From Mahart where Innovation, Money and power.
Collie in Silicon Valley, Nbon.
This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlove. I'm Parolin Hine on Blooberg's world headquarters in New York and Ludlow he's off today. This is Bloomberg Technology. Coming up Microsoft and Activision. They extend their deadline for closing that sixty nine billion dollar deal as they seek approval in the United Kingdom. I've got the latest plus streaming giant Netflix reporting earnings later today. How has the password
crackdown impacted the business? And what does strikes in Hollywood mean for the company. And we'll sit down with the CEO of Weight Watchers. We're going to discuss the company embracing technological advances in medicine to support its business.
All that's so much more to come.
The first sets check in on those markets and Zada Green Abigail.
It certainly is a day of Green Caroline. This year's melt up continues. We have the S and P five hundred up for a third day. The NASAK one hundred is higher. We also have the nicy Fang Index. Some of those big megacap tech stocks, including China Tech, which is outperforming not on our board, but up more than two percent. So the stock bulls remain in control as we start to move through earning season, and of course,
the financials overall have reported well. Carvana, their results came out that stock is absolutely soaring right now, it's up about forty three percent. They beat estimates both for adjusted earnings in terms of a narrower loss and expected revenues. So this online car platform, which earlier this year had been a sub five dollars stock, now up more than one thousand percent. Some of this positive attitude also has to do with restructuring their debt.
The question is, as the other big.
Tech companies roll in, and this is not a big tech company, but as the big tech company earnings roll in, you're mentioning Netflix, this stock up about sixty one percent, will investors deem those earnings to be big enough, robust enough to support the moves? Because Netflix on the year up sixty one percent, we have meta Amazon up about an equal amount, Microsoft and Apple as well.
Yet if I take a look at.
How much revenue is growing for Netflix, it's expected to grow mid single digits. Same deal for Amazon and Microsoft, Apple, Caroline. It's actually expected for its June quarter revenue to decline by more than one percent. So it's going to be interesting to see whether these quarters come in where they're expected, what the outlooks are. Will we see this stock rally continue based on the results that come through.
All baited breath for those big names later off to the bow, Abigail, thank you so much. Let's get more updates so on well, the ever grinding story that is Microsoft and Activision the deal. We understand the extension in the deadline has been given for three months to get this deal done. There's also updates to the changes in which termination could be three and a half billion dollars if indeed they do walk away. There's three months time.
Let's get over to Catherine Gammel. I'm praised to say, who has been really thinking about why this ultimate deadline that was meant to be July the eighteenth has been extended and it's because of UK regulators correct, Yeah.
Exactly, Thanks so much for having me on.
Yes, so today we've seen that this deadline has officially been extended by the companies.
I mean this was expected and.
Bloomberg reported earlier in the week that this will be the case, and this is really just so that the companies can get over the UK hurdles. So the UK's Competition of Markets Authority is the only agency that's standing in the way of this stale closing at the moment.
And last week we saw them.
Put out a statement that would say that they're going to reconsider some structural remedies for the companies after the FTC's defeat in court. So you know, since then we've had quite a lot of update it's a big floody.
We've seen them extend their deal probe to the end of August to twenty ninth, and then to also clarify that if they are being offered a restructured deal that you know that this will go to a fresh probe so that it can give both sides times to you know, veni bosh and really thresh out the details on this one.
Shareholders might be a bit pleased, of course, two companies are going in the activision can issue at one time dividend of up to ninety nine cents to which shareholders before that deal closes. Of course, regular dividends had been put on ice prior to this, but it's so notable how the moon music has shifted, not only after the FTC failed to get it the deal put on ice here in the United States, but what on about turn
to occur in the United Kingdom. We are expecting more changes to the business model, but ultimately anything that could still stand in the way, it can still Spencer of Microsoft standing pretty upbeat.
Yeah, it seems like the companies are both feeling pretty confident about this one. I mean, I would just caution that the CME still needs to consider these remedies and see, you know, whether it all address the competition concerns at the heart of the reason behind the cmeme's first fetle. I mean, you know, we've wienberg Used last week reported that there's considerations of offering up some Microsoft's UK clothed business. We don't know yet if that's actually going to be
officially offered right now. The negotiations are still at an early stage, and on Monday they will just kicked off. After that because we got a pause of the ukcmmes and the Microsoft's appused proceedings at.
The competition and peep tribe, you know, we want to thank you, Catherine, thank you so much. Kathinkamut on all things Microsoft and Activision. Let's get on to Netflix as well, of course, which once one a time was talking about how gaming was its key competitor. Of course, it's going to be reporting earnings today after the ball and please to say that we mentioned you're an entertainment correspondent. Chris pal Mary is standing by in LA and first, well,
we are expecting subscriptions to pick up. It's all about that password crackdown.
Yeah, I think this tree is looking at about a two million subscriber edition of this quarter. That's about the same as the last quarter. Not as big as the blowout one we saw in the last quarter of twenty twenty two, but much better than the losses they had at the start last year. So there is a general feeling that Netflix has figured this out with a new ad, cheaper ad tier, with the crackdown on passwords, that they're resuming growth again.
And within this context, I'm still trying to understand whether a strike among actors among writers is going to be difficult for Netflix doesn't have live sport. But is it a boon because we know how much Netflix has gone in terms of content in the back office.
I would say the stream, given that you noted a sixty one percent increase in the price this year, thinks that they're gonna weather this strike.
Well.
You know, the company's line has been that they have this content pipeline, it's all set and they'll be able to go through the.
End of the year at least.
We'll be looking for any updates on the call today to see if their position on that has changed. You could certainly make the case that people will be spending a lot more time just streaming older shows and spending more time watching Netflix if you know, new programs are not on the air in the fall, So there is that dynamic.
Chris pa Mary is going to be glued to the screens when those numbers drop. As always, we thank you the Big bell Weather for the start of earnings in tech. Let's get to the other key, Big bell Weather. It's the biggest traded company here in the US. Apple, of course coming out with well breaking news that we understand that Apple is indeed racing to develop its own generative AI tools to catch up with Open ai now. According to Bloomberg, the sources are saying it's building a large
language model AI framework dubbed ajax. It's created internal chatchebt style blot for employees already.
What's notable is this is helping in Video's share price.
It's quickly turned positive, up more than zero point four percent, because, of course, what do they need compute power. On the downside, interestingly, Microsoft is falling to session lows down by about as you'll see, currently off by three tens percent. They were off at well eight tens percent a little bit earlier.
Because this is competition, folks, if they're seeking to.
Take on open AI and indeed being it'll be a great conversation to have with a Microsoft executive. We've got coming up later in the show. Apple shares and a new record high. Why while reporting coming from our own Mark Gum and that Apple is quietly working on an artificial intelligence tools that could challenge those of open AI of Google's barred. Of course, this is all to do with generative AI. The only thing we can really talk
about here on Bloomberg Technology. It's releasing, we understand, but there's no real clear strategy for the technology getting into the hands of consumers. What we do understand is the IFOM maker has built its own framework to create large language models an AI based system at the heart of the offering.
We understand, of course it's called ajax.
This is going to take on Bard, going to take on chat GPT, And in fact they've already created a chatbot service that some engineers called Apple GPT for their own internal employees. But in recent months this AI push has become a major effort for Apple.
Notable that, of course Tim Cook hasn't discussed it.
We were all waiting to see whether we did it the Worldwide Developers Conference a month ago. We'll see as to whether, of course it starts to factor in their earnings calls. As we know all anyone can talk about in those earnings things like AI. But we know that Apple has woven AI features into products for years, and now it's trying to play a little bit of catch up in what is ever more buzzy market for generative tools overall. But we'll see whether people can be creating essays, images, video.
I wanted to shine a light on what's happening in competitors Microsoft, of course, which has evolved the open AI relationship to become one that's really integrated within being. Within Microsoft co pilot three sixty five, we disc discussing that in a moment with an executive. But it's down some seven tens percent. As we talk about this new potential competition, Apple up more than two percent and a new record, and even in video, of course, the big compute power
is on the higher side because of this. Let's get to the man that broke the story, Mark Goom, and I'm pleased to say is on the phone, and I mean some real digging here. We were all waiting for Apple to wear in on AI.
And here we are. I'm told that Apple is quietly working on a set of new generative AI tools with the idea of catching up to open API, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, everyone you've seen entering this buzzy new AI space recently. Two pieces of information here. One, they've created an underlying framework to create large language models or LMS. That's the tech at the heart of Chat, GPT and Google Bard being AI, these other services. Apple's internal framework, it's called AJAX.
Now on top of that framework or with that framework, they've also created an internal chat GPT like system that some people on Apple call Apple GPT that works similarly at GPT that we know today. So clearly Apple is all in on LMS. They have multiple teams working on this. The big caveat at this point though, is they do not have a clear strategy for consumers yet, But the work is happening and they'll get there eventually.
Many have perhaps grinded their teeth with frustration at Siri. That seems an obvious area that generative AI could improve. Where else though, could consumers interact with anything that Apple would offer?
Yeah, in terms of generative AI, you can see this across all platforms. You can see this across many applications. There are places where this could be used in productivity apps, let's say in Apple spreadsheet or work processing or slide presentation apps, you can have a generative AI system theoretically to help you build those presentations and get work done
for you. Like you said, you can see it happen in Siri, a more chatbot like interface with improved data based on what it's trained with and improved back and forth, so to speak, or more information able to come in
a more clear form into sery. You can see it in terms of app development right even on a place like the Vision pro headset, where you don't necessarily have a keyboard and mouse at all times, and you're going to want official intelligence system to give you a leg up on development when you don't have those standard input methods. So there's all sorts of places where generative AI can be placed. Apples hiring for people in the inlich model space.
They're looking for people who can apply generative AI to help people communicate, create, connect and consume media, the company says, and some job listings, so they're all in on this. Well, Apple doesn't have a definitive plan yet. People involved in these projects believe that Apple's preparing to make some sort of major AI announcement sometime as early as next year.
Wow, Marc German, always with the latest and breaking when it comes to Apple, Thanks so much for us quickly jumping on the phone with us. Meanwhile, well, let's turn to a company that's become ever more technologically native. In fact, they've hired a previous Silicon Valley style weight watchers of course,
known as WW International. In this week's Bloomberg Business Week is part of Well, the cover story, it's all about the sixty year old company bet On Pharmaceuticals is the next frontier for innovation in the weight loss space.
In a bit to keep up with the times. Now let's discuss all of this.
Hope, please to welcome the CEO, Sema Sistani, who joins us now. And you were building house party, you were deeply within the tech space, building companies, selling them, innovating. Your job now is to innovate at weight watches and part of that is making acquisitions in the telehealth space. Just talk to us about how this key acquisition is helping you drive forward with pharmaceuticals.
Yes, thank you for having me so coming in as CEO. What is just a year and change now? I knew part of the vision was about rethinking the business from a digital first perspective, one based on community, which is as you mentioned, where I've spent most of my career
in growth tech doing. I had first experience first as a member on the program, and so I was really excited about bringing something new and fresh to the product on a global scale and something that would allow me to take all my growth technoledge to growth tech experience excuse me and knowledge and then have meaningful outcomes.
For global health. Well.
So, anyways, I had been looking at this research on blue zones and how to create a digital blue zone, and we investigated new modalities both across functional and clinical, and what stood out most is that obesity is a chronic condition. It still hasn't been addressed truly in that manner, when in fact, for over ten years it's been scientifically
recognized as a chronic condition. And so we wanted to enter the space and be able to extend our toolkit to not only behavior change and functional but also clinical interventions.
What's so interesting is yesterday we learned that another tech executive, social media tech executive, Jeff Cook, is joining Noon, which is a kind of competitor which is also in the weightless startup transition prescribing obesity drugs. How do you compete, how do you stand out? How do you make sure that you're loyal following doesn't become disenchanted by the shift?
Well, well, I mean I think that there are two There are two questions in there, and the first one that I want to address is the prevalence. And you know, of obesity in the US, take for instance, since nineteen ninety three, the prevalence was about thirteen percent and now we're talking forty two percent prevalence, and you know, the trajectory is going to get us to fifty percent prevalence of people living with obesity by twenty thirty. So this is a matter of rising tides.
Lifts all ships.
We are we are as the leaders in the space, wanting to make sure that this is something that we can address globally and that we're doing it responsibly. And yes, you know, certainly there have been members who who we have to bring along in the journey, and it's on us to really destigmatize this category and people understand that
it's not just about willpower. For many, it's not a moral failing that this is a chronic relapsing condition and in some cases requires a clinical intervention for people to see long term success and longevity.
Talk to us about any program you might launch, whether or not it's through sequence that people managed to access these obesity drugs, whether it's somewhere else. You're sort of trying to build a program, as I understand it, to do with this acquisition that helps people build a lifestyle. How many people do you think would ultimately sign on, When might we see such a launch and how sure?
Well, yeah, I think it's important to remind people that the medications and particularly the clinical trial was called step that really led to the media being excited and really the zeitguy shifting to thinking about these medications. This was a trial that was run alongside lifestyle treatment, meaning that these patients were receiving guys on diet and activity. They were done in conjunction with a calorie deficit. And so it's a misconception that these are a magic pill that
you just take and lose weight. You must do them alongside lifestyle intervention. And that's what the medications help you do is have greater adherence to the healthy habits that
come naturally to something. And so what we are developing alongside of our tried and true number one doctor recommended program for behavior change is one that is very specific to people who are on the g LP one journey because they need help with maintenance of lean muscle mass, nutrient density, and and doing so alongside of the titration the dosage tried excuse me, titration is going to be
really important to achieving the best outcomes. And so we plan to introduce this program in the fall, and that would be for people who get the medications through our virtual clinics sequence or not. So if you are somebody who who's gotten the medication through your healthcare provider. You know, these providers in a lot of cases are not trained
in OBCIA medication. Less than one percent of doctors are, and so this will be a program that will be able to have a higher touch support for those people.
Fascinating innovations. We'd love you to come back and talk about it a little bit longer next time. We thank you for your time. Wait watch your CEO Semasustani as it's known as WW International, but.
It's Ticka from New York. This is Blue Veg Technology.
It's time now for work shifting when we look at the changing landscape of the labor market amid advances in technology, and you know, we've got to talk about AI. We've got to talk about Microsoft's new artificial intelligence tools for its office software Microsoft three sixty five Copilot. It's going to cost you thirty dollars a month you want to use it on top of what most business customers will pay.
What are you getting in terms of that value?
Microsoft Vice President and Modern Life Devices Group usef Mehdi is with us. I'm so pleased to welcome you about YUSUF to the show and being Chat enterprise, whether it's being more specific with your data and ensuring that it's safe and also co pilot.
What are you offering here that's distinct Hi.
Carolin, First off, great to see again, Great to continue the conversation from our launch back in February. The big thing that we're announcing really yesterday is I think probably arguably the biggest thing that's going to happen in AI in the next twelve months, and that is that we're unlocking the ability for people at work to be able to use generative AI to help them in their jobs. Up to this point, people have not used it because of concerns of their data leaking out of the organization.
All that changes now with the launch of bing Chat Enterprise and Microsoft threugh certenty five copilot.
Ultimately, what has the demand been like?
I mean, we heard from executives that they were sort of inundated with CEOs asking them to get using this sort of product. What industries are being most impacted for you?
Well, the nice thing about this technology is really horizontally very valuable for people who are writing documents, writing software code, doing analysis, doing strategy. So whether you're in healthcare or architecture or automotive, there are many companies that want to use this powerful technology to help their employees be more productive. And we've seen that with much software certenty five copilot, where we've had companies like Chevron and others using it
already and seeing great capabilities. And then with being Chat and being Chat enterprise, where really every major company I talk to wants to be able to unlock the creativity power for their employees.
So if they once said no, you can't use chat, youbt at works something, they can say yes, but it's.
Got to be the big chat enterprise.
What's the interesting there's some really specific lms and general to AI being focused at different industries. I think of Harvey within the law world. Is that something that you're going to work alongside?
Yeah, it's a great question. The way I think about it is there will be these foundational models, so they'll be a couple in the world that will be the most advanced things like open AI, is chat, GPT or GPT that we work with GPT four that power incredible capabilities. And then companies will take those foundational models and they'll do their own training, they'll do their own special capabilities for their applications will enable those in being chat for
everybody through our plugin system. Think of it as like having skills in the AI. So that's kind of how it'll work.
Less than a minute left.
But I've got to ask you, what do you think about the news that Apple's in on the game of general to AI with ajax.
Well, you know, looks it's just such a hot area people have to get after it. It doesn't surprise me that companies like Apple want to get in there. You know, we've been at it for multiple years. We have a very unique lead with chat EGPT four, with our role in the enterprise, and you know the excitement of people wanting to go do that work on Windows and yesterday's announcements with support for met Islama on Azure, I really speak to the unique leadership role that we're playing right now.
Love to have you back to talk about the open source models versus those more closed source foundational models.
We thank you so much for your time there today.
Microsoft vice president of one Life and Devices company that is use many of that group. Welcome back to Blueberg Technology. I'm Karen Hired in New York ed Ludlow. He's off, He's missing the action when it comes to the publicly trade and markets. Let's get into them, because we've got another day of slight gains up just about a tenth of a percent. The moon music came from across the
Atlantic when the UK's inflation number also take lower. Look, Europe's still not pulling back as much as we'd expected, but really the UK did plummet and we saw therefore NASDAC just managed to get a bit of a push highers. The world seems to be grappling with slightly less issues when it comes to inflationary push forward, and that means false interest rates perhaps won't have to rise up at quite the rate we'd anticipated. The pound look at that down a percentage point.
Versus the US dollar.
After that, inflation data came in cool and then expected, But the Bloomberg Mantity index maybe says, look, don't hold your horses on inflationary pressures. Oil spiking wheat on the upper side that as we understand that Russia was really not going to be wanting to see any sort of movement in terms of voyages in and out of the Ukraine at the moment, So keep an eye on the
geopolitical risk there when it comes to commodities. Moving on, though, let's get back to this world of tech individual movers. The news coming from one Mark gum and that Apple is now getting all in on the generative AI game. We understand ageax is its foundational model that it's been trying to work with. We know that they already potentially have a chat Gypt like model being used by.
Employees Apple GPT.
It is up at a new record high at one point where one hundred and ninety five, up two thirds of a percentage point. Microsoft, interestingly having rallied hard yesterday after its own AI enterprise announcements, we were just talking about it with use of medi we're seeing it just giving about a little bit of that profit perhaps we saw it down a percentage point profit taking and indeed, while more competition to come, keep an eye on those
particular names. But now, well, let's go back to a company that was once public and now isn't Bloomberg reporting to then after Ecil Musk's Twitter acquisition and indeed, the series of content policy changes that ensued, it's led to a dramatic spike in well, hateful, violent, and indeed inaccurate posts on the platform. We understand that's after the story's publication.
We understand that Linda Yacarino, the new CEO, tweeted calling, look that researchers findings are incorrect, they're misleading, and indeed they're outdated.
How do we get this original research?
Let's go through it all with Bloomberg, Sarah Fryer, who's been editing this story, and Sarah. Ultimately we've got not one, not two, but sort of three different research houses pointing to an optic in hateful speech and inaccurate speech since Lilon Musk took the company private.
Yes, even more than that sided in the story. This is really a broad survey of researchers from the Anti Defamation League, the Center of Recountering Digital Hate Media Matters, universities across the board looking at issues like anti LGBT content, racist slurs against African Americans, anti submitted content, q andon support, a number of different factors that if you look at the numbers, all have gone up either in the last
year or in the first few months after takeover. The dates range because these are separate organizations, right, they're not working together on this.
But when you look at.
The full picture from these various organizations and what they've found looking at the data on Twitter of what people are sharing, what hashtags are trending, what people are seeing. It doesn't paint a healthy picture of the platform. In fact, it is a huge challenge for the company to try to convince brands to spend their money on promotions there,
given this reputation that the company is built. And one reason we did this story is just because we've been hearing for the last few months from brands saying, you know, I don't really know if I want to start spending again on Twitter. It's become kind of assessed pool, it's become dangerous, and we were a little skeptical and we wanted to ask, you know, the third parties that have been looking at this, is that true? Have you seen
this with the data? And this story is the result of looking at that data.
Let's go back to the woman who's got to lead about this change convince marketers to come back with their money, and is one Linda Yakarina. And as we're just showing some of her tweets in response to this particular article, in particularly, she says that more than ninety nine percent of content uses and advertises what they see on Twitter is healthy. Can you just go back to what they are currently doing internally at Twitter to try and write size.
Well.
I think that this is a very common line that you hear from social media platforms when they're called out for the harmful or violence or hateful content that is seen on their platforms.
They say, well, look at the overall picture.
Nine percent, you know, very high percentage of tweets are good. Well, that's sort of besides the general point that people are seeing these harmful posts and that the harmful posts are
affecting the user experience. What I think Linda Yakarino said that she's trying to do, and indeed, what Elon Musk has said that he's trying to do is go for this policy of freedom of speech, not reach, not a new idea, but implemented a Twitter in such a way that the posts themselves may remain on the platform, but they're focused on reducing the reach of those posts and
reducing how many people see them. And one big initiative from Yakarino's camp is to try to improve the adjacency of those bad tweets to advertiser content and give advertisers the option to say I want to show my companies tweets next to this kind of content. So you know, we've heard from them that that there's been some uptake on that offer, that some advertisers are signing up for it. From our sources internally, we've heard that, and I think
that that shows some progress. But it's like, as our story demonstrates, it's going to be a very long road ahead. Twitter is still down fifty percent in advertising since must took over, and they're still cash flow negatives, so there's a lot of work to be done.
We'll keep an eye.
We understand that in the next few weeks they gonna be further expanding that ad placement controls to better support the growth of video consumption on the platform. Sarahphy, just great reporting across the board. Thank you for articulating all of the shifts going on when it comes to Twitter. And let's talk about the rest of the world of social media, because well, TikTok, we understand, isn't fully compliant
withoutcoming European Union rules governing content. Surprisingly, according of course, to the results of a test conducted by the blocks governing vol pleased to talk us through it is Alex Barenka and boy, we were just hearing about the trials and tribulations if your Twitter, and of course, well, TikTok has long been on the focus of the EU in particular because it's got itself got to get ready for some new digital acts coming into place.
Absolutely, and to be clear, this is a voluntary stress test that happened on Monday that TikTok invited in the regulator who will be overseeing these new rules that go into play on September first, and said, hey, take a look at what we're doing. Now, take a look at our content moderation policies or data privacy and sharing practices, how much illegal content we have or hopefully don't have. And the Commissioner came out after that and said, TikTok,
you're still not doing enough. More needs to be done to get you up to snuff, but the rules aren't in play yet. I will say, Caroline, this is a really interesting change in tone. The Commissioner, Terry Breton, actually had some words about TikTok in January, saying that the illegal, dangerous content on the platform was unacceptable, and this week you see him actually applauding the social media platform for going through this voluntary test for spending on improving the platform.
So it's not quite a full thumbs up for the rules that will come into play in September, but you know, it is an interesting kind of reveal of what to expect from TikTok that they're perhaps inching closer, though they still have some more room to run.
That's such a good point given, you know, the tough space that TikTok has been in in the EU and the US of many considering not only some of the content and the impacts on mental health and the like, but also ultimately its ownership right, and I'm interested as to whether you think that's a pendulum that's swift shifting in any way.
Absolutely, and you know, with the ownership TikTok is owned by Byteedowan's it's a Chinese company that has proliferated these concerns across as you mentioned, the EU and the US with questions of whether or not the Chinese government could unduly influence what you see on TikTok the algorithm because it has that Chinese ownership. Now, this DSA really has to do with content moderation, so absolutely kind of the EU regulator looking under the hood and looking for any
concerns around anything that's untoward definitely plays into that. TikTok is also doing something very similar called Project Clover in the EEU that is doing here in the States under Project Texas. They're saying they're actually going to bring all of the data for users in the block to servers that exist in the EU to kind of cording off or wall off any potential sensitive information from their both their Chinese owner and any influence the Chinese government might
have on byteedance. So certainly this is an added pressure on TikTok that a lot of the other tech firms that do have to comply with these new EU regulations are not necessarily having to deal with.
Great analysis Mags, Alex Brink, thank you so much for bringing that story wolf across the world when it comes to social media. Meanwhile, coming up, we're going around the world in terms of tech and art. The auction house Christie's is kicking office Ardent Tech Summit right here in New York. We'll discuss with the head of its venture arm about all things art.
Technology and investing. That's next.
This is Blomberg Technology, Christie's Art and Tech Summit.
It's back for its seventh edition now highlighting the latest impact of AI, fintech, Web three, blockchain on the art world, as well as that intersection of luxury, fashion and tech, and much more to be discussed. Christie's, in fact, was the first auction house if you're remember to register a sale on a blockchain platform. In wants to stay abreast of innovation in the art world, and one way of doing that is.
Author It's vcarm Ristie's Ventures.
So today the Adventure Spotlight is all about Christie's Venture Global head Devang Thako, who's joining us. And Devang first and foremost, what is Christie's Ventures.
And thank you for having me. I think Christie's Ventures is our effort at trying to put our investments where our intent is. We've been in the art world for two hundred and fifty seven years. We've seen technology pass through these doors and doors across our forty six different offices for centuries, and we've had founders, creators, influencers tell us about everything they were building. That's deal flow, that's
what venture capital is all about. And especially after the deeper auction in twenty twenty one, we had everyone who was building anything sending us pitch decks sending us information about how cool their product was versus all the other products, and I just thought that was the right moment for the first time in our history, where Christie's was a detectorganize as someone who is adopting technology at its very early stage, and so the venture capital arm allows us
to capitalize on some of those deals and really invest in companies that come across our desk.
Well, I'm pretty sure post people Web three became a really focal point, but we were just looking at some of your portfolio companies there, and there's also holographic technology. What are the other intersections that you feel really benefit Christie's.
Yeah, we have four pillars that we look at from Christy's Venture's advantage point one, As you mentioned, in holograms, we look at hardware that helps people consume art better wherever they are in the globe. So holograms is the way we've replicated masterpiece objects like Degas and Jacques Medes in photo realistic fashions. In holograms, we looked at Web three. Of course, that's around ten to fifteen percent of our portfolio, mostly focused on fundamental picks and shovels sort of investment.
So you've looked at a company that we work with called Manifold Technologies that helped us Christie's build our own on chain auction platform that we use today. We're looking at AI and data because again with three hundred years of being in business, we have the tremendous amounts of data and knowledge that we can encapsulate. And finally, fintech people think by now pay later is a huge innovation,
which it is. We've been doing that since the dawn of Christies, like people do buy paintings and pay over time. So from the consumer point of view, we look at these four pillars and others as technology evolves around us.
Well, so interesting we go back to those heady days of twenty twenty one when people's an FT reached sixty nine million and we all just set up and sort of gasped, And now the world is very different.
NFT prices have plummeted.
You are all about creating value, continuing value. And when you see companies, interestingly, what Gucci's going to be at your event later today the summit, how are brands thinking about web three and NFTs is something that isn't losing value but can actually build loyalty.
No, I think that's a great question. I think when people came about, I think the interest levels just styrocketed over the last six seven nine months, they've sort of stabilized. Whether you look at the overall crypto ecosystem, things have
stabilized at a level. Whether this is the new level or not, I'm not the expert at it, But in terms of brands, I think brands have found this as a new way to engage communities, whether it's the communities that follow artists, whether it's the communities that follow a certain tech trend. And I think brands have to keep themselves innovative as they have sort of evolved themselves, they
can't maintain status quos. I think this technology specifically allows them to evolve with the trends in the market, and that's how I see brands using them. And I think this Gucci auction is an example where they're working directly with artists to curate a very fashion forward sale called future Frequencies. But artists are exploring generative art and generative AI and as it would apply to fashion, so I think the intersection is quite interesting there.
Let's talk about that the generative AI element, because well, it must is also as much as there's interest, there must be quite a bit of fear.
We think of people worrying about copyright.
We think about artists and authors and those that are creating ultimately worried about or the democratization of their workspace.
How is this something that Christie is thinking.
No, I think that's also a great question. I think the way I see it and the way where Christie see it, as any new technologies, it's going to come with its sort of learning cycle. Now it's going to come with its own sort of interest cycle, but then it's learning cycle. So we see as our role being the sort of neutral party that brings together academics, regulators, artists, technologists, business leaders at this conference. Again, I'll do a plug
for the conference. The reason we do this is because no one alone is going to solve any of these challenges, whether it's hallucination of AI or whether it's the ethics around using other people's sort of content. I think with AI, specifically to your question, I see it as augmenting intelligence
rather than artificially replacing intelligence. I think that's where I think improving the productivity of creator as well as other human beings is where I SEEI fitting in and that's sort of the theme of the two days, like how does some of these technology applied artists lives.
Less than a minute left the bank? The companies you invest in, why are they being built? How international are you?
Yeah?
I know we have companies from Vancouver, Canada to Australia, so we're covering the entire spectral of the globe.
Great to have some time with you. I'll catch up with you later. Devang Thacker, of course, Christie's venture global head. Talking about that key art and tech summit right here in New York.
I'm really excited about bringing something new and fresh to the product on a global scale and something that would allow me to take all my growth technoledge to growth tech experience excuse me and knowledge and then have meaningful outcomes for global health.
CEO of WW earlier in the show, just discussing the steps they're taking to modernize weight Watchers the business.
So I stay in the world.
Of health technology have been preventative health company vow leverage is artificial intelligence to obtain insights derived from unique micro file as well as human gene expressions. Now this is translated into health schools personalized health recommendations for customers.
We understand now, I pleased.
To say, Navien Jane, here's Voom founder, once an early employee of Microsoft, well has founded several companies.
You can come to us with VM today.
And what's so interesting is how microbiole as well as human gene expressions can be identified in an at home test.
So what is it that you're offering and why is it differents?
First all, Caroline, you know that the care that you know our health has been always delivered at the hospital. But I think the future of healthcare is going to be delivered at home. In the medicines of the futures are going to come from a farm, not a pharmacy. So what we do at WYOM is give you at home tests. With a simple split off your saliva, fingerprick blood, and a touch of your stool, you are able to analyze everything that's happening in your gut, in your mouth,
and all over your body, all the inflammation market. We can tell you your biological age, your cognitive health, your heart healths, your gut health, your oral health, and then we can tell you exactly what foods you should eat and why, what food you should avoid and why? And what turns out that there is no such thing as universal healthy food. So many of us eat spinach and kale. We hate it, but we eat it because it's good for us. Well, it turns out half of us actually
are harmed by that. So if you have you cannot digest oxolate, you should be eating spinach.
And if you cannot.
Digest you have high sulfide production, then you should be eating broccoli or avocado if you have high uric acid production. So literally every person has a unique microbiome thirty nine trillion living in our gut, one hundred trillion all over our body, inside our mouth, inside our nose. These microbes work with us as human hosts, and we outsource many of the functions to them. So when we eat food, they digest the food for us, and in turn they
release the nutrients. So what we do is, after you do at home tests, we tell you what's happening in the body. We tell you what foods are good for you, and these are not forever. Every six months when you do a retest, the foods that were bad again yes. And by the way, it's like you know, people say, how long do I have to do that. It's like asking, well I worked out about a year ago, do I have to work out again?
Well?
How much we know? How much in subscription?
Is?
How much is one of your tests?
And if you're doing it repeatedly over six months.
So first of all, you know our cost just about you know, five years ago was one thousand dollars now just come down to ninety nine dollars and we literally sell.
Them at cost.
So our tests, three of them, saliva, blood and stood all combined are for two hundred and ninety nine dollars.
Right, So if you're selling a cost, whereas the money for you, I know that you're using altificial intelligence for example, to drive the platform is about economies of scale.
Things is first of all is economies of his skill and secondly that amount of information. So we have now collected over seven hundred and fifty trillion data points from six hundred thousand plus samples. That allows us now to diagnose early stage cancer. So for example, with a spit of a tube, just we can diagnose a stage one cancer in your mouth or throat.
And we received.
FDA Breakthrough Device designation for accelerated approval that for stage one cancer ninety percent sensitivity, ninety five percent specificity.
Never heard of it like that of God thirty seconds.
But I think a prenativer scans, it's all about how you deal with that from a mental perspective.
How do you so first of all, is that not only you get to know what's happening, but you're able to deal with it because we are measuring your gene expression, so we can tell you the foods and by the way, we custom make the supplements for each individual, so we tell you what nutrients you need, and we literally make the powder and put them in a capsule and send it to you. So everything is made for you, made for it, for your human biology and everything you do.
We have shown the efficacy that your depression, anxiety, you know, acony and all those things actually.
Do get better.
So individualized leaving Jane all the energy. If I am founder, we thank you for joining us.
That does it. From this edition of boom Back Technology