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

Key Takeaways

[Applause] [Applause] Welcome everyone to the information TI TV. My name is Akash Pasicha. 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. Let'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 Base Power, a company that raised $1 billion this week at a valuation of roughly roughly $3 billion. That figure is according to the New York Times. The company is just 2 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. It'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 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. Um, to answer your question, the you know, the electricity prices have been going up over the last several years. Um, and 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, then the cost 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 cost, so to speak, have gone up quite meaningfully uh with the uh increase in demand from AI as you mentioned, electrification, EVs, etc. 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. And actually the cost to generate the electricity in the first place has been coming down somewhat counterintuitively um from advancements in solar and wind and uh and uh natural gas etc over the last few decades. >> Got it. So it's really it's a demand issue right now is is is the key point. >> Yeah. It's it's 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 on the distribution and transmission infrastructure. is that we have not built and rebuilt the distribution and transmission infrastructure for where the current demand is and certainly where demand is going. >> Okay. So now this is an this is the key issue that base power is trying to solve. Tell us about how you're doing that. >> Yeah, so base power we're we're a modern energy company. We're based here in Austin, Texas. Uh and we have operations throughout the state today and soon to be outside of the state. Our model is 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, uh, 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. And again, because we own them, we're able to support the Texas power grid. So, in times of need, uh, 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, uh, we or very few cars on the road, we are charging those batteries um, and and interfacing with the wholesale markets here in Texas directly. >> From the homeowner's perspective, they get that battery uh, when when the grid goes off, as it unfortunately does here in Texas relatively often. uh and it provides backup uh similar to how a generator would except you don't have to maintenance it. You don't have to put you know gas or oil in it. Uh it's quiet etc. >> 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 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 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. And then it's doing the opposite. It's pulling power from the grid at times when it doesn't need it. >> Um, and then when the >> How much is it how much does it cost for the C, you know, a homeowner? You said you 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. Yeah. The way we think about it and the way we talk to talk about it is really it's a membership. So, you you basically sub subscribe so to speak. Uh and it's today our our pricing is about $500 upfront 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. So 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 uh to our to our members as well. Right. So right now it's only residential. You know the 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 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 would do the trick for something like that. But is there a plan to somehow satisfy that demand at a larger scale? Yeah, 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 is what we're focused on here uh 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 a 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 the 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 timeshift 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 they think about batteries as really a capacity mechanism to enable utilities and grid operators to to get more load on the system like from AI data centers. >> Right. Right. But and just to come back to sort of the scale of these data centers. I mean you know what would h how big 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 to power any any small portion of this data center. Right. >> That's right. So you 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 and by virtue of them being distributed you can uh 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 go 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 uh load that a that a data center puts on the grid is a few hundred megawatts maybe to a gigawatt. A few hundred megawatts or a gigawatt are certainly thousands of batteries but there are also thousands and and turns out millions of homes uh in the state of Texas. And so by virtue of putting batteries on the edge of the grid at the home, you're able to do this sort of geographic um uh movement of power and also this time movement of power and that is what really helps to offset the load of a 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 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. And I know you're planning to expand outside of the state of Texas. And I'm also excited to see what different customers you you start offering your power to because like I said, you know, home homes are just one segment of the energy grid right now that we need to satisfy. Uh there's there's more to come. Thank you, Justin, for coming on the show. That is Justin Lopez, the COO of Base Power, a 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. It 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 2026. It is a system that can help correctly call balls and strikes. Let's take a listen. So, um, if you guys aren't don't follow baseball, we've been experimenting with, um, AIdriven technology to call balls in strikes. There was actually a game. We're in the playoffs right now. Most of you guys know that. >> Is it the Padres's game? >> Padres's game. Yes. Many of you guys following baseball, you've seen it. That call was not even close and it ended the Padres's season and 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 challenge already, they just be able to head tap and they'll see that it was a ball, not a strike and the Padres's could still be playing. Um, so we've been proving that test technology, testing it for a while. Um, I'm interested to hear uh how many of 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. And if and 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 umpires call Balls and Strikes? Okay. ProABS, ProABS, hands up. >> Okay. >> Okay. Prefer old school umpires, hands up. Okay. Interesting. It's only twice down. It's >> only twice a game, right? >> Only twice if you get it wrong. >> Twice wrong per game. Yeah. Um but it's coming and uh AI is making that possible. And uh 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 broadcasts. We can't show the strike zone box anymore because somebody might see that and be able to um head tap as a result. So we give them a signal. Okay. Head tap. 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 it's the ball or strike, I think it's going to add to the fan experience. I'm excited. But that was a clip from our AI and sports event earlier this week. I want to bring on our sports business reporter, Sarah Gerano, who quarterbacked all of these great conversations. Although 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're from New York. Last night, the Blue Jays. Do I have >> Not great. >> Not great, right? Well, it's great for me. >> You know what? But you know what? As a I'm I'm from New York. I mean, lifelong Yankee fan. The important thing is we beat Boston. Oh, but I'm happy for you and the Blue Jays. >> I am also happy for the Blue Jays, although I will say I didn't watch any of the games. I don't watch baseball, but I certainly watched some of the highlights from your event this week. So, let's talk about it. Uh, tell me about sort of the 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 that the event was trying to cover and and who were some of the speakers that were there? >> Yeah. Um, and thanks for having me. Uh it really was a great event and shout out to our colleagues on the events team for helping put it together. Uh this was a San Francisco Tech Week event and the focus was really about uh San Francisco area uh sports and tech executives. So we had um our fireside chat keynote speaker was um Alli Wagner. Um she's a multi-hyphen it. She's a two-time Olympic gold medalist with the US women's soccer team. She's also a co-founder of Bay, the new women's NWSL professional soccer club in the Bay. Um, we had, as you just saw, uh, Bill Schlow, who is the chief information officer of the San Francisco Giants, talking about, um, some of the innovations coming to baseball, which we'll get to in a second. And then, um, we also heard from, um, executives from IBM, uh, from Karen Norton, who's one of the, you know, uh, foremost women in the business of women's sports. She's the partner of Monumental uh or excuse me, Monarch Collective and we had uh Hillary from the Bay Area Host Committee getting ready to host the Super Bowl in right Santa Clara. So, so much to talk about. >> Well, so let's talk about I kind of want to segment the discussion into sort of three 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. Yeah. So, as you heard, um, Bill did a really good job explaining that in our panel. Um, it is coming to baseball next year. It's called ABS, automated automated ball strike system. And the way it's basically going to work is that there 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 um 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 reviews and if okay >> if you watch baseball you may 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 it's a strike if it's outside it's a ball um and you know >> as alluded to there was a very controversial call in a decisive padres earlier this week. Um, 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 in 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 how the fans are using it? Because you and I were watching this clip and maybe you can explain it a little bit more. We were watching the clip in the newsroom this morning about how fans are are now using these AI generated video AI generated videos, you know, to sort of emulate sports content. How much of an opportunity is there for fans to take use of to make use of that now? You know, 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 um contentious parts of our whole event uh this week. Uh we had people on both sides of this issue. Effectively uh as you may have seen with Sora 2, the new open AI product, um Generative AI is achieving vast new capabilities in what you can do. You can do text to video prompts. Um and uh it's already popping up on Tik Tok 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 uh a million different ways. Sam Alman called it interactive fanfiction. Um, 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? Does it devalue uh the live sports experience as you as we may know? >> And also like 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 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 the people on our panel who who took both sides of this issue. Aaron Nortman from Monarch Collective said, you know, there's if you go to a sporting event, there's going to be hundreds of thousands of people watching either in the stadium or on on TV. there are voices who can debunk what really happened and and what didn't happen. And her point was essentially like, you know, 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. >> Um, and that was, you know, that was another point, too, like imagine you could, >> um, Photoshop isn't the right word, but you could, >> right? Yeah. I I I could make it seem like I was playing in the Blue Jays and Yankees game last night and exactly, you know, maybe maybe I hit the homer. I look I I I think it's it's it's a really interesting question and you know, we we've done some uh we obviously have your newsletter, the arena, which is our sports business newsletter that we put out. Uh it's part of our weekend magazine here at the information. We also have done a lot of work tracking the sports rights uh and those media deals that have evolved over time. Uh very quickly before we let you go, you know, I I do just want to touch on a little bit how teams are thinking about using AI because you know this idea of you know like could we use these this new software to uh pick better rosters for example or decide you know with data who should be playing today who who who shouldn't you know how how is that issue playing out for the teams? It's a great question and it was something I talked about with Alli Wagner um herself a former player and now a co-founder of BFC the women's soccer team and she was saying it's very early days but they're using AI to um roster build in some ways you know using uh 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 you know 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. >> And are the players happy about that? >> So, it's it's a it's a great question and it's something open to interpretation because data only tells one side of the story, right? uh you might have a list of statistics of how how well you Akos baseball play star base new star baseball player is playing. Um but what happens if the coach says to you like look we took a we took a look at the the AI readout and it says that you're due for arrest we're going to bench you today. Are you going to be happy about that? Maybe not. Um, so I expect that this is the way that data will be used um in roster building is something that both the management side and the player side is going to have to negotiate sooner rather than later. >> Right. Well, I mean all all I'm thinking about is are all the hockey players I know who have who we've watched, you know, playing playoff games with with broken ribs and we don't find out until after the fact. It seems like it's gonna be harder to to to hide that fact now with all this data coming out. Um uh last point from you and then and then and then we'll we'll let you go. >> Were you going to say something? >> Oh, no. I just >> I was just going to say there's uh definitely ripe for disruption in the space 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 I'm sure that you'll be uh writing more about these topics in the months to come. That 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 Sheil Manat, the co-founder and general partner of the company to tell us more about what his goals are with this new fund. Sheil, welcome to TITV. It's great to have you. Hey man, great to be here. It's really uh great to great to see you. >> Do you play baseball? Do you watch baseball? >> I don't watch baseball. I did, you know, have the ability to listen in on that last segment 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 the segment was super interesting. >> Yeah. No, it's super interesting. Um let's let's talk about about you know the we'll get we'll get to fintech in a second. I I 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. It was slightly smaller than than the last fund that you raised, but you know I I was reading online that that that may have been by design. And so I want to ask you about how you thought about how much to raise because you know I I don't even know how VCs decide hey this is the number we're going to go with. Um and then we'll talk about some of your broader reflections on venture capital in a second. >> Yeah. Yeah. Sure. So so um our last fund which was 2020 we raised down to 2021 started deploying in 2022 was 150 million. So this one's slightly smaller. Um it actually took us typically you want to deploy or we want to deploy for about three years. Um the 150 took us longer to deploy than we had 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 um for fintech especially, >> right? >> So um we had actually planned we went out with um planning to raise 125 million um and then we ended up overs subscribed. It was 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 kind of funny because it seems like we couldn't get to 150 but >> no right totally different error. Totally different error right no I'm with and 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, um, 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, so over the course of this fund, it'll probably do 30 to 35 companies. That's over three years, 10 to 12 companies a year. Um, something in that ballpark. And if you think about how much how big the first checks are, the first checks that we do are between a half million and say three and a half million, >> right? >> So say an average of 2 million bucks and you say, okay, you're doing 30 to 35 companies, 2 million bucks. >> Um, so that's 60 to 70 million, >> right? >> And then half of the capital is for followons. So you just simply do that math, right, and you end up at $149. >> And a as you were going about raising this fund, I wonder what reflections you had about the current state of venture capital. I mean, what what what did it tell you about, you know, how LPS are thinking about what they actually invest in and and you know, the business of VC broadly and how that's evolving? >> Yeah. So, um it's interesting. So we we actually we announced it just last week but we actually raised it earlier and the market shifted dramatically during the time we were raising it. So we started raising in Q4. Um and Q4 the market was kind of in the doldrums especially for fintech >> and then 2025 comes around and it's been a super active year. Um there have been you know multibillion dollar acquisitions. There have been a bunch of IPOs. Um, companies that are public fintech companies are doing super well like Robin Hood is up I think 300 some percent. >> So, um, you know, it's gotten the market got a lot better for us as we were raising the fund. But for the most part, for a fund like ours run Fund 3, the majority of the capital was from existing LPs anyway, right? >> So, it's not like they had to reendrate us that much. they they knew what they signed up for when when they when they committed to us five years ago, six years ago, and continue to commit funds found. >> So, you focus a lot on on fintech. You mentioned Robin Hood, which is a company that shares have been doing pretty well this year, although I haven't looked. I I'll take your word for it, but what about Chime? Chime is a company that everyone everyone was sort of excited that they would go public. I mean, shares uh you know, I think they're trading below their IPO price now. What what do you make of their >> They are. Yeah. >> Yeah. You know, I I think what I'd say is Robin Hood and a bunch of other companies had to shape up because they so companies had to shape up for two reasons. One, like I think public companies really had to get in shape because the market demanded it >> and Robin Hood, you know, the stock was kind of in the a couple years ago. Um, and Chime never had to get that discipline. a huge balance sheet. They didn't need to raise money. And uh as a result, uh they never really like got in shape or gotten super profitable things that the market really wants from a fintech company today. So um I think that's been reflected in the stock price since and you know, we'll see. I think it's possible that being a public company gets them to change uh how they act a little bit and and I I think it could be uh it could be really good for them. I mean, >> where do you where do you think it's where do you think it's trading a year from now? >> Good question. I think it's >> I think it's at like seven or eight billion now. I suspect it'll be up a year from now. I think they'll I think they'll um get more efficient, >> right? Uh let's talk a little bit a little smaller than Chime, you know, or at least not smaller, I should say. Uh companies that haven't yet gone public. You know, the Brex and Ramp rivalry is is one that I've sort of been watching and I wanted to ask you, we've got the CEO of Brex coming on the show next week and you're in the business of fintech. I mean, what what questions do you have that you think I should be asking to the CEO of Brex? >> Ah, great question. So, um like it's a super interesting rivalry. like it's one where you know there actually a lot of players in the corporate credit card space. Mercury has one um uh Non has one, Rippling has one, but it really feels like the companies that are focused on this are Brex and Ramp and they're so directly competitive. Now B it feels like um you know had the early lead. They they built the product first and then ramp came to market. Um, but ramp has continued to build out more and more functionality and also it feels like ramp has really won in the like hearts and minds of people. So that's they've grown at a much faster pace. Um, I'm curious, it's a tough tough one for the CEO to answer, but I'm curious like why Rex thinks that is >> and what are they doing? It sounds like they've taped up. I think they've like come back to office in San Francisco and stuff like that. So I'm curious how they see the future and what their future roadmap looks like product wise. >> Right. Right. Well, I'll tell you what, Shil, I will I will ask him that question and we I'll make sure to send you his answer because I think it's a good point. You know, part of it is uh you know, you see you do see the logo everywhere for ramp and I think Brexit's it's starting to happen more and more. But I I I take your point. It's kind of an interesting case study as to, you know, why they think that uh deviation may have occurred. Um Shield, thank you so much for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. Congrats on the new fund and I'm excited to to see what else you invest in. And anytime there's fintech news, please do come back on the show and talk >> more about it. That is Shil Manut, the uh he he is the man behind Better Tomorrow Ventures, a company that just raised a new fund, $140 million. Okay. Well, last month, late last month, I should say, President Trump said that Microsoft should fire its head of global affairs, Lisa Monaco, over her previous roles in administrations. In a truth social post, the president called Monaco's position, quote, unacceptable given Microsoft's major contracts with US government. The tech giant has yet to respond publicly to Trump's demand. Its decision will likely set a precedent though for how major tech companies handle similar political pressure from the Trump administration. I want to bring on our DC correspondent, Sylvia Varna Reagan, who wrote a great piece on this that published just today. Sylvia, welcome back to the show. It's great to have you. >> Hey Josh, great to be here. >> Let's talk about the Trump administration and its relationship with big tech. Uh I'm just sorting through my notes here. Okay. All right. I got it. I had you labeled as Sarah, but you're you're not Sarah, you're you're Sylvia. So, look, how is it that the relationship between the administration and big tech has changed over the past year or so? Because we've seen so much news out of it. It started with the inauguration of President Trump actually. How has that differed from, you know, where it was in the Biden administration, >> right? So, as you mentioned, um, a lot of technology companies donated to Trump's inauguration fund, and that sort of kicked off what we're seeing now, which is a pattern of these companies, um, sort of engaging with the administration in a way that I I think differs quite significantly from the Biden administration. Um, in many cases, these companies are making uh concessions or even outright capitulations to the administration. Um we are seeing for example uh we've seen ex um Meta Platforms and Google all settle lawsuits with Trump for um tens of millions of dollars uh after they suspended Trump from their platforms back in 2021 after January 6. We're also seeing um other overures that are designed to sort of play to Trump's ego. For example, Tik Tok published a pop-up notification. you might recall when it briefly shut down in January, essentially crediting Trump, thanking him. Um, and there have been a lot of other displays of loyalty from these companies, many of which um are seeking to secure government contracts or they want to simply stay on on the good side of Trump and might have had previous views on Trump um several years back. So, it's it's really quite um quite a strong trend and um and I think we're potentially only going to see more of it. >> Right. Well, one of the things that I've sort of been reflecting on over the past few months as we've seen these new stories develop is I actually didn't really realize just the many ways in which the government is involved in the businesses of these big tech companies, whether it's government contracts or, you know, government clearances or, you know, certainly regulations and stuff like that. And so it certainly has been a bit of an education into the ways in which the government does intersect, but you and I were talking earlier this morning and you know it it's also intersecting in ways that I think people really wouldn't have imagined the government to actually um extend some of its uh influence I guess over tech companies, >> right? And I think that's what the story gets into, which is that what we're seeing from Trump is really going beyond the scope of um of the presidential role, right? He's telling these companies, this is what I think you should do with regard to personnel. Now that is not um the role of the president to make those kinds of decisions on behalf of these companies but he's seeking to apply pressure and I think that um that is setting um a certain precedent which then the companies have to respond to and how they respond I think is really going to sort of set the tone for the next for the for the duration of the administration and how this dynamic plays out. Um and I think for example with Microsoft there was this question of okay how will they respond to this right will they will they um heed Trump's demand but I personally don't really see that happening um because I think that that would set a precedent whereby a president can make personnel decisions for a privately held company scale of Microsoft >> right I mean although Microsoft does find itself in this sort of catch22 position where even if they don't capitulate then they have this pressure pressure coming at them constantly which you have to sort of wonder you know what does that mean for their business as as well >> right and we say in the story that it's it's not an ideal situation for a company like Microsoft to have um President Trump posting this post and coming after really targeting one of its executives and to to sort of step back I mean we're seeing more broadly that President Trump um is engaging in a type of retribution campaign where he's targeting a lot of people um who he perceives as his enemies. And so uh the fact that this executive at Microsoft was formerly at the Department of Justice under Biden um made her a target and I do think it puts Microsoft in a difficult position. I did quote someone in the story though who pointed out that Microsoft uh which hasn't publicly responded to this is sort of playing a long game potentially here. um because the midterm elections are around the corner and Democrats might gain more um power and so having Lisa Monaco a very prominent um Democrat in that role could serve them well in the long term for for right now. Um it's undoubtedly a tricky spot for them. >> Right. Well, Sylvia, and thank you so much for coming on and explaining that all to us. It was it was a a great piece and I and I should say that in the story which everyone should check out there's a great timeline too with a lot of the developments that have happened over over the past few months because it's sometimes really hard to keep track of hey it's not just Microsoft it's Apple it's you know a lot of the mag companies we didn't even get to the the trade rules uh which of course apply to many of the chip companies not the least of which was Nvidia. Thank you Sylvia for coming on. That is Sylvia Varna Magan, our Washington DC correspondent here at the information. That does it for today's show. A reminder that we are on this stream Monday through Friday at 10 a.m. Pacific, 1:00 p.m. Eastern. I want to thank Amazon Web Services, who is our presenting sponsor for this production. And I want to thank you for tuning in. We really do appreciate your viewership. I'm already excited for our next show tomorrow. And so until then, thanks for joining. Bye-bye for now.