much. >> i'm getting ready to presend i i'm going to the sun valley conference with andrew. >> andrew is big there bill, thank you. bill cohan that will do it for us on "squawk on the street. "techcheck" starts now my old piggy bank, i found you at last. my own, my very own piggy bank >> shall we dance? good thursday morning and welcome to "techcheck. i'm deirdre bosa with john frfort and carl quintanilla

lord of the roths, more on peter teal's $5 billion tax free piggy bank and later, amazon gets the teamsters treatment. >> we're also watching the nasdaq coming off its 16th record close of the year apple expanding its retail presence, tesla, the second biggest gainer on the mdx and square and pay pal get initiated with a buy at da davison. >> the house judiciary advances those bills that are aimed at curbing big tech we have the latest from there. >> that committee debate on antitrust is not over yet. after a marathon markup that lasted late into the night, lawmakers are back at it again this morning first five bills passed with bipartisan support, they would increase merger fees, give state ags more power, allow users to switch platforms more easily, create new standards for acquisitions and ban self-preferencing. the committee is convening right

about now to consider the last bill, the ending platform monopolies act which would force companies to draw bright lines between competing parts of their business the democratic sponsor of that bill is congresswoman pramila jayapal, one of the biggest proponents of the package despite her techie constituency. >> i'm thinking that i probably have about 60% of my constituents who work for one of the big companies, add in microsoft, maybe it is more. this is not something we do lightly. this has taken a tremendous amount of work. >> there is a lot defend bait oof debate of how microsoft would be affected by the bills. it is unclear when the package would go to the house floor give the path of the legislative agenda >> thank you despite the mergers in

washington against big tech, the nasdaq hit intraday highs today, going four four straight joining us with some stocks that he likes outside of that so-called antitrust basket is mike volpe good to have you. >> thank you for having me. >> i wonder what you make of the fresh legs in technology, in consumer discretionary, in nonprofitable tech, in some of the mean names is it a macro issue or seasonality. what is driving it right now >> i think that this time last year we were all worried that a lot of tech would have trouble turned out that many of the tech names, both on the consumer side and on the enterprise b to b side ended up doing quite well during that process and arguably a lot of people who were not expecting to or not yet adopting some of these tech related technologies, whether it was a zoom or a netflix or something like that, started to adopt them and now that they're using them,

they like them a lot and even though the pandemic is in fact receding, you're going to see continued strength in a number of these companies that found their footing during the pandemic period. i think that's what's really show up in nasdaq right now. >> does that mean that multiples in valuations have receded on the list of concerns >> well, look, you know what you've seen, even in the last couple of months, where you saw slight corrections, if you will, on some of the multiples, but then they come right back up i think what investors were looking for right now is growth. you know, we're in an environment where we have relatively low interest rates and, yes, there are some fluctuations that happen around that, bond yields are moving around, some concerns about inflation. but broadly speaking, we're in a very low interest rate environment. and when you have that kind of an environment, growth stocks forum weperform well you're seeing companies growing

very quickly and to the extent we can maintain the same macro economic environments they're going to be viewed favorably and you'll see fast growers perform well in the market. >> put a filter on that for us if you can it seems like you want companies small enough not to be considered big tech, but strong enough they can survive compe competition, with these big tech players, and that perhaps are not already so richly valued that it is tough to find an excuse to buy them. >> well, look, the tricky part about some calling something richly valued is that with these growth companies, it is very hard to predict how big they're going to be in the future. at one point in time, you would have thought, amazon was overvalued then a few years later, worth ten times as much. so i think what you kind of have to look at are companies that are reasonably sized, especially in market cap, things north of

$10 billion, but they're not more than $100 billion and in that range, there is enormous flexibility these companies have by creating new markets, by finding new opportunities, by making interesting acquisitions, where they can very much multiply their value. and i think that's where you find the sweet spot and in there, you have companies like service now, you have companies like airbnb, the doordashes, adyen, a lot of interesting names in that range and have a lot of upward mobility because you can see that when these tech companies get large, they enter into the hundreds of billions of market cap kind of value and that's what you can find in that range >> mike, can't help but notice you're at the nasdaq i think you were there for the confluent ipo, an early investor and board member i wonder what were the discussions about going to traditional ipo route versus a direct listing >> look, we did discuss it as

you often do i think we decided to go with a conventional ipo because the offering is largely primary shares, we're raising capital. that's more tried and proven but also the truth of the matter is because these direct listings have become more primetime, ip os have become more predictable. the pressure that direct listings are putting on to ipos are making the entire system more flexible, and we ended up in a situation where we're super happy with, the company is raising nearly a billion dollars in primary capital which will fuel growth and opportunity for the company and yet at the same time, you know, we're out there at a very fair valuation >> something we talk about a lot, maybe bill gurley is listening to us right now. mike, great insight on where we stand. great to see you thanks so much. >> thank you for having me

texas has plenty of energy problems, but bitcoin mining does not seem to be one of them. cate rooney is live in rock dale, texas, to explain. kate, tell us what you found i see lots and lots of servers behind you >> reporter: there is lots of servers. you can probably hear the buzz of the super computers here, they're stacked about 20 feet in the air. in this hallway, it is four or five football fields long. they're worried about what more buildings like that could mean for the texas energy grid. the miners say they shouldn't be worried. energy in the state is among the cheapest in the country. texas operates its own power grid, it is deregulated, but it is proven to be pretty fragile during times of peak demand, rolling blackouts in the winter, sees the same things during heat waves like we see now. they say they shut down operations in times like that.

because they buy energy on long-term contracts at a stable price, they can sell it back into the market when the demand strikes and there is a premium for prices since they buy that energy in bulk, years ahead of time, they say they're not competing with texans at home >> so, in theory, yes. everybody is using the -- if you're an ercot, it is 8 million electric i.d.s meters everybody is using the same series of power. are you competing with us? you're not competing with us >> reporter: and when there is an energy squeeze, this entire building shuts down within a matter of seconds. they get a notification from ercot, the state's operator of the energy grid, they turn this whole building off we saw it happen yesterday it was 98 degrees, the whole building shut off. during that time, they're losing a key source of income new bitcoin. it is up to the miners to make

that call. >> no one is wholly accountable but it is up to them they argue they will stop using it if the price is above a certain amount that makes sense it doesn't make sense to keep running unless the electricity price is above a certain break even point >> reporter: and, guys, the miners say during normal times they help balance the power grid by bringing demand to towns like this one near rock dale, and other rural places the ceo of whinstone said he's getting calls, emails, texts, every day from miners trying to move over here from china. one miner asked him to move 50,000 machines. he doesn't have room here. to start something like this from scratch, it can take between 9 and 18 months minimum. back to you. >> all right, kate rooney, you know, bitcoin mining is a hot topic, especially given what has been going on in china thank you. now the ceo of buzzfeed

first on cnbc, windows shopping with microsoft and amazon get the teamsters treatment. we got a 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. get ready for it all with an advanced network and managed services from comcast business. and get cybersecurity solutions that let you see everything on your network. plus an expert team looking ahead 24/7 to help prevent threats. every day in business is a big day. we'll keep you ready for what's next. comcast business powering possibilities.

another day, another chance. it could be the day you break the sales record, or the day there's appointments nonstop. with comcast business, you get the network that can deliver gig speeds to the most businesses, and you can get the advanced cybersecurity solutions you need with comcast business securityedge. every day in business is a big day. we'll keep you ready for what's next. get started with a great offer, and ask how you can add comcast business securityedge. plus, for a limited time,ask how to get a $500 prepaid card when you upgrade. call today.

time for a gut check on gaming take two has arguably the best owned ip collection of franchises in the industry it is well pentagoned to scale organically. shares of both up this morning and up more than 20%, just this year, deirdre. >> forget list to call, it is time for a listing buzzfeed announcing it will go public, but via a spac merger. julia boorstin has the interview with the ceo jonah peretti over to you. >> an exclusive interview with buzzfeed's ceo jonah peretti targeting $1.5 billion valuation including the $300 million acquisition of street ware content brand complex networks jonah, thank you so much for

joining us today on this big news >> thank you for having me, julia. >> so, jonah, tell us how going public via spac and this combination with complex will change your strategy going forward. >> it really just accelerates our strategy so we were looking last year at doing a traditional ipo, and then when covid hit like a loot of businesses we had to adapt and evolve and we got to profitability last year. and then this year we're able to get public, strengthen our balance sheet, buy complex networks, all in an accelerated time period because of the spac transaction and i think that is really sets us up to be the consolidator in the media space with this amazing platform we built. we can add more iconic brands, buzzfeed, huff post, buzzfeed news, and a lot of other attractive opportunities out there as well. >> i have to ask you about the valuation, though. down from a peak of 1$1.7 billin

in 2016. what is your message to investors if you have struggled so much over the past however many years it is, six years to grow your valuation? >> i would say there is definitely a very hype period for digital media. companies were growing quickly butdidn't have strong sustainable businesses we spent the last year managing our costs, building a really strong sustainable diversified business, we added commerce, video advertising, display advertising, programmatic and other high margin, high growth advertising in one, commerce being another, that has really changed the margin profile of our business and aloud us to be profitable we have seen growth reaccelerate last year into this year it is very exciting time right now where digital media is maturing and hitting the period where it is a real business can be built with real defensibility, scaleability, profitability and growth

>> and i'm curious how many other potential acquisitions are on the horizon you mentioned you really want this to be a company that aggregates similar platforms, but in addition to complex, how many more you to think you'll do and of what variety? >> i've been talking to founders of companies, and there is a lot of excitement to going up with us we have done a lot of the hard work that is harder for subscale companies to do. we have built this commerce platform, advertising platform, we are well capitalized, we have scale, we have these iconic brands and ability to monetize and distribute content if you're someone running a subscale digital media company and you know you have to build these things, you can skip a bunch of steps by joining up with the leading digital media company in this space, buzzfeed, and accelerate your vision and a

big thing for me is i believe strongly in the editorial voice of the brands that we have, we're not trying to change complex to be like the buzzfeed voice, we want huff post to be even more huff posty we want to build a strong foundation to accelerate the companies to the next level and let them reach their full potential. >> i've got it ask you about competition, though. we have seen facebook, snap, tiktok, all of these companies invest in their creators and giving more different people voices we have seen a huge explosion of the content creator economy on these different platforms. and then you have the giants like google and facebook that just have, you know, the digita duopoly here you have scale in terms of digital media, you're competing for ad dollars with the biggest tech giants in the world >> in most cases we have seen our revenue grow right along with the same companies. so youtube and facebook and

instagram and tiktok are hungry for content. they increasingly want brand safe content, content they know they can put advertising against with certainty and so we get paid by these big platforms for producing content. we share revenue with them in many cases and we are also a tremendous source of creators for these platforms. we have a creators program that we have done for a couple of years now. our talented people want to come to buzzfeed, get used to the studio, they get the ability to take their work to the next level. so what we to is very complementary to the platforms there is not many creative companies that make content at scale the way we do across all the platforms. >> i'm curious, though, how commerce fits into that. i thought it was interesting that you're projecting that commerce will grow from about 10% of your revenue now to about 30% in 2024. this comes at a time when we

have facebook, snap, pinterest, all the companies doubling down on shopping on their platforms is that competitive or do you think that's also complementary? >> essentially the key to our commerce business is we make content that inspires people to transact might be a list of products, might be, you know, a video, that inspires someone to go on a trip or try a new experience and that really is the key to our model is expiring content then drives the transaction. we do some of that on buzzfeed's site and owned operated properties and our app we also can do that at the complex con event, which when that is part of our company, we also can do that on youtube or on facebook or on instagram or other platforms where we're distributing content the key is linking the inspiring content with the transaction and we're able to do that on our own sites and distribute it. >> well, it will be very

interesting to see how that commerce business grows and wha other businesses you acquire in this public space once you're now a public company thank you for joining us jonah peretti, the ceo of buzzfeed >> thank you for having me >> great exclusive, julia. thanks peter teele and his $5 billion tax free piggy bank, the reporter behind that explosive piece joins us next. "techcheck" will be righba t ck

competition beat us again. how? they have a better finance system than we do. i feel like they might have a better finance system than we do. workday. how do they make better decisions faster? workday. it's got to be something workday. i think i got something. work... hey, rob, you're on mute. hello! hey, rob, there he is. workday. the finance, hr and planning system for a changing world. that building you're trying to sell, - you should ten-x it. - ten-x it? ten-x is the world's largest online commercial real estate exchange.

you can close with more certainty. and twice as fast. if i could, i'd ten-x everything. like a coffee run... or fedora shopping. talk to your broker. ten-x does the same thing, - but with buildings. - so no more waiting. sfx: ding! see how easy...? don't just sell it. ten-x it. it's hard to hope, hard to cope with crisis. so we get to work. we mend, fighting for every person in every neighborhood; we, the coming of the common good. so dare to care, to be hope-sided. we're never divided, when we live to give, we always live united.

amazon's labor issues are getting the teamster treatment the nationwide union is expected to pass a resolution that will create a special amazon division the goal is to aid amazon workers through strikes and action in the streets. why? well, amazon is now the second largest private employer in the country, and the teamsters see the company's reputation for some would say ruthless efficiency as an existential threat to the standards it has

accomplished with other employers across different industries keep in mind, union organizers are in the midst of the appeals process with the failed unionization vote at amazon alabama warehouse which got a lot of national attention. andy jassy takes over the reins from jeff bezos in two weeks and the other external pressures mounting like antitrust skcrutin into the business' practices i'm not hersure this moves the needle for investors jon, it is important to note that this just raises the level of attention as andy jassy is about to take over i know teamsters didn't have a lot of success many years ago with walmart but it continue the discussion that we had more and more often

on this network about the pressure building. >> yeah, probably as much of a risk for the teamsters here as for amazon they're going to need to make some kind of a different case for why organized labor is relevant in this digital era now, awe head to break, here is a live look at apple's newest retail store this one in los angeles. will tim cook make an appearance find out this afternoon on the exchange 1:00 p.m. eastern here on cnbc.

resetting here near the bottom of the hour welcome back to "techcheck." the propublica reporter behind the peter thiel story in a moment first, a news update with rahel solomon. >> here is your cnbc news update at this hour the nationwide ban on evictions will continue for another month. it warns it does not intend to continue after that. google says it is delaying its planned phaseout of third party cookies in its chrome browser in a year. it could help its own advertising services at a time when european regulators are

looking at whether google has too much control over that market. u.s. grow domestic product grew at 6.4% last quarter. unchanged from last month's preliminary estimate from the government. new claims for unemployment insurance falling by 7,000 to a seasonally adjusted 411,000 last week that's another sign of economic recovery after the pandemic, but, carl, it is higher than expectations and the second week in a row that claims were above 400,000. still a long road. >> long way to go. thank you very much. peter thiel's $5 billion retirement account, how he racked up billions in tax free gains over the last 20 years utilizing a loophole in the roth individual retirement account to cash in on paypal, palantir and facebook joining us this morning, one of the reporters who broke the story, justin elliott. welcome. we had jesse icinger on not too long ago and he said you would

have more on the tax front and he wasn't kidding. i who hope you can talk about how this roth was developed, who how it started, how it evolved and then what happens in 2027. >> sure, so as many people probably know, the roth is a special tax free account, so any kind of capital gains, interest dividends, that occur within the roth are totally tax free. it is a very powerful thing. so what our reporting found is that peter thiel, back in 1999, purchased his founders shares in the company that becomes paypal with his roth i.r.a., which at the time had a contribution cap of $2,000. and it grew from there >> indeed. and then come april 2027, he'll be able to withdraw how much money tax free >> well, as of 2019, we know that the roth had $5 billion in it and i think it is important to note that this growth from under

2,000 back 20 years ago to $5 billion today does not just reflect the fact that peter thiel is a brilliant investor, something that we all already knew, it also reflects the fact that these founder shares he bought in the company that would become pay pal were priced at time at literally a tenth of a penny per share. we found an s.e.c. filing that suggests that the shares were actually below fair market value. and you're actually not allowed to purchase assets below value with your roth so there is sort of unanswered questions about how exactly this happened >> you're saying that those shares, when they went into the i.r.a. many years ago, they were actually undervalued, but at the same time, right, let's say they were fairly valued and worth pennies instead of one tenth of a penny, how could he have known they would be worth millions or billions years later so how do you, i guess my question is how do lawmakers

sort of go after this? >> sure, i mean, it is a great question going back to the early months of the company, you're right that he couldn't know it was going to, you know, become worth tens of millions, but a month after he bought the shares, the company did raise half a million dollars from outside investors so there already was clear promise there. you know, the larger policy issue here is that when congress created roth i.r.a.s in the late '9 0s, it was really intended to be a modest tax incentive for middle class americans to save for retirement that's why they imposed these strict contribution limits of how much money you could put into one of these things i think the question now is there really any policy justification for, you know, ultra wealthy people like peter thiel having literally billions of dollars in a tax free

account. why should he get that advantage versus another investor? clearly that's more than enough to retire on so that's really the question here. >> justin, i'm trying to figure out the right framing for the problem for the issue here tell me what you think of this it seems like u.s. tax law is getting hacked, by the rich. in this case, we're talking about billionaires there is this asymmetrical data thing going on where the billionaires can constantly adjust their approaches, tactics to find these enormous loopholes and yet congress doesn't have even itemized data to understand how the law is being exploited i'm sure they're just as surprised as we are today that this is even happening because we heard some of the response to propublica's initial report isn't this a structural problem where for especially the digital age congress has to change the way laws are made. they need to push out software updates to the irs on a constant basis. >> yeah, i mean, i think that's

absolutely an aspect of what's going on and actually the gao, the investigative arm of congress has been putting out reports for years about large i.r.a.s, not as large as peter thiel's, and the irs really appears to be doing little or nothing to enforce the existing rules and i think part of the blame for that should be put on congress, which is, you know, for many years has been cutting the irs' budget so, you know, i think it -- in some ways it could be as simple as, you know, actually enforcing existing rules >> i was going to say, it is not clear to me from the reporting and i wonder if you agree that the roth itself is poorly designed or broken is that what you think the -- what kind of conversation should the piece be driving in terms of policy changes >> sure, yeah, i think it is ultimately a policy question you know, for congress whether, for example, the roth should be capped

again, if you look back at the legislative history, which we did very closely, senator william roth, a republican from delaware, who the roth i.r.a. is named after, talked specifically about this vehicle being for middle class americans to help them save for retirement congress at the time as i mentioned, imposed very strict contribution caps on how much money you could put in, it is pretty clear that no one envisioned nonpublic equities with no clear fair market value or potentially even being valued at below fair value being bought with a roth. so they didn't actually impose an overall cap on how much money you could have in one of these tax free accounts. so it is really a policy question for congress. >> right, well, one that is being driven and continues to be driven through your reporting. we appreciate that very much and thanks for coming on to expand on it good to see you, justin. >> thanks so much.

john mcafee, the founder of the anti-virus software company bearing his last name was found dead in his jail cell yesterday after spanish courts approved extradition to the united states for tax evasion charges. he started the company in 1987 before selling his stake in the '90s for more than $1100 million. mcafee was arrested in spain last year after the u.s. indicted him for tax evasion months earlier, the u.s. claiming he failed to file taxes for four years charges that mcafee claimed were politically motivated. that wasn't the only conflict he had with the u.s. justice department in 2019, he was ordered to pay $25 million by a florida court to the estate of a man who was allegedly murdered in belize at the direction of mcafee. and then recently charged with fraud and money laundering mcafee was also accused of falsely promoting cryptocurrencies to investors in a pump and dump scheme that the

s.e.c. claims -- last week mcafee tweeted denying the charges and saying my friends evaporated through fear of association. i have nothing yet i regret nothing john mcafee dead at 75 years old. i became a sofi member because i needed to consolidate my credit card debt. i needed just one simple way to pay it all off. it was an easy decision to apply with sofi loans, just based on the interest rate and how much i would be saving. there was only one that stood out and one that actually made sense and that was sofi personal loans. it felt so freeing. i felt like i was finally out of this neverending trap of interest and payments and debt. ♪♪

♪♪ interest and payments and debt. ♪♪ ♪♪

getting some more information on that phone call between speaker pelosi and tim cook ylan mui has that.

>> nancy pelosi confirmed she did speak with apple's ceo tim cook about those antitrust bills working through the house. she said that americans' privacy and data are at the mercy of tech companies and that she told him to allow the legislative process to play out. >> if you have substantive concerns and you have -- and members and they have members who have voted with them on this, they can put forth what they want to put forth but we're not going to ignore that consolidation that has happened and the concern that exists on both sides on the aisle. >> pelosi said that congress' priorities are consumers and competition and she said while technology is an asset to the country, she is also concerned about privacy, fairness and the exploitation of data deirdre, back to you >> playing a little hard ball there. i don't know if cook expected to have a friend, but certainly

hitting back in a way. thanks so much for that. what is -- in what is expected to be the largest tech ipo this week, confluent set its sights on a $50 billion data management market, joining us now live from the nasdaq is jay kreps. conzbrgratulations on this milestone. you started as an in-house project at linkedin. when did you decide to go it at your own as an independent company? >> we saw most of the companies building around it were thinking about how to store data. at linkedin, a big part of the problem was how do you connect the systems, act on it real time, harness data in motion that was the opportunity we saw that was what we founded the company to go after and really taking that out to all the other companies in the world, that's the mission of confluent. >> and, jay, whydid you decide to go the traditional ipo route over direct listing?

we had mark on, he calls it an ipo pop tax. >> both are great options. we were raising money at the same time. that's something only just being figured out as we were starting this process direct listing wasn't as great of an option for us. we're happy with the outcome it worked out great. >> jay, talk to me about your growth strategy and particularly given that megascale cloud providers are certainly partners, but also among your biggest competitors. they want to own the whole data stack. you're in a position, i guess, similar to your partners m mongodb. do you form more partnerships with other best of breed technology companies something else >> yeah, that's a great question there is a gold rush in the cloud. all different types of companies

are trying to ink i ing to inno. we help connect all the layers in the cloud into a lot of the data that exists in other clouds or on premise and really tieing that together around a central nervous system as a huge problem that companies have to face. so we cooperate with them and work with customers together on use cases. and i think it is a huge opportunity. >> so when you look at the landscape right now, what is the biggest challenge coming out of the pandemic is it ramping up the salesforce able to engage with that enterprise demand or something else >> look, i think every company in the world through this pandemic looked at their digital strategy for a lot of those companies. that was something that, you know, existed really, you know, mostly on paper, to be digital first. and i think a lot of those companies are doubling down. and so a lot of what we need to do is really ramp up to help support that and we have seen

growth both in impacted industries as a really optimized their interaction with customers through this time period, as well as some of the digital native companies, skyrocketing growth and needed a cloud service to be able to scale up to satisfy all that. >> jay, we're waiting shares to start trading, but sort of back to my earlier question, will you see a big pop if we do see one as many left on the table that you could have used toward expanding your business and especially competing for some of the tech giants in this space. >> well, we'll be excited with the outcome one way or another it is a great day for us we're really -- we're really excited about the investors we're bringing on board it a phenomenal group it is a big day for us and we're obviously raising a lot of money out of this to really go after the space. so i think either way we're very happy. >> jay, thank you so much for being with us. good luck as we continue to watch that first trade >> thanks for having me. >> microsoft's next generation of windows event is just

wrapping up. the corporate vp of a lot of the consumer business joining us next here on "techcheck. meantime, watch ad tech stocks, that basket surging on a headline that google will delay blocking third party cookies in chrome until 2023. don't go anywhere. "techcheck" will be right ckba jerry is here! j! mate, how are ya!? it's so good to see you. good to see all of you, yeah! why is jerry so... popular? it's been like this ever since we started using workday. what do you mean? it makes it easier to develop great relationships with our suppliers. now everyone, everywhere loves jerry. they sure do. they do. they really do. mmhmm. workday. finance, hr, planning and spend management for a changing world.

microsoft unveiling windows 11 today, in an update in a way

built for pandemic trends, some new features include a simplified design, teams integration, it runs android apps and offers new economics in an app store our next guest saying he hasn't been this excited for a new operating system since 95. yousef, welcome. i almost feel like i'm in a bizarro world here microsoft was ordered to break up, but just now satya nadella on stage, touting windows as a democratizing force and open platform in a world in a way influenced by android and ios in particular and the app store that people are bucking up against. what is the big idea >> thank you for being here with us i'm happy to be here to talk about the all new windows 11 the big focus we have tried to do is really inspire people's productivity and get them back

to the things they love. and so as you said, we really kind of focus on investing in four areas simplified design, all new way to be able to reach people through text, chat, video and calling. andchat, video and calling, and more apps, games and more entertainment options, in particular as you mentioned be the beta run android apps the importance of what windows does for microsoft is provides the platform for not only all of our services but all of the people that want to build products on the web today. we're excited to bring the openness and empower the things you were talking about. >> i'm particularly curious about the windows app store economics and what you're saying about empowering creators. how do you think microsoft is going to influence the digital download and digital economy space with this move in windows. >> a big part of what we were trying to do for people is get them the best entertainment, the best games, best apps. we think the way to do that is

to have a more open platform doing that in a couple of ways first with our new story we talked about to do we have new policies if you are a provider of an app store, you can bring your conversation and put if in our store. that's something you can't do many other places. >> give me an example how that might work, even a company like say, adobe, or maybe a gaming company. how would it work. >> if you are adobe and you have creative cloud you can sell for for example. up sales to premium subscriptions within your adobe cloud and app microsoft isn't involved with that don't take economics. do that all yourself or if you want a small are publisher you can use our store we have the most competitive economic. >> you're not taking 30% if you have a store within a store. but you don't maybe get the discoverability of microsoft putting you front and center how does that work >> yeah, we have -- what we do is we have one store, very easy, trusted, simple to find apps abwe will put all the apps the store as well.

it's really a choice for the developer and creator. the other opportunity you mentioned is within the new ai powered personalized feed giving you all news and content and information you care about on the windows desk top, really ando an incredible feature, we allow creators to bring content and start with local creators and build that it's another way for people who want to blog or reach over the 1.3 billion windows customers right on the desk top. >> teams is a front and center communication and video communication platform in windows, even for consumers. i guess you call it teams for life how is that going to work out? and what will be in consumer version of this versus what the enterprise is using? >> sure. well certainly one of the things we learned from the last 18 months through the pandemic is being able to connect with people, being able to learn in classroom in you are a child, do hybrid work, it's all powered by the ability to go online, chat,

video and call we've now put that front and center in the new windows 11, right on the task bar with one click. you can text message anyone from any phone. we brought in incredibly powerful capability that will enable that connectivity and we're doing that powered by microsoft teams. you have all of that incredible technology to to high fidelity communications and we're going to make that work across all the services that we've got it's going to be really incredible feature for people. >> this seems to me to be like one of the things congress is talking about right now, in a platform that's big and got some power, including a feature preloaded that perhaps the likes of zoom would like to compete with how do you think that fits into the narrative that so many not just on capitol hill witho are debating right now >> well, the important thing to understand -- you know this with windows, our whole business model is predicated on empowering people to be able to bring applications, hard which are, services on the platform.

we pride ourselves on that if you love zoom, slack, if you want to run any of the applications we're making it really simple and great on the windows platform you can take advantage of all of the new snap layouts we put in the windows to take advantage. we're happy to add another option for people if they want to use it. that's the fantastic new capability to be able to chat, video call and even text message. that's one of my favorite features in the windows 11, jon, working full-time on the computer if i have to tell my family i'm late for dinner i don't have to pick up the phone. click a button and send a text message to be anyone no matter the phone they are using >> there were a lot of questions about what comes after windows 10 if anything comes after windows 10 for microsoft -- but here we have windows 11. tell me about what happened to windows 10 x and how the development process maybe shifted over this year plus of the pandemic. >> well, a lot of the -- a lot of the work we do, a lot of the

innovation and thinking we do on future versions of windows has been making its way into windows 10 you know windows 10 from five years ago evolved and updated quite a bit. delighted to do that we took such a leap forward with in release we decided appropriate to call it windows 11 a lot of the things you mentioned, ideas we had back there we brought to windows 11 you see in the fruits of all that innovation in the new operating system we announced today. >> microsoft taking it to 11 yuvs meddi corporate vice-president. >> thank you. thank you. >> if you missed part of the show you can follow the podcast and listen any time anywhere wherever you download pod casts. tech check returns after one last break

today, global markets are challenging traditional

assumptions like never before. there is a new, accelerated sense of responsibility, sustainability, and social equity. at nasdaq, we call it the "era of impact." and we're at the forefront of it. innovating technology, data, and insights to help you deploy an esg strategy to be seen as the company you aspire to be. - [announcer] when you earn a degree to help from southern new esg sthampshire university, it's worth getting loud... - woo! i did it! (people cheering) - [announcer] ...and emotional. - [woman]woo hoo! - cool! - [man] we're proud of you, right, trav? - yeah! - [announcer] snhu graduates recognize

what they can accomplish with a supportive university by their side. - i did it... you can too! - [announcer] start your celebration at snhu.edu font a rise in violent crime in cities. could felons let out early be part of the problem. plus the american comeback series heads to cape cod one more thing before we go. two fintech names in focus this morning thanks to da davidson out with a new note, bullish on both paypal and square, the darlings of the space. the firm says that paypal's recent pricing initiative puts the stock in its own elite peer group calling the implementation a water shed moment, the move, paypal's investment in credit cards and crypto and accelerated adoption because of the pandemic

all behind the buy rating there on a price target of $325. then there is square mr. d.a. calls it fintech disruption at the finest. the popularity explosion of cash app along with heavy margin upside, the chief catalyst there also a buy, price target of $275 they say that jon, the story has never been better when it comes to paypal and keep in mind shares have risen some 70% the last year. paypal now more than two times the market cap of goldman sachs and square is approaching it at nearly $110 billion-dollar market cap today. >> carl, pointing out shares are higher today in a couple of different things you plug in tesla is up again more than 5% and so is peloton. you get somewhere in a tesla, the peloton is pretty much going to sit there >> yeah, peloton for a moment there was leading the ndx, along with all-time highs pretty high profile names, microsoft great

interview by jon a moment ago. facebook, visa, am ex, target, costco, dom knows be nvidia celebrating all-time highs' wet request get fedex and nike tonight. bank stress tests in front of inflation data when we come back on friday morning tomorrow that's does it for tech check. let's get to the half. and welcome to the "halftime report." i'm frank holland in for the judge scott wapner front and center this hour the catalyst for stocks companies set to return a record amount of cash to shareholders we debate that with the investment committee joining me for the hour are the lovely and talented carrie firestone, cr of asset management steve weiss, no nickname needed. downtown josh brown. financials are one of the best performing sectors today banks are all higher ahead of the stress test results where the focus is on how much capital they'll be able to return. the results coming out at 4:30 this afternoon josh, starting off with you. i know you're bullish on the