AI Umpires in the MLB, Base Power Updating American Power, Trump & Big Tech | Oct 9, 2025

0:13Welcome, everyone, to the Informations TI TV. My name is Akash Pasritch. It is Thursday, October 9th, and we are taking a full tour of the tech sector. today, folks. We are talking about the booming business of batteries and power with a$1 billion funding round. We're also going to get into how AI is overhauling the business of sports and recapping a big event that we hosted on that topic at San Francisco Tech Week earlier this week. And finally, we've got our friends at Better Tomorrow Ventures coming on the show. We're going to talk about their newest funding round and about the future of fintech.

0:49Let's get started with the business of batteries, though. The AI boom and all of its power demands have brought a renewed focus on the energy sector at large, and that has meant several new power companies have been able to raise big funding rounds as of late. One of those companies is BasePower, a company that raised$1 billion this week at a valuation of roughly$3 billion. That figure is according to the New York Times. The company is just two years old, and to tell us more about their approach to all things electricity. I want to bring on the company's chief operating officer, Justin Lopez. Justin, welcome to the show.

1:25It's great to have you. Hey, thanks so much for having me and good to see you. Well, congrats on the funding round. There's a lot to get to. Look, I think before we get into understanding what the company does, we've seen the charts here. I think a lot of people know that electricity prices are going up and they've been going up for quite a few months now. Help us understand what the root causes are there. And then we'll talk into how you guys are addressing that issue. Yeah, look, it's a fascinating time to be in the energy industry, particularly in the electricity industry. To answer your question, the electricity prices have been going up over the last several years.

1:59And this is due primarily to the cost of the delivery of the electricity. So folks might not know this, but there's really two components to the cost of energy delivered to your business or home. It's the cost of the energy itself and the costs to get it to you, which is really the cost of the grid. And if you look at the two components of that cost, the cost of getting it to you, the shipping costs, so to speak, have gone up quite meaningfully with the increase in demand from AI, as you mentioned, electrification, EVs, et cetera, that's putting more load and more demand on the system. And frankly, not a lot of new technology and new business models to rebuild that system.

2:33And actually, the cost to generate the electricity in the first place has been coming down somewhat counterintuitively from advancements in solar and wind and natural gas, et cetera, over the last few decades. Got it. So it's really, it's a demand issue right now is the key point. Yeah, I would say it's an infrastructure issue, even more so than a demand issue. It's basically how wide are the highways for cars to go on the highway, to use the analogy of electrons on the distribution and transmission infrastructure. It's that we have not built and rebuilt the distribution and transmission infrastructure for where the current demand is and certainly where demand is going.

3:09Okay. So now this is the key issue that BasePower is trying to solve. Tell us about how you're doing that. Yeah. So BasePower, we're a modern energy company. We're based here in Austin, Texas, and we have operations throughout the state today and soon to be outside of the state. Our model is quite simple to homeowners across the state of Texas. We offer affordable, reliable power. What that means is that we design, we manufacture, we install, own, and operate batteries, energy storage devices that go on single family homes. And because we own them, the customer doesn't necessarily need to front the capital expense to go buy a battery as they typically would.

3:45And again, because we own them, we're able to support the Texas power grid. So in times of need, when the grid is tight, or there's congestion in certain areas of the grid, causing prices to rise, we're discharging the battery and offsetting the load of the home and providing power back to the grid. And then when there's no cars on the road, to use the analogy Again, we are very few cars on the road. We are charging those batteries and interfacing with the wholesale markets here in Texas. Right. From the homeowner's perspective, they get that battery when the grid goes off, as it unfortunately does here in Texas relatively often.

4:18And it provides backup similar to how a generator would, except you don't have to maintenance it, you know, gas or oil in it. It's quiet, et cetera. So, so tactically what this looks like is in neighborhoods around Texas right now, you have your own batteries that are set up and they're basically providing an alternative source of energy to Texas homes when the grid goes down. This is sort of charging that the batteries have done in times when I guess it's cheaper for you to really charge those batteries. That's right. The way to think about it is when the grid is up and running, when power is being supplied to the home, the battery is either offsetting the load of the home by virtue of discharging or sort of spinning the meter backwards and pushing power back onto the grid at times when the grid needs it.

5:00And then it's doing the opposite. It's pulling power from the grid at times when it doesn't need it. And then when the grid is off. How much does it cost for the customer, a homeowner? You said you own the batteries. So how much does it cost for them to, what is it, like subscribing to the battery? What does it cost for them to use this source? Yeah, the way we think about it and the way we talk about it is really it's a membership. So you basically subscribe, so to speak. And today our pricing is about$500 up front and$19 a month. and that allows you to get access to this battery. As a part of that, also, here in Texas, we are a retail electric provider, meaning we sell power.

5:36So we bill customers for their monthly energy, and we offer quite competitive rates because we have this battery that's able to change when the home is using power. And so we pass those savings along to our members as well. So right now, it's only residential. You know, the topic that we talk a lot about on this show are the power demands from the data centers and the AI companies that need all this. do you have plans to use this technology into data? I mean, I guess now as I'm asking this question, I'm realizing just how large scale the energy demands are for these data centers. I don't even know that batteries would do the trick for something like that, but is there a plan to somehow satisfy that demand at a larger scale?

6:16Yeah, look, the way to think about it is data centers are just another load. They're a large load, a large sort of like geographically concentrated load, but nonetheless just a load on the system. And so any capacity, whether that's batteries or other technologies, batteries obviously is something that we're is what we're focused on here. Any capacity that you add to the grid can offset that additional new load that is coming onto the grid. So the way to think about it is if, you know, data center developer puts a few hundred megawatts or a gigawatt of demand onto the system, there needs to be some way to supply that demand in particular, and most importantly, during peak times, right?

6:51The entire grid is really built around this concept of peak and everything else is less relevant because the whole system has to be able to support the peak load. And so what batteries do really well is they time shift demand and supply, meaning they're able to basically turn off your home from the grid when everybody else, data centers and other homes, are using the grid the most and therefore reduce the load on the grid during that time. So we think about batteries as really a capacity mechanism to enable utilities and grid operators to get more load on the system, like from AI data centers.

7:23Right, right. But just to come back to sort of the scale of these data centers, I mean, you know, what would, how much power can one of these batteries supply? And, you know, are these batteries big enough that, you know, I imagine you'd need thousands of these batteries to power any small portion of this data center, right? That's right. Right. So, you know, look, we already have thousands of batteries on the grid just here in Texas, and we're growing extremely quickly. The way to think about what we're doing is a lot of little batteries equate to a much larger, you know, infrastructure system.

7:55And by virtue of them being distributed, you can both time and geographically shift electricity. So, for instance, we have batteries in the Houston market and the Dallas market. And literally right now, if we were going to look at what they're doing, they're definitely doing different things. Because there are different conditions on the grid in those different locations. Now, if you look at the load that a data center puts on the grid is a few hundred megawatts, maybe to a gigawatt. A few hundred megawatts or gigawatt are certainly thousands of batteries, but there are also thousands and turns out millions of homes in the state of Texas.

8:27And so by virtue of putting batteries on the edge of the grid at the home, you're able to do this sort of geographic movement of power and also this time movement of power. And that is what really helps to offset the load of, say, a data center or a new EV charging station or a homeowner even getting an EV. Right. Great. Well, I appreciate you coming on. It is a fascinating approach to the power problem that we know that we have been covering more and more on this show. I'm excited to see how you guys expand. I know you're planning to expand outside of the state of Texas. And I'm also excited to see what different customers you start offering your power to.

9:03Because like I said, homes are just one segment of the energy grid right now that we need to satisfy. There's more to come. Thank you, Justin, for coming on the show. That is Justin Lopez, the COO of Base Power Company that just raised$1 billion of funding this week here on TITV. They didn't raise the funding here on TITV, but they're here to talk about it anyway. All right. Let's get to the next segment. folks. This week, The Information hosted an event at San Francisco Tech Week that dived into how AI is affecting the sports industry. And really, the event was about finding answers to some key questions like, how is AI affecting everything from coaching strategies to the way fans actually engage with sports now altogether?

9:43It was a really exciting session. And before we talk about it more, I want to play a clip for you from the event about a big change that could be coming to baseball in in 2026. It is a system that can help correctly call balls and strikes. Let's take a listen. So if you guys don't follow baseball, we've been experimenting with AI driven technology to call balls and strikes. There was actually a game. We're in the playoffs right now. Most of you guys know that. The Padres game. Padres game. Yes. Many of you guys following baseball, you've seen it. That call was not even close and it ended the Padres season.

10:20and there was almost a fight between umpires and players in the dugout afterward. And that won't be an issue next year because the player will just, as long as they didn't use their challenges already, they'll just be able to head tap and they'll see that it was a ball, not a strike, and the Padres could still be playing. So we've been proving that technology, testing it for a while. I'm interested to hear how many, again, hands raised in the audience. Okay, if you don't know what it is, automatically calling balls and strikes in baseball games as opposed to having the umpire doing it. It's not going to happen for every pitch, but twice a game, you will be able to appeal.

10:52And if you're right, you keep getting more appeals. So do you guys approve of and are you excited about this technological innovation in baseball? Or would you prefer that it was the way it always was on Paris called balls and strikes? Okay, pro ABS, pro ABS, hands up. Okay. Okay, prefer old school umpires, hands up. Okay, interesting. It's only twice a game, right? Only twice wrong per game. Yeah, but it's coming and AI is making that possible. And I think, honestly, it's going to add to the fan experience because we're going to put that. We just got the rules. We can no longer, in our broadcast, we can't show the strike zone box anymore because somebody might see that and be able to head tap as a result.

11:39So let me give them a signal. Okay, head tap. That I don't like. I just saw it was in the box. That I don't like. Well, you'll be able to have it, but it'll be just delayed slightly. So now in the ballpark, the fans will be the first ones to see whether it's a ball or strike on the big board, When the person head taps, you'll see it on the big board coming through, whether the ball strike. I think it's going to add to the fan experience. I'm excited about it. That was a clip from our AI and sports event earlier this week. I want to bring on our sports business reporter, Sarah Germano, who quarterbacked all of these great conversations.

12:07Although I'm realizing now I said quarterback. We're talking about baseball here. Sarah, it is so great to have you on the show. I'm so excited to talk about all things San Francisco Tech Week. And before we do, I got to say, Sarah, I'm from Toronto. I know for you from New York last night, the Blue Jays. Do I have? Not great. Not great, right? Well, it's great for me. But you know what? I'm from New York. I'm a lifelong Yankee fan. The important thing is we beat Boston. But I'm happy for you and the Blue Jays. I am also happy with the Blue Jays. Although I will say, I didn't watch any of the games.

12:43I don't watch baseball. But I certainly watched some of the highlights from your event this week. So let's talk about it. Tell me about sort of the genesis of this event. I mean, you had a really great roster of speakers. You know, what was the event really? What were the big questions that the event was trying to cover? And who were some of the speakers that were there? Yeah, and thanks for having me. It really was a great event. And shout out to our colleagues on the events team for helping put it together. This was a San Francisco Tech Week event. And the focus was really about San Francisco area sports and tech executives.

13:17So we had our fireside chat keynote speaker was Allie Wagner. She's a multi-hyphenate. She's a two-time Olympic gold medalist with the U.S. women's soccer team. She's also a co-founder of Bay FC, the new women's NWSL professional soccer club in the Bay. We had, as you just saw, Bill Schlau, who is the chief information officer of the San Francisco Giants, talking about some of the innovations coming to baseball, which we'll get to in a second. And then we also heard from executives from IBM, from Karen Nortman, who's one of the, you know, foremost women in the business of women's sports. She's the partner of Monumenthal, or excuse me, Monarch Collective.

14:01And we had Hillary from the Bay Area Host Committee getting ready to host the Super Bowl in Santa Clara. So, so much to talk about. Well, let's talk about it. I kind of want to segment the discussion into sort of three beats here. One is how leagues are using AI. And then we'll talk about how fans are using AI. And then if we have time, we'll get to how teams are using AI. But let's talk about the automated balls and strikes. How are the leagues thinking about AI here? Yeah. So, as you heard, Bill did a really good job explaining that in our panel. It is coming to baseball next year. It's called ABS, Automated Ball Strike System.

14:34And the way it's basically going to work is that there is this AI-enabled technology that MLB has been using in the minor leagues. They're bringing it up to the majors. It allows players to basically tap their head after a pitch if they feel that the umpire behind them called it incorrectly. They can challenge the call, and it will go to that review. It is something that's going to change, fundamentally change the way we see baseball. And it will go to AI, basically the AI review is what we're saying. The AI review is it. And if you watch baseball, you may be familiar with, if you're watching it on TV, there is the strike box, which is really just, you know, the quadrangle and it shows the ball is inside the box.

15:17It's a strike. If it's outside, it's a ball. and, you know, as alluded to, there was a very controversial call in a decisive Padres earlier this week, you know, and it's not just a baseball issue. Officiating and umpiring in all pro sports is a heated discussion. It is an active thing that, you know, WNBA players are talking about now. They're very unhappy with the officiating and basketball. So baseball is really one of the first sports to come out with an AI-enabled technology to solve some of these officiating problems. What about how the fans are using it? Because you and I were watching this clip, and maybe you can explain it a little bit more.

15:59We were watching the clip in the newsroom this morning about how fans are now using these AI-generated videos to sort of emulate sports content. How much of an opportunity is there for fans to make use of that now? Is there a money component to how the sports teams or leagues plan to capitalize on this at all? Yeah, it's a great point. And honestly, it was one of the most contentious parts of our whole event this week. We had people on both sides of this issue. Effectively, as you may have seen with Sora 2, the new OpenAI product, Generative AI is achieving vast new capabilities in what you can do.

16:41You can do text-to-video prompts, and it's already popping up on TikTok and things like that. The one that you and I were discussing is this hilarious but also very weird clip of Abraham Lincoln wearing an Indiana Pacers jersey, winning the NBA trophy, and, you know, obviously something that did not actually occur in history. You can put it in these types of prompts. And, you know, your imagination can take you a million different ways. Sam Altman called it interactive fan fiction. And it poses some interesting questions for the sports world, because if you are creating highlights that didn't actually happen and sharing them on social media, you know, does that distort the sports product?

17:29Does it devalue the live sports experience, as we may know? And also, it's the attention economy, right? If they're watching this, then they're not watching the actual highlight. Right. And most of these pro sports are getting the majority of their revenues from their media rights. So if you're diverting attention to other forms of sports content, you know, again, does that devalue the overall product? So we heard from the people on our panel who took both sides of this issue, Tara Nortman from Monarch Collective said, if you go to a sporting event, there's going to be hundreds of thousands of people watching either in the stadium or on TV.

18:10There are places who can debunk what really happened and what didn't happen. Her point was essentially like, we can debunk that later. It's all to the experience. If you get more people interested in sports because they feel like they can put themselves in the game, Great. Right. And that was, you know, that was another point, too. Like, imagine you could, Photoshop isn't the right word, but you could, self. Right. Yeah, I could make it seem like I was playing in the Blue Jays and Yankees game last night. Exactly. You know, maybe I hit the homer. Look, I think it's a really interesting question.

18:45You know, we've done some, we obviously have your newsletter, The Arena, which is our sports business newsletter that we put out. It's part of our weekend magazine here at The Information. We also have done a lot of work tracking the sports rights and those media deals that have evolved over time. Very quickly, before we let you go, I do just want to touch on a little bit how teams are thinking about using AI. Because this idea of, could we use this new software to pick better rosters, for example, or decide with data who should be playing today, who shouldn't? How is that issue playing out for the teams?

19:23It's a great question, and it was something I talked about with Allie Wagner, herself a former player and now a co-founder of AFC, the women's soccer team. And she was saying, it's very early days, but they're using AI to roster build in some ways. You know, using AI which is excellent at pattern recognition. And pattern recognition is something that's very useful in sports. You can, you know, decide and glean different insights into players' performance at different parts of the game against different teams, against different offenses, and so on and so forth. So the front offices are starting to experiment with using large language models to learn more about putting together the best roster on the field.

20:05And are the players happy about that? So it's a great question, and it's something open to interpretation because data only tells one side of the story, right? You might have a list of statistics of how well you, Akash, new star baseball player is playing. But what happens if the coach says to you, like, look, we took a look at the AI readout and it says that you're due for a rest. We're going to bench you today. Are you going to be happy about that? Maybe not. So I expect that this is, the way that data will be used in roster building is something that both the management side and the player side is going to have to negotiate sooner rather than later.

20:50Right. Well, I mean, all I'm thinking about is all the hockey players I know who we've watched playing playoff games with broken ribs and we don't find out until after the fact. It seems like it's going to be harder to hide that fact now with all this data coming out. Last point from you and then we'll let you go. Were you going to say something? Oh, no. So I just was just going to say there's definitely ripe for disruption in the sports world to use AI. Great. Well, Sarah, thank you so much for coming on the show. It was a great event, and I look forward to reading your coverage, too, because I'm sure that you'll be writing more about these topics in the months to come.

21:29That is Sarah Germano, our sports business reporter here at The Information. Okay. Better Tomorrow Ventures made news last week with a new fund totaling$140 million. The company focuses on backing fintech companies, and the team behind the fund has backed companies like Ramp and Flexport and Mercury. I want to bring on Shiel Manat, the co-founder and general partner of the company, to tell us more about what his goals are with this new fund. Shiel, welcome to TITV. It's great to have you. Hey, man. Great to be here. It's really great to see you. Do you play baseball? Do you watch baseball? I don't watch baseball.

22:05I did have the ability to listen in on that last segment. minute and it's pretty interesting but i grew up in pittsburgh and the pirates have basically sucked since like 1992 but you were blessed with a great hockey team you were blessed with a great hockey team though yeah we got hockey we got football so it's all good but i always found baseball kind of boring but i thought the segment was super interesting yeah no it's super interesting um let's let's talk about about you know the we're getting we'll get to fintech in a second i want want to talk about the new fund you raised. The thing that I found most interesting about it is you raised a fund,$140 million.

22:42It was slightly smaller than the last fund that you raised. But I was reading online that that may have been by design. And so I want to ask you about how you thought about how much to raise because I don't even know how VCs decide, hey, this is the number we're going to go with. And then we'll talk about some of your broader reflections on venture capital in a second. Yeah, yeah, sure. So our last fund, which was 2020, we raised down to 2021, started deploying in 2022, was $150 million. So this one's slightly smaller. It actually took us, typically, you want to deploy or we want to deploy for about three years.

23:17The$150 million took us longer to deploy than we'd planned for. It took us about three and a half years. And some of our assumptions were based on the market in 2020 and 2021, which were radically different, obviously, in 22 to 24, for fintech especially. We had actually planned, we went out with planning to raise$125 million, and then we ended up oversubscribed. In particular, there were a couple of LPs that we wanted to have involved that had a minimum check size. We ended up at 140, which is funny because it seems like we couldn't get to 150. No, no, right. Totally different era. Totally different era.

23:55Right. No, I'm with it. More, I was just, you know, I've just been curious, you know, how does, how does a fund decide, you know, that we're going to start with, is it just based on what you think you can get essentially? No, it's not that. So basically it's, it's, you kind of do the math on how many companies you want to invest in. So in our case, we're not a super concentrated fund, but we're also not like a fund that indexes all the companies. So over the course of this fund, it will probably do 30 to 35 companies. That's over three years, 10 to 12 companies a year, something in that ballpark.

24:31And if you think about how big the first checks are, the first checks that we do are between a half million and say three and a half million. So say an average of two million bucks. and you say, okay, you're doing 30 to 35 companies, 2 million bucks. So that's 60 to$70 million. And then half of the capital is for follow-ons. So you just simply do that math and you end up at$140 million. And as you were going about raising this fund, I wonder what reflections you had about the current state of venture capital. I mean, what did it tell you about, you know, how LPs are thinking about what they actually invest in and the business of VC broadly and how that's evolving.