>> from the heart of where innovation, money and power

collide, in silicon valley and beyond, this is bloomberg technology with emily chang. >> i am emily chang in san francisco and this is bloomberg technology. coming up, meme stock mania is back. bed, bath & beyond surges. all of this as retails -- retailers get a second wind. we will talk about how social media is impacting this. do you know who else is back? adam neumann. he just raised money again, getting the biggest check ever written. silicon valley possible article is all abuzz. we will take you there. big tech companies have pledged

to go green. critics say they are also helping big oil prolong the fossil fuel age. we will tell you how. >> it is another classics, trading day again. no -- not a whole moves. let's look at the nasdaq year. it did take a dive in the midmorning. it is looking like it was about to claw that back in the afternoon session. not enough. this is finishing higher on the day. we did see a lot of investors bringing back these big tech names. it is a sign that some of those

massive declines we saw in the first half of the are finally making some of these big tech meme stocks deep enough for investors to buy but it is a bit of a mixed bag today. you see amazon and paypal finishing the day higher today. alphabet and apple a little bit lower on the day. bed, bath & beyond and risk of the meme stock conflict. they are standing out today with a whopping 29% gain on the day. investors really piled that into the stocks. lisa about $99 million worth of buying into the stock over the last few weeks. if you look at the year-to-date gains, that is up over 82%. >> the stock is up 400% from

bed, bath & beyond. i am curious what kind of activity is with stocks out of the surge. at the beginning of july and august, we saw bed, bath & beyond there in terms of activity. we have seen it grow. over the last four or five months, it has been mostly

negative on bed, bath & beyond and then it is a spike in sentiment. they have maintained that position. we see that with the run-up in the price from five dollars. we have seen a lot of really interesting activity. >> here is the question. >> meme stocks, we see less capitulation. gamestop has been steady. bed, bath & beyond, i think there are a lot of factors at play here.

i think there is a report that will end up at the end of july. you have these opportunities of price movements. >> can we talk a little bit about the power of ryan cohen in particular? give stock is the original meme. how much of this is driven by him and how much is driven by retail investor sentiment? >> definitely in the retail community, the meme stock

community -- there seems to be some pretty significant sway on the market. i can't speak to anything of that nature. if you look at when he takes position, the markets move. the move we saw today after bed bath and beyond's massive move, they can get more call options. he is an interesting person in this place. gamestop has made a lot of moves over the last 18 months. they have deftly been followed by the retail community. you can't ignore what he does. >> in general, we are seeing this on reddit.

quick the rule of social media and social platforms in general is we do disseminate information quickly. the ability for retailers to communicate to some extent. this was to give retail a place to learn, to collaborate, to share. it is a powerful tool. there is a lot of education and

hardships that come out of it from a community perspective. >> any regulatory concerns at a moment like this? >> not so much. we have our house rules. we don't see any massive regulatory issues along the lines of social media. >> coming up, silicon valley possible best not venture capitalist go the biggest check ever to adam neumann, sparking an outcry about another tech guy feeling up.

this is bloomberg. ♪

>> they just made one of the biggest ever bets on the man behind wework. some would call it the we disaster but the firm writing's largest single check investment to a residential real estate external founded by adam neumann. entries are rethinking the entire value chance.

joining me now, a lot of tweets about this. a lot of tweets. what is adam neumann's angle here? chris the details are so sketchy. i think that is part of the reason there is a lot of skepticism. it feels like adam neumann is trying to do something very similar to what he did with wework which is to take a traditional real estate business , here we have residential leadership. that worked frequent a while with wework. of course, it kind of fell apart. what we have now is much more conventional real estate company that a lot of investors lost a

lot of money in. it is hard to understand why jason horowitz would be writing such a large check. maybe they see this as another longshot bed. mark endres is more successful than i am. >> they lost almost $9 billion on wework. why do you think that is not going to be his fate? >> adam neumann, if you read some of the published accounts, he was very effective at getting rich people out of their money. they have a soft spot for trolling. if you read between the lines of the blog post, it sounds like

there will be some sort of crip that worked angle here. i think the jury is still very much out on whether or not that is going to work. it feels like we have we work with departments but a little bit of crypto mixed in. you be the judge if that is a good idea or not. >> the real question is in a valley where it is notoriously hard for some founders to raise money. why is it so easy for these founders to exacerbate this again? i am obviously outraged here. this is not new. it is how d.c. operates. allison, why do you feel so much

rage? >> whenever something big comes out like this, a lot of underrepresented founders, people of color and women ask why you have this emotion. it is because only 2% of the dollars go to women. there are less than 100 black women total who have raised more than a million in dz funding. that is the outrage. it hit you and then it also quickly becomes a muted rage because it is expected. you have to feel that rage when you are part of that community that is just historic --

>> publicly didn't want to talk about it. why do you think that is. >> it is really difficult to talk about. it can be a scary thing to do. you have to talk openly about it and to me, it is just a clear choice in the community that comes around it and opportunities like this that come from it. that is how you catalyze public discourse and really make a change. >> here is what they wrote about this. adam is a visionary leader, levelized the second largest asset class and the will, commercial real estate.

we understand how difficult it is to build something like this. we love seeing repeat offenders build on past successes by growing from lessons learned. >> my response to that is regardless of anything, he knowingly perpetrated fraud and lost billions of dollars. it is a fact. what is a prestigious investment house doing back in fraud a 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 this money came

from. it comes from endowments, wealthy individuals, pensions, is that where those people want their capital to be? do they want $350 million in a single check? the large check written to go to a person who knowingly committed fraud and lost billions of investor dollars? to me, i don't know how you justify that. quick allison is bold. you might never get a check from them. why take that risk? >> all right. what the signals to the world and to underrepresented founders

-- i don't think i will receive a check for them. it signals that venture may not be for many founders and that is just not true. you have to be intentional and realistic that where you put your money. business ethics and competency are paramount along with the liability 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 -- 10 million for a startup medical device company where i did experience extreme gender bias. we are -- what you get and working with a pitch coach and having access to forces 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 merge. 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 surges 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 -- said that again and again. 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.

>> it is hard to know with the private markets. we are not tracking the price on a minute by minute basis. it is really hard to know. we have very long runway. we don't need to go do another thing soon. we will make -- wait for the market to improve. jesse powell talking about what he thinks of the current crypto bear market in an interview. let's talk about it more with our own crypto contributor.

give us an update on the crypto market and whether jesse powell was right by waiting it out. >> bitcoin did beach 25,000. where does that leave us? even though it has not had that price, you do see it about half the price it was this time last year but double where it was two years ago. you do see again on the month. you see the price rising but in more recent days, that excitement has worn out just a little bit. you have it rolling around 18,000 77 right now. it did peak above 2000 this

month in anticipation of the merge. we will talk a little bit more about that next. >> i want to talk about this more. are you on the bullish side? are you somewhere else on the spectrum? >> we are very bullish. we have to be because entrepreneurship has never been more robust. it's a pickup in tests that people are willing to take during this time when the market is more quiet. there is less consumer activity. it is a great time to dig into the metrics and bull market

times as well as to experiment. >> what do you make of the merge? clearly there is going to be some technical difficulties around it. that was a warning they sent out. what do you think will be the near term measures in the long-term prospect? >> they are pausing deposits and withdrawals. i think it is something that is expected and pointed out to us. there are some opportunities in using-studying -- using a custodian. looking ahead, i think that 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 of moving to proof of state. we know the vast majority of e state is belonging to these large institutions. those folks exposed u.s. -- those folks are exposed to u.s. regulators and it has been tested very recently with opec coming out against tornado passions. these same institutions that are those that have complied to opec's sanction of tornado cash. 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 decentralized fashion and that any individual user can do two things. one, they can validate the code. bitcoin's core protocol and it never protocol our open source. users can know the software rules to the systems. number two, users can participate in validating the accuracy of the ledgers themselves. that is easier to do in bitcoin and other protocols. one of the reasons it is

important to do that is being demonstrated by the news of the last couple of weeks. this is all about regulations to prevent things like money laundering. this is making users that have received even passively, transactions from tornado cash lose access to services they are dependent on. >> i recently sat down with emily try to talk about their partnership with blackrock. take a listen to what she had to say. >> i wanted that blackrock partnership since the day i joined coinbase. for this to come together now during the crypto winter is such an incredible testament to where we are, where they are, where

their customers are and i think the most important point is it speaks to institutional customers, very traditional institutional customers wanted to get crypto asked exposure. >> she said to expect more partnerships like this. but every day there are more bumps in the crypto road. how is this impacting institutional sentiment? >> blackrock is allowing institutional investors to buy bitcoin entry bitcoin be a coinbase while using the management and risk analysis. we see this as a clear response to the demand of the very traditional institutions.

i want to flip this for a moment and say that while we are seeing traditional institutions like blackrock, the most significant and important adoption, bitcoin and the payment market are in the emerging market. these two forms of adoption are happening simultaneously. >> thank you so much for sharing your views with us today. coming up, is the ftc harassing jeff bezos? we will have more on that, next. is bloomberg. ♪

>> amazon is fighting back against the ftc. in a filing made public on monday, amazon claims that the staff has -- ftc staff have made unduly burdensome demands on the amazon is claiming that 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 amazon employees. they serve them at their houses, and that includes jeff bezos and andy jassy. the two top executives at amazon . 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 very unusual, 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 filing says the ftc will make a decision whether to sue amazon over the subscription issued 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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