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Meta Connect and the FTC's Big Tech Fights

Sep 27, 202343 min
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Episode description

Bloomberg's Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow break down what to expect from Meta Connect as analysts watch for the company's generative AI and VR plans. Plus, the FTC revives its challenge against the Microsoft-Activision deal just a day after its landmark antitrust suit against Amazon.

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Transcript

Speaker 1

From Marhart where Innovation, Money and Power Collie in Silicon Vallet Nbon. This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde and Ed lud Love.

Speaker 2

I'm Caroline Heindel Bloomberg's World headquarters in New York, and I'm Ed Lovelo in San Francisco.

Speaker 3

This is Bloomberg Technology.

Speaker 2

Coming up, we'll preview what to expect from Meta's connect as analysts watch for the company's generator AI and v ARE plans.

Speaker 4

Plus, we'll have more reaction to the FTC's landmark antitrust suit against Amazon, and hear from Chair Lena Kahan.

Speaker 2

Herself and as Sir Altman's open AI seeks up to a ninety billion dollar valuation. Will discuss the state of AI, the regulation of it with the co chair of the UK government's AI review. All that and so much more coming up. First, we check in on these markets, which are map dictated. We're flip flopping between gains and losses on the NASAC at the moment, currently underwater by two tens percent. It seems to be being moved by this particular market.

Speaker 5

The bond market.

Speaker 2

We're seeing yields back up four basis points. Look for it sort of decade long highs at the moment four point five to seven on the tenure. At the moment we're seeing above five percent on a two year We're.

Speaker 5

Worried about the direction of travel for the Federal.

Speaker 2

Reserve and indeed a potential government start shut down here in the United States. Interesting though, then we see the dollar, of course still pushing higher. Is that as we expect the Fed to have to push back on currently where some of the inflatory pressures have been, we're seeing the Bloomberg Dollar Index are for a six straight day, longest winning street that we've seen since the beginning of the year.

Let's move on and see that actually in the face of a stronger dollar, Bitcoin higher up five ten percent, we saw a sudden bount of buying in European trading. So actually managing to tread some water here, ed, But get back to the micro that's involved today.

Speaker 4

Yeah, there's kind of some themes in the show from sort of consumer electronics to augmented reality playing out in the new cycle markets as well. So Snap up two point three percent. They're shuttering the unit of their business that does augmented reality for enterprise one hundred and seventy jobs going with that job's being cut as well, it's kind of a question about the long term commitment of

Snap two org maintor reality. Later in the show, we will talk to our Bloomberg Intelligence and list about that consumer electronics hardware. Peloton now down nine ten to one percent. Tom Cortes, the last remaining founder of Peloton, is leaving the company. So of the five that started the company, he was the last DOMINODA four. He has left but will remain on as an advisor. The stock kind of traded sideways for most of the session. It is now down. The big one, as you said, is Meta Connect. Meta

Connect is the company's annual developers conference. When we think about developers conferences, we do think software, but there's going to be a big hardware component. We know that quest the next generation of will be a topic of conversation. Of course, alongside AI, we are treading water on Meta the parent of Facebook. Upper tenth of one percent. How much focus is going to be on the software side, how much focus is going to be on the latest

generation of hardware metaverse versus artificial intelligence? What is the priority? These are the great questions we have to ask.

Speaker 2

And indeed the ones that we've been asking day in, day out, in fact with executives of Meta. Of course, last week I got to sit down with the head of Global affairs to discuss how the company is utilizing generative AI.

Speaker 5

Just take a listen.

Speaker 6

We're announcing next Wednesday on the twenty seven new applications of generative AI in our products. Things like you'll be able to communicate with businesses on WhatsApp and Messenger, the sort of really really extraordinary aipowered bots that will transform the way that all of us as consumers interact with businesses, and many other things that will announce next Wednesday.

Speaker 5

Let's weigh up what investors want to hear.

Speaker 2

Jeffrey's seen it Internet Analyst is with us Brinville ahead of the all important Meta connect and Brent to that end, how much do you want to be hearing about generative AI? How much do you want to be hearing about chatbots? About therefore, the desire of people younger generation in particular to remain committed to instagramed Messenger, to the other offerings.

Speaker 7

I think AI is front center for every tech company, Google, Amazon, the whole industry. This is this is the majority of the topics that we're having with our investors, So I

think that's what investors want to hear. Obviously at software, they don't love the hardware side of this, so they'd like to hear more about this than the quest and the hardware side, which again I think most investors are skeptical about obviously a more expensive endeavor, higher margin building software and AI than hardware, So I think we want to hear more around that. Mark Zuckerberg, you know, did a story yesterday as Instagram about Jarvis.

Speaker 8

Back in twenty sixteen.

Speaker 7

He showed Jarvis was his AI bought at his house that could turn on the lights and do things like make his toast at home. Right, So that was back in twenty sixteen, and he kind of re posted that. So we believe, you know, this concept of Jarvis for the home comes to the mass market in AI.

Speaker 8

Obviously Microsoft and Google are.

Speaker 7

Doing this meta also as an incredible opportunity given given what they have with What's App, Messenger and the global platforms that they have that can help us, you know, find the right goods. We want help help surface ideas, maybe pass along photos or other ideas or our friends. So I think this is going to be for us, the most exciting part of it. I think the sideshow will be, you know, Meta Quest three and the price point.

Speaker 8

Everyone's all below out of the vision prow at thirty five hundred dollars.

Speaker 7

So the differentiation there and what's going to happen in the next generation of the Metaversese brand.

Speaker 4

Meta is building large language models, a heavy emphasis on open source when developing that technology, and it's kind of hinted at how that translates to generative AI tools and their existing properties. Right I think we're focusing on AI agents. Do you see a clear path to Meta ever making any money from all of the things that they are working on the R and D side?

Speaker 8

We do.

Speaker 7

They've been very clear they're not making money now or don't believe that this will be a big revenue initiative in the short term. Long term, we do believe that they can make money on Lama, and they're obviously a consumer focused company, not as much enterprise, and so this is you know, going to take them time to figure this out.

Speaker 8

But we think given the quality of the feedback.

Speaker 7

From the channel about Lama and how they're using it, how they're the the open source community loving what they're doing. There's no doubt there's an opportunity to monetize that this.

Speaker 8

This isn't in the numbers. Uh, this isn't in the valuation today.

Speaker 7

So two three, four years from now, could this could we have a discussion around you know, is this going to be a material revenue engine where they could they could potentially license this model to companies to use and they would get a royalty for the answer is yes, one hundred percent. What the details look like, they're still trying to iron those out. Those aren't in our model, but certainly we do believe that they can monetize it going forward.

Speaker 4

Brent, quickly, it sounds to me like you're not that excited about augmented in virtual reality.

Speaker 3

Is that fair?

Speaker 8

Yes, that's fair.

Speaker 3

Okay, Okay.

Speaker 4

Here's the thing that it's either a metaverse story or it's an AI story. Do you see a world in which meta can convince investors that we can have both.

Speaker 7

I think we can have both, but I think that is the lass they've talked about the metaverse. The higher the stock is gone, so form an investor perspective, they if they keep talking about the software world and what's going on the social networking side. That's great. This is an advertising driven story, right. The majority of the revenue is driven off for advertising. So at this point, I think everyone the jury is out whether the metaverse is

going to be exciting or not. I think most people are saying it's not going to be as exciting and taking the height because there's real world productivity measures that we can see and how it's impacting our lives, Like putting a headset on and being claustrophobic and playing a game with my kids for ten minutes is not going to change my life, right, So I'm I think right now we're not We're probably the biggest bear on the metaverse.

We're very foolish about the position and what they can do with the other side of their franchise, and so we're very clear about what we like we don't like.

Speaker 2

Interestingly, many an executive is trying to lean into what investors and analysts such as yourself like, and look we had and flipski on earlier in the week just talking about how generative AI is becoming such a focus for AWS. On the flip side of all of this is the regulatory environment and look Amazon Meta all of them being eyed from regulators in particularly the FTC.

Speaker 5

We just heard.

Speaker 2

Yesterday of course Amazon under fire there. What are you making of this landscape? How do you expect the FTC some of these legal wranglings to unfold for is In, for example, brand.

Speaker 7

The government has been trying to tackle big tech for a long time, and we've said this that the government, the government or oversight is the right thing to help protect all of us as consumers. But the big tech is being big is not bad, right, Being bad is bad. So as long as they find the middle ground. We've said this repeatedly, investors, anytime a regulatory scare comes in, you buy these stocks.

Speaker 8

Just look at the charts of.

Speaker 7

Meta, Google, Amazon or over the course of the last five years, any any regulatory scare, these need these names need to be bought.

Speaker 8

Clearly.

Speaker 7

Uh, there's been multiple attempts for the government to take down tech.

Speaker 8

It hasn't happened.

Speaker 7

They find a way out, stocks recover, Investors make money. So I'm all for regulation and doing the right thing to protect all of us. But I think what's happened is they've overstepped their boundaries and they've gone after things that they don't necessarily have good footing or educate it on and then that's caused the proms.

Speaker 8

So I think ultimately these are comedies that have.

Speaker 7

Both one and then end goal, and I think they can meet in the middle. And we've said this repeatedly, like any regulatory scaring, Internet has not really done anything that he stocks. Just pull up the chart at Google for the last five years and you can just see it's an amazing up into the right chart.

Speaker 8

So respected believe in it.

Speaker 7

Don't believe they're going to have a mass of consequence or businesses.

Speaker 1

Brent.

Speaker 4

When you outlined that ten minutes with an ar v I headset playing with your kids at the weekend wouldn't change your life, there were parents in the San Francisco studio team here that tickled them a lot. I think they probably share that view of you. Jeffrey, Senior Internet Analysts, Brent Hill, thank you very much. Sticking with devices, Amazon has lured away longtime Microsoft executive Panos Pana to head the company's devices and services business after device's chief Dave

limp announced his plans to retire. He most recently was Microsoft's chief product officer, overseeing Windows as well as the company's hardware teams, and of course Dave Limpoff to head up Blue Origin carr Lots.

Speaker 5

Of Revolving Doors.

Speaker 4

FTC chair Lena Kahan is seeking to end what she calls Amazon's illegal conduct, but didn't go as far as to call for a breakup of Amazon. We sat down with her at our Bloomberg office in Washington, DC.

Speaker 3

This is the conversation. Have listen.

Speaker 9

This is a.

Speaker 10

Case about a set of unlawful tactics that Amazon has used to maintain its monopolies. We note in the complaint both a set of anti discounting tactics that Amazon uses to punish any seller or retailer that dares to discount, and ultimately these sets of tactics deter sellers and retailers from lowering prices and closes off an entire dimension of price competition.

Speaker 9

The other set of tactics.

Speaker 10

We note, is a coercive scheme that Amazon uses to effectively require sellers use its fulfillment service, and this in turn ends up stunting the development of independent fulfillment providers and ultimately also deprives actual and potential rivals of scale.

Speaker 9

And that's really the core theme here.

Speaker 10

These are a set of tactics, but ultimately Amazon has pursued them to deprive actual and potential competitors of the ability to gain the scale and momentum needed to effectively compete online. And having achieved and protected its monopoly power, our complaint details how Amazon is now exploiting that monopoly power in ways that harm customers, both the sellers, the tens of millions of American families that use Amazon to do their shopping, but also the.

Speaker 9

Sorry, both the shoppers, but also the sellers.

Speaker 10

The hundreds of thousands and tens of thousands of sellers use Amazon to access those shoppers, and it's done that through actively raising prices. Amazon takes close to one out of every two dollars from sellers that they use its platform.

Speaker 9

It's also degraded its.

Speaker 10

Service by adding a whole set of pay to play ads that make it more difficult for consumers to find what they're looking for and steers them to higher price products. So really encourage everybody to read the complaint. It details all of this conduct in great detail, and we're really looking forward to moving forward with it.

Speaker 9

So one of the things in the complaint is.

Speaker 10

This phrase structural relief that you're seeking structural relief in this case, which implies a breakup.

Speaker 5

What would that look like.

Speaker 10

So at this stage the complaint is really focused on the issue of liability. We lay out a scheme that we believe violates the US antitrust laws.

Speaker 9

What we note in.

Speaker 10

The complaint is that these different aspects of Amazon's scheme have.

Speaker 9

An aggregated effect.

Speaker 10

So the harm is accumulating their feedback loops between the harms, and so the net exclusionary effect of Amazon's conduct is quite significant. Ultimately, we'll want to make sure that any remedy is halting the illegal conduct, preventing a recurrence, and ensuring that Amazon is not able to profit and benefit

from its illegal behavior. So right now we're squarely focused on the question of liability, But when we get to the issue of remedy, those are going to be the principles we'll be focused on.

Speaker 2

FTC Chair Lena Calm there and look, Amazon has responded to this lawsuit, with the company's Global Council writing that if the FTC were to be successful, the result would be actually anti competitive, anti consumer. Let's stick in to all of this with Charlotte's lame and competition Policy Director of Policy.

Speaker 5

At public Knowledge.

Speaker 2

And also you previously worked in the Anti competitive Practices division of the FTZ investigating, litigating, and Charlotte, if you were there now, how much confidence would you have that this would be a winnable action.

Speaker 11

I think there's a reason that the antitrust attorneys at the FTC tried not to answer those kinds of questions. It's really hard to say at this early stage, but I think they feel confident, right. I watched that interview with Lena Khan yesterday, and it's so important to highlight this problem for people. It seems clear, even though Amazon has built their reputation on having the best prices, that

that didn't come from being a really efficient competitor. It came from pushing those third party sellers to raise prices everywhere else. That's not fair competition and if that's what's going on, it needs to step Charlotte.

Speaker 2

What's interesting is sort of investor an analyst reaction to all of this, and one particular analyst saying that this is a benign scenario for Amazon over at BED, and in fact they said that they were surprised the narrowness of the overall case, saying that there isn't sort of a reference to disallowing vertical integration. Do you think the outcome should be some sort of breakup or has it got to be something else?

Speaker 11

So certainly I think stopping the conduct is not going to be sufficient.

Speaker 5

This has been.

Speaker 11

Going on for a long time and replacing the competition that has been lost is really difficult. So step one is going to be to stop the conduct, but more will be needed. And I heard Chair con yesterday sort of demurring that this is going to be a decision that happens far in the future, and that's absolutely right.

The remedy stage of litigation is later and separate. But it may be that, you know, separating off the fulfilled by Amazon part of the business is the only way to address that lost competition, in which case the court would have to take that seriously, Charlotte.

Speaker 4

Some news in the last hour. The FTC has issued an order saying that it will continue its internal case against Activision and Microsoft steal that when that deal closes, they could then after the fact, try to unwind it. This is what Activision had to say in response via a spokesperson. We're focused on working with Microsoft toward closing how the FTC uses limited taxpayer dollars.

Speaker 3

Is its decision.

Speaker 4

Given your CV that Caroline outline, What is your response to this situation.

Speaker 11

Well, they're drying on an important point, which is that the FTC has limited resources and there are so many important cases that we want them to bring with those limited resources. But this case against Microsoft and Activision is a really important case. So if they think that that has the opportunity to help so many consumers, as I believe it would, that might be an important priority to

spend those limited resources. But they're absolutely right. We do need to increase funding for these agencies so that they can take on all of these important cases.

Speaker 4

Charlotte quickly, it is Lena Khan picking too many fights.

Speaker 11

No, we need to pick these fights. And she spoke yesterday about the deterrence strategy which can make this more efficient use of resources. Right, if businesses out there can see this is not going to be an opportunity for you to try something risky because there is a really fierce enforcer here that can actually be a way of saving resources. So I think that's part of the strategy and that can work over time.

Speaker 4

Charlott's Lane and competition policy director at public knowledge. Thank you so much for your time. This is Bloomberg Technology.

Speaker 2

Time now for work shifting when we look at the changing landscape of the labor market amid advances in technology.

Speaker 5

Big breakthrough for Hollywood.

Speaker 2

The Writers Guild of America approved a new contract with the studios, ending it strike after months of intense negotiations.

Speaker 5

Now one of the biggest wins in the deal is.

Speaker 2

Some assurance that artificial intelligence well won't replace their jobs. Glomberg's Felix Jillet is here with us with more details and before we move to what's next to occur in all of this, Yeah, AI, how have they won any sort of protection here?

Speaker 12

Well, they got what they wanted basically, which is that the Hollywood studios agreed that they're not going to you know, feed a bunch of scripts into the AI machine and come back and credit a movie to an AI that you know, the humans are still going to get the credit,

and that was what was really important. Now, the studios did retain the right to experiment a little bit with AI, so you know, it remains to be seen a little bit how this is going to play out, But for the time being, the writers are declaring victory.

Speaker 2

And read across therefore to actors because they too, particularly perhaps you know, the extras that are used, worried about AI replacing them in some way.

Speaker 5

Is this an issue?

Speaker 12

Yeah, I think they had similar concerns. And now there's a template for these protections. So I think, you know, there's optimism to believe that the writers, having made this pack, well now the actors will make some real progress quickly.

Speaker 4

Some of the numbers bind this felix are incredible, the loss of the economy based on the strike. But the whole point here is that the cost of contents getting higher. Did the studios feel good about this outcome?

Speaker 12

Their reaction has been notably more muted than the writers. I mean, the writers have been very exuberant, very you know, declaring victory.

Speaker 3

The studios gave up a lot.

Speaker 12

I think they gave up more than they thought they would have to five months ago in terms of compensation, in terms of minimum staff in on shows, and also in terms of the AI protections.

Speaker 4

Okay, so the other thing you're writing about is Lachlan Murdock. Daddy's gone metaphorically speaking, what's next?

Speaker 12

Well, it's interesting, you know, at this announcement, last week's stepping back as chairman of the two companies, you know, talking to all the Murdoch kremlinologists about what this all means. Very unclear to everybody, Like does this change anything? What does this mean a lot of unanswered questions. I mean, I think clearly it was framed as another vote of confidence by Rupert In his chosen successor, Lachlan, his eldest son.

But at the same time, you know, the issues of what's going to happen to the company down the road remained fairly unresolved. And you know, they tried to recombine Fox and News Corporation earlier this year. Investors balked at that idea. So what comes next?

Speaker 3

You know, they have.

Speaker 12

Been pretty quiet on the M and A front for the past couple of years, really since acquiring it. To be yeah, that looks like a successful deal for them, but there's still basically a minno in this world of giants.

Speaker 2

An extraett. It's a great wad go do it? This has been the technology Welcome back to Blue Meg Technology. I'm Caroline Hyde, New York.

Speaker 4

Now I med Lovelow in San Francisco. A quick check in on the markets. There's not a lot of kind of big action at the macro level, at the index level, and now's that one hundred down three tenths of one percent. There's still a lot of focus right on economic data, what the Federal Reserve will do, and before you know it, Caroline Earning season will be back and we will get

for I know, I just cannot believe it. There are two names that we're looking at specifically right now, and this has been a theme of the show, right Artificial intelligence and hardware. It is Metaconnect today the developers conference. We're up three tens of one percent. We will go even further later in the show on what we expect, why we do or don't care about the hardware side, and we will focus on the AI side. Microsoft softer

four tens of one percent. You're about to bring us a story that makes this move surprising to me because you think about the news flow. Would Microsoft be higher on what you were about to bring our audience.

Speaker 2

You would have thought so, because on paper they have made a pretty penny on a thirteen billion dollar investment in one company, ed Open AI. We are talking about, of course, the fact that company, the AI company, is in talking to its investors about a potential share sale

that would value it up to eighty to ninety billion dollars. Now, this at the moment ed is all according to the Wall Street Journal reporting sources, But the deal would allow employees, most crucially, to look sell some of their existing shares to be able to access some of the monetary value of the work that they've been doing without.

Speaker 5

The company actually having to issue or raise fresh capital.

Speaker 2

This exact valuation extraordinary when you think that actually open Ai was only just starting in our lexicon at the beginning of this year.

Speaker 4

Yeah, and when they did issue shares in April that was at a twenty nine billion dollar valuation. It's a hell of a jump. A big part of the story is employee liquidity, right, it's a big frustration when you're in a private startup for decade and you can't sell that your RSUs or your stock. And then did you see the revenue numbers that the journal reported and weird that might be it?

Speaker 2

Yeah, I mean the fact that Bloomberg knows that they're going to be bringing in about a billion in a year. I mean everyone's been questioning, how do you monetize the generative AI opportunity?

Speaker 5

Well, clearly open ai is already doing that solely with enterprise.

Speaker 2

They're still evolving in terms of multimodal ways in which we can interact with generative AI. It's also notable though, what I thought was interesting is the fact that what they're number three now behind TikTok, but also behind SpaceX and who was a co founder of open ai.

Speaker 4

Yeah, very interesting the wrap around with mister Elon Musk, who's doing his own thing now and a lot of AI.

Speaker 2

Let's dive into all of this look in authority in the space, particularly when it comes to the impact of generative AI, maybe regulation of it. Dame Wendy Halls with US, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton, also as a co chair of the UK Government's AI Review published back in twenty seventeen. And boy has the narrative

kind of changed accelerated, Wendy since twenty seventeen. And we've had you on the show for just talk about the exuberance that you still see around the space and ultimately whether we're wringing our hands about the opportunity but also the risks.

Speaker 13

Enough, well we should have ring our hands about the opportunities. The opportunities are there. There's a hype wave at the moment, and I remember the web dot com crash. I'm just saying that putting it out there when everyone piled into web companies and the technology wasn't mature enough and we had a crash. The generative AI people may be buying into it, but it's not proven yet as a thing that business can use. Is it really I'm not saying it won't be, but at the moment, is it reliable enough?

And there's a lot of competition. We don't really know what the business models are. There's still to be explored, and so there's a terrible I personally wouldn't be buying shares in AI companies at the member. Then I'm not a stocks and shares person, so I'm not in the.

Speaker 3

Contrad style, Wendy.

Speaker 4

We appreciate the perspective that will go commercialization. A second today is Meta connect and we will hear from the parent company of Facebook what they are doing in the world of artificial intelligence. But broadly they have stuck to the doctrine of open source development. What is your position on open source development?

Speaker 14

Well, I'm a circular academic.

Speaker 13

I love it for the innovation it provides, but I worry about the risks and who's responsible is the world of responsible AI if you get you know who's responsible for the use of that open source and who's responsible for whether it goes to the bad actors or the good.

Speaker 14

Actors down the line.

Speaker 13

As we talk about regulation, we have to talk about regulation of open source as well as the regulation of the core generators of the technology.

Speaker 2

I've seem to recall when Meta first announced Lama Too and Nick Kleagg was out there discussing about the why they're focused on open sourcing.

Speaker 5

You said, and I think it was you saying, look, this.

Speaker 2

Is potentially like giving people the instructions for a nuclear bomb here. Do you still stand by that that it could be as impactful? And you think Meta and the rest of the regulatory community are reacting to that.

Speaker 13

Well, I yes, I stand by what I said in these sense, and it makes people think about what we're doing right if the say are the AI companies are saying we can't explain how this stuff works, but we're putting it out there anyway, you know, we've I'm not a doom sir about this.

Speaker 14

I think generative AI is going to.

Speaker 13

Be a profoundly positive technology if used well and responsibly. But lots of people are pulling Jeffrey Hinton and people have pulled out of it. They're also it's dangerous, it's dangerous, We've got to be careful. But then they're giving away the open source versions. It just seems so contradictory in my mind. If you think something is so dangerous, shouldn't you be making sure very sure about who the people you're giving it to and what they're.

Speaker 14

Going to do with it.

Speaker 2

Also what's interesting is an inn Video executive has since left the business and as it's two thousand and one, claiming that their biggest concern is the fact that it is being dominated by big tech players and then there isn't enough of the startups being able to come in and other players being able to be at the table.

Speaker 5

Do you agree with that narrative?

Speaker 2

I mean, we're about to have yet another summit occurring where you are in the UK.

Speaker 13

Well, I won't be at the summit right the people at the It's at Bletchley Park, which is tiny. There's about one hundred and twenty seats you can get into the conference room and a number of country if I had that by the number of countries attending, there won't be many reps from every country. We mainly diplomats people from the intelligence agencies because it's all about.

Speaker 14

Cybersecurity and national security.

Speaker 13

And it'll be the tech grows, the people running the tech companies that will be there.

Speaker 14

There won't be a diversity of thought of any.

Speaker 13

Type there, and so I really worry that this whole conversation is being run by the tech companies and they're being effectively asked to regulate themselves and they're giving away stuff to you know, here's the open source guys. You do do this is who's responsible in this food chain?

Speaker 14

Where is the responsibility? That's what wiries me.

Speaker 3

Well, Wendy, let's talk about the nation.

Speaker 4

That's why I want to ask you, though, Wendy, about the nation state level action.

Speaker 3

Right.

Speaker 4

We had Joe White on the show last week, the UK Technology Ambassador, and he was telling Caroline and I about all the meetings he's having with the tech companies to secure the compute, the chip makers, the hyperscale cloud providers. So I understand your concerns, but do you at least see the UK trying to get itself at a national level in a position of leadership in what is a nascent technology.

Speaker 13

Yes, of course I do, and a lot of the things they're doing is totally applaud We have to put more money into this the UK does.

Speaker 14

I mean we don't.

Speaker 13

We are never going to be able to put the amount of money the US and China puts in. The EU's bigger than us, it could put more in. We don't have the companies in Europe, of course, they're all in Washington, in Washington or in shen Zen in China, and so we can only lead by regulating, governing. And I've always said that that's the right thing for us to do, because we're good at that sort of stuff. But just at the moment, since chat GPT came out,

everything has flipped in the UK. It's really turned so that it is all about the technology at the moment and the safety risks, and it's not about very little about how you you know.

Speaker 14

The good things that this can be used for and.

Speaker 13

How it's going to be used by society evolving the wider community in those debates.

Speaker 3

Day Mighty Hall.

Speaker 4

On that note, then, let me ask you then in your research, what are you most excited about about artificial intelligence bringing to society.

Speaker 13

Well, I'm excited about the things that the day I can do that will give us answers to questions we couldn't possibly.

Speaker 14

Work out without it. So example, in health.

Speaker 13

Everyone talks about health, but the breakthroughs are already. It will relieve people in the judgeries of some of the boring jobs, create new jobs. It will help us with solving the big ground challenges of the world like the climate change and energy and food security. And you know, we'll be able to do things with AI and data we couldn't possibly have done without without it, and that's you know, it's just and it's going to change. Generative

AI is going to change how we do everything. It will change how you work, how I work, how students work.

Speaker 14

You know it will.

Speaker 13

It will be as profound as the introduction of the calculator and the computer back in the seventies. We will all approach the creation of things differently. But it doesn't mean that generative AI is going to wipe us out of existence as it is now. So that there's such a hype around the existential threat and that we've got to of course talk about that and global but it's not the immediate threats are you know, more about misinformation and threats to the democratic process.

Speaker 14

How AI might be used in the.

Speaker 13

Campaign's next year and that and that's those are the things that worry me.

Speaker 4

Dame Wendy Hall, Professor of computer science at the University of Southampton. Robust conversation as always, Thank you.

Speaker 14

Okay.

Speaker 4

Now coming up here from Bloomberg Technology the future of marine transportation? Can the marine transportation industry go electric? We'll talk all about that more with ARC co founder Ryan Cook and Eclipse Sventure's founder Lee or Susan.

Speaker 3

That's coming up next.

Speaker 4

This is Bloomberg Technology. Okay, time for talking tech. First stop can How's planned IPO will be Keith for gauging demand in Hong Kong's sluggish deals market, companies have raised just under three billion dollars so far in twenty twenty three. That's on track for the least since the nineteen nineties.

Speaker 3

What a stat can now.

Speaker 4

The logistics unit of Aali Barber is expected to raise at least one billion dollars, and Binance says it's doing business in Russia as it recognizes that quote operating in Russia is not compatible with its compliance strategy. The crypto exchange platform is selling its units to comes a service

launch just one day before the deal was announced. Binance and its founder Chang Peng Jao have been the subjects of regulatory reviews this year in the US, plus TikTok Shop is dealing with a major setback to its growth in ambitions. In Indonesia, officials implemented a ban that prohibits social commerce companies from facilitating direct e commerce payments on their platforms. The new policies aimed at ensuring local e commerce services such as Tokopedia won't be squeezed out.

Speaker 3

Caroline.

Speaker 2

Yeah, well, now you've got a real focus today in the VC spotlight right where we're going to be talking electric boat snow less take it away.

Speaker 4

Yes, So two interesting people coming up on the program. First, ARC's co founder and CTO joins us Ryan Cook alongside Lee or Susan, one of the partners over it at clips. Electric Boat Companies raised seventy million dollars to expand its operations electrify more of the marine industry. This is like the Tesla playbook to go mass market in boats. So let's bring this conversation in and Ryan I want to

start with you. You had a limited number, fewer than twenty of these three hundred thousand dollars battery electric boats. The next gen model is going to come next year, twenty twenty four, but we don't know anything about it. So tell us where do these funds go to develop this next gen model?

Speaker 9

Yeah?

Speaker 15

Thanks, Ed, Yeah, I mean these funds really go to us expanding production into a more mass market vehicle. The ARC one was limited edition, we completely sold out, but we really want to focus our attention now on electrifying everything else on the water, everything up in the marine industry. A lot of gas boats out there, and ourxsmission is to convert all of them to electric. These funds really

help us accelerate that mission. We're going to be using it to expand our footprint here in Los Angeles, and we're going to be using it too, as you mentioned, work on our next more mass market product, which we will unveil more details in the next couple of months.

Speaker 2

Oh, you leave us hanging, but or on that respect, what is the ultimate total addressable market here?

Speaker 5

From your mind's eye?

Speaker 2

Why are you so excited to commit more capital here?

Speaker 1

Yeah, it's great to be here again.

Speaker 16

Caroline, and I think you know, like many other physical industries, the marinetime industries is being here for I don't know, five thousand years.

Speaker 1

It's a gay game.

Speaker 16

Think industry of multi hundreds of billions of dollars that's still being run by generally gas, a combustant engine. That's all going to change by electlification, with batteries, with electronics.

Speaker 1

You guys mentioned in the previous section AI.

Speaker 16

We love seeing AI in a physical industries and the impact in society and climate, and of course building what we believe will be the next Testla.

Speaker 1

Here with dog.

Speaker 4

Ryan, we talked about your CV. You had seven years of engineering at SpaceX, some of your investors at Tesla alum, some of your staff a Tesla alum. And you seem to be replicating this idea like Tesla started with the Roadster, then the Model Less than the Model three. Is it fair to say that you're kind of replicating that path forward.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I think that's fair to say.

Speaker 15

I mean, we really think that's the smartest way to go about doing this. The hardest part about working on a hardware startup is really scaling that production. Starting with something that's a smaller batch field kind of like the ARC one. It allows you to learn a lot where the risks are minimized because you have fewer products out there. We can take all of those learnings and honestly move faster as we move into the next product, rather than

trying to jump straight to something else mass market. And the other point here that we're only two and a half years old, we've already sold and delivered orc ones to customers. That's incredible speed for a hardware company, and it really speaks to the engineering team that we have and this kind of first principles approach that you know we bring from space accent as well to be able to execute that quickly.

Speaker 4

Leo, You've put a lot of dollars into real world startups, companies that actually make stuff. But it was interesting to note the expansion of US manufacturing here and not going overseas.

Speaker 3

What do you make of that, Leo?

Speaker 16

I think there is a new industrial renaissance in this country.

Speaker 1

I just came back from Washington, d C. Two weeks ago.

Speaker 16

The government is very serious to help this country build again. I think we understanding what that means from a geopolitics point of view and the needs to secure and resilience, our supply chain and manufacturing, and that's mean building companies like RC locally when you're putting on top of it, automation and software the other two biggest move that we are seeing in physical industries. You now can build the most sophisticated boat in Los Angeles.

Speaker 1

Uh, that would be just not something you could do before.

Speaker 16

And it's very exciting because I think we are seeing companies like Tesla and s Basics and ARC and others building a new industrial regime here in this country.

Speaker 2

Ron Therefore, what is the headache for you as you want to take on this money to accelerate in a big way. Is it supply chain that remains a concern? Is it talent pool? What is it that hinders you if at all?

Speaker 15

Yeah, it's it's probably a combination of both of those. You know, talent is really the most important. Talent is what lets you, you know, accelerate move quickly. We invest a lot in our people. We have a great engineering team with a great background from you know Tueslee be in SpaceX, all those companies. The supply chain is definitely the top of mind as well. That's actually where CLIPS is incredibly helpful. They have a great portfolio of companies.

They have a lot of experience operating in the hardware space. Our main focus though, is really just execution.

Speaker 1

On production ramp.

Speaker 15

Anyone who's started a hardware company knows trying to scale production is the hardest possible thing. Building one of something is easy, Building hundreds thousands of something is incredibly difficult.

Speaker 1

So that's really you know, the next.

Speaker 15

Year, two years being our entire focus is building the production line itself.

Speaker 2

Well here, so hope you don't have to sleep there too much as well, Elan did arc CTO co founder Ryan Cook, great has some time you an Eclipse founder

and managing partner ner Sisan, Thank you very much. Now, look, all eyes are going to be trained on the Meta Connect event, which is slee to start relatively shortly about half a last time, but we've got to touch on the news out of Snap, the company closing a division focused on making augmented reality services for businesses, putting the plug on its latest attempt just try and diversify this

business mandate. Seeing a place to say cover both of these key companies, Bloombag Intelligence and you already wrote to react to what was a great piece coming out of our own Alex Bernka, what do you make of really the decision quite hard nose decision here to just pull the plug.

Speaker 17

I think in case of all these companies that are relying on hyperscalers to give them the cloud capacity. I mean, look, investing in generative AI isn't cheap, and that's what every small company is realizing. It's hitting their growth margin. In the case of Snap, clearly they have a problem with top line growth. And I think AR, even though it was touted as the next big thing a couple of years back, clearly isn't the thing that investors are focused on.

They're more focused on generative AI, and that's why they're trying to cut their costs here. And look, Snap, compared to their peers has a very high R and D intensity, it's about forty percent, So compare that to all their peers, it's more twenty to twenty five percent is more than norm So I'm not surprised they're cutting that line.

Speaker 4

Mandy, Meta connect and the keynote from Zark coming up shortly. What's the AI story that you want to hear from Meta?

Speaker 17

Yeah, Look, I think we've seen a clear strategy from Microsoft using copilots to monetize GENI as well as the cloud capacity. Same thing with Google, you know, monetizing cloud and then they're launching copilots do it, and also they're integrating it in search. In the case of Meta, yes, they have a large anguage model, they have open source it. Well, we still don't know how they are going to monetize it, and a lot of the GPU capacity that they're buying

it's more for internal use. Yes, it will help with at targeting, but I think investors are more focused on external forms of monetization, and that's fair. They can integrate their large ANGLID model and build an ecosystem that's tied to the API. I think that would be huge in terms of monetization.

Speaker 2

We'll see how that all unfolds, and also those agent bots, chatbots and how all the different variations are discussed. Man keep saying Bloomberg technology will let him get back to get ready for the meta connective and meanwhile, now that does it for this addition of Bloomberg technology today.

Speaker 3

Yeah, so much to recap.

Speaker 4

There will be people out there that are excited about ARVR headsets.

Speaker 3

Recap our discussion.

Speaker 4

On that on the podcast Apples, Spotify, n iHeart. Of course, it's on all the Bloomberg platforms as well. Big show coming up in twenty four hours time from SFA New York. This is Bloomberg Technology.

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