>> from the heart of where innovation, power and money collide, this is "bloomberg technology" with emily chang. ♪ chang. ♪

emily: will break down the crypto action ahead of what will likely be a busy weekend of trading. plus, delays its return to work to 2022 x cases, hospitalizations and even that's due to dental rise. how much longer can the working world stand on edge go? we will discuss. and mobile taxis have yet to hit the road, but elon musk unveils a plan for a new robot on legs. we'll show you the humanoid bot he claims is the future. first let's see how the market ended this friday with kriti gupta. kriti: last friday we were at record highs. this friday, clearly a risk-on session. risk assets taking it into high gear, whether it is stocks, big tech or commodities. a lot of this on delta variant concerns and the potential that the fed is going to taper by the end of the year. from a macro perspective, this

stock that really caught my eye is palladium. it has been on a five-day decline. why am i talking about this on a tech show? it has to do with a chip shortage which is making automakers seeing less demand for palladium, making it the worst week for the commodity since march of 2020. let's look forward to what happens next week with the federal open market committee. that will be the crucial piece for any macro investor, whether you are a stock or bond investor. what is chairman powell going to say about tapering? we will have live coverage of jackson hole, which is now a virtual symposium, live at 10:00 a.m. friday. that is what i am watching on the macro front. ed: love that premium palladium content, because i am looking at chipmakers as well. nvidia is up 5% friday, biggest

one-day gain since april despite increased regulatory scrutiny in the u.k.. clearly not that concerned. apple up 1%, delaying its return to the office until january, but also with a price target of $187 per share. amazon charged friday up 0.4%. it had been negative most of the session. it has actually stemmed pretty significant declines. amazon has become the poster child for this unwinding of the stay-at-home trade. we look to the next quarter of earnings about what the future holds for amazon. also, focusing on crypto related stocks. you have bitcoin at its highest level since may. as you said, emily, interest for the prospects of bitcoin is intensifying. back to the status quo with this cycle, bitcoin and crypto related stocks? i don't know. back to you. emily: apple has announced it is

delaying its return to office for corporate employees from october to january because of a continuing surge in covid cases. the iphone maker is one of a number of tech companies pushing back the reopening timeline in 2022. amazon, facebook and lyft have done the same. this highlights how businesses around the world are reacting to continued pandemic concerns. in san francisco, activity in the workplace is down 60% compared to pre-pandemic levels. in new york, down 55%. for more on apple's announcement, mark gurman. a lot is changing. apple pushing back the timeline yet again. what factored into this? mark: on thursday night, the head of human resources and retail center in email to employees saying they are pushing back the return, which was previously planned after a delay to october, now to january

of 2022. she warned that this is not confirmed she wanted to let employees know that it would not be any sooner than january. the company said it would send a follow-up to employees to reconfirm the timeline, which could shift again, and they are blaming the delta variant and ongoing covid surges. we all probably know lots of vaccinated people at this point that are still catching the virus. it is clearly still an issue. that we are still several months away from a full return for apple and other companies like amazon and lyft that you mentioned. emily: and when employees do return, apple has been specific and fairly innovative. they say employees need to be in the office monday, tuesday, and thursday. stores will remain open. offices will remain open. they are not actually closing anything? mark: right.

this january timeline is a deadline, so to speak. there are plenty of apple employees already back in office, through the pandemic, particularly in the last six months or so. this is basically a deadline for you to come back to the office. you have to be in the office mondays, tuesdays and thursdays, but you can work remote wednesdays and fridays. personally, i don't think this will work. when people have been out of the office for two years, it will be difficult to come back and make that adjustment, so i think apple has to go with an all or nothing approach, either five days a week or fully remote. we are likely to see more changes to that approach has january and even february approaches. emily: something a lot of companies are doing. bloomberg's mark gurman. thank you. another story we are following, nvidia's planned $40 billion takeover of arm is facing another hurdle. calls for longer regulation on

antitrust concerns, potentially pushing back the deal. for more i am joined by bloomberg's ian king. how significant a development is it? ian: you and i have discussed this several times, this is always going to be a tough regulatory battle to get this went through. what was significant today was the u.k. authority came out and said, you have offered to these concessions, to make the deal more palatable from our point of view in these ways, we don't like it, we want to have another more detailed look at this. so this was kind of expected, but it was still a fairly solid pushback on that concern everybody has which is, had does it get a complicated map around the world of all of these competing interests that are looking around in a different way? emily: still, nvidia shares are

up more than 5%. u.k. regulators and also others in the chip in the street this deal to happen. so why are shares up? ian: a good question. nvidia, as you know, reported very strong earnings this week. it is a company that is extremely highly valued by investors, trading at 70x. earnings were good enough. the ceo fulfilled the promises he said he would. we are seeing this meteoric growth. but he said, by the way, it is taking longer than we thought, some regulatory -- responding to this slower than hoped. some of their customers don't even like this. emily: you have been covering the chip industry for 20 years. what is your sense of how likely this deal is to happen? ian: paul can tell you is that nvidia remains extremely confident.

they believe they have the magic formula. but frankly, investors don't care, as we saturday. this is not something they are factoring into nvidia's future. they are saying, we believe this is a company that can be successful with or without arm. why doesn't nvidia take that $40 billion they will go with into the transaction and just invest in chips? that is kind of the prognosis. it will take a long time until we get through this regulatory process. it is hard to see it progressing smoothly. emily: we will be following your reporting until we get more clarity. bloomberg's ian king, thanks a lot. coming up, it kueng hits a three-month high. after the break, we will hear from a ceo about where he thinks it is going next. this is bloomberg. ♪

>> emily: garry tan, one of the

earliest investors in coinbase, sharing his thoughts on bitcoin. bitcoin hit it three-month high on friday. joining me now is matt hougan, chief investment officer at bitwise asset management. it is a good day on your part. where do you think the price is going next? matt: i am very excited and i think the future is looking bright. we are seeing two primary drivers. we are seeing significant progress on the regulatory side, as well as the new application -- nfts, de-fi booming and adding to a story that was already very positive around bitcoin. we are positive today and positive on the outlook for the rest of the year. emily: the race is on to launch the first bitcoin etf. gary gensler has indicated he is open to this. who wins? matt: investors. that is the answer.

they have been after a bitcoin etf for years. it will make it easier for advisors to allocate it in the space. it seems like the f.t.c. is pushing the industry to launch a futures etf. i think it will unlock the ability for many investors to enter the space. i think the sec is likely to allow a number of these products to come into market, and you will see the same competition among the bitcoin etf's you see among the gold etf's out there. it will give investors more choices, lower costs, easier access. it will be a milestone moment for the crypto industry at large and impact not just it kueng, but other crypto assets as well. emily: i interviewed the creator of ethereum, the telik gathering. take a listen to a portion of what he had to say -- the telik computer and. >> replacing the dollar

completely, there are things that the dollar provides, like price stability, for example, that bitcoin will not provide. even in a theoretical world where the u.s. dollar collapses, even then, i think bitcoin is not going to provide the level of stability in users and businesses expect to be able to set prices in. in that kind of world, we would need something else, could be a decentralized stable coin, but we will see. at the same time, they think cryptocurrency can still have a very powerful and important role alongside other currencies. emily: that do you think bitcoin replaces the dollar? he does not seem to think so? matt: i don't think bitcoin replaces the dollar anytime soon and i am not sure it ever does. i don't think it needs to. simply looked at as digital gold, a way to store value out

of the risk of inflation. that is a huge market for could justify a much higher price in bitcoin alone. so i am in line with him. the likelihood that it replaces the dollar, or the likelihood that uni by our coffee in bitcoin in the next few years is very low. despite that, i still think it has significant appreciation potential just in that store of value case. emily: bitcoin versus ethereum, you can imagine his answer to that. he agrees that ethereum is a better bet long-term. i know it is a good day for bitcoin, but who is going to win? matt: both are going to win bitcoin is moving into the digital gold space. that is where its value will be created. it has a multitrillion dollar market potential. but ethereum is what are the most exciting assets in crypto, it has a power that stands behind de-fi, stands behind

nfts. it has enormous momentum from a developer capacity. you seeing new projects being built on ethereum today. it also has a and improved economics. i do think you're going to see additional investment into ethereum. ultimately it may be chasing after a bigger market than the store of value market, but whether it will open a trait that fully remains to be seen. i think investors are not holding crypto broadly if there only in bitcoin, they need ethereum and potentially other assets as well. emily: v bothitalik -- both the ethereum creator and garry tan did not like jack dorsey's -- into de-fi. where do you think it is going? matt: i think you are not a list of our viewers would agree that financial services need instruction, and de-fi will be

how it does it. what we have seen in de-fi so far from things like uniswap and aave, and we just launched friends that provide exposure to both, we see them competing with coinbase to provide crypto brokerage. aave emerging is almost the prime broker for the crypto community. what we need to watch for now is how regulation develops, that will determine whether they can go from 1-1 and penetrate the digital space00. emily: thank you so much for stopping by. every mentor, you can catch more of my conversation with the ethereum creator on "studio 1.0" over the weekend right here on bloomberg television. check your local guide for details you can also listen to the podcast when you're on the go. footlocker stock surging after the retailer reported that her than expected second-quarter

results. we dive into the numbers and what it means for the company with the ceo, next. plus, this company made its nasdaq debut, ending the day down 15%. the listing came through a merger with a blank-check company. the deal valuing the combined entity at $2 billion. customers include ups, and transportation company loanstar. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ emily: footlocker shares jumped friday after second-quarter profits beat expectations, the numbers reflecting increased customer demand. footlocker ceo richard johnson is with us now. richard, we have lived in sneakers for the last 18 months,

more so than usual. but less people are going into footlocker at the mall like i did as a kid. how is that factoring into your vision for the future of the company? richard: emily, thanks. we had a really great quarter. traffic was up in our stores versus a year ago. a year ago, stores were just starting to reopen. we want to connect with the consumer on all the digital channels, all the social channels. where the customer decides to shop, whether via the app or the website where they come into the stores, i am really channel agnostic the biggest. part for us is to create that deeper engagement with our customer from a digital perspective. so the malls, we continue to pivot out of some malls and into more important street spaces for

us. we have a lot of strategy involved with obtaining the right connection to the community, so building more community-based stores across the u.s. and across the market we operate in. emily: brands are also going direct to consumer, including nike. nike, however, has chosen footlocker as a strategic partner. where do you see that going? richard: it is critically important. nike brings a lot of heat. they create great sneakers, they create great stories. they are a great technology company in terms of advancing both fabrics and apparel and footwear composites that can really create the next generation of sneakers. and you see it on the track and field. that will all be commercialize able. . they do a great job in the industry and we are proud to be their partner and proud to sell a lot of nike products.

emily: sneakers are also becoming collectible items. that i spoke to the ceo of stockx yesterday, which is direct-to-consumer, making the argument that people are investing in sneakers as a collectible instead of investing in stocks. take a listen to scott cutler. scott: this next-generation consumer is changing their thinking about what it means to invest today. they are looking at physical assets that are actually more like invested assets. they are seeking out culturally relevant items in the physical world, and they are making investment decisions around that. that is certainly a new trend. emily: how big do you think this sneaker collectible trend is and does it fit into what you're trying to do? richard: sure, it does. we believe that sneaker ecosystem is massive. kids certainly do look at investing in sneakers. we operate in an industry that

has a bit of a constrained supply, which creates the opportunity to invest and see prices go up. a competitor of stockx who made a minority investment in 2019, because we believe that sneaker ecosystem, we take in focus the primary market where the kids by the shoes initially and how they choose to use them, whether as an investment vehicle or, they put them on their feet and wear them. again, that is a consumer's choice. we believe the strong sneaker ecosystem will continue to fuel the aftermarket and the secondary market. emily: you also just made a couple of big acquisitions. you mentioned supply chain issues, though. curious what you are seeing there, how long you expect supply chain issues to last? richard: we have been battling supply chain issues all through

covid. our team has done a great job of maneuvering around. the ports have slowed down a bit on the west coast, we know that. we are working hard to move quicker from the port to our stores, or to our warehouse for digital sales. the lockdown in vietnam will impact a lot of our suppliers. we are working with them to understand what the flow of goods will be. . again, it is the gift of covid that keeps giving. we will continue to figure out how to maneuver around it. emily: ok, richard johnson ceo of footlocker, thank you so much for joining us and sharing that perspective. coming up, dancing a.i.-powered robots, a supercomputer and super chips. plus a big push to hire the best and brightest computer engineering talent. and a guest which company we are talking about? all to be revealed, next. this is bloomberg. ♪

. .

in business, it's never just another day. it's the big sale, or the big presentation. the day where everything goes right. or the one where nothing does. with comcast business you get the network that can deliver gig speeds to the most businesses and advanced cybersecurity to protect every device on it— all backed by a dedicated team, 24/7. every day in business is a big day. we'll keep you ready for what's next. comcast business powering possibilities. comcast nbcuniversal is investing in entrepreneurs to bring what's next for sports technology to athletes, teams, and fans. that's why we created the sportstech accelerator, to invest in and develop the next generation of technology that will change the way we experience sports. we've already invested in entrepreneurs like ane swim, who develops products that provide hair protection so that everyone can enjoy the freedom of swimming. like the athletes competing in tokyo, these entrepreneurs have a fierce work ethic and drive to achieve - to change the game and inspire the team of tomorrow.

emily: you are looking at pictures from tesla's inaugural ai day event. it may not be exactly what you thought you would see. the promise of an ai-powered robot, brand-new semiconductor technology. lots to talk about.

here to break it down is ed ludlow. what on earth was that? are we still on earth? ed: that was a human in a robot suit. elon musk did outline the specifics of the robot. a prototype could come next year. the idea is to take the underlying technology of self-driving systems in the artificial intelligence that help to decide how to react and put it in a robot that canoe tasks like lifting heavy objects and even go to the grocery store for you. the substance was a new chip which tesla says is as good as or better than most graphics kids and they can even sell it to others. this is what he had to say. >> most people want to work for free.

i'm not sure how to pay for it, to be honest. but i should say that if other car companies want to license it and use it in their cars, that would be cool. this is not intended to be limited to cars. ed: the semi conductor designed in-house. it marks a step forward towards dojo that will eventually powerful self-driving. we don't know when. driving will be real out in the wild. investors are with questions going forward. emily: hang on because we are going to talk about this much more when i bring in wedbush analyst dan ives. you have seen a lot of these tesla events. the ai-powered robot, which is not yet a robot, is elon musk for real? dan: it continues to be a bit of

sci-fi movie. it is great to show the vision, the technology, no one argues in terms of what musk has created going forward. but i believe these things start to become a sideshow and frustration for investors that are focused on the arms race and the electric vehicle and chip shortage capacity. i think things like this are great to show where they are going, but i view them as almost a side distraction. ed: you have a $1000 price target on the stock. you have seen these events before. . . i'm thinking about elon musk's comments in 2019 about one million robo taxis by the following year. that never happened. is this just the latest project we will be waiting infinitely for? dan: i think that is part of the

frustration. we are bullish on tesla because of the green tidal wave, because of electric vehicles, clearly the china story. even going back to robo taxis, which we were critical of, and even last night, i think this just creates these targets that they have not been able to hit. it is a distraction. i think it takes away from the investment pieces. right now as an investment, you want them to be focusing on the core electric vehicle vision and especially in china smoothing out some of those issues. it is hard. the elephant in the room. i think the timing of the event and especially on the bot

issue, i think that was ultimately unnecessary. emily: let's look more at what yvonne had to say because he says the bot israel. take a listen. >> the tesla bot will be real. tesla is arguably the world's largest robotics company because our cars are semi sentiment robots on wheels. it makes sense to put that on a humanoid form. we think we will probably have a prototype sometime next year. emily: why announce it at all if he does not have a prototype today? dan: that is our issue. think about apple and what they have done the last 15 years and everything they have developed.

how many things go on in the lab never see the light of day? that is what technology companies do. this prototype sets up expectations. from eight technology perspective, tesla loyalists will love it. but investors don't want to see this. they want to see it when it is fully done and could go ga. when you look at robo taxis and now this, it starts to become a frustration, kind of a boy that cried wolf type of frustration with things that have not come to fruition. emily: here is what was not mentioned at all. concerns about self-driving. the investigation is ongoing. these are real concerns. ed: credit where credit is due. tesla went into incredible detail, over two hours, about the progress it is making training its artificial

intelligence technology. what was difficult to understand is how all of this relates to the original mission statement for tesla which is to accelerate the transition to sustainable energy. when do we see for self-driving in the real world? how does it fit in with the maker of energy storage solutions? dan: right now, that is the latter part of the decade. right now, that is way on the horizon. look at the issues today from safety. this will be a choppy road. on your point, the reason we are bullish on it and own tesla is the green tidal wave. the more they focus on some of these issues, sideshows, robotics, whatever you want to call it, remember you have

companies in china. look at what is happening in europe with ev's. look at gm and ford. you don't want to see them take their eye off the ball as we go into this green tidal wave. that is the frustration from investors i have heard from when you watch last night. emily: the d1 chip, how important was that? dan: control of the ecosystem was important in terms of the chip. i think that could be important for margins, from a supply perspective, more control of the ecosystem. that is probably the most important announcement in terms of the chip because that is something that could really have an impact. look at what we have seen with apple. that is probably one of the most underappreciated innovations to come out of cupertino in the

last five years. ed: tesla said the d1 chip has the computer power to rival the best graphics chips. it goes into this training pile. a system of semiconductors and controllers. they are in prototype phase. the dojo comes online by the end of 2022, so we want to continue to focus and track tesla's progress on computer engineering and artificial intelligence because there was evidence shown that they have made progress. emily: elon musk certainly set a few new deadlines for himself which we will be checking with dan ives and ed ludlow. thank you very much. coming up, while some of us learned to bake, others played board games. quite a few people spent the months in lockdown learning another language. after the break, we will speak to the ceo and cofounder of dual lingo. this is bloomberg.

♪

emily: the world's largest auto factory is being hit by the global chip shortage. the volkswagen plant in germany cannot get enough of the chips. volkswagen's audi brand is extending its summer's break by one week at its two factories in germany. shares of general motors fell in late trading after the company expanded the recall of the chevy volt ev.

they will widen the recall to include cars made in 2019 and all 2020 units. that means an additional $1 billion of cost for the company. language learning apps saw a surge in popularity during lockdown as people made the most of their time at home to learn new skills. one of those apps is doing the. it offers over 100 courses over 40 language and there is more in the pipeline as the company announced at its annual event. joining me now, the duolingo ceo, luis von ahn. thank you for joining us. you just wrapped duo con and shared an impressive statistic. luis: people learn the equivalent of four semesters of

spanish. emily: that is impressive. what is it about the app that makes the experience so successful? luis: thank you for having me. there are a few things. we try to make the app be free, fun, and effective. it is free to learn a language on duolingo. because of that, we have millions of people using us. because we have so many people using us, we use the data from millions of people to improve how well we teach. it becomes very effective. like i said in my keynote, if you reach halfway in the course of french or spanish, you learn the equivalent of four university semesters of french or spanish. emily: let's talk about the trends you saw in the pandemic in terms of growth and pandemic. while some were making sourdough bread, others were learning new languages which sounds very productive. emily: we had -- luis: we

definitely had increased demand during the pandemic. we have been growing steadily since we launched 10 years ago. the pandemic did increase growth. it was not like it quadrupled or anything. we did see people spend more time. we saw people learning more language, significantly more asian languages. and depending on the country, in the u.k., we saw a lot of people learning welsh. different things happen in different countries. emily: you are adding a number of new languages to the platform, including some endangered languages. at duo con, you spoke with trevor noah, who speaks some of the languages in danger of disappearing. tell us about that. luis: we are very happy. we just announce we are going to add two south african languages,

both spoken by trevor nola. we are also adding patient, creole, maori. we are adding more languages. we really think it is a good thing for the world. with smaller languages, our scale was so large with duolingo that when we add this language, we can keep them from not being endangered. with irish, the relatively small language, there are 94,000 native speakers of irish. we have about one million people learning irish on duolingo. it can multiply the amount of speakers by a factor of 10. emily: the education technology landscape in china is changing dramatically. i believe duo lingo was pulled

from some app stores in china. what is the status? luis: for some of the app stores, you cannot download it from those app stores. the good news is our existing users who still have the out can -- the app can still use it. we believe this is temporary. we believe we will be able to get back in the app stores. china is a very important market for us because of the potential. the only represent about 1.5% of our revenue. it is a small market today, but we believe it has a lot of potential. it is a situation we are watching closely. emily: you recently went public. you started out as a free model and added subscription services. what is the plan now that you are a public company? luis: the plan is to continue

growing. the main things we work on is being more effective, more engagement, making sure people really like learning a language, so we spent a lot of time to make it more engaging and to teach better. we are starting to expand outside of language learning. last year, we launched an app for childhood literacy. we are working on an app to teach elementary school math which hopefully will launch next year. emily: thanks so much for sharing all of that with us. coming up, as wildfires continue to rage across much of the western united states, we will have a special report on how to keep safe from the smoke spreading across the country and beyond. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: devastating scenes as wildfires continue to wage across the western united states and canada. in california, there are 12 major places burning and more than 10,000 firefighters mobilized to get them under control. these infernos are part of a dramatic season where smoke has even reached the north pole. you do not need to be too close to the flames to feel the effect. matt takes a look at the tools being used to keep everyone safe. matt: while the region wildfires this year they seem concentrated in the western united states, the impact reaches nationwide. one of the major side effects not only seen but felt has been smoke pollution's decrease of air quality all the way from

california to new york city. >> we have people all over the world, north america, europe, asia, wildfire smoke is a noxious mix. it is gas, particle solution, and it can pose a range of health problems from coughing and headaches to serious stuff like elevated risk of heart attack. the lung irritation and immune responses triggered by smoke likely made the pandemic worse last year. a recent study estimated there would have been newly 20,000 fewer covid-19 cases if not from the smoke from 2020's record-breaking wildfires in the u.s. matt: climate scientists are predicting these patterns to become more frequent. at the problem exacerbates air quality throughout the u.s., keeping track has become a priority nationwide. >> for decades, the epa's air quality index has been the gold

standard for communicating about potentially harmful smog and particulates. you can go to an online platform that the epa maintains an enter any location to get a color-coded reading. that is based on thousands of monitors all over the country that analyze for different kinds of air pollution. matt: but businesses are looking to enter the indexing space as well. take purple air, for example. it's air index devices are aiming to build their network throughout people's homes. in the past, these types of devices would cost over $1000. >> advances in consumer grade technology have democratized air quality monitoring in the last few years. there are a number of companies. the most popular is purple air. they measure fine particle pollutions.

some are made for indoors, some for outdoors. your readings, if you choose, can be fed into this real-time global map that draws from more than 20,000 of these centers globally. many of them in peoples backyards. in terms of how they differ from the epa index, the epa index is consistently standardized for accuracy. when you go there, you know you're getting the most accurate reading possible. purple air's map is updated in real time and can give you a more hyper-local feed of air quality conditions whereas epa monitors are more dispersed geographically. you can go on to their website which is accessible for anybody and zoom in to your area. you can see air quality conditions maybe 10 miles away from me are in the yellow or perhaps even orange tier.

that is where we get into health concerns. but perhaps the air immediately around me in my neighborhood is better than that, so i can feel safe or going outside to take a walk, wash my car, do whatever i need to do, without worrying too much about the impacts on my help. so, i think that is a big reason to seek out the hyper local real-time index that the consumer grade sensors can supply. matt: as the issues expected to grow, having the right tools and understanding is the first step to make sure you can stay safe. >> i think the fact we are even having this conversation, the vernacular, is becoming more commonly understood and sought after. i live in california which is currently on track for another record-breaking wildfire season after 2020's record-breaking wildfire season. air quality all over the country is taking a hit as a result of

that. i think we are seeing having such a high density of these sensors on top of the epa monitors is already benefiting people this year. with climate change drying out forests and feeling more of these exclusive wildfires, that need is not likely to go away. emily: that was laura bliss speaking with matt l bonnie. that does it for this edition of "bloomberg technology." don't forget, you can catch my fascinating conversation with the ethereum creator throughout the weekend here on bloomberg tv. also, check out the podcast. stay with bloomberg now for "wall street week." david westin will be joined by larry summers, john rogers, kathryn keating, and greg fleming. you don't want to miss it. i am emily chang in san francisco. have a wonderful weekend,

everyone. this is bloomberg. ♪

david: which way is up? as the fed talks tapering, this is "wall street week." i am david westin. this week, special contributor larry summers of harvard on the biggest risk facing investors today. larry: i have learned that more often what gets you is what you are not worried about than what you were worried about. david: and john rogers on why slow and steady wins the race.