Speaker 1: I'm Caroline High and Blue Mugs Well headquarters in New York,
Speaker 1: and I'm made Lovelow in San Francisco. This is Bloomberg Technology.
Speaker 1: Coming up in the next hour on Capitol Hill is
Speaker 1: day two of hearings into the collapse of Sam maguin
Speaker 1: Fried's crypto Empire. All while SBF himself is attained in
Speaker 1: jail in the Bahamas. We have the latest plus. Airbnb
Speaker 1: is working to improve connection between guests and hosts to
Speaker 1: improve objective bookings. We talked to the company about the
Speaker 1: findings in its latest anti discrimination study. Meanwhile, Twitter suspends
Speaker 1: multiple accounts tracking the private jets of tech Titans world
Speaker 1: leaders any Lawn Musk himself. We speak to the man
Speaker 1: behind the accounts and get his reaction to being booted
Speaker 1: from the social media platform. The first finances found us CZ.
Speaker 1: He's saying it look that outflows from the crypto exchange
Speaker 1: have stabilized. Still, he's warning employees at the industry's recovery
Speaker 1: from ftx's own collapse, it's going to be bumpy. We
Speaker 1: want to turn our attention to a man who's been
Speaker 1: in this space a long time. He was in traditional finance.
Speaker 1: He made the move of course to crypto is John
Speaker 1: wu president of Ava Labs, for his take on contagion
Speaker 1: what the crypto community, I know, John calls fudd fear, uncertainty, doubt,
Speaker 1: there's a lot there of it, and just talk to
Speaker 1: us about whether or not the contagion that you came
Speaker 1: onto the show previously and warned about is it still there.
Speaker 1: Is it still worrying you, It's still worries me, it's
Speaker 1: still there. In this thing may or may not be over.
Speaker 1: But I think the hearing of the last two days
Speaker 1: and as well as there's some news related to the
Speaker 1: binets actually is encouraging or first of all on the
Speaker 1: hearings to me, the common threat between the congressman and
Speaker 1: John Ray was that most of the number one source
Speaker 1: of all of the wrongdoings really came from misappropriation by
Speaker 1: customer fun and John Ray actually, in his opening testimonies
Speaker 1: said are really the best in my opinion. He said,
Speaker 1: the reason why this is able to happen was simply
Speaker 1: because the power of the decision making, the governance and
Speaker 1: all the information was held by a small group of
Speaker 1: inexperienced hands with zero oversight. Um. What I was surprised
Speaker 1: to not here at all, frankly, was that in fact
Speaker 1: there was a lot of market participation of the participants
Speaker 1: and operas actually suspect it was mean to not only
Speaker 1: leverage the financial balance sheet of f t X, but
Speaker 1: also information flow and probably a front run customers themselves. John,
Speaker 1: what you were talking about essentially is commingling, right, the
Speaker 1: relationship between f t A, f t X ANALEMDA, the
Speaker 1: movement of customer funds, the placement of customer funds. Has
Speaker 1: anything that you've heard in the last fourt eight hours
Speaker 1: made you think that, whether it's regulatory or from a
Speaker 1: legislation point, will find a fix to these issues that
Speaker 1: have been uncovered during the course of this saga. I
Speaker 1: suppose that's a great question, because, um, you know, the
Speaker 1: result of all of this is taking trust out of
Speaker 1: the system, so there's fewer players, taking leverage out system,
Speaker 1: there's less volume. Uh. In order to get the crypto
Speaker 1: capital markets back going, this I think is actually the
Speaker 1: first build rebuilding trust. You need new leaders, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: who have seasoned experience, opposite what John Ray said of
Speaker 1: the existing leaders of FTX. You need also regulation. We
Speaker 1: know three is coming be the year of many bills
Speaker 1: in crypto. And lastly, I think there are actually companies
Speaker 1: are already working to solve it from a technology perspective.
Speaker 1: In fact, I'm very excited about company called Enclave. Enclave
Speaker 1: is a fully UM encrypted exchange on Avalanche. What they
Speaker 1: had done is create a second layer of security using hardware.
Speaker 1: The using the as the Intel sens chip. It's not
Speaker 1: that different form what iPhone actually does. They create a
Speaker 1: segregated hardware layer of security, and in this case, customer information,
Speaker 1: trades data are all put into an enclave, a secure
Speaker 1: hardware enclave where no third party nor UM operating themselves
Speaker 1: can actually get access to it. So therefore the problem
Speaker 1: that John may talk about centralized control, decision making and
Speaker 1: misapprovalate gets taken away. John, That's kind of the systemic
Speaker 1: or structural issues that I guess, you know, market participants
Speaker 1: like you have been passing. You probably heard us at
Speaker 1: the top of the show talking about the market reaction
Speaker 1: to the FED, and all of this makes me feel
Speaker 1: about what's driving the market right now. If we take
Speaker 1: a look a bitcoin, for example, jumping above eighteen thousand
Speaker 1: dollars per token just before the FED, but clearly reacting
Speaker 1: to it, So what is it? Is it this sort
Speaker 1: of fixation on ft X and the fallout, or is
Speaker 1: the market now slowly returning to I don't want to
Speaker 1: use the word fundamentals. I've never found it easy to
Speaker 1: say when it comes to crypto, but let's just call
Speaker 1: it fundamentals. There are fundamentals. I think you're referring to
Speaker 1: valuations being more difficult to understand and justify. But what
Speaker 1: it highlights is, I think what you're pointing out very
Speaker 1: stuteley is that the asset classes and over the last
Speaker 1: two days performed relatively well and in line with the
Speaker 1: risk assets on NaSTA so speak. Where however, the equity
Speaker 1: related crypto companies maybe your coin base, completely underperformed. There
Speaker 1: are many reasons for that, obviously because of the fd
Speaker 1: X and regulation, but frankly, I think a big reason
Speaker 1: underlying reason for this is because there are different communities
Speaker 1: who owned the assets. The underlying assets are really part
Speaker 1: of the crypto native community. They are far more um,
Speaker 1: less distrusting right now of the space, and more enthusiastic.
Speaker 1: But the equity the stocks that you see are really
Speaker 1: crossover traffi guys, and they really have very little trust
Speaker 1: in this space again for a crypto as an as
Speaker 1: a class and as the technology to grow in the
Speaker 1: participants need to rebuild that trust. John. Of course we
Speaker 1: excuse you for the fact that when you're behind the
Speaker 1: defy kind of protocol and focus, you're going to be
Speaker 1: talking up the possibilities and some of the security layers
Speaker 1: that you have apparently being built on there. But I'm
Speaker 1: interested to go back to sort of a centralization point
Speaker 1: of view. And you were so great on our show
Speaker 1: previously when you talked about the contagion concerns you had around,
Speaker 1: say Genesis, talk to us around finance at the moment,
Speaker 1: because there are a lot of concerns out there about
Speaker 1: really the amount of clarity we get from cz when
Speaker 1: we talk about the stabilization of outflows. He's been trying
Speaker 1: to dispel any concerns that he feels have been building
Speaker 1: around finance. And they've all course got vast quantities of
Speaker 1: money sitting and overall the market is huge for them
Speaker 1: and the outflows are pretty little compared to this EXTI
Speaker 1: billion at least they have in reserves. But are you
Speaker 1: worried about finance? I think everyone needs to be somewhat
Speaker 1: worried they are a massive, major player in the space UM,
Speaker 1: but you have to get c Z and Finance some credit.
Speaker 1: They self UM induced a proof of reserves and started
Speaker 1: creating some sort of transparency scale transparency. But obviously, given
Speaker 1: the FTX situation, the participants in the market probably want
Speaker 1: even more transparency, so hopefully we get there. That's one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why we saw I think UH company
Speaker 1: called Nansen reported that close to three billion dollars of
Speaker 1: withdraws in the last day or so from finance UM.
Speaker 1: But if you look at that, it's amazing how the
Speaker 1: asset class actually increase even with that massive withdrawal. So
Speaker 1: what that actually tells me is a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: moved away from finance into what I would consider a
Speaker 1: healthy operational risk management technique from counterparties, and into bit
Speaker 1: wallet's in cold storage as opposed to dumping on the market. Lastly, John,
Speaker 1: what's it like an ecosystem right now? What is it
Speaker 1: like when you're trying to build? What is it like
Speaker 1: in terms of having access to capital to continue to build?
Speaker 1: So it's definitely harder on the great momentum we had
Speaker 1: in terms of building and the business partnerships from traditional
Speaker 1: finance as well as new developers coming in space was
Speaker 1: definitely moving far faster and less resistance. Right now, there's
Speaker 1: clue some people who are hesitating a little bit. But
Speaker 1: with that said, um, I am still very positive on
Speaker 1: real utility into the space. I mean JP Morgan has
Speaker 1: actually transacted or settled three hundred billion dollars worth of
Speaker 1: repos in the last year or so in a real
Speaker 1: live environment through their Jaging Mountain Guardian on X project.
Speaker 1: You've also seen just this last week you had companies
Speaker 1: like Porsche announced an n f T plan. Now optically
Speaker 1: that's an n f T digital collectable, but you know,
Speaker 1: behind the scenes of course, really is doing is actually
Speaker 1: a very smart a way to build younger community aspirational
Speaker 1: buyers very cheaply with cool n f T s giving
Speaker 1: them loyalty engagement so that when they are ready financially
Speaker 1: they can go by the hundred change thousands um. So
Speaker 1: the lifetime value of that get is actually very good
Speaker 1: for the low cost that they are u creating the
Speaker 1: so called n f T s, But it's really more
Speaker 1: of a lead generating tool in a community bill, so
Speaker 1: there is actual functionality. John Wood, president of Our Labs,
Speaker 1: Caroline helping us kind of join the market, moves to
Speaker 1: kind of what's structurally happening in this industry. As a result,
Speaker 1: ft I, You've got so much more to ask you
Speaker 1: next time. We'll have you back soon coming up, though,
Speaker 1: over thirty Chinese companies could end up on a trade
Speaker 1: blacklist more than that, and what it means next this
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg. Let's go global for you. There's zero in
Speaker 1: on China in particular because the country's economy is key
Speaker 1: to so many tech companies around the world, either for
Speaker 1: supply chain or for reaching consumers. Of course, and Bloomberg
Speaker 1: has just reported overnight that the country's leaders they are
Speaker 1: proceeding with a key economic policy meeting this week in
Speaker 1: Beijing after considering actually delaying it due to a surgeon
Speaker 1: COVID infections so all according to sources. That's while we
Speaker 1: of course await more key economic data that could impact
Speaker 1: the shares of some pretty big names Ali Baba JD
Speaker 1: dot Com And I know you're on top of this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you summarize it well, because we're looking both on the
Speaker 1: supply chain side, right, American companies that are impacted by
Speaker 1: their ability to do business in China but also the
Speaker 1: Chinese tech companies themselves. Very shortly, we'll get retail sales
Speaker 1: data for the month of November. A Bloomberg survey of
Speaker 1: economists expects a drop of around four percent year on
Speaker 1: year and even sharper contraction in retail sales than we
Speaker 1: saw in the month of November. And why is that
Speaker 1: key why we're talking about Chinese economic data, because e
Speaker 1: commerce is at the heart of that story. Right Singles
Speaker 1: day falls in the month of November. We've had some
Speaker 1: soft but leading indicators of certain markets. Eving cars, for example,
Speaker 1: fell sharply in the month of November. We saw Ali
Speaker 1: Barber pretty tight lipped about how singles they actually went,
Speaker 1: which is kind of an indication that it probably wasn't
Speaker 1: that good. But as they pull back on the restrictive
Speaker 1: policy for COVID and we see actually that the number
Speaker 1: of cases spread and rise through the country. There is
Speaker 1: eyes from American tech, eyes from European tech, eyes from
Speaker 1: the global supply chain towards China on their consumer, but
Speaker 1: also how they're going to react with policy to what
Speaker 1: we're seeing and what the health of the consumer in
Speaker 1: that market is. Because right now, pretty mixed picture car
Speaker 1: and of course, a continued pretty murky picture, and when
Speaker 1: it comes to geopolitics in particular, and we sort of
Speaker 1: build on your great further focus on the consumer to
Speaker 1: geo politics and the Biden administration because it is planning
Speaker 1: to put more than thirty Chinese companies on a trade
Speaker 1: blacklist again, which will prevent them from buying certain American components.
Speaker 1: Course that depens attentions between the world's two economic superpowers.
Speaker 1: We've got the perfect guest, as our own Tech executive editor,
Speaker 1: Tom Giles here for more. And Tom just talked to
Speaker 1: us about this entity list. Memory chips the focus it
Speaker 1: seems here. But what does that mean for these thirty companies. Well,
Speaker 1: as you said, this is going to put big limits
Speaker 1: on their ability to carry out business with US companies,
Speaker 1: in particular purchasing the components that they need to make
Speaker 1: those chips. The US is really intent on limiting, hamstringing
Speaker 1: China's ability to become a force in chip making. This
Speaker 1: is something that the Chinese government has stated over the
Speaker 1: last several years is a major goal. They're willing to
Speaker 1: spend hundreds of billions of dollars behind this effort, and
Speaker 1: the US wants to cut them off at the knees.
Speaker 1: In particular, they want to interfere with China's ability to
Speaker 1: make chips and use chips in the air war making
Speaker 1: capabilities in for the Chinese military. That's what the US
Speaker 1: stated goal is, and they are taking step after step
Speaker 1: after step in order to keep it from happening. What
Speaker 1: I loved about this reporting one source telling us that
Speaker 1: yank C Memory is kind of one of many on
Speaker 1: the list, but they're maker of nand flash memory. Lower
Speaker 1: down in the story, want to bring it back to
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley in the Bay Area. At one time they
Speaker 1: were talking to be a supplier to Apple, but it
Speaker 1: seems like the doors now closed. From the company perspective,
Speaker 1: this seems to be making life difficult for companies on
Speaker 1: both sides of this debate. That's right, Yanks Memory, huge
Speaker 1: company in China, biggest memory maker in chip maker in China,
Speaker 1: also a potential partner to Apple. Apple saw the writing
Speaker 1: on the wall. Apple recognized this isn't gonna happen. Also
Speaker 1: a major competitors to Samsung, one of the many companies
Speaker 1: that China had been pinning its hopes on and continues
Speaker 1: dependance hopes on for becoming a major force in hip making.
Speaker 1: An other thing to another thing to remember about this
Speaker 1: trade war between these two countries and how it's it's
Speaker 1: got ripple effects far beyond Silicon Valley, far beyond China.
Speaker 1: Is the effort by the US government to keep Chinese
Speaker 1: companies from buying the equipment that they need to make
Speaker 1: chips right, so that that affects the Netherlands, and it
Speaker 1: affects Japan as well. Tom, Ultimately, do we prepare for
Speaker 1: the tip tap to continue to be prepared to hear
Speaker 1: from China. China has already spoken out against this. They
Speaker 1: say that the US is weaponizing technology as part of
Speaker 1: this trade war. They're speaking out against it um and
Speaker 1: I think that their potential to retaliate it remains vast,
Speaker 1: absolutely all right, bloom by Tech Executive editor Tom Giles
Speaker 1: leading the charge here out of San Francisco, Thank you
Speaker 1: very much. Let's talk about the free language learning up
Speaker 1: to and Lingo finds herself perhaps sort a bit of
Speaker 1: a turning point. The company has made a name for itself,
Speaker 1: engaging one of fifty six million monthly subscriber as making
Speaker 1: learning a new language as addictive as canny crush. But
Speaker 1: now the newly public company is kind of facing the
Speaker 1: challenge of becoming maybe profitable while keeping its loyal fan
Speaker 1: based happy joining us now used to say, it's the
Speaker 1: CEO news fun. Now he's talk to us about your
Speaker 1: mission to develop the best education in the world and
Speaker 1: making universally available. How do you turn that into universally
Speaker 1: available and profitable. Yes, so we're a very mission driven company. UM.
Speaker 1: We started exactly because we wanted to give education to everybody. UM.
Speaker 1: But over the last you know, five years, we've been um,
Speaker 1: you know, trying to monetize it, and actually we're very
Speaker 1: successful at it. UM. And the way we did that is, UM,
Speaker 1: we whenever you finish our lesson under a linger, we
Speaker 1: put an ad at the end of a lesson. UM.
Speaker 1: So you can use the thing as much as you want,
Speaker 1: entirely for free, but you may have to see some ads. UM.
Speaker 1: But if you don't to see the ads, you can
Speaker 1: also pay us to subscribe. And UM. It turns out
Speaker 1: that we make quite a bit of money from the
Speaker 1: subscription and actually, um, it's about seven percent of our
Speaker 1: monthly activities are paying to subscribe. But they give us
Speaker 1: about our revenue. And this year we're going to be
Speaker 1: profitable at least on an adjusted ebita basis UM, and
Speaker 1: and that keeps going better and better. Luis Caroline set
Speaker 1: out here in Silicon Valley at least to tail as
Speaker 1: old as time, millions of users trying to find profit.
Speaker 1: You even just use the the ultimate buzzword adjusted ebit dar.
Speaker 1: I've heard that from Uber from Twitter. I mean, the
Speaker 1: user base fifty six million is a part of making
Speaker 1: more money just growing it. How do you get more
Speaker 1: people to jump onto this trend of wanting to learn
Speaker 1: languages but in a way that's kind of gamified. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the main way we grow is we have
Speaker 1: a very engaging product. I mean most of our our
Speaker 1: users come throward of mouth. That in fact, of ast
Speaker 1: majority of users come from the word of mouth. And
Speaker 1: it's because the product is very gamified and very engaging.
Speaker 1: We also grow by having um We have a really
Speaker 1: popular TikTok account if you haven't seen it, uh, and
Speaker 1: we're really good on social media. But it's it's the
Speaker 1: good news is that we don't have to pay to
Speaker 1: acquire users. Really, I mean it's it's it's pretty much
Speaker 1: organic growth, and we're growing. We're growing a lot over
Speaker 1: the last five quarters in a row, we've been accelerating
Speaker 1: our user growth. UM. So you know, we're pretty happy
Speaker 1: with the user growth and that you're right, that's one
Speaker 1: of the ways in which we make more money. We
Speaker 1: basically get more people to use to a lingal. You
Speaker 1: make a good point, which is social media. What do
Speaker 1: you consider duo lingo to be? I mean, is it
Speaker 1: your aspiration to be like a Facebook, to be like
Speaker 1: a TikTok that kind of scale and that kind of
Speaker 1: daily use, or is it the content that you want
Speaker 1: to use to differentiate yourself. We really do think we
Speaker 1: can get too much larger scale. UM language learning is
Speaker 1: pretty interesting. There's about two billion people in the world
Speaker 1: learning a foreign language. UM Dueling was the largest way
Speaker 1: to learn a foreign language. But we only have you know,
Speaker 1: close to sixty million monthly active users, so we have
Speaker 1: a lot room to grow, and we're growing pretty fast
Speaker 1: every month. So we think, you know, we think we
Speaker 1: can get two hundreds of millions of monthly active users.
Speaker 1: Talk to us about R and D and about the
Speaker 1: way use way in which use artificial intelligence. At the moment,
Speaker 1: we're all talking about it chat Gypt and the amazing
Speaker 1: things that it can do. What are the opportunities in
Speaker 1: AI for you? Um, there's a lot of opportunity. I mean,
Speaker 1: so do a lingal Um. We've been using AI us
Speaker 1: you know, for the last ten years, and we're really
Speaker 1: big believers in using AI to teach. At this point,
Speaker 1: dueling was about as good at teaching as a classroom,
Speaker 1: but we're not as good as a one on one
Speaker 1: human tutor. And our goal is to get to a
Speaker 1: lingo to be as good at teaching as a one
Speaker 1: on one human tutor, entirely through artificial intelligence. And and and
Speaker 1: the reason for using ourtificial intelligence is because it's a
Speaker 1: lot cheaper to deliver uh, you know, two literally millions
Speaker 1: of people. And we think we can get there. I think,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know how long it will take,
Speaker 1: but we think we can get to as good as
Speaker 1: a one one human tutor. Professor. Professor, I'll take your
Speaker 1: word from that. I'm interested in, therefore, your future and
Speaker 1: also the way in which you perhaps use your content.
Speaker 1: You're talking about social media and ed US. A smart
Speaker 1: question about who you see yourself is becoming what about
Speaker 1: the actual content you're you're producing, the people, the characters.
Speaker 1: Are there other ways in which you monetize that in
Speaker 1: the future. And well, the main way in which we're
Speaker 1: gonna try to monetize this by teaching. I mean, right
Speaker 1: now we're doing language learning. We are starting to expand
Speaker 1: to other things. We're gonna we just launched a math app.
Speaker 1: We have an app to teach early literacy. And the
Speaker 1: ideas we really want to have recognizable characters. I mean,
Speaker 1: the most recognizable is a green owl um, but we
Speaker 1: have another whole other cast of characters, and the idea
Speaker 1: is kind of to be like the app version of
Speaker 1: maybe Sesame Street or something like that, with with very
Speaker 1: recognizable characters that teach you different things. I'll tell you what, Louise,
Speaker 1: I'll make you a deal. I'll go on the app.
Speaker 1: I'll try and learn Welsh and the first generation not
Speaker 1: to speak Welsh and my family. So I make you
Speaker 1: a deal and we'll follow up in the year's time
Speaker 1: and see how I did. Luis Funan co founder and
Speaker 1: CEO doing a lot of people are gonna tweets me
Speaker 1: saying you better follow through on that. Now, welcome back
Speaker 1: to blow their technology and we've got to talk about
Speaker 1: what is a macro story that affects technology today? Ed
Speaker 1: and affects hiring within technology as well. We have the
Speaker 1: FED earlier, of course, Jerne pal saying, look, the labor
Speaker 1: market appears to still be very tight. It's so interesting
Speaker 1: that you and I talk about day in, day out
Speaker 1: the layoffs in technology, and yet the data doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to prove it. You know, there's a complete contrast right there,
Speaker 1: trying to get slack in this labor market, slow down
Speaker 1: growth until that job's data kind of reflects their goal,
Speaker 1: and you know they're still zeroed in on inflation. It's
Speaker 1: the same message every time with the same result. We
Speaker 1: will fight inflation. Here's our outlook and projection for rates.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, you know that it's just
Speaker 1: so incongruous the idea of all these jobs openings and
Speaker 1: every headline you and I talk about layoffs, cuts, pairing back.
Speaker 1: It's hard to pass it all. And the idea is
Speaker 1: that perhaps in the BLS data, what's not showing up
Speaker 1: of courses of the people who are losing their jobs
Speaker 1: are highly employable, they go onto new roles. They're being
Speaker 1: snapped up across the board, whether it be other tech companies,
Speaker 1: whether it's finance companies, whoever wants to be hiring engineers
Speaker 1: at the moment, there are still such a desire for them.
Speaker 1: But I think the market and perhaps evaluation story is
Speaker 1: also an interesting one for you and I the fact
Speaker 1: that these companies technology companies are going to be rolling
Speaker 1: over somewhat. If we think that terminal rates are going
Speaker 1: to be at five point one per cent, we've still
Speaker 1: got more interest rate hikes to come. It's just perhaps
Speaker 1: the pace is now going to be slightly slower. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's also a psychological aspect to it as well. Very quickly,
Speaker 1: I've speak to a lot of VNCH capitalists who have
Speaker 1: different to the opinion. They say, well, don't hire people,
Speaker 1: keep your powder dry. But at the same time, when
Speaker 1: you do see layoffs, there are people that are talented.
Speaker 1: They start companies. Look at what happened in two thousand,
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight. They need access to capital to
Speaker 1: do that. So you know, it's mixed messages. We have
Speaker 1: had some clarity from one name though, even after Amazon's
Speaker 1: biggest round of layoffs ever last month. The company's chief
Speaker 1: of devices, who's responsible for the likes of the A
Speaker 1: Voice Assistant echo speakers, he's pledging the company is still
Speaker 1: committed to investing big in devices. Here to discuss a
Speaker 1: global technology head, brad Stone, you lead our coverage at Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: You know Amazon inside and out. We've reported that there
Speaker 1: will be layoffs Amazon. There are layoffs Amazon, and the
Speaker 1: devices business has been impacted. You spoke to Dave lymp Okay,
Speaker 1: what was the message I suppose from him? He sounded
Speaker 1: a little bit aggrieved that his unit, the devices and
Speaker 1: services unit at Amazon, has been forgive upon the kind
Speaker 1: of prime target of this reporting. He's pledging that the
Speaker 1: layoffs in the devices unit are relatively small. He told
Speaker 1: my colleague Matt dan I two thousand, less than two
Speaker 1: thousand layoffs spread between the Alexa unit and other groups
Speaker 1: inside his His his group, the Devices group. UM. He
Speaker 1: also said that some of the reporting about financial losses
Speaker 1: in the dividual in the Devices group were misleading. He
Speaker 1: talks about basically the price of the devices being on
Speaker 1: his P and L, but things like shopping and app
Speaker 1: sales kind of not accruing to him. So he thought
Speaker 1: it was a little bit bit misleading. And they want
Speaker 1: to contest this idea that there was any retreat at
Speaker 1: all in the ambitions of devices that as we're looking
Speaker 1: at some of that interview on the screen, and you know,
Speaker 1: I won't read it all out. That he's fighting tool
Speaker 1: essentially that they are doubling down on investment. Right He's
Speaker 1: saying that if you have a situation where your device
Speaker 1: is being put away in the drawl, you're not doing well.
Speaker 1: They want to kind of keep innovating. What else was
Speaker 1: some of the key takeaways of what he had say
Speaker 1: wasn't just all focused on we We talked about a
Speaker 1: lot of things. I was very curious about the astro
Speaker 1: that home robot. They introduced that over a year ago
Speaker 1: and it's still called this day one edition. He talked
Speaker 1: about being pretty committed to home robots. Of course they
Speaker 1: bought I robot earlier in the year, but he talked
Speaker 1: about the device being stymied by things like a black
Speaker 1: floor and a ceiling, the floor ceiling and sorry a ceiling,
Speaker 1: the floor window and the sun shining through. So we
Speaker 1: talked about actually it being still a work in progress
Speaker 1: and that they're very committed to it. Real quick for
Speaker 1: I let you go your newsletter or column was about
Speaker 1: chat GPT. Caroline and I have been talking about this
Speaker 1: every single day for a while now. Education Chat GPT
Speaker 1: essays right, well, has the father of high schoolers. My
Speaker 1: first thought was, why, you know this is going to
Speaker 1: make it very easy to cheat on an essay. And
Speaker 1: I was wondering how some of the companies that are
Speaker 1: responsible for providing anti plagiarism tools to schools are going
Speaker 1: to react to this. So I talked to one called
Speaker 1: turn it In. It's actually owned by the company that
Speaker 1: owns Conde Nast, and they talked about their software essentially
Speaker 1: being able to identify chat GPT essays, but maybe in
Speaker 1: the future not And I think it's going to create
Speaker 1: a really big problem for teachers and schools. But seeing innovation,
Speaker 1: we're still seeing job cuts. You that's so interesting. Amazon
Speaker 1: wanted to say this is what we're actually doing in
Speaker 1: this space. But at the end of the day, they
Speaker 1: grew very big and now they're pulling back thanks to
Speaker 1: brad Stone Bloomberg's head of global technology Caroline Yeah. And
Speaker 1: let's say kind of move on to another key company,
Speaker 1: want that actually brother has written about extensively. At Airbnb,
Speaker 1: who CEO Branchesky just recently of course telling us that
Speaker 1: they were not planning on any layoffs and they're even
Speaker 1: stepping on the gas, not on the brakes. But the
Speaker 1: company has also got another key focus they're going full
Speaker 1: steam on and its inclusion and joining us now to
Speaker 1: discuss air and these commitment for diversity and inclusion on
Speaker 1: the hot hot on the heels. In fact of a
Speaker 1: new report Jane Ingram, a B and BS Director of
Speaker 1: Community Partner Programs and Engagement, discussing look, it's a six
Speaker 1: year update on how you're trying to fight discrimination also
Speaker 1: trying to measure it and Project Lighthouse is this key
Speaker 1: partnership we've got with Color of Change. Talk to us
Speaker 1: about how you're looking to measure, how you're trying to
Speaker 1: identify bias at the moment in a yeah, well, thank
Speaker 1: you for having me um As you mentioned, this has
Speaker 1: been a six year journey that we've been on to
Speaker 1: really measure and address discrimination on our platform and Color
Speaker 1: of Changes right there at the front with us along
Speaker 1: with a group of other highly esteemed civil rights and
Speaker 1: privacy organized zations. But this is really about understanding what
Speaker 1: the data is telling us. We didn't want to jump
Speaker 1: into addressing discrimination without understanding actually what is the discrimination
Speaker 1: that we're trying to fight and create solutions for. So
Speaker 1: Project lighthouse is ultimately the tool that we built and
Speaker 1: created that gives us that data to help us fight
Speaker 1: the battle. And at the very opening of this update,
Speaker 1: Back and Trying sixteen is focused on sort of tackling discrimination.
Speaker 1: Was led by a key civil rights and civil liberties leader,
Speaker 1: Laura Murphy, and she writes, and it sort of struck
Speaker 1: me and so upsetting. But the truth it's in the
Speaker 1: intractability of discrimination. If it's intractable, what are you kind
Speaker 1: of trying to do to measure and indeed then to
Speaker 1: tackle in some ways? What are some of the ways
Speaker 1: in which you found have worked to educate in some way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: obviously discrimination exists in the world, and we know that
Speaker 1: when we bring people together on a platform like Airbnb,
Speaker 1: the discrimination can happen. But a lot of what we've
Speaker 1: done is established what type of community we want to be. So,
Speaker 1: going back to you mentioned Laura Murphy, we continue to
Speaker 1: work with her and others, but we created something called
Speaker 1: the Community Commitment, and it really is a foundation of
Speaker 1: how we want our community to engage with one another,
Speaker 1: and it essentially says that people and users will not
Speaker 1: discriminate against others. We've had two point five million people
Speaker 1: decline that community commitment and be removed from our community.
Speaker 1: So I think in so many ways, this is really
Speaker 1: about establishing the type of community that we want to
Speaker 1: have and and engaging with our users. This is another
Speaker 1: tool in that toolbox. But I think the other part
Speaker 1: of it is trainings and bringing people together really does
Speaker 1: help bring down the discrimination. It dispels the biases that
Speaker 1: we have because it makes people human. They're not you know,
Speaker 1: just caricatures of who they are in their racial identity
Speaker 1: or there other you know, identities that they live in.
Speaker 1: Talk to us about practical ways. I mean, I know
Speaker 1: in tween you removed the ability for hosts, for example,
Speaker 1: to to view a guest profile photo before the reservation
Speaker 1: was made or indeed you can't see until after it's
Speaker 1: been agreed to. What are the ways, tangible ways if
Speaker 1: you managed to change the way in which we go
Speaker 1: through a bookings process and that has helped breathe in
Speaker 1: perhaps more diversity. Well, Instant book was a tool that
Speaker 1: we created in twenties sixteen, and it really was a
Speaker 1: tool that essentially removes bias from the decision making process
Speaker 1: that a host has. So it's essentially a way for
Speaker 1: a guest to book a listing without ever having to
Speaker 1: be considered on their identity. That said, um, we we
Speaker 1: had a goal in twenty six of getting to a
Speaker 1: million instant book listenings. We've far surpassed that and we're
Speaker 1: at about sevent of our listings are instant book listings.
Speaker 1: So we've had a real success and this is a
Speaker 1: real another their tool in our toolbox. With this report,
Speaker 1: we also are looking at instant book and finding ways
Speaker 1: to make five million more people able to use instant books.
Speaker 1: So we hope that tools like this and solutions like
Speaker 1: this will have an impact in addressing discrimination on the platform. Today,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for bring the transparency. Jon A.
Speaker 1: Ingram b and BS, Director of Community Partner Programs and Engagement. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: coming up, let's talk about crypto a little bit more
Speaker 1: because scenario that we need to measure and it's an
Speaker 1: area that have some players are trying to look bet against,
Speaker 1: trying to short fallout of FTX hedge funds and now
Speaker 1: setting their sites on the stable coin tether. Will break
Speaker 1: down why as next, this is a green bug so
Speaker 1: amid the chaos that's called its surrounding. Sam Bankman freed
Speaker 1: a handful of hedge funds and now turn to focus
Speaker 1: back to the crypto industries. Perhaps original Boguman it's tether
Speaker 1: warning that that stable coin could be the next crypto catastrophe,
Speaker 1: maybe one that would make the implosion of FTX look
Speaker 1: pretty small, frying comparison. Joining us a more of asset
Speaker 1: management report to Annie Massa who has just been leading
Speaker 1: the charge, and what hedge funds, in particular Annie, are
Speaker 1: trying to do to sort of make the most of
Speaker 1: what is in an unbalanced trade in some way and
Speaker 1: asymmetric trade. A short on tether, talk to us about it. Sure,
Speaker 1: So a bunch of hedge funds have been shorting tether,
Speaker 1: or at least looking for a way to short tether,
Speaker 1: and there are some that have ventured into this realm
Speaker 1: for Tree and Vice Roy are among them, and others
Speaker 1: that we mentioned like Valiant have looked at the trade,
Speaker 1: even gotten in, but gotten skittish about it because they're
Speaker 1: worried about counterparty risk. Tether is the third largest cryptocurrency
Speaker 1: out there. It's called the stable coin. It's the largest
Speaker 1: of its kind. It's supposed to always maintain the value
Speaker 1: of a dollar, so it's a stand in basically for
Speaker 1: the US dollar in cryptocurrency world, and what some of
Speaker 1: these hedge funds think is that it could perhaps depeg
Speaker 1: from the dollar in large part. And it's interesting. We've
Speaker 1: just seen the Odd Lots Team Joe Eis and Feltracy
Speaker 1: had a way to a great podcast on this as well.
Speaker 1: But people sort of use it despite itself because in
Speaker 1: general has remained tethered to a dollar. It's sort of
Speaker 1: knocked off a little bit during the spring of this
Speaker 1: year and amid some of the chaos there, but in general,
Speaker 1: even though we're a bit worried about what really backs
Speaker 1: it and what really assets are there to be in reserve,
Speaker 1: sort of has proved its worth. Why do you think
Speaker 1: that is? And what what are people kind of worried
Speaker 1: about exactly it does. It's been around since so it's
Speaker 1: not a new cryptocurrency. What people worry about is the
Speaker 1: opacity around Tether and the fact that it still remains unaudited.
Speaker 1: Now Tether has said that they can't get an audit
Speaker 1: because big four auditing firms don't want to work with them,
Speaker 1: don't want to work in the cryptocurrency realm as much.
Speaker 1: But for whatever reason, it remains unaudited, so there are
Speaker 1: a lot of questions still about whether it has the
Speaker 1: reserves that it says it has. The reason that it's
Speaker 1: important to know that is because people use it assuming
Speaker 1: any dollar they put in, they get a dollar out,
Speaker 1: easy as that. And so what the what keeps people
Speaker 1: up at night, let's say, or what tether shorts would
Speaker 1: tell you is if there's any question about whether it
Speaker 1: could be peg, whether you might not be able to
Speaker 1: get a dollar out if you put a dollar in,
Speaker 1: that could be a problem. Hey, Andy, was fascinating reading
Speaker 1: you reporting sources kind of outlining that a lot of
Speaker 1: these short positions were established earlier in the year, and
Speaker 1: then you know, some funds had second thoughts and they
Speaker 1: kind of unwound the trade. Some of them got out
Speaker 1: scar free. Where does the psychology if some of these
Speaker 1: hedge fund managers lay with tether right now? I think
Speaker 1: it speaks to some of the trust or lack thereof
Speaker 1: in the system. So one of the ways to short
Speaker 1: tether is through a counter party, and Genesis is among
Speaker 1: the counterparties that have been used in the past to
Speaker 1: short tether. So mean, I think even Tether would tell
Speaker 1: you this. The people in charge of Tether would say,
Speaker 1: I mean, it hasn't looked like a super attractive trade
Speaker 1: because some of those very counterparties have had liquidity issues
Speaker 1: of their own. So it's not exactly an easy trade
Speaker 1: to put on, because if you think that Tether is
Speaker 1: going to blow up, it could take the entire rest
Speaker 1: of the ecosystem or a lot of the ecosystem with it.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Bloomberg's any Messa, let's talk about Delta Airlines
Speaker 1: because it's just boosted its profit outlook as even as
Speaker 1: rivals actually warn a weak demand, the company still sees
Speaker 1: strong results in in spite of the signs of a
Speaker 1: weaker economy and ongoing supply side constraints. The CFO and
Speaker 1: jan Kie joined us a little bit earlier following the
Speaker 1: company's financial outlook and strategic update in New York. Take
Speaker 1: a listen. I think there's good demand and the industry
Speaker 1: continues to be constrained, whether it's labor, whether it's with pilots,
Speaker 1: whether it's with the equipment manufacturers, her planes, the engine makers,
Speaker 1: and that there's a numerous constraints on the system right
Speaker 1: now that will strain constraint growth to some level as
Speaker 1: we progress into next year and probably into Does that
Speaker 1: frustrate you, No, I think it's there's a good structural
Speaker 1: backdrop to the industry, good demand, good discipline, with capacity
Speaker 1: that we're in a good backdrop. Now we've been fortunate
Speaker 1: we at Delta, we've hired over people here over the
Speaker 1: last eighteen months. We've been more in a training cycle,
Speaker 1: and it's about building that operational capability and rigor to
Speaker 1: ensure that we can deliver that capacity in a way
Speaker 1: that we expect of ourselves, but more importantly, the way
Speaker 1: that our customers expected us at operational performance. They've grown
Speaker 1: accustomed to on time, clean with bags. Really interesting that
Speaker 1: from the Delta Nines executive vice president and chief financial
Speaker 1: officers Dan Juan Kie and and really talking about also
Speaker 1: the determination to continue to invest particularly in technology, particularly
Speaker 1: in our Do you remember they made that sixty million
Speaker 1: dollar investment in job which is sort of a flying taxi.
Speaker 1: They want to make it easier for you and I
Speaker 1: to get to the airport, and they don't mind making
Speaker 1: some big sort of moon shop bets should we call them,
Speaker 1: where they're kind of like future proofing. You know, I
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time around Joe being we know
Speaker 1: it's kind of distance, but at least they're putting their
Speaker 1: money there for the potential headline across the terminal. When
Speaker 1: I was in my desk, Caroline, you're doing that interview.
Speaker 1: Sees no cracks in first quarter corporate client demand. In
Speaker 1: other words, those execs in business class seats. You know
Speaker 1: how else they get around those exects, those high flying
Speaker 1: executives private jet. So that's what I want to talk about,
Speaker 1: just a few of them, and some big names in particular,
Speaker 1: now twenty year old Jack Sweeney. He himself sought to
Speaker 1: Internet fame and drew the eyre of one Elon Musk
Speaker 1: with his essentially viral Twitter account called Elon's Jet. Earlier
Speaker 1: this year, Ellen offered him five thousand dollars in exchange
Speaker 1: for deleting the account, which Sweeney ultimately refused. Now Wednesday,
Speaker 1: the account has been susp ended on Twitter, along with
Speaker 1: all of the other accounts that Jack Sweeney operates in Caroline,
Speaker 1: I'm delighted to say Jack Sweeney joins us live now.
Speaker 1: So so Jack, you operate were operating a series of
Speaker 1: accounts which provide automated updates that track a number of
Speaker 1: individuals and entities by tracking their jets. Twitter suspended all
Speaker 1: of those accounts today. Could you explain to us what happened? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I wake up this morning and at first I
Speaker 1: just see that e lung jet is banned, and people,
Speaker 1: I'm already it's already going nuts, you know, I'm getting
Speaker 1: all kinds of notifications, And then slowly I noticed that
Speaker 1: my personal is Yawn and all the other accounts I
Speaker 1: run in. The thing is, some of the accounts don't
Speaker 1: even track the jet of a person. It's like an
Speaker 1: organization like NASA or Boeing or something experimental aircraft. So
Speaker 1: it's really not fitting the same rules as a person.
Speaker 1: Yet he just like went through my account and just
Speaker 1: click being on all of them. I want to talk
Speaker 1: about quickly. Elon Musk's response to what's happened today. He's
Speaker 1: taken to Twitter to say that real time posting of
Speaker 1: someone else's location violates Twitter's doxing policy, but delayed postings
Speaker 1: of locations are okay. Do you feel or do you
Speaker 1: acknowledge that what you were doing across those various accounts
Speaker 1: was a breach of Twitter policy. They just changed that
Speaker 1: ruling within the past week, and people have just checked
Speaker 1: on the web archive to see the changing of the
Speaker 1: wording on their terms, and they've changed it, and then
Speaker 1: they've just given given me no warning on the new terms,
Speaker 1: so they change it and quickly ban my accounts and
Speaker 1: say I violently need it. Are you don't know appeal Jack? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean if I if I can appeal that, I
Speaker 1: will and I will add a delay. But you know
Speaker 1: they gave me no opportunity you do. So what about
Speaker 1: the business behind this, Jack, It's an amazing source of transparency,
Speaker 1: particularly for journalists and many others. But what about losing
Speaker 1: money for yourself? Yeah? Yeah, I've been trying to build
Speaker 1: it up and make more of a revenue from it.
Speaker 1: You know, I've been working on that. There is some amount,
Speaker 1: but not crazy as now. But this certainly does not
Speaker 1: help me. Jack. There is an argument that by track
Speaker 1: elon Musk's jet you put him in danger by you know,
Speaker 1: he has a huge following. Do you accept that argument? Oh? Yeah, somewhat,
Speaker 1: But I wouldn't say it's like a crazy in danger.
Speaker 1: You know, if someone's really after him, they can go
Speaker 1: right to idisp exchangees website and track them themselves. Absolutely
Speaker 1: fascinating conversation with Jack let us know, get in touch,
Speaker 1: let us know how the appeal process goes, and if
Speaker 1: you're looking to pivot the business in any way, Jack
Speaker 1: Sweeney found row of ground Control and elong jets tracking
Speaker 1: Twitter account. Thank you stay well. Meanwhile, I mean that
Speaker 1: does it for this addition of briefy technology. It's been
Speaker 1: astonishing this show. Then you flow, but that Twitter issue
Speaker 1: is not going away. Listen again to what we discuss.
Speaker 1: Don't forget our podcast of course, find it on the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg terminal on Apple, on Spotify, and also I heart
Speaker 1: Wow and I was going to say it. I think
Speaker 1: they can also go and probably watch that interview again
Speaker 1: with Jack came from on Twitter, on TikTok or wherever
Speaker 1: you follow us on Instagram. But just quide us to
Speaker 1: you for a quick shout out because you just always
Speaker 1: are scoopmaster bring us all the sort of news. And
Speaker 1: thank you for bringing that interview with Jack because you
Speaker 1: build our relationship with him. And yeah, he's probably a
Speaker 1: bit upended right now. Right so busy and traumatic as
Speaker 1: a nose news flowing today, I was trying to get
Speaker 1: out of the show early, so I'll about to head
Speaker 1: off and take some time off. Well, I'm read, I am,
Speaker 1: but I'll be back very soon. Just watched This Is
Speaker 1: Bloomer