Speaker 1: From the heart of where innovation, money and power collive
Speaker 1: in Silicon Valley and beyond. This is Bloomberg Technology with
Speaker 1: Emily Jay. I'm Emily changing San Francisco, and this is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Technology. Coming up in the next hour. Vacations are back,
Speaker 1: at least at the happiest place on Earth. Disney Parks
Speaker 1: have a blowout quarter and streaming subscribers beat with revenue
Speaker 1: up from a year ago. And a new ad supported
Speaker 1: tier is coming to Disney. Plus more on earnings in
Speaker 1: a moment. Plus Musque sells more Tesla shares unloading nearly
Speaker 1: thirty two billion dollars in Tesla stocks since November, and
Speaker 1: he's pointing the finger at Twitter. I'll speak with one
Speaker 1: of his longtime friends, David Sacks, who has been subpoenaed
Speaker 1: by Twitter ahead of the trial. And a key metric
Speaker 1: for Roadblocks and shares tumbling, overall bookings unexpectedly dropping in
Speaker 1: the second quarter. What does that tell us about the
Speaker 1: making of the metaverse. Later this hour, Roadblocks CEO Dave
Speaker 1: Bazuki joins me one on one. All of that in
Speaker 1: a moment, but first I want to dig into Disney's
Speaker 1: results a little bit more. Now, bringing Ross Garber, CEO
Speaker 1: of Garber Kawasaki, longtime Disney's shareholder, of course, So a
Speaker 1: mixed bag adding fourteen and a half million new subscribers
Speaker 1: to Disney Plus. The bulk of those came from India,
Speaker 1: others from other countries, and just a hundred thousand new
Speaker 1: subscribers from the US and Canada. What's your take, Well,
Speaker 1: I don't look at this mixed bag at all. I
Speaker 1: look at this blowout results. I mean you're looking at
Speaker 1: Netflix struggling to add subscribers and the tremendous you know,
Speaker 1: competition and the streaming business and Disney still growing tremendously,
Speaker 1: not only Disney Plus, but Hulu as well and ESPN Plus.
Speaker 1: So when you look at their streaming business, although it's
Speaker 1: losing still lot of money, the future looks very bright
Speaker 1: for that. And Disney was a great company before streaming.
Speaker 1: And what's really exciting about the earnings report is the
Speaker 1: parks are back with over two billion dollars of profits,
Speaker 1: five million of it just from consumer products at the park. So,
Speaker 1: you know, the operating results of this company have improved dramatically, right,
Speaker 1: sort of a broad based recovery that we're seeing. We've
Speaker 1: been listening into Bob J. Peck, the CEO on the
Speaker 1: earnings call. Let's take a quick listen to some of
Speaker 1: what he's had to say. And significant subscriber growth at
Speaker 1: our streaming services, which added fifteen point five million subscriptions
Speaker 1: in the quarter, including fourteen point four million Disney Plus subscribers,
Speaker 1: of which six million were Core Disney Plus and eight
Speaker 1: million were Hot Stars. As of the close of Q three,
Speaker 1: we now have two hundred and twenty one million total
Speaker 1: subscriptions across our streaming offering. Hot Star. By the way,
Speaker 1: is that service that's offered mostly in India. What do
Speaker 1: you make of you know, the addition of this ad
Speaker 1: supported tier. It's something that we were expecting. Netflix is
Speaker 1: doing it as well. Does you know Disney potentially have
Speaker 1: something on Netflix here when it comes to an ad
Speaker 1: supported model. Um no. I think actually it will be
Speaker 1: more benefits for Netflix the ad supported model because for
Speaker 1: many reasons, but I think for Disney because they have
Speaker 1: you know, networks and cable channels and stuff. So you're
Speaker 1: sort of competing against yourself a little bit from the ads,
Speaker 1: or you're spreading your ads on another property. It's a
Speaker 1: little bit more complex for them, But it just allows
Speaker 1: more consumers to watch the content they're making, which is
Speaker 1: a net positive because they sell through so many other
Speaker 1: things to the fans, whether it's going to the park
Speaker 1: or products and such. So for Disney, the most important thing.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't love Bob Chpeck, but he's proving
Speaker 1: he's a great operator during difficult times. He's not an
Speaker 1: exciting guy, but he's got the theme park, the profit
Speaker 1: drivers of the business back, and the losses that they're
Speaker 1: driving from Disney Plus will ultimately turned to gains over time.
Speaker 1: So I think they're managing the business pretty well. And
Speaker 1: and you know, there's no recession at Disneyland. I can
Speaker 1: tell you that. So what are you looking for in
Speaker 1: the coming quarter? Obviously, when it comes to streaming, it
Speaker 1: all comes down to content. Of course, Disney has a
Speaker 1: huge library, but you know, there's been some concern about
Speaker 1: how much of the content will continue to appeal to adults,
Speaker 1: something that Netflix, uh maybe doing a little bit better.
Speaker 1: You know, how do you think about those two players
Speaker 1: in a rapidly evolving streaming environment. So so I'm still
Speaker 1: having trouble calling myself an adult, even though I'm one
Speaker 1: and a half um and as an adult, I watched
Speaker 1: Disney Plus the minute you know, Obi Wan was a
Speaker 1: great show. I mean the minute they dropped anything Star Wars,
Speaker 1: I watch it. I you know what am I supposed
Speaker 1: to do? So I don't think they have a lot
Speaker 1: of trouble. And they've got Hulu for for really adult content,
Speaker 1: but they just recently dropped some R rated movies onto
Speaker 1: Disney Plus like Deadpool, which are a great content. But
Speaker 1: you know, it's really a high quality set of assets
Speaker 1: on Disney Plus, and Hulu is much more like television,
Speaker 1: So they really are appealing to lots of different demos
Speaker 1: and I don't think they lose the older demo at all.
Speaker 1: And parents like me absolutely trust Disney content with my kids.
Speaker 1: And you know, just recently I took YouTube away from
Speaker 1: them because YouTube shorts has become the garbage hole of
Speaker 1: hell and I don't want my kids watching garbage whole content,
Speaker 1: and if I put it on Disney Plus, there's nothing
Speaker 1: they can watch that's bad. So I think parents really
Speaker 1: trust the brand and and and that's starting to really
Speaker 1: pay off for them. That's quite a way to describe
Speaker 1: YouTube kids as a mom. Can you can you expand
Speaker 1: on that I'm not YouTube kids, YouTube shorts. You know,
Speaker 1: they can expand on that. Yeah. See what's happened is
Speaker 1: all that the creators on TikTok are now posting on
Speaker 1: on YouTube shorts and YouTube shorts is basically TikTok. And
Speaker 1: what they're getting now is lower quality content that now
Speaker 1: switches between so many different topics where you know, I
Speaker 1: monitor my kids YouTube because they watch gamers and and
Speaker 1: they'll watch Unspeakable and that's fine, but then it will
Speaker 1: flip them to a video of you know, like a
Speaker 1: Russian flame ly, you know, exploiting their children, throwing them
Speaker 1: in the pool or something. I'm like, what do you
Speaker 1: what are you doing? You know, so with shorts, I
Speaker 1: can't monitor it, and in two minutes it's it's a
Speaker 1: garbage horoll of content. It's just garbage, Ross Gerber, we
Speaker 1: never disappoint provocative as always. Thank you so much, Ross
Speaker 1: for sharing your thoughts with us. CEO Gerber Kawasaki now
Speaker 1: to a bloomberg scoop. Apple is stepping up and spending
Speaker 1: on original podcast The Tech Giant, signing an agreement with
Speaker 1: a Pulitzer Prize winning studio and holding talks with other
Speaker 1: companies about more deals. According to Bloomberg sources, that deal
Speaker 1: with Futuro Studios will fund development and production of podcasts,
Speaker 1: and in exchange, Apple will have the first chance to
Speaker 1: turn any podcast into a film or television show. Shortly
Speaker 1: after cheasing the possibility of share buy backs, Elon Musk
Speaker 1: has sold nearly seven billion dollars in Tesla, stuck Tesla
Speaker 1: and Twitter shareholders, appearing to welcome the news. It is
Speaker 1: Musk's biggest sale ever, and he says it's to avoid
Speaker 1: a last minute sell off if he's forced to go
Speaker 1: ahead with the deal to buy Twitter. Musk says he'll
Speaker 1: buy Tesla shares again if the deal doesn't close. Meantime,
Speaker 1: a number of people in Musk's inner circle have been
Speaker 1: roped into this legal fight, among them Oracles, Larry Ellison,
Speaker 1: venture capitalist Mark Andreson, as well as my next guest,
Speaker 1: longtime tech investor and entrepreneur David Sacks of Craft Ventures. David,
Speaker 1: good to have you back with us. So you got subpoena.
Speaker 1: I know you said you were getting a lawyer to
Speaker 1: try to make this go away. What's the latest on that?
Speaker 1: Any update? Uh? No, no update there yet, but I
Speaker 1: do have this very very large, very fraud subpoena. It's
Speaker 1: probably the thickest subpoena I've ever gotten. And I'm I
Speaker 1: know you're not supposed to talk about these things in
Speaker 1: these situations, but I have to kind of wonder if
Speaker 1: that's the point. Is I've been a vocal critic of
Speaker 1: Twitter's management. Maybe they don't want me talking about these issues.
Speaker 1: But look, I can just sort of save them a
Speaker 1: lot of time and hopefully some some legal fees. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't. I've never been in possession of
Speaker 1: non public information related to their contract dispute with Ellen.
Speaker 1: I've commented based on all the public information that's been
Speaker 1: out there, and and I'm usually when I tweet, I'm
Speaker 1: usually linking directly to that information that I'm commenting on.
Speaker 1: So this is sort of a overly broad phishing expedition
Speaker 1: and I look forward to hopefully being done with it soon.
Speaker 1: So look, we all know you go way back with Ellen.
Speaker 1: You work together at PayPal um, and you know you
Speaker 1: have expressed support um for him, at least in the
Speaker 1: last several months. When it comes to this Twitter deal.
Speaker 1: Looking at some of your tweets, the big question is,
Speaker 1: did you have any non public information. You talk about bots,
Speaker 1: you talk about you, you suggest that Jack Dorsey masterminded
Speaker 1: this whole thing. Is this all really just your opinion
Speaker 1: or do you know something the public doesn't. No, I don't.
Speaker 1: Um these look I'm a commentator. UM. You know I
Speaker 1: do a paw that's I've been doing a pod for
Speaker 1: a couple of years. I've been writing blog posts for years. Um,
Speaker 1: I've been tweeting for years. I express my opinion on
Speaker 1: these topics. This is all based on the public information,
Speaker 1: which again in the screenshot that you're showing, I'm linking
Speaker 1: to the public information that I'm reacting to. That was
Speaker 1: a screenshot from a court filing that Elon's lawyers filed,
Speaker 1: and those are the facts that I'm siting. So I'm
Speaker 1: just a public commentator on this issue. Um. And you
Speaker 1: know Twitter and Ellen they have a fully integrated merger
Speaker 1: agreement that was negotiated by some of the best lawyers
Speaker 1: in the world. I don't know what the relevance is
Speaker 1: of my public commentary on a on a contract dispute
Speaker 1: between them. It just doesn't make any sense. But lots
Speaker 1: of people were kind of roped into this. You saw
Speaker 1: that Joe Lonsdale tweeted that somehow he was roped into it,
Speaker 1: despite his only connection being a few snarky comments. So,
Speaker 1: I think this is just a very overbroad fishing expedition
Speaker 1: type subpoena. But when you, you know, multiplied by the
Speaker 1: number of people that they're uh that they're basically subpoena
Speaker 1: ng it, it kind of amounts to harassment. So I
Speaker 1: hope that the court will will limit will limit the suit.
Speaker 1: You mentioned your podcast, You and You're All In pod
Speaker 1: crew actually interviewed Musk a few months ago. I believe
Speaker 1: at your summit. Have you had communications with him over
Speaker 1: the last several months, private communications, and if so, you know,
Speaker 1: do any of them pertain to the deal and could
Speaker 1: it be at all relevant? Well, you're referring to an
Speaker 1: interview we did in public at the All In summit,
Speaker 1: and it's on YouTube as you want to go see it.
Speaker 1: I mean the news that that interview did make some news,
Speaker 1: but you can just go watch it to see. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, the question is do I have relevant information
Speaker 1: that pertains to this um contractual lawsuit? I don't think
Speaker 1: I do. UM, there's just nothing that that I know
Speaker 1: about this that wasn't already in the public sphere. What
Speaker 1: I've really offered our opinions, my own opinions, and they're
Speaker 1: not at anybody's behest or instigation or anything like that. Well,
Speaker 1: and I don't don't know. I don't know why that.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know why that would be hard
Speaker 1: for anyone to understand, because, as you all know, Emily,
Speaker 1: I'm a person who hasn't been shy about expressing his
Speaker 1: opinions over the years. Absolutely, and right here on the show. Look,
Speaker 1: one concerned that you know, Twitter, Twitter might have is
Speaker 1: that Ellen has been texting all of his friends and
Speaker 1: asking them to tweet about bots. Um. You know what,
Speaker 1: what's your response to that, even though these people might
Speaker 1: not necessarily know or have any expert data or you know,
Speaker 1: spec show information about Twitter spot issues. No, I mean,
Speaker 1: like I said, none of this is at Elon's instigation
Speaker 1: or behest Um. It seems to me that Twitter does
Speaker 1: have a body issue based on my own users of
Speaker 1: the site. I mean, I remember, in particular, when I
Speaker 1: was tweeting about, for example, the Ukraine War, all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, these brand new accounts that had just been
Speaker 1: created with zero followers, they were you know, started in
Speaker 1: whatever March of this year. There all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: we're tweeting things back at me, and it felt like
Speaker 1: all of a sudden they were trying to drown me out.
Speaker 1: There's many examples like that. So you know, the information
Speaker 1: I'm relying on is what's come out publicly, and what
Speaker 1: got revealed is that the way that Twitter determines whether
Speaker 1: it has a body issue is that they're sampling a
Speaker 1: hundred accounts today. I mean, in my view, that does
Speaker 1: not sound sufficient. Now look, I'm not a statistician. This
Speaker 1: is just my opinion. You know, I'm sure they'll call
Speaker 1: sorts of expert witnesses, but in my in my view,
Speaker 1: having operated companies before, if you have a serious issue
Speaker 1: that could affect your company an excellential level, you do
Speaker 1: more than just sort of statistically sample a hundred accounts
Speaker 1: a day. That feels like a perfunctory exercise. So that's
Speaker 1: basically when I tweeted, and you know, I linked to
Speaker 1: the public information about this, and that's really all there
Speaker 1: is to it. Elon Musk at a Tesla event last week,
Speaker 1: had this to say about Twitter. Take a listen. I
Speaker 1: do understand the product quite well, so I think I've
Speaker 1: got a good sense of of where where to point
Speaker 1: the engineering team Twitter to make it radically better. So
Speaker 1: this is as he's still trying to get out of
Speaker 1: the deal. What do you make of those remarks, Um, David.
Speaker 1: If he is, like, say, the court forces him to
Speaker 1: buy Twitter, what do you think he does with it?
Speaker 1: Does he turn around and resell it or does he
Speaker 1: stick with it and try to quote unquote fix it. Well,
Speaker 1: I've always hoped that Ellen would buy Twitter. I mean,
Speaker 1: let's be clear, I'm so I've supported the deal and
Speaker 1: the idea of this deal, and I wanted it to
Speaker 1: go through because I think it would be a societal
Speaker 1: good if Ellen restored Twitter to being a free speech platform.
Speaker 1: That's been my main interest in this whole thing, is
Speaker 1: that I'd like to see uh censorship restrained and free
Speaker 1: speech restored on a major social network like Twitter. So
Speaker 1: I've always hoped that this deal will go through. At
Speaker 1: the same time, I've taken Ellen and his word when
Speaker 1: he tweeted that there's this body issue, that that is
Speaker 1: a serious issue, and you know, he has tried to
Speaker 1: get to the bombom of it, and it seems like
Speaker 1: Twitter hasn't been fully transparent about that, and so I
Speaker 1: can understand that issue from his point of view. I
Speaker 1: want to get your thoughts on another issue having to
Speaker 1: do with social media. We've got this hashtag civil war
Speaker 1: now trending on social media after the FBI searched Trump's
Speaker 1: moral lago property. As you've you've talked about many times
Speaker 1: on this show and in your writing, you are a
Speaker 1: free speech advocate, a free speech advocate on social media.
Speaker 1: But in this particular case, how do you think these
Speaker 1: platforms Twitter, read It, et cetera should handle something like this. Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, I would just if anyone is calling
Speaker 1: for violence, I would condemn that, and in fact, you
Speaker 1: could take down any post that is trying to incite
Speaker 1: violence or a crime. The content like that is not
Speaker 1: protected under the First Amendment. So even as a probe,
Speaker 1: you think the hashtag in itself, like anything with that
Speaker 1: hashtag should be taken No that that that The last
Speaker 1: what I was about to go with this is is
Speaker 1: saying is to say, look, first of all, you can
Speaker 1: take down, um, you know, content that would seek to
Speaker 1: incite violence and be consistent with the First Amendment. However,
Speaker 1: I don't think that's what this hashtag is necessarily doing.
Speaker 1: What I see is that people on the right are
Speaker 1: criticizing this raid on our lago, on President Trump's private home,
Speaker 1: in which thirty FBI agents who are dressed up as soldiers,
Speaker 1: wearing body armor and carrying, you know, a R fifteen
Speaker 1: weapons of war with their fingers just outside the trigger guard.
Speaker 1: I mean, it looked like a raid of something like, um,
Speaker 1: you know, Pablo Escobar's home. They're wondering whether this is
Speaker 1: the whether this is the beginning of a civil war,
Speaker 1: whether civil war is being declared on them, And I
Speaker 1: think that's a legitimate question to ask, and you've got
Speaker 1: to see it in the context of not just this event,
Speaker 1: but things have been happening for the last nineteen months.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've had draconian COVID policies that have given
Speaker 1: unelected bureaucrats ticutorial powers. Even here in California, Gavin Newsom
Speaker 1: as still ruling in their state of emergency. You've got
Speaker 1: the Department of Homeland Security, which is a law enforcement agency.
Speaker 1: They redefined misinformation as terrorism, and then they hired a
Speaker 1: Democratic Party operative to run a new agency, a sort
Speaker 1: of Ministry of truth, devoted to defining what that misinformation
Speaker 1: would be. And now you got this raid on President
Speaker 1: Trump's home, which is utterly unprecedented. And you know, I
Speaker 1: think I don't know what ultimately this was about, but
Speaker 1: I do think that these agencies deserve the public deserves
Speaker 1: an explanation from these agencies in terms of what they
Speaker 1: were after and what they were doing. All right, well, uh,
Speaker 1: once again you expressing your opinions. I should just underscore, um.
Speaker 1: But David always appreciate hearing your thoughts here on the show, UM,
Speaker 1: and will continue to follow h this Twitter story and more.
Speaker 1: Craft Ncher's general partner, David Zaxs appreciate it. Coming up
Speaker 1: much more of Bloomberg Technology. Stay with us. This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: Another story we're watching. Samsung just unveiled the latest generation
Speaker 1: of foldable phones. The new Galaxy Z Fold four and
Speaker 1: Flip four, come with a suite of incremental upgrades. Upgraded cameras,
Speaker 1: a more adorable display, a slimmer hinge. Samsung kept prices
Speaker 1: the same despite surging costs of materials and shipping. Prices
Speaker 1: are going to go up though for Samsung's accessory Climer. Well.
Speaker 1: Come back to Bloomer Technology. Emily changing in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: I want to get back to earnings and shows of
Speaker 1: Sons after hours, I'd let they're back with us, and yeah,
Speaker 1: not good news. Sons down almost twenty percent, that's right,
Speaker 1: and twenty percent in after hours. They cut their full
Speaker 1: year of sales outlook to one point seven three to
Speaker 1: one point seven six billion. They previously forecast one point
Speaker 1: nine five billion to two billion dollars. And they're listing
Speaker 1: every single thing we've already heard in this earning season
Speaker 1: in terms of what's going wrong here. A stronger dollar
Speaker 1: is hurting consumers in all kinds of markets around the world.
Speaker 1: Inflation is putting off consumer spending. But they're also citing
Speaker 1: some elements of shifting consumer behaviors, CEO Patrick Spence saying
Speaker 1: that they're seeing consumers spend less on goods, more on
Speaker 1: services and travel. They're also hurt by supply chain and
Speaker 1: a backlog. They basically had miss sales opportunities in the
Speaker 1: quarter because the supply chain for their hardware has still
Speaker 1: not fixed itself. So real severe reaction here and after ours.
Speaker 1: I mean, this was a stock that has suffered anyway
Speaker 1: down year to date, but there was some hope that
Speaker 1: you know, at least on the supply side, so Nose
Speaker 1: could have improved things. They also recently, for example, launched
Speaker 1: their own version of Alexa and a voice recognition to
Speaker 1: compete in that market. But as we know, they're very
Speaker 1: sensitive to what Amazon is doing as well. This is
Speaker 1: not good news for Sons. Really severe reaction after ours,
Speaker 1: one will look at on Thursday as well. All right,
Speaker 1: thank you. Meantime, as the pandemic has ammed, that means
Speaker 1: less time playing games and add to that rising prices
Speaker 1: and also less money being spent in game purchases, dressing
Speaker 1: up avatars and such. That's left some game publishers, console
Speaker 1: and PC makers struggling to maintain the surge and growth
Speaker 1: seen during the pandemic. Enter Roadblocks, which just reported bookings
Speaker 1: that were disappointing to some, but the company is still
Speaker 1: growing and expanding into the metaverse. I want to bring
Speaker 1: in Roadblocks CEO and co founder David Buzuki now for
Speaker 1: more on that. David, great to have you back with
Speaker 1: us in an exclusive interview. Look, there's no question the
Speaker 1: macro environment has been tough for a lot of companies,
Speaker 1: tech companies and gaming companies in particular. How are you
Speaker 1: seeing these macro economic forces impact Roadblocks in particular. Hey, Emily,
Speaker 1: thank you for having us on the show, and we
Speaker 1: reach out to everyone who's having a tough time in
Speaker 1: these economic times. Roadblocks just had our biggest month in
Speaker 1: history as far as engagement, as far as users in
Speaker 1: the US and Canada, around the world, and in all
Speaker 1: age demographics, and we are not pointed at all. We
Speaker 1: had an amazing July and a wonderful Q two. I
Speaker 1: think what it highlights is that Roadblocks is not a game,
Speaker 1: or maybe even not a game platform. It's a immersive
Speaker 1: human experience platform where people come together to play, but
Speaker 1: they come together to learn, they come together to go
Speaker 1: to concerts, and ultimately the type of technology we're working
Speaker 1: on is almost more of a utility that people use
Speaker 1: in their daily lives. Your fastest demographic in the US
Speaker 1: and Canada at least is actually, you know, seventeen to
Speaker 1: twenty four years old, outpacing the younger kids. You know,
Speaker 1: my my son, as I've talked with you about, who's
Speaker 1: in that younger cohort and loves playing Roadbox. What do
Speaker 1: you think is driving that. We've always had the vision
Speaker 1: that Roadblocks is a civil platform for people of all ages.
Speaker 1: It brings them together, allows them to connect authentically, to
Speaker 1: do things together, whether it's playing, whether it dissecting a
Speaker 1: frog in school, whether it's graduating from high school. And
Speaker 1: I think what we're seeing is as the players on
Speaker 1: Roadblocks get older, they're inviting friends. This is this growth
Speaker 1: in seventeen through twenty four is driven by three three things. Really.
Speaker 1: One is amazing content. Almost half of the content on
Speaker 1: Roadblocks is now played more by over thirteen players than
Speaker 1: under third team players. Is driven by the core virility
Speaker 1: of our platform as driven by constant technical innovation, new
Speaker 1: amazing things around avatars, around immersive UM, layered clothing that
Speaker 1: allows people to be more closely identified with who they
Speaker 1: want to be, uh, spatial audio that we rolled out,
Speaker 1: higher fidelity materials. So it's is really a bunch of
Speaker 1: things driving this growth. How is engagement and monetization different
Speaker 1: for a slightly older age cohort? Yeah, what is UM.
Speaker 1: What's interesting is we've been monetizing very well across all ages.
Speaker 1: One can imagine as we start looking at older demographics,
Speaker 1: they do generally tend to spend more money online. And
Speaker 1: some of the products we are working on right now
Speaker 1: that we've hinted on including a visionary ad server product
Speaker 1: that's immersive and native and actually feels fun rather than
Speaker 1: getting in the way of our players. Those types of
Speaker 1: things typically tend to monetize better with older players. So
Speaker 1: there's really a huge future for our platform, not just
Speaker 1: around the world, but as we get more and more
Speaker 1: older players on the platform. Now you keet in on
Speaker 1: the disappointment among some analysts and investors earlier, and you
Speaker 1: have always talked about a grand vision, these seven big
Speaker 1: inventions that are going to take years and years potentially
Speaker 1: to play out. How do you convince investors who might
Speaker 1: have a shorter term time horizon to stick around. Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: what's really interesting think of the engagement. July the biggest
Speaker 1: month we've ever had, four point seven billion hours of
Speaker 1: engagement on our platform. Fifty eight point five million daily
Speaker 1: active users are thirteen and up. Cohort is growing at
Speaker 1: over thirty six percent year on year, and traditionally as
Speaker 1: we grow engagement, we grow monetization. There's enormous space uh
Speaker 1: in countries like India and Japan in the cohort for
Speaker 1: older players for us to continue growing along to our
Speaker 1: vision really of connecting a billion people with optimism and stability.
Speaker 1: You've expressed frustration at times about being measured against these
Speaker 1: analysts estimates, And I'm curious given that you've waited so long.
Speaker 1: I mean, Roadblocks was founded in the early two thousands,
Speaker 1: you waited a long time to become a public company.
Speaker 1: Do you have any regrets about going public or has
Speaker 1: going public benefited Roadblocks? Yeah? Well, to be clear, I
Speaker 1: don't think I've ever expressed any frustration at any analysts.
Speaker 1: I think they're all trying to do our job. We
Speaker 1: do keep optimistically talking about the size of the potential
Speaker 1: market here. We keep talking about the amazing people were
Speaker 1: bringing on board. I just want to highlight our business
Speaker 1: model is robust enough that we're continuing to hire amazing
Speaker 1: people through the midst of what is for many people
Speaker 1: a difficult time. And we have absolutely no regrets about
Speaker 1: going public. We run our business exactly the same now
Speaker 1: as we used to before we were public. Given the
Speaker 1: macro environment, how are you thinking about spending you know,
Speaker 1: you know, I spoke to Apple CEO Tim Cookie used
Speaker 1: the word deliberate. They're being very deliberate about spending, deliberate
Speaker 1: about hiring. We're seeing layoffs and cutbacks at other companies.
Speaker 1: Are you stepping on the gas or or or pulling
Speaker 1: on the brakes? We are being consistent. We're hiring at
Speaker 1: the same rate in the second half of the year
Speaker 1: as we were in the first half. We're very We've
Speaker 1: always been very deliberate about our spending because everything we
Speaker 1: spend is money that does not go back to our
Speaker 1: developer community. We have amazing people who innovate at a
Speaker 1: very rapid pace. We have a very efficient infrastructure, we
Speaker 1: have a very wonderful trust and safety team. But as
Speaker 1: much as possible, we're trying to be efficient so our
Speaker 1: developers UM can take a bigger piece of that pie
Speaker 1: and keep making amazing creations. You're planning to roll out
Speaker 1: an immersive advertising system later this year. Can you give
Speaker 1: us any more color on that. Yeah, this has been
Speaker 1: a vision for a long time, the notion that when
Speaker 1: we're together in a three D experience, we start to
Speaker 1: see some of the interesting things like billboards or a
Speaker 1: pop up store in the town square that UM we're
Speaker 1: actually quite optimistic, based on the brands we work with,
Speaker 1: that these will not feel like something that gets in
Speaker 1: your way, but they will feel like something that's additive
Speaker 1: to the Roadblocks experience. And the brands that that we
Speaker 1: work closely with tend to be fun interesting brands like
Speaker 1: Gucci Town which dis released I think in March and
Speaker 1: had over thirty million visits, or Tommy Played from Tommy
Speaker 1: Hill Finger, Wimbledon, Wimble World, Spotify Island. These are brands
Speaker 1: is that we think actually enhanced the experience, and we'll
Speaker 1: integrate in with this submersive advertising system. Alright, Roadblocks CEO
Speaker 1: and co founder David Puzuki. David, great to have you
Speaker 1: back with us. Thanks, thank you. A bit busy earnings,
Speaker 1: we can appreciate it. Okay, coming up crypto rallies on
Speaker 1: the new CPI report, But is it to last? And
Speaker 1: who are the leaders of the rally? We'll warn that
Speaker 1: next Mrs Bloomer, It's time now for our crypto report
Speaker 1: and cryptocurrency surge. After a softer than inflected expected inflation number,
Speaker 1: with the CPI increasing eight and a half percent in
Speaker 1: July from a year earlier, cooling from that nine point
Speaker 1: one percent back in June which was the largest in
Speaker 1: four decades, bloombergs Katie Greifeld here for more, Katie, any
Speaker 1: crypto winners in this rally. Basically the whole space was
Speaker 1: winning today. If you look across your crypt go screen
Speaker 1: on the terminal, it all comes back to Bitcoin, of course,
Speaker 1: the largest cryptocurrency out there, having a fantastic day, up
Speaker 1: over three percent on Wednesday. Of course, that ties back
Speaker 1: to the reaction we saw on the stock market. You
Speaker 1: have the NASTAC one hundred up two point nine percent.
Speaker 1: You can almost bet that Bitcoin is going to be
Speaker 1: up as well, just given that very tight correlation, and
Speaker 1: that all ties back to sort of wagers that the
Speaker 1: Fed is going to have to be less aggressive than
Speaker 1: maybe feared, and you saw that reflected in the bond
Speaker 1: market as well. But Bitcoin, you're big one. You also
Speaker 1: had Ethereum rallying very strongly, up almost nine percent again
Speaker 1: on Wednesday alone. As you can see in that chart,
Speaker 1: it has had quite the run over the past month
Speaker 1: and a half or so. But there is some fundamentals
Speaker 1: news there. Of course, as we await the merge, all
Speaker 1: this coming up. As you say, ahead of the merge,
Speaker 1: you know, how are investors bracing for this and is
Speaker 1: it really gonna happen. It's a great question, a little
Speaker 1: bit impossible to answer, so it's known as the merge.
Speaker 1: It's a software update. Basically, we've been waiting for it
Speaker 1: for a while. Theoretically it's going to happen in the
Speaker 1: back half of this year. But what's important tonight actually
Speaker 1: you're going to see the so called Girly tests, it's
Speaker 1: a German word. It's scheduled to take place. It's basically
Speaker 1: a test merge with the test network, and you have
Speaker 1: analyst saying this is the final dress rehearsal before we
Speaker 1: get to the actual merge. So that's what you're seeing
Speaker 1: reflected in the price, just basically optimism that this test
Speaker 1: will go well and maybe we'll get the actual merge
Speaker 1: to follow soon. All. Katie Greifeld, thank you for that update.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about Facebook now and how the
Speaker 1: app was used recently in an abortion case. A woman
Speaker 1: charged with two felonies related to an illegal abortion after
Speaker 1: authorities discovered information about the pregnancy through private messages on
Speaker 1: Facebook Messenger. This according to court documents, Jessica Burgess had
Speaker 1: helped her seventeen year old daughter obtain abortion pills when
Speaker 1: she was more than twenty weeks pregnant. Pregnant making a
Speaker 1: termination of the pregnancy illegal in the state. Her daughter
Speaker 1: also facing related charges. I want to bring in Bloomberg,
Speaker 1: Sara Fryer now for more on this. So set the
Speaker 1: stage a little bit here. What happened, Well, what happened
Speaker 1: in the case, or what happened in in how do
Speaker 1: they obtain these messages? Well, so this is not the
Speaker 1: perfect case to look at when we're talking about whether
Speaker 1: tech companies will give over dated to authorities. In the
Speaker 1: post Row world, that has been a big concern. But
Speaker 1: this case, actually the warrant for this information went out
Speaker 1: to Facebook before the Row case, before Row was overturned,
Speaker 1: and initially it didn't even ask or anything related to abortion.
Speaker 1: It asked for these messages related to the improper treatment
Speaker 1: of of skeletal remains. So that was really what was
Speaker 1: what was at stake here. So Facebook, Facebook cooperated with that,
Speaker 1: and then through that search they found these messages about
Speaker 1: the abortion pill and then added those charges. Um so
Speaker 1: so Facebook came up with the statement saying, listen, you know,
Speaker 1: we didn't know this was about abortion. That statements seemed
Speaker 1: to imply that, you know, they would have been hands
Speaker 1: off if it was. I'm not sure that's the case.
Speaker 1: So let's take a look at this statement. Um, this
Speaker 1: is from Meta. The warrants concerned charges related to a
Speaker 1: criminal investigation, and court documents indicate that police at the
Speaker 1: time we're investigating the case of a stillboard baby who
Speaker 1: was burned and buried, not a decision to have an abortion.
Speaker 1: Both of these warrants were originally accompanied by nondisclosure orders
Speaker 1: which prevented us from sharing any information about them. The
Speaker 1: orders have now been lifted. So, as you say, this
Speaker 1: statement begs the question if they believe this did had
Speaker 1: to have to do with an abortion, that Facebook would
Speaker 1: have done something differently, would they have Well, that's where
Speaker 1: I think they need to bring out some clarification, because
Speaker 1: that is what if you read between the lines of
Speaker 1: the statement, that's what it's implying. But I don't think
Speaker 1: that that's what's going to happen. I mean, tech companies
Speaker 1: do tend to comply with the law and states where
Speaker 1: it is the law. Otherwise they can't operate their their
Speaker 1: business comes under risk. And so I think we're going
Speaker 1: to see many, many cases where it's not even clear
Speaker 1: in the warrant that they're searching for abortion related data,
Speaker 1: and it's going to be up to companies like Facebook,
Speaker 1: and Facebook has come out and said this in the past, Um,
Speaker 1: it's going to be up to them to make sure
Speaker 1: that those requests are not overly broad, that they have
Speaker 1: some sort of legal parameters that they're following, that it's
Speaker 1: not just uh, you know, wild goose chase through Facebook
Speaker 1: messages to try to find something to convictivity, and then
Speaker 1: that they let users know when their data has been requested.
Speaker 1: And so that's been the line from the company. They're
Speaker 1: not coming out and saying either way whether they would
Speaker 1: cooperate with authorities on abortion cases. Of my guess is
Speaker 1: is a lot of the companies will end up having
Speaker 1: to do that. So this um brings back the case
Speaker 1: of the San Bernardino shooter back in December, Apple refused
Speaker 1: to turn over the shooter's iPhone. This is twelve people. Um,
Speaker 1: how do you compare this to that standoff? Well, I
Speaker 1: think we haven't seen a lot of tech companies standing
Speaker 1: up to law enforcement in the in the time since
Speaker 1: they just put those parameters around like we don't want
Speaker 1: to we don't want to use ors to you know,
Speaker 1: we don't want to just have a back door to
Speaker 1: all of the messages that they ever send, and the
Speaker 1: tech companies have worked on things Apple included on encryption,
Speaker 1: on making sure that there's a private way for people
Speaker 1: to send messages. So I think while this gets cleared up,
Speaker 1: the best advice for anyone using any tech product is
Speaker 1: to use an encrypted messaging service if you're going to
Speaker 1: whether it's whether it's Signal or WhatsApp or so, right,
Speaker 1: what's that better? That's it's better a messenger for the
Speaker 1: most part. But Vestor does now have an option to
Speaker 1: send encrypted messages. And the point from the companies that
Speaker 1: would be like, we can't give this message to law
Speaker 1: enforcement because it doesn't exist on our servers. All right,
Speaker 1: So a couple of things this this happened with Facebook before,
Speaker 1: where was overturned um uh And a number of big
Speaker 1: tech companies, of course have a lot of information. You
Speaker 1: think about your Gmail than everything. What are these companies
Speaker 1: do if law enforcement comes at them and ask for emails, texts,
Speaker 1: the company's messages, search history, um buying history. The companies
Speaker 1: have been mum on it because there hasn't been a
Speaker 1: perfect case to rally around. And I think what's happening
Speaker 1: with this case is people are looking at and saying
Speaker 1: like oh abortion messages from Facebook, like Facebook's you know,
Speaker 1: giving giving it up to law enforcement, endangering a woman
Speaker 1: who needs an abortion. But then when you look at
Speaker 1: the details, it gets murkier because it's after twenty weeks
Speaker 1: in the state where it's legal. There um, there was,
Speaker 1: there was, you know, burial of the body. I don't
Speaker 1: know if I want to go into the details are
Speaker 1: a little too dark to even go into on air. Um.
Speaker 1: But but I think that the the case is not
Speaker 1: the one that privacy advocates probably want to rally around.
Speaker 1: It's it's not um, it is just it is just
Speaker 1: an indicator of how murky each one of these things
Speaker 1: is going to. There's never going to be a perfect,
Speaker 1: clean cut decision where you can say like this is
Speaker 1: not an area where we're going to cooperate, or we
Speaker 1: are definitely going to operate in every case. What's your
Speaker 1: sense of whether this Nebraska case could create a precedent
Speaker 1: for what happens in these cases when these requests are
Speaker 1: made by law enforcement. Well, the problem is every state
Speaker 1: is changing their laws in this moment. Right in the
Speaker 1: past few weeks, we've seen abortion get limited, restricted, um,
Speaker 1: criminalize people who help out with abortions in some in
Speaker 1: some states, whether even it's just having knowledge that they exist,
Speaker 1: it can be UM can lead people to legal liability.
Speaker 1: So I think that it's opening up UM liability for
Speaker 1: users of these platforms beyond even just UM patients who
Speaker 1: might get abortions. So I do think that this is
Speaker 1: a very big area that we need to continue to
Speaker 1: look at because UM, if companies continues to just blanketly
Speaker 1: comply with law, enforce wherever wherever, those UM users of
Speaker 1: these platforms are going to get increasingly concerned about their
Speaker 1: privacy and UM their ability to conduct normal everyday business. Alright,
Speaker 1: very complicated, nuanced issue. Sarah Fire, thank you for helping
Speaker 1: us wade through all of that. I appreciate it. And
Speaker 1: that does it. For the edition of Bloomberg Technology coming
Speaker 1: up Thursday, I'll be sitting down with the new CEO
Speaker 1: of pinter Us, Bill Ready, is joining us for an
Speaker 1: exclusive conversation about his first month on the job. This
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg