Dan sat down with General Atlantic CEO Bill Ford in Davos Wednesday to discuss the future of TikTok, AI in investing, and China.

Why it matters: Ford heads one of the largest private market investors in world and sits on the board of TikTok.

On TikTok

Ford believes that a deal keeping TikTok available in the U.S. will be done, with productive negotiations starting as early as next week.

• Driving the news: "We're waiting for Secretary [Scott] Bessent to be confirmed," he said, referencing Trump's pick for Treasury secretary. "I think President Trump will deputize Secretary Bessent to be our partner in this, and we'll get on with it as soon as maybe the end of the week in terms of negotiating what might work."
• A deal, he notes, might not necessarily be a divestiture.
• Ford notably believes the Biden administration is partially to blame for the company's current situation, arguing the previous leadership didn't engage.

On AI in investing

General Atlantic has added a non-voting AI to its five-person investing committee. In 10 years, Ford could see the AI (known as Ada) having a vote.

• Driving the news: Fed 45 years of investment history and memos, Ada votes the same way as the committee about 80% to 90% of the time, he says.
• But it still lacks the human perspective: "We might be saying, this entrepreneur is special ... Ada can't take that into account yet. She doesn't have the interaction with the individual."
• Yes, but: More AI won't translate to lower fees for LPs at General Atlantic.

On China

Despite geopolitical tensions, the Meituan and Alibaba investor still sees promise in the region.

• Driving the news: "Now we have to be cognizant of a few things. More areas are off limits for investment from both the Chinese government aspect of and U.S. government," he says. "I think it's a mistake to write off the second biggest economy, the world."

On IPOs

Ford says he believes overregulation from the SEC led to the slowdown of IPO markets over the last three years. Today, General Atlantic has some 26 companies in the pipeline preparing to go public.

• Zoom in: This comes amid expectations that the Trump administration could rollback some listing requirements.
• "There's been a variety of other regulations that have been layered on top of public company CEOs over time," NYSE president Lynn Martin told Dan on Tuesday, pointing to ESG disclosures as an area that will likely be reviewed.

Stargate has opened. OpenAI, SoftBank, Oracle, and the UAE's MGX unveiled the company on Tuesday that plans to invest $500 billion in AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the U.S.

Why it matters: SoftBank is doubling down on its OpenAI bet, and it reduces OpenAI's reliance on the infrastructure of Microsoft, its largest investor.

Context: The Stargate project will invest an initial $100 billion, with another $400 billion over the next four years.

Between the lines: A portion of the $100 billion is expected to be funded via third-party debt rather than equity, Axios has learned.

• SoftBank will be responsible for raising the debt.
• SoftBank and OpenAI are the largest equity investors in the first $100 billion in Stargate, with Oracle and MGX also having contributed.
• Similarly, the additional $400 billion is expected to be a mix of current investors, new investors, and debt providers.

OpenAI will be responsible for the day-to-day operations of the business.

The big picture: SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son previously promised President Trump that he would invest $100 billion in U.S. firms over the next four years. This is part of that promise.

Zoom out: Microsoft had been OpenAI's exclusive provider of data infrastructure since 2019. As part of this deal, Microsoft says that exclusivity is now broken, though Microsoft will have the "right of first refusal" should OpenAI seek capacity elsewhere.

Reality check: "Trump will take credit for these spending commitments, but the rush to build AI data centers has been building for two years, and this money would likely have flowed regardless of who occupied the White House," — Sareen Habeshian, Axios

• Anthropic, the SF-based AI business, has raised another $1b from Google. axios.link/3PIuYfx

• Render, an SF-based cloud application company, raised $80m. Georgian led with participation from 01A, avra, Addition, Bessemer Venture Partners, General Catalyst, and the South Park Commons Fund. axios.link/4h3acmO

• Vertice, a London-based procurement spend management company, raised $50m in Series C funding. Lakestar led with participation from Perpetual Growth, CF Private Equity, Bessemer Venture Partners and 83North. vertice.one

• H2Site, a Spain-based hydrogen tech company, raised €36m. Hy24 and SC Net Zero Ventures led with participation form MassMutual Ventures, Enagas Emprende, Exergon, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Equinor Ventures, Ezten, and FCR. axios.link/4jnUPqC

• Paytrack, a Brazilian corporate expense management startup, raised $37m in growth funding led by Riverwood Capital. paytrack.com.br

• Mitiga, a NYC-based cyber investigation and response business, raised $30m. SYN Ventures led with participation from ClearSky, Atlantic Bridge, Flint Capital, DNX Ventures and Glilot Capital Partners. axios.link/3C7S9N7