We're from Mahard where Innovation of Money and power Collie in Silicon Vallet NBN. This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow.
Live from New York and San Francisco. This is Bloomberg Technology coming up. Disney shares pop on profit promises out to twenty twenty seven.
We sit down with the company's CFO.
Plus, Meta gets its first ever penalty for EU antitrust violations related to Facebook marketplace service.
And Thrive Capital as in talks to acquire a one billion dollar stake in analytics software maker Data Bricks' value the startup fifty five billion dollars.
First, we get back to the public markets and what are you looking at?
Yeah, straight to our top story, and that is Disney shares up almost nine percent session highs but on track for this biggest jump since February of this year. A strong performance in the court are gone. They beat analysts expectations and then told us that for the next three years they will see earning's growth. Disney does not do forecasts like that. It's strength in the streaming business. Movies are getting better, but there are some areas of weakness.
Early today, Caroline and I spoke to Disney CFO Hugh Johnston, and we discussed all of those parts of the House of Mouse.
Isn't to this.
If you look at the major investments that we've been making in the business over the last couple of years, number one is in the streaming business, and number two obviously is in the experiences business, so parks and cruises and the like. And as you've seen in the number is through twenty twenty four, you know, it really marked
a pivot for the Walt Disney Company. The creativity is certainly very much back back to back billion dollar movies and a terrific slid for twenty five in addition to that fantastic workout of the TV studios with sixty Emmys, and that obviously feeds the flywheel of the Walt Disney Company, whether it's streaming or whether it's experiences including parks, consumer products, and of course the cruise ships.
So given those.
Investments that we've been making, and given that we now have good financial visibility into the returns on those investments, we felt like it was important to inform investors not just on how we were investing, but what they should expect in terms of the returns on those and with that visibility, we're confident that we can actually deliver.
Here across the media sect.
Your industry is getting better at being profitable in streaming, so that's where I want to go. Is this something that is kind of industry wide macro level factor is supporting you, or is this something that you've done in the last year specifically that's kind of cracked the formula for streaming at Disney.
I think it's a combination of both.
Streaming is certainly very much scale business, so as everyone gains more scale, obviously that that helps the industry overall. For us in particular, I think the combination of the terrific ip that we're putting into the service, the product improvements that we're making, and that we are intending to make with the new leader that we have on product, Adam Smith, who came over to us from YouTube, we see obviously a terrific future in terms of where streaming
is going. You know, it's important to think about what do additional subscribers mean in terms of the streaming business. In many ways, streaming has the characteristics of a software business, where the incremental value of an additional subscriber is very high because the incremental cost to that incremental subscriber are very low.
So we feel.
Optimistic about as the industry is coming together, we're going to continue to both add subscribers and in addition to that, because of the value we're delivering with the great ip and the great product that we're putting into this service, we'll be able to take pricing as well. And that combined with good cost management that we have in place in terms of good disciplines on that business, we feel very optimistic about where streaming is going for us.
You're also curving password sharing. How much of an impact will that make?
You think it'll be a positive.
It'll be gradual over time and strengthen from quarter to quarter, but we do think it'll be a positive impact on subscribers.
I'm interested in the film studio and what bonus you're going to get from one or two, what bonus you're going to be getting from Mafasa the Lion King.
How important has the investment been there?
Well, I think it's quite important, and in many ways to talk about that, we ought to dial back a little bit to where we were a few years ago. You know, as we launch streaming and It's important to remember we've only been in the streaming business five years. This is a relatively nascent business for us in many ways, even though it's going to be quite profitable for us, or is quite profitable now, and it'll be even more
profitable in the future. But as we think about where we were a few years ago, we were very much focused on creating a lot of quantity in order to fill the service with and as is often the case, when you push hard on quantity, sometimes quality isn't quite up to where you would like it to be. When Bob Aiger came back a couple of years ago, he talked about restoring creativity to the center of the company and reducing quantity and focusing on raising the bar on quality.
Now we've been talking about that for really a year year and a half, but you saw that the impact of that, I think very much in twenty four with Inside Out two and Deadpool and Wolverine back to back billion dollar movies, is it's never been done before. And then on the TV side with Avid Elementary and The Bear and of course Showgun, you know, we had sixty Emmys. So I think that focus on quality is not something that's kind of a one time random thing, but in
fact is a sustaining impact on the company. So as we think forward to the slate in twenty twenty five, whether it's mwana Iu or Mufasa the Lion King, or Lilo and Stitch or Avatar or Captain America, we're very optimistic that those movies are going to be big, big hits as well. We couldn't be more excited about them.
So you've talked about the linear TV or live TV business almost.
Like a hedge.
I know you want to keep that audience. It's important to you, particularly the older demographic. But like many sports fans, I'm interested in the D two C launch on ESPN. How you think that that will kind of change your audience and customers' attitudes in how they pay for sports by sports, Well.
The important thing I think about the ESPN Flagship launch Flagship is the project name that we use on that. The thing to think about it is it's not just another distribution channel. So it's not basically taking ESPN a lon as it exists and just putting it into streaming.
It will have all of that content, to be clear, but in addition to that, it's really going to be a true digital experience in so many ways, So the ability to do e commerce, the ability to track fantasy, the ability to shape some of the ESPN broadcast products to your liking, the ability to do online vetting as a part of the product. It's a much more interactive, much more digital product, and that's where I think the
big reshaping will come from. Consumers will choose whether they want to go through traditional cable networks or whether they want to go through the newer digital networks, and that's something that we're there for everyone everywhere. That's really the goal of ESPN is we want to be where the sports fan wants to be, but we do intend to bring a lot of value in that product, and I think sports fans will come to it relatively quickly.
Disney CFO Hugh Johnston.
There, let's get more inside tape for you from our own BlueBag intelligence analyst Ethan Rang and Evan And what was really interesting is who's trying to say, look, don't judge us, buy well our TV arm alone or cable look at it as entertainment broadly and how they play with each other. Is that the right way to see its ecosystem?
I absolutely think so, and that's really the story of Disney more broadly, right, it's every part of the business feeding every other part of the business. So you look at you know, the studio that feeds contents not just into the studio itself, but across the networks, across parks, across you know, consumer products, everything. And it's the same story with linear and streaming as well. So you have content that feeds both the linear networks lineup as well
as the streaming a portion of it. And it becomes really interesting because you have sports rights here, and when you have sports rights, you have to be really careful because you know, you have both the linear TV component of it as well as digital rights, and so it looks like they want to keep everything together right now under the same umbrella.
Peter I asked that ESPN question for you because I know that you're modeling around it. And what's so interesting is just before we came on air, the ten K hit and actually it showed that ESPN subscribers dropped to sixty six million this year, down from seventy one million last year.
Then you got the warning that actually.
Subscribers will taper off in the fiscal first quarter of twenty five. Do you look past that noise and look to the three year horizon that you were shocked by this morning.
Yeah, I mean cord cutting, ed is. I mean, the writing is on the wall. We're definitely going to see cord cutting kind of persist. You know, we're seeing subscriber erosion at around eight to nine percent. I think the ESPN launch, I mean, the launch of the flagship ESPN is definitely going to be another trigger that is going to kind of accelerate cord cutting.
But you're absolutely right.
I mean the guidance that they issued was absolutely stellar. I mean, investors love it. I Mean, the biggest overhang on this stock ed over the past few quarters has been this lack of clarity has been the lack of visibility.
And so for them to go out and give us earnings growth not just into fiscal twenty twenty five, but then to kind of lay out that roadmap going into twenty twenty six and twenty twenty seven, definitely, Ali is a lot of concerns about the help of all of the different parts of the business.
Is twenty twenty four and we're still talking about cord cutting, Bloomberg Intelligence and this Keitha anger Athan, thank you so much. All right, Coming up on the show, why more tech firms are eyeing a twenty twenty five IPO. Emma Taylor, global head of Investment Internet Investment Banking at.
Berkeley's, Coming up next big interview. This is Bloomberg.
Technology IMPO is few and far between, but this year, actually seven tech companies have indeed gone public and collectively they're training well higher, more than eighty.
Percent above their original offer prices. What's more to come? What about M and A. Let's talk about all of it.
When we think about the growth of twenty twenty five with Emma Taylor.
She's the global head of Internet Investment.
Banking at Berkley's and many have been waiting watching thinking twenty twenty five post election will be the year suddenly IPO springs to life and maybe more some M and A.
Is that something that you're talking about with clients?
Yeah, well, first off, thank you for having me, Caroline and Ed. That's exactly right.
So we are.
We are very focused on it, we're very optimistic about it. As you said, there was seven true tech IPOs last year. Their they as a class have actually traded very well.
I think that. You know, we've been focused on why are some companies waiting on the sidelines, But when we look at the pipeline and the things that are on our radar in terms of tech IPOs for twenty twenty five, if we look at what's just on our what's on our radar just for the first half of twenty twenty five, there's at least seven tech companies on our radar for that.
And I think success begets success, and so if those companies go public, and if those are successful, which we expect that to be the case, then we would expect that a lot of the companies that are on the sidelines now we'll get off the sidelines and we'll start to start to tap the market.
So were the risk reward for us?
Because bigger and bigger private companies aid to able to raise more and more money, that extra Warner evaluations that clearly the money is still coming in from the private side.
Why go public?
Yeah, Yeah, it's I think that's the exact right question. And I actually think that's the exact question that companies are asking themselves. You know, generally we see that at some point, regardless of whether or not the private capital is available to them. Companies do choose to go public,
and they do that for a variety of reasons. You see companies that there's a branding impact, and so whether they're an enterprise company or a consumer company, they think that going public is going to give them a brand and help in terms of accessing more clients and more customers.
So you see it for that reason.
You oftentimes see it for employee liquidity, for shareholder liquidity, and so you know, at some point as companies mature, it starts to make sense for them to tap the public markets. The other thing, and you know this, but there's it gives you access to currency for M and A. So as companies start to think about M and A becoming an important portion of their company going forward. That's another reason why we see companies decide.
That you want to go public.
And let me jump in here on employee liquidity. I feel like companies, particularly at later stages, have options.
Right.
Two deals that I've reported on recently Viry Data Bricks doing tenders literally to keep talent happy.
I think in the Data Bricks case, it's an.
Example where the company might even buy back shares themselves.
How big a factor is that.
I mean, if you're a company that can use a tender as an option to keep staff happy, you don't need the cash, why go public?
I think that's I think that's a great question.
Ed.
I think that's that's exactly right. I mean, look, the way that we think about it is that you want to give companies lots of options, and so we have a lot of companies that we're working with that are weighing what they can access in the private markets. And that's not all created equal either, and so there's a significant amount of structured equity and structured finances coming into
the private markets. There's you know, more straightforward equity capital, but all of those things are available to them, and so I actually think that that creates a really healthy dynamic in which companies can make the best choice for themselves and they can optimize for whatever the factors that are most important to them, whether that's shareholders, whether that's as I said before, branding value, or whether that's you know,
valuation or other things. And so the access to those private markets I actually think is very helpful in terms of how companies can make decisions for themselves.
Emma twenty twenty five, Which country is going to be the hot place to do a listing for tech.
Oh, that is a good question, you know. Look, what I would say is I think that the vast majority of volume, or what I'll say is that a lot of volume comes to the US. I think that that will continue to be the case. I think it's hard to imagine that that's not the case. All that being said, we're seeing other countries and other exchanges have incredibly successful listings.
You're seeing very large companies potentially choose to list in venues outside of the US as well, and so there's a global investor base they can invest across the various exchanges. So I think all of those things are healthy dynamics. And so I think you'll continue to see that.
Barclay's a British band. Come sure, there's some loyalty to the UK. India has been on far as well. It's really interesting where people choose to list. Emma, what about the story you tell into listing When it was the crop of companies that came the end of twenty twenty three and into twenty twenty four, you had to have artificial intelligence exactly in your story?
Is that still going to be the case? I think that's one hundred percent truth.
So I think we've seen I think we've seen a massive shift in terms of companies, particularly around so why I spend most of my time is consumer tech, and particularly around consumer tech, companies have to be talking about AI. And then this has been true for the last year. It's been true for the last year and a half. I think what's been really interesting is the shift in
the way companies are talking about AI. So one of the things that we saw early on is that most consumer tech, most Internet companies were talking about AI mostly in the forms of cost saving, so they were talking about call centers or customer service and how can you create a better customer interaction with less manual touch points.
We then started to see a shift where we're seeing companies, particularly the AD based companies, talk about AIS relates to advertising and so you know, you saw with the earning season that the ad based companies did extraordinarily well for the most part, and a lot of what we're hearing around that is that the AI technology around ROI for ad placement has has continued to improve and is really
driving a lot of that. I think one of the interesting shifts that we're now seeing is we're seeing internet and consumer tech companies talk about AI as it relates to real sort of revenue or consumer UI use cases. And so you're seeing online travel companies talk about discovery
and planning of trips instead of just booking them. You're seeing ed tech companies talk about AI tutoring, and so you're seeing cases in which companies are saying consumers know that they're interacting with AI, and they're happy to do that because we're providing a lot of value to them.
Emma Taylor, Global head of Internet Investment Banking at Barkley's. Great to have you here on Bloomberg Technology. Thank you very much. A quick news story out in Europe shares a Zeeman's rose to a record, predicting a boom empower hungry data centers driving demand for its transformers and grid technology in the coming year. The company is saying it's seen orders for its electrification products jump with the surge
in AI investments. Even CEO Roland Bush talked about the company making its own investments too.
Listen to this.
We an answer the excision of IA Engineering. It's a ten billion equisition, as you said, which is strengthening our software portfolio to the what it is about simulation in the areas where we have where we were weak. It's not only simulation, but it's also AI and high performance computing.
LEAK.
We're going to talk about AI a little bit more.
And still in Europe, the AI demand story coming from AIRSML that we're up some five percent after the Dutch maker of the equipment that makes advanced chip making, well, we're seeing them still managing to project sales in twenty thirty in a range of forty four billion to sixty billion basice in line with their.
PRIs vs forecast.
But ed just remember how hard they hit the market with a significant miss on estimates in their third quarter, So maybe a bit of a reprieve there and some little elements of confidence being built back in.
Okay, it's time for talking tech and first up, Netflix's Squid Games is set to return in December with its second season. The streaming giant looking to replicate the global success of its first season, which was the most popular show in Netflix's history, generating nearly nine hundred million dollars in value for the company. The third and final season of the series for twenty twenty five plus on Hi one of the world's largest assembler or servers, tamped down
on concerns that data center spending is decelerating. The company, also known as Foxcon, reported results that beat expectations that says the boom in AI serve demand will continue next year, and Australia's planning to enact laws that would require big tech firms to protect its citizens online. The plan, called the Digital Duty of Care, was unveiled last night and is the latest effort by the Australian government to crack down on social media and curb misinformation.
Caroline, that story, of course is going to be impacting Meta. Another thing affecting Meta overseas is a fine eight hundred and forty one million dollars has been laid down by EU regulators.
The social media.
Giant has said it has potentially has been deemed to a breached antitrust rules by tying its Facebook Marketplace service to its social network. Lu Merg's man nipsingh joins us now and that as a user of Facebook Marketplace, I rather like that I can tell what the profile is that the person that I'm buying or selling to. But they want these separated because of competition here.
Yeah, look, I think it's the same for all the things that Google does, you know, when it comes to their ads stack, the fact that they run the exchange and they are a publisher as well. So same thing with Meta, you know. I mean, all these companies have the engagement and they you know, show you the relevant ads and you know, ancillary products like marketplaces in Meta's case, and the regulators don't want that. They want more choice screens.
They don't want Google to show maps or you know, a flights product on the search page because they want more optionality. And it's the same concept here. I think you are probably going to see more fines simply because that's the whole focus of the Digital Markets Act in the EU. So I'm not surprised they had to pay this fine. But clearly the remedy here is to offer more choice to the users.
Yeah, quite right, Mandy, I mean giving some of the details or audience. The accusation is that Meta is putting unfair trading practices on rivals through that marketplace, and Meta unsurprisingly says it will appeal this fine decision. I guess for you and other analysts, the question is will it materially impact the business model? Or have any negative impact to the business.
Well, so in the case of the Digital Markets Act, you could find up to ten percent of the company's global revenue. So we are talking about potentially a ten billion dollar fine if the EU deems that Meta is not complyingt and this keeps happening. In this case, obviously the marketplace business is around, based on our estimate, less than ten billion to the Blue app.
But clearly, you.
Know you have that risk that even a load to mid single digit revenue percentage of global Meta revenue like one hundred and fifty billion dollars, that's a substantial seven to ten billion dollar fine. So I think there is that risk that these companies have to offer an ad free version, and that's what you're seeing with Meta.
Bloom Meg Intelligence Senior analyst Mandat Singh.
Welcome back to Blue Meg Technology. I'm Karen Hide in New York and I.
Med love Low in San Francisco. What's going on in tech in the market's character?
Let's check on it, ed, because not very much of anything if you're looking at the benchmarks overall, we're kind of been trading sideways since a run up post election where people wanted to.
Dive back into big tech.
And equities more generally a risk on field. Today we pulled back just about two tenths of a percent. I'll get into the nitty gritty in a moment, but look, Bitcoin also coming off of its highs. But boy what highs we saw ninety three thousand eclipsed. Now we pulled back to eighty eight thousand, but still a significant leap from Wednesday of last week. Move on to the individual movers that tug these benchmarks around.
From a points perspective.
Disney we've talked about, we'll go back to talking about up some seven percent on the back of its numbers, earnings doing well, and we see growth in particular from the streaming side of the business in video, the leader of the pack. If you're looking at points, we're at one point seven percent. Han Hi's numbers. Another earnings out of Asia as well, really signifying that the demand for AI and AI equipment and infrastructure is still there, and
Video rises ahead of that. We've got their earnings next week. Interestingly, Tesla pulling back from its recent highs. Of course, that Elon Musk trade, the Trump trade has.
Been there for Tesla.
Interestingly, Jeffrey's analysts saying, look, they should sell equity at this particular point, raising the price target, but just a three hundred, which is actually down from where we currently are ed.
Okay, back to Disney earnings.
We just spoke with the CFO, Hugh Johnston, who told us he's very optimistic about the streaming landscape.
In particular, listen to this.
We feel optimistic about as the industry is coming together, we're going to continue to both add subscribers, and in addition to that, because of the value we're delivering with the great ip and the great product that we're putting into this service, we'll be able to take pricing as well. And that combined with good cost management that we have in place in terms of good disciplines on that business, we feel very optimistic about where streaming is going for us.
It's got a shareholder take Ross Gerba, CEO of Gerber Kawasaki. I mean, the streaming focus is interesting because actually they warned that in that fiscal first quarter of the next.
Year might taper off a bit.
But I don't think I've ever seen have you ever seen Disney say for the next three years we'll see earnings growth and this is how we feel about the streaming business in particular.
Yeah, I mean, I think this is a major inflection point for Disney. It's an incredible value for investors at this price, literally trading at half the value of Netflix, but with all these other businesses in sports and in experiences. So you know, their streaming businesses grew like crazy during the pandemic.
But they were spending so much money and made no sense.
And now they've gotten this right, and as they move forward with aggressive pricing actually and incredibly good content, people are not canceling their Disney and they're not canceling their Netflix.
But we've seen a lot of churn in the other streamers.
So what we've really seen is what we hoped, which is Disney and Netflix have come out as the winner in.
Streaming carry offs.
A really interesting question about password sharing. You know, we got that wrong with Netflix. You know, didn't seem to impact Netflix negatively necessarily. Do you just see Disney following the same arc? You know, Johnston kind of leans on this idea that they've not been at it very long in the streaming game, but they have grown quickly, right.
I mean, it grew much quicker than anybody would have guessed because of the pandemic, and they really just were not good at managing the cost side of the business, and they were making tons of content that they weren't releasing in theaters that was costing a fortune and now getting the model right like Mowana too. Like I was watching Deadpool last night. Deadpool and Wolverine goes out in the theaters, that makes a billion dollars.
Then it goes on the streamer.
Everybody want to watch the stream and that's what we're going to see with Molwana two coming, and then we have Mustafa, which is Lion King two coming in December, and boy, this is going to drive you know, not only keeping the people from churning on the streamer, but adding new subscribers who really just want to watch the movie, you know, and not have to pay for all a car.
You know.
What's interesting, Ross is that Q in particular try to articulate this vision that yes, TV cable is showing weakness, but it basically feeds the beast of streaming and stop.
Looking at it separately.
But there's also this element going forward that they've got to do something to change revenue operating profit in the different direction and start showing stabilization or at least growth once again. And that sort of can be said more broadly when you're thinking of venue back on ice, when you're thinking of Venue Sports, the joint venture they were going to be doing with Fox and Warner Brothers.
There are some stop starts here.
Well, yeah, and.
See part of it is ESPN has this limitation because it's still you know, tethered to cable for another year. And once that is done and you can actually get ESPN as a standalone app with real ESPN content without actually a cable subscription, that will open up opportunities for ESPN they've just been unable to open. But the cable issue is one that will continue to be one for
some time. And you know, some cable companies get it, like Spectrum, where they've pivoted in the business and tried to create value for cable subscribers.
But like most the.
Young people today don't even know what cable is. So you know, we're gonna so feeding the beast of streaming is the appropriate strategy, and young people today will sign up for multiple streamers and pay the money and it's still cheaper than cable from the old days. But you know, Netflix and Disney have the opportunity to really engage a global audience that has you know, potentially as many a five hundred million, maybe a billion subscribers total in this total market globally that they.
Can grow to.
Let's just look at that valuation you talked about how basically Disney is half a Netflix. It is when you're looking at forward estimate, like price to forward earnings is forty two on Netflix, They're never going to trade at that valuation if they are using a hedge of experiences, using a hedge of older consumers with cable.
Well, right, it's a much clunkier, capital intensive business than Netflix, hence the higher pe multiple.
But I'm also just talking about pure market cap.
Ye, you know, so the valuation that the premium valuation Netflix gets to certainly deserved. But what we're saying is that Disney is really trading at a discount on all levels in the marketplace today. I mean, it's cheaper than the SMPPE when you look at forward and then you start thinking, wait, now, this business is really growing at double digits going into the fairly decent midterm.
And you know, once again, Experiences is a wonderful business.
Just because it grew crazily in twenty one and twenty two as everybody you know came back out oh host pandemic, and now it's slowed, doesn't mean it's not going to continue to gain steam as we move into twenty five and twenty six with new cruise ship launches, which might cost Disney on the short term as they launched the new cruise ship, but over time these cruises are like gold mines.
I mean, so Disney is a cash cow.
They're returning money to shareholders, are extremely shareholder friendly company.
And you know the big question is secession.
Planning, and once they clear that up, then you know Disney has a great runway over the next five years.
Clarity on earnings, but not on the CEO yet. Gerbert Kawasaki, CEO Ross Gerba, We thank you. Let's just talk about the private markets. Thrive Capital in talks to acquire roughly one billion dollar stake and analytics software maker Data Bricks deal that with value the start up out of whopping fifty five billion dollars according to sources. Katie Ruff joins us, Now you helped report this out with ed. In fact,
Katie's so Was this a surprise? Did we know that they were potentially going to get a new injection.
Well, what we've been seeing a lot lately is a lot of these tender offers for the companies that aren't in arrested to go public and have plenty of private investor interest. So it's not a surprise.
In that sense.
But fifty five billion is still a pretty high price.
They were valued it forty three.
Billion last year. And you know Thrive they're investing a billion dollars and that's something we've been seeing more with Thrive lately. They invested that much in Opening Eye and also a lot in Stripe Datie.
Just the basics on a tender or secondary right. This is employee, some early investors that sell their shares directly to the firm and other firms leading the around. So Data Breaks doesn't raise any money, and it gives those staff some chance to cash in like long serving. And I think you and I both recognize this is happening more often at the moment.
Sure exactly.
So it's the insiders, the existing shareholders that are getting an opportunity to sell their shares and you know, buy that house and not wait until the IPO markets are perfect. They can just get that liquidity now, and so this provides an opportunity to reward those early employees, those shareholders, and then also gives an opportunity for prospective investors to invest.
All right, Bloomos Katie Roof with another piece of exclusive reporting. Well, I'm coming up San Francisco's right wood Shift. We're going to discuss the future of Silicon Valley politics. Next, this is Bloomberg Technology.
We're getting some thirteen F filings, among them soft Bank expanding its communication portfolio, and for September the thirtieth quarter, the company has shown that it's bought stock a popular online comic platform, Webtoon Entertainment. This is Webtoons or strong third quarter marked by revenue growth of nine and a half percent. We're going to talk about all of it.
The CFO David Lee, And wasn't so long ago that you went public and when you're reporting these earnings, perhaps you were a bit knocked by the fact that a few price targets came down on the back of it.
How did investors understand the growth potential? What's happening with manga in your area?
Well, it's interesting Webtuned is very new for most investors.
Here.
We have a global business.
Where stories are being consumed, not just in Asia where the company started. Sixty percent of our audience now is outside of Japan and Korea. But people don't realize here, even in North America, that they've probably seen a number of films on Netflix or Amazon Prime and soon to be Friday after Thanksgiving on tub Actually where we've powered stories not just on our platform, but we've powered stories that turn into great films and great pieces of collateral
in merchandise. Yeah, so it's so early for us that I think investors are still getting an understanding of how explosive our global growth already can be. And I think we're just going to have to focus on educating the street quarter by quarter, since we're only about a quarter and a half out since going properly.
Let's talk about the future of IP.
I can totally see how it transfers onto movie and onto streaming. A lot of your just names of some of the content I almost think would be a generative AI chatbot. I mean a lot of them have those sorts of names and likenesses. Is that something you've been plowing into the generative AI space.
Well, we're very focused on AI. But what's interesting about our approach is we believe in human creativity. We think we are still the best storytellers. But taking our AI we have one hundred AI technologists been hard at work for a long time, and we may have one of the largest repositories of data around stories, enabling them to take hours out of the process to make sure that their images are compelling, giving them a chance to really
be heard by our global audience. We have one hundred and nearly seventy million monthly active users, and enabling for example, the one hundred and twenty four thousand stories evergreen stories that come to our platform every day means that AI can help find the ones that people care about.
David, I'm a two thousands comic book kid, right. I still have the X Men edition somewhere in my dad's garage. The world's different now, I look at like streaming the growth of anime. Can you just distill your strategy, particularly for the US.
So it's interesting is our core consumer in the United States looks a lot different than ed you and me. It's a sub twenty five year old female skewing passionate of twenty.
Five David, I might be doubled out or more.
But the genres that we power every genre. Let me give you an example. You know, one of the astounding facts is on Netflix, two of all time top ten projects came from us, and they weren't the anime and manga you might expect all of us are dead. Okay,
that kind of fits with that notion. But through my window, which came from a kindergarten teacher, a full time kindergarten teacher that was enabled by our platform to tell a story that's now reached the world, it kind of shows that we meet our consumers with any genre they want.
Just like you love the X Men.
I think that our current consumers, who are much younger than you and me, are finding unexpected stories from all over the world.
So, David, those consumers not just here in America but in international markets find themselves in a very different world after the US election. How are you modeling for economic policy around that and doing business across jurisdictions.
Well, one of the great benefits of Webtoon as a global storytelling hub, we don't have to focus for the long term on short term changes and administration. In fact, in this day and age, with all the news that's coming out, I think consumers want a good story and we're seeing that focus be our guidepost long term with
the consumer. Having said that, there is going to be a lot of volatility and FX, and we are benefited by the fact that we oftentimes receive revenue and the same currency that we pay costs, so we have the ability to be transparent with the street to talk about eths, volatility on headline numbers and revenue, but we're relatively immune and can focus on our law long term business websoon.
CFO David Lee, great to have you on the show. Thank you very much. All right, let's bring it back to San Francisco. It's become something less of a liberal bastion and more of a conservative punching bag. But even then, the cities found itself caught up in the nation's right wood shift.
More than fifteen percent.
Of the city's voters cast their ballot for Donald Trump in last week's election, compared with nine point three percent when he first ran in twenty sixteen. That according to data from the California Secretary of State, it.
Was the highest share for a Republican.
Presidential candidate in San Francisco in twenty years as ring in Bloomberg editor Cara Wetzel for more and talk a bit about Silicon Valley. Okay, historically liberal, yes, but what's happened here is part of the nationwide trend. And if you look on social media, it is prominent names in technology in this city that kind of led that.
Absolutely, I mean arguably, you know, Elon Musk had a big role in what the rise of Trumky continues now have a role in the administration now in San Francisco anymore. But he has a lot of prominent you know people and ties to this area. David Sachs, notably San Francisco resident, held a fundraiser for Trump, raised about twelve million dollars. So, you know, I think, as we say, what is happening
in San Francisco is what's happening across the country. It is still fifteen percent is still a very small number, but it's kind of just you know, by there's a door has cracked a bit for Republicans. And now we see you know, some Republican groups saying, hey, maybe we can if.
Not you know, win electorally a national vote.
But have you know, some more donors, some multi class, some more tech people speaking out in favor of Republican candidates.
As they have done on the old in Pod and it's sort of echoed here on the other side of the country in New York as well. Kara, I'm interested in what happened at a governor and mayor level, in particular, because London breed the movement there still stayed within the Democrats.
But Daniel Lurie wells a whole new quotes to you.
Really that's right, Daniel Lurie, he's a Levi strauss Er and the founder of a prominent nonprofit here in San Francisco. Won the mayoral election and you know, he put a lot of money into the race. He doesn't have any political experience, which I think maybe was appealing to voters. He's a political outsider, and again it's kind of just dissatisfaction with the status quo. And I think you can, you know, argue that was you know, something that played
out nationally and in San Francisco. We have a lot of problems, homelessness crisis, a drug crisis, record high office vacancies that you really have seen come to the four in the past several years since the pandemic, and there's just a lot of dissatisfaction, and I think that's kind of what is reflected, you know, with some of these movements politically that we've seen.
So it's a great story.
Thanks coming on and tooking us through it of what's happening locally in San Francisco.
All the businesses, whether it be TKO, whether it be Endeavor, and all the assets and are great businesses. What remains doesn't remain will play itself out over the next couple of years. I guess I don't really know the timeframe, and so whatever is left, I'm going to be around. For whatever doesn't, I'll probably be really sad. I try to teach my kids this. I try to teach the employees. It's about not how many punches you can throw. It's about how many punches you can take, even though you
love something. It's tough, and endurance is an important quality for anybody now running a public company, starting a business, and so I've built my endurance up Endeavor and TKO.
Boss Ari Emmanuel on his approach to running multiple companies, probably his frustration with some of them being public. He can talk to the person conducting that interview the circuit of course, Host Emily Chang.
Please have you on this lot of America with us?
Oh, congratulations on the next set of content. And look, he has voiced his frustration plenty of times with being a public company and he wants to take it private. How is what he's doing with the business changing the perception in the market.
Well, and he is taking it private now. You know, our emmanual for many many years has said live sports, live entertainment is the future and kept buying up all these businesses, saying they all make each other stronger. But Wall Street didn't necessarily buy into that idea. So he's like, now, hey, I'm just going to take it private. I'll show you. And so he's selling off different parts of the business, in fact, selling some parts of Endeavor now to TKO.
He's actually moving into a chairman role at Endeavor and will remain CEO of TKO. But we've seen the value just triple there, whereas they obviously have a lot of work to do with Endeavor. And I should say, by the wayful disclosure, I'm an Endeavor client.
So okay, well you're so some of the talent that he's got to handle because in June, when everyone was focused on UFC three oh two or whether Zuck would fight Mask, Bloomberg's Emily Chang was in the oxygonin which I never thought i'd see. And you're training there, seriously, I know you were training. You spoke to Dana White just to explain that experience. And I'm also conscious that White, you know, alongside Trump in the last ten days following the result of the election.
You know, it was my first fight, so a lot of anticipation, and honestly, the energy was electric, Like I can see why this has become more of a mainstream sport. The training was intense, mad respect for those UFC fighters. But I did get to go backstage with Dana White and Ari and we talked about, you know, the ceiling, the potential for the UFC, and Dana White thinks it's.
Eight billion people.
There are billions of fans still out there that you know, don't necessarily have an easy way to watch this, that you know, could become obsessed with this if they had that opportunity. And it's definitely interesting in retrospect, especially seeing Dana White at the right hand of President Elect Trump. On the day of the election, and he said Trump will always be the UFC's number one fan. He gave the UFC a lifeline twenty years ago when no one
wanted to host them. He said, Hey, come to my Lantic City casino.
I'll host you here.
And so, you know, certainly helps now that the UFC has a direct line to.
The White House, Dana White. It's going to be on air a little bit later as well. Emany Chang, great to have you. Thank you for bringing us the latest ari Emanuel. You've got to check it out. You've got to check out all of the circuit that is coming. Some incredible people and themes around technology. But meanwhile, that does it for this edition of Bloomberg Technology.
Yeah, yeah, very interesting in the context of Disney. A lot to recap on the pod.
You know where to find the pod online, all those platforms might drop moment.
Just go and check it out.
Thank you team in New York City, Thank you team here in SF.
This is Bloomberg Technology.