Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: From the heart of where innovation, money and power co
Speaker 2: line in Silicon Valley n Beyond.
Speaker 3: This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde and Ed.
Speaker 4: Ludlow, live from London and San Francisco. This is Bloomberg Technology,
Speaker 4: coming up the first of the Magnificent seven.
Speaker 3: Gear up to report results.
Speaker 5: We've got you covered, plus whiz walks away from Google's
Speaker 5: twenty three billion dollar offer.
Speaker 4: Details ahead, and we bring you our exclusive interview with
Speaker 4: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Speaker 5: Spotify up twelve percent in the session, subscribers paid, subscribers
Speaker 5: up twelve percent year on year. There's a lot of
Speaker 5: focus from the street on all of the cost saving
Speaker 5: measures that they took and the bottom line, but let's
Speaker 5: stick with the Spotify story. The company releasing those two
Speaker 5: Q earnings this morning, bringing Bloombergs, Lucas Shaw, Lucas Leeds
Speaker 5: screen Time, which is our coverage of the entertainment industry
Speaker 5: and all things streaming, and Lucas we are so back
Speaker 5: streaming is back taught me through Spotify.
Speaker 6: Yeah, both Netflix and Spotify having very good earnings. Look,
Speaker 6: Spotify is finally starting to look like a profitable business.
Speaker 6: I think that's what investors are excited about. They had
Speaker 6: both profit and margin. That was a head of expectations,
Speaker 6: I believe, and perhaps most notably for them, they raised
Speaker 6: prices and still beat on their premium subscriber edition. So
Speaker 6: it feels like their ability to raise prices now and
Speaker 6: going forward will be very strong, which is good news.
Speaker 7: For everyone looking at it.
Speaker 6: You know, they've done what Wall Street wanted, which is
Speaker 6: cut costs and start living profits, and.
Speaker 4: They have really focused in on the profitability over and above,
Speaker 4: perhaps more broadly just subscriber growth in totality lucas there
Speaker 4: was a little bit of weakness on the bigger, larger
Speaker 4: number of those that aren't just paying premium.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I mean they've I've been surprised over the last couple
Speaker 6: of years at their ability to continue to grow their
Speaker 6: customer base, not just premium but the free. They've had
Speaker 6: a lot of success in India and Southeast Asia, which
Speaker 6: is I think part of how they've done it. But
Speaker 6: they've looked, they've they've rained in the spending on podcasting.
Speaker 6: They are investing a fair amount in audiobooks, and I
Speaker 6: think there's some skepticism still as to how exactly that
Speaker 6: will sort itself out.
Speaker 7: But it's a company and it's a product that people
Speaker 7: really like.
Speaker 6: They're not canceling. Spotify has pricing power, and I think
Speaker 6: that though there have been concerns about how that business
Speaker 6: would look, it's starting to feel like a company that
Speaker 6: investors can rely on.
Speaker 5: Lucas, This might be a little out of left field,
Speaker 5: but I'm still really focused on podcasts. I just find
Speaker 5: the industry to be so vibrant. If you track the newsflow,
Speaker 5: a lot of like individual names doing licensing deals for
Speaker 5: themselves their own properties Spotify. Do they have anything to
Speaker 5: say about that?
Speaker 6: Well, Look, Spotify is now content to be a neutral
Speaker 6: distributor of podcasts, right. They spent a bunch of money
Speaker 6: buying podcast networks, funding originals, kind of securing exclusive rights
Speaker 6: to shows because they use those to those podcasts and
Speaker 6: those deals to bring people in and to get people
Speaker 6: listening to.
Speaker 7: Podcasts on Spotify. That is now happening.
Speaker 6: Spotify feels less of a need to pay for people
Speaker 6: and feels like it can, you know, just benefit from
Speaker 6: from ad sales from shows that it doesn't control or
Speaker 6: pay for it.
Speaker 4: So sweetish Juggernaut, Lucas Shaw we so appreciate you bring us.
Speaker 3: All things Spotify.
Speaker 4: Meanwhile, sticking with results out of Europe and it's SAP.
Speaker 4: See Christian Kind join Bloomberg to weigh in on his
Speaker 4: company's results.
Speaker 3: Just take a listen.
Speaker 9: We are not only focusing on moving customers to the cloud.
Speaker 9: We look into their business model transformation. So when you
Speaker 9: talk about SEP, it's all about how can you correctually
Speaker 9: quote your business. I mean, take take x on Mobile,
Speaker 9: one of our largest the customers now in the cloud.
Speaker 9: They are moving towards the new blanagies and our software
Speaker 9: is key for that. Or when you talk about the
Speaker 9: resiliency of supply chains, we infuse AI. We are connecting
Speaker 9: your supply chain with this operations of thousands of your
Speaker 9: suppliers and that's why SEP is so well in these days.
Speaker 4: Let's bring in Blimberg Sonia in for more on this
Speaker 4: and Sonia shares the record high.
Speaker 3: Is it all about AI? Yes?
Speaker 10: AI definitely plays a key role in SAP financial performance
Speaker 10: and business development. We've seen some good growth on the
Speaker 10: cloud revenue and also the backlock seems very healthy, so
Speaker 10: we can expect a lot more of the growth to
Speaker 10: come later this year.
Speaker 3: And in the.
Speaker 10: Coming months as the AI had a significant role in
Speaker 10: attracting new customers as well as incentivizing the shift from
Speaker 10: the on premise solution to the more lucrative cloud business.
Speaker 5: On your end out of Europe. Thank you very much.
Speaker 5: Another tech company that's reporting today, Tesla. Let's discuss what
Speaker 5: to expect with Drin Hanley Warren, Capital CEO and head
Speaker 5: of research and getting myself organized, putting my posts in
Speaker 5: for the blog that will run later today. And I
Speaker 5: think a big focus is going to be FSD and Hang,
Speaker 5: You've got a particularly interesting.
Speaker 11: View on that.
Speaker 8: Why you watch the FSD so closely.
Speaker 1: Because the car Selle data are very transparent, and it's
Speaker 1: obvious that the car sales has hit a war, whether
Speaker 1: whether in California, in China, in Europe. So in California
Speaker 1: the data are very transparent. Cells down twenty four percent
Speaker 1: year over year in Q two and California being twenty
Speaker 1: five percent of.
Speaker 3: The US ED sales.
Speaker 1: In China it's down seven percent. That's on top of
Speaker 1: very aggressive promotions.
Speaker 7: In Europe, it's a different story.
Speaker 8: There's a terriff.
Speaker 1: Coming up now, the Chinese may car going to Europe
Speaker 1: starting dismals will face twenty percent increase in terror. So
Speaker 1: at this cross current, Tesla all of a sudden pivoted
Speaker 1: its story from EB sales to FSD. Essentially, FSD is
Speaker 1: a story of Okay, you buy a car, I give
Speaker 1: you a driver. So that's supposed to be a differentiation
Speaker 1: for Tesla car to you know, get more share in
Speaker 1: the market. But it is argue, after speaking extensively to
Speaker 1: the researchers in the field as well as the competition's
Speaker 1: AI effort, that you know, it's a very immature product.
Speaker 8: It takes time to get.
Speaker 1: A higher quality data, probably a rework of the underlying
Speaker 1: narrow AI system and waiting for more GPU cluster for
Speaker 1: this to work.
Speaker 4: Full self driving has actually been something both said and
Speaker 4: I'm in with a lot lucky enough to be able
Speaker 4: to do so. But why do you think the underlying technology,
Speaker 4: the overall scale of investment the Tesla needs to make
Speaker 4: it's so much larger than the market is factoring in
Speaker 4: because this is always the long term bad that Tesla
Speaker 4: is an AI play.
Speaker 1: Yep, because a Tesla's AI vision is a little bit
Speaker 1: different from everyone else. Everyone else in the industry relies
Speaker 1: on sensors in addition to the underlying AI software. But
Speaker 1: Tesla wants to differential yourself as a unique play in
Speaker 1: autonomus AI therefore markets as the anti end vision only
Speaker 1: AI play. But if you talk to people in the
Speaker 1: in the area, they'll tell you that it's a very
Speaker 1: difficult route because it needs a lot more expensive data
Speaker 1: input and it requires a much more expensive AI system
Speaker 1: to truly get you to L five. So now you
Speaker 1: how there's a very big operation domain design and you
Speaker 1: have limited hardware tour, but you want to achieve L five.
Speaker 1: So that's a very very tall order.
Speaker 5: Speaking of hardware, we were just showing some of the
Speaker 5: things at the top of mind for retail investors. Right
Speaker 5: they have a platform, say dot com, they can vote
Speaker 5: or up vote their questions. What's missing from that is Robotaxi.
Speaker 5: How critical is it that ehlon mask gives us a
Speaker 5: date a new date for the Robotaxi unveil.
Speaker 1: Well, Robotaxi, it's just the one manifestation of its vision
Speaker 1: only e t e Ontonama's AI. But Robotaxi in fact
Speaker 1: is easier to achieve than a be SE because there's
Speaker 1: no one behind the wheel. So in terms of the
Speaker 1: legal liability, it's much crystal clear. So if Robotaxi gets
Speaker 1: into trouble, it's Tesla that's going to fully compensate and
Speaker 1: financial legally responsible for the accident as opposed to FSD.
Speaker 1: As long as it's not for the autonomous and the
Speaker 1: Tesla doesn't claim one hundred percent legal responsibilities, you know
Speaker 1: it's it's the insurance company needs to underwrite that risk.
Speaker 1: That's why you see lots of waymows on the street
Speaker 1: in selective cities. But there's no Tesla Robotaxi because it
Speaker 1: requires a different sort of like hardware integrate, hardware software
Speaker 1: and AI program integration.
Speaker 3: Tesla doesn't have that.
Speaker 4: We used to perhaps being patient on Elon's promises.
Speaker 3: He's pushed back Robotaxi. He pushed back Optimus just in
Speaker 3: the last day or so.
Speaker 4: Does that matter in the longer term if we are
Speaker 4: seeing a vision of AI. Look, this is also an
Speaker 4: energy company that does relatively well.
Speaker 1: Well. It's sure energy does extremely well, but energy is
Speaker 1: not something you give it one hundred times surprise to
Speaker 1: earning racial right, So I mean the stock is at
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty. The company is supposed to make
Speaker 1: two dollars and fifty cents this year, so effectively you
Speaker 1: are giving it one hundred and ten price to earning
Speaker 1: racial Okay, so FSD story will get this to you
Speaker 1: know where the company where Elon Musco want the stock
Speaker 1: to go. So the mass is this, So FSD will
Speaker 1: allow the penetration to go up to thirty percent of
Speaker 1: all cars. So in the US, so USL is about
Speaker 1: eighteen million cars, So that gives you six million cars
Speaker 1: for Tesla because it's given you a car, give you
Speaker 1: a driver, so people will buy it for forty five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. And then the company makes ten percent profit
Speaker 1: margin and you give thirty times a price to earning
Speaker 1: to that kind of a run rate to normalize the earning,
Speaker 1: just like you give to Apple that gives you two
Speaker 1: trillion valuations. That's the story they want to tell to
Speaker 1: the investigation and pacify them.
Speaker 7: Be true.
Speaker 8: It might not be true.
Speaker 1: It might be somewhere else get there first, and Tesla's not.
Speaker 1: But if you give it twenty percent probability, that gives
Speaker 1: you significantly less market evaluation than too Trilia.
Speaker 4: Well said Johan Hanley Warren, Capital CEO and head of Research.
Speaker 8: As we try to.
Speaker 4: Vindicate that ninety three times future earnings.
Speaker 3: That is the valuation of Tesla.
Speaker 4: Look at what's happening with Alphabet, because it's not just
Speaker 4: Tesla out after the bell, Google's parent company is as well.
Speaker 3: We're up five tens percent.
Speaker 4: Not only are you focusing on search, cloud and AI,
Speaker 4: we're also thinking about the wiz rejection of Google's twenty
Speaker 4: three billion dollar offer.
Speaker 3: We we'll be talking about that later in the show
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 2: Ed.
Speaker 5: All right, coming up, we bring in Bloomberg's Emily Chang
Speaker 5: for more on that exclusive interview with Meta CEO and
Speaker 5: founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Speaker 8: As next, this is Bloomberg Technology.
Speaker 4: Different Today, Meta unveiled the largest open source AI model ever,
Speaker 4: Lama three point one. The company is also updating is
Speaker 4: Meta AI service because.
Speaker 3: Being built as a rival to chat Gipt. In an
Speaker 3: exclusive interview with Blum.
Speaker 4: Magsemi Chang, Meta CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg opened up
Speaker 4: about his strategy why believes it's superior to competitors like
Speaker 4: open AI and Google.
Speaker 3: Just take a listen.
Speaker 12: So you're releasing Lama three point one in this family
Speaker 12: of models big and small, including the biggest open source
Speaker 12: model ever four hundred and five billion parier ors.
Speaker 3: What is that jump unlock?
Speaker 13: I actually think the main thing that people are going
Speaker 13: to do, especially because it's open source, is to use
Speaker 13: it as a teacher to train smaller models that they
Speaker 13: use in different applications. If you just think about like
Speaker 13: all the startups out there, or all the enterprises or
Speaker 13: even governments that are trying to do different things, they
Speaker 13: probably all need to at some level build custom model
Speaker 13: for what they're doing. And it's really hard to do
Speaker 13: that with closed systems out there, whether that's open AI
Speaker 13: or Gemini, Google's thing or whatever. And this is like
Speaker 13: gets to a pretty core part of our philosophy is
Speaker 13: we don't believe there's.
Speaker 8: Going to be like one AI to rule them all.
Speaker 13: Our vision is that there's going to be millions or
Speaker 13: just billions of different models out there, So.
Speaker 3: Not one god, but many. Is that the way to
Speaker 3: think about it?
Speaker 13: Well, I don't think they're gonna be gods, but I
Speaker 13: do think that to some degree, if you if you're
Speaker 13: like an organization, you think you're going to create like
Speaker 13: this one super intelligence that does have this feel to
Speaker 13: me of like people trying to create a god. And
Speaker 13: that's just I find that both the wrong way to
Speaker 13: look at it, but just also very unappealing. You know,
Speaker 13: there's almost two hundred million creators on our platforms. They
Speaker 13: all are trying to build their community. People want to
Speaker 13: interact with them. There aren't enough hours in the day. Like,
Speaker 13: I want to make it that every single one of
Speaker 13: them can easily train like an AI version of themselves
Speaker 13: that they can like they can make it what they want.
Speaker 13: So it's almost like a kind of artistic artifact that
Speaker 13: they're putting out there for their community that allows their
Speaker 13: community and interact with them, but also gives them control
Speaker 13: over how that interaction happens.
Speaker 12: Facebook, and you have been blamed for a lot of things.
Speaker 12: Whether you agree or not, why should we trust you
Speaker 12: with AI?
Speaker 7: Well, it's a loaded question.
Speaker 13: We have gotten blamed for a lot of things, and
Speaker 13: I mean, look, I take our role in all this
Speaker 13: stuff seriously, and I think we've tried to handle all
Speaker 13: this as well as possible.
Speaker 8: I'm not sure that it's all.
Speaker 13: Been fair, but like I'd like to think that we're
Speaker 13: an important and relevant company, so I think the scrutiny
Speaker 13: is generally healthy. One of the defining things around open
Speaker 13: source is that anyone can scrutinize the work, and because
Speaker 13: of that, I think it just puts a lot of
Speaker 13: pressure to make sure that the quality of the work
Speaker 13: that you're doing gets better really quickly.
Speaker 5: That was Bluebag's Emily Kang in her exclusive interview with
Speaker 5: metas CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg, and I'm delighted to
Speaker 5: say that Emily joins me here on set in San Francisco.
Speaker 5: It was so well timed the interview. It's critically important.
Speaker 5: I think back to the last earnings call where zuckerbog
Speaker 5: basically said we think MESI could be the world's leading
Speaker 5: AI company, leading AI company, but he's coming from behind
Speaker 5: a little bit. You did some catching up with him
Speaker 5: in that conversation.
Speaker 12: Absolutely, and you know, you know, the scale of Facebook, Instagram,
Speaker 12: WhatsApp is incredible. So Meta Ai their chatbot is already
Speaker 12: embedded across all of those products and Oculus as well,
Speaker 12: and you can use it as.
Speaker 3: A standalone chatbot.
Speaker 12: But he says hundreds of millions of people are going
Speaker 12: to be using this by the end of the year,
Speaker 12: in fact before the end of the year, which he
Speaker 12: believes what makes it the most used chatbot in the world.
Speaker 12: So in just a few months. It's, you know, potentially
Speaker 12: going to be eclipsing chat Ept. Now we talked a
Speaker 12: little bit about the level of intelligence of these latest models,
Speaker 12: and he admits he still believes there's a gap between
Speaker 12: LAMA three point one and the most advanced models out there,
Speaker 12: but they're already working on LAMA for and he says
Speaker 12: they're closing that gap when that update comes out.
Speaker 4: Emily, as you were mentioning in what he termed eluded question,
Speaker 4: but look, he's used to criticism, but there's been a
Speaker 4: little criticism about the fact that this is open source
Speaker 4: and the quote unquote danger that that brings. How is
Speaker 4: he responding to that element of things?
Speaker 12: Look, I think broadly, and this is what he's been
Speaker 12: saying now for many months. Open source is more safe,
Speaker 12: is more secure. You've got all of these people around
Speaker 12: the world building on it, using it. If they see
Speaker 12: something wrong, Meta is going to get called out on it.
Speaker 3: He said, and we'll fix it.
Speaker 12: And the question is, though, what's in it for Meta?
Speaker 12: It's not that there's nothing in this for them. If
Speaker 12: the industry builds on this and it becomes an industry standard,
Speaker 12: then Meta has more sway in how the industry evolves,
Speaker 12: so he's saying, look, this is.
Speaker 3: More safe, this is more secure.
Speaker 12: But yes, this is also better for us. In fact,
Speaker 12: he believes it's safer than the closed sources approaches of
Speaker 12: open AI or Google because what's happening under the hood
Speaker 12: there you can't necessarily see when something goes wrong. And
Speaker 12: what's really interesting is, you know, without open source, he says,
Speaker 12: I couldn't have built Facebook. This is a deep seated
Speaker 12: part of his philosophy that he's had for twenty years.
Speaker 12: It's definitely interesting. He understands why there's been pushback, why
Speaker 12: some people see him as this sort of unlikely champion
Speaker 12: of open source, given how Meta and Facebook and its
Speaker 12: platforms have evolved. But he really doubled down that this
Speaker 12: is the best way forward.
Speaker 5: There is Mark Zuckerberg, the gold chain wearing new haircut,
Speaker 5: MMA fighting man, and then there is Mark Zuckerberg at
Speaker 5: the helm of a critically important company. You spent time
Speaker 5: with him at his home in Tahoe. I did what
Speaker 5: did you learn about either of those characters?
Speaker 12: I learned how they relate to each other. Okay, and
Speaker 12: you know, he just seems you know, I've met him
Speaker 12: many times of the years I've interviewed him before, he
Speaker 12: just seems more comfortable in his own skin than I've
Speaker 12: than I've ever seen it. He also taught me how
Speaker 12: to wakesurf. You know, Zuck has all these side quests.
Speaker 12: Wakesurfing is one of them, and you know, we talked
Speaker 12: about how he just has so much energy.
Speaker 3: These things keep him focused.
Speaker 12: Priscilla, his wife, was there as well.
Speaker 3: She's like, I prefer when he's doing all these.
Speaker 12: Other things because he just has so much energy to
Speaker 12: burn off. But my main takeaway was that he's not
Speaker 12: going anywhere. If you think about Jeff Bezos, you know
Speaker 12: who left Amazon, Larry and Sergei who left Google. There
Speaker 12: are all these major tech founders who have since stepped
Speaker 12: back from their companies. Mark Zuckerberg isn't going anywhere. He said, Look,
Speaker 12: I want to see this AI wave play out. You know,
Speaker 12: it's ten or fifteen more years before the next platform
Speaker 12: is going to emerge, and I'm going to be around
Speaker 12: for that.
Speaker 4: Emily Chang can't wait to see more of the interview.
Speaker 3: We thank you so much.
Speaker 4: Tune in to this exclusive interview with Mark Zuckerberg online
Speaker 4: or on Bloomberg TV tonight it's six thirty pm Eastern time.
Speaker 3: We've got some breaking news for you. Apple.
Speaker 4: A foldable iPhone may be released in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 4: This is according to the information. We're currently at session
Speaker 4: highs on Apple stock on the back of that. Potentially
Speaker 4: it could fold width wise like a calmshell, according to
Speaker 4: people familiar, and it would make it similar look to
Speaker 4: that Samsung Galaxy X flip z flip in fact, was
Speaker 4: released all the way back in twenty twenty on Apple shares.
Speaker 4: This is blue mere technology. Big news in cybersecurity. The
Speaker 4: startup Whiz has rejected Google. The company has turned down
Speaker 4: that Alphabet twenty three billion dollar takeover offer, sticking instead
Speaker 4: to its plans for an IPO. According to a memo
Speaker 4: that Bloomberg has seen, the move marks a blow for Google,
Speaker 4: of course, which has tried to catch up to Microsoft
Speaker 4: and Amazon on shoring up its security offerings for its
Speaker 4: cloud services. Or please to bring in Dona woman for
Speaker 4: more and Dana talk to us about why this was
Speaker 4: so integral to compete with Microsoft, asure to take on
Speaker 4: the other competitors in aws in the space of cloud.
Speaker 14: So Wiz would have rounded out Alphabet's cybersecurity offerings. Company
Speaker 14: had already acquired Mandy in a couple of years ago
Speaker 14: for a little over five billion, and Wiz would have
Speaker 14: just rounded out the portfolio with a real focus on
Speaker 14: detecting cyber threats in various cloud platforms. It plugs into
Speaker 14: a number of major existing platforms, including Microsoft, Azure, Amazon
Speaker 14: Web Services. And these are Google's alphabets major competitors in
Speaker 14: the cloud space, and it is an area where as
Speaker 14: much as Google is one of the major known names,
Speaker 14: it does still trail Microsoft and Amazon in that major
Speaker 14: critical space.
Speaker 5: You know, part of the even trusting part of our reporting,
Speaker 5: according to sources, is that the leaders at Whiz are
Speaker 5: also conscious about the regulatory environment antitrusts.
Speaker 8: What do we understand there, Donna.
Speaker 14: Smith indeed would have been a really risky deal for
Speaker 14: Google had it.
Speaker 3: Had had the agreement gone through.
Speaker 14: Rather, had Wiz agreed to an acquisition Google, It's already
Speaker 14: facing various regulatory challenges on everything from its search business
Speaker 14: to its advertising tools, and probably even a much smaller
Speaker 14: acquisition would have drawn some regulatory scrutiny. And we're talking
Speaker 14: a twenty three billion dollar acquisition. This would have dwarfed
Speaker 14: previous alphabet acquisitions, certainly even the Mandiant one that I
Speaker 14: just mentioned, which was about five and a half billion,
Speaker 14: and it would have been a huge risk indeed, which
Speaker 14: according to our reporting, was one factor that the Whiz
Speaker 14: team considered in choosing to IPO instead of being acquired,
Speaker 14: that not only did it feel that it could build
Speaker 14: more value as an independent company, but had some concerns
Speaker 14: about whether it could even get past those regulatory hurdles
Speaker 14: in the US and possibly elsewhere.
Speaker 5: I think bugs Dona Wellman, thank you. Welcome back to
Speaker 5: Bloomberg Technology. Ed Ludlow in San Francisco, and.
Speaker 4: I'm Carine Hyde in London for the week.
Speaker 5: The World of crypto and ETFs regulators approved the first
Speaker 5: US ETFs investing directly in ether. That's according to filings
Speaker 5: and statements from various asset managers.
Speaker 8: Now trading is imminent.
Speaker 5: So let's bring in Bloomberg's Katie Greifeld, friend of the show,
Speaker 5: friend of mine, expert in all things cat meme related,
Speaker 5: but also ETF's critically likes crypto. I think that why
Speaker 5: this story is so interesting we've been talking about so much,
Speaker 5: is that it's a good test for wider interest in
Speaker 5: crypto markets.
Speaker 3: Right you're exactly right. Demand beyond bitcoin.
Speaker 15: Obviously, the Spot bitcoin ETFs HA started trading in January.
Speaker 15: We're a wild success, really blue pass expectations. We have
Speaker 15: seen eight spot ether ets speaking trading in the US
Speaker 15: today and these are expected not to not draw as
Speaker 15: much interest. But trading volume so far has been pretty impressive.
Speaker 15: Over three hundred million in trading volume so far today.
Speaker 3: But if you take a lot a look.
Speaker 15: At Blackrocks Ether ETF in particular, the ticker there is ETHA.
Speaker 15: Volume after the first hour was about fifty million dollars
Speaker 15: maybe a we'll get to two hundred million by the
Speaker 15: end of the day. Just for contexts, Blackrocks Spot Bitcoin
Speaker 15: ETF did about a billion dollars on its first day
Speaker 15: of trading, so impressive, but not quite Bitcoin levels.
Speaker 4: It was never going to be Bitcoin levels, was it, Katie.
Speaker 4: Can you just mark us up to what we all
Speaker 4: anticipated and whether or not the flows are good enough
Speaker 4: for what the market needed to see.
Speaker 3: So if you take a.
Speaker 15: Look at what the consensus is right now. There was
Speaker 15: an interesting note from winter Mute trading. For example, typical
Speaker 15: analyst projections translate into annualized inflows about four point eight
Speaker 15: to six point four billion dollars for these Ether products.
Speaker 15: That's in the first year, which again is not nothing
Speaker 15: for a new ETF debut, especially in a new category.
Speaker 15: That's pretty impressive. But it's just that the Bitcoin ETFs
Speaker 15: received so much enthusiasm. Net inflows of seventeen billion dollars
Speaker 15: even with the outflows that you've seen from GBTC. There's
Speaker 15: some pretty difficult comps there. But again, it'll be interesting
Speaker 15: to see how these develops, whether financial advisors in particular
Speaker 15: will embrace these. There's a lot of question about how
Speaker 15: do you market ether?
Speaker 3: Bitcoin is digital gold? What's the sales pitch for.
Speaker 15: Ether to a non crypto audience. Those are some of
Speaker 15: the questions that need to be answered.
Speaker 4: Oil Silver, We've heard it all, Katie Greifeld atf Queen.
Speaker 3: We appreciate it.
Speaker 5: It's time now for talking tech and first up, CrowdStrike
Speaker 5: CEO George Kurtz is set to testify before Congress. A
Speaker 5: US House committee is called on the Executive for questioning
Speaker 5: after last week's Box software update that caused global computer
Speaker 5: outstages worldwide. Additionally, the US Department of Transportation is open
Speaker 5: in investigation and into Delta as it continues to see
Speaker 5: major flight cancelations and delays from the CrowdStrike outage. Despite
Speaker 5: rivals return to normality plus shares a CACAU falling in
Speaker 5: South Korean as authorities have arrested its founder, Brian Kim
Speaker 5: over alleged market manipulation. The billionaire internet entrepreneur was taken
Speaker 5: into custody after hours of deliberation on fears of quote evidence,
Speaker 5: destruction and flight Kim and CACAU spokespeople deny the allegations.
Speaker 8: Okay, coming up here on Bloomberg Technology, We're gonna have
Speaker 8: to take a.
Speaker 5: Look at the world of AI and robotics, and that's
Speaker 5: through the company. Mitra CEO Chris Walty joins us next
Speaker 5: on the company's launched This is Bloomberg Technology.
Speaker 3: Talking mention now.
Speaker 4: Iconic Capital, an investment firm known for well managing the
Speaker 4: fortunes of Silicon Valley's elite I, said it has raised
Speaker 4: five point seventy five billion dollars for a new venture
Speaker 4: focused fund, and yet another example of the continued concentration
Speaker 4: of dollars in a handful of big VC firms.
Speaker 3: This year of a seven billion dollars went.
Speaker 4: To a group of funds at Andrews and Horowitz another
Speaker 4: three billion dollars to Norwest Venture Partners ed.
Speaker 8: What have you got now?
Speaker 5: Mitra is a company focusing on industrial productivity with AI
Speaker 5: but also three dimensional robotics and just today launched with
Speaker 5: seventy eight million dollars in total financing through a Series B.
Speaker 5: We're delighted to be joined by the CEO and co founder,
Speaker 5: Chris Walty, who's also a former Tesla materials engineer who
Speaker 5: helped build what was Tesla bott Now optimists, we'll get
Speaker 5: to that this is interesting. It's not necessarily a crowded field,
Speaker 5: but I'd say we've had several startups on the show
Speaker 5: focusing in the field of robotics. What is specific about
Speaker 5: your technology and your ambitions on how it's used in
Speaker 5: the real world.
Speaker 7: Sure, morning, thanks for having me on the show. Appreciate it.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I mean the challenge is is that, you know,
Speaker 11: ninety percent of warehouses today have no meaningful automation, so there's.
Speaker 7: A product market fit gap.
Speaker 11: At Tesla, we experienced some of the challenges with the
Speaker 11: current state of automation. We endeavor to make something extremely simple,
Speaker 11: user friendly, and the more simplistic we could make the
Speaker 11: system the more cost effective and universal and flexible the
Speaker 11: solution could be, and.
Speaker 4: The more people want to use it. You've got fortune
Speaker 4: one hundred customers already. Albertson's, for example, what is it
Speaker 4: that the robotics are solving for them already?
Speaker 7: What is it that robucks is not solving for them? Well,
Speaker 7: if you look at the traditional state.
Speaker 4: Is solving for them? What is the positive? What are
Speaker 4: you finding that is already the application?
Speaker 3: Chris?
Speaker 7: Oh, sure, what is it we are solving?
Speaker 11: Yeah, So we're focused on moving material at the palette level.
Speaker 7: It's the bread and butter supply chain.
Speaker 11: Almost everything you see around you has been in a
Speaker 11: palette at one point, and we're doing that a much
Speaker 11: more simple and an efficient way through the use of
Speaker 11: just two products. It's really a steel ladder structure and
Speaker 11: a bot that moves in full three dimensions, which allows
Speaker 11: you to basically use software to define how your warehouse
Speaker 11: operates versus traditionally using mechanisms like conveyors and elevators in
Speaker 11: that sort.
Speaker 5: Sony eight million dollars, I can't tell if that's quite
Speaker 5: a lot of money or not enough money to launch
Speaker 5: a product like this, scale it and put it into
Speaker 5: the real world.
Speaker 11: You tell me it sounds like a lot, of course,
Speaker 11: but you know, you have to keep in mind that
Speaker 11: there's seven different engineering disciplines, and you know it's incredibly
Speaker 11: important to make the product reliable, scalable, et cetera. I mean,
Speaker 11: you know, automotive companies spend quite a bit of money
Speaker 11: on the manufacturing and the development to bring an electric
Speaker 11: vehicle to market. Where essentially bringing a small electric vehicle
Speaker 11: that not only moves three thousand pounds in the horizontal
Speaker 11: plane but also moves it up and down.
Speaker 4: Reliable, scalable, and with in a near term ideal of
Speaker 4: being useful. Now, what's so interesting is your background having
Speaker 4: been at Rivian but also at Tesla.
Speaker 3: Look, we're about to get Tesla numbers, we're about to.
Speaker 4: Fixate upon Optimus and once again a slight delay to
Speaker 4: its practical use cases. What was it like at Optimists
Speaker 4: and how did you decide that you had to do
Speaker 4: something different because perhaps of the delays there.
Speaker 11: Yeah, my background at Tesla was a very interesting one.
Speaker 11: I had experienced both on the traditional warehouse side and
Speaker 11: trying to get material flow up and running for it
Speaker 11: to support Model three manufacturing. And then it was also
Speaker 11: asked and tasked to lead the Optimist program. You know,
Speaker 11: humanoid robotics absolutely fascinating. Had a blast working on those
Speaker 11: problems and leading that team, But ultimately it's a bit
Speaker 11: of a ninth inning problem and there's innings four, five, six,
Speaker 11: and seven, et cetera that still need to be solved
Speaker 11: and for the next ten to fifteen years of my career,
Speaker 11: as well as the rest of the team that's joined
Speaker 11: us on this mission. We're really solving a very critical
Speaker 11: problem in supply chain with a very simple and direct
Speaker 11: form factor.
Speaker 5: I guess philosophically, but also from an engineering perspective, why
Speaker 5: is the direction you're going better than the use case
Speaker 5: of a humanoid robots such as Optimus in the warehouse
Speaker 5: or manufacturing environment.
Speaker 11: It's a great question. I don't know if one is
Speaker 11: better or worse than the other. I would say they're
Speaker 11: solving two very different problems, right. What's very unique about
Speaker 11: humans is their ability to manipulate and reason at the edge.
Speaker 7: And that's where a humanoid robot is very powerful.
Speaker 11: But when you look at what's moved around in a
Speaker 11: warehouse in a manufacturing facility, a lot of those that
Speaker 11: material weighs hundreds, if not thousands of pounds, and that's
Speaker 11: not something that a human really is designed to do.
Speaker 11: So you can think of what we're building at MITRA
Speaker 11: as something that's very complementary orthogonal to humanoid robotics or
Speaker 11: humans in general.
Speaker 4: Okay, so you're going to work in line, sort of
Speaker 4: in a sophisticated manner to work alongside the future of
Speaker 4: an optimus.
Speaker 3: You've got strategic investment.
Speaker 4: I'm assuming you've already raised what's seventy eight million dollars
Speaker 4: in funding?
Speaker 3: How expensive does this get? How many more rounds of
Speaker 3: funding do you need?
Speaker 11: Chris, Yeah, I mean our it's unclear at this point.
Speaker 11: Our goal is to execute as quickly and as efficiently
Speaker 11: as possible. You know, the next two years will develop
Speaker 11: the system, invest in the team, and launch to a
Speaker 11: few more customers, and in that time you know that
Speaker 11: we'll be generating revenue and you know the funding environment
Speaker 11: in two years. Who knows what that will be like.
Speaker 11: But it's safe to say that funding can help accelerate
Speaker 11: the mission. It's not necessarily always required for a company to.
Speaker 4: Exist, particularly if you're aiming to be revenue generating, maybe
Speaker 4: even profitability coming into your Lexicon micro CEO and co
Speaker 4: founder Chris Welty. Great experience that you have, great pushing
Speaker 4: us forward on what to expect.
Speaker 3: How a robotic said, what have we got? Well?
Speaker 5: From one Tesla alumni enterprise to another. A couple of
Speaker 5: weeks ago, I took a trip on a boat, an
Speaker 5: electric boat, and it's from startup ARC looking to launch
Speaker 5: later this year.
Speaker 8: Here's what it's like.
Speaker 5: This is the Arc Sport, a fully electric boat from
Speaker 5: Los Angeles based Ark, and it's built for water sports
Speaker 5: on lakes and wide rivers, but it can go in saltwater.
Speaker 5: So we got to test it out in the San
Speaker 5: Francisco Bay. We set off from Sorcelito Harbor and with
Speaker 5: Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge coming into site, we
Speaker 5: took it up to full speed and we led a rip.
Speaker 8: Ark Sport can get up to forty.
Speaker 5: Miles per hour, but it has a surprisingly intuitive drive
Speaker 5: by wire system. The operating system also looks very similar
Speaker 5: to Tesla's in esthetic and functionality. Using front and rear cameras,
Speaker 5: you can see the front and check on the wakeboarder
Speaker 5: who's in the back, or make sure no passengers have
Speaker 5: fallen off.
Speaker 8: Luckily, none of US did. The boat has five.
Speaker 5: Hundred horse power from a two hundred and twenty six
Speaker 5: killer what hour battery pack. That's almost double the battery
Speaker 5: capacity powering Tesla's cyber truck. It's meant to give you
Speaker 5: a full day on the water about forty six hours
Speaker 5: of driving time. At two hundred and fifty eight thousand dollars,
Speaker 5: arc Sports price is comparable to gas power boats from
Speaker 5: names like Mastercraft, but the direct consumer sales model means
Speaker 5: there's no dealer in the middle taking a cup. That
Speaker 5: means art can spend a little bit more on the design,
Speaker 5: the experience in the boat, upscale sound systems, and plush seating.
Speaker 5: It's also got a really cool frust jet system for
Speaker 5: docking up, and it can charge to eighty percent in
Speaker 5: like forty five minutes. The boat's designed by a team
Speaker 5: of former SpaceX and Tesla engineers, and it's shipping later
Speaker 5: this year to go after a two billion dollar market
Speaker 5: in twenty twenty four for wakeboats.
Speaker 8: Two hundred and.
Speaker 5: Fifty eight thousand dollars shipping later this year. Maybe Emily
Speaker 5: Chang and Mark Zuckerberger got their eyes among.
Speaker 3: Car Oh water sports.
Speaker 4: Meanwhile, coming up Tech giants Apple and Micron. They're paying
Speaker 4: it a visit to China as the US ramps up
Speaker 4: chip cubs this blue bag technology.
Speaker 12: I know, you've always been fascinated by China and you
Speaker 12: learn to speak Mandarin, and what do you know about
Speaker 12: where China is on.
Speaker 3: AI and AGI?
Speaker 13: I don't personally know a ton. There's this question, which
Speaker 13: is how should the US approach kind of AI competition
Speaker 13: with China. And there's one strain of thought which is like, okay, well,
Speaker 13: we need to like lock it all down. And I
Speaker 13: just happen to think that that's really wrong because the
Speaker 13: US thrives on just kind of open and decentralized innovation.
Speaker 13: I mean, that's the way our economy works. That's like
Speaker 13: how we build awesome stuff. But I think the leading
Speaker 13: companies should work with the US government and make sure
Speaker 13: that our kind of national defense and things like that
Speaker 13: have sort of a perpetual first mover advantage on the
Speaker 13: leading technology in the world, so.
Speaker 3: We win the AI wars this way.
Speaker 13: I think there there's the question of what can you
Speaker 13: hope to achieve If you're trying to say, okay, should
Speaker 13: the US try to be five or ten years ahead
Speaker 13: of China. I just don't know if that's if that's
Speaker 13: a reasonable goal. So I'm not sure if you can
Speaker 13: maintain that. But what I do think is a reasonable
Speaker 13: goal is maintaining a perpetual six months to eight month
Speaker 13: lead by making sure that the American company is in,
Speaker 13: the American folks working on this continue producing the best
Speaker 13: AI system.
Speaker 5: That was Bloomberg's Milie Chang in more of very exclusive
Speaker 5: interview with Mark Zuckerberg, or that you can tune into
Speaker 5: the exclusive interview with Mark Zuckerberg online or on Bloomberg
Speaker 5: TV tonight at six thirty pm Eastern Time. Let's keep
Speaker 5: the conversation going on China's US Chip Cubs Titan. Leaders
Speaker 5: from tech giants Apple and Micron paid a visit to Beijing.
Speaker 5: I want to bring in Bloombergs Mike Shepherd, who leads
Speaker 5: our coverage at the intersection of politics and technology, Apple's
Speaker 5: COO Jeff Williams, and Micron CEO and president Sanjai Morotra
Speaker 5: go to Beijing. It tells us how important, despite the
Speaker 5: political backdrop, the market is and the supply chain is.
Speaker 2: It really does and it was a great segue into
Speaker 2: our discussion. Now to hear from Mark Zuckerberg too, about
Speaker 2: the importance of China and this tension between the government
Speaker 2: here in Washington and with the industry around the world.
Speaker 2: Sees in the world's second largest economy, which is our
Speaker 2: opportunity both in terms of a large consumer market and
Speaker 2: also the importance of the productions apply chain lines that
Speaker 2: are embedded in China as well. So, as you hear
Speaker 2: from Zuckerberg, and as you see in the visit of
Speaker 2: these two key executives, China is super important for their
Speaker 2: continued growth and development.
Speaker 4: Basically, Mahotra and Williams, they're both part of this US
Speaker 4: China Business Council, right, And I'm kind of trying to
Speaker 4: understand how much you think that that sort of a
Speaker 4: council really achieves, how much they are able to get
Speaker 4: business done amid the tip for TAP from a geopolitical perspective, Well, it.
Speaker 2: Does counter the tit for TAM. That's a great question, Carolyn,
Speaker 2: because you do see all these concrete actions emanating from
Speaker 2: the Biden administration in the form of export restrictions. These
Speaker 2: are measures aimed at curbing China's access to advanced technology,
Speaker 2: especially semiconductors needed the power of technology like artificial intelligence
Speaker 2: that Mark Zuckerberg was just talking about. Now having this
Speaker 2: US China Business Council go and meet with very senior officials,
Speaker 2: including the Vice Premier Hi Lafeng and the Foreign Minister Wangi.
Speaker 2: These are important officials to meet and it carries some symbolism,
Speaker 2: and it allowed the Chinese to convey to the American
Speaker 2: business community at a very high level.
Speaker 3: That look, we still need you.
Speaker 2: We realize that politically there are some tensions, but we
Speaker 2: do not want to see this decoupling that some in
Speaker 2: Washington have been pushing for.
Speaker 5: Just really quick, Mike, We can't get away from the
Speaker 5: US presidential election. But one strategy of the US is
Speaker 5: also to lean on its allies in respect to tech
Speaker 5: cubs in China. You know what's the chatter in that
Speaker 5: respect in DC.
Speaker 2: Well, that's a great question, because right now what we're
Speaker 2: seeing is a little bit more reluctance in escalating those
Speaker 2: restrictions on technology. Even further, we've seen pushback from the
Speaker 2: Dutch and the Japanese against efforts by the US to
Speaker 2: get the makers of chip making machinery to dial back
Speaker 2: on servicing and the sending of spare parts to China
Speaker 2: for some of those machines used in the production of
Speaker 2: the fabrication of semiconductors.
Speaker 4: All eyes on the Dutch, the Japanese, China, US Mike
Speaker 4: Sheppard is always across it all.
Speaker 3: We so appreciate it. Thank you. And that does it
Speaker 3: for this very busy edition of Bloombog Technology.
Speaker 5: Ed very global London, New York. We're even in Austria
Speaker 5: at one point. Check out the pod. Big shout out
Speaker 5: to the pod. Wherever you get your podcasts, Apple, Spotify
Speaker 5: and on iHeart. A lot still to come this week
Speaker 5: in earnings. This is Bloomberg Technology