From Mahard where Innovation of Money and Power.
Collie in Silicon Valley, NBN.
This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow.
I'm Caroline Heidel, Blomberg's World headquarters in New York.
And I'm Ed Ludlow in San Francisco. This is Bloomberg Technology coming up.
We bring you the latest in markets. As in video Struggles, We're going to talk macro and micro and Nazi Curtain from Ulti Tenam and Global Pus.
We had the latest from Washington is the Supreme Court sends social media laws back to lower courts.
And Qualcom It's become the new front of shirt sponsor from Manchester United, are Chips the new crypto? We discussed that and so much more throughout the app. At first, we check in on these markets and we're struggling for direction.
I think can be what's the read across We start the new half of the year and we're up about a tenth of per percent on the NASAT more broadly, but it seems to be the bomb market that's dictating some of that caution in the equity market yields for hire some eight basis points read that what you will, is that caution as to what's happening over in Europe? Is it worries about what's happening in the United States in terms of ultimately fiscal spending coming with whoever runs
the country post November. And I think also what's happening though, is the political risk actually a bit of a relief over in France the CAC forty rising more than a percentage point as we do see perhaps a push to curtail what might be the most right winger policies that could be enacted over in France as many rush to see what happens in the second round of voting. We
look at the economic effect, not the political. Let's have a look at what's happening in terms of crypto though, because the risk asider choice here on the Technology Show, we're not one point four percent seven and fifty five a bit of a risk on attitude when it comes to bitcoin ed but way off our high as a previous What are you watching on the micro.
There's a lot going on throughout they how let's start with Nvidia. A headline hit just before we came on air from Reuters, citing anonymous sources that French antitrust regulated are getting ready to charge in video over anti competitive practices. You'll remember in September those dawn raids in Nvidia's French.
Offices or facilities. We'll continue to track it.
I'd point out the stock is off session lows, and broadly speaking, chip stocks are lower anyway, there's been some selling across the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index.
But we'll continue one of that monitor that one. Tessa's going to give.
Us second quarter delivery numbers at some point in the next twenty four to four eight hours. We'll go to Craigtrudell and preview those. And then there's the quod Con Manchester, United front of shirt sponsorship tie up. It says Snapdragon, and we'll show it to you later on. By the way, it's July first, so happy third quarter to Caroline. Happy second half of the year. We got a data guy at Bloomberg Technology, Terrell Holt, and he's put together this
fantastic chart. This is the S ANDP five hundred and at the start of the year, the first half of twenty four, the S and P five hundred is up about fourteen percent, right, So he went back and crunched the numbers where the S and P five hundred has risen by double j in the first half of the year. More often than not, it's gone on to have some pretty big gains in the second half of the year.
So that's kind of the question, right, what happens next as we enter this second half of twenty twenty four. This chart, based on history would indicate we continue to climb higher?
Do we?
Who knows, well, there's someone who might well know or at least can align our bets a little bit clearer. And Nacy Kerstin Global, CEO for ltttam and Global, which manages the seventy billion dollars in assets, and Nancy, you're such a voice for us when it comes to out of shin intelligence where it's hyperreality. And I'm interested as to whether you think the second half will bode well if you're long some of these names, like in Video and the chip stocks, well.
Look Treestone quote at the sky.
So we need to recognize that these stocks have run a lot already. Having said that, you know, in Video has got a lot of a sleeve in terms of
new product development. Right, We've got Blackwell coming on in twenty twenty five We've got Reuben there after, and so there there's quite a lot of product development in Nvidia does enjoy a competitive mode in both software and hardware, and I think we're just beginning of the purchase of these GPU chips from governments and other sectors like healthcare, the automotive sector. So look at the end of the day, when a stock has risen one hundred and fifty percent,
there can always be a pullback. But I would say we're still pretty early innings here on the Nvidia story now.
As we've done a lot on the show of late about how difficult it is, particularly for the cell side, to forecast top line growth. You talked about Blackwell coming online. You're in the camp of people that says jen Ai is going to change everything, but it's not yet priced in.
Which sectors is it not yet priced in?
For?
Where is that not yet being reflected?
Well, I think given what we've seen in the first quarter and the second quarter, in particularly the Its States, the second quarter all led by the magnificent five so to speak. You know, Apple and Tesla obviously lagged a bit, but it was tech, tech and tech, and so I would say that Jenai has been priced in to a certain extent to those stocks. They certainly are recognized as Genai beneficiaries. But I think the interesting thing is.
You know, Jenai is value added across every sector of the economy, or at least that's what we think, And therefore, looking ahead, we think Genai and its implications for innovation, cost savings, productivity improvements in other parts of the economy is not yet priced in, and in any event, our view.
Is that earnings growth will broaden and deepen as the year progresses. It's still about tech in the second quarter, by the way, but as the year progresses, and we think that will lead to a broadening in market participation. So actually, many of our managers, remember we're open architecture at all ttsman have been reducing technology to the benefit to other sectors of the economy that will overtime benefit
from Jenai. But also we think we'll see an acceleration and earnings growth as the year progresses, and frankly, trade on a more attractive valuation.
Really important when it comes to publicly traded equities. Nancy, Well, what's so great about you is we can go cross assets as well and to private assets into non public companies. It's interesting. We recently had Youma Crossing Capital Advisors head on recently, who've done a partnership with Alti Tetaman to look at well private companies from an exity perspective, but you're looking at it from a debt perspective as well. Where should one be allocating into technology or more broadly.
So in technology and more broadly, let's just take private credit by way of example. We think private credit is super interesting because there's a retrenchment happening on the part of the banks. Now you all saw the stress test last week. Banks need more capital. Well, Basel three will
be punitive in terms of ongoing capital requirements. There's mark to market pressures on bank balance sheets, and of course small to medium sized banks commercial banks that have very high exposure of the commercial real estate sector have been withdrawing from lending to mention funding costs going up. Okay, so what's happening here? Banks are retrenching from lending, but marquee credit names are coming in and filling the void. We initially invested in what are called private lending direct
lending strategies. More recently we're evolving and moving into what I call asset back lending strategies.
Again, these are kind of almost.
Investment grade or in another name, investment grade senior secured high up in the capital structure, and direct lendings about a two percent premium to high yield, whereas asset back lendings about four percent premium to high yield. And by the way, these are being offered to weld channels in sort of semi liquid form, so it's not hugely be liquid and that's important as well.
Nancy, how is a presidential election in the United States going to impact the technology sector?
Wow?
Well, the presidential election in the United States got rather entertaining last Thursday in a sort of cringe way. Dare I say, you know, we've got a long way to go here before we know whether either candidate or obviously if there's a replacement for Biden remains.
To be seen.
But look, I think tech companies remain strong. Neither candidate is anti tech, they both recognize this is a significant competitive advantage to the United States. I don't see IRA or the CHIPSAC being rolled back under either candidate. Clearly not a president Biden wins. And these are all important supports for the tech sector that in addition to the fact that these technology companies you know, are spending huge amounts on jen Ai two hundred billion dollars the four
largest tech companies. Of course they are capax is.
In Video's revenue.
And so we think that continues irrespective of who wins the election. Now, this is a sector that's not really impacted by the election. There's a real secular trend here.
Nancy kurtn Avelti team and Global just incredible breadth of conversation.
Thank you.
Has turned back to some of the breaking news that happened out of Washington in the last out of the Supreme Court out with multiple decisions this morning. Let's start with the ruling on immunity for former President Trump. Joining us from DC. Bloomber's Kdie lines, Wow, you had to process a lot of information in a very short period of time. The immunity decision, please.
Well, the immunity decision is a partial win for Donald Trump and a partial loss. Essentially, what the Supreme Court has ruled as that Donald Trump is immune from prosecution for official acts that he took while in office, not though for unofficial acts. And this Court, in a six
to three ruling, the Conservatives ruling in the majority. The liberal justices dissenting has essentially set this now down to lower court, specifically Judge Tanya Chutkin, who is overseeing this case brought against him here in Washington related to twenty twenty election subversion.
It will be up to that lower court to decide what is.
An official and unofficial act within these four counts that Donald Trump has been indicted with. Effectively, what this accomplishes is not only setting a precedent for all future presidents of the United States, is this is not just about Donald Trump, but about presidential authority broadly. It also, though effectively, make sure that this case will not go to trial
for Donald Trump before the election in November. Judge Chuckkin has said that the parties will have at least three months to prepare for a trial, and of course all of this official versus unofficial matter will have to be sorted out as well. So effectively, this does provide a win to Donald Trump in delaying that trial to the point where it likely will not happen before voters make their choice between Donald Trump and Joe Biden in November.
Donald Trump, of course, has spoken on this today. He calls it a big win for a constitution and democracy and ted on true social He is proud to be an American.
Katie, You're busy. The Lowa cults are busy. The low cults are going to be busy thinking about social media as well. New laws that wanted to be put in place in Texas and Florida go back that too.
Yeah, this is an interesting and complicated opinion that the court also handed down.
So they related to.
These laws that both Texas and Florida estates have put into place restricting social social media companies ability to restrict content on their platform. Essentially, what the Court has ruled for is that those courts need to have their cases thrown out and relook at the First Amendment question here, which of course is really the crux of this case. What does and does not violate the First Amendment rights
given by the US Constitution. So they're effectively kicking the can back down, not making a decisive ruling, just as they did similarly in a separate social media case ruling earlier this term, in which they essentially handed a win to the Biden administration not restricting its ability to communicate with social media platforms about content that should be taken down. But in that decision, while it was a win for the administration, they just said that the defendants who brought
the case lacked the legal standing to do so. So both in this case today and that other social media related case, they aren't actually ruling on the merits on that key First Amendment question and what crosses the line as you're trying to combat misinformation but also don't want to restrict the right to free speech. The court hasn't ruled on those things. It's just telling other courts they need to do so.
Again, Kaylee Lines, you always break it down so adequately. Thank you a lot to digest there. We appreciate it. Mean, while coming up, we're going to be turning our attention to the sharing of your cause. Andrey Hadad's been at it for a while, CEO of Turo. He's got an outlook on the travel industry and his company's latest product updates and what have you.
Got some quick breaking news.
CDK, which is the software platform that supports car auto dealers, has issued us statement saying it sees its systems being restored by early July fourth. This is the platform that is front and back office for car dealers that were subject to a hack.
Really important.
July fourth is a key sales period in the United States for cars, alongside with Memorial Day Labor Day.
So that's the update.
The systems will be restored by a July fourth, and that's what we're watching.
Sick with us. This is Blimberg Technology.
Let's talk about technology, travel and the transportation industry and how Touro is trying to disrupt it. The company recently shared over seventy seven zero product updates aiming to make the rental car experience smooth. Look for consumers here with more Toro CEO and j Hadad. So normally you would say I'm going to go to a certain place and I know the date I'm going and then I'm going to try and book an car. You've decided one of
the things you want to change is that process. You want to pick the car and then work out the location and date later. Just explain how that's going to work in practice. First of all, thanks for having me on the show.
We're very excited about what we're calling our limitless search capabilities. Just to give you a bit of context, you know, the business has grown quite a bit over the last few years and now we have over three hundred and seventy thousand active listings across sixteen hundred makes and models, and many of our customers have been asking us, well, it's great that we can search by destination and date.
As if I am already keen on going on a trip and I know what my dates are, I know my destination, but I'd like you to show me all the great cars that you've.
Got, so it's more experiential.
It's to take a luxury car exactly, try and evy for the first time, exactly that exactly.
So you know, now we've reached a critical mass in all of our markets that we thought this is the moment in time where we can launch this capability. Now, if you're looking to, you know, experience that cyber truck, or if you want to, you know, maybe test drive a Rivian before you buy it, you can actually find all of these cyber trucks and Rivians across the country and then you can decide where to go in order to do that.
It's interesting that you bring up cyber truck, and it's interesting that at this moment you're also putting out a note trying to describe what the future transport looks like. And you've really articulated how Turo has been through the highs and the lows, and the macroheadwinds of COVID, of then everyone wanting to get back into revenge spending. We're also now looking at ultimately robotaxis. How will Turo still survive that pivot in the future.
You're right, Carol, and it's been quite the roller coaster the last few years for travel and transportation. You know, COVID hit in twenty twenty, then of course there was the collapse of Big Rental in twenty twenty twenty one, the return of travel, the revenge travel, but also the automotive industry has been changing quite a bit over the last few years, and as you know, there's been tremendous inflation and the costs of car ownership and car insurance recently.
So within that roller coaster of a ride over the last three years, we were very pleased with our performance as a company. We've increased our revenue by over four hundred percent from one hundred and fifty million twenty twenty to eight hundred and eighty million and twenty twenty three, we've increased the reach of our community of house and guests. So we're very pleased with our performance, but it's not
the end of the disruption. You know, the disruption continues in the space, and we're very excited to be part of this new class of companies that are helping, you know, evolve the transportation and travel industries. We think actually autonomy is a great thing for the industry. We see the future where we have a lot of these you know, ride hailing short trips being delivered by autonomous services. You know, our business is much more related to much longer trips.
Our users tend to book a car for four and a half day on average, and they drive almost two hundred miles a day. So this is a segment that is I think independent of the evolution of robotaxes.
You if you look at third party data, are the bigger player of two, maybe three get around, there are some others out there. You've just talked about how much your business is ramped up. So as this tradition on Bloomberg Technology when a founder CEO comes in, how's going public going and when's it going to happen?
I thought we're going to talk more about the seventy product releases.
Today we talked about one of the seventy quite a lot of detail, but yeah, it all points the idea. You've got momentum and there a lot of interest in you guys for that reason as well.
Yes, you know we're we're ready to go public. You know RS one is ready. We've updated a few times already, as you know, over the last few years. But as you know, the financial markets have not been very keen on IPOs over the last couple of years. So as soon as that changes, I think we're going to be ready.
Andre Hadad Tour CEO.
As you know, I've been a user of Toro, not just in the United States, elsewhere as well, and it's that experienced bit that maybe we'll try out next.
Thank you for coming on the program.
It's signed for Talking Tech and first up, Bridgewater turns to machine learning. The hedge fund Giant is set to debut a new fund that will use AI as the primary basis of its decision making. According to sources, the fund will debut with two billion dollars of capital starting today and will utilize models developed by open Ai, Anthropic and Perplexity, among others, plus Japan's H three rocket takes flight again.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration.
Agency saw a successful launch which carried a satellite toward low Earth orbit.
It's the second launch for the H three this year, with no crew on board.
The flight comes after numerous blunders and delays for the agency, including an explosion of its smaller Epsilon rocket in twenty twenty two. In Amazon calls from an AI startup, the online retailer has hired top executives and employees from adebt ai Labs in a move that bossters the development of an advanced version of AI that can think like a human. According to a memo provided to Bloomberg, Amazon, we use a debt tech to develop products that help automate software workflows.
Caraenen and these acclahias are interesting. Meanwhile, let's go to France because, following months long battle over the future of the French IT firm atos it is once held as the rising star of the country's tech industry, and well now creditors are set to take control of the company, joining us Bloomberg's Erny Gassier Perez and you really look
at the company from a stressed debt perspective. That's boy, was it distressed and now creditors are the ones that are going to be the savior's That's right.
It's been a monslong negotiation. The company has started to discuss the situation with creditorss in February and we're nearing Yeah, it's in July already and we finally have an agreement in princip and now it's about other creditors joining this deal, you know.
Rene Later in the show, we're going to talk about UAF Euro twenty twenty four, of which Atos is the official IT partner and one of its main sponsors. We're reflecting off air that like, this has been a wild battle. It's been a really difficult and ongoing situation. Even that our producer John Hyland was like, when does this end? You know, we've been covering this for a while. Is there a kind of line of sight to what happens next?
Well, the restructuring should be wrapped up by the end of the year. What happens next Once the company has enough creditors agreeing to this signing the lock up, they start a cord process called the ask the court in France to start an accelerated soft guard, which allows a company to cram down dissenting creditors if there were any, and get the deal approved and that should happen by the end of the year.
Looking at the deal, equity zilch zero goes to nothing, two point nine billion rows of loans and bonds are turned into equity, one point six eight billion euros of new debt injecting too one and thirty three million in new equity we understand, and perhaps looking at the deal to send part sell part of ATOS to the French government.
Yes, exactly. So here the main argument is that creators like the company a lot, and they argue that well, they will sell it to the French government if it makes sense.
Otherwise they're happy to keep it.
They don't have any intention to move the headquarters from France. It will still be a French company, even if the revenue actually ninety percent of it it's out outside of France. But they plan to, you know, stick to it being a French company. And that's one of the things of the Critian scale for they didn't like they didn't want to split the company. So yeah, the plan for them is we will send operations if it makes sense. Otherwise we're happy to keep it together.
How is the Renegacie Perez walking us through what has been long for that battle? Still some teas to cross to dot.
Welcome back to Blimberg Technology. Ed Lovelow in San Francisco.
Carolin Hired in New York. Let's get a quick check on these markets because we're being whipsawed by political acts, whether it's in France, whether it's in the United States. And yields have been pushing higher, but notably actually the Nasluca has found some resilience today in the face of yields pushing up some eight basis points in the tenure. Now's that one hundred up about tenth of a percent to start off the beginning of the new second half of the year, and we're up just the tenth percent.
I remember we're selling off on Friday. We've got the cat forty up one point three percent. Closed trade. In Europe, we are seeing some signs of well relief post the first round of voting that happened in France and trying to understand whether or not we'll see some of the more significant right policies come in to act. We're currently at one point three percent. The euro also just a
little bit stronger USUS US dollar. The dollar picked up steam though perhaps on some of the political anxiety here in the United States. Move on and look at some of the individual movers that we're looking at. On the day ed I want to shine on Videer. I mean, what toxy turvy day for the chip maker. We were down some two percent, we were dragging on the big benchmarks.
Now we're currently up about three tens of percent, even as we get a Voiters report saying that maybe we're getting near an antitrust charge coming from France, we're currently those still managing to be resilient on this particular chip name. I'm looking at Chewy now off by five point nine percent. Again, a roller coaster ride for this particular name online if you're going to be getting into your food for your pets.
But this is all about Keith Gill. This is about rowing Kitty, This is about Ryan Cohen not only being the leader of Gamestoppers, the co founder of Chewy. And now it looks as though we've got a big open interest, a big long coming from Keith Gill. But it's not
enough to stabilize the stock on the longer term. I'm looking at byd I'm looking at the American depository desease for this Chinese carmaker, Bloomberg News getting the data that basically we've seen once again some record sales coming from this particular company, Hybrid, and indeed EV's doing very well. Why price cuts were up some eight tens of percent. But you're looking at EV's a little bit more.
Yeah, Well, I'm looking at Tesla. It's up six percent in the session, which kind of came out of nowhere. That's it's fifth straight day of games, which unbelievably is
its best winning streak in almost a year. The company is expected to post a drop in quarterly deliveries, its second consecutive coarsely decline doing both Creatrue Our Global Cars editor joins us out of London, and I'm looking at the markets, like Tesla's up a lot, and one of the logics appears to be that the domestic EV makers in China, Bid included are showing really strong data and so we might be extrapolating out.
That Tesla does well there.
Even overall we expect this kind of continued deceleration in growth.
Also, maybe chuck this up to you know, if Keith Gill is back in the headlines. Maybe you know, one of the ultimate meme stocks is is you know, benefiting from meaningness. And you know, because really when you look at the fundamentals of this business, I mean, just one analyst after another has come out with a report, you know, of dialing back their expectations for this quarter's deliveries. We do see you know, monthly sales data out of China that has not been strong for Tesla in the first
couple of months of this quarter. So I think, you know, the likelihood of a surprise you know, last month that sort of rescues the quarter for the company seems seems fairly remote.
So you know, it really is a head scratcher.
I think, you know, beyond just the the sort of you know, presence of of you know, a buillience among retail investors, maybe just also looking ahead to the Robotaxi that's coming out and that unveiling in August, it does.
Feel like investors are wanting to go more long term viewpoint on this stock because the medium to short term is looking pretty ugly. Craig, and we're running out of excuses. You've got a great story out from the team really talking about four and forty one thousand evs being sold for the second quarter. Look, we can't blame Middle East in supply chain disruptions.
Anymore, right, I mean, the company has you know, pointed to it did point to things in the first quarter that really affected you know, the more so the production side, and it was sort of reluctant to really speak to demand issues. And that's been you know, sort of Musk's mo o and and you know, to his credit for years, he was proven right that he had you know, plenty of demand to work with and that that was not
the company's problem. I think, you know, we we see more and more evidence, you know, by the day that this is a company that does have demand issues, that you know, does have a bit of a tired lineup at this point and has a lot more competition to contend with it. It is still the case that the Model Y does incredible volume, but it's really tough to build on a year when that was the best selling vehicle in the world and you know, it's only gotten
another year older. This was a vehicle after all, that debuted in the year twenty twenty, and so you know, generally around this time, you see you know, a refresh,
which Musk has sort of ruled out. So you know what exactly this company does to sort of you know, touch off that next you know era of growth really still kind of remains to be seen because I think the expectation is that the Robotaxi is more of an idea and a concept as opposed to something that for the here and now and really the fundamentals of the business.
We get those fundamentals tomorrow, Pretre Dow, thank you so much. Meanwhile, coming up, we're going to dig into the private side of the market. We're joined by IVP general partner Tom Lavara to discuss current investing trends and basically, are we out of the woods? Are we back to all risk on for CEOs? Right now we're talking to state as the software economy.
ED.
What are you watching?
Oh, I've got some drama. I've got some activists drama. Take a look at Massimo health Tech Wearables. There's a regulatory filing out where basically the CEO of the company is saying that if an activist, which is poly Ten Capital Management, takes control and tries to remove CEO Jojiani, the COO says, I'll resign and is the headline of that chart shows a lot of the staff seem to agree with that position. A drop of seven point six
is its biggest decline in eight weeks. But interesting, we have another activist situation on our hands, and on this program we like to track those.
Stick with us.
We'll be right back. BlueBag technology, let's.
Talk artificial intelligence. K Health has just raised fifty million dollars in a funding round led by Clari Group, and the startup provides patients with a chatbot to make primary care busing more accessible. And the recent funding round is set the company's valuation about nine hundred million dollars. K Health co founder CEO along Block joins us now and I love the piece that we have from Marcello Clari basically saying I'm so done with a hyper round of AI.
I want to see companies using it fixing a world problem. He says, you're doing it. How are you doing it?
Well?
We decided to focus on a big problem called primarycare. That's the access to healthcare. There's about a billion primarycare visitor. You're in America. People have chronic conditions, they are preventative needs, and they have acute care. And we built software that allows you to engage with patients and with your electronic medical records and with doctors, and it allows doctors to focus on making the decisions and engaging with patients. That's really really tough to do. You need to build a
lot of intelligence into the system. But that allows health systems now to integrate AI and clinical AI in their day to day in their primary care. For example, we're integrated into secret SINAI, so we can manage you remotely with primary care, but we can also integrate you into specialist test labs in a world class health system.
Now, people will recognize you because you're a COSEO of WIS. You're also co founder CEO of Room. You've been there, done that, taking companies public. I'm interested as to this particular problem that you're trying to solve. How are you seeing the efficiency gains? How are you measuring your success at this earlier stage other than being able to raise funds.
I think that's a great question. I think think the main focus always needs to be on quality. It needs to be better quality. And everybody always complains about healthcare so expensive. It's so tough to be in front of doctors, so there's three things we look at. First's quality. Can we make the doctor's life easier? Do they need to spend much less time collecting information organizing it? Imagine having
this really smart resident there who prepared everything there. Now the doctor can come in, can focus on the judgment, can focus on the patient. So you're saving a lot of times of productivity. Improvements are large. And then there's also access. We provide a twenty four seven just like you'd want to get from your health system, and it needs to be grounded in your electronic magnanical record. We need to be able to provide you personalize there medicine.
So you need to bring all those pieces together and they need to go hand in hand.
And critically, the point with k help is that the diagnosis, treatment or onward referral to a specialist is still determined by a human being. But are you able to share any data about the sort of success rates of treatment? By using the platform and then having a means for a doctor to say, Okay, this is the patient before me, this is the information I have available, this is what we're going to do.
Well, we can see everything anonymously that the doctor does, and we can learn from it. Bear in mind the new things could happen, and new symptoms can appear down the road. Sometimes doctors change the diagnosis. So yes, you're right, the doctors are making the diagnosis and treatment decisions. But we're letting doctors essentially have a copilot that does a lot of the basic work but also some of the
nuance insights that can help doctors make decisions. And then we have this look back, the ability to look at outcome data and see the patients regularly. When you work, for example, in Cedar Sinai where we're integrated, you are
getting an aside primary care just like anywhere else. It's just twenty four to seven, and you can manage this directly and you can get again the prescription, the referral, anything else you'd expect the need, but now you have just much more convenience and all you need is your insurance.
Alum block k Health CEO. It's an interesting case study. We are hearing it more often this kind of service in the healthcare industry in the United States.
Thank you, Thank you time.
Let's keep a conversation going and discuss trends in the world. A venture capital and VC backed startups, the macro environments impact on startups and a lot more. With returning to the show, IVP General Partner Tom Lavero, you know, it seems a strange place to start, but quite a lot has changed since you were lost on the program, a lot of it driven by AI. The economy has changed and we are bracing for a presidential election this country.
In Europe as something similar is happening. How's things going. It's been a rough couple of years for startups.
That's a nice way to start the conversation, Tom, Thank you. It's the truth.
That's my job, get out there in front of founders and tell them how it is. It's been a rough couple of years. There's been a lot of startup shutdowns layoffs, but things are changing.
You have been, as you do, regularly penning your thoughts, posting kind of thought pieces to social media. We've taken one from LinkedIn, for example, and you're arguing it's time for offense. So no matter how bleak things might seem, you seem to believe that it's time to fight back.
If you're a startup or a founder, founders need to anticipate where things are going, and I firmly believe right now the winds are shifting and the economy is getting better, and startup founders can't wait for the economic data from twelve months ago to decide to try and beat their competition, grow a little faster, hire more people.
I think right now is the perfect time.
Tom.
You like putting your thoughts, as we said to social media, and previously you were calling for a mass extinction event, and so we've kind of got to rate the wisdom with which we should see your current viewpoint with how it turned out in twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four, How was that mass extinction? Did it bear in the way that you thought it would do? Companies manage to succeed and muddle through more than you want topated.
Yeah.
I think that piece really resonated with the founders and the startup ecosystem because we were able to express something out loud. A lot of them were thinking privately. And if you objectively look at the data from the past couple of years, startup shutdowns are up between three and ten x. Layoffs are a huge multiple of what they were before the zero interest rate environment. By every measure, it's been a startup extinction event out there, but.
Some companies have done well. Notably, some have actually managed to sell themselves. One of your own portfodio companies actually caught being brought by IBM. What's interesting is we're hearing more and more in the AI sphere the companies are looking for mergers. They can't always sustain themselves. Are you seeing that among your portfolio companies that they're either able to buy others or we're seeing more M and A within the private markets.
Yeah, I think M and A feels like it's beginning to worm up. The big acquirers. The major public companies seem to be putting out feelers, starting conversations for the first time in a while. I think that's because startup expectations are more reasonable than they were during that zero interest rate environment, but their stock prices franklier backups, so they're feeling a little bit more confident about acquiring smaller
startups that are probably not profitable. And then now they have a real reason to go and make acquisitions, which is AI. There's this platform shift they know they need to be part of, and the startups tend to move faster in that realm.
Reading your work, I am going to channel my inner Tom Keen, Tom Keane, longtime story, Bloomberg anchor, And it's like it's like Darwin and Wallace natural selection. You're basically saying between twenty twenty and twenty twenty three things were very bad, but actually what happened was good startups survive, the others rule killed. So that's a nice market to have. You only have good things in front of you, basically, Is that fair?
Yeah?
I mean, and if you can have money in a good business during a downturn, it's the best time to build. But I think founders sometimes lose track of where we are with the economy, a little bit of like Stockholm syndrome, where you get so used to being in a down economy you forget to go on offense. And that's what the latest piece is about. It's hey, founders, the economy really is better. It's okay to start thinking aggressively again. Don't go to the extremes of burning way too much
money and being efficient. But let's let's think about offense again, because startups naturally need to be on offense if you're not somebody else's om navera.
We thank you so much for coming back on IVP general partner and all things offense. Let's talk chips because sk Heinex it's the semiconductor arm of the SK Group. It's plan to invest close to seventy five billion dollars through twenty twenty eight. I'm scoring the conglomerates met on, a sector considers crucial for future proof it's businesses. Now, the group says about eighty percent of this sum will be allocated to do investing in You guessed it, your
favorite ED high and width memory chips. What are you looking at?
Qualcomm has become the new front of shirt sponsor for Manchester United football club. This the company's latest attempt to boost awareness of it's snap Dragon brand among consumers amid a broader push into personal computing.
And here to not only discuss.
This massive commercial deal but also illustrate demonstrate it is Bloomberg's only in king who leads our semiconductor coverage and just so happens to be a Manchester United fan.
But there it is. You know, it's something that you just didn't think you'd ever see. But for Qualcom, this.
Is a big, big deal, right, So this is not even just the company name, this is their brand. This is them trying to do something that they've really been trying to do for ten years and not making a lot of progress in and now they're saying, look, this is how committed we are, this is what we're prepared to put money behind. And obviously this is a very big brand.
How much money are we talking in they want?
Neither side will tell us, but we have a report saying about seventy five million dollars a year and it's going to probably stretch over five years.
Director Alice, you know, just try and get this I hold up from it.
There you go.
I mean, the point is is that it's a chip.
It's a semiconductor Historically that Quodcom's put into smartphones. There's an AI story with it. Now there's a cult following around it. Just explain its next iteration.
Yeah, I mean, the most important thing here is they want They've been trying to get their chips into laptops for a long time. Hasn't really happened. Now they're saying new AI software will help them to do that. But what's happening behind the scenes. The kind of giant elephant in the room here, Like Manchester United in the nineties,
a very successful team is Intel. Intel have dominated this market not only with their products but with their brand, right that anybody who's trying to get into laptops has to take on the Intel Inside brand.
And this is what Qualcom is trying to.
Do with this and other efforts.
Ah, just that word takes me back to the Beckham documentary and when all feel good factors around, whether it's England, whether it's man you. I mean, I think Eric Canton has had something to do with the marketing of all of this, and just how many of these technames or US tech names are going into sports like this to big up their name. How much do you see chips more broadly get into the world of football or soccer.
Yeah, I mean it's it's different. I mean, it's an ingredient brand. So it's always been sort of a one step back. Intel were the ones that really broke that with the Intel Inside campaign and really pushed the idea that hey, you don't buy something for the company that makes it, you buy something because of what's inside it. And Qualcom are trying to make that next step. They're
the first. We say, other companies sort of flirt with this, but this is probably the biggest effort we've seen so far to really get a content brand, a content sort of product in front of real consumers who ultimately be the onecom.
Saying that one Premier League home game will have the same value to them is spending on a Super Bowl ad. That's what we're talking about, Bluemoc and King incredible reporting.
Thank you.
I just got back from vacation and when I was in Europe a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that in the midst of celebrations around the UA for European Football Tournament, something else is part of the landscape.
Karen.
That is Chinese technology companies being sponsors Evmaker byd Ali Express, Ali Pay, and it's in this era of increasing tech competition between the US and China. I just was so surprised to see these names so present on the football broadcast from the.
BBC ITV in Europe.
I was in mainland Europe looking at a continental Europe.
What do you make of that?
So what previously it was crypto names all sponsoring shirts. Now it's chips and it's also Chinese e commerce. But just the amount that they're spending end here, how much do they need to build on the app downloads to be able to vindicate the sort of marketing spend on uofa game.
So this is definitely about going after the European market. But the interesting comparison is Timu. Remember Timu did a lot of ads around the Super Bowl in twenty twenty three. They saw in massive surge in downloads of their app and then activity in that market. So you look at Ali Express as an example, they're clearly hoping for the same byd the doors closed for them here in the United States, but in Europe one percent of the EV market, there's a lot for them to play for.
So who have they been sponsoring in Which games? Were you shouting at the TV in a bar or Barbara at home?
That's what's so astonishing.
All the games they're in the live broadcast of all the games irrespect of which German, Italian, French, UK broadcasts you watched, But when I got back, Fox Sports has the rights to the Euros here and you can still see them through that as well.
So it is everywhere they want.
To be omniscient, omnipotent. We do it all here on Bloomberg Technology, particularly Sports and Tech.
We thank you.
That's for this edition of Bloomberg Technology, though ed we didn't get to talk about.
It would incredible amount of breaking news as well, so there's a lot to recap do so on the podcast. You know exactly where to find it, Apple, Spotify, iHeart, and the Bloomberg platforms from New York and San Francisco.
This is Bloomberg Technology.