March 10, 2025 • 42 mins
Bloomberg's Caroline Hyde and Jackie Davalos discuss ServiceNow's move to buy startup Moveworks for $3 billion. And, Crypto markets sink further as tariff tensions permeate investor sentiment despite pro-crypto announcements. Plus, President Trump says a deal for TikTok's US business could come "soon".
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news from the heart of
where innovation, money and power collide in Silicon Valley and beyond.
This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Live from New York and Caroline Hyde and.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
I'm Jackie Devalas in Washington. This is Bloomberg Technology.
Speaker 4 (00:40):
Coming up Service Now makes a nearly three billion dollar
AI bet in a move to buy startup Moveworks plus
Crypto synks further with bitcoin's sub eighty thousand dollars is
Tariff war tensions drown out Trump's pro crypto announcements, while
President Trump says he's negotiating with four different possible buys
for TikTok's US business and a deal could come soon.
(01:01):
But first we highlight the market sell off. We are
unwinding that AI trade once again when growth enthusiasm becomes fear.
We're down by three point three percent, and then as
that one hundred having its worst dase it's December the eighteenth.
We are the lowest in September twenty twenty four, the
mag seven sinks in particular, we're looking.
Speaker 5 (01:19):
At five point four percent drop.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
Apple now sub three and a half trillion dollars you're
looking at in video well below three trillion. We're about
two point six trillion dollars in terms of market capitalization.
We'll find another five point six percent as we think about.
Speaker 5 (01:33):
What tariffs and what.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
Overall geopolitical tensions mean for this AI trade that we
were so long at the beginning of this year.
Speaker 5 (01:40):
Move on and even look at TSMC.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
They come out with good numbers analysts like the pace
of growth in excess of forty percent from the month
of February in terms of sales. All eyes on whether
they can live up to their own internal guidance for.
Speaker 5 (01:51):
Their fiscal first quarter.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
But the AI demand still clearly there when it comes
to the making of chips, but it is.
Speaker 5 (01:57):
Drag lower by sentiment. Let's get to that sentiment.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Grude Meg's ron Vastelica is here and boy are we
continuing these drivations in the market.
Speaker 6 (02:06):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 7 (02:07):
It does seem like there's just no end insight for
all of this selling. You've had major names that were
kind of seen as maybe a safety trade in the market.
Speaker 6 (02:14):
They're all breaking down.
Speaker 7 (02:16):
Major indexes have fallen under major support levels, key stocks
have fallen under support levels. There's been hundreds of billions
of dollars of value just completely wiped off. It's been
a very broad based weakness here.
Speaker 8 (02:28):
Rian, How broad based is that?
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Because last week we saw chips really taking a hit.
Is what we're seeing today just really a dragdown of
a couple of the big names that have a high
concentration in that Nasdaq one hundred index. Or is there
broader fears here that we're just not seeing yet?
Speaker 7 (02:46):
Well, I do think just the breath of the selling
does speak to just the broadness of the fears out there.
If we are going into some kind of economic contraction
or just broader weakness when you do have potential terrorists
and escalation and geopolitical tensions, that's going to weigh on
the market. It's pretty broadly. But because tech has done
so well for so long, this is a natural place
for people to be taking their profits first.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Any hints of buying the dip just seems to be
completely waight. I mean, the key question for the market
is thus far Trump says he's not listening to the markets,
But is there a point at which he starts to.
Speaker 9 (03:19):
Wow?
Speaker 7 (03:19):
I don't know about that, but at a certain point,
you know, you do have a lot of people remain
very positive about the long term potential of the big
tech stocks, even the AI stocks. It is very possible
at some point where people will come in and think,
you know what, these names have really gotten beaten down.
A lot of them are at multiples that they haven't
been trading at in you know, a couple of years
or even longer at all. Speaks to like an environment
(03:40):
where maybe people start to get a little bit more positive,
start to nibble in at the bottom. But there's so
much uncertainty just in the broader economy right now. It's
hard to know when that's going to happen. But certainly
if we did see a rebound from here, I don't
think that would be too surprising because it's not like
the fundamentals have really changed all that dramatically.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
That's Bloomberg's Ryan glas Stelaca. Thanks so much for joining
us late.
Speaker 5 (04:00):
Today.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
President Donald Trump is set to meet with CEOs of
major tech companies, including IBM, Intel, Qualcom, and HP.
Speaker 8 (04:09):
The meeting comes as the.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
White House considers policy changes, including tariffs and stricter export
rules that could impact the tech industry's global supply chains
and operations. Bloomberg's Mike Shepherd joins us now.
Speaker 8 (04:23):
To discuss more. Mike, what are the stakes of this
meeting today?
Speaker 10 (04:27):
Well, we are seeing the stakes of this meeting play
out in the market right now. We're seeing the kind
of uncertainty that is gripping investors as really a reflection
of what these companies are also going through, because the terriffs,
whether they're imposed or not, are throwing an element of
what happens next for them and their supply chains, and
(04:49):
also what happens to costs that they may have to bear,
and also markets that they may be trying to sell too,
not only consumers when you think about endpoint buyers, but
also folks other companies that may be looking to make
some acquisitions along the way for their own supply chain.
So there will be a lot to say at this
(05:10):
It's unclear whether there will be some big reveal or
announcement from the president. It is not signaling that way
when we think about the TSMC announcement from a week
ago or the big Softgate soft Bank announcement on Stargate
with open Ai Oracle. This doesn't have quite that vibe
right now. But we'll have to see what the President says,
for now the meeting is closed to press, but maybe
(05:32):
they will open it up.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
That's a great point that you bring up with Stargate,
because then it was kind of a slashier meeting that was,
you know, we were getting some nuggets beforehand.
Speaker 8 (05:41):
What does it mean that these.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Are American companies, you know, as we heard from TSMC
last week, are they looking more for guidance or is
Trump looking something from them?
Speaker 8 (05:52):
Well?
Speaker 10 (05:52):
Trump is always looking for something from his counterparties. He
wants some sign that they plan to invest, they plan
to expand they plan to do more with their domestic presence.
And yet the way the market is heading right now
and all of this uncertainty, it is not an environment
in which companies and businesses are more inclined to make
those kinds of big spending, big investment decisions.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
What's hitting the most mic is it tariffs? Is it
a potential repeal of the Chip sacks? What is going
to be that top question to President Trump these CEOs.
Speaker 10 (06:23):
That's a great question, Caro, because the tariffs really have
taken precedence over almost anything else. And his discomfort with
the Chips Act, which he expressed during his address to
Congress last week. Wawmakers quickly shot that down. They don't
seem to be too inclined to cut off that picket
of money. There wasn't a bipartisan support to get through.
(06:44):
But the tariffs are really the thing out there that
is sowing this kind of uncertainty about what the impact
on supply chains would be. Remember, the President has imposed
tariffs on Canada and Mexico and later put them in
abeyance for an Now, our two largest trading partners here
in the US, and then there's the world's second largest economy, China,
(07:06):
that is the third largest US trading partner. Those tariffs
of up to twenty percent of most products coming in
from China really have an impact and start to have
a bite.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
Mike Shepard, we thank you for that breakdown. Now, amid
these tariffs and market jitters, deals are actually still getting done.
Service Now has agreed to buy artificial intelligence firm move
Works for two point eight billion dollars as part of
its push into AI tools that can complete tasks without
human supervision.
Speaker 5 (07:32):
From mex Bodiford joins.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
US now AGENTKI here again but not organically grown over
at Service Now.
Speaker 11 (07:38):
Yeah, exactly every single software company is chasing this price
of AGENTICAI. You know, I had to get a new laptop,
you know, through work. And the idea is for a
company service now is that when I type it in,
it automatically routes almost everything. It makes a decision that
says is this user permission for this? Is there a
business case? What will it cost?
Speaker 6 (07:57):
Cool?
Speaker 11 (07:57):
The idea is ultimately that customers don't need as many
people to you know, do in house tasks. Service Now's
real core market is that it services and so move works.
You know, it is a pretty clear play to be
able to double down on that market and inject some
AI into it.
Speaker 8 (08:15):
Berdy Move Forwards.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Has been around for quite a while, even though we've
been hearing about these customer service AI agents more as
of late. It was less valued in twenty twenty one,
and as we've seen in the broader start of market,
it's really hard to raise money.
Speaker 8 (08:29):
Especially if you're later stage.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Did Service Now get a good deal here?
Speaker 11 (08:34):
It's a pretty good outcome. And as you said, it's
been a tough market for VC backed companies right We've
seen a lot of companies selling at below previous valuations.
So I mean two point one to three. That's a
pretty large deal. I think it's pretty successful for everybody.
And with Service Now, it's funny because you know they're
CEO Bill McDermott, at a reputation for huge deals at SAP.
He came in at Service Now and said, you know,
(08:55):
these days are behind me. We're going for organic growth.
But it seems like today the ugates may be opening, right.
I mean, I think there's scent lights in the message
that Service Now might be kind of ready to be
a big acquirer.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
It doesn't seem as though the market is that jubilant.
I mean, the market is down across the board. The
Service Now is down by more than six percent, which
is more than the slump. And then as that one hundred,
our investors just a little bit nervy about these sorts
of big outgoings and a time where Service Now has
a lot of government exposure, for example, in terms of contracts.
Speaker 11 (09:25):
The big question for SaaS companies is how quick are
you turning the AI moment into revenue for Service Now.
In the most recent earnings they kind of showed that
we are still prioritizing adoption rather than revenue. Spending three
billion dollars to you know, essentially buy sooner revenue recognition.
Speaker 8 (09:42):
That could be a sign of weakness.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
Certainly, Ready Ford.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
Who was front running the official announcement with a scoop
over the weekend brilliant, thank you now coming up. Bitcoin
slump continues despite President Trump's pro crypto agenda. More on
the bitcoin space in a moment, but shares of Tesla
is where we focus in on after bitcoin is off
to be it's percent check out what this magnificent seven
name is currently down by eight.
Speaker 5 (10:03):
Point six percent.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
It's leading in terms of the sell off we're seeing
from a points perspective. Apple and Vidia also contributing. We're
worrying about China.
Speaker 5 (10:11):
We're worrying about.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Sales slump over there, but more broadly worried about valuations
for a company that's ubs is saying perhaps the AI
trade is a little bit too long a term for
this particular one in the here and now they downgrade
their view on sales for the first quarter. This is
boombog technology. Bitcoin slide continues. It's now below eighty thousand
(10:40):
dollars for the first time since November. Now the asset
class is consumed by macro concerns rather than the slew
of pro crypto rhetoric that we got from President Trump's
crypto summit on Friday.
Speaker 5 (10:49):
From all let's break it all down with Shnani base icon.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
Maybe there's this underwhelmed feeling from the crypto summit, but
it is macro front and center in terms of the
sell off on crypto.
Speaker 12 (10:57):
Right first and foremost, the risky appetite is pretty tough
out there, and you have a fairly high correlation still
for bitcoin two stocks. So if you're selling off risk assets,
you're certainly not buying bitcoin today. I think what's remarkable
is not even just today's decline, and you are now
flirting with that eighty thousand dollars level. We have dropped
below it, but it's trying to kind of keep that mark.
(11:19):
You have bitcoin down more than twenty five percent since
the highs that we saw, So if you bought bitcoin
at one hundred and ten dollars, one hundred and ten
thousand dollars nearly you're feeling that pain. Today on a
seven day basis, bitcoin is down more than eleven percent,
So too is a theoreum. But one thing that's important
about all this is also that strategic Bitcoin Reserve that
(11:40):
the White House had been talking about. It's not the
idea here that they'll be buying more crypto assets. They
would be taking assets from what is already forfeited.
Speaker 5 (11:49):
Right from what they have seized.
Speaker 12 (11:51):
So if you're not buying from the US government, then
it remains that bitcoin needs that extra marginal buyers story
here at a time where as we've been talking about risk,
appetite is quite low.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
Shanali cryptos almost synonymous with volatility. Depending on where you sit,
how much of these swings are actually unprecedented, How does
it compare to what we've seen in the past.
Speaker 12 (12:15):
Well, think about it this way, Jackie, on one hand,
is on it is very something. It's something that big
investors who have been in bitcoin a long time have
bared before. You have the billionaires in the crypto industry
pretty used to losing a billion or a few in
a single year. But if you're a retail buyer who
have maybe got in at the end of last year
(12:36):
when the prices were still high through the form of
an ATF, it is tougher to bear now if you're
thinking about the look ahead as well. There are a
lot of meme coins and a lot of alt coins
that people have bought into in addition to Bitcoin, even
more of a drop than Bitcoin today is for example,
Doge and many of you might notice that over the
weekend there was a lot of criticism around DOGE and
(12:57):
the plans for it, both by judges as well as
members of the administration, according to different reports that were
out there. So it's not just Bitcoin, it is the
all kinds.
Speaker 8 (13:06):
Outside of it.
Speaker 12 (13:06):
They saw this big rally when President Trump initially had
hinted that Salona Cardano XRP could be considered for this reserve,
but they were not in that executive order necessarily for
purchase for this strategic Bitcoin reserve so now or crypto
asset reserve. So you do see pain there as well
because the government's plans are somewhat unclear even after that
(13:29):
big White House summit on Friday, Jackie.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
That's Bloomberg Shanali base I thanks so much for joining us.
We caught up with White House, AI and cryptos are
David Sachs ahead of the Crypto summit on Friday. Here's
what he had to say about the creation of the
bitcoin reserve.
Speaker 9 (13:45):
The reason why we need a bitcoin reserve is that
the federal government already owns some In the past, the
strategy has been simply to sell it, you know, in
an ad hoc way, almost willy nilly, and that cost
American taxpayer something like seventeen billion dollars in lost value.
So we want to have a long term strategy to
maximize the value these holdings.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
For more on the crypto landscape, Stacy Rowland, zero one
Strategies founder joins a snow Stacy, why did this crypto
summit fall slap because hopes were pretty high?
Speaker 13 (14:15):
Well, I think it's important to realize that unlike markets
that react instantaneously, policy making is requires patients.
Speaker 8 (14:25):
It's a slow process.
Speaker 13 (14:26):
So, yes, the ball started rolling on Friday with the
president's call for the creation of a strategic reserve and
digital assets stockpile. There's a lot of details, as we've
been discussing, a lot of details still need to be
filled in, and there's still a role for Congress to play.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
Stacy, with the work that you've done with the government
relations that you built with Advisory, what you've been doing
two companies trying to assettain what the government might do.
Is that consistency enough? Because I think the fact that
you're saying.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
It's day one.
Speaker 4 (14:57):
It takes a while to really digest what a strategic
b QUES reserve means. But the lead up to the
strategic strategic reserve was long, and many had anticipated that
would be buying that maybe wouldn't.
Speaker 5 (15:07):
Just be bitcoin.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
We were allowed to get over enthusiastic about what the
announcement would be.
Speaker 5 (15:13):
Uh, well, it's a.
Speaker 13 (15:15):
Great question, and I think essentially more conversations will have
to happen, right Congress will have to be involved. Uh,
these are these are long discussions. I do think looking
at the details, one thing that I think is really
interesting is, you know, the part that the public was
able to see. There were interesting comments made, especially by
(15:37):
the Treasury Secretary where he suggested that, uh, the Treasury
was going to be playing a role in assessing the
tax code and looking at risk waiting. And I thought
that was a really interesting hint. I'm very interested to
see what Treasury does working with the OCC and the
I R s uh in you know, he what the
Secretary had promised was, uh, you know, looking at applicable
(16:00):
regulations and amending or rescinding as necessary. I'm interested in
seeing whether he is limiting those comments just to the
strategic reserve or whether he was suggesting something broader and
there's more to come.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
When you served within the Accessory Department and you was
in staff of the Office of Tax Policy, so you're
someone who should know about these tax perspectives. And thanks Jack,
you for holding on for this moment. But Stacey, I
am interested in what it means in terms of the
future of on ramps. Here we talked about stable coins
getting some sort of regulatory clarity. That's something that investors want,
not just tax clarity too.
Speaker 13 (16:35):
Yeah, that's exactly right. There are calls for clarity across
the board. Those are largely in Congress's perview. And this
week in Congress, if we can take a quick shift
to look at what's going on on the other side
of Pennsylvania Avenue, there will be this week we're going
to have action on stable coins and on information reporting
(16:56):
in taxes. So we're going to see.
Speaker 5 (16:58):
It's a very busy week in these.
Speaker 13 (17:00):
Areas, both coming out of the White House reactions to
that and actual you know, policymaking on the Hill.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
You mentioned that Congress is going to have to be involved.
What kind of bipartisanship do we see around crypto.
Speaker 13 (17:11):
Yeah, increasing right, And I think it's important for people
to realize, especially in the work that I do, that
every Congress is different, right. And so last year we
did see a shift over the years for this issue
to be sort of increasingly partisan.
Speaker 8 (17:27):
But a lot of.
Speaker 13 (17:27):
That was largely to do with the political realities. You
had the Biden administration that was signaling you know, skepticism, right,
some would say hostility to some areas of digital assets,
and the heading into a contentious election year, Democrats were
going to you know, defer to their party leader. Now
(17:49):
political wins have shifted, right, we have a Republican controlled Congress.
Clearly policymaking will be happening in this space and that
middle that that you know opper coortunity for bipartisanship is
much broader than it ever has been.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
That's Stacey Rand of zero one Strategies. Thank you so
much for joining us.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
Time now for talking tech first s up shares of
Redfin surging today. Rocket Companies has announced a deal to
buy the real estate listening site for one point seventy
five billion dollars, paying twelve and a half dollars a
share in an all stock transaction. Rocket CEO b Oun
Krishna join Bloomberg Open Interest have this to say about
the deal.
Speaker 14 (18:32):
We're very excited about this deal. Two of the biggest
growth opportunities for Rocket that we've talked about are really
growing in purchase and AI, and by bringing together the
leading home search website with the leading mortgage finance company,
we expect to accomplish both.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
US deliver Room it's set to exit from its Hong
Kong business due to wheat sales and mounting competition. Now,
the London based delivery company will sell some of its
assets to rival food Panta, with other assets at the
delivery app will remain active in Hong Kong until April.
The seventh and self driving startup Wave says it's near
a commercial debut with major automakers to launch his driver
(19:10):
assistance system in the.
Speaker 5 (19:11):
US and in Germany.
Speaker 15 (19:12):
Now.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
The startup is back by SoftBank and Video, Microsoft and Uba,
also saying that it's AI software can adapt to US
driving behavior's faster at Wave did not have them mentioned
a timeline for release or the name of the car
makers involved.
Speaker 8 (19:25):
Jackie for more on a Wave.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Dana Wolman joins US now Dana autonomous vehicles are really
having a moment here. How does Waves stack up to
what's already on the market and what we've seen so far.
Speaker 16 (19:37):
So for listeners who are unaware, Wave is not a
consumer facing product, So it specializes in autonomous driving software,
and as you might imagine, it is AI powered and
that software goes into various automakers vehicles, and it may
may not even be branded as Wave in front of consumers.
So it's not that the consumers can purchase, but it
may be something they experienced, depending on what car model
(19:59):
they p purchase in the coming years.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
So the competitive threat is to Tesla FSD, is to
all the other automated offerings that were about to be consuming, you.
Speaker 16 (20:10):
Know, possibly the likes of Weimo. What I find so
fascinating about this space is there's a lot of frenemies.
There are clear competitors, but sometimes depending on the web
of who's invested in who, a partner could also be
a sometimes competitor. I think the relationship, for instance, between
Uber and Weimo is really fascinating in that regard.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Dana, what does this mean for the market here in
the United States? Does this mean that it's sort of
kind of getting crowded when it comes to who's already
out there putting this software in there. One thing that
you mentioned that really struck me is that it can
adapt to us driving behaviors. I mean, are we just
bad drivers here?
Speaker 16 (20:52):
So that struck me as particularly interesting too. Alongside us
providing some news today about the company's timeline or this
vague timeline, the company put out some data today just
suggesting that it has a newer and more efficient approach
to adapting its algorithms and its AI models to basically
US signage and US road rules. And this has been
(21:16):
a really fascinating topic. It's actually something that Nvidia CEO
Jensen Wang brought brought up at the company's CES keynote,
and Jensen in that keynote.
Speaker 8 (21:26):
Talked about how difficult it.
Speaker 16 (21:28):
Is for companies to map local roads safely and efficiently
at the same time without it just turning into this
cost effective balloon essentially, And so given that context, it
was really interesting that Wave came out and said, hey,
we've got these models and they were trained in Europe,
but we can really adapt them pretty quickly and easily
(21:48):
to the uniqueness of US roads.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
No clemen on us THISUS European driving rooms.
Speaker 5 (22:02):
Welcome back to from their technology. I'm Caroline Hide.
Speaker 8 (22:04):
In New York and I'm Jackie Devalas in Washington.
Speaker 4 (22:07):
And we check in these markets that are in cell
off territory.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
Once again.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
Look, we are questioning growth in the US, we are
questioning tariff impact in the US, and we're questioning valuations
of the AI trade were off by the NASA that
one hundred almost three percent, bouncing off of our lows,
but nevertheless underwater. We're looking at Bitcoin of by three
point four percent at one point sub eighty thousand dollars.
Speaker 5 (22:27):
We're still higher than the day of the US.
Speaker 4 (22:29):
Election November last year, but only just Meanwhile, we're training
at the lowest level than as that one hundred since
December the eighteenth of last year.
Speaker 5 (22:36):
Move on and have a little.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
Actually the Lowes office in September the worst day on
the market since December of last year. I'm looking at
basically the entire mag seven drive bring us lower in
terms of our points perspective.
Speaker 5 (22:46):
There are zero cell ratings on a number of these names.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
Nvidio zero cell ratings in terms of analyst expectations, Microsoft
zero cell ratings, but still we go lower, as we
cannot fathom when we start to see a bottom and
people start to buy the dip, Teslau as the most
off by eight and a half percent. We were about
Chinese growth and we are about a future of AI
where Ubs cuts their forecast for this year's sales to
the company. But Microsoft and all these names just in
(23:10):
the red. But there's much more news when it comes
to Microsoft.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Checking that's right, Microsoft has created its own in house
AI models that it thinks it can go toe to
toe with industry rivals like open Ai. According to sources,
Microsoft has been developing a family of models called Mai
to perform a variety of tasks. For more on this,
Bloomberg's Matt Day joined just now, Matt, Microsoft has poured
(23:33):
billions of dollars into open Ai. Why is it developing
its own models now?
Speaker 17 (23:39):
Well, I think Microsoft wants a hedge at some point,
right their agreement with open Ai the main one that's
gotten all this in from all this all this attention
last couple of years that only runs through twenty thirty.
That that could be extended hypothetically, But at some point
Microsoft's going to need to shoulder the burden for its
own AI services. The company clearly believes that AI is
the future. And so even though they've been partnering with
opening Ia real closely, as they say, every time they
(24:02):
open up their mouths on the subject, you know, they're
still working on their own models as well.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
We were just talking about frenemies in the AVA side
of things.
Speaker 5 (24:10):
Is this a question of frenemies? Are they competitors or
are they ponting?
Speaker 11 (24:13):
Is Matt Well?
Speaker 17 (24:14):
Is it's both? You know, Like I said, they Microsoft
seeings opening Ice praise as anytime they can, you know,
but they're also realistic about it, right, They've worked on
their five models for for a long time. Either are
smaller set of language models that can run on a laptop,
or at least they're designed to be smaller than the big,
big kahunas at chat GPT. But I think both parties
are are kind of sober and realistic that you know,
(24:34):
they're going to work together, but they're also going to
build their own their own.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Master tramps, Matt, opening Ice technology like chat GPT underpins
a lot of the existing technology that Microsoft has already
sold to its enterprise customers.
Speaker 8 (24:47):
Does this move risk spooking that base?
Speaker 17 (24:51):
You know it might, but I think if we're way,
way way early on that, in part because Microsoft has
only just started testing, you know, whether they could use
their own models, like whether they could use non open
AI models to power pieces of its copilot, which is
Microsoft's main sort of AI go to market for its
office user base. So we're probably really really early for that,
you know. Right now, Microsoft woul tell folks say, we
(25:12):
still use open AI. That's the industry standard, the state
of the art.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
Fascinating Deep dive and Microsoft, we thank you, Matt Day. Meanwhile,
let's talk about more on the Generator of AI. Space,
a startup from two former researchers at Google's DeepMind, have
raised one hundred and thirty million dollars for a new company,
its goal to create AI powered super intelligence. Co founder
and see of Reflection AI, Misha Laskin joins us. Now, Mischa,
(25:37):
this is around coding and the fact that coding can
be done better than a human and not just as
some sort of copilot, but actually going off and building
the code itself.
Speaker 18 (25:47):
That's right, Thank you for having me. So to take
a step back, we're team of researchers and engineers from
formerly Frontier labs like deep Mind, where we contributed to
some of the biggest breakthroughs in AI over the last decade.
And the mission of the company more broadly is to
build superintelligence. And what we believe the starting point is
is exactly what you said, it's building incredibly reliable autonomous
(26:10):
coding systems. So that's what we're focused on today.
Speaker 5 (26:12):
Deep might not want to do that. Why did you
have to go off and set off your own company.
Speaker 18 (26:16):
Well, we think it's really important to not just do
research in the wild, but to be really closely coupled
to product and customers. A model that we have the
company that the only EVAW that really matters is the
real world EVAO and so we felt that by being
really close to the customers, we'd be able to see
through the mission better.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
I mean, when I think about coding assistance, I think
about Microsoft Gethub copilot. It's extremely popular amongst the coding
community out there, and I'm curious what kind of reaction
you've seen from your customer base with the notion that
you want your tool to be able to do it
on its own versus kind of have this human intervention
alongside of it.
Speaker 5 (26:56):
That's a really good question.
Speaker 18 (26:57):
So, actually, we've found that the tool, both internally at
Reflection and the way our customers use it is incredibly
empowering because it allows engineers to focus on the stuff
that is really high priority and they want to work on,
and we kind of take the more tedious work off
their plates. So we kind of think of an engineer
of evolving over the next few years and becoming basically
(27:20):
an architect that has an army of these one hundred
AI engineers working for them and helping them see their
visions through.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
When I hear super intelligence, I remember a lot of
the initial more existential kind of concerns that we're coming
up at the really beginning of chat GBT taking the
world by storm, And just last year we saw a
wave of AI safety focus researchers and leaving open AI.
I'm curious how you're going about the safety conversation.
Speaker 8 (27:47):
A year afterward.
Speaker 18 (27:49):
That's also a really good question. Safety is definitely one
of the things we.
Speaker 8 (27:53):
Care about a lot.
Speaker 18 (27:54):
This is a lot of the work in safety is
traced back to what's called reinforcement learning from feedback, which
is what our team led at Gemini, and the way
we think about safety is from a very practical perspective.
We believe that superintelligence cannot be built in a vacuum,
and so it's really important that you iterate closely with
customers and users and make sure that these systems are
(28:15):
aligned from day one with their needs and are put
on the right guardrails.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
Many are worried ultimately about whether this disrupts the labor force.
You're saying, look, you're just going to free up the
engineers to do even more, But ultimately, what talent do
you need right here, right now and in the longer
term will you need as much talent?
Speaker 18 (28:33):
Well, the challenging thing, both today and in the future
is how to ask the right questions, how to design
the systems so that your AI engineers do the work
for you. So today a lot of the talent is
around research and distributed systems engineering and very kind of
complex engineering tasks. Now AI engineers might help upload some
(28:55):
of that in the foreseeable future, but I think asking
the right question will still be a really valuable skill.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
It's quite busy out there in the world of general
to AI coding assistance and startups that are getting mind
modeling valuations. The latest was any Sphere coming out with
a ten billion dollar valuation. We understand they're going to
be getting money replete. We think about poolside, how are
you thinking about standing out from the crowd and continuing
to be able to raise significant amounts of private money.
Speaker 18 (29:23):
What we're building is significantly different from the existing suite
of coding AI products today. The way we think about
the existing Coding Eye products is akin to a cruise
control for engineers. This is really useful, but the engineer
still does most of the driving. We're building systems that
are fundamentally autonomous from day one that you give You're
give them the task and they take you from point
(29:45):
A to point B and they need to do so reliably.
And to do that, you need to drive fundamental breakthroughs
in intelligence, and that's what our team is focused on.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
That's na Sh'll ask and CEO of Reflection AI, thank
you so much.
Speaker 8 (29:57):
For joining us coming up v on.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
Tobol I've inspired Capital joined us to talk about the
future of social commerce.
Speaker 4 (30:05):
Caroline And while we check back in on these public
markets and they're having a torrid day.
Speaker 5 (30:09):
We're off of our lows.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
We're down by two point six percent, not as much
as the more than three percent sell off we saw
earlier in the NASA one hundred, but still the worst
day since December of last year, mag seven off by
four percent.
Speaker 5 (30:18):
Stay with us.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
This is Bluebog technology.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
Venture investing is on track to be at its highest
level since twenty twenty one.
Speaker 5 (30:36):
That's calling to data from Pitchbook.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
But much of that funding is going to start up
powerhouses open.
Speaker 5 (30:41):
AI and reill.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
Let's talk about what it means for the cycle of
investing with Alexavon Toobo, founder of Inspired Capital, nearly nine
hundred million dollars in assets under management, three funds, generalist
early stage, but how much of you had to just
focus in on the generative AI trade.
Speaker 19 (30:55):
There is obviously so much happening with AI RI at large,
and I think it hits so many verticals. So for us,
we're very thesis driven, and you know the future of
social commerce, which I know we're talking about today. We've
had a three year thesis that we've just been thoughtfully
executing and so that's how we like to do our work.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
Okay, So when you're thinking about a thesis such as
social commas, that is how AI can interweave with my
social experience and some many my scholping experience becomes that much,
we'll talk with it.
Speaker 8 (31:20):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 19 (31:21):
So in our point of view, you'll have the huge
open AI, the lms, the perplexities of the world, but
there will be an AI application layer above that. So,
for example, we back to a company called duck Bill,
and what duck Bill does is get snowed you exactly
knows how many children you have, what products you're interested in,
and then serves them up for you. So it takes
discovery from going to Google and hunting for that birthday product.
(31:42):
My daughter turns ten this month. For example, duck Bill
this morning alerted me here are products you should.
Speaker 8 (31:47):
Think about buying and should we buy them?
Speaker 19 (31:49):
And the answer is yes, thank you, but very very
very customized AI based on who you are, and these
llms really get to know you and then recommend products.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
Alex, So what have you seen from like consumer behavior studies?
Speaker 8 (32:02):
Do people actually like that?
Speaker 3 (32:04):
Because when I think about seeing a lot of these
targeted ads, the first thing that goes to my mind
is how do they know this? Am I giving them
permission to be able to scrape whatever data to give
me this wonderful recommendation for shoes or whatever it might be.
Speaker 8 (32:19):
What are we seeing from the consumer side of things.
Speaker 19 (32:21):
So, for example, and again just sticking with Duckbill, Duckbill
is a platform that you give information to, you tell it.
So it's all stuff that you have downloaded in terms
of your budgets and what you like to spend, where
you like to buy flowers, from, what your kid's interests are.
And then from there the recommendations keep getting better based
(32:42):
on their AI infrastructure of things you've allowed.
Speaker 8 (32:45):
So that is all opt.
Speaker 19 (32:46):
In and I would just say incredibly simple and making
your life better in terms of executing on products.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
When it comes to where humans are left in this
social commerce thesis, because when I go on tip I
love seeing product recommendations, whether or not they're sponsored by
a person, it's the human that's making the recommendation that's
really the sell for me. How does this fit into
how you're going about looking for companies in this space?
Speaker 5 (33:12):
That's exactly where Jackie.
Speaker 19 (33:13):
So Jackie on the other end of that spectrum where
an AI brain is recommending a product to you. In
the last just few years, AI content has exploded ten
thousand percent increase of content online videos, written content, et cetera.
And so we actually have the opposite thesis as well,
which is the pendulum is going to swing back to
really trusting brands, products.
Speaker 5 (33:35):
People that you know.
Speaker 19 (33:36):
And so we back to a company, for example, called
shot My. Shotm just announced a seventy eight million dollar
Series B and shot My is a platform where you
can go online and follow the exact people your best friends,
people in your sphere, or influencers or content creators that
you trust, the enthusiasts that you love, and then buy
products directly from their recommendations. And in so many ways, Jackie,
(33:59):
that shrinks in our down to just the people you
want to follow, just the things that you're interested in,
and it's your front door. So again Google no longer
being your front door. It's going to be your AI
application layer, and then it's going to be a company
like shop mine, for example, where you're just buying from
the people you love and trust, which is how I
buy offline, and now it's coming online.
Speaker 4 (34:17):
What about if you're actually a creative that can't find
exactly what you want and you want to make it,
and you're sort of back in companies that almost get
rid of.
Speaker 5 (34:26):
The brand entirely, right, We're all going to be our
own creators in some way.
Speaker 19 (34:29):
That's right, and actually so again on the sort of
far out there ideas of our thesis is the idea
that we no longer because of generative AI need Let's
pretend you and I are buying a white coffee table marble.
You know, you would take a photo, you would upload
it online or start hunting on Google seeing pictures. Maybe
you end up at Etsy, and then you perfect it
and you buy it, and it's so much work. There's
(34:52):
a company called Arcade AI where you literally, if you
can imagine it, you can make it. And what Arcade
allows you to do is write into gen AI old
coffee table, three legs, and all of a sudden it
starts to show it, and then you can tweak the
picture the way you want it, and then it shows
you all the places you could buy exactly that table
by connecting your deaf directly to the makers. So what
(35:13):
that does is it turns all of us normal everyday
people into expert creators where you can manufacture your own products,
which again is a more out there edge of the spectrum,
but a big, big, big idea in that company's just
released forty two million.
Speaker 4 (35:26):
I mean in terms of being an expert, you're also
an expert founder yourself. You built lenves and I can
imagine at this moment, when you're thinking about a company
that's building around a global maritch of a building your
own products, you're getting a lot of cools from these
founders being like, what do I do in this sonart?
We've got no consistency in terms of path the direction
right now from a government level, how.
Speaker 5 (35:43):
Many cools do you feel from your founders right now?
Speaker 19 (35:46):
I mean we often literally see fifty companies a week.
We are talking to our founders regularly because we're in
a tectonic shift right as you think about innovation curves,
we are at the edge of the beginning of a
brand new innovation curve that is more isaac than anything
we've seen in the last twenty years. And so I
think being very thoughtful and precise and again thesis driven
(36:07):
about where's the world headed, where do we believe the
world is headed?
Speaker 8 (36:10):
And how do you make those bets?
Speaker 19 (36:11):
And of course that advice we give at inspired to
all of our founders as well.
Speaker 5 (36:16):
Alex.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
So when I think about shopping, I mean, it's interesting
that a lot of your companies.
Speaker 8 (36:20):
Are really the software layer. You can't really see it,
but it's there.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
But at the end of the day, these are products
that have to arrive at someone's doorstep to kind of
really finish off that customer experience. We're seeing a lot
of volatility when it comes to those with exposure to
manufacturing kind of cariiff concerns. Are any of your companies
grappling with any of those fears right now? Absolutely?
Speaker 19 (36:42):
I mean, as you think about tariffs and what that
will look like and products that are being manufactured outside
of the country, every single one of those founders is
asking and my co founder and business partner Penny Pritzker,
we just stated content on tariffs and exactly how people.
Speaker 8 (36:58):
Should proctically think about them.
Speaker 19 (36:59):
And obviously they're very volatile, but I think preparing people
for the worst of what they should be prepared for
is how we operate at Inspired and always providing that
macro lens is critical as people are actually executing in
the day to day.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
You'll co found A helped build paperless posts into what
it is Alexa.
Speaker 5 (37:15):
I go back to where we started.
Speaker 4 (37:17):
We started it that VC's having kind of a nice
dea yep, but certainly in the judges of a I space.
You've just mentioned a lot of companies getting big series
B series full of on funding. Is that the environment
and you'll see right now people all getting money.
Speaker 19 (37:28):
I don't think it's typical. I mean, I think it's
the haves and have nots. I think you're seeing for
companies that have big, compelling ideas, huge breakout shop Maize
revenue has grown exponentially more than ten x in a
short period of time. And I think you're seeing in
companies that are really working, the dollars are there, and
I think then you're also seeing in companies that are
not working. It's very dry, and so it is a
(37:49):
tale of the haves and have nots. And I think
things that are at the forefront of which we have
a few in our portfolio of AI. I think the
capital is not only there, it's many funds are there
at the same time, very very quickly. And so again
I think when the traction has really proven out, that's
when you're seeing the capitol.
Speaker 4 (38:04):
NICs on Tobal, great Teyr and managing partner, founder and
spat capital.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
There's going to be a deal on Tiktoks.
Speaker 13 (38:19):
There could be We're dealing with four different groups and
a lot of people want it and it's up to me.
Speaker 5 (38:25):
So there could be President Trump.
Speaker 4 (38:27):
They're speaking about efforts to find a buyer for TikTok's
US business. For more.
Speaker 5 (38:32):
Let's speak to Bloomberg's Kirk Wagner. The clock is sticking.
Speaker 4 (38:35):
Is April the fifth is the time they've got.
Speaker 5 (38:37):
Are we going to have to extend?
Speaker 6 (38:40):
It's very possible, right.
Speaker 15 (38:41):
I mean that comment from President Trump was sort of
more optimistic, I think than the things that we've been
hearing from behind the scenes. It really feels like things
sort of have stalled out. A lot of potential bidders.
Have you made outreach but not necessarily gotten a lot
of feedback in return. And so this idea that you
know there might be four possible groups that are all
(39:01):
in the mix here, I think makes it sound more
optimistic again then I was, you know, feeling that it
was forty eight hours ago.
Speaker 4 (39:08):
Let's talk about in the mix lot, Because we've spoken
on the show plenty of times to Frank McCourt junior.
He's with Alexis o'hanian on the one front. We've also
speaken spoke to Jesse Tinsley, who might or might not
be powering up with a mister Beast, but certainly he's
got some other key founders like the Roeblock CEO alongside.
Speaker 5 (39:25):
Him, and then there's sprinkling of others. Who are these four,
do you think?
Speaker 6 (39:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 15 (39:30):
Well, obviously President Trump didn't name the four, right, So
we know of three groups that have come out publicly.
You mentioned two of them, Jesse Tinsley's group, the Frank
McCourt and Project Liberty Team Perplexity AI has you know,
supposedly made some type of bid for TikTok as well.
So those are the three that have sort of been
public But again we've also heard President Trump sort of
(39:52):
throw his own names out there, right, Larry Ellison with Oracle,
Elon Musk of course with his stable of businesses, and
so we don't know who he's talking about. We only
know who's raised their hand. But the numbers don't add up.
He says four, we know of three, so supposedly there
are some some mystery names still out there, and.
Speaker 5 (40:08):
The numbers are all in a mystery.
Speaker 4 (40:10):
As well, because is it worth up to fifty billion
dollars for US TikTok If they don't get the underlying algorithms,
such as with Project Liberty's bid.
Speaker 6 (40:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 15 (40:20):
I think what makes this so complicated is that one
the range of prices, you know, I believe Project Liberty
bid twenty five billion, and another group, the Tinsea Group,
I think, was saying more twenty. We've heard numbers as
high as fifty, as you mentioned. And I think it
all depends on what is included in a deal, right,
doesn't include that underlying algorithm, doesn't include just the brand
(40:41):
and the user base.
Speaker 6 (40:43):
And also what role does the US government have here? Right?
Speaker 15 (40:46):
President Trump has talked about the US taking fifty percent
of this, right, and so that has to factor in two.
Speaker 6 (40:51):
Is that even doable?
Speaker 15 (40:52):
So this is not traditional caroline, as you know, And
so I think that's what makes you know, even basic
numbers here or ranges here very hard to predict.
Speaker 4 (41:02):
And what's totally unprecedented is the idea that the president
himself has the time of the bandwidth to be negotiating
any of this. But it is a geopolitical context because
China gets sort of a rite of reply in all
of this, and at one point seems only one Elon
potentially as a bidder.
Speaker 6 (41:18):
Yeah, well, I point out two things. One, it feels
like JD.
Speaker 15 (41:20):
Vance, Vice President Vance has actually taken on some responsibility
for trying to get this over the line, right because
the President is presumably very.
Speaker 6 (41:28):
Busy, and so he's passed at least some of this
aft to him.
Speaker 15 (41:30):
The other thing that hasn't really been mentioned here is like,
just because President Trump wants a deal done does not
mean a deal is going to get done, right, Like
bike Dance has to agree to this, and by association,
pretty much the Chinese government has to agree to any
type of deal. Right, So he is really representing just
one side of this equation. And so I think, you know,
will you factor those two things and again that there
(41:52):
are four people bidding and I have control over this.
Those kind of comments from him, I think are lacking
some major context around the fact that he's not the
only one who gets to side here.
Speaker 5 (42:01):
Clark sticking.
Speaker 4 (42:02):
Kurt Wagner, thanks for the update on all things TikTok. Meanwhile,
we take you back to the public markets. Selling pressure remains.
We're off by three percent on the Nasdaq one hundred
magnificent seven, having an ugly day of by four and
a half percent.
Speaker 5 (42:13):
We question US growth.
Speaker 4 (42:14):
We questioned Taris, look about the earnings that we're coming up.
Speaker 5 (42:17):
Of course, this does it for.
Speaker 4 (42:19):
This edition of Blueberg Technology. You don't want to miss
out on Oracle's numbers. They report after the close today.
We're off by four percent on Oracle. We question AI
and the data center. We also talk about AI Human
X in Las Vegas.
Speaker 5 (42:31):
Join us there tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
This is Bloomber Technology
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news from the heart of
where innovation, money and power collide in Silicon Valley and beyond.
This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Live from New York and Caroline Hyde and.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
I'm Jackie Devalas in Washington. This is Bloomberg Technology.
Speaker 4 (00:40):
Coming up Service Now makes a nearly three billion dollar
AI bet in a move to buy startup Moveworks plus
Crypto synks further with bitcoin's sub eighty thousand dollars is
Tariff war tensions drown out Trump's pro crypto announcements, while
President Trump says he's negotiating with four different possible buys
for TikTok's US business and a deal could come soon.
(01:01):
But first we highlight the market sell off. We are
unwinding that AI trade once again when growth enthusiasm becomes fear.
We're down by three point three percent, and then as
that one hundred having its worst dase it's December the eighteenth.
We are the lowest in September twenty twenty four, the
mag seven sinks in particular, we're looking.
Speaker 5 (01:19):
At five point four percent drop.
Speaker 4 (01:21):
Apple now sub three and a half trillion dollars you're
looking at in video well below three trillion. We're about
two point six trillion dollars in terms of market capitalization.
We'll find another five point six percent as we think about.
Speaker 5 (01:33):
What tariffs and what.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
Overall geopolitical tensions mean for this AI trade that we
were so long at the beginning of this year.
Speaker 5 (01:40):
Move on and even look at TSMC.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
They come out with good numbers analysts like the pace
of growth in excess of forty percent from the month
of February in terms of sales. All eyes on whether
they can live up to their own internal guidance for.
Speaker 5 (01:51):
Their fiscal first quarter.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
But the AI demand still clearly there when it comes
to the making of chips, but it is.
Speaker 5 (01:57):
Drag lower by sentiment. Let's get to that sentiment.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Grude Meg's ron Vastelica is here and boy are we
continuing these drivations in the market.
Speaker 6 (02:06):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 7 (02:07):
It does seem like there's just no end insight for
all of this selling. You've had major names that were
kind of seen as maybe a safety trade in the market.
Speaker 6 (02:14):
They're all breaking down.
Speaker 7 (02:16):
Major indexes have fallen under major support levels, key stocks
have fallen under support levels. There's been hundreds of billions
of dollars of value just completely wiped off. It's been
a very broad based weakness here.
Speaker 8 (02:28):
Rian, How broad based is that?
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Because last week we saw chips really taking a hit.
Is what we're seeing today just really a dragdown of
a couple of the big names that have a high
concentration in that Nasdaq one hundred index. Or is there
broader fears here that we're just not seeing yet?
Speaker 7 (02:46):
Well, I do think just the breath of the selling
does speak to just the broadness of the fears out there.
If we are going into some kind of economic contraction
or just broader weakness when you do have potential terrorists
and escalation and geopolitical tensions, that's going to weigh on
the market. It's pretty broadly. But because tech has done
so well for so long, this is a natural place
for people to be taking their profits first.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Any hints of buying the dip just seems to be
completely waight. I mean, the key question for the market
is thus far Trump says he's not listening to the markets,
But is there a point at which he starts to.
Speaker 9 (03:19):
Wow?
Speaker 7 (03:19):
I don't know about that, but at a certain point,
you know, you do have a lot of people remain
very positive about the long term potential of the big
tech stocks, even the AI stocks. It is very possible
at some point where people will come in and think,
you know what, these names have really gotten beaten down.
A lot of them are at multiples that they haven't
been trading at in you know, a couple of years
or even longer at all. Speaks to like an environment
(03:40):
where maybe people start to get a little bit more positive,
start to nibble in at the bottom. But there's so
much uncertainty just in the broader economy right now. It's
hard to know when that's going to happen. But certainly
if we did see a rebound from here, I don't
think that would be too surprising because it's not like
the fundamentals have really changed all that dramatically.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
That's Bloomberg's Ryan glas Stelaca. Thanks so much for joining
us late.
Speaker 5 (04:00):
Today.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
President Donald Trump is set to meet with CEOs of
major tech companies, including IBM, Intel, Qualcom, and HP.
Speaker 8 (04:09):
The meeting comes as the.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
White House considers policy changes, including tariffs and stricter export
rules that could impact the tech industry's global supply chains
and operations. Bloomberg's Mike Shepherd joins us now.
Speaker 8 (04:23):
To discuss more. Mike, what are the stakes of this
meeting today?
Speaker 10 (04:27):
Well, we are seeing the stakes of this meeting play
out in the market right now. We're seeing the kind
of uncertainty that is gripping investors as really a reflection
of what these companies are also going through, because the terriffs,
whether they're imposed or not, are throwing an element of
what happens next for them and their supply chains, and
(04:49):
also what happens to costs that they may have to bear,
and also markets that they may be trying to sell too,
not only consumers when you think about endpoint buyers, but
also folks other companies that may be looking to make
some acquisitions along the way for their own supply chain.
So there will be a lot to say at this
(05:10):
It's unclear whether there will be some big reveal or
announcement from the president. It is not signaling that way
when we think about the TSMC announcement from a week
ago or the big Softgate soft Bank announcement on Stargate
with open Ai Oracle. This doesn't have quite that vibe
right now. But we'll have to see what the President says,
for now the meeting is closed to press, but maybe
(05:32):
they will open it up.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
That's a great point that you bring up with Stargate,
because then it was kind of a slashier meeting that was,
you know, we were getting some nuggets beforehand.
Speaker 8 (05:41):
What does it mean that these.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Are American companies, you know, as we heard from TSMC
last week, are they looking more for guidance or is
Trump looking something from them?
Speaker 8 (05:52):
Well?
Speaker 10 (05:52):
Trump is always looking for something from his counterparties. He
wants some sign that they plan to invest, they plan
to expand they plan to do more with their domestic presence.
And yet the way the market is heading right now
and all of this uncertainty, it is not an environment
in which companies and businesses are more inclined to make
those kinds of big spending, big investment decisions.
Speaker 4 (06:14):
What's hitting the most mic is it tariffs? Is it
a potential repeal of the Chip sacks? What is going
to be that top question to President Trump these CEOs.
Speaker 10 (06:23):
That's a great question, Caro, because the tariffs really have
taken precedence over almost anything else. And his discomfort with
the Chips Act, which he expressed during his address to
Congress last week. Wawmakers quickly shot that down. They don't
seem to be too inclined to cut off that picket
of money. There wasn't a bipartisan support to get through.
(06:44):
But the tariffs are really the thing out there that
is sowing this kind of uncertainty about what the impact
on supply chains would be. Remember, the President has imposed
tariffs on Canada and Mexico and later put them in
abeyance for an Now, our two largest trading partners here
in the US, and then there's the world's second largest economy, China,
(07:06):
that is the third largest US trading partner. Those tariffs
of up to twenty percent of most products coming in
from China really have an impact and start to have
a bite.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
Mike Shepard, we thank you for that breakdown. Now, amid
these tariffs and market jitters, deals are actually still getting done.
Service Now has agreed to buy artificial intelligence firm move
Works for two point eight billion dollars as part of
its push into AI tools that can complete tasks without
human supervision.
Speaker 5 (07:32):
From mex Bodiford joins.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
US now AGENTKI here again but not organically grown over
at Service Now.
Speaker 11 (07:38):
Yeah, exactly every single software company is chasing this price
of AGENTICAI. You know, I had to get a new laptop,
you know, through work. And the idea is for a
company service now is that when I type it in,
it automatically routes almost everything. It makes a decision that
says is this user permission for this? Is there a
business case? What will it cost?
Speaker 6 (07:57):
Cool?
Speaker 11 (07:57):
The idea is ultimately that customers don't need as many
people to you know, do in house tasks. Service Now's
real core market is that it services and so move works.
You know, it is a pretty clear play to be
able to double down on that market and inject some
AI into it.
Speaker 8 (08:15):
Berdy Move Forwards.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Has been around for quite a while, even though we've
been hearing about these customer service AI agents more as
of late. It was less valued in twenty twenty one,
and as we've seen in the broader start of market,
it's really hard to raise money.
Speaker 8 (08:29):
Especially if you're later stage.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Did Service Now get a good deal here?
Speaker 11 (08:34):
It's a pretty good outcome. And as you said, it's
been a tough market for VC backed companies right We've
seen a lot of companies selling at below previous valuations.
So I mean two point one to three. That's a
pretty large deal. I think it's pretty successful for everybody.
And with Service Now, it's funny because you know they're
CEO Bill McDermott, at a reputation for huge deals at SAP.
He came in at Service Now and said, you know,
(08:55):
these days are behind me. We're going for organic growth.
But it seems like today the ugates may be opening, right.
I mean, I think there's scent lights in the message
that Service Now might be kind of ready to be
a big acquirer.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
It doesn't seem as though the market is that jubilant.
I mean, the market is down across the board. The
Service Now is down by more than six percent, which
is more than the slump. And then as that one hundred,
our investors just a little bit nervy about these sorts
of big outgoings and a time where Service Now has
a lot of government exposure, for example, in terms of contracts.
Speaker 11 (09:25):
The big question for SaaS companies is how quick are
you turning the AI moment into revenue for Service Now.
In the most recent earnings they kind of showed that
we are still prioritizing adoption rather than revenue. Spending three
billion dollars to you know, essentially buy sooner revenue recognition.
Speaker 8 (09:42):
That could be a sign of weakness.
Speaker 5 (09:43):
Certainly, Ready Ford.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
Who was front running the official announcement with a scoop
over the weekend brilliant, thank you now coming up. Bitcoin
slump continues despite President Trump's pro crypto agenda. More on
the bitcoin space in a moment, but shares of Tesla
is where we focus in on after bitcoin is off
to be it's percent check out what this magnificent seven
name is currently down by eight.
Speaker 5 (10:03):
Point six percent.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
It's leading in terms of the sell off we're seeing
from a points perspective. Apple and Vidia also contributing. We're
worrying about China.
Speaker 5 (10:11):
We're worrying about.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Sales slump over there, but more broadly worried about valuations
for a company that's ubs is saying perhaps the AI
trade is a little bit too long a term for
this particular one in the here and now they downgrade
their view on sales for the first quarter. This is
boombog technology. Bitcoin slide continues. It's now below eighty thousand
(10:40):
dollars for the first time since November. Now the asset
class is consumed by macro concerns rather than the slew
of pro crypto rhetoric that we got from President Trump's
crypto summit on Friday.
Speaker 5 (10:49):
From all let's break it all down with Shnani base icon.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
Maybe there's this underwhelmed feeling from the crypto summit, but
it is macro front and center in terms of the
sell off on crypto.
Speaker 12 (10:57):
Right first and foremost, the risky appetite is pretty tough
out there, and you have a fairly high correlation still
for bitcoin two stocks. So if you're selling off risk assets,
you're certainly not buying bitcoin today. I think what's remarkable
is not even just today's decline, and you are now
flirting with that eighty thousand dollars level. We have dropped
below it, but it's trying to kind of keep that mark.
(11:19):
You have bitcoin down more than twenty five percent since
the highs that we saw, So if you bought bitcoin
at one hundred and ten dollars, one hundred and ten
thousand dollars nearly you're feeling that pain. Today on a
seven day basis, bitcoin is down more than eleven percent,
So too is a theoreum. But one thing that's important
about all this is also that strategic Bitcoin Reserve that
(11:40):
the White House had been talking about. It's not the
idea here that they'll be buying more crypto assets. They
would be taking assets from what is already forfeited.
Speaker 5 (11:49):
Right from what they have seized.
Speaker 12 (11:51):
So if you're not buying from the US government, then
it remains that bitcoin needs that extra marginal buyers story
here at a time where as we've been talking about risk,
appetite is quite low.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
Shanali cryptos almost synonymous with volatility. Depending on where you sit,
how much of these swings are actually unprecedented, How does
it compare to what we've seen in the past.
Speaker 12 (12:15):
Well, think about it this way, Jackie, on one hand,
is on it is very something. It's something that big
investors who have been in bitcoin a long time have
bared before. You have the billionaires in the crypto industry
pretty used to losing a billion or a few in
a single year. But if you're a retail buyer who
have maybe got in at the end of last year
(12:36):
when the prices were still high through the form of
an ATF, it is tougher to bear now if you're
thinking about the look ahead as well. There are a
lot of meme coins and a lot of alt coins
that people have bought into in addition to Bitcoin, even
more of a drop than Bitcoin today is for example,
Doge and many of you might notice that over the
weekend there was a lot of criticism around DOGE and
(12:57):
the plans for it, both by judges as well as
members of the administration, according to different reports that were
out there. So it's not just Bitcoin, it is the
all kinds.
Speaker 8 (13:06):
Outside of it.
Speaker 12 (13:06):
They saw this big rally when President Trump initially had
hinted that Salona Cardano XRP could be considered for this reserve,
but they were not in that executive order necessarily for
purchase for this strategic Bitcoin reserve so now or crypto
asset reserve. So you do see pain there as well
because the government's plans are somewhat unclear even after that
(13:29):
big White House summit on Friday, Jackie.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
That's Bloomberg Shanali base I thanks so much for joining us.
We caught up with White House, AI and cryptos are
David Sachs ahead of the Crypto summit on Friday. Here's
what he had to say about the creation of the
bitcoin reserve.
Speaker 9 (13:45):
The reason why we need a bitcoin reserve is that
the federal government already owns some In the past, the
strategy has been simply to sell it, you know, in
an ad hoc way, almost willy nilly, and that cost
American taxpayer something like seventeen billion dollars in lost value.
So we want to have a long term strategy to
maximize the value these holdings.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
For more on the crypto landscape, Stacy Rowland, zero one
Strategies founder joins a snow Stacy, why did this crypto
summit fall slap because hopes were pretty high?
Speaker 13 (14:15):
Well, I think it's important to realize that unlike markets
that react instantaneously, policy making is requires patients.
Speaker 8 (14:25):
It's a slow process.
Speaker 13 (14:26):
So, yes, the ball started rolling on Friday with the
president's call for the creation of a strategic reserve and
digital assets stockpile. There's a lot of details, as we've
been discussing, a lot of details still need to be
filled in, and there's still a role for Congress to play.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
Stacy, with the work that you've done with the government
relations that you built with Advisory, what you've been doing
two companies trying to assettain what the government might do.
Is that consistency enough? Because I think the fact that
you're saying.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
It's day one.
Speaker 4 (14:57):
It takes a while to really digest what a strategic
b QUES reserve means. But the lead up to the
strategic strategic reserve was long, and many had anticipated that
would be buying that maybe wouldn't.
Speaker 5 (15:07):
Just be bitcoin.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
We were allowed to get over enthusiastic about what the
announcement would be.
Speaker 5 (15:13):
Uh, well, it's a.
Speaker 13 (15:15):
Great question, and I think essentially more conversations will have
to happen, right Congress will have to be involved. Uh,
these are these are long discussions. I do think looking
at the details, one thing that I think is really
interesting is, you know, the part that the public was
able to see. There were interesting comments made, especially by
(15:37):
the Treasury Secretary where he suggested that, uh, the Treasury
was going to be playing a role in assessing the
tax code and looking at risk waiting. And I thought
that was a really interesting hint. I'm very interested to
see what Treasury does working with the OCC and the
I R s uh in you know, he what the
Secretary had promised was, uh, you know, looking at applicable
(16:00):
regulations and amending or rescinding as necessary. I'm interested in
seeing whether he is limiting those comments just to the
strategic reserve or whether he was suggesting something broader and
there's more to come.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
When you served within the Accessory Department and you was
in staff of the Office of Tax Policy, so you're
someone who should know about these tax perspectives. And thanks Jack,
you for holding on for this moment. But Stacey, I
am interested in what it means in terms of the
future of on ramps. Here we talked about stable coins
getting some sort of regulatory clarity. That's something that investors want,
not just tax clarity too.
Speaker 13 (16:35):
Yeah, that's exactly right. There are calls for clarity across
the board. Those are largely in Congress's perview. And this
week in Congress, if we can take a quick shift
to look at what's going on on the other side
of Pennsylvania Avenue, there will be this week we're going
to have action on stable coins and on information reporting
(16:56):
in taxes. So we're going to see.
Speaker 5 (16:58):
It's a very busy week in these.
Speaker 13 (17:00):
Areas, both coming out of the White House reactions to
that and actual you know, policymaking on the Hill.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
You mentioned that Congress is going to have to be involved.
What kind of bipartisanship do we see around crypto.
Speaker 13 (17:11):
Yeah, increasing right, And I think it's important for people
to realize, especially in the work that I do, that
every Congress is different, right. And so last year we
did see a shift over the years for this issue
to be sort of increasingly partisan.
Speaker 8 (17:27):
But a lot of.
Speaker 13 (17:27):
That was largely to do with the political realities. You
had the Biden administration that was signaling you know, skepticism, right,
some would say hostility to some areas of digital assets,
and the heading into a contentious election year, Democrats were
going to you know, defer to their party leader. Now
(17:49):
political wins have shifted, right, we have a Republican controlled Congress.
Clearly policymaking will be happening in this space and that
middle that that you know opper coortunity for bipartisanship is
much broader than it ever has been.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
That's Stacey Rand of zero one Strategies. Thank you so
much for joining us.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
Time now for talking tech first s up shares of
Redfin surging today. Rocket Companies has announced a deal to
buy the real estate listening site for one point seventy
five billion dollars, paying twelve and a half dollars a
share in an all stock transaction. Rocket CEO b Oun
Krishna join Bloomberg Open Interest have this to say about
the deal.
Speaker 14 (18:32):
We're very excited about this deal. Two of the biggest
growth opportunities for Rocket that we've talked about are really
growing in purchase and AI, and by bringing together the
leading home search website with the leading mortgage finance company,
we expect to accomplish both.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
US deliver Room it's set to exit from its Hong
Kong business due to wheat sales and mounting competition. Now,
the London based delivery company will sell some of its
assets to rival food Panta, with other assets at the
delivery app will remain active in Hong Kong until April.
The seventh and self driving startup Wave says it's near
a commercial debut with major automakers to launch his driver
(19:10):
assistance system in the.
Speaker 5 (19:11):
US and in Germany.
Speaker 15 (19:12):
Now.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
The startup is back by SoftBank and Video, Microsoft and Uba,
also saying that it's AI software can adapt to US
driving behavior's faster at Wave did not have them mentioned
a timeline for release or the name of the car
makers involved.
Speaker 8 (19:25):
Jackie for more on a Wave.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Dana Wolman joins US now Dana autonomous vehicles are really
having a moment here. How does Waves stack up to
what's already on the market and what we've seen so far.
Speaker 16 (19:37):
So for listeners who are unaware, Wave is not a
consumer facing product, So it specializes in autonomous driving software,
and as you might imagine, it is AI powered and
that software goes into various automakers vehicles, and it may
may not even be branded as Wave in front of consumers.
So it's not that the consumers can purchase, but it
may be something they experienced, depending on what car model
(19:59):
they p purchase in the coming years.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
So the competitive threat is to Tesla FSD, is to
all the other automated offerings that were about to be consuming, you.
Speaker 16 (20:10):
Know, possibly the likes of Weimo. What I find so
fascinating about this space is there's a lot of frenemies.
There are clear competitors, but sometimes depending on the web
of who's invested in who, a partner could also be
a sometimes competitor. I think the relationship, for instance, between
Uber and Weimo is really fascinating in that regard.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Dana, what does this mean for the market here in
the United States? Does this mean that it's sort of
kind of getting crowded when it comes to who's already
out there putting this software in there. One thing that
you mentioned that really struck me is that it can
adapt to us driving behaviors. I mean, are we just
bad drivers here?
Speaker 16 (20:52):
So that struck me as particularly interesting too. Alongside us
providing some news today about the company's timeline or this
vague timeline, the company put out some data today just
suggesting that it has a newer and more efficient approach
to adapting its algorithms and its AI models to basically
US signage and US road rules. And this has been
(21:16):
a really fascinating topic. It's actually something that Nvidia CEO
Jensen Wang brought brought up at the company's CES keynote,
and Jensen in that keynote.
Speaker 8 (21:26):
Talked about how difficult it.
Speaker 16 (21:28):
Is for companies to map local roads safely and efficiently
at the same time without it just turning into this
cost effective balloon essentially, And so given that context, it
was really interesting that Wave came out and said, hey,
we've got these models and they were trained in Europe,
but we can really adapt them pretty quickly and easily
(21:48):
to the uniqueness of US roads.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
No clemen on us THISUS European driving rooms.
Speaker 5 (22:02):
Welcome back to from their technology. I'm Caroline Hide.
Speaker 8 (22:04):
In New York and I'm Jackie Devalas in Washington.
Speaker 4 (22:07):
And we check in these markets that are in cell
off territory.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
Once again.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
Look, we are questioning growth in the US, we are
questioning tariff impact in the US, and we're questioning valuations
of the AI trade were off by the NASA that
one hundred almost three percent, bouncing off of our lows,
but nevertheless underwater. We're looking at Bitcoin of by three
point four percent at one point sub eighty thousand dollars.
Speaker 5 (22:27):
We're still higher than the day of the US.
Speaker 4 (22:29):
Election November last year, but only just Meanwhile, we're training
at the lowest level than as that one hundred since
December the eighteenth of last year.
Speaker 5 (22:36):
Move on and have a little.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
Actually the Lowes office in September the worst day on
the market since December of last year. I'm looking at
basically the entire mag seven drive bring us lower in
terms of our points perspective.
Speaker 5 (22:46):
There are zero cell ratings on a number of these names.
Speaker 4 (22:49):
Nvidio zero cell ratings in terms of analyst expectations, Microsoft
zero cell ratings, but still we go lower, as we
cannot fathom when we start to see a bottom and
people start to buy the dip, Teslau as the most
off by eight and a half percent. We were about
Chinese growth and we are about a future of AI
where Ubs cuts their forecast for this year's sales to
the company. But Microsoft and all these names just in
(23:10):
the red. But there's much more news when it comes
to Microsoft.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Checking that's right, Microsoft has created its own in house
AI models that it thinks it can go toe to
toe with industry rivals like open Ai. According to sources,
Microsoft has been developing a family of models called Mai
to perform a variety of tasks. For more on this,
Bloomberg's Matt Day joined just now, Matt, Microsoft has poured
(23:33):
billions of dollars into open Ai. Why is it developing
its own models now?
Speaker 17 (23:39):
Well, I think Microsoft wants a hedge at some point,
right their agreement with open Ai the main one that's
gotten all this in from all this all this attention
last couple of years that only runs through twenty thirty.
That that could be extended hypothetically, But at some point
Microsoft's going to need to shoulder the burden for its
own AI services. The company clearly believes that AI is
the future. And so even though they've been partnering with
opening Ia real closely, as they say, every time they
(24:02):
open up their mouths on the subject, you know, they're
still working on their own models as well.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
We were just talking about frenemies in the AVA side
of things.
Speaker 5 (24:10):
Is this a question of frenemies? Are they competitors or
are they ponting?
Speaker 11 (24:13):
Is Matt Well?
Speaker 17 (24:14):
Is it's both? You know, Like I said, they Microsoft
seeings opening Ice praise as anytime they can, you know,
but they're also realistic about it, right, They've worked on
their five models for for a long time. Either are
smaller set of language models that can run on a laptop,
or at least they're designed to be smaller than the big,
big kahunas at chat GPT. But I think both parties
are are kind of sober and realistic that you know,
(24:34):
they're going to work together, but they're also going to
build their own their own.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Master tramps, Matt, opening Ice technology like chat GPT underpins
a lot of the existing technology that Microsoft has already
sold to its enterprise customers.
Speaker 8 (24:47):
Does this move risk spooking that base?
Speaker 17 (24:51):
You know it might, but I think if we're way,
way way early on that, in part because Microsoft has
only just started testing, you know, whether they could use
their own models, like whether they could use non open
AI models to power pieces of its copilot, which is
Microsoft's main sort of AI go to market for its
office user base. So we're probably really really early for that,
you know. Right now, Microsoft woul tell folks say, we
(25:12):
still use open AI. That's the industry standard, the state
of the art.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
Fascinating Deep dive and Microsoft, we thank you, Matt Day. Meanwhile,
let's talk about more on the Generator of AI. Space,
a startup from two former researchers at Google's DeepMind, have
raised one hundred and thirty million dollars for a new company,
its goal to create AI powered super intelligence. Co founder
and see of Reflection AI, Misha Laskin joins us. Now, Mischa,
(25:37):
this is around coding and the fact that coding can
be done better than a human and not just as
some sort of copilot, but actually going off and building
the code itself.
Speaker 18 (25:47):
That's right, Thank you for having me. So to take
a step back, we're team of researchers and engineers from
formerly Frontier labs like deep Mind, where we contributed to
some of the biggest breakthroughs in AI over the last decade.
And the mission of the company more broadly is to
build superintelligence. And what we believe the starting point is
is exactly what you said, it's building incredibly reliable autonomous
(26:10):
coding systems. So that's what we're focused on today.
Speaker 5 (26:12):
Deep might not want to do that. Why did you
have to go off and set off your own company.
Speaker 18 (26:16):
Well, we think it's really important to not just do
research in the wild, but to be really closely coupled
to product and customers. A model that we have the
company that the only EVAW that really matters is the
real world EVAO and so we felt that by being
really close to the customers, we'd be able to see
through the mission better.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
I mean, when I think about coding assistance, I think
about Microsoft Gethub copilot. It's extremely popular amongst the coding
community out there, and I'm curious what kind of reaction
you've seen from your customer base with the notion that
you want your tool to be able to do it
on its own versus kind of have this human intervention
alongside of it.
Speaker 5 (26:56):
That's a really good question.
Speaker 18 (26:57):
So, actually, we've found that the tool, both internally at
Reflection and the way our customers use it is incredibly
empowering because it allows engineers to focus on the stuff
that is really high priority and they want to work on,
and we kind of take the more tedious work off
their plates. So we kind of think of an engineer
of evolving over the next few years and becoming basically
(27:20):
an architect that has an army of these one hundred
AI engineers working for them and helping them see their
visions through.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
When I hear super intelligence, I remember a lot of
the initial more existential kind of concerns that we're coming
up at the really beginning of chat GBT taking the
world by storm, And just last year we saw a
wave of AI safety focus researchers and leaving open AI.
I'm curious how you're going about the safety conversation.
Speaker 8 (27:47):
A year afterward.
Speaker 18 (27:49):
That's also a really good question. Safety is definitely one
of the things we.
Speaker 8 (27:53):
Care about a lot.
Speaker 18 (27:54):
This is a lot of the work in safety is
traced back to what's called reinforcement learning from feedback, which
is what our team led at Gemini, and the way
we think about safety is from a very practical perspective.
We believe that superintelligence cannot be built in a vacuum,
and so it's really important that you iterate closely with
customers and users and make sure that these systems are
(28:15):
aligned from day one with their needs and are put
on the right guardrails.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
Many are worried ultimately about whether this disrupts the labor force.
You're saying, look, you're just going to free up the
engineers to do even more, But ultimately, what talent do
you need right here, right now and in the longer
term will you need as much talent?
Speaker 18 (28:33):
Well, the challenging thing, both today and in the future
is how to ask the right questions, how to design
the systems so that your AI engineers do the work
for you. So today a lot of the talent is
around research and distributed systems engineering and very kind of
complex engineering tasks. Now AI engineers might help upload some
(28:55):
of that in the foreseeable future, but I think asking
the right question will still be a really valuable skill.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
It's quite busy out there in the world of general
to AI coding assistance and startups that are getting mind
modeling valuations. The latest was any Sphere coming out with
a ten billion dollar valuation. We understand they're going to
be getting money replete. We think about poolside, how are
you thinking about standing out from the crowd and continuing
to be able to raise significant amounts of private money.
Speaker 18 (29:23):
What we're building is significantly different from the existing suite
of coding AI products today. The way we think about
the existing Coding Eye products is akin to a cruise
control for engineers. This is really useful, but the engineer
still does most of the driving. We're building systems that
are fundamentally autonomous from day one that you give You're
give them the task and they take you from point
(29:45):
A to point B and they need to do so reliably.
And to do that, you need to drive fundamental breakthroughs
in intelligence, and that's what our team is focused on.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
That's na Sh'll ask and CEO of Reflection AI, thank
you so much.
Speaker 8 (29:57):
For joining us coming up v on.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
Tobol I've inspired Capital joined us to talk about the
future of social commerce.
Speaker 4 (30:05):
Caroline And while we check back in on these public
markets and they're having a torrid day.
Speaker 5 (30:09):
We're off of our lows.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
We're down by two point six percent, not as much
as the more than three percent sell off we saw
earlier in the NASA one hundred, but still the worst
day since December of last year, mag seven off by
four percent.
Speaker 5 (30:18):
Stay with us.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
This is Bluebog technology.
Speaker 4 (30:32):
Venture investing is on track to be at its highest
level since twenty twenty one.
Speaker 5 (30:36):
That's calling to data from Pitchbook.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
But much of that funding is going to start up
powerhouses open.
Speaker 5 (30:41):
AI and reill.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
Let's talk about what it means for the cycle of
investing with Alexavon Toobo, founder of Inspired Capital, nearly nine
hundred million dollars in assets under management, three funds, generalist
early stage, but how much of you had to just
focus in on the generative AI trade.
Speaker 19 (30:55):
There is obviously so much happening with AI RI at large,
and I think it hits so many verticals. So for us,
we're very thesis driven, and you know the future of
social commerce, which I know we're talking about today. We've
had a three year thesis that we've just been thoughtfully
executing and so that's how we like to do our work.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
Okay, So when you're thinking about a thesis such as
social commas, that is how AI can interweave with my
social experience and some many my scholping experience becomes that much,
we'll talk with it.
Speaker 8 (31:20):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 19 (31:21):
So in our point of view, you'll have the huge
open AI, the lms, the perplexities of the world, but
there will be an AI application layer above that. So,
for example, we back to a company called duck Bill,
and what duck Bill does is get snowed you exactly
knows how many children you have, what products you're interested in,
and then serves them up for you. So it takes
discovery from going to Google and hunting for that birthday product.
(31:42):
My daughter turns ten this month. For example, duck Bill
this morning alerted me here are products you should.
Speaker 8 (31:47):
Think about buying and should we buy them?
Speaker 19 (31:49):
And the answer is yes, thank you, but very very
very customized AI based on who you are, and these
llms really get to know you and then recommend products.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
Alex, So what have you seen from like consumer behavior studies?
Speaker 8 (32:02):
Do people actually like that?
Speaker 3 (32:04):
Because when I think about seeing a lot of these
targeted ads, the first thing that goes to my mind
is how do they know this? Am I giving them
permission to be able to scrape whatever data to give
me this wonderful recommendation for shoes or whatever it might be.
Speaker 8 (32:19):
What are we seeing from the consumer side of things.
Speaker 19 (32:21):
So, for example, and again just sticking with Duckbill, Duckbill
is a platform that you give information to, you tell it.
So it's all stuff that you have downloaded in terms
of your budgets and what you like to spend, where
you like to buy flowers, from, what your kid's interests are.
And then from there the recommendations keep getting better based
(32:42):
on their AI infrastructure of things you've allowed.
Speaker 8 (32:45):
So that is all opt.
Speaker 19 (32:46):
In and I would just say incredibly simple and making
your life better in terms of executing on products.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
When it comes to where humans are left in this
social commerce thesis, because when I go on tip I
love seeing product recommendations, whether or not they're sponsored by
a person, it's the human that's making the recommendation that's
really the sell for me. How does this fit into
how you're going about looking for companies in this space?
Speaker 5 (33:12):
That's exactly where Jackie.
Speaker 19 (33:13):
So Jackie on the other end of that spectrum where
an AI brain is recommending a product to you. In
the last just few years, AI content has exploded ten
thousand percent increase of content online videos, written content, et cetera.
And so we actually have the opposite thesis as well,
which is the pendulum is going to swing back to
really trusting brands, products.
Speaker 5 (33:35):
People that you know.
Speaker 19 (33:36):
And so we back to a company, for example, called
shot My. Shotm just announced a seventy eight million dollar
Series B and shot My is a platform where you
can go online and follow the exact people your best friends,
people in your sphere, or influencers or content creators that
you trust, the enthusiasts that you love, and then buy
products directly from their recommendations. And in so many ways, Jackie,
(33:59):
that shrinks in our down to just the people you
want to follow, just the things that you're interested in,
and it's your front door. So again Google no longer
being your front door. It's going to be your AI
application layer, and then it's going to be a company
like shop mine, for example, where you're just buying from
the people you love and trust, which is how I
buy offline, and now it's coming online.
Speaker 4 (34:17):
What about if you're actually a creative that can't find
exactly what you want and you want to make it,
and you're sort of back in companies that almost get
rid of.
Speaker 5 (34:26):
The brand entirely, right, We're all going to be our
own creators in some way.
Speaker 19 (34:29):
That's right, and actually so again on the sort of
far out there ideas of our thesis is the idea
that we no longer because of generative AI need Let's
pretend you and I are buying a white coffee table marble.
You know, you would take a photo, you would upload
it online or start hunting on Google seeing pictures. Maybe
you end up at Etsy, and then you perfect it
and you buy it, and it's so much work. There's
(34:52):
a company called Arcade AI where you literally, if you
can imagine it, you can make it. And what Arcade
allows you to do is write into gen AI old
coffee table, three legs, and all of a sudden it
starts to show it, and then you can tweak the
picture the way you want it, and then it shows
you all the places you could buy exactly that table
by connecting your deaf directly to the makers. So what
(35:13):
that does is it turns all of us normal everyday
people into expert creators where you can manufacture your own products,
which again is a more out there edge of the spectrum,
but a big, big, big idea in that company's just
released forty two million.
Speaker 4 (35:26):
I mean in terms of being an expert, you're also
an expert founder yourself. You built lenves and I can
imagine at this moment, when you're thinking about a company
that's building around a global maritch of a building your
own products, you're getting a lot of cools from these
founders being like, what do I do in this sonart?
We've got no consistency in terms of path the direction
right now from a government level, how.
Speaker 5 (35:43):
Many cools do you feel from your founders right now?
Speaker 19 (35:46):
I mean we often literally see fifty companies a week.
We are talking to our founders regularly because we're in
a tectonic shift right as you think about innovation curves,
we are at the edge of the beginning of a
brand new innovation curve that is more isaac than anything
we've seen in the last twenty years. And so I
think being very thoughtful and precise and again thesis driven
(36:07):
about where's the world headed, where do we believe the
world is headed?
Speaker 8 (36:10):
And how do you make those bets?
Speaker 19 (36:11):
And of course that advice we give at inspired to
all of our founders as well.
Speaker 5 (36:16):
Alex.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
So when I think about shopping, I mean, it's interesting
that a lot of your companies.
Speaker 8 (36:20):
Are really the software layer. You can't really see it,
but it's there.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
But at the end of the day, these are products
that have to arrive at someone's doorstep to kind of
really finish off that customer experience. We're seeing a lot
of volatility when it comes to those with exposure to
manufacturing kind of cariiff concerns. Are any of your companies
grappling with any of those fears right now? Absolutely?
Speaker 19 (36:42):
I mean, as you think about tariffs and what that
will look like and products that are being manufactured outside
of the country, every single one of those founders is
asking and my co founder and business partner Penny Pritzker,
we just stated content on tariffs and exactly how people.
Speaker 8 (36:58):
Should proctically think about them.
Speaker 19 (36:59):
And obviously they're very volatile, but I think preparing people
for the worst of what they should be prepared for
is how we operate at Inspired and always providing that
macro lens is critical as people are actually executing in
the day to day.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
You'll co found A helped build paperless posts into what
it is Alexa.
Speaker 5 (37:15):
I go back to where we started.
Speaker 4 (37:17):
We started it that VC's having kind of a nice
dea yep, but certainly in the judges of a I space.
You've just mentioned a lot of companies getting big series
B series full of on funding. Is that the environment
and you'll see right now people all getting money.
Speaker 19 (37:28):
I don't think it's typical. I mean, I think it's
the haves and have nots. I think you're seeing for
companies that have big, compelling ideas, huge breakout shop Maize
revenue has grown exponentially more than ten x in a
short period of time. And I think you're seeing in
companies that are really working, the dollars are there, and
I think then you're also seeing in companies that are
not working. It's very dry, and so it is a
(37:49):
tale of the haves and have nots. And I think
things that are at the forefront of which we have
a few in our portfolio of AI. I think the
capital is not only there, it's many funds are there
at the same time, very very quickly. And so again
I think when the traction has really proven out, that's
when you're seeing the capitol.
Speaker 4 (38:04):
NICs on Tobal, great Teyr and managing partner, founder and
spat capital.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
There's going to be a deal on Tiktoks.
Speaker 13 (38:19):
There could be We're dealing with four different groups and
a lot of people want it and it's up to me.
Speaker 5 (38:25):
So there could be President Trump.
Speaker 4 (38:27):
They're speaking about efforts to find a buyer for TikTok's
US business. For more.
Speaker 5 (38:32):
Let's speak to Bloomberg's Kirk Wagner. The clock is sticking.
Speaker 4 (38:35):
Is April the fifth is the time they've got.
Speaker 5 (38:37):
Are we going to have to extend?
Speaker 6 (38:40):
It's very possible, right.
Speaker 15 (38:41):
I mean that comment from President Trump was sort of
more optimistic, I think than the things that we've been
hearing from behind the scenes. It really feels like things
sort of have stalled out. A lot of potential bidders.
Have you made outreach but not necessarily gotten a lot
of feedback in return. And so this idea that you
know there might be four possible groups that are all
(39:01):
in the mix here, I think makes it sound more
optimistic again then I was, you know, feeling that it
was forty eight hours ago.
Speaker 4 (39:08):
Let's talk about in the mix lot, Because we've spoken
on the show plenty of times to Frank McCourt junior.
He's with Alexis o'hanian on the one front. We've also
speaken spoke to Jesse Tinsley, who might or might not
be powering up with a mister Beast, but certainly he's
got some other key founders like the Roeblock CEO alongside.
Speaker 5 (39:25):
Him, and then there's sprinkling of others. Who are these four,
do you think?
Speaker 6 (39:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 15 (39:30):
Well, obviously President Trump didn't name the four, right, So
we know of three groups that have come out publicly.
You mentioned two of them, Jesse Tinsley's group, the Frank
McCourt and Project Liberty Team Perplexity AI has you know,
supposedly made some type of bid for TikTok as well.
So those are the three that have sort of been
public But again we've also heard President Trump sort of
(39:52):
throw his own names out there, right, Larry Ellison with Oracle,
Elon Musk of course with his stable of businesses, and
so we don't know who he's talking about. We only
know who's raised their hand. But the numbers don't add up.
He says four, we know of three, so supposedly there
are some some mystery names still out there, and.
Speaker 5 (40:08):
The numbers are all in a mystery.
Speaker 4 (40:10):
As well, because is it worth up to fifty billion
dollars for US TikTok If they don't get the underlying algorithms,
such as with Project Liberty's bid.
Speaker 6 (40:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 15 (40:20):
I think what makes this so complicated is that one
the range of prices, you know, I believe Project Liberty
bid twenty five billion, and another group, the Tinsea Group,
I think, was saying more twenty. We've heard numbers as
high as fifty, as you mentioned. And I think it
all depends on what is included in a deal, right,
doesn't include that underlying algorithm, doesn't include just the brand
(40:41):
and the user base.
Speaker 6 (40:43):
And also what role does the US government have here? Right?
Speaker 15 (40:46):
President Trump has talked about the US taking fifty percent
of this, right, and so that has to factor in two.
Speaker 6 (40:51):
Is that even doable?
Speaker 15 (40:52):
So this is not traditional caroline, as you know, And
so I think that's what makes you know, even basic
numbers here or ranges here very hard to predict.
Speaker 4 (41:02):
And what's totally unprecedented is the idea that the president
himself has the time of the bandwidth to be negotiating
any of this. But it is a geopolitical context because
China gets sort of a rite of reply in all
of this, and at one point seems only one Elon
potentially as a bidder.
Speaker 6 (41:18):
Yeah, well, I point out two things. One, it feels
like JD.
Speaker 15 (41:20):
Vance, Vice President Vance has actually taken on some responsibility
for trying to get this over the line, right because
the President is presumably very.
Speaker 6 (41:28):
Busy, and so he's passed at least some of this
aft to him.
Speaker 15 (41:30):
The other thing that hasn't really been mentioned here is like,
just because President Trump wants a deal done does not
mean a deal is going to get done, right, Like
bike Dance has to agree to this, and by association,
pretty much the Chinese government has to agree to any
type of deal. Right, So he is really representing just
one side of this equation. And so I think, you know,
will you factor those two things and again that there
(41:52):
are four people bidding and I have control over this.
Those kind of comments from him, I think are lacking
some major context around the fact that he's not the
only one who gets to side here.
Speaker 5 (42:01):
Clark sticking.
Speaker 4 (42:02):
Kurt Wagner, thanks for the update on all things TikTok. Meanwhile,
we take you back to the public markets. Selling pressure remains.
We're off by three percent on the Nasdaq one hundred
magnificent seven, having an ugly day of by four and
a half percent.
Speaker 5 (42:13):
We question US growth.
Speaker 4 (42:14):
We questioned Taris, look about the earnings that we're coming up.
Speaker 5 (42:17):
Of course, this does it for.
Speaker 4 (42:19):
This edition of Blueberg Technology. You don't want to miss
out on Oracle's numbers. They report after the close today.
We're off by four percent on Oracle. We question AI
and the data center. We also talk about AI Human
X in Las Vegas.
Speaker 5 (42:31):
Join us there tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
This is Bloomber Technology
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