>> 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. coming up, jack dorsey resigns as ceo of twitter. we will talk about what new leadership means for the future of the internet town square. plus, omicron.

how worried should we be? the world health organization says despite milder symptoms, the new variant could fuel surges with severe consequences. moderna's co-founder joins us. and the return of black friday. visits to stores and shopping centers up but still well below pre-pandemic levels. how is cyber monday stacking up? we will discuss. first, let's get a look at the market stocks climbing and bonds falling after a elective sense of calm returned to global markets. investors reassessing worst-case scenarios for the omicron virus strain. critic group to joins us. how investors digesting this today? >> they're turning back some of the panic you saw on friday. we have seen variants before. completely normal behavior. we saw this in july when we had the delta variant first emerge. this panic selling among asset

classes. the next trading session, a lot of defensive buying. that is what you are seeing with the nasdaq outperforming the s&p 500. 2021 is known for the shallow pullback to really taking all of tech subsectors up. the one that did not was the old and dragon index. chinese adrs, you are seeing the regional bias toward the u.s.. let's look at what actually drove the s&p 500 higher. modernity, the highest index contributor in terms of stocks but also gave biontech a good boost. this coming as biontech starts to build their own vaccine candidate that addresses this variant. modernity saying they are on track paired modernity saying they have the best capacity to deliver those vaccines. i threw up adagio therapeutics because they earned an upgrade at morgan stanley saying with the new strain of the virus, you will see more demand for their antibody cocktail that could help tackle that virus paired

let's get to one of the biggest micro-stories that is jack dorsey resigning. i want to show you what -- what it look like on a stock performance basis during his time as ceo. you can see square has outperformed. it is no surprise he is choosing to stay -- taking into consideration that interest in cryptocurrency. something to watch is how he expands that passion onto his square platform. emily: the big question is why now. jack dorsey stepping down as the company's ceo p he says twitter is ready to move on from its founders. his dual roles caused much controversy over the years. activist management made a push for him to step down over a year ago. not happen then. so why now? what's bring in our senior executive editor and our economy

editor. the memo says a lot and not a lot. what more context we know about why and why now? >> jack has always marched to the beat of his own drummer. you take one look at him today and you can tell that to a remarkably has run two public -- tell that. he has remarkably run two public companies. his management of twitter is facing significant challenges. elliott management has a stake. silverlake earners has a stake. they want this company to grow. it has lagged. it has liked other tech companies. it has grown maybe 76%. that is compared to an s&p 500 that is twice that growth in that time. i think investors are going to wetmore. they want more from twitter them

jack has been able to provide to -- from twitter than jack has been able to provide. emily: the explanation we get is twitter is midi -- is ready to move on from its founders. you see that as a rebuke from what mark zuckerberg is doing with meta? >> yes i do. it would be hard to rejects memo to his staff without hearing an implicit criticism of zuckerberg , especially far down where he says some founders choose their ego over there company. who has chosen their ego more recently than mark zuckerberg in renaming his own company over his own personal obsession with the metaverse in way that confounds more or less anyone else -- more or less everyone else? brad is right. square is -- square as a company has more potential than twitter.

he has been a twitter for a long time. he was pressured by the investors to get out. it adds up. emily: it is also interesting given when he took over as ceo of square, everybody thought he would eventually leave his role as the ceo -- when he took over twitter, everyone thought he would leave his role at square. now we see the reverse happening. the biggest clue we have gotten as to his interest now was a couple months ago when he said if he was not working at twitter or square, he would be working on something else. >> if i were not at square or twitter, i would be working on bitcoin. if it needed more help than square or twitter, would leave them for bitcoin. i believe both companies have a role to play and i think anything we can do as companies to help find the right intersection between a corporate

narrative and a community open narrative is for the best. emily: both twitter and square have been doubling down on cryptocurrency and the person who is replacing jack has been the cto of twitter and also worked at twitter for more than a decade. what does this promotion of a technical insider tell you about the future of twitter? >> this is someone who has worked with jack for the past six years and has been at twitter for 10 years. i don't think it signifies that significant a change in direction. he is very technical. he is yet another of these high profile i.t. graduates running another silicon valley company. he has tweeted very

infrequently. a sort of surprise imputed will be interesting to hear what his vision is. you mentioned the crypto project at twitter. he has been running that. it has always been unclear what that means for twitter as a product. david was making this great point about facebook and mark zuckerberg and this pivot into the metaverse pit there is an argument to be made that sometimes the only thing worse than doing that is not doing it. twitter has remained fairly stagnant. fairly the same over the past five or six years. we will be interesting to see if the new ceo has a different vision for twitter. emily: some of the things jack did accomplish, twitter is now profitable and he did take a significantly different stance on president trump's account than other social media companies. band president trump permanently from twitter. -- he banned president trump

permanently from twitter. do you think that decision took a toll yucca >> i think it took a big toll. -- took a toll? >> thicket took a big toll. what i hear is he has not been in evidence in the offices of both companies very much in the last year. the pandemic has been underway. i think that you alienate a lot of people when you ban donald trump from twitter and i think that may have burden to him with some of the pushback he got as a result. though in reality, they say he did not make that decision. he was off on a desert island in the pacific and one of his deputies made that decision and i believe that. he is the ceo and he was where the book stop. he gulped -- where the buck

stops. and he got blamed for it. emily: many people applauded that decision. one last question. he has left a couple of times and come back. is jack really gone for good? >> gone from twitter? i would say he is. the thing about square we have to remember is this is a company that could become one of the world's great financial companies. if he succeeds in incorporating his vision of cryptocurrency and bitcoin, and of the most valuable companies in the world and with a huge runway ahead of it that you cannot see for twitter based on its current trajectory, he has way more on his plate already. he does not need to come back to twitter. he has the pride of authorship. that is probably plenty. emily: thank you both. lots to continue to watch.

meta has delayed the debut of its rebranded ticker. the parent company of facebook will continue to use the ticker until the first quarter of next year. meta had previously announced it planned to change its ticker december 1. coming up, it has been less than a week since the world first learned of the latest variant of covid-19. flights being restricted, uncertainty about the vaccine's potency and much more up next to with the cofounder of madrona about what he thinks about the new strain and what a new vaccine -- and when he thinks a new vaccine might be available. this is bloomberg. ♪

>> if the virus escapes the protection of our vaccine after a booster dose, which will be very difficult, both need to check it, we have already started the process of developing a tailor-made vaccine but now only do we have high confidence that we will have it ready within 100 days but we have a high level of confidence we can manufacture it by the billions if needed. emily: the ceo of pfizer earlier today with concerns quickly growing about the latest variant of covid-19 and that is omicron. first discovered in south africa. there has been a rush to block entry from certain countries in south africa and optimism given the advancement of vaccines and boosters.

i'm joined by the founder and chair of flagship pioneering. also the cofounder of modernity and chair of the company as well. like to have you back with us. we are hearing of a lot of things about omicron. the moderna ceo has said it is already probably in every single country. given what we know about antibody levels right now, how worried are you about omicron and the state of the virus? >> thanks for having me on. the last 18 months should have gotten us to begin to move away from as opposed to being determined to protect ourselves and very vigilant. i definitely think this threat is something we have not seen before. the number of variations, mutations on this virus are surprising. they are not theoretically

impossible but extremely we are. -- extremely rare. we have to take it for the serious threat it poses. we have a lot of weapons to fight back. we always should be worried when we are under attack. what we do about it is what matters. emily: so what should we do about it and what wilma derrida have to do oh -- what will moderna have to do about it? what are the challenges? >> but during a issued a -- moderna issued a statement with a comprehensive plan we already have prepared for this eventuality that comprises a number of steps. quite rapidly verify whether the immune response a boosted patients will receive from our vaccine is sufficient to protect against protection from this omicron variant. that will be known in the next

couple of weeks. we have activated additional tests for multi variant vaccine that we have already under testing. in this case, the original theta variant and the delta variant. we already have data. that might be the quick follow online. we already started and we said we think in 60 days, that will take us to a place where we have a fully omicron specific vaccine should we needed. i don't think there is going to be one solution. there are going to be a number of defensive steps we should take to ensure we are fully protected. emily: what is the fastest possible timeline a moderna omicron booster could be available?

>> availability to the public as a function of regulatory and emergency use and that will largely be determined by the fda. they will look at the data, the facts on the ground, the level of threat and decide how much additional data it needs for this sequence variant to allow it to be more broadly available. i think the piece of it that we control -- we think we are in position based on the 10-year platform we have done already with mrna vaccines, we are in an ideal position to respond within a 60 day timeframe. emily: talk to us about the new science involved and what we know about antibodies and antibody levels and how that is informing your work. >> it is a very good question because i think the sole question of antibody levels is a very underexplored were under measured aspect of this pandemic . we talk about antigen testing to

see if you have been infected. what you really want to know is how strong is the antibody response in your body in response to a vaccine? that is something we have relatively little activity in other than the fact people are publishing papers showing very strong correlation between antibody levels and vaccine breakthrough. that is the hard antibody levels correlating to better protection. the fda is making decisions for booster approvals and the like raised on antibody levels. i think as we enter the third phase of the pandemic, we need to be mindful of how the virus is varying itself and how our antibody level is adequate or not to protect us. it is those two measurements that have to happen side-by-side and went all the manufacturers have said in the next two weeks,

we will tell you of our vaccine is effective. it will be measuring antibody levels against this new threat. that should be more broadly available and more broadly deployed. if we do have a big threat, we are going to have to take protection in terms of masks and separation and curtailing travel. we are going to want to make sure whatever boosters we have we make available to the most vulnerable. the most vulnerable turn out to be the ones who have the lowest levels of antibody. emily: i know you have to get to another meeting but one last quick question. do you see the need for a covert shot like we have the flu shot year after year or will variants start to become milder and milder? which way is this disease going to evolve? >> it is an interesting thing. on the one hand, we know mobile -- we know more about this disease than all other diseases combined in history in terms of

the number of people it has impacted and we are treating and learning from shared on the other hand, we don't have good experience of how a pandemic becomes an and him it threat. that -- an end demo threat. that transition is what we are guessing. it is guesswork to see if this is going to become like a common cold or like the flu where there is a seasonal vaccine. there is a third alternative we have not seen before. this is the first time you and i spoke i said this is an evolutionary battle between a pathogen, a virus attacks -- attacking our social nature and the collective immune system of humidity. that battle continues. we have added technology. we have added behavioral changes. that battle will end up where it ends up and we have to be ready for all eventualities. i have said publicly i think more likely than not it ends up looking like a seasonal booster every year. there is no high certainty

because we are in uncharted territory turn emily: always approve -- uncharted territory. emily: always appreciate you having on the show. appreciate your perspective. it is cyber monday. the deals are everywhere. we are going to break down the numbers from this holiday shopping weekend and how supply chain issues are impacting consumer carts next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: consumers are also still cautious about going back into stores. our first post vaccine black friday. the numbers were not what they were pre-pandemic today is cyber monday. -- what they were pre-pandemic. today is cyber monday. break it down for our spirit in

people started shopping weeks ago because they were worried about supply chain issues and people are doing their shopping from home anyway. >> we sell that on black. black friday itself had sales that were a little lackluster. was that a sign of impending weakness in consumer spending? probably not because the last few weeks before black friday were very strong. what you are seeing is the spreading out of demand over a longer time. emily: talk to us about how we are expecting cyber monday to stack up and some of the hot sellers and trends we are seeing. >> there is a lot of concern you could see something similar to black friday where the sales compared with last year are not great. be done a little, could be up a little. they are going to be not showing a big change. that is prop lee a funk -- probably a function of demand getting spread out over the season.

toys are always a big hit. adobe called on everything from barbie dolls to nerve toys. playstation 5 is a big head. what you are seeing also is gift cards. with gift cards, you can push demand into or the acquisition of products into next year and given the supply chain issues, that is a surefire winner even if you can find stuff on the shelves. emily: if you need an idea, gift card it is. they are always available. thank you for that of day. plenty more -- for that update. plenty more coming up. we are going to bring you a special edition of studio 1.0 with the alphabet and google ceo. i'm emily chang in san francisco. this is bloomberg. ♪

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emily: so much for doing this. of course. not at all. sundar: you are doing well? two to three days a week. how about you? emily: i am in every day now. no more kids on the set. i have to ask, is your son still -- sundar: dad, you are the one that made me give up on it. the thing that is good about this is i think it excites a whole new generation about technology. emily: i really appreciate you doing this. sundar: thank you for doing it. emil