September 24, 2025 • 42 mins
Watch Carol and Tim LIVE every day on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF.
Intel Corp. has approached Apple Inc. about securing an investment in the ailing chipmaker, according to people familiar with the matter, part of efforts to bolster a business that’s now partially owned by the US government.
Apple and Intel also have discussed how to work more closely together, said the people, who asked to not be identified because the deliberations are private. The talks have been early-stage and may not lead to an agreement, the people said.
Such a deal would follow a $5 billion investment last week by Nvidia Corp., which plans to work with Intel on chips for personal computers and data centers. SoftBank Group Corp., the Japanese tech giant seeking to expand further in the US, announced a $2 billion investment in Intel last month.
Intel also has reached out to other companies about possible investments and partnerships, the people said.
Today's show features:
- Bloomberg News Deals Reporter Ryan Gould
- Chris Nicholas, President and CEO of Sam’s Club, on the impact of tariffs for the wholesaler and the health of the company’s supply chains
- Lane Dilg, Former Head of Strategic Partnerships, Global Affairs, at OpenAI, on the company’s massive data center buildout and various partnerships
- Lori Kerr, Chief Executive Officer of FinDev Canada, on the ripple effects of the USAID rollback on Canadian development
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. This is Bloomberg Business
Week Daily, reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders
stay ahead with insight on the people, companies, and trends
shaping today's complex economy, plus global business, finance and tech
(00:23):
news as it happens. The Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast
with Carol Masser and Tim Steneviek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
All right, yes, indeed, everybody, we are continuing on Bloomberg
Business Week Daily. We are live at Bloomberg Philanthropy's Global
Forum here at the Plaza in New York City, so
we've stepped out of studio to really tap into some
of the leaders that are in town. They're talking about
major issues AI, climate change, infrastructure, so much going on,
(00:52):
and I feel like everybody's watching kind of the tech race,
which I think about the story that just crossed about
maybe Intel or Intel and Apple are talking.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Maybe Apple makes an investment in Intel. We're going to
get the load down on that in just a moment.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
Yeah, we are.
Speaker 5 (01:05):
In the meantime, we've got a great program coming up
over the next hour right here on Bloomberg Business Weekdaily.
We're gonna speaking to the CEO of the New York
Climate Exchange. He's standing by also Ma mood mo Healden
UN Climate Change High Level Champion for COP twenty seven
and at the CEO of Canada's Bilateral Development Finances.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
Deciusion is going to be joining us in just a
few minutes.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
A global view and perspective continues in just a moment.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
But first up, everybody's watching what's going on with global
technology companies, and we are watching so much in terms
of what's going on with Intel. The stock shooting up
in the last fifteen twenty minutes. This on a headline
that crossed that Intel has approached Apple about securing an
investment in Intel is, according to people familiar with the matter,
part of an effort to really bolster a business that
(01:47):
is now partially owned by the US government.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Don't forget that, you Carol.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
Yes, you're a taxpayer.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
You me great.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
We all own a piece of Intel. Ryan Gould and
Leanna Baker Bloomberg News reporting this out. Ryan is Bloomberg
News Deals reporter. He's back at the Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio,
Blomberg headquarters in New York City.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Ryan, what's going on and what do we know.
Speaker 6 (02:04):
Yeah, I think it's great to be with you guys,
first of all, but I think you know, the news
of the day is that we can report that Intel
has approached Apple about securing a potential investment in the
chip maker. This obviously comes on the back of both
the US government investing in Intel directly one of its
largest shareholders, and also would potentially follow a five billion
(02:27):
dollar investment from both in Nvidia and a two billion
dollar investment from SoftBank. I guess one way to put
this all together is, you know, Intel is on the comeback,
and exactly what that comeback looks like. Well, maybe it's
a little too early to tell, but they're definitely being
proactive about it.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
You know, a line in the piece from you and
Leanna really sticks out. It's this the fact that a
long time Intel customer, Apple was, but it's switched to
in house processors in the past five years. It's unlikely
that Apple would switch back to Intel or in its devices.
What's in this for Apple?
Speaker 4 (03:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (03:02):
I want to I feel like a three year old
or four year old, Why why are they doing that?
Speaker 5 (03:06):
Well, why would they They're not necessarily doing it? Like,
why would Apple do this?
Speaker 6 (03:11):
I think Tim you mentioned that line, but I think
one of the other lines that you know is worth
throwing attention to in the story is that Tim Cook
appeared at the White House not so long ago, just
a few months ago actually, and stood in front of
Donald Trump and pledged six hundred billion dollars of investment
in the US over the course of a six year period.
I mean, that's no sort of small amount of money.
(03:34):
I mean when you think about their their announcement that
Apple made with regard to the Corning longtime Apple glass
API for two point five billion, I mean, you know
you're kind of looking at Apple and thinking, Okay, this
is some this is a company. This is Tim Cook
wanting to be on the right side of Donald Trump.
And you know what does that look like for Intel?
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Well?
Speaker 6 (03:55):
Maybe, you know, you think about things like tariffs, think
about things like on shoring manufacturing, think of things like
what does it mean to be made in the USA?
Speaker 3 (04:04):
So is this more an Apple story or an Intel
story or a little bit of both?
Speaker 6 (04:07):
Just to wrap up here, I think this is more
of an Intel story for sure. I mean to be
sure Apple, You know, Apple doesn't need Intel. It's the
other way around. And so this is definitely an Intel story,
but I think you know, to underline all of this,
this is about Intel being proactive, and you know, when
you've got the US government as one of your largest shareholders,
I think that's definitely a message that you would want
(04:28):
to convey to people watching on the outside that now
is the time to get serious about our future.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
All right, good stuff. There's so much in the story.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
It is a Bloomberg exclusive, so we highly recommend you
check it out on the Bloomberg terminal and at Bloomberg
dot com. Ryan Gould joining us Bloomberg News Deals Reporter
back there at Bloomberg Headquarters in New York City.
Speaker 5 (04:47):
Stay with us more from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming
up after this.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Catch
us live weekday afternoons from two to five e's during
Listen on Applecarplay and Android Otto with the Bloomberg Business app,
or watch.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Us live on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Carol Master Tim Stanevik live here at the Bloomberg Global
Business Forum at the Plaza in New York City. While
if you want to know what global consumers are up
to or what massive global companies are really thinking, about
when it comes to the macro environment, what are their priorities?
Then keeping an eye on Walmart is definitely a must do.
It is the world's largest retailer. It was among the
retailers that recently raised their forecast that happened over the summer,
(05:31):
and a member of the company c suite is joining us.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Tim right here at the forum.
Speaker 5 (05:34):
Yeah, here at the Bloomberg Global Business Forum, Please to
have Chris Nicholas with US President and CEO of Sam's Club.
It is Walmart's membership only retail warehouse club, mostly with
clubs here in the US, but also overseas clubs in Mexico, China,
and Brazil. Former COO of Walmart US previously CFO across
Walmart US and Walmart International.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
What means you've seen everything I've tried.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
How are you?
Speaker 7 (05:58):
I'm doing great, really excited to be How.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
Are we doing? And by we I mean the American consumer.
You've got such a great view on what happens across
the country.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
How are we doing?
Speaker 7 (06:07):
Yeah, I mean we.
Speaker 8 (06:09):
What we're seeing at Sam's Club is consumers that are
consistent and rational. You know, I've been in retail for
more than thirty years now, and I've never known a
time when people don't love great items at great prices.
And as long as you're giving people that, we're finding
consumers really you know, rational and consistent.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
What is their behavior though right now?
Speaker 5 (06:31):
Because that's something Carol and I were talking a lot
about today, and you know, the whole idea of are
they buying what they typically buy, are they buying what
they buy at a certain point in economic cycle, are
they trading up, are they trading down?
Speaker 4 (06:42):
What are they doing in your stores?
Speaker 8 (06:44):
Yeah, it's interesting with I mean, consistent would be the
word i'd use. People are still buying general merchandise from US.
I mean, we talked in our last quarter at the
results about general merchandise sales having another quarter of positive
comp But what's really interesting in that is that the
units are moving faster than the items, which means that
(07:04):
you know, we're still giving them great value. And I
think people are really moving to appreciate when they're getting
good value. You know, the club warehouse model is made
for times like these. I would say it's a good
time to be in the club model. We've got in
our clubs. We've only got four thousand items, and the
way that the club model works. Just to level settlers,
(07:24):
is our job is to make almost nothing on what
we sell. We're just about break even and we make
all our money from membership. So the lower you can
operate in terms of costs, the lower you can keep prices.
And when that happens, people are more loyal, they renew
more often, and you get more members. So we're in
this like really special moment right now where people are
love the great value that we've got and they love
(07:45):
the great items that we've got to.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
You know, I want to cross that with what we
just heard from Fezherman, J.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Powell Chris last week in terms of the decision and
kind of basically saying the FA's not in a great place,
like either way, there's some risks to the employment picture,
their concerns still about it. In so this is there's
kind of risks to both sides of the equation and
concerned about monetary policy that it's hard to do right
now in this environment. So that to me sounds uncertain, unsure,
(08:12):
But it doesn't sound like you're saying any of that.
Speaker 7 (08:14):
Look the club, here's the thing. We have this.
Speaker 8 (08:20):
Position where there's only I mean between us and our
main competitors in the club model.
Speaker 7 (08:25):
In particular, we're.
Speaker 8 (08:26):
Only like six and a half percent of the of
the of the total retail market, and we would definitely
from a club point of view, our consumers definitely skew
sort of more wealthy, you know, bigger basket sizes, but
we do serve everybody, and we don't see a great
delta between different income cohorts.
Speaker 7 (08:49):
You don't know, all right, that's more generations.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Well what about I.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Mean, when you think about kind of the environment, specially
when it comes into tariffs in terms of pricing, how
do you kind of figure out where you can maybe
raise prices where you can.
Speaker 8 (09:02):
Well, it's such a great it's such a great question.
We and again not to sort of pivot, but one
of the powers of the club model is because you've
only got four thousand items in the club, those items
are curated. Yeah, And our merchants, they are true professionals that,
like many of them, have been in their jobs decades
and they understand the value chain from end to end
better than anybody, and so they get the ability to
(09:25):
choose what's in the club, but they also get the
ability to work through where the inefficiencies are in the
supply chain. They've got deep relationship with the suppliers, so
you work through where the opportunities are between the suppliers too.
So I'll give you an example. Our roses that we
buy from Ecuador. The costs went up because you know,
the tariff environment changed, and so our merchants work through
(09:47):
with the supplier like what could we do? So we
move them in different ways so we have less packaging.
We we we wrap them in the US now instead
of where we used to wrap them. And so you
do things like that that help you to manage the
input costs. That means you don't have to pass it
on to the consumer. And our job is to work
through how little you pass through, and you work through
(10:12):
how late you do it.
Speaker 7 (10:13):
So we'd always like to be last last up.
Speaker 8 (10:15):
But we have the ultimate opportunity in the club channel,
and that is that we have choice because we don't
have to sell everything, so we the curation actually is
a superpower for us.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Does that mean you haven't raised prices on anything?
Speaker 7 (10:27):
No?
Speaker 8 (10:27):
No, we see. I mean, look here's the thing. Are
there are certain things that were prices move all of
the time. No, anyway, So produce would be a good
example of that, and.
Speaker 7 (10:36):
There are some strictly terror for later.
Speaker 8 (10:38):
Yeah, what I would say to you is that if
I think about general merchandise would be there, which is
like all of the electronics and apparel and all of
those things.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
The stuff that I have way too much in my home.
There's never enough, Please buy more. But in terms of
teriffs particularly pretty pressure on pricing.
Speaker 8 (10:58):
Yeah, So what we see is in terms of what
people are buying. I think I mentioned this, but the
growth in the units that we've had is outpacing our
comps in general merchandise. So if you think about, like
over the last few years, you had like packaged goods
through COVID became more expensive and they never really came down,
(11:21):
whereas general merchandise, we had the supply chain disruption, you
remember that, and the general merchandise inflated and then it
deflated rapidly as there was after all of the supply
chain disruptions disappeared, and at the end of last quarter
we were still in a period of slight deflation in
general merchandise.
Speaker 7 (11:41):
So prices move all of the time.
Speaker 8 (11:43):
Our job and our merchant's job, is to make sure
that we give people access to the price points they
want and the value that they want, maybe it's worth mentioning.
But in Sam's Club, like we're twenty five percent cheaper
than retail in general, so as we resist putting prices
up because that's in our DNA, we were always going
to be more price competitive than everybody else.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
So then you haven't raised any prices related to terrorst
We will.
Speaker 8 (12:08):
We will be the last people to put prices up.
And some prices have gone up, but in the mix,
I'm telling it so for sure. I mean we have
input price changes in some items and some come through
already and some is still to come through. But I
would tell you that, like, our job is not to
lead with putting prices up, and all of our sales
(12:30):
growth in Sound's Club is through unit growth, not inflation.
Speaker 5 (12:33):
Okay, cool, I'm wondering what you're hearing from from your
team who's out there talking to the producers, the American
producers of things we grow, produce beef as well. We
had a Bloomberg News story last week about farmers and
as all that the Trump administration policies are taking on
farmers right now.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
Immigration just one of them.
Speaker 5 (12:52):
Tariffs on soybeans are another one as a result of
fewer less interest from.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
China and Chinese buyers.
Speaker 5 (13:00):
What are you hearing them on the immigration front, Because
in some cases forty percent of migrant workers are from
outside forty percent of farm workers rather are migrant workers,
So they're coming from outside the US, and that's a
challenge for farmers to actually find those employees.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
Right now, What are you hearing from them?
Speaker 8 (13:15):
Yeah, I'm not hearing. I don't have anything to add
or to offer on that topic. I would tell you
that we have brilliant farmer partners. We understand the value
change really well, and we have no in stock issues
or cost price issues.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
So have they raised prices at all on American produce?
Speaker 8 (13:32):
I you'd have to ask somebody else about the through
line on like employment and pricing prices. I think you
probably speak to lots of people are better informant.
Speaker 5 (13:40):
What about from produce that comes outside of the United States.
I mean, we can't do everything here. We can't grow bananas,
we can't grow avocadocados. Yeah, tomatoes when they're out of
season come from outside of the US.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
What does that look like?
Speaker 7 (13:52):
Yeah, I mean what it is like the increasing.
Speaker 5 (13:55):
Costs associated with terrorists because those will be or those
are tariff already. I mean beef that comes from Brazil
forty percent errors for example.
Speaker 8 (14:02):
Yeah, I mean we are we definitely over index on
US beef. The vast majority of what we buy is US,
the vast majority, and and so you know, but we
have choices about where we buy from. This is the
benefit of being this curated, limited assortment retailer is that
we get the choices to buy from the places that
where you give the consumers great value and great quality,
(14:25):
which we're never going to relent on. But you know, yeah,
we buy items. You know, we buy avocados, as you said,
from abroad, and many other items, tomatoes when it's out
of season, and you know, the quality and the value.
That will never relent on the quality. But if the
input costs increase, then the input's costs will increase. But
(14:46):
there's meant there's produce. There are so many variables produce
and beef. I mean that there are so many variables
that pushes the costs down as well as up. So
I think it's a super complex situation. And I think
that our farmers are some of the best in the world.
And I think that our merchants know how to work
(15:06):
with the farmers. The thing, the best thing you can
do for those farmers is to give them great forecasts,
allow them to grow to those forecasts, and give them
good prices that allow them to run sustainable business models.
And we do a really good job of that, Chris.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
You guys in retail, I'm sure we're even late to
talk about the holiday season and the upcoming holiday season.
When you think about assortment and what you want to
have inventory for consumers, how's it looking for this year?
Is it going to be a lot different from last year?
Are the supply channel there to get what you need
and what you want for your consumers?
Speaker 8 (15:36):
Yeah, that's not an issue. We don't see any issues
with supply chain management in that way. A Sam's Club
in particular, we get really early. So you guys have
a Sam's Club now, which hopefully you know, please do
You'll see it's full of Christmas.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
I know it tries it a little crazy.
Speaker 7 (15:53):
Yeah, I mean I understand.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
Is it so early? I mean Halloween hasn't even happened.
Speaker 7 (15:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (15:58):
Well, in the club channel, people like to be prepared,
I know. So we get into a season early and
then we exit early and that's the kind of scarcity
is part of the value that we create, and so.
Speaker 7 (16:12):
So we're not worried about it from a Sam's Club
point of view.
Speaker 8 (16:14):
But the thing I would say is that people just
love to celebrate, They love to buy, they love the seasons,
and so I think you'll find that certainly at Sam's Club.
People whether it's the general merchandise they buy pre Thanksgiving
and Christmas or the food that they buy for the season,
as long as you're giving them great value, they're going
to come to you and people will find a way
(16:37):
to celebrate.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
One of the things we love about the global business
form is we tackle everything climate change, you know, workforce, employment, economics, politics.
As a leader who's been at a company for a
long time and I'm sure looking at everything that's going on,
what's top of mind for you and an environment where
this pushback against certain initiatives, there's a lot of political
things going on, geopolitics. Curious, you know, in running what
(17:02):
you guys do, and I know you're kind of a
well oiled machine in many ways, but I'm just curious.
Speaker 8 (17:07):
Yeah, I think, you know, in the in an environment
of change, and by the way, I like changes are constant,
and you've got to you've got to love it.
Speaker 7 (17:18):
Then.
Speaker 8 (17:18):
I've always found that the best thing to do is
to focus on what you can control. And what you
can control is the culture you create as a business,
how you work with and treat your customers and your members,
the experiences that you create. You know, a great example
is is the e commerce business. We've just launched express
(17:39):
delivery from our clubs and people love it and they're
opting in.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Does the price change with delivery?
Speaker 7 (17:45):
No, we have price parity. We have price pas so
others don't.
Speaker 9 (17:49):
We do.
Speaker 8 (17:49):
So we have price parity between clubs and an online
that's really important from a trust point of view. And
people are thanking us for our delivery from club food
and non food is growing at triple digits right now.
So I think, like, focus on what you can control.
Start with being great people, start with being a great business.
Look after your associates so they can look after our members,
(18:11):
and then you know that that generally will lead to
the right outcomes.
Speaker 5 (18:16):
So on that we'll hear from one of your big
competitors tomorrow. Costco reports earnings tomorrow. How do you make
sure that people join Sam's Club and not Costco.
Speaker 7 (18:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (18:26):
Look, Costco is a great competitor. We think that we're
great too, and we're doing a lot of good things.
What I would tell you is this.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Because you have an aggressive plan in terms of expansion.
Speaker 7 (18:37):
Yeah, I remember about it.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
I know.
Speaker 8 (18:39):
Yeah, we're really excited about that plan. Actually, the club
channel in general is a relatively small channel. There's a
huge there's huge upside for the whole of the club channel.
And I would tell you this, good competition makes you better.
And I've never been afraid of good competition.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
What about AI and how you guys are working?
Speaker 4 (18:57):
Are you afraid of AI?
Speaker 10 (19:01):
AI?
Speaker 3 (19:01):
We're trying.
Speaker 7 (19:02):
AI is a big topic everywhere now, isn't it. You know,
here's the thing we are.
Speaker 8 (19:08):
We're excited about AI as a company, and I am
personally too. I think this idea of are you guys
using it a lot?
Speaker 7 (19:14):
A lot.
Speaker 8 (19:15):
We've been using it for a long time, honestly, But
the generative AI and then the agentic AI that's coming
through too is really exciting. It's exciting for our members
and for our associates. What we do we pivot to.
Speaker 7 (19:27):
Growth? How does this help us move faster?
Speaker 8 (19:29):
Do more for our associates and our members, how do
we find different routes to market, So that's exciting. Of course,
we also look at how do you find opportunities to
take time out of product launches and all of those
kind of things so that you're a better business. The
one thing that you may have seen is we also
believe that the opportunity to give people to empower people
(19:50):
with the use of AI but with an enterprise, but
with enterprise data is really exciting. So whether it's in
the office or recently, we've made an announcement a couple
of weeks our holiday meeting where we gave our frontline
management access to open AI, to chat, GPT and which
they can use to just go faster and do more.
(20:10):
And that's really exciting.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Yeah, it's kind of amazing. We're all kind of finding
our way through it. Chris, thank you so much.
Speaker 7 (20:15):
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Weep. Yeah,
good luck, good luck, Thank you as well.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
Chris Nicholas. He's the presidency of Sam's Club.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily podcast. Catch
us live weekday afternoons from two to five Easter and
listen on Applecarplay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App,
or watch us live on.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
YouTube Carol Masser, Tim Staneveek live here at the Plaza,
the Bloomberg Global Business Forum Leaders and one of the
big topics this week that we've seen as world leaders
are in town and also as it's climate NYC is
everything and anything to do with artificial intelligence.
Speaker 5 (20:53):
I mean, we can't kind of stay away from hebines
here every single day. Just today, Microsoft partnering with open
ai rival Anthropic to help power its workplace AI assistant.
Anthropic founded by former open ai employees, Carol, it's one
of the largest competitors to open ai, a key player
in the industry.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Yeah, just coming on the heels of one of the
big stories that we covered this weekend, Vidia announcing it
we'll invest as much AS's one hundred billion dollars in
open ai to help with that build out of data center.
So there's a lot going on when it comes to AI.
It's all about partnerships and we have a great guest
to talk about that. Lane Dilg is former head of
Strategic Partnerships Global Affairs at open Ai.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
She's had a career in law politics.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
She served as special senior actually senior counsel to then
Senator Kamala Harris, Kamala Harris, and she's also worked at
the Department of Justice. I'm rushing, but you have like
this incredible public private background. So when you think about AI,
I don't know how do you make sense of just
it just feels phrenetic. The amount of money, the amount
(21:49):
of activity, the amount of headlines that come every day.
Speaker 9 (21:52):
Yes, there obviously is so much happening, so many big
deals in the news, and those big deals in the news.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Do have real life implications for all of us.
Speaker 9 (22:00):
Incredible as you mentioned, to see the Nvidia an open
Ai deal showing that in video will provide chips to
open Ai up to ten gigawatts and also make an
investment one hundred billion dollars, obviously shoring up open AI's
credit and providing a real runway for open Ai. Those
kinds of deals we are seeing almost weekly right now.
(22:20):
You mentioned Microsoft and Anthropic as well, so very very
competitive landscape and a landscape that is moving extremely quickly.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
It's kind of funny to hear about Microsoft partnering with Anthropic,
given that Microsoft is a huge investor in open Ai.
What do you make of that, like, what's the world
that we're living in when you have these strange bedfellows?
Speaker 9 (22:38):
Yes, I think you know. I think everyone is watching
sort of all of these different pieces. From an adoption perspective,
people are looking at how many different companies will individual
companies work with? So do you want to work with
one AI model? Do you want to one AI model provider?
Do you want to work with many? Microsoft also has
in house AI, they have the partnership with open ai,
(23:00):
and now you see them with Anthropical.
Speaker 5 (23:02):
Well can you We've had some folks come on our
program and say, Okay, there's been so much funding, there's
been so much money chasing these companies. They are also
those people who say, we're kind of just going to
wait until the dost settles because we think there could
be this commodity issue when it comes to lms. What
separates one LM from another? What separates Claude from chat GPT?
(23:25):
And I fully we're asking somebody who was at chat
at open ai. So yes, that's where this question is
coming from.
Speaker 9 (23:31):
A great question though, because obviously now I use all
of them to try to stay up to date on
where everyone is, and I also speak with the different
companies about sort of what their trajectory will be going forward.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
I do think the models are somewhat different just for users.
Speaker 9 (23:45):
They provide responses a little bit differently, they're friendly in
different ways, they're useful in different ways, and so there's
some personal preference. I do think that we will start
to see differentiation in areas like material science, chemistry bylogy
as people really move into these more specific domains where
(24:05):
different model providers lean in, who they work with and
how will become important in terms of what you can
do to solve problems with the technology. So and you know,
I think the other piece, as you see with the
Nvidio open a ideal, we often say infrastructure is destiny.
It is true that there is also this massive race
for compute, and that is because to continue the research
(24:28):
and development to continue to make the progress, you need compute,
and compute requires a lot of energy. So we don't
know yet whether there will be a differentiation there or not,
but everyone racing to make sure they have the compute
they need to continue development.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
You run your own advisory firm and you're dealing with
kind of innovation in partnerships right and working with other companies.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
But I want to go back to what Tim said.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
I mean, I think there was when the Nvidia deal
came out that there was concerns that it was a
sign of a bubble. That it's Nvidia partnering with open Ai.
Obviously it's the company chat to so identified when it
comes to AI at this point, but this idea that
Nvidia needs a marketplace to keep buying its chips.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
So I'm just curious.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
I mean, at some point, I don't know what are
you hearing from companies as you talk to them. Are
they a little cautious at all? Is there any nervousness
about this incredible spend and this incredible buildout.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Yes, a great question.
Speaker 9 (25:23):
Obviously, financial experts around the world asking many of these questions.
I think, you know, we previously thought that Nvidia may
not be able to supply enough, so interesting to now
hear people say, well, they are, you know, trying to
find a consumer for the gipsy Yes, right, yeah, so
I think, you know, I think that conversation happening on
both sides. You know, my own personal view is that
(25:46):
we are not yet anywhere close to maxing out the
demand for compute and chips. And when we are then
you may actually see that model development as stalling or
something else. But I just don't think we're there right now.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
I am curious when you are at open AI and
we know you left a couple a few months ago,
but now you have your own advisory firm. Is the
phone ringing off the hook of people saying help me,
I need to find this and what are they looking for?
Speaker 9 (26:11):
Yes, so it is true that people are looking for
lots of answers. They're looking for answers to the macroeconomic questions.
They're looking for answers to help them guide investments. But
then teachers and healthcare providers are looking at what is
the potential How do I take care of my workforce
and also take care of those I serve at the
same time, what is the pace of adoption. I'm excited
(26:34):
to be here today with Bloomberg Philanthropies working on the
Mayorage Challenge, which is a competition they run around the
world for mayoral innovation for city services, and so many
people in that space saying where are the opportunities for innovation?
And we're seeing such interesting proposals there as well. I
just want to say I actually had a meeting with
(26:55):
a giant company. I'm not going to say who it was.
And I heard of them, Yeah, everybody's heard of them.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
But it was like we were talking about they were
asking me about what I'm how I'm using AI.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
I was asking them and it's like we're all.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Kind of fumbling our way through and we have courses
that have come up at Bloomberg to kind of help
us figure our way through this company. They're just kind
of like somebody figure something out and they do it
kind of a show and tell. But it's it's interesting
how we're trying to find our way through this.
Speaker 9 (27:20):
Yes, I've heard two CEOs at the Frontier Labs really
really say the pace of scientific progress on the AI
side is much faster than the pace of implementation and adoption.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
It's hard.
Speaker 9 (27:30):
These are large institutions with lots of people. You have
to actually figure out what is the right way for
your company, for your school, for your business, and that
takes some time.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
You know.
Speaker 5 (27:38):
I use chat GPT all the time, personally use it
at work too. We have the paid version at work,
but I have the free version on my phone, and
when it tells me I can't use it anymore, I
just go over and use claude. How do you prevent that? Like,
how do you get me to pay for it?
Speaker 9 (27:51):
Like?
Speaker 5 (27:51):
How do you monetize all the free users when so
much compute is being used?
Speaker 9 (27:55):
Yeah? I think you know, same with any product in
a certain way. You want yours to be the go to.
You want yours to be the most useful, the one
that you turn to to solve the problems that are
most important to you. And I think that companies are
competing in that, and we'll see fits and starts, but
you do you get accustomed to one product or another.
Speaker 7 (28:14):
So will we be paying for it?
Speaker 4 (28:15):
Well, I mean, or is there going to be advertising?
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 9 (28:19):
So I think you know right now you can pay
for different different levels of access. I think that is
meaningful both for individuals and for businesses. I use the
paid accounts across all of the different companies, which may
seem crazy, but I want to see where the capability
really is. So I do think that is the monetization
that you're seeing primarily.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
And I'm not a tax professional, but that's a business expense,
I would imagine.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
So talk to your account.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Yes, I am curious about we mentioned that you were
senior counsel to Kamala Harris when she was senator.
Speaker 9 (28:54):
Actually, I have been senior counsel to a senator, but
most recently I was senior advisor in the Department of Energy.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
Oh, I'm so sorry that the notes I had. So sorry.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
I do think though about the intersection of technology and politics,
and I feel like every decision is made with a
careful glance at the White House. Yea, So talk to
me about that and how that might I don't know,
kind of impact the deals that are done and how
they're done.
Speaker 9 (29:19):
Yes, absolutely, I think you see a lot of that
in the infrastructure space. So if you look at the models, they,
as we talked about, require compute, but compute also requires energy.
And as we look at competition between the United States
and China, I think people feel really good about our talent,
they feel really good about our workforce, they feel really
good about our innovation. But we do need to get
(29:40):
more energy on the grid, and we need to do
that fast. And so I think you see this all
of the above approach, but also disagreement over what is
that all of the above approach, How does it work?
Do things need to be grid connected or not? And
most importantly, how do I make sure that consumers have
the electricity they need at the prices they need while
we power all this.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
AI Well, is it ultimately going to be everybody, especially
the hyper scalers probably doing their own energy development on
site that kind of thing.
Speaker 9 (30:06):
Or I think you'll see a mix, just like you
see a mix and the financial deals. I think you'll
see a mix both to headge risk, but also because
it'll be opportunistic.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
We need the energy as fast as we can get.
Speaker 5 (30:15):
Hey just want to end with what this does to
the American workforce, the global workforce. Dario amiday Over at
Anthropic has been really outspoken about how this could just
decimate why call our jobs?
Speaker 4 (30:26):
You agree?
Speaker 10 (30:27):
So?
Speaker 9 (30:27):
I think there was a conference in San Francisco that
people are watching just last week about what the different
scenarios are. I think we don't know the answers yet,
and so from a policy perspective, we need to be
planning for multiple scenarios. It's critically important that we understand
both the data of how our jobs moving, where are
the transition's happening, and also look at the social safety
nets and other things to make sure that if there
(30:50):
is dislocation, we're doing the reskilling, We're doing the training
to get people into a place that is productive.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
You've seen the tack up close. You know what it
can do. What keeps you up at night, What.
Speaker 9 (30:59):
Gives me the night is, you know, as always, it's
the humans. It's our human potential, it's our ability to
step into this technology, and it's also what we can
do with it for good or for ill.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
And I think that that's the space where I'd like
to see the policy focused. Are you worried about the
bad side of AI?
Speaker 9 (31:14):
I'm worried about humans using AI for bad purposes is
what I worry about more than the doomers, who are
more concerned about what we would call alignment issues. I
think the science on alignment is pretty strong and will
continue to be strong, and people will be alarmed if
it's not. But the question of what can you do
with the technology is a hard one. We are about
to all get more powerful.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Yeah, that's kind of interesting. Need to leave there.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
I feel like we could talk a lot more about this,
and we will probably in the future. I hope you
can come back. Yes, Lane, thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
Lane Dale.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
She's former head of Strategic Partnership ships and global affairs.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Over it open AI.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
Stay with us.
Speaker 5 (31:51):
More from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming up after this.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Catch
us live weekday afternoons from two to five e's during
Listen on Apple Karplay and Android Otto with the Bloomberg
Business app, or watch.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
Us live on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Carol Masser along with Tim Steneviek, we are live here
at Bloomberg Philanthropy's Global Form.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
We're going to continue with some great conversations from this event.
Speaker 6 (32:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (32:18):
The event brings together our heads of state business leaders
to address the world's most urgent challenges and opportunities. Among
those challenges and opportunities is sustainable economic development and that's
where Lori Kerr comes in. She's the chief executive officer
of FINDEV Canada. It's Canada's bilateral development finance institution. She
joins us on set here at the Plaza Hotel.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
How are you.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
I'm great, It's really great to be here.
Speaker 10 (32:39):
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Thanks gut gad to have you here.
Speaker 5 (32:41):
I feel like our conversation this year would be a
lot different than our conversation last year. If we were
to have that We're going to get to that in
a minute. You invest in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean
in a world that many would argue is turning inward.
How do you convince Canadians that what you're doing is
in their best interest?
Speaker 10 (32:58):
Well, I mean, if I quote some of the recent
speakings of the of our own Prime minister, he certainly
recognizes that when developing countries prosper, Canada prospers as well.
It's a time to really lean into global partnerships to
build resilience in global economic growth.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
How to prioritize how to do that because I'm sure
there's a lot of folks saying we need.
Speaker 10 (33:22):
Help, absolutely and quite honestly, like the demand is limitless
for what FINDEV Canada offers and other bilateral development finance institutions.
So how we approach our financing and investment decisions is,
of course, we have to have commercial sustainability. That's what
we're going to We want to have vibrant markets, and
we also look through three impact lenses. We have three
impact lenses through which we work that informs all of
(33:42):
our financing and investment decisions. Climate and nature action, gender
equality and local market development.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
Has to check on all of those in order for
it to happen, or not all of.
Speaker 10 (33:53):
Them, because different types of investments in financing opportunities will
address one or more of them. You know, look to
try and have positive contribution across each of those, but
not everything ticks every box, so to speak.
Speaker 5 (34:06):
I feel like in this administration, in the environment that
we're in the United States, those those boxes would not
exist under this current administration.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
Does that? How do you think about that?
Speaker 10 (34:17):
Well, it's again it's a real wonderful opportunity for Canada's
to show global leadership. And again, when developing countries prosper,
Canada prospers and the world prospers. So it's an opportunity
for us to continue with looking at having impact in
the markets that we serve.
Speaker 5 (34:31):
So with the US pulling back on foreign aid, with
the US dismantling US aid, which certainly is controversial here
in this country, as I'm sure you're aware, does it
mean more of an opportunity for Canada or net net?
Does it hurt Canada and does it hurt the world
in the long run?
Speaker 10 (34:46):
Well, I think certainly there's a lot of hugely, hugely
negative impacts from a huge amount of the of the
age a bathtub sort of a plug being pulled, so
to speak. But we have to look at that as
an opportunity, right, as I mentioned we when we just
started that, you know, demand for development finance, you know,
is steep, but now it's really infinite because the US
(35:09):
has traditionally played such a very big role in development
data and in development finance. So in a way, it's
a tremendous opportunity for countries like Canada and like Mundon
countries to lean in.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Laura, I'm always interested in the specifics of things, So
talk to us about some things that were there have
been investments made and what's the outcome.
Speaker 10 (35:27):
Yeah, absolutely, So let me give you one example. So
we were established in twenty eighteen, so we're the youngest
bilateral development finance institution. And one of our very first
investments is in a company called Climate Investor one, and
they're supporting energy transition across Africa, across Asia, and across
Latin America. So in twenty eighteen we made a twenty
million dollar equity investment and now they've been able to
(35:47):
raise eight hundred million dollars. Eighty percent of that is
dispersed across sixteen renewable energy projects. Six of them are
already in operation. So that's renewable energy on grids, that's
diversification of energy matrices, that's supporting local economic, locally codonomic growth,
so really having a positive impact. So they've been a
really great example of how using public resources through development
(36:12):
finance can really mobilize private capital and show that commercial
viability and positive impact in climate can go hand in hand.
Speaker 5 (36:19):
We have been speaking about the potential economic effects of
pullback in aid by the United States and other countries
filling that gap. But as we just heard just moments ago,
we were speaking with Mammud Mohielden who basically said the
era of developing countries being helped by other countries is
(36:41):
over in his view.
Speaker 4 (36:42):
Do you agree with him?
Speaker 10 (36:44):
Interesting? So what I would say, it's definitely a repositioning, right.
I think we've for the last you know, fifteen twenty years,
it's been an era and the era is changing for sure,
So there's a disruption in this system. Again, I do
think that there are many countries that are still looking
to play their part, believe that there is a role.
Like cand of believes there is a role for Canada
(37:05):
play in development. So it's a reordering, it's it's a reawakening,
and it's much more about partnership I think going forward.
Speaker 5 (37:12):
Do you think about it from an immigration perspective at all?
The idea that if you are able to improve conditions
in other countries, the people who live in those countries
will not feel forced migration.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
Absolutely.
Speaker 10 (37:25):
I think you know, Canada is differently situated than many
of our European friends and partners in terms of the
immigration issue. But certainly you know one of the value
added of supporting local market growth and local market development
through the private sector is providing jobs. When you provide jobs,
you provide incomes. When you provide incomes, you have a
growing middle class. When you have a growing middle class,
you actually provide export opportunities for countries like Canada. When
(37:49):
you provide good jobs, people are happy to stay at
home and work and thrive in those local economies. So
there's it's a reinforcing benefit, let's say, of supporting emerging markets.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Well, that's been the biggest impact on your world as
a result of what I would say is a conflicted
relationship between the US and Canada now, which is kind
of amazing to kind of get your head around anybody
who's you know, studied trade or history.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
Who to think?
Speaker 2 (38:14):
But this is where we are a little bit today.
But what has been the impact on your world because
of it?
Speaker 10 (38:18):
Yeah? So in the development finance world, it's again it's
been a huge disruption. I mean, the US has been
such an enormous player in development finance, as I said earlier,
So we're all having to reposition ourselves. It's providing a
lot more opportunity and an impetus really for collaboration amongst
the DFI community. So the bilateral DFIs we're a humble
but we're really a mighty bunch and we really need
(38:40):
to be super charged. We co finance and we co
invest sort of as a matter of course, we're again
very collegial.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
Who else is stepping up with you?
Speaker 2 (38:48):
And you feel like really kind of all right, So
if the US isn't going to be so active in it,
what other you know, country or so on and so
forth that are working more closely with you.
Speaker 10 (38:58):
Yeah, So we work a lot with the bilateral So
for example with Proparco in France, with a British International
Invest in the UK, with FMO in the Netherlands with
DG in Germany. So I mean there's a number of
the European development finance institutions that we work with. We
also do co finance with the IFC, and in fact,
(39:18):
just this week we're really happy to be closing one
hundred and twenty five million dollars worth of transactions to
two banks in Central America, Banko Industrial in Guatemala, so
we're providing a seventy five million dollar loan. Guatemala is
one of the most scientific and vulnerable countries in Central America.
Use of proceeds entirely for climate finance, so climate smart
(39:39):
agriculture and green buildings. And then the other transaction is
fifty million dollars to Bengal de Payis in Honduras, and
that's one of the poorest countries in Central America. There
we're also supporting climate finance, renewable energy, water and sanitation,
as well as small and medium sized enterprises, micro and
small and medium sized enterprises and women owned and women
led micro and small.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
Because I mean, I always think about all the micro
lending and some stuff that the gap you do for women,
right and the impact that it has on a family
in particular.
Speaker 5 (40:08):
How do you make sure that the money is used efficiently?
And you know, there were so many stories at least
with US money that went out where you'd find that, okay, well,
grants that went to certain organizations weren't necessarily used in
the most efficient way or even used for what they
were supposed to be used for. How do you make
sure that there's not sort of a.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
Fraud.
Speaker 5 (40:30):
Yeah, I didn't want to say fraud. I just want
to say there's somebody who sort of takes more than
they're supposed to.
Speaker 10 (40:35):
Sure, So I mean, we're in the commercial financing business, right,
we provide financing and investment. We have a higher risk
appetite than commercial capital, but you know, again we want
to provide, we want to support commercially viable solutions. Part
of the impact framework that we as development finance institutions
bring to the forest sort of the rigor and vigor
around the impact and the reporting. So you know, we
do go in and we have the measures in the
(40:57):
metrics to actually be on the ground and make sure
that we're getting the information back, the data back, we
go out and verify that. So again it's the depth
around measurement, impact evaluation, and reporting that makes us thrive
and allows us to actually have impacts on the markets.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
That we serve. All right, I think we have to
leave it there. Unfortunately, can we run out of time?
Speaker 4 (41:20):
We run out of time.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
That was fast, Laurie, Thank you so much. Good bluck you,
Thank you so much.
Speaker 10 (41:24):
Have a great afternoon.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Lrick kurshis chief executive Officer FINDEV Canada, joining us right
here at the Bloomberg Philanthropies Global form.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
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
(41:51):
and always on the Bloomberg terminal.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. This is Bloomberg Business
Week Daily, reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders
stay ahead with insight on the people, companies, and trends
shaping today's complex economy, plus global business, finance and tech
(00:23):
news as it happens. The Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast
with Carol Masser and Tim Steneviek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
All right, yes, indeed, everybody, we are continuing on Bloomberg
Business Week Daily. We are live at Bloomberg Philanthropy's Global
Forum here at the Plaza in New York City, so
we've stepped out of studio to really tap into some
of the leaders that are in town. They're talking about
major issues AI, climate change, infrastructure, so much going on,
(00:52):
and I feel like everybody's watching kind of the tech race,
which I think about the story that just crossed about
maybe Intel or Intel and Apple are talking.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Maybe Apple makes an investment in Intel. We're going to
get the load down on that in just a moment.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
Yeah, we are.
Speaker 5 (01:05):
In the meantime, we've got a great program coming up
over the next hour right here on Bloomberg Business Weekdaily.
We're gonna speaking to the CEO of the New York
Climate Exchange. He's standing by also Ma mood mo Healden
UN Climate Change High Level Champion for COP twenty seven
and at the CEO of Canada's Bilateral Development Finances.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
Deciusion is going to be joining us in just a
few minutes.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
A global view and perspective continues in just a moment.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
But first up, everybody's watching what's going on with global
technology companies, and we are watching so much in terms
of what's going on with Intel. The stock shooting up
in the last fifteen twenty minutes. This on a headline
that crossed that Intel has approached Apple about securing an
investment in Intel is, according to people familiar with the matter,
part of an effort to really bolster a business that
(01:47):
is now partially owned by the US government.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Don't forget that, you Carol.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
Yes, you're a taxpayer.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
You me great.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
We all own a piece of Intel. Ryan Gould and
Leanna Baker Bloomberg News reporting this out. Ryan is Bloomberg
News Deals reporter. He's back at the Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio,
Blomberg headquarters in New York City.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Ryan, what's going on and what do we know.
Speaker 6 (02:04):
Yeah, I think it's great to be with you guys,
first of all, but I think you know, the news
of the day is that we can report that Intel
has approached Apple about securing a potential investment in the
chip maker. This obviously comes on the back of both
the US government investing in Intel directly one of its
largest shareholders, and also would potentially follow a five billion
(02:27):
dollar investment from both in Nvidia and a two billion
dollar investment from SoftBank. I guess one way to put
this all together is, you know, Intel is on the comeback,
and exactly what that comeback looks like. Well, maybe it's
a little too early to tell, but they're definitely being
proactive about it.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
You know, a line in the piece from you and
Leanna really sticks out. It's this the fact that a
long time Intel customer, Apple was, but it's switched to
in house processors in the past five years. It's unlikely
that Apple would switch back to Intel or in its devices.
What's in this for Apple?
Speaker 4 (03:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (03:02):
I want to I feel like a three year old
or four year old, Why why are they doing that?
Speaker 5 (03:06):
Well, why would they They're not necessarily doing it? Like,
why would Apple do this?
Speaker 6 (03:11):
I think Tim you mentioned that line, but I think
one of the other lines that you know is worth
throwing attention to in the story is that Tim Cook
appeared at the White House not so long ago, just
a few months ago actually, and stood in front of
Donald Trump and pledged six hundred billion dollars of investment
in the US over the course of a six year period.
I mean, that's no sort of small amount of money.
(03:34):
I mean when you think about their their announcement that
Apple made with regard to the Corning longtime Apple glass
API for two point five billion, I mean, you know
you're kind of looking at Apple and thinking, Okay, this
is some this is a company. This is Tim Cook
wanting to be on the right side of Donald Trump.
And you know what does that look like for Intel?
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Well?
Speaker 6 (03:55):
Maybe, you know, you think about things like tariffs, think
about things like on shoring manufacturing, think of things like
what does it mean to be made in the USA?
Speaker 3 (04:04):
So is this more an Apple story or an Intel
story or a little bit of both?
Speaker 6 (04:07):
Just to wrap up here, I think this is more
of an Intel story for sure. I mean to be
sure Apple, You know, Apple doesn't need Intel. It's the
other way around. And so this is definitely an Intel story,
but I think you know, to underline all of this,
this is about Intel being proactive, and you know, when
you've got the US government as one of your largest shareholders,
I think that's definitely a message that you would want
(04:28):
to convey to people watching on the outside that now
is the time to get serious about our future.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
All right, good stuff. There's so much in the story.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
It is a Bloomberg exclusive, so we highly recommend you
check it out on the Bloomberg terminal and at Bloomberg
dot com. Ryan Gould joining us Bloomberg News Deals Reporter
back there at Bloomberg Headquarters in New York City.
Speaker 5 (04:47):
Stay with us more from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming
up after this.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Catch
us live weekday afternoons from two to five e's during
Listen on Applecarplay and Android Otto with the Bloomberg Business app,
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Speaker 3 (05:06):
Us live on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Carol Master Tim Stanevik live here at the Bloomberg Global
Business Forum at the Plaza in New York City. While
if you want to know what global consumers are up
to or what massive global companies are really thinking, about
when it comes to the macro environment, what are their priorities?
Then keeping an eye on Walmart is definitely a must do.
It is the world's largest retailer. It was among the
retailers that recently raised their forecast that happened over the summer,
(05:31):
and a member of the company c suite is joining us.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Tim right here at the forum.
Speaker 5 (05:34):
Yeah, here at the Bloomberg Global Business Forum, Please to
have Chris Nicholas with US President and CEO of Sam's Club.
It is Walmart's membership only retail warehouse club, mostly with
clubs here in the US, but also overseas clubs in Mexico, China,
and Brazil. Former COO of Walmart US previously CFO across
Walmart US and Walmart International.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
What means you've seen everything I've tried.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
How are you?
Speaker 7 (05:58):
I'm doing great, really excited to be How.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
Are we doing? And by we I mean the American consumer.
You've got such a great view on what happens across
the country.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
How are we doing?
Speaker 7 (06:07):
Yeah, I mean we.
Speaker 8 (06:09):
What we're seeing at Sam's Club is consumers that are
consistent and rational. You know, I've been in retail for
more than thirty years now, and I've never known a
time when people don't love great items at great prices.
And as long as you're giving people that, we're finding
consumers really you know, rational and consistent.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
What is their behavior though right now?
Speaker 5 (06:31):
Because that's something Carol and I were talking a lot
about today, and you know, the whole idea of are
they buying what they typically buy, are they buying what
they buy at a certain point in economic cycle, are
they trading up, are they trading down?
Speaker 4 (06:42):
What are they doing in your stores?
Speaker 8 (06:44):
Yeah, it's interesting with I mean, consistent would be the
word i'd use. People are still buying general merchandise from US.
I mean, we talked in our last quarter at the
results about general merchandise sales having another quarter of positive
comp But what's really interesting in that is that the
units are moving faster than the items, which means that
(07:04):
you know, we're still giving them great value. And I
think people are really moving to appreciate when they're getting
good value. You know, the club warehouse model is made
for times like these. I would say it's a good
time to be in the club model. We've got in
our clubs. We've only got four thousand items, and the
way that the club model works. Just to level settlers,
(07:24):
is our job is to make almost nothing on what
we sell. We're just about break even and we make
all our money from membership. So the lower you can
operate in terms of costs, the lower you can keep prices.
And when that happens, people are more loyal, they renew
more often, and you get more members. So we're in
this like really special moment right now where people are
love the great value that we've got and they love
(07:45):
the great items that we've got to.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
You know, I want to cross that with what we
just heard from Fezherman, J.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Powell Chris last week in terms of the decision and
kind of basically saying the FA's not in a great place,
like either way, there's some risks to the employment picture,
their concerns still about it. In so this is there's
kind of risks to both sides of the equation and
concerned about monetary policy that it's hard to do right
now in this environment. So that to me sounds uncertain, unsure,
(08:12):
But it doesn't sound like you're saying any of that.
Speaker 7 (08:14):
Look the club, here's the thing. We have this.
Speaker 8 (08:20):
Position where there's only I mean between us and our
main competitors in the club model.
Speaker 7 (08:25):
In particular, we're.
Speaker 8 (08:26):
Only like six and a half percent of the of
the of the total retail market, and we would definitely
from a club point of view, our consumers definitely skew
sort of more wealthy, you know, bigger basket sizes, but
we do serve everybody, and we don't see a great
delta between different income cohorts.
Speaker 7 (08:49):
You don't know, all right, that's more generations.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Well what about I.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Mean, when you think about kind of the environment, specially
when it comes into tariffs in terms of pricing, how
do you kind of figure out where you can maybe
raise prices where you can.
Speaker 8 (09:02):
Well, it's such a great it's such a great question.
We and again not to sort of pivot, but one
of the powers of the club model is because you've
only got four thousand items in the club, those items
are curated. Yeah, And our merchants, they are true professionals that,
like many of them, have been in their jobs decades
and they understand the value chain from end to end
better than anybody, and so they get the ability to
(09:25):
choose what's in the club, but they also get the
ability to work through where the inefficiencies are in the
supply chain. They've got deep relationship with the suppliers, so
you work through where the opportunities are between the suppliers too.
So I'll give you an example. Our roses that we
buy from Ecuador. The costs went up because you know,
the tariff environment changed, and so our merchants work through
(09:47):
with the supplier like what could we do? So we
move them in different ways so we have less packaging.
We we we wrap them in the US now instead
of where we used to wrap them. And so you
do things like that that help you to manage the
input costs. That means you don't have to pass it
on to the consumer. And our job is to work
through how little you pass through, and you work through
(10:12):
how late you do it.
Speaker 7 (10:13):
So we'd always like to be last last up.
Speaker 8 (10:15):
But we have the ultimate opportunity in the club channel,
and that is that we have choice because we don't
have to sell everything, so we the curation actually is
a superpower for us.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Does that mean you haven't raised prices on anything?
Speaker 7 (10:27):
No?
Speaker 8 (10:27):
No, we see. I mean, look here's the thing. Are
there are certain things that were prices move all of
the time. No, anyway, So produce would be a good
example of that, and.
Speaker 7 (10:36):
There are some strictly terror for later.
Speaker 8 (10:38):
Yeah, what I would say to you is that if
I think about general merchandise would be there, which is
like all of the electronics and apparel and all of
those things.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
The stuff that I have way too much in my home.
There's never enough, Please buy more. But in terms of
teriffs particularly pretty pressure on pricing.
Speaker 8 (10:58):
Yeah, So what we see is in terms of what
people are buying. I think I mentioned this, but the
growth in the units that we've had is outpacing our
comps in general merchandise. So if you think about, like
over the last few years, you had like packaged goods
through COVID became more expensive and they never really came down,
(11:21):
whereas general merchandise, we had the supply chain disruption, you
remember that, and the general merchandise inflated and then it
deflated rapidly as there was after all of the supply
chain disruptions disappeared, and at the end of last quarter
we were still in a period of slight deflation in
general merchandise.
Speaker 7 (11:41):
So prices move all of the time.
Speaker 8 (11:43):
Our job and our merchant's job, is to make sure
that we give people access to the price points they
want and the value that they want, maybe it's worth mentioning.
But in Sam's Club, like we're twenty five percent cheaper
than retail in general, so as we resist putting prices
up because that's in our DNA, we were always going
to be more price competitive than everybody else.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
So then you haven't raised any prices related to terrorst
We will.
Speaker 8 (12:08):
We will be the last people to put prices up.
And some prices have gone up, but in the mix,
I'm telling it so for sure. I mean we have
input price changes in some items and some come through
already and some is still to come through. But I
would tell you that, like, our job is not to
lead with putting prices up, and all of our sales
(12:30):
growth in Sound's Club is through unit growth, not inflation.
Speaker 5 (12:33):
Okay, cool, I'm wondering what you're hearing from from your
team who's out there talking to the producers, the American
producers of things we grow, produce beef as well. We
had a Bloomberg News story last week about farmers and
as all that the Trump administration policies are taking on
farmers right now.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
Immigration just one of them.
Speaker 5 (12:52):
Tariffs on soybeans are another one as a result of
fewer less interest from.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
China and Chinese buyers.
Speaker 5 (13:00):
What are you hearing them on the immigration front, Because
in some cases forty percent of migrant workers are from
outside forty percent of farm workers rather are migrant workers,
So they're coming from outside the US, and that's a
challenge for farmers to actually find those employees.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
Right now, What are you hearing from them?
Speaker 8 (13:15):
Yeah, I'm not hearing. I don't have anything to add
or to offer on that topic. I would tell you
that we have brilliant farmer partners. We understand the value
change really well, and we have no in stock issues
or cost price issues.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
So have they raised prices at all on American produce?
Speaker 8 (13:32):
I you'd have to ask somebody else about the through
line on like employment and pricing prices. I think you
probably speak to lots of people are better informant.
Speaker 5 (13:40):
What about from produce that comes outside of the United States.
I mean, we can't do everything here. We can't grow bananas,
we can't grow avocadocados. Yeah, tomatoes when they're out of
season come from outside of the US.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
What does that look like?
Speaker 7 (13:52):
Yeah, I mean what it is like the increasing.
Speaker 5 (13:55):
Costs associated with terrorists because those will be or those
are tariff already. I mean beef that comes from Brazil
forty percent errors for example.
Speaker 8 (14:02):
Yeah, I mean we are we definitely over index on
US beef. The vast majority of what we buy is US,
the vast majority, and and so you know, but we
have choices about where we buy from. This is the
benefit of being this curated, limited assortment retailer is that
we get the choices to buy from the places that
where you give the consumers great value and great quality,
(14:25):
which we're never going to relent on. But you know, yeah,
we buy items. You know, we buy avocados, as you said,
from abroad, and many other items, tomatoes when it's out
of season, and you know, the quality and the value.
That will never relent on the quality. But if the
input costs increase, then the input's costs will increase. But
(14:46):
there's meant there's produce. There are so many variables produce
and beef. I mean that there are so many variables
that pushes the costs down as well as up. So
I think it's a super complex situation. And I think
that our farmers are some of the best in the world.
And I think that our merchants know how to work
(15:06):
with the farmers. The thing, the best thing you can
do for those farmers is to give them great forecasts,
allow them to grow to those forecasts, and give them
good prices that allow them to run sustainable business models.
And we do a really good job of that, Chris.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
You guys in retail, I'm sure we're even late to
talk about the holiday season and the upcoming holiday season.
When you think about assortment and what you want to
have inventory for consumers, how's it looking for this year?
Is it going to be a lot different from last year?
Are the supply channel there to get what you need
and what you want for your consumers?
Speaker 8 (15:36):
Yeah, that's not an issue. We don't see any issues
with supply chain management in that way. A Sam's Club
in particular, we get really early. So you guys have
a Sam's Club now, which hopefully you know, please do
You'll see it's full of Christmas.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
I know it tries it a little crazy.
Speaker 7 (15:53):
Yeah, I mean I understand.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
Is it so early? I mean Halloween hasn't even happened.
Speaker 7 (15:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (15:58):
Well, in the club channel, people like to be prepared,
I know. So we get into a season early and
then we exit early and that's the kind of scarcity
is part of the value that we create, and so.
Speaker 7 (16:12):
So we're not worried about it from a Sam's Club
point of view.
Speaker 8 (16:14):
But the thing I would say is that people just
love to celebrate, They love to buy, they love the seasons,
and so I think you'll find that certainly at Sam's Club.
People whether it's the general merchandise they buy pre Thanksgiving
and Christmas or the food that they buy for the season,
as long as you're giving them great value, they're going
to come to you and people will find a way
(16:37):
to celebrate.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
One of the things we love about the global business
form is we tackle everything climate change, you know, workforce, employment, economics, politics.
As a leader who's been at a company for a
long time and I'm sure looking at everything that's going on,
what's top of mind for you and an environment where
this pushback against certain initiatives, there's a lot of political
things going on, geopolitics. Curious, you know, in running what
(17:02):
you guys do, and I know you're kind of a
well oiled machine in many ways, but I'm just curious.
Speaker 8 (17:07):
Yeah, I think, you know, in the in an environment
of change, and by the way, I like changes are constant,
and you've got to you've got to love it.
Speaker 7 (17:18):
Then.
Speaker 8 (17:18):
I've always found that the best thing to do is
to focus on what you can control. And what you
can control is the culture you create as a business,
how you work with and treat your customers and your members,
the experiences that you create. You know, a great example
is is the e commerce business. We've just launched express
(17:39):
delivery from our clubs and people love it and they're
opting in.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
Does the price change with delivery?
Speaker 7 (17:45):
No, we have price parity. We have price pas so
others don't.
Speaker 9 (17:49):
We do.
Speaker 8 (17:49):
So we have price parity between clubs and an online
that's really important from a trust point of view. And
people are thanking us for our delivery from club food
and non food is growing at triple digits right now.
So I think, like, focus on what you can control.
Start with being great people, start with being a great business.
Look after your associates so they can look after our members,
(18:11):
and then you know that that generally will lead to
the right outcomes.
Speaker 5 (18:16):
So on that we'll hear from one of your big
competitors tomorrow. Costco reports earnings tomorrow. How do you make
sure that people join Sam's Club and not Costco.
Speaker 7 (18:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (18:26):
Look, Costco is a great competitor. We think that we're
great too, and we're doing a lot of good things.
What I would tell you is this.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Because you have an aggressive plan in terms of expansion.
Speaker 7 (18:37):
Yeah, I remember about it.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
I know.
Speaker 8 (18:39):
Yeah, we're really excited about that plan. Actually, the club
channel in general is a relatively small channel. There's a
huge there's huge upside for the whole of the club channel.
And I would tell you this, good competition makes you better.
And I've never been afraid of good competition.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
What about AI and how you guys are working?
Speaker 4 (18:57):
Are you afraid of AI?
Speaker 10 (19:01):
AI?
Speaker 3 (19:01):
We're trying.
Speaker 7 (19:02):
AI is a big topic everywhere now, isn't it. You know,
here's the thing we are.
Speaker 8 (19:08):
We're excited about AI as a company, and I am
personally too. I think this idea of are you guys
using it a lot?
Speaker 7 (19:14):
A lot.
Speaker 8 (19:15):
We've been using it for a long time, honestly, But
the generative AI and then the agentic AI that's coming
through too is really exciting. It's exciting for our members
and for our associates. What we do we pivot to.
Speaker 7 (19:27):
Growth? How does this help us move faster?
Speaker 8 (19:29):
Do more for our associates and our members, how do
we find different routes to market, So that's exciting. Of course,
we also look at how do you find opportunities to
take time out of product launches and all of those
kind of things so that you're a better business. The
one thing that you may have seen is we also
believe that the opportunity to give people to empower people
(19:50):
with the use of AI but with an enterprise, but
with enterprise data is really exciting. So whether it's in
the office or recently, we've made an announcement a couple
of weeks our holiday meeting where we gave our frontline
management access to open AI, to chat, GPT and which
they can use to just go faster and do more.
(20:10):
And that's really exciting.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Yeah, it's kind of amazing. We're all kind of finding
our way through it. Chris, thank you so much.
Speaker 7 (20:15):
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Weep. Yeah,
good luck, good luck, Thank you as well.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
Chris Nicholas. He's the presidency of Sam's Club.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily podcast. Catch
us live weekday afternoons from two to five Easter and
listen on Applecarplay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App,
or watch us live on.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
YouTube Carol Masser, Tim Staneveek live here at the Plaza,
the Bloomberg Global Business Forum Leaders and one of the
big topics this week that we've seen as world leaders
are in town and also as it's climate NYC is
everything and anything to do with artificial intelligence.
Speaker 5 (20:53):
I mean, we can't kind of stay away from hebines
here every single day. Just today, Microsoft partnering with open
ai rival Anthropic to help power its workplace AI assistant.
Anthropic founded by former open ai employees, Carol, it's one
of the largest competitors to open ai, a key player
in the industry.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Yeah, just coming on the heels of one of the
big stories that we covered this weekend, Vidia announcing it
we'll invest as much AS's one hundred billion dollars in
open ai to help with that build out of data center.
So there's a lot going on when it comes to AI.
It's all about partnerships and we have a great guest
to talk about that. Lane Dilg is former head of
Strategic Partnerships Global Affairs at open Ai.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
She's had a career in law politics.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
She served as special senior actually senior counsel to then
Senator Kamala Harris, Kamala Harris, and she's also worked at
the Department of Justice. I'm rushing, but you have like
this incredible public private background. So when you think about AI,
I don't know how do you make sense of just
it just feels phrenetic. The amount of money, the amount
(21:49):
of activity, the amount of headlines that come every day.
Speaker 9 (21:52):
Yes, there obviously is so much happening, so many big
deals in the news, and those big deals in the news.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Do have real life implications for all of us.
Speaker 9 (22:00):
Incredible as you mentioned, to see the Nvidia an open
Ai deal showing that in video will provide chips to
open Ai up to ten gigawatts and also make an
investment one hundred billion dollars, obviously shoring up open AI's
credit and providing a real runway for open Ai. Those
kinds of deals we are seeing almost weekly right now.
(22:20):
You mentioned Microsoft and Anthropic as well, so very very
competitive landscape and a landscape that is moving extremely quickly.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
It's kind of funny to hear about Microsoft partnering with Anthropic,
given that Microsoft is a huge investor in open Ai.
What do you make of that, like, what's the world
that we're living in when you have these strange bedfellows?
Speaker 9 (22:38):
Yes, I think you know. I think everyone is watching
sort of all of these different pieces. From an adoption perspective,
people are looking at how many different companies will individual
companies work with? So do you want to work with
one AI model? Do you want to one AI model provider?
Do you want to work with many? Microsoft also has
in house AI, they have the partnership with open ai,
(23:00):
and now you see them with Anthropical.
Speaker 5 (23:02):
Well can you We've had some folks come on our
program and say, Okay, there's been so much funding, there's
been so much money chasing these companies. They are also
those people who say, we're kind of just going to
wait until the dost settles because we think there could
be this commodity issue when it comes to lms. What
separates one LM from another? What separates Claude from chat GPT?
(23:25):
And I fully we're asking somebody who was at chat
at open ai. So yes, that's where this question is
coming from.
Speaker 9 (23:31):
A great question though, because obviously now I use all
of them to try to stay up to date on
where everyone is, and I also speak with the different
companies about sort of what their trajectory will be going forward.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
I do think the models are somewhat different just for users.
Speaker 9 (23:45):
They provide responses a little bit differently, they're friendly in
different ways, they're useful in different ways, and so there's
some personal preference. I do think that we will start
to see differentiation in areas like material science, chemistry bylogy
as people really move into these more specific domains where
(24:05):
different model providers lean in, who they work with and
how will become important in terms of what you can
do to solve problems with the technology. So and you know,
I think the other piece, as you see with the
Nvidio open a ideal, we often say infrastructure is destiny.
It is true that there is also this massive race
for compute, and that is because to continue the research
(24:28):
and development to continue to make the progress, you need compute,
and compute requires a lot of energy. So we don't
know yet whether there will be a differentiation there or not,
but everyone racing to make sure they have the compute
they need to continue development.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
You run your own advisory firm and you're dealing with
kind of innovation in partnerships right and working with other companies.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
But I want to go back to what Tim said.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
I mean, I think there was when the Nvidia deal
came out that there was concerns that it was a
sign of a bubble. That it's Nvidia partnering with open Ai.
Obviously it's the company chat to so identified when it
comes to AI at this point, but this idea that
Nvidia needs a marketplace to keep buying its chips.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
So I'm just curious.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
I mean, at some point, I don't know what are
you hearing from companies as you talk to them. Are
they a little cautious at all? Is there any nervousness
about this incredible spend and this incredible buildout.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Yes, a great question.
Speaker 9 (25:23):
Obviously, financial experts around the world asking many of these questions.
I think, you know, we previously thought that Nvidia may
not be able to supply enough, so interesting to now
hear people say, well, they are, you know, trying to
find a consumer for the gipsy Yes, right, yeah, so
I think, you know, I think that conversation happening on
both sides. You know, my own personal view is that
(25:46):
we are not yet anywhere close to maxing out the
demand for compute and chips. And when we are then
you may actually see that model development as stalling or
something else. But I just don't think we're there right now.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
I am curious when you are at open AI and
we know you left a couple a few months ago,
but now you have your own advisory firm. Is the
phone ringing off the hook of people saying help me,
I need to find this and what are they looking for?
Speaker 9 (26:11):
Yes, so it is true that people are looking for
lots of answers. They're looking for answers to the macroeconomic questions.
They're looking for answers to help them guide investments. But
then teachers and healthcare providers are looking at what is
the potential How do I take care of my workforce
and also take care of those I serve at the
same time, what is the pace of adoption. I'm excited
(26:34):
to be here today with Bloomberg Philanthropies working on the
Mayorage Challenge, which is a competition they run around the
world for mayoral innovation for city services, and so many
people in that space saying where are the opportunities for innovation?
And we're seeing such interesting proposals there as well. I
just want to say I actually had a meeting with
(26:55):
a giant company. I'm not going to say who it was.
And I heard of them, Yeah, everybody's heard of them.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
But it was like we were talking about they were
asking me about what I'm how I'm using AI.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
I was asking them and it's like we're all.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Kind of fumbling our way through and we have courses
that have come up at Bloomberg to kind of help
us figure our way through this company. They're just kind
of like somebody figure something out and they do it
kind of a show and tell. But it's it's interesting
how we're trying to find our way through this.
Speaker 9 (27:20):
Yes, I've heard two CEOs at the Frontier Labs really
really say the pace of scientific progress on the AI
side is much faster than the pace of implementation and adoption.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
It's hard.
Speaker 9 (27:30):
These are large institutions with lots of people. You have
to actually figure out what is the right way for
your company, for your school, for your business, and that
takes some time.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
You know.
Speaker 5 (27:38):
I use chat GPT all the time, personally use it
at work too. We have the paid version at work,
but I have the free version on my phone, and
when it tells me I can't use it anymore, I
just go over and use claude. How do you prevent that? Like,
how do you get me to pay for it?
Speaker 9 (27:51):
Like?
Speaker 5 (27:51):
How do you monetize all the free users when so
much compute is being used?
Speaker 9 (27:55):
Yeah? I think you know, same with any product in
a certain way. You want yours to be the go to.
You want yours to be the most useful, the one
that you turn to to solve the problems that are
most important to you. And I think that companies are
competing in that, and we'll see fits and starts, but
you do you get accustomed to one product or another.
Speaker 7 (28:14):
So will we be paying for it?
Speaker 4 (28:15):
Well, I mean, or is there going to be advertising?
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 9 (28:19):
So I think you know right now you can pay
for different different levels of access. I think that is
meaningful both for individuals and for businesses. I use the
paid accounts across all of the different companies, which may
seem crazy, but I want to see where the capability
really is. So I do think that is the monetization
that you're seeing primarily.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
And I'm not a tax professional, but that's a business expense,
I would imagine.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
So talk to your account.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Yes, I am curious about we mentioned that you were
senior counsel to Kamala Harris when she was senator.
Speaker 9 (28:54):
Actually, I have been senior counsel to a senator, but
most recently I was senior advisor in the Department of Energy.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
Oh, I'm so sorry that the notes I had. So sorry.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
I do think though about the intersection of technology and politics,
and I feel like every decision is made with a
careful glance at the White House. Yea, So talk to
me about that and how that might I don't know,
kind of impact the deals that are done and how
they're done.
Speaker 9 (29:19):
Yes, absolutely, I think you see a lot of that
in the infrastructure space. So if you look at the models, they,
as we talked about, require compute, but compute also requires energy.
And as we look at competition between the United States
and China, I think people feel really good about our talent,
they feel really good about our workforce, they feel really
good about our innovation. But we do need to get
(29:40):
more energy on the grid, and we need to do
that fast. And so I think you see this all
of the above approach, but also disagreement over what is
that all of the above approach, How does it work?
Do things need to be grid connected or not? And
most importantly, how do I make sure that consumers have
the electricity they need at the prices they need while
we power all this.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
AI Well, is it ultimately going to be everybody, especially
the hyper scalers probably doing their own energy development on
site that kind of thing.
Speaker 9 (30:06):
Or I think you'll see a mix, just like you
see a mix and the financial deals. I think you'll
see a mix both to headge risk, but also because
it'll be opportunistic.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
We need the energy as fast as we can get.
Speaker 5 (30:15):
Hey just want to end with what this does to
the American workforce, the global workforce. Dario amiday Over at
Anthropic has been really outspoken about how this could just
decimate why call our jobs?
Speaker 4 (30:26):
You agree?
Speaker 10 (30:27):
So?
Speaker 9 (30:27):
I think there was a conference in San Francisco that
people are watching just last week about what the different
scenarios are. I think we don't know the answers yet,
and so from a policy perspective, we need to be
planning for multiple scenarios. It's critically important that we understand
both the data of how our jobs moving, where are
the transition's happening, and also look at the social safety
nets and other things to make sure that if there
(30:50):
is dislocation, we're doing the reskilling, We're doing the training
to get people into a place that is productive.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
You've seen the tack up close. You know what it
can do. What keeps you up at night, What.
Speaker 9 (30:59):
Gives me the night is, you know, as always, it's
the humans. It's our human potential, it's our ability to
step into this technology, and it's also what we can
do with it for good or for ill.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
And I think that that's the space where I'd like
to see the policy focused. Are you worried about the
bad side of AI?
Speaker 9 (31:14):
I'm worried about humans using AI for bad purposes is
what I worry about more than the doomers, who are
more concerned about what we would call alignment issues. I
think the science on alignment is pretty strong and will
continue to be strong, and people will be alarmed if
it's not. But the question of what can you do
with the technology is a hard one. We are about
to all get more powerful.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Yeah, that's kind of interesting. Need to leave there.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
I feel like we could talk a lot more about this,
and we will probably in the future. I hope you
can come back. Yes, Lane, thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
Lane Dale.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
She's former head of Strategic Partnership ships and global affairs.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Over it open AI.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
Stay with us.
Speaker 5 (31:51):
More from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming up after this.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Catch
us live weekday afternoons from two to five e's during
Listen on Apple Karplay and Android Otto with the Bloomberg
Business app, or watch.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
Us live on YouTube.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Carol Masser along with Tim Steneviek, we are live here
at Bloomberg Philanthropy's Global Form.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
We're going to continue with some great conversations from this event.
Speaker 6 (32:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (32:18):
The event brings together our heads of state business leaders
to address the world's most urgent challenges and opportunities. Among
those challenges and opportunities is sustainable economic development and that's
where Lori Kerr comes in. She's the chief executive officer
of FINDEV Canada. It's Canada's bilateral development finance institution. She
joins us on set here at the Plaza Hotel.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
How are you.
Speaker 3 (32:37):
I'm great, It's really great to be here.
Speaker 10 (32:39):
Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Thanks gut gad to have you here.
Speaker 5 (32:41):
I feel like our conversation this year would be a
lot different than our conversation last year. If we were
to have that We're going to get to that in
a minute. You invest in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean
in a world that many would argue is turning inward.
How do you convince Canadians that what you're doing is
in their best interest?
Speaker 10 (32:58):
Well, I mean, if I quote some of the recent
speakings of the of our own Prime minister, he certainly
recognizes that when developing countries prosper, Canada prospers as well.
It's a time to really lean into global partnerships to
build resilience in global economic growth.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
How to prioritize how to do that because I'm sure
there's a lot of folks saying we need.
Speaker 10 (33:22):
Help, absolutely and quite honestly, like the demand is limitless
for what FINDEV Canada offers and other bilateral development finance institutions.
So how we approach our financing and investment decisions is,
of course, we have to have commercial sustainability. That's what
we're going to We want to have vibrant markets, and
we also look through three impact lenses. We have three
impact lenses through which we work that informs all of
(33:42):
our financing and investment decisions. Climate and nature action, gender
equality and local market development.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
Has to check on all of those in order for
it to happen, or not all of.
Speaker 10 (33:53):
Them, because different types of investments in financing opportunities will
address one or more of them. You know, look to
try and have positive contribution across each of those, but
not everything ticks every box, so to speak.
Speaker 5 (34:06):
I feel like in this administration, in the environment that
we're in the United States, those those boxes would not
exist under this current administration.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
Does that? How do you think about that?
Speaker 10 (34:17):
Well, it's again it's a real wonderful opportunity for Canada's
to show global leadership. And again, when developing countries prosper,
Canada prospers and the world prospers. So it's an opportunity
for us to continue with looking at having impact in
the markets that we serve.
Speaker 5 (34:31):
So with the US pulling back on foreign aid, with
the US dismantling US aid, which certainly is controversial here
in this country, as I'm sure you're aware, does it
mean more of an opportunity for Canada or net net?
Does it hurt Canada and does it hurt the world
in the long run?
Speaker 10 (34:46):
Well, I think certainly there's a lot of hugely, hugely
negative impacts from a huge amount of the of the
age a bathtub sort of a plug being pulled, so
to speak. But we have to look at that as
an opportunity, right, as I mentioned we when we just
started that, you know, demand for development finance, you know,
is steep, but now it's really infinite because the US
(35:09):
has traditionally played such a very big role in development
data and in development finance. So in a way, it's
a tremendous opportunity for countries like Canada and like Mundon
countries to lean in.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Laura, I'm always interested in the specifics of things, So
talk to us about some things that were there have
been investments made and what's the outcome.
Speaker 10 (35:27):
Yeah, absolutely, So let me give you one example. So
we were established in twenty eighteen, so we're the youngest
bilateral development finance institution. And one of our very first
investments is in a company called Climate Investor one, and
they're supporting energy transition across Africa, across Asia, and across
Latin America. So in twenty eighteen we made a twenty
million dollar equity investment and now they've been able to
(35:47):
raise eight hundred million dollars. Eighty percent of that is
dispersed across sixteen renewable energy projects. Six of them are
already in operation. So that's renewable energy on grids, that's
diversification of energy matrices, that's supporting local economic, locally codonomic growth,
so really having a positive impact. So they've been a
really great example of how using public resources through development
(36:12):
finance can really mobilize private capital and show that commercial
viability and positive impact in climate can go hand in hand.
Speaker 5 (36:19):
We have been speaking about the potential economic effects of
pullback in aid by the United States and other countries
filling that gap. But as we just heard just moments ago,
we were speaking with Mammud Mohielden who basically said the
era of developing countries being helped by other countries is
(36:41):
over in his view.
Speaker 4 (36:42):
Do you agree with him?
Speaker 10 (36:44):
Interesting? So what I would say, it's definitely a repositioning, right.
I think we've for the last you know, fifteen twenty years,
it's been an era and the era is changing for sure,
So there's a disruption in this system. Again, I do
think that there are many countries that are still looking
to play their part, believe that there is a role.
Like cand of believes there is a role for Canada
(37:05):
play in development. So it's a reordering, it's it's a reawakening,
and it's much more about partnership I think going forward.
Speaker 5 (37:12):
Do you think about it from an immigration perspective at all?
The idea that if you are able to improve conditions
in other countries, the people who live in those countries
will not feel forced migration.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
Absolutely.
Speaker 10 (37:25):
I think you know, Canada is differently situated than many
of our European friends and partners in terms of the
immigration issue. But certainly you know one of the value
added of supporting local market growth and local market development
through the private sector is providing jobs. When you provide jobs,
you provide incomes. When you provide incomes, you have a
growing middle class. When you have a growing middle class,
you actually provide export opportunities for countries like Canada. When
(37:49):
you provide good jobs, people are happy to stay at
home and work and thrive in those local economies. So
there's it's a reinforcing benefit, let's say, of supporting emerging markets.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Well, that's been the biggest impact on your world as
a result of what I would say is a conflicted
relationship between the US and Canada now, which is kind
of amazing to kind of get your head around anybody
who's you know, studied trade or history.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
Who to think?
Speaker 2 (38:14):
But this is where we are a little bit today.
But what has been the impact on your world because
of it?
Speaker 10 (38:18):
Yeah? So in the development finance world, it's again it's
been a huge disruption. I mean, the US has been
such an enormous player in development finance, as I said earlier,
So we're all having to reposition ourselves. It's providing a
lot more opportunity and an impetus really for collaboration amongst
the DFI community. So the bilateral DFIs we're a humble
but we're really a mighty bunch and we really need
(38:40):
to be super charged. We co finance and we co
invest sort of as a matter of course, we're again
very collegial.
Speaker 3 (38:47):
Who else is stepping up with you?
Speaker 2 (38:48):
And you feel like really kind of all right, So
if the US isn't going to be so active in it,
what other you know, country or so on and so
forth that are working more closely with you.
Speaker 10 (38:58):
Yeah, So we work a lot with the bilateral So
for example with Proparco in France, with a British International
Invest in the UK, with FMO in the Netherlands with
DG in Germany. So I mean there's a number of
the European development finance institutions that we work with. We
also do co finance with the IFC, and in fact,
(39:18):
just this week we're really happy to be closing one
hundred and twenty five million dollars worth of transactions to
two banks in Central America, Banko Industrial in Guatemala, so
we're providing a seventy five million dollar loan. Guatemala is
one of the most scientific and vulnerable countries in Central America.
Use of proceeds entirely for climate finance, so climate smart
(39:39):
agriculture and green buildings. And then the other transaction is
fifty million dollars to Bengal de Payis in Honduras, and
that's one of the poorest countries in Central America. There
we're also supporting climate finance, renewable energy, water and sanitation,
as well as small and medium sized enterprises, micro and
small and medium sized enterprises and women owned and women
led micro and small.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
Because I mean, I always think about all the micro
lending and some stuff that the gap you do for women,
right and the impact that it has on a family
in particular.
Speaker 5 (40:08):
How do you make sure that the money is used efficiently?
And you know, there were so many stories at least
with US money that went out where you'd find that, okay, well,
grants that went to certain organizations weren't necessarily used in
the most efficient way or even used for what they
were supposed to be used for. How do you make
sure that there's not sort of a.
Speaker 3 (40:29):
Fraud.
Speaker 5 (40:30):
Yeah, I didn't want to say fraud. I just want
to say there's somebody who sort of takes more than
they're supposed to.
Speaker 10 (40:35):
Sure, So I mean, we're in the commercial financing business, right,
we provide financing and investment. We have a higher risk
appetite than commercial capital, but you know, again we want
to provide, we want to support commercially viable solutions. Part
of the impact framework that we as development finance institutions
bring to the forest sort of the rigor and vigor
around the impact and the reporting. So you know, we
do go in and we have the measures in the
(40:57):
metrics to actually be on the ground and make sure
that we're getting the information back, the data back, we
go out and verify that. So again it's the depth
around measurement, impact evaluation, and reporting that makes us thrive
and allows us to actually have impacts on the markets.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
That we serve. All right, I think we have to
leave it there. Unfortunately, can we run out of time?
Speaker 4 (41:20):
We run out of time.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
That was fast, Laurie, Thank you so much. Good bluck you,
Thank you so much.
Speaker 10 (41:24):
Have a great afternoon.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Lrick kurshis chief executive Officer FINDEV Canada, joining us right
here at the Bloomberg Philanthropies Global form.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
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.
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