restaurant partners. we recently extended our open door policy which basically waives subscription and reservation fees until the end of 2020. it's a hit that we take on our pnl for sure, but we really believe that it's the right thing to be doing to support our restaurants. >> all right well we appreciate that. thank you debby, for joining us today. >> thank you and with that we will start "squawk alley. julia and mike santoli are joining me for the hour. and this morning, mike, check in on the markets we have modestly higher on the dow about 1% s&p up 1 1/3 nasdaq doing better. i can't help notice tesla up more than 8.5% but semiconductors, call qualm up 4 >> jon, the tech leadership kind of reasserting itself again for

a day. yesterday that was a big head wind as the market did get up the s&p just to the cusp of those old highs. we did it without the help of technology, of the big growth stocks everyone is talking about this rotation the nasdaq has had yet another of its fairly routine pullbacks so far it has bounced to maintain this up trend today yes, tesla helping it, but really it is the old favorites as well, just picking up the slack and the s&p is right back to yesterday's afternoon highs before we had that shake out going into the close. >> julia, david faber mentioning last hour the passing of sumner redstone, a legend in the content world. coin that phrase content is king. has a bit of feeling the end of an era, of course, he lived well into his 90s but what are your thoughts on what a figure like sumner redstone meant in his prime and who is defining this era right now. >> well, certainly, jon.

he was the ultimate media mobile of that raera. he was responsible for the consolidation of so much content, so much of the distribution to consumers. and then, of course, he was responsible for the split of viacom and cbs, a dramatic move that said a lot about what was going on in that moment in time. in the sense these different assets would grow at different speeds now in retrospect, many would argue that he should have left those two companies together of course, cbs and viacom recombined viacom and cbs looking for that scale which is considered so crucial in the media space and notably, jon, we'll hear from one of the next generation of the ceos in this space jason kyler head of warner media and we'll hear from him later in the hour about what's going on there, the future of hbo max but just reflecting on sumner redstone and the opportunities i

had to interview him really interesting in his persistent focus on content the idea that content is king and if you can get the content right, everything follows from that, jon. >> speaking of content, we'll begin this morning with tiktok as "the wall street journal" reports that that company tracksed user data by employing a tactic banned by google. several tech companies make a push to buy the u.s. operations of that social media phenomenon ahead of a september 15th ban imposed of the trump administration former facebook chief security officer chris kelly joins us now on that. chris, good morning. >> good morning. >> so, what's your take on both the security risk posed by tiktok itself and the approach that the administration has taken to that. it seems either company specific or china specific and not data security specific. >> well, yeah. the action that the administration has taken is on

some level fairly outrageous actually you know, it is unprecedented. none of this has been done before on a content basis. and it was hard to understand the rational behind going after tiktok and then we chat together in this executive order and that kind of came out of the blue i think to a lot of folks. >> now, why do you say outrageous a lot of people will say, hey, look at this story in the "journal," look at their practices and look at the chinese government's policies. >> let's be clear, there is a real risk here and everybody needs to know about that in the past, though, we've had sort of pretty wide open net that allows chinese companies to get to americans in some ways. but with notice and choice on the part of individuals. and if they're a violation of platform guidelines there would be action against the various companies that may have individual -- that control the

platform either apple or google on the mobile space, but to have the government step in in this, it's an escalation of general trade war that's been going on and it's -- it might be over r overblown in some ways but, let me be clear, there is a real risk of data flowing to the chinese government and the chinese communist party, and that should be a part of anything that an american government takes action against. >> chris, julia boor stin here tell me about the risk when we're talking about the kind of data that's being collected by tiktok users, this is maybe other data on their phone, what is the data that's actually being collected and why is that such a risk? >> and i think that what you're seeing with the breaking story around their circumventing other security majors on the phones, that begins to get at what's dangerous. people look at -- is it really that dangerous if the chinese

communist party knows that my renegade dance is bad? probably not but if they're obviously more data on the phones or if there's other activities i think you saw a number of american companies and american governments at a sub national level begin to be concerned about that and take action around it. blanket ban might be the right way to go here and it might actually drive a deal that allows for tiktok and what originally came from bytdance musically to continue operating. obviously american teenagers love that and teenagers around the world love it. but the risk factor may or may not be addressed by this fairly blunt instrument that's been used >> and when you think about what the potential is in terms of acquisition, do you feel like microsoft is necessarily the best one to address those privacy and security concerns? or do you think that this is

such a big challenge to unwind these two businesses the domestic business from the chinese business that's a challenge microsoft might not want to take on right now? >> it will be a huge challenge and there's no question about that the companies that operate at scale, including microsoft, have very sophisticated security infrastructures and understandings of how the platforms that they have run have been infiltrated in the past and attacked in the past. so it is almost imperative if a company is going to acquire tiktok that it be a large company that already has a lot of expertise in this area. now, the complexity of unwinding the inner op ratability with the chinese service and -- tiktok emphasized repeatedly and we don't know if it's sbhierly accurate that american -- american operations are served that are not inside china. that would have to be verified

a whole bunch of things that need to go into how either they would prove what they're doing but the ban in place, the clock is ticking they're not going to continue operating a restriction order from the sifious is almost unchallengeable in the courts. they kind of need to do a deal microsoft does have the scale to do that. they indicated with their quick blog post about the deal that they are temporarily in the lead we'll see if others step up. you know, there's been all sorts of rumors and possibilities, but nothing really coming to clear fruition about alternatives. >> yeah, chris i was going to ask you about the legal options. you say it's almost unchallengeable at this point, there are been reports tiktok went through the administration to try to block or delay this order. if it were your job to make that case, you don't think it's worth doing? >> i mean, i definitely think it's worth trying to make the case or to plead for more time

so that they can get a deal that works for consumers. but it is very difficult, my former law school classmate did a very good job of on the law fair blog of explaining just how -- why this type of emergency power is so extensive and how hard it is to challenge in the courts. >> chris, i want to go back to this data security policy issue. this is really the core issue for me it's not about specific companies. it's not even just about china to me isn't the issue that -- the u.s. government should say here is what you have to do to keep u.s. data in the u.s., if that's the policy, data center wise here is how we're going to make sure that the data doesn't flow into other countries here is how we'll make sure that data doesn't flow to companies that shouldn't have their hands on it, a la cambridge analytica. don't we need an underlying policy and set of rules and

checks like this for every company no matter where they're from >> and there has been a lot of progress made around the world over the last 20 years i think in coming to more standards across the globe and approaches to thinking about data and its flow. but it is this inherent flow that the internet creates that can cause the problem of awe her to tear yan governments being able to access this data and potentially misuse it against their citizens now, you know, there were a lot of strange false equivalents made at the beginning of the tiktok discussion around well -- don't facebook and google already have access to all this data and couldn't they misuse or couldn't the u.s. government misuse it? in fact, one of the reasons that the privacy shield that we negotiated with the eu was overturned recently was because there are government access protocols in the u.s. that the eu has deemed inadequate

what we need is a regime that allows for reasonable rule of law-based government access to some information and to set that as a global standard and hopefully in some of the negotiations over what replaces the privacy shield, the u.s. and the eu can begin to do that now, that's a very different question u.s. and eu where you have general rule of law operating very well that you can have some confidence in the judiciary for limited access on warrant-base, you have to prove things up to a judge versus plenary access by a chinese communist party or another dictatorship elsewhere in the world russia for instance. >> very, very different. >> we're hoping over time and companies -- when i was at facebook and as i shared previously on air i'm still a consultant to facebook on a number of these issues, that it's important for there to be uniform regimes across the globe

for ease of administrative ability. it will be a struggle and it will be hashed out the next 10, 20 years the more it moves towards a harmonized standard is better for citizens across the globe. >> not a side project for microsoft, twitter or whoever might end up with this chris, thank you chris kelly, consultant to facebook and former facebook chief security officer cnbc's latest states of play survey out with some interesting numbers on covid-19 and signs of inflation. eamon javers breaks those numbers down for us. >> what we're seeing is exactly all the different ways in which this virus is really dominating voter's economic lives take a look at this chart and you'll see that 66% of the voters that we survey, these are likely voters in swing states are saying that they're experiencing higher prices for supplies 40% say they spent down their savings. and now here is one the middle bar in this bar graph is interesting because this puts

cash back into voter's pockets 36% say they received a rebate from their car insurance company. that does put more cash into circulation in the economy that's a positive for consumers. but 14% say they've gone into debt as a result of the virus and 10% say they've received unemployment so some tough numbers there. what about those inflation expectations well, they're much, much higher now than they were earlier this year take a look at this. in march, 33% said they were seeing higher prices for supplies, but that spiked with the virus to 71% now it's tailed off a little bit to about 66% of folks saying they're seeing those higher prices out there in the economy. and then the feelings of the economy generally look at this chart, what you see is optimism really collapsed early on and started to come back in may only to slump again at the end of the summer generally that's not a good indication for the party in power. so now 34% say they've got a good feeling about the economy, 43% say they've got a good feeling about the economy for

next year. so maybe there's a little bit more optimism around the corner than there is for right now. but you are seeing that economic expectation number start to slump again late in the summer as we've seen that virus continue to expand throughout the country, guys. back over to you >> oh, thanks so much. pretty striking numbers there. very drawmatic in terms of the impact of covid. coming up at the bottom of the hour, do not miss our exclusive with warner media's new ceo jason kilar. a big show with "squawk alley" continues next stay with us look here, it's your very own all-in-one

entertainment experience: xfinity x1. it's the easiest way to watch live tv and all your favorite streaming apps. plus, x1 also includes peacock premium at no extra cost. this baby is the total package. it streams exclusive originals, the full peacock movie library, complete collections of iconic tv shows, and more. yup, the best really did get better. magnificent. xfinity x1 just got even better, with peacock premium included at no additional cost. no strings attached.

major drug companies are now beginning to develop therapies for covid-19 as the wait for a vaccine continues. meg terrel explains. >> reporter: 44-year-old jason barten had just returned to arizona from a family trip when he got a pounding headache testing revealed he and his whole family had the coronavirus. >> it was mostly just headaches 24 hours a day for two weeks straight >> barton entered a clinical trial of a new kind of drug to treat covid-19. >> this is a class of drugs that works by getting people antibodies that will help fight the virus. >> reporter: in development from regeneron and eli lily, they have combined antibodies one it developed in its labs. the drugs are tested to treat the disease, a different kind of trial has started as well.

designed to see if they can prevent it in people who might have been exposed. >> there's a lot of reason, a lot of evidence to suggest if you treat before infection for most of these diseases but including covid you can entirely prevent the infection. >> april stewart enrolled in one of the trials after her son was diagnosed with covid-19. >> this whole thing is scary i was thankful that nobody else in my household had come down with covid >> reporter: the prevention trials are run in partnership with the national institute of allergy and infectious disease they are enrolling house mates of people with covid-19 while eli lily goes to nursing homes that had outbreaks >> and guys, jason, that patient at the beginning did tell us he felt better a few days after entering the trial and april says she has not come down with covid-19, but of course neither knows if they got the drug or the placebo in the trials. the results from these trials

are expected within a few months guys >> yep important process. thank you, meg and meanwhile, you can see shares of lemonade, that's the insurance tech provider falling this morning after reporting its first results as a public company. we'll tell you why when the ceo th botr def the hesi o isreak stay with us - at u.s. money reserve.

we've helped hundreds of thousands choose the best precious medal for their retirement portfolios. and many are in profit positions today because of those choices. so, don't wait until the next crisis. get started secure your financial future today. recently, congress passed a bill that created a better solution. it's a new type of ira that allows you many of the same tax benefits of a traditional ira, but without the same types of exposure to market volatility, it's called a self-directed ira. we're talking about real solid physical gold just like the gold i'm holding in my hand. securing your savings with gold or silver and a self-directed ira is an easy way to protect your financial future.

so you don't want to wait for the next market crash. call and ask the experts at u.s. money reserve to send you their free information package. it's full of everything that you need to know about getting started on your self-directed ira today. you'll be glad you did. shares of lemonade falling this morning in its first quarterly report since going public last month. the mobile-based insurance

company posting better than expected results by guidance coming in short of street expecting. the ceo joins us to talk about the numbers and the outlook. daniel, good to see you. >> good morning. >> so, just to talk a little bit about what you're seeing in the business obviously the second quarter you had greater than 100% annual gains in revenues and premiums very modest, i have to say, short fall in revenue guidance relative to what the street was looking for on a small base. a million dollars, stock is down what are you seeing in terms of the pacing of business in this quarter, which of course is almost half done >> so, yeah. q2 was a top line grew by over 1030%. our gross profit grew by over 200% that was during the most dramatic quarter that we've had for so long because of the covid-19 epidemic. we took a conservative stance early in the quarter and as we

saw that actually all of our kpi's key performance indicators conversion and demand and retention were all fabulous we reversed course. as we look forward to q3, we have a certain amount of uncertainty. the third quarter tends to be moving season. people because of the school year move a lot during the third quarter. and our caution was that we don't know how much of the moving that traditionally happens in 3 q3 will happen this year but so far i have to say the covid pandemic has enabled us to continue to grow very aggressively to take market share and the trend towards digitization really helped us. >> and moving season, of course, matters because renters insurance and homeowners are the main current lines of business is there any concern within your guidance there about the mix of renters versus new homeowners at this point because it might seem there's at

least anecdotally this move towards buying and not renting. >> so not really we've actually reported 17% increase in our premium per customer year on year. so not only are we having many more customers, they're each paying us a lot more and seeing more and more of our renters become homeowners. about 10% of our condo insurance customers started life with us as renters and then grew oftentimes ten times more premium with no incremental. so all of the dynamics are good. all of the lights are green. we just need a little cautious because we are in uncharted territory. it's hard to predict but at the same time that we've seen our top line and our bottom line grow, we have seen a risk ability to assess risk and price risk has improved dramatically this quarter in q2 we are coming in at 67% loss ratio we came in line with industry's best. so as we're growing very fast, we're getting better and better

at pricing and underwriting risk is the very core of insurance. >> daniel, a question about the business you launched a month ago the pet insurance business with your ability to assess risk, why did it make sense to add that business now especially when consumers, many consumers are so strapped for cash so, pet insurance is something that is dramatically even woefully underrepresented in the u.s. other places many european countries, 40, 50% of pet owners insure the health of their pets. the u.s. it hovers around 1% we identified massively underserved market and indeed the vast majority of our customers are pet parents. so, there is a huge amount of demand, very little way of supply, the incumbents have not catered to this growing need more broadly, one of the unusual things about lemonade is that the overwhelming majority, something like 90% of our

customers are first-time buyers of insurance the whole industry is predicated on the i switched and i saved marketing message. not so with lemonade we're acquiring customers young. we're competing with nonconsumption which is a huge strategic boon as those customers insurance needs grow, we grow with them. so i spoke earlier about renters becoming homeowners but pet owners is another part of that dynamic. we'll be adding other insurance products to flesh out the offering and ensure that we cater to all of our customer's needs while growing lifetime value, while other metrics improve as well. >> it's jon fortt. i want to go back to the caution in your guidance it seems to me like all the fundamental metrics and all of the environmental metric rts pretty much should be moving in your direction online transactions are up, real estate market continues to be active, if there's any time when people are cautious and probably want insurance it would be now how much of this is because

maybe the school year effect isn't in place the way it had been in previous years where people might want to move ahead of the school year so that their kids can be in a particular location, maybe now with distance learning and the state of schools, that's not as much of an issue. is it that kind of seasonality impact that's leading to your caution, what is it? >> it's exactly that and it's exclusively that. as you say, all the other lights are green. so, this is the time that people move because of the school year either parents with their kids or adults or college and so far we have reason to believe that we will continue to have a strong quarter indeed our guidance for the quarter is very strong the only question is whether it's going to be very strong or exceedingly strong and that delta really depends on how much this third financial quarter is going to be representative of prior financial quarters where moving season really did drive up demand that was, as you say, driven by the school year and given the

covid pandemic taking a little cautionary note in our guidance due to that. >> we'll check back in when we see how that plays through in the distinction between very and exceedingly strong appreciate it, dan >> thank you. and warner media ceo jason n'gonyer just moments away dot awhe. fidelity. now you can trade stocks and etfs for any amount you choose instead of buying by the share. all with no commissions. stocks by the slice from fidelity. get your slice today. i opened a sofi money account and it was the first time that i realized i could be earning interest back on my money. i just discovered sofi, and i'm an investor with a diversified portfolio. who am i?! i refinanced my student loans with sofi because of their low interest rates. thanks sofi for helping us get our money right.

♪

♪ welcome back i'm rahel solomon. here is your cnbc news update at this hour. police are looking for the gunman who shot someone inside a hospital in shreveport, louisiana. police say 41-year-old tan cole entered the hospital and shot an acquaintance in the leg. that person is expected to survive. kentucky derby is limiting attendance to 14% capacity face coverings and social distancing will also be required crowds will not be allowed on the in field and general admission tickets will be

refunded. >> this year's paris marathon was cancelled. it was set to take place april 5th and postponed until november 15th because of the pandemic so the move now leaves london as the only major marathon still scheduled for this year. it will be an elite only event. scotland, a train has derailed killing three people. this accident is caused by a landslide following heavy rans you're up to date now. that's our cnbc's ne uwspdate at this hour. "squawk alley" will be back right after this apps are used everywhere...

except work. why is that? is it because people love filling out forms? maybe they like checking with their supervisor to see how much vacation time they have. or sending corporate their expense reports. i'll let you in on a little secret. they don't. by empowering employees to manage their own tasks, paycom frees you to focus on the business of business. to learn more, visit paycom.com

come on in, we're open. ♪ all we do is hand you the bag. simple. done. we adapt and we change. you know, you just figure it out. we've just been finding a way to keep on pushing. ♪ a major overhaul of warner media, including the ousting of two high profile executives who were tasked with developing and running hbo max, raising questions over the platform's performance less than two months into its launch. new warner media ceo jason kilar joins us now jason, thanks so much for talking to us today. >> absolutely, julia happy to. >> so jason, i have to ask, it's just been about two months since

hbo max launched are you worried that it missed its shot to really gain consumers in this very crowded streaming landscape? >> not at all. not at all andjulia, you take a look at the last 60 days by any measure from my perspective we're in a good position you look at what last year we thought and hoped we would be at the end of 2020, which is 36 million hbo and hbo max subscribers, we just announced a couple weeks ago that we're actually north of 36 million already and obviously the number is going up everyday >> but there is this question, though, of whether or not, you know, as some traditional hbo subscribers cut the chord, you're adding others, you had about 4 million signups for hbo max, putting that in contrast to disney which had 10 million sign ups for its first day, peacock already had 10 million signups are those numbers just way lower than what you need to be competitive in this landscape?

>> no. i think if you actually dive deeper in terms of apples to apples comparison, the nbc side of things, i think you'll see a bit of a different story but more importantly in terms of your question about disney plus, keep in mind that disney is a 100-year surgically precise brand with regards to families with kids under the ages of 9, generally speaking so, they did exactly what they should have done and kudos to them ours is a very different journey. i would argue in success ours is a bigger outcome because we are really going after all members of the family and all individuals. and so, the opportunity is bigger but it does mean that our journey is going to be different because we don't have a 100-year surgically precise brand around families, specifically with kids under the age of 9 >> but you do have the brand of hbo. and hbo meant something very specific and then there became all these different versions of hbo, go, max, now max and a lot

of confusion that's one reasons why you're trying to elevate the hbo max brand in particular, but what do you want that brand to mean? and how do you clarify that when there's all that noise about hbo and what these different versions are >> absolutely. so at the end of the day, we're leaning into hbo and to immediately answer your second question, quality is the answer we want people when they think of hbo max, when they think of all the things they can get from hbo max we want people to think that while these stories, they're a cut above. and that really plays into the legacy and the history of hbo. i couldn't be prouder of the work that they done and obviously things like warner brothers and d.c. and harry potter, we're talking about a nearly 100 year legacy of quality. that's exactly what we're going to do to lean into it. i do want to say something, julia, you raised, i think in hindsight a mistake which is we did have a number of brands in the market that were ultimately confusing, which is hbo now and hbo go we have sunsetted those brands and those services so now we are

left with rightly so hbo max and hbo. so it's a much simpler proposition for consumers. >> i wonder if you can help clarify how the funnel works in your view for how you get in front of the customer, get the customer to subscribe and then retain i know i'm finding at home we'll often look for a specific piece of content we'll do a search. we'll see what service it's available on if we already have it free or basically already paid for and then go there. it's kind of like a marketplace approach how do you play within that marketplace? what's working and going to work >> well, ultimately we have to do two things. the first and most important thing is that we have to have incredible stories that people are seeking out and very much want to engage themselves in so whether that's succession or whether that's perry mason or insecure, love life, harry potter, you name it but all of

these things we have to do a great job leaning into those stories. that's the first and most important thing we have to do. i would argue we're in the world at that. the second thing we need to do that as we do that again and again and again, the name and the brand of hbo max will start to leave consumers to start that top of the funnel by actually turning on hbo max that's when we know we've done a really nice job on an individual story basis such that people decide, you know what i just know i want to be entertained in a high quality way i'm going to start by opening up hbo max. >> and hulu, which you worked hard on, turned out pretty well. what did you learn from that >> you have to start with focussing on the customer and then everything else is just details. and so our big lesson at hulu back in 2007 was empower people and liberate people so they can be entertained, when, where and how they want to don't expect them to show up in a certain room of the house on a certain day of the week at a

certain time just so they can watch a program they want. so that was probably the most important lesson, which is start with the consumer and everything else is just details >> jason, we've had this, i guess, unintended experiment going on with stay at home and people intentively using all their streaming services what surprises or insights have you gotten in terms of consumption patterns, whether it's comfort tv that's already out there versus new content or anything that you think is going to be helpful to you in terms of figuring out what people want down the road? >> i think probably one of the biggest insights is that brands or lack of a better term, things that kind of aggregate people, bring people together, they matter more now than they ever did before i say that because in the world of internet, it allows for just an explosion of content and an explosion of choice. that's really good on many levels in terms of personally. but that said it becomes very

challenging and crowded. when you're able to offer big, noisy stories that people identify with and want to come together even if it's virtually on the couch all over the world, that matters more. anisowhat we're seeing if you take a look at our most viewed content, you do see properties that play very, very big "friends" is probably the perfect example of that where it means something after all these years. >> jason, you, of course, also oversee warner brothers. and the theatrical business has been transformed by covid. we have tenant, which is your christopher nolan film doing a nontraditional release and universal doing these 17 day windows which is a total transformation of the traditional three-month window between when films were available in theaters and then at home. how are you going to be approaching that shorter window? and what will that mean for your

theatrical business? >> well, first and most importantly and you'll notice a trend here, is that we're going to start all of our decision making from the perspective of the consumer that is the only way to go if you ultimately want to be successful so with regards to what that means, it absolutely means that in some cases we're absolutely going to embrace a theatrical release when we're able to and clearly with tenant we're so excited about that, the movie is unbelievable i've seen it it is just -- so we're very, very excited about what we're doing surgically, julia, as you said around the world to get that in front of people in a fantastic, customer experience but there will be other situations where we may decide to go direct to consumer through hbo max. with 120-minute story. and that's okay because at the end of the day if you kind of start with the customer, think about the best ways we can serve them, i think what we can see generally speaking is us aggressively leaning into theatrical because it's a great

customer experience but it's also fair to say that those windows are going to be smaller. i think that's appropriate because that's what the consumer has been saying. >> so does that mean that you'll be offering films at home just three weekends after they were in theaters just like universal? >> well, i didn't say with any specificity. i can definitely say that if you were to compare the number of days that a warner brother's title was in theaters over the last decade versus what will happen over the next decade, julia, i believe the number will a be a fair bit smaller. i think that's a better customer experience and ultimately our job as executives is to make sure that the theatrical -- >> and i have to say because you do also, of course, oversee tbs and tnt and you just fired kevin riley, who oversees those or did oversee those businesses, what's going to be your approach to programming those cable channels especially in light of all the

questions about the futures of sports >> well, so keep in mind, we're absolutely leaning aggressively into our cable channels. so, the changes that you're referring to, julia, keep in mind we're elevating creative executives in the company specifically casey flows and say sara aubry and casey, just to talk about him, you're talking about someone who has been at the top of the industry creatively for the last two decades. he and his teams have generated more emmy nominations than i probably have hair follicles on my head. you should sleep well that the cable channels are very well looked after. >> jason, now, just a final question about sumner redstone we lost a media mobile, a titan in the media space today really famous for splitting up cbs and viacom and of course they recombined. how do you think about him and his legacy and perhaps what you're thinking about the need

for more consolidation right now? >> i think -- the lessons that sumner has taught us are long and certainly longer than this time allows. i will say, julia, one of the things that i was always most impressed with in terms of his leadership was how tenacious he was. this is on the stories of his tenacity from personal tragedy, hanging outside the building the middle of the fire in boston, to the tenacity that he leveraged as he assembled and then changed his assets for lack of a better word this is an unusual leader. this was an unusual leader i think we can all learn a lot in terms of kind of when tenacity is put forward in the right way it's an incredibly power thing in terms of serving consumers. >> well, jason, we appreciate you talking to us today and we hope you'll come back and fill us in more as your business continues to evolve. thanks so much >> thank you, julia. microsoft is getting back

into the smartphone business, sort of. after more than four years with the surface duo. the company announcing that that foldable android tablet that's also a phone will start at $1,400 will launch on september 10th it's android but it looks like windows 10x. i'm excited about this this is kind of a second phone, like a second car, like a weekend m.i.a. ta or corvette. incredibly gutsy to launch this now. well, we'll see how it does. we're going to take a quick commercial break stay with us ♪

uber shares falling this morning after a tough week there's a warning the company may temporarily shut down operations in california over the employment status of its employees. we'll continue to keep an eye on that "squawk alley" returns in two. >> so we think we comply by the laws, but if the judge and the court finds that we're not and they don't give us a stay to get to november, then we'll have to essentially shut down uber until november when the voters decide. it wldou be really unfortunate at a historical time of unemployment in california he bes for their retirement portfolios and many are in profit positions today because of those choices. so don't wait until the next crisis. get started securing your financial future today. one of the criticisms of traditional ira accounts is they're typically tied to paper assets that are often unprotected from inflation

or even a market crash. recently, congress passed a bill that created a better solution. it's a new type of ira that allows you many of the same tax benefits of a traditional ira, but without the same types of exposure to market volatility. it's like somebody finally came up with a better mousetrap, but for the ira. so what's this better mouse trap called? it's called a self- directed ira. and we're not talking about gold etfs or some other type of paper gold or silver note. we're talking about real solid physical gold, just like the gold i'm holding in my hand. u.s. money reserve agents are knowledgeable in all aspects of self-directed iras, and they can help you from the beginning to the end. - the u.s. money reserve, i highly recommended it to anybody out there looking for an alternative to these dangerous times. - what they've done for me in my portfolio is,

i couldn't ask for anything better. i really couldn't. - i would recommend u.s. money reserve, without any hesitation or reservation, to anyone. i would not use anyone else. honestly. - securing your savings with gold or silver and a self-directed ira is an easy way to protect your financial future. so you don't want to wait for the next market crash. call and ask the experts at u.s. money reserve to send you their free information package. it's full of everything that you need to know about getting started on your self-directed ira today. you'll be glad you did.

let's go to seema mody >> it's good to have you on, keith. the pressure to preserve cash, that seems to be top of mind you saw profits drop 82% in the first half of the year what measures are you taking to cut costs, given the environment you're operating in right now? >> the first half of the year was most traveling that the travel and tourism industry has ever seen. on you revenues fell 52% profits declined we were able to turn a $74 million profit, and protect our liquidity be working on preserving cash, looking how to control the discretionary expenses, looking at the labor costs, so forth, working with our banks, and of course at the same time implementing across the world new operating procedures, and i'm incredibly

proud of the team how we got through the toughest half of this industry. >> you have a unique lens into the world of travel, from the upper scale in our continental senses, and you this lower budget hotel chains like holiday inn, which consistently outperformed, when you compare it to some of the luxury brands. what is the growth behind holiday inn? can it last? >> we saw a strong performance particularly in the united states we saw a lot of leisure travel, but also some nondiscretionary business travel. month over mount we saw occupancy increase that's really related to three things the curve is where the virus is in terms of containment. government restrictions on travel, and consumer confidence both in the economic situation and also in the safety and well-being of the travel experience, too. so we expect to see continued

recovery, but it will be patchy. as you've seen recently markets open, markets close. compa countries open and close border. when restrictions come into place, that will slow the recoveries you added 4,000 rooms in the last three months, but mostly in the upper-scale/luxury segment if growth is the lower budget segment, why build more luxury. >> it's been interesting we opened 90 hotels and signed 180 hotels around the world. 100 of those were in the holiday inn franchise, but also luxury hotels like six senses we saw them perform well it's been a fascinating opening up you had seen the mainstream hotels, but like resorts where people can socially distance,

have done very, very well also in china, where things are probably closer to being back to normal, we're having some record performance. so you will see continued growth at the top end, and also into the mainstream segments. >> keith, are there areas where we should not expect to see growth, or even perhaps expect to see your footprint shrinking? i know interest rates are low. i'm not sure what your capital strategy is, but i imagine in some areas with low occupancy, it can be pretty painful to hold onto the properties for an extremely long period of time. >> you know, we made a decision years ago that lid to an asset-lined strategy while we have nearly 6,000 hotels, we own or lease a handful. so we have a very, very light capital structure. and we expect to see that growth continue even the deaths owners

are investing in properties, and opening hotels, and we expect that to continue however, we do think there will be more of a flight to quality we will see hotels that want to convert to some of the biggest branded players in the world, will begin changing flags, and we will benefit from that. we recently did two luxury hotels in shanghai, a new intercontinental in rome, which is a conversion. so we'll see more of that as time goes on. >> keith, julia boorstin here. you mentioned the success of resource as people sort of have that vacation experience, but what's your outlook, especially in light of the fact that two years ago from now, people just may not feel like they need to travel for meetings the same way that they did pre-covid do you see that market transforming entirely >> not entirely. every major event, thing do

change we saw it after 9/11 we got used to taking our shoes off and not meeting loved ones at the gate. there's a lot of tailwinds as well in terms of the growth seen around the world you can't chain yourself to a big convention or important vip meeting. we do think business travel will continue, but it will take time. i truly believe that groups meetings and events which are critical for this industry will take time until social distancing measures or a vaccine is widely distributed. it's difficult to envision 5,000 people coming together for a conference or convention in the coming months. again fortunately most of our hotels don't rely on that business, but people do love to travel i've spoken to chief executives and other travel planners around the world. people do want to get back on the road and have that inherent connection with people. >> new york was once the hottest

hotel market, now faces an extremely bleak picture. the numbers of hotels continuing to close grows by the day. >> yeah, so the new york metro area we have 95 hotels, and about 84% of those have reopened in manhattan proper we have 21, and about 65% of those have reopened they're performing well. some of them are housing frontline workers and so forth, helping with the solution. new york is going to have had travel we'll seeing those in cities that are glob hubs, where people go for business and leisure. london is another example. so those markets already challenged as long as travel restrictions are in place and quarantine measures are there, which will be for the foreseeable future until gentz the virus is a bit more contained and the vaccine is widely available some hotels will permanently

close in those markets that makes sense, because they were probably economic% the pandemic, and even more so now, and some of those will reflag and rebrand, repurpose. >> so what happens to the hotels that are personal nenly closed simon properties is potential outfitting retail into fulfillment centers. can you convert them into office space? or that market hasn't been doing as well. what happens to those hotels >> you know, it's a good question in many instances this could be repurposes into residential. apartments could be put into place there, so it's highly valuable real estate that will find the highest and betts use over time, but there is a great deal on pressure as retail and office space, too. probably unlikely most of that gets repurpose it would probably be more towards residential. keith, we really appreciate you joining us today

>> thank you, seema, for bringing us that, as we inch closer to noon, mike san tolli, i've got my eye on the major indices. pretty close to the high of the session, still led by tesla, and the semiconductors all up considerably. >> the old familiar growth stock winners to try to make another run. the yesterday's high 3381. so far today's high 3381 seems to be splitting harris as the market hesitates, but today it is a bounce in the nasdaq in fact the nasdaq 100 is now flat on the week there's been a lot of talk about rotation away to cyclical stocks maybe that actually gets under

way, but for today it seems like a bounce in the nasdaq is the story, jon. >> on the content front, julia, those stocks holding up okay >> yeah, just taking a look at the social media stocks, you have facebook, snap, pinterest, all trading up about 2%, jon with that we hend it over to scott wapner and the half. this big-name strategist who just raised his targets for stocks this year and next. we'll debate that call today joe terranova, jim lebenthal, steve weiss, and jenny harrington let's go to the wall broughtly higher as you just heard. there you go, the nasdaq getting a bounce back today, up better than 2%, 221 points.