announcer: from the heart of where innovation, money and power collide. in silicon valley and beyond. this is "bloomberg technology" with emily chang.

emily: i'm emily chang in san francisco and this is "bloomberg technology." robinhood is planning to add new features to let users get their paychecks early, stepping up competition with banks and paypal. we will tell you more about their plans. apple mandates all u.s. employees report their vaccination status, whether the office or not. it is one step short of requiring vaccines but one step closer by an aggressive campaign to help stop the spread of covid. the pandemic has sparked a worldwide mental health crisis from children, grown-ups, seniors. two wellness companies are joining forces to combat a different kind of pandemic on the home front. we begin with headlines. the u.s. department of justice preparing a second monopoly lawsuit against google over the digital ad business. this, and addition to the antitrust case looking into google's web search business. for more i am joined by mark, but to be know about this

pending case, and how does it differ? reporter: the main difference -- what we know, they have to looking into this, preparing a case potentially by the end of this year. the core difference is the first case looked at google search and it's deal with apple. this is focused on ad tech, the network business, the display ads, as well as mobile. they also own and operate a lot of the exchanges along the way, which is something the texas attorney general's case has been focused on. emily: talking about what alphabet has said so far, we enable small businesses to grow and protect users from exploitative privacy practices and bad add experiences.

there is enormous competition in add tools, expanded options. talk to us about how google is likely to approach this particular suit, and has been in general. mark: their approach is similar to the response to the texas lawsuit, that lawsuit involved what the attorney general accused google and facebook, the two dominant players doing ad deals behind the scenes. it will depend on the argument they give back a lot of the money to publishers, they sustain the economy. google is going to point to growth in independent companies, some public. on the other hand, at&t and verizon are two players that got into this in the past few years and retreated, at&t is involved in the texas case and arguing one of the reasons they

retreated is because of google's dominance. emily: google potentially facing another antitrust suit, in addition to another one. thank you so much for that update. we will continue to follow how that plays out. taking a look at the markets with kriti gupta. some questions about tech continuing to go up, are we seeing the rally start to falter? kriti: big tech leading the gains, the s&p 500 notching another record by only two points.

i want to show you a terminal chart of how much momentum is going back into the markets, the new york index relative to the s&p. you can see the left showing the defense of trade is back in vogue. let's take a look at the other tech sectors, semiconductors usually outperform, lacking today. something to watch as we see the tech trade potentially continued to grow, that is the macro. let's get to the micro. ed: a web app developer down 1.6%, have been down more significantly, earnings in line, decent forecast. topline growth, 185,000 charge points. speaking of evs, steep drop. we saw a lockup on shares expire, these are investors that bought in in the original spac deal. interesting tech moves. seinfeld is coming. netflix up two and a quarter percent. the strength of another index, chinese adrs doing well, baidu, jd.com doing well.

route strike down almost 4% on wednesday, some concerns about the cybersecurity space. emily: thanks so much. talking about cybersecurity, brad strike out with quarterly results, analysts suggesting they did not meet the most bullish of expectations. this does remain a topic across the sector. joining us for an exclusive interview, the ceo. shares ending the day down. what is your message to investors? george: the messages we had a fantastic quarter, 70% growth, truly remarkable.

we saw an acceleration in customer ads. at the end of the day, we are making some big deals in creating shareholder value. you're are going to see a little noise short-term. we do not get distracted by that, we continue to focus on delivering value for our customers. emily: president biden has been increasing on what is happening in cyberspace, high profile hacks. he had big tech ceos from apple, amazon, alphabet, while at the white house talking about how the public and private sectors can cooperate more. what is your main takeaway from that meeting? do you think much will come out of it and what the private sector step up? george: i hope so, it does take the public and private sector to come together to face these challenges adversaries. when you look at some executive orders that have come down, it matches up quite nicely with what crowd strike and deliver.

advanced protection, technologies, leveraging ai to uncover these adversaries. we are hopeful with the new administration. it takes time and the government, but we are working with them extensively and we want to be part of the solution. emily: the president put the burden squarely on private companies do not do enough to train workers and fill jobs that are needed. what did you make of that? george: i talked about in my earnings call, open jobs. such a shortage in critical skills.

one of the things i mentioned in our earnings call, a force multiplier for companies that allow leveraging of platforms, manage the entire lifecycle including remediation actions. that has been a shining star for us, but i think the skills shortage highlights the need for technologies. emily: a lot of the talk over the last couple of days, afghanistan has dominated the headlines. i read a headline that said an undeclared war is breaking out in cyberspace. what do you make of that characterization? we have seen heightened threats, perhaps only going to get more extreme. would you use that the terminology? george: it started a long time ago. when you look at the capabilities of some of these adversaries, but they are able to do and how it trickles down, this has been happening for a long time.

if you go back to 2010. this is an ongoing effort by these governments, corporate espionage. it is not going to stop. it is a very effective way to gain information, potentially damage and knockout infrastructure of other countries. we need to be on our a game. there is a reason why we are out helping customers, because it is not just governments, it's customers that are targets. emily: does the balance of power changing in the middle east impact what is happening in cyberspace at all? are you potentially on alert for new or evolving threats? george: certainly, when you look at adversaries we break them down into nationstates, hacktivism. part of the challenge is, everything is digital right now. a lot of communications by these terrorists are done on encrypted channels. what does that mean in terms of being able to identify vulnerabilities, infrastructures that are out there? these are all relevant questions.

at the end of the day, i think the environment continues to worsen from a threat landscape. emily: crowd strike ceo, thank you so much for joining us for an exclusive interview. much more on tech results thursday, doc you sign out after the bell. you can capital of those details right here. coming up, robinhood set to rival paypal and traditional banks with a new feature that allows a paycheck up to two days early. much more details, next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: apple is asking its u.s. employees to report their vaccination status. this is an escalation from the previous policy which asked employees in california, washington and new jersey for this information. for more, we are joined by our news reporter mark gurman. tell us about this escalation. mark: apple sent a memo last night to all u.s. employees, asking them to fill out a form to indicate whether they are vaccinated. apple is not mandating vaccines, but asking employees if they are vaccinated is another nudge.

apple wants all staffers back in the office in a safe manner, and according to local guidelines, the safest way to do that is to make sure as many folks as possible are vaccinated. that is what apple is campaigning for. emily: we are seeing companies take matters into their own hands. delta charging its employees $200 a month. do you think we are going to see more moves like this from other companies? mark: apple is not doing that, they are not mandating vaccines and are very likely not going to start paying employees to get vaccinated or firing employees who refuse. this is basically, they are

leaving it up to the employees. apple is a little more in a complex situation. apple has offices in nearly every state, as well as other countries. making a companywide mandate is not so easy. it is a bit of a complex situation because of the way apple is structured. at this point, i do not see them mandating it, but that could change depending on the numbers on the survey. emily: hang on, we have another big scoop. you have been following robinhood, reporting that the company is working on a feature that lets users receive their paycheck up to two days early, steps up competition with paypal. i want to bring in the bloomberg reporter who covers robinhood. what do you make of these new developments, how significant is it given robinhood is trying to expand its services? reporter: i'm here to confirm this group is putting wall street on notice as well as the

fintech industry. robinhood has said its ambition is to be much more than a trading platform. but we did not know is how fast that will come to fruition. direct deposit makes it closer to a banking institution at a time where customers are very concerned about banks, fees. robinhood's product is offering speed and transparency, and we know that many others are on the heels of this. emily: tell us more about what you found. you discovered these developments buried in code somewhere that nobody else would be able to find. what exactly did you discover? mark: early pay, we discovered the beta version. it's pretty transparently lined out.

it lets you get your paycheck depending on the employer, payroll system, two days early and it is basically a loan. paypal offers a similar feature, this is robinhood saying we're are here with more of these traditional banking features. emily: what do you make of this given the controversy surrounded by robinhood in general? the payment for order flow, potentially banning that is on the table. something the sec is considering. clearly, robinhood has to look at expanding its revenue streams if it's going to survive. reporter: they have to look beyond the revenue stream, even if they did not face the regulatory issues. this is a business users will trust you and use you more the more products they are able to access. you have seen that similar posts when it comes to sofi.

when it comes to payment for order flow, they had said that they will try to internalize the order flow if the sec were two its. even if they try to ban payment for order flow, you have a complicated new method it also -- it's a tough balance. that will take a long time to work out, diversification of the business, much of it is coming fast. payment for order flow, transaction-based services are about 80% of the business. as far as revenue diversification, it's not happening as fast as the announcements. emily: we will continue to watch. thanks so much for the context. coming up, we take a look at the desperate measures being taken in northern california as flames continue to burn close to resort

towns near lake tahoe. all of the details, next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: i want to bring the latest on the wildfires. one of the biggest is happening right now near lake tahoe, can area well known for skiing, but ski resorts are turning snowmaking equipments into firefighting tools to protect buildings. for more, we are joined by a bloomberg reporter covering the fires. the fire getting closer to ski resorts. what is the latest?

reporter: thank you for having me on. the fire is threatening those ski resorts, and they have resorted to using snowmaking equipment, snow cannons to spray water. the blaze is very close to kirkwood. the owner of the property told us they were seeing spot fires, but they were able to put those out. the edge of the blaze unfortunately has not burned into south lake tahoe, they have been able to keep the fire out of the city. they are trying to get the fire to start around. heavenly is in the path the fire is headed.

they are using snow equipment to doubts their slopes. emily: i know the concerns are embers that can fly in any direction up to one mile away from the heart of the fire itself. if the blaze is two miles from heavenly, isn't that pretty close? mark: it's very close, and that is why they are really worried. what happens is, today they are seeing gusty winds. the wind can pick up the embers and basically toss them up to one mile away. spot fires could develop into their own fire and create its own problem.

this is what they are worried about with the community of south lake tahoe, that these embers can blow into neighborhoods, urban wildland fires. emily: what are firefighters telling you about how much the fire is contained, and how likely it is they will be able to stop it before it gets to the resorts? mark: great question. the fire is about 20% contained, mostly on the western edge, and the hills east of sacramento. it has been very active in and around south lake tahoe. fire officials sounded pretty hopeful they would be able to keep it away and steer it northeast. they're actually trying to move the fire into another fire scar, and are hoping by doing that, that will slow down and move it into a place it already burned.

it probably will cross the state line into nevada. crews are stationed on the nevada side of the border, building what they call containment lines. emily: thank you so much for bringing us your reporting on this. we will continue to stay posted. coming up. a mental health merger of sorts. we speak to the ceos of headspace and ginger about their new collaborative platform to make support accessible to everyone in these very uncertain times.

this is bloomberg. ♪

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emily: welcome back to "bloomberg technology." two major wellness leaders, headspace and ginger are joining forces. they recently announced their intent to merge and create headspace health which will offer support, coaching, therapy and more. joining us now, the ceos. why this decision to merge and why now?

>> if you think about it, all of us have mental health. it's a matter of where we are. are we dealing with prevention and promotion, something that needs to be managed, or are we dealing with something that needs to be curated? we move back and forth on this through our lives. but we found people were enjoying what they experienced with headspace, but sometimes they needed to talk to someone, they needed a coach or therapist. when you put together ginger and headspace, we solve this continuim. emily: ginger offers therapy.

talk to us about what the two platforms, and how they complement each other to make the merger make sense. >> this crisis existed pre-pandemic. the world health organization estimates there are one billion people who have a mental health need. it's a perfect storm. we are providing real-time access to coaching, therapy, psychiatry, and recognizing if we solve the imbalance, we have to start upstream. we have to get people thinking about building routines for resilience, taking care of their mental health before it gets acute. when you bring these two platforms together, headspace has a beloved brand, millions use it every day. for those who have more needs, ginger can deliver additional care.

that combination, we believe in a democratized mental health around the world. emily: telehealth has offered so many new opportunities. often, you need the help in a moment. you can't wait to see your therapist. talk to us about some of the mental health trends you have been seeing in the pandemic. i know this is not just limited to workers, who have children facing mental health issues because they have not been able to go to school. you really are seeing mental health issues across the gamut. >> you are exactly right. if you look at the statistics from the cdc, 75% goes untreated. the stress and pressure of the past year, partially with the pandemic, partially with social injustice, working remotely, additional stress and anxiety.

one of the areas we have seen most push for mental health and wellness has been in the employer segment. previously, leaders would talk about physical health and physical wellness, but very rarely did they talk about mental health. this year, most ceos are talking about pledging and making mental health and wellness priority. if i think of anything that's good, this is not a topic. the stigma is beginning to come down. the stigma is coming down, and employers are making it a priority. emily: how would you like to see companies step up more in terms of offering this as a benefit, recognizing it as a problem?

>> i think it is starting to happen. this has gone from an hr problem to a boardroom problem. boards are looking at this as a business continuity issue that can't be ignored any longer. right now is the time for companies to invest in solutions that help employees first realize it does not need to be stigmatized, everyone has mental health. thinking about and managing your own needs is not only important, but the company encourages it. you want employees doing that to make sure you are there and that your best throughout your career, and providing solutions that recognize people can be anywhere on the spectrum, from mild anxiety and stress, to serious mental illness.

emily: this is now a global platform. what kind of trends are using globally? two you see any difference between countries and what users need? >> we don't see as much difference between what users need globally. we do see a difference in stigma. different countries,. . different cultures are more open again, across the board all boats have risen. we do see therapy and coaching being adopted. we are starting to see meditation and mindfulness in utilized across the board, in fact, even with headspace, about half of our members are outside of the u.s. and we expect to see that trend continue. emily: as you mentioned, the pandemic, mental health crisis existed long before the pandemic, but the pandemic has exasperated stress and anxiety, and introduce new ones.

do you have any concerns the impact of this particular period of time will last many years beyond the pandemic itself? >> i do. i wish this was a light switch you could turn off. some of the reasons before the pandemic accelerating the need are things like uncertainty, disruption. health, not knowing you will catch this thing or not. those things are not going away anytime soon. i think of recognition as business leaders in society, we have to think about mental health just as a part of overall health.

managing mental health, making people understand the benefits and opportunities to support everybody's mental health is critically important. one other note i would make, business leaders are in a position today to really help people, to ask, how are you doing? it's hard for people to say i need help, it is not natural. the more we can destigmatize that, ask how you are doing, no really, how are you doing? getting them the help they need. the better all of our employees are going to be. emily: there seems to be a clear call to action to companies, leaders. what about for individuals who, the thought of getting help is to big amount to climb? how do you make it and how does your platform make it easier and more digestible to just seek help in nuggets, if you will. >> there is a couple of things. one of them is to talk about mental health outside of the platform.

you may be aware that we have launched several netflix series. the purpose is to start talking about mental health, to make it ok for people in primetime viewing to watch these things. we have done shows on sesame street. sesame street is designed to teach very young children that is ok to have emotions, to get in control of those emotions, there are exercises to be in control. when you look within our app, we have about 5000 pieces of content. because our goal is to build healthy routines that last a lifetime, the content varies throughout your day. we have content for when you wake up, how you eat, meditate, how you work.

how you deal with kids at school. how you sleep. had you deal with financial stress, divorce, any kind of emotional stress is in there. the programs are built into bite-size chunks that enable you to do things for as little as three minutes at a time, but at least it gets you to be present and aware of what you are feeling and gives you some tactics. emily: thank you so much for bringing this story to us. the headspace ceo, ginger ceo. we will be following your new combination of companies as this plays out. meantime, the maker of turbotax is looking to buy male chip. intuit is in talks for more than $10 billion, if it goes through it will be their biggest acquisition ever. it is looking to build on its small business customer base, many of whom are recovering from covid-19 disruptions. coming up, checker raises $250 million in a funding round.

i will speak with the ceo about his focus on digital hiring, as more companies adopt flexible work schedules, next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: a technology platform that uses artificial intelligence to improve background checks just raise $250 million in a funding round. it values the company at $4.6 billion. they performed 30 million background checks a year for companies like uber, lyft. joining us now is the ceo, our guest in this week's citylab series. thank you so much for joining us. introduce us to checkr and how you are using artificial intelligence. >> checkr is known for having ai

for background checks, structures for hiring. we are known for api, background checks. now we have scaled the business to an impressive -- we are excited about this new fundraiser, more products and infrastructure. emily: what do you see as the benefits for employees, gig economy workers as the workforce moves to hybrid, is offering

more flexibility to workers in general? >> call of the work is moving more remotely, digital and online. the software is the solution. it's going to have to change to adapt to these trends. i think that is important, great user experience, fairness, bias and hr software. one solution to that is to use api. apis allow for great software user experiences. we are very focused on fairness and removing bias for hiring and helping. giving second chances to people with criminal records, for example. emily: ai is not perfect, because it often relies on hugger rhythms designed by humans. there have been lawsuits claiming some processes are discriminatory, particularly with respect to uber. what is your response, this idea that technology isn't the end-all be-all?

>> ai is not a solution to everything. background checks are not a silver bullet. it is a hard problem to solve. we care about accuracy, helping workers, and at this point we have been able to disrupt industry to bring 10 times more accurate software. our software is able to make less errors than humans, but humans are biased and ai can be biased as well. we are leveraging the best technologically possible to improve opportunities and avoid any errors that could impact the consumers. emily: $250 million, $4.6 billion valuation. how do you plan to spend that money? >> we are excited about that new fundraiser. we are a high-growth company, profitable.

we would use this round to create innovation and product. we do not have ipo plans at this point in time, we are excited to continue to grow and delight our customers and create more opportunities and fair chances for workers. emily: you look you watching. thank you so much. we will keep watching. the project will transport passengers 2.5 miles from downtown to the beach. a deadline from other companies to cement proposals passed last monday. fei company announced it will build a u.s. factory in arlington, texas. the company focuses on chargers you instill in your home. if there is excess power in the car's battery, you can feed it

back into the grid. a deal valued the company at $1.5 billion. now it will invest in texas to help grow deliveries in north america. the ceo spoke with ed ludlow. >> energy is important. in texas you have skilled workers. it is an ideal location for logistics. ed: what was the offer on the table? what kind of subsidy did you get? >> we have seen support from the city. we are not selling our home products in the u.s.. in the second half of next year, we will be selling our chargers and flash chargers.

we needed a factory to start the production. we are still finishing the last part of the agreement. support on tax breaks and subsidies in general. ed: this is a pretty crowded market, there are all kinds of charging companies. you are more focused on the residential, at-home charges. how do you sell these things? do you partner with makers them tells? spend heavily on marketing? how do people get to know about your technology? >> we sell through all channels. we partnered with some of the most important companies in the world.

we have direct sales through amazon, through our website or even through installers or distributors. we do partnerships, we did a partnership with a leading installer of solar. we are offering all installations, the possibility to charge the car on solar power. to use your car as a battery for the home. when you charge your car, at night you power your home. emily: the ceo with ed ludlow. coming up, getting paid in advance. it is not just robinhood. we will hear from the ceo of a startup about its new game changing product that gives you access to some of your salary, even before payday.

that is next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: a chinese ride-hailing giant is helping establish a union. a landmark move. a food delivery ompany is said to be considering a similar move.

>> we plan to innovate as much as possible, cut out legacy providers. >> how much more can you do? what kind of services will i be able to have three or four years? where are the things you want to innovate? >> we are starting a product. [indiscernible] instead of using credit cards are overdraft, that is just the beginning. in the future we can give you 50% or more.

>> 20 want to go public? >> sometime in the future. one, i don't know. >> are you looking for more partners? you are talking about new products, i was intrigued by savings vault, interest rates on a daily basis. do you have a target of how big you want to be before deciding? >> not really.

we need to be [indiscernible] to be able to ipo. emily: the ceo of revolut. some interesting new ways to get your salary before it hits your bank account. meantime, amazon said it plans to add 40,000 people to its corporate ranks in the u.s., the biggest hiring spree ever, planning to hold a career fair on september 15. as of the end of june, amazon had 950,000 employees in the u.s., most in the logistics division. nasa is working to test the noise footprint of electric air taxis. the campaign is being held near big sur, california. this is aimed at what communities can expect to -- they hope to operate a fleet of air taxis by 2024. the company went public via spac last month.

that does it for this edition of "bloomberg technology." make sure to join us tomorrow. i am emily chang in san francisco. this is bloomberg. ♪

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