Speaker 1: From the heart of where innovation, money and power callive
Speaker 1: in Silicon Valley and beyond. This is Bloomberg Technology with
Speaker 1: Emily Jay. I'memily check in San Francisco, and this is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Technology. Coming up in the next hour. Twitter begins layoffs,
Speaker 1: reportedly cutting the PR team from roughly ninety people to
Speaker 1: just two and more, and Musk says the company is
Speaker 1: under stress from a massive drop in revenue as advertisers
Speaker 1: hit pause. Plus Expedience CEO joins us to talk about
Speaker 1: the travel rebound and plans to take on Airbnb after
Speaker 1: reporting record revenue. Will I keep up in a recession?
Speaker 1: And Bloomberg analyze more than one million tweets and Facebook
Speaker 1: posts from hundreds of midterm elections candidates who said they
Speaker 1: believed somewhat or fully that the election was stolen from
Speaker 1: former President Trump. Turns out, amplification of the so called
Speaker 1: big lie on social media drives engagement. We're gonna get
Speaker 1: to all of that in a moment, but first I
Speaker 1: want to get to Twitter now and the slow of
Speaker 1: companies pulling their advertising from the platform. Bloomberg's Alex Barrinka
Speaker 1: has been following it all for us, so Alex Elon
Speaker 1: Musk has said there's been a massive drop in revenue.
Speaker 1: He blames it on activist activist groups pressuring advertisers over
Speaker 1: content moderation issues, even though nothing has changed yet. Who's
Speaker 1: leaving Audias, leaving GM is leaving either leaving really big
Speaker 1: names are leaving, Emily. And to your point there, Elon,
Speaker 1: with tweeting yesterday you did a poll thing what you
Speaker 1: advertise or stand behind free speech or political correctness, those
Speaker 1: are the only two choice of that. Emily actually think
Speaker 1: that's probably a little bit of a false choice for
Speaker 1: these brands. They are looking at Twitter as the plates
Speaker 1: to put dons and find some return on that advent.
Speaker 1: That return is going to be kind of number one
Speaker 1: in their minds. As we've seen um Twitter the business
Speaker 1: kind of you know, convulsing over the last week, with
Speaker 1: laying off about half of the workforce, with questions around
Speaker 1: who is leading different departments, and with Elon trying to
Speaker 1: counter that by assuring advertisers that they will be moderating
Speaker 1: content on the platform. It seems like a lot of
Speaker 1: these big names are deciding right now to take a pause.
Speaker 1: And I would say this is a pretty problematic thing
Speaker 1: for Twitter. You'll remember the last earnings report they had,
Speaker 1: they actually saw revenue decline from a year prior in
Speaker 1: that quarter. And now Ellen is taking a company that
Speaker 1: is private and will have about a billion dollar interest
Speaker 1: bill every year for the debt that they used to
Speaker 1: take this company private. So advertisers here are the lifeblood.
Speaker 1: Ellen's coming in with um a little bit of perhaps
Speaker 1: sauciness at them for leaving the platform, but they will
Speaker 1: absolutely need those dollars who forward. All right, So we're
Speaker 1: talking Volkswagen Fiser General Mills. Let's talk about the layoffs.
Speaker 1: Employees started getting emails early, early in the morning that
Speaker 1: they were being terminated, cools getting let go. Is it
Speaker 1: that thirty seven hundred number that we've been reporting right now?
Speaker 1: It seems like it is inching toward that number. And
Speaker 1: you have some teams like you mentioned at the top,
Speaker 1: like the communications team, that have been completely gutted, losing
Speaker 1: about eighty eight of their ninety employees. So you have
Speaker 1: folks kind of all the way across the board, and Emily.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons why advertisers might actually be pausing,
Speaker 1: it's sort of related to how this is being handled.
Speaker 1: It is typical in a acquisition or in a change
Speaker 1: of leadership for the new leaders to come in to
Speaker 1: kind of take a survey of the land and to
Speaker 1: kind of approach these things a little bit differently. The
Speaker 1: way that Ellen has come in with these kind of
Speaker 1: emails sometimes overnight for employees and UM, what some employees
Speaker 1: are looking at is kind of a coin flip has
Speaker 1: injected a lot of UM, someone call it chaos into
Speaker 1: the business. So we're seeing the cuts across the board.
Speaker 1: There are some areas he's staying and urging UM perhaps
Speaker 1: for that advertise advertiser audience, that he is bringing the
Speaker 1: tools back online for content moderation UM, and areas like
Speaker 1: that that he has put make care to reference in
Speaker 1: the last forty eight hours. But it does seem like
Speaker 1: it's pretty broad based across the company and in terms
Speaker 1: of word that those head count cuts are coming from. Meantime,
Speaker 1: Twitter is being sued uh in a class action lawsuit
Speaker 1: by employees who say their termination is wrongful or that
Speaker 1: at least under California employment law, he can't make big
Speaker 1: changes like this before sixty days have passed. Can you
Speaker 1: explain the lawsuit to us and how good of a
Speaker 1: case they have? Sure in the state of California. We're
Speaker 1: we're rebooth our Emily right now, there's something called a
Speaker 1: war notice where employers have to give a sixty day
Speaker 1: notice before be off above a certain threshold of people.
Speaker 1: That Twitter is certainly clearing that threshold. This is a
Speaker 1: lawyer who's bringing this class action suit, who actually has
Speaker 1: let a suit against Musk before over a similar matter
Speaker 1: for layoffs at Tesla. You'll remember, um, he elon must
Speaker 1: hold our very own editor in chief that he saw
Speaker 1: that suit is trivial. Um, so you can imagine what
Speaker 1: he how he might perceive this suit today. That lawyer
Speaker 1: did come back, uh, just this afternoon and say that
Speaker 1: she's happy to see that some of the severance packages
Speaker 1: are actually paying out employees over the number of day
Speaker 1: some employees over the number of days that are legally required. Um.
Speaker 1: So it seems like there could still be some activity
Speaker 1: on that case, but certainly with the swiftness of the
Speaker 1: decision that was made, there are a lot of questions
Speaker 1: raised around legality, both here in the state of California
Speaker 1: and you can probably imagine in some of the other
Speaker 1: countries where Twitter has offices as well. All Right, Alex Brenka.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there'll be lots of news more and more
Speaker 1: over the Again, thank you so much for bringing us
Speaker 1: the very latest. Will continue to watch your reporting. Zooming
Speaker 1: out to the tech space at large. Now, things not
Speaker 1: looking much better, the Nasdaq one hundred dropping more than
Speaker 1: five percent this week as the sector veils from economic uncertainty.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get more on the bigger picture here with
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's Emily Grafeo. Emily, how is tech weighing on overall markets?
Speaker 1: It's not just Twitter, but Apple, Amazon, where we're also
Speaker 1: seeing significant changes in strategy when it comes to spending
Speaker 1: and hiring. We are seeing these stocks falling, but in
Speaker 1: terms of how much they're impacting the overall market, I
Speaker 1: think that story is really beginning to change as the
Speaker 1: Federal Reserve raises interest rates. I was actually looking at
Speaker 1: just how much um these tech stocks and the movements
Speaker 1: in these stocks impact the broader SMP five hundred. For
Speaker 1: a really long time. In the last two years, the
Speaker 1: narrative has been, you know, these megacat tech stocks make
Speaker 1: up such a large portion of the SMP five hundred,
Speaker 1: we can't see the market gain without the strength there.
Speaker 1: But if you look at the month of October UM,
Speaker 1: four out of the five largest mega cap tech stocks
Speaker 1: in the SMP five hundred posted a negative return, and
Speaker 1: we saw the SMP five hundred gain about eight percent,
Speaker 1: So the equal weighted index was even higher, almost ten
Speaker 1: percent there. So it is starting to seem like investors
Speaker 1: can play the broader stock market and they don't need
Speaker 1: that tech strength like they did before. And we're really
Speaker 1: starting to see that this federal reserve tightening is weighing
Speaker 1: on these big tech companies. What are money managers saying
Speaker 1: about this? Are they getting skittish? It's interesting. I was
Speaker 1: actually at an investing conference last week and I have
Speaker 1: to say, Emily, there weren't a lot of conversations about
Speaker 1: where can I invest in tech? The questions were more about,
Speaker 1: you know, where the value stocks? Um, how can I
Speaker 1: position my fixed income portfolio. I was talking with Jan
Speaker 1: von Eck, he's the CEO of van Eck Funds. We
Speaker 1: were talking a little bit of out technology stocks. He
Speaker 1: said he probably wouldn't go overweight, but the valuations have
Speaker 1: come down in that sector, so he said that is attractive.
Speaker 1: But um, when you look at overall money managers, they
Speaker 1: are thinking about value stocks more than just Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I need Apple overweight in my portfolio. There is some
Speaker 1: fear that the federal reserve tightening is going away on
Speaker 1: the stocks more than it already has, and that earnings
Speaker 1: do have to come down even more. All right, Emily,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for zooming out. Bloomberg's Emily graffo
Speaker 1: so much to continue to watch the Fed trying to
Speaker 1: tamp down affordability, but people continue to pay top dollar
Speaker 1: for experiences. Expedia posted record quarterly revenue and third quarter
Speaker 1: bookings free cash flow for the first nine months three
Speaker 1: point one billion dollars, more than double levels. Expedia CEO
Speaker 1: and vice chair Peter Kern joins me. Now, so, uh, Peter,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the bigger picture here. It looks like
Speaker 1: people are continuing to spend on travel. I know we
Speaker 1: had some hurricanes that interrupted some of the flow, but
Speaker 1: outside of that, how good was the summer travel season?
Speaker 1: The summer travel season was great, Emily. You know, it
Speaker 1: was everything I think most of us expected, which was
Speaker 1: tons of pent up demand anywhere in the world where
Speaker 1: people could travel. Of course, there's parts of the world
Speaker 1: still even now, in an apac and other places where
Speaker 1: it's still quite difficult to travel. So there is more
Speaker 1: to come in terms of opening up world travel. But
Speaker 1: the summer was great. Business has continued to be quite strong,
Speaker 1: and demand really hasn't ebbed since then. So you know,
Speaker 1: everything so far looks pretty good, notwithstanding all the macroeconomic
Speaker 1: warriors that you talk about all day. So um, so
Speaker 1: we're feeling pretty good about things. But if we had
Speaker 1: into a recession, I mean, I know people are spending
Speaker 1: money on travel to this point, who's to say that
Speaker 1: people aren't going to say, oh, maybe I should take
Speaker 1: a maybe I shouldn't take that vacation, or let's just
Speaker 1: you know, drive um to a vacation rental nearby. Yeah, listen,
Speaker 1: I think, uh, macroeconomics will be what they will be.
Speaker 1: I think so far what's been demonstrated is that while
Speaker 1: there has have been a few cracks and other categories,
Speaker 1: travel hasn't cracked. I think partly because people have missed
Speaker 1: it so much during COVID and they've realized how much
Speaker 1: they want those experiences more generally. Uh, And we've seen
Speaker 1: corporate travels start to come back and other pieces start
Speaker 1: to come back. So I think, you know, we have
Speaker 1: some good running room, but there's nothing to say that
Speaker 1: people can start to change their minds. But remember, you know,
Speaker 1: global travels a two plus trillion dollar industry, so this
Speaker 1: isn't a zero sum game. And we're a growth company.
Speaker 1: We're trying to build our base of members, build our
Speaker 1: business up, offer great new tools for travelers, great new benefits.
Speaker 1: So we believe there's ample reason for us to continue
Speaker 1: to attract travelers. And even if they're trading down a
Speaker 1: little bit or making slightly different adjustments to their travel,
Speaker 1: we think they're still gonna want to travel. Do you
Speaker 1: think that there's something fundamentally different in terms of how
Speaker 1: people approach travel? You know, this isn't just a few
Speaker 1: vacations they wanted to get out of their system, but
Speaker 1: as a whole new frame of mind. Well, I think
Speaker 1: you know, anytime you have an existential threat to life
Speaker 1: on the planet, people probably respond with a little bit
Speaker 1: of like, I want to live, I want to go
Speaker 1: see the things I want to see. Uh. You know
Speaker 1: there are people, uh my age and older who are
Speaker 1: at a point where they're saying, you know, I only
Speaker 1: have so many trips left in my life, you know,
Speaker 1: so there's a lot to get out of there. And
Speaker 1: I think COVID made us all reassess that. So I
Speaker 1: wouldn't chalk this up to you know, hybrid work or
Speaker 1: other things. I think it's really just, uh, people are
Speaker 1: realizing that experiences or what make life great and travel
Speaker 1: is where we get all that. So, you know, you
Speaker 1: and I have talked about it before. We all want
Speaker 1: to travel. Everybody wants to travel, and I think, Sir
Speaker 1: and Way, we haven't used up that desire yet. You know,
Speaker 1: in five years from now, has everyone gotten out of
Speaker 1: their system? Maybe, but I don't think we've burned it
Speaker 1: off in you know, eight months or twelve months. Airbnb
Speaker 1: had a tough quarter at least if you look at
Speaker 1: it from a market's perspective. Unlike the positive reaction we're
Speaker 1: seeing from investor investors to your results. What do you
Speaker 1: think happening there? You know, I'm not exactly sure what's happening,
Speaker 1: but I think part of what we observed in what
Speaker 1: we've seen with Airbnb is, you know, they are much
Speaker 1: broader company. They appeal to much more, you know, room rentals,
Speaker 1: parts of home rentals. We don't do that, um and
Speaker 1: I think the scale of that business is such that
Speaker 1: that is a market that may be seeing more weakness
Speaker 1: from the lower end of the market. We as a
Speaker 1: business or somewhat less exposed to that. In our verbo
Speaker 1: brands were whole home. We tend to be middle and
Speaker 1: upper market really the same in our main travel brands,
Speaker 1: so we haven't seen those same cracks. But I think
Speaker 1: if you're exposed significantly to the broad global you know,
Speaker 1: lower end, you are probably going to be under somewhat
Speaker 1: more pressure. But you know, we think they'll do fine.
Speaker 1: FCS of course as a challenge globally as well. Again,
Speaker 1: we're heavily weighted towards North America, which is great since
Speaker 1: the dollar is strong, but if you're waited differently, that
Speaker 1: can have a bunch of different impacts on you. Well.
Speaker 1: A d r s are still average daily rates, still
Speaker 1: above pre pandemic levels, but Airbnb, some of your competitors,
Speaker 1: expecting those to moderate. Then there could also be this
Speaker 1: change in the business mix. Are you expecting any softness
Speaker 1: going into next year? You know, we haven't seen it yet.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh. Again, the makeup of our business mixes
Speaker 1: are are somewhat different, but UM hotels are certainly certainly
Speaker 1: the big chains we're talking about holding a d R
Speaker 1: s Uh. You know, hotels so far have been willing
Speaker 1: to be less full in favor of holding price. Uh.
Speaker 1: Does that last forever? Do some hotels change what they do?
Speaker 1: Hard to know. But again, while demands stays strong, which
Speaker 1: it is now, I don't think there's any you know,
Speaker 1: end in sight to prices being up. And they're not
Speaker 1: just up, they're considerably up since pre pandemic levels, and
Speaker 1: that probably will hold. In the home rental business, it's
Speaker 1: a little more violatile because you have single owners and
Speaker 1: there's a little more price pressure sometimes on some of them.
Speaker 1: But certainly in the hotel industry, the airline industry, I
Speaker 1: think I think prices will still be high. So last
Speaker 1: quick question, Verbo, give us the picture of supply and
Speaker 1: demand given what you've seen, you know, going into next year. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: demand has remained quite strong for us, and other than
Speaker 1: the hurricane which you mentioned at the beginning. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we we've seen strength, you know, throughout COVID and since
Speaker 1: COVID has somewhat subsided. Uh, we're very bullish on next year.
Speaker 1: We've got you know, Verbo is going to become part
Speaker 1: of our our global loyalty plan or and key loyalty
Speaker 1: plan that's rolling out next year, and that's going to
Speaker 1: be a great opportunity for Verbo members to participate in
Speaker 1: our other brands and our other members Expedia, Hotels, etcetera,
Speaker 1: to really participate in Verbo. So we see a lot
Speaker 1: of opportunity there, and the supply side, we think there's
Speaker 1: plenty of room to grow. We are being more aggressive
Speaker 1: in that space and we expect to add, you know,
Speaker 1: a bunch of supplies. So so we feel really good
Speaker 1: about the brand, good about its part in our family
Speaker 1: of brands, and certainly more opportunity for us as we
Speaker 1: consolidate those loyalty plans. Peter current CEO of Expedia and
Speaker 1: vice chair Peter are always good to have you here.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us. Coming up, cyber
Speaker 1: attacks continuing to surge an increasingly digital world. We're going
Speaker 1: to dive into some new data from Rubric about what
Speaker 1: companies should do to protect themselves. That's next. This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: Cyber tags are picking up this according a new data
Speaker 1: from the cloud data management and security company Rubric. I
Speaker 1: want to bring in CEO and co founder People Sinha
Speaker 1: now for more on their new reports. So you found
Speaker 1: that of companies reported a breach, that is a staggering number.
Speaker 1: Walk that out for us a bit that is actually
Speaker 1: validates our thesis. We were suspecting that almost all of
Speaker 1: the organizations in the world has already been infiltrated, and
Speaker 1: what people reported was that percent of the companies had
Speaker 1: once at least one cyber breach. And what is also
Speaker 1: interesting is that seventy percent of the organization said that
Speaker 1: they would pay for ransomware to get rid of this problem.
Speaker 1: That's how low the confidences. So how our companies responding
Speaker 1: to these threats? Are they ready? I don't think everyone
Speaker 1: is ready. Um, even though there is a partnership private
Speaker 1: and public Biden administration put together a zero trust framework.
Speaker 1: Companies are looking at it, they're spending money, they're getting prepared.
Speaker 1: But this problem is a huge. Ransomware is the single
Speaker 1: largest threat to our economy, and everybody is saying that,
Speaker 1: how do I keep my business going? What do I
Speaker 1: make sure do to make sure that we are not
Speaker 1: only preventing and detecting these attacks, but also create resiliency
Speaker 1: where in spite of an attack, I can keep going.
Speaker 1: So there's an ongoing war on Ukraine. You've got instability
Speaker 1: at Twitter, which is a major platform. You've got midterm
Speaker 1: elections coming up here in the United States. Are you
Speaker 1: expecting the threats to ratch it up? And how do
Speaker 1: companies respond? Creds are definitely increasing geopolitical situation, you have
Speaker 1: uh Nason estate actors that are taking sides. You have
Speaker 1: again mid term coming up, that we have cyber warfare
Speaker 1: going on, I think, and in this situation, businesses have
Speaker 1: to really think that attacks will happen. There is no
Speaker 1: way to prevent it. How do they keep going in
Speaker 1: spite of an attack? How do they create a resiliency plan,
Speaker 1: how do they make sure that they recover from it?
Speaker 1: And that's where companies are investing money and we are
Speaker 1: seeing in our own market where recovery ability to identify
Speaker 1: what part of the data was impacted, and how to
Speaker 1: get rid of a bad content and recover good content
Speaker 1: fast is what is everyone is focused on. Is public
Speaker 1: private engagement between for example, the Biden and administration and
Speaker 1: the private sector. Is that helping or do we need
Speaker 1: to see more? We definitely need to see more here.
Speaker 1: But it is a great first step because what happens
Speaker 1: is that there is a natural hesitation and sharing data
Speaker 1: and setting information between companies because no wants to come
Speaker 1: across saying that, hey, you got attacked, we didn't have
Speaker 1: the right defenses. But when the government comes into the
Speaker 1: picture and creates a framework of information sharing, what kind
Speaker 1: of attack has happened, how do you recover from it?
Speaker 1: What kind of preventive measures you take? That really helps
Speaker 1: companies get more confident, and confidence is what is required.
Speaker 1: I mean, our study also found that a third of
Speaker 1: the board have no confidence that their companies can recover
Speaker 1: from a cyber incident. Okay, Wow, staggering new data um Work,
Speaker 1: CEO and co founder of People Sindha People. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for sharing all of that with us. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to Flomark Technology. I'm emily changing in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: Let's get back to Elon Musk's Twitter takeover and what
Speaker 1: it means for the future of free speech and content
Speaker 1: moderation on the platform. My next guest has direct insight
Speaker 1: into this after meeting with Elon Musk a few days
Speaker 1: ago to talk about it for Sean Robinson is the
Speaker 1: president of the racial justice organization Color of Change, and
Speaker 1: he joins me now Rishan, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: taking the time to join us. So how did the
Speaker 1: meeting with Ellen go? Did it leave you hopeful or
Speaker 1: with more concerns? Well, the meeting that we had on
Speaker 1: Tuesday actually was UM BOTHUM, a good opportunity for us
Speaker 1: to have a conversation, and and we walked out of
Speaker 1: the meeting UM really focusing on UM hopeful actually that
Speaker 1: his actions actually connected with the words in the meeting,
Speaker 1: because he made three commitments in that meeting. UM commitments
Speaker 1: around election integrity, commitments around the re platforming and ensuring
Speaker 1: that will be a transparent process before anyone has been
Speaker 1: re platform that has been UM taken off for the
Speaker 1: egregious violation that anyone is the platform for, and then
Speaker 1: talking about sort of the content moderation council he'd have
Speaker 1: moving forward. He talked about agreeing with the sentiments and
Speaker 1: the concerns that those of us in the civil rights
Speaker 1: community brought up during that meeting. And we left the
Speaker 1: meeting UM really wondering what would come next. And at
Speaker 1: one thirty in the morning the next day, UM he
Speaker 1: tweeted out UM tagging us in Matt tweet talking about
Speaker 1: the meeting and making those commitments more public, But over
Speaker 1: the last couple of days, we have seen him truly
Speaker 1: and systematically dismantle the very infrastructure that would make those
Speaker 1: commitments actually real. So the firing of safety and trust
Speaker 1: um capacity inside of Twitter makes it impossible for him
Speaker 1: to actually deliver on the commitments and promises that he
Speaker 1: made in the meeting. So you know, the thing is
Speaker 1: not just about your words, it's about your actions, and
Speaker 1: actions are key here, and you are taking action by
Speaker 1: h highlighting that move in your tweet. You tweeted. Elon
Speaker 1: fired the entire team that identified the Twitter algorithm that
Speaker 1: amplifies right wing voices over others. Not the first time
Speaker 1: we've seen staff, particularly black employees, punished for flagging how
Speaker 1: their companies products enable and amplify racism. Now, Musk today
Speaker 1: said there's been a massive drop in revenue given this
Speaker 1: pause from advertisers, even though according to him, nothing has
Speaker 1: changed about content moderation. Yet, what do you say to
Speaker 1: the folks who say, let's give Elon Musk sometime before
Speaker 1: we make these dramatic moves. Yeah, well that's what we get.
Speaker 1: We met with Elon Musk, and Elon Musk came out
Speaker 1: um and made promises publicly and men UM right after
Speaker 1: those promises, almost before the eight was dried on their promises,
Speaker 1: he began to dismantle the very infrastruction that keep those
Speaker 1: promises in place. Look, I want to be clear. Elon
Speaker 1: Musk actually also met with advertisers. He met with coalitions
Speaker 1: of folks working in advertising, and in the conversations UM
Speaker 1: he made promises to them. He talked to them about
Speaker 1: how content moderation was incredibly important and how he valued
Speaker 1: content moderation. And then he went and he let go
Speaker 1: of seventy of the staff that works on content moderation.
Speaker 1: So the advertisers that are leaving are leaving because they
Speaker 1: are concerned that their brands are gonna be next to
Speaker 1: a product that the CEO in charge of it can't
Speaker 1: be trusted, can't be trusted to deliver on their promises,
Speaker 1: act acts in deeply erratic ways, and we'll put their
Speaker 1: brands in harm's way. And so, as someone who's done
Speaker 1: this work for a long time, has worked to hold
Speaker 1: corporations accountable, to help them meet their actions with their words,
Speaker 1: and to hold them accountable to that UM, I have
Speaker 1: never seen so many advertisers not have to be convinced
Speaker 1: not have to be pushed hard around UM the sort
Speaker 1: of decisions that they are making right now, and quite frankly,
Speaker 1: Um Elon Musk Um did have an opportunity when he
Speaker 1: came in here UM to um actually move things forward.
Speaker 1: Twitter was not a perfect company, Titter was not Twitter
Speaker 1: was not doing everything well before Elon musk took over.
Speaker 1: But what he has done is actually dismantled the type
Speaker 1: of infrastructure that actually had to be increased in order
Speaker 1: for the company to sort of live up to any
Speaker 1: type of commitment to deal with the misinformation, the disinformation,
Speaker 1: the amplification of hate and incitement of violence that has
Speaker 1: become part of these platforms, UM currents, UM sort of
Speaker 1: engagement and its legacy. Risad. The reason that this is
Speaker 1: so important is because people of color, people in marginalized communities,
Speaker 1: women face a disproportionate amount of harassment and hate online.
Speaker 1: Can you explain why this matters, why this matters for
Speaker 1: people who use Twitter, how he restructures and reframes the site. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, essentially what we're dealing with right now is
Speaker 1: not just Twitter, but all the technology companies are essentially
Speaker 1: self regulated companies and self regulated companies are unregulated company. Now,
Speaker 1: if we think about other industries, right, the our seatbelts
Speaker 1: are not necessarily safe in our cars are not necessarily
Speaker 1: safe because of the benevolence of the auto industry alone.
Speaker 1: They are safe because there's infrastructure, accountability standards UM. And
Speaker 1: so when you think about sort of the ways in
Speaker 1: which the business models work of social media platforms, what
Speaker 1: gets amplified UM. What UM is sort of the incentive
Speaker 1: structure of of what drives profits, how advertising is placed
Speaker 1: up against certain types of content and not other type
Speaker 1: of content, and how that type of content then gets prioritized.
Speaker 1: You watch a set a certain section of choices that
Speaker 1: are made that are far beyond freedom of speech. Freedom
Speaker 1: of speech is not the same as freedom to be
Speaker 1: amplified freedom of reach. And so to the extent that
Speaker 1: UM when you see that companies are making these type
Speaker 1: of choices, and then you look at the overwhelming body
Speaker 1: of research that shows UM just you know, you can
Speaker 1: look at a University of recent University of Cambridge study
Speaker 1: that actually looks at who's getting more reach and who's
Speaker 1: not getting more reach. If you see look at even
Speaker 1: the safety and trust teams inside of Twitter that we're
Speaker 1: pushing for more visibility and transparency around the algorithms. Those
Speaker 1: people who have now been UM let go. We know
Speaker 1: that UM the impact is clear that consequences for the
Speaker 1: communities can be life or death in terms of how
Speaker 1: how people are targeted, how people are exploited, how people
Speaker 1: are put in harm's way, and when you have an
Speaker 1: unaccountable billionaire running this company that feels he doesn't have
Speaker 1: to listen to anyone. The best that we have is
Speaker 1: the type of activism that holds those that seek to
Speaker 1: enable this platform, enable this leader accountable. And that's what
Speaker 1: we have to do. We have to speak truth to power.
Speaker 1: We have to hold folks accountable, and we also have
Speaker 1: to invite those who have a stake in this, even
Speaker 1: if they don't see themselves as activists who believe in democracy,
Speaker 1: who believe in fairness, to actually speak up and put
Speaker 1: their hand on the scale as well. Now, last question,
Speaker 1: the reason, you know, the timing is critical. We're heading
Speaker 1: into a mid term election in just a few days.
Speaker 1: You know, talk to us about the importance of that
Speaker 1: given you know, we're about to talk about a story
Speaker 1: about mid term candidates amplifying misinformation, getting the most engagement. Now, well,
Speaker 1: that's and that's not an accident. Right. The what we're
Speaker 1: seeing in terms of missing disinformation is not UM a
Speaker 1: car accidenty right, It's not just something that happens. It's manufactured.
Speaker 1: And when the tech platforms choose growth in profit over safety,
Speaker 1: integrity and security, they create an incentive structure where people
Speaker 1: believe that they're gonna benefit from it and that there
Speaker 1: will be rewards for it and there will not be
Speaker 1: consequences for it. And so when I think about even
Speaker 1: some of the changes that have been announced more recently, right,
Speaker 1: the eight dollars per um per month, which can seem
Speaker 1: almost fair on its face that um Elon Musk is
Speaker 1: charging for verification, Well, if you're not going to verify
Speaker 1: the identity, which he has not committed to, although he
Speaker 1: did talk about verification of identity on the call that
Speaker 1: we had on Tuesday. But all of the information coming
Speaker 1: out now is that they will not have time to
Speaker 1: develop a verification UM system before they roll it out.
Speaker 1: They can have folks claiming to be verified UM and
Speaker 1: then renaming themselves CNN or Bloomberg renaming their names UM
Speaker 1: under UM. The ausipicies of the Georgia's Secretary of State
Speaker 1: and then making claims about the election under a very
Speaker 1: high verified blue check because verification can be bought now
Speaker 1: and not actually have some set level of accountability. We
Speaker 1: watched after Elon Musk brought Twitter, the rise in the
Speaker 1: use of the inn word because his followers believed that
Speaker 1: they could now say that they could now move hateful
Speaker 1: language on the platform because he would support it. We
Speaker 1: have seen the increase of Q ANDN language in terms
Speaker 1: on the platforms since he decided he was gonna buy
Speaker 1: it back in April. Um over fifty of the counts
Speaker 1: from mid October to now have UM that have been
Speaker 1: amplifying Q and on um uh words and Q and
Speaker 1: on phrases have have come on since Elon Musk announced
Speaker 1: that he was gonna buy this buy this company. And
Speaker 1: so we have watchful sort of the people around him,
Speaker 1: the people who are fans of his, the people who
Speaker 1: are supporting him, act out in ways. And then we've
Speaker 1: watched Elon Musk validate that even his own behavior on
Speaker 1: this platform, from amplifying an anti gay conspiracy theory against
Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi's husband to other things that he has tweeted
Speaker 1: out since he has bought this company makes us all
Speaker 1: have the question is he truly serious about leading this
Speaker 1: company and and and a color Change. We have dealt
Speaker 1: deeply with tech CEOs and signals across the board, and
Speaker 1: I've never seen someone respond this way, So everyone should
Speaker 1: be concerned. All right. Uh, to be fair, he did
Speaker 1: delete that tweet, but you're right did come out in
Speaker 1: the first place. Rashad Robinson, thanks for talking to us
Speaker 1: about why this matters so much, President of Color of Change,
Speaker 1: Thank you for stopping by for today's crypto report. We're
Speaker 1: focusing on the web fundraising landscape of the top blockchain
Speaker 1: venture capitalists. Bloom Shinali Bossik is in New York sale.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Emily. I'm joined now by poly
Speaker 1: Chain Capital general partner Naraj Pant. Polly Chain was created
Speaker 1: in two dozen sixteen by Olaf Carson. We the third
Speaker 1: employee at coin base. You know, Nag, Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for your time, because you are seeing that you know,
Speaker 1: little rally here and not just Bitcoin, You're seeing it
Speaker 1: in a lot of alt coins. And I'd love your
Speaker 1: perspective here in terms of how long that really holds
Speaker 1: at a time that's been so volatile and whether that
Speaker 1: even matters. Yeah, thank you Shinali. UM. I think the
Speaker 1: big thing that we're focused on, you know, seeing sort
Speaker 1: of how the markets have changed, is UM looking for
Speaker 1: progress with with user adoption. I think our interest is
Speaker 1: seeing the cryptocurrency space expand even more than it has today,
Speaker 1: and we're excited to look at new UM, any new traction,
Speaker 1: any new adoption, and so we hope that that kind
Speaker 1: of takes place over the next couple of years as
Speaker 1: we're investing into new companies. I'm kind of curious as
Speaker 1: so what types of new investments you're willing to make
Speaker 1: at this phase. Are there things you would avoid? Kind
Speaker 1: of given the changes you're seeing in the market at large.
Speaker 1: UM our strategy has remained relatively similar UM through both
Speaker 1: bull and bear markets. UM. We've been around since and
Speaker 1: have seen a number of different cycles, and what's important
Speaker 1: to us is investing and hopefully generational companies and protocols
Speaker 1: that I know we think can stand the test of time. UM.
Speaker 1: We invest sort of across the space everywhere, from consumer
Speaker 1: to infrastructure. UM. We think especially now, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of exciting opportunities for infrastructure given the sort of slow
Speaker 1: down in the markets. UM, we think this is a
Speaker 1: good time for developers to come in and prepare for
Speaker 1: the next wave of usage and adoption such that we
Speaker 1: can really let a lot of people use usecryptocurrencies. I'm
Speaker 1: kind of curious here in terms of what you see
Speaker 1: in terms of jobs and investing in new people in
Speaker 1: different spaces in this industry. You know, it was just
Speaker 1: a couple of days ago that we've reported that Galaxy
Speaker 1: Digital would be cutting a significant amount of its workforce.
Speaker 1: Do you think that the industry still faces a lot
Speaker 1: more pain when it comes to the workforce. UM. I
Speaker 1: think we're lucky in that One important exciting trend about
Speaker 1: a lot of crypto companies is that they don't require
Speaker 1: as many employees to run. I think where we see
Speaker 1: a lot of large Web two companies UM struggle is
Speaker 1: that they often overhire and hire a lot more than
Speaker 1: they need to run the service. I think a great
Speaker 1: part of the Web three space is that many of
Speaker 1: these protocols and companies are are run on Ethereum or
Speaker 1: run on another large protocol and allows these teams to
Speaker 1: operate a lot more leanly and and just with less
Speaker 1: people overall. UM. So, while we still want to be
Speaker 1: cautious in our approach and advising all our portfolio companies
Speaker 1: not to be too um braws and about hiring and
Speaker 1: spending UM. We do think that this is a great
Speaker 1: sort of structural change in the way that Web three
Speaker 1: companies are relative to to sort of Web two companies.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought up Ethereum in that answer, because
Speaker 1: I'm curious about what you think about Ethereum post emerge
Speaker 1: and what does it mean in terms of its competition
Speaker 1: when it comes to Bitcoin. We're seeing a lot of
Speaker 1: exciting development happened on the on the Ethereum blockchain, both
Speaker 1: from Ethereum itself, seeing the new East to Merge happened successfully,
Speaker 1: seeing developers continuing to build applications, continuing to see a
Speaker 1: lot of demand for everything from defied and f T
Speaker 1: s UM and even transactions. And we're seeing a lot
Speaker 1: of interesting opportunities being built around ethereum um. This includes
Speaker 1: things like um what are called Layer two's roll ups
Speaker 1: that allow you to scale transaction capacity even further UM,
Speaker 1: seeing new privacy applications being built and and overall also
Speaker 1: seeing a lot of traction from traditional companies hoping to
Speaker 1: tap into the web through market and Ethereum and it's
Speaker 1: sort of related projects is the way for these companies
Speaker 1: to do that. So we're overall very happy and excited
Speaker 1: about developer adoption and continue to track it very closely
Speaker 1: on on Ethereum. Earlier this year we did see a
Speaker 1: wave of companies that got into liquidity issues or had
Speaker 1: to pause withdrawals. You had exposure to at least one
Speaker 1: of them, right coin flex. What was there to be
Speaker 1: learned from all of that this year? I think, Uh,
Speaker 1: these are good lessons to learn for the for the
Speaker 1: space overall. I think, UM, they teach these companies risk management,
Speaker 1: and I think in some ways the failures we saw
Speaker 1: in the space, we're not because as a web three
Speaker 1: protocols and the smart contracts didn't work or anything like that,
Speaker 1: but they were a failure of the meat space agreements,
Speaker 1: you know, the real world legal contracts attesting to a
Speaker 1: u M or attesting to UM proof of funds or
Speaker 1: anything like that. In a number of cases UM, that
Speaker 1: was what really failed UM. And so in some ways
Speaker 1: it's highlighting systemic risks that exists not only in the
Speaker 1: in the crypto financial space, but in the broader financial
Speaker 1: industry as a whole, So I think it overalls strengthenings
Speaker 1: both defy but also the crypto and financial space as
Speaker 1: a whole. That's probably chained Capital's partner near agepan Take.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your time. Back to you
Speaker 1: in San franciscanly Shinios, thank you so much. Coming up,
Speaker 1: as the mid terms are fast approaching, what's the impact
Speaker 1: of misinformation still running on checked online, like the falsehood
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump won election? Our social media companies doing
Speaker 1: about it. We're going to talk about that next, all right,
Speaker 1: don't want to continue our conversation now about the mid
Speaker 1: terms and content moderation, and not just on Twitter, We're
Speaker 1: also talking about Facebook and YouTube and other platforms. After
Speaker 1: Bloomberg analyzed hundreds of candidates social media posts and found
Speaker 1: rampant misinformation, Bloomberg's Jack Gillum poured through it all and
Speaker 1: joins us now for more on his research, Jack, what
Speaker 1: did you find about candidates amplifying misinformation, specifically the big lie?
Speaker 1: How many of them are actually doing this? So emily,
Speaker 1: we took a look at all of the republic and
Speaker 1: candidates running for not just Congress but Secretary of State,
Speaker 1: which oversees the vote count governor's attorneys general in all
Speaker 1: the states across the country, and we found a hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty candidates have been pushing what use called the
Speaker 1: big live this is this you know, false theory or
Speaker 1: this this this conspiracy theory and theory almost that Donald
Speaker 1: Trump won the election, that Joe Biden is a diligiti
Speaker 1: and president um. And So what we did is we
Speaker 1: wanted to look at how these candidates running for office,
Speaker 1: some of whom very well might went on Tuesday night,
Speaker 1: actually pushed the meshes on platforms, especially now that Twitter
Speaker 1: has a new owner, Facebook might not be labeling all
Speaker 1: these ads, and we wanted to get a closer look
Speaker 1: at what was really happening. So how did the companies
Speaker 1: respond when you went to them with this? So Twitter
Speaker 1: did not respond for comment. UM. We're not sure if
Speaker 1: that's because the communications team either some folks were laid
Speaker 1: off in the massive wayoffs has been happening in the
Speaker 1: last day. UM. Facebook essentially said, look, we deal with
Speaker 1: the you know, in their view, I guess the larger
Speaker 1: issues preventing people from voting, violence, those sorts of things,
Speaker 1: and that they run ads really encouraging people to vote
Speaker 1: for and to say that, look, there's really not election misinformation.
Speaker 1: This is the real deal. Um. But I think the
Speaker 1: real questions you're going forward is why a lot of
Speaker 1: these ads weren't flagged. And we did, in fact find
Speaker 1: one ad by carry Lake, the Republican nominate for governor
Speaker 1: of Arizona, where one of her false election claims was
Speaker 1: actually flagged by Facebook, but the majority, in fact, almost
Speaker 1: all the other ones we found were not. So just
Speaker 1: three days to go before the election, how are you
Speaker 1: expecting potential, you know, amplification of this to ramp up
Speaker 1: before November eight? I mean, it's no secret that social
Speaker 1: media is an important avenue that hundreds of millions of
Speaker 1: Americans used. It's no secret also by that extent that Russia,
Speaker 1: you know, really tried to hijack that in seen ahead
Speaker 1: of that election. Um. I think this is going to
Speaker 1: be an interesting thing to watch, is that we have
Speaker 1: a new ownership at Twitter and what they're going to
Speaker 1: do in terms of content moderation. We have Facebook that
Speaker 1: has not labeled a lot of these ads that are
Speaker 1: clear pieces of misinformation about election. I think it's going
Speaker 1: to be a real interesting picture of how that misinformation
Speaker 1: might play out in terms of votes, by the way,
Speaker 1: not just being cast on Tuesday, but in the states
Speaker 1: like Arizona with mail and balloting and early voting are
Speaker 1: going on right now. So you know, what are you
Speaker 1: expecting to happen next here, especially as you know these
Speaker 1: elections are happening the ad industry and turmoil. These companies,
Speaker 1: whether it's because of Elon Mosk or you know, a
Speaker 1: broader economic slowdown, are kind of scrambling for revenue. I
Speaker 1: think I think that's a good question, Emily. I think
Speaker 1: what we're going to happen here is that you have
Speaker 1: these companies that are going to have to grapple with
Speaker 1: a serious issue of misinformation. It's one that has taken
Speaker 1: hold in the Republican Party that we found in this
Speaker 1: analysis again, so we'll just see what's going to happen
Speaker 1: to come Tuesday. Jack Gillub, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: your reporting. And that does it for this edition of
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Technology. I'm Emily changing in San Francisco. Have a
Speaker 1: wonderful weekend everyone. Brendan Carr will join us next week.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg