Speaker 1: From the heart of where innovation, money and power COLLI
Speaker 1: in Silicon Valley and Beyond. This is Bloomberg Technology with
Speaker 1: Emily jay I. Remember Wi Chang in San Francisco, and
Speaker 1: this is Bloomberg Technology coming up. Ryan Cohen sells out.
Speaker 1: Shares of bed Bath and Beyond are plunging after the
Speaker 1: memestock idol sold his stake. Will explain why he did it.
Speaker 1: And some of Silicon Valley's richest exaction investors are campaigning
Speaker 1: against multi family housing coming to their neighborhood, including Mark Andreason. Yes,
Speaker 1: the investor who just gave controversial we Work founder Adam
Speaker 1: Newman a huge check to re envision well rental housing
Speaker 1: and last year was the most lavish on record for
Speaker 1: executive chex by almost any measure. More than thirty public
Speaker 1: company executives were paid a hundred million dollars according to
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg Pay Index. We will dig in well, let's
Speaker 1: get back to that bed Bath and Beyond stock, the
Speaker 1: latest meme stock target sliding. Activist investor Ryan Cohen first
Speaker 1: sparked this frenzy when his firm r C Ventures disclosed
Speaker 1: a nine percent stake back in March and called for
Speaker 1: a sale of the company shares have plunged now that
Speaker 1: Cohen has officially taken a steak to zero. I want
Speaker 1: to bring in Bloomberg's John Edwards for more on this. John,
Speaker 1: what sort of intel do we have on why Ryan
Speaker 1: Cohen sold out here? Well, we haven't heard from him
Speaker 1: directly yet, but it looks like he's just lost patients
Speaker 1: with this, uh, this struggling retailer. You know, he came
Speaker 1: in uh you know back in the spring, uh in March,
Speaker 1: thinking that he could really affect a turnaround here. Uh,
Speaker 1: and it looks like he has lost patients with that
Speaker 1: and bailed out. You know. He uh, he made a
Speaker 1: lot of changes. You know, he brought in three independent directors.
Speaker 1: Then in June, um, you know, as that patients started
Speaker 1: wearing thin, Uh, he uh sort of backed the outster
Speaker 1: of the CEO, Mark Tritton. Uh. And um, you know
Speaker 1: they thought then, was that Cohen thought that, you know,
Speaker 1: Bed Bath and Beyond should sell it's uh, either sell
Speaker 1: it self entirely or sell it's bye bye baby unit,
Speaker 1: which is doing better than the rest of the chain.
Speaker 1: But it looks like he is just run out of patients,
Speaker 1: and bed Bath and Beyond is run out of time
Speaker 1: with him at least welcome through the timeline because obviously
Speaker 1: earlier in the day there was this filing from our
Speaker 1: c ventures they might sell then we learn, uh, they
Speaker 1: have officially sold out. Is there any potential for regulatory scrutiny?
Speaker 1: He uh, you know, some uh, some shareholders have made
Speaker 1: some noise about you know, filing complaint. It's about the
Speaker 1: way that that Cohen has handled this, you know. He
Speaker 1: uh again came into the stock with a lot of fanfare,
Speaker 1: and then uh, you know, there was that filing that
Speaker 1: was made officially on on Tuesday, but disclosed yesterday that
Speaker 1: they were thinking about getting out of their entire steak,
Speaker 1: and then of course the new filing that they have
Speaker 1: indeed taking their steak down to zero. So a lot
Speaker 1: of these retail investors who piled into the stock are
Speaker 1: certainly upset with Cohen at this point, and some might
Speaker 1: be looking to take action, but it's unclear if if
Speaker 1: he's actually done anything you know wrong, per sect. All right,
Speaker 1: we will keep following that blue bus. John Edwards, thank
Speaker 1: you for that update. Meantime, billionaires living in one of
Speaker 1: the wealthiest hip codes in the world are pushing back
Speaker 1: on plans for more housing. Top investors and executives from Apple, Facebook,
Speaker 1: Google and more. I want to stop all Fornia from
Speaker 1: allowing businesses and multi family housing in Atherton. One of
Speaker 1: the most vocal is none other than Mark and Reason,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's Ellen here. He wrote about the pushback in Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week, So talk to us about what's going on here.
Speaker 1: So there was just this interesting moment where public comment
Speaker 1: in the town of Atherton was put online and people
Speaker 1: discovered that, um, you know, even though Mark and Reason
Speaker 1: has been very vocal publicly about the need for states
Speaker 1: like California to build more in order to fix its
Speaker 1: housing shortage, turns out when people propose um changes in
Speaker 1: the town of Atherton that would allow for multi family housing,
Speaker 1: the neighbors get very upset. And Atherton is the richest
Speaker 1: place in America, and that's why the people who are
Speaker 1: upset tend to be some of the biggest names in
Speaker 1: tex So. As you mentioned exacts and vcs. So let's
Speaker 1: we actually have the letter from Mark and Reason. He
Speaker 1: says he's writing to communicate his immense objection to the
Speaker 1: creation of multifamily housing in Atherton. Please immediately remove all
Speaker 1: multi family housing. This is in all caps overlay zoning projects. Um,
Speaker 1: they will massively decrease our home values and immensely increase
Speaker 1: the noise, pollution and traffic. And you referenced a blog
Speaker 1: post that he wrote a couple of years ago that
Speaker 1: it's time to build, uh, indicating you know it was
Speaker 1: it was you know, pretty big picture, not a lot
Speaker 1: of details about what he was saying, it was time
Speaker 1: to build and how um. But this, of course on
Speaker 1: the back of a very big check he wrote to
Speaker 1: the controversial founder of We Work, Adam Newman, to re
Speaker 1: envision housing. There's some irony. I think it's just the
Speaker 1: classic Nimby mentality, which stands for, as you probably know,
Speaker 1: not in my backyard. Of course we want housing, but
Speaker 1: as soon as it's proposed an Atherton, which many people
Speaker 1: you know, Atherton is just a strange town. It's extremely wealthy.
Speaker 1: All the big names lived there, and they like it
Speaker 1: because it's private, it because it's really not dense, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, they're surrounded by other very rich neighbors and
Speaker 1: so there's a strong um, well, of course we like housing,
Speaker 1: but not you know, not where I live. Um. And
Speaker 1: I think that's just a very common attitude, and it's
Speaker 1: funny to see it show up here. And it's not
Speaker 1: just Mark Andreason you know, a number of different folks
Speaker 1: posting here. You you singled head to quote from Anthony Nodo,
Speaker 1: the CEO so FI, talking about how his family has
Speaker 1: had to get private security because crime is on the rise.
Speaker 1: Can we substantiate that? No? I mean, I think it's
Speaker 1: just it's bringing up all these fears that people have
Speaker 1: about increased housing, which honestly, in my opinion or you
Speaker 1: tend to be fear around change like they like the
Speaker 1: town the way it is. You know, one of the
Speaker 1: quotes in the story is you know Atherton as we
Speaker 1: know it will come to an end, and only you
Speaker 1: are to blame for that speaking to the town council's
Speaker 1: given that you reported so heavily on we Work and
Speaker 1: Adam Newman, what's your take on this? Andreason check. I
Speaker 1: think that they want to send a really strong, a
Speaker 1: little trollish signal saying like, hey, we're not afraid to
Speaker 1: back founders who have had um you know a lot
Speaker 1: of bad press around some of their back their past examples,
Speaker 1: and that we really believe in kind of the iconoclastic,
Speaker 1: brash person at the head of a company. Um, whether
Speaker 1: that's going to end up being a smart check or not,
Speaker 1: I guess we'll see. You know, if you look at
Speaker 1: we work, the people who really got screwed as investors
Speaker 1: are the ones who came in later, not the ones
Speaker 1: who wrote some the earliest checks. So Andrews and may
Speaker 1: have actually made a pretty smart move here back in
Speaker 1: Newman early, but it all remains to be seen. We
Speaker 1: shall see, maybe fought or for another very long podcast someday. Okay,
Speaker 1: Ellen Hwitt, thank you. The U s housing market is
Speaker 1: quickly changing. Homes are more unaffordable than they've been in
Speaker 1: forty years, and home sales have fallen for six month straight.
Speaker 1: The home buyer Affordability Index is at its lowest point since,
Speaker 1: which means, in theory, more than half of families can
Speaker 1: get on the property ladder. Still, the online housing business
Speaker 1: is growing, and better dot Com wants a leg up
Speaker 1: on that ladder, partnering with Palenteer to create a new
Speaker 1: mortgage platform that will into leverage data to help borrowers
Speaker 1: qualify for better loans. Here to discuss better CEO Vishall
Speaker 1: Guard Vishall, thank you so much for joining us. So
Speaker 1: how will this marketplace work exactly? Well, thank you so much, Emily.
Speaker 1: We have thirty two major institutional investors that are on
Speaker 1: our platform today that actively buy loans, and what this
Speaker 1: will prolibrate them to do is to use far more
Speaker 1: granular data to UH make loans to UH c r
Speaker 1: A eligible loans, UH Low moderate income eligible loans, loans
Speaker 1: for homes with solar things that have traditionally been very
Speaker 1: difficult for mortgage investors to provide discounts on or to
Speaker 1: make more affordable. Yeah, we're heading into what could be
Speaker 1: a very prolonged economic downturn. We're already in it. You know,
Speaker 1: this is never a good time for the housing market.
Speaker 1: Why do you think now is the right time to
Speaker 1: launch this? I think affordability matters more than ever before.
Speaker 1: And we've got three trillion dollars of capital that's been
Speaker 1: raised for e s G funds and most of it
Speaker 1: never makes its way into the mortgage market. So by
Speaker 1: creating Bloomberg for Loans effectively working with Palenteer, what we're
Speaker 1: going to be able to do is help families that
Speaker 1: are in sectors that are favored by E s G
Speaker 1: investors actively connect with those investors and effectively be able
Speaker 1: to lower their cost of home ownership. Now, what are
Speaker 1: the challenges that you think you're going to face in
Speaker 1: trying to build out a home mortgage business at a
Speaker 1: time when the housing market is slumping, if not crashing.
Speaker 1: I think the demand for houses is down, but there's
Speaker 1: still millions of homes being bought and sold every year
Speaker 1: in the United States today, and better dot Com has
Speaker 1: grown fairly rapidly. We've grown from nothing to doing almost
Speaker 1: a hundred billion of mortgages UH this year and um
Speaker 1: so while the market is down, we are still less
Speaker 1: than one percent market share, and we hope that we
Speaker 1: can continue to grow and by making housing more equitable,
Speaker 1: we can actually grow addressing one of the issues that
Speaker 1: most homeowners face today. You've got a huge capital infusion
Speaker 1: from soft Bank. Is this you putting that capital to work?
Speaker 1: And how else should we see you putting the money
Speaker 1: to work? Yeah, we we did get a huge capital
Speaker 1: infusion from soft Bank, and making homeownership more equitable while
Speaker 1: driving our business is the most wonderful type of innovation
Speaker 1: that we can hope for. And so this is at
Speaker 1: the cutting edge. By partnering with Palentteer what we were
Speaker 1: going to do in five to ten years. We've been
Speaker 1: able to leverage our soft bank capital to actually make
Speaker 1: live this year. Now I have to ask you about this.
Speaker 1: The macro picture, of course, has been challenging for a
Speaker 1: lot of companies. In the last year, you've had layoffs,
Speaker 1: laid off nine of the company, nine people you laid
Speaker 1: off via Zoom than an additional three thousand. I know
Speaker 1: you've got a lot of heat for that. When you
Speaker 1: look back on that, what would you have done differently?
Speaker 1: What do you think went wrong? I think we did
Speaker 1: a lot of things that were very wrong. Um, I
Speaker 1: should have handled the layoffs with more care and more empathy.
Speaker 1: We were very lucky that because of the fact that
Speaker 1: we're a digital mortgage company and a digital home ownership platform,
Speaker 1: we were actually able to see the downturn in the
Speaker 1: market that is evidence today and that you see many
Speaker 1: many other mortgage originators laying off thousands of people. We
Speaker 1: were able to see that as early as late last year,
Speaker 1: and so we've been able to get ahead of it.
Speaker 1: We've been able to downsize to a burn. We've taken
Speaker 1: over a billion dollars in expense line items out of
Speaker 1: the company's cost structure, and we're using that savings to
Speaker 1: now innovate and continue to serve customers. So what are
Speaker 1: you doing differently now to manage costs, to manage hiring,
Speaker 1: to make sure you've learned from those lessons and something
Speaker 1: like that doesn't happen again. I think managing the up
Speaker 1: and down cycle of the cyclicality of the mortgage industry
Speaker 1: is something that's new to us, where again only a
Speaker 1: six year old company, and there are companies in the
Speaker 1: mortgage space that have been able to manage that far
Speaker 1: superior to us. So what we're keeping our pulse on
Speaker 1: is uh customer demand, customer demands specifically for new products,
Speaker 1: and legging into growing those new ducts, not at the
Speaker 1: rate that we did in two thousand twenty, where we
Speaker 1: grew almost but slowly, legging into customer demand, rather than
Speaker 1: what in startup whend you get taught to do with
Speaker 1: just a blitzcale. You're also being sued by one of
Speaker 1: your former executives, Sarah Pierce, alleging you misled investors in
Speaker 1: the process of trying to go public Vias back. She's
Speaker 1: also alleging retaliation. The SEC is now looking into this
Speaker 1: what's your response to all of this. I think it's
Speaker 1: very hard for me to comment on matters that are
Speaker 1: an active litigation or subject of an SEC inquiry. All
Speaker 1: I can say is every day we wake up and
Speaker 1: we find gratification in helping make homeownership cheaper, faster and
Speaker 1: better for more and more American families. And the more
Speaker 1: we can keep on doing that, the better the world
Speaker 1: will be. You're also trying to take the company public.
Speaker 1: I've leaves still Vias back and I know there's a
Speaker 1: deadline coming up for that. Is that still the plan?
Speaker 1: And um, you know, especially given that this back market
Speaker 1: has fizzled, how are you thinking about whether now is
Speaker 1: really the right time. We're evaluating all of our opportunities,
Speaker 1: and again I can't comment publicly on it. All I
Speaker 1: can say is that we remain committed to achieving greater
Speaker 1: capitalization so that we can have the funding to serve
Speaker 1: our customers, and we're open to all the different options
Speaker 1: out there uh than enable us to continue to be
Speaker 1: really well capitalized. So I'm curious for your thoughts on this.
Speaker 1: We've been talking a lot about the funding that Adam Newman,
Speaker 1: the founder of we Work, just received the biggest check
Speaker 1: ever from Andres and Horowitz to you know, potentially revolutionize
Speaker 1: residential real estate, or at least that's what Mark and
Speaker 1: Reason seems to be hoping for according to his blog post,
Speaker 1: What do you make of that funding? I am so
Speaker 1: happy that the venture capital community and entrepreneurs are still
Speaker 1: interested in revolutionizing the residential real estate market. Here we
Speaker 1: have a forty trillion dollar industry where consumers still pay
Speaker 1: six percent to buy or sell a home, where consumers
Speaker 1: spend over ten percent of the value of their home
Speaker 1: just transacting, where it takes sixty days to transact, and
Speaker 1: so there are so many aspects of the residential real
Speaker 1: estate market that need to be optimized and made work
Speaker 1: for consumers rather than brokers or transactional intermediaries. And uh,
Speaker 1: we really welcome the fact that there's going to be
Speaker 1: more innovation and more capital and more innovation in the space,
Speaker 1: even if it's going to Adam Newman, who at the
Speaker 1: very least is a very controversial founder. Adam Newman is
Speaker 1: a controversial founder, but he did revolutionize the idea of
Speaker 1: office space. Many of our offices are in we Work space.
Speaker 1: And so while I can't speak to any and all
Speaker 1: of the opinions that are out there in the market
Speaker 1: about him. We are delighted users of the product that
Speaker 1: he helped create, and so if he can do the
Speaker 1: same for residential real estate, good luck. All right, Ballgard,
Speaker 1: CEO of Better, We'll be watching your marketplace and following
Speaker 1: this new partnership with Palenteer. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1: Much more coming up right after this break, This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: Qualcom is taking another run at the market for server
Speaker 1: chips in an effort to decrease its reliance on smartphones.
Speaker 1: The company taking customers for a product standing from last
Speaker 1: year's purchase of the chip startup Nuvia This according to
Speaker 1: Bloomberg sources. They also say Amazon's a WS is one
Speaker 1: of the biggest server chip buyers and has agreed to
Speaker 1: take a look at what Qualcom has to offer. China
Speaker 1: is lashing out at a fifty two billion dollar program
Speaker 1: to expand American manufacturing of semiconductors and industry associations, as
Speaker 1: it contains elements that violate fair market principles and targets
Speaker 1: China's own efforts to build a chipmaking industry. The legislation
Speaker 1: prohibits companies that receive funding from expanding production of advanced
Speaker 1: chips in China, and it's the biggest annual television deal
Speaker 1: ever for a college sports conference. The Big Ten has
Speaker 1: reached an agreement on a seven year contract with Fox, CBS,
Speaker 1: and NBC. According to The Wall Street Journal, this is
Speaker 1: worth about seven and a half billion dollars. The price
Speaker 1: of college football broadcast rights has soared, and no one's
Speaker 1: cashed in more than the Big Ten and the Southeastern Conference,
Speaker 1: both of which are expanding to sixteen teams. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to Bloomberg Technology. I'm Emily Chang in San Francisco. Incredible Health,
Speaker 1: a career marketplace for permanent healthcare workers, announced eighty million
Speaker 1: dollars in series be funding the company's valuation now one
Speaker 1: point six five billion Unicorn status. This at a time
Speaker 1: when the nursing shortage is still a huge problem in
Speaker 1: the United States, a recent report from McKenzie estimating the
Speaker 1: US will be short at least two thousand registered nurses.
Speaker 1: Let's bring in Dr emmon abo zid Now for more
Speaker 1: on this year's the CEO and co founder of Incredible Health.
Speaker 1: Doctor obviously great to have you back here on the show.
Speaker 1: You talked about the nursing short shortage right here earlier
Speaker 1: in the pandemic, what's that shortage like now? So the
Speaker 1: big difference has happened in the last twelve months is
Speaker 1: that this is a this is a workforce that is overworked,
Speaker 1: burnt out, and experiencing excessive streuss. Our most recent third
Speaker 1: annual report on nurses in the US showed that one
Speaker 1: third nurses are considering leaving the profession permanently by the
Speaker 1: end of the year. So how has the pandemic changed,
Speaker 1: you know, potentially this industry for the longer term. I mean,
Speaker 1: are we expecting the impact of the pandemic to impact
Speaker 1: the availability of nurses for years to come? Absolutely? I
Speaker 1: mean even before the pandemic, our demand for healthcare as
Speaker 1: a country kept was increasing because our population is aging.
Speaker 1: But pandemics are certainly demand shocks on the system that
Speaker 1: put more constraints on the more strain on the health
Speaker 1: care system, and and the need for even more healthcare
Speaker 1: workers to to fill that demand. The CDC just announced
Speaker 1: a huge overhaul of the agency, acknowledging mistakes they made
Speaker 1: during the pandemic, acknowledging a need to be more nimble
Speaker 1: and respond more quickly. What do you think went wrong there.
Speaker 1: I mean, there was certainly some challenges with how the
Speaker 1: CDC collaborated and and the way the community they communicated
Speaker 1: with the public, which you know, they have some responsibility
Speaker 1: in terms of of how intense and challenging COVID became
Speaker 1: in the US, and that you know, in effect had
Speaker 1: affected the healthcare workforce as well. They were massively overworked.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh and hopefully with these changes when there,
Speaker 1: when and if there is a future pandemic, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it won't affect or decimate the work the healthcare workforce
Speaker 1: as much as this last pandemic. To what are the
Speaker 1: implications for the doctor in hospital marketplace? What are you
Speaker 1: seeing on your platform? Um? You know what what we're
Speaker 1: seeing is, you know, you know, we now work with
Speaker 1: over six hundred hospitals and health systems across twenty five states,
Speaker 1: including very large ones like Kaiser, Permanente and hc A
Speaker 1: Healthcare and academic medical centers as well like Johns Hopkins
Speaker 1: and Cedar Sinai and others. And uh, you know, every
Speaker 1: single one of these hospital executives that we're working with
Speaker 1: is dealing with this problem. Uh. They are, uh, they
Speaker 1: are tackling you know, shortages and and understaffing on on
Speaker 1: all their nursing units. There's even thirty of the employers
Speaker 1: on our platform are now using US for new graduate nurses,
Speaker 1: which was not the case before the pandemic. So this,
Speaker 1: this challenge is continuing to increase and labor expenses and
Speaker 1: labor costs is negatively impacting hospital financials as well. How
Speaker 1: do you hope Incredible Health will help bridge some of
Speaker 1: these gaps? So you know, our our focus is on
Speaker 1: ensuring that nurses are able to get the best permanent roles,
Speaker 1: but we also invest heavily in features and tools for
Speaker 1: nurses that are completely free. We offer free continuing education
Speaker 1: for nurses, free salary estimators. We even have an advice
Speaker 1: platform for nurses built into our apps, and we want
Speaker 1: to continue investing in that, including skill growth, educational scholarships,
Speaker 1: relocation support in order to make sure that the Incredible
Speaker 1: Health is a place where nurses can manage their careers
Speaker 1: instead of only the place where they find their permanent job. Meantime,
Speaker 1: the US is dealing with another some would call it
Speaker 1: a crisis, the ROVERSUS Way decision from the Supreme Court. Um,
Speaker 1: is this at all impacting your platform? And the workers
Speaker 1: on your platform, especially those working in states where abortion
Speaker 1: is restricted. So it's not affecting the incredible health platform,
Speaker 1: but that it does affect the nursing workforce in a
Speaker 1: couple of different ways. First, there's going to be an
Speaker 1: increase in volume of patients because when you restrict you
Speaker 1: know that that care, you know you're gonna have more
Speaker 1: topic and more more life threatening pregnancies. Um. So that
Speaker 1: that increases the workload on the healthcare workers. Secondly, you know,
Speaker 1: they have to consider the legal ramifications when they are
Speaker 1: supporting and counseling patients, and so they have to be
Speaker 1: very aware of their code of ethics as well as
Speaker 1: the legal regulations that they have to follow in their
Speaker 1: state and in their hospital. Uh. And then finally, you
Speaker 1: know it will continue. You know, the vaccine band mandates
Speaker 1: were extremely um uh controversial, and so is Rob Wade,
Speaker 1: even among healthcare workers. So that you'll have healthcare workers
Speaker 1: that are going to be on both sides of this
Speaker 1: of this discussion, which creates more you know, angst than
Speaker 1: and the debate and discussion and intensity in the workplace.
Speaker 1: So how are you expecting this to play out over
Speaker 1: the next several years? Where you know, this could potentially
Speaker 1: happen in more states, you know, talking about a bottleneck
Speaker 1: potentially already. You know where are we three years from now?
Speaker 1: I mean we are. Every report we read, every projection
Speaker 1: shows that the shortage of workers is projected to continue
Speaker 1: unless we can do more to support this workforce and
Speaker 1: grow this workforce. The one positive that came out of
Speaker 1: the pandemic, and and you know the ce CE changes
Speaker 1: even will be great, Wade. Is it put more emphasis
Speaker 1: on the importance of the healthcare workforce and how we
Speaker 1: need it to deliver care? All right? M on opposide,
Speaker 1: incredible health CEO and co founder. Good to have you
Speaker 1: back here on the show, Um, and appreciate all your
Speaker 1: insights there. Meantime, tech stocks are staging a comeback, generally
Speaker 1: after a brutal start to the year. The NASTAC one
Speaker 1: hundred was down a month go. Now it sounds se
Speaker 1: year to date. Joining me now, Miriam rivera co founder
Speaker 1: and CEO and managing director of OH Ventures, a seed
Speaker 1: stage firm with two million dollars in assets under management. Um,
Speaker 1: how cautious Miriam, would you say you are right now
Speaker 1: in this investing environment? Well, I've been in Silicon Valley
Speaker 1: since so, I've gone through many cycles here, and one
Speaker 1: of the things that tends to happen is that there's
Speaker 1: a bit of overreaction oftentimes when we have uh these
Speaker 1: big dips in the public stock markets as well as
Speaker 1: UM financings that have kind of become so large and
Speaker 1: have promoted growth at all costs, including profitability, and eventually
Speaker 1: the pendulum swings in the other direction, but it tends
Speaker 1: to swing too far. And that's what we're seeing now
Speaker 1: as I understand it. Your firm actually made a record
Speaker 1: number of investments in the last quarter twenty investment I
Speaker 1: believe why is that, Well, we look at risk adjusted return,
Speaker 1: and while we have seen the risk go up the
Speaker 1: and we account for that in terms of how we
Speaker 1: make investment decisions and in our financial models that we
Speaker 1: use to um power our process. What we see is
Speaker 1: that a lot of folks don't um They overreact to
Speaker 1: the news, They don't know where to actually um look
Speaker 1: at increasing the risk in their models, and oftentimes that
Speaker 1: generates uh re fear, just fear and makes people hold
Speaker 1: back capital at a time when actually it's a good
Speaker 1: time to be investing. Because many people are sitting on
Speaker 1: the sidelines and not sure how to price, and our
Speaker 1: financial process really allows us to price at the seed
Speaker 1: stage very well and to encompass that additional risk in
Speaker 1: still trying to achieve the same technets probability weighted multiple
Speaker 1: that we look for in each investment. Well, let's talk
Speaker 1: about that pricing because it seems investors would be at
Speaker 1: an advantage right now. You know, we're hearing about flat rounds,
Speaker 1: down rounds. You know obviously that we're seeing layoffs, there's
Speaker 1: talk of more laps. What's actually happening behind the scenes, um,
Speaker 1: you know, as these investments are continuing to be made.
Speaker 1: Those are many of the things that are actually happening
Speaker 1: You've described very well. But a lot of that is
Speaker 1: really happening at the later stages and venture where the
Speaker 1: pricing impact of what happens in the public capital markets
Speaker 1: have a larger impact. What tends to happen UM in
Speaker 1: the earlier stages, such as seed, is that you don't
Speaker 1: see such large fluctuations and valuations UM as you have
Speaker 1: seen recently. Kind of towards the end of these cycles,
Speaker 1: where people are doing growth at all costs, you tend
Speaker 1: to have higher pricing at the seed stage, but not
Speaker 1: as much as at later stages, and so we do
Speaker 1: see people doing more flat rounds um. We haven't seen
Speaker 1: a lot of down rounds um yet in our portfolio,
Speaker 1: but I do think that that is not an uncommon
Speaker 1: thing to happen. And these kind of holding the price
Speaker 1: constant right now often does help entrepreneurs to get additional
Speaker 1: capital so they can weather these cycles. And these cycles
Speaker 1: tend to be, you know, less than a couple of
Speaker 1: years for the most part, so as long as they're
Speaker 1: well situated, it's not your price today, it's kind of
Speaker 1: where you think you can be two years from now
Speaker 1: in terms of the metrics and outcomes that your investors
Speaker 1: are going to be looking for at that stage. That's
Speaker 1: really important. Now. Very successful companies were founded during downturns.
Speaker 1: The most recent downturn Airbnb, Slack, Instagram, Square, you go
Speaker 1: back to the eighties, Microsoft was founded during a downturn.
Speaker 1: How optimistic are you that you know one of these
Speaker 1: world changing companies is being founded right now. Well, I'd
Speaker 1: say that there are more of these world changing companies
Speaker 1: being founded today than ever before, and across more technology
Speaker 1: sectors than ever before. So I'm very optimistic. I am
Speaker 1: a very long term investor and believe that technology stocks
Speaker 1: are a place where both individual investors and institutional investors
Speaker 1: should be because the wave of technology that is occurring now.
Speaker 1: In terms of the market sizes that are possible on
Speaker 1: the Internet, there are five billion users on the Internet.
Speaker 1: When I first started UM in as counsel on an
Speaker 1: I p O for an Internet company, there were thirty
Speaker 1: nine million users. So these markets are vast. They've never
Speaker 1: been possible to access in this way before, and they're
Speaker 1: going to continue to be a dominant force in the
Speaker 1: economy moving forward. So curious, Miriam, what your thoughts are
Speaker 1: on Andrews and Harrows recently writing its biggest check ever
Speaker 1: to Adam Newman, obviously troversial founder of We Work. You know,
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of criticism of this. We also
Speaker 1: spoke to a founder earlier in the show who praised UM.
Speaker 1: The decision by UM Andrews and Horowitz, what's your take.
Speaker 1: I'm always of two minds. One is I believe that
Speaker 1: people make mistakes, and I don't believe in canceling people.
Speaker 1: I also believe that we have really benefited UM as
Speaker 1: a technology sector from some of the work of we work. Before,
Speaker 1: companies used to have fixed costs in terms of real
Speaker 1: estate space, and now more and more companies have a
Speaker 1: much more variable approach to what was really once a
Speaker 1: very large part of their cost curve, so that these
Speaker 1: kinds of innovations, UM, they do come with good and bad.
Speaker 1: I remember in your book you talked about um kind
Speaker 1: of the pro topia and the culture of venture, and
Speaker 1: also entrepreneurship and Lolcan Valley, and I definitely have a
Speaker 1: lot of issues with that as well, but I also
Speaker 1: recognize when innovation has really changed how work gets done
Speaker 1: and where it gets done. Mary mrivera Ventures co founder
Speaker 1: and CEO, appreciate you stopping by. Okay, Next up, the
Speaker 1: Ethere merch finally coming. We've got all the details. Next,
Speaker 1: this is Bloombird time now for our crypto report, and
Speaker 1: let's talk about the merge. The core developers working on
Speaker 1: the software upgrade of the Ethere and blockchain have now
Speaker 1: firmed up September as the likely official date. I want
Speaker 1: to bring in Bloomberg's Olga career for more on this. So, Olga,
Speaker 1: is this the last likely date? How likely is it
Speaker 1: it's actually gonna happen? On this date. I know there
Speaker 1: has been a bunch of dates thrown around in the
Speaker 1: past week or so. Last week we knew it would
Speaker 1: happen probably in September, but now we know it's going
Speaker 1: to be probably September fifteenth. But this date could still
Speaker 1: change because Ethereum developers are basically looking to see how
Speaker 1: many computers are supporting the network. If the number of
Speaker 1: these computers declines rapidly, they might pull forward the date.
Speaker 1: So could still change. And what will change once the
Speaker 1: merge happens. So basically what will change is the power
Speaker 1: consumption of the Ethereum network. It will decline by more
Speaker 1: than so. Today transactions from the network are ordered by
Speaker 1: computers cold miners that take up a lot of energy,
Speaker 1: and after this upgrade, it's going to be done differently,
Speaker 1: in a much more energy efficient way. What are the
Speaker 1: implications for other block chains. I think some of the
Speaker 1: older block chains that still use minors, still use this
Speaker 1: power hungry computers, might feel more pressure to switch to
Speaker 1: something more environmentally friendly as well. But the fact is
Speaker 1: a lot of the newer block chains already use a
Speaker 1: sort of similar technologies to what Ethereum is moving to.
Speaker 1: So um I think we'll see more investments into this
Speaker 1: type of block chains. All right, well, uh, lots to
Speaker 1: continue to watch air. We will hone in on September.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's ago Curry thank you nine figure paychecks, once a rarity,
Speaker 1: are now proliferating, despite critics on Capitol Hill and beyond
Speaker 1: as the US was still grappling with the pandemic and
Speaker 1: new variants. One was in fact the most lavish year
Speaker 1: on record for executive compensation by almost any measure, which
Speaker 1: paid deals of more than a hundred million dollars in
Speaker 1: value according to the Bloomberg Pay Index, and the pack
Speaker 1: is being led once again by Elon Musk. I want
Speaker 1: to bring in Bloomberg's Honors Melon for more on this.
Speaker 1: So Honors tell us who is getting these paychecks? Ellen
Speaker 1: and who else? It's Ellen, It's Tim Cook, It's the
Speaker 1: CEO Subibvian and Lucid. You have a couple of finance
Speaker 1: guys in there, Sprinkling, Brian Armstrong, a coin Base and um.
Speaker 1: The list looks quite similar as it has in past years.
Speaker 1: It's it's a lot of men and most of them
Speaker 1: tend to be white. There are a few women. This year.
Speaker 1: There was one woman up there from Coti the Beauty.
Speaker 1: You know, I remember the days when Steve Jobs paid
Speaker 1: himself a dollar or something, but obviously I had a
Speaker 1: ton of equity in Apple. How on accedented is this? Well,
Speaker 1: it's interesting. I thought when I started covering executive pay
Speaker 1: a few years ago that you would almost we would
Speaker 1: start to see more of a shift to the one
Speaker 1: dollar CEO, because you have a lot of CEOs out
Speaker 1: there that are quite wealthy, especially with the ballmarket that
Speaker 1: ran for so long. But instead it's almost been a
Speaker 1: shift in the opposite direction. And a lot of that
Speaker 1: really harks back to Elon Musk, who got the biggest
Speaker 1: pay package that has ever been granted to a company executive,
Speaker 1: in which he would earn tens of billions of dollars
Speaker 1: over the course of about a decade through a generous
Speaker 1: grant of stock options with very audacious goals attached to them.
Speaker 1: What many companies did was to say, this looks really interesting,
Speaker 1: and they went out and they constructed similar pay packages
Speaker 1: for their CEOs. And that's what we're now seeing popping
Speaker 1: up here. And they're across corporate America, not just in tech,
Speaker 1: but also another another places too, and that's what's really
Speaker 1: driving this trend. It's interesting to see some of the
Speaker 1: names on this list. R J Scourge for example, the
Speaker 1: seeo of Rivian. I mean Rivian just got a car
Speaker 1: on the road. Just how are companies justifying these numbers?
Speaker 1: So I should caveat these figures with saying that this
Speaker 1: is the figures that we published today, is what these
Speaker 1: pay packages were worth at the end of fiscale, when
Speaker 1: as we know, equity markets look quite differently than they
Speaker 1: do today. However, um we know that historically things have
Speaker 1: have tend to pan out pretty well for company executives
Speaker 1: or companies say with these packages, is that this is
Speaker 1: what we need to motivate our top guy or gal.
Speaker 1: But it's most often a guy, and this is reflective
Speaker 1: of his or her skills and what other CEOs out
Speaker 1: there get paid. So a lot of it has to
Speaker 1: do really with what does the rest of the landscape
Speaker 1: look like. And that's why you get these sort of
Speaker 1: butterfly effects from Ellen gets a grant, then somebody else
Speaker 1: gets a grant, and then all of a sudden you
Speaker 1: have the domino effect. Whereas if you saw more a
Speaker 1: dollar CEOs, especially high profile CEOs, just taken back and
Speaker 1: not nothing more than I think you would see that
Speaker 1: proliferate to to a different extent too. You just wrote
Speaker 1: a piece that crossed about Ryan Cohen that he made
Speaker 1: sixty eight million dollars on the sale of his bed,
Speaker 1: bath and beyond stake this week. Some people are not
Speaker 1: happy about it. We were talking about the potential for
Speaker 1: regulatory issues earlier. Um, you know, what do we know
Speaker 1: about kind of the timeline, um and why he did this.
Speaker 1: We don't know so much about why he did it.
Speaker 1: We know that he started acquiring the stake back in January,
Speaker 1: he held it for about seven months, and then he
Speaker 1: he offloaded it this week, and it came on the
Speaker 1: heels of a bit of a rally in the stock
Speaker 1: after it was disclosed earlier this week that he had
Speaker 1: in fact held onto the mistake for for that long
Speaker 1: and that let's some talking twitter. Um, We're not really
Speaker 1: sure about the motives, but we do know that an
Speaker 1: quite a nice profit. All right, Well, I'm sure someone's
Speaker 1: looking into that. Bloomberg Saunder's Melon, thank you as always
Speaker 1: for joining us. And that does it for this edition.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Technology coming up tomorrow, we're gonna hear from Eric Fistria,
Speaker 1: Benchmark Capital, why he thinks Apple is skirting regulators busy
Speaker 1: with Amazon and Facebook. This is Bloomberg