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This is Bloomberg Tech coming up. AMD fails to impress with its latest earnings. Shares volatile amid rising AI valuation concerns from investors, plus a historic victory for Zoram Mamdani, the new mayor of New York, will discuss what is election means for the city's tech scene, and all eyes on Tesla as the company's shareholders are set to vote on a proposed one trillion dollar pay package for Elon Musk.
There are two names in the markets that we're watching most closely, and that's in the earnings context right now. AMD is basically swung between modest declines and modest gains all morning long. It gave an outlook for the current period that was well in line with consensus but did
not beat the most bullish estimates. And everyone's trying to work out is they're making some ground up in the AI data center context in the near term, or is it their legacy businesses processes for pc CPUs for serverts doing the business super Micro similar story. The outlook for earnings in the current period below consensus traction struggles when it comes to have they worked this whole AI thing out on the server side? That stock down seven percent.
Let's get those stories with Bloomberg's executive editor for Tech, Peter Elstrom, and start with AMD. It's been really hard to pass this one. Right when the stock felon issue, You're like, Okay, the stock rally over in chips, but actually investors are just playing what AMD is put in front.
Of them right right, It's been a rough twenty four hours for chip stocks. We saw that in Asia, we also saw it in Europe. AMD is a bit of a different story. The stock has been on such a tier. It's up about one hundred percent this year's so far. I think investors were looking for an impressive result from them. What they're really looking for is AMD. As you alluded to, they still have a hand in the traditional business of PCs and servers, and they're moving more aggressively into this
AI space to compete with in Vidia. Now they're not growing as quickly as in Vidia. Video is up growing in the fifty percent range. At this point, AMD has been more in the thirty percent range. People really want to see whether the AI business, the AI chips that AMD is offering, are going to take off and AMD is going to be able to accelerate that growth rate. We didn't see that. As you mentioned, they did have a pretty solid beat on the revenue side, but it
was not as high as some people had been expecting. Also, the operating expenses were a little bit higher than expected, probably suggesting that more of their business was on the old traditional PC business rather than the AI business.
Peter, help us make sense of super Micro. There was a time where that was a stock and a name caught up in broad and enthusiasm for AI. But at the end of the day, super Micro assembles servers and server designs for others. What do we learn from their print.
Right, Well, super Micro has had a few cross currents that we have been looking at. They had some accounting accounting issues. They announced a couple of revisions to what they were reporting in their financials, and now their outlook is coming in a little bit light. Their revenues for the current quarter were a little light. Also, their projection from the next quarter is a little bit light. I think people are concerned that This has been an AI play.
They have benefited from the fast growth and AI demand in the past, but it looks like they're losing some of that momentum at this point. That could be because competitors like Dell are picking up more market share. It could also be because we're seeing some of these companies do more of this construction, the building the AI chips into servers themselves, and that would take away business from super micro.
Max.
Peter Elstrom with the summary, thank you very much. Let's get some more on AMD, the Wyder chip sector, and what's really happening with AI evaluations. Joe Ane Feenie Advisors,
Capital management partner and portfolio manager joins us. I restart with you how I did with Peter, right that the market is confronted with AMD's earnings and trying to work out is this then gaining some territory on Nvidia in the accelerator card market or are they getting a boost, particularly in the court of gone from those legacy business lines PC processors, CPU for server. Let's just start there. What did you learn from AMD?
Yeah, good morning, ed. We're seeing all of that from AMD, and let's start with the old, boring part of AMD right the PC, the CPUs, the standard server CPUs where they're clearly continuing to gain share versus Intel, and that's a good cash generator for the company. So we shouldn't dismiss that acceleration that we saw there, that success that
they're continuing to deliver in terms of share gains. Obviously, a lot of investors are still focused pretty much on the AI opportunity, and what's interesting there is that they've just gotten started. They've only now developed solutions for those accelerators that meet the quality for inference, for example, potentially for training that in Vidia has in the past. When we've seen AMD leapfrug Intel back in the old days, they gained an enormous amount of share. We saw that
again this time around. Now they have a new opportunity to gain share in the AI accelerator. We're not seeing them gain share except for just a little bit as they get started today. But I think that's something we can look forward to.
Bloomberg's Ian King, who you know, made a really simple point yesterday on the program ahead of AMD earnings. The data center category is just north of four billion dollars a quarter business. In Vidia's data center category is forty billion dollars or north of forty billion dollars each quarter in aggregate. Do you see all those ships rising right now? With the tide that is AI infrastructure investment?
It still is ed. We're still seeing the pie expand or tie rise, or whatever analogy you want. But what AMD has that Nvidia doesn't have is an opportunity to take a greater share of that pie as it grows. And so you know, I expect we're going to see both companies continue to grow very strongly over time. We own both of those for clients. I own both of them personally because I think this is an opportunity in AI that is just beginning. I think we have many
years ahead. And what we're seeing also in those results from AMD and elsewhere is that enterprises, sovereigns are looking to deploy AI and that's what's helping to continue to grow that pie.
John Phoenix to bear with us New York City mayor elects or A mum Dani is speaking in Queens, New York.
I now hold, the poetry of campaigning may have come to a close last night at nine, but the beautiful prose of governing has only just begun. The hard work of improving New yorkers lives starts now. That process begins with transition. In the coming months, I and my team will build a city Hall capable of delivering on the
promises of this campaign. We will form an administration that is in equal parts capable and compassionate, driven by integrity, and willing to work just as hard as the millions of New Yorkers who.
Call this city home.
And central to that effort is a transition team that is defined by the excellence New Yorkers will soon come to expect from government. Our team will be directed by Ilana Leopold, whose roots in this city extend back to her grandmother running the trams on Roosevelt Island. She has extensive experience in city government and has been a key part of our campaign to become the next mayor of
this city. And it will be led by our formidable co chairs former Federal Trade Commissioner Chair Lena Khan, former First Deputy Mayor Maria Tis Springer, United Way President and CEO Grace Bonia, and former Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Melanie Hartzog. Over the coming days, we'll start announcing the leaders who will implement our agenda. People like deputy mayors who oversee entire areas of government, and the commissioners who carry out the critical work of city agencies.
Some of these people will have familiar names, others will not. What will unite them will be a commitment to solving old problems with new solutions. We will cast a wide net. We will speak to the organizers on the front lines of the fight to improve our city government, veterans with proven track records, policy experts from around the country and the world, and working people who know better than anyone what their neighborhoods need. Throughout this campaign, I've worked hard
to be accessible and transparent with New Yorkers. That same spirit will animate this transition and the city all we built. Because New Yorkers deserve a government that they can trust. And on January first, when our city celebrates the inauguration of a new administration, let us also celebrate a new era for our city, one that we all feel invested in and whose success we all work to achieve. Now, it is my pleasure to invite Ilana Leopold to deliver a few words Thank you, thank you.
Good morning.
My name is Ilana Leopold and I'm very honored to serve as the executive director of Mayor Elect Mom Donnie's leadership team. I want to thank Zoron for his faith in me both on.
The campaign that was New York City Democratic Mayor Elect Zorah Mamdani generation, speaking after his win last night, elected the one hundred and eleventh mayor of New York City, the youngest mayor elect in a century. Let's get the reaction now and some of the technology is respective and avowed democratic socialist in charge of the city that serves as the capital of global finance, increasingly a major technology hub.
Judy Samuels is the CEO of Tech NYC, a network of tech leaders working to foster New York's tech scenes. She joins us now and will give us the reaction Tech NYC. Will this mayor be a good mayor for your industry in New York City?
Oh listen, I think we don't know. I think what's good for New York tends to be good for tech here. Zornmamdannie ran on a campaign of making New York affordable of He ran in a campaign that really celebrated a lot of what people love about New York. People love to be out in the streets. So if people want to be here, if young people want to be here, the tech companies will continue to want to be here. And clearly we heard loud and clear yesterday that a
lot of young people want Zurmumdannie to be mayor. There are a lot of tech workers who voted for him. Of course, you know, that's the bull case, right The Baar case, of course, is that you're going to have someone who is anti business. I hope that's not the case, but there's so many unknowns right now.
Julie, you said that a lot of the technology industry turned out and voted for him. Voter turnout was a critical data point overnight. What's your reaction to that data point.
Well, listen, as a practical matter, I think more people voting always better, So we're really glad to see that was the case. And in fact, even as early as the primary months ago, the data was the data were very clear that people who worked in tech were donating a lot of money to Zorn Mamdani's campaign. So it's not a surprise. You know, we can quickly or easily, I should say, draw a line to understand that a lot of tech workers, young tech workers did vote for
him yesterday. Clearly you know so much about Zoron's campaign, I think resonated with people in the tech industry. It had the flavor of a startup. It really disrupted the status quo of politics in New York and I think that resonated with a lot of people who work in tech.
Julie, there is always a difference, of course, between policy platform in the context of a campaign's and then policy platform when in office. But the consensus seems to be that mister Mumdani is in favor of sort of pro housing revisions to the city's charter right making housing available and more affordable. Technology as a sector tends to have higher pay and perhaps you know, apply to a higher
to middle income earning bracket. Are they really going to be focused on a policy around affordable housing.
Well, I think that's a really great question. And in fact, the organization I run Tech NYC put out research with Zillah just maybe a year org that showed that even people who have high paying jobs in tech are having a hard time affording housing in New York City. So it is not when we talk about affordable housing is it runs across the entire spectrum. For so many people, it's unaffordable, and so I think that more housing is
better for tech in New York. We've seen the same dynamic in San Francisco, of course, that the need to build more housing so more people from across the economic spectrum can live here, build their careers here, grow their family here. I am really incredibly in favor of the pro housing initiatives that won yesterday.
Is there an opportunity, Julie, for you to work with this mayor and this administration to bring it a sort of closer relationship apologies between you and the administration.
Absolutely, I think there's a lot of opportunity. I think the thing I'm most hopeful about is modernizing government government efficiency. So our mom, Donnie is what is a very progressive candidate now Mayor elect, and progress means government that works better. So we need to unleash technology in New York City
government to work better for New Yorkers. But we also will need to be really careful and when we work with his team, or sometimes when we disagree with his team, to ensure that the tech economy continues to thrive here, that businesses continue to grow here. This is the future of the economy in the world. Technology is of course and needs to also be the future of the economy in New York City. So we have to work together. We have no other choice.
What do you disagree with his team on and what would you ask mister Mumdani to reconsider in terms of policy.
Oh, that's a really that's a great question. I think that I don't know what we disagree with necessarily at this point, but I can tell you what we'll be watching for again, the use of technology in government. We think that's crucial, and I want to make sure that his team that the incoming may understand that some of that, you know, requires some experimentation and requires being open minded
about new uses of technology. Also, you know, I think there are concerns that I hope don't come to be, but there are some concerns that there's kind of like an anti business dynamic. We haven't talked about raising taxes. I haven't brought that up because you can't do that without the state. You can't do that without Albany. Obviously, a lot of people in tech would not be excited about more income tax, more corporate tax, So that I'm sure will be an issue that comes up over the next four years.
New York City Mayor elect Zura Mundani, the one hundred and eleventh mayor of New York to be elected, is an avowed Democratic socialist, and one of the big stories of this year twenty twenty five has been the move of key figures in the technology industry to put themselves in close proximity to President Trump and the administration currently
in the White House. Are both of those things achievable at the same time for mister mum Dannie to have relationships of key figures in your industry at the same time that they try and be close to this president and the Republican Party.
I think I think that's a really good question, and I think we're going to see. I'd point out that most of the particular tech leaders you're talking about are actually not New Yorkers, but they do run companies that
have incredibly large presences in New York City. I think that I hope that, let me say, I hope that zoramum Danni and his team fundamentally understand that the future of our city's economy, the future of opportunity for New Yorkers is inextricably intertwined with the growth of the tech sector here. And if those jobs aren't here, they will go somewhere else. And if those resources aren't here, they
will go somewhere else. And I just have to believe, I do believe that we can find a way to work together to ensure that all New Yorkers have the opportunity to benefit from the growth that technology is bringing to the city.
Let's end that there then July by asking what is the one first ask that you have for Mayor Elect Mumdani on behalf of your members and the technology industry in New York City.
I think the first big ask will be to really drill down and figure out how we can find a way to use technology to make New York City government work better for New Yorkers.
Julie Samuel's CEO of Tech NYC, with immediate reaction to Mayor Elect Zora Mumdani speaking for the first time since his win last night. There are other news headlines It's time for talking tech and first st up. The US government says it's nearing the end of its investigation into Google's thirty two billion dollar acquisition of cybersecurity firm Wiz. The deal, announced in March, prompted an in depth probe by the Justice Department. While that review is now wrapping up,
the acquisition remains under scrutiny from other anti trust regulators. Plus, Google and Epic Games have reached a settlement in their long running anti trust dispute over how developers distribute my Tize apps on the Android platform. The deal follows Google's
court ordered play store changes to allow more competition. Exact terms of the agreement weren't disclosed, and the scientist who led ten cents flagship AI model has raised fifty million dollars for his new startup, Video Rebirth, which aims to rival OpenAI Sourra. Founded by Leeway, the company seeks to make video creation as intuitive as chatting with an AI. The platforms expected to launch in December. Okay, coming up. Amazon goes after Perplexity, suing the AI startup from using
its own AI tool to help shoppers. We've got more on that next. This is Bloomberg Tech. Amazon is suing Perplexity over its AI shopping tool, known as Common, which helps users buy items on Amazon. The retail giant alleges Perplexity committed computer fraud and violated its terms of service by failing to disclose when Comet was making purchases on behalf of real people for more, as Sketz of bloemost Matt Day, who leads our coverage of Amazon, this is
an interesting move. We've covered Comet and Perplexity on the show We Understand Amazon, just I think start by explaining the grievance that Amazon has and the accusation Amazon's making against Perplexity and what they're doing.
So Amazon says that you know, what Perplexity is doing here is masking who's on its website.
Right.
They've alleged that Perplexity inserted sort of the same code that would make Amazon Systems think it was just a regular Google Chrome user, when in fact it was not a mad agent going on their site. And so Amazon's raised a whole host of concerns, you know, saying account integrity could be compromised, saying, you know, if someone has to make a return, you know who's at fault. What goes on here? Basically kind of a turf war over the customer experience on their retail side.
Okay, we've heard from Perplexity both through a spokesperson, but they also put out their own commentary and a blog summarize it for us.
So they are accusing Amazon of bullying.
You know.
They say they don't see a meaningful distinction between a user who said, listen, I want to purchase something on Amazon. I'm going to authorize Perplexity to go, you know, make the computer plumbing that makes that work. They say that that's no different than someone navigating with a mouse and keyboard.
Right.
Obviously Amazon has a different view, but Perplexity seems to want to take a stand here and kind of stick up for this new potential commerce venue that they're deploying with their comment browser.
Right, you cover Amazon so deeply, like, is this the playbook Amazon goes to? Are they typically litigious? Are they looking over their shoulder in a real way?
I think they really are looking over their shoulder here. I mean they've said AI is going to change everything. You know, there's debates going on right now about what is a browser. So this is probably the first of many debates that we're going to have, you know, in public and in private, as these companies negotiate on just how you know, who owns the experience when agents are I'm going all over the internet rather than individual users with hands and eyes really quick.
What happens next?
Oh, we'll see if they settle right, And I don't think anybody wants to see if they scott a court and all this NFTY discovery come out right. So I think the obvious question in a case like this is can they come to some agreement?
Bloombo's Matt Day Ada, Seattle, Thank you very much. Another story. It was the breakout hit of the summer. K Pop Demon Hunters became Netflix's biggest original film of all time. Now, with the chance to build a global franchise, there's just one thing missing for the holiday season. The merch. Bluebag's entertainment editor Lucas Shaw is here with more I've learned through you in attending screen time in the context of movie, TV, video games, that merchandising and franchising into other IP or
from the core IP is so important. Basically, those big K pop fans are not going to be able to get hold of so C toys and other things this holiday season. Explain the story to us.
Well, comes back to the movie, which was a surprise hit.
You know, when you have a new property, you go to retailers and toy manufacturers, your Mattel, your Hasbro, Walmart, Target, and say, hey, we have this movie coming in like a year or two. We think it's going to be really popular with kids. Do you want to partner on things? Will you give a shelf space because they need that. The toy manufacturers in particular need time to make the toys, which takes a while, and it involves international shipping and
all of that. And there was not a lot of confidence in this project, both because it was an original animated movie, which hasn't Those types of movies haven't done very well at the box office. Mostly sequels have been doing well, and Netflix just doesn't have a track record in this regard. And so it was only after this movie became so popular that everyone scrambled and they now say they're.
Moving the fastest they've ever moved. But it still means that a lot.
Of the projects, a lot of the toys and other things won't be.
Available until next time.
We know that the holiday quarter is really important. For example, we talk about it in the context of the new iPhone being on sale. But I guess in this story who's suffering here? Like, is it Netflix that is going to have to claw to make up some ground. Where is the kind of opportunity lost revenue loss?
Yeah, I think it's it's shared between the toy companies, the retailers, and Netflix. But they would all like to believe, and they're all saying that it is sort of short term pain. That yes, you know, they won't have all they can't maximize what they're getting from the holiday season, but they will have properties next year, and that this is something they're building for the long term, and that if the second movie, which won't come for four years, is really popular, that this will all sort of.
Be a footnote in history.
Now that's dependent on them making a good second movie and building the bridge.
But short term.
Pain, Lucas really quick, Warner Brothers, Discovery. What's the need to know?
I mean, all everyone's going to want to know about is who is buying them? And how you know the company is. The cable networks are not doing so hot? Is streaming growing? How's HBO max looking? The movie studio had a pretty decent summer, but the big question hanging over the company is who's going to buy it?
Binos Lucas Shaw, who leads our coverage of screen Time and Entertainment. Thank you very much. Welcome back to Bloomberg Tech. Let's get a look at the markets some of the other stories. So we're trying to pass a lot of it's still earnings related, and look at this one. Pinterest is down more than twenty one percent, on track for its biggest drop since the middle of twenty twenty two, and it's all about an outlook for the holiday quarter
that is completely tepid. The market is reactioning to this with some severity, and how common is that story across all of the names that we've been tracking. But when the team met this morning planned the show, we were like, whoa, we need to get this one in. It's as simple as the out look for the holiday period, and we'll give you more when we get it. Okay. Other news that we're tracking, Apple is said to be adding a new, cheaper MacBook to its lineup, rivaling Google's Chromebooks and Windows
PCs Bluebos. Samantha Kelly joins us now for more. So this is an interesting one. I'm a MacBook user. I also have a Windows based PC that I used through work. The main thing is the price differential in the market. MacBooks are typically very expensive relative to a much broader range of available Windows or other operating system based PCs. I think there's a place to start tell us about what we know from the reporting about a new cheaper MacBook.
That's right, and thanks for having me. Yeah, it's really interesting. This would be a pretty big departure from what we've seen from Apple before of the more premium standpoint with computers, but this would bring it down to a lower end, probably in the six hundred to eight hundred dollars range. It would be more targeted towards students, small businesses. It
wouldn't be able to do everything. You be able to surf the web, some documents, some light editing, and would really open up the market for a lot of people who might have an iPhone but aren't ready to make that jump for some MacBooks start, you know, at nine hundred and nine and nine dollars. To your point, these are pretty expensive computers.
Do we know anything about the timeline for this, Samantha, Like, is Apple going to surprise us with this this year or when do we expect to hear about it.
We're expecting it soon, but it's not eminent, so it's in development. It's already in production, So we're thinking the first half of next year, probably in the spring, maybe somewhere between maybe March and June.
What has Apple done to you know, Like sometimes I reflect about how Apple does something in the iPhone, or it might do it in the wearables category or even the iPad, and then it will say, how do we apply that to a different category like MacBook. Is there any reporting on like how there's a technology transfer that they have got the cost down or are they going to the playbook that they've done a base version iPhone took a long time to get after having many premium models.
Yeah, it's interesting you say that. So my colleague Mark German is reporting that some of the components would obviously be a lot cheaper, making the price go down. But they might use an iPhone chip, which is very advanced at this point and exceeds some that we're seeing in the earlier m chip center in some of the MacBooks. So they would be able to take an iPhone chip, put it into a device and really open it up there.
Also in other ways, you know, people might not need, you know, certain features, but they are still looking for battery life in some cases they're using an iPad a with an external keyboard, but that really increases the price too. This would be able to take everything, boil it down and give people perhaps an entry point into the ecosystem that they haven't been able to enter before.
I should say that an Apple spokesperson declines a comment on our reporting. Now that's out the way, we should probably acknowledge the other side of the competation, which is the Chromebook and other laptop piecs. They are providing more competition to Apple exactly.
Yeah, so there's been a lot of success around the chromebooks for Google. I mean a lot of schools have students using these devices. Of course you have Dell and HP of major players as well, a lot of people who can't afford a premium device will go to these very strong products. So it definitely will you have a new player involved, and it'll really increase competition. We saw some dips yesterday as far as stock with those related companies as well.
Bloomberg Samantha Kelly with the original reporting, Thank you very much. Tesla shares are pushing higher ahead of tomorrow's big shareholder meeting, where the spotlight will be on Elon Musk's proposed one trillion dollar compensation plan and Shane Goodwin, executive director for
SMU Corporate Governance Initiative. Shane was a governance advisor to the Special Committee, engaged to counsel them on corporate governance matters, including satisfaction of fiduciary duties under Texas law when that special Committee of two on Tesla's board put the package together. Shane, welcome back to Bloomberg Tech. I want to start by
just clarifying some things for our audience. Now that the proxy's filed and the proposed compensation plan is out there, have you continued to be engaged with Tesla's Special Committee or was that work finished Now.
We've still been very actively involved with the Special Committee throughout this whole process. Obviously that was just the start of it to kind of work with them, but we've been we're working with them ongoing, and they've been engaged.
With all their advisors and legal prisoners along the way.
And since the proxy was filed and shareholders became aware of the terms of the proposed compensation agreement, what is it specifically that you have been talking to the Special Committee and the board about.
Well, the issue is that most people see every single day, that a lot of the headlines that come up, and then how can we proactively really address those And more importantly, it's just really can make sure that it's clear.
Obviously, as your viewers certainly saw.
The proxy advisors came out and actually commented on the plan and some other aspects as well, and then we just wanted to make sure that the shareholders, not the proxy advisors, were very fully informed about what the plan is and why this is different from what the DSS from Glass Lewis is really reviewing.
So the biggest headline of this week is that Norway's Sovereign Wealth Fund came out and voted no against the proposed pay package. Not an advisory but an actual shareholder, I believe Tesla's ninth biggest shareholder, and their argument was very simple that they appreciated the significant value that mister Musk has created, but argue that this this proposal, the total size of the award is too great and like
the advisory services, they're worried about dilution. Could you respond to that dilution part?
Yeah, well, first let me just address obviously, they also oppose the pay plan on the ratification last year as well, So for me it was a little hard to understand kind of the Rederck versus the reality because they've been a shareholder in Tesla since twenty eleven, so right after the IPO they had a very small position, and they've actually continued to build that position to where they are today.
So although they may have some concerns, they've enjoyed the benefit of a nearly a forty thousand percent increase in their share value during that particular time and constantly adding to their position, so they're obviously willing to enjoy the benefits of that. You know, with respect to the dilution, it's been very clear about what the plan was, and I know we talked about this last time ED, which was when the Special committe Robin.
Denholm and Kathleen Wilson Thompson sat down with Elon to understand not only his vision for Master Plant four but obviously what he wanted to would accomplish. And Elon has been very clear about this and obviously the chair as well, which is he wanted to make sure he has enough voting influence and that number was around twenty five percent
that would matter for him. This has been discussed as well, which is the committee reviewed numerous ways of finding a way to actually accomplish the voting and decoupling the economics, and unfortunately, under current exchange rules that we have today with either EEno Navdak any ways, he has a similar rules. You can't go and do a high vote or dual class.
Listing once you've been listed in the exchange, Shane.
We've also spoken to Tesla's board chair, Robin Denholm subsequently, since you're on the program right and there is an acknowledgment that there is a very real risk that if this is a no vote in the end and Elon Musk either leaves Tesla, or he pays back his activities in a different role, or he focuses more attention elsewhere.
You are privy to these conversations. You've just told us that what is the plan B, what is the I guess mitigation of key man risk in the event that you don't secure the votes?
Yeah, I don't know.
Robin has addressed this specifically with both you and Carolina as well, you know, quite frankly, and this is really what I classify really as a kind of a super Bowl performance that we're doing right now, we're focused on winning the game and not looking at what happens if
we lose. I actually do believe that the shareholders are going to come out in a very strong way tomorrow and really support not only the plan, but the directors were obviously a phnomination and all the proposals that are put forth, and I think a lot of that is already out there, so I don't think there's really a need to focus on Plan B.
I can assure you that they're a very diligent board.
They thought through these things, but I think everyone's very focused on winning.
We continue to get the same question for you and for the board, which is this is the first vote under Texas law. What do shareholders need to know that's different under Texas law from what they voted previously under Delaware law.
Yeah.
I would say the biggest one, if it comes up, is that you know, insiders, particularly in a transaction like this, are allowed to vote their shares in this particular election, so you know Elon's shares will definitely be counted as and included in part of this process, whereas previously, as it was discussed within Delaware, it's not.
I'd say that's really the fundamental big change.
But quite frankly, if everyone recalls the previous plan of a twenty eighteen plan, both originally in twenty eighteen but also in the ratification in twenty twenty four, it had over seventy plus percent shareholder approval, which did not include elons in that particular time. So I do think we're going to have a lot more of a support here than some of the headlines reacting to right now.
But that is that is really one of the bigger changes here.
For textas Shane Goodwin, executive director SMU Corporate Governments Initiative and an advisor to the special Committity on Tesla's board that put together the proposed pay package, thank you very much. By coming up, we're going to talk to an investor, Vinodekostler, and also David Zoo, CEO of startup revo ai about the go to market platform's debut and it's funding. That's next.
This is Bimbo tech Ai. Startup revo is emerging from self with the aim of unifying the steps and data necessary for businesses to develop and execute go to market strategies. The company has eighty million dollars from a combination seed and Series A funding round co led by the Benches and Kline Perkins. Revo CEO David Zoo and investor Fino Kosler are with us now. David, I would love to start with you. You're trying to tackle the concept that
you have labeled the Frankin stack. Even though the term is new to me, the concept is something that's been discussed on this program a lot. Just to explain what Revo wants to achieve here.
Sure, well, first off, thanks for having me. It's a big day for us. Look, AI is the biggest shift in enterprise software since the cloud, but the reality is, revenue teams are still stuck in, like you said, what we call the Franklin stack, which is a dozen different tools that don't really talk to each other, causing sellers to waste over seventy percent of their time wrangling software instead of talking to their customers, and that's really painful.
Revo is looking to fix that via one unified revenue operating system built from the ground up with AI at its core, and with this eighty million raise, we're scaling quickly to help all companies win in the age of AI.
Vinod I was talking with my team this morning about the structure of this round, and so it's basically a combined seed in Series A and Revo is coming out and kind of announcing itself to the world. Would you kind of give us the backstory? You know, you are an experienced investor in the world of technology. When this crossed your desk, how did you know that you needed to get involved and how did you determine at this very early stage the potential that that Revo had.
The opportunity didn't actually cross our desk in a traditional way. We've known David for a long time from door dash to open Door to open Store Sorry, and now Revo. We've been incubating ventures with him. My partner Samira has worked closely with him on Revo, and we cooked up the concept, rainstormed it and talked it was important enough to do in the age of here, I think most
applications and application stacks need to be retarded. And this is David just a superstar armed to know, so it was pretty easy.
You know, is this an example of you investing in the known quantity founder then rather than the idea?
Absolutely, you mainly invested the idea. Wasn't clear that was a year and a half or two years ago. But the founder was very.
Clear, David, I'm trying to track the growth that you've had. So spring of twenty twenty four, you kind of come up with the idea, I guess incorporated business and you've hired I guess aggressively. You know you're sub one hundred people still, but you've basically gone to companies that are well known globally, not just here in the valley, and taken the best people you can.
What was that like, Well, yeah, that's you're spot on there. The company you build taking a page out of Vanotes book, But the company you build is the team you build as a company you build, not the plans you make.
And when we thought about tackling the space of unifying all of go to market tech in one system spanning marketing, sales, and success, we really needed to make sure that we had the talent density both from a technical perspective but also from a go to market to really bring together the combination of the depth of domain knowledge plus the ability to access the first party data to really pull this vision off. So global talent is necessary for us to make this a reality.
David, what else do you need the eighty million dollars.
For Yeah, well it's over the next few months and quarters and years.
Our vision is clear.
We need a continue accelerating our product role map to build out both the breadth of the surface area to serve our customers, but also making sure that every single capability is the best possible from a death perspective. But more importantly, in the age of AI, context matters, and it's very important for us to double down on making sure that our AI operating system is able to work
seamlessly across every single one of these modules. Capabilities job to be done, so we're not replicating another Franken Stack for the future world. So that's what we're going to use the proceeds to do.
Vinod I go back to you with the concept of the Franken stack. You know you're invested everywhere. One of the first checks into open AI. The world has changed a lot since then. You know, we had yesterday Shrida from Snowflake on the program talking about the problems right now and in the data layer. What do you make of the Franken stack. Is that a real thing or this is just a marketing opportunity around this round.
No, I think it's a real thing. Push AI enables each startup to do a lot more than it could do. Only engineers can do the work of sixty engineers if you use the productivity tools AI enables. But more than that, the user experience can be dramatically different with the help of AI. As I like to say, in the old world of applications, users had to learn an application, and they learned to each vertical stat. In the new world of AI, the application learns the human and responds the
way it shift. It's my favorite way to think about the transition AI makes possible.
You don't have to.
Be trained on an application like SAP or hubstat. The application gets to know you and other humans on your team, and so it facilitates not only the function, but also workflow across people and across applications. I think pretty important shift in software.
It's both you. I kind of like to end the conversation by going a little bit bigger on the world that we're in right now. You know, David, if you could reflect on what it was like doing this round. There is a lot of energy behind AI right now, but at the other end of the spectrum there is valuation concern. You know, there's no difficulty in open AI or anthropic those kinds of frontier labs gaining capital, But
there is a lot going on right now. Would you just reflect on what the last few weeks has been like in trying to close this.
Well, you know, the fundamental difference is clear with our approach. We're AI native and purpose built for revenue teams, and so you know when you talk about the old players that are trying to built AI onto legacy stack, it just doesn't work. What we're building with Revo is akin to how Tesla build its cars vertically integrated with AI at its core. This way, our AI is able to
see and act across the full customer journey. So the old players are held back by their past, and the new players, to your point, you know, don't have the of the main knowledge nor the access to the full suite of first party data to pull this vision off. So Revo's building with both, and yes it's hard, but that's really what makes it defensible and worth doing.
You know, you know you're co leading this round with your friends at Kina Perkins. Again, the same question, like what does the environment look like to you? Right now? This is a very sizable debut round you had the conviction to do that. Well.
It was a while ago we did the seed round of ten million, there wasn't announced, and now we just participated in the seventy million dollar round. Obviously we think highly of the team, but I think it's the magnitude of the opportunity this opens up for AI native companies. I like to say most valuations won't hold up in the AI space, but the ones that are really high quality companies will return disproportionate returns. In twenty eight Keen people said to me a billion dollar valuation for Open
the Air was too high. Then they said twenty six billion was too high, and then one hundred billion, then three hundred billion, and then five hundred billion.
Were all too high.
So a small percentage of the companies I suspect, much less than five percent, will actually do extremely well and return ten fifty one hundred times stare money invested. Most companies will still lose money, and I think that's why you want to back quality founders like David. David just superstar right back him in almost anything he did.
David Zuocio Revo Ai Vino cost co founder Coast Adventures, and as we just discussed, I let that round. Great to have you both on the program. Frank you that does it for this edition of Bloomberg Tag Earnings, but also AI valuation concerns are driving this market right now one way and the other. Has been a volatile session. There was a lot to recap, in particular in the case of AMD, so do so on the podcast. You know exactly where to find it. This is Bloomberg Tech