>> from the heart of for innovation, money, and power collide, this is bloomberg technology, with emily chang. emily: i'm emily in san francisco. covid tests hard to come by as cases rise. now president biden is preparing to send half a billion free covid to american homes, starting next month.

jack dorsey stars and upper on twitter, calling web three of venture capital placing. turning up the tweet heat since stepping down. california has become the epicenter for retail crime, brazen and at times organized attacks. talk with an attorney who is helping fight back. we'll get to all of that in the mark -- in a moment, but first a look at the markets. kriti gupta has the latest. >> a classic case of a turnaround. we sell that major selloff and the sectors that lagged yesterday outperformed today, primarily tech stocks. the nasdaq up 2.4%, leading the charge. and of course semiconductors as well. macron played a big part in that rally. you're starting to see the volatility gauge drop closer and closer to 21.

you have a red zone and green zone i deal where one day the market sells off and the next day it climbs, much more driven by technical factors than fundamental ones. that's the environment we will be seeing especially with holiday trading. micron earnings is a major intraday story. take a look at this chart, on a year-to-date basis, micron which is the big issue a semiconductor maker, is lagging the broader index. the big question here is why has it been lagging? a lot of it has to do with inventory digestion and being able to keep up with capacity. it looks like they will be catching up with their peers. that is a major story when you're talking about whether or not tech will be leading the recovery or the stock market broadly in 2022. the story on everyone's mind is going to be the rise in covid

cases,'s specifically -- specifically driven by the omicron variant. case counts really ticking up. the question is, does it peek at the same time frame or same level that we are seeing in south africa, and what does the availability and affordability of testing have to do with it? emily: thank you for that update . president biden saying the omicron variant will result in more, greater infections, and repeating his push for everyone who is eligible to get a booster shot. pres. biden: we should all be concerned about omicron, but not panicked. if you are fully vaccinated, especially if you got your booster shot, you are highly protected. if you are not vaccinated, you are at a higher risk of getting severely ill, hospitalize, or even dying.

so the best thing to do is get fully vaccinated and get your booster shot. emily: the president outlining a new strategy to curb the impact of omicron. the administration will order 500 million at home tests to ship for free. why is the president doing this now? >> i think, as you mention with the onset of the omicron variant, especially as were going into the winter months, and hospitals are really hitting capacity, so they want to make sure they are prepared for potential overflow with omicron taking up 73% of cases in the u.s.. emily: give us more highlights of the plan and specifically the plan to expand testing. >> they're going to make 500

million tests available to people who request them. they are supposed to be available next month, although it is less clear how many will exactly be available at that time. then they will start reimbursing at home tests as of january 16 is when the guidance is supposed to come out. the administration has been criticized for some time that testing should be cheaper and more widely available. so i think this is in part a response to that. emily: the fda is preparing to signoff for pills from pfizer and merck to treat covid-19. what do we know about this, and is it a game changer? >> it could definitely be a game changer, especially to keep people out of the hospital when the concern is that hospitals could be at or overcapacity with

the omicron variant. so if you can get these pills to high-risk people and they can take it at home, so it is much easier to administer than a monoclonal antibody because it is a pill you take it home, it could potentially keep people from getting really sick. what at the same time, the big push, the best way to prevent yourself from getting sick is to get vaccinated and boosted. emily: so many precautions we all need to continue to take, especially over the next few days. meantime, we're still waiting for a verdict in the trial of their nose founder elizabeth holmes. the jury spending a second day to spending weathered the 37 euro entrepreneur is guilty of defrauding investors. -- 37-year-old entrepreneur. last time we talked, we been checking in, he said there were no notes to the judge from the

jury, no communication whatsoever. is that still the case, and it -- is it unusual to hear nothing from a jury for over 48 hours? [indiscernible] emily: we are having some technical difficulties there. we will get back to you a little later in the show. as you heard, the jury continuing to deliberate, 16 hours there about of deliberation. and a $125 million penalty being paid, due to allegedly misleading statements from the former ceo and founder about technological advances.

nikola saying it will pay the fine over the next two years and seek reimbursement. jack dorsey may have stepped down as ceo of twitter but he is checking up on the platform. we will bring you details, next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: fresh off relinquishing the ceo rains, jack dorsey is voicing his displeasure with the

direction of so-called web three technology and the influence of venture capital firms. dorsey tweeting, you don't own web three. it will never escape their incentives. it's ultimately a centralized entity with a different label. know what you are getting into. what do you make of jack's more outspoken and slightly combative tweets since stepping down as ceo of twitter? >> he has historically been a little snarky at times. we've seen him not be afraid to go after folks in a very friendly way. the community around web3 and crypto is so passionate and so strong on twitter, he had to know what he was eating himself into when he did this. is clearly trying to point out that there's going to be a bit

of tension between building technology that is supposed to be completely decentralized and not owned or operated by any one company, and the fact that these technologies are being funded companies like his own, in some cases. so i think there is a healthy tension there, but he certainly walked into it knowing full well that it was going to be a tough conversation on twitter, because that community is huge. emily: another exchange, dixon tweeting about winning. jack replying, we are determined to be a media empire that cannot be ignored. dixon replying thatcted jack and hoped he could bring him around on bitcoin and other blockchain. how did this message about web3 that he's trying to take on tie into what he has planned at square and his vision for the blockchain?

>> both twitter and square, jack has set up groups that are looking into the technology, but i feel the groups are operating independently. in twitter's case it is called loose geithner is supposed to be network protocol that is totally operating on its own. twitter built it up and gives it funding but otherwise keeps its hands away. that is ultimately what jack envisions, not letting the technologies be owned by one particular company, but getting them started with money and then letting it be completely on its own. that is a pretty idealistic thing, but my guess is that he feels like he's doing it differently than a firm like andreessen horowitz. i'm sure there are many that might poke some holes in that argument. emily: then there's a classic

exchange between elon musk and jack, elon musk saying i can't find it, and then jack saying it somewhere between a and z. what do you think of the two of them aligning, at least on twitter? >> jack has said for years that elon is his favorite tweeter. so they are close. elon showed up at twitter as a special guest a few years ago. elon likes to push the envelope and walk the line. nonetheless, the two of them do get along and they were on a bitcoin panel together a few months ago as well. they are clearly both very interested in the space. they have a relationship, so it doesn't surprise me to see them kind of buddy ying up over a conversation like this. emily: it will be interesting to

watch. thank you for some color there. not to the san jose courthouse where the jury is deliberating in the trial of elizabeth holmes . as we were discussing earlier, it sounds like still no word or nothing at all from the jury. is that unusual? >> it's not unusual. i feel a little bit like a spokesman for the jury because i'm getting many emails and questions about what is going on and why i'm not hearing anything. my colleagues are all very on edge waiting for something, and we are hearing nothing. there's a number of different forces at work here. the first is, if the jury wanted to acquit elizabeth holmes, they would have done that maybe early . acquittal's tend to come early. they look at the government's evidence and say there is nothing there and she is free to go.

the second is that they are deliberating all this evidence, we forget i've only had two days to consider three months worth of testimony and evidence. so they are going through all that. and doing what we expect them to do and actually hope that they do. if they're going to do her the service they need to do, if they are looking to find her guilty, they need to go through everything very carefully and find that she is either guilty or innocent. 2-5 days is hardly unexpected bowl. i think they will go at least through probably thursday. they are taking tomorrow off. emily: that was my next question, they are taking tomorrow off due to juror commitment, and then there is christmas eve.

are there plans for after that? >> a judge will push them to come back on monday and get going then. you raise another force at work here, which is christmas. so they want to be careful, and we hope they are doing that. christmas is something, no one wants this to be hanging around over the holidays. they are going to want to finish by thursday. a final point is that, these jurors are just now getting to know each other and getting to talk. while they have been together for a few months, they were instructed to not discuss the case. this is the first time they have had to get to learn one another's opinions about what they've heard and what to consider. let's not forget that they need to sort this all out and give them some time to do it. emily: an interesting point there, joel. you have been there every step of the way along the way.

an hour and 45 minutes left in the day of jury deliberations. at least 130 two employees at spacex california headquarters have tested positive for covid-19 in recent months. that is the largest nonresidential confirmed case count in l.a. county. the company sent a memo workers explaining only one of the employees is suspected of contracting the virus at work. they say the others contracted it outside of work. he comes during a busy stretch for the company that has created four launches since december 9. coming up, potential regulations for the by now, pay later industry. what it means for consumers next year. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: on december 16, the consumer financial protection bureau announced a review of leading by now, pay later firms. that would include a firm, the ceo responding on twitter, the firm welcomes regulatory attention. asking, for example, what art late these, reactivation fees and other fees? the answer is fortunately very easy for us, zero. tell us more about the questions you're being asked and answers you are giving. >> i think it is a very good thing. there are three separate things,

this is great for the consumer. there are a few standards, there's not a lot of agreement on what is good and what is bad. they seem to be looking at protecting consumers, so good. and it is also affecting the industry in the sense that there's plenty of actors that are excited to play by the rules and make sure they do everything exactly to the degree required. so looking at the industry and expressing what they think is going on, and ultimately [indiscernible] taking it upon ourselves to do better than the law, to outperform. we don't need crazy gimmicks or any of that.

as a result, if any of this becomes the new standard, we are already compliant. the request for data is actually public. there is literally a giant spreadsheet up. i will have a delightful time going 0, 0. data protection, all the things you would expect regulators to care about, we will have hard answers. emily: capital one for example is planning to launch an option for by now, pay later, at point-of-sale next year. curious what your plans are to add some additional protections that credit cards offer, like fraud protection, easy chargeback for returns, for example. >> we already do quite a lot

today. i am surprised this is not as well-known. we take all the risks that if a merchant does not get paid, they are our risks to bear. try very hard to make sure we are available by all possible channels for consumers to talk to us, etc. so we hold ourselves to account, that includes being available, accessible if something goes wrong. emily: you are launching a new debit card that will allow for easy indoor shopping. i believe there is a preassigned limit to shop in store. tell us a little more about when that will launch and how it will work. >> it has already launched. there are thousands of consumers

, thousands of people that have the card in their hands. it is pretty sweet, it allows you to pay in different ways. over the next 24 hours you can say i meant for this to be a buy now, pay later transaction, and with a couple of taps you can convert it. we will bring it out to a larger part of our waitlist. i believe the invitation just went out to the next larger group. i have sent it to my analyst community, if you want to start forecasting revenue just yet, this is very early days. we want to make sure we really get it right.

if it takes longer, or if we bring it out on day one. emily: i'm curious how impactful the walmart and amazon relationships have been and whether you've taken much of a hit on the other end. >> we will speak about all those things in some detail early next year when we report earnings. but obviously, this was the first christmas season for us and it is still ongoing. we have a rich partnership with walmart. it's a very big year for us. emily: always good to have you with us, thank you for that update. coming up, retail crime in

california is reaching a breaking point. my next guest says there is leniency for anyone engaging in the well organized smash and grab robberies. my conversation with the san mateo county district attorney about steps he is taking to stop these crimes. that is next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: a global pandemic has changed us all. it is no more evident than in the retail sector. big investments were made in technology and e-commerce as retailers looked for new ways to connect with their consumers. >> the pandemic shock to the global economy disrupted every sector of business. it was the severe blow to retailers that is now proving to have the most transformational industry effect.

>> retail is like 9/11. it's a hurricane. >> physical stores closed their doors. customers and workers locked down at home. a temporary sacrifice turned into a year-long struggle. that was insurmountable for some retail chains. any stores seemingly disappeared overnight. the pandemic spurred over to change that is being seen as a net positive for global retail which is already seeing a startling turn from a 2020. >> we have consumers who have the dollars to spend. >> the pandemic created the incentives that many needed to fully commit to e-commerce. >> we will walk side-by-side with our guest. >> in china, stores started

selling goods via live video streams. in russia, companies build more secure systems to make people more comfortable shopping online. some retailers switched to instant messaging. in the u.s., chains added features like video calls. while the pivot allowed companies to regrow in an unprecedented time, brick and mortar is far from dead. physical stores are still where the overwhelming share of goods are bought. many of the country's biggest chains are drawing in more shoppers than for the pandemic. the comeback is a big reason why the spider s&p retail etf has soared this year. the innovation and intertwining of brick and mortar and internet

spurred by covid have allowed retailers to recover and come out stronger than ever. now the question becomes will the changes stay resilient in the face of omicron? emily: while we have seen an increase in retail, we have also seen an increase in retail crime . thefts have become more brazen and also organized as criminals break into stores and steal millions of dollars in merchandise. on monday, the justice department announced a grant to help cities combat the rise in crime. this days after governor gavin newsom announced what he called an aggressive plan to fight and prevent crime. >> i will acknowledge that it is unacceptable what is happening. we were are putting out competitive enforcement grant to help local law enforcement advanced their efforts. >> joining me now is the san mateo county district attorney

which is part of the san francisco bay area. you have now joined up with several prosecutors in the bay area to try to crack down on this wave of organized retail crime. what are you seeing? >> something we have not seen over the years that is large groups, a mob that charges into the stores to the retail. the big stores and the mom-and-pop stores, and tries to clean them out in a matter of one or two minutes then be on the road. in san francisco in november, they had 80 people going to union square stores. walnut creek, 70 to 80 people charging in. that is new to us and it's not just a group. it's organized and that is what we have to respond to in law enforcement and in prosecution. >> there was obviously an uptick around thanksgiving.

before christmas, this has been going on for a while and your office recently announced one of the largest theft bust in california history. are using these are all organized, they are not crimes of opportunity, not spontaneous things that are just happening? >> falls into two categories. neither one is spontaneous. it's just a matter of how well-planned it is. on one side, the case you referred to which was very well organized. it truly was a criminal enterprise structured and long-lasting. in addition, what we saw in november and december is these mobs charging into stores. it is organized in that it is a group sending out the word saying going to go do this and people flock. i would call it in the middle. it's not like a sideshow where

it happens to be friday night and people show up to see the cars spin around. it is more than that. license plates are being covered up. they're looking for law enforcement with their cell phones. then, they are charging in with the knowledge that they want to be in and out within two minutes -- one to two minutes so the police cannot respond. it's not the mob, but it is fairly organized. >> i spoke with the ceo of the realreal. take a listen to what she had to say. >> we have been hit by mob robbery. it is a serious problem. it is happened just in california and new york. this is not a police problem. this is a problem with criminals not being prosecuted for retail or property crimes. it is a serious problem.

>> is that the reality? is that why these keep happening? >> i don't think so. there may be the image out there depending the what county you are in. in my county, we prosecute everything. it's i know where realreal was hit in palo alto. the district attorney prosecutes these cases and we all agree in the bay area's. we have joined together and formed a committee and we need to work together to aggressively prosecute these people. we are distinguishing these criminals from your person who goes in, commit theft, loads up a bag stuff to sell it to try to feed a drug addiction or something like that. those are the people we want to help. that's not what we are seeing here. people here are doing it for pure profit motive. they are looting the stores and they need to be prosecuted. everyone of us no matter our

philosophy, we all agree we need to aggressively prosecute these people. treat them for what they are. profit mongers. they are not there to try to feed a habit, they are trying to make money. for that, there is no leniency. we are asking our judges to hold them accountable and we want them punished. parks are using the attacks being organized via social media? >> it will vary as to the platform. i don't want to go into that, because we don't want the criminals to know exactly what we are watching. there is an enormous amount of social media exchange as to what goes on. it follows up after the theft. these thieves do not just take 10 purses to hand off to their friends christmas. they're doing it to sell. they're putting it out there and that's the other thing law enforcement prosecutors are doing.

we will hammer down on the fences. if you cut them off, there's no source for the people doing the theft to sell their goods. that's the tactic we have agreed as a group to try to attack this problem. >> in that case if these are being organized via social media, is there more the platforms can be done to hold them accountable? >> there is. particularly in terms of assisting and i think they want to. our law enforcement community here in the san francisco bay area has had discussions and on planning meetings with the social platform groups to get their assistance. i am told there more than willing to offer whatever help they can. they recognize the problem and they don't want to be a vehicle for crime. we're going to have some positive outcomes on that as we move forward. emily: thank you for sharing your perspective with us.

coming up, the rise of telehealth. why venture-capital list are betting big. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: telehealth is poised to get even bigger. oracle announced it is acquiring its records company even sooner after arrival announced -- i want to bring in our guest to help make sense of all of this.

>> it's great to be back on the show parted this is a major acquisition by oracle. it is the largest acquisition ever. as you mentioned, it is leading electronic medical records company with a quarter market share. this acquisition gives oracle a trove of health data and an opening for oracle cloud. i think this deal gives oracle a boost in the health care space versus competitors from a footprint perspective. i have no doubt oracle's competitors are not going to be sitting on their hands. microsoft earlier had announced an acquisition of nuance. >> what does this mean for aws customer >> i think it means that companies like oracle, like

microsoft and others including salesforce are now all seeing the health tech space as a huge opportunity. member, -- remember, the market for health in the u.s. is a $4 trillion market. all of the large cloud providers are now trying to gain a significant foothold in the health industry. >> talk to us about where you see this going in the context of health care and health care technology which was quite slow to take off. it has been accelerated as a result of the pandemic. >> the reason why it is so exciting is health care has really been undergoing a massive transformation over the past two years. we saw telehealth go mainstream. we sought coping vaccines get developed, distributed,

including full clinical trials in under one year parted this was unheard of for covid. the average drug takes about 10 years to get to market just to give you a sense of how much the drug development timeframe was condensed for covid vaccines. covid fundamentally changed patients, providers, and pharmacy behavior which created massive opportunities in the space but also for investors like myself. i think this is really just the beginning of a massive wave of innovation that will be driven in part by cloud adoption. >> meantime, pfizer and merck have a covid pill that the fda could approve at any moment. what should we expect for the course of drug development over the next year? ask one of the big predictions i

have for 2022 is the faster drug development processes that we have seen over the past two years are really likely to outlive covid. there has been a massive amount of innovation around clinical trials in recent years. one megatrend i would like to point out is the emergence of something called decentralized clinical trials. these are virtual clinical trials where patients can participate in these trials from the comfort of their own homes and record data remotely through monitoring devices and through smartphones. these are often cheaper, they reduce patient burden while increasing patient accessibility and retention. one company that is making waves in this market -- they are a leading company that provides an

end to end solution that allows big pharma companies to run clinical trials and to and. >> much to watch for in the next year. thank you. coming up, we will be joined by a founder to talk about how cryptocurrency is playing part in its latest plan to narrow the digital divide. let's take a look at microsoft and at&t. they have agreed on a sale. this is bloomberg. ♪

parks to not just participate, but to rule it. what we have learned what i have learned over the past 10 years in trying to make web two inclusive, it's really hard. when the platform is built without women without people of color, it's hard to push our way in. with web 3.0, we had this opportunity to have girls be a

part of it from the ground up. that's exciting to me. >> companies like kickstarter, they got low back over announcing their crypto plan and girls who code got pushed back from twitter. someone tweeting take note of the fact that the only people voicing support are people who made their entire personality, nobody except grifters thanks this is a good idea. what do you make of that and how do you respond? >> i wasn't surprised. a lot of the pushback is around climate and potentially being a scam. there's a lot of fear when there's something new. here's the reality. 23% of black americans own crypto compared to 11% of white americans. 50% of those are women. this is a platform bringing in

women and people of color. if we want to solve those things, if we want to make web 3.0 less energy intensive, if we want to make it more inclusive, then we have to let women and people of color in from the beginning. we are not missing out or sitting out. we have learned too much that is not a good idea for quality -- equality or equity. >> i am curious what progress girls who code have made and what shift in learning -- what influence the pandemic has had? >> we just did a promotion where we got 13 billion impressions globally. 100,000 girls in one day logged on to code mail. it inspired enormous response because this movement is happening. 10 years ago, i said we wanted

to teach a million girls to code and we are getting there really fast. we're are really excited about the progress. the variant is popping up again and we are seeing schools shutting down, we are still being -- we still haven't solved the digital divide. far too many kids are getting wi-fi in parking lots. we have a lot of work to do. we have to invest deeply in k-12 education. the pandemic has showed us that it is more important than ever that our children have an opportunity to learn and to be part of this new growth in 21st century jobs. we have to double down on the education of our kids. the reality is, we have made an enormous amount of progress in getting our girls interested.

you look at the problems we have to solve, it's going to be girls, our kids that solve those problems. >> 2023 there have been concerns about women backsliding. do you worry about that playing out or are you hopeful? >> absolutely i am screaming from the mountaintops that we need a marshall plan for moms. it is all of us trying to be mothers, parents at the same time of trying to maintain full-time jobs and it's not working. millions of women are still being pushed out of the labor force. just saw joe manchin stand in the way of paid leave and affordable childcare. we are doubling down on the change we're going to make in the private sector. less than 4% of private

companies offer childcare. many say offer paid leave, but there is a huge variability on whether it's two weeks, eight weeks, 12 weeks. we still have an enormous motherhood penalty. we have to change this. we should never let this crisis pass without finishing the fight for gender equality once and for all. it doesn't frighten me that we are not paying attention to the millions of people that have left the workforce that we have had the largest bunch of women leaving the workforce ever in our nation. it is a national crisis. still, a few men are standing in the way of doing what is right. i'm not standing for.

emily: thank you for calling attention to it. that does it for this edition of bloomberg technology. tomorrow, we have great guests lined up. i will be back after new year's and i hope you have a safe and happy holiday. ♪

haidi: good morning. >> welcome to daybreak asia. a global rebound of stocks may continue in asia as risk of appetite returns to the markets. president biden says he may lift travel restrictions. omicron may result in more breakthrough infections. the u.s. may