>> from the heart of where innovation, money and power collide, in silicon valley and beyond, this is bloomberg technology with emily chang. ♪ emily: coming up in the next

hour, chairs of the senate subcommittee. senator klobuchar makes her case against some of the biggest tech giants of our time. monopolies, antitrust and more in our one-on-one interview. plus, space is amazon's next big push. the company expects a surge in cloud related computing contracts worth tens of millions of dollars. and we will meet the cofounder and ceo of figma, who believes creative collaboration can happen anywhere. although stories in a moment. but first, bipartisan support >> to send customers to space before blue origin. a victory for richard branson. what does it mean for jeff bezos as he prepares for his flight on july 20? we have the story. let's get a look at how crypto markets ended the week. the full picture and coming to us momentarily. >> another down day friday for bitcoin. hovering around $32,000. we broke out below $30,000 tuesday. we rebounded, copy trading.

the main driver seems to be china. the crackdown on mining and financial institutions. what is interesting is the other asset classes that move with bitcoin. sliding heavily in the bitcoin currency. the index is 40% bitcoin. also down. also the crypto related stocks. down 5.5%. are investors treating it as a proxy? you see the symmetry and moves over the last 12 months. different disclosures from microstrategy, in terms of how much bitcoin they are buying, how much for issuing debt. that is the question. >> ed ludlow, thanks so much. microstrategy upbeat. the ceo confirming the company -- 13,000 more bitcoin, making their total more than 105,000.

he will own one in every 200 bitcoins ever minted if he never sells. i want to bring in michael seiler himself. great to have you back. you bought the dip. but what if it is not a dip? how much have you considered the possibility it is part of a prolonged --? >> the primary dynamic is the china exodus. there is a forest and rush exodus from capital. it kicked off in may. that is driving the dynamic in the market. our strategy is long-term. 10 years ago, i talked about the mobile way. the mobile way was the d material is asia and of music, the apple iphone, and turning books into ibooks. you have to take the music out of the cds to get it to people.

if you want to make books and education available, you have to take the words out of the book and d materialize the library. bitcoin is the d materialization of -- we are sucking the value out of gold, real estate, and other collectibles and art, putting them on a blockchain and giving it to the people. it is a long-term trend, a million times more efficient than hauling your property around on your back. to get property rights to 5 billion people, you need bitcoin and a smart. it is a technology play. we are confident over the next decade, 5 billion people will have property on a smart phone. bitcoin will be the primary blockchain to do that. >> i went back to the interview from 2012. speaking of smartphones, give us the truth. how often are you checking the phone and checking the price? are you losing sleep?

do you meditate or have a stiff drink when the price goes down? >> i'm not a trader. if i was, i would have anxiety. i am a technology believer. i bought facebook before it became public. apple when it was a couple dollars a share. this is a one decade long trend. microstrategy acquired all of this bitcoin with a combination of equity and debt. the debt is long-term debt, either unsecured convertible bonds that run five or six years, or secured debt against cash flows of our software business. we don't market anything. so we are not concerned about short-term price fluctuations. in six or seven years, i expect it to be higher than it is. how it gets there will be volatile. >> you have not been a fan of alt coins in the past. you consider holding other

cryptocurrencies? >> the way we look at the digital ecosystem is you have digital property. that is like owning a block of cyber manhattan. one bitcoin is a block in cyber manhattan. then you have a digital currency. there is not much upside. they will be regulated like money market funds in cyberspace. then you have digital applications. they are trying to dematerialize insurance companies, exchanges, and banks. they are the buildings on top of the granite city block, or the business in the building. it is a different thing. if i went to vegas, i would just want to buy the land. someone else might want to build a hotel. it is not for us, it is a complicated business, more competitive. we are waiting for more regulatory clarity. if you will be an insurance

company in cyberspace, there are probably insurance issues or trading issues. we have adopted a simple strategy. buy 105,000 blocks of bitcoin in cyber manhattan. we think it will be good for hundreds of years, and billions will want to live there. >> but why not then? this is a question coming in from a terminal user. other more energy efficient forms of crypto, are you considering that? >> we think the way that bitcoin mining works is the most energy efficient way to create a trusted digital property network. you put in a dollar, you get out $200 of value in bitcoin. if google puts in $100 of value in energy, they get one dollar. the amount of energy it uses is a few basis points. i'm not concerned of the energy use.

there is no more efficient way to do it. if i wanted to run a centralized application, i can do it with energy, but there is no way to create digital profit that will last hundreds of years outside of the control of a ceo, government, or country that has integrity and durability without using energy. emily: what side of the bitcoin do you consider yourself relative to elon musk? >> what side of the bitcoin? emily: exactly. how would you describe your position on bitcoin relative to elon musk? >> my position on bitcoin is it is the dominant digital property network in the world. it has won that race. what you want to own his digital property for the long-term term, so you buy and hold bitcoin. i think elon musk also sees it

as a great storer of value and monetary inflation hedge. he has expressed concerns about the need to invest balance sheet assets as a monetary inflation hedge. he has many other businesses he also evangelize is and is enthusiastic about. i am a little bit more focused on bitcoin. emily: you have been on one call together about energy. are you in touch, do you speak? >> we do. he has been very enthusiastic about bitcoin and making sure it is a force that drives sustainable energy usage in the world. he has talked about that a bit. i've organized the bitcoin mining council to promote energy transparency and communicate the energy uses of bitcoin and show how sustainable it is. one of the things we found is the bitcoin industry is using more sustainable energy than any other industry.

it is getting more sustainable at a more rapid rate read we look forward to sharing those findings with the public shortly. emily: let's talk about the crackdown in china on bitcoin and bitcoin mining. what does it mean for the longer-term? >> china has 50% market share and were generating $10 billion a year on a business owing 100% year-over-year. the government cracked down on it and squeezed the entire industry out of china. given the growth rate of bitcoin, it will prove to be a trillion dollar mistake for china. it is a tragedy for chinese miners, a geopolitical mistake for china, but i suppose they can afford it. it is a new sense and dislocation for bitcoin. it squeezed a lot of -- a lot of chinese had to sell bitcoin under forcible liquidations with a timeframe, because they had to

get out of the country and loans got pulled. that has been a big opportunity for western investors, companies like mine bought bitcoin in the $30,000 range. we would have paid double or triple if it hadn't been for the china exodus. so we got a benefit. it is a great windfall for north american bitcoin miners, because they cost the same and will generate 50% more revenue, 75% more revenue, because the chinese industry has been taken off-line. emily: it seems there is no impetus for a rally on the horizon. chances are a bitcoin etf is not getting approved this year. regulators in the u.s. will tighten up. what drives bitcoin from here, and when do we get out of it? >> there is a delay. if you rollback the clock extent nine months, the media did not

cover the story, and people were uncertain about what happened. biden being elected was good for bitcoin. gary gensler taking over the sec. the new class of regulators are progressive, more enlightened and educated on bitcoin. i think in time, you will see a bitcoin etf. you have seen morgan stanley and goldman sachs and most major banks start to trade in bitcoin and bitcoin derivatives and offer mutual funds. there's an avalanche of banks that will be offering bitcoin services. coinbase came public, square allowing millions of new bitcoin holders every month. you just have to be patient and look at the long-term technology trend, do you believe in ibooks, icloud and big tech? if you do, the next logical thing to get dematerialized's

property on 5 billion mobile phones. just a matter of time. emily: people forget that microstrategy is a soft or company in and of itself, but has become a sort of proxy for investors wanting to get into bitcoin. do you see that at all as a risk to microstrategy shares? >> our stock was $120 a share. we had $60 a share in cash generating zero yield. if they returned all the cash to the shareholders, we would have a $60 stock. the company would be growing 5% a year. we converted to cash through a series of dutch options, share buybacks, and stock and debt offerings into a company -- we are now growing our top line 10% in the last quarter. the stock is up to a factor of five. we have made billions of dollars for our shareholders. we have $3.5 billion worth of

bitcoin. if it goes up 20% a year, we will make more off of the bitcoin then we could have in a decade off of the existing business. it is different. there is volatility. but the stock sometimes moves more in a day than we could have hoped it to be at all. i think shareholders have benefited, employees and customers are happy. it is a different thing. we would rather be winning with something different than be sitting at $60 a share with no hope. >> any plan to use more? >> our approach is to do -- when the stock was 120, we bought it back at 140 two by bitcoin. when the stock was 300, we sold the converted 398 to by bitcoin. at 1000, converted $1400 a share. when it came back to 500, we did not want to dilute with equity

or convert we did a senior secured financing and we bought bitcoin. now the way the market moves, the way the senior debt markets move, and the converged market move are uncertain. one thing we can be certain of is if we do financing, we can make sure it is all classes of security holders within the company. emily: there was an if. it could happen? >> our strategy is definitely to acquire and hold bitcoin with our existing cash flows. we generate $115 million in the last 12 months. we will do it that way. we will also do it with future debt financings and equity financings. emily: michael, good to have you with us. coming up, how apple and other

tech giants are trying to get into the driver's seat. we will be joined by mark gurman. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: tech giants like apple and google are riding the wave of excitement as they look to secure deals and become leaders in the evolving car industry. mark gurman has been tracking the tech companies and their latest plans. you made an interesting point. they are not pursuing self driving cars because it is fun, but they need to defend their turf. what do you mean by that? >> thank you for having me. let me break it down. google is far and away the

leader in self driving car technology with waymo. they are already on some roads in the bay area, gaining popularity in phoenix. google also has their online search engine, online shopping. they cell phones, home devices. they compete against apple, amazon, facebook, in so many other areas. it only takes being the market leader in one sector to bring people to your other products. for instance, it explodes in popularity, people who own iphones might start being appealed to the google brand. they might ditch their iphone for a pixel phone. they might get rid of their amazon echo for a google assistant device. instead of buying stuff through amazon, they buy stuff through the -- google because they are impressed. it is the system with lock in. companies want you in their ecosystem. using their hardware, services, online shopping, all of that.

it is becoming a battleground. they will need to compete like they all compete in phones and operating systems, online commerce. like everything else we talked about. emily: we know apple is not always first, and the saying is they are not always first, but always the best. what would their competitive advantage be given that as far as we know, they are pretty far behind? >> i will disagree on apple being the best, they have basically completely failed in the smart home after being multiple years late. in terms of the self driving technology, google has shown so much promise. amazon has shown promise with their more enterprise initiatives for self driving or business use cases. we have not seen much from apple. we have seen reports. they have improved

significantly. they are nowhere near the performance you see from crews or google, or the other big players. i think apple will get into self driving cars. the question is not if, it is really when. my take is it will be five years away, because they need to get the self driving technology down. even then, i don't think the first iteration will be fully autonomous cars. i think we are many years away from that. being able to do your address and you there. the question is would you be willing to put your baby in the backseat of a car, plug in the address to take baby and let the cargo? right now it is no, but in 10 years. >> putting it that way, we will definitely think twice. you can subscribe to his weekly newsletter for everything you

need to know about apple consumer technologies and even get his occasional thoughts on the nba. he is a lakers fan, but we will forgive him. the first comes out monday. coming, we will hear from the ceo of one of south america's most dominant e-commerce platforms about how it is changing the way latin americans pay and shop. this is bloomberg. ♪

>> the pandemic forced one of latin america's most dominant e-commerce platforms to react quickly when they shut down and consumers moved online. in this week we tell transformed segment, we spoke with -- the ceo about the company's growth and the future of online shopping. >> i think the outlook for the

company continues to be the same, regardless of the pandemic. we believe we continue to grow. total commerce, we will finish 2021 slightly north of 10%, maybe 12%, but still relatively low, compared to the u.s., the u.k., or china. so we believe e-commerce will continue to grow. hopefully stores will reopen and life can go back to normal, and e-commerce can grow at the rate it was before the pandemic, close to 30%. >> not a 100% we saw over the past year? >> exactly. i think that accelerated our growth, moved us forward maybe three years. but i think once everything reopens, we will go back to the growth rate we had before the pandemic.

we will continue to grow faster than online service. >> you run a marketplace, you provide payment networks, what is next? >> that is a lot. we still need to do many things in those areas. in e-commerce, we believe livestreaming is becoming very important. groceries and fresh are becoming very important. fintech. we believe -- will have a major role in the coming year. overall, we are rolling out many solutions. we have 15 million loads outstanding in the region. there is still a lot of room to grow. insurance is starting to grow a lot. we are just starting. emily: mercadolibre's ceo.

the house takes up a series of bills that could change the internet as we know it. tech giants mount their defense. we have the latest. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: welcome back to "bloomberg technology." i am emily chang in san francisco. -- would force large tech companies like amazon to exit certain businesses. it is a cisgender -- it is a signature proposal aimed at raining in big tech and spurring competition in digital markets. that's get analysis with david kirkpatrick. it would mean, for example, amazon would be forced to sell off its logistics business.

it is a big deal if this passes. how significant is it? >> it is very significant, but even what you said is unknown. what the bills will do is not entirely clear. even though if you read the text of one of the bills, it sounds like it could require amazon to say get rid of aws, or airplanes and all of that. because specific companies aren't mentioned in the bills, in terms of the impact it would have on each of them, it is hard to know how they would be interpreted. my view of the whole exercise is this is more of an early shot over the bow than darting the i's and crossing the t's of final legislation. we are a long way from these bills being law. emily: you need alignment in the house, also in the senate.

it seems we are starting to see that. i sat down with senator amy klobuchar, the counterpart of david cicilline. she is working on companion bills. she has bills of her own and agrees big tech needs to be reined in. >> i love capitalism, but i always believe you need to put some stars around it when it comes to ensuring it works. emily: you covered the tech industry for a long time. what do you make of the bipartisan momentum at a time when micro-partisanship almost tore our country apart? >> i think it is misleading. i would love to think there was bipartisan agreement that these companies were too powerful, and we needed a range of restraints to make sure the behavior they exercised in our society and globally is possible for all of us.

in the senate, the chance of the bill has 10 republicans joining in passing. certainly more than one or two of these bills is very small. even in the house, most of the republicans in favor of these bills are still thinking of their grievance with these companies to primarily be that they suppress conservative speech, and they are in favor of anything the companies don't like, because they don't like the companies for that reason. democrats on the other hand have done much more serious research and have articulated very deeply considered positions, as evident in many hearings of the judiciary committee over the last year or so. the motives are very different. i do think these companies will change their behavior, whether because of law or not, in coming

years. the whole thing is a positive exercise. don't count on the laws becoming enacted. emily: i'm surprised you are so optimistic. we have not seen much self-regulation over the last couple of decades. what makes you so sure now is the time? >> i disagree. look at facebook's oversight board. it is a partial effort, not sufficient, it is only helping a little bit, but it is a major shift in the approach that most dominant company in communications and media globally is taking towards how it operates its business. it is the first of a number of such efforts. three ways these companies will essentially become a reformed to one degree or another. these bills, whether they pass or not, are indicative to the change of mindset. the regulator will do more,

because she knows congress has her back. these kind of regulations are happening globally. in the eu, the digital services act. the pressure is on these companies. as mark gurman was saying earlier, they are competing with each other more. they will be able to rightly say competition exists. emily: i hear you on that. david kirkpatrick, always good to have you. while the plan was to go public, robinhood has seen its lifting plans slow down in recent weeks. the delay due to a back-and-forth with regulators over its perspective. sources saying robinhood's growing business has drawn questions from the securities. katie ruth has been reporting on the story. is it unusual what has been

happening? does that happen behind-the-scenes and we don't notice? >> good to be with you. sometimes it happens behind the scenes. it was not as noticeable in recent years because of the jobs act, which caused the confidential filings to be handled behind-the-scenes. so the revisions were worked out quietly. what is unusual is how long it is taking. we expected it in may, june, july. now we hear it may not even go public in july. they are trying. they are waiting on the sec. robinhood is a big company. fintech, a lot of regulatory concerns. it makes sense they have questions. it sounds like more than they were expecting. emily: is it any cause for concern for robinhood investors? >> probably not. if you have concerns about robinhood's business already,

this is probably less relevant. if anything, the people concerned about robinhood are more concerned about how they handled gamestop. the sec want clarity and risk factors, things like that for the filings, to make sure they are adequately warning people of what can go wrong. it is common to have a little bit of a back-and-forth. we saw coinbase from march to april. affirm tried to go out last december. they got slower because of so many ipos happening right now, spacs, as well. emily: if you could guess, july or august? >> probably not august. i was told if they don't go by july, they would push it to september. a lot of times, bankers -- in

august. it is not a typical year, but it is kind of a dead month for ipo's. they pick up after labor day. your investor roadshows, trying to get the big institutional investors to join in, you want them to be present and able to participate in these meetings. if everyone is on vacation, it is usually considered a bad time. maybe july, but it is up to the sec. emily: we will be here in august. we will be ready. thank you. coming up, why one aws president jumped ship. how she plans to use her new role to drive more people to the cloud at a new company. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: instagram is testing a feature that lets users post photos and videos from their desktops. it was founded in 2010, and instagram had refused building a web version because they wanted it to be used by people on the go. over time, professionals and influencers are spending time on more content creation and using third-party tools to upload posts. instagram facing increase competition from facebook and youtube. teresa carlsen has left the boat to tackle a role. president and chief growth officer in the ever evolving cloud space. joining us for more, teresa carlsen herself. i'm glad you are here. you are a rising star at amazon, a huge and growing business. why leave amazon?

>> demand for data has never been greater. we have the most powerful data platform in the world. it is exciting to be here. it is also really fun to be part of a high-growth company that is still building. by nature, i'm a builder and innovator. it is exciting to be here. and we are hoping to get our customers to the cloud, i thought what about oth -- what a better reason to move faster? emily: how does your experience drive splunk sales, success, and growth? >> if you look at my experience at aws, almost 11 years at a really high-growth business around the world looking at different markets. public sector market from zero to billions. i took on our industry, highly regulated industry.

i think these will help me how to expand market here at splunk, but also, i spend a lot of my times helping customers innovate and go through their digital journey. if you look at our last quarterly earnings, 83% of our software bookings were in cloud. so we are well on the way. but we still have a lot of customers moving to the cloud, and many more that want to come on the platform. with my background, and really understanding the digital journey, and how customers think about this, and migration patterns, i believe i will be able to help move faster, just because of my background and knowledge. emily: silverlake recently announced a $1 billion investment in splunk. what does that mean? >> we are so excited about that.

that is just another example of what investors are considering with splunk. they just made a $1 billion investment. they can invest in anybody in the world, and they looked at us and believed we had a much higher growth potential. we will be using the plan to accelerate our growth initiative. in addition, we also announced a $1 billion stock buyback. that is kind of -- tim haack will be our new board member, from silverlake, the chairman. we are excited about that. hopefully it will bring other investors to the table that understand high-tech and high-growth. emily: i know this is a big question, but as people come back to the office, what sort of post-pandemic growth do you see in the cloud? do you see the acceleration we

saw over the last year starting to slow down, or does it keep getting faster and cloud keep getting bigger? >> yeah, that is a great question. i have only been here eight weeks. my experience tells me we will not see any slowdowns. customers have changed forever. one of the big things that changed our attitude is a customer cannot get into data centers, cannot get to their application, it changes quickly. businesses, it taught us that we prepare to be digital, be prepared to work virtually, and manage our systems at every level, in the cloud and digital world. i don't see anything changing at all. companies are announcing they will not go back into the office full-time. that means all of their workers will have to work and interact in a virtual world. emily: i have to ask you, since you left amazon, there has been

a lot of news at amazon. jeff bezos to step down, adamson lipsky being hired as a ceo. jeff bezos planning to go into space next month. what is your take on this? >> i can tell you, amazon is a fantastic company. i worked for andy jassy almost 11 years. i am a huge fan of his. amazon is not going to miss a beat with him at the helm. jeff going into space, i am so excited one of the final things i did at aws was started in airspace and satellite business unit. i was thrilled, because i do believe in jeff's philosophy that space is the next new market for us to be in. and i'm sure splunk will be there.

it is definitely the new space we will be in. so i am excited for amazon. emily: we had clint crozier from amazon join us earlier this week. familiar with what you are talking about and what he worked on. we will be following your work at splunk. teresa carlsen, splunk president and chief growth officer. thank you so much. coming up, the competition over space tourism heating up as the faa gets intergalactic approval for customer spaceflights for the first time before blue origins -- and the mission from jeff bezos. all of that, next. ♪

emily: british regulators are investigating whether amazon and google failed to protect consumers from fake reviews on their site. the companies are facing intense regulatory scrutiny as authorities crackdown on the power of u.s. tech giants. facebook removed posts dealing in fake or misleading reviews after the u.k. antitrust regulator intervened. shares of virgin galactic soaring after the company received regulatory approval to fly customers into space. further details, we are joined by ed ludlow. big victory. >> and a really big step forward for commercial spaceflight, or civilian spaceflight. the first time the faa has regulated for a customer, civilians, going into space. it goes back to may 22, when

virgin galactic did the test. the first thing they did was hand over the data to the faa. it gives you an idea of how the process works. they are doing a slightly different mission, a very different kind of rocket system. but it is bragging rights between two billionaires who want to go into space. emily: if bezos doesn't have faa approval, can he not get it in time for july 20? >> this is officially the first faa approval, but blue origin has an application. in my experience, the faa can cut it down. think of space x satellite launches, sometimes the faa gives their approval on the day of or the days leading up to it. i don't doubt blue origin will get it, but it is still pending until official. emily: remind us how virgin galactic and blue origin, and spacex, are all different. >> the business models and what they hope to achieve are different. but the rockets are different. virgin galactic has a dual

fuselage airplane that carries it 50,000 feet above the atmosphere. it separates, than the rocket system kicks in for the rest of the way. for the customer, a few minutes of weightlessness in space, they want to sell to scientists and researchers want to experiment in zero gravity. blue origin and spacex have broader goals, international travel, space internet, nasa and the military. virgin galactic is different, but their focus is different. they have a much more limited long-term ambition. but it seems they are making headway. emily: let's talk about the business model. how does virgin plan to make money? >> around 600 people on the waiting list for the 55 miles above earth, a few minutes of weightlessness experience, $250,000 a pop. on the research side, one of the test missions with the italian space agency, it is a few minutes over the total mission to experiment with health care

related technology. $600,000 a pop. they say the costs will come down, but this is research and development phase. they are still in preproduction on the vessels. until they get into production, the economics cannot come down. emily: what does it mean for blue origin? >> blue origin, we only have the auction to go off of. to go into space. they also have other parts of the business they hope will generate revenue. the best is elon musk. he says spacex, the launch side of the business is $3 billion a year. -- $30 billion a year. it is really finding higher margins, databased services that can fuel the activity of launching into space. emily: who are the billionaires outside of musk, bezos, and branson betting on space? >> the billionaires are the institute of investors themselves. take spacex, sequoia led the last round.

fidelity, blackrock, these legacy names. kathy would. and you have the investors. you also have zuckerberg. one of the big beneficiaries of space could be facebook. the more you connect people digitally with starling, blue origin, you could see the adoption of facebook, netflix. there is a lot of capital coming, but it is bezos, musk, and branson. emily: what are the chances richard branson gets up before bezos? >> we don't know, but i would wager it is good. over the course of the summer, they want to run three test flights. i'm sure he is aware of the launch of bezos, and it is on him. emily: why hasn't elon musk done it? >> he wants to die on mars, not impact. he wants to make sure his rocket works and could land safely and take off before he gets on it. emily: what are one of the big milestones you are following?

less than a month away from the blue origin launch. they made a big deal picking a date and telling the world bezos would be on it, and they got someone paid a lot of money who can be on the flight. >> i want to know who the person is. i have some guesses. faa approval. the thing about the other space players, they have become routine, servicing the international space station. elon musk plans his first launch at the end of this year. i want to see if that is on track. emily: i want to know your guesses. >> may be another billionaire with an interest in space. emily: somebody who has money. ed ludlow, thank you so much. good to have you on the show. happy friday. the ceo of the world's largest chipmaker says the shortage of semiconductors will get worse before it gets better. the effects of the chip shortage

to many industries, consumer electronics, will bottom out in the second half of the year. longer-term, he expects the chip industry to grow with the manufacturing side phones, ev's, and artificial technology. that does it for this edition of "bloomberg technology." david westin is next with "wall street week." he will be joined by the u.s. former treasury secretary, larry summers. stacy cunningham. and chris ailman. i'm emily chang in san francisco. this is bloomberg. ♪

david: now you see it, now you don't. concerns about inflation and tightening went up in a proof of smoke this week, and all it took was a few words from fed chair jay powell. this is "bloomberg wall street week." this week, stacey cunningham of the new york stock exchange talks facts, direct listings, and ipo's. stacey: the primary driver to go public is no longer about raising money. david: and larry summers on risk and a different approach to antitrust enforcement promised by the new chair of the federal trade commission.