emily: can it really be a hedge against inflation? we will speak to the worlds biggest corporate holder of bitcoin. we will get to that in a moment but first it is a bloodbath with netflix with a drop in subscribers and drop in shares. ed ludlow has been pouring through the numbers. it's kind of unexpected. ed: hugely unexpected. 200,000 customers lost. netflix expected to add more than 2 million. another loss of customers, 2 million loss, with ed outlook of

a gain. in three out of the four regions where netflix operates, the lost customers. after hours, this is the fifth quarter were there has been a negative reaction. none of this we saw coming but when you consider markets throughout the day, a rally across equities relative to the broader market despite yields continuing to elevate. a risk on mode with bitcoin getting caught up in it. the other big story i have been tracking -- and elon musk's bid to buy the company. twitter lower on tuesday -- the big news apollo getting in on the act saying they would partner with musk or another private equity firm with credit backing or preferential equity. the new york post reporting that

musk is struggling to get backers. he could put 10 billion dollars to $15 billion of his own money in and do some kind of leveraged buyout. one story -- we have to focus on netflix. it's not just netflix moving after hours. you look across the streaming space and we see serious declines. paramount little changed in after hours, but roku also suffering. the question is is this isolated in just netflix or the growth in streaming. the pandemic, is that over? emily: we will see that in earning reports to come. we're going to bring in a long time onto p or an executive in the streaming business. great to have you back with us. first subscriber loss in a decade. what went wrong? >> i don't think it was unexpected that netflix was going to have challenges. i've been saying so for the last

18 months. to have such a large miss is a bit surprising. but there are a few core challenges that it's astonishing to me netflix has not adjusted and even in the report, it doesn't seem like they are looking to. there's a lot of talk about competition from disney and hbo max and amazon and others and i do think that has some impact. but what people are not talking about is most of the growth over the last two years has been ad-supported solutions. the pluto tv -- what other companies have done as they went and acquired those companies. while they made acquisitions to diversify their business model in streaming, netflix has yet to launch any cheaper, ad-supported or free ad-supported tear. so inflation hurt them more,

competition her thumb more than it will a lot of their competitors. emily: part of the overall number we are seeing is russia and we saw netflix cutting off service there. i believe it's only about 300,000 accounts total but clearly there is a problem with 2 million paid subscribers going in the coming quarter. why are we sing not just losses but deep losses? andre: partly because there's nothing they've done or mentioned they have done to solve these challenges. they are increasing the money on investment bank -- you can't really spend your way out of this because there are other huge companies spending billions of dollars as well. so that's not really the challenge. the other thing netflix was good at historically is they had a six or seven year head start when it came to data in terms of streaming media consumption for television and movie shows. but that allowed them to do is

in essence play money bowl with content licensing. now they can't do that because the owners can monetize it themselves. they mentioned launching the two thumbs up button to give them insight. there's nothing netflix can do to glean more data author platform that could help them compete with the diversity of data a company like amazon has. they know what you buy. google knows what you search, apple knows what music you listen to. that's going to be a real challenge and the investments they made into gaming -- they spent hundreds of millions of dollars, but the people they are trying to capture spending billions of dollars going into the metaverse -- going down and trickling down into what they have been doing really well over the last decade and thinking it's going to carry them through the d 20's is going to be difficult. emily: he covers the

entertainment business for us. he's not talking about ads -- he says make better shows. what about that? andre: i think that's the mentality they have doubled down on. we can poach the biggest producers in the industry, have the greatest tv shows and great movies, we can fend off companies like disney that have 100 years of content, that they can just keep updating. that strategy has proven it doesn't work. emily: how contagious do you think this is going to be? are we going to see this reflected in disney results? they are also relying on new content. andre: i don't think the results will be the same in terms of other companies for a couple of reasons. one, the other streaming solutions are still new. they are launching a new markets for the first time, so there are

potential subscribers that never had the ability to access the content whereas netflix has had wide distribution for some time. the second thing is everyone else has diversified. there are cheaper tears, like hulu where subscribers can get in less and see ads or completely free tears. in the ad supported ecosystem, which has seen massive growth year-over-year even despite lockdowns and the pandemic. so it does not hold true the people are not streaming anymore because the data shows that's absolutely not the case. emily: always appreciate your insight. coming up, uber and lyft dropping the masks, saying masks no longer required. will drivers and riders be more

inclined to travel or less? this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: no more mask on rides -- l uber andyft shifting their mask policies after a u.s. judge overturned a federal mandate for passengers to cover their faces on monday. let's bring in jackie dobler's who covers uber and lyft for us. does this mean drivers and riders are more or less inclined to travel? >> if you are one of those who has been following mask mandates for the past two years, this may seem like an inconsequential update and policy. but if you are like me, who forgets to where a mask in a

different coat pocket or purse, it might come as a relief or makes you more likely to take another ride. for many, it's something we have learned to live with. for others, it might bring them off the sidelines after feeling strongly about not wearing masks. on the driver side, that is where we are going to see more of a diverging reaction. it may not be such a slamdunk policy for drivers because many were already skittish to come back to the platform as we have spoken about in the past. the driver shortage is a major reason that has persisted -- the tight and concerned around the risk of infection of having someone in your car. emily: uber and lyft also in now saying riders can ride in the front seat. folks should be respectful if they want to wear masks. how much is this going to impact uber and lyft's but on line? jackie: when we think about

where the companies are today, uber has more about buffer with their uber eats business, but they've been trying to bolster that mobility segment and this is only going to help that. the rideshare business is already profitable and it can only help if they can reduce levels back to where they were pre-pandemic. for lyft, the stakes are much higher, given that ride-hailing is their primary business. some of their business as it relates to airport travel, major airlines loosening mask mandates and potentially seeing an uptick in flights is only going to help rideshare companies even more. but definitely ridership has not totally recovered and this could potentially put them closer to the finish line. emily: we were is hinting that it's back but it does not show up on the app in the u.s. or europe. jackie: they have been testing

the pool strategies here and there but i spoke with them this morning and the company said this -- they have nothing to share, not something that is being tested broadly, but i think we will hear from lyft in particular in the coming months, now that you see city starting to revise and loosen some of their own mask updates which just goes to show that pandemic conditions are improving more broadly and rideshare companies are quick to benefit from that. emily: we will see how it evolves. coming up, we will hear about all things crypto from regulations to stable coins to elon musk and then attempted a twitter takeover. that's next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: ftx founder and ceo sam

bateman freed was recently profiled on how he plans to give away his fortune and has been vocal about the musk-twitter controversy and how blockchain could revolutionize social media. he started by talking about crypto regulation and how it could change businesses, including way traditional wall street operates. sam: one of the things is it may provide a pathway to get involved in digital assets. that is something i am excited about. a lot of them have been waiting for clear federal oversight to get involved. i think there are interesting implications for other asset classes but you have to be careful. how would that interface with a system like this? i think it's an interesting question and one that needs more

thought. we would be looking to start doing this for digital assets but it would be interesting to do a deep dive with the cftc and the areas about how this could interface with that. when you look at things like treasuries, tokenized treasuries could be interesting. getting rid of the system we have -- with securities, where it takes two days to settle a trade and there is not of uncertainty and risk and exposure during those two days, it would be cool to see real-time risks and settlement based on tokens. so i think there are really interesting applications. >> i want to pivot to an interesting story -- elon musk upon bid for twitter. we just had a headline crossing he's willing to invest $10

million to $15 billion of his own cash. you have proposed a decentralized model for twitter. can you walk us through how you think that would be beneficial for the company? sam: i think this would be an important innovation in social networks. we will have to see how it plays out but here's the core effect. one of the big problems with social media is there are lots of platforms and all the platforms are completely independent of each other. there's no ability to see a tweet on facebook if you message someone on facebook, whatsapp can't read it and it's the same company. so it is a messy system where there is no interoperability between different platforms. a second problem is around moderation. what's the moderation policy for all social media programs?

who treats what does and doesn't get system -- get censored? that's a broken model. we've seen in social media choose not to censor and get ads reverse -- get roasted for that decision. and so here is the core of what i think would be exciting -- you take a blockchain, but the underlying messages directly on the blockchain and that means any platform in theory could access the same sets of messages. whether you are using facebook, twitter, whatever the platform is with a are drying -- drying on all the messages. they can all read from the blockchain. but they are are different interfaces living in the same universe. one of the cool things that falls out of that is interoperability. it allows for more competition

because new people can enter the space without being miles behind in terms of user base growth. the other thing it means is when it comes to moderation, you can have different platforms making different decisions. you can have two people with two different platforms with the same underlying messages accessible so they don't have to deal with the network effect problem but which makes slightly different decisions about what to censor and what not to censor. that can at least give some consumer choice, can at least give people options. matt: i to get they fascinating option and i've seen it on the elon musk twitter announcement. i'm just wondering if you have talked to elon about this? sam: i have not talked directly to elon about this but i would

be excited too. i have had some conversations with people who are investigating this. i think there are really cool ideas and i would be excited to be involved in something whether you are looking up -- the biggest thing would be thinking about how blockchain could be applied here. i would be excited to help on the designing and building of it. potentially helping to manage a network looking to do this. emily: that was sam bank been freed with matt miller and kailey leinz on bloomberg's crypto show. speaking of elon musk and twitter, this story has been developing day by day. ed ludlow is here with more on the latest. apollo now weighing a bid for twitter as well? ed: bloomberg sources saying apollo's weighing a lot of

options. either they back musk plus bid or a bid from others. one other report suggested apollo could go to twitter and help their defense and say let's do something together directly. you get these caveats that the deal may not happen depending on certain circumstances but the new york post with the story of the day, reporting elon musk is struggling to find backers for his own bed but ultimately is considering putting 10 to 15 lien dollars of his own money he needs to find the financing because the figure currently on the table is a $43 billion valuation. emily: one of the takeaways as investors need to buckle up. this could be a long ride. this could go on for months. ed: we have discussed on this show, all the experts in the world of m&a saying it is playing out as a textbook

scenario for a hostile takeover. the new york post did report that a tender offer directly from musk could come at some point in the next 10 days. that's great fun for me because i like to get up at 4 a.m. and wait for regulatory filings to come through and that is how it would be communicated. that's the thing -- we have to wait and see how it plays out. the hypothesis on the street is musk is going to have to do this in coordination with the number of parties and that gives him options. emily: and tomorrow is four/20, which is one of musk cost favorite days. are you going to wait for that regulatory filing? ed: i will stay up all day and all night and four/20 is also tesla's earnings. sure. emily: we will be watching. florida governor, ron desantis, has escalated a dispute with

disney come asking a states legislator to consider terminating special districts where disney has special privileges like tax-exempt financing. this is the first indication that the standoff between the state and entertainment giant about gender identity and sexual orientation could have consequences for disney, as plunging shares of netflix has impacted companies tied to streaming companies like disney, also dropping 5% after hours. airbnb is not only planning to issue a lifetime ban to the renter where a shooting occurred in pittsburgh. two teenagers were killed, nine others injured at an underage party early sunday morning. in 2019, airbnb announced a global ban on parties and events after a number of violent incidents. it blocked thousands of rentals hosts breaking party rules.c do

coming up, more on that first subscriber loss for netflix in decades. and later, it all started with crazy rich asians -- how the nonprofit gold houses looking to raise the profile of rate -- of asians not just across entertainment but business in silicon valley. that's still to come. this is bloomberg. ♪

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emily: welcome back to bloomberg technology. i'm emily chang in san francisco. after a decade of meteoric growth, netflix has run into a wall. the streaming service losing 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter, the first time it has shed subscriber since 2011, shares plummeting in late trading. joining us now is my guest, what do you think happened here? >> can you hear me now?

emily: go for it. what do you think happened here? rich: what happened is the content is not resonating the way it should. while they are making a lot of excuses, it's hard to look past the fact that when netflix had great content, their subscribers have exploded. it seems like there's a connection between some of their film content -- they put $5 billion into the film business and it does not appear to be having the type of impact on subscriber growth. they are making a lot of excuses. is it a supply chain for tv's or a problem with connected tv sales? sure. we've seen this with other companies but there is no doubt a big chunk of this is netflix's content is simply not breaking through the way it has in prior years. emily: netflix says it's going to zero in on password sharing and shonda rimes to turn things

around. obviously bridger 10 has been a hit. i'm sure you would agree. but what are they not getting right in content? rich: there's a lot of competition. but it's not like there were massive competitive hits this quarter. hulu had to drop out but i would not say they were breakout hits pressuring netflix. the big question investors are grappling within the big reason you see the stock down so much is the question now becomes was reed hastings and team just too optimistic about how big the streaming market was? we used to talk about 700 million ultimate subscribers. jason kyle arliss talking about a billion subscriber opportunity. if 200 million subscribers is near the top, that changes

everything for how every media company, legacy media company -- it changes everything if that is the size of the market. and i think that's the panic you are seeing in the stock -- oh, my god, is this business model far, far smaller than people expected? people were looking at multiples of where they are now, not this being increasingly a ceiling. one of the big questions is is this anyone's fault at netflix? is 70 getting fired for this? is there going to be an executive shakeup because of this or is this unavoidable, and i think investors are going to want to know is someone at fault for this. emily: do you think someone is at fault? rich: the content clearly has not resonated. they have to explain -- it sounds like from the press release that they are ramping investments. they are not pulling back. you don't usually ramp investment and doubled down on content if you don't believe

there is a substantial long-term market opportunity. so do they believe they are going to get to 600, 7 hundred million subscribers and it's just not linear the way wall street wants? it's going to be odd and scary to wall street if they are ramping what they spend and have hit a ceiling, investors are going to panic. emily: how much do you think the price hike had to do with this and what about an ad-supported model? our guest was suggesting that earlier to offset some of these costs. rich: i know there is a lot of investors that would like them to follow suit on and add model. i continue to not be convinced. where an ad model is most successful is the u.s. and developed parts of europe which is where and -- which is where netflix is increasingly mature. the benefit to doing and add model would not be in places

where there is an ad market. you could say in india would an advertising model help? not really. there is not a robust ad market for these streaming services as companies like disney know well. so i'm skeptical that while i think advertising could create a short-term spike in subscribers, i don't think it is the answer and brings a lot of risk. what makes netflix unique when you have amazon and apple ad free -- i don't think it's about advertising being the panacea. i think the question is can you make enough great content to drive subscribers to 800 million? is it possible or has reed hastings changed his mind that the market opportunity is simply not that big? if it isn't that big, why are they not cutting back on content expense? those we -- those will be the big questions for the call.

emily: could gaming be a panacea or is that another money pit? rich: what's crazy is there's no mention at all of gaming in the press release. they spent time last time in the press release, there's no mention of gaming. it's obviously at a nascent stage. it's just started nine months ago. it's not as if we could say why is gaming not working yet. could it be the long-term solution? it's possible, but in the next two years, i doubt it is the catalyst. the real question is, they lower price in india, they have very little in terms of subscribers, why is it not growing faster given the amount of spending they've had in india? is it just that they can't seem to break through? do they have the wrong content mix or strategy? they had slower growth in the aipac region despite lower pricing in one of their biggest

markets, india. it's hard to understand that. emily: it is certainly a new chapter beginning for netflix. rich greenfield, always appreciate your quick analysis. thank you. rich: the question is is it time for the #good luck streaming? emily: coming up, can bitcoin be a hedge against inflation? we will be joined by a bitcoin bowl to talk about inflation, elon musk, jack dorsey, and much more. that's next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: time for our crypto report and the market looking aversive. microstrategy co-founder michael saylor might push back on that idea. let's bring him in now. good to have you with this. you've been saying you think bitcoin is the hedge against the dangers of inflation but what do you make of the fact of staying in a tight range and not moving on from that $40,000 mark? michael: it's all time frame. if you go back to years when microstrategy brought -- bought in, it's up to hundred percent has dramatically outperformed the nasdaq or gold or any other asset. if you are looking at it in a matter of days or weeks or months, the traders control it. there are three types of investors in bitcoin -- there are the traders, the technocrats, and the maximalist's. the maximalist's are all in.

myself, jack dorsey, we think bitcoin is an instrument of economic empowerment. we are busy educating and sweep free cash flows into it but we are out of the market day today. the market price is set by a tug-of-war between the technocrats -- the people who are pro-technology and think it is the next big tech network like google or amazon for money, and the traders, who are looking at and uncorrelated asset. so, right now, the traders and technocrats are scared of risk, so they've both been in a bad mood and have been selling. what you will see over time is the technocrats will turn into a good mood and realize this is the next great big tech net -- network. emily: when does bitcoin break the correlation with risk assets if ever? michael: i would think over a four-year year timeframe, you

are better off being a maximalist or tech investor. but as long as there is a massively choppy market, uncertainty about fed policy and fear in the near term, i think traders will probably dominate in price. emily: so we are going to have to wait for years for this to happen? michael: on a day that is unexpected, correlation will go from 70% correlated to 0% risk assets and when that happens, traders will reverse the polarity of their trade and technologists will start to double down and the maximalist's will enjoy the ride. emily: i have to ask you about twitter. you and jack dorsey among the maxis and a huge crypto community on twitter. you are one of the most prolific users. what do you think of elon musk's hint at a hostile takeover? michael: obviously there's a lot of frustration everywhere in the

world right now circulating about and you see that reflected on twitter. this is indicative of that. it's a bit above my pay grade to determine how the entire chapter ends. it definitely makes for an interesting watching. emily: you are a power user. do you want elon musk to own twitter? michael: i think peter is going to be fine regardless of what happens.

with a twitter user ended up owning twitter, i think that would be a fine thing. emily: have you talked to jack about this at all? michael: i'm not really involved in this. it's not really my area of expertise. i will let people focused on tech stock investing decide the fate of twitter. i'm focused on bitcoin. go bitcoin. emily: there is a huge crypto community on twitter and i wonder what you think the impact could be on the crypto community or do you think twitter should be decentralized? michael: i don't think twitter is going to be decentralized regardless of the outcome of all of these discussions right now. twitter is a centralized service. the only thing we are sure we can decentralizes bitcoin, which has been successful. it's a much simpler idea. trying to decentralize a highly functional high-speed application is very challenging and no one has successfully done that well yet. emily: you seem optimistic about treasury secretary janet yellen's understanding of bitcoin. i'm curious even though we might be looking at a longer timeframe for the divorce of bitcoin and risk asset, do you think we are at an inflection point when it

comes to regulation and mainstream adoption? michael: absolutely. i think april 7 at american university was a critical speech. probably one of the most important speeches of the century because you had a set of deniers, people that said bitcoin is a mirage or ponzi scheme. then you had a set of skeptics that said it isn't that, but it's too good to be true was so some government is going to take it away from you. and when you have the secretary of the treasury giving a speech explaining what decentralized networks are and digital property is and what to koshy and okamoto means to the world, it clicks and a lot of people's minds that bitcoin is technology that is revolutionary and it clicks that no, it's not getting band. once you decided israel technology to improve the world and is not being banned, you are no longer a denier and you can't

be a skeptic, so you have to move into the trader camp or technocrat camp and eventually everybody ends up at a maximalist if you understand it well enough. emily: there's a long answer to my next question -- with the a theory emerge -- a theory emerge coming up, what are you predicting or expecting? michael: we keep pushing it back but there are huge questions about what a theory him is following the merge and whether it's a security or property. i dig a lot of people have implied staking networks are securities and not properties. i think they are moving into an uncertain chapter of their existence. emily: michael saylor always great to have you on the show. thank you for dropping by. coming up, we are going to get back to netflix -- the huge subscriber loss, the first in a decade. that's next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: the debut of crazy rich asians and pre-18 was a huge cultural moment that helped to usher in more films featuring larger asian cast, including parasite, which won the oscar for best picture and the critically acclaimed everything, everywhere, all at once come out now. they are launching a new accelerator along with a $30 million fund called gold house ventures to take the momentum to silicon valley. joining me now is a general partner at gold house ventures. tell us the short origin story of gold house and how that evolved into gold house ventures. >> asians have long lacked a

voice in america in a unifying organization to bring our wide the aspirate together. we thought that was a huge opportunity. so in 2016, we launched what turned out to be the premier collective for asian thought leaders in business leaders to band together and promote three things -- unity, success, and representation of our culture. emily: in silicon valley in particular, what kind of stereotypes do you think asian founders face when they are trying to raise money? eric: it's a great question. in the psychology field -- i'm an engineer by trade -- we are about 30% of the overall tech workforce. but if you look at c-suite's, we are in the single digits. asians have been given a lot of opportunity to participate in tech but not participate at the highest levels. when you factor in not all

asians are the same -- we are a wide, diverse culture -- he stations like myself have been afforded lots of fantastic opportunities, but women have been marginalized, southeast asians that suffer a lot of systemic racism and bias against them, and for us as a community, we need to do better to lift each other up. that is why gold house is important as a way to bring everyone together. people from indonesia, cambodia, vietnam, across the entire community, that is our focus. emily: you brought in some big name backers and mentors like tony hsu from doordash -- what are they bringing to the table and how are they helping your current founders? eric: the number one thing they do for us is serve as an example of great representation that can inspire the next generation of

leaders. they are incredibly brilliant and successful but also reserved, very quiet, humble and we want to be the megaphone they may not want because it's important to showcase that our people come our community can achieve those levels of success, shatter the bamboo ceilings, and breakout and inspire others. that is what they bring. their success is what we can hopefully build the next generation of great asian leaders on top of. emily: you are competing with venture capital funds. how will you measure success? eric: it's an interesting model we decided to set up -- first and foremost, we are a for-profit initiative. we have great lps like tony and steve and we want to out deliver a greater return on their capital. we consider it an honor and privilege they have chosen to give us their capital and tell

responsibility to show great return on that capital. for them, it is a for-profit initiative. but for the general partners like myself and my partners, it's a nonprofit initiative. so all the fees go to the nonprofit. this dual strategy is unique and as i like to tell our lps, we want to make them a lot of money but we want them to feel good about it at the same time. but that has opened up the door for his tremendous support from the community. we have a great not only network of lps but we have investors from top firms like nea and upfront ventures and excel and general catalyst that want to help us out. the unique thing we are doing is we are very much making venture a team sport. it's been an individual sport but with gold house ventures, it is a team sport. we're working together to try to improve the future for our

community. emily: i have to ask you about netflix. he spent a long time as an executive at hulu. you know the streaming business -- how bad is it? has the streaming business plateaued? eric: i think what this is a reminder is how humbling it is that is in the 100 year history of entertainment, it is still a hitch driven -- hits driven business. we've seen a lot of companies try and no matter how much technology and science and engineering and data you apply to it, it's still up to the gods of entertainment to shine good fortune on you and i think that's what's reflected here. it's not so much the competition and couch sharing, where's the next squid game? where's the next richardson? all entertainment companies are still at the whims of.

emily: in the hands of the gods. great to have you back on the show. i want to get back to that story of the day -- netflix, ed ludlow, we are waiting for the earnings call. what are investors going to be digging into? ed: 100 million people have netflix and households but do not pay for it. what does the pipeline look like? 200,000 customers lost in the first quarter. 200 million -- 2 million lost in the second quarter. those are the big questions. emily: ed ludlow, waiting for the earnings call to begin. losing 200 thousands of scriber's the first time netflix has lost subscribers in a decade. saying 2 million or to come in the coming quarter. that does it for this edition of bloomberg technology. join us tomorrow when we will be breaking down tesla results. one of the original tesla board

members will join us. tune into my exclusive conversation with adam soliciting. that's tomorrow right here on bloomberg television. and check out the podcast anywhere you get your podcasts. i'm emily chang in san francisco. this is bloomberg. ♪

>> a very good morning and welcome today break australia. we are counting down to asia's major market open. shery: the top stories this hour. the imf slashes the global outlook citing the ukraine war in china lockdowns with key concerns. haidi: u.s. equities rally as