John Curto (4:09)

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Ann Berry (4:25)

the possible event in Miami, it's been a busy week. Not only listening to those conversations between Bob Pittman and Charlamagne the God, but also listening to the Walmart CEO talk about how the retail OG is really leaning in to try to get consumers to understand that it considers itself now a tech business. You could not escape the word tech and everything the Walmart chief in the US had to say. Well on top of running around trying to get up to speed on the latest in the marketing industry and what that could mean for market insights. I actually hosted one of the pieces of content here and that was a conversation with David Steinberg, the founder and CEO of Zeta Global. David founded the marketing platform 20 years ago and in our conversation he highlighted his decision to redesign the company's products to be AI native rather than simply integrating artificial intelligence into what was already offered. Plus he shared his conviction that Zeta's extensive cache of proprietary data that's never been fed into an LLM is the company's greatest mode. And so he gave us a look inside how one company is surviving the SaaS apocalypse and why he just doesn't think that the sell off should apply to Zeta Global.

Interviewer (Possibly from Morning Brew or Bloomberg) (5:33)

So here we are live at possible Miami 6th possible thousand attendees. And the thing you hear, other than talking about the Zeta branded coconuts, the buzz phrase on everyone's tongue is AI. What are companies and the market getting wrong? What's just hype from your perspective?

David Steinberg (5:52)

You can go back to multiple technology cycles that have gone through a similar hype. Right. I mean, in my lifetime alone, it started with dot com, then it was cloud or mobile. If you think about the dot com era, I think there's a lot of similarities. A new technology coming in that everybody said was going to put everybody out of business.

Interviewer (Possibly from Morning Brew or Bloomberg) (6:13)

Yeah.

David Steinberg (6:14)

Walmart's going to be gone. JP Morgan Chase is going to be gone. FedEx will be gone. Everything will magically get from where it's got to go to where it's got to go. In the end, companies that adopted this new technology have become the most powerful companies in the world. Companies that turned their backs on it are gone. In AI, you are going to have two types of companies. You're going to have companies that adopt artificial intelligence and win. And you're going to have companies that do not adopt artificial intelligence and for the most part fail or go away. When you look at what I think you're subtly referring to, as I lovingly call the SaaS apocalypse.

Interviewer (Possibly from Morning Brew or Bloomberg) (6:52)

Yeah.

David Steinberg (6:52)

And we've got a lot of that. That's certainly been a fun few weeks for us. You're going to have, once again winners and losers. Companies that are software based, that have built workflow management tools without proprietary data, without intelligence, are going to have a major pivot ahead of them to win or survive. Companies that have massive amounts of proprietary data and create intelligence and really high quality outcomes like Zeta are going to adopt these technologies and thrive in the next era.

Interviewer (Possibly from Morning Brew or Bloomberg) (7:30)

Let's talk about the expectations for AI, David, because in the analogy that you just referred to, those who adopted and got on the Internet aren't just big, they're mega, mega, mega pilots, right?

David Steinberg (7:43)

Yeah.

Interviewer (Possibly from Morning Brew or Bloomberg) (7:44)

And then you got those who just failed and they died. Yes, but that middle group, what do you think about AI? Is this about growth to being mega, mega, mega or death? And then there isn't a middle.

David Steinberg (7:55)

No, no, that's. So that's a great, great question. The answer is you're always going to have middle companies for, you know, you've got Walmart, which obviously thrived. You've also got Target, you've also got Kohl's, you've also got a bunch of other places. I believe Zeta is going to be one of the mega megas. Like we really believe we're building the next sort of generational changing marketing company and technology company. The biggest value we drive is today. For every dollar a customer spends through our platform, we return an average of 600%. Our goal is to get that to 1,000%. With Athena, there are companies like Zeta and others like Palantir, obviously OpenAI, Anthropic and others that have made AI foundational to their businesses. It is literally at our core architecture is AI driven. You're then going to have a lot of companies that keep their existing architecture and they have algorithms that sit outside of it.

Interviewer (Possibly from Morning Brew or Bloomberg) (8:55)

What is it about new product development, right, that you're doing that the incumbents aren't doing well? And how are you charging for it? Because I want to do, I do want to come back to pricing.

David Steinberg (9:05)

So I mean, a lot of this is the innovator's dilemma. This has been going on for hundreds of years. If you're super successful and you're generating billions of dollars of revenue on your platform, you are not likely to throw that platform out to create an entire new architecture. And that's what you have to do with AI. We literally took the eight platforms we had bought to that date. We were very profitable at the time, comparatively speaking, not like today, but. And we had to go to our private equity partners and be like, well, guys, we're going to go from making, call it 50 million a year to nothing for the next three years. So we can actually run these platforms for cash flow while we build an entirely new architecture that's going to put this thing you've never heard of called artificial intelligence as native to the application layer. So while others are talking about this, like destroying SaaS based companies, companies like us that are using it, we're moving three or four years ahead. Today. We're going to push code for Athena in the next three months. That would have taken us three years.

Interviewer (Possibly from Morning Brew or Bloomberg) (10:14)

So let's talk about Athena and how Athena adds to the story of growth. Or does it? Or is this the new table stakes? So take us through what Athena does and then let's talk about whether it's incremental value or whether you're cannibalizing yourself.

David Steinberg (10:28)

So It's a voice enabled super agent that today allows you to navigate the entire Zeta marketing platform by, you know, conversational.

Interviewer (Possibly from Morning Brew or Bloomberg) (10:39)

And I want you to talk about David, not just about the voice component, which is important, but actually talk about the insights Athena provides if you don't like. To me, that was the differentiator.

David Steinberg (10:49)

Yeah. And, and Athena can give. So here's how I sort of think about it. Whether it's a Bloomberg terminal or whatever software you're using, you probably use 5 to 10% of the software you buy. Pay for all of it, but use 5%. 10% of it. Athena is how we allow our clients to unlock the insights and utilization of the entire platform. The goal for her, which, which will be this year, is the ability to just say to Athena, Athena, I'd like to create 2 million incremental customers this quarter and I'd like to do it at a 7% lower cost to create that customer. Would you do that for me? And she'll come back with recommendations. Here's how you can do that.

Interviewer (Possibly from Morning Brew or Bloomberg) (11:26)

You've described a system, holistic solutions. Again, I saw the demo and I was pretty impressed. I was skeptical frankly going in. I've seen a lot of demo.

David Steinberg (11:34)

I was pretty impressed. You weren't like blown away? I mean, come on.

Interviewer (Possibly from Morning Brew or Bloomberg) (11:37)

Well, I'm British, so you know, hyperbolic understanding.

David Steinberg (11:39)

You're very difficult to impress.

Interviewer (Possibly from Morning Brew or Bloomberg) (11:41)

I agree, exactly. It was fine is what a Brit would say. Right. Talk if you don't mind about as public companies go and looking at that set because we've got investors listening. Why is this system offering different from a point solution tool?

David Steinberg (11:56)

So with Zeta, our goal is to put everything that an agency or a marketer needs in one UI with one reporting infrastructure. We set up a consumer data platform for our enterprise clients. We ingest all of their first party data that is relevant to the purpose of marketing. We merge it with the 555 million active opted in people in our data cloud and we enrich that data with an average of 5 to 7,000 data elements per person. Then the algorithms custom train inside of that cdp. There's zero data exhaust. So the longer a client is with us, the better the return on investment. The lower their churn. As you think about it, what did we do in that scenario that makes it almost impossible to be disintermediated by a large language model? 1 51% of the Fortune 100 use us today. 24% of the Fortune 500. Do you think a Fortune 500 company is going to hand all of their first party data to a large language model so they can train on it. Two, we have our own proprietary data, 555 million active proprietary names. We have never fed that data into a large language model and we never will. So now you've got these two massive pools of first party proprietary data that come together to learn in a way that the large language models really can't.

Interviewer (Possibly from Morning Brew or Bloomberg) (13:25)

If I'm a client and I'm struggling to find the right talent, and it is difficult to find talent that's got the creative but also the data interpretation skills to help me optimize my spend is the Athena agent I'm getting one that my the client's talent has created and built. Or am I getting the best of your team that's seen everything at Zeta as the agent I get to use?

David Steinberg (13:48)

So you're getting the best of our team and it learns everything about the user who is using it personally, so it evolves and gets smarter. In the initial findings of Athena, not only are we seeing a substantially higher return on investment than we might have even have hoped for, but our clients are saying they're able to lower the labor by 75% for operating the platform and the MOP.

Interviewer (Possibly from Morning Brew or Bloomberg) (14:16)

So let me ask you about the track record you've had of beating guidance and raising it. This is my markets hat on. Is this an exercise in managing expectations or are you seeing the fundamental demand consistently outpace where you think it was going to be?

David Steinberg (14:30)

I think it's a big part.

Interviewer (Possibly from Morning Brew or Bloomberg) (14:32)

Both.

David Steinberg (14:33)

Yeah, we, we tend to have a conservative nature, but we are winning in the marketplace in a meaningful way.

Interviewer (Possibly from Morning Brew or Bloomberg) (14:39)

So given that and the track record now of gaining share, what makes you nervous? David, are there competitors? Is it the pace of technology? Is it something else? Is it the unknowable?

David Steinberg (14:49)

Zeta's single biggest risk today is execution. When you're growing as fast as we're growing for as long as we're growing, if you don't execute flawlessly, then you're going to have a problem.

Interviewer (Possibly from Morning Brew or Bloomberg) (15:02)

And what does that mean? Define execution in the way you think about it.

David Steinberg (15:05)

We have to continue to delight our clients. We have to continue to drive the highest possible return on investment while maintaining good relationships with our clients.

Interviewer (Possibly from Morning Brew or Bloomberg) (15:15)

So, David Steinberg, CEO, 60 second final thought.

David Steinberg (15:20)

the end of the day, I think you're going to see us as a business, continue to spawn out, get deeper into our clients, help them with bigger and bigger problems that they're dealing with as companies in addition to their marketing.

Interviewer (Possibly from Morning Brew or Bloomberg) (15:33)

Heard it here first. Thank you very much.

David Steinberg (15:35)

Thank you.

Ann Berry (15:37)

Well, thank you to Zeta Global for inviting me to host their event and for the branded coconuts. Always a pleasure talking to David. Great energy. Well, let's take a break and when we come back, we take a spin through the headlines Moving the markets Today.

John Curto (15:50)

Vaneck's got a question for the market.

Ann Berry (15:52)

Ask away.

John Curto (15:53)

What if Energy, gold and infrastructure, long ignored by many investors, are becoming increasingly important again?

Ann Berry (15:58)

Vaneck shares that the assets building the future aren't all in tech. Data centers need electricity, AI needs copper, and gold is signaling that the old rules about money, debt and currency could be shifting. This is something VanEck's real assets team has been highlighting for years.

John Curto (16:11)

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Ann Berry (16:27)

Learn more@vaneck.com brewracks that's at vaneck.com brew

John Curto (16:33)

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Ann Berry (17:08)

4pm on the east Coast. The markets have closed. There it is, the bell showing things wrapping up for the the day where we don't have a ticker tape, but instead we'll throw it over to our human ticker, our producer John the S&P

John Curto (17:19)

500 and the NASDAQ both erased earlier losses in the day and finished the day flat. The Dow ended down about half a percent.

Ann Berry (17:27)

Well, earlier today, the Senate Banking Committee voted to advance Kevin Walsh's nomination to lead the Federal Reserve. Trump's pick will now move on for a confirmation vote from the full Senate. We recently talked about Banking Committee member Republican Senator Thom Tillis signaling that he would withhold his endorsement of Walsh pending a conclusion to the Justice Department's investigation into current Fed Chair Jerome Powell. Well, that investigation into Powell was dropped, and today's vote fell strictly along party lines. All 13 Republicans voting in favor and all 11 Democrats opposing.

John Curto (18:00)

The vote came hours before Powell's final meeting as Fed chair. And this afternoon, the Federal Reserve voted to hold interest rates steady for the third consecutive meeting. While expected, the decision was highly divided, with an 8 to 4 vote marking the highest level of dissent since 1992. And while Powell's term as Fed chair ends on May 15, just an hour ago he indicated he will serve as a Fed governor for an indefinite period until a separate probe into the renovation of the central bank's headquarters is, quote, well and truly over with transparency and finality. So much to keep an eye on from the Fed in the coming weeks and now pivoting over to earnings season as results continue to roll in. Let's fire through some highlights.

Ann Berry (18:42)

Well, we fueled up on coffee to make sure we could kick this one off with Starbucks. That's ticker SBUX shares jumping over 8% today after the company beat revenue expectations and raised its full year outlook. It also marked the second straight quarter of increased traffic at US Cafes, a key signal that customers are coming back to to Starbucks Chief Financial Officer Kathy Smith said growth was generated across its menu, from artisanal bakery items to the rising popularity of protein cold foam. And then looking at its international results. Well, we've covered Starbucks challenges in China and earlier this month the company finalized a deal to sell a 60% stake in its China business to Beu Capital, forming a joint venture in the region. For the recent quarter, same store sales in China rose just half a percent and going forwards segment Starbucks does not plan to share China's standalone revenue and same store sales data since it's now considered part of the company's licensed portfolio.

John Curto (19:39)

And Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol, who has been part of that back to Starbucks plan, said the quarter marked a milestone and the quote turn in our turnaround staying with Food and beverage shares and fast food operator Yum Brands. Ticker Yum were up over 3% today after reporting earnings per share up 50 15% year over year, which beat expectations. Same store sales at KFC were up 3% and the Cantina chicken menu delivered an 8% increase for taco Bell, the laggard of the portfolio. Well, that's Pizza Hut. Same store sales were flat and Yum Brands is reportedly looking to sell the business with CEO Chris Turner saying there's a lot of work to be done. Now some of those things are things that Yum typically doesn't do, seemingly looking for another operator to out Pizza the Hut.

Ann Berry (20:28)

And finally, shares in Robinhood Ticker H o o d heard plummeting almost 14% after results missed estimates for both revenue and profit. A big source of revenue for Robinhood fees from crypto trades fell 47% from the first quarter of last year, driven by a slump across the digital asset world that kicked off late last year and worsened through early February. While Robinhood has been looking to diversify beyond options trading and the volatility of crypto, so it's been pushing into other financial services businesses like banking, wealth management and, of course, prediction markets. Well, tune in next week because I'll be welcoming Robinhood's Chief Investment Officer, Stephanie Guild onto the show to discuss it. All right now, earnings are coming out from four major tech players. Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet and Mesa will cover it all on tomorrow's show. That's it for today's Blue Markets Daily.

John Curto (21:20)

Blue Markets Daily Daily is hosted by Anne Barry and produced by John Curto, Tarkab Delatif Avenue Leroy and Emily Miller. Brittany De Taco is our audio engineer and the president of Morning Brew Inc. Is Devin Emery.

Ann Berry (21:30)

Wake up tomorrow with the Morning Brew newsletter and tune in to Neil and Toby on Morning Brew Daily. See you back here tomorrow. Same time, same place.

John Curto (21:42)

Some Follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money Whether it's the funds fueling AI or or crypto's trillion dollar swings, there's a money side to every story. Get the money side of the story. Subscribe now@bloomberg.com.