Tech Leaders Approach Trump, Intel Looks for Buyers for Altera Arm
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Live from New York, this is Bloomberg Technology. Coming up, time is ticking as the government works to avoid shutting down as Trump and Musk wield their political power. This as the big tech leader merry-go-round at Mar-a-Lago continues with Bezos, the latest to try and influence Trump's policies and decisions. And tis the season for Intel deal-making. PE firms are competing for Intel's programmable chip arm, Altera. But

Let's just get to the broader markets in general. Push to 2025. Where should you be allocating? Hilary Frisch, I'm pleased to say, is with us, Senior Research Analyst at Clearbridge, with a real focus on software. And that, for me, has been the key calling card of December. November, December was movement from the hardware, from the infrastructure into the software and the applications of AI. Is that going to run on? That's right.

Thanks, Caroline, for having me. I think in general, it should run on. All that said, we've come so long in such a short period of time this year with the IGV software index being up 40% between early August and early December. So I think some consolidation of the gains we've seen is logical. And I could see more of that as we move through time in the beginning of the year for a few reasons.

I think in general the trend is up and I think we've reached an important point of demarcation for the space. Let's go into those few reasons of why perhaps we're going to get a few headwinds rather than tailwinds at the start. Is it macro policy? Is it Trump coming in? It's uncertainties over macro and Trump and it's also just

time-tested elements like we're entering the seasonally weaker part of the year, companies are likely to guide conservatively on their Q4 earnings calls. And also with what we heard from the Fed this week, the group will likely have to adjust to higher interest rates for longer, and that has an impact on a few factors, including valuation.

looking at valuation more broadly, there have been the haves and the have nots. Some of them have been entering big benchmarks, I think, of Palantir that has just been such a software winner as people get galvanized by the generative AI opportunities.

Are those valuations too heady? At what point do we start to see, ultimately, some of the P-E ratios look pretty healthy because they're managing to grow their earnings in lockstep? Such a good question. Palantir is in somewhat rarefied air. It's the first name of scale to really capitalize on Gen AI in a large way. And it also has the government tailwinds of where it's positioned. So it's doing tremendously well.

Its valuation is head and shoulders above everyone else's, so I leave that alone. For the rest of the space, we are about to see, I think, much better growth than we've seen. The space has been digesting a flurry of buying activity during COVID. So it's been really two years of digestion, and companies have been using technology as a

source of cost savings. But now with the advent of generative AI and especially now agents, which I think market appeared on shift for the space, we're starting to see more investment. That's exciting. I mean, Palantir just showing how much it's run up. It's currently trading 199 times future earnings. But let's go to where...

the oxygen is really being sucked out the room is all biogenic AI. And again, I think there must be this question mark for investors and onlookers alike of, well, show me the money, show me the productivity, show me how much this is actually going to affect my life because I'm just hearing the words.

Right, right. We're starting to see, it's so early. The sales force is effectively leading this movement. So many people are, they're working on it, but they're one of the first ones out with true adjunct functionality. I think it's been out seven weeks, maybe eight weeks. I mean, it's it.

Have you used it? I personally have not used it. I've talked with a bunch of customers who have been using it, who have been testing it in beta. And the feedback is excellent. The feedback is really compelling on accuracy, on ease of use, on the ability to draw together critical enterprise data and make some use of it. So I think we're just on the cusp of that. We're going to see other companies do that.

But it makes for a compelling story, and we can start to dream of a better time where growth is better. And part of that growth is going to come not just from the agents themselves, but from the underlying infrastructure. We're seeing customers take on that hard work of improving their data, harmonizing it, getting it ready for use in investments in cloud and underlying infrastructure to make that work. I know we had Databricks CEO raising a lot of money in the private markets, and they're all about being able to use the data underlying. Do you think that... To that end?

though, we're having a lot of the startups talking about agentic AI, trying to get in the space, taking on the stalwarts, the giants such as Salesforce. Are we going to see more M&A activity once again? Everyone's wanted Benioff to hold off, but more broadly, these software companies are going to get back into M&A with perhaps a more friendly administration to it? Sure. Well,

Yes, no, and yes. I think we absolutely do. I think part of the reason why we've seen that rise in software valuations since the summer is because of this friendlier stance we're likely to see, at least on large companies buying smaller companies. We'll leave the rest of large company administration aside.

But there's that. We will see a lot of startups trying to get into the space and some will be successful. There's always disruption when there's a new cycle, a new tech wave. But what is compelling is that we can see these large companies capitalize, augment their portfolios. We're seeing them do that. Salesforce specifically, they are making tuck-in acquisitions. Ultimately, we probably see them do something. But right now, they seem so focused on what they have at hand that...

We may not see what we've seen traditionally from the company in terms of large M&A. And in fact, the company still has a large swath of activists on the board who are highly engaged. And keeping a close eye on the purse strings. Harry, more broadly, therefore, when 2023, 2024 was so dominated by one name and NVIDIA and everyone asking you about the infrastructure to the software names that you really kept an eye on,

Are we going to see this shift now? Is everyone going to just be more around agents? Is it going to be the time of quantum? What do you think 2025 is going to be the cocktail party question for you? Okay, that's an exciting one and one that will change every week. More cocktails. Far more. We've had this push and pull between semis and software the entire time.

as investors try to identify the real AI beneficiary. In reality, over time, they'll both be strong beneficiaries in one way or another. The names within that group may shift. But I think software is starting its period of appreciation of AI. And agents, as I mentioned, I think they represent the period of shift from

homegrown AI or do-it-yourself AI to do-it-for-me AI. And the customers would far prefer the vendors do it for them. It's going to be better, faster, cheaper in the end. And so I think that's a story that continues. And there are other things I like about software. Semis are in the process of getting beaten up. There's a lot of debate over whether we're going to see the big behemoth million GPU pre-trained models or the smaller models or post-test time training where the training occurs at the point of inference.

And that will have financial implications. But in the end, we're going to need a lot of semis for what we're about to do. The demand still weigh. Eclipse is supply. Hilary Frisch, it's always a joy to have you in the studio. Senior Research Analyst at Clearbridge.

But always leave wanting to talk a little bit more. Meanwhile, Intel, let's talk about a chip company on our mind. It's been shortlisting a number of buyout firms for the next round of bidding for Altera. That's its unit, which specializes in the design of low-powered programmable chips. So according to sources, let's bring in Bloomberg's Ryan Gould. So how close to the end mark are we here? How many serious bids have come in and how broad are they?

Yes, if you think back, Caroline, to just before Thanksgiving, we put out a story that said that they were calling for bids. I think just prefacing all of this, Altera is kind of the single biggest topic in tech M&A right now for people who specialize in semiconductors. It's taking up a lot of time. People are spending a lot of money thinking about how to sort of structure their bids. So bids came in just after Thanksgiving. And so Intel has now got into a period where they have shortlisted semiconductors.

You've got firms like Bain who know Intel very well. You've got firms like Silverlake who also know Intel very well. And then there are others such as Apollo, who are also looking, Francisco Partners, quite experienced semiconductor operators. And then just to add a little bit of intrigue to the mix, Lattice Semiconductor, which does specialize in what we call FPGAs, the same sort of type of technology that Intel is trying to sell here in Altera, they are also in the mix and also in the second round.

but their own market capitalization not that huge. So they'd have to partner. What are some of the options here? Does Intel internally want to fully hand over reins here or keep skin in the game? - I think Intel is quite coy on what it really wants to do. I think if you look at what they've said publicly, they have stated that their plan, even pre and post Pat is to sell a stake and eventually take Altera public.

But I think just when you're in the situation that Intel's in, there are options. And options on the table have to be considered. You have to think about the long-term future and sustainability of those options. And so I think if something is presented to them that they see as compelling, they will give good credence to it. And I would just say there are many sort of

proposals on the table here. There are multiple parts outlined from different cities, for example. There could be a situation that you see a group of private equity sponsors come together and take this on and sort of use their operational now to kind of transform Altair into what they think it should be. Well, a few bankers are going to be busy over the festive period. Rangold, we know that you will be too. Thanks so much for coming on. Meanwhile, coming up, time is ticking for the government to avoid a shutdown. That says Trump and Musk weigh in

We're talking how busy politicians are at this particular moment. Just take a quick look at one particular stock on the move as well. I just asked Hillary, look, is 2025 going to be the year we talk about quantum? Well, it's here, it's now, and it's up 21% for this particular stock. One name where Craig Hallam is maintaining a buy on this particular company, raising the price target to 45. We've also had yesterday DA Davison also initiating coverage with a buy rating. We're piling in. This is Bloomberg Technology.

The House of Representatives could vote on a temporary measure to fund the government for a brief period and avert a shutdown. That's according to two news networks, Fox News, NBC, citing sources. This after the House, led by Republicans, rejected a temporary funding plan despite Trump and Elon Musk's pressure on GOP lawmakers to support it. Bloomberg's Kayleigh Lyons joins us for now from Washington. It feels as though everyone's intent on not having a break before the holidays.

Yeah, usually the holiday period and the smell of jet fumes is enough to motivate lawmakers to get done when they need to get done by the deadline, Caroline. But we are getting very close to the wire here, keeping in mind that government funding does expire at midnight tonight. So we're talking a window here of just under 13 hours, and it's not yet

clear what exactly plan C will be after plan A failed in part because Elon Musk and Donald Trump wanted to see that initial 1,547-page bill die. Then the plan B, a much slimmed down bill that also extended the debt ceiling for two years, failed in miserable fashion on the House floor last night with 38 Republicans voting against it. So now the question is going to be, can something get through the House today that will avoid a shutdown? We are expecting that Republicans will be holding a

conference meeting just over an hour from now at 12 30 p.m eastern time where they could be informed of what the plan is next and there have been reporting uh has been reporting from punch bowl news that they could actually end up just dividing the bill that failed last night so essentially holding separate votes on a continuing resolution on the debt ceiling measure on disaster relief and seeing what can get across the floor because as

Two tug of wars here. For those who aren't as in the weeds as you are, on the one front, it seems as though there's this push largely by Musk and Trump that we don't want to see this pork, this money being given away in terms of federal aid. But on the other side, it's the Republicans that are really flinching to the idea of the debt ceiling just being put aside for a couple of years, which doesn't seem particularly fiscally responsible, according to them.

Yeah, that's exactly right, Caroline. This is a relatively new idea that has at least publicly been introduced by Donald Trump in the last several days. This notion that the debt ceiling either should be extended or repealed, lifted entirely permanently before he takes office on January 20th. Now, lawmakers I've spoken with, including the Democratic

Majority Whip Dick Durbin last night suggested to me that this is likely because he knows he wants to get through a tax reform package next year, and lifting the debt ceiling is an easy way to get that done or at least make that process easier. That said, there are a number of conservatives in the House, many representing that position,

part of that 38 that voted against this measure last night that do not want to see the debt ceiling raised because they want to see more fiscal responsibility than that. So that's really going to be the question as we move forward today. Can something that lifts the debt ceiling get across the floor? Is it really only something that's going to keep the government funded for some period of time? It could ultimately be shorter than what they were initially planning, which was a three-month continuing resolution that would kick the can down the road.

to March 14th. But Speaker Johnson has a very difficult needle to thread here because he has to abide by not only what his conference wants and is willing to vote for, but what Donald Trump and Elon Musk clearly are willing to see cross the floor. And he has to stand for speaker election again on January 3rd when the 119th Congress sits. And there's a very open question at this hour as to whether or not, given everything that's gone down in the last several days, Speaker Johnson is going to be able to keep the gavel.

Kayleigh Lyons, great breakdown, thank you. Now, we continue to report, of course, on the tech titans who have been meeting, dining with President-elect Trump in the last few days. Of course, you know that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg seemed to kick off the rounds of meetings. Google co-founder Sergey Brin on the action. Amazon's Jeff Bezos, the latest.

This doesn't even include the other big tech leaders who are officially working within the incoming administration. You know, Musk as the co-leader of the Department of Government Efficiency, David Sachs, the AI crypto czar, Marc Andreessen as an advisor, we understand, just to name a few. Rimoise Kurt Wagner joins us to discuss the new intersection of tech and politics going into 2025. Some names that we already know very much about, but I'm sure a few more trying to line up for a dinner invitation.

Yeah, I mean, everyone seems to be making their way to Mar-a-Lago. There is a very different feel this time around, Caroline, as you might recall from 2016. At that point, you know, Trump did hold that sort of famous meeting in Trump Tower where all the tech executives ended up coming. But it felt more like they were almost forced to be there, right? And they were dealing with their employees back at headquarters, mostly in Silicon Valley, complaining and protesting and all this stuff. This time it feels different. They're going sort of one by one. They're having dinner together.

uh, at Mar-a-Lago there, you know, being very friendly. And I think the awkward situation here is the Elon Musk of this all right. Because all of these people are competitors in some way or another to Elon or his companies. And often when they're showing up to dinner, in some cases like, uh, Jeff Bezos from Amazon, Elon Musk is at the table, right? And how much can you really say to Donald Trump? How much can you really accomplish when one of your, your biggest enemies, uh, uh,

is sitting right there across the table from you. Certainly, space competition fears between Blue Origin and SpaceX, Kurt. But...

Ultimately, what do you think that they will achieve by giving small, in the case of the absolute balance sheets they have, small amounts towards the inauguration of Trump and indeed these meetings where they're showing off, I think Mark was showing off the meta glasses and the latest innovations to President-elect Trump. Going forward, how is this sort of dovetailing into actually what they want to see from a legislative agenda?

Yeah, I think everyone sort of is in agreement that the best way to stay on Donald Trump's good side is to, you know, praise him, to show up and sort of demonstrate that with a public display of affection, right? Whether that be a million dollar donation to the inaugural fund, showing up to dinner and making that trek across the country to be there in person. And

Every one of these companies wants something different, but I think generally, if you want to blanket state it, they don't want him to come in hard with regulation around all the technology they're building, especially with regards to AI, right? Like the last thing Mark Zuckerberg wants, for example, is for the Trump administration to suddenly say, hey, we're going to try to

hamper this AI growth or we're going to make it very difficult for you, Mark Zuckerberg, in particular because you didn't show up to Mar-a-Lago and make Trump feel special, right? And so I think they are all doing what they need to do just to simply be in his good graces in hopes that those relationships, because they are so important to the incoming president, those relationships will ultimately help make their road easier over these next four years.

Many feel akin to Peter Thiel now, who's the only one really in 2016. How times have changed. Kurt Wagner, it's great to have your time. Thank you.

Time now for Talking Tech. First up, Tencent and some related stocks, as you'll see, soaring on Friday after investor enthusiasm is taking over on a new gifting function on WeChat. Now, the feature will allow users to give gifts priced less than $1,300, excluding jewelry and educational services, according to a statement. Snacks, cosmetics, service providers are all likely beneficiaries. Plus, sticking with Tencent, it's partnering with

Honor on cloud and AI development. As one of China's top device makers, Honor is among Tencent's higher profile cloud customers. It'll use Tencent's big data analytics and search tools, along with two companies jointly creating a coding assistant to help Honor software engineers.

and Baidu extends its decline. That's as investors react to news that Apple is in talks to work with Tencent and ByteDance on, you guessed it, artificial intelligence. This also comes as newspaper reports that ByteDance has slashed the price of its new AI model.

and Honhai Precision Industry, a Taiwan-based manufacturer of iPhones, of course it's known as Foxconn too, is putting its interest in pursuing Nissan on hold. That's while negotiations for a potential merger with Honda are underway. It's all according to source. Meanwhile, Carlos Ghosn, who was the architect of the Renault-Nissan alliance 25 years ago, said that the tie-up between Nissan and Honda is a, quote, desperate move. Here's what he told Bloomberg yesterday.

They have cash problem, they have investment problems, they're being really hammered in the United States. They got practically out of Europe. They're being challenged in China and there is no plan in front of it. So I can tell you that there is panic mode inside Nissan.

In fact, that was Kalashkone speaking earlier today with our own Manus Cranny. Let's get out to Craig Jarrell for the latest on the tie-up. And indeed, all of it was catalyzed, Craig, by Foxconn's interest in Nissan and Japan racing to ensure that Taiwanese companies weren't buying up Japanese ones. But now it's out the game.

Yeah, I think we can't necessarily rule out at this point that Foxconn will completely leave the picture here. I think this is a case of real genuine interest. You have an executive at Foxconn who's overseeing their EV initiatives, who is actually a former Nissan executive, which sort of adds to the intrigue.

You also have a case of just a very complex deal, and it's very unclear at this juncture what exactly is going to happen between Honda and Nissan, if anything. You do have a case of Nissan really needing some help and effectively needing a rescue by all accounts.

likely some role that the Japanese government is playing here and trying to kind of nudge these two companies together. But real questions about how exactly this is going to work out. And also another company in France and Renault who also is going to come into play. So watch this space in 2025. And no respite for you when it comes to deal coverage, Craig. Very briefly, China, the weak spot for both.

Yeah, absolutely. I think both of these companies have been shrinking in that market. I think there are questions about their long-term future there, as well as a lot of Western companies. What exactly is there going to be in terms of room for international companies, given the desire from China to really dominate this industry and also dominate its own market? Craig Juddow, we thank you as always.

Welcome back to Bloomberg Technology. I'm Caroline Hyde in New York. We check in on one key reflection of risk sentiment over the course of this week. Bitcoin at one point on Tuesday exceeding $108,000 per token. And now we dive down to about $97,000 level. Look, we're only

off about 5% since the trading days on Sunday. Remember, no rest for the wicked. This trades 24-7. But we are seeing just money come out for the first time, in fact, after 15 straight days of money going into those spot Bitcoin ETFs. We had a pause and a record outflow on Thursday, $680 million. People start to digest what higher for longer, just two rate cuts come 2025, really does mean for a

ultimately record run that we've seen for Bitcoin since the election of Trump. Now, we want to just dig into what some of the experts have been saying. ARK Investment Management CEO, for example, Cathie Wood, joining Bloomberg, the close yesterday to discuss her outlook for Bitcoin in 2025. She also talked about her bets on Tesla and how much the incoming Trump administration will impact the Tesla story and in particular autonomous driving. Just take a listen.

Well, I think one of the changes, again, back to regulation, is the likelihood that autonomous mobility, so robo-taxis, are going to be regulated not on the state level, so 50 different regulators,

But on the federal level, after all, autonomous vehicles will travel from state to state. So it really should be federal legislation. So I think that will speed up the move towards autonomous taxi networks. And I do believe for that reason, investors, analysts are starting to model out

What that will mean to the Tesla model. It will take their gross margins from mid-teens right now up into the 60s, if we are right, because robo-taxis and autonomous taxi network is a SaaS model.

I think the other thing that has happened is more and more people are seeing videos of the humanoid robot doing all sorts of things that we didn't think were possible as the dexterity in its hands get so much better. Kathy, I do want to pivot here and ask you about some of the market action, particularly over the last few months and particularly when it comes to crypto. I'm sure you've seen the big run up in Bitcoin above briefly above 100 grand now back below that today, but certainly

phenomenal run on a year to date basis from where it was just a few months ago here. Do you still sort of see Bitcoin really hitting some of those lofty milestones that you've talked about before? You know, I mean, 100,000 is still a long way from a million. I do kind of wonder how much further you think this could actually go. Well, what's interesting about Bitcoin today, now that we're going to get more regulatory green lights,

We're seeing institutional investors focus on this new asset class. And as they're learning about it, they're saying, wait a minute, this new asset class or this component of a new asset class, Bitcoin, is

is going to reach twenty one million units out there twenty one million bitcoin out there at its peak and no more from there on where we now we're already above nineteen and a half million units

And so if institutional investors are looking at this new asset class more seriously, and Bitcoin is really the first of its kind in a new asset class and will be, we believe, the biggest opportunity of them all, they must consider an allocation. And so supply-demand, they're doing the arithmetic.

And we see a million to a million and a half. By 2030, the probability of that has increased because of institutional.

Some fundamentals there from Cathie Wood of ARK Investment Management. Let's stick on Bitcoin, the crypto ecosystem a little bit more. As we've seen, of course, it falling from its record highs and having impact on some of the smaller coins too. All following the hawkish signals coming from the Fed. Matt Haugen's in the house, Bitwise Asset Management, Chief Investment Officer. Matt, we saw the fundamental reasons why Cathie Wood is so bullish into 2025 and beyond. But should anyone be worrying about the sudden weakness that we've seen in the last few trading days?

No, it's great to be on. I think the weakness we've seen over the last few days is a healthy pullback. If you look at the crypto market, big picture, it's run up substantially since the election. We saw a lot of leverage build up in the system. And this is a natural washing out of leverage. There's been about

$2 billion of forced liquidations over the last two days. This has happened in crypto since its very earliest period. We need to reset the leverage levels and then we'll build from there. But the long-term drivers are still intact. We're still in a strong bull market. I think Cathy is right about where this is going. We feel exactly the same at Bitwise. I mean, you are someone who has seen

some highs and lows. You understand the volatility in the asset class, Matt. But I'm interested in who is coming to your asset management company. Oh, we've got some exciting music playing on set. They're that thrilled to hear about what you think in terms of institutional money coming now bitwise this way. Is it still a flood of retail and high net worth individuals? What are you seeing in terms of changes?

Yeah, it's really been both so far this year, but I'm aligned with Kathy in thinking that the institutions have now started moving in in size. When you saw the 15 straight days of inflows into the Bitcoin ETFs post-election, I believe that was institutional capital.

At Bitwise, every year we survey professional investors and ask them what's keeping them out of the market. And for six straight years, they said a lack of regulatory clarity. Well, that regulatory clarity is coming and that's opened the floodgates to institutions. And I would just say, I think most people underestimate the size of this. BlackRock just came out and said most people should have

1% to 2% allocation to Bitcoin. There's $100 trillion of institutional assets out there. 2% is a lot of investment that still has to happen. We're going to start seeing that really come in in 2025. Into Bitcoin, still predominantly. How is this going to broaden out, Matt?

Yeah, you're already seeing it broaden out, actually. A lot of people were worried about the Ethereum ETFs, for instance, which launched this summer and had tepid inflows. But over the last month or so, you've seen billions of dollars flow into those products. Again, the things that have happened in crypto in the past

keep happening. Historically, most people enter crypto through Bitcoin and then they discover Ethereum and then they think about Solana. There's no reason to assume that the institutions that came into Bitcoin won't move on to other assets in the future. In fact, I think in 2025, you're going to see an explosion of interest in index-based strategies that give diversified exposure to crypto. Of course, something we've been doing at Bitwise since 2017 when we pioneered that concept

I think 2025 is when that sort of becomes a mainstream way to allocate to this space the same way it is to stocks and bonds and real estate and everything else. You were talking about how the regulatory picture is going to become clearer. We've seen a new AI crypto czar announced. It's someone who's invested in Bitwise, David Sachs. How much have you been in touch with David? How much have you been ultimately able to steer the conversation from a Bitwise perspective?

Yeah, you know, David is a good friend of Bitwise, has been an investor for a long period of time. The reason it's so important to have someone like David Sachs in that position is these two industries are critical to America's future, and they've really been constrained and challenged by regulatory, you know, overreach, regulation by enforcement. I think the market probably doesn't understand how fast these industries can move

if there is regulatory clarity. So, you know, Bitwise is involved in Washington. We talk to folks in Washington all the time. It's great to have people who understand crypto now taking office. I'm just excited to see what happens from here. You went back to something you just said, that things happen again and again when it comes to crypto. The dominance of Bitcoin was your pursuit of thought. But what happens again and again is that

all boats rise and not all boats are great. And we see meme coins coming out thick and fast, being spun up. And look, there's fun and there's exuberance and there's an air of being at the seat of the table at blackjack sometimes. And I'm not taking that away from the market participants, but how much is there a worry that meme coins are going to become something that do ultimately hurt those who don't understand them enough, the trading nature of it all?

Yeah, I think that's worth being concerned about. And again, I think the answer there is better regulatory clarity. We've sort of taken a hands-off approach. We're not going to touch this, which isn't the right way to help investors. We need reasonable rules that allow crypto to thrive, but separates the good from the bad. So it's absolutely true. Investors moving into crypto should be careful. There's a big difference between Bitcoin and the latest

AI-driven meme coin. Folks need to understand that. So yeah, we worry about this. People need to understand why meme coins exist. I agree it's an exciting part of the market, but it shouldn't be a huge part of your portfolio. And let's just talk about the intersection of TradFi, as people would call it, and crypto and how we're seeing a fusing together. Look, real world assets is something people talk a lot about ultimately going onto the blockchain of some sort. But Matt, there's also

new offerings being spun up, whether it's in the options market, whether it's just other ways institutionally minded players can access the overall ecosystem. Is that progressing and maturing the way you want to see it?

Yeah, absolutely. We've been talking about crypto as a new asset class for a number of years. And a new asset class needs all of those pieces to thrive. It needs options. It needs ETFs. It needs ETF options. It needs futures. It needs other derivatives. It needs institutional players taking part

in this ecosystem. We've been checking every box as an industry. So people who are skeptical that this is going to be a major new asset class that stands alongside stocks and bonds and commodities and real estate, you just need to look at that track record. So from my perspective, it's been beautiful to see. We've made a huge leap forward in 2024, and I think that's going to accelerate in 2025.

Nat Hagen of Bitwise Asset Management. Stay well. Happy holidays. Thank you. Coming up, we'll discuss AI agents and how they're revolutionizing customer service. Catherine Costarera is with us from Creatio. This is Bloomberg Technology.

The EU has given unconditional approval to NVIDIA to buy the Israeli startup Run.ai, which develops software for handling AI computing resources and has been a close collaborator with NVIDIA since 2020. And the European Commission stated the takeover didn't pose any competition threats, despite NVIDIA's position as a, quote, leading producer of key hardware for AI applications used in the EU and beyond.

Now let's just take a little bit look about the applications of AI, agentic AI. It's all you're going to hear in 2025. Let's bring in an expert, therefore, Catherine Costa-Riva, CEO and founder of the no-code and software automation company Creatio, valued at more than $1.2 billion. You've been raising funds last time we spoke. And you're taking on some of the heavyweights that are publicly traded, Salesforce, ServiceNow. And I'm interested as to how

The agent force of Salesforce is something that you've already been doing at Creatio or having to play catch up on? Hello, Caroline. So first of all, thank you very much for having me. Very excited to be here today and very excited to talk about the future of enterprise software. I can tell you that I've never been as excited about the industry as I am now. Even when the internet was developing, even at that time, I wasn't as excited as I am today because the CRM and workflow automation software

no-code platforms that Creatio is building is going to look completely different in three to five years from now. Very exciting times. Okay, so it looks different because already you've been helping, basically, people who can't code, code. But now agents, isn't the co-pilot model just makes things even more bespoke? Have you not been deploying that already in previous iterations as now the market's caught on to it?

Yeah, brilliant. So Creatio has been AI native and the biggest difference of Creatio from you mentioned Salesforce, for example, is that we combine in AI command center all different patterns of AI. It's obviously generative AI like AI skills, it's agentic AI,

it would be predictive AI, it would be prescriptive AI. So depending on the use case, again, you mentioned service, it could be sales automation, marketing automation, we're gonna be doing the particular use cases combining all different patterns of AI. And as it is AI native,

It's not an additional module on top of it. It's not like we announced Creatio AI as a separate additional module and we charge for it. It's actually quite an opposite. We're not charging for it. It's the Creatio platform because AI is the central part of the platform.

Ultimately, with everyone offering some sort of form of agent and a lot of it helping with coding, how do you fend your territory? Even if you're saying you're not having to pay extra for the generative AI or new AI applications that's in your heart, but once others have got their pricing sorted and they're already in the rooms of your customers, how do you fend the territory? Yeah, brilliant. So, first of all, let's start by saying that what Creatio AI delivers is

two parts of the equation, if you will. From one end, it's no-code development, as you exactly correctly said. So with AI building the applications on our no-code platform. And the second part is using AI in the end-user use cases like marketing automation, sales automation, service automation, you name it. So the combination of those two, these are the biggest power that Pre-Assured delivers. And again, being AI-native,

It's not a separate module on top of the existing platform. It is the platform itself. So the experience of the user is completely different. The experience that we're building with the user is creating for the user is not the user learning how to use the software. It's AI, creation AI is learning how to collaborate with this particular platform.

end user of the application because as we all know, English is the future program and language. And basically the collaboration between the user like yourself or myself with the workflow and CRM software in the future, it's gonna be using the natural language. Using the natural language, I will be asking to create clothes, to create new digital campaigns, and it's very simple, very simple interface that is embedded in all the other applications that you're using as well.

I'm really interested in adoption. And ultimately, that seems to be a bit of a bottleneck. We're hearing of late that there's been a plateauing of employees using the tools that have been invested in by the CEOs and the like because they're worried that they're being deemed lazy in some way or they're not getting the training that's necessary. But we also know that really to see real creativity, you just need to get this into users' hands and see how they adopt it. What have you seen at Creatio? How have people been using it and continuing to?

Yes, and listen, thank you very much for asking this question. There are two aspects of it. So the first aspect is everyone is building and developing the new AI skills and CREATIO does exactly the same. We're expanding the library of AI skills, meaning we expand the number of use cases that can be covered using AI.

And again, the future, if you ask me about 2025, the future is that the user can do any CRM use case in Creatio AI without actually opening any other interfaces, just one Creatio AI interface and collaboration in English. So building those AI skills, it takes a little bit of time, but Creatio is definitely a front runner here. But from the other side, let's talk about this, the pricing part of it, because

In the case of Creatio, Creatio AI is literally the platform itself. So all our users who have the base licenses of Creatio, they already have access to Creatio AI. While in other cases with our competitors, they do need to acquire, to buy additional licenses in order to start this adoption process. So partially, I guess, again, I

I don't know exactly the Salesforce numbers, but I would guess that would be partially the reason why their adoption is not as fast as they would expect or predict. And just to clarify, it's not Salesforce's numbers. It was actually some numbers put out, though, by Slack. They were looking across various different industry groups, across various different AI adoptions and different tools. But it's always great to speak with you. Thank you for coming on. Happy holidays. Catherine Kostoreva, founder and CEO of Creatio.

Teamsters union members are striking against Amazon for a second day, just as shoppers make their final Christmas purchases. Groups of workers at seven facilities in California, New York, Illinois, Georgia are demanding better wages and working conditions. Amazon says it's filed unfair labor practices charges against the union as the Teamsters claims a strike expansion is coming. Bloomberg's Matt Day has been across this story. And Matt, how much impact is this actually having?

Well, best we can tell, not a whole lot. These are seven facilities, and that sounds like a lot, but against Amazon's base of something like 1,000 depots in the U.S., there's a lot of wiggle room they've got to send packages through other facilities, especially as the teams have been making noise about a potential strike for more than a week now. So they had some advance notice this was coming, and they knew which facilities. So I wouldn't expect this to derail their operation at all.

But what about derailing the future path of unionization more broadly, Matt? Because all of this is about Teamsters trying to lure over more people to join, I assume. MATTHEW MCCLELLAN: That's right. And on that front, I think we'll see. But this is definitely the biggest action to date targeting Amazon by US labor in the United States. There's been union drives at specific warehouses before. No one has ever tried what the Teamsters are doing, which is organizing across their delivery depots and contract workers and Amazon Blue Badge employees themselves.

So this is a pretty big effort. Amazon, for their part, says it's a lot of PR so far, but they certainly have the Teamsters full attention now and they're taking it seriously. Look, other companies are being affected by strike action at the moment as well, Starbucks being one of them. And I'm interested as to how these leaders of the businesses are looking towards the next administration because many workers feel represented, but many feel that perhaps some things said by Trump and Musk around unions have been pretty adverse to them.

So I think union folks are pretty sober on the reality of the changing administration, right? The National Labor Relations Board has been a very labor-friendly body under the Biden administration. That's likely to change in the Trump years. But that said, workers have said, listen, this is all about developing support on the factory floor, you know, among your barista pals, among people packing packages, right? And that's not necessarily going to change. It's all about what kind of support they can drum up among the workers rather than does D.C. have their back.

Matt Day, we thank you. Amazon shares still trading higher amid some of the strike action. We really appreciate you joining on it. Now, let's just get back to the markets a little bit more broadly now, because it is a volatile day, folks, and unsurprisingly so, because it's triple witching. What does that mean? Options expiring. It just adds that level of volatility as we come towards the close of the week. We're up 1.6% now in the NASDAQ 100. We were in negative territory to start trade. People trying to brush off some of the perhaps over-movement, over-reaction to the Fed signaling there'll be bucks.

two cuts coming in 2025. Crypto, though, still underwater, 96,000, well off the 108,000 level. But boy, what a run it has been for 2024. Now that does it for this edition of Bloomberg Technology. Do not forget to check out our podcast. You can find it on the Terminal as well as online on Apple, Spotify and iHeart. We'll be back in the new year. You'll see me across other programs. This is Bloomberg Technology. Not everybody likes talking about money. Some people find it awkward.

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