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 checking San Francisco and this is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Technology coming up. In the next hour, Russia's invasion
Speaker 1: gets more brazen and more bloody. A children's hospital and
Speaker 1: maternity ward the latest target in the Ukrainian port town
Speaker 1: of Mariopol. This after Ukrainian officials says they're open to
Speaker 1: meeting Russia's demands for neutrality, but only if there's an
Speaker 1: immediate cease fire. Well it's Bitcoin bounces back as President
Speaker 1: Biden signs an executive order on digital assets. Will break
Speaker 1: down what's in that plan and what it means for
Speaker 1: the future of cryptocurrency and Amazon soaring after hours the
Speaker 1: company order proves the f one starts with what it means.
Speaker 1: Later this hour, thousands are trapped in towns surrounding Kiev
Speaker 1: as Russian forces continue to encroach on the capitol. They
Speaker 1: running out of food and other essential items as they
Speaker 1: wait days upon days for a safe exit. Take a listen,
Speaker 1: he was Tomula occupied by Russian forces. A problem of yeah,
Speaker 1: willis first of value? Yeah Colonna's Octobos is makeing otomos
Speaker 1: VILLIAI and me it's gonnaia Utriona Tonga stylist umb it
Speaker 1: was European previously NA treaty per center for you and
Speaker 1: me uht I's and history relied Premier what yes, uh
Speaker 1: Napa nouas coca uh chickensly uh sources History lied and
Speaker 1: you talked not going to give the bates a week
Speaker 1: time schiptrigic Catama schools Astrilio it's uhpapartsch Brisney And as
Speaker 1: more people attempt to leave Ukraine or find shelter within
Speaker 1: the country, it is of the essence to keep communication
Speaker 1: channels open so you, manager and aid can get to
Speaker 1: those who need it most. Message Bird is helping keep
Speaker 1: businesses connected across Ukraine and is now being used to
Speaker 1: coordinate and meet a broad range of needs from getting
Speaker 1: sin cards to people, along with supplies like medicine, blankets
Speaker 1: and even transportation from place to place. Founder and CEO
Speaker 1: Robert this with me now for more on how his
Speaker 1: company is doing all of this work. Now as I
Speaker 1: understand it, Robert, you work with all of the major
Speaker 1: social channels what'sapp, Instagram, Telegram, what kinds of communications are
Speaker 1: you seeing between businesses, between customers and businesses in Ukraine
Speaker 1: specifically Emily and thank you for having me on the show. UM.
Speaker 1: Look before message worker is being used primarily for omni
Speaker 1: channel B two be communicate atients. UM. Today we're seeing
Speaker 1: a lot of NGOs communities UM using us for all
Speaker 1: sorts of help. As you said, it can be simple
Speaker 1: things from organizing, coordinating medicines, blankets, transportation. UM. We're just
Speaker 1: trying to provide our services to as many businesses as
Speaker 1: possible at the moment to help out. So what does
Speaker 1: that mean? How are you supporting these businesses who have
Speaker 1: these flood, this flood of requests at this time. Well,
Speaker 1: several different ways, UM. I mean one we're just I mean,
Speaker 1: as a company, we provide customer service toolings, different ways
Speaker 1: for for people to coordinate on top of our platforms.
Speaker 1: So we're obviously providing that for three now to to
Speaker 1: to to those companies businesses. But this isn't just businesses,
Speaker 1: to be honest, it's just as much just people trying
Speaker 1: to help out. I mean, if you think about it's
Speaker 1: about two million refugees have now come into Europe. UM,
Speaker 1: so a lot of people are trying to help out
Speaker 1: in different ways that we're trying to to coordinate as
Speaker 1: quickly as possible. UM. At the same time, we we
Speaker 1: launched our own fund um UH to help out. So
Speaker 1: our employees are helping out on trying to organize other
Speaker 1: tech founders to come together and and all of us
Speaker 1: use our UH knowledge companies um UM to to try
Speaker 1: to lend a hand and a stair whole situation. So
Speaker 1: there's ten million dollar and GEO fund that you mentioned.
Speaker 1: What's your hope about how this will help? Look, the
Speaker 1: fund is broader um UM. We're looking to to to
Speaker 1: deploy the capital in the next two years UM. But
Speaker 1: you know, right now it's needed as much as ever UM.
Speaker 1: So we're trying to do anything we can um uh
Speaker 1: for for the for the community. I think more broadly
Speaker 1: UH pending money, what we're really trying to do is
Speaker 1: just stand up. I think it's important for CEO's founders
Speaker 1: to speak up. UM. I think the technology sector is
Speaker 1: uniquely positioned to help out. We've all built amazing companies
Speaker 1: that we can do stuff with. UM. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: working together with, for example, one of the fend the Netherlands,
Speaker 1: the founder of Bunk, which is an online bank, UM,
Speaker 1: he's doing amazing work trying to get refugees now bank
Speaker 1: accounts so so that we can coordinate money something simple
Speaker 1: because obviously their bank accounts in Ukraine don't actually work anymore.
Speaker 1: Or the founder of Picnic, which is an online supermarket,
Speaker 1: who has you know, all sorts of supply chain and
Speaker 1: legis sticks to to to coordinate funds. I think it's
Speaker 1: initiatives like that that where we're really focused UM to
Speaker 1: try to help out. Well. Speaking of standing standing up
Speaker 1: this clampdown that we've seen on services across Russia, we've
Speaker 1: seen a number of companies take a stand. You have
Speaker 1: any exposure in Russia? Are you cutting off any of
Speaker 1: your services to Russian businesses and users? Yeah? We have
Speaker 1: UM pretty much immediately. Uh UM. Look, I'll be honest,
Speaker 1: it's it's four percent of our revenues. So it's it's
Speaker 1: you know, it's uh, we're five in a million to
Speaker 1: our company. It's significant, but it's not UM. It's not
Speaker 1: going to kill our our killer business. UM. But I
Speaker 1: think anything that we can do UM globally to to
Speaker 1: say no UM and to stand for peace, I think
Speaker 1: it's important Um. Obviously, I would say that the Russian
Speaker 1: people inside the country have absolutely nothing to do with this, um,
Speaker 1: so it's sad for them to UM. At the same time,
Speaker 1: it's I guess the only peaceful protest that we can
Speaker 1: do is by stopping services to to to the Russian
Speaker 1: community right now. I know you're joining us from Amsterdam.
Speaker 1: Do have a team in Ukraine? How big is that team?
Speaker 1: How are they doing? What is the situation there and
Speaker 1: how are you helping them? We didn't have a very
Speaker 1: big team in Ukraine. UM. Luckily all of our employees
Speaker 1: are outside of the country. UM. We were able to
Speaker 1: get them out pretty quickly. UM. But they still have
Speaker 1: family there. UM. So uh so far as far as
Speaker 1: I know, everybody is doing okay considering the circumstances. UM.
Speaker 1: But it's it's it's horrifying. I mean, we have families
Speaker 1: who are like you. Literally here the air alarms go off.
Speaker 1: I don't know how you call it an English but
Speaker 1: the and you know, it's just it's it's two and
Speaker 1: we're having a war on the borders of Europe. It's crazy.
Speaker 1: Air sirens common sound now across the country. All right,
Speaker 1: Founder and CEO of Message for Robert Vis, thank you
Speaker 1: for joining us and sharing the work that you're doing there.
Speaker 1: Coming up, Amazon soaring in late trading after the company
Speaker 1: says the board approved one stock split. Details on that. Next,
Speaker 1: this is Bloomberg. Amazon splits its stocks, sending shares sharing
Speaker 1: this as the e commerce joint announced it will stop
Speaker 1: sending products to Russia and cut off Prime video to
Speaker 1: Russian customers. I want to bring in Bloomberg's Bradstone for
Speaker 1: more on this. Brad, I want to start with the
Speaker 1: stock splitz here. Obviously, we just saw Alphabet do something
Speaker 1: like this earlier this year. Unlike Amazon, though, to do
Speaker 1: a stock split. Why are they doing this and what
Speaker 1: does it mean? Well, it's interesting. Jeff Pazos, for fifteen
Speaker 1: years seemed to really resist this kind of financial engineering.
Speaker 1: It shouldn't mean anything, right, One share of Amazon stock
Speaker 1: at three thousand is equal to twenty shares at one fifty.
Speaker 1: But in practice a lower stock price makes the stock
Speaker 1: more attractive to retail investors and also employees. You know,
Speaker 1: you've got a million warehouse workers who have an option
Speaker 1: of of including equity and their compensation, and this instead
Speaker 1: of a fractional share, they get a whole share, So
Speaker 1: there are lots of reasons to do it, and the
Speaker 1: and the fact that the stock is down by eight
Speaker 1: percent over the last twelve months, and the fact that
Speaker 1: investors are responding favorably they did today and to Google's
Speaker 1: announcement last month. It's it's uh, you know, it's evidence
Speaker 1: for y Andy Dassey maybe wants to rethink because some
Speaker 1: of that orthodoxy at Amazon right, improving that accessibility at
Speaker 1: least psychologically. I also want to ask you about Amazon's
Speaker 1: moves in Russia, stopping sending products to Russia, cutting off
Speaker 1: Prime video. How significant is this for Amazon? How big
Speaker 1: a business do they have there and and who will
Speaker 1: this really impact? Yeah, I mean not to call it
Speaker 1: a nothing burger, but to put it in perspective. No
Speaker 1: data center it is in the country, no offices in
Speaker 1: the country. There's no such thing as Amazon dot Ru.
Speaker 1: If you're an Amazon customer in Russia, you're probably ordering
Speaker 1: from the website in Germany and products are getting shipped
Speaker 1: to you from the fulfillment centers in Poland. So you know,
Speaker 1: it's limited. Amazon's taking a stand here like a lot
Speaker 1: of other companies, and to to the extent that it's
Speaker 1: impacting Amazon customers. It's probably upper middle class Russian consumers
Speaker 1: who are who were using the foreign Amazon website. Okay, now,
Speaker 1: third story, big Amazon story today, Amazon being accused of
Speaker 1: lying to Congress about how they use third party data
Speaker 1: and have now been referred to the Department of Justice.
Speaker 1: What does this mean? It was sort of an open
Speaker 1: secret that Amazon, which is very decentralized, you had employees
Speaker 1: who are breaking basically breaking Amazon policy and you know,
Speaker 1: using internal data tools to promote private label Amazon products.
Speaker 1: And when Bezos and and some other Amazon executives were
Speaker 1: hauled in front of the Congressional subcommittee investigating anti trust,
Speaker 1: they did wouldn't really own up to it. You know,
Speaker 1: Amazon so secretive. They talked around it, they talked about
Speaker 1: studying the issue. They were being very Amazon like. And
Speaker 1: then they've never released any subsequent reports. So, you know,
Speaker 1: the church here, you know, is that they lied. They
Speaker 1: clearly weren't a front with what was happening, you know,
Speaker 1: with the employees who were kind of sticking their hands
Speaker 1: in the data cookie jar. And now congressional investigators want
Speaker 1: some accountability for that. All right, Well, we'll be following
Speaker 1: that story again. Amazon chairs way up after hours on
Speaker 1: the back of that stock split announcement are Brad Stone,
Speaker 1: who of course wrote a couple of books on Amazon. Brad,
Speaker 1: thank you, welcome back to Bloomberg Technology, and Emily Chang.
Speaker 1: In San Francisco, Cruise, the autonomous vehicle company majority owned
Speaker 1: by General Motors, named co founder Kyle Vote it's full
Speaker 1: time CEO. He's back in the top spot since Dan
Speaker 1: Ammon left Cruise back in December after disagreements with GM
Speaker 1: CEO Mary Bara. Kyle with this now for his first
Speaker 1: interview since taking back the helm. Kyle, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining us so in light of Dan's departure,
Speaker 1: and of course you're very long history with this company.
Speaker 1: What is your vision and is there anything that you
Speaker 1: plan to do differently? Well, thanks for having me Emily. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: you know, our vision remains unchanged. We're still working on
Speaker 1: bringing driverless cars to deployment at scale and it's been
Speaker 1: a really exciting years for year for us. Just in
Speaker 1: the last few months, we did our first driver less
Speaker 1: rides on a on public roads in a major US city.
Speaker 1: It's a first for any company. We've got really ambitious
Speaker 1: plans to excale from here to be in you know,
Speaker 1: more locations, more cities and make a really great product
Speaker 1: for people. And given the context of Dan's departure, how
Speaker 1: would you say, how would you describe your relationship with
Speaker 1: Mary Bara and whether you know you both are on
Speaker 1: the same page. Well, the GM leadership team, including Mary,
Speaker 1: have been really supportive and we share this vision. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, it's obvious if you look at the status
Speaker 1: quo were not in a great place when it comes
Speaker 1: to car accidents in the US and UM, you know,
Speaker 1: basically transitioning to an electric vehicle fleet across UM across
Speaker 1: both personally on vehicles and red chair and we all
Speaker 1: believe that autonomous ride chair is the way to get
Speaker 1: there in a way to get there really quickly. It's
Speaker 1: also a really big business opportunity for company like GM
Speaker 1: or really any major company who's looking to get into
Speaker 1: the transportation space. Talk to us about Cruise Origin, how
Speaker 1: production is going, and is there any sense of when
Speaker 1: we'll see Origin on US roads. Yeah, the Cruise Origin
Speaker 1: is an amazing vehicle. It's it's meant for rideshare. So
Speaker 1: you sit in it, You've got tons of leg room,
Speaker 1: the seeds face each other, lots of cabin space and
Speaker 1: so it's optimal for things like shared rides where you
Speaker 1: might be in there with another person, but we can
Speaker 1: really drive the cost down when you do those kind
Speaker 1: of rides. So it's an awesome vehicle. UM. We're doing
Speaker 1: testing with prototypes right now, UM on closed courses, and
Speaker 1: early next year I think you may start to see
Speaker 1: the first production vehicle's wall off the line and hopefully
Speaker 1: go into deployment. Why in your view, is Cruise Cruises
Speaker 1: technology better than what Waymou has to offer, or Tesla
Speaker 1: or zooks. You know, it's really hard to compare different
Speaker 1: avy companies, And I think the answer is just you know,
Speaker 1: when you can pull out your phone and use one
Speaker 1: of these products, first of all, we'll know who's a
Speaker 1: head in terms of deployment. But then um, also the
Speaker 1: thing is right now, you can't really compare them side
Speaker 1: by side. And I do think when you experience this technology,
Speaker 1: if it's anything like what our first users have seen,
Speaker 1: they're blown away. It feels like magic. They want to
Speaker 1: use it again and again. And we intend to differentiate
Speaker 1: both on the product experience, creating a really great experience
Speaker 1: that's that's potentially better than our competitors, but much better
Speaker 1: than the status quo using rideshare services, and I think
Speaker 1: that'll be really compelling. I think people are gonna like it.
Speaker 1: Now as I understand it, Cruise has at least five
Speaker 1: permits from the d m V and the CPUC. You
Speaker 1: can transport passengers without a driver behind the wheel, but
Speaker 1: you can't charge a fair. Or you can transport passengers
Speaker 1: and charge a fair, but you need to have a
Speaker 1: safety driver. Are the regulations just too complicated right now
Speaker 1: to make a lot of progress. We did a good
Speaker 1: job on winding the California permit process right there, but
Speaker 1: you know, we're one permanent way from being able to
Speaker 1: charge fares and do commercial operators operation. But as of today,
Speaker 1: we have people using the app, using the service, um,
Speaker 1: you know, so we're getting a sense for what those
Speaker 1: customers are going to do and what they like. UM
Speaker 1: And I think, well, today we're we're kind of hung
Speaker 1: up on this permitting process. That's a very ephemeral problem
Speaker 1: and going to go away. We're gonna work with the
Speaker 1: regulators and get through these things and then you're just
Speaker 1: gonna see, you know this, this products start to appear
Speaker 1: in more places and starts something that people use, you know,
Speaker 1: in their daily lives and just going to become normal.
Speaker 1: I think the discussion about permiting is important today since
Speaker 1: the first time any company has tried to go through
Speaker 1: this and get permits from California regulators. But I think
Speaker 1: that's going to be behind us pretty soon. What's the
Speaker 1: next big market for cruise after the United States? Well,
Speaker 1: we'll see. I think that the priority for US is
Speaker 1: you know, look, you know, even in San Francisco, a
Speaker 1: Texas tric city, people have never seen a car driving
Speaker 1: around without anyone behind the wheel. You know, there's people
Speaker 1: on the sidewalk that look at these vehicles and they're like,
Speaker 1: they're taking pictures, they're looking at them, they're they're they're excited,
Speaker 1: I think about the future, but it's also, you know,
Speaker 1: a little bit unusual, and so I think for us,
Speaker 1: we really want to make sure we kneel this in
Speaker 1: San Francisco, not only in a way that works for
Speaker 1: the city, but works for writers and it's really compelling
Speaker 1: and they want to come back again and again. And
Speaker 1: then we're really gonna put a lot of AMMO into
Speaker 1: this and try to scale it out in a lot
Speaker 1: of places really quickly. But our goal is to make
Speaker 1: it work really well and make it really well here
Speaker 1: in San Francisco. First, any updates on Dubai. The World
Speaker 1: Expo in Dubai wraps at the end of the months,
Speaker 1: and one of the big themes is mobility. Yeah, Dubai
Speaker 1: has been the r T and Dubai has been a
Speaker 1: great partner, and we're still on track for employment there.
Speaker 1: I think it's a great opportunity to introduce, um, you know,
Speaker 1: the future of of transportation to you know, a city
Speaker 1: and government that's really excited about doing that, so we
Speaker 1: can't wait. So look, I think the big question regular
Speaker 1: consumers have is when will self driving car ours, When
Speaker 1: will self driving cruises for example, be on the road
Speaker 1: and I can take advantage of it. How far out
Speaker 1: is that more mainstream reality? How many years? Um, Well,
Speaker 1: we're starting small. I think an important thing is to
Speaker 1: get this working, make sure everyone is responding well to
Speaker 1: it and the product itself meets expectations. But right now,
Speaker 1: if you live in San Francisco, you can go to
Speaker 1: get cruise dot com and jump on the waitlist. We've
Speaker 1: already done hundreds of rides with members of the public
Speaker 1: and these a v is actually dozens of them. Are
Speaker 1: out every single night now carrying passengers around San Francisco.
Speaker 1: So it's here. It's not, uh, you know, universally distributed
Speaker 1: or equally distributed, but it's here in small bits and pieces.
Speaker 1: And I think it's going to surprise people how quickly
Speaker 1: that becomes generally available and that many people who live
Speaker 1: or work in San Francisco get a chance to use it.
Speaker 1: All Right, cal vote, CEO of Cruise once again, and also,
Speaker 1: of course the co founder, thanks for bringing your vision
Speaker 1: to us. Kyle. Coming up, President Biden and crypto, the
Speaker 1: fine in his executive order and what it means for
Speaker 1: the broader industry. Next, this is Bloomberg more now in
Speaker 1: President BYD's executive order on crypto, which sent Bitcoin bouncing
Speaker 1: right back up. I want to get into it all
Speaker 1: with our crypto contributor Sanali Bossi Shanale. This could be
Speaker 1: kind of a big deal. Yeah, it could be a
Speaker 1: big deal. And if you see bitcoin prices, certainly the
Speaker 1: market things it is. If you take a look, you
Speaker 1: having more than nine percent jump in bitcoin over the
Speaker 1: last twenty four hours. It is still down on the
Speaker 1: seven day period, but a significant lift here, more than
Speaker 1: the other assets. If you flip up the board and
Speaker 1: take a look at the theoryum for example, also getting
Speaker 1: a lift about six percent or so. But the one
Speaker 1: interesting thing to me is while those assets have gotten
Speaker 1: the lift, heather and stable coins more largely have not
Speaker 1: seen as much of a lift. Are pretty stable on
Speaker 1: the day, but again stable on the week as well.
Speaker 1: So what are the safe havens here? Let's get someone
Speaker 1: else's take here. We're going to bring in Marty Chavez
Speaker 1: on this. He is a vice chairman at six three Partners,
Speaker 1: really a pioneer when it comes to technology and money. Marty,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of criticism about the Executive Order that came out of
Speaker 1: the White House. On one hand, it's been hailed as
Speaker 1: a watershed moment, but on the other hand, it has
Speaker 1: also been criticized a short on details. What's your take, Soinale,
Speaker 1: I've we've talked about this topic before. I've been saying
Speaker 1: for a long time the best thing that could possibly
Speaker 1: happen to digital regulation digital assets is the appropriate amount
Speaker 1: of regulation. Sure the Executive Order to not give us
Speaker 1: a lot of detail. It mostly directed a variety of
Speaker 1: organizations in the government to do more work and do
Speaker 1: more study, and that's great. There is um We expect
Speaker 1: a Treasury paper forthcoming later this year that's going to
Speaker 1: have a lot more detail. But I would say that
Speaker 1: at the root of my concerns, and you and I
Speaker 1: have talked about this before, are really the stable coins? Right?
Speaker 1: The stable coins are a form of currency peg, and
Speaker 1: currency pegs have not been successful. They work right up
Speaker 1: until the moment that they don't work, and there's certainly
Speaker 1: not a lot of detail. I don't I'm not sure
Speaker 1: there's any in the Executive Order about stable coins. Into
Speaker 1: my mind, uh, the appropriate regulation stable coins, which I
Speaker 1: would see as a kind of narrow bank, so we
Speaker 1: actually know what are the assets backing them and what
Speaker 1: are the mechanisms for those assets. I think that's gonna
Speaker 1: be hugely important. And until we have that, I don't
Speaker 1: know how investable the whole space of digital assets is
Speaker 1: from my perspective. But once we have a foundation for
Speaker 1: the stable coins that looks like narrow banking and appropriate regulation,
Speaker 1: I think it's going to be a part of an
Speaker 1: immensely important long secular trend, the deeperalization of everything. Marty,
Speaker 1: what about what we're seeing are in terms of investment
Speaker 1: into things like the Ukraine. Doubt the way that investors
Speaker 1: have really been able to mobilize and raise money at
Speaker 1: scale when people have not been able to access currency
Speaker 1: in the traditional way. Well, first, that's not that's a
Speaker 1: start by just acknowledging, acknowledging pure horror of what's going
Speaker 1: on in Ukraine. Uh and and the sympathy and the
Speaker 1: sympathy isn't even the word for the suffering that's happening
Speaker 1: over there. And to the extent that cryptocurrency can partially
Speaker 1: mitigate some aspects of that suffering, I think it's huge.
Speaker 1: It does show you that that there's ways to move
Speaker 1: money internationally with cryptocurrency which we've all known, that are interesting,
Speaker 1: that don't require intermediaries. Of course, it brings up all
Speaker 1: kinds of concerns about the enforceability of sanctions, and there's
Speaker 1: all kinds of discussions about Russian wallets and the exchanges,
Speaker 1: and that's complicated. Yeah, I'm really curious about what you
Speaker 1: think about that and the role that crypto plays here.
Speaker 1: Are when there are sanctions and really lots of governments
Speaker 1: around the world trying to restrict the flow of capital,
Speaker 1: is crypto going to fix or make that worse, so
Speaker 1: restricting the flow of capital sanctions. But this is this is,
Speaker 1: this is something that governments do uh personally to my mind.
Speaker 1: Put like, we have heard commentators say the US is
Speaker 1: not playing fair with the dollar. Well, I don't know
Speaker 1: that playing fair is really what the discussion is about.
Speaker 1: When Russia and provoked invaded, invaded Ukraine, and so cryptocurrencies
Speaker 1: do provide this mechanism. I think it's important as a
Speaker 1: matter of sovereignty to have the right amount of regulation. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't like using the term cryptocurrencies. I don't think
Speaker 1: their currencies. I think they're digital assets. The currency is
Speaker 1: a different thing. And this is something else that I've
Speaker 1: been saying for a long time. Digitizing the US dollar
Speaker 1: in an appropriate way that respects identity, privacy, know your client,
Speaker 1: anti money laundering, sanctions, regimes, regimes that bolsters the Fed's
Speaker 1: tools for macroeconomic policy and the United States tools for
Speaker 1: geopolitical policy. Those are that's hard and getting that right
Speaker 1: is really important. But to me, it's not an option.
Speaker 1: You know, do we want to digitize the US dollar?
Speaker 1: That de materialization journey has to continue. It's important for
Speaker 1: US leadership it's important as a matter of innovation, and
Speaker 1: getting it right is extremely hard. To what cent is
Speaker 1: it a question of national security? You have millions of
Speaker 1: people who are flocking to China's central bank digital currency
Speaker 1: as we speak, and I'm wondering if the US doesn't
Speaker 1: catch up and do the same, to what extent does
Speaker 1: that start to shift global financial powers over to China.
Speaker 1: I worry about this a lot, Sonali. The dollar status
Speaker 1: is the global global reserve asset is not written in stone.
Speaker 1: It has persisted for a hundred years. Not that the
Speaker 1: historical pattern needs to repeat, but about every hundred years
Speaker 1: there's a different global reserve asset. And and I've been
Speaker 1: saying for a few years now, digitizing the US dollar
Speaker 1: in an appropriate way it's not is essential. It's not
Speaker 1: just another form factor right to me, That's like saying
Speaker 1: a starship and a bicycle are just two different forms
Speaker 1: of transportation, no big difference between the two. Write a
Speaker 1: digital dollar, potentially programmable dollar is a completely different thing
Speaker 1: than the inert paper dollar that we currently have. The
Speaker 1: only forms of the central BANKMO we have today are
Speaker 1: the notes and FED funds in Fed master accounts. Introducing
Speaker 1: another form that is just like the dollar, but it's digital.
Speaker 1: We don't need the paper symbolizing it anymore. That's really important.
Speaker 1: But getting the details right, like to know your client
Speaker 1: anti money laundering, what are the right amounts ending moved?
Speaker 1: And you apply sanctions if so, what's the process like
Speaker 1: designing all of this. It has to be thoughtful, Marty,
Speaker 1: and it's hard and it's essential. We have just about
Speaker 1: another minute thirty seconds here. What about the investibility of
Speaker 1: digital assets until we get to that regulatory point that
Speaker 1: you're talking about. Are you comfortable? Are your clients and
Speaker 1: rivals comfortable with getting into them? Many many clients and
Speaker 1: rivals are comfortable. But when I am thinking about it
Speaker 1: from from the sixth Street point of view, um, it's uh.
Speaker 1: We see the right amount of regulation as essential. I'll
Speaker 1: give you an analogy. Before airplanes were regulated and the
Speaker 1: safety of airplanes were regulated, you were taking your life
Speaker 1: into your hands every time you got onto commercial flight,
Speaker 1: and so having all the rules that we currently have
Speaker 1: about rebuilding the airplanes every so long often, how they
Speaker 1: have to be maintained in the checklist and all. Yes,
Speaker 1: it was expensive and cumbersome to comply with that, but
Speaker 1: it was game changing it right is the condition precedent
Speaker 1: for the industry to really grow and to be what
Speaker 1: it needs to be. And so I would say the
Speaker 1: executive order is a great step along this journey of
Speaker 1: creating the appropriate regulatory framework. Once we get that right,
Speaker 1: and we get it right for stable coins, which are
Speaker 1: the underpairing of the current crypto ecosystem, that's going to
Speaker 1: be a golden age. We're gonna have to leave it there.
Speaker 1: But we want to have you back as we finally
Speaker 1: see those regulations. That's Marty Chavez, the part vice chairman
Speaker 1: of Six Street Partners. Emily back to you, Thank you,
Speaker 1: Hinale Shnali Bossi there. Mark had just released its fourth
Speaker 1: quarter earnings, beating even the highest estimates and sending shares
Speaker 1: jumping in postmarket trade. This as the payments company also
Speaker 1: announced a new partnership with City Group to help move
Speaker 1: commercial cards to mobile wallets more easily. But of course
Speaker 1: there's big changes happening in the global payments land escape
Speaker 1: as Russia's war on Ukraine escalates. I want to talk
Speaker 1: about all of this with Marcattes, EO and founder Jason Gardner. Jason,
Speaker 1: good to have you back with us. So of course,
Speaker 1: we've seen Visa, MasterCard, PayPal halting their operations in Russia.
Speaker 1: What is Marcatta's exposure in Russia and do you have
Speaker 1: any plans to do the same. Good seeing you, Emily
Speaker 1: and thank you for your continued interest in Marcatta. Actually,
Speaker 1: Russia is not on our roadmap, has never been on
Speaker 1: our roadmap. In fact, we announced our partnership with City
Speaker 1: today uh in forty markets in Russia is not one
Speaker 1: of them, So our exposure is pretty pretty limited. We
Speaker 1: have diminimus volume within the Ukraine. However, you know we
Speaker 1: we operate in thirty nine countries today and a number
Speaker 1: of those countries throughout Europe, but but no exposure today.
Speaker 1: What do you see though, as the impact of global uncertainty,
Speaker 1: rising inflation, rising gas prices, prices of jet fuel on
Speaker 1: consumer spending? How does that impacting your outlook ahead? Yeah?
Speaker 1: There there's a lot of pressure on consumers and consumers
Speaker 1: pay for things, whether using bin out pay later, using
Speaker 1: cash app, using Lydia and France coin base. So so
Speaker 1: we make money when companies are when consumers or businesses
Speaker 1: spend cards at the point of sale, whether on line
Speaker 1: or offlines, through different modalities could be a physical plastic
Speaker 1: card or a tokenized card or virtual card. Uh. They
Speaker 1: still have to buy things. So our exposure is really,
Speaker 1: you know, will consumers continue to use bind Out pay later,
Speaker 1: Will they continue to use on demand delivery services or
Speaker 1: expense management services. We have a strong base of revenue.
Speaker 1: We ended the year at seventeen million dollars in net revenue. Uh,
Speaker 1: and we have that strong base of customers, and let's
Speaker 1: see if they continue to spend despite all of the
Speaker 1: head winds for them. I'm curious what you observed when
Speaker 1: it came to spending in the fourth quarter and how
Speaker 1: that is shaping your thoughts on the outlook. Obviously, you
Speaker 1: know we're we're hopefully coming out of a pandemic, but
Speaker 1: now you know, what's going on in Ukraine has cast
Speaker 1: a whole another cloud of uncertainty over the future. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of uncertainty. The fourth quarter by Now
Speaker 1: pay Later really was well beyond our expectations. It was
Speaker 1: a growth from even the Q three, which we would
Speaker 1: kind of expect because we see consumers wanted to use
Speaker 1: new payment types like why now pay later in the
Speaker 1: in the fourth quarter. We actually get a survey last
Speaker 1: year of surveying people in both the U s UK
Speaker 1: and Australia, and we found that of people that actually
Speaker 1: used the payment modality before, we don't know if it's
Speaker 1: going to change. I mean, you're you're seeing a lot
Speaker 1: of the same things you know, unfold every minute of
Speaker 1: every day in regards to Ukraine and the war, also
Speaker 1: what's happening in Europe. We're heading into a lot of uncertainty,
Speaker 1: especially this summer. But again, we have this strong base
Speaker 1: of revenue, a strong base of customers who are looking
Speaker 1: to grow their businesses. Using our technology and our tools.
Speaker 1: We're gonna help them go into even more and more
Speaker 1: geographies and we're excited about doing that. But again there's
Speaker 1: there's a lot of headwinds for not only consumers but
Speaker 1: businesses as well. This new City Group partnership. How much
Speaker 1: could this impact revenue? So as we focused as a company,
Speaker 1: So our strategy was to start with commerce disruptors, companies
Speaker 1: like door Dash and instat Card in a firm in Clarina,
Speaker 1: uh That's where we had the DNA match with developers
Speaker 1: who are building on top of our platform. We then
Speaker 1: went into large tech giants, digital banks, and then large
Speaker 1: financial institutions, they're very slow to make decisions and rin
Speaker 1: roll out. We would expect over time they would take
Speaker 1: more and more advantage of our platform, but this is
Speaker 1: just our foot in the door. Tokenizations of service is
Speaker 1: something we're doing with JP Morgan today. UH. Now we've
Speaker 1: announced with City within forty markets and that takes time
Speaker 1: to go build, But again this is a foot in
Speaker 1: the door. We want to do more and more with
Speaker 1: arge financial institutions UH and building that trust through us
Speaker 1: working with them directly, and our technology is going to
Speaker 1: help us go and do that. Well, speaking of a
Speaker 1: foot in the door, how are you looking at web
Speaker 1: three and how do you see that driving growth in
Speaker 1: your business? Well, we have been doing a lot in crypto,
Speaker 1: as we've talked about in the past, especially with our
Speaker 1: partnership with coin base. UM. That's really our first step
Speaker 1: on this idea of decentralized finance or defy or you know,
Speaker 1: for years I've been talking to companies about using things
Speaker 1: like blockchain to move transactions, and I actually talked about
Speaker 1: this in my remarks. I just made in our our
Speaker 1: Q four of one earnings called decent master card of
Speaker 1: Interconnected the world for companies whether online or offline that
Speaker 1: I wanted to accept payment cards. UM, that is very
Speaker 1: very significant. That's a very very deep moat and a
Speaker 1: very tall wall for companies that want to go in
Speaker 1: and build that crossworder capability that they have. So I
Speaker 1: think this technology is here to stay. We believe in it.
Speaker 1: I believe in it personally. I spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time with companies in the crypto web three space, Essentialized financed.
Speaker 1: How we're gonna go and build it. It's just gonna
Speaker 1: take time. Uh, and then that could be you know,
Speaker 1: it may be a decade from now. We'll see the changes.
Speaker 1: Jason Gardner, founder and CEO of Marcatta, thank you as
Speaker 1: always for stopping by getting off that call. That does it.
Speaker 1: For the edition of Bloomberg Technology Thursday, we're gonna speak
Speaker 1: to Flex Sports CEO Ryan Peterson as his company partners
Speaker 1: with international aid agencies to deliver critical supplies to refugees
Speaker 1: fleeing Ukraine. I don't want to miss it. This is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg