Speaker 1: From the heart of where innovation, money and power colli
Speaker 1: in Silicon Valley and beyond. This is Bloomberg Technology with
Speaker 1: Emily Jay Him Emily Chang in San Francisco, and this
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg Technology coming up in the next hour. A
Speaker 1: conflict that will only get more brutal. US officials warn
Speaker 1: more indiscriminate tactics coming from Russian forces in an attempt
Speaker 1: to suppress the Ukrainian resistance. We're live from the White House.
Speaker 1: Plus Apple stopping all products sales in Russia, saying the
Speaker 1: company stands with all of the people who are suffering
Speaker 1: as a result of the violence. And Airbnb says it
Speaker 1: will help shelter one thousand Ukrainian refugees who fled their
Speaker 1: country as Russian forces continue their assault. My converse station
Speaker 1: with AIRBNBC O Brian Chesky. Later this hour, Twitter announcing
Speaker 1: that it's now labeling tweets affiliated with Russian state media,
Speaker 1: and effort the company says to quote significantly reduced the
Speaker 1: circulation of content pushed by the Russian government. Twitter also
Speaker 1: saying it will put labels on other state affiliated media
Speaker 1: outlets in coming weeks. My next guest says this is
Speaker 1: an important step as we examine the role of disinformation
Speaker 1: on social media. Joining me now Renee Arresta. She is
Speaker 1: a research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory. She spent
Speaker 1: years studying disinformation and even testified before Congress on these issues. Rene,
Speaker 1: great to have you back with us, so talk to
Speaker 1: us about the significance of labeling state affiliated media and
Speaker 1: is labeling enough or should it be blocked entirely to
Speaker 1: stop the spread of disinformation? These are really hard questions, Emily,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me on UM. First of all, the
Speaker 1: labeling state media initiatives actually begin at an early when
Speaker 1: we started to see accounts out of China, Chinese state
Speaker 1: media using Facebook, using Facebook ads in particular to push
Speaker 1: false and misleading claims about COVID to audiences worldwide. That
Speaker 1: was one of the initial events that kind of precipitated
Speaker 1: the idea that people who are receiving information should know
Speaker 1: what the source is, particularly if the source is from
Speaker 1: an account link to a foreign government. A lot of
Speaker 1: the conversation about disinformation on social media focuses on the
Speaker 1: bots and the trolls and the kind of covert chatter
Speaker 1: that comes and goes. You know, we see waves of
Speaker 1: accounts come and then get taken down, and those accounts
Speaker 1: are interesting. Those accounts can potentially shape a conversation, maybe
Speaker 1: participate in making something trend. But ultimately, state media accounts
Speaker 1: have standing audiences in the tens to hundreds of millions
Speaker 1: of followers. And these are the mouthpieces, the very overt
Speaker 1: attributable broadcast mouthpieces that governments have built up over time
Speaker 1: to put their view of events out to the world.
Speaker 1: Uh in a conflict, Sorry, go ahead, what do you
Speaker 1: let's let's talk about that in the current conflict. What
Speaker 1: are you seeing from Russian state run media that is
Speaker 1: particularly alarming? And how widespread is it on bague social platforms?
Speaker 1: So what we're seeing is is states using their media
Speaker 1: outlets to target different types of messages to different people
Speaker 1: depending on where they are. So Russia has not really
Speaker 1: done a whole lot targeting Western audiences in this particular conflict.
Speaker 1: We are not the the keep the audiences that they
Speaker 1: consider most relevant. They're really focusing their communication domestically on
Speaker 1: their own citizens, trying to create support for a conflict,
Speaker 1: and then they're focusing near to the conflict itself, trying
Speaker 1: to mislead the people of Ukraine, trying to make them
Speaker 1: think that their government is leaving, that their fighters are
Speaker 1: giving up, that that you know, that that the that
Speaker 1: the resistance is collapsing to demoralize the public there, and
Speaker 1: that is where, and particularly in a situation like this,
Speaker 1: some of the false and misleading information, including that put
Speaker 1: out by state media, can have a significant degree of
Speaker 1: harm in the conflict area itself. So Western audiences or
Speaker 1: non regional audiences are a wholly separate issue. They may
Speaker 1: be trying to shape public perception, but ultimately the thing
Speaker 1: that is the real concern that platforms are trying to
Speaker 1: be aware of is information from Russia targeting people in
Speaker 1: Ukraine or targeting people in the immediate region, because they're
Speaker 1: trying to use the information more to bolster the shooting war.
Speaker 1: And to your understanding, what has the impact of that been.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we've heard reports from folks in Russia,
Speaker 1: folks who have family in Russia that they don't many
Speaker 1: of them don't have any idea the extent of what's
Speaker 1: really going on. We've seen the same the same commentary
Speaker 1: from people from even captured soldiers who say we were
Speaker 1: told that they would welcome us, we were not told
Speaker 1: that this is that this is what we were going
Speaker 1: to be going there for us. There's a whole lot
Speaker 1: to kind of unpack and and and try to understand
Speaker 1: in that dynamic. But one thing that's been really remarkable
Speaker 1: about this is the Ukrainian government, Ukrainian ministers constantly on Twitter,
Speaker 1: constantly on social platforms, on Telegram and other places, telling
Speaker 1: the world what is actually happening, actively pre bunking. You
Speaker 1: have President of Atlanski uh regularly streaming himself, you know,
Speaker 1: reinforcing the fact we are here, we are fighting. And
Speaker 1: so in that, in that action, in that that quite
Speaker 1: visible use of social media from the Ukrainian government, from
Speaker 1: the people of Ukraine, you are seeing a pretty remarkable
Speaker 1: pushback against against Russia's efforts here. And this is where
Speaker 1: this question of what should be blocked, what should be allowed, um,
Speaker 1: you know, the people are spending a lot of time
Speaker 1: actually kind of flooding the pages of Russian state media,
Speaker 1: leaving pro Ukraine comments at this point. So I think
Speaker 1: the decision to to respond to governments in Europe and
Speaker 1: others who want to see content either made inaccessible or
Speaker 1: um or or temporarily blocked in certain regions makes sense
Speaker 1: in a particular part of the world that maybe is
Speaker 1: more directly impacted by certain to misinformation versus what we're
Speaker 1: seeing in the West, where you know, American audiences can
Speaker 1: still go and see this content if they're so inclined. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: the way that presidents has been communicating with his people
Speaker 1: and with people around the world have been incredibly powerful.
Speaker 1: What do you think the platform should be doing? I mean,
Speaker 1: Meta announced it stopped recommending Russian state media to Facebook
Speaker 1: and Instagram users. Is that enough enough to do it now?
Speaker 1: Should it be you know, you know, last beyond uh,
Speaker 1: you know, when this war, hopefully this war is over.
Speaker 1: That's a really challenging question. For a long time, We've
Speaker 1: had this idea, you know, in America, UM that under
Speaker 1: something like the Foreign Agent Registration Act, we should know
Speaker 1: what foreign governments are saying, we should be able to
Speaker 1: receive that information, that communication. But in a time of
Speaker 1: crisis such as this, in a time in which life
Speaker 1: and death decisions can come about as a result of
Speaker 1: people seeing incorrect information. Uh, there are rules that are
Speaker 1: being put into play in the short term that need
Speaker 1: to be more carefully considered as we evaluate where to
Speaker 1: go in the long term. Now you talked about how
Speaker 1: difficult it is to discern misinformation on TikTok in particular.
Speaker 1: Is there something different about TikTok that makes it more
Speaker 1: of a minefield when it comes to misinformation and why?
Speaker 1: Look is you know, most people consume TikTok in their
Speaker 1: app it's um. You know, I opened up my TikTok
Speaker 1: the other night and my the very first video that
Speaker 1: began to play was a video game and it had
Speaker 1: a nameless account. It was a shooting video game, first
Speaker 1: person shooter, UM. And they were claiming that this was
Speaker 1: a scene of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. And
Speaker 1: you know Twitter has been pretty good about either labeling
Speaker 1: or throttling these you know Facebook as well, But on
Speaker 1: on TikTok, there it is with you know, kind of
Speaker 1: a million likes, and it's right there that the first
Speaker 1: thing that that place and so the other thing that
Speaker 1: TikTok does not have is actually that that very basic
Speaker 1: state media labeling. UM. So when there is content that
Speaker 1: is produced by propagandists, the audience doesn't know. So this
Speaker 1: combination of content being repurposed, UM, content being put out
Speaker 1: by a you know, by an unverified or actively um,
Speaker 1: you know, incentivized to harm kind of sourced. UH. The
Speaker 1: the people who are receiving the content on the platform
Speaker 1: can't tell that. It takes them a lot of extra
Speaker 1: time to go and try to reverse image search a
Speaker 1: clip from a video, which is not something that is
Speaker 1: native or easy to do on a mobile phone when
Speaker 1: the information is being pushed to you. So I think
Speaker 1: that TikTok really lads it's partners in the social media
Speaker 1: of the big social media players in not having these
Speaker 1: policies in place. And more importantly, we're seeing Meta and
Speaker 1: we're seeing Twitter reacting very quickly to UH to either
Speaker 1: take down networks that they've found or to come up
Speaker 1: with these new labeling policies that are specifically tailors with
Speaker 1: the current events on the ground. And we don't really
Speaker 1: see TikTok following suit in that regard. Interesting that you
Speaker 1: see TikTok being behind there. Thank you for helping us
Speaker 1: navigate some of these really thorny issues. Were NAT arrest
Speaker 1: or to arrest a researcher at the Stamford Internet Observatory.
Speaker 1: Good to have you with us. Coming up is the
Speaker 1: Zoom Glory over. We're gonna talk with Zoom CFO Kelly
Speaker 1: Stuckelberg after the company's projected sales this quarter fell short
Speaker 1: of Wall Street estimates. How it can earn back investor confidence?
Speaker 1: That's next? This is Bloomberg. While as more employees returned
Speaker 1: to work in their offices, questions loom about whether Zooms
Speaker 1: appealed during the pandemic era will fade. Zoom shares have
Speaker 1: declined by more than from their October high. How will
Speaker 1: the company sustain growth beyond the pandemic boom? CFO Kelly
Speaker 1: Stuckelberg with a spell for more. Kelly, I have to
Speaker 1: ask you, given the geopolitical situation, your reaction to what
Speaker 1: we're seeing in Ukraine. Obviously there's a humanitarian concern, but
Speaker 1: how are you viewing the impact on the economy and
Speaker 1: to potentially Zoom's business. So, first of all, of course,
Speaker 1: our how our hearts go out to everyone impacted by
Speaker 1: this unfortunate situation. We feel feel lucky as an organization
Speaker 1: in a company that we don't have any employees that
Speaker 1: are directly impacted me the region. We do have some
Speaker 1: of their family members that are there, so we're doing
Speaker 1: everything that we can to help, and we have very
Speaker 1: minimal exposure from a revenue perspective in either of the
Speaker 1: two regions. So in terms of the impact that we're
Speaker 1: we expect directly on our business, it's really dimonimous. So
Speaker 1: let's talk about Zoom. You know, as I said, there
Speaker 1: are questions about whether the glory days are over, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure that you will disagree. You're planning to stop
Speaker 1: reporting the number of customers with overten employees, pivot to
Speaker 1: reporting just the number of enterprise customers. Can you explain
Speaker 1: that change and what it means for this bigger picture? Sure?
Speaker 1: So first of all, I just want to high that
Speaker 1: we were very pleased with our results for f y
Speaker 1: twenty two that we reported yesterday, growing year over year
Speaker 1: over four point one billion dollars, and as you highlighted,
Speaker 1: we really have seen tremendous growth into parts of our business,
Speaker 1: which is the enterprise, which is that that it's touched
Speaker 1: by our direct our channel and our I S D partners,
Speaker 1: and then our online business, which is now protect prigical
Speaker 1: cent of our business. So we are shifting metrics as
Speaker 1: you mentioned, to focus on the enterprise, which is this
Speaker 1: is really where we see the long term sustainable growth
Speaker 1: of our business, and we saw strong performance here with
Speaker 1: you know, customers with more than um hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 1: of tradeling Twelveland revenue accelerating. We saw strength with Zoom
Speaker 1: Phone that had a record quarterer with over five fifty
Speaker 1: seats added, and so we're really excited about the future.
Speaker 1: We also last week announced Zoom Contact Center, which is
Speaker 1: our cloud contact centered solution, which is fully integrated into
Speaker 1: the Zoom platform. So this is really a big year
Speaker 1: of transition for Zoom, as we're moving from being a
Speaker 1: killer meing app to a platform for communications and collaborations.
Speaker 1: Right now, I'm curious if you can clarify zoom stance
Speaker 1: on Ukraine. I noticed that some parts of the country,
Speaker 1: the separatist Aias, Crimea, etcetera, and not serviced by Zoom,
Speaker 1: but Russia is not on the list of banned countries.
Speaker 1: Can you explain that? So we do have some business
Speaker 1: in in the region of Russia that is mostly through resellers,
Speaker 1: and we will continue, of course to comply with all
Speaker 1: the US laws and sanctions and we're very closely monitoring those.
Speaker 1: Is there any consideration of self sanctioning. Obviously, we saw
Speaker 1: Apple take a dramatic move today forward as well, We
Speaker 1: certainly internally keep discussing all the options in how do
Speaker 1: we best support everyone that's in you know, ukn Ukraine region,
Speaker 1: and how do we do what's appropriate and what should
Speaker 1: we do as a good corporate citizens. So as this
Speaker 1: is a you know, very quickly evolving um situation, as
Speaker 1: you well know, we keep discussing it and monitoring it
Speaker 1: and trying to make decision in real time basis. And
Speaker 1: you know, to this big ut question you mentioned zoom
Speaker 1: phone earlier, talk to us about how well these ancillary
Speaker 1: ancillary businesses are doing and whether you see that sort
Speaker 1: of padding, you know, any lack of growth you might
Speaker 1: see in the core part of the business over the
Speaker 1: longer term. You know. So our strategy has been from
Speaker 1: the beginning to start resoom meetings and then continue to
Speaker 1: expand our share of wallet from our customers by selling
Speaker 1: them additional services, and zoom phone is a perfect example
Speaker 1: of that. We also see zo zoom rooms as organizations
Speaker 1: are thinking about welcoming their employees back to the office.
Speaker 1: The conference room strategy is really key to make sure
Speaker 1: that as they have employees working remotely, that it's inclusive
Speaker 1: and that they're bringing them together in a way that
Speaker 1: works for everybody, those are inside the room and those
Speaker 1: that are without. Also, just as we expect if you
Speaker 1: work to be hybrid, we also expect events to be
Speaker 1: hybrid as well. And our new product, Zoom Events when
Speaker 1: g a last year and that's really as we look
Speaker 1: forward to these large events and people want to come together,
Speaker 1: but they also want to have that virtual complince. Okay,
Speaker 1: sooom CFL Kelly Steckleberg. Always great to have you here.
Speaker 1: Thank you Kelly for taking the time to join us.
Speaker 1: Airbnb is offering free shelter for up to one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand Ukrainian refugees fleeing the Russian invasion of their country.
Speaker 1: CEO Brian Chesky telling me he plans to work with
Speaker 1: neighboring European states to provide long term stays as well.
Speaker 1: Take a listen to my conversation with him earlier today.
Speaker 1: We announced yesterday that Airbnb and partnership with airb dot
Speaker 1: org and our host community have a goal to house
Speaker 1: up to a hundred thousand refugees fleeing Ukraine. Now, since
Speaker 1: we made that announcement, we've had over thirty thousand people
Speaker 1: visit the page to learn about how to be a
Speaker 1: host or to donate, and we're just trying to get
Speaker 1: more word out because basically the name of the game
Speaker 1: is the more houses we have, the more refugees we
Speaker 1: can house. What's the feedback are getting from governments from
Speaker 1: border crossings about the situation that these refugees find themselves
Speaker 1: in and the crosshairs of a war. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: we've reached out to fourteen different governments in Central Eastern Europe,
Speaker 1: governments like Poland and Hungary and Romania and Germany, and
Speaker 1: what they're telling us is mostly thank you, because there
Speaker 1: are last reports I heard over six hundred thousand refugees
Speaker 1: that have been fleeing Ukraine, and so these governments need
Speaker 1: to find a way to house them, and we can
Speaker 1: provide as an infrastructure. You know, we've housed fifty four
Speaker 1: thousand refugees for free since we started air VnB, and
Speaker 1: we've housed over a hundred thousand people in need for
Speaker 1: all different events for free. So I think we can
Speaker 1: be We're being viewed, I hope, as a solution to
Speaker 1: a problem that they have. We can be a great partner,
Speaker 1: and I think they're appreciative of the support and the help.
Speaker 1: What's been the response from in these countries. Has there
Speaker 1: been an outpouring of support. Yeah, I mean it's just
Speaker 1: starting obviously in the last point for hours, but we
Speaker 1: have we have had a large response so far. And
Speaker 1: just to give you a point of reference, two years ago,
Speaker 1: when the pandemic initially of course broke out, um, we
Speaker 1: were we worked with the French government for example, to
Speaker 1: provide housing for workers in the front line. Tens of
Speaker 1: thousands of hosts stepped up. We had thousands of tens
Speaker 1: of thousands of hosts step up provide housing for Afghan refugees,
Speaker 1: and we're expecting a pretty big response. Again. The main
Speaker 1: thing we need to do is just make sure that
Speaker 1: in the kind of flood of all the noise going on,
Speaker 1: that people who have homes that have availability in these
Speaker 1: countries know that they can take in refugees. Now, I
Speaker 1: know AIRB, B and D has a significant number of
Speaker 1: listings in Ukraine given the number of short term rentals
Speaker 1: I see in Kiev and livid in Odessa. Do you
Speaker 1: have employees in Ukraine and what is the status of
Speaker 1: your operations and hosts there? Yeah, we we we we
Speaker 1: don't have employees. We don't. We don't have a meaningful
Speaker 1: number of employees in Central Eastern Europe, were primarily in
Speaker 1: certain hubs. Um Now, as you imagine, we have thousands
Speaker 1: of listings and countries in all over Central and Eastern Europe,
Speaker 1: and so our our big focus right now. Right now,
Speaker 1: we're focused on two big priorities. Number One, we were
Speaker 1: trying to make sure that our hosts and our community
Speaker 1: is stage. So we're doing a lot of outreach to
Speaker 1: our hosting guests in countries all over central Eastern Europe.
Speaker 1: The second focus we have is trying to house as
Speaker 1: many refugees as probably as possible. And this entire refugee
Speaker 1: effort Emily really started three days ago. You know, it
Speaker 1: was Thursday Friday, it became apparent that there were going
Speaker 1: to be hundreds of thousands of people fleeing Ukraine, and
Speaker 1: so we've worked all weekend through yesterday to be able
Speaker 1: to mobilize this effort. Now, several companies have been self sanctioning,
Speaker 1: pulling back their business operations in Russia. We just saw
Speaker 1: Apple pause all products sales in Russia. I know Airbnb
Speaker 1: also has a number of listings in Russia. You consider
Speaker 1: halting business there what kind of conversations are you having. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, as you can imagine, we have a handful
Speaker 1: right now because we made this huge commitment to house
Speaker 1: up to a hundred thousand refugees. That being said, I'll
Speaker 1: say two things. Number One, um, you know we are
Speaker 1: so we are going to cooperate with the US government.
Speaker 1: We're in constant contact with them and support of whatever
Speaker 1: sanctions that they intend to impose. Number Two, as a
Speaker 1: practical matter, a lot of the sanctions have imposed on
Speaker 1: the Russian banks in Russia have limited our ability to
Speaker 1: do business, the ability of people in Russia to receive
Speaker 1: money and the ability of people in Russia to pay.
Speaker 1: So as a practical matter, a lot of our business
Speaker 1: is probably going to be un paused just from the
Speaker 1: inability to be able to pay. But we are looking
Speaker 1: at other steps. As you can imagine, we're just triaging
Speaker 1: right now. So on that note, how are you expecting
Speaker 1: the war to impact travel overall across Europe? I mean,
Speaker 1: what are you bracing for here? Hard to know. I
Speaker 1: don't really know what is going to unfold over the
Speaker 1: coming weeks and months, But what I will say is
Speaker 1: that whatever happens in Europe, our business is incredibly resilient.
Speaker 1: I mean, we have nearly every type of home and
Speaker 1: nearly every type of community at nearly every price point.
Speaker 1: And I think with the last two years have shown
Speaker 1: is however the world changes, our business can adapt. And
Speaker 1: so you know, we're continue to ask ourselves how can
Speaker 1: we help in this time and need. The most important
Speaker 1: way we can help right now is housing people that
Speaker 1: need a place to stay. But you know, I'm sure
Speaker 1: this is going to have a disruption on European travel,
Speaker 1: but we'll be able to adapt to whatever that disruption is.
Speaker 1: Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky. There you can catch more of
Speaker 1: my interview with Chesskey at Bloomberg dot Com. Time now
Speaker 1: for our crypto report. I want to bring in our
Speaker 1: crypto Contributortionale Bostick. As we see bitcoin surging for a
Speaker 1: second day. We've seen bitcoin decoupling from traditional markets here,
Speaker 1: beginning to trade on its own. And is this being
Speaker 1: influenced by what's happening and yeah, the there's a few
Speaker 1: really interesting things happening in the market here, Emily. Have
Speaker 1: bitcoin prices themselves getting closer now to forty four thousand
Speaker 1: dollars really getting lift here. The last couple of days,
Speaker 1: and if you'll take a look at the prices here,
Speaker 1: you take a look at a bitcoin price that's risen
Speaker 1: over the last two or three days, really much higher
Speaker 1: than four days ago, while stocks in that period over
Speaker 1: the last two days have dropped. Where there's a correlation
Speaker 1: just about a week or so ago that looks like
Speaker 1: it's starting to break off. I also want to take
Speaker 1: a look here at etherorium prices, because you have a
Speaker 1: theorium here now reaching about three thousand dollars uh, and
Speaker 1: it also has had a significant lift last couple of days. Now,
Speaker 1: when you take a look at volumes, you see that
Speaker 1: ethereum also closely tied to a lot of stable coins.
Speaker 1: A lot of discussion around stable coins and the value
Speaker 1: of them in this new era where there's a lot
Speaker 1: of uncertainty. Besides ethereum, you're seeing a lift in stable
Speaker 1: coins like financial US dollar and tether, and so let's
Speaker 1: see when volumes are really very high in those assets,
Speaker 1: how much of this consistent in the next couple of days.
Speaker 1: All right, Shanali, stick with us. I want to continue
Speaker 1: this conversation about crypto and the role in the Ukrainian war.
Speaker 1: Now with our next guest Lee Droken from star Killer Capital. Lee,
Speaker 1: You've been tweeting furiously about some of these issues, and
Speaker 1: I'm curious what you read into the rise in crypto
Speaker 1: is a surely to do with what's happening in Russia
Speaker 1: and Ukraine? Is it because they're simply more demand there?
Speaker 1: There's definitely a spot that that's independent of other risk assets,
Speaker 1: and you know, as you just pointed out, the correlations
Speaker 1: have definitely broken off. Specifically, you know, we still have
Speaker 1: a vix equity VIX above thirty, which historically has led
Speaker 1: to incredibly high correlations between crypto and equities. We've also seen,
Speaker 1: you know, on chain analytics as well as spot flow
Speaker 1: coming from different exchanges that basically says there's there's something
Speaker 1: between three and four times the amount of volume in
Speaker 1: ruble to BTC or these pairs on these centralizing exchanges,
Speaker 1: and that's that's a one way trade obviously right now.
Speaker 1: So there's definitely a bit coming out of that area
Speaker 1: of the world for obvious reasons. People are trying to
Speaker 1: get the hell out of rubles. How long that last
Speaker 1: is definitely a question, because the Russians are cutting off,
Speaker 1: you know, all that X flows out of the country,
Speaker 1: and at some point you're just not going to be
Speaker 1: able to use a card or a bank account to
Speaker 1: put any more money into these exchanges. So look, certainly
Speaker 1: we're seeing crypto we used to support the Ukrainian resistance
Speaker 1: effort in incredibly powerful ways. There's also this major concern
Speaker 1: that the Russians could use cryptocurrency to circumvent sanctions. Do
Speaker 1: you see that as a real risk? I don't think
Speaker 1: it's a reasonable scenario today. Come back in three or
Speaker 1: four years from now, maybe sooner, and may be the
Speaker 1: market is liquid and large enough to the point where
Speaker 1: it could support that kind of evasion, but today it
Speaker 1: just it wouldn't be possible. Basically, one, they have capital
Speaker 1: controls on everything at this point, so you've got to
Speaker 1: try and get it out of a bank account and
Speaker 1: onto a centralizing exchange. That's hard enough, and in that
Speaker 1: part of the world, there really aren't that many DEFY
Speaker 1: direct on ramps either, and so getting into defy isn't
Speaker 1: really that easy. But even if you were able to
Speaker 1: get it into a ci FI exchange. So you're gonna
Speaker 1: do this in bitcoin, which really is a great medium
Speaker 1: of transfer given its volatility, and there really aren't enough
Speaker 1: defy stable coin pairs between the rouble and USD or
Speaker 1: eu R to make this a viable solution for getting
Speaker 1: around these types of things. And so it's really up
Speaker 1: to the CEI FI exchanges to make sure that they
Speaker 1: are complying, you know, with all of the sanctions and
Speaker 1: regulatory issues, and it seems like they have been so far.
Speaker 1: It's hard to believe that somebody could get enough money
Speaker 1: into defy at this point to really evade what they're
Speaker 1: what they're attempting to. And I'm really curious here you
Speaker 1: make this point on capital controls and Russia's ability to
Speaker 1: really clamp down on people who are the ordinary citizens
Speaker 1: who are trying to move their money into crypto, and
Speaker 1: I'm wondering what that says more broadly about a government's
Speaker 1: ability to stop people from transacting and cryptocurrencies when they
Speaker 1: need to. Yeah. Well, look, there's a very good reason
Speaker 1: why people like me deeply believe in what's going on
Speaker 1: and defy, uh. And it's not for some crazy libertarian reason.
Speaker 1: It's it's because of things like this. You know, the
Speaker 1: United States is only one country on this earth, and
Speaker 1: there are a lot of other places where you don't
Speaker 1: want to be holding your entire net worth in some
Speaker 1: you know, kangaroo currency, and the ruble has been terrible
Speaker 1: for a decade now, so um, I think it's a
Speaker 1: very important, you know, concept that this ecosystem ends up flourishing.
Speaker 1: What you're also seeing right now is this battle between
Speaker 1: centralized stable coins and decentralized algorithmic stable coins. Tera. Luna
Speaker 1: is going crazy right now because there's a massive inflow
Speaker 1: of capital into that protocol. Because it's a decentralized stable coin,
Speaker 1: there is no fiat bank account that a government can
Speaker 1: regulate and clamp down on and and take your you know,
Speaker 1: stable coin, whereas USDC or some of these other centralized
Speaker 1: stable coins, they can absolutely do that. There's literal dollars
Speaker 1: sitting in a vault somewhere. So I think there's a
Speaker 1: very interesting difference between you know, those two frameworks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's interesting. Luna is definitely worth discussing at some point
Speaker 1: against soon. But I do want to also get your
Speaker 1: thoughts here, Lee on this idea of what you called
Speaker 1: the cryptoization of four acts, and this idea that there
Speaker 1: really are only a couple of currencies here that convert
Speaker 1: easily to what extent do we see what's going on
Speaker 1: in the world today accelerating that move from traditional foreign
Speaker 1: exchange as we know it to crypto. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: absolutely inevitable. And there are a lot of things in
Speaker 1: crypto that I don't think are completely inevitable. This is
Speaker 1: one of them. Trading with a bank where they're taking
Speaker 1: this huge spread for you to move dollars into euro
Speaker 1: or yen or whatever is absolutely going to go away,
Speaker 1: no matter how big that is. There's gonna be a
Speaker 1: curve pool for every one of these pairs, and firms
Speaker 1: like ours are going to provide liquidity to those pairs
Speaker 1: and and be the capital um. It's inevitable. The spreads
Speaker 1: will be smaller, the fees will be smaller, You'll be
Speaker 1: able to do it instantaneously. All of the framework for
Speaker 1: this at scale is in place today. It's literally just
Speaker 1: a matter of liquidity in the system at this point, Lee,
Speaker 1: you have been tweeting furiously about what's been going on
Speaker 1: in Russia. You said earlier that you were speaking with
Speaker 1: your family there, that your family had no clue what's
Speaker 1: going on, zero idea what's about to happen to the economy.
Speaker 1: All they get is government propaganda. It's scary and the
Speaker 1: worst or wellying way. What do you think about big
Speaker 1: text responsibility? Here? We're seeing Apple pull products from the
Speaker 1: country forward as well. We assume there will be more. Um,
Speaker 1: but you know, how how else can businesses step up? Yeah?
Speaker 1: It's said my my wife's parents are sixty odd sixty,
Speaker 1: They've lived in Russia their entire lives. They're not digital natives, right, Um,
Speaker 1: And so they're very much dependent on the specific flow
Speaker 1: of information as is much too that country. The concept
Speaker 1: that everybody has access to a VPN and uh, you
Speaker 1: know good sources of information is completely false obviously. Uh.
Speaker 1: And to expect everybody to do that would be would
Speaker 1: be false as well. Do big tech companies have an
Speaker 1: obligation No, Look, their companies, they don't have an obligation
Speaker 1: to do anything but make money. That's just the reality
Speaker 1: of it. Do they have a moral obligation at some point? Um?
Speaker 1: I would say that you know, each of these individual CEOs,
Speaker 1: it would behoove them too at this point attempt to
Speaker 1: do the right thing. Apple makes how many tens of
Speaker 1: billions of dollars in profit a quarter? I mean, yeah, look,
Speaker 1: I think at some point they have to put some
Speaker 1: values above making. You know, what's the margin that they're
Speaker 1: gonna lose off of clamping down on certain things to
Speaker 1: attempt to move this along a little faster. I think
Speaker 1: that may be smart. All right, Well, thank you for
Speaker 1: sharing that personal experience in our hearts. Go out to
Speaker 1: your wife's parents. Thank you for joining us as well.
Speaker 1: Lea drog in star Killer Capital along with Bloomberg, Shinali
Speaker 1: Bassk appreciate it well. He made headlines and caused a
Speaker 1: few headaches by tracking Elon Musk's jet. Now, nineteen year
Speaker 1: old Jack Sweeney is at it again, but this time
Speaker 1: he's tracking jets owned by some of Russia's richest oligarchs
Speaker 1: following the invasion of Ukraine. We don't know for certain
Speaker 1: if the millionaires and billionaires are the ones on board,
Speaker 1: but thanks to Sweeney's programming and Twitter bots, we can
Speaker 1: track the planes movement around the world. Join me now,
Speaker 1: Jack Squeene, himself founder of Ground Control and tracker of billionaires.
Speaker 1: I'm also joined by our at Ludlow. Jack, why did
Speaker 1: you go from tracking Elon Musk's to Russian oligarks? What
Speaker 1: are you trying to achieve here? Well, people, asked. They
Speaker 1: knew I had the tracking ability of all these aircraft,
Speaker 1: and I found the list of these oligarchs and putment
Speaker 1: on and all that, so I just started tracking them
Speaker 1: because people wanted me too. Well, it's a pretty straightforward answered, Jack.
Speaker 1: Give us a sense of the technology that goes into this.
Speaker 1: How do you make this happen? Yeah, so every since
Speaker 1: every since like nine eleven, there's this new technology called
Speaker 1: a sp where all these planes, all the planes are
Speaker 1: required to transmit their location through the transponder. So there's
Speaker 1: all these websites and companies that received this data, and
Speaker 1: I get that data and I'm able to analyze it
Speaker 1: in my program posted to Twitter. Now, we've noticed quite
Speaker 1: a few of these jets going to interesting places. Are
Speaker 1: you seeing any trends? Where? Where are they right now?
Speaker 1: They're pretty much all over the world, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: the United States and a few of them, i'll you know,
Speaker 1: just from Russia to Russia, but no specific trend of
Speaker 1: leaving Jack, you kind of answered pretty straightforward. You did
Speaker 1: this because people asked you to do it. Right. We've
Speaker 1: been following you a little while now in terms of
Speaker 1: you tracking elon must jet. But what's in it? For you.
Speaker 1: I mean you're a young guy, respectfully. What's the Russian
Speaker 1: oal here? Uh well, I just have a lot of
Speaker 1: interest in aviation, and now there's some good attention to
Speaker 1: everything I'm doing, so it's fun to attrack these planes
Speaker 1: and codes and stuff and create the Twitter accounts. Do
Speaker 1: you feel like you have some sort of moral obligation here?
Speaker 1: Does that play into this at all? Uh? Well, people
Speaker 1: wanted it, so, I mean they can do whatever they
Speaker 1: want with it. There's people that seem to think that
Speaker 1: these people shouldn't be allowed in the United States or
Speaker 1: other countries, so there's seems to be some interested in
Speaker 1: it that way that they don't want these type of people. So, Jack,
Speaker 1: previously you've had some engagement with Elon Musk about your
Speaker 1: tracking of his jet. Do you mind to give us
Speaker 1: an update on where you kind of left that. Um well,
Speaker 1: he seemed to no longer be interested in anything, and
Speaker 1: then he ended up blocking me after all the media
Speaker 1: about the whole account and everything when our public and
Speaker 1: he got further higher level of blocking. Would seem to
Speaker 1: give up on that. Now he doesn't really seem to
Speaker 1: care anymore. So to that point, it sounds like You're
Speaker 1: going to continue to do this no matter what Ellen
Speaker 1: has to say about it or not. Yeah, is there
Speaker 1: somewhere you want to take this, Jack? I mean, what's next?
Speaker 1: I'd like to like grow a website rather than just
Speaker 1: beyond Twitter, so I have more options than just creating
Speaker 1: Twitter posts. Jack, tell me a little bit about you.
Speaker 1: What's your background? How did you learn to to program
Speaker 1: in this way? And and program these Twitter bots too?
Speaker 1: Because it's very specific, right. You get a lot of
Speaker 1: data from the system in terms of where a plane is,
Speaker 1: its location, but you've set this up in a really
Speaker 1: specific way basically based on take off, landing and the
Speaker 1: city of origin for that plane. Walk us through it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so there. I had. I had some aviation experience. My
Speaker 1: dad works in aviation, and I knew a little bit
Speaker 1: of coding, and I just had interested in all of it.
Speaker 1: And during COVID I had a lot of free times,
Speaker 1: so I just started messing around with it, especially with Ellen.
Speaker 1: You know, I had an interest in him and I
Speaker 1: knew he had a private jet. So I just had
Speaker 1: the idea to create a Twitter brought because there's a
Speaker 1: lot of different type of bots on Twitter, and I
Speaker 1: created the plane tracking more, What do your parents think
Speaker 1: about all this? Since you mentioned your dad, I think
Speaker 1: it's pretty cool. And all their friends don't know about it,
Speaker 1: and they think it's pretty cool too. All right, well,
Speaker 1: we'll keep watching those trackers. Jack Sweeney, founder of Ground
Speaker 1: Control UM, and are at ludlow ed. You know, obviously
Speaker 1: this is a story that you've continued to follow for
Speaker 1: a while. What do you make of Jack's determination here? Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's two sides this. First of all, the reason I
Speaker 1: love this show, Emily, and I love working with you,
Speaker 1: is that this is about technology, right, and nineteen year
Speaker 1: old that told himself these skills, and he's basically giving
Speaker 1: a lens into the life of billionaires, rich people that
Speaker 1: you wouldn't otherwise have. And then you have the moral
Speaker 1: side of it, right. There's a lot of outrage in
Speaker 1: Europe about several oligarchs, what they're doing, how they're speaking,
Speaker 1: where they're conducting business, so it kind of gives you
Speaker 1: a lens into that as well. Well. And certainly interesting
Speaker 1: seeing where these planes are. I know you've been looking
Speaker 1: very closely at the maps. Are there any interesting trends
Speaker 1: that you've pulled out? Yeah? I think it's interesting that
Speaker 1: The debate right now is over no fly zone. Right
Speaker 1: So we just had news aftermarket on Tuesday that United
Speaker 1: will stop flying over Russian airspace. That's a commercial carrier,
Speaker 1: of course, but we're tracking the movements of several oligards billionaires,
Speaker 1: one being Roman Abramovitch, for example, the owner of CHELSEAFC
Speaker 1: in UK, because he might be involved in peace talk
Speaker 1: somewhere along the way. All right, we'll keep watching. Thank you.
Speaker 1: That does it for the sedition of Bloomberg Technology. We're
Speaker 1: gonna be joined tomorrow by Brett Taylor, Salesforce coach EEO
Speaker 1: off the back of the company's earnings results, and Anthony Nodo,
Speaker 1: CEO of Sophar. You won't want to miss those conversations.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg