Speaker 1: From Marhard where Innovation, Money and power Collie in Silicon Valley, NBN.
Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlove.
Speaker 3: And Karine Heider Bloomberg's world headquarters in New York and
Speaker 3: Imed Ludlow in San Francisco.
Speaker 4: This is Bloomberg Technology.
Speaker 3: Coming up, we'll bring you the latest details on that
Speaker 3: Reddit IPO as the social media company I is raising
Speaker 3: nearly a seven hundred and fifty million dollars for its.
Speaker 5: Public offering, plus bitcoin top seventy two thousand dollars for
Speaker 5: the first time. As the digital currency continues it's rally.
Speaker 5: Aphilias Snider of twenty one Shares joins us to discuss
Speaker 5: and later this.
Speaker 3: Hour will be joined by venture capitalist Vinov Kosla to
Speaker 3: talk one year since the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank
Speaker 3: and of.
Speaker 2: Course his thoughts and open AI and so much more.
Speaker 2: But now let's turn.
Speaker 3: Our attention to the public markets and look a little
Speaker 3: bit of caution still surrounding these tech names we sold
Speaker 3: off on Friday. We continue that into Monday as we
Speaker 3: I big macro points from the PPI from the CPI. Basically,
Speaker 3: where is inflationary pressure taking us We're down only by
Speaker 3: a bat of a tenth of a percent on the
Speaker 3: NASDAG and I'm looking at a ten year yield up
Speaker 3: only some two basis points now, so we're just fading
Speaker 3: some of that initial sell off, but still carry over
Speaker 3: from Friday. Interesting that globally speaking, we're seeing a little
Speaker 3: bit of bottom picking happening in China at last, at
Speaker 3: least it seems after we wrap up the focus on
Speaker 3: the overall party and indeed the future of the economic
Speaker 3: trajectory in China, we're up about two point six percent
Speaker 3: on those Chinese traded names here.
Speaker 2: In the US.
Speaker 3: That's the Golden Dragon Dragon Index I look at. Let's
Speaker 3: have a look at what's happening in the area. That
Speaker 3: just moves apart from the risk concern that we see
Speaker 3: in the equity market and continues to power ever higher.
Speaker 3: Edwill dig into why the UK is looking more favorably
Speaker 3: on some spot bitcoin etns. I'm looking at three point
Speaker 3: nine percent higher on bitcoin seventy two thousand the clips today.
Speaker 2: What have you got on the.
Speaker 5: Micro Well, unsurprisingly in the equity space, you do see
Speaker 5: crypto related stocks moving higher. Coinbase kind of the main
Speaker 5: ones up four point three percent. I think at one
Speaker 5: point in the session, trading at its highest level since
Speaker 5: twenty twenty one, it's year today gain now beyond fifty percent.
Speaker 5: That often happens right when rallies in bitcoin continue. So
Speaker 5: did the crypto related equity side of the story, Meta
Speaker 5: to the downside, biggest drag on the Nasdaq one hundred.
Speaker 5: There's no kind of clear news headline out there, but
Speaker 5: I would note that Trump this morning, former President Trump,
Speaker 5: reiterated his comments that a ban on TikTok is bad
Speaker 5: because it would benefit Meta, and he thinks Meta is bad.
Speaker 5: I'm not drawing a causal link between the move and
Speaker 5: that narrative, but it's the only thing really that's out there.
Speaker 5: The top story is about a name that will soon
Speaker 5: be publicly traded, and that is Reddit. We got the
Speaker 5: amended S one, and this is what it looks like.
Speaker 5: Twenty two million shares at the upper end of the range,
Speaker 5: thirty four dollars as shared in terms of the pricing,
Speaker 5: and if you take it on a diluted basis evaluation,
Speaker 5: about six point four billion dollars.
Speaker 4: It's interesting to go through the S one.
Speaker 5: It's kind of as much about what you learn on
Speaker 5: the company and what you don't some of the stuff
Speaker 5: that's missing. But we've been waiting for this one since
Speaker 5: twenty twenty one when they filed confidentially and they kind
Speaker 5: of missed what was a banner year then for us IPOs.
Speaker 4: Have they got the timing right now?
Speaker 3: Key question is perhaps we come off the baill a
Speaker 3: little bit when we look at the tech names as
Speaker 3: of late Bloomberg's Ryangul joins us some more on all
Speaker 3: of this head and RN, what did you learn from
Speaker 3: the filing? And as Ed insinuates, what do you feel
Speaker 3: was really left out?
Speaker 6: I think there was a little bit left, sort of
Speaker 6: a little bit of a question mark around you know,
Speaker 6: exactly how much how much was going to be offered.
Speaker 6: I think there was some question as to whether or
Speaker 6: not there would be more. And I think you know
Speaker 6: the ED is drawn attention to the valuation discrepancy. I
Speaker 6: think you know there have been some calls that I've
Speaker 6: had this morning. Is it five point four? Is it
Speaker 6: six point four? I think you know that is a
Speaker 6: that is a valid question. Obviously on a fully diluted basis,
Speaker 6: it does extend as much as six point four billion dollars,
Speaker 6: But you remember we wrote that, you know, early testing
Speaker 6: the waters meeting said that they should target sort of
Speaker 6: five billion as a as a as a minimum, and
Speaker 6: I think, you know, that's sort of in the ballper
Speaker 6: part that they've that they've gone to. But what I
Speaker 6: do think is interesting from the filing is that you
Speaker 6: know this eight percent that is going to you know,
Speaker 6: they're saying, we say investors, it's their employees, it's some
Speaker 6: of their existing shareholders. And also you know the fact
Speaker 6: that a lot of those shares aren't going to be
Speaker 6: locked up. So yes, come tomorrow there's a pub you
Speaker 6: could you could be selling these shares if you are,
Speaker 6: if you feel so inclined.
Speaker 5: And not only sort of what we would call insiders staff,
Speaker 5: but if you're a redditor or a moderator on a platform,
Speaker 5: you can get access to the shares too. And Ryan
Speaker 5: and you and I were talking the other day right
Speaker 5: when they sent out that memo's redditors. Their pitch was
Speaker 5: basically like, hey, you can get in on the IPO
Speaker 5: at the same level as the Wall Street institutional investor. Look,
Speaker 5: how fantastic this access is. How big a factor though,
Speaker 5: if it's just eight percent of shares and there's no
Speaker 5: lockdown or lock on them. How do you think that's
Speaker 5: going to impact trading in the day.
Speaker 6: And I think I'd put this in the sort of
Speaker 6: you know, the ballpark of curious, just not least because
Speaker 6: you know, there is this campaign on what Reddit itself
Speaker 6: around you amongst the Wall Street bets crowd around shortening
Speaker 6: the stock on the open tomorrow. I think there's obviously
Speaker 6: a lot of provider around that. But I mean, you know,
Speaker 6: this is an ipa about you know, trying to strike
Speaker 6: you know, equality for for Reddit and it's its employees,
Speaker 6: its customers. I think Reddit wouldn't have got to this
Speaker 6: place had it not been for those those you know,
Speaker 6: very loyal users who have stuck behind it for in
Speaker 6: this past three years, because a lot of them have
Speaker 6: been waiting for this moment. Some of them may not
Speaker 6: agree that, you know, the part of the public is
Speaker 6: the right one, but you know, this is a this
Speaker 6: is a transition for the company. This is something that
Speaker 6: are looking to move past and sort of get behind
Speaker 6: because there's a whole lot of stuff to be done
Speaker 6: as a public company after trading, which is expected to
Speaker 6: be next week.
Speaker 3: Well said, and we have had glimmers of like within
Speaker 3: the IPO space.
Speaker 2: More broadly, Amma Sports came out.
Speaker 3: We also know that there's a a key AI name
Speaker 3: that's backed by Intel that's looking at the market's Astera Labs.
Speaker 2: More broadly.
Speaker 3: If this does go well, do we think more technology
Speaker 3: names will follow behind Caroline?
Speaker 4: For sure?
Speaker 6: Not least because I think this mint, this window that
Speaker 6: we're in now, this March window has been one that
Speaker 6: there's been so much written about and so much said
Speaker 6: about it. Reddit is really a bell weather. It's going
Speaker 6: to be a very significant bell weather for names like Rubric,
Speaker 6: for names like tu Ro, waste Star. A lot of
Speaker 6: the sponsor backed tech names you mentioned Asterra Labs that
Speaker 6: is feeding directly into the sort of AI chips Frenzy.
Speaker 6: There's another name, Cerebra Solutions, that you know we have
Speaker 6: also covered.
Speaker 4: You know, that's all said.
Speaker 6: You know, there is a huge backlog of tech names
Speaker 6: that are really look we know with eyes on today,
Speaker 6: tomorrow into next week, not least to see how the
Speaker 6: book builds, because you know, we should get a sense
Speaker 6: into Wednesday, Thirsty if this week as to how the
Speaker 6: book is building. Early next week we should get an
Speaker 6: indication as to you know, how firm the demand is
Speaker 6: across the price range, and I think you know that
Speaker 6: will feed directly into the momentum that follow All.
Speaker 3: Eyes are some of those lead banks Morgus, Stanley, Goldman, JP, Morgan,
Speaker 3: Bank of America ED.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: We'll also point out for the Officionada or the redditor
Speaker 5: out there that on Wall Street Bets forum, thousands up
Speaker 5: voted a post that was calling for Reddit stock to
Speaker 5: be shorted on the day it starts trading, and that
Speaker 5: sums up the relationship between its userbase and management of
Speaker 5: that company. The most wryanguld terrific reporting. Now coming up
Speaker 5: here on the show, we'll sit down with Aphelias Snyder
Speaker 5: of twenty one shares as bitcoin hits a new record
Speaker 5: seventy two thousand US dollars per token. In fact, above
Speaker 5: that carrot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's just focus in on another publicly traded stock,
Speaker 3: obviously global stock, Taiwanese Semiconductor so TSMC. We're off by well,
Speaker 3: it had been off by some three percent throughout US
Speaker 3: trading and indeed in its own trading, but the fact
Speaker 3: that we've now seen eclipse from an overall market capitalization perspective,
Speaker 3: broadcom means it is back in the top ten head
Speaker 3: of the most valuable companies in the world, so they
Speaker 3: managed to push on higher broadcon This is all, of course,
Speaker 3: still a bet on artificial intelligence. This is blomebag technology.
Speaker 3: Bitcoin just still on its tear, surging to a new
Speaker 3: record seventy two thousand dollars per token today and in
Speaker 3: fact digital assets have scored another win. It would feel
Speaker 3: like more globally speaking alone the London Stock Exchange so
Speaker 3: it will soon accept applications for ETNS exchange traded notes backed.
Speaker 2: By bitcoin or Ether.
Speaker 3: Let's join now, twenty one Shares co founder president Aphelia Snyder.
Speaker 3: Twenty one Shares is the world's largest issue of crypto
Speaker 3: exchange traded products. Already got your presence here in the
Speaker 3: US and in Europe. So I can imagine with the
Speaker 3: LS starting to eyes these things while you're looking at
Speaker 3: how you.
Speaker 2: Start to cross those t's dot those eyes.
Speaker 7: Yes, absolutely so, I think this has been quite a
Speaker 7: while coming, and we're quite excited that the UK is
Speaker 7: now looking to allow these listings to mester. It should
Speaker 7: be quite a important change for the European market.
Speaker 3: What's interesting though, there's still reticence from the UK market
Speaker 3: on allowing retail ultimately to be having access to such
Speaker 3: overall assets that are traded in this way. What is
Speaker 3: the difference that you're seeing between US, between Europe and
Speaker 3: potentially between the UK as to whether this is really
Speaker 3: institutional money they want to bring in or still allow
Speaker 3: easier access for a retail investor.
Speaker 8: So we've seen a pretty broad mix.
Speaker 7: Europe has for a long time, including Switzerland, allowed both
Speaker 7: retail and institutional investors, and that's been our bread and butter,
Speaker 7: has been really catering to both for the last five
Speaker 7: years as we've brought these products to market. I think
Speaker 7: what we're seeing in the US it's a little bit different.
Speaker 7: It's still quite early for big institutions in the US.
Speaker 7: Mostly they require typically ninety days to assess products and
Speaker 7: due diligence to allow listings on wirehouses, so that has
Speaker 7: barely begun and it's a little bit earlier in its
Speaker 7: adoption cycle. I think you'll see something similar in the
Speaker 7: UK over time, that we'll see a little bit more
Speaker 7: retail participation, but it's early days still for that market.
Speaker 5: I feel I really appreciated Caroline's question because I feel
Speaker 5: like we're still trying to understand both kind of what
Speaker 5: short term and long term drivers are at play with
Speaker 5: bitcoin in particular. Right, I always look at the chart
Speaker 5: over the weekend because Sunday rolls around, it trades twenty
Speaker 5: four to seven, and there always seems to be this
Speaker 5: kind of like start the week with momentum trade on bitcoin?
Speaker 5: What do you think has happened in just the four
Speaker 5: last four or five days alone?
Speaker 7: So I think you're seeing and this is not just
Speaker 7: the last four or five days, but I think the
Speaker 7: last four or five days are a big part of
Speaker 7: this narrative is we're seeing institutional adoption in the US.
Speaker 7: It's quite early still because obviously not all of the wirehouses,
Speaker 7: not all institutions have access to it, but you're actually
Speaker 7: beginning to see those types of investors come online, and
Speaker 7: that's changing bitcoin's market structure and biasing it towards weekday
Speaker 7: trading in a way that hasn't historically always been the
Speaker 7: case when this was a more retail dominated market and
Speaker 7: a market that quite frankly had a lot of focus
Speaker 7: on Asian market hours. You're seeing that come more towards
Speaker 7: the US from a trading volume perspective, and it's largely
Speaker 7: being driven by ETF flows, which are trading on US
Speaker 7: hours and trading.
Speaker 5: Is going to ask you, well, I was going to
Speaker 5: ask you, you know, what are the data sets that
Speaker 5: you look at each day beyond just the spot price
Speaker 5: at any given moment.
Speaker 7: So actually I don't spend much time looking at this
Speaker 7: spot price at any given moment. I am typically more
Speaker 7: interested in in fundamentals and what's happening from an on
Speaker 7: chain metrics perspective, and what's happening within the blockchain community
Speaker 7: and the blockchain ecosystems. The reason for that is that
Speaker 7: it's quite sometimes challenging to see signal to noise purely
Speaker 7: in price action, whereas on chain metrics are a bit
Speaker 7: more sophisticated in that way and tell you more about
Speaker 7: what's actually happening within the blockchain. And so that's actually
Speaker 7: the basis of one of the products that we operate
Speaker 7: in the US is actually turning productizing those types of
Speaker 7: metrics into an ETF. But those are typically the things
Speaker 7: that I look at.
Speaker 3: What's been so interesting, of course, is the Bitcoin exuberance. Yes,
Speaker 3: it's solidified it in terms of the dominant player, but
Speaker 3: still all boats seem to have lifted to a certain degree.
Speaker 3: I mean, we're starting to talk about mean coins and
Speaker 3: some of them affiliated with politics, others I mean dog
Speaker 3: withif hat for whatever reason, just catching the memes slitgeist.
Speaker 3: But you also offer there's other products out there that
Speaker 3: you have and you have exposure to the likes of Tazels.
Speaker 2: I'm looking at what you've got Avalanche, UNISWAP.
Speaker 3: How are you seeing real desire to be going outside
Speaker 3: bitcoin and eth.
Speaker 7: So we've seen obviously a lot of concentrated desire in
Speaker 7: bitcoin at the moment because of the arrival of the USCTFS.
Speaker 7: We'll see if that dynamic also spreads to eth as
Speaker 7: this regulatory process in the US moves forward. I think
Speaker 7: beyond sort of those top two names, we've actually seen
Speaker 7: quite an uptake in demand, including from titutional investors, in
Speaker 7: that longer tail, and we're quite a unique firm in
Speaker 7: that capacity. We're really the only people who offer that
Speaker 7: broad of a suite. It's about forty products outside of
Speaker 7: the US, covering all sorts of different assets, and what
Speaker 7: we've seen is an interest in that longer tail being
Speaker 7: driven by some of our largest clients who are now
Speaker 7: looking at blockchain applications and adoption of blockchain applications in
Speaker 7: a very different light. I think you know a key name,
Speaker 7: there would be something like Solana, where we've seen enormous
Speaker 7: amount of interest over the last several months, and that's
Speaker 7: continued as I think the overhang from some of the
Speaker 7: black Swan events has dissipated and the bankrupcy estates have
Speaker 7: come undone, and you're starting to look at those on
Speaker 7: chain metrics that I just mentioned, and you're seeing that
Speaker 7: actually there's some interesting things happening within those communities and
Speaker 7: within these ecosystems that may or may not be priced
Speaker 7: in at this point.
Speaker 3: The institutional clients, I'm assuming looking for not just a
Speaker 3: store of value but a utility here, I mean the
Speaker 3: main points of the opposite of that it is just
Speaker 3: about sort of greed for greed's sake, and that not
Speaker 3: always being a bad thing, but or of a speculation trade.
Speaker 3: But institutions want to see what, how is this changing dynamics?
Speaker 8: Exactly?
Speaker 7: How's it changing dynamics? What are people using them for?
Speaker 7: Why are they using them?
Speaker 2: What do you know?
Speaker 7: What do these blockchains offer and what do these applications
Speaker 7: offer in terms of actual utility. I think that's actually
Speaker 7: a very big shift versus prior market cycles, and it's
Speaker 7: coming partially from that institutionalization. I think it's going to
Speaker 7: ultimately be very positive for the space.
Speaker 5: Every time I post on social media about a fresh
Speaker 5: bitcoin high, there's this one bench Cassis who replies almost
Speaker 5: every single time, going, I like this stock referencing.
Speaker 4: You know exactly what it's referencing.
Speaker 5: The one thing that the balls and bears agree on
Speaker 5: is that bitcoin and other crypto currencies or tokens are
Speaker 5: likely to go up before having a significant pullback, or
Speaker 5: have a pullback now but later rise. What's your kind
Speaker 5: of big picture outlook. Do you have a kind of
Speaker 5: one year bitcoin call, and what is it based on?
Speaker 7: So I think a lot of that discussion around a
Speaker 7: potential pull back in the market centers around the having
Speaker 7: the point in time at which the rewards to blockchain
Speaker 7: minor through bitcoin minors actually reduces by fifty percent. The
Speaker 7: reason people are assuming this is because there's an assumption
Speaker 7: that that dynamic is priced in in some way, and
Speaker 7: so there'll be some overbought dynamics. I think this is
Speaker 7: a little bit different than what is currently being discussed.
Speaker 8: Quite frankly, I think that's a little bit overblown.
Speaker 7: That the size and impact of the HAVING relative to
Speaker 7: the size of institutional flows is so asymmetric, I'm not
Speaker 7: sure it will create as much of a you know,
Speaker 7: the sell off event as I think has been predicted,
Speaker 7: primarily due to just this is not as impactful of
Speaker 7: an event from a purely numerical order book standpoint as
Speaker 7: it would have been in previous market cycles. I think
Speaker 7: as I look longer term, I see quite a bit
Speaker 7: of upside. There are the HAVING, while it can introduce
Speaker 7: some short term turbulence, does further restrict the supply side
Speaker 7: of this market. That ultimately, as long as demand continues,
Speaker 7: should be a positive indicator for price action.
Speaker 8: That will take a little bit of time.
Speaker 7: I think you'll as long as you continue to see
Speaker 7: increased institutional adoption and demand for these for the USATFS,
Speaker 7: for the Europe and ETFs more broadly from the international
Speaker 7: investor community, I think that's where you're going to see
Speaker 7: price continue continue to come up. And it's something that
Speaker 7: I'm quite bullish looking towards this year.
Speaker 3: For Philias Schneider, we thank you for twenty one shares.
Speaker 4: Okay, let's talk robotics.
Speaker 5: Kavarians, a seven year old AI robotics company that works
Speaker 5: with retailers and logistics providers across apparel, health and beauty
Speaker 5: pharmaceuticals as well, has announced a new robotics foundation model
Speaker 5: r FM, one that will give robots a human like
Speaker 5: ability to reason with that a deeper understanding of language
Speaker 5: and the physical world. Delighted to bring in Covariant co
Speaker 5: founder and CEO Peter Chen, We talk increasingly about humanoid
Speaker 5: robots robotics broadly.
Speaker 4: On this program. You are working on the.
Speaker 5: Software side, not the hardware side. Correct, just explain the
Speaker 5: approach of covarian.
Speaker 9: So what coverience building is really the debut of robotics.
Speaker 4: So think about it.
Speaker 9: As the general purpose brain that can sit behind any
Speaker 9: robotics hardware that gives it the ability to see the world,
Speaker 9: think about what's happening around it, and make decisions intelligently.
Speaker 9: And this is a big contrast with traditional robotics, which
Speaker 9: is really programming robots to do the same thing again
Speaker 9: and again, which just doesn't cut it in today's warehouse
Speaker 9: environment manufacturing environments where you have constant changes that are
Speaker 9: coming in. And the unique Covariant approach is we don't
Speaker 9: just build a single specific AI that can solve one task.
Speaker 9: We're really approaching it in a similar manner that for example,
Speaker 9: like large language model is approaching chatbub other language right occasions,
Speaker 9: it's a single model powering multiple use cases.
Speaker 5: But here's the thing that you don't control the hardware side.
Speaker 5: Right you take Tesla as a comparison. I don't know
Speaker 5: your thoughts on the Optimist program, but they are developing
Speaker 5: both the hardware and the software.
Speaker 4: They obviously have Dojo that they're working on in house.
Speaker 5: What are the risks and benefits of just focusing on
Speaker 5: software if you're not too also doing purpose built hardware
Speaker 5: to match it.
Speaker 9: Yeah, So, first of all, on Optimus, we think it's
Speaker 9: an amazing robotics program, Like it's a really great humanoid
Speaker 9: hardware that is being build with being iterated very quickly.
Speaker 9: From a converient perspective, we believe there's not a single
Speaker 9: hardware form factor that would rule robotics to come because
Speaker 9: the physical world is very diverse, Like there's not going
Speaker 9: to be a single software, a single hardware the rules
Speaker 9: it all. And we believe there are going to be
Speaker 9: multiple kinds of robot hardware, some in the humanoid form factors,
Speaker 9: some in the industrial form factors, some with maybe mobile
Speaker 9: robot with a manipulator on top of it, and all
Speaker 9: of these different hardware form factors still need to make
Speaker 9: sense of the same physical world and covariance building exactly
Speaker 9: that the same brain that can power multiple kinds of
Speaker 9: hardware to make sense of the physical world.
Speaker 3: So Peter, talk to us about the inputs here, how
Speaker 3: hard What are the intricacies you need to go about building?
Speaker 3: What is the largest data set ever to train this
Speaker 3: new robotics foundation model.
Speaker 9: That's an amazing question. So we have seen the explosive
Speaker 9: success of Large Language Model, and what is really behind
Speaker 9: its amazing generalization power is the fact that it's trained
Speaker 9: on the whole Internet of text. And if you want
Speaker 9: to build a robot AI that is as smart as,
Speaker 9: for example, Large Language model, but in the physical world,
Speaker 9: you also need to build the same kind of data set,
Speaker 9: but there's no Internet to scrape in this case. So
Speaker 9: you need to deploy a large fleet of robots into
Speaker 9: the world doing diverse and dynamic things and collecting the
Speaker 9: video data, images, data, robot actions and the outcome of
Speaker 9: those robot actions in order to really train a model
Speaker 9: that understand the world. In all kinds of settings and
Speaker 9: be robust even in the weare long tail scenarios and
Speaker 9: truly deliver a human level performance to our customers.
Speaker 3: And the reason you've been able to get such a
Speaker 3: wide varied underlying data settus because the amount of countries
Speaker 3: you're in, the amount of companies.
Speaker 2: You're already working with.
Speaker 3: Can you just give us an idea of whether this
Speaker 3: model is already being applied, How are we started to
Speaker 3: see it in our everyday lives.
Speaker 9: Yeah, so we have already deployed the coherent AI to
Speaker 9: more than dozens of customers in more than ten countries,
Speaker 9: and they are powering the warehouse operations, the e commers
Speaker 9: for femal operations in a lot of places. So very
Speaker 9: likely if you have ordered an item, for example, during
Speaker 9: Black Friday, there's a really good chance that that item
Speaker 9: has been touched by one of the coverance robots that's
Speaker 9: operating around.
Speaker 5: The world piece very quickly have ten seconds. Your favorite
Speaker 5: use case for the robotics you're working on.
Speaker 9: My favorite use case for the new Robotics Foundation model
Speaker 9: IFM one is really the ability to talk to it
Speaker 9: instead of robots that are just rigidly doing the same
Speaker 9: thing again and again. We now have the ability to
Speaker 9: communicate with robots in natural language, very similar to how
Speaker 9: you will talk to chachipt or Gemini in natural language
Speaker 9: and ask the questions. Really democratizing access to AI for
Speaker 9: a lot of people. We're really doing the same with
Speaker 9: robotics with IFM one Bavariant co founder and CEO Peter Chen.
Speaker 9: Great to have you here on set.
Speaker 5: Welcome back to Bloomberg Technology, Ed Lovelow here in San Francisco, Taran.
Speaker 3: Hyde right here in New York, getting you a check
Speaker 3: on your markets because well we are eyeing PLINNY and
Speaker 3: macro data to start this week, We're going to be
Speaker 3: looking at what PPI CPI basically the inflation imprints bring
Speaker 3: us and the direction of travel. Is it a shock
Speaker 3: once again to the overall system when we think about
Speaker 3: inflatory pressure still having to be dialed up against. I'm
Speaker 3: looking at the NASDAK just off about six tenths of
Speaker 3: a percent. We're only off about a ten percent to
Speaker 3: start the show, so accelerating some of the losses.
Speaker 2: Want to looking at the big boyard than as that
Speaker 2: one hundred.
Speaker 3: I'm looking what's happening in the two year yield space
Speaker 3: as well, actually yields pushing up higher as we anticipate
Speaker 3: perhaps a little bit more stress coming from inflationary pressures
Speaker 3: later in the week, so yields up some five basis points.
Speaker 3: Let's call it bitcoin though, just managing to separate itself
Speaker 3: as an asset class today we're not looking at t
Speaker 3: tech more broadly.
Speaker 2: As a spillover effect.
Speaker 3: In fact, it's going its own path and we're up
Speaker 3: another four point three percent seventy two thousand, a level
Speaker 3: never seen before with bitcoin. Move on to see what
Speaker 3: are the individual stocks that are on the move today,
Speaker 3: and I want to be focusing in what has been
Speaker 3: happening When the diner and is leading the charge when
Speaker 3: it comes to the NASA one hundred, why well, maybe
Speaker 3: it's going to be able to find its application of
Speaker 3: its technology. It's biotechnology throughout into the skin cancer space,
Speaker 3: and that's something that they're going to be teaming up
Speaker 3: with work on. We're up eight point eight pro up
Speaker 3: more than ten percent at one point. I'm also looking
Speaker 3: what's happening with PDDs and the Chinese names managing to
Speaker 3: get the lifting. In fact, some notes coming from analysts saying, look,
Speaker 3: the geopolitical risk is overdone for this particular name. They
Speaker 3: still like TIMU entering the overall US market, and I think
Speaker 3: it's going to do well.
Speaker 2: We're up some three percent.
Speaker 3: Lastly, though, meta on the downside, ed, you pointed to
Speaker 3: this out to start the show off by more than
Speaker 3: four percent. No real fundamental catalyst other than well, of course,
Speaker 3: former President Trump on CNBC earlier today, really talking once
Speaker 3: again reiterating what he says on truth Social that he
Speaker 3: feels any ban of TikTok would actually be a negative
Speaker 3: because it would empower embolden the likes of Facebook.
Speaker 2: Whichess Cone's owned Facebook Instagram.
Speaker 3: So the meta parent of course on the downside, and
Speaker 3: the back of that potentially today, ed.
Speaker 2: What have you got?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 5: A year ago today, fear was spreading in the technology
Speaker 5: and startup community following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank,
Speaker 5: and it was swift.
Speaker 4: In a matter of a few days.
Speaker 5: SVB went from plans for an emergency sale of its
Speaker 5: stock to v season startups pulling their money out, to
Speaker 5: US regulators taking control.
Speaker 4: For a while, it even looked like the.
Speaker 5: Contagion could spread throughout the US banking system. Now, just
Speaker 5: a year on where do we stand. I want to
Speaker 5: bring in Coastal Adventures founder Vinode Coaster.
Speaker 4: Good morning to you.
Speaker 5: I wanted you to come on the program in part
Speaker 5: because you were one of the first vcs to look
Speaker 5: at what was happening and offer to make personal loans
Speaker 5: to the founders of the startups in your portfolio.
Speaker 4: But you're also a.
Speaker 5: Silicon Valley veteran and had a close association with Silicon
Speaker 5: Valley Bank by virtue of doing business today. What was
Speaker 5: the net result of all.
Speaker 1: Of that, Well, the next result has been minimal. To
Speaker 1: be honest, people have moved on, They have other banking sources.
Speaker 1: Some of the people involved in Silicon Valley Bank are
Speaker 1: still alone working father firms. So are they entities and
Speaker 1: lifeguards on the valley? Has adjusted?
Speaker 5: You noted there there were other sources of banking, you know,
Speaker 5: it brought names like Mercury, some what I would call
Speaker 5: native lending or transaction services to the fore. But if
Speaker 5: there was a lesson learned, it was the high concentration
Speaker 5: at SVV. Right if you were, as I say, an
Speaker 5: early stage startup, you had your banking there. You probably
Speaker 5: had some debt there as well, or lending and it
Speaker 5: was often the first place you could get a check.
Speaker 5: Is that concentration risk still there?
Speaker 1: You know, the risk with Silicon Valley Bank had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with Silicon Valley in startups. It had to
Speaker 1: be do with interest rates speculation, which the bank did.
Speaker 1: So I want to separate irresponsible actions on their part
Speaker 1: on the interest rate side from what the business was.
Speaker 1: I think the business was a solid business in most
Speaker 1: of it has continued in the same way. I don't
Speaker 1: think it has changed dramatically. The alternative banks, Mercury and
Speaker 1: others came up, but there's other banks that still the
Speaker 1: principal banks for startups in the valley.
Speaker 2: I don't know if there's.
Speaker 1: As much concentration, but you know, we don't worry about
Speaker 1: that too much.
Speaker 9: Know.
Speaker 3: What's been interesting is perhaps there was a moment of
Speaker 3: realization in a time of a crisis.
Speaker 2: Who could you depend on?
Speaker 3: There is so much fierce competition to get in money
Speaker 3: to the right startup.
Speaker 2: Yes, that competition.
Speaker 3: Perhaps stayed a little bit as the economy turned direction,
Speaker 3: But more broadly, has it brought.
Speaker 2: You more business?
Speaker 3: Do you think by the fact that you were able
Speaker 3: to stick your neck out early and say I'm here
Speaker 3: and I've got your back.
Speaker 1: Well, that was what was most disappointing about the venture
Speaker 1: community for me. I called a number of other leading
Speaker 1: venture capital firms and said, we should all support our companies.
Speaker 1: It's a temporary crisis, a couple of weeks maybe, but
Speaker 1: I didn't get a lot of support. So we had
Speaker 1: to unilaterally go out and say for our portfolio companies
Speaker 1: where we were major investors or lead investors.
Speaker 4: We would support all of them.
Speaker 1: I think every firm should have done that, because venture
Speaker 1: likes to talk about how they helped their portfolio companies.
Speaker 1: But when the going got tough, most people didn't stand
Speaker 1: up to that scrutiny.
Speaker 3: But now does it stops you going in to rounds
Speaker 3: with other players?
Speaker 4: No, it hasn't.
Speaker 1: You know, we continue to work with the same players,
Speaker 1: but to be honest, we don't rely as much on
Speaker 1: other players to add value to investors when the going
Speaker 1: gets rough.
Speaker 5: It's cool because this has been by technology, right. We're
Speaker 5: also looking at this from the point of view if
Speaker 5: the startups themselves. It was a discussion about access to
Speaker 5: working capital. The great environment was part of the risk
Speaker 5: on the bank side. But today, do you think that
Speaker 5: there is a stronger access to working capital for startups
Speaker 5: of all sizes.
Speaker 1: You know, access capital depends on the area you're in.
Speaker 1: If you're in AI, you have lots of access to capital.
Speaker 1: If you're not, it is somewhat harder because many of
Speaker 1: the funds aren't doing as well because they're to mark
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty one and twenty twenty high prices down.
Speaker 1: But it hasn't changed the reality the robust the senior
Speaker 1: is still very robust. Bought in AI obviously, but also
Speaker 1: in other areas. I find the venture community is investing,
Speaker 1: but the startups are even more exciting and more impactful.
Speaker 5: I think we should have a conversation about our official
Speaker 5: intelligence COASLA Ventures founder Vinode Cosler. You're going to stick
Speaker 5: with us and we'll continue the conversation. We're going to
Speaker 5: take a short break. We'll be right back. This is
Speaker 5: Bloomberg Technology. Welcome back to Bloomberg Technology. Still with us
Speaker 5: is Vinokosler, Silicon Valley veteran and one of the first
Speaker 5: investors to write a check into Open AI. The AI
Speaker 5: starts up continues to be in the headlines, but most
Speaker 5: recently that's due to a lawsuit FI by Elon Musk,
Speaker 5: who has accused open ai of breach of contract and
Speaker 5: failing in its fiduciary duty to its founding members because
Speaker 5: it no longer operates as a not for profit or
Speaker 5: pursues its original goal of building quote beneficial, artificial and
Speaker 5: general intelligence for the benefit of humanity.
Speaker 4: Vinode, you took to x in.
Speaker 5: A threaded series of posts to basically say you.
Speaker 4: Think Elon Musk is wrong. What is your thesis on
Speaker 4: why Elon Musk is wrong.
Speaker 1: Well, it's very clear Elon Musk wanted OpenAI to go
Speaker 1: aggressively but grinneg Gunner's commitment to put up to a
Speaker 1: billion dollars.
Speaker 5: You're referencing there what the general public learned through as
Speaker 5: being emails that were redacted that open ai chose to
Speaker 5: post to its website, and in one of them, even
Speaker 5: though the names are redacted, Elon Musk forwards a memo
Speaker 5: which suggests that the scale of funding needs to be
Speaker 5: in the billions. But also that, and I'm quoting as
Speaker 5: correctly as I can open ai attach itself to Tesla.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm referring to the fact that before that happened,
Speaker 1: he wanted open ai to move aggressively and raise up
Speaker 1: to a billion dollars and he would commit to making
Speaker 1: up anything they couldn't raise from other sources, since at
Speaker 1: that point it was a nonprofit. That's when we realized
Speaker 1: from the emails that he pivoted to wanting it to
Speaker 1: be a subsidiary of Tesla. Tesla was driving, was developing
Speaker 1: self driving technology for their cars. It was part of
Speaker 1: the AI push, and he chose to try and take control,
Speaker 1: which didn't quite work for him, and that was the
Speaker 1: source of the conflict.
Speaker 3: What's so interesting is, of course, in many ways go
Speaker 3: to the heart of the case, whether or not there's
Speaker 3: the legal grounding in it, there is this interesting pivot
Speaker 3: that ultimately open AI had to make. You are so
Speaker 3: articulately put in one of our articles on bubag saying
Speaker 3: like this was about survival. No longer feasible to have
Speaker 3: an open source model. You spend ten million dollars of
Speaker 3: R and D on and then hand it to everybody else.
Speaker 3: The economics don't make sense. Are you in any way
Speaker 3: having pause though about the closeness of open AI now
Speaker 3: with Microsoft?
Speaker 2: Does any of that consider.
Speaker 3: Any time in your head about a worry for you?
Speaker 1: I am not worried at all about the Microsoft relationship.
Speaker 1: It's a minority relationship. They don't own a majority, and
Speaker 1: its structured such that both firms benefit. The larger sources
Speaker 1: of AI in the world are Google of course has
Speaker 1: great AI technology, of course, and we have it in
Speaker 1: Baydoo in China. Also, my original reason to asked was
Speaker 1: there needed to be a source outside of China to
Speaker 1: help compete with China in this important technology. But I'm
Speaker 1: not worried about Microsoft's control, and i think the rumors
Speaker 1: and speculation about it is just plain false.
Speaker 3: What's so interesting is we talk of you as a
Speaker 3: veteran adventure you are one of the most highly respected
Speaker 3: people in this space.
Speaker 2: The fact that you open sources.
Speaker 3: Sort of an area that you help spawn within some microsystems.
Speaker 2: I'm interested.
Speaker 3: You know, did you ever anticipate that you'd be drawn
Speaker 3: into basically meme arguments with the most wealthy at one
Speaker 3: point man in the world.
Speaker 2: How do you feel about having to take to X
Speaker 2: in this way.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, it's not about the argument with Elan.
Speaker 4: The argument is really.
Speaker 1: About our competition, our techno economic war with China, which
Speaker 1: I've talked about before. And if you have powerful technology,
Speaker 1: we shouldn't be open sourcing it and giving it to China.
Speaker 1: In other bad nation states Russia, North Korea among them,
Speaker 1: and they're benefiting a lot from the state of art
Speaker 1: open source. I'm still a big fan of open source
Speaker 1: in almost all other areas, including other areas of AI
Speaker 1: which are not state of art technology.
Speaker 5: You may have seen on X this morning or even
Speaker 5: I Elon Musk posted to his account that this week
Speaker 5: GROC would be open sourced. Do you have an interpretation
Speaker 5: of what must meant by that, and based on what
Speaker 5: you just said, you'd be supportive of that.
Speaker 1: Well, I saw the tweet. I'm flying with it. I
Speaker 1: don't think GROC is state of art, but I haven't
Speaker 1: personally evaluated it, and it will get better. It's started
Speaker 1: only recently. But if it's state of art technology, I
Speaker 1: think we should control the export of that technology as
Speaker 1: closely as we control nuclear technology or other national security technologies.
Speaker 4: To be clear, it's not.
Speaker 1: Just about national security with China, it's beyond that. It's
Speaker 1: political power coming from economic power globally because of how
Speaker 1: powerful this technology is.
Speaker 5: I actually wanted to go back, and I probably should
Speaker 5: have asked this at the beginning, but we always say, well,
Speaker 5: you were one of the first people's write check into
Speaker 5: open ai and you have a really long standing relationship
Speaker 5: with what is an evolving business. Right it just explains
Speaker 5: to our audience what your relationship with open ai is.
Speaker 5: How involved you are or not day to day.
Speaker 1: Well, we are very early in basses. I'm not day
Speaker 1: to day involved in every decision. I am very I
Speaker 1: was very curious to see this independent committee report, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, Sam insisted on at the time the
Speaker 1: board was being reconstituted. It completely cleared Sam of any wrongdoing.
Speaker 1: Beyond that, it really went on to say Sam did
Speaker 1: a great job in many of the functions a CEO
Speaker 1: is supposed to do, and blame the board for acting hastily.
Speaker 1: I do believe the board was irresponsible in the way
Speaker 1: it acted before last Thanksgiving, and I'm glad the report
Speaker 1: clarified all that and validated all that in an independent
Speaker 1: sort of way.
Speaker 3: You know, let's look at the new board announced on Friday,
Speaker 3: and there's more diversity in terms of more women. One
Speaker 3: of them actually, of course, the CEO of one of
Speaker 3: your portfolio companies, Fijisimo. I'm interested whether you think ultimately
Speaker 3: there is now enough diversity from a racial perspective.
Speaker 2: What we make of this board being announced, Well.
Speaker 1: I think those are all accomplished people.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't call them just women.
Speaker 1: I think they accomplished and very qualified to be on
Speaker 1: the board and add a lot. They've done very different
Speaker 1: kinds of businesses. There is some nonprofit experience, and I
Speaker 1: think think the goal of open ai to benefit humanity
Speaker 1: hasn't changed. In fact, one't the reasons Sam worked with
Speaker 1: us because he realized we had a strong focus on
Speaker 1: large positive impact in all the work we did and
Speaker 1: I focus on and so I don't think the goal
Speaker 1: of open ai has changed from benefiting humanity. It needed
Speaker 1: a for profit arm and that structure is pretty common
Speaker 1: globally where for nonprofits own all or part of a
Speaker 1: for profit ikea being, Bosh being examples, Tarta in India,
Speaker 1: Mozilla in the US, so many many entities. So you know,
Speaker 1: my view is the goals haven't changed. The board has
Speaker 1: experienced in both for profit and not profit not for
Speaker 1: profit and that's a great things to say.
Speaker 3: Mozilla Foundation Pando has been saying maybe Sam has lost
Speaker 3: his way in that respect of a for profit and
Speaker 3: not profit and ultimately the mission is to best way
Speaker 3: to carefully.
Speaker 2: Steward AGI into existence.
Speaker 3: Is a gradual transition to a world with AGI is
Speaker 3: a better one than a sudden one. It's so interesting
Speaker 3: you reference China a lot being the concern that you
Speaker 3: have about open sourcing, open ais overall technology, because I
Speaker 3: was sat with Kaifule a few weeks ago, and he
Speaker 3: now feels as someone who is building over.
Speaker 2: In China more. He's really worried.
Speaker 3: About the speed of AGI, the progress that we're making.
Speaker 3: More general, he doesn't think that the pace of change
Speaker 3: is controllable at the moment.
Speaker 1: What do you make of that, Well, technology develops at
Speaker 1: the pace it develops. We can't predict breakthroughs in technology
Speaker 1: ahead of time. It has happened faster, and we should
Speaker 1: be more cautious. Absolutely, security research should be part of
Speaker 1: what every university in every government funds.
Speaker 4: So I'm a big fan of that.
Speaker 1: But I don't think we need to slow down ADI
Speaker 1: development or AI. I think we are far from it.
Speaker 1: We're making rapid progress and so I think that's a
Speaker 1: good thing. I think it will really really benefit humanity.
Speaker 1: I've talked a lot about it. I'm a big fan
Speaker 1: of not slowing it down.
Speaker 4: Okay, let's try.
Speaker 5: To move this moment forward. Elon Musk is an incredibly
Speaker 5: influential person. He has a history of litigation in many
Speaker 5: of the fields in which he's operated. If you could
Speaker 5: give one message to him. I know it was a
Speaker 5: threaded series of messages and we're showing some of them now,
Speaker 5: But what is it that you want out of this situation?
Speaker 4: Well, I want to.
Speaker 1: Remind him that when Blue Origin Jaffezo sued SpaceX, he tweeted.
Speaker 1: Elan tweeted, you can't sue your way into space. I
Speaker 1: want to remind him he can't sue his way into ADI.
Speaker 1: He can do hire great people, and he is hiring
Speaker 1: great people and building technology, which is the right way
Speaker 1: to compete.
Speaker 5: Well, I'll try and get that message to youl On Musk,
Speaker 5: and our audience should know. We of course have invited
Speaker 5: Elon Musk on the program, but we are grateful that
Speaker 5: Coasler Ventures founder Vino Costler joined us here on set
Speaker 5: in San Francisco and explained what's been busy weekend for
Speaker 5: him on.
Speaker 4: Social media as well.
Speaker 5: Time for Talking Tech and first up, Apple is preparing
Speaker 5: to open its eighth store in Shanghai. This month, adding
Speaker 5: to the Tech Titans largest retail network after the United States,
Speaker 5: as iPhone sales in China are slowing.
Speaker 4: The new store will.
Speaker 5: Be located in the center of the city, which already
Speaker 5: hosts the largest number of Apple stores in China's main land,
Speaker 5: and TikTok's Chinese owners would be forced to sell the
Speaker 5: social media platform under a bill the House plans to
Speaker 5: vote on this week. If the bill advances through both
Speaker 5: sides of Congress, President Joe Biden said he sign his
Speaker 5: strongest show of support yet for the proposal, according to
Speaker 5: Ballionbos reporting, Plus, the US could further tighten controls on
Speaker 5: China's access to sophisticated semiconductor technologies. Commerce Secretary Guinia Ramanda
Speaker 5: giving us that signal.
Speaker 4: Washington may also.
Speaker 5: Intensify its campaign to prevent Beijing catching up in military capabilities.
Speaker 5: She's sold reporters in Manila, quote, we will do whatever
Speaker 5: it takes to protect our people, including expanding our controls.
Speaker 6: Cara.
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, let's going viral ed Yesterday, the Academy of Motion Pictures,
Speaker 3: Ars and Science has held its ninety sixth annual OSCAR
Speaker 3: ceremony for Oppenheimer. Absolutely cleaned up the biographical film about
Speaker 3: the inventor of the atomic bomb, which often people start
Speaker 3: to associate with, well, ultimately, where we are in AI
Speaker 3: right now and picked up seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture,
Speaker 3: Best Director for Christopher Nonan and instantly those streamers that
Speaker 3: posted a pretty lackluster showing, We've got to talk about
Speaker 3: the fact that Netflix walked away with just one award,
Speaker 3: Apple receiving none. I mean, what happened to It had
Speaker 3: so many potentials to win and didn't manage to walk
Speaker 3: away with anything.
Speaker 5: So many podcasts that I listened to would would say, well,
Speaker 5: Maestro is going to take a lot of these They didn't.
Speaker 4: I just go back to basics, right, it's no price.
Speaker 5: You wake up Monday morning and on Google Trends or
Speaker 5: x or even LinkedIn. Everyone is arguing about that point,
Speaker 5: right Oppenheimer versus Maestro.
Speaker 2: And Barbie doesn't even get to look in though.
Speaker 3: Of course that was the big win from a monetary perspective,
Speaker 3: but it was back to those universal pictures perspectives.
Speaker 2: It was back to.
Speaker 3: Disney managing to conam and turn out the goods. I mean, congratulations,
Speaker 3: where it'st you. It certainly felt like I'm quite alive event.
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure it probably got the most views that
Speaker 3: we've had in several years.
Speaker 5: And if we do a deeper post more than going
Speaker 5: forward this year, I would just say Apple TV?
Speaker 4: Where was you?
Speaker 9: Know?
Speaker 5: Same we always say what about Netflix? Were Apple as well?
Speaker 5: It's kind of the old guard that.
Speaker 3: Did well and Ryan Gosling singing his heart out. That
Speaker 3: does it for this edition of Anemo Technology.
Speaker 5: Please recap the show on the podcast. It was a
Speaker 5: pretty deep, long conversation where we've been Od Koestler. The
Speaker 5: pod is on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, and of course we
Speaker 5: post it to the Bloomberg platforms as well. One day
Speaker 5: into what's going to be a very big week from
Speaker 5: San Francisco and New York City.
Speaker 4: This is Bloomberg Technology.