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Michael McDermott
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Caroline Hyde
Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio News.
Tara Davis Woodhull
Bloomberg Tech is live from coast to
Caroline Hyde
coast with Caroline Hyde in New York and Ed Ludlow in San Franc. This is Bloomberg tech. Coming up. OpenAI raises $110 billion with key Amazon backing in a deal that values the startup at 730 billion-plus. Anthropic dispute with the Pentagon intensifies over safeguards around the use of its AI technology and block plans to cut close to half of its entire workforce in a move the company describes as a bet on AI. But first we check in on these markets that have a lot more to digest than just AI on the day we're by 4. 10%. The NASDAQ investors trying to navigate what has been a pretty brutal month. Yes, there's anxiety over capex spending. Yes, there's worry about where on inflationary pressures are going. The PIE data today showing that maybe the Fed can't cut as much as the market had wanted. But there's also geopolitical risk. Iran US front and center. Let's look at what we're doing over the course of the month because remember we are winding up February and it means we've had the worst month for the NASDAQ 100 and for the S&P 500 since March of Last year we're off by more than 3.8%. Move on and have an individual companies in your line of sight today because the key story is a private and a public market one. I'm looking at what's happening to Amazon. We're up 4.10 of a percent. It is going to be supplying $50 billion to open air in terms of its latest funding round. Does that come in compute. Does that come in terms of really focused access to OpenAI's own agents? We're looking at Nvidia off by 1.8%. What does it mean for that GPUs for? They're throwing in $30 billion as well. So too is SoftBank. Let's get more details. Seth Beagleman is with us. I'm pleased. And what's so interesting is this deepening intertwined between OpenAI and Amazon. What do you make of it?
Michael McDermott
Yeah, I mean, it's really telling. I think it's another example for us that it takes all parties now to meet the needs of AI and cloud computing. Amazon obviously has been a longtime supporter of opening a rival anthropic, but increasingly opening Anthropic and Amazon have brokered cloud computing deals as part of this one. In addition to the money that Amazon is committing, OpenAI will be using Amazon's training chip, which is certainly a vote of confidence in Amazon's technology. And they'll be working together on AI models that might be useful for Amazon specifically. So again, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, the video, they're all kind of backing everyone right now to lift up the wider AI market.
Caroline Hyde
It's interesting therefore that maybe Nvidia is down a little bit on the day throwing money into OpenAI, but maybe people worry if there's more dependence on training and Amazon chips, maybe less dependence on GPUs. What's so interesting as well is OpenAI says the funding round isn't over. They're also tapping venture capitalists coming from forward.
Michael McDermott
Yeah, it's our understanding that there's still billions more to go here, though I think the majority of it is now done and committed and so that next tranche of it might come from venture firms and from sovereign funds. With our expectation that this will all be wrapped up this quarter.
Caroline Hyde
What's been also notable is how maybe some of the PR mood music that have been so all consumed with open air and its prowess had slightly shifted to the all alternatives. Anthropic had been leading a lot of the charge in terms of unveils to the enterprise. How much is OpenAI now? Able to refocus to talk up its code coding tools to be able to talk up its penetration into the enterprise.
Michael McDermott
Well, certainly first off, this is a vote of confidence in opening. I mean keep in mind that during the months that they've been working on this deal, I think there's been heightened concerns on Wall street about capex spending with OpenAI really at the center of a lot of that unprofitable startup committing to to spend more than $1 trillion on infrastructure and yet they still are on the cusp of raising the largest funding round in history. Now, to your point, hoping I has like anthropic been investing heavily in AI coding tools, agents and working to help enterprises figure out how to make the most of its existing AI technology. I think we should just expect them to double down on that in the run up to what will likely be an ipo.
Caroline Hyde
Bloomberg, Seth Giggleman, we so appreciate the roundup. Thank you. Let's get the markets. Take J.P. morgan Asset Management global market strategist Stephanie Adiagas here with us. Stephanie, this is once again shining a light on the extraordinary capital expenditure that is necessary for these frontier labs.
Tara Davis Woodhull
It absolutely is. And I think it comes on the heels of this agentic boom that markets are really beginning to take issue with. And the reality is the reason why these agents are so phenomenal is because they think longer. The amount of inference required in these agents is magnitudes larger than the kind of single queer degree just prompting an alarm of the past. So you know the economics around I continue to mount. We heard that from Nvidia this week. I think for the markets, I mean there's just still this lingering anxiety of okay, yes, we need a lot of infrastructure, but who's going to make money on all of this and where are the competitive moats actually going to stick in this rollout? And then of course, what does this mean for some of the companies that may be privy to disruption?
Caroline Hyde
Well, before we get there, I want to go to Nvidia because it was sort of extraordinary. That's down today and yesterday on the back of such strong fundamental numbers that it posted. How do you interpret that market shake off of it?
Tara Davis Woodhull
I mean, part of it is we've all become, you know, tiger parents and we're used to exceptional results. It's not enough. We're now more concerned about okay, moving forward. We got to see some kind of moderation in these growth rates given just how remarkable that they've been for so long. Think markets are thinking about that. I think on the other side, there's also so this desire to diversify, perhaps exposure to some of these names and that's really where we're seeing caution really emerging in markets.
Caroline Hyde
I have to say our producer made the tiger parent analogy and joke yesterday. I'm loving it.
Tara Davis Woodhull
I love it.
Caroline Hyde
We all expect more and more and more. But what's interesting is whether or not we are starting to expect more of software now. I spoke to the Intuit CEO yesterday after their numbers came out and Sassan has been talking about the disappointment he's had in the sell off of his stock, the worries that they've had about really their growth rates not supporting some of the decimation in the market capitalization of this business. And they feel that people are adopting into it and they are striking these partnerships with anthropic and open Air and they're like the software concerns. And that we have him saying it's very hard to disprove a negative. How are you thinking about the market worrying about software and its ability to weather this disruption?
Tara Davis Woodhull
Yeah, I think it, it's rational to price in a greater degree of uncertainty around the sustainability of earnings growth. But I think markets may be getting a little ahead of themselves and there is almost some misunderstanding, I think, around how transformative, how disruptive these tools are.
Caroline Hyde
Isn't the market meant to get ahead of itself?
Tara Davis Woodhull
That's true, that's true. And it makes sense to sell first and ask questions later. But now it's time for a more nuanced discussion around what these tools are going to do. Because these plug ins themselves don't disrupt businesses. It's about what you use those plug ins to do. Who is leaning in to AI to provide AI empowered services, to bolster competitive moats, to do more. And the other thing, you know, crossing headlines today is around labor disruption. And I'll say, you know, companies that are thinking about how they use AI to substitute their workers, they're missing the forest of the trees here. The real transformative impact from AI is what you can do to do more, to do faster, to build better, to do things that you wouldn't have done before and ultimately outrun your competition in doing so.
Caroline Hyde
We are going to be discussing Block at length in a moment, but I'm assuming that's exactly where you're pointing. The fact that Jack Dorsey has admitted he overhied and in some ways has been rectifying and rebalancing Block from a personnel perspective. But he is saying I am late and we are going all in on AI and other companies are going to follow other companies to follow who are bloated, who do need to rectify and are going to use AI as a good excuse.
Tara Davis Woodhull
I think the reality is AI is going to create a lot of transformation in work and that transformation could at times look like layoffs in some areas. But I think over the medium term we're going to see all sorts of job creation. Too many.
Michael McDermott
What?
Caroline Hyde
Because we all keep talking about prompt engineering. Well, that's sort of a thing of the past.
Tara Davis Woodhull
It is a thing of the past. Well, one of the things is, look, these agents can create a whole bunch of work. They can automate processes, but the amount of work that they can reliably automate relative to what a human worker does in a services oriented economy is still a fraction, I should add. And all of these our listeners should know hallucination rates for the current frontier models still range between 26% and 80%. Whatever frontier model you're using, Cloud, Gemini, Chachi, Beatty, they're still getting things wrong. There is still a real layer here of human oversight. And the thing is, the need for human oversight only compounds when. Now we're talking about a lot more products, a lot more output because it's helping us achieve that.
Caroline Hyde
It's interesting because of late I think there's been pushback on the hallucinations that are happening at the very cutting edge model models. And yes, that might be a thing of the past. So I'd love to dig into that data that you're still seeing, maybe up to 80% more broadly. How are you thinking about the macro impact and whether or not we will see a Fed that's able to tackle this in any way or not?
Tara Davis Woodhull
Yeah, it's a challenge. And that's some artificial analysis. You know, for the Fed it's a challenge. Right now. You see there's a little bit warmer inflation right now. We kind of know what's contributing to that. It's tariffs. Maybe we can see through that. And I was just in D.C. earlier this week hearing from a bunch of these Fed governors and there is a range of opinions here. But I think the reality is the Fed is very data dependent. And right now in the hard data, you still see very, very early impacts of labor disruption over the medium to long term. There are, I think, some big questions. I think we have to rely on, I guess, what history has told us and then ultimately the fact that yes, we're all amazed at the exponential growth of the technology of the frontier, but the diffusion of the real economy isn't exponential. It's linear, it's going to be jagged. That's going to give us time, is going to give policymakers time to adjust.
Caroline Hyde
Stephanie, thank you for helping push us forward. Stephanie Eliago of JP Morgan Asset Management. Now coming up, Anthropic rejects the Pentagon's latest offer in a dispute over AI safeguards. All the details coming next. This is Bloomberg Tech.
Michael McDermott
I offered more talk talks if so long as they're in good faith. We're always open to talks and we set a deadline and we met the deadline. And up until that deadline, I'm open to more talks and I told them so.
Caroline Hyde
I mean, Michael, under secretary of Defense for research and engineering, after Anthropic rejected the Pentagon's latest offer in a dispute over safeguards around the use of its technology by the U.S. military, Anthropic CEO said, quote, we cannot in good conscience accede to these, their request. And now while the deadline for any further talks is fast approaching, Bloomberg's tech and industrial policy reporter Maggie Eastland joins us for more. It's fast approaching. It's 5:00pm New York time, Washington time. Maggie, what can be done until then? Exactly.
Tara Davis Woodhull
So look, the rhetoric here has been rather intense. You see Emil, Michael, the Pentagon undersecretary accusing Dario Amadei of having a God complex last night. You see Dario continuing to say that we need these two safety guardrails and those guardrails are no autonomous strikes without
Caroline Hyde
a human in the loop and no
Tara Davis Woodhull
surveillance of US Citizens. And without that, he doesn't seem willing to budge.
Caroline Hyde
So definitely these two sides are staring each other down. And we're going to find out at
Tara Davis Woodhull
5pm who's willing to blink.
Caroline Hyde
We're also seeing coalitions of workers who are employees at Amazon, at Google and Microsoft and OpenAI also asking their companies to join Anthropic in refusing to comply with the Defense Department demands. Maggie, what is the argument coming not only from Emil Michaels saying he's got a gold complex and actually calling him a liar, but but what are the legal protections already in place? Right.
Tara Davis Woodhull
So the Pentagon has said, look, according
Caroline Hyde
to the Constitution, according to US Law,
Tara Davis Woodhull
the US Is not allowed to have domestic surveillance over its own citizens. Now, Anthropic take on that is actually that I might propose some new legal
Caroline Hyde
ground where there are situations where just due to the sheer power of artificial
Tara Davis Woodhull
intelligence to aggregate public data, it could lead to new surveillance use cases under which the law isn't clear. So there's definitely some semantics going on here. At the same time, these are real
Caroline Hyde
sort of life and death Questions about
Tara Davis Woodhull
how the US Wants the AI tools
Caroline Hyde
to be used for warfare. Maggie Eastland, your reporting throughout has been. Stella, thank you very much for joining us on it. Look, let's continue the conversation. Sarah Kreps is with us, director of the Tech Policy Institute over at Cornell University. And you're at the intersection of how national security, geopolitics and tech policy intertwine. This is anthropic, having to lead the charge here in many ways and the only one have got this sort of relationship with the Pentagon thus far. What do you make of Dario's pushback?
Sarah Kreps
Yeah, and I think we should take a step back and acknowledge why they're at the tip that, no pun intended, the tip of the spear here with the Pentagon, which is that a year or so ago, you know, they seem to go in the direction of focusing on enterprise and what that more than a year ago, because their first contract with Palantir was in 2024. And so that's the market they're going for. And so they engage. They were part of, you know, $200 million contracts with, with Palantir and the Pentagon in part of that enterprise kind of business that they're focusing on. And so as part of that, that enters them into a, you know, this arrangement that I think has then led to where we are now, which is this standoff in terms of how they balance their kind of ethical constitution with the need to be doing enterprise work that will bring in the revenue.
Caroline Hyde
There is a lot at stake because what is it's not only just a $200 million contract of work that anthropic has, but there's almost a threat coming from the Pentagon that if you don't abide by our rules, we're going to say that you're a supply chain issue and lots of other military related companies are not going to be able to use your models in the future. How much of a problem would that be? Franthropic? How much are you surprised by the Pentagon's focus there?
Sarah Kreps
Well, I think there are definitely two sides of this story. So what is what I think makes this generative AI so different from bombs and bullets and nuclear weapons is that nuclear weapons and missile silo only has one purpose and it was built by defense contractors. The cutting edge AI is coming out of the civilian world and it's a classic dual use technology problem, which is it's starting in a civilian space and now it's getting appropriate and used by, you know, by the Pentagon. And so it really, it's a civilian Technology that now has this critical national security value. And so that's where this tension is, that both sides are correct. But the Pentagon does have a lot of leverage because it's the, it's the federal government.
Caroline Hyde
It's the federal government and we've been hearing from the federal government. I just want to hear a little bit more from Undersecretary Michael as what he told Bloomberg earlier today, just take a listen.
Michael McDermott
We've been negotiating in good faith on the Department of War side for about three months and we're working pretty diligently. And we sent over a proposal that we thought made a lot of concessions to the language that Anthropic wanted. And then, you know, without any notice, they published an article where we thought we were getting close, saying that they were breaking kicking off talks well before the deadline, which is generally not good partner oriented practice, if you will.
Caroline Hyde
And look, Anthropic in return has said that while the Pentagon's latest proposal fell short, the company continues to negotiate with defense officials and remains committed to working with the military. Sarah so when you think more broadly, and this is an echo of what happened with Google years ago, how do you think tech policy can be written, written by the Pentagon, by the government, to fit current purposes?
Sarah Kreps
It is surprising that we're seeing this repeat of 2018 where Google and the CEO seem to have been blindsided by the employees reluctance to work with the Pentagon. And here we are eight years later and it seems like a repeat of this that could have been avoided. But I think if we put ourselves in the position of how quickly AI has been moving in the last couple of years, you can see how this just becomes kind of a somehow new territory, even though it feels like we've been here before. And so I think what was happening last, you know, the last year or two, I was moving so quickly. The Pentagon is moving quickly, trying to do things differently. And you can see then why, you know, when I worked in the acquisition business in the Air Force and there was always this question, why can't we move faster? This is why you can't move faster, is because things with the federal government and national security and classified work and removing leaders from Venezuela are just not the same as coming up with a grocery list for yourself at home with Chachi Beat, or in this case Claude.
Caroline Hyde
Dario Amadei has been very clear that he thinks more about the implications of a grocery list and he's written about the adolescence of technology written large. At the beginning of this year, thinking about the geopolitical implications, the implications for ethics, for, for our world of work going forward. Sarah, just tell us a little bit about where you think there might be any room for agreement. Can the Pentagon go as far as to agree, as with Daria Amadeus, desire to not have surveillance of US citizens or not use models for autonomous lethal strikes without a human in the loop? Is that ever something that they could be specific enough about?
Sarah Kreps
I think it's a great question and I think that's the reluctance of Anthropic, which is that the US has been saying we all we want is to use AI, use cloud for any lawful use and it's not lawful to use autonomous weapons and it's not lawful to do mass surveillance. So what's the problem here? I think the worry probably from the perspective of Anthropic is that slippery slope. What does it mean to be fully autonomous? What does it mean to do mass surveillance? And so I think that's that great what they think is gray area that they want to be very careful about. And I think the view has been that they would rather be trying to influence safe use of AI from the inside rather than take a sanctimonious perspective and be on the outside and not be able to influence the implementation and deployment of AI. And so I think that's the, that's what they're trying to do. And so Anthropic's leverage I think is that their model is really good and that the Pentagon wants to use it. So my expectation would be that they probably will find some middle ground here before 5pm today.
Caroline Hyde
Sarah Kreps of the Tech Policy Institute at Cornell University, we thank you very much indeed. Now we just want to to bring you some breaking news from a Trump post on Truth Social. So President Trump posting about an FTC letter to Apple. Now Trump is posting posting an FTC letter to Apple on Apple News's political actions. The FTC wrote to Apple on February 12th regarding Apple news. We're off by 1.6% will bring you any further details regarding that post. It is just simply a post. Most of what the FTC has written to the CEO Tim Cook and the fact that it's nation's consumer protection agency responsible for protecting the American consumer. And they're looking to look Apple News as one of Apple's many products and services. Coming up, the Hollywood drama to buy Warner Brothers reaches its climax. But as Netflix bows out, the story isn't over. More on that next is Bloomberg Tech.
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Caroline Hyde
Netflix has dropped its bid for Warner Brothers discovery clearing the way for Paramount Skydance to clinch its deal for the home of Bugs Bunny and Superman. Now, in a statement, Netflix's co CEO said the price to match Paramount had gotten too high and investors rewarding that move. Just check out the shares and let's get the details with Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw, who leads our entertainment coverage. Did it come as a surprise the
Michael McDermott
speed with which Netflix pulled out came as a surprise. You know, there had been a growing suspicion over the last week that this was tilting right. Warner Brothers had selected the Netflix bid in December. Over the last couple of months, Paramount had waged this campaign to change it. For most of that time, it still seemed like Netflix was the clear frontrunner. But over the last week, you know, Paramount made a bid that Warner Brothers thought was was better and people started to get the feeling that, you know, that Netflix was having second thoughts. But I think the speed with which it all came together on Thursday was a real surprise.
Caroline Hyde
And it came straight after the meeting at the White House with Ted Sarandos. Can we interpret anything from a political perspective?
Michael McDermott
Look, I think the political pressure that that Paramount brought to bear definitely had an influence. It made a lot of Warner Brothers shareholders believe that the Netflix deal was going to take a long time and be more complicated and maybe be more interested in the Paramount deal. But I don't, I wouldn't read too much into the meeting just yesterday. I don't think it's like Ted Sarandos walked into the White House, came away saying oh we can't do it and then pulled out. I think Netflix had been sort of gap built building to this point for a little while.
Caroline Hyde
And now all eyes on the Allison and what's next. Lucas Shaw, thank you so much for jumping on that news. Meanwhile, coming up, Jack Dorsey announces huge job over at Block as the fintech makes a big bet on AI but is really the only catalyst for these job cuts at Block. More on that next. This is Bloomberg Tech. Welcome back to Bloomberg Tech. Checking in on these markets, checking in on individual names that to the downside after earnings this time it's cool, we've off by 19%. We haven't seen this sort of fall in six months for the NIO Cloud. And this is as their capital expenditure continues to balloon to 30 to 35 billion dollars for the year. That was more than the market had anticipated. They're also posting a bigger loss than had been thought even though revenue did climb. Look again Michael and trade to the CEO saying this is our business model. We build because we've already got the orders from the likes of from the likes of Microsoft, from the likes of other key cloud demand and GPU demanders. But for now the market still wants more proof point and we're lower. Let's move on to some individual names. Also on the move on the back of that big private market deal I'm looking at what's happening to this points of Nvidia. We're off by three points. We're down by 2% for the giant. Yes, second day running that we're on the downside after its earnings. But crucially it's putting $30 billion of its own money into OpenAI. Now to does that come in the form of GPUs? We get to understand but really this is as we understand that we are going to see Amazon lent on more by OpenAI as they put $50 billion into this $110 billion funding round for OpenAI. Does that mean that we're dependent less on Nvidia, more on Amazon's own chips and cloud? Certainly Microsoft to the downside as people start to interpret that that relationship between Open Air Microsoft is continuing to untangle. We can talk more about capex and the likes with Bloomberg equities reporter Ryan Vistelika who you've been singling out ultimately how cheap Nvidia has become. But after its earnings we are still trying to find the proof point that it still is going to dominate market share like it always has. Maybe this deal with Open Air and Amazon showing that perhaps you can't depend on that so much.
Michael McDermott
Hey, good morning. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'd say that's become a growing concern. So even though Nvidia continues to grow pretty rapidly, its multiple is getting pretty cheap. We are seeing a number of competitors, including its own customers showing pretty good success with their own internal chip offerings. Obviously we have Alphabet with its TPU chips. You mentioned Amazon this morning and the deal that they had with OpenAI. This just shows that even though Nvidia looks like the results and they're just overall trends are pretty positive there, you still have a lot of concern about how sustainable is this, what is competition going to look like and what does all that mean for how we should be interpreting the stock's prospects, especially as we look at over the longer term.
Caroline Hyde
I mean extraordinary because Nvidia posted more than 70% growth in revenue, said that it's going to be accelerating into its fiscal quarter that we're currently in Ryan at the moment. But this ongoing capex uncertainty is also run Running at the same time, you've got the software uncertainty as well. Are we. What is it that the market needs to hear to galvanize some support?
Michael McDermott
That is a great question because it really does seem like no matter what part of the market you're looking at when it comes to AI, seems like there's just sort of growing concerns everywhere. I mean, you mentioned Core, we've not too long ago, another company that's spending very aggressively. And while they're also showing pretty good growth, people are skeptical. How much is this spending going to pay off? When are we going to start to see more pronounced returns from it? What is the impact all this is having on earnings and cash flow and so forth? Major concerns out there that software is a little bit of a separate issue. But at the same time you have this sort of growing adoption of AI, you have sort of improved efficiency of these models and more capabilities. What does this mean for sort of traditional vendors? And we did get some mixed results out of the software group this week. Companies like Salesforce, Intuit, Autodesk, all these companies coming out painting sort of a mixed picture. I think I'll just flag Duolingo. So maybe a little bit of a separate thing here, but the language learning software company, that stock is plummeting today because, because they give a weaker than expected outlook. And that looks like one where people are just sort of looking and saying like what is the demand for this kind of service going to be in a world where we have AI providing auto translation sort of services out there? So that is just sort of, I think, indicative of just the growing concern and fear out there.
Caroline Hyde
Duolingo off by 15% at the moment. Ryan Baselica, thanks for bringing us that one. As we think about how powerful these models have become, just take a look at, at the two day chart of block shares. We got that huge spike coming after the company which owns Square and Cash App, told shareholders it plans to cut almost half of its workforce. Why? I let's talk about the Bloomberg fintech reporter Emily Mason. And there is a lot of hand wringing as to whether this is AI washing or actual AI productivity. Emily, but first of all, give us the facts. What did Jack Dorsey announce?
Michael McDermott
I mean he, he is really saying that this is driven by AI. They've made a lot of investments in their internal tools like Goose, which are meant to help employees across the board operate more efficiently. So they were really trying to communicate that this is coming from a position of strength and that, you know, it's a bet on AI making them more efficient. I think they're getting a lot of skepticism that, you know, they hired really aggressively over Covid and similar to a lot of their peers. And, you know, maybe they needed to reduce some bloat.
Caroline Hyde
When they say position of strength. I think the CFO was talking about how they've seen more than 20% growth in their gross profit for the quarter. They just talked about his Jack Dorsey discussing how they. Yeah, they did over hiring Covid. He admitted that. But they also feel that they've been pretty well run. That's something that I've been hearing echoed by analysts as well, that compared to other payment companies, actually they're pretty profitable on a per employee basis. On a one year basis, it's been more volatile for the stock. So, Emily, paint us as to what the reaction is going to be like internally and how you actually let go of that many people, 4,000 all in one shot.
Michael McDermott
I mean, that's part of what made
Caroline Hyde
it so surprising, right? Is like it's not totally clear what
Michael McDermott
pushed them to make such a dramatic change. If they are performing so well, they're really trying to increase their product velocity to keep up with competitors. I think people feel like they've done a good job of that catching up with Toast as far as feature parity for serving restaurants, which has been a focus area for them on the square side.
Caroline Hyde
So I think that's kind of where
Michael McDermott
they are and they're hoping to just continue on that trajectory. They've made a lot of restructuring changes to kind of operate more efficiently. They've gotten rid of a lot of middle management people. And I think part of a question I have is like, is this the culmination of that? Like, are they now happy with their organizational structure and are they going to be able to just execute without restructuring anymore?
Caroline Hyde
And that was the argument. Don't have wave after wave. Just do it once and do it efficiently, shall we say. But still, this is a human story. Emily Mason, thanks for bringing it to us from Block. And therefore, let's get you the wider human picture here as it intertwines with AI. JP Gounders with us. He's vice president and principal analyst at Future of Work Team, the research firm Forrester. You've been writing a lot about the potential for air washing for companies to blame AI and technology for job cuts. But what do you interpret Block as?
Michael McDermott
I think it's a story in part potentially of air washing. Air washing is incredibly pervasive right now. After all, if you lay people off and you say, well, we've just become so much more productive because of AI. It makes you sound innovative, it makes you sound in control. But the truth of the matter is is that Block does, as you pointed out, have some other problems. They're down 75% from their record high all time high of stock. But they also did over hire during COVID and that can't be overlooked. I will say this. In the tech sector, when you have a software developer centric kind of organization, there is more potential for using AI to fill in for productivity because coding is more moving in the direction of becoming very much generated by AI.
Caroline Hyde
What caught my attention when I first read the post yesterday from Jack Dorsey was he was saying I'm late, I'm not early, others are going to copy me. Now, do you think there's going to be a copycat effect here, particularly from software from tech companies that are at the cutting edge of using the latest, greatest frontier models?
Michael McDermott
Probably. I mean there have been quite a few tech layoffs, including of developers from some of the biggest firms in the world. We've seen Amazon lay off 30,000 employees over the last few months and it will be happening everywhere. But again, all of these companies were in a war for talent during COVID and they were kind of hiring everyone they could get their hands on who had talent. Now these newer tools that allow software developers to generate code at a much faster pace, well it does change the economics a bit.
Caroline Hyde
But there's still a war for tenant, just a different kind of war for talent. And so I'm interested as to who therefore these companies are fighting to hire and who gets let's go in this scenario.
Michael McDermott
Right, well look, I think what we saw that was different during COVID is even relatively junior developers were being snapped up people straight out of college. And right now we know that junior talent is suffering in the job market. Very qualified people find it hard to get on that first rung of the career ladder. Who they're fighting over are really the leading edge AI experts and people with a lot of, you know, hardcore AI experience who are really adept at using these tools in a variety of ways and who have proven that they could drive some business value because we know that ROI remains relevant, relatively elusive with AI writ large.
Caroline Hyde
the end of the day, scapegoating or not, job cuts are still occurring. Jp, push us forward as to what the future of work in your mind's eye actually does look like this. The reason this block announcement had such an impact is because it comes on the back of a week where we had The Citrini research to kick it off when we all had this angst about what a dystopian two years time looks like with 10% unemployment. Is that what you're thinking is a reality?
Michael McDermott
So at Forrester we have a forecast, we believe that by 2030 that AI and automation will take about 10 million jobs out of the US economy, which is about 160 million jobs. So that's about 6.1%. That is nothing to sneeze at. There's real human pain involved there, but it's not the apocalypse that some people are talking about. We believe that usually AI is augmenting rather than effectively replacing people. And if you look beneath the covers, MIT did a study, 95% of companies have yet to see any tangible return on investment in a financial sense from all the AI investments they've been making over the last few years. So we have a sober look. It will have an impact. 10 million jobs is not nothing, but it is hardly the epoxy apocalypse.
Caroline Hyde
Will it create jobs?
Michael McDermott
JP yeah, there are definitely some new categories, at least of skills that are necessary. I mean did you ever hear of a prompt engineer three years ago?
Caroline Hyde
I know, but they still needed, I thought that was, I thought that was last year's issue.
Michael McDermott
It certainly was. And now we're moving to who's good@agentic AI. But those agents still base their actions on a lot of prompting. So, so prompting hasn't quite gone away to the degree that people would lead you to believe. But we are indeed moving toward a more agentic world.
Caroline Hyde
JP Gounder, it's great to connect with you today. A. Forrester thank you for the thought leadership that coming up 13%. That's the amount the global smartphone market could shrink this year. More on that IDC number next is Bloomberg Tech. Now I'd like to introduce you to Meaningful Beauty, the famed skin care brand created by iconic supermodel Cindy Crawford. It's her secret to absolutely gorgeous skin. Meaningful Beauty makes powerful and effective skin care simple and it's loved by millions of women. It's formulated for all ages and all skin tones and types. And it's designed to work as a complete skin care system, leaving your skin feeling soft, smooth and nourished. I recommend starting with Cindy's full regimen which contains all five of her best selling products including the amazing youth activating Melon Serum. This next generation serum has has the power of melon leaf stem cell technology. It's melon leaf stem cells encapsulated for freshness and released onto the skin to support a visible reduction in the appearance of wrinkles. With thousands of glowing five star reviews, why not give it a try? Subscribe today and you can get the amazing Meaningful Beauty system for just $49.95. That includes our introductory five piece system, free gifts, free shipping and a 60 day money back guarantee. All that available at@meaningfulbeauty.com Running a business
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50% off regular price for new customers upfront payment required $45 for three months. $90 for six months are $180 for 12 month plan taxes and fees. Extra speeds may slow after 50 gigabytes per month when network is busy see terms. A new report from IDC says the global memory crunch will lead to a historic contraction in the smartphone market. Nabila Popo, senior research director at IDC joins us to discuss this next. You call it a crisis like no other. What's driving it? Purely the fact that we all need memory for data centers.
Nabila Popo
Absolutely. I mean it is like no other because we've been through the pandemic, we've been through a really volatile here you're just now like with the tariffs and we still didn't see a drop like this. Right. So this is completely different situation and essentially there is just not enough memory for the players that need it. And given that how many different products we need memory and. Right. So you know, that's what's essentially creating the crunch. But more importantly, it's not just about the drop now and then the market will recover. It's about what makes this really different and much more dire for the industry. It's how this is going to create a permanent change, a structural reset of the entire industry both in terms of TAM. So just this year we're looking at about 160 million units wiped off the market. But even when it started starts to recover, which as of our assumptions the situation would stabilize somewhat mid 27 and we're starting to go in positive growth territory. But you're still looking at, you know, close to 160 million off the TAM. So throughout our forecast, we're not expecting the TAM to get back to prior 2025 levels. Right within that again.
Caroline Hyde
Can I jump in on that tam? Why will it be so long term diminished?
Nabila Popo
So essentially the, and the reason for the drop is how the change in the competitive landscape is going to, is going to, you know, the impact that it's going to take. So where the, you know, where is that 160 million coming from? It's the prices of the memory. Right? And why we keep saying, I mean that have the prices of the memory that has shot up, up to even 300% from what they were last year and they're continuing to go higher. Memory that used to contribute to about 20% of a smartphone bomb cost is now anywhere, you know, tripling that. So imagine a smartphone that is below $100 if the memory cost used to be 15 $20 and that's tripled, it's essentially making below 150 dollars smartphones uneconomical to, to make anymore. So those OEMs, and there are a lot of, you know, Android OEMs operating in that space, space with the majority of their portfolio, some with 90% of the portfolio below that. Those are the ones that are at extreme risk. You know, not to say that anyone is immune. Even the larger players like Apple and Samsung are going to face higher memory prices, but at least they are able to secure the supply. And when they get the supply, or at least majority of it, they can afford those higher prices.
Tara Davis Woodhull
Right.
Nabila Popo
Because their devices have large, larger margins. It's really those lower end Android players that are already operating on razor thin margins that simply not going to be able to make those phones, those below $150 phones.
Caroline Hyde
So it feels no like it's the emerging markets that are going to be hit the most in terms of end demand in terms of low cost phones. Can we not innovate our way out of this?
Nabila Popo
You know, I would and I think I said that earlier to someone that we are, you know, this is going to be a time, time of like survival of the fittest where the, of course the larger players are going to be able to secure their supply and leverage their, you know, their margins to be able to absorb some of the costs. But we're, you know, we always see right at times of crisis is when the biggest innovations come out. Right. So, you know, we're curious to see and we've already hearing of some of the lower OEMs either resorting to used devices to get the RAM from that or you know, and memory from older phones. But you know, we still don't think it'll be enough to avert the drop that we're seeing. The other strategy and mitigation strategy that they're thinking about or going to leverage is that they're going to try to move up in price segments. Right. So target above $200 phones. But again, the challenge there is that demand there is going to be very sensitive because one, there's going to be so much increased, increased competition from more established players in those price segments that it's going to be really harder hard for the low end below $100 brands to be able to get demand or consumers to buy their devices above 200. So even though they're being ambitious, I think it's going to be a big challenge to operate at the same volume at higher price segments. So, you know, that brings me to my other point. We're not only looking at a full competitive landscape change where many players exit and you know, share change between the larger players that are remaining, but also a complete product mix shift of the industry that is going to last for a long time because even when the crisis stabilizes and memory prices go down slightly, they're not going to go back to prior levels. So it's almost never, you know, permanently uneconomical to make those sub$150 devices.
Caroline Hyde
So we're going to be keeping our phones, Are we going to be keeping our phones for longer? Nebula, that was already a trend end and yes, exactly.
Nabila Popo
So the consumers that are not going to be able to afford those higher price segments or higher prices which are across the board, not just on low end where, you know, some are going to end up resorting to, you know, keeping their devices longer or resorting to the used market. So there's just so many dynamics at play and we're eager to see how OEMs and consumers adapt. But it's going to be a very challenging couple of years.
Caroline Hyde
Nopop it was fascinating research Senior Research Director at idc thank you. Coming up, a new way to start your weekend. Bloomberg TV is launching Bloomberg this weekend. Co host David Gurr is going to be joining us for a preview. This is Bloomberg Tech. NASA shaking up its Artemis mission to the moon. The space agency decided to cancel a multibillion dollar Boeing upgrade to the centerpiece Space Launch System rocket and is slotting in a test fighter flight closer to Earth as the program remains beset by delays in coast overruns. Now, even with this latest turn of events, NASA insists the 2028 deadline for a lunar touchdown remains unchanged. Meanwhile, there is something changing up. Bloomberg TV unveiling a brand new show to start your weekend, Bloomberg this weekend. Joining us is the program's co host David Gura, one of three and a whole team behind it. David, I have a feeling you might be talking some tech stuff this weekend.
Michael McDermott
Indeed we will. So there'll be plenty of tech stuff. Certainly watching what's been happening with the Pentagon and Anthropic. And also the private credit story continues to be roiling as well. So I think it highlights why we're doing this program. That is, it doesn't seem like everything is contained in a Monday through Friday week anymore. It seems like it starts to build even more at the tail end of Friday going into the weekend. So between that, what's happening in tech, private credit and then of course what's happening geopolitics, I think it has the makings for a very busy launch weekend for us.
Caroline Hyde
I blame crypto. Yes, they started throughout the week and vibes, but what we like to do on a weekend is maybe digest in a different way. It's kind of a sit back approach rather than a lean in. Is that kind of the style of the program?
Michael McDermott
That is definitely the plan. And of course if something major happens, we will change course and accommodate that and cover the live news very capably with all of our colleagues around the world. But having done this once before, hosted a weekend show, I know that the importance of it centers largely on being able to exhale at the end of the week. Think about what's happened on Saturday, maybe have some longer conversations about themes that have developed over the course of the week and then on Sunday kind of position everyone for the week ahead, set the table for that. So it'll be three hours, a significant amount of time. But we're on tv, radio and streaming as well. So folks can kind of listen to the show as they move about their day. They don't have to be stationary in front of the television or the radio to do it.
Caroline Hyde
I mean, I really feel like the themes that have engulfed this week in many ways are the themes that continue from our tech audience perspective day in, day out. What does I mean for the future of work? What does it mean in terms of a dystopian future in 2030 that is articulated on a substack by Citrini Research we never heard of before? Sorry, Satan, but is that something you're thinking about? Is that what the audience are asking for as well?
Michael McDermott
I think so. And there's some plasticity that this we're at the beginning of the evolution of a lot of these things. And I think that people are very hungry for all kinds of analysis. Yes, the most alarmist and thought provoking. But I think there are many opportunities when it comes to AI, when it comes to productivity, when it comes to the economy broadly, to kind of sit back and really hear interesting conversation about what people are thinking about, about where it's headed, where it might be headed, where it could be headed. And we'll be having those conversations.
Caroline Hyde
Who can we look for?
Michael McDermott
Let me flag that. We'll have the minority leader of the House, Representative Kim Jeffries, on the show tomorrow. And the Democrats have just had a big meeting outside of Washington, D.C. obviously on the heels of the State of the Union. We'll be having a conversation with him about that, the Democratic agenda. Certainly. We'll get into tech talk about Iran as well as we continue to watch what's happening there. And the House prepares to vote on a war powers resolution next next week.
Caroline Hyde
Light stuff.
Michael McDermott
Light stuff. There'll be light fair as well. I don't mean to David worry people.
Caroline Hyde
There'll be some laughs. I know that with your team. We thank you. To be sure, tune in to the premiere of Bloomberg this weekend. That's tomorrow starting at 7am Eastern. That does it for this edition of Bloomberg Tech. But keep an eye on some of these stocks. The NASDAQ 100 having its worst week since March of last month, in fact, of March of last year. It's down on the week. It's down on the day. Nvidia off by 2.2%. Amazon with our OpenAI $50 billion funding of 110. This is Bloomberg Tech.
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Date: February 27, 2026
Hosts: Caroline Hyde & Ed Ludlow
This episode dives into historic developments in the AI and tech industry, centered around OpenAI’s monumental $110 billion funding round led by Amazon, Nvidia, and other major investors. The hosts also discuss the ongoing battle between Anthropic and the Pentagon over AI safeguards, dramatic workforce changes at Block (formerly Square) with a focus on AI-driven productivity, and shifts within both public and private tech markets. The episode touches on broader labor market implications and supply chain crises affecting global smartphone production.
[01:27 – 05:28]
"It’s another example for us that it takes all parties now to meet the needs of AI and cloud computing."
— Michael McDermott, [03:16]
[05:28 – 08:55]
"There's just still this lingering anxiety of, okay, yes, we need a lot of infrastructure, but who's going to make money on all this?"
— Stephanie Adiagas, JP Morgan [05:51]
[04:28 – 05:28]
"OpenAI, like Anthropic, has been investing heavily in AI coding tools, agents, and working to help enterprises figure out how to make the most of its existing AI technology."
— Michael McDermott, [04:51]
[11:51 – 20:55]
Conflict Overview:
Worker Solidarity:
Legal/Ethical Dilemmas:
Expert Perspectives:
Quote:
"We need these two safety guardrails: no autonomous strikes without a human in the loop, and no surveillance of US citizens."
— Tara Davis Woodhull summarizing Anthropic’s demands [13:01]
"Anthropic’s leverage is that their model is really good and the Pentagon wants to use it...they probably will find some middle ground here before 5pm today."
— Sarah Kreps [20:06]
[30:13 – 37:26]
Announcement:
Industry Impact:
Expert Analysis:
Quotes:
"The truth of the matter is Block did overhire during COVID and that can't be overlooked."
— JP Gounder [33:06]
"We believe that usually AI is augmenting rather than replacing people... it will have an impact, 10 million jobs is not nothing, but it is hardly the apocalypse."
— JP Gounder [36:04]
“It takes all parties now to meet the needs of AI and cloud computing.”
— Michael McDermott [03:16]
“There's just still this lingering anxiety of...who's going to make money on all this and where are the competitive moats actually going to stick?”
— Stephanie Adiagas [05:51]
“AI is going to create a lot of transformation in work and that transformation could at times look like layoffs in some areas. But I think over the medium term we're going to see all sorts of job creation.”
— Tara Davis Woodhull [09:21]
“Anthropic’s leverage is that their model is really good and that the Pentagon wants to use it.”
— Sarah Kreps [20:06]
"10 million jobs is not nothing, but it is hardly the apocalypse. Usually AI is augmenting rather than effectively replacing people.”
— JP Gounder [36:04]
The episode is both fast-paced and deeply analytical, moving fluidly between breaking news, executive interviews, and market analysis. Hosts maintain a sharp, inquisitive tone, frequently pushing guests to clarify real-world implications (especially around AI, labor, and innovation). There’s a persistent sense of urgency about the transformation occurring across tech, underlined by concerns over market uncertainty, workforce shifts, and the geopolitical/ethical boundaries of cutting-edge AI.
For listeners:
You’ll walk away with a nuanced understanding of how much is at stake—financially, ethically, and technologically—in today’s high-speed AI boom, and how these shifts are affecting everything from global supply chains to the very nature of work.