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♪ happy wednesday. welcome to "squawk alley." i'm jon fortt with carl quintanilla and deirdre bosa this hour roadblocks making its long-awaited debut in a direct listing. the founder and ceo will join us in the future of enterprise experience data and a quarter billion iphone units but we begin with tech stocks fueled by high hopes as the sector pushes higher again this morning, deirdre. >> roadblocks, though it was private, certainly a 2020 darling and those high flyers as we have seen as valuations have come down-to-earth will investors buy the massive

runway for long-term growth, see this as a transformational business, carl, or will investors focus on metrics in the short time indications they are currently $65 to $70 a share after a reference price of $45 a share carl, i have to mention they raised money last year at about $6 a share so what a remarkable runup it's been, one not uncommon for ipos though this is a direct listing. >> and a household name, brand name, depending on whether or not you have kids in the house we'll talk some tesla to start after that gain yesterday, the best gain in nearly a year we're seeing a bit of a fade at the moment gents, good to see you thank you for joining us today >> thank you

>> thank you >> craig, i'm almost grateful for the almost 1% move because how much can investors be expected to understand valuations when the stock price is moving 20% day-to-day >> yeah, be understanding valuations, i think, is an interesting topic. tesla has been valued at more than the total value of the u.s. and european auto market combined i think people are playing technicals and trading momentum, and the external factors from the yield curve, the anticipated changes, are what's driving the stock more than valuation. >> so, all right, but if we argue, if the valuation trend is higher is the street rightly folding in things like data from

autonomous driving, batteries, electric grid? is the street thinking of the name holistically enough >> the bulls all believe there's a lot of value in the software in the tesla cars, dreaming of $100,000 in value per car, robo taxis, fully autonomous driving. and we understand that elon actually talks, when he thinks he's far from wall street about taking on the railroads with his autonomous electric trucks in the future there are a lot of lofty dreams around tesla the bulls, they hang their hat on what they choose to i'm not a bull i'm a skeptical guy so i don't see much evidence with that playing out that way but i understand why the stock is moving, people are buying it off the technical level and they have pretty aggressive long-term expectations >> it's painful not to be a bull, at least to the ego, in

tesla over the last few months and so, tim, it's been about four months since tesla went on this astounding run. i'm going to use the word astounding because it's about the most neutral one i can find. do you think there's perspective to be had on exactly why it's gone on the run? what it means and what that says about what elon musk and the company have to continue to do not to get trapped in this trade? >> yeah, well, it's a momentum story, right the first quarter has traditionally been a difficult one, where that lofty idea runs into the cold, hard reality of making cars. and for a lot of reasons they struggle in the first quarter and elon hasn't shown a consistent ability to pay profit or see sales growth the way wall street wants to see in the first quarter. this is the big test the beginning of the quarter we saw some numbers that maybe suggested the growth was kind of coming off and now we're seeing some numbers out of china that

suggest, wow, it's really still hot there. it's really confusing on top of all these other confusing signals for what's going on with tesla right now. >> what's the point in even having a price target anymore? it's, what, $150 the stock is $690. can you just say, okay, i know we normally give price targets but there's no point in this environment? >> the neutral ratings, because i wouldn't short it, i believe i'm the one who put out the story, both are going to be huge for execution. valuation, i just can't get there. i think investors are much better off in small cap. that's why i stick with the price target i have had a buy rate at higher levels and it's possible i could upgrade if the stock were to have a big enough correction i'm not picking a price level. i would say if it gets to $150 we would be aggressive buyers. but it's possible there could be

a price point above. >> i think it's interesting both of you use the phrase lofty dreams craig, could one of those ideas be getting closer to reality there was that report that says tesla is building a mega battery for the texas grid could that be an underappreciated part of tesla's business, the potential to not just fix the texas power grid but fix the national power grid? >> so the battery nerds out there, the people that are really in the wedz on this, know that they are not the leader they often subsidize their pro projects tesla putting out a fancy name on a battery project doesn't

really get me excited. the people that work for d.o.e. and for the different industry groups don't tend to get too excited about that it's packaged for wall street. i don't see this as central to the tesla story. i see them selling cars and selling great cars, which is what they need to do obviously they will have an interesting time coming through on some of the software commitments. electric trucks, i don't believe in long haul with batteries. we'll see. there's plenty of room for tesla to miss longer term expectations and it's going to take some time to find out. >> okay. tim, what do you say is that idea just for the battery nerds? a battery of this size they reported on could power about 20,000 homes on a hot summer

day. is that sort of pie in the sky idea >> it's still small for tesla and is really a hobby at this point. elon has talked about solar and battery projects for a long time but when it comes down to it, it's about making cars their focus is largely on execution of getting these factories on line in texas and germany. that is where the next year and a half will be make or break for the company. solar in the long term maybe batteries for houses the long term potentially. we haven't seen the kind of commitment to that in the last couple of years because of the way the company has becoming a company, something that is in failure. >> yeah, although, i'm thinking back a few years now, tim, there was a point at which it wasn't

how big tesla was going to get it was a question how much capital markets would give them leash and it does feel that question kind of got answered. >> big time, right does the runup on the stock has helped them raise a lot of capital, but they're not out of the woods yet. it's hard to be profitable as a car company. look at the world of general motors and volkswagen, around more than a hundred years and have cyclicals up and downs. wall street investors who are making this massive bet on tesla are betting they're going to change the world and there's not a lot of room to change the world or not at this kind of valuation this is a risky bet and so far people are buying into it.

>> interesting to see how they handle fresh curveballs like the chips shortage great discussion, guys it's certainly rich for debate thanks so much >> thank you >> thank you >> and now after the break we get peachy with the creator of peachy squad we'll explain next investments,your key portfolio events, all in one place. because when it's decision time, you need decision tech. only from fidelity.

direct listing of the day will be roblox

rblx, the reference price was 45 you can see the indication 67 to 72 pretty big deal for the nyse josh lipton is joining us with an explainer of what it is if you don't already know hi, josh >> carl, roblox might be a foreign word to some investors but it is very well known to parents, the online gaming company has a lot of young fans. in 2020 daily active users drew 85% to nearly 33 million and more than 50% under the age of 13 and an interesting business model, too millions of experiences are available on this platform so meaning everything from games to concerts, and users make the games with tools provided by the company and then they share in the revenue a 70/30 split. roblox makes most of its money by selling a digital currency. roblox enjoyed dramatic growth

during the pandemic. revenue in 2020 surging 82% to 924 million and hours spent on the platform rose 124% to 30.6 billion. yes, that's with a b key questions for investors on this one one asks what does growth look like for roblox post pandemic when kids go back to school? the company did warn growth could slow in the spring while hours engaged could decline as much as 11%. the ceo told cnbc that he's confident. >> roblox has been growing for 15 years driven by our community, by the awesome content and driven by people to do things together that's a long-term growth path we believe it continues even after covid.

>> one other question raised, can this company extend its reach and gain traction with older demographics it is certainly trying back in november the rapper lil nas x held a performance in roblox that attracted more than 30 million visits. deirdre, back to you >> all about those digital shows, josh. thank you for that with us now one of its most popular users, megan letter, known as meganplays. good morning to you. thanks for being with us today >> yes, of course. >> we've heard from roblox's ceo, spoken to early investors, but what can you tell our audience about roblox, about the kids that use it that they may not know >> the kids that use roblox are extremely passionate about the mras form. we all know that they have 32 million active users all the time and i know that personally every

time i see kids in restaurants they're always playing roblox. it is one of the hottest things. i think i even read david baszucki assumes almost 70% of america's youth are on roblox daily. well, not daily, but >> right you certainly see it if you're a parent now key to your success as an infl influencer you didn't rely on one platform. i believe your original platform was youtube. you did branch into roblox and that has proved extremely lucrative to you leading to a seven figure salary, is that right? >> yes >> what is the biggest source of your revenue and earnings across all these platforms, and has roblox been the most lucrative >> mm-hmm, yeah. that's a really good question. i did start on yup and then we decided we wanted to have more control over the content we were producing and thought we would

create our own games roblox gives us the tools and education factors and resources to hire amazing developers to create the games we went into game development and we launched a game and the game, i would say, is way more lucrative than actual youtube cpms and stuff like that it is quite shocking to a lot of people, and a lot of people don't believe us when we say that but, honestly, our game has millions of unique players and it's honestly comparatively not a huge game on the platform. these games maybe only average 5,000, 6,000 players a day concurrent, they're actually doing really big numbers behind the scenes for roblox and for the developers themselves. >> megan, tell us about your strategy as an experienced creator. you have 3.5 million followers, i guess, subscribers on youtube. so steady traffic there. you're into content creation now.

how important is the roblox platform going to be are you going to diversify into creating games outside of that, perhaps on apple's app store, on cloud streaming, or will roblox be primary >> i believe roblox is a primary asset to my brand and multiple other people's brands just because you could go and create an app at the app store but you're not going to have that immediate 32 million daily players to get you started i think it's a fantastic platform it's literally turning 15-year-olds into millionaires it's crazy and i don't think there would be ever such a platform and a kick starter even with my 3.5 million supporters online. i don't think that they would so easily translate over to a platform or the app store because they're on roblox. they have the app. there's something keeping them entertained there. and roblox provides a lot.

the databases and everything >> it's what they provide that i wonder about we saw this play out with facebook when zynga got started there. facebook was a great platform because there were so many people on it and relatively few games and some of those social games saw big growth then facebook sort of messed things up for them with apple's app store, similar thing. flappy bird and a certain volume on that platform and it got harder for others to enter what does roblox need to do for community management to keep this momentum going? >> i think they're already doing it david buszucki -- i'm not sure if he said it or if it was the keynote that they are seeing themselves not in competition with but comparative to disney, netflix, all entertainment platform they have a lot of games in the past couple of months i have done video collaborations it's more of a social aspect

they want to bring people together they want to be able to do everything on roblox for example, they have concerts, events and are keeping people extremely engaged. they're not just leaving it up to the creators. they're taking things into their own hands. often they are transforming their platform into accessible ways not really sure how to word that but they added automatic translations to make the pop-up more accessible to other countries around the world i think they're doing a fantastic job of growing into just this massive conglomerate and i don't see it slowing down. >> i can see why as a business, as a producer, a content creator, you want to get everything you can out of what you've invested in this particular platform.

but for your business don't you almost have to keep one eye out looking for another platform that could eventually take its place in terms of influence? >> i think so. i think an important part of my job is to adapt. i don't see any other gaming space competing with roblox as they do have multiple giant game companies coming in and raising venture capital to create games. we have people wanting to utilize the roblox platform coming from creating mobile apps to roblox because of the mass viewer base that they have >> megan, i was just talking to my brother who has two sons, 5 and 8 years old, and he says they've sort of left roblox behind and they're all in on fortnite i wonder, do kids and developers eventually move on to other platforms like fortnite that have their own virtual concerts and things like that >> i think that -- i just had an

answer in my head and it escaped me i do think as people grow older maybe they come into different interests, but fortnite has one game loop or maybe two depending on what game mode you play whereas roblox has millions of experiences. they are doing a good job bringing back the older audience i read a mom of three who is just playing roblox. we get tons of messages from adults playing with their kids it's a great way to connect with the kids as kids get older maybe they'll find other interests but i think it will hold a nostalgic place in their heart >> i don't think we've seen the last of the business model expanding into education megan, thanks so much for being with us. >> yeah, thanks for having me. i appreciate it. keep your eye on apple

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welcome back i'm rahel solomon. here is your cnbc news update this hour. in hawaii flood warnings remain in affect through tonight. unprecedented rain causing damage across the state, but especially on the islands of maui and oahu. russia announcing it has slowed down twitter service over the company's failure to remove banned content officials point to posts on child suicide and pornography. authorities have also criticized the use of social media to organize protests calling for the release of opposition leader alexei navalny british newspapers going all out on buckingham palace breaking silence on prince harry and meghan markle's allegations of

racism many focusing on the statement that recollections may vary of the specific events. some also criticizing the royal family saying they have failed to quiet the controversy and also in britain a police officer has been arrested as a murder suspect over the disappearance of 33-year-old sarah everard, last seen a week ago in london. and you are now up to te resquawk alley" right after this hey, our worker's comp insurance is expiring. should i just renew it? yeah, sure. hey

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welcome back experienced management software company qualtrics, the top analyst forecast the stock currently up fragsally for the day. founder and executive chairman ryan smith joins us alongside ceo zig serafin. good morning zig, i want to start off with the momentum you noted in the quarter particularly when it comes to large customers give me a sense of the customer base 132 added. that's big spend >> good morning, jon, carl, deirdre. thanks for having us on. we appreciate it q4 was an outstanding quarter for qualtrics. we brought in over 2,000 customers in an amazing nd, frankly, precarious year for a lot of people.

we had 72% growth. it's been a record year and a record quarter and, if anything, it's showing the leadership and, in fact, what we're seeing is experienced management is as critical as any crm or hr system data enabling companies to use is becoming the most valuable data set with an organization. the emotions of your customers and employees towards how you run your business and how that affects your brand is just golden so this is just how customers want to stay competitive in their industries >> ryan, tell me, it seems to me in a year like the one we just had experience in management matters more than others because people's experience is so much different than in the past, not as predictable you need fresh data.

how has the customer ask, therefore, shifted for qualtrics over the past year >> look, there's not a ceo that we talked to who isn't going, hey, i don't have a playbook right now. and going and looking at the data they did in the past is not a solution i'll never forget this last quarter having a cruise line call us we need to figure out when to cruise, where to cruise, how much to charge, what emotion is it going to take for not only our employees but customers to feel safe, and that's the world we're in if you put on top of that disruptions happening. really where the experience is not well so you want to be competitive, you have to understand the emotion of the sentiment and do it in real time with the customer base, your employee base we're the only platform in the world that brings that

altogether in one holistic view to enable an organization. this is something we've been working on for a long time i'm going into my 20th year and it's playing out >> good morning. it's deirdre here. i have a question around privacy as big tech looks to overhaul their own privacy policies and protections i wonder how you're thinking of the qways qualtrics gathers information, customer employee product and brand sentiment across any channel are you worried some of your access on platforms, whatsapp, that employees could push back as privacy is rethought? zig, i'll pose that to you >> that's a great question one of the metrics we've looked at is the massive shift in how

people are standardizing we have a 72% growth in customers and the reason why cust customers understanding people's emotions, preferences, that data comes from social media channels, from solicited channels, any form of listening that you might want to be able to use to pay attention to and serve your customers more effectively. had is central to how businesses are running. the security and governance built into the platform that runs globally is treatly differently depending on the country you're in. this is becoming a priority and one of several reasons they are standardizing on our platform. >> i would add they are protecting themselves by coming on the qualtrics platform.

looking at their organization holistically, where are we exposed? and put it under one secure platform >> i understand how that serves your qualtrics customers, but your customers' users is sort of what i'm talking about do they want that much data collected anymore? and, also, when you look at what apple and google in terms of protections and third-party cookies, does that limit your access >> well, part of the thing about our platform we help our customers do a great job in helping their customers to decide what data they want provided and how they want to be understood so that their customers -- they can do a better job with their own customers. what preferences what are the things that matter to you when you're doing your online shopping experience, for example? and what do you want that business to understand about you based upon your terms? and so our platform enables that and customers can do a better

job how they deliver products and services to them. >> ryan, tell us how you're strategizing around talent particularly coming out of s.a.p. zig's got quite a background at s.a.p. and microsoft you seem to have been an add-on for them now they're an add-on for you in a way. i'm particularly interested in this kind of following on to a conversation we had with frank slootman at snowflake talking about cloud scale and the importance of being able to take advantage of that and push talent in the right direction. >> yes so there's two areas of talent we're focused on we're helping every company in the world right now that we're working with measure and try to understand what they need. also on the qualtrics side, the talent we add as we spin out as an independent organization of s.a.p. we were able to add what i think is the best team in tech -- i've been doing this for

a while and we couldn't be more thrilled with the amount of talent we've added it's one of the most critical pieces right now sending everyone home and trying to bring people back in some cases if you do not have a pulse on how you're going to recruit and retain, but not only that, how to help folks be safe and productive and feel good and that's what we're focused on we get a front row seat to every single organization from a talent standpoint on how they're using qualtrics to engage but also our biggest fan of our own products we like our position s.a.p. is one of our best partners we understand their mission. not a day goes by i don't have tech companies in the u.s. saying how do we have a stronger

partnership and we get the benefit of that world as well and feel very fortunate. >> ryan, you mentioned the competitive landscape a few minutes ago. i wanted to ask about one in particular and that's microsoft getting into the employee experience and engagement market they have a large hold on the enterprise market, thinking of slack in particular. how do you think of their arrival to this market and how do you defend your market share? is the pie just growing? is there enough for everyone >> $60 billion market. it's grown since last time we were out on the road with microsoft it would be an injustice if i answered that question >> myself and a number of my colleagues who used to work at microsoft and a number of other very well respected companies, microsoft is a partner, and

they're leveraging the platform. we're closely working on how to take advantage of management as part of the most important business experience and we have a ten-year lead in the space we have the deepest, the richest data set that's based on billions of interactions that take place we're helping to innovate. and that's why a lot of customers are coming in and look to go standardize on qualtrics and make it as critical as what they use with hrs systems and so forth. >> zig, it's challenging for investors to figure out the scenarios under which the giants, the enterprise giants, tend to win versus the situations where more focused players tend to win. and so where qualtrics is concerned, you have a lot of frenemies. i'm thinking about the adobes,

the salesforces out there doing things but trying to focus in on experience what are the metrics that investors should look to to be able to tell the momentum and influence in your business that's different from what they see in theirs? >> well, i think as a company we're a growth company everything that we're doing is focused on the long run. this company, ryan can add to this, from day one 20 years ago it's been focused on the long run and has been extremely successful making progress by thinking where customers want to be able to address the way the leverage experience management is the way they end up running their businesses when i look at metrics look at the results. in q4 the number of customers, again, over 2,000 this last year that's more than what any one individual company might have in the spate.

i look at the number of customers that are standardizing on our system. the number of $1 million plus customers growing year over year showing signs of what's happening in the market reinforce this is is one of the fastest growing software businesses we have about a ten-year lead on it >> well, look forward to having you back to continue to track that progress. zig serafin andryan smith. >> thank you for having us on. >> meanwhile, keeping an eye on gamestop it is up more than 30% this morning. looking for its sixth straight session in the green after having doubled the last five days the peak hit was in late january. after today's gains it is now the biggest stock in the russell 2,000 index. ♪ if your money is working toward the same goals,

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long time cnbc contributor and biographer of einstein jobs, da vinci, has a new subject out, gene editing coming out with a new book available on march 19, a couple days away "the code breaker. about the future of the human race walter joinsdiscuss. walter, it's great to have you on the program good morning >> good to see you, carl >> you've had some great publicity around the book, and it's been fun to watch it roll out. cbs over the week, our

colleagues at "squawk box" earlier in the week, has there been a topic or question you haven't been asked that you think readers need to know about? >> i think it's interesting to know about jennifer dowden and her colleague. as you know and everybody in business knows from watching this show, there's a mix of competition and cooperation that has to happen whether it was steve jobs and bill gates or in the world of biotech and certainly there's been a great patent battle between that group that won the nobel prize for gene editing and are now using it to detect coronavirus and the group at m.i.t. that have been on the patent battle they form companies like sherlock and mammoth that will soon go public and do great detection technology when they turn their attention to using these tools against

covid and the coronavirus, in my book i explain how it kind of reminded them they're in this for a higher purpose, in there to help humanity, and they're putting those discoveries out there for the public to use and for other scientists to build upon to keep us ahead of the coronavirus. it sounds pretty obvious from the opening pages of the book that your net constructive on this entire effort, constructive on the theory and practice behind crisper in general, did you have that view going into reporting the book or was there a report within reporting that you said, you know what this i think this is going to be a long term, social good? >> that's a good point as has jennifer dowden as one of the characters in the book and one of the characters in the book as we progressed because you're seeing and you saw it last year, the use of the gene

editing technologies in other words to cure victoria gray, a woman in mississippi who has sickle cell and this notion that you can cure once and for all by making genetic changes to, you know, to patients any of these genetic, horrible diseases like cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia, multiple sclerosis, this is a huge boon to humanity and people will worry, ten, 20 years from now we will make them tall or give them green eyes or something. yeah, that's just something we have to think about down the road, but we should celebrate right now it's being used against cancer and it's being used against blindness and being used against the coronavirus and this should help us understand the beauty of science instead of fearing science the way so many people these days unfortunately

do. >> good to see you you've written books on so many innovators and so many geniuses and it strikes me that jennifer dowden has been the first woman who has been the main character in y in your biographical works tell me how it's different it's women's history month and it strikes me as interesting >> the revolution tended to be driven by man and the interesting thing about the life sciences revolution which i think will be more important in innovation than the digital revolution was, being able to do these life science treatments and genetic engineering tend to have a lot of women involved especially when it came to crispr technology and the whole use of rna we're using rna as a messenger for the pfizer vaccine that i got. we're using rna as a guide to use our scissors and our bodies to cut our genes and jennifer

dowden read the double helix when he was in fifth grade and she saw this character rosalynn franklin and said, wow women can be skicientists and h school guidance counselor said no, women can't be scientists like, and they said yes, we can be scientists and now 60% of the people studying biology in college or graduate school are women. so i think this is a much more inclusive innovation revolution. >> tell us what have you learned during the past year in your kind of journeys of curiosity, the way you've talked to people and gathered information perhaps on other projects, and perhaps this one, any revelations? >> yeah. i think there's an important revelation for business and for science in our society because science is conducted sometimes with government funding and often in academic resource centers by corporations that do

the same work of commercializing these product, but one of the things that struck me in the book is the importance of curiosity-driven basic science sometimes i say why would you study something like bacteria and why they have repeated sequences in the genetic code? what are the clustered repeated sequences and so what? one of the things was told, don't worry about that that's got no application, but you never know when basic curiosity about how messenger rna actually worked with ourselves or how crispr works in bacteria to cut out invading viruses. you never know, but it will lead to something that's a useful tool so i deepen my respect in the corporate world, the government world and the academic world of let's fund curiosity-driven, basic research >> so much of our general debate

in american business, lately, walter has been about international competition, threats from the chinese, lack of cooperation on a multinational front. do you see this being a source of conflict, this technology, with the chinese over the next 10, 20 years >> in some ways this type of gene-editing technology is in conflict, but most of the time right now there's been great cooperation even with the chinese scientists who took the embryos of unborn girls and there was an international consensus that that shouldn't happen and he was put under arrest of the chinese and they're ahead of us in using these tools against cancer they're doing a lot and they have clinical trials in the works doing it, but it seems to me that this is an area in which chinese scientists and american scientists can collaborate along with british and european ones who are taking the lead in this,

as well. even as we compete as nations, we could be that because we all want to fight cancer we all want to fight coronavirus, and i think sharing that information that's already happening and i think it's something the biden administration is looking toward, where do we find places that we can cooperate with china, as well as compete with china? >> especially on a week when we're getting headlines about potential high-level meetings on the reset with china in particular walter again, congratulations. i don't know how you do it it's a great read. we look forward to everybody taking a look at it. >> thanks so much. >> thank you appreciate being with you. ♪ ♪ and coming up at the top of the hour, more on roadblocks public debut brad guest are rsergetn joins the judge and we are back to close it out in just a momentin

that embraces individuality. [bell ringing] together, we envision a future where technology could reinvent shopping by connecting and empowering every day people.

we had the ceo and executive chairman of qualtrix earlier that stock has been up near the highs of yesterday, deidre, after earnings. >> yeah. we have to get an update on

roblox after a reference price of $45, i believe. >> yep, and then, of course, we mentioned gme earlier on and now the biggest company in the russell 2000 this year alone it's gone from 17 to 483 to 48 to 336 let's get to the judge all right, carl. welcome to "the halftime report." your money and trade what is the best strategy right now we'll discuss and debate with our investment committee this hour. joining me in a few minutes as well and altimeter brad gerstner and we have so much to chat about, not just that, but the state of tech in general looking forward to brad gerstner, joe terranova, jon najarian and brenda vangiello with global advisers and i'll take you to th