From Mahard where Innovation, Money and power Collie in Silicon Valley, NBR. This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow.
I'm Caroline Had of Lumberg's weldad quarters in New.
York, and I'med Ludlow here in San Francisco. This is Bloomberg Technology coming up.
Microsoft meets with UK regulators to try clear the final hurdle in its sixty nine billion dollar takeover of Activision.
We'll read the latest from the productive talks.
Plus we'll look at the sticking points in the strikes to the shut down Hollywood and how AI could transform Tenttaltown as we know it.
And from AI to vr US aviation regulators and turning to a small Swiss tech startup to rethink how helicopter pilots and others are trained using virtual.
Reality Microsoft Activision. The situation is this Right now as we speak, there is a hearing at the Competition Anti Trust.
Tribunal in the UK.
All they are deciding is an ask from all the parties, the UKCMA, Microsoft and Activision to stay legal proceedings so that they can find a solution. They can find a way of moving forward. The deal deadlines July eighteenth, as per the original merger agreement. It's now crunch time. Does this happen? Activision up three percent the market soft proxy, but the stock seems to suggest there's confidence that we're moving forward towards a solution.
All about that competition and pel tribunal and all about well, those productive talks we understand thus far, Microsoft kicking off that hotly anticipated court hearing, with the discussions with the agency today. It's desperately trying, as you say, just to get this deal done sixty nine billion, and we know the clock is sticking on July the eighteenth for Activision Blizzard. Let's get to Brodie Ford, who's been across this, And I mean, UK is the hurdle, it really is.
Yep, yeah, that's right. I mean, as you said, it's down to the wire tomorrow. If Microsoft doesn't close it, they'd pay three billion dollars. I'm sure they don't want to do it, or they could go ahead and close it and risk further out from UK regulators.
So I mean, the market seems to think this is closing.
I mean, I saw a note coming in here that the word imminently is being thrown around a lot, right, So could we see a decision from the UK today and see it all close wrapped up?
Absolutely?
But you see that you know there's still that what three four percent deal spread? Some people think there's still a risk, so down to the wire.
When I spoke to sources at both companies Friday, there was a lot of confidence that this deal would close before or on July eighteenth, tomorrow, the deadline as per the merger agreement. But what you have is so many things in parallel. All the Appeals Tribuno is looking at is whether to allow the parties to go away and find some compromise between the two of them. The UKCMA stay and did its regulatory process till August twenty ninth. There is still an Appeals Tribunal trial scheduled for July
twenty eighth, So so many moving pieces. Brody, What is the request here? What is it that Microsoft and Activision want to happen in between all of these dates?
Yeah, well they wanted to close, and I think maybe what we should asking is what does the UK want to see. We saw Microsoft over the weekend make some concessions with Sony and say that look, we will agree that Call of Duty will remain on your platform for at least the next ten years. This is an agreement they tried to make previously, and Sony was actually the one that rejected it. So I think Sony coming to the table as an indicator that you know, they see
the writing on the wall. Some of my colleagues have reported, including you, that you know, Microsoft has considered selling off some of its rights to cloud gaming in the UK, which was a point of concern for regulators. So I think we could see some concessions like this and just you know whatever that as little closing deal is needed to get it through the edge.
Have we seen much like this before?
Do we ultimately always get down to the wire when it comes to these sort of regulatory headaches and when we have such clear cut dates that yeah to be done by it?
Well, I don't think so, because I think what's different here is the regulators are newly empowered to try to challenge these mergers, right. I mean, we had a regulatory regime in the US for many decades that allowed most mergers to go through, maybe with some concessions, but these things happened in a pretty more predictable way. I would say, I think this has been uncharted territory for the acquirer, the acquiree.
The regulators.
I mean, I think it's been an uncharacteristically wild ride as it relates to large mergers.
I like that uncharacteristically wild rided.
Yeah, I mean, we're all assuming that this does go smoothie, and my question is what happens if it doesn't. We'll save that for tomorrow. Blim bugs, Brady Ford, thank you very much. Just stick in the world of tech media and telecoms. We're talking about AI swiftly changing the way Hollywood operates and why it's holding up talks in the
actor and writers' strikes really quickly. Also watching shares of Paramount, this is where Mission Impossible dead Reckoning Part one has missed the mark against estimates over the weekend down four percent. Really interesting. So when I spoke to Paramount CEO got backish last week. He was very confident that opening weekend would be a success for the new Mission Impossible. But the data fifty six point two million dollars across theaters this weekend, it's not what we wanted to see.
Shares down four percent. This is Bloomberg Technology.
Hollywood actors and writers continue their strike, demanding pay increases and residuals in streaming, plus assurances their work will not be replaced by artificial intelligence. More as bringing in Bloombergs Lucas Shaw, who leads our coverage of all things entertained, and Lucas, you've been out on the street, You've been tracking on the ground these strikes.
Are they close to getting what they want?
It doesn't seem that way. I mean, look, the actors just went on strike mid to late last week. I don't expect intense negotiations this week. You know they're going to want to be on the picket line trying to make their point. Have a couple of weeks at least where they make the studios sweat.
You know.
I may hear different, as I talked two more sources in the week pick up, but at this point I think most folks are expecting this will drag into the ball at the absolute earliest.
How much can they make the studios sweat? Here, Lucas, how important is it and they get them back to work in some sort of time frame post labor Day In.
The short term, not a ton.
You know, it'll impact the release of some movies because now talent can't do can't do promo. You know, you have any titles coming out in July, August, early September, they're not going to be on the talk shows, They're not going to be doing podcasts, all those things. You know, most TV networks will be fine. You know, August and
summer is kind of slow. Streaming services have banked a lot of programming for the next several months, So I don't think you're going to see dramatic impact right away.
But where it does start to hurt them is I think if this drags on certainly into September, you're going to have a lot of companies that you are looking at a pretty bare slate next year because they can't finish work on projects, they can't start work on projects, and you'll have some people maybe move movies because they don't want to release a big tenth pole that they can't use the starts to promote it all.
Lucas, Hollywood has found the perfect villain in artificial intelligence. Our boss Bradstone rights in a newsletter, just explain the AI villainy at the heart of this actors strike, because it's already come up in the right to strike.
Yeah, I mean it's important to note that things like you know, residuals, which is being paid for reruns and minimum salaries and being rewarded in success. All of those, I'd say, are the sort of the meat and potato issues,
the ones that are most important to resolve. But AI has become something, whether it's writers or actors, that everyone is a little scared about because they already feel as if streaming and sort of the onset of the internet has hurt their pay and given corporations too much power, and they see an AI a real existential threat that could hollow out sort of.
The middle and lower class.
Because it's not like you know, you're going to use artificial intelligence likely to a place a Margo Robbie or a Brad Pitt or the single greatest screenwriter in the world. But you could see artificial intelligence reduce the amount of work that people have or eliminate much smaller roles that could be replicated with a computer.
And or for a writer.
You could see AI come up with an idea, and a writer who writes an adapted screenplay gets paid less often than someone with a wholy original idea. So there's just a lot of anxiety and uncertainty because nobody really knows where this is going, and they feel like the studios have not really met them halfway.
Luca schul, we thank you. It's been brilliant coverage throughout. Let's just think about how we could see some sort of equitable or in equitable future of how Ai and the workers team together.
We're delighted to welcome Sunny Dill and he's a partner at Kaiba Night Capital.
I mean, and Sonny, you're steeped in the world of how Ai and movie making and creation really come together. Capital course backed by some previous CEOs of some of the studios out there. I know that you've worked before with Warner Brothers and Strategy, been thinking about spinoffs and venture and cinema. What do you think artificial intelligence is going to do to content creation?
I think artificial intelligence is better referred to as augmented intelligence. It's actually a democratizing force to allow creators of all kinds to be able to produce work at a larger quantity and a quicker pace than they ever were before. I think it's really exciting to bring character to light using technologies such as deep fakes for one's voice or one's base and likeness, bringing characters to like that otherwise
would have have been retired. For example, one of my favorites is the new Obi Wan Kenobi series on Disney Plus. It's a great example of using James Earl Jones's voice. He's a ninety two year old actor, but there was a licensed use, a deep fake use of his voice to be recast as Dark Vader in that program, which I thought was truly a magical experience to re immerse in some of the great work that Star Wars.
Was known for us.
Sunny that that magic must come at a cost and a price ultimately, And do you think movie studios are ultimately going to be able to get their head around where that cost eventually goes.
Can they see round corners to be able to ensure that well.
The fears of the actors the writers is that they're recompensed in the right way.
I think that's really a separate conversation from the core technology being an enabling one and creating content that's really truly magical. As I said, compensation and revenue splits are absolutely something that needs to accompany this, But I don't think that the technology itself ought to be demonized because I do think it's going to be a rallying cry
for many would be creators out there. I do think backhand splits, usage of one's likeness, being able to leverage that likeness, and exciting ways in collaboration with the IP owner, these are things that absolutely need to be handled.
I think the.
Same way that MP three's changed the music business in many ways and created new revenue opportunities, there was a lot of fear that kind of accompanied the onset of that new technology at the beginning. I think augmented reality in the future will usher in another wave of a new business model that needs to emerge to barely compensate creators whose artwork or IP is being leveraged on this new technology medium. So yes, it's a conversation that needs
to be had. And I do want to say though that I think the technology itself is a very positive thing.
That's really where we stand.
Sonny your fund kiber Knight Capital. It's backed by CEOs executives who have spent a lot of time at studios.
Whose side are you on, I'm on the side of the technology.
I think that the technology is a very exciting thing. It's going to change lives in a very positive way. The business and monetization around it is absolutely something that I think the studio executives absolutely must figure out because fairness and equal compensation here is a very important aspect of the conversation.
You know, one of the companies we track is Runway right text to video on this program, and if their concept and technology proves to be a value add to making films, then the actors who are striking will be concerned.
Right.
Do you see a situation where we find a resolution where the actors are happy and we keep investing in technology that can potentially displace jobs.
Yeah, I think that Runway mL gent to text video that you're describing is probably one of the most exciting things to happen in this whole category. Since we've been following generals of artificial intelligence over the last few years, and it's truly amazing what you've been able to see out there with some of the you know, Pizza Hut and Pepsi and Budweiser commercials that have been generated entirely by text fonts, and you'd think it was just any
standard nineteen eighties American TV commercial. I think that when you see it with people with seven fingers and you know them gulping down, you know, uh thout something that looks far like anything besides a beer, can you get to a point of seeing just how rudimentary and early
we are with this technology. I don't think it's right to think that it will be replacing people, because you could argue that epics unreal engine being used to shoot the Mandalorian could have displaced you know, certain crew members who were working in visual effects before. It's simply putting out better content that audiences want. When it comes down to Runway mL in particular, I think of it more as an editing and storyboarding kind of component of the
green lighting process. I don't think it's in a place to be able to fully generate a film anytime soon that would replace even the most basic, you know, kind of roles in the entertainment industry. It's just a storyboarding component to getting to the final product. It's a stepping stone the kind of way that you would be using a variety of Adobe after effects kind of tools or storyboarding tools to kind of put before a producer for green lighting in the first place.
Sonny another way you say you, Well, if you're on the side of technology, you don't want to be seeing demonized.
Where are you seeing the excitement?
Then let's go in on the silver lining to some of the clouds and the fears. You're looking at writing checks, you're looking at backing some of the most revolutionary types of technology in this space.
Where is it being built? Who by? What sort of companies are interesting you?
Yeah, So I think that using deep fake technology is incredibly exciting for a multitude of applications, entertainment being one of them. Bringing voices, cloning voices and bringing characters to life is something I described with the Obi wan kenob deep fake for voice kind of applications. There's a great
company called Resemble AI that's doing things like that. There's another company that's out there doing it for dubbing when it comes to international language localization called Synesthesia, based out of London. It allowed David Beckham to film one commercial one time in English and his face and voice with his authorization, of course, you will be dubbed into local local languages completely seamlessly, and I think that's a very
interesting application for advertising. I think another really interesting applic that speaks to me is in the gaming industry where you can have generative AI and chat. GBT actually be used to generate decision trees and dialogue with NPC's non playable characters. Yea on the as you're navigating quests. I think that's another really interesting space we're looking at right now.
Sunny Dylan Kyba nightcaps are also dropped a few knowledge bombs. There a lot of streaming. You've got a lot of streaming on your mind. I like that Star War as well. Time for talking tech. First up, China's top chip maker has resigned about a year after formally assuming his role, so the latest high profile departure from a company there's been rocked by US chip sanctions, and two major Chinese chip equipment makers are predicting a doubling in profits after
the US clamped on exports of American technology. Homegrown gear suppliers are benefiting from this self sufficiency push, with Beijing vowing to replace foreign tech with local options. Plus, America's largest semi conductor companies are launching an effort to head off new curbs on their sales to China. Senior executives are traveling to Washington next week to lobby against restricting sales of semiconductors and certain chips Caroline.
And just speaking of chips, let's turn to their application in evs for example. More so specifically, let's talk about Tesla, because can it protect us lead in that market or easier law Musk losing his head start, We're all looking towards.
Of course, Tesla's numbers coming out Wednesday, and Lumberg went to its professional retail investors with a question from our latest they're called an end Live Pulse survey mos esher days here with the highlights and basically we're asking our audience on the terminal, do you have faith that al Musk and Tesla can keep winning against the competition? You worried about distractions? What really is the is the investor telling us right now about that war?
Is the Tesla?
Hi, and thanks for having me. Yeah, So that was essentially the biggest question that we asked in the survey. You know, what you think are the biggest risks for Tesla in the next two years. And the and the resounding answer, I would say was rivals. You know, the competition that's coming in from rival automakers, we startups be it, you know, the gms and folds of the world. That's what investors are watching out for. They think that is
like the biggest risk facing the company. About fifty percent of the six hundred and thirty responders, which is sort of a mix of both professional and retailed investors, said that rivals are the biggest risk for this company. And the second one that I definitely want to talk about
here is Eon Musk himself. The behaviors and some of the un predictability that Elon Musk brings with his leadership, which is also something that Tesla cannot be successful without, is something that investors flagged as one of the big risks for the company.
So a lot of complaints.
I mean, the stock's up one hundred and thirty three percent so far this year. Two thirds of respondents want Musks to do what esher spend more time just on that that stock that's had a good run.
That's correct, Yes, it's had a really great run, but it's still far it's quite far away from you know, that one point two one point three trillion mark that it touched last year. It's I think Tesla's market cap is houring around eight hundred and nineteen nine hundred billion right now. So you know, people who who are believers in Tesla, they think, you know, this is a stock that can run much further and it's not just an
EV play anymore. It's now an AI place. So you know, as we know with Tesla investors, the sky is the limit. And we saw like a sixty seven percent of the Servie responders said that Mosk needs to focus more on Justina. Yeah, so there we have.
It all right day, who has the polse on Wall Street? Thank you so much.
Welcome back to Bluemo Technology.
I'm Karen Hide in New York and Ed Ludlow here in San Francisco, a small Swiss technology startup. It's been chosen to rethink how helicopter pilots are trained in the US with VR headsets. The FAA will evaluate the technology in flight simulators for the first time, taking delivery of systems from Zurich based Loft Dynamics and its CEO, Faby Reasons, joins US now from Zurich. So what's the scale of this agreement, Faby? How many units did you agree with the FAA and what does this represent.
For your tech?
Thanks? Thanks a lot for having me. Yeah, right, now is having units to evaluate the technology, so we are building them since twenty and sixty informally known as vrmswitz a Land and basically the whole trick caase that we are improving the visual projection by using VR headset. I mean traditional fly simulators full flight simulators are using dome projection and they are actually missing the three D perception and with we altual reality, the whole thing gets improved.
So based on that, we also make it possible for pilots fly close to the ground. In addition, it is enabling the visual three hundred and sixty degrees around full panoramic fuel. And because we're using VR headset instead of those gigantic dome projection, the whole thing gets smaller and we can move it much more dynamic, improving the fidelity level of the entire full motion simulator with full BLOWND cockpit and there all possible things.
Sabi, how much does a single system cost headset and the cockpit rig.
Yeah, So it's switched motion and it's basically replacing the traditional simulators, which is around it's around twenty times cheaper than what.
Was there before.
That allows us to provide at much more spaces training to make it avaiable to address the pilot shortage and kind of like a really nice possibility because it's a much smaller foodprint.
Caroline, what's so interesting about this technology is it's already certified in Europe by the European regulator. In the US, this is not full certification.
And to that point, Faby, how many of you therefore sold in Europe already?
Is it something that you've seen a mark shift a faster pace of rollout.
Yeah, definitely. So last year we've qualified thirteen units in Europe, because in Europe you have to qualify each single device, and it's really taking off now pilots are doing training and not only training but also checking on those units, and it's going up more and more. Kind of the really really taking off and now expanding to US. I mean, we are really happy that FA is also looking in at new technology so that you can pave the way to qualify that as well and make this available in US.
Taking off a few puns going on there, Faby, I'm interested in what and how are.
They taking off? Is it all about helicopters.
I'm immediately thinking about the new areas of technology, the fact that we'll be having well vertical takeoff at some point, we hope.
One. I mean, the reason we went first for the helicopter is there was a need in the market because I mean there are a lot of safety issues. I mean, many things you cannot do on a real helicopter, and there were simply no units are able to train in a realistic manner. So this is kind of like one reason. The second reason is helicopter is way far more difficult
to simulate. So we've taken this as the higher benchmark and now going also into the fixed wing market as well, perfect mixture the ev tools am O, where we also have the technology already which is in Europe already qualified.
Faby, what is the technological advantage or superiority of your headset relative to what Meta is doing with the quest or even Apple with the Vision Pro.
It's a very good question.
So what the thing is, I mean, at the end, we are not building our own hatset. The key thing is kind of like to use what's it there on the market. The challenge is to qualify it because you know, having a hadset on, you don't see your hands, how do you operate the cockpit? So we had to do very very special technology there. How can you prove to the authority, to the aviation authority that everything is still without any gimetric stalls and so on.
So there is a.
Lot of work and a lot of details to be done that at the end the pilot can make use of the full emersion plus feels like in the real aircraft.
Okay, so who is building the headset for you?
Basically we are quite a headset agnostic right now. We are using the bario headset. It is the one having the resolution which is required from an authority point of view. With our own modified IG that we basically can meet
the regulation specification. So from that point of view, it is just kind of like let's say, a visual thing, a visual device we are using there, but with the advantage of having the three dimensional view and then combining with a lot of technology that the person sees him or herself as a pilot doing the operation, finding the buttons, touchscreens and can operate them.
I want to understand the supply demand dynamics here at the moment, FABI, how much your headsets really needed at this moment? How much are we seeing? We know that there's strike action among philots. We know that there's an issue in terms of supply side, can you rectify that?
Yeah, So I mean let me quickly talk to very specific narrow market varia right now already started. So every helicopter pilot has to do all six months an operational proficiency check, which has been normally done on the real aircraft, very dangerous doing malfunctions and so on. So actually one thhirt twenty percent to one third of the accidents are happening whilst doing training and checking. So the heads now
all moved completely to the CIM. So it's per per pilot which is already having the license, it is a two to four hours per year then doing additional safety training, so it's kind of like about eight hours per pilot. That's that's one very very small area than in the basic training like you as you know, like in US for the for the airliner training, there are thousand and five hundred dollars which needs to be done. So up to a hundred dollars already now can be done on a simulator type.
Of course, simulations and all this technology. And it costs money, right.
Yeah, it costs money, and I guess fably the next question is do you need to raise more money soon to fund your growth?
Right now, we are in a very very good position that we already have customers and it continually get further customers, so a good.
Network growth is there, they will tell us.
Depending on how fast it's now taking off in us, we really need to scale as fast as fast as we can, so we we look forward how we get through that journey.
So it's pracked, I'm sure.
Loft Dynamics CEO reason, thanks so much for joining us on your journey. Meanwhile, a story that we're going to continue to watch for you. The co founder and former COO of Altice, Mando Pereira, has been detained for questioning in Portugal as part of a sweeping investigation into alleged corruption. Last week, local authorities said three people were detain during a series of raids of homes and offices across the country related to a three year investigation into corruption, tax ford, forgery,
money laundering. Parrera co founded Ltias Group with Patrick Drahi of course a well known name, and Bruno Moneville in two thousand and two. He no longer holds executive roles at that company. We are coming up, we are talking pre seed startups, female entrepreneurship with Chingona Adventures founder partner Samara Hernandez.
This is the Bloomberg.
Higona Ventures Wow one three years old, already Chicago based venture capital firm investing in pre seeds startups, creating businesses and not looked growth markets. Last year, the VC closed a new fund fifty two million dollars in capital from partners like PayPal, always Melinda Gates's Pivotal Ventures to go on a ventures found in partner and whous to say?
Samara Henandez therefore joins us.
To talk about how this money is being allocated in this current environment tomorrow, how are you looking to keep finding the right companies to back despite the economic headwinds.
Now, these companies have built in many different environments. A lot of these founders have never been able to get venture capital funding. They've always had to get revenue from their customers.
Very early on.
They haven't been in the traditional markets in Silicon Valley. They don't come from family wealth, they don't typically come from Ivy League schools, and so we've seen a lot of them have to just get revenue from their customers, get revenue and other sources and so for us, I do believe this is their time to shine, and this is a great opportunity to really highlight the startups. They're going to succeed in all markets, but particularly this market.
It feels like, grant me if I'm wrong, given that you've been out there looking at these sort of smaller prec companies since twenty nineteen.
Is it busier in that space now.
Given that some of the bigger funds of perhaps I wanted to write such enormous checks in this current space.
Yes, it's always busy.
I think in this market it has been particularly busy just because there has been a slowdown in the growth market. Investors and IPOs, A lot of early stage companies are raising more capital pre series A and so we've seen a lot more bridge rounds and pre series A companies come to us. So it is definitely busier. But I will say it's a correction that needed to happen. The last two years were an anomaly. I've been doing this for eight years now, and so it's nice to get
back to real fundamentals, real revenue. And yeah, I would say it's busier than ever.
Smart What are the main factors when you're sitting in front of a founder thinking about investing in the precede stage about how you write a.
Check, yeah, and where many times pre product, pre revenue, pre name, and so early on, a lot of it is the people's side, and we look for founders that
understand these markets in a unique way. So we're not exclusive, we're intentional about where we invest and these founders that find these unique opportunities and markets that many see niche that are growing and often overlooked, that where the consumer demographic has changed, where traditional customers like Base because we target a lot of fintech companies, they don't typically know or understand how these certain communities work, and so these
founders come from these communities. They understand it better than anybody else. And so we're looking for this unique factor in these founders that understand certain markets where others haven't
even lived or choose to understand. And then very early on, we look to see what have they done with very little raise because we often are the first in titutional check in, so we looked for a path to sales, the path to revenue, good unit economics, a plan to get there, and that is now something that a lot of people are looking at. But the last two years that wasn't something that you know, a lot of people kind of looked at. It was a lot more momentum driven.
Hey, somorrow, what's going on now in Chicago where you are in the free seed environment.
A lot of deals happening.
Yes, so Chicago is a great market to be and it's in the Midwest. There's a lot more newer funds coming to market there. When I started the firm, there was very little angel money or pre seed, and we are growing. There's a lot more funds coming to market. As a matter of fact, my largest investor at Illinois Growth and Innovation Fund was the reason why we're here.
They're investing in a lot of new VC funds like ours that come from you know, not traditional kind of VC backgrounds typically, or are looking at new markets in a different way and they are to be the first check in and double down on investors like us. They can see a different space and can drive offer.
You of course, had six years of Goldman, you went to Math Venture Partners. You've been tried and tested in the venture space before forming Jingona, and you've written a lot of checks. You're also, of course trying to build that diversification by allocating to Latino LATINX founders in particular that maybe have gone overlooked. Are they're getting more overlooked in this environment? Is people sort of reverted normed, tried and tested founders.
Yeah, it's a tough market for all founders, but yes, I would say particularly women and minorities. It's been hard. It's never been easy, but it's particularly harder now. And the way we think about it is, you know, we're looking at markets for returns first and foremost. I'm Latina, you know, we represent less than one percent of all venture capital partners in the United States. I'm an immigrant to this country, grew up in a low income environment,
and that is our superpower. It's our unique edge to identify these opportunities and businesses that came to the ninety nine percent of the population right where it's great to get food faster as part of your business. But there's so many opportunities for women's health, for certain communities that are creating wealth in a very different way. And people still think we're niche, you know, and you know the numbers that we have one out of every four kids
being born today is Latino. We are getting higher education better than their previous generations. We have one of the highest GDP's to be able to spend money, and people don't know how to target us, and so for us, we see that as the first and foremost an opportunity in the market to really drive returns, but also for us to uniquely understand these businesses where you don't have to ask if our you know, spouse uses the product
or do research on the market. We can go in there and you know, we oftentimes get commented by founders that's like, wow, this is at all women team. That's that's great, that's fantastic. And you know, again we're not exclusive. We're in and so we can bring a lot of different perspectives to the cap table, to the boardroom and be able to buy at our perspective, our lived experiences in these markets to be able to drive returns.
Here's that usp.
Thank you so much to yourn Eventures founding partner Samara Hernandez.
The video game juggernaut Roadblocks is grappling with employee demands for more diversity, with current and former employees telling Bloomberg that the company's efforts have not gone far enough to address their concern. Some even say the managers discourage them from continuing to bring up questions about diversity with higher ups or at meetings. This is the result of the months long investigation into the tech company by Bloomberg's Cecilia Deannastasio,
who joins US now. So sources tell us that Bazooki has basically taking a hands off approach to diversity.
What have we learned?
We've learned according to sixteen current and former employees that Roblocks well, the makeup of women at the company is aligned with other gaming companies at about twenty seven percent. Female women at the company say that diversity has not been a priority for the company's CEO, and many have also described experiences of marginalization that they have themselves felt working at Roblos.
Okay, so the company themselves, of course have sort of come back and said Roadblocks is deliberate in building a diverse and engaged workforce a mandate. They say that it comes directly from leadership. But that goes against your reporting. Why do you think they haven't been deliberate in this moment where culturally many are really trying to focus on whether or not you are proactive or not in seeking out diverse talent to rise to the top.
Of course, so the gaming company, the gaming industry in general has just very poor numbers when it comes to gender parity. Half of gamers are women. This is not reflected in the makeup of these companies, including publicly traded companies like Roadblocks, And if you're not actively working to boost these numbers, and especially if you're a company like Roblocks that's empowered to pay a lot of money for top talent, that really shows that the issue hasn't been prioritized,
particularly if your companies existed for about twenty years. A lot of these gaming companies take an approach that they describe as meritocratic, where the best people will surface to the top of the company. But sources speaking with me to say that what looks like the best employee to one person might not actually reflect other people's definition of the best employee.
So see what change is the robot's going to make.
I think you reported some structural things about the HR department that are going to happen later in the summer.
Sure so, Roadblocks has hired on a Google engineer to lead it to HR department. Roblox has made several changes both prior to the article coming out and hopefully it will continue making these changes in order to bruce diversity.
Over the last couple of years, where Blocks has increased the number the percentage of women at the company as it's grown, it's increased the percentage of non white employees, although we're not aware of exactly what the breakdown is there when it comes to racial demographics.
So, Celia, Dennis Asio, amazing piece. Thank you.
Meanwhile, in your space of gaming, we got some breaking headlines coming thinking fast. Microsoft clear as another hurdle as the UK Court halts the UK veto case. We understand the move comes as a CMO, a CMA in fact, is giving a second chance to fix these concerns.
All of this is as a UK.
Judge Ed says he will give his reasons for halting the case later, but you know everyone's been waiting with breath on this.
Yeah, So this is the judge giving a conditional adjournment. And what it means is that the CMA, Microsoft Next Vision, who were all on the same page about this going to the Appeals tribunal, they can now go away and work out some compromise. And as we reported last Friday, you know sources of talent us. One option might be to offer to sell off the UK cloud gaming rights allow them to move forward. July eighteenth is the merger agreement deadline. That's tomorrow.
This allows them to get their end. This allows them to get there.
So many procedural things happening in the UK. The fact that the CMA allowed them to go to tribunals try and work it out in the first place was a surprise.
So who knows.
As we see Activision Blizzard extending its own gains in terms of share price, we're at a session high. Those arms and those investors, they like the news. Meanwhile, that does it for this edition of Bloomberg Technology. But we're going to keep a close eye on this Activision.
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