YouSaid · the spoken record

Tony Kim

lines on the record: 72
first: 2024-12-12
most recent: 2024-12-12
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“So fascinating. I would say another point for the young people. Always bet on the future, not on the current past. Bet on the future.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Know if I knew this would unfold in the Silicon Valley, I would have just gone straight to Silicon Valley, the company maybe instead of being on the investment side I don't know. It's a double edged question because I like the dynamic exposure to many companies.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's not so much to finance. Finance can be taught easy. It's about thinking. And it is about a flexibility to have a To be reason and plan and think In kind of a holistic and a flexible manner because AI is going to do so many of the tasks and they will often know more than you about any specific domain. So you need to. Above that in a way, almost like an architect would.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Currently, I'm reading, I read a lot of history books, so I'm reading three books, I browse, I read a lot parallel. I tend to not to finish at all, but I'm reading right now campaigns of Napoleon by David Chandler I mean, the fall of Carthage. And I just bought my 16 memorable games by Bobby Fisher. I just wanted to go read all the.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I even loved it. And then I went really deep. The Silmarillion and the 20,000 year prehistory to the Lord of the Rings, I went that.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As did Oz. I don't think we're that far apart in age. I was a nerd. I was a total nerd. Same. And so the Lord of the Rings and told me”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The fountain head. Let's talk about books. Oh, book. Okay, there are certain books that are influential to me. I always grew up in people on the show. I grew up before the internet.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The mentor would imbue. Personal one on one like tutoring and things I didn't have too many of those I would say my earliest mentors I go to high school those are my formative years in Illinois my English teacher who is also my debate coach my history teacher and my chemistry teacher I look back and they really help form who I am today and then In the professional world, I would say I go to, and this is like BlackRock when I joined, it was Tom Callan who hired me. Tom said, not so much as a mentor, but he said. Here are the keys And you express your creativity and build the business. And he gave me that latitude. So I give credit to Tom Kellen. But I didn't have too many people mentoring me of doing this. It was more, most of my mentors are dead. I have people that I have influenced me, like Napoleon and Frank Lloyd Wright.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Check that out. This is an ancient civilization, ancient history. So those are what, yeah, that's what kind of occupies me. I don't do as much business shows or business pods. I listened to yours a few times and a few others, but I'm more about, you know, I'm in finance all day long. don't really need more finance. So I go for my love of history is probably the...”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I love watching chess. So, like, chess dog is a great show. Especially the old matches of the great players like Bobby Fisher and Paul Morphy and things. And the podcast, I think the best podcast for me is the ancients.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Epic History TV. Yeah, that's fantastic. I watch a lot of science stuff, like World Science Festival of Columbia professor here, Brian Green.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, I don't get a chance to watch that much TV and streaming, but streaming shows, the ones I've recently seen, I've seen, I really like Shogun. Oh, really? The one.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not a momentum trader. Exactly. And that's really kind of at the end. We're saying our decisions that are born out of all of this domain and expertise and all of this analytical rigor. And then we express that for a multi-year basis. And then that ultimately comes through. And if we were to continually shift by the wind every quarter, you kind of lose your soul effectively of what you stand for. And so we try not to do that. Obviously, in 2022, But other than that, we kind of stick to that same framework.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Value. That's a big hit. But in my In my career, 2022 was the worst And so, do you have the latitude and the confidence and support by investors and management to allow you to continue? And then obviously the last couple years have been good, right? And so... Does everybody get that avail that opportunity to? And that goes to the short term, long term. But I try not to focus on the short term. And, you know, we're trying to make systematic bets to the best of our ability. Especially an active manager? It is, you need to show, because we hold generally fewer companies and you need a couple years to show that those longer duration bets Start to manifest And so if I was always chasing the corridor, now you're trying to be.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That is the central question because we are being challenged all the time. I feel... You get some latitude if you have already a historical track record For example, 2022 was just Hell on earth for tech.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so then you assimilate all this information. Then you are all, I'm always doing the calculus, who's winning, who's losing, who's winning, who's losing. What's changing, what's not.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Maybe not minute to minute, but you're absolutely right. In AI, so there are different time scales according to different industries. So let's say in AI, you're right. It might literally be minute to minute day to day. Okay. On the smartph You know, things are more stayed, they're slower paced. And so you have a spectrum of rates of change. That's number one. So number two, how do we keep up? I mean, you know, I read a lot. And not only read, you have to stay attuned to all this new multimedia. There's so many experts and podcasts like yours and scientists. And then we do like, I do personally a thousand company meetings a year.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That is basically the ETF version of our mutual fund. And so that includes tech companies, not only ETF, not only AI companies. Broad tech globally, larger companies, but There's lots of tech companies that don't really have that much to do with AI building AI. And so you're going to get the whole totality of that in that.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“All the way up to the apps from the compute to the apps and everything in between. And I do know one thing. So we wanted a concentrated exposure to builders of AI. Companies building the key elements of AI. And I do know one thing, it will be. Going to change dramatically. What we think is the companies of today might not be. And so we need, I feel like, especially when there's high rate of change. In the early days of an industry like this, we need dynamic adaptation. We need to be flexibly and adaptive. And so to lock yourself into a fixed passive structure versus a dynamically changing structure, that's really the goal of the CTF.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that Yeah, that's what I hear. I hear. But this one is, I think, hopefully we look back. This is the second year of AI, as I would say. And I think this is going to be a decade-long, if not longer trend. And we are trying to express in a concentrated way 30 plus companies in an ETF that represents this whole stack of AI.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's right. We just launched this. This is our first foray. We have two ETFs now. We're jumping on that ETF bandwagon, if you will.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“not even it is it is it's within grasp finally it's it's always been three years in the future but like it really is now i think so”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Up on it. So basically, if you're in that kind of category, you get to a certain market level, a saturation level. And I think that in the West, and then the more reticence to adopt EV and still in the United States, you kind of have a certain ceiling. You need, and this is why there's so much discussion about Tesla either having a lower cost Robotexi or lower cost car to get at the market sub $50,000. You have, you know, that unlocks the market three times bigger. It's like a $30,000 car or a $25,000 car. But I think Tesla's main pivot really and even Elon would tell you it's not about the car. The car is a mere means to deliver autonomy. And it's a robotics company, right? And autonomy is the big unlock, not selling the car itself.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Which is most EV You know, if you remember, you go in the past, the greatest selling single car was like the Toyota Corolla. Like a couple million a year. And you look at Tesla's model three and y, and they're also in that range.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Would say to that, and I don't want to comment on that specific company, but companies like that, they're selling $100,000 car. Tesla selling at a $40,000 car. $50,000 and up market.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Would say in EV, just pure EV cars. Tesla's share, and it's ascendancy. The entire market, especially in the US, especially in the West, not China. Definitely slowed, if not stalled. Okay. Right.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Day it was a tent to make the Model 3 and I think that kind of unlocked. That's like, well, we're about to turn. We're about to make it. This production is about to scale. And that was another seminal moment. So you have these events like that that come through.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They made that seminal bet to really change that chip architecture. And then another one I remember distinctly when there was lots of questions around Tesla. Right, can they get the Model 3? They had warehouse, you know, not even a warehouse, a tent. To make remember that everyone's saying you're going to do”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'll give you some specific examples. I remember distinctly there was one about AMD. When AMD had just announced its new chiplet based, Jim Keller was still working there and was one of the famed chip designers. And they had redesigned the processor and the CPU. And that Zen architecture was the basis in which 10 years later they've gained all that market share from Intel. But that was that day, and I remember because AMD was on its back.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, it's always a great barometer. What were the topics of the tour in 2014 versus 2024? And you could really see an evolutionary of what was topical every year. So it's a great way, it's also great for the people because many times, even within a firm like BlackRock, many of the teams don't get that much time to be with each other. So it's both for representing a unified front to the company and then also within the interpersonal relationships that are strengthened. And then it's really a great barometer of what are the key topics. And then if you looked at the last two years of the bus tour, there's only one topic.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think you're referring to our annual every summer we do a Bus tour effectively. We bring 30 BlackRock investors. Now that said, we do, you know. 2,000 meetings a year with companies on my team. I personally do almost a thousand meetings with companies. Now this is a special event because it pulls together Seven, eight, nine, ten different teams at Black Rock. Plus execs and investors. And then we get on a bus and we go visit the top managements and CEOs, both public and private companies. Every year this has been, I've been running this now 11 years. Wow. And what that does is you're on site. It's a little less formal. The companies feel more comfortable because they're hosting you and it's really more of a strategic discussions than relitigating the quarter. So, and.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, because a large part of the NASDAQ, especially non-MAC 7. Not done well. You look at large parts of software, large parts of semiconductors even. You're not in the AI class. You've been left behind.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think valuation, if I were to broadly say, is at a fair level. Now, there's dispersion in that. You mentioned the MAC 7 and the crowding and these. These giant winners, they have valuations that are higher than the rest of tech. The rest of tech has not The most part recovered from the depression that we had, the recession we had in 2022. They went, they were way exaggerated in 21. Who crashed in 22, and there's been not that much of a recovery. So a large part of tech is still in at depressed levels. I would say we're back to pre 2018, 17 levels. Except the Mac 7 and a few companies like that are at higher levels, but their performance have been better.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so the great established companies can continually add multiple new businesses, not only what you're currently doing, you've got to anticipate the next. So these power laws, do you have multiple acts? Because then that helps you have duration. That you can endure. And then are you differentiated enough? But then there is a whole new class of companies, right? So you have the MAG 7, these power law companies, but there's always, history for tech has always given you the opportunity for the new companies, the new companies to come. And so it's really the combination of let's continue to ride the power laws of the established companies and then let's find those new companies that can rise. And become the new challenger. So it's that two components of a technology”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So they had this power law concept. Going back to your idea, the other one is you need a second act. You need multiple acts. If you even look at these great companies, Microsoft, for example, you had the Windows and then you had a second act, which is Azure. And Azure has been driving the company, right? Even Apple found the iPhone after Mac, right? And so you need companies that have, and then Amazon, I don't even know how many Acts they've had, they have so many different apps, right?”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They didn't engage in mobile. And there are times where companies, different transitions, like if Microsoft did not pivot to the cloud from Windows and the government went after them on Windows, but they were litigating yesterday's war, right? But Microsoft found. Azure and then history was rewritten.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's exactly right. Usually, usually. These companies do not get disruptive. But on occasion, they do. I think the most obvious one recently was the ascendancy of NVIDIA versus Intel. For 30 years, Intel, what ran. And then there was a transition. There are several reasons, but there was a transition to accelerate computing from CPUs. And then they lost leadership on Foundry to TSMC.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It takes all. And it doesn't matter if you're selling frozen pizza to search advertising. These power laws. And then, but the thing is that you could have power laws that apply to hundreds of categories, right? It doesn't have to be all encompassing in one. And so when I look at tech and all those different categories, Firmly believe in these power law concepts that you want to be betting on number one and number two, especially number one, not even number two. You want number one, ideally. And so in many cases there are already existing players. And so if they are already existing players and then their hegemony is not being challenged, that's kind of a neansy answer. You keep riding the wave. And that's why people are always complaining about MAG 7.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I have a certain small rules. I guess if you could call it that, that I've, or observations that I've made over many years, especially in tech, right? Because this is a very dynamic industry. One of those is like, There's a power law I believe in power laws. And it seems like every industry I've ever looked at, there's number one and number two, and then maybe a number three.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You said exactly the complexity of the tasks. Will only go higher in terms of what they will be capable to do. And these AIs are following what we can call these scaling laws of scaling intelligence. But the things that they will be capable of, it's not just booking a restaurant. It'll be doing very complex tasks. And so we are just at the very, very, very beginning of that.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely. And even more difficult than, let's say, that. Like, oh, I need to help to do my taxes. I want my taxes helped, or I need”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and that's on the consumer side, and there'll be a lot more consumer apps coming. Companies like Apple have this Apple intelligence, right? absolutely locked in on your private seat, but they're going to know you the best. And so there will be AI assistance coming.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's right. And then there are some companies, you mentioned Thompson Reuters, which is, you know. They have run one of their biggest legal data sets. And they control that legal data. And so then they're putting AI on top of that. So that's that intelligence and the data layer. And then above that layer, you have the applications The tools and data infrastructure, and then the services, the human IT labor, to implement the AI.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Correct. I mean, companies like Reddit have done a deal like that Wall Street Journal. There's some lawsuits, even New York Times.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then above that layer, let's call it. That's the models and the data. So, this is where you also have more MAC 7, Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, some of the private companies, and now XAI. And there are six or six of these companies building these foundation models. And then the data, you're feeding the data. And then you have all these data companies that have, let's say, legal data, healthcare data, insurance data. And then some of them have proprietary data which are helping train these models.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Gets expressed in the MAC If I were to, let's recompile that. A nine layer cake. At the bottom of this cake is the power and the energy. And then that feeds these servers and chips. And then those servers and chips live in a data center cloud. That whole bottom layer, those three layers is what I call infrastructure. Okay, so that's why you're seeing. Most of the MAG 7 are here”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No In fact, I would even make another distinct, the MAG 7. The most profitable sector in all the SP is the semiconductor industry. They even have higher margins now than the software industry. And the software industry is amongst the highest, right? So tech in general, if you say software and semis are. Two-thirds of all of tech. They have the highest margins in the world. So, they had the most profitable companies with the most growth, which generates the most free cash flow, which generates the returns, which generates the 40% of the market cap, which is most of those are MAC 7.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And the highest profit margin and the highest free cash flow growth. And that's what's driven. Market cap appreciation. That is not well understood.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“100% agree The multiple. Aggregate has not changed dramatically, but it has driven by free cash flow. And the 40% I'm quoting is a combination of comm services, which they... Carved out, which is really tech companies. With classic tech, that's over 40. And when you look at the contribution of free cash flow, right, which is the ultimate profit metrics. It's followed. It is 40% of the free cash flow, right? You know, the other thing about tech, I don't think people realize it has represented the highest growth. It actually has the highest margin. It is the highest profitable margin. People think it's unprofitable. It's like, but 90-some percent of tech profit.”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Generalists, I think, are at an information asymmetry disadvantage to those that have domain specificity. And if you have better information, better knowledge, hopefully that leads to better decision making, which will hopefully sustain the active management”
2024-12-12 · Masters in Business · From Technology in Focus to Finance with BlackRock's Tony Kim · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source