emily: i'm emily chang in san francisco, and this is " bloomberg technology." coming up, a historic vote about amazon employees in alabama deciding if they will unionize. plus, it is the technology behind every major nfc platform.

we talked to the ceo of alchemy. and from luxury houses like louis vuitton to cargo pants and sneakers of every kind, there is a surge in demand for streetwear. we talked to a company capitalizing on the trend. first, fed officials have -- first, officials have officially started counting votes to determine if amazon warehouse workers in alabama will become the first to join the retail union. news media allowed to watch via zoom p or the process expected to take several hours. the first ballot was a no. our senior executive for technology joins us now. it looks like the noes are

outnumbering, 221. brad: amazon is kind of outpacing the union about two to one, and that is what we have seen all day so far. i think amazon kind of expected to win. they are kind of confident and a little cocky about how employees view the company, but this is one battle. i think the last two weeks have shown this is a larger war about amazon's power, about the way it treats workers, and it has politicians on both sides of the aisle really targeting the company. emily: there's still 2300 votes total, so a couple thousand more to count. is this a wake-up call for amazon, even if they win? brad: you're right there is still a lot of voting to go.

unlike the elections we are all familiar with, these ballots arco mingled, so there's not really any kind of geographic diversity in the count. two to one, amazon should be feeling good, but the key question is what they have to learn, and i think you have learned things they should take into account, things about mandatory overtime, the lengths of breaks, the amount of time workers are spending on their feet. this is a warehouse populated largely by members of the black community, and i think amazon needs to do a better job of listening to black employees. we will see if they take a lesson here. emily: there is a lot of back-and-forth going into this. a tweet from the amazon news

account, speculation workers have to in bottles on the job. -- workers have to pee in bottles on the job. amazon apologizing for that tweet, saying it needs to do better. should these kind of battles continue to pop up in the u.s. and around the world? brad: it was curiously shortsighted for a company that kind of prides itself on long-term thinking. they said they were wrong. even if they were right, what is the point of that kind of tweet in a contentious battle? for a company that goes in front of these congresspeople and senators for the foreseeable future arguing they don't need to be broken up, and here they are antagonizing senators like elizabeth warren and bernie sanders -- i don't think they have handled it adeptly.

on the tweet you mention, that showed, as i was saying, they have not been listening to investors. they have drivers who cannot find bathrooms when they are out on their route. perhaps they have lost some of that closeness they use to have to their operation facilities in their headquarters. emily: our reporter who covers labor issues in depth gave us the other side of the story. still early, but amazon is winning right now. have you heard anything yet from organizers so far about their reaction to what numbers are showing so far? >> organizers have been careful to avoid reacting to voting as it is in progress as it is the end of casting of ballots as the labor board has been going over

the ballots and now the counting has begun, but what we knew all along was that this was a fight that would go on for much longer. the results, as brad said, are not promising for the union, from the counting that has happened so far in terms of winning this vote, in terms of winning the ballots that were cast here. what we are likely to see is an extended legal battle that will also be a political battle about the company did in order to prevent people from voting for the union, and more broadly, about the labor laws system in the u.s. and if these types of elections really provide a free and fair choice for workers about unionization. emily: of course, it is still early. i just want to underscore, it couple thousand ballots left to be counted. tell us more about what amazon

did in the days and weeks leading up to it that folks felt some of the organizers of this effort are speculating may have prevented people from showing up. josh: workers have described being required to attend mandatory antiunion meetings where they get barraged with predictions about the bad things that could happen if they unionize. workers have described one conversations with management that were used try to sway them. workers have raised the risk that amazon could leave bessemer and shut down the warehouse as something that could influence their vote. the union also obtained through freedom of information act requests correspondence in which

postal service officials are describing how the company was advocating for them to place a mailbox on the property, which the union argues is coercive. for many years, there has been disagreement among union organizers about if it is even worth going through this election process, as it exists under u.s. law, because of the opportunities that companies have two pressure workers and because even if the union wins the election, the law does not have to force a timeline for the company to sign a contract with them. a year after the vote, there could not be a contract. emily: i know you will continue to watch the results as they roll in. thank you so much for your reporting there. i want to go to market reaction about amazon and much more from our ed ludlow. did we see much of a move on amazon shares? ending higher on the day, but that was before we knew which way this vote was leading.

ed: brad and josh set the scene for what this means. if you are an investor, how do you play this? to stop treading water in after hours. the focus of the pandemic has been on amazon's growth, but also the conditions at its warehouse, as covered by bloomberg. look at this chart, which gives you some kind of look at the psychology investors might have. if you look at the current share price, which is the white line, we are around $3500 a share. the blue line is the 12-month price target for amazon, which is above $4000. that is where wall street sees the consensus at some point over the next 12 months. a lot of that narrative is around the growth of dws and cloud services, around the growth of investors. how much of a risk is this union vote? how much of a risk does it present to talk and bottom growth? right now, investors seem very

sanguine. let's take a look at other stories because there were market movers. netflix topping one point 4%. it has an exclusive deal with sony to take exclusive rights to properties after they have been in theaters. investors really like the look of -- the look of it. with uber, there was more negative news. a lot of drivers say uber's background check policy is discriminatory against certain sectors of the driver community, but investors seem pretty sanguine, and on a day when big tech was one of the big drivers, apple up by almost 2%. microsoft up by 1.3%. where was that rotation trade? where is that reopening trade? none of us are worried about tech right now. the market seems to like some of those mega cap stocks.

emily: thank you for that round appeared coming up, jack dorsey's first tweet sold for 2.9 million dollars. even though you can still see it on twitter. another nfc art piece selling for $69 billion. just what are these assets? we talk to the cofounder and ceo of blockchain starter alchemy which powers most of these transactions. that is next on bloomberg. ♪

emily: riding the cryptocurrency wave, the largest crypto exchanges going public next week. the company was last valued at

about $90 billion and will be the first direct listing on the nasdaq. coinbase is one of the backers of alchemy, a blockchain platform that powers over $25 billion in transactions of digital assets that have generated a market of $1 billion so far. galaxy digital's ceo is a longtime crypto supporter and has said, albeit new, nft's are here to stay. >> art on the blockchain, collectibles on the blockchain, ip on the blockchain -- it is all happening. this is fundamentally going to change how we secure intellectual property from now going forward. emily: joining us now for more, alchemy's founder and ceo. the company has 154 times just since last august.

you are known as this one-stop shop. can you explain in simple terms what an nft actually is and what it is not. >> absolutely. thanks for having me on. nft's is just one of the things that alchemy covers. it is basically the idea of owning something in the digital world. in the real world if you buy the mona lisa and have it, your friends can make a copy of it, but an art expert will come and certify that you are the owner of the original. in the digital world, if you have an image and your friend makes a copy, no one knows who has the original, but now that is possible thanks a blockchain technology. you can say i'm the original owner, and as a result, it accrues value of being the specific one. emily: we know jack dorsey sold his first tweet for $2.9 million. you can still see that on

twitter. of course, there was the crypto artwork. that said, the and ft records got a little quiet over the last few weeks. what do you attribute that to, and what do you think the trajectory actually is? >> absolutely. one of the things to understand is nft is not just a single product or company. it is a whole new industry. it has an idea of three pieces. you have this collection in which they care about scarcity and they care about sharing those things, which you can do much more readily in the digital world. if it is having a lowell in the next month or so it's kind of inconsequential because what we will see over the next several years, we will have media, entertainment, athletes, musicians, games inc., and this will be a cornerstone of blockchain technology and the first consumer rise massive

option of consumer technology. emily: that said, there are doubters out there. the carver financial services president said you are delusional if you think these things will have long-term value. what do you say to the people who just don't get it? >> you know, honestly, that's really exciting because it means there's so much more potential. if everyone saw it, the market would be already mature. one of my favorite videos of all time is bill gates trying to explain to a reporter in 1982 why computers would be a thing and how this video technology and multimedia technology can provide a better learning experience. i think you look at any new industry -- blockchain, internet, computers -- you see a similar trend where there will always be people who are skeptical, but the true technologists are the ones that can see the potential applications even before everyone else.

emily: what kind of nft's are going to be worth something big, and what kind of nft's are going to be worthless? >> that's a great question. i think a good analogy is beanie babies. beanie babies were definitely something very exciting in my childhood. they are not that popular now, but the idea of collecting is something that is very prevalent, even today. when you look at any single nft, will it be popular in 10 years? it is very hard to predict, but will artists be doing things in 10 years that are valuable? absolutely. emily: one of your investments, coinbase going public next week. how does that legitimize the crypto sector in your view? what sort of has to happen in order for some of these ideas and currencies to become more

mainstream? >> absolutely. we have been building for years. a huge transformation has happened. when we started, when we hired people, they would talk to their parents or wife or whatever it is in say, "i'm going to join blockchain company, and the response would not be super exciting -- super excited. when we legitimize the space, everyone's friends and family understand. it is opening up a new generation of talent exploring the industry, and that is super exciting. emily: what is your exit strategy? obviously, there's a lot of demand out there. wouldn't now be a good time for an nft company to go public? >> absolutely. alchemy -- we are not just nft 's. think of us as amazon web services.

nft's is just one exciting category. we will go public some day. i don't know if it will be next week with coinbase, but some time in the near future. emily: thanks so much. we will be watching. coming up, clubhouse barely a year old, but it has drawn some appearances from some of the biggest names in business and hollywood, and twitter is said to be discussing buying the platform for more than $4 billion. we will have more on that potential deal next. this is bloomberg. ♪

>> it is relatively new in the area of social networking, at least in the u.s., but it is the oldest medium. we have been gathering with people and talking for as long

as civilization has existed. it is something that is really human, so our goal is to create a new type of network more about those authentic human connections, and we found that voice is a really powerful medium. emily: paul davison there, cofounder of clubhouse. we have learned it is the subject of takeover talks by twitter for $4 billion. clubhouse is barely a year old. how did these potential deal talks with twitter start happening? did clubhouse go to twitter or vice versa? katie: sure. we know there were conversations. we don't know who approached who or how they fell apart, but we know in recent months, there were conversations between twitter and clubhouse that were around $4 billion. we also know that some people on

the side of clubhouse feel they can use that as a data point to potentially breathe money around that valuation. except that round has not come together yet. emily: $4 billion -- is clubhouse really worth that much? katie: [laughter] it depends who you ask. i have a lot of people on twitter weighing in. some people love it. some hate it. some people point to the fact that back in the day, snapchat turned down money from facebook, and at the time people thought it was dumb, and then snapchat grew much bigger. or instagram sold to facebook for what a lot of people thought was way too low when you look at it now, but at the time, people thought it was way too high. a lot of social media apps in the past have sizzled after being really high, but -- so it

is hard to say which way clubhouse will go. certainly, they launched right at the start of the pandemic, and it is invite only, so they have been expanding since then. i think most of their growth has come in the last few months, but, you know, a month ago, it seemed like they are the hardest thing -- hottest thing, and their growth has apparently slowed, at least judging by the apt charts. they have not even launched android yet, so it is hard to say what will happen next. emily: right, android could be another big kickstarter. i spent some time on clubhouse and twitter spaces, which is a competitor to clubhouse. i guess the question remains -- does clubhouse have staying power? does it have a true differentiator? i wonder if in the end, twitter

decided it did not or if the price was not right. katie: we do know twitter launched twitter spaces, which is a clubhouse competitor, pretty recently, so it looks like right now they are planning to do their own thing. facebook has also been testing out something in this realm. some of these tech companies may just find it is easier to try it out in house and see if they can build something, but we see with social media, a lot of it is network serving, and because facebook and twitter launch something, it does not mean it will necessarily pan out. many social media companies over the years have tried to clone various aspects of other businesses, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't s growing competition. emily: indeed. we will be watching what they have built.

thank you so much. coming up, some of the biggest companies in tech to keep and i out for this upcoming earnings season, and the risk also that they face -- some of the biggest companies in tech to keep an eye out for. this is bloomberg. ♪

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♪ emily:: welcome back to bloomberg technology. i want to get to ed ludlow, back with the latest. what is happening now. ed: a bit of breaking news. disney popping in after hours, up almost 6/10 of 1%. the theme parks chief at disney said they took the time that covid took them off line to make some changes around how customers will be able to order food, go on rides, and they said

they did some rewiring. we were treading water but the stock popped off after trading. one of the main focuses today, facebook. we look at some of the action. facebook was pretty flat. at one point, it was pershing to a fresh -- pushing to a fresh record but then fell away a little bit. amazon up 6/10 of 1%. facebook has been in outperformer year to date. i know you have a guy standing by to talk about the stock. outpacing the nasdaq 100, but that is pretty recent. in recent weeks, we have seen it accelerate a little towards the record highs. you compare that with amazon, amazon has lagged those two major indices year to date. it has underperformed the nasdaq 100 and the myc faang plus index.

come with me into my bloomberg and look at this chart. all of the vote going on with the union and amazon. bottom line growth was pretty incredible and you can see their quarterly net income. they put in focus how amazon has grown and therefore, the working conditions at some of its warehouse and fulfillment centers. that is the question, what is mark mahaney looking really interested to hear that. that is the discussion for investors, where will growth come from for amazon. aws and the cloud has been such a big story around us working from home in covid. you have the questions, why don't you ask them. emily: indeed, i will. ed ludlow, thanks so much. facebook, but when it comes to amazon, some have a strong outlook of growth on the retailer. mark mahaney has the companies as one of its top picks.

he goes on to say the company is probably the single best internet asset and i want to bring in senior managing director mark mahaney. thanks for joining us to talk about facebook in a moment, but amazon, one of your top big tech picks. we have been talking about the union vote that has been happening the last several days. we have the first results in, but amazon leading the vote to-one meaning that this point, the counts show that there is a lean towards not unionizing. do you think this is a big risk factor for amazon? mark: it probably isn't. emily, we should probably assume that there is going to be some distribution center, some fulfillment center that is going to unionize. they are probably going to have 5% of their employees one day that are going to unionize.

there is that trends the deal with, but that does not matter on a company of this size and scale if you have 5000 employees unionize out of an employee base of one million. if you had a dramatic unionization, but it is not the cost of the union jobs -- amazon's already above $15, but the question would be something that would change the efficiency of amazon fulfillment and distribution centers, and that is hard to know. unionization, i don't think it is a shock at some facility, but i doubt it would be broadly across amazon. emily: let's talk about two-year other topics, one of which is facebook. we just heard ed talking about another lawsuit, online hate speech. there seems to be a huge brand reputation issue with facebook, and yet, you are right. the stock keeps going up. do you expect it to continue? mark: i do expected to continue

to do so. amazon has traded sideways and facebook moves up because amazon was the clear covid -- i hate to say the covid winner, it sounds crass -- but they were the covid winner. the markets were curious and uncertain if they can maintain that as they go through the back half of the year. facebook first got hit as the other ad names did, so you are expecting facebook's growth to accelerate, and that is why the stock catches the bid earlier. we think it is an inexpensive asset versus its growth rate, and there are some things like this trend -- one of the biggest trends from last year is the rise of social commerce. social media became social commerce which means the ad inventory on facebook becomes more valuable over time. we still think the stock goes higher from here. emily: meantime, facebook facing more competition from tiktok.

now, there is clubhouse and this huge discord, audio platforms with facebook trying to make their own version. how much of a threat are these new upstarts, or do you see facebook as they owned instagram and whatsapp as well as a category of its own that is untouchable? mark: probably a category of its own. it is not untouchable, but somebody needs to come out with a materially better user experience, at least two expense with facebook. -- to compete with facebook. instagram, there is this rising competitor with tiktok. we have seen the rising entrance and this space that can match the popularity. it leads to this feature war, application improvement war which is great for consumers. facebook is sitting in a strong position. what you want to see as a long-term investor is, you have really high margins -- make sure you invest into new growth

areas. development of new features whether it is facebook marketplace, instagram reels, virtual-reality, and it seems they are doing the right thing there. they are investing aggressively in growth. they mistake that facebook would be making is over earning. i have not seen them fall into that. emily: what is your take on the twitter-clubhouse deal talks? twitter looking to buy clubhouse to $4 million, the talks falling apart, we don't know why. what is your take? mark: it would have been a smart move by twitter and i think they are acknowledging that by building out their own clubhouse type functionality with twitter spaces. if you can't join them, you beat them. i think i twisted that, but i think that is what they are trying to do. whether that will work, i don't know. the valuation we are talking, i don't know if that is warranted. we would have to look at the financials of clubhouse and see how well other assets have been

able to monetize the user base, and that would imply a relatively large user base for clubhouse. twitter is improving its product development process, but it specifically needs to do it on the advertising size. -- side. that is what stopped the stock from breaking out. they have missed shipping deadlines with new products for advertisers. the users, they have gotten much better. it is the product development lags on the advertiser side that bothers investors on twitter. emily: interesting. one of your other topics is uber . we are in the midst of reopening, but we are all wondering if uber of before is going to return. there has been driver supply issues reported across the country. drivers don't want to get in the car with a stranger. what makes you so bullish?

mark: i think drivers will want to get back into a car with a stranger at some point. we may have to well get herd immunity. when we are all commuting again, and that is probably the fourth quarter of this year, so this is going to be a delayed recovery, but it will happen. when people do and when they start to travel, uber's rideshare business will pick back up. in the meantime, it did have this big win out of the covid crisis and its food order delivery business and that will continue to grow. what you will see with uber over the next nine months is robust growth in the food delivery business, and a move towards profitability for the business as a whole, and those things can cause the stock to continue to go up. it had a nice year last year, but we think half of the journey is still the common terms of the stock going up. emily: mark mahaney, always good to have you with us, thanks so

much for stopping by. evercore head of internet research, mark mahaney. coming up, we are seeing a boom in tech m&a. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ emily: despite the pandemic dealmaking, still red hot. m&a is soaring in every region. we have seen more spac activity than all of 20/20 with more than 300 companies raising $99

billion. citigroup's head of m&a says i have not seen these levels of activity for a long time and i do not see a meaningful slow down anytime soon. stocks are highly valued, financial markets are supportive, and there is money coming in from a number of places. with us now to take a look at spac's, deutsche bank head of tech investment banking, thank you for joining us. do you think the spac is oversaturated, are we in a spac bubble? >> thanks for having me on the show. the spac market has been a really revolutionary for all of capital markets. this product was the product several years ago, but deutsche bank has been in this market for over 15 years. we have a dedicated team of professionals focusing on the spac market.

and while there has been a significant amount of activity, we believe the market is here for the long term. it is becoming an asset class if you will. that hedge funds, they are all investing in this market and really a true asset class, so while we have seen a significant amount of activity as you said of over $100 billion of spac activity, spac capital being raised in q1, which if you look at the last five years, what we are seeing right now is clearly quality. there have been companies that have gone public through spac, but the spac's have returned if you will for the investors, and they have been really solid, but because of the valuations

being significantly stretched, there is an increasing amount of capital flowing into this. we are seeing some normalization and valuation, normalization in multiples back in the spac markets. for the moment, it sounds like it, but much like any other markets we are going to see a normalization in this market as well. investors are certainly going to see some good returns if they continue to invest in spac. emily: what percentage of the tech companies going public via spac are good deals? ajay: i would step back and think about the sponsors of the spac. about 70% to 75% of the sponsors of the spac are not that high quality sponsors, which again,

too many spac's chasing too many companies, and the bar has been going lower and lower which has resulted in many of these s pacs below $10. many of the companies that have assets in market so far, rocket labs, rover, and several others that have been working have all been -- are really good companies, but there is along with that, probably a 6-1 ratio of bad companies to good. investors need to be careful as they think about the quality of these companies. there was a time when many of these companies obviously did not have real revenue, they did not have a good business plan, and there was an opportunity for the companies to really get into

gross. but now they are public companies and they need to perform like public companies. they all need to work into the evaluation. -- their valuation. emily: we heard that quote earlier from citigroup and i'm curious what you think the market for tech m&a's and ipo's looks like for the rest of the year and if you think the pace of the deals will keep up, and what deutsche bank's role in that will be. ajay: absolutely. the tech market has been on fire . in q1, we saw $137 billion raise in both spac and non-spac ipo's. 50% of that was tech ipo's. tech ipo's have raised about $21 billion of capital, and there is a long list of really solid pipeline for tech ipo's to go

public. companies like coinbase and so on and so forth. but along with that, given that we are now slowly coming out of this pandemic, there is obviously the vaccine and economic recovery, financing costs continue to remain low. there is $150 billion of dried powder among the spac's. on the tech side, there is a transformation and evolution of business models. you are seeing healthy activity on the m&a side. we have seen massive deals happen over the last years. salesforce acquiring slack, and even cross-border deals. we are seeing a very healthy progress in the m&a markets.

the multiples have kept going up. markets are very supportive and conducive to continue capital growth and momentum. emily: ok, all right. information packed interview. ajay shah, thank you for giving us your outlook on the rest of the year. still ahead, what was once known as a side hustle has turned into a $2 billion industry. the sneaker market is exploding and weinstock is -- and one stock reaping the rewards. the ceo is joining us next. this is bloomberg. ♪ ♪

whitney: ♪ emily:kicks becoming commodities. the sneaker resale market has

reached more than $2 billion in north america and it is growing more than 10% every year. this as stock x, and exchange that has expanded to luxury streetwear has rated $255 million in its latest round of funding. the start which mimics a stock market is reported to be planning to go public. ceo scott cutler joins us now with more. talk us -- talk to us about what stockx is in some of his other resell options that have proliferated. scott: aspirations are to be a global e-commerce marketplace for consumers of current culture , and yes, we started and sneakers, but we have expanded so rapidly into other categories including apparel, electronics, collectibles. what you are seeing is the next-generation of consumers is

looking at some of these consumer products as actual assets that are worthwhile of an investment and consumption opportunity and it is driving rapid growth of the industry for the set of consumers. emily: scarcity is such an interesting part and tactic of the fashion industry that i still do not quite understand, but i am curious how beholden you are into nike or adidas when they get to decide how many sneakers of a certain kind are putting out there, and they could decide to make a certain product a little less scarce. scott: the objectives of any brand is to create consumer awareness and drive brand value or heat in the category. what you are seeing is a strategy being deployed by multiple brands across all industries, which is leveraging scarcity, collaborations to create unique products that is scarce value, but consumers are clamoring for. the consumer sees it on the feet of the athletes, worn by an

influencer, and once -- wants access to the product, and the drives traffic to the brand. and they are going to platforms like stockx for access transparently to these products and they want authentic products as well. what we are offering to that consumer is access to things that are being released by great brands but are typically not accessible to the same consumer. emily: since you are looking at the future of culture, where do you think streetwear and sneakers are going as we come out of a pandemic and some of us might want to flash our kicks a little bit more than we might have needed to. scott: leave it to this next generation to come up with unique ideas and opportunities. we always thought the idea would expand beyond the buying and consuming of products, these assets trading like commodities much like the oils or future markets.

today you can invest in sneakers, electronics, or apparel as an asset class. the idea that you could provide an index or derivative, or contract or nfp associated with a digital product related to a physical good is all the rage today. it is exciting for this next generation consumer, but it speaks to this trend of a different way of consuming, and even potentially investing for this generation. emily: i interviewed you several times in your formal role as -- at the new york stock exchange. now there are reports of stockx considering going public. what can you tell us about your plan to go public and any plans of accepting cryptocurrency as a payment? stockx i have gotten -- scott: i have gotten that question so many times, but you will remember our conversations before, there are hundreds of companies that are preparing are going public. to for us, no different than

them, it is the execution of our strategy which is really expanding our platform around the world, expanding into other categories, and being able to execute and operate on that business plan that opens up opportunities for public ipo at some point. but executing on that business plan is an anti-to all of those other opportunities. this financing we are announcing today is a step in that direction. we have a great shareholder list today that includes public and private investors, some leading investors in the world. it is a part of our strategy of building a set of partners for the future. emily: 15 seconds, accepting crypto, yes or no? scott: absolutely. with paypal including that as a form of payment and as our consumers demand that opportunity to transact in other currencies and other platforms, we have course are looking at that to bring it on. emily: stockx ceo scott

color. that does it for this bloomberg technology. i am emily chang. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ >> good morning and welcome to daybreak australia. i am haidi stroud-watts in sydney. >> good evening, i am shery ahn. haidi: these are your top stories. u.s. stock arises as fed chair downplays inflation concerns again but he warns the uneven vaccine rollout around the world are a risk for recovery.