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Quantum computing is coming out of the lab and becoming commercially viable. We look at one of the winners. Big public companies are investing in high risk startups. Billions of dollars of venture capital hiding in plain sight. I speak with Sally Shin about why it's happening and if it works. Her views from doing venture inside global media giant Comcast and Amazon's War with Walmart why the Biggest Battle is for the 8 billion US grocery market for Thursday, October 2nd, it's BrewMarkets Daily and I'm Ann Berry. More market details to come. But first, Amazon just will not give up. It started grocery deliveries in 2007, then it bought organic food retailer Whole foods for nearly $14 billion. Ten years later, it launched Amazon Fresh stores in 2020, then opened some, close others and restructured the banner several times afterwards. And it all got unified into a quote one grocery strategy in 2024. So after more than 17 years of trying to get the pieces of the grocery jigsaw puzzle in one place, it looks like Amazon is finally ready to play. Now. In August, it announced same day grocery deliveries in more than 2,300 U.S. cities by the end of this year. And then just this week, Amazon launched a new private label grocery brand aimed at price conscious shoppers. Its range of more than a thousand items, including meat, fresh produce and dairy are mostly priced under $5. So here's why this caught our eye. This is not just Amazon persisting in any old category. It's a new battle in its war with Walmart. The nearly $2.4 trillion market cap tech giant taking on Bentonville's $800 billion market cap retail OG hitting Walmart right where it hurts. The US grocery market is worth over $850 billion each year and Walmart still dominates it with about 25% share. That's a lot for just one player. Now grocery makes up 60% of its US sales and it's a major reason why shoppers keep walking into Walmart stores. Perishable products keep customers going back to replenish their fridges, fueling other purchases once they're inside Walmart's doors and feeding the flywheel. That is the scale Walmart is famous for now. This summer, Walmart struck at the heart of Amazon's signature Prime day deals with its own week of discounts, a sign that Walmart is incredibly serious about keeping its current place as America's biggest retailer. But this new threat to grocery has caught the market's attention. Walmart stock is did come down 2 1/2% in response to Amazon's shot across the bowers. We're going to keep watching this one. This is a bigger move than it looks when it comes to the war between these two. Now coming up, as shareholders, we want to know where public companies are putting their cash. So we ask why are billions of dollars of that cash going into high risk startups?
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My conversation with Comcast, Sally Shin, stay with us.
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But first a word from our sponsor Capital Client Group. Our producer John and I were talking about some other podcasts that we listen to.
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Subscribe and listen today. Published by Capital Client Group Inc. Hidden inside the balance sheets of many large public companies are investments in early stage and growing private businesses. This is particularly so in tech. Take Nvidia. The chip giant has supported startups for nearly 10 years with its Inception program, offering young companies in AI, data science and high performance computing, access to developer resources and exclusive pricing on Nvidia hardware, as well as connections to a network of 200 venture capital providers. Now, in 2021, Nvidia went even further to formalize providing that capital itself, launching its corporate venture capital arm and ventures to take stakes in startups in healthcare, robotics, biotech and fintech. And it's not alone. A corporate venture capital arm sits inside Salesforce with reportedly nearly $7 billion in assets under management. And there's more inside Intel, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, Cisco, IBM, Amazon and many others. Then there's auto, BMW, Toyota and Ford.
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Have in house venture investing platforms in.
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Pharma at Novartis and Pfizer, in financial services at Citigroup, American Express and Capital One, and even in luxury goods, with LVMH backing a fund to identify, quote, minority investment opportunities in the most emblematic and cult brands across the luxury sector. Well, to unpack this and there's a lot of I spoke with Sally Shin, venture partner at Comcast Ventures, which is the corporate venture arm inside media giant Comcast with a market cap of nearly $115 billion. There's a lot going on at this company, which has assets in broadband, universal theme parks, entertainment brands including NBC and Telemundo. And it's spinning out its portfolio of cable TV networks from CNBC to the Golf Channel later this year. Given Sally's vantage point inside Comcast and her own experiences as an AI co founder, I asked her, is this kind of venture activity just another form of research and development? Is it a way to find deals when M and A is expensive, or is it just a distraction from a corporation's core business? And to the best founders with access to a multitude of blue chip Silicon Valley venture funds, do these corporate arms really add any value? Listen and you decide, well, Sally, let's start with access to capital and not all monies.
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There's a lot of money out there chasing startups.
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It's not all created equal. So for the best startups who have.
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Lots of access to capital, they've got the pick of the bunch in Silicon Valley.
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Why would they want corporate venture capital.
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To be part of their investor base?
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Yeah, so Comcast Ventures is the venture arm of Comcast, NBC Universal and Sky.
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So.
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So we not only look for companies that sit on top of our core business, but are strategic to our future looking businesses as well. We just invested in a company called Creativey. The reason for them taking our money is they just did a big deal with Universal ads and so Creativey focuses on video generation for advertising. There's a strategic angle to it that they can actually benefit from. We also did a deal with Moon Valley is another company we just did that's focused on video generation. Obviously, when it comes to video generation models, a lot of these foundation model companies are looking for enterprise customers, which studios are going to look to build which content, et cetera. So for them, they see a unique advantage in that. There's also a lot of different programs within Comcast Universal as well that focus on this. So we have a program called Lift Labs where the last cohort included Ryder and Windsurf. And these are ways for companies to work directly with brands within Comcast. So it's a quick way to accelerate POCs and get partnership deals done. They understand that startups, you know, it takes them months to get a POC done and this program helps enable them to get to this process a lot faster. We need to be in these companies early on to have these conversations for them. They can actually get that a Lot faster.
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Well, that'll make sense, right?
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Those specific examples make sense, but I do look, I sort of nerded out.
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I went on the Comcast Ventures website and the tagline there is quote backing promising startups. We back early to growth stage companies shaping sectors and industries that may define Comcast next 60 plus years.
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And then it lists the areas of.
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Focus and there's six of them. But that does include prop tech is one of the areas of focus. Energy and sustainability.
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Neither of those are areas that I.
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Would associate as having natural synergies with a media company. So why are they sitting in there?
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I mean think about it. We have Xfinity, we have one of the largest cable networks. So we're looking at different areas that help us actually build those infrastructure as well. So robotics for example, not a natural synergy with us, but we're really excited about that space. It could be that in the future you're installing your cable business with robotics rather than humans. You can think about how you actually landscape those. So those are different ways that we play around with it.
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So yeah, it's interesting. There used to be this emotion towards corporate venture arms in media companies investing in consumer goods. I remember Hearst Corporation would do this as well. And I did see sort of lurking in the portfolio list there as a way the suitcase company has that just sort of stopped. Is it now all in on data and you've stopped, you know, the idea that you can get consumer brands on TV for example, faster?
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Yeah, we're definitely more strategically aligned to what is part of core part of our business. I do think there are some opportunities where consumer brands can advertise on different one of our networks. So we do have a separate program which is not the venture Steam, it's called Farcast Labs that focuses on consumer brands that could potentially get into a deal with ad networks. I think NBA does something similar as well. So these media assets are looking for different ways to get into these deals. As you know, a lot of these deals are very hot and like hard to get into. So this is a unique advantage for them.
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But let's talk about whether this is.
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The new form of M and A.
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Right. So I went away and I looked.
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At who are some of the biggest corporations with big venture arms inside them. And some of these numbers, I'm just going to list them are really very large. Intel, for example, as Intel Capital, depending on what you read, more than $5 billion of assets under mass under management. Salesforce has got more than $6.8 billion of assets under management.
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So where it's been really successful and chime in on this Sally.
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Google Ventures invested in Uber pretty early. It invested in Nest and then bought Nest.
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Microsoft invested in LinkedIn and then later bought LinkedIn.
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Meta invested in both Instagram and WhatsApp and then later bought both of those there. It makes sense that you've got corporates investing early because there's a chance that they actually buy something down the line. But outside of that, how much of a distraction is this for the core business?
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I won't comment on our M and A strategy. I don't have visibility into that. I think a lot of the names that you mentioned are pure tech companies. When you're talking about the Metas and Intels and the Microsofts of the world. I think in that space there's a lot of M and A happening looking for talent actually that's sort of where the price value is. And I think a lot of the startups that have been able to raise a good bit of money but don't have the traction the same 100 million ARR in a short span of time and so they're looking for exits and a lot of the buyers are looking for the talent which is probably the most expensive part of it on top of compute. Especially when it comes to AI companies.
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Let's talk about talent on the other side actually. If you are a budding venture capitalist and you take a job whether it's at Comcast Ventures or another corporate VC and you build a track record, why would people stay? Why wouldn't they just leave and go raise their own fund or go join a Sequoia or an Andreessen? Because there is a perception that comp is probably capped inside the corporate world in a way that it's maybe not if they go to sort of other investment platforms.
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I mean for Comcast. I've been in the media business my entire career. I was at CNBC for 10 plus years. I've always worked at companies or advised companies like Kelshi where it's a media adjacent businesses and people that do work within these Comcast Ventures or any of the like media venture arms truly love the evolving media business and it is obviously in a very inflection point when it comes to these different business models. You know I think Google Ventures is an example of a corporate venture fund that's doing very well. They have very great talent both in Europe and in the US you stay.
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They stuck it out.
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Yeah, that that continue to stay and bring on great deals. I have great friends like Frederic who's a GV general partner. I've got Tom Holme who's over at Europe. They've been there for a long time. So I think it depends on the vertical focus and then actual funds that are corporate venture funds.
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Let's talk about valuation. You're active in AI in lots of different ways. You're an investor, you're also a founder. You sort of got in on that intersection of media and AI I think quite a bit earlier than lots of other people typically. Let's talk about valuation. Typically public company valuations track lower than early stage ones because the early stage investment tends to be more speculative. Public company valuations are at all time highs. So your investor hat on. Are we in a bubble Both question for the public market and then what you're seeing for AI in the private markets.
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Yeah, I'm not going to comment on the public markets because that's not the space that I'm in in the private markets. I do think that there is some frothiness with some companies where I was at a dinner with a founder a week ago that raised $30 million and then just raised another $50 million in the span of two to three weeks. Yeah, I think there are very few deals that all the venture funds are trying to get into. So price sensitivity is no longer as strict as it used to be. So I think there is going to be some correction in that space. And this is also why I go back to the whole M and a story. Why these people that are not in the like top tier bucket are potentially maybe looking for buyers is because they're not able to raise. Even though there's so much capital in the venture market today, there's only a few of these deals that people want to get into, like the open AIs and anthropics of the world or even a layer deeper than that.
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I'm going to push you when you're not going to comment on public company valuations. And here's why folks, for those listening so Sally was at CNBC for a long time and she was one of the founding minds behind Tech Check. Now those of you who are watching TV, as we all were in 2020, 2021, Tech Check was a very visible part of the CNBC programming. And so Sally, look, you were there when SPACs were going out multiple a week. We saw very headline grabbing techie IPOs. So I, I hear you that you're not necessarily playing in the public markets.
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Now, but you sat through a cycle.
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And you sat through them before.
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When you look at the narrative and.
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The storytelling around AI now and you look at the narrative and the storytelling around the SPACs and the tech IPOs that were happening when you were in the thick of it, do you see differences? Do you see similarities? Do you have an emotional reaction to to it now versus then?
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I think when some of these later stage private market AI companies are worth hundreds of billions of dollars, not $300 billion. I do wonder what the path to IPO or path to exit does look like. If there's going to be bigger consolidation within some of the mid tier players or if you continue to see a trillion dollar market cap or a few trillion dollar market caps coming from the private markets. So that part I wonder where it's going to happen. Right now everyone's in investment mode and it seems like every capital is going from one company to the other. So we'll see how that reacts in the public markets though let's talk about.
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That circularity actually, which is absolutely happening.
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In the public markets.
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And one of the things that we.
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Talked about in the show was when the announcement came out that Nvidia was making a hundred billion dollar investment in OpenAI over a period of time, I said, you know, I really wanted to talk about this the moment it broke. But I wanted to pause because something about it didn't sit well with me.
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And what it what was not sitting.
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Well with me was the idea that now Nvidia is basically funding one of its biggest clients and is this just a glorified customer financing? And so I'm going to ask you, because you sit in a world where ventures doing this at the earliest, smaller stages, right, there is meant to be synergy from investor to recipient of the capital. When you look at this happening in the hundreds of billion dollar scales at Nvidia, what's your reaction to that?
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I'll look at it in the lens of an earlier stage than the open eyes of the world. If you look at some of the most enterprising deep tech companies, foundational model companies, there are three ways that capital is going. There is the compute, there's data, the data set that you need to train, which is expensive, and then there's talent. So when two of them, the data set, you look at LLMs, majority of the LLMs, pretty much every foundational model company has access to all the text data they need. I think image and video slightly behind and then world modeling a lot more behind, but still. So when capital and data is not really differentiated, where the differentiation comes in is talent. So when you look at foundational AI companies, you kind of sort of discount those two and you look at what is differentiated within talent. So I think that's where the uniqueness of these AI companies come in, is, hey, are you still able to attract some of the top talent? This is also why it's kind of interesting to see where the talent is flocking to Meta, but are they actually staying? I've heard that there's Meta AI researchers that got paid these large sums of packages that aren't staying long. I think the two heads of Code Claude joined Meta and then they went back to Code Claude very a few weeks later. So where the talent density is, that's where the interest in investments are.
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Do you think it's reached a point though, where talent isn't necessarily being assessed and people are just focusing on resume bullet points? I mean, you hear these stories now someone can go to OpenAI and be there for a couple of months and then go raising this huge amount of money because there's a perception that they've been blessed by the halo that is OpenAI and the sort of Sam Altman halo, and then go off and get either astronomical amounts of money working somewhere else like one of the big tech businesses, or go and start their own company or go and start their own venture fund. Are people being discerning when they look at the capital that they're supporting.
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I think so. I think the ones that are actually getting capitalized once they've been at the open eyes and anthropics of the world are looking at the research that they've done, which is public, you can see how much of the research is actually being cited. We're not talking about someone who is on a different part of the org that just happens to have an OpenAI logo and they, they decide to start another company. So I do think there is a good amount of measurement happening on in terms of performance and the impact that they have had in this space.
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So before we leave venture capital, I have one more question for you, which is the failure rate in VC is really high, right? Definitionally, for those doing it in a corporate environment, how are guardrails put around it? Because when you're a fiduciary, right, when you are the steward ultimately of public shareholders capital, it feels as though the bar should be quite high. In your experience, how are corporate VCs mitigating their risk?
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I mean, we're definitely more cautious in the companies that we look at than a traditional venture fund out in Silicon Valley. So one of our core businesses is ip. We hold some of the most valuable IP in the world, including, including Universal Pictures, we've got Shrek, we've got Minions, we've got a lot of these iconic brands that so many of the AI companies would love to get access to. So we're definitely cautious about how those IP is being used. We're definitely looking at ways to think about how do you increase digital merchandising strategy with the ip. But we're focused on companies that are more disciplined in that. So that's where Moon Valley was a great investment for us. They are training their entire data set on clean data versus some of the other companies that might not be as discerning of that.
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Let's switch gears a bit and talk about the next frontiers of media and whether traditional media, outside of investing in them, outside of the venture world. But just from a purely operating perspective, can they really compete?
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And the reason I thought you'd be.
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Such a good person to ask, you have your own podcast. You've got great chat everyone. Just go check it out. It's just really good conversation with a group of women who are investing in early stage companies like Sally and talking about the lessons they learned along the way. But as I listen to and watch your podcast and I see you've basically got sort of five people talking together remotely, you don't have the cost of a studio the infrastructure is pretty low expense. That's one model.
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And then you think about people, whatever.
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This isn't a political statement, but if you look at someone like Megyn Kelly, she's been out there and said, when I look at the number of eyeballs I get. And she provocatively compares it to cnn, right? Herself and two team members on a production team, presumably very low cost. I look at all of these different models. Someone who built a profile and went out on her own, struck out independently. Someone who started something from the ground up, like you. How on earth does traditional media. How does cable TV stand a chance to compete when the cost of content production is as low as it is in the case that you're experiencing?
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I mean, look, I'm not going to deny that the way that people consume content is shifting. You know, majority of the people are looking at content online. I think the idea of calling something traditional media versus new media is such an archaic way.
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Why do I mean that?
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Because I think traditional media strategy and how they're looking to adapt is in some form a lot of the things that new media, New media is doing.
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Well, give an example of that. And I'm sort of being provocative here. So let's make it even simpler. Let's say that traditional media is cable tv.
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Okay.
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Or it's print journalism. Right. Let's call that traditional media. And you say shifting. Hasn't it already shifted? And what is it you're saying? Where. Where are they doing things the same as new media now?
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So, for example, New York Times, typically traditional media are expanding into new verticals. They did. They were one of the first to adapt subscription businesses and digital, they're looking and exploring at different video assets. They're doing a lot of conferences. Some of the other revenue items that some of the new media companies are doing to actually grow their brand. What are what new media folks do? Realize that in order to actually scale up a media business, you need multiple revenue streams. Yes. Getting top dollar on sponsorships is one and major revenue and subscription the other. But when you want to go from one person, Megyn Kelly, or one person, Alex Conrad, who just left Forbes to start his own company, and we have a lot of colleagues that are in that space, you realize in order to actually scale up is not as easy as it sounds. I think if you want linear revenue and you're one person and you want to, you want to get that cash flow, I think that makes sense. I think a lot of people that have, I would say some people that have good following can build that business, I think looking the other way, and I love doing the survey every like quarter with, with my friends is how many subscription business do you pay for a substack for an independent journalist? And for me personally, I probably have a cap and my cap is probably higher just because of the industry that I'm in is about $100. So that's typically around what, 8 to 10 of substack writers. And I keep hearing so many more of my friends that are exiting the media business, that are leaving the Times, leaving Fortune, Forbes and starting their own businesses. At some point you're going to see some sort of a consolidation in those because I think you cannot fight the same dollars. So I think people are thinking about that. They're definitely behind the scenes also talking about how do you actually leverage the audience of different cable businesses to expand their audience. One shift in trend, especially when it comes to tech and business, is narrower audiences. With deeper understanding of a content creator, you're going to get a lot more viewership. Right. Or a lot more people willing to pay the top dollars.
C
And the engagement.
E
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So I think TVPN is a, is a great example of these new two young individuals that, you know, started doing what's called, I think technology brothers is the long form of it. And they've got a really engaged audience for the early stage companies. They know the insider baseball. These. I think John worked at Founders Fund as an EIR and they both have been in the entrepreneurship and startup community for a long time. So they know those people. Are they the same audience as cnbc? I get asked this all the time and it's not, it's a small portion of it. But could they, could they have more value because they have a deeper understanding or deeper engagement with their community? You know, possibly.
C
Possibly.
B
Well then, you know, they need to.
C
Get with great chat and then sort.
B
Of add some synergy on your audiences. Sally Shin, great chat.
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Podcast host and venture partner at Comcast Ventures.
B
Come back.
E
Thank you for having me.
B
Our thanks to Sally Shin for joining. Well, it's 4pm on the east Coast. That's the closing bell. The market's wrapping for the day and we don't have a ticker tape so we're going to throw it over to our human ticker, our producer John.
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That's right. The S&P 500 finished flat today. The Dow finished up 2:10 and the Nasdaq continued its march into record highs, finishing up over a third of a percent. Some market headlines share and rigged computing continued its three day run up over 15% today, hitting an intraday high. This after news that the company secured purchase orders for two nevera quantum computing systems, which don't carry a particularly high price tag. But the buyers in this case are corporations and the markets are pleased with that news. Rigetti stock is up over 125% this year and 4,400% in the past 12 months. And over to commodities, the price of oil continued its decline today, down 7% this week to nearly $60 a barrel. The decrease is due in part to speculation that OPEC may be upping its production. And we'll be watching.
B
Well, there's one story that caught our eye and that really relates to anybody, when you think about it, who applies for consumer credit. Now, if you've applied for a credit card lately or if you've applied for an auto loan, the issue of a FICO score, the measure of your credit worthiness, will have come up. Well, FICO scores were invented by and continue to be maintained and generated by Fair Isaac or which is actually a publicly traded company. And one of the biggest users of FICO scores is the mortgage industry. Typically, mortgage lenders will go to intermediaries, middlemen, including the likes of Experian, to go and get a hold of these FICO scores and come up with credit scores to decide how much to lend when it comes to lending against housing to lend to issue mortgages. Well, today Fair Isaac announced that it's going to sell its FICO scores directly to the mortgage lenders, cutting out those middlemen and enabling the borrowers to get a hold of their FICO scores directly themselves. Shares rallied more than 20% in response to this news.
C
And here's the real reason, though, why we're going to keep watching this one.
B
So much is going on in the world of underwriting consumer credit, and we're hearing about it in lots of different places. BNPL buy now, pay later is one area that's been disrupting consumer credit. Then you've got companies like Upstart that's been using AI to generate more sophisticated models than FICO scores alone to figure out how much debt an individual consumer can and should take out. This is another step in the journey.
C
That we're going to keep watching.
B
That's it for today's Brew Markets Daily.
D
And Brew Markets Daily is hosted by Anne Barry and produced by John Croteau, Tariq Abdelatif and Emily Milian. Our technical director is Luis Farias and Jesse Derozier runs audio. The president of Morning Brew, Inc. Is Devin Emery.
B
Wake up tomorrow with the Morning Brew newsletter and tune in to Neil and Toby on Morning Brew daily. And a special thank you to Toby for having me join him to co host the show this morning, covering for Neil. We'll see you back here tomorrow, same time, same place.
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Limu Emu and Doug.
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Here we have the Limu Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.
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Uh, Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us?
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Cut the camera. They see us.
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Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com Liberty Liberty, Liberty. Liberty Savings Ferry Unwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts.
Podcast: Brew Markets by Morning Brew
Episode Date: October 2, 2025
Host: Ann Berry
Guest: Sally Shin, Venture Partner at Comcast Ventures
This episode of Brew Markets explores two major themes:
Amazon's Latest Power Move in the U.S. Grocery Market: Host Ann Berry analyzes Amazon’s aggressive new strategies—specifically, a low-cost private label grocery brand and rapid expansion of same-day delivery—as a direct challenge to Walmart in the $850 billion U.S. grocery sector.
The Inside Story on Corporate Venture Capital: Ann Berry’s featured interview with Sally Shin (Venture Partner, Comcast Ventures) gives listeners a deep dive into why major public companies are pouring billions into high-risk startups, how this functions both as R&D and strategic investment, and the unique pros and cons of corporate VC compared to traditional VC funds.
(00:31–03:37)
(04:03–21:39)
(04:03–06:29)
(06:29–21:39)
(10:00–11:37)
(11:37–12:58)
(12:58–16:28)
(17:08–17:54)
(19:19–20:23)
(20:23–21:39)
(21:39–26:42)
(26:47–29:14)
On Amazon vs. Walmart:
“Amazon is finally ready to play. Now...This is not just Amazon persisting in any old category. It’s a new battle in its war with Walmart...hitting Walmart right where it hurts.” – Ann Berry (01:25, 02:20)
On Why Startups Choose Corporate VC:
“There’s a strategic angle to it that they can actually benefit from...a quick way to accelerate POCs and get partnership deals done.” – Sally Shin (06:49–07:49)
On the Blurring Media Frontier:
“The idea of calling something traditional media versus new media is such an archaic way.” – Sally (23:10)
On AI Valuation Bubbles:
“There is going to be some correction in that space. Even though there’s so much capital in the venture market today, there’s only a few of these deals that people want to get into, like the OpenAIs and Anthropics of the world.” – Sally (13:33)
This packed episode highlights how two of America’s biggest companies are clashing over the nation’s grocery habits, while billions in corporate capital keep fueling the next generation of startups (and media, AI, and tech disruption). Sally Shin’s expertise as both a media veteran and tech VC provides invaluable perspective on the future of investing—and the uncertain frontier where technology, media, and venture capital now intersect.