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 Check in San Francisco and this
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg Technology. Coming up in the next hour. Mean
Speaker 1: stock mania is back. Bed Bath and Beyond surgeons in
Speaker 1: defiance of Wall Street as retail investors get a second win.
Speaker 1: I'll chat with the CEO of stock Twits about how
Speaker 1: social media is impacting market moves. Plus you know who
Speaker 1: else is back? Adam Newman. Yes, we work, founder who
Speaker 1: lost billions for investors in one of texts most spectacular
Speaker 1: flame out. He's just raised money yet again, getting the
Speaker 1: biggest check ever. Written by Andres and Harowitz. Silicon Valleys
Speaker 1: water cooler is all a buzz. We will take you there.
Speaker 1: And big tech companies like Microsoft and Amazon have pledged
Speaker 1: to go green, but critics say they're also helping big
Speaker 1: oil prolong the fossil fueled age. We'll tell you how.
Speaker 1: Let's take a look now at a three week chart
Speaker 1: of Bed Bath and Beyond. The stock up four d
Speaker 1: despite at least three downgrades on Wall Street. Shares were
Speaker 1: halted after spiking this morning. A Shore sign the meme
Speaker 1: traid is alive and well, I want to bring in
Speaker 1: Richie Conna, now CEO of stock twits, a social platform
Speaker 1: for investors. So Richie, curious what kind of activity you
Speaker 1: saw on stock twits ahead of this surge. Hey, Emily,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me on um. Yeah, so we saw,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of at the end of July, beginning
Speaker 1: of August, we saw bed Bathroom Beyond rocket up to uh,
Speaker 1: you know, one of on the top leader boards in
Speaker 1: terms of activity. So since August first, it's been second
Speaker 1: only to a m C and activity and you know,
Speaker 1: historically lastics once bed Bathobyond has not cracked the top
Speaker 1: you know, ten twenty um. And also since August first,
Speaker 1: we've seen it grow it's followers by thirty you know,
Speaker 1: approaching fifty thou followers on stock twits. And I think
Speaker 1: the most interesting thing also has been the stocked with
Speaker 1: social sentiment over the last you know, four or five months.
Speaker 1: Since about April has been mostly negative on bed Bath
Speaker 1: and Beyond, and then there was a spike in early
Speaker 1: July in its sentiment, and then since August first, it
Speaker 1: has moved to an extremely positive position and has maintained
Speaker 1: that position and you kind of see that correlated with
Speaker 1: a run up in price, you know, from the five
Speaker 1: dollars that it's been at for most of the last uh,
Speaker 1: you know, six plus months to I don't know where
Speaker 1: it closed that today twenty bucks. Right, So we've seen
Speaker 1: a lot of really interesting activity and activity that started
Speaker 1: in July onto bed Bath and Beyond side. So here's
Speaker 1: a question, why why are retail investors on this train? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think you know, there's a couple of factors in
Speaker 1: bed Bath Beyond is probably the interest one. But overall,
Speaker 1: meme stocks that you know we've seen over you know,
Speaker 1: has has seen less capitulation and um in the retail
Speaker 1: markets then some of the other ones. So AMC has
Speaker 1: maintained its position, you know, game Stop has been steady. Uh,
Speaker 1: and so the interest there from the retail world has
Speaker 1: has maintained better than some of the other stocks, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, Bed Bath and Beyond. I think there's probably
Speaker 1: a lot of factors at play here. There's you know,
Speaker 1: the short interest report that came out at the end
Speaker 1: of July. Uh. You know, I think the Ryan Cohen
Speaker 1: news obviously today yesterday was probably a big catalyst and factor.
Speaker 1: And you know, in the summer we've had generally speaking,
Speaker 1: you know, low low volumes uh and uh, and so
Speaker 1: I think all these pieces come together, and retail definitely
Speaker 1: still seeks out these you know, kind of um opportunities.
Speaker 1: Retail trainers and investors seek out these opportunities of dislocations,
Speaker 1: whether it's short interest or or just price movements. And
Speaker 1: Bed Bath and Beyond has been the beneficiary as a
Speaker 1: stock over the last you know, three weeks, I guess, right.
Speaker 1: So we'll talk a little bit about the power of
Speaker 1: Ryan Cohen in particular. Obviously he's the chair of of
Speaker 1: Game Stock, which is sort of the original meme stock.
Speaker 1: But how much of this is driven by him and
Speaker 1: how much of this is truly driven by general retail
Speaker 1: investor sentiment. Um. You know, I think definitely in the
Speaker 1: in the retail fanning community, the Wall Street best community,
Speaker 1: you know, the the kind of meme stock community, Ryan
Speaker 1: Cohne seems to have uh, some pretty significant sway on
Speaker 1: the markets. You know, I don't know personally, I can't
Speaker 1: speak to anything of that nature, but you know, I
Speaker 1: think if you look at you know, when he takes
Speaker 1: when he takes positions, the markets move, right. So the
Speaker 1: move we saw today and that Beth and beyond after
Speaker 1: already a massive move. Uh. You know, it can probably
Speaker 1: highly be attributed to the news that he took, you know,
Speaker 1: the out of money call auctions. Uh. You know, I
Speaker 1: think that came out last night or this morning or
Speaker 1: whatever it did. But so, you know, it's he's an
Speaker 1: interesting person in this place obviously, uh, kind of first
Speaker 1: with the game stop, but you know, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: has has made a lot of moves over over the
Speaker 1: last eighteen months that have definitely been followed by the
Speaker 1: retail community in the investing community. So you know, I
Speaker 1: think you can't ignore what he does, at least in
Speaker 1: short term bursts. In general. You know, we're hearing you know,
Speaker 1: we've seen this talked about on Reddit, We're seeing the
Speaker 1: stuff talked about on Twitter. What would you say the
Speaker 1: role is of social media in stock pork at movements
Speaker 1: these days? You know, I think the rule of social
Speaker 1: media and you know, kind of social platforms in general
Speaker 1: is uh, you know, we do disseminate, you know, information quickly,
Speaker 1: We allow you know, kind of the communication and sharing
Speaker 1: of ideas. Uh. And and I think you know, the
Speaker 1: ability for retail, especially to you know, kind of communicate,
Speaker 1: you know, in some extent they've organized in the past,
Speaker 1: right like as as we remember in the uh kind
Speaker 1: of the major meme stock Moment of of twenty one.
Speaker 1: Uh And I think, you know, social media has a
Speaker 1: strong role to play, and you know, platforms like stock
Speaker 1: twits to you know, kind of give retail a place
Speaker 1: to you know, learn to collaborate, to share and uh
Speaker 1: and and you know ideally to you know, kind of
Speaker 1: do it in a way where they where they profit
Speaker 1: from it and they learn in a positive way. So uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's a powerful tool. I think, you know, it
Speaker 1: can be used for good and bad and and uh
Speaker 1: you know, but there's a lot of uh, you know,
Speaker 1: education and learning and you know, partnerships that kind of
Speaker 1: come out of it from from a community perspective. I
Speaker 1: think any regulatory concerns for stock twits h at a
Speaker 1: moment like this, um not, you know, no, not not
Speaker 1: so much. I mean, we're we're you know, we do
Speaker 1: we have our house rules and stuff, but those are
Speaker 1: our rules and uh, um, you know, we cooperate where
Speaker 1: you know, there are issues you know, potentially on the board. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, we do know obviously some of the bigger
Speaker 1: agencies like the SEC and stuff are are paying attention.
Speaker 1: But no, I mean, you know, we don't you know,
Speaker 1: see any massive regulatory issues um, you know, along the
Speaker 1: lines of social media. Not in not in the current
Speaker 1: kind of environment. I don't think. All right, uh rich
Speaker 1: kind of CEO of stock Twitz, thank you for joining
Speaker 1: us on the latest addition to the meme craze. All right,
Speaker 1: coming up. Silicon Valley's best known venture capitalist just wrote
Speaker 1: its biggest check ever to controversial We Work founder Adam Newman,
Speaker 1: sparking an outcry about yet another tech guy failing up.
Speaker 1: This is Gloomberg. Tech venture capital pioneer and reason Harrowitz
Speaker 1: has just made one of its biggest ever bets on
Speaker 1: the man behind we Work. Will someone call it the
Speaker 1: we Work disaster? The firm writing it's the largest single
Speaker 1: check investment million dollars to Flow, a residential real estate
Speaker 1: startup founded by Adam Newman. According to Mark entres and
Speaker 1: Flow is rethinking the entire value chain, from the way
Speaker 1: buildings are purchased and owned, to the way residents interact
Speaker 1: with their buildings, to the way value is distributed among steakholders.
Speaker 1: Joining me now to discuss Bloomberg Businessweeks. Max Chafkin a
Speaker 1: lot of tweets today about this. Max, a lot of tweets,
Speaker 1: what's Adam Newman's angle here and why is Mark Andreason
Speaker 1: betting on it? Right? Well, it feels like and again
Speaker 1: the details here are are so sketchy, and I think
Speaker 1: that's part of the reason that that there's a lot
Speaker 1: of skepticism. It feels like Adam Newman is trying to
Speaker 1: do something very similar to what he did with We Work,
Speaker 1: which is to take a traditional real estate business. With
Speaker 1: We Work, of course it was commercial real estate offices.
Speaker 1: Here we have with flow residential real estate apartments and
Speaker 1: kind of give it a text sheen, and that worked
Speaker 1: for for uh, you know, quite a while. With We Work.
Speaker 1: We saw the valuation climbed to something like fifty billion
Speaker 1: dollars um and then of course, um, as you said,
Speaker 1: it kind of fell apart and and what we have
Speaker 1: now is a much more conventional real estate company that
Speaker 1: a lot of investors lost a lot of money in.
Speaker 1: So it's sort of hard to understand why Mark and Reason,
Speaker 1: why Andreas and Horrowich would be writing such a large check,
Speaker 1: although you you just have to think they see this
Speaker 1: as you know, another long shot. Bet you know, maybe
Speaker 1: this is a contrarian angle. It kind of seems weird
Speaker 1: to have, you know, backing a billionaire as a contrarian angle.
Speaker 1: But you know, Mark Andres is more successful than I am,
Speaker 1: so maybe he knows something I don't. Well, mass actually
Speaker 1: sound lost almost nine billion dollars on we work. Why
Speaker 1: do you think, Mark, Why does Mark Andreason think that's
Speaker 1: not going to be his fate? I mean, is he
Speaker 1: the smartest VC ever or is he also being hoodwinked? Well?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, of course, Adam Newman, you know,
Speaker 1: if you if you read some of the published accounts,
Speaker 1: was very effective at talking rich people out of their money,
Speaker 1: and so so that maybe, um, part of what's going
Speaker 1: on here. Andres and clearly has you know, a soft
Speaker 1: spot for trolling and that sort of thing, So so
Speaker 1: maybe that is playing into it. Um. You also, if
Speaker 1: you read between the lines of the blog post he
Speaker 1: wrote that was published yesterday, it sounds like there's gonna
Speaker 1: be some sort of crypto or tokenized the angle here,
Speaker 1: which of course Andres and Horowitz has been um very into.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the jury is still very much
Speaker 1: out on whether or not that's gonna work. Um, but
Speaker 1: it feels like, hey, maybe we've got we work, but
Speaker 1: with apartments and a little bit of crypto mixed in
Speaker 1: and you know, yeah, you be the judge of whether
Speaker 1: that's a good idea or not. Sounds like a recipe
Speaker 1: for something, all right, Bloomberg's Max Chafkin, thanks for weighing,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna get some more reaction to this now.
Speaker 1: The real question, of course, is in a valley where
Speaker 1: it is notoriously hard for some founders to raise money,
Speaker 1: why is it so easy for some founders who failed
Speaker 1: or messed up to raise money again. Alison Buyers, an
Speaker 1: early stage founder and angel investor, tweeted, I'm obviously outraged
Speaker 1: by the A sixteen Z news. If you follow me,
Speaker 1: rage is likely all over your feet. I'm also not
Speaker 1: surprised at all. This isn't new, it is how VC operates.
Speaker 1: Joining me now, Alison Buyer's founder and CEO of Scrubys
Speaker 1: Allen Alison, why do you feel so much rage? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So uh. Whenever something big like this comes out a
Speaker 1: big funding round, a lot of underrepresented founders, particularly women
Speaker 1: people of color, are asked why why the outrage? Why
Speaker 1: do you have this emotion? Uh, well, it's because only
Speaker 1: two percent of VC dollars go to women, two percent
Speaker 1: go to Latin X founders, point six seven percent go
Speaker 1: to black founders, and there are less than one hundred
Speaker 1: black women total who have raised more than a million
Speaker 1: in DC funding. That's the outrage. It's visceral. It hits you,
Speaker 1: but then it also quickly becomes a muted rage because,
Speaker 1: as they tweeted, it is expected. It is not a surprise.
Speaker 1: We are used to it. But you you have to
Speaker 1: feel that rage when you are part of that community
Speaker 1: that is just historically blocked from accessing this funding. That's it.
Speaker 1: We waved out to a lot of female investors today.
Speaker 1: Privately they feel like you. Publicly they don't want to
Speaker 1: talk about it. Why do you think that is? Uh well,
Speaker 1: it is really difficult to talk about in any industry
Speaker 1: where you are marginalized, or where you can have repercussions
Speaker 1: for speaking out, it can be a scary thing to do. Right.
Speaker 1: There's risks. There's risks to my business, there's risks to
Speaker 1: those who associate with me when I am outspoken. But
Speaker 1: I also really believe that in order to have any
Speaker 1: kind of change or awakening of these reactions within other
Speaker 1: populations and segments. You can do something about it. You
Speaker 1: have to talk openly about it. And to me, it's
Speaker 1: just a clear choice in the community that comes around
Speaker 1: in and opportunities like this that come from it is
Speaker 1: how you catalyze public discourse and really make a change.
Speaker 1: So here's what Mark Andreson wrote about this. He says,
Speaker 1: Adam is a visionary leader who revolutionized the second largest
Speaker 1: asset class in the world, commercial real estate. Adam and
Speaker 1: the story of lee work have been exhaustively chronicled, analyzed,
Speaker 1: and fictionalized, sometimes accurately. We understand how difficul that is
Speaker 1: to build something like this, and we love seeing repeat
Speaker 1: founders build on past successes by growing from lessons learn.
Speaker 1: What's your response to that? So my response to that is,
Speaker 1: regardless of anything or what you believe may or may
Speaker 1: not have been fictionalized, he knowingly perpetrated fraud and lost
Speaker 1: billions of dollars. It's a fact. What is a major
Speaker 1: prestigious investment house doing backing fraud a second time? There
Speaker 1: is no excuse for that, and there has to be
Speaker 1: the ability to separate what is a good business idea
Speaker 1: that has the potential to be a good investment from
Speaker 1: the person who is behind that idea and executing on it.
Speaker 1: And what I would say is, let's let's think about
Speaker 1: where does and Reason's money come from or any investment house.
Speaker 1: It comes from endowment, it comes from wealthy individuals, it
Speaker 1: comes from pensions, it comes from other fiduciary backers. Is
Speaker 1: that where those people want their capital to be deployed?
Speaker 1: And Reason is the steward of that capital? Do they
Speaker 1: want three hundred and fifty million dollars in a single check,
Speaker 1: the largest check written to go to a person who
Speaker 1: knowingly committed fraud and lost billions of investor dollars to me,
Speaker 1: I don't know how you justify that. Taking on and
Speaker 1: Reason Harrowitz Allison is bold. I mean you might never
Speaker 1: get a check from them. Why take that risk? Okay?
Speaker 1: I honestly what is signaled to the world and particularly
Speaker 1: to underrepresented founders. Again, only two of females have written
Speaker 1: two percent of VC dollars go to women. I don't
Speaker 1: think I am getting a check from them, But also
Speaker 1: so it signals that their check is not for me. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: it signals that venture may not be for many founders,
Speaker 1: and that's just not true. Um, But you do have
Speaker 1: to be intentional and realistic about where you put your
Speaker 1: time as a founder if you want to build a
Speaker 1: successful company, and intentional about whose money it is that
Speaker 1: you're taking. For me. Ethics, business ethics and competency and
Speaker 1: honesty are paramount along with the viability of the idea
Speaker 1: of my business and the difference that I want to
Speaker 1: make in this industry. I do not want investors who
Speaker 1: don't believe in that. I do not want an investor
Speaker 1: who clearly says it is okay that you overstated yourself
Speaker 1: and your business. We're still going to write you a check.
Speaker 1: We're ignoring that to the exclusion of others who have
Speaker 1: more viable business ideas and better business ethics. You allude
Speaker 1: to that in your jet where you say founders value
Speaker 1: your time. Getting a meeting does not equal getting a check.
Speaker 1: Choose widest ly. You also told to Crunch you could
Speaker 1: be mad about this all day long, but you have
Speaker 1: a lot of other female founder you know what to do.
Speaker 1: What do you what do you mean by that? I
Speaker 1: assume you're talking about all the extra bird and that
Speaker 1: comes with being a female founder what's all this extra
Speaker 1: female founder stuff. Yes, of course, I think it's that
Speaker 1: sentiment again, it's that muted rage. It's the it's the
Speaker 1: known element for anyone who is on the receiving end
Speaker 1: of this that this is how it is. And if
Speaker 1: we're going to run our businesses, we have to run
Speaker 1: our businesses. It is harder for us. The numbers don't lie.
Speaker 1: We do not get the funding, we do not get
Speaker 1: the resources, we do not have the access to the networks.
Speaker 1: Are metrics that we are assessed by for signals of
Speaker 1: growth and potential are much harder than others. And this
Speaker 1: goes for women, but also a lot of other underrepresented groups. Uh,
Speaker 1: and you just have to keep going. I don't have time.
Speaker 1: I don't have time for this to consume my day.
Speaker 1: I'm building a successful business and I'm going to earn
Speaker 1: a profit for my investors. So yeah, I have my
Speaker 1: bleek to do. I gotta go do it. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about that. Your company, SCRUBYUS helps companies, helps people with
Speaker 1: their own pitching. What's your big idea? Yeah, so, um,
Speaker 1: thank you for bringing up SCRUBYUS. Um. So, our company
Speaker 1: it's two years old. We're started to extem from my
Speaker 1: last experience where I did successfully raise ten million for
Speaker 1: a startup medical device company that I help launch and
Speaker 1: co run, where I experienced extreme gender bias during the
Speaker 1: fundraising process. So with scrubyus UH, we are product tizing
Speaker 1: what you would get from working with a pitch coach
Speaker 1: or having access to resources that teach you how investors think,
Speaker 1: so that you can present yourself as an investible because
Speaker 1: if you have been traditionally blocked from accessing those resources,
Speaker 1: whether by network or whether because of funds, because those
Speaker 1: are very expensive things to access for quality material, you
Speaker 1: don't know that you are not presenting in a compelling way.
Speaker 1: It is not intuitive to understand how investors think. UH.
Speaker 1: And then on the other side of that, we are building,
Speaker 1: not yet launched. We have launched that founder side, a
Speaker 1: data driven way to curate in a hyper curated way
Speaker 1: what investors see that so that it will speak to
Speaker 1: them and what they want to write checks to both
Speaker 1: the idea and the person, which is where we need
Speaker 1: the checks from at the early stage. Allison, thank you
Speaker 1: for having the current to talk to us today, UM
Speaker 1: and for sharing our story. Appreciate you stopping by. Thanks
Speaker 1: founder and CEO Alison buyers a few other stories we're watching.
Speaker 1: Coin Bay shares fell as much as seven percent today
Speaker 1: after announcing in a blog post that it will temporarily
Speaker 1: pause new Ethereum and the r C twenty token deposits
Speaker 1: during the merge. It is a temporary precautionary measure. Theorium
Speaker 1: anticipates the merge will be completed on or around September
Speaker 1: and after a number of delays, Apple has set us
Speaker 1: September fifth deadline for its corporate workers to be in
Speaker 1: the office at least three days a week. COVID surges
Speaker 1: delayed the company's plans multiple times. Apple has been making
Speaker 1: other COVID related adjustments. It's also dropped its mask mandate
Speaker 1: in office common areas, and according to people familiar with
Speaker 1: the matter, Apple is laid off many of its contract
Speaker 1: based recruiters. In the last week. About a hundred contract
Speaker 1: workers fired at the world's most valuable company were told
Speaker 1: these cuts were made due to changes in Apple's current
Speaker 1: business needs. We reported last month the company was joining
Speaker 1: many other tech firms and hitting the brakes on hiring.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to lumber Technology and Emily Changin's fan Francisco
Speaker 1: President Biden has now signed the seven billion dollar healthcare,
Speaker 1: Climate and Tax bill into law, capping more than a
Speaker 1: year of negotiations, as Democrats had into mid terms this fall.
Speaker 1: Known as the Inflation Reduction Act, the bill aims to
Speaker 1: reduce inflation while encouraging greener industries to develop. And big
Speaker 1: tech has been vocal about wanting to go green for
Speaker 1: some time now, except big tech has actually been helping
Speaker 1: big oil make more profits than ever. Let's hear more
Speaker 1: about how Bloomberg's Mark Bergen, who covers Alphabet, joins US. Now, So, Mark,
Speaker 1: is there some hypocrisy here? I sense that's certainly the
Speaker 1: criticism from both from outside environmentalists and then from you know,
Speaker 1: even employees at these companies. So Microsoft actually has been
Speaker 1: the leader and the energy market UM Paul, coming closely
Speaker 1: behind mine by AWS, Amazon, UM. You know, these companies
Speaker 1: will say and have said multiple times that the reasons
Speaker 1: that they're purnering with the oil and gap industry is
Speaker 1: to help them with the energy transition to clean, renewable
Speaker 1: sources of low carbon. We know we started off this
Speaker 1: report to sort of interrogate that idea. It looks like
Speaker 1: so far a lot of the work has been their
Speaker 1: existing oil and gas production, whether that's making that more
Speaker 1: efficient in some cases, you know, the the oil and
Speaker 1: gas companies say they're lowering the carbon footprint of those operations. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, there's there's certainly evidence that they haven't slowed
Speaker 1: down oil production. And especially now when you're seeing gas
Speaker 1: prices but so high this summer, there's there's political demand
Speaker 1: for the oil companies to be producing more UH, and
Speaker 1: the cloud companies are really there's powerful data assets that
Speaker 1: let them do that more efficiently. I recently spoke with
Speaker 1: Thomas Carrie, and the head of Google Cloud, about Google
Speaker 1: Clouds deal with Saudi around COO. Take a listen to
Speaker 1: what he had to say. We work with their system
Speaker 1: integration division to provide our technology to customers in different
Speaker 1: parts of the Middle East. We said that again and
Speaker 1: again that we don't work with the oil and gas
Speaker 1: division within the ram cole or with the system integreation
Speaker 1: of our outcome. Does what do you say? Said? They're
Speaker 1: underscore what UM you're trying to explain here? I think so.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, there's certainly employees at Google have
Speaker 1: been very vocal about this, UM as of employees in
Speaker 1: Amazon and Microsoft and in some ways, if you're you know,
Speaker 1: just a Google shareholder, you might think, well, I want
Speaker 1: them to be more active in the industry. Like there's
Speaker 1: a lot of money in the oil and gas sector
Speaker 1: right now, whether that's their their regular sort of production
Speaker 1: and exploration businesses, and even some of this, you know,
Speaker 1: the Chevron and and VP and these big majors have
Speaker 1: talked about a big game about investing a lot of
Speaker 1: money in reeable energy. And so I think in some
Speaker 1: ways Google is sort of and behind this sector. Whether
Speaker 1: or not that's because they intentionally sort of put one
Speaker 1: arm behind their back as far as limiting their their work. Um,
Speaker 1: but I do think that's that's attention, you know, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem to be slowing down Microsoft and Amazon.
Speaker 1: And in their defense, they're saying that, you know, these
Speaker 1: oil companies wouldn't be able to move into the renewables
Speaker 1: and clean energy as quickly without us. Interesting, all right,
Speaker 1: We'll continue to watch your coverage on this, Bloomberg's Mark Brikin,
Speaker 1: thank you well. The Inflation Reduction Act, the lower drug
Speaker 1: costs as well. I want to bring in Jason Kelly,
Speaker 1: now the CEO of the biotech firm Get Go bioworks
Speaker 1: to discuss. So, Jason, how is this bill being signed
Speaker 1: into law impact your corner of the biotech universe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's actually two reason bills. So there's the Chips in
Speaker 1: Science Act and then the Inflation Reduction Act. Both both
Speaker 1: of them are relevant in biotech. Um. So, on the
Speaker 1: Inflation Reduction Act, you saw these you know, forty tax
Speaker 1: credits being expanded. You know that that's really to create
Speaker 1: you know, a growing market for carbon capture. And and
Speaker 1: I think biology if you like look out the window
Speaker 1: right now, you will see plants out there pulling CEO
Speaker 1: two out of the air and fixing it. Um you know, uh,
Speaker 1: and and so biology we see as one of the
Speaker 1: few really scalable technologies for doing carbon capture. But I
Speaker 1: think the Chips Bill actually is just as important from
Speaker 1: my standpoint. Why do you think it's so important? Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: so if you look at if you look in that bill,
Speaker 1: I think two things are critical. So one, I think
Speaker 1: you see the U s sort of kind of getting
Speaker 1: our mojo back when it comes to like industrial policy
Speaker 1: and the and the government saying hey, this sort of
Speaker 1: technology is important for us to have on shore. Um
Speaker 1: you know, actually get Ginko. We just acquired a company
Speaker 1: on in California. Are announced that we're gonna acquire a
Speaker 1: company in California called Examergen. You know, this is a
Speaker 1: really build on the foundry technology we have at Ginko.
Speaker 1: You know, my view is we we want to be
Speaker 1: doing that so that we're not doing a bio chips bill,
Speaker 1: you know, twenty years from now and having to bring
Speaker 1: that back on shore. These types of growth of these
Speaker 1: bio foundries here in the US, I think is important,
Speaker 1: and you see that reflected in the bill. You know,
Speaker 1: they it directs a National Engineering Biology R and D
Speaker 1: Initiative where OSTP is is supposed to direct NSF and
Speaker 1: d O E and d O D to spend on this.
Speaker 1: And then also that has the OSTP established a National
Speaker 1: Genomic Sequencing strategy, So you actually see bio in the
Speaker 1: bill alongside chips. So so I think it's a really
Speaker 1: uh it's a good signal by the government that these
Speaker 1: types of technologies are critical for the U. S. You've
Speaker 1: become a sort of regular voice for US through the pandemic.
Speaker 1: What are the biggest post pandemic storylines in biotech right
Speaker 1: now that aren't being talked about enough. Yeah, So I
Speaker 1: think the big one UM is going to be certain
Speaker 1: types of technologies that got built out in the during
Speaker 1: the pandemic are going to stick around for ongoing prevention.
Speaker 1: So we actually just announced yesterday morning, UM is up
Speaker 1: to sixty one million dollar contract with the Centers for
Speaker 1: Disease Control here in the US to do monitoring on
Speaker 1: an ongoing basis at airports in the US where we
Speaker 1: basically collect samples from plans that come in internationally and
Speaker 1: then sequence the DNA to look for new variants. And
Speaker 1: this program we did as a pilot with the CDC
Speaker 1: caught the first cases of b A two and b
Speaker 1: A three uh in the US that we're sequenced. Well,
Speaker 1: now now that CC is funding this up to have
Speaker 1: it stick around, I mean to me, this type of
Speaker 1: thing eventually will be kind of like a smoke detector,
Speaker 1: right it we should be on the lookout for infectious disease.
Speaker 1: And that's a change. I think that happened because of COVID,
Speaker 1: But we'll stick around after COVID. Are we prepared to
Speaker 1: go back to school? You know? As a parent, I
Speaker 1: feel like there are still conflicting messages about masks. No
Speaker 1: masks testing, Like, what are the rules supposed to be? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so so CC did just update some some guidance on this.
Speaker 1: So I think where we're headed towards is I think
Speaker 1: you're gonna see the SAC starting to reflect a little
Speaker 1: more how people have been operating. I think you're gonna
Speaker 1: see you seeing relief in some of the things like
Speaker 1: the distancing rules and mask wearing making it easier where
Speaker 1: if you had an exposure, you don't need to quarantine,
Speaker 1: you know, just to be clear, if you have COVID
Speaker 1: you still need to quarantine, right, So I think there's
Speaker 1: been some misinterpretation a little bit on that. You know,
Speaker 1: so if you're a positive or COVID, you should quarantine,
Speaker 1: but for folks that have been exposed you don't need to.
Speaker 1: That's gonna help a lot um in terms of having
Speaker 1: classes full. I think the regular monitoring what you know,
Speaker 1: which we do, and as you know, like you know
Speaker 1: ten or fifteen states across the country where you're doing
Speaker 1: weekly testing in a group. This actually allows for schools
Speaker 1: to stay open, right because you can identify, you know,
Speaker 1: if there's a positive case in the class, you can
Speaker 1: pick it out, send that one student home to quarantine
Speaker 1: but not the whole class, and then prevent big outbreaks
Speaker 1: in schools, which I think if we let it just
Speaker 1: kind of rip, you will see a lot of that
Speaker 1: type of disruption, you know, in various places. And so
Speaker 1: so I think you'll end up seeing monitoring stay, you know,
Speaker 1: masking go, distancing go. And then the big wild card
Speaker 1: is is there some new variant that flips that all
Speaker 1: on its head and that's certainly still in the range
Speaker 1: of possibilities. Well, on that note, do you think there
Speaker 1: will be a universal COVID vaccine in the future or no?
Speaker 1: Because you know, the virus is just gonna keep changing.
Speaker 1: So I mean, you know, I think you will see
Speaker 1: the virus keep changing. UM. You know, I think people
Speaker 1: are working on this. There's ways to get at it
Speaker 1: in the in the scope of biotech, you know, like
Speaker 1: over the next tense what of years, I think we
Speaker 1: should will get dramatically better at this UM. But we
Speaker 1: you know, obviously we've been fighting flu and we do
Speaker 1: updated vaccines annually. I think you'll see things like that
Speaker 1: in the near term. But folks are definitely working on
Speaker 1: that UM and and so you know, we you know,
Speaker 1: we can hope, but I'd say in the near term
Speaker 1: it's more likely to be just updated versions of the vaccine.
Speaker 1: All right, well, we can hope, indeed can go. Bioworks
Speaker 1: CEO Jason Kelly always good to have you, Jason, thanks
Speaker 1: for stopping by. Alright, coming up, why is Jesse Pale
Speaker 1: still so bullish on bitcoin? More on that and wider
Speaker 1: institutional sentiment on crypto next, Mrs Bloomberg. It's hard to
Speaker 1: know what the private markets, you know. Obviously we were
Speaker 1: not tracking the price UH on a minute by minute
Speaker 1: basis like markets are, so it's it's really hard to know.
Speaker 1: You know. We haven't been out raising capital. We've got
Speaker 1: a very long runway cash in the bank. We're profitable,
Speaker 1: so we don't need to go do another financing anytime soon.
Speaker 1: I think we'll probably wait for the market to improve
Speaker 1: before we do another another round. It is time now
Speaker 1: for our crypto report. And that was cracking CEO Jesse
Speaker 1: Powell talking about what he thinks of the current crypto
Speaker 1: bear market in an interview earlier on bloom Box Crypto
Speaker 1: Show with Kaylee Lines. Let's talk about it more with
Speaker 1: our own crypto contributor, Snelli Bosti. CHANNELI give us an
Speaker 1: update on the crypto markets and whether Jesse Powell is
Speaker 1: right by just waiting it out. Well, Jesse Powell had
Speaker 1: bought in more out about eighteen thousand, and you saw
Speaker 1: bitcoin did reach twenty five thousand for a bit. This
Speaker 1: month it has come down below two thousand again. So
Speaker 1: where does that leave us, Emily? It doesn't leave us
Speaker 1: at the price that he thought it would hit it
Speaker 1: last year. Do you remember he told you and me
Speaker 1: that bitcoin would be worth Lamborghini. But even though it
Speaker 1: has not hit that price, you do see it about
Speaker 1: half the price it was at this time last year,
Speaker 1: but double where it was two years ago. It'll be
Speaker 1: interesting to see the market kind of sort out the
Speaker 1: natural price of bitcoin as you make it through another cycle.
Speaker 1: I wanted to also point out a theoryum on the month,
Speaker 1: because you do see again on the month, you do
Speaker 1: see the price rising because of that anticipation of the merge.
Speaker 1: But in more recent days that excitement has worn off
Speaker 1: just a little bit. You have it rolling around eighteen
Speaker 1: thousand seven d seven right now. It did peak above
Speaker 1: two thousand this month with that anticipation, anticipation of the merge.
Speaker 1: I know we're going to talk a little bit more
Speaker 1: about that next um alright, shall I stick with us?
Speaker 1: I want to talk about this more and how bitcoin
Speaker 1: startups are trying to secure capital as as the crypto
Speaker 1: winter continues. Um our investors buying the industry back up?
Speaker 1: Are they staying cautious? Let's talk about that with at
Speaker 1: least Kill Lean, founder managing partner of still Marks. So
Speaker 1: at least are you on the bullish side like Jesse
Speaker 1: Powell or somewhere else on the spectrum. We're varia bullish
Speaker 1: both about Bitcoin, the asset and the underlying protocol, and
Speaker 1: we have to be because entrepreneur activity has never been
Speaker 1: more robust. In fact, we've seen a pickup in sort
Speaker 1: of the tests that people are willing to take during
Speaker 1: this period when the market is more quiet, When we're
Speaker 1: in the bearer market and there's less consumer activity, it's
Speaker 1: a great time to both dig into the metrics that
Speaker 1: you've produced in bull market times as well as to experiment.
Speaker 1: And that's what we're seeing now from top founders. What
Speaker 1: do you make of the merge because you saw this
Speaker 1: news coming out about coin based really looking to pause
Speaker 1: transactions in and around the merge. Clearly there's going to
Speaker 1: be some technical difficulties around it as people try to
Speaker 1: scam others. That was a warning that they sent out.
Speaker 1: What are you thinking will be near term issues and
Speaker 1: what is a long term prospect? Well coin base coin
Speaker 1: bass is note that they're pausing deposits and withdrawals for
Speaker 1: eight I think is something that's expected, but it points
Speaker 1: out to us the tradeoffs is using a centralized exchange
Speaker 1: to hold to your cryptocurrency. Of course there's some opportunities
Speaker 1: and using a custodian, but the advantage is to people
Speaker 1: using self custody that they themselves set the rules for
Speaker 1: how they use their Bitcoin or their eth or other
Speaker 1: forms of crypto assets. Now, looking ahead to eat two
Speaker 1: point oh, I think that we know we know that
Speaker 1: there's risks and that the etherean community is hoping that
Speaker 1: there's great reward. But one of the things to look
Speaker 1: out for is the centralizing forces of moving from proof
Speaker 1: of work to prove a stake. Of course, we know
Speaker 1: that the majority of the states, the vast majority of
Speaker 1: the state is belonging to these large institutions, and so
Speaker 1: those folks, of course are exposed to US regulators and
Speaker 1: have been tested very recently with O fact coming out
Speaker 1: against Tornado cassion, and the same institutions that comprise the
Speaker 1: majority of state each in fact, are those that have
Speaker 1: complied within days to O fact sanction of Tornado. I'm
Speaker 1: so glad you brought up Tornado cash because earlier today
Speaker 1: Jesse Powell did say that the shutdown was unconstitutional. I'm
Speaker 1: wondering how you see this debate really playing out in
Speaker 1: the market, the good, the bad, and what behaviors might
Speaker 1: not be accepted among these companies moving forward. It's hard
Speaker 1: to know what regulators are going to do, but it's
Speaker 1: easy to know how centralized institutions are going to respond.
Speaker 1: They're going to comply, and that's the value, of course
Speaker 1: of decentralization. So you know, the bitcoin leads with decentralization.
Speaker 1: What that means is that when looking at how the
Speaker 1: protocol is secured, Bitcoin finds it most important to make
Speaker 1: sure that the protocol is secured in a decentralized fashion
Speaker 1: and that any individual user can do two things. One,
Speaker 1: they can validate the code bitcoins, um core protocol and
Speaker 1: its payments and more. Protocol or open source users can
Speaker 1: know the rules the software rules of these systems. But
Speaker 1: number two, users can participate in validating the accuracy of
Speaker 1: the ledger themselves. That's something that's much easier to do
Speaker 1: in Bitcoin than in other protocols, and one of the
Speaker 1: reasons it's important to be able to do that is
Speaker 1: sort of being demonstrated by the news of the last
Speaker 1: couple of weeks and the implications of UM governments imposition
Speaker 1: of UM regulations, for instance, regulations to prevent things like
Speaker 1: money laundering. We're seeing that happen now with Tornado Cash,
Speaker 1: and you know that some of the most critical services
Speaker 1: in the dearium space has has felt the need to
Speaker 1: compline have quickly done so, making users that have received
Speaker 1: even passively transactions from Tornado cash UM sort of lose
Speaker 1: access to services that they depended on. Alice I recently
Speaker 1: sat down with coin based CEO Emily Choi to talk
Speaker 1: about their partnership with black Rock. Take a listen to
Speaker 1: what she had to say. I have wanted to do
Speaker 1: that black Rock partnership since the day I joined coin Base,
Speaker 1: So for this to come together now, actually during the
Speaker 1: crypto winter, is such an incredible testament to where we are,
Speaker 1: where they are, where their customers are. And I think
Speaker 1: the most important point is it speaks to institutional customers,
Speaker 1: very traditional institutional customers wanting to get crypto acid exposure.
Speaker 1: She said, to expect more partnerships like this, but every
Speaker 1: day there are more bumps in the crypto road. You know,
Speaker 1: how is this all impacting? Give us a temperature of
Speaker 1: investor sentiment, institutional sentiment. So the black Rock and coin
Speaker 1: Based partnership will launch bitcoin only a black Rock is dealing,
Speaker 1: is allowing its institutional investors to participate, to buy bitcoin
Speaker 1: and to trade bitcoin via coin Based, while still using
Speaker 1: black Rocks software for management and for risk analysis. This
Speaker 1: I think was a response. We see it as a
Speaker 1: clear response to the demand of the very traditional institutions
Speaker 1: that are served by black Rock. Now it's important to
Speaker 1: note here is that providing a new on ramp in
Speaker 1: a familiar environment and with familiar tools is likely to
Speaker 1: act as a very significant catalyst for institutional adoption. I
Speaker 1: want to flip this for a moment, though, Emily and
Speaker 1: say that, well, while we're seeing traditional institutions adot bitcoin
Speaker 1: like black Rock, we know that some of the most
Speaker 1: significant and important adoption of bitcoin and of bitcoin's payments
Speaker 1: network is happening in emerging markets. And so these two
Speaker 1: forms of adoption are happening simultaneously and I think add
Speaker 1: to sort of the fundamental value of the coin that
Speaker 1: Jesse from Crackman spoke to earlier. Mm hmm. Alice, Colleen
Speaker 1: still Mark Capital, thank you so much for sharing your
Speaker 1: views with us today as well as our own. Amazon
Speaker 1: is fighting back against the FTC, and a filing made
Speaker 1: public on Monday, Amazon claims that FTT staff have made
Speaker 1: unduly burdensome demands on the e commerce giant as it
Speaker 1: keeps investigating its subscription services here for more on this,
Speaker 1: bloom ex Emily Berm bomb with us now and Amazon
Speaker 1: also claiming that the FTC is harassing Jeff Bezos. How
Speaker 1: so yeah. So. In this filing made public yesterday, Amazon
Speaker 1: claims that UM the FTC has been overreaching in their
Speaker 1: ongoing consumer textion investigation into Amazon subscription services. So that
Speaker 1: includes Prime and it's actually expanded to include Audible, Kindle
Speaker 1: and some other of Amazon's UH services. So they UM
Speaker 1: the FTC issued what's called civil investigative demands UM, which
Speaker 1: are essentially subpoenas UM to twenty former and current Amazon employees.
Speaker 1: They served them at their houses and that includes Jeff
Speaker 1: Bezos and Andy Jazz, the two top executives at Amazon.
Speaker 1: UM and they say it was unnecessary to give them
Speaker 1: to Jasse and Bezos. UM. These are about a lot
Speaker 1: of different parts of the business. These are the highest
Speaker 1: level executives. UM. You know, there's nothing this is what
Speaker 1: Amazon says. They say, there's nothing that Jasse and Bezos
Speaker 1: can give you that you can't get from documents and
Speaker 1: lower level executives. Is this unusual? It's actually extremely unusual,
Speaker 1: UM in how confrontational it is. What's typical is that
Speaker 1: companies will always fight to narrow down subpoenas and civil
Speaker 1: investigative demands that they get from the government. UM. But
Speaker 1: what's atypical is how public this is, how aggressive they
Speaker 1: are in their rhetoric, you know, calling this very unusual,
Speaker 1: perplexing UM, and UM asking the FTC to par it
Speaker 1: down in such a public way. Remind us why the
Speaker 1: FTC is investigating Amazon and the status of this case. So,
Speaker 1: the FTC has been investigating Amazon UM for several years now.
Speaker 1: It actually began under the Trump administration UM when they
Speaker 1: were given the power to investigate Amazon over antitrust UM concerns. UM.
Speaker 1: It's gotten broader since then. This particular investigation that we're
Speaker 1: talking about is a consumer protection investigation into whether Amazon
Speaker 1: makes it too difficult for consumers to opt out of
Speaker 1: Amazon Prime or other subscription services. But this is only
Speaker 1: one part of a sweeping investigation that looks at all
Speaker 1: parts of Amazon's business, including cloud, including UM streaming. So
Speaker 1: when could we expect this US to draw to some
Speaker 1: sort of conclusion. The filing says that the FTC intends
Speaker 1: to make a decision about whether to sue Amazon over
Speaker 1: the subscription issue by the fall. UM. This is probably
Speaker 1: going to prolong it, so it's probably going to take
Speaker 1: UM more time than that, you know, a couple of months, UM.
Speaker 1: But what's clear from the filing is FTC staff are
Speaker 1: under a lot of pressure by UM the commissioners, including
Speaker 1: FCC chair Lena con to get something done by the
Speaker 1: end of the year. All right, Well, we'll continue to
Speaker 1: follow your reporting on this. Bloomberg's Emily Burnbaum for US
Speaker 1: in Washington. Thank you. Adding so that doesn't for this
Speaker 1: edition of Bloomberg Technology Wednesday, we've got ARM CEO Renee
Speaker 1: Has joining us about the chip landscape and the latest
Speaker 1: with their possible I P O and don't forget to
Speaker 1: check out our podcast. Wherever you get your podcast, you
Speaker 1: can find it on the Terminal, online, Apple, Spotify, our
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, and more. I'm Emily Changing in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg four