We're from Marhard.
We're Innovation of Money and Power Collie in Silicon Valley NBN. This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde.
And Ed Ludlow.
I met Ludlow in San Francisco. Caroline Hyde is off. This is Bloomberg Technology coming up from AI to antitrust, angiopolitics. We'll get the full read on the tech sector with Denny Fish of Janis Henderson.
Plus we'll hone in on some corporate.
News as Ali Barba calls off its planned IPO of Canal which could have raised more than one billion dollars, and we get the read from inside the c suite. Later this hour will be joined by Marissa Mayer and by Danny Garcia, the powerhouse behind Dwayne the Rock Johnson. But first we want to bring you some important updates on the search and rescue mission underway in Baltimore after the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed early this morning when
a cargo ship struck the major transportation route. This is a live feed of the Padapsco River and the wreckage from that crash. Right now, search and rescue is the primary focus in Baltimore. There are also major implications for global trade as the Port of Baltimore is the largest handler of US imports and exports of cars and light trucks. The FAA has currently restricted drone flights near to the bridge.
US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Majorcas said in a post on x that the Coast Guard is on the scene to assist local partners and is quote actively involved in the search and rescue mission. We're expecting to hear from President Biden later today and will continue to bring you updates on the situation in Baltimore.
Throughout this hour.
Okay, sticking with what's happening in markets, this is the Nasdaq one hundred up three tens and one percent. Remember we're coming off the best week of the year so far last week.
The tech sector playing a role in that.
We're gonna have a conversation about Nvidia softer by half a percentage point. But when you're a two trillion dollar market cap company, you pay attention to that. Yields creeping a little bit higher four point twenty six percent of the US ten year and bitcoin is staying above seventy thousand US dollars per token. There was that big move just before the show. Actually twenty four hours ago higher
towards seventy thousand US dollars per token. That market's picture is kind of a wait and see moment because of all the FED speak that's due to come in the coming weeks. Let's get back to Baltimore and stick with the collapse of Baltimore's key bridge. You're looking at some of the automotive names because, as we have stressed, that port, whilst small in the context of US ports, is the biggest handler of import exports for car and light trucks.
In the last hour, we spoke to the CFO of Ford and got his real time reaction to the broader implications of what's happening.
Have a listen.
It's a large port with a lot of flow through it, so it's going to have an impact. It's just at this point we'll have to understand what that means for us Specifically, we'll work on the workarounds. We'll have to divert parts to other ports along the East Coast or elsewhere in the country, and it'll probably lengthen the supply chain a bit.
It's a developing situation.
Ford CFO talking about having to divert parts to other ports on the East coast. How serious is this? What is the impact of the economy and supply chain? So let's bring a Denny Fish, portfolio manager of the Global Technology and Innovation Team over at Janis Henderson Investors, and Denny while we have you here. You know you wake up to news like this as a money manager, how do you feel about it?
Well, it's a tragedy, of course, and you just hope that the people that are unaccounted for are.
Brought back safely, hopefully.
But from an economic standpoint, it's too early to tell. It's nothing like we faced during COVID when we had severe shortages of components throughout the entire automotive supply chain. We can get the parts here through other ports. It just might take a little more time and it might be a little more expensive, But that's how I would think about it. But not a material impact to the tech ecosystem anyway.
Well quite, I mean I remember so many days spent at the Port of Los Angeles, literally days and weeks down there. Part of that story was inflation. Right now, we're try and tie together what's happening in the economy with the tech sector. How closely are you waiting on the Fed, and how nervous are you each day, Denny, I know you're not a very nervous person about inflation and what the Fed's going to when the Fed's going to pull the trigger.
Yeah.
I think what's happened with inflation is it's come down a lot. There's still some sticky elements to it, and maybe we don't get as many cuts from the FED as we thought we might towards the end of last year. But nonetheless, I think the direction of travel is that the FED will start to ease at some point.
It's just that pace of easy.
Might not be as aggressive as as one might have expected a couple months ago, but that's still that's good for stimulating the economy.
Denny.
We're his talk about technology, and I think we cannot do that about speaking about Nvidia. It's an important name for you and your fund. We're soft to six tenso percent right now. There's a brilliant story on the Bloomberg and Vidia traders find reasons to worry beyond sky high stock price. I know that the gain in the price is something you have reacted to and you consider, but the logic outlined in the story is that a lot
of the potential gains from Nvidia. The feel good it's been brought forward and happened in a very condensed space of time. Just give me your thesis on in video right now.
Yeah.
Absolutely, So if we actually look back to last year, it was something similar. Most of the game from the stock actually came in the first half of the year, particularly Q two, after it really became known just how big of a supply demand and balance that we had for GPUs. You could argue this year, maybe the same thing has happened. I mean, the stock's put on a trillion dollars in market cap. Yes, since the beginning of
the year. It's pretty much unprecedented. But what's important about it, and I think this is what makes it hard from an investor standpoint, and that is the reason the stock's gone up so much, is because earnings have gone up so much.
If we go back eighteen.
Months ago, I think the street thought in Nvidia might earn some somewhere around five dollars a share this year, and that's probably going to be closer to twenty five dollars.
So the stock actually if you.
Look at the earnings multiple on twenty twenty five, it's actually still quite reasonable. Now we can argue what might happen as supplied demand comes into balance, but nonetheless, you know, the demand profile out there remains unprecedented and evaluation remains reasonable.
For showing some animation of Blackwell, Yep, how big a moment was Blackwell for you?
Yeah, it's actually a big moment because it's a continuation of how Nvidia has been innovating over the last several years, and importantly a couple things. It really focuses on price, performance and power consumption, which are.
Two big issues for GPUs.
I mean, it doesn't get as much attention, but power's probably the single biggest constraint to deploying inference across the global economy because of just the inability to get enough power into these data centers and then you have to cool them as well, and you know, there's a lot
that comes along with that. But the other thing is, you know, Blackwell is going to be less expensive, right the H one hundred and so that also shows you in Vidia's confidence that the visibility that they have and to demand that they can actually start lowering the price despite there effectively being no elastics.
See that's my final question on an video.
I was in the room for ninety minutes with Jensen, and he basically said, starting this year, the data center business is two hundred and fifty billion dollars per annum, but he was talking about growth rates of twenty to twenty five percent. What's still not clear to me is like the tipping point from where the majority of that is training to inference, because I.
Don't think in videos talks as much about inference.
AMD came out really hard with the inference story. Just how much did you buy I guess the soft guidance that he was giving.
Yeah, it seems reasonable.
And actually on their last call, if I remember correctly, they actually talked about inference now has crossed over half of workloads relative to training. Now AMD needs to talk about inference because in videos pretty much won the training market, and so the next prize out there is inference and inferences is going to be It's going to be multiples of the market opportunity that training is because this is how you deploy it. It's like developing something and then
putting it into production. That's what's going on with AI workloads right now, and so that should continue to be a really healthy tailwind for the ecosystem as a whole.
The other story or data point I was watching overnight is China's iPhone shipments fell thirty three percent in February. It's a name that you have a smaller position in, but it's really interesting. I mean, let's just focus on corporate Apple and China. Is that a data point that worries you, Well.
It's not surprising.
And it's not surprising because over the last year you've seen China actually retaliate somewhat to the restrictions that we've placed on them for all of our most valuable intellectual property as it relates to the semiconductor ecosist.
Right, there was the reporting this week from Bloomberg that the Chinese government was basically trying to get any server designs the power government compute to use domestic semis going forward.
Yes, but sorry to interropt back.
Yeah, yeah, no, but that's exactly right.
And so what they're doing, they're trying to find ways where they can actually exert some power and some market influence. And that's really tough for Apple because there are saying no state owned enterprises. They're starting to extend that. So it's incremental demand loss in one of the most important markets for Apple globally. Now India's starting to take the baton grow faster.
It's a large market.
They don't have the purchasing power that actually you have in China, not nearly as mature, but that should help out. But nonetheless, China is a tough market for Apple, and they're inextricably tied to China because of the supply chain as well, and so you can't even replicate their supply chain.
And we point out Apple's only down a tent to percent on the news and yeah, yeah, yeah, This last week's been fascinating. We have been talking about Apple a lot on the show in the context of antitrust antitrust djsuit, but also what came out of Europe the DMA probe. And for the first time, I'm thinking back to last Thursday, to stop falling four percent on a dojsuit, Investors seems to be saying, Wow, there is actually a real antitrust
problem or risk to the stock. Care Is that a concern you share?
Yeah, for a couple of reasons.
And it's not just the suit that the DOJ brought against Apple. I know the stock reacted to that, or the digital market case in Europe, but it's also the Google tack case on search. Google pays somewhere between twenty and twenty five billion dollars a year to Apple that is one hundred percent gross profit that drops to the bottom line, so it's no surprise they actually potentially are doing the deal.
We gets a lot of praise on his bottom line management as well, so it's a pressure point.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So I think you got to look at it from both angles. It could you know, that could be bad for Apple, It could actually be good for Google because Google doesn't have to pay as much tax for that for that placement on the iPhone. But for the first time, what you're seeing is you're seeing the DOJ go after and say, like, look, it's all right to have a monopoly, it's not all right to exercise abuse of power with
that monopoly. And that's really what the government's saying. The thing that's interesting about it, though, is as a consumer, you actually opt into that monopoly if you buy an iPhone, and so in some ways you could argue Apple's case on that side of the ledgers actually pretty strong versus compare that to the Google case, where it's default on an Android device and then they're forcing you in to
the Google Play Store. That doesn't seems as valid as what Apple should be able to do given what it's provided to consumers and the benefit that they get.
I think what we've thought about is the idea that whether it's the suits of the regular taction, they want Apple to basically signposts to consumers. You can go elsewhere if you want, outside the ecosystem. Denny Fisher, Jannis Henderson. You are able to discuss so many corners of this technology market. We love having you on the program. Now coming up on the technology Ali Baba Pause, it's planned
IPO for its logistics. We're going to bring you those details next the flat though, on the usadrs of Ali Baba.
This is Bloomberg Technology.
Ali Barber is calling off an initial public offering for its now Logistics arm, which had been a much anticipated debut that could have raised more than one billion dollars more. Let's bring in bloombergs Isabell Lee out in New York. The big question is why they've pulled the IPO.
Why it's really just because of poor market conditions. As a stock way, the company lost interest. As we know the Hong Kong and Chinese stock market aren't doing so well. But we have no indication for now that they will list elsewhere. But this also doesn't mean that Ali Baba won't be reviving this IPO soon. So they filed for paperwork in September and choose their mark the end of that six month period in which they had to update it,
and so they said, nope, we're pulling up. But instead they're going to buy out all their mating stock held by employees and investors for three point seventy five billion dollars. So that's instead what they're doing. And of course we have Ali Baba chairman Joseph Tai saying that you know, this is an appropriate time to double down on Ali Baba's investment in TIN now. So for now they have around a sixty four percent stick and soon after that it'll be one hundred percent.
It's there's been some inconsistency on what is or what is not happening with the spinning off of various listings, So now is important, right is the logistics arm market conditions are one thing, but how surprising is a kind of u turn on a decision for a major financial transaction I.
Think it's surprising, but not that surprising because this isn't the first high profile IPO that Ali Baba nixt. They also in twenty twenty three halted their eleven billion IPO of their cloud arm and they also halted the IPO of their grocery unit, which is freship posed. So this is going to be the third that we know or that we're talking about. And it's really interesting because remember last everyone made a big deal about the historic shakeup
of Ali Baba, and it's twenty five year history. Suddenly the company came out and said, you know what, We're going to break up in the six baby babas as Tim Kalplan of Bloomberg Opinion said, but we haven't seen any of that. We have Bloomberg Intelligence saying that instead of seeing instead of seeing this playout, we're seeing a retraction and we don't know how this will play out
in the future. A lot of people were looking to this as a blueprint because Ali Baba is often seen as a barometer of the Chinese economy, being one of the biggest companies in China. So they were like, we'll see if this will work out, but for now, no science yet.
Bloombergs Isabellie, thank you very much. Okay.
Sticking with corporate news, we were co founder Adam Newman and financing partners submitted an offer to buy the bankrupt company for more than five hundred million dollars, according to a representative for his real estate company. Bloomberg's Max Chafkin joins me with the details. Adam Newman and a conshortum trying to buy bankrupt We Work for five hundred million US dollars.
Explain, yeah, I.
Mean Adam Newman.
Of course, former CEO of We Work left the company after taking it to kind of dizzying heights, you know, evaluation that was you know, it thought to be you know, close to fifty billion at one point. Now, of course, the company is is bankrupt. Adam Newman, you know, very good salesperson. You know, has a lot of respect from from at least some investors in Silicon Valley who are willing to sort of look past, you know, some of
the missteps with We Work. He also just clearly you know, loves this company, right, I mean he was very invested in this spiritual idea of we Work, you know, and and we lived there are all these there's all this additional stuff. So now he's it's like he's saying, you know, we.
Back, we back Max Chefkin. My goodness.
When we Work filed for bankruptcy, it did so with nineteen billion dollars of liabilities. And I think that that there are probably many questions, many more than answers right now. But do we have a sense of how Adam Newman is going to finance this? His plan for we Work version two point oh, three point oh, four point oh whatever, the version it is that we're at now.
Okay, Well, I mean I think they're basically two options.
One is, you know, the core of Weework's business was pretty straightforward, right finding offices, are signing leases and then dividing them up and reselling them. Now, part of what happened here is that they expanded too quickly. They raised huge amounts of money from SoftBank. Adam Newman was like a master of hype and sort of got ahead.
Of his skis.
There's a version of this right where you use the bankruptcy proceeding to renegotiate these leases to get the costs, you know, back in control, and you have a smaller.
But sensible business.
The other option, which I have to think is a possibility given who we're talking about, is you know, restore at the hype train. Adam Newman started this other company Flow with backing from Andrees and Horowitz. They've said, you know, they still believe in him. They think he's you know, a great entrepreneur. So you could imagine some sort of effort to sort of do this thing all over again after you know, one expects renegotiating, trying to get again, trying to.
Get the costs under control.
Boomer's Max chefkin on Adam Newman's five hundred million dollar bid to.
Buy back We Work, We Back.
Autonomous drone delivery company drone up is rethinking last mile delivery. The startups unveiled what it calls ecosystem, integrating ground, air and software products into a single platform. Joining me now with more is drowne Up CEO Tom Walker. And you know, I think where I want to start, Tom is why go beyond just being a drone company?
Why did you.
Need to make a system and a technology that says here is the all encompassing last mile drone package.
Well, thank you for having me, I mean long, for long, leaders have insisted industry leaders that drones are the answer to the last mile problem, but we really haven't attacked it correctly. We've tried to fix it with simply using drones, which is like a transportation company trying to fix the last mile logistics problem.
By getting a better truck.
In order to be able to lower cost, you have to decrease labor. You have to provide a way that retailers can get the product onto the drones quickly and efficiently, and also be able to deliver to those hundred million plus Americans who don't live in single family homes and don't have yards or ports to deliver to.
We're showing video of how the system works. Right, you load your package into the ground unit, the drone lands, the package is raised up and attached to the drone, and off you go. It seems simple. Who's actually going to be using this? Tom Do you have any signed up customers?
We do, But what we've done with our customers is that we're going to allow them to have the moment. We're going to be rolling both this and our next generation drone out.
In the next quarter.
We're going to be in some top retailers, top convenience and top quick service restaurants. I'd say stand by for the announcement. We're going to allow them to make those announcements because we believe it's a big leap forward for them and an opportunity to utilize our technology.
It's coming next quarter.
Okay, Well, Tom, I'm sure our Bloomboy Technology audience wouldn't mind you you sharing with us those names, particularly on the QSR side. So give me a sense of how quickly you can scale this. You know, I've done a lot in Arkansas, for example, about what Walmart was doing with Zipline in the last mile context. But that is a small scale pilot, and they often are small scale pilots. Convince me and our audience that this can be real in the real world at scale.
Yeah.
So our technology is integrated from our airspace management that manages the airspace to the ground infrastructure that autoloads powered behind. It is a very sophisticated logistics system that ensures we get the package you want, when you want it and where you want it. Each of this units, this DBX technology that we created, it's like an Internet of things. All it requires is power, so you set it in it's smaller than a parking space. It powers on and
with fifteen within fifteen minutes. It's part of the ecosystem, and so drones move throughout the ecosystem autonomously and are able to heat surge demands here and decrease demands in other areas. Again, seventy four percent of the cost and labor of drone operations or drone delivery operations is labor. This system essentially eliminates that labor, both on the pickup side and the delivery side. And so if you're going to bring those costs down, you have to start by
eliminating labor. And remember this configuration you're seeing here is just one. It could be on a roof, it could be integrated with a fulfillment system.
It will scale very very quickly. It creates a more affordable approach.
All right, drone up, CEO, Tom Walker, come back when you're ready to announce those customers.
Thank you.
Coming up on Bloomberg technology, Starlink's effectiveness as a commons tour is making the satellite internet service a target for a growing black market trade. We bring you the Bloomberg Big Take and some key key reporting.
This is Bloomberg.
Welcome back to Bloomberg Technology, Ed Lardlow here in San Francisco. Today's Bloomberg Big Take elon musk Starlink's terminals have hit the black market. A Bloomberg News investigation has identified wide spanning examples of Starlet kits being traded and activated illegally
in countries all around the world. Here with more on the stories Bloomberg's Space editor Eric Johnson the Big Take, and the investigation identifies a number of countries, many of them areas of conflict where this is happening illegally obtained starlink ground receiver being activated.
Bring us the details.
Yeah, absolutely, Starlink's growth throughound the world has made it, you know, an invaluable resource for you know, regular people
myself and others who just need high speed internet. But it's also because of how easy it is to use and its widespread availability has you know, fallen into the hands of you know, in war torn regions where there's no operations agreement between the company Starlink and the government there, and also in places where that are under US sanctions, such as Venezuela and other nations.
Eric, I want to point out to our audience that SpaceX did not respond to our requests for comment on the story, and of course they were invited to comment and to discuss it. They did say back in February that were they to obtain any knowledge that a Starlink terminal was being used by a sanctioned or unauthorized party, that they'd investigate the claim and then take actions to
deactivate that terminal. In our reporting, do we have a sense of how pervasive this is, the scale which the illegal use is happening from a numbers perspective, or is it limited to specific case studies in those countries.
I mean, that was one of the most fascinating revelations for us, is just how widespread this is. I mean, it's being used all around the world, and you know, Starlink and SpaceX and Musk, you know, have said at various times that they, you know, will when a case is brought to their attention, they will investigate it and
if confirmed, they will shut down. They can you know, we've talked to experts who said they can use geolocating you know, whenever one of these terminals is activated, they can literally see it and so they in theory could turn it off. It raises questions about, you know, how effective they are at this where you know, Musk is
this mercurial figure. His allegiances are hard to ascertain, and certainly it raises questions about what who has the power to do this and what authorities are going to get involved, whether that's the US government, whether that's local authorities on the ground in these places such as Yemen, Sudan, Venezuela. You know, there's been unconfirmed reports of soldiers in Russia
using it, which of course is under US sanctions. So to your point, this is a widespread problem and it makes starlink into this geopolitical wildcard that with very uncertain use around the world.
But it's also becoming an increasingly important part of the SpaceX business model.
Right.
I've done some reporting which you've edited over the last year or so about the growth of the starlink business, just outline its goals and where the growth kind of lays right now to space space or satellite constellation based into.
That, Starlink is absolutely vital to Elon Musk's business plan. It's going to be a huge percentage of space Axis revenue. Musk has said that the launch business itself has capped, but he envisioned Starlink could be a thirty billion dollar
a year business. The point of it initially was to have sort of financial underpinnings and growth to help Musk achieve his lifelong dream of getting the Mars with the Starship Rocket or a crucial funding source for the company, and its growth has mirrored that.
Bloomberg's Eric Johnson, our Space editor, thank you so much.
For sharing with us the Bloomberg Big Take.
Let's get back to the breaking news that we've been covering all morning. We want to head now out to Washington for the latest update on the search and rescue mission that's underway in Baltimore after the Francis Scott key Bridge collapsed earlier this morning after a cargo shit struck. What is a major transportation route. You're looking at live pitches of the Francis Scott key Bridge, and you're looking at live pictures of that vessel registered in Singapore. Bloomberg's
Wendy Benjaminson joins us from DC. What do we know of the search and rescue mission and the US government response?
Wendy, Well, we do know.
Here in Washington that President Biden has been briefed on this and that he is expected to speak in this hour about the rescue efforts and the federal resources that the White House says they are sending to Baltimore and to Maryland to try to help get this port open again and find any people that might be stuck in the water or elsewhere. Transportation Secretary Pete Buda Judge, I believe, is going to also come to the area to inspect
and see what's going on. But this is, as you say, just a major disruption, even if, thank goodness, there seems to be a small loss of life.
Yeah, and our thoughts are with those impacted. I know that the search and rescue effort is underway. Maryland's governors seem to suggest earlier in media interviews that this was an accident, But this is an important paw in the context, particularly of the automotive industry. Is there any sense of the impact how long this will be disruptive?
Well, there are estimates out there that it could last months, which seems to make sense if you see from those videos this was a massive bridge that just broke apart into the Chesapeake Bay there there. It is going to be a tremendous impact. There are twenty one ships already waiting on the inland side of that bridge that were
waiting to go out. There are distribution warehouses on the north end of that bridge for companies such as Amazon, FedEx, under Armour Home Depot, I mean, major companies that people order things from and need to get out. Also, trucks used that bridge if they were carrying any hazardous cargo whatsoever, because they can't go in the tunnel that exists under that bay that you're seeing there. So there are those trucks.
I don't know if they're going to have to let them and get them through the tunnel, which risks obviously further accidents. So this is going to take months, you know, certainly days just even to sort out the scope of the problem.
And we continue to bring you those live pictures and the key updates from the Francis Scott Key Bridge which collapsed earlier this morning. Bloombergs Wenny Benjaminson thank you for your reporting. Sunshine, a startup that helps users automate mundane tasks, launching a new AI products called Shine. The product includes two complimentary features for users, a photo sharing app and an events website that can be used together or individually.
CEO and co founder Marissa Mayer joins us now with the details and that there is an AI story here that the platform when technology is able to tell a user this photo is shareworthy. But how does an AI know what is or what is not share worthy in terms of a photo that I might post.
Well, as you know, the current state of AI is really very useful and very advanced, and so we can look at your photos. We can look at things like where they were taken, when they were taken, who you were with, or who's in the photos, what's in the photos, how many times did you take that photo? And now all of those signals tell us when you might want to share it with someone else.
Merriscy, you've been in the technology industry a long time and you've built companies. Did you decide to build the underlying model for this yourselves or did you work with a third party using either LLMS or other machine learning technology from a partner.
We do use some of our own technology, but we also rely on incredible API is provided by some of the large players in the space.
What I find interesting about Shine is who the target audience is. You know, we talk a lot on this program Bloomberg Technology about the creator environment creator industry, is that who principally you have in mind or are you targeting a much broader audience of user who may just want to share photos with family or friends or whatever it may be.
Well, the reality is that photo sharing is really broken, and it's broken for everyone. It's broken for creators and all consumers. And so we really are focused on how do we help people remember to share the photo, remember to get the photo, and just make it easier to do that.
And then and also we are.
Working out with people who throw events and put things together in terms of organizing parties, trips, etc. And so our Shine dot Sunshine dot com allows you to do invited, more formal events. But the app Shine works for everything road trips, parties to simple hangouts.
That brings us to the event portion of this that we spoke about in the intro.
So I have the ability to.
Run my photos through the AI and it will tell me what I want to share. Now, explain the event portion to me and how they work hand in hand.
Sure, well, the photos portion posentially assaunsembles albums, and those albums are based around events. They might be informal events but they can also be formal events because we know that some of the most important photos for people are taken at formal events weddings, parties, conferences, and so our website offers that kind of event organization, so it allows you to create stunning invitations.
We use Generator of AI to do this.
We have fast and fluid communications, so RSVPs as well as updates and messaging between host.
And guests is easy.
And the way of these works together is that the photo sharing is built in from the beginning. And what that means is once you've RSVP do an event, you're already joined that shared album.
So if you have the Chine app, it's very easy.
For you to contribute your photos to the event as well as get votas from other attendees.
Marissa, you are building an AI company and launching an AI product at a time where we're just micro focused on AI as an industry. In November, you were very open and very critical about what happened with Open AI and that the then structure of the board on social media for example. This is the first chance we've had to talk since then. What's your assessment as a longstanding member of the Technology industry. Of the resolution, Open AI reached the makeup of its board.
It's promised to grow the board.
I think that overall it's been a great step forward.
I think I became very concerned just about the overall governance model, and because this is a fast moving in the industry and there are so many people very focused on and I think it's really.
Important that the major players are governed well. But I think that the new board that they've assembled is.
Excellent, and I think that there seems to be very promising in terms of direction it's going.
There were reports at the time, Marissa, that you had been approached or sounded out to be a member of Open ayes board. Was that the case and it would you be interested in in joining that board.
I've already served on a few boards that I'm very excited about Walmart and AT and T, and you know, in my day to day I'm very focused on Shine, So I'm obviously very interested in AI.
But nothing to report it there.
Sunshine co founder and CEO Marissa Mayer talking to us about Shine, were grateful for your time on the program.
Thank you.
Florida Governor Ron De Santis has signed a law that will keep kids under fourteen off of social media and require parental permission for those up to age sixteen. The law, which will take effect January first, overhauls an earlier proposal that would have prohibited youth under sixteen from holding social media accounts ful Stop, a measure DeSantis vetoed, saying it
wouldn't give parents enough control over decisions about their children. Okay, you'll probably know who Dwayne the Rock Johnson is, but do you know about the woman behind his popular brands, including the likes of Terre Manna Zoa energy production company, seven Bucks Productions many more so. She also played a key role in the merger between XFL and USFL that resulted in Professional American Football minor league backed by Redbird and Fox UFL to become the first female sports league owner.
Delighted to say that joining us now is the woman behind it all, Danny Garcia, chairwoman of the Garcia Companies. It's an interesting way to introduce someone. I actually would ask that you introduce yourself. Tell me who is Danny Garcia? To those that don't.
Know you, Oh my goodness, I don't know ed you covered it so well, I would say, Danny Garcia chairwoman of the Garcia companies, and I am fortunate enough to be an entrepreneur, a CEO, a founder, a co owner of an incredible sports league. And I think the overarching thing is I consider myself an athlete of life, which allows me to go to many, many different places and do many things very powerfully.
One of the reasons that I wanted to use to come on the program is, you know, we are familiar with Dwayne the Rock Johnson.
You know I've covered WWE.
We know him as a movie star, but actually increasingly people become familiar with him through his use of social media. And actually, you know, my knowledge of Terere Manna for example, or the skincare range that he now has is because he's very active on social media. What role do you play in that strategy in making sure that each of the companies are out there on the socials.
Well, you know, the first of all, Dwayne and social media are synonymous. My role is I oversee how the brands are showing up and how they're connecting with the consumers, how they're connecting with the audience, and how they're connecting and truly reflecting the East thoughs of who DJ is social media is always one of our important media outlets.
Dwayne is very involved and very direct on how he shows up and what that tone is, and I make sure that it's aligned to the companies and also aligned to all of the other companies in the portfolio, so there's lots of interconnectivity. My goal is to make sure that the strategy is working and it's holistic.
Would it be fair to say that that Dwayne would not have had the success he's had and you would not have had the success you had without social media.
I would say it's very very fairer. I mean Dwayne's affinity to org social media right at the beginning of its you know, rather than the initial parts where he really really doubled down, allowed him to reach a global audience and speak to them directly. So he is a very transparent relationship and that's why his accounts continue to grow and grow and grow. But it absolutely has had a massive impact on reach and most importantly on connectivity.
Danny, you are the first female sports league owner, and I wanted to spend some time on that. I guess that if you look at XFL in USFL, that marriage wouldn't have happened if everything was completely rosy. You know, there must have been some underlying issues. Just give me the backstory. Sure of how that came about in your role?
Oh no, absolutely, Well, you know, I think it's such a when people we'll ask about that. If you're starting a spring league, you wanted to look and say, Okay, where are leverage points? How can I accelerate what I'm doing? And the XFL which we launched, obviously, we had our our first season last year the USFL was having their
second season. We met all our markers. We were very very successful and happy with our reach and our engagement, the way our athletes were playing, and simultaneously the USFL was making great grounds, right this is their second time out. But our interests and the ability to say, okay, what happens when we leverage these powerhouses of ownership, because we're talking Fox, Disney, ESPN, myself, Duane Johnson, Redbird Capital, all of a sudden became very clear we could do so much more.
Danny, this is Bloomberg technology, and so we go straight to the streaming part of this business.
Yeah, you know, there's a.
Traditional broadcast component, but I wonder of which you're most excited.
As far as oh for all of you know which portion of our our.
Growing you know, growing an audience distribution. You know it's going to be an interesting experiment.
Well, absolutely, so I'm excited. Well, I would have to stay if you look back obviously at our history. I'm very excited about how the UFL not only with our traditional broadcast partners, which is fantastic, but how we're embracing it and bringing our content and creating content specifically for a digital platform, whether it's social media through YouTube, et cetera. Allows us to really deeply connect with our audience, listen to them, engage, and be very very innovative and nimble.
There.
We do a tremendous amount of our storytelling at that that's where we get very very granular, and that helps us to grow our audience in our new markets.
So it's very important.
Dannie, what's next?
How much capital do you have to play with to go into a new industry? You know, I won't list them, we don't have time, but alcohol, sol and Stroll, you know, skincare, sports production. What is the next frontier that you want to move into?
Well, you know what, I continue to be really and I'll speak for myself personally, continue to be extremely focused and excited about sports. I'm excited about sports in general, women's sports in general. There is something that I'm doing quite a bit of research on and see myself leaning heavily in that area.
Okay, tell me about the company. At least give me a sense of what industry the company is in.
Well, which industry the company will be in. Well know the company is going to be in sports. The industry is going to be sports. Do you know I get particular like which sports because I won't share that just yet, but I would give you this example, the three sixty approach that we have brought to the to the UFL, the way we're approaching that would be a blueprint to how I look at my other investments that will happen
in sports. In addition, we'll continue to grow seven Bucks production and expand that media and our distribution ability there, and that's extremely exciting. So I would say the emphasis you would see entertainment sports. That really feels where I'm looking for.
The Garcia Company CEO, Danny Garcia, thank you for being so generous with your time on the show. A pretty wide ranging conversation. Good to have you on that does it. For this edition of Bloomberg Technology, we are two days into a very busy week.
There is a lot happening in the newsflow.
Recap everything that we've discussed on the podcast. So many of you do listen to the show in podcast format wherever you like to stream, Apple, Spotify, iHeart, and of course we're publishing the podcast all the Bloomberg platforms as well, and again, whether it's on LinkedIn or on x or on Instagram, really appreciate all the feedback that you're giving to us in real time, continuing to monitor what's happening in Baltimore, continuing to look at the markets, and as
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