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>> This is a different conversation. It's a

different data center right now. This is

about AI and but it's a valid question,

right? So I will give you the same

answer that I gave when we entered the

automotive business when we entered the

industrial business and everything that

we have been doing to diversifi

diversify the company. Those are fastm

moving markets now changing with

technology. So where we really focus is

not what the data center is doing today

but what the data center is going to be

doing tomorrow. The data center is now

moving to a gentech. That's why you see

CPU companies on the rise. You see

demand on the rise.

>> Good stuff there. Cristiano Aman

Qualcomm CEO there with Roma Bastik and

of course the host of Bloomberg Tech Ed

Ledo who kindly is joining us right now

from our bureau in San Francisco. Do

want to point out Qualcomm shares are up

about 7%. They're off their highs of the

session. Uh, Micron, we're going to get

to that, too. It's up about 17 and a

half%. I think it's at an all-time high

as we speak. Whoa. Ed Lello, where do we

begin? Talk to us.

>> Yeah, it's quite a lot. [laughter]

>> What do you think? Let's talk about

Qualcomm. We just heard a snippet uh of

the CEO.

>> Let's do that for you.

>> Credit where Yeah, credit where credit's

due, right? You know, Qualcomm is the

world's biggest provider of smartphone

processors, a market that is not doing

great right now. And they have made this

entry into data centers. And what you

heard from Cristiano on there was the

answer to the question, didn't you

already give up on data centers? And

secondly, if you look at what they

announced, Wall Street's clearly

cheering what they've said about the

future financial opportunity, but

they're a little bit late to the game

because these CPUs come online in 2028.

Their accelerators, their custom um AI

chips for running inference workloads

aren't here yet. And the problem is

they're in this environment where Nvidia

absolutely dominates the market and

whatever's left AMD come comes up and

gets the rest. But both of those

companies have a new chip every single

year. Qualcomm's chips are two or three

years away. Um but you know he was

honest about that like the the market

opportunity is absolutely ginormous and

they are very confident they're going

after a very specific bit of it because

their chips are nothing to be sniffed

at. They're like highly performing um

very efficient chips on a dollar per

token basis or a dollar per kilowatt

basis.

>> Ed, you mentioned AMD, you mentioned

Nvidia. What about Intel, Broadcom, uh

Google, Amazon?

>> Can we can we throw Cerebras in there?

>> Yeah, you you absolutely can. I mean the

field is becoming more crowded in terms

of the number of players but based on

current data which you can say is just

simply sales or its deployments Nvidia

has a technical monopoly which at

Bloomberg we believe a technical

monopoly is more than 70% of a market.

Um so you know the opportunity is there

and clearly based on the share

performance and also like what they said

right you know like they're going to do

$5 billion of data center sales um next

year fiscal or calendar 27 and that will

go up to 15 by 2029

that shows progress for a company that

has historically not been in that

market. All right. So,

>> Micron,

>> yeah,

>> let's talk Micron. [laughter]

>> Yeah.

>> It was a thing that leading up to

yesterday's results after the closing

bell, every market guest that we had on

said, "This is going to be really

important." So, what was so important

about the results that has this stock I

think at an all-time high as we speak.

>> Yeah. It's not about beating the

expectations of the street. Micron reset

the expectations of the entire industry.

And by the way guys, I felt you both did

a really excellent job to try and get

the story from the earnings statement

because that's all you had to go on at

the time. It was that supply was tight

and it's going to be tight for a long

time and clearly higher prices is what

moved the needle for Micron, not

necessarily selling more units. And like

that's exactly how the call played out.

So the big wow number was that in the

fiscal fourth quarter of the current

period, Micron saw $51 billion of sales.

Um, and it highly relates to data center

and high bandwidth memory and the street

was seeing maybe 43. But the bigger

picture is like that's the best position

for Micron to be in where there's very

tight supply. They have pricing power

and everyone wants the thing you're

selling.

>> Compare and contrast. It's not good for

the companies who are in the market that

are trying to get hold of those chips.

>> Uh, I just want to know I'm leaving uh

731 cuz love the praise. I feel like

I've done it when Ed Lelo says we did a

great job on complicated company like

Micron. I'm done.

>> I thought we were going to talk about

soccer, but that's okay.

>> I'm good. I'm good. Love you. Love you

as always. And you also helping us

always make sense of all of these

reports. Um Ed Ledlo, thank you so much.

Be well. Ed Ledllo, he's the host of

Bloomberg Tech. Check it out on

Bloomberg TV. 11:00 a.m. to noon Monday

through Friday. [music]

>> Stay with us. More from Bloomberg

Business Week Daily coming up after

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You're listening to the Bloomberg

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Catch us live weekday afternoons from

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>> Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto

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us live on YouTube. [music]

>> We're going to stay on technology and

how it continues to transform amid the

AI backdrop. And it takes us to someone

who's been innovating and disrupting as

well and remembers all too well the boom

and bust and changing landscape of the

dot era. He's best known as the founder

and CEO of Zingga, the social games

company that IPOed in 2011. But he's

built and invested in so much more. And

through every iteration of the internet,

the '90s boom and bust, the social media

boom of web 2.0, and now the AI era.

Carol, he's also a prolific investor.

>> He is indeed. He's invested, you'll know

these names folks, Napster, SpaceX. And

he had he held on to his shares, his

$38,000 seed investment in Facebook, now

Meta, for about half a percentage of the

company would be worth many, many

billions of dollars right now. Uh, smart

investment, I would say.

>> We're talking about Mark Pinkis. He's

got a new book out, and we know all this

thanks to the new book. It's called Life

at the Speed of Play. Launch Products

People Love. Mark Pinkis joins us here

in the Bloomberg Interactive Brokers

Studio. Welcome. Welcome. How are you?

Congrats on the book.

>> Thanks. Thanks. By the way, I really am

happy about the memory stocks.

>> Okay.

>> Well, why?

>> Well, we're diving right into the AI

trade. [laughter]

Let's not mess around. Uh I I'd say that

that it's it's a pretty simple trade at

this point. It's a belief and either you

believe that the AI infrastructure

investment is going to pay off and keep

playing out in which case all of these

companies are generationally

undervalued. It's a generational buying

opportunity if you're getting a a PEG

ratio of.3,

you know, or less.

>> Or you think that it's not going to play

out and then you should stay away from

all of it. So,

>> I'm a believer. So, it's it's funny

because we just spoke with with Ted

Oakley. [clears throat] He manages money

for Oxbow Advisors and and he sent us a

bunch of stocks and missing from there

were tech names and memory names. He

does own some tech, but he said

>> the memory got too expensive. And he

said, "I've been doing this for decade,

many decades. I remember the 1990s. We

sold Intel and I watched Intel stock go

up for the next 12 months before then it

went down." So, he understands these

cycles. Are we in one of those cyclical

moments right now?

We'll we'll know in the future, but

it'll be it's only cyclical if this if

these AI growth rates and numbers don't

play out. If they play out, I think he

would even agree that they're still

undervalued.

>> You know, Mark, one of the things that

we're thinking, we want to get into the

book and talk about the, you know, life

at the speed of play and what it all

means, but we are curious. You have been

in Silicon Valley for all of the

iterations of the No, no. Seasoned like

a great wine. Like that's how I think

it. Love talking with people who have

seen cycles, right? And can sometimes

figure out the silly from the stuff that

really matters. How do you like how do

we make sense? Like we see the money

going in.

>> Um we see the circular financing that

makes us a little uncomfortable. Um we

see the narrative around AI changing. I

get it. Disruption. This is what

happens. But help us understand like is

this a boom cycle with no bust or is

there going to be a a a breaking point

at some point or for only maybe for some

>> the if I had the perfect answer I I

[laughter]

>> you wouldn't be talking to us.

>> Yeah. Um I would have held my meta stop

too. [laughter] Um

>> you did okay. You did okay.

>> Yeah.

>> Um

>> like how do you think about some of

this? I I built a boring enterprise

software company in the middle of the

dot boom. You know, it was called

support.com, but it was actually an

early SAS

>> company. We went public on the last day

of the IPO window.

>> I'd say that then versus now.

>> We, my peers and I thought it didn't

make any sense during the dot bubble. We

we thought it was crazy what we saw

going on

>> around us. And now my peers, my smartest

friends think this makes a lot of sense.

I mean, it's it was dark fiber then and

now it's like hot GPUs. I mean, it's

actually being

>> Yeah.

>> used. It was betting on a whole consumer

um that that didn't show up or or didn't

show up yet. And now the the the

investment the infrastructure is going

to enterprises who are bottom

lineoriented and you know then it was uh

eyeballs and now it's ARR you know it's

it's actual revenues. So it's definitely

not the same. I think what we do have is

extreme volatility and I think that the

volatility comes from where it's hard to

remember this level of growth market and

when there's this level of growth like

we've seen just this week and today when

there's a negative data point or even

absence of more positives it starts to

be run for the hills and doom and bubble

and then when we see like microns

numbers and guidance all of a sudden

everyone's bullish again and we're going

to keep seeing that it's my take

>> one thing that you write about in the

book repeatedly is that

>> you know and you get into your whole

background Wharton Harvard Business

School going and working for some

investors that are household names to

the Bloomberg audience I mean Steve

Ratner John Malone I mean these are

these are legends um

>> you are constantly saying you don't know

how to code you don't know how to write

code yet you built all these companies

What struck me about about reading that

was that that kind of doesn't matter now

in a way that it that mattered when you

were building all these companies that

you write about.

>> How has the idea of like OpenAI's codeex

or Claude Code from Anthropic? How does

that completely change the game moving

forward? Well, if you pull the camera

back and even think more broadly like

how has the game of startups just

changed and how is this another step

function changed in each chapter? The

amount of capital that you needed to get

going has gone down, you know, not up.

When I was starting my first company, I

had to recruit these government um

mainframe programmers, have them learn

C++ and HTML and and I I needed a fair

amount of money to convince them to to

quit their jobs. And and each of my

subsequent companies today, you know,

you don't need that, right? You don't

need as much capital. You don't need to

go and necessarily recruit a whole team

of the world's best engineers. It's

being democratized

>> today really. Um there's it's more

possible than ever for somebody with an

amazing idea who's willing to move on it

now to really get somewhere um in a far

more capital efficient way.

>> Yeah. I mean I feel like we also saw

that in the pandemic of people just

being able to start things um while they

were home. Um I am curious about um the

speed of play because that is on your

book. Talk to us about that and the

importance of it.

>> Sure. So there was a lot of debate with

uh my my co-author Carly, my amazing

editor Hollis on the title to the book.

It was originally called Proven Better

New, which we can get into, but that's

this that's kind of some of the core

value in the book. And I eventually

said, you know, it's just that's not the

whole gist of the book. It's life at the

speed of play. And that's because it's

both it's both the the place that we are

moving into in this AI era. It's it's

it's really um I like I start the book

by saying that that this is Elon is the

one person who's already been living his

life at the speed of play and it I

definitely think he's having more fun

than the rest of us. Okay.

>> He's also working harder.

>> I want to push back on this cuz Carol

and I talked about this a lot.

>> He doesn't always look like he's having

fun.

>> Yeah. He he really I mean I think he's

been really public about having this

tortured existence and how difficult it

is to be Elon Musk and the challenges

that he struggled with. Uh

>> personally, I think more so than

professionally. Do you actually think

he's having more fun than the rest of

us?

>> I do. He's He's got an amazing sense of

humor. He's Every time I see him, he's

joking, laughing. I I was with him um at

a friend's house one night and it wasn't

long after he had bought Twitter and it

was basically like an hour of the best

stand-up comedy I've ever seen. I mean,

he the way he talked about his

experience of coming in to Twitter um

and how insane the company was was just

was just really funny. So So my point of

view, I mean whether he's having more

fun, who knows? Um, I think that that

what I what we can see, you know, I said

maybe he's the one who solved the

simulation. What we can see is that he

can almost tweet something into

existence that he said there this

traffic in LA is terrible. There should

be a boring tunneling company and then a

few months later and a few billion

dollars raised. There was and my point

is to some degree we all are on the

brink of living a a a part of that. And

and the reason I call this life of the

speed of play is that to me what the

book is really about is a product

mindset and and I think that every so

many of us have an idea but we don't

know how to pursue it or we are pursuing

an idea but the odds of success are too

low. Too many too many founders are

failing for the wrong reasons. So a good

idea is a good idea, but that's not

enough necessarily to run with something

and build something that lasts for

longer or has some significant impact.

Correct.

>> Yeah. And and it might be that you have

a good idea, but it's behind some some

like obvious mistakes that you're making

that the more junior a product maker or

founder is the and the less experienced

they are, the more likely they are to do

too much new, to just reinvent

everything. Steve Jobs talked about

this. So the the point of the book is I

I like to think that this book is like a

cheat code that you can whatever it is

you're doing, you can change your odds

of success and getting to a hit. It's

the book I wish I had early in my

career.

>> So is this for founders? Like who do you

like think about? It sounds like it is

for people who have an idea or want to

run with something, right? This book is

every one of your listeners right now

probably has some instinct. They have

some sense. It's either a specific idea

or a sense that something could be

better. And the the book is the point of

the book is that they should what is

when you think what should they do with

that instinct? Very few of them will act

on it and and turn that into a product

or a company. And then their odds of

success will be so low because they're

going to take one shot on goal and it's

probably going to miss.

>> Well, I I like how you write about that

in the book because you use the idea of

Uber as an example in the book. You you

had the idea for Uber in 2002.

SMS dispatching to a cab. Uh you're not

Travis Kalanick. Uh you did not start

Uber.

>> No.

>> So you you you make this argument that I

think a lot of people everybody has

these ideas.

>> I had that idea. Just because you had

that [laughter] idea doesn't mean you

actually create the company. Why did Why

was Travis able to do it, but Mark

Pinkis, who was in Silicon Valley in

2002, wasn't able to do it.

>> I can't tell you why Travis was, but I

can tell you why I wasn't. I didn't.

First of all, I looked at the world as

it existed, not as it could exist the

way that Travis did. And and by the way,

in 2002, there wasn't a mobile, you

know, smartphone. Then, and I thought

about it in these conventional ways. Oh,

I'm going to deliver your order to the

taxi broker who will call a cab. I

didn't ever think Travis's idea of the

gig economy. I'm going to let anybody

become a driver and have a driver within

a minute of you.

>> That was that was brilliant. But but I

had an instinct an instinct that we

should be able to

>> order a phone through our order a taxi

through our phone. And you know the the

the importance the point I'm trying to

get people to focus on in the book is

that if you assume your instincts are

right you know 95% of the time and your

ideas right at best 25% of the time what

would you do with that information you

know it's like a time machine.

>> You write about these instinct veins

deep sources of insight about human

needs and behavior that can spawn

multiple product ideas even whole new

industries. Is that what AI is right

now? Like what we're doing? Is that what

that is? Or is that

>> AI is beyond an instinct vein? I mean a

AI is is a fundamental shift in in

computing. I mean the way that the

internet was and so so I wouldn't

>> it's not apples to apples. Yeah. Yeah.

No, it's interesting. Um you know, one

of the things that I find also is some

of the things you talk about like

leadership. You talk about

micromanagement is beautiful. And I

think about how many times when you

think about leaders that it's like don't

micromanage people.

>> Yeah. I was told that so many times,

[laughter]

>> right? No, think about it. Like you

bring in, you know, you know, experts or

consultants and they're like don't

micromanage your people. Why is it so

important?

>> Why is it so important that you do do

that you do micromanage? Yeah. Because

the the point I'm trying to make here is

that at the end of the day, what matters

most is your customer experience.

>> Yeah.

>> Not how you delivered it. And so the

point to me is deliver the best possible

customer experience any way that you get

there. And if it's through

micromanagement, if if you can guarantee

the quality, if you can guarantee the

delivery because you micromanaged,

>> then by all means do that. I'm like, I

don't care that McDonald's served 15

million burgers today. That doesn't make

mine any better. I if I want the Colonel

cooking mine, you know,

>> yeah,

>> individually.

>> Well, that that's a major theme in the

book is is sort of throwing out this

idea of the minimum minimal viable

product. Yeah. I'm not going to repeat

what the chapter's called because no,

>> we're FCC regulated here, but um

>> we're family.

>> Well, that chapter you can say was an

MVP trap. So, [laughter] other chapters,

no.

>> Okay, cool. Maybe. Yeah, great. There it

is. Um why we've been sold this idea

though of iterating and Silicon Valley

sort of throws something, sees, you

know, see if what sticks and iterates on

that over and over again. Why wasn't

that ever right for you? Well, the the

original concept that Eric Reese had of

minimum viable product and moving fast

and being in the market is is a great

concept. It's just that we now we don't

the the point I make is that we no

longer have time to go wait the the

learning is too slow. If we build a

minimum viable product, there's hope in

the word viable that this might be your

launch product and then you're going to

invest more in that product than you

should. And I like to say just build it

wrong before you build it right. Just

build to learn. be whatever gets you

signal from your customer the fastest is

is and and in the age of AI we can

>> prototype something or test something so

much faster but it's dangerous what I'm

seeing with AI is less that people are

using AI to test and learn faster but

more build faster and so if I can build

something now in 3 months instead of

three years that's so alluring ing that

I might go do that but I don't have

three months to to learn I'm wrong. Does

that make sense? So I don't have that

viable word is is tricky.

>> Well I think you you had also shared in

the book uh the example of Twitch and

building you know the founder of Twitch

their team was was changing their

product every two or three days at that

point and

>> yeah they were twitchy

>> and that was that ended up being a good

thing for them.

>> Yeah

>> they got immediate feedback.

>> Yeah. Well, they I I don't even know if

it was getting any customer feedback.

The feedback was just from themselves.

It was I don't like this product idea

anymore. Let's switch. And so that's

also important. And part of I guess part

of the the what makes it so hard to be a

founder, to be a CEO, is that we're

supposed to express confidence when we

don't personally feel confidence, right?

And so, how do you come in on Monday and

what if you just what if you learned

something in the past week that just

said, "This product isn't quite right or

it's finally part built and you're like,

I'm just not that into it."

>> Right?

>> Do you go to your team on Monday and

say, "Guys, I know I I got you to work

nights and weekends for this, but I

don't think this is right anymore." Or

do you say, "Well,

I don't want to demotivate my team and

so I'm just going to continue on this

path for this whole product cycle or I

can't I'm afraid to tell my investors

who backed me that I was wrong." Right?

And so the question is, are you more

committed to the intellectual honesty or

to harmony?

>> I would say intellectual honesty. I

mean,

>> most people would not most people would

not act on it.

>> I know. I know. But it's like I don't

know. At some point you need to to be

doing that. Hey, we're talking with Mark

Pinkis, founder of Zingga. He's got a

new book out. It is entitled titled Life

at the Speed of Play. Launch Products

that people um love. Are there products

I mean the product cycle is it getting

shorter or or longer especially when it

comes to technology because I feel like

there are things that people are so into

and then they move on to the next thing

and there's so much out there. How

>> from a consumer standpoint? Well, I I

say in the book that I think there's a

metric that I don't know anyone but me

who focuses on it and my former teams.

Day 365 retention. So, if a 100 people

were using your product today, you know,

or a year ago today, how many would

still be using it today? And and it's

such a hard thing to build against

because we don't have a year to wait,

>> right? But you never would have made

your [snorts] that that maybe works from

a product perspective of building a

company but from a venture capital

perspective that doesn't work. You write

about what attracted you to Mark

Zuckerberg when he was a teenager still

was that they were able to sign up you

know schools 20% on the first day the

next 80% the next week like that

happened instantly.

>> Yes. didn't know but but it turns out

that this is um necessary but but not

necessarily complete and sufficient is

that that if you have 60% engagement 60%

of your users show up every day which

has been true to this day with Facebook

>> the likelihood that you have high day

365 retention is is highly correlated it

may not be the case um but it's highly

highly correlated.

>> Did you knew know the minute you like

spoke with him that this was just

something remarkable meaning Facebook?

>> Yes. Yes. And and by the way so would

you both of you? So people who point to

the fact that they invested you know

early on in in Facebook or these

companies as a sign that they're a great

investor. It's it does not necessarily

mean that they are a great

you know that their judgment is so great

because we all would have said yes their

access is very impressive you know

>> that that they had and you didn't have

so um I but but but here's what's so

painful if you think about it that story

is less like kudos to Mark that he

invested and it's more like like Mark

how is it like think about this how is

it that in 2004 before when I met him um

I was doing tribe I was doing one of the

first social networks right before I

started before he did

>> how did I manage to fail it's an act of

willpower that I failed it wasn't just

Facebook there was eight or nine social

networks there was BBO tagged MySpace

>> Fster which I invested in they all

worked I had to I had to pick one idea

that didn't work and and stoically,

heroically stick with it no matter what.

I don't care.

>> We are with Mark Pinkis. He's the

founder of Zingga. He's the author of

the new book. It's out this week. Life

at the speed of play. Launch products

people love. I want to pick up with a

headline that we just heard from Amy

just now. It's coming from the New York

Times about how Open AI is leaning

toward waiting until next year for its

IPO. Rob Copeland and Mike Isaac writing

this over at the New York Times saying

that they're holding off on their

initial public offering until next year.

Three people involved in the company's

deliberations said uh it punctuates an

uncertain future for fast rising AI

giants. That's again coming from the New

York Times. Mark, you're an investor in

in open AI. You understand also what

it's like to take a company public. You

did that with several companies and

different periods of your professional

life.

>> That means everything sometimes, right?

>> Sure. Yes. Like the last day of the IPO

window. Yeah. [laughter]

um just your your thoughts on on Open AI

and its path to becoming a public

company.

>> I I

I'd say

I I the one hand I'm I'm not sure how

much the timing matters other than if it

changes their access to capital. So I

don't think they can afford to get you

know significantly behind in the you

know capital and buildout race but it's

not clear that you know you have to

necessarily go public these days if you

look at the the sizes of investments. So

I I think OpenAI is just an amazing kind

of generational

>> company and I think people who count

them out uh and say this is all

anthropic uh are shortsighted and I

think that open AI has to catch up on

the coding side. I think we'll see that

happen with codeex and they have an they

have a clear advantage on the consumer

side which I think is currently being

under uh weighted. I think people

wrongly think this is all just about

coding and enterprise

>> and I just think that is where the

action is right now. That's where the

most revenue growth is right now. But

there's no question to me that consumer

the consumer side of AI will be just as

big if not bigger. So, so I know CO2 put

out a report calling a $6 trillion

market and I thought it was interesting

that they they capped consumer at 500

billion consumer AI out of 6 trillion.

That doesn't make sense to you. Two

trillion just for the engineering the

coding side. No, I I that doesn't make

any sense to me. That's that's not the

way we've seen the internet play out.

You seem to be someone who can think

super big about things. Like how should

we be thinking about AI and how it

changes our word world as consumers?

Like how is it going to at home, at

work, at play? Like how is it going to

change our our world? Or is it just

another amped up way of communicating

online?

>> I don't know. What is it? How do you

think about it?

>> It's not a way to communicate online yet

because it's still oddly a singleplayer

experience, right? We're not we're not

>> in the AI, we're not in the GPTs and the

chats

>> together. But but if you break your

question down, I think first if you

think, you know, how will it impact uh

our jobs and the job market, I think

we're very very quickly uh transitioning

from a knowledge worker economy to

something else we don't have a name for,

but it's going to be, you know, a prompt

worker. It's going to be about

>> being generative and we're going to be

uh whatever our job is we're it's going

to be very quickly I mean it's probably

changed a lot for you guys and right the

amount that we have to rely on the AI

but the amount of leverage we get and

the amount of that it's it's moving from

a value on knowledge to a value on

questions and curiosity You also have to

have knowledge to ask a smart question

for sure,

>> right? Like, and we're learning too, and

we talk about this a lot, that um I

forget who the one of the interviews we

recently had that like a really good

question with AI is going to be several

paragraphs long, right? Like if you

really want to get a a smart useful

information,

>> you guys both impressively read my book

and you have great questions. And I

think if you'd relied on the AI, it you

know, and I'll say even writing the

book, I had this lovehate relationship

with AI that if at first it's magical

and you're like, "Oh my god, it can take

this long talk I just gave and condense

it or can or editing is so painful, word

smithing, and then you start reading it

and it's getting it starts to get

homogenized and it's like it starts to

feel soulless and it's like where do my

voice go in this?" And I even tried a

style guide and I'm like, "I want you to

sound like my voice." And eventually I

was like, I don't want you to change my

words unless you absolutely have to. And

then eventually I said, you know what,

it's really helpful for some things.

It's part of a process to take a long

talk track and condense it to make it

more organized. But I started to really

kind of like a vinyl record, appreciate

the imperfections of how I talk and say,

you know what, that's that's my voice

and that's how you know it is me,

>> right? You know, a major theme in the

book is is making decisions that your

future self will respect. You have this

this framework, the book of life. Um,

which is, I think, a really important

way to set up the book. I I want to talk

about that just in the last couple

minutes we have in the context of you

being so public in 2024, coming out and

saying after so many years and so many

millions of dollars donating to

Democrats, I am now coming out in

support of President Trump. It was

surprised, I think, a lot of people to

see you do that. How did your your book

of life framework and your idea of like

looking back at that decision inform

that decision at the time?

>> It's it's such a good question. You

know, it's it's definitely not something

I signed up for in my book of life.

However,

it's it is important to me. intellectual

honesty is important to me and being

willing to take an unpopular stand and

and I feel like if if I can't do that,

if I'm so scared because of group think

and the consequences of being uh taking

a very unpopular position in my, you

know, a lot of my communities,

>> then who can and and it was actually my

daughter Georgia. I I I didn't decide

until the Sunday before the election

that I was going to vote for Trump. I

decided I was definitely not going to

vote for Kamla and I had lost faith in

the Democrats um and the mainstream

media establishment

um that that I stopped trusting in that

whole process and and I but I was also

being very transparent and public on

Twitter. I I started I wrote a post in

the free press saying not that I support

Trump but that that Biden at that time

in late July of 24 felt even riskier

than Trump was right. And that alone

started a storm if I can say that

word.

>> It's out there.

>> Okay. So [laughter] it's too late to

take it back. But but Georgia came to me

on a Sunday before the election. She

said, "Dad,

you know you're going to vote for Trump

at this point." And I said, "Yeah, I

think you're probably right." and she

said, "Then you have to tweet that

because you've been so open and

transparent." And I said, "Yeah, you're

right." And so then I I wrote a whole

post. Um, it was, I think, the most

viral post I've ever put up because I

think it was it was a oddly a touchstone

for a lot of people because I was kind

of like this

>> de big Democratic donor and breaking

ranks, you know, was and I'm kind of

like, it's funny to call it, but I'm

kind of like part of the like rank and

file Silicon Valley founders. Um, and so

it was, I think, a little um, scary to

some of the establishment to see this

crumbling.

>> Um, and and I put the post out and I put

my reasons out and it was on the front

page of the New York Post like the next

day. I didn't think it would be news.

Um, and you know, and it it really

really uh was much louder um, than I

anticipated. Um, and but I was like, you

know what? If if I'm gonna do it, I'm

I'm I'm not gonna It's silly that we

should have to hide our political views

because we're tagged with an identity.

And and I'll just say this.

>> I'm not on any team. And I said that

throughout. I said, I'm not on team

Democrats. I'm not on team MAGA. It

sounds cheesy. I'm team America. I'm

team my family community. And in this

environment where we just saw three

pretty extreme left Democratic

socialists win in New York, I don't know

that any of us can really say we're

identified with one party because the

who the party is is really shifting. I'm

a Chicago liberal. That's I've always

been that. I'm, you know, socially

liberal. I want people to have their own

rights and freedoms. And I'm fiscally

and economically

conservative. I want to see a

responsible government. I think I'm

stating some obvious things here that

80% of people 100 I don't know 90% of

people agree with. And so for that to

then define me as being right, you know,

far right and to hear journalists say I

need to get a I couldn't find a far

right founder in San Francisco. Can I

interview you? And I'm like, you want

me? I'm far right. I'm like I I'm still

here. Nothing's changed. So

>> it's a weird Yeah.

>> Yeah. It's so it's and and the

partnering with my future self is I I

even though it was painful and there was

some dislocations and I did um lose uh a

couple of dear friendships over it. Um I

I am happy that Mark 2024 No, I'm happy

Mark 2024 uh took a stand.

>> God, I feel like that's a perfect place

to to wrap. We don't really want to

wrap. We hope you will come back.

>> This is really fun and I was not

expecting you guys to have read my whole

book and have all of these uh really

insightful questions. So I I hope you

guys uh follow the the you know the

format my book. I hope that you take an

idea, prosecute it and as a side hustle

you build a huge business and then this

becomes your hobby.

>> I love it. I love it. Um, you give us a

lot to think about and I I have to tell

you we still have a bunch of questions

so you like I mean it. Please come back.

We would love it. Um, Mark Pinkis,

founder of Zinga, of course, founder of

several companies. Um, but his new book

is Life at the Speed of Play. Launch

Products People love. Um, there's a lot

in here and a lot of great stories.

>> Stay with us. More from Bloomberg

Business Week Daily coming up after

this. [music]

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Catch us live weekday afternoons from

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with the Bloomberg Business [music] App

or watch us live on YouTube.

>> I'm looking at shares of Micron. They're

off their best levels but still up 15

1.5%. Remember this was yesterday. We

were just talking about this is the one

to watch. Cameron [music] Christ said

after uh Nvidia and Alphabet, this is

the most important publicly traded

company out there.

>> Record high intraday. I mean Yeah.

>> Yeah. So this year

>> Mhm. Micron after today's rally up 325%.

>> Just a little bit of a rally there.

>> Qualcomm shares jumping too after the

chipmaker forecast annual sales of more

than $15 billion from AI components and

data centers by fiscal 2029. We got to

bring back Mandep Singh. He's global

head of technology research for our

Bloomberg intelligence team. He joins us

from New York. I asked you the question

yesterday Mandeep. Does does Micron make

or break a cycle? You said no. It's it's

not big enough to do that. But I think

it's fair to say after those results, it

it gives us a little idea of where we

are in the cycle. Is that fair?

>> It is. [clears throat] And look, uh, the

picks and shovels continue to show very

robust growth. And in the case of

Micron, uh, they now have, you know, 100

billion worth of contracts with 16 of

their customers. These are take or pay

contracts. And uh it gives them a lot of

revenue visibility along with the

margins. I mean 85% gross margins, 81%

operating margins. The kind of leverage

these companies are showing is just

phenomenal. So these kind of quarters

are hard to come by, but when they do,

you just got to applaud, you know, uh

what these companies have delivered.

>> Well, based on what they reported, how

many more quarters can they have like

this? I mean, what's the what's the uh

runway that you see for companies like

Micron?

>> It feels like it's hard to top this one

in terms of, you know, the magnitude of

the beat. So, I would say in terms of

upward revisions, uh we probably won't

get these kind of beats. But look that's

where when a company is going growing

triple digits

it's hard to imagine a scenario where

there will be a bust and suddenly uh you

know they will have negative growth or

anything like that which has happened

with micron. So uh you know but the kind

of demand drivers we see and I know the

comparison with Micron uh memory being a

commodity right now it definitely

doesn't feel anywhere close to a

commodity in terms of what they are

selling and the pricing power they're

showing. So until we get a big supply

expansion I just don't see how they will

you know suddenly uh go bust and uh you

know stop growing uh in in a few

quarters. Uh, are you surprised by the

the stock reaction? I'm not I'm you

know, we're not going to ask you to give

a rating on the stock or a price target.

Bloomberg Intelligence doesn't do that,

but I'm I'm just curious about your view

on how the stock has reacted.

>> No, I think these are strong

fundamentals and uh the stock should be

up on a print like this. So, if

anything, you know, they added more

visibility. They said they will report

RPO going forward, remaining performance

obligations and and that backlog number

should comfort a lot of the investors

who may think oh suddenly things may

change a couple of quarters from now and

we know the stock will be forwardlooking

but in this case uh you know it sounds

like uh the uh supply constraints will

exist through 2028 and so if a company

is printing you know earnings like this

then the stock deserves to be traded at

a higher multiple and uh I I think

that's what you're seeing in the

reaction today. Mandep you know speaking

of the semiconductor space the company

that we have talked about it feels like

non-stop for the last two two and a half

years is Nvidia and this one we have

seen it come down a lot um since about

mid let me just look at my numbers here

midMay it's down almost 20% a little bit

more than 17.5% here um I understand

we're talking a lot about memory but

what's going on with Nvidia

>> I mean look at you know Nvidia's supply

chain the fact that memory prices are

going up

>> that at some point has to reflect uh in

Nvidia's margins and they have to also

pay up uh you know Micron and Skhinix

and Samsung for higher memory costs even

if they are the largest player and they

have signed these long-term agreements

with Micron but I I feel like that's

where everyone is anticipating you know

the margins can't go any higher because

of all the inflation we are seeing in

the component pricing

and they are seeing more competition.

Open AAI just yesterday announced a new

chip with Broadcom. Granted, it will

take 9 months to tape out. But if you

start looking, you know, three four

quarters out, then you start to feel

like Nvidia will probably have more

competition and that's where I think

it's getting reflected in the valuation

and the stock reaction.

>> Well, speaking of stock reaction, Apple

shares fell as much as 6.6%

in today's session. this after the

company raised the prices of Macs,

iPads, home devices, and the Vision Pro

to offset cost hikes caused by a

shortage of the memory chips and storage

that we're talking about with regard to

Micron and others. Why is the stock

reacting this way? Does this does this

show or why are investors reacting this

way? Does it show that there's not

confidence that Apple has the pricing

power and there could be some demand

destruction?

Yes, I I think that demand destruction

aspect is definitely obvious here

because uh you can't expect to sell the

same units if your product is you know

20% more uh expensive uh now and so even

though Apple has the pricing power and

you know a lot of their customers will

uh be willing to pay that price but the

unit growth will have an impact and uh

look for some of the other hardware OEMs

they may not even have the option to

raise prices because the demand

destruction could be severe. I don't

think that's the case with Apple because

of their customer base. But this memory

pricing will trickle down to uh uh you

know the margins of a lot of hardware

OEMs and and that's where uh you know

there is no free lunch in terms of

paying up for memory and uh you know uh

the margins being stable for everyone

else out there and I I think you will

start to see the margin impact uh kind

of flow through for a lot of the

companies that don't have the pricing

power

>> mandep these higher prices do they

continue for a lot longer you know we

talked with you about this all the time,

the imbalances between supply and demand

right now and the semis always being a

little bit cautious about, you know,

further building out because they've

seen the booms and busts. Should we

assume that these higher prices are

going to persist longer um rather than a

shorter time period?

Well, the risk here that I see with that

uh you know continuous pricing story is

uh if let's say there is no big use case

after coding agent. Right now everyone

is bowled up about coding agent and how

large addressable market there is for

coding agents. What if there is no new

uh use case beyond coding agents? That's

when let's say a Meta or a Microsoft

pulls back on their capex then suddenly

I think that enthusiasm is is going to

settle down and and probably people

won't be as excited about their capex

because right now a lot of the

hyperscalers are eating the memory

prices in their capex

>> and I think that is the risk to that

story that if one of them pulls back

because they're not seeing the gains you

will start to see some impact on memory.

All you need to know folks right there

Mandep Singh [laughter] thank you so

much. Uh that of course is the global

head of uh technology research for our

Bloomberg intelligence team. He is Mand

Singh joining us right here in New York.

>> This is the Bloomberg Business Week

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