announcer: from the heart of where our innovation, money, and power collide in silicon valley and beyond, this is bloomberg technology with emily chang. you're watching bloomberg. emilg

technology. coming up, concierge startup that is shaking up city late -- city living. plus, peloton on amazon. could it be the key to ending the slump? how did were the biggest deals of the year come together? we will go inside the microsoft activision deal. first, tesla and apple outperforming as investors break

for comment from the fed. >> stocks dishing the day largely higher looking at the s&p 500 and the tech heavy nasdaq both finishing up .3%. little bit of week this in the final few minutes of the trading day. if you look at the more speculative areas of the market, not a lot of movement. bitcoin and semiconductors both not doing much. investors are waiting to know how hawkish jerome powell is going to be on friday jackson hole. we have a couple of earnings to look at. nvidia falling about 3% in the post-market. they talk about lackluster demand for components in computers. better news coming out of snowflake that's a cloud company . they beat second-quarter revenue up almost 17% in the post-market.

salesforce also falling in the post-market. a final look at the trading day, i'm looking at tesla calling about 12% today. -- falling about 12% today. it was the final day before they executed the stock split to finish the trading day. also, peloton that was the big news today up over 20%. it was the biggest gain since your. -- february. they are going to be selling on amazon. a lot of wall street is looking at peloton, their earnings are due tomorrow morning. emily: here to talk more about peloton's partnership with amazon is our next guest. until now, you could only get peloton bikes directly from peloton. now, you could get them on amazon. is it going to open the floodgates? >> it's a start in the right direction. the direct consumer model has

been a uphill battle for peloton especially coming out of the pandemic. if you going to bet on someone, i think amazon was the right move. now it's an execution story going forward industry needs to see that. emily: peloton has to work through multiple other issues. they are working on this you put the better -- you put the bike together yourself. does that get complicated? >> i think it does and that's the problem. a typical buyer, they don't want complexity they want simplicity. they have had some significant misses from products on treadmill and others. strategically, they are cutting costs. i think that's part of the issue is if you in growth mode cutting costs, the competition comes from all other angles. this is clearly going to be a bumpy path. it's a step, but it is baby

steps in terms of what they need to do. emily: how many people are going to buy a peloton on amazon that didn't go to palatine directly? -- peloton directly? >> i think it's mostly about accessories or the ultimate flywheel or ecosystem there trying to build. i could definitely see some more partnerships down the road, but right now they are on the whiteboard trying to figure out what could ultimately move growth. amazon made a ton of sense strategically for both. emily: what do you make of the speculation of amazon as a potential buyer? >> i think it's just more speculation. i would be flabbergasted. strategically it does not make sense in terms of the going down that route. that's what i think this is more

of a partnership. the chatter of m&a has fallen and strategically with they're going to do, i think when it comes to amazon it's more partnership and it stops there. emily: let's talk about tesla shares rising. the three for one stock split. how much of a difference is this going to make? >> they're going to look back august 2020 the 521 and what it did then. cuba, a different market. they are doing it at a time when you're starting to see demand continue to be firm despite what we are seeing. it's really about production. the production story in china is the key. they have never had demand issues, they have a supply issue. i do believe the stock split peaked the appetite and that's a

smart move. emily: meanwhile a kerfuffle between elon musk and a customer replying to a customer of twitter that was critical of this driver assistance feature and elon musk saying i don't want to hear about it in so many words. what do you make of this? >> that's not what you want to see. twitter has positives and negatives when it comes to elon musk. there's a lot of scrutiny that we are seeing on tesla, you don't want to see this back-and-forth. the street just once the execution, production ramp and more of the software model take hold. that's where things like this become sideshows, but elon musk beating a different drum is not going to change. emily: thank you. coming up, we will be speaking with a cofounder of a company that seeks to change the future

of living. one of their earlier founders is trying to do the same thing. it we will talk or that relationship coming up. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: the venture capital seen is still on a big debate. flow is a company portrayed as being awfully close to another company he invested in two years ago. it's called alfred and it aims

to build community by fostering experiences within as additional properties. the cofounders join us now. thank you for joining us. let's start here. tell us why you founded alfred and the mission of the company today. >> that's an easy one. when we were working long hours building our careers, one thing we thought about was how do we make the places where we live support us and that was the way to keep more women in the workforce. that vision has evolved a lot to think about putting the resident at the center of the value chain. today having the largest asset class in the world and what

should be the largest consumer product. we are excited to disrupt and evolve the industry and to give renters more for their rent check. emily: the idea of tech enabled property management has been getting a lot of attention because adam neumann just got this big check. why is this big opportunity? >> i think that housing is one of the largest opportunities we have because the lives that it hits. we all consume housing and no one has ever looked at it as a consumer product. the same time, housing is in crisis. if we look at the asking rents in most markets, there are 70% higher. we also have a housing supply problem. given the impact they can have

on people's lives and the challenges facing it, i think it is right for a lot of attention and investment and a vision for what it can be. >> adam neumann previously had a relationship with alfred and you guys as founders. tell us how that relationship came to be in the first place. >> at alfred, we have always taken a very collaborative approach were building our business. that started eight years ago when we started working with our initial landlords and partners. among our partners, we count adam and gray star and invesco and our venture capital partners.

the key from our perspective has been to build a business by working with the best in the industry and doing that bottoms up. that means being part of a broad ecosystem and seeking out people that see something similar to you and want to have a hand in building that future. this approach we have taken for the history of how we built the company and how we met adam. >> alfred has its own unique product. what is it that alfred does that is unique and gives it protection against new competitors coming into the space? >> if you look at the apartment space in particular which is where most of us are living and renters are going to be the majority of home dwellers in the future. multifamily really hasn't evolved since the invention of the elevator.

the reason why we believe that real estate residential has been so resistant to disruption, today it only applies 1% of its budget toward technology. to make change, you can't just attack one part of the problem, you have to attack the entire value chain and ally stakeholders in a new way. for us, what alfred does that is so unique, we are the only company that is early focused on the residence. we are in the right interest of consumers to provide services into the home. then we acquired a company that allowed us to build technology and automate the management of the building. then we acquired a property manager has understanding of what it takes to drive and asset. we put those three things together which are rate different businesses, we create a flywheel and we treat the consumer like they are king. we create efficiencies and

technology. it makes the owner more money, but it makes the neighborhood around the building more vibrant . we bring services into buildings and we think about real estate as it's not just about the rent check. it's about looking at retail, the building itself as retail center for lifestyle and gaining access to the consumer wallet. we are changing the value chain and doing that because we have different for competencies but it's taken us eight years of really hard work and evolution, building by building. we have 150,000 units on our platform 200 cities across canada and north america. we are proud of what we've had to build that we believe will be a generation defining company. emily: we have done some reporting on your experience with adam neumann and how his

relationship with the company changed over the last couple of years. his representatives say that he believes the article is inaccurate and he still supports the company. what is your support -- what is your response to that? your assessment of this reporting? >> it's a great question and i think a lot of people are asking similar questions. the thing that i think is important is not sincerely what is accurate reporting perspective, it's what we focused on building? what have we done already to get us to this place? this is a huge market and a lot of people see the opportunity here and that is something worth investing behind and investing in. the thing that we're really focused on at alfred is what we have built today and we want -- where we want to take this in the future. we've only scratched the surface of this market.

what we have is small compared to the overall market size in the u.s. and globally and that's where we should focus the conversation and bring the resources whether they are part of our company or other companies to bear in solving what can be housing in the future. emily: someone recently wrote in a blog post that flow wants to create the future of living. that can mean a lot of things. how do you feel about that? do you believe there is a conflict of interest here? >> i think the future -- where excited about the attention

where bring into the space. we have raised ourselves $100 million over eight years and there is a difference between those two numbers. we see the opportunity to continue to expand to our investor set but i don't want to comment on others as much as i want to focus the attention on hours. >> on the question of funding. has alfred had a conversation with them about getting backing? is it something that you would look to do as they are clearly interested in the space? >> we have let investors that we are talking to. one thing i would note is that the company is on a path of profitability. we have been doing work for eight years, this is not a

whiteboard. we feel like there is something really big here. in terms of talking to other investors especially esg investors, we have a ton of appetite. i would say one thing i hope a positive silver lining that comes out of this is think about venture especially for female led companies, only 2% of venture dollars in recent years have gone to female led companies. i want to put some emphasis here and saying that female led companies, the ideas are no smaller and our ability to execute is no less. there is a huge opportunity for backing female founders especially in this space and i think the future of living will require lots of collaboration across many different companies. that is the new form of disruption especially where we require so much change across so many stakeholders in a very

complicated value chain. emily: we know that women are historically underfunded in silicon valley, they have a much harder time raising money yet here we have idea aside a controversial mail founder getting a very big check. what sort of feelings, what was your reaction to that number? >> it's a great point and it is certainly not lost on us. the positive view of it is it's time for a lot of investment to go into this space and this is raising the awareness and the ability of housing and rental residential real estate market as an opportunity. that check validates that market and puts a spotlight on what i think hasn't been as visible previously.

marcella spoke to the other elements of it, but if we look into the future, we can take that as a benefit for short. -- four -- for sure. >> now looking at adam neumann in this space whether he can compete directly with what you guys do, what's it going to take for flow to be successful in this market as it comes in as a new entrant? >> as with any business, entering a market it comes down to understanding the customer. when we started, we started by focusing on the resident and the way we could impact their life and give them back time passed the door of their home. what does the resident and consumer need in the housing market and how can we begin to deliver that? that's going to be true of all

businesses entering the space. not only just for the resident, but how can we make the operators the folks that work in these buildings lives easier? listening and thinking from the consumer specter -- consumer perspective and customer perspective is critical for that. emily: the bigger picture, we are battling inflation and you have consumers under pressure. how many people are going to want to pay more for the kinds of services provided? do you see this as a luxury or a necessity? >> the really important thing we are doing is it's not about increasing rent prices. it's about how do we do things more efficiently? how do we technology -- use technology to automate processes that allow new revenue to come

into the building? effectively increasing the size of the pie not just by asking a resident to pay more. the increases to the rental market have been so extreme and there has not been a subsequent increase in the value proposition. we believe fundamentally people want to rent a lifestyle and a home and we can provide that putting our technology in, staffing these buildings differently, training people to hotel standards. how do would make a residence life fantastic? how do we build a community? how do we give them a place of sins and home? it's how do we serve the consumer in a better way? emily: the cofounders of alfred. thank you both so much for pointing us. we will be right back. this is bloomberg.

♪

emily: bed, bath & beyond jumped after reports that have found a lender to provide financing. is trying to boost liquidity and reduce debt. coming up, how the inflation reduction act could change how we do our taxes. that's next. this is bloomberg. ♪

this is xfinity rewards. our way of showing our appreciation. with rewards of all shapes and sizes. [ cheers ] are we actually going? yes!! and once in a lifetime moments. two tickets to nascar! yes! find rewards like these and so many more in the xfinity app. pst. girl. you can do better. at least with your big-name wireless carrier.

with xfinity mobile you can get unlimited for $30 per month on the nation's most reliable 5g network. they can even save you hundreds a year on your wireless bill over t-mobile, at&t, and verizon. wow. i can do better! yes you can! i can do better, too! now you really can do better! switch to the fastest mobile service - xfinity mobile. now with the best price on two lines of unlimited. just $30 a line.

emily: regulators are looking at

how twitter calculates the number of spam and bot accounts. twitter's lawyers told the sec that it adequately discloses the methodology. this has been a sticking point between the company and elon musk who is looking to walk away from a buyout of the platform. bring us up to speed. there was another hearing today. whistleblower allegations we heard about yesterday. now, the sec is involved? >> the allegations from the whistleblower hit on two important things. he claims that twitter has been lying to shareholders.

the number of subscribers could be a huge violation. twitter and the ftc went into a decree in 2011 that the company would changes to its privacy practices and this is an allegation the company has not done that. the companies have the right to act -- to ask twitter what's going on. emily: what happened at the latest hearing and how does that move the ball forward? >> the two sides of been fighting for a while about who should be bringing the information about bots forward. elon musk says the company has not been worth coming. that they are not willing to put forward employees who have the expertise. right now, they are trying to settle that in court. one of the issues is that elon musk lawyers want access to the

whistleblower. they think he qualifies as someone who would be an expert on this kind of stuff so they're working with the judge to figure out who does twitter need to make available as part of this trial to answer some of those questions. emily: we are still learning more about the whistleblower allegations. i'm curious what you are hearing from your sources. i am hearing the twitter is looking at the same redacted document that appears in the washington post. there's a lot of information that they can't see. what more have we learned about this complaint and intentions of the person making the complaint? >> i can tell you there's a lot of people who work at twitter now or recently who are not happy with this. that sounds obvious, but they see this as either unfair or certainly not reflective of what

they truly believed to be happening at the company and the timing is suspect. a lot of these claims seem to echo some of the stuff that elon musk and his lawyers are saying. there was an all hands meeting today with employees. management my understanding has reiterated a lot of the things we read in the email yesterday saying that this is false, these allegations don't have any merit to them. at this point, if you work at twitter, you are annoyed. you are going through this process already. this allegation comes on top of the. it is been snowballing right now. i start to sense that when i talk to people who are there or who were recently there. emily: it's been going on for quite a while. thank you for that update. turning to earnings. intuit report better-than-expected. it's small business unit group

but some of its businesses are facing headwinds from government changes to the tax system including the inflation reduction act that allocated money to setting the creation of a government run tax filing system. here to discuss with us is the ceo. how is this informing your outlook? >> thank you for having me. we are excited about our outlook. when we look at the macro environment, there are two things i would say. number one, small businesses worry about the economy. at the same time, consumer spending is strong. small business performance is strong. they're trying to manage the rising inflation, the cost going up with their supply chain and workers.

they're working through managing all of that, but they are very resilient. if i shift to our platform, it's why our platform is more mission-critical now than any or -- ever before. we are not a line item on the budget, we are the platform they used to be able to power your prosperity and run their business. that is reflected in our results and the overall company guidance we provide and the segment diets around small business. we are excited about the future. >> i'm curious about what demand trends you are seeing. >> the small businesses that we serve are either one person shop or up to about 100 employees. these small businesses use our platform to be able to manage their customers, grow their customers, manage their cash flow. these are not enterprise sales

so we don't see the sales cycle extending in fact what we are seeing is more reliance on our platform especially in this environment to be able to feel their success. emily: i want to ask about the inflation reduction act situation. part of this involves money to run a government tax filing system that could completely disrupt turbotax, one of your key products. how much does that concern you? >> it states the irs got $15 million to do just a study of what it would take for the irs to create attacks platform. with that is context, the first thing i would say is free taxes are available to all americans through private industry whether it's us or our competitors. from unavailability of free software, it's already available. secondly, we are a big advocate for the consumer.

they know their life better than anybody else when it comes to deductions for their taxes, they know their story better than anybody else. we will have to let the consumer decide what is most important in terms of where they want the irs to focus. is it about the refund experience or creating tax software? for us, it a nonevent because free tax software is already available to all americans and this could be another free tax software that's the way we see it. emily: that said, you have to be planning ahead. are you thinking about strategy or contingency plans if this could come to fruition? >> we are really not, because we already have free software. if you look at the last nine years, we serve over 113 million consumers have filed their taxes completely for free. it doesn't change anything that we are doing. we have a platform that you can do it yourself and for certain

customers, it's free. we also have a live platform that gives us the ability to serve the market of those who need expertise. that's our biggest growth driver. it doesn't change our strategy at all and i think the government has been back-and-forth for the last 25 years thinking about exactly this study and for us, it doesn't change anything. >> you also recently appointed a new leader of mailchimp. tell us about that strategy and how it fits into the business longer-term. >> we are very excited about mailchimp. the whole reason we acquired it is it plays a role in helping small businesses grow a customer base. it helps them market to new customers on different channels. it helps them manage their existing customers and one of the things we see is a huge opportunity is how to marry a platform capability that not only helps a small business grow their customer basement manage their cash flow which is where

quick comes in. -- quickbooks comes in. we want to be a one-stop shop to help fuel the prosperity of small businesses. mailchimp has the capability. we just appointed a new leader to work hand-in-hand the team there. she has been leading our payments group successfully and now she is going to be leading mailchimp and payments. that's a way to marry growing customers and cash flow in one place. emily: thank you for joining us. coming up, could bitcoin fall further? that's what some analysts are saying. we are going to get the take from the financial services firm valkyrie. this is bluebird.

♪

emily: time for our trip to report. we are waiting to hear from jay powell from jackson hole on friday. crypto could be headed for another downward slope. let's bring in valkyrie chief investment officer for his read on this along with sonali basak. do you think bitcoin has further to fall and how far? below 20? >> i do believe that bitcoin has further to fall a little bit

from where it is today. we are pretty close to the bottom. from here, i think we're going to be just fine. a lot of it depends on the hawkish fed. emily: i think of a letter that one wrote that rates are going much higher than expected. how is that going to play into where bitcoin goes next? >> any time liquidity is being taken out of the system which is what's happening right now, all risk assets will continue to fall. bitcoin luckily and unfortunately earlier this year did fall quite a bit due to local contagion risk. bitcoin isn't the first asset to go. we are waiting for the rest of the financial markets to catch up. i agree that we do have a lot further to go as far as rate

hikes. we think we will see the fed target rate between 375 and 400 of the end of the year. >> what does this mean for non-bitcoin crypto assets? ethereum is getting ready to hit a pivotal place in its lifecycle. some are more focused on the benefits that mining provides. what you think about this move to proof of stake? >> i don't think that move is a great thing for ethereum in the short run. in the long run, it might work out. the ethereum network is more secure as proof of work. that's what makes bitcoin the most secure network is a long time through proof of work where you had computers as validator's that are validating transactions all over the world in a decentralized manner. when you moved to proof estate,

that falls into the hands of a few and those are the ones that stake their tokens to validator's. this is how some other more enterprise related chains were. where there is a more enterprise application but in terms of etherium goes, the security will need to be seen how that's going to work out because we think that if you are holding a million dollar plus nft and relying on the ethereum network and it's changing right now, that may not be a great place to be. >> where are you placing your bets? valkyrie has exposure to the largest cryptocurrencies i market cap. which ones are you leaning into and out of? >> right now, bitcoin is the flight to safety for a lot of our funds.

some of the more established proof of stake protocols are also a great place to be. places like avalanche and silica. these are the ones that we are looking at to move into. we also have active accounts where we can take risk off the table in times of uncertainty like we did the beginning of this year for most of the year. we're moving out of anything that has too much exposure right now until we see this verdure goes through and into some of the safer larger crypto. >> what about solana? it's very polarizing in terms of an asset. do you think that has any room to benefit some of the things you are saying about ethereum plays out? >> solana is one of those

blockchain's that sacrifices security for speed. i don't think it's a flight to safety especially if you care about security right now and that's our biggest year on theory and is will it turn out to be in this new entity more like solana and less like bitcoin? we are cautious but we are not selling it. >> where does ethereum and the year? are you selling it? >> we think it could get back to 1000 or very low or very lower if the merge doesn't go well. does go as expected and there's not a whole lot of doubts out there that it won't there's a risk that it will, we could see it rally. we are holding off until september before we make any big bets on it. >> valkyrie chief investment officer, thank you for helping us navigate all of the different

things you are working through. we appreciate it. coming up, how microsoft hopes to change the workplace culture in the gaming industry. that's next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: microsoft's head of gaming says he is optimistic that the deal to buy activision blizzard will be approved. if that happens they will inherit the videogame hit maker. here is some of our conversation. >> i come at this that big deals should be scrutinized. that's the role of why regulators are in place. i feel good about the progress we have been making asking good hard questions about what is our intent, what does this mean if you play it out over five years. i feel good about it. >> you are confident it's going

to happen? >> i will send the discussions we have been having seen positive. we are actively engaged in the conversations trying to be transparent about our motivations. >> activision is facing a lot of challenges. there have been lawsuits, employee walkouts, accusations of sexual harassment, sexual assault, how much did that concern you? >> we had access to data from the company before we announced the acquisition to see what the numbers were in terms of reports. we definitely as a team signed up to say just like we are on our own journey with xbox that we are going to expand that journey if the deal closes. a lot of people feel dedicated and committed to building a workplace. when you think about the board of microsoft, they are thinking about the deal and typing into

their search engine activision what are the headlines are coming back and there were questions that we had. we will continue to learn from this and we will continue the journey for the betterment of our teams and the craters on our platform. we think it's critical to our business success that we make partners here. >> is bobby going to stay on? >> i'm not in a position to make comments about their leadership team. we are in the regulatory phase and how that will close. when the deal closes, then we have a say in how their managed and how it goes. >> there have been specific allegations of bobby being aware of things that happened and not reporting it to the board. what has he communicated to you about what he knew or didn't know? >> the discussions we had were about the teams, where they are at, can they make the progress they need to make.

it's a long process. are they putting in the work they need to put in to move along their journey? i believe they are committed to that. there is always more work than -- that can be done. emily: what does it look like with the unions? >> i've never run an organization with unions. what i can say is we will recognize workers needs to feel safe and hurt. and compensated fairly in order to do great work. we thought it was important to make a statement on that front for workers that are making decisions about their employment and with that relationship works -- looks like. emily: you can watch my full interview coming up 9:30 p.m.

eastern time right here on bloomberg television. that does it for this edition of bloomberg technology. don't forget to check out our podcast. find it wherever you get your podcasts. i'm emily chang in san francisco. this is bloomberg. ♪

millions have made the switch from the big three to xfinity mobile. that means millions are saving hundreds a year on their wireless bill. and all of those millions are on the nation's most reliable 5g network and most recommended wireless carrier. that's a whole lot of happy campers out there. and it's never too late to join them. get $450 off any new purchase of an eligible samsung device with xfinity mobile. or add a line to your plan today at xfinitymobile.com