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Block's Bullish Nature, Disney's Succession Plans

Oct 21, 202442 min
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Episode description

Bloomberg's Ed Ludlow and Caroline Hyde discuss Muddy Waters founder Carson Block's bullish stance on US equities. Plus, Disney gives an update on their C-Suite plans as James Gorman is set to join as Chairman, and Taiwan's chips enthusiasm, a conversation with Premiere Cho Jung-tai on their manufacturing and trade future. 

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Transcript

Speaker 1

Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.

Speaker 2

From Marhart where Innovation, money and power Collie in Silicon Valley NBN. This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline.

Speaker 3

Hyde and Ed loved Love.

Speaker 4

Live from London and San Francisco.

Speaker 5

This is Bloomberg Technology coming up close your eyes and by Why Muddy Waters founder Carson Block is bullish on big tech.

Speaker 6

Plus the future at Disney's Kingdom. Details on the company's new leadership moves and CEO succession plans.

Speaker 5

Plus we'll hear from the Taiwanese premiere on the country's thriving chip business. But first quick check on these markets, which are perhaps taking a slight pause ahead of some weeks. I focus in on crypto ed we're down by more than two percent there. We've actually seen more than two billion flow into ETFs. Of course, at Byspot Bitcoin, for example, we were near seventy thousand dollars. We're just pulling back slightly as risk sentiment changes ahead of all important earnings week,

all important election in the next coming two weeks. But we focus in on crypto just to show us what risk sentiment's released showing us today.

Speaker 7

But you looking at the micros, Yeah.

Speaker 6

There's a few tech stocks that we're following throughout the show. Disney has named former Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman as its new chair of the board and promising to name a new CEO early twenty twenty six.

Speaker 7

Will bring you the details.

Speaker 6

Microsoft has some new AI agents it's taking on salesforce. We go to our correspondent on that and look at the US listed shares of Taiwan. Semikinducts are actually continuing to gain momentum. We have a very important interview with Taiwan's premiere where we talk about the golden jewel of their industry, but also some of their energy needs. The broader context of what's happening in Semikindum is for that nation.

Speaker 7

You don't want to miss it. Halfway through the.

Speaker 4

Program, Carrot, we don't.

Speaker 5

Meanwhile, we returned to the macro picture because earlier today Muddy Waters Capital founder Carson Block joined Bloomberg Television and he oftened this pretty bullish advice on the Magnificent seven.

Speaker 8

There's a debate as to what really drives when you talk about the US market, especially the S and P five hundred or the mag seven. I'm in the camp that, although I haven't I don't have the facility with math to really try to prove this out. But I'm in the camp that believes of what drives that index are flows. And so at the end of every month, US workers, you know a lot of them, their paychecks go into their four one case, which are retirement funds, and there's

a robo bid for the stocks. And what happens is you reduce the effective supply of stock because you're taking out the active owners of stocks that will decide, Hey, at this part, I'm a seller at a lower price, I'm a buyer, and you're replacing that with a holder that will never sell unless and until it has outflows because people are drawing down the retirement accounts. So, according to that view, as long as the labor market is reasonably strong in the US, which it is, you're not

going to see outflows. You're just going to continue to see inflows, especially in those you know, in the most heavily weighted names in the the S and P five hundred.

Speaker 9

So I have in the past few.

Speaker 8

Years, I have looked back on my career as an activist short seller and you know, kind of done the math and felt like well, you know, I probably could have just been levered long the S and P five hundred, deferred my taxes and gone through a lot less BS and being more or less the same possession financially. So yeah, I mean that that does make the market more fragile, But there's a FED put.

Speaker 9

There's always a FED put. You know.

Speaker 8

Does there come a point in time when the system breaks and the FED can't fix it? Theoretically yes, in our lifetimes. I don't know. So I think for now it probably just pays not the thing too much, just close your eyes and buy you know, probably MAG seven.

Speaker 5

Muddy Water's Capital founder Carson Block. There, let's bring in another take, Semashar, chief Global Strategist, that principal asset management are many that you're talking to feeling you should just close your eyes and buy back mag seven.

Speaker 10

Still here, Well, Hi, Carol, I think there is that continued demand for MAG seven, And I agree with a lot with what was just said, and that the environment is it's almost a sweet spot for US equates. You've got the fair put, you've got generally a strong economy. There's a couple of risks out there, but they're actually more near to him risk, something that we wouldn't necessarily expect them to have a sustained impat on the market.

So from that perspective, yes, the US still looks really attractive and the MAG seven rather than just being a short term play, I think a lot of people, including ourselves, are looking at that MAX seven as something which is going to deliver.

Speaker 3

Not just for this year, but you know, it's more of a.

Speaker 10

Strategic as allocation play that we want to continue to have exposure to those.

Speaker 3

Having said that.

Speaker 10

In a positive environment for your sequities, with rates coming down and growth still.

Speaker 3

Fairly solid, you should see a broadening out.

Speaker 10

I think there's opportunities in other parts of the market which maybe are not as expensive. I haven't really seen even some of that catch up trade post COVID, so I think there's opportunities everywhere, But sadly MAX seven does deserve to continue to have that place in a portfolio.

Speaker 6

Seemac Carson's core idea is that the market, particularly those Max seven stocks, will be supported because retirement money is kind of on autopilot, right It just comes in and that supports the index level.

Speaker 7

How does that impact your job if you're.

Speaker 6

Really genuinely interested in the technology sector as an investor.

Speaker 3

So I think he's right in there.

Speaker 10

There is always going to be that play, you know, that continued stream into the MAX seven. Remember also so that the MAC seven because of because of that cash levels, because they're considered a bit of a safety defensive play almost on the US and kind of in the US market, that it's almost some of that like a continuous stream of where some are considered it's going to be fairly consistent throughout and to his point, until it isn't, it

will continue to attract flows. So I think that that does come into the thesis, and we have seen that play out over the last couple of years when things get a little bit tough, MAC seven almost becomes our safety traits.

Speaker 3

So I think that still holds.

Speaker 10

It's just that there's probably going to be other opportunities that also retund investors should probably be considering outside of just the MAC seven.

Speaker 6

This week kind of starts earning season in earnest for technology. How important is this quarter of all quarters, especially given that we have now seen the FED move in reducing rates.

Speaker 10

So I think I'm going to every quarter is going to be more important than the last in terms of whether it's going to maintain the randy going forward.

Speaker 3

For take obviously everyone is. You know, the eyes on the tech sector are probably.

Speaker 10

Increasing with each earning season because the expectations in consideration of the fact that valuations are quite frothy, that there's always those eyes can say are they going to continue to deliver? Can they deliver on those very lofty expectations that investors have, So we do need to see that continued delivery. But actually I still think that Look, let's say we work together at disappointing quarter where you see a slight pullback

in their performance relative to expectations. It doesn't necessarily sound the death now, it's just probably a bit of a a recalibration of expectations back to something which is a little bit more realistic. But then as we look at over a couple of quarters in years, I think investors will still believe that mag seven, particularly with the AI narrative, have.

Speaker 3

Still got something to deliver.

Speaker 5

I want to go exactly there, Seema, and we turn to our great control room to bring up what's happening within video with the like of Palo Alto Networks as well, but more broadly in video of course, the AI trade up to a new record high. It's see though other key cybersecurity names like Palo Alto Networks also on the higher side today and a new record high too.

Speaker 4

How important is the.

Speaker 5

Nvidia, the chip sector, the AI trade to keep on leading these sorts of gains.

Speaker 3

They are important. I do think they're reducing in importance though.

Speaker 10

Because of you know, this fairly strong constructive econmic backdrop that we have, But we do feel some continued enthusiasm about obviously about invidiot about AI generally and other sectors are the companies that can continue to benefit from AI? And you just have to look at chips and just say, look at the ones which are related to AI and the ones which are not AI related. And you can

see the quantum verification coming through in the market. So there's a clear favorite with regards to that narrative, and investors are focusing on where can AI play a really strong part. There's the first I guess the first generation like Nvidia, But what are the other next companies that could stand to benefit from this this new theme that is playing out in the market.

Speaker 5

See when we love talking to you because you can go cross asset too and David and the team of at Goldman Sachs go cross asset again today for US as well, because on the flip side of what Carson Block is saying, they're saying, actually, look, the S and P five hundred cannot keep up the rate of returns that were used to. In fact, we're only going to an annuallyze three percent return in the future, for example, because they're gonna go to bonds, We're going to go

to other assets. Are you seeing investors wanting to go there out of equities?

Speaker 10

So cerdly from an aster allocation perspective, we do think that this is also the time to have exposure to fixed income. You know, if you want to go safety, then you should be long duration. But to get that pick up in terms of yield income kind of play over the US the strength of the US economy, then credit is your place to be.

Speaker 3

So, but I think there's a lot of opportunities out there.

Speaker 10

Specifically with regards to the three percent return going forward. I think that it is true that you're not likely to see the same kind of returns that we've enjoyed for.

Speaker 3

The last ten to fifteen years.

Speaker 10

A lot of that narrative was driven by the fact that the Third had and other central banks around the world had kept rates really, really low, which we're not anticipating going forward.

Speaker 3

We see where it cut's.

Speaker 10

Returning to that incredibly easy Montreal policy of zero bunjeet expansion. So it does mean that the mass is a little bit more onerous for equities, but it's still a compelling proposition.

Speaker 3

It's just that in this environment, there are.

Speaker 10

Opportunities across I think across all of risk assets, and it makes sense for investors to have their diversification because it actually continues to.

Speaker 3

Deliver at this point.

Speaker 6

Semashar, chief Global Strategist at Principal Asset Management, thank you very much.

Speaker 7

The new chairman of Disney's board.

Speaker 6

Today, the company announced James Gorman will take on the role of chairman in twenty twenty five, while also announcing that a new CEO will be revealed in early twenty twenty six. Bloomberg's Felix Jellette joins us and look. James Gorman, former Morgan Stanley CEO, has been leading this succession chase since August. But why is he now taking on the additional responsibility of being chairman if Disney's Bullard overrule.

Speaker 11

Well, I think Disney's been telegraphing this for a while, and Gorman's.

Speaker 12

The new face of the board.

Speaker 11

He's got a strong track record in terms of succession. Succession is the number one issue in Disney's future.

Speaker 12

Who's going to replace Bob Iger.

Speaker 11

He doesn't have the same baggage that his predecessor did in terms of you know, what went wrong in you know, the previous Disney succession plans.

Speaker 12

So I think this makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 11

In terms of just elevating him and giving him formal role. In terms of making this next choice.

Speaker 5

Mark Parker retires James Gorman to the helm from a board level, take us back to the CEO, and who are the names in the running here internally and maybe even externally.

Speaker 11

Yeah, I mean, I think at this point it's you know, the four direct reports to Iiger, the head of Parks, the head of TV, the head of movies, and the head of ESPN, and you know everyone the kremlinologists at Disney. Everyone's very eager watching all of this, speculating about you know, who's up who's down. I think the company's done a pretty good job at this point of keeping its cards close to its vest if there is.

Speaker 12

A leading candidate.

Speaker 11

At this point, it really hasn't gotten out and so I don't think this move changes that at all.

Speaker 6

We're gonna have to wait a few weeks until Disney has earnings. But based on post Netflix, how is Disney doing right now?

Speaker 12

I mean, Disney's had a good last year.

Speaker 11

When you think about the recent Emmy's probably the strongest Emmy performance in the company's history. On the TV front, you know, winning with Showgun The Bear Inside Out Too delivered hugely for the company. After a bunch of stumbles on the film side, you know, the parks have been a little bit more mixed. And in terms of ESPN's future, still dealing with the transition to direct to consumer.

Speaker 12

There's a lot of open questions.

Speaker 11

Still about the company's future, but you have to say it's been a little bit better, especially on the entertainment side.

Speaker 7

Bloombergs Felix to let out in New York City. Thank you so much, Carol.

Speaker 4

What you're looking at, I'm looking at Microsoft.

Speaker 5

It's actually down today, but it's ramping up its AI rollout ed launching a new set of guess What AI tools designed to send emails, managed records, are the business related tasks for more.

Speaker 4

We've been in Bloomberg's Brody.

Speaker 5

Ford who must be getting a little bit sick of AI agent's autonomous agents Agent force.

Speaker 4

It is competitive.

Speaker 13

Everybody wants to have an agent now, you know. It seemed like for a year and a half everybody was building a co pilot, even if they didn't call it that, right, every software company had a little box on the side that I could, you know, ask hey, could you draft me this email? Or you know, what's the six biggest cities in Germany? But I think what a lot of software companies have found is that, you know, users, sometimes it's not natural to go ahead and think about, oh

what should I ask this agent, ask this copilot? And so now a lot of companies are leading into this agent's idea, which is we're going to have you know, ten tasks that are pretty easily replaceable by AI, and we're going to have it run largely by itself and do that in the background.

Speaker 6

This puts Microsoft in competition with Salesforce, and if you're on X you will have seen Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff talk a lot recently about Microsoft's AI tools. Just explain how they're in competition.

Speaker 13

Brady, Yeah, so this is the segment of Microsoft which competes with Salesforce and some other SaaS companies. You know, it's all about CRMs, supply chain management, things like that. And they both want to have the hat of we are leading AI in the SaaS field, right, because most SaaS companies have somewhat struggled to really have a good coherent AI strategy that is currently making money, and so each of them want to kind of lead it forward.

Benioff has always, you know, done a good job getting pressed by, you know, throwing shots at competitors, and this is certainly in that tradition.

Speaker 7

Bndke's Brady Ford on all things Microsoft AI Agent, Thank you very much. Up here on Bloomberg Technology.

Speaker 6

Details on Russia's major hack on the nation of Georgia ahead of that country's upcoming elections.

Speaker 7

Important reporting coming up next. This is Bloomberg Technology.

Speaker 6

Okay, it's time for talking tech and first up, Process says it's e commerce divisions expected to surge more than nine hundred and fifty percent this fiscal year. Adjusted earnings before interesting taxes will be four hundred million dollars in the twelve months ending in March. The company's new CEO for Britzy Obilisi may the announcement earlier today and will

join Bloomberg's London Tech summit tomorrow. Plus, Looman Technologies and Meta have announced a partnership in support of Meta's AI ambitions. The agreement will provide dedicated interconnection for Meta's infrastructure that the company says will be crucial for future AI development. And Russia has been operating a multi year hacking campaign targeting the nation of Georgia. That's according to documents and

technical reports seen by Bloomberg News. The comprehensive espionage attack focused on Georgia's Foreign Ministry, finance ministry, Central Bank, and key energy and telecommunications providers and carry.

Speaker 7

Let's get a lot more on that story, such.

Speaker 4

A significant report. We go to Bloomberg's Alberto.

Speaker 5

Nadali, who really was leading the charge here along with colleagues. Alberto, just how how is Russia managing to hack on such a significant degree.

Speaker 14

Well, I think the thing to understand about Russia in terms of countries like Georgia was that it targets them with disinformation and then it puts great efforts into these hacks and looking for vulnerabilities within critical infrastructure, looking for vulnerabilities within government ministries, and spent a lot of time doing that, and that allows.

Speaker 9

Them eventually to.

Speaker 14

Enter these systems undetected and for years to gather information and very seriously and worryingly here put them in a position also to commit potential acts of sabotage.

Speaker 6

The headline is severe, right, Russia targeting a nation state with these hacks. But how serious were they Alberta and what was their impact?

Speaker 14

I think the key point is the severity of these hacks, because we're not talking about things like denials of service that take a website down for a couple of hours.

There were two main aspects to this operation. The first was gathering intelligence, so they were able to gather information such as the emails of government officials, the emails of employees working in key companies, So they were able to put themselves in a position that, had they wanted to and had the need arisen, let's say, they would have been able to sabotage key bits of the country's critical infrastructure, such as arts of the energy grid, telecommunications or railways,

oil terminals and things like that.

Speaker 6

Severe in your reporting, did you get a sense of what Russia's goal was here, what its motivation in doing this was.

Speaker 14

So on the one hand, it's gathering information. So for example, if you look specifically at the hack of the Foreign Ministry, they were targeting and gathering information about key Georgian embassies in places like the European Union, countries in the Baltics, so countries that and areas that Russia has an interest

in and is looking at. And the second strategic objective, let's call it, is to put itself in a position that if politics in the country, if Georgia goes in a direction that Russia does not like, it, then has the ability to take things are set further and commit these acts of sabotage, such as targeting electricity grids or telecommunications systems. And it's a pattern. For example, we've seen elsewhere they've done similar in the past in Ukraine.

Speaker 6

But this was deep reporting, right, this was investigation through documents.

Speaker 7

But did Russia, through.

Speaker 6

Any official channels, have anything to say any comment about the reports.

Speaker 14

Usually what happened is we ask for comment and they never reply. And then after a while you will see in a press conference or in a statement of Ministia Foreign affairs or some other government department will refer to stories in Western media, and so that's where we might I'd expect there to be a reaction in the coming days.

Speaker 6

And equally, this is contemporaneous, right. The elections in Georgia are this week, I believe. So, you know, we talked about the severity and the impact. But will this nation be able to proceed, you know, with its democratic process kind of free of any interference in that sense.

Speaker 14

I think the elections obviously will take place. What tends to happen if if you look, for example, of the elections that took place this week and nearby and in Moldova, there were reports of Russia paying people to vote in a certain way, intense campaigns of disinformation, and so you will have a similar environment in which these elections take place, and then depending on the results of the votes, you'll see what happens next.

Speaker 6

This was a reporting you did with our colleague Ryan Gallagha. You know, without giving it away, what happens next? Where does your reporting take you?

Speaker 14

We report a lot. We keep reporting on what Russia does in the world in terms of these so called hybrid campaigns or the use of this information and hacking, and you know, non military methods to try and achieve its goals, and then you know, in the case of Ukraine, obviously military methods. And so we're saying on this beat because obviously Georgia is not the only country that Russia is targeting.

Speaker 5

Alberta Nadelli, we thank you extraordinary reporting.

Speaker 4

Go read it.

Speaker 5

Welcome back to Luemat Technology. I'm Caroline Hyde in London and ed.

Speaker 7

Ardlo in San Francisco. Bring us some markets.

Speaker 5

Character, yeah, because they're under pressure from a macro perspective, But there are some single names you want to shine a light on that are doing rather well. But we're off by some six tenser percent on the Nasdaq one hundred actually coming to session lows at the moment. We are worried about big earnings on deck. We've got Tesla for example, later this week. We're also anticipating a very

close election in the United States. What does that mean for the future of big tech, anti trusting crypto Move on and have a look at some of the individual

names as the market kind of waits and watches. Disney under pressure even as they announce look new chairman of the board not completely unsurprisingly James Gorman comes to the Helm starting in twenty twenty five and promises a new CEO will be delivered by the start of at least early on in twenty twenty six, palallel to networks and a new record high only just look, we're clinging on to gains, but it is at a record in video

two one point seven percent higher. Interesting that the week after this we get most of its customers giving us earnings. Think Alphabet, Think Microsoft, think Meta. What will that say for the ongoing demand for its chip set?

Speaker 7

Okay.

Speaker 6

Sticking with semiconductors, Taiwan's economy has seen massive growth, thanks in part to chip manufacturing. Still, premier Sho Jong Thai says the country can't just solely rely on its high tech industries. He sat down with Bloomberg editor in chief emeritus Matt Winkler check this out.

Speaker 15

Say, Taiwan's economic resiliency comes from the partnership we have with friendly countries. Domestically, we have a strong, vertically integrated supply chain. This is why we believe Taiwan can play a crucial role in the democratic supply chain. We are heavily reliant on high tech industries, especially in the rapidly developing semiconductor sector. However, for Taiwan's economy to achieve comprehensive growth,

we cannot rely solely on high tech industries. That's why we proposed a dual axis transformation for small and medium sized enterprises. We aim to help our traditional industries and small to medium sized enterprises enter the AI era. We will use government resources to assist them in adopting AI applications and integrating with this industry, allowing Taiwan's economy to grow comprehensively.

Speaker 2

So, mister premire, the US is going to have an election at presidential election, It's just weeks away or were President Trump previously said that Taiwan took chip business from the US and asked Taiwan to pay protection fees. And do you think Taiwan should continue to allow semiconductor manufacturers to like TSMC, to build factories overseas.

Speaker 15

Taiwan also needs to rely on advanced countries for new technologies in materials and equipment. I often say that the government has a responsibility to Taiwan's industries and Taiwan has a responsibility to the world.

Speaker 2

Mister Trump also said Taiwan should increase military spending to ten percent of gross domestic product, and I wonder if that's possible.

Speaker 15

In your view Taiwan in Taiwan has a very large neighbor with significant ambitions toward it, so Taiwan must take responsibility for safeguarding our sovereignty and national security. In next year's Central government budget, we have allocated more than six hundred and forty billion Taiwan dollars for defense. This will bring our defense spending to approximately two point four to two point six percent of GDP. While we cannot allocate ten percent of GDP to defense in one go, we

have increased the budget compared to the past. We also hope that through Taiwan's efforts, the world will recognize Taiwan's determination and provide greater support. What we're maintaining is not only Taiwan's security, but also the peace and stability of the entire Indo Pacific region.

Speaker 2

You mentioned artificial intelligence earlier in this discussion, and given the importance of AI and how fast it is expanding, there is a debate about electricity supply and I'm just wondering do you think sort of new nuclear power technology is something an option, say for Taiwan that you could consider.

Speaker 15

We know that many other countries are actively developing various forms of nuclear energy. Currently, we expect that Taiwan will have no issues with power supply for industries before twenty thirty. Our nuclear power plants are being decommissioned and operations are stopping. This is because we need to prepare for future nuclear technology developments and to respond to any potential legal changes

in Taiwan. When we take the next step forward and reconsider the existing nuclear power plants, we will need sufficient manpower. So even though our plants are being decommissioned, the personnel must not be dispersed. They must remain to address new technologies or solve current issues.

Speaker 7

That was Taiwan Premier Cho Jung Thai.

Speaker 5

Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, Ed Governor Josh Shapiro expressed concern over Elon Musk's and to give money to voters suggesting law enforcement reviews. This follows Musk's announcement to donate one million dollars daily to a random registered voter supporting his super Pax petition on free speech and gun rights. Just take a listen to this from NBC's Meet the Press.

Speaker 13

I think it's something that law enforcement could take a look at.

Speaker 12

I'm not the attorney general anymore. At Pennsylvania, I'm the governor. But it does raise some serious questions.

Speaker 5

Bloomberg's Kurt Wagner joins us now, who covers all things Elon but covers all things X as well, and just how does this dovetail into what you're seeing on his social media platform right now?

Speaker 16

Yeah, I mean he's using X as a very pro Trump megaphone right now. Actually opened the aptis yesterday and on my four U feed right which is the feed that's supposed to be tailored recommendations for you, eleven of the first fifteen posts that I saw were from Elon himself, and all of them were, you know, supporting Trump, pushing

Trump's Republican or conservative agenda. I mean, he's very much taken this this social network and feels to me like he's using it to really hammer home his own personal politics in this fight to help.

Speaker 9

Trump win the election in a couple of weeks.

Speaker 7

The activity is notable.

Speaker 6

I also point out Vice President Harris has two accounts on X right, her official vice presidential account and then her I guess we would call it personal campaign account. And she also posts daily and regularly, and that appears in my timeline, maybe not as much as Musk's posts appear, But I guess the point that we would point make is that it's the content and the commentary. It's very similar to what one might find on truth Social Cut.

Speaker 9

Yeah.

Speaker 16

I kind of jokingly called ex truth Social two point zero a few weeks ago in a newsletter that I wrote, because it feels very much like you are seeing President Trump's message hammered home repeatedly, you know, either through Elon, through Trump himself, through other supporters.

Speaker 9

You're right ed.

Speaker 16

I also have seen a lot of posts from Kamala Harris and others. It feels like my feed is almost one hundred percent US politics focused right now. It's interesting because back in you know, Twitter one point no days, they used to say, well, this is obviously an important news cycle. It's important thing for the service, but it's not the only thing. Right You would still see a basketball, baseball, sports,

you would see culture, music, things like that. It feels to me like they've dial up the algorithm to really make the election front and center for every user, and I'm certainly noticing it every time I open the app these days?

Speaker 4

Does that matter long term?

Speaker 5

For Grock for example, it's AI chatbot and indeed, more broadly, what we end up wanting our social media platforms.

Speaker 16

For Yeah, it's been interesting to see X's approach here to the election compared to say Meta and what they're doing with Instagram and Facebook. Right, So, on the Meta side, they're basically saying, hey, we're trying to we're leaning away

from the election. If you're talking about the election, we're not going to recommend that post to people outside of your network, whereas X is doing the exact opposite, And it's just going to be interesting to see long term, you know, does this burn people out?

Speaker 12

Or is this what people want?

Speaker 16

Do they want to go and see election twenty four to seven information, in which case maybe X is making.

Speaker 9

The right choice, or is Meta right?

Speaker 16

Is Mark Zuckerberg right right that people don't want this stuff thrown in their face twenty four to seven through sixty five, So we'll kind of see. I think, you know,

for me personally, it feels a little overkill. It feels a little bit like burnout to me over on X. But you know, that's the decision Elon has made, and again interesting comparison this election cycle to have a meta and Mark Zuckerberg going in a very different direction in terms of how much they want to prioritize election content.

Speaker 5

Particularly after the election too. Co Agner, thank you so much on that key story. Meanwhile, coming up talking VC Ziko who Zapati joins us next in our VC spotlight as the AI focused business raises money.

Speaker 17

This is Bloomberg Technology.

Speaker 7

Okay.

Speaker 6

AI powered procurement software startup ZIP is changing the way companies obtain the supplies they need to operate and recently announced it's laid this round one hundred and ninety million dollars Series D in funding.

Speaker 7

Here with more.

Speaker 6

Zip co founder and CEO, Jewel Zipade, Welcome to the program. Actually, the backstory is really interesting and it's worth getting right to it.

Speaker 7

Used to work at Airbnb and you.

Speaker 6

Had a specific job and you were basically like, this isn't working. So you went with some friends and colleagues and designed something better and were like, you know what, let's just.

Speaker 7

Start a company that does this. That's pretty fair, right.

Speaker 12

No, that's absolutely fair.

Speaker 18

So my co founder Lu and I were both engineering and product leaders at Airbnb, and we had to go through this confusing procurement process of if we need to buy something in the business, what are all the approvals that are required right between budget and legal and IT and security and all the different teams.

Speaker 12

And that's what we solved.

Speaker 18

We started ZIP to solve for it by providing one front door for any employee.

Speaker 12

In the business to request a purchase.

Speaker 5

I'm really interested that your AI powered what form is this generative AI?

Speaker 4

More broad AI?

Speaker 5

Because you're serving open AI for example, so you built upon their.

Speaker 4

Large language model. How does that all go?

Speaker 5

What you building that they can't internally for their own process procurement.

Speaker 18

Yeah, that's a great that's a great question. It's absolutely generative AI. And if you think about the procurement process as a whole, right, we have access to so much relatively unstructured data right when employees at organization are are

buying things. There are millions of contracts invoices, order form, so much data that's available, and we can take AI and actually apply it in a really, really practical way, which is what we do for our enterprise customers today to do everything from helping pars invoices to reading msas and contracts for risks and the like.

Speaker 5

You're with the money hiring engineering talent, R and D talent, you're setting up an AI lab. And I go back to really what is underlying all of this? Are you building your own large aguage models to be able to do this? Are you're looking to develop that more with these tools that you want to build an AI lab?

Speaker 12

That's a great question.

Speaker 18

So we absolutely are using these funds to invest and create an AI lab and really double click on if you know, like I sort of said, like the data that we have access to as part of procurement and really think about how do we best apply it in a practical way. And so there's there's more that we'll have to share there in the coming.

Speaker 7

Months, and so which LM me using.

Speaker 18

So we today largely use the open EI models.

Speaker 6

I broke my own rule, which is I always start on what's newest and fresh. But I wanted the backstory because it was probably two years ago that you and I first met. So in that time you've raised a lot of money, you have a decent valuation more than two billion, But have you built a business in that time? Have you managed to take this product and technology and actually sell it to other businesses and enterprises who in turn are using it themselves.

Speaker 18

Yeah, of course, we've been really privileged to work with some of the largest enterprises in the world, companies like Discover Financial, Snowflake, Prudential, Coinbase, and many others. And even as an example, Discover Financial has saved over three thousand different business approvals that they've realized they don't need anymore, or Snowflake has over three hundred and five million dollars

of ZIP supported savings logged. What we find is that procurement is actually the second largest area of spend for any business in.

Speaker 7

The world after payroll.

Speaker 18

Right, it's trillions of dollars in the world that you know, employees of companies are buying, you know, for office supply, software and the like, and so there's so much opportunity.

Speaker 6

And for you yourselves building on top of open Ai, what's that been like? You know, in the news cycle, it's pretty chaotic when it comes to open ai.

Speaker 7

But as a customer or partner, what was it like for you?

Speaker 18

I'd have to say it's been it's been great and the feedback that we've we've received from customers has been really positive. As an example, Coinbase has saved thousands and thousands of hours with ZIP processing, you know, hundreds of thousands of invoices in a much more automated way.

Speaker 5

ZIP co founder and CEO Jules Zabade, thanks for coming on here.

Speaker 6

Perplexity the AI company trying to build a search product that rivals Googles in early talks to raise funding from investors at evaluation of roughly nine billion dollars. That's according to a Bloomberg source. Bloomberg Sharen Gafari broke the news and joins us with the latest. So what do we know about the round? This is a name that's coming up a lot at the moment.

Speaker 7

Sharene That's right.

Speaker 1

I think it is a reflection of how much there is interest in continuing to invest in.

Speaker 19

This AI wave, this AI bubble.

Speaker 2

Right.

Speaker 1

We've seen open Ai recently close a mega round, and now I think there seems to be continued interest in getting in on that. Perplexity is very popular with people who are looking to use AI for search.

Speaker 7

Let's just talk.

Speaker 5

About the moat that it's built, or if there is indeed a mote, because many have felt that this is clear competitive threat to Google, but Google can equally perhaps take it on itself, that's right.

Speaker 1

I mean Perplexity really had the head start in using the most cutting edge AI to kind of make a standalone app where you.

Speaker 19

Can instead of googling something, you can search.

Speaker 1

For it and at all your research and all your answers right there and kind of one neat product.

Speaker 19

So I think they had a head start with that.

Speaker 1

I think, of course, Google is also increasingly integrating AI into their answers, but I've talked to a lot of folks who are starting to even stop using Google and use Perplexity.

Speaker 19

So I will say it's very popular with.

Speaker 1

Certain kind of early adopters I would say in AI, and I think that's reflected in this investor interest.

Speaker 6

So perplex you want to raise five hundred million dollars according to our reporting, but the valuation is a pretty big jump from where it last raised money.

Speaker 7

Do we know who wants to get in on this?

Speaker 6

You know, I have in the back of my mind that open AI doesn't want its investors looking elsewhere.

Speaker 19

Right, I think we're still reporting that out.

Speaker 1

But one thing I will say is that Perplexity has been increasingly trying to get into sort of enterprise search things like financial search.

Speaker 19

You know, searching through customer data.

Speaker 1

So I think that's going to be an increasing focus and potentially something that investors are looking at.

Speaker 7

Bloomberg sureing Gafari another great piece of reporting. Thanks so much, Caro, what you got.

Speaker 5

I've got to turn on attention to Apple now because it's new iPad that's designed specifically with AI and mind is being broken down by Mark German, who has more. It was power on this weekend, very well read throughout. Just tell us what's new when it comes to the iPad.

Speaker 20

So earlier last week, Apple announced the new iPad Mini. It's the first update to that product in about three years.

Speaker 9

And this epipemy doesn't have a lot of new functionality.

Speaker 20

Food they did is they upped the memory and they up the processor to match last year's iPhone.

Speaker 9

And why is that important?

Speaker 20

Because that allows it to support Apple Intelligence. Now, as we talked about a few times now, Apple Intelligence, at least the first few iterations not that impressive, right, You're missing some of the more whizbane features like generative AI created emojis, but you do get things like notification summaries. Now this is launching next week. I don't find the

AI features that impressive. But Apple does have a secret advantage once the AI starts working, once they either build or acquire or pay their way into successful AI features, This new iPad mine shows the company's ability to rapidly add support for new features across this ecosystem in a way that really isn't matched by Google, Samsung, or any other provider. So while it's a small update, it's indicative of the larger overall ability that the company has to bring features downline very quickly.

Speaker 6

And it makes the iPad minis price point interesting because you know, from a process as standpoint, it's the same as this right iPhone fifteen Pro. They both have a seventeen and they're kind of double dipping a little bit. I mean you just talked about that secret strategy or secret advantage.

Speaker 7

Go a little bit further on that mark.

Speaker 20

Yeah, Well, this processor is the same processor as last year. It's a chip they no longer make other than for this product, right, and so they had a lot of leftover components from production of the iPhone fifteen Pro.

Speaker 9

There's a process called binning, which essentially means.

Speaker 20

Processors that we some of their components during the production process. Right, So the fifteen pro version of the A seventeen chip has six.

Speaker 9

CPU cores are the minion processing cores in the chip. The ones in this new ipaid many.

Speaker 20

Have five processing cores, which essentially means these.

Speaker 9

Have been bin or they've lost the core during production.

Speaker 20

So I'm not saying that these are the bad ones that they threw away. But what I am saying it's about a little bit of a stripped down version of last year's processor, something that's been recycled here and from an operational standpoint, it's a big win for Apple, especially for margins.

Speaker 5

So on a new iPad mini, am I going to be able to design my latest Nikes? Briefly, Mark, you've been writing about Tim Cook's other key role right now, Well to.

Speaker 20

Do the new iPad many does support the new Apple pencil pro I should add that, right, but the previous ones and support older Apple pencils, and you certainly could draw your Nikes there. I thought this story was interesting because I think a lot of people don't realize that Tim Cook has a bit of a side gig, and that's being the lead independent director of Nike. Nike has been going through its tumultuous period and obviously as a board member, Tim Cook.

Speaker 9

Has been helping out. He helped bring on their new CEO, Elliott Hill. That hire has all the hallmarks of.

Speaker 20

A Tim Cook higher and so we'll see what happens tonight you over the next six months with the new leadership.

Speaker 4

Mark German, you're busy as always. We appreciate it. Now, that does it for this edition of Bloomberg Technology.

Speaker 6

Ed absolutely jam packed recap on the pod. You know where to find the pod online on Apple, Spotify, iHeart and of course on the Bloomberg platforms from London and San Francisco.

Speaker 7

This is Bloomberg Technology

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