Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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This is Bloomberg Tech. Coming up, Netflix reaches an amended all-cash agreement to buy Warner Brothers Discovery's studio and streaming business, aiming to expedite the sale. Plus, we bring you some of our top tech conversations from the World Economic Forum, CEOs from G42, Anthropic, DeepMind, and many more.
And VC firms continue piling into defence tech, this as geopolitical tensions escalate between the US and Greenland. And that takes us to the markets, Ed, because the tussle over Greenland, the concerns around further tariffs on Europe and what Europe's reaction to the United States might be, has got volatility higher and risk assets lower. We're selling America again.
NASDAQ off by 1.2%, having its worst day in over a month. The S&P 500 wipes out its gains for the year and you're seeing money move into the havens such as gold. Ed, what are you looking at underneath the hood? I'm looking at Netflix reaching an amended agreement with Warner Brothers Discovery for an all cash offer to buy the studios and streaming businesses.
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Chapter 2: What is Netflix's amended offer to buy Warner Bros. Discovery?
I think they are going to be in trouble.
Geetha Ranganathan, it's always great to get your take and your analysis, which is so instant when we have this breaking news. We appreciate it from Bloomberg Intelligence. Let's stay with the context of earnings, with where MAG7 names are, whether they're set, of course, to begin reporting next week as the big ones like Microsoft, Tesla, Meta kicking things off on Wednesday.
But of course, Netflix is tonight. Tiffany Wade, Columbia Threadneedle, Senior Portfolio Manager, joins us as we are on the cusp of earnings and as geopolitical headwinds seem to just shift the narrative entirely.
When you see down days like today, should people making the most of it buying into weakness? I think that's the case. The backdrop for stocks still looks very good. Obviously, the headlines over the weekend are creating some volatility, and I'm not surprised to see some selling, just given stocks have been very resilient.
But the backdrop for the economy, and I think the market is still very strong. So, yeah, I think this should be an opportunity. And then, you know, earnings coming up will bring the focus back to fundamentals. Are the fundamentals good? I think they should be pretty good. You know, demand especially, you mentioned the Mag7 and the hyperscalers.
I think we're going to see great numbers out of those companies. Importantly, I think we'll probably continue to see very strong CapEx numbers, which is important for a lot of the tech sector. So I think those should be good indicators for the rest of the market.
The reality right now, Tiffany, is that tech's the big underperformer in the session, right? It's a moment in time, but the S&P 500 has wiped out its gains from 2026. This is escalating, not de-escalating. Where do you expect markets to go from here based on the headlines that have come out from President Trump and what's happening with Greenland?
Yeah, I think we could see some more consolidation, maybe a few points lower in the market. You know, certainly volatility might lead to additional selling. But again, I think this is a good opportunity. And as we get farther into earnings, I think things will stabilize.
The biggest declines are in the biggest names, some of the Mag7 names. Is that just general sort of anxiety, geopolitical anxiety, as opposed to some direct read through where if this tariff threat is enacted, it is those names that are hardest hit?
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Chapter 3: How does this deal impact Paramount's position?
So we're certainly looking at other parts of tech like the semi-cap equipment companies, but also companies that are involved in the infrastructure build-out for AI, so things like electrical equipment.
Tying that all together, please, Tiffany, then, you know, next week is huge. What are the data points that you look for when those biggest technology names have earnings? Of course, we've studied capital expenditure closely, but we're trying to gauge this time.
Like, when does it transition to you guys saying we need to see really big top or bottom line growth to feel confident that this AI thing is real?
Yeah, I think especially for the largest hyperscaler names, we need to see continued acceleration and growth of the cloud businesses. And then we also need to see the CapEx numbers remain stable or higher for the year. And I think those are kind of the two large indicators that we'll be looking at from those companies in particular.
Which of the world's technology companies are you going to be paying most attention to, Tiffany?
I think in the near term, it's the Mag7 and especially Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and then Meta also, which had a big CapEx announcement last quarter. That's all of them. It's interesting to see what they have to say.
I mean, we had nice tea leaves already, if you're looking at earnings from TSMC. And that's something that you've been looking at, semiconductor equipment manufacturing. How much resilience did you hear from that company? And how much do you just put AI bubble worries to one side?
Yeah, I mean, they commented that they don't think that there is a bubble in AI, that they're seeing a ton of good demand from their customers. And I think that's reflective of the entire ecosystem for AI right now.
And that's a great indicator for, again, like you mentioned, the semi-cap equipment names and also a good indicator of demand we're seeing from memory companies, which are part of the value chain as well.
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Chapter 4: What are the implications of Netflix's all-cash offer?
So here, I know this is always your favorite question, but is winter coming?
Well, there's always short-term fluctuations in crypto, but I think, you know, if you look over the last two years, Bitcoin's up like 100%. Pretty great outcome for anybody who invested. You know, I've said publicly, I think that Bitcoin could hit a million dollars by 2030. I still think that's true. So whatever happens in any given week or month, you know, we try not to track it too much.
It's the longer-term trend that I think is interesting.
So Bitcoin hit an all-time high last year, 125, 125,000. What about 2026? Let's do a shorter-term horizon. Where is it going in 2026?
Well, you know, I don't like to make short-term predictions because who knows? It's the market, you know, short-term voting machine, long-term weighing machine or whatever. So I think, I don't think people should be like day trading, you know, unless you really want to do that. I'm more of a buy and hold kind of guy for the long term.
And I think that the cool thing about Bitcoin is that it doesn't, unlike fiat currency, there's no money printer. Right? So the supply of it is fixed. It's finite. Coinbase CEO, Brian Armstrong there, along with Bloomberg's Emily Chang. You can watch the full Farsight Chat. Just go to Live Go on your Bloomberg terminal.
Meanwhile, coming up, we'll bring you our exclusive conversation with Peng Xiao. He's the CEO of G42. We're going to discuss the UAE's role in global AI development. That's next. This is Bloomberg Tech. Back to Davos now, where Bloomberg's Germano de Bissetchi sat down with Peng Xiao. He's the CEO of G42. They discussed building AI infrastructure and the UAE's role in the global AI development.
They spoke on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, of course, starting with the chip imports amid existing restrictions. Just take a listen.
In this complex world of AI, nothing is straightforward.
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Chapter 5: How are investors reacting to Netflix's earnings guidance?
I think it's a bit like, I don't know, like selling nuclear weapons to North Korea. Anthropic CEO Dario Amadei there speaking with Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwaite. Coming up, just check out this list of investors backing the new startup, HumansAnd. We'll find out what's driving the excitement and the huge funding round for a company fresh off the blocks as the Bloomberg Tech.
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Humans and a new startup building, a frontier AI lab has raised a $480 million seed funding round at a $4.48 billion valuation, an unusually large haul for a young startup. Bloomberg's VC reporter, Natasha Mascarenhas, joins us now. What is the news here? I mean, is it the seed round or the valuation? What do we need to know?
Yeah, I mean, this is one of the largest seed rounds in private market history. I also like to say this is the new normal for Frontier Labs. This is five top researchers and technologists leaving Anthropic, XAI, Google, coming together and launching, honestly, a competitor to their previous employers in a new way. So to me, the news is that the AI bubble talk is at least happening.
you know, a step back for now because we are seeing investors back these early companies at very high valuation.
And strategic investors like Nvidia, for example, what new do we need in a frontier lab right now?
Yeah. So the real question that we have is what does humans and really going to launch with? We don't have a really strong idea of what their first product is going to look like. But to me, it's really being set up as the opposite of the set it and forget it agents. It's going to be more collaborative.
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Chapter 6: What are the latest trends in defense tech startups?
Worries about Greenland. Worries about a dial-up in tariff threats going towards Europe and what their response might be. You keep your eyes peeled on what's happening from China. the focus of geopolitics in President Trump. But move on to some of the individual names that are underneath the hood.
Look, it doesn't help the Nasdaq 100 if you're wiping out $150 billion in market capitalization of Nvidia, having its worst day again in more than a month. But I'm also looking at some companies that still see love. Intel, Web Bush says we think that overall we're going to see earnings better than expected.
We're seeing HSBC, Seaport both saying the CPU side of the equation, the ideas of PCs, also the ramp up in Foundry are looking good. We are up Well, the 30% year-to-date for Intel. But I'm looking also at strategy that sells off the worst in a month because Bitcoin's down, crypto's lower, and we're worried about the banking Senate committee looking at that market structure deal at the moment.
Ed, what are you keeping an eye on? action in private markets as well. Toronto-based venture firm Georgian has led a US$15 million funding round in Dominion Dynamics, the firm's first defense tech investment. It comes, as you just said, as interest in Arctic security picks up. Joining us to discuss, Margaret Wu, lead investor at Georgian.
Dominion Dynamics is about, for both military and civilian use case, but it's about a sensing network. in the Arctic. You have focused as an investor largely on AI. This happens to be your first defense play. Timely, but what's your thesis here in making the play?
Well, you're right. Dominion Dynamics is a company with a vision to become Canada's first defense neoprime. And they're starting by building an Arctic sensing and intelligence network for dual use purposes. Now, our investment in this company really began with a first meeting with the CEO and founder, Elliot Pence.
And what really struck me in that meeting was not only the scale and the strategic importance of this market, but the uniquely relevant background that Elliott has to lead in this space, having been an early Andrel employee that helps lead the company's go-to-market expansion into multiple geographies.
We see that alumni effect, that network effect, SpaceX alumni, Andrel alumni, new companies. But in the here and now, when you see the news headlines such that they are about Greenland, I guess that must give you more confidence that this is the right strategy right now.
Oh, absolutely. At Jordan, we see several very strong tailwinds for a company like Dominion. First is that the Canadian government has made it very clear that they have a commitment to increase defense spending from 2% of GDP to 5% over the next 10 years. The Arctic, as you just mentioned, has become an increasingly strategic and critical geography in the geopolitical landscape.
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Chapter 7: How is AI affecting competition in the tech industry?
seemed cataclysmic for the West. Now, a year later, it's quiet. China seems to have been quieter. Has your opinion on competition from China changed?
Not really. I mean, I didn't think it was cataclysmic in the first place. I think it was a massive overreaction. In the West, it was impressive. And I think it shows that the Chinese are very capable, the leading companies. I think companies like ByteDance actually, I would say, are the most capable. And they're maybe only six months behind, not one or two years behind the frontier.
So I think that's what DeepSeq showed. Some of the claims were over-exaggerated about the amount of compute they used and being so minimal and so on, because they relied on some Western models and also fine-tuning on the outputs of some of the leading Western models. So it wasn't sort of de novo.
And the other thing I think so far is not yet to be seen is can China actually, the Chinese companies innovate beyond the frontier themselves.
That was DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis there along with Bloomberg's Emily Chang. And that does it for this edition of Bloomberg Tech. Netflix reporting after the bell. That's kind of the big one we're looking for, both because of what we're waiting on, more information about this amended offer, Caro, for Warner Brothers Discovery to an all-cash deal.
But as Geeta Ranganathan of Bloomberg Intelligence put it to us, we want to know what's going to happen in 2026. Yeah, we want to know if it can deliver on 13% growth in revenue, where they can still hit the levels of $50, $51 billion in revenue per year. Because look, with this all-cash bid, it doesn't drive up their leverage much. It does, sure, put the pressure on Paramount Skydance as well.
So all eyes on that deal, on those earnings. And don't forget to check out our podcast, of course. You can find it on the terminal as well as online on Apple, Spotify and iHeart. To just reimagine all the conversations we've been having at Davos Ed, there's a lot going on this week. There is an earnings start in earnest.
Netflix today, and then we brace for what's to come over the next couple of weeks. This is Bloomberg Tech. I'm Carol Masser. And I'm Tim Stenevek, inviting you to join us for the Bloomberg Businessweek Daily Podcast.
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Chapter 8: What are the concerns regarding AI technology exports to China?
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