Loading summary
Transcript121 lines
- [00:00]
EY Consulting Representative
You have invested in artificial intelligence. Maybe you have pilots or even proofs of concepts that show real promise. The next opportunity is scaling that success across the business. At EY Consulting, we help organizations redesign how work gets done so innovation can move beyond the nascent stage. By addressing architecture, operating models and governance, we help AI deliver real, lasting value at scale. When AI fits how you actually work, that is EY Consulting.
- [00:30]
Ed Ludlow
Not every sale happens at the register before AT&T business Wireless checking out customers on our mobile POS systems took too long. Basically a staring contest where everyone loses.
- [00:42]
Natasha Mascarenas
It's crazy what people will say during an awkward silence. Now transactions are done before the silence takes hold.
- [00:48]
Ed Ludlow
That means I can focus on the task at hand and make an extra sail or two. Sometimes I do miss the bonding time.
- [00:54]
Public.com Representative
Sometimes AT&T business Wireless connecting changes everything okay, before we get into it, little side note for the IT leaders listening in, I was reading up on a Microsoft Commission survey the other day and learned that teams using Windows 11 Pro PCs report 62% fewer security incidents compared to Windows 10 PCs, including three times fewer firmware attacks. Pretty significant. With security built in, you'll have AI ready it that sets you up for operational efficiency as well as long term resilience. Upgrade to Windows 11 Pro at Windows means business.com
- [01:36]
Ed Ludlow
Bloomberg Audio Studios podcasts Radio News.
- [01:47]
Bloomberg Tech Host
Bloomberg Tech is live from the heart
- [01:49]
Ed Ludlow
of Silicon Valley with Ed Ludlow in San Francisco. This is Bloomberg Tech Coming up, Open air may hold off on an IPO until next year. The new sending shares of SoftBank falling the most since August 2024. Plus global tech stocks drop off the Apple's hardware price hikes from a memory crunch to dampened consumer demand. Is the iPhone Next? And Space X's $25 billion bond sale is off to a rocky start. Cracks show as paper losses mount. It has been a bruising week for the trade and memory has been at the heart of it this Friday. Apple is rebounding, having dropped the most in 16 months on Thursday because it raised prices across hardware, excluding the iPhone. In part that is because of higher memory prices. Micron is down significantly, but it surged Thursday because it's benefiting from such tight supply. Generally speaking, chip stocks are down, but overnight in Asia there was basically a change of perspective in the market. It went from euphoria from those selling memory chips, the idea that those buying them are under pressure, pressure and that demand might be dampened in the end. You see that in sk, Hynix and Samsung. We're to go deep on that story later in the program. The big news story Open Air Bloomberg reporting Open Air is looking at holding off until next year for an ipo, according to sources that sunk shares of Softbank overnight in Japan. And some disappointment seems reflected in the tech sector in today's trade. It's a bit circular because Bloomberg reports current market conditions are one factor behind OpenAI being in no rush. Bloomberg's Bailey Lipschultz, who leads our IPO coverage, is with us. Look, I think OpenAI were pretty clear on June 8th when they disclosed that confidential filing that it would be a while anyway just bring us up to speed on on what their thinking is and what we've reported.
- [03:43]
Bailey Lipschultz
When you look back at that filing, to your point, they essentially even with some of the verbiage coming from Sam Altman himself, looking at the next calendar year, which obviously includes 1Q of next year as well as 2Q of next year as you had reported in the just a few minutes ago. Ed, when you look at the expect conversations around OpenAI, it does seem like they're willing to concede to Anthropic going first. Obviously from the anthropic camp, that means setting the tone, setting the total addressable market and setting valuation expectations. The big question for OpenAI, though, still centers around what their story is. Can they have confidence in some of these contracts and some of their obligations in the long term? Obviously Moving from say late 4Q to early 1Q is not a big deal, though it is a sign of what could lie ahead as we look at these mega IPOs in the wake of Space X. Again, Aurora success day one and day two, we've seen shares come back to earth, trading around where they opened in the company's debut, still above the IPO price but still leaving some retail investors who chased the stock in the red. The big question going forward, as you mentioned with things like SK Hynix, is what does the market look like months from now when these companies look to tap the market?
- [04:52]
Ed Ludlow
The way it was relayed to me is like even if Anthropic goes first, like that's not necessarily a negative open AI. They can sit back and look how that goes. As one perspective, we're showing shares of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley down pretty significantly, almost 4% each. Remind us the reporting that we've done on those banks involvement in getting Open Air and Anthropic ready for a listing.
- [05:12]
Bailey Lipschultz
Yeah, we've reported that both are leading the charge on both deals, so that would likely bring a big payday. Again, fees weren't that high for the bankers leading the space x ipo. But the big question to that point, Ed becomes a debate around do we see anthropic in late 3Q early 4Q what does that mean for Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley? Especially when people have been excited about both of these deals coming to market and what that could mean broader. These are two companies that are going to need to raise a lot of money to continue to chase their dream of dominating the artificial intelligence boom. So it's not just IPO proceeds, it's not just fees from that potentially for OpenAI and Anthropic for the likes of a Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, it's what levers can they pull for raising cash through equity sales, through bonds in the public market. And those are two things that you need public equities to be trading to actually be able to tap.
- [06:06]
Ed Ludlow
A go back very quickly to OpenAI's June 8 statement about why it's going to take a while for them to go public because there's a benefit to staying private. There's things that they want to do but clearly and per the reporting, they will be looking at current market conditions just like Beat Wide covering the ipob. When you have a week like this with so much volatility, do the bankers just be like let's take a minute here and see how the world shakes out?
- [06:33]
Bailey Lipschultz
Well I think that's the most interesting part around the likes of an open air they wouldn't really be chasing to go public for a number of months. So as much as you can point to the volatility of this week, it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme unless there's some kind of dire concern of what the markets would look like come September, October and into the end of the year. We normally when we talk to bankers they point to market conditions as a reason to hold off on launching and pricing IPOs. That's more in the immediate term. It's also a very kind of easy excuse to say, you know, investors don't want to take on new risk. But as you had mentioned at the top of the show, we've been watching these markets soar and then pull back. If you look at anything in the chip space, they're up about 90% on the stock. So broadly speaking, most people are still feeling good, but we are hitting some of those summertime jitters.
- [07:21]
Ed Ludlow
Bloomberg's Bailey Lipschelz, thank you very much. Samsung and SK Hynix are set to unveil massive AI related investments on Monday at an event hosted by the president of South Korea that's according to local media reports say Samsung could announce more than $600 billion in spending over the next decade, marking the largest such plans in the country's history. Meanwhile, SK Hynix has signaled it will expand production to meet runaway memory demand. Shares of both South Korean giants, though, tumbled on Friday in the Asia session amid a bit of whiplash this week for Asian technology shares, which ended basically on fears that in the end, memory demand might soften. We'll try and explain that in a moment. It doesn't take great memory to recall what sparked all of this. Yesterday, Apple announced price hikes across its hardware products line, citing unprecedented price gains in memory chips missing from the price hike list. This for now, the iPhone. Let's discuss with Nabila Popow, senior director at idc, who leads their research and coverage of the smartphone handset market. In April, Apple said that the iPhone had been less affected by what's happening with memory. Does IDC think that the iPhone is next for potential price hikes?
- [08:42]
Robert Schiffman
Hi.
- [08:43]
Nabila Popow
Thank you for having me. Yes, absolutely. The iPhone isn't spared. This is just a delay. You know, iPhone's the largest revenue driver for Apple and given the hike in memory costs, if they are to maintain their profit margins, there's no way that they're not going to increase the prices on the iPhones. I think what's interesting is that the level of increase, right, that's the question is when and how much are they going to increase? So I don't think it's a matter of, of if, but really when and how much. And what we're thinking is, in fact, you know, the memory situation and the crisis has already been in talk and since what, late last year. So even in our last forecast, we'd already baked in the assumption that Apple is going to raise prices on iPhones. And our thought at the time was, you know, $100 on pro promax models. But given, you know, the rate of increase that we saw the max going up to even 300 and 500 on some variants, I'm beginning to think now that it's going to go up as much as $200 on the Pro Max models.
- [09:40]
Ed Ludlow
Nabila, I'm just going to reiterate that for the audience. So you had an assumption prior to the news yesterday that Apple would raise prices on the iPhone. And in your forecast, you assumed a hike of $100 to Pro and Pro Max models, a $50 hike to base models. Again, I know I'm asking you to repeat what you just said, but based on Today's information, you think that actually those price hikes may be higher on smartphone or iPhone handsets?
- [10:10]
Nabila Popow
Yeah. And again, this is my personal assessment. I think that it could go up as much as $200 in the Pro Max. And I'll give you two reasons. Is that the churn, you know, everyone's talking how the price increase is going to impact upgrades, right. The consumers going to start drop, you know, not, not purchasing or not upgrading this year. And I don't, I don't think that the impact will be very negligible in terms of the churn one because the value proposition they have on the devices is Siri and Apple Intelligence that's not, not going to be available to any devices beyond prior to 15 Pro. I mean, right. So that means only 4 in 66 million devices have the capabilities to run Apple Intelligence and Siri. So we all know how large Apple's installed base is. That means a significant portion of Apple's installed base is not going to be able to run those features. So that creates a compelling upgrade reason for those users. And on top of that, if you think about how much you know. So I do think, we do think the most of the majority of the price increase is going to focus on the Pro Max models. And given those consumers are less price sensitive, a $200 increase really amounts to, you know, most people are buying devices at 36 month installment plans, right. So that only amounts to about a five dollar price hike per month. So that's really not going to dissuade that kind of consumer segment. So those two reasons, I think that makes sense.
- [11:34]
Ed Ludlow
The reason that's interesting is, you know, basically the situation is quite clear. Micron is saying memory supply will be tight for 18 months. Prices will remain elevated. Bloomberg Tech producer Zoe Thomas picked out among the dozens of stories we have out this morning the key bit which is in the end the question is now whether higher prices dampen consumer demand. Right. That's the bit that's unknown. You seem to be indicating, well the buyer of an iPhone's got a lot of money anyway. They're not as sensitive to those price hikes market wide. Is that going to be true?
- [12:14]
Nabila Popow
It and that's why I don't think they're going to create that level of price hike to all of its models. That's why they're going to be very strategic. Even if you look at the way they face the announcements last week was just a broader announcement that prices are going to increase. This week it was in a announcements on the iPads and the Macs. Right. And few other products. And so I think what they're really trying to do, so they're being very strategic in terms of the timing, the announcement and also the level of price increase they're going to do. So I think they're going to be the lesser models, the base models, the older models might see, you know, half of that. Right. But I do think the 50, the days of the $50 price increases are gone. So it's just a matter of, you know, Apple understands its brand proposition. Apple understand even in emerging markets, we're seeing Apple rise at rates that we haven't seen before. Right. Again, this is the spread of financing, even that's going beyond to emerging markets. So I do think that Apple is really aware about it and they're being very strategic in how they go about it. The other thing is that my conjecture is that the reason they made the announcements now and also to other products is so that consumers get psychologically prepared. Right. They don't want the story at launch to be the price hike, but really the value proposition that the phones bring. And I think that's what this is going to achieve by making all these
- [13:29]
Ed Ludlow
announcements now noting that typically Apple launches the latest generation of iPhone handset in the fall. So that's still to come. IDC with the call that Apple will raise iPhone prices is not if it's by how much. Nabila Pope how senior research director at idc. Thank you very much. Sticking with this component shortage crisis that has driven up the cost of consumer tech products, Microsoft also announced a third big price hike in 13 months months for Xbox consoles. With models having 512 gigabytes of storage increasing by $100 and the 1 terabyte versions increasing by $150. The new pricing will take effect starting August 1st. Coming up, humanoid robots are moving closer to the real world. But Nvidia says the industry still needs to work on AI brains. We speak to Deep Tala, VP of Robotics and Edge at Nvidia. More to come. This is Bloomberg Tech.
- [14:27]
EY Consulting Representative
You have invested in artificial intelligence. Maybe you have pilots or even proofs of concepts that show real promise. The next opportunity is scaling that success across the business. At EY Consulting, we help organizations redesign how work gets done so innovation can move beyond the nascent stage. By addressing architecture, operating models and governance, we help AI deliver real lasting value at scale. When AI fits how you actually work, that is EY Consulting.
- [14:58]
IBM Representative
So there's a lot of noise about
- [14:59]
Ed Ludlow
AI, but time's too tight for more promises.
- [15:01]
IBM Representative
So let's talk about results. At IBM, we work with our employees to integrate technology right into the systems they need.
- [15:08]
Ed Ludlow
Now a Global workforce of 300,000 can
- [15:11]
IBM Representative
use AI to fill their HR questions,
- [15:13]
Ed Ludlow
resolving 94% of common questions. Not noise proof of how we can
- [15:19]
IBM Representative
help companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in
- [15:23]
Ed Ludlow
the work that moves the business.
- [15:25]
IBM Representative
Let's create smarter business.
- [15:27]
Public.com Representative
IBM support for this show comes from public.com if you're actively involved in your portfolio, you probably catch yourself repeating the same actions. Buying the dip, manually sweeping idle cash, putting on a hedge on public. You can now create AI agents that handle all these tasks on your behalf. Just describe what you want to do in plain English like if the Vix hits 25, buy a put option on the S&P 500 or if my cash balance goes above $20,000, move the excess into my direct index. You approve of the workflow and your agent handles the risk, monitoring the market, watching for your conditions and executing your strategies exactly as defined. An investing platform driven by your intent, not just your clicks. You can also get full read and write access to your account via the public API. Go to public.com market and fund your account in five minutes or less. That's public.com market paid for by Public
- [16:24]
IBM Representative
Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory services by Public Advisors LLC SEC registered advisor complete disclosures available@public.com disclosures.
- [16:44]
Ed Ludlow
Disney theme parks are set to get a major robotics upgrade the company's research and development lab has been working on several new projects as part of Disney's 10 year plan to invest $60 billion in its parks and resorts, including a fleet of dolphin like robots. Disney's also exploring concepts ranging from Star wars themed food carts with hovering droid like robots to new projection based effects for its Pirates of the Caribbean ride. The moves are part of an initiative driven by new CEO Josh d', Amaro, the former parks chief who succeeded Bob Iger in March and previously oversaw the imagineers and robotics efforts. Many of the concepts remain in development and may evolve before reaching Disney's parks. Nvidia wants to make humanoid robots safer around humans, the chip giant reveals it has spent over a decade aid solving what it calls the three computer problem to power autonomous machines. But while the physical hardware is largely ready, the industry is still hunting for a breakthrough in AI brains. This is what Deeply Teller, vice president of Robotics and Edge Nvidia, told us yesterday.
- [17:52]
Betsy (Economist/Analyst)
So we've been building a computer for you know, robotics actually is a three computer problem. The computer talking about is the third computer which goes inside the, you know, inside the robot, if you, in the brain. But we also need a computer for training the brain and a computer for testing, which happens to be in simulation or omniverse platform. So now coming to the third computer question, what needs to happen? We started working on this more than a decade ago. We call this Nvidia Jetson. And number one, of course it needs to have high amount of compute capability because models are going to become more larger in order to make them more intelligent. To hit the accuracy mark, of course it needs to be real time, it needs to be safety needs to be designed from the ground up. Right. Energy efficiency also matters. And of course it also needs to be general purpose programmable. And that's kind of what we see with our Nvidia Jetson computer. With over two and a half million developers that are active on the platform, more than 10,000 companies that are building all sorts of robots, some humanoids, but all sorts of other embodiments as well. And so that's kind of what's needed for robotics, general purpose robotics to happen right now.
- [18:54]
Ed Ludlow
In the field of humanoid robotics, what is the biggest barrier to progress? Software or hardware?
- [19:02]
Betsy (Economist/Analyst)
I think there's been tremendous amount of mechatronics, miracles that have been done, except for the hands that are being worked on. But I think still the number one problem remains. The brain has to be reasonably gentle, purpose and accurate. And we haven't hit that. You know, what happened with Chad GPT in November 2022, where you had that moment, that moment for robotics is right around the corner, but we haven't reached that yet.
- [19:26]
Ed Ludlow
That was deep. Tala Nvidia's vice president of robotics and Edge One of the promises of AI was alleviating the burdens of Silicon Valley. Instead, it's inducing anxiety in tech workers and contributing to a culture of workaholism. Techies can't seem to turn the laptops off as AI agents build around the clock, pushed by investors desperate to beat the ever increasing competition. This is one of the best things I've read in 2026, reported out by Bloomberg's Natasha Mascarenas. It's just true. Call it what you will. Found a mode on, you know, build, let's build. You hear it all the time. Take us inside the report.
- [20:08]
Natasha Mascarenas
Yeah, I mean, this story that I did with my colleague Rebecca Torrance was very much inspired by this idea that we are often covering the same stories that are in this Moment up into the right. So what's this cascade of anxiety beneath the surface? And time and time again, you know, once the laptop shutter, the interview was done, the follow up we would hear from those same people was it's great, but this came at a huge cost.
- [20:29]
Ed Ludlow
Right.
- [20:30]
Natasha Mascarenas
And so it's manifested in everything from, you know, touch grass parties where you're not allowed to mention otherwise you have to make a donation to that kind
- [20:38]
Ed Ludlow
of give you some mental breathing space.
- [20:39]
Natasha Mascarenas
Exactly, exactly. You know, bets in the office and founders saying it's not just working all hours, it's if we don't hit a multibillion dollar revenue stream, not valuation revenue, you know, by next year our company is chose. And so you know, it's heightened stakes and there's minimal space to give, you know, breathing room to that. And so that was the goal of
- [20:58]
Ed Ludlow
this story that's so interesting is why we track like the target. So like to gauge how, how startups are doing.
- [21:03]
Natasha Mascarenas
Sure.
- [21:04]
Ed Ludlow
I want to just go over the Asian bit. Like the idea that's pitched is you say to AI agent swarms do this, I'm going to go to bed and when I wake up should be done. What you're reporting is that actually in practice the engineer is still at the computer staring at the screen.
- [21:20]
Natasha Mascarenas
Totally. I mean in some ways it's actually the vision that's always been pitched, right. That it's no longer the human controlling the AI, but the AI controlling the human. And so a lot of engineers were sort of saying there's been the swap between we feel like we have to be on standby at times, seeing how our agents are doing things. And it is this you know, really electric moment of they're listening to me, they're working around the clock. But as you know, employees want to prove their standing within companies. It actually looks a little bit more like hands on, just watching and waiting. One, one engineer I spoke to, one developer I spoke to is the mother of two children who mentioned that she's often told by Claude code to go to sleep and you know, head electrification. And so while anthropic tells us that that is actually not a feature or you know, a response to something, it is a sign of the times.
- [22:07]
Ed Ludlow
Right. We'll track token spend, but we'll also track Red Bull spend for all those all nighters, Bloomberg's Natasha Mascara, thank you very much indeed. Tesla has quietly resolved a lawsuit stemming from a fatal 2023 crash that prompted a defect investigation into the carmakers automated driving technology. The attorney representing the victim's daughter says the case recently settled, though the terms of the settlement weren't disclosed. An attorney for Tesla did not respond to requests for comment. Bloomberg News reported last year that sun glare may compromise Tesla's camera based driving system. Tesla says it's since upgraded cameras on older vehicles and continues to work with US Safety regulators following a blockbuster ipo. Space X has left bond traders stunned after its newly issued debt quickly lost value. The company's $25 billion bond offering has resulted in paper losses of roughly $305 million, with traders suggesting many fast money accounts were looking for a quick flip. Bloomberg Intelligence senior credit analyst Robert Schiffman is with us. I want to be honest, it's like there's a lot of this story that I don't understand. So we've reported the approximate paper losses on what was a relatively recent bond sale, right? $25 billion from Space X. What do we need to understand about that figure or those figures? Robert?
- [23:33]
Robert Schiffman
Yeah, well no pun intended, but this bond deal is not blowing up. Spreads are Wider. We're about 15 to 25 wider out the curve which shows that you can't make money every single day in the markets. It doesn't change the overall picture though of this investment grade stable credit that has lots of borrowing capacity going forward as it builds its business. But I think everyone is pointing towards the daily moves of the sky is falling looking for the day that valuations are going to completely turn. We've been to this dance before. It happens every couple of months and I just think this is a little bit overstated. Bondholders are feeling a little bit of pain these days. I just don't think it's going to last.
- [24:17]
Ed Ludlow
Separating Bloomberg News reporting on what's happening with these bonds. Robert Shifman leads our research of corporate credit and that's really important what you said there on IAG rating, investment grade rating is really important because Space X basically has a rating from the agencies that puts it on par with some of the biggest technology companies in the world. The difference is that those big tech companies have positive cash flows. Space X doesn't explain why that matters.
- [24:46]
Robert Schiffman
Well, it's interesting these days those companies, the Mount Rushmore of credits, the Double A's and Triple A's, Microsoft's, Amazon's, Matters and Alphabets are actually free cash flow negative. They're spending more money after capex and shareholder returns and they're pulling in and that's why they're raising so much money. It's part of the reason why Alphabet raised $85 billion of equity just a few weeks ago. So they're all sort of in the same boat. You know the difference though is that these are this is a triple B name, so it has less flexibility. It also is a new issue where people don't really even know what SpaceX is. It's in a lot of different businesses and they don't have a track record. What I would tell you though is that this name is rated higher than Oracle. It trades still tighter than Oracle, it doesn't look like a junk company and it's not trading like a junk company and I don't think it's going to. So I think these sort of near term anomalies like you get, you know, hedge funds are trying to make money. It was a down couple of of days both in the equity market and a little bit in the credit market. Credit spreads are out about 5 basis points. I just don't think it's as big of a deal as it seems like it is.
- [25:50]
Ed Ludlow
BI's Robert Shipman, thank you very much.
- [25:54]
EY Consulting Representative
Introducing B of A Rewards A new way to reward your every ambition. It all starts with a Bank of America checking account and grows from there. You get cash back deals on brands you know and love, plus a credit card rewards bonus, helping you earn more rewards for on things you buy every day. Join B of A Rewards today for rewards tailored to your lifestyle. What would you like the power to do? Bank of America Open or enroll your account@bankofamerica.com B of A Rewards bank of America Corporation all rights reserved.
- [26:23]
Public.com Representative
Support for the show comes from public.com if you're actively involved in your portfolio, you probably catch yourself repeating the same actions. Buying the dip, manually sweeping idle cash putting on a hedge on public you can now create AI agents that handle all these tasks on your behalf. Just describe what you want to do in plain English like if the Vix hits 25, buy a put option on the S&P 500 or if my cash balance goes above $20,000, move the excess into my direct index. You approve the workflow and your agent handles the risk, monitoring the market, watching for your conditions and executing your strategies exactly as defined. An investing platform driven by your intent, not just your clicks. You can also get full read and write access to your account via the public API. Go to public.com market and fund your account in five minutes or less. That's public.com market paid for by Public
- [27:19]
IBM Representative
Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors LLC SEC registered advisor complete disclosures available@public.com disclosures when you own your
- [27:33]
Chase Sapphire Reserve Representative
own business, you own every decision. Now own the card that rewards you for it. The Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business Card brings the best Sapphire Reserve benefits to business owners who expect hardworking rewards. Designed to meet the needs of business owners at scale, this Pay in Full card elevates your travel experience and offers premium benefits and value toward business services that will take your business to the next level, fuel your business and maximize rewards with 8x points on all purchases through Chase Travel, 3x points on social media and search engine advertising, annual partnership credits and more. Make every journey more rewarding with a $300 annual travel credit and access to a network of airport lounges. Whether you're looking for pre flight productivity or time to rest and recharge. Chase Sapphire Reserved for business, it's the card that gives back all you put in. Learn more@chase.com ReserveBusiness Chase for Business make more of what's yours Accounts subject to credit approval restrictions and limitations apply. Cards are issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank NA member FDIC.
- [28:43]
Ed Ludlow
Welcome back to Bloomberg Tech. It has been a brutal week for the trade, but what's remarkable about it is it's in both directions. We have seen euphoria and big drops on equities with memory. The pricing and supply memory chips are the heart of it. So Apple's up 1.4% right now, but remember 24 hours ago it was in a session where it had its biggest drop in 16 months. Micron is down 4% but had had a relatively unprecedented surge after a blowout earnings on Wednesday night. Overall, we're on track for the NASDAQ 100 at various points in the session to be down the most over a five day basis since April of 2025. So it kind of hangs in the balance. That nervousness went into the Asia session where basically memory pricing and supply being tight has been good for the memory makers, Micron principally. But the perspective of the markets change. So you see Samsung and SK Hynix, the two leaders in memory, down significantly overnight because now the market's reacting to Apple raising prices on some of its its hardware because of component costs, that is Memory costs being higher. We're extrapolating out the next phase of it is the question is does this come full circle and DAMPEN Consumer demand? That's the difficulty of it. But it's been choppy trading again. In aggregate, the NASDAQ 100 is now down about 6. 10 of a percent in the moment. However on the week at various points in the session, depending on where we close, it could have its worst week since April 2025. 5 let's get back to our top news story today. That is the OpenAI is considering an IPO as soon as 2027 According to sources, a timeline that would potentially see it go public after its AI rival Anthropic. Bloomberg's Anthony Hughes is here on the banks and IPOB. Look, this is relatively consistent with what OpenAI said June 8 when it disclosed its confidential filing. But there is some jeopardy in the sense that the banks working on this are doing both OpenAI's IPO and Anthropics, per our reporting and what I put out earlier this hour is OpenAI seems pretty calm about the idea that they go third after Space x Anthropic in the IPO sequence. What else do we need to know?
- [30:59]
Anthony Hughes
Yeah, well, I think we've really portrayed this as a race between Anthropic and Open Air to go public. But if that's the case, then OpenAI does seem to be losing the race. And as you say, I mean, they've really been giving off sort of mixed messages about how keen they are to really go. But you can see by their actions that they filed confidentially right after Anthropic did earlier this month. And, and I think certainly there's been a lot of mixed views around. I think from Anthropic's perspective, I think there they seem to be ahead of Open Air in terms of valuation, revenue growth, their ability to generate, generate free cash flow over the next few years. So in that sense Anthropic seems to be ahead of Open AI. And you know, I think probably there's a feeling within Open Air that they don't want to be perceived to be behind Anthropic. But as, as you look at all the, you know, the facts around the situation, it does seem like they are.
- [31:51]
Ed Ludlow
Andy, let me just catch the Bloomberg Tech audience up on a couple of points. One, SoftBank shares in Japan fell significant significantly overnight and the US listed shares are down again today because the New York Times had initially published the report about OpenAI's IPO going to 27. Of course, SoftBank is massively, economically and financially exposed to Open Air, but we're also showing shares of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs down pretty significantly in this US Trading session. Our report came out an hour ago. Why would those two banks, banks in particular be be lower on this, this news without drawing too much of a direct or causal relationship?
- [32:30]
Anthony Hughes
Yeah, well, I think there's just a sentiment around the fact that the banks are expected to do very well out of these IPOs based on the fees that they collected on Space X recently. But you know, I think that's probably just a bit of a knee jerk reaction. And we know that the banks are going to do very well this year in terms of their fees from areas like equity capital markets and M and A and the like. So, you know, that might just be a bit of a, a short term reaction on a tough day. In the, in the main, there is
- [32:58]
Ed Ludlow
a lot going on and we're going to keep tracking it. Bloomberg's Anthony Hughes, thank you very much indeed. South Korea's stock market has surged about 200% year on year, powered by an AI fueled chip rally. But extreme volatility and heavy reliance on just two companies met mean it's a bubble waiting to burst. Bloomberg Originals has the story.
- [33:21]
Bloomberg Originals Reporter
South Korea may have an ant problem, although it's not these type of ants, but rather these.
- [33:33]
Ed Ludlow
There are more than 14 million retail investors in South Korea who are called ants.
- [33:38]
Nabila Popow
Individually they don't have much power, but
- [33:41]
Ed Ludlow
collectively they have a greater influence in the market.
- [33:45]
Bloomberg Originals Reporter
These ants have been busy, not by
- [33:48]
Ed Ludlow
more than 100% so far this year. Just an unbelievable rally.
- [33:51]
Bloomberg Originals Reporter
It's really quite extraordinary what's happening in Korean stocks at the moment.
- [33:56]
Ed Ludlow
The Kospi index, which tracks Korea's public
- [33:58]
Bloomberg Originals Reporter
companies, climbed 200% over the last 12 months. Compare that to other major markets like
- [34:05]
Ed Ludlow
the S and P or even even
- [34:06]
Bloomberg Originals Reporter
the nasdaq and Korea's performance blows them
- [34:10]
Anthony Hughes
out of the water.
- [34:11]
Ed Ludlow
That means it has more than tripled over the past 12 months. Retail investors, they've been the main driver of the cost. We can see signs of being a little bit maniac and a lot of people borrowing money to invest in stocks.
- [34:26]
Bloomberg Originals Reporter
And amid the mania is a mounting fear that a bubble will soon burst.
- [34:30]
Ed Ludlow
The AI bubble debate rate is absolutely raging right now. South Korea is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the global trade because it has two of the world's largest memory chip makers.
- [34:43]
Bloomberg Originals Reporter
Korean stocks are really maximizing being beneficiaries of the AI Capex bubble. That's the amount of money that's pouring in around the world, but particularly in the US from the mega cap stocks into building AI data centers. So are South Korea's retail investors building
- [35:00]
Ed Ludlow
towards the future or will they get wiped out?
- [35:04]
Bloomberg Originals Reporter
I don't have a strong insight of when it goes wrong. When the air bubble collapses, the pain in Korea is going to be extraordinary.
- [35:15]
Ed Ludlow
You can watch the full episode on bloomberg.com let's get out to the 2026 Aspen Ideas Festival where Bloomberg Surveillance co host shows Lisa Abramovis is moderating a panel on affordability with Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari, Lyft CEO David Rischer and Whole Foods CEO Jason Luca.
- [35:34]
Neel Kashkari
And there is that. We also have never sold more black and black SUV rides. So this is sort of the case shaped economy that you talk about. And it's kind of a, you can sort of feel it every single day.
- [35:45]
Lisa Abramovich
Can you pass along price increases though?
- [35:47]
Neel Kashkari
We try not to. Okay, so that's a great point. So we try not to. So when our raw material prices go up, we try desperately not to. But here's the thing. Our biggest cost is labor, that is drivers. We have to pay them well in order for them to work on our platform. So to a certain extent we have to pass prices along.
- [36:03]
Lisa Abramovich
We're going to get more into that in just a second. Jason, what about from your perspective, how much are you seeing this sort of concern about cost of living percolating through the business?
- [36:11]
IBM Representative
Yeah, like David mentioned, I'm seeing a K shaped economy here as well. Well, I oversee all of our Amazon grocery business worldwide as well as Whole Foods Market. And so we've got some consumers who are really focused on, you know, quality and differentiation, others around what is the, you know, lowest cost that I can, I can get for products. And across the grocery space, what we're seeing is customers are no longer having a primary grocer. Over half of customers are in a situation where they are shopping many different retailers, three to four a week. And they're doing that to find the best deals and values, getting the selection that they're looking for. And they're having to navigate a very complex environment, but they're willing to do so. They're also buying things much more real time. So instead of doing a shop up or a stock up for one or two weeks, they're buying, you know, shopping multiple times. And they're doing this for two reasons. One, they're trying to stretch the dollars that they have based upon their immediate need that they have. And then at the same time, when you do a two week shop up, you're going have a lot more food waste. And so you're actually wasting the dollars that you've spent on it. And so I think we're seeing a space here where customers are being much more conscious around how they're spending their dollars in the grocery space.
- [37:22]
Lisa Abramovich
And are you able to pass along price increases because of the bifurcation of the people who are able to pay versus those who cannot.
- [37:30]
IBM Representative
Yeah, our focus here has actually been trying to find ways with our supply suppliers where we're not passing on and seeing those impacts at the item level. Now, some cases we've got areas I take, you know, beef is a great, great example. We've seen a lot of inflation. Some of that cost is going to get passed on to the customer. But our focus has been how do we actually find ways within other parts of the business so we can invest in price? We've doubled the number of promotions within the Whole Foods Market banner. We've reduced prices across 13,000 grocery items within Amazon. And so at this point, we want to make sure that we can be relevant to the situation that our customers are experiencing.
- [38:06]
Lisa Abramovich
President Kashkari, it brings us to you because right now people are taking a look at core pce, which just came in at the highest pace going back to 2023, that was reported just earlier this week. We see PC coming in at 4.1%, accelerating in the wrong direction. What's the Fed's role in trying to curb some of this inflation that seems to be moving in the wrong direction?
- [38:28]
Bloomberg Originals Reporter
Well, first of all, thanks for having me and please call me Neil. Our role is our job is to get inflation back down to 2%. I mean, there's no ambiguity about whose responsibility that is. It's our job. We were created by Congress in 1913. They've given us two goals, two primary goals. Maximum employment, as many Americans working as possible, and stable prices, what we have defined as 2% inflation. So it is our job to get inflation back down to 2%. It's been made much more challenging because there've been all of these what we call supply shocks hitting the economy, obviously, Covid, and supply chains. Russia invading Ukraine, tariffs affecting inflation. The Iran war infecting inflation. Immigration changes can have effects on inflation. And now, of course, the data center build out, which I'm sure we're going to talk about, which may have disrupted inflationary effects over the long term, but it's certainly putting pressure on prices in some sectors of the economy today. So it's a complicated environment, but it is our job to get inflation back down to 2%.
- [39:28]
Lisa Abramovich
Do you think it's behind the curve, the Federal Reserve?
- [39:30]
Bloomberg Originals Reporter
I think inflation has been too high for five years. So, I mean, I think that's, that's one way of saying behind the curve, we need to get it back down. And I know we're committed to getting it back down. And the question is how much? The thing we wrestle with is we, we could move interest rates up as high as we need to to get inflation down quickly. That will cause a lot of harm to the economy. That will cause a lot of harm to labor market and to employment. And so how do we get inflation back down in a reasonable period of time without doing a lot of damage to the labor market? And that's the challenge that we're wrestling
- [40:02]
Lisa Abramovich
with Just before we move to Betsy, do you anticipate rate hikes this year as a result of the fact that the market's pricing it in and you're not seeing harm being priced in through the equity market?
- [40:12]
Bloomberg Originals Reporter
I penciled in there's this thing that gets a lot of attention called the dot plot where the Fed pencils in expectations for where interest rates are going. In March, I had penciled in one rate cut by the end of the year in June, I've changed that to one rate hike by the end of the year. It's a pencil. And so, you know, we're going to have to see how the data comes in. You know, I don't trust Iran to honor whatever agreement has been made. There's a some evidence overnight that they're already reneging on it. So I certainly am not seeing all clear coming out of the Middle East. And that makes me cautious about feeling too good that the worst is behind us.
- [40:48]
Lisa Abramovich
Betsy, when it comes to understanding the data and the sentiment versus on the ground this very complicated dynamic of some people able to buy black cars, are able to buy halibut premium that is fresh versus people who are shopping at three different, different places. And then you take a look at the consumer sentiment survey, the second lowest going back to the 1970s as released this morning. When you look at some of the lower end retailers that are seeing this pressure, how do you reconcile the sentiment with the data that suggests that people still are spending and that there still are plenty of price pressures in the works?
- [41:24]
Betsy (Economist/Analyst)
Yeah.
- [41:25]
Bloomberg Tech Host
So first, I don't think we're quite in the vibe session we were in in 2022, 2023, where inflation shot up unexpectedly and then was starting to come down. But the labor market was kind of on fire like you. There were plenty of jobs. People were able to move jobs. There were lots of wage increases because you know you're in your job and you want to earn more. The best way, the way most Americans really get a raise is by changing jobs. And there was tons of openings. People were still unhappy. Now we're in a different situation where they're still unhappy and we don't even have the job security blanket. And I think what's making the Fed's job really difficult is there is a lot of hiring going on. It looks like we're at something like full employment. But if you're in a job and you're like, I can't make ends meet, I need a better job with more pay, there's not a lot of openings, there's not as many opportunities for that mobility. So when we think about the K shaped economy, I want to start thinking about it a little bit more broader. It's not just like high income people versus low income people. It's some of it's about people who did get some opportunity and have been able to keep up with inflation, so they're doing okay, but some other people who have not. And they are literally worse off today than they were a couple years ago. And I want us to think about it generationally because there's a lot of young people that are feeling very locked out, locked out of the labor market, locked out of the housing market, locked out of any kind of savings, overburdened with student loans. And they're looking at an older generation whose housing prices have appreciated substantially, which why they can't afford housing, whether whose stock portfolios have grown. And so we're seeing some generational tension. And so I want to then bring that back to what is this underlying thing that we've been seeing going on where consumers are just telling us they're unhappy? It is more than just the state of the economy right now. We've been seeing declining trust in big business. You know, we've seen declining trust, trust in government for like 15 years. But actually even during the 2008 recession, we still kind of believed in business not so much anymore. We're also seeing huge declining trust in capitalism overall. What's interesting to me when I dig into the data is people still trust free enterprise. So what they're basically saying is big business today is not the free enterprise of the past, it's a machine that's out to screw me. And so they really feeling like there's a huge hassle factor where it's like a cat and mouse game with a business trying to get them and them trying to figure out how they get back at the business. That sentiment, I don't even know that it's just narrowed in on the economy. It may actually explain some of our politics too. You know, this sort of real frustration that I Got to defend myself in this volatile, angry economy where everybody's out to get me.
- [44:41]
Lisa Abramovich
There's a lot to unpack there. I want to start with the first point about employment because ultimately a lot of it does come down to what job you can get and how much you're paid. And David, from your perspective, you were hinting at this. You need to pay people enough to attract them. How easy is it to hire and how much are you having to wanting to whatever. How much are you raising salaries for your drivers at a time of a lot of change and a time of a lot of a lot of questions around the labor market.
- [45:07]
Neel Kashkari
So here's what's interesting. We have more drivers on the Lyft platform than we've ever had in our history. 1.5 million people drive on the lift platform every year. And I think what that suggests, honestly is a little bit what Betsy's talking about. You have a lot of people who feel that they, even if they have a 9 to 5 job or some sort of regular job, need to have
- [45:25]
Robert Schiffman
a little bit more.
- [45:25]
Public.com Representative
Right.
- [45:26]
Neel Kashkari
They want to save up for their kids education, they want to save up for a trip to Hawaii, whatever it is. And so for a lot of people, but 85% of people who drive on the lift platform are doing it part time. And a lot of them frankly are doing it as sort of supplemental income to get to the point where they feel like they can sort of make it to the end of the week. You know, whole all in gas prices are tricky for us. You just mentioned this, Neil, by the way, Neil, loving the hairstyle. I don't think we've gotten a chance, chance to talk about this.
- [45:49]
Lisa Abramovich
I'll give you a good ten minutes. Just kidding.
- [45:52]
Neel Kashkari
Good. If we could just have a moment on this.
- [45:53]
IBM Representative
Excuse us.
- [45:54]
Neel Kashkari
Anyway, I hadn't really gotten a chance to focus on that before anyway. No, but so as gas prices go up, obviously drivers start to feel pinched because they're responsible for paying for their own gas prices. So that forces us to go to work with third parties to try to figure out how can we create better deals so that they can save 8, 10, 12, 15, 20 cents at the pump. So I guess sort of the general point would be we have to raise salaries, wages over time, of course, to attract. We're doing that. That's why we have more drivers on the platform than ever. And we have to figure out a way to frankly not pass all those costs along the consumers because otherwise they'll get very angry with us. So it's kind of Interesting, Betsy, to hear you talk, because it's true, consumers are very frustrated. I think businesses, in a sense are frustrated as well. We're all trying super hard to make this work for y', all, but it's not easy.
- [46:38]
Lisa Abramovich
Jason, what about you?
- [46:39]
IBM Representative
Yeah, you know, I would say coming out of the pandemic, staffing was a challenge. For several years. You had some folks who decided to pull out of the workforce altogether. There was just a lot of challenges, as Betsy was pointing to a lot of availability where people can jump to. And it took a little bit for us to help balance that out. We did a lot of investment in base wages, benefits, also looked at ways to offer training and development. One of the areas that, you know, folks worry about is like, how do I have job security going forward? So we did some work in adding apprentice programs where team members have the ability to be certified in a trade that can both support their career at Whole Foods Market and in Amazon or more broadly. And we've seen a lot of success in that space as well. And the last area is adding flexibility. We know that, you know, there's a lot of folks who prefer to work multiple part time jobs because they want to have balance in between different commitments that they might have with school or work or what have you. And so finding ways by which we could meet both what our employees and team members are looking for from an employment offering perspective, as well as the flexibility into how they work their jobs. And I'm proud to say we're back at a spot where we are at staffing levels before we were at the pandemic. And in some sites and locations, we actually have no availability and demand for folks wanting to come in and work
- [48:01]
Lisa Abramovich
at a certain point. Are you able to raise wages? Are you willing to raise wages? Are these higher paid jobs? Are they same wage jobs or lower wage jobs? What's the character of them?
- [48:10]
IBM Representative
I'd say over that time frame I was speaking to, since the pandemic, we've actually had to raise base wages. We've enhanced the benefits that we've been offering. And a piece of that is being competitive, but also making sure that we can offer a great experience. You know, one of our jobs is we don't want somebody, you know, who doesn't look at this as being a career opportunity. We will have some folks where that is. They're looking for something right now and that's great. But what we want to be able to do is we've got a lot of growth that we've got if in our Grocery business more broadly and being able to have the expertise is a differentiation for us. When we look inside of our stores, our customers are coming because of the experience as expertise and customer service that our team members are able to provide. And so for us, we want to make sure that we can have a career that can be meaningful for them.
- [48:57]
Lisa Abramovich
Neil, how would you characterize the labor market right now? Because what I'm hearing is very difficult to characterize. On one hand, wages are going up. On the other hand, gig work is also going up because people are having to work multiple jobs. Betsy was talking about how it doesn't look like the 2021 type of market. How do you understand labor when it comes to the inflation picture?
- [49:17]
Bloomberg Originals Reporter
Well, I agree with Betsy. It definitely is not a hot labor market like it was a few years ago where businesses are desperate to keep the workers that they have, let alone to hire more workers. It is definitely cooled off. I would call it a decent labor market that's mostly moving sideways. It's kind of treading water. Labor markets. It's not in a bad place, but it's not in a great place either. Labor is not what's driving the inflation. Wages have not come kept up recently with inflation. The inflation is being driven by supply dynamics. So whether it's tariffs pushing up the price of goods that we buy from abroad, it's the fertilizer that's been disrupted because of the Strait of Hormuz and energy and oil prices from the Strait of Hormuz. So supply dynamics. And then it's also being driven by massive investment, hundreds of billions of dollars a year into data centers and all of the associates associated infrastructure that goes with that. Anything that touches those sectors, the prices are skyrocketing on those parts of the economy. It's not wages, though. I mean, wages for specialty electrical technicians to work to build data centers, yes, but not wages broadly across the economy. And so it's a, it's a complicated environment. I mean, one of the challenges for a central banker is most of the analytical tools that we have have to try to analyze inflation start in the labor market. And yet the labor market is not causing the inflation. And so we are having to re examine even how we think about what causes inflation. And that makes it a particularly challenging analytical moment for us as well.
- [50:49]
Lisa Abramovich
Is there a historical analog where inflation can remain persistent without wages keeping up?
- [50:54]
Bloomberg Originals Reporter
Eventually wages have to catch up. I mean, eventually. So it may be that wages are not causing the inflation right now, but workers ultimately are going to demand that they be able to make their basic ends meet, that their needs be met. And so one of the challenges is even if these supply dynamics fade, I would expect wages to continue then climbing to enable workers to slowly catch up. So that may not be putting pressure on inflation going forward, but it may cause inflation to fall a little less quickly than it otherwise would. And so again, very complicated set of dynamics going on right now.
- [51:31]
Lisa Abramovich
Underpinning all of this, Betsy, and I'd love you to weigh in on this is AI. And we hear that with data centers. You hear that with respect to how people are trying to make supply chains more efficient. Do you have a sense of, of, of how that's affecting sort of this labor market dynamic right now? Do we have a sense of whether that's lowering wages in certain places or putting a cap on things or making people feel in flux?
- [51:54]
Bloomberg Tech Host
Well, I think for sure, people feel a lot of uncertainty and that uncertainty is making people feel bad. And I think it's really important that we all recognize that. You do have some young people in the audience. And I was giving a talk on AI at a university and a student came up to me and he said, I pushed all my chips across the table to be here. I'm going to have so much student loans and I'm worried my entire investment's going to be worthless. Can you tell me that it won't be? And I really struggled because I was like, no, I actually really can't. I just want you to sit with that for a minute to think about how much uncertainty and risk and anxiety that young people are living with right now. It's not that we actually live at the data and we see clearly that there are tons of problems, but I think that there's a lot of fear. What we can see in the data is it's a terrible time to come out with like a data science or, you know, coding, like these very narrow degrees that, you know, now we have AI doing a ton of it. There's worry that there's going to be contagion to a much broader set of white collar jobs and that it's going to impact young people first. You know, I think to Neil's point earlier, like building up these data centers is going to put its own kind of inflationary pressure. And if we're going to let those data centers go, what we're probably going to have to do is damp down demand in the rest of the economy to prevent inflation, which can have spillover effects. Ultimately, AI is supposed to boost productivity, which means we can all earn more Right. So there's a golden ticket at the end. The question's going to be how do we get there and who survives it and how much pain do we have to go through in that readjustment period?
- [53:51]
Lisa Abramovich
David, from your perspective, your business is fundamentally affected by AI potentially. Given that all of those drivers might someday be rendered obsolete, they might just be self driving cars. How are you seeing at this moment AI being deployed a pathway? How do you convince your drivers that they have some kind of longevity in the career given the fact that, you know, potentially waymo could, could come take their job?
- [54:20]
Neel Kashkari
So super good question and very relevant because it is going to be a sort of almost physical manifestation of AI, right. Cars driving themselves, themselves, you know, without drivers. I actually want to back up for one second and sort of look at it a little more broadly. So Lyft, of course we have thousands of engineers, people who are exactly of the type that Betsy's talking about. And one of the things we're very focused on, I think there's a sort of, I'll call it a lack of imagination around where AI can play. And I think the lack of imagination mode is we're going to use it and we're going to fire a bunch of people. Right.
- [54:52]
Ed Ludlow
That sounds Bloomberg's Lisa Abramovic talking affordability with tech leaders, policymakers, Aspen Ideas. You continue watching the full panel on Live Go. We're getting at the end of Bloomberg Tech but this is the market story. It has been a bruising week for the trade with memory at the heart of it. Apple raised hardware prices because of it and that trade's been global, right. It's not just here in the US In Korea overnight the leading memory names also sold off a lot. To recap as that does it for this edition of Bloomberg Tech, recap that on the pod. You know where to find it on iHeart, Apple and Spotify online and always on all the Bloomberg platforms. Have a great weekend. What a week it's been. This is Bloomberg Tech.
- [55:35]
Public.com Representative
Okay, tech leaders. Word on the street is security incidents are dropping way down with Windows 11 PCs built in. Security for the win upgrade to Windows 11 Pro at windows means business.com this
- [55:49]
Chase Sapphire Reserve Representative
dog salon operational excellence thanks to genius from global Payments Scheduling, personalized checkouts, instant absolutely genius big league reliability for any business. That's genius.
- [56:04]
Bloomberg Originals Reporter
At Venture Global we think about what can be done, not what's usually done through innovation. Venture Global is not only building some the of the largest energy facilities in the world right here in the United States, but delivering American energy at a fraction of the cost in a fraction of the time. So while others are busy talking, we're busy building. That's Venture Global. That's unstoppable energy.