Speaker 1: From the heart of where innovation, money and power Colli
Speaker 1: in Silicon Vallet and beyond. This is Bloomberg Technology with
Speaker 1: Emily Jay. I'm Emily Check in San Francisco, and this
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg Technology. Coming up in the next hour, a
Speaker 1: big post earnings pop for Meta in sharp contrast to
Speaker 1: its plunge last quarter. We'll discuss how Facebook is holding
Speaker 1: on to its users. Plus we'll talk to Jason Goldman.
Speaker 1: He was part of the founding team at Twitter and
Speaker 1: an early board member. What does he think about Elon
Speaker 1: Musk swooping in and his version of free speech? Goldman
Speaker 1: joins us this hour and we'll talk to the co
Speaker 1: founder and CEO of twenty three and me and wi
Speaker 1: Jetski about their new play in telehealth, progress on drug discovery,
Speaker 1: and her vision for building a healthcare company unlike anything
Speaker 1: we've seen before. We will get to all of that
Speaker 1: in a moment, but first, big tech earnings continue Meta
Speaker 1: and qual calm out. I want to stay with Meta
Speaker 1: and bring in Angelo Zeno of c f r A.
Speaker 1: So this after Facebook daily users declining for the first
Speaker 1: time in a decade last quarter, that number growing this quarter. Angelo,
Speaker 1: is this a blip or is this the long term thing. Yeah, listen,
Speaker 1: I think this is um really kind of meta and
Speaker 1: just it seems like three months ago just kind of
Speaker 1: really setting the bar extremely low here, UM, and you know,
Speaker 1: they were able to kind of come through with flying
Speaker 1: colors in many respects. I mean, despite the fact that
Speaker 1: you kind of had the rush of Ukraine War ongoing
Speaker 1: UM soultness out in Europe. UM, this was a company
Speaker 1: that essentially grew six percent on the daily active users
Speaker 1: side of things year of a year. Overall, pretty good numbers,
Speaker 1: i'd say on night front, growing across every region outside
Speaker 1: of Europe, and you kind of have to give them
Speaker 1: a pass out in Europe. So UM, I think, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily think this is a blip. I think
Speaker 1: this is a company that's now going to continue to
Speaker 1: see growth on the d AU side, but there will
Speaker 1: probably be kind of very modest in nature. So UM
Speaker 1: what whether or not we continue to see six percent,
Speaker 1: who knows, maybe it will be closer to to low
Speaker 1: midst low single digit growth, But nonetheless, I think it
Speaker 1: alleviates the big fear out there, which was the fact
Speaker 1: that we could have seen potentially negative d AU type
Speaker 1: numbers in the coming quarters. Now, Mark Zuckerberg in the
Speaker 1: earnings released saying, we made progress this quarter across a
Speaker 1: number of key company priorities, and we remain confident in
Speaker 1: the long term opportunities and growth that are product roadmap
Speaker 1: will unlock. Another significant point here is that they reduced
Speaker 1: their expenses forecast. A lot of analysts and investors have
Speaker 1: been pretty skeptical about the amount of money uh that
Speaker 1: Facebook and Meta are pouring into their virtual reality dreams.
Speaker 1: How big a deal is this? So they essentially left
Speaker 1: the capex number unchanged, you sed, right, But in terms
Speaker 1: to your point, the compex number definitely cut a big here.
Speaker 1: I think that's definitely a positive sign. And one of
Speaker 1: our biggest fears was, um, the fact that they were
Speaker 1: just spending way too much on that initiative. It was
Speaker 1: essentially gonna squeeze the margins um for the foreseeable future
Speaker 1: because of the slowing growth on the ad side of things.
Speaker 1: So listen, Ultimately, I think it's a good thing that
Speaker 1: they're tempering some of those uh expense growth numbers. UM. Nonetheless,
Speaker 1: it's going to continue away. They are spending significantly, They
Speaker 1: will need to continue to spend significantly. I also think
Speaker 1: it's important to note here, I mean, listen, they do
Speaker 1: have they continue to have a problem in this sense
Speaker 1: that UM they're catering, in our view to essentially the
Speaker 1: wrong UM ecosystem, in the sense that they have to
Speaker 1: get younger, and they have to get younger quick and
Speaker 1: that's the whole point of the whole metaverse, right, and
Speaker 1: uh that as a result, you need to spend aggressively
Speaker 1: on that side of things. They've got an opportunity here
Speaker 1: because it looks like companies like in Apple and Sony
Speaker 1: are kind of pushing out some of their initiatives in
Speaker 1: the metaver into three. So UM I wouldn't necessarily take
Speaker 1: the fund fully off the gas here from them, but
Speaker 1: nonetheless they are spending aggressively, and I think that is
Speaker 1: the right roof Still, I wonder why investors are focusing
Speaker 1: so much on the good news here and not the
Speaker 1: bad revenue. Did miss estimates? Their guidance on revenue is
Speaker 1: also a little light, and this in the context of
Speaker 1: not great add numbers from snap from YouTube. You know,
Speaker 1: what are we gonna be seeing here over the longer term.
Speaker 1: I think it's all expectations, to be honest with you,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a company that was trading less
Speaker 1: than thirteen times our three estimate, so the bar again
Speaker 1: was said extremely low. We're talking depressed of evaluation, essentially
Speaker 1: training at evaluation where you know many people have left
Speaker 1: the company for dead. So um. The reason I think
Speaker 1: you've kind of seen this change of sentiment here after
Speaker 1: hours is because it looks like, at least for the
Speaker 1: time being, that type of scenario has been left off
Speaker 1: the table, despite the fact that you know the revenue
Speaker 1: guy the UM for Q two specifically is below when
Speaker 1: where the street had expected expected. I think there was
Speaker 1: just a lot more hate kind of going on going
Speaker 1: into this quarter. Well, dad is a strong word for
Speaker 1: a company with three billion users, even if ad growth
Speaker 1: MRS estimates. Angelosino c f R A thank you so much.
Speaker 1: As we dig deeper into Elon musk billion dollar Twitter takeover,
Speaker 1: we are learning more about what Musk can and can't do.
Speaker 1: He can't tweet anything that quote disparages the company or
Speaker 1: any of its representatives, a rule he seems to have
Speaker 1: already violated. There's also a one billion dollar breakup fee
Speaker 1: if the deal doesn't go through. For more on what
Speaker 1: it all means, we are joined by Bloomberg's Max Chafkin.
Speaker 1: So Max Musk has already tweeted some disparaging remarks about
Speaker 1: vidigade twitters chief legal counsel. This in response to an
Speaker 1: article about her crying over the deal in a meeting
Speaker 1: political article. How likely is it that this kind of
Speaker 1: behavior is actually going to get Musk into regulatory trouble.
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty unlikely, and and I think that
Speaker 1: has to do with kind of this. This is going
Speaker 1: to come down to your definition of disparaging. And first
Speaker 1: of all, whether Twitter is going to argue that it's disparaging,
Speaker 1: I think, um, you know, Musk can say, hey, I'm
Speaker 1: just commenting on this, you know, public debate, and yeah,
Speaker 1: there are a bunch of trolls coming in and and
Speaker 1: and coming after this Twitter exact, you know, in in
Speaker 1: harassing and uncomfortable threatening perhaps ways, but that you know,
Speaker 1: he Musk didn't do that, And I think that that
Speaker 1: would be his argument. And I have a feeling that
Speaker 1: that's going to hold if not you know, water in
Speaker 1: the public arena, public opinion, it will hold legal and
Speaker 1: regulatory water. So I don't think there's likely to be
Speaker 1: any kind of uh, any consequences in terms of the
Speaker 1: legal risk. I do think this does raise questions about,
Speaker 1: you know, what kind of company is Elon Musk gonna run?
Speaker 1: What is it when you're going after your own executive
Speaker 1: as a company that these people are going to work
Speaker 1: for you. Uh, you know they're gonna be responsible to you.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't seem like, um, the smartest thing to do,
Speaker 1: right And of course there's a contingent of people that
Speaker 1: are not excited about this, and a contingent of people
Speaker 1: on Twitter that are very excited about this. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, Musk Tolemo is playing with fire. I mean,
Speaker 1: can we expect anything but more of these kinds of
Speaker 1: tweets until this deal closes, which you know it could
Speaker 1: be a few months. We've seen Musk, you know, basically
Speaker 1: fight with the security the SEC for the last four
Speaker 1: years or so, and he's not backing down. You know,
Speaker 1: just a couple of days ago he was he was,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of reiterating his lack of respect for
Speaker 1: the San Francisco office of the SEC. So, you know,
Speaker 1: this is somebody who there there are the rules, and
Speaker 1: then then then there's what he's going to do. And
Speaker 1: obviously he's become very successful pushing the envelope. I think
Speaker 1: he's going to continue to do that. They clearly with
Speaker 1: this agreement tried to create some carve out so he
Speaker 1: wouldn't like, immediately violate the agreement. They said, you know,
Speaker 1: Elon can tweet about the deal. You know we won't,
Speaker 1: but Elon can um. But of course he's he's going
Speaker 1: to be himself and he's going to find ways to
Speaker 1: push the boundaries. All right, Well, we're gonna be following
Speaker 1: it all tweet by tweet. Max Chafkin, thank you. I
Speaker 1: want to continue this conversation with a man who knows
Speaker 1: a lot about Twitter and its history. He was part
Speaker 1: of the founding team at Twitter and a board member
Speaker 1: from two thousand seven to two thousand ten. Jason Goldman
Speaker 1: joining me now in an exclusive interview. Jason, good to
Speaker 1: have you here. I know this arouses a lot of emotions.
Speaker 1: Now that you've had a couple of days to digest this,
Speaker 1: how are you feeling about Elon Musk buying Twitter. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just a disappointment because I think the company really
Speaker 1: could use great stewardship at this point, and what he's
Speaker 1: revealing is just how un serious a person he is
Speaker 1: about both his ideas for the product and the philosophy
Speaker 1: that underpins it. So I think some would say it's
Speaker 1: a disappointment that Twitter hasn't grown faster, racked up more users,
Speaker 1: become more influential. How would you respond to that? I mean, like,
Speaker 1: you know, the business performance of the company has always
Speaker 1: sort of dragged behind the cultural importance of the company.
Speaker 1: We always have known that that has a much bigger
Speaker 1: footprint with journalists and with media celebrities, musicians, that it
Speaker 1: has this huge cultural footprint, and I think that's what
Speaker 1: made it an attractive opportunity for Elon. So what do
Speaker 1: you think is missing from the conversation? We've seen pundits
Speaker 1: talking about this now for three weeks, we've heard from
Speaker 1: Ellen himself a lot of debates. But you know, what
Speaker 1: do you think is missing? Given your vantage point and
Speaker 1: history with this company going back fifteen years? So, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think the biggest problem is the free speech framing
Speaker 1: that he continues to use to talk about what he
Speaker 1: wants to do with the product. It just reveals a
Speaker 1: very naive, un serious approach to the content moderation issues
Speaker 1: he will face. Uh, And I say it's unserious because
Speaker 1: his own standard of we should just allow for anything
Speaker 1: that's not disallowed by law is self defeating. Because he's
Speaker 1: talked about wanting to remove anonymous content, he's at about
Speaker 1: wanting to remove bots. Both of those things are examples
Speaker 1: of content that is not you know that that are
Speaker 1: not There's no First Amendment carve out for for anonymity.
Speaker 1: You can definitely express yourself anonymously. Uh. And so it
Speaker 1: just shows that he hasn't really kind of put the
Speaker 1: dots together on what what needs to what needs to
Speaker 1: happen in this space. So let's talk about that a
Speaker 1: little bit more, because we had a very lively debate
Speaker 1: here on the show yesterday with David Sachs and Tam
Speaker 1: O'Brien are Bloomberg opinion columnists. I want you to take
Speaker 1: a quick listen to that exchange. The platform is absolutely
Speaker 1: rife with bots, and I think Ellen has already promised
Speaker 1: he's gonna crack down on bots, and he has expertise
Speaker 1: at his disposal, the premier AI engineers who he can
Speaker 1: deploy to solve that problem. I actually think that speech
Speaker 1: free speech to it's fake not if it's fake speech.
Speaker 1: So the first hold on a second, then let me finish.
Speaker 1: When you put bots on Twitter and pretend to be
Speaker 1: someone you're not, when you pretend, when you basically violate
Speaker 1: the authenticity requirement, you are basically trading a kind of
Speaker 1: fraud that is not free speech, that's fake speech. Is
Speaker 1: perfectly fair game under any kind of free speech policy
Speaker 1: to take down those kinds of bots, And I fully
Speaker 1: expect that Ellen will be far more effective at doing
Speaker 1: that than the current management of Twitter, because they've been
Speaker 1: unable to do that. Jason, what's your reaction to that.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a standard that is in no way
Speaker 1: supported by free speech, Uh, legislation, that's no way supported
Speaker 1: by a constitutional standard of what free speeches or it's
Speaker 1: just a notion that he's exposing that anonymous speech somehow
Speaker 1: doesn't get free speech protections. There's no case law that
Speaker 1: establishes that's true. He's just purporting that to be true. Uh.
Speaker 1: And moreover, if that's a standard, what other things would
Speaker 1: he look to remove? Are we going to remove? For example? Um,
Speaker 1: are we going to Are we going to allow back
Speaker 1: on the platform people who harass parents of children who
Speaker 1: are murdered at Sandy Hook? Because even if they if
Speaker 1: even if they use their real names. Like this just
Speaker 1: isn't a serious standard that's being articulated, and he hasn't
Speaker 1: thought through and David hasn't thought through all of the
Speaker 1: implications that would come from adopting it. So by free speech,
Speaker 1: Ellen says, he means that which matches the law. I
Speaker 1: am against censorship that goes far beyond the law. What
Speaker 1: are your biggest fears about Elon Musk taking over Twitter?
Speaker 1: So the type of content that Twitter has cleaned up
Speaker 1: in the last you know, six years, seven years include
Speaker 1: things that were in response to real world occurrences. You know,
Speaker 1: you go back to and you look at the rife
Speaker 1: of content that was being used by ultra extremists uh
Speaker 1: in including isis to recruit people off of Twitter, and
Speaker 1: so there was beheading videos and just content in general
Speaker 1: that was meant to appeal to an audience to recruit
Speaker 1: people to ultra vans. Are we going to allow that
Speaker 1: back on? Those acts may be illegal, but the content
Speaker 1: about it is not illegal. There's no there's no First Amendment.
Speaker 1: There's no First Amendment rule that says that you cannot
Speaker 1: use uh you speech in that way. So there's no
Speaker 1: case law that would support Elon's contention that that content
Speaker 1: has to be removed because of legal reason. So I
Speaker 1: just don't think that standard holds water when you look
Speaker 1: at the type of things that he is going to
Speaker 1: want to still not be on the platform now, Jack Dorsey,
Speaker 1: and obviously I know you work closely with Jack. In
Speaker 1: the earliest days, he thanked Ellen for getting Twitter out
Speaker 1: of a quote impossible situation, to which you responded with
Speaker 1: a meme of a guy in a hotdog suit, saying
Speaker 1: it was an impossible situation, says founder in control of
Speaker 1: company for the last decade. What are you trying to
Speaker 1: say there? I mean Jack has been either the executive
Speaker 1: chairman with control of the company or the CEO since
Speaker 1: October of two thousand ten. He's had the most direct
Speaker 1: role in shaping the course of the company for the
Speaker 1: past twelve years. When he wrote his resignation letter in
Speaker 1: just of November of last year, he said, I worked
Speaker 1: hard to ensure the company can break away from its
Speaker 1: founding and its founders. And so to now say, you
Speaker 1: know to now be only less than five months from
Speaker 1: that and say solving for the problem of it being
Speaker 1: a company. Ellen is the senor or solution I trust
Speaker 1: what what happened in the last five months. I thought
Speaker 1: it had been established in this trajectory, it was able
Speaker 1: to break away from the founding and its founders, and
Speaker 1: now Elon Musk, someone who's never been involved before except
Speaker 1: for being a troll on the platform, is the singular
Speaker 1: solution to the trajectory of the company. That seems curious.
Speaker 1: Do you think Jack, I mean, do you do you
Speaker 1: do you blame Jack for anything here? You know, is
Speaker 1: there something you think you should be answering too well?
Speaker 1: He said, I mean, you know, the biggest thing, the
Speaker 1: biggest thing, just concretely today is that Ellen is using
Speaker 1: the platform to troll the employees of the company that
Speaker 1: Jack's led, uh, you know for the past twelve years. Uh.
Speaker 1: And that's you know, that's vision, and that's other people
Speaker 1: in the Trust and Safety organization. And and you can
Speaker 1: absolutely critique decisions, content moderation, decisions that have been made
Speaker 1: by the company, but if you absolutely should not allow
Speaker 1: the perspective owner of the company to troll your employees
Speaker 1: um for the decisions that they made. And that's really
Speaker 1: what's going on here and puts the lie to the
Speaker 1: free speech argument. Ellen's not interested in debating this question
Speaker 1: of you know, what content should be allowed or not,
Speaker 1: he is simply turning his army of fans on these
Speaker 1: employees and allowing them to be targets of racist abuse
Speaker 1: and threats. That's not the Lincoln Douglas debates, that's not
Speaker 1: Cicero in the forum, that's not the marketplace of ideas.
Speaker 1: That's just using the product as an active troll to
Speaker 1: harass and target employees. And Jack and the board absolutely
Speaker 1: should have the backs of their employees in that case.
Speaker 1: So that's just a concrete example of something happening right now.
Speaker 1: Twitter was often, even in its earliest days, overshadowed by
Speaker 1: this sort of Game of Thrones drama. I think even
Speaker 1: you would agree with that, And and I wonder do
Speaker 1: you think do you there has been speculation that Jack
Speaker 1: perhaps had something to do with this, and before maybe
Speaker 1: even Elon Musk started buying shares, what do you think
Speaker 1: of that theory? I mean, you know, so there's I
Speaker 1: think there's the problem with most conspiracies is that they're
Speaker 1: they're too clever for anyone to keep secret. Uh. And
Speaker 1: in the case of you know, Jack or so anyone
Speaker 1: else on the board actually working with Ellen or kind
Speaker 1: of originate this deal that obviously would trip a number
Speaker 1: of legal red lines that I don't think folks would
Speaker 1: be very comfortable doing, and would then for even just
Speaker 1: increase the chances that it would leak. I do think
Speaker 1: it's I do think it's possible, slash likely. And I
Speaker 1: take Jack at his word when he said, oh, this
Speaker 1: Elon's solution looks like the only solution available. That he
Speaker 1: was supportive of Elan coming in and owning the company,
Speaker 1: probably because he felt like, you know, he no longer
Speaker 1: was going to be involved, so this was another way,
Speaker 1: another way out. I would just point out that's in
Speaker 1: direct distinction and in contradiction to what he said five
Speaker 1: months ago when he said the company was in great
Speaker 1: hands and he had no concerns about stepping away. What
Speaker 1: have you heard from current Twitter employees? What's it like
Speaker 1: working at Twitter right now? You know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't want to speak for for current employees. I
Speaker 1: will say for former employees, it's been and you know,
Speaker 1: those of us who are there from the you know,
Speaker 1: sort of early times. Uh, it's it's just depressing. It's
Speaker 1: it's sad to see this thing that was be be
Speaker 1: looked after by someone who hasn't really thought through the issues,
Speaker 1: hasn't really kind of taken care uh to to do
Speaker 1: the research on on what on what product is they
Speaker 1: need to build. He's, you know, in addition to the
Speaker 1: free speech questions, he's also just not articulating a coherent
Speaker 1: product vision of what he wants to do with the
Speaker 1: product or why it was interested in buying it. And
Speaker 1: so that's just it's a disappointing end uh endpoint to
Speaker 1: this part of the Twitter journey. Well, we will see
Speaker 1: if that comes with time. Jason Goldman, part of the
Speaker 1: founding team at Twitter, Thank you for bringing your voice
Speaker 1: to this conversation. Appreciated. Robin Hood is in need of
Speaker 1: its own Robin Hood style rescue. Less than a year
Speaker 1: after going public, the online brokerage is racked up more
Speaker 1: than two billion dollars of losses and it's now dismissing
Speaker 1: nine percent of its workforce. Thirty people work there now.
Speaker 1: Robin had said that after a period of hyper growth
Speaker 1: in early it ended up hiring too many people, leading
Speaker 1: to duplicate rules and quote more layers and complexity than optimal.
Speaker 1: SpaceX has launched four astronauts to the International Space Station.
Speaker 1: This is the first NASA crew making up of an
Speaker 1: equal number of men and women, including the first black
Speaker 1: woman to live and work in space for a long
Speaker 1: term mission, Jessica Watkins. They'll arrive at the space station
Speaker 1: sixteen hours after launch. And coming up, we are joined
Speaker 1: by and which it Ski the co founder and CEO
Speaker 1: of twenty three and Me and their big bet on
Speaker 1: telehealth plus the latest on metas results in the stock
Speaker 1: spiking after plunging last time around. That is next. This
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg. Welcome back to Bloomberg Technology and Emily Chinese,
Speaker 1: San Francisco. Well, the pandemic continues to change how we
Speaker 1: view certain businesses in the world of healthcare. Definitely one
Speaker 1: of them. Twenty three, the genetic testing company, is diving
Speaker 1: into tele metas and to help customers better understand their
Speaker 1: genetic reports. Joining me now is and Whichetsky is the
Speaker 1: CEO and co founder of twenty three and Me and
Speaker 1: always good to have you here on the show. So
Speaker 1: you're taking here first steps towards giving twenty three customers
Speaker 1: access to telehealth to help them understand, um, what all
Speaker 1: of this data you're giving back to them actually means.
Speaker 1: How exactly does it work well. I think one of
Speaker 1: the most interesting things I've learned of the last sixteen
Speaker 1: years is that everyone sees a world where you're going
Speaker 1: to get your genetic information and it's going to be
Speaker 1: part of your everyday primary care experience. But the reality
Speaker 1: is most physicians are not trained. UM it's not accessible,
Speaker 1: it's not part of the medical system. And we've learned
Speaker 1: we have over twelve million customers. We've learned over time
Speaker 1: that our customers are getting this information and they take
Speaker 1: it to their primary care physicians, and they largely don't
Speaker 1: know what to do with that information. And so there's
Speaker 1: this opportunity for twenty three and me to really solve
Speaker 1: that problem and actually become that consult to other primary
Speaker 1: care physicians or other specialists by really providing and delivering
Speaker 1: genomic medicine and how our customers and how everyone else
Speaker 1: out there can learn about their DNA and say I'm
Speaker 1: going to take proactive preventative steps and have whether that
Speaker 1: changes some of the guidelines like um, getting a colonoscopy,
Speaker 1: or whether or not that's going to actually influence how
Speaker 1: they're wearing sunglasses, or how they are eating and exercising,
Speaker 1: how significant will telehealth be to twenty three and these
Speaker 1: future business like, do you see this being a significant
Speaker 1: driver of the vision and revenue. I think that preventative
Speaker 1: care is absolutely something people do every day. Your health
Speaker 1: is a sum of what your actions are every single day.
Speaker 1: And I think that people get genetic information, You get
Speaker 1: any kind of health information, and you have to spread
Speaker 1: it out throughout your life. You have to continuously implement it.
Speaker 1: And so what I find and part of the twenty
Speaker 1: three plus product that we that we launched about roughly
Speaker 1: over a year ago was about additional content, and we've
Speaker 1: always said the next step for us is actually saying
Speaker 1: there's additional services that are part of that. Is that
Speaker 1: going to be telemedicine, Is it going to be the
Speaker 1: ability to chat with the physician, Is it going to
Speaker 1: be access to pharmacy, um and integration with you know,
Speaker 1: your genetic data with pharmacy, or is it potentially going
Speaker 1: to be access to blood tests that are relevant because
Speaker 1: of your genetic information. So I think that this infrastructure
Speaker 1: is a really core part of the future experience where
Speaker 1: customers are going to have twenty three and me part
Speaker 1: of their entire lifetime of healthcare. Now you have really
Speaker 1: some eye opening research about COVID nineteen. You found that
Speaker 1: the loss of the sense of taste and smell was
Speaker 1: tied to genes that if you had type of blood,
Speaker 1: for example, you were less likely to test positive. Are
Speaker 1: you still looking into COVID nineteen? Are we're going to
Speaker 1: see twenty three and me make more COVID related discoveries.
Speaker 1: We are, and it's something I have been pushing more
Speaker 1: and more or and just personally, I hear of all
Speaker 1: kinds of stories on long COVID, So a lot of
Speaker 1: our emphasis right now has been on long COVID. We
Speaker 1: have over one and a half million people who have
Speaker 1: taken our COVID survey. Um you know, over sixteen thousand
Speaker 1: of them have had were hospitalized and had serious cases.
Speaker 1: UM large numbers of people who have long COVID. So
Speaker 1: we're actively continuing to look at that data and will
Speaker 1: continue to publish on it. It's something that's obviously it's
Speaker 1: very top of mind, and I think understanding the genetics
Speaker 1: behind why we all have such variable responses is going
Speaker 1: to be really important for us in managing and going forward.
Speaker 1: What's the progress on your drug discovery business and the
Speaker 1: likelihood that twenty three and ME will help us, you know,
Speaker 1: get closer to a care for cancer. Well, I think
Speaker 1: people don't always realize drug discovery is incredibly hard. Most
Speaker 1: you know, most programs fail. There's over ninety failure in
Speaker 1: in drug discovery. And so one of the only things
Speaker 1: that has ever been shown to increase the likelihood of
Speaker 1: success is starting with a genetic a human genetic foundation.
Speaker 1: So if you have a human Janet foundation to your
Speaker 1: drug discovery program, you're more than twice as likely to
Speaker 1: be successful at actually getting onto the market. So what's
Speaker 1: so unusual about twenty three and me is that we
Speaker 1: have this incredible, you know, community of data, set of
Speaker 1: information where we can make all kinds of discoveries on
Speaker 1: all different disease areas. And what the therapeutics team is
Speaker 1: They go through all of this data, they sort of
Speaker 1: whittle it down into where are we most likely to
Speaker 1: be successful, where is there an unmet need? And then
Speaker 1: we're actually working on that with a you know, in
Speaker 1: partnership with GSK on getting these programs actually out to everybody.
Speaker 1: So is the hole that twenty three is gonna be
Speaker 1: a big farma company someday? What's a fair comparison. I
Speaker 1: love this, Emily, like one of the biggest challenges people
Speaker 1: have a hard time putting us in a box because
Speaker 1: we're not telemedicine, We're not just a diagnostics and we're
Speaker 1: not just a pharma like. We have this comprehensive holistic
Speaker 1: system where we say twenty three and Me is about
Speaker 1: engaging individuals in their health and at the same time,
Speaker 1: those individuals always have the ability to opt into research.
Speaker 1: Over eight percent of our customers opt into research, and
Speaker 1: with that, we're making discoveries. And those discoveries either can
Speaker 1: go back to our customers, and that's where Lemonade and
Speaker 1: the acquisition of our of our health platform and the
Speaker 1: ability to engage customers, they will benefit in that way,
Speaker 1: or some of those insights are going to go to
Speaker 1: our therapeutic side, and we are going to continue to
Speaker 1: make discoveries that hopefully one day are going to go
Speaker 1: back to our customers, and we're going to have potentially
Speaker 1: a new way of even approaching how we get those
Speaker 1: therapeutics out to our customers. Now. Of course, twenty three
Speaker 1: and Me recently went public vs. Back, and I'm curious
Speaker 1: what the transition from being a private company to be
Speaker 1: a public company has been like for you you know,
Speaker 1: we've seen tech stocks in general and equities in general
Speaker 1: really take a leg down in this macro environment, you know,
Speaker 1: and you know twenty three and Me has as well. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, what's your reaction to that and what's been
Speaker 1: your experience dealing with public get investors? I love, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm really happy that we we went through the process.
Speaker 1: We are public. Now we have the ability to you know,
Speaker 1: to do more acquisitions, the ability to actually access markets.
Speaker 1: Like all of this was you know, it was the
Speaker 1: right time and the right place for us to go public.
Speaker 1: And what I've been focused on now is really just
Speaker 1: the long term mission of the company. The long term
Speaker 1: vision of this company is that every single person in
Speaker 1: the world is going to have genetics that's part of
Speaker 1: their care. Like it's almost one of those things that
Speaker 1: every every research or every healthcare professional UM talks about.
Speaker 1: It's inevitable and it's obvious genetics is going to become
Speaker 1: a critical part of healthcare in the future. And so
Speaker 1: twenty three and Me is absolutely that leading platform that
Speaker 1: is going to drive that and make that happen. So
Speaker 1: I have not been focused on the day to day
Speaker 1: of you know, of the stock market. Markets are obviously
Speaker 1: quite dynamic right now, but what I'm focused on is
Speaker 1: that long term future where every single person is going
Speaker 1: to have genetics as a critical part of their care
Speaker 1: and which it's of twenty three and me thank you
Speaker 1: as Allas, thank you am good to see you, good
Speaker 1: to see you too. It is time now for our
Speaker 1: crypto report, and as the f t X Salt conference
Speaker 1: is underway in the Bahamas, let's take a moment to
Speaker 1: look at the world of Defy. Our crypto contributor Shinali
Speaker 1: Bossik here for more. Hinali, what caught your eye? I
Speaker 1: want to talk to you Emily about Defy because DeFi
Speaker 1: here is supposed to be the big bank killer, the
Speaker 1: big way for pure to pure transactions to happen, things
Speaker 1: to happen outside of the normal financial system. It was
Speaker 1: also the big trade that Mike Novograt's at the end
Speaker 1: of last year said would be the big trade for
Speaker 1: this year. But it has been down quite a bit.
Speaker 1: If you look at a Defy index we have between
Speaker 1: Bloomberg and Galaxy, it's almost seventy down on the year now.
Speaker 1: It tracks Bitcoin to some degree, although the moves are
Speaker 1: much more volatile. So bitcoin is a two percent for example,
Speaker 1: you also have a rise and other DEFY assets unit
Speaker 1: swap is up more than one percent, is up more
Speaker 1: than six percent over the last twenty four hours. So
Speaker 1: it's time now, I think, to dive a little deeper
Speaker 1: into how Defy is changing among the asset class. Of course,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of projects to look into. Emily
Speaker 1: all right, and Allie stay with us. We're gonna move
Speaker 1: into zero x labs and Defy exchange infrastructure provider just
Speaker 1: raised seventy million dollars led by Graylock. Here to talk
Speaker 1: about that and more. Greylock Partners. Sarah Gual joining his
Speaker 1: live from the f t X Salt Crypto conference in
Speaker 1: the Bahamas. Sarah, First of all, what's the mood and
Speaker 1: seen in the Bahamas in the crypto community. It's great
Speaker 1: to be here. There's a lot of innovation happening, and
Speaker 1: I think what's been really interesting is seeing the confluence
Speaker 1: of crypto entrepreneurs, investors, regulators, traditional finance um. So you
Speaker 1: just see the industry maturing. So talk to us about
Speaker 1: zero x. How do you see this company challenging incumbents
Speaker 1: as big as coin base, So as you mentioned, um UH,
Speaker 1: defy is growing and innovation is happening on decentralized exchanges
Speaker 1: that are peer to peer. Right. UM in the volume
Speaker 1: of the past year grew much faster on these decentralized
Speaker 1: exchanges than on centralized exchanges. But then these decentralized UM transactions,
Speaker 1: they bring their challenges and just like Web two needed
Speaker 1: open protocol standards to succeed like HTTP, so does Web three.
Speaker 1: And zero x is that open most trusted protocol for
Speaker 1: the exchange of tokenized value. It's a public good and
Speaker 1: zerox Labs builds commercial products on top of that public good.
Speaker 1: Now where you know, it's funny. We used to hate
Speaker 1: talking about regulation and finance because it was boring, but
Speaker 1: at the same time, now it is central to the
Speaker 1: emergence of this ecosystem. Big exchanges are struggling with this.
Speaker 1: How do DEFY exchanges think about the emerging regulation ahead? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't speak to all of them, UM, but what
Speaker 1: I would say, my my personal opinion is that we're
Speaker 1: going to get to a point where these rails that
Speaker 1: support innovation and UM more liquid twenty four hour day
Speaker 1: exchange UM for lower cost for end users and more accessibility. UM.
Speaker 1: They will be combined with appropriate consumer protections. And what
Speaker 1: I'd love to see is UM the US federal government
Speaker 1: take a stance as we have historically, UH like a
Speaker 1: leadership stance around financial innovation, UH, something that has made
Speaker 1: our economy UM a major player in the past, with
Speaker 1: for example, the rise of electronic trading and work the
Speaker 1: CFTC has done in the past. You know, what about
Speaker 1: self moderating a little bit here, because you know, while
Speaker 1: DEFY has its promise, there's a lot of worry about
Speaker 1: rug poles. There's a lot of worry about things that
Speaker 1: could go wrong for consumers, and we've seen it a
Speaker 1: lot over the last year or so. So if you're
Speaker 1: a consumer thinking about DEFY, you know, how do you
Speaker 1: look for the right places to go? Yeah, I would say, UM,
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right. I think that there's two sides of
Speaker 1: this coin or I guess three. Right. You have regulation,
Speaker 1: then you have platforms that can design products, even decentralized
Speaker 1: products that are um uh safer and abuse aware for consumers.
Speaker 1: And then there's just a huge component of consumer education
Speaker 1: around this new realm of finance. Now. Sam Bagman Freed
Speaker 1: of f t X had a very spirited take on
Speaker 1: what's driving crypto investments right now? He said, it's fomo.
Speaker 1: I'm curious what your take is on that is the
Speaker 1: fear of missing out? Really, Um, what's driving all this
Speaker 1: competition for deals? Uh? I think that. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: we at Graylock like to believe and I have a
Speaker 1: ton of respect for Sam. We're investors in f t X,
Speaker 1: but Graylock we are trying to make first principles decisions
Speaker 1: independently about the most important technology platforms of the future,
Speaker 1: right and so we operate in a competitive market, and
Speaker 1: we believe that many of our competitors are smart people,
Speaker 1: so we pay attention to what they're doing. But we
Speaker 1: would never invest simply because somebody else thought it was
Speaker 1: a good idea. Well, it seems like metaverse, the metaverse
Speaker 1: is the next buzzword and could be the next driver
Speaker 1: of fomo. And I'm curious, given of course Graylocks, you
Speaker 1: know early investments in Facebook, how you're thinking about that
Speaker 1: and especially the crossover of the metaverse into the world
Speaker 1: of crypto defy and all of these big themes we're
Speaker 1: talking about here. Yeah, we probably think about it from
Speaker 1: a slightly broader perspective. We made two investments recently UM
Speaker 1: in Magic Eden, which is the fastest growing n f
Speaker 1: T marketplace, around this idea that digital assets UM on Salona,
Speaker 1: but on any chain are going to become much more
Speaker 1: important and a part of people's lives, and they're going
Speaker 1: to have digital environments. UM. We also made an investment
Speaker 1: in a company called Portals, which is one of the
Speaker 1: leading metaverse projects. But in both of these cases, we're
Speaker 1: really focused on understanding, you know, what the user demand
Speaker 1: is and if that is community creation or a virtual
Speaker 1: place for social interaction. We're really oriented around that versus speculation.
Speaker 1: But we definitely think that there's going to be more
Speaker 1: and more you know, digital interpersonal interaction. Sarah, You've been
Speaker 1: at Goldman Sachs before gray Lock. You know how this works.
Speaker 1: What's going to happen in terms of the convergence of
Speaker 1: traditional finance and defy, There's got to be some space
Speaker 1: where the two combine. Yeah. I think that this is
Speaker 1: going to be a massive boon to the ecosystem as
Speaker 1: more and more traditional finance players move into the crypto
Speaker 1: ecosystem UM, because I think the greatest promise of crypto
Speaker 1: is actually like accessible trust less markets. UM that are
Speaker 1: more efficient. And the big institutional players, be they hedge
Speaker 1: funds or banks or market makers, they provide UM, they
Speaker 1: provide liquidity and efficiency in markets UH and help them
Speaker 1: operate better. And so I think that a lot of
Speaker 1: traditional finance organizations have been waiting for increasing regulatory clarity.
Speaker 1: But I'm really encouraged that you see UH firms like
Speaker 1: Goldman Sacks or Citadel say explicitly we're making moves into
Speaker 1: crypto and we feel more comfortable about the risks. I
Speaker 1: think that will make the entire ecosystem more liquid and
Speaker 1: more mature. Sarah, you're in the Bahamas. A lot of
Speaker 1: people are there, about two thousand people are there right now.
Speaker 1: What's your biggest takeaway? I think it's really what you said,
Speaker 1: which is where at a point of you know, the
Speaker 1: UM maturity in the ecosystem, where the most important thing
Speaker 1: is actually figuring out how to enable institutions and the
Speaker 1: next wave of consumers to enter the ecosystem and use
Speaker 1: the rails of crypto UM in ways that are UM
Speaker 1: you know, safe and legal UH. And I'm really encouraged
Speaker 1: that there's so much just us of that at the
Speaker 1: FTX conference. Alright, great lack Partners Saragua along with Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Shinali Bossik, Thank you both. Coming up more on Meta's
Speaker 1: earnings results. Did the social media giant just turn things
Speaker 1: around or so not going to be so easy? More
Speaker 1: on that next This is Gloomberg. I think that the
Speaker 1: cycle here between investment and um meaningful enough for revenue
Speaker 1: growth to be near or very profitable. It's gonna be
Speaker 1: it canna be long. I think it's gonna be longer
Speaker 1: for reality Labs than for a lot of the traditional
Speaker 1: software that we've built Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, or I should
Speaker 1: say Meta. I want to get back to Meta's results
Speaker 1: with the company adding more users than projected in the
Speaker 1: first quarter. I want to see, uh, now if the
Speaker 1: company is really turning itself around for the long term,
Speaker 1: and bring in Jasmine Edinburgh of in Eider Intelligence. So
Speaker 1: look Jasmine last quarter, uh first drop in d A
Speaker 1: used for the first time in a decade. This quarter
Speaker 1: they grow. What's your takeaway? Well, it's certainly a good sign,
Speaker 1: especially given what happened last quarter, but the reality is
Speaker 1: that there are still some very real challenges ahead for Meta,
Speaker 1: particularly when it comes to its AD business. There's the
Speaker 1: changes in iOS and combine that with you know, brand
Speaker 1: safety concerns surrounding the war in Ukraine, as well as
Speaker 1: broader brand safety concerns in general on Facebook and Instagram,
Speaker 1: and the rise of TikTok. It's really creating this perfect
Speaker 1: storm that is heading straight for Meta's ad revenues. So
Speaker 1: do you think this is you know, in terms of
Speaker 1: the user growth, is this a blip? Well, I was
Speaker 1: just listening in on the earnings call, and what was
Speaker 1: clear is that there is a huge focus right now
Speaker 1: for Meta on video and a lot of that has
Speaker 1: to do with the fact that social activity is really
Speaker 1: shifting towards video, and that's been accelerated by two talk.
Speaker 1: Of course, Facebook and Instagram both have a TikTok competitor
Speaker 1: in reels, and that was really Zuckerberg's focus on the
Speaker 1: top of the call um, and they're trying to find
Speaker 1: ways to be able to use video to continue to
Speaker 1: draw an engagement and users. Well, in Facebook has tried
Speaker 1: video before. I mean, this isn't the first time they've
Speaker 1: experimented with video products. Do you think they can get
Speaker 1: this right? It's a great question, and it's something that
Speaker 1: we can only tell over time. I think you know,
Speaker 1: reels has taken off much better on Instagram that it
Speaker 1: has on Facebook, and a lot of that has to
Speaker 1: do with the different user base that Instagram and Facebook has.
Speaker 1: Instagram's user base is also aging now, but it still
Speaker 1: tends to be younger than Facebook's is, and so that's
Speaker 1: one reason why video seems to be a little bit
Speaker 1: more successful there. So let's talk about what you think
Speaker 1: they signifies about long term ad revenue growth, because you know,
Speaker 1: obviously we see Facebook struggling, we saw a Snap struggle
Speaker 1: and YouTube revenue came in yesterday at revenue came in
Speaker 1: light You know, what's your takeaway as to how that's
Speaker 1: going to evolve through the rest of the are given
Speaker 1: there's no sign the macro environment is changing. There's still
Speaker 1: a war in Ukraine, We're still facing inflation. Yeah. Look,
Speaker 1: there's always going to be different types of macro headwinds.
Speaker 1: And I think you know, one of the biggest things
Speaker 1: that a lot of these companies need to focus on
Speaker 1: as an innovation. You know, TikTok really entered the scene
Speaker 1: and has taken it by storm. We're seeing a bring
Speaker 1: in users and add revenues, and of course, the biggest
Speaker 1: threat to long term growth for any of these social platforms,
Speaker 1: whether it's Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat, is a decline or
Speaker 1: slow down in its user growth. So by focusing on
Speaker 1: ways that they can bring in new users and continue
Speaker 1: to keep that engagement on these platforms, that's the way
Speaker 1: that they're going to be able to continue attracting advertisers there,
Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, advertisers go where
Speaker 1: their consumers or customers are. So what are you watching
Speaker 1: for when it comes to meta this quarter? Well, I'll
Speaker 1: be watching to see a couple of things. I mean,
Speaker 1: one is to see how reals develops. Again, it was
Speaker 1: a huge point um that Zuckerberg was making in the
Speaker 1: beginning of the earnings call. There's a lot of focus
Speaker 1: on the metaverse right now, but it's it's an incredibly
Speaker 1: buzzy term. But I really truly believed that the immediate
Speaker 1: competition again for social media right now is in video,
Speaker 1: and whoever is able to rise to the top in
Speaker 1: um in video is going to be the leader in
Speaker 1: this space. All right, Jasmine Emberg Insider Intelligence, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for joining us. Meantime, some of the biggest
Speaker 1: stars on Twitch might start to see some revenue cuts.
Speaker 1: People familiar with the matter say the live streaming website
Speaker 1: is pondering changes to how it pays top talent by
Speaker 1: offering incentives for streamers to run more ads, for instance,
Speaker 1: or reduce the proportion of subscription fees doled out to
Speaker 1: the biggest stars. This move, intended to boost profits, could
Speaker 1: alienate some of the biggest names. That is the risk
Speaker 1: and that does it for this edition of Bloomberg Technology. Tomorrow,
Speaker 1: Christiano Amant, CEO of Qualcom, will be joining me talking
Speaker 1: about their earnings report quite strong, and we're also watching
Speaker 1: results from Apple, Twitter, and Amazon Big Day. Don't forget
Speaker 1: to check out our podcast. You can find it everywhere
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. I'm Emily Changing in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg