New York Tech Sector Prepares for Mayor-Elect Mamdani

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0:11Bloomberg Tech is live from coast to coast with Caroline Hyde in New York and Ed Ludlow in San Francisco.

0:22This is Bloomberg Tech. Coming up, AMD fails to impress with its latest earnings. Shares volatile amid rising AI valuation concerns from investors. Plus, a historic victory for Zoran Mamdani, the new mayor of New York. We'll discuss what his election means for the city's tech scene and all eyes on Tesla as the company's shareholders are set to vote on a proposed $1 trillion pay package for Elon Musk. There are two names in the markets that we're watching most closely, and that's in the earnings context right now. AMD has basically swung between modest declines and modest gains all morning long.

0:59It gave an outlook for the current period that was well in line with consensus, but did not beat the most bullish estimates. Everyone's trying to work out, is there making some ground up in the AI data center context in the near term? Or is it their legacy businesses, processes for PC, CPUs for servers doing the business? Supermicro, similar story. The outlook for earnings in the current period below consensus. Traction struggles when it comes to have they worked this whole AI thing out on the server side? That's locked down 7%. Let's get those stories with Bloomberg's executive editor for tech, Peter Elstrom, and start with AMD.

1:36It's been really hard to pass this one, right? When the stock fell initially, you're like, OK, the stock rally over in chips. But actually, investors are just playing what AMD has put in front of them. Right, right. It's been a rough 24 hours for chip stocks. We saw that in Asia. We also saw it in Europe. AMD is a bit of a different story. The stock has been on such a tear. It's up about 100 percent this year so far. I think investors were looking for an impressive result from them. What they're really looking for is AMD, as you alluded to, they still have a hand in the traditional business of PCs and servers, and they're moving more aggressively into this AI space to compete with NVIDIA.

2:17Now, they're not growing as quickly as NVIDIA. NVIDIA is up growing in the 50 % range at this point. AMD has been more in the 30 % range. People really want to see whether the AI business, the AI chips that AMD is offering are going to take off and AMD is going to be able to accelerate that growth rate. We didn't see that. As you mentioned, they did have a pretty solid beat on the revenue side, but it was not as high as some people had been expecting. Also, the operating expenses were a little bit higher than expected, probably suggesting that more their business was on the old traditional PC business rather than the AI business.

2:52Peter, help us make sense of Supermicro. There was a time where that was a stock and a name caught up in broad enthusiasm for AI. But at the end of the day, Supermicro assembles servers and server designs for others. What do we learn from their print? Right. Well, Supermicro has had a few cross-currents that we have been looking at. They had some accounting issues. They announced a couple of revisions to what they were reporting in their financials. And now their outlook is coming in a little bit light. Their revenues for the current quarter were a little light. Also, their projection for the next quarter is a little bit light.

3:30I think people are concerned that this has been an AI play. They have benefited from the fast growth in AI demand in the past. But it looks like they're losing some of that momentum at this point. That could be because competitors like Dell are picking up more market share. It could also be because we're seeing some of these companies do more of this construction, the building the AI chips into servers themselves, and that would take away business from Supermicro. Bloomberg's Peter Elstrom with the summary. Thank you very much. Let's get some more on AMD, the wider chip sector, and what's really happening with AI valuations.

4:02Joanne Feeney, Advisors, Capital Management Partner, and Portfolio Manager, joins us. I restart with you how I did with Peter, right? The market is confronted with AMD's earnings and trying to work out, is this them gaining some territory on NVIDIA in the accelerator card market? Or are they getting a boost, particularly in the quarter gone, from those legacy business lines, PC processors, CPU for server? Let's just start there. What did you learn from AMD? Yeah, good morning, Ed. We're seeing all of that from AMD. And let's start with the old boring part of AMD, right? The PC CPUs, the standard server CPUs, where they're clearly continuing to gain share versus Intel.

4:44And that's a good cash generator for the company. So we shouldn't dismiss that acceleration that we saw there, that success that they're continuing to deliver in terms of share gains. Obviously, a lot of investors are still focused pretty much on the AI opportunity. And what's interesting there is that they've just gotten started. They've only now developed solutions for those accelerators that meet the quality for inference, for example, potentially for training that NVIDIA has. In the past, when we've seen AMD leapfrog Intel back in the old days, they gained an enormous amount of share. We saw that again this time around.

5:20Now they have a new opportunity to gain share in the AI accelerator. We're not seeing them gain share except for just a little bit as they get started today. But I think that's something we can look forward to. Bloomberg's Ian King, who you know, made a really simple point yesterday on the program ahead of AMD earnings. The data center category is just north of$4 billion a quarter business. NVIDIA's data center category is$40 billion or north of$40 billion each quarter. In aggregate, do you see all those ships rising right now with the tide that is AI and infrastructure investment? then? It still is, Ed.

6:00We're still seeing the pie expand or the tide rise, whatever analogy you want. But what AMD has that NVIDIA doesn't have is an opportunity to take a greater share of that pie as it grows. And so, you know, I expect we're going to see both companies continue to grow very strongly over time. We own both of those for clients. I own both of them personally, because I think this is an opportunity in AI that is just beginning. I think we have many years ahead. And what we're seeing also in those results from AMD and elsewhere is that enterprises, sovereigns are looking to deploy AI. And that's what's helping to continue to grow that pie.

6:39Joanne Feeney, bear with us. New York City, Mayor-elect Zoram Amdani is speaking in Queens, New York. I now hold. The poetry of campaigning may have come to a close last night at nine, but the beautiful prose of governing has only just begun. The hard work of improving New Yorkers' lives starts now. That process begins with transition. In the coming months, I and my team will build a City Hall capable of delivering on the promises of this campaign. We will form an administration that is in equal parts capable and compassionate, driven by integrity and willing to work just as hard as the millions of New Yorkers who call this city home.

7:25And central to that effort is a transition team that is defined by the excellence New Yorkers will soon come to expect from government. Our team will be directed by Ilana Leopold, whose roots in this city extend back to her grandmother running the trams on Roosevelt Island. She has extensive experience in city government and has been a key part of our campaign to become the next mayor of this city. And it will be led by our formidable co-chairs, former Federal Trade Commissioner Chair Lina Khan, former First Deputy Mayor Maria Torres Springer, United Way President and CEO Grace Bonilla, and former Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Melanie Hartsock.

8:09Over the coming days, we'll start announcing the leaders who will implement our agenda. People like deputy mayors who oversee entire areas of government. And the commissioners who carry out the critical work of city agencies. Some of these people will have familiar names. Others will not. What will unite them will be a commitment to solving old problems with new solutions. We will cast a wide net. We will speak to the organizers on the front lines of the fight to improve our city, government veterans with proven track records, policy experts from around the country and the world, and working people who know better than anyone what their neighborhoods need.

8:50Throughout this campaign, I have worked hard to be accessible and transparent with New Yorkers. That same spirit will animate this transition and the City Hall we build, because New Yorkers deserve a government that they can trust. And on January 1st, when our city celebrates the inauguration of a new administration, let us also celebrate a new era for our city, one that we all feel invested in and whose success we all work to achieve. Now, it is my pleasure to invite Ilana Leopold to deliver a few words. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Ilana Leopold, and I'm very honored to serve as the executive director of mayor-elect Mamdani's leadership team.

9:38I want to thank Zoran for his faith in me, both on the campaign trail. That was New York City Democratic mayor-elect Zoran Mamdani speaking after his win last night, elected the 111th mayor of New York City, the youngest mayor-elect in a century. Let's get the reaction now and some of the technology perspective. An avowed democratic socialist in charge of the city that serves as the capital of global finance, increasingly a major technology hub. Judy Samuels is the CEO of TechNYC, a network of tech leaders working to foster New York's tech scene. She joins us now and will give us the reaction.

10:19um tech myc will this mayor be a good mayor for your industry in new york city oh listen i think we don't know um i think what's good for new york tends to be good for tech here uh zorn mamdani ran on a campaign of making new york affordable um of he ran in a campaign that really celebrated a lot of what people love about New York. People love to be out in the streets. So if people want to be here, if young people want to be here, the tech companies will continue to want to be here. And clearly, we heard loud and clear yesterday that a lot of young people want Zoran Mamdani to be mayor. There are a lot of tech workers who voted for him.

11:01Of course, you know, that's the bull case, right? The bear case, of course, is that you're going to have someone who is anti-business. I hope that's not the case, but there's so many unknowns right now. Julie, you said that a lot of the technology industry turned out and voted for him. Voter turnout was a critical data point overnight. What's your reaction to that data point? Listen, as a practical matter, I think more people voting always better. So we're really glad to see that was the case. And in fact, even as early as the primary, months ago, the data were very clear that people who worked in tech were donating a lot of money to Zoran Mamdani's campaign.

11:44So it's not a surprise. You know, we can quickly or easily, I should say, draw a line to understand that a lot of tech workers, young tech workers, did vote for him yesterday. Clearly, you know, so much about Zoran's campaign, I think, resonated with people in the tech industry. It had the flavor of a startup. It really disrupted the status quo of politics in New York. And I think that resonated with a lot of people who work in tech. Julie, there is always a difference, of course, between policy platform in the context of a campaign and then policy platform when in office. But the consensus seems to be that Mr.

12:24Mamdani is in favor of sort of pro-housing revisions to the city's charter, right? Making housing available and more affordable. Technology as a sector tends to have higher pay and perhaps apply to a higher to middle income earning bracket. Are they really going to be focused on a policy around affordable housing? Well, I think that's a really great question. And in fact, the organization I run, TechNYC, put out research with Zillow just maybe a year ago that showed that even people who have high paying jobs in tech are having a hard time affording housing in New York City. So it is not when we talk about affordable housing, it is it runs across the entire spectrum for so many people.

13:14It's unaffordable. And so I think that more housing is better for tech in New York. We've seen the same dynamic in San Francisco, of course, the need to build more housing. So more people from across the economic spectrum can live here, build their careers here, grow their family here. I'm really incredibly in favor of the pro-housing initiatives that won yesterday. Is there an opportunity, Julie, for you to work with this mayor and this administration to bring a sort of closer relationship? Apologies between you and the administration. Absolutely. I think there's a lot of opportunity. I think the thing I'm most hopeful about is modernizing government, government efficiency.

13:56Zohar Mamdani is a very progressive candidate, now mayor, elect. And progress means government that works better. So we need to unleash technology in New York City government to work better for New Yorkers. But we also will need to be really careful when we work with his team or sometimes when we disagree with his team to ensure that the tech economy continues to thrive here, that businesses continue to grow here. This is the future of the economy in the world. Technology is, of course, and needs to also be the future of the economy in New York City. So we have to work together. We have no other choice.

14:36What do you disagree with his team on and what would you ask Mr. Mamdani to reconsider in terms of policy? Oh, that's a really that's a great question. I think that I don't know what we disagree with necessarily at this point, but I can tell you what we'll be watching for. Again, the use of technology in government. We think that's crucial. And I want to make sure that his team, that the incoming mayor understand that some of that requires some experimentation and requires being open-minded about new uses of technology. Also, I think there are concerns that I hope don't come to be, but there are some concerns that there's kind of like an anti-business dynamic.

15:18We haven't talked about raising taxes. I haven't brought that up because you can't do that without the state. You can't do that without Albany. Obviously, a lot of people in tech would not be excited about more income tax, more corporate tax. So that I'm sure will be an issue that comes up over the next four years. New York City Mayor-elect Zoran Mamdani, the 111th mayor of New York to be elected, is an avowed Democratic socialist. And one of the big stories of this year, 2025, has been the move of key figures in the technology industry to put themselves in close proximity to President Trump and the administration currently in the White House.

16:00Are both of those things achievable at the same time for Mr. Mamdani to have relationships with key figures in your industry at the same time that they try and be close to this president and the Republican Party? I think that's a really good question, and I think we're going to see. I'd point out that most of the particular tech leaders you're talking about are actually not New Yorkers, but they do run companies that have incredibly large presences in New York City. I think that, I hope that, let me say, I hope that Zohra Mamdani and his team fundamentally understand that the future of our city's economy, the future of opportunity for New Yorkers is inextricably intertwined with the growth of the tech sector here.

16:41And if those jobs aren't here, they will go somewhere else. And if those resources aren't here, they will go somewhere else. And I just have to believe, I do believe, that we can find a way to work together to ensure that all New Yorkers have the opportunity to benefit from the growth that technology is bringing to the city. Let's end that there then, Julie, by asking what is the one first ask that you have for mayor-elect Momdani on behalf of your members and the technology industry in New York City? I think the first big ask will be to really drill down and figure out how we can find a way to use technology to make New York City government work better for New Yorkers.

17:22Julie Samuels, CEO of TechNYC, with immediate reaction to Mayor-elect Zoran Mamdani speaking for the first time since his win last night. There are other news headlines. It's time for Talking Tech. And first up, the U.S. government says it's nearing the end of its investigation into Google's$32 billion acquisition of cybersecurity firm Wiz. The deal announced in March prompted an in-depth probe by the Justice Department. While that review is now wrapping up, the acquisition remains under scrutiny from other antitrust regulators. Plus, Google and Epic Games have reached a settlement in their long-running antitrust dispute over how developers distribute and monetize apps on the Android platform.

18:02The deal follows Google's court-ordered Play Store changes to allow more competition. Exact terms of the agreement weren't disclosed. And the scientist who led Tencent's flagship AI model has raised$50 million for his new startup, Video Rebirth, which aims to rival OpenAI's Sora. Founded by Li Wei, the company seeks to make video creation as intuitive as chatting with an AI. The platform's expected to launch in December. Okay, coming up, Amazon goes after perplexity, suing the AI startup from using its own AI tool to help shoppers. We've got more on that next. This is Bloomberg Tech.

18:55Amazon is suing perplexity over its AI shopping tool known as Comet, which helps users buy items on Amazon. The retail giant alleges perplexity committed computer fraud and violated its terms of service by failing to disclose when Comet was making purchases on behalf of real people. For more, let's get to Bloomberg's Matt Day, who leads our coverage of Amazon. This is an interesting move. We've covered Comet and perplexity on the show. We understand Amazon. Just, I think, start by explaining the grievance that Amazon has and the accusation Amazon's making against perplexity and what they're doing.

19:34So Amazon says that, you know, what Perplexity is doing here is masking who's on its website, right? They've alleged that Perplexity inserted sort of the same code that would make Amazon systems think it was just a regular Google Chrome user when, in fact, it was an automated agent going on their site. And so Amazon's raised a whole host of concerns, you know, saying account integrity could be compromised, saying, you know, if someone has to make a return, you know, who's at fault, what goes on here. It's basically kind of a turf war over the customer experience on their retail side. Okay, we've heard from Perplexity, both through a spokesperson, but they also put out their own commentary on a blog.

20:10Summarize it for us. So they're accusing Amazon of bullying. They say they don't see a meaningful distinction between a user who has said, listen, I want to purchase something on Amazon. I'm going to authorize Perplexity to go make the computer plumbing that makes that work. They say that's no different than someone navigating with a mouse and keyboard. right obviously Amazon has a different view but perplexity seems to want to take a stand here and and kind of stick up for for this new potential commerce venue that they're deploying with their comment browser right you you cover Amazon so deeply like is this the playbook Amazon goes to are they typically litigious are they looking over their shoulder in a real way I think they really are looking over their shoulder here I mean they've said AI is going to change everything You know, there's debates going on right now about what is a browser.

20:56So this is probably the first of many debates we're going to have, you know, in public and in private as these companies negotiate on just how, you know, who owns the experience when agents are going all over the Internet rather than individual users with hands and eyes. Really quick, what happens next? Oh, we'll see if they settle, right? And I don't think anybody wants to see this go to court and all this nasty discovery come out, right? So I think the obvious question in a case like this is can they come to some agreement? Bloomberg's Matt Day out of Seattle. Thank you very much. Another story.

21:27It was the breakout hit of the summer. K-pop Demon Hunters became Netflix's biggest original film of all time. Now with the chance to build a global franchise, there's just one thing missing for the holiday season. The merch. Bloomberg's entertainment editor Lucas Shaw is here with more. I've learned through you in attending screen time in the context of movie, TV, video games, that merchandising and franchising into other IP or from the core IP is so important. Basically, those big K-pop fans are not going to be able to get hold of certain toys and other other things this holiday season. Explain the story to us.

22:06Well, it comes back to the movie, which was a surprise hit. when you have a new property, you go to retailers and toy manufacturers, your Mattel, your Hasbro, Walmart, Target, and say, hey, we have this movie coming in like a year or two. We think it's going to be really popular with kids. Do you want to partner on things? Will you give a shelf space? Because they need that. The toy manufacturers in particular need time to make the toys, which takes a while and it involves international shipping and all of that. And there was not a lot of confidence in this project, both because it was an original animated movie, which those types of movies haven't done very well at the box office.

22:42Mostly sequels have been doing well. And Netflix just doesn't have a track record in this regard. And so it was only after this movie became so popular that everyone scrambled. And they now say they're moving the fastest they've ever moved, but it still means that a lot of the toys and other things won't be available until next year. We know that the holiday quarter is really important. For example, we talk about it in the context of the new iPhone being on sale. But I guess in this story, who's suffering here? Like, is it Netflix that is going to have to claw to make up some ground? Where is the kind of opportunity lost or revenue lost?

23:17Yeah, I think it's shared between the toy companies, the retailers and Netflix. But they would all like to believe and they're all saying that it is sort of short term pain. That, yes, they won't have all they can't maximize what they're getting from the holiday season. but they will have properties next year and that this is something they're building for the long term and that if the second movie which won't come for four years is really popular that this will all sort of be a footnote in history now that's dependent on them making a good second movie and building the bridge um but short-term pain lucas really quick warner brothers discovery what's the need to know i mean all everyone's going to want to know about is who's buying them and how.

24:03The company is, the cable networks are not doing so hot. Is streaming growing? How's HBO Max looking? The movie studio had a pretty decent summer. But the big question hanging over the company is who's going to buy it. Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw, who leads our coverage of screen time and entertainment. Thank you very much.

24:28Welcome back to Bloomberg Tech. Let's get a look at the markets, some of the other stories we're trying to pass, a lot of it's still earnings related. And look at this one. Pinterest is down more than 21 % on track for its biggest drop since the middle of 2022. And it's all about an outlook for the holiday quarter that is completely tepid. The market is reacting to this with some severity. And how common is that story across all of the names that we've been tracking? But when the team met this morning to plan the show, we were like, whoa, we need to get this one in. It's as simple as the outlook for the holiday period, and we'll give you more when we get it.

25:02Okay, other news that we're tracking. Apple is said to be adding a new cheaper MacBook to its lineup, rivaling Google's Chromebooks and Windows PCs. Bloomberg Samantha Kelly joins us now for more. So this is an interesting one. I'm a MacBook user. I also have a Windows-based PC that I use through work. The main thing is the price differential in the market. MacBooks are typically very expensive relative to a much broader range of available Windows or other operating system-based PCs. I think there's a place to start. Tell us about what we know from the reporting about a new cheaper MacBook. That's right.