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 My Emily Check in San Francisco, and this
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg Technology. Coming up in the next hour. Bitcoin
Speaker 1: set for its worst quarter in more than a decade,
Speaker 1: sliding more than six percent of a low nineteen thousand
Speaker 1: dollars for the second time in two weeks. What it
Speaker 1: means and how low can it go? We'll discuss. Plus
Speaker 1: Washington is finally taking note of sexism. That's one rampant
Speaker 1: in the tech industry where women have been long underrepresented.
Speaker 1: I'll be joined by Congressman Stephen Lynch on the heels
Speaker 1: of a hearing he chaired on quote combating tech gro culture.
Speaker 1: What he thinks Congress can do to help fix the problem.
Speaker 1: And airlines are canceling flights up and down the board
Speaker 1: as they struggle to keep up with rising demand. We'll
Speaker 1: talk about what's ahead for the busy fourth of July
Speaker 1: travel week and the future of travel in a post
Speaker 1: pandemic world. All of that in a moment, But first
Speaker 1: I want to stick with the current market moves, market turmoil,
Speaker 1: bringing upholdings Robert kentwell to talk about the pain that
Speaker 1: most investors are feeling. The S and B suffering its
Speaker 1: cruelest first half since Richard Nixon's presidency. Ouch, that is
Speaker 1: a dismal statistic, Robert. Look, we talked last about a
Speaker 1: month ago. Have your feelings changed given that we're continuing
Speaker 1: to see red on the screen? Well, it's gone up
Speaker 1: and down since we last spoke, but we're basically exactly
Speaker 1: where we were about a month ago. And as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: is the worst quarter for the SMP since the first
Speaker 1: quarter that we saw uh, and it's been it's been
Speaker 1: particularly painful for investors. One of the things we were
Speaker 1: talking about before was this revaluation of tech companies and
Speaker 1: are some of these still going to be consider the
Speaker 1: tech companies Netflix or Facebook. And one of the things
Speaker 1: that we think is happening right now is really this
Speaker 1: is the end of the consumer Internet boom and meta
Speaker 1: being relegated into the value bucket is probably one of
Speaker 1: the crowning signals of that. And there's that's perfectly fine,
Speaker 1: But then where is the growth going to come from
Speaker 1: in technology? And where we see it coming from is
Speaker 1: an enterprise cloud and the data that we're seeing today
Speaker 1: tells us that where the digital advertising industry was back
Speaker 1: in two thousand and seventeen is very similar to where
Speaker 1: the cloud enterprise software industry is today. So do you
Speaker 1: put Meta in the value bucket? Is the growth era
Speaker 1: for that company over? Well, it might actually be a
Speaker 1: great thing for investors. Uh, if people really do value
Speaker 1: it is a value stock, because there's very few value
Speaker 1: stocks with that type of margins and growth rates going forward.
Speaker 1: So Meta is far from a from a dead you
Speaker 1: know company as far as we're concerned. I think the
Speaker 1: inability of the business to make acquisitions over the past
Speaker 1: few years has really heard it and I think that's
Speaker 1: gonna be one of the biggest questions going forward is
Speaker 1: that the regulatory environment for Meta has quietly improved, and
Speaker 1: if that is a sign of things to come, we
Speaker 1: think that will continue to help the stock, in addition
Speaker 1: to the fact that it's just so darn cheap. Interesting.
Speaker 1: But don't you want growth to come from innovation and
Speaker 1: not acquisition. Well, you know, you can't fight capitalism. Uh.
Speaker 1: They sure Met is going to develop plenty of products
Speaker 1: that some are gonna work, some aren't. You know, their
Speaker 1: their their marketplace business generates a little bit of money
Speaker 1: from them. Today they're finding new ways of onboarding advertisers
Speaker 1: through that and as long term investors. Yeah, of course
Speaker 1: you want the products to be built. There's just there's
Speaker 1: too many you can. You know, we talked about, you know,
Speaker 1: Pinterest being such a such an attractive takeout Canada, the
Speaker 1: amount of time and investment that would take to recreate Twitter,
Speaker 1: to recreate Pinterest, to recreate you know what you saw,
Speaker 1: you know, with the LinkedIn acquisition of Microsoft. We think
Speaker 1: there's just too many attractive assets in the right now
Speaker 1: to justify having to build things from scratch when you
Speaker 1: can just bolt them together and make a stronger company.
Speaker 1: So how are you parsing out the enterprise software category.
Speaker 1: It's really easy to understand what meta is, you you know,
Speaker 1: it's easy to see Instagram and What'sapp and the blue app,
Speaker 1: and you know how all of those things fit together.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to enterprise software, it's a lot
Speaker 1: more confusing. How do you distinguish between what's a good
Speaker 1: play and what's not. It is a lot more work
Speaker 1: because you don't get to just use the products yourselves.
Speaker 1: You've got to you've got to talk to the executives
Speaker 1: and the companies that are using them. One of the
Speaker 1: biggest trends and enterprise technology has been this move from
Speaker 1: systems of record so or cole and salesforce that are
Speaker 1: basically complex databases into systems of action. And so this
Speaker 1: is the service now is of the world. This is
Speaker 1: data happens in the company, That data runs through some
Speaker 1: system and then that system tells an employee or another
Speaker 1: piece of software what to do. So these systems of
Speaker 1: action are in audibly powerful, there's a lot of lock in,
Speaker 1: and we're still relatively early in the curve. You know,
Speaker 1: you had a great interview with Blake Lemoyne um you know,
Speaker 1: the last week, and you know, one of the things
Speaker 1: I can't help but think about, you know, is that
Speaker 1: a lot of people already work for software. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: our software is telling us what to do. And it's
Speaker 1: been this evolution of these systems of action that are
Speaker 1: driving it. But that's a productivity and it's an efficiency thing,
Speaker 1: and I think it's one of these things that is
Speaker 1: inevitable and it will certainly go too far, like we've
Speaker 1: seen with some of the data capture on the digital advertisers.
Speaker 1: But I still think We're relatively early in the adoption
Speaker 1: of these systems and it's been a pretty exciting place
Speaker 1: to invest, all right, Probert can't well. Upholding is always
Speaker 1: good to have you with us. Thank you, Robert for
Speaker 1: stopping by meantime, TikTok rival Triller still going public, but
Speaker 1: on its own. The US video sharing at file paperwork
Speaker 1: for an initial public offering of its class A common
Speaker 1: stock with the SEC. This after ending it's five billion
Speaker 1: dollar murder with the video software provider see Change International.
Speaker 1: The merger termination is effective immediately with Nazdak. The NASDAK
Speaker 1: listing expected September. We've been you know, you know, guided
Speaker 1: to believe that it could be called it nine to
Speaker 1: twelve months on that decision. It could be a little
Speaker 1: bit longer, could be a little bit shorter, but we
Speaker 1: hold strong in our common sense arguments around the E
Speaker 1: t F conversion um and have a fantastic legal bench
Speaker 1: that will be arguing this case on behalf of investors.
Speaker 1: Grays Gale CEO Michael Shawnenstein there with Bloomberg earlier. The
Speaker 1: crypto investment firm says it has sued the SEC after
Speaker 1: the agency rejected a bid to convert its Bitcoin trust
Speaker 1: into an e t F. Our own Sali Bossik here
Speaker 1: with more on this Shanali not necessarily unexpected, but what's next. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's really interesting here, Emily is that this is not
Speaker 1: only a big deal for ray Scale, where there was
Speaker 1: a huge demand from clients and customers to have this
Speaker 1: trust converted into an et F, but a lot of
Speaker 1: frustration here that there bitcoin futures ets being approved when
Speaker 1: spot bitcoin ets are not being approved at large. Of course,
Speaker 1: we know there are many of them that are waiting
Speaker 1: for approval, planning on filing again. You know, I think
Speaker 1: back to a conversation I had, for example, with Anthony
Speaker 1: Scaramucci that really had talked a lot about how an
Speaker 1: approval of an e t F like this could really
Speaker 1: start to have a huge inflow of more institutional money,
Speaker 1: for example into bitcoin. And of course, uh, this is
Speaker 1: a huge roadblock not just for the crypto community, but
Speaker 1: for gray Scale itself that now has a trust that's
Speaker 1: trading well below it's net asset value, a thirty percent
Speaker 1: or more below it's net asset value. It had a
Speaker 1: big drop off today as well, and this will be
Speaker 1: for gray Scale along road ahead another twelve months or
Speaker 1: so to work through a loss lawsuit, according to both
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Intelligence. In the company itself, also some not good
Speaker 1: news for coin Flex. You and I interviewed the CEO
Speaker 1: Mark Lamb exclusively earlier this week about their withdrawal transaction issues,
Speaker 1: said that those would be over by today and that
Speaker 1: he was very confident that he'd be able to get
Speaker 1: that done. Take a listen to what he had to
Speaker 1: tell us back on Monday. Yeah, I'm highly confident. We
Speaker 1: have UH. We've spoken to people NonStop on on phone
Speaker 1: calls and in person meetings UH since this issue arose,
Speaker 1: and UM, we have more than half of the UH
Speaker 1: the amount needed in soft commitments to UH to get
Speaker 1: this done. Well, Today'sonale, coin Flex came out and said
Speaker 1: they aren't going to be able to make the deadline.
Speaker 1: What happened. Yeah, I think it's really interesting, Emily, both
Speaker 1: for coin Flex and also for an entire industry that
Speaker 1: is suffering through liquidity issues other companies as well. Remember
Speaker 1: when it comes to coin flex itself, since that interview
Speaker 1: that we did on Monday, we have Roger Vera coming
Speaker 1: out and saying that he has no debt to coin
Speaker 1: Flex and being reported as the big customer that we've
Speaker 1: been talking about that had a margin call when it
Speaker 1: came to coin Flex. So this dispute between Roger Vera
Speaker 1: and coin Flex itself made this token offering, which was
Speaker 1: supposed to make that kind of margin call issue whole
Speaker 1: again difficult in terms of both raising money and making
Speaker 1: other customers whole and restarting withdrawals. Again, let's move over
Speaker 1: just really quickly here to talk about another company, Celsius,
Speaker 1: which also paused withdrawals about two weeks ago. How all
Speaker 1: these companies are restructuring is fascinating. They've came out with
Speaker 1: a blog post today also saying that they're discussing both
Speaker 1: strategic transactions as well as restructuring uh their liabilities, but
Speaker 1: not a lot of detail there on what that could
Speaker 1: necessarily look like. Of course, there's a third firm. There's
Speaker 1: block Fly as well, and a lot of news around
Speaker 1: Sam Bankman Freedom f TX nearing a deal to acquire
Speaker 1: it as this industry starts to get out of the slump. Indeed,
Speaker 1: all stories we're going to continue to follow. Bloom Visionnelly Bostick,
Speaker 1: thank you as always. All right, more now on the
Speaker 1: impact of the crypto plunge on the world of chips,
Speaker 1: and especially one chip maker in particular, that is in video.
Speaker 1: I want to bring in Bloomberg Cecilia Donastasio on this,
Speaker 1: and of course we've seen Bitcoin fall below dollars a
Speaker 1: couple of times all the last two weeks. This is
Speaker 1: not just not good for crypto investors, but also in Vidia,
Speaker 1: which made a big bet on this technology. Tell us
Speaker 1: what's happening? Sure, So, the crypto boom generated a lot
Speaker 1: of interest in Vidia's UM game cards, which typically gamers
Speaker 1: used to play really like high resolution video games on
Speaker 1: their computers. Crypto minors, however, do create cryptocurrencies, particularly ethereum,
Speaker 1: through use of the game cards themselves, so there was
Speaker 1: a huge rush on the cards in along with the
Speaker 1: boom and crypto UM. Unfortunately, now that crypto has crash
Speaker 1: and video itself has experienced some of that sort of
Speaker 1: UM hangover. So what's next for in video? Yeah, we'll
Speaker 1: just stage. Their strategy in video has danced back and
Speaker 1: forth between kind of UM working with crypto and sort
Speaker 1: of distancing itself from crypto. Gamers are its primary market,
Speaker 1: and the crypto industry is extremely volatile, So right now
Speaker 1: and video is kind of trying to detach themselves from
Speaker 1: that industry and market, primarily to gamers. All right, story,
Speaker 1: We're gonna continue to follow Bloomberg Cecilia, Donastasio Cecilia as always,
Speaker 1: thanks for joining. Coming up, we're gonna take a peek
Speaker 1: at the summer season. With four of July travel about
Speaker 1: to get underway on mass Will the flight cancelation nightmares continue?
Speaker 1: We'll have that and more with Peak CEO A co
Speaker 1: founder ris Wana a Share next visits Bloomberg. Airbnb shares
Speaker 1: fell to a record low amid heavy travel disruptions in
Speaker 1: Europe as major airports asked carriers to cut capacity. Shares
Speaker 1: closed down more than five percent after data showed US
Speaker 1: consumer spending fell in May for the first time this year.
Speaker 1: Airbnb is down more than forty so far this year,
Speaker 1: despite economies reopening and leisure travel returning around the world. Meantime,
Speaker 1: the holiday travel nightmare is back with a vengeance. Flights
Speaker 1: across the board are being canceled from Europe to Canada
Speaker 1: to the United States due to this strain on global airlines,
Speaker 1: as airlines are having a tough time scaling back up
Speaker 1: to quickly meet booming demand post pandemic for more on
Speaker 1: this and trends to see ahead. Whereas one of us, Sheer,
Speaker 1: joins us. She's the CEO and co founder of the
Speaker 1: booking software and marketplace Peek. Was wanted great to have
Speaker 1: you back here on the show. So what's your take
Speaker 1: on this global travel debacle and how long this goes
Speaker 1: on for? Yeah, them, Unfortunately, we've all seen it. Flights
Speaker 1: normally get canceled at a rate of about one point
Speaker 1: three pc UM right now. They've already doubled year over
Speaker 1: year since last year, and you know, very recently we've
Speaker 1: seen that go up to about five flights being canceled
Speaker 1: in the last couple of weeks. And um, you know,
Speaker 1: and and a huge amount of delays. As you've seen
Speaker 1: there are big labor shortages going on, and about almost
Speaker 1: a quarter of flights are seeing major delays, especially in
Speaker 1: hubs like Chicago, New York, Dallas, Miami, Los Angeles, and
Speaker 1: so this is a serious thing. You know, We've got
Speaker 1: really fifty million Americans who are planning to do some
Speaker 1: both of July travel. People do not want to put
Speaker 1: that off despite some of the challenges in the economy,
Speaker 1: and so um, we will see record levels of people
Speaker 1: going out and traveling again. But the disruptions are here
Speaker 1: and pretty serious and something to bear in mind if
Speaker 1: you're planning to travel right now. So what are you
Speaker 1: expecting to happen over this holiday week trends you're spotting
Speaker 1: in particular? Yeah, you know, we are definitely least seeing
Speaker 1: that that that the the amount of international travel and
Speaker 1: flight travel is much higher than it's been in the
Speaker 1: COVID era. I would also say that, you know, local
Speaker 1: experiences are a lot and the kind of things I
Speaker 1: think that we've seen people, uh seeing as the top
Speaker 1: fourth of July, experiences have definitely been things that might
Speaker 1: be considered a little bit more special, So shark diving
Speaker 1: in Miami, being able to go kayaking on the Chicago River. Um.
Speaker 1: There are also some really cool and interesting experiences jet
Speaker 1: skiing around the stet of Liberty, and so definitely a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff people getting outdoors on the water, making
Speaker 1: the most of the summer weather. Um. But you know,
Speaker 1: with fifty million Americans traveling, you're gonna be seen very
Speaker 1: very busy attractions and experiences as well as airports and
Speaker 1: and I think you know you're going to see it
Speaker 1: very congested highways as well. Road trips will be up
Speaker 1: shark diving in Miami. That sounds fun. Um. Look, you
Speaker 1: just won the Entrepreneur of the Year award from e Y.
Speaker 1: Congratulations on that. Peak. Also, just um launched a partnership
Speaker 1: with jeff Jet Blue. What are your priorities for the
Speaker 1: year against the context that's the backdrop of what's happening
Speaker 1: in the macro economy. Yeah, you know, I think what
Speaker 1: we've seen, you know, for us as a business, you know,
Speaker 1: we're basically shopify for experiences. We help people book fum
Speaker 1: things to do when we provide software the small businesses
Speaker 1: and large businesses to be able to get online. And
Speaker 1: so certainly the last couple of years, we saw that
Speaker 1: our businesses and the partners that we work with were
Speaker 1: hit pretty hard, right, and so we've had a lot
Speaker 1: of scale, nearly two billion dollars of experiences through the platform,
Speaker 1: and you definitely saw that over the last couple of
Speaker 1: years there were winners and losers. As we come out
Speaker 1: of the COVID pandemic, we are definitely seeing that consumers
Speaker 1: want to travel and they want to do experiences. And
Speaker 1: despite some of the things that we've seen with inflation
Speaker 1: and some of the recessionary kind of dynamics that we're
Speaker 1: seeing play out. People are still wanting to do that,
Speaker 1: and so we're not seeing that go away certainly for us.
Speaker 1: You know, a few months ago we just closed an
Speaker 1: eighty million dollar round led by west Camp and uh
Speaker 1: and Gallman Sachs Um with the former CFO Airbnb, Lawrence
Speaker 1: Toci joining our board. And so we're seeing a lot
Speaker 1: of momentum in our space, and we're seeing a lot
Speaker 1: of opportunity UM And I think as we go into
Speaker 1: this next phase um, you know, of the next year,
Speaker 1: we are definitely helping empower our operators and partners that
Speaker 1: we work with to be able to get through um.
Speaker 1: You know what will I think be some more challenging
Speaker 1: macro economic conditions. Using interesting that Lawrence Tocy, the CFO
Speaker 1: of Airbnb, of course, former CFO joined your board. You know,
Speaker 1: we just heard about the stack. They're being doubt how
Speaker 1: do you distinguished you know, peak and the future of
Speaker 1: the business from what we're seeing with the company like Airbnb,
Speaker 1: which you know can be some sort of a barometer
Speaker 1: for consumer sentiment, like you know, how are you as
Speaker 1: an entrepreneur um and what advice are you getting from
Speaker 1: investors about how to weather uh, you know, a potentially
Speaker 1: significant downturn. Yeah, I think I think one of the
Speaker 1: it's very interesting about our business is that, you know,
Speaker 1: first we were profitable, and we raised this eighty million
Speaker 1: dollar round and so we're a rare kind of I
Speaker 1: think tech business that had taken unit economics and profitability
Speaker 1: very seriously, and so we're actually in a fantastic position
Speaker 1: today around being able to continue to invest in growing
Speaker 1: our platform and helping our businesses get through this. I
Speaker 1: think also, you know, our focus has actually been on
Speaker 1: the software side, so rather like Shopify, we're working with
Speaker 1: thousands of businesses and helping them take their their you know,
Speaker 1: their business online, allowing their own website to be able
Speaker 1: to have realtim availability and online booking, and so in
Speaker 1: doing so, the average business that partners with us sees
Speaker 1: their revenues increased by about thirty percent, and they see
Speaker 1: them saving a ton of time, hours and hours of
Speaker 1: automation that we provide. And so I think as we
Speaker 1: would go into this macro num climate, we're hearing from
Speaker 1: large businesses like museums all the way through small businesses
Speaker 1: saying we know that the bottom line really matters now,
Speaker 1: and it matters to us that we find ways to
Speaker 1: cut costs and and grow our top line in the
Speaker 1: environment where perhaps there won't be as many travelers like COVID,
Speaker 1: but there will be a local substitution effect. We think
Speaker 1: that people still need these moments of connection and enjoy
Speaker 1: and what people specializes in is everyday adventure. So the
Speaker 1: average experience on our platform costs about per ticket, and
Speaker 1: so this is an environment where we will see businesses
Speaker 1: needing to make this leap forward on automation and technology
Speaker 1: which helps them save costs, but will also be seeing
Speaker 1: I think consumers um not maybe being able to do
Speaker 1: as many of these big trips that you know this
Speaker 1: summer being a place where a lot of people were
Speaker 1: able to go out and do that, and moving to
Speaker 1: local experiences within about to be able to do fun
Speaker 1: things close to home museums, ice cream sounds great to me. Rosawana,
Speaker 1: a share CEO of Pica, to have you back with us.
Speaker 1: Thank you for stopping by the real reason that diverse
Speaker 1: fintech CEOs don't get these dollars relates to the fact
Speaker 1: that women and diverse leaders control a very small person
Speaker 1: image of the three and thirty billion venture capital dollars
Speaker 1: spent just last year, Broadly speaking, eight six percent of
Speaker 1: investment decision makers are met. Given the venture capital is
Speaker 1: very much a pattern matching business, investors often back companies
Speaker 1: and people who are most like themselves. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Technology and Emily Chin in San Francisco. That was
Speaker 1: just a taste of a hearing held earlier by the
Speaker 1: House Financial Services Committee called Combating Tech bro Culture. It's
Speaker 1: something that I've been researching and reporting on for a
Speaker 1: few years, and I want to talk more about the
Speaker 1: ongoing issue with the person who led that hearing today,
Speaker 1: Democratic Congressman Stephen Lynch. Representative Lynch, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining us. I'm so curious what led you to
Speaker 1: take on this issue. What do you think Washington can
Speaker 1: do about decades of sexism in the tech industry. Well, then,
Speaker 1: first of all, thank you, Emily. I know you've done
Speaker 1: a lot of work in this area, and I've I've
Speaker 1: heard you on previous shows commenting on this issue. So uh,
Speaker 1: the numbers are stunning here, as as Sally cross Check
Speaker 1: in your earlier recording demonstrated the billions of dollars going
Speaker 1: out the door every year for from venture capital firms
Speaker 1: to fintech startups. I think it's less than two percent
Speaker 1: go to women, uh. One percent perhaps go to uh
Speaker 1: black uh entrepreneurs, uh you know, less than two percent
Speaker 1: to Latin X founders. So the numbers are just stunning
Speaker 1: to see that the bulk of this money never reaches
Speaker 1: any any minority or women uh founders. So we had
Speaker 1: this problem years ago in the banking industry. They used
Speaker 1: to have redlining, and this is sort of a redlining
Speaker 1: what they're doing here. So back in the day, a
Speaker 1: lot of banks would never invest in those red lined areas,
Speaker 1: largely there were minority areas. And so what Congress did
Speaker 1: back then was we passed the Community Reinvestment Act, and
Speaker 1: we one of the things we did was we created
Speaker 1: a score card, a report card that allowed depositors and
Speaker 1: investors to realize how that institution was doing in terms
Speaker 1: of their investment in minority areas, because that's something that
Speaker 1: socially we thought was the right thing to do. So
Speaker 1: I think what we need to do is the same
Speaker 1: thing with venture capital. I think we need to give
Speaker 1: them a score card. I think the SEC needs to
Speaker 1: track how well. Uh. You know, inclusionary measures are adopted
Speaker 1: by these VC firms so that that that women and
Speaker 1: minority founders can participate. Interesting. Uh. Sally crow Check, longtime
Speaker 1: former banking executive founder now of a company called Elvest,
Speaker 1: also testified at the hearing today. We pulled a portion
Speaker 1: of her testimony. Take a listen to what you had
Speaker 1: to say. The real issue is a few fin tech
Speaker 1: center on women's needs, a direct result of women entrepreneurs
Speaker 1: store defunding. As a result, your women constituents invest less
Speaker 1: of their money than men do, losing out on a
Speaker 1: storic market turns and costing them hundreds of thousands for
Speaker 1: some women millions of dollars over the course of their lives.
Speaker 1: And it's run one reason why the gender wealth gap
Speaker 1: is at thirty two cents to a white man's dollar
Speaker 1: and one penny for black women, and it's been widening.
Speaker 1: And hearing the personal stories of some of these founders, Congressmen,
Speaker 1: what was most alarming to you about what you've heard today? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I think that how hard they and we
Speaker 1: had several successful start up entrepreneurs that that came before
Speaker 1: the committee and hearing how hard they had to work
Speaker 1: and going to thirty thirty different interviews and and basically
Speaker 1: begging for investment in their their products. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: you could see how hard they had to fight to
Speaker 1: break through, and and that that not only denied them
Speaker 1: the opportunity, but they had great ideas, They had great
Speaker 1: substance to some dive ideas that that actually were a
Speaker 1: great benefit to society in general. Souh, We've got to
Speaker 1: find a way to to you know, break breakthrough or
Speaker 1: or or just make uh, these VC companies more aware
Speaker 1: of what's out there. Oftentimes they're they're supporting, you know,
Speaker 1: hundreds of different ventures hoping that one of them might pop,
Speaker 1: might be successful. Yet in that process they're totally ignoring
Speaker 1: many of the viable substance of proposals made by women
Speaker 1: and minority founders. Silicon Valley has made some progress since
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley's own version of the me too movement now
Speaker 1: five years ago. I wrote about this in my book
Speaker 1: ro Topia, Breaking Up the Boys Club of Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1: But obviously I think most people would agree not enough
Speaker 1: progress certainly has been made. I know. Congresswoman Maxing Waters,
Speaker 1: the chair of the Financial Services Committee, made a surprise
Speaker 1: appearance today. Would you say that there is broad consensus
Speaker 1: across Congress US that more diversity in the financial technology
Speaker 1: sector is critical. I think so. You know, we had
Speaker 1: a we had a bipartisan hearing today. I welcomed the
Speaker 1: comments of my Republican colleagues, Mr Davidson of Ohio and
Speaker 1: Mr Style from Wisconsin, both staunch Republicans, conservative, but they
Speaker 1: realized that this is good good for business by by
Speaker 1: including those ideas, and they acknowledged that the the the
Speaker 1: work of some of our minority founders who were testifying
Speaker 1: today was was very, very important to the industry at large.
Speaker 1: And so you know that that's you know, diversity is
Speaker 1: is good for the economy as well as a social good.
Speaker 1: All right, well, it certainly interesting to hear some of
Speaker 1: the things that you're working on ways that Congress could act.
Speaker 1: Congressman Stephen Lynch, thank you so much for joining us
Speaker 1: and for taking on this issue. I want to continue
Speaker 1: the conversation now with a woman who has spoken up
Speaker 1: about gro culture in tech and venture capital, Sarah Kuntz.
Speaker 1: She has the managing director at Cleo Capital. She's been
Speaker 1: vocal about the sexual harassment she had to face in
Speaker 1: this industry. She was a character in my book. So
Speaker 1: I appreciate you and you using your voice in that instance.
Speaker 1: It's now been about five years since you spoke up
Speaker 1: and your actions actually led to consequences for one particular individual.
Speaker 1: But how much progress do you think has actually been
Speaker 1: made in the last five years? You know, Unfortunately, I
Speaker 1: don't think a lot of progress has been made, right. Um.
Speaker 1: I think that now when women speak up, they're believed more.
Speaker 1: I think that people know that you know, this is
Speaker 1: a problem. But you look at the actual numbers, as
Speaker 1: a congressman was saying earlier, they're really really bad for
Speaker 1: both race and gender, and they're even worse at the intersection.
Speaker 1: When you look at the number of black and Hispanic
Speaker 1: women who are vcs who get VC funding, it is
Speaker 1: almost non existent. I am almost a rounding error, right.
Speaker 1: And then you know, you look at what's still being upheld,
Speaker 1: people like Elon Musk, the richest man in the world,
Speaker 1: CEO of I can't even count how many tech companies
Speaker 1: right now trying to add Twitter to that. And he
Speaker 1: was just credibly accused of sexual harassment on the job,
Speaker 1: and the response was to fire the employees who had
Speaker 1: a problem with that, So, you know, have we really
Speaker 1: come that far? I don't think so. How much does
Speaker 1: the thought of Elon Musk owning Twitter concern you? Honestly,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of relieved because it might actually force me
Speaker 1: to log off Twitter forever. Okay, now we heard part
Speaker 1: of Sally crow checks testimony there. You are actually an
Speaker 1: investor in el Vast and I'm sure that you're very
Speaker 1: familiar with her own experiences as a woman on Wall
Speaker 1: Street and then Silicon Valley. What are you seeing through
Speaker 1: the eyes of entrepreneurs like her in terms of the
Speaker 1: barriers that still exist? I mean, Sally crow Check is
Speaker 1: one of the most famous women in banking, and it's
Speaker 1: still hard for her to raise and get the same
Speaker 1: valuations that a guy in a hoodie can get for
Speaker 1: a half baked idea. That's that there's something wrong with
Speaker 1: this system. And you know, there's not enough diverse investors,
Speaker 1: aren't enough female investors. There aren't enough investors of color
Speaker 1: who can turn around and and you know, recognize, you know,
Speaker 1: greatness when they see it in their peers, and and
Speaker 1: so you know, things need to change on a lot
Speaker 1: of levels because we're just missing out on so much money.
Speaker 1: In the economy so much wealth generation because we're not
Speaker 1: funding nearly enough people who aren't white dudes. Now, a
Speaker 1: congressional memorandum actually called out three major players in investing
Speaker 1: in technology and recent herowitz Y, Combinator, and Sequoia. What
Speaker 1: do you make of that and have they made any
Speaker 1: any strides? Certainly some of those firms have added some
Speaker 1: more women partners since me too. Yeah, you know, I
Speaker 1: think that that to some extent, they were calling them
Speaker 1: out as examples of hey, here's what exists in the ecosystem. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, I think that that there are a lot
Speaker 1: of the legacy firms that are trying to improve. They're
Speaker 1: hiring more women, They're launching earlier stage programs where you
Speaker 1: often see more diversity, you know, come from, versus just
Speaker 1: doing later stage. But I think that the entire your
Speaker 1: industry has a long way to go. If only those
Speaker 1: three firms or underweight on diversity numbers, this wouldn't be
Speaker 1: a problem. The reality is the entire industries behind. Okay,
Speaker 1: So what does what needs to be done to make
Speaker 1: real change and not and not maintain the status quo.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's obviously something to be said for being
Speaker 1: a bad actor in the system. There's also something to
Speaker 1: be said for just accepting the status quo. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I think we've gotten some bad actors out over time
Speaker 1: over the last five years, and large part things to
Speaker 1: books like yours, But there's a lot of like call
Speaker 1: it not so great actors that remain. And I think
Speaker 1: that the question is, how do you make it clear
Speaker 1: that you have to have a diverse investment team, if
Speaker 1: you're a limited partner, if you're a university and dominant pension,
Speaker 1: you have to deploy capital to diverse investors or funds
Speaker 1: that have diverse investors, and you have to back diverse founders.
Speaker 1: And those are the three things that just have to happen.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of concern that women would backslide.
Speaker 1: During the pandemic, we saw women leave the workforce. Women,
Speaker 1: you know, we're often the first to leave and take
Speaker 1: care of their family these Are you concerned that that's
Speaker 1: going to happen again in this current atlways happens. It
Speaker 1: always happens, right, We see this time and time again. Um,
Speaker 1: you know what we're going to see is that the
Speaker 1: funds that struggle to raise are going to be disproportionately
Speaker 1: you know, women and people of color lead, uh, you
Speaker 1: know that the companies that struggle to raise will be
Speaker 1: the same that you know, when those companies fail, it
Speaker 1: will be seen as sort of a moral failing rather
Speaker 1: than market conditions. You know, Black founders had a slight
Speaker 1: uptick in funding in one following the Black Lives Matters protests,
Speaker 1: and that's gone. And you know, with markets conditions the
Speaker 1: way they are, I think it's incredibly hard to assume
Speaker 1: that it's going to be a good year to be
Speaker 1: a woman or a person of color in this industry.
Speaker 1: What are you seeing behind the scenes in the downturn?
Speaker 1: What's happening with you know, you know, private rounds, valuations, layoffs,
Speaker 1: you know, there have been some layoffs, and I think
Speaker 1: that you know, the goal of layoffs is always you know,
Speaker 1: cut ones, cut cut deep enough that you don't have
Speaker 1: to keep doing it. And I think we'll see in
Speaker 1: coming months if that's been true for a lot of
Speaker 1: these tech companies. There's a massive amount of hiring slowdowns,
Speaker 1: and you know it's my own companies and seeing a
Speaker 1: lot of inside rounds, so they're not the slashy, headline
Speaker 1: grabbing rounds. But you know, founders are quietly going to
Speaker 1: their existing investors, are a few new ones and saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm gonna bring in you know, ten million more,
Speaker 1: twenty million more, you know, the kind of Series A
Speaker 1: or B level, you know, just to tide us over
Speaker 1: so that we have three years of runway instead of
Speaker 1: eighteen months, because we could be in this downturn for
Speaker 1: a long time. Our investors open to that. I think
Speaker 1: investors are doing it hand over fist um, you know.
Speaker 1: I think it's even gonna be an interesting opportunity for
Speaker 1: some of the hedge fund crossover funds because you're now
Speaker 1: looking at companies where they're raising at you know, massive
Speaker 1: discounts to where you might have thought they would have
Speaker 1: been six months ago. And you know, if you have
Speaker 1: dry powder, which venture capital has been raising historic amounts
Speaker 1: of money over the last few years, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of dry powder, and I think people are going to
Speaker 1: deploy it to get some deals. All right, Sarah cons
Speaker 1: to Cleo Capital managing director. It's great to have you back.
Speaker 1: Thank you, as always for your voice in this conversation.
Speaker 1: Coming up, we're gonna talk more about sexism in that
Speaker 1: different part of the tech industry. That is crypto. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be joined by Tan Klein, a crypto investor and
Speaker 1: a founder her perspective. Next mr is Bloomberg. Time now
Speaker 1: for our crypto report. And as we've seen, Bitcoin is
Speaker 1: on track for its worst quarter in more than a decade.
Speaker 1: This as a string of high profile blow ups crushed
Speaker 1: confidence in the sector. Plunge is the largest since the
Speaker 1: third quarter, and according to data compiled by Bloomberg, are
Speaker 1: we nearing the bottom? Let's bring in Teak Inclines read
Speaker 1: on all of this. She's the co founder of the
Speaker 1: Edge and Node, the company behind the graph protocol. Think
Speaker 1: of them as the Google of blockchains. Teagan, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for joining us. I do want to talk
Speaker 1: about your personal experience as a founder and investor in
Speaker 1: this space. But first let's get a comment on the market.
Speaker 1: Bitcoin dipping below nineteen thousand dollars for the second time
Speaker 1: in two weeks. It's all looking a big grim. How
Speaker 1: much longer does it last? Yeah? I know, there was
Speaker 1: quite a bit of a liquidation cascade, and generally that
Speaker 1: will take six to nine months to recover. But the
Speaker 1: exciting thing that I'm seeing is that centralized finance is
Speaker 1: what broke, it's not deep by that broke or decentralized finance,
Speaker 1: and decentralized finance actually held up very well. And so
Speaker 1: I think that there's actually a big opportunity right now
Speaker 1: to get involved in the crypto space for many of
Speaker 1: the viewers that haven't yet, especially within Bitcoin and Etherium.
Speaker 1: Because the development in Etherium has continued. We're seeing developers
Speaker 1: at the highest point we've ever seen, and there are
Speaker 1: so many brilliant minds coming back into the space as
Speaker 1: the fundamentals are quite strong. Now, you started your career
Speaker 1: on Wall Street and left to join the crypto industry,
Speaker 1: how would you compare and contrast those two cultures? Oh? Yes,
Speaker 1: very different. I would say that my time on Wall Street,
Speaker 1: UM that it's it's very different, very different personalities, a
Speaker 1: lot of very strong personalities on Wall Street. UM, sharky behavior,
Speaker 1: which does exist within the crypto space as well. But
Speaker 1: when it comes to the protocol layer and the builders, UM,
Speaker 1: I've actually had a lot of really great and friendly
Speaker 1: experiences in this space. UM. And when it comes to
Speaker 1: women in the crypto space, I think many are there
Speaker 1: to really lift other women up, which wasn't my direct
Speaker 1: experience and on Wall Street unfortunately, So would bro culture
Speaker 1: be a fair characterization of Wall Street and not of
Speaker 1: crypto culture. I would say in my experience yes, very
Speaker 1: much so. Um, it does still exist within the crypto space.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of tech vcs from Silicon Valley
Speaker 1: that bring that culture in and they also invest in
Speaker 1: founders that are a little bit more bro culture. But
Speaker 1: the great thing is that in crypto you have crypto
Speaker 1: native vcs, and many of those crypto native vcs are
Speaker 1: really open to more diverse city and they have an
Speaker 1: emphasis around diversity but also a diversity of ideas and
Speaker 1: also founders. UM. So that's an exciting piece within the
Speaker 1: webtherary and crypto space. So how do we keep the
Speaker 1: trend going then, whether it's more female executives or crypto
Speaker 1: companies getting more women investing in cryptocurrency in general, I mean,
Speaker 1: wouldn't that all help keep the crypto industry from falling
Speaker 1: into the same trap that tech has over all of
Speaker 1: these decades. Absolutely, I think that that's a really important pouring.
Speaker 1: I think we need to we need to invest in women,
Speaker 1: and we also need to get women on the cap
Speaker 1: tables so that companies are taking female Um investors as well,
Speaker 1: that it's so often that I see cap tables that
Speaker 1: are all men, and I think when we see that,
Speaker 1: we have a responsibility to call it out, not just
Speaker 1: as women, but also as men, and men need to
Speaker 1: add women to their cap tables and other men need
Speaker 1: to call out that kind of behavior. And then it's
Speaker 1: also important to hire strong women that support others on
Speaker 1: women uh, I think, and adding women to leadership roles
Speaker 1: within companies, And that's one thing that I've really taken
Speaker 1: seriously as a founder within the space. It's important to
Speaker 1: bring really strong bring strong women into the company and
Speaker 1: leadership roles and give women power. What are some big
Speaker 1: misconceptions about the crypto industry that we should break open
Speaker 1: to get more women involved. Yeah, I think one big
Speaker 1: misconception is that you have to be technical, you have
Speaker 1: to be an engineer. You don't, you can. There are
Speaker 1: many different roles, and we welcome female engineers and female
Speaker 1: coders into the space, of course, but we also need um,
Speaker 1: we need marketing, we need designers, and we need people
Speaker 1: that raise capital, and so every skill set that exists
Speaker 1: in the world is also needed within the crypto space.
Speaker 1: And there's so many different communities in the crypto space
Speaker 1: that you can belong to. Um different communities across many
Speaker 1: different asset classes in use cases. Now, we were speaking
Speaker 1: with Congressman Stephen Lynch earlier who just shaired this hearing
Speaker 1: on combating world culture in fintech. What would you like
Speaker 1: to see from Congress? What could Congress do that would
Speaker 1: make a difference. Yeah, it's unfortunate that Congress has to
Speaker 1: step in here and that we're not self regulating and
Speaker 1: do this ourselves, because I think that we are very
Speaker 1: much capable, and it does feel like we are on
Speaker 1: a positive friend um. But I would like to see
Speaker 1: all of this kind of called out when when you
Speaker 1: see bad behaviors having women on your show, you're a
Speaker 1: great example of this, raising raising other women up. But
Speaker 1: there are some conferences where it's only male panelists or
Speaker 1: only male speakers. So when we see that kind of
Speaker 1: being here, I think it's important to call it out.
Speaker 1: Taking Client co founder of Edge and Note Taking, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining than share your perspective, I'm
Speaker 1: breaking open some of those stereotypes. All right, much more ahead,
Speaker 1: stay with us. This is learn a few other stories
Speaker 1: we continue to watch. Amazon was dealta blow in federal
Speaker 1: court after allowing a female employ to move forward with
Speaker 1: a discrimination complaint in California. This woman claims Amazon offered
Speaker 1: her husband quote substantially more in wages when applying for
Speaker 1: the same job, despite the couple's comparable qualifications and experience.
Speaker 1: She also says the company retaliated against her for filing
Speaker 1: this wage discrimination complaint, refusing to interview her for a promotion,
Speaker 1: and being denied scheduling changes. Also, a former Apple lawyer
Speaker 1: pled guilty to insider trading between twenty sixteen. According to
Speaker 1: these charges, gene Levoff traded on confidential revenue and earnings
Speaker 1: over his decade long career at Apple. Love Off was
Speaker 1: one of the most senior executives, reporting directly to the
Speaker 1: company's general council. Apple fired leave Off in September eighteen
Speaker 1: after placing him on leave. And that doesn't for the
Speaker 1: sedition of Bloomberg Technology, do not forget to check out
Speaker 1: our podcast. You can find it anywhere you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: I'm Emily Changing in San Francisco. This is Bloomberg