go a bit deeper
Speaker 3: into what AI related revenues actually look like for Lenovo,
Speaker 3: define them and then we can extrapolate out on what
Speaker 3: the story is here.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 12: We're certainly very well known for our PC given our
Speaker 12: dominance in the space for many, many years, but we
Speaker 12: are actually more than a PC maker. We have the
Speaker 12: most complete portfolio in terms of devices from PCs to
Speaker 12: tablets to smartphone. It's the most complete portfolio ad scale
Speaker 12: on a global basis, on our non iOS basis, and
Speaker 12: that serves as the foundation for AI devices going forward.
Speaker 12: In terms of our product portfolio set, we have our
Speaker 12: hybrid strategy enables us to have from the pocket to
Speaker 12: the cloud, and you're seeing that gain in terms of
Speaker 12: our infrastructure business in the latest quarter, in terms of
Speaker 12: that compute capability that is now being used for infrastructure
Speaker 12: from AI training to AI influencing.
Speaker 3: The US listed shares or ADR is also massive performance today.
Speaker 2: You know, I appreciate Winston. You're the CFO.
Speaker 3: Maybe you don't keep a constant eye on the share price,
Speaker 3: but the biggest jump since two thousand and eight, it
Speaker 3: has to tell you something. Do you attribute that to
Speaker 3: the appreciation maybe that you're getting for the infrastructure business?
Speaker 3: What do you think the market is maybe seeing now
Speaker 3: that it hasn't before.
Speaker 12: Yeah, So Certainly, we're not defined by one quarter. We're
Speaker 12: in for the long haul and the AI spend and
Speaker 12: opportunity is also for decades to come. But we're defining
Speaker 12: this as the AI decade for Lenovo, and I think
Speaker 12: we're in the first year of that journey and you
Speaker 12: can see the result of that focus in terms of
Speaker 12: our capabilities. We've actually been invested in this for over
Speaker 12: ten years. Our ability to be able to produce in
Speaker 12: AD scale on a global basis, for both on the
Speaker 12: device side and also on the infrastructure side is unique
Speaker 12: to Lenovo. We can serve hyperscalers and also enterprises on
Speaker 12: that basis as well. And our portfolio set with the
Speaker 12: IBM heritage that when we made the acquisition twenty fifteen
Speaker 12: gives us a solid foundation to be able to serve
Speaker 12: the AI compute capabilities today, given the high performance compute
Speaker 12: genetics that we have with our industry liquid cooling technology
Speaker 12: as well.
Speaker 3: On Monday, Winston I was with Jensen one in Las Vegas.
Speaker 3: Of course vera rubin coming later this year that matters
Speaker 3: to you, and we were speaking with one of your peers,
Speaker 3: Michael Dell, and I was trying to understand from them
Speaker 3: the story for the PC in a world where we
Speaker 3: are shifting to inference but also gentiic AI. Can you
Speaker 3: give me any evidence or data that the more commonplace
Speaker 3: you of AI agents actually drives enterprise knowledge worker acquisition
Speaker 3: of PCs, new PCs at scale.
Speaker 12: Yeah, we certainly see our AIPC demand being very strong
Speaker 12: and it's been increasing in.
Speaker 2: Terms of our portfolio.
Speaker 12: Our AI revenues today is about thirty eight percent of
Speaker 12: our total revenues in the last quarter, and the PC
Speaker 12: is also AIPC is also a very big component of that. Today,
Speaker 12: as AI training develops and more AI capabilities are being enhanced,
Speaker 12: more people will use and need to consume and interact
Speaker 12: with the agents through their devices, and I think the
Speaker 12: upgrade for better and more higher performance devices will be
Speaker 12: a nessary part of that journey. You see that with
Speaker 12: the likes of the Open AI and others having partnerships
Speaker 12: with either from a staffing perspective or a strategic perspective
Speaker 12: with device makers, and we're also seeing that in terms
Speaker 12: of dialogues that we're having with AI companies and their
Speaker 12: desire to work with us from go to market perspective
Speaker 12: as well.
Speaker 3: What is the truth of what's happening with memory? How
Speaker 3: severe is that as a bottleneck.
Speaker 12: Well, certainly this incredible spend and development of AI in
Speaker 12: terms of the AI infrastructure is really driving the component shortage.
Speaker 12: It's not only a memory, but you're also hearing it
Speaker 12: in terms of CPU and of course GPU demand as well.
Speaker 12: I think that would be multi year opportunity in terms
Speaker 12: of that demand. But at the same time, the industry
Speaker 12: needs to catch up in terms of that supply chain
Speaker 12: to satisfy that demand. But I think for now that's
Speaker 12: causing the supply and demand imbalance, is causing the memory
Speaker 12: prices to go up. But on the AI infrastructure side,
Speaker 12: we're able to pass through that demand because that's where
Speaker 12: the strong demand is in terms of the pricing for
Speaker 12: But on the device side, I think the lower end
Speaker 12: you're starting to see in terms of the first quarter
Speaker 12: IDC numbers that those that cannot get supplied. I think
Speaker 12: I have seen the market share as decline.
Speaker 3: So when some what you just outline and bear with
Speaker 3: me on this one, how much are you negotiating with yourself?
Speaker 3: You have different business lines, they both need common components
Speaker 3: high bandwidth memory.
Speaker 2: You know that on the.
Speaker 3: Infrastructure side, the service side, that's where the demand is.
Speaker 3: So do you have to have a word with yourself
Speaker 3: and say, well, what about my PC business? Do you
Speaker 3: have to make a choice of where you prioritize.
Speaker 12: That's a great question in terms of but I think
Speaker 12: what these suppliers appreciate with us is that we have
Speaker 12: that global portfolio. We have the most complete portfolio from
Speaker 12: PC to tablet to smartphone, and I think that gives
Speaker 12: them the forecast necessary. As our long term partners, we
Speaker 12: also have that demand forecast from the server side as
Speaker 12: well of our business. So from that perspective, we are
Speaker 12: strategic partners for suppliers as well in terms of that
Speaker 12: accuracy of that forecast. We need to supply in terms
Speaker 12: of satisfying our long term the noble friends in terms
Speaker 12: of the thing pad which is so well loved in
Speaker 12: the market, and I think we need to make sure
Speaker 12: that there's enough supply going to that demand as well.
Speaker 3: Lenovo CFO, Winston Chain, it's great to have you on
Speaker 3: Bloomberg Tech.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Now, coming up from the show.
Speaker 3: Smart ring Maker or files confidentially for a US public listing.
Speaker 3: We're gonna have the details of that next. This is
Speaker 3: Bloomberg Tech.
Speaker 5: Hardware is very very attractive right now because you can't
Speaker 5: vibe code atoms, yes, right, you can't just.
Speaker 2: Summon them into existence.
Speaker 5: And so interestingly, I think for Aura, steering the way
Speaker 5: we have and having always been a hardware company with
Speaker 5: a very strong software backing, it's actually been really advantageous
Speaker 5: in investors look at us and they say, good, we're
Speaker 5: so glad that you're not in.
Speaker 2: The software space and that you're a hardware provider.
Speaker 3: That was or a CEO, Tom Hale, giving perhaps a
Speaker 3: preview of how the wearable maker will pitch investors in
Speaker 3: an IPO. He was speaking to our Caroline Hide at
Speaker 3: the Concello Sparks summit, and just a week later or
Speaker 3: a files confidentially to go public. For more, let's speak
Speaker 3: to our consumer tech editor, Bloomberg's Dana Rolman. Okay, so
Speaker 3: we reported this citing a source that they'd filed confidentially.
Speaker 3: Then I think the company comes out and says, yes,
Speaker 3: we filed confidentially, but in our original report there's more
Speaker 3: detail there. There are some serious banks that are working
Speaker 3: with the company. This seems very real.
Speaker 4: Yes, absolutely, this is an all star list of banks.
Speaker 4: We believe Goldman Tax was the first on the list,
Speaker 4: and we don't know the exact timing, just that the
Speaker 4: company expects to go public sometime later this year, and
Speaker 4: other details are missing too, key details like what the
Speaker 4: price would be when it eventually hits.
Speaker 2: The stock market.
Speaker 3: Now the Bloomberg Tech audience is thinking, Hm, Ed's not
Speaker 3: looking as fresh as he did yesterday. I am an
Speaker 3: order wing wearer, which I pay for myself. Obviously, seventy
Speaker 3: four sleep score down from ninety the ninth prior. That
Speaker 3: is interesting historically actually most whereas women. They have a
Speaker 3: story for the male category, which is longevity. And then
Speaker 3: last October they raised money in an interesting valuation in
Speaker 3: the private markets. How much momentum is it or got
Speaker 3: right now?
Speaker 4: Oh so much momentum.
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 4: Bloomberg actually published the story towards the start of the
Speaker 4: year saying that this would essentially be the year that
Speaker 4: smart rings went mainstream and this coming IPO really puts
Speaker 4: an exclamation point on that. Or has seen sales of
Speaker 4: its smart rings rising and rising, and it's remarkable and
Speaker 4: that it started out. Is this really niche hardware category
Speaker 4: and it's one that we really as journalists here at
Speaker 4: Bloomberg have had to spell out for a while, and
Speaker 4: we may get to a point where just it's widely
Speaker 4: understood what a smart ring is, and as you said,
Speaker 4: it might not just be something that a majority female
Speaker 4: audience wears, but that a really broader audience takes two.
Speaker 3: What about Tom Hale or a CEO, what has been
Speaker 3: his attitude towards the future this company?
Speaker 2: Just real quick, just.
Speaker 4: That it is a really viable kind of product that
Speaker 4: can reach a really wider audience. I think until now
Speaker 4: it's been sort of compared to smart watches, especially the
Speaker 4: Apple Watch, and I think Tom hell would say that
Speaker 4: something like the Aora ring carves its own lane. It's
Speaker 4: really for people who want something completely different, not the
Speaker 4: distractions of notifications or a screen on their wrist, but
Speaker 4: really just something zeroed in on health and fitness tracking.
Speaker 4: And I think Aura, like a lot of other companies
Speaker 4: in this space, are trying to not just track your steps,
Speaker 4: let's say, your everyday fitness, but become some sort of
Speaker 4: auxiliary predictor of your overall health.
Speaker 2: Been most day in a wholman with the Aura story.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much.
Speaker 3: A lot more news time for talking tech, and first
Speaker 3: up weay Mo it is temporarily halted service in five
Speaker 3: cities amid severe weather overconcerned that these robotaxis may attempt
Speaker 3: to drive on flooded roads. Storms swept through Atlanta on Wednesday,
Speaker 3: during which an unoccupied Weymo vehicle drove and got stuck.
Speaker 2: In a flooded road.
Speaker 3: Plus deep seac Senior management has told potential investors the
Speaker 3: startup will prioritize groundbreaking AI research over short term monetization.
Speaker 2: That's according to sources.
Speaker 3: This comes as the startups in the final discussions over
Speaker 3: a funding deal that can push its valuation to about
Speaker 3: forty five billion dollars before the investment, and the EU
Speaker 3: will propose temporarily lifting sanctions on a major Chinese chip
Speaker 3: supplier after automakers warned of impending supply chain chaos if
Speaker 3: the ban isn't removed. According to sources, However, such a
Speaker 3: move would require approval by the BLOCKS twenty seven member states.
Speaker 2: Coming up more earnings.
Speaker 3: The CFO of Zoom, Michelle Chang, after the company raised
Speaker 3: its four year forecast. Quick look at Markets on the
Speaker 3: way out halftime It's Bloomberg Tech. Welcome back to Bloomberg Tech.
Speaker 3: This is what markets look like right now and probably
Speaker 3: like the big picture story is not that that's stocks
Speaker 3: that are in the quantum realm. Quantum stocks are getting
Speaker 3: a big two day boost. That's just one day, but
Speaker 3: we saw a massive gain in those same names yesterday.
Speaker 3: The story is the US, like the country, like the
Speaker 3: government putting two billion dollars to secure American leadership in
Speaker 3: the sector.
Speaker 2: IBM getting one billion of that.
Speaker 3: So after a big jump yesterday, we're seeing continue gains
Speaker 3: into today. We're gonna go a bit more macrolater in
Speaker 3: the shows, the teams move the charts. I thought it
Speaker 3: was a pretty decent chart worth looking at. One of
Speaker 3: the most read stories today there is all right, let's
Speaker 3: do this. The SMP five hundred, the benchmark Equities Index
Speaker 3: of the world, is up for an eighth straight week,
Speaker 3: his best run again since twenty twenty three, and at
Speaker 3: the end of twenty twenty three we saw the index
Speaker 3: end of the year with nine straight weeks of gains.
Speaker 3: I've been thinking about this a lot, and if you
Speaker 3: think about market cap gain, particularly since the war in
Speaker 3: Iran started, it's Nvidia, Alphabet, Apple, it is tech that
Speaker 3: accounts for a big part of that.
Speaker 2: Rally.
Speaker 3: Something that everyone's clicking on today is a story by
Speaker 3: Bloimbo's Brady Ford. Salesforce is making flashy promises about its
Speaker 3: agentic capabilities. It's part of this effort to win over
Speaker 3: the skeptics questioning how it can compete against what we
Speaker 3: call AI native firms. But there's an issue with Salesforce
Speaker 3: claims they are aspirational. Bloomost Brady Forwards here with us
Speaker 3: an SF. Yeah, a lot of traffic on the story,
Speaker 3: dig into it. There are charts and data in here,
Speaker 3: but why is this aspirational?
Speaker 2: How are we defining that?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 13: So I think we've asked seen some flashy AI demos
Speaker 13: and thought like is this real? Can I use this today?
Speaker 13: And so we just kind of took that simple question
Speaker 13: and applied it to want to text's loudest marketers. Salesforce.
Speaker 13: They've shown in keynotes and commercials and AI agent functionality
Speaker 13: here like all sorts of customer service by itself, and
Speaker 13: you know, in a lot of cases we've tried it out,
Speaker 13: it's not there yet. It's aspirational. These commercials and keynotes
Speaker 13: show a future vision of what their customers hope to implement,
Speaker 13: and it underscores that getting AI online is difficult and
Speaker 13: a lot of companies aren't working on it, and it's
Speaker 13: going to be a bit of a slog to get
Speaker 13: this stuff online.
Speaker 2: In many cases, the way.
Speaker 3: That I think about it is salesforce will talk about
Speaker 3: the number of customers signed up to an agentic product.
Speaker 3: Basically the question sometimes is that company actually using it
Speaker 3: yet or deployed it yet, Like does it exist in
Speaker 3: the real world?
Speaker 2: Is there any data on that.
Speaker 13: I hadn't find any hard data, but you know, anecdotal
Speaker 13: example Williams Sonoma luxury retailer based down the street. I mean,
Speaker 13: they've been in keynotes, they've been in commercials and some
Speaker 13: of the more advanced functionality they've shown on stage. I
Speaker 13: asked them and spoke with them, and they say, well,
Speaker 13: hopefully it's up by the holidays, you know, so you
Speaker 13: might be paying and it takes a while.
Speaker 3: Just real quick, we should say, chatter with Ben Mark Bennioff.
Speaker 2: Yes, what did he say?
Speaker 13: I did speak with CEO Mark Bennioff. We said pretty
Speaker 13: much this kind of marketing is normal that in the
Speaker 13: tech industry you got to show customers a vision. Everybody
Speaker 13: does it, and the customers are not confused, it's properly disclosed.
Speaker 13: I don't know if it's true that all customers and
Speaker 13: people on the street would understand when they see a
Speaker 13: commercial that means that it's not actually functional on the
Speaker 13: way it shows.
Speaker 3: But what does salesforce do? Nope, we'll save that for
Speaker 3: another time. Bloomberg's ready forward. Thank you very much. Let's
Speaker 3: take a look at shares of Zoom and another name
Speaker 3: that moving to the upside on strong set of numbers.
Speaker 3: This up to the company raise it's full year forecast
Speaker 3: for both adjusted earnings and revenue, prompting upgrades at Key
Speaker 3: Bank can higher price targets at both RBC and BED.
Speaker 3: It's been a little while since we talked about Zoom.
Speaker 3: Delighted to say that Michelle Chang, Zoom CFO, joins us.
Speaker 3: Now I love getting into the Zoom story. You know
Speaker 3: we're many of us users of Zoom. But why now
Speaker 3: a strong set of numbers? What was it in the
Speaker 3: calendar period in the fiscal quarter that you saw through
Speaker 3: the numbers?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 11: Thanks, first, thanks for having me. It's so great to
Speaker 11: be here and talk about the stock. What we delivered
Speaker 11: yesterday has really been what we have been working on
Speaker 11: and delivering consistency consistently over the last several quarters. This
Speaker 11: is no longer just the meetings company. And I think
Speaker 11: yesterday's earnings was just another great notch, an example of
Speaker 11: us working towards that so clearly showing that AI is monetizing,
Speaker 11: clearly showing our inflection and the growth which is what
Speaker 11: investors want from us, and doing it with great profitability
Speaker 11: as well. And you saw the stock had a great reaction.
Speaker 3: Michelle, this is a sincere question, even if in the
Speaker 3: first sence you might come across as far fetched. If
Speaker 3: I am invited to a meeting at some point and
Speaker 3: it's not Zoom, it might be a WebEx it might
Speaker 3: be the tool of another life tech company, what's your
Speaker 3: pitch to that business that they should still be thinking
Speaker 3: about using Zoom Because clearly, like there's a world where
Speaker 3: there are options, right, there is a world where people
Speaker 3: are not using Zoom.
Speaker 11: Yeah. I mean, look, I would say, you know, a
Speaker 11: couple of years back, the pitch was best quality. When
Speaker 11: you can't afford to have the meeting go down, you
Speaker 11: want the reliability, you want the quality, you want the innovation. Look,
Speaker 11: Zoom is in a very different place where you know,
Speaker 11: a lot of where we're going as a company is
Speaker 11: this concept of a system of action, what we can
Speaker 11: see inside the company, what we can see outside the
Speaker 11: company with things like customer experience and the power of
Speaker 11: what it looks like when AI gets stitched in between
Speaker 11: those things.
Speaker 7: And so more.
Speaker 11: Now, so I think we moved to the kind of
Speaker 11: real tangible AI value I heard the story earlier, you know,
Speaker 11: the real tangible AI value of the world already delivering
Speaker 11: for our customer.
Speaker 3: Yes, the data point that jumps out of me is
Speaker 3: that those users that are paying and willing to pay
Speaker 3: for the AI companion, I think almost tripled year and
Speaker 3: year in that period.
Speaker 2: What's behind that?
Speaker 3: I mean, it's not just video conferencing, right, it's people saying, okay,
Speaker 3: well i'll use this as a workspace.
Speaker 11: Yeah, it's a great question. So we said that our
Speaker 11: paid now went up one hundred and eighty four percent,
Speaker 11: and really, what's behind that? Like, Look, it started out
Speaker 11: as meeting summer as we're pleased to even add this quarter.
Speaker 11: Even four months ago, we announced something called my notes.
Speaker 11: Think of that as your personal context, your node taker.
Speaker 11: Even that alone grew in four months to one point
Speaker 11: five million. Now, Look, where Zoom is going is far
Speaker 11: more about the meeting's life cycle. It's no longer just
Speaker 11: that thirty minutes or sixty minutes that we have that
Speaker 11: human to human connection, which we will always endure in
Speaker 11: an AI world. But it's the entire life cycle of
Speaker 11: how you get work done that really brings the Zoom
Speaker 11: value prop to our customers.
Speaker 3: Michelle, we just have about forty five seconds left, but
Speaker 3: everyone knows what the story for Zoom was in the
Speaker 3: COVID era present day, how would you summarize the Zoom story.
Speaker 11: Yeah, Look, it's no longer just about meetings. We are
Speaker 11: retaining that original customer love that we always had, the
Speaker 11: pace of innovation, the security, the trust, all the things
Speaker 11: that made Zoom zoom. But where we're going is all
Speaker 11: about system of action, the context that we have from
Speaker 11: all of the things that you do inside the organization
Speaker 11: the outside of the organization, and we're all about taking
Speaker 11: those conversations and moving them to completion because when we
Speaker 11: know that we do, we add tremendous value for our customers.
Speaker 11: And look, you saw the results for us financially, right,
Speaker 11: we're maintaining profitability, revenue growing, high cash flow generation. So
Speaker 11: We're super excited about where things are going.
Speaker 3: Into Well for the Zoom user that has this setting
Speaker 3: switched on, if I go like that or I go
Speaker 3: like that, yeah, you'll appear on the screen. Is Selshang,
Speaker 3: Zoom CFO back on Bloomberg Tech, Thank you very much.
Speaker 3: An update on the saga around the standard charted CEO's comments.
Speaker 3: Earlier this week, CEO Bill Winters talks about how AI
Speaker 3: would affect quote lower value human capital. Major public backlash followed,
Speaker 3: prompting CEO Bill Winters to strike a more conciliatory tone
Speaker 3: in a memo to staff. Then Winter's doubled down on
Speaker 3: a LinkedIn post earlier today, explaining the bank has for
Speaker 3: many years invested in helping staff whose roles have been
Speaker 3: upended by automations, saying quote, we have a responsibility to
Speaker 3: help colleagues move into higher value roles. Then, just a
Speaker 3: couple of hours later, Winter's officially apologized for his original
Speaker 3: comments in another LinkedIn post, writing that he recognized his
Speaker 3: choice of words had quote caused upset to some colleagues,
Speaker 3: and for that I am sorry.
Speaker 2: He wrote.
Speaker 3: Coming up, X Prize founder and early SpaceX investor Peter
Speaker 3: Demandis joins us. I'm really looking forward to this conversation
Speaker 3: that's next.
Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg Tech.
Speaker 3: Live pictures as we're currently waiting for the swearing in
Speaker 3: ceremony of Kevin Walsh as Chairman of the Federal Reserve
Speaker 3: alongside President Trump, and the moment that it begins will
Speaker 3: bring it to you. For now, let's get back to
Speaker 3: our top story, the delay of Starship. The central role
Speaker 3: of Starship the upgraded rocket is key for SpaceX's business plans,
Speaker 3: all outlined in detail in the recent IPO filing. Also crucial,
Speaker 3: the S one makes it crystal clear with an outsized
Speaker 3: pay package, major voting control for the CEO. Bloomberg Intelligence
Speaker 3: writing the document highlights significant governance concerns that still might
Speaker 3: be overshadowed by investor's fear of missing out on the
Speaker 3: biggest ever public listing. Here to talk about it all,
Speaker 3: the importance of Starship Musk, and the perspective of an
Speaker 3: early SpaceX investor. Peter Demandis, founder of X Prize, back
Speaker 3: on Bloomberg.
Speaker 2: Tech, good morning, It's your time to.
Speaker 3: Be a morning exciting time to be alive is like
Speaker 3: how lots of people put it. You're someone that is
Speaker 3: an early investor in SpaceX, you know, with respect in
Speaker 3: a small in a smaller way, but you speak to
Speaker 3: Elon with more regularity than others. I spent hours going
Speaker 3: through the s one. I know it's a document, a
Speaker 3: piece of paper, but what's the story that jumped out
Speaker 3: from it for you?
Speaker 14: I mean, this story behind the story is we're on
Speaker 14: the verge of opening up the greatest frontier ever. This
Speaker 14: is the equivalent of the galleons coming from Europe to
Speaker 14: the US, or the American settlers building the railroads to
Speaker 14: the West and building everything along the way. You can
Speaker 14: look at SpaceX as a launch company or as a
Speaker 14: satellite communications company, but it's much much more. You know,
Speaker 14: you think about the fact that everything we hold a
Speaker 14: value on earth, metals, minerals, energy, real estate is in
Speaker 14: near infinite quantities in space. And you start to realize
Speaker 14: and you know, we're going to see the launch hopefully
Speaker 14: fingers crossed up Starship V three later today, and I
Speaker 14: have confidence that if it doesn't work in the first time,
Speaker 14: it will work on the second. That's what Elon does
Speaker 14: is it iterates rapidly, and this vehicle, it blows away
Speaker 14: all the other launch capability on the planet by orders
Speaker 14: of magnitude, and at the end of the day, we're
Speaker 14: going to start to see a extraordinary set of new
Speaker 14: revenue engines as they unfold beyond the bounds of Earth.
Speaker 3: So that was what jumps out at me. Total addressable
Speaker 3: market twenty eight point five.
Speaker 14: Twenty trillion dollars. Right, we're getting numb to this idea of.
Speaker 3: But here's the thing, Peter, we are getting numb to
Speaker 3: the trillion and iterations of trillion. But most of that
Speaker 3: is not space. It is AI for the enterprise, it
Speaker 3: is software.
Speaker 14: You know, when I was working on the space industry,
Speaker 14: and I've been in that industry for forty years, the
Speaker 14: early days are how do you rationalize space? And people
Speaker 14: are always looking for some way to rationalize the investments
Speaker 14: and was research, maybe it was tourism. The reality is
Speaker 14: the single greatest valuable thing on the planet today is
Speaker 14: the AI driven token. And if you can actually create
Speaker 14: those token farms in orbit, Peter at UKDA.
Speaker 2: You have to forgive me.
Speaker 3: You will be invited back on this program as soon
Speaker 3: as possible. We have to go to DC for the
Speaker 3: President of the United States and the swearing in of
Speaker 3: Kevin Walsh as chairman of the Federal Reserve,