>> from the heart of where inovation -- innovation, money, and power combine, this is "bloomberg technology" with emily chang. ♪ emily: welcome to "bloomberg technology." i am emily chang in san francisco. the apple car is a long-awaited project but we still don't know if it is even coming. this as bloomberg learns the self-driving car unit has lost

many top managers in recent months. we will get an update. plus, the pandemic lockdown drove millions to games for entertainment, socialization, and just to escape. the ceo of electronic arts, the maker of games like madden, fifa, and "battlefield" joins us to talk about gaming's future. and the techsodus. employees like -- and ceo's like elon musk have migrated to places like texas. i speak to the austin mayor about what that means for the lone star state. stocks rising with economic optimism and concerns about inflation. kriti gupta has the full picture. pretty: let's start macro. if you look at prices, today was a boring day. the s&p 500 closing out zero point 1%. the nasdaq 100 not very much

higher. a little bit of excitement with the semiconductor index. it seems boring on the service side until you go to the action-packed land of memes stocks, where you saw a 95% rise in amc shares, as much as 102%. it is the idea that retail trade that has been driving memes stocks is getting stronger and stronger. you can see express, blackberry, and gamestop on the screen. those mean stocks are not -- those meme stocks are not going anywhere. the s&p 500 has been in sideways trading territory. monster gains. we saw a slowdown in january. it is picking back up. it has been outperforming the s&p 500. it looks like these retail traders are here to stay. emily: we will watch that trend

continue to play out. now onto a potentially serious bump in the road for apple's self-driving car team. multiple stock managers have stepped down, which could be a sign of attrition and what could involve a big, important product for the future. let's get more from mark gurman. what have you learned about who is leaving the apple card project, and why? mark: thank you so much for having me. at the top of the apple car project is the project leader, dunfield, the vp of special projects at apple. for apple, he was the chief vehicle engineer at tesla, and he was one of the brains behind the model three. as we know, that is one of the biggest self-driving -- the biggest electric cars on the market. he was the executive manager for a team of 10 to 12 people. three of those people, a decent chunk of them, have left over the past four to five months.

ben simmons lyons, who was one of the original creators for the project lab -- a big-name engineer was in charge of safety and regulatory matters. in the last few days, david scott, another manager for robotics for the car, departed the project. if you interesting lanes leaving -- names leaving the project at a very interesting time. we are at the we creation stage of this big tesla competitor that they help to launch later in the decade. emily: what is the status of apple's car project? most of what we know is from your reporting. mark: it is still extremely early. they do not have big prototypes they are testing on the roads. they do not have a manufacturing partner.

it is still in the conceptual and exploratory stage, with the eyes eventually on releasing it. here is my opinion. say you are one of the top leaders of a project that is destined to be one of the biggest deals that apple, a 2 trillion dollar company, a maker of the iphone, a company steve jobs created -- are you going to leave the company believing this project is happening, believing in this car being viable? i don't think so. there are many other factors at play. i think major departures in the past few months -- three departures is quite notable. emily: how much does it matter if apple has a big play in cars or not? mark: i don't necessarily think it matters today. what apple wants to avoid is amazon, uber, google coming out

with their own consumer grade car or car fleet that will rival apple. they do not want amazon to really have a self-driving company within amazon. they do not want a fleet to gain so much steam in society that amazon and another company that creates the fleet comes out strong. let's say you get glued to this hypothetical google and it becomes a big part of your life, that google service. maybe you start teaching your iphone or other apple products for other google products. they are trying to create ecosystems within themselves. it is clear that self-driving technology in cars is a direction consumers are going. apple cannot necessarily afford to lose out on that. in the next 10 years, does apple really need a car? no, but this is long-term thinking. i think it will be important to the company in the future.

emily: apple's ecosystem has been a huge key to its success against arrange of products. mark gurman, thank you so much for your work on this. meantime, facebook has introduced a raft of new online tools to help businesses emerge from the pandemic. the social network revealed a programming update at this all virtual developer conference. the company has been trying to bolster online offerings for businesses as they also navigate the reopening and make shopping a priority for mark zuckerberg. mark: when developers have access to the right tools, they can build things that create value to everyone, whether that is social experiences that bring people joy, or a new way for businesses to stay during a crisis. emily: first quarter results and guidance beating estimates. we will speak to the ceo about her outlook for the company's performance in a post-pandemic world. this is bloomberg.

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emily: zoom shares fell slightly after reporting a quarter that topped analyst estimates. investors concerned about how sales growth continues. joining us now to discuss is the zoom ceo. every quarter, i feel like i have a few the same question, but now you have a clearer picture of what zoom looks like

in a post-pandemic world. what are the numbers telling you? >> i think what we all know for sure is we are never going back to the world the way it was before. m zoom is very honored to have kept people connected to this pandemic the last few months. we are also excited to be able to enable people to work flexibly, whether people want to work remotely or in the office. we are going to be there, and we are really evolving from being this killer meetings app to being the platform and the communications hub for our customers. all of that is going to be potential growth for zoom through meetings, through events. and then zoom apps will be generally available later this summer. we are really excited to be a key partner as we start to move to the world in another way. emily: what do you say to the investors who are still concerned, who think zoom cannot

possibly continue to grow like it has? and yes, the world is changing, and it has not stopped changing yet. we are getting closer and closer every day to normal from what it was. kelly: we are really pleased with the numbers we announced yesterday. year-over-year growth and guidance for the year from $3.9 billion year-over-year growth. we also announced we had our largest enterprise deal ever in the history of the company yesterday. we see continued strength and momentum in this upmarket. this be our internal targets for q1, and international continues to be a really strong point of growth for us. our platform positioning needs to launch our potential. emily: international is making up a bigger portion of the pie.

can you give us some color on where you expect the growth to come from internationally, given these new trends? kelly: what we see happening over the last year is the acceleration of video communications globally as well as brand awareness through zoom specifically. that has led to adoptions locally, which meant we were able to sell more quickly in the market. we have seen strong growth in europe, in asia, and latin america was a strong point for us. we are excited about that potential. emily: obviously, zoom has empowered this remote work revolution. companies are making big decisions about whether to come back fully or hybrid or not at all. zoom is going to be a critical tool. i'm curious what zoom philosophy is internally. are you going to allow remote work indefinitely, or hybrid? are you expecting employees to come back in the office full-time? kelly: we, like all of our

customers, are still learning and finding our philosophy around this. we actually are testing reopening offices. we just opened our on-site office on june 1. at we are going to watch -- and we are going to watch how employees are in the space, if it works well for them. we will look at how we all go to our offices eventually. emily: i want to talk more about the diversification of products. you mentioned zoom calls and i wonder how you see this evolving into a fuller suite of projects that enterprises can buy, as opposed to just videoconferencing software which has been so key. kelly: what we have seen his customers, as we have transformed their meetings experience, they are turning to us for their cloud solution as well. phone has been one of the last areas that organizations have made the jump from on prim --

on-prem to the cloud. having office phone sitting unused in office spaces has propelled people to start thinking about making that transition. we are up to 1.5 million zoom phones being sold. that is really exciting momentum we see for us. if you think about as people are moving back to the office, the combination of that, zoom rooms, and zoom chat -- you see the full communications platform we have to offer. emily: take me to 2022. what does the picture look like when we are out of the missing middle time, trying to figure out what companies they want to be. what does 2022 look like for zoom when some of that has been clarified? kelly: we see a suite of products that help individuals and organizations seamlessly

move through their workday or their social life, or maybe their children's school, because they can leverage the product with the flick's and the convenience we have all gotten used to. you think about parents going to pta meetings. hopefully they can continue to pop into those meetings for an hour without having to go across town to the children's store. -- children's school. we can leverage our technology that creates this democratization, whether you are in the room or working remotely. that is what we are endeavoring to do. we want to take the creativity we have had over the last year and combine those into moving around the world safely again when that is possible. emily: thanks so much for joining us. always good to hear your vision for where the world is going. the cfo of zoom. amazon is overhauling how it monitors worker productivity in

its warehouses. the online retailer uses algorithms to monitor how long employees are away from their workstations. if it is too long, workers need to explain why, and may be issued a warning. this coincides with news reports that the injury rate at amazon warehouses is higher than its peers in logistics industry. amazon says the productivity calculation will now be made over a longer period of time. coming up, the calling that claims to be greener than bitcoin is called chia. how does it work, and is it really better for the environment? ♪

emily: while the markets remain gripped by crypto, a debate on how to make mining more green. tesla said it would no longer accept it going -- bitcoin due to environment concerns. how do we make them more sustainable? we are joined by the president and ceo of the chia network, who is doing what he calls greener farming. chia has been dubbed green coin. how easy it greener than bitcoin? >> first of all, instead of relying on electricity and hardware to prove you are directly validating the change, we use unused hard drive space. you use what is the equivalent of a bingo card and you store it on your drive until you happen to win the challenge and get the chance to validate a transaction. hard drives use significantly

less power. if all the hard drives were compared to etherium, it is 1/10 the total energy use per year. emily: if chia takes off, doesn't that create a need for more problems -- more space, and that is more problems than the environment? gene: the question is better than what. a bicycle is more shouldn't then test -- is more efficient than tesla, but that does not mean we do not want tesla to compete with suv's. but actually, but we are doing is reporting used hard drives. when we get to the end of those drives, they get sold to recyclers. farmers have been buying them instead of sending them to a landfill. emily: you just announced plans to go public. as we understand it is a plan to

use a broader human system. can you talk about what the overall emissions are? gene: we watched the market in 2017, but there were regulatory problems. it was not ready for enterprise or government action. our new program environment, chia list, is designed to support things like central banking and distribute it exchanges, things like carbon credit markets and equities. we have taken the company to drive the adoption of blockchain. we are supporting the adoption of blockchain infrastructure for people who needed. our strategy to go public is very much a product strategy for a lot of companies that went public. it helps clarify the regulations. it makes it more clear that this is our equity. these are our coins. this is a commodity.

it allows our users to use our equity to shield themselves from some point volatility these coins often have. emily: there is some backlash against chia for being a for-profit company, backlash around the timing of the ipo. the founder of bit for it -- bit torrent said, we are not selling tokens. chia is not a security. some members are being obnoxious the entitled engine get off. what is your response to the pushback? gene: we are trying to build a real community of civility and actual interest in the technology. this is a 30 plus year opportunity, and we are not in a rush to be there first. what we want to do is to actually go and solve the real problems. things like being able to transfer money between banks, things like sending money home to guatemala.

these things should be easier to do than cash. they should be cheaper than they currently are. those are the things we are focused on. there certainly is a bit of a goldrush effect. people want to get in and get in early for chia forming. chia farming is very approachable. we do want to make it easier. but i think there is some frustration. there is a desire for people to share their rewards. we will have that up eventually. emily: you say it is greener than bitcoin. is it greener than ethereum? gene: we have the last two years. we do not think the space is secure when we start talking about inter-government competitions. there are problems which subtly sheena komodo -- which bitcoin really fixed. if you were to buy it for the future -- bitcoin or chia can

recover. it can keep going. emily: there has been a lot of volatility in the market in general. chia is super volatile since launch. what do you make of it? gene: i think it was trying to find a price and it has now found the price. i will call it the $600, 11 hundred dollar range. in crypto, that is a narrow range. for other hope -- other folks, that is not a range they are used to. emily: i want to ask you about elon musk, tesla. elon musk has had a lot of influence on fluctuations over the last several weeks. is that a good thing or is it unhealthy? gene: we need to be looking at the right issues. cryptocurrency is the way of the future, but there are real concerns around the carbon footprint that ethereum and bitcoin have today. i will say it this way. celebrities will the

celebrities. we are more focused on getting this blockchain adopt by real users. emily: you think he is just a celebrity? gene: certainly not in the rocket business or the car business or the solar business, but in the blockchain space, elon tweeted he wants them to be 10 times faster and six times cheaper. emily: we will have to see if he tweets back at your response. jean hoffman, chia network president and ceo, thank you for joining us. coming up, it was a banner year for the videogame industry as lockdowns of us the globe kept people indoors and on screens. we are speaking to the ceo of electronic arts about the next chapter of gaming during the pandemic. does a new generation of gamers stick around?

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emily: welcome back to bloomberg technology. chips and gaming topping our list of stocks to watch. kriti: let's kick it off at the chip stocks. it was indeed a big day for the semiconductor index. you can take a look at the chips index on some of those companies. nvidia is a major heavyweight not just in the philadelphia semiconductor index, but in the nasdaq 100 as well. it is outperforming broadcom, texas instruments, and the

stocks -- stoxx index as a whole. this is going to be a key factor when we compare it to other parts of the tech sector, in particular to the likes of the nasdaq 100. take a look at the upper formers. even as we have a global chip shortage, someone say that is driving the stock price, saying that momentum won't quit anytime soon. what is not doing so well? some chips in particular -- you have stocks trailing a little bit. even though you did see massive gains, you did not see them catch up to the semiconductor index. but 2021 could be there year. emily: let's talk about that now. kriti gupta, markets reporter. a big month ahead for electronic arts, set to debut the latest release of its popular title "battlefield." 2020 turned out to be a banner year for gaming,

with folks on lockdown, young and gold -- young and old, turning to games for entertainment. joining me to discuss it all, e.a. makes not only "battlefield," but the sports game "madam -- "madden," and "fifa." people were gaming to escape. but can that kind of demand keep up? andrew: thanks for having me. the short answer, i think, if yes. we came off an extraordinary year last year in the industry and continue to be grateful for everything our people were able to do. even with such a strong year last year, we guided to an even bigger year this year. we are projecting that continued growth. that is not unnatural. people have discovered how

awesome games are. that is a connection they have made. now expectations are continued to grow. emily: you just recorded your biggest year in history. can you do it again? andrew: during my tenure, i think there was only one other time we guided anywhere above 5%, 6%, 7%. that is a big jump for us. we made some acquisitions that are helping drive that growth. we feel really good about the year ahead. the industry is on fire. more people recognize the value of games. our network of players is growing. you mentioned "battlefield" coming this year in addition to fifa and mandan and other great things. emily: any details you can give us on "battlefield"? how big do you think this will be? andrew: i think it is going to be huge. "battlefield is such --

"battlefield" is such a great franchise. we are going to have a two hour release trailer. and a small snippet of consumer demand -- we did teasing yesterday. the results are through the roof. it is just a teaser. we are going to do more next week. it does speak to how much anticipation there is from the market. we broke all kinds of records with views and retweets and likes and those kinds of things. i feel really good about where we are going. clearly, this is reinforcing that there is a lot of anticipation in the market as well. emily: we are coming up on june 16, which is the day last year that you revealed the cover of "madden nfl." who is going to be on the cover of " madden 22," and when will we know? andrew: soon enough. i reviewed it a few days ago. i can say there will be more surprises afoot.

we are going to do something a little different with the cover. i will not say any more than that. i'm proud of the work the team has done with the game and with the marketing we are going to build around it. we had a really strong year last year. we saw more players come in, more players engaging deeply with mandan then we have ever seen before. this is going to be a spectacular year for ea sports madden. emily: we were just looking at lamar jackson from last year. tell me about the deming -- the gaming demographic and how it is changing. are you seeing more kids, more women, more folks in older generations gaming? that is what we are hearing from other gaming ceo's. not just new gamers, but an entirely new audience who uses these games differently. andrew: yeah, i think we have seen that. we have seen that for a while now. i started in this industry 20 years ago, and really video games were for teenage boys. and now we see it from six to 60

and beyond. we see that at least half and in many cases more than 50% of the population are women. i'm watching my daughter, who is nine, get into gaming, and the beauty of what games can bring. i'm able to connect with my kids. i'm hearing more and more this is not even about how can i go through this, but how can i connect with my family, my friends, people around the world, through this wonderful form of entertainment? what we are seeing is a dramatic broadening of the marketplace. certainly, the last year has only accelerated that. emily: one of the things we talked about last year was her working remotely was a challenge for the gaming industry to innovate together, also apart. we have heard some ceo's say, we want everyone back to the office. others say we can be fully remote. would you let workers continue to work remotely no matter where they live?

the indefinite future? andrew: we are a creative industry and there is a kinetic industry when you put people together. our people who work together in e.a. offices -- we have learned so much in the last year, and we are going to be flexible. we are going to work with teams about what makes sense to them. i do not think it is going back to the same as what we were. i also do not think we are going to see a world where everyone is remote all the time. there is kinetic energy that comes. we are going to work with teams, and what we are hearing on balance is that most people really want to come back together and create great entertainment. emily: there is a big controversy involving -- with game makers and companies like apple, we have been following the apple-effort -- apple/epic trial. what is your take?

do you see someone in the right and someone in the wrong there? andrew: we have great relations with all of our platform partners. the reason we are strong as we have been able to build those relationships and a lasting way since the very beginning. we did have microsoft and sony, nintendo, apple, google, and others. we have stadia and facebook. we will try to work together with our partners to ensure that we can reach as many players as possible, in the best, most compelling way possible, and offer amazing entertainment at amazing values. as this continues, that is going to be our focus. emily: gaming is increasingly intersecting with other forms of entertainment, and we have talked a lot about the meta-verse, the intersection of

physical and virtual worlds. maybe it is becoming more of a reality. what is your view on the meta-verse and how you are thinking about that too deepen the engagement within ea games itself? andrew: we have seen two fundamental secular trends accelerate over the last four months. one is the nature of social interaction moving from physical to digital. the other is the consumption of sport and entertainment is moving to be interactive. that is only helping us as new players come into our network of gamers and enjoy the entertainment we make. the notion of the meta-verse is always being talked about a lot. it is one of those buzzwords we hear.

crash -- a neil stephenson book called "snow crash." i think our focus right now is building amazing 3d worlds with amazing characters and amazing stories, whether that is in the context of our sports business or our entertainment business, and trying to develop what is good for our players over time. at some point, it would be natural to assume our players will want to do more than the core element of the game. i think it is less about the meta-verse and more about how we fulfill the motivations of our players in the context of interactive entertainment. andrew wilson, ceo of electronic arts. good to have you back. not another year before you return. coming up, step aside, silicon valley. austin, texas has reasons to swagger, attracting more tech workers than other cities in the past year. i'm going to speak to the austin mayor about how his city is grappling with a rapid influx of

new people. our citylab series is next. ♪

emily: if we learned anything in the last year, it is that working from home is an option being embraced by millions of americans. one of the beneficiaries is austin, texas, which saw many silicon valley ex-pats settle in the city limits. austin captured a net inflow of more than 200 software and i.t. workers per 10,000 existing ones, according to data from may 2020 through april 2021.

the lone star state has also welcomed tech companies like hp, oracle, and palantir. and elon musk is buying up more and more land. we are joined by austin mayor steve adler. mayor adler, i am coming to you from the competition here in san francisco. tell me, what does austin have on silicon valley? mayor adler: i think in the pandemic, it could be as simple as people looking for a less expensive place to live. san francisco is a great town. we kind of think we have a magical place here in austin. it is a creative, vibrant, entrepreneurial city. the watch phrase of austin is keep austin weird. and i think that means it is ok to be different here. we have a greater tolerance for risk, i think, than most cities i have ever been in.

and that ability to be able to try something, to think outside the box, to not get punished if things don't go well the first time is something that i think attracts folks to the tech industry. that is why there are more startups per capita here than anywhere else. it is just a place where the people that self select to live here are people that are easy to get along with. emily: perhaps you should change the same to keep austin wired to promote the new tech. do you have any idea of how enduring these post-pandemic moves are? now that people can work and live anywhere, do they stay in austin, or do they change their minds again? mayor adler: i'm not sure, but austin's growth is not tied to

any one particular type of person that is choosing to live here. i think austin has been one of the best large metropolitan areas for the last 10 years. when you look at the rate of growth, it is pretty great, but it has been constant since the 1850's, so there is probably something in the water here. i think that a lot of the trends are staying associated with the pandemic and are going to be things that last. i still think people are going to want to work downtown. i still think people are going to want to travel. i still think people are going to want to be around other people while they are doing their work and trying to be creative. i also think there is going to be a greater reliance on working from home or working from remote places. it has its place. it is not a substitute. but i think it is a value add. emily: elon musk is buying up more and more land in austin. have you talked with elon? what do you make of his moves?

mayor adler: i did have the opportunity to visit with him when he was looking at bringing his plants here to the austin area. seems to be real bullish on austin, creating a lot of jobs. he is talking about creating a lot of housing. i hope that he does that, because with people coming, while that in so many ways is a good thing -- our economy is coming back quickly here. we have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country, creating more jobs than most other places in the country. it comes with challenges. one of those is we don't have a housing supply able to keep up with the numbers of people that are here. that is driving up housing prices. so ours is i think the fastest-appreciating housing market in the country.

that is not good. we have to be increasing housing supply. i hope that elon and other big companies that are coming here will help us with that. emily: do you see yourself in competition with other cities, like miami is to mark -- like miami? steve adler: not really. miami is another great city. i'm friends with the mayor in miami, who i know is working really hard to bring people to miami. my sense is that people self select to live in the city that goes best to them. someone that really, really likes miami bubbly is not going to be as happy in austin, and vice versa. they are different cities with different cultures and different attributes. i really like this city, and i

think there are characteristics of this town that are pretty unique. and i think a lot of the companies that are coming to austin want to come here because the people they want to hire want to live in this city. we are all just different. and i like what we have here. emily: keep austin wired, you have had a few minutes to think about it. what do you think? mayor adler: i'm going to stick with weird. i think i would be strung up if i tried to change that motto. emily: thank you for joining us. good to have you. we will be watching to see how the tech ecosystem in austin evolves. the jbs hack attack. the meat plant hit by a major cyber thief. we talk about who is behind it, next. ♪

emily: elon musk is known for moving into new market. -- markets. there were cars, and rockets, and don't forget his tunneling company. could he be opening his first diner? you heard it right. tesla has filed an application to use its "t" logo in the food industry. the industry states it is for use in restaurant services. we are going to continue to follow this. jbs is working to reopen its plants and says systems are coming back online. but the hackers have shut down all of the beef plants, which

account for almost a quarter of american supply. we have learned a russian great -- russian link hacking group was responsible. we now have some attribution. tell us more about who we believe is behind this. >> basically, the fbi confirms bloomberg reporting of who is behind the attack. this is a group that deploys ransomware. they basically provide infrastructure and services, and they work with criminal hackers who carry out ransomware attack's using their services. together, they split the profits. this group is also known among ransomware and there's is a group that will threaten to leak data. in some cases, criminals doing ransomware will encrypt data and will deliver ransoms for return of that data. they are also known for demanding ransom for not

publishing data online. emily: i cannot keep track of all the facts that have been happening. other hacks announced today -- not just jbs, but fujifilm, the new york transportation system. what is behind this? i mean, so many different targets, and so many at once. alyza: and of course the colonial pipeline attacked just weeks ago. ransomware is a huge problem. manufacturing and transportation and pipelines -- it seems there has not been an effective crackdown. criminals learned it was a way to make money. people paid ransoms to keep their data from being private. the department of homeland security can think about how to handle ransomware and working with companies to do so. it seems like a really prevalent

threat the government is still working to get their arms around. emily: our guest was emphatic that russia is not doing anything to stop this. what is your sense of russia's involvement or lack thereof in the range of these attacks? alyza: speaking specifically about the group who has carried out this attack, cybersecurity experts say that these criminal attackers are out there to make money. but you are right that russia and criminal hackers often have a murky relationship where it is hard to know who is providing what. if hackers are working with the government by day and with criminals by night, it is a complicated ecosystem. one thing people i have spoken to have called for is the u.s.

taking additional action to crackdown on countries that provide safe haven to hackers, because they say it is your country. you cannot allow these criminals who are disrupting the u.s. economy to operate freely from your territory. emily: all right. we will see what happens tomorrow. thanks so much for keeping us posted across all of these developing stories. meantime, another story we continue to watch -- etsy is buying a secondhand fashion app for $1.6 billion, part of the online marketplace's push to expand the customer base and attract younger users. depop is one of the most popular sites among gen z consumers in the united states, but 90% are under the age of 26. that does it for this edition of "bloomberg technology." tomorrow, we will be speaking to the crack and ceo, jesse powell -- kracken ceo, and ransom

runway's jennif how the company is coming outer. -- coming out of a crazy year. ♪

haidi: a very good morning and welcome to "daybreak australia." we are counting down to australia's major market opens. if it official hints it is time to consider easing bond purchases, and blackrock's ceo