tv Bloomberg Technology Bloomberg February 1, 2022 11:00pm-12:00am EST
11:00 pm
11:01 pm
dorsey -- why he says facebook should have created on bitcoin. bloomberg scoop. ford is planning to spend $20 billion to prepare for the electric future. we will have all of the details. we will get to that in a moment. first let's get to the markets. the rally in tech stocks continuing. ed: we have some momentum. three day rally. how far is the federal reserve going to go raising rates? what is the priority here? we close 6/10 of a percent higher. semiconductors and mega caps. that is at the same time, yields have stayed higher, 1.79% on the u.s. 10 year yield.
11:02 pm
11:03 pm
a bead on the bottom line. the news is the stock split. making that stock more accessible to a broader range of investors. in terms of specific, google will do a stock split in the form of a special one-time dividend, issuing 1/10 of a percent. one to watch. emily: thank you. i want to stick without the bit -- with alphabet. beating estimates, strong growth , softness. what is your take away? >> the continued strength in tech is ringing through with googles results. the numbers in advertising carrying the day. the crowd -- cloud growth continue. i am not sure they will be as
11:04 pm
happy with that. that business not being profitable. i think that is an area they can continue to invest in as long as they keep generating these returns, expanding margins and the advertising is strong. some of those fears that competitors don't seem to be there despite slightly smaller numbers. emily: i just got off the phone with the alphabet ceo and we talked about the recovery, second phase of the pandemic. there is still uncertainty. i want to ask you about the stock split. here is what she had to say. for some investors, this makes shares more accessible, they can do fractional trading, but she did not want to overstate it, investors say this opened up additional avenues and that is what they are responding to, giving more people access to buying shares. >> the general sentiment is almost always bullish.
11:05 pm
the splits end up yielding significant returns, people hold onto apple for a long time. accessibility is big. investors, young and up-and-coming retail communities like to have bigger positions. the opportunity to get in and have full shares, feel like they are a bigger investor, i think there is a strong sentiment. these splits almost always show great returns and show a bullish sentiment. emily: does the miss in you to bother you at all? the money is almost equal to what netflix is bringing in. it is still a massive business. it is a typical comp if you look back to the fourth quarter of 2020 when we were all on youtube in the middle of quarantine. what is your take? >> you were talking about a 2%
11:06 pm
missed. there has been speculation that tiktok, instagram and other platforms that have become popular could be disruptive to youtube. i don't see that as a significant headwind, i think the overall growth and usage in this particular category expands more to opportunity for you to to keep getting bigger. tiktok and instagram and snap are all competitors, youtube is a different format. the numbers look good. there is not a lot to be negative about. outside of -- tech has been strong. emily: how concerned are you about regulatory scrutiny? we have seen microsoft to a number of huge deals. they don't seem to be the spotlight. i asked people this a couple of months ago. it wasn't slowing them down.
11:07 pm
she talked about fitbit and smaller acquisitions, still looking to use their cash for investment. but are you worried alphabet can't compete and it can slow them down? >> alphabet, amazon, and facebook are all under extreme pressure. i don't think it is changing their decision-making. microsoft's decision is extremely bullish. it was also we are going to see , just how much they are going to come down on this. for alphabet, they will make the moves and keep going forward. they are already currently in that lawsuit with 36 dates ndc about the mobile app store abuses. speculation about challenges around some of the digital advertising practices. companies keep moving forward. the updates and some of the bills trying to better moderate
11:08 pm
how platforms grow. they haven't moved forward fast enough. they will be hard to manage. hard to not like the prospect. i think some investors will be nervous about it. in the long run, they will keep operating and keep trying. emily: googles play in crypto and blockchain, they launched a digital asset group focused on bitcoin and other nexgen technology. i asked if it is a signal of google play, and she talked about blockchain in particular about trading powerful technologies. they are excited to explore, contribute to the ecosystem, and value.
11:09 pm
we will have goods and services to blockchain companies. do you think it can be more than a minor dabbling play? >> in the long run, we will see big tech expanding exposure to crypto and the blockchain. there are so many different applications. we keep hearing the term the metaverse. it is very early right now. but these companies are going to be investigating in any area with significant growth. we've heard about investors making digital real estate because of the metaverse. we will be watching meta as it breaks down the numbers. crypto has been in focus. bitcoin has become part of funds. i would expect companies like alphabet to make significant investments in the blockchain for a varying number of use cases. that does not surprise me. emily: dan newman, thank you so much. we will listen to the earnings calls and give you highlights. coming up, jack dorsey calling up mark zuckerberg.
11:10 pm
11:13 pm
they try to create a currency that was owned by facebook. probably for the right reasons. probably for noble reasons. but there are some reasons that would indicate trying to get more people into the facebook ecosystem. they did that instead of using an open protocol like bitcoin. hopefully they learned a lot. but i think there was a lot of wasted effort and time with those two or three years that could have been spent making bitcoin more accessible for more people around the world, which would also benefit their messenger product and instagram, whatsapp, and all of these things. emily: jack dorsey on what he views as a failure of meta's crypto project, saying they should have focused on bitcoin. jack dorsey speaking with the world's biggest holder of bitcoin at an event. i'm joined by kurt wagner who covers jack dorsey for us. he said meta had the wrong approach from the beginning, but he's doubling down. what do you make of that?
11:14 pm
>> first of all, he would probably think everyone should be spending more time on bitcoin. so he could have logged to anybody. think of what jack dorsey believes is the future of crypto. he believes in this decentralized bitcoin. that crypto is not owned by anybody, not controlled by anybody. we were talking about this last week about why he's taking on venture capitalists taking on other technologies. he sees it as ownership of something that should not be owned by anyone. his biggest issue with what was libra, that has morphed into dm, he felt like it was a facebook product that benefited facebook and not the internet as a whole. to him, that is not what the cryptocurrency is about.
11:15 pm
he was vocally critical of the project along the way. emily: we also got some tweets from david marcus who used to run the facebook/meta, throwing his support behind bitcoin, as well. it has become clear bitcoin will become the one asset still around in 20 plus years. it is truly leaderless. censorship resistant. greater network effects. what do you make of that, given the market was one of his biggest supporters? >> i noticed that. it caught my eye for a lot of the same reasons. it is interesting to see him commenting in what seems to align on the same day. we have given markets that also tweeted out web three and the community around it, and how inspiring he found it. since he has left facebook, it feels maybe he is branching out a little bit.
11:16 pm
it is clear when he launched libra, he wanted to achieve a lot of things that he feels he can do when he's no longer with the company. i did find that interesting. it doesn't mean you can't believe in bitcoin and something else that has become jack dorsey's mindset. a or nothing kind of thing. but most people believe in bitcoin and ethereum. that is ok. i imagine david marcus might fall somewhere around that spectrum. it has been interesting to see his commentary now that he's no longer inside of facebook. emily: why does dorsey think bitcoin is so much better than all of the other cryptocurrencies? >> it goes back to the control thing. he believes bitcoin is truly decentralized, not owned or controlled by anybody, and is the only cryptocurrency that can do that at scale. i think that's the most important thing for him. emily: kurt wagner, thank you. another story we continue to watch. bloomberg has learned the federal trade commission will handle the antitrust review of microsoft's proposed $59 billion acquisition of activision-blizzard. the review will focus on the
11:17 pm
11:20 pm
emily: it is the biggest story of the day going viral around the globe. tom brady, the nfl hall of famer announced he is retiring. days after reports he was planning to hang it up after 22 seasons. the 44-year-old brady writing in a lengthy instagram policy loves his nfl career, but said it's time to focus his time and energy on other things. i spoke with the ceo of ftx yesterday about his possible retirement, a company brady has a stake in. this is what he had to say. >> i don't know anything in public. what i said earlier, our engineer has an opening at quarterback. that is always a possibility. he might be the gathering incumbent. that is always a possibility,
11:21 pm
but who knows? emily: for more, i'm joined by jason kelly. obviously, tom brady, an incredible athlete. he's always been more business minded than most other athletes. what do you think he will be doing next? >> first of all, great to talk to you. he will be spending more time with his family and nft's. what anyone would do right now. this is a guy who has had deep business interests from the beginning, studied robert kraft, the owner of the patriots, where he won so many super bowls. he has had a business line. you mentioned ftx. i jokingly talked about nft's, but this is a company that he's heavily invested in. he's working with them closely. he has an apparel line. he's old, by football terms, 44 years old. he's got a long road ahead of him to do interesting things, that is for sure. emily: i will never forget watching him win the first super bowl in college in boston. the crowd in the middle of the
11:22 pm
winter street in boston. talk about how athletes and businesses they are involved in is changing. you talked to lebron, you talked to a-rod, they all expanded these massive business empires on the back of their careers. >> what is so interesting is they are starting earlier. this is not a moment tom brady is retiring and saying what am i going to do? he's got existing businesses. that is different from 20, 30 years ago, when you would play, even michael jordan really only focused on playing. everything he did in business afterwards came when he hung up his sneakers, his very valuable sneaker deal. the other interesting thing is these guys, and women, look at serena williams, megan rippey
11:23 pm
no, these folks are taking a role as investors, not just endorsers, as owners. that is a pivotal difference. that is why you see the wealth creation you see with lebron or a-rod. that is a fundamentally different thing than we have seen in the past. emily: what about the lifestyle side? so much has been made about the avocado smoothies, he has made that known. >> i think it is a great point. what brady has really tapped into, lebron very similarly, it is not just about being an athlete, it is about being a man, being a person. it is about fashion, media, content, technology. there are a lot of ties back to athletic performances when you
11:24 pm
think of something like tv 12. but it is not getting stronger by lifting weights, it is what you are eating, when you are sleeping, how you are tracking everything. look at apparel. these are the makings of an empire, for sure. emily: if you could predict where he's going next, and how much crypto will play a role in that future? >> the technology side, the crypto side will be huge. ftx, maybe he will be on that flag football team. on a more serious note, look at someone like steve young. former hall of famer in your backyard. a very high level senior working partner at a private equity firm. could you see tom brady go and be an active venture capital investor? absolutely. those are the sorts of jobs these guys are willing to take on. not just someone who shows up and takes pictures, but someone who gets into deals.
11:25 pm
he's already doing that to some extent. could we see a brady participating venture capital firm? i would not bet against it. emily: whether you love him or want to, we will see. jason kelly, great to have you back. bloomberg will be hosting the power player's summit next week in l.a. ahead of super bowl 56. erin andrews, arthur blank, all among the speakers. sadly the 49ers will not be there. speaking of sports, the nfl's denver broncos are going up for sale. that is according to a statement by the team's president saying selling an nfl team is a complex task, but they have hope to conclude the sale by the start of 2022. the nfl season adding, whoever emerges as the new owner will understand what they need in this community.
11:26 pm
jack sweeney, the freshman at the university of central florida, is in a standoff with elon musk after creating a twitter service tracking his private jet. it is called elon musk's jet and was launched in june 2020. musk offered the teen $5,000 to shutdown the service, but sweeney turned it down, raising the stakes to $50,000 or an internship opportunity. he said he's been blocked by the billionaire on social media. meantime, he is launching a business called ground control to monitor the flight activity of other billionaires like bill gates and jeff bezos. coming up, getting closer to a vaccine for all. pfizer requesting the fda to approve its covid vaccine for kids under five. when that can happen, what it means, next. ford its big plans to take on , tech, the carmaker accelerating its ev spending by as much as $20 billion. more on that scoop later.
11:28 pm
- [announcer] imagine having fuller, thicker, more voluminous hair instantly. all it takes is just one session at hairclub. introducing xtrands. xtrands adds hundreds or even thousands of hair strands to your existing hair at the root. they're personalized to match your own natural hair color and texture, so they'll blend right in for a natural, effortless look. call in the next five minutes and when you buy 500 strands, you get 500 strands free. call right now. (upbeat music)
11:30 pm
>> with peloton struggling and apple riding record profits, there is speculation apple could acquire peloton. in my opinion, not so fast. when apple buys companies, it is to develop new features. take authentic in 2012 and how it enabled touch id, or siri before that. peloton would not fit the bill, but would give apple the ability to jump into the physical exercise equipment market. it is unlikely, given bikes are low-margin, expensive to make and very expensive to ship. i think we can rule out apple
11:31 pm
buying telethon for hardware. what about software? telethon has developed fitness applications for its own software and third party devices. i don't think apple needs anymore fitness software expertise. next, content. peloton has fitness classes. it blows apple's fitness pods out of the water. but it would be cheaper for apple to invest further than gobble up all of peloton. with all of that said, peloton would still make sense in terms of underlying tech, patents and key employees. but i think the company is too pricey. apple certainly needs to update its business portfolio. i don't think buying peloton is the answer, at least for now. i'm mark gurman. emily: don't forget, subscribe to mark's weekly newsletter at bloomberg.com. moving on to the pandemic. major news for parents of small children. pfizer has asked the fda to
11:32 pm
approve -- authorize the covid vaccine for kids. aged six months to four years old. for more, i'm joined by jonathan levin. thank you for joining us. huge news. tell us where we are. >> exactly as you said, this is big time for parents of those children ages six months to four years old. this is monumentally important for society as a whole. the omicron variant and hospitalization of young kids were way up in december and january. although the outcomes have continued to be much better than adults, especially older adults, parents don't want to see that. it will have a big impact on the psyche of the american public. these vaccines have proven to be very effective at preventing severe outcomes. the hope is it will do the same
11:33 pm
for those kids. emily: tell us more about the omicron subvariant and how worried we have to be about it. >> experts say we are in a wait and see with it. we have begun paying a lot of attention to it because of the dramatic surge we saw in denmark. a new study out of the university of copenhagen suggests the new subvariant is spreading faster than the original omicron. but critically, it doesn't i. to be anymore verlander. -- it does not appear to be anymore viral and. omicron on average is appearing to be more mild than previous iterations of covid-19. emily: let's talk about the latest numbers and hospitalizations and what it tells us about the virus and what is next.
11:34 pm
>> we appear to be seeing some pretty promising momentum. there was a story today that you see significant drops in the seven day average of new hospitalizations in 34 states. really in some of the laggards states, they should be catching up relatively soon. new york was one of the earliest omicron states. and you see cases dive bombing about 92% from the peak. clearly some positive momentum and a lot of experts expect it to carry through into the weeks and hopefully the months to come. emily: let's talk about what is happening in various states. oregon, wyoming, alaska, different search patterns than what we are seeing elsewhere. what do we make of that? >> what we have seen with omicron is a hyperspeed version of what we have seen with
11:35 pm
previous surges. often times, the variants enter major metropolitan areas with a lot of international travel. you saw omicron work its way through new york city, places like miami. after that, with something like a two week lag, it moves to the more rural parts of the country. we are still seeing hospitalizations go up in oregon, wyoming, alaska, kentucky. fortunately, the leading indicators suggest they are on a similar trajectory to the rest of the country. you would expect those numbers to start coming down soon. emily: jonathan levin, thank you for that update. coming up, the mission to develop sound money. the managing director tells us about the upgrade and what it means for users. this is bloomberg. ♪
11:38 pm
11:39 pm
conference focused on the digital transformation bitcoin strategy, microstrategy the biggest corporate holder of bitcoin in the world. our guest is with us. break it down. a lot to digest. what caught your eye? >> one is jack dorsey talking about the technology itself and how it would have transformed twitter had it been a technology they could have used earlier on. twitter had been open to using bitcoin as a technology while jack dorsey was in charge. the idea they could use bitcoin through the tipping platform strike, and lightning network preferring it as a platform. i hope we will discuss the benefits of bitcoin versus other platforms. the other thing jack dorsey had spoken to you is the transparency of bitcoin as a
11:40 pm
financial asset. the idea it is decentralized and more transparent in other means than a traditional banking ecosystem. technology on one hand, finance on the other. and of course, the reason of the conference itself, microstrategy and its use for companies. the idea more companies should think about the way to use bitcoin, even if they are not putting it on its own balance sheet. emily: jack dorsey doubling down in so many ways. i want to stick with crypto. bring in charlie lee. the managing director of the litecoin foundation. litecoin has been called the digital silver to bitcoin's digital gold. they announced a new privacy oriented protocol called them nimble limbo. good to have you with us. talk about the use cases. what does it do? >> thank you for having me. in 2011, when i first talked about bitcoin, i saw it as a perfect form of money, better
11:41 pm
then gold, better than the u.s. dollar. but the only thing missing from it is fungibility. what that is, basically every single bill is the same as every other bill, every dollar is the same as every other dollar. if you go into the store and make a purchase, it doesn't matter which $20 bill you pull out, it is the same and will be treated the same. right now, it complicates with bitcoin and litecoin. because of the transparency of blockchain. when you make up a bitcoin like transaction, everyone will see how many litecoin's or bitcoins or sent over the network. because of that, it makes it non-fungible. when you got paid in litecoin, for example, and you use the payment to pay for your coffee, the recipient will see how much money you have in your wallet. that is not good. when you want to spend money, you want to spend money without
11:42 pm
worrying about losing financial privacy. this is what we were trying to fix. we were trying to make litecoin more fungible. that meant making transactions not transparent, where the amount being spent is hidden from everyone else except for you and the recipient. the technology is m web, extension block. we are adding that as an extension. emily: privacy upgrades come with other challenges. what do you have to say to regulators who are worried about money laundering? >> for one thing, financial privacy is a human right. we should all be able to spend money without exposing how much money we have. that said, it is important that regulators oversee what is going on.
11:43 pm
we are doing this as an optional opt in. exchanges would not have to work with that side of things, they can work with the transparent litecoin blockchain itself. people using bitcoin can move coins between the mainland and the extension. emily: there is a huge juxtaposition. how do you have a cryptocurrency that is both more transparent and open while also having so many anonymity features? does it create a culture clash in the ecosystem? >> to be fair, the most important thing is hiding the amount being spent. when you are depositing your litecoin, the exchange knows and can see. if they require you to deposit on the main net, they can see how much you are depositing. but hiding the amount is
11:44 pm
important for financial privacy. doesn't make it easier for it criminals to launder money. >> i'm wondering your personal holdings of cryptocurrency now? you sold your litecoin holdings a while ago, it is up on the news. have you bought the dip in other places, or are there other technologies you have come to believe in more? >> my main holding is bitcoin. i believe in bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general. i have stated my reasons for it. which i have been doing it for the past 11 years and not worried about the ups and downs of the price movement. emily: what do you think of elon musk taunting mcdonald's -- this general time thing around dogecoin over the last
11:45 pm
several months? >> i think it is fun. i like toads going. it brings a lot of new people into the space. cryptocurrency is pretty scary for most people. but when you put a dog meme icon on the logo it makes it more fun and easy for people to get into. once they start using dogecoin, they realize the power of cryptocurrency and get into bitcoin. i think it is great. i like what elon is doing. just getting kind of cryptocurrency to be a mainstream topic. >> you mentioned before, it has taken a long time to get to this upgrade. what are the challenges you face getting to this point? >> litecoin is a multibillion dollar currency. we want to take things slow and make sure the upgrade goes smoothly. we don't want to take unnecessary risks or cause the
11:46 pm
network to go down, or anything that can cause problems with people's money. it is being used daily as money. people are spending litecoin to buy stuff. we don't want any upgrades to cause problems. that is why we are taking is slowly. the technology is complicated. we are trying to use cryptography to hide the amount of the transaction in a way that is scalable. it is a hard problem to solve and we are taking it slowly. emily: jack dorsey doubled down on bitcoin and bitcoin only. michael seiler has done the same. what do you make of that narrative, and why are they wrong? >> i would not say they are wrong. coinbase started with bitcoin only. it is the king of cryptocurrency. it is the reserve crypto. it is right to focus on bitcoin
11:47 pm
initially. and once you solve that problem, you can expand into other cryptocurrencies. emily: charlie lee, litecoin founder and managing director of the litecoin foundation. always happy to continue these conversations. coming up, what ford is learning from tesla. sources tell bloomberg ford it is planning to spend $20 billion to prepare for the electric future. more on that coming up next. this is bloomberg. ♪
11:50 pm
-- the difficulties they have, and the way they managed those difficulties into the success they had. they are now making more than $10,000 a vehicle because of their scale. i like that kind of business. emily: that was ford ceo jim farley talking about how it inspired him. now it seems ford is taking their inspiration further. the carmaker is planning a major reorganization to prepare for the electric future and accelerating ev spending by as much as $20 billion. i want to bring in ed ludlow, who helped break this story. interesting to see your scoop and the context of those remarks he made just last week? ed: it is not so much the headline figures, spending $20 billion to transition the plans, it is the bigger picture. sources telling us it is a real -- reorganization, restructure to get ready for the future. ford has such a massive
11:51 pm
manufacturing footprint around the globe, dozens of factories, almost 60, and it needs to earmark money to transition those assembly lines on top of the $30 billion it has already committed. emily: one of the interesting things is how different it is building an electric car versus a gas powered car. you kind of need to create a new organization. he compared it to snowboarding versus skiing. take a quick listen. >> it is kind of like snowboarding and skiing. we both share the lift, the sooner you get off of the lift, the intuitions are wrong between both businesses. you have to relearn how to get down the slope. emily: how does that thought play into the way this reorganization is happening? ed: i should point out, even though he spoke to you a week ago, he did not contribute to the story we broke today. he clearly has admiration, not just for the way tesla does things right now, but the struggles it went through to
11:52 pm
reformat its business. he's right. the operational structure and hierarchy for an ev company and a traditional combustion gas company is different. sources telling us the reorganization is literally that, a reorganization. they need to hire specific carriers, like battery chemistry, software, ai engineering. and make sure the company is set up in a way to reflect how it will run for more commonplace and the functionality they bring with it. emily: ford has poached executives from apple and tesla, do we expect more of that to happen? what is the appeal of detroit versus big silicon valley players? ed: there is so much in this story. for those listening in silicon valley if you work at an ev , start up, or legacy automaker, let's talk
11:53 pm
about it. the legacy guys don't have the same pay structures that rivian or tesla do. they also have equity compensation. it is such a competitive market for talent right now. remember the story we broke on , tuesday, sources telling us doug field is leading the restructuring. he was apple's chief. he was at tesla for a long time as vp of engineering. he had a central role in the world of model three. i bring it up, because there is a finite number of people with the experience of doing this. launching a new ev product and scaling its manufacturing globally. there is demand. get the -- you look at the merry-go-round. but there's a lot of ford people. and apple people. it is a really dynamic space. it is interesting to see what ford will do to win them over. emily: let's say over the next year, you have ford, the rivian trucks finally available.
11:54 pm
tesla with a gigantic lead. ed: the reality is ev sales in the u.s. are only 3% or 4% of overall sales. in europe and in china, that number is greater. much greater. more and more coming online. i thought the most interesting part was him resisting the urge to get the big picture forecast. he said 600,000 per year. by 2024 over the next three years. clearly, they have had to ramp up what they are doing. they have had to ramp up everything. the scoop we broke today sheds light on that forward thinking. what they will have to do to scale back that big way. by the way, during the earnings call, mary burris, talking about 400,000 evs in 2023, let's see how that goes. emily: ed ludlow, great scoop. thank you for breaking it down.
11:55 pm
tesla is disabling a feature of its self driving system that came under scrutiny from u.s. regulators. it allowed cars to slowly roll through intersections without coming to a complete halt when no other cars or pedestrians were present. no accidents reported, but tesla will recall more than 53,000 vehicles. that does it for this edition of bloomberg technology. tomorrow, a blockbuster lineup. lisa sue will be joining us off of the back of the chipmaker's results. michael seiler of microstrategy reporting results, as well. we will talk about the broader crypto landscape. salesforce co-ceo joining us exclusively. you don't want to miss it. i'm emily chang in san francisco. this is bloomberg. ♪
11:58 pm
as a business owner, your bottom line is always top of mind. so start saving by switching to the mobile service designed for small business: comcast business mobile. flexible data plans mean you can get unlimited data or pay by the gig. all on the most reliable nationwide network. with no line activation fees or term contracts... saving you up to $500 a year. and it's only available to comcast business internet customers. so boost your bottom line by switching today. comcast business. powering possibilities.™
12:00 am
>> the following is a paid program. the views expressed do not reflect those of bloomberg lp, its affiliates, or its employees . >> the following is a presentation by rare collectibles llc. >> the biggest numismatic event of the year just occurred, the 2021 morgan silver dollars are finally available and you are first in line to acquire your own set right now. the silver dollar is the ultimate collectors coin
57 Views
IN COLLECTIONS
Bloomberg TVUploaded by TV Archive on
![](http://athena.archive.org/0.gif?kind=track_js&track_js_case=control&cache_bust=296082956)