# Meta CEO Weighs In On AI Safety Debate

An episode of [Bloomberg Tech](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1611767434), 16 Sep 2026, 43 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/41764a4f-fc64-4e11-89ba-ae7c0030ab5e/512b98cd-dfae-4651-a5ec-b4c7011ad4c2/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=9caafc41-289c-4115-995d-ae7c0030ab75

Bloomberg’s Ed Ludlow breaks down Mark Zuckerberg's call for AI labs to rely on independent evaluators and advisers to ensure models are safe. Plus, OpenAI is said to be in early talks with investors about a new funding round that could value the ChatGPT maker at more than $1.2 trillion, and Impulse Space CEO Tom Mueller discusses the company's $308 Million Series D Extension and the future of the space mobility economy. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts.
[0:05] Speaker 2: Radio.
[0:06] Speaker 1: News.
[0:13] Speaker 3: Bloomberg Tech is live from the heart of Silicon Valley
[0:17] Speaker 3: with Ed Ludlow in San Francisco.
[0:22] Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Tech.
[0:23] Speaker 2: Coming up, Mark Zuckerberg weighs in on the global AI
[0:26] Speaker 2: safety debate and says AI labs should rely on independent
[0:29] Speaker 2: evaluators and advisors to ensure models are safe. Plus, open
[0:33] Speaker 2: AI could be looking to raise more money before it
[0:35] Speaker 2: heads to the public markets, and a new funding round
[0:38] Speaker 2: could value it at more than $ 1. 2 trillion. And Impulse
[0:42] Speaker 2: Space announces a $ 308 million Series D extension. We speak
[0:46] Speaker 2: with the CEO later this hour. Our top story, Mark
[0:50] Speaker 2: Zuckerberg has weighed in on the AI safety debate. The
[0:53] Speaker 2: Meta CEO said AI labs should rely on independent evaluators
[0:57] Speaker 2: and advisors to ensure that models are safe rather than
[1:01] Speaker 2: forcing an industry-wide slowdown. He wrote on X that the
[1:04] Speaker 2: company had delayed the release of its latest AI tool, Muse,
[1:08] Speaker 2: for several.
[1:09] Speaker 1: Months to ensure it was safe.
[1:11] Speaker 2: Bloomberg's Riley Griffin said, who leads our coverage of Meta
[1:14] Speaker 2: is with us. Very simply, Mark Zuckerberg is saying, This
[1:18] Speaker 2: is for each lab to do itself.
[1:20] Speaker 1: Just get on with it. Go through the post.
[1:22] Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, the most notable thing about the post
[1:24] Speaker 3: to me is he's throwing a little bit of shade
[1:27] Speaker 3: at his competitors. Here with the tweet that we have
[1:31] Speaker 3: on the screen, you know, he effectively has said, we
[1:33] Speaker 3: did a slowdown. We did it internally. We didn't raise
[1:37] Speaker 3: a kerfuffle about it. And we didn't call on our
[1:39] Speaker 3: peers to slow down too. So Meta is moving ahead.
[1:42] Speaker 3: It's calling on independent evaluation. But it's not saying, hey,
[1:46] Speaker 3: right now we're going to slow down after these calls.
[1:49] Speaker 1: You know, some like camps are emerging, right?
[1:51] Speaker 2: So, you know, Dario Amodei in his Anthropic essay on
[1:53] Speaker 2: Saturday explicitly said, we think independent evaluation is important. But where,
[2:00] Speaker 2: you know, Zuckerberg disagrees with Amodei is there doesn't need
[2:03] Speaker 2: to be this coalition of.
[2:04] Speaker 1: The frontier labs together.
[2:05] Speaker 2: You talked about safety meta with Dina Powell McCormick, right?
[2:10] Speaker 2: Explain who she is, but also her answer to your question,
[2:14] Speaker 2: if there was one.
[2:15] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[2:15] Speaker 3: So on Monday, I spoke with Dina Powell McCormick in
[2:18] Speaker 3: Meta's headquarters in Menlo Park. She is the president of
[2:21] Speaker 3: the company, someone who came in just earlier this year
[2:24] Speaker 3: from the board. She is playing a really broad and
[2:28] Speaker 3: sweeping role with her hands all over the AI story.
[2:32] Speaker 3: And in this case, she said that safety should be
[2:35] Speaker 3: baked in. from the bottom up. It should be a
[2:38] Speaker 3: part of the process day to day. Again, it's a
[2:39] Speaker 3: polite way of saying we're not going to commit to
[2:42] Speaker 3: slowing down right now. We think this is a part
[2:45] Speaker 3: of our process.
[2:45] Speaker 2: She is in the Jensen Wong camp, which is safety
[2:48] Speaker 2: is an engineering problem, right? It's for the companies themselves
[2:52] Speaker 2: to say, if we're good at AI, we should make
[2:55] Speaker 2: sure it's safe. That conversation with Pal McCormick is interesting.
[2:59] Speaker 2: You know, the question I ask myself is, Is Dina
[3:01] Speaker 2: Powell McCormick the present-day Sheryl Sandberg, right? How does Mark
[3:06] Speaker 2: Zuckerberg rely on her as the face of the company?
[3:09] Speaker 3: I think it's a comparison that's made often because of
[3:13] Speaker 3: their backgrounds in Washington, their connections to the financial sector,
[3:17] Speaker 3: their focus on mentorship.
[3:17] Speaker 1: She was a Trump administration official. She was at Goldman Sachs. Correct.
[3:21] Speaker 3: And Sheryl Sandberg notably had more connections to the Democratic Party.
[3:25] Speaker 1: But in this case, there's a big difference.
[3:27] Speaker 3: Sheryl grew the company from something small to what it
[3:31] Speaker 3: is now. Dina is coming into a $ 1. 7 trillion company
[3:36] Speaker 3: trying to smooth out its rough edges. They have a
[3:39] Speaker 3: lot of challenges ahead, particularly when it comes to the
[3:42] Speaker 3: AI backlash. focus on data centers. And she is both
[3:46] Speaker 3: helping to clinch deals and retell that AI story.
[3:49] Speaker 2: So those deals and that focus on data centers, Meta
[3:52] Speaker 2: is massively committed to spending on compute. And reading your
[3:57] Speaker 2: reporting and the statements from Meta, Dina Powell McCormick's kind
[4:01] Speaker 2: of overseeing all facets of that, right?
[4:04] Speaker 1: It's a really big portfolio for her.
[4:06] Speaker 3: She's everywhere all at once. And not only is she
[4:08] Speaker 3: working on compute, I mean, something that.
[4:09] Speaker 1: Emerged, she was critical to the up.
[4:12] Speaker 3: To $ 18 billion settlement with the state attorneys general. That
[4:16] Speaker 3: is altogether separate from the compute story, but she is
[4:19] Speaker 3: a right hand to Mark Zuckerberg. She has really earned
[4:21] Speaker 3: his trust. She left our interview to go have dinner
[4:27] Speaker 3: at his house after four hours of conversation that very day.
[4:30] Speaker 1: So she's very involved.
[4:32] Speaker 3: CJ Mahoney, who is the chief legal officer, said she's
[4:35] Speaker 3: the last person consulted on every decision. So it's notable
[4:39] Speaker 3: that she has risen to this level in such a
[4:42] Speaker 3: short amount of time.
[4:43] Speaker 2: So there's two stories here, Mark Zuckerberg weighing in in
[4:45] Speaker 2: the last 24 hours on the AI safety environment, and
[4:48] Speaker 2: then Riley's conversation with Dina Powell McCormack and her profile
[4:51] Speaker 2: of her. Go and read that on all Bloomberg platforms.
[4:53] Speaker 2: Bloomberg's really driven. Thank you very much. Sticking with AI,
[4:57] Speaker 2: open AI could be looking to raise more money before
[4:59] Speaker 2: it heads.
[5:00] Speaker 1: To the public markets.
[5:01] Speaker 2: The ChatGPT maker is said to be in early talks
[5:04] Speaker 2: with investors about a new funding round that could value
[5:07] Speaker 2: it at more than $ 1.
[5:08] Speaker 1: 2 trillion.
[5:09] Speaker 2: That's according to a Bloomberg source. Bloomberg's Shereen Ghaffari leads
[5:12] Speaker 2: our coverage of the Frontier Labs and is with us.
[5:17] Speaker 2: Let's be very clear here. This sounds like this was
[5:19] Speaker 2: an investor pool approaching OpenAI and saying, should we do this?
[5:23] Speaker 2: This sounds like a good idea. But that $ 1. 2 trillion valuation,
[5:27] Speaker 2: what would that represent relative to OpenAI's last private valuation?
[5:34] Speaker 1: That's right. So it would be a jump.
[5:37] Speaker 5: You know, opening eyes last private market valuation was, I believe,
[5:40] Speaker 5: over 750 billion. I'm not I don't remember offhand the
[5:44] Speaker 5: exact number, but it would be, you know, potentially a
[5:47] Speaker 5: big jump for it, but not as big as potentially
[5:50] Speaker 5: some of the numbers being floated for Anthropix public listing,
[5:54] Speaker 5: expected public listing coming up soon. So it'll be interesting
[5:57] Speaker 5: to see if this round does happen, how it prices.
[6:01] Speaker 2: There are some other reports out there that evaluation could
[6:03] Speaker 2: be even higher. I think we lose sight of the basics, right?
[6:06] Speaker 2: Remind us where OpenAI and Anthropic actually sit in their
[6:11] Speaker 2: path to the public markets. We all assume that it
[6:14] Speaker 2: will happen eventually, but right now they've filed confidentially and
[6:18] Speaker 2: we're waiting.
[6:20] Speaker 1: That's right.
[6:21] Speaker 5: So there's been all this talk in the industry about
[6:25] Speaker 5: a potential slowdown and all this immense anxiety about the
[6:28] Speaker 5: risks of AI right now. However, we don't see any
[6:32] Speaker 5: signs so far of anthropics slowing.
[6:36] Speaker 1: Expected IPOs slowing down.
[6:38] Speaker 5: And it's sort of from the outside, still seems like
[6:42] Speaker 5: full speed ahead here. Now, at the same time, they're
[6:45] Speaker 5: having conversations about maybe having external auditors, as you were
[6:48] Speaker 5: mentioning earlier on your show. But we are still very
[6:51] Speaker 5: much expecting and waiting for Anthropic to move forward with
[6:55] Speaker 5: its S1 as soon as in the coming days, weeks.
[6:59] Speaker 2: So compare and contrast, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman gave an
[7:03] Speaker 2: interview to Fortune this past week, and basically it looks
[7:07] Speaker 2: like the IPO will happen next year at some point,
[7:10] Speaker 2: but he cited the current environment.
[7:12] Speaker 1: What did he say? That's right.
[7:16] Speaker 5: So OpenAI is taking, or as Sam Ullman has made
[7:19] Speaker 5: a little bit of a different sort of statement than
[7:21] Speaker 5: we're seeing with some others, in that he was saying
[7:24] Speaker 5: that the IPO could be delayed, or rather that it
[7:28] Speaker 5: would be a strange time or moment for his company
[7:31] Speaker 5: to go public right now. That being said, as we've reported,
[7:34] Speaker 5: OpenAI has been considering not going public this year, pushing
[7:38] Speaker 5: that to 2027.
[7:40] Speaker 1: Predating this current wave of AI anxiety.
[7:42] Speaker 5: So our reporting indicates that that is certainly not the
[7:45] Speaker 5: only factor or potentially the main factor here. That being said, yes,
[7:50] Speaker 5: it is sort of a cognitive dissonance to be certainly
[7:53] Speaker 5: for having conversations about all of this AI anxiety at
[7:56] Speaker 5: the same time as some of the most highly valued
[7:59] Speaker 5: private companies ever are preparing to go public.
[8:03] Speaker 2: Bloomberg's Shireen Ghaffari, who's the author of the Bloomberg Q &
[8:05] Speaker 2: AI newsletter, which I highly recommend you subscribe to. Another
[8:10] Speaker 2: story in semiconductors. So shares of SK Hynix and Intel,
[8:14] Speaker 2: those are the US-listed ADRs of SK Hynix, by the way,
[8:17] Speaker 2: both higher, markedly higher in Intel's case. SK Hynix says
[8:21] Speaker 2: it is exploring options to boost its global competitiveness. That's
[8:25] Speaker 2: after a report said it could be teaming up with
[8:28] Speaker 2: Intel to make chips in the United States. The memory
[8:31] Speaker 2: chip maker said no decision's been made and nothing's been finalized.
[8:35] Speaker 2: But on that initial report on the tie up and
[8:38] Speaker 2: then SK coming out with that statement, both stocks continue
[8:41] Speaker 2: to be higher. Senators from both parties blocked a landmark
[8:52] Speaker 2: digital asset market structure bill in a procedural vote, sending
[8:56] Speaker 2: crypto stocks tumbling. So this bill would have handed the
[9:00] Speaker 2: CFTC the primary authority to regulate the digital assets industry,
[9:05] Speaker 2: but it failed to advance with a vote of 49
[9:08] Speaker 2: to 50, a major blow for crypto industry players. Here
[9:12] Speaker 2: to discuss is Summer Mersinger, CEO of the Blockchain Association,
[9:15] Speaker 2: a DC-based nonprofit dedicated to promoting crypto. a pro-innovation policy
[9:20] Speaker 2: environment for the digital asset economy. And whether this piece
[9:25] Speaker 2: of legislation was pro-innovation or not, right now it's not proceeding.
[9:30] Speaker 2: Just on behalf of the industry, summarize your response to
[9:34] Speaker 2: how or not how this has passed through Congress.
[9:37] Speaker 6: Yeah, legislation is rarely a linear process. You're always going
[9:42] Speaker 6: to have two steps forward, you know, three steps back.
[9:45] Speaker 6: That's not unusual at all. And so I don't see
[9:48] Speaker 6: it as a major blow. You know, this isn't over.
[9:52] Speaker 6: There was a procedural step taken so that this bill
[9:54] Speaker 6: could potentially come back up on the floor. And, we've
[9:58] Speaker 6: got a lot of great things going on at the
[10:00] Speaker 6: SEC and the CFTC. At the end of the day,
[10:02] Speaker 6: we're going to get clarity for this industry.
[10:05] Speaker 2: So this is why the market reaction is so interesting.
[10:07] Speaker 2: The market reaction being to the downside, right? The Clarity
[10:11] Speaker 2: Act would basically empower the CFTC, right? But if you
[10:15] Speaker 2: read Bloomberg's reporting, what happens next is that it goes
[10:19] Speaker 2: back into the hands of the regulators anyway, both the
[10:21] Speaker 2: CFTC and the SEC, to make rules. Why is that
[10:25] Speaker 2: being perceived through the markets as a negative thing?
[10:28] Speaker 6: Well, I think any time you are dealing with just
[10:32] Speaker 6: using the regulatory process versus having something in law, it's
[10:37] Speaker 6: a little bit less durable. That's not to say that
[10:41] Speaker 6: they can't come up with a framework. The SEC and
[10:45] Speaker 6: the CFTC have already been working on some ways to
[10:49] Speaker 6: do that. So I think we're going to get the
[10:52] Speaker 6: framework that we need. But it is always difficult to...
[10:56] Speaker 6: you know, recognize how does this last across future administrations.
[11:01] Speaker 6: I do think that there are ways to do it,
[11:02] Speaker 6: and I'm confident that they're headed in the right direction.
[11:06] Speaker 2: We're just showing the members of your association, by the way,
[11:09] Speaker 2: you know, Kraken, Coinbase, Circle, etc. Did they want the
[11:13] Speaker 2: Clarity Act to pass?
[11:15] Speaker 6: Yeah, industry wanted it to pass. We still would like
[11:19] Speaker 6: to see it pass. I don't think anyone's giving up yet.
[11:23] Speaker 6: But again, we can't wait for this to happen. Digital
[11:28] Speaker 6: asset users deserve some protections that were going to be
[11:31] Speaker 6: in this bill, but just are not in place right now.
[11:34] Speaker 1: Yet.
[11:34] Speaker 6: So, using the regulatory efforts to do so, I think,
[11:38] Speaker 6: is important. You know, we need to make sure that
[11:40] Speaker 6: we don't have another FTX situation. You know, you never
[11:44] Speaker 6: want Congress to legislate in a crisis. So, we're going
[11:47] Speaker 6: to work closely with the regulators, but also, we're not
[11:50] Speaker 6: giving up on Congress. Again, you know, these are setbacks.
[11:54] Speaker 6: They're not unusual. and something that I've seen many, many
[11:59] Speaker 6: times in my many years on Capitol Hill.
[12:02] Speaker 1: I appreciate that. I would say it's been a slow march, right?
[12:04] Speaker 2: Because I think odds of this bill passing over quite
[12:08] Speaker 2: a long period of time have been coming down. Right now,
[12:13] Speaker 2: there is just absolute focus on artificial intelligence, okay?
[12:18] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[12:19] Speaker 2: How much does that sort of universal attention on one
[12:23] Speaker 2: field help or not help your industry, you know, when
[12:29] Speaker 2: they're trying to make regulatory progress like this?
[12:33] Speaker 6: Yeah, AI and crypto actually do, you know, they're very
[12:37] Speaker 6: much hand in hand. I think we're going to see
[12:40] Speaker 6: a lot of inner kind of of the two industries.
[12:45] Speaker 6: So the fact that, you know, today you're hearing a
[12:48] Speaker 6: lot about AI and less about crypto, that doesn't necessarily
[12:51] Speaker 6: mean that people have moved on. I think that we
[12:55] Speaker 6: are going to be part of the AI conversation and
[12:57] Speaker 6: how that is handled going forward. And again, you know,
[13:02] Speaker 6: we have to keep pushing forward on some sort of
[13:04] Speaker 6: crypto regulatory framework because the status quo doesn't work.
[13:08] Speaker 2: So the interesting political discussion here is that the Clarity
[13:13] Speaker 2: Act was intended to outlive the administration of the day,
[13:17] Speaker 2: have rules with some permanency. So if the rulemaking goes
[13:20] Speaker 2: back to the regulator, CFTC and SEC, that would leave
[13:24] Speaker 2: those rules subject to amendment by the administration of the day.
[13:30] Speaker 2: How much was this the moment under the Trump administration,
[13:33] Speaker 2: perceived as open-minded, friendly towards your industry?
[13:38] Speaker 6: Yeah, I think it's important that we have this administration
[13:42] Speaker 6: that is this locked in on having the US via
[13:44] Speaker 6: the crypto capital of the world. And that does give
[13:48] Speaker 6: us some flexibility to work with the regulators to get
[13:50] Speaker 6: some rules in place that, you know, it's not law, but,
[13:55] Speaker 6: you know, you can get things put in place that
[13:59] Speaker 6: help the markets, that's really difficult to unwind. And people
[14:03] Speaker 6: don't want to unwind it after a new administration comes
[14:07] Speaker 6: in because if you have consumer protections, why would you
[14:10] Speaker 6: want to take those away.
[14:11] Speaker 1: From the market?
[14:12] Speaker 2: Summer Mersinger of the Blockchain Association back on the show.
[14:15] Speaker 2: Really great to have you. Thank you very much. Sticking
[14:17] Speaker 2: with crypto, a quick piece of news. Two former Robin
[14:19] Speaker 2: Hood employees were charged by U.S. prosecutors with fraud for
[14:23] Speaker 2: allegedly using confidential information to trade crypto-linked perpetual futures. The
[14:29] Speaker 2: two staffers allegedly made more than $ 50, 000 each from their trades.
[14:33] Speaker 2: A Robinhood spokesperson says the company has, quote, zero tolerance
[14:37] Speaker 2: for insider trading and has, quote, robust insider trading policies
[14:42] Speaker 2: and procedures in place. OK, coming up, we're going to
[14:45] Speaker 2: go to space and speak with Tom Miller, Impulse Space CEO.
[14:48] Speaker 2: The company extending its Series D by about $ 308 million,
[14:52] Speaker 2: also hiring a CFO.
[14:55] Speaker 1: Interesting. What happens next? This is Bloomberg Tech.
[15:04] Speaker 4: Thank you.
[15:12] Speaker 2: Impulse Space has announced a $ 308 million extension to its
[15:16] Speaker 2: Series D round, bringing its total combined to $ 808 million.
[15:20] Speaker 2: The company also announced that it's appointing its first CFO,
[15:24] Speaker 2: Adam Townsend, who's joining from Vizio. Here with more is
[15:28] Speaker 2: Tom Muller, Impulse Space CEO. I've been where you're sitting now.
[15:33] Speaker 2: I've been through the facility with you. I think we
[15:36] Speaker 2: start with why extend the Series D? I know you
[15:39] Speaker 2: want to get moving. Did you need more capital?
[15:44] Speaker 1: Yeah, we did.
[15:46] Speaker 7: This shows how much our customers and our investors like
[15:50] Speaker 7: what we're doing. We do in-space mobility, moving things precisely
[15:54] Speaker 7: around in space and out beyond Earth. So we're seeing
[15:59] Speaker 7: a lot of demand from our customers and certainly a
[16:02] Speaker 7: lot of excitement from our investors.
[16:05] Speaker 2: Tom, I appreciate you have like high degree of competence
[16:08] Speaker 2: in your own right in the domain you're focused on.
[16:10] Speaker 2: But I do want to kind of understand how post-SpaceX
[16:14] Speaker 2: IPO interest has changed in your company, in your work,
[16:19] Speaker 2: the appetite of venture capital in particular to back a
[16:22] Speaker 2: company like Impulse Space.
[16:25] Speaker 7: Yeah, certainly we're seeing a lot of excitement in space.
[16:29] Speaker 7: AI is the big technology right now. And with on-orbit
[16:34] Speaker 7: data centers, we now see space combining with AI. So
[16:39] Speaker 7: it's just really energizing the industry. And also, I think
[16:43] Speaker 7: what we're doing, mobility, is something that's really needed by
[16:47] Speaker 7: commercial customers, NASA, and certainly by the government. So in
[16:54] Speaker 7: all those sectors, we're seeing a lot of demand for
[16:58] Speaker 7: our products.
[16:59] Speaker 2: We're talking about and we're showing space tugs like for
[17:05] Speaker 2: the completely uninitiated, those of us that haven't haven't been
[17:08] Speaker 2: to space. I appreciate that's most what's a space tug.
[17:12] Speaker 1: Like what?
[17:13] Speaker 2: Why is that a critical cog in the space ecosystem?
[17:17] Speaker 7: Well, that image you have right now, that's Helios, which
[17:20] Speaker 7: is that big rocket on a rocket that brought all
[17:24] Speaker 7: this rideshare up to geosynchronous orbit. And then you can
[17:28] Speaker 7: see the space tugs, the Mira spacecraft that are undocking
[17:33] Speaker 7: from that and going to their orbit. So it's basically,
[17:36] Speaker 7: it's a satellite like that right there that has power systems,
[17:41] Speaker 7: carries payload, but mainly what makes it a space tug
[17:44] Speaker 7: is it has a very... a very powerful propulsion system
[17:48] Speaker 7: on it, so a lot of propellant and a lot
[17:50] Speaker 7: of thrusters, so it can move around very precisely in space.
[17:53] Speaker 7: It can move around within an orbit or it can
[17:55] Speaker 7: change orbits.
[17:57] Speaker 1: And so who then, tell me, your customers, who needs
[18:00] Speaker 1: the space tug?
[18:02] Speaker 7: For the Mira, mostly has been Space Force. We have
[18:06] Speaker 7: three of those flying right now. In fact, we just
[18:08] Speaker 7: did a flyby between our LEO-2 and our LEO-3 missions.
[18:12] Speaker 7: They got within about 200 meters of each other. Those
[18:17] Speaker 7: previous flights were mostly commercial and demo flights for us.
[18:21] Speaker 7: And going forward, we have mostly government flights. Although we
[18:25] Speaker 7: do have another commercial one, LEO-4, going up later this year.
[18:28] Speaker 7: And then we have, when Helios flies for the first
[18:31] Speaker 7: time next year, we have our first GeoMira going to
[18:34] Speaker 7: geosynchronous orbit. So it's a mix of both government and
[18:39] Speaker 7: commercial flights.
[18:40] Speaker 2: Tom, when we say flies, which launch system are we
[18:44] Speaker 2: talking about? SpaceX, right? And principally Falcon 9?
[18:49] Speaker 7: Yeah, everything we booked for the most part right now
[18:52] Speaker 7: that's flying soon is on Falcon 9. We're also going
[18:55] Speaker 7: to be flying on others in the future.
[18:58] Speaker 2: So those others are interesting. You know, there's been a
[19:00] Speaker 2: lot of debate and reporting about how SpaceX, of which
[19:04] Speaker 2: you're an alumni, right, transitions the Falcon 9 program to Starship.
[19:09] Speaker 2: You know, there are these reports that like beyond 2029,
[19:13] Speaker 2: SpaceX has stopped taking orders like on Falcon 9. What's
[19:16] Speaker 2: your experience of that to be able to get reliable
[19:19] Speaker 2: launch over that kind of longer time horizon?
[19:24] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[19:25] Speaker 7: Fortunately for us, we're already booked on Falcon 9s out
[19:28] Speaker 7: through that date. And then a lot of our customers,
[19:32] Speaker 7: our commercial, I mean, I'm sorry, our government customers, which
[19:35] Speaker 7: are already booked through block buys. So we're mostly covered
[19:38] Speaker 7: for the next few years. And then I think this
[19:40] Speaker 7: is a huge opportunity for all the new other launch
[19:45] Speaker 7: vehicles to step up. We've got a few that have
[19:46] Speaker 7: flown for the first time in the last couple of years.
[19:48] Speaker 7: We got several to fly for the first time in
[19:51] Speaker 7: the coming year. So there's a lot of demand, and
[19:55] Speaker 7: I think there's going to be a lot of supply.
[19:58] Speaker 2: You've also hired your first CFO. I don't know, were
[20:01] Speaker 2: you doing the pencil pushing on the spreadsheets until this point, Tom?
[20:05] Speaker 2: But how much, no, go ahead. Tell me what's the
[20:09] Speaker 2: thinking behind this, like precursor to IPO?
[20:13] Speaker 7: I've been mostly functioning in the CTO, you know, with
[20:17] Speaker 7: the share of my CEO. And Eric Romo, Mr. Romo,
[20:20] Speaker 7: has been doing, you know, most of the helping with
[20:23] Speaker 7: the financial stuff. And, you know, now that we've got
[20:26] Speaker 7: so much customers and really so much capital to manage,
[20:31] Speaker 7: it was time for a C-level finance officer. So we
[20:35] Speaker 7: were very lucky to find Adam. The guy's remarkable, perfect
[20:39] Speaker 7: fit for us. So, yeah, it really worked out. Great time.
[20:43] Speaker 2: Just from a pure founder perspective, is Impulse being a
[20:47] Speaker 2: public company one day an ambition for you, Tom?
[20:52] Speaker 5: We'll see.
[20:52] Speaker 7: Yeah, it could happen. It's not something we're really focused
[20:57] Speaker 7: on right now. Right now, we're just addressing the market
[21:00] Speaker 7: and trying to build up our capabilities.
[21:04] Speaker 2: Can we just talk, to end the conversation about building,
[21:07] Speaker 2: you and I have gone over this in the past,
[21:09] Speaker 2: this idea that you are part of an ecosystem in
[21:11] Speaker 2: Southern California where there is a concentration of talent, there
[21:14] Speaker 2: is the ripple effect of SpaceX coming out of Hawthorne.
[21:18] Speaker 2: Just talk about that environment right now and let's end
[21:20] Speaker 2: on how it's going.
[21:22] Speaker 7: Yeah, there's a lot of founders of new companies like
[21:26] Speaker 7: mine that were at SpaceX or have a lot of
[21:29] Speaker 7: key employees that were at SpaceX that have joined. And
[21:33] Speaker 7: it's just, I think, really, if you think about Silicon
[21:36] Speaker 7: Valley as doing bits, you know, doing software, think about L.A.
[21:39] Speaker 7: as doing hardware. So we're making parts here. We're making spacecraft.
[21:43] Speaker 7: We're making drones. We're making nuclear reactors. There's all kinds
[21:47] Speaker 7: of things going on within just a few miles of
[21:50] Speaker 7: where I'm at here in Redondo Beach.
[21:53] Speaker 2: Tom Mueller of Impulse Space, back on Bloomberg Tech, extending
[21:56] Speaker 2: the Series D to $ 808 million.
[21:58] Speaker 1: Thank you very much indeed. Thank you.
[22:07] Speaker 2: Welcome back to Bloomberg Tech. The AI safety debate is
[22:10] Speaker 2: heating up in Washington. Amphropic met with senior Trump officials
[22:13] Speaker 2: yesterday as leading AI companies discuss working together on safeguards.
[22:18] Speaker 2: Smaller rivals warn new rules could make it harder to compete.
[22:22] Speaker 2: And gosh, spare us thought for the venture capitalists. They
[22:24] Speaker 2: must all be there a little bit worried right now.
[22:27] Speaker 2: Bloomberg's Natasha Mascarenas and Maggie Eastland join us now.
[22:30] Speaker 1: So, Natasha, I'm going to go to you first.
[22:32] Speaker 2: You have done what you always do, which is go
[22:34] Speaker 2: out to industry and say, what do you guys think
[22:36] Speaker 2: about what's going on here, right? If you think about
[22:39] Speaker 2: anthropic and open AI in private markets, let's say meta
[22:43] Speaker 2: in the public markets, there are lots of investors that
[22:45] Speaker 2: are bracing for what this net results in, right?
[22:48] Speaker 1: Absolutely.
[22:49] Speaker 8: I mean, I spoke to over a dozen founders in
[22:51] Speaker 8: the first 48 hours since Dario posted his call for
[22:55] Speaker 8: AI pacing. And I would say the headline is we
[22:58] Speaker 8: are worried about a regulatory wall emerging here. We are
[23:00] Speaker 8: worried that the bigger companies are going to set rules
[23:04] Speaker 8: that us small arrivals are going to have to follow.
[23:07] Speaker 8: So there is a lot of fear, I would say,
[23:09] Speaker 8: on the investor side, a little bit more optimistic of,
[23:12] Speaker 8: as per usual, of, you know, let's keep everything is fine.
[23:16] Speaker 1: No chilling effect here.
[23:18] Speaker 8: You know, maybe keep your fundraising dollars a little closer
[23:20] Speaker 8: to heart in case you need to work on your
[23:22] Speaker 8: own models instead of relying on the other one.
[23:24] Speaker 1: OK, the U.S.
[23:25] Speaker 2: Government's really important here. Maggie Eastland out in Washington, D.C.,
[23:28] Speaker 2: bring us the reporting. So we know there's been some
[23:31] Speaker 2: contact between Anthropic and U.S.
[23:33] Speaker 1: Officials at least.
[23:36] Speaker 5: Yes.
[23:36] Speaker 9: And we know that going into that meeting, Howard Lutnick,
[23:39] Speaker 9: Commerce Secretary, as well as Emil Michael, were both eager
[23:42] Speaker 9: to push back on Anthropic about this idea, all of
[23:46] Speaker 9: this doom that has been spreading and has kind of
[23:48] Speaker 9: burst onto the public scene. You saw President Trump post,
[23:52] Speaker 9: you know, really just a barrage of comments on his
[23:55] Speaker 9: true social platform talking about how he did not want
[23:58] Speaker 9: to slow down A.I., And, you know, we can definitely
[24:01] Speaker 9: bet that that's the message that Anthropix Tom Brown received
[24:05] Speaker 9: on that call that we reported on yesterday.
[24:08] Speaker 2: Natasha, timing in the world of Silicon Valley and venture
[24:12] Speaker 2: capital is everything. There's the report out about OpenAI considering
[24:16] Speaker 2: a private market round pre-IPO. Is there anything in the
[24:21] Speaker 2: reporting that suggests a slowdown or a pacing at the
[24:24] Speaker 2: frontier results in reduced activity across the ecosystem, both investment
[24:29] Speaker 2: and sort of the activity of founders?
[24:31] Speaker 8: I think that will be answered by how successful OpenAI
[24:36] Speaker 8: is in getting this valuation and in getting an actual
[24:39] Speaker 8: round done. I mean, our sources tell us that this
[24:42] Speaker 8: is something that investors have approached the company with. And
[24:46] Speaker 8: so we don't know exactly where it will land, but
[24:48] Speaker 8: I do think it will definitely be a sign of
[24:51] Speaker 8: where energy and activity is.
[24:53] Speaker 2: Maggie, yesterday you and I participated in a Bloomberg Live
[24:56] Speaker 2: Q & A on what's happening broadly. And there is
[25:01] Speaker 2: this idea, let's go back to the David Sachs interview
[25:04] Speaker 2: 36 hours ago, that actually there are enough pieces of
[25:08] Speaker 2: regulation and laws in place that no more government interventions needed.
[25:13] Speaker 2: Kind of summarize that camp in this debate.
[25:15] Speaker 9: Yeah, so there definitely is one side of the story
[25:18] Speaker 9: here that says, look, these AI companies are liable for
[25:22] Speaker 9: the products they make. And if they make dangerous products,
[25:24] Speaker 9: they're going to be held responsible for that. One interesting
[25:27] Speaker 9: twist in this story is that I also reported yesterday
[25:30] Speaker 9: that OpenAI said that it's working with Anthropic and with
[25:34] Speaker 9: Google DeepMind already to set safety standards. And they said
[25:39] Speaker 9: they actually don't see any need for the government to
[25:41] Speaker 9: get involved or to issue any kind of antitrust waiver
[25:44] Speaker 9: for the companies to be able to do that.
[25:47] Speaker 2: Maggie, let's actually get some more specifics on that. So
[25:49] Speaker 2: this was Chris Lehane doing a briefing, essentially. Who is
[25:53] Speaker 2: Chris Lehane? And like literally in concrete terms, what is
[25:57] Speaker 2: OpenAI agreed to do?
[26:00] Speaker 9: Yeah, Chris Lehane leads global policy for OpenAI, and he
[26:04] Speaker 9: spoke to reporters yesterday in Washington. And specifically, what OpenAI
[26:09] Speaker 9: is saying is they've agreed to look into setting safety standards.
[26:12] Speaker 1: Now, this is.
[26:13] Speaker 9: Along the terms of what, you know, Demis Hassabis, Google's
[26:18] Speaker 9: deep minds leader, laid out in a proposal that compared
[26:21] Speaker 9: this to something like FINRA for the financial industry. So
[26:24] Speaker 9: this would be the companies getting together and deciding for
[26:27] Speaker 9: themselves what the standards should be and potentially even grading
[26:31] Speaker 9: each other's models or having independent evaluators do that. But
[26:34] Speaker 9: right now, it seems that it's still early discussions about
[26:37] Speaker 9: this among those three companies.
[26:39] Speaker 2: Natasha, there's another party in your reporting, more from Maggie's World,
[26:44] Speaker 2: which is the U.S. Federal Trade Commission chair coming in.
[26:48] Speaker 2: What did that part of this debate have to say?
[26:52] Speaker 8: I mean, that is the thing that a lot of
[26:54] Speaker 8: startups are still trying to figure out, if I'm being honest. Like,
[26:56] Speaker 8: how seriously do we take this perspective when trying to,
[27:01] Speaker 8: you know, decide what the next even week, month, year
[27:05] Speaker 8: looks like in terms of startup spend and how much
[27:08] Speaker 8: to kind of change the way we're pacing our own models?
[27:12] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[27:12] Speaker 2: Talking about the the antitrust exemption which you know maggie
[27:17] Speaker 2: come back in here real quick on the antitrust exemption
[27:20] Speaker 2: so this was something that dario amadei had mentioned in
[27:22] Speaker 2: his saturday essay right the antitrust exemption and that is
[27:26] Speaker 2: a particular point that david sacks in his response was
[27:29] Speaker 2: like absolutely not do not ask for that but could
[27:32] Speaker 2: you try and explain what what an antitrust exemption would
[27:35] Speaker 2: look like why it would be the anthropic or others
[27:37] Speaker 2: would ask for that.
[27:40] Speaker 9: I think the details of how exactly that would look
[27:42] Speaker 9: aren't clear, but obviously anytime companies are coming together and
[27:46] Speaker 9: trading information, there is a risk there. OpenAI and Anthropic
[27:51] Speaker 9: seem to differ on this issue, and OpenAI thinks there's
[27:53] Speaker 9: precedent for this. There's things like the airline industry. There
[27:56] Speaker 9: are some times when sharing safety information is not a
[27:58] Speaker 9: competition risk.
[28:00] Speaker 8: But in terms of a waiver, we actually.
[28:01] Speaker 9: Saw yesterday as well, FTC chair saying he'd be deeply
[28:04] Speaker 9: suspicious of that.
[28:05] Speaker 1: So it seems like the U.S.
[28:06] Speaker 9: Government is unlikely to issue that. And now OpenAI has
[28:09] Speaker 9: put forward this plan that they say they can move
[28:11] Speaker 9: ahead without any kind of antitrust exemption.
[28:15] Speaker 2: Bloomberg's Natasha Mascarenhas here in SF and Bloomberg's Maggie Eastland
[28:18] Speaker 2: in Washington, D.C.
[28:19] Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Let's go to robotics.
[28:22] Speaker 2: Agility Robotics has a new humanoid robot, and this one
[28:25] Speaker 2: is designed to work right alongside people. It's called Digit 5,
[28:30] Speaker 2: and it's meant to take on jobs like loading materials
[28:32] Speaker 2: or inspecting items. And with more than $ 300 million in
[28:37] Speaker 2: multi-year orders, Agility is now preparing to go public through
[28:41] Speaker 2: a SPAC. CEO Peggy Johnson explains why.
[28:46] Speaker 4: We looked at all of our options available to us and,
[28:49] Speaker 4: you know, whether that was staying private and continuing to
[28:52] Speaker 4: fundraise or going versus a standard IPO or choosing the
[28:58] Speaker 4: route we're going to through the SPAC, which is the
[29:01] Speaker 4: most efficient, quickest way to market. And we have orders pending.
[29:05] Speaker 4: We have over $ 300 million of orders pending. for multi-year
[29:10] Speaker 4: commitments for digit five and we wanted to ensure we
[29:13] Speaker 4: were able to deliver on those as well as continue
[29:16] Speaker 4: to work with the number of customers in our pipeline
[29:19] Speaker 4: so it was really about acceleration speed to market but
[29:23] Speaker 4: it also does give us the ability to define the
[29:25] Speaker 4: category being first out the door the first pure play
[29:29] Speaker 4: humanoid to go public we can show other companies what
[29:33] Speaker 4: will be needed the high safety bar reliability the ability
[29:38] Speaker 4: to plug into existing IT systems in these facilities, the
[29:43] Speaker 4: enterprise hardening of the robots is where we'll get to
[29:46] Speaker 4: set some of the standards going forward.
[29:49] Speaker 2: Well, the first pure play humanoid robotics public company, maybe
[29:54] Speaker 2: in the United States. Elon Musk might have something to
[29:56] Speaker 2: say about that with Tesla and Optimus. But how closely
[30:00] Speaker 2: did you watch what happened in China and in Asian
[30:02] Speaker 2: capital markets with Unitary, for example? You know, it's... on
[30:07] Speaker 2: a regular basis we're kind of comparing and contrasting the
[30:11] Speaker 2: progress on humanoids here in the states versus china in
[30:14] Speaker 2: terms of like the scale of output where they're deployed
[30:18] Speaker 2: what what do you take from that.
[30:20] Speaker 4: Well what we take is we want to be able
[30:23] Speaker 4: to deliver what our customers need we haven't seen this
[30:26] Speaker 4: to tell you the truth across the industry We have
[30:29] Speaker 4: a robot that can lift 50 pounds over.
[30:32] Speaker 1: And over again.
[30:34] Speaker 4: We have hands that can be replaced with different kinds
[30:37] Speaker 4: of tools, swappable end effectors, and a battery that allows
[30:42] Speaker 4: for three shifts of work with one robot. It's got
[30:46] Speaker 4: a 10 to 1 run to charge ratio, which means
[30:49] Speaker 4: it can run for 90 minutes and very quickly in
[30:52] Speaker 4: nine minutes. have the battery recharged. So it was listening
[30:56] Speaker 4: to our customers, understanding the needs, and deploying that functionality
[31:01] Speaker 4: in digit five, which allows us to get paid to work.
[31:05] Speaker 4: We really haven't seen that deployed anywhere else yet.
[31:09] Speaker 2: What's Agility going to focus on for the next one
[31:13] Speaker 2: to two years? You'll go public via the SPAC, but
[31:16] Speaker 2: in terms of the technology, scaling, what's the big priority
[31:21] Speaker 2: for you, Peggy?
[31:22] Speaker 4: The big priority is with AI continuing to teach digit
[31:27] Speaker 4: five new skills and listening to our customers, what they need,
[31:31] Speaker 4: how we can fill in any gaps in their workflow
[31:34] Speaker 4: in these facilities. So with AI now teaching digit new
[31:38] Speaker 4: skills can go much more quickly than in the past
[31:42] Speaker 4: when an engineer had to program every movement of the robot.
[31:46] Speaker 4: So you'll see a lot more functionality, capability from digit
[31:49] Speaker 4: five in the next few years to come.
[31:54] Speaker 1: That was Agility CEO Peggy Johnson.
[31:57] Speaker 2: Coming up, we're going to stick with physical AI, among
[31:59] Speaker 2: other early stage investing opportunities. Slater Stitch of Bain Capital
[32:04] Speaker 2: joins us to talk about the firm's latest fund targeting
[32:08] Speaker 2: early stage AI. Slater Stitch of Bain Capital Ventures.
[32:11] Speaker 1: That's next. This is Bloomberg Tech.
[32:16] Speaker 5: Bye.
[32:26] Speaker 2: Bain Capital Ventures has raised a $ 1. 6 billion fund to
[32:30] Speaker 2: back early-stage AI companies for building on a playbook it
[32:33] Speaker 2: established with its previous fund, 10. VCV partner Slater Stitch
[32:37] Speaker 2: is with us, and this fund is for life after AGI.
[32:42] Speaker 1: Explain. That's right. Well, first of all, Ed, great to
[32:45] Speaker 1: see you. So good to be here. Thanks for having
[32:47] Speaker 1: me on the show. You're right.
[32:49] Speaker 10: So one of the big ideas that we have for
[32:52] Speaker 10: this fund is that we have stored up this incredible
[32:56] Speaker 10: ability with artificial intelligence, and we've seen some applications for it.
[33:00] Speaker 10: In some cases, there may be the more obvious applications.
[33:03] Speaker 10: But as the technology gets even better, we should expect
[33:08] Speaker 10: an explosion of new applications. And we wanted to approach
[33:11] Speaker 10: this fund with the philosophy of really thinking about that
[33:14] Speaker 10: hard from first principles. What does it mean like when
[33:17] Speaker 10: we go through a technological revolution in intelligence just as
[33:20] Speaker 10: profound as electrification or mechanization earlier?
[33:24] Speaker 1: What would it mean to.
[33:25] Speaker 10: Sort of have a post-AGI economy?
[33:28] Speaker 2: There are three different sort of, well, four probably flavors
[33:31] Speaker 2: of this. Infrastructure, physical AI, which can mean robotics. Security, which,
[33:37] Speaker 2: given the events of the last seven days, is massively important.
[33:40] Speaker 1: And then also services.
[33:42] Speaker 2: Of those four, to your mind, which is most present
[33:46] Speaker 2: in the post-AGI life that you're envisaging?
[33:50] Speaker 10: I think that all of those will have important roles
[33:52] Speaker 10: to play. And it's just a question of sequencing. Sort
[33:55] Speaker 10: of in what order will we see these different things?
[33:57] Speaker 1: Do you see an order?
[33:58] Speaker 10: I think that things that seem sort of like knowledge
[34:02] Speaker 10: work on a computer flavored are going to be the
[34:04] Speaker 10: form factor where it's easiest to make progress fastest. We
[34:08] Speaker 10: sort of know how we would ascend up the scaling
[34:10] Speaker 10: curves there. The models, the base models get more intelligent
[34:13] Speaker 10: each generation. The harnesses get better. The sort of task
[34:17] Speaker 10: horizon for agents gets better.
[34:18] Speaker 1: The tool usage.
[34:19] Speaker 10: It's just easier to do things in a purely digital domain.
[34:23] Speaker 1: So that's where we see it happening first.
[34:25] Speaker 10: But of course, we're incredibly optimistic about applications and robotics
[34:29] Speaker 10: and other physical world.
[34:32] Speaker 1: Applications over time. Now, you guys talk about life after AGI.
[34:36] Speaker 2: The difficulty is AGI is not universally defined, right?
[34:43] Speaker 1: Some would say we're at AGI.
[34:45] Speaker 2: I'm thinking more recently about OpenAI's release of Astra and
[34:52] Speaker 2: Greg Brockman as an example saying, this is the first
[34:55] Speaker 2: step to true AGI. How are you defining it and
[34:59] Speaker 2: measuring it?
[35:00] Speaker 10: Well, you know, one thing I think about is if
[35:02] Speaker 10: I just gave my past self information, what I have
[35:05] Speaker 10: called this AGI, I went back to how I thought
[35:07] Speaker 10: in 2016 or something like that.
[35:09] Speaker 1: And by that measure, absolutely.
[35:11] Speaker 10: I mean, I think if you had told me that
[35:12] Speaker 10: we would be solving millennium problems or being able to
[35:16] Speaker 10: run these incredibly useful, long-running agents, that would have surprised
[35:19] Speaker 10: me at the time.
[35:20] Speaker 1: So I would say that from.
[35:22] Speaker 10: An economic and also even from a scientific perspective, I
[35:27] Speaker 10: A lot of the promise we're already seeing there. I
[35:30] Speaker 10: do think AGI is one of these terms that can
[35:32] Speaker 10: never be fully defined. No matter how good the systems are,
[35:35] Speaker 10: there will always be sort of some next thing. But
[35:38] Speaker 10: I personally am most interested in the ways it will
[35:41] Speaker 10: affect the economy, and I feel like the technology is
[35:43] Speaker 10: already there to do so much.
[35:46] Speaker 1: This is an early-stage fund, right? So it's $ 1.
[35:49] Speaker 2: 6 billion to invest at that early stage for companies
[35:53] Speaker 2: where you feel they have an opportunity in that future economy.
[35:56] Speaker 2: So if we take physical AI, robotics, for example, where
[35:59] Speaker 2: would you apply that to the economy today?
[36:02] Speaker 1: Where are the gaps in this U.S.
[36:03] Speaker 2: Economy where you think, okay, this is ripe for robotics
[36:07] Speaker 2: to be the solution?
[36:09] Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that.
[36:11] Speaker 10: The nature of, you know, again, I think lots of
[36:13] Speaker 10: things will happen in the long run. In the short run,
[36:16] Speaker 10: you know, application areas with predictable environments with sort of
[36:20] Speaker 10: relatively set tasks are the ones that will, of course,
[36:22] Speaker 10: be easiest. But I, you know, in some ways, in
[36:25] Speaker 10: the long run, that might be the least important. So,
[36:28] Speaker 10: you know, for example, we're investors in a company called
[36:31] Speaker 10: Sunday Robotics that's working on home robots sort of fully
[36:35] Speaker 10: integrated to that use case. And I do think that
[36:38] Speaker 10: when you take an application like that really seriously, you
[36:41] Speaker 10: can make progress very quickly.
[36:45] Speaker 1: I do think that.
[36:48] Speaker 10: There's also this question of the industrial applications will probably
[36:54] Speaker 10: have some of the biggest impacts. We have good industrial
[36:58] Speaker 10: robots for relatively predictable manufacturing tasks. For manufacturing tasks that
[37:03] Speaker 10: are less predictable, that's where intelligence can actually play a role.
[37:06] Speaker 1: Can we talk a little bit about investing? So this is.
[37:09] Speaker 2: A specific fund is fund 11. Technically, it comes off
[37:12] Speaker 2: the fund 10. What's realistic in a calendar year? Do
[37:17] Speaker 2: you go off to high volume? Or do you just say, okay,
[37:20] Speaker 2: like this is high conviction in this environment, we have
[37:22] Speaker 2: a thesis for this fund. So we'll do a handful
[37:25] Speaker 2: of investments and kind of cap it.
[37:26] Speaker 1: How does that work? We don't think about it in
[37:29] Speaker 1: that way.
[37:30] Speaker 10: The way that we think about it is that we
[37:32] Speaker 10: know what it looks like when we see an incredible
[37:34] Speaker 10: founder pursuing an outlier opportunity that we believe in. We
[37:38] Speaker 10: might get the conviction on that opportunity in different ways.
[37:41] Speaker 10: In some cases, it could be thesis-driven, like you're describing.
[37:45] Speaker 10: I would say that our investment in Fleet, for example,
[37:47] Speaker 10: the Arl Environments company, happened that way. In other cases,
[37:53] Speaker 10: it's really through conversations with the founder and learning the
[37:55] Speaker 10: opportunity that we get the conviction. But I don't think
[37:58] Speaker 10: about it in terms of, you know, capital deployment over
[38:01] Speaker 10: some period of time or some.
[38:03] Speaker 1: Sort of strict rules about how we would deploy it.
[38:05] Speaker 2: Take us inside Bain Capital Ventures, how it's working as
[38:08] Speaker 2: a firm at the moment. So if you have an
[38:10] Speaker 2: opportunity or an idea, you're the sponsor of it, how
[38:13] Speaker 2: do the partners kind of get around it and decide, like,
[38:16] Speaker 2: this is the bet we want to make? Particularly when
[38:18] Speaker 2: you're saying, okay, we want to invest in an opportunity
[38:21] Speaker 2: for life after AGI.
[38:23] Speaker 10: Yeah, I think it's... So one way that I think
[38:28] Speaker 10: about this is opportunities that we think could be tremendously
[38:32] Speaker 10: valuable and that we understand the technological path to achieving them. So,
[38:37] Speaker 10: for example, you know, in companies like Amazon.
[38:41] Speaker 1: Or Decagon or.
[38:44] Speaker 10: Cognition, we understand the promise of what those companies are
[38:48] Speaker 10: in automating software engineering or customer support. And it's sort
[38:53] Speaker 10: of clear that the plan, if the founders are able
[38:56] Speaker 10: to do the things that they want to do, that
[38:57] Speaker 10: we should be able to achieve that. There's other cases,
[39:00] Speaker 10: a company like Periodic Labs, for example, which is building
[39:03] Speaker 10: an AI scientist initially focused on material science applications, where
[39:07] Speaker 10: we spend more time on the technology and sort of
[39:11] Speaker 10: why we think the founders are going to be uniquely
[39:14] Speaker 10: able to achieve that.
[39:15] Speaker 2: I'd like to end the conversation talking a little bit
[39:17] Speaker 2: about Cognition. You know, they've just closed around. But the
[39:20] Speaker 2: thing that's changed for me in the last calendar year
[39:23] Speaker 2: or so is the ads in San Francisco. I'm paraphrasing,
[39:28] Speaker 2: but it says Devin is actually goodness. which is sort
[39:31] Speaker 2: of an admission that it's taken time. But that's amazing.
[39:34] Speaker 2: I mean, you see billboards over SF all the time.
[39:37] Speaker 2: But just in Cognition's case, what you saw in the
[39:39] Speaker 2: development arc.
[39:40] Speaker 1: Totally.
[39:41] Speaker 10: So I really love that campaign. And what I like
[39:44] Speaker 10: about it is, to me, it's Cognition calling their shots.
[39:47] Speaker 10: really early on so you know at the time that
[39:49] Speaker 10: they sort of put a flag out and said we're
[39:52] Speaker 10: going to be the autonomous software agent that works um
[39:56] Speaker 10: you know i would say that the base models were
[39:57] Speaker 10: not quite there yet at that time but that was
[39:59] Speaker 10: an easy thing to do but they they understood exactly
[40:02] Speaker 10: where things were going and sort of understood that that
[40:04] Speaker 10: was the valuable place to be in the long run
[40:07] Speaker 10: and so i think it was like a courageous thing
[40:10] Speaker 10: to do and i think they called it perfectly.
[40:13] Speaker 2: Is there a next cognition then with this fund that
[40:15] Speaker 2: you think you can find?
[40:17] Speaker 1: We do.
[40:18] Speaker 10: I think that there will be other applications that look
[40:21] Speaker 10: like this. And then I also think that as you
[40:22] Speaker 10: just sort of go up levels of intelligence automation, there
[40:26] Speaker 10: will be all sorts of things that we can't even
[40:28] Speaker 10: anticipate yet.
[40:29] Speaker 2: Slater Stitch, partner at Bain Capital Ventures. Really great to
[40:31] Speaker 2: have you here on Bloomberg Tech.
[40:33] Speaker 1: Thank you. There's a lot going on in the world.
[40:40] Speaker 2: Let's get out to New York where Bloomberg's Yohara Anand
[40:42] Speaker 2: is standing by.
[40:43] Speaker 1: Hi, Yohara. Hey, Ed.
[40:44] Speaker 11: It's time now for Talking Tech. First up, as you
[40:47] Speaker 11: said earlier, Europe is joining the AI debt boom. Between
[40:50] Speaker 11: $ 5 and $ 10 billion of data center bonds could reach
[40:54] Speaker 11: European markets by year end. That's according to Goldman Sachs,
[40:58] Speaker 11: with a bigger wave expected in 2027. This comes as
[41:02] Speaker 11: the continent is pushing to reduce reliance on to overseas technology. Plus,
[41:08] Speaker 11: over in South Korea, its deputy prime minister says the
[41:11] Speaker 11: country must continue advancing AI without pause or delay, saying
[41:16] Speaker 11: the nation can't afford a slowdown like the one proposed
[41:19] Speaker 11: by anthropic leader Dario Amodei. The country has, of course,
[41:23] Speaker 11: been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the AI build-out.
[41:27] Speaker 11: And ByteDance co-founder Zhang Yiming is now Asia's richest person,
[41:31] Speaker 11: overtaking Indian billionaire Gautam Adani. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index puts
[41:36] Speaker 11: Zhang's fortune at more than $ 105 billion as ByteDance pushes
[41:41] Speaker 11: deeper into AI and moves past that regulatory fight that
[41:45] Speaker 11: nearly forced TikTok out of the U.S.
[41:49] Speaker 8: Ed?
[41:50] Speaker 2: Thank you, Yohara. Real quick, go back to Intel and
[41:52] Speaker 2: the U.S. listed shares of SK Hynix, both higher. There
[41:55] Speaker 2: was a report that the two are looking at a
[41:57] Speaker 2: tie-up in the United States over manufacturing. Intel now markedly higher,
[42:01] Speaker 2: up more than 5%. SK's ADR is 2.5%. There is
[42:05] Speaker 2: another chip story out there, Apple. In the moment, there
[42:09] Speaker 2: was some share reaction to a report from the information
[42:11] Speaker 2: that Apple is working on an enterprise server that would
[42:16] Speaker 2: use its own chips and has held discussions about with
[42:19] Speaker 2: Nvidia about using its networking equipment. We've done a lot
[42:23] Speaker 2: in the program of late about MVLink Fusion, et cetera.
[42:28] Speaker 2: The stock is modestly high now, four-tenths of a percent,
[42:31] Speaker 2: but in the moment, there was a move on that story,
[42:33] Speaker 2: which Bloomberg has not verified. That does it for this
[42:37] Speaker 2: edition of Bloomberg Tech. What an edition it was as well.
[42:40] Speaker 2: Like a lot of you come to the show through
[42:42] Speaker 2: the podcast. So thank you very much for that. You
[42:44] Speaker 2: know where to find it. But recap on the terminal
[42:46] Speaker 2: as well as online on Apple, Spotify and iHeart.
[42:50] Speaker 1: Halfway through the week. This is Bloomberg Tech.

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