00:00Now to a Bloomberg scoop. Open AI is close to finalizing the phase. The first phase of a new funding
00:05round that would is likely to bring in more than a hundred billion dollars. Bloomberg's tax Ed Ludlow broke the
00:11news and joins us now. And as I just mentioned there it seems like a hundred billion dollars might only
00:16be the beginning for this round. Yeah only the beginning. Call it portion number one or phase number one.
00:22And what we understand from sources is that that is basically dominated in the first instance by strategics. Amazon, SoftBank,
00:30Nvidia, Microsoft pretty much in that order. And there's been the reporting around that Amazon's contribution for example investing for
00:37the first time into open AI could be 50 billion dollars. The other part that we're hearing right is that
00:42as this kind of phased approach where later they might give allocation to sovereigns and venture firms the overall total
00:51target raise goes
00:52up the post money valuation could hit eight hundred and fifty billion dollars. So you know it's happening. And like
00:58towards the end of this month that first part at least our understanding is that those strategics those big mag
01:04seven names and SoftBank will close or firm up their agreements in what they want to give open AI and
01:11then it will go from there. And my goodness it's I mean I think it is the biggest round by
01:15a single company of all time.
01:17I also just wonder if this should take away alleviate some of the anxiety some of the skepticism and pressure
01:22about the capital intensity of open AI because presumably this leaves them fully funded through I don't know 2030 Ed.
01:31You'd hope so. They're massively committed to infrastructure build out. I mean you know the consistent message from open AI
01:39is that they are constrained constrained by compute.
01:42And that manifests in that they're constrained in the additional tools that they can put out there. The developer access
01:49that they can give. We do know from the middle of January that like annualized revenue hit about twenty billion
01:55dollars in twenty twenty five.
01:57So revenue is growing you know year on year more than two hundred percent. But still you know it's it's
02:04a frighteningly big number in the end that the open AI sees it needing to spend in some cases it
02:11takes on the capital burden to build out infrastructure and by that we mean by the chips put them in
02:15state centers.
02:16In others it's relying on partners. But yeah the other thing as well is like these are strategics. I'm really
02:22interested in who comes next like if they're going to go public as has been discussed.
02:28You don't see any of the sort of crossover type investors in that list right now. Maybe they'll come later
02:33and that will give us something to look forward to this year or next.
02:36And we have to talk before you go. The big interview of the day is your interview with Ted Sarandos
02:42of Netflix. So much is happening there.
02:46What do you plan to ask the co-CEO. Well you know like you and I talked about the status
02:50quo right now which is that Netflix has given Warner Brothers Discovery the waiver to talk to Paramount which expires
02:56on Monday.
02:57So everyone's waiting on Paramount to do something. But I guess that it simply comes down to what is the
03:02means and the will that Netflix has to boost its offer. Number one.
03:07And then maybe you saw the reporting overnight from our colleagues in Los Angeles. The government is a government lawyers
03:13from an antitrust perspective are now going to the movie theaters and saying what will the impact on you be.
03:18If Warner Brothers Discovery's business or parts of it are required. What will that look like for the industry. That's
03:25kind of the big question. So I think that's all fair game for us to talk at about 1230 Eastern
03:30Time 930 AM Pacific later today.
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