July 11, 2025 • 43 mins
Bloomberg’s Romaine Bostick discusses the meeting between Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and President Trump as Huang prepares for a China trip. Plus, Tesla preps its driverless cars for California and Arizona, just one month after its rollout in Austin, Texas. And, a conversation with Summer Mersinger, CEO of the Blockchain Association ahead of the "Crypto Week" in Washington.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. Bloomberg Tech is a
live from coast to coast with Caroline Hide in New
York and Edvamo in San Francisco.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Bloomberg Tech is live Romain Bostic here, Carolina and Ed
on assignment on the day.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
But the news doesn't stop.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
In video, CEO Jensen Wong meeting with US President Trump
at the White House yesterday. That's ahead of a big
trip plan next week to China. Plus we're taking a
look at Tesla, which wants to bring its driverless taxis
to California and Arizona. This after last month's rollout in Austin,
Texas and Crypto Week it's upon us. We're gonna discuss
(00:49):
what do we expect from a slew of crypto focused
bills in Washington with the head of the Blockchain Association.
But we get a quick check here on the markets,
coming off what has been in a relatively record week
for US stocks, the Nasdaq one hundred, though sitting this
one out set down just slightly on the day, down
about two tenths of one percent. Of course, this comes
(01:11):
just a couple of days after we had that record
run by in video breaking that four trillion dollar market
cap threshold. Some other big movers on the week and
on the day, though, of course, is in the crypto's space.
You take a look at Coinbase down slightly on the day,
down about one and a half percent, despite the fact
that it is setting up for a relatively phenomenal week.
(01:32):
In fact, you've seen a big bid come into the
fintech space this week on the back of crypto hitting
fresh record highs and other pockets of the market getting
a little bit of regulatory relief. SOFI Technologies up about
three percent a four week run there, and some of
that has come at the expense of the software space.
You take a look at the elastian representative of that team,
down about two percent on the day as it heads
(01:53):
for a slightly down week. Meanwhile, quantum Scape getting a
decent bid up three percent on the day of Fourth
Street gains as the battery maker continues to see a
bit of a delayed reaction to a big announcement that
was made at the end of last months. Nevertheless, one
of the big risks that you see in quantum Scape
is tariffs, and that.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Is where we're going to start the show today.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
An escalation in US trade tensions on the week that
began on Monday with that twenty five percent tariff on
goods from Japan and South Korea, two key sourcing regions
of components for the US tech sector, and of course
the week ends with higher tariffs on Brazil and on Canada,
two key sourcing regions for.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
The tech heavy auto sector.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Bloomberg's Kelley Lines, the co hosts of Balance of Power,
joins US right now in Washington with the latest on
what I thought Kelly was supposed to be the resolution
of some of these trade issues.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
Well, yeah, July ninth, Romain was the original deadline. The President,
of course officially switched that deadline to August first. For
all of the countries who have been on receiving ends
of these trade letters posted on true social this week.
The latest, of course, as you referred to as Canada,
which as of last night is now facing down the
threat of a thirty five percent tariff on Canadian imports.
That's higher than the current twenty five percent level. Though
(03:07):
I would note that we are expecting exceptions to remain
for goods compliant with the USMCA Trade Agreement, which is
actually most exports, so that could alleviate some of the
burn here, as well as for energy imports, which are
expected to continue to face a teriff freight of ten percent.
All of this would be effective as of August first,
although that does leave some wiggle room here for the
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Karney to try to reach a
(03:29):
deal with this administration. The thing is, though, for both
Canada and Brazil, which you also mentioned, the justification the
president is using isn't necessarily just around trade deficits and
tariff and non tariff barriers, as we saw for the
more than twenty other countries who receive letters. For Brazil,
it's the treatment of former president Jiroblsnaro that the President
is taking issue with, and for Canada, he specifically points
to the trade of fentanel, suggesting that Canada is still
(03:51):
allowing too much fentanyl to come over the US's northern border,
although data suggests that those numbers are very minimal, at
least looking back to last year's data, So it'll be
interesting to see how they're able to reconcile that particular issue,
as each country is going to have to try to
work through things in the next few weeks. Keeping in
mind that The President also said on an interview with
NBC News last night that for most trading partners, he's
(04:14):
looking at applying a blanket tariff of between fifteen and
twenty percent, which of course is higher than the current
ten percent baseline rate that still remains in place for me.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Kelly Lines down in our Washington Bureau, and of course
tariffson focus so to our non tariff trade barriers and
Vidio CEO. Jensen Wong was at the White House yesterday,
presumably to talk about US technology export curbs that have
limited in Video's ability to sell its most advanced chips
to the largest market for such chips, China. Bloomberg's Mike
(04:44):
Shepperd joins us right now to talk a little bit
more about this, and I know, Mike, we don't know
exactly what the two men spoke about, but given the
big trip that Jensen Wong already had planned to go
to China, I would have to assume that was the
main topic of conversation.
Speaker 5 (05:00):
Romain, we have to assume that because China, for in
Nvidia and for a lot of other American tech companies,
is a major market even with all the US export
curbs that are in place. And there was a concern
that Jensen Wang has articulated publicly and no doubt spelled
out in private with President Donald Trump at the White
House yesterday, that Nvidia and other American companies risk losing
(05:23):
ground in this key market for semiconductors.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
China.
Speaker 5 (05:26):
It's not only the world's second largest economy, it's a
second It is the world's largest buyer of computer chips.
And one of the biggest concerns that they have is
that China will be able to gain ground in the
area of artificial intelligence if the US maintains this regime
of strict export curbs. We did see some relief from
that during the President's trip to the Middle East when
(05:49):
they began to roll back some Biden era curbs governing
sales of advanced chips to a lot of other countries.
And this is a measure aimed at keeping those chips
from leaking to China, but that still may not be enough.
Jensen Wang argues that we need to be able to
sell into China, and that is to perhaps keep its
top Chinese rival, Huiawei Technologies from gaining ground in this
(06:12):
area of AI chips.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
From yeah, I am.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Curious of Mike I mean, how much do we know
about the support that Trump and the White House overall
is willing to give too, if not just Nvidia specifically,
but overall to the US chip sector to address some
of those issues and address some of that competition.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Well, that's a.
Speaker 5 (06:31):
Great question, and it's one that chip industry executives and
leaders here in Washington that we've met with and talked
to have really been mulling. And they don't know the
answer because you're also swimming against a very strong anti
China tide here in the nation's capital.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Over the years, so much.
Speaker 5 (06:48):
Of the rhetoric has been driven on the national security
side that look, if you sell advanced technology to China,
there's a great risk that there will be a dual
use for it, not just in the commercial sector, but
in the military and national security sphere as well, and
that could put US security at risk if China is
able to deploy these advanced technologies, especially in the area
(07:11):
of artificial intelligence in that way. Hence all these export curbs.
And yet what Jensen Wang and others are arguing is
that look around the world, if the American tech stack
is to prevail, we need to be able to sell
our chips in China and sell them more broadly around
the world without fear of restriction. We don't have to
sell the most advanced versions of our semiconductors and GPUs
(07:35):
to those countries, but we still should be selling more
than we are able to right now, so that we
can ensure that the US has that toe hold. And look,
the Nvidia CEO and Donald Trump really have forged a report.
Jensen Wong is becoming a more frequent visitor here to
the nation's capital, Romain.
Speaker 6 (07:53):
And during this Saudi visit that I.
Speaker 5 (07:55):
Mentioned, Donald Trump looked in the audience for Jensen Wang
and even him my friend Jensen, so you can expect
that there was a warm discussion at the White House
yesterday Romaine.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
All right, Mike Shepherd, who of course covers this all
from US four in Washington. As we keep an eye
on Jensen Wong as he embarks on that trip next
week to China. When we come back here on Bloomberg Tech,
we're going to focus in on Apple as it tries
to line up its slate of products for twenty twenty six.
What to expect and more importantly, we'll consumers buy it.
This is Bloomberg Tech Apple is planning a slew of
(08:46):
new products that it plans to introduce in the first
half of twenty twenty six. Now that includes a new
low end iPhone, new iPads, and upgraded Max. That's the
reporting from Mark German, and he joins us right now
to talk.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
A little bit more about that.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
And Mark, let's first start off with exactly what is
the sort of complexion of this lineup and why are
they taking that particular approach.
Speaker 7 (09:08):
Yeah, Roman, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
So.
Speaker 7 (09:10):
Apple typically launches a bunch of new products in the fall,
and that's going to happen again this year with some twists.
So we'll get the usual new iPhone, the seventeen line,
the usual new Apple watches, but there'll be a couple
other bells and whistles that they usually don't do this
time of year. One is an upgraded version of the
iPad Pro. Two is an upgraded version of the Vision Pro.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
That's their new headset.
Speaker 7 (09:30):
And then looking towards the first half of twenty twenty six,
usually they release new MacBook pros with new high end
processors in the fall. This time around, at least currently
again remains fluid. They're aiming for early next year. So
first half of next year, you'll get new MacBook pros,
you'll get a new Mac external monitor, you'll.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Get new low.
Speaker 7 (09:50):
End iPads, you'll get new mid tier iPad airs, and
of course, as you mentioned, the iPhone seventeen E, which
indicates a strategy change for Apple now entry level. Their
cheapest iPhone is on track to be updated on an
annual cadence instead of every few years.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
I am curious Mark about sort of other products that
aren't necessarily just updates of existing ones, whether we're talking
about the wearable strategy, the smart home strategy, and obviously
any insight that you might have into any sort of
developments on the AI front.
Speaker 7 (10:23):
Just to put a highlighter on your point rooming, because
I think this is exactly right.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
None of these products are revolutionary.
Speaker 7 (10:31):
None of these products are redesigned, none of these products
are wholly new. I would barely characterize many of these
as iterative. They're basically what they call in the industry
chipion ship, which means you replace the processor in the
device with a newer generation component.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
And as we know, you know the.
Speaker 7 (10:49):
Laws of physics are very apparent with Apple these days.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
The Fife.
Speaker 7 (10:55):
Gains that you used to get on an annual basis
for new Apple chips. Those days are five years in
the rearview mirror. So in terms of something wholly new,
they were supposed to release a smart home hub basically
a home pod with the display very AI heavy this
past March. They have to delay it as part of
the delays to their new serie features, a future called
(11:16):
app Intense, which allows you to control your device very
precisely with voice commands. Because those software and AI features
were delayed, they obviously also have to postpone the hardware.
I'm told that hardware is now on track for the
first half of next year to be aligned with them
finally being able to shift those upgraded voice commands features.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
All right, well, maybe I guess the rollout of these
new iterations or whatever you want to call them, Mark,
maybe it provides a little more consistency on the revenue
front from for investors, but for consumers maybe not necessarily
the most exciting thing out there, Mark German.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Of course, we'll keep tabs on that.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
There is some excitement though in other parts of the
tech space, and that of.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Course involves AI and robots.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
The combination of those two, the AI development platform hugging
Face launch a new mini robot. It calls it Ricci,
and users will be able to program the device using
the company's open source machine learning platform.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
To enable it to do well.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
I guess whatever anyone can think of here to discuss,
as Thomas Wolfe's the co founder and chief scientist over
at hugging Pace. All right, Tom, let's talk first about
the general idea behind what Ricchie is supposed to do.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
What is the main.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Benefit or the main added value that someone buying this
is going to see right out of the box.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
So I think there will be a lot of things.
Speaker 8 (12:33):
It's an AI robots that's designed to be a human
robots interaction platform. So you can move its head, you
can move antenna, can basically share a lot of emotion
with the user. But it also has sensor, it has
a camera, it has a microphone, it has a speech
audience speakers building. And so our general idea is that
you can plug this model with all the new AI
(12:56):
model we've seen right now, which can generate, you know, beach,
which can digest image, we can understand what you say,
and we think there is a need right now for
a very accessible platform for people to start building this
human robot interaction.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
So when as people sort of get this device and
the idea obviously at the bean open source Bean, I
guess set up in a way where you kind of
have that crowdsource ability to tinker with this thing and
make it better. What do you think we would be
the advancements that we would see most soon.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
As I should say most immediately.
Speaker 8 (13:33):
So you have to picture this as a device that
can be used in many many ways. So it will
ship as the kids a little bit like Lego. You
can build it, you can build it with your kids,
with your family and friends, and then it will be
provided with a couple of apps already. And I think
one specificity as well is that you can run this
app locally, so you don't have to actually send data
in the cloud if you want, so you can also
(13:54):
use it, but you don't have to, And so it.
Speaker 9 (13:56):
Will ship with a couple of apps.
Speaker 8 (13:58):
We've already been developing internally fun games where the AI
interact with you in a fun way. But what do
we expect and what we're really excited about is to
see the community create new apps. Right, so we'll provide
s decay that make it very easy to make new behavior.
Speaker 9 (14:12):
You know, I don't know.
Speaker 8 (14:13):
If you're cooking, you put it next to you, and
maybe you want to design it as a little cook
assistant that comments you're cooking and maybe give you tips
for your recipes. And then once you build this, you
actually want to share with the committee. And that's where
the power of the GIFA service crazy, because you can
just actually applaud this and it's automatically become accessible to
all the other robots, and other user can point on
(14:35):
your robots cook space and use it locally.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
I am curious with regards to robotics, why don't you
think we've seen more either open source or open weighted
business models in this space.
Speaker 8 (14:50):
It's a good question. I think a lot of people
have been focusing on these very expensive humanoid robots, right
and the price type for this is obviously more in
the eighty thousand dollars right, So here it doesn't make
a lot of sense I think to do them open
source right now. But when you picture something much simple
like Ricimini, which still has like ten models in it
and it can do quite a lot of things, but
(15:10):
it cannot work for instance, then you're making it open
source can value much more the type of behavior, so
you can build on how you know the community can
use it, and the community that can actually tweak play
with it is much wider than than humanaged robots. So
I think that's one reason where maybe the first to
tackle these segments.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
I know, this is this product just getting off the
ground here. This is primarily design and made in the
United States, and I am curious that as you expand
this product and any sort of a descendant products out
of it, how are you going to navigate let's just say,
a somewhat topsy turvy trade and tear iff environment that
has sort of disrupted where you source things and even
(15:51):
to some extent where you can sell things.
Speaker 8 (15:54):
That's a good question. We've been surprised actually because obviously
the US market for our first market, and I think
we're needing one million revenue on this product already after
just a couple of days, and I think sixty percent
rough free of it is out of the US. But
you see, you know, forty percent is from the rest
of the world, right with Europe first, but then also
Asia and South America leading after that. And so I
(16:16):
think for US it will be interesting to see how
we can so some of these parts more locally and
see if we can actually maybe build this robot invalues
place of the world and take advantage of the simplicity in.
Speaker 9 (16:27):
The way of some of its design.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
All right, Thomas, Well, certainly exciting times they're living in
right now. Thomas Well, there, of course, the co founder
of Hugging Face, and you saw it. They're on the screen,
that new robot that just debuted a couple of weeks ago, Richie.
When we come back, we're going to focus in on
Amazon and Amazon Prime Days, the four day shopping event,
finishing strong after weaker than an expected sales start.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
We're going to have that discussion after the break. This
is a bloomberg tex.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
It's the fourth and final day for Amazon's Prime Day.
According to consumer data from Numerator, more than fifty seven
percent of shoppers compared prices before making final purchases, with Walmart, Target,
and supermarkets topping final purchase destinations. For what this may
mean for Amazon and the economy, we're joined right now
by John Shay. He's head of commerce at Digital ad
(17:31):
agency PMG.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
All right, John, I mean I.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Feel like everybody these days, we're pretty much all bargain
shoppers one way or another, whether you want the bargain
or not, I am curious.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Amazon kind of set the tone for this.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
I mean they were the ones pretty much out the
gate as a retailer. Basically, we're going to offer you
all the products you love at a price set undercuts
everyone else.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Now everyone's doing the same thing. How do you stand out?
Speaker 10 (17:54):
Yeah, So Amazon's definitely setting the tone this year, and
it's a very different year than years prior. So this
is the eleventh year of Prime Day. What started out
as a one day sale event eleven years ago is
now a four day extended event this year, and it's
(18:15):
really exciting for the consumer. We're seeing incredible adoption on
the sale front. The other thing that we're noticing this
year is that the rest of retails really followed Amazon's
lead here. So traditionally Prime Day has been in the
middle of July. They moved it forward this year a
little closer to July fourth, So we're seeing a lot
of direct brands simply extend July fourth sales to carry
(18:38):
through this full week. And then you've got every other
major retailer following suit. Walmart, Target, Cole's wayfair. Everybody's running
a big summer sale this week.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
How do you get the attention though, of consumers in
that when everyone's sort of doing the same thing and
chasing the same set of eyeballs.
Speaker 10 (18:56):
Yeah, I mean, I think Amazon's playbook here has been
pretty straightforward from the beginning. It's about selection, it's about price,
and it's about convenience. Amazon's always had a wider assortment
through their marketplace than any other retailer. They've always had
the lowest price possible, and they've got that trust and
the consumer and always come out the highest from a
consumer trust standpoint. And the real barrier that's tough to
(19:19):
beat from an e commerce standpoint is you can buy
product and have it arrived that day or the next day.
On Day one of Prime Day this year, on Tuesday,
I bought my son Rory a fishing rod that's a
seven foot poll that came to the mail and got
there the next morning. That logistics mode is what really
lets Amazon stand out for an event like this.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
And of course, yeah, and we always joke about how
they're much more of a logistics company than anything else
than an.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Actual retailer, a straight retailer. If you Will.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
They're also an advertising company as well, and they made
a big push there, a push that was I think
initially derided by a lot of folks, but then once
they started to see the ad revenue, I think a
lot of investors warmed.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
Up to it. But everyone's doing the same thing now.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Everyone's sort of taking a look at the traditional way
of advertising to consumers and realizing you maybe need a
little bit more of a holistic approach, and for a
lot of companies, maybe an independent approach, one that's maybe
divorced from the traditional sort of ad agency model.
Speaker 10 (20:10):
One hundred percent and so I lead commerce for PMNG,
which is a digital marketing services and technology company powering
some of the most iconic consumer and retail brands, and
we invest aggressively in technology. We have two platforms. One
is Velocity, which tracks billions of data points on Amazon
specifically so we understand consumer signal. The other is Alley,
which brings together marketing, spend, return and consumer insight across
(20:33):
all channels. And with that we have a pretty unique
perspective on the customer and all the brands that we're
interacting with. They're trying to look at the customer journey
as it moves across search, social, retail, and you're starting
to see retail and media coming together in major ways.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Is this sort of a new or relatively new approach,
I should say, is it effective? And by that I
mean I know there's a lot coming out of the
fire hose when it comes to these new ad platful forms.
But are you seeing or and more important, our clients
seeing a true return on that investment.
Speaker 10 (21:05):
Absolutely, and so you know what we're seeing is in
can earlier this year, a few weeks back. You know,
retail media, as it's called leveraging retailer data to target
and measure the effectiveness of media has become one of
the fastest growing segments of media. Overall, more money is
(21:26):
spent on retail media than on TV advertising now, and
increasingly retailed data is being used to target television advertising.
So that Amazon announced a huge partnership with Roku. You're
able to take data on consumer behavior on sites like
Amazon and then target specifically people based on what they
buy in the past, and then you can measure the
(21:47):
downstream impact on do they search for specific product on
a site like Amazon, did they check out, do they
buy et cetera, and that's the shape of where this
is going, which is really exciting.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Yeah, and you see that with Amazon.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
There was an interesting deal with door Dash as well.
There's quite a few other companies have really started to
jump on this. Great to talk to you John Shay there.
He is over ahead of Commerce for p MG. As
Bloomberg Tech continues to roll on, we're going to check
back in on some of the big stocks moving on
the day, and that includes the mag seven as earning
season kicks off, a big reaction to Trump's teariff threats
(22:23):
and maybe a potential big reaction to the earnings up
ahead over the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 6 (22:28):
This is Bloomberg Tech. Welcome back to Bloomberg Tech.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Romaine Vasik, Ed Ludlow and Caroline Hide on assignment on
the Day, a day where we look at the NASDAC
down for two straight days, setting up for what could
be a down week, the first down week in three.
Some concerns here about high valuations coming off what have
been record highs for several of the big names in
that big index, including Microsoft, including Oracle, and of course
(23:11):
including in Vidia earlier this week hitting.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
That four trillion dollar market gap.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Pulling back just a touch actually no excuse me, now
reversing and now moving higher on the day, up about
one point five percent. You see Microsoft there, which hit
a record high the other day, adding slightly to those
gains as well, and there were a couple of interesting
upgrades earlier this week on Microsoft as well as some
of his brethren. The idea that AI is benefiting these
companies not in terms of what they're selling, but benefiting
(23:38):
from internal productivity in their own internal use of AI
Meta platforms down slightly on the day, and you can
see core Weave still taking it on the chin. Still
some concerns here about that acquisition, of course Scientific and
what that means for evaluations. So as you head into
an earning season, earning season that at least for Tech
ostensibly kicks off in about a week's time with Netflix
(24:00):
and then shortly after that with some of the other
big brethren in the Max seven, let's bring in Eric Sheridan.
He co leads the Tech Media and Telecom Group business
over at the Global Investment Research over at Goldman Sachs.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Eric, Great to see you, Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
We have this idea that AI is either going to
kill us all or it's going to be just the
nirvana for everything that has ailed us in the past.
And I know there's a lot of nuance that goes
in between that, but all of the hype that we've
seen since chat GVT kind of came onto the radar
two and a half years ago, we are starting to
see some real ROI for some of the companies that
(24:35):
have deployed AI, whether it's to their clients and customers
or internally to themselves.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
And I am.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Curious if you expect to see that really start to
show up in the earnings results that we're going to
get over the next few weeks.
Speaker 9 (24:46):
I think in the form of earnings over the next
couple of weeks, there's a couple of things I'd point out.
You're likely going to see very strong, if not reaccelerating
revenue from the cloud computing companies. We would highlight AWS
within Amazon you talked about in your last segment, and
the elements of Google Cloud within Alphabet could particularly surprise
more of the upside than not. Microsoft surprise very positively
(25:08):
the last quarter with this theme of going from capacity
constrained to less constrained and then all of a sudden,
the AI backlogs turn into revenue. Secondarily, the advertising landscape
is an arrow. We're seeing old practices turn into new practices.
We're seeing AI as a bit of a democratizing effect
on how advertising is made and deployed. We think that's
(25:30):
going to build in momentum. We also think on the
margin side of the equation, you're going to hear a
lot more about efficiency narratives inside these companies doing more
with the employees they have, or even some elements of
redundancies leading to better margin trajectories going forward as well.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
How much wiggle room is there though, because I felt
like that was a big narrative a year ago when
we saw La, Meta and some of these other big
companies really start to pair back the number of employees
that they have with the idea that there was a lot.
Speaker 9 (25:58):
Of overlaps an outsized redundancy moved by Meta a number
of years ago, and they've been in digestion mode of
that since. And if anything, Meta has moved into hiring
some very high priced AI talent in the more recent weeks.
But there are press reports around layoff set Alphabet, there's
layoffs at other technology companies in Silicon Valley and More interestingly,
(26:20):
the rate of change or new employee hiring has been
relatively flat in the technology landscape, as shown in some
of the macro data as well.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
When we talk about the potential help to margins by
the idea of pairing the workforce, and Microsoft announced nine
thousand or we have reporting nine thousand jobs apparently being
paired there. They're still spending a lot on capax to
build out and chase this AI dream, and I am
curious about the balance. I mean, getting rid of a
few million dollars in salary isn't necessarily going to help
(26:51):
the idea that they're spending billions and billions of dollars
on Capax.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
Where's the balance?
Speaker 9 (26:55):
Yeah, I think it's more than just millions. I think
there's also processes, workflows, and way in which they work internally.
So Alphabet's really an interesting company because going back to
when Ruth Parrat was CFO and now the new CFO,
you know, not as Sony. I think at the end
of the day, what they talk about our elements of
striking a balance. If we are going to keep investing
in AI, we have to find efficiencies in the core business.
(27:19):
And generally these are companies that have been surprising more
on margins to the upside than the downside, so they
are finding elements of those balance in their own operations.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
When you hear people become concern about the CAPEX spend,
what is your response to them?
Speaker 9 (27:35):
Well, I think the CAPEX narrative has been on an evolution.
When there was nothing to pinpoint that could measure return
on Capex, it was a little bit harder. In a
note we did recently at Goldman, we tried to move
the narrative forward a little bit because what had been
happening was I'm spending a CAPEX dollar. Is that good
or bad? But how do I measure it?
Speaker 11 (27:56):
Now?
Speaker 9 (27:56):
What we're trying to do is identify different profit pools
that could possibly move from legacy practices to newer AI
led practices. And if there are profit pools you can identify,
then all of a sudden, you have a dollar amount
where you can actually measure ROI. I think that's what
investors have really been looking for. It's one thing to
say CAPEX dollar cloud computing revenue. It's another thing to say,
(28:20):
how does the AI generate revenue? So we've been trying
to move the debate towards that. We're in the early
stages of that debate, but I think that debate has
to prove out for AI to actually be a technology
that scales and earns of return.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
For investors looking for the potential winners and all this.
For the last couple of years, it's been a pretty
narrow field, at least the ones that in the public markets,
obviously Nvidia, some of the hyperscalers. Are you seeing more
of a broadening of the AI trade or the AI
opportunity trade.
Speaker 9 (28:48):
So I think coming back to this profit pool theme
in the advertising industry and the note we just wrote, yes,
there was a huge section around alphabet and meta and
we are byrated on both. There also was a section
around Pinterest and how they're building an AI platform called
Performance Plus that doesn't get anywhere near the coverage that
maybe a meta or an alphabet does. We are neutral
rated on a company called app Love, and but we said, look,
(29:10):
look longer term, this is another company that you have
to keep on your radar screen from becoming more AI
first than not going for the longer term. So there
are companies out there, again anchored around some of these
industry shifts and practices and themes that we would articulate
to watch.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
When we start to talk about the use case the
end use case for AIS to this extent, a lot
of the at least the more profitable cases seem to
be in the corporate space, you know, corporate software SaaS
agentic AI. On the consumer side, where are we with
that beyond just me going to perplexity and having them ask,
(29:47):
you know, ask you know, how to help me plan
my vacation.
Speaker 9 (29:49):
Well, the secret with consumer internet is there's only three
ways to monetize subscription, commerce, and advertising. We've been at
this in the Internet for a long time. The consumer
Internet is going to see all different flavors of that.
I'm a Google Gemini Pro subscriber. I'm also a Chat
GPD pro subscriber. I'm paying a subscription to have access
(30:09):
to these services. The vast majority of individuals typically monetize
not through subscription, but through advertising or commerce, and we
think there's going to be elements of all of that
at play in the AI world. As we move from
adoption to utility, which is always the bridge, whether it
was desktop computing or mobile computing, AI is going to
be no different.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Do you think those subscription fees are going to go
up significantly.
Speaker 9 (30:33):
I have yet to see a subscription fee in my
coverage of technology over twenty years that's gone down.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
All right, we'll say, well, I'll just start planning for
that right now, Eric, great to have you. Thank you,
Eric Sheridan of Goldman Sachs ERA. Closer look at the
tech space, A closer look at AI, the n use case,
and of course the big Slater earnings coming down the
pike over the next three weeks. All right, when we
come back, a big week ahead for the crypto space.
Former CFTC caner and newly appointed CEO of the Blockchain
(31:02):
Association Summer Mergnger, she's going to join us to talk.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
About the push for crypto legislation. This is Bloomberg Tech
(31:26):
taking a look at.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Crypto exposed stocks rising today, rising on the week. Bitcoin
of course a big catalyst for that. A rally pass
one hundred and eighteen thousand dollars for the first time ever,
a record breaking rally for the OG in the crypto space.
This comes, of course, as lawmakers are gearing up to
focus on several key bills for the industry next week.
A laundry list, a wish list that now potentially comes
(31:49):
to fruition. It's being dubbed Crypto Week in Washington, and
it includes the Senate's Genius Acts as well as the
Clarity Act. Earlier today, the Blockchain Association and two other
crypto trade groups issued a letter to the House urging
it to pass the Clarity Act, saying it represents meaningful
progress towards the regulatory certainty needed for the digital asset industry.
(32:10):
Summer Mersinger joins us right now. She is the CEO
of the Blockchain Association and a former CFTC commissioner. Certainty,
I haven't heard that word in this phase in quite
some time. You think we're finally going to get a slummer.
Speaker 11 (32:23):
I think we're certainly going to get it. We will
see at least the Genius Acts signed into law, maybe
as early as the end of this week, and we're
going to see Clarity past the House floor with bipartisan
support and really have that momentum going into the Senate consideration.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
This is for a lot of folks.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
They see this as a huge milestone, not just so
much in that you're getting guardrails in the such, but
the idea that you're getting more direct attention from this
administration in from Congress for that matter, for an industry
that has kind of been in limbo pretty much since
its inception more than a decade ago.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Where do we go from here?
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Assuming these bills are passed and signed by the president's summer, Yeah,
this is.
Speaker 11 (33:06):
Really step one. From here, we have a regulatory agenda.
We will work closely with the regulators as they put
in put together implementing regulations. So it's not over once
the bills are signed into law. But this is such
an important first step and one that has been many
years in the making, and it really is historic that
(33:28):
there are three major pieces of legislation on the floor
of the House of Representatives next week that are all
about the crypto industry.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Do you think that the rules that are being outlined
in the legislation will bring the US more in line
with some of the rules that we see overseas. This
has been a big bugaboo for a lot of crypto investors,
particularly those in the VC space. The idea that you know,
depending on what country you're operating in, you have dramatically
different rules, and at least here in the US, no
rules at all, at least as of today.
Speaker 11 (34:00):
Yeah, the US has kind of gone its own way.
There are other frameworks out there in other countries, but
the US is unique.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
We've have the.
Speaker 11 (34:10):
Most robust capital markets in the world, and we'll have
the most robust cryptocurrency markets in the world as well.
Once Clarity is signed into.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Law, do you think that will attract more crypto businesses
to not only do business in the US, but more importantly,
to set up shop here are rather than offshore.
Speaker 11 (34:31):
Absolutely. In fact, at the Blockchain Association, we have over
one hundred and thirty members who are innovators and small
businesses or startups. And not only will we see more
of those innovators come on shore, we'll see the ones
who are already here grow, bring more jobs to the
economy and really supercharge the United States economy.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Going forward, with regards to the Clarity Act, and as
its name implies, the idea that it would provide clarity
as to what crypto is, or at least how it's
classified within that regulatory structure, the idea that at least
based on the way the Act is written, this would
fall under the umbrella of the CFTC.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
What is the message that that sends.
Speaker 11 (35:12):
It sends that these are markets and they need a
market regulator who has principles based regulatory framework. That's the CFTC.
They're well prepared to take on this jurisdiction and they
have a lot of experience in global markets. They know
how to work with other countries to harmonize rules and
(35:33):
make sure that markets can be robust and global and
really can be out not just in the United States,
but you know, trading around the world twenty four to seven.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Obviously one of the big trends and certainly at least
for investors over the last a few weeks, has been
a renewed focus on stable coins, and that's obviously largely
with a couple of big IPOs, including Circle, and obviously
really just a big push by the White House and
the administration.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
To support that effort.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
As stable coins start to become maybe a bigger factor
in the crypto space, you're already starting to hear regulators,
at least regulators overseas raise some alarms, and that includes
the folks at the Bank of International Settlements who are
concerned about whether this could usurp some of the sovereign
nature of the way finance now is controlled by each
(36:26):
individual country and their central banks.
Speaker 11 (36:30):
The stable Coin, Genius Act and stable coin legislation here
in the United States is really going to secure the
US dollar as the primary backing for these coins. So
it's critically important that we maintain that dominance. It's been
the currency of choice. We want to continue to see
(36:52):
these installar back stable coins, and so we're going to
look at what works here in the United States and
make sure that we are the global leader here in
stable coin issuance and remittance.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
All right, Summer, I really appreciate you taking time for us,
and of course, all eyes right now on Washington. Those
three pieces of legislation, the two most importance, of course,
the Clarity Act and the Genius Act potentially set to
get a formal vote as early as next week, two
pieces of legislation that the President has said he supports.
Sarah Mersinger, they're the CEO of the Blockchain Association. As
(37:30):
Bloomberg Tech rolls on, we're gonna focus in on the
robotaxi because Tesla is planning an expansion of its driveral
as taxi service to California and the Arizona. Details on
what they have in store that's coming up next here
on Bloomberg Tech. All right, what if I told you
(38:02):
autonomous trucks will be the biggest transformation in transportation in
a century. Well, that's what the CEO of Arora says,
Chris Armson. He had a chance to sit down with
a very own ed Ludlow, who's on assignment in Sun Valley, Idaho,
to discuss the company's autonomous trucking service, the regulatory environment,
and its partnership with Nvidia.
Speaker 12 (38:21):
So we really work with them. We're one of their
lead customers for this next generation of automotive computer system
on a chip, and then we develop the software that
sits above that and operates all the autonomous driving.
Speaker 13 (38:35):
They're a bit of an unlock, aren't they. It's an enabler.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Yeah, there.
Speaker 12 (38:38):
You know, we see them as a strategic partner. Having
the density of computation available in the truck, we think
we can only get that with the thor SoC.
Speaker 13 (38:48):
It seems that this administration has a different approach, or
at least attitude, towards autonomous technology in all of its
different mediums. You know, we're talking about the movement of
passengers and goods. Do you recognize that change of approach
and how do you think it will accelerate what you
want to do.
Speaker 12 (39:08):
Oh, it's great to see whether it's the Secretary of
Transportation or the Vice President, both of them speaking about
the benefits of automation, particularly in trugging, and seeing them
have statements on the record and starting to push initiatives
to support this technology. I think it's vitally important. This
is going to be the biggest transformation in transportation in
(39:29):
a century, and we want America to be leading it.
Speaker 13 (39:33):
If you allow me to Chris, you have been for
a long time one of the leaders in Silicon Valley
at least looking at autonomous technology. That might actually be
a little bit of an understatement, but what I find
consistently comes up is concern from Silicon value or American
based engineers that recognize maybe the biggest technological competition is
(39:56):
in China right now in your domain of autonomous truck,
where do you see that the most progress being made
on the engineering side, and also I guess the regulatory environment.
Speaker 12 (40:06):
So I think we're ahead right in America, and I
mean I think we're ahead globally right. I think Aura
right now has the best technology. We can do things
literally no one else can do. Safely on the road.
That said, we cannot afford to rest on our laurels
right that you know, as a nation, we've lost technological
leadership in so many places. This is a big important
(40:28):
one and it's ours to go win. So let's go
do that. And we appreciate both at state and federal
level the support we're seeing for the technology. And now
it's on us in the corporate sectory go and deliver,
and go and compete and help win.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
And that was the CEO of the auto autonomous trucking
company AURA, speaking with Ed Ludlow out there in Sun Valley, Idaho.
As we move on away from autonomous trucking to robotaxies
because Tesla is aiming to bring its driverless taxis taxis
to California and Arizona, plotting an expansion on the heels
of last month's limited rollout in Austin, Texas. Craig Drudelle
(41:08):
joins us right now, who leads our automotive coverage, and Craig,
I'm a little lost in the sauce here as exactly
where we stand with the Robotaxi rollout. I mean, I
sort of look on paper as to what Bloomberger's reported.
But then, of course, like everyone else, you know, I
follow Musk on x and he seems to think that
we're much further along than maybe what the media has
(41:30):
been reporting.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
Where are we?
Speaker 14 (41:33):
Yeah, I think yesterday was a good example of sort
of the ways in which Musk can sort of command
the narrative in this really meaningful way, because you had
Tesla stock trade up almost five percent for the day,
and you know, a lot of activity was going on
on his ex account. One bit of posting had to
do with bringing roc to Tesla's which he says is
(41:56):
you know, coming in a matter of days. But some
of his other posts had to do with, you know,
sort of where Tesla is going to deploy next and
what it's going to be doing in Austin, where you know,
as you mentioned, they have deployed, but it's quite limited.
He said they're going to go into more of Austin
with their driverless vehicles. But what he said about, you know,
(42:17):
this idea that the company is going to deploy in
San Francisco pending regulatory approval was a bit misleading in
that he sort of suggested regulators are holding up Tesla,
when in fact, Tesla has not even initiated the process
of getting the permits it's going to need there.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
Well, that's what I'm curious about.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
I mean, anyone who's been in some of the cities
we've talked about, particularly out in California, I mean, we've
seen alternatives on this street already. Obviously weaimow appears to
be really leading the pack. I mean millions of miles
clocked in those vehicles already. Where does Tesla's robos taxis
stand in terms of the miles that it's actually logged
in this process?
Speaker 14 (42:57):
Yeah, and in California they're at zero you know. Uh,
they they have a permit to test vehicles with a
human behind the wheel, and of course, the companies in
the space, uh, you know, very much distinguished between that
and actually putting cars out on the road that doesn't
have a human, you know, in the driver's seat, and
(43:19):
Tesla has not taken that step yet. After you know,
many years now of that being you know, sort of
an opening. Uh, the company I think has has really
sort of leaned into this messaging. Yeah, uh, that they're
they're on their way, but but a lot remains to
be seen in terms of proving that.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
All Right, Craig Trudell, who helps to lead our automotive
garverage here at Bloomberg. As you wrap up this edition
of Bloomberg Tech, I want you to tune in on Monday.
Bloomberg Tech will be back along with this regular host
and they are going to have be live from Panasonic's
new EV battery plant out there in Kansas. And don't
forget to check out our podcast on the terminal and
elsewhere
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. Bloomberg Tech is a
live from coast to coast with Caroline Hide in New
York and Edvamo in San Francisco.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Bloomberg Tech is live Romain Bostic here, Carolina and Ed
on assignment on the day.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
But the news doesn't stop.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
In video, CEO Jensen Wong meeting with US President Trump
at the White House yesterday. That's ahead of a big
trip plan next week to China. Plus we're taking a
look at Tesla, which wants to bring its driverless taxis
to California and Arizona. This after last month's rollout in Austin,
Texas and Crypto Week it's upon us. We're gonna discuss
(00:49):
what do we expect from a slew of crypto focused
bills in Washington with the head of the Blockchain Association.
But we get a quick check here on the markets,
coming off what has been in a relatively record week
for US stocks, the Nasdaq one hundred, though sitting this
one out set down just slightly on the day, down
about two tenths of one percent. Of course, this comes
(01:11):
just a couple of days after we had that record
run by in video breaking that four trillion dollar market
cap threshold. Some other big movers on the week and
on the day, though, of course, is in the crypto's space.
You take a look at Coinbase down slightly on the day,
down about one and a half percent, despite the fact
that it is setting up for a relatively phenomenal week.
(01:32):
In fact, you've seen a big bid come into the
fintech space this week on the back of crypto hitting
fresh record highs and other pockets of the market getting
a little bit of regulatory relief. SOFI Technologies up about
three percent a four week run there, and some of
that has come at the expense of the software space.
You take a look at the elastian representative of that team,
down about two percent on the day as it heads
(01:53):
for a slightly down week. Meanwhile, quantum Scape getting a
decent bid up three percent on the day of Fourth
Street gains as the battery maker continues to see a
bit of a delayed reaction to a big announcement that
was made at the end of last months. Nevertheless, one
of the big risks that you see in quantum Scape
is tariffs, and that.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Is where we're going to start the show today.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
An escalation in US trade tensions on the week that
began on Monday with that twenty five percent tariff on
goods from Japan and South Korea, two key sourcing regions
of components for the US tech sector, and of course
the week ends with higher tariffs on Brazil and on Canada,
two key sourcing regions for.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
The tech heavy auto sector.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Bloomberg's Kelley Lines, the co hosts of Balance of Power,
joins US right now in Washington with the latest on
what I thought Kelly was supposed to be the resolution
of some of these trade issues.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
Well, yeah, July ninth, Romain was the original deadline. The President,
of course officially switched that deadline to August first. For
all of the countries who have been on receiving ends
of these trade letters posted on true social this week.
The latest, of course, as you referred to as Canada,
which as of last night is now facing down the
threat of a thirty five percent tariff on Canadian imports.
That's higher than the current twenty five percent level. Though
(03:07):
I would note that we are expecting exceptions to remain
for goods compliant with the USMCA Trade Agreement, which is
actually most exports, so that could alleviate some of the
burn here, as well as for energy imports, which are
expected to continue to face a teriff freight of ten percent.
All of this would be effective as of August first,
although that does leave some wiggle room here for the
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Karney to try to reach a
(03:29):
deal with this administration. The thing is, though, for both
Canada and Brazil, which you also mentioned, the justification the
president is using isn't necessarily just around trade deficits and
tariff and non tariff barriers, as we saw for the
more than twenty other countries who receive letters. For Brazil,
it's the treatment of former president Jiroblsnaro that the President
is taking issue with, and for Canada, he specifically points
to the trade of fentanel, suggesting that Canada is still
(03:51):
allowing too much fentanyl to come over the US's northern border,
although data suggests that those numbers are very minimal, at
least looking back to last year's data, So it'll be
interesting to see how they're able to reconcile that particular issue,
as each country is going to have to try to
work through things in the next few weeks. Keeping in
mind that The President also said on an interview with
NBC News last night that for most trading partners, he's
(04:14):
looking at applying a blanket tariff of between fifteen and
twenty percent, which of course is higher than the current
ten percent baseline rate that still remains in place for me.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Kelly Lines down in our Washington Bureau, and of course
tariffson focus so to our non tariff trade barriers and
Vidio CEO. Jensen Wong was at the White House yesterday,
presumably to talk about US technology export curbs that have
limited in Video's ability to sell its most advanced chips
to the largest market for such chips, China. Bloomberg's Mike
(04:44):
Shepperd joins us right now to talk a little bit
more about this, and I know, Mike, we don't know
exactly what the two men spoke about, but given the
big trip that Jensen Wong already had planned to go
to China, I would have to assume that was the
main topic of conversation.
Speaker 5 (05:00):
Romain, we have to assume that because China, for in
Nvidia and for a lot of other American tech companies,
is a major market even with all the US export
curbs that are in place. And there was a concern
that Jensen Wang has articulated publicly and no doubt spelled
out in private with President Donald Trump at the White
House yesterday, that Nvidia and other American companies risk losing
(05:23):
ground in this key market for semiconductors.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
China.
Speaker 5 (05:26):
It's not only the world's second largest economy, it's a
second It is the world's largest buyer of computer chips.
And one of the biggest concerns that they have is
that China will be able to gain ground in the
area of artificial intelligence if the US maintains this regime
of strict export curbs. We did see some relief from
that during the President's trip to the Middle East when
(05:49):
they began to roll back some Biden era curbs governing
sales of advanced chips to a lot of other countries.
And this is a measure aimed at keeping those chips
from leaking to China, but that still may not be enough.
Jensen Wang argues that we need to be able to
sell into China, and that is to perhaps keep its
top Chinese rival, Huiawei Technologies from gaining ground in this
(06:12):
area of AI chips.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
From yeah, I am.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
Curious of Mike I mean, how much do we know
about the support that Trump and the White House overall
is willing to give too, if not just Nvidia specifically,
but overall to the US chip sector to address some
of those issues and address some of that competition.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Well, that's a.
Speaker 5 (06:31):
Great question, and it's one that chip industry executives and
leaders here in Washington that we've met with and talked
to have really been mulling. And they don't know the
answer because you're also swimming against a very strong anti
China tide here in the nation's capital.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Over the years, so much.
Speaker 5 (06:48):
Of the rhetoric has been driven on the national security
side that look, if you sell advanced technology to China,
there's a great risk that there will be a dual
use for it, not just in the commercial sector, but
in the military and national security sphere as well, and
that could put US security at risk if China is
able to deploy these advanced technologies, especially in the area
(07:11):
of artificial intelligence in that way. Hence all these export curbs.
And yet what Jensen Wang and others are arguing is
that look around the world, if the American tech stack
is to prevail, we need to be able to sell
our chips in China and sell them more broadly around
the world without fear of restriction. We don't have to
sell the most advanced versions of our semiconductors and GPUs
(07:35):
to those countries, but we still should be selling more
than we are able to right now, so that we
can ensure that the US has that toe hold. And look,
the Nvidia CEO and Donald Trump really have forged a report.
Jensen Wong is becoming a more frequent visitor here to
the nation's capital, Romain.
Speaker 6 (07:53):
And during this Saudi visit that I.
Speaker 5 (07:55):
Mentioned, Donald Trump looked in the audience for Jensen Wang
and even him my friend Jensen, so you can expect
that there was a warm discussion at the White House
yesterday Romaine.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
All right, Mike Shepherd, who of course covers this all
from US four in Washington. As we keep an eye
on Jensen Wong as he embarks on that trip next
week to China. When we come back here on Bloomberg Tech,
we're going to focus in on Apple as it tries
to line up its slate of products for twenty twenty six.
What to expect and more importantly, we'll consumers buy it.
This is Bloomberg Tech Apple is planning a slew of
(08:46):
new products that it plans to introduce in the first
half of twenty twenty six. Now that includes a new
low end iPhone, new iPads, and upgraded Max. That's the
reporting from Mark German, and he joins us right now
to talk.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
A little bit more about that.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
And Mark, let's first start off with exactly what is
the sort of complexion of this lineup and why are
they taking that particular approach.
Speaker 7 (09:08):
Yeah, Roman, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
So.
Speaker 7 (09:10):
Apple typically launches a bunch of new products in the fall,
and that's going to happen again this year with some twists.
So we'll get the usual new iPhone, the seventeen line,
the usual new Apple watches, but there'll be a couple
other bells and whistles that they usually don't do this
time of year. One is an upgraded version of the
iPad Pro. Two is an upgraded version of the Vision Pro.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
That's their new headset.
Speaker 7 (09:30):
And then looking towards the first half of twenty twenty six,
usually they release new MacBook pros with new high end
processors in the fall. This time around, at least currently
again remains fluid. They're aiming for early next year. So
first half of next year, you'll get new MacBook pros,
you'll get a new Mac external monitor, you'll.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Get new low.
Speaker 7 (09:50):
End iPads, you'll get new mid tier iPad airs, and
of course, as you mentioned, the iPhone seventeen E, which
indicates a strategy change for Apple now entry level. Their
cheapest iPhone is on track to be updated on an
annual cadence instead of every few years.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
I am curious Mark about sort of other products that
aren't necessarily just updates of existing ones, whether we're talking
about the wearable strategy, the smart home strategy, and obviously
any insight that you might have into any sort of
developments on the AI front.
Speaker 7 (10:23):
Just to put a highlighter on your point rooming, because
I think this is exactly right.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
None of these products are revolutionary.
Speaker 7 (10:31):
None of these products are redesigned, none of these products
are wholly new. I would barely characterize many of these
as iterative. They're basically what they call in the industry
chipion ship, which means you replace the processor in the
device with a newer generation component.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
And as we know, you know the.
Speaker 7 (10:49):
Laws of physics are very apparent with Apple these days.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
The Fife.
Speaker 7 (10:55):
Gains that you used to get on an annual basis
for new Apple chips. Those days are five years in
the rearview mirror. So in terms of something wholly new,
they were supposed to release a smart home hub basically
a home pod with the display very AI heavy this
past March. They have to delay it as part of
the delays to their new serie features, a future called
(11:16):
app Intense, which allows you to control your device very
precisely with voice commands. Because those software and AI features
were delayed, they obviously also have to postpone the hardware.
I'm told that hardware is now on track for the
first half of next year to be aligned with them
finally being able to shift those upgraded voice commands features.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
All right, well, maybe I guess the rollout of these
new iterations or whatever you want to call them, Mark,
maybe it provides a little more consistency on the revenue
front from for investors, but for consumers maybe not necessarily
the most exciting thing out there, Mark German.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
Of course, we'll keep tabs on that.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
There is some excitement though in other parts of the
tech space, and that of.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Course involves AI and robots.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
The combination of those two, the AI development platform hugging
Face launch a new mini robot. It calls it Ricci,
and users will be able to program the device using
the company's open source machine learning platform.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
To enable it to do well.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
I guess whatever anyone can think of here to discuss,
as Thomas Wolfe's the co founder and chief scientist over
at hugging Pace. All right, Tom, let's talk first about
the general idea behind what Ricchie is supposed to do.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
What is the main.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Benefit or the main added value that someone buying this
is going to see right out of the box.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
So I think there will be a lot of things.
Speaker 8 (12:33):
It's an AI robots that's designed to be a human
robots interaction platform. So you can move its head, you
can move antenna, can basically share a lot of emotion
with the user. But it also has sensor, it has
a camera, it has a microphone, it has a speech
audience speakers building. And so our general idea is that
you can plug this model with all the new AI
(12:56):
model we've seen right now, which can generate, you know, beach,
which can digest image, we can understand what you say,
and we think there is a need right now for
a very accessible platform for people to start building this
human robot interaction.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
So when as people sort of get this device and
the idea obviously at the bean open source Bean, I
guess set up in a way where you kind of
have that crowdsource ability to tinker with this thing and
make it better. What do you think we would be
the advancements that we would see most soon.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
As I should say most immediately.
Speaker 8 (13:33):
So you have to picture this as a device that
can be used in many many ways. So it will
ship as the kids a little bit like Lego. You
can build it, you can build it with your kids,
with your family and friends, and then it will be
provided with a couple of apps already. And I think
one specificity as well is that you can run this
app locally, so you don't have to actually send data
in the cloud if you want, so you can also
(13:54):
use it, but you don't have to, And so it.
Speaker 9 (13:56):
Will ship with a couple of apps.
Speaker 8 (13:58):
We've already been developing internally fun games where the AI
interact with you in a fun way. But what do
we expect and what we're really excited about is to
see the community create new apps. Right, so we'll provide
s decay that make it very easy to make new behavior.
Speaker 9 (14:12):
You know, I don't know.
Speaker 8 (14:13):
If you're cooking, you put it next to you, and
maybe you want to design it as a little cook
assistant that comments you're cooking and maybe give you tips
for your recipes. And then once you build this, you
actually want to share with the committee. And that's where
the power of the GIFA service crazy, because you can
just actually applaud this and it's automatically become accessible to
all the other robots, and other user can point on
(14:35):
your robots cook space and use it locally.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
I am curious with regards to robotics, why don't you
think we've seen more either open source or open weighted
business models in this space.
Speaker 8 (14:50):
It's a good question. I think a lot of people
have been focusing on these very expensive humanoid robots, right
and the price type for this is obviously more in
the eighty thousand dollars right, So here it doesn't make
a lot of sense I think to do them open
source right now. But when you picture something much simple
like Ricimini, which still has like ten models in it
and it can do quite a lot of things, but
(15:10):
it cannot work for instance, then you're making it open
source can value much more the type of behavior, so
you can build on how you know the community can
use it, and the community that can actually tweak play
with it is much wider than than humanaged robots. So
I think that's one reason where maybe the first to
tackle these segments.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
I know, this is this product just getting off the
ground here. This is primarily design and made in the
United States, and I am curious that as you expand
this product and any sort of a descendant products out
of it, how are you going to navigate let's just say,
a somewhat topsy turvy trade and tear iff environment that
has sort of disrupted where you source things and even
(15:51):
to some extent where you can sell things.
Speaker 8 (15:54):
That's a good question. We've been surprised actually because obviously
the US market for our first market, and I think
we're needing one million revenue on this product already after
just a couple of days, and I think sixty percent
rough free of it is out of the US. But
you see, you know, forty percent is from the rest
of the world, right with Europe first, but then also
Asia and South America leading after that. And so I
(16:16):
think for US it will be interesting to see how
we can so some of these parts more locally and
see if we can actually maybe build this robot invalues
place of the world and take advantage of the simplicity in.
Speaker 9 (16:27):
The way of some of its design.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
All right, Thomas, Well, certainly exciting times they're living in
right now. Thomas Well, there, of course, the co founder
of Hugging Face, and you saw it. They're on the screen,
that new robot that just debuted a couple of weeks ago, Richie.
When we come back, we're going to focus in on
Amazon and Amazon Prime Days, the four day shopping event,
finishing strong after weaker than an expected sales start.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
We're going to have that discussion after the break. This
is a bloomberg tex.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
It's the fourth and final day for Amazon's Prime Day.
According to consumer data from Numerator, more than fifty seven
percent of shoppers compared prices before making final purchases, with Walmart, Target,
and supermarkets topping final purchase destinations. For what this may
mean for Amazon and the economy, we're joined right now
by John Shay. He's head of commerce at Digital ad
(17:31):
agency PMG.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
All right, John, I mean I.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Feel like everybody these days, we're pretty much all bargain
shoppers one way or another, whether you want the bargain
or not, I am curious.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Amazon kind of set the tone for this.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
I mean they were the ones pretty much out the
gate as a retailer. Basically, we're going to offer you
all the products you love at a price set undercuts
everyone else.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Now everyone's doing the same thing. How do you stand out?
Speaker 10 (17:54):
Yeah, So Amazon's definitely setting the tone this year, and
it's a very different year than years prior. So this
is the eleventh year of Prime Day. What started out
as a one day sale event eleven years ago is
now a four day extended event this year, and it's
(18:15):
really exciting for the consumer. We're seeing incredible adoption on
the sale front. The other thing that we're noticing this
year is that the rest of retails really followed Amazon's
lead here. So traditionally Prime Day has been in the
middle of July. They moved it forward this year a
little closer to July fourth, So we're seeing a lot
of direct brands simply extend July fourth sales to carry
(18:38):
through this full week. And then you've got every other
major retailer following suit. Walmart, Target, Cole's wayfair. Everybody's running
a big summer sale this week.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
How do you get the attention though, of consumers in
that when everyone's sort of doing the same thing and
chasing the same set of eyeballs.
Speaker 10 (18:56):
Yeah, I mean, I think Amazon's playbook here has been
pretty straightforward from the beginning. It's about selection, it's about price,
and it's about convenience. Amazon's always had a wider assortment
through their marketplace than any other retailer. They've always had
the lowest price possible, and they've got that trust and
the consumer and always come out the highest from a
consumer trust standpoint. And the real barrier that's tough to
(19:19):
beat from an e commerce standpoint is you can buy
product and have it arrived that day or the next day.
On Day one of Prime Day this year, on Tuesday,
I bought my son Rory a fishing rod that's a
seven foot poll that came to the mail and got
there the next morning. That logistics mode is what really
lets Amazon stand out for an event like this.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
And of course, yeah, and we always joke about how
they're much more of a logistics company than anything else
than an.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Actual retailer, a straight retailer. If you Will.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
They're also an advertising company as well, and they made
a big push there, a push that was I think
initially derided by a lot of folks, but then once
they started to see the ad revenue, I think a
lot of investors warmed.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
Up to it. But everyone's doing the same thing now.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Everyone's sort of taking a look at the traditional way
of advertising to consumers and realizing you maybe need a
little bit more of a holistic approach, and for a
lot of companies, maybe an independent approach, one that's maybe
divorced from the traditional sort of ad agency model.
Speaker 10 (20:10):
One hundred percent and so I lead commerce for PMNG,
which is a digital marketing services and technology company powering
some of the most iconic consumer and retail brands, and
we invest aggressively in technology. We have two platforms. One
is Velocity, which tracks billions of data points on Amazon
specifically so we understand consumer signal. The other is Alley,
which brings together marketing, spend, return and consumer insight across
(20:33):
all channels. And with that we have a pretty unique
perspective on the customer and all the brands that we're
interacting with. They're trying to look at the customer journey
as it moves across search, social, retail, and you're starting
to see retail and media coming together in major ways.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Is this sort of a new or relatively new approach,
I should say, is it effective? And by that I
mean I know there's a lot coming out of the
fire hose when it comes to these new ad platful forms.
But are you seeing or and more important, our clients
seeing a true return on that investment.
Speaker 10 (21:05):
Absolutely, and so you know what we're seeing is in
can earlier this year, a few weeks back. You know,
retail media, as it's called leveraging retailer data to target
and measure the effectiveness of media has become one of
the fastest growing segments of media. Overall, more money is
(21:26):
spent on retail media than on TV advertising now, and
increasingly retailed data is being used to target television advertising.
So that Amazon announced a huge partnership with Roku. You're
able to take data on consumer behavior on sites like
Amazon and then target specifically people based on what they
buy in the past, and then you can measure the
(21:47):
downstream impact on do they search for specific product on
a site like Amazon, did they check out, do they
buy et cetera, and that's the shape of where this
is going, which is really exciting.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Yeah, and you see that with Amazon.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
There was an interesting deal with door Dash as well.
There's quite a few other companies have really started to
jump on this. Great to talk to you John Shay there.
He is over ahead of Commerce for p MG. As
Bloomberg Tech continues to roll on, we're going to check
back in on some of the big stocks moving on
the day, and that includes the mag seven as earning
season kicks off, a big reaction to Trump's teariff threats
(22:23):
and maybe a potential big reaction to the earnings up
ahead over the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 6 (22:28):
This is Bloomberg Tech. Welcome back to Bloomberg Tech.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Romaine Vasik, Ed Ludlow and Caroline Hide on assignment on
the Day, a day where we look at the NASDAC
down for two straight days, setting up for what could
be a down week, the first down week in three.
Some concerns here about high valuations coming off what have
been record highs for several of the big names in
that big index, including Microsoft, including Oracle, and of course
(23:11):
including in Vidia earlier this week hitting.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
That four trillion dollar market gap.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Pulling back just a touch actually no excuse me, now
reversing and now moving higher on the day, up about
one point five percent. You see Microsoft there, which hit
a record high the other day, adding slightly to those
gains as well, and there were a couple of interesting
upgrades earlier this week on Microsoft as well as some
of his brethren. The idea that AI is benefiting these
companies not in terms of what they're selling, but benefiting
(23:38):
from internal productivity in their own internal use of AI
Meta platforms down slightly on the day, and you can
see core Weave still taking it on the chin. Still
some concerns here about that acquisition, of course Scientific and
what that means for evaluations. So as you head into
an earning season, earning season that at least for Tech
ostensibly kicks off in about a week's time with Netflix
(24:00):
and then shortly after that with some of the other
big brethren in the Max seven, let's bring in Eric Sheridan.
He co leads the Tech Media and Telecom Group business
over at the Global Investment Research over at Goldman Sachs.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Eric, Great to see you, Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
We have this idea that AI is either going to
kill us all or it's going to be just the
nirvana for everything that has ailed us in the past.
And I know there's a lot of nuance that goes
in between that, but all of the hype that we've
seen since chat GVT kind of came onto the radar
two and a half years ago, we are starting to
see some real ROI for some of the companies that
(24:35):
have deployed AI, whether it's to their clients and customers
or internally to themselves.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
And I am.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Curious if you expect to see that really start to
show up in the earnings results that we're going to
get over the next few weeks.
Speaker 9 (24:46):
I think in the form of earnings over the next
couple of weeks, there's a couple of things I'd point out.
You're likely going to see very strong, if not reaccelerating
revenue from the cloud computing companies. We would highlight AWS
within Amazon you talked about in your last segment, and
the elements of Google Cloud within Alphabet could particularly surprise
more of the upside than not. Microsoft surprise very positively
(25:08):
the last quarter with this theme of going from capacity
constrained to less constrained and then all of a sudden,
the AI backlogs turn into revenue. Secondarily, the advertising landscape
is an arrow. We're seeing old practices turn into new practices.
We're seeing AI as a bit of a democratizing effect
on how advertising is made and deployed. We think that's
(25:30):
going to build in momentum. We also think on the
margin side of the equation, you're going to hear a
lot more about efficiency narratives inside these companies doing more
with the employees they have, or even some elements of
redundancies leading to better margin trajectories going forward as well.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
How much wiggle room is there though, because I felt
like that was a big narrative a year ago when
we saw La, Meta and some of these other big
companies really start to pair back the number of employees
that they have with the idea that there was a lot.
Speaker 9 (25:58):
Of overlaps an outsized redundancy moved by Meta a number
of years ago, and they've been in digestion mode of
that since. And if anything, Meta has moved into hiring
some very high priced AI talent in the more recent weeks.
But there are press reports around layoff set Alphabet, there's
layoffs at other technology companies in Silicon Valley and More interestingly,
(26:20):
the rate of change or new employee hiring has been
relatively flat in the technology landscape, as shown in some
of the macro data as well.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
When we talk about the potential help to margins by
the idea of pairing the workforce, and Microsoft announced nine
thousand or we have reporting nine thousand jobs apparently being
paired there. They're still spending a lot on capax to
build out and chase this AI dream, and I am
curious about the balance. I mean, getting rid of a
few million dollars in salary isn't necessarily going to help
(26:51):
the idea that they're spending billions and billions of dollars
on Capax.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
Where's the balance?
Speaker 9 (26:55):
Yeah, I think it's more than just millions. I think
there's also processes, workflows, and way in which they work internally.
So Alphabet's really an interesting company because going back to
when Ruth Parrat was CFO and now the new CFO,
you know, not as Sony. I think at the end
of the day, what they talk about our elements of
striking a balance. If we are going to keep investing
in AI, we have to find efficiencies in the core business.
(27:19):
And generally these are companies that have been surprising more
on margins to the upside than the downside, so they
are finding elements of those balance in their own operations.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
When you hear people become concern about the CAPEX spend,
what is your response to them?
Speaker 9 (27:35):
Well, I think the CAPEX narrative has been on an evolution.
When there was nothing to pinpoint that could measure return
on Capex, it was a little bit harder. In a
note we did recently at Goldman, we tried to move
the narrative forward a little bit because what had been
happening was I'm spending a CAPEX dollar. Is that good
or bad? But how do I measure it?
Speaker 11 (27:56):
Now?
Speaker 9 (27:56):
What we're trying to do is identify different profit pools
that could possibly move from legacy practices to newer AI
led practices. And if there are profit pools you can identify,
then all of a sudden, you have a dollar amount
where you can actually measure ROI. I think that's what
investors have really been looking for. It's one thing to
say CAPEX dollar cloud computing revenue. It's another thing to say,
(28:20):
how does the AI generate revenue? So we've been trying
to move the debate towards that. We're in the early
stages of that debate, but I think that debate has
to prove out for AI to actually be a technology
that scales and earns of return.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
For investors looking for the potential winners and all this.
For the last couple of years, it's been a pretty
narrow field, at least the ones that in the public markets,
obviously Nvidia, some of the hyperscalers. Are you seeing more
of a broadening of the AI trade or the AI
opportunity trade.
Speaker 9 (28:48):
So I think coming back to this profit pool theme
in the advertising industry and the note we just wrote, yes,
there was a huge section around alphabet and meta and
we are byrated on both. There also was a section
around Pinterest and how they're building an AI platform called
Performance Plus that doesn't get anywhere near the coverage that
maybe a meta or an alphabet does. We are neutral
rated on a company called app Love, and but we said, look,
(29:10):
look longer term, this is another company that you have
to keep on your radar screen from becoming more AI
first than not going for the longer term. So there
are companies out there, again anchored around some of these
industry shifts and practices and themes that we would articulate
to watch.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
When we start to talk about the use case the
end use case for AIS to this extent, a lot
of the at least the more profitable cases seem to
be in the corporate space, you know, corporate software SaaS
agentic AI. On the consumer side, where are we with
that beyond just me going to perplexity and having them ask,
(29:47):
you know, ask you know, how to help me plan
my vacation.
Speaker 9 (29:49):
Well, the secret with consumer internet is there's only three
ways to monetize subscription, commerce, and advertising. We've been at
this in the Internet for a long time. The consumer
Internet is going to see all different flavors of that.
I'm a Google Gemini Pro subscriber. I'm also a Chat
GPD pro subscriber. I'm paying a subscription to have access
(30:09):
to these services. The vast majority of individuals typically monetize
not through subscription, but through advertising or commerce, and we
think there's going to be elements of all of that
at play in the AI world. As we move from
adoption to utility, which is always the bridge, whether it
was desktop computing or mobile computing, AI is going to
be no different.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
Do you think those subscription fees are going to go
up significantly.
Speaker 9 (30:33):
I have yet to see a subscription fee in my
coverage of technology over twenty years that's gone down.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
All right, we'll say, well, I'll just start planning for
that right now, Eric, great to have you. Thank you,
Eric Sheridan of Goldman Sachs ERA. Closer look at the
tech space, A closer look at AI, the n use case,
and of course the big Slater earnings coming down the
pike over the next three weeks. All right, when we
come back, a big week ahead for the crypto space.
Former CFTC caner and newly appointed CEO of the Blockchain
(31:02):
Association Summer Mergnger, she's going to join us to talk.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
About the push for crypto legislation. This is Bloomberg Tech
(31:26):
taking a look at.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Crypto exposed stocks rising today, rising on the week. Bitcoin
of course a big catalyst for that. A rally pass
one hundred and eighteen thousand dollars for the first time ever,
a record breaking rally for the OG in the crypto space.
This comes, of course, as lawmakers are gearing up to
focus on several key bills for the industry next week.
A laundry list, a wish list that now potentially comes
(31:49):
to fruition. It's being dubbed Crypto Week in Washington, and
it includes the Senate's Genius Acts as well as the
Clarity Act. Earlier today, the Blockchain Association and two other
crypto trade groups issued a letter to the House urging
it to pass the Clarity Act, saying it represents meaningful
progress towards the regulatory certainty needed for the digital asset industry.
(32:10):
Summer Mersinger joins us right now. She is the CEO
of the Blockchain Association and a former CFTC commissioner. Certainty,
I haven't heard that word in this phase in quite
some time. You think we're finally going to get a slummer.
Speaker 11 (32:23):
I think we're certainly going to get it. We will
see at least the Genius Acts signed into law, maybe
as early as the end of this week, and we're
going to see Clarity past the House floor with bipartisan
support and really have that momentum going into the Senate consideration.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
This is for a lot of folks.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
They see this as a huge milestone, not just so
much in that you're getting guardrails in the such, but
the idea that you're getting more direct attention from this
administration in from Congress for that matter, for an industry
that has kind of been in limbo pretty much since
its inception more than a decade ago.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Where do we go from here?
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Assuming these bills are passed and signed by the president's summer, Yeah,
this is.
Speaker 11 (33:06):
Really step one. From here, we have a regulatory agenda.
We will work closely with the regulators as they put
in put together implementing regulations. So it's not over once
the bills are signed into law. But this is such
an important first step and one that has been many
years in the making, and it really is historic that
(33:28):
there are three major pieces of legislation on the floor
of the House of Representatives next week that are all
about the crypto industry.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Do you think that the rules that are being outlined
in the legislation will bring the US more in line
with some of the rules that we see overseas. This
has been a big bugaboo for a lot of crypto investors,
particularly those in the VC space. The idea that you know,
depending on what country you're operating in, you have dramatically
different rules, and at least here in the US, no
rules at all, at least as of today.
Speaker 11 (34:00):
Yeah, the US has kind of gone its own way.
There are other frameworks out there in other countries, but
the US is unique.
Speaker 3 (34:09):
We've have the.
Speaker 11 (34:10):
Most robust capital markets in the world, and we'll have
the most robust cryptocurrency markets in the world as well.
Once Clarity is signed into.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Law, do you think that will attract more crypto businesses
to not only do business in the US, but more importantly,
to set up shop here are rather than offshore.
Speaker 11 (34:31):
Absolutely. In fact, at the Blockchain Association, we have over
one hundred and thirty members who are innovators and small
businesses or startups. And not only will we see more
of those innovators come on shore, we'll see the ones
who are already here grow, bring more jobs to the
economy and really supercharge the United States economy.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Going forward, with regards to the Clarity Act, and as
its name implies, the idea that it would provide clarity
as to what crypto is, or at least how it's
classified within that regulatory structure, the idea that at least
based on the way the Act is written, this would
fall under the umbrella of the CFTC.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
What is the message that that sends.
Speaker 11 (35:12):
It sends that these are markets and they need a
market regulator who has principles based regulatory framework. That's the CFTC.
They're well prepared to take on this jurisdiction and they
have a lot of experience in global markets. They know
how to work with other countries to harmonize rules and
(35:33):
make sure that markets can be robust and global and
really can be out not just in the United States,
but you know, trading around the world twenty four to seven.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Obviously one of the big trends and certainly at least
for investors over the last a few weeks, has been
a renewed focus on stable coins, and that's obviously largely
with a couple of big IPOs, including Circle, and obviously
really just a big push by the White House and
the administration.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
To support that effort.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
As stable coins start to become maybe a bigger factor
in the crypto space, you're already starting to hear regulators,
at least regulators overseas raise some alarms, and that includes
the folks at the Bank of International Settlements who are
concerned about whether this could usurp some of the sovereign
nature of the way finance now is controlled by each
(36:26):
individual country and their central banks.
Speaker 11 (36:30):
The stable Coin, Genius Act and stable coin legislation here
in the United States is really going to secure the
US dollar as the primary backing for these coins. So
it's critically important that we maintain that dominance. It's been
the currency of choice. We want to continue to see
(36:52):
these installar back stable coins, and so we're going to
look at what works here in the United States and
make sure that we are the global leader here in
stable coin issuance and remittance.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
All right, Summer, I really appreciate you taking time for us,
and of course, all eyes right now on Washington. Those
three pieces of legislation, the two most importance, of course,
the Clarity Act and the Genius Act potentially set to
get a formal vote as early as next week, two
pieces of legislation that the President has said he supports.
Sarah Mersinger, they're the CEO of the Blockchain Association. As
(37:30):
Bloomberg Tech rolls on, we're gonna focus in on the
robotaxi because Tesla is planning an expansion of its driveral
as taxi service to California and the Arizona. Details on
what they have in store that's coming up next here
on Bloomberg Tech. All right, what if I told you
(38:02):
autonomous trucks will be the biggest transformation in transportation in
a century. Well, that's what the CEO of Arora says,
Chris Armson. He had a chance to sit down with
a very own ed Ludlow, who's on assignment in Sun Valley, Idaho,
to discuss the company's autonomous trucking service, the regulatory environment,
and its partnership with Nvidia.
Speaker 12 (38:21):
So we really work with them. We're one of their
lead customers for this next generation of automotive computer system
on a chip, and then we develop the software that
sits above that and operates all the autonomous driving.
Speaker 13 (38:35):
They're a bit of an unlock, aren't they. It's an enabler.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Yeah, there.
Speaker 12 (38:38):
You know, we see them as a strategic partner. Having
the density of computation available in the truck, we think
we can only get that with the thor SoC.
Speaker 13 (38:48):
It seems that this administration has a different approach, or
at least attitude, towards autonomous technology in all of its
different mediums. You know, we're talking about the movement of
passengers and goods. Do you recognize that change of approach
and how do you think it will accelerate what you
want to do.
Speaker 12 (39:08):
Oh, it's great to see whether it's the Secretary of
Transportation or the Vice President, both of them speaking about
the benefits of automation, particularly in trugging, and seeing them
have statements on the record and starting to push initiatives
to support this technology. I think it's vitally important. This
is going to be the biggest transformation in transportation in
(39:29):
a century, and we want America to be leading it.
Speaker 13 (39:33):
If you allow me to Chris, you have been for
a long time one of the leaders in Silicon Valley
at least looking at autonomous technology. That might actually be
a little bit of an understatement, but what I find
consistently comes up is concern from Silicon value or American
based engineers that recognize maybe the biggest technological competition is
(39:56):
in China right now in your domain of autonomous truck,
where do you see that the most progress being made
on the engineering side, and also I guess the regulatory environment.
Speaker 12 (40:06):
So I think we're ahead right in America, and I
mean I think we're ahead globally right. I think Aura
right now has the best technology. We can do things
literally no one else can do. Safely on the road.
That said, we cannot afford to rest on our laurels
right that you know, as a nation, we've lost technological
leadership in so many places. This is a big important
(40:28):
one and it's ours to go win. So let's go
do that. And we appreciate both at state and federal
level the support we're seeing for the technology. And now
it's on us in the corporate sectory go and deliver,
and go and compete and help win.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
And that was the CEO of the auto autonomous trucking
company AURA, speaking with Ed Ludlow out there in Sun Valley, Idaho.
As we move on away from autonomous trucking to robotaxies
because Tesla is aiming to bring its driverless taxis taxis
to California and Arizona, plotting an expansion on the heels
of last month's limited rollout in Austin, Texas. Craig Drudelle
(41:08):
joins us right now, who leads our automotive coverage, and Craig,
I'm a little lost in the sauce here as exactly
where we stand with the Robotaxi rollout. I mean, I
sort of look on paper as to what Bloomberger's reported.
But then, of course, like everyone else, you know, I
follow Musk on x and he seems to think that
we're much further along than maybe what the media has
(41:30):
been reporting.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
Where are we?
Speaker 14 (41:33):
Yeah, I think yesterday was a good example of sort
of the ways in which Musk can sort of command
the narrative in this really meaningful way, because you had
Tesla stock trade up almost five percent for the day,
and you know, a lot of activity was going on
on his ex account. One bit of posting had to
do with bringing roc to Tesla's which he says is
(41:56):
you know, coming in a matter of days. But some
of his other posts had to do with, you know,
sort of where Tesla is going to deploy next and
what it's going to be doing in Austin, where you know,
as you mentioned, they have deployed, but it's quite limited.
He said they're going to go into more of Austin
with their driverless vehicles. But what he said about, you know,
(42:17):
this idea that the company is going to deploy in
San Francisco pending regulatory approval was a bit misleading in
that he sort of suggested regulators are holding up Tesla,
when in fact, Tesla has not even initiated the process
of getting the permits it's going to need there.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
Well, that's what I'm curious about.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
I mean, anyone who's been in some of the cities
we've talked about, particularly out in California, I mean, we've
seen alternatives on this street already. Obviously weaimow appears to
be really leading the pack. I mean millions of miles
clocked in those vehicles already. Where does Tesla's robos taxis
stand in terms of the miles that it's actually logged
in this process?
Speaker 14 (42:57):
Yeah, and in California they're at zero you know. Uh,
they they have a permit to test vehicles with a
human behind the wheel, and of course, the companies in
the space, uh, you know, very much distinguished between that
and actually putting cars out on the road that doesn't
have a human, you know, in the driver's seat, and
(43:19):
Tesla has not taken that step yet. After you know,
many years now of that being you know, sort of
an opening. Uh, the company I think has has really
sort of leaned into this messaging. Yeah, uh, that they're
they're on their way, but but a lot remains to
be seen in terms of proving that.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
All Right, Craig Trudell, who helps to lead our automotive
garverage here at Bloomberg. As you wrap up this edition
of Bloomberg Tech, I want you to tune in on Monday.
Bloomberg Tech will be back along with this regular host
and they are going to have be live from Panasonic's
new EV battery plant out there in Kansas. And don't
forget to check out our podcast on the terminal and
elsewhere
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