Bloomberg Tech Podcast Summary

Episode Title: OpenAI Targets Banking, Warner Bros. Considers Sales Options
Date: October 21, 2025
Hosts: Caroline Hyde (New York), Ed Ludlow (San Francisco)

Overview

This episode focuses on major developments at the intersection of technology, business, and global affairs, including:

• OpenAI's ambitious moves into the financial modeling and banking sectors
• Warner Bros. Discovery's expanded review of strategic business options, including potential spinoffs or sales
• A US-Australia rare earth deal aimed at countering China’s critical minerals dominance
• Reactions and insights on data center M&A, cloud outages, defense tech, semiconductors, and market impacts from IPO guidance changes
• The launch of long-term car rentals by Turo

The panel features timely analysis from Bloomberg reporters, industry specialists, and tech investors.

Key Segments and Insights

1. Warner Bros. Discovery Explores Strategic Options (00:55, 39:00)

Discussion Highlights

• Warner Bros. Discovery’s stock surged (~10%) amidst news of an expanded strategic review, beyond their previously announced cable/studio streaming split.
• Options under consideration now include further spinoffs or a complete sale, prompted by unsolicited interest from industry players.

Notable Quotes

• “I think now it's officially for sale. We knew that it was basically... happening, but now the options are looking at...reorganization, potential interest in the whole thing, or parts of it.” — Felix Gillette, Bloomberg Media Editor (39:15)
• “Everyone needs to take a look at this. Warner Brothers Discovery has one of the biggest, richest libraries of IP on the planet.” — Felix Gillette (40:45)

Potential Buyers Discussed

• Paramount, Skydance, Netflix, Comcast, Amazon, Apple—all viewed as possible suitors due to Warner Bros.'s rich content library (Harry Potter, DC Universe, Lord of the Rings).

2. OpenAI’s Push into Banking: Project Mercury (04:18, 08:40)

Discussion Highlights

• OpenAI is working on "Project Mercury," enlisting ex-investment bankers to train AI models for highly specialized financial tasks, with the aim of automating the tedious aspects of junior banking work (financial modeling, presentations).
• The goal is freeing up junior bankers from grunt work and enabling focus on high-value strategic activities.

Notable Quotes

• “The so-called Project Mercury is effectively OpenAI hiring ex investment bankers as contractors...to help the AI with training it on how to write prompts, execute models, and...do tasks currently performed by associates and analysts.” — Sridhar Natarajan, Bloomberg Chief Wall Street Correspondent (05:20)
• “This is the origin of the ‘please fix’ meme, right? Investment bankers, junior analysts who spend 80-100 hours a week working in Excel...” — Ed Ludlow, Host (06:30)

Key Insight

• OpenAI’s strategy signals further tech-driven transformation of financial services and could impact junior roles in banking.

3. US-Australia Rare Earths Deal: Countering China (12:22)

Discussion Highlights

• President Trump announced a bilateral deal with Australia to secure critical rare earth minerals, attempting to reduce US dependency on China amid ongoing trade tensions.
• Australia claims capacity to supply up to 30-40 out of the 50 critical minerals identified by the US.

Notable Quotes

• “The Trump administration is...trying to break China’s grip on the rare earths market and reduce US dependence on China as a source of critical minerals.” — Mike Shepard, Bloomberg Senior Tech Editor (14:10)
• “Australia...likes to refer to itself as the world's periodic table.” — Mike Shepard (16:35)

Industry Reaction (Rob Thummel, Tortoise Capital, 18:50)

• “The rare earth supply chain needs to really develop like the energy supply chain has evolved...AI’s foundation is two things: data, and electricity.”

Market Context

• The agreement is interpreted as part of a broader supply chain security agenda, with rare earths essential for autos, electronics, and defense.

4. Data, AI, and Utilities: The Foundation of the AI Boom (20:30)

Themes

• The AI boom is transforming the utilities sector, which is seeing significant growth due to energy demand from AI data centers.
• Bitcoin miners are pivoting to data centers because of their ready access to electricity.

Notable Quotes

• “The next decade is going to be the age of electricity. Electricity is going to become the new oil.” — Rob Thummel (21:10)
• “Bitcoin miners are transforming from miners to data center operators...They have the electricity and can transform their business.” — Rob Thummel (21:50)

5. Data Center M&A: CoreWeave and Core Scientific (42:20)

Insights

• CoreWeave stands firm on its $9 billion bid for Core Scientific, despite shareholder opposition and high demand in the data center space.
• The two companies are differentiated by their focus: CoreWeave rents out GPUs for AI workloads, while Core Scientific focuses on creating physical data centers.

Notable Quotes

• “If there’s someone else that would like to step in, they can step in. But, you know, we're excited. We think it makes sense.” — Michael Intrator, CoreWeave CEO (42:30)
• “The problem is, how do you go out and deliver on it?... At what pace can people go out and create data centers and install GPUs and get revenue?” — Anurag Rana, Bloomberg Intelligence (44:30)

6. AWS Outage and Cloud Market Reactions (46:45)

Summary

• Amazon’s AWS platform suffered a rare 15-hour outage, the most severe since 2021, affecting many major websites and services.
• Analysts speculate customers may react by diversifying across cloud providers.

Notable Quotes

• “This was a big one. This took out their biggest data center region and took it out for most of a day throughout the US east coast workday. This is a really big deal for a company that prides itself on uptime.” — Matt Day, Bloomberg (47:15)
• “You can see some hedging bets, which is a trend we've seen in recent years anyway.” — Matt Day (48:45)

7. Defense Tech and Semiconductors: Industry Snapshots (51:10)

Key Points

• Defense tech (Northrop, Lockheed Martin): Both companies reported mixed earnings, with Lockheed highlighting its record backlog and defense system projects as growth drivers.
• UK defense tech company Helsing observes a bubble in the sector due to a surge of non-traditional investors entering the space.
• Semiconductors: Texas Instruments faces uncertainty due to US-China trade tensions and China's efforts to localize analog chip production. The US government is keen on TI’s commitment to build domestically.

Notable Quotes

• “In 2021, not a single European VC...wanted to touch defence. Now everyone has moved into defense, including the crypto caravan.” — Thorsen Ray, Helsing co-CEO (52:35)
• “They [TI] are the perfect picture Trump wants to have...they're building in the US.” — Ian King, Bloomberg (55:25)

8. AI Supply Chain and Investment Opportunities (57:30)

Analyst Perspective (Beth Kindig, IO Fund)

• Focus on AI infrastructure suppliers (storage, network, power).
• Excitement about Nvidia’s next-generation GPUs and the resulting demand surge throughout the AI supply chain.
• Longer-term onshoring of manufacturing will take years, but near-term investment opportunity is in the “enablers” of AI.

Notable Quotes

• “Really the best investable opportunity of our lifetime...That's the piece I would really focus on.” — Beth Kindig, IO Fund (59:35)

9. IPO Market Adapts to US Government Shutdown (01:03:55)

Insights

• New SEC guidance allows companies to file less-detailed IPO paperwork, with automatic effectiveness in 20 days—seen as risky but potentially expedient during the shutdown.
• Notable companies using this route: Navan and Beta Technologies (EV eVTOL).

Notable Quotes

• “When you use this workaround, you're exposed to the market with the expected valuation and the expected IPO size for 20 days. That's not normal.” — Bailey Lipschultz, Bloomberg IPO Reporter (01:05:00)

10. Turo Launches Alternative to Car Ownership (01:08:25)

Product Launch

• Turo now allows customers to rent cars for several months, offering an intermediary product between short-term rental and traditional car ownership/leasing.

Notable Quotes

• “You can actually book a car for multiple months at a time...pay on a monthly basis, as if you're paying a monthly lease—but there’s no upfront commitments.” — Andre Haddad, Turo CEO (01:08:55)
• “We've really reached peak car. I believe we’re never going back to 17.5 or 18 million vehicles sold in the country.” — Andre Haddad (01:11:45)

Business Model & IPO Outlook

• Turo remains cautious about IPO timing amid internal business model tweaks.

Additional Noteworthy Moments

• Utilities as AI Winners: “Utilities sector up more than 40%; the foundation is data and electricity.” (20:42)
• Rare Earths Market: “Some [rare earth] stocks up nearly 400% this year.” (Beth Kindig, 01:02:05)
• Nvidia’s Product Cycles: “Moving from 8 GPUs to 72 GPUs – that’s a big moment for Nvidia.” (Beth Kindig, 01:01:10)

Conclusion

This episode offers a comprehensive look at how cutting-edge technology from AI to data centers and rare earths is reshaping core business and geopolitical landscapes. Listeners gain expert perspectives on:

• The real-world impacts of tech in Wall Street, supply chains, and defense
• Major media industry shakeups and the renewed race for premium video content
• Strategic pivots in traditional industries (utilities, car ownership) driven by new tech-enabled business models

For continued deep dives, check the full Bloomberg Tech podcast feed.