D (1:32)

Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio News

A (1:39)

this is Bloomberg businessweek Daily reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay ahead with insight on the people, companies and trends shaping today's complex economy. Plus global business, finance and tech news as it happens. The Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast with Carol Massar and Tim Stenbeck on Bloomberg Bloomberg Radio.

D (2:02)

We are watching shares of Sigma. They're up nearly 8% at intraday high today. They were up even higher last night in the aftermarket. This is after the company came out with its latest quarterly update. So the stock rallying after the design and product development platform. It's a creative software maker. They do a lot of interesting stuff. They gave an annual revenue outlook that topped estimates so kind of ease some of the Wall street anxiety that's been out there that the business is threatened by the emergence of rival artificial intelligence intelligence products. And if you're not familiar. I mean they do some really interesting stuff.

A (2:34)

Yeah, they got a cloud based design prototyping tool. It's largely used for creating UI and user experience for websites and mobile apps. The stock so far this year down about 34% 8% of the float is shorted. Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Carol, RBC, Stifel, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, just a few though they've lowered their price targets on the stock today the stock down about 80% from its IPO that was last July.

D (2:56)

Investors don't care though we see the stock definitely rallying in today's session. All right, let's get to it. With more on the quarter, the outlook, the company. Joining us from San Francisco is Dylan Field. He's co founder, CEO and president of Figma. Hey Dylan, so good to have you here with Tim and myself. We do have to address though, I mean investors have been nervous about you guys. The Stock's down about 80% from the post IPO highs and we've seen the software space improvement. Particular investors kind of trying to figure out the impact on lots of different sectors including yours. So grappling with the defensibility of FIGS mode against AI native players and competitors or the potential for general efficiencies to kind of weigh on seats. So walk us through, should investors be worried what impact is a disruption really having on your company?

B (3:47)

Yeah, well first of all thank you for having me and really appreciate the chance to be on the show with you. Yeah, I think it's. I can offer always a point of view but I can't tell investors what to think or not think they're going to do that on their own. But for us, 2025 we look back on as a massive year for Figma and our fourth quarter was our best quarter yet. We saw growth acceleration. We delivered 304 million in revenue last quarter and this was that represented an accelerated year over year growth rate for the quarter of 40%. And for us we look at the business and go okay, as AI gets better, Figma gets better. I think everyone should be thinking that way. As you know AI gets better. Does your company and your products, do they also get better? We're also shipping faster than ever. Last year in 2025 we went from four to eight products and we also launched over 200 features. And that growth and that momentum has not slowed down. The velocity continues. And actually this week we just launched a integration with cloud code where Claude code can now go to Figma Design. So you can take the code you're working on and then Take that state of the application and then move it into Figma design. We can talk more about the benefits and why we do that later. But we're really excited because right now we are seeing people start in so many different places, whether it be a terminal, a prompt or user interface designed to like Figma. We want to make sure that Figma is the place where it all can come together and that's the platform that we're building. And if we can do that, I think that we are in a place where we can capture a massive opportunity. So we're very focused on building that platform to make that feature possible.

A (5:45)

Still, I wonder about the message to investors who may be concerned about LLMs or just AI actually affecting your core business or your core features. As the stock of the company gets lumped in with sort of like all of the SaaS play and this idea of a SaaS apocalypse, what would you say investors out there who are a little gun shy when it comes to software stocks? Right now

B (6:11)

I think that the best thing to do is to actually understand companies from first principles. And again, to me, the first and most obvious test is okay, if AI and models are getting better, which I think is our everyone's base case right now, that we're going to continue to see really significant increase in capabilities, then does the company get better too? And for figma, we passed that test. We are. A year ago we didn't have any notion of AI credits in the platform. Now we see more than 75% of our paid customers who are over 10k in ARR. They're consuming AI credits every week in Q4 as of Q4. And that I think speaks to some of the traction that we're seeing with our AI offerings. And also over half of our large customers, they're building with our product Figma make, which is a way to go from prompting and Figma design to working application. Over half those large customers are building in Figma make on a weekly basis. And so that's. And that's up, by the way, from 30% in Q3. So significant increase 30% to 50%. And I think overall the platform is just very well positioned. If you think about the product development lifecycle, not everyone is thinking in code. A lot of people want to think visually. And if you can go create that map of what the software can be, and if you're not just urgently driving towards a solution, but rather you share our point of view, which is in a world of ever increasing competition in software, you don't just need to Make a product. You need to make the best product. You need to lean in, actually have design as a differentiator. Craft is a differentiator. You need a point of view. Then you need to select from this infinite option space out there possibilities and curate the ones that are actually the best options for you to go build. That's not work that is done in code. Code is linear. It's a linear process. You need to go and actually consider the full option space to go build the best thing. And that's what we're trying to enable for our customers.

D (8:43)

So how do you think the world. I mean, Dylan, this is great because I think we're trying to understand, especially when we see these sectors impacted by this scare of just trying to understand how this is unfolding and yet kind of. Would you agree that the disruption that we're seeing unfold and maybe impact certain sectors is kind of happening a little bit faster than we expected? At the same time, everybody seems to come on and say we're really early in, you know, when it comes to this process. So even if you are kind of somewhat upbeat, would you can see that we're not quite sure exactly how this might shape your company or, you know, how this all impacts how we work going forward. I mean, there's still a lot to be figured out, right?

B (9:29)

Well, I think again, there's frameworks you can use that are good tools here. So for example, I think that you can, you can broadly bucket verifiable versus non verifiable, perhaps it's a spectrum, not a binary. But math, for example, as verifiable as it gets. You can understand if something that is a math theorem that AI generates is provably correct based on formal verification systems. Because of that, we're going to see incredible progress in mathematics. I mean, it is just amazing what we're going to see in math. Code is closer to math in terms of its verifiability. Design, totally not verifiable. You could have five designers in a room debating what is the best design and you could get like 10 or 20 or 30 opinions from those five designers. It is something that is, you know, very subjective. And yet if you get it right and you can lean into craft and you can lean into design as a differentiator, that is how you're going to win in software. And also it's not just that SaaS companies are software businesses and that's it. Every company is a software business today.

D (10:49)

Yeah.

B (10:50)

And so I think that every company really needs to figure this out and if they can lean into design and really treat it with the reverence it deserves, then I think they will have a path to winning. But I think the ones that don't are going to have a hard time.

A (11:05)

Well, part of that path includes spending big when it comes to AI and working to improve those features and bring those features to your customers. How much are you spending on AI tokens? How much are you spending on the models?

B (11:20)

Yeah, you know, we are not trying to be a frontier lab, first of all, just to be super clear about that. You know, there's. That's a game that we're not playing, you know, and kudos to those that do. They are our partners and we're very lucky to partner with them. And also they're our customers and it is, I think, very exciting to see how they're using Figma to help shape these surfaces. But yeah, you can see the spend around inference show up in our gross margin and I think that we did well to hold that flat. And definitely we're always looking at ways to be more optimization focused. But also you can see it as a proxy through how make weekly Active users, which we disclosed as well, grew 70% quarter over quarter. And I think that the way that the overall activity is growing the platform as it relates to not just that, but also the way that people are using some of our AI image generation capabilities and other AI features in figma is really just a start. We believe that make and Figma Design. And Figma Design is our flagship design tool, whereas make is about going from prompt to working app. With Figma we can try to bring those surfaces closer together because so many of our users that are using make on an active basis are also using Figma design. It is the majority case by far. And so if we can bring those closer together and have them live as one experience and help people really think divergently, explore option spaces, but also use their hands, get into it. You don't want to prompt and say Change it to 12 pixels spacing and then takes 2 minutes to go see if you're right or not. You want to go have that direct manipulation flow state and actually see what it is that you want. And I think there's things that are going to do in prompt and things that are going to do with direct manipulation with design tools like we've done for a while.

D (13:44)

A really interesting conversation, especially Dylan, against what we've been seeing playing out in the market as we've tried to figure out what AI is going to do to different industries. Love it thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Dylan Field, he is co founder, CEO and president of Figma Figma Shares. By the way folks, they are still up more than 8% in today's session.

A (14:04)

Let's get to one of our most read stories on the Bloomberg it's another gut check perhaps in the world of private credit again, this one involving yes, Blue Owl Capital shares tumbling after the decision to restrict withdrawals from one of its private credit funds raised fresh concerns over the risks bubbling under the surface of the $1.8 trillion market. We've got Bloomberg News leveraged finance reporter Olivia Fishlow joining us from New York City. Restricting withdrawals from a private credit fund never a good sign. Investors reacting.

B (14:37)

Hi guys. Yeah, so basically what we've seen here is that this is one of Bluell's funds, a non traded BDC that they decided yesterday to ultimately restrict redemptions from. But what they did instead was they've sold loans from the portfolio in order to start paying investors back and winding down this vehicle.

D (15:01)

So help us understand and I think you know, we've only got about a minute or so here but it's just what do investors need to understand this because we've been following Blue Owl for a while. Go back to Jamie Dimon's comments when it comes to private credit and you know, never just one cockroach. And then Blue Owl Capital's CEO co CEO Mark Lipschultz came back and defended it and I'm just is everything okay or do we need to be, is this, is this kind of cause for concern here? And what are, what should we be watching to see? Because aries management's down 5%, Apollo management's down 6 and a half percent, Blackstone is down 6%. Just got about 40 seconds here, Olivia.

C (15:42)

Definitely, yeah, it's a fair question and

B (15:44)

I think what investors need to be thinking about is these are retail vehicles but they house illiquid private credit loans. Right.

C (15:53)

And in this situation Blue L was

B (15:55)

able to sell some pieces of these loans in order to, to make up liquidity and start to pay investors back. But as of now they've sold around 34% of the portfolio. So they still have a ways to go of loans to sell to make investors whole. So I think the concern that investors are starting to see is well when I invest in these vehicles that, that promise the ability to, to receive cash back, will I actually be able to get that money back?

D (16:20)

Right. We talk about this especially as there has been a push to open this up to more individual investors. For a one case it's not not as liquid as a lot of other investments. Olivia Fishlow She's Bloomberg News Leverage Finance Reporter. Really appreciate it. Now I'd like to introduce you to Meaningful Beauty, the famed skincare brand created by iconic supermodel Cindy Crawford. It's her secret to absolutely gorgeous skin. Meaningful Beauty makes powerful and effective skin care simple and it's loved by millions of women. It's formulated for all ages and all skin tones and types and it's designed to work as a complete skincare system leaving your skin feeling soft, smooth and nourished. I recommend starting with Cindy's full regimen which contains all five of her best selling products including the Amazing Youth Activating Melon Serum. This next generation serum has the power of melon Leaf Stem cell technology. It's melon leaf stem cells encapsulated for freshness and released onto the skin to support a visible reduction in the appearance of wrinkles. With thousands of glowing five star reviews, why not give it a try? Subscribe today and you can get the Amazing Meaningful Beauty system for just $49.95. That includes our introductory five piece system, free gifts, free shipping and a 60 day money back guarantee.

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All of that available@meaningful beauty.com support for

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the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc, SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete Disclosures available at public.comDisclosures running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder? With a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other, one for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. Before you know it, you are drowning in software Instead of growing your business. This is where Odoo comes in. Odoo is the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all in one fully integrated platform that handles everything, CRM, accounting, inventory, E commerce, HR and more. No more app overload, no more juggling logins. Just one seamless system that makes work easier. And the best part, Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. It's built to grow with your business whether you are just starting out or already scaling up. Plus it's easy to use, customizable and designed to streamline every process so you can focus on what really matters and running your business. Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you try Odoo for free@odoo.com that's o d o o.com this is the Bloomberg Business Week daily podcast. Listen live each weekday starting at 2pm Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station. Just say Alexa play Bloomberg 1130.

D (19:55)

Well, shares of way keeping a watch on that one dropping a lot down about 16% at their lows on earnings, a four month low intraday as active customers during the fourth quarter came in slightly below street expectations. Now the street weighing in on the results. William Blair saying that the 6.9% growth in net revenue likely fell short of buy side expectations. But you had some peers rh our house and also Williams Sonoma under some pressure in the trade. So investors looking at the group overall, let's get a little bit more on the outlook. We want to head to Boston invested.

A (20:27)

We got Kate Gulliver back with CFO of Wayfair. Kate, good to have you on the program. Tell us a little bit about the quarter because interestingly enough Jefferies says this is attributable to colder weather to start the year. Anything about the guidance regarding colder weather?

C (20:45)

Yeah, well maybe let's step back and sort of speak to the quarter we just reported then. I'm happy to shift to guidance. You know we feel really great about the quarter we just reported. I think it's highlighted and capped off a year of incredible momentum for us. We opened up the year flat. We exited the year at 7% revenue growth, 8% managing for the exit of Germany and we flowed through to improved EBITDA. EBITDA grew year over year about 60%. Right. So we're seeing both Ongoing market share gains and improved profitability. And that story continues with our guide into Q1. We feel really good about the guide. The mid single digits revenue growth and improved adjusted EBITDA throughout the quarter. So, you know, when we look at it, we feel that we produce pretty strong results.

D (21:30)

Yeah, I mean, you look at the quarter, I mean, adjusted EPS better than what the street was expecting. Adjusted even as you said, coming in stronger. Net revenue up about 7% year over year, gross margin coming in better than the street estimate. There were a lot to do. So maybe we talk a little bit about, you know, I am curious, you know, you guys have dealt with the call and so on and so forth. What are you hearing from the investment community that they're not just so comfortable with? Kate?

C (21:59)

Yeah, you know, actually, you know, as we talk to investors, I think again they're, they're pleased with the momentum that we see here. You know, obviously we're in a category that has been under pressure, right. So the category itself we think was down low single digits in the fourth quarter. You know, to your earlier question, sort of around weather in the first quarter. We do think the category has been impacted in the first quarter of this year. You know, likely, you know, down low single digits again, maybe slightly worse even than Q4. So there's certainly some complexity in the overall category here. You know, what can we focus on? We can focus on what we can control. And our share gain continues to be a real source of strength. You see us outstripping the category by several points. Right. And that's continued, you know, Q3, Q4 and then again into the guide in Q1.

D (22:44)

And we should point out that investors have been really keen on your stock, I mean, nearly doubling over the past year. Kate, let me just go to what you said. I mean, maybe it is those concerns about some softer active customer trends kind of early on in the first quarter. Do you like give us an idea of what you're seeing and any idea or can you tell that continues?

C (23:04)

It's a great question. So active customers is one of our reported KPIs. It's actually a lagging indicator. Okay. That metric is LTM active customers. So anyone who sort of placed an order within the last 12 months and as orders grow, and you do see that order volume grew in Q3 and in the quarter we just reported Q4, that sort of precedes active customer growth. The other thing I do just want to point out there is we did exit in January of last year German business. So that took a large chunk of customers or not a large chunk, but a chunk of customers out of that number. And so as you're looking at that active customer number, you know, obviously that came out, so we'll clear that comp. You know, we exited that in January of this past year.

A (23:45)

You did say the sector has been under pressure and Carol mentioned some of the peers. But what about the Wayfair consumer? When they're buying something on the platform right now, are they buying it because they need to replace something in their home? Are they buying it because they have extra money to upgrade something? What's the profile of the consumer? In other words, how is the consumer doing?

C (24:06)

It's a great question. We're seeing a few trends. So. So you mentioned some of the sort of luxury peers. Obviously we have high end brands that do compete with those players like a Paragould or specialty retail brand. The Wayfarer brand itself, you know, plays all the way from opening price point to, you know, upper end mass. So really spans the full range. And we have seen, you know, a divergence, some of that K shaped economy I'm sure we've all been talking about now for a bit. Certainly our Paragould brand or specialty retail brands are growing, you know, really north of 20% we said in 2025. So you can see that accelerating beyond, you know, the overall core business. And I think that's speaks to the strength in that, you know, higher net worth consumer. We also do see a bit of a divergence in the types of things that people are buying. When I talk about the category being down low single digits, that's a category overall. We actually think furniture or bigger ticket items are down more. That tends to actually be where we are more focused and have a bigger part of the business. But you know, we also of course sell decorative accent, seasonal decor and that part of the business seems to have done a bit better from a category perspective overall. So those would be lower ticket items, you know, that may feel more comfortable for folks to purchase right now.

D (25:21)

Well, and the other thing I want to ask you, and listen Kate, we're obsessed with this, the buy now, pay later. And you can do that on Wayfair too. Are you seeing an uptick in that?

C (25:32)

Yeah, we have a number of options, you know, for various financings and buy now, pay later as we work with a wide range of partners. I do think it's an important offering for the consumer. So you know, to sort of, sort of ensure good underwriting for folks and provide them with a lot of optionality. I would say Our penetration there has been lower than other more traditional brick and mortar, brick and mortar furniture retailers. So, you know, as we grow, we're really trying to get to, you know, sort of a more natural place there for the furniture industry overall.

A (26:01)

We're speaking with Kate Gulliver, CFO of Wayfair, joining us from Boston.

D (26:06)

You know, Kate, one of the other things that we've talked with you about is the physical stores and you have noticed some encouraging early performance from the physical stores when it comes to brand engagement and cross channel lift. As you think about or as you kind of move from proof of concept toward potential expansion, what specific performance thresholds are you kind of focusing on and would justify accelerating the physical store growth?

C (26:31)

Yeah, it's a great question. So we look at the economics of the store itself, so purchases that are directly attributable to the store and the economics of, you know, operating that store. So as you think about the overall store for wall P and L. But one of the unique things about, you know, building stores, you already have a well established E commerce brand is you do get to see a benefit in the area for the brand overall. The other thing that we look at is, you know, what in sort of industry parlance you might call the halo effect, but really sales that are attributable to folks that maybe came into the store and then, you know, left and went and bought something or you know, had an idea about the store being in the area because they've heard more about it and therefore then shopped on our platform. And we've seen that continue to hold in really nicely. We gave a stat in our updated investor presentation today that the first store, which is in Chicago, if you look at the entire state of Illinois versus the rest of the country, since the store opened, it's had a 10% CAGR higher than the rest of the country.

D (27:28)

Wow.

C (27:28)

And that gives you a sense of, you know, the momentum that you can get from the store. It's obviously very crude metric.

D (27:33)

Yeah.

C (27:34)

But it's an easy way to sort of explain it. So we really look at the combination of the store pnl and then the other benefits that come along with having the store.

D (27:42)

Well, that makes me want to follow like what metrics would cause you to maybe remain a little bit more cautious. So like if you open another store and the metrics aren't so you're not seeing that kind of momentum that you're getting in the Chicago store, would you just say, okay, maybe it just depends on the city, the environment, like there's a Lot of specifics that go into it.

A (27:59)

Yeah.

C (27:59)

You know, I think our focus right now is on learning more about what makes a great store. Right. So we have one store open. We're planning to open three more in 26. We have one opening soon in the Atlanta area, another one this summer in Columbus, and then in the fall in Denver. These will be, you know, the Columbus store, for example, 70,000 square feet versus the, you know, other stores are roughly around 150,000 square feet. So we're testing out a slightly smaller format. We're testing out different types of shopping areas where we put the store. And so we intend to learn and then continue to refine the store model based on those learnings.

A (28:33)

So let's go.

C (28:34)

We are quite excited about it as a channel.

A (28:36)

Okay, let's go from sort of like the old school store retail model to then what you're doing with AI and layering.

D (28:42)

Don't you call stores old school?

A (28:44)

Oh, they are. I mean, they're coming back.

C (28:47)

It's Omni Channel. We like the overall omnichannel, but.

A (28:50)

But what? How do you layer in personalization with AI? And I'm curious how you do that in a way that actually makes you more competitive in this area.

C (29:00)

Yeah, we're. We're really excited about what we can do with AI from the customer experience perspective. And we've already started some of that and piloted some of that on the site, and there's certainly more to come there. You know, I think this category is a bit unique in that respect because it's a category that is a highly emotive category. Rights feels very personal to folks. It's not a commodity category where you're doing sort of standard replenishment. You want to get a better sense and see the actual options out there. The brand is important. You know, our brand is important because you want to ensure the delivery experience is high quality. So we think that the category itself lends itself to bringing people to our site and engaging them in a unique way. One thing that we can do with AI is help get more personalized for your style preferences. I'm sure if the three of us were to pick an end table, we'd all pick different end tables. What we'd love to do is make sure that when we land on the site, we're serving up to each of us exactly that end table that we want. Generative AI allows us to do that in a faster, more nimble way. It also allows you to play around with discovery. So if you were to go on the app Today into the Discover tab you'd see a whole catalog of images and you can create more yourself if you want that are genai created that then allow you to shop the catalog based on the type of room that you're designing or the aesthetic look that you're looking for. And I think that kind of engagement and interaction is really compelling in this category.

D (30:24)

So I know Kate, if we had asked Tim like if we were going, you, me and him shopping for pillows, you know, he would say no more pillows. I don't know about your household, but that's what happens in my household.

C (30:38)

Fortunately, people have an insatiable demand for pillows so we will keep selling.

B (30:42)

Thank God.

D (30:42)

Thank God. Always appreciate getting time. It is a great read on the consumer and finding out what's going on. Kate, be well. Thank you. Kate Gulliver, she's the Chief Financial Officer of Wayfair. Hi, I'm Cindy Crawford and I'm the founder of Meaningful Beauty.

C (30:56)

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D (31:00)

wow, you look so good for your age.

C (31:02)

Like why even bother saying that?

D (31:05)

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C (31:06)

great at any age, Every age. That's what Meaningful Beauty is all about.

D (31:11)

We create products that make you feel confident in your skin at the age you are now.

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D (31:20)

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A (31:27)

Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI, it all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder? With a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. Before you know it, you are drowning in software. Instead of growing your business, this is where Odoo comes in. Odoo is the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all in one fully integrated platform that handles everything, CRM, accounting, inventory, e commerce, HR and more. No more app overload, no more juggling logins. Just one seamless system that makes work easier. And the best part, Odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. It's built to grow with your business, whether you are just starting out or already scaling up. Plus, it's easy to use, customizable and designed to streamline every process so you can focus on what really matters running your business. Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you try Odoo for free@odoo.com that's o d o o dot com.

D (33:29)

You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week daily podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5 Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg business app or watch us live on YouTube.

A (33:44)

Back with us, Terry Peltz and Matthew O', Neill, the directors and producers of Can't Book Away. Welcome back. Thanks for coming back to joining us. Thanks for having us. You know, we actually had you booked for last and the trial got moved around a little bit because of a sick lawyer. So we do appreciate your flexibility. We're going to talk about the documentary and talk about that in the context of the trial. But first, Perry, for those who have not yet seen the documentary, the stories that you tell, the lawyers that you follow remind everybody. Yeah.

D (34:14)

We have the privilege of following several families, all of whom have lost children in the case, except for one family whose child is still alive but has been deeply harmed by an overdose. But we follow families who have, unfortunately, whose children have died as a result of their exposure to social media. And we follow them as they try to seek justice for their, for their loved, you know, their beloved children. Yeah. And you know, it's interesting what you guys do in this film and we've been thinking a lot about what the world is doing, whether it's Europe, whether it's Australia, that they are looking at social media and starting to put restrictions in place. I am curious about as you start to watch what's happening here in the U.S. mark Zuckerberg and you know, how Important that is because there's lots of litigation. You guys have the group of lawyers that you track, but there's states looking into it, there's school systems looking into this. So how important is what happens here in this case that Mark Zuckerberg just gave some testimony for?

A (35:14)

So there's state's attorneys generals looking into it. And in this case in KGM, the anonymous 20 year old who's at the the center of it is actually a client of the Social Media Victims Law center, which who are the lawyers you just heard in that clip and are really at the forefront of this. What's important to remember is that this is just one case, right? In this case, it's one of nine bellwether cases that has 2,500 other cases stacked up behind it. And all of these different efforts to bring accountability are really, really important. This isn't going to be the end of this. It's really only the beginning. So. So Perry, if there is accountability here, at least in the definition that you guys have, what could be the implications for the social media platforms and the way that kids have access to them?

D (35:57)

Well, if we look globally about what's happening, there's a saying that the US debates, Europe regulates and Australia bans. So we are really behind and what we're really missing and unfortunately we've seen so many times that these, that these tech CEOs are hauled into Congress right here. Lots and lots of talk and chat and nothing really gets done.

A (36:17)

No, it's like social media clips, ironically, for the members of government to then post on their own.

D (36:23)

That's exactly, that's exactly right. We need reform here in this country. And hopefully to Matt's point, this is the beginning of what may be some steps that take place in this country to hold these companies accountable. Yeah, it's funny, you know, not funny. We have a story in the Bloomberg about parents, parents now getting for their kids dumb phones rather than smartphones to limit access. And even kids being like kind of pushing back. There is something going on in terms of our culture. Do you feel like in terms of society at large that there is here in the us I mean as we watch what feels like the rest of the world being way ahead of us on this. Do you feel like there's something turning here?

A (37:05)

There's a change that's happening in this society for sure. The way children are interacting with social media, the way parents are trying to involve themselves in their children's lives. But you can't out parent a trillion dollar algorithm. That's Just the truth. And we are laggards. The UK has the Online Safety act, the European Union has the Digital Services Act, Australia has the, I think it's called the Online Safety Amendment that bans 16 year olds, anyone under the age of 16 from using social media and critically holds the social media companies financially accountable. Those are the legislative issues that hold the social media companies financially accountable. That's what these lawsuits will do in the end. That's what's going to matter to these companies. But is there a way to, is there a way to do this where that's a tough task like holding these companies financially accountable? Because what does that actually look like? I mean, we talk about this in the context of Australia and that means a social media ban or like technology bans, but it doesn't actually mean, you know, these companies coming out and, and providing some sort of payments. No.

D (38:06)

And it's really difficult because these social media companies are amongst the most wealthy companies in the world. Right. This is not minor.

A (38:14)

Mark Zuckerberg, fifth wealthiest.

D (38:16)

Absolutely. And they have a lot of tendrils into our Congress and into government officials. This is a really difficult thing to get done. And yet we look at the reporting that Olivia's done, you look at the work Jonathan Heights done. We must have change. We're talking about a generation here that's lost. We just talked about. There's this great column by Amanda Mull on Bloomberg, our Bloomberg Businessweek team, about kind of corporate complicity in this current environment with everything that's going on and maybe CEOs not speaking up. So we watched Mark Zuckerberg or we've been following him. What are you guys watching in terms of this case and what's crucial in terms of the outcome? As you said, there's so many cases stacked up behind it.

A (38:57)

Well, for sure this will set a tone, right? It's an important case because it is the first and it's getting a lot of attention in the media, which matters too because people are talking about it and talking about what happened to this now 20 year old but child when the allegations about what happened to her and her media addiction came out and looking at the documents that are coming out in this case that show the internal communications, that Facebook, even specifically when it comes to Mark Zuckerberg, to not be robotic, to say like change so that he seems more sincere, it suggests that they don't actually believe what they're saying. Hey Perry, before we go, how is history going to judge us as a society?

D (39:38)

Oh, I think on this count, I don't think history judges us. Well I think the one thing though, if we look back at tobacco, we look at opioids. Tobacco took almost 40 years to get legislation, opioids almost 30. So we're at least at a place. It's not great but at least we're starting to take this really seriously and hopefully as a country we will make some forward momentum. We can only hope because our kids lives hang in the balance. Thank you guys for coming back. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Perry Peltz and Matthew o', Neill, directors and producers of Can't Look Away. The case is again Social Media the Bloomberg Original Investigation now available on all of the Bloomberg platforms. So check it out.

A (40:18)

This is the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast, available on Apple, Spotify and anywhere else you get. Your podcasts listen live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5pm Eastern on Bloomberg.com, the iHeartRadio app, TuneIn and the Bloomberg Business App. You can also watch us live every Every weekday on YouTube and always on the Bloomberg Terminal.

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