Bloomberg TechAlphabet and Microsoft earnings, Neuralink's Brain Implant
Bloomberg's Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow look ahead to Alphabet, AMD, Microsoft earnings and the impact of AI on their earnings. Plus, Elon Musk's Neuralink puts its brain implant technology in its first patient.
We're from Marhart where Innovation, money and power.
Collie in Silicon Valley, NBN.
This is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow.
I'm Caroline Heider Bloomberg's world headquarters in New.
York, and I'm Ed Lovelow in San Francisco. This is Bloomberg Technology.
And big Tech.
It's on deck Alphabet, AMD Microsoft, it is time to show the impact of AI will get you what you need to know.
Ahead of their earnings, Neuralink puts its brain implant technology in its first patient. We have all the details on a big step forward for Mus's company that aims to let humans control computers with their minds and the.
Culture of crypto. How FOAM VC Chris Dixon sees the current investment environment for the next era of the Internet.
This is day one of a massive week for the megacat Tech earnings.
Car and We've got the perfect voice to just highlight what we are expecting from these results from Alphabet Microsoft, in particular, tech chants really, as we say, under pressure to live up to that AI hype. Whither the breakdown is Jackie devilas over there in Washington and Jackie just how much we'd likely to see any sort of revenue and profit being driven by this investment.
Thus far, it's a big show me the money moment, and we're nearly a year into this AI boom. They have to have some kind of evidence. There's a reason it's a bit harder to quantify because AI is embedded in so many different parts of the business. But there are a few places where we can look to see proof that their AI bets are paying off. For Microsoft, it's that Office six three sixty five copilot product. They made this widely available to more consumers and small businesses earlier in January, but even before that, they launched it in September and have really been amping up the hype around how much it can impact productivity.
Those subscription figures will be key.
For Google, it's a little bit more complex because they have been a little bit slower to push this out into their search tools and their productivity suite. So but here we can look at the Google Cloud profit numbers. We saw that hit a new product profitability level last year on the back of that AI startup business that they were capturing. But again, they don't have a clean figure like Nvidia has. Their A one hundred Blockbuster chip to really point to for that AI evidence.
You've you've set us up really well.
In today's Tech Daily, I was looking at the EPs forecast right, and it's a pretty big range, like Microsoft fifty one percent EPs growth expected in the court gone. Then you compare with sorry, nineteen percent of Microsoft fifty one percent for Google. Alphabet the parent of Google, and so let's shift to that Alphabet story, because we're super excited. Caroline's excited, I'm excited, You're excited. Google is an advertising business, that's.
Right when you think about it, it's their juggernaut. They have to be very strategic when it comes to how they're deploying some of.
These AI features.
Unlike Microsoft, which is more than happy to boost its being search engine only has three percent of the market share, it.
Don't really have much to lose.
Google here has been looking to kind of take a more experimental approach, and now that you have Gemini coming out in September, investors are going to want to see a plan for how this is making a difference. You're also going to be looking at YouTube figures. Are AI features yielding any fruit when it comes to you know that search advertising and the YouTube engagement levels.
Is that making a difference, But again.
It's a little bit early to tell from the Google front.
All right, in the few hours that remain before those companies do post numbers, check out the preview that Jackiedavlos wrote in that news letvel bling those JACKI Davelos out at DC.
Thank you. Let's keep it going.
The conversation next is with Adam Benjamin for their disease tech lead, and Adam, let's think about it a bit more holistically. You know, if you go to the index level S and P five hundred across that magnificent seven bucket and let's strip out Tesla because it's been gone, we see forty six percent EPs growth. Right, the only comparable sector is utilities. So it's it's it is that AI story on paper that's driving the gains. But do you expect to see real terms contribution from AI products this week?
Hi, good morning, thanks for having me. So look, I think AI is obviously a big overarching trend that's going to play out over many, many years, and we're really early days in this in this evolution. So you know, what I would say is clearly for your guests and for your audience. You know, everybody's paying attention to what this earning season is going to bring. But but this is a journey, and what I would say is we're at multiple phases of this. And you know how we think about this trend, we've been tracking it for many many years, is is really we're at sort of the picks and shovels phase today in terms of the infrastructure and compute that needs to get put in place to train these models and eventually put these models in place and for production like you mentioned Microsoft Copilot and to get that productivity. So I think this is happening, but it's taking time, Adam.
Earlier today we spoke with the chief of Norway's Sovereign Wealth Fund and he reflected on what's been with the AI contribution in the equities market and what's to come.
Have a listened to this.
We've had a huge rally last year and a very large proportion of the returns we had in the fund were from the top seven companies. Right now, if you had just SMP for that, the return was something like twelve percent instead of twenty six And you kind of have to ask how long that's going to go on for now, I'm a diehard believer in AI and the effect it's going to have on our operations and the world generally. But in terms of valuations of the companies, that's a different question.
So that's Nikolai Tangen, and that's his thesis. Right he sees the impact on AI in the real world, but right now he's questioning the valuation of those companies that are driving the story.
Are you questioning it?
I think the way I'm thinking about it is last year was pretty much AI basket, right, Everything that had some exposure to AI was a winner. You had a lot of stocks, especially even in Q four up forty some odd percent. I think twenty four is really about differentiation, and the fundamentals are going to have to come through for certain companies that are really true AI winners, and where some will be determined that they really aren't true AI beneficiaries. I mean, last week, for example, we saw Intel report numbers and guidance and it was, you know, pretty disappointing relative to what the street was expecting. And that was a stock that was up forty some odd percent in Q four of last year alone. So you know, I think we're going to are seeing that differentiation as you go through earnings, but it won't be just this earnings period of be multiple earnings as we go forward throughout the year.
I want to ask about concentration risk, and of course you are someone who is really one out on some of the allocations. Of course, when you're managing overall funds that are of course named things like Fidelity Advisor Technology Fund or the VIP Technology Portfolio, Semiconductor's portfolio.
These are names that have one adam.
But the quants over at JP Morgan, for example, are really getting worried about concentration risk.
Is that something? Do you think these names.
Are vulnerable because they've just become so important to overall benchmarks?
Well, look, I mean I know a lot of people focus on the MAG seven and they talk about the concentration of technology. I have the benefit of being a technology focused investment manager, and so I run, as you mentioned, tech funds, just tech and then just semiconductors. So I don't really really focus that much of the concentration as it relates to tech, how it's concentrating the rest of the market. What I would say is, you know, as you look at the MAG seven, you know they're companies that have a broad exposure. I mean, Tesla is focused on the electric vehicle market. You know, Microsoft and AWS and Google are overlapping in the cloud computing market, but they're all different in terms of their core markets with Google and search and so you know, really, I think you got to look at them as independent companies that have really amazing business models and that the overarching theme is that they are benefiting and getting exposed to AI, and in terms of how they're using that and how they're going to change their businesses is super important. But it's not just those companies that are gonna, you know, adopt AI. It's everything in tech, and then it's every company outside of tech, because if you're not adopting AI and making your business more productive over time, you're probably going to be a loser in your in market. So I think it's it's this is the theme that's going to touch all companies across all sub sectors of the market.
I mean, look just at ups today, twelve thousand jobs going, but a real focus on generative AI coming from the CEO Adam I'm interested. Therefore, when you're looking and anticipating the calls, the analyst cools with CEOs.
What is it you want to hear?
Is it more about subscribe growth, is it more about number of customers and overall market penetration or is it bottom line impact?
You want to see the numbers.
Yeah, I mean it depends on the company, so it's hard to say definitively. But look, we're looking for you know, every ninety days. These are report cards for these companies, so it's you know, how are they doing on the revenue growth? You know, how are they doing profitability wise? Obviously last year was a huge year for efficiency for some of these companies in terms of the pull forward that they saw during COVID on onbacks. So you know, we need to see revenue growth from here. And a lot of stocks that we saw significant outperformance was multiple expansion in twenty twenty three, So you're going to have to see, you know, the true fundamentals actually drive these stocks in twenty twenty four, as your guest, you know, indicated earlier. So I think that's what I'm looking for, and it'll depend on the company. But you know, really, you know, report card every ninety days and then you know, we're.
Long term investors.
We're trying to find companies that are going to be the winners over the long term, and those are companies that we've been investing in multiple years. We've cited these as big trends and we've been there for a while, and you know, we'll see where things progress. But this is this AI is not going to be you know, snap your fingers. It's going to take time, and so I think people need to be patient about it and see where things are progressing. And as long as they're moving in the right direction, I think people will be encouraged about this theme.
See how the.
Execs can articulate it today, Adam Benjamin, really great to have some time with you. We thank you so much. Fidelities tech le there, we thank you. Meanwhile, coming up look to talk about underlying technology. Neuralink has its first ever human patient, bringing must startup that a little bit closer to its goal of letting people actually control their devices with their minds.
We'll be back with more in a moment, But ed, what have you got.
Well, just based on what Adam is saying, here's a new name for you, potentially super micro computer. Four percent right now have been up as much as eleven percent. It's a AI server maker think Rack Design, and they've significantly updated their sales forecast for this year. But the real reason I bring it up is this is a stock that's up more than eighty percent in the last thirty days, more than six hundred percent year to day over or over the last twelve months, massively outperforming in video as an example, but we don't really talk about it. Twenty nine billion dollar market cap. One of the winners of what's happening in the real terms infrastructure play for AI this is Bloomberg Musk's Neuralink has given an implant to its first ever human patient, bringing his startup a step closer to its goal of letting humans control computers with their minds. Bloomberg's Lin Don't has the details and joins us from New York. I mean, Lynn, this is the first step. But it's the step, right. We've been waiting for your link to this for a little while. What do we know about the procedure, the patient, and what the point of this was.
Yeah, it is the first step for Neuralink. And I don't know about you, but at this point in our adventures into neuroprosthetics, I'm impressed by any kind of brain interface implant. So I'll call this a win. What do we know about the procedure. Neuralinks in particular involves a robot that funnels its way into a person's head. Sounds a bit terrifying, but it uses a robot to implant a little chip that's about the size of a quarter, and that chip is connected by thousands of wires and electrodes to the human brain, and in that way it allows, hopefully theoretically, the human brain to be able to control electronic devices with just a mere thought.
And that's why those that have been the patients have been recruited are those with qultropriigia, those who suffer from als. In fact, Musk wrote on his own social platform x about sort of imagine Stephen Hawking being able to well, be able to communicate far faster than any.
Sort of speed type writer. But he's not alone.
Neuralink isn't alone, and we sort of let it steal a lot of the headlines.
But there are other companies doing.
This, that's right.
I was just talking earlier this morning about a company, synchron who almost over a year now, announced that they had done the first brain interface implant in the United States. So certainly Neuralink is not the first company to enter into this.
Era of actual implants.
Now, what some would argue is that it has more advanced technology, that the devices themselves are more complex and more capable than some of the others in the space. Involves thousands of wires, Like imagine what that thing looks like, a spider with thousands of legs versus some of the other ones who may not make use of as many wires.
Once again, we'll see how telepathy as the continues to evolve, brilliant as always to have Lindo and joining us Volkswagen VW. Well, it's feeling the pressure of a slowing ev market and twenty twenty three's dim ipo landscape that's continuing into twenty twenty four. They're going to hold off on plans to seek outside investors for its battery unit. Now that's also say the carmaker worries and we'll be able to make its own batteries that the scale and is no longer prioritizing stake sales or a potential listing of power COO business this.
Year or indeed next.
Now this is fresh off Renao's similar decision to Ice it's ev arm listing a mid market volatility.
We're going to have a deep dive on the auto sector. That's next end. What have you got.
Yeah, there's a bigger conversation to have here. In sticking with the EV market, Mazda posted its best sales year since best sales year and third best year overall. Today they announced the release of a new vehicle, c X seventy. President and CEO of MUSDA North American Operations Tom Donnelly joins us to walk through the results and the latest launch. Tom, this is how I think about it. CX seventy brings you to the mid size SUV. You have the full spectrum of hybrid options. But that's where it's at. It's a hybrid option. You're still not there with pure PLAYEV. So in the context of CX seventy, what's the strategy here.
Yeah, So we're very excited about what CX seventy represents for our brand and our portfolio. As you said, we had our global reveal today. We look at, let's say the electrification market as that of an intentional follower. If I look forward through twenty thirty, we're going to have a full suite of electrified vehicles, and we have a three phased approach to how we're going to introduce plug in hybrids and hybrid vehicles. So we talked about CX seventy and the introduction today. Last year we introduced c X ninety with a plug in hybrid and a mild hybrid version, and later this year we're going to introduce C fifty with a hybrid version as well. So we feel like we've got the right technologies for the marketplace today and again by twenty thirty, we'll have a full lineup of electrified vehicles.
Tom One of the questions from our audience on X was what happens if long term the consumer just doesn't go for EV that they do have a bias towards hybrid and how would.
That impact your strategy.
I think about the comments from Toyota right where they see this thirty percent cap on BEV and a future well well into the future, multiple drive train formats.
Yeah.
Again, I use the term multi solution approach, and that's what we've been working for for a number of years, where by having hybrids and plug in hybrids and then a full suite of battery electric vehicles as well, we think we'll be able to pivot to the market and what consumer demands will will gravitate towards. So we feel really good about our overall strategy right now. Again, we're excited about c X seventy, the mild hybrid and the plug in hybrid, what that represents, and it's a new segment for us, it's an merging segment in the industry, so we're really optimistic about the impact it's going to have on our brand.
I can kind of see why you're optimistic given your sales number in December, record numbers.
I'm really interested as to what you're seeing from a consumer right now.
Tom, We've just heard from Reno, as we're saying VW, you've got, of course, GM being more cautious on out and out evs.
What are you.
Seeing from a consumer adoption and desired to be spending on big purchase such as new cars right now?
Yeah, the market's still as strong overall, I mean, the industry is strong. There's definitely been a shift towards more let's say affordability. So we've noticed from earlier in let's say the calendar year. But you're right, we ended twenty twenty three on a really high note of twenty three percent, and I would say it's not just the quantity but the business quality for US as well. More specifically, we've had our best customer experience results ever, our best owner loyalty results ever. So while we're growing the brand at a pretty impressive rate twenty three percent, this is on the heels of again, really strong performance across the breath of our business.
And where is that brand really penetrating at the moment? Is it about a US user, a European news and more globally thinking about China and decompetition coming from there.
Well, my focus is primarily in the US market in North America, and again we've achieved some really impressive results over the last four years. Each of the last four years we've gained market share, and obviously a very challenging timeframe from COVID to supply chain issues, we've been able to really be very nimble and improve our performance year over year. And we're really optimistic about what twenty twenty four represents. We think, if we execute our plan, we're going to have our best year in the US market ever. So we're really optimistic about the outlook.
Oh, we want to Thank you, Tom Donnelly.
Ending on our optimistic note, MASDA North American Operations President and CEO, really seeing traction right here in the United States. Welcome back to Bluemogo Technology. I'm Caroline had in New York.
Ed Ludlow in San Francisco.
Let's look at what's happening in the world a bitcoin, because it has been five straight months, well on nine four of gains for this particular asset, like we haven't seen that back since the heady days of COVID when everyone was plowing in their money. In twenty twenty, we're up fifty percent, you'll see over that course of six months, and a lot of that is to do with the Spot bitcoin ETFs.
We've had volatility of late.
Let's talk to Aphilia Snyder for her thoughts on it, of course, president of twenty one Shares, which offers crypto etfctps for institutional and retail investors, including that recently launched spot product. Our twenty one Shares bitcoin ETF developed with Kathy wood Ark, and we have overall seen excitement, exuberance, perhaps a run up and then a fall as people digest what really happens. But what have you seen in terms of flows, and are they making you confident?
Yes, is the extremely short answer to that question. At the end of the day, these flows have been really promising. It's one of the best ATF launches of all time. We've seen north of six hundred million dollars in assets come into our product just in the last couple of weeks. That's really exciting cause it's coming from a diversified base. And so while yes, you're seeing some turn through legacy products, you're seeing movement towards new product in the market that actually has a lot of really critical features towards welcoming advisors into the community, which is ultimately, I think how we're going to start to see the crypto ecosystem evolve from here.
Of course, twenty one shares is crypt native, and you've been doing a lot of the futures offerings already. You've been bringing the first ever ETPs related to these sort of ethan bitcoin futures, and now of course the sport bitcoin what therefore of new sport products across other ELK coins.
So we've actually been doing this for more than five years. So we brought the first physically backed spot products to market in Europe about five years ago now, and we cover a very wide range of assets through that platform, and we run about forty products outside of the US, so it's quite a big cohort, and there's a lot of technical infrastructure that goes into supporting that, which we're really excited about bringing to the US. I think in the US it's going to take a little bit more time, and we have some ethereum applications that are out there.
In terms of new ETFs coming.
To market the SEC, I'll go with that.
I think it's really hard to say at this stage.
It's going to come down to how the arguments that were made in support of a spot pitcoin product actually translate into ethereum and what the maturity of that market looks like. We're obviously really optimistic about it, and we're you know, looking forward to engaging with regulators on these topics.
But I do think it's after sharing in a.
New age of clarity which we seen in other markets around what these regulations look like and what that means for the development of crypto markets. And I think, you know, as we've seen over the last five years while we've been doing this, there's typically a process here where once things start moving, it becomes much easier to have that ongoing.
Dialogue, Ophelia.
There's a lot of data at our disposal to judge how is this going. You know, Bloomberg Crunch the numbers and across the ten ETFs that are out in the market, they attracted net one billion dollars.
But to me, that.
Doesn't seem like that much.
You know, after all the hype of recent weeks and months and all the investors around the world that weighed in and said, you know, we're looking at it is a billion dollars a lot. What does it tell you about current demand or appetite to get into this.
So what it tells me is it's very early.
I think one of the pieces that's often missing in these narratives around these ETFs is actually there's an adoption cycle. Just because the product exists doesn't mean everybody has access to it. It takes a certain amount of time for these products to be added to platforms, for advisors to get them through.
Compliance and due diligence.
Really boring on paper, the reality is that's when they're going to be looking under the hood and making sure these products actually behave properly.
That's where you're really going to see.
Operational excellence and expertise like hours come to the forefront and have those discussions as we bring these products.
Onto advisor platforms.
So for where we're standing today, the majority of the sort of intermediated assets in the United States don't have access yet. What you're seeing in that net a billion dollars in just a couple of weeks is primarily being driven by either independent platforms or quite a bit of retail, quite a bit of self directed We haven't yet gotten to the place where you're really seeing advisors or models begin to include these types of assets.
You have to get through that diligent process.
They need to sort of batt'll test them and make sure that you're bringing best in class infrastructure to these products, and I think that's when you're going to actually see that shift.
That process takes about three months.
Philly.
You wrote in your most recent newsletter about a bitcoin dominated news cycle what happens next to another bitcoin dominated news cycle?
So historically you see waves we're coming to we're sort of midway through a bitcoin dominated news cycle that having hasn't happened yet, That having being obviously when block rewards to minors reduced by half, which is expected in April. I think through that cycle you're typically going to see a lot of focus on Bitcoin, or on what we would call blue chips. You've seen quite a bit of focus on things like Ethereum in Solana in the last couple of months, both from the cryptonative community as well as from advisors and investors outside of the United States who have access to these investment vehicles, So I think that's been very interesting. I will likely see that typically you start to see more interest in alts, especially initially the larger ones, but eventually down that longer chain as you get further into a more positive cycle for crypto assets. So I do think we'll likely stay in bitcoin for a little while longer, but that will likely.
Expand from there.
Ophelia Snyder, president of twenty one Shares, warning us for only halfway through a bitcoin dom dominated news cycle. More to come, thank you very much. Now, coming up on this program, we're going to dive even deeper into that news cycle and into the crypto investing landscape with Chris Dixon, founder of the ac A sixteen Z crypto practice.
This is Bloomberg Technology.
We're just talking about the dominance of bitcoin and the lexicon and crypto recently, but what about the broader Web three space where is the investing happening at the moment? Got the perfect voice Chris Dixon, founder and managing partner of a sixteen z crypto. It's the VC Fund out in Dresen and Horowitz that is founded in twenty eighteen seven billion dollars in committed capital, dedicator to crypto two Web three technologies. But also on the author of a new book exploring the impact of blockchains on the future of the Internet. It's called Read, Write, Own Building the Next Era of the Internet. It's out today because it's a joy to have you on and congratulations sir.
I'm sure a labor of love.
Yeah, that labor of love is trying to talk about some of, shall we say, the cultures within crypto. Thus far, bitcoin crypto more.
Broadly has felt like a culture. As you put it, is like maybe the casino.
It's more about investing, it's more about speculation. When does it become about usability utility?
Yeah, And so that's what my book is about. It's about the productive side of blockchains, not the sort of specultive side that you see so much attention focused on. I believe that blockchains can be the foundation of a new era of the Internet, so that the Internet has become increasingly consolidated's insolidated. The top five tech companies account for fifty percent of the NAZEC market cap n as like one on a market cap up double from what it was a decade ago. The Google and Apple have a duopoly am mobile operating systems, the top one percent of social networks accunt for ninety five percent of social networking traffic, and so forth. I think blockchains are the only credible technology for countering that consolidation and returning the Internet to its original ideals as an open and democratic network. So that's what my book's about, not the kind of speculative side, but the productive side. And that's why the entrepreneurs I work with are excited about the space. That's why we're investing in the space. And so I wanted to tell that side of the story because I didn't feel like it had been heard.
Enough, because I mean, you come from both sides. You made your name with great bets on Kickstarter, on Pinterest, but then you really started to double down in the areas of coinba Solana. I mean the list goes on of some of the exposure your portfolio has now uniswap where is the energy going and how much is that dare I say, starting to dovetail with the new explosion of AI, for.
Example, Yeah, so we're you know, we're I view blockchains as an expansive technology where you can build games, social networks. A lot of interesting stuff is happening around new ways for creative people to make new income streams. So for example, by selling digital collectibles to their audiences, make music, which is yeah, like music, which is particularly important I think in an age of AI, because AI, I think we'll put downward generative AI lets you create content very cheaply, and therefore we'll put downward pressure on a lot of creative people's business models. And so I think it's a very important time to create new business models. Another example of AI are things like deep fakes. Right, so we're seeing the internet, you know, more and more deep fakes. I think you're gon see more and more sophisticated things like phishing attacks. And in that world, having a system where you can have one of the things that blockchain is very good at is keeping sort of the provenance of a video, so you can say this video came from Bloomberg and you can cryptographically prove that, and that can be very important in a world where you know, what was once ground truth video now becomes unreliable. So and by the way, I'm very pro AI. I think it's very exciting. But I do think it's important to have counterbalancing technologies, and I believe blockchains are counterbalancing technology to AI, Chris.
I want to go back to kind of the origin of the rationale behind blockchain. Right, So if I apply this blanket term DeFi to everything that we've just talked about, what's the conclusion you reach in the book about your own attitude towards the promise of DeFi.
Yeah, I mean so DeFi that you know, of course, refers to the centralized finance, which has been an interesting area. You know, I think, like with finance in particular, is a highly regulated area. And so I think, you know, we've been working very you know, very hard on sort of policy matters and trying to put forth proposals, and so I think for DeFi, I think there's a lot of really innovative stuff that happened in DeFi, and I think people underestimate how successful in a lot of ways it was. So for example, with all of the market volatility the last couple of years, these DeFi protocols like UNISWAP and compound and others performed perfectly, did not have issues. That said, I think to sort of realize it's true potential, we have.
To figure out ways for DeFi to.
Expand beyond kind of the you know, the Internet culture into the broader world. And I think that raises you know, that's in that case, it's very important to work with regulators, to work with existing institutions, to work with you know, exchanges and all the other kind of participants in the broader financial ecosystem.
Chris, what happened to the ecosystem of startups?
Then? Last year?
Caroline, and I look at all the backward looking data shows that if you look at it from a venture back, deal count or dollar perspective, twenty twenty three was a.
More difficult year.
How did your funds perform and what were the lessons you learned through that?
Yeah, we're regulated ATRIA, so I'm not allowed to speak about our own returns.
But I will say that that.
You know, my view if you look back kind of at the history of technology is the innovation and financial markets are pretty independent. And so for example, you know, Facebook and YouTube were started in the sort of post dot com after the dot com bubble, in the crash. You know, Microsoft was started an Apple and the seventies and a very high interest rate environment. So you know, if you just kind of look at GET, what we do mostly early stage investing, and we think that we really look for technology trends and how they're moving and less sort of the day to day.
Movements of the financial markets.
So we've been a very active We've been continuing very consistently to deploy capital we find great entrepreneurs. I'm very excited by the entrepreneurs that we see in the space. That's what I try to talk about in the book is just all of the new and exciting ideas. I really feel like that some of that story hasn't been fully told, and so I wanted to represent that and show kind of all the new things that can be built using this technology.
So when you are thinking of how much you've deployed already, are you able to give us an update of whether that cadence is growing at the moment, whether you've deployed most, whether LPs are like, yeah, we love it, We're going to commit more.
Well, we have I don't know what exactly we've a close from a regulatory point of view, but we have plenty of you know, we're well capitalized and we're excited by Like the way I look at it is if great entrepreneurs walk in the door, you know, we have capital and we will give them capital, but we don't try we don't have sort of a pace and try to put money out out to work if we don't find great people and great ideas. But we've I think lately especially you know, there was sort of obviously like FTX and a lot of you know, sort of negative things that happen. I see a real kind of renaissance beginning in the at the early stage with innovation and just new ideas.
So I would expect that we would you.
Know, we have been, and I expect we continue to remain very active in the in the early stage venture, you know, in the activity.
Chris, it's an election year and.
Policy, future regulation, future legislation has been a discussion for your for your industry for some time. How do you approach your lobbying efforts this year or your communication with both sides of this election race to build a long term.
Yeah, you know, I started going to DC a few years ago to so talked to policymakers about these topics. And one of my realizations is a big tech, big banks, lots of other kinds of parts of the economy are well represented in d C. We felt that small tech, that startups did not have proper representation. So we as a firm have decided that we, you know, we are an institution that can help with that, and so we've decided to get more active in politics. We're taking a bipartisan approach. We you know, are our stances pro tech, pro startup. You know, I think that a lot of su particularly around blockchains and crypto, is playing out in courts. And the problem with courts is it takes many, many years, and that creates uncertainty, and uncertainty is you know, deters good actors and attracts bad actors.
So, you know, I would.
Argue that the right way to sort of approach tech policy is to look at a technology holistically. Every technology has bad things and good things about it. AI does you know, crypto does and the right policy you know, sort of is crafted to maximize the good and minimize the bad, and so that's what we advocate for.
I'm interested in ultimately where you're seeing this renaissance coming coming from and happening.
But it's very nature.
Often those that are building in crypto are decentralized as well, and the application they're off. I think of sky Mavis and how Axioinfinity just blew up, and Asia in particular.
Where is the excitement right now and where do you invest?
Is it always in equity that token investments you still want to make?
Yeah, we do both. We do so we do equity and token investments. In terms of the location, in New York is actually I would say in the US is sort of the hub for this for blockchain activity, but it's really a global movement. It's happening all over the place. You know, China's doing a lot in Hong Kong, so a lot of Asia is very active, Korea, Japan, we just opened the UK office. There's a lot of things in Europe. So it's a very global movement, I think, more so than most technologies. And I think that also maybe skews some of the perspective in the US because like a lot of the technology, for example, stable coins, which are basically digital dollars, are very popular. There are six hundred billion in transactions last month alone, and a lot of that happens around the world, and we don't see it as much here because we have you know, you have your your credit card, you have your fat and your credit cards. You know, the financial the payment systems work quite well here and as you know, we obviously have access to the dollar. But that's a very popular product around the world, so it really is a global movement.
Chris, we have ten seconds. Do you hold bitcoin or any other digital tokens personally?
Gosh, like, I'm very bullish, and you know, I do have a lot.
I don't know, I'm not supposed to talk about my particular holdings, but I am very I do have a lot of crypto.
Yeah, all right, Christison, founder, managing partner over at A sixteen Z crypto with a book out today. Great to have you on the program.
Thank you, Thank.
You time now for talking tech. And first up, IBM is giving its US managers who are still working remotely and ultimatum either moved to a location near the office or leave the company. This, according to an internal memo seen by Bloomberg, managers must live within fifty miles of an IBM.
Office by the start of August.
And social media platform X is reactivating searches related to musician Taylor Swift. Searches for her name were temporarily disabled after explicit AI generated images of Swift made the rounds on X. Other public figures have recently become targets of deep fakes, and that includes President Joe Biden. Plus TikTok is testing a new feature that were made video posts shoppable. The feature will use technology that can identify objects in a video and encourage views to find similar items on TikTok shop. The spokesperson confirmed the feature is in an early test.
Karen, let's get more on that from the person who's been writing all about it, Bloomberg's Alex Brinka.
And before we.
Delve into some of the focus of Washington in social media land right now, focus on where they're trying to evolve.
I mean, so, what any any.
Post that I put on TikTok they can hunt maybe the makeup that's behind me or whatever I might be wearing.
In theory, that's what this test would do.
TikTok technology basically looks at the post and they'll see, hey, you're trying on a lipstick or you're walking your dog with a leash, and link you to a shopping page filled with items that are tagged with quote similar to the video. Now, this is really interesting and a departure from how shopping works on TikTok right now. Right now, currently, brands and creators and influencers who are approved actually go on and tag products to their video. And while that's got a lot of people to purchase on the app, it's also got some users complaining these influencers and brands are obviously incentivized they want to drive revenue or make commission in the influencer's perspective, So there is some complaints there Layering on this technology, though, Will kind of ensure that these videos are not just people trying to sell you something you could actually shop from, something that is not making a sales pitch, but just a video of interesting rocks that a geologist is sharing on the internet.
The user sort of response is interesting because there's the items themselves, some of them are not legit and then in some cases, according to your reporting, the tech isn't working one hundred percent.
Yeah, exactly.
There have been issues with both counterfeits and copycat items that we've written about, particularly in the beauty space, people purporting to sell brands like Charlotte Tilbray when it is not in fact a brand like Charlotte Tilbray, or there are examples like the one I saw before I wrote this story where I mentioned a geologist showing off rocks. Well, the technology tagged a bunch of nail products and rings to that particular video. So if you're somebody who enjoys pressish gems, I don't know if nail polish is the right product for you. So it does seem to be that this is going to be an evolving process. As you mentioned, this is a test for them, But what this would certainly do is kind of super charge their e commerce push. I've been told by people familiar with the matter that internally at the company, commerce, particularly in the US, is top priority. So it seems like they're trying to pull out all the stops to get people purchasing off those entertaining videos on TikTok.
And of course we wait to see what the leaders of these businesses, not just TikTok, but x and Instagram Meta more broadly, what they have to say on Capitol Hill tomorrow. I'm sure we'll be checking in with you then, Alex Birinka, we thank you so much. Meanwhile, and that does it for this edition of B New Me Technology.
And yeah, thank you to everyone this week that told us you listen to the shows a podcasts. I find that so interesting, Caro, keep messaging us, tell us where you watch the show, how you listen. But the pod is on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, and of course we put it on all of the Bloomberg platforms. Don't forget also that we are a live TV show and we love it when you tune in from New York City and San Francisco.
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