tv Tech Check CNBC October 21, 2021 11:00am-12:01pm EDT
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$900.00. so it clicked right there. the all-time high from january slightly above 900, it's 940 cents. so everyone is watching that on a short-term basis. >> quickly approaching $090 billion in market value. that will do it for us on "squawk on the street. "techcheck" starts now ♪ ♪ thursday, welcome to "techcheck" i'm jon fortt with dea deirdra bos and julia boorstin pinterest. then record revenue and record profit for tesla is this elon musk's breakthrough quarter? and later, wework finally makes its public debut you'll hear from adam newman, ousted founder, this hour. guys, let's kick off with
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paypal, pinterest. cnbc confirming reports that the fintech company is in late stage talks to acquire pinterest for $70 a share, valuing pinterest at nearly $39 billion. we wondered how does that size stack up have a look. twitter has a market cap north of $50 billion snap perhaps more surprisingly after the incredible run it's had worth $120 billion today so, essentially three pinterests beyond raw market cap, how about valuation. we broke this down as well pinterest valued at 19 times sales. that's almost twice as much as facebook, which has a price to sales ratio of 9, beating twitter as well which is valued at about 13 times sales, but the clear outliar here, snapchat that incredible run has brought it to 33 times sales and that reports after the bell today so we'll see if they can sustain that pace. but guys, when we look at the pinterest paypal deal, this is really all about social commerce here and the idea that perhaps pinterest hasn't been able to
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monetize those users as well as they could be throughout the pandemic and you take a look at a company like shopify, julia, which has done a really good job in that place right at the intersection of social commerce combining payments as well as social platform and getting merchants on them. >> yeah, deirdra, i think that's absolutely right i mean, if you look at paypal and all the acquisitions and different moves it's made, this would be such a massive acquisition compared to its other deals, which you know the biggest deal it's made so far was honey for $4 billion so this would be really a dramatic change. and if it does end up making this deal for pinterest, it would really seem to be in response to the pressures of shopify. one thing i would just note here, jon, if we talk about shopify, we should bring up etsy etsy shares getting a boost yesterday from this news because right now pinterest is an advertising company. but in partnering with paypal, if it were to become part of
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paypal, it would become an ecommerce company and would make it much more in the range of an etsy, jon. >> yeah, it would. interesting also because etsy is right about 30 billion in valuation. so similar to pinterest. and really snap, if we're talking about social commerce, it's probably less interesting to a paypal because it's more of a walled gardenby design there are good things about that when you're talking about privacy and staying out of the crosshairs and some of those issues but when it comes to, dee, some of the things that i think paypal might be feeling pressure on, you have facebook moving more into commerce with shops and now the noviwallet and dm potentially into commerce there, you've got shopify, which is in a way potentially platforming paypal out by partnering with folks like affirm, and then you have apple pay happening if i want convenient, secure payment and i'm an apple user, on the web it might be easier to
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go with apple pay than to say go with paypal. but i don't know if pinterest is a platform in the sense that it helps paypal to compete with those other platforms because it's still -- >> google as well, right google shopping made a big push. we had bill ready head of commerce on this program and you do see the social media companies advertising companies that drive most of the revenue that way pushing into fintech into payments but now you're seeing this the other way around, julia. and what pinterest is right now may just be that big opportunity because they haven't gone so deep into that commerce. they don't have the right people perhaps. dan shulman and his team certainly are some people who have pulled it off >> yeah. you know, deirdra, that's right. they really talk about closing the loop you know, facebook, snap, all of these companies like tiktok, pinterest as they've been moving towards commerce, what they're trying to do is say we are an advertising-based company but if we make it easier to complete a
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transaction on the platform then our ads are that much more profitable >> is it a stretch will investors buy it? we will see if this -- >> i heard you're on the other hand, this morning, jon. that was great both sides it was almost hard for me to tell which side you were on, but i know. >> you got the preview yesterday. meantime, you know, driving on from the paypal/pinterest discussion, tesla posting record revenue and profit for q3 earnings last night, although elon musk was notably not present on the call. phil lebeau has more on what we learned. hey, phil. >> hey, jon. what we learned is that tesla has bold ambitions in a number of areas whether it's software as a service revenue insurance which they believe can be a huge growth engine in the future as you take a look at shares of tesla, it did not do much immediately after the earnings report came out last night but you see the stock moving higher today, now up more than 3.5%
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after reporting a record quarterly profit for the third quarter along with record revenues when you look at the numbers within the numbers, boy, there was strength all around for tesla last quarter let's start first off with the gross automotive margins x-0 emission vehicle credits 28.8%. most were expecting 24 and 25% cash flow greater than $1.3 billion. most were expecting it to be just a billion dollars remember they sold basically the model 3 and the model y. very few snx sales in the third quarter. average sales price dropped 6% that's a pretty nice combination there. texas gig factory came up during the conference call. couple analysts saying hey do we see some deliveries there this quarter? nope you will see production beginning there as well as in berlin this quarter. remember, the cybertruck goes into production at that giga factory in texas next year with deliveries slated by the end of next year. take a look at tesla versus gm
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and ford other the last three months ev sales make up just 3% of the market right now, but that's going to grow probably closer to 8, 9, 10% by 2025. and in the last three months, specially heading into this earnings report, guys, you saw a move up in tesla well above what you saw from gm and ford so, now we set the stage for what we can expect in 2022, and over the next couple of years where we really start to see if all goes as planned for tesla, their production moving higher deirdra? >> so, phil, valuation aside, what do you think is the number one issue that bears takes issue with, i suppose? i mean this quarter was certainly a good one and i keep going back to the idea that tesla has dealt with this supply issue, better than its peers, specially when it comes to chips. it's been able to reconfigure its own source and resource them, is that not major indication this is at least going to be more than a car company and even so it's a pretty good time to be an ev
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company? >> oh, i think they'll be more than a car company they made that clear that's the ambition over the next decade. let's just take the next decade as a time frame there. whether you look at autonomous vehicles, full self driving, software as a service revenue, autonomous ride sharing, potentially by the end of the decade, a number of areas where they can grow revenue and grow profitability over the next several years. so, you're right that this is more than just an automaker at this point and with regards to the chip and the supply chain issues that really hit a number of the other automakers over the last six months, tesla has shown that they can manage that, at least in the near-term they managed it far better than their competitors and that's one reason why you saw the stock moving higher after the delivery report and, look, it's moving higher this morning as people sit there and say, maybe we need to reassess what tesla can do over the next couple of years. >> yeah, they keep providing evidence and it's within striking distance of that all-time high. phil, thank you so much.
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moving on nearly two years later, and about $40 billion lighter, wework is finally hitting the public markets today via a spak shares are trading around $11.15 despite the tumultuous road, the usual fanfare and the meat packing industry adam newman is hosting a party this morning newman still owns 11% stake and will be a board observer starting next year and addressed reporters just moments ago at that party >> miguel and i couldn't be happier than to celebrate this with our original team this is always been about the team and about what we did together and we're just so proud today and for this day and we just want to congratulate the current wework team and we're congratulate marcelo for executing on this team's vision. >> you know, gracious congratulating the new leadership team, guys, this sort
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of reminds me of the uber ipo. i was on the floor of the new york stock exchange, i saw the founder sort of roaming around, trying to put on a good face he was good at putting on a good face, but someone who created the company standing back, watching someone else bring it to market in this case, of course, with such a turbulent road i think that we're all going to be watching what adam neumann does with that 11% stake. does he sell out of it like travis kal la nick or stay in? what's his involvement going to be like? >> deirdra, if i'm not mistaken, the payout that adam neumann got to leave $1.7 billion in the bailout deal, that's worth more than his existing 11% stake. so, julia, as far as i'm concerned, of course he's happy. he got paid on the way out he's got a stake now that's worth less than that, but kind of doesn't matter what happens to it from here if you're adam neumann, i would think >> well, if you're adam neumann
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but may matter for investors look, i watched that wework documentary featured some great reporting from deirdra and you have to wonder, how much adam neumann's involvement is a liability. is it a red flag he owns so much red shares face of the down fall of weworks, deirdra. >> yeah. you have to look at the financial projections too. a lot of folks are focussed on the idea that this was once considered a technology company worth $47 billion, 8, $9 billion at lot more modest you look at the projections and spaks and we'll talk about this later on in the show and they're pretty steep i mean, they've got to get to 70% occupancy to break even on adjusted ebitda. 58% as of the end of the last quarter. so, they're also losing still billions and billions of dollars. so there's still a story after this moment, julia it will be just as interesting
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going forward. >> fascinating to watch but perhaps more of a real estate company than actually a tech company. now shifting gears over to a tech company, facebook independent oversight board releasing its first transparency report today one interesting line in there, the board saying the company was, quote, not fully forthcoming about its cross check system that's its moderation system that shielded high profile users like donald trump from standard procedures it uses to police the platform it called that omission, quote, not acceptable and added in many of the decisions covered in today's reports, a clear theme has emerged. facebook isn't being clear with the people who use its platforms. we consistently seen users left guessing about why facebook removed their content. facebook saying in response to this transparency report, quote, we thank the board for their on going work and for issuing their transparency report. we believe the board's work has
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been imfactful going on to say that's why we asked the board for input into our cross-check system and we will strive to be clearer in our explanations to them going forward. so, jon, i have to ask, you know, does this mean this harsh criticism, this rebuke from the oversight board, does this mean that they're doing their job and it could actually make a difference >> i think so. i mean, i think the only way that you hold a controlled company accountable is by holding its feet to the fire on its reputation, deirdra. especially given what facebook is, the political pressures it faces, perhaps from the company's perspective more important the employment, the work force pressures it faces. that reputation is important and mark zuckerberg and facebook put the oversight board in the position of sort of bolstering or undercutting its credibility in that department and right now the oversight board is saying, facebook, you're not being forthcoming. you're not being transparent, and i think it's being effective
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in this case. >> yeah. look at this statement that facebook issued in response to the oversight board. i wonder if zuckerberg regrets this move. it's something, julia, as reporters we're used to getting, you know it feels like this is just another thorn, you know, for zuckerberg in addition to lawmakers and media. now this board that he actually created himself. >> well -- but deirdra, i would say that this is what zuckerberg needs and ultimately this is what he wants. he wants the lawmakers to make rules. >> but is he listening >> he wants a clear guideline. >> we'll see this is the moment of truth. >> will we see changes >> this is the moment of truth now that they rebuked him, he said repeatedly he hates there's so much ambiguity because he feels like they're held to account against these standards that aren't exactly set. i think, jon the more they can set clear rules and he hopes, i believe, the oversight board will help establish what those lines are, the easier it will be for facebook to figure out which
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lines to cross or not cross. >> yeah, i think the key next moment is what happens with the oversight board after it speaks with the whistleblowers. does it bolster their reputations, their credibility as facebook has tried to undercut them if the oversight board does seem to have gotten more useful information from the whistleblowers boy, that's more heat on facebook welcomed or not and up next, a roku versus google why you should and shouldn't worry about ibm earnings. and thinking about tech companies as countries "techcheck" just getting started. ♪ it's another day. and anything could happen.
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xfinity rewards is offering up some spooky-good perks. like the chance to win a universal parks & resorts trip to hollywood or orlando to attend halloween horror nights. or xfinity rewards members, get the inside scoop on halloween kills. just say "watch with" into your voice remote for an exclusive live stream with jamie lee curtis. a q&a with me! join for free on the xfinity app. our thanks your rewards. ♪ let's do a gut check on roku today. shares down 5% over the last six months and today the company losing partnership with alphabet youtube. after months of negotiations beginning in september, new roku tvs will not have the youtube and youtube tv apps. consumers can continue to use it if you downloaded before anti-competitive demands from alphabet as to why they failed
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to reach an agreement. it doesn't earn anything from youtube's ad-supported service but google makes hundreds of millions on youtube app from roku youtube makes up more than 20% of connected tv time spent, which is second only to netflix. so you got to wonder, jon, who has the upper hand here? can roku keep up in the space without youtube. does roku have the upper hand? this is a fight, not a unique, we'll continue to follow. >> have a lot of heft. meanwhile, for investors worried ant government's regulating tech, our next guest says it's time to flip that narrative and start thinking act the biggest tech companies as similar to nation states arguing the company's exercise a form of sovereignty that is beyond the reach of regulators. joining us now is the founder of ian bremmer author of this new piece in foreign affairs that explores the power of large tech
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companies today. ian, good to have you. i find this interesting especially in the context of the crackdown that we see in china which, one, i suppose might interpret as china trying to keep its most powerful tech companies from getting that sort of sovereignty or nation state power. is that the way you look at it >> it's absolutely china looking at what's happening in the west and the united states and worrying that that is happening in china as well and they don't like it because as you know, these technology companies, private sector companies, both in the united states and overwhelming in china, they create their walled gardens, from the ground up the rule set, the architecture, the algorithms and from the perspectives of the government, what happens is kind of a black box, right so, the united states, i mean, if you think about both what happened after january 6th overwhelmingly it was decisions taken by technology companies to
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determine the political outcomes, not by the government. how about response to biggest attack on the united states and its allies last year, solarwinds government didn't know about it. private sector companies found out and also were able to determine a response china looks at that at a place the government is supposed to be the be all and end all and they're deeply uncomfortable with the idea that some of the companies that are driving the greatest profit, the greatest innovation and the most interaction with chinese citizens are fundamentally unknown to what the chinese communist party is all about so that's no question the big piece of this is them driving that yeah. >> now to the mechanics of it. it seems to me that democracy is wonderful but it's messy by design autocracies are a lot less messy, whether you're talking about china or you're talking about companies, right which largely are not -- they don't take a vote from their employees before deciding what
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to do clearly based on what we're seeing happen now. so what happens to democracy when big tech companies that are autocracies start to have such big influence or continue to have such a big influence over global society >> well, i'm not willing to say that all corporations are autocratic, but certainly they do not have their own rule of law or social contract with citizens and so, what i guess i'm saying is that increasingly the united states is becoming a hybrid system where if you exist in the physical world, you have laws that apply to you and you have a judiciary that meets out whether or not it's being broken by the u.s. government. that you vote for or vote against, but you're part of that process. where in the digital world, the virtual world, increasingly a large part of the economy, increasingly a large part of our social interactions, where we
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get information from, increasingly a large part of our personal and national security, actually government doesn't exercise sovereignty over that space. these corporations do. and the rules that the corporations apply to those virtual spaces are determined by those corporations and you know, that's a radically different place than we've ever existed before either as citizens or consumers. >> yeah. ian, this is such a fascinating way of looking at this landscape. and there's no doubt that what we're seeing is that these tech companies are becoming utilities. and literally utilities the way we think about water and power with all of that in mind and with your perspective, what would be your guidance to the regulators who are trying to figure out how to put up different guardrails for these tech giants? >> you know, i hate to say this, but my guidance is more to
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everyone watching this show how do we adapt to a reality where the regulators will largely fail to effectively determine rule set and operating principles inside these organizations this is not like big pharma, big tobacco, it's just about capturing the regulatory process. these are black boxes that the u.s. government is not remotely capable of understanding and deciding how to respond. so 27 years ago when we started the cop process on climate, no one talked about adaptation,sur. we said how do we stop it or mitigate it? 1.2 degrees today and climb, we're talking about adaptation what i'm suggesting is that this world where the digital environment is under sovereign control of a small number of technology companies, is one that we increasingly need to understand and adapt to.
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not one that we're about to stop if i'm -- i'm putting my analyst hat on here, that's what i think is going to happen. >> sounds a bit like a dystopian society to me. we'll see where it goes. >> i wouldn't go that far, but it's different. >> a bit. >> yeah. what's happening inside washington right now sounds dystopian to some. i get what you're saying but then we all have to react to reality as it is, not as we want it to be. >> thank you >> sure. coming up the man who took wework public is the sponsor of the weworks spak sits on the board and owns the sacramento kings. he will be joining us next. plus, lam research worries about earnings a lot more "techcheck" still ahead. stay with us
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about one quarter of a percent outperforming. let's get a news update. >> yo. hey. here is what's happening at this hour quest diagnostics now down 2% the stock reversing earlier gains after the company posted strong quarterly results and raising guidance from the full year the company warning on the conference call that covid testing will fall in the fourth quarter as infections decline. comfy footwear maker crocs outrun supply chain problems and shift some of the production out of vietnam and move some shipping to east coast ports shares are up 8% existing home sales jump 7% in september pushing sales to ei eight-month high median price is up 13% rise since last september but the smallest price gain this year. jobless claims are down for the third week in a row.
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the 290,000 new claims are fresh pandemic low continuing claims, though, sank more than 120,000 and fell below 2.5 million for the first time since early 2020. dee, back to you >> thanks, christina. wework finally going public two years after it was forced to pull its ipo, iconic founder forced out of the company and amid a global pandemic which up ended its business perhaps not as much as some people might have thought joining us now the sponsor of the spac that sits on the board and owns the sacramento kings. great to see you again we spoke at the beginning when you set out to look for a spac target here we are. how long will you hold on to wework shares? >> i see this as a long-term play, deirdra. if you look at companies that could one day be worth $100 billion, we see wework as that kind of company. you need a gigantic town, you need a fantastic team and you
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need -- and wework has all of those. i see this as a long-term hold >> so vivek, what does long-term hold mean to you i mean, spacs have come under more scrutiny and we had other sponsors come on here say that these were long-term bets but not necessarily holding on for what some would consider the long-term. what is that for you six months, a year, is it more >> no. for me personally it means years. when companies like apple went public, 99.9% of the value was created in the public markets. now rich equity guys are getting all those gains. so really democratizing access to these great companies, these rocket ships after all, wework is going after the world's largest asset class, real estate. imagine $70 trillion of commercial pay sitting on the wework bus
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what is the upside of that, virtually unlimited. >> good to see you, vivek. it's jon fortt this is a very different company from the old wework. two thirds of the employee head count has been cut enterprise customers are now 50% of memberships 12 plus month commitments are now 50% of the base. but my question is where does wework differentiate in software from here? because, lots of commercial real estate companies are going to have apps, but when it comes to the ways that customers need flexible work environments, mapping, reservations, all the kinds of things that we're seeing with hybrid and remote work, where does wework play >> that's a great question, jon. and of course, you know, i'm known for creating a class of software known as middle ware. middle layers and software bus so really this is the wework bus. it has all of those abilities that you mentioned
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basically the experience, be a guy in your garage and have a global presence just by pushing a button and you can have access to offices in any of its 700 plus locations around the world. so, the brand, the technology platform, the locations that they have, so vehicle to bring in other people on their platform as well so if you're a mom and pop shop a little wework says you'll be able to pile on to the wework bus and also give your clients access to all the other offices. so, this is -- >> vivek -- >> that will be virtually impossible to overcome. >> vivek, you can't talk about the wework experience without addressing the question of vaccine mandates we have seen so many companies and organizations nba discuss the challenge of whether or not to have a vaccine mandate. how do you think wework should address this issue >> some of it is region by
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region but wework actually has retooled its offices so they are built for the covid era. so again,that's another barrier. and you make a really good point, deirdra, because in some ways you think of zoom being the killer app of the covid era, what's the killer app of the post covid era, it's wework. it's the future of work. think of it in those terms you can understand why you want to hold on to this stock for a long time. >> right we have sort of heard this from you, heard it from marcel la this morning and the ceo also saying that this is sort of a pandemic play at the same time, wework already had to revise downward projections that it made in that spac presentation the original one, revenue is going to be lower than forecast this year, net losses and ebitda losses wider than forecast as well did you oversell this to investors, retail investors at the start of this journey? >> yeah, i don't think so.
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i think that delta kind of delayed some of those numbers a little bit but the last five months we've seen increasing revenue every single month september was the best month so the indications are all that it's on ward and forward i own the sports team, the kings. the value of these teams have gone through the roof even during the era of covid. yesterday i went to our first game in portland, that's why i lost my voice i was cheering so hard, we won but basically the arenas will be full again so people are coming back. the arenas are full. never been a better time to earning wework than now. >> congrats on the win if delta changed those projections, i wonder that pushed back the return to office so wouldn't that be a good thing for wework why would that hit financials? >> yeah. no, so i think it just delayed the numbers.
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i don't think -- and you're right. i think in many ways as tragic as covid was, it catapulted us into the future. flex space is a way of life for all companies. and so we have a company that actually a sponsor and they use wework, they have gotten away from the concept of even having an office of their own it's going to be compact and they're using wework for almost all of their offices. this is a common trend now more and more people are starting to do this. >> vivek, how do interest rates and the potential higher cost of capital going forward factor into your expectations of what wework does from here, both from the perspective of i imagine that can drive demand from customers but also make some things operational for wework more difficult how does it factor >> yeah. i think it's kind of like asking
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how would that factor in for airbnb or uber this is really a platform and people are going to use this they already have 700 plus locations. and if they just simply get past what people have been dealing with with covid, the occupancy numbers are going up and up and up it's now about 60% so, just without even expanding any further, this is one hell of a great business. >> vivek, can we expect any more spacs from bo capital. >> yeah. i'm a big believer in spacsm ch democratizing access to great companies. it's rocket fuel for the next generation of rockets. absolutely. >> we'll be watching thank you and congrats again on the win last night. >> thank you thanks, deirdra. ♪ reminder cnbc disrupter 50 summit is coming up today. robinhood ceo is speaking with
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our jim cramer and i'm talking to the co-founder of peloton there's still time to register at cnbc events.com/disrupter 50 summit we'll be back in a moment. hey i'm joe montana. when you get to be our age, you have little patience for nonsense and inefficiency. after years of practice, you become a pro at pretty much everything.
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let's get a gut check on big blue earnings beat shares are following this morning after that revenue figure fell short of estimates that growth number in line with goal of low single digits but some weakness in the cloud business also worrying investors this morning the company didn't provide any guidance on the year ibm is outperforming the s&p by around 14%, even as companies ramp up i.t. spending. you know, ibm blamed the spin-off for attributed disappointing results to the spin-off there's a moment on the call when an analyst called the spinoff disruption and he said hold on a second this is a slight pause that's what we're calling this and he says that they want to be threw it by january of next year but, he's going to have to deliver. this slight pause that ibm is in they may be saying all the right things, a.i., hybrid cloud but they have to really deliver, jon. >> yeah. i think the cloud and cognitive performance is really what has
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some folks concerned these are supposed to be the higher growth businesses where is the umph there. but to me the read-through here potentially is on enterprise spending i wonder what we'll hear from intel about the data center business, julia, and also, you know, their margins, given this environment. and you know, intel's already -- i believe, last quarter was talking about how they were doing some pricing to try to keep the likes of and from taking market share, but i think the enterprise read-through is interesting here >> yeah. and i think it's really key that they did provide any guidance. it will be interesting to see what guidance intel provides of course we're in a period of great uncertainty. but i think the lack of guidance is going to be weighing on companies that don't provide it. i think for all of these companies, jon, everyone is going to be trying to figure out what to expect not just in q4 but specifically in the first half of next year. >> yep and speaking of hardware, let's get a check on hp-inc.
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shares moving higher after upping long-term revenue guidance raising dividend to a dollar hpq personal system highlighted as a growth driver that's pcs. don't go away. if you wake up thinking about the market and want to make the right moves fast... get decision tech. for insights on when to buy and sell. and proactive alerts on market events. that's decision tech. only from fidelity. that's decision tech. ♪ ♪ ♪ digital transformation has failed to take off. because it hasn't removed the endless mundane work we all hate. ♪ ♪ ♪ automation can solve that by taking on repetitive tasks for us. unleash your potential.
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cnbc has confirmed that paypal is exploring an acquisition of the social media company joining us now is greg kroft, venture partner formerly head of corporate development and strategy at pinterest. cameron, so great to have you here today i understand that you oversaw nine different acquisitions at pinterest. so my question for you is, does it make sense for pinterest to be acquired by paypal? >> you know, that's a great question one of the things that everyone is focussed on is why paypal would want to do this why would pinterest show a desire to kind of have these conversations. to be honest, i think it's got to be two or three things for them one is maybe they want to partner with a larger deep pocketed company to help them diversify their revenue streams from advertising and payments and other things two, maybe they want to help weather some of the quarterly cycles they have seen better last quarter they saw a slight dip in users in the u.s. and now the stock is down 15, 20%. that kind of thing can be potentially offset a larger company like paypal, more
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diverse revenue stream during my whole time there and knowing the company, i think ben really was hyperfocussed on building the largest independent company he could so, to me this would be slightly surprising if pinterest were to pursue this kind of path at this stage where i think there's so much growth left for them still. >> so much growth but it seems like one of the questions is whether pinterest is going to be more than just an advertising company. they've been pushing more into ecommerce but their revenue comes from advertising do you think that pinterest really needs to become a social commerce company, something closer to etsy, perhaps, and really a platform to be able to succeed in the long run? >> i honestly don't. let's be honest, facebook and google are advertising companies. derive the vast, vast majority of their revenue from advertising. there's a lot of wood to chop from pinterest particularly given that 80% of the users for pinterest are overseas and those markets are just starting to be monetized
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i think there's a huge generating advertising in those markets. but also on the ecommerce side they take very little revenue from transactions that happened because pinterest was the lead or got someone to a walmart or target or home depot to buy something. overtime they'll collect more rep share and advertising ecommerce transactions both of those revenue streams are fairly nascent and still have a lot of growth for them in the future. >> kamran, what about the issue of priorities, spending and culture? paypal for all of it success certainly in the stock last year and strategically over the past several, it's kind of an older company that is structured differently probably to attract a different sort of employee at core than sort of a newer social networking or social commerce company. are they going to be able, if you're pinterest, to attract the same kind of talent that would need to form the culture you
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need as a unit of paypal >> you know, it's funny the number one thing i thought about yesterday when this deal was sort of announced as being potentially in the works was culture. i think they are very different cultures from what i understand and paypal by the way bought two of my companies before with brain tree so i know them pretty well and they're have a hard-driving culture, very direct, lot of former folks from the finance and banking space. pinterest is, at its core, kind of more personality-driven, design-driven, creative culture. so to your point, i do think this would have to be set up really like the way microsoft did with linkedin, kept the company very separate from microsoft when they bought it and really let it operate assen independent stand alone entity lose some of the magic of pinterest if you tried to hard and integrate and make it part of paypal too quickly. >> i wonder do you think over the years pinterest leadership team have taken their eye off the ball social commerce is a trend we have been talking about for a long time and look at ebay which
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started to develop its own payment system a few years ago why hasn't pinterest been better at this? >> so, pinterest for all the time that i have known the company is company that's all about focus. they were about focus, and their meaning is focused, and so the company feels like what it wants to do well is operate the pinterest app and the pinterest website and sell advertising and be the best part as you can in that space and they are not launch spectacles and reality and all kinds of things there's a lot of work to do in the core space they're in given what they have overseas and to some analyst, maybe they're moving too slowly and adding enough additional products and taking moonshots and the nature of the company is they want to be the best they can at their core business which by the way is a very high margin and profitable business, and it has a lot of room to grow. it's focus and diversification with these other innovative opportunities.
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>> but kamran, as you talk about room for growth, and i'm sure you're looking at consumer trends as you invest as a venture investor, there's this question of what happens to consumers as we, merge from the pandemic and pinterest saw massive growth in the beginning of the pandemic and disappointing numbers in the last quarter i'm wondering if this deal talk now perhaps will indicate that pinterest is having a hard time growing as people get out back into the world again and whether there's just a onsummconsumer st that pinterest is valid for. >> this last quarter showing the year on year growth slowing particularly in the u.s., right, which is what happened internationally they still grew, but the u.s. users were down something like 5% or 7%, and the truth is this is true for a lot of the companies that i work with and the companies in the consumer and e-commerce space because you were lapping with the year over year period was a
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blockbuster time for growth in those spaces so these numbers are tough to benchmark and say in absolute terms the companies aren't doing well and they're not growing as fast compared to last year and we would have seasonal fluctuations during the year from quarter to quarter that we couldn't quite explain and things would slow down and as you zoomed out, business would continue to grow i don't know if what happened last quarter was an aberration or if you will continue to see growth over the coming quarters, but i don't think i would put too much emphasis on what happened last quarter for them >> well, we will see soon enough when those earnings come out thanks, kamran, i'm sorry, a great kroft venture partner. >> thank you >> in just a few minutes, another big show on halftime as they celebrate ten years on the air. mario cabelli and meister among others and that all star atst noon "tech check" will be back in two.
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like the chance to win a universal parks & resorts trip to hollywood or orlando to attend halloween horror nights. or xfinity rewards members, get the inside scoop on halloween kills. just say "watch with" into your voice remote for an exclusive live stream with jamie lee curtis. a q&a with me! join for free on the xfinity app. our thanks your rewards. let's get a gut check on unity software that stock is up 3% adding 40% in just the past three months and if you want to sign up the negative volatility and less than 15% from the high that it reached last december. keep in mind unity went public about a year ago debuting at $75. look at it, 146 and change nearly doubling since then analysts are bullish on the stock and it's time to gain the
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77%, and 15% recommend hold and we'll see if unity can live up to expectations and the company will report q3 earnings in just a few weeks on november 9th. julia? >> and tech check doesn't have to edit at noon and don't forget to follow and subscribe to the podcast. lienst any time, anywhere wherever you get your podcast. tech check is back
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one more thing, and that's intel. earnings are coming after the bell tonight and we've got ceo pat gelsinger tomorrow right here on "tech check. julia, this is quite an earnings report because there's that pressure between the present which isn't so kind for intel right now. their products and their process technology hasn't been right he's trying to fix that. he's got margin pressure from competition and then their future and they have their innovation event next week and i'll be covering that, as well can they focus investors on that >> yeah. i think a big focus on what their guidance is for the first half of next year and also they have a big analyst day coming up and i wondered how much news
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they'll be holding back for that analyst day. >> and lots of earnings on deck, as well. julia, i know you'll be watching snap later tonight and we'll be huge in terms of the big tech players. nasdaq, the only major index in the black right now up a quarter of 1%. that will do it for tech check, let's get over to the half ♪ ♪ thanks so much welcome to "the halftime report." i'm scott wapner front and center this hour, the one question that matters most for your money are we poised for a big end of year rally we're all thinking about it. we'll ask several of the world's top investors that very day today. ricky sandler, keith meister, nancy davis and mario gabelli, all joining us exclusively this hour along, of course, with the investment committee let's begin with the check on stocks right around record highs. 35494 is where the dow is. a loss of a third of one percent
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