caroline: i am caroline hyde in london in for emily chang. this is bloomberg technology. bold words for bezos. he looks at his legacy, and some recommendations for how to treat the hundreds of thousands of company employees. a vaccination passport.

some want to require it others including states like florida have banned it. in crypto validation. one day after a big debut, we hear from the crypto council of innovation. what he thinks about cryptocurrency going forward including legal and policy questions. this story in a moment. u.s. stocks jumped record highs amid signs of economic recovery. we are looking through all the data. take it away. >> green on the screen. tech outperforming. the nasdaq 100 actually ending at record highs once again. a big part of that was apple's gains. helping those major contributors. you know apple is the big heavyweight. you also saw gains in the semi

conductor index. up a whopping 1.8 percent. this comes right in the heels of semi conductors saying the chip shortage, those guys should continue into -- should continue into 2022. we all want to know about the other major story. i want to show you what coinbase did in its second day. a little bit of a pullback. a lot of this is pretty traditional. a direct listing, which is what coinbase was. it is traditional to see a pullback. not necessarily indicative of longer-term performances. it is a judgment we use for ipos or other listings. direct listings, that is something we can bypass. i want to show you crypto did fairly well. you saw bitcoin crossing 63,000. those stocks taking a step back.

some of that might be the defensive trade you saw in the market. coinbase is taking a little bit of their thunder. caroline: thank you. you take us away, now. >> i wanted to dig into apple. this comes from a note from ubs, my favorite word. stickiness. they are saying around 80% of iphone users have upgraded from an older model. so many of us have obsolete models. they expect that to continue with good service. because of its size, it is being a points driver. amazon, i know you are going to talk about it in the show. jeff bezos out with his letter. such a big story for the company about the way your group --

workers are treated. interesting to see it higher. chips, another big story. i want to look at some of the specific names. taiwan semi conductor, the biggest manufacturer. even though it is traded in taiwan, we have u.s. adr, down 2%. only one of two stocks down thursday. what they are saying is they expected the shortage of semi conductors to continue into 2022. they upgraded the sales forecast. a mixed message for investors. elsewhere, lots of strength. what was so interesting is raymond james, at the same time, downgraded. nvidia has muscled into the space. we love tension in the story.

you can see the stocks higher. i want to get some context and my final 10 seconds. the semi conductor index up reasonably. you can see taiwan semi conductor has lagged. what is the big lag? qualcomm. negative so far today. caroline: ed ludlow on the money. let's talk about a person saying his -- jeff bezos says it is clear the company needs a better vision of how to create value for employees. last week, it was announced employees in alabama rejected an attempt to unionize. redstone joins me. wrote the book, the everything store. this feels may be a cynic about it, a legacy play.

he has always been consumer but now he is an employee as well? >> it is one way to look at it. this is his 23rd shareholder letter. in some ways, i think it is the most remarkable. you look at everything that has happened. a narrative has coalesced. certainly in some corners, it is extractive. it takes more than it gives. this shareholder letter is a remarkable repudiation. he goes to the calculation and says they have created $300 billion in value when it you look at time saved and shareholder value. he says there is room for improvement. and says one of the goals is to be the planet's best and safest employer. he does that in the framework of being somewhat defensive. caroline: i think it is funny.

your take on how well they do treat employees? it seems as though they recommend other people should work there. >> 94% of employees would recommend amazon as a place to work. he says he would like to get it to 100%. the question you are asking is big and sprawling. how well do they really treat employees? they employ over one million people. there are lots of pockets of different experience. there is certainly room for improvement. one way i will identify, the fleet of the drivers, they don't even an employee. they are contract workers. you are out on the road delivering packages for any company, it can be brutal. just to find a place to go to the bathroom. you look at the vote in bessemer, 2-1, employees

rejected the union. do things like maybe -- think may be the dissatisfaction is maybe a little overstated. not to say they couldn't get better. it is brutal, tough work. jeff does talk about repetitive stress injury, how they need to do a better job rotating workers. he is laying out a defense. you can also feel the injured pride. he does not like the narrative that has coalesced around amazon. caroline: your sense of what is going to have to happen. forcing people to change. >> the founder at any company wears a magic halo. they are revered by employees. the magic of that is they can come in and push anything. they can get employees to scramble with the kind of fear to get anything done. he kind of worked with the

founder. some of that magic works off. andy jaffe telling you to do something by tomorrow, it means less than one jeff bezos tells you. andy's challenge is to keep the company moving to be jeff says he is not going anywhere. to what extent is the famous micromanager really stepping aside? we don't know yet. caroline: bad wins. >> may 11, amazon unbound. caroline: several counties in and around silken belly opened up covid 19 eligibility to people over 16. now anyone in california will be able to get a dose. what does it mean for big tech employees question mark are they going to be going back to the office? plenty of talks coming from big

tech, this is a wholesale change. we can all be flexible. your perspective on whether people will go back to the office anytime soon. >> the tech industry was the first to very loudly embrace remote work. there is enthusiasm to get back to the office now that vaccinations are rolling out. there is this enthusiasm. we want to get back. they are not necessarily going to force people to go ahead -- go in every single day but they want people to be back there. caroline: i have been back in our studios since may. i am not a person that needs to be in the office. i love being an in office. i understand why people want that balance. what will the reopening look like? will offices in and of themselves have to change?

>> salesforce is a good example. they will be reopening and may starting with a low capacity. just a small percentage of the workforce. i went by yesterday to see what the tower looks like. you can see -- you know the row that snakes around. there are six tickers that say maintain physical distance. there are signs that say no guests allowed. there are two big boxes that appeared to be air purifiers around. getting back to the office, there are plenty of people like

me who are really excited to be around other humans again and not be like turtles in our shells any longer. i haven't even been to the bloomberg office ever. i started during the pandemic so i am excited to meet you and everyone else. getting back is not going to be totally normal. caroline: it is amazing the changes they made here. does make me feel safe. we look forward to coming into the studio and office sometime soon. gives you the visual there. the fate of donald trump's future in media. could me social the dio networks. this is bloomberg. ♪ etworks. this is bloomberg. ♪

caroline: the so-called supreme court is on the verge of -- the social network suspended the president january 6 after the so-called storming of the u.s. capitol. this being the oversight board is what we call the defect supreme court of facebook. what are they doing, what sort of opinion is expected to be released? >> there are two questions before the board. the first is should the board essentially overrule facebook's decision to suspend trump's account? the second question is a larger

question about how facebook should handle political leaders who post content that violates its rules. how should they handle essentially suspending those political leaders? we should expect the board to issue a cut and dry ruling about whether trump should be restored to network and a larger commentary on how facebook should be handling political leaders. caroline: this has global ramifications. talk to us about trump. the arguments for, the arguments against allowing him back in the platform. >> there are two camps. one says, speech, political speech is really important. we as a democratic society should be protecting that speech. we shouldn't really be trying to take down the voice of portico leaders in social media companies.

then you hear from others, critics of facebook who say no, you are allowing political leaders to post dangerous and misinformed commentary that has real-world consequences and it should be treated like any other user. the free-speech argument and the argument against it will be central to what the oversight board considers. caroline: facebook, instagram, they are announcing there is an extended ability of users to go ahead and question the oversight board. if you disagree with what they leave out, have it reassessed. what do you think the ripple effects are of that and the wider ramifications of what the board is currently looking at? >> that is going to expand the oversight board's scope

previously users could request the oversight board review decisions where facebook decided to take down content. now they are going to contest content facebook leaves up. the oversight board plans to double from 20 to 40 people. this really has far ranging consequences for content decisions made in all sorts of international context. we might expect other world leaders to potentially get targeted by this decision. caroline: certainly. thank you so much. we will look at what the ramifications are. companies and some states plow ahead with plans to create vaccine passports. will it be enough to prop up

industries devastated by the pandemic? we will speak with the chief executive officer of the commons project. that is next. this is bloomberg. bloomberg.

caroline: just taking a look at some of the u.s. players, american, delta, jetblue, seeing their stocks in the upward trajectory since the heavy blow of covid. increased vaccinations in the u.s. are part of that upward picture. some airlines want travelers to provide proof of vaccinations. college campuses, they are recommending the same desire. they are known as vaccination passports. hundreds of groups are crating apps.

one, the commons project. it creates a travel certificate. the commons project co-executive, paul meyer, joins us. talk us through the path and what goes into it to make it easy if you are about to go traveling. >> it starts where you got tested or vaccinated. most of the requirements are testing requirements. you ask people be traveling three days before traveling inbound to the u.s.. you get in by allowing people to connect and go to a lab, the place they got vaccinated, upload their results. it expects those records, compares it against the rule. to where you are going to where

you are going. and says, red light, green light. you satisfy the rule or you do not. caroline: you worked alongside the rule -- world. you have plenty of countries involved, testing partners. do you think there will be an app when it comes to so-called passports or not? >> i think people are thinking too much about apps. this is not -- if you think about the problem with the government. do you want commerce to resume? travel to resume? your first duty is to protect the health of the population. maybe it is safe if people have been tested or vaccinated. if you actually don't know they have gotten tested or vaccinated, it is hard to put that policy in place.

you have seen reports of fake covid test certificates, vaccination certificates. just because you have an app that says covid test doesn't mean it is trustworthy. we think it is the most important thing and we have launched the common test network which is a global network of organizations, public health providers, that are committed to giving people health information in a secure way. that they can use to be able to show their status. it has got to start from the source. if you don't start with the network of trusted health organizations, data from unknown sources are not much more reliable than pieces of paper. >> you are someone who has thought about political ramifications. you worked as a speech writer in

the white house but also for united nations. you are going to be think about the ethics. how hard is it to be building this when you know so many people are going to be left behind because they are not vaccinated? >> again, the rules are mostly in place, testing requirements. there is a reasonable expectation if you let people come to your country, you want to ensure you are protecting your population health. and may not require vaccinations. this is not something new. for decades, there have been provisions for needing to show for example yellow fever vaccinations to fly and travel in certain countries. most schools in the u.s., they require kids to show proof of axa station to register for -- of vaccination to register for school. this is not a new concept. as vaccines are still rolling

out, if there is no alternative to get tested, it helps raise concern. caroline: in the u.k., they are arming out what a passport might look like. it is you have had a test or a vaccine. what countries are doing it best? >> some countries are taking a centralized approach. israel was the first to roll out their green pass. they have been vaccinating a significant part of the population. the u.s. has a fragmented health care system, but one of the things that is exciting, so many are converging around this idea of embracing this open standard.

it is reliable but also protects people's privacy. caroline: thank you. coming up, taking -- this is bloomberg. ♪

caroline: welcome back to "bloomberg technology." i am caroline hyde in london filling in for emily chang. let's get an update on the latest technology news. here is ed ludlow. ed: i want to star in india, because the latest thing that according to sources, softbank has invested $450 million in bangalore food delivery startup, amazing because in india it is such a crowd field. even more extraordinary, if you flip board, look at the details, a $5.5 billion valuation that came less than a week after the

company raised 800 million dollars u.s. from a stellar list of private-market investors. in the same week where india crowned four new unicorns, and it is a country we don't talk about often. it is incredible, the capital going into the country at a time when the economy is still ravaged by covid-19. so i just wanted to spotlight that because it is something we should look at further. we need to keep talking about crypto and we need to keep talking about mainstream investors piling in. brendan howard, a well-known hedge fund internationally according to sources is going to invest its main fund into cryptocurrency, betting that the value of the digital assets will rise. it is a really interesting play on the back of a record year for its main fund last year, where it exceeded 27% returns. this is a theme we have been talking about all week. to finish on that -- cathie wood , we were talking about

cryptocurrency. they have bought millions of dollars worth of coin-based stocks. it is an interesting bet. we are talking about cathie wood when it comes to digital assets, cryptocurrencies, and the equities associated with them. some pretty good lines to talk about. caroline: ed ludlow, thank you. cathie been loving all things crypto for a while. let's talk about another person who has been loving crypto for a while. after it close lower than its closing price on wednesday, but it still was a blockbuster direct listing, receiving mixed reactions from policy makers and investors, including arc investor cathie wood. here's what they had to say. >> what people call cryptocurrencies, they are really vehicles for speculation. nobody is using them for payments, for example, like the

dollar. they are using them to speculate, like gold. >> expect tremendous fallibility -- volatility. this is going to be unstable in terms of investors and analysts understanding what coin-based actually is. >> i believe most of the people who are most deeply invested in this company and this economy, this new crypto economy, our are really long-term thinkers about what is going to be possible. this is going to be a really interesting one for decades to come. >> this is a very successful direct listing. a lot of investor enthusiasm, a watershed day for coinbase and crypto in general. there is tremendous enthusiasm. caroline: coinbase had some of the biggest volume today in terms of action. joining us to discuss is gus gus goldebella of paradigm.

you are focused on crypto but but you've got a long history working for other countries. you are a top lawyer in the apartment of homeland security. think about the legal ramifications of all this. but first, with your investment hat on, how important was brevan howard saying they are buying vis-a-vis a coinbase listing to a new system? gus: everything that happened in the past week related to coinbase and related to other serious players making an announcement about etf's are point to the main issue here, which is that crypto is that a mainstream inflection point. five years ago, there were forward-looking hobbyists in the area and stories would come across the newspaper every once in a while. but today, crypto is in the newspaper every day. it has totally hit the public consciousness. bitcoin at all-time highs,

coinbase going public, fidelity and galaxy end of the companies -- and other companies filing for etf applications with the ftc. and this is resulting in a massive amount of well-deserved attention for the sector. caroline: grayscale. they have started to rename some etf's as btcs, no less. you are convening key players. to look at the future of individuals thinking about crypto, but also policymaking here. i am interested in your perspective of what legal folks, policymakers, are making of the crypto space? are they coming? gus: the reason we got together, paradigm with fidelity digital assets to perform the crypto counsel -- to form the crypto

counsel for innovation is that because there is so much focus on crypto now, not just among the general public and investing public, but among regulators, and our job is to sit down at the same table with regulators not just in the united states but across the world to talk to them about what we believe the massive opportunities around crypto are. it is job creating abilities, it is ability to cause people to be more included in the financial system. not everybody has a bank account, but almost everybody has a phone. as well as the enhancement of personal privacy and national security that cryptocurrency can bring. the first thing we did this week, our first release was a paper from former director of the cia mike morel about how crypto is actually a boon to governments when the regulatory environment allows them to be used within particular countries.

caroline: for the reason of full disclosure, my husband is a senior manager at coinbase. at home, i drink the kool-aid in terms of hearing from him some of the positive reasons you outlined about crypto. what i am hearing more and more is some of the concerns about the environmental effect. is that something you are dealing with a policymaking -- from a policymaking perspective? how much of that is a backlash to where crypto and crypto mining could go? gus: i am really glad you raised that. i think crypto has misimpressions. if we are not sitting with policymakers and people thinking about this and developing a shared set of facts, then policies are going to be made and decisions are going to be made in an incomplete way. so, i certainly think that a lot of crypto community members have addressed and will continue to

address the energy usage stories, including one in the new york times today, which was forcefully pushed back on by other members of the community. so we are all on the same page about that. it really underscores, caroline, the reason we need a global educational organization like crypto counsel for innovation, to get the thinkers outside crypto to focus on these problems so that we can all enjoy the benefits. caroline: just so our audience is on the same page, what is the argument? that you should switch to a more environmentally-friendly energy system? gus: the arguments that you see are that crypto, especially bitcoin and other proof of work chains, are high energy consumers. that has been shown to not be the case. in fact, there are very credible

arguments that bitcoin drives innovation in green energy because the system finds inefficient uses of energy and uses them when they would be wasted and polluted if not used. so, there is a body of work on this that is important to get out there. and what we see is a lot of folks who are pushing back on the coinbase direct listing and on crypto, reusing arguments that we have found just do not hold any water. caroline: we will read more about what you are putting out from the crypto counsel for innovation. we thank you, paradigm chief policy officer gus coldobella, thank you for your time and insights.

coming up, index ventures partner nina achadjian joins us next to discuss a new $200 million seed fund and what kind of a start of candidates they are looking for. this is bloomberg. ♪

caroline: seed funding. it actually is not that new to index ventures. the index ventures vc firm has backed successful companies at the seed stage, on a journey to find its new stars. the firm has launched a new $200 million seed fund called index origins. partner nina achadjian joins us now for more. talk to us about the seed funds.

what sets the companies that you pick for success? nina: we have been doing seed investing for quite some time at index. index origin is a way for us to meet the needs of new founders. which is, they need a platform that can scale with them from origin all the way through out. -- all the way through ipo. so being able to do a $200 million seed fund is part of our $800 million venture fund in order to do this. what really helps founders be successful today is having access to capital and a trusted partner that can be with them from day one of the journey through all the ups and downs until the company matures into an ipo company. caroline: in the past 18 months, index ventures itself has done about 40 seed investors, including goodie and remote, companies that do varied things, some of them making payments easier, some of them making ai much easier.

i know that is the focus for you. is there a consistent theme as to what you are looking for? nina: that is the beauty of seed investing, because you can be on the cutting-edge of sectors that -- of investing in things that are not sectors or themes yet. across the u.s. and europe, we invest in a pretty broad range of seeds. you mentioned some of them, artificial intelligence, open-source, fintech, but we are excited to back new, emerging technologies like robotics at the seed stage so we can learn about these new sectors before they become something that is mainstream. caroline: interesting. how do you go about sourcing at the moment? is it word-of-mouth? how do you, nina achadjian, go out and hear about the latest? nina: a combination of things. first, relationships matter most in venture capital. a lot of entrepreneurs would meet are actually through introductions from other entrepreneurs that we have

worked with or met with in the past. second, we collaborate closely with seed funds, and we hope to collaborate with the seed ecosystem. solo gp and other seed funds. third, data scientists play a great role in actually finding companies earlier. we track things like where executives are going, how much the headcount has grown. so a combination of these things find entrepreneurs early as seeds. caroline: it is interesting how much we fast-track the growth trajectory of these companies, and how much quicker. the spac environment in particular is plucking out companies that perhaps would not have thought they were going to exit any time soon and go public and suddenly, there they are. you have so much expense taking -- experience taking companies public. robinhood is about two. we are speculating about wise, which is another early check you wrote at index. and what you learned about the experience of deliveroo.

how do you learn about exit strategies and what you think about the lifecycle? nina: if you are a founder today, there's two things that are going on. number one, there is more capital than ever before, which is great because you can raise, higher faster, go to market faster. second, because there is more capital available in the barrios -- and the barriers to entry to starting a company are lower, competition is fierce. in the past, let's say you raised a seed round, you usually had a year or maybe even two years to build your team, really perfect your product, invest in marketing and really gain some customers. now, you have a mere couple of months before you have to get out to market because you want to be ahead of your competitors. this is a compressed timeline. we see rounds happening within months of each other. all of this has really impacted the trajectory of seed companies, including when they exit. caroline: you are in san francisco, i am sat here in london. index is global in nature. we heard from colleague ed ludlow about opportunities in

india. i am interested in what you think about where the best companies are growing? it pains me as someone who been a follower of european technology for so long to see what happened to deliveroo in on its opening debut and coming to the market. and did that have a hit to european tech? or do you think companies are growing everywhere right now? nina: what has happened over the last year has leveled the playing field and democracized the economy. -- the ability to build a massive company from anywhere. as you know, we have been bullish on europe before it was even on the map. we continue to be incredibly excited. it is such a big market and there are so many opportunities. for us, we are still extremely excited about opportunities that can come from outside silicon valley and the u.s., and continue to invest in and down on entrepreneurs both in europe and globally. caroline: i know you have done that in your past,

investing in armenian companies in particular, and the like. great to spend some time with you. we hope you will come back soon. nina achadjian, has got a wealth of experience. it started out life as a high-yield bond trader. still ahead, mercedes enters a new era with the flagship s-class sedan going all electric. we will hear from the daimler ceo, coming up with a new launch that aims to take on rivals' tesla in the luxury market. this is bloomberg. ♪

caroline: as we mentioned early, -- earlier, taiwan semiconductor manufacturing warns a shortage

of semiconductors may extend into 2022. the world's largest contract maker has lifted targets this year for spending and growth in and says automaker clients can expect chip shortages to ease next quarter. overall, deficits will go into next year. the company joins industry giants who warned of longer than anticipated deficits due to unprecedented demand for everything from cars to game consoles to mobile devices. meanwhile, speaking of cars, chinese carmaker geely is introducing its new electric car unit to take on tech giants like apple and huawei who want to enter the ev market. the ceo spoke earlier on bloomberg. >> it is exactly created for this. it was funneled from geely to become a new product. no matter its brand, products, themes, organization or culture, which is no different than any

other tech and internet companies. all of this as -- caroline: all of this as german daimler introduces in all electric vehicle and aims to usher in a new era for mercedes, transforming it from a name that is known for high power production engines that can maybe rival tesla on the ev front. ceo ola kaellenius spoke to bloomberg's matt miller. ola: the battery chemistry side is something we have been doing research on for more than 15 years now, and the particular recipe for the eqs is something we have developed with partners. it has very good density. but if you look at the car, this bow shape, as our chief designer gordon wagner calls it, why is it like that? form follows function. it has the lowest drag coefficient of any serious production car. the smooth shape helps and many

little details lead to great efficiency and also gives you good range. matt: it keeps the design language pretty clearly mercedes. let's get back to the chip shortage, if we could. you say you're going to prioritize vehicles like this and i assume the internal combustion s class as well, but how hard is it hitting you in terms of production loss in 2021? ola: we had disruptions in the first quarter. we will continue to have some disruptions in q2. we are now talking about what the recovery scenario could look like with our suppliers. in some cases, it is not 100% clear yet on what the supply availability will be. so we are hoping that we will be able to make up for much of that loss in the second half of the year. but it is still kind of day to day management. matt: how important is it to keep your suppliers close to your production?

i know a couple days ago, there was a story about your crosstown competition working with a battery producer in stuttgart, for example. are you trying to source technology, chips, battery cells, close to where you put the cars together? ola: the auto industry is a huge network of supply relationships and technology relationships around the world. our guiding principle is to go for the best, best technology, best innovation. where can we find also cost structures that meet our target? so that worldwide network per se, that is not something that is going to disappear, nor do we want it to disappear. but as we scale some technologies, you mentioned for instance batteries, we are going to need so many gigawatt hours on the way to 2030. so for some of the components, as has been the case in the past as well, we will build up production in the most important

and biggest regions where we have manufacturing. matt: can you put a dollar figure on what kind of investment you are plowing into this new electric push? ola: many, many billions. the five-year plan daimler signed off on just before christmas has an r&d and budget of over $70 billion. and needless to say, the lion's share is going into new technology. matt: can i ask about prices? i saw a story on the bloomberg about china reducing the aluminum production. i am guessing a car like the one behind you is full of a ton of aluminum and carbon fiber in order to save weight. what do you see in terms of input prices? ola: with regard to commodities across the board, it goes up and down. in some cases, you also hedge.

and in some cases, you fluctuate with the market. but in general, commodity markets in the long run tend to be efficient. if you get into a situation where there is a crunch, higher demand, prices go up, then new capacity comes online. so you can plan a lifecycle that may be in the market for a few years. you have to manage that over the cycle. caroline: the daimler ceo talking with our very own matt miller. meanwhile, that does it for this edition of "bloomberg technology." a programming note for you, tomorrow we hear from reid hoffman and his thoughts on whether trump will be allowed back on big platforms. that and so much more tomorrow on "bloomberg technology." stick with us for it. this is bloomberg. ♪

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