♪ emily: i'm emily chang in san francisco, and this is " bloomberg technology." coming up a key milestone -- u.s. regulators say johnson & johnson's covid vaccine is safe and effective. it would be the first a single dose in the united states.

plus, former yankee a-rod will talk about his latest back. and jovi aviation gets a lift from reid hoffman. it is a spectacular wednesday. all those stories in a moment, but first, u.s. equities staging a rally as fed chair jerome powell again indicating the economy needs support. more on that as well as chips and gamestop. ed ludlow has been following all the latest. let's talk about chips first and his executive order from president biden. what can you tell us? >> president biden has directed officials to look at global semiconductor shorts. he warned it will not be a quick fix. a lot of manufacturing is done overseas, not domestically, and building factories to make those

semiconductors could take years and billions of dollars. he spoke to the press earlier today and said what is happening with this global chip shortage is we have identified a real vulnerability in the u.s. economy. the philadelphia semiconductor index did rise 3.2% throughout the regular trading session on wednesday. a lot of optimism that this action would cause a change long term in how the u.s. goes about securing its semiconductor supply. emily: let's talk about financial markets more broadly. big spike in game stock -- in gamestop today. walk us through it. >> it's just another crazy wednesday. the market is looking at what is going on with the economy and vaccines. the s&p 500 up 1% after the federal reserve chair through his support behind the idea of economic stimulus and fiscal

stimulus to support the economy. you can see tech a little bit behind that. the mis-c bank class index down .3%. there are still investor jitters that as yields rise, there's concern about big valuations in some of these big tech names and a little hesitancy. you can see as well the russell 2000 index, a gauge of small caps, up almost 4.2 percent on that johnson & johnson news. regulators pleased with the vaccine, the idea that more successful vaccines being administered means sooner we are out in the real economy spending money in those small businesses, but as you say, let's talk about stonks. gamestop, the biggest gain in three weeks. i thought this volatility was behind us, but there was a lot of volatility on reddit on wednesday. people talking about the gamestop cfo recent departure.

amc another one that talked about. you can see after hours that gamestop has continued those gains. i'm sure it will be a big story in days to come. i wanted to look at bitcoin because we are seeing. back in, buying up more cryptocurrency in supporting the price. we are up pretty impressively. we are hovering -- lots of volatility, big fluctuations in the price, but still big corporate names putting their support behind the cryptocurrency right there. emily: thank you for that round up. in the meantime, talking about that vaccine. u.s. regulators saying johnson & johnson's covid vaccine is safe. it is effective and a key milestone as it is the first

vaccine delivered in a single shot. >> great to be with you. it is a single dose vaccine, really the only one that has been tested that way, although the other vaccines have been looked at after a single dose, and in some ways, i would say the result from the j&j vaccine after one dose resembles the results of the other vaccines after a single dose, and it makes me think perhaps we will see more single dosing of these shots in the future. as you know, the u.k. is already giving out single doses of the pfizer-biontech vaccine and then waiting up to three months for a second dose just so they can get

more people more protection quickly, but overall, i think it is very good news. it shows that we can have a vaccine that is only going to be administered in a single dose. it is really a lot simpler. also, this vaccine could be the first one approved in the u.s. that will not need to be frozen. it only needs to be refrigerated with the other vaccines needing to be kept at erie low temperatures. we have read about shots thawing out at inappropriate times, people having to rush around out on the street to get people because they are afraid of something happening. emily: these johnson & johnson development's are quite significant. how quickly will the shot roll

out? [crosstalk] >> an emergency use authorization for this shot, potentially over the weekend. the fda panel is going to meet on friday. this is a panel of advisers to the fda. they are determined if they're going to recommend the emergency use authorization needed in order to roll the shot out. if it gets that recommendation, the authorization could come as early as friday night, maybe over the weekend, and then the government said -- one of biden's advisors on covid-19 said there could be as many as 3 million shots rolling out as early as next week. johnson & johnson said they

could have 12 million shots by the end of march. and then they have a contractor to deliver 6 million shots by the end of june. emily: fascinating developments. potentially game changing. thank you so much for that update. coming up, former mlb all-star alex rodriguez looking to hit a grand slam as he joins the blank check derby to build want to save hundreds on your wireless bill? with xfinity mobile you can. how about saving hundreds on the new samsung galaxy s21 ultra 5g? you can do that too. all on the most reliable network. sure thing! and with fast nationwide 5g included at no extra cost. we've got you covered. so join the carrier rated #1 in customer satisfaction.

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emily: the phenomenon continues.

former all-star for the yankees alex rodriguez joins the lengthening roster of financiers, executives, politicians, celebrities, and athletes who signed on to special purpose acquisition company's. we will start scouting for a merger deal to enrich him and his investors. alex joins us now. thank you both for joining us. we just heard some commentary from charlie monger. warren buffett's right hand, who said the world would be better without spac's. why do one and why now? >> i cannot speak for the masses, but i can tell you the spac world is custom-made for us. we level up the playing field and we can really have a big-time competitive advantage

and bring a lot of value to founders and companies. emily: interesting. what kind of companies do you want to buy? what kind of deals do you want to do and with whom? >> i would like to add on to what alex said because i think it is exactly right. when we think about spac's, it is almost a democratic way of a retailer and certain institutions to get an ipo before it happens. when you think about an ipo in general, they are usually given to a subset of large institutional investors. for us, we think this is a great way for the retail community and others to get in early, and they also have a put at $10, so we think it is a really interesting product and i think one that is here to stay. emily: when you talk about deal

flow -- you just mentioned, there are so many deals coming your way. what kind of deals are you looking for? what is going to be an attractive target for this particular vehicle? >> we look at about 1000 deals per year. they want to do business with us. we like sports, media technology. anything we do, tech should be the backbone of the company, and it's companies where we can get involved, tell the story, get involved with the founders where either or both of us could sit on the board and be very involved. emily: who's idea was it to do a spac -- who's idea -- whose idea was it to do a spac? >> i was a little bit on the fence. i would only do it with someone who was best in class.

they are backed by blackstone, so you have the perfect storm between social media, what i bring with my following, awareness. i felt we were ready to do not only a spac but to build a great franchise. emily: on terra capital has had quite a remarkable year. that said, spac's have been quite controversial. i was looking at a study that found that returns were up 32% for the sponsors, but down 35% for postmerger investors. is this really a good deal for the public? >> that's a really good question. when you look at spac's, it's like investing in any asset class. there's going to be winners and losers, good spac's and bad

spac's. like with hedge funds, some fare better than others. what you need to do -- there are a lot of spac's out there, and that's why i think ours is so special. you need to be able to believe in both the management team, their ability to source a deal, and alignment of interest. alex and i have all those ingredients to be very successful where we believe our spac will come up with a great deal. to be fair, when you look at those stats, we were invested in certain types last year. a good example is quantum escape -- quantumscape. it was the best performer of the year and i believe it has maintained most of its performance this year as well. not all spac's are created equal, and not all sponsor and management teams are created equal, but i think what alex and i bring is the best in class sponsor and management team to

the spac world or the spac area, and i do believe we are going to be very successful. emily: you will be happy to know the quantumescape folks were on our show just last week. >> i wanted to add one thing. i think it shows how alex and i both think about really working with the company, about how he has really added value, but i think quantumscape is a good example where we were anchor investors in the pipe, and we became very close -- our firm became very close with alex do nova as well. it shows the plan we are taking other than just being a financial vehicle. we are partnering with teams and trying to add value along the way.

emily: let's talk about the differentiator. as i understand it, it is called slam because you have the most mlb grand slam's in history, but i know you feel strongly about this not being a sports franchise, despite the bid you made or the mets. what do you think the unique differentiator is then? >> i have to tell you, the best boss i ever had was george steinbrenner, the owner of the yankees. he told me the three most important things to winning a championship's team, team, team. when i think about what we bring from a consumer cut of the story, being involved, hitting the retail market, and then our board. don't forget, we have the top e-commerce guy in the world. from diapers to jet.com to being the ceo of walmart.

his work at walmart has been nothing short of incredible. we are coming from many spaces where there's many ways for us to bring value. the only bad thing about this is we can only by one company. -- we can only buy one company. emily: you mention you are the ceo. you said when you see these celebrities attaching themselves as advisor, they are not in the driver seat. i wonder how that ranks on your list of life goals. >> life goals, exactly next to being the father of 4 beautiful kids and three girls. i can tell you that being a ceo, and thinking of being a primary, not secondary or tertiary. i'm fully involved, and i'm all

in. it's also the biggest investment that a-rod corp. or me individually will make. we are going to be the largest investors in our own investment, so we want to have complete alignment, exposure, and transparency. emily: i'm curious how much tech in particular is going to be the focus here. i know you are looking at it to be the backbone essentially, but how much is that going to guide the decision you make when looking for an asset? >> sure, when we are looking for an asset, as we mentioned and you guys mentioned earlier, we are looking for something in the sport media health and wellness sector, so we want something that is going to have a large market, one that is going to have high growth, but can be a disruptor in the industry. in most cases, that involves

technology of some sort, so i do think we are going to end up spending most of our time in terms of speaking and looking at companies or acquisition candidates to something that has a tech focus. that to us is most attractive right now because the world keeps evolving. covid to covid and now as we are coming out, i think technology is going to be pushing innovation. emily: talk about evolving, alex, i know you have been investing since you were a young baseball player, building up a pretty sizable portfolio. do you have a take on bitcoin or a thought, given that it is the latest trade aside from spac's? >> my take is i don't understand any part of it.

going back to what warren buffett, my mentor, taught me. we like to go really narrow and deep. one of the things that brings me a lot of optimism about slam is we have 30 to 35 companies in our portfolio. six of them we are taking public this year. we have archer, the flying cars, wheels up. we are excited. we have learned our lessons, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and we don't want to make any assumptions. we are coming in here with eyes wide open. we don't want to replace wisdom with able market. we understand the wisdom, but we are going to be extremely disciplined. >> do you have a bitcoin take? >> we are not involved in

bitcoin. i think it is an interesting quandary at this point. it has obviously gone up 200% or whatever it is up for the year, and it is the question of store of value. as the u.s. continues to print dollars in the issues around covid, i do think there needs to be other sources of value. i think alex will tell you -- we talk about baseball cards, something near and dear to me. that is a store of value that has actually outperformed many markets and individual stocks over the last 20 years. i understand the use for bitcoin . in terms of value, it is difficult for us to know exact what the right value is. similar to alex, this is one just have to stay on the sidelines for. emily: i did read you sold a young alex rodriguez baseball card back in the day when you were a blooming entrepreneur.

before we go, you tweeted you were praying for your brother tiger woods, waiting for more news. have you heard from him, or is there anything you would like to say? >> i just sent him a note of good wishes. my prayers go out to him and his family, and, obviously, we are praying for him and his safety. emily: thank you both. we will be watching to see which companies come up. stay with us. this is bloomberg. (announcer) back pain hurts, and it's frustrating. you can spend thousands on drugs, doctors, devices, and mattresses, and still not get relief. now there's aerotrainer by golo, the ergonomically correct exercise breakthrough that cradles your body so you can stretch and strengthen your core, relieve back pain, and tone your entire body. since i've been using the aerotrainer, my back pain is gone.

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emily: two weeks ago, reddit users raised more than 250 million dollars in a private stock sale. turns out, it was a lot more. the social media company said it raised more than $368 million in

stock and is targeting $500 million, all of this as it became the focus of a stock trading frenzy. coming up, sales at veteran toymaker mattel on the rebound. investors are eager to see if mattel can adapt its product line for the digital era. also ahead, cathie wood's decision to buy the dip in tesla. we will evaluate. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ emily: welcome back to "bloomberg technology." i am emily chang in san francisco. veteran toymaker mattel coming off of banner fourth quarter, beating street expectations as parents turn to iconic rands from rb dolls to know cards to keep it -- barbie dolls to uno cards for kids at home. i spoke to the ceo on how he plans to keep the momentum going. ynon: we saw growth across the

portfolio in barbie, hot wheels and fissure brands. we have grown in six of the seven categories where we operate in all four regions. the dolls category continues to do so well, led by barbie. barbie was the number-one toy property overall globally for both the fourth quarter and the full year in the barbie dream house was the number one toy in the u.s., also for the fourth quarter and the full year. american girl was up 9% in the fourth quarter and continues to do well with very strong growth in our direct to consumer business. the preschool category is up, with fisher-price up double digits. our challenging categories continue to perform well and all in all, it is really a comprehensive performance across the or it for our product offerings. emily: barbie is having the best growth in two decades.

what is driving that? ynon: it is so much to do with the mattel playbook, going back to how we create product, how we think as a company. it is about brand purpose, cultural relevance, design led innovation and excellence. and we applied the same approach, same capabilities, same authenticity across the entire portfolio. this is why we are so confident about the progress and momentum we are seeing in our product offering. emily: we cover tech here on a daily basis and i am curious about what tech toy innovations you are piloting, seeing as out we are seeing technology increasingly integrated into toys. ynon: it is really important to meet the needs of today's consumers and children and families are looking for new and innovative ways to play and learn.

we believe technology should be used to enhance, not replace physical toys. because traditional play has its own important in a fit. connective play as part of our strategy, and how we expand the reach and engagement of our rands in the marketplace. we have great examples with the talking thomas and percy train set. they meet on the track and talk to each other. dictionary -- pictionary, we have reinvented the classic game with a quickdraw using ai technology. and another game that features a button that opens a gate. so we leveraged technology to enhance our product offering, not to replace, but in addition as a complement in a working system. emily: as a parent, so many of

our kids have been exposed to a lot of screen time this year. we are worried about the impact of that. i am sure you are doing research in this area. what is that research telling you about how we balance the physical and digital worlds? ynon: children to spend more time in front of screens, but most parents still recognize the value of physical play. as a company, we have a clear mission, which is to create innovative product and experiences which inspire development through play. parents care about quality product. parents do care about trusted brands, quality brands that mean something, that have a value, that have a purpose. and with that, we really see how our products are resonating so well. part of our purpose as a company is to empower the next generation on the wonder of childhood and reach their

potential. emily: the also have original content and many television shows and production. what is your ankle to compete with the likes of netflix and disney? ynon: we don't compete with netflix, we partner with netflix. netflix is one of our important partners that we collaborate with them on many important projects, like we do with other distributors and streaming platforms. we recently made a very exciting announcement on mattel television, including a live-action film in development with a grammy award winner, a whack-a-mole game show in development with free mental, and the thomas and friends series, which will expand distribution on the cartoon network and netflix, starting this fall with international distribution partners we are going to announce shortly. in addition, we have announced

11 films, 11 motion pictures in partnership with some of the greatest talent of our generation. these are really exciting projects based on our iconic franchises. we are seeing a lot of interest, a lot of action in attracting industry-leading talent and making progress on these products -- on these projects, and can't wait for them to come to the big screen or streaming platforms. emily: my conversation with mattel chair and ceo ynon kreiz. this week's tech selloff took the sign off kathy woods' etf lineup, investors pulling a record or hundred $65 million in a single day from her flagship arc innovation etf, the fund sliding for a third day wednesday, even as tesla shares rebounded. wood told bloomberg this week

she bought the damp and tesla -- bought the dip on tesla. we are joined by bluebird reporter katie gry field. how unusual is this? katie: it is very unusual. kathy woods almost as a cult g can buy hoodies and baseball caps. i do you have seen that enthusiasm reflected with flows into her fund. the innovation etf saw inflows of $9.6 billion last year and has taken another $6.2 billion so far this year prior to this rout. what finally broke the street was a pullback in the fund's performance. it rallied so much in 2020 but we finally saw the rally cool a little bit. a lot of it can be blamed on tesla, the fund's biggest holding, over 9%. and it has been a volatile week for the carmaker.

and you have shown -- you have seen that show up in the arc innovation performance, falling 9% on the week. and now, you are seeing investors who piled in start to look for the exits. emily: so is this just a hiccup, or a sign investors are looking for a prolonged arc exit? katie: that is the big question. one day of outflows, even if it is a record, but even prior to today, there were signs you were seeing bears gather around the arc funds. if you look at ihs market data, short interest on the fund had risen to 3%, which doesn't sound like much but it is a record high. you have to consider that short interest was basically zero coming into 2021. there were a lot of believers in this fund. so we will see if the bears went out. if we see that bears interest

build, but i want to note even with this week's route. you are still seeing arc innovation etf up almost 12% in 2021 p compared to the s&p 500, that is only f-3 .6% -- that is only up 3.6%. ily: we will continue to follow this, bloomberg's katie greifeld with the latest on caffe would -- kathy what -- cathie wood. coming up, an investor who calls wall street gambling addiction, my conversation with esther dyson, next. ♪

♪ emily: gamestop is on a comeback trail, surging after news of the ceo's ouster in a disagreement over strategy, just five days after executives at robinhood, and citadel testified before a house panel about the retail trading frenzy that sent stocks including gamestop on a wild ride. our next guest is esther dyson of the edventure nonprofit, working to end disparities in the united states. you made comments about gamestop and asking themselves whether they are democratizing a new form of addiction. what kind of responsibility do you believe robinhood bears here? esther: the same responsibility

a company that sells alcohol bears. it is not illegal, but there are a lot of people who -- some people use alcohol to have a fun evening and other people use it as a way to sell life insurance and some people use it to get relief from something that can't the relieved by drugs or gambling or alcohol or anything else. and the vendors of that need to understand what they are doing, and the more they make their product addictive, it is addictive. let's get real. addiction is not about substance, it is about the behavior pattern of the person that gets addict. and they are looking for short-term relief emily: rob -- short-term relief. emily: robinhood would probably push back on that, saying they are democratizing investing for people who have never invested before, many of them women. what is your response? esther: that's maybe some people

shouldn't be investing. if you don't have money to spare, if you don't have the ability to risk it, you shouldn't doing it. not everybody should be drinking alcohol either. they tend to get sucked in. we talk about, is the market a voting machine, but to some people, it is a gambling machine that is happening a lot on the stock market right now and it is worth discussing. emily: you have been attacked investor for a really long time and i wonder if you are seeing the same kind of renzi behind the scenes, there is so much interesting technology -- so much interest in technology, but not all the companies pan out, especially at startup stages were you are focused. what trends are you seeing? esther: a lot of interesting trends.

on the other hand -- on the one hand there are spac's, which is a form of gambling, most of it done by people that can afford it. that is very different. but if you don't have the ability to take those risks, you are being sucked into something. there is a lot going on a digital health right now, which is exciting because digital health is cheaper than a lot of the physical infrastructure, people having to travel, different ways of getting infected with covid, so forth and so on. and there is huge demand, but there is going to be consolidation inevitably. because there is 20 or 30 companies doing almost of than you can imagine, whether it is at home covid test, -- whether it is at home covid tests, adam nutrition counseling, these

things are valuable and as an investor, an investor has the ability to help make the company more successful. later, the investor is more in the job of picking. about right now, you are seeing some firms get capital, often they are well-connected rather than necessarily well-run, and it is an interesting time. i am making a bunch of investments myself. i am very interested in democratizing access to mental health support. emily: speaking of the biotech sector, you used to be on the board of 23 and me. they are doing a spac. curious if you think that is the right move, we just had an interesting conversation with alex rodriguez amidst this controversy, some folks saying life would be better without spacs.

that is coming from warren buffett's right-hand man carly monger just today. esther: i think the quality of the company matters more than whether it is a spac or not. anything that becomes a fad tends to bring a lot of stuff with it. 23 and me as a real company with real data that is doing real research. i think the reality of spac's, spac's streamlined the ability to go public. and if it is a good company, that is great. but if it is not a good company, be wary, just like any other investment. emily: you have also invested heavily in aerospace. i'm curious, the successes of spacex, >> to mars, where do you think we should be placing our bets? what should we be watching in the space race? esther: we should look carefully

for good management. there is a lot of interesting space startups. attend be run more by engineers. often, some biotech companies are run scientists, who are not necessarily the best managers. but i think ultimately, health and health care on earth is really important. so is our human destiny to travel to mars and elsewhere. we need a backup planet and personally, i hope to retire on mars. not too soon, but eventually. when i am ready. emily: why? [laughter] why do you want to retire on mars? emily: when you get really old, one third of earth's gravity is really handy. you can stand up straighter so you don't -- you can stand up straighter because you don't weigh as much. i want to retire several decades from now, at which time the place would be ready for me.

and a one-way trip, it is a pretty boring come along trip, so i want to go there when i don't really want to come back. maybe i will just be watching netflix the whole time, who knows? emily: well, we will pass on your readiness to elon musk. esther dyson, longtime investor, thank you for joining us. still ahead, making air taxis a mainstream reality. another spac deal, next. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ emily: reid hoffman's spac company has agreed to merge with joby aviation to take an air taxi start up public, ideal combined at $6.6 billion

expected to close in the second quarter. joby will list on the new york stock exchange. joining us is joby executive chair paul sciarra. paul, the air taxi is a few years out, so why do a spac now? paul: first of all, thanks for having me on. i'm really excited about the news today. part of it is about the transaction and part of it is where we stand. we have footage of our vehicle moving through the full transition. we put about 1000 hours on that vehicle and feel really good. it is hitting all the numbers we sent out, range, speed and overall capacity. we feel like this is not the right time -- the right time to put more resources on the balance sheet. we have the opportunity to get

us to completion. emily: we have been talking about the spac controversy almost the entire hour. we were speaking with a-rod about his spac plan. there are folks who say these are companies that are not necessarily ready for i'm time. what is your response -- ready for prime time. what is your response? paul: delivering on that requires a few. making sure you have the right manufacturing and making sure you have the right capability to launch the service. we felt like we had the right ingredients now. the vehicle is doing what we want it to do, but more importantly, we have a partnership with toyota to execute on the plan. and we have a team that is going to give us the opportunity to go toward commercial launch.

things that matter in terms of building this business make the transition to a public company. emily: what are the nearest-term use cases? when will it be ready to take me across the bay to work? paul: the range of the vehicle is wide. we can think it is suitable for any trip that is 150 miles per that might be your daily commute, but it might be connecting cities to suburbs or other cities. that is a pretty wide range of use capabilities. when we think about going across the bay, that is a perfect example. in the bay area, there is a lot of difficult geography you have to navigate, congestion on whether it is the bay bridge or san mateo bridge, and aerial cars have the ability to dramatically increase people's

-- dramatically decrease people's commute time. emily: there are dozens of companies trying to do what you are doing. one of your competitors recently had a battery fire, there are regulatory hurdles, there is the cost. why are you so optimistic this will be a mainstream reality? and it will be -- and will it be for everyday people or just billionaires? paul: [indiscernible] first, wanted to show the vehicle was incredibly safe. second, we wanted to make sure it was incredibly quiet. and third, we wanted to make sure the vehicle, given its specifications, could deliver a progressively lower-cost service over time.

and the outline of our plan today is to start a service and we think it starts with getting vehicle technology right. emily: interesting. we will be following the latest developments. i am looking forward to my ride in 2024 or later. paul sciarra of joby aviation, thank you so much for joining us. that does it for this edition of "bloomberg technology." "bloomberg daybreak: asia" is next. i'm emily chang in san francisco. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ haidi: good morning. we are counting down to asia's major market opens. caroline: i'm shery ahn -- shery: i'm shery ahn in new york. stock futures point out, the dollar weakens against major peers. resident biden takes charg