Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend - June 6th, 2025

Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.

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

Business as it insights.

The Bloomberg Business Week Daily Comcast with Carol Mass and Tim Sten Events Business Bloomberg Radio.

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

I want to bring in Anne Rimondi.

She is COO of Asauna, the productivity platform. She joins us here on set at the Bloomberg at the Bloomberg Technology Summit. Shares of asanafel by twenty percent on Wednesday. The company's first quarter results prompted a downgrade by HSBC, despite the fact that revenue came in right on the

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

Nice to have you here with us.

Great to be here. Good, it's so great to see both of you. And excited to be here at the conference.

It's great to have you here. We love the energy.

Tell us though, about this macro environment and the macro uncertainty.

That's still out there.

Yeah, I think a lot of it is just slowing down some of the bigger decisions that customers are making, whether that's site full spail transformation or a lot of larger consolidation initiatives. But the bright spots we're seeing is companies are leaning really heavily into AI and so that's

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

To five years.

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

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

I think what we're seeing.

With our customers though, is the ones that are kind of staying ahead. They see the opportunity right right now is human and AI collaboration. Because as far as you know, we're seeing, AI is not fully replacing entire jobs. I think what AI is really good at is automating a lot of tasks that right now could allow people to be more productive.

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

Think I'm in the physician to predict quite as well as Doris. But I do think we see, you know, with our customers. What we see is they're very intentional of there are some jobs that are likely the most likely to go away, the ones that are tasks that can be and in some ways you want to be replaced by AI so people can be doing things that are more creative and more productive. I think there are some jobs that will be changed with AI where A is going to be an integral part of how people

So I do think.

We're right in the midst of uh, you know, transformation at a rate that we probably haven't seen before.

But what we're really focused.

On is like helping companies manage through that transition by enabling their existing employees to embrace AI in their workflows.

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

Cycle is moving really quickly.

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

Moving really fastest. Yeah.

Well, one of the things that we're saying is like, at least for our business, why we're investing so heavily in AI is that we do see a shift ultimately from seat based in so to consumption base and so wanting to be ahead of that. I think the other thing that we're really seeing that's important to sort of focus on is like, how can the companies enable employees to understand how the LMS work be proactive in where they're applying and deploying AIG education.

Side there really there, really really is.

The other thing that we're seeing is you were mentioned like now everyone's using it, but what we're also finding is that when it is very bottoms up and in every single tool and everybody's got a chat bop, companies actually aren't realizing the either the productivity gains or the acceleration. The companies that are moving ahead are doing it in the very tops down coordinated way, which isn't always how technology has been adopted in the past.

But with AI, I think that.

Strategic view on where you're going to deploy AI is really critical to actually realize the gains.

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

Yeah, geographically for us, we're actually seeing quite a bit of strength internationally in emia in Japan.

Does that surprise us that?

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

But is this is this a function of actual strength in those economies or is it a function of these are the sectors.

That are finally adopting this technology.

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

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

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

Is that a good or bad thing for the tech community?

Oh?

I do not know if I am the expert to answer that question.

I wonder he's on there rate, you know, and he's he's I think Elon is going out on social I mean a little aggressive at this.

Point after being like this, it seems like I.

Think underlying what we should all be focusing on as Hey, with uncertainty in the global macro, what can we do to make sure the most important businesses and companies and innovations are being invested in and accelerating, right, or a different way to say it, Roumy is like we're trying to figure out, like how do we control the good roll levels? Yeah, and know that we're in a you know, relatively volatile and political environment.

Yeah, to say the least.

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

But what is kind of your take on that.

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

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

Yeah, I mean we're actively looking to you know, sort of balance from a fully seat based to a hybrid of seat based and consumption based. And we also think there's a sub segment of customers ultimately that may be spending more on consumption and we're already seeing early signs of that, probably in more like our mid market customers who are now spending as much on seat as they

Sort of shift in that direction.

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

Here's that cycle going to play out?

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

Bring to market.

Is that they will start to see a shift from payroll spend to sort of AI consumption spend. And you know, Tim,

That's Ann Ramandi, the chief operating officer of Asana.

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

This is Bloomberg.

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

Welcome back to a special edition of Bloomberg Business Week. Taking a look at some of our favorite conversations from the Bloomberg Tech Summit.

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

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

Dying to talk to him.

Flora Cybele joins us from Italy, Florid.

Good to have you with us. I know there's a little bit of delay.

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

So what we know not as in a way that they would act as being the ultimate weapon.

All of the drones that we are building are.

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

Do do your drones ultimately replace the capabilities of aircraft such as the U two spyplane.

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

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

To to fight off Russia because.

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

Have and and and then that's where we are. And you know, this is technology changing the way things happen.

Well, that's where Florine I kind of want to go. I think after that drone strike by Ukraine in Russia, we had so.

Many conversations in the newsroom.

About, oh my gosh, like warfare just continually to change very dramatically. My dad and his three brothers all thought in World War World War two, excuse me, a lot of hand to man to man combat was just a very different type of warfare. You know, we've seen the

You know, you use the word that that describes it quite well, which is gamification. You know, it's it's using a lot of technology that yeah, was spilling over from adjacent industries like cell phone technology. You know a lot of the small stuff chips, batteries, cameras that that they weren't just not available a few years ago to companies like US. And you know, the cell phone industry basically allowed us all to disrupt classical defense military companies because

It's it's not.

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

Florine, I am curious there is there somebody, an entity, a country that you will not sell to.

Well, you know, in Germany, all of what we do is very regulated, and so we have a German Export Control Authority which is called BATHA, which is very much in line with NATO and the German governmental official position, and so we have to we have to fulfill these guidelines and guard Yeah, and so it's basically impossible for us, you know, from a legal perspective, for example, to sell

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

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

Market was a must do for US.

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

Yeah.

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

Be Europe, will be the United States? What will you guys do it?

It's unclear at the moment.

Right now, we're doing very well.

We're probably going.

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

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

Yeah.

So you know, having lived in the United States and having met a lot of US investors in the last six, eight, ten years, you can definitely say that the spirit of go big or go home or think big is definitely part of Silicon Valley culture, whereas in Germany we have excellent engineering, I would say, at very decent price and

So it's so.

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

Who we are, who we want to be in that world, you know, and.

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

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

I think the future is unmanned. It's definitely about robotics and unmanned systems. The question is how fast will that happen. I think the UK has just brought up a new defense policy, they call it twenty forty forty, saying twenty percent will be or should be assets, classical assets like there used to be so man fighter jets, forty percent ISR and intelligence, and forty percent unmanned drike strike capability.

That's Florian Cybel, co founder and CEO of Quantum Systems.

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

This is Bloomberg.

This is the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Listen live each weekday starting at two pm Eastern on Applecarplay and the Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, Just say Alexa Play Bloomberg eleven.

Thirty Welcome back to a special edition of Bloomberg Business Week, taking a look at some of our favorite conversations from the Bloomberg Tech Summit.

Up next, we hear from r J Scarrange, the CEO of Rivian.

All right, we've got a really great guest. We want to get right to.

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

It seems like it's over and it's not going well.

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

Might play out here. Yeah, I mean, I think I testimony, Yeah, I.

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

On what we stand for, the products, the ratch meets.

And you know, there's a famous Michael Jordan quote which is we have Republicans. You know, he'said Republicans and Democrats both by Nikes.

And it's the same thing with Rivians. I'll go to Rivian events.

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

And so I think asking is if there's net positive effect for you from this environment on sales.

I think that's what she was asking.

I think you're benefiting from this environment movement?

Have you benefited from it?

I think there are a lot of customers who are looking for brand that they want to connect with, so that we're seeing that for sure.

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

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

So this is.

Something that you know, we're going to continue to be very focused on, continue to have concerns about until.

We start to see it really move.

What's your backup plan?

We have many backup plans.

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

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

Table that we forget about the yeah, yeah, but.

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

Complex motor product, but it does remove the complexity of global trade around the area.

Is a little time away.

Yeah, it's not.

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

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

Yeah, we've talked about the slide.

I mean, our relationship with suppliers and leverage we have with those supliers is so much stronger today with our two and what's to come than what we had, you know, in twenty nineteen or twenty twenty, even twenty eighteen. But I'd say the thing that's really helpful for us in our toos, it's not as if this is a surprise we saw you know, if you're going into summer of last year, we saw some of these tensions already rising between the United States and China, and that was.

As we were planning for and sourcing are two.

So we contemplated and in many ways anticipated a lot of these situations we're now dealing with in terms of tariffs, in terms of trade restrictions happening. So in the medium to long term, it's we're pretty well covered. In the short to medium term, you know, things get shut off. That's really challenging. And so that's where I think the Earth challenge is that if this this happens, we're off. It just creates a lot of pressure on a very thin non China supply chain.

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

So we spun this micromobility portion of Rivian out, and we actually raised outside capitals. We brought we brought one hundred and five million dollars in at the start of the.

Year, which is from a clip, which is from a clip.

Exactly right, and so it's now independently financed from Riview and it's you know, it's a really exciting set of products.

We're going to show those products in the fall.

But with the venture to look at even further outside happit til to get go in a little bit.

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

That's our Ja Scarringe, Rivian CEO.

Coming up next, we hear from Ahmed al Dahl, VP of Generative AI at Meta.

I want to just kind of set this up because Bloomberg News recently reporting artificial intelligence coding startup Replet is in talks.

It was in talks, maybe still in talks.

We'll find out with investors for a new funding round that would almost triple its valuation too, about three billion dollars.

That was according to people.

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

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

We're always in talks with investors. We've grown a lot, We've we've.

Grown just this year over ten x Uh.

You're talking about top like wow.

So you're always in talks until you're not. And you go public as a company, you're always in talks until you're not. Yeah, are you currently raising this route?

Things are moving winny fast. Okay.

So even when you're in talks and then you grow that much, you know, it's like.

I'm talk to us about that growth, Like, who is it that's tapping into what you guys are doing specifically?

Yeah, so you know, it's all sorts of people so replet as opposed to say, you know, cursor windsor for claud code or other things.

We're trying to make it so that anyone is a programmer.

So you you.

You know, I could encourage anyone of the audience to go to the app store on.

Their start making software.

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

Can go from an idea to a product without even talking to an engineer.

How does that happen?

So we created a software development agent. It was the first software development agent on the market. Now we got a lot of copycats, but basically, it takes the user command, breaks down the problem into different tasks, starts coding their different files, runs the program, tests, the program takes the screenshot, looks at it, and then talks to the user, Hey did I build what you told me to build?

And then there's a conversation with the user.

I just did a big piece on due Lingo, and so this is fresh on my mind.

They're a customer. They are a customers.

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

Chess on the platform.

Apparently it was created by a designer and a product manager.

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

So if product managers and designers are doing this, where does that leave software engineers.

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

But the fuel creating products anyone can make it now.

But their jobs, these specialized folks might be safe. But maybe you don't need as many of them as you do.

Now, that's that's safe to assume.

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

Wow.

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

Let me put it this way.

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

That limiting factor.

And I think that's gonna that's going to create a lot better products and services. Companies like dual Lingo can go from language to chess, and a lot.

New startups are going to be created.

Icy startups are all platform every day, and so the economy is just going to be a lot more dynamic.

Are you doing the inference on your platform? Are you doing it for it's on your platform? We or do you use do you have to contract that out to a third party?

So we uh so, meaning what kind of models?

So we so we use a collection of models, some of them we trained and hosted, but we rely a lot of it on a topic. We rely on on some Google models like Gemini, Flash and clod Code. Uh you know, these are what's what's happening in the l M space is that there's so many tools out there, open source, tool source whatever. As an application layer company, our job is created the best product possible, whether we have whether we pick you know.

The model off the shelf or chaine our model. It's engineering. It's not AI research, it's engineering. I'm John.

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

So you're right, small sizes where we're seeing the most growth. But in terms of contract value, it tends to be mid market and enterprise. We have Fortune five hundred companies and the way they use it is to unblock. Everyone in the enterprise has ideas to improve the business. But there's a limited number of engineers, and so these people are seeking the tools. Yeah, and it's starting to be productive with them and repletus them.

There's one of the big tools.

Yeah, that's Ahmed al Dahl, vice president of generative AI at Meta that does it.

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

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

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

There's this common refrain that if it's connected to the internet, Carol, it can be hacked.

It feels like a really smart thing to be like kind of keep in mind, like, Okay.

We know computers and like our email accounts can be hacked, but what about baby monitors, doorbell cameras, routers, and yes, even the humble washing machine.

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

No Window has led teams building protections into.

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

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

So your B to B correct, we are your B to B.

So what is the infrastructure that you create that protects my doorbell from being.

A sure So we build the capabilities that the device developers can incorporate into their products that allow them to reduce the attack surface of these devices, which means the number of entry points into the system or the areas that are most vulnerable, like the device is most vulnerable during update and update is one of those things that's really hard to get right and really easy to get wrong. Yeah, so because it gets implemented differently in every different environment.

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

How often does that happen?

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

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

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

It's actually a struggle.

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

What would you say to that.

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

So you've got an Aura ring for our listeners in an Apple Watch exactly.

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

That's I would.

I would welcome a hacker to make my printer work better, That's.

What I would.

So you're talking about hacks, right, Like why do I care about my printer?

You know, like what is it? Is there already mess stop?

But is it a case that it doesn't work or are you saying that there's a security thing we need to be concerned about.

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

The weakest link essentially exactly.

So I take back what I said about a hacker going into my printer.

I do not welcome that, all right.

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

But I mean, does that make a home more vulnerable?

Or like, how do you I don't know, like what things shouldn't we automate or use technology?

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

In from the start.

Should we have that here in the US.

We definitely need to make sure that device makers are doing the work.

That's Windows Snyder, CEO of Thistle Technologies.

Up next, we'll hear from Jennifer Downa. She is founder of the Innovative Genomics Institute and Nobel Laureate in Chemistry.

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

We have to scale the approach.

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

Jennifer, is this the holy grail in terms of fixing all that ails us?

Like?

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

That where this comes?

Well maybe in the future.

I think at the moment, I think what we're looking at in the near term is an opportunity to fix rare.

Disease, right, mut I mean this in a good way, and.

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

Disease yeah, exactly how do we get there?

Ye like, what do you like?

How do what's what's needed? Is it twenty and also how long?

Well, I think a couple of things.

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

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

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

Is that at risk right now?

It's a risk, it is.

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

A lot of them become.

Entrepreneurs here in the Bay Area and elsewhere. They drive the future with innovation.

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

Need federal money, you know, to do R and D.

So help us understand why that is so important for America and our academic universities and institutions to have that federally funded research.

Why is that so important?

Well, it's very important because we need to fund the kind of out there, high risk but potentially very high benefit research that drives the future.

Companies aren't going to do that.

Investors don't want to put money into things that are unproven, and.

The university you're going to do that on their own?

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

Can do maybe more than the rest of us.

But most universities simply do not have the funding to support them.

I want to push because you understand this world.

So what if they say, well, wait a minute, so don't build another football stadium or don't you know what.

I mean, like spend that money on doing R and D if it's.

So important, right, But I think you know, the thing to understand is that the federal government has traditionally invested in science, really since World War Two. It ended in a way that has returned more than two and a

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

Dollars last year. That's according to Feel FORMA. What's going on here.

I think that, you know, I've been around a few years and I've seen I've seen some cycles, you know, and this is not unexpected in biotech.

This has happened before.

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

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

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

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

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

Groups working on that.

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

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

I'm always curious about that disconnect.

It's a big business, right, taking care of all of us and what ails us, especially as we get older.

It is, and you know, both cancer and heart disease are really.

Multiple diseases, aren't they Right.

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

That's Jennifer dudda founder of the Innovative Genomics Institute and a Nobel Laureate in chemistry.

You're listening to a special edition of Bloomberg Business Week. Coming up more conversations from our trip out west to the Bloomberg Tech Summit. I'm Carol Masser with Tim Stenoviek.

This is Bloomberg.

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

Welcome back to a special edition of Bloomberg's Business Week, taking a look at some of our favorite conversations from the Bloomberg Tech Summit.

Up next, we hear from Peggy Johnson, CEO of Agility Robotics.

Robots and warehouses doing repetitive tasks that humans now do, but doing them better and not getting injured.

Carold.

It sounds like the stuff of the future, But Agility Robotics is one of the few companies that's doing this right now.

Yeah, they really are. Check us out. It's got five foot nine inch robots.

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

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

Welcome.

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

Well, we have gone beyond testing.

We are actually commercially deployed as of one year ago in GXO facilities, which is a third party logistics provider who sends spanks out.

At this point, we do we do so how many are out there in the field right now?

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

Peggy, is it all about logistics at least for the beginning and for a long time, Like, I'm.

Just curious how this explodes.

Yeah, that was the right entry point for a couple of reasons. One is the robot is capable of doing that today.

It was made for work.

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

They're just hard jobs.

Have caused a lot of injuries and things. Hard to fill these jobs. So because of that demand, we are able to bring our robots in.

How expensive are they and how quickly it kind of makes sense?

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

Yeah? Right now we talk about them in the rain, very low volume of say a luxury vehicle, but that's coming down.

Very very quickly. With volume.

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

The big risk that by the way, we're speaking with Peggy Johnson, CEO of Agility Robotics.

Peggy, the sort of.

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

How do you do that?

Because that seems to be something that is really really challenging.

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

It keeps humans back.

Because human's back and not robots.

Case robots, yeah right, because they're.

Very I'm thinking about they're very curious.

Humans want to get in there and see them, So it keeps humans back. But the robots themselves are human sized and sometimes they fall, they trip, or you know, things just like humans do. And so you have to be able to handle those situations in a very controlled manner. Sometimes they're carrying fifty pounds of weight. That has to be something that you bring the robot down in a very controlled way so that no one gets hurt.

You don't want an arm coming around. How do you do that? Super challenging.

We figured it out at Agility and we'll be demoing that before the end of the year. It's called cooperative safety. We can be around humans.

You know. One thing that I've learned over the last few months is that China is doing this really, really well.

We have reports that there's a higher density of robots for human on Chinese factory floors.

Than here in the US and then here in Japan.

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

Now are we behind?

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

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

I think we are still ahead. We have not seen first of all, safety incorporated in their humanoids.

You must have safe humanoids.

You cannot let them out of the work cell where the big markets are without that.

You need an e.

Stop for instance, an emergency stop on the back.

You need to hit that.

If something goes wrong. It's just like an electronic bing.

Can I get one for this?

They do have that in the World Robot, the best selling children's book. Well they do.

Okay, See they're ahead.

They are ahead.

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

So a couple of things.

We are actually working with US government on the standards for humanoids.

None exists right now.

They need to work with on that. We work with a group called A three and they then input the results of that into folks like oh ship.

Part of defense?

Oh no, would would it go under David all.

Crept?

It will probably cross paths with David.

At some point, all right, so continue.

So you need you need that.

But we've taken safety seriously from day one. Because of the power in these machines, you have to take it seriously. If if a program, if something should happen, you don't want an arm to fling around and knock you over and do perhaps more damage. So that and also the data on it has to stay very protected. Just like anything in a corporate IT infrastructure, You've got to keep the data protected. So we think of all of those things.

Are they using data from the cloud, do they have their own like on site on premise both.

We have quite a bit of compute on the robot itself and we're also connected to the cloud. We need to step into an enterprise environment, so we have to plug into their warehouse management systems. We have to talk to the other types of robots like autonomous mobile carts and conveyor belts. Those are all types of automation and we have to talk to all of those in order to work safely in that environment. And by the way, to take over those tasks that they can't find humans for.

We have to be able to plug in as if.

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

Well, we're here today with our robot who will walk autonomously onto the stage today and upon my input, will execute on my commands.

So that's one big.

Difference, and it sounds like the Figure AI robot does not.

Do that at this point.

I haven't seen it. Okay, possibly has anyone seen it?

I don't know.

Okay, I couldn't you care?

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

I could see like a little cage match.

Between actually that you've seen some video over in China.

Yeah, different robots.

Kind of digit and like a Figure AI robot.

Yeah, we actually have really taken a stand that we would never arm our general purpose robots. If we do as we first and foremost have to have trust with the humans.

So we won't talk that The fact that you have to say that I think.

Is the story.

No, it is a story like I'm thinking we just talked.

About drones in terms of yeah, that's impacting warfare, and I just think about all this stuff getting into the wrong hands, like how.

Do we control that.

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

Right.

My point is our current general purpose robots are not meant for that at all, and because we need to build trust in the environment.

Well, you never will you rule out ever using your robots for security place.

I mean, we've never ruled that out.

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

Yeah, I will say that that is terrifying.

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

Museum for us.

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

I think better to have a robot.

I think it doesn't have to be armed.

It doesn't. Yeah, in a hazardous situation there's been some sort of nuclear problem, send a robot in, don't you know?

Send in humans?

I want to ask you.

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

Take us there?

Well, I think that world doesn't happen first until their safety. So we have to show that these robots can be side by side with humans in a very safe manner. But then you should think of it as a tool. And the same way farmers used to plow fields with oxen, and now they have machines that do it. This will be a tool that will give you choice. Some people might want to use their robot to cook. You might enjoy cooking. You say no, just do the laundry.

For me.

So that or you should think of it as giving you choice to take manual labor.

Off your head.

So we could have every household has their own humanoid.

I would wind to do like tasks like it'll be affordable.

I would say two hours a night, right, it's like every day.

I mean you could see every household having absolutely yeah, yeah, where.

We let you go? Funding?

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

Can you give us an update? Has that round closed?

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

It can take full shifts.

It's got many more rounds ten seconds. How many more rounds of financing?

Of course?

I think this is it.

That's Peggy Johnson, CEO of Agility Robotics.

You're listening to a special edition of Bloomberg Business Week. Coming up more conversations from our trip out west to the Bloomberg Tech Summit. I'm Carol Messer with Tim Stenebek.

This is Bloomberg.

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

Welcome back to a special edition of Bloomberg Business Week, taking a look at some of our favorite conversations from the Bloomberg Tech Summit.

Up next, we hear from o c Emilkpari, a CEO of Code with Class.

For years, we have been talking easily about learning to code being pretty much a guarantee to getting a good job.

Keep in mind, just learn the.

Code, Carol, That's what you said.

Learn, you know, let your kids grow up to be coders, because basically every company is a technology company and they need coders to kind of manage their businesses, grow their businesses.

It's been all about that.

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

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

Hi, friends who spoke.

A lot has happened. I don't think we talked about AI at all.

No, we didn't have time.

So that's the question that I have for you.

Are we are we in an environment right now where we should actually be telling these young kids.

To learn how to code?

Yeah?

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

There is a lot that you can.

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

These are all skills that we.

Believe are transferable to problem solving in any domain.

What's it? It's called code.

With COLOSSI now called code with coloss Yeah?

Should it be called code with classy? Should it be called something else?

Well? Maybe?

I mean we're not really it's a term that you would use to.

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

That really, we are.

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

And so the point that we're.

Making is that technology is infused in all parts of our life. And if you want to have a fruitful career, you should know fundamental technology skills.

But what kind of technology skills I before or describe that?

You know, the advantages of.

People learning to recognize patterns and some different things. And it said to me, Wow, God, that sounds like AI

Sure, so when you think about producing a product in the world, there's more than just developing the code, right. Part of it is understanding what is possible with technology? What's the problem I want to solve first and foremost with technology? How do I make trade offs among all the different features that I might put in that product.

Right before we.

Let you go, we just spoke to Tom Giles, our senior executive editor for Global Technology here and he said, one of the big takeaways is the conversation and tech policy and what's going on in Washington. And I'm curious because you worked at tech companies, you worked in philanthropy, You've worked in politics, you worked on Hillary Clinton's twenty sixteen campaign. When it comes to tech policy right now, what is the White House doing right and wrong? In your view when it comes to tech?

Well, look, I think the Executive Order sort of highlighting the importance of having AI education broadly accessible.

I think that is.

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

That's O. C. M.

Yolkparia, CEO of Code with Classy Up.

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

New one that debuted I think about three months ago.

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

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

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

Thinking in the mission here.

Yeah, I mean, be careful before you go to a dinner with a group of friends, because you might end up starting a podcast. The five of us had a dinner and last ball. It was a fun, feisty conversation about the tech industry, and we joked at that dinner,

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

Sex and the City for nerds maybe, yeah. And I think what we try to do is demystify a lot of the headlines everyone seeing. I mean, the five of us have worked in tech our whole careers as investors, operators, founders. My co host Sally has been in media herself, and so we try to break down like the biggest headlines, the biggest topics in tech and make them accessible, especially to a younger generation of people coming into this industry.

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

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

You're not saying any names, but I know, I think I know who you're talking about.

There may be a podcast. It's a group of four.

Men who are very loud.

As I did watch Me Loud on HBO.

I don't know if you watch Mountainhead on HBO.

Just onto fun fact, I worked for one of those podcast hosts back in the day.

What did you.

Well?

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

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

Platform to maybe help that. Yeah, and also as venture capitalists in your own right.

Totally, And I mean I'm an emerging fund manager myself. I have to raise money for my fund, and so it's very much a thing, listen. I think just having examples of people who are maybe underrepresented, who are visible, who are doing the thing and putting ourselves out there. I mean, we're very much in this like anti DEI era, which which comes with both I think some negative implications for how people and are focusing their time and efforts.

Actually, just push back against EO, push back against women, push back against anyone who maybe isn't just a.

White male born in America. That's kind of how it feels right now.

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

Hearing something and not liking it. So tell me about that, and how does it make it also harder for you guys to raise money?

Yeah, I mean I am at a small fund. Yeah, And so I'm not too worried about President Trump watching this interview and coming at me and listen. I think at the end of the day, my job as an investor is to fund the very best founders I can find. I do super early stage investing really is a bet on the founder. I don't have a diversity mandate. We never have a coalition, but we have very diverse networks, the diverse pipeline of deals, and so we have a

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

Where are you seeing the money go well, I mean.

Excited about a lot of the macro trends that other people are. I have a partner who is actively building a company in the AI space called trib Ai. We see incredible aideal flow from her, and she so sort of really has a real time pulse on what the biggest AI platforms are doing, how enterprises are adopting. I have another platfor partner who runs city Block Health, which

These moments of change.

Ore where the most opportunity comes from.

That's actually my co host of the Great Chat podcast, and that.

Does it for this special edition of Bloomberg Business Week, focusing on our favorite conversations from the Bloomberg Tech Summit this past week in San Francisco.

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