good morning it's 8:00 a.m. at headquarters in mountain view, california, and "squawk alley" is live ♪ ♪ i got bills i got paid so i'm going to work work work every day ♪ ♪ i got mouths i got to feed so i'm going to make sure everybody eats ♪ ♪ i got bills popping on my desk ♪ ♪ all these kids running around i can hear stomachs growl ♪ ♪ there's a full moon out ♪ >> happy wednesday, welcome to "squawk alley. i'm jon fortt.

ahead this hour, class is in session. education start-up coursera going public going to join "squawk alley" this morning from nfl to ntfs new england patriots julian edelman on why he's joining the crypto craze. the votes are counted to determine whether amazon's alabama warehouse is going to unionize we're going to start with an ipo failing to deliver we need to be careful about drawing too many conclusions here this is a gig economy company listing in london at a time when regulators in europe are pushing toward getting these companies to treat drivers like employees. this is europe, not alabama. >> yeah, call it tech labor reckoning, but this is all sort of connected in some way when we look at the ipo, part of that weak debut has to do we can't help but mention

prospects, for the food delivery industry as the economy reopens. do the unit economics make sense and be profitable? you've seen this play out across the public names of the last few months, doordash down 50% from its 52-week highs as investors figure out what reopening means for the business you hit the nail on the head the key part of the story is the broader laboring reckoning we are seeing in technology carl, ahead of that delivery ipo there were a number of funds that would not buy shares due to the company's treatment of its couriers it uses that gig worker model that doesn't give a minimum wage or benefits, notably its competitor just eat takeaway does use an employee-based model and uber walked back its gig model in the uk. we have to note i said it was connected, amazon is the biggest shareholder with 11.5% stake after the ipo and, of course, as john alluded to, facing its own

labor issues with the results from the besse mer, alabama, union vote expected any day now. >> yep we're in day two of the monitoring that vote, but john, you know, this always happens on days where ipos fail to deliver. it's a sign many argue still of a market that at least proves it can be discriminating, it can read through the fine print on the s-1 and make a decision that perhaps asset valuations maybe got a bit out of reach. >> maybe at least for this area where there's uncertainty on what will happen with the costs, but i go back to this is gig economy, this is partly a geographic and regulatory issue, and then i think people aren't really thinking this stuff through when it comes to regulation and the gig economy. just the other day there were people who were criticizing doordash for tacking on fees for delivery what do you expect them snoods yeah, the consumer is going to pay and that's how capitalism

works. if the consumer wants to eat out bad enough they will pay extra to get food from the restaurant, the restaurant doesn't have to foot the bill because they capped that. what do people want? who do they want to pay the bill do they want the drivers to make money or not, i don't know. >> fair, but it is a broad labor discussion, jon. we only saw the first gig economy companies go public a few years ago. a lot needs to be worked out let's bring the in the verge editor in chief. you just heard our discussion. on the deliveroo ipo, feels like this is one of the first times we've seen investors push back against that gig model and here it was on the grounds of it not aligning with responsible investing practices. we haven't seen that here in the united states. i wonder, do you think this is the start of something will investors here start to recognize and perhaps punish some of the gig economy models being used so prevalently here >> oh, i think absolutely.

jon asked where are the fees coming from and how do people expect to get the cheap. investor capitalists were running these businesses at a loss and the end of the model was to achieve a monopoly position and raise prigsz. it was clear as day for almost every gig economy company starting with uber that has changed radically they didn't necessarily achieve those monopoly positions every price increase has been fought by consumers and asked for by the actual workers. and i think there's a reckoning here in exactly how these companies are going to grow in scale when they are dependent in a real way on actual people doing the work when you push the button that is one of those big philosophical shifts, a policy shift, we're seeing politicians in this country counter names a policy shift and it is just a real shift for the people

actually doing the gig work. >> many do argue that investors are worried about the bottom line if you switch to an economy model, i mean some of these gig economy companies, the unit economics don't make any sense what is the incentive there? we've seen a precedent in california with prop 22, drivers, consumers, voted not to go ahead with that model and keep that independent contractor model. is this deliveroo ipo a moment here or what gets investors to wake up if the costs make more sense going the old route or gig worker route >> yeah. i would point at the differences in regulation between europe and the united states right now. it deliveroo in europe and the uk, they have moved to a model where there is some gradation between just being a freelance gig worker and a full-on employee you get some benefits but you're not held to the status as a full-on employee in the united states it's pretty

binary i think as we come to more political action, as we come to more activism from workers, generally one thing we constantly hear from gig workers is, you know, maybe i don't want to work for uber but want benefits and stability i think we're going to see some of the hybrid model development as government and industry crash into each other and that will tell us a lot about whether these companies are, in fact, sustainable or they're just going to have to charge high enough prices so they don't make sense for consumers at all. >> i think we have our eye offs the ball here a bit. we're talking about amazon and bes mer, but walmart has been fighting unionization for years, decades, it's notorious for that and a question of not just what happens if e-commerce warehouses, but warehouse workers overall, not just from a wage perspective and benefit perspective, but from a technology perspective as robots move in and eliminate these jobs entirely then this gig economy thing, the

benefits, it's not just about the gig economy. it's a question of when you've got an economy where workers need to be more flexible, what are the safety nets they need to continue to provide for their families this is a policy thing i think we're focused too much on these technology companies. change is coming one way or the other. >> yeah. i agree with you i think the fundamental question is what kind of jobs are these are these middle-class jobs that let you move up in life and provide for your children? or are you being managed by a robot and do you feel bad about yourself i think the walmart comparison is pretty eliminating, right the reason walmart has staved this off people who work at walmart treated as humans, customer contact, like there's -- walmart has been able to create a bubble around its jobs that makes you feel like part of the company. there are lots of activists who think that is bad, but they have been successful in doing it. amazon employees consistently feel dehumanized you open the app, push the

button, something happens. those warehouse employees are managed by robots, managed by software they feel like the software doesn't care for them. they know the executives at amazon are getting richer through the pandemic that is all going to run into each other in a meaningful way and the policy is what kind of jobs do we want at that level of the economy? do we want jobs that help people move up or jobs that people cycle in and out of while they try to do something else >> yeah. nilay key is over the pandemic i think a lot of things have changed for warehouse workers being essential workers. spotify, slack, linkedin, announcing efforts or acquisitions aimed at taking on clubhouse. unlike the other names, spotify is already a one-stop shop for audio, so i wonder is it a greater threat to clubhouse than some of the more traditional social networks? >> i love that we all think that

clubhouse is facing -- it's a start-up they don't have an android app yet. if you get to market with a better android experience you will probably beat clubhouse to a larger user number i think all these apps are introducing the feature because the tech companies love to compete with each other and cocopy each other they all introduced stories. maybe you use them or don't. fundamentally i think the biggest problem is the user experience of being on clubhouse or twitter, you are sitting home alone talking to a phone and the second that the pandemic actually eases up, and i think we can see that coming, there's not a celebrity in the world who is going to want to sit home alone talking to a -- to their phone when they could be out in the world doing things and that is going to radically recontextize how the features work i think it's a bigger problem for clause i think panels, virtual conferences and linkedin, they're going to be interesting, but they're all going to find

niche movement moments instead of being the broad-based social activity that clubhouse felt like at the beginning of the pandemic >> you know, nilay, it's interesting how the new features are announced. spotify got razzed yesterday on locker room treating it as some novel thing that you could have live discussions on the airwaves and people saidwelcome to talk radio. why is it hard to explain this is new if, in fact, it is new? >> i don't think it nestlcessar is it new. there is a younger audience? it didn't have those experiences. i don't think a huge cohort of people ever listed on to a.m. radio in the way we are talking about a.m. radio and most people are not able to participate in broadcast conversations. that's a new experience you can now have using any one of these services it's a particularly new experience for clubhouse during the pandemic because of the

serendipity of everyone simply being available in their house that was remarkable. i don't want to discount that at all. as we move out the question is, whether people want to have serendipitous experiences in an app or whether they're going to seek out the things that we've all been missing for the past year, serendipitous experiences in the world >> yep that's a good point. we'll have to see. nilay patel editor and chief of the verge. thanks for being with us >> thanks for having me. >> they completed one of the biggest series a funding rounds in the history of enterprise tech cloud start-up joins "squawk alley" in a moment coursera going public at the nyse we'll talk to the ceo about the debut and more a big hour ahead on the record-setting day for the s&p don't go anywhere.

. bain capital ventures leading an 87.5 million series funding round for haiku which provides data backup and disaster recovery services for more on the outlook of the sector we're joined by ceo simon taylor and bain capital venture partner henrique saylem. simon, when i see haiku and how it's framed i think of ransomware and more and more what i'm hearing about

enterprises hedging their bets across multiple clouds how does this play work uniquely in this environment? >> you know, it's a great question thank you very much for having us on. we're thrilled about this round. you know, to your question over the last sort of year and a half, especially during covid, there was a massive rise in ransomware attacks across the world and i think one of the challenges is backup and recovery has been a second-class citizen in the world of i.t. so you have a lot of companies that were using very legacy, very old data protection software that was very complicated, hard to use, hard to implement what hycu has built as a cloud backup is a service that integrates with every single cloud on prem and in the public cloud as well. an i think those native integrations and the simplicity make it easier for customers to operate and really stops the bad guys from getting in the backdoor that's really what the name of the game is these days with all the criminality and the rise in

ransomware attacks. >> henrique you've been in the security game for a long time. when i look at this multicloud environment, i'm trying to figure out where the value is going to be? what are the applications and services that are going to demand profit and growing profit over time, not just topline revenue? how does hycu address that question of where that value and growth in value will be over time >> i think what you want to think about, jon, everything is data now, and if you look at your meeting invite, your phone entry and video, it's all data what we're trying to do here, as simon is saying, is we need to protect that data. i've been in the backup industry for a long time and we talk a lot about it being backup. what matters is recovery because you can't run your business if your data is not available the value really comes from making sure that when you're trying to get something done you have access immediately, your

e-mail and calendar info, that's where the value comes from >> simon and henrique, good morning, it's deirdre. i think you were quoted you received a lot of interest not just from the traditional vc and pe people, but also from spacs can you talk a little bit, were you surprised by this? why did you decide to raise a round instead of, you know, take advantage of this hot market we've seen over the last few months >> you know, deirdre, i would be surprised if my mother doesn't create a spac one of these days soon i think everybody i know has a spac. >> fair enough. >> so from my perspective, look, hycu waitd to raise its first round. we wanted to make sure western successful in the market pef 2,000 companies. we wanted to partner with a tier 1 firm that understood data protection not just today, not just in the past but had a vision for where it was going

and we found that with henrique and bane capital adventures and couldn't be more thrilled to be partnering with them >> henrique, has your mom started a spac yet and broadly, what do you think of what's been happening in this space? i said that the market has been red hot but in terms of spacs it has been cooling somewhat over the last few weeks what's your take >> yeah. it's interesting, is my mom will be giving me feedback on this and say why didn't we invest 100 million is what she will tell me after this program look, i think the market is continuing to evolve i think there's a lot of capital available and a lot of great companies that can take advantage of that capital. hycu is special because it is in a massive market that is what we're so excited about at bain capital is that specifically we can partner with simon early in this company's journey and every business in the world needs what hycu is doing. protect their data from both a

security and data protection perspective. as far as spacs i think there's a lot of companies that couldn't have been available to public market investors and i think that momentum will continue. will it be as hot over the next 12 months as it has been for the past 12? i don't think so but it will continue for sure. >> and finally, simon, over the past year, what have you seen happen in the mega scale cloud environment? not just aws, but also, azure, google cloud, others you would throw in there, are the, you know, kind of second-tier mega scale providers able to gain ground in a significant way or not? are they capturing enough business even through your customer base to sort of change the calculus on what's happening competitively for them >> yeah. look, i would say the big three,

so you mentioned the aws, google and azure. i think they're going to remain the big three for the foreseeable future i don't see somebody else coming in and challenging them or taking them out. what i would say is that there's an enormous number of niche kind of edge cases that we're seeing with customers saying look, i'm going to maybe try nutanics for this technology will continue to evolve, but, you know, another interesting paradigm shift that we've seen during covid, everybody fled to the cloud. i mean literally all of our customers said we're moving to the cloud right now. but about 40% of our customers then moved some of their workloads back on prem as well so i believe that the actual data center itself is going to remain very important, maybe more important than is regularly reported on, but we'll certainly see a continued explosion in the public cloud going forward >> henrique, that back to the i guess on prem data center, is

that affecting how you are investing at all >> you know, we are very focused on where folks are headed and i think we're in this 20 to 30-year transition where the half trillion dollars that is still being spent today in the on prem data center will continue to move towards cloud infrastructure and that's why we love hycu we can do both we can invest in protecting taut onprem and protecting data across all the cloud providers >> thank you >> thank you so much >> thank you up next, education company coursera going public on the new york stock exchange with current indications between 34 and $35 a share after pricing at $33 a share. their ceo joins us next so do stay with us ♪ ♪

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welcome back i'm rahel solomon. here's your news update.

the u.s. chamber of commerce is criticized president biden's proposed infrastructure plan saying tax hikes intended to pay for the proposal are misguided. a suspect arrested in the attack on an asian-american woman in new york city that has gotten national attention. police say brandon elliott is the man seen on video here kicking the 65-year-old woman. elliott was convictd of killing his mother nearly two decades ago. the mastermind behind the failed watergate break-in has died g. gordon liddy served prison time for his role that helped lead to president nixon's resignation. he reinvented himself as an author and speaker he was 90. the famous cherry blossoms of japan are blooming earlier than normal. in kyoto the earliest full bloom in over 12 years environmental scientists say climate change is leading the trees to flower sooner you're now up to date. ats our news update for this hour more "squawk alley" in just a moment

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education platform and long-time cnbc disrupter coursera making its public debut on the new york stock exchange ahead of the first trade we have ceo jeff maggioncalda. good to see you again. and, you know, i got it take a look back, a little more than a decade ago you took financial engines public that was about technology opening up access to finance now coursera is about technology opening up access to education what do you hope to achieve with

this >> first of all, i really appreciate how thorough you are in your research i think technology can have a tremendous impact on improving people's lives definitely helping you get independent high quality investment advice and now getting really high quality education, especially in a world that's moving so quickly and people are looking for new job opportunities, even as technology automates many jobs we think providing greater access to education what is it's all about. >> looking through your s-1 an when i think about online platforms i think a lot about consumers accessing them, but it seems the profitable play for coursera is in your enterprise engagements and degrees program which has, you know, you have right now 13 colleges and universities having entirely online degrees programs. as you seek to grow that business, how much is that going to cost in terms of sales and marketing, to what degree is being public going to help you

do that? >> we started back in 2012 with andrew and daphne and it was b to c put courses up and see who around the world wants to come so 77 million individuals came to coursera.org, 30 million during the pandemic. but we also realized that institutions, businesses and governments, and even campuses are now really in need of online learning it will cost us to build a direct salesforce, but that institutional learning where people are learning at work and even earning fully accredited bachelors and masters degrees while they're working, we think that that's what the future really looks like. >> jeff, you're pretty up front in your filings talking about the impact of the pandemic and the degree to which people exited the labor force, need to get retrained. once they go back to the labor force, though, how do you explain to investors the long-term trends, sort of exiting out of this boom we saw

for the last 12 months. >> we see education as a lifelong opportunity and lifelong obligation for most people if you think about it, most people globally especially don't have a college degree. trying to get skill to get your first entry-level digital job is an important task. there are professional certificates that are much more affordable to help you do that once you're working i think the key to upward mobility for many people in the workplace will be earning that degree. having certificates to get the first entry-level job and then having bachelor's degrees and master's degrees to advance your career that's the one-stop shop that coursera would like to be for learners >> jeff, good morning. it's deirdre historically there's been skepticism facing online higher education. critics worry that costs could be inflated for students walk us through how coursera avoids this and has some of that

stigma lessened over the pandemic as more people get online in some way or another and remote learning has become the norm in a lot of ways. >> one of the great things about technology, if you look at with respect to e-commerce, if you look with respect to travel, with respect to music, generally speaking technology can make things lower cost and more affordable, higher quality in many cases, more convenient, and more personalized. what has happened with industry after industry is now happening with education technology can really bring down the price of courses and even college degrees. the degrees that are available from our university partners on coursera, they're identical to the degrees you would earn on campus but often cost half the price. technology can lower cost and can increase access and affordability and that's precisely what we see happening with degrees on coursera >> have you seen more public and nonprofit colleges sort of sign up for coursera because of, you

know, missed revenues, missed earnings last year due to closures do you think that will last? >> we've definitely seen a big shift. the unesco reported in april of 2020 that 1.6 billion students had their school campuses closed from kindergarten through college. almost every student was forced to learn online, almost every teacher was forced to teach online this huge forced experiment was tough in some regards, too much zoom in many cases, but also introduced a new way of learning that is being embraced for the affordability, quality and convenience. we see a world post-pandemic that's going to have a lot more online learning as part of it. >> jeff, a barrier i see is tenured professors at schools don't want to change, don't want to change the way they teach and they get a say in how that happen is the needle going to move there because of the pandemic? >> the needle really is moving sometimes it's hard to get people to experiment with something new but once they do that they see a lot of benefits.

not everything is easier but the idea you can take some of that standard lecture that is delivered over and over, put that in a video so it could be delivered in high quality and save your time to interact more with the class, with the students, provide more personalized interaction, that's really the hybrid model we think works and internationally we're seeing tremendous demand not only a u.s. phenomenon 80% of our learners are international and most are university partners are international as well. >> we've been talking about labor and labor advocating for itself in this tech driven economy. we talk too much about wages, though they are important and financial benefits like 401(k)s. education and retraining also a professional benefit are there enough incentives for employers with frontline work forces that will be driven to unemployment by automation is there enough policy incentive

for those employers to offer education as a benefit >> i think you're on the right track. it's where you opened up this story. back when i was at financial engine and we were giving investment advice for retirement it became clear people didn't enough retirement money because they weren't making enough income because they didn't have the human capital to get the high-paying jobs it starts with education and skills that creates economic opportunity and that will allow people to create nest eggs they can retire on. with respect to policy, we have different policies around the world. europe typically is spending more time educating and retraining people. i think in the u.s. we are definitely seeing companies take a bigger role in saying we cannot higher enough people who have the skills we need. we need to retrain people and that's happening now additional incentives would help but we're already seeing a strong embrace by employers who realize they need to re-skill their employees. >> we're seeing a decent embrace so far of the stock coursera

indicating between 37 and 38 a share on its ipo day jeff, congratulations on this milestone. i hope to see you soon >> thank you very much for having me. we've got some news on doordash's software partner olo. kate rogers has that for us. >> hey, deirdre. olo shares down around 7%. the company saying it had has a response to claims from doordash it defrauded doordash for years and used that revenue to strengthen its position ahead of olo's ipo. olo did go public in a $4 billion ipo. the company saying as owe lo has set forth doordash's allegations are baseless, despite doordash's rhetoric they will not comment further on ongoing litigation and looks forward to continuing to work with doordash for the benefit of the restaurant industry

door d doordash -- according to a filing in the new york state supreme court. the company said it had been charge doordash fees higher than most of its rivals in violation of an agreement that two companies had together doordash is seeking punitive damages for fraudulent concealment and fraudulent inducement and says it discovered the discrepancy by reviewing caviares agreement after it acquired that aggregator doordash would have paid about $7 million less since the start of its contract with olo used by restaurants to manage all of these different orders it has from delivery aggregators. back over to you. >> this is amazing a week ago the coo of olo gave an interview to another publication talking about how he plans to use ipo proceeds to give restaurants profitable alternatives to doordash and uber eats. it wants to cut out the middle guy altogether and let customers

easier order directly from restaurants as it wants to be the shopify for restaurants. interesting as the economy reopens investors are worried about the business model of doordash and uber eats and if people are going to continue to order and get their food delivered, but on the other side of this the restaurants are getting smarter too. like doordash does offer a solution for just ordering they don't have to do all of the delivering could this be a way for restaurants to avoid some of the fees we've been talking about that have become expensive, the commission fees. >> well, that's such a great point because one of the things that olo touted in the interview when we had the ceo on was allowing restaurants to hang on to more of that revenue. we always talk about a lot of aggregators and all of these expensive fees this is fascinating. i agree, to hear from an aggregator saying you olo have been overcharging us these fees were too high, interesting turn

of events and it will be very, very intriguing to see what happens as this moves ahead. olo says it continues and looks forward to continuing to work with doordash. hopefully the two sort it out. >> overcharging and then competing. thank you so much for that update we'll continue to track that story. as we head to break, check out shares of chewy. shares popping after the company reported a surprise profit and saw net sales for the quarter surge 47% higher than a year ago. and after the break more than a third of cfos are calling it a risk to their business we have got the results of cnbc's cfo survey up nt.ex

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visit letsmakeaplan.org to find your cfp® professional. ♪♪ welcome back let's get tofrank holland taking a look at the cfo survey. hey, frank. >> hey, carl a year after the start of the pandemic u.s. cfos say covid is no longer their top concern. more than a third say it's cyber attacks. covid-19 outbreaks remain the top concern for the entire group that includes europe, the middle east, africa and asia pacific. still a sharp decline in covid concerns for the entire group. the survey was taken between march 2nd and 23rd during this time we saw covid cases on the decline globally that microsoft outlook hack impacted thousands of companies and a rapid rise in the 10-year yield. in this environment 38% of global cfos said the consumer discretionary sector will be the best performer over the next six

months last quarter that number was 16%. health care, seeing basically the reverse. now only 14% of cfos believe that health care will be the best performer declining confidence this quarter for tech likely influenced by the moves of the 10-year. another big change for the financial decision makers is the perception of bitcoin. the last time we asked cfos about bitcoin was q4 2017. the crypto has sky rocketed. back then 28% of cfos said crypto was real but in a bubble now 55% believe bitcoin is real and still in a bubble. back over to you >> all right frank, thank you. well, first gronk, now the squirrel and he's not trying to get a nut. he has an nft. julian edelman joins "squawk alley" to talk his crypto launch stay with us the old guard swept aside by digital clearing and custody and the technology innovators who can't stop asking "why not"? why not direct indexing?

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our next guest is diving into the nft craze launching a new line of exclusive digital collectibles this morning including trading cards and comic books. joining us on cnbc this morning, three-time super bowl champ, new england patriots wide receiver julian edelman alongside asaf swissa, creative director. welcome, good to see you >> great to see you. >> thanks for having us. >> julian, let's start out by saying, you are well versed in tech trends. you were -- you have some of the best engagement among active

players on facebook and insta and joke that maybe -- maybe you don't joke, you told tom brady how instagram worked once in the locker room. when did you know this trend had legs >> um, it all -- you know, it kind of when this all started coming out, it put me in a mindset of when i was 8 years old and i was going to key market buying trading cards or whether i was trading with my best friends or buying spiderman comic books, you know, it kind of -- it's 2021 and i've been in this whole transition and evolution through the locker room of seeing how digital allows you to communicate with people and it's been a huge part of us, so seeing that we can go out and help promote this digital art, hey, i want to be a part of it it sounds exciting to me.

>> yeah. asaf, that's interesting he's sort of pointing to, julian is, the connection and emotion between the fan and the creator or the fan and the player. can you talk about how you make that connection make sense from a business standpoint? >> i can i think this one is unique yes, of course, there's a financial and business component here and, you know, i know a lot of people have been sort of looking at it in that way. we sort of wear the hat around here that this is the sort of creative first effort. the feeling here is if we can make something that sort of makes you feel something and allows you to own something that has like sort of a passionate fans base around it, we're going to see a democratization of creativity and more artists come out of the woodwork and evolve this nft space yes, it's exciting to see if there's a financial component. we have a lot of charities we're

supporting through that. but really this is about supporting the digital design community. >> it's about the movement the movement i mean, it's a way for like, you know, all these kids nowadays on tiktok and instagram, i've seen it firsthand back in 2010 when we were over here designing designing content just to make our friends laugh or make fans laugh. you know, then it turned into what it has been for the last, you know, going on ten years it would be awesome to be part of, you know, the beginning chapter of this. >> yeah. it certainly is a movement we are all trying to figure out if it lasts, as many others are also julian, i want to ask you about the structure. i know that 10% of proceeds are going to a nonprofit, stop aapi hate that's great more broadly though, how much control do you have on the structure proceeds and when the nfl inevitably some would say gets more involved in this nft

trend? do they increasingly look for a cut? what happens to players? what is being talked about in terms of you guys, yourselves, trying to sort of make money off of this trend? >> oh, man i thought we were going to get softballs here all right. >> well, you know, we've been doing this game for a little while. we kind of know through our, you know, just ecommerce businesses and designing certain edits and tee shirts where you can and can't go with, you know, licensing laws and all of that stuff. i'm sure there's always going to be a gray area, and we're going to be, you know, the first to find out with everyone else how this is going to work out. but we're heavily involved in what we want to do and with the money, the proceeds, on helping certain causes that we're very passionate about you know, that's kind of where we're at i don't necessarily know anything about what the league

is going to do that's the league. but i'm sure the league, they're very intelligent people that are always at the forefront of pioneering things. so i'm sure they will probably be involved. but i can't speak for people that i am not, so, assaf, what do you think >> oh, it is the wild west nobody knows anything right now. maybe there's going to come the whole coming down of everything, but no one has this figured out. i feel like i'm the substitute teacher one lesson ahead of the kids on this, right. no one has got any kind of sense of what is happening, so i think all of that stuff is going to come crashing, but as long as we're fast and as long as we sort of operate with the creative first mentality and we do things that are sort of like, you know, for the community, i think we're good also, i got married on friday to a goddess, so we do things fast.

i met her nine months ago. >> all right some things it is good to do fast congratulations. julian, it is jon fortt. i want to ask broadly about merchandise and where that fits into your plan as an entrepreneur you know, there's a heav digital art component to what you are doing, including the comic books. is that something that you have personally bought into or is it something that you are just dipping your toe into now for the first time >> i mean we've had our line je11 that has sold tee shirts. we have sold a lot of things that we thought would be interesting for our fans to have, and, you know, it is not just about selling something it is about, like, when i am walking down commonwealth avenue and i see a kid with a je11 hat, like that our kind of brand or the support that we're getting from people, that's so touching. like, that's like so insane when i am walking in south or, say, you go to newport, rhode island

and you see someone with some of your gear on you know, we've been in this game, and to be part of the digital art space, i mean that would be awesome for me as well because, you know, digital art, like the digital world, has helped me develop my brand and develop my communication with people off the field you know, playing for the new england patriots, it is not the easiest place to, you know, promote your outgoingness, because when it is football time it is football time. you know, players now days have the luxury of being able to talk to the media whenever they can because of these digital platforms. 10, 15 years ago you could only, you know, be in front of the media when, you know, the team provided that, therefore, with that time that's only football time now with that time we could be football time, but then, hey, now we have this outlet to, you

know, create a video to make someone laugh or to inspire someone or to motivate someone on your own time, and it is a perfect balance of both. >> i think that's awesome, julian i mean you've got to imagine what earl campbell or lynn swann, right, or staubach would have done with this kind of ability to reach their fan base. you really are, you are playing at probably the best time ever to be a professional athlete our congratulations to you we hope you will come back >> oh, i appreciate it, guys thanks for having us a big fan of the show. eric is watching, my buddy eric. he was like, i hear you're going to be on the show, so i hope you guys are doing well and everyone is safe in your little lives >> thanks, man great to see you, assaf. please come back. >> thanks. by the way it brings us, the portion of proceeds julian is giving to the stop asian hate

movement in this country, tonight a special on cnbc at 8:00 eastern, we will look at anti-asian violence in the u.s we will look at the economic and social opportunities and challenges that face the asian america community. we will talk to business leaders like director of ""crazy rich asians". box ceo, former avon chief adrian jong. it is tonit ghat 8:00. we hope you will join us emerson's breakthrough technology enables the power industry to integrate renewable energy sources to modernize and improve the electric grid. emerson. consider it solved.

as we close out the show, take a look at stocks. the nasdaq composite really the out performer today, up about one and three-quarters of a percent, jon this is the last session of porter and it has been a massive underperformer throughout, so perhaps catching up lost ground today. >> maybe i have my eye on blackberry. it is one of the stocks that had been heavily shorted it went up quite a bit earlier in the year, was up above, what, $25 a share at one point now it is down about 10% today, carl, at 8 and change. >> it is certainly not the only name with a big spike, but

settled well above the prices they were trending at before finally, watch united reynolds we will learn more about the infrastructure proposal later this afternoon when the president speaks, but the manufacturing element, the broadband, the r & d will lead inevitably some argue to more renting of equipment, an all-time high going back to the ipo a decade ago let's get to the half. front and center this hour, a new quarter about to get under way. we will debate which stocks to own and which to avoid for the investment committee joining me stephanie link, joe terranova, john, jerry and cnbc's jim cramer, host of "mad money. good to have you with us, jim. i'll take you to the wall. a positive quarter, fourth in a row, fourth straight for the dow and s&p. nasdaq, we know it has wobbled a bit lately, could post its first negative month in five all the way on the right, you know, that's been the bi