tv Bloomberg Technology Bloomberg January 14, 2022 5:00pm-6:00pm EST
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>> 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 and this is bloomberg technology. in the next hour, a reality check for apples headset facing a new delay. what this means for the iphone makers push into the metaverse. the largest crypto fund debate.
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crypto exchange stx is launching to billion-dollar venture fund. our conversation with the person in charge, putting on the caster work. the internet's latest subsection, wrodle. how a game invented in 2018 is suddenly going viral. we will get to all of that in a moment. let's look at the markets. volatility was the buzzword of the day. ed ludlow has the latest. ed: still the buzzword of any day but it has been a jittery week in financial markets with volatility, choppy trading. investors taking on rising yields. the outlook for rates. inflation. the omicron variant. we ended friday right, with a rebound in stocks late in friday's session. you see that our performance in the nasdaq, closing out .8% while the s&p is flat. out in mega caps. the bank index up more than 1%.
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they coined really moving in the same way, seeing kind of a rebound as people became more confident. it is a week where i asked my favorite question. you know what it is. what is bitcoin? come with me into my terminal and let's think about this for a moment. we have been talking about bitcoin. is it an inflation hedge, our risk asset like an equity, a commodity? what do you see on the screen on the right-hand side? the correlation between bitcoin and tech stocks, the nasdaq 100 specifically, a reading of 0.4. one means a perfect correlation moving in lockstep. -1 is the opposite direction. 0.4, we see throughout 2020 and 2021 the correlation has been high, creeping up after dropping off at the beginning of the year, then moving in lockstep. again, what is bitcoin? is it an inflation hedge? it seems to be behaving like a risk asset like equity. it is not going to go away. two big corporate stories you
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will talk about in a moment with mark. apple, closing up five -- .5%. it did drop on new year's according to sources, with delays due to specific issues. meta, according to sources, looked at, particularly oculus in the virtual reality biggest -- business. emily: the ftc and multiple states are investigating their virtual reality unit oculus for potential anticompetitive practices. our mark "scoop dogg" with the details. what are they interested in? what did meta-potentially do wrong here? mark: the sec wants to know how meta-is able to sell their headset for 299 dollars, which undercuts the price of competitors and other providers.
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they want to know if there app store practices are stifling competition. they want to know how meta-, through oculus, is earning third-party virtual reality. they have talked to developers over the last few months, the u.s. federal trade commission and states including new york, tennessee, and north carolina. this will be a long-running investigation, yet another time government officials are looking into meta and other technology companies like apple and google and amazon. emily: absolutely. just another headache for meta. i want to move onto to apple in your story that it's ar/vr had site we have long anticipated, because your reporting could be delayed. what did you know? mark: this might be yet another heading for meta. based on what we have heard, the capabilities of the first mixed reality headset from apple will be hard for facebook to compete with next year.
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we are hearing there will be a few month delay at minimum for apples headset. that is because of development challenges stemming from the device overheating, from software, and camera technology. what apple is trying to do is cram processes re-get in a mat -- macbook pro into a had site you wear on your face that does not need to be plugged in, and controlling the thermal system and overheating in the battery is a very tricky thing to do. apple has been grappling with that. i think you are going to introduce the headset late in 2022 or sometime early in 2023 and release it more widely in 2023. emily: how important will this be to apple's new product lineup? mark: this is going to be, in the early innings, it will not sell that much. apple is projected selling one unit per day for retail --per retail store.
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there is forecast of selling between seven and 10 million units for the first year on sale. then, from there, they are only going to build momentum with augmented reality, glasses further down the road. there is a long roadmap ahead for ar and vr. they will expand and build on that like they have built upon the ipad, the i pound -- ipod, the iphone, the avalanche, and airpods more recently. emily: thank you so much for that update. i want to talk about apple again now. dan, what is your take on mark's report that they could potentially be really important but not right away could be delayed? dan: there is a lot of complexity in terms of building out apple glass. this is something they wanted to
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introduce in the summer and ultimately start to sell in the fall. there are a lot of technology hurdles. they want to make sure they get this right. we still think the timetable is to have this ready for holiday season. this uses the first start of what could be a broader growth initiative. we think business could add $20 per share to the stock once they launched. emily: we have a earnings coming up amid a broader tech selloff. . apple has not been immune. ? what do you expect? dan: what we will see is a strong earnings that beat the industry by 5% coming out of the gate. they will be cautious in terms of the supply chain but they have guidance into the next year, despite supply chain issues. i think services could be $80 billion for the year right now.
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you look what is happening on iphone. i think that is something that continues to track. that is why despite the fed news that the macro worries, when fundamentals come for apple. that is a positive catalyst in our opinion. it sends the stock above the $3 trillion market cap. emily: what is your outlook for big tech equities over the course of the year, given news or no news from the fed? dan: right now, you are in a vacuum of news. until fundamentals come, burning streets can have the risk off, i see this cloud and tips will lead is higher. fundamentally, the digital transformation we are seeing is accelerating, not decelerating, because we think about trillions that we spend. in the cloud the next four years. that is what we are focused on. some of the froth will be taken out of the market. it has been a light period for tech but we look back on this time a year from now and this is an opportunity where it is our
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view we are in the middle innings of the tech rally. emily: meantime, i want to turn to tesla, where we are still seeing demand outstrip supply. at what point does supply meet demand and how? dan: we think by next week, tesla will be ready to start producing model y cars in austin, which is important to the broader story. you combine with austin and ber lin launches sometime in february and china. they will be 2 million capacity by the end of the year, double capacity. right now, tesla doesn't have a demand issue. it is a supply issue. we will see with tesla, they will start seeing the acceleration out of china and europe. there was some noise with the cyber truck moving into 2023, a positive thing. in my view, it is all about model y and model 3 cyber truck,
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a 2023 story in line with where gm and ford owners are. emily: a quick question about meta. heading into the year, where you have got a bad news with the ftc. and the oculus investigation. i wonder if you think the name change and outward pivot seems to have worked in terms of tamping down the bad test. -- press. dan: it will go in the genius pr hall of fame in terms of the name change. strategically, they are focused on the metaverse, but everyone knows their core model is asian -- modelization is advertising. they had a lot of situations that take --took the heat off but it is about executing now and that is what they will focus on.
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the regulatory environment for big tech, they will spend a lot of time either in person or virtual. emily: that litigation is piling up. always good to have you on the show. thank you for stopping by. netflix plans to send -- spend on --more on programming, announcing it is raising its price in the u.s. the change is posted on the netflix website. the basic plan that allows one user at a time will go up one dollar while previa him -- premium will get a two dollar boost. the large supporter to stop president biden's mandate. could general election decisions play other employers? this is bloomberg. ♪
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♪ >> 2022 may be the year pandemic becomes and emmett and it depends on the decisions around the world. does are encouraging but i think we have to stay vigilant. emily: moderna co-founder noubar afeyan saying there are 19 could become and make similar to --could become endemic. he said the booster shot could be ready to start trials in weeks, as the supreme court blocked the biden administration's vaccine or test mandate for large employers.
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general electric announced friday it is suspending implementation of the mandate, for largest employer yet to do so. alex with us now. the big question is how many other employers are going to follow suit? alex: yeah, that is a big question. there is a big disparity across the country on this. now that the federal mandate has been blocked by the courts, it is up to where the companies are located. 13 states prohibit vaccine mandates of any kind, while 20 have some type of mandate of their own for state employees or health-care workers. a lot of things, when the federal solution is blocked, it ends up a hodgepodge across the country. it will depend on where you live. emily: does the administration have the next move legally with these mandates? alex: that is complicated. you know, osha, which started
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the program, has other tools in its toolbelt. the biden administration, at the beginning of bidens term, he said he did not want to do mandates. he thought as the vaccines rolled out, if you remember, there was a period where people got baseball tickets and money and boating this is an free beer for vaccines. that topped out its effectiveness. they kind of had to switch to mandates, to coercion, at this point. the amount of tools in the toolbox is limited in that regard. in terms of making mandates, some of these are still around. the one for doctors, nurses, health-care workers was held by the court--upheld by the court. there are others but i think they are limiting what they can do next to really get people to get vaccinated. emily: what else can they do to get people vaccinated or beat back the virus? 500 million or even one billion rapid tests is nice but only a
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snapshot of a moment in time, and more than 300 million americans. alex: that is the big --it looks like the percentage of the u.s. that has been vaccinated is holding steady. it is a little bit over 60%. they are looking to track --crack that 3/4 other country or 2/3 to get vaccinated. they have slowed the percentage. their questions about, how do you fulfill this? there is a lot of expectation that it has become endemic as. . a year or so passes by, their is an expectation we will not see a big change and where we are as a country for the next year or so will stay that way. emily:wow, al l right. we shall see what you'd the year holds. coming up, the future of facts,
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♪ >> ♪ mommy shark, mommy shark, mom a shark, mommy shark ♪ emily: apologies for getting the song stuck in your head but "baby shark" hit a major youtube milestone, viewed more than 10 billion times. it already was the most viewed video on youtube of all time, that record set in november 2020. it is now the only video ever to reach 10 billion views. we are all going to be thinking it now all night long.
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well, let's talk spac's and what the market looks like for this year. joining us to talk about that and more, the cfo of the global technology acquisition corp. a new spac that intends to focus on tech and fintech. there was a big spac frenzy, than they pulled back. some have been doing better than others. why take the spac's back? claudia: like you mentioned, it was an exciting year. 600 billion spac's went into market. we have 4 others priced next week and another 270 in the pipeline. is shaping up an exciting year. we have seen long-term investors, operators, and entrepreneurs with more than 100 0 entrepreneurs in 600 companies. businesses expect to go from the hedge fund background to this
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back market and opportunity to bring good private companies into the public market and support them through the journey with our team. emily: what do you plan to buy? claudia: great question. we had a laid-back year, great conversations, and our main focus is marketplaces. this is where our expertise lays. those other companies that we are talking to right now. you know, as you mentioned, we have high valuations about a year ago last year. the market softened up and decem ber alone last year, we saw 25 mergers completed. you know, we are coming from a strong end of the year and excited about the beginning of this year. while we are seeing is with the rising interest, devaluations adjusted, the result of that, the spac vehicle is becoming
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a good tool for entrepreneurs to look for certainty. emily: that sec has been active looking into spac's and reverse mergers. we are about to hit rate left off cycles. do you wish you had done this sooner? claudia: we actually did it the right time. we navigated through the process. there's 580 spacs looking for opportunities. all of 2022, the great competitor was cash and cash liability for large public corporations. m&a is competitive against private equities. spacs are still the true competitor. it doesn't make a difference for us in terms of finding a good company to break the market. emily: investors have embraced tesla as the biggest carmaker by market value. ford also soaring and these
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other new entrants that went public via spac. they have little in term of revenue. do you think or worry that we could be in the process of a bubble bursting? claudia: if you look at other companies like lucid that was brought in, there are some companies like lordstown that may be will be struggling to bring the average down. it is a matter of, do we have the right asset? if i think about forced spacs, what is the key for us back to be successful? number one, have the right team in the right operating team behind it to be able to continue the journey of a public company. it really depends on the assets you use. emily: what is your outlook for the spac market? does this continue to be a more niche route of going public?
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does it become more popular or not? claudia: we see the spac investment being a good alternative to go public, to go with the direct listing. what we expect to see is a couple of things. in 2022, and 2023, we might see some of the spac's coming to term, in average over the past five years of 5% of spac's that had to wind down in the coming years. we will see the same, just with a larger volume. at the same time, there is an opportunity for spac's to find the right match. we do believe it will continue to be a prominent vehicle. we expect to see less and more repeated interest. we think the markets are bifurcating. emily: any sectors you are
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staying away from deliberately? claudia: specifically, you know, we stayed away in the past from health care. our focus is marketplaces. some of us see a marketplace everywhere. it really depends on how you look at it. generally, those are the key areas where we want to focus. emily: cfo of the global technology acquisition corp. we will watch to see the next move you make. thank you. coming up, we will be joined by amy wu, leading the exchanges new $2 billion fund to invest in crypto startups and more. stay with us. . this is bloomberg. . ♪
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♪ emily: welcome back to bloomberg technology. i am emily chang. ftx is launching a 2 billion-dollar venture fund, one of the longest -- largest today to tap into crypto and beyond. i want to bring amy wu to talk about this, joining ftx, where she led investments in gaming in crypto and was brought to lead ftx's new fund. thank you so much for joining us. to billion dollars is a big number. where do you plan to spend it? amy: we are super excited to be
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one of the new strategic funds to deploy capital and the broader crypto web stream ecosystem. we are pretty early in the market. you can defined by a number of users. we are less than half a billion users, trade crypto globally, and fewer than 20 million people trading, so we are very early. we want to help the ecosystem get to users being on boarded. emily: this money all came from the founder and ceo and ftx. normally when you raise upon, it is from other investors who you have to answer to. how does the structure of this they things different for you, coming from a traditional venture fund, given that you don't have to answer to all of these? amy: the exciting thing is we have the size of funds to write a large range of checks,
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anything from $100,000 to 500 billion-dollar checks. we are able to write those. also, with our outside partners and lps, we are able to move fast and you know really focus on providing value, so our expertise and resources across the ecosystem of partners, and focus on the founding team. emily: meantime, their is so much talk and concern from newer investors about the direction of the crypto market, concerns about the winter, a debt cross coming. we just had john will -- wu who thinks the golden crosses had. where do you think the market will move ahead? how does that influence where and how you place your bets? amy: trading crypto and investments in the ecosystem are two different things. i don't think anybody can predict where the market is going on a short-term basis and
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perhaps medium-term, too. we are super bullish about the long-term trajectory of blockchain adoption. with this fund, we have long-term -- years and decades -- you into the technology cross category. web stream consumer, gaming infrastructure software, health care, and other categories. emily: crypto funds seem to be everywhere. there is paradigm, coinbase, katie han launching her own fund. horowitz has its own crypto fund. are all of these funds going to be chasing the same names, and if so, how do you convince various startups and founders that your money is the money they should take? amy: i think you are seeing a lot of different types of investors coming into the crypto market, because it is a fairly
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decent space. it reflects the size of opportunity and also the number of developers and founding teams in this category. there is a lot of --and in terms of rye they should go with ftx ventures, i would say we are launching with eight people on the team of investors and engineers. everybody has had a significant amount of time and expertise in the space. our objective is to be closer and hands-on with teams and make fewer investments but go a lot deeper. emily: you are across of vertical and i'm curious, how do you find the next infinity that will take the world by storm? amy: yeah, gaming is an exciting category for us. with ftx, it is the largest entertainment category in the world with $200 billion per year
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in industry and content alone. gamers historically have valued in-game digital assets. they really pioneered the value of that. it is natural to think they would want to own the assets. there is controversy around a lot of gamers wrapping their minds around the concept of an fts. we are super bullish around it. in terms of finding these game studios, our teams that are both very experienced at making games and have had experience doing so, and also have an idea of innovative ways to adopt. emily: what is next? obviously, there is a lot of money chasing a lot of potential deals. there is a lot of. . regulatory uncertainty. is there anything you will stay away from? what sort of crypto projects do not have the right stuff? amy: it is a nuanced question, emily. i would say that this year, we
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are always very closely looking at and understanding the regulatory environment. that is the set of rules in the u.s. and that is still emerging and also different across jurisdictions. in the context of what is developing, we will be looking at teams that also respects -- that is important to be compliant regulatory frameworks. it is also an area we can add value on the exchange side system with expertise. emily: amy wu, head of venture and commercial at ftx. thank you for joining us. we will be watching your next move. coming up, the earth keeps setting records as global temperatures rise. my next guest is trying to stop it or as he calls it, turned buildings into teslas, one building at a time. that is next. this is bloomberg. ♪
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♪ emily: blago last eight years have been the hottest on record, 2021 ranked the six hottest year according to nasa and the national oceanic and atmospheric administration. as the globe warms, more companies are doing their part or trying to to stop it. my next guest has been working for a decade to try green american cities by modernizing heating and cooling systems to make buildings more energy efficient. joining me now is the ceo of block power and the way you pointed -- put it is you are trying to turned buildings into teslas. how does the technology work? >> buildings burn fossil fuels
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for heating, cooling, hot water. that is what tesla has taken the fossil fuels and replace it with electricity. we can take that fossil fuel, heating, cooling, and hot water equipment, out of buildings and replace it with 100% electric, clean, green, smart hardware and equipment that uses electricity to provide heating, cooling, and hot water, so we can totally electrify and decarbonize buildings. emily: you just raised $30 million in new funding. how do you plan to spend that money and make this unsustainable proposition for homeowners? donnel: we are going to go building to building across america. there are 125 million buildings around that across the country. we need to decarbonize all of them because they represent 30%
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of greenhouse gas emissions in the u.s. we know we have to decarbonize buildings to reach our climate goal and so we use machine learning, statistical modeling, the latest and greatest tech of silicon valley. we borrow money from wall street. we purchase the clean energy equipment. we loan it or lease the equipment to building owners, so that they can afford it. you lease to them over time. we save each and every building owner money and they repay us out of the savings generated because our systems make buildings more efficient and profitable. they generate savings so building owners can prepay us for upgrading the clean energy system. emily: i have to ask about the devastating fire that killed 17 people. the thought with that space heater was left on for days, perhaps because there was not enough heat to keep the entire building. could your work help eliminate
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the need for this supplemental heat that we know can cause fires? donnel: yeah, that building fire was a terrible tragedy. our heart goes out to everyone who was impacted. the building had a bunch of complaints geared a lot of tenants and residents called the government to complain about a lack of these. that is why they needed supplemental heat but unfortunately, in buildings across the bronx and america, the energy systems are old, inefficient, outdated, unhealthy, and in too many buildings, energy systems are death traps. there unhealthy and dangerous and you will see the kind of dangerous and unhealthy impact we see here. i grew up in a building like this, in a low income community in brooklyn when it was low income in the 80's. we didn't have a functioning
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heating system at all and we would heat our apartment by turning on the oven and opening the oven door and letting the heat from the oven heat our apartment. we would open up the window to release carbon monoxide and all of the toxins that were coming out of the oven. it is far too many buildings across america. there are millions of americans who have old, antiquated, inefficient systems and they are dangerous. we think by upgrading these buildings, the modern technology , is 2022. we shouldn't be using it. heaters to the buildings. . we should use modern, cutting-edge, cloud connected, high-efficiency electric devices. emily: you also teamed up with the city of new york to create more than 1000 jobs in green energy, hiring at risk workers. what does that mean and talk to us about how the initiative will work? donnel: as part of the covid
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response, the white house response dollars to actually train and hire folks from high crime communities to do green construction work, to be trained, employed, go building to building, to install internet antenna, to close the digital divide, so their children can learn remotely. they installed solar panels to decarbonize they heating and cooling systems. we have created this civilian climate corp by hiring 500s adults from a high crime communities in new york city's, the bronx and harlem and jamaica, queens, and brownsville, brooklyn. we train them to go building to building and prevent fires and other kinds of dangerous outcomes like the building in the bronx.
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emily: donnel baird. fascinating work you are doing. we will continue to track your progress. watch out, i doubt. encanto it is here for the number one spot. disney has overthrown adele for number one album on the billboard 200. wordle is going viral, the phenomenon it is today and what people are saying about it on the internet. this is bloomberg. ♪
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it is having at second life on streaming services. the soundtrack became the number one album in the u.s. this week on the billboard what -- 200, bumping adele from the top spot. joining us with more. chris: it is hard to say whether this is one of those pandemic things or whether it is a glimpse at the future of the entertainment business. this came out thanksgiving and did ok. parents were reluctant to take their kids to the theaters. a month later, it was released on disney plus, coinciding with the omicron surge. it starts to really take off. people are posting videos on tiktok. "we don't talk about bruno" is a hit and goes to number one. kids are watching it again and again at home. it just becomes one of those phenomena. emily: talk to us about the potential life with -- this could have.
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obviously whatever disney has, a hit like this, there is ongoing franchising, merchandising, themepark opportunities. does "encanto" get to that level? chris: certainly, it already had a character at the themepark. they will probably build on that. the consumer-products side, is doing ok. it doesn't really have a breakthrough toy like the "frozen" dress from a few years ago. this really is all about the streaming business and disney, all of these folks need to put up fresh movies and tv shows on their streaming platforms. this keep people engaged with disney plus, which is so critical to the company's future. you wander in the future if there used to be so much focus on releasing a movie, if maybe there will not be more online releases of the movie. emily: greenfeld has been
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bearish on disney plus and super bullish on netflix, doesn't think disney has the content to keep subscribers coming. what ouster they have on tap? chris: they promised a huge increase in spending next year. $30 billion. this year, i am sorry. there is a lot of money -- a lot of shows -- we will see big movies this year, "avatar 2", for example. the next "black panther". a lot will come out, assuming it doesn't get interrupted by covid and having to reschedule these shoots. emily: will we see more hits keep coming? chris palmeri, thanks for the update. is a word game with the internet going crazy. wordle has been trending the
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whole week as people tried to guess the five letter word in six tries every day. only one word puzzles a day. it is the same word for everyone. as you can see, no spoilers. it at the same word but after each guest, the tiles change colors to show which letters are not in the word in gray, which letters are in the word but in the wrong position in yellow, and which ones are correctly in the right position and in the word in green. this is our "going viral" of the week. ed ludlow is here to tell us more. today is your first time. ed: it was my first time. it was frustrating because i wasn't as good at it as i thought i would be. i have been looking into wordle. this is what is strange about what is going viral. people are talking about "e ncanto" being popular now. wordle was brought out in
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october. it is addicting. it is only available once a day. emily: it was my second time and i believe we have many more. that is what is so great about this. you can tweet your score. i got mine in four tries. i will try to improve on that, too. talk about why this suddenly became so popular. it started in 2018 but it is only now that jimmy fallon and other celebrities are tweeting about it. ed: it was founded by josh wordle, a developer from reddit. it started at something he would play with his partner, just the two of them. he has a programming background and he had a previous attempt, a few years back, making it public. it did not go well. he had been talking to the media a lot. he is the star himself. josh wordle, the founder,
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talking about the beauty of it and its limitations. it is not in your face. it is not like the other apps where i am hit five times a day. is once a day and it is that restriction he says it is driving people toward it. is infuriating. you want to go again straightaway. you go away until the next morning. emily: they are off the hook. i have been entertained all day long. as you say, as soon as you are finished with it, you want the next one or the ones that came before and they are gone. the other thing that is happening is people are mistaking worlde in the app store for other similarly named games and apple has a big, confusing problem on its hand. ed: that is kudos to the app and
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how good the thing is. it rose up the charts on app store and had to be removed. it is astonishing. the game itself has become a cultural icon in a week. people challenging themselves to what is basically a spelling bee. josh wordle told the press how he used to love the new york times spelling bee. that is what got him into this. i think the scrabble dictionary only has 9005 letter words. it is something that is so widespread. in october, there were a dozen people each day playing in november. there were hundreds of thousands playing each day now. you should see it staying at. it emily: there is this new
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thing which is a spinoff and it tries to stay ahead of you and keep you at bay, changing its secret word as many times as possible but still remaining consistent so the information is given so far. i have not tried it yet but feeling good about my senses. ed: it is just homage to the success. in an episode of the show where we talk about ar nvr headsets, cutting edge technology we are desperate to get our hands on, how funny is it we are hung up on a three-minute game, basic code online, and all you can have is one try? emily: no push notifications or apps. thanks, ed, that make you for watching. that does it for this edition. my colleague david westin coming up next with wall street week. this is bloomberg. have a wonderful weekend.
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david: inflation, record covid numbers and an unresolved standoff with russia leaving us with an uncertain start to the new year. this is uber wall street week, i am david westin. this week, larry summers on the fed aiming for a soft landing. >> we have a massive overheated labor market. david: and jay powell's challenges in his second term. >> the fed will sometimes hit the brakes hard and cause a recession,
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