From Mahart where Innovation, Money and Power Collie in Silicon Valley, NBN. This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow.
Live from New York and San Francisco.
This is Bloomberg Technology coming up. Intel gets to work striking a chip making deal with Amazon after postponing expansion plans in Germany.
Plussy Loon Musk expanding his support for Republicans, don eighteen millions to back the GOP in congressional races.
And Microsoft rewards its shareholders boosting is diffenend and unveiling a sixteen billion dollar buyback plan that as we hear from co founder Bill Gates as he tackles a different three trillion dollar problem. But first, let's check in on these markets. Because they s people one hundred hits new Interdai highs. We are still well off the hires and annows that one hundred about five percent off of them, but we managed to push.
On higher on the day. We're at five to percent.
We're seeing a Goldilocks reading once again.
When it comes to economic data.
There's retail sales surprising to the upside for August, but still the market waits for tomorrow the FED and whether we get a fifty basis point cut.
But ed, you're watching the micro Yeah, three big technology names moving higher.
Amazon CEO Andy Jasse.
Has told staff they have to go back to the office five days a week starting in January except for extenuating circumstances.
Everyone's talking about that.
Microsoft boosting its dividend ten percent, a new sixty billion dollar share buyback plan that is pushing the stock higher. And then Intel a long list of news and announcements that shows Pat Gelsinger's turnaround plan is making. They will manufacture a chip for Amazon Aws, they will separate out the foundry business to serve customers. They will pull back in plants in Europe.
That's a long list.
Carrot it is, and we get into it blom Meg's Ian King. There is the positive, the deal to fabricate for Amazon.
How important is this the in I.
Mean, they needed a win, They needed a big name customer to come out and say, hey, yeah we can use that stuff. How material this particular type of chip is.
How big a.
Deal this individually is is another question. And really I spoke to Pat ahead of the announcement and he said, look, I don't need one big customer. I need lots of customers. So really that's the perspective for that particular announcement.
But this is an important start. We'll show what Pat told you on that phone call on screen in a second. It's a fabric chip.
What is a fabric chip and why is it significant that Intel has been chosen to make it?
Yeah?
I mean this is an integral part of a data center. It links other chips together. It's not the kind of thing that you have millions and millions of, but it's very important and you want it to be made on the best possible technology. The fact that Amazon, which is one of the, if not the leading data center operator in the world, has decided to use Intel, that's an affirmation that Intel has something that it can use and you know, helps.
It helps.
You mentioned that he needs lots and lots of customers, but they're not going to be Europe based for the time being. How upsetting is this ultimately for Germany and Poland today?
Well, it might have customers in Europe, but they won't be being building chips in Germany. Remember, they have a plant in Ireland which they said is going to be the center of their operations for now in Europe in terms of what this means for the actual you know, the European investment in semiconductors.
It's clearly a setback.
Everybody has been hoping that Intel would kind of ride to the rescue, obviously here in the United States, but also Europe is pushing this as a public policy. Anything that delays that, anything that raises the possibility that it won't happen, is obviously not good.
Let me show you this chart on the Bloomberg terminal. It shows us that going back to twenty twenty, Intel's only had three quarters where sales have grown. What did you learn on your phone call with back Pat Gelsinger that suggests this list of actions will change that chart and that at the top line they will start to see some growth.
Right.
What I said to him was like, Pat, do you have enough money to keep this thing going?
Right?
You know, everybody approves of the plan, everybody approves of what you've set out to do, but they are worried that you don't have enough money to do that. And his answer was, well, this has kind of saved me some more money to help me to keep things going. I feel like I've got the worst of the investment period behind me, and now we're in a position with our technology and what we can offer to begin to start to bring in those orders that turn things around.
In King always bringing us the important conversations.
Thank you.
Now let's bring in Jordan Klein to continue that conversation, tech media and telecom analyst over at Bazooho Americas.
You'll take on all of this, Jordan.
You write your note this morning really actually highlighting the pa reality for Intel is that in one week alone, a company such as Broadcom will add twice the market capitalization of an Intel. How are you thinking about the news coming from what was the key chip manufacturer of ten years ago.
Yeah, well thanks for having me. I mean, I would agree with the insummation that this is an important bit of positive news. Intel needed something to kind of help the stock and sentiment.
So I think on one.
Side, it's at least a affirmation that yes, they have this foundry business. They've won an important cloud customer in Amazon, But basically it's not we don't really know enough on the volume and the timing of when it would actually drive you know, revenues for them, and I think now the stage is set for them to hopefully go out and start adding more customers to the mix.
Whether that's you.
Know, the biggest and the best would be in Nvidia, but they could get others as well, and that's going to be a very zephill to climb, but they got to start somewhere, and that's what today.
Was biggest of the best in Vidia.
Our investors still feeling that that's where they should be allocating that chip's more broadly, chip making is where they should be putting money in this time in the market.
Well, that's a really good question.
I think people are a bit mixed on how much more exposure to semiconductors they want and need at this time. The group semiconductors that is is extremely sentiment driven, so when it's performing well, it's got the momentum, people are generally very happy to ride the wave. And that's what you saw all first half of twenty twenty four. It was like a fear of missing out led by Nvidia. As soon as we hit the highs in the first part of July and the group sold off, I think
investor sentiment shifted. People will worried this group is ahead of fundamentals. Evaluations were stretched, and it was time to look outside of SEMIS to areas like software or large cap Internet, and that's kind of where we are now.
I would say.
A last thing is that the investor feedback in SEMIS is quite mixed. Even though the group is still up a lot this year and the stocks act relatively well, not a lot of them are making new highs and the fundamentals, meaning what these companies are saying, particularly outside of Nvidia and GPUs for Ai, is actually not improving in some instances, it's deteriorating a bit, like the auto and memory sector.
Away from the idiosyncratic Jordan, what did the Intel story tell you about this investment cycle and through pats lens those potential customers and where they might be going.
Well, it tells me a couple things. It tells me that one these large cloud hyperskill customers like Amazon, Meta, Google, Facebook. Sorry, you know, these large cloud customers are very interested in building and designing their own custom chips. As you pointed out early in the show, this is more of a
fabric new working chip. But keep in mind Amazon is very big at building and designing their own chips for training and inferencing as opposed to relying too much on Nvidia, so I think that's going to continue.
All these big.
Cloud companies with large CAPEX spending budgets will seek to do as much as they can internally with the help of other leading design companies like Broadcom, Marvel, maybe Intel and others. It also shows that there's really no end in sight here. I think that they're going to look to diversify if they can beyond just building all these
chips with Taiwan Semi, who's the world's leading foundry. But they don't want to be too reliant upon them or give TSM so much leverage that they can keep raising prices, so they kind of want to keep the industry balanced and honest, so to speak, and that would be at Intel's advantage if they can show and prove they can execute at these very advanced, leading edge nodes.
Jordan, I don't know what you're doing on Wednesday afternoon. Here we'll be focusing on the next FOMC decision. You're somebody whose desk is just every day flowing with technology news essentially, So how do you and all the people that phone you at five am think about the FED tomorrow?
Well, I think half of them, like myself just wanted to be behind us so we can move on and focus more on fundamentals as opposed to the FED and the macro. I tend to think this one is one of the more important FED decisions and announcements that we've had in some time, But it also feels like a little bit overhyped in terms of are we really is the market really going to change dramatically whether it's twenty
five or fifty basis points. Are institutional investors and big mutual fund managers going to dramatically change the makeup of their portfolio based on twenty five versus fifty? I don't think so. I think they're already of the view that whether it's twenty five or fifty, the FED is going to continue to probably air on the side of wanting
to ease as opposed to keep rates high. And with that backdrop, as long as we can believe in a soft landing, which I think most investors do, they're going to probably stay long equities, and they're probably going to continue to look for growth, and that's going to favor key parts of tech. So bottom line, I think when the dust settles in a week, the fundamentals and the backdrop for tech still remain pretty favorable.
Does it still favor the most valuable companies? I think of Microsoft today once again having money back in terms of buybacks, promised dividends given, but it's so valuable already. Do the sentiment stick with it?
Oh yeah, I definitely think that there's no deterioration or weakening and positive sentiment for these mag seven you know, particularly these names like Microsoft and Video, Amazon and Meta. That the companies that are perceived to be the leaders in both class out an.
AI, even Apple.
I mean it's down a bit the last few days, but to be to be honest, like if AI on the smartphone is going to work, they're going to be leading the charge. And I just don't think you can get that exposure, that potential growth in other areas of tech, and actually probably not in other areas of the market. The debate is going to be what you pay for it, and that's that's you know, hard to determine. It's it's more of an art form than a than a science.
But as long as rates are coming down and the economies, you know, not grinding to a halt, I tend to think people will pay up for growth and that favors these large megacaps as opposed to the smaller companies that are going to have to see if the economy.
Holds up or not.
MISSOI America's analyst Jordan Klein, thank you very much. Coming up on the show, we have all the details on Uber's latest driver safety perch that's next.
This has been that technology.
Starting tomorrow, Uber will begin automatically verifying passengers, checking their account information against third party identity databases, all in an effort to make drivers feel safer.
Bloomegs. Dana Wrman joins us for more.
A big step one that's been called for.
Yes, And I don't think we talk enough about driver's safety, which is odd because when you think about it, these are drivers who are picking up strangers, mostly in their own cars, and I can imagine that being somewhat scary, maybe vulnerable feeling. And these are measures being taken really to make drivers feel a little safer as they pick up drivers in the day.
To day Dana, How's this going to work?
In some cases, like if you pay with a gift card on Uber rather than attach a credit card, there is some verification as a passenger or rider you already have to go through what will be required of us going forward.
Yeah, so I don't excuse me.
Writers who use anonymous payment methods, and I don't know how many of them there are, will need to go through a manual process, but most of us, For most of us, the process will be automatic, and it might even be that it's already been done. I actually checked my Uber account before joining you all here on TV and I had check marks next to both my cell phone number and my email address in my account. So for many customers, that automatic process may have already taken place.
And it's worth noting that you cannot, as a writer, opt out of the automatic process. So if you have a phone number attached the email address, ubers going to match you against a third party database to verify your identity, and it may already have been done.
This is one of a couple of steps that doing dosh cooms as well. All of this costs, but the reward must be more sustainable.
Drivers on that platform.
Yes, drivers have said in the past they're worried about their safety, both physically and reputationally. They're worried about things like carjack, but aside from violent incidents, they're worried about.
Malicious reports, just reports.
From maybe spiteful riders that could really tank their rating and therefore their standing with the platform and by extension, their income. So one of the measures today, in addition to the automatic identity.
Verification, is the ability.
To no longer match within the future someone who you've rated as a.
Driver a two or three.
As it is, you wouldn't be matched against again with someone who you rated just one out of five. But this is sort of an extension of that, saying, Okay, this passenger was a bit of a jerk, I rated them a two or three.
I'm not going to see them again.
Bloomberg's Dana Wolman, thank you very much. Now.
Microsoft raised its quarterly dividend ten percent and unveiled a new sixty billion dollar stock buyback program, matching the size of the repurchase plan three years ago. The company said shareholders as of November twenty first will receive a quarterly dividend of eighty three cents a share, compared with the current seventy five cents. The buyback agreement represents less than two percent of Microsoft's market value.
Carac Let's just.
Discuss in one of Microsoft's co founders Bill Gates, as his foundation just released its Goalkeepers Report for twenty twenty four, highlighting a sudden halt in the global health boom with a worsening child nutrition crisis causing a potential three trillion dollars in economic losses.
I sat down with Microsoft co founder.
Bill Gates to discuss just this, how technology and AI can help, and why resources are needed.
Take a listen, We do need to raise money to get resources for this so that the poor countries, you know, get out of the poverty trap and then are our self sufficient. The innovation is going to accelerate tools like AI or helping us understand that god the immune system, you know, how to design vaccines in a very deep way.
And you know, the.
Key thing that the Foundation has my innovation is making sure it's not just helping the rich countries, but it's helping the poorest.
And so, you know, can.
They get medical advice in their native language on their cell phone. Can they have their diseases that are so ignored, like malaria, Can we use AI to develop ways to not only reduce that but eventually eradicate it. And so you know, that's where the Foundation is looking at the innovation and making sure that it's benefiting those most in need.
The foundation talking with global leaders often, I'm sure global leaders of wealthy, developed nations who are preoccupied right now with their own political instabilities, their own worries about the cost of living. Will you get the help you need from developed nations?
Do you think?
Now that's a very good question.
You know.
The dream is that even in the face of huge budgetary challenges that all countries have, that they would be willing to have one to two percent that go to help the poorest, to help these countries move forward. And these are things where you're saving a life for less than a thousand dollars per life saved, so, you know, very catalytic, very well measured. You know, I wouldn't be putting my money in unless I knew that it was
extremely well spent. And so we're trying to keep this on the agenda to continue that miracle that took place where we made so much progress getting rid of childhood death.
Bill gates there and often ed to solve what is a three trillion dollar economic issue.
Is not rocket science.
It's about getting vitamins out to people. It's about more productive cows.
Yeah, and consistent with the foundation. What Gates is looking for is a technology that is upfront, affordable and scale and that's consistent always done. But they're putting a big check in particularly a nutrition microby and things like that.
Time now for talking tech and first up Hong Kong while it's preparing to issue a policy statement on the use of AI in finance, escording to sources, with the document broadly intended to signal Hong Kong's.
Support for artificial intelligence, and.
The move could catalyze the use of the technology in areas from training to investment, banking and cryptocurrencies. Plus, Lenovo started building AI servers in south of India, moving beyond products such as laptops and smartphones, and the Chinese company will also build out its facilities in Bangalore region, including a research lab with a focus on.
AI and Amazon.
CEO Andy Jase he's moving to streamline the company. In a memo to employees yesterday, the CEO announced cutting management layers and ordered employees to return to the office five days a week.
In January, more.
Tech news as Salesforce is kicking off its Dreamforce event today. It's also unveiling a pivot in its AI strategy now saying that it's AI tools can handle tasks without human supervision, and changing the way it charges for software. Let's bring in Bloomberg intelligence analyst and a rag Rana and on the charging they're going to start doing two dollars per conversation handled by an AI agent as opposed to a subscription on a per head basis.
What's the BI reaction to that.
Yeah, So when you look at the way some of these core pilots are being priced, you know, companies like Microsoft are saying they're going to charge thirty dollars per user per month. So that's one pricing mechanism. Another pricing mechanism is consumption based, which is what you just mentioned. Adobe has a similar one for their Firefly appligation where you're going to get some credits initially and then you're
going to have to pay for it. And the third one would be just part of the full enterprise packet. So there are several ways you're going to modernize this is monetize this, but needless to say, over the next few years, we think these costs are going to reduce dramatically because currently the reason why it's a little bit more expensive is because it really required a lot of resources to train these large language models. And over time that consumption, that processing is going to improve.
So as it becomes cheaper, will that be reflected in the price point that you and I charged for any conversation?
Yeah, I think that's going to be beyond for everything, not just this, but probably you know, you could say chat, GPT pricing or subscriptions. Over time, you could expect some compression in those charges and you know, better profit for.
These AI vendors.
But for Salesforce, I think they're going to play it a few ways. They have a product called data Cloud. I think that's doing very well. That's an area of strength for them. Now, remember but that's too small of a thing that is cannot offset the bigger compression on ender. Is it budgets that's compressing their seat growth right now?
Anna Rag, I'm surprised that you're not here with me in San Francisco for dream Force. You know, Salesforce were well the research, the podcast. Why aren't you attempted to come out? Is it not a sort of substantive event?
No, it is an important event, but frankly speaking, almost every week there is an event like this whether it's Oracle World or Workday, I wondn't get any work done if I.
Was doing that.
He's going to be in the office like most of the Amazon employers will have to be as well soon. Just very briefly, what is factored in to CRM at the moment in salesforce? Are we seeing well the enthusiasm ram the name reflecting the evaluation.
Yeah, I think you know, for CRM, they really need to get back to double digit growth rate. I mean, I think this is really a big issue for them because right now, when we looked at bookings data for the last quarter, we're hovering around at eight and a half nine percent mark, which means next to your sales
growth is going to be nine percent. You can check out on the Bloomberg te or in our view that needs to come to that ten to twelve percent number before you know, you would see investors by link the way the margin story is done and done with, but now it's a matter of revenue acceleration for them.
Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Anna rag Rana, thank you, Welcome back to Bluemag Technology.
I'm Caroline hid in New York.
Medald Loo in San Francisco, let's just talk.
Politics, because Elon Musk is openly as wallet wider in support of Republican candidates in battlegwn districts across the country. Now, the Tesla CEU Super Political Action Committee is following two point one million dollars in its first foray into congressional races. Megs Mike Shephard joins us. Now, this is a new foray. Which kind of races are they targeting?
Well, what they're looking for is some of the most closely contested districts in the country. These are the kinds of competitions that could side control of the House of Representatives come November. These are areas where Joe Biden won in twenty twenty but Democrats in twenty twenty two during the midterm elections lost those seats. Now that Democratic Party is trying to make some efforts to regain control of those districts so that maybe they could flip the House
back into their hands come November. Now, this will not be an easy task, but it is something that's a little bit more within reach than might appear, even as we look at a very closely contested presidential race. So Elon Musk putting some money through his superpack into these races. One is Mike Lawler and Westchester. Another is Marcus Molnaro's district further upstate New York. These are the kinds of places where Republicans are looking to hold onto their gains from twenty twenty two.
To some two point one million dollars might not seem like a lot to others, it will seem like a lot. But the point that Bloomberg's Down the Hole makes well in her story is that Elon Musk is the world's richest man but also has other platforms in which his voice gets out to voters. Explain why that's important, Mike.
Well, and you're getting at something really important here in this particular campaign, and that is a dynamic of in kind support that Elon Musk is able to provide to his allies on the right. He for the first time really came out and endorsed a candidate when he did so in July, coming out in favor of former President Donald Trump. And he has signaled his interest in pushing more of these right leaning causes and conservative candidates.
So he is doing so using.
His ex platform by amplifying some of their posts and their views and also putting information out there and putting posts out there that make Kamala Harrison Democrats look not so.
Great, Mike, what does it mean for his businesses though, like Tesla, what does it mean to have well finance some political candidates.
Well, it's a really good question, Carolyn, because Elon Musk has so much business tied up with the federal government, either directly for example with SpaceX providing so many services to the US government, but also Tesla does have a stake in the fate of how President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, in all of its green incentives to get more people to buy electric vehicles, how that goes. So he has a very strong tied to the US government
and how things look for his companies. Now, in this sense, he is trying to ensure that not only does he get a candidate like Donald Trump who is in his court and in his favor, into the White House, he also wants to make sure he has allies in Congress who will act on his interests.
Bombangs Mike shepphad out of DC. Thank you very much. Let's get to another story.
Instagram is rolling out new privacy settings for teens. It will make teen accounts private by defeat limiting the use of private messages and sensitive posts. These restrictive settings will be turned on automatically for all Instagram users under the age of eighteen. Bloom Best Kurt Wagner covers social media and joins us now. And you spoke to Adam Asseerri, the chief over at Instagram, not just about how that will look if you're a team user of Instagram, but the rationale for doing it.
What did he tell you?
Well, he said that this has been in the works for over a year, and you can see why, right, this is one of the biggest complaints that Instagram gets from parents. It's one of the biggest complaints they certainly get from lawmakers. We've seen Mark Zuckerberg have to show up in DC to answer questions about their role on protecting children on several instances over the last couple of years. So this is something that is not a new problem or something that is not a new idea to them.
It's been in the works a long time. I think, you know, the bigger question might be what took them so long? But I think they've gotten to a point here where this is a very robust set of changes, and they feel like they're finally sort of addressing a lot of those concerns that they are getting from parents and lawmakers.
And Kurt, it does intertwine artificial intelligence to help them ensure that you are the age you say you are.
Yeah, it's sort of unique.
So if you are a teen under eighteen and you're lying about your birthday, they're going to use AI to try and detect those lies. Right, They're going to look at what a normal teen account might look like, what normal teen behavior might look like, and using AI, they will sort of bucket people into whether or not they think they are an under eighteen account, and then will
automatically put them into those settings right now. It may make mistakes at times, but you can imagine a lot of teenagers who are suddenly going to wake up here this news and try and change their birthday to get around this. And Meta says that they're trying to proactively prevent that.
For many social media platforms, Kurt, the demographic of the user base is important. So we have a sense of on Instagram how much of the user base is teen age and how much of it is parent overseeing teenage user account.
Yeah, no, we don't. I mean, we know it's in the millions. We know there are millions of teens around the world and millions of teens just here in the US that are using Instagram. We don't know a more striking percentage than that. This will be a small portion of the overall user base, right, So, even though it's all teens that are eighteen, it's really just teens under sixteen who need parental.
Permission to change these things.
If you are a sixteen or seventeen year old, you'll be kicked into these new settings, but you can change them on your own. So you know, this is a small cohort of users based on Instagram's total audience. But of course it is the most vulnerable and it's also the group that people are most concerned about, right because they're interacting at times with people that they've never met or don't know in real life.
And as a global concern, how is this a global outreach?
Yeah, so this will be implemented for teenagers across the world. They're starting with some English speaking countries, the US, the UK, out in Australia. They're going to bring it to the rest of the European Union. I believe by the end of this year, and then early in twenty twenty five they'll start expanding this to teens in other countries. So this isn't just a you know, a US thing.
This is a global thing.
And I asked Adamissari, hey, is this the kind of thing that's going to come to Facebook too, right, because this isn't just an issue on Instagram. He said, they want to start small with Instagram and if all goes well with the rollout, it seemed I got the sense that it was very likely these types of protections could move to some of Meta's other apps in the future as well.
Kyle Wagner, thank you keeping us up to speed and more on Meta now because it's banning Russian media outlet RT and its parent entity Rasia Say Good yea, the media group, and other related entities, according to reports Now, a spokesperson at Meta said in a statement that the outlets have been banned from metas apps globally for foreign interference activity.
Ed that's quick take quick look at Market's carry because I don't who really have done as much so far as maybe we should. The S and P five hundred, by the way, is very near a fresh record but I'm looking at the text focused indexes. We know what the points boosts are, right, you see one on the screen there Microsoft after the shared buyback in dividend that is helping push the NASDAK one hundred higher, along with Amazon Chips having a better day outperforming up almost percentage
point on the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index. Y. You know the story Intel, and Intel's seen its gains accelerate. We have so much more to come here on bloom Technology.
Stay with us. This is bloomot Technology.
Time now for our VC roundup in video back sakhana Ai now valued at one point five billion.
Dollars according to sources. The startup, founded.
By former Google researchers in twenty twenty three, was boosted by investments from Summer Japan's biggest banks.
And companies, using two hundred and thirteen million dollars in a series a funning round.
Emhil, Germany's rapid delivery startup Flink, has raised one hundred and fifty million dollars in a new round of fun We's thing it's valuation to.
Lily a billion.
Still, that's down from three billion dollars that it was valued at during the height of COVID when it emerged as a pandemic darling during Lockdown's VC firm Patron raised three and well one hundred million dollars for a new fund with a focus on young consumer facing companies.
Particularly in the gaming field. It's second fund from Patron. Ed We've got more.
Yeah, and Patron general partner and co founder Jason Yea joins us now for today's VC Spotlight here in San Francisco. Cover gaming a lot in this program. There are lots of headlines we should get to, but I think it's a good place to start. When you have one hundred million dollars to invest, where do you find disruption in the gaming industry? It won't be all of your focus, but it'll be a big part.
Yeah.
Well, good morning, ED, thanks again for having me here and alongside my partner's Brandjo and memory Atherdon, we're excited to be announcing our one hundred million dollars second fund today.
So to the point about where we focus, I think a lot of a lot of our insight comes from the time that we spent helping to build Right and Discord, and there's this entire generation of young people that are growing up on these gaming platforms spending thousands of hours with their friends, and I think we really want to follow the audience and take a look at what are the ways that they're going to evolve, how they use how they use the Internet.
When I think about the studios in particular, I mean you still focus on studios in.
Part that's an area where there are some.
Uncertain futures and a lot of them are pulling back reducing staff. Does that impact your ability to invest anywhere?
I think something we think a lot when looking at gaming studios is this idea of market expansion and market creation. It's incredibly tough to go directly compete against the Riot, Epic, a Valve, and so I think in that particular area we really look for, like what is the unique insight how can you actually grow what previously seemed like a market that might have been too niche I think League certainly was that way with Dota initially, and then really go from there.
Jason, how much is AI changing the game things?
I think, as with a lot of technology emergent technologies, previously, gaming has served as the forefront for new technology adoption.
And on our side, we really believe.
That AI is going to change how people use the Internet overall, and I think a lot of the earliest efforts are tied to content and game creation. I think the thing that we're more interested in is like, how can AI actually help to make your experience as a consumer better? How can it make the games you play more fun? How can it make the learning apps more effective? How can you make shopping more easy? So those are the areas that we're looking at.
And that's been a story you've told to institutional investors who got in on this fund, some big names who manage their own vcs. You've got Mark Andriesen, You've got Fred Wilson of Union Square Adventures.
Why are they seeking you out in particular?
And how easy was it to get that commitment in this environment?
So well, I think fundraising overall, as we've all seen, has been pretty challenging over the last year and a half.
I think one thing which resonated with a lot of our earliest investors, including a handful of the General Partner as you mentioned, and some of our largest institutions, is this idea that we are We're very focused on what we know best, and we spent better part of the last decade helping to build companies like Ride and Discord, and it is becoming increasingly clear that the consumers that grow up on products like Roadblocks and Discord and League,
they're the ones that are going to drive kind of future innovation adoption of technology. And so that focus has allowed us to really differentiate from a lot of our peers.
Discord's present is very different to its origin story. I wonder how much in that context you'll focus on being an operator, not just an investor. A lot of people have great ideas that they're morph into something completely different.
Certainly, I think for our firm specifically, so Amber really helped Discord expand into non gaming verticals. My job at Riot was to help us launch the game, launch sports, launch entertainment into new markets. And so having this real recent experience helping to launch products build communities has really resonated with the founders that we're working with.
Jason, I go back to a different hype cycle when we sort of gaming, we thought of Discord, and we thought of web three.
How much is that.
Still an underlying driver for you, even if it's less sexy to talk about.
I think we're always going to look at how new technologies influence how people connect with each other and play online, and so whether it was web through initially, whether it's generative AI now, I don't think that changes.
Again.
I think as a firm, we're much more focused on the audience and the behavior of that audience. And I do think it is good to be looking in areas where not everyone else is looking, and so we are always going to be hyper focused on this audience as they kind of grow up and adopt new technologies.
Jason Yay, I've patron, thank you so much for joining us on the new fund.
I want to get a.
Quick check in on crypto market's not already talked about it as much. Just before ten am Eastern, a lot of risk assets took a big leg to the upside, and that included Bitcoin that's now back trading around sixty one thousand US dollars per token. It had sort of had a shaky start to the week, which is a fed week, and that was a big part of the narrative. There are some other individual movers as well, largely tied to news. Crypto adjacent stocks micro Strategy, Riot and coinbase
all pushing higher as well. So news overnight, Donald Trump headlined an event billed as the unveiling of a crypto platform promoted by the Republican nominee and his sons, called World Liberty Financial. It's all part of his push to attract digital asset proponents. Here's what Trump had to say about why he thinks the US should embrace crypto.
If we don't do, a chinel is going to do.
A channel is doing it anyway.
But if we aren't doing, we're not going to be the biggest, and we have to be the biggest of the first.
We're join now by Insight Consulting principle Amanda Wick. She used to work at the just CIS department specializing in money laundering and crypto, and I think all those that tuned into the spaces would agree it was kind of thin on detail and specifics, a focus on DeFi there'll be the issuance of a token, but it will be for credited investors only here in the United States at least.
What did you learn? What's the main takeaway here, Amanda Well.
I think the sad thing is is that everything he just said is right.
I think what people in the industry are terrified is that he's the emissary saying it because there's no doubt that WLFI is going to be, if not a pump and dump, a rug pull. Everybody's watching in horror. Even Trump supporters are begging him not to do this because of the negative impact it could have on the industry long term.
Amanda, can you.
Give us real data or hard evidence as someone who formerly worked for the government in this as to why you think it's definitely going to be a rug pull or a pump and dump, because many working on the project, I would think would dispute that.
Yeah, and I really try to be objective. But if you're looking at project where the incentives are flipped, usually these projects the organizers hold twenty percent maybe less of the tokens. I think Ethereum kept maybe sixteen percent, Cardona is twenty percent. The Trump organizers are keeping seventy percent, and even in the thirty percent that will be released to the public, they're going to make.
Some profit off of that.
That is a terrible sign in terms of how it's being structured. The other thing you have to look at is the motive of the people organizing it. Trump's steering down the barrel of a four hundred million dollar collection in New York, and this would be personal funds that he could use to satisfy that. So the motives that they have here to make a bunch of money very quickly is unfortunately the worst aspect of crypto and it's the part of the.
Industry that people do not want to continue.
Amanda Bloomberg's states quite clearly in its report that the issuance of WLFI is in sort of having a role in the governance of the business itself. I want to park that The other narrative is that Trump thinks the United States of America needs to do this bigger approach because China's already doing it and he wants America to be a leader in the field.
How do you respond to that rationale.
He's absolutely right. I wish that the Heroes campaign was saying that.
I think they're a little tied in terms of what they can say because a sitting vice president can't really talk about the sitting administration negatively. But everybody in the industry wants a pivot from the Dems, wants America to lead first.
The sad thing is is Trump is right.
I think the sadder thing is this project might end up destroying the very thing that he said that was accurate.
When we think of China, though we don't see China embracing all of crypto and projects. You think perhaps more of them entertaining the idea of stable coins or indeed some sort of form of using it within a central bank coin. What of DEFY more broadly, Amanda and this project about sort of getting in the way of the intermediaries, and it's all about loaning lending asset.
Yeah, Look, there are great aspects of DeFi, and I think that part of his project is the good part that the industry.
Wants to talk about.
Again, it's just that the emissary if this ends up being a rug pull or a pump and dumb, it's the worst part of DeFi. But there are amazing DeFi projects out there that the industry wants to highlight and showcase.
This will not be one of them.
And I don't know that China is necessarily the market that's leading on DeFi. There are other countries that I think are more pro investing and are pro regulating in those areas, areas like you hate Singapore. Sometimes he doesn't get it quite right, which is unfortunate. But the fact that America needs to lead and DeFi is correct. It is horrifying that this project may take us back ten years instead of advancing us the way that the industry would hope.
Zeke Fox Are reported in an amazing long deep dive story on the people behind this project and Dough a project before that have been hacked, and people who've come.
Across from that.
They had responded saying basically an email address that you posted to saying we all see the picture you're trying to paint here and consider it best grossly inaccurate, and they're saying they're confident of our results will speak for themselves. You talk of regulation, Amanda, what regulation could be put in place to ensure that projects being built like this don't have this question of whether it'll be a rug pull?
Well, look, I mean there are regulations that we could use In trad FI, I prosecuted countless people who stole money as asset.
Managers in trad file.
So it's not a perfect system now, and a lot of times you're just relying on doing your own due diligence or as we see in CRYPTODYOLR, do your own research.
Are there?
I think there are particular regulations in DeFi because it's making certain financial acts decentralized.
That's a lot.
It's a longer complicated question, Amanda Wick, the.
Insight consulting principle.
We'll get you on for the longer, more complicated answers soon. We hope that does it for this edition of Blue Meg Technology Ed.
Check out the pod.
You know where to find find it on the online, on the Bloomberg platforms from New York and SF.
This is Bloomberg Technology. M hmmm