Tariff Uncertainty, AI Unease Rattle Tech Shares

16:57Caroline Hyde:So I think for a long time we've been saying we don't necessarily know who the AI winners and losers are. And it's kind of like investors actually decided to put their money behind that with the recent sell-off that we had. and I think people have realized that they don't necessarily know who those winners are going to be and just sort of indiscriminately sold a lot of the market. I think there will be software companies that can do incredibly well out of this because AI can dramatically reduce their cost to deliver programming. It can make things more efficient, reduce their expenses, deliver better experience.

17:29Caroline Hyde:But executing all that is really difficult and not every software company is going to be able to do it. Will you learn much from just earnings and fundamentals this time, Shanti? Could that be where investors decide to try and catch a falling knife, so to speak? I think it's hard to see people changing their minds so quickly only in the last few weeks. But the technology sector does move incredibly fast, as we've seen. You know, you can have those moments like DeepSeek where everything seems to change overnight. But usually the sell-offs are quick and then it takes time to rebuild the momentum.

18:02Caroline Hyde:Shanti, what is your view? What are you in rooms discussing that, yes, we are at this point where AI is going to eat software instead of software eating the world? Or do you think companies will ultimately survive this shift to be able to rebuild from within? I think a lot of companies will be able to survive it. I think the big thing we're looking at is how much AI is starting to impact industries outside of technology. And that's where valuations are lower. You're starting to see it come into shopping. You're starting to see it come into the wealth industry to make it easier to comply with regulations, banking and finance, certainly.

18:38Caroline Hyde:And I think that's where if some of those sectors can start to demonstrate that they're using the technology well and adopting it, then they'll really be rewarded.

18:47Ed Ludlow:Tariffs. It's very hard to join all of the pieces of bad news, so to speak, together. But the tech sector's view on tariff policy uncertainty right now?

18:58Caroline Hyde:I mean, I think obviously it lowers rates slightly on places like, you know, Asia, China, which helps some of those manufacturing bases. So maybe it marginally reduces some of their costs. I think the long term trend of technology companies trying to diversify their production and having manufacturing in the U.S., in Mexico and still in Asia as well, going to India. I don't think that's going to change because people don't think the uncertainty is going to go away. and we still will probably have an unpredictable policy environment. So you want to be able to have all of your options open. Probably it helps unbalance some of the software, the things that are producing actual physical goods, but we'll see how long this rate stays in place.

19:40Caroline Hyde:We could all change in 150 days, as we know. Shanti Kellerman, 07IM, it's great to have you on the show. Thank you very much indeed. Meanwhile, coming up, Blue Owl Capital. It permanently shuts the gates on one of its funds, making the private credit market even more jittery after existing AI concerns. Stick with us. This is Bloomberg Tech.

20:15Ed Ludlow:Today's show is brought to you by Vanguard. To all the financial advisors listening, let's talk bonds for a minute. Capturing value and fixed income is not easy. Bond markets are massive, murky, and let's be real, lots of firms throw a couple flashy funds your way and call it a day. But not Vanguard. At Vanguard, institutional quality isn't a tagline. It's a commitment to your clients. We're talking top-grade products across the board of over 80 bond funds, actively managed by a 200-person global squad of sector specialists, analysts, and traders. These folks live and breathe fixed income. So if you're looking to give your clients consistent results year in and year out, go see the record for yourself at Vanguard.com slash audio.

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22:17Caroline Hyde:Morgan Stanley Investment Management is looking away from AI and adding to emerging market bets that are insulated from the AI boom. Now, the firm's deputy chief investment officer says it is positioning itself for a potential pullback in the crowded tech trade following rising concerns over stretched valuations and heavy capital spending by U.S. tech giants. Ed.

22:38Ed Ludlow:Blue Owl Capital has permanently shut the gates on one of its funds, preventing investors from withdrawing their cash and is selling assets to return investor capital. It's the latest sign of frenzy in a$1.8 trillion private credit market, troubled with worry about overspending on AI. Bloomberg's private credit reporter Silas Brown joins us. If you look at kind of what's happened in the public markets, how some of these names and credit have traded, there is something behind that that's related to technology. Take it from there. Yeah, I think it's fundamentally important in what's going on in private credit.

23:15Ed Ludlow:I mean, private credit and private equity to a certain extent as well. They kind of prided themselves on selecting certain industries that they considered to be anti-cyclical or non-cyclical. And that kind of shrinks the pool. And one of the kind of darlings of choice was software as a service. And so you'll find with Blue Owl, but Blue Owl is by no means an anomaly, a big concentration of exposure to software and software as a service. And I think with this kind of transformative paradigmatic or whatever kind of big word you want to use, effects or likely effects that AI has on that industry makes it very hard for investors to judge even, I mean, perhaps not short term, but certainly midterm and long term prospects for a lot of these businesses.

24:08Caroline Hyde:And judgment, transparency, that's exactly what the private credit market doesn't have much of, Silas. And it's interesting that Bank of America today is putting out a note saying there is a significant level of misinformation weighing on Blue Owl stock and the private credit industry in general. Silas, how can they appease that and really talk to a more transparent era when you are seeing them close funds and indeed not allow people to access money?

24:34Ed Ludlow:Yeah, well, I think there's sort of several tectonic plates that are shifting under private credit. I mean, with Blue Owl in particular, and BDCs more generally, I mean, they are kind of retail-oriented funds. And so there's a question about investor withdrawals and kind of what happens if you have a kind of avalanche of withdrawals at the same time. BDCs have gating systems, which Blue Owl, by the way, has redeemed every investor withdrawal so far, apart from this new one where it's shifting, it's kind of slightly complicated, but it's shifting a legacy system, finding a way of shifting a legacy system, investors outside of that system.

25:16Ed Ludlow:So, you know, there are kind of, I don't know what Bank of America's notes was specifically saying, But I mean, I think there's been a lot of noise around Blue Owl recently regarding investor withdrawals and kind of what will happen with jitteriness amongst the retail client base. But that undergirded by, I think, a kind of preponderance of software exposure in the dawn of AI, I think is concerning investors.

25:45Caroline Hyde:Certainly is. I'm going to make Silas Brown all across that story for us. Thank you very much indeed. Now, coming up, President Trump looks to rebuild his global tariff policy after the Supreme Court struck down his use of the IEPA law. That's next. This is Bloomberg Tech.

26:13Ed Ludlow:Welcome back to Bloomberg Tech. Some breaking news crossing the Bloomberg terminal. PayPal is receiving takeover interest from different parties, according to Bloomberg sources. The payments company has fielded meetings with some of its banks amid unsolicited interest. In one case, a large rival is looking at buying the whole of PayPal. In other cases, according to the Bloomberg reporting, different parties are interested in certain PayPal assets. This is a stock that's down 30 % year to date. It's down almost 50 % over the last 12 months. And part of the reporting is that the pressure on that stock and the downward trajectory is what is leading to an environment where that takeover interest is in place.

26:56Ed Ludlow:PayPal declined to comment on Bloomberg's reporting. Cara?

27:00Caroline Hyde:Involving one. Now, let's return to our top story today, Ed. Trade uncertainty. That's as President Trump reshapes his global tariff policy, signaling a potential 15 % rate. Now, that debate is front and center in Washington. when the National Association of Business Economics, as a gathering of leading economists, is underway. And where the Supreme Court's ruling on Trump's tariff authority, there's probably a key focus. Bloomberg International Economics and Policy Editor Michael McKee joins us now. And look, the theme of the gathering is actually the great realignment, navigating AI, demographic, and geo-economic shifts.

27:31Caroline Hyde:Let's focus on geo-economic shifts first, Mike. What's everyone discussing?

27:37Ed Ludlow:Well, everybody's trying to figure out where this is all going and what it will lead to. and there's not a lot of consensus on it yet. The Fed Governor Christopher Waller spoke this morning and said it's very uncertain to them. He's going to give a major speech tomorrow. Also, Fed Governor Lisa Cook is talking on AI here tomorrow. Today we've got some workshops with people from AI companies. There's one underway right now. Peter McCrory of Anthropoc, he is their chief economist, is talking about their economic index and their efforts to track the impacts that AI is having on the labor market. And basically he's saying the same thing that everybody's saying.

28:15Ed Ludlow:It's a major impact, but it's uncertain where they're going for right now. And it's uncertain what kind of effects it will have on productivity and on the labor market. Although right now what Anthropic is seeing is there's a lot of impact on things like accounting, things that can be automated. The idea that you can get things to do the things that humans do on a computer is what's changing. But so far, they're not seeing a major impact on what the relationship is between humans and other humans. If you have a forward-facing job with the public, it's not clear what AI is going to be able to do.

28:58Ed Ludlow:He did note, though, that the speed at which AI can process tasks that humans do is doubling every seven months. So anything they say now is probably going to be somewhat obsolete fairly quickly. Mike, you joined the show on Friday, post-Supreme Court decision. AIPA struck down. Then there's a series of true social posts over the weekend and quasi-policy announcements and actions. The net result, as far as I can understand it, is the overall weighted tariff rate is only slightly marginally lower. On the ground there, is that the understanding of everyone else or is there still great sort of policy uncertainty for tariffs?

29:41Ed Ludlow:Well, there's both. It is the tariff that's going in place, 15%, Trump can do legally. So people are operating under the assumption that for now that's going to be the average weighted tariff. But it would change once they start bringing in tariffs on sectors or countries based on some of the other sections of the trade law they can use. But those have to have investigations, and they have to be shown harm to various sectors or harm from various countries. And so the tariff levels and when they would be imposed, still not certain. What it does is just kind of push out the uncertainty that we have seen.

30:21Ed Ludlow:And as Governor Waller said today, it doesn't change much of the Fed's thinking because the Fed is trying to look through the tariffs. It'll be a one-time shot to inflation, but now it means it'll happen later than perhaps they thought. So they just have to wait for it. And everybody's got to wait and see when the president puts these tariffs on to decide what the impact is going to be.

30:43Caroline Hyde:Uncertainty abound, whether it's AI or whether it's trade. Mike McKee on the ground in Washington. Thank you very much indeed. Let's get more on the trade impact investors are watching, on the broader earnings, on the AI picture with Jed Ellabrook of Argent Capital Management. So let's start with tariffs because that's the key headline everyone faces today. How do you think companies navigate this? Does it change your investment thesis at all?

31:06Ed Ludlow:Yeah, I think you guys covered it well. Overall slight reduction in the effective tariff rate over the next five months as that 1.30 or 1.22 investigation period goes for the next five months. But after that significant uncertainty, the midterm elections will have an impact. and yeah will it delay investment decisions I think it'll make people think twice I think it'll probably make make decision processes slow down a little bit and then on the other hand business leaders investors have been getting used to President Trump and his tactics and preferences and negotiating style over the last you know geez more than 12 months now here in his second term and so I think perhaps a bit of normalcy set in I guess I'm not giving you a very good answer but I think that there are kind of push and pull in both directions.

31:52Caroline Hyde:So they are confronted by ongoing uncertainty in a geopolitical environment. But Jed, the eye of the storm has been on software names and the uncertainty that AI injects there. Are you seeing any sort of ability to buy the dip yet?

32:06Ed Ludlow:I think that this private equity and also strategic investor interest in PayPal is instructive and probably going to happen quite a bit over the next 12 months. The payment space, of which PayPal is a member, has been hit really, really hard over the last one year and even further back, if you look. And so, yeah, I think you'll see strategic investors, private equity-backed investors, start to sniff around areas like payments, areas like software. And it wouldn't surprise me one bit if you see a pickup in M &A in those areas as investors seek value and try to kind of pick through the rubble in an area that's been fairly well bombed out in the last six months.

32:47Ed Ludlow:Jed, I appreciate you reacting to that breaking story. Basically, sentiment out there is quite negative right now. Tariffs, software, geopolitical risk. From the market participant side of the table, particularly focused on the tech sector, are things as dire as the news headlines would have us suggested at the moment? It's such a unique environment because we've seen a handful. Most software companies report fairly good fourth quarter 2025 earnings. Most of them issue reasonably good guidance for 2026 or at least the first quarter of 2026. and yet investors don't care about that at all. Their concerns lie further down the road a couple years out as these AI tools continue to develop.

33:33Ed Ludlow:The last speaker talked about a doubling of capacity or capability every seven months. If that continues for the next couple years on end, you will certainly see some of the more point solution software companies struggle with AI capability competition. And then there will be other software companies that have really deep tentacles inside organizations, really form the backbone of companies' workloads and processes and data storage and data analysis. And I think that they will thrive. So it's a mixed picture. Salesforce, Snowflake, they'd be a test of that, wouldn't they? Jed Ellberg of Argent Capital Management.

34:10Ed Ludlow:Thank you very much. I want to go back to PayPal. The stock's up about 6 % right now. They've been halted for volatility after a big spike post that Bloomberg News report that it is attracting takeover interest. The Bloomberg report details that one big rival is considering buying all of PayPal. In other cases, other potential bidders looking at certain assets. And PayPal has been meeting with banks about this unsolicited interest. We know this is a stock that's been under pressure, not just year to date, but over the last 12 months, down about 46 % in that 12-month period. Now we're up 7 % in the session.

34:47Ed Ludlow:PayPal declined to comment. We'll continue to track it. Caro?

34:49Caroline Hyde:We will. We'll also continue to track Bitcoin. It touched$65 ,000. In fact, went below it as tariff anxiety is born now. On that next, this is Bloomberg Tech.

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36:08Caroline Hyde:Let's check in on these markets which bounce off session lows on the day but we're still down by 1.2 % on the Nasdaq. As I check, we've got about 28 names in the green, more than 70, 73 are in the red right now. And another ugly day for software. We'll get to that in a moment. Bitcoin is off by almost 3 % at one point in the training session. And look on to the more broader chart of Bitcoin. Last couple of days, again, anxiety, just the macro headwinds hit it to the tune of 4 % over the last two trading days. But it sank below$65 ,000. What does that mean in terms of support? Bloomberg Digital Finance reporter Emily Nicole joins us.

36:43Caroline Hyde:Can't catch a break, Emily. Yeah, it just keeps going, doesn't it? I mean, weekends are traditionally a very low liquidity time for Bitcoin especially. It's a market that trades 24-7, so it never switches off. And that does mean that we tend to get these outsized price moves, particularly over weekends. And that's what we saw earlier on in the Asia trading day on Monday, or I guess overnight for all of us over on the Western side. And that's what we've been looking at today as well. It's kind of gone back above that 65 ,000 mark, but really can't edge much higher.

37:14Ed Ludlow:Emily, is it clear in the markets? We talk about this$60 ,000 support level, right? But is it clear in the market right now what the main driver is? Is it tariff? Is it some sort of broader geopolitical anxiety that are getting people to push the button either way?

37:30Caroline Hyde:I mean, Bitcoin's not impervious to what's going on with tariffs, right? It's a high risk asset. So when things like Donald Trump's tariffs post happen, that is going to impact Bitcoin negatively, just as it did quite a lot of other asset classes over the weekend. There is, however, this kind of support level that we've been talking about, whether that's 60 ,000, 65 ,000. We're now really starting to see traders consolidate around that mark. Traders really don't want Bitcoin to go below 60 ,000 because that does mean that kind of we're heading even further lower. And that's, you know, when all bets can be off.

38:00Caroline Hyde:So we're really kind of seeing consolidation around that point. But as you said, it's been a rocky few months and there's no telling whether it's going to continue to go down or up at the moment.

38:09Ed Ludlow:Bloomberg's Emily Nicole, thank you very much. Also falling today, well, basically everything, but shares of software companies as the AI fears that have been rattling stocks across industries continue into a new week. Let's get more with Bloomberg Equities reporter Ryan Veselica. I guess the question, you know, now that we're a couple of hours into the session is what's going on, right? I saw BFW headline overnight about Anthropic and a new tool. Seems familiar, but that was impacting trading in Europe. Is that just carrying over to the U.S.? Well, we saw a lot of Anthropic-related selling on Friday after they announced a new security tool, which sent cybersecurity stocks down pretty sharply.

38:48Ed Ludlow:And we are seeing a continuation of that trade today. There is really broad-based weakness within software. Basically, nothing is up today. And it's just this sort of percolating concern about AI disruption. What is this going to mean for growth, for profit margins, for pricing power going forward? There is so much concern and fear in the market right now, so much uncertainty. Now, we are going to get some results later on this week that will hopefully provide a little bit of clarity, at least about how management teams are feeling about the near term in the next coming quarters. We have Salesforce, Autodesk, Workday, Intuit, Snowflake among the companies reporting.

39:25Ed Ludlow:So those will be very close to watch out to. But in the meantime, people are just sort of, you know, selling everything they can and really just concerned about the latest headlines. It's less fundamentally driven than sentiment driven.

39:36Caroline Hyde:Brent Thill sort of adding to that sentiment. He's over at Jeffrey's downgrading workday into the earnings that come on Tuesday, really talking about execution risk with the CEO and other executive changes. Just in what way can we see executives navigate what is just a hit from sometimes companies that really have no historical proof point that what they're doing and what they're building is significant to the industry in which they seem to upend from a share price perspective?

40:03Ed Ludlow:Yeah, they're in an extremely difficult position right now. Now, I've spoken with portfolio managers and investors who basically say there's nothing they can really hope to hear from management teams that are going to ease these fears because AI is a multi-quarter, multi-year disruption entity out there. And so even if they say, you know, we're feeling pretty good about this year, what does that mean for five years from now? And it's just going to be very difficult to sort of untie all these knots out there that have people just sort of selling in mass. Now, I will say a lot of these stocks are at all-time lows in terms of their valuations.

40:38Ed Ludlow:Companies like Salesforce and Workday, I mean, they have basically never been cheaper. So, there is a lot that is being priced into them right now. So, if they do indicate that maybe this disruption isn't happening as quickly as some people are afraid of, or if they can talk about ways they're able to sort of ride the AI wave and turn it into a tailwind, it is possible you see some kind of relief rally in these stocks. But right now, it just seems like people are so cautious and, you know, they just continue to sell. A lot of these names are down 50 % or more from their all-time highs.

41:06Caroline Hyde:I think there's Ryan Vlaselica all over the software trade. Thank you. While we are seeing heightened market unease of late, concern, as Ryan said, about the impact of these AI tools dates back years. And this, as the popularity and demand for some of them, have taken even their own creators by surprise. Mamo Shireen Khafari is here with us. And Shireen, you've been looking at the impact most recently of clawed code and how that really took the leaders of Anthropic by surprise. that's right so it was started as essentially a side project by a staffer who i talked to who said that you know it was being used internally by anthropics engineers and it took on so quickly that ceo dario amadai sort of asked him before releasing to the public do you have to force engineers to use this or why is everyone all of a sudden adopting this and so that's sort of how this really surprised tool ended up now not just affecting AI, but impacting other industries as well.

42:02Ed Ludlow:Shreen, also late Friday, we reported some kind of the targets that OpenAI has. I call them targets, but I guess forecasts for what revenue will be come the end of this decade. What do we need to know?

42:17Caroline Hyde:That's right. So you see their revenue targets have increased. And I think that right now what we're seeing, right, is these companies start to plan out. There are mega fundraising deals happening, as we've reported on. There are reported plans in the long term toward potential IPOs. So what we're seeing now is sort of open eye share, as we reported with investors, some of those adjusted forecasts.

42:41Ed Ludlow:Revenue to hit$280 billion in 2030. So wait around for that. Bloomberg Shireen Ghaffari, thank you very much. Another piece of news. Anthropic CEO Dario Amadei will meet with U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseff tomorrow, according to a source. This, as contract talks between the AI startup and the Pentagon, remain deadlocked over the company's insistence on guardrails for use of its technology. In a statement today, Anthropic said it was committed to using AI to support national security. Cara?

43:11Caroline Hyde:Now, coming up, Ed, we'll have the latest on efforts to buy Warner Brothers assets. This is Bloomberg Tech.

43:30Ed Ludlow:We have a normal regulatory path ahead. There's nothing uniquely challenged about that process. We are about in the middle of it with the DOJ, with the European regulators, with regulators all around the world and with the state's attorney general. This is a process that we're very confident that we're going to navigate. That was Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandon speaking to us last week about its bid to take over Warner Brothers Discovery Studios and streaming business. But already the regulatory landscape is shifting. Bloomberg reporting Saturday. The Justice Department is investigating whether the deal would give Netflix too much power over filmmakers and other content creators.

44:09Ed Ludlow:Let's get the latest with Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw, who leads the screen time team and coverage of that industry. A lot's changed in five days, but basically, from Josh Sisko's reporting, it looks like actually the DOJ probe or review is wider than Mr. Sarandos told you and I, that it was kind of procedural and standard. Yeah, there's been a lot of back and forth about what exactly is happening with the DOJ. A normal DOJ probe would look at just what's called Section 7, I believe, without getting into the antitrust weeds. There is a belief, and based on the literature that is being sent to creators and producers in Hollywood, that this probe expands beyond that.

44:48Ed Ludlow:I would say that I don't think that that much has changed from that interview we did with Ted just a few days ago. I mean, yes, you had our reporting on the DOJ. You also had President Trump call on Netflix to fire its board member Susan Rice over some comments she made. But what we're really coming down to is what is going to be this next Paramount offer, which we're expecting soon.

45:10Caroline Hyde:And we're expecting it to be higher, Lucas?

45:13Ed Ludlow:Yeah, I mean, look, Paramount teased that it would get to at least$31 a share. Their most recent one was$30 a share. There was some reporting out there from a variety of$32 a share. We've heard conflicting reports about how high they would go. I know from speaking to people in and around David Ellison, who's the CEO and chairman of Paramount, that they feel like they need to put forth an offer that will make it hard for Netflix to match because Netflix shareholders are getting a little restless about this. Lucas, it's an ongoing process, and reading the reporting, it's going to go on for a long time, right?

45:47Ed Ludlow:But remind us of the differences in the bids, simply that for Netflix, it's the studios and streaming platform, but for Paramount, Skydarts, it's the entirety of Warner Brothers Discovery. Yeah, I mean, you just laid it out. Paramount is going for the whole company. That includes all the cable networks, CNN, TBS, Discovery Channel, and so forth. There's been a debate between Warner Brothers Discovery and Paramount as to the value of those global networks, that group that it would be spun out as. Because that's one of the big points of difference between the Paramount offer and the Netflix offer.

46:23Ed Ludlow:Paramount believes that it's been as superior because those networks aren't worth that much. Warner Brothers thinks they're worth more. and that has enabled Netflix to prevail thus far, even though the immediate cash to Warner Brothers shareholders would be less.

46:35Caroline Hyde:What are investors saying, Lucas, about where they're swayed?

46:38Ed Ludlow:Well, it depends on which investors, right? I've certainly spoken to some who are eager for Warner Brothers to engage with Paramount, which is what's been happening over the last week. I think there's some concern on the part of investors about the regulatory risk for the Netflix deal. They seem more concerned about the Netflix risk than the Paramount risk. But then there are plenty of other investors who I think have felt less compelled to speak out because they're happy to follow the Warner Brothers lead. And I think most of them would be happy for the$30 to share or$32 to share, whatever it may be.

47:10Ed Ludlow:Lucas, very quickly, just looking back on that interview, you asked him, like, why does Netflix not want the legacy cables? His answer was straightforward. That's not the business we're in. And we talked about the movie theaters, those two points. Yeah, well, look, Netflix has never had any interest in the cable business because the cable business is shrinking and Netflix and streaming are in many ways replacing it. The movie theater one is the one that's been a bugaboo for Netflix because people are having a hard time believing Ted Sarandos when he says they're going to put movies in theaters.

47:38Ed Ludlow:But he has said it again and again and again.

47:41Caroline Hyde:Bugaboo. That's got me in my head now. Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw. Thank you very much indeed. Look, that does it for this edition of Bloomberg Tech. But let's check in on some of these key stocks that are on the move. We anticipate a big week for earnings. Wednesday is NVIDIA. Sales source coming out as well. But software names getting crushed. So are payments. So are delivery companies. After that note from Satrini Research, it's a big one.

48:02Ed Ludlow:Yeah, and it sounds like from our guests, particularly on the software side, the bar is still high for management to actually change the directory of that sector. And of course, NVIDIA has fallen in each of the last two post-earning sessions. Recap on the podcast. We have some really interesting people on the show today. You know where to find it. It's on the terminal as well as online on Apple, Spotify and iHeart from San Francisco and a snowy New York. This is Bloomberg Tech.

48:49Caroline Hyde:Speaking to people from Nigel Farage, to tech journalist Kara Swisher. And the tech industry is running wild. You know, they've gotten what they wanted and they've seen a huge run up in their stock prices. This will be a place where every weekend you can count on one essential conversation to help make sense of the world. So please join me, listen and subscribe to The Michelle Hussain Show from Bloomberg Weekend. wherever you get your podcasts.

49:21Ed Ludlow:You certainly ask interesting questions.