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Speaker 1: where innovation, money and power collide in Silicon Valley and beyond.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde and.
Speaker 2: Ed Ludlow.
Speaker 3: Live from New York On Caroline Hyde.
Speaker 4: Man Achim Stenebeck in San Francisco.
Speaker 5: This is Bloomberg Technology coming up.
Speaker 6: All eyes on Video is the tech community gears up
Speaker 6: for the company's GtC conference this week. Will discuss what
Speaker 6: investors expect from US. Our conversation with FTC Chairman Andrew
Speaker 6: Ferguson on how it's prioritizing big tech, and two NASA
Speaker 6: astronauts will soon return to Earth a water SpaceX Dragon
Speaker 6: capsule after more than nine months stuck in space. The
Speaker 6: first we return to this particular area of the world.
Speaker 6: Evan checking on the markets. We're off by tenth percent
Speaker 6: on the nast that one hundred. We can flip flopping
Speaker 6: between gains and losses, but ultimately underwater after what have
Speaker 6: been a stellar rally on Friday, but the points drags
Speaker 6: of the downside are significant. You've got Tesla, Apple, Amazon, Brolcon,
Speaker 6: Meta MicroStrategy, Google, but in video a key one as well.
Speaker 6: The biggest points drag on the day off by some
Speaker 6: twenty eight points, dragging then as that one hundred lower
Speaker 6: as we see in video. Just seeing a little bit
Speaker 6: of cautious trading of course ahead of the all important
Speaker 6: GtC event this week. What can Jensen Wang articulate to
Speaker 6: steady nerves? We're currently off by one point eight percent him.
Speaker 4: Well, as you mentioned in video, shares are lower the
Speaker 4: company kicking off its annual GtC conference this week. Investors
Speaker 4: are focused in on CEO Jensen Wong's keynotes set to
Speaker 4: be delivered.
Speaker 5: Tomorrow for what we can't expect.
Speaker 4: Bloomberg's Carmen Ranicky joins us Now, Carmen, good to see you.
Speaker 5: What does Jensen need to do tomorrow?
Speaker 4: What does he need to take hell investors to show
Speaker 4: that earnings haven't peaked and growth hasn't peaked.
Speaker 7: Yeah, those are really the key things. I think what
Speaker 7: investors are looking for is that demand is good, that
Speaker 7: they're seeing people wanting to buy, you know, the next
Speaker 7: iteration of chips they're blackwell, and that ultimately in Nvidia
Speaker 7: sees a ton of growth ahead that they're you know,
Speaker 7: still at the forefront of the AI trade. That they're
Speaker 7: seeing things that are that are good, that there's growth
Speaker 7: in the future.
Speaker 6: My question, though, is what more can he say that
Speaker 6: he didn't get across in his earnings. He tried to
Speaker 6: talk about that future, about the next scaling laws that
Speaker 6: are upon us, but it didn't refuel, regalvanize the trend
Speaker 6: higher for the stock. I think that's a really good point.
Speaker 7: I think something that investors are looking for is maybe
Speaker 7: more information on the macro level. I think that they'll
Speaker 7: potentially be looking for anything that can be said about
Speaker 7: China the impact there, and I think that there are
Speaker 7: also things outside of just chips that investors might be
Speaker 7: looking for, you know, hearing Jensen speak about things like
Speaker 7: robotics and you know, autonomous driving and other parts you know,
Speaker 7: just of the overall market where in Vidia chips could
Speaker 7: be used, I mean healthcare. You know, there are just
Speaker 7: so many instances in which AI could benefit different sectors
Speaker 7: and companies. So I think that that very future sort
Speaker 7: of view is something that people are really looking for,
Speaker 7: and we might also get, you know, a little bit
Speaker 7: more information on gross margins. That was something that was
Speaker 7: you know, very top of mind for investors coming off
Speaker 7: of the earnings, and so any clarity or optimism that
Speaker 7: Jensen could give there may also really lift the stock.
Speaker 6: We thank you comm and Ranicky on all things in Vidia.
Speaker 6: Can he vindicate the valuation? Let's talk about these valuations
Speaker 6: and broader tech markets. Tiffany Waders with US Columbia Thread Needles,
Speaker 6: senior portfolio manager, and we try to take stock on
Speaker 6: the cell off that's already occurred that we've seen tumbling
Speaker 6: ten percent so far this year, for example, like an Invidia,
Speaker 6: but we're training at twenty six times future earnings. Are
Speaker 6: these valuations more attractive yet? Or were still trying to
Speaker 6: catch a falling knife.
Speaker 8: I think we're starting to see the valuations for certain
Speaker 8: stocks are more attractive. If you think about Nvidia, for example,
Speaker 8: it's trading significantly cheaper than where it has been for
Speaker 8: the last couple of years, and it's trading significantly cheaper
Speaker 8: than other parts of the market like staples, while growing
Speaker 8: much faster. So there's certainly some areas of the market,
Speaker 8: you know, certainly with intact that have sold off quite
Speaker 8: a bit over the last couple of weeks. So we
Speaker 8: think the valuations do look attractive.
Speaker 4: Friday's moved notwithstanding, but we're still down significantly from all
Speaker 4: time hives hit earlier this year on the major indices.
Speaker 4: Do you think this is the end of the pullback, Tiffany,
Speaker 4: or is there more room to move lower.
Speaker 9: I think we're.
Speaker 8: Getting close to the end of the pullback, at least
Speaker 8: for the short term. So I think, you know, in
Speaker 8: the near term we might be able to see a
Speaker 8: bit of a bounce in the market. But in order
Speaker 8: for us to see sort of longer term sustainability of
Speaker 8: that bounce, I think we need to see some resolution
Speaker 8: of policy uncertainty.
Speaker 6: Right now, many wondering when we might get that, and
Speaker 6: that doesn't see certainty doesn't seem to be bothering ultimately
Speaker 6: the administration in terms of giving that to the markets
Speaker 6: at least, what does therefore a long time in the
Speaker 6: to decide when it comes to China, for example, at
Speaker 6: the moment, and whether or not you want globally focused
Speaker 6: stocks or whether you want actually US focused stocks right.
Speaker 8: Now, yeah, I think you need to focus on the
Speaker 8: fundamentals of the names, you know, what are the opportunities
Speaker 8: for the stocks, certainly within the US. Outside of the US,
Speaker 8: there's a lot more enthusiasm for stocks that are based
Speaker 8: in Europe, right now. But I think we need to
Speaker 8: focus on the fundamentals, you know, even with the policy uncertainty,
Speaker 8: and look through some of this to what the longer
Speaker 8: term picture is.
Speaker 6: Fundamentals Maney would say haven't changed in the last few
Speaker 6: weeks despite the never ending, ceaseless sell off. So from
Speaker 6: your perspective, has it been a just weighed out this
Speaker 6: sort of volatility and what fundamentals do you try and
Speaker 6: focus in on.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think companies are seeing a bit of a
Speaker 8: change in the fundamentals. If we do see tariffs being
Speaker 8: enacted right now, A lot of companies are kind of
Speaker 8: sitting on their hands for the year, waiting to see
Speaker 8: what the policies will be and how those might impact
Speaker 8: their cost for the year. So I think there's a
Speaker 8: lot of waiting and seeing in terms of companies deciding
Speaker 8: how to deploy their budgets for the year. But you're right,
Speaker 8: I think for the most part, the fundamentals haven't changed.
Speaker 8: What could cause a change in the fundamentals is if
Speaker 8: we see a very long drawn out period of policy
Speaker 8: uncertainty that leads to lower consumer spending, lower corporate spending,
Speaker 8: which then impacts economic growth.
Speaker 4: Okay, so let's talk a little bit about that Tiffany,
Speaker 4: because this administration doesn't seem that bothered about this selloff.
Speaker 4: Scott Bessen said as much yesterday, President Trump saying as
Speaker 4: much the weekend before. Are you confident that this administration
Speaker 4: can implement these pro growth policies that it keeps talking about.
Speaker 4: It's saying to investors, essentially, patients, patients, When we figure
Speaker 4: out tax cuts, when we push those through, when we
Speaker 4: get companies to start making stuff here in the US, again,
Speaker 4: everything will be fine.
Speaker 8: I do think that we see policies out of the
Speaker 8: administration that are potentially pro growth and are balancing some
Speaker 8: of the other policies like higher tariffs that might impact pricing, inflation,
Speaker 8: and consumer spending. But again, I think it comes down
Speaker 8: to the uncertainty around tariffs does some of the other policies,
Speaker 8: And if we can get some certainty, then I think
Speaker 8: we see a resumption of consumer and corporate spending. And
Speaker 8: companies for the most part have plans on how they
Speaker 8: would offset tariffs, which might impact some consumer pricing, but overall,
Speaker 8: I think the consumer is still strong, So I really
Speaker 8: think it comes down to that uncertainty which is causing
Speaker 8: a lot of consumers and corporates to be on hold.
Speaker 10: For the moment.
Speaker 4: Okay, so raises the question of the federal reserve, And
Speaker 4: with the Federal Reserve, we'll do this week. Of course,
Speaker 4: the policy meeting kicking off tomorrow, we'll hear from Jay
Speaker 4: Powell on Wednesday. What's the needle that he actually has
Speaker 4: to thread in providing an outlook and communicating for the
Speaker 4: remainder of the year what FED policy looks like.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think there's a chance that we see some
Speaker 8: changes to FED policy, maybe some lower rates in the
Speaker 8: second half of the year, But for right now, there's
Speaker 8: still a lot of indicators that the economy is still
Speaker 8: strong and that inflation is coming down but is not
Speaker 8: yet totally at tamed. So he certainly has to walk
Speaker 8: a fine line between acknowledging that we're seeing some signs
Speaker 8: of things like higher unemployment rates, maybe some lower consumer
Speaker 8: spending in the near term, but overall, the key indicators
Speaker 8: that they look at are still not indicating that it's
Speaker 8: maybe time for them to move in terms of policy
Speaker 8: quite yet.
Speaker 6: Tiffany, I remember back in November of last year, when
Speaker 6: we knew the administration was going to be new, but
Speaker 6: hadn't come in. You were articulating how you thought, really,
Speaker 6: Tariss aware, it's going to be the pressure point for
Speaker 6: tech but also regulatory stances. How do you feel that
Speaker 6: this current administration feels about big tech and ultimately some
Speaker 6: of the antitrust weight that's on a meta, on an alphabet,
Speaker 6: on a Microsoft.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's unclear.
Speaker 8: We haven't seen a lot of regulatory changes around from
Speaker 8: this administration. I think one thing we have heard from
Speaker 8: them is that in terms of things like M and A,
Speaker 8: they want to make the process a lot smoother for companies.
Speaker 8: So that may not be helpful for the big tech names,
Speaker 8: which might be under scrutiny still for any type of
Speaker 8: M and A, but I think that they are trying
Speaker 8: to be a little bit more favorable or you know,
Speaker 8: more helpful for companies that are looking to do any
Speaker 8: sort of corporate action by at least, you know, speeding
Speaker 8: up the process.
Speaker 4: Tiffany Wade of Columbia Threadneedle joining us on a set
Speaker 4: in New York City.
Speaker 5: Thanks so much well.
Speaker 4: China's internet search leader by Do released a new AI
Speaker 4: model that articulates its reasoning in an apparent bid to
Speaker 4: regain momentum against rivals like deep Seek.
Speaker 5: The company says its new model.
Speaker 4: Called ernie x one excels in areas like daily dialogues,
Speaker 4: complex calculations, and logical deduction.
Speaker 6: The FDC is not taking its foot off the gas
Speaker 6: when it comes to enforcement action.
Speaker 9: Now.
Speaker 6: That's according to its chairman Andrew Ferguson. We sat down
Speaker 6: with him earlier today to discuss the FDC's mission under
Speaker 6: the second Trump administration and how he will approach dealing
Speaker 6: with big tech. Just take a listen.
Speaker 11: I think if you are a big tech company, you
Speaker 11: should be getting your lawyers to give you great advice
Speaker 11: on complying with our competition and consumer protection laws. Look,
Speaker 11: I don't have a particular acts to grind within the industry,
Speaker 11: but I do think it's very important that the FTC
Speaker 11: devote its resources to the markets that Americans most frequently
Speaker 11: engage with. It's not just big tech, although that's definitely
Speaker 11: one of them. It's also healthcare, and it's protecting American
Speaker 11: as laborers. But no matter who you are, I think
Speaker 11: it's important to proceed like the FTC is a vigilant
Speaker 11: cop on the beat. We're surveying the markets, We're looking
Speaker 11: for competition, problems. We're looking for violation of the consumer
Speaker 11: protection laws, and if we.
Speaker 2: Think they're there, we're going to go to court.
Speaker 11: But most importantly, if we don't think that there are problems,
Speaker 11: it's really important for the FTC to get out of
Speaker 11: the way. Again, one of the most consistent complaints that
Speaker 11: I've heard about the previous administration was a lack of
Speaker 11: certainty and a tendency to want to do a lot
Speaker 11: of regulating the FTC.
Speaker 2: We're not regulators. We're cops on the beat.
Speaker 11: We police for competition problems and consumer protection problems, but
Speaker 11: we're not trying to regulate the economy. We want to
Speaker 11: create economic conditions that allow companies to innovate, to grow,
Speaker 11: and to help lift the whole country out of this
Speaker 11: debt crisis and bring about the golden age that President
Speaker 11: Trump has promised the American people.
Speaker 6: Talk about striking that balance because many would say, if
Speaker 6: I look at Europe, they regulate too much. There's too
Speaker 6: much enforcement. But in many ways they're being a strict
Speaker 6: coup on the beat. Some would say, so from your perspective,
Speaker 6: are you seeing overregulation in Europe? And is there a
Speaker 6: worry about stifling innovation in the United States by the
Speaker 6: amount of focus you have on big tech right now.
Speaker 11: Well, I do think that Europe has a real regulatory
Speaker 11: problem that has an innovation problem, and we definitely don't
Speaker 11: want to create conditions here in the United States that
Speaker 11: suppress innovation. But I think it's important to bear in
Speaker 11: mind monopoly suppresses innovation. Monopoly makes it very difficult for
Speaker 11: little companies with the next great idea to sort of rise.
Speaker 11: And I think it's very important if we want to
Speaker 11: sort of preserve the American innovating spirit, that we create
Speaker 11: conditions in our economy that allow little tech who have
Speaker 11: the next great ideas, the next life changing ideas for
Speaker 11: all Americans to thrive. President Trump has been pretty emphatic
Speaker 11: on the importance of making sure that our economics system
Speaker 11: allows little tech to bring its ideas to market. And
Speaker 11: that's what antitrust really does, is it prevents monopoly, and
Speaker 11: monopoly stifles innovation. So if the antitrust cops are vigilant
Speaker 11: and are making sure that they're protecting us from competition problems,
Speaker 11: it allows the innovation that has made America and our
Speaker 11: economy sort of the driving engine of the whole world.
Speaker 6: What deals do you think can get done. Is there
Speaker 6: any prescription you can give as to this MNA will
Speaker 6: look good if you are a big tech hying a
Speaker 6: little tech.
Speaker 11: I think that the deals that can get done are
Speaker 11: the deals that are lawful. And I think the most
Speaker 11: important thing I want to take away from this is.
Speaker 2: I see it as my job.
Speaker 11: To screw deals consistently with the timeline Congress created.
Speaker 2: And our antitrust laws.
Speaker 11: And if we think that they are illegal and we
Speaker 11: think that we can win in court, We're going to
Speaker 11: go to court.
Speaker 2: But if we don't think that they.
Speaker 11: Are illegal or we don't think we can win in court,
Speaker 11: the FTC is going to get out of the way again.
Speaker 11: I've heard this complain a lot from the business community
Speaker 11: that in the previous administration, a deal would enter the
Speaker 11: FTC and it would sort of disappear, and sometimes it
Speaker 11: could disappear for months while you know, novel ideas were floated,
Speaker 11: different theories, and sometimes it sort of seemed like the
Speaker 11: FTC was hoping that deals would die on the vine
Speaker 11: while they waited for regulatory clearance.
Speaker 2: I want nothing to do with that.
Speaker 11: If a deal is illegal and I think we can
Speaker 11: win in court, I'm going to go to court. But
Speaker 11: if it's not, we're going to get out of the
Speaker 11: way and we're going to let deals go forward. M
Speaker 11: and A is part of how the economy grows. It's
Speaker 11: an important part of fostering a system that allows for
Speaker 11: innovation and dynamism. But we have to make sure that
Speaker 11: we don't create monopoly, and I see that as my job.
Speaker 2: If we think there's a.
Speaker 11: Monopoly problem, then the government's going to intervene. But if not,
Speaker 11: we've got to get out of the way as quickly
Speaker 11: as possible and let the economy grow.
Speaker 6: Does the AI space look like it's thriving or do
Speaker 6: you worry about monopolistic behavior there?
Speaker 11: Yeah, I think it is extremely important that we protect
Speaker 11: competition in the AI space, But I think it is
Speaker 11: equally important that the government not race to regulate AI.
Speaker 11: Vice President Vance's speech in Europe on AI, I think
Speaker 11: is about the perfect way to thread this needle. We've
Speaker 11: got to ensure that there's competition. We got to ensure
Speaker 11: there's competition because competition promotes promotes innovation. But we can't
Speaker 11: have the government come in with a heavy regulatory hand
Speaker 11: and stifle innovation. Again, we don't want monopoly stifling innovation.
Speaker 11: We don't want big government stifling innovation. And admittedly that's
Speaker 11: not an easy needle to thread, but that's how I
Speaker 11: think about it, is protect competition, but don't over regulate AI,
Speaker 11: because that's exactly how we're going to kill the innovative
Speaker 11: prospects of AI.
Speaker 6: You started all of this by talking about the very
Speaker 6: close look you're going to take at every enforcement action
Speaker 6: that's out there at the moment, whether you pursue it
Speaker 6: or not, But just that assessment takes a lot of labor.
Speaker 6: You've also said you've got the resources.
Speaker 3: I know everyone's been to asking you about.
Speaker 6: What this lawyer said in court yet last week regarding
Speaker 6: the Amazon Prime deal, and ultimately you've been saying he
Speaker 6: was wrong, and they came out and said that, no,
Speaker 6: we do have enough resources, even though he said there's
Speaker 6: an extremely severe resource shortfall in terms of money and
Speaker 6: personnel at the FTC. Have you got the right amount
Speaker 6: of people and how are you living up to Doge's
Speaker 6: necessities to slim.
Speaker 11: Down Well, I didn't say that the lawyer was wrong.
Speaker 11: The lawyer said the lawyer was wrong. He filed something
Speaker 11: almost immediately after his statements of the court, explaining we
Speaker 11: don't have the resource constraints that he thought. We don't
Speaker 11: have resource constraints. I've said from day one, we've got
Speaker 11: the resources to litigate these cases. That remains true. But
Speaker 11: I also want to be clear. I think that the
Speaker 11: President's efficiency agenda is one of the most important things
Speaker 11: going in government right now. Government should not be any
Speaker 11: larger than necessary to deliver the services and protections that
Speaker 11: the American people deserve. And at the FTC, look, we're
Speaker 11: a lean operation. Our budget is less than half a
Speaker 11: billion dollars. We've only got around thirteen hundred employees, and
Speaker 11: we deliver a lot of value for the American people.
Speaker 11: But we have got the resources we need to deliver
Speaker 11: on our competition mandate, our consumer protection mandate. But we're
Speaker 11: always looking to be as efficient as possible.
Speaker 5: Well, there you have it.
Speaker 4: FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson in his interview with Caroline Hide
Speaker 4: just moments ago, Andrew in a very festive tie for
Speaker 4: the holiday I should know. Let's stay in Washington to
Speaker 4: break it all down with Mike Shephard. Hey, Mike, what
Speaker 4: are investors learning at this point about any daylight between
Speaker 4: Alena Kahn run FTC and an Andrew Ferguson run FTC.
Speaker 5: What are the differences that are emerging?
Speaker 9: Well.
Speaker 12: One of the differences that became clear in this interview
Speaker 12: is the speed with which he is promising to move
Speaker 12: and the decisiveness he said he.
Speaker 5: Will try to bring.
Speaker 12: He faulted the prior administration, the Biden administration, and the
Speaker 12: prior chair of the FTC for perhaps moving too slowly
Speaker 12: and deciding on some of these enforcement actions and whether
Speaker 12: to intervene to block a deal. Sometimes companies would be
Speaker 12: left hanging for months, uncertain about whether their transaction, their
Speaker 12: proposal would actually win the Commission's blessing. When he says, look,
Speaker 12: we'll try to give a thumbs up er thumbs down
Speaker 12: much more quickly and much more decisively, so that there
Speaker 12: is uncertainty removed from the equation.
Speaker 2: And he also made clear.
Speaker 12: That look, we are going to proceed with a number
Speaker 12: of these enforcement cases against big tech. Little tech is
Speaker 12: responsible for a lot of the innovation that we see
Speaker 12: in the economy. And the competition cases that are now
Speaker 12: really hitting their stride against Google, against Meta that are
Speaker 12: in court now, those were brought during Donald Trump's first administration,
Speaker 12: and he warrened is we heard very clearly lawyers for
Speaker 12: some of these big tech companies should be ready to
Speaker 12: make sure that they're complying with competition law.
Speaker 6: Some of the concern regarding just the sheer scale of
Speaker 6: big tech has been around artificial intelligence. It's interesting that
Speaker 6: here in New York looks as though the Governor Kathy
Speaker 6: Hokeel what's to cross the divide at the moment mind,
Speaker 6: wants to work with the administration when it comes to
Speaker 6: the AI Action Plan. Just talk us through what we're
Speaker 6: starting to see on a bipartisan nature.
Speaker 12: Well, it was interesting to see her way in so
Speaker 12: quickly with New York State's vision for how the AI
Speaker 12: plan that is being pulled together by Donald Trump's AI ZR.
Speaker 5: David Sachs at the White House.
Speaker 12: With a June deadline to pull this new vision for
Speaker 12: AI policy together. She is the first governor to put
Speaker 12: in a state's vision for how that plan should come together.
Speaker 12: She called for a couple of things. One encourage adoption
Speaker 12: of AI across the board more widely in industries.
Speaker 9: To do more to.
Speaker 12: Revise intellectual property protection laws so that there is a
Speaker 12: less of this uncertainty surrounding all the data that these
Speaker 12: large language models need to be able to run and
Speaker 12: to be able to work and to train. And then
Speaker 12: three the energy question. This is one we've talked about
Speaker 12: so much. Here they're even talking about nuclear energy. And
Speaker 12: there's a lot at stake for New York because Micron
Speaker 12: is building those big factories that got chipsacked money upstate,
Speaker 12: and they want to make sure that New York is
Speaker 12: getting a piece of the action.
Speaker 6: Here, Max, Mike Sheffind, we thank you so much. The
Speaker 6: latest from Washington now coming up. Klana officially files for
Speaker 6: an IPO and it dethrones a firm to become a
Speaker 6: Walmart partner. More on that next. As a promote technology
Speaker 6: payment's firm, Klana, It's felled publicly for a US IPO,
Speaker 6: showing the company's revenue jump twenty four percent last year.
Speaker 6: The company also today announcing that it will be partnering
Speaker 6: with Walmart to offer buy Now, Pay Later to more
Speaker 6: US shoppers. It's actually replacing a firm as a retail
Speaker 6: Jant's fast credit option for more Boberg's Bailey Lipshaw's choice US. Now,
Speaker 6: I go to Today's news because this is quite an
Speaker 6: upending of the relationship for a firm, right.
Speaker 13: Yeah, it's a big change, and as you can see,
Speaker 13: a firm down more than ten percent, this coming the
Speaker 13: company announcing in a statement that Walmart alone accounts for
Speaker 13: about five percent of its gross merchandise volume in about
Speaker 13: two percent of suggested operating income. So pretty sizeable chunk,
Speaker 13: not quite the size of an Amazon or Shopify, but
Speaker 13: obviously a big move for a firm, And obviously, if
Speaker 13: you're Klarna, announcing this right after you launch your IPA
Speaker 13: or file for your IPO publicly is kind of big.
Speaker 4: News on that ipo. Bailey, what took Klarna so long?
Speaker 4: I mean, this is a company that is almost as
Speaker 4: old as Facebook, trying.
Speaker 13: To get it right, tim When you look back, this
Speaker 13: is a company that at one point was valued magnitudes
Speaker 13: higher back in twenty twenty one, Soft Bank cutting a
Speaker 13: sizeable check and ramping up its valuation more recently private
Speaker 13: valuation around fourteen point six billion dollars. So trying to
Speaker 13: right size the operations, trying to grow back into that valuation.
Speaker 13: Even if you look at a firm, this is a
Speaker 13: stock that's up thirty two percent on a trailing twelve
Speaker 13: month basis, trading around forty five bucks. Just a last
Speaker 13: month it was north of eighty, so a lot of volatility,
Speaker 13: and as much as a Klarna management team will want
Speaker 13: to pitch you on different kind of offerings and diversification,
Speaker 13: at the end of the day, the buyside is going
Speaker 13: direct to directly compare this company to a firm who
Speaker 13: is still well below the peak that it hit back
Speaker 13: in twenty twenty one when it was traded for one
Speaker 13: hundred and sixty nine dollars a share.
Speaker 6: Swedish founders coming to the US very briefly, Baby, anything
Speaker 6: worrying in that IPO listing, not.
Speaker 13: Really nothing jumped out completely. It is interesting they have
Speaker 13: three classes of stock, so we're trying to get a
Speaker 13: better understanding of what that means, what that could look like,
Speaker 13: and kind of how that's going to impact the path forward.
Speaker 13: But the typical kind of red flags and wards of caution,
Speaker 13: we're kind of what you would expect.
Speaker 5: On Bloomberg's Bailey Lipschaltz, Thanks so much, Bailey.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the Technology. I'm Canline Hide in New
Speaker 3: York and.
Speaker 4: I'm Tim Sanoveki and that's San Francisco.
Speaker 6: Checking on these markets. Tim, because we have flipp floping
Speaker 6: between gains and losses the NASAK one hundred currently of
Speaker 6: five dollars tenth of a percent. Now, we got retail
Speaker 6: sales that weren't too ugly, but they weren't great. And
Speaker 6: ultimately we're still trying to work out after Friday's push higher,
Speaker 6: can we sustain any sort of built in risk on
Speaker 6: attitude not in big tech have to say. And video
Speaker 6: is pulling us lower from a points perspective, but so
Speaker 6: too is Tesla. Drill into what's happening on the next board,
Speaker 6: because Tesla is off by forty percent year to date
Speaker 6: thus far, Mizuho slashing its price target for this company,
Speaker 6: once again reaffirming some of the key concerns we got
Speaker 6: across the company. We're worried about China sales, European sales,
Speaker 6: US sales. Were worried about ultimately a long term AI
Speaker 6: vision not hit being timed to the here and now
Speaker 6: of really how many cars are going to be sold
Speaker 6: under Elon Musk. We're looking at BYD and I compare
Speaker 6: and contrast is up two percent. They're saying they're going
Speaker 6: to have EV charging at just five minutes. That'd be
Speaker 6: a big game changer for me and my EV. But
Speaker 6: tim we're seeing once again BID up to date on
Speaker 6: its overall US Depository receipts, wherest has result by well.
Speaker 4: Have you got five minute charging? That's like almost as
Speaker 4: convenient as a gas station. So we'll see if that
Speaker 4: actually comes to fruition. Well to hu NASA astronauts, Butch
Speaker 4: Wilmore and A Sunny Williams will soon return to Earth
Speaker 4: after SpaceX is at Dragon Capsule successfully docked with the
Speaker 4: International Space Station early Sunday morning. The two astronauts spent
Speaker 4: over nine months in space following a series of unexpected
Speaker 4: events and technical issues with their original spacecraft.
Speaker 5: For more, Bloomberg's Bruce Einhorn, it joins US.
Speaker 4: Now, Bruce, this is as much about SpaceX as it
Speaker 4: is about Boeing and it's Starliner capsule.
Speaker 5: What does this mean Boeing moving forward? Sorry to jump
Speaker 5: in there.
Speaker 14: So there are a lot of questions about Boeing's space
Speaker 14: program following what's happened here. So, of course, Butch and
Speaker 14: Sunny they went up on the Starliner capsule. They were
Speaker 14: supposed to be there firmly about a week. They've been
Speaker 14: there for quite a lot longer. The star Liner did
Speaker 14: return to Earth without them, but there were concerns about
Speaker 14: the safety of it, and a lot of questions remain
Speaker 14: about just whether that's a program that has a future.
Speaker 6: Take it back to the success that this shines on
Speaker 6: spacexse Yes, they were slightly delayed, but ultimately they're the
Speaker 6: ones that have to be dependent on. From a US
Speaker 6: government perspective, right now, that's all there is really.
Speaker 14: The US currently has two ways of getting people to
Speaker 14: the space station, SpaceX's Capsule and Starliner, but Starliner is
Speaker 14: not really an option right now, so it's really just SpaceX.
Speaker 14: The only other way to get people to and from
Speaker 14: the space station is a board of Russian Sawyers Rocket.
Speaker 14: But as far as US capabilities, it's just SpaceX. There
Speaker 14: are others that have either already had a cargo flights
Speaker 14: or Planner having cargo flights, but as far as getting
Speaker 14: astronauts to and from its uh, it's SpaceX with essentially
Speaker 14: monopoly now, given that Boeing Starliner is questionable at best.
Speaker 6: Mort Bruce Sinhorn, we thank you much celebration for those
Speaker 6: returning astronauts. I'm sure a little bit later meanwhile, electric
Speaker 6: air taxis could soon been on the horizons of London
Speaker 6: and Manchester Joby Aviation and Virgin Atlantic have announced a
Speaker 6: partnership to launch an air taxi service in the United Kingdom.
Speaker 6: Let's bring in the CEO of Joby, Jobyn Vivet and Jovin.
Speaker 6: How soon am I going to be able to fly
Speaker 6: back to the UK and hop on one of these jobs.
Speaker 2: It's just a few years out, Carolyn.
Speaker 15: We're so excited to be announcing today our partnership with
Speaker 15: with Virgin. Virgin has an incredible dedication to customer service
Speaker 15: that matches with our own. In addition, Delta is one
Speaker 15: of Virgin's largest shareholders and a cudable partner for Jobie,
Speaker 15: and so this is really a match made in heaven
Speaker 15: and we're so thrilled to be announcing it and really
Speaker 15: using it to help catalyze the development of takeoff and
Speaker 15: landing locations both within London and across the UK, which
Speaker 15: is going to bring the service to market, so just
Speaker 15: within the next few years. We're so excited to be
Speaker 15: bringing the opportunity for Virgin customers across the UK to
Speaker 15: fly on our air taxis.
Speaker 6: Would Virgin and in d Delta actually buy some of
Speaker 6: these aircraft? Are they just helping promote them?
Speaker 15: So We're going to have Virgin customers. We're going to
Speaker 15: give them the opportunity to book a Jobe Air taxi
Speaker 15: flight on the Virgin app, on the Virgin website, and
Speaker 15: to be a key demand funnel alongside our partners at
Speaker 15: Delta and Uber in driving to put passengers and fill
Speaker 15: the seats of our.
Speaker 6: Serri It's marketing actually going to be committing to purchase
Speaker 6: one correct.
Speaker 15: It will be job owning and operating the service in
Speaker 15: the UK, much like we do in the UEE, in
Speaker 15: Dubai and in New.
Speaker 5: York and La Jovin.
Speaker 4: What is the main thing holding us back right now
Speaker 4: from flying in these to the airport in the US
Speaker 4: and the UK at this point is it regulators.
Speaker 15: So we're making record progress on certification. This last quarter
Speaker 15: we announced the FA had made record progress on their side.
Speaker 2: Joby is really leaned in.
Speaker 15: And delivering day after day on the component system and
Speaker 15: aircraft level testing. We're testing more components, building more components,
Speaker 15: building FA conforming components, and testing FA conforming components. So
Speaker 15: we're really thrilled with the momentum we're seeing on that side.
Speaker 15: We're seeing incredible lean in from the administration, from the
Speaker 15: DOT from the FA, and we also had uk CAAA
Speaker 15: regulators here in California with US beginning the preparation work
Speaker 15: for the validation of our FA certification. So fabulous progress
Speaker 15: across the board on the certification front.
Speaker 4: How has your relationship with the FA changed with this administration?
Speaker 2: As I said, really seeing a lot of lean in.
Speaker 15: The administration has made air taxi is a very high priority,
Speaker 15: and that also is going to roll into the buildout
Speaker 15: of infrastructure. And we view these vertiports, the takeoff and
Speaker 15: landing locations that you can fly from, as being a
Speaker 15: critical enabled to delivering really spectacular customer experiences. And so
Speaker 15: we're very grateful for the administration and the priority that
Speaker 15: they're putting on building you take off and landing infrastructure.
Speaker 6: And how about at the moment me as a consumer
Speaker 6: might be able to get one in twenty twenty six
Speaker 6: I believe your new timeline is But Defense, how are
Speaker 6: you working with the Defense Department at the moment? Potentially
Speaker 6: I'm seeing EVE tools in that particular area.
Speaker 15: We've had an incredible partnership dating back to twenty sixteen,
Speaker 15: and this is a critical accelerant to all of our work.
Speaker 15: The DD has been a fabulous first mover and that continues.
Speaker 15: We delivered our second aircraft to Edward's Air Force Base
Speaker 15: and so now we're thrilled to have both of those
Speaker 15: aircraft flying, building a really valuable flight test experience, and
Speaker 15: we see that as just the beginning to incredible opportunities
Speaker 15: for vertical tech off landing aircraft. On the defense side,
Speaker 15: the dd gave us provided us with funding which enabled
Speaker 15: the demonstration of our five hundred and sixty one mile
Speaker 15: flight this last year of our hybrid aircraft, and so
Speaker 15: we're just thrilled to be seeing such incredible momentum on
Speaker 15: the dud side for this industry.
Speaker 4: Joeb CEO Joe Ben Bever joining us from Santa Cruz.
Speaker 4: Thanks so much for joining us today. Do appreciate it well.
Speaker 4: Coming up, Zoom's chief product officer, Smita Hashim joins us
Speaker 4: to discuss the company's updated AI agents.
Speaker 5: That's next, This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 6: Let's talk about AI spending because resources are going to
Speaker 6: continue to be increased by hyperscalers. In fact, we're expecting
Speaker 6: them to increase by forty four percent this year, top
Speaker 6: five hundred billion dollars in the early next decade. That's
Speaker 6: according to a new report today from blue Meg Intelligence
Speaker 6: for more, what's actually driving the spending spree that's bring
Speaker 6: in Bluemeg Seth Figeman and look, there was a worry
Speaker 6: about deep Seek. Is some of these much more efficient
Speaker 6: and ultimately cheaper, less powerful models coming to there, and
Speaker 6: we don't seem to need to worry about it. Hyperscalus
Speaker 6: is still going to flood the system for data centers
Speaker 6: for infrastructure.
Speaker 10: Business as usual, if anything, is the opposite issue. Now
Speaker 10: we're seeing deep seek and the attention to it being
Speaker 10: kind of a catalyst here for the tech companies to say, well,
Speaker 10: we want to invest more to develop this technology and
Speaker 10: specifically around inference. So I think a lot of the
Speaker 10: investment today has been around training building the models, but
Speaker 10: now with reasoning systems like deep seeks, there's more investment
Speaker 10: in how they operate after they've been trained. And if
Speaker 10: you're an investor right now, maybe the silver lining is
Speaker 10: more of that spending shifts too after the model has
Speaker 10: been developed and deployed.
Speaker 4: But Seth, won't reasoning become more efficient as well, We'll
Speaker 4: be able to do more with less, you.
Speaker 5: Know, one way, hope.
Speaker 10: Although we're trying to build more sophisticated reasoning models. So
Speaker 10: TVD on that front. But I think the idea is
Speaker 10: as this gets developed at scale, deployed not to some
Speaker 10: of the US book abroad, you're going to see the
Speaker 10: amount of money that goes into inference to support reasoning
Speaker 10: really shoot up in the coming decade and really make
Speaker 10: up a much larger percentage of the whole.
Speaker 6: So let's just go back to the anxiety that that
Speaker 6: reporting of Microsoft pulling back on leases of data centers
Speaker 6: sent shot ways through the market off the week, of course,
Speaker 6: got the efficiencies of deep seek. That's not going on.
Speaker 6: We're still seeing an ever scaling amount of money going
Speaker 6: into infrastructure.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean, at least the cording of the Bloomberg
Speaker 10: Intelligence report, the pace of growth is actually greater than
Speaker 10: they have previously expected before Deep Seek and the shift
Speaker 10: towards reasoning models. So again business as usual to some extent,
Speaker 10: more investment in data center is more in chips, but
Speaker 10: shifting a little bit of the focus to inference.
Speaker 4: All right, Bloomberg Seth Figureman, Seth, good to see you,
Speaker 4: Thanks so much.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 4: Today Zoom announced new features and skills for its AI companion.
Speaker 4: The company is leaning into new products as its video
Speaker 4: business matures. Joining us now is Smid ah Hashim, Zoom's
Speaker 4: chief product officer. Smida good to see you. I do
Speaker 4: wonder and we'll get to the announce in just a minute.
Speaker 4: But how would you characterize how subscribers right now, how
Speaker 4: customers are actually using the AI features of Zoom beyond
Speaker 4: its core video products.
Speaker 16: Yeah, absolutely, so, I said great too, great to be here,
Speaker 16: thank you for having me. So we continue. We are
Speaker 16: seeing accelerated growth in customers using Zoom Ai Companion, which
Speaker 16: is a generative AI assistant. Last quarter, the quarter over
Speaker 16: quarter actives group by sixty eight percent, So that is
Speaker 16: a huge increase in one quarter. So we continue to
Speaker 16: see customers get more comfortable and using generative AI a
Speaker 16: lot more.
Speaker 4: When can you tell investors that you'll be able to
Speaker 4: charge more for these products and grow that top line
Speaker 4: as a result of the innovations that you're making when
Speaker 4: it comes to AI.
Speaker 16: So, Zoom Ai Companion is so we include Zoom may
Speaker 16: I Companion at no additional cost in our product, and
Speaker 16: we continue to expand it. So last year we expanded
Speaker 16: it to work across Zoom workplace. Talked about expanded product portfolio,
Speaker 16: so across meetings, chats, Phone Wideboard, but also Microsoft Outlook, Calendar, Gmail,
Speaker 16: Office Docs. So we expanded its footprint quite a lot,
Speaker 16: and we continue to see the growth which I talked about.
Speaker 16: We also announced a custom AI Companion add on, so
Speaker 16: that is a paid add on, and with the Custom
Speaker 16: AI Companion paid add on, which is coming out next month,
Speaker 16: customers will be able to use Zoo AI Companion in
Speaker 16: ways that's really unique to them, so with custom vocabulary,
Speaker 16: connected across different applications, So that is something which we
Speaker 16: would be charging for, and we also charge for I
Speaker 16: mean our departmental our products like contact Center, we have
Speaker 16: advanced AI in them like AI Expert Assist and those
Speaker 16: are also paid product.
Speaker 2: But really the.
Speaker 16: Crux for us is we want customers and users to
Speaker 16: really benefit from AI capabilities. And then on top of that,
Speaker 16: you know, as they start using them, we want to
Speaker 16: give them more ways to customerze and expand, which is
Speaker 16: where the monetization is.
Speaker 6: And it's interesting how you're talking about working alongside Microsoft Outlook,
Speaker 6: working alongside Google's Gmail. You've worked at both those companies,
Speaker 6: helping of course with Google products with Microsoft teams. Just
Speaker 6: how competitive is it out there, because that's what investors
Speaker 6: a worry about, that you're going to lose out to
Speaker 6: a teams for example.
Speaker 16: Yeah, so I do think customers we see a lot
Speaker 16: of customer interest and love for Zoom. When we talk
Speaker 16: about customers, why do you love Zoom? I mean a
Speaker 16: lot of it is it just works. It's really a
Speaker 16: great experience. We also work hard to give customers choices,
Speaker 16: so we are an open platform, and customers like that.
Speaker 16: They actually like a lot of choice, and we give
Speaker 16: them great value along with these experiences. So for example,
Speaker 16: including Zoom ai companion as part of all of our
Speaker 16: paid licenses. So all of this is what's coming together
Speaker 16: to keep our customer engagement really high and have the
Speaker 16: incredible love that I see for Zoom PROMA customers, which honestly,
Speaker 16: I have not seen anywhere else in my long career.
Speaker 6: You just talked about some of the growth quarter on quarter,
Speaker 6: what was it sixty eight percent increase? But what is
Speaker 6: the amount that people are using it? You might see
Speaker 6: adoption increase, but how addicted to it are they?
Speaker 16: Yeah? So you know, I mean the growth numbers to
Speaker 16: tell the story that if people are using it and
Speaker 16: abandoning it, then obviously we are not going to get
Speaker 16: the growth that we are seeing. So customers continue to
Speaker 16: use it, and they continue to use more and more
Speaker 16: of it, and some of the data what we are
Speaker 16: hearing about is how much customers are using it all
Speaker 16: the time in order to streamline their work. So personally,
Speaker 16: for me, I'm using zoom ai Companion to prepare for meetings.
Speaker 16: During the meeting even to understand different viewpoints. I'm using
Speaker 16: it to summarize Zoom team chats, understand my action items,
Speaker 16: and one cool use case I have is I'm beginning
Speaker 16: to use it end of the day to really reflect
Speaker 16: on my day. So when we are talking to customers,
Speaker 16: we're seeing a breadth of use cases now that zoom
Speaker 16: ai Companion is across zoom workplace and it's across these
Speaker 16: connected applications, and that is where the engagement is coming from.
Speaker 16: But in that spirit, I also want to talk about
Speaker 16: our next set of announcements which we made, which is
Speaker 16: we really talked about how the big changes Zoom ai
Speaker 16: Companion is becoming edgentic and agentic really means that it
Speaker 16: can behave more and more like you and I do.
Speaker 16: So we have added capabilities like reasoning, It can reason
Speaker 16: over a large surface area memory, so it can remember
Speaker 16: what happened. It can orchestrate across all these different products
Speaker 16: and more skills and agents, and then it can also
Speaker 16: take actions. So not only can it reason, it can
Speaker 16: complete actions. So with some of those changes, a Zoom
Speaker 16: work pace AI companion is not only able to help
Speaker 16: you understand what it's going on, but also complete things
Speaker 16: for you like complex calendar scheduling, writing documents in ways
Speaker 16: that really affect those even send messages on your behalf.
Speaker 16: So these agentic skills are those which are going to
Speaker 16: further deep in the engagement and help users save more
Speaker 16: time so they can be more effective, whether it's connecting
Speaker 16: with each other or being more productive.
Speaker 4: Are these agentic schools built organically by Zoom or are
Speaker 4: you relying on a third party perhaps LLM or other
Speaker 4: AI agent to actually power the Zoom skills.
Speaker 16: Yeah, so the agentic skills themselves are the So we
Speaker 16: do a lot of our core AI stock, but in
Speaker 16: terms stack, but in terms of the agentic skills or
Speaker 16: the models, the models that we are using. From day one,
Speaker 16: we have had this federated approach which means we work
Speaker 16: across a variety of models. We work across open AI
Speaker 16: and tropic. We use open source models, we have Zoom's
Speaker 16: own models, and recently we have also started investing where
Speaker 16: we have Zoom small language models. So these are smaller,
Speaker 16: more specialized models, and we have seen these models really
Speaker 16: perform at the top of the public leaderboards and benchmarks.
Speaker 16: So we use a variety of these models using the
Speaker 16: federated approach her party as well as ours in order
Speaker 16: to give users these great experiences.
Speaker 3: Smita Hashim, thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 6: Same chief product officer.
Speaker 4: Amazon's Alexa division is set to introduce a new premium
Speaker 4: tier of gadgets alongside a revamped AI operating system called
Speaker 4: Alexa Plus. This in an effort to revitalize the brand
Speaker 4: for more Bloomberg's Mark German, it joins us Mark. How
Speaker 4: much of a departure is this for Amazon's hardware strategy.
Speaker 4: Apart from the fire phone more than ten years ago,
Speaker 4: Amazon has really created gadgets and hardware that is cheap
Speaker 4: and allows you to buy more stuff from Amazon.
Speaker 9: Yeah, that's right, So todate, the focus has not been
Speaker 9: on making money on the hardware. It's not been on
Speaker 9: people really loving the hardware. It's been a focus on
Speaker 9: get people to use Alexa, getting people to buy things
Speaker 9: through Amazon Prime, getting people to subscribe to Prime in
Speaker 9: their video services and their music services and the like.
Speaker 9: Obviously the Fire TV sticks, the echos, the Echo shows
Speaker 9: and what have you. Now it's about both. They want
Speaker 9: to bring Alexa Plus to more people. They want to
Speaker 9: get people hooked on that Prime subscription one hundred and
Speaker 9: forty dollars a year, but they also want to make
Speaker 9: more money on the hardware, have more premium hardware, and
Speaker 9: really make products that compete with the upper echelon of
Speaker 9: the consumer tech industry. And so panos Pine was brought
Speaker 9: in about a year and a half. He was post
Speaker 9: for Microsoft or he was the chief product officer, and
Speaker 9: at Microsoft he was known for high end materials, using
Speaker 9: new types of materials like what you would see on
Speaker 9: maybe car seats or in a car as laptop padding
Speaker 9: on the palm rests, using lots of aluminum, high end hinges,
Speaker 9: just very high quality materials and product development processes, basically
Speaker 9: the type of stuff you were seeing from Apple for
Speaker 9: decades at this point, and applying that to Microsoft's products.
Speaker 9: He's going to do the same thing at Amazon, and
Speaker 9: he's going to start rolling out those new higher end
Speaker 9: products beginning at the tail end of this year.
Speaker 6: And talking of that premium focus that Apple has, you
Speaker 6: had a great power on out over the weekend talking
Speaker 6: about the slimmer smartphone that's likely to come when we
Speaker 6: get iPhone seventeen and just how this pushes them ever
Speaker 6: more further forward in terms of charging in particular.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is really cool.
Speaker 9: Actually, So this year they're coming out with what I've
Speaker 9: been calling the iPhone seventeen Air or the iPhone Air.
Speaker 9: Why well, let's look at the MacBook strategy. They have
Speaker 9: the higher end, thicker MacBooks with all the specifications. Then
Speaker 9: they have the lower end MacBook Air, and that's a
Speaker 9: focus on thin and light, using next generation technologies for
Speaker 9: thinking futuristic. So now they saw the success with the
Speaker 9: mac they want to do the same thing to the iPhone.
Speaker 9: So this is going to be a slim down model.
Speaker 9: It's a fifth thinner than the other iPhones on the market,
Speaker 9: and when you're getting down to twenty percent thinner, that's
Speaker 9: really thin because the iPhones are pretty darn thin already, right,
Speaker 9: And the way they've created a very sophisticated display and
Speaker 9: battery technologies to get the power efficiency up using a
Speaker 9: new modem. It's going to have a display around six
Speaker 9: point six inches, so a little bit bigger than the
Speaker 9: smaller pro, so it's an in between er size. I
Speaker 9: think this phone's going to be really successful, really hot.
Speaker 9: They wanted to make it even more futuristic by removing
Speaker 9: the charging port from it, but they were worried about
Speaker 9: EU regulators, so that charging port will be there for
Speaker 9: this generation. But my anticipation is that this is one
Speaker 9: to foreshadow even thinner, even bolder iPhones with bigger design changes, foldables,
Speaker 9: and certainly models down the road without charging.
Speaker 6: Portsmis margam and always foreshadowing the future.
Speaker 3: We thank you now.
Speaker 6: That does it for this edition of plumag Technology. Do
Speaker 6: not forget to check out our podcast. You can find
Speaker 6: it on the terminal as well as online on Apple, Spotify,
Speaker 6: and iHeart. From New York and San Francisco, this is
Speaker 6: Plumbag Technology.