Speaker 1: From Bahart where Innovation, Money and Power Collie in Silicon Valley, NBN.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde and Ed lud Love.
Speaker 2: I'm Caroline heinep Rumberg's Worldhie quarters in New York, and
Speaker 2: I'm Ed Ludlow in San Francisco.
Speaker 3: This is Bloomberg Technology and Ed ces.
Speaker 2: It kicks off from Las Vegas and Video. It's already
Speaker 2: unveiling new chips at the annual Tech event. Details ahead
Speaker 2: on the company's AI ambitions.
Speaker 3: And the Elon Musk's reported drug use is a new
Speaker 3: headache for the boards of Tesla and SpaceX. We discuss
Speaker 3: the legal risks and Musk's response.
Speaker 2: Us Instacart, it will begin showing advertisements on its high
Speaker 2: tech shopping carts in the latest addition to the company's
Speaker 2: growing ad business. Our exclusive interview with the CEO como the.
Speaker 3: Wall Street Journal reporting some historic drug use by Elon Musk,
Speaker 3: according to anonymous sources, that is worrying board members and
Speaker 3: staff at Tesla and SpaceX. Bloomberg's Max Chafkin, who's a
Speaker 3: member of the Elon Musk Inc. Pod, is going to
Speaker 3: come on and break down what is a very complicated
Speaker 3: story If Tesla is the proxy for elon Musk sentiment,
Speaker 3: it is hired by six tens of one percent. Really
Speaker 3: big movement in semiconductors. Look particularly at Nvidia up almost
Speaker 3: five percent, but semiconductors broadly having a pretty good morning.
Speaker 3: You know, the socks was pretty downtrodden in the final
Speaker 3: trading days of twenty twenty three. It's somewhat of a rebound,
Speaker 3: but in the last hour some news. Nvidia announced new
Speaker 3: products to help the personal computer industry lower consumers with AIPCS,
Speaker 3: which will let gamers, designers, and other computer users make
Speaker 3: better use of AI on personal machines. I want to
Speaker 3: bring in bloombergs Ian King, who's been tracking the keynote
Speaker 3: at CEES and the details. What are these chips that
Speaker 3: we're talking about in.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean these are real, just updates to its
Speaker 4: existing range of chips. What it's done is put in
Speaker 4: a few more new components that are going to help
Speaker 4: with the AI processing, some new cores, some better memory bandwidth,
Speaker 4: and it's also adjust the prices, made the prices a
Speaker 4: little bit more attractive as well.
Speaker 2: Just an update in Yet, the stock rally is hard.
Speaker 2: We're back at a all time high for in video
Speaker 2: shares best days since August the twenty first, twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: Is it just that we needed a moon music shift?
Speaker 2: Is it just because AI actually is everything to this
Speaker 2: particular company?
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, clearly, I think the last thing you
Speaker 4: said is the answer there. Clearly AI has been an
Speaker 4: enormous benefit for this company. Already, it's proved materially that
Speaker 4: this is real, that this is about actual sales and
Speaker 4: actual deployment. Again, in video comes out here and says, hey,
Speaker 4: don't forget about us. This AIPC, that Intel, that AMD
Speaker 4: has been talking about. We can do this too, and
Speaker 4: actually we think we're better than they are, so again
Speaker 4: likely to press the right kind of button with investors,
Speaker 4: and we're seeing that reaction.
Speaker 3: It's interesting the timing though. It's a ces keynote adjacent
Speaker 3: CES because it's virtual. I'm about to get on a
Speaker 3: plane and go to Vegas hopefully. The story within video
Speaker 3: was the H one hundred. You know, a GPU that
Speaker 3: goes into a server design, that goes into a data center,
Speaker 3: you build your large language models. This seems like in
Speaker 3: video reminding everyone, hey, we're actually pretty good at PC.
Speaker 3: Is it going to be important business?
Speaker 5: For them.
Speaker 4: I mean up until about a year ago, it was
Speaker 4: their biggest It was the one thing we talked about.
Speaker 4: G Force was their main product.
Speaker 5: The PC was what they were.
Speaker 4: That's where the volume is right, So it isn't going
Speaker 4: to stay an important business for them right now, all
Speaker 4: the profits, all of the major games are from the
Speaker 4: data center. But yeah, of course they used to open
Speaker 4: CS every year with Hey, this bright, new shiny thing,
Speaker 4: and this is them reminding people, hey, we're still here
Speaker 4: as well. You really need to pay attention to us
Speaker 4: this market.
Speaker 3: Maybe I'm reading too much into it. I mean last year,
Speaker 3: part of the story among many was kind of Jensen
Speaker 3: Kuang the leather jacket wearing next Elon musk type. Maybe
Speaker 3: today all days we won't make that comparison. But their
Speaker 3: momentum hasn't really stopped. You know, the stock is boring,
Speaker 3: I think it. Karen mentioned a fresh record high. What
Speaker 3: is the story from Nvidia going into twenty twenty four.
Speaker 4: I mean, they have a whole host of new products,
Speaker 4: which we saw some of announced today and Jensen said, look,
Speaker 4: we are actually going to speed up the cadence of
Speaker 4: new products that we announce. The story is will that
Speaker 4: cadence keep them ahead of what Intel, what AMD and
Speaker 4: everybody else says they're going to do in that space.
Speaker 4: Can they keep themselves that must have technology provider for
Speaker 4: that particular area.
Speaker 2: We see it one more than a trillion dollar valuations.
Speaker 2: That stands one point two seven trillion dollar market caps.
Speaker 2: So for now, investors still remain. Ever, please with Nvidia inking,
Speaker 2: we thank you so much for breaking down what they're
Speaker 2: saying ahead of CES, and let's just stick with the
Speaker 2: overall value of generative AI, not just the individual companies,
Speaker 2: but the economy more broadly and how it's going to
Speaker 2: be interweaved into basically every single industry group. Paul dog
Speaker 2: As he does that with US EX Center Chief Technology
Speaker 2: and Innovation Officer. And Paul, you've done the numbers, you've
Speaker 2: crunched them. I want to go into how you get
Speaker 2: the numbers, but talk to us to what the overall
Speaker 2: economic impact AI, generative AI you think is going to have.
Speaker 6: Well, well, I come to you hear from our Las
Speaker 6: Vegas and CES which you were just talking about, where
Speaker 6: AI is the theme here and as you said, our
Speaker 6: role in this is we help companies deploy technology solutions
Speaker 6: and generate AI clearly is the hot ticket right now.
Speaker 5: Ninety five percent.
Speaker 6: Of executives tell us they're going to increase spending on
Speaker 6: technology as they go into twenty twenty four, and ninety
Speaker 6: seven percent of executives believe generative AI is transformative for
Speaker 6: the business that they're doing. And based on the research
Speaker 6: that we've done, we see that impact forty four percent
Speaker 6: of all of the working hours across industries globally, and
Speaker 6: that adds up to about eight to ten trillion dollars
Speaker 6: of economic value over the next several years as companies
Speaker 6: adopt generative AI.
Speaker 5: So it's a big impact.
Speaker 6: I believe of all the waves I've tracked over my career,
Speaker 6: all the technology waves, and this is a very much
Speaker 6: of a wave driven industry, as you know, this is
Speaker 6: the biggest one I believe in terms of the transformation
Speaker 6: that it will drive for us as individuals, in terms
Speaker 6: of how we work and live, and in terms of
Speaker 6: businesses and how they and how they drive their technology.
Speaker 2: Eight to ten trillion. How does that assert itself? What
Speaker 2: sort of value are you seeing is that by freeing
Speaker 2: up individuals? Is it about ability to preserve the bottom
Speaker 2: line for companies doing more and less? What is it
Speaker 2: that drives that money.
Speaker 6: Well, it's an exciting thing about the generative AI and
Speaker 6: the technology we're seeing now, the related technologies. We talk
Speaker 6: about this as an inflection point in the nature of technology.
Speaker 6: Technology has been it's been kind of the nuts and
Speaker 6: bolts and the plumbing, you know, the cloud and PCs
Speaker 6: and such, has been about the infrastructure. GENERATAI is about
Speaker 6: human capability. It's about looking in the mirror and seeing
Speaker 6: technology that does things kind of like what we do,
Speaker 6: and that's why it's so transformative.
Speaker 5: So yes, it's about productivity.
Speaker 6: As you said, we believe it does drive tremendous productivity.
Speaker 6: For example, in a large telecommunications organization we applied generative
Speaker 6: AI and customer service drove thirty percent productivity and sixty
Speaker 6: percent increase in customer satisfaction as a result. So it's
Speaker 6: about productivity and the outcomes as well. But the interesting
Speaker 6: thing about generative AI is also can drive creativity and
Speaker 6: new ways of doing things. We're using it in our
Speaker 6: digital agency business that we call Centre Song to create
Speaker 6: new advertising campaigns, more creative, more personalized than what you
Speaker 6: could have done before. And one final really unexpected maybe
Speaker 6: benefit of generative AI.
Speaker 5: Is a benefit for the individual.
Speaker 6: We did an implementation for our sales organization and accenture
Speaker 6: a pilot of Generali how Well. One of the interesting
Speaker 6: findings was, yes it produced better results, Yes it produced
Speaker 6: better productivity, but it also increased people's satisfaction and their
Speaker 6: feeling of balance and the work they were doing because
Speaker 6: it took away some of the tasks they didn't want
Speaker 6: to do. There's a lot in this, and it's the
Speaker 6: early stages, but a lot for us to understand as
Speaker 6: we look toward how we're going to drive that big value.
Speaker 2: And so that sort of goes counterweight to some of
Speaker 2: the anxiety I think that have been across many an
Speaker 2: industry group, but I also think consultants and lawyers about
Speaker 2: what it really means about white collar jobs in the future. Paul,
Speaker 2: do you think them will erode jobs?
Speaker 6: Well, you know, I think there's it's going to change jobs.
Speaker 6: That's the way to think about it. It's not about
Speaker 6: AI taking over our jobs. And I think we've gotten
Speaker 6: that narrative wrong. There's been a lot of fear about
Speaker 6: AI coming for all the jobs, and I think that's
Speaker 6: kind of backwards. I think this is about how we
Speaker 6: can enhance what we as people do in how in
Speaker 6: how we do things, and we talk about things like human.
Speaker 5: In the loop on jobs. Again, that's backwards.
Speaker 6: It's really about more about how can a person have
Speaker 6: a wing and help them be more productive. So I
Speaker 6: think the key thing is how do you bring along
Speaker 6: your workforce.
Speaker 5: That they're able to use these new tools.
Speaker 6: How does that customer service agent I talked about do
Speaker 6: their new job. In another example, in the energy industry,
Speaker 6: we've deployed generative AI as a worker safety assistant to
Speaker 6: help people do their work more safely, more cognizant of
Speaker 6: regulations and policy as well as their own personal safety.
Speaker 6: And these types of things are going to help people
Speaker 6: and make jobs more interesting. And in fact, one of
Speaker 6: one piece of data from research that we're releasing right
Speaker 6: now talks about the fact that ninety five percent of
Speaker 6: workers are actually excited about how generative AI can change
Speaker 6: the nature of the work that they're doing.
Speaker 1: Paul, you're a tech guy.
Speaker 3: I'm jumping on a plane very soon to head out
Speaker 3: to Vegas to join you. AI is clearly the overarching
Speaker 3: theme across the keynotes, the exhibitors, whatever. But that's across healthcare,
Speaker 3: auto motive, software, consumer electronics, big box retail markets. Of
Speaker 3: the speakers, give me just one example the thing that
Speaker 3: you think has the most substance coming out of CEES
Speaker 3: this year.
Speaker 6: Well, I think the thing that's really exciting is is
Speaker 6: I think the shift from a year of experimentation and
Speaker 6: education around AI to moving into twenty twenty four as
Speaker 6: the year when companies look to drive value at scale
Speaker 6: with it. That's why you see the senior executives from Walmart,
Speaker 6: from best Buy, from Siemens and other companies, from Eccentric
Speaker 6: and other.
Speaker 5: Companies talking here.
Speaker 6: And it's about that shift to value and driving the value.
Speaker 6: And that's where I think you're going to start to see,
Speaker 6: is you CES really at the convergence showing thousands of
Speaker 6: companies and new innovations around these technologies and organizations understanding
Speaker 6: how they use that to transform. And I think that's
Speaker 6: the real interesting point we're at with CES this year.
Speaker 3: All Right, I see you out there, Paul Dotos at Accentia,
Speaker 3: Thank you for your time, Cara, what.
Speaker 1: You got well?
Speaker 2: Coming up? Instacrat expanding its ad business with high tech
Speaker 2: shopping cartsass of course going to be available to be
Speaker 2: interacting with it ces, I'm sure. Meanwhile, let's just look
Speaker 2: at the shares of what's happening with Apple as well.
Speaker 2: We know it's key when it comes to driving the
Speaker 2: points move on some of these key benchmarks. Interestingly, a
Speaker 2: bit of a bounce back on Apple today. We're at
Speaker 2: one point eight percent. Of course, now's that more broadly
Speaker 2: on the higher side. Vision pro it goes on sale
Speaker 2: February second. Now, but remember Bloomberg Intelligence out with a
Speaker 2: great piece just saying, look, the addition that you're going
Speaker 2: to get in sales increase one point seventy five billion
Speaker 2: dollars to be added to an annual revenue. Well, that's
Speaker 2: not nearly enough to make up for some of the
Speaker 2: consumer weakness going on in China. And that's what Jeffreys
Speaker 2: highlights today. Jeffrey's out with a note saying they see
Speaker 2: that in December sales in China fell some thirty percent
Speaker 2: according to their numbers. Fascinating. We continue to digest. This
Speaker 2: is Bloomberg Technology in sicart. We'll show advertisements on the
Speaker 2: high tech shopping carts that it currently sells the grocery stores.
Speaker 2: The latest edition to the company is growing ads business
Speaker 2: and a sign of investment in products outside of grocery delivery.
Speaker 2: I sat down for an exclusive conversation about it with
Speaker 2: Fiji Simum. Take a listen.
Speaker 7: We have a lot of interest from retailers.
Speaker 8: Now you can see Caper cards deployed at Kroger, Wake Firm,
Speaker 8: Good Food, Holding, Sobse, Schnarks, and many more from Santa
Speaker 8: Monica all the way to Manhattan. And we think in
Speaker 8: four we're going to have thousands of carts deployed. And
Speaker 8: the reason they're really excited to deploy these carts in
Speaker 8: store is because customers love them.
Speaker 7: We have a net promote or score of.
Speaker 8: Above seventy, which is very high, and we hear over
Speaker 8: and over from customers how fun the shopping journey becomes
Speaker 8: when you're using the cards, and how convenient it is.
Speaker 8: So we really believe it's going to be the future
Speaker 8: of grocery shopping.
Speaker 2: Future for US shopping. How international can this get you?
Speaker 2: Of course, someone who is French and I know that
Speaker 2: Caper was already having exposure to Spain and to France,
Speaker 2: for example.
Speaker 8: We certainly want to make that something that goes international
Speaker 8: as well. We're very focused on the US because that's
Speaker 8: obviously your core market, but we do have interest from
Speaker 8: international retailers as well, so we're bullish on the international
Speaker 8: strategy as well.
Speaker 2: And all of this paint the picture for the direction
Speaker 2: of travel for Instacart, because is this trying to ensure
Speaker 2: that you're not just purely an online play for retailers consumers,
Speaker 2: but also you've really managed to draw in higher margins
Speaker 2: through advertising. How much you're trying to broaden out what
Speaker 2: instacart really is to an investor and indeed, of course
Speaker 2: the retailer and a consumer.
Speaker 8: Well, when I joined Instacart, to me, was obvious that
Speaker 8: we weren't just or three delivery AUP. We were already
Speaker 8: a company that was building technology to help retailers with
Speaker 8: this big digital transformation happening, and we were doing that
Speaker 8: primarily through e commerce obviously, and so we skip up
Speaker 8: we're really expanding into building technologies for the store because
Speaker 8: what we believe is that customers are not going to
Speaker 8: shop just online of just in stalls.
Speaker 7: They are going to shop omni channels.
Speaker 8: And the retailers who really create the best, most similar
Speaker 8: omni channel experience all the retailers that are going to
Speaker 8: gain an edge, and instagrat is giving them this edge, and.
Speaker 2: Does it give you an edge versus who analysts might
Speaker 2: say are your competitors. There is worry from some analysts
Speaker 2: that Uber, door Dash are going to eaten on some
Speaker 2: of your market share, that Amazon and Walmart are so
Speaker 2: good at omni channel as well. How does this carve
Speaker 2: you a niche?
Speaker 8: Well, we already are very clear category leader in grocery
Speaker 8: and in grocery delivery, and here like this, this launch
Speaker 8: really proves that we have a completely different strategy from
Speaker 8: these players. Our strategy is to enable retailers with all
Speaker 8: of the technologies they need to run their business, and
Speaker 8: that applies online and that's why we have you know,
Speaker 8: the vast majority of retailers already on our platform, well
Speaker 8: above any competitor, but also now helping them with their
Speaker 8: store and helping them with creating a new revenue line
Speaker 8: for them because as we launch advertising on keeper cars,
Speaker 8: we are sharing revenue with retailers and therefore you know,
Speaker 8: helping them grow their business both online and in store.
Speaker 8: That's a completely different strategy from some of the marketplace
Speaker 8: you mentioned, where these marketplaces are really just about growing
Speaker 8: their marketplace and in fact, in some cases even competing
Speaker 8: with retailers. We don't do that with labor retailers.
Speaker 2: Fijisima of instacar and Instacar or Maple Barrows, however, we
Speaker 2: want to discuss it carding out two point three percent
Speaker 2: on the trading day at the moment and our explicit
Speaker 2: conversation with the CEO.
Speaker 3: That okay, it's time for talking tech. And first up
Speaker 3: in the news Sony planning to call off its ten
Speaker 3: billion dollar merger pact of its India unit was Z
Speaker 3: Entertainment that according to sources, the move caps two years
Speaker 3: of drama and delay in creating a ten billion dollar
Speaker 3: media giant, and the standoff has been over whether Z's
Speaker 3: CEO would eventually lead the merged entity. And Microsoft has
Speaker 3: picked longtime executive d Templeton to join open AI's board
Speaker 3: as a non voting observer. That according to Bloomberg sources,
Speaker 3: Templeton has worked at Microsoft for more than twenty five
Speaker 3: years and it's the company's vice president for Technology and Research,
Speaker 3: Partnerships and Operations. Plus Elon Musk's reported drug use by
Speaker 3: the Wall Street Journal is worrying Tesla and SpaceX's board.
Speaker 3: Members of Wall Street Journal cited anonymous sources and witnesses.
Speaker 3: Now they've got a big decision whether to do anything
Speaker 3: about it with Elon Musk and the financial or legal
Speaker 3: risk the reporting could pose to those companies.
Speaker 2: Carroc dive deeper into that story, pretty serious allegations, and
Speaker 2: again this quandary left for the board members, as you say, ed,
Speaker 2: and it's a familiar on what to do, if anything
Speaker 2: about Mask, about legal financial repercussions of course, and what
Speaker 2: it means for his companies that he manages. Well, we're
Speaker 2: pleased to have an expert with us, Max Chafkin, business
Speaker 2: economist and one of the members of Elon Inc. Podcast
Speaker 2: which has taken Broombay by storm. Look reports by the
Speaker 2: journal that Musk has been using LSD, cocaine, ecstasy, psychedelic mushrooms,
Speaker 2: often at private parties. You know, Musk himself has come
Speaker 2: out on his own social media platform, what do you say?
Speaker 2: What did you make?
Speaker 9: Well, he's he's sort of swung in various directions. At
Speaker 9: some times he said, well, whatever I'm taking, I should
Speaker 9: continue taking it, basically pointing to the performance and also
Speaker 9: the fact that a lot of this stuff, or at
Speaker 9: least some of it, has happened more or less in
Speaker 9: the open you know, he smoked marijuana on Joe Rogan's podcast.
Speaker 9: He has said he has a prescription for ketamine, which is,
Speaker 9: you know, a party drug. He said he's using it,
Speaker 9: you know, to treat depression. But he's also said that
Speaker 9: SpaceX has been required to drug test him as part
Speaker 9: of the Joe Rogan fallout thing, and he said he's
Speaker 9: never failed a drug test. So he's sort of essentially saying,
Speaker 9: number one, this is overblown. Number two, the companies are
Speaker 9: doing great, so you know, what's the big deal.
Speaker 3: The thing is that either the Wall Street Journal report
Speaker 3: is accurate, right Max, its cites anonymous sources, or it's not.
Speaker 3: And this was the post that caught my eye. Elon
Speaker 3: must saying that following that Joe Rogan appearance twenty eighteen,
Speaker 3: at NASA's request, he agreed to random drug testing of
Speaker 3: a period of three years. We've asked the comment from
Speaker 3: NASA and from SpaceX, but if the drug testing took place,
Speaker 3: we'd have more to go on with this story.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean, the Journal's article mentions the fact that
Speaker 9: he was drug tested. It also notes that, you know,
Speaker 9: some of the drugs they're talking about are not traditionally
Speaker 9: at least according to the Wall Street Journal, in that
Speaker 9: kind of drug test, So we're talking about psychedelics, that
Speaker 9: is the allegation, in addition to some of the things
Speaker 9: Caroline just mentioned. So again it's not totally clear what
Speaker 9: he would be testing positive for. And I don't think
Speaker 9: it's hugely surprising that he's been drug tested, because of
Speaker 9: course a lot of government contractors drug test employees.
Speaker 2: Less than a minute max. But this comes down to
Speaker 2: ultimately a board who's some warrior just too close to him.
Speaker 9: Well, I think with Elon Musk, you know, there's the
Speaker 9: conversation around drug tests, and then there's the bigger conversation
Speaker 9: around sort of the erratic behavior, and sometimes we're talking
Speaker 9: about drugs. I think what we're really speaking about is
Speaker 9: the fact that he tweets weird stuff sometimes in the.
Speaker 1: Middle of the night.
Speaker 9: And I think in general, as long as the companies
Speaker 9: have done well, boards have been okay with it, investors
Speaker 9: have been okay with it.
Speaker 1: And the real question is.
Speaker 9: When Tesla or SpaceX or one of these other companies
Speaker 9: hits a rough patch, what happens then I think that
Speaker 9: will be if and when that happens, that will be when.
Speaker 3: The rubber needs a road and it's not concerning tester
Speaker 3: investors right now with the stock in positive territy, blion
Speaker 3: Bergs Max Chafkin, thank you very much. Welcome back to
Speaker 3: Bloomberg Technology. Ed love loow here in San Francisco.
Speaker 2: ALN hired in New York. Let's get you a check
Speaker 2: on these markets, because we're back in rally mode for
Speaker 2: the day, at least in certainly across tech, but across
Speaker 2: the broader indices today bit of an everything rally across
Speaker 2: the United States. And I'm going to the individual names
Speaker 2: first and foremost. So let's stick into what's happening in video.
Speaker 2: Of course, this is at a record high, leading the
Speaker 2: charge in terms of points being added to the Nasdaq
Speaker 2: and the Nasdaq one hundred video launches, well, should we
Speaker 2: just say updates. It's AIPC chips and the market likest
Speaker 2: ahead of CEES. We're up more than four percent, so
Speaker 2: a new record high for a video. Look at what's
Speaker 2: happening in the world of Twilio though, also riding high,
Speaker 2: and this is as it's co founder Jeff Railson is
Speaker 2: having to move stage left. Basically he's having to step
Speaker 2: down from the company and back off because many had
Speaker 2: felt that he's really too synonymous with just spending too
Speaker 2: much and not really focusing on non profitability. But his
Speaker 2: right hand man for the past few years is basically
Speaker 2: taking over, so many questioning whether that really is going
Speaker 2: to exert any sort of change in leadership. This is,
Speaker 2: of course, activist investors at play when it comes to
Speaker 2: Twilio Apple. On the upside as well, after it would
Speaker 2: have been five straight days of losses, Apple managed to
Speaker 2: regain some ground, vision pro goes and sell February. The
Speaker 2: second also extraordinary story regarding the iPhone and how that's
Speaker 2: been entangled with the disaster on that Boeing seventy seven
Speaker 2: Max nine. We'll dig into that a little bit later,
Speaker 2: but notable on a day that Jeffrey's analysts are saying
Speaker 2: like they could be seeing a sell off in terms
Speaker 2: of revenue, in terms of consumer demand lacking by thirty
Speaker 2: percent year on year in China. So we dig into
Speaker 2: all of that in a moment, but let's look at
Speaker 2: some of the big benchmarks and what's happening in terms
Speaker 2: of overall mood music. Because ed we are riding high,
Speaker 2: and that's that one hundred one point three percent not
Speaker 2: happening in China though, the Golden Dragon inex of course,
Speaker 2: this being the Nazda Golden Dragon. On the downside, despite
Speaker 2: more ammunition being fed into the Chinese economy in terms
Speaker 2: of well, the overall amount of money that banks have
Speaker 2: to hold, their ability to lend eased up but not
Speaker 2: helping so far. And Bitcoin we end there up two
Speaker 2: point four percent. We're back above forty five thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: As we anticipate the spot Bitcoin ETF being signed off.
Speaker 3: Do we think ed Bitcoin spot ETF watched day? I
Speaker 3: don't know what day. It's been months, black Rock Arc,
Speaker 3: several other perspective issuers of ETFs filed amended forms this
Speaker 3: morning and what's seen by analysts as a final push
Speaker 3: to offer the investment products. Joining us now is Sunny Singh,
Speaker 3: co founder and CEO of Bluega. Blueger offers software tools
Speaker 3: that allow users to manage their crypto portfolio but also
Speaker 3: use new crypto products. You are watching this closely. It
Speaker 3: will impact your business and your world. That news the
Speaker 3: updated forms, we have more information on fee structure which
Speaker 3: we can dig into. It seems like the weight might
Speaker 3: soon be over.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean we've been waiting for five years, so
Speaker 10: I think we're getting close. Whether or not they approve
Speaker 10: it this Wednesday or in the next three or sixty days,
Speaker 10: it's going to happen.
Speaker 1: The question is then when does it go live? Does
Speaker 1: sec the way the.
Speaker 10: S one funds and all that stuff, I don't think
Speaker 10: so I think they're kind of back against the wall.
Speaker 1: So I think they're in a given and.
Speaker 10: You'll see an ETF goal live Q one, Q two maybe.
Speaker 10: But the big question Gains I think, is going to
Speaker 10: do and say, okay, we'll give your bitcoin ETF, but
Speaker 10: we're not going to give you as ethereum and all
Speaker 10: those ones. He's already said that we think, you know,
Speaker 10: bitcoin is definitely not a security, but all the other
Speaker 10: ones we think are security.
Speaker 3: So he's not going to give it on those ones.
Speaker 3: We think you've been waiting five years. I've been waiting
Speaker 3: slightly less. Howro would point out there are others in
Speaker 3: the market that have been waiting much longer than five years.
Speaker 3: The other kind of data that we're getting now is
Speaker 3: the proposed fee structure. So if you think about Bluega
Speaker 3: and your customers accessing, what is a new product in
Speaker 3: the market, Why is the fee structure or fee proposed
Speaker 3: by the issuers important.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I think I don't think the fees are going
Speaker 10: to be ask super as important as people think, right,
Speaker 10: So I think like big pension funds like Kalpers and
Speaker 10: all them are going to probably go with the black
Speaker 10: rock and nutritional bigger ones as well. It's a smaller
Speaker 10: retail people who already had access to GBTC, which has
Speaker 10: had much higher feeso than like a bit wise we'll
Speaker 10: propose and all that kind of stuff. So I think
Speaker 10: the more retail investors will go off to the smaller
Speaker 10: fee ones, where the black Rocks and the bigger ones
Speaker 10: will get the higher big institutional investors.
Speaker 2: Actually, and what's interesting is many would say they don't
Speaker 2: want to make kingmakers is to perhaps what happened with
Speaker 2: the futures ETF prior times. They're trying to ensure that, well,
Speaker 2: this is gonna be a bit of a race to marketing.
Speaker 2: I would have thought to ensure that you get your
Speaker 2: name out there associated with a spot bitcoin ETF. But
Speaker 2: all of this attracts how much money, Sonny, have you
Speaker 2: put much research to it? How much of a change
Speaker 2: does this make to the ability to interact with bitcoin.
Speaker 1: It's going to be pretty exciting.
Speaker 10: And everyone relates back to what happened with the gold
Speaker 10: ETF when it was launched and all that, right, and
Speaker 10: if you do the same comparisons, you're going to see
Speaker 10: huge buying pressure that could happen in the crypto space.
Speaker 10: And again you're going to see institutional family office things
Speaker 10: like that, they're not going to put ten percent of
Speaker 10: their money into these bitcoin ETFs, but maybeer point five
Speaker 10: one percent, two percent, which is a lot when you
Speaker 10: think about it in perspective. And again, there's only nineteen
Speaker 10: million bitcoin in existence, it's a finite supply, right, and
Speaker 10: with the having coming in April, you're going to start
Speaker 10: having an increasing supplying pressure with an increased buying pressure
Speaker 10: unlike what we've never seen before in crypto, along with
Speaker 10: lower interest rates.
Speaker 1: Maybe by the end of the year, you really have
Speaker 1: a perfect storm.
Speaker 10: Is what we think could be a price catalyst to
Speaker 10: get bitcoin over one hundred thousand by the end of
Speaker 10: the year.
Speaker 2: What's so interesting is when you read between the lines,
Speaker 2: it feels like Gary Gensler really does not want to
Speaker 2: do this. He just put out a tweet, well, a post,
Speaker 2: a thread of posts and this time really talking about
Speaker 2: how investments in crypto assets could also can be exceptionally
Speaker 2: risky and off a volatile and number of major platforms
Speaker 2: and crypto assets have become insolvent and or lost value.
Speaker 2: Investments in crypto assets continue to be subject to significant risk.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's doing this through clenched teeth. If he
Speaker 2: does it at all, sunny, what if it doesn't happen
Speaker 2: on January the tenth, But what if we don't, we're
Speaker 2: not able to trade it immediately.
Speaker 10: Yeah, So again, I think it will happen the next
Speaker 10: thirty sixty days. But a bigger question is when does
Speaker 10: it go live? And how long can he delay it
Speaker 10: from going live? And I think, you know, April May
Speaker 10: June time frame is realistic for it to be live.
Speaker 1: I think past that he.
Speaker 10: Runs legal risk and all that, and I think again,
Speaker 10: in his mind, he's going to the compromise, like I'm
Speaker 10: going to give you the bitcoin ETF, but I'm not
Speaker 10: going to give you soana ethereum kran Exedger. We'll deal
Speaker 10: with all that next year, and then the crypto community
Speaker 10: will be happy, just in the bitcoin win out the
Speaker 10: door for the ETF.
Speaker 3: Sonny, you mentioned the harving as a key event future
Speaker 3: catalyst for bitcoin in twenty twenty four. Many other guests
Speaker 3: last week also referenced that, And my question is what
Speaker 3: is your kind of big picture bitcoin cool for twenty
Speaker 3: twenty four. Because we started this conversation a few weeks
Speaker 3: ago with the absolute belief that what was driving the
Speaker 3: trading in bitcoin or the price activity was anticipation of
Speaker 3: spot ETF. Actually there's plenty of evidence that there's a
Speaker 3: lot more to it than that.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 10: I think the having is actually a bigger catalyst to that,
Speaker 10: and so they're having alone would normally propel bitcoin to
Speaker 10: an all time high, probably each in the four years
Speaker 10: it happens, right, And what happens is in April when
Speaker 10: the having happens, and normally the dug event nothing happens.
Speaker 1: The price actually goes down a little bit.
Speaker 10: And then six months later when you really see as
Speaker 10: it's stilled through the system, the effects of it, right,
Speaker 10: and combine that with the bitcoin ETF, we think again,
Speaker 10: the price would you go from forty five fifty thousand
Speaker 10: three months from now and six months from now to
Speaker 10: one hundred real fast? Once it gets the sixty, we
Speaker 10: think the it's queen slate to one hundred and when
Speaker 10: it hits one hundred thousand for bitcoin, it becomes a
Speaker 10: two trillion dollar market cap currency and then the media
Speaker 10: and all that the frenzy will be huge by the
Speaker 10: end of the year.
Speaker 1: So again we think Q.
Speaker 10: Three, Q four, you're going to see a lot of
Speaker 10: excitement the price of bitcoin. Q two under having not
Speaker 10: so much.
Speaker 2: Beluuga, You're you're saying that you're cunning through the noise,
Speaker 2: basically helping people understand which projects are the ones, the
Speaker 2: safest products to be and interacting with investing in Ultimately
Speaker 2: bitcoin is that an investment, a store of value? Many
Speaker 2: want to see for crypto purpose, real deployment, a change,
Speaker 2: fixing a problem. When does that actually become more nuanced
Speaker 2: or clear to an investor base.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what we're hoping.
Speaker 10: We hope end of the year we start seeing more payments, products,
Speaker 10: lending products, taking products. Again, we believe the mission of
Speaker 10: bitcoin and crypto is not just buy and hold. It's
Speaker 10: buy and hold, stake, play, earned use, lend, pay, etc.
Speaker 10: There's a lot of things that can be done with
Speaker 10: bitcoin besides the speculation, as well as crypto in general.
Speaker 10: We're seeing the launch of web three games happen, crypto payments,
Speaker 10: crypto lending products. So there is again there's four hundred
Speaker 10: million people in the warld of crypto and only about
Speaker 10: ten percent our power users.
Speaker 1: Doing things besides just buy and holding.
Speaker 10: I'll go up with weiogle is to get the other
Speaker 10: ninety three hundred and fifty million to start using crypto
Speaker 10: in the right way.
Speaker 1: There's a much more out there than just buy and hold.
Speaker 2: Sunny saying, going to have some time with you co
Speaker 2: found a CEO of Beluga. Stay well. Meanwhile, coming up, look,
Speaker 2: we'll have all the latest in the world of health tech.
Speaker 2: This is of course, it's the JP Morgan Health Conference.
Speaker 2: It kicks off in San Francisco. But then we've got
Speaker 2: something else to look out for ahead of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, some news crossing in the last few minutes. Du Lingo,
Speaker 3: the language learning software company, is cutting ten percent of
Speaker 3: its contractor workforce, a spokesperson telling Bloomberg that ten percent
Speaker 3: of contractors were off boarded because the company wants to
Speaker 3: focus more work on AI driving its development and growth.
Speaker 3: Nine billion dollar market cap company. No sharp reaction in
Speaker 3: trading to those headlines. The stock was already up the
Speaker 3: now three point eight percent higher. This is Bloomberg Technology,
Speaker 3: all right. There's been a lot of M and A
Speaker 3: news in the world of biotech today, with Harpoon Therapeutics
Speaker 3: near a deal to be acquired by drug maker Merck
Speaker 3: and Co. At about seven hundred million dollar value. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: Johnson and Johnson will pay two billion dollars in cash
Speaker 3: to acquire Ambricks buy a Farmer gaining a developer of
Speaker 3: widely sought therapies that target tumors with lethal drugs. I
Speaker 3: want to break it all down with VJ Pandey found
Speaker 3: a founding general partner of Nderies and Horowitz by a
Speaker 3: health tech group. Interesting timing is jphit Morgan's healthcare conference.
Speaker 3: The annual one is on here in SF. I've covered
Speaker 3: a few of those. You've been to a few of those.
Speaker 3: It is interesting though that there is some m and
Speaker 3: a here in call it biopharmer biotech healthcare. What's your
Speaker 3: kind of tea leave read of that?
Speaker 11: Yeah, Well it's GPM, right, so there's going to be fireworks.
Speaker 11: That's what we're all kind of looking for, you know,
Speaker 11: sort of in the inside baseball. Clearly the ideal window
Speaker 11: has been closed for a while or it has been
Speaker 11: barely open, and so M and A will be a
Speaker 11: natural consequence of that. And so I think we were
Speaker 11: starting to see a little bit that this year, probably
Speaker 11: maybe a little more than last year. But I think
Speaker 11: probably the big, big sort of fireworks come maybe in
Speaker 11: a year.
Speaker 3: Right. My experience of JP Morgan's Healthcare Conference is kind
Speaker 3: of similar to CS other tech conferences, and that it's
Speaker 3: the one time of the year where everyone's in one place. Yes,
Speaker 3: you can take a lot of meetings. I call it
Speaker 3: speed dating. But you raise an interesting point. M and
Speaker 3: A is one other exit strategy for a VC like you.
Speaker 3: You look at your portfolio right now in twenty twenty
Speaker 3: four d you see some exit opportunity down that route.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I mean, I mean A. But also the IPA
Speaker 11: window may open. I think interest rates may go down.
Speaker 11: We expect that. So maybe by the end of the
Speaker 11: year Q two, Q three, Q four, that window may
Speaker 11: be open. I think people are preparing for that. The
Speaker 11: market has to be there.
Speaker 3: Of course, you think people are, you know people are.
Speaker 11: I've seen that people.
Speaker 2: Are good little prodding that and at vj AI has
Speaker 2: been almost what dictated the companies that couldn't get out
Speaker 2: the gate. Last year, a lot of them had AI
Speaker 2: within their very business model, or they tried to amp
Speaker 2: up the fact that it was a player on AI
Speaker 2: as well as also profitability. But is AI going to
Speaker 2: be a dictator of which biotech companies come forward or
Speaker 2: is it actually just been solving a real problem with
Speaker 2: profitability as it stands.
Speaker 1: So right now?
Speaker 11: The thing about AI is that I think last year
Speaker 11: was the year where AI was really further developed, and
Speaker 11: this year is where it really starts to get implemented,
Speaker 11: both in life sciences and healthcare more broadly. And that's
Speaker 11: something that incumbents would love to do, but it's hard.
Speaker 11: It's really fundamentally changing the way that company works, and
Speaker 11: so startups will be a way to do that. And
Speaker 11: that's been the history of all technological revolutions.
Speaker 2: What's interesting is many on the more optimistic side of
Speaker 2: use and practicality and necessity of AI talk up the
Speaker 2: impact on healthcare as a real reason that we shouldn't
Speaker 2: hold back innovation here for fear of it being a
Speaker 2: step too far and we shouldn't regulate it for real perspective.
Speaker 2: How is that ongoing conversation going generative AI and the
Speaker 2: impact on healthcare being safe.
Speaker 11: Well, you know, I don't think it's a question about
Speaker 11: not regulating it, because healthcare and life sciences are already regulated, right,
Speaker 11: So the question is do we need any more regulation?
Speaker 11: And given the challenges that we're facing in terms of
Speaker 11: curing diseases treating patients, the opportunity here is for really
Speaker 11: fundingly advance our space, and we already have a regulatory
Speaker 11: framework to make sure that can be done safely.
Speaker 3: One of the big stories toward the end of the
Speaker 3: year Karen and I covered with Crisper and the developments there.
Speaker 3: For example, we refer to health tech biotech as a
Speaker 3: blanket term, but within that there is so much And
Speaker 3: I wondered if you have a clear area of excitement
Speaker 3: for twenty twenty four, a very specific technology or issue
Speaker 3: that you think will be challenged or tackled.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think.
Speaker 11: You know, we've talked about AI, and I think what's
Speaker 11: happening right now is that AI is coming to bear
Speaker 11: at a time where biology also is fundamentally changing. Biology
Speaker 11: is becoming much more of an engineering discipline, and Crisper
Speaker 11: is one example of that, but there's many examples, especially
Speaker 11: with all these new modalities and so a combination of
Speaker 11: being able to engineer biology and gather huge amounts of
Speaker 11: data is coming at the same time that we have
Speaker 11: AI to use that data. That combination is something that
Speaker 11: I think we're going to see as the sort of
Speaker 11: key power of pushing this industry for the next decade.
Speaker 3: Bench captalysts are long term, long duration investors have long
Speaker 3: time horizons. But what's your strategy for twenty twenty four?
Speaker 3: What types of company will you invest in?
Speaker 11: Yeah, so I think we're going to see some advances
Speaker 11: in AI. But actually the reality is that even if
Speaker 11: AI doesn't advance any more than is to date, the
Speaker 11: implementation of AI is going to change our field. That
Speaker 11: we're moving from an area where it's sort of bespoken
Speaker 11: artis into a true industrial revolution, and that industrialization is
Speaker 11: a huge change itself. And so the implementation of AI
Speaker 11: is going to dominate twenty four and we're looking to
Speaker 11: see not just who can innovate in the space, but
Speaker 11: who can actually.
Speaker 1: Put it to work.
Speaker 2: And to that point, you think of a portfolio company
Speaker 2: like a benchling, which is ultimately allowing R and D
Speaker 2: to be shared stop some of the limitations and in
Speaker 2: the paperwork and individual siloed particular labs have and an
Speaker 2: ability to actually share your learnings and drive it forward.
Speaker 2: When you are looking at your portfolio companies, have they
Speaker 2: done enough, do you think, in this environment to ensure
Speaker 2: that they're focusing on growth, not at any cost, but
Speaker 2: the right cost.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 11: I think the growth is something where it's always a
Speaker 11: key part of a startup, but I think right now
Speaker 11: the opportunity is that a lot of these startups in
Speaker 11: life sciences and healthcare have been on a different curve,
Speaker 11: and I think as they become tech companies and AI
Speaker 11: is a very natural way for them to become a
Speaker 11: tech company, the growth will come along for the ride.
Speaker 11: And that's actually probably the excitement here is that typically
Speaker 11: we don't think of healthcare as a tech problem, and
Speaker 11: as people start to refocus and think of it in
Speaker 11: that way, we're going to have advances that will come.
Speaker 1: Much more rapidly. J.
Speaker 2: Pande, I hope you'll come on when we do we'll
Speaker 2: get all those advances. We thank you so much for
Speaker 2: setting us up for of course that. JP Morgan Conference
Speaker 2: general partner over Andresen Horowitz. Great to have you on
Speaker 2: the show. Going viral and extraordinary story of how Apple's
Speaker 2: promise for sturdy iPhones may have been kept after one
Speaker 2: was reportedly found intact after falling sixteen thousand free from
Speaker 2: that Alaska Airlines flight twelve eighty two this weekend. Now,
Speaker 2: according to a user post on x, the phone was
Speaker 2: in airplane mode and still had hours of battery life remaining. Now,
Speaker 2: Flight twelve eighty two was forced to turn by minutes
Speaker 2: after takeoff from Portland, Oregon, when a fuselage panel blew
Speaker 2: off the plane and sucked shirts and clearly phones out
Speaker 2: and luckily no people head.
Speaker 3: Let's stick with high altitude CARRA and get a different
Speaker 3: take on tech in aviation because United Launch Alliance's long
Speaker 3: awaited Vulcan rocket headed into space after launching from Florida's
Speaker 3: Cape canaverl early this morning. About fifty minutes after liftoff,
Speaker 3: the rocket deployed a robotic lunar lander, and if all
Speaker 3: goes well with the mission, it could be the first
Speaker 3: privately made lander to successfully land on the Moon.
Speaker 2: Karen mean, while coming back down to Earth, let's look
Speaker 2: at Twilio shares. Actually, well, they're doing well on the
Speaker 2: back of what is the founder Jeff Lawson stepping down
Speaker 2: a CEO giving up his board seat. Even now this
Speaker 2: we are going to dig into with Brody Ford joining
Speaker 2: us for more, because investors clearly wanted this, they have
Speaker 2: been pushing for. This is an activist who found their
Speaker 2: moment because Jeff Lawson as founder finally gave up voting
Speaker 2: rights right right.
Speaker 12: Yeah, when you start a company, oftentimes you have these
Speaker 12: really high powered shares. Jeff started this company in two
Speaker 12: thousand and eight and those shares expired last year.
Speaker 5: What does that mean? Means you can vote him out.
Speaker 12: And so activist investors who were upset with a long
Speaker 12: trend of slow in growth and wanted to mix up
Speaker 12: have been kind of privately speaking to him. A lot
Speaker 12: of investors I hear from say they wanted to switch up,
Speaker 12: and I think this was expected. I think this came
Speaker 12: sooner than many folks anticipated though.
Speaker 3: Okay, so Jeff Lawson out, Kazema, Ship Chandler in. What
Speaker 3: do we know about the new CEO that's coming in Brody?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 12: So the thing to know about him is he's pretty
Speaker 12: much been lost in his right hand man.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 5: He was CFO.
Speaker 12: He led their largest business units like ninety percent of revenues.
Speaker 12: So I mean he is seen as more of a
Speaker 12: financial operations type than the founder evangelist type. But at
Speaker 12: the same time, I've seen some folks say, hey, if
Speaker 12: we wanted to check James, why didn't we go for
Speaker 12: an external CEO. So that's the pro and knock on
Speaker 12: him is that he's an internal choice.
Speaker 2: We'll see how it continues to evolve with the investor base.
Speaker 2: For now, a little bit of push up higher on
Speaker 2: the shares Brady Ford breaking all down would be appreciated
Speaker 2: him for it. Meanwhile, and well, I'm glad you're in
Speaker 2: the seat today in SF, but you're about to take
Speaker 2: a flight yourself.
Speaker 3: Right, Yes, not on a Boeing seven three seven Max nine.
Speaker 3: But all being well, I'll be off to CS in
Speaker 3: Las Vegas. And we have a Tech daily out that
Speaker 3: the old kind of wacky gadget side of CS is
Speaker 3: still there. Big focus this year on AI gadgets, But
Speaker 3: as is always the case, look at the names on
Speaker 3: the screen. It's also a chance for Corporate America to say, hey,
Speaker 3: we know about AI as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, everyone's a tech company, right, Loreal a tech company
Speaker 2: obviously a key keynote. I mean, we've for long had
Speaker 2: it that car companies have been tech companies, but is
Speaker 2: this the ultimate proof point that now tech is a
Speaker 2: horizontal not a vertical.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's the everyone is a tech company
Speaker 3: kind of line. One of the other key notes is
Speaker 3: Walmart and Doug McMillan wright big box retailer, but with
Speaker 3: an increasing e commerce presence. They are exhibiting at cees
Speaker 3: on the show and floor for the first time. So
Speaker 3: that's kind of what I'm interested in. If it's AI everything,
Speaker 3: what does that really look like if you are a
Speaker 3: lorrial whose CEO we will speak to, or indeed, some
Speaker 3: of the chip companies right some familiar names to us,
Speaker 3: like Christiana Marman of qualcom Rene hasse arm their stories
Speaker 3: were AI in twenty twenty three, so what's new.
Speaker 2: What's new is also what the competitors are up to
Speaker 2: in today is a day where in video leaders are
Speaker 2: charged in terms of the overall and NASDAT benchmark because
Speaker 2: they do an iteration on a chip for PC AI.
Speaker 2: But it's notable that really AI has got to be
Speaker 2: within your business model if you're going to lead in
Speaker 2: this environment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and don't get me wrong, I like the weird
Speaker 3: stuff as well. Right, the robots that can mimic your handwriting,
Speaker 3: high tech toilets and bidets. Those are all things will
Speaker 3: be checking out this week.
Speaker 2: Just not on camera, right the bday in the Twitter,
Speaker 2: not on camera. Thanks that does it with this addition
Speaker 2: of Bluebotechnology, Thank you.
Speaker 1: To everyone that checks out the podcast.
Speaker 3: Wherever you get your podcasts, we post them on the
Speaker 3: Bloomberg platforms, but also onto Apple, Spotify, and iHeart. As
Speaker 3: Cary said, I'm off to catch a flight from SF
Speaker 3: in New York City. This is Bloomberg Technology.