>> from the heart of where innovation, money, and power collide in silicon valley and beyond, this is "bloomberg technology" with emily chang. emily: i'm emily chang in san francisco and this is "bloomberg technology." coming up in the next hour, white house officials in early discussions about president biden taking a trip to europe, as russia's assault on ukraine only escalates. the u.s. calling on china to put pressure on vladimir putin to

end the war. this as instagram goes dark across russia. the russian government has cut off access to instagram, facebook, and twitter. we examine how the digital iron curtain is impacting every day russians. and china dealing with a crisis of its own, hong kong facing the worst covid outbreak since the pandemic began. the worst since wuhan in 2020. why the technology behind the vaccine most widely used in china may be failing. that's in a moment. first, yet another volatile day in the markets, disbarred -- despite of morning rally p let's bring in sonali basak with the latest. another volatile day. reporter: another volatile day mostly on the downside. risks taken off the table in most major asset classes. the s&p 500 saw a little bit of a decline, less than 1%. the 10 year yield, yields up,

prices down. the yields have risen above 2% again as the curve flattened. at another indicator people are worried about the future. the bloomberg commodity index, people are worried about the supply chain. among one of the most drastic declines, i want to show you the nasdaq golden dragon china index. everything from alibaba, jd.com, following -- falling here. the whole index off 70%. first investors really worried about a crackdown in technology and then worries about delisting. now investors are worried about that relationship between beijing and russia. as investors factor that in, we are seeing an even steeper selloff, almost 12% down today alone. emily: thank you. i want to continue coverage on the latest in ukraine. let's bring in our senior foreign policy reporter. let us start with the latest on

this trip president biden may be taking to europe. what is the latest we are hearing about whether this will happen? >> i think you will see that the president feels it is time for him to essentially get out there and make connections with foreign leaders and put new pressure on vladimir putin. a huge element of president biden's approach has essentially been to project unity with european allies. you now have this news that china is drifting closer and closer to russia. so what president biden really wants to show is the u.s. along with the u.k., france, and germany, those countries as well as the baltic states are feeling anxious that russia may not stop at ukraine, he wants to show that the u.s. has their backs and will do everything it can to support the nato alliance should things get even worse beyond ukraine. emily: at this point, what is the status of getting china more

involved here, and president xi jinping's willingness to put more pressure on vladimir putin? >> it all seems to be going in the wrong direction in a lot of ways. we were told today that essentially, china has agreed to offer some form of military and economic support to russia. at least that is the assessment of u.s. officials, and they are letting allies in europe know that this could be a problem put more pressure on china. the administration had hoped china could be a counterbalance or potentially open the door and put pressure on putin to negotiate. if china is doing that, it is very much behind the scenes. right now publicly at least, china is firmly in russia's corner. emily:emily: meantime russia continuing to cut off access to social media across the country, instagram the latest to go dark. we are preparing to hear from ukrainian president zelensky who will be speaking for u.s.

congress as talks between russia and ukraine seem to sputter today. any sign of progress, when do we expect a new round of talks to begin? >> i think you will see there will be more talks, but whether or not they achieve anything will be the conundrum. that's in part why volodymyr zelensky is going to congress. congress has been a great ally. they have put a ton of pressure on the biden administration to move more quickly on tougher sanctions. the big thing ukraine wants is more military aid. they've been pushing for the no-fly zone despite the fact that the administration says that would put them into direct confrontation with russia. he really wants to put more pressure on congress so that congress in turn, including democrats, will put more pressure on joe biden not only to ration up sanctions, that could potentially give ukraine more military and other aid. emily: bloomberg's nick wadhams

in washington, thank you. coming up, russia banning instagram. the digital iron curtain falling further across the country. what it means for facebook, meta, and citizens across russia, next. then we will hear from nintendo veteran, one of the most widely followed gaming executives. he's not a fan of mark zuckerberg's vision for the metaverse, and goes so far to say facebook is not innovating. my conversation with him from the sxsw festival is next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: russia hasemily: promised a ban on instagram has kicked into full effect with the social media platform inaccessible for the vast majority of the country's population. let's bring in kurt wagner for more on this. what does this exactly mean for every day russians given that facebook and twitter have already been cut off? >> i feel like we are moving towards a relatively dangerous spot, were suddenly facebook, instagram, twitter, these are services that were really connected between -- tissues between the russian people and the rest of the world. a crisis like this, a lot of people could get information and news that was not approved by russian state backed media. you look at what's happening and you wonder, are we ever going to get back to this? is this the beginning of russia looking more like china with a closed version of the internet?

i don't know what happens after this, but obviously it is a significant deal. russia is a lot smaller than china from a total population and user perspective, but it is a big deal symbolically and what it might look like moving forward. emily: absolutely. china blocking facebook and twitter around the beijing olympics in 2008 and never unblocking it. you wonder if that will happen here. i'm curious, in russia, how widespread are the use of vpns and other means to get around the firewall? is that common? >> it is the kind of thing that companies are trying to make accessible. lest week at twitter, they created a version of its website of the browser so that if anyone wanted to get around, they might be able to and use the "dark web" to access the services, but that is not necessarily accessible to the vast majority

of people. that is for people who are tech savvy and going above and beyond to figure out how to keep these services in their lives. the vast majority of people, unless they can get on their phone, it means they won't have access. this is something that, to your point, are we seeing the beginning of a major change that might not be rolled back? the answer might be yes. emily: we are seeing major changes from the platforms themselves. facebook for example relaxing the rules to allow ukrainians to talk about violence in the context of russia's war on ukraine. that has seemed to trigger the government. instagram was a place a lot of people turned to to protest the war in russia. where will russian citizens go to next? what social media outlets are available to them? >> the one service that gets brought up is telegram. i don't know if that is the kind of place where people will be able to organize in the same way

. it is a private messaging app similar to what's up. there are ways to broadcast that way, but they have a different vibe. you talk about what the platforms are doing, the instagram thing in particular was announced by russian regulators after facebook said ukrainians are able to call for violence against russian soldiers and they said this is a company basically allowing people to attack our citizens. that's what russian regulators are saying. i think it has kind of snowballed, the relationship between meta and the russian leaders and i don't know where we go from here. emily: what does this mean for meta and twitter, companies that their growth depends on new users and new ad revenue? >> meta said something interesting at the end of last

week. not a lot of people saw it because it was at a private banking conference they said the ad revenue they get from russian businesses or targeted at russian users is 1.5 percent of their total advertising revenue. while obviously that's not insignificant, it is also not a massive business for meta-. i bring that up because when you look in the future and you say, is this the kind of thing where meta will bend over backwards to get back into russia? i don't know they will be willing to do that for such a small portion of their business. they don't have the financial incentives from -- incentives to make concessions. that's one of the many reasons why i find this digital iron curtain interesting because i don't know if there's enough people in russia for these companies to feel they can compromise on the other parts of their policy that they have so far stood firm and supportive. -- in support of.

emily: meantime, mark zuckerberg making a surprise appearance at sxsw later this week. my guess, all of these topics will be on the agenda, but of course the metaverse and his vision of the future. what do you make of zuckerberg who has not done a lot of press getting out front? >> i heard this was his first time at south by since something like 2010. it has certainly been a long time since he's been to a conference like this. he's doing it with sort of a familiar interviewer, not someone who's necessarily in the news industry that will grill him about all the stuff we were just talking about. i do wonder how substantive the interview will be in terms of news and policy, but for him it is a way to talk about the metaverse and get out in front of a crowd that has always been interested in new and upcoming technology and to pitch his vision. i don't know if it will be as

fulfilled as a news journalist for the interview, but it's a chance for him to reach people who care about the future of tech with his vision for the future of tech. emily: hopefully we got some probing questions and maybe some reaction to what my next guest has to say. kurt wagner who covers meta and twitter for us, thank you. speaking of, i spoke with former nintendo america president and coo, reggie fils-aimé, at the sxsw festival over the weekend and asked what he thought about mark zuckerberg's vision for the evolution of virtual reality. take a listen. >> i'm not a buyer of that idea. i don't think that their current definition is going to be successful. why do i say that? i say that because first, i don't know if anyone from facebook is here, but you have to admit that facebook itself is

not an innovative company. emily: wow. >> they are not. [applause] i mean, you look -- they have either acquired really interesting things like oculus, like instagram, or they have been a fast follower of other people's ideas. that is facebook. inherently, they are not an innovative company, other than the very original social platform that was created many years ago. emily: so what do you think mark zuckerberg is getting wrong here? >> i believe that in order to be innovative, you really need to be thinking about the consumer first, and i don't think they do. i think you need to be looking at -- emily: what do they think about first? >> i think they think about

advertising first because that is 90's -- 98% of their revenue. that's a fact. you have to think about your consumer and customer. you need to think about bringing new and different ideas into the marketplace. you need to reward that within your culture. these are the things that derive innovation. you need a culture of innovation. anything you do within an innovative company, whether you are in accounting, product development or marketing, you need to be challenging yourself to be doing things differently versus doing the same old or copying someone else's idea. so that's why i look at the vision that has been to date articulated and i'm not of reliever -- a believer. the other thing about facebook is they don't have a great history with physical products. portal, not a big idea. emily: oculus. >> oculus, they bought oculus.

they have worked on it for a number of years. the last number i saw was that in total, and not just oculus, in total, about 20 million vr devices have been sold. when i was running nintendo, that was a good year, one year in terms of hardware. emily: i'm hoping we will hear mark zuckerberg respond to that when he speaks. my conversation with reggie fils-aimé turns to gamestop. he joined the board in 2020 just months before the state of its roller coaster that saw the stock go from just a few dollars a share to over $500. he left the board after less than a year saying he was unhappy with the strategy of the chairman of the board, ryan cohen. take a listen. >> i asked to be part of the team to develop the strategy. i knew the business. i knew it as a consumer, as a

vendor. i had pretty strong opinions on how the business needed to be visited, but i was rebuffed. the perspective was, reggie, we want to keep the team small, so it will be myself and a few of the people i brought on board. by the way, who don't know the business, don't understand the players, etc.. i took that as code as thank you, but we really don't want any other ideas. for me, that was not acceptable. emily: so what do you think of the strategy now? >> there has not been an articulated strategy. you can go on the gamestop website and try to find a strategy but there is no articulated strategy. the leadership says you won't find it because we don't want anyone to steal the strategy. you know?

i come from the business perspective that you need to articulate your strategy to all of your key constituents. you need to communicate to your business partners, vendors, employees, shareholders. you need to communicate your strategy. emily: former nintendo america president and coo reggie fils-aimé there at sxsw in austin. coming up, the disney ceo bob jpeg breaking his silence on the controversial florida school bill. how it is impacting employees across disney, pixar, and more and what it means for chapek, head of this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: just two years into his

role as disney ceo, bob chapek under scrutiny following his response to a controversial florida school bill. for more, we bring in chris palmeri who covers disney for us. set the stage. what is the bill and why is it so controversial, what bob chapek didn't, and now does, have to say about it? >> the bill was passed by both houses in florida would prohibit schools from discussing sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through third grade. this is designed for parents to be able to control the discussion of these issues with their younger kids. a lot of people in the gay community obviously don't like it, they call it don't say gay, they feel this is really stifling to kids who may be deciding where they are going in life.

so he has broadly tried to keep disney out of these topics, he tried to work behind the scenes on this issue but not take a public stance and said that's what he wanted to do going forward. the rank and file at disney revolted, essentially, openly on social media, saying they disagree with this policy with a letter from pixar employees, animators, a union sent out statements. so bob chapek reversed the decision a couple days later last week saying we are openly opposed to this bill. then a couple days later, he reversed further and publicly apologize to employees. emily: a lot of employees were not happy and you also had leadership within disney for example in pixar releasing their own treatments. you have bob iger, the former ceo also speaking out about this. what do you make of the pushback

from other executives? >> this is part of a broader issue that he found where he does not have the same support from the creative community that his predecessor bob iger did. so he's basing the decisions that are unpopular, relocating a lot of employees to florida that work in themepark design from california. they are not happy about being told they have to move. so we have weird situations with the florida governor desantis slammed disney last week saying they don't care about human rights in china. and then the governor newsom in california saying, why are you moving people to california? as this happens, he is opening the company to people on both sides.

emily: this as disney shares has been struggling. meantime, electric carmaker rivian has hired a new coo from one of the world's biggest automotive suppliers. he will take the role on june 1, rivian announced monday. he led the car making unit before that at mercedes' parent company at daimler. rivian stock has been crushed in recent days after the forecast building just 25,000 ev's this year, about half of what the factory is capable of due to shortage of parts and production. the rivian coo resigned in the last year. coming up, the pandemic far from over, china facing its worst outbreak since early days as lockdowns are being put in place to stop the spread. how that will impact the supply chain, coming up. discovery shareholders approving a merger with warner media.

the network prepares to launch its new streaming service. we will have my conversation with cnn executive vice president andrew morse from south by southwest later this hour. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: welcome back to "bloomberg technology." i'm emily chang in san francisco. the chinese city of shenzhen, home to 7.5 million people, is locked down as covid cases have doubled. this as china faces its biggest covid outbreak since wuhan in early 2020. foxconn, apple's biggest supplier, is now halting operations in shenzhen and this has massive global implications. mark gurman gives us a status

update on what's happening at foxconn and what the impact of this more broadly will be. >> as of now, the office, the main supplier, as well as the iphone factory within shenzhen, those are closed. foxconn is in saying when they will be reopening. it was not definite for now. but for closures, it is in effect in that area until march 20 so it's possible it will open around then. we know the fluidity of covid and how things will go on. that is the real fear. as of now, a week of one iphone factory being shut down will not have much of an impact. this is a slow season for apple. but they need factories running at full steam in the fall and late summer, new ipads in the fall, augmented reality headsets next year. that would be dangerous territory. but i think it will be ok given the main iphone plant is in

another region of china many miles away from here. emily: the pandemic in china is hitting a new peak in covid cases, not just happening in shenzhen. what is apple doing or what can apple do to mitigate this given that there are already global supply chain issues that have been reverberating for two years? >> it is very much whack-a-mole. foxconn has many factories where they produce the iphone and other products. as limitations go up in some factories, they will have to reallocate that to other factories. as other factories reopen, they have to move production back. i'm sure that's what they are on the scene in china figuring out right now. they want to see how bad this becomes. obviously we are and a different place than we were two years ago now with vaccines and masking and people used to these protocols.

so my hope for apple and china globally is this it's resolved quickly and foxconn can work through it at a faster pace than two years ago. if you remember even at the height of the pandemic, apple and foxconn were able to figure it out. in the middle of everything, apple was still able to shift -- ship the iphone in november 2020. that was a two-month delay for the flagship product in the middle of covid, pre-vaccine. so they were able to figure out then with only two months delay, i'm optimistic they will be able to figure it out with more vaccines and masking regulations at a slower period for the company. emily: mark gurman, we will continue to watch this. thank you. i want to stay on the topic and bring in a senior genomics analyst with arc invest. we are seeing the spike in china

as the world health organization has been considering declaring an end to the pandemic. thus the signal to you that it can get worse or a lot worse before it gets better? >> thank you for having me. nice to see you again. i think obviously we have had these spikes before and seen multiple mutations arising from covid-19 and this continues to be an ongoing issue we are monitoring. one of the things we are thinking about his disruptive technologies that could potentially help the crisis. one such technology is crispr, essentially working to look at different cases and potentially being a diagnostic tool, but is also used as a therapeutic tool as well. emily: china has had a zero covid policy, shutting down versus vaccinating on a broad scale. they've been using the novavax vaccine, but that does not use

mrna technology and appears to be not as effective. are we seeing that technique order that technology breaking down? >> it's possible. we have been very focused on mrna technology. we have seen pretty great results from it from the u.s. or israel where we have a substantial amount of data. this mrna technology is novel and has not been used prior to the covid-19 pandemic. we are following very closely with the companies are doing and how they are utilizing that technology including moderna but also therapeutics and other companies focusing on ash we can talk about pfizer and the partnerships they have started, but the amount of sheer data we will get from mrna and be able to compare that to the adenovirus vaccines as well. emily: how has the pace, given

the role we see a play and vaccinations come along with crispr as you mentioned? >> so the pace of innovations is really interesting because we are seeing that because i think it is an excellent example. we are seeing these amazing examples. prior to crispr, there's another gene editing form. essentially those took a long time to move from discovery to the first human dose. that happened in roughly eight years whereas crispr took less than half that time. it was three years they also can target many more unknown diseases. what we are seeing as there is a proliferation in terms of the pace of innovation. an example for that would be the crispr therapeutics, working on potentially functional cures for diseases like sickle cell and beta sls emea --

we are seeing the data look like it could potentially really be a functional cure. so the pace of innovation but also what's happening with innovation is really exciting right now. emily: meantime, there's a controversy evolving in the gene editing world that i know you were following closely were nobel prize winner, jennifer down a who's made important discoveries and been recognized for her work on crispr, has lost a patent dispute discovering -- around the discovery of her and her team around a part of the technology. what does this mean and how there's -- how significant is this? >> that's right. first i think it is great we are talking about this because it demonstrates a commitment from scientists across the board and it is also complicated. i think it's great to delve in.

first of all, what is crispr? it is a precise tool used for gene editing. we believe in it and we have been investing in it for years and we think it is an innovative tool and revolutionizing the way we think about treatments but also potential cures. a little bit of background here. it is essentially from a family of dna sequences that was found to affect the genomes of bacteria and is now in trials used for correcting genes in humans. about the patent dispute, really quick background. you covered some of this. in 2012, jennifer dowd not -- jennifer doudna and her lab partner, someone at harvard was the first want to do this so there are essentially two sides.

jennifer and emmanuelle on one side, other side was harvard. in 2020 as you mentioned, they actually won the nobel prize in chemistry for their discovery of crispr cap9. but the patent office did not follow suit. what does this mean? this doesn't stop any ongoing trials so all clinical trials will continue. it doesn't affect ip outside the u.s. most likely it comes through some crosslicensing across companies. in terms of specifics for companies, they get their ip through and then crispr. so through jennifer doudna and emmanuelle charpentier. emily: interesting.

a controversy. we will continue to follow it. jennifer has been a guest on this show several times. ali urman, thank you very much. next, the long legal battle over legal sales of the x rp token. what that means for the broader crypto industry, next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: time for our crypto report of the day. i want to focus on ripple after the sec alleged the

cryptocurrency platform engaged in the unlawful offer and sale of securities. ripple countered saying they have not had reasonable fair notice from the sec about whether sales of x rp were indeed illegal. let's get into this with our crypto contributor. talk about how the markets reacted to this news. a volatile market for bitcoin as well. reporter: even though we see ripple down a little bit, it did rise after this news and over the seven day period actually, we do see ripple rising to the point where it's almost twice as much as bitcoin rising in that period animals three times in a theory him. so yes, very good news in terms of ripple and sec defense, but there are questions remaining for the market not just for ripple but the crypto industry at large. in that question is a factual one. will it cause more issuers to register with the sec, and what

kind of regulatory overhang does it leave for the market? emily: stick with us, we will get into this conversation with the ceo, brad garlington house. you called this a victory. what does it mean for you and the broader crypto industry? >> i think it is a victory not just for ripple the company but the whole industry. the sec consistently tried to expand their reach and control over the industry. and to have the executive order coming out sent to all agencies saying we need to be coordinated. if we -- we need to not have one group behaving one way and another group behaving another way. emily: what do you make of the

prominent role crypto is playing in the war on ukraine and concerns about how cryptocurrency could be used for sanctions on russians? >> i think this is a bit of a red herring. the practicality of using this to circumvent sanctions is really difficult. the reality is that if you just take the basic math before the invasion of ukraine, there's about $50 billion a day

liquidity in the crypto markets to put a dent in that. moreover, the point at which sanctions are applied is at the endpoint. so through exchanges, like finance -- binance. we've seen exchanges around the world saying we will acknowledge and respect of sanctions. so the idea that crypto has been used at any scale to circumvent sanctions, it doesn't really understand how some of this works. reporter: on the one hand, you do have plenty of exchanges that seem to be working with the biden administration to figure out what's going on under the surface in the market. on the other hand when it comes to the sec, it seems like they've been at the crosshairs of a number of different firms. do you think the sec is taking a tougher stance than the administration at-large and do you think that will hinder some progress that firms are making? >> there's no question the united states security and exchange commission has reduced the competitiveness of this industry. they've been out of step with this and other major economies in the world. the only company in -- country in the world that considers xrp

as a security is the united states. we've done this successfully in the u.k., switzerland, japan. all of these countries have acknowledged x rp. if you want the u.s. to be a leader in the new growing critical innovative industry like the internet 20 years ago, we need those regulatory clarity. emily: brad garlinghouse, ceo of ripple. always good to have you with us, and sonali basak. coming up, the path to profitability for cnn plus.we hear from the head of the new media venture, next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: cnn is preparing to launch its most ambitious effort yet, a new streaming service cnn plus. why will consumers buy in when there is a sea of other streaming options? here's what the cnn executive vice president who is leading the effort has to say. >> i think in our heart, we have always been about the news. i think every news organization in the united states tends to do a re-think because politics becomes an important coverage area for everybody. i don't think that's unusual for any news organization to think, what is next? especially now by the way, at a time when the entire industry is moving quickly and being disruptive, i think it is logical. emily: there's been a lot of controversy surrounding jeff zucker's departure not long after chris cuomo's exit, tied in part to chris interviewing his brother, the

governor of new york, on air. you've seen the criticism. what is your view on what happened? >> that's a good question, emily. [laughter] what is my view? when i heard about jeff's resignation, i was shocked. we were all shocked. it was a hard day for cnn. jeff resigned and he said he was resigning because he did not disclose a relationship he had with a colleague. that was -- his departure was hard on the whole organization. we have all been doing our best to lead through a difficult period with jeff's departure. emily: some of cnn's own stars have pushed back on the way this was handled. dana bash said on an internal meeting that the punishment did not fit the crime. did you think the punishment fit

the crime? >> i think the rules apply to everybody. and the fact is, the three red and white letters of cnn matter a lot and they are bigger than any of us. emily: meantime, shareholders have given discoveries merger with cnn parent warner media the green light. the discovery ceo naming the president of cnn. i spoke with andrew morse more in-depth about the future of cnn plus, the new streaming channel and first big effort since the network launch. >> the beauty of a subscription service is if you create something of value, people pay. you walk into a supermarket, a mall, a shop, you go online, if there is something of value, you pay. when you think about cnn, you think about the coverage in the ukraine, the depth of knowledge sunday group to has in the role -- sanjay gupta has, we are

so confident that people will be willing to give up one cup of coffee a month to pay for a new service. emily: just in time for your appearance today, shareholders approved the merger of discovery and warner media. cnn has a new president. he helped conceive morning joe, produced the colbert show. have you met and what has he told you he wants to see from cnn plus? >> we have not been able to talk to him yet, and even though the discovery shareholders have voted, we are in a quiet period so we have not been able to formally meet. but i have gotten to know chris over the years. what i do know of him is he's an incredibly creative producer and great journalist, somebody who

really knows what an organization like cnn needs to be successful. emily:emily: what is the budget for cnn plus? >> it is by orders of magnitude larger than anything cnn has taken on since the network started. it is a serious undertaking and requires serious investment. the reason for the significant investment is it is tied to that aggressive is in his plan. we -- business plan. we feel confident we will be able to grow a substantial subscriber base quickly. we've been able to put together a case to where we think we can get a healthy business. emily: given the research you've done, when do you expect this to pay off? >> we think it can become profitable within a few years. again, it is the beauty of the subscription business. i come back to that every time. that's what makes it different from cable television. that's what makes it different

from advertising. if you build something of value and deliver value to customers and put those customers before anything else, you can build the business, you have to back it up. you have to have a great product, great content, great talent. you can't be afraid to pivot. you can't be afraid to continue to take chances. but we feel good about what we are building. emily: andrew morse, executive vice president of cnn, speaking at the sxsw festival in austin, texas. cnn plus launches march 29.that does it for this edition of "bloomberg technology." tomorrow, we are joined by the founder of girls who code. she's got a brand-new book. also, the ceo of consent is and the cofounder of a theory him, tomorrow -- ethereum, tomorrow on "bloomberg technology." i'm emily chang and this is bloomberg.

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>> a very good morning and welcome to "daybreak: australia ." we are counting down to asia's major market open. shery: the top stories this hour -- the white house says talks with beijing on ukraine were substantial in the first high-level discussion russia's invasion. haidi: u.s. stocks failed to hold onto early gains. the s&p 500