Tech Disruptors

Lumentum CEO Michael Hurlston and VP of Investor Relations Kathy Ta join Bloomberg Intelligence’s Jake Silverman on this episode of the Tech Disruptors podcast to discuss how optics are playing an increasingly critical role in networking inside and across AI data centers. They explore how the company is becoming a key supplier of systems and lasers to hyperscalers. Hurlston unpacks his broad and lengthy tenure as an executive across semiconductors and hardware and how it’s helping him tackle new challenges as the data center evolves. The conversation also covers how Lumentum’s past as a sleepier supplier to telecom networks positions it well to address today’s AI networking needs.

Reddit’s Chief Operating Officer Jen Wong discusses the impact of gen AI models on its platform and how the company is positioning itself in the era of chatbots and LLMs. Wong sits down with Bloomberg Intelligence’s Global Head of Technology Research Mandeep Singh to discuss  the company’s ads business and how it plans to leverage LLM search to boost engagement. All the metrics referenced in the episode are as of December 2025.

Resale is evolving from a fragmented, thrift-driven experience into a technology-enabled infrastructure layer for the apparel industry. James Reinhart, co-founder and CEO of ThredUp, joins Bloomberg Intelligence senior equity retail analyst Poonam Goyal on this episode of the Tech Disruptors podcast. They discuss how automation, machine learning and AI are reshaping the economics of secondhand retail. He explains the “single-SKU” challenge that makes resale fundamentally different from traditional e-commerce, and how ThredUp’s investment in supply-chain automation and data science aims to unlock scale, margin expansion and improved inventory velocity. Reinhart also explores the company’s shift toward AI-driven discovery, its expansion into direct-selling capabilities and the growing role of resale as a recommerce partner to brands. He outlines why he believes technology — not just consumer demand — will determine which resale platforms achieve durable profitability in the next phase of retail disruption.

“No great company became a great company because they saved a lot of money,” says Eric Boyd, president of Microsoft’s AI platform. “They became a great company because they delivered amazing innovative experiences.” In this episode of Tech Disruptors, Boyd explains to Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Technology Analyst Anurag Rana how Azure OpenAI Service, Azure Machine Learning and Azure AI Foundry fit together. He also discusses what’s required to move to broad usage from a pilot: securing enterprise data, retrieving the right context (including “IQ” tooling), evaluating prompts across models and managing costs with techniques like model routing.

“Not everything is an AI problem,” says IBM Software SVP and Chief Commercial Officer Rob Thomas. In this episode of the Tech Disruptors podcast, Thomas and Bloomberg Intelligence senior technology analyst Anurag Rana discuss IBM’s hybrid cloud and AI strategy, from Red Hat/OpenShift and containers for multicloud portability to why the mainframe remains the platform for real-time, high-availability transactions. Thomas outlines IBM’s “new enterprise stack” and a layered, multimodel approach where orchestration and proprietary enterprise data matter more than any single frontier model — especially as sovereignty requirements rise. They also explore how system-of-record companies are best positioned to succeed in the AI era.