a key story, especially on a day where a potential comparable reel reel is under pressure after those earnings after the bell yesterday that's going do it for us here at "squawk on the street." with the dow and the s&p both hovering near record highs "techcheck" starts now happy tuesday. welcome to "techcheck. today amc is in a tech story or just a recovery play a breakdown of the quarter that has shares in the green despite huge losses. then a check on crypto as the senate will begin voting on the final infrastructure bill without any broker clarification. we expect that vote this hour. and finally could working from home cost you part of your

paycheck the latest on google's newest policy that has some employees pushing back we start with amc, that's where we start our feed this morning. shares are rallying after a smaller than expected loss there. they have come down a little bit, on the flat line. there was a wild conference call that covered everything from crypto adoption to potential partnership with game stop amc ceo adam aaron joined us earlier to talk about the quarter and the company's sky high valuation here he is with david. >> to understand the long-term fundamental strength of this franchise, i just -- it is being treat as though it is the greatest growth company of all time and it is not >> look, the same people who are putting us down now, we're writing with equal certainty, ten months ago that we were going out of business then and they have been wrong and who knows what will happen

there is only one thing i'm certain of, tomorrow, our share price will go up it will stay the same, or it will go down >> that is a certainty and amc announcing a deal with warner bros. to have all the studios 2022 films exclusively in theaters for 40 days before heading to streaming services. the deal similar to the one announced, meaning no day of releases on hbo max. in the end, only one analyst got in his thoughts on that call as the presubmitted questions were determined by up votes several firms remain skeptical this morning citi, a sell rating on the stock, notes the company is sitting on roughly $2 billion of liquidity. john, a fascinating interview. i also enjoyed his comments on bitcoin. feels like he's playing to this crowd. if you said how is this going to

work, am i going to spend my bitcoin at the movie theater, the volatility, how is this going to work and a lot of those details have yet to be ironed out which is why david so bluntly asked him are you a growth company because i don't really see it? >> saying nothing of the prospects for amc, it might do great. certainly it is a potential recovery play. this is not a tech company i've been trying to rack my brain and figure out all the ways that maybe this could be made into -- it is not a tech company. it is like a cross between a commercial real estate, hospitality play and convenience store. a lot of profit comes whenthey buy popcorn, candy, drinks it has to do with why you place the physical locations it is a hedge against streaming and these digital platforms throughout the consumer taking over everything. so maybe if they had some strategic advantage in marketing or digital ticketing that they

were really trying to push on, that would be an argument, using technology to drive the business that's not the direction they're heading. they're understandably kind of picking up on this meme stock, you know, reddit enthusiasm around them, which certainly they should. it is getting them a lot of capital to pull themselves out of this hole i don't want the viewers to be confused there is no technology innovation here. there is no platform that is going to drive this story. that's not what amc is about >> jon, you'll get the apes after you. if you're thinking about introduce cryptocurrency into your business, perhaps there is a longer term story there. i hear your point, however >> if 7-eleven says you can pay with bitcoin, they're not a tech company, they're accepting bitcoin. if you think bitcoin is worth less than dollars, pay for your slurpee with bitcoin >> as you say, jon, i use this often, your quote, every company may be atech company, but not every company is a good tech

company. so perhaps one way of looking at it let's get to our first guest, though, joining us with his thoughts on whether or not the apes can keep adam aron's company afloat, editor ron john roy. help us out here where do you sit on this side of the debate, is amc a growth company, a tech company or is this just getting, you know, too inflative from the fundamentals? >> that question is the question around any kind of growth story over the last few years. i think it is worth stopping and looking at what is happening to the fundamental business because hype aside, certainly market capitalization aside, it looks like a business that is coming out of, you know, a shock that is doing kind of well, 22 million tickets sold, food and beverage per patron is up 44% versus 2019, which is a good sign and they're doing kind of creative things. again, it is not a technology play, but streaming ufc fights on a saturday night and charging

$25 per ticket, that shows they understand their customer, and that shows that at least they can try new movie things they have a new deal with warner bros., where they have 45 days exclusivity, a classic movie business thing, so they are turning around the movie business itself. but i agree, accepting cryptocurrency, it is not a -- it does not make you a technology company what it does do is show adam aron knows the elon musk school of search engine optimization. he knows what to say, he knows how to drive the conversation away from fundamentals, and get every headline talking about cryptocurrency >> right, so how do you think then that retail investors should be taking this with a grain of salt, do you think that these are promises that he can actually deliver on? >> i think if the movie business does turn around, you know, the jungle cruise and suicide squad, the poor performances, were they

bad movies or just larger secular sign of where the industry is going, amc has $2 billion in cash. they have that firepower more just to try to do something, if anybody does it, they are in position but, again, bitcoin, it is a distraction. we should be talking about when you're a retail investor, you're thinking about this, it should be whatever the future of movies is, could it be amc? to be honest, i would rather it amc than amazon takes over every single movie theater and it becomes part of your prime membership maybe a company that has no movies for a century could take us to that future movies but i will agree with jon, they have not shown a very clear path to get us there. >> and don't get me wrong, i love going to movie theaters i love the premium movie theaters, the amc type movie theaters where they give me a

seatreclines as a consumer, i'm rooting for that experience and we'll see where the valuation of amc sort of shakes out. but i think we're talking about something also that perhaps investors should zero in on. i remember the dot in dotcom and everybody was using the internet as that began to rise as a connection to their business and why their valuation should be high whether it was a real connection or not how much do you see that happening with a variety of things whether it is crypto or cloud which is meaningless or other buzzwords >> i think that is the single most important question, jon there has been so much innovation and transformation over the last few years that it becomes easy for a company to just stick it into whatever their public statement is and try to kind of ascribe themselves to that kind of valuation. if you remember blockchain, the

long island ice tea blockchain company that went ballistic and saw their stock price go up by putting blockchain in their name i think this is a really important point. is for the past few years, as a ceo you can say anything as a company there is no real check against what you are saying in the public sphere and we talked about this year before, the entire investor relation side, are there controls over what you can publicly say, and i think the s.e.c., the entire financial regulatory system, is starting to show that they're not going to play fast and loose anymore on the cryptocurrency side, you see it, over the last week, how much has happened, how aggressively things have been pushed that fast and loose environment of the last five years, i do believe it is over, and i think how liberal we can be with the ceo saying crypto, lockchain, cloud, i think it is going to change and people have to back these things up. >> yeah, i think you've seen

some of that novelty factor come down a little bit, it used to be right when elon musk mentioned bitcoin or crypto that that would have more of an effect last question on crypto, as we watch that infrastructure bill vote, and that crypto provision, so key and has the crypto industry and advocates up in arms, where do you stand on this do you think that this is going to stifle innovation can cryptocurrency get past it, work within the pounds i had as ceo this morning tell me this is a good thing because we need clarity. we need taxation clarity >> i believe this has been a failure on the part of the cryptocurrency industry. there is incredible things happening, especially around the ethereum 2.0 decentralized fran structure world and nfts and decentralized finance. there is cool, interesting things happening but it is on the crypto industry to explain to everyone else who is not invested who does not take part in this what is this

going to bring to their lives, we heard promises around help banking the unbanked, making life easier, everything is going to be on the blockchain, how will people's lives change to get the support at a mass level, to outside of this kind of narrow industry, you have to explain this to people outside who are doing -- who are deep into this. i think that has been a failure of communication on the part of the industry >> well, we'll see how it plays out, ranjanuary, jan, thank you being with us. >> we were talking about amc, robinhood doing m&a that is connected in a way, buying the platform behind amc's conference call and other companies as well kate rooney has the details. >> robinhood announcing a deal to buy say technologies for $140 million. this is an all cash deal and robinhood's first deal as a public company say is a communications

platform, used by companies during earning calls amc used it in its current earnings call last night, shareholders can upvote or downvote a question and it is similar to how people use reddit say is still an early seed stage company, last valued at $28 million. that's according to pitch book, so today's deal is worth about five times where that startup was last valued in private markets. robinhood's saying in a blog post that company will keep its proxy voting services, and that q&a platform and will keep the name the two will find ways to work together to, quote, democratize shareholder access this is robinhood's third acquisition, it bought snacks which is now its main content platform, called robinhood

snacks now and big this deal is still subject to regulatory approval. shares of robinhood are down more than 3% following this deal news that comes after a roller coaster first week as a public company. back to you. >> kate, it is not surprising that we're seeing questions on earnings calls up voted. that was the main theme of amc and an analyst got one question. interesting acquisition for robinhood, a play for the retail investor softbank reporting a slump in quarterly profits overnight this is the company highly levered to china, estimated that 44% of the value of the investments are there in china, so interesting to see the ceo telling investors that he's in wait and see mode amid beijing's regulators, crackdown on tech companies. alibaba represents almost 40% of softbank's asset value then there is the pressure on recent ipos didi and full truck

alliance and bytedance he remains optimistic about the future, he expects alibaba to rebound and he doesn't have any doubt about china's tax future as for the vision funds, they lost more than $6 billion collectively, paper money, on the value of nine holdings including south korean e-commerce company kupon which went public. it also sold shares in uber and didi for gains which helped it reach over $2 billion in profit for the quarter, softbank shares, they're down 36% from the march high and he loves to talk about how softbank is under valued by the markets. it was inevitable, not saying anything about a buyback right now. but certainly thinking about it. >> never count them out. i learned that lesson as have many speaking of high growth, high multiple companies, gusto raising $175 million round today, valuation of about $9.4

billion. got the chance to talk to the co-founder and ceo josh reeves he told me he'll be using the resources to build more capability for small business that has been really challenged during the pandemic. >> small and medium businesses have always been wearing 20 hats the pandemic and the economic crisis made that more clear. fortunately we have been able to take some of the hats off their head, help them with setting up healthcare, what we're seeing in our data and from the census is that there are some silver linings, there has been a really big increase in new business formation. and so people starting new companies, and building out more modern ways to go build their products and serve their customers. >> more on this content in a moment we're talking valuations next with brian dieter who released an index including gusto find the entire conversation with josh reevess on "closing

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welcome back we have discussed the recent surge in software stocks today forbes announcing 2021 cloud 100 list in partnership with bessemer and salesforce. the list ranks the top 1 had

been private cloud companies in the world, stripe topping this year's list followed by data bricks and joining us now bessemer venture partner's brian dieter i appreciate the branding and cloud 100, one of my many pet peeves, cloud doesn't mean that much of anything anymore it seems to me like if you're a software company and not -- you can't operate in the cloud world, you're dead anyway. it is really a lot about software it seems. there is a lot of emphasis in this list on small and medium business also. in a way that perhaps hasn't been in the past it is small and medium business trying to do more than just punch above its weight, it innovation serving them in new ways right now >> i also take issue with people trying to cloud wash their businesses, even in the prior statement. crypto is a fad. certainly exciting but cloud is the future of software to your point, it is eating software, taking over the world.

and small and medium businesses for the first time ever can find new software to give them power that large enterprises had previously we think it is a massive tailwind this cloud 100 list is a pure definitive list of the world's top 100 private cloud companies and one of the trends is vertical sass for small and medium businesses taking the world by storm you see across industries toast for restaurants, go down the list with a number of companies that are servicing these markets, construction within the last few months. so you see this taking hold and you're right, cloud software is now reachable by s&p and as well as consumers at home. >> what seems different to me, disaccbuse me of this notion if i'm wrong in the past there were companies, even cloud companies, sass companies, that would start off serving small and medium

businesses but their real ambition was to serve big enterprises. they would grow up into that but right now i look at stripe, for example, it is a monster it could be public, it really super serves small and medium business and gives them capabilities even at enterprise hasn't had and there is a huge potential market there if small and medium businesses really lean into digital transformation and they can because the capital cost isn't as high as it was before the cloud era, right >> you're right. when i started a cloud business years ago, half my dollars went to hardware and software purchases just to build our application. that's not needed anymore. and the playbook often is for these businesses start at the high end of s&p or the midmarket and then try to work your way up so sales, they started shopify shopify is 200 billion or so in market cap now, well beyond s&p and they start small

you see these companies, canvas is another great example, they can serve individual consumers up to the high end enterprises data bricks can start with downloadable versions, engineers can test it and then work their way up so we're seeing the frictioning out of the sales processes, we're seeing expensive sales reps no longer needed and discerning customers and sole providers that can make purchase decisions and implement cloud software quickly and get time to value lightning fast so armies of service implementation consultants and hardware vendors and license operators are no longer needed. >> i believe last year's number one on this list was snowflake, gone public now. so it is no longer on the list talk to me about valuations. we were talking about gusto, number 25 on this list its valuation now about 9.4 billion post money after this series e that they just announced. what do these companies have to

do to justify those, is it an international growth story, is it going deeper into vertical areas that they serve, which is also what gusto seems to be doing with its embedded payroll and other service attacks, services like that >> for the first time ever with this list every single company on this list has a billion dollar palaclus valuation. these are private companies. entire klilist is entirely madep of unicorns and several dozen off the list that were valued above $1 billion because the pool is so deep of amazing companies. and most of these companies are still servicing domestic markets which suggest there is that upside for two of the things you mentioned, global expansion and depth in the products. many of those adding financial services products.

if you look at shopify with their partnership with stripe and other payments products, massive market cap was -- you're seeing that replicated down the stack now, the companies like service titan that are adding payments and seeing this massive financial uplift as they -- their business accelerates the restaurant industry is seeing a similar thing these businesses are having much bigger outcomes and serving much bigger markets than we ever conceived of when the list started six years ago. >> when every horse in the race is a unicorn, i don't know do we need the term unicorn anymore? do we have to raise the bar for when you get a horn? i don't know >> gusto going two dozen deep in this list at valuation that now kisses 2 billion it is just a staggering pool that in total is worth over half trillion dollars and we talk about the public role and the run-up over the

last year, but this is a milestone for the private industry it almost doubled last year alone where we were at just over a quarter trillion dollars last year, now we crossed the half trillion dollar mark for the 100 best companies alone it is absolutely staggering what is happening in the private markets. >> maybe we need a pegasus designation now. horses with wings. byron, thank you good to have you on "techcheck." now, new car details, iphone updates, growing privacy battle with big tech names. we'll break down apple's next move with john gruber after the break. stay with us ♪♪ we've all felt this gap. the distance between what is, and what could be. while he's tapping into his passion, the u.s. bank mobile app can help you tap your way to your savings goals. without missing a beat. so, you can feed his passion.

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resetting here near the bottom of the hour welcome back to "techcheck." crypto in the red after that failed amendment to the infrastructure bill. more on the space as coin base

reports results later tonight. first, a news update with rahel solomon. >> here's what's happening at this hour. canadian pacific is raising its offer for kansas city southern to $300 per share or about $27 billion. that is still below canadian national which is still waiting for regulatory approval for its proposed deal. productivity of u.s. workers grew less than expected in the second quarter of the year the 2.3% annual increase was nearly a percentage point below forecast first quarter productivity was also revised downward. shares of food distributing giant cisco jumping 6%, that's after posting strong quarterly results. and also saying that it is managing inflationary pressures, raising full year profit guidance and saying that it sees mo no impact on demand due to the delta variant. most workers can expect double digit increases from last year

and investment bankers could get their biggest payouts in a decade that's thanks to the big jump in deal making. back to you. >> thank you turning to apple and its measures battling child sexual abuse imagery that have drawn criticism from some privacy advocates. our next guest questions how prepared apple is for manually reviewing potentially staggering number of accounts being flagged. joining us now, long time apple -- fireball possible case, blog what do we call it these days >> still a blog. coming back around. >> it is it is. john gruber. is it a newsletter >> no, i do not have a newsletter it is probably foolish on my part i should start one >> you have to go get fireball now, maybe a fireball spell that will come to you

this is a controversial issue. we talked about it we talked about it yesterday with the privacy advocate. who was very critical of apple but it seems to me that a lot of people are misunderstanding what apple is doing here in part because the backup of your photos it is almost on by default lots of people have icloud turned on whether they're using it and paying for it or not. is that part of the difficulty here >> yeah. apple knows the answer to some of this. they know how people use icloud photos and how many photos they have in it but we don't they don't publicly announce it. one of the long time criticisms of apple's online services is that the free tier of icloud had a five gigabyte storage limit forever. going back ten years which is not a lot considering that's supposed to contain all your photos if you're using photo backup all of your device backups if you're using online device

backups, which people should it is a great feature that keeps all of your stuff ready to go if you need to download it to a new device but most people can't fit it all in five gigabytes. who knows how many people are doing it. >> john, part of the issue here too is that cloud services have been searching for these child pornography images from the known database for a long time right? if you're back your photos up on google photos and android device, dropbox, we were talking about this last week, it is already been happening is this in your view a contradiction to apple's stated policies on back doors into phones or on, you know, keeping government out of phones or no >> i think not but it is -- it is definitely a slippery slope that phrase gets used a lot. apple from my conversations with

them in reading their documentation is painfully aware of how delicate this needs to be, to be very specific to this issue. and just to throw out some numbers, so it -- the national center for missing and endangered children is the only organization that is allowed to hold this material and if an online provider comes across it, they must report it and that's the organization. and they publish the numbers of what these cloud providers report facebook reported 20 million instances in 2020. it is just a staggering number i did the math it is sickening, like 55,000 a day, every day, 365 days a year. apple only reported like 200 cases. that's because the way that apple set up was apple doesn't come across. i believe most of those -- or all of those 200 is when law enforcement would come toapple an say we're looking at this individual, here is a warrant, can we look at this person's

photos and then, okay, here we have to report these photos to -- but apple just wasn't really doing it. and the law isn't written that the companies have to go and look for it. they don't have to search for it what they have to do is if they do come across it, if they're made aware of it, they do have to report it i think the system apple has come up with is -- is a little different in that the matching against the database happens on your device, not in the cloud. but it only happens for the images that you were about to send to the cloud because you volunteered to use icloud photos to back up your photos it is a fine distinction, but it is a distinction. >> right so expand a little bit more on that explain to our audience why what apple is doing now is so different than what facebook and google are doing you just talked about the numbers, but why are some

privacy advocates criticizing this move and calling it a slippery slope what else could it lead to >> the privacy advocates, the most of the criticism is about what this opens the door to in the future what happens if a government, any government, could be china, could be the united states, could be somewhere in europe mandates that in addition to checking against a database of known child sexual abuse material now we want you to also check against a known database of terrorists recruiting videos or, you know, the list can go on and on politically repressive regimes, could be truly horrifying. apple has said they released a frequently asked questions yesterday that if they're asked to do -- to expand this for any other subject matter, they will flatly refuse. they probably should have had an answer like that ready to go when they announced this last week but evenist pre implicit in tha

have to take apple at its word if they're asked to do that, they would refuse it at a basic technical level what apple is doing, comparing against this database of known child abuse material, it is not that different than what the other cloud providers are doing. it is just different on where the check against the database is having on your device or in the cloud and the other thing to emphasize to everybody listening is that the database isn't the images the database is the fingerprints >> that is an important distinction for sure john, we have to leave it there for now. john gruber, thank you >> thank you for having me. we're getting breaking news out of washington on the infrastructure bill. >> the senate now has the votes to pass that bipartisan infrastructure package, only a simple majority is required to get this through the current vote tally has 55 senators voting in favor of it

the vote is still ongoing. but the outcome here was going to be clear after some key procedural motions passed over the weekend with strong bipartisan support even though some republican senators are voting against the bill the real surprise has been around the fight over cryptocurrencies, the changes the industry want ready not in this legislation however, the industry will get another chance to push it through once the bill heads over to the house there is a bipartisan group of lawmakers who say they are ready to pick up the baton and try to advocate for those changes on the house side we don't know when the house will vote on this legislation. the speaker said she will not take it up until the senate has also passed the $3.5 trillion budget resolution that includes the rest of democrats agenda the senate is expected to turn to that later today, once this vote on the infrastructure package is finally over and it does look like the senate has the votes to get it done back over to you >> does this complicate things

for those crypto revisions is it messier for this to happen in the house a lot of things are. >> yeah, absolutely. it would have been a lot cleaner if the senate had made those changes at the outset. so now they're facing another uphill battle in the lower chamber in order to get those changes added to the bill. and, then, of course, the bill changed on the house side, you need another vote on the senate side on the compromise bill as well so this could get a little bit complicated. what we heard from the industry over the weekend and past few days is a lot of anger, a lot of frustration and a determination that they're not going to give up this fight. >> thank you for bringing us the update could work from home cost you? if you're employed by one big tech name, maybe that story after the break stay with us

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google setting a new pay precedent as the covid surge makes work from home more likely this fall. reuters reporting the company is using a calculator based on census bureau data to determine employee pay so if you work from home, and that home is in a lower cost area, you could see your pay fall anywhere from 5 to 15%.

problems seem to arise when you work in suburbs just outside city areas so an employee living in connecticut or napa valley, an hour or two from headquarters could see a pay cut even if cost of living is similar to the city google defended the stance saying that compensation packages have always been determined by location other companies like zillow and reddit said they will be location agnostic when it comes to pay in a way this does make a lot of sense, but if we're talking talent wars and all these companies are trying to get an edge on each other, i mean, google can afford to pay 100% of that salary. >> no, they can't. i mean, my unpopular opinion, this makes every kind of sense, sorry, folks the cost of living in sacramento or areas outside tahoe and california is much lower than in san francisco proper try to get a 3 or 4 bedroom house in san francisco itself, versus in napa or in gilroy or

in sacramento or roseville and i got lots of friends who h moved out of san jose. that's the cost. if you want to work from home, that's what happens. facebook said they would bottom exact same thing do not be surprised if this happens and, you know, your cost of living when you count in real estate and the schools and all that, probably a lot more than 10% or 15% lower you still get the bargain. >> yeah, living in san francisco for the last five years, i won't argue with that, with the cost of living and how expensive it is i'm saying that in the talent wars, if you're trying to get an edge on competitors and you have companies like zillow and others who say we'll pay 100%, maybe that's more appealing. what do you think? >> i think google and facebook pay a lot better than zillow we have done those stories too when it comes to cash and bonuses and equity so complicated got to be fair within your workforce. they'll figure it out.

we'll see. all right. watch fisker today, morgan stanley resuming stock at overweight, calling it an ev architect. more than 500% upside. "techcheck" will be right back this is the sound of change from pnc bank. it's the sound of a thousand sighs of relief and of a company watching out for you. this is the sound of low cash mode from pnc bank, giving you multiple options and at least 24 hours to help you avoid an overdraft fee. because we believe how you handle overdrafts should be in your control, not just your bank's. low cash mode on virtual wallet from pnc bank. one way we're making a difference.

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forecasts reporting consecutive revenue growth after the ceo called the most challenging 12 months shares surging nearly 40% this morning. bitcoin also trying to hold 45,000, that's next. stay with us your family is on the move, so keep up with t-mobile - america's largest 5g network. with our new magenta max plan, you get unlimited premium data that can't slow you down based on how much smartphone data you use. and keep up with the hottest shows on the go because with magenta max, netflix is on us. plus, new and existing customers can add lines to their family plan for 50% off! so get out there and with unlimited premium data, netflix on us and 50% off additional family lines. only at t-mobile. the leader in 5g 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. if i could, i'd ten-x everything. like a coffee run... don't just sell it. ten-x it.

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to nearly $4 billion the company says revenue grew 30 fold as crypto becomes more mainstream i caught up with the ceo in a "techcheck" live stream. he told me his customers' institutions believed crypto taxation is really an important issue and they're watching the infrastructure bill closely. he says that asian institutions are even calling him for updates on the middle of the night because how the u.s. decides to handle this will u.s. decides t this will be critical on a global stage i also asked him about stable coins amid scrutiny over tether backing and new attestation from the company yesterday. he says that falcon x is seeing rival stable coin usdc adoption at a much faster rate over the last month compared to tether among institutional investors. have a listen. >> having good solid transport on -- as a result we are see are more engagement with usdc in the

last four months compared to data >> john, usdc does not have perfect disclosure but as many pointed out it does use u.s. accountants and is targeting an ipo. so potentially one day it could unseat tether but a long way to go >> looking forward to clarity there for sure in the meantime a new entry in the streaming wars salesforce plus. business focused and debuting in september what the world needs looking forward to the book of benoff on interest the profit back for a new season don't miss the premiere on c nabz 10:00 p.m.asrn ete n nabz 10:00 p.m. eastern b nabz 10:00 p.m. eastern c nabz 10:00 p.m. eastern 10:00 p.m. eastern

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investing is not easy. and if you become a financial nilist where you say i don't care about fundamentals, i know the stock self 10 x over value or the shorts are wrong or fails deliver, whatever the rationale that's all well and good but what is the risk you're taking if you should be wrong. there is no margin of safety

and i think that's -- that's problem with meme stock trading, is that if it turns out you're wrong or the crowd moves onto something else your downside can be dramatic. >> that was investor jim chenos, long known for short calls joining "squawk box" this morning to discuss amc earnings and the meme stock frenzy. let's bring in andrew ross sorkin who spoke with him. andrew, bold words there >> bold words, this was before the adam aaron interview that took place with jim -- jim and david on "squawk on the street." i think there is a real question right now within the meme stock world about what is, quote, unquote, investing mean. by the way, what's investing and what's trading maybe we should say they're two different things in in instance, that the meme stock folks are into trading, which is maybe a different thing than investing and then the secondary layer of

it, which is, you know, you can have collective wisdom, also collective delusion. but are these groups of meme stock traders, if that's what we call them, can they manifest their own destiny. that's because that is that's a large part of what we're seeing here if ano a company like amk can raise enough money over time that they can pay down debt and use it to make lots of acquisitions, can you manifest your own destiny you could argue tesla was that, that tesla was able to manifest its own destiny by repeatedly coming back to shareholders willing to put up more cash until it created a real success. and maybe that is a strategy i think it's a little more challenging in the amc context because i'm not sure what amc is supposed to buy. but, look if we raised enough money they could create a

competitor to netflix. >> though that isn't what they're talking about. they're talking about buying out prime theater locations. that could be good andrews, we've seen the periods of time in the market where the laws of physics are suspended and it's like the matrix, people leaning back and dodging bullets. maybe this is the longest period we've seen ever or in a long time but the periods tend to end. do you think that's what chen ohs is getting at, for traders, investors, whatever you want to call it, when do you stop the clock and declare winners and losers >> i think chen ohs and others including myself are saying we're closer to the end than the beginning. you never know whether you're right or wrong in terms of timing i think there is a lot of us who lived through different cycles feel some semblance of responsibility to say, look, there are real risks involved, increasingly it appears if you spend time on reddit or on

twitter online, that there is a whole new community of traders who are saying, don't stop me here in fact, by you trying -- by you claiming you're trying to protect me you're not protecting me at all. in fact you're protecting the man. and, you know, i think there is a lot of conspiracy theories that have developed online i think some of this -- some of the conversation around dark pools and the like don't make much sense i think, go online, there is a view that ken griffin at criticism citader is behind all this we're in an unusual period but the end of cycles often have unusual periods. timing is everything alan greenspan -- he made the famous proclamation i want to say in my '96 and wasn't until

'99, 2000 that the irrational exuberance turned out irrational >> a valuation professor told us recently you have to think about them creatively. thaeps what the new era of investors are sort of thinking, the creative valuations. you mentioned tesla, perhaps the robinhood is a more likely meme stock than amc or a gamestop, right. there is differences within the landscape. perhaps a new era of investing as well >> maybe it's a new era or does history always repeat itself and the only stock i would mention -- a lot of people look at the stocks and say what about amazon amazon took them years to make money. and investors were remarkably sympathetic during that period but amazon did not repeatedly come back to the markets to raise money. it wasn't been manifesting destiny by raising money off the backs of oh other investors. they raised it once >> and i think -- any lost --

their biggest loss making year was about a billion dollars, not the many we have seen from others andrew thanks for that and that will do it for "techcheck." let's get to the half as we see markets a little bit steady. robinhood down about 4.5%. >> things are are about flat but let's get to the half. all right. welcome to the "halftime report." i'm scott wapner two calls from market watchers what they're say bag your money in the months ahead. we'll debate with the investment committee. stoing me stephanie link, josh brown, jim lebenthal the jon najarian let's check stocks dow and s&p hitting record highs. i mentioned tom lee. sim bee yotic notes from them today. definitely on the same page. jim lebenthal it's about risk-on. you're on that page too