AI Fuels Tech Selloff, President Trump To Meet Tech CEOs
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From the heart of where innovation, money, and power collide, in Silicon Valley and beyond, this is Bloomberg Technology with Caroline Hyde and Ed Ludlow. Live from New York, I'm Caroline Hyde.

And I'm Jackie Davalos in Washington. This is Bloomberg Technology. Coming up, the AI sell-off continues with the chip sector under pressure after earnings fail to turn the tide. This is Chinese AI competition fuels anxiety in the United States but stock gains over in Asia.

and President Trump is set to meet with some of the biggest US tech leaders next week to discuss the trade policy impact, US manufacturing and much more. But first, we've got to check in on these markets. They're still in sell-off mode. We bounce off of our lows for the Nasdaq. We're still off by more than a percentage point. The Nasdaq 100 dragged lower from a points perspective by Nvidia, by Broadcom, by Amazon.

And notably, we're on track for a third week of declines, the longest losing streak since back in August. But I shine like what happened in Chinese tech. We're up more than 5% on the Hang Seng tech index. We're going to delve into why with the AI impact coming from Alibaba, from Tencent. Move on and look at the individual movers that are affecting the chip trade here in the United States. Nvidia off by 2.4%. We drag lower on a points perspective. Broadcom has its numbers after the bell.

AI still likely to drive growth 20% in excess of revenue gains, but we are worried more about whether they can live up to the hype cycle they've been so used to and shake off the resentment that has consumed Marvell of by 17%. They managed to post more than 60% revenue growth, but investors don't care. Bloomberg's Bailey Lipschultz is here for why.

Fundamentals, ultimately, Bailey, don't matter at this moment because we are selling what we used to love. We're selling what we used to love and it's causing so much concern and consternation. You have the tariff risk or at least the headaches around that. As you mentioned, Marvell down more than 17%. At one point, the biggest intraday decline in about a decade.

decade. This is a big move for a big stock. All eyes will be on Broadcom, as you mentioned, later this evening. But the big question is, what does that AI demand look like? Can China actually replicate what we're seeing for a much cheaper price? And how does that ultimately impact the markets, especially in a day or a week that we've been seeing whipsawing moves on the major exchanges based on every headline around trade?

Bailey, it's clear that hardware names here are getting really hit hard. What are we seeing on the software side? Are they insulated any more than we're seeing for the semiconductor stocks? Maybe a bit, Jackie, but the big question still is what do earnings look like? What does growth look like? If you're saying that maybe companies aren't going to have

to spend as much, or maybe they're going to find cheaper alternatives. That's obviously going to hit your hardware, your semiconductors makers. But the big question, if you're a software company, is how are you going to use cheaper costs potentially to improve your offerings? And what does that actually mean? And the big question at the end of the day is, what does the valuation actually look like? And how are you being valued? What is a fair value? How does that compare to the broader market? And in a market that really is driven by seven stocks, if not one stock,

How does your company fit into that landscape and how can investors appropriately value you and allocate resources?

That's Bloomberg's Bailey Lipschelt. Thank them for joining us. A series of new AI tools from China sparked frenzy trading in the nation's stock market, propelling an index of tech companies to a multi-year high. Bloomberg's Isabel Lee joins us now for more. Isabel, walk us through some of those new AI features and the companies in particular that are spurring this excitement. So we have a lot of news overnight in China. We saw Alibaba stocks surging more than 8%, although it's worth noting that the ADRs right now are paring back some of those gains. Investors are

probably digesting some of those news or taking their profits. Alibaba unveiled their new open AI source model. It's open source and it's markedly better than the previous one using just a fraction of data from DeepSeek's R1 employees. Tencent also unveiled a new open source model. So did a company called Kuaishou Technology. And earlier this week, Manus AI launched what it called General AI Agents.

All of this basically has boosted Chinese tech shares by 5.4% to its highest since 2021. And Alibaba in particular, I want to highlight, has been on a tear. It gained some $153 billion in market value since its January low. So what does this tell us? That the next deep seek to disrupt the global AI industry could definitely come from China.

It's extraordinary that as Alibaba has surged, we've lost about 40% of market capitalization for Marvell and the likes here in the United States. Isabel, when we're thinking about these models, they are showing that you can do more with less when it comes to data, when it also comes to compute power.

But we didn't hear from Amazon, from Microsoft, from the hyperscalers that they were pulling back on investment in generative AI infrastructure. Absolutely. In the previous round of the earnings season, you saw those big tech companies like Microsoft and Meta even doubling down on their AI capex spend. They're still remaining committed. They're still all in when it comes to developing AI. But these Chinese tech companies are showing us that it can just cost a fraction to make big waves and to develop.

Alibaba investors are really warming up to this, as you can see with the performance overnight. And just in general, the company has just really stabilized after years long of crackdown by the Chinese company. Its growing prowess in AI really shows that it has Beijing support and it's really helping galvanize a strong comeback.

Isabel Lee, on all things China, we thank you. Let's just take a check, therefore, on sentiment across the board. Jordan Klein joins us, Managing Director and TMT Sector Specialist at Mizuho. Your notes are a must-read. Today, you call it survival mode. And ultimately, AI-related stocks are just getting hammered. Fundamentals don't matter. Yeah, that's right. Thanks for having me. We're in one of those...

you know, nasty periods where they don't matter. Um, they didn't really matter when the stocks were all going up and the momentum crowd was chasing these two new highs. Valuations didn't matter either. So it's a, it's a good reminder, although a painful one that, you know, what goes up can come down. Uh,

I've covered tech a long time, and I think this does happen, especially when you have these new, exciting growth narratives like AI. It reminds me a little bit of the dot-com. I don't think this is anything like that, meaning it won't end that way. These companies are still reporting very good fundamentals, and the valuations are way lower than they were back

you know, 25 years ago. But, you know, it is crowded. It is a very popular trade and it's not working. So it doesn't really matter what the companies say, but eventually it will. And I think that kind of comes back maybe later this year in the back half. And here now,

there's a lot of anxiety building about the competition in China. I spoke with Mike over at Iconic Capital yesterday. Mike Anders who leads of course what is ultimately the family office of all tech billionaires and this is what he had to say about Deepsea. Just take a listen.

I think there was both a surprise in how quickly they were able to catch up, but I think there was also a lot of, I mean, the key takeaway was they can make this technology for cheaper than our models. And this wake-up call around efficiency versus our brute force spending. How much does that wake-up call matter to some of these US-based semiconductor names right now, Jordan?

It's a very good question. I think it did, you know, a month ago or two months ago when we were at higher levels in these stocks. And this was much more novel or a surprise. I think now as we get further along and we learn more about what China is doing and how they're training and creating models, you know, leveraging basically these U.S. markets.

large language models at much, you know, I guess, faster pace and less expense. It is, you know, creating maybe the view that the growth and size down the road could be smaller for some of these hardware semi-companies. But that being said, on the flip side, it's creating, I think, more interest and excitement across internet and software because those are the kind of companies that could dramatically benefit from lower costs, faster time to market. So, you know,

It's kind of a double-edged sword, but good for some, maybe not as good for others. And today, I don't see these U.S. big, large cloud hyperscalers slowing or cutting back despite what's happening in China.

Jordan, that's exactly right, which makes me realize so many of these large companies that reported earnings last month mentioned that they were largely unconcerned with this deep seek fear that it would take away some of their demand. But all of a sudden you're seeing more of a sensitivity. Is that going to persist every time China comes out with news about a new AI model? What can kind of overcome some of that sensitivity that we're seeing?

Yeah, I actually think the answer to that is it's not creating this shock factor with investors in terms of what it could mean. I think that it's evolving, and that's kind of the dynamic of AI is that there's going to be news headlines and evolution that's going to be way faster than we've seen in other new areas of tech in the past.

And investors are going to have to just deal with the volatility associated with that. But at the end of the day, you know, if you listen to what these companies are saying, and a lot of them have been speaking at big tech conferences this week, they're all kind of saying the same thing that, you know, we're full steam ahead. We see a lot of opportunity to monetize AI. It's very early days. And we can't err on the side of investing and developing and spending less because

We'd rather err on the side of spending more. So I think that's the backdrop we're in. Unfortunately, it's just we're in a market dynamic that's basically punishing these companies no matter what they say. But eventually, I think that changes and we get back to a more favorable backdrop.

Let's also talk about how President Trump is starting to ramp up commentary and policies really around boosting domestic production and the companies that are perhaps benefiting from that, but also kind of seeing some pressure from other parts of the market. Do you think that his support for the industry, American companies and production could perhaps outset or outweigh some of this anxiety that we're seeing every time China comes out with a new advancement?

Well, I think what we are seeing is that President Trump and his administration is taking a markedly different approach to AI than the Biden administration. And I think that's very good for these companies and the evolution in terms of this like arms race in AI, meaning he thinks this is critical technology. We have to be very supportive. And I think the restrictions or the controls against China

or adversaries getting access to this is probably the biggest change. But I think that was going to happen no matter who was president in calling the shots. So my view, and I think investors' view, is that he's going to continue to do whatever he can to support America leading or sustaining a lead and winning in this AI race. It doesn't mean China and other countries can't catch up.

But if anything, they're going to continue to spend more of their own money both in Europe and China because they know now they can't rely on the United States. And in some areas that's going to help, like equipment companies that sell the tools to make these chips because more companies and countries are going to need them. Jordan, I go back to your confidence for the second half, but in your note, you're saying this is a true crisis of confidence in the here and now. What gets us into that confidence in the second half?

Yeah, I mean, I wish I knew definitively what the catalyst or the event would be. And a lot of times you don't even know, but the stocks basically kind of tell you as they start to trade more positively on fundamentals that are constructive. And that's just a process. I personally think it's going to be more when we get middle of the year and NVIDIA is seeing an accelerated ramp in their new Blackwell product.

that has multiple variants either underway or coming out later this year. First quarter, you probably see that as their July earnings. But one of the things to remember is these stocks are very sensitive to earnings revisions.

So when Nvidia was beating and raising by 8%, 9%, 10%, the stock was lagging up as more money came in. Lately, in the last several reports, they've beaten and raised, but it's been modest. And you're seeing that even with the Mag 7. The beats and raises aren't as significant as they were. So if Nvidia kind of mid-year, let's say in a quarter or two, aided by Blackwell, because the demand's there, they've got to get the production, can start to beat and raise by a larger amount.

I think that causes, again, all these stocks to act better. But ultimately, that has to happen for these to kind of start to outperform again.

Jordan Klein from Azuho, thanks so much for joining us. We're also watching shares of Pinduoduo. They're down by about three-tenths of one percent. This is the parent company of Timu. It's reporting a 13 percent rise in sales for the December quarter. These are strong results attributed to Beijing's policy, though the shares are clearly reflecting some anxiety about

how President Trump's tariffs on China could dent e-commerce sales overall. Caroline? Well said. Coming up, more tech leaders are set to meet with President Trump as his administration eyes a repeal of the CHIPS Act. This is Blue Meg Technology.

The world is built on code. From the apps we use every day to the systems powering industries, developers like you are the architects of tomorrow. But let's be real. The road to innovation can get a little tricky. You need the right tools to move fast, but you also need a community to help you go further. That's where Microsoft comes in. Microsoft has the tools to help you move at lightning speed, like GitHub Copilot, VS Code, and a ton of AI resources to keep you on the cutting edge.

But here's the best part. You can build with confidence, knowing that Microsoft security and compliance are already taken care of. No more worrying about vulnerabilities or threats while you focus on your craft.

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Thank you.

If you're an advisor or investor, choose Stiefel. Where success meets success. Stiefel Nicholas & Company, Inc., member SIPC and NYSE. For J.D. Power 2024 award information, visit jdpower.com slash awards. Compensation provided for using, not obtaining the award. ♪♪♪

President Trump is set to meet with top tech leaders next week to discuss trade policy and U.S. manufacturing. According to sources, the CEOs of HP, Intel, IBM, and Qualcomm have discussed a meeting with the administration on Monday. For more, Bloomberg's Kayleigh Lyons joins us now. There's been a lot going on in Washington. What's the sentiment these tech CEOs are walking into and what could come out of these meetings? Well, clearly there are a lot of things going on.

are a number of things they likely want to discuss with the president. I would note we haven't gotten confirmation from the White House this is happening, and most of the companies aren't confirming either. HP, though, has said that their plan is to be there on Monday and that one of the things they want to discuss is trade policy. That is likely true for all of these companies, many of which have exposure to countries that are now facing higher tariffs. China, for example, is a big supplier share.

for companies like Intel or HP, for example, and that has 20% tariffs on it now. There's a massive question that we have gotten news from Howard Lutnick today about Canada and tariffs and USMCA compliance perhaps having tariffs delayed for a month, but only a month till April 2nd when reciprocal tariffs could kick in. So that has implications for

vast networks of supply chains for these companies. The other thing likely on the agenda as well, considering the remarks we got from the president in his address to a joint session of Congress this week about repealing the CHIPS Act, is whether or not that is actually a serious effort on the part of this administration as a company like Intel, as well as TSMC, have made massive investment pledges in the United States due to that funding that was provided by Congress. I will just note, though, that what

reaction we got from Congress yesterday does indicate it's not likely a full repeal would happen. You would run into issues with the filibuster in the Senate as even some Senate Republicans like the Finance Chair Mike Crapo have suggested while they're open to reform of that legislation, they don't want to see it pulled back entirely. What's interesting is whose names aren't there. You would have thought NVIDIA is the key one in the line of fire when it comes to China.

Well, that's true, especially when we consider another element of economic statecraft, if you will, Caroline, which is export controls. That is another factor for these companies. It's not just about the cost of the things they may need to import, but what kind of products they make and technology they are actually able to export. That is another open question here. And while Jensen Huang may not be among those expected at the White House,

On Monday, he has already met with President Trump over the course of this administration, as have other tech executives who have similar vulnerabilities here. You can think of Tim Cook for Apple and the like. So obviously, they're all making the rounds as they try to get on the right side of this White House. That's Bloomberg's Kayleigh Lyons. Thanks so much for joining us.

It's a first-of-its-kind bill aimed at keeping kids and teens safe online, and it's headed to the desk of Utah Governor Spencer Cox. The measure would require app stores to verify users' ages and require parental permission for those under 18. Nicole Lopez, Global Director of Youth Safety Policy for Meta, joins us now. And what's interesting is ultimately, well, the responsibility shifts from the social media platforms such as Meta...

over to Apple and to Google. Do you have sympathy, though, for Apple's argument here that they're going to have to take too much data for the amount that they really need? Ultimately, you don't need age restrictions on every app, only some of them. Look, Apple's...

messaging last week and their solution is a positive first step, but it really doesn't go far enough in that first, its protections are optional. They're not automatic. And second, the protections only apply with the teen's approval, not the parents. And parents overwhelmingly tell us

that they want to have the final say in terms of verifying their kid's age and also having consent over any app that their teen wants to download. And so frankly, it isn't the right solution here. It just doesn't go far enough. Nicole, what else is Meta doing in the event that, like you said, this measure doesn't go far enough and people find loopholes around it? What can be found on Meta that can perhaps catch some of this?

Yeah, Meta has invested millions and millions, billions of dollars into just that. We want to create safe and age-appropriate experiences. And we're not abandoning, nor are other apps, any of the age assurance methods that we have in place.

And so we're going to continue to invest in AI and age verification checkpoints because we do know the reality is that people will try to bypass the App Store solution. So there will be those age liars, but there'll be fewer of them. And App Store solution for Utah. But there's loads of other states, in fact, also looking at these sorts of laws. How quickly might that unfold, Nicole?

It's unclear how quickly it will unfold, but what I can say is this. We applaud Utah for taking this first step. They're sweeping legislation. It's been introduced, I believe, in over a quarter of the states, and it's across party lines. You have Alabama and Kentucky just last week introducing similar legislation. You have New Mexico.

You have Alaska and other states that are also doing this. So this is really picking up momentum because, again, this is what parents want. And so we're excited about it. And we also hope that Congress, you know, follows suit. Yeah. Take us there. Why not a federal rule here rather than the patchwork of state by state?

Well, we think that the states are listening to parents. So we are excited about this. You know, if the federal government picks it up as well, we think it would be a great, great solution. So we're excited to see what develops. It's unclear at this point, though, how quickly things move.

Well, one thing that is clear is that CEO Mark Zuckerberg seems to have a good relationship with President Trump. Do you think that could perhaps swing some of the momentum for bringing federal legislation in this space a step forward?

That's above my pay grade. What I can say though, is that this is what parents want. There's a recent morning consult poll that found that close to 80% of parents want this one-stop shop solution at the app store level. And I also want you to know, I wear two hats. I am first and foremost a parent. I'm a parent to tweens who are online quite a bit and on tech quite a bit. The other hat is the tech hat, you know, in terms of my job at Meta. This solution is

is common sense. It makes sense on both sides. And the point is parents are overwhelmed. Their teens are on an average of 40 apps per week. And this App Store legislation really makes it easier on parents in that it's simple, it's manageable, it's effective, and it gives parents visibility into what their teens are doing online. So we think it makes sense. That's met as Nicole Lopez. Thank you so much for joining us.

Welcome back to Bloomberg Technology. I'm Caroline Hyde in New York. And I'm Jackie Davalos in Washington. And we're both looking at the markets. Jackie, let's check in on the semiconductor index in particular. At one point, every single member of this 20-member index was in the red. We now have just two in the green. But ultimately, we're dragged off by 2.5%. And we've got to dig into the individual movers that push us lower because we are

filled with anxiety, whether or not it's about trade, whether or not it's about China building their own generative AI models that need less data, less compute, or indeed whether it's ultimately fundamentals don't matter at this moment. We've got Nvidia off by 2.4%. We're going to get more fundamentals from Broadcom later after the bell that earnings, but can they shake off the anxiety that we're still seeing the big hyperscalers pouring money into custom silicon? Can the AI trade still work for them? Remember, they have shed $200 billion in

in market capitalization alone this year. I'm looking at Marvell off by 17%. They actually beat expectations in their quarter that it's just gone in the one that they look forward to. They say they're going to have revenue of more than 60% growth. Not enough for the investor base as they're still so worried about ultimately whether we've just seen too much hype in some of these names. We sell our winners, Jackie.

There's anger in Canada towards President Trump and his advisor Elon Musk is putting on pressure on Elon Musk's satellite business, Starlink. Bloomberg's Bruce Einhorn joins us now for more. Bruce, help us understand the stakes here for Starlink.

How much of a footprint do they have in Canada versus other customers? Starlink has a big market in Canada. Canada is their largest market outside of the United States. They have about half a million subscribers in Canada. In many ways, it's a perfect market for Starlink. Really big country, lots of remote areas where there's no fiber.

connection, no other terrestrial link for internet for people to use. So a lot of people want to use Starlink satellites. A bunch of provincial governments have had or have been talking with SpaceX about deals to have Starlink available to provide access in remote and rural areas. Some of those are now at risk as Canadians are angry about the US, the tariffs, and Elon Musk's role in the Trump administration.

There is such dependence. You speak to individuals who, yes, feel deeply angered, but ultimately, if they're going to get any access to the Internet, they've got to stick with Stalin. Where's the competitors? That is a big dilemma for some people. You might have some patriotic Canadians who want to support their country in what seems to be a trade war with the U.S. by...

by shunning US products, but shunning Starlink is difficult for a lot of people because what are you going to turn to? Starlink is by far the market leading satellite internet service for low Earth orbit satellites, which is the preferred kind if you want to have really fast internet connections.

and there just aren't options available for people at the moment. Telesat, for instance, a big Canadian company, has plans to have a low Earth orbit network in place, but they're still several years off from having that ready. Amazon has plans for Project Kuiper, which is a Starlink alternative. Again, they're not ready. There is a European company, OneWeb, which is

based in London, owned by UTELSAT, which is based in Paris. So they have a satellite network available. They don't do retail the way that Starlink does. They don't go direct to consumers. So there just aren't a whole lot of options for Canadians who want to sever their links with Starlink. That said, the one thing to keep in mind is there are governments that have said they're doing things. So the other day,

After the tariffs took effect, Premier Doug Ford of Ontario, the country's largest province, said that they were tearing up their contract that they had just announced last year with Starlink to provide internet access to rural and remote areas of the province. See how consumers follow. Bloomberg's Bruce Einhorn, we thank you. More news breaking when it comes to the threat of tariffs.

And it looks as though Mexico gets a reprieve for now on USMCA goods. Coming across Truth Social, President Trump saying that he will pause tariffs on Mexico for USMCA goods until April 2nd. Now, remember, this isn't just autos. We're thinking about agricultural goods that are included in this, more manufactured goods, textiles. It depends on the specific region and origin more broadly, but it does mean that there's a broader reprieve to these tariffs for Mexican goods.

as it stands. Now let's return to the impact that this is having on SpaceX and more broadly, SpaceX competitor, Utilsat, has been on an absolute tear as you can see in terms of its share price up nearly 200% year to date. That's as the European leaders are looking for a Starlink alternative for Ukraine. That there are strained relations between Washington and Kyiv, of course, and it's raising fears that Starlink service could be disrupted. Utilsat CEO, Ivo Benenk, spoke with Bloomberg earlier. Just take a listen.

Until now, we have been together with Starlink there, but it's clear that everybody's asking us today, can you actually replace, especially the very large number of terminals that Starlink has across Ukraine? And that's something we're looking very actively at. Yes.

Interest in backing defense tech and AI startups is high among venture investors, too. Shield AI has just closed a $240 million funding round that valued the startup at $5.3 billion. We should also disclose that one of those investors is Bloomberg Beta, owned by Bloomberg LP, which also owns Bloomberg News. Brandon Tsang is Shield's AI co-founder and president, joining me now to talk more about where you're going to

put that 240 million dollars to use thank you so much this round was really about supercharging one of our new products called hive mind enterprise and hive mind enterprise is an enterprise software suite that enables companies governments oems to develop test evaluate and deploy autonomy across a number of different unmanned systems across a number of different domains at scale

It's really a page out of Amazon Web Services playbook that a great internal product that they then commercialized. We've done the exact same thing at Shield AI. We spent the past 10 years building the world's best AI pilot. Along the way, we built incredible development tools, infrastructure, and pipelines. And about a year and a half ago, we made the decision, you know what, we're going to package this up. We're going to commercialize it. We're going to bring it to market so that we can enable our customers to deploy millions of AI pilots.

There are a lot of strategic investors interested, Brandon. Look, you in this round have L3 Harris and Hanwha Aerospace. But we understand that you're going to be closing another round in a few weeks' time from yet more strategics. Why do they want in and who's calling you?

The demand is very high for autonomy worldwide. And I think what you're seeing is a lot of strategics recognize this demand from the customer base, and they don't have the best solution in-house to develop, test, and deploy autonomy. And so that demand that you're seeing from the strategics is a recognition of demand from the broader marketplace, along with a recognition that the autonomy

Autonomy is a hard thing to build. We make it faster. We make it, and Shield AI makes it faster. We make it easier. And we've been doing this for 10 years, and we've got real-world results in customers' hands on the battlefield today. Well, let's talk about some of those defense customers. A lot of what's driving the optimism in this particular sector is the fact

that you can both tap the commercial side and government contracts. What does that breakdown look like for you guys? Yeah, 100%. Look, we still sell directly to the U.S. government, U.S. military, and our allied governments. And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention our VBAT aircraft, which after we flew in Ukraine last year against Russian jammers, against jamming GPS, jamming communications, no impact to our aircraft because of our AI pilot that we had flying the aircraft.

we're seeing massive demand in the aircraft aspect of our business. Now, what Hivemind Enterprise really allows us to do, it allows us to supercharge the industrial base. It allows us to tap into those commercial markets. And it is, you know, somewhat...

You can make the analogy, it's a little bit of what Palantir did 10 years into their business where they started to pursue the commercial markets, seeing a need from what they had built for the government in the commercial sector. We see that exact same need. A lot of commercial companies trying to figure out how to develop and deploy autonomy. - There's been a lot of conflicts around the world

And now you're seeing European countries really start to communicate that they're going to bolster defense spending. Is that a good thing for you guys? Certainly, we are seeing the same messaging and we're having those conversations every day with our European customers. They very much are acknowledging that their defense budgets are going up. They have to figure out what capabilities, what technology, what products they want.

I think there's also a recognition they're turning to things that have worked when GPS or communications is being jammed. They don't want to do things the exact same way that they've been done for the 30 plus years. They're going to smaller, more affordable distributed systems that are powered by autonomy. Brandon, Sam, thanks for joining us. President and co-founder of Shield AI on the fundraise.

Now coming up, female founders saw fewer VC deal count and a declining value in 2024. That's according to PitchBook. We're going to be speaking with Lorena Yee of McKinsey Global Institute on the gender gap in tech.

This is Brie Mac Technology. The world is built on code. From the apps we use every day to the systems powering industries, developers like you are the architects of tomorrow. But let's be real. The road to innovation can get a little tricky. You need the right tools to move fast, but you also need a community to help you go further. That's where Microsoft comes in. Microsoft has the tools to help you move at lightning speed, like GitHub Copilot, VS Code, and

and a ton of AI resources to keep you on the cutting edge. But here's the best part. You can build with confidence, knowing that Microsoft security and compliance are already taken care of. No more worrying about vulnerabilities or threats while you focus on your craft.

Success. It's discipline.

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PitchBook out with its latest report, taking a look at female founders and investors in the US VC sector. Overall, the research firm found that both deal counts and value declined in 2024 among female-led US VC deals. Let's talk more about the gender gap.

in tech, in finance with Lorena Yee, McKinsey Global Institute Director and author of the book The Broken Rung. And ultimately this is a book about opportunity, how they can succeed in spite of that broken rung, Lorena. But what you articulate is a gender technology gap. How does that feed into this narrative that women are raising less, leading less technology businesses that are able to get VC funding?

Well, it's no surprise that we don't see women represented. The technology gap, which actually starts with the education gap of women getting technical degrees, all

all the way to the leadership and how they're represented in work, that's not a surprise. What we wanted to focus on is in spite of that, in spite of those breaks you may see, how are some women succeeding and how do we make that transparent for everyone? So it's things like pick a company, not just a job. Go into the power alley, those P&L roles in companies, and make big, bold moves in your careers and invest in your networks.

Lorena, you write that half of a person's lifetime earnings come from experience and then the other half comes from education. How does AI play into this differential? Is it poised to improve it or make it worse for women? Well, we are in between, so let's see how it goes. But what we have found is that in the United States, women are not getting those technical degrees. We've been at about 20 to 26% women computer scientists for decades.

But the thing that we want to focus on, and you mentioned this experience capital, is 50% of your lifetime earnings comes from what you learn on the job. So how you gain skills on the job matters so much. So for women who didn't get it in school, they've got to be really strategic to gain ground in technology skills

now in the job. And with AI, to that point, it becomes ever more important. We know that AI is accelerating job transitions. We know that up to 70% of work that we do today could be automated over the next couple of decades with AI. So instead of fearing it, women need to become the master of those skills, get ahead of it, and manage against that. And so Lorena, what do

What do they do? Do they self-invest to ensure that they're ahead of the AI game? Do they push their employers to be investing in them and reskilling?

All of the above and you need to bet in yourself. So in terms of what companies offer, it's really interesting. Actually, most employees, whether they're men or women, have come to the realization, about 70% in the United States, that AI will change at least 30% of their day-to-day activities over the next two years. And they are hungry for their leaders to invest more in them. So if you're one of those companies, you're in good stead, you should sign up for all of that and be an advanced pilot in rolling out AI.

But let's say you're in a company that's not investing. You will have to invest outside with your time and make it a habit. I mean, the great thing about AI is it's so intuitive as a user. It's really fun. I mean, it's an incredibly new technology and you're not behind because everyone over the last two years is trying to gain those skills. But I think the last thing is you have to bet on yourself. You are your very best bet.

And you can do this, you can become a technologist because the other thing is it's not just about those hard technology skills. To win in AI, we're going to need soft skills. We're going to need the ability to ask great questions, the ability to think about risks and ethics, the ability to think about reasoning and what do the results mean. And so these are skills that are great for women.

Lorena, there's a lot of budget cuts and STEM education programs are expected to be part of them. What does this mean for what the gender gap looks like going forward? 30 seconds. I mean, if we're cutting these programs, this is going to hurt both men and women. So hopefully what we'll see is an increased investment in using AI to help with that education gap. And particularly, this is incredibly important for women.

That's Lorena Yee, McKinsey Global Institute Director and Senior Partner. Thanks so much for joining us.

Let's check back in on the chip stocks because Marvell having a really ugly day. In fact, it's had a pretty ugly rundown from its highs back in January. We're off by 15% on the day. We're off by more than 40% from our highs. This is the company actually managed to meet expectations with its earnings, but it wasn't enough. Ultimately, a 60% growth in revenue guide, not living up

to the expectations of the market. And it's all about custom chips here. And we're wondering what that means for Broadcom too. Let's really just shine a light on where there is a bright spot for AI spending or not. Company with Broadcom earnings after the closing bell. Let's dig in with Ian King, who joins us now. And Ian, look, Broadcom has a similar exposure, custom chips ultimately. And we've had nothing but reassuring words from the hyperscalers, but is it going to be enough?

You nailed it. I mean, everybody's saying, no problem, everything's fine, demand is still great, it's just a case of can we supply it? But that's not enough. If you are NVIDIA, if you are Marvell, what you showed everybody was, look, we have to have blowout numbers before people are reassured. Marvell was good, NVIDIA was good. Broadcom will likely be good again later today, but will that be enough? Probably not.

Oh, apologies. There I was letting Jackie take a moment. It was my fault entirely. Ian, let's move forward then and just think about if they're not going to blow our earnings, if we're thinking about also some of the implications on tariffs and many of these companies, big tech companies about to go to Trump next week, where are we going to get any sort of ease to our anxiety around the chip trade right now?

Yeah, it's going to be difficult. As you say, we've got the demand concerns, and on the flip side of that, what you just pointed to with tariffs is also indicating that the supply side is going to get squeezed. Their prices, their costs are actually going to go up because, as you know, this is a globalized supply chain. Everything comes from somewhere else. Everything gets assembled somewhere else before it's shipped somewhere else. Efficiency was why it all came into being, and now that is being challenged by the policy of the current president of the U.S.

Just feeding into Broadcom's end markets then, we had Jordan Klein from Azuho on saying that basically the second half of the year is when we're going to get our confidence back, when ultimately you see NVIDIA's chips being taken up, Blackwell really home run in terms of production. What are we likely to eventually see coming from Broadcom? Because we're also worried about exposure to Apple, right?

Yeah, I mean, the idea here is that if NVIDIA has a really good second half with this new product range, guess what? You're going to need more networking. And that is good for Broadcom because Broadcom is also a major networking chip provider. So it's kind of a derivative trade there. But yes, Apple is a major customer of Broadcom, has been all along. They've been dancing backwards and forwards on whether Broadcom is the...

the solution for the iPhone long term, as we know, Apple likes to do its own chips. That's gone backwards and forwards and that concern lingers over Broadcom. Broadcom last time out said, "Hey, don't worry about it. "We're well engaged with Apple. "They need us, but we'll see."

I've already lost more than $200 billion in market cap over the course of this year in King. Thanks so much. It's going to be a busy day for you. Meanwhile, another stock that we're watching for After the Bell, HPE. Companies set to report their earnings and Brodie Ford is here to break it down. And what sort of confidence are we going to hear from Antonio Neri here? Because he's trying to also vindicate a key deal that he wants to get done and that's been blown apart by the U.S. government.

I imagine their CEO is speaking more with their lawyers right now than he ever hoped to. Yeah, they agreed about a little over a year ago to purchase Juniper Network, saying that networking would be this kind of new core of their company. Regulators said it looks like you're trying to snuff out some competition by buying it. Obviously, HPE disagrees, and they're working on convincing regulators of that. But it's soaking up a lot of attention within the company, I hear, and

So we'll be looking for any updates on that lawsuit tonight, as well as on the general AI server moment. I mean, right now, these companies like HPE, Dell, Supermicro have kind of found this whole new business line of selling high-powered compute for AI. And HPE has been a bit of a lie good, but they've picked up some big deals. So we'll be looking for that backlog.

Backlog that also needs to prove that the margin remains resilient, right? You've written so much about the fact that this is ultimately not that profitable for server makers right now.

Totally, yeah. For server makers, it's all about what can you bundle in with the server. Because when you sell a server, you're really kind of reselling an NVIDIA chip and you're not making a whole lot of money on it. So they try to sell additional goods along with it. And I mean, speaking of margins, they're already getting crunched on tariffs, right? I mean, some of their peers, their long-lost relative HP said that

You know, tariffs would be crunching their margins and I would expect to see similar commentary tonight from HPE. HPE CEOs, CEO likely to go and speak that to Trump too next week. Brodie Ford, so good to have you. Thank you. Busy day ahead of those earnings after the bell. That does it for this edition of Bloomberg Technology. Do not forget to check out our podcast. Find it on the terminal as well as online on Apple, Spotify and iHeart. This is Bloomberg Technology.

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