elon musk, $100 million prize around carbon capture. >> we want to give it to exxonmobil they seem to be focused in leading on that, morgan. >> yeah. it's been a big week and a big weekend. it's my birthday that's going to do it for "squawk on the street. "techcheck" starts right now ♪ good friday morning. welcome to "techcheck. i'm deirdre bosa with jon fortt and carl quintanilla coming up on the show today, the capital gains tax debate, what it means for tech founding companies and the entire investment ecosystem that exists around tech and startups plus, we've got nextdoor ceo sara friar her thoughts on crypto, apple

and content moderation earnings from snap and intel have shares moving in opposite directions this morning. intel now down 6%. we will dive into those stocks and some opportunities there >> yep speaking of which the market is higher but that overhang for stocks includes that bloomberg headline that white house is looking at raising the top capital gains tax. could have big implications for investors for tech, vc, private equity in particular more on that in a minute including why our first guest says it will bes the death of silicon valley you have to talk intel to start. >> we do today's most important thing in tech comes from intel. shares down about 6% this morning. the first quarter with ceo pat gel singer at the helm a story about turnaround, data center and expectations. data center in particular, the chip shortage, margins in the data center, there's competition that intel has to deal with from

amd, from nvidia pat says they're determined to gain market share even though they're constrained here you know, as i've seen some analysts say if you were bearish on intel before, you have all the same reasons to be bearish after this quarter if you were bullish and think pat can turn it around, there's nothing in this quarter to make you think that has changed at the same time because they had some beats in q1 and not necessarily a raise to full year guidance, it kind of makes the second half of the year perhaps not look as good unless they're sandbagging. when we're heading out of this pandemic in many cases, heading out, not out of it yet, a quarter from a company like intel matters a lot, deirdre >> yeah. i mean you put both sides playing out here very well, john there has been this excitement about pat gelsinger coming back before the results shares had risen 18% since that

announcement, but the reality starts to sink in when you see the results, the ambitions of those long-term plans, building a business as a two to three-year plan, and as he says, he's playing offense now, not defense, so he has to defend market share, but he also says he's going to be aggressive. those are very costly ambitions. >> yep there had been some headlines they raised guidance but very cloudy picture on the guidance because so much of this was preannounced in their 105 is still below the street's 111 intel is an important story to watch. let's turn back to the potential hike on the capital gains tax rate our next guest tweeting last night that the president's proposal on capital gains could potentially kill the golden goose that is silicon valley draper associates founder and managing partner tim draper is with us. tim, happy friday. good to see you. >> hey, thanks for having me on the show >> it's always good to have you. i should have known you would come out swinging on this topic

in a very provocative tweet. you sound pretty confident that what we heard or at least we think we heard yesterday is going to hammer out in policy. do you not believe there will be some compromises along the way >> well, i just think what are they thinking? because actually higher taxes tend to lower revenue, so right now, they need a lot of revenue. they've been printing money. and if you bring in higher taxes, it lowers the motivation of the people. if you are working towards some goal, you're a start-up saying i'm going to build something of great value and then you realize the government takes more than half of it, you're working through july before you even have started to work for yourself that motivation starts to dwindle. it's a little like i mean south korea versus north korea south korea, you've got a

wonderful democracy, a free market, a capitalistic system. north korea, you have a socialist dictatorship where the government tells you everything that you want to do. the more you get toward north korea, the worse things get because the average -- it's been a 70-year experiment and the average south korean makes 460 times what the average north korean makes, and that's including purchasing power the average south korean is now four inch taller than the average north korean that's socialist system does not work hasn't ever and when you raise taxes you lower productivity and it's been proven through years and years and years and country after country after country, you need freedom, you need that incentive to make great things happen and that freedom is what

has made america great and i encourage people to realize how important that freedom is for america. >> tim, you're losing me with the north korean example there too many differences -- >> i'm sorry it's been a hot button for me because for the past 70 years, we've had that demilitarized zone between north korea and south korea and i met this woman from north korea and she told me that they get whatever the government tells them for lunch, which is 24 kernels of corn. and they -- >> but that's not what we're talking about here >> and if you have that -- >> tim in terms of this capital -- >> start having government control like that, it absolutely destroys an economy. >> yes in the case of north korea but the united states and this capital gains tax is not north korea. and i know that you face a lot

of blowback on your comments on twitter. >> what happens when it starts going beyond the -- beyond 50% and suddenly you realize that more than half -- >> is that not too far a leap to make right now >> is going to the government? >> okay. you know, i think that's too far a leap to make at the moment, but let's talk about i guess american history, what we have seen we haven't seen this major correlation between capital gains increases and market reactions. we've seen the market hold up quite well and i know this was brought up on twitter too, you have seen some great companies, microsoft, apple, being created when the capital gains tax was higher >> actually, that's -- that isn't right. i mean the capital gains tax has dropped significantly over the last -- since reagan and it stayed pretty low and that has made a big impact on the people

who have started businesses in the silicon valley and that has been great for silicon valley and it's been great for america's golden goose. and you don't want to lose it. if you start -- if you start taxing capital gains at a high rate, people start losing their incentive. you look at it all around the world, everywhere else around the world where they become burdensome, where the government becomes burdensome and people have less incentive to create great value. >> yeah, tim, i hear what you're saying -- >> it's dangerous. >> i hear what you're saying we're talking about tax increases overall. capital gains tax affects, you know, millionaires for the most part i'm not saying this is good policy -- >> no, no. >> for the most part yeah i'm not missing the point. you're making a broader point. >> capital gains affects incentive. >> it's the trickle down thing. >> there's no trickle down.

>> capital gains -- >> this is bottom up >> amazon warehouse workers -- >> for greatness you build -- >> amazon workers are not affected by the capital gains tax. >> if you build something -- if you're building to something incredibly great, which is sort of that american spirit, you're building and if the capital gains tax is oppressive, you have less of an incentive to do it >> this is like arguing the s.a.l.t. tax -- arguing that s.a.l.t. is an attack on the middle class it's mostly -- i don't want to pay higher, you know, property taxes, higher taxes overall. anyway, i think -- >> think of the entrepreneur, that entrepreneur -- >> silicon valley -- silicon valley deserves to die i mean, people don't it -- >> that entrepreneur is trying to make something great happen. >> for the short term -- >> yeah. they're doing extraordinary work to make something great happen. >> and they should you know this makes me think of the beatles song "tax man" you

don't want those taxes going all the way up there so people are just working for the government but i'm not sure that this is what this is all about we're going to talk crypto too >> sure. >> we can't have you without talking crypto. >> we have coin baste out there we have a better currency. bitcoin is a better currency, a currency global open and transparent and not tied to any government intervention. when they print billions, trillions, trillions of dollars, we get the threat of inflation, but the rest of us who own bitcoin are looking and saying well, we have a better currency now. >> tim, a couple different things one is, you do have some tech

knicks looking at the charts who argue got to get back above 60k. for example, at jp morgan says the signals start to fall apart in the near term others say we're not expecting the historic drop we've gotten in the early stages of volatility where is your head on that >> i always look at volatility as one bitcoin is still worth one bitcoin. all these fiat currencies are very volatile against bitcoin as they slowly disappear from view. we have a better currency, when you have a better anything it's slowly but surely moves through the population and people say hey, this is better. i can save 2.5 to 4% every time i swipe my credit card i can do micro payments. i can send money overseas. i can pay employees overseas

and if you pay in bitcoin, boy, those employees are very happy, particularly if they're in argentina or venezuela or nigeria because those currencies drop significantly every single year talk about trust in a government if you don't trust your government to hold the currency high enough, then there is also no incentive to build anything of great value because you realize that it's going to just drop 70% a year. so you build up something of great value and then every year the currency drops 70% in argentina or nigeria, they love bitcoin there. they're saying oh, my gosh, it's our savior i can build something of value and hold it. >> tim, you're talking about bitcoin as a currency, but, you know, incredibly volatile and most of the people we talk to

see its value as, you know, ans asset class, the store of value. why would people want to use it if you're a long-term bull and think it's going to go higher and higher is the better use class as an assets class >> it's great for an asset class but it will be used as a currency we have a company called open note -- >> when? >> oh, when? it's already happening i mean many retailers are now accepting bitcoin. i know draper university accepts bitcoin for tuition. that's worked out well for us, by the way and we accept -- a lot of retailers are accepting bitcoin through opennote and it operates faster than the visibility network and it allows that retailer to save 2.5% to 4% that they don't have to pay the banks when they swipe a credit card. this is the beginning of it

becoming a currency and i do know that 80% of the money is controlled by women in the retail world and women only have about one out of 14 bitcoin wallets. as that retail world starts it to shift, the women will be moving into bitcoin and using it in a significant way it's incredibly exciting and then the accounting and the taxes can all be paid in bitcoin in -- as these companies like cryptio attaches to the blockchain why not have all the accounting done in bitcoin on the blockchain my big vision is for me to raise a fund -- i'm a venture capitalist -- to raise a fund in bitcoin, invest it all in

bitcoin and have the employees and suppliers all pay their -- i mean have the companies all pay their employees and suppliers in bitcoin. we can keep track of everybody's money without the need for accounting, auditing, book keeping, any of that. >> yep >> and i think that -- that could be -- and the taxes will be automatically taken out so i mean i would think the government would embrace this. they are starting to >> tim, if you launch that, we hope you'll come on and talk about it it will be fascinating to see something vertical with bitcoin integrated throughout. great discussion on the future it's obviously a moving target and so are the taxes have a good weekend. >> great thanks for having me on the show. we heard from tim draper we want to hear from you for today's crowd source, will a higher capital gains tax, if we get one, kill the next big thing in tech? tweet us your thoughts qr code on the bottom left of

your screen that goes to our twitter page we'll show some responses at the end of today's show. >> we have plenty ofresponses to keep them coming in coming up next, former square ceo sara friar, chief executive at nextdoor. we are just getting started on "techcheck."

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assets. take a quick look at the nasdaq up 1.1% erasing yesterday's gains as we see markets rebound from the news yesterday over the capital gains tax. we'll keep an eye on that and the tech and momentum plays as the show progresses. social networking start-up nextdoor seeing massive growth during the pandemic with nearly one out of every three households in the u.s. using the service. i got the chance to catch up with ceo sarah friar in a wide ranging discussion covering the company's expansion, growth, ipo plans and more >> the last year has been terrific for the nextdoor platform local has never mattered more, and that's brought a lot of people to our platform

they're coming for that trusted information. they're coming for the ability to give and get help during a pandemic they're coming to make real-world connections what we saw in our business we're now in one in three households here in the united states i think when we spoke last year it was one in four we saw the dow grow 45% year over year and active members come and go deeper into the news feed impressions were up 20%. it's gobeen a great story. >> you've seen this acceleration throughout the pandemic. what does nextdoor look like post-pandemic? will people use it for the same things, different things are there habits that you are already seeing will stick as economies reopen and essentially can you sustain the kind of growth you've seen >> yeah. we absolutely believe we can first of all we have become a habit. i love that you use that word. people have come to know nextdoor as that place when they want to go hyper local

we put a lot of work in last year around things like business tools to make sure we are that place not just for residents but for say a local business, a local plumber, service provider, or even a public agency. >> we've seen a number of other companies that have benefitted as well from pandemic trends we've seen them go public over the last few months sort of taking advantage of this moment to show strong financials over the last year and also take advantage of, you know, really receptive market conditions for new listings how are you thinking about a public listing >> so the first question always is do we need to raise money and if we do could we use it to accelerate our business? for nextdoor right now the answer is yes, if we raise money there's a lot of great things we could put it to. we want the platform to feel like it's really speaking to you, so there's a lot of investment we can do around things like machine learning, artificial intelligence even so that's a good reason to raise.

of course you need to be ready to be a public company so i want to make sure that we do that well from my experience as square, that's important the market needs to be ready for you and you're right the market i is in a healthy spot at the moment. >> you've taken a company public before what are you looking for to tell you when the time might be right? >> one is definitely scale which nextdoor has 11 countries, 276,000 neighborhoods, one in three households in the u.s. the second is, do you have a really good monetization engine. what i got excited about coming to nextdoor i could see that it was there. we built the platform and the ability to now bring on advertisers. this is a very well understood business model and we're doing quite well with big brands, the walmarts, home depots of the world, all the way down to the small local businesses and i think that may be some of nextdoor's true differentiation and secret sauce is that ability to go hyper local. >> have you been approached by

any blank check companies? is that something you're considering? >> you know, in the end i want to come back it's a fund raise first and foremost i think how you do it, of course there's more flavors in the market and you want to pick the one that's right for your company. you know, i don't know if i think they're really ultimately that different from one another. for us it's really to we want to raise, how much can we put it to work and then making sure we're ready to be a public company that's what's top of mind, not necessarily the process of how to do it >> and perhaps the right investors as well, right i know that nextdoor's existing investor base has been helpful to you >> yes 100% when you put people like mary maker involved in our last round, bill gurley from benchmark who have been with us for a long period of time, i mean meethese are folks who maka difference with strategy, execution, helping you tell that story broadly. >> how are you thinking about the upcoming changes to apple's

ios and some of the privacy controls asking users to opt in or out how will that affect nextdoor? >> nextdoor is a proprietary platform we have first-party data we have built out our own ad tech stack and so in some ways it may be helpful to nextdoor because it allows us to catch up to others that are older companies that have been around longer but we're able to really make use of that proprietary data to have the best possible outcome for our advertisers. >> does that become a competitive advantage once with the changes to ios go into place. we heard facebook talk about how it's going to hurt small businesses on its platform do you think there's an opportunity for them to come to nextdoor you making that pitch? >> i think it has potential. as i said, i think for us, it's about how do we go deeper where our core competitive advantage is it's that proprietary network, our own ad stack and we've garnered this trusted

relationship in the case of small business, often they're on the platform not just as the small business but as a neighbor first and foremost we think we're a welcoming platform for exactly that reason >> nextdoor has been criticized for misinformation, for racism on the platform. the role in vetting of so-called community leads. how have you tackled this issue over the last year >> yeah. so we have absolutely been hard at work on this. we take it seriously because there's no way we can bes the welcoming platform we talked about if everyone coming on to nextdoor doesn't feel welcomed we just announced most recently something called an anti-racism notification it actually builds on a platform we put in place starting in 2015, really steeped in social science. it's about this idea of slowing people down. alittle bit to a lot of other platforms but we're willing to give up a little bit of engagement to do the right thing. >> mark zuckerberg argued that

platforms should be required to show that they can put these kinds of systems in place. do you agree with that >> i do think the platforms have a responsibility 100%, and so again, it comes back to how did nextdoor build this. we've had a layered approach from a moderation perspective rather than saying it's all about technology, which clearly has failed in many places, we've actually tried to connect a human moderation system to a technology-based platform. >> we've known each other since you were cfo at square and this was just when the company was sort of experimenting with cryptoto currencies and bitcoin. are you surprised at the success and massive rise into the mainstream we've seen of crypto currency since you last? >> i don't think i am. i definitely was very bought in as you know at the time of square we were early on it there. really thanks to jack's leadership but what you saw in crypto was,

of course, a way to better democratize finance. >> if you want to hear more from sarah friar check out the full interview, scan the qr code on your screen and it will send you to "techcheck's" home page carl >> fascinating interview of course it's great to hear from her on crypto as square has been one of the leading charging companies on the space look at microsoft. wolfe initiates outperform 250, despite shares being up better than 15% this year, they see an upside scenario. that supports high teens earnings growth both in '22 and in '23 julia, you're going to break down the quarter >> that's right, carl. snap reporting accelerating user growth and advertising revenue growth we'll talk about what's behind that and also what's ahead for the platform that's coming up after the break.

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welcome back to "techcheck" here on cnbc i'm carl quintanilla with jon fortt, deirdre bosa and julia boorstin stocks are rebounding, all three have essentially recovered yesterday's losses intel getting a little punished after earnings, and now down just about 6%. snap moving higher on earnings, now a $90 billion company. it's almost 2 x twitter and more on that the a moment, john. >> it's time for a news upgrdate with morgan brennan. >> despite the rise in sales, the median price rose 0.8 from year ago levels. american express trimming losses following mixed q1 results, the shares. earnings surged past forecasts and the company raised profit guidance for the years but revenues were light and results

helped by a billion dollar credit reserve release kleenex and huggies hit by weaker demand and higher costs kimberly clark's first quarter earnings and revenue came up short and the company lowered its profit outlook with 91 days before the summer olympics, gymnast simone biles is switching teams and leaving nike for a new sponsorship with athleta. she's getting her own line of performance wear and athleta will support a platform for her to be an activist for her and fellow athletes. >> big move. thank you very much for that snap out with q1 results julia has a breakdown of the number what a year for snap up nearly 270% over the last 12 months >> that's right. that stock moving higher this morning after the company reported its fastest user and revenue growth in over three years in the first quarter as its investments in content and

different technology tools are paying off the company added 15 million daily active users with growing engagement with its spotlight content, featured user content and 40% increase in daily engagement with augmented reality lenses the ceo saying augmented reality has huge potential to drive e-commerce down the line the company also shared a bullish advertising outlook despite the potential for apple's operating system to limit ad targeting, saying they've told tools to mitigate any damage the reopening, rather than pulling people off their phones seems to be driving story posting and engagement with the snap map that is something that analysts see as potential revenue driver down the line. with the stock up about 270% in the past 12 months and 73% of analysts having a buy or overweight rating, it seems to indicate they think the pandemic was a turning point for snap rather than just a one-time blip

for the unusual growth during that limited period. jon, carl? >> yep we've certainly talked about pull forwards in the past few days then you have sort of the broader macro environment of advertising dollars which seem to be getting elevated forecasts for day after day. >> elevated forecast but carl, i think the real question is how much apple's changes are going to impact each of these platforms and impact them differently. yesterday we got a pretty copacetic commentary from snap they have different ways of working with advertisers, brands they've been a lot more friendly with apple than facebook has next week we will hear from facebook, from pinterest and from twitter and all of those companies have the potential of having impact from this apple operating system change and it seems like facebook could see the biggest impact a lot of these companies expected apple to roll out the ios 14 update last quarter

the fact that it will not hit until q2 may be one of the reasons the numbers were stronger. >> i love how one analyst put the snap story over the pandemic and said that it seems to work best in the wild we've actually seen more engagement since the economy has reopened, unlike what we might expect from a twitter or a par pinterest. does this raise the stake for the companies up next in terms of their earnings and questions whether they can sustain their pandemic gains >> well look, deirdre, these companies we talk about them a lot together in terms of all being in the social space but they are different if you look at snap it's about connecting with friends and what evan spiegel said yesterday is that as people get out into the world and making new friends they are going back to connect with them on snap. snap has the potential to make money from interaction on the map app as people leave their houses and need to refer to a map again. but i think that if you look at

pinterest it's a different story because that's a company that's really about connecting people with content that's particularly useful when they're staying at home so guidance from pinterest could be very different. i've used pinterest a ton during the pandemic whether it's for recipes or activities to do with kids the question for pinterest, do people start using that platform for things like planning vacations? that's to be determined. but we'll be hearing a lot about that next week >> all right julia, i know you'll continue to watch it as will we. still ahead, apple data is reportedly being held hostage and the hackers won't stop calling. plus, gamestop, amc and other names negative over the last month, but kathie wood providing a booth to a new name. we will tell you the stock after the break.

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kathie wood is at it again buying 5 million shares of the platform skills. shares are up about 3% here. obviously way down from the 46 or so that we saw back in february for more on some of the top stock trays we're calling in a segment calling trading boom we turn to kate rooney. >> hey, carl plenty of you only live once

trades to talk about this morning. first we have some new data showing a pivot in what younger traders are buying as the economy reopens. in the first quarter, meme stocks, amc and gamestop, ranked among millennial and genz top holdings amc coming in at number 7. after not making the top 100 in the prior quarter. this is according to apex clearing, which looked at 3 million accounts from its brokerage partners penny stocks made the list for first time ever. there was some consistency, though younger investors are very committed to tesla at number one, followed by apple and amazon, those have been the top three since 2019 meanwhile, dumped those so-called return to normal trades which had been among their top holdings last year the airlines and cruise lines moved down on the list as well as those vaccine makers. the yolo trades, micro vision

climbed to number 40 on the list after being unranked in the prior quarter and trending on reddit and twitter this week, skilz trending thanks to kathie wood the biden tax plan is creating buzz and anxiety with this group. they got into the markets during the pandemic, they've likely never faced capital gains. the giff says it all back to you. >> good use of that giff it hasn't just been, you know, equities there's been asset classes that have been extremely popular with the millennial or gen z retail investor crypto currency and nfts as well, have you seen evidence of that in terms of coinbase? has that name been moving up >> coinbase wasn't mentioned but a lot of blockchain chains moved up penny stocks, smaller names that do things like crypto mining have soared. anything with the name blockchain or crypto in it has

become a popular bet and analysts from apex were saying this is the majority based on online forums, things on twitter, whatever is trending and seems to be tied to a meme or some sort of momentum on social media is rising in that list and people go to reddit and the on-line for rums for the trading tips >> yeah. the meme stock and meme coin era too. thank you so much for that >> meme coin. >> coming up on the show, we are going to talk tesla's autopilot feature and how easy it is to trick it "techcheck" returns in just two.

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you'll pay exactly $70 bucks total. this month and every month. only at t-mobile. shares of tesla under pressure again this morning after "consumer reports" demonstrated how to fool tesla's autopilot system showing a model y will drive with nobody in the driver's seat which, of course, follows that tragic fatal crash of a tesla in texas last saturday see how the engineers pulled it off and what elon musk said in response only on cnbc.com jon? >> speaking of elon musk, that other transportation company of his, spacex, with a successful launch this morning. astronauts on their way to the international space station as we speak plus, facebook exploring changes to the news feed algorithms. "techcheck" is back in two

this week we told you about the hacker group holding stolen documents relating to apple product plans and threatening to leak them unless apple pays $50 million. eamon javers has more on the group's practices. >> yeah, jon, that's right this group is called revil, a suspected russian hacking group

based in eastern europe or former soviet states we talked to mark who is tangled with them in the past and analyzed 173 previous hacks by revil and come up with interesting trendlines take a look at cost breakdown here they normally are nowhere near the $50 million mark their average ransom demand is $728, paid much less than that because of the negotiations, just $129,000 paid according to aratay and the maximum paid $3.1 million according to mark. the interesting signature here is that this group is known for getting into a company's data, extracting the ceo's cell phone number and then calling the ceo to harass him or her and sort of taunt them about losing all of their data online and demand these big payouts. that's unnerving he says to the ceos who have to deal with these calls coming in from russian accented figures demanding money

from the company he said that he is used to doing business with these people on a regular basis. here's how he explained it >> they run their organizations like legitimate business if you're respectful and professional withthem, you wil get the same back. if you take a different tone and you're argumentative or combative right off the bat, then that's what you are going goat back. >> so no word yet on exactly where all of this is going to land the demand for $50 million has been made. no indication whether apple will pay such an enormous sum to these criminal gangsters, potentially located in or around russia we'll wait and see what happens there, but the group has not dumped any more data on to the web. they threaten to release data every day. so far according to our sources who are looking on the dark web they've only done it once. it is possible, we're not sure, that negotiations are underway or possible this thing is on

hold while both sides try to figure out who has the upper hand back to you guys. >> eamon, it seems apple is one of the last companies that would pay in a situation like this, in part because of their history. they've had product leaks before that they've handled well, not like this. also because they're such a huge target if word gets out if you steal from apple they're going to pay up, everybody is going to steal from apple all the time. what is recommended by professionals in a case like this if you are a company or is there no standard? >> well, there is a standard we talked to fireeye about this yesterday and they told us something interesting, which is first you have to figure out exactly how badly compromised you are as an ongoing concern, is your business threatened. if it is existential, if your company can't exist without the data, a lot of companies decide they have to pay if you feel you have a work around and you can tolerate some of the data leaking out, you simply tell the hackers to get

lost and don't pay them. one of the interesting things those that fire-eye raised with us is the possibility that this public sort of shaming of apple on the dark web might be the result of a failed negotiation that already took place. that is they tried to get paid, didn't get paid, and are simply banging their chest now and putting out some apple documents as a way of getting some attention for themselves and maybe prompting some other targets in the future to pay this might not be about trying to get apple to pay necessarily, but just to set the tone for corporate america generally. we can get everybody, including the big guy, so the next one ought to pay us because you're right, jon, this does put apple sort of in a corner here if they pay them, it will be very public. it will be obvious, and it will be a big sort of humiliation for the company. they might not want to do that and they might be inclined to take the hit here in terms of the leaked data. >> yeah. fascinating, the behavioral dynamics of that story, eamon, which you have hit the tip of the spear in terms of covering

thanks facebook is making changes to the news feed asking users to rank and provide feedback on the posts that they see in a series of test that will influence the future newsfeed alg orkts. some examples include identifying content the user finds inspirational or selecting stories they want to see less of, such as politics, while another survey will prioritize which content gets filtered through and placed up top, whether it is from friends, groups or pages that you follow. interesting wrinkle as facebook does some tweaks, jon. >> yeah. well, they're all about following the data they've been so good at it, carl the nasdaq, speaking of data, negative on the week, on pace to break a three-week win streak peloton, this week's biggest laggard. netflix, a big loser as well subscriber growth there slowing. and investors selling shares of chip maker nvidia after the uk began a probe into its deal with arm citing security concerns don't go away. more "techcheck" straight ahead.

microsoft surface devices with teams, orchestrated by cdw enable employees to stay productive when working together, with high-quality audio-visual features designed for natural collaboration. so your team always captures every detail. microsoft and it orchestration by cdw. people who get it.

did you know that petco,

microsoft and it orchestration by cdw. is now a health and wellness company? their groomers work wonders for my confidence. i trust their vets, and i'm known to have trust issues. they deliver high quality food the same day. i was outside digging, what'd i miss? just everything regarding our physical, social, and mental health. exciting. i'm gonna take a spin around the room. great idea. ♪ ♪ petco. the health and wellness company. julia, we had a blast last night with "techcheck's" streaming show, looking at the future of entertainment out of

the oscars on sunday what was your big takeaway we talked to so many interesting people >> well, dee, there's been so much digital transformation of the media and entertainment space over the past year of the pandemic with films going direct to consumer and the rise of new streamers. last night during our livestream we put a spin on the usual tech focus with a look at the convergence of tech and hollywood featuring a powerhouse line-up of leaders across film and streaming. take a look at the highlights. >> let's bring in kevin mayer, chairman of "the zone. >> thanks for having me, julia is it deidre or dee? >> call me dee especially on the platform. >> when we stream we call her dee. >> i'm a big believe in the value of streaming consumers love them, big fan bases. >> what is going on with hbo and max? >> we added 11 million subscribers to hbo max, hbo total in the year in the u.s

that was 40% growth from q4. we're super happy with that. >> coo of hello sunshine. >> when hello sunshine was founded, i want to say 4% of films were directed by women, where women make up over half of the movie going audience. >> letter to coo of black list. >> we needed to do better for a long time because the social consequences of not doing better are catastrophic there's $10 billion a year in revenue lost because of anti-black market bias. >> tim league. >> we have a single data point of 75% that came to see godzilla versus kong. what we are seeing is the emergence of the vaccinated coming back, and what do they miss most? getting out and having experiences out in the wild. you can watch the entire hour-long conversation on our cnbc "techcheck" linkedin and twitter pages. jon, over to you. >> great stuff, julia. and for our crowd source we

asked you how you thought an increase in the capital gains tax could impact silicon valley, bouncing off the ideas of tim draper here is one viewer adding sarcasm. quote, i have a great idea i'm passionate about and it could make me richer than 99.9% of the population wait, i'm going to get taxed on my billions? never mind, i will stick to my job at the grocery store backing his side of the argu argument,, tim is right. we know venture capitalist getting in on the discussion saying he disagrees and is he supportive of the increase, and while lower capital gains may increase investment there's collateral damage to society carl, last time i checked, he is still a legend in silicon valley, not so much in north korea. >> the north korea line definitely got some people's attention, but still provocative. you don't bring tim draper on if you don't expect something provocative. our thanks to him for joining

us. >> absolutely. >> as for next week, guys, man, it will be awfully busy. you have the fed and bank of japan, the president is going to address congress, we will get our first look at q1 gdp and then the wave of enks continued in what will be the busiest week names like microsoft, apple, facebook, ford, caterpillar, mcdonald's a good weekend let's get to "the half." ♪ ♪ all right, carl. thanks so much welcome to ""the halftime report". i'm scott wapner front and center this hour only the biggest debate in the market right now, whether a correction or lift-off is coming for stocks and how best to position your money for either scenario we discuss with the investment committee today. joining me for the hour, kari firestone. jim lebenthal is with us along with jon najarian. good to see everybody. let's check where stocks are right now. dow is on pace to break its four-week winning streak it is really the same story today for the s&p, even though you are in