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Tracy Alloway
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Cathie Wood
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Tracy Alloway
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Joe Weisenthal
Hey, Odd Lots listeners, we're coming to.
Tracy Alloway
D.C. we're finally doing it, Joe. It's gonna be our first live show in Washington, D.C. our nation's capital. It's also finally gonna be the time where we actually talk about the Jones Act.
Joe Weisenthal
We've been talking about doing the Jones act episode of Odd Lots for a long time, and it's become this recurring joke that we've never done in. But we're gonna do it in grand style because we're gonna be doing it live in D.C. and it's actually gonna be a debate.
Tracy Alloway
Yeah. So we have Sarah Fuentes from the Transportation Institute. She's gonna be taking the pro side. And we also have Colin Graybaugh of the Cato Institute. He'll be taking the against side. It's gonna be really interesting to see how all of that shakes out.
Joe Weisenthal
In addition to that, we're gonna be speaking with Blair Levin, who was around during the telecom bubble. And we have Andrew Ferguson, the new head of the FTC the one who's replaced Lina Khan. We're gonna be talk and acquisitions and all that stuff. So it should be a really fun night.
Tracy Alloway
If you want to come and join us for that evening, it's going to be on March 12th at the Miracle Theater. Go to bloomberg.comoddlots and you can find the link to purchase tickets. We hope to see you there.
Cathie Wood
Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio.
Tracy Alloway
Hello and welcome to another episode of the All Thoughts podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway.
Joe Weisenthal
And I'm Joe Weisenthal.
Tracy Alloway
Jo I love it when we do live events. It's very fun. Sometimes there's audience participation, which is great. We get to, you know, sit on stage and look important. And this week we were on a very important stage. We were at the Bloomberg Invest conference. This is our flagship conference of the year. And we got to speak to someone who I've wanted to interview for quite a long time.
Joe Weisenthal
I like doing live events for sure, but, you know, I also love the comfort of my headphones, not having to worry about how I look.
Tracy Alloway
I do get nervous about guests showing up.
Joe Weisenthal
Oh, I get nervous about. That's always. And they've always showed up. We've never done a live event where the guest didn't show up.
Tracy Alloway
Oh, you're going to jinx it now.
Joe Weisenthal
I know, but. That's right. But on Tuesday, March 4, we were down at the Bloomberg Invest conference and we got to interview Cathie Wood.
Tracy Alloway
That's right. So Cathie Wood, famously the founder and CEO of Ark Invest, famously an investor in some pretty big tech names like Tesla. So we got to ask her, you know, questions about Elon Musk and things like that, and basically just hear what she thinks is coming down the pipeline in the upcoming years in terms of technology. She's very optimistic, Joe.
Joe Weisenthal
She's very optimistic. She expects to see a golden age of tech investing, a golden age for American business, bigger than the Reagan era, as she called it. So take a listen to our interview with Kathy.
Tracy Alloway
So the big story in markets right now is a widespread sell off in the past couple of days. But even before then, we saw something specifically focused on AI. And the worries seemed to come out of nowhere. Suddenly everyone was talking about Deep Seq, this Chinese AI model, and we saw a really intense sell off. Were you aware of Deep Seq before that day? And how big a problem did do you think something like that is for USAI?
Cathie Wood
Actually, we were aware of deep seq R1. I think the paper came out in December, so our analysts had pored over it and thought it was a very interesting model. I think the surprise and the question was around wait a minute, did this take only $6 million to build this large language model and did they really do it on a high end workstation? Are we going to need all this center capacity after all? And I think with time we've learned that they did a lot of pre training before. Apparently they have a 50,000 cluster of GPUs which helped with the pre training. Nonetheless, as some of our finest technology experts, Sam Altman and Jensen Huang included, they commented they were terribly impressed by the algorithm itself. And I think what we were impressed by is it's open source, anyone can use it. So here we go. Meta Platforms was really the open source platform large language model. Now we have Deep Seq and I think yesterday another one came out Kung Fu.
Joe Weisenthal
Oh, I totally missed that one. I love trying the new ones. I'll try it tomorrow. Right now we're recording this March 4th when the market sold off there was this concern like oh well, the greater efficiency mean at the margins, less demand for chips or less impulse to build out data centers. And there's no like hard evidence of that. But you know, there's you know, the big tech companies enormous capex budgets every single year and they're throwing out these unbelievable numbers. There are hints here and there. Have you observed anything tangible, say over the last several weeks that to you suggests that there is some change at the margin? Deep seek aside in how much businesses, hyperscalers, et cetera are throwing at AI right now?
Cathie Wood
I have not seen any change in.
Joe Weisenthal
There's no evidence of a slowdown.
Cathie Wood
The power of these models is profound and if anything we just had a conversation with one of the largest LLM. We're under an NDA, so I can't talk about which one providers. And it's clear that nations educational systems and enterprises are all saying we have got to do this. This is transformational in so many ways. Many are talking and thinking about productivity and efficiency, but others are thinking about deep research, especially with the new reasoning models. Deep research is one of them and are just blown away by the results that we're getting. So I'm not seeing any slowdown at all.
Tracy Alloway
So you mentioned the fact that deepseek is open source and that was a big differentiator between it and some other models. I know you're a big fan of open source. How do you incorporate that aspect into I guess an investment analysis? And also did OpenAI make a mistake by not going open source?
Cathie Wood
Well, we've been tracking closed models and open source for quite ever since the ChatGPT moment. What you'll see is the closed models have been ahead of the open source models. But if you look at the slope of the line of the performance improvement, open source is actually a steeper slope. So the reason I love open source is it is helping along the competition, helping the movement along, helping it go faster. And I think that open source nipping at the heel of closed is a very good thing.
Joe Weisenthal
So, you know, ChatGPT came onto everybody's radar, I guess, late 2022. And I think objectively, anyone who spends any time with these tools in a sense is just absolutely jaw dropping. Right. Are you surprised, however, that we're like this far into it and the tools are so in some sense extraordinary? But we can talk about of the flaws and limitations and yet we really haven't seen much of a macro impact from their use. We haven't seen some sector of the economy or the labor force get laid off. We haven't seen some major surge in measured productivity gains, although that's infamously hard to measure. Are you surprised in any sense by the existence of the technology and what seems like sort of a modest macro impact?
Cathie Wood
I do think productivity has been boosted to some extent. And you're right, it's very difficult to measure this. My background's economics. And in the 80s, productivity was a big question mark and we saw how flawed the measurements are and probably still are. So I can only tell you the rate of uptake is so much that enterprises are seeing a difference. Maybe if they're not laying people off, they're not hiring them. And that's because these AI tools are making their own, especially engineers, so much more productive. You just don't have to hire that next person. If you've seen the number of coding employees in the United States has dropped like a cliff. I mean, off a cliff. It hasn't dropped like a cliff, it's dropped off a cliff. And I don't know if you've seen that chart. So that very much has happened as engineers just become more and more productive. You know, one of the things that we're wondering is, okay, what part of the software stack will this, the traditional software stack will this impact? And we think the AI revolution, what we see already losing share to some extent. It is still growing, but losing share is software as a service. And, you know, I think we're all paying very close attention to the revenue growth dynamics of these companies. A salesforce.com, revenue growth isn't picking up. In fact, it continues to decelerate. I think it's next quarter will be, I think 7% down from 9%. That's not what's supposed to happen here. And so I think that might be what you're referring to. Wait a minute, where are the top line dynamics? Where are they coming from? Well, I think we have a lot of entrepreneurs in a lot of garages or in R and D centers who are creating the next big thing. And you know, we look at two profound ramifications of AI that we understand. We've been researching them for so long. The largest AI project on earth is robo taxis, autonomous driving networks. We think that's going to drive 8 to $10 trillion in revenue globally in the next 5 to 10 years, up from zero now. So that's called embodied AI. The most profound application of AI we believe is going to be in healthcare. And the convergence of sequencing technologies, artificial intelligence and new technologies like CRISPR gene editing are already curing diseases. Sickle cell disease and beta thalassemia cured. CRISPR Therapeutics has that cure. It is generating revenue. Now. People find this one very hard to believe because it hasn't happened before. But the R and D explosion in healthcare is like nothing I've ever seen. And we think we're going to return to the golden age for healthcare. I started in the 80s when Genentech had taken off and created the golden age for healthcare back then. Returns to R and D back then were in the 30% range. Today for the broad based pharma biotech field, the returns are down in the 4% range. We think with all of these new tools and the incredible productivity being added to research and discovery in the healthcare space, we're going back to the golden age where returns on R and D could be 30, 40% plus.
Tastytrade
Old trading walks into a bar. New trading raises it. Unlike some guys, Tastytrade puts traders first. Maybe you're the type to hunker down on your desktop for hours. Maybe you breeze by in your browser. Or maybe you just need that top rated app right by your side. However you do it, tastytrade's got the advanced tools you need to tackle stocks, options, futures and more all in one place. Chart your heart out with over 300 indicators. See opportunity differently with interactive curve analysis. Use backtesting to learn from the past and plan for the future. The platform is only the beginning of better trading. You'll also find low pricing, lots of education and backup from a support team that really Gets how traders trade. It's no wonder Investopedia named Tastytrade the best broker for options in 2024. Genius loves company, so get moving@tastytrade.com RideWithUs tastytrade Inc. Is a registered broker, dealer and member of finra, NFA and sipc.
Mikaela Shiffrin
I'm alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin. I've won the most World cup ski races in history. But what does success mean? To me, success means discipline. It's teamwork. It's the drive and passion inside of us that comes before all recognition. And it's why Stifel is one of the fastest growing global wealth management firms in the country. If you're looking for success, surround yourself with the people who will get you there.
Stifel Representative
At Stifel, we invest everything into our advisors so they can invest everything into their clients.
Cathie Wood
That means.
Stifel Representative
It means direct access to one of the industry's largest equity research franchises and a leading middle market investment bank. And it's why Stifel has won the J.D. power Award for Employee Advisor satisfaction two years in a row.
Mikaela Shiffrin
If you're an advisor or investor, choose Stifel.
Stifel Representative
Where success meets success. Stifel, Nicholas & Co. Inc. Member SIPC and NYSE for J.D. power 2024 award information, visit jdpower.comawards compensation provided for using not obtaining the award.
Tracy Alloway
Since you mentioned Robo taxis, we got to talk about Tesla. Of course, obviously a big component of your portfolio. Elon Musk seems very busy nowadays, to put it mildly. As an investor, do you worry at all that he is perhaps distracted from ostensibly the day to day running of the company?
Cathie Wood
We've been getting this question practically since the beginning. So Tesla, and then he starts all these other companies, right? And people are saying, does that not concern you? So I'll answer that first, then we'll bring in the government overlay. The reason it doesn't concern us is Elon Musk is probably the inventor of our age, but who understands that we're in the midst of the most profound convergence among technologies really catalyzed by AI. And he understands that the name of the game in terms of who's going to win all this through all of this are those companies that number one, have deep domain expertise, they take AI seriously and they're investing in it. And perhaps most important, they have data that no one else has. Proprietary data. Think of all the data spewing out from all of these companies, even Neuralink, that's biological data. And the most prolific data explosion out there is in the health care space. We have 37 trillion cells in our body and they turn over every quarter. And now we have something called single cell sequencing that we can combine with AI to unlock the secrets of life, health and death. And that's what we're going to do. He understands that Neuralink's a part of this. Okay, overlay, overlay in the government sector. I agree he's doing something certainly for his country. I know, I know he believes that.
Tracy Alloway
He's tweeting a lot, that's for sure.
Cathie Wood
He's what?
Tracy Alloway
He's tweeting a lot.
Cathie Wood
He always has tweeted a lot, right? He always has tweeted a lot. They. Anyway, so he's. I think what we have found with his companies and we own in our venture fund, the private ones as well, of course, as Tesla and as we, you know, go through the quarterly reports and dialogue with management, critical to us is that he is keeping his eye on the technology balls that are his competitive or barrier to entry. And what Elon is expert at doing is if there's a bottleneck, he'll go in there and blow it up. And he will use first principles, thinking. And he surrounded himself by business people and engineers who want to work on the hardest projects in the world, the hardest projects that are going to help transform the way we live and work so forth. Doge is another big project. It's not his full time job, even though one would not know that. But we have talked to our counterparts and you know, we aren't talking to Elon as much these days, but to other very important decision makers and they're really not skipping a beat now. The politics of what's going on have hit sales and so yes, that is true, that is why. And we knew that was going to happen. So there are a couple of calls this year, actually probably three. We knew Model Y was going to be completely refreshed. Largest selling car in the world. That is beginning to happen throughout the world. And if the Model 3's refresh is any indication, this should be, this should work out very well. Perhaps more important is the lower cost car that they are going to put out in the first half of this year. So $30,000 or less and think less, especially with different credits. This is going to open up Tesla to a whole new market, as Elon says, and people don't believe him in this political dynamic. But its problem is in demand. There are people who have been waiting for a car, they just can't afford it and they're very excited to have their first Tesla So that's the second thing, the third thing, and we've watched this very closely, as you all know, autonomous. We do believe while they're launching in Austin in June, another important milestone. Now analysts have to integrate into their models what autonomous will mean for Tesla. And so anyone who's been viewing Tesla as an EV manufacturer is going to have to go back to the drawing board and realize that the gross margins of its autonomous network, its autonomous platform, will be in the 70 to 90% range, whereas their EV gross margins are in the mid teens. Right now that's a double take. This is turning into a software as a service model and, and that finally I think will bring technology investors and analysts into this stock. They understand SaaS and how different the model is compared to an EV model. And the other thing about the AI opportunity in autonomous is it's winner take most. And we do believe that Tesla will be in the, is in the pole position here in the United States. Anyone who's tried a Waymo car, as I have, in both senses, we all.
Tracy Alloway
Have big Waymo fans.
Joe Weisenthal
Big Waymo fans.
Cathie Wood
Big, big fans. If you look in Big Ideas 2025, which is our annual report, you will see why and kudos to Waymo. I agree it's a delightful ride. But in terms of the economics for Waymo, their car is uneconomic, totally uneconomic. It's going to be very difficult for them to scale without deciding to lose a lot of money. And you'll find that delineated in Big Ideas 2025.
Joe Weisenthal
Since you mentioned the stock and the idea of like tech investors coming back, let's talk about tech stocks because obviously they've gotten really hit hard over the last week. But overall there was that furious post election rally sometime various peaks in things December, there's been this decline. What's going on? Is there a macro story behind the tech sell off? When you look at how the market's behaved, what's your answer?
Cathie Wood
Well, I think fear and greed is a constant trade off. And I think after the election, the day after the election, the market started broadening out enormously away from just the mag six towards our kind of stock. And the reasons for that include deregulation. Deregulation or regulation has been a menace for innovation generally. But even the FTC not allowing M and A and not allowing strategic price discovery to say, hey, this new innovation is going to be worth a lot and we need it. Now.
Joe Weisenthal
The FTC is keeping the the same merger guidelines.
Cathie Wood
Pardon?
Joe Weisenthal
The FTC is maintaining the merger guidelines. So we haven't seen this big M and A wave.
Cathie Wood
Anyway, I think we will see it. I think deregulation is critical to this administration's mandate. It feels and it's one of the most important variables. Because if you think about what was going on before, no M and A, even if companies didn't compete directly with one another, they disallowed so much M and A that the big companies kind of could sit back fat, dumb and happy and their shareholders didn't want them to buy anything because that would take away from their own, whether it's share repurchases or profit or profit sharing and so forth. So I think that this administration is going to provide a really beautiful Runway from a regulatory point of view for innovation. And I feel that what is also behind this, as you might imagine, China with deep seq, as we were talking about, okay, they're on our tail. Right. Well, the Trump administration is extremely competitive and has China in focus, shall we say? So this is a good news thing. So let's do this. The other reason I think the market took off or there are many reasons, but I think tax rates coming down broadly, which I think they will as an offset to some of the tariffs. And I understand tariffs, I don't like tariffs. Tariffs are taxes. But if you listen to Kevin Hasert, it seems there's a quid pro quo developing here where, wait a minute, in the early days of our country, all of government was funded by tariffs, all of it and now very little of it. I think they might be into a little bit of a rebalancing game and what the clue there is in terms of tax rate reductions, what are the first ones they've announced, tips, Social Security and overtime. Those are very appealing to the lower to middle income demographic. Right. I think lowering all tax rates is going to be much more acceptable with that kind of dynamic at work as well. He's looking out for the little guy like he said he would. Right. And so I think as a student of Art Laffer, lowering tax rates, deregulation is, we think it's going to recreate something like the Reagan revolution. But I think it's going to be bigger. It's going to be bigger because there are five innovation platforms now, 14 different technologies. Whereas back then it was the PC. It was the PC. Now we have five. Robotics, energy storage, AI, blockchain technology, multi omic sequencing, five at the same time they involve 15 different technologies and they're converging autonomous taxi networks, convergence of robotics, energy storage and AI. Those are each, each One of those has its own S curve and now they're going to be feeding one another. I mean, I think the Reagan revolution and I was there and it was so enjoyable. It was the heyday golden age of active equity management. And I think that's coming back. I think it's coming back big time. I think this will dwarf that. And that was pretty good.
Tastytrade
Old trading walks into a bar. New trading raises it. Unlike some guys, Tastytrade puts traders first. Maybe you're the type to hunker down on your desktop for hours. Maybe you breeze by on your browser. Or maybe you just need that top rated app right by your side. However you do it, tastytrade's got the advanced tools you need to tackle stocks, options, futures and more all in one place. Chart your heart out with over 300 indicators. See opportunity differently with interactive curve analysis. Use backtesting to learn from the past and plan for the future. The platform is only the beginning of better trading. You'll also find low pricing, lots of education and backup from a support team that really gets how traders trade. It's no wonder Investopedia named Tastytrade the best broker for options in 2024. Genius loves company, so get moving@tastytrade.com RideWithUs tastytrade Inc. Is a registered broker, dealer and member of finra, NFA and sipc.
Mikaela Shiffrin
I'm alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin. I've won the most World cup ski races in history. But what does success mean? To me, success means discipline. It's teamwork. It's the drive and passion inside of us that comes before all recognition. And it's why Stifel is one of the fastest growing global wealth management firms in the country. If you're looking for success, surround yourself with the people who will get you there.
Stifel Representative
At Stifel, we invest everything into our advisors so they can invest everything into their clients. That means means direct access to one of the industry's largest equity research franchises and a leading middle market investment bank. And it's why Stifel has won the J.D. power Award for Employee Advisor satisfaction two years in a row.
Mikaela Shiffrin
If you're an advisor or investor, choose Stifel.
Stifel Representative
Where success meets success. Stifel Nicklaus & Co. Inc. Member SIPC and NYSE for J.D. power 2024 award information, visit jdpower.com Awards compensation provided for using not obtaining the.
Tracy Alloway
Award I want to ask a sort of general question about your investing strategy and I know you emphasize that you're making long term bets on transformational technology like AI, which we've been discussing, or robo taxis. I guess my question is, at some point the promise of that world has to come to fruition and actually be monetized. Do you ever set yourself deadlines for positive returns or is there a timeframe you have in your mind for when this will pay off?
Cathie Wood
So our investment time horizon is five years. What's very important about the way we do our research? The most important variable in terms of determining how quickly these technologies are going to scale is units and something called Wright's Law. I don't know if you want me to go into it. It's a relative of Moore's Law. It's a way to understand how quickly the costs associated with each technology are falling. We have had good sense of all of these technologies, cost decline dynamics. What was one of the biggest things that happened over the last five years? Unit growth plunged during COVID and then we faced all of these massive supply constraints that hurt the rate of change for some of our technologies. We're on the other side of that. We are on the other side of that. In fact, we're on the other side of. Of three major headwinds over the last four years that really hurt our strategy. First was the boom bust associated with COVID and all of the excesses around that. Second, interest rates, very Importantly, a response 24 fold increase in little more than a year's time. That was a major shock to the system. Now, do higher interest rates always hurt our strategy? Not at all. In fact, 2017 and 18, we had some of our best years. One in an up year, one in a down year for the market when we were up interest rates growing up both years. I think we've just been through a very unusual circumstance. So we're done with the interest rate headwind and we're done. If you think about it, today, the long bond yield hit 4.12%. I don't know where it ended, but. But who expected that a few months ago? That's telegraphing something and I'll get into that in just one minute. But interest rates, they're not going up. We do not believe they're going up. Second was the concentration in the market towards the Mag 6. And that really started after 0809. This desire for large cap, lots of cash and yes, touches something sexy like AI. Right. So that went into overdrive. We've never seen a more concentrated market in our history, not even the Great Depression, which was a binary. Will this company survive or not back then? So to See the same kind of underlying fear and crowding into a few names tells me there's been a lot of fear out there. I think the first order impact of the election was okay, some of that fear can dissipate. Now we have a whole new set of fears. But we can talk about that in a second. So we think that the market will it has started and will continue to broaden out this market if it continued towards meg6 not a healthy market, just not by definition. Two things happen after a major concentration. One of two things. Either a bear market like tech and telecom bust and early 70s, the end of the nifty 50 or the other four major episodes of Concentration. The other four major ones ended up in bull markets that broadened out. We think that has started there will be to and fro. Maybe the most important and surprising to many people of the headwinds which we are no longer facing is valuation. If you look at enterprise value to ebitda which is our chosen metric, so the entire cap structure divided by ebitda which is not subject to financial engineering, you'll see that our portfolio and we worked with S and P adjusting for SBC and R and D and we can go into that if you want. Our portfolio basically hit a market multiple during the yen carry trade unwind and after these last few weeks we're getting close there again relative to the S and P. Our portfolios really are at the low point in terms of that valuation metric throughout all of our history. So the valuation headwind is gone. I think what's shaking the market up right now is a recession. Now we have been saying since the Fed jacked rates up so quickly that we've been in a rolling recession for the last three years. And housing, the housing market certainly agrees with that. Autos punk, small businesses have been decimated. They couldn't get credit for a time there. Their net income is down 30% over the last 3 ish years. So one sector after another gave way with small and medium business. Really that's the backbone of employment. Right. The last shoe to drop is consumer. Walmart just telegraphed we're beginning to lose the consumer. And Walmart had been saying high end had been a source of their incremental surprises to the upside target and Best Buy today. So I think we're at the last leg. It is the consumer. And why is this happening? I think the velocity of money is slowing down dramatically and in fact if you look at sequentially it dropped in the fourth quarter and it looks like it'll drop again. What does that mean? It means people are holding onto their money. Why? Well, about, I'm going to say if you include federal, state and local government and quasi government in the healthcare and education space, we're probably looking at 30% of the people out there saying, I don't know if my job is safe. And then you've got another layer of people out there in the higher income end of the spectrum saying, wait a minute, AI can do a lot of my job. What's going on here? And you see that with the coding, coding fall off. So you've got uncertainty right now. But what is this going to do? It's going to give President Trump's administration and Chairman Powell all kinds of degrees of freedom. If we do have negative GDP growth, we're already seeing long rates coming down. What's that telling us? Yep, real activity is coming in. But I think the shocker going forward, consider the source, I've been saying this for a while, is that inflation is, is going to surprise shockingly on the low side of expectations.
Joe Weisenthal
Cathie Wood, thank you so much for joining Outlaws at Bloomberg Invest.
Cathie Wood
Thank you. Thank you very much for inviting me. Thank you.
Tracy Alloway
That was our conversation with the CEO and founder of ARK Invest, Cathie Wood, recorded live at the Bloomberg Invest conference. I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracee Alloway.
Joe Weisenthal
And I'm Joe Weisenthal. You can follow me at the Stalwart. Follow our guest Cathie Wood, she's Athydwood. And check out all of the writing that they do at Ark Invest, follow our producers, Carmen Rodriguez at carmenarmondashell, Bennett at dashbot and Kell Brooks Albrooks. For more Odd Lots content, go to bloomberg.comoddlods where we have all of our episodes and a daily newsletter that you can subscribe to. And if you want to chat about all of these topics, including AI, including Tesla, including the market, check out our Discord where listeners are hanging out 247 talk about all these things. Discord, GG, Oddlauds and if you enjoy.
Tracy Alloway
Odd lots, if you like it when we record live events or when you get to attend live events, then please leave us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform. And remember, if you are a Bloomberg subscriber, you can listen to all of our episodes absolutely ad free. All you need to do is find the Bloomberg Channel on Apple Podcast and follow the instructions there. Thanks for listening.
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Odd Lots Podcast Summary: "Cathie Wood on What Comes Next in AI and Big Tech"
Released: March 11, 2025
In this engaging episode of Bloomberg's Odd Lots, hosts Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway delve deep into the future of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Tech with renowned investor and CEO of ARK Invest, Cathie Wood. Recorded live at the Bloomberg Invest conference in Washington, D.C., the conversation navigates through the transformative landscape of technology, market dynamics, and investment strategies shaping the coming years.
The episode kicks off with excitement as Tracy and Joe announce their first live show in Washington, D.C., highlighting an upcoming debate on the Jones Act featuring experts from the Transportation Institute and the Cato Institute. They then transition to discussing their recent interview with Cathie Wood at the Bloomberg Invest conference, setting the stage for an in-depth conversation about AI and Big Tech's future.
Deep Seq and Open Source AI Models
Cathie Wood addresses the recent market sell-off triggered by the emergence of Deep Seq R1, a Chinese AI model that raised eyebrows due to its low development cost and impressive capabilities.
"Deep Seq R1... did they really do it on a high-end workstation?... we saw another one came out Kung Fu." [04:28]
Wood highlights the significance of Deep Seq being open-source, contrasting it with closed models like those from Meta Platforms.
"We were impressed by it's open source, anyone can use it." [06:18]
Impact on Technology Investments
Discussing the implications for AI investment, Cathie underscores that the efficiency gains from AI are not yet showing a macroeconomic slowdown. Instead, AI continues to drive significant investments in sectors like data centers and chip manufacturing.
"So here we go. Meta Platforms was really the open source platform large language model. Now we have Deep Seq..." [06:18]
She elaborates on the potential of open-source models to accelerate competition and innovation within the AI landscape.
Productivity and Economic Impact
Responding to questions about AI's macroeconomic impact, Wood acknowledges subtle productivity boosts but notes the challenge in measuring them. She points out that AI tools are enhancing productivity, particularly in engineering, leading to reduced hiring needs.
"Enterprises are seeing a difference... engineers just become more and more productive." [09:10]
Wood remains optimistic about AI's transformative power, emphasizing its role in driving future research and development.
Embracing Open Source in Investments
Cathie Wood discusses ARK Invest's focus on open-source AI models, arguing that they foster competition and speed up technological advancements.
"Open source is helping along the competition, helping the movement along, helping it go faster." [08:22]
She contrasts this with OpenAI’s closed approach, suggesting that open-source models present a more collaborative and rapidly evolving ecosystem.
Long-Term View on AI and Healthcare
Wood articulates ARK Invest's long-term strategy, targeting five-year horizons for transformational technologies. She emphasizes AI's role in revolutionizing sectors like healthcare and autonomous driving, predicting significant revenue growth from innovations like robo-taxis and CRISPR gene editing.
"We think the AI revolution... driving $8 to $10 trillion in revenue globally in the next 5 to 10 years." [09:50]
"We're going to return to the golden age for healthcare." [09:50]
Tesla’s Strategic Position in AI
Cathie Wood addresses concerns about Elon Musk's focus across multiple ventures, asserting that his expertise and innovative drive keep Tesla at the forefront of technological advancements.
"Elon Musk is probably the inventor of our age... taking AI seriously and they're investing in it." [16:24]
Autonomous Driving and SaaS Model
Wood highlights Tesla’s shift towards an autonomous driving platform, which she believes will transform the company's revenue structure from low-margin EV sales to high-margin software as a service (SaaS).
"Its autonomous platform will be in the 70 to 90% gross margins range, whereas their EV gross margins are in the mid-teens." [21:00]
She contrasts Tesla's economic model with competitors like Waymo, citing Tesla's scalability and economic viability.
"Waymo's car is uneconomic... it's going to be very difficult for them to scale without losing a lot of money." [22:08]
Wood reaffirms her confidence in Tesla's leadership position in autonomous driving within the United States.
Tech Market Volatility and Deregulation
Cathie Wood analyzes the recent volatility in tech stocks, attributing the sell-off to fears surrounding regulatory environments and strategic shifts in the market post-election. She anticipates deregulation initiatives under the current administration, predicting a resurgence similar to the Reagan era but on a larger scale due to multiple converging technologies.
"Deregulation is critical to this administration's mandate... we're going to recreate something like the Reagan revolution." [23:07]
AI’s Multidimensional Impact Across Sectors
She elaborates on five key innovation platforms—robotics, energy storage, AI, blockchain technology, and multi-omic sequencing—explaining how their convergence will drive unprecedented growth and technological breakthroughs.
"Five innovation platforms now, 14 different technologies... they're going to be feeding one another." [26:00]
Market Concentration and Broader Market Growth
Wood discusses the dangers of market concentration observed in the recent rally towards the MAG6 (Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta, and Tesla), predicting that diversification and broader market participation will follow, leading to sustained bull markets.
"After a major concentration... either a bear market or a bull market that broadens out." [27:00]
Valuation and Interest Rates
She touches upon valuation metrics, noting that ARK’s portfolio is approaching favorable valuations relative to the S&P 500. Wood also addresses the impact of interest rates, asserting that the current environment of high rates is an unusual headwind that ARK has successfully navigated, and anticipates stabilization.
"The valuation headwind is gone. ... inflation is going to surprise shockingly on the low side of expectations." [37:00]
In wrapping up, Cathie Wood reiterates her optimism about AI and transformative technologies reshaping economies and industries. She emphasizes ARK Invest's commitment to long-term investments in these sectors, anticipating substantial returns as these technologies mature and become integral to various aspects of life and business.
"We are on the other side of that. ... long-term bets on transformational technology." [30:30]
The hosts thank Cathie Wood for her valuable insights, underscoring the significance of AI and Big Tech in future investment landscapes.
Cathie Wood [04:28]: "Meta Platforms was really the open source platform large language model. Now we have Deep Seq and I think yesterday another one came out Kung Fu."
Cathie Wood [08:22]: "Open source is helping along the competition, helping the movement along, helping it go faster."
Cathie Wood [09:50]: "We think the AI revolution... driving $8 to $10 trillion in revenue globally in the next 5 to 10 years."
Cathie Wood [16:24]: "Elon Musk is probably the inventor of our age... taking AI seriously and they're investing in it."
Cathie Wood [22:08]: "Waymo's car is uneconomic... it's going to be very difficult for them to scale without losing a lot of money."
Cathie Wood [23:07]: "Deregulation is critical to this administration's mandate... we're going to recreate something like the Reagan revolution."
Cathie Wood [37:28]: "We are on the other side of that. ... long-term bets on transformational technology."
This episode of Odd Lots offers a comprehensive exploration of the current and future states of AI and Big Tech, guided by Cathie Wood's expert analysis. From the disruptive potential of open-source AI models like Deep Seq to the strategic maneuvers of giants like Tesla, the discussion underscores a dynamic interplay between innovation, regulation, and market forces. Investors and technology enthusiasts alike will find valuable insights into the trends that are poised to shape the global economy in the years to come.
For more detailed discussions and insights, listeners are encouraged to visit Bloomberg's Odd Lots page and subscribe to their daily newsletter.