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- [00:03]
Lisa Mateo
Hi, I'm Lisa Mateo introducing you to the new Stock Movers Report from Bloomberg. These are short audio reports, five minutes or less, delivered right to your podcast feed. Throughout the day, Stock Movers fills you in on the day's winners and losers on Wall street and tells you about the news and data that's driving those gains and losses. If you want to stay plugged into.
- [00:25]
Tiffany Wade
The stock market but don't want to.
- [00:26]
Lisa Mateo
Spend all day watching tickers scroll across your screen, then Stock Movers is a.
- [00:31]
Tiffany Wade
Place for to get informed.
- [00:34]
Lisa Mateo
Listen a couple times throughout the day to find out what's moving equities and why.
- [00:39]
Tiffany Wade
Search for Stock Movers on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or anywhere else you listen.
- [00:45]
Lisa Mateo
Get the latest stock news and data backed by reporting from Bloomberg's 3,000 journalists.
- [00:51]
Tiffany Wade
And analysts across the globe.
- [00:53]
Lisa Mateo
Subscribe to Stock Movers wherever you get your podcasts. Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts radio news from the heart of where innovation, money and power collide in Silicon Valley and beyond. This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow. Live from New York, I'm Caroline Hyde.
- [01:37]
Caroline Hyde
And I can stand a Back in San Francisco, this is Bloomberg Technology.
- [01:41]
Lisa Mateo
Coming up, all eyes on Nvidia as the tech community gears up for the company's GTC conference this week, we'll discuss what investors expect. Plus our conversation with FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson on how it's prioritizing big tech and two NASA astronauts will soon soon return to Earth aboard a Space X Dragon capsule after more than nine months stuck in space. But first we return to this particular area of the world and we check in on the markets. We're off by a tenth of a percent on the NASDAQ 100. We've been flip flopping between gains and losses, but ultimately underwater after what had been a stellar rally on Friday. But the points drags to the downside are significant. You've got Tesla, Apple, Amazon, Broadcom, Metam, MicroStrategy, Google. But Nvidia a key one as well. The biggest points drag on the day off by some 28 points, dragging the Nasdaq 100 lower as we see in video. Just seeing a little bit of cautious trading of course, ahead of the all important GTC event this week. What can Jensen Huang articulate to steady nerves? Off by 1.8%, Tim well, as you.
- [02:44]
Caroline Hyde
Mentioned, Nvidia shares are lower. The company kicking off its annual GTC conference this week. Investors are focused in on CEO Jensen Huang's keynote set to be delivered tomorrow. For what we can expect, Bloomberg's Carmen Reinecke Joins us now. Carmen, good to see you. What does Jensen need to do tomorrow? What does he need to tell investors to show that earnings haven't peaked and growth hasn't peaked?
- [03:04]
Tiffany Wade
Yeah, those are really the key things. I think what investors are looking for is that demand is good, that they're seeing people wanting to buy, you know, the next iteration of chips. They're Blackwell. And that ultimately Nvidia sees a ton of growth ahead, that they're still at the forefront of the trade, that they're seeing things that are, that are good, that there's growth in the future.
- [03:25]
Lisa Mateo
My question though is what more can he say that he didn't get across in his earnings? He tried to talk about that future, about the next scaling laws that are upon us, but it didn't refuel re galvanize the trend higher for the stock.
- [03:37]
Tiffany Wade
I think that's a really good point. I think something that investors are looking for is maybe more information on the macro level. I think that they'll potentially be looking for anything that can be said about China, the impact there. And I think that there are also things outside of just chips that investors might be looking for. You know, hearing Jensen speak about things like robotics and, you know, autonomous driving and other parts, you know, just of the overall market where Nvidia chips could be used. I mean, health care, you know, there are just so many instances in which I could benefit different sectors and companies. So I think that that very future sort of view is something that people are really looking for. And we might also get, you know, a little bit more information on gross margins. That was something that was very top of mind for investors coming off of the earnings. And so any clarity or optimism that Jensen could give there may also really lift the stock.
- [04:32]
Lisa Mateo
We thank you. Common Ranicke on all things in video. Can he vindicate the valuation? Let's talk about these valuations and broader tech markets. Tiffany Wade is with us. Columbia Threadneedle, senior portfolio manager. And we try to take stock of the sell off that's already occurred that we've seen tumbling 10% so far this year, for example, like an Nvidia, but we're trading at 26 times future earnings. Are these valuations more attractive yet? Are we still trying to catch a falling knife?
- [04:57]
Tiffany Wade
I think we're starting to see the valuations for certain stocks are more attractive. If you think about Nvidia, for example, it's trading significantly cheaper than where it has been for the last couple of years. And it's trading significantly cheaper than other parts of the market like Staples while growing much faster. So there's certainly some areas of the market, you know, certainly within tech that have sold off quite a bit over the last couple of weeks. So we think the valuations do look.
- [05:17]
Caroline Hyde
Attractive, Friday's move notwithstanding. But we're still down significantly from all time. Highs hit earlier this year on the major indices. Do you think this is the end of the pullback, Tiffany, or is there more room to move lower?
- [05:31]
Tiffany Wade
I think we're getting close to the end of the pullback, at least for the short term. So I think, you know, in the near term we might be able to see a bit of a bounce in the market. But in order for us to see sort of longer term sustainability of that bounce, I need, I think we need to see some, some resolution of policy uncertainty right now.
- [05:49]
Lisa Mateo
Many wondering when we might get that. And that doesn't see certainty, doesn't seem to be bothering ultimately the administration in terms of giving that to the markets at least. What does therefore a long term investor decide when it comes to China for example, at the moment and whether or not you want globally focused stocks or whether you want actually US focused stocks right now?
- [06:09]
Tiffany Wade
Yeah, I think you need to focus on the fundamentals of the names. What, you know, what are the opportunities for the stocks. Certainly within the U.S. outside of the U.S. there's a lot more enthusiasm for stocks that are based in Europe right now. But I think we need to focus on the fundamentals, you know, even with the policy uncertainty and look through some of this to, to what the longer term picture is.
- [06:30]
Lisa Mateo
Fundamentals, many would say haven't changed in the last few weeks, despite the never ending ceaseless sell off. So from your perspective, has it been a just weighed out this sort of volatility and what fundamentals do you try and focus in on?
- [06:44]
Tiffany Wade
Yeah, I think companies are seeing a bit of a change in the fundamentals. If we do see tariffs being enacted right now, a lot of companies are kind of sitting on their hands for the year waiting to see what the policies will be and how those might impact their costs for the year. So I think there's a lot of waiting and seeing in terms of companies deciding how to deploy their budgets for the year. But you're right, I think for the most part the fundamentals haven't changed. What could cause a change in the fundamentals is if we see a very long drawn out period of policy uncertainty that leads to lower consumer spending, lower corporate spending, which then impacts economic growth.
- [07:21]
Caroline Hyde
Okay, so let's talk a little bit about that Tiffany, because this Administration doesn't seem that bothered about this sell off. Scott Besson said as much yesterday, President Trump saying as much the weekend before. Are you confident that this administration can implement these pro growth policies that it keeps talking about? It's saying to investors essentially, patience, patience. When we figure out tax cuts, when we push those through, when we get companies to start making stuff here in the US Again, everything will be fine.
- [07:45]
Tiffany Wade
I do think that we see policies out of the administration that are potentially pro growth and are balancing some of the the other policies like higher tariffs that might impact pricing, inflation and consumer spending. But again, I think it comes down to the uncertainty around tariffs, doge some of the other policies. And if we can get some certainty, then I think we see a resumption of consumer and corporate spending and companies, you know, for, for the most part have plans on how they would offset tariffs which might impact some consumer pricing. But, but overall I think the consumer is still strong. So I really think it comes down to that uncertainty which is causing a lot of consumers and corporates to be on hold for the moment.
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Andrew Ferguson
Okay.
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Caroline Hyde
So it raises the question of the Federal Reserve and what the Federal Reserve will do this week. Of course, the policy meeting kicking off tomorrow. We'll hear from Jay Powell on Wednesday. What's the needle that he actually has to thread in providing an outlook and communicating for the remainder of the year what Fed policy looks like?
- [08:43]
Tiffany Wade
Yeah, I think there's a chance that we see some changes to Fed policy, maybe some lower rates in the second half of the year. But for right now, there's still a lot of indicators that the economy is still strong and that inflation is coming down, but is not yet totally tamed. So he certainly has to walk a fine line between acknowledging that we're seeing some signs of things like higher unemployment rates, maybe some lower consumer spending in the near term. But overall, the key indicators that they look at are still not indicating that it's maybe time for them to move in terms of policy quite yet.
- [09:16]
Lisa Mateo
Tiffany, I remember back in November of last year when we knew the administration was going to be new but hadn't come in, you were articulating how you thought really tariffs aware it's going to be the pressure point for tech, but also regulatory stances. How do you feel that this current administration feels about big tech and ultimately some of the antitrust weight that's on a matter on an Alphabet, on a Microsoft?
- [09:38]
Tiffany Wade
Yeah, I think it's unclear. We haven't seen a lot of regulatory changes around from this administration. I think one thing we have heard from them is that in terms of things like M and A, they want to make the process a lot smoother for companies. So that may not be helpful for the big tech names, which might be under scrutiny still for, for any type of M and A. But I think that they are trying to be a little bit more favorable or, you know, more helpful for companies that are looking to do any sort of corporate action by at least, you know, speeding up the process.
- [10:07]
Caroline Hyde
Tiffany Wade of Columbia Threadneedle joining us on a set in New York City, thanks so much. Well, China's Internet search leader Baidu released a new AI model that articulates its reasoning in an apparent bid to regain momentum against rivals like Deep Seek. The company says its new model, called Ernie X1, excels in areas like daily dialogues, complex calculations, and logical deduction.
- [10:38]
Lisa Mateo
The FTC is not taking its foot off the gas when it comes to enforcement action. Now, that's according to its chairman, Andrew Ferguson. We sat down with him earlier today to discuss the FTC's mission under the second Trump administration and how he will approach dealing with big tech. Just take a listen.
- [10:54]
Andrew Ferguson
I think if you are a big tech company, you should be getting your lawyers to give you great advice on complying with our competition and consumer protection laws. Look, I don't have a particular ax to grind within the industry, but I do think it's very important that the FTC devote its resources to the markets that Americans most frequently engage with. It's not just big tech, although that's definitely one of them. It's also health care and it's protecting American as laborers. But no matter who you are, I think it's important to proceed like the FTC is a vigilant cop on the beat. We're surveying the markets. We're looking for competition problems. We're looking for violation of the consumer protection laws. And if we think they're there, we're going to go to court. But most importantly, if we don't think that there are problems, it's really important for the FTC to get out of the way. Again. One of the most consistent complaints that I've heard about the previous administration was a lack of certainty and a tendency to want to do a lot of regulating the ftc. We're not regulators. We're cops on the beat. We police for competition problems and consumer protection problems, but we're not trying to regulate the economy. We want to create economic conditions that allow companies to innovate, to grow, and to help lift the whole country out of this debt. Crisis and bring about the golden age that President Trump, Trump has promised. The American people talk about striking that.
- [12:17]
Lisa Mateo
Balance because many would say, if I look at Europe, Europe, they regulate too much, there's too much enforcement, but in many ways they're being a strict cop on the beat, some would say. So from your perspective, are you seeing overregulation in Europe and is there a worry about stifling innovation in the United States by the amount of focus you have on big tech right now?
- [12:37]
Andrew Ferguson
Well, I do think that Europe has a real regulatory problem. It has an innovation problem. And we definitely don't want to create conditions here in the United States that suppress innovation. But I think it's important to bear in mind monopoly suppresses innovation. Monopoly makes it very difficult for little companies with the next great idea to sort of rise. And I think it's very important if we want to sort of preserve the American innovating spirit, that we create conditions in our economy that allow little tech who have the next great ideas, the next life changing ideas for all Americans to thrive. President Trump has been pretty emphatic on the importance of making sure that our economic system allows little tech to bring its ideas to market. And that's what antitrust really does, is it prevents monopoly and monopoly stifles innovation. So if the antitrust cops are vigilant and are making sure that they're protecting us from competition problems, it allows the innovation that has made America and our economy sort of the driving engine of the whole world.
- [13:42]
Lisa Mateo
What deals do you think can get done? Is there any prescription you can give as to this? M and A will look good if you are a big tech hiring a little tech.
- [13:50]
Andrew Ferguson
I think that the deals that can get done are the deals that are lawful. And I think the most important thing I want to take away from this is I see it as my job to scrutinize deals consistently with the timeline Congress created and our antitrust laws. And if we think that they are illegal and we think that we can win in court, we're going to go to court. But if we don't think that they are illegal or we don't think we can win in court, the FTC is going to get out of the way again. I've heard this complaint a lot from the business community that in the previous administration, a deal would enter the FTC and it would sort of disappear. And sometimes it could disappear for months while, you know, novel ideas were floated, different theories. And sometimes it sort of seemed like the FTC was hoping that deals would die on the vine while they waited for regulatory clearance. I want nothing to do with that. If a deal is illegal and I think we can win in court, I'm going to go to court. But if it's not, we're going to get out of the way and we're going to let deals go forward. M and A is part of how the economy grows. It's an important part of fostering a system that allows for innovation and dynamism. But we have to make sure that we don't create monopoly. And I see that as my job. If we think there's a monopoly problem, then the government's going to intervene. But if not, we've got to get out of the way as quickly as possible and let the economy grow.
- [15:11]
Lisa Mateo
Does the space look like it's thriving or do you worry about monopolistic behavior there?
- [15:15]
Andrew Ferguson
Yeah, I think it is extremely important that we protect competition in the air space. But I think it is equally important that the government not race to regulate AI. Vice President Vance's speech in Europe on AI, I think, is about the perfect way to thread this needle. We got to ensure that there's competition. We got to ensure there's competition because competition promotes and promotes innovation. But we can't have the government come in with a heavy regulatory hand and say, stifle innovation again. We don't want monopoly stifling innovation. We don't want big government stifling innovation. And admittedly, that's not an easy needle to thread, but that's how I think about it, is protect competition, but don't overregulate AI, because that's exactly how we're going to kill the innovative prospects of AI.
- [16:02]
Lisa Mateo
You started all of this by talking about the very close look you're going to take at every enforcement action that's out there at the moment, whether you pursue it or not. But just that assessment takes a lot of labor. You've also said you've got the resources. I know everyone's been asking you about what this lawyer said in court last week regarding the Amazon prime deal. And ultimately you've been saying he was wrong. And they came out and said that, no, we do have enough resources, even though he said there's an extremely severe resource shortfall in terms of money and personnel at the ftc. Have you got the right amount of people? And how are you living up to Doge's necessities to slimmed down?
- [16:39]
Andrew Ferguson
Well, I didn't say that the lawyer was wrong. The lawyer said the lawyer was wrong. He filed something almost immediately after his statement to the court explaining we don't have the resource constraints that he thought we don't have resource constraints. I've said from day one, we've got the resources to litigate these cases. That remains true. But I also want to be clear. I think that the president's efficiency agenda is one of the most important things going in government right now. Government should not be any larger than necessary to deliver the services and protections that the American people deserve. And at the ftc, look, we're a lean operation. Our budget is less than half a billion dollars. We've only got around 1300 employees, and we deliver a lot of value for the American people. But we have got the resources we need to deliver on our competition mandate, our consumer protection mandate. But we're always looking to be as efficient as possible.
- [17:32]
Caroline Hyde
Well, there you have it. FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson in his interview with Caroline Hyde just moments ago. Andrew, in a very festive tie for the holiday, I should know. Let's stay in Washington to break it all down with Mike Shepard. Hey, Mike, what are investors learning at this point about any daylight between Alina Khan run FTC and an Andrew Ferguson run ftc? What are the differences that are emerging?
- [17:55]
Mike Shepard
Well, one of the differences that became clear in this interview is the speed with which he is promising to move and the decisiveness he said he will try to bring. He faulted the prior administration, the Biden administration and the prior chair of the FTC for perhaps moving too slowly in deciding on some of these enforcement actions and whether to intervene to block a deal. Sometimes companies would be left hanging for months uncertain about whether their transaction, their proposal, would actually win the commission's blessing. What he says, look, we'll try to give a thumbs up or thumbs down much more quickly and much more decisively so that there is uncertainty removed from the equation. And he also made clear that, look, we are going to proceed with a number of these enforcement cases against big tech. Little tech is responsible for a lot of the innovation that we see in the economy and the competition. Cases that are now really hitting their stride against Google, against matter that are in court now. Those were brought during Donald Trump's first administration. And he warned, as we heard very clearly, lawyers for some of these big tech companies should be ready to make sure that they are complying with competition law.
- [19:08]
Lisa Mateo
Some of the concern regarding just the sheer scale of big tech has been around artificial intelligence. It's interesting that here in New York, it looks as though the governor, Kathy Hochul, wants to cross the divide at the moment, Mike wants to work with the administration when it comes to the action plan. Just talk us through what we're starting to see on a bipartisan nature.
- [19:28]
Mike Shepard
Well, it was interesting to see her weigh in so quickly with New York state's vision for how the AI plan that is being pulled together by Donald Trump's eyes are David Sachs at the White House with a June deadline to pull this new vision for AI policy together. She is the first governor to put in a state's vision for how that plan should come together. She called for a couple of things. One, encourage adoption of AI across the board more widely in industries. Two, do more to revise intellectual property protection laws so that there is less of this uncertainty surrounding all the data that these large language models need to be able to run and to be able to work and to train. And then three, the energy question. This is one we've talked about so much here. They're even talking about nuclear energy. And there's a lot at stake for New York because Micron is building those big factories that got Chips act money upstate. And, and they want to make sure that New York is getting a piece of the action here.
- [20:28]
Lisa Mateo
Remax Mike shepherd, we thank you so much. The latest from Washington now coming up. Klarna officially files for an IPO and it dethrones a firm to become a Wal Mart partner. More on that next. This is Bloomberg Technology. Hello, I'm Caroline Hoepke.
- [20:47]
Andrew Ferguson
And I'm Stephen Carroll. Every weekday morning we bring you the Bloomberg Daybreak Europe podcast.
- [20:53]
Lisa Mateo
It's 15 minutes to get your day started.
- [20:55]
Andrew Ferguson
All the top global news stories, how they affect the economy and your finances.
- [21:00]
Caroline Hyde
We have to understand the changing world when it comes to trade.
- [21:03]
Joe Ben Bever
Wage growth is still really, really high.
- [21:05]
Tiffany Wade
The disinflation process is well on track these days.
- [21:09]
Lisa Mateo
A lot can change overnight. So we're here first thing every morning to bring you up to date.
- [21:14]
Andrew Ferguson
We have 3,000 journalists around the world to tell you what happened and why it matters. US Exceptionalism is being questioned heavily.
- [21:22]
Lisa Mateo
Some damage is done. Tariffs are bad for growth. Economic stability is non negotiable. At Bloomberg, we say that Conte changes everything. That means the data and expertise to help you understand a world that's changing at breakneck speed.
- [21:36]
Andrew Ferguson
So join us every weekday morning for the Bloomberg Daybreak Europe podcast.
- [21:41]
Lisa Mateo
Subscribe today to get us in your feed by 7am payments firm Klarna. It's filed publicly for a U.S. iPO showing the company's revenue jumped 24% last year. The company also today announcing that it will be partnering with Wal Mart to offer buy now, pay later to more U.S. shoppers. It's actually replacing a firm as a retail giant's fast credit option. For more Bloomberg's Bailey Lipschultz joins us now. I go to today's news because this is quite an upending of the relationship for a firm, right?
- [22:09]
Mike Shepard
Yeah, it's a big change.
- [22:10]
Andrew Ferguson
And as you can see a firm down more than 10% this coming the company announcing in a statement that Wal Mart alone mounts accounts for about 5% of its gross merchandise volume and about 2% of its adjusted operating income. So pretty sizable chunk, not quite the size of an Amazon or Shopify, but obviously a big move for a firm. And obviously if you're Klarna announcing this right after you launch your IPO or file for your IPO publicly is kind.
- [22:34]
Caroline Hyde
Of big news on that ipo. Bailey, what took Klarna so long? I mean this is a company that is almost as old as Facebook trying.
- [22:45]
Andrew Ferguson
To get it right. Tim, when you look back, this is a company that at one point was valued magnitudes higher back in 2021 SoftBank cutting a size of sizable check and ramping up its valuation. More recently private valuation around $14.6 billion. So trying to right size the operations trying to grow back into that valuation. Even if you look at a firm, this is a stock that's up 32% on a trailing 12 month basis trading around 45 bucks. Just last month it was north of 80. So a lot of volatility and as much as a Klarna management team will want to pitch you on different kind of offerings and diversification at the end of the day the buy side is is going direct to directly compare this company to a firm who is still well below the peak that it hit back in 2021 when it was trading for $169 a share.
- [23:28]
Lisa Mateo
Swedish founders coming to the US very briefly, anything worrying in that IPO listing?
- [23:34]
Joe Ben Bever
Not really.
- [23:35]
Andrew Ferguson
Nothing jumped out completely. It is interesting they have three classes of stock so we're trying to get a better understanding of what that means, what that could look like and kind of how that's going to impact the path to forward. But the typical kind of red flags and words of caution were kind of what you would expect.
- [23:49]
Caroline Hyde
Bloomberg's Bailey Lipschultz. Thanks so much Bailey.
- [23:59]
Lisa Mateo
Welcome back to Bloomberg Technology. I'm Caroline Hyde in New York.
- [24:02]
Caroline Hyde
And I'm Tim Sandback in San Francisco.
- [24:04]
Lisa Mateo
Check in on these markets, Tim, because we are flip flopping between gains and losses. The NASDAQ 100 currently off by about a tenth of a percent. Now we got retail sales that weren't too ugly but they weren't great. And ultimately we're still trying to work out after Friday's push higher can we sustain any sort of built in risk on attitude not in big tech have to say in video is pulling us lower from a points perspective but so too is Tesla. Drill into what's happening on the next board because Tesla is off by 40% year to date thus far. Mizuho slashing its price target for this company once again reaffirming some the key concerns we've got across the company. We're worried about China sales, European sales, US sales. We're worried about ultimately a long term vision not being time to the here and now of really how many cars are going to be sold under Elon Musk. We're looking at BYD and I compare and contrast is up 2%. They're saying they're going to have EV charging at just five minutes. That would be a big game changer for me, my EV. But Tim, we're seeing once again BYD up 50% year to date on its overall US depository receipts, whereas Tesla is off by 40%.
- [25:07]
Caroline Hyde
What have you got five five minute charging that's like almost as convenient as a gas station. So we'll see if that actually comes to fruition. Well to NASTRA 2 NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will soon return to Earth after Space X is a Dragon capsule successfully docked with the International Space Station early Sunday morning. The two astronauts spent over nine months in space following a series of unexpected events and technical issues with their original spacecraft. For more, Bloomberg's Bruce Einhorn joins us now. Bruce, this is as much about Space X as it is about Boeing and its Starliner capsule. What does this mean for Boeing moving forward? I'm sorry, sorry to jump in there. So the there are a lot of questions about Boeing's space program following what's happened here. So of course Butch and Sunny, they went up on the Starliner capsule. They were supposed to be there for only about a week. They've been there for quite a lot longer. The Starliner did return to Earth without them, but there were concerns about the safety of it. And a lot of questions remain about just whether that's a program that has a future.
- [26:19]
Lisa Mateo
Take it back to the success that this shines on Space X. Bruce. Yes, they were slightly delayed, but ultimately they're the ones that have to be depended on from a US Government perspective.
- [26:29]
Caroline Hyde
Right now that's all there is really. The US currently has two ways of getting people to the space station. Space X's capsule and Starliner. But Starliner is not really an option right now, so it's really just Space X. The only other way to get people to and from the space station is aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket. But as far as US capabilities, it's just Space X. There are others that have either already had cargo flights or plan on having cargo flights. But as far as getting astronauts to and from, it's, it's Space X with essentially a monopoly now, given that that Boeing Starliner is questionable at best.
- [27:17]
Lisa Mateo
Bloomberg's Bruce Einhorn we thank you much. Celebration for those returning astronauts. I'm sure a little bit later. Meanwhile, electric air taxis could soon be on the horizons of London and Manchester. Joby Aviation and Virgin Atlantic have announced a partnership to launch an air taxi service in the United Kingdom. Let's bring in the CEO of Joby, JV and Job. And how soon am I going to be able to fly back to the UK and hop on one of these jobies?
- [27:43]
Joe Ben Bever
It's just a few years out. Carolyn. We're so excited to be announcing today our partnership with with Virgin. Virgin has an incredible dedication to customer service that matches with our own. In addition, Delta is one of Virgin's largest shareholders and an incredible partner for Joby. And so this is really a match made in heaven. And we're still so thrilled to be announcing it and really using it to help catalyze the development of takeoff and landing locations both within London and across the uk, which is going to bring this service to market. So just within the next few years, we're so excited to be bringing the opportunity for Virgin customers across the UK to fly on our air taxis.
- [28:25]
Lisa Mateo
Would Virgin and indeed Delta actually buy some of these these aircraft or are they just helping promote them?
- [28:33]
Joe Ben Bever
So we're going to have Virgin customers, we're going to give them the opportunity to book a Joby air taxi flight on the Virgin app on the Virgin website and to be a key demand funnel alongside our partners at Delta and Uber in in driving to put passengers and fill the seats of our so.
- [28:59]
Lisa Mateo
It'S marketing, they're not actually going to be committing to purchase one.
- [29:03]
Joe Ben Bever
Correct. It will be Joby owning and operating the service in the uk, much like we do in the uae, in Dubai and in New York and L A job.
- [29:17]
Caroline Hyde
And what is the main thing holding us back right now from flying in these to the airport in the US and the UK at this point?
- [29:24]
Joe Ben Bever
Is it Regulators So we're making record progress on certification. This last quarter we announced the FAA had made record progress on their side. Joby is is really leaned in and delivering day after day on the component system and aircraft level testing. We're testing more components, building more components, building FAA conforming components and testing FAA conforming components. So we're really thrilled with the momentum we're seeing on that side. We're seeing incredible lean in from the administration, from the DoT, from the FAA and we also had UK CA regulators here in California with us beginning the preparation work for the validation of our FAA certification. So fabulous progress across the board on the certification front.
- [30:17]
Caroline Hyde
How has your relationship with the FAA changed with this administration?
- [30:23]
Joe Ben Bever
As I said, really seeing a lot of lean in the the administration has made air taxis a very high priority and that also is going to roll into the build out of infrastructure. And we view these vertiports, the takeoff and landing locations that you can fly from as being a critical enabler to delivering really spectacular customer experiences. And so we're very grateful for the administration and and the priority that they're putting on building new takeoff and landing infrastructure.
- [30:59]
Lisa Mateo
And how about at the moment, me as a consumer might be able to get on one in 2026 I believe your new timeline is but defense, how are you working with the Defense Department at the moment potentially seeing EVTOLs in that particular area?
- [31:16]
Joe Ben Bever
We've had an incredible partnership dating back to 2016 and this is a critical accelerant to all of our work. The DoD has been a fabulous first mover and that continues. We do delivered our second aircraft to Edwards Air Force Base and so now we're thrilled to have both of those aircraft flying building really valuable flight test experience. And we see that as just the beginning to incredible opportunities for vertical takeoff and landing aircraft in on the defense side that the DoD gave us provided us with was funding which enabled the demonstration of our 561 mile flight this last year of our hybrid aircraft. And so we're just thrilled to be seeing such incredible momentum on the DOD side for this industry.
- [32:14]
Caroline Hyde
Joby CEO Joe Ben Bever joining us from Santa Cruz. Thanks so much for joining us today. Do appreciate it. Well coming up zoom's Chief Product Office Officer Smita Hashem joins us to discuss the company's updated agents. That's next. This is Bloomberg.
- [32:39]
Lisa Mateo
You can get the news whenever you want it with Bloomberg News Now. I'm Amy Morris.
- [32:43]
Tiffany Wade
And I'm Karen Moscow here to tell you about our new on demand news report delivered right to your podcast Feedback Bloomberg News now is a short 5 minute audio report on the day's top stories. Episodes are published throughout the day with the latest information and data to keep you informed.
- [33:00]
Lisa Mateo
Yes, there are other products like this.
- [33:02]
Smita Hashim
From a variety of news organizations, but.
- [33:05]
Lisa Mateo
They usually rerun their radio newscasts throughout the day.
- [33:09]
Smita Hashim
That's not what we do. We create customized episodes that can only.
- [33:13]
Lisa Mateo
Be heard on Bloomberg News now.
- [33:15]
Tiffany Wade
And we don't wait an hour to publish breaking news. When news breaks, we'll have an episode up in your podcast feed within minutes. So you're always getting the latest stories and developments.
- [33:25]
Lisa Mateo
Get the reporting and the context from Bloomberg's 3,000 journalists and analysts.
- [33:29]
Mark Gurman
We're all over the world.
- [33:31]
Lisa Mateo
Listen to the latest from Bloomberg News now on Apple, Spotify or anywhere you listen. Talk about air spending because resources are going to continue to be increased by hyperscalers. In fact, we're expecting them to increase by 44% this year, top $500 billion in the early next decade. That's according to a new report out today from Bloomberg Intelligence. For more on what's actually driving the spending spree, let's bring in Bloomberg's Figureman. And look, there was a worry about Deep Sea because some of these much more efficient and ultimately cheaper, less power powerful models coming to bear and we don't seem to need to worry about it, Hyperscalers is still going to flood the system for data centers for infrastructure.
- [34:17]
Joe Ben Bever
Business as usual, if anything, is the opposite issue. Now we're seeing Deep Seek and the attention to it being kind of a.
- [34:21]
Andrew Ferguson
Catalyst here for the tech companies to.
- [34:23]
Joe Ben Bever
Say, well, we want to invest more to develop this technology and specifically around inference.
- [34:28]
Andrew Ferguson
So I think a lot of the.
- [34:29]
Joe Ben Bever
Investment today has been around training, building the models.
- [34:32]
Andrew Ferguson
But now with reasoning systems like Deep.
- [34:34]
Joe Ben Bever
Seeks, there's more investment in how they.
- [34:35]
Andrew Ferguson
Operate after they've been trained. And if you're an investor right now.
- [34:38]
Joe Ben Bever
Maybe the silver lining is more of that spending shifts to after the model.
- [34:42]
Andrew Ferguson
Has been developed and deployed.
- [34:44]
Caroline Hyde
But Seth, won't reasoning become more efficient as well? We'll be able to do more with less.
- [34:50]
Joe Ben Bever
You know, one more hope although we're trying to build more sophisticated reasoning models.
- [34:54]
Andrew Ferguson
So TBD on that front. But I think the idea is as this gets developed at scale deployed, not.
- [34:59]
Joe Ben Bever
Just in the U.S. but abroad, you're.
- [35:01]
Andrew Ferguson
Going to see the amount of money that goes to into inference to support.
- [35:03]
Joe Ben Bever
Reasoning really shoot up in the coming.
- [35:05]
Andrew Ferguson
Decade and really make up a much.
- [35:07]
Joe Ben Bever
Larger percentage of the whole.
- [35:08]
Lisa Mateo
So let's just go back to the anxiety that that Reporting of Microsoft pulling back on leases of data centers sent shockwaves through the market after we of course got the efficiencies of Deep Seek. That's not going on. We're still seeing an ever scaling amount of money going into infrastructure.
- [35:23]
Joe Ben Bever
Yeah, I mean, at least according to the Bloomberg Intelligence report, the pace of growth is actually greater than they had.
- [35:28]
Andrew Ferguson
Previously expected before Deep Seek and the shift towards reasoning models.
- [35:31]
Joe Ben Bever
So again, business as usual to some extent. More investment in data centers, more in chips, but shifting a little bit of.
- [35:37]
Andrew Ferguson
The focus to inference.
- [35:39]
Caroline Hyde
All right, Bloomberg, Seth Biggerman. Seth, good to see you. Thanks so much. Well, today Zoom announced new features and skills for its AI Companion. The company is leaning into new products as its video business matures. Joining us now is Smita Hashim, Zoom's Chief Product Officer. It's been a good to see you. I do wonder. We'll get to the announcement in just a minute, but how would you characterize how subscribers right now, how customers are actually using the AI features of Zoom beyond its core video product?
- [36:08]
Smita Hashim
Yeah, absolutely. So it's a great to, great to be here. Thank you for having me. So we continue to, we are seeing accelerated growth in customers using Zoom AI Companion, which is a generative assistant. Last quarter, the quarter over quarter actives grew by 68% so that is a huge increase in one quarter. So we continue to see customers get more comfortable and using generative AI a lot more.
- [36:35]
Caroline Hyde
When can you tell investors that you'll be able to charge more for these products and grow that top line as a result of the innovations that you're making when it comes to to AI?
- [36:47]
Smita Hashim
So Zoom Companion is include, so we include Companion at no additional cost in our product and we continue to expand it. So last year we expanded it to work across Zoom Workplace. You talked about expanded product portfolio. So across meetings, chats, phone, whiteboard, but also Microsoft Outlook, Calendar, Gmail, Office Docs. So we expanded its footprint quite a lot and we continue to see the growth which I talked about. We also announced a custom AI Companion add on. So that is a paid add on. And with the custom AI Companion paid add on which is coming out next month, customers will be able to use Zubi Companion in ways that's really unique to them. So with custom vocabulary connected across different applications. So that is something which we would be charging for. And we also charge for, I mean our departmental or products like Contact center, we have advanced in them like Expert Assist and those are also paid products. But really the crux for us is we want customers and users to really benefit from, from AI capabilities. And then on top of that, you know, as they start using them, we want to give them more ways to customize and expand, which is where the monetization is.
- [38:05]
Lisa Mateo
And it's interesting how you're talking about working alongside Microsoft Outlook, working alongside Google's Gmail. You've worked at both those companies, helping of course, with Google products, with Microsoft Teams. Just how competitive is it out there? Because that's what investors are worried about, that you're going to lose out to a teams, for example.
- [38:24]
Smita Hashim
Yeah. So I do think customers, we see a lot of customer interest and love for Zoom when we talk about customers. Why do you love Zoom? I mean, a lot of it is, it just works. It's really a great experience. We also work hard to give customers choices. So we are an open platform and customers like that, they actually like a lot of choice and we give them great value along with these experiences. So for example, including Zoom AI Companion as part of all of our paid licenses. So all of this is what's coming together to keep our customer engagement really high and have the incredible love that I see for Zoom from our customers, which honestly I've not seen anywhere else in my long career.
- [39:04]
Lisa Mateo
You just talked about some of the growth quarter on quarter, what was it? 68% increase. But what is the amount that people are using it? You might see adoption increase, but how addicted to it are they?
- [39:18]
Smita Hashim
Yeah. So you know, I mean the growth numbers do tell the story that if people are using it and abandoning it, then obviously we are not going to get the growth that we are seeing. So customers continue to use it and they continue to use more and more of it. And some of the data, what we are hearing about is how much customers are using it all the time in order to streamline their work. So personally, for me, I'm using Zoom a companion to prepare for me meetings during the meeting, even to understand different viewpoints. I'm using it to summarize Zoom team chats, understand my action items and one cool use case I have is I'm beginning to use it end of the day to really reflect on my day. So when we are talking to customers, we are seeing a breadth of use cases. Now that Zoom Companion is across Zoom Workplace and it's across these connected applications and that is where the engagement is coming from. But in that spirit, I also want to talk about our next set of announcements which we made, which is we really talked about how the big changes to my companion is becoming agentic and agentic really means that it can behave more and more like you and I do. So we have added capabilities like reasoning. It can reason over a large surface area, memory so it can remember what happened, it can orchestrate across all these different products and more skills and agents and then it can also take action. So not only can it reason, it can complete actions. So with some of those changes, a Zoom Workplace companion is not only able to help you understand what is going on, but also complete things for you, like complex calendar scheduling, writing documents in ways that's really effective. Those are even send messages on your behalf. So these agentic skills are those which are going to further deepen the engagement and help users save more time so they can be more effective, whether it's connecting with each other or being more productive.
- [41:14]
Caroline Hyde
Are these agentic schools built organically by Zoom or are you relying on a third party, perhaps LLM or other agent to actually power the Zoom skills?
- [41:26]
Smita Hashim
Yeah, so the intelligence genetic skills themselves. So we, we do a lot of our core stock, but into Stack. But in terms of the agent skills or the models, the models that we are using, from day one we have had this federated approach, which means we work across a variety of models. We work across Open Air and Tropic, we use open source models, we have Zoom's own models. And recently we have also started investing State where we have Zoom small language models. So these are smaller, more specialized models and we are seeing these models really perform at the top of the public leaderboards and benchmarks. So we use a variety of these models using the federated approach, third party as well as ours in order to give users these great experiences.
- [42:13]
Lisa Mateo
Smita Hashim, thanks for joining us today. Zoom Chief Product Officer.
- [42:25]
Caroline Hyde
Well, Amazon's Alexa division is set to introduce a new premium tier of gadgets alongside a revamped AI operating system called Alexa plus this in an effort to revitalize the brand. For more, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman joins us. Mark, how much of a departure is this for Amazon's hardware strategy? Apart from the Fire phone more than 10 years ago, Amazon has really created gadgets and hardware that is cheap and allows you to buy more stuff from Amazon.
- [42:51]
Mark Gurman
Yeah, that's right. So to date, the focus has not been on making money on the hardware. It's not been on people really loving the hardware. It's been a focus on getting people to use Alexa, getting people to buy things through Amazon prime, getting people to subscribe to prime in their video services and their music services and the like. Obviously the Fire TV sticks, the echoes, the Echo shows and what have you. Now it's about both. They want to bring Alexa to more people, they want to get people hooked on that prime subscription, $140 a year. But they also want to make more money on the hardware, have more premium hardware and really make products that compete with the upper echelon of the consumer tech industry. And so Panos Panay was brought in about a year and a half. He was poached from Microsoft where he was the chief product officer. And at Microsoft he was known for high end materials, using new types of materials like what you would see on maybe car seats or in a car at laptop, padding on the arm, on the palm rests, using lots of aluminum, high end hinges. Just very high quality materials and product development processes. Basically the type of stuff you were seeing from Apple for decades at this point. And applying that to Microsoft's products, he's going to do the same thing at Amazon and he's going to start rolling out those new higher end products beginning at the tail end of this year.
- [44:05]
Lisa Mateo
And talking of that premium focus that Apple has, you had a great power on out over the weekend talking about the slimmer smartphone that's likely to come when we get iPhone 17 and just how this pushes them ever more further forward in terms of charging in particular.
- [44:22]
Mark Gurman
Yeah, this is really cool actually. So this year they're coming out with what I've been calling the iPhone 17 Air or the iPhone air. Why? Well, let's look at the Mac book strategy. They have the higher end thicker MacBook with all the specifications, then they have the lower end MacBook Air and that's a focus on thin and light using next generation technologies, forward thinking futuristic. So now they saw the success with the Mac, they want to do the same thing to the iPhone. So this is going to be a slimmed down model. It's a fifth thinner than the other iPhones on the market. And when you're getting down to 20% thinner, that's really thin. Because the iPhones are pretty darn thin already.
- [44:57]
Caroline Hyde
Right.
- [44:58]
Mark Gurman
And the way that they've created very sophisticated display and battery technologies to get the power efficiency up using a new modem, it's going to have a display around 6.6 inches. So a little bit bigger than the smaller pro. So it's an in betweener size. I think this phone is going to be really successful, really hot. They wanted to make it even more futuristic by removing the charging port from it, but they were worried about EU regulators. So that charging port will be there for this generation but my anticipation is that this is going to foreshadow even thinner, even bolder iPhones with bigger design changes, foldables, and certainly models down the road without charging ports.
- [45:35]
Lisa Mateo
Blue Most Mark Gurman Always foreshadowing the future. We thank you. Now that does it for this edition of Bloomberg Technology. Do not forget to check out our podcast. You'll find it on the terminal as well as online on Apple, Spotify and Iheart. From New York and San Francisco, this is Bloomberg Technology.