Speaker 1: From the heart of where innovation, money and power Colli
Speaker 1: in Silicon Valley and beyond. This is Bloomberg Technology with
Speaker 1: Emily Jay. I'm Emily Check in San Francisco, and this
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg Technology coming up in the next hour. Travel
Speaker 1: is back and will continue to boom. This according to Airbnb,
Speaker 1: out with an earnings beat that shows despite inflation and
Speaker 1: global macro economic uncertainty, people are on the move. We
Speaker 1: will break down their report, plus the leak heard across
Speaker 1: the country, a draft opinion of the Supreme Court reveals
Speaker 1: plans to overturn row versus Weight, hitting the US like
Speaker 1: a bombshell. Some businesses are taking a stand, and how
Speaker 1: do you use deep tech to tackle society's biggest problem?
Speaker 1: Plus but can you solve climate change and still make
Speaker 1: a profit? More on that later this hour. All of
Speaker 1: that in a moment, But first we are watching Lift
Speaker 1: and Airbnb and another volatile day for stocks. Investors waiting
Speaker 1: for more clues about just what will happen if the
Speaker 1: Fed raises rates later this week as expected. Are at
Speaker 1: Ludlow here to break it all down. And yeah, we
Speaker 1: swung between gains and losses on the NASDAC one hundred
Speaker 1: multiple times, very tech heavy index ultimately close up just
Speaker 1: a tenth of one percent. The other way looking at it,
Speaker 1: it was the first back to back or two day
Speaker 1: gains and then as that one since April nineteen, so
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks. We're expecting a fifty basis point
Speaker 1: hight from the FED on Wednesday, and we care. Why
Speaker 1: are we talking about the FED and rate heights in
Speaker 1: a tech show Because tech stocks that are judged on
Speaker 1: their future growth future profits are more sensitive to hire
Speaker 1: interest rates because it discounts that rate of future profits.
Speaker 1: We're all eyes glued on the FED. It's been one
Speaker 1: of the main pieces of psychological driver for the market,
Speaker 1: at least around tech stocks. Also interesting see bitcoin drop
Speaker 1: below thirty eight dollars per token on Tuesday. It's lowest
Speaker 1: level since February and kind of caught up in this
Speaker 1: kind of treading water moment we're in right now ahead
Speaker 1: of that key FED meeting, but we're in the depths
Speaker 1: of earning season. As you say, two key companies for
Speaker 1: a read on the economy. The first lift down how
Speaker 1: twenty as well a change quickly two in after hours. Frankly,
Speaker 1: the number of riders that they reported were lower than expected.
Speaker 1: Even if First Corner revenue beat analyst projections, they have
Speaker 1: seventeen point eight million active riders in the quarter below
Speaker 1: what the street was looking for. Important to note that
Speaker 1: the CEO saying that they expect demand to pick up
Speaker 1: in the second half of the year. A different story
Speaker 1: with Airbnb. Airbnb giving a revenue projection for the current
Speaker 1: quarter of two point zero three to two point one
Speaker 1: three billion dollars, well above street expectations, but there's fighting
Speaker 1: talk with the company saying that they're seeing substantial quote
Speaker 1: demand going into key summer months. And all right, blood Law,
Speaker 1: thank you. I want to stick with Airbnb and left
Speaker 1: now and bring in Brentville of Jeffreys. Brent, great to
Speaker 1: have you back with us. Want to get your headline
Speaker 1: takeaway from Airbnb to start, I mean substantial drought travel
Speaker 1: demand that Airbnb is seeing despite the fact that we're
Speaker 1: in the middle of an ongoing war in Europe, for example,
Speaker 1: we're facing global macronomics at macroeconomic uncertainty and forty year inflation.
Speaker 1: What's your takeaway from that? Hey, Emily, We're tired of
Speaker 1: being inside doing zooms. We all want to get out,
Speaker 1: and I think the travel pent up demand from what
Speaker 1: we can see at Jefferies is like no other, which
Speaker 1: is we're shifting from you know, outfitting our home to
Speaker 1: outfitting our outdoors in our life and the amount of
Speaker 1: travel cross border, the return to cities, the actual return
Speaker 1: to European travel is all ramping significantly. And if you
Speaker 1: look at the number of trips that you know, we
Speaker 1: just survey, uh that that you know, consumers are willing
Speaker 1: or wanting to take the summer, obviously, it's it's incredible.
Speaker 1: And so I think the cross borders combined with return
Speaker 1: to cities is the biggest return and help for Airbnb.
Speaker 1: And I think ultimately we've we've also shifted, you know,
Speaker 1: to to quote Brian Chesky, their CEO, I mean, I
Speaker 1: really do believe this, and we don't like like to
Speaker 1: pair it with CEO say, but ultimately the world has
Speaker 1: changed in the sense of how we work, where we work,
Speaker 1: and and how productive we can be. And I'm an
Speaker 1: affirm believer, uh that they're gonna participate uh in that.
Speaker 1: So yeah, the big concern is as inflation hits and
Speaker 1: we have less dollars in our pocket, is our mortgage
Speaker 1: rates are highering our car payments are higher. You know,
Speaker 1: does this pinch travel? I don't think it will in
Speaker 1: the short term, because there's such pent up demand uh
Speaker 1: to go and be out, be out, and right now,
Speaker 1: no one wants to sit and have a summer like
Speaker 1: we did last summer or the summer before. And you know,
Speaker 1: that's that's only going to help them, uh in the
Speaker 1: interim and and as business travel comes back to and
Speaker 1: in some sense, you know, that will help the return
Speaker 1: to cities and if you're going to uh, you know,
Speaker 1: going if I'm going to New York and I'm going
Speaker 1: to spend a week or two weeks with my team,
Speaker 1: I don't want to stay in a hotel. So I
Speaker 1: think that that also is going to help with the
Speaker 1: return to to the office in some sense that it
Speaker 1: helps uh, the the enterprise business over time, which is
Speaker 1: obviously a smaller piece of the overall pie. I think
Speaker 1: it's interesting too that travelers are booking further and further out.
Speaker 1: They're not doing this last minute waiting to see what
Speaker 1: pandemic or COVID restrictions are. We're seeing the same thing
Speaker 1: potentially with lift also beating estimates. You know, what do
Speaker 1: you think this says about the health of the consumer.
Speaker 1: And I guess I wonder, you know, is this a
Speaker 1: post pandemic pop and what happens later? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: everyone is in more uber and lifts. I've been in
Speaker 1: more uber and lifts in the last month than I
Speaker 1: was in the last two years combined. So just look
Speaker 1: at your own consumption personally and from a work perspective.
Speaker 1: I think the challenge with Lift is their EBIT guide
Speaker 1: for the next quarter is way below the street. You know,
Speaker 1: the street was looking for eighty three million, the guy
Speaker 1: to tend to twenty way below. So the stocks getting
Speaker 1: hammered on the increase in investments, and I think this
Speaker 1: is the challenge that we face in many of these
Speaker 1: reopening trades is how much money is are these companies
Speaker 1: willing to reinvest back in the business as they see
Speaker 1: demand come back, to get drivers, to get consumers back
Speaker 1: on the platform, to build the network out and and
Speaker 1: as they said during the pandemic, right they bought it,
Speaker 1: brought the cust structure to the studs. There was no
Speaker 1: walls inside this house. It was studs. And they they
Speaker 1: had that quote back in the middle of the pandemic.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, they've no right sized and
Speaker 1: now they're they're feeling dollars back. The big worry for
Speaker 1: investors on on Lift is just, you know, candace business
Speaker 1: sustainably make money. And in my opinion, there's way better
Speaker 1: opening trades than lift right Google. Uh sorry, yeah, Uber
Speaker 1: is a global platform with with multiple applications that they
Speaker 1: can benefit. It's a platform, not a point solution. Lift
Speaker 1: is US only right share in the US only, and
Speaker 1: they're really limited to to the US market. So I
Speaker 1: think ultimately there's just better opening trades. So we at
Speaker 1: Jeffreys like booking Airbnb. Uh, and I think Googer is
Speaker 1: in a better position among some of the other tech
Speaker 1: stocks to cover lift. Shairs are way down after hours, Brent.
Speaker 1: Why do you think that is? Well, that's you know,
Speaker 1: it goes back to the ebit dot guide. They just
Speaker 1: they're ramping up the expenses and and ultimately to your
Speaker 1: point on on inflation, look, we're all feeling it. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter who you are. Uh, you're gonna feel the
Speaker 1: pinch of what's happening with the broader economy starting to slow.
Speaker 1: So as that slows, are we going to see the
Speaker 1: air brakes come on? You know? Consumer spend, and I
Speaker 1: think there's a little bit of concern. I think the
Speaker 1: bearer concern really is around is lift the best way
Speaker 1: to play the opening trade air bbs uplift stocks down.
Speaker 1: You know, there's other stories that are better. And then
Speaker 1: you look at the BA dot guide it was it
Speaker 1: was obviously terrible relative to what the street wanted, and
Speaker 1: it fully they're just being conservative now obviously with the
Speaker 1: new c th place that left. Alright, Brentville of Jeffrey
Speaker 1: is always good to have your analysis here. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much, Brett. This opinion is just off the wall,
Speaker 1: and I'm really shocked fill Leader would have written it,
Speaker 1: assuming you get this is not some fluke. This is
Speaker 1: the result of a decade long campaign by extremists, extremist
Speaker 1: Republicans to overturn rovers this way. I would be even
Speaker 1: more shocked if the other justices um in the majority
Speaker 1: will decide on to this. This is the issue that
Speaker 1: can can decide elections, at least far as women are concerned.
Speaker 1: There are people on both sides of this issue, and
Speaker 1: you know, I think what we need to do, as
Speaker 1: being good participants in a democracy is to listen, listen
Speaker 1: to both sides. This will be a galvanizing issue in
Speaker 1: the upcoming elections. Reaction there after a leak of unprecedented
Speaker 1: proportions a draft opinion from the Supreme Court. That draft,
Speaker 1: written by conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and obtained
Speaker 1: by political showed the Justice overturning the nineteen seventy three
Speaker 1: ruling of Row versus Wade. I'm joined now by our
Speaker 1: Washington correspondent Emory Horden for more on this extraordinary turn
Speaker 1: of events for reaction from the White House, So Emery,
Speaker 1: first of all, what do we know about this leak
Speaker 1: so far? So there's really two parts of story, Emily.
Speaker 1: First is the fact that this is an unprecedented leak,
Speaker 1: and you actually have a lot of Republicans all day
Speaker 1: pointing to the fact that this was a leak, and
Speaker 1: this is going against really this institution that many believe
Speaker 1: should be guarded in terms of how they have their
Speaker 1: normal operating procedure. And then you have the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: come out and saying they're going to go after the
Speaker 1: leaker for this egregious act. Then, of course you have
Speaker 1: the leak itself, the contents of that lead, and as
Speaker 1: you outlined there, what this leak does show is that
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, as of February, this draft opinion would
Speaker 1: be overturning the ninety three Row v. Wade and basically
Speaker 1: saying that a woman's right to an abortion that constitutional right.
Speaker 1: They would be striking that down and then this would
Speaker 1: be up to the states to decide. And as you
Speaker 1: can imagine, this has really set off fireworks in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. Tell us more about what President Biden had
Speaker 1: to say in response to this today. President Biden has
Speaker 1: made a number of comments today, first a written statement
Speaker 1: and then he also brief reporters on his way to Alabama.
Speaker 1: So he's talking about the fact that this would go
Speaker 1: against basic fairness given the fact that this is about
Speaker 1: a fifty year old law. Take a listen to a
Speaker 1: little bit more about what he had to say, calling
Speaker 1: it a rep it goes far beyond if it becomes
Speaker 1: a law and if what is written is what remains
Speaker 1: beyond the concern whether or not there is like to
Speaker 1: choose to as Biden also pointed to the fact that
Speaker 1: he did get a phone call saying that this draft
Speaker 1: document was authentic, and the Supreme Court also said that
Speaker 1: they said this draft document is real but does not
Speaker 1: mean that that opinion will be upheld. So this is
Speaker 1: basically how we're going into Potentially we're going to get
Speaker 1: that opinion finalized and the unveiling of that in June.
Speaker 1: The President also, emiline is written statement clearly pointed to
Speaker 1: the fact that if this was to be overruled that
Speaker 1: now it is up to elected officials and also voters
Speaker 1: in America in November to go to the polls. So
Speaker 1: now this has become a hot button election issue. Hot
Speaker 1: button indeed Bloomberg's Emory Harder and thank you. I want
Speaker 1: to continue this conversation and talk about how companies are
Speaker 1: reacting to this news. I'm joined now by Laura Speakerman.
Speaker 1: She is the co founder and chief revenue officer of Alloy,
Speaker 1: which has been rather proactive and offering reprojective benefits to employees. So, Laura,
Speaker 1: you made the decision back in January to cover legal
Speaker 1: fees up to five thousand dollars if an employee or
Speaker 1: a partner faces legal issues due to anti abortion laws.
Speaker 1: You're also giving them a travel stipend medical cost stipend.
Speaker 1: Why did you decide to do this? Yeah, that's right, only, Uh,
Speaker 1: this was important to us for a lot of reasons,
Speaker 1: but I think the two that will highlight today is
Speaker 1: that Alloys Mission were a fintech company. Um, we we
Speaker 1: really want to see equitable outcomes. Financial services industry plays
Speaker 1: a big role in that for people, particularly people of color,
Speaker 1: particularly women, and so this supporting this really aligned very
Speaker 1: well with our values as a company and our mission
Speaker 1: and vision as a company. The second reason, potentially more tangible,
Speaker 1: is it supports our hiring and retention. We already have
Speaker 1: tons of policies and benefits in place, as do many
Speaker 1: companies that help us attract and retain the best talent possible,
Speaker 1: and so this was an easy way to sort of say, look,
Speaker 1: this just adds on to our medical benefits, are PTO policies,
Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff, and so it was it was
Speaker 1: to us a necessary thing we had to do to
Speaker 1: remain competitive. Now, you told Blueberg News that reimbursing workers
Speaker 1: for abortion related travel is the low bar of what
Speaker 1: they can do. What more should companies be doing? Well, Look,
Speaker 1: I think this is one piece of of how to
Speaker 1: make life a little bit better for the poor, you know,
Speaker 1: the people who have to go through this in their lives.
Speaker 1: It's not something anyone wants to have to deal with.
Speaker 1: It's just one piece of it. And so I think
Speaker 1: our policy will evolve as we decide how how other
Speaker 1: you know, other potential benefits we could offer, or sort
Speaker 1: of evolving um what reproductive rights means even for for
Speaker 1: our population at alloy and I hope other companies would
Speaker 1: do the same. I think we're seeing that we it's
Speaker 1: a really competitive talent industry, this is probably a low
Speaker 1: ish bar, and that it's a relatively inexpensive set of
Speaker 1: benefits related to you know, if you looked at what
Speaker 1: we spent on healthcare, for example, all sorts of stuff
Speaker 1: incredibly expensive. And so I think there's a lot more
Speaker 1: there that we and other companies can do and probably
Speaker 1: have to do, to fill in the gaps that the
Speaker 1: government has left us with. Cheryl Samberg of Meta posted
Speaker 1: today saying, this is a scary day for women across
Speaker 1: our country. Every woman, no matter where she lives, must
Speaker 1: be free to choose weather and when she becomes a mother.
Speaker 1: A few things are more important to women's health and equality.
Speaker 1: And I just want to underscore that this is a
Speaker 1: draft opinion. It doesn't necessarily signal where the Supreme court
Speaker 1: stands at this very moment. But we're seeing, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of criticism about how, you know, other companies
Speaker 1: are handling reproductive benefits. For example, Amazon came out um
Speaker 1: with their package earlier this week. There's some criticism there
Speaker 1: that it doesn't cover contract workers, who are kind of
Speaker 1: the lifeblood of keeping the trains running on time at Amazon.
Speaker 1: Do you think their policy is lacking. I haven't looked
Speaker 1: at that policy in detail. I would assume if it
Speaker 1: does not cover contract workers, that does seem like a
Speaker 1: big gap, considering that's a big part of their workforce. UM.
Speaker 1: I think that's true of a lot of companies who
Speaker 1: are probably contemplating this. That being said, we haven't seen
Speaker 1: that many companies do this. I was really happy to
Speaker 1: see yelp Uh, City Bank, Amazon do this all in
Speaker 1: the last few days. Really, I think, um, I would
Speaker 1: encourage Facebook Meta. If that's how they feel about women,
Speaker 1: they should probably put something in place off for really
Speaker 1: good benefits. We know they have a ton of money, uh,
Speaker 1: sitting around ton of cash. This is a pretty easy
Speaker 1: thing for them to implement. I would encourage any company
Speaker 1: that has the luxury of doing that to do it now.
Speaker 1: Alloy has a history of taking a public stance on
Speaker 1: political issues. For example, Uh, you prohibit companies from using
Speaker 1: Alloys products if they would deny customers access based on
Speaker 1: their immigration or citizenship status. Have you found taking these
Speaker 1: public political stands has hurt business at all? No, we haven't. UM,
Speaker 1: I can't promise you it never will, and we'll have
Speaker 1: to cross that bridge when we get there. We haven't.
Speaker 1: I think, Uh, the benefits of what it has given,
Speaker 1: sort of the the alignment between us, our values and
Speaker 1: our team again and kind of keeping folks engage, getting
Speaker 1: them on board, getting them excited about us in our mission,
Speaker 1: has outweighed any potential negative impacts we've seen so far.
Speaker 1: I don't think that there will be zero negative impacts.
Speaker 1: We work with a bunch of banks which are historically
Speaker 1: much more conservative, as you can imagine, so I would
Speaker 1: anticipate some fallow at some point for us. There's been
Speaker 1: basically no negative impacts thus far, and the moral imperative
Speaker 1: as well as the business case I can make for
Speaker 1: this really outweigh to me the risk that we're or
Speaker 1: make the word risk very much worth it. I'm curious
Speaker 1: what the internal reaction has been. You know often companies
Speaker 1: don't want to take political stance because you know it,
Speaker 1: you know it might impact their retention and recruiting efforts. Certainly,
Speaker 1: not necessarily everyone agrees with your policies, even people who
Speaker 1: work at your own company. What's been the reaction internally
Speaker 1: so far? Really positive? UM. Again, there may be people,
Speaker 1: I'm sure there are people who disagree with this who
Speaker 1: work at alloy UM, and we are open to the
Speaker 1: idea that you don't have to agree with every single
Speaker 1: thing we do or everything I agree with their my
Speaker 1: cobounders agree with to be at alloy UM. However, the
Speaker 1: response I've seen has been unilaterally positive. I've gotten a
Speaker 1: ton of messages and d m s from people both
Speaker 1: when we announced the policy in January UM and today
Speaker 1: when we put out a statement given the leak that
Speaker 1: happened last night. UM. Just really positive feedback that this
Speaker 1: is something that aligns with their values and that they're
Speaker 1: proud to work here. UM. I got a message today
Speaker 1: from someone in one of the states that I think
Speaker 1: is the you know, going to be the most impacted.
Speaker 1: UM who who just said, you know, they really appreciate
Speaker 1: it and it means a lot to them. So that
Speaker 1: was especially sort of haartning to hear all right, Laura Speakerman,
Speaker 1: co founder of Ali, thanks for joining us to thank you.
Speaker 1: Ammution coming up between supply constraints and COVID lockdowns, why
Speaker 1: Apple's third quarter forecast has analysts worry at is next?
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. Apple investors and Wall Street analysts were
Speaker 1: initially excited when Apple reported its second quarter earnings. The
Speaker 1: company said it generated nine billion dollars in revenue, with
Speaker 1: fifty billion of that coming from the iPhone and another
Speaker 1: twenty billion coming from a very strong services quarter, but
Speaker 1: the jubilation was short lived. After announcing the results for
Speaker 1: Q two, Apple said that Q three would be a challenge.
Speaker 1: Apple said it's expecting a four billion dollar to eight
Speaker 1: billion dollar negative hit to revenue due to COVID related lockdowns,
Speaker 1: the ongoing chip shortage, and global issues like the war
Speaker 1: in Ukraine. That means with Apple reports Q three results
Speaker 1: in ju Law, the overall remedy number will be up
Speaker 1: to eight billion dollars less than it could have been.
Speaker 1: This led to questions from analysts to CEO Tim Cook,
Speaker 1: such as should the Apple supply chain be shifted to
Speaker 1: avoid these ongoing issues? In China and the chip problems.
Speaker 1: Cook of course defended his infrastructure, but said that Apple
Speaker 1: is always looking at making tweaks. Analysts are still pegging
Speaker 1: a year or a year revenue increase for the current quarter,
Speaker 1: a number around eighty four billion dollars that of course
Speaker 1: remains fluid. Several Apple suppliers and assembly partners were temporarily
Speaker 1: closed in April amid China's ongoing crackdown on COVID cases.
Speaker 1: So far, that's led this some delays the high end
Speaker 1: versions of the Maple pro and supply problems for the iPad.
Speaker 1: Apple's intense warning, however, indicates that consumers may just have
Speaker 1: a hard time finding other Apple products in the coming
Speaker 1: weeks and months, including the iPhone and Apple Watch. I'm
Speaker 1: Mark Erman. This is power On. Don't forget. You can
Speaker 1: subscribe to marks weekly power On newsletter at Bloomberg dot
Speaker 1: com and seeking with Apple. Bloomberg has learned the tech
Speaker 1: giant has hired someone who helped lead safety efforts and
Speaker 1: vehicle engineering at for This assigned that the iphonemaker is
Speaker 1: once again ramping up development of an electric car. Desi
Speaker 1: Wakashchevitch worked it forward since, most recently serving as its
Speaker 1: global director of Automotive Safety Engineering. A bipartisan group of
Speaker 1: US senators wants to loosen Google's grip on the digital
Speaker 1: ad market. Bloomberg has learned they planned to introduce legislation
Speaker 1: that would force Google to sell off parts of its
Speaker 1: lucrative ad tech business. The measure could also have implications
Speaker 1: for Amazon and Facebook parent Meta and the SEC is
Speaker 1: beefing up its crypto enforcement team. The Wall Street Regulator
Speaker 1: adding twenty staffers to its unit focused on policing crypto
Speaker 1: market abuses from new coin offerings and crypto exchanges to
Speaker 1: defy platforms and n f t s. The office has
Speaker 1: brought more than eight enforcement actions since launching in love.
Speaker 1: More on that in our crypto report later this hour.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to bloomber Technology. I'm emily checking San Francisco.
Speaker 1: Let's get back to Elon Musk's evolving a vision for Twitter,
Speaker 1: taking the company private but not blocking out the possibility
Speaker 1: of becoming public again in the future. Are Ed Ludlow
Speaker 1: here to discuss. We're getting some new information in a
Speaker 1: report from dal Jones. What now So? Dal Jones is reporting,
Speaker 1: according to their sources, that Elon Musk is telling potential
Speaker 1: co investors, because remember he's still trying to line up
Speaker 1: the equity portion of this deal that he could eventually
Speaker 1: take Twitter public again, and he could, according to dal
Speaker 1: Jones sources, do that within a three year time frame,
Speaker 1: which is interesting because he's trying to take Twitter private. So,
Speaker 1: you know, talk to us more about what he has said,
Speaker 1: what clues we have about you know, his you know,
Speaker 1: how he plans to evolve Twitter and how it would
Speaker 1: then ultimately make four for stands for it to be
Speaker 1: a public company again. Eventually. I mean, in the letter
Speaker 1: to Twitter's board when he first made the offer for
Speaker 1: the company, said these changes which I want to enact
Speaker 1: can only be done if Twitter is private, and those
Speaker 1: changes range from removing bots, open source and the algorithm
Speaker 1: having a time limited edit button. He's talked about, you know,
Speaker 1: he's talked in tweets, who was at the met gala
Speaker 1: last night, saying Twitter can be the most inclusive, best
Speaker 1: platform out there. It just needs to stick to the
Speaker 1: principle of free speech. But he's also trying to line
Speaker 1: up co financing, right, and a big question for investors
Speaker 1: to get involved is how do we make money on
Speaker 1: this in the long run? What's the timeline for him
Speaker 1: to line up that final batch of equity. Well, so
Speaker 1: remember the deal hasn't actually closed. Soft twenty cents a
Speaker 1: share for each shareholder that has a share, and as
Speaker 1: many shares as they have by year end, and the
Speaker 1: expectation is that existing Twitter shore holders will vote for this,
Speaker 1: They'll go for it, but who knows. Well, I'm sure
Speaker 1: there'll be more dribbles of news all the way to
Speaker 1: the bid. A bitter end, Ludlow, thank you. Meantime, the
Speaker 1: world of one click checkout startups has been a race
Speaker 1: to number one, but recently there have been a lot
Speaker 1: of questions about viability. Most recently, Bolt Financial was sued
Speaker 1: by its most prominent customer, which includes the parent company
Speaker 1: of Forever twenty one, alleging that bull overstated his customers
Speaker 1: and failed to deliver on promise technology leaned to a
Speaker 1: one fifty million dollar loss in online sales. I want
Speaker 1: to talk about this all with Albert Saneger. He is
Speaker 1: the founder and CEO of Nate, a universal shopping app
Speaker 1: with a one click checkout function. Albert, thank you for
Speaker 1: joining us. So first I want to clarify you are
Speaker 1: in the same sort of general business, but do something
Speaker 1: different to what Bolt promises to do. Can can you
Speaker 1: explain your one click checkout technology? Yes? Thank you, Emily,
Speaker 1: I'm excited to be here. UM. So yes, need is
Speaker 1: uh the world's first universal shopping up. You can downloading
Speaker 1: and or your shipping and payment information once, and you
Speaker 1: can skip the check out anywhere, pay now or pay later,
Speaker 1: and share shopping lists with your friends. So Nate is
Speaker 1: a consumer business. We don't sell software to retailers. So
Speaker 1: what's your take on the controversy surrounding Bolt, which in
Speaker 1: turn has trying to spotlight on the space. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are some people who think that Bolt is hiding
Speaker 1: shoddy business fundamentals um, and that maybe is you know,
Speaker 1: grossly overvalued. Well look, UM, I can't speak about the
Speaker 1: specifics of of Bolt. I know that every company is
Speaker 1: different and every management team is different. UM I'll tell
Speaker 1: you that. UM. Broadly speaking, when you're building a payments business,
Speaker 1: you have a choice to make, and the choice is
Speaker 1: who is your customer? Is your customer the retailer? Where
Speaker 1: is your customer the consumer? Much like in real estate?
Speaker 1: Right do you represent the seller or do you represent
Speaker 1: the buyer? And there are lots of really interesting software
Speaker 1: companies that are selling software to retailers, and sometimes they
Speaker 1: sell them. They sell them solve for for conversion upside
Speaker 1: in the form of one click chuckot, or in the
Speaker 1: form of point of sale financing, or in the form
Speaker 1: of shipping in trance and those are great businesses, but
Speaker 1: that is not what made us made. That is a
Speaker 1: consumer business. I want to talk to you a little
Speaker 1: bit more about Ryan Breslow, the founder of Bolts specifically though,
Speaker 1: because he has been incredibly vocal and opinionated, for better
Speaker 1: or for worse. He it seems like he was ousted
Speaker 1: from the CEO spot. He's he's staying on as chair.
Speaker 1: Do you think that the founders should be that outspoken? Uh?
Speaker 1: I know. I know how hard it is to build
Speaker 1: a business from scratch. I can tell you that firsthand.
Speaker 1: And you know, different founders have different approaches to product development,
Speaker 1: go to market, and team building. UM and I have
Speaker 1: the autmost respect for those who are, you know, more
Speaker 1: or less vocal about how they're building those things. UM
Speaker 1: My style is more focused on um observing this new
Speaker 1: generation of shoppers and building four consumers and letting the
Speaker 1: rest of the other pieces fall into place. Then You
Speaker 1: have another company in this space called Fast, which recently
Speaker 1: shut its doors. So you know, there's this question about
Speaker 1: you know, is this kind of technology really possible? Is
Speaker 1: it overhyped? Um? I actually argue that one click check
Speaker 1: out is a is a great feature, but it is
Speaker 1: a feature nonetheless. And the question is if your customers
Speaker 1: are retailers, then what are the other services that they
Speaker 1: need in order to sort of build a compelling product.
Speaker 1: In the case of our customers are consumers. And I
Speaker 1: can tell you for sure without a doubt that consumers
Speaker 1: want one click checkout, There's no doubt about that, UM.
Speaker 1: But they want a few more things than one click checkout.
Speaker 1: They want aggregation, the sort of aggregation that happened in
Speaker 1: music with Spotify, it happened in food the door Dash,
Speaker 1: it happened in transportation with Uber, and it's happening now
Speaker 1: in e commerce with me. Consumers demand aggregation. Of these
Speaker 1: two million retailers in the non names on economy, you've
Speaker 1: got Bolt and Fast. Why is your company called Nate?
Speaker 1: Uh So, Nate is um in a way, and assistant
Speaker 1: that lives in the cloud, that does things on your behalf.
Speaker 1: So we knew that we wanted to personify, and I
Speaker 1: also wanted to make sure that UM, we didn't use
Speaker 1: um a woman's name, because there are lots of assistance
Speaker 1: out there to have associations with the word woman and
Speaker 1: the warmth competence trap is real. So if we are
Speaker 1: going to objectify a machine that does the heaven lifting
Speaker 1: for us, might as well have a man's name. Although
Speaker 1: we use it pronounced uh, Nates has no gender UM
Speaker 1: and it was actually a play on the words native
Speaker 1: commerce commerce that is naeded. All right, well, it sounds
Speaker 1: like a very interesting play. We will continue to follow.
Speaker 1: Albert Sandager, founder and CEO of Nate Thank You, Come
Speaker 1: Up Coin by c O'Brien Armstrong, spoke at the Milk
Speaker 1: and Global Conference about everything from crypto adoption to a
Speaker 1: decentralized Twitter. We'll talk about all this and more with
Speaker 1: the Web three company the graph up next to the schoolwork.
Speaker 1: I think freedom in all forms is worth defending, and
Speaker 1: you know, crypto is a lot of it is about
Speaker 1: economic freedom, so freedom of speech is another version. I
Speaker 1: do think there's an opportunity for Twitter to essentially embrace
Speaker 1: UM using a decentralized protocol and UM just in the
Speaker 1: way that you've probably heard of DEFY, which is decentralized finance.
Speaker 1: There's another one UM called do so decentralized social media,
Speaker 1: which is another emerging area coming up. If you look
Speaker 1: at how crypto has grown over the last year or two,
Speaker 1: it's growing faster than the Internet did in the early days.
Speaker 1: And there's now about two million people in the world
Speaker 1: who have crypto or have tried it, and so if
Speaker 1: you just plot that curve out, it means that in
Speaker 1: within this decade, we're going to have over a billion
Speaker 1: people in the world using crypto, and to me, that's
Speaker 1: just incredibly exciting. Going by CEO Brian Armstrong there at
Speaker 1: the Milk and Global Conference, I want to dive into
Speaker 1: all of this and more in our Crypto Report with
Speaker 1: Ava Bylin, director of the Graph Foundation, which has a
Speaker 1: miss in to allow for full stack decentralized applications or
Speaker 1: depths with an indexing protocol for corying blockchains. Even thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us. So what do you
Speaker 1: think billion people using crypto in a decade will happen.
Speaker 1: I think it will totally happen. And you know, really
Speaker 1: the question is where these individuals coming from and what
Speaker 1: are they going to do and I think we we
Speaker 1: often think about crypto in this speculative nature, you know,
Speaker 1: defies the center of attention. But really what crypto and
Speaker 1: Web three enables is access, access to banking, access to content.
Speaker 1: So you know, even echoing Brian Armstrong, things liked so
Speaker 1: or decentralized Twitter are definitely in the works. Um. But
Speaker 1: you know, even at the graph, you like to think
Speaker 1: about this as the next step in iterating the gig economy.
Speaker 1: So you know, people like to stake their tokens um,
Speaker 1: you know, on Web three, and it's very similar to
Speaker 1: holding an asset and expecting it to be useful, um,
Speaker 1: you know in FIAT or Web two world. Um, but
Speaker 1: here you actually get to work for a protocol. So
Speaker 1: we're really excited to see what this looks like where
Speaker 1: people actually start working for the technologies, putting the capital
Speaker 1: to work and actually getting to earn a portion of
Speaker 1: that revenue. Meantime, there's still a sort of wild West
Speaker 1: feel about the crypto landscape. Coin bases also now cracking
Speaker 1: down on the issue of people front running tokens based
Speaker 1: on whether coin base might be about to list them.
Speaker 1: What's your take on that. I think just like in
Speaker 1: typical startup world, you're going to have nine out of
Speaker 1: ten startups that don't succeed. And similarly, in crypto, you know,
Speaker 1: the value of the token or the productivity of the
Speaker 1: token and a protocol um you know, or the success
Speaker 1: of a community is still going to be reflective of
Speaker 1: its quality. So I think that we need to start
Speaker 1: focusing a little bit more on which tokens and which
Speaker 1: protocols are sustainable, which are going to actually provide real
Speaker 1: value in the next decade or you know, two decades,
Speaker 1: three decades, and which are the communities that are going
Speaker 1: to sustain themselves. You know, one major difference between Web
Speaker 1: three and Web two is the switching costs are much lower.
Speaker 1: It's really really inexpensive for a user to start using
Speaker 1: a different DAP or different protocol, whether it's just transferring
Speaker 1: tokens to another wallet um or really just completely up
Speaker 1: and moving. And so I think these product teams, these
Speaker 1: communities have a lot more pressure to deliver high quality experiences. Meantime,
Speaker 1: the SEC is adding twenty more people to its team
Speaker 1: policing crypto markets. I'm curious does that signal more regulation,
Speaker 1: more enforcement coming. You know, we've always been fairly open
Speaker 1: that regulation is welcome. You know, it's not that the
Speaker 1: crypto industry wants to be unregulated. We just want more clarity.
Speaker 1: So you know, in general, this bodes well for having
Speaker 1: more resources focused on our industry. And you know, our
Speaker 1: our goal really is to have more folks that are
Speaker 1: you know, applying the law and applying their policies in
Speaker 1: a way that's conducive with innovation and not stifling growth. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, as as is possible in this new wild
Speaker 1: west of development. The industry is still scaling, still working
Speaker 1: on interoperability, and there's a lot of work to do.
Speaker 1: What's your role in that at the graph? Yeah, so
Speaker 1: we as the graph. As you mentioned, we're an indexing protocol,
Speaker 1: and really all that means is we're trying to make
Speaker 1: it easy to organize data, making it easier for developers
Speaker 1: to access that data. Um. You know, people will often
Speaker 1: call us the Google of block chains, and so we're
Speaker 1: really here to unite all developers, full stack back end
Speaker 1: and make it easier for anyone to build across applications,
Speaker 1: across chains and acting as a uniting layer where you know,
Speaker 1: any a p I, any way that you can access
Speaker 1: data should be open source, and anyone should be able
Speaker 1: to do that and build on top of any protocol.
Speaker 1: So I'm curious about your thoughts on open source and
Speaker 1: how far that goes. What do you think about open
Speaker 1: sourcing Twitter's algorithm. I think that's a great idea, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm all for the decentralized movement, especially with something as
Speaker 1: as useful as Twitter. My general stance with open source,
Speaker 1: you know, versus closed sources, I think there's a lot
Speaker 1: of fund around open source ruining business models. You know,
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, sustainability is really what
Speaker 1: matters when it comes to a good business or a product,
Speaker 1: and if you can continue building, you know, to actually
Speaker 1: continue building on a protocol, whether it's open source or
Speaker 1: close source, is a chal lenge. And so the protocols
Speaker 1: and depths that are more likely to succeed are the
Speaker 1: ones that actually innovate on top of existing models rather
Speaker 1: than just replicating and copying them and moving on. And
Speaker 1: how do you see the ethereum merge impacting the broader landscape?
Speaker 1: Just how sort of tectonic do you think that will be?
Speaker 1: I think there's a few narratives here, So, you know,
Speaker 1: on one hand, this is the first major blockchain that's
Speaker 1: moving to proof of stake. You know, I think there
Speaker 1: will be ripple effects and how does this impact other chains?
Speaker 1: But more broadly, I think it's the first step for
Speaker 1: you know, non technical people, non developers, to see what
Speaker 1: it really means to have your assets put to work,
Speaker 1: to have a utility token like ethere um ether and
Speaker 1: being able to actually earn revenue and generate income as
Speaker 1: an individual from participating in that blockchain. It's a completely
Speaker 1: novel concept. You know, even the gig economy is fairly new,
Speaker 1: but Web three enables this possibility that individuals can have
Speaker 1: full sovereignty over their assets and the way they contribute
Speaker 1: to technology. All right, dav Balan, director of the Graph,
Speaker 1: thanks for joining us to share your view of the crypto.
Speaker 1: D five future time for this week's Teconomics segment, and
Speaker 1: we're speaking with Zach Vogue, co founder and managing partner
Speaker 1: of d c v C, which has a mission to
Speaker 1: back entrepreneurs solving trillion dollar problems to multiply the benefits
Speaker 1: of capitalism for everyone, but all the while reduce costs
Speaker 1: problems like climate change ZAC But what exactly does that mean?
Speaker 1: Tell me about your mission. Sure, So we you know,
Speaker 1: to pointed more concisely, we like to back entrepreneurs solving
Speaker 1: trillion dollar problems computationally. These are hard problems in the climate,
Speaker 1: these are hard problems in life sciences, hard problems in
Speaker 1: transforming industry. Now, historically we've seen big venture capital fronts
Speaker 1: like Climber Perkins for example, you know, dive into clean
Speaker 1: tech investing and then pulled back because the returns just
Speaker 1: weren't there, at least not in a you know, reasonable
Speaker 1: time horizon. So why do you think you can make
Speaker 1: it work? Now? Over the past handful of years, there's
Speaker 1: been massive advances in computational approaches AI, machine learning, machine
Speaker 1: vision that have massively, massively reduced the capital required to
Speaker 1: solve some of these problems. Not all. Some of these
Speaker 1: problems are still great for government. But there's companies like
Speaker 1: my company, Pivot Bio that is replacing synthetic fertilizer nine
Speaker 1: percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, replacing that with microbes.
Speaker 1: So there's real, real possibility to make big changes in
Speaker 1: this sector. So let's talk about some of the contributions
Speaker 1: we've seen in this sector. We've seen alphabet just in
Speaker 1: the last month. Alphabet Elon Musk and many more commit
Speaker 1: more than two billions dollars to startups tackling climate change.
Speaker 1: Talked to us about where you see the capital flowing
Speaker 1: and what's most significant about it. So, yeah, those declarations
Speaker 1: are great and we need much more of those. Those
Speaker 1: type of things. We see money flowing into. Areas like
Speaker 1: methane remediation, which is one of the lowest hanging fruit, UM,
Speaker 1: industrial transformation, electrifying the grid, electrifying everything. Uh, just you know,
Speaker 1: basic deep tech areas the lowest hanging fruit. Why do
Speaker 1: you think that is? So? Methane is a relatively ephemeral gas,
Speaker 1: and it's the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions for
Speaker 1: the planet, and it's only is short lived in the
Speaker 1: in the atmosphere. And our company in Kiros Aerospace helps
Speaker 1: detect methane leaks and they've already had a bigger impact
Speaker 1: than Tesla. Many people are surprised to hear that. But Tesla,
Speaker 1: let's say that again. Which company has a bigger impact
Speaker 1: than Tesla, Cairos Aerospace. Uh Tesla impact report five million
Speaker 1: tons of CO two E prevented. UH Cairos was seven million.
Speaker 1: It's only increased there for for Cairos, how did they
Speaker 1: do that. They have sensors and they do basin wide
Speaker 1: surveys of installed oil and gas infrastructure which is very leaky,
Speaker 1: leaks methane, and they help pinpoint the leaks and help
Speaker 1: the companies rapidly fix them. So the challenges ahead are
Speaker 1: of course tremendous, but there's also a lot of macroeconomic uncertainty, inflation,
Speaker 1: consumers under pressure, businesses under pressure. I mean, look what's
Speaker 1: happening in the public markets. Does that concern you in
Speaker 1: terms of you know, some you know funds that have
Speaker 1: been pouring money into these spaces potentially pulling back. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: So the public markets are in a risk off scenario
Speaker 1: right now. We all know that. And obviously there's a
Speaker 1: lot of bad stuff going on out there. Things have
Speaker 1: slowed down. We've seen deals repricing for following deals of
Speaker 1: our existing deals. We've also seen a lot more structure
Speaker 1: coming into deals. So this has affected the whole market
Speaker 1: and we're sort of taking a weight and see approach.
Speaker 1: We're still doing good deals. Good deals are still getting done,
Speaker 1: but I think everyone is taking a little bit of
Speaker 1: a breather, and the pace of capital employment is slowing down.
Speaker 1: Now you invest in deep tech, which takes time to
Speaker 1: scale and to deliver these computational approaches. As you're talking about,
Speaker 1: how do you ensure that companies hit their milestones and
Speaker 1: still make a profit. Absolutely, these are problems that are
Speaker 1: capital intensive a bit more. We've just heard that the
Speaker 1: capital requirements are less if you can rely on computation.
Speaker 1: Obviously you need great execution from the team to hit
Speaker 1: their milestones. But they are solving trillion dollar problems. So
Speaker 1: once they do solve them, they create giant, durable, capitalist,
Speaker 1: successful companies that produce huge returns for investors. What kind
Speaker 1: of how big are the returns? Let's talk about that,
Speaker 1: um what what? What's a huge return? In your view?
Speaker 1: Huge return is you know, creating the next trillion dollar company? Right?
Speaker 1: And these you know the types of companies that you
Speaker 1: can create with deep tech? Are you know fixing you
Speaker 1: know the fertilizer industry. We heard pivot bio. That's a
Speaker 1: two billion dollar industry acres of corn in the US
Speaker 1: that can be transformed to this much less polluting industry. Um. So,
Speaker 1: if you can solve that, you can create enormous durable businesses.
Speaker 1: So are you saying the next let's say in a decade,
Speaker 1: could the trillion dollar companies in a decade be the
Speaker 1: next Apple and Google and Amazon and Facebook? Could they
Speaker 1: be companies focused on tackling climate change? They will be
Speaker 1: in Larry Fink of Black Rock obviously said that the
Speaker 1: next fifty trillion dollars of fifty unicorns will be will
Speaker 1: be these these companies. So, uh, what's gonna What's going
Speaker 1: to make our break? Whether or not that happens, obviously,
Speaker 1: the problem is real. But investors want returns, and the
Speaker 1: question is will those returns happen fast enough. These companies
Speaker 1: are more capital intensive, but there's going to be insatiable
Speaker 1: demand for public, high quality public equities that are addressing
Speaker 1: the climate. So our pathways, we're going to back these
Speaker 1: companies at the early stages and ultimately get them public
Speaker 1: and there will be huge demand for these stocks. Not
Speaker 1: to mention, they will be profitable because they're solving these
Speaker 1: trillion dollar problems. If the government giving these companies, this industry,
Speaker 1: these industries enough support, the government can always be doing
Speaker 1: a lot more. We don't back regulatory change or prospective
Speaker 1: regulatory change. That's great. I want to be regulatory change,
Speaker 1: but that's not something that we view as ventured backable.
Speaker 1: We need back companies that have a working business model
Speaker 1: with a real product that customers are willing to pay
Speaker 1: money for. So this is very much a capitalistic endeavorent
Speaker 1: that we are not a double bottom line fund. What
Speaker 1: more could the government do? The government could put in
Speaker 1: a carbon tax, for instance, which has been very pernicious.
Speaker 1: They could also, um encourage uh, you know, more investment.
Speaker 1: Right Obviously, some of the best technological breakthroughs have underpinnings
Speaker 1: of government research. So those are two huge areas of
Speaker 1: the government could have a big impact. Locally, the government
Speaker 1: in California could keep Diable Canyon, are last functioning nuclear
Speaker 1: power plant open, which would have a huge impact for
Speaker 1: the climate. Interesting. All right, well we'll be washing to
Speaker 1: see which is which is the first of those you
Speaker 1: know companies to become the next trillion dollar company. UM.
Speaker 1: Zack Bogue, co founder and managing partner of dc DC,
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us. Good to have you back
Speaker 1: on the show. And that does it. For the sedition
Speaker 1: of Bloomberg Technology to or Ow, Airbnb c O Brien
Speaker 1: Cheske will be here to talk about the company's earnings
Speaker 1: results and the biggest change to AIRPNB, he says coming
Speaker 1: in a decade. And also, don't forget to check out
Speaker 1: our podcast. You can find it anywhere you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: I'm Emily checking in San Francisco. This is Bluebird