July 17, 2025 • 44 mins
Bloomberg’s Ed Ludlow discusses the impact of AI demand on shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Company. Plus, the President of self-driving startup Nuro explains the company’s plans for a robotaxi partnership with Uber and Lucid. And investors prepare for Netflix earnings, which no longer include subscriber numbers.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Bloomberg Tech is a
lie from coast to coast with Caroline Hyde and New
York and Vla Low in San Francisco.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
This is Bloomberg Tech coming up. TSMC, the world's biggest
contract chip maker, gets a big boost from AI demand.
Plus Uber teams up with EV maker Lucid and self
driving tech start up Neuro to launch a robotaxi fleet.
We'll speak with the CEO of Neuro and what to
expect from Netflix earning today. Will it be a blockbuster
(00:43):
or a bus Let's get to that curious three way
deal that is between Uber, Lucid and Neuro. Basically how
it works is Lucid's going to provide the cars, Neuro
the self driving tech, and Uber's gonna pay for everything.
We're gonna get a lot more detail on that later
in the show. But look at shares of Lucid up
thirty six percent. This is a big move upwards and
(01:03):
we need to find out why. The big story in
global technology is TISMC, the world's largest and most important
contracts manufacturer. These are the US listed shares. ADR is
up two point eight percent, basically upgraded the growth forecast
on the top line to thirty percent, saying that there
is hot AI demand right now, but interestingly some headwinds
(01:23):
from currency which we can dig into. Luckily, bloombergsy and
King is here for more who leads our coverage of
the semiconductor industry. So actually quite a simple story that
in the numbers in the period gone and what they
said about what's to come. AI demand is everything now.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
I mean only time you're saying thirty percent of year
saying we're having a good year. But it's important to
point out that the start didn't do much locally and
why was that well because guess what some analysts were
expecting even more so fantastic obviously a great derivative for here,
but maybe not as fantastic as some had expected.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Tiersmc's business is really interesting because basically two thirds of
it is high performance compute, the chips that go into
data centers. Historically it was smartphones. So even though the
proportions have changed, I see both of those divisions growing.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Yeah, both of them did well. As you said, high
performance computing, which is basically in videos, chips, amb's chips,
anything that any of the hyperscalers design themselves. That's sixty
percent of its business that's growing well. And that's really
what the focus is right now. That's what everybody wants
to see, is this story that is defining technology still
(02:31):
continuing And the answer was absolutely yes.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
So TISMT is like the crown jaw of Taiwan. It's
their most important entity and company. They have a big
footprint there. But what was really interesting to hear about
was the headwind from currency. As I understand it, they
book all their revenue and US dollars, but their operating
costs are in Taiwanese dollars. What did they say about
that and how it's going to impact them?
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Yeah, I mean this is obviously a complex story because
they're in a distributed supply chain. Though you've got the
currency headwims, You've got concern about what's going to happen
to that supply chain. Are they moving, are they raising
their expenses as they build factories here in the US,
what's going to happen with tariff? So all of these
(03:13):
kind of economic uncertainties and currency was one of them
factored into I think this kind of conservative or what
was considered conservative forecast with conservative in their context, which
is pretty amazing still.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Okay, Blimbozi and King, who again leads our coverage of
the semiconductor industry. Let's get more of a broader market's
perspective and go out to j Jacobs Blackrock, US head
of equity. Ets you and I've talked about infrastructure so much,
but I almost consider names like TSMC and ASML as
being kind of soft data sets rather than kind of
(03:47):
hard data sets. ASML gave us one signal and then
TSMC gave us another. As somebody that looks at their
exposure to this AI supply chain, what did you make
of it?
Speaker 4 (04:00):
Well, I think you really have to go up to
kind of the higher order of capital expenditures, which is
impacting so many different semiconductor stocks. If you look at
the top four builders of infrastructure this year and combine
them with energy and utilities companies, all of that capex
equals the rest of the S and P five hundred combined.
So you're just seeing so much investment from semi conductors
(04:20):
to energy and power sources across this AI megaporce that
it's really providing a ton of ballast to these stocks
as we enter into earning season.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
I think we'd agree that AI is having a profound
impact on markets. That's probably an understatement at this point.
But when you consider the ETFs you're managing, where do
you see the enthusiasm or where do you see movement
of investors wanting to be exposed to what's happening.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
Well, you know, if we look more broadly at what's
happening in the markets, this here, themes are really displacing
sectors as having the most explanatory power of what's happening
around us. You know, artificial intelligence and baskets of stocks
related to that explained a lot of what happened in February.
If you look at geopolitical fragmentation and companies in the
infrastructure and defense space, that explains a lot of what's
(05:06):
been happening since April. So themes themselves have a ton
of explanatory power in the markets. To your question, you know,
where are we seeing some of the most excitement and
artificial intelligence? We continue to be looking at the build
out of digital infrastructure. You know, we know that we
are still in the build phase of AI. This is
where you're seeing hundreds of billions of dollars of capital
expenditure to build the best models, to make them smarter,
(05:27):
to make them more scalable. That's where we are today,
and that's where a lot of our active portfolio managers
like Tony Kim, who manages BAI for US, has positioned
a lot of his portfolio.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
BAI is super interesting. We just showed it on the screen.
But the Tica BAI, there's this two point two billion
dollars of interest, you can quantify it. What are the
main facts behind that meeting?
Speaker 4 (05:49):
Jay Well, I think a lot of investors are looking
at artificial intelligence but realize they don't really have great
exposure to it. In fact, you know, we looked at
over ten thousand portfolios by financial advisors in the United
States and about ninety five percent of whatever AI exposure
they have in their portfolio is coming just from the
MAG seven. So maybe it's because they own index funds
that are just broad market in nature and getting that
(06:11):
MAG seven exposure. Maybe they're looking at tech sector and
getting MAG seven through that, but so little of their
exposure is to the broader AI value chain across digital infrastructure, power, infrastructure, applications,
data owners that we see a lot of investors are
more intentionally allocating to AI, selling down tech sector exposure
to allocate to a fund like BAI, or even selling
(06:33):
down core exposure in large in US large caps to
get exposure to a fund like BAI.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
I find this sub theme of onshoring into America and
basically reindustrialization really interesting. Is there a sort of specific
basket of names which you would not necessarily feel are
the technology sector. I'm thinking a little bit like real
estate and all of those names that are involved in
the construction of a data set into.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
Yeah, there's a few areas to look at. I mean, one,
we just broadly really like US infrastructure names. You know,
we've seen some good flows into IFRA, which is a
US infrastructurey TF because if you want to build semiconductors
in the United States, or you want to build you know,
kind of high end technologies like electric vehicles, you need roads,
you need highways, you need airports, you need ports, you
need electricity on the grid, you need waterways. It really
(07:23):
takes a wide range of infrastructure to set up these
very expensive and complicated manufacturing supply chains within the United States.
So we see that physical infrastructure and digital infrastructure being
a really common denominator here. But if you really want
to kind of double click into one area. If you
look at semiconductor equipment manufacturers, you know, this is kind
of a highest upstream way to play. More semiconductors being
(07:44):
built in the United States, the semi's equipment manufacturers should
do quite well. And that's an area we have exposure
to in our manufacturing ETF made.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Let's bring it back to the use of the day,
which is TSMC, and one of the themes that came
up was currency headwinds. And it was interesting because, in
simple terms, TSMC is a Taiwanese company that books revenue
in US dollars, but it operates in Taiwanese dollars. I
give that to you Jay, to kind of illustrate that
this is a name that if you're an American investor,
(08:14):
even though it's Taiwanese, you can still get exposure to.
But it's a company that's increasingly looking to the US
for its own investments and to build out more of
its own capacity here onshore or domestically. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
I mean what we've seen is, you know a lot
of latility in the dollar, and the weakening of the
dollar generally has you know, boosted international stocks. You know,
in fact, just if you look at a lot of
what our investors are doing today, it's allocating to international
ETFs to benefit from the changing position of the dollar.
So I think we're going to see this more and
more of this earning season. Currency is going to be
an important factor as companies trying to explain how their
(08:49):
earnings have done. And there's you know, there's just a
new element to back out of with dollar weekening.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Jay, we're a few weeks now into the second half
of the year. What do you expecting and watching foremost
closely in the balance of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
Well, we just published our thematic media or update on
ishers dot com and we're really looking at kind of
the evolution of two areas, artificial intelligence and geopolitical fragmentation.
You know, in AI, what we're looking for is continued
breakthroughs in the intelligence of AI. You know, right now
we would say AI models are kind of college level
of intelligence. I think we're on the precipice of master's
degree level of intelligence of AI, and that should really
(09:26):
boost even more adoption on the geopolitical fragmentation front. You know,
we talked about infrastructure a bit, defense spending is still
very much in focus. But also even if you just
look at things like people buying gold, a lot of
diversification into monetary alternatives. It should be a pretty big
trend we see through the end of the year as well.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
J Jacobs a black Rold. Great to have you back
on the show. Really appreciate it. Now, coming up, Congress
edges closer to the landmark crypto legislation. We're going to
speak with Kristen Smiths, Solana Policy Institute President about everything
that's going on in crypto week sous to take a
quick look at. Shares of Lucid now up forty percent,
almost forty one percent, a deal with Uber and euro
(10:07):
over the next six years for a fleet of robotaxis
on the platform. Also a one to ten reverse stock split.
A reverse stock split non diluted reduces the number shares
outstanding proportionately raises the price lots to ask about that,
and actually later in the day on Bloomberg TV, I
heard that the Lucid CEO is going to swing by
(10:28):
stay with us. This is Bloomberg Tech Washington's weighing landmark
crypto legislation during what's been dubbed crypto week, digital assets
(10:51):
have been surging thanks in part to those regulatory prospects,
with ether ETF seeing a record breaking seven hundred and
twenty six million in daily I want to get out
to Kristen Smith, Solana Policy Institute President, and this is
the bit that I'm trying to understand. It is Crypto Week,
and there seems to be a lot of excitement, and
that excitement alone is driving inflows into various places and
(11:14):
trading activity across the world of crypto. Is that a
good ration now, Kristen.
Speaker 5 (11:20):
Well, first of all, Happy Crypto Week. It's great to
see you.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (11:24):
I think there's a lot of excitement within the crypto industry,
within the policy making industry, but within the broader financial
services industry around what's happening in Washington here today. Later
this afternoon, the House of Representatives is going to vote
on three bills, the Genius Act, which regular stable coins,
the Clarity Act, which is the House's version of market
(11:45):
structure legislation, and the third bill on Central bank digital currencies.
So this is a really historic week, and one of
those bills, the Genius Act, is going to go on
this way to the White House for the President's signature.
This is going to be the first time the US
government has put a new federal regulatory framework in place,
and so I think this is showing the entire market
(12:07):
that this is a technology that's here to stay and
it's got the full backing of the US government.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Something very interesting happened this week. It was crypto weeek,
but it was also Earning's week for the banks, And
I'm looking down at the list. You had the CEOs
of JP Morgan, Bank of America, and City Group all
basically a acknowledge the digital dollar, but then note that
it's a threat to how banking is currently done in
the context of this legislation that's going through. What do
(12:36):
you make of that those heavyweights of waters finance saying
we got to think about this.
Speaker 5 (12:41):
Yeah, well, I've also seen a lot of those heavyweights
talk about getting into this stable coin industry themselves, and
so I think what we have here is there's going
to be an upgrade of our technology. Crypto rails, open
public blockchains like Solana, for example, are very good for
recording transactions and moving payments around the world in a
(13:02):
timely manner, and so I think what we're going to
see in the years A head is a real upgrade
to our system, one that will lower costs but will
also bring new opportunities. I think what's really great about
this legislation is that it will spur innovation across many
different sectors, and that innovation is really where the US
economy sees its growth come from. And so this is
(13:25):
a real opportunity I think for crypto, for traditional finance,
and for the businesses and consumers here in the United States.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Christin, you've been involved in different roles in advocating the
industry's position to government and to regulators. What does this
moment represent if those different pieces of legislation get done
and dusted, how significant is that for what you've been
trying to work on in recent years. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
Well, I've been in the crypto advocacy space for almost
seven years now, and so for me, this this week
is the highlight of my career. I have a red
dress I bought to hopefully word of the White House
film signing ceremony, and I think it's a really big moment.
But really this is I think the true opportunity for
the American people. I think for a long time, our
financial services system has been you know, sort of stuck
(14:18):
on old technology and this is the first step forward.
And so I'm, you know, very excited that we've had
such strong leadership with Senator Haggerty, Senator jillibrand also Congressman
Thompson and Chairman Hill in the House, and then President
Trump and David Saxson Bohines for really really digging in
and making this a priority. I think it's something that
(14:39):
we're going to see payoff for all of the American
people in due time.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
There was discussion that I had with David Sachs in
the last couple of weeks or a few weeks about
the bipartisan nature or not of the legislation. So if
we take the Genius Act and stable Coin, for example,
there were things that the Democrats wanted in there that
ended up not being From the salon a Policy institute's perspective,
did you get what you felt was needed in the
(15:06):
content of that bill. Yes.
Speaker 5 (15:09):
At Lana Policy Institute, we're very happy with the way
that the Genius Bill ended up, And people who know me,
I'm very skeptical of early drafts. But that's why we
have advocates in Washington who can go with work with
Congress fine tune the legislation and make sure that it
has the customer protections that the policy makers want, but
(15:30):
also is done in a way that allows those who
are building around the technology to have the certainty that
they need in order to build and innovate. And so
I think they've nailed it here with the Genius Act.
I think it's it's really good language, and I think
it's one of the reasons why the House is going
to you know, sort of pass it without changes and
send it on to the President's desk. You know, there
(15:52):
is another issue, the market structure issue, that that debate
is continuing to happen, and so you know, if there's
any cleanup that needs to happen, you know, I think
we'll get another bite at the apple.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Kristen Smith, Slana Policy Institute President. Great to have you
back on the show. Thank you very much. Now, coming up,
Uber teams up with ev maker Lucid and self driving
tech startup Neuro to launch a robotaxi fleet. We're going
to speak to the CEO of Neuro. That's coming up next.
This is Bloomberg Tech. Okay, let's take a look at
(16:37):
shares of the ev maker Lucid. Take a look at this.
The stock in the session is currently up significantly forty
six percent. It went wild in the pre market for
various reasons. The first one that hit the wire a
reverse one to ten stock split. Basically, it is non
dilute tree. It reduces a number of shares outstanding. It
(17:00):
proportionately raises the share price for holders of note. Later
in the day. We can get into mechanics of that,
because what's really boosting it is the three way robotaxi
deal that this company's done. Lucid with Uber is launching
a partnership along with self driving text dot up Neuro.
It's a new robotaxi which will be available on Uber's
ride hailing service. The details are important, fortunately, Dave Ferguson,
(17:24):
the co founder and president of Neuro's with us, give
me a second. With this, Lucid provides the gravity SUVs.
You guys provide a part of the technology stack. Uber
basically pays for everything. They've invested three hundred million dollars
into Lucid, several hundred million dollars into you. What happens next?
Speaker 6 (17:45):
Yes, so, Ed, First, thanks for having me. Great to
see you, Great to be here, I think you've got it.
So Lucid is integrating Neuro's driver hardware components, so the
sense and compute into their vehicles on the production line.
Those vehicles are then ship to Uber. Uber owns and
operates them, and neuro drivers software provides the driving capability
(18:07):
for those vehicles on the Uber network.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
What does Uber get out of its investment in you?
In fact, let's just be honest about it. Lucids is
clear three hundred million. How much is Uber putting into you?
And what are they getting in return in terms of
IP or guaranteed access to something.
Speaker 6 (18:23):
I think Uber is investing in Neuro in a standard
equity stake, and so I think that they're very, very
excited about this partnership and this program, and they want
to make sure that all of the parties are very
invested in the success of that program. And so they
want to make sure that they also have some ownership
and frankly some upside in Neuro. Given how deeply we're
going to be partnering to build this and the scale
(18:44):
that we're going to be embarking on together, how.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Much are they investing? Well, we carefully worded it as
why not just give us a number.
Speaker 6 (18:54):
Yeah, well, I think some of that is within our
control and some of that is outside of our control.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
We were not mind so much giving you the number.
Speaker 6 (19:01):
I think there there's more sensitivity in other courts.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Well, we'll phone and ask. You have a very close
relationship with Nvidia, you know, essentially building on top of
what Nvidia offers and and just explain it because it
seems like a bit of our unlocked for you guys.
And this deal kind of involves in video to a
certain extent as well.
Speaker 7 (19:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (19:22):
Absolutely, So part of what we believe differentiates Neuro is
that we have a dramatically lower cost hardware set of
sensors and compute that powers all of the vehicles that
we create as self driving vehicles. And so Nvidia plays
a very large part of that because they provide for
us the SOOC that powers all of the compute. So
(19:43):
all of the compute on this robotaxi platform is going
to be based on video chips SC That's right, and
for us, for Neuro, that has dramatically simplified our overall
compute because before we had that system, we had to
have FPGAs that dealt with the sensor data. We had
to have CPUs, we had to have GPUs, we had
(20:03):
to have safety computers. We've been able to effectively collapse
all of that into the thor SoC So it's a
simplification and the complexity as well as a significant reduction
in costs.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
You've been, I understand a testing a Lucid vehicle but
on a closed circuit to make sure the tech stack works.
What's the evolution of that? Like the plan as I
understand it is, Gravity goes into production late twenty twenty
six and twenty thousand thousand of them are due to
Uber over six period year period. How do you get
to public roads?
Speaker 6 (20:33):
Yeah, so we as a company, Neuro has been doing
fully driverless operation on public roads for over five years now,
so we have a lot of experience with what it
takes to validate our tech and to get it out
onto those roads safely. With the Lucid platform, it's obviously
a new vehicle platform for us to work with. We
got the first one going our first prototype in something
like seven weeks, which is unheard of for us and
(20:56):
we think the industry, so we'd be moving very very quickly.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
So Lucid's providing the sensor suite.
Speaker 6 (21:01):
The sensor suite is neuro driver hardware, so it's a
sensor suite that neuro has designed, although all of it
is automotive grade, set the shelf off the shelf sensing,
So Neuro has basically provided a design template for that,
and Loocid is going to integrate that for the prototype
vehicles where we're doing small scale integration. For the twenty
(21:22):
thousands fleet, it's going to be integrated directly into the
production line.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
You were focused on delivery, not moving humans. Have you
just done with that now?
Speaker 6 (21:32):
So about two years ago we shifted our go to market.
We used to be building a fully vertically integrated delivery
as a service business with our own custom vehicles. Two
things changed about two years ago. The first is that
the cost of capital dramatically increased, and while we still
today like that business model, it requires a huge amount
of capital, so it no longer made sense for us
(21:52):
to take on all of that. The second thing that
changed was the tech that we had built was so
heavily based on AI that we had learned how to
drive like an experts human driver, so we could expand
it beyond goods to also passenger transportation. So we made
the call about two years ago to stop doing goods
and to license the tick across a range of applications.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Dave's just very quick ten seconds. Do you really believe
that Lucid can manufacture all these to the deadline you've outlined?
Speaker 8 (22:18):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Absolutely yes. All right, day focused a neuroc founder and president.
Thank you very much for being here with us in
San Francisco. In about an hour a conversation with Lucid's
interim CEO, Mark Winterhoff. That's a twelve thirty pm New
York time, nine thirty am here in the Bay Area. Okay,
coming up, Details of an agreement between Facebook and US
privacy regulators emerge in the Delaware court yesterday. We're gonna
(22:41):
have an update on a recently announced settlement between Meta
shareholders and the company's board of directors. That's next. This
is Bloomberg Tech. Welcome back to Bloomberg Tech. In the
(23:02):
context of earnings, I think Netflix is kind of what
we're all waiting for after the bell. We're not going
to get a subscriber or subscribe a growth number anymore.
So what are you going to look at? Most are
saying the content slate. What is Netflix going to bring
to us in the second half of this year. Shout
out to those of you that are going through squid game.
At the moment, the stocks are eight tens to one percent,
but we're basically treading water. And then there's the outlook.
(23:22):
Netflix has said for a really long time, will Street
treat us as you would any other company on our
top and bottom line? And so we'll look at margins,
we'll look at operating income. But what might they do
in pricing, raising prices in various markets to give them
a bit of a boost. Really looking forward to that one.
I will swear away from the domain of markets. We're
(23:43):
focused on some litigation investors in Meta say they've reached
a settlement with current and former directors at the company
to end a multi billion dollar case that just started
yesterday in Delaware. I want to bring in Bloomberg's Riley Griffin,
who you'll remember twenty four hours ago, was here with
us on the show. What's happened in the interim and
(24:03):
what is this agreement that we've learned about.
Speaker 9 (24:05):
It's amazing.
Speaker 10 (24:06):
So yesterday you and I were discussing how it's very
rare for these kinds of cases that seek to hold
board directors, CEOs, executives personally financially accountable for the crises
at their company. Now we have reached a settlement just
one day into the eight day case.
Speaker 9 (24:24):
We do not yet know the.
Speaker 10 (24:25):
Financial terms of this deal, but this means that out
of court we now know that Mark Zuckerberg and other
board directors aren't going to be testifying later this week,
There isn't going to be more evidence presented, and some
some is being paid out to shareholders for this case,
which was about the data breach Cambridge Analytica that has
(24:46):
had that long shadow over years and years for Meta.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
So as we made absolutely clear just now but also yesterday,
this wasn't a case between the company and the shareholders.
It was specific e negatives and the board of directors.
Does that mean that's it? Now? That it's done, As.
Speaker 8 (25:05):
Far as I understand it, it is done.
Speaker 10 (25:07):
We are not going to see Mark Zuckerberg testify. We
are not going to see Peter Tiel testify. I think
that is a notable part of this story. We were
going to hear from the board members themselves. Just yesterday,
actually we heard from Jeff Science. This was a former
Facebook board member who also went on to be President
Joe Biden's chief of staff, and what came out of
(25:29):
that testimony was interesting. We heard from Science that ultimately
the board had considered negotiating with the FTC, proposing through
its lawyers that it would reach a multi billion dollar
settlement over at Cambridge Analytica, but only if Mark Zuckerberg
wasn't held personally responsible. So that is one glimpse into
(25:51):
the kind of evidence that can come out in a
trial like this, and one day in they've shut it down.
We are not going to hear from other board members
or the CEO.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Bludo's Riley Griffin on the metabat. Great reporting, Thank you
very much. Let's get to some deals news. Princeton Digital
Group is getting one point three billion dollars from alternative
investment firms Stone Peak, the funds that we used to
accelerate PDG's data center operations, which are across Asia. The
business already has over one point one gigawatts across six
countries in the region. Delighted to say we're joined by
(26:24):
PDG's chairman, CEO and co founder Rangu Salgam, who's joining
us late at night out in Singapore, and welcome to
the program. Let's just start with the basic mechanics. There
is an interesting equity investment going on here. Why did
you go down this route with the investor rather than
just kind of a straight equity kind of deal.
Speaker 9 (26:46):
Good morning, Ed, Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure
to be on a show.
Speaker 7 (26:49):
You know.
Speaker 8 (26:50):
PDG has grown at a phenomenal radar of the last
six years, as you mentioned, and we have three of
the world's largest investors Warburck, Binkers Ontario, Teacher's Mension Plan
and more La. And we are a juncture where we
thought it's a great time to have an alternative investor,
an infrastructure investor like Stone Pig coming. That gives us
tremendous level optionality how we can grow from here. For example,
(27:12):
Warburg still is interested to grow with the company. They
see a tremendous growth ahead and they having been in
the business for seven.
Speaker 9 (27:18):
Years, they have key to continue for some more time.
Speaker 8 (27:21):
So that with that in mind, an opportunity grow also
consolidate our position in the market by mergers and acquisitions
and other means. Gives us an opportunity to really scale
up like and be a market leader in this part
of the world. And Stone Peak really brought a tremendous
solution that fitted for what we are looking for. And
that position says well to capture the air growth that
(27:43):
just started off in Asia.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
We've got to talk about that air growth. But really quickly,
were there other investors knocking down your door other than
Stone Peak?
Speaker 8 (27:53):
Yes, I think we had a lot of interest in
the market of different folks than large private reforms as
well as out in funds and so on, and as
well as the insiders who are very keen and s
don't Peak turned out of the best solution for what
we're looking for.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
So the big question is what happens next? Right, RANGU,
you operate in six nations across Asia. What's the next market?
And when you think about the next market you enter,
how much is it part of the equation how quickly
you can build and start operations at any one facility.
Speaker 9 (28:26):
Yeah, that's a very important aspect of what the market
is looking for.
Speaker 8 (28:30):
If you look at what our customers look for, our
customers are large hyperscalers. These are some of the largest
tech companies from the West Coast. As you know, you
know there are two things that matter for these customers
when they are expanding in a market like Asia, they
want to look for partners who have an execution track record,
our track record that is UNPI impeccable in the market. Second,
they look for operators who have deep capital partners and
(28:52):
PDG brings both to this markets. With that in mind,
our strategy is not to expand in new markets. Get
into new markets like Australia and South Korea.
Speaker 9 (29:00):
That's on a plan.
Speaker 8 (29:01):
And second, deepen in the markets that we're already in
like Japan, like India, which are huge markets in the making,
and our strategies to go in and deepen in those
markets as well.
Speaker 9 (29:10):
As enter new markets.
Speaker 8 (29:12):
That gives us to be a great partner, a trusted
partner for the US cyberskillers who are expanding in these
markets at a rate like we have never seen before.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Rangu I think back to Meta's last earnings call and
the explanation that one of the reasons they raised the
capital expenditures get guidance and range wasn't just the commitment,
but it was the higher cost of doing business, the
higher cost in the supply chain for data center. Do
you see higher costs in your supply chain right now?
Speaker 9 (29:43):
Are not yet ed?
Speaker 8 (29:44):
We haven't seen the implications of any market dynamics that
are impacting our supply chain. We have a pretty much
good lock in over for the next couple of years
on a complete supply chain. And also the good news
is for US a large part of our supplier manufacturing
happens in Asia, and that gives is an edge in
terms of the cost.
Speaker 9 (30:02):
Being lower being part of the side of the world.
Speaker 8 (30:04):
So overall we are not seeing cost pressures yet at
the same time, we are seeing a tremendous level.
Speaker 9 (30:10):
Of supply opportunities. When it comes to power. For example,
they are parts of Asia where there's significant excess power
and good quality power.
Speaker 8 (30:18):
That gives U an opportunity to build these large scale
AI data centers which are closer to this good supply
of power at very reasonable cost, and that really positions
operators like WEDG in Asia very well in.
Speaker 9 (30:32):
The eyes of the large US hyperskillers.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Rang you, I know you just raised a significant chunk
of change that I got to ask about IPO and
when you're thinking about a listing.
Speaker 9 (30:44):
I think we are well positioned to do a couple
of things.
Speaker 8 (30:47):
Either do an IPO in the near term, there's a
trade cell opportunity, but the bigger exciting thing it is
to really consolidate a position in the market. We believe
the market tells us we are one of the two
or three top players in him pact, and then we grow.
At this page, we have an opportunity really consolid in
the market by making acquicisions and be a much bigger
scale in the next three to four years, and that
(31:07):
gives an opportunity for us to go public.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Rangusal Game Chairman, CEO and co founder of Princeton Digital
Group in the data center space. Great to have you
on the show. Now, coming up, Roadblocks CEO David Mazuki
joins us talk about the company's new age verification tech.
Will it work, How will it work? All the questions
to come. This is Bloomberg Tech gaming platform Roadblocks is
(31:45):
introducing a new feature for verifying users ages. Take a
selfie and the AI will estimate the user's age. If
the tech determines they're over thirteen, then the user will
have access to the new Trusted Connects feature where they
can chat freely with other Roadblocks users. Delighted to say
that joining us now is Roadblocks's CEO David Bzooki. Dave,
(32:08):
good morning, Thank you for being back on Bloomberg Tech.
I find d tech so interesting here. Could we just
go over the basics of how it works and why
this is the right technology for this issue.
Speaker 9 (32:22):
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 7 (32:23):
Know we've been innovating on safety and civility for almost
twenty years, and what we're rolling out today is our
vision for age based communication. Age based communication, especially for
teens thirteen through seventeen, which is a vulnerable time, involves
a couple things. First, trusted connections, so identifying friends and
(32:44):
people that you know and trust, and second, using age
estimation to enable trusted connections to.
Speaker 9 (32:52):
Actually allow those teens to speak a little.
Speaker 7 (32:55):
More freely on our platform, even though we do scan
the text for critical harms. And this is super important
because business notwithstanding, engagement notwithstanding, we're trying to keep people
on our platform so they don't jump to other platforms
where they may share images or where they may communicate
(33:15):
without text monitoring.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Dave, the skeptic here will say, well, well, how good
is the AI. How can the video and an AI
analysis of it analysis of it guarantee a correct result
that the person using it is indeed age thirteen or older.
Speaker 9 (33:35):
I want to highlight a couple of things.
Speaker 7 (33:36):
We've been innovating on AI for four years plus and
we're running over two hundred AI systems. We've open sourced
our voice moderation system because it's so good, and we've
really advanced the state of the art and text moderation
systems as well. This is age estimation. The AI is
really good. It's not perfect, of course, but we're leaning
(33:59):
conservative in that case, and I'll highlight we're using this
in a conservative way to enable freer communication that is
still monitored. So we've really thought a lot about it,
and we think this is the future of how teens
will communicate.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
In testing, what is the proportion bin of sort of
false positives and accurate results? And is there an element
of sort of human moderation in the first instance.
Speaker 7 (34:27):
Yeah, well I want to highlight there for historically there's
always been an element of moderation on roadblocks and all techs,
all voice, all images has always gone through moderation, including
AI and human moderation.
Speaker 9 (34:42):
So we have such a firm foundation for safety.
Speaker 7 (34:46):
We're using age estimation to in a way slightly free
up the communication. If you and I were fourteen on
roadblocks and you called me a butt head.
Speaker 9 (34:56):
I wouldn't see it. We'd see a bunch of hashtags.
Speaker 7 (34:59):
But it's the kind of a lot of teams like
to chat about. And when it's with people you know
and trust, we're open to letting them communicate more freely
in that way.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Dave is probably really helpful to put this in the
context of a case study example, and Grow a Garden
is probably the best right. So if you just bear
with me, and then we bring it back to product safety,
there are all of these teenagers wanting to be on
Grow a Garden and then share with their peers, right
their friends, their community of a similar age. How does
(35:30):
this new technology fit into the daily running of that
game and how players and users interact with one another.
Speaker 9 (35:40):
Yeah, thanks for highlighting Grow a Garden.
Speaker 7 (35:42):
Just as last summer, Dressed to Impress was going crazy
on roadblocks. Right now Grow a Garden, who sit over
twenty million people playing it at the same time, which
is actually a record, we believe for any game in
the history of gaming. People really want to hang out
with their friends and communicate. And up until now, if
you and I were fifteen and we were trying to communicate,
(36:04):
once again, we might see some hashes and some blocking
when we're.
Speaker 9 (36:07):
Trying to compete in the game.
Speaker 7 (36:10):
With the release of this, if we are trusted connections
and we can validate we're people we know and we trust,
and then we take a selfie to estimate our age,
we're going to be able to communicate more freely and
have possibly more fun and Grow a Garden and be
less likely to go to some other platform where maybe
we start sharing selfies or things that we don't allow
(36:32):
on roadblocks.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Right, Dave, is Grow a Garden the biggest game you've
had ever?
Speaker 7 (36:38):
Well, I think it's been very public. A couple of
weekends ago, we hit over thirty million people on roadblocks
playing at the same time, and for a moment in time,
Grow a Garden hit over twenty million people playing at
the same time. It's not just the biggest we've ever
had on roadblocks. That is, we believe the largest concurrent
(36:58):
player of any game in history.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
And just very quickly, Dave, would you just define largest
concurrent played?
Speaker 7 (37:07):
We believe from the Guinness Book of World Records that
twenty million is the largest concurrent players of any game
in real time in history.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Okay, understood what many people don't appreciate about Roadblocks is
the scale of your own infrastructure. I think that you
run yourself. You have a lot of footprint on prem
with all the activity. Are your servers and CPUs just
melting on Friday and Saturday nights or how are you
handling all of the traffic right now?
Speaker 7 (37:36):
Well, we do like it when our servers melt, as
long as we stay live and we stay up. And
what we have done over the last couple of years
is abstracted all of this infrastructure we have, and you're
absolutely correct. We believe we get better performance, better reliability,
and better cost building out all of our own data
centers around the world. We have started working with partners though,
(38:00):
and you know those partners as you're Amazon AWSGCP at
peak times to burst into their cloud as well, and
so we can run all of our own infro, but
for Saturday morning for two hours, we're actually relying on
some of these partners to hit those peaks.
Speaker 9 (38:18):
Dave.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Roadblocks has been subject to a lot of scrutiny over
child safety, the feature that you're announcing today, but also
the sort of technological capability for you as the leader
of this company. Where does it rank and what you
think will sort of address those historic issues but also
just allow you to move forward in growing because you
have an ambition right to capture ten percent of the market,
(38:41):
and I'm just trying to understand how this piece of
tech allows you to tap into a demographic that will
get you there.
Speaker 7 (38:48):
We've been focusing on safety civility as top priority for
almost twenty years. We believe this is the future of
communication on social platforms, especiallys, and we believe the future
will be for teens in that vulnerable time, trusted connections,
plus some form of age estimation or verification or maybe
(39:11):
someday help from the phone vendors and other things, but
ultimately for private chat. We believe this is the future.
So we're we haven't been waiting for the law. We
haven't been waiting for legislation. We think this thirteen through
seventeen segment is just as important. It's thirteen and under
and eighteen and nine.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
We didn't even get to advertising on the platform. All
of the millionaires that are being minted through the platform.
Dave Bazooki, you have to come back, CEO of Roadblocks,
Thank you very much. Now coming up, Netflix readies to
release its results. What to expect from the streaming giant
that's coming up next. This is Bloomberg Tech. Netflix drops
(40:16):
earnings after the bell and no subscriber numbers won't be
in the script anymore. The hot scenes to watch out
for Netflix's operating margin forecast currently twenty nine percent. Will
advertisers keep tuning in? Is the ad tear ramps up
and can management tees out new growth from live sports
and big name content deals? And with that key stat
(40:37):
subscriber growth left on the cutting room floor, engagement could
steal the spotlight, especially with a killer second half lineup
Squid Game, Stranger Things, Wednesday, Knives Out, Taylor v. Serrano
three and even NFL and key track of price hikes?
Will they be padding the bottom line all year long?
Stay tuned because we've got more with Bloombo's Ryan Selica,
(41:00):
because this earnings episode might just be binge worthy puns aside, Ryan,
what's Wall Street's in?
Speaker 9 (41:08):
Hey?
Speaker 2 (41:08):
And thanks for having me on?
Speaker 11 (41:10):
So everyone is pretty optimistic about Netflix's position right now.
They continue to benefit from a lot of very strong
secular trends, not just the shift towards streaming, but also
their ability to continue growing ad revenue on their platform,
their continued embrace of live events like sports as a
way to further juice the sort of ad part of
the business.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
The only question is is all this expected?
Speaker 11 (41:34):
Is all this price into the stock and our expectations
too high? Given the stock has been one of the
real standout performers of the year.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Right year to date, the stock up forty one percent
so far in twenty twenty five. Netflix has been saying
for quite a long time, we want you to judge
us by normal financial metrics that all other industries and
companies are judged by. I said, we won't get that
subscribe account or subscribe a growth. So from a top
or bottom line perspective, what is it that we look
(42:03):
to in Netflix?
Speaker 11 (42:05):
I think anything they say about their outlook from here,
what they're going to be spending on content, their continued
ability to sort of improve efficiency and kind of improve
their cash flow, their earnings, all that is going to
be taking the place of subscriber numbers, especially since at
least here in the States pretty well saturated, are pretty
well positioned across the globe, so I think that might
be of less interest to people right now. But certainly
(42:27):
you mentioned all the content they have coming out. People
are very interested to see are some of the games
that we've been seeing already this year. Is that likely
to continue or are they do for some kind of
consolidation here. On a separate note, I'd also be very
interested on anything they say about competition from sort of
newer entrants, things like YouTube and TikTok, or those areas
where Netflix maybe faces some competition, as like new places
(42:49):
that people are going to view content.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
I pay for the non ad tear. I've just completed
Squid Game season three, I'm watching The Sandman. That's a
bit of a miss with me. But if I were
to pay for a tier where ads were involved, what
are we learning about advertising a Netflix's platform, Because this
is an industry wide thing right now.
Speaker 11 (43:12):
Yeah, we are seeing more companies start to explore these
kinds of options. Obviously, Netflix has a huge subscriber based
here in the States.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
You know, hundreds of millions of people use it.
Speaker 11 (43:21):
I think they even sort of automatically putting some people
on the ad tier because if people are watching it enough,
you're actually making more money with the ad revenue from
those viewers than you would beginning if they were paying
up for the higher tier that doesn't include advertising.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
Bloomberg's Ryan Plaseelca with the Netflix preview, thank you very much.
So that does it for this edition of Bloomberg Tech.
Stick with us. At twelve thirty PM New York time,
nine point thirty here in San Francisco, we have an
exclusive interview with the Lucid interim CEO Mark Winterhoff. With
that stock up more than forty percent, don't forget check
out the podcast. You know where to find it on
(43:56):
the Bloomberg Terminal and Bloomberg platforms, as well as online
on Spotify, iHeart and on Apple. From San Francisco, this
is Bloomberg Tech
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Bloomberg Tech is a
lie from coast to coast with Caroline Hyde and New
York and Vla Low in San Francisco.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
This is Bloomberg Tech coming up. TSMC, the world's biggest
contract chip maker, gets a big boost from AI demand.
Plus Uber teams up with EV maker Lucid and self
driving tech start up Neuro to launch a robotaxi fleet.
We'll speak with the CEO of Neuro and what to
expect from Netflix earning today. Will it be a blockbuster
(00:43):
or a bus Let's get to that curious three way
deal that is between Uber, Lucid and Neuro. Basically how
it works is Lucid's going to provide the cars, Neuro
the self driving tech, and Uber's gonna pay for everything.
We're gonna get a lot more detail on that later
in the show. But look at shares of Lucid up
thirty six percent. This is a big move upwards and
(01:03):
we need to find out why. The big story in
global technology is TISMC, the world's largest and most important
contracts manufacturer. These are the US listed shares. ADR is
up two point eight percent, basically upgraded the growth forecast
on the top line to thirty percent, saying that there
is hot AI demand right now, but interestingly some headwinds
(01:23):
from currency which we can dig into. Luckily, bloombergsy and
King is here for more who leads our coverage of
the semiconductor industry. So actually quite a simple story that
in the numbers in the period gone and what they
said about what's to come. AI demand is everything now.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
I mean only time you're saying thirty percent of year
saying we're having a good year. But it's important to
point out that the start didn't do much locally and
why was that well because guess what some analysts were
expecting even more so fantastic obviously a great derivative for here,
but maybe not as fantastic as some had expected.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Tiersmc's business is really interesting because basically two thirds of
it is high performance compute, the chips that go into
data centers. Historically it was smartphones. So even though the
proportions have changed, I see both of those divisions growing.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Yeah, both of them did well. As you said, high
performance computing, which is basically in videos, chips, amb's chips,
anything that any of the hyperscalers design themselves. That's sixty
percent of its business that's growing well. And that's really
what the focus is right now. That's what everybody wants
to see, is this story that is defining technology still
(02:31):
continuing And the answer was absolutely yes.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
So TISMT is like the crown jaw of Taiwan. It's
their most important entity and company. They have a big
footprint there. But what was really interesting to hear about
was the headwind from currency. As I understand it, they
book all their revenue and US dollars, but their operating
costs are in Taiwanese dollars. What did they say about
that and how it's going to impact them?
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Yeah, I mean this is obviously a complex story because
they're in a distributed supply chain. Though you've got the
currency headwims, You've got concern about what's going to happen
to that supply chain. Are they moving, are they raising
their expenses as they build factories here in the US,
what's going to happen with tariff? So all of these
(03:13):
kind of economic uncertainties and currency was one of them
factored into I think this kind of conservative or what
was considered conservative forecast with conservative in their context, which
is pretty amazing still.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Okay, Blimbozi and King, who again leads our coverage of
the semiconductor industry. Let's get more of a broader market's
perspective and go out to j Jacobs Blackrock, US head
of equity. Ets you and I've talked about infrastructure so much,
but I almost consider names like TSMC and ASML as
being kind of soft data sets rather than kind of
(03:47):
hard data sets. ASML gave us one signal and then
TSMC gave us another. As somebody that looks at their
exposure to this AI supply chain, what did you make
of it?
Speaker 4 (04:00):
Well, I think you really have to go up to
kind of the higher order of capital expenditures, which is
impacting so many different semiconductor stocks. If you look at
the top four builders of infrastructure this year and combine
them with energy and utilities companies, all of that capex
equals the rest of the S and P five hundred combined.
So you're just seeing so much investment from semi conductors
(04:20):
to energy and power sources across this AI megaporce that
it's really providing a ton of ballast to these stocks
as we enter into earning season.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
I think we'd agree that AI is having a profound
impact on markets. That's probably an understatement at this point.
But when you consider the ETFs you're managing, where do
you see the enthusiasm or where do you see movement
of investors wanting to be exposed to what's happening.
Speaker 4 (04:46):
Well, you know, if we look more broadly at what's
happening in the markets, this here, themes are really displacing
sectors as having the most explanatory power of what's happening
around us. You know, artificial intelligence and baskets of stocks
related to that explained a lot of what happened in February.
If you look at geopolitical fragmentation and companies in the
infrastructure and defense space, that explains a lot of what's
(05:06):
been happening since April. So themes themselves have a ton
of explanatory power in the markets. To your question, you know,
where are we seeing some of the most excitement and
artificial intelligence? We continue to be looking at the build
out of digital infrastructure. You know, we know that we
are still in the build phase of AI. This is
where you're seeing hundreds of billions of dollars of capital
expenditure to build the best models, to make them smarter,
(05:27):
to make them more scalable. That's where we are today,
and that's where a lot of our active portfolio managers
like Tony Kim, who manages BAI for US, has positioned
a lot of his portfolio.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
BAI is super interesting. We just showed it on the screen.
But the Tica BAI, there's this two point two billion
dollars of interest, you can quantify it. What are the
main facts behind that meeting?
Speaker 4 (05:49):
Jay Well, I think a lot of investors are looking
at artificial intelligence but realize they don't really have great
exposure to it. In fact, you know, we looked at
over ten thousand portfolios by financial advisors in the United
States and about ninety five percent of whatever AI exposure
they have in their portfolio is coming just from the
MAG seven. So maybe it's because they own index funds
that are just broad market in nature and getting that
(06:11):
MAG seven exposure. Maybe they're looking at tech sector and
getting MAG seven through that, but so little of their
exposure is to the broader AI value chain across digital infrastructure, power, infrastructure, applications,
data owners that we see a lot of investors are
more intentionally allocating to AI, selling down tech sector exposure
to allocate to a fund like BAI, or even selling
(06:33):
down core exposure in large in US large caps to
get exposure to a fund like BAI.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
I find this sub theme of onshoring into America and
basically reindustrialization really interesting. Is there a sort of specific
basket of names which you would not necessarily feel are
the technology sector. I'm thinking a little bit like real
estate and all of those names that are involved in
the construction of a data set into.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
Yeah, there's a few areas to look at. I mean, one,
we just broadly really like US infrastructure names. You know,
we've seen some good flows into IFRA, which is a
US infrastructurey TF because if you want to build semiconductors
in the United States, or you want to build you know,
kind of high end technologies like electric vehicles, you need roads,
you need highways, you need airports, you need ports, you
need electricity on the grid, you need waterways. It really
(07:23):
takes a wide range of infrastructure to set up these
very expensive and complicated manufacturing supply chains within the United States.
So we see that physical infrastructure and digital infrastructure being
a really common denominator here. But if you really want
to kind of double click into one area. If you
look at semiconductor equipment manufacturers, you know, this is kind
of a highest upstream way to play. More semiconductors being
(07:44):
built in the United States, the semi's equipment manufacturers should
do quite well. And that's an area we have exposure
to in our manufacturing ETF made.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Let's bring it back to the use of the day,
which is TSMC, and one of the themes that came
up was currency headwinds. And it was interesting because, in
simple terms, TSMC is a Taiwanese company that books revenue
in US dollars, but it operates in Taiwanese dollars. I
give that to you Jay, to kind of illustrate that
this is a name that if you're an American investor,
(08:14):
even though it's Taiwanese, you can still get exposure to.
But it's a company that's increasingly looking to the US
for its own investments and to build out more of
its own capacity here onshore or domestically. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
I mean what we've seen is, you know a lot
of latility in the dollar, and the weakening of the
dollar generally has you know, boosted international stocks. You know,
in fact, just if you look at a lot of
what our investors are doing today, it's allocating to international
ETFs to benefit from the changing position of the dollar.
So I think we're going to see this more and
more of this earning season. Currency is going to be
an important factor as companies trying to explain how their
(08:49):
earnings have done. And there's you know, there's just a
new element to back out of with dollar weekening.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Jay, we're a few weeks now into the second half
of the year. What do you expecting and watching foremost
closely in the balance of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
Well, we just published our thematic media or update on
ishers dot com and we're really looking at kind of
the evolution of two areas, artificial intelligence and geopolitical fragmentation.
You know, in AI, what we're looking for is continued
breakthroughs in the intelligence of AI. You know, right now
we would say AI models are kind of college level
of intelligence. I think we're on the precipice of master's
degree level of intelligence of AI, and that should really
(09:26):
boost even more adoption on the geopolitical fragmentation front. You know,
we talked about infrastructure a bit, defense spending is still
very much in focus. But also even if you just
look at things like people buying gold, a lot of
diversification into monetary alternatives. It should be a pretty big
trend we see through the end of the year as well.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
J Jacobs a black Rold. Great to have you back
on the show. Really appreciate it. Now, coming up, Congress
edges closer to the landmark crypto legislation. We're going to
speak with Kristen Smiths, Solana Policy Institute President about everything
that's going on in crypto week sous to take a
quick look at. Shares of Lucid now up forty percent,
almost forty one percent, a deal with Uber and euro
(10:07):
over the next six years for a fleet of robotaxis
on the platform. Also a one to ten reverse stock split.
A reverse stock split non diluted reduces the number shares
outstanding proportionately raises the price lots to ask about that,
and actually later in the day on Bloomberg TV, I
heard that the Lucid CEO is going to swing by
(10:28):
stay with us. This is Bloomberg Tech Washington's weighing landmark
crypto legislation during what's been dubbed crypto week, digital assets
(10:51):
have been surging thanks in part to those regulatory prospects,
with ether ETF seeing a record breaking seven hundred and
twenty six million in daily I want to get out
to Kristen Smith, Solana Policy Institute President, and this is
the bit that I'm trying to understand. It is Crypto Week,
and there seems to be a lot of excitement, and
that excitement alone is driving inflows into various places and
(11:14):
trading activity across the world of crypto. Is that a
good ration now, Kristen.
Speaker 5 (11:20):
Well, first of all, Happy Crypto Week. It's great to
see you.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (11:24):
I think there's a lot of excitement within the crypto industry,
within the policy making industry, but within the broader financial
services industry around what's happening in Washington here today. Later
this afternoon, the House of Representatives is going to vote
on three bills, the Genius Act, which regular stable coins,
the Clarity Act, which is the House's version of market
(11:45):
structure legislation, and the third bill on Central bank digital currencies.
So this is a really historic week, and one of
those bills, the Genius Act, is going to go on
this way to the White House for the President's signature.
This is going to be the first time the US
government has put a new federal regulatory framework in place,
and so I think this is showing the entire market
(12:07):
that this is a technology that's here to stay and
it's got the full backing of the US government.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Something very interesting happened this week. It was crypto weeek,
but it was also Earning's week for the banks, And
I'm looking down at the list. You had the CEOs
of JP Morgan, Bank of America, and City Group all
basically a acknowledge the digital dollar, but then note that
it's a threat to how banking is currently done in
the context of this legislation that's going through. What do
(12:36):
you make of that those heavyweights of waters finance saying
we got to think about this.
Speaker 5 (12:41):
Yeah, well, I've also seen a lot of those heavyweights
talk about getting into this stable coin industry themselves, and
so I think what we have here is there's going
to be an upgrade of our technology. Crypto rails, open
public blockchains like Solana, for example, are very good for
recording transactions and moving payments around the world in a
(13:02):
timely manner, and so I think what we're going to
see in the years A head is a real upgrade
to our system, one that will lower costs but will
also bring new opportunities. I think what's really great about
this legislation is that it will spur innovation across many
different sectors, and that innovation is really where the US
economy sees its growth come from. And so this is
(13:25):
a real opportunity I think for crypto, for traditional finance,
and for the businesses and consumers here in the United States.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Christin, you've been involved in different roles in advocating the
industry's position to government and to regulators. What does this
moment represent if those different pieces of legislation get done
and dusted, how significant is that for what you've been
trying to work on in recent years. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
Well, I've been in the crypto advocacy space for almost
seven years now, and so for me, this this week
is the highlight of my career. I have a red
dress I bought to hopefully word of the White House
film signing ceremony, and I think it's a really big moment.
But really this is I think the true opportunity for
the American people. I think for a long time, our
financial services system has been you know, sort of stuck
(14:18):
on old technology and this is the first step forward.
And so I'm, you know, very excited that we've had
such strong leadership with Senator Haggerty, Senator jillibrand also Congressman
Thompson and Chairman Hill in the House, and then President
Trump and David Saxson Bohines for really really digging in
and making this a priority. I think it's something that
(14:39):
we're going to see payoff for all of the American
people in due time.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
There was discussion that I had with David Sachs in
the last couple of weeks or a few weeks about
the bipartisan nature or not of the legislation. So if
we take the Genius Act and stable Coin, for example,
there were things that the Democrats wanted in there that
ended up not being From the salon a Policy institute's perspective,
did you get what you felt was needed in the
(15:06):
content of that bill. Yes.
Speaker 5 (15:09):
At Lana Policy Institute, we're very happy with the way
that the Genius Bill ended up, And people who know me,
I'm very skeptical of early drafts. But that's why we
have advocates in Washington who can go with work with
Congress fine tune the legislation and make sure that it
has the customer protections that the policy makers want, but
(15:30):
also is done in a way that allows those who
are building around the technology to have the certainty that
they need in order to build and innovate. And so
I think they've nailed it here with the Genius Act.
I think it's it's really good language, and I think
it's one of the reasons why the House is going
to you know, sort of pass it without changes and
send it on to the President's desk. You know, there
(15:52):
is another issue, the market structure issue, that that debate
is continuing to happen, and so you know, if there's
any cleanup that needs to happen, you know, I think
we'll get another bite at the apple.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Kristen Smith, Slana Policy Institute President. Great to have you
back on the show. Thank you very much. Now, coming up,
Uber teams up with ev maker Lucid and self driving
tech startup Neuro to launch a robotaxi fleet. We're going
to speak to the CEO of Neuro. That's coming up next.
This is Bloomberg Tech. Okay, let's take a look at
(16:37):
shares of the ev maker Lucid. Take a look at this.
The stock in the session is currently up significantly forty
six percent. It went wild in the pre market for
various reasons. The first one that hit the wire a
reverse one to ten stock split. Basically, it is non
dilute tree. It reduces a number of shares outstanding. It
(17:00):
proportionately raises the share price for holders of note. Later
in the day. We can get into mechanics of that,
because what's really boosting it is the three way robotaxi
deal that this company's done. Lucid with Uber is launching
a partnership along with self driving text dot up Neuro.
It's a new robotaxi which will be available on Uber's
ride hailing service. The details are important, fortunately, Dave Ferguson,
(17:24):
the co founder and president of Neuro's with us, give
me a second. With this, Lucid provides the gravity SUVs.
You guys provide a part of the technology stack. Uber
basically pays for everything. They've invested three hundred million dollars
into Lucid, several hundred million dollars into you. What happens next?
Speaker 6 (17:45):
Yes, so, Ed, First, thanks for having me. Great to
see you, Great to be here, I think you've got it.
So Lucid is integrating Neuro's driver hardware components, so the
sense and compute into their vehicles on the production line.
Those vehicles are then ship to Uber. Uber owns and
operates them, and neuro drivers software provides the driving capability
(18:07):
for those vehicles on the Uber network.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
What does Uber get out of its investment in you?
In fact, let's just be honest about it. Lucids is
clear three hundred million. How much is Uber putting into you?
And what are they getting in return in terms of
IP or guaranteed access to something.
Speaker 6 (18:23):
I think Uber is investing in Neuro in a standard
equity stake, and so I think that they're very, very
excited about this partnership and this program, and they want
to make sure that all of the parties are very
invested in the success of that program. And so they
want to make sure that they also have some ownership
and frankly some upside in Neuro. Given how deeply we're
going to be partnering to build this and the scale
(18:44):
that we're going to be embarking on together, how.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Much are they investing? Well, we carefully worded it as
why not just give us a number.
Speaker 6 (18:54):
Yeah, well, I think some of that is within our
control and some of that is outside of our control.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
We were not mind so much giving you the number.
Speaker 6 (19:01):
I think there there's more sensitivity in other courts.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Well, we'll phone and ask. You have a very close
relationship with Nvidia, you know, essentially building on top of
what Nvidia offers and and just explain it because it
seems like a bit of our unlocked for you guys.
And this deal kind of involves in video to a
certain extent as well.
Speaker 7 (19:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (19:22):
Absolutely, So part of what we believe differentiates Neuro is
that we have a dramatically lower cost hardware set of
sensors and compute that powers all of the vehicles that
we create as self driving vehicles. And so Nvidia plays
a very large part of that because they provide for
us the SOOC that powers all of the compute. So
(19:43):
all of the compute on this robotaxi platform is going
to be based on video chips SC That's right, and
for us, for Neuro, that has dramatically simplified our overall
compute because before we had that system, we had to
have FPGAs that dealt with the sensor data. We had
to have CPUs, we had to have GPUs, we had
(20:03):
to have safety computers. We've been able to effectively collapse
all of that into the thor SoC So it's a
simplification and the complexity as well as a significant reduction
in costs.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
You've been, I understand a testing a Lucid vehicle but
on a closed circuit to make sure the tech stack works.
What's the evolution of that? Like the plan as I
understand it is, Gravity goes into production late twenty twenty
six and twenty thousand thousand of them are due to
Uber over six period year period. How do you get
to public roads?
Speaker 6 (20:33):
Yeah, so we as a company, Neuro has been doing
fully driverless operation on public roads for over five years now,
so we have a lot of experience with what it
takes to validate our tech and to get it out
onto those roads safely. With the Lucid platform, it's obviously
a new vehicle platform for us to work with. We
got the first one going our first prototype in something
like seven weeks, which is unheard of for us and
(20:56):
we think the industry, so we'd be moving very very quickly.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
So Lucid's providing the sensor suite.
Speaker 6 (21:01):
The sensor suite is neuro driver hardware, so it's a
sensor suite that neuro has designed, although all of it
is automotive grade, set the shelf off the shelf sensing,
So Neuro has basically provided a design template for that,
and Loocid is going to integrate that for the prototype
vehicles where we're doing small scale integration. For the twenty
(21:22):
thousands fleet, it's going to be integrated directly into the
production line.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
You were focused on delivery, not moving humans. Have you
just done with that now?
Speaker 6 (21:32):
So about two years ago we shifted our go to market.
We used to be building a fully vertically integrated delivery
as a service business with our own custom vehicles. Two
things changed about two years ago. The first is that
the cost of capital dramatically increased, and while we still
today like that business model, it requires a huge amount
of capital, so it no longer made sense for us
(21:52):
to take on all of that. The second thing that
changed was the tech that we had built was so
heavily based on AI that we had learned how to
drive like an experts human driver, so we could expand
it beyond goods to also passenger transportation. So we made
the call about two years ago to stop doing goods
and to license the tick across a range of applications.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Dave's just very quick ten seconds. Do you really believe
that Lucid can manufacture all these to the deadline you've outlined?
Speaker 8 (22:18):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Absolutely yes. All right, day focused a neuroc founder and president.
Thank you very much for being here with us in
San Francisco. In about an hour a conversation with Lucid's
interim CEO, Mark Winterhoff. That's a twelve thirty pm New
York time, nine thirty am here in the Bay Area. Okay,
coming up, Details of an agreement between Facebook and US
privacy regulators emerge in the Delaware court yesterday. We're gonna
(22:41):
have an update on a recently announced settlement between Meta
shareholders and the company's board of directors. That's next. This
is Bloomberg Tech. Welcome back to Bloomberg Tech. In the
(23:02):
context of earnings, I think Netflix is kind of what
we're all waiting for after the bell. We're not going
to get a subscriber or subscribe a growth number anymore.
So what are you going to look at? Most are
saying the content slate. What is Netflix going to bring
to us in the second half of this year. Shout
out to those of you that are going through squid game.
At the moment, the stocks are eight tens to one percent,
but we're basically treading water. And then there's the outlook.
(23:22):
Netflix has said for a really long time, will Street
treat us as you would any other company on our
top and bottom line? And so we'll look at margins,
we'll look at operating income. But what might they do
in pricing, raising prices in various markets to give them
a bit of a boost. Really looking forward to that one.
I will swear away from the domain of markets. We're
(23:43):
focused on some litigation investors in Meta say they've reached
a settlement with current and former directors at the company
to end a multi billion dollar case that just started
yesterday in Delaware. I want to bring in Bloomberg's Riley Griffin,
who you'll remember twenty four hours ago, was here with
us on the show. What's happened in the interim and
(24:03):
what is this agreement that we've learned about.
Speaker 9 (24:05):
It's amazing.
Speaker 10 (24:06):
So yesterday you and I were discussing how it's very
rare for these kinds of cases that seek to hold
board directors, CEOs, executives personally financially accountable for the crises
at their company. Now we have reached a settlement just
one day into the eight day case.
Speaker 9 (24:24):
We do not yet know the.
Speaker 10 (24:25):
Financial terms of this deal, but this means that out
of court we now know that Mark Zuckerberg and other
board directors aren't going to be testifying later this week,
There isn't going to be more evidence presented, and some
some is being paid out to shareholders for this case,
which was about the data breach Cambridge Analytica that has
(24:46):
had that long shadow over years and years for Meta.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
So as we made absolutely clear just now but also yesterday,
this wasn't a case between the company and the shareholders.
It was specific e negatives and the board of directors.
Does that mean that's it? Now? That it's done, As.
Speaker 8 (25:05):
Far as I understand it, it is done.
Speaker 10 (25:07):
We are not going to see Mark Zuckerberg testify. We
are not going to see Peter Tiel testify. I think
that is a notable part of this story. We were
going to hear from the board members themselves. Just yesterday,
actually we heard from Jeff Science. This was a former
Facebook board member who also went on to be President
Joe Biden's chief of staff, and what came out of
(25:29):
that testimony was interesting. We heard from Science that ultimately
the board had considered negotiating with the FTC, proposing through
its lawyers that it would reach a multi billion dollar
settlement over at Cambridge Analytica, but only if Mark Zuckerberg
wasn't held personally responsible. So that is one glimpse into
(25:51):
the kind of evidence that can come out in a
trial like this, and one day in they've shut it down.
We are not going to hear from other board members
or the CEO.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Bludo's Riley Griffin on the metabat. Great reporting, Thank you
very much. Let's get to some deals news. Princeton Digital
Group is getting one point three billion dollars from alternative
investment firms Stone Peak, the funds that we used to
accelerate PDG's data center operations, which are across Asia. The
business already has over one point one gigawatts across six
countries in the region. Delighted to say we're joined by
(26:24):
PDG's chairman, CEO and co founder Rangu Salgam, who's joining
us late at night out in Singapore, and welcome to
the program. Let's just start with the basic mechanics. There
is an interesting equity investment going on here. Why did
you go down this route with the investor rather than
just kind of a straight equity kind of deal.
Speaker 9 (26:46):
Good morning, Ed, Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure
to be on a show.
Speaker 7 (26:49):
You know.
Speaker 8 (26:50):
PDG has grown at a phenomenal radar of the last
six years, as you mentioned, and we have three of
the world's largest investors Warburck, Binkers Ontario, Teacher's Mension Plan
and more La. And we are a juncture where we
thought it's a great time to have an alternative investor,
an infrastructure investor like Stone Pig coming. That gives us
tremendous level optionality how we can grow from here. For example,
(27:12):
Warburg still is interested to grow with the company. They
see a tremendous growth ahead and they having been in
the business for seven.
Speaker 9 (27:18):
Years, they have key to continue for some more time.
Speaker 8 (27:21):
So that with that in mind, an opportunity grow also
consolidate our position in the market by mergers and acquisitions
and other means. Gives us an opportunity to really scale
up like and be a market leader in this part
of the world. And Stone Peak really brought a tremendous
solution that fitted for what we are looking for. And
that position says well to capture the air growth that
(27:43):
just started off in Asia.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
We've got to talk about that air growth. But really quickly,
were there other investors knocking down your door other than
Stone Peak?
Speaker 8 (27:53):
Yes, I think we had a lot of interest in
the market of different folks than large private reforms as
well as out in funds and so on, and as
well as the insiders who are very keen and s
don't Peak turned out of the best solution for what
we're looking for.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
So the big question is what happens next? Right, RANGU,
you operate in six nations across Asia. What's the next market?
And when you think about the next market you enter,
how much is it part of the equation how quickly
you can build and start operations at any one facility.
Speaker 9 (28:26):
Yeah, that's a very important aspect of what the market
is looking for.
Speaker 8 (28:30):
If you look at what our customers look for, our
customers are large hyperscalers. These are some of the largest
tech companies from the West Coast. As you know, you
know there are two things that matter for these customers
when they are expanding in a market like Asia, they
want to look for partners who have an execution track record,
our track record that is UNPI impeccable in the market. Second,
they look for operators who have deep capital partners and
(28:52):
PDG brings both to this markets. With that in mind,
our strategy is not to expand in new markets. Get
into new markets like Australia and South Korea.
Speaker 9 (29:00):
That's on a plan.
Speaker 8 (29:01):
And second, deepen in the markets that we're already in
like Japan, like India, which are huge markets in the making,
and our strategies to go in and deepen in those
markets as well.
Speaker 9 (29:10):
As enter new markets.
Speaker 8 (29:12):
That gives us to be a great partner, a trusted
partner for the US cyberskillers who are expanding in these
markets at a rate like we have never seen before.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Rangu I think back to Meta's last earnings call and
the explanation that one of the reasons they raised the
capital expenditures get guidance and range wasn't just the commitment,
but it was the higher cost of doing business, the
higher cost in the supply chain for data center. Do
you see higher costs in your supply chain right now?
Speaker 9 (29:43):
Are not yet ed?
Speaker 8 (29:44):
We haven't seen the implications of any market dynamics that
are impacting our supply chain. We have a pretty much
good lock in over for the next couple of years
on a complete supply chain. And also the good news
is for US a large part of our supplier manufacturing
happens in Asia, and that gives is an edge in
terms of the cost.
Speaker 9 (30:02):
Being lower being part of the side of the world.
Speaker 8 (30:04):
So overall we are not seeing cost pressures yet at
the same time, we are seeing a tremendous level.
Speaker 9 (30:10):
Of supply opportunities. When it comes to power. For example,
they are parts of Asia where there's significant excess power
and good quality power.
Speaker 8 (30:18):
That gives U an opportunity to build these large scale
AI data centers which are closer to this good supply
of power at very reasonable cost, and that really positions
operators like WEDG in Asia very well in.
Speaker 9 (30:32):
The eyes of the large US hyperskillers.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Rang you, I know you just raised a significant chunk
of change that I got to ask about IPO and
when you're thinking about a listing.
Speaker 9 (30:44):
I think we are well positioned to do a couple
of things.
Speaker 8 (30:47):
Either do an IPO in the near term, there's a
trade cell opportunity, but the bigger exciting thing it is
to really consolidate a position in the market. We believe
the market tells us we are one of the two
or three top players in him pact, and then we grow.
At this page, we have an opportunity really consolid in
the market by making acquicisions and be a much bigger
scale in the next three to four years, and that
(31:07):
gives an opportunity for us to go public.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Rangusal Game Chairman, CEO and co founder of Princeton Digital
Group in the data center space. Great to have you
on the show. Now, coming up, Roadblocks CEO David Mazuki
joins us talk about the company's new age verification tech.
Will it work, How will it work? All the questions
to come. This is Bloomberg Tech gaming platform Roadblocks is
(31:45):
introducing a new feature for verifying users ages. Take a
selfie and the AI will estimate the user's age. If
the tech determines they're over thirteen, then the user will
have access to the new Trusted Connects feature where they
can chat freely with other Roadblocks users. Delighted to say
that joining us now is Roadblocks's CEO David Bzooki. Dave,
(32:08):
good morning, Thank you for being back on Bloomberg Tech.
I find d tech so interesting here. Could we just
go over the basics of how it works and why
this is the right technology for this issue.
Speaker 9 (32:22):
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 7 (32:23):
Know we've been innovating on safety and civility for almost
twenty years, and what we're rolling out today is our
vision for age based communication. Age based communication, especially for
teens thirteen through seventeen, which is a vulnerable time, involves
a couple things. First, trusted connections, so identifying friends and
(32:44):
people that you know and trust, and second, using age
estimation to enable trusted connections to.
Speaker 9 (32:52):
Actually allow those teens to speak a little.
Speaker 7 (32:55):
More freely on our platform, even though we do scan
the text for critical harms. And this is super important
because business notwithstanding, engagement notwithstanding, we're trying to keep people
on our platform so they don't jump to other platforms
where they may share images or where they may communicate
(33:15):
without text monitoring.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Dave, the skeptic here will say, well, well, how good
is the AI. How can the video and an AI
analysis of it analysis of it guarantee a correct result
that the person using it is indeed age thirteen or older.
Speaker 9 (33:35):
I want to highlight a couple of things.
Speaker 7 (33:36):
We've been innovating on AI for four years plus and
we're running over two hundred AI systems. We've open sourced
our voice moderation system because it's so good, and we've
really advanced the state of the art and text moderation
systems as well. This is age estimation. The AI is
really good. It's not perfect, of course, but we're leaning
(33:59):
conservative in that case, and I'll highlight we're using this
in a conservative way to enable freer communication that is
still monitored. So we've really thought a lot about it,
and we think this is the future of how teens
will communicate.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
In testing, what is the proportion bin of sort of
false positives and accurate results? And is there an element
of sort of human moderation in the first instance.
Speaker 7 (34:27):
Yeah, well I want to highlight there for historically there's
always been an element of moderation on roadblocks and all techs,
all voice, all images has always gone through moderation, including
AI and human moderation.
Speaker 9 (34:42):
So we have such a firm foundation for safety.
Speaker 7 (34:46):
We're using age estimation to in a way slightly free
up the communication. If you and I were fourteen on
roadblocks and you called me a butt head.
Speaker 9 (34:56):
I wouldn't see it. We'd see a bunch of hashtags.
Speaker 7 (34:59):
But it's the kind of a lot of teams like
to chat about. And when it's with people you know
and trust, we're open to letting them communicate more freely
in that way.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Dave is probably really helpful to put this in the
context of a case study example, and Grow a Garden
is probably the best right. So if you just bear
with me, and then we bring it back to product safety,
there are all of these teenagers wanting to be on
Grow a Garden and then share with their peers, right
their friends, their community of a similar age. How does
(35:30):
this new technology fit into the daily running of that
game and how players and users interact with one another.
Speaker 9 (35:40):
Yeah, thanks for highlighting Grow a Garden.
Speaker 7 (35:42):
Just as last summer, Dressed to Impress was going crazy
on roadblocks. Right now Grow a Garden, who sit over
twenty million people playing it at the same time, which
is actually a record, we believe for any game in
the history of gaming. People really want to hang out
with their friends and communicate. And up until now, if
you and I were fifteen and we were trying to communicate,
(36:04):
once again, we might see some hashes and some blocking
when we're.
Speaker 9 (36:07):
Trying to compete in the game.
Speaker 7 (36:10):
With the release of this, if we are trusted connections
and we can validate we're people we know and we trust,
and then we take a selfie to estimate our age,
we're going to be able to communicate more freely and
have possibly more fun and Grow a Garden and be
less likely to go to some other platform where maybe
we start sharing selfies or things that we don't allow
(36:32):
on roadblocks.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Right, Dave, is Grow a Garden the biggest game you've
had ever?
Speaker 7 (36:38):
Well, I think it's been very public. A couple of
weekends ago, we hit over thirty million people on roadblocks
playing at the same time, and for a moment in time,
Grow a Garden hit over twenty million people playing at
the same time. It's not just the biggest we've ever
had on roadblocks. That is, we believe the largest concurrent
(36:58):
player of any game in history.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
And just very quickly, Dave, would you just define largest
concurrent played?
Speaker 7 (37:07):
We believe from the Guinness Book of World Records that
twenty million is the largest concurrent players of any game
in real time in history.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Okay, understood what many people don't appreciate about Roadblocks is
the scale of your own infrastructure. I think that you
run yourself. You have a lot of footprint on prem
with all the activity. Are your servers and CPUs just
melting on Friday and Saturday nights or how are you
handling all of the traffic right now?
Speaker 7 (37:36):
Well, we do like it when our servers melt, as
long as we stay live and we stay up. And
what we have done over the last couple of years
is abstracted all of this infrastructure we have, and you're
absolutely correct. We believe we get better performance, better reliability,
and better cost building out all of our own data
centers around the world. We have started working with partners though,
(38:00):
and you know those partners as you're Amazon AWSGCP at
peak times to burst into their cloud as well, and
so we can run all of our own infro, but
for Saturday morning for two hours, we're actually relying on
some of these partners to hit those peaks.
Speaker 9 (38:18):
Dave.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
Roadblocks has been subject to a lot of scrutiny over
child safety, the feature that you're announcing today, but also
the sort of technological capability for you as the leader
of this company. Where does it rank and what you
think will sort of address those historic issues but also
just allow you to move forward in growing because you
have an ambition right to capture ten percent of the market,
(38:41):
and I'm just trying to understand how this piece of
tech allows you to tap into a demographic that will
get you there.
Speaker 7 (38:48):
We've been focusing on safety civility as top priority for
almost twenty years. We believe this is the future of
communication on social platforms, especiallys, and we believe the future
will be for teens in that vulnerable time, trusted connections,
plus some form of age estimation or verification or maybe
(39:11):
someday help from the phone vendors and other things, but
ultimately for private chat. We believe this is the future.
So we're we haven't been waiting for the law. We
haven't been waiting for legislation. We think this thirteen through
seventeen segment is just as important. It's thirteen and under
and eighteen and nine.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
We didn't even get to advertising on the platform. All
of the millionaires that are being minted through the platform.
Dave Bazooki, you have to come back, CEO of Roadblocks,
Thank you very much. Now coming up, Netflix readies to
release its results. What to expect from the streaming giant
that's coming up next. This is Bloomberg Tech. Netflix drops
(40:16):
earnings after the bell and no subscriber numbers won't be
in the script anymore. The hot scenes to watch out
for Netflix's operating margin forecast currently twenty nine percent. Will
advertisers keep tuning in? Is the ad tear ramps up
and can management tees out new growth from live sports
and big name content deals? And with that key stat
(40:37):
subscriber growth left on the cutting room floor, engagement could
steal the spotlight, especially with a killer second half lineup
Squid Game, Stranger Things, Wednesday, Knives Out, Taylor v. Serrano
three and even NFL and key track of price hikes?
Will they be padding the bottom line all year long?
Stay tuned because we've got more with Bloombo's Ryan Selica,
(41:00):
because this earnings episode might just be binge worthy puns aside, Ryan,
what's Wall Street's in?
Speaker 9 (41:08):
Hey?
Speaker 2 (41:08):
And thanks for having me on?
Speaker 11 (41:10):
So everyone is pretty optimistic about Netflix's position right now.
They continue to benefit from a lot of very strong
secular trends, not just the shift towards streaming, but also
their ability to continue growing ad revenue on their platform,
their continued embrace of live events like sports as a
way to further juice the sort of ad part of
the business.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
The only question is is all this expected?
Speaker 11 (41:34):
Is all this price into the stock and our expectations
too high? Given the stock has been one of the
real standout performers of the year.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Right year to date, the stock up forty one percent
so far in twenty twenty five. Netflix has been saying
for quite a long time, we want you to judge
us by normal financial metrics that all other industries and
companies are judged by. I said, we won't get that
subscribe account or subscribe a growth. So from a top
or bottom line perspective, what is it that we look
(42:03):
to in Netflix?
Speaker 11 (42:05):
I think anything they say about their outlook from here,
what they're going to be spending on content, their continued
ability to sort of improve efficiency and kind of improve
their cash flow, their earnings, all that is going to
be taking the place of subscriber numbers, especially since at
least here in the States pretty well saturated, are pretty
well positioned across the globe, so I think that might
be of less interest to people right now. But certainly
(42:27):
you mentioned all the content they have coming out. People
are very interested to see are some of the games
that we've been seeing already this year. Is that likely
to continue or are they do for some kind of
consolidation here. On a separate note, I'd also be very
interested on anything they say about competition from sort of
newer entrants, things like YouTube and TikTok, or those areas
where Netflix maybe faces some competition, as like new places
(42:49):
that people are going to view content.
Speaker 2 (42:52):
I pay for the non ad tear. I've just completed
Squid Game season three, I'm watching The Sandman. That's a
bit of a miss with me. But if I were
to pay for a tier where ads were involved, what
are we learning about advertising a Netflix's platform, Because this
is an industry wide thing right now.
Speaker 11 (43:12):
Yeah, we are seeing more companies start to explore these
kinds of options. Obviously, Netflix has a huge subscriber based
here in the States.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
You know, hundreds of millions of people use it.
Speaker 11 (43:21):
I think they even sort of automatically putting some people
on the ad tier because if people are watching it enough,
you're actually making more money with the ad revenue from
those viewers than you would beginning if they were paying
up for the higher tier that doesn't include advertising.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
Bloomberg's Ryan Plaseelca with the Netflix preview, thank you very much.
So that does it for this edition of Bloomberg Tech.
Stick with us. At twelve thirty PM New York time,
nine point thirty here in San Francisco, we have an
exclusive interview with the Lucid interim CEO Mark Winterhoff. With
that stock up more than forty percent, don't forget check
out the podcast. You know where to find it on
(43:56):
the Bloomberg Terminal and Bloomberg platforms, as well as online
on Spotify, iHeart and on Apple. From San Francisco, this
is Bloomberg Tech
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.