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 changing San Francisco, and this is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Technology coming up in the next hour. Lift posts
Speaker 1: the highest earnings in the company history. As right hailing
Speaker 1: companies near a full recovery from the pandemic, White supply
Speaker 1: seems to be finally meeting demand. Plus coin based pops
Speaker 1: after its deal with black Rock, reinforcing crypto status as
Speaker 1: a serious player on Wall Street. Is the crypto winter
Speaker 1: starting to thaw? We will discuss and an estimated food
Speaker 1: process in the U S goes uneaten. We will chat
Speaker 1: with a startup using AI to help grocers to ave
Speaker 1: up to thirty four million pounds of food from going
Speaker 1: to waste. I want to get back to with results
Speaker 1: with our own Jackie Davalos, who covers the company for
Speaker 1: us along with Uber and door Dash. So look, good
Speaker 1: numbers from Lift, you know, is this the start of
Speaker 1: a broader trend? Have left and Uber fully recovered from
Speaker 1: the pandemic. They're certainly edging a lot closer now. Those
Speaker 1: numbers for rides are still a little bit under pre
Speaker 1: pandemic levels. But what we could see here is that
Speaker 1: they're not sacrificing their profits in order to really boost
Speaker 1: those numbers. And you saw that come through just st
Speaker 1: even in the language that the CEOs were imparting to
Speaker 1: analysts that look, you know, we went through really rigorous
Speaker 1: cost cutting measures in the second quarter, and it was
Speaker 1: tough to bear with employees being laid off and hiding
Speaker 1: off that car rental business. But what we're seeing is
Speaker 1: that airport travel is incredibly strong, a lot of that
Speaker 1: coming from air trouble rebounding um and you're also seeing
Speaker 1: you know, these markets a battles between Uper and Lift intensifying.
Speaker 1: But I think a lot of the concern around Lift
Speaker 1: was that they were going to see some of that
Speaker 1: market share and their attempts to stay profitable, but we
Speaker 1: were not seeing that come through so far. Well. I
Speaker 1: did speak to Uber CEO Dar Causershi earlier this week. Again,
Speaker 1: Uber's results strong as well and big positive investor reaction.
Speaker 1: Take a listen to what causera he had to say.
Speaker 1: The marketplace is more balanced. The number of new drivers
Speaker 1: that we're adding in the US is up over se
Speaker 1: on a year. On your basis surges down e t
Speaker 1: A s or down. Uh. So the business is really
Speaker 1: hitting on all cylinders and it's reflected in the stock
Speaker 1: prus which is great. So does a rising tide lift
Speaker 1: all boats? You know, if it's it's certain seems to
Speaker 1: be because if you think about this shared rebound, both
Speaker 1: Uber and Lift are benefiting from that. But where we
Speaker 1: started to see some of the divergence was in the
Speaker 1: adagies that they were taking to really get those drivers back.
Speaker 1: That's really what's also driving the strong ridership because the
Speaker 1: more drivers you have to meet the demand, the lower
Speaker 1: your fares are going to go. More people are going
Speaker 1: to get back to the platform instead of you know,
Speaker 1: opting to take the taxi, a yellow cab or the subway.
Speaker 1: And so you know, Lift acknowledged that, you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of that spend that really spooked investors last quarter
Speaker 1: was really coming through in fairs to consumers. They were
Speaker 1: the ones bearing a lot of that cost burden. And
Speaker 1: now that you're seeing way times coming down, you're seeing
Speaker 1: fares come down. Uh, those ridership levels are recovering. Uh.
Speaker 1: In following suit. Meantime, if you did look for a
Speaker 1: weakness in ubernvers and you pointed this out to me, Jackie,
Speaker 1: it was in food delivery. On the other hand, we're
Speaker 1: seeing strong numbers from DoorDash. What is DoorDash doing better
Speaker 1: than Uber in this case? You know, I think with DoorDash,
Speaker 1: they are just uh if. They started off as a
Speaker 1: pure play core business that's focused on food delivery, and
Speaker 1: they've refined that to a t and you can really
Speaker 1: see that come through their convenience business. They projected is
Speaker 1: going to be profitable by the end of the year,
Speaker 1: and that's fairly impressive considering that they just launched it
Speaker 1: less than two years ago. And so with Uber, you know,
Speaker 1: it's taken time for them to really um tweak the
Speaker 1: way they match, you know, certain orders with whoever is
Speaker 1: on the road, and now that they're really trying to
Speaker 1: cross sell the rides and the delivery to both drivers
Speaker 1: and consumers, they've had a lot of work to do
Speaker 1: on the algorithm side, but they're certainly catching up. All right,
Speaker 1: Jackie Davilos, thank you so much for Evanus dig In.
Speaker 1: We'll be watching how these UH on demand companies fair
Speaker 1: over the next quarter. Elon Muski is boysed to take
Speaker 1: questions at TESSAs annual shareholder meeting dubbed the Cyber Around,
Speaker 1: taking place at his new plant in Austin, Texas. This
Speaker 1: year's discussion is expected to focus on a potential stock
Speaker 1: split and corporate transparency on everything from battery sourcing to
Speaker 1: workplace diversity. Here to discuss saw that and more. Steve Wesley,
Speaker 1: managing partner at The Wesley Group and a former TESTA
Speaker 1: board member, Steve always going to have you back with us.
Speaker 1: So what are you expecting this year? Well, first, I
Speaker 1: think you're to see some awfully happy shareholders. Look. Test
Speaker 1: the share price up just this year alone. Second record
Speaker 1: revenues sixty three point six or fifties six point three
Speaker 1: billion dollars last year, growing to eighty seven billion dollars
Speaker 1: this year. That's sixty year of a year of growth.
Speaker 1: No one in the auto industry is coming close to that.
Speaker 1: Second profitability, No one expected Tesla's gross or net margins.
Speaker 1: The other majors like Volkswagen, Triota, people who are making
Speaker 1: cars for years down at six percent. This would be
Speaker 1: their twelfth consecutive quarter of profitability. That's awfully good news
Speaker 1: for investors in five factories up running full bore so
Speaker 1: it's no surprise to me the Testless flirting at trillion
Speaker 1: dollar evaluation. We'll see if we can hold it. But
Speaker 1: the big question today is going to be about corporate
Speaker 1: governance e s g. How does Testla deliver on those issues?
Speaker 1: It should be fascinating. Meantime, we are entering a really
Speaker 1: tough phase potentially in the economy. Even Elon Musk has
Speaker 1: said he has a super bad feeling about it. How
Speaker 1: does Tesla fair in a recession? Are people necessarily dropping
Speaker 1: money on new electric cars? Well, the fact of the
Speaker 1: matter is Testless posting record sales. So if you want
Speaker 1: to buy a Testa today, you're looking at a year
Speaker 1: long wait. There is huge demand. The interesting thing is
Speaker 1: how many can you actually manufacture? And that's where it
Speaker 1: gets interesting. I think Tesla is gonna go from five
Speaker 1: thousand vehicles sold in one to one point five million
Speaker 1: this year. Other firms GM Ford aren't selling a action
Speaker 1: of that. So the real question is who's figured out
Speaker 1: supply chain? Who has factories up and running again? Teslate
Speaker 1: five factories we know Fremont, California, Texas, Germany, China all
Speaker 1: gearing up the full capacity, most of the others, and
Speaker 1: yet to break ground, so there's a lot of ground
Speaker 1: to catch up. We'll see how the others do so.
Speaker 1: With production still the main challenge, you know, and and
Speaker 1: how much does that have to do with continuing supply
Speaker 1: chain issues. Well, they're all intertwined. And again I served
Speaker 1: on the board it testsed ten years ago. I think
Speaker 1: we made a lot of the mistakes in the book.
Speaker 1: But they've grown up and they're hitting the ground running now.
Speaker 1: Plus they have long term supply chain relationships in place.
Speaker 1: That's why they're able to grow literally sixty seventy percent
Speaker 1: a year. It's heartbreaking to watch firms like Lucid, and
Speaker 1: I'm really pulling for They make a beautiful car, but
Speaker 1: they said they would produce twenty tho units this year.
Speaker 1: That's a pittance. Then they dropped it to twelve. Now
Speaker 1: they've dropped it to six, So tough news for Lucid.
Speaker 1: Reminder fall of us, it's a little harder to make
Speaker 1: electric vehicles than you might think. It took Tesla ten
Speaker 1: years to get where they are today. It's gonna be
Speaker 1: hard for others to catch up. We'll see how General Motors,
Speaker 1: Ford and the others do. Well. Let's talk about the competition.
Speaker 1: Which competitor are you most optimistic about? And you know
Speaker 1: which of these companies are really going to give Tesla
Speaker 1: potentially run for its money. Well, let's start at the beginning.
Speaker 1: Mary Bar at General Motors said, we're going to catch
Speaker 1: up with Tesla. By they're not. They've produced first half
Speaker 1: of the year eight thousand electric cars. Uh, they're way behind.
Speaker 1: They're struggling with supply chain, struggling with manufacturing. Ford appears
Speaker 1: to be rising for the ashes. They're going to sell
Speaker 1: and sold twenty five cars already this year with the
Speaker 1: E four one, fifties a great car, and the Mustang,
Speaker 1: So they're rising for the from the ash is well,
Speaker 1: General Motors is literally and figuratively trying to put out fires.
Speaker 1: So as much as I'm pulling for GM and four,
Speaker 1: it doesn't look like they're going to be the real
Speaker 1: challenger anytime soon. Volkswagen it's a whole head of steam up.
Speaker 1: They're gonna go over two evs first half of the
Speaker 1: year more by year end. They're producing about half what
Speaker 1: Tesla is, but eight times more than Ford and GM combined.
Speaker 1: So VW is in a strong place global supply chain,
Speaker 1: manufacturing facilities on every continent deep pockets. If anybody has
Speaker 1: a shot to catch Tesla in the short term, it's Volkswagen.
Speaker 1: Longer term, don't count out the Chinese. The world's largest
Speaker 1: producer of batteries, Chinese government subsidizing their batteries, currently producing
Speaker 1: more than half the evs the world, and it's the
Speaker 1: biggest auto market. So Chinese are gonna come on quicker
Speaker 1: than people think in the near term. I'm just hoping
Speaker 1: as many American companies make the cut as possible. Don't
Speaker 1: forget thirty new EV companies have coming to the market
Speaker 1: in the last year, precisely the time the economy is
Speaker 1: slowing down. Expect to shakeout in the marketplace. Be careful,
Speaker 1: you're betting on winners, not the losers. Meantime, you've got
Speaker 1: the Twitter side show going on for Elon Musk and
Speaker 1: even you. When we when we last spoke about this,
Speaker 1: we're not happy about his behavior. It's been a huge distraction.
Speaker 1: Many Testa shareholders and Tesla owners aren't happy about it.
Speaker 1: How much do you think that has hurt the brand?
Speaker 1: Has that hurt the Tesla brand hasn't hurt the Elon
Speaker 1: Musk brand. Well, look, it's a deal of two cities.
Speaker 1: On the way hand, you've got a nearly trillion dollar company,
Speaker 1: the most powerful brand in the auto world, with zero
Speaker 1: marketing budget. If anybody had told you that would happen
Speaker 1: five years ago, they would have said that's a dream
Speaker 1: come true. But I think it could be too much
Speaker 1: of a good thing, and I think for many people,
Speaker 1: including the SEC, it appears to be something of a distraction.
Speaker 1: Uh and it's something that I think it needs to
Speaker 1: be changed over time. People need to realize this is
Speaker 1: a multi trillion dollar SmackDown. Who's going to control the
Speaker 1: global EV market, not just for cars but trucks as well,
Speaker 1: and who's going to control the next big thing, which
Speaker 1: is the move to autonomous vehicles. This is going to
Speaker 1: be cut throat competition. I think Tesla needs to throw
Speaker 1: every ounce of focus they can and staying in the
Speaker 1: driver's seat. Let me give you one example. Tesla's had
Speaker 1: the best, longest range, least expensive, most reliable batteries in
Speaker 1: the sector. They're now developing their new revolutionary eight battery composition.
Speaker 1: It should be better at range, cheaper and greener than
Speaker 1: anything ever made. But c A t L, the world's
Speaker 1: biggest battery manufacturer in China claims to have some leap
Speaker 1: frog advantages. This is going to be a fascinating SmackDown.
Speaker 1: Tesla is going to need all the focus they can get.
Speaker 1: I'd keep the side shows to a minimum. Whoever win
Speaker 1: this next round is going to have done something special.
Speaker 1: If Tesla wins the autonomous race, it could be a
Speaker 1: two trillion dollar company. That would be quite a trick.
Speaker 1: All right, Uh, Steve Wesley, always good to have you here.
Speaker 1: What's the group managing partner? Thank you for stopping by. Okay,
Speaker 1: coming up Meta's brand new reward on global threats and
Speaker 1: in particular, how the company is tackling a Russian troll farm.
Speaker 1: Have more on that from a top Meta executive. Next,
Speaker 1: Mrs Bloomberg. Meta says it just shut down a Russian
Speaker 1: troll farm. The Facebook parent company releasing the quarterly report
Speaker 1: that outlines the actions it's taken against fake accounts and
Speaker 1: hackers who tried to create the appearance of support for
Speaker 1: Russia's war on Ukraine. Vanemo, global threaten Intelligence strategy lead
Speaker 1: out Meta joined us now from more on this, So
Speaker 1: talk to us about this particular operation. Just how widespread
Speaker 1: and effective was it? Well in terms of being widespread,
Speaker 1: it was really trying to hit everywhere across the Internet
Speaker 1: pretty much all at the same time. What we had
Speaker 1: was a troll farm, so an organization run from St.
Speaker 1: Petersburg and Russia that was hiring people off the street
Speaker 1: to run fake accounts kind of everywhere on the Internet.
Speaker 1: They could think of those reports of fake accounts on YouTube, Telegram, TikTok, Twitter,
Speaker 1: We found them on Instagram, UM, and what they were
Speaker 1: trying to do was make it look like there was
Speaker 1: large scales support for the Russian innovasion of Ukraine. So
Speaker 1: that's the widespread effect. But in terms of effect, all
Speaker 1: we saw was that they weren't very good at what
Speaker 1: they did. UM. A lot of their fake accounts kept
Speaker 1: on getting caught by the automated systems before we even
Speaker 1: investigated them and took them down. Real people kept on
Speaker 1: calling them out as trolls UM. And there were even
Speaker 1: cases when they would try to steer people towards celebrities
Speaker 1: or influences on social media and then they put their
Speaker 1: own account. So, for example, at one point they tried
Speaker 1: to steer people towards the UK Foreign Secretary Liz Trust
Speaker 1: and instead of finding the Foreign secretaries favorite page on Facebook.
Speaker 1: They found something that hadn't been used since twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: so they were trying to spread themselves wide. But nothing
Speaker 1: we saw show that they were actually having much of
Speaker 1: an impact this time. So it sounds like this particular
Speaker 1: operation wasn't very sophisticated. How unique was this operation? Is
Speaker 1: this something that you've seen before. We've seen attempts like
Speaker 1: this before in lots of different parts of the world.
Speaker 1: So so we've taken down troll farms in the past,
Speaker 1: for example in Nicaragua, in Albania, we've taken down other
Speaker 1: activity by Russian trolls as well. But there was an
Speaker 1: interesting twist to this case, and it's that the operation
Speaker 1: was really working in two halves. It was running a
Speaker 1: public channel on Telegram which was trying to, if you like,
Speaker 1: crowdsource comments which were supporting Russia, and when it didn't
Speaker 1: get real crowdsource comments, it would use the fake accounts
Speaker 1: to go in instead, And it's the same operation running
Speaker 1: all these things. And then what the people behind the
Speaker 1: operation would do would be they do in the interviews
Speaker 1: on Russian state TV and supportive media and say, look,
Speaker 1: what a great job we're doing. So It's like there
Speaker 1: were multiple layers of deception nestled inside one another, almost
Speaker 1: like a Russian doll. But ultimately they were trying to
Speaker 1: make it look like they were effective, but they were
Speaker 1: using fakes to do it, and then the fake has
Speaker 1: gone caught. In general, how effective has Russian have Russian
Speaker 1: disinformation campaigns actually been. Over the course of the last
Speaker 1: several months of this war on Ukraine, we've taken down
Speaker 1: I think about half a dozen different Russian operations that
Speaker 1: have been targeting Ukraine recently, so since the war began.
Speaker 1: In general, what we've seen is that they've been struggling
Speaker 1: to get any kind of real engagement, but we've also
Speaker 1: seen that they keep on trying, and this is the
Speaker 1: time to keep our foot on the gas. What we
Speaker 1: really need to do is take these operations as a lesson.
Speaker 1: We need to learn from them, and we need to
Speaker 1: keep looking because we know threat actors like this are
Speaker 1: not going to go away. We need to take them seriously,
Speaker 1: and each time we find something like this, we need
Speaker 1: to explain to people. Here's what it was, Here's how
Speaker 1: it worked, Here's the kind of content that they were pushing,
Speaker 1: Here's the way they were operating because this time around
Speaker 1: they weren't very good at what they did. But we
Speaker 1: need to prepare for the next time. And that's what
Speaker 1: as threatning investigators we always have to be ready for.
Speaker 1: Are you speaking directly with other big tech companies Apple, Google, TikTok,
Speaker 1: Twitter about coordinating efforts on this front. Whenever we do
Speaker 1: a threat report like this, we share with industry partners,
Speaker 1: we share with researchers, we share with we share with
Speaker 1: the public. Right we report these things and that's because
Speaker 1: we found that that influence operations. They're a bit like
Speaker 1: mold growing in your house. They grow best in dark places,
Speaker 1: and so when you find them, there's two things you
Speaker 1: really need to do. You need to clean them up,
Speaker 1: but the on you need to shine a light on
Speaker 1: them as well. You need to move them into a
Speaker 1: bright place. And we've always found that the more we
Speaker 1: can share information about these operations, the more we can
Speaker 1: make people aware of how they behave it's harder for
Speaker 1: them to come back. What keeps you up at night?
Speaker 1: I mean we're heading into the U S mid terms
Speaker 1: here in the United States? Have you seen activity rising
Speaker 1: on that front. I'm a threat investigator, so investigations keep
Speaker 1: me up at night. It's it's what we all do
Speaker 1: on the team. UM. In terms of the mid terms, sorry,
Speaker 1: we haven't seen any upticking activity so far. For example,
Speaker 1: this Russian operation that we've taken down was really focused
Speaker 1: on the war in Ukraine and it was all about
Speaker 1: pushing the Russian point of view. But again, operations like
Speaker 1: this are a lesson and one of the big things
Speaker 1: from the Russian operation was that what they were trying
Speaker 1: to do was use a fake operation to make a
Speaker 1: more public operation look like it was working. And this
Speaker 1: is something we call perception hacking. It's trying to fool
Speaker 1: people that there's something big going on, if you like.
Speaker 1: It's like dropping an ice cube into the water and saying,
Speaker 1: look as an iceberg underneath. And that's the kind of
Speaker 1: tactic which could be very easily transferred to other areas.
Speaker 1: So we have to take threat actors like this serious.
Speaker 1: Just because they were ham fisted this time around doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that they will be the next time. And so
Speaker 1: what we're looking out for as investigators, and the thing
Speaker 1: that's keeping us up at night is making sure we
Speaker 1: keep ahead of whatever trends are out there. Meantime, we've
Speaker 1: been following this story about TikTok and the Chinese government
Speaker 1: or an entity supported by the Chinese government trying to
Speaker 1: set up a stealth account on TikTok to target Western
Speaker 1: audiences with propaganda. You know, is this something that concerns you?
Speaker 1: If you look at our FRET reporting over the last
Speaker 1: few years, we've taken down operations from around the world.
Speaker 1: We have seen operations from China, Iran, India, um. I
Speaker 1: think it's more than fifty different countries that we've We've
Speaker 1: seen operations coming in from more than two dozen different languages,
Speaker 1: and it seems like the idea is out there that
Speaker 1: influence operations are a thing. There's something that many different
Speaker 1: countries come run. And our job is threatned investigators, is
Speaker 1: to go and find them, and particularly really to shine
Speaker 1: a light on them and to share information about them
Speaker 1: as widely as we can, because the more different lies
Speaker 1: we can get on this, the more we can try
Speaker 1: and catch them. With the Russian troll Farm, it was
Speaker 1: really interesting the way it was exposed was the troll
Speaker 1: farm was trying to hire people off the street and
Speaker 1: telling them, Hey, come and work for us. One of
Speaker 1: the first people they hired turned out to be an
Speaker 1: undercover journalists to expose the whole operation. Fascinating Meta executive
Speaker 1: Bennimo Global Threat Intelligencely, thank you Ben for sharing all
Speaker 1: that with us. Welcome back to Bloomberg Technology. I'm emily
Speaker 1: changing San Francisco legacy names and streaming and media out
Speaker 1: with more earnings results are and Ludlow back with the
Speaker 1: latest and Warner Brothers Discovery. Yeah interesting, I mean doesn't
Speaker 1: look great right down in after hours. They had a
Speaker 1: net loss in the quarter, which they attribute the costs
Speaker 1: relating to the merger between Warner Media and Discovery. Of
Speaker 1: course that closed in April, and this was the first
Speaker 1: time investors really got a look under the hood of
Speaker 1: this combined entity. And I'm zeroing in on subscribers across
Speaker 1: HBO Max other properties like Discovery Plus. They added one
Speaker 1: point seven million subscribers net new subscribers in the quarter.
Speaker 1: So let's compare and contrast, because they weren't the only
Speaker 1: streaming name to report earnings this Thursday. Paramount up one
Speaker 1: percent in regular trading. Actually, Warner Brothers are almost five
Speaker 1: percent before its earnings. But Paramount across Paramount Plus added
Speaker 1: three point seven million subscribers in the quarter, so actually,
Speaker 1: even though it's a relative minnow in what we call
Speaker 1: the streaming wars, it's seeming to get some traction in
Speaker 1: its user based and adding new users. What they both
Speaker 1: had in common was the ad business is really underperformed,
Speaker 1: which is interesting given what we've heard in the mixed
Speaker 1: picture of the global advertising market in recent weeks. Where
Speaker 1: do we stand here today, m with all these different
Speaker 1: names with zeroed in on who's doing well who's doing not?
Speaker 1: If you look at the share prices, actually Paramount is
Speaker 1: the relative outperformer, down just sixteen percent year today. But
Speaker 1: Netflix still really ug down sixty two percent year today.
Speaker 1: Of course, they had a shock in the first half
Speaker 1: of this year with the shock loss of its subscribe
Speaker 1: It based a more positive outlook for the second half
Speaker 1: this year. But there's still a big questions right in
Speaker 1: the face of great inflation, what's the consumer of doing?
Speaker 1: That's a lot of option. Personally, I got a lot
Speaker 1: of choices. I subscribed to all these. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you saw a top gun great movie that boosted Paramount,
Speaker 1: Can we have them all forever? I haven't seen it
Speaker 1: yet and I don't have time to go to the
Speaker 1: movie theater, But I will try to make it. Thank you. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's continue this conversation with Julia Alexander, director of Strategy
Speaker 1: at Parrot Analytics. Juliet, look, you know there's a lot
Speaker 1: to talk about here. Let's start with Warner Brothers Discovery.
Speaker 1: You know clearly they're they're making changes, planning to make
Speaker 1: a lot more changes, and there's you know, some uncertainty
Speaker 1: about where this is all going. What's your take, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, the first thing we have to do is,
Speaker 1: I think almost stepped back from the amount of subscribers gained.
Speaker 1: So we look at the subs gained, right, they gained
Speaker 1: one point seven million. It's not much. They actually, according
Speaker 1: to their new way that they report, they lost about
Speaker 1: three hundred thousand in the domestic market. But I think
Speaker 1: we have to look at and what David Zaslab CEO
Speaker 1: David zas Laws real game is is what is the
Speaker 1: actual value of this content? How do we go through
Speaker 1: HBO Max and call some of it and Discovery Plus
Speaker 1: and call some of it in order to really ensure
Speaker 1: that we're hitting profitability on the fastest path that we
Speaker 1: can for our shareholders. When we talk about David Zaslav
Speaker 1: and his team's approach to streaming. It's different from what
Speaker 1: Netflix is doing and what Disney is doing, where they're
Speaker 1: increasing their content spend constantly and constantly, and David zas
Speaker 1: Lab does not want to be in the content spanned
Speaker 1: wars as he likes to say it. Instead, he wants
Speaker 1: to say, we want to get to profitability. We want
Speaker 1: to get the most value for our dollar. And so
Speaker 1: what we're really going to see play out is how
Speaker 1: well that um ibada and how well that obada really
Speaker 1: comes into the case for Discovery going for Warner Brothers
Speaker 1: Discovery going forward. What are you expecting Zaslav to do
Speaker 1: as they work to merge these two platforms. You know,
Speaker 1: there's talk about a big calling potentially of HBO Max.
Speaker 1: They're taking movies out of the rotation that are already
Speaker 1: filmed because they don't want to spend money on marketing.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of the new Backgirl movie, which as I
Speaker 1: understand it has already been shot. Right. I mean, the
Speaker 1: key horde right now is amortization. Amortization. Amortization. When you're
Speaker 1: looking at the amount of debt that David Zazo and
Speaker 1: his team brought in, you're looking at what you can
Speaker 1: do um specifically with HBO Max. I think what we're
Speaker 1: going to see happen is less of culling than press
Speaker 1: made it, you know, to be that rumors made out
Speaker 1: to be. Over the last two days, it's been a
Speaker 1: lot on Twitter as analysts and industry in centers and
Speaker 1: reporters try to guess at what's going to happen with
Speaker 1: HBO Max. This report, the earnings report to it was
Speaker 1: actually a little bit beneficial in that way. What we're
Speaker 1: seeing is that HBO Max use mail. We're seeing that
Speaker 1: Discovery Plus use female. And before Discovery Plus came in,
Speaker 1: the HBO Max idea was to invest in more female
Speaker 1: oriented contests. We have like the Cooking Show with Lena Gomez,
Speaker 1: and you have um the New Gossip Girl, and you
Speaker 1: have all these such of shows that appeal to a
Speaker 1: different audience to really, why do that? Why didn't that
Speaker 1: total addressable market? But as Discovery Plus comes in, they're saying, well,
Speaker 1: we're already making this content. It's doing well on cable.
Speaker 1: It is a brand and of itself, so we're gonna
Speaker 1: bring some of that to HBO Max and Casey Boys,
Speaker 1: the visionary leader who oversees content for HBO, HBO Max
Speaker 1: can focus on scripted content and scripted fair that works.
Speaker 1: So I actually think we're not going to see as
Speaker 1: much of a call as reports made it out to be.
Speaker 1: But that being said, I mean, I think when we
Speaker 1: talk about streaming services there is far too much confident content.
Speaker 1: We're in an oversaturated market and it's never been easier
Speaker 1: for a subscriber to say this is mediocre and this
Speaker 1: is great. So if content isn't performing, why keep it
Speaker 1: on the platform? Is kind of the thought strategy that
Speaker 1: Warner brother Discovery executive seem to be having. Okay, so
Speaker 1: let's talk about Paramount Plus. As Ed said this, you
Speaker 1: know service has has been a minnows thus far, but
Speaker 1: it is racking up subscribers. The bottom line doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: look great so far. You know, Top Gun, Yellowstone, which
Speaker 1: is one of my favorite shows. Are people going to
Speaker 1: pay for four streaming services? Though before inflation, before interest
Speaker 1: rates started hiking, I would say yes in the United States. Globally,
Speaker 1: we don't know. I think now we're looking at closer
Speaker 1: to two to three over the next little bit, as
Speaker 1: people choose where they want to put their credit card dollars.
Speaker 1: Every single month, But that being said, I would say
Speaker 1: that Paramount. Everyone has kind of looked at Paramount and said,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't really know. We're really m bearish
Speaker 1: on Paramount and what they want to do with their streaming.
Speaker 1: When I think Paramount really has going for them is
Speaker 1: that not only are they a great streaming service and
Speaker 1: they're building a great streaming services and their numbers are
Speaker 1: increasing every single quarter, but they're also a great seller.
Speaker 1: There's someone who can license really in demand content to
Speaker 1: Netflix and to other players and charge a hefty feet
Speaker 1: for that because their content is so in demand, which
Speaker 1: means that people will pay to have access to it.
Speaker 1: So when I think we look at Paramount, you know,
Speaker 1: the question three or four years ago, not even you know,
Speaker 1: two years ago. So question was which are the three
Speaker 1: services that people sign up for? And it used to
Speaker 1: be Disney plus Netflix and HBO Max. And I think
Speaker 1: as the stream wars, which is really just a colloquial
Speaker 1: term for proper uh competition in the marketplace, that as
Speaker 1: opposed to Netflix having a almost monopolization on the on
Speaker 1: the entire industry, I think what you'll start to see
Speaker 1: is a company like Paramount that can offer really great
Speaker 1: pricing on the ad front and also on the subfront,
Speaker 1: that has shows that people really want, that has the
Speaker 1: film franchises that people really want. I think you'll start
Speaker 1: to see them emerge as a really strong contender in
Speaker 1: the same way that I really have faith at HBO
Speaker 1: Max unders As Lab and even HBO Max under Jason Clark,
Speaker 1: the former CEO. I think that's a great product in
Speaker 1: combining Discovery and HBO Max offerings in a really smart,
Speaker 1: strategic way that feels curated and human but also scalable
Speaker 1: and accessible. Um. I think that's really going to help
Speaker 1: them even not maybe not surpass Netflix in terms of
Speaker 1: subscribers in the next two years, but definitely be worthwhile contenders.
Speaker 1: So are you saying, if you're a betting person, you
Speaker 1: should be spreading your bets right now. I would spread
Speaker 1: my bets a little bit. Yeah, I think it's too early.
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny. I think we're trying to declare
Speaker 1: a winner in the streaming wars again that term that
Speaker 1: really just means competition is happening. It's far too early.
Speaker 1: We really need to see what a lot of these
Speaker 1: companies that have the theatrical studio components that have linear networks.
Speaker 1: We need to see what their strategy is for handling
Speaker 1: all that type of content across a bunch of different
Speaker 1: revenue streams. And I think the key takeaway from what
Speaker 1: we're seeing as a subscriber growth in the the United States
Speaker 1: kind of slows down a little bit, um kind of hits.
Speaker 1: It's a bit of a peak for certain streaming services.
Speaker 1: I do think the takeaway is that streaming is not
Speaker 1: necessarily the end game for a lot of these companies,
Speaker 1: but it is a very important support system for a
Speaker 1: lot of its other different investment areas. And I think
Speaker 1: that's really key because it used to be that streaming
Speaker 1: was the only option. You know, two three years ago,
Speaker 1: everything was streaming, and now it's well, everything is also
Speaker 1: includes streaming. What about Disney coming up next week? What
Speaker 1: are you expecting there? It's been it's been a tough
Speaker 1: ride for Bob j Peck. It's been a ride a
Speaker 1: ride for Bob Jeck. My major concern with Disney is
Speaker 1: the promise or the projection. I should say that Bob
Speaker 1: j Peck and his team gave to the street of
Speaker 1: two to two and sixty million subscribers globally by a
Speaker 1: fiscal year. It's ambitious. That's an average with about ten
Speaker 1: million subscribers per quarter being added, and eventually you run
Speaker 1: out of countries to launching, right, that's kind of a
Speaker 1: guarantee subscriber based when you launch a new country, customers
Speaker 1: will sign up. So my biggest concern is what Disney
Speaker 1: will have to do on the Disney Plus front to
Speaker 1: really hit those projections, unless they come in, you know,
Speaker 1: next week and say we're changing our projections. But I
Speaker 1: really don't think that's going to be the case. You know,
Speaker 1: as long as Disney has families and Marvel fans and
Speaker 1: Star Wars fans are going to continue to be a
Speaker 1: well supported streaming service. But I think the bigger question
Speaker 1: now is to hit those numbers, you have to increase
Speaker 1: your total addressable market, which means bringing more UM Hamilton's right,
Speaker 1: bringing more of that, bringing more the West Side story
Speaker 1: into into the Disney Plus sphere so that people can
Speaker 1: watch it. And I think in the United States, when
Speaker 1: you have Hulu, that becomes a really interesting conversation with
Speaker 1: what goes to Hulu, what goes to Disney Plus UM
Speaker 1: and both are designed to support the bundle, and so globally,
Speaker 1: I think is where we're going to see what the
Speaker 1: future of Disney Plus really looks like under the Star
Speaker 1: and Star Plus banner, where we can see how Disney,
Speaker 1: a much more four quadrant designed Disney Plus can operate
Speaker 1: in both acquiring subscribers and then retaining them. Okay, Julia Alexander,
Speaker 1: thanks for breaking up all that down for us. Appreciated.
Speaker 1: Director of Strategy at Parrot Analytics, appreciate it. Another story
Speaker 1: we are following American basketball star Britney Griner is nine
Speaker 1: and a half year prison sentence in Russia. President Biden
Speaker 1: is calling her sentence quote unacceptable and says the White
Speaker 1: House will worked tirelessly for her release. Grinder was sound
Speaker 1: guilty of drug possession and smuggling after she was arrested
Speaker 1: at a Moscow airport with vape cartridges containing cannabis oil.
Speaker 1: The United States has been trying to broke her a
Speaker 1: prisoner swap for her return, no deal so far. One
Speaker 1: of Wall Street's biggest traditional finance players is making a
Speaker 1: big bet on crypto, black Rock teaming up with coin
Speaker 1: based to make it easier for institutional investors to trade bitcoin.
Speaker 1: Black Rock chose to partner with coin base because of
Speaker 1: its scale in the market. You're gonna break it all down.
Speaker 1: Our crypto CONTRIBUTORTIONALI Bostic Shine. Coin based investors loved this
Speaker 1: new It's so interesting, Emily because if you look at
Speaker 1: coin based shares, they really took a leg higher today
Speaker 1: it's up about ten percent on the day. Pre market
Speaker 1: that jump was much bigger, so appaired some of those
Speaker 1: games for the day. But it's so interesting, especially because
Speaker 1: coin Basis shares have gained almost forty more than over
Speaker 1: three days, so you're really seeing some of the gains
Speaker 1: come back to coin Basis stock that's down still more
Speaker 1: than sixty this year. I want to flip up the
Speaker 1: board a little bit and talk about what Wall Street
Speaker 1: really feels about coin base, because you're seeing some one
Speaker 1: of the biggest players come into it. The twelve month
Speaker 1: price target for coin base has also come down meaningfully
Speaker 1: among some of these larger challenges, even with uh some
Speaker 1: love from people like black Rock, you have coin Basis
Speaker 1: twelve month price target was so really flying at around
Speaker 1: a hundred dollars a hundred and one dollars her share.
Speaker 1: If you look at it today, it's just below ninety.
Speaker 1: If you flip up the board again, you still see
Speaker 1: again with all the challenges, still love from Wall Street.
Speaker 1: About fifty percent of folks say by stay hold, which
Speaker 1: is basically, you know, we don't really know how to
Speaker 1: feel about things given all the volatility, six said sell.
Speaker 1: So there's been a lot of questions around whether the
Speaker 1: momentum would move to the downside for coin base. Emily,
Speaker 1: I have to say, what it's also interesting is the
Speaker 1: opportunity provided here from black Rock because this partnership not
Speaker 1: just with black Rock, but with a part of black
Speaker 1: Rock that's called Aladdin. It gives you exposure not just
Speaker 1: to big institutional investors. Aladdin works with a lot of
Speaker 1: wealth management platforms across Wall Street and around the globe.
Speaker 1: And the reason that's interesting is it potentially exposes you
Speaker 1: not just institutional clients, which is a growth area for
Speaker 1: coin base, but more people that can really fly into
Speaker 1: the more traditional retail business at a time when rivals
Speaker 1: like robin Hood are under a lot more pressure. What
Speaker 1: does this mean for coin based longer term? Obviously, the
Speaker 1: the winter is not over, you know, maybe maybe this
Speaker 1: is the beginning of something, But how much further, how
Speaker 1: how much colder, how cold is the road going to get?
Speaker 1: So that's a question because it's all correlated to bitcoin prices,
Speaker 1: and you saw something similar when it came to Blocks
Speaker 1: earnings that reported after the market closed today. This idea
Speaker 1: that transactions have really slowed. Remember a lot of the
Speaker 1: retail investors that got into cryptocurrencies at the end of
Speaker 1: last year are very much in the red, and so
Speaker 1: how much powder is there left on the sidelines for
Speaker 1: investors to get back into it in volumes to come
Speaker 1: back again. The good news for coin base is and
Speaker 1: you saw it here with Robin Hood just this week
Speaker 1: when you see some of the rivals under pressure here,
Speaker 1: it is good news for coin base, and you saw
Speaker 1: it reflected in coin bases stock. But just for a
Speaker 1: sense of how far we fall in for coin based,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is still a company that's under twenty
Speaker 1: billion dollars in market cap. This was once seventy five
Speaker 1: billion dollars in market cap, and that was at the
Speaker 1: end of last year. So how quickly you can bitcoin
Speaker 1: recover get back to sixty seventy thousand. I think it
Speaker 1: has a lot to do with whether coin base can
Speaker 1: regain its former glory, and whether that even matters if
Speaker 1: people see enough crypto adoption moving forward among the big institutions,
Speaker 1: like you said today with a black rock. So, you know,
Speaker 1: what are you looking for next year? Obviously we've seen
Speaker 1: a wave of you know, difficulties for you know, there's
Speaker 1: been bankruptcies, there's been increasing regulatory scrutiny. There has been
Speaker 1: this big letter from you know, hundreds of skeptics to Congress.
Speaker 1: You know, what's going to be the next inflection point
Speaker 1: in the story of crypto. You know, we've been talking
Speaker 1: about it a lot. You and I this idea of
Speaker 1: coin base versus the SEC. Why does that matter so much?
Speaker 1: Because exchanges coin based f t X, the more that they,
Speaker 1: you know, don't heart with the SEC. You wonder if
Speaker 1: they look more like traditional exchanges like the New York
Speaker 1: Stock Exchange, like the Chicago CEBO, the Board Options Exchange.
Speaker 1: F t X has been highly regulated, working with a
Speaker 1: lot more traditional players here, and you wonder if there's
Speaker 1: a future where people list to token, they go public,
Speaker 1: they don't necessarily choose between the two, or do both.
Speaker 1: The world's are merging. So the question to me is
Speaker 1: how much does coin based embrace that again like you
Speaker 1: see today with a big institutional partnership, or how much
Speaker 1: do they stick to kind of the heart of crypto,
Speaker 1: which was very focused on a decentralized finance and things
Speaker 1: that were so far away from Wall Street as we
Speaker 1: know it. Alright, thank you. As always. As much as
Speaker 1: food produced in the United States is never eaten, that
Speaker 1: is according to the National Resources Defense Counsel, enter a
Speaker 1: Fresh Technology is a startup that is hoping it's AI
Speaker 1: software will help grocery stores massively reduce food waste. They
Speaker 1: just raised fift million dollars in new funding and they're
Speaker 1: on track to save thirty four million pounds of food
Speaker 1: waste by the end of match. Schwartz is a co
Speaker 1: founder and CEO of A Fresh Technologies and it's here
Speaker 1: with us in the studio. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: So how does this say I technology work? So? Out
Speaker 1: of fresh We believe that food, more so than anything else,
Speaker 1: shapes the health of people and our planet, and specifically
Speaker 1: within that, we think that fresh food is really driving
Speaker 1: the future of the grocery business and what people want
Speaker 1: to eat. At the same time, though, in building the company,
Speaker 1: we observed that most, if not all, of the technology
Speaker 1: was built for non fresh stuff. It was built for
Speaker 1: things that come in a box. And have a bar
Speaker 1: code and last a long time. And the result of
Speaker 1: that intern is that there was all these processes that
Speaker 1: were not built for fresh and that in turn would
Speaker 1: cause hundreds of billions of dollars of food waste across
Speaker 1: the world and a bunch of other problems. How can
Speaker 1: AI help in the produce categories. So what we're doing
Speaker 1: is building technology specifically for fresh food, and what that
Speaker 1: enables us to do is optimize the quantity of food
Speaker 1: that goes into differ in parts of the supply chain
Speaker 1: to be as fresh as possible, order just the right
Speaker 1: amount and not too little, and that causes us to
Speaker 1: be able to prevent food waste while keeping grocers in stock.
Speaker 1: How do you do that? I mean, even me, as
Speaker 1: a mom, I it's either too much or not enough
Speaker 1: whatever I buy at the store. It's a classic balancing
Speaker 1: act and it's really, really, really tough. The way that
Speaker 1: we do it is we empower store employees at grocery
Speaker 1: stores with an app that's served on a tablet and
Speaker 1: that's powered in the background by artificial intelligence that's trying
Speaker 1: to predict the future, how much is going to be sold,
Speaker 1: understand how much is in the store, right now, and
Speaker 1: then use all that information to create a profit, maximizing waste,
Speaker 1: minimizing order, keeping the shelves full, while minimizing the inventory
Speaker 1: that's in the back room. So you're basically trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how to get groceries not to overorder. That's right.
Speaker 1: You don't want them to overorder. At the same time,
Speaker 1: you don't want them to under order because the other
Speaker 1: problem we're seeing with the supply chain is those empty shelves.
Speaker 1: So what we really want to do is find that
Speaker 1: sweet spot where you go to the store and the
Speaker 1: shelf is full, but the food is they didn't or
Speaker 1: too much that they are going to cause waste. Why
Speaker 1: is getting fresh food so difficult? I mean even when
Speaker 1: picking produce out at the store, sometimes it's it's already
Speaker 1: going bad by the time I pick it up. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: a lot of this is going back to the original
Speaker 1: thesis of the company. We think fresh is the future,
Speaker 1: but fresh is just so tricky. When you pick a berry,
Speaker 1: it's basically a race against the clock until it's moldy.
Speaker 1: It's got to stay refrigerated, it's got to move quickly
Speaker 1: through it. It's could be sold by weight, and so
Speaker 1: the data structures aren't there. There's no best by date
Speaker 1: on a strawberry, so everything in fresh is far more complicated,
Speaker 1: and that's why we believe you have to build fresh
Speaker 1: first technology to be able to handle it. You've got
Speaker 1: nine grocery chains on board in the US, SAT do
Speaker 1: you plan to get more? So we're demonstrating results. So
Speaker 1: we've shown to date that we prevent waste by about
Speaker 1: fift while also increasing sales by over three percent. And
Speaker 1: so success like that is generating word of mouth and
Speaker 1: happy reference customers for us that are really enabling us
Speaker 1: to grow super rapidly. How do you plan to use
Speaker 1: the new capital really scale? So at the end of
Speaker 1: last year, we were live in two hundred stores and
Speaker 1: we've signed now as of right now, over three thousands,
Speaker 1: so we're growing by over fifteen x. So we're going
Speaker 1: to use the capital to help us scale, and then
Speaker 1: we're gonna go from our starting point in fruits and
Speaker 1: vegetables to meet and seafood, Delhi Bakery, all the fresh
Speaker 1: stuff around the grocery store, and then we plan to
Speaker 1: make our initial forays internationally and up higher in the
Speaker 1: supply chain. What was it like raising money in this environment.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a tough environment. Did that impact your valuation?
Speaker 1: What is your valuation? We're in a we're in a
Speaker 1: bit of a unique place at of Fresh where we're
Speaker 1: of service to this mission critical industry of grocery. I
Speaker 1: think during the pandemic everyone came to appreciate them. When
Speaker 1: times are tough, grocers are what really feed us and
Speaker 1: shareff stomach goes more towards eating in, and so we're
Speaker 1: of service to that industry that kind of is a
Speaker 1: cyclical or can even benefit from tough times. And then
Speaker 1: we're tackling problems of inflation and supply chain and so
Speaker 1: I think investors really saw all of that, and they
Speaker 1: saw the traction that we had and they were willing
Speaker 1: to be big on us, which I'm proud of. I
Speaker 1: can't share that right now. Well, what are your longer
Speaker 1: term play ends? I mean, are you looking to stay independent,
Speaker 1: go public, get bought by a larger food distributor? What's
Speaker 1: the goal. Our mission is to eliminate food waste and
Speaker 1: make fresh food accessible to all. There's trillions of dollars
Speaker 1: of fresh food sold around the world. Our mission, what
Speaker 1: I believe we want to do is build a very
Speaker 1: big company that eliminates that waste and proliferates across the
Speaker 1: supply chaine. So whether that be a standalone company or
Speaker 1: eventually I p owing, my plan really is just to
Speaker 1: try to fulfill that mission. And how does this impact
Speaker 1: the suppliers on the back end quickly? So is it
Speaker 1: worse for them because you know, grocers are ordering less.
Speaker 1: The dynamic we live in is that population is growing
Speaker 1: from something like seven billion people to nine and ten
Speaker 1: billion people. So we've got I mean, no comment, but
Speaker 1: what I will say is that population is growing and
Speaker 1: we're out of land. Uh we're burning down the rainforest
Speaker 1: and create enough land to grow cowse and yields are
Speaker 1: going to be impacted by climate change. So we have
Speaker 1: to find ways to do more with less to be sustainable.
Speaker 1: And so at the end of the day, when we
Speaker 1: drive the ficiencies at the store, growers upstream are really
Speaker 1: appreciative that as well. All right, Matchwarts, CEO and co
Speaker 1: founder of a Fresh Technology. Thank you, really interesting, Thank
Speaker 1: you keep your eyeing you all right? That does it
Speaker 1: for this edition of Bloomberg Technology. I'm Emily Chang in
Speaker 1: San Francisco. Great show coming up tomorrow. Lift co founder
Speaker 1: John Zimmer will be here. Glenn Kelman of Redfinn and
Speaker 1: Reed Hoffman always loved talking to him. That's tomorrow, right
Speaker 1: here on Bloomberg Technology. This is Bloomberg