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Welcome back to Bloomberg Tech. Let's have a quick check in on these markets, because we are continuing to see pressure on the tech stocks only by about two tens per percent, and as that one hundred coming off of what was a five tens percent increase the previous day. A lot of macro, a lot of digestion this week as we anticipate, of course, the inflation readings, and a lot of FED speak. We're just questioning though, perhaps some
of the valuations in the AI space. Let's move on to see what's happening on this day with Micro and get earnings After the bell, We're up more than two percent. This is a stock that has increased forty percent in the month of September alone, But can it live up to the hopes for revenue increases to also be up some forty percent in their fiscal quarter on which they're reporting. Of course, key is the demand for high bandwidth memory
and the use within AI accelerators. Talking about AI accelerators, check out in video. We're off by one point eight percent after yesterday's rally. Remember that one hundred billion dollar investment commitment into open AI. If open Ai in return commits to buying GPUs the future from Invidea, the merry
go round of money continues. Let's break that all down with Bloomberg Semiconductors report Ian King just going back to that extraordinary one hundred billion dollar commitment getting equity from open Ai, but only as they bring on AI accelerators, GPUs from Invidea, and ten gigawatts eventually in the next few years. Ian, are we questioning the way in which money is floating Right now.
That's a large number, and it seems excessive, even for in Video. But then you sort of take a step back and you realize that this is going to happen in an incremental basis, and it's going to be put to work only when the actual hardware is put in place and the actual capacity is put in place. So yes, it's a massive headline. Yes, even for Invidea, that seems huge, But if you take it over a number of years, then maybe it isn't that excessive. Maybe it's just what is needed for this market.
And in Video continues to be a deeply strategic investor, often putting money to work in the like sort of core Weaver n scale or long term demand for their GPUs. In talking of demand, we're going to get a bit of a fundamental check on it, right with Micron's earnings after the bell.
Yeah, the Micron story is everybody is focused. As you mentioned on HBM high bind with memory one of Ed lard Low's favorite topics. Everybody wants to see this company converting what they know is strong demand into very rapid growth. Everybody wants to see Micron really having a say in the AI world, and that's what people be focused on. Because the market overall for other types of memory, maybe isn't that strong. Maybe isn't recovering as quickly as as some had hoped.
Eleven point one five billion dollars is a consensus up forty four percent in terms of revenue for fiscal fourth quarter. Bloomberg's inking as always a very busy man. Thank him. Look as we await earnings. Interestingly, anxiety around AI funding just continues to be intensifying. The industry. We understand will need two trillion dollars in combined annual revenue to fund the computing power that's needed by twenty thirty, but their revenue is likely to fall short by a tune of
eight hundred billion dollars. It's all according to Bain's annual Global Technology Report. It was released today Tuesday, as bringing in j Jacobs for more US head of Equity ETS over at black Rock who you really get an analysis of the insatiable demand of investors into the AI data center story. But are they starting to question ultimately whether we can meet that insatiable demand where the funding is there in the longer term.
No, I think it's quite the opposite. Investor enthusiasm is only growing. If you look at one of our ETFs, BAI, it's an actively managed AIETF. It's brought in over five billion dollars this year and is now the largest AIETF in the United States. And a lot of the exposure that is providing to investors is around that digital infrastructure layer, the hardware producers in the semiconductor space, the digital infrastructure owners, some of the data owners that are becoming really valuable
in this explosion of AI models. And so there's a ton of investor enthusiasm, and I think there's a lot of expectations that revenues will match the expenditures, if not exceed them, in the next several years.
But how much should we get comfortable with companies like in Nvidia basically plowing their own revenues of today into hopes of revenue of tomorrow, basically funding their end clients.
I think it's beyond comfort. This is a necessity for some of the leading technology companies. They have a tremendous mode because they have low cost of capital, they have tremendous access to dollars, and they're able to really kind of leverage their own strengths, which is if you look at a semiconductor company owning GPUs, owning this manufacturing process is really valuable in the semiconductor space. That's the short that's the shortfall that's needed by large language model developers.
So this investment across the industry makes a ton of sense.
So going back to your I shares AI Innovation in Tech actively managed ETF, how much are clients begging you for more diversification when it comes to the AI trade. Because we have put so much stock into a few names.
There's a lot of ask to go beyond the MAG seven. I think people understand the MAG seven story. They understand why these companies are so successful in AI space, and why they're leading it, but they do want to know what's beyond that. What are the other semiconductor companies, why are some of the data owners, what are some of the companies that aren't necessarily a consensus view as an
AI company but are involved in the space. And so that's where and actively managed fund I think can provide a lot of value to investors is by yes, it's going to have Max seven exposure, but beyond two thirds of it is going to look beyond it and provide kind of the next names that are going to rise in this ecosystem.
And all those names rising in the United States. We've also just seen President Trump, alongside Jensen Wang and many others, go to the United Kingdom to talk up an investment. There are we seeing more names being added to the ets. They're coming from Europe, coming from Asia.
It's a global theme, but predominantly it is being led out of the United States today, and that's where we've seen some of these kind of new up and come AI risers largely coming from We sell have a really robust startup environment and venture capital environment around AI. So the US is very much at the center of this ecosystem, but it is a global theme.
So the members of the ETF a larger US. Are the investors in that INTF getting ever any more global or is it predominantly US investors that want to stick with this theme.
It's both.
We certainly have seen a ton of global appetite, but some of the biggest investors today are coming from the United States. I think AI is not surprising anyone. Everyone knows globally this is the biggest area right now. They want to have access to the best investment tools to get exposure to it. Our ETF is really risen as the number one tool in the US for AI exposure.
What about other parts, like the energy side of the equation? Are the areas that eventually will do well. We're always talking about healthcare predominantly being a user of generals of AI and therefore more productive.
I would say the energy space is coming up more and more with clients as they look to the AI trade beyond technology kind of what's the next shoot to drop, what's the area of opportunity. We've seen a ton of interest around different energy sources to be able to power the AI trade, whether that's nuclear, whether it's fossil fuels, whether it's renewables. Really looking across the entire energy ecosystem, It's a way of looking at utilities from a more
forward looking lens. If you take the utility sector, but say who's really going to grow here, who really has this great ten urre trajectory because of AI. It's a more thematic cut of that space.
We've just been coming out of the United Nations General Assembly. It does feel as though fossil fuels very much have to be put back on the map by President Trump at least. Is that something you're seeing echoed by investors they want to be recommitting once again after years of perhaps rebalancing, moving towards renewables, looking at cleanoforms of energy.
It's across the entire energy value chain. I think you have to look at There are going to be energy fuels that are going to be really necessary, there's going to be energy producers that are really necessary, and there's energy distribution that's going to be really necessary in this AI theme, and so I think people are looking very broadly at where it's going to come from.
Every now and then the market goes through moments of anxiety, whether it's about fact that maybe we've got this revenue mismatch when it comes to compute funding, whether it's about actual productivity gains with the MIT report that came out last month, are you seeing any anxiety pull back in actual fun flows wanting to go into AI?
More broadly, like.
I said, our aifun flows have been accelerating recently, so we're not seeing a lot of anxiety. Look, this is a long term theme. This is a bet for the next five to ten and beyond years. I'm sure within that timeframe there will be bouts of anxiety. There will be questions around what the valuation should be. But if you take a long term view of artificial intelligence, we believe this is going to be one of the most powerful drivers of the markets for the next decade and beyond.
Okay, and more broadly, when we're thinking about fundamentals, how much to earnings matter for your portfolio managers, but more broadly for the investor sentiment too.
So they matter, but when you're looking over the long term, it's more about what does the earning say about the direction of travel rather than what's happening today. There's not a ton of concern about what is your revenue today. If you're a large language model developer. What we prefer is have you gotten more paying subscribers? Have you developed the best model? Are you starting to see more penetration in the corporate world where you're going to have more
ability to spend on these technologies? The direction of travel is what we're really looking at. The earnings.
J Jacobs is always great to have you here. Thankscoming in the studio. Black rocks. J Jacobs there. Meanwhile, I want to talk other areas of AI now, the application of it. Snowflake, alongside industry leaders and key partners, just unvailed a new initiative aiming to set a new industry standard for AI interoperability. But they call it the Open Semantic Interchange and it will be open sourced in an effort to remove what they call data islands and accelerate
AI for all. Treat our Ramaswami and piece to say is with us. Snowflake CEO set the context of the problem here, shout out how difficult is it to get access to all data out there at the moment to make the generative AI become this reality.
Well, great to be here at Caroline.
AI has a lot of promise for making data very broad available to everyone in the enterprise, including business users using.
Natural language, which they which all of us like doing.
But the problem often is that the meaning behind the data is in multiple places. It can be in databases, it can be in business intelligent tools. This just makes developing AI solutions on top of this data very hard. And what we announced today with a consortium of industry folks is an open standard for exchanging this semantic information. And what that means is this is going to enhance interoperability between different folks between Salesforce, DBT Labs, Blackrock that
we would like to see happen. It can help accelerate value that is going to be gotten from AI. It also just simplifies things for everybody that's involved, and that's why we're super excited about working with these giant industry players to announce this new interchange format.
Yeah, universal translator is a nice way about talking about it. With Snowflake, the sell Source, DBT Labs, black Rot, Thought Spot, Wig Giki on this program, can you tell us about how difficult the technology exchange is going to be? Here? What actually you need to do beneath the surface.
Yeah, it's a standard.
What this means is that people that want to be part of the standard or want to confirm to the standard, just for going to make it easy to send and receive this semantic information. This is you know, this is business stuff, stuff like OS revenue defined, how is profit defined, how is EBITA defined?
And so on.
So we intentionally wanted it to be a lightlift for each of these players. But what happens collectively is that all of a sudden, the semantic information is free to move about. It just makes value creation, especially with AI, just a whole lot faster. And it's a big step forward for the industry, and we expect more and more folks in the data industry to be a part of this standard.
Interesting, so that's for the data industry, going to the large language model industry in and of itself. Anthropics seem to have seen this issue with data and inter proability as well. They've been seeing silos. They introduce something called model context protocol that's again open standard up. How is that different?
This is one layer below that.
What a model context protocol does is it creates a standard way, for example, to talk to an AI agent.
But on the other hand, even to.
Create the AI agent, you need to make sense of the underlying data. It can be the case that you have data sitting in one place while the definition for what the data means is in a different place.
This makes it.
Easier to create agents, which can then take advantage of protocols like Model Control Protocol MCP that you mentioned to make agent interoperability work a whole lot better. So you need all of these layers for AI value to get created.
And we need the agents to get better for the productivity to really result. Should I ask you, after months of worry perhaps about MIT reports saying that ultimately the productivity gains aren't being seen yet, what are you seeing with your clients using your own offerings and products.
Yeah, we are seeing a lot of productivity gain in specific areas, and I can speak even personally to examples like my sales data is just a whole lot easier for me to get to with the snowflake intelligence. Blackrock, one of the customers in the OSI standard, also is using our AI products to create what's called the customer three sixty. So when you call Blackrock, the person on the other side has access to all of the relevant
information about you. It's things like that that are creating value, and what's unique about Snowflake is we let our customers create AI products without a ton of investment on their part.
We make it much easier to iterate and create these products and use them and see for themselves what's creating value before turning on this figot and having these products exposed more and more and in areas like coding agents, the productivity gains that we are seeing is truly remarkable, and I think that's an area where you will continue to see a ton of adoption across the board in enterprises.
You know, finally or strangely.
It turns out that coding is one of the most interesting and important applications of language models we've seen.
The adoption of your products is shown up in your earnings. People have seen really the growth that you're talking about. For that, you need sales and marketing people to go out and sell your products. But that's where your Talent edition has been. But I go to the news of the day for example around at h one b visas how much is that becoming an issue for you with talent? Is that something that you're worried about access to the right people here in the United States?
Yeah, it is. It is an issue roughly less than ten percent of our workforce is on H one B Visas you know, I'm an immigrant, and I think there are a ton of folks like me that come in, create massive amounts of value and then become and then become proud citizens. If we don't see it as an immediate problem, but we do think that tech workers from around the world have a lot to add to the
tech industry. We're watching and work, you know, working as closely with the administration as we can to make sure that this is more of a win win for everybody involved.
Trida Ramaswami, so thank you for that answer and talking us through your announcement today on AI interrooperability. We appreciated the CEO of Snowflake coming up, Michelle Geider of Produce Crowd Institute. A tech diplomacy we're going to break down instead of US China relations, this is blombag Tech. Welcome back to Bloomberg Tech. I quick check on these markets, which pretty sanguine at the moment, is we have a big week ahead in terms of inflation data and FED speaking.
That's that one hundred just down about two tech of percent having been on a record high streak across most of the benchmarks. We pause for breath on equities more broadly in video in the red, which cause tugs down in large part the rest of the index. But we want to set a global context here because the movement's being made geopolitically and what's in the eye of the
investor right now. We've just had the United Nations General Assembly speech by the United States President, really big claims and blasting the United Nations more broadly, but all of this in a context of geopolitical relationships perhaps the US and China, for example, we have been understanding they're nearing an agreement to hive off the US operations and social media platform TikTok to a consortium that inclosed software giant Oracle. We want to just give you the global context right now.
With Bloomberg Senior Tech editor Mike Sheppard standing by, you've just been sat tuned in to President Trump where he talked about whole wealth of issues that he sees right now. Any of them catch your attention, and.
Certainly for our context, Cara on this program, what really caught my year was what he was talking about in terms of investment and what he's been trying to attract to the US when you think about all the announcements that we've seen related to artificial intelligence and more recently, as you just alluded to, this push to try to reach a deal with China on TikTok, the President was talking about seventeen trillion dollars in announcement investment pledges so
far this year. That number bears some skepticism, but there is some kernel of truth in it.
Of course, when you towed up the.
Pledges that we have seen from Nvidia, from open Ai, from soft Bank and others to build plants here in the US and TSMC, we can't leave them out either, and all that fits into the picture that the President is trying to portray of the US on the move. During this address to the UN General Assembly, he talked about this golden age of America, and he defended his tariff program as well, and some of the trade agreements that he's reached with the UK, the EU and other nations.
And he even talked about trying to meet with Brazil's leader next work to try to sort out some of the trade and other differences with that trading partner as well. So there's a lot happening here on the international trade and deal making front.
And it had a market reaction sending on the Brazilian reality gaining in the session, Mike, What's interesting is he did go on to chastise China when it comes to the Russian relationship, that they hold anything that could put at risk any sort of ultimate deal around TikTok.
Well, it's a great question, because for the President, the TikTok deal is of paramount importance. He's talked about it for more than a year. It was something that came up on the campaign trail. It's something that he credits with helping him in his comeback victory to the White House, and yet it has been a very difficult victory for him to bring home, in part because China is reluctant to sell this precious asset from Beijing based Byte Dance Limited.
China is reluctant also to see Byte Dance let go of an any way, shape or form the algorithm that powers TikTok, and that has really been the secret sauce to the app and its appeal to young users. Now, the question in this deal that is taking shape is perhaps there could be a way for a copy to be handed to the new US venture that would be led by American investors and have six of seven board seats occupy by Americans. Now, would China go along with that?
Oracle would have a role with the new venture in retraining this new model, But will China go along? We have not heard enough from China yet about whether they will approve this deal in full. On Friday, we heard Donald Trump talk about how Shijinping has counterpart hours earlier in a conversation they had had on Friday, really blessing the deal. But China's Foreign Ministry was far more circumspect
in its statement. So we'll have to see where this goes and whether some of that leverage on Russian oil purchases may factor into the conversation.
Here, ybugs, Mike sheffind Up, thank you very much. Indeed, now let's discuss this more broadly with Michelle Geider. She is the CEO of the Crack Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue used to serve as Assistant Secretary of State for Global Public Affairs under the first Trump administration. Wonderful to have you here in New York. Michelle. Taking a step back, the fact that TikTok is becoming so central to the future discussions between the two leaders of the
United States and China. Does that surprise him at all?
You know, it's a really interesting reflection of the importance of technology today when it comes to national security, when it comes to economic prosperity. But when you talk about taking a step back, whether it's TikTok, whether it's export controls on semiconductor chips, whether it's tariffs, bans on TikTok bands on Huawei, all of these things are really important defensive tactical tools the US government can use to ensure
that we're trying to keep our competitive edge. But when you think about what's really happening with the US China relationship, the fundamentals are still the same right now as they have been for years. And we're in this sort of grinding, incremental struggle on TikTok, on terrafts, on this and on that. And the only way that America actually breaks away is if we build an event like crazy. We have to go on offense. In addition to the defensive measures that
are happening. We have to build chips, we have to build ships, we have to build data centers, we have to build rare earth magnets. We have to design new frontier models. We have to do all of these things and by the way, export them around the globe to all of our allies and partners. And so going on offense is what's going to change the fundamental nature of this relationship, and that ultimately comes down to the private sector.
The government can do all of these really important defensive tactics, but when it comes to breaking away and unleashing the full force of United States, that's a private sector.
It feels like the private sector. Call the memo and Vidia one hundred billion dollars going to open AI. We've got just five billion going to Intel. It seems tiny in comparison. Was an important move and signal for Intel. But should there be more dumb by the government because there's actually been a pulling away from the chipsacked from support from a financial perspective instead that taking equity stakes in Intel for example.
Well, I think the Trump administration has really motivated the private sector in this direction. If you think about the AI Action Plan, which is about unleashing our AI, exporting American AI around the globe. If you think about unleashing American energy and the national Energy Dominance Council. Right, All of these things are to enable the private sector to go run and to do their thing, and so I
think we're headed in the right direction. But to your point, that's why these deals like the US UK Prosperity Partnership on technology are really interesting. All of the deals on semiconductor and AI and energy coming out of the Middle East trip that President Trump took a few months ago, that's really interesting. You mentioned Nvidia and all of these investments.
There's also this five hundred and fifty billion dollar fund that the Japanese government has built part of our trade agreement with them, that now the administration is taking a look at to say can we use that to spur manufacturing. Those are really interesting because that's what's going to give us not only allow us to go on offense, but really be a full force multiplier and working with our allies.
Seems to be a more difficult square to circle is whether or not Nvidio or other powerhouses in the United States should be able to export their technology into China to be able to ensure that they win the tech stack race to a cain extent. David Sachs has been outspoken about this. How are you seeing that very sensitive discussion percolate through the government and the administration.
Well, that's a really important point because there's an underlying assumption on both sides of the aisle about or two camps really about whether or not China actually wants American tech in the long run. Yes, and you see some project if you just look at chips, for example, they are on a mission to be self sufficient when it
comes to semiconductor technology. There's some estimates now there'll be eighty percent self sufficient in domestic chips within two to three years, and that's up from one third last year. And so they want Chinese chips, they want the Chinese tech stack. And so really it's a question of how are we going to go on offense and get global market share with all of our friendly allies who share the same values and make China less of an issue when it comes to market share.
So you were on the camp, yes, restrained from sending into China, but just win everywhere else. En sure that we're supplying to Africa are one hundred percent? That makes sense. What's interesting more broadly about the China US context is we do keep feeling as though there is this ultimate race is there. What can you remind the audience what's at stake if America quote unquote doesn't win it. Yeah.
Well, you know, it's interesting. We're talking right now on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly and it's been eighty years. And if you look at the past eighty years and the backbone of the free world, it's been institutions that the United States has built and led. Right, whether it's United States itself or the UN or the G seven or the OECD, all of these important institutions have helped in the twentieth century, they're not as relevant
heading into the twenty first century. The new backbone of the free world is going to be technology, and it's going to be all the businesses we build off the back of the technology, all the values that the technology propagates. And so we we have to re earn our leadership in the twenty first century by inventing a new framework for freedom and prosperity. And the backbone of that is going to be technology. And so the really good news is America is good at this stuff. This is our
superpower innovation and enterprise. And so if we lean into that, we can lead the twenty First.
Are we good at governance of it? Yes? I think we.
I mean, look at what we did in the twentieth century. But it's not going to be the status quo. We're going to have to think and operate in really different ways. That's what tech diplomacy is all about, right, It's about bringing tech companies in the private sector together with government officials to have a conversation around how do you unleash innovation and also make sure that it accelerates our values of freedom and prosperity and human rights and data privacy
and things like that. That conversation needs to happen where it traditionally doesn't.
One you're probably having here right here in New York, Michelle Geide making time for us. We so appreciate it. Perduce cruct Institute for Tech Diplomacy. Now we're going to have an update now. In the world of entertainment, Jimmy Kimmel Live, it's set to return to the airwaves tonight, a suspension imposed by Disney following remarks made by the
host about the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Meanwhile, Next Star, alongside Sinclair Broadcast Group, announced it will continue to pre empt the airing of the late night program across its stations. According to sources, Kimmel is set to address the controversy during his show. Defense tech startup or Tarryon has raised one hundred and thirty million dollars in new funding led
by Bessemer Benure Partners. The drone software maker says it's platform tas individual drones into coordinated combat forces and it's already deploying AI strike kits to Ukraine. Speak with Autarion CEO Lorenzmeyer, Lorenzi is great to have you on. You're not building the hardware, You're all in on the software. Why is that the right strategy?
Thank you for having me.
Yes, it is a very unique strategy, surprisingly given their software is such a force in every other industry.
But what we're building is the common operating system.
You can think of it as the Windows or Android of drones, along with the app store for it. And right now, the most urgent need for our technology is on the battlefield in Ukraine. We're delivering tens of thousands of strike kits, which is software pre installed on a small computer to improve the combat effectiveness of Ukrainian forces,
and we are already supplying US forces native forces. So the learnings that we're making on the battlefield on Ukraine are coming back quickly to all of our allies and partners.
And talk about your partners, because many would say, okay, I can see here in the US perhaps the hardware competition of ANDRAIL along with its full vertical integration, but actually working with those sorts of companies too.
So we are happy to work with everybody, so we're not discriminative on that. But our focus is the warfighter. Our mission is to give warfighters the unified swarm of different drones, different sizes, different purposes, and to allow them to choose the right tool for the mission. And that's only possible if you run them all with one operating system which enables them to speak a single language. And a single language is necessary for them to move and
swarm together and fight together. And in the future, what we're expecting more and more are robot wars where drones are fighting not just today tanks, but actually other drones. And so it is important, it is imperative that we achieve supremacy in that autonomy field to defend our freedoms.
And so when you say we are selling to the Western world and allies. At the moment, I understand you just want a contract with Taiwan. You've also been winning contracts in Europe and the United States. Where is the largest amount of demand coming from Lorentz for you?
I would say medium term definitely from the Department of War, and we're super excited about the fact that we've been supplying back the n.
DUD for the past eight years.
But short term definitely on the battlefield in Ukraine because with the additional aion board, these drones are a lot easier to operate and more precise, and so we're helping Ukrainian units to be a lot more effective in combat with the same amount of drones.
This money one hundred and thirty million dollars. What does that help you do, then, Lorenz? Is it about being able to negotiate navigate big government entities. Is it more about scaling and bringing in demand, making acquisitions.
So we're already cashful positive.
So this is all about non organic growth in terms of growing our international footprint the Nordics. We have entered the British market, we are in Asia. You've mentioned the partnership with Taiwan, and we're expanding our product line. So a year ago we did the operating system for individual drones with terminal guidance. Recently we announced as the first software company in our space swarming at a very large number of drones. And so we are expanding our product
portfolio continuously. And because we are software centric, that is as simple as a software update, as an app install.
And then the money. You've course got better men leading these serious b But where has the interest been coming from a venture capital perspective? You're based out in Europe, you were born in Switzerland, But has it been US investors knocking on your door? Where do you think the pools of capital are for you?
Well, we actually planned to fundraise later in the years, so best we're preempted the around, which shows how how excited they are about what we're building. The technology has a lot of i would say European heritage. We have fantastic developers. But where we're pushing forward is the American market, which is the largest market.
Arensmeyer, founder and CEO of Autarion. Keep coming back as you build out here in the United States too. Look now that's pivot and take a look at fireflies first earning results as a public company. Of course, this is a space company in many ways. Some would see this defense falling short of expectations. The rocket makers revenue miss Tall Street expectations, currently off by twelve percent in the
market after we digest those numbers. Interestingly similar thing happened to Figma, of course, after its first earnings as a public company. Now coming up, we're going to be taking a look at kind Body, once one of the fastest growing fertility chains in the United States, and it's spiraling into crisis. It's the latest Bloomberg Big Tape podcast. That's next. This is Bloomberg Tech US fertility chain kind Body. It
was one's booming. The venture backed company cultivated a modern millennial friendly esthetic that did help but attract one of three hundred million dollars in investments, including backing some celebrity investors like Gwyneth Paltrow Chelsea Clinton. But kind Body has been riddled with clinical problems with embryos being mislabeled, lost, accidentally destroyed, and has spiraled into crisis as more people's
seek fertility treatment than ever. The startup story illustrates really the dangers are moving fast in a largely unregulated industry. Bloomberg's Jackie Devolos took a deep dive into this for Bloomberg's latest podcast, IVF Disrupted. It's such an important deep investigation you've done, one that just highlights turmoil and real pain points for individuals. Can you just tell us a little bit about how you first understood that this was a spiral occurring?
Absolutely well, of course, I'm a venture capital and stre ups reporter, and like with any story I look into, I was trying to identify whether these one off occurrences I was hearing about from employees and patients was a pattern of mistakes or if it really was just that
a one off. And two years of investigating, I was able to uncover multiple incidents across several kind body clinics that really came down to the high turnover that led to understaffing, as well as inconsistently applied protocols in the embryology lab. This is the place where embryos are made and have to be carefully handled, and because of how quickly the company was growing, a lot of those protocols
were going by the wayside in some cases. Now the company does dispute at least some of these incidents, but it did acknowledge that accidents did occur, but it also said that these issues are not unique to kind Body, but illustrative of the broader industry as well.
Okay, so that's a worry for people who are out there seeking fertility help, that the fact that this is an industry wide issue. Are there instances where femtech in particular has done good things, managed to keep the balance of growth versus security and safety, and where has it dropped by the wayside.
Well, this is one of the areas in which I found Kind Body was unique. It was one of the only venture backed and private equity backed startups that was building brick in mortar clinics. This is a really difficult thing to do because, like I said, the embryology lab has to be very carefully put together. It's very expensive
to put together. And they were going out and putting these clinics in areas where there's a lot of foot traffic, and that can potentially open it up to other issues like flooding or other things that come along with being next to a Berrie's boot camp, for example. You do have other femtech providers in the fertility space, like a maven, but they don't open up brick and mortar. Clinics and
experts have told me that that's for a reason. So of course investors got very excited about the prospect of a new company disrupting the way fertility had been done. But of course, as I found, there were real human costs and consequences to that.
This is an enormous industry and what's the takeaway here ultimately is that it shouldn't be venture backed or what things that can be learned from this that means a company is able to scale, but at the pace that it needs you to have security for those that it's serving.
I think this reporting can really be helpful for it not just patients, but also investors looking at these companies, for families of people going through some of these procedures. You get to hear in this five part podcast from patients themselves who went through these treatments, which are incredibly taxing on the human body. There's a lot of what they would describe kind of dismissing of symptoms and doubts, and you get to hear more about where some of
those pressures inside the company were coming from. A worry about the bottom line, and so while there is no prospect for regulation for the industry, at least people who listen can come out better equipped with more information about what they should know when they're walking through in IVF clinic stories.
Listen to the podcast, read your print stories on it. It has been a two year thorough investigation and phenomenal work from Jackie Devodos. We so thank her. Meanwhile, you can see, as I say, the IVF Disrupted series from the Big Takes podcast. Get it on the Terminal, online on Apple, Spotify, and iHeart you can get ours there too, But that does it for this edition. A Boomberg Tech