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Smart Ring Maker Oura Delays IPO · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 4: Well, I know the Charlie Pellett, John Tucker, the hipsters,
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  Speaker 4: they're all into the aura rings. They want to know
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  Speaker 4: how they're sleeping. Are they getting enough steps and all
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  Speaker 4: this kind of stuff? I'm not into it, but.
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  Speaker 5: It's a company.
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  Speaker 4: It's a big and it had planned to go public here.
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  Speaker 4: But I just saw some news today or delayed a U.S.
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  Speaker 4: initial public offering, setting uncertainty in the market. Anthony Hughes
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  Speaker 4: joins us here. Equity Capital Markets reporter for Bloomberg News. Anthony,
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  Speaker 4: I'm not buying it. We're near all time highs here
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  Speaker 4: in the market. I got a VIX, you know, down
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  Speaker 4: like 15 as an IPO banker. This is what you
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  Speaker 4: dream of. What's going on here with or do you think?
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  Speaker 5: Well, I think the excuse that there is market uncertainty
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  Speaker 5: in this case does hold. The company itself is obviously
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  Speaker 5: doing very well at the moment, but people didn't like
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  Speaker 5: the deal, some aspects of the deal, particularly the valuation,
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  Speaker 5: but also the structure of things like the lockup. And
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  Speaker 5: there is a track record of these sorts of consumer
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  Speaker 5: hardware companies being sometimes do well initially, or they have
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  Speaker 5: strong financials for a few years, and then then they
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  Speaker 5: fade away. So, I mean, I think the company tried
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  Speaker 5: to address some of these issues around the fattishness of
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  Speaker 5: some of these consumer hardware products, but ultimately it was
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  Speaker 5: pretty bad timing and, you know, they were probably looking
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  Speaker 5: at pricing below range if they really wanted to get
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  Speaker 5: this done. And, you know, I mean, I guess you
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  Speaker 5: could say to the company's credit, they held firm. They
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  Speaker 5: decided not to cut the price in the range. They
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  Speaker 5: have enough conviction now to, you know, take the deal
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  Speaker 5: off the market and look to go public maybe another day.
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  Speaker 5: But obviously the market, the investors are lacking conviction in
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  Speaker 5: these sorts of, you know, and actually most IPOs at
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  Speaker 5: the moment, there's a bit of a lack of conviction.
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  Speaker 5: I mean, I think a lot of people are focused
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  Speaker 5: on Anthropic later in the year and a lot of
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  Speaker 5: the other stuff doesn't really measure up. So when was
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  Speaker 5: it supposed, when was it scheduled to price? It was
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  Speaker 5: scheduled to price tonight. So this is really a postponement
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  Speaker 5: on the eve of, you know, the 11th hour. And
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  Speaker 5: that's usually what happens when there is a postponement. It
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  Speaker 5: tends to happen right at the last moment, basically.
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  Speaker 4: And so when you see something at the last moment
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  Speaker 4: like this, it suggests that they weren't getting, I guess,
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  Speaker 4: the order flow that they were really looking for at
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  Speaker 4: the price level they were looking at.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 5: So, you know, there was a marketing problem. marketing process
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  Speaker 5: a roadshow that went on in the last week or
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  Speaker 5: so and you know i think it was pretty slow
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  Speaker 5: going i think because of these market conditions a lot
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  Speaker 5: of the long only investors who you really want to
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  Speaker 5: support these sorts of deals unless you know less so
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  Speaker 5: the hedge funds they they were they were hesitating and
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  Speaker 5: i think they some some of them we know passed
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  Speaker 5: and many of them passed really and uh they if
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  Speaker 5: they i think they were holding holding off to see
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  Speaker 5: whether the market conditions would improve as well so you
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  Speaker 5: know i think the fact that the quality the you
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  Speaker 5: know the quality of the demand that they were getting
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  Speaker 5: was not was not adequate was one of the one
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  Speaker 5: of the factors in the decision not to go ahead.
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  Speaker 4: Is this deal or the pulling of this deal, is
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  Speaker 4: that indicative of the IPO market today? Is the IPO
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  Speaker 4: market like a little softer than maybe people would like
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  Speaker 4: to see?
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  Speaker 6: Oh, absolutely.
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  Speaker 5: I think that, you know, we've seen three postponements now
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  Speaker 5: in three weeks. We saw an insurance company go postpone
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  Speaker 5: last week. And the week before that, we saw another
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  Speaker 5: company postponed. So it's becoming a trend. And basically, investors
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  Speaker 5: are lacking conviction on these companies, particularly paying up big valuations,
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  Speaker 5: you know, and And, you know, really IPOs are like
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  Speaker 5: a lot of business transactions, getting people to agree on
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  Speaker 5: a price. And, you know, I think the sellers of
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  Speaker 5: these assets are wanting more for them than the buyers
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  Speaker 5: are prepared to pay. And that's basically that disconnect is widened.
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  Speaker 5: You know, we've seen a bit more of a focus
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  Speaker 5: on macro issues, rising rates, stuff like that, which has
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  Speaker 5: made it tougher for growth-oriented companies to get these really
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  Speaker 5: high valuations. And, you know, people have been more picky
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  Speaker 5: and discerning about the quality of the companies that they've
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  Speaker 5: been prepared to invest in.
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  Speaker 4: Interesting. What is the latest on Anthropic? That's probably maybe
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  Speaker 4: one of the reasons that some of these IPO buyers
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  Speaker 4: are waiting because they think they may have the opportunity
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  Speaker 4: to put serious capital to work. Yeah, so I think the.
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  Speaker 5: Interesting thing about Anthropic is that the, you know, we
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  Speaker 5: were assuming maybe it'd almost be public by now, but
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  Speaker 5: I think there's been a lot more uncertainty around the
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  Speaker 5: company that's been, you know, that's been evident in all
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  Speaker 5: the public discussion around safety and regulation and, you know,
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  Speaker 5: the future of.
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  Speaker 5: AI and also what's happening in terms of the releases
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  Speaker 5: of these competitive models. These are all factors that are
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  Speaker 5: added to some level of uncertainty. I think it's been
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  Speaker 5: quite prudent for them to delay. And the word is
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  Speaker 5: they're waiting till after the election now. And I don't
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  Speaker 5: know whether they're expecting a different political environment to have
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  Speaker 5: an impact. Sometimes those factors are a little overstated, but
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  Speaker 5: that could be a factor here. But I think the
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  Speaker 5: buy side is still pretty keen for this company the
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  Speaker 5: the numbers that you've seen floating around show very strong
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  Speaker 5: growth uh growth that we've you know it's mind-boggling growth
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  Speaker 5: that we don't see at scale that we don't see
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  Speaker 5: with um companies you know almost ever but ever and
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  Speaker 5: uh you know, this is a new era for AI.
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  Speaker 5: But I think the buy side is pretty eager for Anthropic,
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  Speaker 5: just not very eager for most other IPOs that are
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  Speaker 5: out there. Interesting.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was reported earlier today by Axios initially that
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  Speaker 4: OpenAI's annual recurring revenue near $ 70 billion. So the numbers
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  Speaker 4: continue to grow pretty dramatically.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, so I think that's another factor is the competitive environment. And,
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  Speaker 5: you know, I think while Anthropic is sort of hoping
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  Speaker 5: to push ahead here this year and OpenAI has pushed
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  Speaker 5: into next year, but I think there's quite a serious
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  Speaker 5: competitive process going on here where these two companies are
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  Speaker 5: trying to assert who has the superior model, who's going
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  Speaker 5: to dominate this market going forward. But I think investors
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  Speaker 5: are probably looking at the situation now and thinking there
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  Speaker 5: are going to be multiple players in this industry. And
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  Speaker 5: if you look at some of the.
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  Speaker 5: Tech themes over the past few decades. I mean, I
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  Speaker 5: think maybe some of the Mag7 companies who dominate our
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  Speaker 5: market today really had a dominant position in certain areas
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  Speaker 5: of technology and maybe with large language models and AI,
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  Speaker 5: it's less certain that that's the case.
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  Speaker 2: Stay with us.
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  Speaker 1: More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this. You're listening
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at
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  Speaker 1: 10 a.m. Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever you get
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube.
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  Speaker 3: OpenAI, of course, this is the privately held AI lab company.
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  Speaker 3: According to Axios' Madison Mills, OpenAI's annual recurring revenue is
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  Speaker 3: nearing $ 70 billion. Enterprise sales more than doubling since July.
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  Speaker 3: So perhaps this is a sign that OpenAI is catching
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  Speaker 3: up to Anthropic, which we know had kind of overtaken OpenAI. OpenAI.
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  Speaker 3: Speaking of OpenAI, the company is actually holding back a
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  Speaker 3: version of its Astra model while it establishes stronger safeguards
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  Speaker 3: for AI development. And of course, this suggests heightened risks
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  Speaker 3: after all these spate of recent rogue AI hacking incidents,
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  Speaker 3: and people are kind of mindful of all of that.
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  Speaker 3: Let's put all of this together into context and bring
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  Speaker 3: in our Ed Ludlow. He is our BTEC anchor on
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  Speaker 3: Bloomberg Television, tech reporter for Bloomberg News joining us. And
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  Speaker 3: of course, Ed will be at the OpenAI Development Day
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  Speaker 3: later today as well. Ed, just put into context the
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  Speaker 3: headlines that we just gave you about OpenAI, this Astra
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  Speaker 3: model being held back, the annual recurring revenue approaching $ 70 billion.
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  Speaker 3: What does this all suggest?
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  Speaker 6: Well, on the ARR, Anthropic, its great rival, was tracking
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  Speaker 6: at sort of $ 74 billion ARR as of the third quarter.
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  Speaker 6: So that's kind of fun. What it tells us in aggregate, right,
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  Speaker 6: is how difficult it's going to be for these frontier
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  Speaker 6: labs to balance the growth their investors want to see,
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  Speaker 6: with both of them destined for the public markets, with
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  Speaker 6: making decisions like hitting pause, Which can have commercial impacts.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 6: So the news headline is that GPT 6.1 Astra was
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  Speaker 6: being evaluated internally. It was a model, a new model.
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  Speaker 6: And they basically said that this model is not behaving
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  Speaker 6: reliably in the way that we thought it would. So
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  Speaker 6: out of safety concern, we're just not going to release it.
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  Speaker 6: And that is open AI, to be fair, making good
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  Speaker 6: on what it has said over the last 10 days,
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  Speaker 6: that it has some kind of more structure in place
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  Speaker 6: on how it makes those kinds of decisions.
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  Speaker 4: Ed, how are folks out in the Valley thinking about,
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  Speaker 4: the AI folks there, thinking about their policy for guardrail
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  Speaker 4: development of AI versus what we're hearing from President Trump,
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  Speaker 4: Vice President Vance, and maybe some others here. It feels
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  Speaker 4: like it's getting kind of political here.
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  Speaker 6: So there are certainly camps emerging, right? Different schools of thought.
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  Speaker 6: It's very rare that Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI,
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  Speaker 6: Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, and Elon Musk agree
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  Speaker 6: on anything. They agree it would appear that it is
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  Speaker 6: sensible to pace the development of what the capability of
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  Speaker 6: the model is so that your work on safety can
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  Speaker 6: catch up. The camps are distinguished by who they think
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  Speaker 6: should oversee that. Someone like the president or David Sachs
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  Speaker 6: or even Jensen Wong are like, you guys, the AI labs,
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  Speaker 6: you're the ones that see this. You're the ones working
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  Speaker 6: on it. If it's not safe, don't release it. And
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  Speaker 6: so today with OpenAI, it's a pretty concrete example of that.
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  Speaker 6: the Frontier Labs themselves are also saying, we want some
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  Speaker 6: third party here to kind of check our work. And
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  Speaker 6: those in DC are saying, that's fine. But at the
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  Speaker 6: end of the day, you're still responsible. You can't sort
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  Speaker 6: of pass this off onto someone else.
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  Speaker 4: Well, I guess we will discuss morning to some reporting
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  Speaker 4: out of Reuters, which Tom Keene just was calling out
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  Speaker 4: repeatedly for good purposes. Anthropic warned that its technology poses
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  Speaker 4: catastrophic or existential risk to humanity. That's a risk factor
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  Speaker 4: in their IPO filing. What does that language mean? I mean,
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  Speaker 4: what's going on?
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  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, there was reporting that this would get
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  Speaker 6: included in the prospectus. The S1 has not flipped public.
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  Speaker 6: Someone somewhere has got their hands on it and we're
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  Speaker 6: trying our best. It's funny because I went back to
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  Speaker 6: the S1 from SpaceX and there were loads of risk
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  Speaker 6: factors in there, but not this idea of existential threat
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  Speaker 6: to human life. I guess that what people out here
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  Speaker 6: would say this points to Is Dario Amodei, the CEO
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  Speaker 6: of Anthropic, trying to be consistent? You know, when all
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  Speaker 6: of this emerged, the idea that in a series of
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  Speaker 6: interviews and also in that essay that he published last
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  Speaker 6: month on pacing the frontier, that his motivation for doing this,
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  Speaker 6: giving a warning signal, was marketing. That might seem paradoxical, right?
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  Speaker 6: But if you're going, oh, this is super dangerous potentially,
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  Speaker 6: It also kind of is empowering and gives momentum to
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  Speaker 6: an IPO because you're basically saying like so cutting edge
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  Speaker 6: is this technology that this is the degree of risk
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  Speaker 6: we're talking about.
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  Speaker 2: Stay with us.
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live
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  Speaker 1: weekdays at 10 a.m. Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever
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  Speaker 1: you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube.
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: Joining us now is Geetha Ranganathan. Geetha is Bloomberg Intelligence's
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: analyst on U.S.
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  Speaker 5: Media.
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  Speaker 3: Geetha, Bob Chapek's got a chip on his shoulder, I suppose,
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  Speaker 3: given the way that he left the company, that makes
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  Speaker 3: a lot of sense. Do you agree with him that
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  Speaker 3: Disney needs a growth engine, that it lacks a growth
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  Speaker 3: engine right now?
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  Speaker 8: I do agree with that, Scarlett. I mean, it is
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  Speaker 8: absolutely true that, yes, the parks are performing well, given
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  Speaker 8: the current situation, given all of the uncertainty that we've
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  Speaker 8: seen in the economy, given what we've seen with the
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  Speaker 8: Comcast Universal Parks and much softer attendance there. Disney still
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  Speaker 8: is somehow managing to hold its ground. But he's right.
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  Speaker 8: I mean, there's nothing there on the horizon that's super
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  Speaker 8: exciting in terms of, you know, a growth catalyst or
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  Speaker 8: a growth narrative. And it all depends on how they
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  Speaker 8: want to spin. I mean, investors are definitely looking at
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  Speaker 8: the streaming product. This was a business that was losing
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  Speaker 8: billions of dollars just a few years ago and now
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  Speaker 8: has become, you know, a source of profit today. but
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  Speaker 8: how profitable it gets to be. I mean, that's the
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  Speaker 8: ultimate question. And we really need some more concrete numbers
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  Speaker 8: around that to really kind of energize the narrative around Disney.
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  Speaker 4: And Geetha, I think for a while there, investors were
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  Speaker 4: saying maybe streaming will be that growth story. Just look
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  Speaker 4: at Netflix, but the Netflix stock is underperformed and primarily
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  Speaker 4: because they just haven't had any hit shows to kind
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  Speaker 4: of get you all jazzed up. It kind of goes
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  Speaker 4: back to the old, this is how media companies work.
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  Speaker 4: You have to have hit shows, hit movies, that kind
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  Speaker 4: of thing.
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  Speaker 8: Yeah, you're absolutely right, Paul. So the biggest problem for
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  Speaker 8: Netflix this year has kind of been this whole story
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  Speaker 8: around engagement and engagement that has been languishing. I mean,
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  Speaker 8: we look at some of the numbers that come out
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  Speaker 8: of Nielsen's monthly gauge report, and they point to share
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  Speaker 8: of TV viewing time that's constantly declining for Netflix. So
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  Speaker 8: right now it's at less than 8% of total TV
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  Speaker 8: viewing time. Meanwhile, you have YouTube that has climbed to
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  Speaker 8: record highs, and it's at 14%. So you really have
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  Speaker 8: all of these media companies that are contending with you know,
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  Speaker 8: a lot of viewing that is happening on YouTube, that's
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  Speaker 8: happening on social media platforms, on TikTok, on Instagram. So
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  Speaker 8: they really need to kind of tailor that strategy. And yes,
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  Speaker 8: you know, Disney, you're right, Disney does have that kind
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  Speaker 8: of benchmark from a net, you know, from the Netflix
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  Speaker 8: operating profit and margin perspective. But, you know, we need
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  Speaker 8: something more to really kind of get investors excited and
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  Speaker 8: for a re-rating of multiples, not just for Disney, but
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  Speaker 8: for the entire sector, I would think.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, well said.
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  Speaker 3: Well, we know that Disney recently increased the price of
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  Speaker 3: its Disney Plus streaming service, at least the one without ads,
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  Speaker 3: to $ 21. 49 a month. And if you bundle it with Hulu,
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: then it's slightly more expensive. But that idea of bundling
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: things is back in fashion again. How much of a
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: difference is that going to make to the bottom line
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: in the coming quarters?
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  Speaker 8: It is definitely going to make a difference. I mean,
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  Speaker 8: this is what we've been seeing across all of these
• 14:39
  Speaker 8: streaming platforms. And we've seen kind of quite a noticeable
• 14:42
  Speaker 8: change in terms of the whole profitability picture and the economics.
• 14:47
  Speaker 8: So majority of the services that were posting pretty huge
• 14:50
  Speaker 8: losses are now posting profits. This is important for all
• 14:54
  Speaker 8: of these streaming services because subscriber growth has kind of
• 14:56
  Speaker 8: come to a screeching halt. So the only way that
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  Speaker 8: they get to actually pad that bottom line is by
• 15:01
  Speaker 8: increasing prices. And you bring up a very good point
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  Speaker 8: with the bundle. Disney has this unique advantage of the bundle,
• 15:07
  Speaker 8: not just with Hulu, but potentially with ESPN where you
• 15:10
  Speaker 8: get a lot of sports content and where people absolutely
• 15:12
  Speaker 8: want to subscribe and want to get to that bundle.
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  Speaker 8: So yeah, we do think it'll be really important to
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  Speaker 8: the profitability equation going forward. But ultimately, I think, Scarlett,
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  Speaker 8: what it's going to come down to is how exactly— and
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  Speaker 8: we've heard a lot of rumblings about this, but really
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  Speaker 8: no concrete picture just yet— in terms of what exactly or
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  Speaker 8: how exactly Josh DeMauro plans to position Disney +. Does
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  Speaker 8: he really make it the central hub for all things Disney?
• 15:37
  Speaker 8: Do you go to Disney +, and not just get
• 15:39
  Speaker 8: a streaming subscription, but also your park tickets, also your
• 15:42
  Speaker 8: movie tickets? does it almost kind of become like an
• 15:45
  Speaker 8: agent for you in terms of getting to, you know,
• 15:47
  Speaker 8: anything and everything Disney. So that is what is going
• 15:50
  Speaker 8: to be really interesting to see how, you know, how
• 15:53
  Speaker 8: they kind of position Disney +, how they position the
• 15:56
  Speaker 8: streaming business as kind of the door to the entire
• 15:58
  Speaker 8: Disney ecosystem.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
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  Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live
• 16:10
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• 16:14
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• 16:21
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  Speaker 3: for tech startups, which makes a lot of sense given
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  Speaker 3: very adventurous years at the school. He and Janet Lorne,
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: our higher education finance reporter, join us now in the
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio. So Theo, just walk us through
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: what surprised you the most when you showed up at
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: the Stanford campus, ready to take on as, I think
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: you came in knowing how to code and maybe looking
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: to pursue computer science as your major, and you were
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: just totally taken away by what this school does when
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: it comes from his young talent and how they kind
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: of usher you along.
• 17:14
  Speaker 7: Yeah. Yeah.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: Well, it's great to be here with you. It is true.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: I showed up as a true tech geek, the kind
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: of kid who would build a machine learning model into
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: my room in high school and called it a fun
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: Friday night. And I showed up and I realized that
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: very quickly, you know, either you're in or you're out, right?
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: There's this system that is designed to extract talent from
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: these teenagers. They are viewed almost as a commodity to
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: be monetized because if you get in on the ground
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: floor of the next Google or Instagram, you've made your
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: own career. These venture capitalists and assorted hangers-on who are
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: constantly on campus trying to court the next up-and-coming teenagers,
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: these hangers-on are really a huge part of the experience
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: for those people who belong to what I call the
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: Stanford inside Stanford. That is, those future trillion-dollar startup founders
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: who've been tapped on the shoulder at age 17.
• 18:01
  Speaker 5: All right.
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: Your freshman year involved investigative journalism that prompted the Stanford
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: president to step down. Part of this book, How to
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: Rule the World, An Education in Power at Stanford University.
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: Talk to us about that.
• 18:12
  Speaker 6: What happened there?
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: And what's the basis for this book? Talk to us
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: about it.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I describe this book as being about, you know,
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: the kids who are being raised to rule the world
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: and what they learn from those who already do. And,
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: you know, in that respect, Mark Tessier-Levine, who was the
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: president of Stanford, is a great example.
• 18:29
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: Mark Tessier-Levine was a world renowned neuroscientist, the first in
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: his family to go to college. He ended up earning
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: a Rhodes Scholarship, created an entirely new field of neuroscientific research,
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: and eventually went on to become a fabulously wealthy entrepreneur
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: and biotech executive. I discovered in my reporting for the
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: school newspaper across an eight-month investigation a number of research
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: papers that he had co-authored or otherwise overseen, which contained
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: falsified images and other forms of data manipulation. Mark Tessier
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: Levine eventually, as a result of this, had to retract
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: several papers and was pushed out as president of Stanford.
• 19:03
  Speaker 7: So you describe in the book wanting to talk to
• 19:05
  Speaker 7: him and sort of staking him out, but you didn't
• 19:08
  Speaker 7: want to appear like you were staking him out. But finally,
• 19:10
  Speaker 7: you got to meet him and talk to him. And you're, what,
• 19:14
  Speaker 7: 17 years old at this point? Can you describe that?
• 19:17
  Speaker 7: I mean, he was, at that point, sort of a
• 19:18
  Speaker 7: larger-than-life guy. Yeah.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: So I've never sat with an interview with Mark Tessie Levine,
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: despite over a dozen attempts and You know, I've sent over,
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: I believe it's 126 questions in writing to him, the
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: vast majority of which he has declined to answer. Instead,
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: usually I hear from his lawyers who have tried to
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: prevent the publication of my articles and subsequently the book
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: that was published based on some of that reporting. You know,
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: Marc-Tessie Levine, as you say, looms larger than life. I mean,
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: he is this iconic figure. I've tried and basically failed
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: to find a single negative word published about him before 2022.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: But of course, you excellence, these positions of higher and
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: higher acclaim that he segued to over time amassed a
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: lab culture that changed over time. Eventually, Stanford's in-house investigation
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: determined that he created a culture within his labs that
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: rewarded the winners, that is, the people who could produce
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: the results that he wanted, and marginalized the losers.
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: Theo, how did he preside at Stanford University? If this
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: is what he was doing in his research, you know,
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: to get his doctorate, to kind of make his reputation,
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: what kind of leader was he at Stanford University and
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: what kind of tone did that set for the school?
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: Well, it's important to step back here and understand that
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: Stanford has been on a unique trajectory for the past
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: few decades. No other institution in higher education has had
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: the meteoric rise. that Stanford has had, it went from
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: a suburban school for the wealthy Californian elite to a
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: juggernaut that now has a budget, an annual budget higher
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: than 116 countries.
• 20:42
  Speaker 6: 116 countries, right?
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: And so a lot of that happened under John Hennessy,
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: Mark Tessier Levine's predecessor. But he continued on with barreling
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: toward this corporate university, right? This is a place where
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: students are no longer treated as teenagers going about the
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: ordinary course of coming of age, They're treated like a product.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: They are treated like someone who might potentially kick back
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: billions of dollars in revenue to the school in the future.
• 21:04
  Speaker 7: So for the last year and a half or so,
• 21:05
  Speaker 7: I've been writing a lot about the Trump administration's assault
• 21:09
  Speaker 7: on higher education, mostly focused at Harvard. Why do you
• 21:12
  Speaker 7: think Stanford hasn't had the same level of scrutiny?
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: Good question.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I was stunned, stunned by the number
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: of stories that I found that should have been reported
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: years earlier, including the president. Where I started in 2022,
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: anyone could have started seven years earlier with the same
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: pseudonymous comments online that sparked my investigation. All of these stories, basically,
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: that I reported on, the campus imposter who was kicking
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: around campus for a year pretending to be a student
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: and removed multiple times from campus with the school's knowledge,
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: the professor who had been rubber stamping the pseudoscientific practices
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: of Tony Robbins, who claimed a 100% remission from depression.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: based on Stanford University study using his fire walks that
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: have in fact injured people, dozens of people, walking over
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: the hot coals that he claims will cure their depression
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: because Stanford University's professor of genetics, head of the genetics department,
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: has rubber stamped it. All of these stories don't get covered,
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: I think in large part because Silicon Valley is still
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: an immature system of power. It has not had this
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: power it has accrued recently for very long. And so
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: it hasn't developed the same robust series of guardrails of transparency,
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: of accountability, and journalism.
• 22:22
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• 22:26
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• 22:30
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• 22:39
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