Speaker 1: I'm in San Francisco. This is Bloomberg Technology coming up
Speaker 1: some breaking news. At the top of this our signa
Speaker 1: lithium surges and after ours trading on its U s
Speaker 1: A d r S after Tesla is said to have
Speaker 1: been in talks and weighing a bid for the metals minor.
Speaker 1: Will bring you that exclusive news from Bloomberg. Plus another
Speaker 1: former member of sam bankman Freed's in a circle planning
Speaker 1: to plead guilty to US criminal charges. We bring you
Speaker 1: the latest development of the f t X fallout, and
Speaker 1: we continue our deep dive into the world of artificial
Speaker 1: intelligence and speak with someone investing in the space. Kevin Dunlap,
Speaker 1: Calibrate Ventures co founder and managing partner, joins us later
Speaker 1: this hour. All that and more that stick in the
Speaker 1: world of crypto. Binance, which operates the world's largest crypto exchange,
Speaker 1: is now considering ending relationships with US business partners as
Speaker 1: regulators turn up the heat. I want to bring in
Speaker 1: bloombergs Uchi Yang, who broke this story earlier today, Ugly,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us. What are the
Speaker 1: latest details from your reporting? Thanks for having me so
Speaker 1: we're learning that buiness the global exchange is starting to
Speaker 1: have to think about a plan to retreat from the US,
Speaker 1: especially it's remaining business relationships in the US. We're reporting
Speaker 1: that Biness is considering pulling back its vent investments in
Speaker 1: the country, is looking at potentially cutting ties with some
Speaker 1: of the intermediary firms such as banks and other services firms.
Speaker 1: And it's also in assessment of delisting some of the
Speaker 1: US based tokens, potentially including a major stable one. And
Speaker 1: I have to add that these are preliminary considerations, no
Speaker 1: firm decisions have been made, but that these are assessment
Speaker 1: that the company now has to deliberate given the ongoing
Speaker 1: regulatory crackdown in the US, as we've seen from a
Speaker 1: flurry of reenforcement actions in recent days. You know, our
Speaker 1: sources giving us a pretty good sense of what the
Speaker 1: company is considering and why we should point out that
Speaker 1: Binance did issue a statement or comment in response to
Speaker 1: the story. We'll bring it up on the screen now
Speaker 1: utually just to show our audience. Like every other blockchain company,
Speaker 1: we're conducting a careful cost benefit analysis and will pivot
Speaker 1: our business as necessary to protect our global user base.
Speaker 1: That according to a Binance spokesperson, I guess the easy
Speaker 1: question now utually is what happens next while we're looking
Speaker 1: to see what exacts that finance will be taking where
Speaker 1: we also understand that Biness is in settlement talks with
Speaker 1: US regulators over some of the investigations that have previously
Speaker 1: been reported by US and other press, and there's no
Speaker 1: clear details on either the timeline of the settlement or
Speaker 1: the minetor amount of the settlement. And we also know
Speaker 1: that more Brady other cryptal companies are starting to look
Speaker 1: into plans of potentially moving offshore as well. We know
Speaker 1: that Naxos, for example, a crypto leander, had already made
Speaker 1: announcement too to pull out from the market after receiving
Speaker 1: orders from other states. So Buyinice wouldn't be the first
Speaker 1: one to to start considering how a retreet will look
Speaker 1: like UM and I had to mention that Bynese US,
Speaker 1: which is set up as a separate platform design for
Speaker 1: US UM users, currently said that they have no plan
Speaker 1: to acceed the US. Alright, blood g Yang, thank you.
Speaker 1: In Washington to U S senators are urging a key
Speaker 1: national security panel to quote impose strict structural restrictions between
Speaker 1: TikTok's American operations and its Chinese parent company, bike Dance,
Speaker 1: And in other news, the CEOs of Meta, Amazon, Might
Speaker 1: Soft and others have been subpoenaed by the GOP. For
Speaker 1: a deeper dive on what's happening on tech regulation out
Speaker 1: on the Hill, we're joined by Bloomberg's and editing in
Speaker 1: d C, and of course our big Tech correspondent Alex Brinka,
Speaker 1: who's in Los Angeles. And let's start with you on
Speaker 1: this issue of TikTok. We've covered all week, um the
Speaker 1: strange relations between the US and China, We've covered your
Speaker 1: reporting on TikTok. What is the mood right now in
Speaker 1: d C about how to act with TikTok? Yeah, I'd
Speaker 1: really summarize it as one of distrust. And what was
Speaker 1: just striking about this letter that we saw, I believe
Speaker 1: it was just yesterday, so a letter from Richard Bloomenthal,
Speaker 1: Connecticut Democrat and Jerry Moran, a Republican from Kansas, is
Speaker 1: that they said, we just don't believe what we're hearing
Speaker 1: from TikTok when it comes to assurances that their Chinese
Speaker 1: parent company, by Dance doesn't have access to user data
Speaker 1: and a thumb on the scale of the algorithm. They said,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't trust the security arrangements that we're
Speaker 1: hearing described from the company and even you know, assurances
Speaker 1: from their lead lobbyist here in Washington, even the CEO himself.
Speaker 1: We don't trust that there's going to be enough to
Speaker 1: protect US users from Chinese interference. You know, TikTok CEO
Speaker 1: is due to go to the hill, you know, attend hearings.
Speaker 1: What do we know about that? And I guess in
Speaker 1: the corridors of lawmaking center of our world, what's the
Speaker 1: attitude towards TikTok going into it. Yeah, it's striking how
Speaker 1: bipartisan this is. That there's a lot of mistrust from
Speaker 1: both Democrats and Republicans about really what TikTok's interests is
Speaker 1: in growing the influence here in the US. You know,
Speaker 1: they're saying things like, why would you spend one point
Speaker 1: five billion dollars on lobbying when you can invest that
Speaker 1: in the product, you know, if if you weren't doing
Speaker 1: something nefarious. So, you know, there's a lot of kind
Speaker 1: of disconnect between the popularity of the app among normal
Speaker 1: users and kind of the national security concerns. So we
Speaker 1: hear echo here in Congress, and that's part of kind
Speaker 1: of the broader uh discomfort with Chinese relations right now.
Speaker 1: You know, things like this balloon that was shot down
Speaker 1: allegedly for Chinese surveillance was um something that just kind
Speaker 1: of ramped up tensions even further and made it even
Speaker 1: more likely that that both Republicans and Democrats are going
Speaker 1: to feel pressure to push back on a company, you
Speaker 1: know that's part of a Chinese parent company. I think, Sprinka,
Speaker 1: I'll bring you in from Los Angeles and let's get
Speaker 1: the company side of this story. Because TikTok has a
Speaker 1: massive user footprint in the United States. You and I
Speaker 1: have discussed a number of times that the user base
Speaker 1: doesn't get it. They feel like the risk hasn't been
Speaker 1: communicated to them from lawmakers those that represent them. What
Speaker 1: are the company actually doing to kind of address some
Speaker 1: of those concerns. Well, if you've been following this closely,
Speaker 1: then I'm sure you've heard of something called Project Taxes.
Speaker 1: It's a big effort for the company to bring in
Speaker 1: additional people to help with security, to migrate all the
Speaker 1: data onto Oracle servers, and to basically make sure that
Speaker 1: you know, there is nothing of of user's data or
Speaker 1: influence on the algorithm that will get kind of nefarious. Now,
Speaker 1: that is the exact plan that, as Anna said, lawmakers
Speaker 1: seem to be very skeptical of. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: TikTok is continuing to push forward on its user efforts.
Speaker 1: I was on the app just today and they've launched
Speaker 1: a new trivia tool where you could go in and
Speaker 1: and answer questions. So it seems like they're they're moving
Speaker 1: full steam ahead in terms of making sure that people
Speaker 1: find a lot of delight in the app, and folks
Speaker 1: are I think that the latest numbers, folks are spending
Speaker 1: about a hundred minutes in the US on the app
Speaker 1: every single day. So there is this kind of like
Speaker 1: interesting divide where there is big concern in DC and
Speaker 1: mostly just big concern about being entertained from users here
Speaker 1: in the United States. Right, But also, Alex, you know
Speaker 1: what you notice not just for TikTok. I know this
Speaker 1: to be true of course, of Meta previously of Twitter
Speaker 1: is the huge lobbying effort that's going behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: How much energy is the company putting in, how aggressive
Speaker 1: are they into winning our coolmakers? Yeah, it's interesting. So
Speaker 1: last fall UM. We wrote this kind of big take
Speaker 1: out on their lobbying efforts. They were basically talking to
Speaker 1: friendly parties down in DC. They weren't giving a lot
Speaker 1: of love to the Josh Hollies of the world, the
Speaker 1: mark of Rubio's of the world. The folks were the
Speaker 1: loudest in the room bringing up concerns against them. It
Speaker 1: seems like that strategy has not worked in their favor.
Speaker 1: We have heard and there's been reporting from elsewhere that
Speaker 1: they've changed cats to start the year. They've been a
Speaker 1: lot more aggressive and getting in front of some of
Speaker 1: their detractors. So the company is making moves. Definitely, those
Speaker 1: dollars are going toward UM these kind of behind the
Speaker 1: scenes conversations. But again, skesticism abound from the folks in
Speaker 1: DC and all of those big tech CEOs have been
Speaker 1: subpoena and what are you we hearing from sources about
Speaker 1: what could come out of that. Yeah, so this is
Speaker 1: really what we're expecting from House Republicans this year. You know,
Speaker 1: with Senate Democrats having the majority and House Republicans having
Speaker 1: the majority on the other side of the capital, there's
Speaker 1: not much chance that there's going to be UM tech
Speaker 1: focus legislation that's going to get through the House. Republicans
Speaker 1: are really using their majority for this investigation, and their
Speaker 1: main concern is getting to the bottom of stories like
Speaker 1: the Hunter Biden laptop. Why was that story, um, they
Speaker 1: would say, suppressed before the last presidential election. The cooperation
Speaker 1: between the Biden White House and these big tech platforms
Speaker 1: on addressing misinformation around things like COVID. Now Republicans will
Speaker 1: say that this is a free speech issue that they're
Speaker 1: worried about the government kind of putting its thumb on
Speaker 1: the scale of speech in the United States using these
Speaker 1: very important tech platforms. And this is going to be
Speaker 1: kind of like the opening salvo and demanding documents from
Speaker 1: these CEOs to make sure that they are getting the
Speaker 1: kind of transparency that House Republicans believe they deserve. Bloom
Speaker 1: Bugs and Edgison and Alex Brinka, thank you. Now coming up,
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia's public Investment Fund just became the largest outside
Speaker 1: shareholder of Nintendo. Will explain why. In talking tech. That's next,
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. Nintendo has taken the scalp of its
Speaker 1: great Japanese rival Sony. Sales of Nintendo Switch, its flagship
Speaker 1: console have overtaken those of the PlayStation four. You can
Speaker 1: see in this chart it's gradually hauled in the mighty
Speaker 1: PS four. Interestingly, though, look at this a slight slackening
Speaker 1: of growth in the most recent months, of which a
Speaker 1: bit more later you say that's not a fair comparison.
Speaker 1: Sony has since released the PlayStation five. Even taking that
Speaker 1: into account, you can see Nintendo is out selling the
Speaker 1: total unit sales of PlayStations from across the board. The
Speaker 1: wrinkle when it comes to nintend though, it is not
Speaker 1: expecting to sell as much this year as people had expected,
Speaker 1: and see these pace of sales for Nintennis, which is
Speaker 1: not as bullish. As a consequence, the share price is
Speaker 1: being punished. Hm. Hm, Time now for talking tech, and
Speaker 1: let's stick with Nintendo for a second, because Saudi Arabia's
Speaker 1: public investment fund just became the largest outside shareholder of
Speaker 1: the video game company. This the latest move by the
Speaker 1: Gulf state to lower its reliance on oil. The sovereign
Speaker 1: web fund now owns eight point three percent of the
Speaker 1: Kyoto based games company, according to a filing, up from
Speaker 1: about six percent at the start of the year. That
Speaker 1: puts it ahead of Japan's government pension investment fund and
Speaker 1: behind only Nintendo Zone holdings, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: Now moving onto the world of PC makers, Lenovo's profit
Speaker 1: fell for the first time in almost three years on
Speaker 1: waning demand for personal computers, forcing the company to warn
Speaker 1: of job cuts. The company has been struggling with a
Speaker 1: tumble in global demand following that pandemic error work from
Speaker 1: home boom, but the company also saying the PC market
Speaker 1: may stabilize quote sooner than expected. And back to Krypto,
Speaker 1: with the SEC saying crypto fugitive Do Quan and the
Speaker 1: firm he founded, Terraform Labs, transferring ten thousand bitcoin out
Speaker 1: of their doomed projects and turned some of that token
Speaker 1: into cash virus. Swiss Bank j one has previously denied
Speaker 1: wrong doing in South Korean authorities are still seeking help
Speaker 1: in the hunt to find him alright. Turning to Tesla
Speaker 1: and reaction to that news Thursday that Tesla is recalling
Speaker 1: three hundred and sixty three thousand vehicles over an issue
Speaker 1: with its self driving technology, Wells Fargo analyst Colin Langard
Speaker 1: says the recall has little financial impacts, but the risk
Speaker 1: clearly remains as other investigations are ongoing at the National
Speaker 1: Highway Traffic Safety Administration and delighted to say Colin joins
Speaker 1: US now you have an equal weight recommendation, a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty dollar price target on Tesla, and Collin, you're
Speaker 1: basically pointing out that the recall happening and over the
Speaker 1: air update fix doesn't kind of do away with longer
Speaker 1: term concerns. In other words, is still looking and asking
Speaker 1: questions of Tesla. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean, financially it's an
Speaker 1: over the air update. It's going to be you know,
Speaker 1: really at no cost to Tesla. Um, but I think
Speaker 1: it does show that the ns is willing to take action.
Speaker 1: There are I think reportedly you know, over three dozen
Speaker 1: investigations that's been ongoing. And it's really not just NITZA.
Speaker 1: There's a reportedly a Department of Justice investigation. There is
Speaker 1: an indication that ten K that they're asking for information,
Speaker 1: so it seems like that's very likely. Uh, and there's
Speaker 1: the SEC reportedly might be investigating again. So UM, there's
Speaker 1: just a lot of those risks out there, and I
Speaker 1: think Tesla investors need to keep that in mind. I mean,
Speaker 1: autopilot is extremely important feature that's a competitive advantage for Tesla,
Speaker 1: and if there's regulations that limit its use or or
Speaker 1: pullback functionality, that's clearly going to be a concern for
Speaker 1: the stock. Elon must get this interview in June where
Speaker 1: he basically described the overwhelming focus for Tesla being to
Speaker 1: crack full self driving, and he said it's essential because
Speaker 1: really the difference between Tesla being worth a lot of
Speaker 1: money and being worth zero is their success on FSD Beta.
Speaker 1: Do you model that into your price targets? Do you
Speaker 1: agree with kind of that thesis on how Tesla should
Speaker 1: be valued? Uh? Not really. I mean I think he's
Speaker 1: kind of already walked back some of those targets. Right.
Speaker 1: It's it's become very clear across the board, I mean
Speaker 1: across all the different autonomous startups that to get to
Speaker 1: full autonomy is very challenging. UM and you know, full
Speaker 1: self driving is you know, as now indicated is not
Speaker 1: full self driving level four, level five. It's going to
Speaker 1: be an advanced level to eight as type system at
Speaker 1: least at this point. So I don't see, you know,
Speaker 1: from most of the experts that I talked to an
Speaker 1: autonomy you know, the strategies like it's going to take
Speaker 1: a very long time if it's ever all possible, particularly
Speaker 1: without lighter. So I actually don't put a high probability
Speaker 1: of anything near term on on true full self driving
Speaker 1: the way people are thinking about, you know, could that
Speaker 1: you know, massively change the valuation, absolutely if they could
Speaker 1: deliver it. I just don't think the technology is there young.
Speaker 1: As you heard at the top of the show, Tesla
Speaker 1: is considering a bid for battery metals minus signor lithium.
Speaker 1: You know, a source told me earlier it's just one
Speaker 1: name that Tessa is looking at. So clearly test is
Speaker 1: looking at supply chain right on the battery side. On March,
Speaker 1: the first we will get master Plan Part three, which
Speaker 1: you know, a part of we understand will be how
Speaker 1: to scale beyond Tesla's current level. What are your expectations
Speaker 1: for what we'll learn from Elon Musk and co. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think if you look at what's happening
Speaker 1: with Tesla, right, I mean, we've had it seems like
Speaker 1: there were clear signs that demand was softening. We've had
Speaker 1: this massive price cut that spurred the demand. The question
Speaker 1: comes as how long does that price cut keep demand going?
Speaker 1: And so you actually need to kind of start to
Speaker 1: get line of sight to what's the next driver. And
Speaker 1: so I think at the investor day of the key
Speaker 1: event is going to be focused around, you know, understanding.
Speaker 1: You know, what I think they've talked about is the
Speaker 1: sort of Gen three model. I'm guessing and I think
Speaker 1: most people are guessing that's going to be a lower
Speaker 1: price model that will actually give them coverage for the
Speaker 1: vast majority of the price points in the auto segment
Speaker 1: if you get it to thirty thousand or below UM
Speaker 1: and that obviously widens the TAM and the addressable market
Speaker 1: and could get people excited if you could do that economically.
Speaker 1: And I think that's what people are expecting, is, you know,
Speaker 1: a discussion of cheaper price model with strong economics behind it. Colin,
Speaker 1: I noticed a Friday night. I know that maybe Elon
Speaker 1: musk Tesla, it's not how you want to end your day,
Speaker 1: But you tolds about regulatory risk being a damage to credibility.
Speaker 1: What are the other risk tests facing right now? Real quick?
Speaker 1: I mean, uh, you know, expectations are high after the
Speaker 1: recent run. I think we have to see what happens
Speaker 1: April one, when you know the you know, the full
Speaker 1: iary credits come in the seven thousand, five hundred may
Speaker 1: go down. We'll see if demand is impacted there. I
Speaker 1: think there's high expectations into the investor day and yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think it's probably gonna be longer term
Speaker 1: for your seeing some sort of regulatory action that might
Speaker 1: be more aggressive than what we saw yesterday, but still
Speaker 1: remains a long term risk that investors shouldn't forget about.
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe it'll all blow over, but it's still
Speaker 1: something to consider. All right. Well, as fagoys called it, Langon,
Speaker 1: thank you, Happy Friday, have a great long weekend opening.
Speaker 1: I deserves a ton of credit for taking what happened
Speaker 1: with transformers and large language models and taking it out
Speaker 1: of the research labs of these big tech companies. They're
Speaker 1: really at the front lines of bringing these technology to
Speaker 1: lots of application developers and users. So to give up
Speaker 1: any credit they when they released chat GPT, they were
Speaker 1: very careful to put in place safeguards to prevent certain
Speaker 1: types of toxic or harmful content or dangerous content from
Speaker 1: being I wouldn't be surprised if in the next six
Speaker 1: to twelve months we have models that are actually capable
Speaker 1: of truthfulness. I think every company is going to be
Speaker 1: an AI company, and everything we do at work and
Speaker 1: how we live is going to be transformed by AI.
Speaker 1: Those were just some of Bloomberg Technologies guests sharing their
Speaker 1: recent thoughts on the booming generative AI sector and open
Speaker 1: Aies contribution in particular. So for more on what's going
Speaker 1: on and the impact to tech moving forward, I want
Speaker 1: to bring in Bloomberg Intelligence is Man Deep Seeing and Mandy,
Speaker 1: you have this note out this Friday about actually where
Speaker 1: the real impact you think chat g people t will come.
Speaker 1: So much focus on what it will do in the
Speaker 1: search wars right being revival versus Google. But for you,
Speaker 1: this is a story about cloud. Explain your thesis. Sure,
Speaker 1: So look, I think what you're gonna see is everything
Speaker 1: around us when it comes to apps, website, software will
Speaker 1: become more intelligent. And what you need to drive that
Speaker 1: is cloud infrastructure. So think of you know how our
Speaker 1: data centers are set up right now, it's essentially you know,
Speaker 1: work certain kind of workloads which are mostly CPU driven.
Speaker 1: Now that we have power of these you know, custom
Speaker 1: chips that can run AI workloads, that can run these
Speaker 1: large language models, it allows us to leverage all of
Speaker 1: that in our day to day experience of accessing the Internet,
Speaker 1: and which is why I think cloud growth was extremely
Speaker 1: strong even before they slowdown. And I think this even
Speaker 1: accelerates that on the server side, and I wouldn't be
Speaker 1: surprised if it drives up the refresh cycle on the
Speaker 1: edge or the you know, the consumer devices as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in the conversation we've had certainly in Cilicon Valley, right,
Speaker 1: of course, AWS dominates this market. The AWS hasn't even
Speaker 1: shown his hand yet really when it comes to their
Speaker 1: their AI or at least sort of there out there
Speaker 1: consumer facing AI competence. There's a piece of data analysis
Speaker 1: that you do in your debt that you've published about
Speaker 1: how much search is actually going to be connected to
Speaker 1: large language models. I think you say that somewhere between
Speaker 1: fifteen and search queries or images will be linked to
Speaker 1: l l ns. Why did you point that out? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so think of you know, how many types of searches
Speaker 1: actually require that large language context. I mean some of
Speaker 1: these searches are essentially looking for a website you are
Speaker 1: l or just some basic information we're a large language
Speaker 1: model can add value is if you want to summarize
Speaker 1: a large corpus of text or you know, drive some
Speaker 1: intelligence around the type of query where you just don't
Speaker 1: want to access the u r L but actually make
Speaker 1: it intelligent in terms of saving the time and driving productivity.
Speaker 1: And when you look at all the queries, the type
Speaker 1: of queries people do on Google, we kind of narrowed
Speaker 1: it down to fifteen over the next two to three years.
Speaker 1: Obvious see this sort of big gradual, but you can
Speaker 1: see you know, education and a lot of that A
Speaker 1: use case right now is using a negative context around
Speaker 1: you know, copying essays or that kind of stuff. But
Speaker 1: there is a real use case around education as well
Speaker 1: as you know, queries where you can do a lot
Speaker 1: of things in terms of summarizing things quickly. And I
Speaker 1: think that's where we get through that number, all right,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Intelligent Senior Technology analyst, mandyat Singh thank you. Kevin Dunlap,
Speaker 1: Calibrate Ventures co founder and managing partner, is with me
Speaker 1: now this Friday. Calibrate which announced their second fund of
Speaker 1: ninety seven million dollars back in December one, specifically to
Speaker 1: invest in early stage AI and automation startups across healthcare, logistics, education,
Speaker 1: financial services. Kevin, let's get the big picture from you. First,
Speaker 1: you heard Mandy eat there, you've heard all the data points,
Speaker 1: just some up what you're seeing right now as the
Speaker 1: moment in AI, what is it that is before us?
Speaker 1: When we started calibrate first and two thousand seventeen, we
Speaker 1: believe that there was a large economic unlock that was
Speaker 1: going to occur, similar to what happened in sas in
Speaker 1: the early two thousand's. And now we're seeing that the
Speaker 1: ability for companies to build quickly on top of these
Speaker 1: large language models, as well as thinking about the middle
Speaker 1: where middle layer to actually take and implement these actions
Speaker 1: into realities in the real world is what's exciting to
Speaker 1: us to calibrate. The chronology or the timeline here for
Speaker 1: me is so interesting. You started or launch your fund
Speaker 1: in December one. I don't know how much of the
Speaker 1: capitol you've you've committed yet, but really this took off
Speaker 1: in November, right And I just wonder how you feel
Speaker 1: about how much open ai has dominated the headlines, because
Speaker 1: you know the names you're looking at have nothing to
Speaker 1: do with open AI. At this moment in time, everyone's
Speaker 1: all of our companies are looking at how to use
Speaker 1: generative I. UM some have looked at using open AI,
Speaker 1: others are looking at using other types of models, are
Speaker 1: actually implementing other own models into that. But the timing
Speaker 1: and the pro press it's receives about open AI, I
Speaker 1: think is actually great. Um. It actually highlights the opportunity
Speaker 1: that's out there and even some of the things that
Speaker 1: you're seeing, even some of the potentially negative things you're
Speaker 1: seeing around open ay and the chat I think also
Speaker 1: highlight where we are in a cycle. Right. We're at
Speaker 1: the very early cycle of this, and there needs to
Speaker 1: be a lot of moderation, content filtering, UM and honing
Speaker 1: of these models to actually understand and take them into
Speaker 1: full enterprise A complications were we were discussing the potential
Speaker 1: for cloud and enterprise at a generative AI. But the
Speaker 1: consumer facing excitement is about search and we will ask
Speaker 1: our own audience all the developments in AI enough to
Speaker 1: view the consumer to jump from Google to another search engine.
Speaker 1: These are the results, will bring them up for you. UM.
Speaker 1: I don't know how surprising it is, Kevin see respondent
Speaker 1: saying it's too early to tell, of respondents saying, yes,
Speaker 1: being is now more exciting. Is that really true? Is
Speaker 1: this a game changer? In the search engine competition. I
Speaker 1: think it's a game changer in bing stability to catching
Speaker 1: partner share. And if I was joking about this the
Speaker 1: other day, you know, if you'd asked me a year ago,
Speaker 1: what are the chances that I would download thing? They
Speaker 1: were probably zero. But I actually downloaded it and I
Speaker 1: let it keep its notifications on it simply so I
Speaker 1: know when i'd be able to get full access to it.
Speaker 1: So I think it is a ga game changer for
Speaker 1: Microsoft and the ability to actually catch the market share
Speaker 1: around search. So I go back to my last question
Speaker 1: about open ai. Should we be thanking open ai for
Speaker 1: what they've done to give momentum around generative AI. I
Speaker 1: think we should be. I think that what it's doing
Speaker 1: is it's opening up opportunities. It's allowing startups to be
Speaker 1: more cost effective how they deploy solutions to actually get
Speaker 1: products to market sooner and allow scale faster. So I
Speaker 1: think the attention that's been brought on by open i
Speaker 1: AI is actually a positive um. But with everything every
Speaker 1: early product launched, there's always a balance of the perfect
Speaker 1: product versus speed to market and first mover, and I
Speaker 1: think we've seen a little bit of that here, but
Speaker 1: the honing that's going to be having the ability to
Speaker 1: actually customize that they just had an announcement on last night.
Speaker 1: I think those will do wonders for the products and
Speaker 1: offering and the way that people interact with it. You've
Speaker 1: been doing this since two thousand sev and ninety seven
Speaker 1: million dollar fund at the end of one How are
Speaker 1: you valuing your portfolio companies? There's a lot of froth
Speaker 1: in the public markets, and of course looking to public
Speaker 1: peers is one way of benchmarking your private portfolio, right,
Speaker 1: but gains for Big Bear AI more than a hundred
Speaker 1: percent year to date for uh C three AI must
Speaker 1: be a nightmare. Yeah. And the benefit of being an
Speaker 1: early stage venture investors that we have a very long
Speaker 1: term horizon and that although we've seen a rise in
Speaker 1: the seed in Series eight prices for companies um that's
Speaker 1: starting to come off a little bit and we're seeing
Speaker 1: a little bit more of return to normal. I think
Speaker 1: the hardest place to play right now is in the
Speaker 1: later stage financing of these pre I p O companies.
Speaker 1: I think that's where I'd be the most cautiousness an investor,
Speaker 1: because that's where it's a hard time actually understanding what
Speaker 1: the public markets will ultimately evaluate the set in the future.
Speaker 1: At the earlier stage of the curve, are you having
Speaker 1: to write bigger checks? I guess there's a proxy for
Speaker 1: it being more competitive to get into promising companies in
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence. I think the round sizes have increased of somewhat.
Speaker 1: I think it's buying companies more more runway to actually
Speaker 1: execute on their offerings in their platforms. We've been fortunately,
Speaker 1: we've been doing this a long time, and so our
Speaker 1: expertise and the cross product pollinations between our companies has
Speaker 1: been most benefit for us to lead in win deals
Speaker 1: even when they're over subscribed. Kevin, what is your personal
Speaker 1: relationship like with artificial intelligence? Bear with me on that one,
Speaker 1: but you know you're an investor in the space. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to get in on the chat GPT waitlist, right.
Speaker 1: I want to understand better how it works. Do you
Speaker 1: sit at your desk every day and communicate with AI
Speaker 1: and all the different A p I s and tools
Speaker 1: that are available to you? In general, I think we're
Speaker 1: interacting with AI and lots of ways without even knowing it. Right,
Speaker 1: We've got robotics companies that use AI to decide what
Speaker 1: motions have taken the real world we're being delivered ads
Speaker 1: in our web search is probably using all some forms
Speaker 1: of generative AI now without us knowing. I love playing
Speaker 1: with uh GPT chat and asking questions and seeing out
Speaker 1: how it responds. But I also take every response that
Speaker 1: I get with a grain of salt. Right, I know
Speaker 1: this is an early language, large language model. I know
Speaker 1: that the answers were getting need to be verified and
Speaker 1: need to be understood in the appropriate way, And so
Speaker 1: I think people all also need to take that same
Speaker 1: approach and understand that this is the very beginning, and
Speaker 1: you also need to verify the information from getting Kevin
Speaker 1: done that. Calibrate Ventures co founder and managing partner will
Speaker 1: have you on later in the cycle and see how
Speaker 1: it went. Now, coming up, Draft Kings soaring after a
Speaker 1: fourth quarter revenue beating estimates, an analysts responding positively to
Speaker 1: that be we'll have more on the quarternex and here
Speaker 1: from DraftKings CEO Jason Robbins, Mr Bloomberg, we've teed up
Speaker 1: over one one point three trillion dollars worth of different
Speaker 1: investment in areas like semiconductors, green technology, green grid. You know,
Speaker 1: they're very smart workers being laid off from a lot
Speaker 1: of the tech companies. Hopefully they find other homes and
Speaker 1: helped generate that productive capacity that was bmos Carol Schlife.
Speaker 1: They're talking about how investing in companies that are going
Speaker 1: to benefit from the investment in EV charging infrastructure, also
Speaker 1: how there's opportunity in tech layoffs, and how companies might
Speaker 1: benefit from those that are seeking a job, especially those
Speaker 1: much bagloged industries looking for a bit of a boost.
Speaker 1: And speaking of evs, General Motors CEO Mary Barraw says,
Speaker 1: this year is the year the GM moves past it's
Speaker 1: traditional rivals and starts its attempt to close the gap
Speaker 1: on Tesla in the EV race. It's along away to
Speaker 1: push and GM has talked for four years about thirty
Speaker 1: new evs that will use its old tim battery, but
Speaker 1: only has recently stided production. Have a listened. It's critically
Speaker 1: important if we want to achieve goals to get to
Speaker 1: forty fifty and beyond a percentage of all new vehicles
Speaker 1: sold to be electric vehicles, you have to get into
Speaker 1: that thirty range because that's where the bulk of the
Speaker 1: market is. And so that's why I'm so proud of
Speaker 1: the Chevrolet Equinox and the Chevrolet Blazer, both evs that
Speaker 1: are coming out this year. You know that the Equinox
Speaker 1: will be around thirty thousand dollars and the Blazer will
Speaker 1: be in the You know that, and those are very
Speaker 1: affordable vehicles. And draft King shares close higher at the
Speaker 1: end of the trading day in New York, reaching their
Speaker 1: highest level since August. This after the sports Bedding Company
Speaker 1: reported fourth court of revenue that was better than expected
Speaker 1: and raised guidance as well for the four year in three.
Speaker 1: CEO Jason Robbins join my colleagues Shinali Basset and remained
Speaker 1: Bostick earlier today, and here's what he had to say
Speaker 1: about whether the company can be profitable by the fourth
Speaker 1: quarter of this year. Really feel good about the trajectory
Speaker 1: of the business. Center on really great track to to
Speaker 1: have Q four be a big quarter for us, a
Speaker 1: big quarter. And I think a lot of people sort
Speaker 1: of looking at this idea here sort of what drives
Speaker 1: the growth going forward here, Jason, I mean, this is
Speaker 1: a business that I think to a certain degree was
Speaker 1: kind of out in front. You know, it was kind
Speaker 1: of early, I think to the big sort of shift
Speaker 1: to more of these UH gaining platforms here, and a
Speaker 1: lot of people sort of want to know, is this
Speaker 1: growth story one of additional users or is it maybe
Speaker 1: trying to monetize a user base that you already have.
Speaker 1: I think it's all the above. We're really in a
Speaker 1: very the very infancy stage of the industry. There's still
Speaker 1: tons of new users coming in. States are passing legislation,
Speaker 1: and new markets are opening up, and you're finding customers
Speaker 1: that are you know, adopting new sports, new products UH
Speaker 1: and growing their spend with us too. So if you
Speaker 1: look at it, we've had very consistent growth both in
Speaker 1: our monthly users and in our average revenue per user,
Speaker 1: and we expect that to continue. UM. We have Massachusetts
Speaker 1: opening up hopefully in March. That will be another big
Speaker 1: growth spurt for US. So lots of great stuff on
Speaker 1: the horizon. What about M and A of Jason, Do
Speaker 1: you see yourself entertaining another large deal after the environment
Speaker 1: has frankly changed? You know, obviously right now we're very
Speaker 1: focused on our internal operations, on becoming more efficient, on
Speaker 1: finding ways to cut costs, finding ways to grow revenue. UM.
Speaker 1: That's been a huge plus for us that we really
Speaker 1: you know, as the environment is transition, really it's afforded
Speaker 1: us the opportunity to look internally and spend a lot
Speaker 1: of time asking ourselves, how can we be more efficient?
Speaker 1: How can we be more cost effective? Um. So that's
Speaker 1: been the theme for the last year, and I expect
Speaker 1: that to continue through twenty three. Jason talked us a
Speaker 1: little bit about partnerships. One thing that struck me was,
Speaker 1: I think it was a couple of weeks ago, I
Speaker 1: happened to notice in one of your competitors, I think
Speaker 1: it was Fanatics, actually had set up a whole sports
Speaker 1: book operation, uh in one of the main NFL stadiums
Speaker 1: down in Washington. And I'm curious, are these types of
Speaker 1: deals necessary? I guess to continue to sort of capture
Speaker 1: market share, and I guess to keep people tether to
Speaker 1: your specific brand. Well, you know, we have a handful
Speaker 1: of retail sports books across the country. I think they
Speaker 1: serve a great purpose. We're building a really big one
Speaker 1: at Wrigley Field, another one at UM the side of
Speaker 1: the TPC Scottsdale, the WM Phoenix open Um, so you know,
Speaker 1: they do have a place. I think that it really
Speaker 1: depends on the deal. If there's a good deal to
Speaker 1: be done that we feel it is going to be
Speaker 1: a profitable one for the company's cost efficient. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I think that's something we pursue. We're mostly focused online,
Speaker 1: that's obviously the vast majority of our business, but there
Speaker 1: is a place for retail where it makes sense. That
Speaker 1: was DraftKings CEO Jason Robots. So let's take a look
Speaker 1: at the chase again. Actually closing fifteen percent higher, short
Speaker 1: change them a little bit, but still the biggest jump
Speaker 1: since November in the stock closing at this highest level
Speaker 1: since August. There for Draft Kings want to watch for sure,
Speaker 1: it's going viral. Ben Sigmahan is looking to get as
Speaker 1: much as nine billion dollars in a potential sale of
Speaker 1: w w E, the company he returned to this year.
Speaker 1: The asking price thirty seven percent above the company's current
Speaker 1: market value for around six point five billion dollars. Bloomberg's
Speaker 1: Lucas Shore broke that story and joins me. Now, so,
Speaker 1: Lucas is anyone buying any office come in yet? According
Speaker 1: to the people familiar with the conversation, has there have
Speaker 1: been at least a couple of offers for the whole company.
Speaker 1: You know, there was a story about a month ago
Speaker 1: that that Saudi Arabia already had a deal to buy it.
Speaker 1: Uh that was dismissed by Nik Cohn, who's the CEO
Speaker 1: and a former agent at Creative Artist Agency. But we
Speaker 1: know that there's interest from Middle Eastern investors. We know
Speaker 1: that there's interest from Endeavor, which already owns the Ultimate
Speaker 1: Fighting Championship. You know, the big question in this is
Speaker 1: whether there's a lot of interest from what would be
Speaker 1: considered the strategic partners, the big media companies Comcast, which
Speaker 1: already airs some of the w W, Fox, which are
Speaker 1: some of the Www, Netflix, Disney and its peers. So far,
Speaker 1: it seems like the interest is more from the Saudias
Speaker 1: and Endeavor, But there are folks who say that they've
Speaker 1: gotten offers from people beyond kind of the the expected list.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at w W SHA is really jumping actually
Speaker 1: after the headlines and you're reporting dropped. Why such a
Speaker 1: high valuation? What justifies it, I guess to Vince Mmon's mind, Well,
Speaker 1: the company right now, it's it's market cap is about
Speaker 1: six and a half. Now, that's up a lot, in
Speaker 1: part because people expect there to be a deal. But
Speaker 1: anytime you sell you know, you aim for a premium,
Speaker 1: so you add at least a you know, a billion
Speaker 1: or two on top of it, and that puts it
Speaker 1: in the eight to nine billion range. It doesn't seem
Speaker 1: that crazy, you know, in terms of why the company
Speaker 1: is worth that much. It is able to deliver, you know,
Speaker 1: a very consistent audience. It delivers at least most of
Speaker 1: the time alive audience. And there are already companies paying
Speaker 1: hundreds of millions of dollars a year for the rights
Speaker 1: to show this programming. If you already or to own it,
Speaker 1: you know, you could then have a lot more control
Speaker 1: over it. You can advertise the cost over more time.
Speaker 1: And there's been sort of ongoing efforts or desires at
Speaker 1: least to take some of those characters from the regular
Speaker 1: shows and turn them into film, television something like that.
Speaker 1: Any owner can do that as well. Bloomberg's Lucas sure
Speaker 1: keeping eyes on that deal, will continue to track it.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. I want to get back to
Speaker 1: those breaking headlines on Tesla. According to sources, Tesla weighing
Speaker 1: up a bid for the lithium minor Sigma Lithium, a
Speaker 1: Canadian firm. You can see the market reaction Sigma's U
Speaker 1: s A d r s jumping in after hours, even
Speaker 1: on a Friday, I'm sure, amid thin volumes. According to sources,
Speaker 1: Tesla speaking with advisors and has been considering this. Of course,
Speaker 1: no deal is certain, but one deal will continue to track.
Speaker 1: That does it know. For this edition of Bloomberg Technology,
Speaker 1: what a week. Don't forget to recap on our podcast
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts on Spotify, iHeart or Apple podcasts.
Speaker 1: A lot more to discuss around the world of techn ology.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg