Speaker 1: From Mahart.
Speaker 2: We're Innovation, Money and Power Collie in Silicon Valley, NBN.
Speaker 3: This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde.
Speaker 1: And Ed Ludlove.
Speaker 4: I'm Parlinehider Bloomberg's World headquarters in New York.
Speaker 5: And I'm Ed Ludlow in San Francisco. This is Bloomberg
Speaker 5: Technology coming up.
Speaker 4: Full earnings coverage ahead, we break down results from sales Force,
Speaker 4: Snowflake Paramount to name.
Speaker 5: But a few, plus Bitcoin pushes toward a record high
Speaker 5: amid massive inflows into exchange traded funds. We'll get to
Speaker 5: read on the state of digital currencies amid that rally, and.
Speaker 4: Apple facing weak demand for the iPhone in China as
Speaker 4: resellers slashed the price of the latest model. We'll discuss
Speaker 4: that and so much more throughout the salbot. First, let's
Speaker 4: check in on these markets, and it's a macro feel
Speaker 4: to the day. We get that pceedflator, what is the
Speaker 4: inflationary pressure that the Federal Reserve is looking at? Came
Speaker 4: in bang in line with expectations, two point eight percent
Speaker 4: year on year in terms of inflatory pressure. Right for
Speaker 4: the Federal Reserve therefore to be pausing on any rate
Speaker 4: cuts but we hold up about five ten percent on
Speaker 4: the nasdacs and relief to the market. We're seeing tenure
Speaker 4: yields come down some three four basis points in fact,
Speaker 4: down across the curve, and I'm looking at a volatility
Speaker 4: index of fear gauge that shrinks by less than a point.
Speaker 4: We're at thirteen handle. Moving on and have a look
Speaker 4: at what you were just outlining their ed Really where
Speaker 4: the action has been is on the risk Asseler choice
Speaker 4: of the technology show, which is Bitcoin.
Speaker 6: We're up almost four.
Speaker 4: Percent, sixty two sixty three thousand, let's call it. Remember
Speaker 4: sixty nine thousand dollars is the previous record back in
Speaker 4: November twenty twenty one.
Speaker 6: Where are you looking on the micro so a.
Speaker 5: Lot in the earnings context, but when it comes to
Speaker 5: tech Snowflake is the big mover. It's down eighteen percent
Speaker 5: or so in the session, but on track for its
Speaker 5: biggest drop on record. Two pieces of news, really, Kevin Supman,
Speaker 5: the CEO, is stepping down. He will be replaced by
Speaker 5: ex Googler Shrida Ramaswami. But also the sales outlook that
Speaker 5: they gave for the current period, even at the high
Speaker 5: end of the range, it's like twenty million dollars below
Speaker 5: what the street was expecting in terms of consensus, And
Speaker 5: the story for Snowflake was sharp deceleration and growth in
Speaker 5: twenty twenty three. They didn't do enough to say we're
Speaker 5: on the upward trajectory moving forward into twenty twenty four.
Speaker 5: There's a lot more happening as well. In the Arnie's
Speaker 5: context's a kind of mixed bag of different companies that
Speaker 5: will get to throughout the show. The first is Paramount
Speaker 5: is actually up four point eight percent. Sales declined mid
Speaker 5: single digits in the quarter gone ad weakness, but they
Speaker 5: called it the AD slump is over, we bottomed out,
Speaker 5: we're rebounding. We'll talk about it later in the program.
Speaker 5: Hb's now down one percent. It's kind of traded a
Speaker 5: bit choppy this morning. Look specifically at sales of PCs
Speaker 5: to consumers. The street expected them to return to growth,
Speaker 5: but sales fell one percent in that category. It's a
Speaker 5: concern even though they're saying twenty twenty four will be
Speaker 5: better on the customer or corporate side. Then salesforce is
Speaker 5: actually up one point five percent. It's outlook for the
Speaker 5: year suggests annual growth of full year fiscal twenty five
Speaker 5: ten point eight percent. I want to go very specific
Speaker 5: with the numbers, ten point eight percent. The reason that's
Speaker 5: important is that they grew just above eleven percent last year.
Speaker 5: So in other words, we expect decelerating growth. That's not
Speaker 5: what the street wanted to hear. But we got a
Speaker 5: first ever dividend and a buyback. How many times are
Speaker 5: we going to keep saying that divvy buy back stocks
Speaker 5: up one and a half.
Speaker 4: Percent, And let's dig in therefore, with an expert who
Speaker 4: is across all of those numbers ed and you bring
Speaker 4: us the takeaways. Brody Ford was there with a closer
Speaker 4: look at some of these results, and Brody, there does
Speaker 4: seem to be this worry about the forecast front and center.
Speaker 7: Yeah, everybody wants some more growth, there's no question. With
Speaker 7: Snowflake in particular, they're always an interesting one because, unlike
Speaker 7: a lot of these software companies that charge you five
Speaker 7: ten year contracts so you can predict it pretty well,
Speaker 7: they charge you based on how much you use the product,
Speaker 7: kind of like AWS or an Azure, which means every earnings,
Speaker 7: it's a little volatile. We're not sure what we're gonna
Speaker 7: get and so this forecast, it made people feel anxious
Speaker 7: because it showed that growth continue to decelerate. You mix
Speaker 7: that with losing one of the most famous CEOs in
Speaker 7: the industry, that's going to be a shakeup.
Speaker 5: Okay, let's talk about salesforce. This is I just go
Speaker 5: so nerdy on the details. I use MDL on the
Speaker 5: Bloomberg terminal, and we're talking about a few basis points.
Speaker 5: But my understanding, Brody, and you and I were talking
Speaker 5: about this on the phone, is where do we find
Speaker 5: the AI read through? We didn't you know they outperformed
Speaker 5: in the quarter gone to end twenty twenty four fiscal
Speaker 5: twenty four with like eleven point two percent growth, and
Speaker 5: they're guiding us to ten point eight percent growth this year.
Speaker 5: What is or what is not happening for salesforce right now?
Speaker 7: Yeah, And it's funny because they are guiding to that
Speaker 7: above ten percent number when it comes to the non
Speaker 7: consulting revenue. When it comes to top line, their forecast
Speaker 7: has slipped below that psychologue called ten percent mark, which
Speaker 7: you know, all of a sudden, then you become a
Speaker 7: value stock rather than a growth stock.
Speaker 5: Salesforce.
Speaker 7: The story they're telling is that AI is going to
Speaker 7: buffet the need for a lot of their solutions. The
Speaker 7: early stage one will be in their data products, data cloud, warehousing,
Speaker 7: Tableau for analytics, and that did outperform, right, I mean,
Speaker 7: they are seeing uptick there.
Speaker 5: They say it's the.
Speaker 7: Highest organic growth of any product they've had. But still
Speaker 7: I think the AI impact on these numbers is relatively low,
Speaker 7: and I think that's the case for a lot of
Speaker 7: these application software makers. They want to tell an AI story,
Speaker 7: but in reality, it's still very early days. It is
Speaker 7: hard to quantify the exact impact at this point, even
Speaker 7: if in the earnings call you're going to hear those
Speaker 7: two letters over and over again.
Speaker 4: We certainly are.
Speaker 6: Brady Ford.
Speaker 4: We thank you so much for bringing us the inside
Speaker 4: track on both Snowfake Salesforce. Let's dig in with both
Speaker 4: those companies and the broader ecosystem right now, of Lisa,
Speaker 4: welcome Rebecca webtman CEO and principle of Valua, Technology analyst
Speaker 4: firm providing research advisory services to leaders with a focus
Speaker 4: on the value of technology. So talk to us about
Speaker 4: the value proposition at Salesforce right now. From your perspective, Rebecca,
Speaker 4: are the offering the right kind of offerings at the
Speaker 4: right price point with the right focus on margin.
Speaker 8: Sure, Caroline, thanks thanks for having me today.
Speaker 2: So Salesforce I got the timing right with data Cloud right,
Speaker 2: just as everyone recognizes that data and metadata is actually
Speaker 2: what makes AI work. They've got data Cloud out production
Speaker 2: and they're doing a lot today from a penetration perspective,
Speaker 2: offering credits to customers to get out there and start
Speaker 2: to adopt data cloud so they can start to experience
Speaker 2: the benefits of AI. Salesforce has some runway in other
Speaker 2: areas as well, and I think what we've seen too
Speaker 2: in the past years they've.
Speaker 8: Pushed to improve efficiency and improve.
Speaker 2: Margins is offerings like the AWS marketplace and other more
Speaker 2: self service things that should help them keep their cost
Speaker 2: of sales under control as well.
Speaker 4: It's interesting whenever I hear, for example, marketing coming my
Speaker 4: way from a Salesforces or is about the safety the
Speaker 4: using of your own proprietary data here, and that seems
Speaker 4: to be the sale from Snowflake too. But sticking with Salesforce, ultimately,
Speaker 4: what's your view on whether the incumbents win in this space.
Speaker 4: The fact that they've already got the deals with so
Speaker 4: many of these corporates that they're going to be the
Speaker 4: ones that win out these AI offerings, or whether these
Speaker 4: challenges that are coming up and being VC backed can
Speaker 4: make some begin roads.
Speaker 2: You know, it's interesting that you asked that, Caroline, because
Speaker 2: we just stood a study asking people about whom they
Speaker 2: would trust with their AI and what we found is
Speaker 2: that it wasn't necessarily those established vendors. Buyers were more
Speaker 2: likely to trust AI solutions that came back from organizations
Speaker 2: that had traceable data and clear ethics and privacy policies,
Speaker 2: not necessarily an established vendor.
Speaker 8: So there's still a lot of room for innovators out there.
Speaker 5: This is how I think about AI and salesforce. Right,
Speaker 5: AI means they can charge more, they're more expensive premium products,
Speaker 5: adds value to what they already do that did not
Speaker 5: show up in their numbers. Do you agree with that?
Speaker 2: I would agree with that, But I think too what
Speaker 2: we're seeing is a penetration strategy for data cloud today
Speaker 2: as customers need to make that leap into it. So
Speaker 2: you see with the new marketing cloud offering where they
Speaker 2: get data cloud credits, they're going to work on building
Speaker 2: that up in true salesforce fashion, get them to try
Speaker 2: and get excited about it and then really be able
Speaker 2: to turn on the switch.
Speaker 5: Oh, we know all about true Salesforce fashion, but here's
Speaker 5: the reality. There's a company that grew mid twenty percent
Speaker 5: range every year for a decade and it's going the
Speaker 5: wrong way. Snowflake had a sharp deceleration in its growth
Speaker 5: last year. It's not giving us evidence that it's turning around.
Speaker 5: What's your conclusion on the corporate enterprise spending environment based
Speaker 5: on the results that those companies gave.
Speaker 2: Well, I think Snowflake made it pretty clear when they
Speaker 2: said this is recovery, not rebound. We're looking at a
Speaker 2: new era in correcting. On the software space. I do
Speaker 2: think Salesforce has some runway with its other products like Slack.
Speaker 2: There's still a big revenue opportunity there that they haven't
Speaker 2: quite at.
Speaker 5: Okay, so we have a change of leadership at Snowflake.
Speaker 5: Does that excite you?
Speaker 8: The market never likes the surprise change in CEOs.
Speaker 2: Right, But I think too. Frank was brought in to
Speaker 2: grow at a certain point, just like you did with Service. Now,
Speaker 2: a streeter is a different person, and as we look
Speaker 2: at Snowflake moving from just cloud storage to more of
Speaker 2: an AI company. Certainly Shreeter has the chops and the
Speaker 2: experience that make him a good.
Speaker 8: Person in that spot.
Speaker 5: All right, CEO and principle of Valoir, Rebecca Edam and
Speaker 5: greats have you on the program. Really good wide range
Speaker 5: of analysis on many different companies coming up on the program.
Speaker 5: We're going to switch from the equity markets to bitcoin
Speaker 5: risk asset of choice and crypto markets more broadly, we're
Speaker 5: going to discuss all of that and more with Framework
Speaker 5: Bench's Vance Spencer. That's neck, but there are other stocks
Speaker 5: on the move, Carra.
Speaker 6: There are and there are more earnings to come.
Speaker 4: If you thought it was all over after the bell,
Speaker 4: we're going to be looking at for what Dell has
Speaker 4: to report.
Speaker 6: We're up seven tenths of a percent ahead of those
Speaker 6: numbers you.
Speaker 4: Look back, and of course we've got the focus on HPE.
Speaker 4: We've already had HPS you were running us through at
Speaker 4: the start of the show. Currently at one point eight percent,
Speaker 4: and I understand the CEO will be joining the network
Speaker 4: tomorrow now. Soundhown Ai another darling in the AI spies,
Speaker 4: up two hundred and twenty percent so far this year
Speaker 4: for up another seven percent. Can this company deliver the
Speaker 4: exuberance that we see factored into the share price from
Speaker 4: New York, from San Francisco.
Speaker 6: This is Bloomberg Technology.
Speaker 4: Look, let's check on other risk assets today because they
Speaker 4: are higher decidedly, so we are on a tear when
Speaker 4: it comes to crypto.
Speaker 6: Could we be eyeing the.
Speaker 4: Sixty nine thousand dollars handle that we had previously at
Speaker 4: record numbers for bitcoin currently training up at sixty three thousand,
Speaker 4: as you'll see. But it's not just Bitcoin getting the love.
Speaker 4: It's being spread through some of the other areas. I
Speaker 4: think theoryum up significantly, up two point three on the day,
Speaker 4: but we're hitting A three thousand, four hundred and sixty
Speaker 4: five and other Layer one protocols. I think a Solana
Speaker 4: also doing particularly well. Look at that more than eleven
Speaker 4: percent on the day. There is much love more broadly
Speaker 4: in the cryptosphere. Look at what's happening in the equity
Speaker 4: side of the equation though as well, because as some
Speaker 4: of these underlying assets do well well, if you're holding
Speaker 4: or if you're mining, they're.
Speaker 6: Doing particularly well for you as well.
Speaker 4: I mean, we know key Hoddler in chief in the
Speaker 4: equity market is of course MicroStrategy and they're up three
Speaker 4: point three percent. Now, interestingly, on the downside have been Marathon.
Speaker 4: Now this is on the back of their numbers. Many
Speaker 4: worrying about the accounting practices and ultimately whether or not
Speaker 4: they're just showing an uplift to their overall earnings because
Speaker 4: they're able to show the current increase in value of
Speaker 4: the underlying holdings a bitcoin. It's that some fifteen percent,
Speaker 4: some an has felt that the numbers didn't hit their mark.
Speaker 6: And remember these stocks have run up in recent weeks
Speaker 6: and months.
Speaker 4: We're looking also at r platforms on the downside by
Speaker 4: more than nine percent, probably in sympathy with the other
Speaker 4: miner that is Marathon. But it's notable that at the
Speaker 4: moment ed there is this supply demand dynamic that just
Speaker 4: seems to be working in bitcoin in particular's favor.
Speaker 5: All right, let's keep digging into everything crypto and bringing
Speaker 5: Van Spencer, co founder of the Web three focus venture
Speaker 5: firm Framework Ventures one point four billion in assets under management.
Speaker 5: You carry summed it up really nicely. First of all,
Speaker 5: we've moved slightly beyond just bitcoin to a kind of
Speaker 5: broader positivity in digital assets. And then the supply demand equation.
Speaker 5: Just give me a health check right now of how
Speaker 5: you feel. General sentiment is towards cryptocurrencies extremely positive, to
Speaker 5: say the least.
Speaker 9: I mean, if you think about the nine bitcoin ETFs
Speaker 9: that are active right now, they're on pace to buy about.
Speaker 5: A million bitcoin per year.
Speaker 9: I have it up on my other screen, but there's
Speaker 9: about one point nine million bitcoin total on all of
Speaker 9: the exchanges worldwide, and so something's got to give. And
Speaker 9: this is what's different in this cycle versus the previous cycles,
Speaker 9: where you know, we didn't have Larry Fink buying eighty
Speaker 9: five thousand bitcoin in the last twenty trading days, and
Speaker 9: so these ETFs are a watershed moment. There are eleven
Speaker 9: years in the making. That was when the first application
Speaker 9: was filed, and we've got ether up next. It's a
Speaker 9: May twenty ninth approval or deny update. We think it
Speaker 9: will be approved. It's basically the same case, and it's
Speaker 9: a much smaller and much more reflexive asset. And the
Speaker 9: last thing I'll say is that there's a ton of
Speaker 9: work that's happened since you know, the big crash that
Speaker 9: happened in twenty twenty two. We've got DeFi really firing
Speaker 9: starting to produce earnings. We've got gaming starting to bring
Speaker 9: in a lot of people. The ecosystem is extremely coherent.
Speaker 9: It's kind of hard to fade just all of the
Speaker 9: work that's happened.
Speaker 5: So I feel good you take on the face of it,
Speaker 5: just the movement in bitcoin. But one of the things
Speaker 5: we've been talking about this week is the offshoots right
Speaker 5: to other let's call them asset classes, but take NFTs.
Speaker 5: You look at the date of NFT volume in December,
Speaker 5: really close correlation with Bitcoin. The reason I'm glad to
Speaker 5: have you on the show, Vans is to me, it
Speaker 5: seems like a lot of that is related to what's
Speaker 5: happening in gaming, an area that your firm is really
Speaker 5: focused on.
Speaker 9: I mean, gaming is probably the most positive story in
Speaker 9: crypto right now, and it's a story that's again been
Speaker 9: years in the making. But all the games that were
Speaker 9: funded in that twenty twenty one twenty twenty two run
Speaker 9: have just started to launch, and one in particular, Pixels,
Speaker 9: has about four hundred thousand daily active wallets. That's the
Speaker 9: biggest blotching application by far right now in terms of
Speaker 9: user count. And so we're moving kind of beyond this
Speaker 9: prosumer you know, whale driven crypto economy into something that's
Speaker 9: more mass market. And you know, people have been waiting
Speaker 9: for that adoption moment, and I think it's coming. I
Speaker 9: think it might already be here. And so you've got
Speaker 9: all these different narratives really firing. The ETFs gaming DeFi
Speaker 9: eth what's the bare case. I mean, maybe the ETF
Speaker 9: inflows stop, but the vast majority of O RaaS have
Speaker 9: not been able to allocate to these yet. And the
Speaker 9: numbers that we hear are one to three percent. That's
Speaker 9: what Fidelity says, you know, of the portfolio that you
Speaker 9: should have in crypto, well, that equates to about one
Speaker 9: hundred and fifty billion dollars coming into this space over
Speaker 9: the next couple of years. And you know, we're one
Speaker 9: of the larger asset managers in crypto framework is and
Speaker 9: we've had the pleasure of buying you know, mid nine
Speaker 9: figures of crypto over the past two years. And liquid
Speaker 9: markets and this might sound strange, but it's actually hard
Speaker 9: to get the coins. These markets are not as liquid
Speaker 9: as people think. And so I think the open question
Speaker 9: is kind of what happens when that money comes in
Speaker 9: it could get, you know, wilder than people think.
Speaker 10: It is.
Speaker 5: My guess. I remember reading about you guys twenty twenty two.
Speaker 5: Hannah Millo was writing about how you were raising money
Speaker 5: at a time where everyone was raising money. You know,
Speaker 5: that was happening. It did not happen in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 5: Where are you focus now in the deploying of capital
Speaker 5: and your your kind of appetite to raise more funds.
Speaker 9: I don't know how much I can or cannot say
Speaker 9: about you know, our raising plans.
Speaker 5: It's just you and I on the show. Just give
Speaker 5: us to meet those events.
Speaker 9: Yeah, we raised four hundred million two weeks before Luna collapsed,
Speaker 9: and so you can imagine what that was like. And
Speaker 9: we spent that year buying you know, we called a
Speaker 9: lot of the capital in that fund, and you know,
Speaker 9: really nobody wanted to talk to us when we were
Speaker 9: buying eight at one thousand, But at thirty five hundred.
Speaker 9: People have now turned around and you know, all the
Speaker 9: LPs are excited and there's a lot more interest in
Speaker 9: this space. But let me put it in perspective for you.
Speaker 9: I was at a pension fund conference this week. It
Speaker 9: was a two day multi strategy multi asset class Pension
Speaker 9: fund conference. The crypto people got one panel at eight
Speaker 9: thirty in the morning, and you know, there's a ton
Speaker 9: of interest, but the pension funds and the largest endowments
Speaker 9: in the world are still behind on this stuff. And
Speaker 9: I do think in the fullness of time, when you
Speaker 9: look back and you think about what it might mean
Speaker 9: to miss the birth of an acid class, especially into
Speaker 9: an ETF style paradigm, a lot of those people are
Speaker 9: going to be pretty upset and wondering what happened. So
Speaker 9: I think we're early.
Speaker 11: All right.
Speaker 5: Framework VENs has co found event Spen, so really appreciate
Speaker 5: having you on the show. I'm glad there were some
Speaker 5: things you could time for talking tech. First off, Electronic
Speaker 5: Art said yesterday that it would be cutting five percent
Speaker 5: of its workforce that's about six hundred and seventy people,
Speaker 5: due to shifting customer needs and a refocusing of the company.
Speaker 5: Will also be halting development on a number of undisclosed
Speaker 5: titles and pulling back on its real estate holding. CEO
Speaker 5: Andrew Wilson told staff in a memo that the company
Speaker 5: would be quote moving away from development of future licensed
Speaker 5: ip that we do not believe will be successful in
Speaker 5: our changing industry. EA joined Sony, Microsoft, ten Cents, Riot Games,
Speaker 5: and other top studios and laying off employees as game
Speaker 5: development costs increase and finance. The world's largest crypto exchange
Speaker 5: said it recovered four point four billion dollars worth of
Speaker 5: digital assets for its users who mishandled their deposits within
Speaker 5: the past two years. Users can mishandle their funds in
Speaker 5: a variety of ways, including entering incorrect wallet addresses, depositing
Speaker 5: incompatible tokens, and problems from blockchain upgrades. That's according to
Speaker 5: Thursday's report. The cryptocurrency exchange said it resolved more than
Speaker 5: three hundred eighty one thousand cases of cryptocurrency that was
Speaker 5: deposited by users but not credited in twenty twenty two
Speaker 5: and twenty twenty three. Plus. Ali Barber is rolling out
Speaker 5: its second major price cut for cloud services in years,
Speaker 5: hoping to win back users from rivals like ten Cent
Speaker 5: competing to provide tools critical to training AI. The Chinese
Speaker 5: Internet Pioneer will slash prices starting Thursday on scores of
Speaker 5: internet based services by as much as fifty five percent
Speaker 5: or twenty percent on average. The cuts represent one of
Speaker 5: the more aggressive moves by the company to stay ahead
Speaker 5: of ten Cent and by do in the cloud business
Speaker 5: and risk triggering a price war in what's already a
Speaker 5: hotly contested set throughout in China. Caro, what are you Yeah, we.
Speaker 4: Talking in contestant sectors and ones that well might be
Speaker 4: feeling the heat.
Speaker 6: Let's talk about streaming.
Speaker 4: And focusing on Paramount says to see, actually a bit
Speaker 4: of a reprieve today, up three point three percent off
Speaker 4: the revenue for its direct to consumer streaming business Parwaermount
Speaker 4: plus beat expectations room meg Intelligence analyst Keitha. Ranganathan joins
Speaker 4: us now for more on the results, and well, there
Speaker 4: was some optimism really showing there, but ultimately the revenues
Speaker 4: the AD side still a cloud here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, Caroline. So you know you're right in terms
Speaker 3: of the DTC business, which is the streaming business, there
Speaker 3: were some green shoots there. I think overall what we
Speaker 3: came off with was there are some tones of you know,
Speaker 3: stabilization in Paramount's results. I'm just not sure that it's
Speaker 3: going to be enough. You know, you do have the
Speaker 3: linear TV business, which brings in about fifty five percent
Speaker 3: of the revenue for the whole company almost ninety percent
Speaker 3: of its profits though, so there's obviously a lot of
Speaker 3: focus there, and that sector has just been so challenged
Speaker 3: just with cord cutting and kind of this whole movement
Speaker 3: to to streaming and you know, the movement of eyeballs
Speaker 3: from linear TV networks to all of the digital platforms,
Speaker 3: and so obviously the advertising dollars also moving away, so
Speaker 3: that market has been under a lot of stress. TV
Speaker 3: ads were down fifteen percent. You know, Paramount will get
Speaker 3: the benefit in the first quarter with the Super Bowl.
Speaker 3: There will be you know, some lingering benefits throughout the
Speaker 3: year with the political ad cycle, but that's not going
Speaker 3: to be enough because you know, the core advertising trends
Speaker 3: remain very, very challenged, and so yeah, that was definitely
Speaker 3: kind of that remains a pain point. But I think
Speaker 3: the bright spot is that, you know, the streaming metrics
Speaker 3: definitely look good.
Speaker 5: There's a lot going on in the background with Paramount Gita,
Speaker 5: and for me, it always comes back to the loss
Speaker 5: in the streaming business was more narrow than expected, but
Speaker 5: we don't have any better sense on how Paramount does
Speaker 5: anything organically or inorganically to make that business profitable.
Speaker 3: So they did articulate a strategy, and this was you know,
Speaker 3: this was I think one of the things that investors
Speaker 3: are kind of cheering a little bit this morning, because
Speaker 3: they said that they are hoping to get to paramount
Speaker 3: plus profitability domestic profitability by twenty twenty five. Now that's
Speaker 3: the first time that they've actually given us a time frame. Yes,
Speaker 3: losses have narrowed. They do seem to have some plans
Speaker 3: in place for cutting down costs, for kind of optimizing
Speaker 3: content costs across the board, both their linear TV networks
Speaker 3: as well as streaming. Again, I'm not sure that's enough
Speaker 3: to move the needle. We did see last week Warner
Speaker 3: Brothers Discovery actually posting a modest profit in its streaming business,
Speaker 3: but investors are still very, very skeptical that the profits
Speaker 3: on the streaming side can actually completely offset the losses
Speaker 3: on the linear TV side.
Speaker 5: Cutting your way to profit. Bloomeg Intelligence analystsiter rang an
Speaker 5: eighth and great to have you on the program. Welcome
Speaker 5: back to bloomboag Technology. Ed love low here in San Francisco, Caroline.
Speaker 4: Heid and Neo Les quick check on these markets said,
Speaker 4: because today the PCE number that favored view of inflationary
Speaker 4: pressures from the Federal Reserve was posted at eight thirty am,
Speaker 4: and it was a relief it came in where expectations
Speaker 4: were two point eight percent urinear growth in terms of
Speaker 4: inflationary pressure, the Fed seeming right to be pausing on
Speaker 4: any cuts. But that sort of relief that it came
Speaker 4: in as expected means that tech stocks push higher, up
Speaker 4: four tens a percent. Tenure yield comes down some three
Speaker 4: basis points, but actually sort of moving aside from any
Speaker 4: of the macro data points of late, Bitcoin has been
Speaker 4: on its own role over the last few trading days
Speaker 4: and weeks. As you know, we're currently at sixty two
Speaker 4: and fifteen, so clearly really trying to eye that new
Speaker 4: record high at supply demand dynamics continue. We'll dig into
Speaker 4: that in a moment. Was one of our VC guests.
Speaker 4: We're up two point eight percent. Move on and have
Speaker 4: a look at some of the individual movers because earnings
Speaker 4: have come thinking fast a lot for some of these
Speaker 4: software AI players that I want to shine a light on.
Speaker 6: OCTA massive move up some twenty percent.
Speaker 4: Now, this company's been under duress, remember a breach that
Speaker 4: happened recently. Now the numbers that came in from Octa
Speaker 4: seemed to give analysts some reprieve. They seem to be
Speaker 4: liking the fact that they're managing to upsale where they
Speaker 4: think the price point for this particular company is going.
Speaker 4: And subscriptions were sort of a relief over there, ju
Speaker 4: A Lingo up twenty two percent. Absolutely rampant growth that
Speaker 4: we're seeing at the moment in terms of revenues driving higher.
Speaker 4: People wanting to be learning the languages on this particular
Speaker 4: AI enabled platform. Maybe the Super Bowl advert did a
Speaker 4: little bit as well. We're looking at C three AI
Speaker 4: twenty four percent higher. This also a relief because many
Speaker 4: had thought that maybe this had just been an AI
Speaker 4: hype cycle. C THREEAI needed to prove that it's a
Speaker 4: subscription growth was really there, and it is and many
Speaker 4: an analyst therefore upgrading on the back of these numbers
Speaker 4: as well. So some big moves in some of these
Speaker 4: software and AI plays today ed.
Speaker 5: All right, we have some breaking news crossing the Bloomberg
Speaker 5: terminal and a red headline in the video games industry.
Speaker 5: Swedish video games outfit Embracer is going to sell its
Speaker 5: Saber subsidiary in a deal valued around five hundred million
Speaker 5: US dollars that according to a Bloomberg source. Let's bring
Speaker 5: in the reporter that just broke that story for Bloomberg,
Speaker 5: Jason strud This is an interesting one. I'm familiar with
Speaker 5: the names because I'm a longtime fan and player of
Speaker 5: Knights of the Old Republic, the Star Wars Going We
Speaker 5: used to play on PC, the OG and the second version.
Speaker 5: Tell us about the deal you're reporting on. Yeah, So
Speaker 5: it's happening as we speak.
Speaker 1: So this is going to be announced in a in
Speaker 1: the next week or two that Embracer Group is selling. Essentially, Saber,
Speaker 1: which is a big subsidiary of Embracer Group, is going
Speaker 1: to go private.
Speaker 5: So a little bit of context here.
Speaker 1: Embracer Group is the Swedish gaming conglomerate that made a
Speaker 1: lot of headlines a couple of years ago because it
Speaker 1: was buying up companies all across the video game industry,
Speaker 1: a huge spending spree back in the halcyon days of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, when the.
Speaker 5: Interest rates were low and buying was easy.
Speaker 1: But of course things have changed and Embraser Group has
Speaker 1: since embarked on a cost cutting initiative that has led
Speaker 1: to carnage across the video game industry and has shut
Speaker 1: down studios, laid people off, and now it's just looking
Speaker 1: to shed costs whenever possible.
Speaker 5: This is the latest move on that front.
Speaker 4: And overall, well, when you see these cancelation of projects,
Speaker 4: when you see ultimately companies doing deals like this, does
Speaker 4: it speak to some of the pressure points that we
Speaker 4: sing across the entire industry?
Speaker 5: It definitely does.
Speaker 1: And yes, just this year, this week alone, I mean
Speaker 1: we've just seen it's been a bloodbath. Sony has laid
Speaker 1: off nine hundred people. EA just said last night it
Speaker 1: was laying off more than six hundred people. Yeah, we're
Speaker 1: seeing our climate a lot of it. There are a
Speaker 1: few factors behind all of these layoffs, but I think
Speaker 1: the biggest one is that during the pandemic, when there
Speaker 1: was a lot of growth in the video game industry,
Speaker 1: a lot of these companies just swelled, they bloated, they
Speaker 1: hired too many people. And now they are kind of
Speaker 1: they're facing the math. They are looking at the numbers.
Speaker 1: The numbers have gone down a little bit. The growth
Speaker 1: hasn't been quite what it was when everybody was stuck
Speaker 1: at home playing video games. But the overhiring is still
Speaker 1: there and as always happens to people who actually made
Speaker 1: those decisions that are sticking around. It's the people who
Speaker 1: got hired who are suffering as a result of this.
Speaker 5: Adjacent the other top story that our alreadience is following
Speaker 5: is rock Star Games, the studio behind graand Theft Auto,
Speaker 5: telling its employees, according to your reporting, to come back
Speaker 5: to the office five days a week starting in April.
Speaker 5: What do you know about the decisions behind that move. Yeah,
Speaker 5: it's interesting. I think that in a lot of industries.
Speaker 1: A lot of industries obviously are grappling with this question
Speaker 1: of returning to the office after employees have gotten used
Speaker 1: to either working hybrid or working remotely. With the gaming industry,
Speaker 1: it's kind of it plays off on the topic we
Speaker 1: were just talking about, because the volatility of the video
Speaker 1: game industry is such that people have to uproot their
Speaker 1: lives constantly for new jobs, and so remote work is
Speaker 1: very much a shield against that volatility. And so for
Speaker 1: a company like Rockstar, which is one of the leading
Speaker 1: video game developers, to come out and say, hey, we
Speaker 1: need you all to come in five days a week
Speaker 1: really strikes kind of It's a big contrast between what
Speaker 1: we're seeing elsewhere. Yeah, Rockstar, they're Rationale here. It's largely
Speaker 1: because of security, and so they've suffered from some huge
Speaker 1: leaks of the next Grand Theft Auto game. There was
Speaker 1: one in twenty twenty two where a bunch of footage,
Speaker 1: early footage from the game got leaked and dropped on
Speaker 1: the internet. And then last year, last December, just a
Speaker 1: couple of months ago, and they were planning on releasing
Speaker 1: their latest their new trailer, their first trailer for GTA six.
Speaker 1: It was actually leaked on Twitter a few hours before
Speaker 1: it was due to go up. It was pretty ridiculous. Actually,
Speaker 1: it was leaked with like a giant chiron in the
Speaker 1: middle saying by Bitcoin. It was very very bizarre sequence
Speaker 1: of events. The game was the game is set in Florida.
Speaker 1: I joked at the time that it's the most Florida
Speaker 1: thing ever for the game to leak in that fashion.
Speaker 1: But this is one of the main reasons that they're
Speaker 1: doing this return to office because they believe that their
Speaker 1: security was compromised as a result of people working remotely.
Speaker 6: What's interesting, though, is we've seen it at other tech companies.
Speaker 4: I think of Grinder, who said look, come back to
Speaker 4: the office, and it actually helps them reduce their workforce
Speaker 4: with a more of a natural attrition version, because they're like, look,
Speaker 4: if you're not going to buy by some of a
Speaker 4: you need not come back. Is that kind of what's
Speaker 4: playing into this as well, Jason, even though they are
Speaker 4: playing up the security side.
Speaker 1: That is extremely an extremely common theory, I will say,
Speaker 1: and I've heard that not just attached to Rockstar, but
Speaker 1: also to a bunch of other companies. Lizard last year
Speaker 1: was big on return to office and one of the
Speaker 1: theories was, hey, is this just kind.
Speaker 5: Of a soft layoff?
Speaker 1: Is this a way that we can lay people off
Speaker 1: without actually laying people off because we know that X
Speaker 1: percent of people will leave when they're forced with the
Speaker 1: prospect of having to go back to the office five
Speaker 1: days a week.
Speaker 5: So very common theory.
Speaker 1: I don't have anything that can prove that, but it's
Speaker 1: certainly logical, Jason Shyer.
Speaker 4: Brilliant to have you across what is a very talkt
Speaker 4: of industry group today, across all of the different companies
Speaker 4: moving and shaking me.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much.
Speaker 4: Meanwhile, let's turn to Apple for a moment, because well,
Speaker 4: there's not some great price point action happening over in China.
Speaker 4: Resellers slashing the price of the iPhone fifteen models get
Speaker 4: this by as much as one hundred and eighty dollars,
Speaker 4: and it all seems to signal that we've got an
Speaker 4: unusually prolonged slump in demand and ed, this is more
Speaker 4: than we're used to.
Speaker 6: What took my.
Speaker 4: Attention was it actually some of this as dressed up
Speaker 4: as well deals to be made before International Women's Day.
Speaker 4: I haven't seen many deals being made my way for
Speaker 4: International Women's Day next week for objects to be cheaper
Speaker 4: than usual, but the fact that one hundred and eighty
Speaker 4: dollars does seem to be more than we usually see
Speaker 4: at this time of year in the lunar holidays.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there are different data sets that you can point
Speaker 5: to and try and draw a conclusion. The main one
Speaker 5: that the Bloomberg focuses on in the story Carro is
Speaker 5: that iPhone fifteen sales are just not doing as well
Speaker 5: as prior generations the iPhone fourteen in China, so an
Speaker 5: Ali barber's team or you can get one hundred and
Speaker 5: eighty dollars discount, but the difference this time around this
Speaker 5: year more domestic pressure right a handset from Huawei, you know,
Speaker 5: in the marketplace, and.
Speaker 6: Those headwinds just continue.
Speaker 4: We talk about some of the geopolitical tensions that have
Speaker 4: effect of course a supply side chain of Apple and
Speaker 4: more broadly demand too. We've got to think that there's
Speaker 4: been this government not perhaps the pr around it is
Speaker 4: been difficult to find the nuance, but ultimately governments or
Speaker 4: government affiliated companies not wanting you to bring in your
Speaker 4: Apple phone, wanting you to buy local, and Huilewey of
Speaker 4: course bringing out this incredibly powerful rival.
Speaker 5: The conclusion that Bloomberg Intelligence anlysts reach, it implies weakness
Speaker 5: in China. Okay, coming up on Bloomberg technology, how New
Speaker 5: York City might be poised to be the next major
Speaker 5: AI hub. That's according to Lux Capital. We're going to
Speaker 5: discuss with partner Grace Isford. That's next, Carol, what's happening
Speaker 5: in the markets.
Speaker 4: We're just going back to Apple for a moment, because
Speaker 4: this is a European related company, a Swiss chip maker
Speaker 4: in fact, absolutely plunging as you can see in European
Speaker 4: trading after.
Speaker 6: A major customer.
Speaker 4: Now analysts believe this customer to be Apple ed canceled
Speaker 4: the chip maker's key project around micro LEDs. So as
Speaker 4: this is a result impactment charges of up to nine
Speaker 4: hundred million euros. You can see the impact on that
Speaker 4: two day chart from New York, from San Francisco, this
Speaker 4: is Bloomberg Technology. Well you just saw that magnovograts is
Speaker 4: going to be on Bloomberg in a little while. And
Speaker 4: well that's because we're talking about crypto a lot at
Speaker 4: the moment. Bitcoin of course having quite the tear forty
Speaker 4: two percent on the nose over the last trading days
Speaker 4: of thirty days. And this is of course as we
Speaker 4: see demand supply ultimate imbalance, as we start to see
Speaker 4: the ETFs come to bear, and notably some of the
Speaker 4: talk of halving hamp maoning in April, someone who basically
Speaker 4: is at the intersection everything we're talking about at the moment,
Speaker 4: whether it's the nexus of web three, also of data
Speaker 4: infrastructure of AIML is Lux Capital partner Grace Isford, who
Speaker 4: joins us now for VC Spotlight. And what's so interesting
Speaker 4: is you were sort of very highly focused on what
Speaker 4: now seems to be all of our talking points at
Speaker 4: the moment when you first came to Lux in twenty
Speaker 4: twenty two, having been at canvas before that what are
Speaker 4: you making of the ecosystem in crypto when you're looking
Speaker 4: at putting VC dollars to work? Because yes, we can
Speaker 4: all think of it as some sort of asset that
Speaker 4: we can track and better and speculate, But what is
Speaker 4: the underlying building of infrastructure looking like right now?
Speaker 10: Ironically, it's the same building blocks for both. You know,
Speaker 10: who are the innovative technologists who are taking you know,
Speaker 10: cutting edge fundational principles, whether it's in cryptography or whether
Speaker 10: it's in applied machine learning, and taking that to solve
Speaker 10: a real problem for the end users. So, both the
Speaker 10: B to B infrastructure on the crypto side and the
Speaker 10: B to B infrastructure on the AI side, we continue
Speaker 10: to see a lot of exciting innovation.
Speaker 4: Okay, well, let's talk about the practical innovations that are
Speaker 4: being built. Maybe here you've just been to San Francisco.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of talk actually of how cryptography can
Speaker 4: be an answer to compute and access to compute when
Speaker 4: we are thinking of large language models and machine learning.
Speaker 6: Is that something you're seeing being solved for at the
Speaker 6: moment in both places?
Speaker 10: Well, certainly, actually, take our lex Portfolio company together AI.
Speaker 10: We actually led the seed in that company. They're based
Speaker 10: in San Francisco, but they're chief scientists Tredoo. He's actually
Speaker 10: moving to New York to be an assistant professor at
Speaker 10: Princeton and love to talk a little bit more about
Speaker 10: the New York theme there. But they are actually having
Speaker 10: decentralized compute in many ways versus using a centralized cloud
Speaker 10: provider in order to power that AI infrastructure stack.
Speaker 5: Great, let's have a little bit of healthy competition between cities,
Speaker 5: shall we. This week we published a documentary called Welcome
Speaker 5: to Cerebral Valley. And as you know, like right now,
Speaker 5: the line share of dollar or intellectual capital is here,
Speaker 5: but New York is growing both on the personnel side
Speaker 5: and attracting more dollars. What is lux Capital's attitude.
Speaker 10: Towards that the AI demand is unprecedented, both in San
Speaker 10: Francisco and New York, and I think you're going to
Speaker 10: see continued growth in both cities. Right sfal Continua Hub.
Speaker 10: New York is a really exciting and growing hub, both
Speaker 10: because of the demand we have here. Forty four of
Speaker 10: Fortune five hundred companies are headquartered right here in New York.
Speaker 10: There was a recent Unicorn Report where the number of
Speaker 10: unicorns in New York grows from three to one hundred
Speaker 10: over the last ten years. And you're seeing huge industries here,
Speaker 10: whether it's financial services or media. As it retains to
Speaker 10: New York specifically, there's a great talent be here. I
Speaker 10: just mentioned tread out from Together actually as moving here
Speaker 10: to New York. We've also seen several other great AI
Speaker 10: labs world class right here in New York. Nyu Jan Lacun,
Speaker 10: He's the chief medice scientist at Meta. He's also here
Speaker 10: in New York, and the Princeton and Columbia and Cornell
Speaker 10: labs are are bustling.
Speaker 5: One of the surprising headlines that caught my eye in
Speaker 5: the last couple of days was Jamie Diamond of all
Speaker 5: people saying that mayor's in Texas will phone them up
Speaker 5: and say what can we do to get more business?
Speaker 5: But you know, officials in New York City, according to
Speaker 5: Jamie Diamond, and not as business friendly. What is your
Speaker 5: kind of boots on the ground experience of that. From
Speaker 5: kind of a host city perspective.
Speaker 10: I've been seeing bustling innovation and I've been seeing a
Speaker 10: lot of people choosing to live in New York because
Speaker 10: they want to live here and going through whatever hoops
Speaker 10: they need to do to build an awesome company here. So,
Speaker 10: whether that's getting great talent out of major tech companies,
Speaker 10: whether that's getting a lot of new grads. We saw
Speaker 10: a six x increase in applicants according to a recent
Speaker 10: Handshag report over the last five years, wanting to move here.
Speaker 10: And we see a lot of international talent, right folks
Speaker 10: iming from Europe, both coming from Israel, all moving right
Speaker 10: here to New York City.
Speaker 4: What often will be said to some of the vcs
Speaker 4: that I speak to us chatting with able partners, for
Speaker 4: example yesterday, is that what New York has going through it,
Speaker 4: even if it's not comparable in terms of the share
Speaker 4: scale of money being raised quite yet or deployed here
Speaker 4: is diversity. And we have different industry groups here. It's
Speaker 4: interesting that a lot of the companies that you're backing
Speaker 4: seem to be in image generation, seem to be in
Speaker 4: sort of the advertising creative space.
Speaker 6: I think a Runway, for example, well.
Speaker 10: Runway right based here in New York, looks partnered and
Speaker 10: led the theory feed in that company. They are working
Speaker 10: hand in hand with filmmakers and with producers right in
Speaker 10: their offices in New York City, and so they're working
Speaker 10: not just to add AI as a side thing to
Speaker 10: their workflows, but integrate it directly into their workflow. And
Speaker 10: you've seen a lot of success with that, working with
Speaker 10: both for five hundred companies and those filmmakers in production.
Speaker 4: And I'm pretty sure a little bit of healthy nervousness
Speaker 4: coming from those industry groups that are seeing themselves being
Speaker 4: well and many would say disrupt by the pace of AI.
Speaker 4: Gratis Fords, So great to have her on just on
Speaker 4: the nexus of everything that's happening in a world at
Speaker 4: the moment, Lu's capital partner, and we're talking at to
Speaker 4: you about well another portfolio company of their right now.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Hugging Face. And actually, as a reminder, the big
Speaker 5: story we've been tracking this week is the fallout from
Speaker 5: Gemini alphabet or Google's generatorve AI text and image generating
Speaker 5: tool that has come in for criticism and elicited a
Speaker 5: response from Sunder Pitchi, the CEO of Google, who called
Speaker 5: some of the deficiencies unacceptable. Let's bring in Hugging Face
Speaker 5: Research and chief ethics scientists Margaret Mitchell Murrett. You have
Speaker 5: your own history with the academic body of Google that
Speaker 5: we can get into. But yeah, that's right. We're showing
Speaker 5: Sunder pitch Eye's statement right now about what happened with Gemini.
Speaker 5: The reason we really want to get you on the
Speaker 5: show is can this be fixed technologically speaking in the
Speaker 5: short term?
Speaker 6: Yeah, it actually can.
Speaker 11: So there's a few different approaches to handling the different
Speaker 11: ways that people are going to be using these systems,
Speaker 11: and one is to have a bunch of different models
Speaker 11: under the hood that end up figuring out what different
Speaker 11: users intent is and providing different kinds of responses based
Speaker 11: on what the user intent is.
Speaker 6: So it should be fixable.
Speaker 11: I'm a little surprised it's taking so long, but I
Speaker 11: guess we'll see.
Speaker 5: What I'm trying to reconcile in my mind is that
Speaker 5: Google is at the origin story of artificial intelligence, the
Speaker 5: body of R and D or academic work that happened
Speaker 5: more than a decade ago. How do we get to
Speaker 5: this point where they publish a tool where there is
Speaker 5: clear evidence that the model has some deficiencies and evidence
Speaker 5: of biases.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I mean, we've seen Google laying off a lot
Speaker 11: of people, laying off people who are experts in AI ethics,
Speaker 11: which really helps with the kind of issues that they're
Speaker 11: seeing now. I think that Google might be playing a
Speaker 11: bit of catch up, sort of trying to release things
Speaker 11: perhaps before they're fully ready, and also not necessarily having
Speaker 11: the right people at the table to make the decisions.
Speaker 11: So Google's in a very different position than it was,
Speaker 11: you know, twenty years ago.
Speaker 4: It's worth saying what side of the table you're coming
Speaker 4: from and your history with Google, because of course you
Speaker 4: co led Google's ethical AI team.
Speaker 6: You step down from that group.
Speaker 4: You're priate previously of course over at Microsoft, I mean
Speaker 4: you've been everywhere. You've moved over to hugging face to
Speaker 4: really drive the ethical perspective at that particular part of
Speaker 4: the business. But I'm interested is to the lackings, the
Speaker 4: failings that you saw a couple of years ago that
Speaker 4: drew your criticism and ultimately.
Speaker 6: As you left Google.
Speaker 4: Is that what's the edge hit When I think about
Speaker 4: the some of the issues that you say as to
Speaker 4: why this isn't getting fixed as quickly it seems to
Speaker 4: be from you your perspective, A question of personnel here
Speaker 4: and who's got the power to make decisions right right, Yeah.
Speaker 11: It's completely an issue of who's at the table. I mean,
Speaker 11: one of the things that so many UH women and
Speaker 11: people of color speak to in the AI ethics world
Speaker 11: is the need to think about how technology is going
Speaker 11: to be used, how it impacts different people. And we're
Speaker 11: really not seeing that kind of consideration in the way
Speaker 11: that these technologies are being unrolled. So it really seems
Speaker 11: to be that there isn't enough clear thinking about foresight,
Speaker 11: about context of use, about the social impact. And these
Speaker 11: are things that a lot of people who specialize in
Speaker 11: in things like AI ethics responsible AI m many of
Speaker 11: whom are underrepresented in technology. You know, we're we're not
Speaker 11: seeing this kind of insight, which means that there might
Speaker 11: not be the right people, and the people there might
Speaker 11: be more disempowered than they should be.
Speaker 4: And the model that this is then l unleashed upon
Speaker 4: is in an environment of a cultur wars, some might
Speaker 4: call it. Margaret, I'm interested though, what for me as
Speaker 4: a consumer could be made clearer? How can transformation, How
Speaker 4: can me understanding what's going on under the hood be
Speaker 4: better served to me?
Speaker 6: So I understand where.
Speaker 4: I perhaps can show my preferences, my needs my choices
Speaker 4: when it comes to the images being generated, right right.
Speaker 11: So one thing that actually people are familiar with with
Speaker 11: Google image search is when you type in some sort
Speaker 11: of query, some prompt to get a set of images,
Speaker 11: there's a bunch of different boxes you can select from
Speaker 11: that get at different things you might use. In the past,
Speaker 11: Google has actually been very good at this, trying to
Speaker 11: give users an option to specify the kinds of intents
Speaker 11: that they have in what they're trying to search for,
Speaker 11: and then further refining based on that. So that technology
Speaker 11: is there. It's something that Google actually has a history
Speaker 11: of developing and developing well. This same kind of approach
Speaker 11: could be put into any sort of chatbot system, be
Speaker 11: it more generative or not, where users are shown as
Speaker 11: a selection that they can choose among to get at
Speaker 11: the kinds of things that they would like. There's also
Speaker 11: the possibility to have a back and forth in order
Speaker 11: for the system to ask the user for a little
Speaker 11: bit more specificity. Users could potentially set preferences and the
Speaker 11: system could also show a variety of different things regardless
Speaker 11: of different boxes users might check. They could say, here's
Speaker 11: a historical image, here's the world, as it could be
Speaker 11: you know, let me know more about what you'd like
Speaker 11: to see practical takeaways.
Speaker 4: We really appreciate you for it. Margaret Mitchell of Hugging Face.
Speaker 4: Of course, she was previously founder and co led Google's
Speaker 4: ethical AI group. The SEC while it's investigating where the
Speaker 4: open Ai investors were misled as the startup went through
Speaker 4: a ferocious debate of a leadership last year. This is
Speaker 4: all being reported by the Wall Street Journal, citing people
Speaker 4: familiar with the probe. Now the Securities in Exchange Commission
Speaker 4: is studying internal communications by CEO Simulman in relation to
Speaker 4: his ouster reports said, now the SEC has sent a
Speaker 4: subpoena to the company in December, and our senior OpenAI
Speaker 4: officials to preserve internal documents now to regain his job,
Speaker 4: remember ed Altman agreed to an internal investigation among other conditions,
Speaker 4: and we get to see the outcome.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we wait the outcome. There are the private investors
Speaker 5: in a complex cap table, and then there are the
Speaker 5: Microsoft investors, because remember in the public markets, Microsoft shares
Speaker 5: reacted to the chaos which you and I both live through.
Speaker 4: Feels an age away, but of course there's still debate
Speaker 4: rages on. Meanwhile, That does it for this edition of
Speaker 4: Bloombog Technology.
Speaker 5: Big thanks to everyone who listens to the podcast. We
Speaker 5: know there are a lot of you out there. We're
Speaker 5: on Spotify, iHeart Apple, and the Bloomberg platforms. Gosh, what
Speaker 5: a week it's been. From San Francisco and New York City.
Speaker 5: This is Bloomberg Technology.