Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend - June 6th, 2025 - Bloomberg Businessweek

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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily recording from the magazine
that helps global leaders stay ahead with insight on the people.
Today's complex economy brings together business, finance.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Business as it insights.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
The Bloomberg Business Week Daily Comcast with Carol Mass and
Tim Sten Events Business Bloomberg Radio.

Speaker 4 (00:31):
Today, we're going to bring you some of our favorite
conversations from the event. We'll hear from leaders across the
tech sector, including CEOs, podcasters, and even a Nobel laureate.
First up this hour, we spoke with Anne Romandi. She's
the chief operating officer of Asauna.

Speaker 5 (00:46):
I want to bring in Anne Rimondi.

Speaker 4 (00:48):
She is COO of Asauna, the productivity platform. She joins
us here on set at the Bloomberg at the Bloomberg
Technology Summit. Shares of asanafel by twenty percent on Wednesday.
The company's first quarter results prompted a downgrade by HSBC,
despite the fact that revenue came in right on the
average analiss estimate. The company also Carol raised its full

(01:10):
year non gap operating margin guidance as it was reflecting
our confidence and our ability to drive durable, profitable growth
even in the face of macroeconomic uncertainty.

Speaker 6 (01:20):
There's a lot coming at companies. And Ramandi is COO
and head of business at Asana. Company has a three
and a half billion dollar market cap and she's here
on site.

Speaker 7 (01:27):
Nice to have you here with us.

Speaker 8 (01:28):
Great to be here. Good, it's so great to see
both of you. And excited to be here at the conference.

Speaker 7 (01:33):
It's great to have you here. We love the energy.

Speaker 6 (01:35):
Tell us though, about this macro environment and the macro uncertainty.

Speaker 7 (01:38):
That's still out there.

Speaker 8 (01:39):
Yeah, I think a lot of it is just slowing
down some of the bigger decisions that customers are making,
whether that's site full spail transformation or a lot of
larger consolidation initiatives. But the bright spots we're seeing is
companies are leaning really heavily into AI and so that's
where we are also really excited. We launched AI, which

(02:00):
is an add on to the Asana platform, and that
performed really well in Q one, and it didn't fully
launch until sort of the second half of Q one,
but that's where we're seeing a lot of customer excitement.

Speaker 4 (02:10):
I'm glad you brought up AID because that's exactly where
I want to go. I've been thinking a lot about
what I heard from Dario amade over at Endthropic. I
think it was just last week he told Axios that
we could see some real workforce destruction in the next one.

Speaker 5 (02:23):
To five years.

Speaker 4 (02:24):
AI could lead to ten or twenty percent unemployment if
and he could destroy about half of all entry level
white collar jobs. If that happens, that would be really
bad for companies that make productivity software like Asana.

Speaker 8 (02:37):
Now, what we're seeing is, and you know, Anthropic is
a very important partner of ours, Dustin, our founder and CEO,
is quite involved there. There's the bigger concern of disruption
of jobs.

Speaker 7 (02:51):
I think what we're seeing.

Speaker 8 (02:52):
With our customers though, is the ones that are kind
of staying ahead. They see the opportunity right right now
is human and AI collaboration. Because as far as you know,
we're seeing, AI is not fully replacing entire jobs. I
think what AI is really good at is automating a

(03:13):
lot of tasks that right now could allow people to
be more productive.

Speaker 4 (03:17):
So we're right, do you c AI fully replacing jobs
in the next one to five years, Like Dario Amide says,
I don't.

Speaker 8 (03:25):
Think I'm in the physician to predict quite as well
as Doris. But I do think we see, you know,
with our customers. What we see is they're very intentional
of there are some jobs that are likely the most
likely to go away, the ones that are tasks that
can be and in some ways you want to be
replaced by AI so people can be doing things that

(03:46):
are more creative and more productive. I think there are
some jobs that will be changed with AI where A
is going to be an integral part of how people
do their jobs. And then what we're hopeful for is
that there's a whole set of new jobs that are
that only people can do.

Speaker 7 (04:02):
So I do think.

Speaker 8 (04:03):
We're right in the midst of uh, you know, transformation
at a rate that we probably haven't seen before.

Speaker 7 (04:10):
But what we're really focused.

Speaker 8 (04:11):
On is like helping companies manage through that transition by
enabling their existing employees to embrace AI in their workflows.

Speaker 6 (04:22):
And one thing I want to ask you about is
I think all of a sudden, tim and I think
feel it in terms of the use of AI, where
it was kind of like, ohyeah, everybody else is using it,
and all of a sudden, we're really leaning in big Yeah,
finding it super productive, but that innovation or innovative.

Speaker 7 (04:36):
Cycle is moving really quickly.

Speaker 6 (04:38):
Yeah, and I do wonder what it means for a
company like you where you are kind of facing that
speed and then hoping to continue to differentiate yourself from
everybody else who's also.

Speaker 7 (04:47):
Moving really fastest. Yeah.

Speaker 8 (04:49):
Well, one of the things that we're saying is like,
at least for our business, why we're investing so heavily
in AI is that we do see a shift ultimately
from seat based in so to consumption base and so
wanting to be ahead of that. I think the other
thing that we're really seeing that's important to sort of
focus on is like, how can the companies enable employees

(05:12):
to understand how the LMS work be proactive in where
they're applying and deploying AIG education.

Speaker 7 (05:19):
Side there really there, really really is.

Speaker 8 (05:22):
The other thing that we're seeing is you were mentioned
like now everyone's using it, but what we're also finding
is that when it is very bottoms up and in
every single tool and everybody's got a chat bop, companies
actually aren't realizing the either the productivity gains or the acceleration.
The companies that are moving ahead are doing it in

(05:45):
the very tops down coordinated way, which isn't always how
technology has been adopted in the past.

Speaker 7 (05:51):
But with AI, I think that.

Speaker 8 (05:52):
Strategic view on where you're going to deploy AI is
really critical to actually realize the gains.

Speaker 4 (05:59):
Let's talk a little bit of the macro economic environment.
You've got a great view of the global economy. Where
are you seeing strength where you're seeing weakness?

Speaker 8 (06:06):
Yeah, geographically for us, we're actually seeing quite a bit
of strength internationally in emia in Japan.

Speaker 7 (06:14):
Does that surprise us that?

Speaker 8 (06:17):
You know, that doesn't be given all the things in
the macro But I think for us in particular the
segments and the verticals that we're in outside of tech,
a lot of companies are continuing to you know, invest
in technology, invest intentionally in AI. We see that in manufacturing, energy,
financial services, healthcare.

Speaker 4 (06:38):
But is this is this a function of actual strength
in those economies or is it a function of these
are the sectors.

Speaker 5 (06:44):
That are finally adopting this technology.

Speaker 4 (06:46):
So the tech sector was the first sector to do that,
obviously your core customer base, but now you're seeing your
tools being adopted by other types of companies the latter.

Speaker 8 (06:55):
Yeah, that they're really embracing, Hey, how can they be
intentional and active in not only adopting collaborative work management,
but AI on top of that.

Speaker 6 (07:05):
I got to ask you just be cast today the
press conference from the White House, there's a lot said
about Elon. It was a long one, and it does
feel like the romance, the big tech romance between President
Trump and Elon Musk is over.

Speaker 7 (07:20):
Is that a good or bad thing for the tech community?

Speaker 5 (07:23):
Oh?

Speaker 8 (07:26):
I do not know if I am the expert to
answer that question.

Speaker 6 (07:28):
I wonder he's on there rate, you know, and he's
he's I think Elon is going out on social I
mean a little aggressive at this.

Speaker 7 (07:35):
Point after being like this, it seems like I.

Speaker 8 (07:38):
Think underlying what we should all be focusing on as Hey,
with uncertainty in the global macro, what can we do
to make sure the most important businesses and companies and
innovations are being invested in and accelerating, right, or a
different way to say it, Roumy is like we're trying
to figure out, like how do we control the good

(08:00):
roll levels? Yeah, and know that we're in a you know,
relatively volatile and political environment.

Speaker 7 (08:06):
Yeah, to say the least.

Speaker 6 (08:07):
Yeah, Tim ask you about you know, growth geographically, and
we talked I feel like we talked a lot about
what's going on overseas. How do you describe the US
market right now and willing to do the capital spend,
whether it's on software, whether it's you know, that's your world.

Speaker 7 (08:20):
But what is kind of your take on that.

Speaker 8 (08:22):
The sentiment we're hearing, especially from our larger customers is
a lot more intentionality. I would say, and there aware
there's a bad yard, there is, there is and then
I think there's you know, again depends on the sector
they're trying to figure out from a priority standpoint one,
how much do you invest in AI and where? And

(08:43):
then everything else technology wise? You know, I do think
there's we're seeing a lot more movement towards consolidation, which
is which really was sort of the after effects of
like the technology bloat during the pandemic.

Speaker 4 (08:57):
Speaking of the tech, we're seeing in prints and costs
actually down, a gentic workflow is making in roads. Job
growth particularly and tech has been slow or is trending down.
What does all this mean to your seat based revenue
model and where really are we are in that transition?

Speaker 8 (09:13):
Yeah, I mean we're actively looking to you know, sort
of balance from a fully seat based to a hybrid
of seat based and consumption based. And we also think
there's a sub segment of customers ultimately that may be
spending more on consumption and we're already seeing early signs
of that, probably in more like our mid market customers

(09:34):
who are now spending as much on seat as they
are on AI and the credits. So I think that's
like good, you know, positive news in terms of a transition,
and so we're can you know, continue to invest in
how we might help customers.

Speaker 7 (09:49):
Sort of shift in that direction.

Speaker 6 (09:50):
One of last question is I think something we talked about,
you know, all of these programs that AI will make
us more productive, no doubt about it. But going back
to that idea of like what jobs does it take
that headcount, like, ultimately does it make us more productive?
We don't need so many people. And then coming back
to you, guys, we're not going to need as much
in terms of demand and product from everybody.

Speaker 7 (10:12):
Here's that cycle going to play out?

Speaker 8 (10:14):
Possibly One of the things you know, Dustin, our CEO
and founder often talked about is like, hey, what this
evolution may look like again depending on the kind of company,
what problems they solve, what products they.

Speaker 9 (10:27):
Bring to market.

Speaker 8 (10:28):
Is that they will start to see a shift from
payroll spend to sort of AI consumption spend. And you know, Tim,
you mentioned, hey, we're seeing costs come down. One of
the things we really provide is choice for customers to
actually transparently pick the models depending on the workflow, how

(10:48):
complex it they So there's andy they can choose that
And so I think that's going to be really critical too,
is like it's not all models against you know, sort
of like all problems really being able to pick judiciously.

Speaker 4 (11:01):
That's Ann Ramandi, the chief operating officer of Asana.

Speaker 6 (11:05):
You're listening to a special edition of Bloomberg Business Week,
coming out more conversations from our trip out west to
the Bloomberg Tech Summit. I'm Carol Masser with Tim Stenebeck.

Speaker 5 (11:14):
This is Bloomberg.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Weekdaily Podcast. Catch us
live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Eastern. Listen
on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app,
or watch us live on YouTube.

Speaker 6 (11:36):
Welcome back to a special edition of Bloomberg Business Week.
Taking a look at some of our favorite conversations from
the Bloomberg Tech Summit.

Speaker 4 (11:42):
Up next, we hear from Florian Cybel, co founder and
CEO of Quantum Systems, Carol By early twenty twenty five.
This is remarkable. When I was pre praying for this,
drones were accounting to sixty to seventy percent of the
damage and destruction cause to Russian equipment in the world.
This is according to data from the UK based think tank,
the Royal United Services Institute.

Speaker 6 (12:02):
You got to say, the way we think about warfare
has definitely changed dramatically. And this is where Florian Cybel
comes in. He's a former German Army helicopter pilot, an
aeronautical engineer who a decade ago founded a company called
Quantum Systems. It makes multi sensored drones. Now ninety percent
of its sales go to the military sector, and it's
provided thousands of drones to Ukraine specifically, and so we're

(12:25):
kind of.

Speaker 7 (12:25):
Dying to talk to him.

Speaker 4 (12:26):
Flora Cybele joins us from Italy, Florid.

Speaker 5 (12:28):
Good to have you with us. I know there's a
little bit of delay.

Speaker 4 (12:30):
We appreciate you taking the time and stand up a
little late. In Europe for US on Bloomberg Business Week Daily.
First big question that I have for you is, given
what you know about Sunday's drone attack, were any of
your drones actually used in that attack?

Speaker 10 (12:44):
So what we know not as in a way that
they would act as being the ultimate weapon.

Speaker 11 (12:52):
All of the drones that we are building are.

Speaker 10 (12:54):
Used for ISR missions, which is intelligence, suwans and reconnaissance.
So that means we are spotting potential targets. So our
drones have wings, we have flight time of several hours,
and then we've we fly deep into anti enemy territories,
so we we spot and then then then other type
of drones come in.

Speaker 4 (13:14):
Do do your drones ultimately replace the capabilities of aircraft
such as the U two spyplane.

Speaker 11 (13:21):
Well, you know, there's there's a reason for every asset
to have and I think you know mostly you know,
war times are times of change, and new doctrines are happening,
and and every war that is coming up will not
start as as the as the last one ended.

Speaker 10 (13:38):
So you know, I'm not really sure if the next
war will be all about drones. But but what I
can say now, definitely it's it's a vehicle for Ukraine.

Speaker 11 (13:49):
To to fight off Russia because.

Speaker 10 (13:51):
They did not have enough conventional weapons to take to
take them to the battlefield the way would have expected.
So I mean they were just very curious and then
using what they.

Speaker 11 (14:06):
Have and and and then that's where we are. And
you know, this is technology changing the way things happen.

Speaker 6 (14:12):
Well, that's where Florine I kind of want to go.
I think after that drone strike by Ukraine in Russia,
we had so.

Speaker 7 (14:18):
Many conversations in the newsroom.

Speaker 6 (14:19):
About, oh my gosh, like warfare just continually to change
very dramatically. My dad and his three brothers all thought
in World War World War two, excuse me, a lot
of hand to man to man combat was just a
very different type of warfare. You know, we've seen the
gamification of warfare. How does drones kind of make it
safer on one level in terms of not putting people

(14:40):
at the kind of right at the top, you know,
the front line, if you will, But at the same
time make it easier for someone to flip a switch
and send drones into combat.

Speaker 10 (14:49):
You know, you use the word that that describes it
quite well, which is gamification. You know, it's it's using
a lot of technology that yeah, was spilling over from
adjacent industries like cell phone technology. You know a lot
of the small stuff chips, batteries, cameras that that they

(15:12):
weren't just not available a few years ago to companies
like US. And you know, the cell phone industry basically
allowed us all to disrupt classical defense military companies because
now you know it, it's available to everybody. And and
China is very strong in that regard. And I think

(15:35):
what has to happen now is we need to rebuild,
specifically in the US, but also in Germany and Europe.
We need to rebuild the industrial base to be capable
of producing thousands, ten thousands, one hundred thousands of these units.

Speaker 12 (15:49):
It's it's not.

Speaker 10 (15:50):
About like a few multi hundred million dollar aircraft anymore.
It's about large numbers are treatable platforms. You know, you
want to saturate your adversary. And and there's companies like
Quantum and and you all in the US that are
changing the rules how we play.

Speaker 6 (16:09):
Florine, I am curious there is there somebody, an entity,
a country that you will not sell to.

Speaker 10 (16:13):
Well, you know, in Germany, all of what we do
is very regulated, and so we have a German Export
Control Authority which is called BATHA, which is very much
in line with NATO and the German governmental official position,
and so we have to we have to fulfill these
guidelines and guard Yeah, and so it's basically impossible for us,

(16:38):
you know, from a legal perspective, for example, to sell
into countries like Iran and Russia and China. But also
you know then that that that's the legal perspective on it.
And then we obviously we as the founders and we
together with our investors have made it very clear that
even though if we could sell to certain countries, you know,

(16:58):
we we we we have to feel comfortable with that
as a company. So for example, Saudi Arabia is probably
one of those those countries that would would be quite
obvious that we could sell to, but we would probably
have a discussion before do so.

Speaker 4 (17:17):
You mentioned investors. The company is back by Peter Till
We're going to talk about that in just a minute.
Before we get there, I want to talk about the
opportunity outside of Europe, because for much of the past
three years you have been selling your drones to Ukraine,
but you did just open a one hundred and thirty
five thousand square foot facility here in California. What is
the opportunity in the US market.

Speaker 10 (17:36):
I think that that was a very smart decision, you
know what, to do that because the US DUD is
the single largest Department of Defense in the world, and
obviously Europe as a total is about the same size,
but it's very fragmented into twenty six members state countries.
So going to the US and entering that single biggest the.

Speaker 11 (18:00):
Market was a must do for US.

Speaker 10 (18:03):
There were a lot of people saying that it's going
to be hard for a non US company to do well,
but I think we managed to do so. You know,
I have I've spent two years of my life in
the US, one year in high school, one year when
I was trained as a professional helicopter pilot in Fort Rauca, Alabama.
So I think I picked a little bit up of
the way of how America works and what's the life

(18:26):
over there and how the people do business. And so
I was very lucky to hire an excellent CEO coming
from the drone defense industry, and he was setting up
a Quantum Inc. In More Park and he has been
doing incredibly well, and so I think you know, it's

(18:47):
it's not the US or Europe. I think part of
our mission is also to in these uncertain times of
what we see at the moment where the US is
trying to break away from Europe, that economic companies that
are on the free market, Yeah, act as a glue
maybe to together us through these times, because you know,

(19:09):
the US has been always the biggest ally to Europe,
especially what is coming up tomorrow D Day, and you know,
we want to pay back a little bit here and
so for me, it was a natural thing to go
to the US.

Speaker 5 (19:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (19:22):
Okay, So we are Bloomberg and we are always curious
about interesting startups and as they are growing. And as
to mentioned, you are backed by Peter Thiale. You just
raised about one hundred and one hundred and eighty one
million dollars a financing round, valuing you at more than
a billion dollars. So kind of going into that unicorn status.
When is the IPO if there is one, will.

Speaker 7 (19:43):
Be Europe, will be the United States? What will you
guys do it?

Speaker 11 (19:46):
It's unclear at the moment.

Speaker 10 (19:47):
Right now, we're doing very well.

Speaker 12 (19:48):
We're probably going.

Speaker 10 (19:49):
To raise one or two more rounds, you know, being
on the on the capital market also means you're very
transparent in what you do. And you know, these big
government contracts we are after there either zero or one
and you know, we don't want to end up being
the goal of you know, speculative betting on us or

(20:13):
against us on Wall Street. So I think we'll take
like one or two more years, one or two more
financing rounds, and then probably as we are a German company,
we could look into doing a European IPO or as
you said, you know New York Stock Exchange, probably ten
depends a little bit also on how well we do
with our US facility. As you said, we have heavily

(20:35):
invested in one hundred and thirty five thousand square foot
We need to fill that with business. We expect the
US government to give us more contracts to pay back
that we invest so heavily into the US now, and
then it's an open decision, I would say as of today.

Speaker 6 (20:53):
Well, it's always you know, interesting, we talked so much
about here. We are in San Francisco, you know, the
heart of Silicon Valley, you know, nearby innovation that happens
around the world. You are based in Munich, How does
that startup environment differ there over Europe, in Munich specifically
versus maybe elsewhere versus the United States, for example.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (21:13):
So you know, having lived in the United States and
having met a lot of US investors in the last six, eight,
ten years, you can definitely say that the spirit of
go big or go home or think big is definitely
part of Silicon Valley culture, whereas in Germany we have

(21:36):
excellent engineering, I would say, at very decent price and
cost of living. So I think there's a there's an
advantage for both locations to be Obviously, especially in the beginning,
I was always a little bit celloius looking at the
amound and the number of companies that are still being

(22:00):
founded in the US.

Speaker 12 (22:01):
So it's so.

Speaker 10 (22:01):
Much more and bigger than Europe. But I think we're
catching up. You know, what has happened in the last
two or three years. It's clear for us now in
Europe that we are on our own. We need to
reinvent ourselves, we need to define.

Speaker 12 (22:15):
Who we are, who we want to be in that world,
you know, and.

Speaker 10 (22:18):
Germany always has been the place of great world leading
tech companies. I think we have just not had that
in the last one or two decades, and I think
it's time to change that again and we are ready
to do that.

Speaker 4 (22:30):
Hey Floren, before we let you go, I know you're
focused on these UAVs that are really about reconnaissance, but
I want to pick your brain a little bit about
the areas of innovation, especially here in the US, because
back in March, the US government awarded Boeing the new
Air Force F forty seven stealth fighter. Yet there's sort
of a lot of controversy around this because it's still

(22:50):
going to be crew based, though the President did say
we'll be able to fly remotely. Should the US right
now or should countries be investing in any crewed aircraft
right now? Or is the future one in your view UAV?

Speaker 10 (23:05):
I think the future is unmanned. It's definitely about robotics
and unmanned systems. The question is how fast will that happen.
I think the UK has just brought up a new
defense policy, they call it twenty forty forty, saying twenty
percent will be or should be assets, classical assets like

(23:27):
there used to be so man fighter jets, forty percent
ISR and intelligence, and forty percent unmanned drike strike capability.
So I think it's it's not either or I think
it's a combination both, but definitely more than we used
to see. And you know, I don't know if the

(23:48):
forty seven is going to be man or unmanned. Probably
these high value assets will still be manned, but they
will definitely not fly into into enemy territory. I think
they have a standoff capability extreme long range radar range
because they're so super expensive. But let's see, you know,

(24:13):
it's changing. Maybe in the next war will be not
fought on drones. Maybe it's in space.

Speaker 4 (24:18):
That's Florian Cybel, co founder and CEO of Quantum Systems.

Speaker 6 (24:21):
You're listening to a special edition of Bloomberg Business Week.
Coming up more conversations from our trip out west to
the Bloomberg Tech Summit. I'm Carol Masser with tim Stenoveek.

Speaker 5 (24:31):
This is Bloomberg.

Speaker 2 (24:33):
This is the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Listen live
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Speaker 6 (24:50):
Thirty Welcome back to a special edition of Bloomberg Business Week,
taking a look at some of our favorite conversations from

Speaker 4 (24:58):
Up next, we hear from r J Scarrange, the CEO
of Rivian.

Speaker 7 (25:02):
All right, we've got a really great guest. We want
to get right to.

Speaker 6 (25:04):
Marj Sparrange is with us. He's, of course, head of
the sixteen billion dollar market cap automaker. We're talking about Rivian.
We talk about this company all the time with us
at Bloomberg Tech Summit here in San Francisco, and we
have Ed Ludlow, a member our team coast of Bloomberg
Technology who knows this company so well. Hey, one thing
I want to start with Rja is there's a lot

(25:25):
going on between Elon and Donald Trump.

Speaker 7 (25:28):
It seems like it's over and it's not going well.

Speaker 6 (25:31):
So I'm just curious have you been able to kind
of win market share or anything as a result of
kind of Elon's position at DOGE And I'm just curious
how it.

Speaker 7 (25:43):
Might play out here. Yeah, I mean, I think I testimony, Yeah, I.

Speaker 13 (25:47):
Think in general, it's the thing has been surprising is
just how politicize a lot of things have become so
electric vehicles become politicized. Specific brands within the electric vehicles
past for politicized. And so what we've tried to do
as a brand, really really focused on is to focus.

Speaker 12 (26:03):
On what we stand for, the products, the ratch meets.

Speaker 13 (26:06):
And you know, there's a famous Michael Jordan quote which
is we have Republicans. You know, he'said Republicans and Democrats
both by Nikes.

Speaker 12 (26:13):
And it's the same thing with Rivians. I'll go to
Rivian events.

Speaker 13 (26:15):
I was just in New York and yeah, there's it's
such a beautiful mix of backgrounds, perspectives, cultures that are
drawn to what we're building as a brand. Right and
we're about to launch what we call it R two,
which is a lower price vehicle starts at forty five
thousand dollars and that product will even you know, broaden
the aperture even more.

Speaker 14 (26:34):
And so I think asking is if there's net positive
effect for you from this environment on sales.

Speaker 12 (26:43):
I think that's what she was asking.

Speaker 14 (26:44):
I think you're benefiting from this environment movement?

Speaker 7 (26:48):
Have you benefited from it?

Speaker 13 (26:50):
I think there are a lot of customers who are
looking for brand that they want to connect with, so
that we're seeing that for sure.

Speaker 4 (26:55):
Sort of on that thinking about the politics of this
rare earth, I mean, you and the team have been
really clear that you've been working to educate the Trump
administration when it comes to the complexities around processing rare
earth here in the US. Are you still concerned about
accessibility to rare earths?

Speaker 13 (27:10):
Well, first, i'd say I appreciate that the administration recognizes
this is an issue that's important, and I think that
we've done a lot of work and spent a lot
of time with the administration on this topic. I think
this is perhaps one of the biggest topics surrounding, you know,
the trade tensions with China. It's it's well, it's well
documented that a vast majority of the world's processing for

(27:32):
these rareth medals happens in China.

Speaker 12 (27:36):
So this is.

Speaker 13 (27:36):
Something that you know, we're going to continue to be
very focused on, continue to have concerns about until.

Speaker 12 (27:41):
We start to see it really move.

Speaker 5 (27:42):
What's your backup plan?

Speaker 12 (27:43):
We have many backup plans.

Speaker 4 (27:44):
If you can't get access to these rare eers for
some reason, you rot an extended period of time, which
are essential in making ads and batteries.

Speaker 13 (27:51):
What do you do so what we've we've done, we've
spent time on over the last several months, is to
build alternative supply chains. But they're not they're not elegant
because they're not set up for scale, and and a
lot of people beyond us are also trying to build
these alternative supply chains. So I think, you know, the
hope is that in the short to medium term we

(28:13):
see this open back up. And I think in the
long term we're probably going to see both investment into
building earth capacity outside of China and then innovation to
remove rare earth's from products. You know, so if you
take in an electric vehicle, the reason this is so
important is the motors use permanent magnets. Then permanent magnets
have earth metals, you know, things like dysprosium and all

(28:34):
those things on the periodic.

Speaker 12 (28:35):
Table that we forget about the yeah, yeah, but.

Speaker 13 (28:38):
Those those earth metals are needed in the magnets. But
you can create electro magnet to power the rotor. You know,
the rotors are spinning part of the motor. But then
you've got to get power to the rotors so that
you can do it with a brush, you can do
it with induction, so it's a more.

Speaker 12 (28:51):
Complex motor product, but it does remove the complexity of
global trade around the area.

Speaker 7 (28:56):
Is a little time away.

Speaker 12 (28:57):
Yeah, it's not.

Speaker 13 (28:58):
Gonna it's not you can't flip your design over overnight.
But I would say I think a lot of the
auto industry is going to start finding innovative ways that
are perhaps maybe a little more expensive, that reduced to
rely on somewhere.

Speaker 14 (29:10):
People wonder how nimble you are there, Like, do you
remember when we first met seven years ago with respect
your suppliers really wouldn't engage with you because of scale.
So if you have had to pivot a little bit
because of policy, particularly for planning for our two, have
you been able to a get your spires to listen
to you and be effect to change.

Speaker 12 (29:31):
Yeah, we've talked about the slide.

Speaker 13 (29:32):
I mean, our relationship with suppliers and leverage we have
with those supliers is so much stronger today with our
two and what's to come than what we had, you know,
in twenty nineteen or twenty twenty, even twenty eighteen. But
I'd say the thing that's really helpful for us in
our toos, it's not as if this is a surprise
we saw you know, if you're going into summer of

(29:55):
last year, we saw some of these tensions already rising
between the United States and China, and that was.

Speaker 12 (30:00):
As we were planning for and sourcing are two.

Speaker 13 (30:02):
So we contemplated and in many ways anticipated a lot
of these situations we're now dealing with in terms of tariffs,
in terms of trade restrictions happening. So in the medium
to long term, it's we're pretty well covered. In the
short to medium term, you know, things get shut off.
That's really challenging. And so that's where I think the
Earth challenge is that if this this happens, we're off.

(30:25):
It just creates a lot of pressure on a very
thin non China supply chain.

Speaker 14 (30:29):
I still think there's a lot of interest in Rivian.
What I hear is there's also a lot of interest
in also your your micro mobility spin off. Would you
consider kind of de risking yourselves a little bit by
allowing outside investors to write you a check into that
venture and then get you some capital, or de risk
your own balance sheet in that respect.

Speaker 13 (30:49):
So we spun this micromobility portion of Rivian out, and
we actually raised outside capitals. We brought we brought one
hundred and five million dollars in at the start of the.

Speaker 12 (30:57):
Year, which is from a clip, which is from a clip.

Speaker 13 (31:00):
Exactly right, and so it's now independently financed from Riview
and it's you know, it's a really exciting set of products.

Speaker 12 (31:06):
We're going to show those products in the fall.

Speaker 14 (31:07):
But with the venture to look at even further outside
happit til to get go in a little bit.

Speaker 13 (31:11):
We could, yeah, we could, but but we're really happy
with where it is. It's it's it's exciting to build
a new business with the strength of all the Rivian
technologies is starting right.

Speaker 6 (31:21):
That's our Ja Scarringe, Rivian CEO.

Speaker 4 (31:24):
Coming up next, we hear from Ahmed al Dahl, VP
of Generative AI at Meta.

Speaker 6 (31:29):
I want to just kind of set this up because
Bloomberg News recently reporting artificial intelligence coding startup Replet is
in talks.

Speaker 7 (31:36):
It was in talks, maybe still in talks.

Speaker 6 (31:38):
We'll find out with investors for a new funding round
that would almost triple its valuation too, about three billion dollars.

Speaker 7 (31:44):
That was according to people.

Speaker 6 (31:46):
Familiar with the matter, and so that was really underscoring
Silicon Valley investors appetite for companies using AI for software development.
I do feel like, Tim, that's the phase we've moved into.

Speaker 4 (31:56):
Well, let's ask you, and we've got Amjod Messad here,
The thoughder and CEO of RUG joins us here at
the Bloomberg Technology summ At twenty twenty five in San Francisco.
Comment on the fundraising and where you are in that.
Can you confirm the report?

Speaker 15 (32:09):
We're always in talks with investors. We've grown a lot,
We've we've.

Speaker 3 (32:14):
Grown just this year over ten x Uh.

Speaker 7 (32:19):
You're talking about top like wow.

Speaker 4 (32:21):
So you're always in talks until you're not. And you
go public as a company, you're always in talks until
you're not. Yeah, are you currently raising this route?

Speaker 3 (32:29):
Things are moving winny fast. Okay.

Speaker 15 (32:31):
So even when you're in talks and then you grow
that much, you know, it's like.

Speaker 6 (32:36):
I'm talk to us about that growth, Like, who is
it that's tapping into what you guys are doing specifically?

Speaker 15 (32:42):
Yeah, so you know, it's all sorts of people so
replet as opposed to say, you know, cursor windsor for
claud code or other things.

Speaker 3 (32:52):
We're trying to make it so that anyone is a programmer.

Speaker 8 (32:55):
So you you.

Speaker 15 (32:56):
You know, I could encourage anyone of the audience to
go to the app store on.

Speaker 3 (32:59):
Their start making software.

Speaker 15 (33:02):
So the kind of users that we have AD companies
tend to not be the software engineer. We do have engineers,
but for example, product managers for the first time.

Speaker 3 (33:15):
Can go from an idea to a product without even
talking to an engineer.

Speaker 7 (33:19):
How does that happen?

Speaker 15 (33:20):
So we created a software development agent. It was the
first software development agent on the market. Now we got
a lot of copycats, but basically, it takes the user command,
breaks down the problem into different tasks, starts coding their
different files, runs the program, tests, the program takes the screenshot,

(33:41):
looks at it, and then talks to the user, Hey
did I build what you told me to build?

Speaker 3 (33:46):
And then there's a conversation with the user.

Speaker 4 (33:48):
I just did a big piece on due Lingo, and
so this is fresh on my mind.

Speaker 3 (33:52):
They're a customer. They are a customers.

Speaker 4 (33:54):
So that's interesting because what I read was they, you know,
they're known for languages, but they had chess. What is
a new area where they're branching out into and you
can learn how to do.

Speaker 5 (34:04):
Chess on the platform.

Speaker 4 (34:05):
Apparently it was created by a designer and a product manager.

Speaker 16 (34:08):
They used a program called cursor. Would that be a
competitor to you? Uh, that would work in tandem. They
work in tandem. We compete on the margins, but they
work intends. A lot of time people start with replet,
create a prototype, okay, ticket a cursor, they iterate on it.

Speaker 4 (34:24):
So if product managers and designers are doing this, where
does that leave software engineers.

Speaker 15 (34:28):
I think software engineers are gonna be like a layer
of deeper. So you always need the infrastructure engineer, you
always need the platform engineer, the AI engineer, and so
the specialized low level engineers job is safe.

Speaker 3 (34:43):
But the fuel creating products anyone can make it now.

Speaker 4 (34:46):
But their jobs, these specialized folks might be safe. But
maybe you don't need as many of them as you do.

Speaker 3 (34:50):
Now, that's that's safe to assume.

Speaker 15 (34:54):
But net net, there's gonna be a lot more developers.
They might not have gone to computer side in school,
but day to day they're making software.

Speaker 12 (35:03):
Wow.

Speaker 6 (35:04):
But that's a big shift because I just feel like
the story that we have said for many years now
is software engineers, coders, you guys are safe, right because
every company is a technology company. And every company needs
coders and figuring out how to do systems. You're saying, no,
that's not the case anymore. Well, let me put it,
because everybody can be a coder.

Speaker 3 (35:25):
Let me put it this way.

Speaker 15 (35:27):
Every company in the world even today is limited by
how many software engineering resources they have. That is one
of the limiting factor to growth in our economy in general, right,
and so we're basically removing.

Speaker 3 (35:41):
That limiting factor.

Speaker 15 (35:42):
And I think that's gonna that's going to create a
lot better products and services. Companies like dual Lingo can
go from language to chess, and a lot.

Speaker 3 (35:50):
New startups are going to be created.

Speaker 15 (35:52):
Icy startups are all platform every day, and so the
economy is just going to be a lot more dynamic.

Speaker 4 (35:56):
Are you doing the inference on your platform? Are you
doing it for it's on your platform? We or do
you use do you have to contract that out to
a third party?

Speaker 3 (36:05):
So we uh so, meaning what kind of models?

Speaker 15 (36:07):
So we so we use a collection of models, some
of them we trained and hosted, but we rely a
lot of it on a topic. We rely on on
some Google models like Gemini, Flash and clod Code. Uh
you know, these are what's what's happening in the l
M space is that there's so many tools out there,

(36:28):
open source, tool source whatever. As an application layer company,
our job is created the best product possible, whether we
have whether we pick you know.

Speaker 3 (36:36):
The model off the shelf or chaine our model. It's engineering.
It's not AI research, it's engineering. I'm John.

Speaker 6 (36:42):
What I am hearing is that what your tool would
be really incredible for is for smaller sized companies who
maybe can afford to like hire software engineers. Like I
have an idea, tell me, like, where is your business
the growth the most? Is it small size? Its size?
Large sized companies? Give us an idea and just got

(37:03):
about forty five seconds.

Speaker 15 (37:04):
So you're right, small sizes where we're seeing the most growth.
But in terms of contract value, it tends to be
mid market and enterprise. We have Fortune five hundred companies
and the way they use it is to unblock. Everyone
in the enterprise has ideas to improve the business. But
there's a limited number of engineers, and so these people

(37:25):
are seeking the tools. Yeah, and it's starting to be
productive with them and repletus them.

Speaker 3 (37:29):
There's one of the big tools.

Speaker 4 (37:30):
Yeah, that's Ahmed al Dahl, vice president of generative AI
at Meta that does it.

Speaker 6 (37:35):
For this hour, Bloomberg Business Week Next hour will bring
you even more from the Bloomberg Tech Summit out in
San Francisco this past week. I'm Carol Masser with Tim Stenebec.

Speaker 2 (37:49):
You are listening to the Bloomberg Business Weekdaily Podcast. Catch
us live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Eastern.
Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg
Business or watch us live on YouTube.

Speaker 6 (38:03):
Welcome back to a special edition of Bloomberg BusinessWeek, taking
a look at some of our favorite conversations from the
Bloomberg Tech Summit. First up this hour, we spoke with
Windows Snyder. She's the CEO of Thistle Technologies.

Speaker 4 (38:15):
There's this common refrain that if it's connected to the internet, Carol,
it can be hacked.

Speaker 6 (38:19):
It feels like a really smart thing to be like
kind of keep in mind, like, Okay.

Speaker 4 (38:23):
We know computers and like our email accounts can be hacked,
but what about baby monitors, doorbell cameras, routers, and yes,
even the humble washing machine.

Speaker 6 (38:31):
Listen, if it ain't work in we're gonna have some problems.
This is where Windows Snyder comes in. She's the CEO
over at Thistle Technologies. They specialize in security infrastructure for devices.

Speaker 7 (38:41):
No Window has led teams building protections into.

Speaker 6 (38:43):
Phones, laptops, desktops, and web browsers. She's done this at companies. Yeh,
you're going to know who they are. We're talking about Apple,
We're talking about Intel. We're also talking about Microsoft and Mozilla.

Speaker 4 (38:54):
She's featured in Business Weeks one to watch in technology.
It's a guide for the people you'll be hearing more
about in the near future. You joined this year at
Bloomberg Tech Summit in San Francisco. Help me understand how
the solution works because you're selling your solution to the
companies that then consumers buy from.

Speaker 5 (39:10):
So your B to B correct, we are your B
to B.

Speaker 4 (39:13):
So what is the infrastructure that you create that protects
my doorbell from being.

Speaker 17 (39:18):
A sure So we build the capabilities that the device
developers can incorporate into their products that allow them to
reduce the attack surface of these devices, which means the
number of entry points into the system or the areas
that are most vulnerable, like the device is most vulnerable
during update and update is one of those things that's

(39:38):
really hard to get right and really easy to get wrong. Yeah,
so because it gets implemented differently in every different environment.
That's one of the areas that we target as an
area to provide a lot of security resilience. Additionally, validating
the update is coming from where you expect it tom
by evaluating a cryptographic signature on it that could be

(40:00):
validated by a key that's stored in hardware.

Speaker 6 (40:02):
Wait a minute, I don't even think about that being
like a like a cyber attack, but I guess that
would be a great place for people to do it.

Speaker 7 (40:09):
How often does that happen?

Speaker 17 (40:11):
Well, the FABI recently released a report that showed that
the organized crime was using vulnerable routers home routers right
to string together bought networks that were basically these devices
never get updated, so they're going to persist for you know, indefinitely.

Speaker 4 (40:29):
When I talk to people like you, I selfishly always
ask about your own security hygiene and like what products
that you actually personally incorporated into your life and what
you were boid.

Speaker 17 (40:38):
So for the home user, it's incredibly difficult because a
lot of these devices, you're just kind of it's a
black box. You just get what you get, and there's
not much you can do to to mitigrate and risk
from those devices. At the enterprise, you've got a little
bit more of an opportunity. But as a former CISO myself,
they're difficult to manage. They are uninspectable. If there's an

(40:58):
update available, it's very often very difficult to get it deployed.

Speaker 7 (41:02):
It's actually a struggle.

Speaker 4 (41:03):
What would you say to somebody a consumer? He says, Okay, well,
ring doorbell, it's owned by Amazon. They're a legit company.
Hero Is I think owned by Amazon also, it's legit.
Amazon will take the necessary precautions to protect me.

Speaker 5 (41:17):
What would you say to that.

Speaker 17 (41:18):
Amazon has a very large, very good security team. That's fantastic.
But there's so many devices out there. I mean, I'm
wearing like two just from like here down, I've got
two devices over it.

Speaker 4 (41:28):
So you've got an Aura ring for our listeners in
an Apple Watch exactly.

Speaker 17 (41:32):
But in your home you might have a smart TV,
you might have a baby monitor, you might have an
even smart op And there's so many there's so many
different kinds of devices. Your printer, they might not all
get the same level of security rigor that your ring
doorbell might. That's a that's a that's a good device.

Speaker 5 (41:49):
That's I would.

Speaker 4 (41:50):
I would welcome a hacker to make my printer work better, That's.

Speaker 1 (41:53):
What I would.

Speaker 6 (41:54):
So you're talking about hacks, right, Like why do I
care about my printer?

Speaker 5 (41:57):
You know, like what is it? Is there already mess stop?

Speaker 6 (42:01):
But is it a case that it doesn't work or
are you saying that there's a security thing we need
to be concerned about.

Speaker 17 (42:07):
Well, the printer in the enterprise or at home is
the place where we take all of our most sensitive
documents and store them on paper. Right, So if you're
an attacker and you're sitting on that printer, you have
access that information. But even that is not necessarily what
they're doing on your printer. If you compromise the printer,
you're using it to launch an attack against a more
sensitive system. And now since you're on the network, you've
got a more privileged position, so it's.

Speaker 5 (42:28):
The weakest link essentially exactly.

Speaker 4 (42:30):
So I take back what I said about a hacker
going into my printer.

Speaker 5 (42:33):
I do not welcome that, all right.

Speaker 6 (42:34):
So I helped me out here because I have a
husband who loves technology, and so our lights are I
don't know, heating system, like music, everything is controlled by
something and it kind of drives me crazy.

Speaker 7 (42:46):
But I mean, does that make a home more vulnerable?

Speaker 6 (42:49):
Or like, how do you I don't know, like what
things shouldn't we automate or use technology?

Speaker 17 (42:56):
So I can tell you to go set up a
device network and keep it separate from the network that
your laptops use, but that's not really practical advice because
most consumers can't set that up. The real emphasis should
be on the folks that build those So, for example,
in Europe, the Cyber Resiliency Act is forcing these device
makers to make sure that they're doing security updates, make

(43:16):
sure that they are building security resilience.

Speaker 7 (43:18):
In from the start.

Speaker 5 (43:18):
Should we have that here in the US.

Speaker 17 (43:20):
We definitely need to make sure that device makers are
doing the work.

Speaker 4 (43:24):
That's Windows Snyder, CEO of Thistle Technologies.

Speaker 6 (43:28):
Up next, we'll hear from Jennifer Downa. She is founder
of the Innovative Genomics Institute and Nobel Laureate in Chemistry.

Speaker 4 (43:35):
I want to get an update on where we are
in your view with gene editing technology. I think everybody
saw the story the ten month old baby who received
the world's first personalized gene editing treatment was released from
the hospital. I mean, this is really exciting stuff. It
looks like chrisper gene editing tech saved his life. When
does this treatment not make headlines? When will more patients

(43:56):
get it?

Speaker 7 (43:57):
We have to scale the approach.

Speaker 18 (43:59):
I think what's very citing about baby kJ beyond the
immediate impact on him and his family, is the opportunity
to make this technology available to many more people. And
that's exactly where our institute is focused.

Speaker 6 (44:12):
Jennifer, is this the holy grail in terms of fixing
all that ails us?

Speaker 13 (44:17):
Like?

Speaker 6 (44:17):
Do you see it going to a point where we're
born and we're scanned, and we see here's the problems,
here's the problems, and we do the edit at an
early basis, Like, is.

Speaker 7 (44:27):
That where this comes?

Speaker 19 (44:28):
Well maybe in the future.

Speaker 18 (44:29):
I think at the moment, I think what we're looking
at in the near term is an opportunity to fix rare.

Speaker 7 (44:35):
Disease, right, mut I mean this in a good way, and.

Speaker 18 (44:38):
That's great, right, But in the future, what about for others,
you know, for kind of more broadly, what kind of
impact is it going to have? I think in the future,
we're looking at opportunities to prevent.

Speaker 7 (44:48):
Disease yeah, exactly how do we get there?

Speaker 19 (44:50):
Ye like, what do you like?

Speaker 7 (44:51):
How do what's what's needed? Is it twenty and also
how long?

Speaker 9 (44:55):
Well, I think a couple of things.

Speaker 18 (44:57):
One is, I'd love to see us scale the end
of one the rare disease approach, because I think that
creates a pipeline for expanding the opportunities for more patients
to participate. And Then secondly, I think we have to
continue to look for ways to ensure that editing is
done safely and effectively. What are the right ways to
regulate it, what are the right ways to test it?

(45:17):
That's all key to expanding it into more patients.

Speaker 4 (45:21):
I want to talk funding here for research because in
twenty twenty three, American University has received about sixty billion
dollars in funding that went to every single state in
the US, universities in every state. Much of it has
gone to research that's at risk right now. How has
public funding fueled your pioneering work.

Speaker 18 (45:39):
Well, we had a grant from the Department of Energy,
was our very first grant to work on CRISPER, and
I met with the Secretary of Energy last week. I
told him that if we hadn't had that grant, we
couldn't have started the research. So it's really important that
we have federal dollars to support curiosity driven science that
drive new innovation.

Speaker 5 (45:58):
Is that at risk right now?

Speaker 7 (45:59):
It's a risk, it is.

Speaker 18 (46:00):
And the other thing I think to point out is
that the federal funding of science creates a huge, highly
trained workforce here in the United States. That create the
people that are trained to go into pharmaceutical companies, to
go into biotech.

Speaker 9 (46:14):
A lot of them become.

Speaker 18 (46:15):
Entrepreneurs here in the Bay Area and elsewhere. They drive
the future with innovation.

Speaker 6 (46:19):
What would you say, Jennifer to people who are listening
and say, well, I don't understand why an academic institution
like a Harvard or that has a multi billion dollar endowment,
why do they.

Speaker 7 (46:29):
Need federal money, you know, to do R and D.

Speaker 6 (46:32):
So help us understand why that is so important for
America and our academic universities and institutions to have that
federally funded research.

Speaker 7 (46:41):
Why is that so important?

Speaker 18 (46:43):
Well, it's very important because we need to fund the
kind of out there, high risk but potentially very high
benefit research that drives the future.

Speaker 19 (46:52):
Companies aren't going to do that.

Speaker 18 (46:54):
Investors don't want to put money into things that are unproven, and.

Speaker 7 (46:57):
The university you're going to do that on their own?

Speaker 18 (47:00):
They can't, you know, they just don't have the resources
to do it. Private company private universities that have, you know,
resources that go beyond what we have at public schools
like mine.

Speaker 7 (47:11):
Can do maybe more than the rest of us.

Speaker 18 (47:13):
But most universities simply do not have the funding to
support them.

Speaker 7 (47:17):
I want to push because you understand this world.

Speaker 6 (47:19):
So what if they say, well, wait a minute, so
don't build another football stadium or don't you know what.

Speaker 7 (47:22):
I mean, like spend that money on doing R and
D if it's.

Speaker 18 (47:26):
So important, right, But I think you know, the thing
to understand is that the federal government has traditionally invested
in science, really since World War Two. It ended in
a way that has returned more than two and a
half dollars for every dollar invested. And that comes from
the companies founded, the intellectual property, the patents issued, all

(47:46):
of the inventions that have been created, all of the
cures that we're now seeing crisper and other things that
is really a direct result of federal funding.

Speaker 4 (47:55):
We're seeing a decline of interest that seems like from
venture capitalists right now in funding these to the companies.
Back in twenty twenty, DC money raise rotie therapy companies
peaked three point three billion dollars. It's been moving lower
since to just a few hundred million.

Speaker 5 (48:09):
Dollars last year. That's according to Feel FORMA. What's going
on here.

Speaker 18 (48:12):
I think that, you know, I've been around a few
years and I've seen I've seen some cycles, you know,
and this is not unexpected in biotech.

Speaker 9 (48:20):
This has happened before.

Speaker 18 (48:21):
I think what happens is that, you know, sometimes there's
you know, there we go through moments when there's a
lot of excitement about a field or maybe even a
whole sector, like biotech, and that was true in the
early twenty twenties, and then there was a kind of
a check on that people realizing that, gosh, it's hard
to make drugs, you know, and it takes a bit
of time, and so I think there's been a pullback.

(48:43):
I think that the baby kJ story and some of
the other things happening right now with gene editing in particular,
are just so inspiring that I'm hopeful that investors will
re engage and realize the opportunity ahead.

Speaker 4 (48:57):
Speaking of engaging, and kind of back to the side
of this. Have you had a chance to speak with
vine Pisad then you had a befd's division that oversees
gene editing.

Speaker 18 (49:05):
I think the FDA has played a central role in
regulating new therapies like Crisper. They are clearly excited about
the opportunities that the story of babykj Offer, and I
think we have a great partnership with them.

Speaker 6 (49:19):
You mentioned the other things that gene editing are doing,
and maybe not everything gets into the headlines, but give
us an idea of kind of the broad impact or
the broader impact that it maybe has already had.

Speaker 18 (49:30):
Right Well, you know, a couple things immediately come to mind.
One is programming immune cells to fight cancer. That's ongoing
with Crisper, and there are many companies and academic.

Speaker 19 (49:39):
Groups working on that.

Speaker 18 (49:40):
We have opportunities in other areas like cardiovascular disease. And
then you know, thinking ahead, looking at ways that we
might treat neurodegenerative disease, Alzheimer's, etc. I think that's also
a very interesting opportunity with Christoper.

Speaker 6 (49:55):
One thing I always wonder is that there is a
massive business already established treating cancer and Alzheimer's so many
different things. Does that ever slow the progress of something
that has the potential to be so impactful like gene editing.

Speaker 7 (50:11):
I'm always curious about that disconnect.

Speaker 6 (50:13):
It's a big business, right, taking care of all of
us and what ails us, especially as we get older.

Speaker 18 (50:18):
It is, and you know, both cancer and heart disease
are really.

Speaker 7 (50:21):
Multiple diseases, aren't they Right.

Speaker 18 (50:23):
There's a lot going on there saying with their own
degenerative disease. So I think the answer is we just
need everything we have to treat these disorders.

Speaker 4 (50:32):
That's Jennifer dudda founder of the Innovative Genomics Institute and
a Nobel Laureate in chemistry.

Speaker 6 (50:37):
the Bloomberg Tech Summit. I'm Carol Masser with Tim Stenoviek.

Speaker 5 (50:46):
This is Bloomberg.

Speaker 2 (50:49):
This is the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Listen live
each weekday starting at two pm Eastern on Apple car
Play and the Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App.
You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our
flagship New York station. Just say Alexa played Bloomberg eleven thirty.

Speaker 4 (51:07):
Welcome back to a special edition of Bloomberg's Business Week,

Speaker 6 (51:13):
Up next, we hear from Peggy Johnson, CEO of Agility Robotics.

Speaker 4 (51:17):
Robots and warehouses doing repetitive tasks that humans now do,
but doing them better and not getting injured.

Speaker 5 (51:23):
Carold.

Speaker 4 (51:23):
It sounds like the stuff of the future, But Agility
Robotics is one of the few companies that's doing this
right now.

Speaker 7 (51:29):
Yeah, they really are. Check us out. It's got five
foot nine inch robots.

Speaker 6 (51:33):
Working at a warehouse containing products made by spanks, has
technology and testing at Amazon dot Com facilities, and that
really makes Agility really one of the few humanoid bought
companies with machines currently performing useful task for customers. If
you are wondering if it's happening, folks, it's happening.

Speaker 4 (51:49):
Peggy's the former CEO of the augmented reality tech for
Magically if she's held senior roles at Microsoft and Qualcom.
She joins us here in San Francisco the Bloomberg Tech Summit.

Speaker 5 (51:57):
Welcome.

Speaker 4 (51:58):
It's been reported that a companies are testing digit you're
humanoid robot. It's what we're talking about. When will it
go beyond testing though to actually scale. Apparently they're only
about one hundred of these that are out in the
field right now.

Speaker 9 (52:10):
Well, we have gone beyond testing.

Speaker 19 (52:11):
We are actually commercially deployed as of one year ago
in GXO facilities, which is a third party logistics provider
who sends spanks out.

Speaker 4 (52:22):
At this point, we do we do so how many
are out there in the field right now?

Speaker 19 (52:28):
There's a handful of them, but they're getting ready to
get a hundred oh total. We only have about one
hundred out in the field that the company has made.
But at GXO we have a handful of those, but
they're looking at next steps on how to scale that
beyond that facility.

Speaker 6 (52:44):
Peggy, is it all about logistics at least for the
beginning and for a long time, Like, I'm.

Speaker 7 (52:49):
Just curious how this explodes.

Speaker 19 (52:50):
Yeah, that was the right entry point for a couple
of reasons. One is the robot is capable of doing
that today.

Speaker 9 (52:56):
It was made for work.

Speaker 19 (52:58):
It can pick up heavy containers even if things are
rolling around in it and still be stable and set
it down. It can move things from A to B
over and over and over again. Logistics happens to be
an area where there's a huge labor gap. These are
challenging jobs, very physically challenging. They have a repetition, they're

(53:23):
a little bit mind numbing.

Speaker 9 (53:25):
They're just hard jobs.

Speaker 19 (53:27):
Have caused a lot of injuries and things. Hard to
fill these jobs. So because of that demand, we are
able to bring our robots in.

Speaker 7 (53:34):
How expensive are they and how quickly it kind of
makes sense?

Speaker 6 (53:40):
That's true's no vacation time, maintenance, they don't fight with
each other. Seriously, how much do they cost? And like
for a company, how quickly does it make sense?

Speaker 19 (53:58):
Yeah? Right now we talk about them in the rain,
very low volume of say a luxury vehicle, but that's
coming down.

Speaker 9 (54:04):
Very very quickly. With volume.

Speaker 19 (54:06):
We believe we have line of sight to about twenty
five K thirty K for these industrial robots. We'll be
in that environment for a while now, before say we
get into the homes, where I think the price is
going to have to come down much much further.

Speaker 4 (54:23):
The big risk that by the way, we're speaking with
Peggy Johnson, CEO of Agility Robotics.

Speaker 5 (54:28):
Peggy, the sort of.

Speaker 4 (54:30):
Golden goose of this stuff is working alongside humans in
a way that's not at a risk to the health
of the humans, where a robot's not going to like
bump them and hurt them.

Speaker 5 (54:38):
How do you do that?

Speaker 4 (54:39):
Because that seems to be something that is really really challenging.

Speaker 19 (54:43):
It is super challenged to alan right now exactly they
have to today work inside of a work selle, which
are these gates that go up about waist high.

Speaker 9 (54:51):
It keeps humans back.

Speaker 5 (54:53):
Because human's back and not robots.

Speaker 19 (54:55):
Case robots, yeah right, because they're.

Speaker 5 (54:58):
Very I'm thinking about they're very curious.

Speaker 19 (55:01):
Humans want to get in there and see them, So
it keeps humans back. But the robots themselves are human
sized and sometimes they fall, they trip, or you know,
things just like humans do. And so you have to
be able to handle those situations in a very controlled manner.
Sometimes they're carrying fifty pounds of weight. That has to

(55:23):
be something that you bring the robot down in a
very controlled way so that no one gets hurt.

Speaker 9 (55:29):
You don't want an arm coming around. How do you
do that? Super challenging.

Speaker 19 (55:33):
We figured it out at Agility and we'll be demoing
that before the end of the year. It's called cooperative safety.
We can be around humans.

Speaker 5 (55:41):
You know. One thing that I've learned over the last
few months is that China is doing this really, really well.

Speaker 4 (55:48):
We have reports that there's a higher density of robots
for human on Chinese factory floors.

Speaker 5 (55:53):
Than here in the US and then here in Japan.

Speaker 4 (55:55):
A source feature in a Bloomberg story just a couple
of weeks ago said there are fifty or sixty company
in China, he thinks working on humanoid development.

Speaker 5 (56:02):
Now are we behind?

Speaker 19 (56:05):
I would say yes and no. They do have a
plethora of robots out there. Some of what is termed
humanoids aren't actually I mean humanoids usually have two arms,
two legs ahead. Some of them are simple robot arms
and things like that. So if we separate those out
and say just what are the humanoids doing, there's very
few that we see doing real heavy industrial work. Oftentimes

(56:30):
it's very lightweight. It's only a handful of skills. I
think from an innovation standpoint, the US is still ahead
of China in this hysteria.

Speaker 6 (56:41):
Okay, well, so wait a minute, because I think we
think about like the automation part that China has done
really really very well. But you're saying with humanoids, you
think the US is ahead.

Speaker 19 (56:52):
I think we are still ahead. We have not seen
first of all, safety incorporated in their humanoids.

Speaker 9 (56:58):
You must have safe humanoids.

Speaker 19 (57:01):
You cannot let them out of the work cell where
the big markets are without that.

Speaker 3 (57:04):
You need an e.

Speaker 19 (57:05):
Stop for instance, an emergency stop on the back.

Speaker 9 (57:08):
You need to hit that.

Speaker 19 (57:09):
If something goes wrong. It's just like an electronic bing.

Speaker 7 (57:12):
Can I get one for this?

Speaker 5 (57:14):
They do have that in the World Robot, the best
selling children's book. Well they do.

Speaker 19 (57:17):
Okay, See they're ahead.

Speaker 3 (57:19):
They are ahead.

Speaker 6 (57:19):
So I am curious about oversight though, like yeah, is
like what is the capacity for someone to go in
and affect a program? Like how does it work? Are
once a human eye is out there? Are they completely independent?
Or is there some over like how does yeah?

Speaker 9 (57:35):
So a couple of things.

Speaker 19 (57:36):
We are actually working with US government on the standards
for humanoids.

Speaker 9 (57:41):
None exists right now.

Speaker 19 (57:42):
They need to work with on that. We work with
a group called A three and they then input the
results of that into folks like oh ship.

Speaker 7 (57:50):
Part of defense?

Speaker 5 (57:51):
Oh no, would would it go under David all.

Speaker 3 (57:56):
Crept?

Speaker 19 (57:57):
It will probably cross paths with David.

Speaker 6 (57:59):
At some point, all right, so continue.

Speaker 9 (58:01):
So you need you need that.

Speaker 19 (58:04):
But we've taken safety seriously from day one. Because of
the power in these machines, you have to take it seriously.
If if a program, if something should happen, you don't
want an arm to fling around and knock you over
and do perhaps more damage. So that and also the
data on it has to stay very protected. Just like

(58:27):
anything in a corporate IT infrastructure, You've got to keep
the data protected. So we think of all of those things.

Speaker 6 (58:33):
Are they using data from the cloud, do they have
their own like on site on premise both.

Speaker 19 (58:39):
We have quite a bit of compute on the robot
itself and we're also connected to the cloud. We need
to step into an enterprise environment, so we have to
plug into their warehouse management systems. We have to talk
to the other types of robots like autonomous mobile carts
and conveyor belts. Those are all types of automation and

(58:59):
we have to talk to all of those in order
to work safely in that environment. And by the way,
to take over those tasks that they can't find humans for.

Speaker 9 (59:08):
We have to be able to plug in as if.

Speaker 4 (59:10):
It was a human You're not the only one here
in the US who's working on this. I don't know
if you saw Brett Adcock from jan RAI was here,
They're also working on humanoids. How does your robot differ
from Brett's.

Speaker 19 (59:21):
Well, we're here today with our robot who will walk
autonomously onto the stage today and upon my input, will
execute on my commands.

Speaker 9 (59:33):
So that's one big.

Speaker 4 (59:34):
Difference, and it sounds like the Figure AI robot does not.

Speaker 5 (59:37):
Do that at this point.

Speaker 9 (59:38):
I haven't seen it. Okay, possibly has anyone seen it?

Speaker 19 (59:42):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (59:43):
Okay, I couldn't you care?

Speaker 4 (59:44):
Ask Brett, Well, we could do Carol. Do you remember
that show many years ago? This is like when I
was a kid, BattleBots, where they had like remote control
cars robots that would like violently attack each other.

Speaker 5 (59:56):
I could see like a little cage match.

Speaker 6 (59:59):
Between actually that you've seen some video over in China.

Speaker 7 (01:00:02):
Yeah, different robots.

Speaker 4 (01:00:04):
Kind of digit and like a Figure AI robot.

Speaker 19 (01:00:07):
Yeah, we actually have really taken a stand that we
would never arm our general purpose robots. If we do
as we first and foremost have to have trust with
the humans.

Speaker 5 (01:00:21):
So we won't talk that The fact that you have
to say that I think.

Speaker 12 (01:00:24):
Is the story.

Speaker 7 (01:00:25):
No, it is a story like I'm thinking we just talked.

Speaker 6 (01:00:27):
About drones in terms of yeah, that's impacting warfare, and
I just think about all this stuff getting into the
wrong hands, like how.

Speaker 7 (01:00:35):
Do we control that.

Speaker 19 (01:00:36):
Well, we've already seen some of that out of China.
You see armed humanoids in videos and things. I think
the US has to have a response to that obviously,
and that they should have that kind of tech.

Speaker 7 (01:00:50):
Right.

Speaker 19 (01:00:50):
My point is our current general purpose robots are not
meant for that at all, and because we need to
build trust in the environment.

Speaker 4 (01:00:59):
Well, you never will you rule out ever using your
robots for security place.

Speaker 9 (01:01:03):
I mean, we've never ruled that out.

Speaker 19 (01:01:05):
I just want to make it very clear that what
we have today is not meant for that. And you
do see videos of that coming out of general purpose
robots in China.

Speaker 5 (01:01:15):
Yeah, I will say that that is terrifying.

Speaker 4 (01:01:17):
Well, we've read startups are doing trials in China from
sorting garbage, delivery, medicines, and nursing homes. You're thinking about
using these for elder care, but also patrolling the streets
alongside police officers and on the other hand, guiding.

Speaker 5 (01:01:31):
Museum for us.

Speaker 19 (01:01:31):
Yeah, those are all great use cases. I think it
is because you're putting a human in harm's way every
time a policeman walks out onto the street.

Speaker 9 (01:01:41):
I think better to have a robot.

Speaker 7 (01:01:44):
I think it doesn't have to be armed.

Speaker 19 (01:01:46):
It doesn't. Yeah, in a hazardous situation there's been some
sort of nuclear problem, send a robot in, don't you know?

Speaker 9 (01:01:54):
Send in humans?

Speaker 7 (01:01:56):
I want to ask you.

Speaker 6 (01:01:56):
City recently projected that the market for the machine humanoids
and related services will search to about seven trillion by
twenty fifty, and the world could be populated by six
hundred and forty eight million human like bots by that
What might that world look like?

Speaker 7 (01:02:10):
Take us there?

Speaker 19 (01:02:11):
Well, I think that world doesn't happen first until their safety.
So we have to show that these robots can be
side by side with humans in a very safe manner.
But then you should think of it as a tool.
And the same way farmers used to plow fields with oxen,
and now they have machines that do it. This will
be a tool that will give you choice. Some people

(01:02:34):
might want to use their robot to cook. You might
enjoy cooking. You say no, just do the laundry.

Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
For me.

Speaker 19 (01:02:40):
So that or you should think of it as giving
you choice to take manual labor.

Speaker 9 (01:02:44):
Off your head.

Speaker 7 (01:02:44):
So we could have every household has their own humanoid.

Speaker 6 (01:02:47):
I would wind to do like tasks like it'll be affordable.

Speaker 5 (01:02:50):
I would say two hours a night, right, it's like
every day.

Speaker 6 (01:02:56):
I mean you could see every household having absolutely yeah, yeah, where.

Speaker 5 (01:03:00):
We let you go? Funding?

Speaker 4 (01:03:01):
How you're thinking about the business. The information reported just
a couple months ago in March, and you're raising four
hundred million dollars at a pre investment valuation at one
point seventy five billion dollars.

Speaker 5 (01:03:09):
Can you give us an update? Has that round closed?

Speaker 19 (01:03:12):
That is ongoing and we have the funds will be
used to make our next generation robot, which is going
to be awesome. It's going to have a ten to
one work to charge ratio on batteries, which means one
hundred minutes of work ten minutes of charge. It's back
out the around the floor again.

Speaker 9 (01:03:31):
It can take full shifts.

Speaker 5 (01:03:32):
It's got many more rounds ten seconds. How many more
rounds of financing?

Speaker 12 (01:03:35):
Of course?

Speaker 9 (01:03:36):
I think this is it.

Speaker 4 (01:03:37):
That's Peggy Johnson, CEO of Agility Robotics.

Speaker 6 (01:03:40):
the Bloomberg Tech Summit. I'm Carol Messer with Tim Stenebek.

Speaker 5 (01:03:49):
This is Bloomberg.

Speaker 2 (01:03:56):
You are listening to the Bloomberg Business Weekdaily Podcast. Catch
us live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Eastern.
Listen on Apple CarPlay and the Android Auto with the
Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube.

Speaker 6 (01:04:09):
Welcome back to a special edition of Bloomberg Business Week,

Speaker 4 (01:04:16):
Up next, we hear from o c Emilkpari, a CEO
of Code with Class.

Speaker 6 (01:04:21):
For years, we have been talking easily about learning to
code being pretty much a guarantee to getting a good job.

Speaker 7 (01:04:28):
Keep in mind, just learn the.

Speaker 5 (01:04:29):
Code, Carol, That's what you said.

Speaker 6 (01:04:32):
Learn, you know, let your kids grow up to be coders,
because basically every company is a technology company and they
need coders to kind of manage their businesses, grow their businesses.

Speaker 7 (01:04:42):
It's been all about that.

Speaker 6 (01:04:44):
So many stories about those who've gone to coding boot
camps and then found very lucrative work at some of
the biggest tech companies. But there is a question now,
and you know it if you've been listening to us
here from San Francisco about AI and software applications that
maybe can teach any buddy, Tim and me to be coders.

Speaker 4 (01:05:02):
Yeah, so should we actually be teaching coding? If that's
the world where we're entering. We're going to post this
question to Ocmioquaria, CEO of Code with Class. It's a
nonprofit that works, in its own words, to close the
gender equity gap in tech. Ohsi joins us here on
site of the Bloomberg Tech Summit in San Francisco. It's
great to see you. It's been more than a year.

Speaker 7 (01:05:20):
Hi, friends who spoke.

Speaker 4 (01:05:22):
A lot has happened. I don't think we talked about
AI at all.

Speaker 9 (01:05:25):
No, we didn't have time.

Speaker 5 (01:05:27):
So that's the question that I have for you.

Speaker 4 (01:05:29):
Are we are we in an environment right now where
we should actually be telling these young kids.

Speaker 5 (01:05:35):
To learn how to code?

Speaker 9 (01:05:36):
Yeah?

Speaker 20 (01:05:36):
I mean that is the question of the hour, So
thank you for posing it. I think when we think
about the work that we do, we're actually thinking more
broadly than actually time spent hands on keyboard producing code.

Speaker 7 (01:05:49):
There is a lot that you can.

Speaker 20 (01:05:51):
Learn from a set of skills that are durable and transferable.
When you learn to code, you're learning computational thinking. You're
learning a way of solving problems decompose using them. You're
learning to find patterns and create abstractions. You're learning to
think algorithmically.

Speaker 7 (01:06:05):
These are all skills that we.

Speaker 20 (01:06:07):
Believe are transferable to problem solving in any domain.

Speaker 5 (01:06:10):
What's it? It's called code.

Speaker 7 (01:06:12):
With COLOSSI now called code with coloss Yeah?

Speaker 5 (01:06:14):
Should it be called code with classy? Should it be
called something else?

Speaker 20 (01:06:16):
Well? Maybe?

Speaker 16 (01:06:17):
I mean we're not really it's a term that you
would use to.

Speaker 20 (01:06:19):
Well, so we think about technical literacy. Technical fluid doesn't
have the same ring, you know, branding aside, we've always
had that sort of ethos to the work that we do.

Speaker 7 (01:06:31):
That really, we are.

Speaker 20 (01:06:32):
As proud of the young people in our programs who
go on to get CS degrees as we are the
ones who don't. So we have folks in our community,
for instance, one young woman who became a lawyer right
and took her fluency in technology to help create technical
policy right.

Speaker 7 (01:06:47):
And so the point that we're.

Speaker 20 (01:06:48):
Making is that technology is infused in all parts of
our life. And if you want to have a fruitful career,
you should know fundamental technology skills.

Speaker 6 (01:06:57):
But what kind of technology skills I before or describe that?

Speaker 7 (01:07:01):
You know, the advantages of.

Speaker 6 (01:07:02):
People learning to recognize patterns and some different things. And
it said to me, Wow, God, that sounds like AI
and that sounds like a large language model. So I'm
just kind of trying to understand what the future generations
or younger generations, what in technology do they really need
to know, because I feel like at this point they
really need to know how to converse with a chatbot

(01:07:22):
or with AI to get smart answers like So, help
me understand how you guys see this evolution of what
they need to learn when it comes to technology.

Speaker 20 (01:07:31):
Sure, so when you think about producing a product in
the world, there's more than just developing the code, right.
Part of it is understanding what is possible with technology?
What's the problem I want to solve first and foremost
with technology? How do I make trade offs among all
the different features that I might put in that product.
So the actual process related to building technology and putting

(01:07:52):
it into the world and finding value in product market fit,
as they like to say, is a process that involves
a fluency with the technology beyond just producing the code. Yes,
it is helpful to have a software agent or aissisted
software help you produce the lines of code that are necessary,
but you need that background in technology to architect the system,

(01:08:14):
to maintain the system, to figure out how to integrate
it with other parts of the world and other partners. Right,
So the fluency and again the confidence to understand how
technology works is still going to be a baseline requirement.
We may spend zero time spending time coding because AI
assistants or agents are doing that for us, but we're
using our fundamental understanding of the technology to advance the field.

(01:08:37):
And then I would say there's all there's still room
and innovation on the frontier models in chip design. Right,
these are all still places where we haven't reached the apex.
We still want to make progress in these fundamental foundation technologies,
and so we need people who are still getting the
PhDs and studying the sort of basic fundamentals that are
going to help advance the next inflection point in computing

(01:08:59):
that we haven't discovery.

Speaker 5 (01:09:00):
Right before we.

Speaker 4 (01:09:01):
Let you go, we just spoke to Tom Giles, our
senior executive editor for Global Technology here and he said,
one of the big takeaways is the conversation and tech
policy and what's going on in Washington. And I'm curious
because you worked at tech companies, you worked in philanthropy,
You've worked in politics, you worked on Hillary Clinton's twenty
sixteen campaign. When it comes to tech policy right now,

(01:09:24):
what is the White House doing right and wrong? In
your view when it comes to tech?

Speaker 20 (01:09:29):
Well, look, I think the Executive Order sort of highlighting
the importance of having AI education broadly accessible.

Speaker 19 (01:09:38):
I think that is.

Speaker 20 (01:09:38):
A good statement to make in general, as we're thinking
about building a few future workforce and thinking about American
competitiveness globally. I think that is something that I can
get behind.

Speaker 5 (01:09:51):
That's O. C. M.

Speaker 4 (01:09:52):
Yolkparia, CEO of Code with Classy Up.

Speaker 6 (01:09:55):
Next, we hear from Ashley Mayer, co host of the
Great Chat podcast. Hey listen very much to a part
of our world today. We've got a podcast. Everybody's got
a podcast. Great Chat, though, is a.

Speaker 7 (01:10:05):
New one that debuted I think about three months ago.

Speaker 6 (01:10:08):
Episodes include conversations that can kind of go in a
lot of places. Llm's AI AI maybe taking our jobs,
the best place to do a startup that's as likely
to be heard as our Courting Eggs Forever twenty one's demise,
and also.

Speaker 4 (01:10:22):
Views on the new code we've got with us here
at the Bloomberg Tech twenty five, Ashley Mayer co hosted
a great chat podcast. Actually, co founder and general partner
at the early venture firm Coalition Operators.

Speaker 6 (01:10:34):
Tell us about this podcast because my understanding, I think
it was a LinkedIn post that you guys talked about.
I think you did that. It was like a feisty
dinner and all of a sudden, here we got to
a podcast. Tell us about what you guys were.

Speaker 7 (01:10:44):
Thinking in the mission here.

Speaker 1 (01:10:45):
Yeah, I mean, be careful before you go to a
dinner with a group of friends, because you might end
up starting a podcast. The five of us had a
dinner and last ball. It was a fun, feisty conversation
about the tech industry, and we joked at that dinner,
you know, maybe we should have a podcast. There are
so many podcasts that are you know, more news driven,

(01:11:07):
more informational, have guests, but we sort of thought that
maybe a more conversational, conversational format was good, and so
that podcast turned into a group chat, and that group
chat turned into a podcast and Great Chat was born.

Speaker 6 (01:11:19):
Can I say it almost felt like Sex and the
City for the Czech worlds a little bit, because you
guys will cover a lot of what's going on in
the world more generally, but then you'll talk about, you know,
some executive moving to metow or something, and you kind
of get into the nitty gritty of it.

Speaker 1 (01:11:34):
Sex and the City for nerds maybe, yeah. And I
think what we try to do is demystify a lot
of the headlines everyone seeing. I mean, the five of
us have worked in tech our whole careers as investors, operators, founders.
My co host Sally has been in media herself, and
so we try to break down like the biggest headlines,
the biggest topics in tech and make them accessible, especially

(01:11:56):
to a younger generation of people coming into this industry.

Speaker 4 (01:11:58):
You guys are a venture capital so you understand that
things need to make money eventually. Yes, we're in a
world where anyone can do a podcast, so there's a
big difference between sort of the caller daddies and Joe
Rogan's of the world, and then the newer entrants that
don't necessarily have the traction is this right now making
money as the goal for it to make money?

Speaker 1 (01:12:19):
No, not currently, although you know, never say never. We're
very much in scrappy mode. We're really doing this from
a place that we saw a gap in the ecosystem
and if I'm gonna be a little feisty here myself.
We found one of the few areas of white space
in tech commentary, which is the we're all women. And
we felt like a lot of the biggest voices in
the tech industry were very loud, very prominent, often billionaire men,

(01:12:44):
and we thought maybe we could bring a different a
different line.

Speaker 4 (01:12:46):
You're not saying any names, but I know, I think
I know who you're talking about.

Speaker 7 (01:12:50):
There may be a podcast. It's a group of four.

Speaker 1 (01:12:52):
Men who are very loud.

Speaker 4 (01:12:54):
As I did watch Me Loud on HBO.

Speaker 5 (01:12:57):
I don't know if you watch Mountainhead on HBO.

Speaker 1 (01:13:00):
Just onto fun fact, I worked for one of those
podcast hosts back in the day.

Speaker 3 (01:13:05):
What did you.

Speaker 7 (01:13:07):
Well?

Speaker 1 (01:13:08):
I learned the power of narrative and the stories we
tell each other and ourselves about our industry determine who
gets funded, who gets the benefit of doubt, where top
talent goes, and this stuff really matters.

Speaker 6 (01:13:18):
But it's so indicative of how many conversations have we
had about women in tech, but and specifically female founded
companies just fighting for capital and to get recognized. Why
is that still a problem and how can you guys
use your format in your.

Speaker 7 (01:13:33):
Platform to maybe help that. Yeah, and also as venture
capitalists in your own right.

Speaker 1 (01:13:38):
Totally, And I mean I'm an emerging fund manager myself.
I have to raise money for my fund, and so
it's very much a thing, listen. I think just having
examples of people who are maybe underrepresented, who are visible,
who are doing the thing and putting ourselves out there.
I mean, we're very much in this like anti DEI era,

(01:13:59):
which which comes with both I think some negative implications
for how people and are focusing their time and efforts.
But at the end of the day, you know, we
all get to put our chips on the table and
build things ourselves and elevate other people who are doing it.

Speaker 6 (01:14:16):
Actually, just push back against EO, push back against women,
push back against anyone who maybe isn't just a.

Speaker 7 (01:14:22):
White male born in America. That's kind of how it
feels right now.

Speaker 6 (01:14:25):
Yeah, with your platform, are you afraid to speak out
against that. I mean, because I think there is a
lot of fear among leaders about you know, the White
House eater.

Speaker 7 (01:14:35):
Hearing something and not liking it. So tell me about that,
and how does it make it also harder for you
guys to raise money?

Speaker 1 (01:14:41):
Yeah, I mean I am at a small fund. Yeah,
And so I'm not too worried about President Trump watching
this interview and coming at me and listen. I think
at the end of the day, my job as an
investor is to fund the very best founders I can find.
I do super early stage investing really is a bet
on the founder. I don't have a diversity mandate. We

(01:15:04):
never have a coalition, but we have very diverse networks,
the diverse pipeline of deals, and so we have a
diverse portfolio. And in an ideal world, that's how it
works in my opinion, right, versus having to have dedicated programs,
specifics leaves of dollars going to you know, early stage
fund founders. I think that you know, as the venture

(01:15:25):
eco system diversit sized the pool of founders who get
capital of diversities.

Speaker 4 (01:15:30):
Ashley, before we let you go curious about what's exciting
to you out there, we're not an ecosystem in technology
where venture capitalists are throwing money at, like you know,
at based games or food delivery apps or that sort
of thing. Right now, a lot of it's going into robotics,
a lot of it's going into AI.

Speaker 5 (01:15:47):
Where are you seeing the money go well, I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:15:50):
Excited about a lot of the macro trends that other
people are. I have a partner who is actively building
a company in the AI space called trib Ai. We
see incredible aideal flow from her, and she so sort
of really has a real time pulse on what the
biggest AI platforms are doing, how enterprises are adopting. I
have another platfor partner who runs city Block Health, which
is a massive healthcare startup. We're seeing incredible breakthroughs in

(01:16:13):
the healthcare ecosystem, especially the intersection of health and AI.
But at the highest level, I think there's never been
a better time to be an emerging investor and an
early stage investor because so many things are changing about
the world. Right from a technological perspective, a platform shift
is really changing everything. From a regulatory perspective, I mean,

(01:16:34):
it's a little bit of a wild West, but change
is generally good. For early stage startups. Culturally and from
a media perspective, the way startups build their brands, go
to market, find their customers is changing, and so that
for me is so exciting.

Speaker 7 (01:16:47):
These moments of change.

Speaker 1 (01:16:48):
Ore where the most opportunity comes from.

Speaker 4 (01:16:50):
That's actually my co host of the Great Chat podcast,
and that.

Speaker 6 (01:16:54):
Does it for this special edition of Bloomberg Business Week,
focusing on our favorite conversations from the Bloomberg Tech Summit
this past week in San Francisco.

Speaker 2 (01:17:01):
This is the Bloomberg Business Week Daily podcast, available on Apple, Spotify,
and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live weekday
afternoons from two to five pm Eastern on Bloomberg dot com,
the iHeartRadio app, tune In, and the Bloomberg Business App.
You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube

(01:17:22):
and always on the Bloomberg terminal

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Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend - June 6th, 2025

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