158 is your loss there s&p, nasdaq also under pressure, too. we'll continue the debate on the "halftime" report. who's right? fed, marx? >> all eyes on the fed scott, great to have you here today g. to see you, morgan. >> that does it for "squawk on the street." "techcheck" starts now good tuesday morning welcome to "techcheck. i'm deirdre bosa with jon fortt. carl has the morning off today gig inflation, or reality check? what higher prices mean for tech investing and how to play it plus, a crypto social network backed by sequoia. speaking to the player behind that investment this hour. later, the reporter behind that explosive "new york times"

investigation joins us on the show jon? >> also watching draftkings following a short following. down about 4%. it was down a lot more plus a couple of stay-at-home stocks moving to the down side as big tech hits all-time highs, later, autonomous driving, evs, tesla and more. and we begin with the nasdaq easing some, but it did finish yesterday at a record. stocks lower this morning ahead of that fed meeting, but we are back to the era of setting new all-time highs one sector, though, sitting at the recent tech comeback gig economy stocks look at uber, lyft, airbnb, down between 7% and 25% over the last three months doordash, the exception. up 10% during that time. the focus, the gig economy inflation. users starting to feel the crunch of higher prices and complaining about it on social media. average uber and lyft ride costs

40% more than a year ago accoraccord ing to data cost of a burb scooter raising 180% in places and airbnb says the average rate for rental, up 35% last quarter. really taps into the broader question in the markets now. are these spike as sign of rising inflation or temporary price shocks that will ease as we move further away from a lockdown for the gig economy, jon, could be another element in play a push for profitability as the investor-driven subsidies dry up that great "new york times" article spoke about this speaking of social media blowback, a tweet went viral a few weeks say say basically forget uber and airbnb, back to yellow cabs and hotels raises the question. may maybe higher fees in the gig economy is just a return to normal >> yeah. on a fed day, a lot of talk about inflation, inflation,

inflation. interest rates and what might happen as a result inflation, comes down to it, is higher prices. talking about it for weeks last week affirm's ceo was on talking about that deal with shopify, how consumers are back spending and spending more having to spend more in some cases because prices of things have gone up, and he's allowing people to break down those payments into four a chip shortage. shortage in supply, increase in demand, but chip companies saying, selling more higher-end chips. able to charge more for chips. you could look at that as potentially inflation issue and comes down to ride hailing and people paying more in the past, the companies weren'tpassing all costs along to riders. subs skies by vcs. now interesting, deirdre, a fact it's not so much just about top line growth. it's also about being concerned about costs. it's about efficiency and making me wonder whether for attention

shifts not just to an ai story, but who's getting the most out of their data through artificial intelligence do good analytics, and abe le t keep more profit in this environment where prices are higher and don't necessarily want to pass that along to the customer. >> we talk about it all the time bifurcation. too simple to call it two groups many groups within the tech sector reacting differently to inflation. ride sharing in a gig economy, in terms of profitability. also important to talk about in terms of adjusted ebitda probabilities. that's if inflation is not transitory, if it's here to stay and we see eventually interest rates rise, these are the companies and their profitability are lack of it hit hard in terms of their stock prices perhaps that is why you're seeing them be such underperformers over the last three months i mean, airbnb, it did, ipo,

remember, not too long ago really jumped. down 25% over the last three months uber and lyft, also. supposed to be great reopening plays. investors haven't taken to them. soured a little, jon. >> fun looking at this through the eyes of tech ppi producer price index saw that up. amazingly more than 6% this morning. later, cpi, consumer price index. how much is passed through to what the consumer actually ends up paying? all right. our next guest says inflation is already priced in the stocks tech is benefiting, thanks to a shift to services from goods managing partner joining us on the phone. i got a theory tell me what you think about it. as we hit higher prices across so many different places, and in some cases it's because, you know, input costs are higher companies that are able to be more efficient and actually take advantage of ai, of machine

learning, of analytics, are going to be in a better competitive position maybe we'll see more value put on that going forward. what do you think? >> yeah. absolutely i think that we see the digital transformation being able to offer increases in efficiency, reducing a lot of the overhead associated with the manual processes. we're seeing an amazing transition to code being in a way we're actually able to use these new areas of technology to do the processes that were formerly done very manually. i think your insight is spot-on. >> what are you investing in, then, playing off of that? if we're heading into a time when maybe some prices are going to be higher, or at least you know, input costs are going to be higher. oh, there you are! not just joining us on the phone good to see you this morning, lo good to see you. so seems to me that if some companies are able to take that

higher cost input and say, hey, i'm not going to pass that along, because i'm able to be more efficient what do you as an investor focus on investing in you think will put you in better position because of that? >> one of the things we're super excited about right now is what we see happening it financial services, being able to better use technology in fact, jpmorgan is a company we think is absolutely fascinating, comparing it and contrasting it to all of the younger fintech start-ups. you know, look at jpmorgan they're investing $11 billion in technology they have a tech team of about 50,000 people, and what they've been able to do is to really decrease the cost, again, of this overhead normally associated with a lot of these manual processesdone by people the return on investment for jpmorgan is one of the best in the industry, and we think they're in a really unique position to be able to ultimately compete, partner and

even acquire some of these fintech companies. why? because they have a retail footprint in the united states that services about 0,0000,000 - 60,000 customers and massive data to help them determine in a data-driven process what those new features and functionality needs to be to service these customers. number two, those retail branches actually could be beneficial in the foot traffic to come in and do things like open up new types of accounts and credit cards and then when you look at the expansion opportunities, jpmorgan is taking a more digital-first approach in going into new markets outside of the united states, and i suspect what we will see is the ability for that company tobe able to invest into a lot of these fintech start-ups, dangling the carrot of providing massive distribution at scale that those fintech companies just can't achieve in a short period of time

>> lo, jamie dimon is going to love you for those comments. relating them to saying they have agility of a fintech company, but you hear jamie dimon talk about regulation for fintech companies. saying there should be greater oversight, and some, i've asked several founders and ceos in the fintech area if he sounds threatened, and they say, yes. why do you think it's going to be straightforward for them to acquire other fintechs especially what we've seen and seeing visa and seeing restrictions becoming stricter no >> without question. actually plaid benefited by having that, the regulators step in and block that. look, jamie dimon actually said in a note to analysts and to topless, that he said, you know, they should be scared poop-less. actually used the word that began with an "s" of the fintech.

brilliant. reminds me of the brash trash talking we see from a lot of the ceos in silicon valley i think jamie dimon is the start-up ceo of the fortune 100 banking space. when you think about what these saying, it's true. there needs to be additional regulation when we look at the massive amounts of data and the influence -- >> the culture -- >> yeah, culture -- >> what about culture? you hear jamie dimon saying he wants people back in the office and a fintech saying, bank wants you into the office. come to us we give flexibility. >> yes he's going to have to be able to balance that look, a lot of these types of cultures, they're hard to deconstruct. i think what we saw during the pandemic was the genie's out of the bottle they want flexibility and people are going to talk with their feet and if they don't see ability to have flexibility maybe they walk out the door

that's a risk. >> yeah. big week for, where that starts, that word starts with an "s" and it's only tuesday. lo toney. >> this just in. a statement from draftkings on the new short frort hindenburg research accusing the company of systematically skirting the law. it reads, "this report is written by someone short on draftking stock with an incentive to drive down the share price. our business combination with sb tech was completed in 2020 we conducted a thorough review of their business practices and were comfortable with the findings." it reads, we do not comment on speculation or allegations made by former sb tech employees. take a look at draftkings. stock getting hammered this morning on the heels of that note and short position on that statement. looks like it ticked up a little still down about 4.1/3%, jon.

>> i'm impressed shorts are showing their faces in this market i mean, will wall street bets comfort them i wonder you have to wonder these days. don't you? >> it's interesting. the statement. called out the shorts. what else are they going to do in this market environment, you're absolutely right. >> yeah. people still getting hurt out there. we'll see. the world's youngest self-made billionaire xa sequoia capital, and big hour of "techcheck," just getting started. it's another day. and anything could happen. it could be the day you welcome 1,200 guests and all their devices. or it could be the day there's a cyberthreat.

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i hope you're ready. 'cause we are. welcome back to "techcheck." getting a gut check on shares of have varoom down nearly 10% offering convertible notes due in 2026. used vehicle ecommerce platform looking to invest or acquire newtech. shares up,though, about 7% ove the past three months. jon? >> yeah, well time to go all-in?

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privacy moves from apple and google impacting advertisers maurice levy chairman of publicists group third largest advertising company telling cnbc the changes to the ios and chrome web browser means traditional advertisers having to "revisit the whole way we are working. apple requires permission from use brer allowing apps to track data google also planning to ditch third-party cookies on its chrome browser and in the process searching for an alternative. question, jon. does this sort of end that dioply we've talked about so long in digital advertising? we know amazon is becoming a bigger player. some smaller players, too. just this morning a report from axios that gopuff, gig company

economy, looking into creating an ad business talked about instacarts, ad business as well feels like an area gaining traction already and now ripe for disruption. >> yeah. i think, de, it can be too easy to forget scale. like, yeah, start a little ad business fine but how big do you have to get before you're at facebook and google size, let alone amazon size growing really quickly. >> look at amazon. didn't take too long amazon's, amazon though that's, they've got a whole ecommerce business to sort of key off of, when moving in to the ad space, but i think it's remarkable how when you're at that scale, this move from apple on ios the impact of it, would make you think that apple's the biggest smartphone company out there the biggest, which they're not samsung, bigger than they are, or the biggest operating system, which they're not, of course android, a lot bigger than them, but when it comes to payments,

comes to commerce, de, they hold an out-sized amount of sway, because in developed economies among more well-fueled people a lot of them use iphone. >> yep no it's a good point, but when we talk about amazon having its ecommerce platform giving it ability to compete in the space. think of instacart, one of the biggest, if not biggest, grocery delivery platform in the united states they have lots of opportunity to develop it as well you're right, jon. the changes apple has made, we are still just understanding and it's been interesting to talk to different -- different areas from developers to creators on how they are looking at it. >> well, let's do a broad tech transition here. apple building lidar in to the latest generations of phones, and it's not mainly phones lidar is in. one of the companies behind the tech that drives autonomous vehicle, luminar, unveil be new

lidar using taxis and trucks spacs last summer, first in a wave of car tech investments next guest founded the company, became the world's youngest self-made billionaire in that field. luminar is about a lot more than cars you've moving into aviation as well, but how much is this latest product, this latest rev you've got that's got a smaller footprint going to change where this is able to go and how the vehicles it's in are going to look >> absolutely. thanks for having me here, too actually, we just had an event today that answered some of those questions. called it luminar studio live in frork city where i am right now. showed off a few things relevant to that. one is design integration of a first fully-integrated vehicle huge rax, doing away with

monstrosities. and next up showing line drive of the sensor in terms what we were able to get out showing the capabilities of the performance, the scaleability of what we can do, and showing that it's all here it works, and we're able to show that off to the public for the first time lastly, showing off a concept design for the future of what can be held within commercial trucks and robotaxis able to show off some cool content to be able to help inspire the industry about what's ahead when you design an autonomous vehicle from the ground up with this hand in hand something for the first time we're actually getting our technology into series production vehicles, consumer vehicling you can buy and it makes all the difference. >> talking a lot about lordstown yesterday and concerned about vaporware in the ev space and a lot of times autonomous gets lumped into that here's a chance to give

investors a sense of the measurables. how should investors at this early stage judge your progress? how are you balances revenue versus eventually what's going to be your track toward profitability? >> absolutely. that's a critical point. how should investors measure progress how should all of this happen? i mean, it's important to be able to take a step back and think about, okay. what is the right time to actually go public via this process and via -- we ultimately went public via the spac background in the first place at part of one of the earlier companies to do so and kind of help -- but really always been a pioneer when it comes to these things and always thought the best time -- dwh when is the bet time to engage a public investor well, when you have a product proven out meets required specifiesification in our case, thought the first opportunity and when it makes sense, the first series production win for autonomy in the industry, such that you get

confidence around the customer landscape, around who's adopting this and get long-term visibility into real revenues and real business behind it. part of the foundation what we had. and that's where we -- i think able to solidify our position and hopefully improve that out by now working with majority of some of the world's largest automakers in this respect as well scaling the technology again, something we have here not meant to be a future vision for ten years from now something we're working with automakers hand in hand today to see it through make all the difference. also providing a vision into the future, but only reason we're able to do that is because of the foundation is set. >> right austin, i noticed in your recent business update, you guys did lay out your targets you initially made when you went public by a spac with your current progress, which is refreshing you don't always see that. i wonder, have you changed your

approach how you kmin up commune with investors and the missed targets we've seen in the spac space recently >> absolutely not. we wanted to d eed eed to doubla 100% thanks for pointing that out laid out five keystones how to judge us shouldn't be a fuzzy landscape how do you judge success what does that mean to us, that's part of it. product development standpoint, to manufacturing, to commercialization, to economic and financials, and go through all that fortunately we're able to meet or beat all milestones along the way. yeah i mean, so -- as with all things, there are companies that succeed and companies that don't, but -- >> right >> go ahead. >> let me ask you for one big prediction what are we going to see sort of mass market commercial autonomous vehicles on the road? i remember lyft's president said by 2021 majority of ride sharing

rides, would actually be autonomous when do we actually see that happen >> so here's the thing robotaxis, that type of thing, a decades-long problem that's a problem. not around the corner. is there other visions realized in the future extremely promising? absolutely but that is not today. what is today and what we've been able to transform i actually getting these on to passenger vehicles, on to consumer vehicles, on to things you can buy. and start of production actually 2022. >> i've got to ask -- >> 2023 on -- >> you went through the spac process for your company and went through equivalent in a way for an entrepreneur. a thiel fellow what happened to these, peter thiel telling to ditch college and started a company, worked for you apparently what have learned from that process, and maybe even your cohort in the fellowship, if you

know how they have fared do you have to differentiate who a special process is for or if it just generally works? >> yeah, yeah, yeah. no, no it's cool. and you know, fun to point that out. a thiel fellowship definitely alternative approach with things and fortunate enough to be one of the folks there i had a great class of folks people went on and everything from beyond this, you had ethereum all the way to a bunch of other super successful companies along the way, or just concepts or cryptocurrency, all of the above across the board. when it comes to autonomy, it take as new approach no one's ever done this before right? there is no blueprint that exists how to build a company like this. that's the point of how, seemingly -- wouldn't even make sense for someone particularly early none their career to build something like this over this period illusion it happened overnight

this is a three-year process what we had to do, got an early head start for this. we have been able to accelerate through and make it happen. >> at 17, head start indeed. your energy is palpable. austin, thanks. >> thanks so much for having me. four years ago amazon bought whole foods. but has groceries really been disrupted since then we'll discuss that next. speaking of which, jpmorgan reaffirms its buy on amazon this morning argues ecommerce penetration will continue to increase amazon shares down about half a percent today. a lot more "techcheck" straight ahead stay with us.

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welcome back to "techcheck." i'm jon fortt along with deirdre bosa a big half hour ahead including the amazon you might not know. first get you caught up in what's happening with a news update from rahel solomon. >> what's happening at this hour rising food costs pushing up 0.8% in may. consumer price index up 6.6% biggest increase since 2010. same time, retail fell due to

electronics and furnifurniture. dropping to a low, higher material and labor costs as well as supply shortages. u.s. and european union ending a trade dispute over jetmakers going on over two decade reaching a deal to end many tariffs, although others remain. president biden says the deal open as new chapter in america's new relationship with europe. and president biden moved on from talks in brussel to geneva and a meeting with russian president vladimir putin. not expecting concrete advances from the meeting. >> rahel, thank you. and talking crypto bitcloud is a cryptocurrency and a social network currency side making a debut on blockchain today diving into that social aspect allows users to invest in influencers and creators using the platform's

unique token bought with bitcoin. users can then spend the bitclub tokens to invest in personalities. even regular people they believe are valuable, the more bitcloud people invest in, the more valuable it biecomes and doubling, giants backing the social network along with horowitz and social capital. coinbase ventures and joining us to discuss the future of cryptocurrencies, crypto parter. thanks for being with us. >> thank you so much for having me thrilled to be a here. >> let me ask you. if the existing or so-called traditional social network built off this label, bitcloud is supposed to fix that, should the facebooks and twitters of the world be threatened or worried >> you know, our goal is to put

the power back in the hand of the creators, and the users, to control their data and, you know, we're really trying to be crypt o native and basically move into a more decentralized feature. >> right, but that's exactly what facebook and twitter are trying to do put more power into the hands of influencers and creators so why should creators go to a new untested platform relatively untested platform like bitclout versus using the tools facebook a using? >> bitclout is something traditional networks can't do because of their business models something when you add a cu currency platform in, it let's creators control how they monetize, have a direct

monetization, have private rooms for the 100 people that own the most of their coins, or to offer auctions or limited edition content for people that bought coin recently. direct monetization, and we being bitclout doesn't need to sell data. doesn't need to run ads. so, to the extent able to open source all of its code a few weeks ago. >> people actually running bitclout are anonymous the public doesn't no who they are. cool concept can you say more about the epic of turning people into financial instruments, in essence, right we see these stories, reports about creator burnout. you know, the mental health implication of being in front of the screen and performing and being able to count how your value is either going up or down, depending on, you know,

how much you're pumping out there. when people become financial instruments, how do you as an investor think about the implications of that and what else might need to be built into the system >> a good question, jon. so diamond hands, a pseudonym for the person that was the original architect and launched bitclout a long tradition starting with the original creator of bitcoin, still anonymous today of people remaining anonymous. this to keep the focus of bitcoin on the community of craters and users that make it a really exciting space to spend time and in terms of -- people having a direct path, we have 1 million users on bitcoin today so i mean, nowhere else in

history. this struck a cord with users. >> do you have a percentage on the celebrities that have claimed their bitclout kind of profiles at this point >> so i do not have a percentage, but what jon is referring to is that bitclout originally reserved 15,000 most followed people on twitter something misconstrued by some of the media in terms of the motivation behind that the reason why bitclout received 15,000 profiles because other social nettedworks when they've launched run into the problem of squatters coming in and trying to take these profiles, claim them before celebrities can get them and then can put out fake content. they can -- they can try to sell, you know, sell the profiles at very high prices to the celebrities, if the social network takes off. this is bitclout's way of getting around this.

>> shaun, what if the profiles are never taken out by the people created for where does that money go >> the money just will sit there. i know that may sound crazy, but there's an analogy with bitcoin. a lot of bitcoin that never moved. just sitting there for eternity. satoshi still hasn't spent any of thelism blocks that he mines, and the same analogy would hold here a creator never claims their coin, then it will basically be uncirculating supply of bitclout. >> oh. got it shaun, thank you so much for breaking this all down for us. appreciate it. shaun maguire. >> unclaimed property. unclaimed clout. all right. look at roku today stock up double digits in the last month on three straight months of gain

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wondering what actually goes into your multivitamin? at new chapter, its' innovation, organic ingredients, and fermentation. fermentation? yes. formulated to help you body really truly absorb the natural goodness. new chapter. wellness, well done. new projects means new project managers. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. when you sponsor a job, you immediately get your shortlist of quality candidates, whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria. visit indeed.com/hire and get started today. employment practices and how it treats its warehouse workers use the jfk facility on staten

island as a case study showing how amazon burned through workers and struggled with communication issues during the pandemic even pre-pandemic the company faced major turnover issues losing 3 percent of hourly associates per week or 150% turnover per year. amazon responding to the piece calling burnout "only one data point" saying that its internal surveys show high worker sanction joining us now one of the authors of that expose thanks for being with us the stories uncovered and people profiled, eye-opening and really important. and a side of amazon we don't see as often as extreme efficiency, but i wonder why do you think ultimately amazon hasn't really had any issues making this sort of unprecedented workforce push over the last year they have just hired more than any other employer in america. >> yeah. they have been on this incredible hires spree last year because of surge in deep manned of online shopping from the

pandemic, and they offer a really, you know, good starting wage for low skill work. it's at leasts $15 an hour much higher in other cities. over $18 now in new york city, and good benefits. that has a strong appeal so it enables them to bring a lot of people in particularly in new york city. we saw them hiring people from all of the classic new york industries taxi drivers broadway performers. that sorptt of thing it's a sort of hiring machine. they don't do interviews hire people with an onlie assessment it was designed to be scalable and unbiased they have a kind of machine operation to bring people in also we found people leave at a really high rate much higher than competitor industries in the retailer or warehousing industry >> karen, about that, i was wondering. what do you make of what amazon says about high worker satisfaction and to what degree should we be comparing amazon

both to other warehouses and even to -- i'm thinking about panera and chipotle. business wis more than 100% turnover in workers and don't offer the kinds of pay and benefits that amazon does? >> yeah. amazon pulls from all of those different industries, and -- and you can -- it's funny. talking to workers some are so happy to not deal with customers the work at amazon is generally pretty icesoisolated working in your own work station. ten-shower shifts. two breaks mostly your business picking and packing products for some people that is not enjoyable. some people who came from the hospitality or service industry are really glad not to have to deal directly with customers if you talk to workers, they come from a range of industries, and amazon is kind of the future of retail. right? it's this -- so it's kind of replacing the retail industry or the traditionalstore retail

industry, which does have lower attrition. >> karen, thanks so much for coming on, and brings us more on that piece if you haven't read it, definitely worth the read. thanks talk to you soon. >> thank. speaking of amazon, it's been four years since the company acquired whole feeds the deal was supposed to disrupt grocery, but has that happened courtney reagan, i'm a little skeptical. amazon has been pushing into this space for over ten years and, yes, made big strides, but is the disruption there? >> that's right, de. you know it well. you can remember, all we could talk about four years ago when the announcement was made amazon was buying whole foods and grocery stocks went into shock around the world on the anniversary amazon announcing first fresh grocery store with that just walk out technology uses at the smaller amazon go stores this new one in bellevue, washington, and actually today, they're muted. four years later, amazon hasn't

disrupted grocery as you point out. at least not yet while pandemic did accelerate grocery sales, mckenzie estimates north american grocery grew 12% in 2020 compared to a gross year typically amazon lost share. sales at amazon's whole stores fell doesn't break out the ron yin grocery sales from amazon fresh or whole foods delivery but industry suggests still has a long way to go digital commerce 360 estimates amazon's share of total grocery sales in the u.s., just over 3%. putting it in fifth place and well behind walmart's nearly 23% share. however, amazon is growing market share over the last two years. walmart and kroger share slipped slightly then when it comes to online grocery, amazon holds the second spot with 29% share. walmart, again, number one at

32%. interestingly, walmart, target and albertson's actually group their online market share in 2020 over 201. while amazon slipped in 2020 and 2019 year over year. emarketer says the acquisition spurred grocers to move faster with online strategies, adding walmart, largest grocer, had the most to lose it has been very aggressive building out its online grocery options, and companies say give amazon some time back to you, de and jon. >> yeah. a saying, courtney don't bet against bezos. and taking the reins, see if we can make it work right after that whole foods/amazon deal i spoke to the ins instacart ceo. a wake-up call made every else speed up seems one of the biggest b

beneficiariies has been start-u instacart. value doubled over the last year or so. what do you hear from other grocery retailers about amazon's entry? worried about it four years later? do they sort of write it off and think, keep their heads down keep doing what they're doing? build up their online presence >> you know, i think, de, i don't know if they'd ever say publicly they were afraid of amazon i think we all know it would be silly not to be. look what amazon has done across a variety of industries. just as you pointed out, with the instacart founder telling you it bwas a wake-up call i think it was look at grossly offering across the board when it comes to buy online, pick up in store or with a partner, instacart or a shift, so many grocers began to put those in place it really has worked for them. interesting to look at stats over the pandemic seeing that amazon didn't really grow the share the way i might have thought, but, hey.

the other grocers at least had a little head start because of that acquisition, and were able to do what they could to grab those grocery shares. >> court, admit they're scared talking to regulators or to congress, but not to cnbc. right >> yeah, exactly >> isn't that how it goes? >> that's right, jon that is how it goes. someone that can do something about it, yeah >> that's right. well, we mentioned earlier, lyft, uber, airbnb, they're in the middle of a rough few weeks. we will take it up next with the ceo of thumb tack in the same gig economy ac eche" will be right back into your multivitamin? wonds at new chapter, its' innovation, organic ingredients, and fermentation. fermentation? yes. formulated to help you body really truly absorb the natural goodness. new chapter. wellness, well done. what happens when we welcome change? we can make emergency medicine possible at 40,000 feet. instead of burning our past for power, we can harness the energy of the tiny electron.

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let's catch up on oracle here earnings are coming tonight. you see it off fractionally and it is less than 4% off the 52-week all-time high. plus, cnbc's annual "evolve" summit is tomorrow i'm sitting down with two chip giants, intel and qualcomm can't believe they will be side by side. they're led by two ceos at a critical moment as the world struggles to solve the global chip shortage. they're together on a virtual stage for the first time it is big. still time to register, cnbcevents.com/evolve, and e rewi bba aere ckft onmo quick break to take on new challenges. that's why we built an office obstacle course ... to prepare our people for anything. you're late well, cdw amplified services experts

will consult with you to design, orchestrate and manage your most complex technologies to help you quickly overcome any obstacle ... without all of this. oh, that is better. who's that? oh, if you want coffee, you gotta get past tantrum. you're in for a brewed awakening. for technology that moves you forward, trust cdw amplified services wondering what actually goes into your multivitamin? at new chapter, its' innovation, organic ingredients, and fermentation. fermentation? yes. formulated to help you body really truly absorb the natural goodness. new chapter. wellness, well done.

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which can lead to occasional discomfort. nervive contains b complex vitamins that nourish nerves, build nerve insulation and enhance nerve communication. and, alpha-lipoic acid, which relieves occasional nerve aches, weakness and discomfort. live your life with less nerve discomfort with nervive nerve relief. startup thumbtack, which connects independent contractors across the u.s. closing a new $75 million funding round, valuing the company at $3.2 billion. this as investors continue to watch the labor shortages impact on the gig economy ceo marco zappacosta joins us to

discuss. marco, congrats on the milestone. just given what is happening in the news, i have to start by asking, tell us about inflation as you see it, both the materials perhaps that the contractors have to use to get a job done and what they're charging how much of that is getting passed along and how do you see it play out on your platform in. >> thanks, jon so we're thrilled to get this new investment to really deliver on the first-ever modern home platform for homeowners to get more done and the confidently manage their homes with that, that means sort of dealing with all the things that come their way, inflated prices, hard-to-find labor we want to be their partner throughout it all. it is something that we are seeing on the platform, but really the biggest problem in our space is not the cost of lumber, it is often finding a great contractor, finding a great pro, knowing what you should be doing to begin with, and that's what thumbtack is helping with >> so, marco, can you give us an idea, any color on what you have seen in terms of rising prices,

inflation on the platform in >> so what we've seen is a very different seasonal spike than every other year so last year outdoor services exploded because people felt more comfortable investing outside their home than inside now we're seeing sort of a reversal of that previously you saw a lot of diy. now you are seeing a move toward do it for me but throughout it all, we are sort of helping these homeowners find and hire the best pros for whatever need they need done, and increasingly know what they should and could be doing to manage their home as effectively as possible. >> what about your own costs, marco, when it comes to your own, you know, engineering labor, when it comes to the technology platform that you need to run your business? how much of this raise is going to go to that and how much do you see prices rising? >> yeah, so we see an incredible investment opportunity we are still at the really early days of the digital transformation of the home, and through that plan to invest this investment in people and products and technology that we're going to bring to bear

inflation, i'll admit, is not something we feel sort of in our internal labor cost, and that's probably because it is dwarfed by the sort of return opportunity that we see by building more of this product, delivering on more of this vision for our customers so we don't plan to slow down. >> marco >> and we don't think -- yeah, go ahead >> do you use any of the money raised to sort of subsidize costs for users on your platform, to make it cheaper for them >> we do not we think the biggest pain point is actually not the cost of these jobs, though that's getting a lot of headlines the biggest pain point is knowing what you should do and then easily getting that done, and that's what thumbtack attacks and does better than any other platform out there through that, we bring a lot of delight to homeowners who get to save time, get the home that they want and really have the peace of mind that they're doing what they should be doing to manage their biggest asset >> yeah, marco, we hear it again and again, especially in this time of tight labor markets and expensive materials, just what

to do. and then even once you know what to do, it is so hard to get somebody to actually do it so that is the problem you are attacking. marco zappacosta, thank you, from thumbtack with that, as we mentioned, looking forward to oracle reporting after the bell dee, let's get to "the half. all right, jon thanks so much welcome to "the halftime report." i'm scott wapner front and center this hour, the great inflation debate and your money. who has it right, the fed and the markets or the so-called smart money? we'll debate that and discuss with the investment committee. joining me today, stephanie link, pete najarian, jim lebenthal, michael farr, the president of farr miller good to see everybody. let's go to the walls to start the show take a look at what is happening with stocks. they're down across the board and inflation read a little hot, retail sales a little light. the fed beginning its two-day meeting. all right, pete. i feel like this is what we've got, okay. we've got smart money, the dimon, the g