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- [00:00]
Michael McDermott
At CES. Michael McDermott, EVP of Samsung, spoke with Bloomberg Media Studios about what the company calls its next AI chapter, your companion to AI living. It's a shift from AI as a feature to AI as a trusted partner in everyday life.
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Caroline Hyde
Being a small business owner isn't just.
- [00:17]
Ben Putra
A career, it's a calling.
- [00:19]
Caroline Hyde
Chase for Business knows how much heart and effort go into building something of your own. Manage all your business finances, from banking.
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Ben Putra
To payments to credit cards, all all.
- [00:28]
Caroline Hyde
In one place with Chase's digital tools.
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Ben Putra
Plus access online resources designed to help your business thrive.
- [00:34]
Caroline Hyde
Learn more@chase.com business chase for business make more of what's yours the Chase Mobile.
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Ben Putra
App is available for select mobile devices.
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Caroline Hyde
Message and data rates may apply JPMorgan.
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Ben Putra
Chase Bank NA Member FDIC Copyright 2026 JPMorgan Chase Co.
- [00:51]
Michael McDermott
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Ed Ludlow
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Michael McDermott
Multi Currency account is for you. Be Smart. Get Wise Download the Wise App today or visit wise.com terms and conditions app.
- [01:31]
Caroline Hyde
Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio News. Bloomberg Tech is live from coast to coast with Caroline Hyde in New York and Ed Ludlow in San Francisco.
- [01:52]
Ed Ludlow
This is Bloomberg Tech. Coming up, Alphabet looking to tap the debt markets with $15 billion in US high grade and a super rare 100 year sterling denominated note.
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Caroline Hyde
We have the detail plus Bitcoin slips back below $70,000 after a roller coaster ride at the end of last week. We'll discuss where it can go from here.
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Ed Ludlow
And Apple set to debut a slew of new products in the coming weeks including a new iPhone 17 and updated iPads and Macs.
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Caroline Hyde
First we check in on these markets that bounce back for a second day. What a Friday close for the NASDAQ 100 and we build on that two and a half percent higher with another six 10% rebound as we really try to digest where the risks are in the tech markets. And of course we look ahead to some of that jobs data later in the week. I'm looking at crypto though. Roller coaster. If you were Trading it this weekend. We're back below 70,000 having a clip. Step for a moment on the weekend trading edge. We'll dig into that a little bit later. But you're looking at the equity side of the equation. I'm debt.
- [02:50]
Ed Ludlow
Yeah, Alphabet. But actually I'm going to do something a little unusual and go to the corporate debt and bond market. Really interesting. Alphabet looking to raise $15 billion from a US high grade dollar bond sale. Bloomberg reporting that citing sources but also going to the banks for a mandate may look at Swiss franc denominated and then a super rare 100 year note, sterling denominated, British pound. We haven't seen a 100 year note since like.com era, late 90s. But the bigger picture is pretty clear, right Carrie that we've seen big tech companies use debt markets to fund what's happening in capital expenditures. A lot more to discuss and a.
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Caroline Hyde
Lot more bond sales probably to be digesting. Let's do it all with Robert Schiffman from Bloomberg Intelligence. We knew they had to finance the extraordinary amounts of capital expenditure. Is there enough demand to support these mega bond sales?
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Michael McDermott
Yeah, I think, Listen, let's start from the beginning. Do they actually need any money? My answer is no. I think they're borrowing money because they can, because it's super cheap and that there's a concept that demand for not just AI but bonds are so insatiable that they can go out and do 100 year maturity. So yeah, there's tons of demand. If Oracle is able to build $130 billion, Google can build whatever book it wants.
- [04:12]
Ed Ludlow
This is why going back to basics is probably a good place to start. I agree with you. People would say, well why is that a good idea? You know, they look at some of the Mag 7 names and the cash on their balance sheet and say, you know, why is that a useful mechanism for them?
- [04:28]
Michael McDermott
Yeah, well this is what they taught me in math camp. The weighted average cost of debt capital for all these names, whether it's Metta, Alphabet, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon is effectively zero. You know, why do you have double A and triple A balance sheets if you're not going to use them? I think this is extraordinarily visionary. You know, these companies have been prepping for years for greater investment opportunities and now they finally see it. I think it's an, it's just such a bullish sign for this market. And from again the bondholder perspective, this is not equity holders being wary about multiples. Bondholders I don't think are going to be able to get enough and they're going to be able to do it along every single part of the curve. And like you said, this isn't just going to be dollars. They're going to the Swiss franc market, the pound market. I wouldn't be shocked if they went back to the euro market or even to issue yen. I think there's going to be demand all over the globe for high quality Mount Rushmore style credits like this.
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Caroline Hyde
I want to go to whatever math camp you were going to where you're talking about Swiss yen sterling denominated corporate debt. But look the demands there we've seen in other parts of the sector. Infineon in Europe, Europe tapping the market. It's a chip maker. We've seen IBM come to the market and there's $400 billion that could get done in corporate bonds. Just the investment grade sector alone. JP Morgan forecast for this year. How do you think steady will be for the year? Or do you think we're going to be front loading this? Are we awaiting Amazon to come straight out the gates given you've just put out a note about that? Really strong fundamentals.
- [05:58]
Michael McDermott
Yeah, listen, I think this is the tip of the iceberg. I actually think Bloomberg News is underestimating how much hyperscaler spending is going to be this year. They put out a number of $650 billion just for this year alone. I think that's just the fall. Right. I think it's going to be closer to 750 when you include names like Oracle and Core Weave. And if you think about cumulatively how much spending has gone up in the beginning of last year we estimated 2025 to 2022 through 2030. We're going to see $2 trillion of cumulative spending. We rose that, we brought that number to 3 trillion in the middle of the year and now we're up above $4 trillion. So these numbers are astronomical. What do you do on the back end of that? You're going to see a lot of bond deals.
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Gil Luria
Why not borrow when your cost of.
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Michael McDermott
Capital is so low? So I think you're going to see Amazon, you're going to see Microsoft and is not in this hyperscaler game. You're going to see them come back as well.
- [06:48]
Ed Ludlow
Robert Schiffman on the credit. Corporate, corporate credit. Watch math camp. Bloomberg Intelligence cv. Love it. Another move today is Oracle shares were on a bit of a tear. This comes after a tear up 9%. This comes after DA Davidson released a note saying improvements from OpenAI would lift the shares of Public companies in the chat, GPT makers orbit, particularly Oracle. Let's bring in DA Davidson Managing Director Gil Luria. We're just showing the kind of top line of your research and clearly, you know there's some read through right in the move we've seen in Oracle this morning. Why is Oracle such a key beneficiary if. If OpenAI is basically able to monetize better, offer more products and particularly strengthen its enterprise business?
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Gil Luria
Yeah, most of the Oracle's backlog is OpenAI, so they're building up their whole infrastructure now for OpenAI. And the reason the stock has performed so poorly over the last few months is that there was a concern that OpenAI wouldn't be able to pay for it. And now things have changed. We got to a point last week where the market decided that Google was the only winner in AI. And you can see that by the relative performance of Google versus the OpenAI complex, which is Microsoft, Nvidia, Oracle and Core Weave. And it got to be too the pendulum swung too far. What's happened is OpenAI has now become more focused on Chad GPT. It's going to start monetizing more through ads within the next couple of weeks. It's going to introduce a much better model that will become state of the art again, will overtake Google's Gemini and importantly, because it now looks like Google is going to win. That created a panic at Microsoft, Amazon and in video, who are now going to invest $100 billion in open AI so they can keep a counterbalance to Google. So with that investment, OpenAI is going to have 100, 140 billion dollars of cash. They'll be able to pay Microsoft and then they'll have money to pay Oracle, which again has the biggest exposure to open AI. That's why we're upgrading today.
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Ed Ludlow
Okay, I appreciate that. Math on what's changed about the situation. Open AI being good for it. You know, that's been a question for a long time. You just had Bloomberg Intelligence's Robert Schiffman. Right. Oracle has been at the heart of this question on debt versus payoff. They've had a lot of demand when they've gone to the market, but we are worried, right? They swung to negative free cash flow. They are taking on a lot of burden. You seem sanguine about that.
- [09:31]
Gil Luria
It's still risky. To be clear, Oracle really painted themselves in a corner when they took on this much business from open air. And there were two risks. One is, would Oracle be able to get the capital to start the build out and the second risk was, would OpenAI have the capital and the wherewithal to pay Oracle for those services? It now looks like Oracle will be successful in the fundraise. It'll cause it'll stretch them, but it looks like they'll be successful. And now it looks like OpenAI will also be successful in their own fundraise, so they'll be able to pay for it. So those two risks that we've had up until really a few weeks ago, up until a couple of weeks ago, really are now look like they're going to go away and Oracle will be able to build the facilities and OpenAI will be able to pay for them.
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Caroline Hyde
Who else benefits in this scenario? Because I'm seeing notes out today saying actually they don't like Nvidia, they don't like amd, I'm talking about links, equities, for example, because they are worried that OpenAI isn't going to be there with a better update with enough conviction to be able to, able to be purchasing the chips that go inside the Oracle data center.
- [10:44]
Gil Luria
Also now it looks like OpenAI will remain in the race for, for at least the foreseeable future. And the two biggest beneficiaries by far are Microsoft and Nvidia. Right? Oracle is a marginal play on open AI because of how much of it is of their exposure. But really, if you look at the stock performance of Google versus Nvidia and Microsoft, that diversion over the last few months is a result of the market deciding Google's one and OpenAI's lost. That is not the case. The race is still on. Which means that that OpenAI will spend the $250 billion on Microsoft, which now has by far the biggest backlog in AI compute. And then Microsoft, Amazon, Google and others will turn around and spend that on Nvidia chips. And so we have Nvidia and Microsoft with the best business they've ever had. For Microsoft maybe in 25 years, for Nvidia forever. They're both trading in the low 20s on earnings which are historically low multiples. So it's a historic opportunity in Nvidia and Microsoft Precisely because OpenAI will stay in the race.
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Caroline Hyde
What's interesting is though that we've heard a lot about the potential of open air having their own chips. Chips, why not more of a Broadcom win? Why do they even stick with Nvidia here?
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Gil Luria
Everybody still needs in video, all this AI compute will overwhelmingly be built on Nvidia chips. There will be some other chips because all these customers of Nvidia want desperately to diversify but they can't do it right now because they're building out their capacity so quickly. Nvidia has the best chip, has the capacity. It works. It's, it's, it's available. Everybody else will start their own chips but the only company that really has made any significant progress on their own chips is Google and that's because they started 10 years ago. That's how long it takes to have a good chip. Ask Amazon. They're five years in and their chip is just starting to get good.
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Caroline Hyde
Didn't look too bad.
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Gil Luria
Microsoft meta Microsoft better and open. I can start building their own chips chips but they're very far away from those being any significant portion of their compute. It's going to be overwhelmingly in video gil area.
- [12:56]
Caroline Hyde
It's always great to have you on the show, Davison. Thanks for bringing us the latest on your research. Meanwhile, coming up, we're going to discuss bitcoin slump, its future in the macroeconomic environment, which I like to putra from Future Perfect Ventures. That's next. This is Bloomberg Tech. Bitcoin when it's slipped back below 70,000. As you can see on the day following a pretty roller coaster ride at the end of last week, a slump from a peak of $126,000 in October last year, remember, which comes in spite of crypto friendly White House surging institutional adoption. Let's just set the scene with Bloomberg's cross asset reporter Isabelli. Often on the weekend there's thinner liquidity. So we see bigger moves and it seemed to be to the upside. It could be to the upside but to the downside as well. But now we saw bitcoin kind of steadying, which is great because it's now hovering around 69,000, which is a big sigh of relief. Last week it dipped below as much as $60,000 and that 16% decline was a lot because there said there's a gauge of implied volatility index. It jumped to 97% which is the highest since the Sam Bankman fried RTX days in 2022. But beyond the price movement, I think it's really just about a reckoning. What is bitcoin? Is it a hedge against inflation, a hedge against government against a hedge against the dollar? And I feel like a lot of people are feeling confused.
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Ed Ludlow
Isabel, what's the flows data, the most recent flows data telling us we are.
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Caroline Hyde
Seeing some inflows at least with US Bitcoin ETFs. They recorded an inflow of 221 million on February6. So you could think of that as maybe optimism again or maybe just dip buying. But then still it's really kind of, at least to the people I talk to, they're like, what is this? It's a structural change. It's a philosophical change. I want to dip more into the structural because we, we know that bitcoin is kind of being institutionalized and this may in itself be the problem because on October 10th, fondly known as 1010, that's when we saw billions of dollars liquidated because of leverage and derivative trades. And last week we also saw the same $2.5 billion in forced liquidations, according to Coin Glass. So maybe bitcoin is also kind of possibly becoming a victim of its own success.
- [15:09]
Ed Ludlow
Bloomberg's Isabel Lee, terrific reporting. Thank you very much. Let's keep the discussion going, which I like. Your Ben Putra, founder and managing partner of Future Perfect Ventures, early stage VC firm focused on cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. Something identified in the Bloomberg story that Isabel was just discussing is that all of this has been happening in an environment where we have an administration and policymakers who are perceived to be more supportive of the underlying technology and the industry than prior administrations. Why would would this movement and this market action happen, therefore, in that environment?
- [15:49]
Ben Putra
Well, Isabel pointed to the maturation of Bitcoin. And while we have a very friendly administration, a lot of that was priced in, into that run up that we saw to the 126,000. And we're really seeing Bitcoin act more like a risk risk asset these days rather than that digital gold narrative that we saw in the earlier days of bitcoin. And I'd also point to there's a market structure bill previously known as the Clarity act that is still under consideration in the Senate. So that has not moved quickly as those of us in the industry had hoped. And I think that's causing a little uncertainty around what the guardrails around bitcoin and other crypto assets are going to be.
- [16:39]
Ed Ludlow
The words that Isabel Lee just outlined are ringing in my head. What is this? Is this structural or is this philosophical? That is one of the great sound bites. Good job as well. But it is a question that comes up a lot. Maybe we should phone David Sachs Tax and, and ask him to your point about the progress of this bill. But again, you mentioned the structural part. What is the philosophical part Isabel was alluding to?
- [17:02]
Ben Putra
Well, the philosophical part, and I've been invested in the sector since 2013 is in the early days you had a lot of long term holders, people who believed in the self sovereign currency, the self sovereign asset that was not controlled by any government and, and was particularly useful to those people in hyperinflationary environments. So that's where that digital gold narrative came, where it was be a hedge. And what we've seen now and as Isabel said, it could be a victim of its own success. I don't quite say it's a victim quite yet, but we're seeing more institutional holding. And so the institutions have determined that this will be more of a risk asset. It will trade more in tune with asset assets like tech stocks, not commodities. And, and so that's where that philosophical divide has happened. You know it's, it's great that we have more institutions, we have more acceptance of the sector of Bitcoin as an asset class. But it may not hold as that digital goal narrative or it may hold as that narrative in emerging markets and not in developed markets.
- [18:14]
Caroline Hyde
Jack, does that matter to your investments? Were you building on Bitcoin as the OG and as rails to future infrastructure? Are you broader thinking? Actually we don't need Bitcoin in and of itself to remain a buy and hold asset. I'm more interested in the underlying technology, to use an overused phrase. I'm more interested in the stablecoin side of the equation.
- [18:35]
Ben Putra
Right. When I first saw Bitcoin I was really interested in it as a self sovereign currency. Having been raised in emerging markets, however, I was even more excited by blockchain technology. So this concept of having data or assets on chain that could create more efficiency in the trading of data. So if you're going to step away and look at AI and we look at AI agents and for them to communicate and transact with each other, it's much more efficient if they can do it in an on chain environment. Now that's much further. In the future we're starting to see tokenized securities, we're starting to see real world assets. So private credit going on chain, we're seeing money market funds go on chain and we're going to continue to see already regulated assets moving on chain. ICE from the New York Stock Exchange has, has talked about their initiatives is around tokenized equities. So that's all happening regardless of what happens to the bitcoin price. So we're really seeing the financial infrastructure being rebuilt by blockchain technology which also powers Bitcoin. I don't think either is going away. I think we just have to separate the two. And of no stablecoins which are run on on chain. Those were regulated by the Genius act which passed last year and then we've seen a proliferation of activity in that sector. So July because of that regulation, do.
- [20:13]
Caroline Hyde
You continue to call yourself a crypto first VC briefly or do you become an AI vc?
- [20:19]
Ben Putra
Well, our thesis has always been around the intersection of blockchain crypto assets and AI forming the basis of the next Internet. And we've seen the development of these different areas at different times. I think they're all very important to our future. I think that crypto side may take a bit longer to really form or validate itself in that narrative.
- [20:44]
Caroline Hyde
Jill Act Job and Putra A Future Perfect Ventures. We appreciate it, thank you. Now coming up, Apple prepares for an update to its iPhone, its iPads, its maps. More on that next. This is Bloomberg Tech.
- [20:59]
Michael McDermott
How do you shift AI from being a flashy feature to a trusted partner in consumers everyday lives on the ground at CES Bloomberg Media Studios? Asked Michael McDermott, EVP of Samsung Our 2026 vision is built around an AI companion. It understands you and responds intuitively. This intelligence works quietly in the background across TVs, home office appliances and mobile devices. By putting AI at the center of everything we do, we're simply improving everyday life for everyone everywhere. Support for the show comes from public 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 completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com market and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com market 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@charmin we.
- [22:38]
Caroline Hyde
Heard you shouldn't talk about going to the bathroom in public, so we decided to sing about it.
- [22:43]
Michael McDermott
Light a candle, pour some wine, grab a roll, the soft kind for a little me time Charmin Ultra Soft Smooth Tear Wavy edges for my rear so let the softness caress your soul. Just relax, you're on a roll.
- [22:58]
Ben Putra
Let her rip.
- [22:59]
Ed Ludlow
Charmin Ultra Soft Smooth Tan Charmin Ultra.
- [23:02]
Caroline Hyde
Soft Smooth Tear has the same softness you love now with wavy edges that tear better than the leading one Ply Brand. Enjoy the go with Charmin.
- [23:14]
Ed Ludlow
Apple is set to debut a slew of the coming weeks, including a new iPhone 17 and updated iPads and Macs. Here with a breakdown, Bloomberg's Apple and consumer Tech editor Mark Gurman the Power on Drop Sunday and you basically give us the product release roadmap for the early part of this year. What do we need to know? Yes, there's a new iPhone coming pretty imminently in the next few weeks. It's the iPhone 17e. It's a successor to the 16e that launched about a year ago last year. This new version version is going to have the same chip as the iPhone 17. So moving from the A18 to the A19. And it addresses one of the quirks of the first model, which was the lack of MagSafe, which means no magnetic wireless charging within Apple's MagSafe ecosystem. So that's coming as well. Also an updated in house modem and updated in house wireless chip to match the iPhone Air from September. You're also going to see some new iPads in the next month or so that includes a new version of the iPad air with the M4 chip. So a bit of a faster processor. They're matching the iPad Pro skew from 2024. And then you're also going to see a new entry level iPad moving to the A18 chip. Now why is that significant? It'll be the first iPad from the entry level batch to support Apple Intelligence. And you're also going to see new high end MacBook Pros and MacBook Airs in the coming months as well. So a lot to like if you're into new low end iPhones, iPads, ads as well as MacBooks.
- [24:47]
Caroline Hyde
So who's into it? Mark, on that note, I can see a lower price point being attractive. It's interesting that you are pushing forward the the view that enterprises might well be interested.
- [24:57]
Ed Ludlow
Yeah, two tent poles this year for Apple education and enterprise. Apple is I would say tripling down on moving units into both of those segments. They have a lot of the consumers already. They're trying to break into other areas that they've struggled to break into in the past. And all of these products have price points and feature sets that are going to be heavily applicable business use cases and bulk purchases. Also, a low cost Mac book with an iPhone chip coming as well. This will be sub $800. So this is going to be pretty fancy and compelling for both those segments as well. Mark, I'm running a 2019, 2020 Mac with an M1 chip just on the Mac part, like update. Right. Time to upgrade. You have 30 seconds. Why? Well, because your laptop is seven years old. Time to get a new one. But now in reality is that the chips, the chips have gotten much more advanced. They have AI capabilities now, better graphics processors. So if you're on an M1 machine or intel machine, definitely think about getting something new. I'm on an M1 myself and I'm looking forward to the touchscreen MacBook Pro overhaul coming in the fall. So that'll be pretty nifty as well.
- [26:04]
Caroline Hyde
Get on. Ed Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, so great to have you on. Thank you very much indeed. Now coming up up, investors look beyond the data center play. Apparently. Carol Schlife of FEMA Private wealth joins us. See how she's looking past them. Is it Bloomberg Tech?
- [26:30]
Ed Ludlow
Welcome back to Bloomberg Tech. I'm zeroed in on the chip sector in the session. So far the Philadelphia semiconductor index or stocks has swung from a decline of about 1% at the Open to a gain of now 1.6%. Really it's in video as the biggest points gainer that's pushing higher. And there was a lot over the weekend about how confident Nvidia is right now in the infrastructure build out. One of the laggards though is micron, down 2.5%. There was a report over the weekend. We'll bring you the details later in the show that Samsung, its rival in high bandwidth memory, is going to start shipping latest gen to Nvidia this month. Our own colleagues at Bloomberg Intelligence have weighed in this morning saying that actually what's going on with Micron and high bandwidth latest generation 4 is kind of muted. But right now that seems to be a story in the market. And again, bring you those deets a little bit later in the program.
- [27:19]
Caroline Hyde
Yeah, you're looking at the hardware. Let's go more broad and look at software and all parts of big tech, the movers therein. Bloomberg TV markets correspondent Nora Melinda as well us not take us away because it was a volatile previous week. How this week started. Last week was quite the week.
- [27:33]
Ben Putra
I mean we're looking at this week.
- [27:34]
Caroline Hyde
We're seeing the NASDAQ 100 rebounding for a second stay in a row we're also seeing a lot of those software stocks rebounding. I'm taking a look at Applovin. We've got Palantir in focus.
- [27:43]
Ben Putra
Microsoft.
- [27:44]
Caroline Hyde
As I'm speaking to my sources we're hearing that people are really trying to buy the dip. They're really trying to figure out where the risks are in this market and figure out where to best position themselves selves now.
- [27:54]
Ben Putra
So we are seeing app 11 in particular.
- [27:55]
Caroline Hyde
We did see that Citi did mention that their E Commerce clients are up about 3% from the prior week. So that of course is also booing the shares in particular. But we really are seeing these stocks trying to map out chart a turnaround story here as a lot of people.
- [28:10]
Ben Putra
Are trying to figure out which stocks.
- [28:11]
Caroline Hyde
Maybe perhaps have the least exposure to some of these risks that we've really been seeing laid out last week.
- [28:16]
Ben Putra
And people are really seeing Microsoft for instance. If we think about that them as.
- [28:19]
Caroline Hyde
A potential bellwether in this space, it really shows that this rally isn't necessarily.
- [28:23]
Ben Putra
Just exclusive to software stocks but really.
- [28:25]
Caroline Hyde
Just a broad based rebound for all of tech.
- [28:31]
Ed Ludlow
Laura Belinda with the markets wrap Microsoft up 3%. I don't know like I'm trying to think that the anxiety that I was so zeroed in on at the end of last week faded with the Super Bowl. The technology story is broadening, expanding past just AI and data center centers. In a recent note, Carol Schleife, chief market strategist at BMO Private wealth, writes that the real focus is shifting to who's using the technology and how it's being applied. She adds that rising M and A activity, IPOs and ongoing innovation could help fuel continued interest and momentum in the year ahead. Carol joins us now. I want to start with the shift part and we'll get to IPOs because of course it's been a big story for us here on the show through what is it that you're seeing in a shift? You're seeing the psychology of the market shift, you're seeing the attention of the market shift or you're seeing people's understanding shift. Which is it?
- [29:23]
Ben Putra
I think it's, it's a piece of all of those things because it's a natural evolution. You know when, when we first hear an innovation to take it back to when Chat CBT was first announced a couple of years ago and then the deep SEQ as well. Investors figure out what's my shorthand way to, to play this. But it's really more impactful from that and getting investors, particularly our Longer term oriented clients focused on the issue that we're building infrastructure in the United States. It's putting capital investment in which we haven't done actually in a big macro way in a very long period of time. And it's teeing up all of these really important evolutions. And you've got a lot of recent examples, for example in the, in the health care industry where you've had Lulian and Video announce a joint venture, you had Mayo Clinic and Nvidia announced a joint venture in terms of processing that data and how science will be done and how diagnostic imaging will be done. And those use cases are getting investors to focus more on those. But it's tough from an investor standpoint because they want to what can I buy today that's going to be higher by the end of the week?
- [30:29]
Ed Ludlow
Carol, you heard Bloom as Norma Linda kind of outline the event events of the last five days, you know, Friday. We always say like one session a market does not make. But clearly there are some deep rooted concerns that corners of the technology industry that is kind of like legacy software are at severe risk here. Does your research reflect that as well?
- [30:52]
Ben Putra
I think the issue is it's, it's also important to remember from a use case scenario, it's not like big corporations are, even medium sized corporations can ditch the software they had. People aren't going to give up their client service processing or their routines. It takes a while to get that stuff iterated in. And I heard one of our analysts this morning just talking about it's not like someone sitting at the kitchen table is going to replace a lot of that macro software that we've been using. But a repricing of do you discount the kinds of growth rates they've seen for 30 years or is it at five or 10 years? That's partly what the markets are trying to deal with too is figuring out how does this go forward. And similar to the first Internet build out in 95 to 2000, you have that iteration where everyone's trying to figure out how to use it. And it's those companies, those management industries that can lean into the fact that there's a lot of change. How are we going to participate in IT versus sit back and let it be done to them.
- [31:52]
Caroline Hyde
Do your clients want to sit back and let it be done to them or do they want to buy?
- [31:57]
Ben Putra
I think they're trying to figure out how to participate in it. And we've been warning for some period of time that you needed to see a broadening in the markets because hanging everything on six or seven stocks is not healthy in the long run. And we had talked about and given them a heads up that some of that transition may be volatile doesn't mean that that people have to sell the 7 and go buy the 493. It can mean the 7 broad now or flatten out if you will and the others catch up, do some catch up. So we've been warning clients about that volatility and our clients tend to be pretty sanguine if you will about that in terms of letting us do repositioning as, as prices are up. And you know, investing is one of those activities where it's more comfortable to run with the crowd which is typically the wrong situation to have from a long term term standpoint.
- [32:47]
Caroline Hyde
And what we always do is get sucked into just talking about equities a lot because therein lies the price point. But the bond market's exciting as well. We've got huge amount on deck. When you think about Alphabet tapping, we had Oracle last week. We've got plenty more. I'm sure to come. Is that an area that you're seeing, more diversification coming, more interesting corporate debt as well?
- [33:06]
Ben Putra
Well, I think there is the interesting corporate debt but it's also important to remember that technology in general has prided themselves on how under levered they've been. So coming up to using some of that cash flow or balancing off and in reserving some cash flow and accessing the debt market and it's higher quality debt so there's that piece of it too. There's a lot of different ways to play this and not just the focus on technology itself, but who's making the best use cases of it and who has the most potential. You're seeing small and mid cap stocks really play too because they don't get all locked up in having to approve new software per se. They really can lean into leapfrogging some of the advances that they have access to now.
- [33:48]
Caroline Hyde
Carolyn Keeping us diversified. We appreciate it. BMO private wealth now. Coming up, tech dominates the super bowl ad space. Did you notice I was definitely in focus that discussion. Next is Bloomberg Tech.
- [34:05]
Michael McDermott
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Caroline Hyde
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Michael McDermott
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- [35:36]
Caroline Hyde
Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done. An Australian AI startup backed by Nvidia just secured a $10 billion loan from a group that includes Blackstone led funds to boost its datacenter rollout. Now it's one of the country's largest private credit finance financings. Called Firmness Technologies, the startup plans to construct data centers with a combined capacity of up to 1.6 gigawatts across Australia by 2028.
- [36:12]
Ed Ludlow
Okay to the private markets. And Fropic is finalizing the details of a funding round of more than $20 billion, which would nearly double its valuation to $350 billion. Let's get the details. Bloomberg's venture capital reporter Natasha Mascare Reinas here in SF. This is something we broke just before the weekend, chased over the weekend and we think it's coming this week, right? Where are they at?
- [36:33]
Caroline Hyde
Yeah, I mean exactly a month ago Anthropic came out of the gate targeting around 10 billion. Now we're seeing that amount could go even higher than 20 billion. And this is not just a funding round that's going to include money from Nvidia and Microsoft, although they are expecting to put up to 15 billion into the company. This is around where traditional investors investors are actually putting in new money into the deal as well. We're thinking Menlo Lightspeed, Altimeter Sequoia it runs the gamut. It's interesting that you didn't mention that the typical crossover funds as well, Natasha. And we are all bracing for Anthropic and indeed key rival open AI to be tapping the public market at some point this year. Exactly. It's actually a fascinating example of how investors are thinking about a company, company, two companies really, to your point, and investing in them before that initial public debut. So this time we're also seeing Anthropic line up investors for an employee tender which will give employees a chance to liquidate some of their equity holdings and again cash out before a future public offering. Natasha Mascarenez, it's got to be a busy week for you. We say. Appreciate you starting it with us. Meanwhile, it was busy with this year's Super Super Bowl. Ads leaned heavily into AI, of course, with tech companies using the big stage to showcase their latest tools and ideas. Now, according to analytics firm Edo I.com led the pack in consumer engagement, generating roughly 9.1 times the interaction of a median super bowl ad. Joining us now to break it all down is Kevin Crumb. He's president and CEO of edo. What's more, Bird's eye perspective is that tech dominated just the ad ad spend, the ad that were out there.
- [38:12]
Michael McDermott
It was the tech Super Bowl. I mean, Carolina, it was absolutely groundbreaking to see more AI product ads than there were combined automotive and beer ads. The stalwarts of your typical Super bowl I.com gains traction.
- [38:29]
Ben Putra
Why?
- [38:30]
Caroline Hyde
Because no one understands what it actually is. I mean, we now peel back the onion and understand it's the guy who made his money in crypto.com has bought this very expensive website and now wanting us to all put our details into it and have an agent of the future. But, but what was the recipe for getting us to convert?
- [38:45]
Michael McDermott
Well, there's this heated rivalry going on between anthropic and open AI. And then suddenly this dark horse I.com that no one had heard of comes in and is trolling both of them along with Mark Zuckerberg mentioning, you know, all these folks by name. And what you've got is that perfect formula of introducing something totally new to people. But it's completely on trend. This was the super bowl and so it surprised people. It caught people eye and they went, they crashed the website. It was down for many minutes after, after that ad aired and finally came back online. But what I think you saw just writ large was two things going on in the Super Bowl. And we at edo, we're measuring the outcomes generated by these ads. And you saw people either engaging with new technology that could change their lives, whether it was AI or health care. There was a lot of pharma and diagnostic tests being promoted that all did well and or you saw people going back to the, to the tried and true nostalgia, heartwarming celebrity driven pieces. Those were the things that worked.
- [39:49]
Ed Ludlow
What's so interesting about the technology piece of this is, is what was being advertised. Right. So there's a lot on social media about the who's who of tech being in attendance at the super bowl or talking up their own ads. There are also some, some fake ads. But my main point, these are like enterprise facing things B2B when you measure the engagement or outcomes. Like how can we gauge if these were successful pieces of business at the enterprise level that those companies put in place?
- [40:18]
Michael McDermott
Yeah, so we're, what we're measuring is, is we're looking at how many people searched for the brand, went to the brand's website, used the brand's app in the minutes following these ads on tv. And it's highly predictive of very correlated with changes in market share, changes in sales, enterprise. It's an interesting way to market. You've got to find needles and haystacks. But this is by far the world's biggest haystack. It's the most engaged audience you can find. You couldn't replicate this kind of audience through targeted digital advertising over a month or many months, even if you spent tens of millions of dollars like it costs to advertise in the Super Bowl. So for those folks with an enterprise message, it's still one of the best ways, most cost efficient ways, ironically to reach those kinds of high end audiences. And the game being as you mentioned in the Bay Area, in the home of tech, that much better.
- [41:11]
Ed Ludlow
Kevin, I was, was big, right? But so was pharma. Big pharma. You know, as I sat on my couch watching, that's something that struck me. What's the data behind that place?
- [41:21]
Michael McDermott
It mattered a lot to the, to the people watching to see Novo Nordisk promoting its Wegovy pill. That was one of our top 20 most engaging ads of the game. A very big performance for a, for a pharmaceutical brand. You also had hims and hers with a edgier message late in the game, which is was a challenging placement overall given that the game wasn't that competitive at that point. And yet hims and hers performed very well and was also one of our top 20 most performant ads in the game. Obviously they're both in the news today with Novo Nordisk suing hims and hers.
- [41:59]
Caroline Hyde
It's a hard one, Kevin, but you're idiot is all about TV advertising. How much do we think actually is just driven onto online in these moments? You hear that maybe someone caught an ad and you then go and look at it on YouTube. How are we being distinct about where they've put their money to work?
- [42:16]
Gil Luria
Right.
- [42:16]
Michael McDermott
Well, what we're seeing is that the 21st century consumer lives their lives online. And so whether they're watching traditional TV or streaming television or social video, it triggers these online digital behaviors. That is is the customer journey in the 21st century. And so by picking up these signals, you're able to really predict what's going to happen in your business going forward. Now, should marketers be spending more or less in TV or social video or other media? I mean, that is why companies like ours exist, is to help them find that right balance. The right marketers though, they know that there's moments to get a big audience, highly engaged stage like the super bowl, and then there's moments to go with hyper targeting. And the right balance typically is what we see does the best.
- [43:00]
Caroline Hyde
But they also know probably and why we see nostalgia, where we see Ben Affleck, why we see, you know, the idea of Gen X and millennial viewers is that basically what the super bowl is, it's targeting like the 40 year old or something.
- [43:13]
Michael McDermott
I what it really shows is that boomers, they're out of the sweet spot of economic power in it's Gen Xers and Gen Y, the, you know, those, those kind of younger Gen X ers like me, the aging millennials who are right behind me, we're in the sweet spot of economic power and marketers know that. And so they're talking to us. The nostalgia that was quite effective in this game, it was all about late 80s to early 2000s, Jurassic park, all the Backstreet Boys. Twice you had that kind of effect. We had Bon Jovi. So several times Green Day kicked off the game. It was, it was targeted at us.
- [43:51]
Ed Ludlow
The one thing that a lot of people struggle to understand is with some of the bigger ads from some of the bigger technology companies, a lot of them were released in advance of the Super Bowl. Right. They're posted wherever they're posted. What's the strategy behind that?
- [44:04]
Michael McDermott
There's a lot of debate about what the right release strategy is. We find that any one of them can work. But surprises tend to do the best. If you're introducing a new product, teases of a fun idea where you're building on the idea on social but leading to a real unveil at the super bowl that's also quite effective. Less effective is just put it all out there a week ahead of time and then expect a pop at the Super Bowl. It tends to not work as well that way.
- [44:35]
Ed Ludlow
Kevin Craig, CEO of Edo and a long time ago also I should say was global head of Digital at Bloomberg. Thank you very much. Now coming up, Workday's co founder comes back for the top job at the company, effective immediately. We have that surprise news next. This is Bloomberg Tech.
- [45:01]
Caroline Hyde
Time now for talking tech. First up, Matter is facing a warning from the the eu. Now the social media giant is under scrutiny over policies that restrict the use of rival AI assistance on WhatsApp. And the European Commission has issued a statement of objections cautioning that it may step in to prevent what it described as serious and irreparable harm to the market. Now Bloomberg's Francine Lacqua sat down with the European Commission Executive VP Theresa Ribera. Take a listen. I don't know how it may be read by any government but but my.
- [45:30]
Ben Putra
Sense is that this is not connected to politics but connected to well functioning markets and protection of consumers.
- [45:39]
Caroline Hyde
Plus former Apple design chief Jony I've is unveiled a car co designed with Ferrari called the Ferrari Luci. It features tactile switches, physical controls, aluminum details and steering wheel and air vents. Now the design is deliberately moving away from a screen heavy aesthetic and embracing what I've described as a more physical world approach. And ByteDance while it's turning heads with its latest video model, the TikTok parent just rolled out Sea Dance 2.0 and the quality of the clips has surprised both analysts and industry watchers. Now the launch has generated plenty of buzz and helped lift shares across China's media and app space.
- [46:16]
Ed Ludlow
At okay, some news. Workday co founder and current executive chair Anil Basri is returning as CEO. He's replacing Carl Eschenbach with the change effective immediately. The news comes just days after work. Workday announces cutting about 400 jobs. Who's across it? Bloomberg's Brody Ford. It's the Monday after the Super Bowl. The phone rings 5am the editor saying Brody, get to your desk. Work day. What do we need to know? I mean this is a stock that's reacted negatively to the news but has been on a sly for some months out.
- [46:50]
Michael McDermott
You need to know it's a really tough time to be an application software company, right? I mean whether you're Salesforce or Adobe or Workday, you can put up pretty good numbers. You can say that a lot of people are using your AI tools but right now Wall street is just not going to believe you. And that's what's been happening with workday. I mean they're down 40% over the last year before this event today and it seemed they said we need to show and we need, need to make a step toward a more product focused company. Maybe the last guy who we thought was going to lead us to a new era was seen as too salesy. We need somebody who's really going to focus on that air and and so.
- [47:27]
Caroline Hyde
Is it right to go back to the co founder Brody, how does the market interpret that?
- [47:32]
Michael McDermott
I think no matter who they picked right now, the market wouldn't have loved it right now. I think if you do anything that's not exceptional, exceptionally and unambiguously positive, the market wants to sell application software stocks. I mean the founder is a familiar face. I have seen some questions around if you want to lead a company into a new era, do you want to go back to the same person? There's arguments both ways but clearly investors are not stoked.
- [48:00]
Ed Ludlow
The stock trading at its lowest level since November 2022. Quite, quite rightly, I'm going to ask ask you what is workday and what does it do?
- [48:09]
Michael McDermott
Right? Well when you look up your benefits for, you know, health care or vision, you're probably logging into a workday system no matter what company you work for. So their core application is for human resource management. But of course like everybody else, they want to expand into agents and other parts of the software stack.
- [48:27]
Caroline Hyde
And we also know who's expanding into agents and the enterprise area for Jody Ford, thank you so much.
- [48:33]
Michael McDermott
Thank you.
- [48:34]
Caroline Hyde
That does it. From this edition of Bloomberg Tech. We and we've got a big week ahead. There's yet more earnings think of fast but the bond sales that can come too. And we did it all today.
- [48:43]
Ed Ludlow
Yeah, like Big Tech has looked at debt to fund capex and as Robert Schiffman outlined and recap it on the podcast, it was a good conversation. You know, that's okay. It's a good way of managing capital for them. Do recap the podcast. You know where to find it. It's on the Bloomberg terminal, it's online, it's on Apple, Spotify and Iheart. From San Francisco and from New York, this is Bloomberg Tech.