Speaker 1: From the heart of where innovation, money and power Collie
Speaker 1: in Silicon Valley and beyond. This is Bloomberg Technology with
Speaker 1: Emily Jay I'm Emily Changes San Francisco and this is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Technology. Coming up in the next hour. How a
Speaker 1: Delaware court could force Musque to seal the deal. From
Speaker 1: daily fines to allowing Twitter to seize his assets, we
Speaker 1: will talk about all the ways Musk could be held
Speaker 1: to his word if he loses what is shaping up
Speaker 1: to be an epic legal battle. Plus, Pinceresque gets a
Speaker 1: big boost from Elliott Management after the activist investor takes
Speaker 1: a nine percent stake in the company. Shares jumping after hours,
Speaker 1: and Amazon how to surprisingly strong friend day sales jump
Speaker 1: with an eight percent from last year and even help
Speaker 1: rivals get a little more online traffic. Will break down
Speaker 1: all the data. All that in a moment. But first,
Speaker 1: Elon Musk, known for his delight in defying authorities, ordered
Speaker 1: to complete his forty four billion dollar purchase of Twitter,
Speaker 1: and he refuses. How could a Delaware court force his hand.
Speaker 1: That's something that we've been exploring. I want to bring
Speaker 1: in Bloomber's Kurt Wagner now to discuss Kurt. If you
Speaker 1: go through a Twitter's complaint, they come out swinging they
Speaker 1: want to do this forty four billion dollar deal. This
Speaker 1: is not posturing or ceremony. They want their forty four billion.
Speaker 1: Can apport really force Elon Musk to pay up? It
Speaker 1: sounds like the answers yes. And thankfully our colleagues, who
Speaker 1: you know cover the cord are are much closer to this,
Speaker 1: and they had a story today that said there's a
Speaker 1: few things they could do. They could uh slap a
Speaker 1: big fine on Elon Musk could right, so the richest,
Speaker 1: even the richest man in the world might not want
Speaker 1: to pay a fine every single day. They could seize
Speaker 1: his assets was another thing, and obviously that would include
Speaker 1: Tesla stock um. So I think those are the main
Speaker 1: probably motivators if you will to do a deal like this,
Speaker 1: on top of of course actually paying the money, that
Speaker 1: he also could allow Twitter to seize his assets, which
Speaker 1: I found interesting. I'm not sure if Twitter would want
Speaker 1: to seize his assets at this point. They're trying to
Speaker 1: make him seize their assets, right, But I find this
Speaker 1: whole thing, you know, to be incredibly interesting and complicated
Speaker 1: because think about this, Emily for sixty pages, Twitter was saying,
Speaker 1: here's a guy who's acting in bad faith. Here is
Speaker 1: someone who is who's lying, who's misrepresenting, and now we
Speaker 1: want him to own the company and be everybody's boss. Right.
Speaker 1: It's it's a very complicated issue. We pulled some quotes
Speaker 1: from those sixty pages, and it's actually kind of a
Speaker 1: riveting read written in a more conversational complaint to be
Speaker 1: here's one Musk apparently believes that he, unlike every other
Speaker 1: party subject to Delaware contract law, is free to change
Speaker 1: his mind, trash the company, disrupt its operations, destroy shareholder value,
Speaker 1: and walk away. His exit ategy is a model of hypocrisy.
Speaker 1: And then there's this that he exhibited little interest in
Speaker 1: understanding Twitter's process for estimating spam accounts. In a June
Speaker 1: thirtie conversation with Twitter CFO Net Siegel, he acknowledged he
Speaker 1: hadn't even read the detailed summary of twitter sampling process
Speaker 1: provided back in May. Siegel offered to spend time with
Speaker 1: Musk once again to review it. That meeting never happened
Speaker 1: despite Twitter's best efforts. What do you make of that?
Speaker 1: I mean, Twitter went out of its way to show
Speaker 1: and paint a picture of someone who has lost interest
Speaker 1: in this deal. Right, Basically from about June twenty three
Speaker 1: when Bob Swan, the former i d M CEO who
Speaker 1: was leading the Musk deal team, he left. From then
Speaker 1: on through the fourth of July, the company basically said
Speaker 1: we had trouble getting in touch with him. We tried
Speaker 1: to have meetings, he wouldn't show up. When he did
Speaker 1: show up, he wasn't prepared. They're really trying to convey
Speaker 1: that Ellen really stepped back from this deal, and that's
Speaker 1: why it's fallen apart, not because of anything that Twitter did.
Speaker 1: So here's the thing. Elon Musk doesn't shy away from
Speaker 1: a fight, and just even with major regulators, so we're
Speaker 1: not expecting him to just back down. No. And and
Speaker 1: you know, I've seen some people speculate, well, why don't
Speaker 1: they come to a settlement, Why doesn't Eilon pay half
Speaker 1: the price? And and everyone walks away. It's like, can
Speaker 1: you imagine Elon Musk voluntarily saying, here's twenty billion dollars, Sure,
Speaker 1: I'll be the loser in this situation. I just have
Speaker 1: a tough time imagining that. So it does really feel
Speaker 1: like it's either going to be forty four billion or nothing.
Speaker 1: I know that sounds extreme, but it's just hard to
Speaker 1: imagine a middle ground right now. All right, well, certainly
Speaker 1: something we slash you will continue to follow, Thank you,
Speaker 1: Kurt Wagner. Meantime, payments company Stripe has told staffers the
Speaker 1: private market valuation of the company has dropped more than
Speaker 1: Stripe's new implied valuation is about seventy four billion dollars,
Speaker 1: down from billion and its most recent fundraising. This as
Speaker 1: the stock prices of Stripes publicly traded Peers continue to plummet.
Speaker 1: Since the overturning of Roe versus Wade, an employee benefit
Speaker 1: package might be the only way women seeking abortions can
Speaker 1: even afford it. Tech giants have responded to the ruling
Speaker 1: by pledging their support and financial assistance. But how is
Speaker 1: this all playing out in the aftermath? Joining is now?
Speaker 1: Kate Writer, CEO of Maven, a women's and family health
Speaker 1: clinic that partners with companies like Microsoft, Loreale, and A
Speaker 1: T and T. Kate, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 1: So look, in one ruling, the rules changed for women
Speaker 1: across the country. What's happened in the aftermath? What have
Speaker 1: you seen? You know? Um? We knew this was coming, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, ever since XDA in the fall. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people in the medical community, um, you know,
Speaker 1: we're predicting this, and I think what we've heard is
Speaker 1: we work with a lot of leading health plans and
Speaker 1: employers with for the ribbons and family health benefits from
Speaker 1: fertility and maternity, and a lot of them didn't know
Speaker 1: what to kind of make of it. The second that
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court decision was kind of struck down and
Speaker 1: brought down even the most conservative clients that previously didn't
Speaker 1: want to take a position stood up and designed kind
Speaker 1: of employee benefit packages through mayven and other services to
Speaker 1: support travel across state lines, to support pregnancy options, counseling,
Speaker 1: and you know a lot of other things. So that
Speaker 1: was encouraging. So what kind of demand are you and
Speaker 1: requests are you seeing from MAVEN members. Are you seeing
Speaker 1: a surge in requests for reproductive help? I think anxiety,
Speaker 1: our mental health is up, but I think it's not
Speaker 1: just MAYVEN members right now. We're also paying attention to
Speaker 1: maybe providers. So, you know, one of the things that
Speaker 1: we've been hearing is there's about of US counties don't
Speaker 1: have an OB G U, I N and a lot
Speaker 1: of those are in states where they're restricting abortion access.
Speaker 1: A lot of our clinicians are are are really concerned.
Speaker 1: You know, we're hearing people of that are going to
Speaker 1: move and so that's going to create even more provider shortages.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's it's both the members but also
Speaker 1: the providers themselves. Hang on, did you just say of
Speaker 1: US counties don't have an O, B, G, Y N
Speaker 1: p US. Isn't that just a basic level of care
Speaker 1: for any kind of women's health needs? You know, I
Speaker 1: think one of the reasons I started maybe eight years ago,
Speaker 1: if because women's health has always been underserved. A lot
Speaker 1: of these statistics kind of people didn't really pay as
Speaker 1: much attention to, but you know, technically are called matrinity care,
Speaker 1: desserts and um. And you know, I think the the
Speaker 1: a hog and the medical community is afraid that is
Speaker 1: going to be even more exacerbated um with you know,
Speaker 1: with this ruling. So here's the question. There are companies
Speaker 1: and and and startups like yours that are now potentially
Speaker 1: serving women in states where abortion is illegal. How are
Speaker 1: you navigating that? Well? I think you know what we
Speaker 1: always think about is the well being of the members
Speaker 1: or providers or clients is always first and foremost. And
Speaker 1: we also, of course will always be in compliance with
Speaker 1: the laws, and so our legal team are the law
Speaker 1: that's still really uncertain is working over time. I'm to
Speaker 1: try to understand this, and so you know, we have
Speaker 1: to obviously be in compliance. But um, but you know,
Speaker 1: the well being of a many of our members in
Speaker 1: those states is uh. You knows, as evidenced by a
Speaker 1: lot of you know, increase acts for support around emotional
Speaker 1: well being, around just the uncertainty of even bringing kids
Speaker 1: up in this world. You know, what what do you say?
Speaker 1: How do you explain what's going on? Um, you know,
Speaker 1: we're seeing all in that on our platform. Meantime, you've
Speaker 1: got a number of companies that have come out and
Speaker 1: said we're going to cover travel benefits for employees who
Speaker 1: need to cross state lines to get an abortion. So,
Speaker 1: for example, Ubert, Lift, Door, Dash have said they would
Speaker 1: do this for their employees, But Bloomberg has a story
Speaker 1: out today saying, well, they're not doing this for their shoppers,
Speaker 1: or their drivers, or for all of the contractors on
Speaker 1: their platform. What do you think the responsibility of these
Speaker 1: employers are well, I think that we're living in a
Speaker 1: world where as we see it, it's it's part of
Speaker 1: by the employee benefits industry at central robust industry. As
Speaker 1: we see the less and less services kind of offered
Speaker 1: by the government companies you know, may even included UM,
Speaker 1: and a lot of our clients are stepping up to
Speaker 1: fill a lot of those gaps because at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, UM, you know, your people are everything
Speaker 1: when you're growing your business, and so not only are
Speaker 1: you helping your people, but you know, there is an
Speaker 1: economic argument for employer, you know, talent attraction and retention
Speaker 1: and just kind of creating a good culture so that
Speaker 1: your you know, your people can be their most productive
Speaker 1: and their happiest at work. Meantime, there are some states
Speaker 1: I'm thinking right now about Kentucky that are considering laws
Speaker 1: that would define life right after fertilization, which would potentially
Speaker 1: put IVF and fertility treatments in danger. And you're seeing patients,
Speaker 1: we're hearing that, you're seeing some patients try to move
Speaker 1: their embryos for example, out of those states. Are you
Speaker 1: seeing this? Yes, UM, we do supports the financials around
Speaker 1: moving the embryos across state lines through you know, our
Speaker 1: our maybe and wall of benefit. But you know, I
Speaker 1: think that what we hear of the fertility and community
Speaker 1: is that that there is still so much uncertainty UM,
Speaker 1: and so a lot of people just you know, don't
Speaker 1: know what's going on and are are taking via the embryo. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, transfer is precaution. But you know, I will
Speaker 1: say that hopefully UM that you know, as a lot
Speaker 1: of this data comes out where this is bad for
Speaker 1: business and a lot of these states, it's bad for people,
Speaker 1: it's bad for families, it's bad for women. That UM
Speaker 1: that that hopefully some of these more extreme bills that
Speaker 1: are in the state sentence will not get past one
Speaker 1: of your biggest fears though, I mean, there are so
Speaker 1: many cascading issues here. What do you worry about the most? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, I think that the saddest thing about
Speaker 1: this is that this just disproportionately affects um you know,
Speaker 1: already vulnerable patients, right, so lower income women, black women.
Speaker 1: There's already a maternal health crisis in this country. When
Speaker 1: you look at even the data coming out of a
Speaker 1: lot of the states with these trigger laws that are
Speaker 1: going to have more restrict of abortion access. The maternal
Speaker 1: mortality rate is two times that of other states, and
Speaker 1: so you know already when we are the highest maternal
Speaker 1: mortality rate in the developed world, and we're restricting access
Speaker 1: even more in in women's health where abortion about one
Speaker 1: out of four women get abortion in their lifetime. It's
Speaker 1: a very common procedure and part of standard healthcare in
Speaker 1: women's health. That this is just you know, this is
Speaker 1: going to make our our our our outcomes even worse.
Speaker 1: It's gonna hurt women, it's gonna hurt families. And I
Speaker 1: hope that you know that we that quickly states will
Speaker 1: will get on the right side of this and recognize
Speaker 1: that this is just healthcare. All right, Kate Writer, CEO
Speaker 1: of Maven Clinic. Appreciate you sharing your perspective here today
Speaker 1: for having me all right. Coming up, Amazon pushing to
Speaker 1: end to antitrust investigations by the European Union. Could this
Speaker 1: be a blueprint for big tech compromises around the world.
Speaker 1: We'll discuss this is Bloomberg Pinters shares jump more than
Speaker 1: in late trading after Dow Jones reported activist investor Elliott
Speaker 1: Management has taken a nine percent stick in the company
Speaker 1: our very own Alex Brenka joins us now to discuss.
Speaker 1: So why are shares jumping on this news? Yeah, shares
Speaker 1: are probably jumping on this news because investors are looking
Speaker 1: for something to happen at pinterest. Pinterests has had an
Speaker 1: interesting go of it the last couple of years. Both financially,
Speaker 1: they're seeing strong at sales um but they're seeing users
Speaker 1: fall off to the tune of nine percent decline in
Speaker 1: monthly active users in the last quarter. So this is
Speaker 1: a company that's kind of been around for a while.
Speaker 1: There's been a lot of questions as to where does
Speaker 1: growth come next. You'll recall not too long ago there
Speaker 1: were those talks with PayPal for a potential deal. The
Speaker 1: company has been trying to kind of expand into some
Speaker 1: more arenas, like into et commerce UM. But between that
Speaker 1: and UM the longtime CEO stepping back from that role, Uh,
Speaker 1: it seems like Elliott um sees an opportunity to kind
Speaker 1: of shake some things up and maybe push for some
Speaker 1: changes that it's looking for at this business. Interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: huge Shacob from with Ben Silverman leaving after all those years.
Speaker 1: Bill Ready, long time former payments executive, who you know
Speaker 1: worked at brain Tree, which got bought by PayPal um
Speaker 1: for for many many years taking over. Do we know
Speaker 1: yet what Bill Ready's plans are. We don't know yet.
Speaker 1: But this is a guy who, as you mentioned, comes
Speaker 1: from Google, comes from the ad side, So this is
Speaker 1: a guy who has spent a lot of his time
Speaker 1: figuring out how to make money online. So that would
Speaker 1: be the era that I would expect this company just
Speaker 1: continue to focus on. It's also, frankly, again the area
Speaker 1: that we've seen some pressure on this company and some
Speaker 1: questions on this company from the analyst and investor commun
Speaker 1: unity up until now. So, um, whether or not Elliott
Speaker 1: is on the same kind of brain length as Bill
Speaker 1: Ready as he takes the helm at Pinterest, I guess
Speaker 1: this is a place we will have to see. Um.
Speaker 1: But if I were looking at his background and saying, hey,
Speaker 1: what's the most kind of opportune place for him to
Speaker 1: lean in, it is to try to counteract that user
Speaker 1: decline with juicing up revenue even more than we saw
Speaker 1: in the eight percent increase that we saw in the
Speaker 1: past quarter. All Right, Alex Sparenka, thank you for giving
Speaker 1: us that context from l A. Appreciate it. Meantime, Amazon
Speaker 1: is a step closer to settling to EU antitrust investigations
Speaker 1: concerning whether the company uses sales data of its own
Speaker 1: third party sellers to unfairly favor its own products. The
Speaker 1: European Commission is now asking Amazon's competitors for feedback on
Speaker 1: a proposed settlement. Amazon says it's engaging constructively. Bloomberg's mat
Speaker 1: Day covers all things Amazon and joins us. Now, So
Speaker 1: how big are the compromises that am Amazon is actually
Speaker 1: proposing here, Matt, I think they're meaningful. One of the
Speaker 1: things that opposing is offering kind of a second option
Speaker 1: to buy a product, you know, not just what am unrecommends,
Speaker 1: which the vast majority of people just clicked through, but
Speaker 1: offering a second tier. But I think if you win
Speaker 1: inside a Seattle and Amazon's office today, they'd say they're
Speaker 1: fine with this. This doesn't dismantle their marketplace. They can
Speaker 1: kind of keep doing business as usual. They just have
Speaker 1: to promise they're not gonna not gonna break the rules
Speaker 1: off for sellers another option to get seen. Obviously big
Speaker 1: tech is facing antitrust regulatory scrutiny around the world. Is
Speaker 1: what Amazon is doing here potentially a harbinger of compromises
Speaker 1: to come from others. It's certainly the compromise they'd like
Speaker 1: to see. They like this a whole lot more than
Speaker 1: they would like, UM the antitrust bills being kicked around
Speaker 1: and in the US Congress, which strike them as much
Speaker 1: more structural risk for them. They don't want to have
Speaker 1: to do anything that kind of changes how they run
Speaker 1: their marketplace UM and their retail websites at its core.
Speaker 1: And I think this EU think kind of threads that
Speaker 1: needles for them. Meantime, you're also reporting today that Union
Speaker 1: Nation efforts at Amazon warehouses in New York are kind
Speaker 1: of losing momentum. This after a major victory at least
Speaker 1: one warehouse in New York. What's happening. Yes, So, the
Speaker 1: Amazon Labor Union and Upstart Union in Staten Island, they
Speaker 1: were on top of the world if you go back
Speaker 1: to April when they won and they got the rights
Speaker 1: to bargain for workers at one facility. You know, since then,
Speaker 1: they've lost their second election and they've paused efforts to
Speaker 1: organize two more places. UM. So a lot of what
Speaker 1: they're doing these days is really playing defense. They're trying
Speaker 1: to kind of hold onto their win in labor board hearings.
Speaker 1: Amazon it's challenged that first result. So basically, this this
Speaker 1: outfit that you look like they could do no wrong
Speaker 1: a few months ago, and it's it's kind of gotten
Speaker 1: to the hard part of that to put the work
Speaker 1: in to defend their early games. Chris Mall's who we
Speaker 1: just saw popping some champagne there, who's been leading this effort.
Speaker 1: He also testified, uh at peerings where Amazon has been
Speaker 1: protesting the win. What happened there? Yeah, he came on.
Speaker 1: He testifying from a hotel room. He's kind of on
Speaker 1: a permanent were of other labor groups and and speaking engagements.
Speaker 1: Amazon works real hard to kind of you know, peg
Speaker 1: him as as a rule breaker, saying he was on
Speaker 1: company property and trespassing and all these things, and Smalls
Speaker 1: kind of it is his best efforts to keep that
Speaker 1: at arm's length. It's been a really contentious process so far,
Speaker 1: a lot of kind of snipping back and forth from
Speaker 1: the union's lawyers and Amazons what about unionization? Elsewhere? Are
Speaker 1: we seeing any you know, efforts gaining momentum? There are
Speaker 1: certainly glimmers. Just in the last couple of weeks, a
Speaker 1: couple of outfits, one and Upstate New York and one
Speaker 1: in Kentucky have said they're going to affiliate with the
Speaker 1: Amazon Labor Union. Kind of remains to be seeing how
Speaker 1: far that's gonna go. And there's there's definitely popping up
Speaker 1: in other places in the country. North Carolina. We've heard
Speaker 1: about a new effort in the last few weeks. And
Speaker 1: there's still that race that is too close to call
Speaker 1: um that an Amazon Union drive in best Mer, Alabama.
Speaker 1: So definitely still something taking up a lot of tea,
Speaker 1: sex time and cel Alright, Bloomberg's Matt Day, thanks much
Speaker 1: well and other Amazon news. It is official. Jeff Bezos
Speaker 1: has tweeted the trailer for Amazon's long anticipated Lord of
Speaker 1: the Ring series coming September. Prime Video will release the
Speaker 1: drama to subscribers in more than two countries and territories worldwide.
Speaker 1: The streaming service will upload weekly episodes throughout the season.
Speaker 1: We will see if it lives up to the hype.
Speaker 1: Wellcome back to Bloomer Technology and Emily Chang in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: I want to get back to the markets and shares
Speaker 1: of Chinese tech companies dropped after a flood of news,
Speaker 1: leaving them poise for their steepest weekly losses since March
Speaker 1: this after report Ali Baba is facing an inquiry in
Speaker 1: China and connection with a data theft and renewed regulatory concerns.
Speaker 1: Joining us now a young general partner at Race Capitals.
Speaker 1: So what's your take on this kind of fresh round
Speaker 1: of Chinese regulatory scrutiny on big tech giants which has
Speaker 1: been ebbing and flowing for the last several years now.
Speaker 1: I think all tech companies and founder has been basically
Speaker 1: walking on eggshells, and there's a lot of different changes
Speaker 1: of there's different security law, privacy regulatory it's just been very,
Speaker 1: very tough, um, not just for the Ali Baba and
Speaker 1: tens and of the world, but also for earlier stage
Speaker 1: many of them been waiting to get listed in the US.
Speaker 1: But all this a lot of the companies that I'm
Speaker 1: aware of either wanted to go through respect the Chinese
Speaker 1: company now is changing the course, thinking about Hong Kong,
Speaker 1: thinking about Shanghai. So it's been really really tough for
Speaker 1: the tech industry in China. So there are two narratives
Speaker 1: going on here. One is that you know, China tech
Speaker 1: is so competitive could supersede the United States. And the
Speaker 1: other is that the Chinese regulatory crackdown could destroy some
Speaker 1: of these Chinese tech companies, which is true. Well, I
Speaker 1: think that first and foremost, some of the biggest Chinese company,
Speaker 1: including Ali Baba, like most of their business actually are
Speaker 1: not even in the US. Many of my friends don't
Speaker 1: even know what we chat is or Ali pays is
Speaker 1: all about. So I would say, you know, the big
Speaker 1: tech giants, the core business still in mainland China is
Speaker 1: absolutely a parallel universe in terms of tech. Having said that,
Speaker 1: I think every single new companies are thinking this is
Speaker 1: not going overseas. This is about global markets. Similar to
Speaker 1: buy dance. From day one, they wanted to be international,
Speaker 1: but the international Chinese version of TikTok is doyene um
Speaker 1: is a completely different way of operating in terms of product.
Speaker 1: So a lot of the Chinese company want to do
Speaker 1: respect international market, comply with international law, but they definitely
Speaker 1: have the ambition to be global companies from day one. Well,
Speaker 1: that brings me to the TikTok that we in the
Speaker 1: United States now, which is constantly brought up, you know,
Speaker 1: as you know, doing things better than Facebook and Google
Speaker 1: and you know all of these US based tech companies,
Speaker 1: what do you think, Um, there's no better or worse.
Speaker 1: And obviously in China, UM there's not much of a
Speaker 1: data privacy as such, so they for in terms of AI, definitely.
Speaker 1: I think the ability of machine learning in China is insane.
Speaker 1: And this is not just for social network in fact,
Speaker 1: UM for electronic vehicle there's just crazy growth. UM. I
Speaker 1: saw the news that br D B I D actually
Speaker 1: now in terms of number of ev s has more
Speaker 1: than Tesla in some sense. So UM, there's no competition.
Speaker 1: Just the way you do machine learning in English versus
Speaker 1: Chinese is quite different. So I don't think it's a
Speaker 1: it's a it's not a win lose situation. Is really
Speaker 1: just a parallel universe. In terms of the Internet. What
Speaker 1: about Web three, What who's winning? Um, it's definitely not
Speaker 1: in China. UM there's no no n f T, no
Speaker 1: bitcoin mining, no crypto trading. UM. It cannot be offered
Speaker 1: to Chinese citizens. So a lot of many many of
Speaker 1: my friends in China who is in with three have
Speaker 1: moved to countries like Singapore or the U a E.
Speaker 1: Those are some of the hot spot UM. And I
Speaker 1: think for racing in China could get left behind in
Speaker 1: some sense. I think in Risk Capital we certainly meet
Speaker 1: a lot of founders UM that left China but now
Speaker 1: in Singapore, so they're single boring company UM, but they
Speaker 1: want to continue to the company like stepand which fill
Speaker 1: on salona Um. Many of these changes from the buying US.
Speaker 1: That's in some sense why f t X have moved
Speaker 1: from Hong Kong to the Bahamas for similar reason. What
Speaker 1: do you make of the crypto volatility right now? We
Speaker 1: just had a headline cross that coin base is now
Speaker 1: dropping out of the top ten exchanges in the world
Speaker 1: by value, and if you look at like the top
Speaker 1: ten in the world, many of them actually originally native
Speaker 1: from from China. Regardless the buying US will be okay, Yes,
Speaker 1: of course f t X, and I think coin bays
Speaker 1: from to start with less f t X actually started
Speaker 1: in Hong Kong. The world in terms of trading users
Speaker 1: and volume outside the US is actually much larger than
Speaker 1: the US, so it's not surprising coin Base sooner or
Speaker 1: later we'll sort of drop below. But having said that
Speaker 1: top five in terms a number of users, coin basest
Speaker 1: definitely still top three, but just just in general I
Speaker 1: saw before I came over. I think the total come
Speaker 1: by market A trading volume is now back to over UM,
Speaker 1: so it's not as bad as thirty days ago UM.
Speaker 1: But still I think, you know, the rest of the world's,
Speaker 1: particular in Asia, is now catching up, like beyond just
Speaker 1: a U S trading volume. Right the question is how
Speaker 1: long does the winter last? Who knows? All? Right? Edith
Speaker 1: Young raised capital. Great to have you here and see
Speaker 1: you in person. Thank you Edith for stopping by. Alright,
Speaker 1: coming out. Policymakers are rethinking crypto energy rules this amid
Speaker 1: record high temperatures in Europe and heat waves across the
Speaker 1: United States. Our crypto report is coming up to school work.
Speaker 1: Bitcoin miners in Texas are taking the week off to
Speaker 1: keep the state's energy grid intact. Right now, Western Europe
Speaker 1: is undergoing record high temperatures, and most of the US,
Speaker 1: particularly the South, is preparing for a triple digit heat
Speaker 1: wave this weekend. Hot weather, the war in Ukraine, supply
Speaker 1: chain bottlenecks are sending energy costs higher, and that's beginning
Speaker 1: to impact bitcoin mining. Bloomberg Shonali Bosti joins US now
Speaker 1: from New York. How exactly shanally. Is this energy crunch
Speaker 1: impacting them, Yeah, it's very simple. If they turn off
Speaker 1: the machines, it's impacting their profit profitability. And remember this
Speaker 1: is already in a tough year for bitcoin in general,
Speaker 1: so you have bitcoin related stocks taking a hit just
Speaker 1: due to the price volatility. Some of them are bouncing back.
Speaker 1: As you can see though, Ryant Blockchain is one of
Speaker 1: those companies very highly tied to mining, and the drop
Speaker 1: is steeper than you see it a lot of other companies,
Speaker 1: more than seventies six per cent of a drop there
Speaker 1: just this year alone, and if you look at Core Scientific,
Speaker 1: the drop is even bigger. It's a six percent for
Speaker 1: the year. Just to give you a sense of how
Speaker 1: big the mining load in Texas is. Over one percent
Speaker 1: of the total grid capacity being pushed back, represents all
Speaker 1: of the industrial scale bitcoin mining. It represents a significant
Speaker 1: amount of a household worth of energy usage. So it's
Speaker 1: a very significant movie you've seen here, as we've seen
Speaker 1: a number of companies moved to Texas to really take
Speaker 1: advantage of that energy system of the power grid over there,
Speaker 1: and you are now seeing what that strength can look
Speaker 1: like when critical infrastructure only comes under pressure all right,
Speaker 1: so now I stay with us. I want to bring
Speaker 1: in Kathleen Brightman. She is the co founder of the
Speaker 1: blockchain platform Tazos. And Kathleen, I'm so curious how this
Speaker 1: is playing out from your perspective. You're seeing these minors
Speaker 1: shutting down their operations in Texas. You know, what does
Speaker 1: this what does this look like from inside the industry? Well? Um,
Speaker 1: I think the issue of mining in Texas has been
Speaker 1: kind of fraught in both ways. As you might remember. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: there are a number of people who um nearly frost
Speaker 1: to death in Texas earlier this year because of similar
Speaker 1: issues with their energy grid. And I guess the Quinn
Speaker 1: Myers and promoters who tout the you know, greatness of
Speaker 1: of proof of work tend to argue that this is
Speaker 1: like a battery UM, and it's really, you know, not
Speaker 1: the case. Like a one way battery is not a
Speaker 1: battery UM. And a lot of the strength that has
Speaker 1: been argued about Bitcoin's proof of work UM is that
Speaker 1: it's sort of this source that can be tapped into,
Speaker 1: but in fact it's just you know, kind of a
Speaker 1: massive suck on on the grid. How do you see
Speaker 1: this playing out? I mean, I wonder if there's an
Speaker 1: upside forcing minors just to think about how to make
Speaker 1: the process more sustainable. Well Um, I co founded a
Speaker 1: cryptocurracy called teas, which is proof of stake. Most cryptocurrencies
Speaker 1: that have launched in the last few years used proof
Speaker 1: of steak, mostly because it's the best technology in class UM.
Speaker 1: A lot of the arguments about Bitcoin and its energy
Speaker 1: uses are mostly because it's kind of like this weird
Speaker 1: bestigial organ that has been attached to Bitcoin that has
Speaker 1: a sort of reverence for no good reason um from
Speaker 1: the people who usually own too much Bitcoin to think
Speaker 1: about it otherwise. It's interesting because you see the proof
Speaker 1: of state concept as it pertains to the ethereum merge
Speaker 1: as well, and I'm wondering some of the complications around that.
Speaker 1: How does that complicate this kind of struggle between proof
Speaker 1: of state versus proof of work and the reliance on
Speaker 1: energy as it pertains to it. Well, Um, if you
Speaker 1: look back at the original working materials for the Etherory
Speaker 1: Foundations fundraiser, and she has a four team they advertise
Speaker 1: themselves as imminently transitioning to proof of stake UM, so
Speaker 1: they've really been talking out of both sides of the
Speaker 1: mouth of the last few years um when they when
Speaker 1: they discussed their eminent transition and the virtues and benefits
Speaker 1: of of you know, versus proof of worth um. What's
Speaker 1: interesting actually is ties into sort of the recent market
Speaker 1: crash in cryptocurrencies, is that there's been this sort of
Speaker 1: token called state ethereum that's run for the last year.
Speaker 1: It's from the Ethereum Foundation on what's called a beacon chain,
Speaker 1: and this is meant to be some sort of test
Speaker 1: for proofuge stake um. So you can convert your ethereum
Speaker 1: too if you're in on this chain the state ethereum,
Speaker 1: but all the other way around. So in theory it
Speaker 1: kind of had this ciplationary reward, and so people would
Speaker 1: borrow ethereum um and by state ethereum uh, and that
Speaker 1: took a lot of the theory amount of circulation, which
Speaker 1: arguably increase the price or at least had some sort
Speaker 1: of positive effect on the price um. But in reality
Speaker 1: it's really no different than something like hex, which is
Speaker 1: which is kind of a Ponzi scheme that's crashed in
Speaker 1: the last few weeks, which is just a token that
Speaker 1: basically pays you for freising at the longer you've reason
Speaker 1: the where you receive so and so earth. But it's
Speaker 1: just it's all eflation. That's a really big statement, actually, Kathleen,
Speaker 1: I mean, how do you think about that inflation within ethereum?
Speaker 1: And then also kind of the distortion and prices you've
Speaker 1: seen when you think about what's happening with state ethereum
Speaker 1: and the broader ramifications that has for the system. Well,
Speaker 1: if you look at like the last few weeks, there
Speaker 1: have been a number of different system of crasies UM.
Speaker 1: We sort of have the cryptocurrency's own version of three hours.
Speaker 1: Three hours capital is long term capital management basically, but
Speaker 1: with crypto UM, a lot of the reason that there's
Speaker 1: so much contagion in the cryptocurrency space and there's been
Speaker 1: a lot of I guess bad deliterious effects UM has
Speaker 1: been largely because they sort of saw things like state
Speaker 1: the THEORYUM as a sure bet. So it's not dissimilar
Speaker 1: from this, you know, smartest people in the room having
Speaker 1: models that are basically predicated no nonsense. You know, how
Speaker 1: are you watching the market fall out? Obviously we saw
Speaker 1: the Celsius bankruptcy filing. We're seeing you know, the crypto
Speaker 1: winter get colder and colder. You know, what is your
Speaker 1: sort of prediction about how this continues to play out? Well,
Speaker 1: as your Bloomberg colleague Joe Wisenthal always says, it can
Speaker 1: always go down by um. But you know, for those
Speaker 1: of us who've been in this industry for quite some time,
Speaker 1: it's you know, completely unsurprising that something like Celsius would
Speaker 1: go big grub because you know, economics does have laws
Speaker 1: that transcend you know the word blockchain. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: contra popular belief by some people who monitors and stuff
Speaker 1: and analyze it. But I do think that, you know,
Speaker 1: there are some things that were predictable, there are some
Speaker 1: things that were less predictable. For example, apparently three Hours
Speaker 1: Capital made a number of equity investments, and as part
Speaker 1: of there, um I guess equity investments, they would often
Speaker 1: offer to manage the treasury for for for some cats.
Speaker 1: And so that's that's unexpectedly bad. Um, uniquely bad, I
Speaker 1: would say, um. But yeah, I mean, I think you've
Speaker 1: just seen a lot of shakeout from things that just
Speaker 1: wouldn't have worked, and you really can't make a sustainable
Speaker 1: protocol or business based on the theory that number will
Speaker 1: always go up right, which was the most people's risk
Speaker 1: model going into this all right while we all love
Speaker 1: quoting Joe Wisenthal Tees US co founder Kathleen Brighten In
Speaker 1: and our own Sonali Basic Thank you. This week was
Speaker 1: Prime Day, and Amazon says that overall savings for members
Speaker 1: topped to one point seven billion dollars, making it the
Speaker 1: biggest Prime Day to date. Amazon Prime Day is a
Speaker 1: two day shopping event here towards Amazon Prime subscribers, where
Speaker 1: the company and many of its resellers give some of
Speaker 1: the best discounts of the year on many of their
Speaker 1: most popular products. Amazon says that over a hundred thousand
Speaker 1: items were bought per minute during the two day event,
Speaker 1: topping three million items in total. The best sellers over
Speaker 1: the period were premium beauty products Rachel Ray kitchen accessories,
Speaker 1: car wash accessories, pet products like Greenings, Crest toothpaste and
Speaker 1: oral By Electric toothbrushes, clothing for kids, and items from
Speaker 1: Levi's air purifiers, kids lunch boxes, Shark vacuums, and Leandro
Speaker 1: sets for the summer. Of course, sunglasses and swimsuits were
Speaker 1: also very popular for US tech fans. There were also
Speaker 1: some strong deals leading to a notable number of Apple
Speaker 1: Watch Series seven and Beats by Dre headphone purchases. This
Speaker 1: comes as Apple and its retail partners looked a clear
Speaker 1: inventory for three new Apple Watches coming this fall, and
Speaker 1: of course Apples Beats by Dre is always working on
Speaker 1: new headphones and earbuds. For its part, Amazon also said
Speaker 1: its own Consume andmer Deck devices were strong sellers during
Speaker 1: the event. It particularly pointed out the fire TV Echo
Speaker 1: speakers with Alexa in blank home security devices as doing well.
Speaker 1: If you missed out on this one's Prime Day, there
Speaker 1: are early indicators that the company will hold the rare
Speaker 1: second Prime event this fall, so stay tuned for more
Speaker 1: details on that. I'm Mark German. This is power On.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Mark. I want to stick with Amazon's Prime
Speaker 1: event and bringing Melissa Verdeck pack few president in a
Speaker 1: tenure Amazon a veteran, So Melissa, anecdotally, I feel like
Speaker 1: I got a few more things on Prime Day than usual.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that is an example of a
Speaker 1: broader trend. But how did it stack up for you? Yeah? Well,
Speaker 1: if you notice what he was just talking about in
Speaker 1: terms of what people are buying, it was different this year.
Speaker 1: There is a bigger focus on household essentials and home
Speaker 1: Usually Prime Day is a big consumer electronics event, they
Speaker 1: take an item event, But this year I think that
Speaker 1: we're seeing a lot of inflationary impact where you know,
Speaker 1: food prices are over twelve percent versus the inflation average
Speaker 1: of nine percent, so people were coming in looking for deals.
Speaker 1: Deals were at least thirty percent off in the food space,
Speaker 1: and so top Items Day won where things like free
Speaker 1: delay chips, Amazon Basic trash bags, Cascade dish pods. This
Speaker 1: is a different year for things like that, So I
Speaker 1: think that what we're seeing is just the different category
Speaker 1: shift of what people are actually buying this year. Why
Speaker 1: did it take so long for Amazon to get it right?
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like we've talked about so many
Speaker 1: Prime Days over the years that we're underwhelming, you know.
Speaker 1: I think, um, honestly, Amazon did not lead as much
Speaker 1: with their electronic items or brand when they had heavily
Speaker 1: steeply discounted products. Their products were um discounted up to
Speaker 1: forty eight percent off, so they definitely had a good
Speaker 1: year with their own private label products in the past.
Speaker 1: To me, I always thought in simpot I Robot twenty
Speaker 1: three and media na kits. Those were kind of the
Speaker 1: big products that they were always pushing. But this year
Speaker 1: they did a couple of different things. One was they
Speaker 1: had better personalization widget, so when you logged into Amazon,
Speaker 1: you had more personalized UM items that were for you,
Speaker 1: so that might have been a way that you found things.
Speaker 1: They also had a better emphasis on influencer marketing UM.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, that had a hit in the miss.
Speaker 1: So the hit was they did a much better job
Speaker 1: of priming influencers off Amazon to drive travic to Amazon UM.
Speaker 1: The miss that I saw this year that has just
Speaker 1: been a continuation of Amazon livestream, So that's kind of
Speaker 1: their QBC like influencers talking about products and UM. Some
Speaker 1: of the chatter that I've heard about is you know,
Speaker 1: people you know didn't really find it productive or engaging,
Speaker 1: although it was something Amazon called out today and their
Speaker 1: notes that they had a hundred million views of their
Speaker 1: live streams. So continues to be something that they focus
Speaker 1: on UM. But you know, hopefully they will get a
Speaker 1: better for Prime Day B two coming in the fall.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about V two. What do you think they'll
Speaker 1: learn from this and what are you expecting this fall?
Speaker 1: You know, that's the beauty of the Amazon. It's this
Speaker 1: constant hotbed of tests and learns and so um, you know,
Speaker 1: this personalization, this influencer marketing, the ways that people are
Speaker 1: buying more products, they're going to learn from that and
Speaker 1: they're going to focus on a YouTube. One of the
Speaker 1: other things I like about the Prime Day in October.
Speaker 1: They did this in twenty when they moved Prime Day
Speaker 1: during the pandemic from the summer to the fall, and
Speaker 1: they moved demand forward and that really spread out, you know,
Speaker 1: the demand during the whole Q four and the kind
Speaker 1: of set up, uh, you know, people buying things earlier
Speaker 1: in Q four. So it has a lot of benefits
Speaker 1: for Amazon. And something that we haven't talked about as
Speaker 1: much is advertising on Amazon. I understand that that was
Speaker 1: a more interesting story this Prime Day around well every
Speaker 1: Prime Day, Um, people always spend more money. It was
Speaker 1: a little bit of a question because itation or raising
Speaker 1: costs with advertisers come in, but they absolutely did. We
Speaker 1: actually did a study a sample science a sample sizes
Speaker 1: some of our clients, and we saw that CPM increased
Speaker 1: thirty six to semi five percent above normal levels. But
Speaker 1: also there were millions more impression volumes. That means it
Speaker 1: just so much traffic that they're able to take advantage of.
Speaker 1: Amazon also has this great metric for especially CpG UM
Speaker 1: companies called new to Brand that that metrics shows, you know,
Speaker 1: incremental people are coming in and buying their brand. And
Speaker 1: that was hundreds of basis points. So they don't maybe
Speaker 1: it's certain. Maybe it's not just that the deals were better,
Speaker 1: it's that the advertising was also more effective. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it was just a great opportunity. Amazon has a self
Speaker 1: serve ad platform, so they make it very easy for
Speaker 1: brands to come in and bid on their keywords on
Speaker 1: their competitors keywords. Um, so it's a very it's a
Speaker 1: great way for brands to be able to take advantage
Speaker 1: of the traffic and be able to drive people to
Speaker 1: their products. All well, adheres to the insta pot Eliza Bernic,
Speaker 1: Pact View President, thank you as always for joining us.
Speaker 1: Well that doesn't For the sedition of Bloomberg Technology tomorrow,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be chatting with blockchain guru Anthony pomp Leiano
Speaker 1: about his employment training business, specifically for crypto. They just
Speaker 1: raised some new cash and don't forget to check out
Speaker 1: our podcast You can find it everywhere you get your podcasts,
Speaker 1: and of course, at bloomberg dot com. This is Bloomberg