>> from the heart of where innovation, money, and power collide in silicon valley and beyond, this is "bloomberg technology" with emily chang. emily: coming up, bitcoin drops below $40,000 for the first time in months. pfizer and bayer strike major deals on gene editing. i will speak with the ceo of one of their new partners about the future of the controversial technology.

first, stocks rebounding after a massive selloff. ed ludlow here with the latest. is this a sign of hope after a grim start? ed: it has been a topsy-turvy session on monday. the nasdaq 100 closing up just .1%, but you see heavy losses as yields rose. interest rates are coming sooner and quicker and that has weighed on technology shares. by the afternoon, you see in the green broadly across technology, the semi conductor index up .75%. you can see the 10 year yields up 1.76% and it has been higher

through the session at 1.81%. this is interesting, the equity market story, because there are specific names driving the narrative. tesla had four straight days of declines, but closing out 3% on bloomberg news that the hr chief, one of the most senior black executives as well, is leaving for a new role. this is one of the big stories. one of the biggest gains deals for some time, a cash and stock deal valued at about $11 billion. finally, moderna, up almost 10% on news their 2022 order book for a vaccine is at $18.5 billion. we also have breaking news after the bell. touro, the car sharing app, has

filed for an ipo. it is going to list on the new york stock exchange. for the time being, we don't know much more than that. it has a placeholder offering amount of $100 million and we know they will probably come back with a larger amount. bitcoin has had a volatile start to the year, its worst start since the genesis of cryptocurrency. at one point during monday's session, we dropped below 40,000. we are interested to see a similar move that we saw in equities in the crypto space. emily: i want to continue on bitcoin's rough start, dipping below $40,000 for the first time since september, on pace for its worst start to a year in its 13 year history. i want to bring in emily griffeo to unpack all of this.

how much lower can or will it go? emily g.: i don't have any price target, but it does seem to be holding the $40,000 level. bloomberg intelligence says 40,000 is a key technical level. it seemed to bounce a little bit, now up to 41,000. jp morgan had a survey out this morning asking clients, where do you expect bitcoin to end in 2022? 41% see bitcoin ending at $60,000. the record high in november was $69,000, so that's not really an exciting year for bitcoin. emily: what and who is behind most of the selling? emily g.: it's hard to tell. i did speak to noelle from jensen trading and she says she sees a lot of selling from short-term traders, which plays

into the idea that a lot of people buying bitcoin in 2021 had a little bit of extra stimulus cash. now that the stimulus is pulling away as we get a more hawkish fed, they are getting some profits.

bit right now. emily: what comes next in terms of the technical levels? what are we watching? emily g.: i am going to be watching that we maintain the $40,000 level, but when we look to the year ahead for bitcoin, it is another year of figuring out, what do traditional finance people, what is their use case for bitcoin? how does the crypto community see bitcoin as well? ever since we had the hawkish pivot from the fed and we started to see bitcoin, the record high, i have been hearing people say, bitcoin is kind of trading like a risk asset. it is not really an inflation hedge, not really the uncorrelated asset that a lot of bitcoin bulls hope it to be. it is a risk asset right now. if we see stocks continue to drop, we will likely see bitcoin drop. emily: thank you for that update. i am going to stick with crypto and bring in kristin smith, the executive director director of the blockchain association in washington, d.c., an organization focused on improving public policy around cryptocurrency. this has been quite a year leading up to this.

what's your take on where cryptocurrency goes next and when this looming regulation actually comes down? kristin: if you look at the prices that were just discussed, it has been a disappointing week for the crypto community, but i think in the long run there is a tremendous amount happening. i think bitcoin is going to continue to be strong. if you look at the layer one blockchain's being built out, if you look at the number of developers leaving web 2.0 companies work in the web 3.0 space, there is a tremendous amount of activity going on with commuting, gaming, nft's. i think 2022 is the year of development, bringing use cases to a broader audience. for those of us in the crypto industry are very excited, despite the rocky prices we have seen to start the year. emily: we have increasing attention from policymakers. one representative, brad

sherman, started a trend after going so far as to say, what else are we going to do? mongoose coin? take a listen to what he had to say. >> the number one threat to cryptocurrency is crypto. bitcoin could be displaced by ether, which could be displaced by dodge, which could be displaced by hamster coin. then there is cobra coin. what could mongoose coin due to crypto coin? emily: how would you describe the relationship between washington and the crypto community? kristin: i don't think brad sherman is representative of where most policymakers are at. if you look at the past couple of years, it was originally a very small group of devoted policymakers trying to wrap their heads around it. after this infrastructure fight where there was a crypto provision in the legislation, it became clear the cryptocurrency

community is incredibly active, incredibly interested in being part of the process. we also see companies that are hiring professionals in washington, d.c. membership at the blockchain association has skyrocketed in the past couple of months. the crypto industry is here to be a partner with policymakers. they want to explain why old regulations don't make sense or can't work with the current crypto networks, and we want to find new ways to reach the same public policy goals we have in other areas, whether with internet policy or financial services policy, but do it in a way that makes sense with the way crypto networks are structured. there was a positive hearing at the end of the year in december in the house financial services committee and we are in a great position this year to get the education level much higher within the policymaking

community so we can then move forward with debating on how we should change the laws for crypto networks. emily: everyone is concerned about the price and which direction cryptocurrency is going. your head of policy tweeted that perhaps the crypto bear market has a silver lining that could lead to regulatory relief. would you agree? kristin: i do agree. i think he sent a tweet last night or early this morning. his point was it takes some pressure off. when you have skyrocketing prices, that draws attention in headlines and with policymakers. this allows us to step back, to have a healthy conversation to talk about the pros and cons. this is still a very young industry. the technology is very young. some of the applications are only in the early stages and we

need time for the kinks to get worked out. it is healthy for policymaking to have these conversations and do the education when there is all this excitement around rising prices. we are going to continue to push forward to educate lawmakers regardless of where prices are. it does allow us to have a more thoughtful conversation. emily: kristin smith, executive director director of the blockchain association. thanks so much. paypal is announcing the launch of its own stable coin. the company confirmed the development of a developer discovered hidden code inside its iphone app. stable coins are cryptocurrencies backed by the value of an existing currency or commodity. we have some breaking news that meta, the parent company of

facebook, is requiring its staff to get covid booster shots to reenter the office, according to a report in the wall street journal. meta saying they are pushing back their return to the office to sometime in march, slightly more liberal than some other companies we have seen this year. lyft pushing back return until 2023. we will continue to watch. the news that meta is now requiring a booster shot in addition to a vaccine to come back to the office. coming up, red dead meets farmville. take-two interactive buying mobile game developer zynga. why the stock is tanking on news of the $11 million deal. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: videogame developer take-two interactive is getting into online gaming with its deal to buy zynga, best known as the maker of farmville. the ceo joined "the close" to talk about the deal. >> we are thrilled to be combining with zynga and we expect gains with our mobile games division into zynga. zynga will remain the brand responsible for running multiple titles. we have an unusual structure at our company. our labels are separate, while we share cultural attributes and are incentivized in the same direction. rockstar division, take two, and

zynga all have the ability to pursue their own passions. that has worked for us really well. >> talk about where the synergies do come, in particular the assets you can use from one use case to another. >> we expect to identify $100 million in annual cost synergies in the first two years. you were not really asking about costs. we believe there will be something like $500 million in annual revenue synergies. that does not include game titles. that would not include taking take-two's legacy console and moving it to mobile, something we expect to do with the hope of the team at zynga. >> take-two stock is down almost 15% on the day. what conversations are you having with investors to convince them this is a

transformative deal for take-two? >> we are talking about the long-term. while no one is cavalier -- after all there are investors on both sides of that trading -- we are concerned about all investors, particularly because our story has been one where we have tried to make intelligent and creative moves, and in the fullness of time we have generally outperformed the market and our peers. we think the logic is unassailable. however, we have to work hard on that over a number of years and i am convinced we will do so. we always trade on the fundamentals. >> theranos. -- fair enough. this is a huge deal, said to be one of the biggest acquisitions in the gaming industry. i believe it is one of the biggest acquisitions for take-two. there are people who look at how

you digest this and how you pay for it with regards to a split between cash and the sale price. do you have confidence to tell analysts and investors that this is a profitable deal? >> it is very much going to be profitable on closing, which we expect in the first fiscal quarter of next year. we are willing to pursue inorganic opportunities when there is a great team, great intellectual property. zynga has unmatched intellectual property in the mobile space. emily: the take-two ceo there. i am joined by jason, who covers the videogame industry for bloomberg. what is your take on why investors are not excited about it? jason: we are talking about a company that is slow to get into the mobile business. all of take-two's rivals have their own big investments in mobile already, so take-two is jumping in with a massive

acquisition and investors are looking at that and is saying, is this not only too late but also too much money? why are they spending so much? it is not only one of the biggest deals, it is the biggest, dwarfing the acquisition of super cell by tencent. emily: what is your take three, i suppose, on why they are doing the deal and whether it will work? what value will it bring to both companies? jason: for zynga, this is the ultimate heist because they are getting purchased as a premium way above their share price. they have been looking for a buyer for a long time. take two, they get a couple things. there is value, they just overpaid. they get a stable of games, including a few on top of the charts. zynga has a poker game that has been doing well for a long time.

they have a couple slot machine games. they have some hyper casual games making some money. more important, they get a stable of experienced developers that can make free to play games for phones. take-two has massive franchises, including grand theft auto, that have not translated well to mobile so far. their main goal is to say, we need this company that can help us build a free to play mobile grand theft auto game, and that is going to print money. emily: how does this shake up broader videogame landscape? what does it mean for competitors like ea? jason: i don't think it means a lot because activision and ea already have entrenched mobile businesses. they might be worried about what a potential mobile gta game is going to do to their mobile games, but even there, the audience on mobile is so big

that you have a lot of company is after such a big audience that there is room for everybody to get their player base. activision, between candy crush and call of duty mobile, has reached so many players. ea has star wars stuff, sims stuff. they have been doing mobile games for 10 years. i don't think take-two's rivals woke up this morning and said, what are we going to do about this? they said, they paid how much? emily: activision have been fighting its own workplace issues, allegations of discrimination and sexual harassment. what is the latest on that and be challenging ceo? jason: i was just talking to someone at their office in wisconsin, where qa people are on strike and have been for a few weeks. activision has been facing all

sorts of controversy over the past few months. a lot of people expected, including me, expected the ceo to step down after a bombshell wall street journal report in november accused him of misconduct, that he was aware of all the misconduct going on, but he has made it. there will be more to come. there will be more news coming out of there and it will all be on bloomberg. one thing i am looking forward to as we move ahead into 2022 is the annual shareholders meeting, which usually takes place around june. that's when shareholders will decide, do we want to reelect the current board of directors who are all his friends? i am interested to see what comes of that, what happens if a new board is elected, how the ceo position is handled after that. emily: we will make sure to watch your reporting on it.

coming out, facebook parent meta is going bigger in texas. details on metas plan to take over half of a 66 story tower in austin, next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: intel is on the brink of losing its status as the world's largest chipmaker. for the first three quarters of 2021, samsung held a narrow lead in sales. final numbers will be available in late january but it seems likely intel will drop to second place. intel still produces the majority of processors. the parent company of facebook is going bigger in texas. meta platforms has leased half of the biggest skyscraper in austin.

the company has 2000 employees in austin, looking to hire 400 more. samsung and tesla have announced plans to expand in the area. in china, a giant ed tech country has fired thousands of workers since the country announced a crackdown on private businesses a year ago. the chair said revenue fell 80%. beijing banned tutoring companies like new oriental from making profits and raising capital. coming up, two of the world's biggest drugmakers announced they are diving deeper into gene editing. i will speak to the cofounder of mammoth biosciences about their new deal with bayer. this is bloomberg. ♪

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emily: welcome back. pfizer is getting into the gene editing business, announcing a partnership with a therapeutics company. the ceo spoke with john farrell about the deal, which he calls a big priority. >> sometimes being a good partner provides better results than if you own a company. right now we want to place multiple bets on corporations. we have proven this works very well with biontech. i don't say you would not see

also acquisitions from our side, but right now in this specific area, partnerships will give us exactly what we want without limiting the amount of capital we will be needing if we want to acquire companies. john: what does that mean elsewhere? what doors does it open if the strategy is a series of bets and a series of partnerships? >> clearly this is one of the top priorities that pfizer and myself have for this year. i would not say it is number one, because number one is to stay ahead of covid. this is what the company needs to do because this is what the world needs. the number two priority is to invest a lot of capital, either in the normal course of business or through covid. that needs to be an investment in science. we have the clinical development

vaccine, the manufacturing vaccine. all these platforms are waiting for new science to comes in and produce business for humankind and that is where the capital will go. john: let's talk about the platform getting the most attention right now, mrna, met with hope, confusion, and some skepticism. how do you communicate hope around this when we keep getting told we need another shot? if it is so good, why do i need a second, third, fourth? >> mrna is not the holy grail, but it is a very powerful technology that has produced dramatic results. we are only scratching the surface. our strategy and our ability to harness the power of this

technology to multiple other areas. the first area is the lowest hanging fruit. this is something we are doing mainly in partnership with biontech. you said, why is it not producing longer-lasting results? it is not mrna, it is related to the virus. if you ask experts, the natural infection with this virus also doesn't produce immunity. the natural infection many times produces half the time you can get in terms of how long you are protected then vaccines. it is not right to say mrna doesn't create durable protection. it is the virus that is very difficult to tackle and mutates

constantly. emily: albert bourla there. meantime, bayer and mammoth biosciences have announced a partnership to use mammoth's crisper gene editing technology. joining me now, trevor martin of mammoth biosciences. how do you and bayer plan to work together? trevor: we are excited about this collaboration because at mammoth we have built a broad toolbox of novel crispr systems, including small proteins. this collaboration with bayer is all about expanding gene therapy platforms with novel crispr proteins that can enable en viva therapies. emily: you are focused on four diseases, all liver based. why those and where do you hope to expand? trevor: liver is the starting point. i think the potential for these

novel proteins we are working on at mammoth for en viva applications across many organs is limitless. there is a lot of exciting organizations it can go and that's why we are starting with bayer. we are excited about the internal work at mammoth and the work with bayer. and i think we will see the power of these ultrasmall crispr systems in a variety of tissues. emily: gene editing has been controversial. what is your company's approach to the ethics? it is one thing to cure someone of sickle-cell anemia, but it is another to choose the color of your baby's eyes, or height and beyond. trevor: at mammoth we are focused on cures for debilitating genetic diseases. there are so many that we have such a high impact on with patients that that can be a focus for decades and hundreds of years and still not meet the full need.

that is what we are focused on. ethically that is what you have to focus on. there are people that could be cured permanently of these diseases if we can apply this technology in the right way. emily: what's been the impact of the pandemic on the gene editing scare? we know how important mrna technology has been. talk to us about how the pandemic might be a turning point for gene editing technology. trevor: one of the interesting things is in the development of our crispr based platform, one of the new uses we pioneered his diagnostic applications. the pandemic has accelerated development of technology in this area. previously we announced collaboration and partnerships with the nih, darpa, and it has shown crispr can go toe-to-toe with gold standard technologies in the diagnostic space like pcr and offers the potential of

revolutionizing the spectrum of testing for infectious diseases, starting with covid-19 and beyond, whether that is in the lab, the doctor's office, or at home. emily: we just got a historic verdict in the case of elizabeth holmes, given that she was a young, then up and coming ceo and founder in biosciences. i am curious what impact she has had on the work you do and are trying to do and if you have any thoughts on it. trevor: at mammoth we like to lead with science. we have published many papers in top scientific journals and are excited to explain to people how we use crispr across therapeutics and diagnostics. it reinforces the importance of being transparent and getting people excited about the technology and helping them understand what it can and can't do.

it reinforces that for us. emily: trevor martin, ceo of mammoth biosciences. coming up, how to bridge the skills gap. one tech startup says they want to help up skill 10 million people in the next 10 years. more on that next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: there is no end in sight to the great resignation. it is estimated a billion people will need new skills by 2030. bridging that gap is the mission of career,, an ed tech startup

that just raised $40 billion to expand. joining me is the cofounder and ceo ruben harris to talk about the changing work landscape. what is the main problem career karma is trying to address? ruben: we help workers find job-training programs to get jobs in tech. we are using $40 million to expand into higher education and enterprise. emily: we have heard a lot about the great resignation, people reconsidering job opportunities. talk to us about individual stories and how career karma has helped students and people navigate big decisions? ruben: we have a group of people that meet regularly. there is a lady named sidney sampson that used to work for doordash, just got a job at accenture. another lady who was a teacher and just got a job at a tech

company, and many others in her group who are not just getting jobs at traditional tech companies, but even at fortune 500 companies that are doubling down on digital platforms. career navigation is mostly psychological, not technical. after we match people to different schools, we are able to connect them to different peers and mentors, which is where they met. there are other stories like that as well. emily: one of the reasons career karma is so successful is the impact of personal coaches and career counselors, which are expensive, i would think. how do you scale that to a billion people, which is your goal? ruben: it is very hard to do that if you are running an organization where you have coaches on staff. we realize when you connect people, they want to help each other. lenice was in a group with other teachers also going through a career transition that were one

step ahead of her. since they were already doing what she was trying to do, they were willing to help. we do have people on staff that might host different moderation rooms, but now that we have about 3 million people a month coming to our platform and thousands of people in our audio rooms, it is self organized, similar to a community like reddit where you have a moderator and other people just participating. emily: we are seeing a lot of tech workers and crypto enthusiasts move to miami, where you are doing a lot of work. i recently spoke to the mayor of miami, who had this to say about the influx of new talent. >> our economy was driven oftentimes by the hospitality sector and the construction sector, two of which are oftentimes not high-paying jobs. we want to differentiate our economy and provide higher-paying jobs and different

opportunities for residents. emily: you have been talking about how to prepare miami residents for the future. talk to us about how the work of career karma would intersect with what miami needs. ruben: i want to correct one thing on the screen, saying $40 billion, but it is $40 million we were able to raise. we have been talking to the mayor since 2018. i think it is going to take a collaboration of working with the government, the schools, and the companies to work with local residents. there are all these tech people coming into the city, taking advantage of these jobs. we want to work with local residents to match them to different training programs that can get them to jobs in less than a year. there are training programs inside miami right now and we can work with local companies, like royal caribbean, that are also doubling down on digital to figure out how to reskill and

match people to jobs being created. emily: i am curious about your own path as a ceo and founder who does not look like a lot of typical ceos and founders, how that has impacted what you want to accomplish. what has your personal experience been? ruben: i am from atlanta, georgia. i have always been proud to be who i am. one of our investors uses the word underestimated. i have used that as an advantage. going to miami is not just because of the ties, but my first name, which is spanish. a lot of these people are susceptible to automation. 35% of the miami economy is making $35,000 a year and a susceptible to automation. we want to work with not just the city of miami, but also the rest of the nation and all over the world, to figure out what's the playbook to figure out as the tech world continues to grow -- last year was a historic record, 300 billion dollars in

capital invested -- that areas are not gentrified. i see that as an advantage. emily: absolutely. you are working with softbank, one of your investors. we had a couple of folks on the show last week, betting big on web 3 and crypto. the metaverse is a huge trend. what is your view on some of these trends in the metaverse or the future internet everyone seems to be talking about? ruben: this series of b round was led by top-tier, and shout out to softbank for doubling down. we realize -- we started with boot camps because it is the playbook traditional schools are copying. as the student loan bubble continues to go up, at some point it is going to pop, in my personal opinion. education is primarily going to be funded by government,

philanthropy, and employers, which is why we are expanding into enterprise and working with employers that want to pay for tuition for people who want to up skill, but also attract talent. you have seen amazon spending hundreds of millions to provide tuition for workers. now the world economic forum making a big push to reskill a billion people by 2030, which is not a coincidence -- well, it is a coincidence. that is also our mission. you have employers, governments, tech people doubling down, and career karma is matching companies, people, and capital together. emily: career karma ceo and cofounder ruben harris, thanks for painting a picture of the future. goldman sachs adding another main street brand to its consumer business.

the firm announcing a new credit card with general motors, the second major cobranding deal after the launch of a credit card with apple. the bank uses partnerships with namebrand companies to attract customers. coming up, omicron hospitalizations have declined in new york. could the peak of the new variant be over? we talk about that next. this is bloomberg. ♪

>> after a modest year in 2021, apple is looking to step it up in 2022 with several new macs, a revamped iphone, new airpods, and even the unveiling of its first mixed reality headset.

the company is planning a new iphone se with 5g for the first half of this year. later this year, apple will launch the apple 14 with a redesigned front facing camera to replace the notch. apple also continues to work on satellite and messaging features for the next iphone. the ipad pro is destined for its first design changes since 2018 and a new wireless charging system. you can also expect a new midrange ipad for later in the year. airpods also have a redesign coming, expected to have better sound and get smaller. the company is also considering releasing the airpods max headphones in more colors. there will be a new low-end apple watch se, a high-end apple watch series eight, and a new extreme sports model. mac fans can look out for a

supercharged mac pro, the first of its kind, a new imac pro with a larger display, and the biggest macbook air redesign in product history. the capstone could be the announcement of an upcoming augmented virtual reality headset. stay tuned for more on that. i am mark gurman. this is power on. emily: you can sign up for mark's weekly newsletter at bloomberg.com. covid infections in new york city may have reached a peak. it has been about one month since the first case of the omicron variant was identified. the seven day average of people visiting new york emergency departments with covid like illnesses has dropped significantly since the end of december according to the city's department of health. jonathan levin joins us now. does it mean the peak has passed? jonathan: it strongly seems like

new york has reached a peak. of course, what a peak means in practice is another question. typically once we see the peak in the seven day average of actual cases or infections, the impact on the hospital system can still go on for weeks. that's what we expect to see in intensive care units in new york city. emily: does not mean we could see more peaks or that more dangerous variants could still be down the line? jonathan: certainly, in terms of the near and present, omicron may be peaking in new york city and parts of the northeast, but you are going to see peaks at different times throughout the country. the west coast, for instance, appears to be days, perhaps a week or two, behind the

northeast, so you could yet see the worst ahead for your region. emily: meantime, you have got the new law requiring vaccinations at companies with 100 employees or more that the supreme court has had under consideration going into effect. what is the latest on that and how it is working? jonathan: all eyes are on what the supreme court is going to do. this has become a linchpin of the white house strategy to close the gap on vaccinations. it is not just vaccinations. we have realized with omicron, it is boosters too. it is only the boosted who are really finding they have significant protection against infection itself. hospitalization and severe outcomes are another question, but in terms of preventing infection, this white house has become dependent on the promise

of boosters. all eyes are on the supreme court. emily: meta, facebook parent, just according to the wall street journal is requiring staff to not just be vaccinated but have boosters in order to come back to work. could we see more of that? jonathan: it's certainly possible. the omicron variant has really changed the game. we have seen some research, including out of the u.k. recently, that suggests if you are five months out from your last shot and have been boosted, your protection against -- have not been boosted, your protection against infection is only around 10%. companies have to be rethinking their strategy at this point in the game. emily: bloomberg's jonathan levin, thank you for that update. that does it for this edition of "bloomberg technology." tomorrow we continue our crypto

coverage with john wu. he will have blockchain predictions for 2022 you don't want to miss. i am emily chang in san francisco. this is bloomberg. ♪

manus: it is "bloomberg daybreak: middle east." jay powell wants to prevent entrenched inflation and traders are betting on eight rate hikes before 2024. the currency market gains as top u.s. and russian diplomats agree to continue talking even as they acknowledge differences persist. the bank of america head of commodities