From Mahard where Innovation of Money and Power Collie in Silicon Vallet NBN.
This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow.
I'm parline Heid at Blombug's world headquarters in New York Nowmed Ludlow in San Francisco.
This is Bloueberg Technology coming up.
This hour paramount. It officially agrees to a deal with Skydouts, but shares whipsaw amid one of the industry's most dramatic acquisitions. We have details of the complex transaction.
And all change in Europe.
We assess the impact from elections in the UK and France on the technology sector.
ANAI startup Heavier raises one hundred and thirty million dollars from Andresen and others. A conversation with the CEO as enterprises search for AI agents, but first set's check in on these markets, and there's some volatility in the direction travel.
Of the benchmarks.
While we're seeing ongoing political volatility in the US France, we get a shot reaction in terms of the national rally coming third way off that first originally predicted the Nastak holding onto gains. We only just led by the chip stocks. I'll take us through ed. The cat forty
in France had been higher in midday's training. We're now falling back as we head towards the close, as people really trying to get a grip on what it means for French policymaking, gridlock on everyone's watchword pound look after its political clarity that we got at the end of last week, the poundmen remains the best performer from a
G ten perspective. The dollar is a little lower, we get CPI, we get to course ched Chair of the Fed, J. Powell Tuesday Wednesday, move on to see what that means for the world a bitcoin because actually it's not so much for fundamentals what's happening with the US and macro policy. It's more about what's happening with mant goox to supply, with perhaps the German States selling off some of its holdings in bitcoin were not by one point eight percent
fifty six thousand. All about some of those daily moving averages and where the technicals pointer said, Ed, what are you watching on the micro.
Just four quick movers, because there's a lot to get into the show. Lucid bringing up the rear with quarterly ev deliveries twenty one hundred produced twenty four hundred or just shy of delivered to customers. Clearly, that's boosting the stock. There's still low volume, but that was a record for
the company. Then I'm looking at Tesla analogous, But there was that great story on the terminal in the last twenty four hours about if you were a hedge fund that was short Tesla ahead of last week's quarterly deliveries for them, then you got burned because of the big run up in that stock that we've had following quarterly deliveries.
Then just two names, Intel and Video.
Intel was six percent higher on track for its biggest jumps in April. I don't see any news out there, but it's on a pretty decent run right now and recovering, and a video is caught up as part of that. Probably our top story is Paramount, so Paramount shares lower, we get a combination finally with Skydance. It's a complicated deal, right carry. The terms are complicated, the players are complicated. We've been waiting a long time down two percent off session lows.
Let's get into it.
Yeah, because people clearly questioning this deal. If the stock is still well below some of the price points. Let's get to it, Lumage. Lucas Shaw busy this weekend. Lucas, what does the deal spell out?
Well, look, David Ellison gets his way right, he will acquire National Amusements, which is Shay Redstone's holding company, and then Paramount will will merge with sky Dance, which is really, you know, a Paramount acquisition of sky Dance, since paramounts a larger company, but since it's the sky Dance team that's taking over, it's sort of seen as a as a merger. And then he tries to turn around Paramount. It's been a media company that has been in decline
for several years now. They had a call with investors this morning with a presentation where David Ellison and his deputy Jeff Shell and kind of some other members of his team explained why they think they can have more luck with it.
Lucas, we explain in the Bloomberg News story about the kind of background the saga that is a think it's worth explain to audience who is David Ellison and what is sky Dance.
They are a big name behind some big things.
Yeah, it's funny that you say that because there was a portion of the call that started with that. Where you guys know a lot about Paramount, you probably don't know as much about Skuydance, you know. David Ellison first got known to people because of his father, Larry Ellison, who is one of the richest people in the world thanks to Oracle and Larry's two kids. David and Meghan both got into Hollywood around the same time, producing movies.
Megan sort of made art house movies. People Hollywood loved her at first because she was bankrolling all these big filmmakers,
but financially it was sort of a ruinous plan. David went in the opposite direction, where he made these big commercial popcorn movies and has worked with Paramount for more than a decade because he is a financier and producer on the Mission Impossible movies, on Star Trek movies, on many of the biggest films and franchises at Paramount, and sort of used his success with those early movies to build a larger enterprise, certainly not as big as Paramount,
but he makes television shows, he makes animated movies. He has a partnership at the NFL to make sports programming he's got a nascent video game business, and sky Dams is one of the larger independent studios out there.
The team did a really good job going through the minute shure of the deal because it is complicated. But the bit that I kind of trips up on was the numbers. So there's a deal value, But it seems like a lot of cash has to be injected into Paramount, and I'm trying to understand why Lucas. Is it that they just need to kind of have a revamp.
Yeah, I mean, I think part of the pitch that David Ellison and Jerry cardinally had one of his big investors, made to share Redstone that appealed was we're going to
buy Paramount. We're going to mostly keep it together. We're going to sell some non strategic assets that you probably would have sold anyways, but we're also going to invest billions of dollars into the business to give it a realistic shot of competing because Paramount has been held back by the fact that it it has a decent amount of debt, at least relative to its earnings, and it
just doesn't have as many resources. You know, it's a much smaller company than Disney or even then a company like Warner Brothers Discovery.
And some of that is that, you know, it's sort of.
The source of all the Redstones worth, so they only
have so much money that they can put into it. So, yes, it's a complicated deal because not only is Ellison and his backers putting money into buy National Amusements and then the deal to merge with Paramount, but they're investing additional capital and they're doing some kind of tricky stuff trying to allow regular shareholders to feel like they're not getting screwed in this deal, because in the initial proposal, a lot of people felt like it was a good deal
for sharing Redstone, but less good for other shareholders, and that's one of the reasons why this has been drawn out.
And to be specific, non Redstone voting shareholders can get twenty three dollars a share or roll their shares into the new company. Non voting shareholders get fifteen dollars a share in cash or one share in the new company.
Because you're breaking it all down so brilliant, as he always does for us, and we're going to get into the nitty gritty of ultimately why perhaps shareholders unbuying this deal today with John clin See of Hang Media for more on Ultimately we can talk about the vision and the AI proposition and the technology in a moment, John, But I am interested as to why so much the shares are selling off and why perhaps these non voting shareholders don't like it, don't buy it, don't think it
all go through.
Well, there's all this uncertainty still, it's been such a messy deal getting across the finish line, and there's still the chance of another party coming in. They've got a shopping period where you know, who knows, Garry Diller could jump in or Edgar Bronfman has said to be interested also. So uncertainty always causes that sort of phenomenon, and they've got to make.
Sure investors have to make sure that this is actually going to happen.
Okay, So we continue to question whether regulatory go through and ultimately whether we'll get the deal done. On if the deal does get done, what are the positives from your perspective? We go to you with your keen eye on what technology can do for the media industry.
Well, everybody's talking about David Ellison, but let's not forget Jeff Shell, who is a phenomenal operator is going to come in and get his hands.
On the moving parts of this business, and he's just first rate.
And so you know, in terms of the blocking and tackling stuff, the operational initiatives and efforts that have to go into it, they've got a fantastic operator there. And then in Ellison, they've got a visionary and enthusiastic owner, which is always a huge plus because it means that you know, he'll put effort and money into things. Ellison talked today about re emphasizing their core competency in storytelling, and he also talked about bringing them up to speed on technology.
So those are two worthwhile goals.
But when you talk about storytelling today, you've got to be looking at YouTube. YouTube has changed the definition of what powerful storytelling is because hundreds of millions of people a week come there and they watch short form video that they love. And as Lucas was just saying, Ellison has made his name with the premium blockbuster type titles, and it's going to require a shifted mindset to understand that.
Even if you're in the movie.
Business, you can't ignore the fact that YouTube is watched by far more people than watching anything else anywhere, and so that's going to be a mindset challenge for them to not not impossible to unachieve, but that's a challenge.
So what do they do with the eight billion that they're getting paramount to emulate that YouTube success?
Well, you know, he talked about technology, and when you talk talk about technology, you're talking about direct to consumer. That is what dominates all media today, whether you're making Hollywood blockbusters most of which are watched on a small screen in your home, and technology means AI and it
means direct to consumer, and those fit together. The AI of it all also impacts the storytelling because you can do more, different, less expensive programming using AI now and that's only going to become even more powerful by next week, let alone next year when this deal finally comes through.
So he'll be looking for cost savings.
They've already said they're going to shake out two billion dollars in energies and then they're going to put money behind some sort of content initiatives powered by technology.
That would be a smart thing to do.
I mean, having run an AI platform that Apple acquired, you know there's a lot of.
Complexity in it, but there's a lot of Upside with it as.
Well of course as president of Lenix as well well Links even We thank you so much with all the Xai expertise and tech. John Client, CEO of Hang Media, we appreciate it. Mean while coming up, we're going to be joined by Sima Shah, chiefs Global strategist at Principal Asset Management that says chip stocks they're trying to pull the market higher but failing thus far.
And what are you watching?
A story out of Germany? I spotted Sunday kind of weekend buried news the stocks down six point seven percent on Delivery Hero, they disclosed that they might face up to a four hundred million eurofine from the European Commission over alleged anti competitive or antitrust practices. Stock have been down as much as eighteen percent, but it's paired some of that decline and Delivery Hero saying it's going to cooperate with European Commission stay with us.
This has Bloomberg technology.
Stocks kicking off the week back at all time highs, benchmarks being like higher by chip stocks in particular, Siemashageu status to Principle Asset Management is here to delve into these markets. Well, what's soaring a bit on the day seemer but in general, in Vidia, Intel, some of the chip stocks playing well. A key part once again, is this the ongoing narrative.
It certainly seems to be the case. You know, It's funny because when we came into the year, the expectation that this would look very, very different to twenty twenty three, that you'd have a broader set of rallies, not just focused on those big tech companies, and then fast forward six months and actually this year looks so much like twenty twenty three, where those megacaps are still carrying the market.
I think the one slight difference in which I think we're going to build on a narrative for the second half of the year, though, is that whereas it you know, the megacap firms are still expected, we expect them to continue to do really well. We are expecting to see that risk appetite and ernie's delivery broaden up beyond just those tech companies. So you see them companies joining in with this positive news.
Sema, heads ED and San Francisco.
So I'm just back from like a classic July fourth long weekend in the US where we sit around the table.
And people say, hey, have you seen in video? Like what's what's that thing about in video?
And then they bring up interest rates and then they brought up the election. But I think the fair thing say is everyone was kind of asking in financial markets, what is the thing right now that's the main driver or is it a combination of all three?
Well, so I think you know, at the moment, for equity markets in general, clearly the major driver is still that megacaps you know in video, the mag seven They continue to really be those major foundations for the equity market rally. At the same time, you are still seeing some kind of optimism feeding into the market with these expectations for bed rate cuts, which we would certainly agree with,
and then with the US election, that's adding volatility. But we don't think that volatility would be sustained so much beyond the elections. So not something that we continue to be worried.
About, seemago global because we know you can and that's why we love you. Look, UK just had elections, France were still trying to work it out. Us we have that anxiety. Is us the place to play for equities and indeed suppons Yeah.
So the election uncertainty that you've seen an unfold in Europe has been somewhat damaging. I think when we think about Europe, investors for the first time in years, actually just about three months ago, solid to get really interested in Europe again, started to see some earning delivery, some slight cycnical opturn and had become interested. And then what you see now is that this political terminal seems to unravel some of that optimism that have been feeding through.
So now we're looking back to the US. Now, obviously the US has its own election volatility on the rise in the last couple of weeks, and certainly we would expect that to continue through to November. But actually when you look at over another you know, not just focusing on the next six months, we're really taking more of a long term perspective. That secular bull run that you see for the US, which is really built on these
technology companies, we think that we'll still be sustained. So, you know, of courses opportunities elsewhere, it always makes sense to diversify and try and get exposure to other markets. But actually, as a foundational element of a portfolio, we still think that the US is the one that really deserves the overweight.
Semashar, chief strategists at Principalsset Management.
Good to catch up. Thank you.
President Joe Biden says he's determined to remain in the US presidential race, challenging dissenters to end talk of his removal from the ballot. In a letter to lawmakers, the president wrote, quote, I am firmly committed to staying in this race, to running this race to the end, and to beating Donald Trump. It's less than five months until
the presidential election. Let's discuss where the candidates stand on AI and the future of AI regulation with Narena Singh, CEO of Credo AI and AI governance platform that streamlines responsible AI adoption by automating AI oversight. Mavarna also serves on the Biden Administration's National AI Advisory Committee. Welcome back to the program. I want to start with a difficult question. We had Vivet.
Ramaswami on the program.
He is a surrogate for the Trump campaign and he said, look, when Trump was in office, this wasn't happening. Biden has been through several years of this AI thing. But does Biden have a firm grasp on it to your mind well ed.
Thank you so much for having me. There's a lot up in the air, especially with the upcoming elections, but one of the core things that we have found in the past, especially two years, is the policymakers have actually taken a very proactive stand in understanding artificial intelligence, but also how do you put right guardrails around it so
that we can ensure responsible years. And so I would say that what we are seeing, especially our stakeholders and government have done a great job in a he's trying to understand. Are they experts? Absolutely not. And this is where we come in as industry to make sure that there's this public private partnership to ensure understanding of artificial intelligence as well as thoughtful.
Regulations, and that thoughtful regulation has to be global as well. And I'm interested in reading we bring you on also because over in Washington there's a NATO summit is coming up, as if Biden wasn't busy enough already, and I'm interested in your perspective on whether we're seeing a global narrative form a Western global narrative on governance AI.
This is a pivotal week in DC, primarily because NATO is celebrating seventy five years of bringing together heads of states and heads of government and Carolyn, as I always tell, it's you know, the only constant is change and AI. This year, so we are expecting to see not only a thoughtful debate and discussion on what is artificial intelligence role in national security and defense on a globe scale,
but more importantly, it's responsible use. You know, it's been fascinating to see NATO since twenty twenty one actually having something called as Principles of Responsible Use. They've engaged with the industry, including CREEDOAI, which is an AI governance and risk management and compliance platform that helps organizations deliver on
the goals of responsible AI. So what we are going to see coming out of the NATO summit is not only going to be our belief, is not only going to be a firm attention to artificial intelligence, but also more international cooperation on standards and evaluations.
I find this fascinating. NATO is a coalition of thirty two member states to North American, thirty European, and within that, the United States is probably the market leader in developing large language models. Generative AI strong plays in France, the United Kingdom, How do they agree on anything when it comes to a sets of rules given the cross jurisdictional assembly of that group.
You know ed this work has been in motion for years. It is not a question and discussion happening right now. So especially for the past four and a half years, and I've been on the National Air Advisory Commission now for almost two years, there's been a very strong international cooperation on what is good artificial intelligence governance and standards
across artificial intelligence look like. And just as a case in point, in August, Europe's first Artificial Intelligence Act goes into effect and as you can imagine, that has really focused extensively on AI risks but also rights of citizens. So we are already seeing across the need to allies a lot of discussion but also collaboration and understanding on how paramount it is to focus on artificial intelligence risks but making sure it actually serves the citizens of all
these nations. And there's already been a lot of consensus I believe in coming up with the right frameworks to put gos nafrino.
Whenever I post anything on guardrails, on protection, on governance of artificial intelligence, on Lincoln or wherever else I'm throwing my ideas. I get so much vitrial and fight back saying you can't even use a word like guardrail when it comes to artificial intelligence. I'm sure you get that too. What's your response? And people are cynical on.
It, you know, I think cynics is what drives the innovation forward, is what I would say, Carolyn. One of the big narrative shifts that we've seen in the past few years, and especially you know, Credo AI created the word our AI governance, and the shift that we've seen is governance is actually not a barrier to AI innovation. Now it's becoming a critical component of making sure AI actually works for the businesses that are investing in it.
You know, if you just look at the past earning calls from most of the organizations, whether it's Meta, Microsoft, Adobe and others, there's been one man so focus on investment and artificial intelligence. But as of last week, the financial reportings now also include AI risks and making sure there are right governance structures not only at the business
level but at the AI systems level. So the narrative I would say has shifted, and also the investments is shifting from just AI adoption to now making sure responsible AI adoption is paramount to business success.
Verena. Always great to have you in the building. Thank you so much, Neverna saying credo AI CEO busy on all things AI. Welcome back to me, Meg Technology.
I'm Caroline had in New York.
I met love Low in San Francisco. Carolin, what do you see in the markets right now?
I mean a little bit of volatility, I mean to be expected. We get a big CPI print this week, we get J Powell, of course giving testimony for two straight days. We're up two tens percent. We're actually at record highs once again. We try to flip into the red, but the NAWA one hundred back on top once again. Chip makes help there. I'm looking at a CAC forty,
though more affected by politics at this very moment. We're off by about five tenths percent at the moment, so clearly worries about really what France is able to achieve, and we're going to dig into that in a moment. Ed, But it's affecting stocks a little bit. Bitcoin off by one and a half percent. This is more about a supply side issue. We're also hitting some technical levels where we see US trade lower into the second half of the year. Remember it's been a phenomenal performer for the
first half. Let's move on and to look at the individual companies that.
I've got an eye on.
Socks, chip stocks, benchmarks rising higher, looking Video doing very well once again up top leading US higher. From our points perspective, we're also seeing Intel do incredibly well.
Some of these.
Companies that many feel have been left out of the AI trade actually saying start to play in there and get ahead of any sort of short squeeze. Super micro Computer one of those at more than eight percent on the day. This is about a server perspective and an AI glow. But Meta on the downside more than a percentage point off now it rallied hard on Friday. Maybe we've got some profit taking happening as we get Webbush and some other key names saying look upgrade your price
targets here. But we are also seeing Bernstein putting out a thoughtful note saying, look, maybe we've got Meta not performing well. If Trump came to power. Let's dwell a bit more on geopolitics and political landscape now and.
Yeah, let's head over to France, which is heading into an extended period of political gridlock after a shock defeat for Marine La Penz far right in Sunday's election. A left wing alliance will be the biggest group, but the divided parliament has no clear majority. Here to discuss Bloomberg's Oliver Krook in Paris, there is an AI startup ecosystem conversation to be had here, Oliver.
But let's start with the basics.
Where do we stand in what will be I guess protracted coalition building and political bargaining over the coming weeks.
Yeah, that's right, and in protection, protect and protracted a political bargaining and coalition building in a sort of nation that is not really accustomed to that sort of thing. Right, is really a presidential system where generally you have some kind of majority within the parliament, the president appoints the prime minister and you sort of move along. It's quite unprecedented, in fact for the president, as macoln did, to dissolve
the parliament and call these sort of snap elections. And though this sort of great fear for the mainstream of politics within France was that the far right was going to sweep. That is not at all the story that we have today, but it is not any simpler. As a result, you now have this left coalition that is composed of people with very different views on the political spectrum, the very far left Jean Driuquemino Chanp is among them, and none of them have an outright majority. So there's
going to be a lot of discussions. The Prime minister attendered his resignation today, Macohlen refused to acceptly, say you need to hang on, So he's going to be there for at least another couple of weeks. There are just not the votes right now, or is not any clear path to how this government gets formed.
Oliver, What then is corporate France's reaction, because interestingly, there's a lot of very big international businesses within the CAP forty, but what has been the domestic viewpoint?
Yeah, so listen, there's going to be this is by this is not even close to the sort of worst case scenario for business and for Marcus for what's come out here. This gridlock situation, though it's not sort of ideal, falls short of some of these sort of other issues
that you would have had. There is also, though a great consciousness within France and across Europe, particularly with you have the far right rising as it is about the question of immigration, and particularly in France and in my home country where I live, Germany, this question of where
is the labor? There is just not the labor in the market to build a lot of the businesses that people need to be building, and a lot of the policymakers in the mainstream politics see the answer there as immigration. Though the far right did not sweep the elections, let us not fail to mention that they got the They're the number one party right now in French Parliament. They
have set a record. So in terms of actually creating a stable environment for business, this is not an ideal outcome, though it falls somewhat short of the worst case scenario.
Let's take that and focus at a micro level and the tech sector. Then you know, this immigration center point is not unique to France, but there is a debate around talent oliver and being able to bring talent into a market where you know, France sees itself as an AI leader for example, what do the startup level conversations tell you about the outcome of this election?
Absolutely, I mean it wants to be a nimble economy. And that's sort of what Macon sort of promised when he came into power, to try to make this economy a little bit less stale, a little bit more dynamic. I mean, it's home to Misscid, which is sort of one of the great AI hopes here within Europe, you know, where there are not a great many of these sort
of chech leaders to choose from. And this is coming at a moment ed where Europe is really, you know, in a slow burning kind of existential crisis in terms of its own competitiveness. I mean, they worry at the French level, but they're really worried at the EU level. How do you boost French competitiveness and European competitors at a time when you really see global blocks fragmenting with the United States Inflation Reduction Act, It's Chips Act, China that is doing a lot of helping of its own
businesses with its own domestic economic policy. Where does that leave Europe. One of the solutions that McColl puts forward and the mainstream of Europe is a more robust European market, a capital markets union, banking union to try to get
that capital flowing across borders. When you have McColl basically just you know, his power taken out from under him at the EU level, it makes it much harder to move forward that, particularly when you have the far right and the far left, neither of whom are really big fans of a bigger and stronger Europe.
Oliver Crook, we really appreciate you staying late. They're in Paris for us on what has been a long weekend of coverage. Thank you very much. Indeed, and look, it's not the only political story. I've got to get to the UK and discuss the recent elections there. As new Prime Minister Kis Starmer focuses on economic growth, what role does technology play in all of that? Preece So welcome Julian David Cee of k for more on this.
So, Julian, what does the investments.
Landscape look like for technology now? From a perspective?
Well, it's really interesting. I mean, the tech sector in the UK is a success story already, it's already grown twenty five percent over the last ten years and investment is coming in and we've we're now one hundred and fifty billion pounds GBA to the whole economy. So the
starting point is in a great place, Caroline. What was interesting today I was at Rachel Reeves, the new Chancellor, first female chancellor by the way, historic moment, giving a speech about what is the plan for growth, how they're going to go about it, and it was very much about changing planning, It was about investment, it was about reform.
Julian.
The conversations I've had with the tech industry over the weekend and good morning to you from San Francisco is that there's they're big on hope in the UK based on a Keir Starmer government with Rachel Reeves at the Treasury, but thin on detail.
You know.
I went back and read the Labor manifesto and they write about AI right, fostering a competitive AI industry.
But one complaint is that.
Actually they don't explain how they're going to do that, particularly when it comes to getting data centers built, talent on the ground.
Yeah, so really interesting because this morning as an illustration of the new powers to do with planning, because the Deputy Prime Minister was there as well, Angela Rayner, and Rachel Reeves said the first two decisions that she's calling in under her new powers as definitely Prime Minister to review had two planning permissions for data centers that were turned down under the previous government. So that's quite an indicator.
I think of them treating the tech sector importantly, but there's more to do and we want them to now start to publish how are they going to use AI. There's some good indicators ed, I mean, there's quite a bit set out about the way they're going to try and use AI to reform health provision. There's some talk about more use of AI across education and skills and continuing to look at how we bring in more tech investment.
And that's another meeting that's tomorrow morning. They're caning thick and fast at the moment these engagements for the new government, and a lot of it is about tech.
It's notable it should be about tech because despite so called turmoil worry about Brexit, we still have a notable amount of unicorns in the United Kingdom with resolute maybe iiring an IPO for example, But a key question for me has to be talent, Julian and whether or not it is going to get any easier to get talent from abroad into the UK. If that is necessary for the ecosystem.
Well, we need world class talent from around the place. That's how tech thrives, and we're willplace to get there. But we also need to grow our own talent, Caroline and the other thing that was interesting today was a much more flexible approach to the apprenticeship levy, which business has been complaining about for many years now, to actually say, Okay, how do we get more flexible use of skills, how do we get lifelong skills, how do we get returners
and retrainers, how do we open up our industry. It's something we and our eleven hundred members at tech UK are very passionate about. I think we're in good shape for this. I mean, yes, the arguments about migration. I heard you talking in respect to the French elections, but we ended up with a centrist government and I think a sensible approach to this is going to be one that says, get the skills we need globally available and grow our own and keep doing that.
Julian, the City of London is fascinating to me. You have a basically emboldened labor mayor in partnership with now a labor government who's talked about devolving more power to the mayor's office. Do you think that brightens the prospects for that city?
Yes, I do, and I also think that you know how to say this, A lot of talk was about growing other parts of the.
UK, seemly once formally.
Yeah, seemingly not talking about continue to grow London, as if London could look up itself. And I think that will change now that does seem to be the case. So we're certainly thinking that they the view of London. I mean Elon Musk was recently talking about the fact that, apart from the Bay Area, London is the next biggest center for a talent already. So those kind of things are working for us if you put that together with
an active industrial strategy, a real focus on skills. And there's an investment conference, as I said, where we're actually saying how do we get some of the people who wont to investor around it? Well, come and look at the UK. It's stable, it's very tech friendly, it's got lots of talent and it's got some really great industries like the city.
Julian David, CEO of Tech UK, fresh reaction to a busy weekend of government forming Thank You Right, a story we've been watching overnight. Turning to Samsung. Thousands of workers have walked off the job today, staging a rally to demand better pay. It's the biggest organized labor action in the South Korean company's half century history. Negotiations over pay
and vacation time collapse last month. According to union leaders, strike aims to drive home their demands by disrupting production at one of the company's most advanced chip facilities.
Caro fascinating labor story. Meanwhile, coming up, we're going to be joined by the CEO of an aiagent startup heavier on the company's latest funding round as Next AI Agents as a Bloomberg Technology Heavier, it's an LM platform which handles really complex multi step questions. Well, it's raise one hundred and thirty million dollars in a series b led by Andrews and Horowitz.
Here to discuss how.
The company will use those funds. Heavy A founder CEO, George Savelka, George's great to have you here, New York based company. You're looking to raise funds to what how do you build up what it is that you're currently building.
Thanks so much for having me A really important thing to understand about what Heavier does and who we are is something broader about the larger AI landscape. We fundamentally think that there's a problem in AI right now, and you have thousands of companies going out and building chatbots or search engines or things that are really great at one off tasks. But at the end of the day,
the way that we work is much more complex. And HEBIA is building and has really built an AI analyst, which is amazing at doing a variety of complex tasks. It understands the way we work, breaks it down into single steps and then can execute complex work and to end.
So your problem is that, look, we're all getting hyped about AI and AI agents, but very few of them are able to do very much complex at all.
I think that's true. Last year was this year of experimentation, But this year people are really trying to get serious value and quantifiable value out of these AI systems, and it's quite hard to find unless you have things that can do more complex work. A chatbot can rewrite an email or help your kids cheat on their homework, but at the end of the day, what we have to do we have to go and create AI agents that can do complexity, that can tackle the interesting parts of.
What we do.
George, I've been reading a lot about what you've built. When I think about my own sort of day to day workflow, if I'm using Slack or Google Drive, I'm interacting with files in multiple mediums, right text in documents, but also video, audio, and often I want to find things across all of them. How difficult was that to build something that can work across multiple mediums and search across them.
Commonly, You're seeing a trend in AI right now where a lot of the things that people are building, a lot of the research that people are undergoing is all around embracing multimodality, and Heavier is a model agnostic.
It's hard for.
Any firm to actually go out and say I'm going to make a serious bet on one model or another model. And part of the benefit that Heavier provides is that the minute that multimodal models are released, or the minute that anything new happens in AI, you can leverage it immediately,
very easily understandable way. And when multimodal models came out heavy it was one of the first places where leading financial firms asset managers and Fortune one hundred companies actually ended up using those models in production for live, quantifiable use cases that drove value.
George Bliombeck reported that this deal values that around year around seven hundred million dollars. You know, tell me about how quickly you've scaled the business side of the company, your sales, your operations, and how big a challenge that's been.
One of the really exciting things about Heavier is just
how fast we've grown. We now work with over a third of the top fifty largest asset managers by AUM, and we're really planning on kind of continuing to grow out and use this funding to become the de facto leader in generative AI for financial services, while also going out to a variety of different verticals like the legal vertical, where we have a variety of new customers and those really arge Fortune five hundred companies that I've previously mentioned.
At the end of the day, we're coming off of eighteen months where we grew fifteen x in our revenue, our head count when tuppled over the last year, and I don't think it could be more exciting time to be building an AI company right here in New York.
George Saboka, founder and CEO of Heavy, thank you for your time here.
I'm bliembags technology, appreciate it.
As Apple approaches the decade anniversary of the debut of the original Apple Watch, the company is preparing major updates to its smart watch line for later this year. Apple's working on an apple Watch Series ten, an apple Watch Ultra three, as well as a third generation version of the apple Watch sc The biggest changes to the Apple Watch line this year will be coming to the Series ten. For the first time in several years, Apple's planning to
make the Apple Watch quite a bit thinner. It's also planning to increase the screen size on the series models for the first time since the Series seven launched in twenty twenty one. The new Series ten high end version will come with a display that approaches the screen size of the Apple Watch Ultra. It's also planning update to the Ultra but that will retain the same design that launched in twenty twenty two. Both the Series ten and the Ultra three will get a new processor that will
be a big focus of the company's introduction. There's also going to be a new lower end Apple Watch SSE. The company has considered moving to a plastic casing for that device in order to bring down the cost and better compete with lower and smart watches from Samsung and other providers. I'm Mark Ermann.
This is power on.
Let's just talk about a corpors story. Now that Microsoft is ordering its China based employees so the androids iPhones, an internal memo entertained by Bloomberger, workers will be required to use only Apple devices to verify their identities on work computers or their phones. In fact, starting all in September now, the move is set to impact hundreds of workers across mainline China and is meant to ensure staff
use the Microsoft authenticator when logging in a cyber focus. Meanwhile, let's turn our touch to Bitcoin down slightly today as concerns grow about the possible sale of the tokens by creditors of the failed mount goox exchange all the way back years ago. Is fueling though these concerns that maybe this crypto bullrum that started last year is waning yet further promotion. Ali Bassik has been across all of the
moves or down another two percent. We've done five percent, five percent lower and it feels though it's a supply side issue rather than anything else.
That is largely what the problem is. You have remember the Mount Garx overhand, this is about eight billion worth of bitcoin. You're a sizeable chunk that is really being repaid to creditors here about a decade after the Mount Garkx bankruptcy. But think about how much pressure this has recently put off the market. After the initial exuberance of those bitcoin spot ETFs in the United States started, you now have bitcoin plunging below that fifty six thousand dollars level.
And remember that is almost twenty four percent off the high that we saw just a little earlier this year. So when you have the supply overhang compounded by let's say, the lack of excitement around the asset class right now, you do have a tough summer here for the cryptocurrency, particularly when you think about other catalysts that should have been more exciting, think, for example, an ethereum spot ETF. Tough to have an overhang like this for this.
Market right now.
I was reading the Bloomberg story and it's it's Monday, but it says in the story, if this decline carries through Sunday of like seven days from now, it'll be five straight weeks of declines. Like who starts a week by saying that, But we're trading our last levels since February. What other dates are we looking at like ETF outflows?
Where it's interesting that you asked that, because one thing that I have, for example, is many people who invest in bitcoin have alerts. They wake up in the morning and oh my god, bitcoin's down in another six percent. Now, most people are used to volatility in this asset class. But to your point here, it's been weeks now where we haven't really seen a strong bit in the market and some significant forces when it comes to selling. Also, and what is a harder struggle to find is what
that next catalyst is? What is that next market moment for a bitcoin? When are people going to get energized about where.
This goes next.
There weren't those stories at the beginning of the year, like the happening like the spot bitcoin ETF that exists for this cryptocurrency. Now, if you talk to most people in the crypto market, they take a macro view, this idea that US fiscal spending, for example, will be a bigger catalyst for bitcoin. But what does that draw interest in the near term.
Into the asset. Bloombacks Sonali Basek. Great to have you on the show. Thank you so much.
So that does it for this edition of Bloombay Technology. Just a quick programming, Caroline, there is no Bloomberg Technology. For the next couple of days, Boomberg Open Interest will be carrying FED Chair Drone Pal's testimony to the Senate Banking Community. But BTEK is back on Thursday. You will be in New York and I will be in San Francisco, and from those cities this is Bloomberg Technology.