♪ announcer: from the heart of where innovation, money and power collide, in silicon valley and beyond, this is bloomberg technology with emily chang. ♪

emily: i am emily chang. this is bloomberg technology. coming up, meme stock mania is back. bed, bath & beyond surges in defiance of wall street as retail investors get a second wind. i checked with the ceo of stocktwits. you know who else is back? adam neumann. the we work founder who lost billions for investors. he has just raised money yet again, getting his biggest check ever written. silicon valley's watercooler is abuzz. we will take you there. tech companies like microsoft and amazon have pledged to go green. critics say they are also helping big oil prolong the fossil fuel age. first, let's get a look at the markets.

as investors by the debt. kristine aquino joins us. >> it is another classic summer trading day. low volumes, not a lot of big moves. let's look at the nasdaq. we did see when poplar -- price action. it did take a dive in the midmorning and it looked like it was about to clawback in the afternoon. not enough, and we are seeing it finish higher on the day, up more than 2.6%. good news from big tech today from the filing season, we did see a lot of investors piling back into some of these big tech names. in this recent reporting season. it is a sign that some of those massive declines we saw in the first half of the year are finally making some of these stocks steep enough for investors to buy. it is still a mixed bag in terms of price action. amazon and paypal finishing the

day higher. alphabet and apple a little bit lower. you know who is having a good day? bed bath and beyond. and the rest of the meme stock complex. bed bath & beyond standing out today with a whopping 29% gain on the day. that triggered several trading halts as investors piled back into the stock. we have seen about $99 million worth of buying into the stock over the last few weeks. take a look at the year-to-date gains, that is of more than 82%. definitely a far cry from the s&p 500's 9% decline. emily: thank you. let's look now at a three week chart of bed -- bed bath & beyond the stock of 400% despite three downgrades. shares were halted after spiking this morning, a sure sign the meme trade is alive and well.

i am curious what kind of activity you saw on stocktwits ahead of this surge. >> thanks for having me. we saw at the end of july and the beginning of august, we saw bed bath & beyond rocket to the top leader boards in terms of activity. since august 1, it has been second only to amc. -- has not cracked the top 10 or 20 or so. since august 1, we have seen it grow its followers by 33%, approaching 50,000 followers on stocktwits. stocktwits social sentiment of the last four or five months have been mostly negative on bed bath & beyond. there was a spike in july, then since august 1 it has moved to an extremely positive position. you see that correlated with a run-up in price from five

dollars where it has been at to -- i don't know where it closed today. $20? $25? we have seen a lot of interesting activity that started in july. emily: here is the question, why? >> a couple of factors. overall, meme stocks, we have seen less capitulation in the regional market stand some of the other ones. amc has maintained its position. gamestop has been steady. the interest has maintained better than some of their stocks. bed bath & beyond, there's probably a lot of factors that play. the short interest report came out at the end of july. the ryan cohen news today was probably a big catalyst. as someone who has had, generally speaking, low volumes.

all of these pieces come together and retail seeks out to these opportunities. retail traders and investors seek out these opportunities where there is short interest or price movement. that has been beneficiary to the stock over the last three weeks. emily: can we talk about the power of ryan cohen? he's the chair of gamestop, the original meme stock. how much of this is driven by him and how much is truly driven by general retail investor sentiment? >> definitely in the retail trading community, the wall street bets community, the meme stock community, ryan cohen seems to have pretty significant sway on the markets. i can't speak to anything of that nature. if you look at when he takes a

position, the markets move. the move we saw today, after already a massive move, can highly be a tribbett it to the news he took call options. i think that came out last night or this morning. he is an interesting person in this space. obviously first with gamestop, but has made a lot of moves over the last 18 months that have definitely been followed by the retail investment community. you can't ignore what he does, at least in the short term. emily: in general, we are seeing this on reddit and twitter, what would you say the role is of social media in stock market movements these days? >> the rule of social media and social platforms in general is, we do disseminate information

quickly. we allow the sharing of ideas. i think the ability for retail especially to communicate, to some extent organize, as you remember in the major meme stock moment of 2021, social media has a strong role to play in platforms like stocktwits to give retail a place to learn, to collaborate, to share and ideally do it in a way where they profit from it. it is a powerful tool. to be used for good and bad. there's a lot of agitation, learning, partnerships come out of it from a community perspective. emily: any regulatory concerns? at a moment like this? >> no, not so much.

we have our house rules, but those are our rules. we cooperate where there are issues potentially on the board. we do know some of the bigger agencies are paying attention. but no, we don't see any regulatory issues along the lines of social media. not in the current environment, i don't think. emily: rishi khanna, thank you. coming up,'s best-known venture capitalists just wrote its biggest check ever to controversial we work founder adam neumann. sparking outcry about yet another tech guy failing. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: -- horowitz has just made one of its biggest ever bets on the man behind wework. the firm writing its largest single check investment, $350 million, to a residential real estate startup founded by adam neumann. below is rethinking the entire value chain from the way things are purchased and owned to the way residents interact with their buildings, to the way revenue is distributed among stakeholders. joining me is max chapman. lots of tweets today. what is adam newman's angle?

>> it feels like -- and again the details are so sketchy. that is the part of the reason there is skepticism, i feel like adam neumann is trying to do something similar to what he did with which was -- wework, which was commercial real estate, now we have apartments, and give it a tech sheen. that worked for quite a while. we saw the valuation climb to something like $50 billion. in then it fell apart. but we have now is a much more conventional real estate company that a lot of investors lost a lot of money and. it is hard to understand why andries horowitz would be writing such a check. you -- maybe this is a

contrarian angle. it seems weird to be backing a billionaire at this current angle, but mark andries is more successful than i am. maybe he know something. emily: -- blossom is $9 billion on we work. why would he think that is knocking to be his fate? is he being hoodwinked? >> adam neumann, if you read published accounts, was effective at talking rich people out of their money. that may be part of what's going on here. andries recent clearly has a soft spot for trolling. if you read between the lines of the blog post he wrote yesterday, it sounds like there's going to be some sort of crib though or tokenized angle which of course horowitz is very into. the jury is out as to whether or

not that is going to work but it feels like maybe it is wework with apartments. and crypto. emily: sounds like a recipe for something. we are going to get more reaction to this. the real question is in the valley where it is notoriously hard for some to raise money, why is it so easy for some founders who failed to raise money again? allison byers tweeted, "i am obviously outraged by the news. if you follow me, rage is likely all over your feet. i am not surprised at all. it is how the sea operates. joining me now, allison byers. why do you feel so much rage? >> whenever something big like this comes, a lot of underrepresented founders, particularly women and people of color, are asked why the

outrage? well, it's because only 2% of these dollars go to women. 2% coated latin founders. 0.67% goes to black founders. there are less than 100 black women total who have raised -- in funding. that is the outrage. it is visceral. but then, it also quickly becomes a muted rage because it is expected. it is not a surprise. we are used to it. you have to feel that rage when you are part of that community that has historically been blocked from accessing funding. emily: we reached out to a lot of female investors today. privately, they feel like you. publicly, they don't want to talk about it. why do you think that is? >> it is difficult to talk about. in any industry where you are marginalized or where you can

have repercussions for speaking out, it can be scary. there are risks. those risks -- when i am outspoken but i also really believe that in order to have any kind of change or awakening of these reactions within other populations and segments to do something about it, you have to talk openly about it. to me, it is a clear choice. opportunities like this that come from it is how you catalyze public discourse and make change. emily: here is what wrote about this. -- here is what andreessen wrote. -- what is your response to that?

>> my response is, regardless of anything of what you believe may or may not have been fictionalized, he knowingly perpetrated fraud and loss billion's of dollars. this is a fact. what is a major prestigious investment house doing backing fraud second time? there is no excuse for that. there has to be the ability to separate what is a good business idea that has the potential to be a good investment from the person who is behind that idea and executing on it. what i would say is, let's think about where does andreessen's money come from? it comes from endowments, wealthy individuals, pensions, other fiduciary backers. is that where those people want

to their capital to be deployed? andreessen is the steward of that capital. do they want $350 million in a single check, the largest check written, to go to a person who knowingly committed fraud and lost billions of investor dollars? to me, i do not know how you justify that. emily: taking on andreessen horowitz is bold. you might never get a check for them. why take that risk? >> what this signals to the world and particularly to underrepresented founders, only 2% of dollars go to women. i don't think i am getting a check from them. it also signals that their check is not for me. unfortunately, it signals that venture may not be for many founders.

that's just not true, but you have to be intentional and realistic about where you put your time as a founder if you want to go with a successful company, and whose money it is you're taking. for me, business ethics, competency and honesty are paramount along with the viability of the idea of the difference i want to make in this industry. i do not want investors who do not believe in that. i do not want an investor who clearly says it is ok that you overstated yourself and your business, we are still going to write you a check. to the exclusion of others who have more viable business ideas and better business ethics. emily: you allude to that in your tweet, choose wisely. you also told techcrunch, you could be mad about this all day long but you have a lot of other female founder you know what's to do.

i assume you're talking about all of the extroversion that comes with being a female founder. what is all this extra stuff? >> of course. that sentiment is the muted rage. it is the known element for anyone who is on the receiving end of this that this is how it is. we have to run our businesses. the numbers do not lie. we do not get the funding or the resources or access to the networks. our metrics we are assessed by are much harder than others. also a lot of other rep -- underrepresented groups. i don't have time for this to consume my day, i am building a successful business and i'm going to run a profit for my investors. i have my leap to do. emily: your company, companies

that help people with their own pitching. what is your big idea? >> think you for bringing up's -- screw be us. in my last expense, i did successfully raise -- for a medical company where i did experience extreme gender bias. we are -- what you get and working with -- that teach you how investors think. if you have been traditionally blocked from accessing those resources either by networks or funds, because those are -- you do not know you are not presenting in a compelling way. it is not difficult to understand how investors think.

we are building and have not yet launched a data-driven way to curate in a hyper curated way what investors -- so it will speak to them. both the idea and the person, which is where we need the checks at an early stage. emily: allison, thank you for having the courage to talk to us today and for sharing your story. i appreciate you stopping by. >> thank you for having me. emily: also a hilarious twitter follow. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: coinbase shares fell after announcing -- will temporarily pause new ethereum

token deposits during the marriage. -- during the marriage. it is a temporary measure. after a number of delays, apple has set a september 5 deadline for its corporate workers to be in the office at least three days a week. covid searches delayed their plans multiple times. apple has been making other covid related adjustments including dropping mask mandates. according to people familiar with the matter, apple has laid off many of its contract based recruiters. about 100 contract workers were fired. we told the cuts were made due to changes. the company is joining many other tech firms hitting the brakes on hiring. coming up, how big tech is helping big oil pump more fuel. what that means for their pledge

to transition to a greener future. this is bloomberg. ♪

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emily: welcome back. president biden has signed the $750 billion health care, climate and tax bill.

capping more than a year of negotiations as democrats had to the midterms. known as the inflation reduction act, the bill aims to root -- encourage greener industries. big tech has been vocal about wanting to go green for some time. except, big tech has actually been helping big oil make more profits. let's hear about how with mark bergen. is there some hypocrisy here? >> that is certainly the criticism from environmentalists and even employees of these companies. microsoft actually has been the leader of the energy market. follow closely behind by aws, amazon. these companies will say and have set multiple times that the reasons they are partnering with the oil and gas industry is to help them with the energy transition to clean, renewable sources.

we interrogated that idea and it looks like so far a lot of the work has been logistic oil and gas production at whether it is making it more efficient, in some cases lowering the carbon footprint of those operations, there is evidence they haven't slowed down oil production. especially now, you are seeing gas prices so high this summer, there's political demand for these oil companies to be producing more. the cloud companies, there's powerful data assets that let them do that more efficiently. emily: i spoke with the head of google cloud about google cloud's deal with saudi aramco. take a listen. >> we work within the system integration division to provide our technology to customers in different parts of the middle east. we have set again and again that we do not work with oil and gas division within aramco.

emily: does what he say there underscore what you are trying to explain here? >> i think so. employees at google have been very vocal about this. as have employees at amazon and microsoft. in some ways if you are just a google shareholder you might think you want them to be more active in the industry. there's a lot of money in the oil and gas sector right now. their regular production and exploration businesses and even some of the chevron's and bp have talked a big game about -- money and renewable energy. in some ways, google is sort of behind in the sector. whether or not it is because they have one arm behind their back as far as limiting their work. it does not seem to be slowing down microsoft or amazon.

in their defense, they are saying because these oil companies wouldn't be able to move into renewable energy without them. emily: interesting. we will continue to watch. thank you. the inflation reduction act will lower drug costs. i want to bring in jason kelly, ceo of ginko bioworks to discuss. how does this bill being signed into law impact your corner of the biotech universe? >> two recent bills. chips and science and the inflation reduction act. oath of them are relatives in biotech. on the inflation reduction act, you saw tax credits being expanded. that is to create a growing market for carbon capture. if you look out the window right now, you will see plants pulling co2 out of the air.

so, biology we see is one of the few scalable technologies for doing carbon capture. i think the chips act is just as important. emily: why? >> if you look in that bill, two things are critical. i think you see the u.s. getting our mojo back when it comes to industrial policy and the government saying this technology is important for us to have on shore. ginkgo just acquired a company -- announced we are going to acquire a company in california to build on foundry technology. my view is, we want to be doing that so that we are not doing a biochips bill 20 years from now and having to bring that back. the growth of these bile foundries in the u.s. is important and you see that reflected in the bill. they direct the national engineering are initiative where

-- is supposed to direct nsf and dod to spend on this also, the national genomic sequencing strategy. you actually see bio the bill alongside chips. it is good for the government that these technologies are critical. emily: you have become a regular voice through the pandemic. what are the biggest post-pandemic story lines that are not being talked about enough? >> the big one is going to be certain types of technologies that got built during the pandemic are going to stick around for ongoing prevention. we announced yesterday morning, up to 61 million dollars for the cdc in the u.s. to do monitoring on an ongoing basis in airports in the u.s.. where we basically collect samples from planes that come in internationally, then sequence the dna to look for new variants. we did this as a pilot with the

ca -- cdc and caught the first case of ba.2 that was sequenced. to me, this eventually will be like a smoke detector. we should be on the lookout for infectious disease and that is a change that has happened because of covid but will stick around after covid. emily: are we prepared to go back to school? as a parent, i feel there are conflicting messages about masks and testing. what are the rules? >> the cdc did just update guidance on this. where we are heading towards, i think you are going to see -- reflect more how people have been operating and you will see relief in the distancing rules and mask wearing. making it easy so where if you had exposure you do not have to quarantine. if you have cornered -- if you have covid, you still need to quarantine. if you are positive, quarantine. for folks who have been exposed,

you don't need to. that is going to help in terms of having classes full. regular monitoring, which we do across the country, where you are doing weekly testing in a group, this allows schools to stay open because you can identify if there is a positive case, you can take it out and send that one student home, but not the whole class. and then prevent big outbreaks in school. if we let it rip, you will see that destruction in various places. you will end up seeing monitoring, masking go. the wildcard is some new variant that flips it all on its head. emily: on that note, do you think there will be a universal covid vaccine in the future? the virus is just going to keep changing. >> you will see the virus keep changing. people are working on this. in the scope of biotech over the

next 10 to 20 years, we should get dramatically better at this but obviously we have been fighting flu and we have updated vaccines annually. i think you will see something like that. folks are working on that. near term it is more likely to be updated. emily: we hope, indeed. jason kelly, thank you for stopping by. coming up, why is jesse powell still so bullish on bitcoin? wider institutional sentiment on crib though, next. -- crypto.

emily: this group was broken --

emily: in an interview earlier on bloomberg's crypto show. let's talk about it more with our own crypto contributor sonali basak give us an update on the crypto markets and whether jesse powell is right by just waiting it out. sonali: you saw bitcoin did

reach 25,000 for a bit this month. it has come down below $24,000 again. where does that leave us? it does not leave us at the ice he thought it would hit last year. he told you and me that fit quinn would be worth a lamborghini. even though it has not hit that price, you do see it about half the price it was this time last year, but double where it was two years ago. it will be interesting to see the market sort out the natural price of bitcoin. i also want to point out a cerium, you do see a gain on the month, you see the price rising. in more recent days, that excitement has worn off just a little bit. you have it rolling around $18,000 right now. it did peek above $2000 this month with the anticipation of the merge. i know we are going to talk more about that next. emily: stick with us, i want to talk about this more and how bitcoin startups are trying to

secure capital as the crypto winter continues. our investors buying the industry backup? let's talk about that with police killeen. -- police killeen. are you on the bullish side? >> we are very bullish. both about bitcoin assets and underlying protocols. we have to be because entrepreneurial activity has never been more robust. we have seen a pickup in the tests people are willing to take during this period. when the market is more quiet, when we are in a bear -- bear market and there's less activity, it is a great time to dig into the metrics you have produced in bull market times as well as experiment. that is what we are seeing now. sonali: what do you make of the merge? you saw this news about coinbase looking to pause transactions.

clearly there is going to be technical difficulties around it as people try to scam others, that was a warning they sent out. what will be the near term issues and what are the long-term prospects? >> coinbase is pausing deposits and withdrawals. i think it is something that expresses the trade-offs of using a centralized exchange to hold your cryptocurrency. of course there's opportunity in using a cost -- using a custodian, but the advantages to people that they themselves make the rules on how they use their bitcoin or other forms of crib though. -- crypto. we know that there is risks and the theory and community is hoping there is great reward. one of the things to look out for are the centralizing forces

are moving from -- to --. we know the majority of -- the vast majority of -- is belonging to these large institutions. those folks exposed u.s. regulators and it has been tested recently with opec coming out against tornado passions. these same institutions that comprise -- are those that have complied within days to -- sanction tornado facts. emily: jesse powell did say the shutdown was unconstitutional. i am wondering how you see this debate playing out in the market. the good, the bad and what behaviors might not be accepted among these companies moving forward. >> it is hard to know what regulators are going to do. it is easy to know how

centralized institutions are going to respond. that is the value of centralization. we know that bitcoin leads with centralization. what that means is that when looking at how the protocol is secured, bitcoin finds it most important to make sure the protocol is secured in a centralized fashion and that any individual user can do two things. one, they can validate the code. bitcoins core protocol are open-source. users can know the software rules to the systems. number two, users can participate in validating the accuracy of the letters themselves. that is something that is much easier to do in bitcoin than other protocols. one of the reasons it is important to do that is being demonstrated by the news over the last couple of weeks of implications of governments in positions of regulation,

regulation to prevent money laundering. we are seeing that happen with tornado cash. we know some of the most critical services in the cerium space have felt the need to comply and have quickly done so, making users that have received even passively, transactions from tornado cash lose access to services they depended on. emily: i sat down with emily chang way to talk about their partnership with blackrock. take a listen. >> i have wanted to do that blackrock partnership since the day i joined coinbase. for this to come together now is such an incredible testament to where we are, where they are and where our customers are. when it speaks to very institutional customers, wanting to get crypto acid exposure. emily: she said to expect more partnerships like this.

every day there are more bumps in the crypto road. how was this impacting -- give us the temperature of institutional sentiment. >> the black box and coinbase partnership is in coinbase only. -- is allowing institutional investors to trade bitcoin via coinbase while still using blackrock software for management and risk analysis. i think this was a clear response to the demands of the very traditional institutions that are served by blackrock. it is important to note that providing -- is an on-ramp. in a familiar environment with familiar tools is likely to access a significant catalyst for institutional adoption i want to flip this and say that while we are seeing traditional institutions adopt bitcoin like blackrock, we know that for the

most significant and important -- of the payment network is happening in emerging markets. these two forms of adoption are happening simultaneously. i think it adds to the fundamental value of bitcoin. emily: alyse killeen, thank you for sharing your views with us and sonali bock -- sonali basak. is the ftc harassing jeff is a echo that is what amazon claim.

emily: amazon is fighting back against the ftc. in a filing monday, amazon

claims ftc staff have made unduly burdensome demands on the e kerr miss giant as it keeps investigating its subscription services. with more, emily birnbaum. amazon also claiming the ftc is harassing jeff bezos. how so? >> in this filing made public yesterday, amazon claims that the ftc has been overreaching in their ongoing consumer protection investigation into amazon subscription services including prime, audible, kindle and other services. the ftc issued what is called civil investigative demands, which are essentially subpoenas, to 20 former and current employees. they serve them at their houses, and that includes jeff bezos and andy jassy. they say it was unnecessary to

give them to jassy and bezos. these are about a lot of different parts of the business. these are high-level executives. amazon says there is nothing that jassy and bezos can give you that you can't get from documents and lower level executives. emily: is this unusual? >> it is extremely unusual. in how confrontational it is. what is typical is companies will always fight to narrow down subpoenas and investigative demands they get from the government. what is atypical is how public this is and how aggressive they are in their rhetoric, calling it perplexing. asking the ftc to pare it down in such a public way. emily: remind us why the ftc is investigating amazon? >> the ftc has been investigating amazon for several years. it began under the trump administration when they were

given the power to investigate amazon over antitrust concerns. it has gotten broader since then. this particular investigation is a consumer protection investigation into whether amazon makes it too difficult for consumers to opt out of amazon prime. this is only one part of a sweeping investigation that looks at all parts of amazon's business including cloud and streaming. emily: when can we expect this to draw to some sort of conclusion? >> the eft's -- the ftc will make a decision whether to sue amazon by the fall. this is probably going to prolong it. it is probably going to take more time than that, a couple of months. what is clear from the filing is ftc staff are under a lot of pressure by the commissioners, including lena con, to get something done by the end of the year.

emily: we will continue to follow your reporting on this. that does it for this edition of bloomberg technology. wednesday got neha's joining us about the chip landscape and the latest with their possible ipo. don't forget to check out our podcast. you can find it on the terminal, online, apple, spotify and more. i am emily chang. this is bloomberg. ♪

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