Speaker 1: From the heart of where innovation, money and power collive
Speaker 1: in Silicon Valley and beyond. This is Bloomberg Technology with
Speaker 1: Emily Jay. I'm Emily Chang in San Francisco, and this
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg Technology. Coming up the next hour. Uber rises
Speaker 1: after third quarter sales jumped seventy two. I'll ask CEO
Speaker 1: dark Kazra Shah he why he's saying the business is
Speaker 1: now quote stronger than ever. Plus, Elon Musk is now
Speaker 1: the Twitter complaint hotline operator that according to his Twitter
Speaker 1: bio and giving us an idea of what the subscription
Speaker 1: model for the platform will look like. And he founded
Speaker 1: one of Uber's biggest competitors and wrote the book on
Speaker 1: at Grubhub founder Mike Evans joins us to talk about
Speaker 1: his journey from then to now. For more on Uber's results,
Speaker 1: let's bring in the man himself. Uber CEO Dara Causashi. Dara,
Speaker 1: great to have you with us, as always, So let's
Speaker 1: start with the good stuff. Active writers back to pre
Speaker 1: pandemic levels. Tell us the trends that are driving this
Speaker 1: and how well you see it keeping up in a downturn. Well,
Speaker 1: the big meta trend that we're seeing now is that
Speaker 1: the U S consumer consumer in general and especially at
Speaker 1: the U S consumer is still spending, but you're seeing
Speaker 1: a shift of that spend from spend on retail goods
Speaker 1: UH during the pandemic, people who were at home, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Back to services, travel sectors incredibly strong, restaurant, hospitality sector
Speaker 1: is strong. People are going back to work, and all
Speaker 1: of that is benefiting the Uber business. Our mobility business
Speaker 1: is incredibly strong. Delivery is proving to be a really
Speaker 1: sticky habit. All of that translates into growth bookings of
Speaker 1: twenty nine billion dollars up thirty two percent on a
Speaker 1: year on your Bay assis and then of course adjusted
Speaker 1: EBA DAUM coming in super super strong UH in terms
Speaker 1: of you know, over five million and adjusted IBIDA on
Speaker 1: the quarter. And then what we indicated for next quarter
Speaker 1: is adjusted IBIDA range of six hundred to six hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty million, so even more strength ahead for US. Still,
Speaker 1: writers aren't taking as many rides as they used to.
Speaker 1: What else needs to happen before uberseas of full recovery
Speaker 1: or do you ever get back to those numbers? I
Speaker 1: think we will absolutely get back to those numbers and
Speaker 1: hopefully beyond and you're seeing signs of that, which is
Speaker 1: trips per monthly active. Pre pandemic, we're about five point
Speaker 1: seven trips per monthly active. Uh, they were stuck at
Speaker 1: about five trips per monthly active, and you've seen that
Speaker 1: come up to five point three now and it's absolutely
Speaker 1: headed in the right direction as the world opens up,
Speaker 1: as you know, again people go out to restaurants, etcetera.
Speaker 1: What we also have is a power of the platform.
Speaker 1: In that pre pandemic, we were essentially a rides only business.
Speaker 1: Now our rides and our eats business are of equal size,
Speaker 1: and essentially we are moving our riders up selling them eats,
Speaker 1: and we're up selling our eaters to grocery and then
Speaker 1: back to rides as well with the Uber one membership program,
Speaker 1: which now has launched an eight markets. So we're confident
Speaker 1: that we can drive higher frequency, higher engagement with our
Speaker 1: platform just because of the breadth of use cases that
Speaker 1: we have. Now, let's talk about delivery demand holding up.
Speaker 1: As you said, it's a very sticky habit. Profit looking
Speaker 1: really good, but we're not saying notable growth. Is this
Speaker 1: an area where you're seeing the impact of inflation set
Speaker 1: in where some customers might be saying, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: I'm going to order out one less time this week
Speaker 1: or this month, just to be more conservative. Well, we're
Speaker 1: definitely seeing the impact of comps. Remember, so last year
Speaker 1: we weren't fully opened up or recovered. So when you
Speaker 1: look at our a very growth x foreign exchange, because
Speaker 1: foreign exchange has hurt us, it's her, Google, it's her
Speaker 1: basically any global company out there. Our growth on the
Speaker 1: delivery side actually accelerated from twelve this last quarter. We
Speaker 1: think that Q four will be similar slightly higher in
Speaker 1: terms of your over your x f X growth. And
Speaker 1: what we're seeing there is that our audience of delivery
Speaker 1: continues to grow. Basket sizes are higher. Some of that
Speaker 1: is inflationaries where as well, and when we look at
Speaker 1: the frequency of ordering of users, that's stable. So users
Speaker 1: are continuing to use their delivery UH product as they
Speaker 1: have before. And really we're comping against pandemic comps, and
Speaker 1: we're also being hurt by foreign exchange. But the underlying
Speaker 1: growth of the business is healthy and we think it's
Speaker 1: going to keep healthy for some period of time. Now.
Speaker 1: I've been traveling a lot lately, and yes, my rides
Speaker 1: per month are going up, but prices are still elevated.
Speaker 1: When our prices going to fully come back down, will
Speaker 1: they ever really come back down to where they were? Well,
Speaker 1: I do think that inflation has affected um everybody and
Speaker 1: I think has re baseline to some extent prices. Uh
Speaker 1: So I don't think that prices are going to go
Speaker 1: down to pre pandemic levels. But we have seen pricing ease.
Speaker 1: For example, Q three pricing versus Q two pricing, surge
Speaker 1: levels came down. Our average E T A s in
Speaker 1: terms of you know, when you push a button, when
Speaker 1: is when do you get your car? That's improved as well.
Speaker 1: Service quality levels have improved. So we're hoping that pricing
Speaker 1: continues to ease, going to key form next year. But
Speaker 1: I do think that this is a new baseline, and
Speaker 1: you know, our consumers are riders or eaters. They're willing
Speaker 1: to pay. As you can see from the growth rates
Speaker 1: that we've seen as it relates to both audience up
Speaker 1: four trips up and then obviously gross bookings which are
Speaker 1: dollars in the bank, so to speak, up drivers supply
Speaker 1: is materially improving. What's what's happening with incentives? Are we
Speaker 1: going to see you pull back on incentives. Will they
Speaker 1: go away completely? Will you keep some around? Well? I
Speaker 1: think incent we are going to keep incentives around. But
Speaker 1: driver supplies improving because we've made real investments and the
Speaker 1: driver experience. We have radically improved our onboarding process so
Speaker 1: it's faster, so higher percentage of drivers who's shown interest
Speaker 1: in driving for Uber actually make that first trip. We're
Speaker 1: making that onboard flow faster, easier customer service available to
Speaker 1: help you in case you're having any issues with documents, etcetera.
Speaker 1: UM driver earnings levels are quite robust. Drivers in the US,
Speaker 1: for example, on average, make thirty six dollars per hour
Speaker 1: engaged on the platform. Those are very robust earnings level,
Speaker 1: especially with an activity as completely flexible. You can drive
Speaker 1: when you want, where you want as well. And then
Speaker 1: we're also innovating for drivers. Drivers previously they can for example,
Speaker 1: see the upfront price or the destination that they're headed at.
Speaker 1: That was one of the most requested features, and we
Speaker 1: ship that feature for our drivers UH this last quarter,
Speaker 1: so that they can see the upfront destination. They can
Speaker 1: see the upfront price, and they can pick and choose
Speaker 1: what's the trip that's right for them. UH and if
Speaker 1: a trip is not right for them, they can move
Speaker 1: on to the next trip as well. All of that
Speaker 1: is adding to more drivers coming onto the platform. But
Speaker 1: not only are they coming onto the platform, Churn rates
Speaker 1: are down almost on a year on your basis, and
Speaker 1: they're more engaged with us. The UH supply hours per
Speaker 1: driver or up sixteen percent on a year on your basis.
Speaker 1: If churn is down and engagement is up, it tells
Speaker 1: you that we're doing something right. It is earnings levels
Speaker 1: that are really good, but we're very, very much focused
Speaker 1: on improving the driver experience on Uber and to be
Speaker 1: the platform for earners to come and earn flexibly and safely.
Speaker 1: I want to ask your thoughts on Prop thirty Lift
Speaker 1: A big backer of it, Gavin Newsom, the governor, wants
Speaker 1: it to fail. The revenue from this generated taxing wealthy
Speaker 1: people would go to e V charging infrastructure subsidies to
Speaker 1: buy electric cars, which it seems that Uber has invested
Speaker 1: interest in. Why haven't you taken a strong stance on
Speaker 1: Prop thirty yet? I saw you ran into Governor Newsom
Speaker 1: on Twitter. Have you talked to him about this? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I have talked to him about this and and it's
Speaker 1: our feeling that California is making very substant substantial investments
Speaker 1: in terms of incentivizing EV ownership, in terms of charging infrastructure,
Speaker 1: and it's definitely showing up in our business. As you know,
Speaker 1: we've made very significant investments in moving more of our
Speaker 1: fleet over to e vs UH. We have a great
Speaker 1: partnership with hurt for example, to get more Tesla's onto
Speaker 1: the Uber fleet, and California is leading the pack in
Speaker 1: terms of miles for the percentage of our miles that
Speaker 1: are EV miles. It's now nine of miles driven on
Speaker 1: the Uber network in California are now e v s,
Speaker 1: which is a pretty extraordinary number. It's really second only
Speaker 1: to London. That's a fift So we feel like we're
Speaker 1: making the right investments. We are, for example, lowering our
Speaker 1: own booking fee and making sure that drivers can make
Speaker 1: more on a trip basis when they move over to
Speaker 1: e vs UH, and in partnership with both public and private,
Speaker 1: we think California is headed in the right direction, which
Speaker 1: is why you know we've stayed out of Prop thirty
Speaker 1: one way or the other. The economy, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: maybe headed in the wrong direction. Bloomberg Data showing that
Speaker 1: a recession is very likely. How concerned are you, How
Speaker 1: are you thinking about costs and spending? I mean, you
Speaker 1: do have I believe, double the free cash flow that
Speaker 1: at Meta Report did this quarter. Will you be opportunistic
Speaker 1: and look for potential M and A opportunities out there
Speaker 1: despite everything that's going on? More broadly, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: this is one of the most uncertain environments I've been
Speaker 1: a part of. You know, we it's very difficult to
Speaker 1: tell where things are going to wind up. I think
Speaker 1: Europe is certainly going to be weaker and is likely
Speaker 1: headed into a recession. We're preparing for that. In the
Speaker 1: U S it's unclear recession might happen, it might be
Speaker 1: a soft landing, etcetera. So I think from our standpoint,
Speaker 1: we want to be prepared for any eventuality. And I
Speaker 1: think as a company and as a technology company, we
Speaker 1: have been relatively forward thinking and making sure that we
Speaker 1: prepare ourselves for an uncertain world, making sure we're conservative
Speaker 1: in terms of the investments that we're making. And an
Speaker 1: investment isn't paying off, pull back, pull your money where
Speaker 1: the growth is. And I think it's showing in the
Speaker 1: results in terms of top line and free cashualow generation
Speaker 1: and one. Our outlook, even in an uncertain environment, is
Speaker 1: a super strong look and we want to keep it
Speaker 1: that way. All right to our cash CEO of uber
Speaker 1: as always are great to have you with us, Thank
Speaker 1: you for stopping by. Thank you very much. Let's get
Speaker 1: to Arista Networks now. It's just reported third quarter results
Speaker 1: beating expectations and even prompted at Bank of America to
Speaker 1: upgrade the stock. Shares were up five point seven percent
Speaker 1: or thereabouts at the close. Let's bring in president and
Speaker 1: CEO J Street u Lal now for more. J Cre
Speaker 1: is so great to have you back with us. I
Speaker 1: believe it's been a year since we last talked, and
Speaker 1: your sales growing fifty You're on path to grow for
Speaker 1: the year, which is even bigger than you projected at
Speaker 1: the start of this year. What are the leading drivers
Speaker 1: of this? Given continuing supply issues, inventory issues, macro concerns,
Speaker 1: how are you bucking the trend? Good to be back,
Speaker 1: em leave. We've got to keep this anniversary trend going.
Speaker 1: Um well, I'll tell you, first of all, it's great
Speaker 1: to have our own little micro momentum in a larger
Speaker 1: set of issues that you just described from a macro
Speaker 1: and I would attribute it to great products and technology,
Speaker 1: a great set of customers headlined by Microsoft and Meta,
Speaker 1: or as I affectionately called them M and M since
Speaker 1: I like candy, and I think the confluence so of
Speaker 1: all these diverse use cases that were now part of
Speaker 1: Arista has been been well known as a data center company,
Speaker 1: and today we're becoming more of a centers of data
Speaker 1: company where we're bringing that data to every location. Speaking
Speaker 1: of M and m's which is fitting around Halloween, Microsoft
Speaker 1: and Meta are leading customers, and I'm curious why do
Speaker 1: they rely on Arista so much when more broadly they
Speaker 1: seem to go with white box retailers for a lot
Speaker 1: of this back end stuff. Now, I think it's a
Speaker 1: very good question, but I think it's a bit of
Speaker 1: a misnomer that they only want white box or low cost.
Speaker 1: The tricker is to embrace their requirements. And Code developed
Speaker 1: a partnership that has been on more than a decade.
Speaker 1: In both cases, we actually do co engineering with them.
Speaker 1: We partner with them on the supply chain, we partner
Speaker 1: and procurement. We work with them on different designs and
Speaker 1: use cases, and in some use cases obviously they look
Speaker 1: for diversity and they build on their own or use
Speaker 1: other vendors. But the key in both cases that we
Speaker 1: are in many diverse use cases from the data center
Speaker 1: to the whend, to the regional spine, to the interconnect
Speaker 1: to a new use case that's coming up more and
Speaker 1: more for AI and m L workloads. And the partnership
Speaker 1: is indeed not a classical vendor customer one, but we
Speaker 1: truly take that partnership very strategically and not likely now
Speaker 1: the tight supply environment has really dented the growth for
Speaker 1: most tech bell weathers unlike Arista, give us an update
Speaker 1: on supply issues and inventory issues. And when you think
Speaker 1: those normalized, well, I tell you these are the times
Speaker 1: I wish I were just a software company and didn't
Speaker 1: have to worry about hardware. But as you know, Arista
Speaker 1: is really a platform company. We build a lot of hardware.
Speaker 1: We have hundreds of manufacturers and vendors we work with,
Speaker 1: and we have thousands of components on our hardware. So
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago Arista really put a plan
Speaker 1: together which we had approved by our board, to spend
Speaker 1: to the tune of four to five billion dollars in
Speaker 1: man in in getting components and inventory, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: in order of magnitude greater than our revenue. This is
Speaker 1: kind of unheard of, and we really took a multi
Speaker 1: year view on this, and as we got the approval,
Speaker 1: we started planning well ahead of our demand in twenty
Speaker 1: one and twenty two. And the good news is that
Speaker 1: has paid off some, but the bad news is we're
Speaker 1: not getting enough of it. We would still like more components,
Speaker 1: and despite our best planning efforts, are lead times are prolonged,
Speaker 1: and we're still waiting for what we often called the
Speaker 1: golden screw. The last ten or twenty components are still
Speaker 1: not available, and it's hard to build a system without
Speaker 1: all the components. It would be a little bit like
Speaker 1: a car without the tires, and so we're looking forward
Speaker 1: to overcoming that. But as we have crossed our first
Speaker 1: billion dollar quarter in Q two and marching ahead, we
Speaker 1: do need more and more of these components to get
Speaker 1: stronger this year and next year. Meta is raising its
Speaker 1: capacs for Arista along within Video and a few others
Speaker 1: were called out as beneficiaries. Tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: more about the changing nature of your partnership and how
Speaker 1: that we should expect that to evolve. And I think
Speaker 1: that's a really good question, Emily. I think we all
Speaker 1: know Meta for the strength they have brought as a
Speaker 1: social networking company and ads, etcetera. But every company has
Speaker 1: to redefine and reinvent itself and Mark is doing just that,
Speaker 1: and he's looking forward um at where to invest and
Speaker 1: where to put his money where his mouth is, if
Speaker 1: you will. And one of the important areas for companies
Speaker 1: like in Video and Arista is that this area of
Speaker 1: AI and m L applications that will tremendously test the
Speaker 1: network itself. When you put in hundreds, if not thousands,
Speaker 1: of GPUs and DPUs and storage etcetera. The pressure you
Speaker 1: put on the network in bandwidth, latency, dynamically load balancing
Speaker 1: your flows is huge. It's an order of magnitude more
Speaker 1: than anything that even we have developed and shipped so
Speaker 1: far to Meta. So the Arista seventy eight hundred spine,
Speaker 1: as an example, will give them that kind of delivery
Speaker 1: of hundreds of four hundred gig ports at very predictable latency,
Speaker 1: at a buffer and architectural level where they don't drop
Speaker 1: packets anymore, where they can handle the applications that come in. Now,
Speaker 1: this is long term planning. We are only in the
Speaker 1: first innings of that, but I think a lot of
Speaker 1: the meta investment will go into AI and m L
Speaker 1: which will have a direct impact on the Arista network
Speaker 1: infrastructure as well, and how we designed for them, develop
Speaker 1: for them, and they procure from us. You've got your
Speaker 1: analyst day coming up, talk to us about how we
Speaker 1: should be looking at growth in the next year. Will these,
Speaker 1: you know, really dreadful macro economic um concerns be a
Speaker 1: headwind for Ariska, How will it all impact cloud adoption
Speaker 1: if we're heading into a recession. Yeah, no, that's a
Speaker 1: really good question. We've just had one of our best
Speaker 1: quarters ever, as you pointed out, but the rest of
Speaker 1: the world around us is as not as beautiful um,
Speaker 1: So as we look at it, we're going to be
Speaker 1: thoughtful and vigilant of is there a macro recession and
Speaker 1: what is a riskless part in it? Because to some
Speaker 1: degree we're having micro momentum. We think some of the
Speaker 1: key trends has not affected the data center and the
Speaker 1: networking infrastructure. It remains strategic and relevant. But should a
Speaker 1: recession come, obviously we won't be immune to it. But
Speaker 1: at the moment, we're feeling really good and we have
Speaker 1: good visibility for the next six to twelve months, and
Speaker 1: we're looking forward to a great analyst day to give
Speaker 1: our three projections. Alright, well, good luck at good luck
Speaker 1: at Analyst Day later this week. J Street Lall, CEO
Speaker 1: of Risk and Networks. Great to have you back. Thank you.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be right back with more of Bloomberg technology
Speaker 1: after this quick break. This is Bloomberg. TikTok should be banned.
Speaker 1: That's according to FEC Commissioner Brendan Carr, as reported earlier
Speaker 1: by Axios, a comment that set chairs of Meta rising
Speaker 1: as much as four point one percent to session highs
Speaker 1: Snap spiking as well, Axio saying it's the strongest language
Speaker 1: Car has used so far to urge acting on TikTok.
Speaker 1: And while the SEC has no authority to regulate TikTok directly,
Speaker 1: Congress previously acted after Car voiced concerns about Chinese tech
Speaker 1: companies telecom companies like Huawei. Bloomberg has learned that Tesla
Speaker 1: is sending workers from China to help with an expansion
Speaker 1: at its factory in Fremont, California, a move that could
Speaker 1: help the US facility ramp up production. Got two hundred
Speaker 1: people from Tesla Shanghai plant will head to the Fremont
Speaker 1: facility on assignments that will last at least three months.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Bloomberg Technology. Emily changing in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: Twitter owner Elon Musk is teasing a new subscription model
Speaker 1: for users eight dollars per month. He's also making major changes,
Speaker 1: including limiting content enforcement work just before mid terms next
Speaker 1: week by freezing employee access to internal tools used for
Speaker 1: content moderation. All while advertisers are being urged by dozens
Speaker 1: of advocacy groups to boycott the platform if it's new
Speaker 1: billionaire owner, lower safety standards for content, into it, into
Speaker 1: it all with bloomb x, Alex Brinka and add Ludlow,
Speaker 1: So ed give us the very latest here. Let's start
Speaker 1: with job cuts. We've been waiting for more. Have they happened?
Speaker 1: I mean at all levels of the company. Yes, we're
Speaker 1: hearing that a number of director and senior manager level
Speaker 1: people have departed, including j Sullivan, who is the GM
Speaker 1: for product for the revenue product and the consumer products.
Speaker 1: Nick cool Well, whose head of engineering his depart t
Speaker 1: bloom bows reported the VP of Gloefol sales as report
Speaker 1: has departed during the day on Tuesday. So this is
Speaker 1: all happening, you know. A source told me over the
Speaker 1: weekend that across the products and engineering groups they were
Speaker 1: asked to put together a list for layoff candidates that
Speaker 1: will reduced headcount by fifty We have not seen a
Speaker 1: broad wave of layoffs, but what I'm told by sources
Speaker 1: is that when determining who should be laid off, they've
Speaker 1: been assessing an individual based on the code contributions, the
Speaker 1: contributions and individuals made to the underlying source code for
Speaker 1: the Twitter platform during the duration of their time at
Speaker 1: the company. We know there's an all hands meeting called
Speaker 1: for Wednesday morning, and that's pretty much it. I know
Speaker 1: a lot of insiders at Twitter, a lot of staff
Speaker 1: are bracing for that. So let's talk about content moderation, Alex.
Speaker 1: What's happening, what can what's being moderated, what's not being moderated. Well,
Speaker 1: it seems like Elon Musk is self moderate ding if
Speaker 1: you're following the Nancy Pelosi tweets of this weekend. But
Speaker 1: it seems like there has been According to Bloomberg, sources
Speaker 1: a slowdown and what's being moderated because they basically told
Speaker 1: that team to pause what they're working on. You'll remember
Speaker 1: that Elon Musk said that they will create a content
Speaker 1: moderation system with a group of diverse perspectives, which for
Speaker 1: me and somebody who follows social media closely reminds me
Speaker 1: a lot of what they already have. So I think
Speaker 1: this will be one of the areas that Elon Musk
Speaker 1: will absolutely have to lay out what the plans will be,
Speaker 1: because it's not just users and the posters of content
Speaker 1: who really care about this. It is importantly the advertisers
Speaker 1: where Twitter makes most of their money. Those advertisers won't
Speaker 1: want to be, you know, paying to have their brand
Speaker 1: show up alongside content that they view as unsavory. So
Speaker 1: that moderation piece is a piece that is widely talked
Speaker 1: about in the few days since Elon Musk has been
Speaker 1: the de facto owner of this company, but we are
Speaker 1: yet to see kind of exactly the roadmap that he
Speaker 1: plans to take up for Twitter going forward. Then, of course,
Speaker 1: there have been these developments about Twitter Blue and the
Speaker 1: subscription service eight dollars a month, and what's the latest there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think Elon Musku's arguing on Twitter because remember he
Speaker 1: set this all out in tweets that a those compelled
Speaker 1: to pay for the privilege of blue check mor verification
Speaker 1: will want to do so to kind of separate themselves
Speaker 1: out from the rest of the crowd. He talked about
Speaker 1: blue carrying with it priority in terms of where responses appear,
Speaker 1: having fewer ads appear in the timeline. You know, Twitter
Speaker 1: is verified user base right now is about four hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand if you go to the app verified account,
Speaker 1: so a few times that eight dollars by four fifty thousand,
Speaker 1: and new times that by twelve. It's not really this
Speaker 1: meaningful shift in business model. It's not going to sort
Speaker 1: of displace the necessity to have a revenue stream from advertising.
Speaker 1: But I think the idea is to kind of elevate
Speaker 1: premium content to have its stand out on what we
Speaker 1: know must believes is a pervasive issue, which is bots
Speaker 1: on the platform. What about this teasing of Vine coming
Speaker 1: flat back to the platform, which of course was this
Speaker 1: short form video product that Twitter bought, uh and then
Speaker 1: quickly dissolved. Alex Is is this really potentially happening? I mean,
Speaker 1: it's been tweeted about, and that seems to be um
Speaker 1: where the latest is happening from Elon Musk. So I
Speaker 1: will point out that sources told Bloomberg that Vine You're right,
Speaker 1: the short form video app that Twitter bought. Um, it
Speaker 1: can be revived, but there are some turtles to doing that.
Speaker 1: It runs on the old source code. There's been a
Speaker 1: lot of updates behind the scene, So UM, I think
Speaker 1: folks are in place kind of looking at the viability
Speaker 1: of that option right now. I will tell you, if
Speaker 1: you spend time on TikTok like I do, people talk
Speaker 1: about Vine energy. There's still a big nostalgia with that.
Speaker 1: It was the very first kind of real short form
Speaker 1: video app that got that type of content really popularized
Speaker 1: and woven into the cultural fabric of conversations online. So
Speaker 1: it seems like UM and Ellen has kind of joked
Speaker 1: about this that he is kind of taking recommendations or
Speaker 1: questions about what could be coming back. But our sources
Speaker 1: are telling us that that is one of the possibilities
Speaker 1: on the table. There's definitely some excitement out there about
Speaker 1: the possibility of Vying becoming Twitter's version of TikTok, And
Speaker 1: are these changes going to impact the midterms at all.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're literally a week away when a lot
Speaker 1: of moderating is normally happening. How could this play out
Speaker 1: over the next seven days. Yes, so, I think I
Speaker 1: think it's really important to be clear on what we've reported.
Speaker 1: That the group of people who have access to the
Speaker 1: dashboard and the tools that allow for policy actions to
Speaker 1: be taken against accounts that have breached policy has gone
Speaker 1: from like a group of a hundred fifties to fifteen
Speaker 1: people inside of Twitter. There's a lot of concern that
Speaker 1: effectively Twitter will be short staffed in its ability to
Speaker 1: deal with content moderation over the course of the mid
Speaker 1: terms next Tuesday and Wednesday. That said, um, you know,
Speaker 1: we reported that over the weekend, according sources, there was
Speaker 1: some content moderation in a limited way going on with
Speaker 1: the Brazilian election, despite the suspension of those tools and
Speaker 1: the freezing of access for some employees. If you also
Speaker 1: got on your Twitter timeline, you'll start to see basically
Speaker 1: alerts from Twitter about the upcoming midterm elections and explaining
Speaker 1: some of the work they've already done. And we'd imagine
Speaker 1: that they have got policies in place I guess the
Speaker 1: question is whether Elon Musk, since he's come into Twitter,
Speaker 1: agrees with the plan and the policies that were set
Speaker 1: to deal with the mid terms, which are next week.
Speaker 1: Twitter CMO leslie Berland, also the head of People, is
Speaker 1: leaving Twitter um this, of course, along with a number
Speaker 1: of top executives, including Paraguaggi, Wall, the CEO, Ned Siegel,
Speaker 1: the CFO, vidigade Um, Sean Edgett on the legal team again.
Speaker 1: Twitter CMO leslie Berland also leaving the company, and she
Speaker 1: certainly won't be the last one, if our reporting is correct.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's Alex Brinka and Ed Ludlow thank you both. Turning
Speaker 1: now to the world of gaming, Activision Blizzard said it's
Speaker 1: Call of Duty Modern Warfare two ranked in eight hundred
Speaker 1: million dollars in the first three days of launch, the
Speaker 1: best in franchise history. Here for an exclusive interview is
Speaker 1: Johanna Ferris, senior vice president at Activision Blizzard. Johanna, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us so obviously a huge weekend.
Speaker 1: What do you think is driving this given the broader
Speaker 1: mackerel concerns and the pressures on consumers, why are we
Speaker 1: seeing this show up with Call of Duty. It's amazing.
Speaker 1: This is a testament to the community worldwide that we have.
Speaker 1: There's so much passion built into this franchise and in
Speaker 1: particular for modern Warfare too. But to be hitting these
Speaker 1: numbers out the gates the way that we've launched here
Speaker 1: has been tremendous. It just reflects how powerful a community
Speaker 1: of players we we have, but also the magic that's
Speaker 1: been it in by all the development teams around the
Speaker 1: world here at Activision Blizzard and uh, you know, we're
Speaker 1: we're just in a very celebratory moment here to do
Speaker 1: these types of numbers, as you mentioned, and it proves
Speaker 1: that we have a blockbuster on our hands across all
Speaker 1: of entertainment, and we couldn't be prouder. And it's topping
Speaker 1: some of the big movie theater blockbusters, Top Gun, Maverick,
Speaker 1: and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness combined. What
Speaker 1: does that tell you about the popularity of games versus
Speaker 1: other kinds of entertainment as audiences evolves, I often say
Speaker 1: it feels like it's the modern medium for entertainment. It's
Speaker 1: how people are gathering, they're creating friendships, they're creating lifelong
Speaker 1: connections through call of duty. And again, this is just
Speaker 1: that moment where we couldn't be more proud to see
Speaker 1: so many different regions of the globe connect in this way.
Speaker 1: You're right, I think some of the numbers are really staggering.
Speaker 1: It proves the power of gaming. We certainly have fierce
Speaker 1: competition ourselves, right, so we know that we are all
Speaker 1: fighting for consumers time um and for how they make
Speaker 1: their choices. And to see so many of our players
Speaker 1: rally together here and and pour in their feedback or
Speaker 1: in their connections just three days out of launch has
Speaker 1: been amazing and we're incredibly excited for what's to come.
Speaker 1: It's no secret that Activision has been working through some
Speaker 1: cultural issues, and I'd love to hear your perspective on
Speaker 1: how that is evolving and what it's like being a
Speaker 1: senior woman in gaming at Activision. Look, we've had our
Speaker 1: challenges and a lot of companies have their own challenges
Speaker 1: as well. When you think about how big our workforce is,
Speaker 1: and it's not um something that we take lightly. This
Speaker 1: is a priority for us to make sure that we
Speaker 1: continue to improve in workplace culture. I for one, you know,
Speaker 1: I've always felt um so welcomed here. I've been here
Speaker 1: for about four years now, and I've just been so
Speaker 1: blown away by the caliber of the talent, the collaboration
Speaker 1: that we continue to see pouring in. And we've made
Speaker 1: this a top priority. We have no you know, um
Speaker 1: tolerance at all for bad behavior. We've already said that
Speaker 1: in many statements before, and we're gonna continue to make
Speaker 1: these investments to make sure that this is the place
Speaker 1: that people want to continue to work. And it all
Speaker 1: comes down to talent. I always come back to that,
Speaker 1: as we need the best and brightest here. We're lucky
Speaker 1: to have so many of them under the active Activision
Speaker 1: Blizzard umbrella already. This is why Modern Warfare two has
Speaker 1: done what it's done, because we have amazing talent all
Speaker 1: over the world pouring in, and yet we want to
Speaker 1: continue to get better and continue to attract the best
Speaker 1: talent we can. Meantime, you're navigating a potential huge acquisition
Speaker 1: by Microsoft. UK regulators are scrutinating nizing the deal. What
Speaker 1: can you tell us about any signal that you've gotten
Speaker 1: from regulators about whether or not and when this deal
Speaker 1: is going to happen. All of my eyes have really
Speaker 1: been on Call of Duty. I promised you that I
Speaker 1: know the statements are out there. As you know, Microsoft
Speaker 1: has already commented on this quite a bit. The possibilities
Speaker 1: are very exciting, UM, I think where we all understand
Speaker 1: the scope of that, and yet we are here focused
Speaker 1: to do what we came here to do, which is
Speaker 1: to deliver the best possible player experiences we can. UH.
Speaker 1: And the Call of Duty milestones we've hit here have
Speaker 1: been just tremendous and a testament again to how much
Speaker 1: work has poured in so more to come. Um, but
Speaker 1: all eyes on on this moment and again I just
Speaker 1: really feel very honored and humbled to be a part
Speaker 1: of it. More to come, indeed, Well, thank you for
Speaker 1: sharing those new numbers on Call of Duty with us.
Speaker 1: We will stay tuned. Activision. Blizzard Senior vice president Johannah Ferris,
Speaker 1: thank you all right. Coming up, Mike Novograts, is Galaxy
Speaker 1: Digital mulling a big restructuring we're going to discuss next.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg, the crypto firm. Galaxy Digital currently has
Speaker 1: three employees, but that number could soon change. Bloomberg Shonali
Speaker 1: Bossik here to explain, Shinale, what's happening pretty enormous scoop
Speaker 1: today here, Emily by our colleagues led by U At Yang,
Speaker 1: because Galaxy maybe laying off fifteen to twenty cent of
Speaker 1: their workforce, that could amount to as much as seventy people.
Speaker 1: I want to point out here that pretty recently Galaxy
Speaker 1: had actually been hiring, and so this is definitely a
Speaker 1: new plan that we are seeing. The stock is off
Speaker 1: more than seventy percent this year. Remember earlier this year
Speaker 1: they also had that plan to buy a bit Go,
Speaker 1: but that had fallen through as well. That would have
Speaker 1: added more staff. So really a reversal in trajectory here
Speaker 1: and seventy five positions could go at Galaxy. Now. Galaxy
Speaker 1: reports results next week, so hearing what Mike no Regrats
Speaker 1: has to say will be interesting. Remember, Galaxy is one
Speaker 1: of the earliest investment banks in this space. They have
Speaker 1: become a very large operation with principle investing, with venture
Speaker 1: capital investing, a huge research arm So where exactly they're
Speaker 1: going to be able to trim some of that will
Speaker 1: be of interest. I think also of interest to your
Speaker 1: Emily is what they will say in terms of their
Speaker 1: liquidity positions. You have them having one point five billion
Speaker 1: as of one billion of that was in cash. But
Speaker 1: if you take a look here, we have a board
Speaker 1: on the screen of all the job cuts that are
Speaker 1: spreading across the entire crypto industry. Coin based, Robin Hood,
Speaker 1: Block five, Genesis, and now Galaxy. The question is we've
Speaker 1: talked about their evolving door on the C suite and
Speaker 1: then now maybe on the younger side as well, and
Speaker 1: the junior ranks as well. Does those jobs? Where do
Speaker 1: those jobs go? Next? Is their capacity of the crypto
Speaker 1: industry to pick up those jobs as we're seeing some
Speaker 1: large firms start to scale back given that range bound
Speaker 1: trading you've seen in the largest cryptocurrencies. All right, Sonali,
Speaker 1: thanks for helping us dig in there. We'll see how
Speaker 1: it evolved. Saliot. Appreciate it. The founder of food delivery
Speaker 1: giant Grubhub is out with a new book well about
Speaker 1: his food business, Angry A Startup Legacy, details the step
Speaker 1: by step grind of building an innovative business, with each
Speaker 1: chapter including lessons for entrepreneurs and startups. Mike Evans joins
Speaker 1: me now to discuss more so, after everything you've been through, Mike,
Speaker 1: what inspired you to put it all in a book? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean, the book is just the story of starting
Speaker 1: in my apartment and running all the way through the
Speaker 1: I p O. And it's an intense experience to take
Speaker 1: something from create something from nothing, and then go all
Speaker 1: the way through all the venture capital investments and all
Speaker 1: the things that come to it. And Uh, I wanted
Speaker 1: to share that experience and if I can sort of
Speaker 1: change a few people's minds about the importance of really
Speaker 1: thinking about what it is they're trying to accomplish as
Speaker 1: they build the thing that they're building, that's really my
Speaker 1: goal with the book, and that's why I wrote it
Speaker 1: all down. What are I mean? Obviously we've heard Elon
Speaker 1: Musk say things like starting a company is staring into
Speaker 1: the abyss of death and swallowing shards of shattered glass.
Speaker 1: What are some less Okay, okay, I want your I
Speaker 1: want your metaphors. What do you got? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it's I guess it's no piece of cake since it's
Speaker 1: food dealer. I gotta, I gotta, I gotta related to food. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It was challenging for sure, and uh and that's one
Speaker 1: of the things that I've had to remember again as
Speaker 1: I started a new business that you know, every step
Speaker 1: of the way. It's the path from sort of start
Speaker 1: to success is not just a straight path. It's a
Speaker 1: little bit more like a drunken ramble. You try things,
Speaker 1: you experiment. It's important to be able to quit the
Speaker 1: things that aren't working and really double down on the
Speaker 1: things that are. But it takes an an iterative and
Speaker 1: experimental approach to really take a business and and and
Speaker 1: make it something that customers love. Hungry is something I've
Speaker 1: certainly felt, and food delivery companies have helped a piece.
Speaker 1: Why did you call it that? Yeah, so I started
Speaker 1: the business because I wanted a pizza and I was hungry,
Speaker 1: and uh, it started out as a hobby, and I
Speaker 1: didn't love working for another person, sort of being just
Speaker 1: a software developers. I was called a few times and
Speaker 1: in that early part of my sort of work experience,
Speaker 1: and so that that is really where the idea came from.
Speaker 1: I was trying to solve a problem for myself. And
Speaker 1: I make the point in the book that you know,
Speaker 1: if entrepreneurs tend to not be happy people because you
Speaker 1: look around and you see that something is wrong, and
Speaker 1: you're more annoyed by it than maybe some of your
Speaker 1: friends and family are. And the difference between that, uh,
Speaker 1: that person being just a miserable grump and an entrepreneur
Speaker 1: is sort of getting off the couch and doing something
Speaker 1: about it. And so a lot of that motivation came
Speaker 1: from just really kind of being sick of having a
Speaker 1: call on the phone and having orders like get messed
Speaker 1: up and reading a credit card upon all those things.
Speaker 1: I can't cook. I can't stand cooking, and so I
Speaker 1: had to solve the problem. And so that's why I
Speaker 1: started the food the food delivery you know, online ordering business,
Speaker 1: um And ultimately I did solve the problem. And so
Speaker 1: it's that it's it's really just sort of goes through
Speaker 1: the experience of just what it's like emotionally to to
Speaker 1: sort of do these eight nine weeks and over the
Speaker 1: course of a decade. Startups are hard. Food delivery startups
Speaker 1: are hard. As you said, we just had uber ceo
Speaker 1: dar causeroshaw on earlier in the show. Uber eats still
Speaker 1: doing well, good profit, but not a huge amount of growth.
Speaker 1: So I'm curious when you look at the food delivery
Speaker 1: wars today between grub Hub and uber eats and door dash,
Speaker 1: do they all survive? Do they co exist? At this
Speaker 1: current size or is their consolidation, How does the industry change?
Speaker 1: I don't think they can co exist in the the
Speaker 1: way things are currently going. Ultimately, the winner in the
Speaker 1: space is going to be the one that creates the
Speaker 1: best product for customers, And the one that creates the
Speaker 1: best customers is going to be the one that creates
Speaker 1: the best product for restaurants and for the drivers. And ultimately,
Speaker 1: that's really I think where innovation and differentiation is going
Speaker 1: to come from, and the company that does that the
Speaker 1: best will ultimately win the loyalty and frequency of the
Speaker 1: diners that use the platforms um and I'm looking forward
Speaker 1: to seeing how it shakes out, because you know, I
Speaker 1: think there's room for differentiation among those three right now.
Speaker 1: So you're not unbiased, but who wins who doesn't survive?
Speaker 1: Grob has this partnership with Amazon, Is that a real
Speaker 1: differentiator or not? I think grow but I am not biased.
Speaker 1: I think grow hub has an edge because it has
Speaker 1: more relationships with independent restaurants, and I think ultimately the
Speaker 1: neighborhood gems and the independent restaurants and the you know,
Speaker 1: the those businesses that sort of make up the heart
Speaker 1: of a lot of downtowns whether it's in big cities
Speaker 1: or small cities, those are the things that customers love
Speaker 1: the most. And I think that grub has an advantage
Speaker 1: there and so my that's my hope. Obviously I'm not
Speaker 1: I'm not biased, but ultimately, really, ultimately, really it just
Speaker 1: comes down to which company is going to invest in
Speaker 1: those things the most. So last quick question, you talk
Speaker 1: about stepping down. Why was? Why was when you stepped
Speaker 1: down the right time? And as you say, stepping down
Speaker 1: isn't quitting. Yeah, I talked about this in the book
Speaker 1: The You know, my goal when I started grow hub
Speaker 1: was to pay up my school debt, and I overshot
Speaker 1: by a little bit, right. I ran the company from
Speaker 1: the from the apartment, my my apartment, all the way
Speaker 1: up to the I p O. I was myself and
Speaker 1: my co founder Matt. We ran the company together, and
Speaker 1: as I got towards the end of that journey, as
Speaker 1: I approached the I p O. For me, the reason
Speaker 1: that I decided to go on to do the next
Speaker 1: thing is I really wanted to work on a business
Speaker 1: where the impact of what I was doing from a
Speaker 1: social perspective and the profit I was creating were the
Speaker 1: same thing. In whatever business model that was that's really
Speaker 1: challenging to do in a public company. I'm not even
Speaker 1: sure it's actually possible a lot of the time. And
Speaker 1: so um, I wanted to start a new company where
Speaker 1: we can make that the d n A of the
Speaker 1: company from scratch, and so that's why I went off
Speaker 1: to start my new I have to leave it there, Mike,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us. Great to have you.
Speaker 1: Congrats on the pluck. We'll see you tomorrow. Mrs mob