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CrowdStrike Issues Sales Outlook Meeting Wall Street Views · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to the
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  Speaker 2: Stay on the technology theme here, we're gonna check out
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: the man Deep Singh, global tech research head at Bloomberg Intelligence, Mandy.
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: Lots of news to talk about.
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  Speaker 2: I want to just start with CrowdStrike sales outlook kind
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  Speaker 2: of in line with expectations.
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  Speaker 3: Stock off a little bit here, just refresh our memory.
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  Speaker 2: What is crowd strike and how does it fit into
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  Speaker 2: the tech stack?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean they are one of the pure play
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  Speaker 4: cybersecurity names and clearly they have done quite well in
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  Speaker 4: terms of their top line growth over the last two
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  Speaker 4: three years. And you know, like with everything in the
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  Speaker 4: SaaS complex, some of these names have come under pressure
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  Speaker 4: because of potential competition from LLLM companies like Anthropic, and
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  Speaker 4: I think that's where you see a muted reaction today.
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  Speaker 4: But you know, they had their best new arr growth
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  Speaker 4: yesterday and the guidance was a little conservative, but that's
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  Speaker 4: what we are seeing from all the software companies that
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  Speaker 4: have reported results this quarter is they want to be
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  Speaker 4: then race for the next one. And I think for
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  Speaker 4: a company like CrowdStrike that's growing mid twenty percent and
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  Speaker 4: very high retention rate, I mean things are looking good
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  Speaker 4: because all these lms should potentially drive more demand for cybersecurity.
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  Speaker 4: If there's one area that certainly is poised to benefit
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  Speaker 4: from LLLM usage, it should be cybersecurity.
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  Speaker 5: Man Deep crowdstre has been, as you mentioned, one of
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  Speaker 5: the biggest beneficiaries of cybersecurity spending boom. After this earnings report,
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  Speaker 5: does it still look like there's still strong secular demand
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  Speaker 5: or are we starting to see signs that those budgets
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  Speaker 5: are becoming a little bit more selective?
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  Speaker 4: Not in the cybersecurity complex. So if anything, you know,
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  Speaker 4: if you have more data now, which is the case
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  Speaker 4: with llms, now, you know you are generating a lot
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  Speaker 4: more data, you are using it for training and so
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  Speaker 4: all that needs to be secured and prompt injection attacks
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  Speaker 4: is a new type of attack that you have to secure. Again,
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  Speaker 4: So from my perspective, you know, and based on our conversations,
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  Speaker 4: like this is the last thing any enterprise would want
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  Speaker 4: to cut. Yes, they are shifting budgets, you know, allocating
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  Speaker 4: to AI more compared to the traditional areas. But when
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  Speaker 4: it comes to cybersecurity, I mean, the risks continue to
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  Speaker 4: get bigger and bigger in terms of data loss or
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  Speaker 4: you know, getting hacked, and so from that perspective, you're
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  Speaker 4: unlikely to cut back on, you know, especially a primary
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  Speaker 4: cybersecurity product, which I mean you know a lot of
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  Speaker 4: cases there are point products, but CrowdStrike is more of
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  Speaker 4: a platform with multiple sort of threat vectors that they
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  Speaker 4: protect against. So from that perspective also they are quite insulated.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: All right, folks, this is how it works at Bloomberg.
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  Speaker 2: Usually Man Deep he comes into our studio when we
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  Speaker 2: want to talk to him. He's not in our studio today,
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  Speaker 2: which got me thinking, where is Man Deep seeing today?
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: And at Bloomberg we can tell where everybody is at
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  Speaker 2: all times. You have to put where you are and
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: who you're meeting with. It's kind of the full disclosure
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: thing they do a Bloomberg, so I know where he is.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: He's downtown at the Bloomberg invest conference. Anytime Bloomberg gets
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: its clients together, they all just want to talk to
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  Speaker 2: Man Deep. They want to hear man Deep, talk about
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: what's going on in tech and most notably AI. So
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: I'm going to go right there, Mandeep, what's the conversation
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  Speaker 2: today about AI?
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  Speaker 3: It went from just build, build, build build, Now.
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  Speaker 2: People are starting to think about what are some of
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  Speaker 2: the ripple effects, third and second and third quarter effects?
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  Speaker 6: Here?
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  Speaker 3: What's the investor view of AI these days? Yeah?
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  Speaker 4: I mean at this conference, over the last couple of days,
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  Speaker 4: the focus has been on the private markets. And as
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  Speaker 4: you know, you know, private equity owns a lot of
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  Speaker 4: these software traditional software companies that generate very high free
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  Speaker 4: cash flow. But everyone is looking at, you know, what
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  Speaker 4: are these lms going to disrupt and what does that
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  Speaker 4: mean you know, to the free cash flow of some
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  Speaker 4: of these companies, And so the private markets have been
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  Speaker 4: a big focus. I would say over the last two days.
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  Speaker 5: Man Deep, there's been this trade, the halo trade, focusing
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: on tangible assets when it comes to deciphering you know,
• 4:49
  Speaker 5: who the AI winners and loss are going to be.
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: I spoke recently to ubs, a global wealth CIO, and
• 4:55
  Speaker 5: she said that she's focusing on the builders and not
• 4:58
  Speaker 5: the coders. How are you thinking about this dynamic between
• 5:02
  Speaker 5: the companies with tangible assets versus intellectual property.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, look at all the hyperscalers, right, they
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  Speaker 4: used to have most of them used to have an
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  Speaker 4: asset light business model. Now we are talking about, you know,
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  Speaker 4: seven hundred billion dollars in aggregate capex for this year
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: just from the hyperscalers, and this is likely a multi
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: year cycle. So from that perspective, I mean, we know
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  Speaker 4: AI is compute intensive and you need a lot more
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: you know, infrastructure to do AI, and so from that perspective,
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  Speaker 4: things certainly are shifting, you know, from intellectual property to
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  Speaker 4: owning infrastructure, and that's the trend that is likely to continue.
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
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• 6:03
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• 6:07
  Speaker 2: AI story just yet another angle is how AI is
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  Speaker 2: being deployed by the Department of Defense and other parts
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  Speaker 2: of the US government.
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  Speaker 3: Particularly about the Defense Department.
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  Speaker 2: We had anthropic clashing with the Pentagon about how their
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  Speaker 2: AI could be used. Then we had to open ai
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  Speaker 2: chief executive officer Sam Altman says, we'll come in and we'll.
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  Speaker 3: Do some of the work for you. And there's a
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  Speaker 3: lot of.
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  Speaker 2: Uncertainly about how AI is going to be used and
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  Speaker 2: who will actually provide it for various government entities, including
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  Speaker 2: most notably the Department of Defense.
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  Speaker 3: Vlad Richter joins us here.
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  Speaker 2: He's the CEO of the cybersecurity company Fencer vladd how
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  Speaker 2: do you think this is playing out AI the Department
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  Speaker 2: of Defense specifically, We've had some uncertainty here.
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  Speaker 3: What do you make of it?
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  Speaker 6: Yeah, Look, I think there's clearly some sort of misunderstanding
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  Speaker 6: internally between between the departments, the Pentagon, and Anthropic, seemingly
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  Speaker 6: because from what we're reading over the weekend, open ai
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  Speaker 6: is signed an agreement according to Sam Albyn, with the Pentagon.
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  Speaker 6: They kind of stated the lines that I think we
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  Speaker 6: as citizens would very much care about, which is we
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  Speaker 6: don't want to see MAS surveillance and we definitely don't
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  Speaker 6: can't even imagine a situation where there will be autonomous
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  Speaker 6: weapons going through there. But I think this also speaks
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  Speaker 6: to part of the challenge within these AI companies and
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  Speaker 6: specific in the models, is that you know, a lot
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  Speaker 6: of the data that they're trained on is effectively the same,
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  Speaker 6: and so over time, you know, the work that they're
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  Speaker 6: doing becomes kind of commoditized and there's much of a mode,
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  Speaker 6: and so the government will inevitably, in my opinion, turn
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  Speaker 6: around and start to work with the vendors that will
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  Speaker 6: play ball with them and not try to strong arm
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  Speaker 6: them in any single position.
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  Speaker 5: Opportunistic and sloppy was the language that Sam Altman used.
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  Speaker 5: Pretty strong language there. What does that tell us about
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  Speaker 5: the rushed by AI labs to secure government contracts And
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  Speaker 5: how important of a customer is the Pentagon when a
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  Speaker 5: to the AI industry?
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  Speaker 6: Yeah, great question. So I think from a perspective of
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  Speaker 6: how important the Pentagon is or the government specifically to
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  Speaker 6: these AI companies as a customer, it's actually not that much.
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  Speaker 6: I mean, if you look at it from the perspective
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  Speaker 6: of Anthropic. You know, was reported that the deal with
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  Speaker 6: the Pentagon was around two hundred million dollars a year,
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  Speaker 6: and I think, as reported by Bloomberg today, Anthropic went
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  Speaker 6: from fourteen billion in run rate a few weeks ago
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  Speaker 6: to nearly nineteen billion dollars today. It's one percent of
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  Speaker 6: their revenue right, and I think for the same probably
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  Speaker 6: similar to open Ai and some of these other ones,
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  Speaker 6: that it's meaningful revenue, but as a percentage of the
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  Speaker 6: overall base, it's not significant. And instead what you end
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  Speaker 6: up what we need as citizens is that the government
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  Speaker 6: actually chooses and it's more important for them. I think
• 8:46
  Speaker 6: in the case of open Ai, with the contract they
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  Speaker 6: just signed, it was a little bit too fast, like
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  Speaker 6: Sam said, and the communication was was not great. I mean,
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  Speaker 6: there was a handful of departures, including some relatively senior
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  Speaker 6: people from open Ai after the weekend that decided to
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  Speaker 6: go to Anthropic. And I'm not sure how much people
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  Speaker 6: know about this historically, but the Anthropic founding team was
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  Speaker 6: actually all X for the most part, all X open
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  Speaker 6: Ai employees that disagreed back in twenty twenty one with
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  Speaker 6: some direction that Open Eye was heading to and decided
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  Speaker 6: to leave and start Anthropopic themselves. And I think today
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  Speaker 6: there are roughly seventy to eighty employees at Anthropopic that
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  Speaker 6: are ex open Ai, but at open Ai, I think
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  Speaker 6: they are only about ten or twelve employees that are
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  Speaker 6: ex Anthropics. You can see kind of where the movement's
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  Speaker 6: been going between the sort of the intelligent folks there.
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  Speaker 2: Do have any idea to what extent in the Pentagon
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  Speaker 2: and the Department of Defense that AI is being utilized.
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  Speaker 2: Are they cutting edge because they have the resources, or
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  Speaker 2: are they kind of an old government plotting institution.
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  Speaker 3: How are they employing AI.
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  Speaker 6: There's a great article and I think it was actually
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  Speaker 6: from you guys earlier this morning that popped out that
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  Speaker 6: kind of described a little bit of that was revealed
• 9:56
  Speaker 6: by some source of how it was being used and
• 9:59
  Speaker 6: in the understanding, what was reported was that the Pentagon
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  Speaker 6: had decided that there were going to be roughly a
• 10:05
  Speaker 6: thousand places that they were going to hit initially a
• 10:07
  Speaker 6: thousand sites that they were going to initially inside of Iran.
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  Speaker 6: Previous versions of this you can't hit all a thousand
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  Speaker 6: of once, and so people would sit down. They were
• 10:16
  Speaker 6: prioritize them based on a handful of different factors, and
• 10:19
  Speaker 6: it would probably take a couple of weeks to get
• 10:21
  Speaker 6: this done, if not longer. Right, in this case, what
• 10:24
  Speaker 6: was understood was that they were using Palenteer's Maven product,
• 10:27
  Speaker 6: which underneath the hood was also being powered by Claude
• 10:31
  Speaker 6: from Anthropic and they basically fed in a bunch of
• 10:34
  Speaker 6: data that palunteers access from the government and said, okay,
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  Speaker 6: prioritize this for us based on what we need to
• 10:40
  Speaker 6: do and the different sort of movements right, step one,
• 10:43
  Speaker 6: step two, step three, whatever it may be. I think
• 10:45
  Speaker 6: at that point, just like if any of us were
• 10:47
  Speaker 6: using AI to prioritize some other things for us, it
• 10:50
  Speaker 6: pulled out a spreadsheet and said, listen, this is I'm
• 10:52
  Speaker 6: paraphrasing here, assuming this is what you should be doing,
• 10:56
  Speaker 6: and I imagine the powers that be sat down took
• 10:59
  Speaker 6: a look at it and said, is this really what
• 11:00
  Speaker 6: we want to be doing? Do we want to hit
• 11:01
  Speaker 6: these first hunter or not? But at a minimum, you're
• 11:04
  Speaker 6: getting that done in forty five minutes, right, This is
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  Speaker 6: not a multi week endeavor. It just kind of gets
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  Speaker 6: you a little bit faster there. It might only be
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  Speaker 6: ninety percent correct, but humans will decide the rest of
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  Speaker 6: it from there.
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  Speaker 5: Glad we've seen AI leaders call for stricter regulation while
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  Speaker 5: simultaneously pursuing a defense contracts. Is there a sense that
• 11:22
  Speaker 5: these deals are happening faster than the industry can establish
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  Speaker 5: the right ethical guardrails?
• 11:29
  Speaker 6: Yeah? So, I you know, depends on the day. Sometimes
• 11:34
  Speaker 6: can go back and forth. What I think, what I
• 11:36
  Speaker 6: would tell you is that it's not even sometimes so
• 11:38
  Speaker 6: much as the guardrails from the industry, but the guardrails
• 11:40
  Speaker 6: from the government. Right, there are some significant points that
• 11:44
  Speaker 6: I agree very much with Dario, the CEO at Dariamidad
• 11:48
  Speaker 6: Anthropic on this, which is the government does need to
• 11:50
  Speaker 6: provide some guardrails for us on what is appropriate, what
• 11:54
  Speaker 6: is not appropriate, How do we protect you as citizens?
• 11:56
  Speaker 6: At what point in time does the Pentagon decide to
• 11:59
  Speaker 6: overset step some of these boundaries and if they're allowed to.
• 12:02
  Speaker 6: But I think these things are moving too quickly at
• 12:04
  Speaker 6: this point, right. I mean, these models come out every
• 12:07
  Speaker 6: you know, a new version of a model comes out
• 12:09
  Speaker 6: every few months from one of these organizations, and it
• 12:12
  Speaker 6: beats the previous one by ten, fifteen, twenty thirty percent,
• 12:15
  Speaker 6: and all of a sudden, it unlocks things that we
• 12:17
  Speaker 6: didn't think was possible. And you hear these comments that
• 12:21
  Speaker 6: I think Darius said this earlier earlier and earlier this week,
• 12:24
  Speaker 6: where he said that he believes that there's going to
• 12:26
  Speaker 6: be exponential growth later this year. And I you know,
• 12:30
  Speaker 6: for a company like ours, you know, we went from
• 12:32
  Speaker 6: five percent of our code being written by Ai year
• 12:35
  Speaker 6: ago to north of sixty percent. Today, you start to
• 12:38
  Speaker 6: struggle to imagine what exponential looks like by the end
• 12:42
  Speaker 6: of the year, and so I think it's just tough
• 12:44
  Speaker 6: to keep up with these things.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us Live
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay, and Android
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever you
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: Paramount's guidance acquisition of Warner Brothers Discovery, we'll trigger a
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: media reranking and strategic sector reset.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: Our guests says, we expect.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: The industry to consolidate around three dominant players Disney, Paramount, Netflix,
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: leaving comcasts subscale and making further m and a likely
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: Keitha Ranganath and she is the media als or Bloomberg Intelligence,
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: Brian Robertson and the gang down there in Philadelphia probably
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: not gonna be happy to read this, Keitha, what do
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: you think comcasts will do in this.
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: New world of Paramount and Warner Brothers.
• 13:38
  Speaker 7: They absolutely need to do something, Paul, I mean that
• 13:41
  Speaker 7: has been the whole thinking. We know that they are
• 13:44
  Speaker 7: ready to do something because last year when we had
• 13:47
  Speaker 7: this whole Warner Brothers Discovery auction kicked off, we know
• 13:50
  Speaker 7: that Comcast would actually kicked the tires there. They had
• 13:53
  Speaker 7: a proposed a merger of NBC Universal, which is their
• 13:56
  Speaker 7: media division, along with Warner Brothers Discovery. But of course,
• 14:00
  Speaker 7: because it was a major restock deal as opposed to
• 14:03
  Speaker 7: a cash deal, it was you know, obviously the Warner
• 14:05
  Speaker 7: Brothers Discovery team didn't go ahead with it, So they
• 14:08
  Speaker 7: know that something needs to be done. But at the
• 14:10
  Speaker 7: same time, I think Brian Roberts and the team have
• 14:13
  Speaker 7: been somewhat shy to you know, spin out NBC, But
• 14:18
  Speaker 7: I think it's it's some kind of strategic action is
• 14:22
  Speaker 7: absolutely imperative at this point.
• 14:24
  Speaker 8: Paul Keitha.
• 14:26
  Speaker 5: Paul and I were just talking about the language in
• 14:28
  Speaker 5: your note, a media re ranking and a strategic sector reset.
• 14:32
  Speaker 5: That's going to rattle a lot of folks at Comcast.
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: Can you talk to us a little bit more about
• 14:36
  Speaker 5: what exactly that means?
• 14:39
  Speaker 8: Yeah, Alex, absolutely so.
• 14:41
  Speaker 7: If in fact the Warner Brothers Netflix transaction had gone through,
• 14:46
  Speaker 7: that would have left Paramount without a dance partner so
• 14:49
  Speaker 7: to speak, right, and they were they were they were
• 14:51
  Speaker 7: already considered a subscale player. They would have absolutely needed another,
• 14:56
  Speaker 7: you know kind of deal, and and majority of the
• 14:58
  Speaker 7: thinking was that, yes, they might then approach Comcast and
• 15:02
  Speaker 7: look to kind of bolster up their whole media presence. Now,
• 15:05
  Speaker 7: with the Paramount and Warner Brothers deal going through, you
• 15:10
  Speaker 7: have you know, obviously the media re ranking. You have
• 15:13
  Speaker 7: the three, the big what we call the Big Three.
• 15:15
  Speaker 7: So you have Disney there with almost one hundred billion
• 15:18
  Speaker 7: in revenue, Paramount and Warner Brothers Discovery will bring in
• 15:22
  Speaker 7: about seventy billion, and then you have Netflix with about
• 15:24
  Speaker 7: fifty to fifty five billion. That really leaves now Comcast
• 15:28
  Speaker 7: as somewhat of a subscale player. So they, you know,
• 15:30
  Speaker 7: this is the whole thinking. They need to do something,
• 15:32
  Speaker 7: they need to do it quickly.
• 15:34
  Speaker 8: You know. It's somewhat of a unique.
• 15:36
  Speaker 7: Play Comcast because they have both distribution and content assets.
• 15:40
  Speaker 7: So they are the biggest broadband provider right now in
• 15:44
  Speaker 7: the United States with over thirty million households. The problem
• 15:48
  Speaker 7: for them is their broadband business has been under a
• 15:50
  Speaker 7: lot of pressure, so that has kind of taken the spotlight.
• 15:53
  Speaker 7: Now to the media assets and media assets actually for them. Unfortunately,
• 15:58
  Speaker 7: there's a lot of focus and it's it's a lot
• 16:00
  Speaker 7: of positive focus because we know that Netflix was willing
• 16:03
  Speaker 7: to pay a twenty five times multiple for the Warner
• 16:06
  Speaker 7: Brothers studio, so you just kind of applied that multiple
• 16:08
  Speaker 7: to the Universal studio and they have had so many hits,
• 16:11
  Speaker 7: you know, whether you're thinking about the Minions or Oppenheimer
• 16:14
  Speaker 7: or Jurassic Park, Jurassic World. I mean, that's a studio
• 16:18
  Speaker 7: that delawarees consistently, so you know, you just slap that
• 16:21
  Speaker 7: multiple onto you know, the the NBC studio that should
• 16:25
  Speaker 7: be worth at least thirty billion, and then they have
• 16:27
  Speaker 7: the theme parks, and the theme parks are really growing
• 16:30
  Speaker 7: at a nice space for them.
• 16:32
  Speaker 8: We did some analysis.
• 16:33
  Speaker 7: We said that the theme parks for NBC should be
• 16:36
  Speaker 7: worth at least forty billion.
• 16:37
  Speaker 8: So you have an asset here which is.
• 16:39
  Speaker 7: Really kind of undervalued under the Comcast umbrella. So they
• 16:43
  Speaker 7: need to do something and they need to do it quickly.
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  Speaker 3: KEITHA.
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  Speaker 2: I've always thought two of the key advantages for Comcasts
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: are won their management team might have been a big
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: fan of Brian Roberts and his management team for a
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: long time.
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: And the second thing is their balance sheet. They've got
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: a very strong balance.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: Sheet, you know, but there's not a lot out there
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: for them to buy.
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  Speaker 3: Why what do you think they should do?
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  Speaker 7: I think the first thing that they should do, Paul,
• 17:06
  Speaker 7: is spin out NBC. So NBC under the whole Comcast,
• 17:10
  Speaker 7: you know, family thing is is just not working out.
• 17:15
  Speaker 7: I think the ultimate route will be for them to
• 17:17
  Speaker 7: spin out NBC maybe, you know, kind of become.
• 17:20
  Speaker 8: This this roll up vehicle.
• 17:21
  Speaker 7: Maybe they combined with some other assets some of the
• 17:24
  Speaker 7: smaller players out there, could be an AMC Networks, could
• 17:26
  Speaker 7: be a lions Gate. Of course, nothing is necessarily going
• 17:29
  Speaker 7: to be transformative, but you know, at least, you know,
• 17:33
  Speaker 7: maybe once they're spun out, maybe they become an interesting
• 17:36
  Speaker 7: target for Netflix.
• 17:37
  Speaker 8: I mean, who knows.
• 17:37
  Speaker 7: Netflix has already kind of gone this whole m and
• 17:40
  Speaker 7: a route maybe Comcasts becomes interesting to them.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: You know, I see Fox out there and there. I
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: would call them a subscale player too. But boy, they're
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: doing fine. It seems like they've got i mean, they're
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: broadcast and their whole audience. They've got that editorial thing down.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: They know who their audience is. What do you think
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: they do?
• 17:59
  Speaker 7: Yeah, so the the endgame for them is also a
• 18:01
  Speaker 7: little bit unclear, Appaul. I mean, up until now, I
• 18:04
  Speaker 7: think Fox has made all of the right decisions, you know,
• 18:08
  Speaker 7: whether it has been to get rid of some of
• 18:11
  Speaker 7: the you know, challenged cable TV networks, the studio with
• 18:14
  Speaker 7: the whole Disney deal in twenty seventeen, and really kind
• 18:17
  Speaker 7: of doubled down on live sports and news. The thing is,
• 18:21
  Speaker 7: the one big thing that we're all kind of looking
• 18:23
  Speaker 7: at this year is going to be the NFL renegotiations,
• 18:26
  Speaker 7: and that's going to have some serious implications for all
• 18:28
  Speaker 7: of these companies, whether it's Comcast with you know, NBC
• 18:31
  Speaker 7: exposure and Fox. Fox is the most heavily exposed to
• 18:35
  Speaker 7: NFL programming and they're going to have to pay up
• 18:38
  Speaker 7: and so, you know, at that point, I think that
• 18:40
  Speaker 7: there is going to be some kind of reckoning for
• 18:41
  Speaker 7: all of these media companies.
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: Stay with us more from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up there
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: for this.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am. He's done on Apple, Cocklay, and
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: There's a time of the earning cycle, the end of
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: the earning cycle, where we get to hear from a
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: lot of these retailers.
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: Today's no different.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: Bath and body Works reporting some numbers here, So let's
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: break it down. Lindsay, Dutch Consumer Hardlines, senior analysts for
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: Bloomberg Intelligence Joints is here.
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: So Bath and Bodyworks I know they're doing it.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: They're in the midst of a turnaround here, lindsay, what
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: did you learn on the earnings release?
• 19:26
  Speaker 9: Hi, Paul, thanks for having me. Yes, Bath and body
• 19:29
  Speaker 9: Works is aggressively pursuing a turnaround strategy. The fourth quarter,
• 19:34
  Speaker 9: we saw sales and earnings come in better than expected,
• 19:38
  Speaker 9: but still down year over year, and then their outlook
• 19:42
  Speaker 9: for twenty six wasn't super surprising, kind of in line
• 19:44
  Speaker 9: with what they were expecting three months ago.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 19:48
  Speaker 9: Growth is kind of off the table as they pursue
• 19:52
  Speaker 9: a strategy that's going to attract younger customers, a broader
• 19:55
  Speaker 9: customer base. They're moving a little bit into wholesale, They're
• 19:59
  Speaker 9: pulling on lots of different levers to really become back
• 20:02
  Speaker 9: to the brand that they have been historically.
• 20:06
  Speaker 5: Lindsay, promotions are a big part of Bath and body
• 20:08
  Speaker 5: Works as strategy. Are they driving traffic successfully or are
• 20:13
  Speaker 5: they assigned that demand is a little bit more shaky.
• 20:17
  Speaker 8: Yeah, great question.
• 20:18
  Speaker 9: So promotions are a huge part of Bath and Body's
• 20:21
  Speaker 9: historical strategy. The new management team is really trying to
• 20:25
  Speaker 9: ultimately move away from that. I don't think twenty six
• 20:29
  Speaker 9: we will see a significant shift. They set on the call,
• 20:31
  Speaker 9: they're expecting promos to be about flat this year. They
• 20:36
  Speaker 9: do still see success from those promotional strategies. At Black
• 20:40
  Speaker 9: Friday Cyber Monday, they elevated the strategy versus historical and
• 20:45
  Speaker 9: that deeper discount definitely drew traffic, and I think that
• 20:49
  Speaker 9: was a key part of the little bit better than
• 20:51
  Speaker 9: results in the fourth quarter than they were expecting.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: Ben, what's the Amazon dot com play here for Bath
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: and Bodyworks?
• 21:00
  Speaker 9: Yeah, so I think that they're really looking to broaden
• 21:02
  Speaker 9: their brand awareness with consumers that don't shop them already.
• 21:06
  Speaker 9: So they have, you know, forty million loyalty members. Some
• 21:09
  Speaker 9: of those customers have been with Bath and Bodyworks for
• 21:11
  Speaker 9: a very long time. They're extremely loyal to the product
• 21:14
  Speaker 9: the sense that they have but this company is really
• 21:17
  Speaker 9: looking to reach that younger shopper. They're doing pushing into
• 21:22
  Speaker 9: new lines they have like lip products now, and the
• 21:26
  Speaker 9: move on Amazon is similarly broad in brand awareness, you know,
• 21:30
  Speaker 9: reach other shoppers that they don't currently reach. So I
• 21:33
  Speaker 9: don't see a huge push into wholesale as like a
• 21:35
  Speaker 9: new business strategy, but it's really getting that brand in
• 21:39
  Speaker 9: front of customers that aren't going to the mall and
• 21:42
  Speaker 9: seeing their store.
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: This is a company, lindsay, that falls into the affordable
• 21:47
  Speaker 5: luxury category. What are these results tell us about the
• 21:50
  Speaker 5: broader consumer and trading down to companies like this.
• 21:55
  Speaker 9: Yes, so you know Bath and Bodyworks has historically drawn
• 21:58
  Speaker 9: customers for their value proposition, and they have an everyday
• 22:03
  Speaker 9: luxuries line that did very very well in twenty four
• 22:06
  Speaker 9: and twenty five. You know, they still want to maintain
• 22:09
  Speaker 9: their piece and in that you know, seeking for value behavior,
• 22:14
  Speaker 9: and I think that's very important for them going forward.
• 22:17
  Speaker 9: The new management team also wants to elevate the brand
• 22:19
  Speaker 9: and push it maybe towards that prestige level a little bit.
• 22:23
  Speaker 9: And in beauty broadly, we've seen prestige holding up a
• 22:26
  Speaker 9: little bit better than mass, so it's an interesting move
• 22:30
  Speaker 9: to try to sort of elevate and move up a tier,
• 22:33
  Speaker 9: you know, when a lot of consumers are seeking value,
• 22:36
  Speaker 9: but I sort of understand the logic behind that. You know,
• 22:39
  Speaker 9: just look taking a step back, where those prestige brands
• 22:42
  Speaker 9: have held up better in this economy, probably driven by
• 22:45
  Speaker 9: a higher end consumer.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: This is the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast, available on Apple, Spotify,
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• 22:56
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• 23:00
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• 23:03
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• 23:07
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