109.70 a company starting to see revenue is very good telling. >> 30% above the ipo price and peo people say buy it here. "techcheck" starts now that will do it for "squawk on the street." ♪ ♪ good monday morning. welcome to "techcheck" i'm carl quintanilla with jon fortt and deirdre bosa today the selloff in tech as the nasdaq shows some signs of a rebound is now the time to buy at a discount? we'll talk about it. then the buzzfeed spac losing some of its buzz. look inside the latest deal that's raising eyebrows today. don't miss reddit founder alexis ohanian talking the metaverse and crypto later this hour, dee. >> we'll start with tech stocks

lagging once again the dow is up 300 points, wow, 060 points now the nasdaq is only marginally higher as growth stocks in particular have been hit hard. larger names like tesla, adobe and nvidia ending lower by 10% or more. the tech software etf has fallen into correction territory. 64% of 119 components now trading below their 200-day moving averages. cloud names also seeing some selling. the cloud computing etf now on pace for fourth negative day in five led to the downside by z scaler, sprout social, all down almost 8% or greater. it is continue to be a rough environment for these stocks guys, i do want to point out softbank a company that i covered closely and it often does get hit hard amid these times of growth volatility because of the outsized bets shares in tokyo down more than 8% last night, down over 20% over the last week amid a slew

of bad news for portfolio companies we have been tracking the last few weeks they will delist from the nysc we had alibaba's announced reorganization last night the growing unlikeliness of that nvidia arm deal. we've been here before, jon, but it is a reminder it's not just cathy wood and arc that made outsized bets on tech growth and that get hit hard in these kinds of environments. >> yeah. hit hard, but i mean, you know me, these are not tough times for so many of these names yes, they're down for the month. some are down for the year, but after these unbelievable sort of rallies and a lot are seeing really strong sales in demand overall, i mean, take snowflake last week we had frank slootman on that stock spiked after earnings and grew top line 110% now, it's not even positive for the week, right? so yes, in a sense it's had some trouble, but then since the ipo,

it's still higher and that ipo had this amazing pop that a lot of people thought wasn't sustainable and yept it has been sustained. so i think investor conviction is really called being tested in this environment like did you really believe what you said you believed in when you said you believed it or were you just chasing momentum. now the chips are down even though the semiconductors are up >> it's a good point and to your point, dee, about when exactly some of these folks got in, remarkable data out of gray scale today that more than half of bit owners of bitcoin got in the last 12 months. you prefer to gotten in before that but for some people the trade has not been good. >> yeah. depends on when you got in these weekend moves have been comically placed for the crypto complex. the biggest one we have seen among this year and as we see these crypto winters i know there's going to be talk inevitably of are we going to enter another one, but remember

as time goes on, they have been shorter, jon. >> yep yep. and speaking again along these same themes, we have a rally overall to start this week but let's take a look at tech through the lens of a couple of stocks, both of which are right around $100 billion in market cap. snowflake, as i mentioned before, imb, snowflake has been public just over a year, lower today, low ert for the month, even after it posted the blowout earnings that showed revenue more than doubled from last year now, okta another software name underperforming the major indexes today. it just barely in the green after a stronger earnings showing last week. neither of these stocks quantify as cheap, but they are growing and we'll talk more later in the show today about what industry dynamics might create some sustainable growth for names like these in years ahead. ibm, meanwhile, higher today by more than 1% that stock has been dragging for most of the last ten years challenge it needs to turn around that investors aren't convinced it's taken hold.

you can put intel in a similar category, though it hasn't been dragged for so long. investors have it in detention, but intel also getting a boost today. last time i looked it's up better than 3% some older stocks doing just fine, thank you. marvell is down a little bit today off the all time highs post earnings last week. apple is about 3% off all-time highs. microsoft off 45% year to date though it's treading water today, carl. >> it is remarkable. there's large cap equity, jon, is 55% of all inflows over the past month dee, that's been -- that data set has been used to argue that there's still an appetite out there to buy dips, but clearly when it's coming to some elements of technology and more specifically software, people do want to see some multiples rerated. >> you know, feels like we've been talking about this bifur ration in technology names

earlier we saw the legacy or die know tech names, gray chips see more interest. did the fundamental story change i think that's what you're talking about t when it comes to the names ibm and intel. the jury is certainly out. looking at a tightening environment next year, it's those money losing high growth names that could continue to stay under pressure. >> yeah. be careful, everybody, out there what you call a dinosaur remember when apple was called, microsoft was a dinosaur sewmony was a recently watch the teeth. >> not all dinosaurs are equal. >> not all go extinct in the markets any way. we'll stay on the theme of tech as both a growth and a safety play. joining us now credit suisse, head of quantitative research, jonathan good morning to you and thanks for being with us. i'm not sure if you heard our conversation about dinosaurs and growth names, how do you play this market when you continue to see this divide between tech names, high growth and sort of maybe the more solid value ones?

>> yeah. we just put out a report this morning looking at -- and we look more than the last week or two. we looked quarter to date, the last couple months and what we're finding is that tech broadly defined, so these are obviously large cap, heavy basket, but the stocks are running up like 12% and the earnings are only driving 2% of that, which is, you know, which means that it's multiple rerating now, compare that to all the economy, boring stuff, you guys are going to not talk about or find interesting, they're underperforming tech by a mile but delivering much, much better earnings because this inflationary supply chain constrained environment is helping a lot of old economy, dinosaur kind of industries. and in their earnings, but it's not shown up in their stock prices in many ways it's a bigger dialogue or dynamic going on

here >> right so jonathan, are you talking about trading these names into next year when we're going to get potentially a different monetary policy environment? are these still long-term plays these sort of boring names that you talk about, specify which ones also? >> right so first of all, if you take a look at this and say, i'm a growth investor. i believe in these technologies and i'm looking not for what the trades is going to be but what will it look for a year or two or five, then you want to buy this basket broadly. i really do like these bigger names that have high margins that are able to sustain growth, but that's kind of where my focus tends to be. but, nearer term what you find is that a lot of this comes down to what's going on with interest rates. the yield curve has flattened a ton. and when that happens, it tends to be pretty good for growth stocks compared to everything else and very good for technology names compared to

everything else. so, as much as you want to think about the technologies, the environment if the fed pushes harder on getting inflation under control, the weird winner on this ends up being tech companies. >> that's interesting. jonathan, one thing that you do really well for all of us all year long is keeping us focussed on eps, right? just s&p earnings for the coming quarter or year. where are you lately on 2022 and do you think any of the guidance that has troubled tech in the last few weeks means that that number is vulnerable >> you know, i don't think that you have -- first of all, if there's a problem in earnings and i know we're having a tech conversation, it's in the financials the yield curve is flattening, not good for financials. and this year was great year for them in terms of reserve releases which is not really earnings but it shows up in the earnings and that's the rolloff and they'll have a harder time the tech stock has not been -- and won't be as good as again this old economy stuff that

think about a mine or like -- they tend to just benefit or oil company, they just benefit more from this inflationary surge and the shortages we're seeing, but longer term they're not as good a play so i think the tech earnings will be great but they're not going to be the best earners this year. you're going to end up with -- i'll tell you what's actually doing really well, factors what characteristics, sales growth, sales growth, sales growth you look at the big tech companies and what they're driven by, it's high, long-term, big sustainable margins. but the companies really ripping over the last year are those that are smaller companies that are delivering the strongest sales upside >> jonathan, given what has happened with tech's concentration in the s&p for example, what do you think happens to index fund investing over the next couple quarters? >> you know, we live in a world where size matters

the biggest -- look at the biggest five companies in the benchmark and it's tesla plus four of the big tech companies and with the exception of tesla, who has a super high multiple and weaker earnings, the others have enormous earnings power and no sign that those things are going to -- should be a problem. so i don't think that this argument that the market is unduly concentrated. they're big because they're big. they're big because they're earning. they're big because they have great margins and great products and they're sustainable. i think the index will be strong and support those names but that's not -- but that's not really the story here. they're great companies. >> jonathan golub, thanks for your insights this morning we'll talk to you again soon. >> pleasure. coming up, we are talking evs and rivian, logistic names and doordash and investing a

group of stocks that you can classify as dev op "techcheck" is back in two ♪ ♪ ♪ cases of anxiety in young adults are rising as experts warn of the effects on well-being caused by the pandemic. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ your record label is taking off. but so is your sound engineer. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire

hey, angie! you forgot your phone! matchey lou! angie forgettion. her phone again? yep. lou! mom said she could save up to $400 on her wireless bill by switching to xfinity internet and mobile. with nationwide 5g at no extra cost. and lou! on the most reliable network, lou!

smart kid, bill. oh oh so true. and now, the moon christmas special. gotta go! take the savings challenge at xfinitymobile.com/mysavings or visit an xfinity store to learn how our switch squad makes switching fast and easy this holiday season. let's get a gut check on a few ev names lucid motors down almost 10% the company received a subpoena from the s.e.c. concerning the

company's spac this year shares still in the green since the merger in july $69 billion capital. rivian, goldman and jp morgan are neutral. they like the company's products thand see growth potential but are concerned about the valuation. other firms more bullish, morgan stanley in particular goes overweight says it's the one that can challenge tesla, b of a calls it a buy stock is up almost 40% since the ipo with the market cap now of $92 billion. and then of course tesla, lower today as the s.e.c. does probe the company over whistleblower claims of defects of solar panels. tesla is down some 20% in the last month, jon, although some don't like to talk about bear markets when it comes to specific stock names. >> that's right. you know, not mike santoli there. let's take a closer look at rivian with us now is bank of america analyst john murphy who initiated $170 price target this morning. john, welcome.

>> thanks for having me. >> okay. i don't get it in the sense that, yes, very promising but isn't execution and being able to ramp manufacturing a huge, huge part of the challenge here? plus the marketing, the branding, all of that stuff that a name like tesla has built, why does a name like rivian get nearly $100 billion market cap, i think it would be well over that at your price target, without having to prove that much of anything >> well, i think this company in the early days proved a lot. it's already producing vehicles only about 1,000 this year and little over 40,000 next year they have unbelievably good product. they have unbelievably good strategy that goes beyond sort of the tip of the iceberg that traditionally automakers and some cases tesla are looking at. that is sort of life time revenue target that's almost 2x what most traditional players and tesla is going after you know, and the product itself is very strong

so i think as you look at this, great leadership, great technology, great business plan and open access to the capital markets stock where it is right now where we think it's ultimately going we think you have to think about this five to ten years out and not in present terms and i think rj and the team will prove this out over the next five to ten years. >> you're talking about the product. i try to think about this from an investor perspective, do we really know how good the product is isn't that something that has to be sort ofroad tested, custome approved over time the concept is great it's been signed off on by a number of people who should know good from not so good. but we've seen that with nikola at least implied and it hasn't panned out. >> eld never tell you this unless i had firsthand experience i had the luxury of driving the r 1 t. and one moment i drove it on a straight away and got well over 100 miles an hour on a private road in very short order and then climbed a rock wall in that same vehicle about 15

seconds later. so, i would say that, you know, you think about the product having a performance at the end and massive great off road vehicle all in one package there, i think the product is pretty damn good it's not a growing chassis or anything like we saw with the other companies. this is a really good, great product with a very good strategy so, no, i think the product stands on to itself. once it gets out there and to enough customer's hands, the ball and the momentum will really roll. >> right, john once it gets into customer's hands, but so much of the bull case about this company is the idea that it's going to be supplying amazon's ev fleet. is there risk that rivian puts all of its investment towards that product and misses the consumer appeal that has made tesla such a winner in this space? >> it's a great question i think when you look at the foundation of 100,000 units order they have through 2025, which will ultimately probably be more of that from amazon the van itself, that creates a great

basis for building critical mass or critical volume in the manufacturing facilities i do think the 55,000 orders you have on the consumer side will grow over time, but the duel tracking of those products together is really what r.j. is focussing on so you can understand launching more and more products simultaneously going forward. i don't think rj and the team are really just focussed on the van. i think they're focussed on both products and understanding how to launch multiple products at the same time so that as they ultimately march towards their goal to getting to 10 million units over time, they'll be able to handle these multiple launches that you'll need to do year in and year out, which is something that tesla has not done this is very unique and it may mean that it takes them a bit longer to get to a state velocity out in 2030 plus but they're doing it and approaching this in a correct way. no, i don't think there's any hyperfocus on one product, hyperfocus on understanding how to launch multiple products at a time to really create true

growth that is something that is lacking in tesla as far as this multiple product launch ability. >> right john, you would agree it's that relationship with amazon that makes rivian rivian. there's no -- a lot of the notes this morning just point out that their access to capital and influence flows largely through amazon, something a lot of their rivals don't have. >> listen, i think it creates a great basis for once again filling the factories as well as potentially helping build out a network of necessary service stations that you could leverage on a commercial side and on the consumer side. but carl, listen, i would not discount this r1t or r1s if you drive this, you have a product, at least in my opinion that is far superior finish in quality, ride handling and everything else to what tesla has put out as far as what a mainstream consumer would like so i think the amazon side of the story is critical to

building sort of foundational volume that you need to drive one of these companies successful over the long term, but the consumer side is pretty fantastic as well. so, no, i wouldn't say they're putting all their eggs in the ev and the amazon basket. they have their eggs in a lot of baskets and they're pretty full. >> all right and the basket getting more full it appears the baskets, i should say, with that stock up 4% this morning, john, thank you. >> thank you and the broader markets, jon, the dow is up more than 600 points so is it time for a year-end rally? our next guest thinks so we'll discuss. plus, yet another name initiating apple on a buy this morning, key bank as they point to services still having room to run in the face of weakness in the rest of the market apple is up again today. it's up 11% over the last month. and 30% year to date more "techcheck" straight ahead. stay with us ♪

welcome back to "techcheck" i'm deirdre bosa with carl

quintanilla, jon fortt and julia boo boorstin the nasdaq floating around the flat line. cloud software, arc funds lower even nvidia is down more than 5% plus, another sign of caution as investors flee the buzzfeed spac despite opening higher those details in just a moment but first a news update with dom chu. dom? >> deirdre, so what's happening right now? here is what's happening at this hour ford motor is pushing back its return to work hybrid plan until march. the car maker citing a continued uncertainty about the state of the pandemic ford had previously said it would not begin bringing workers back to the office before january. the new york stock exchange is getting a new president and board chairman current president stacy cunningham will be replaced by lynn martin, the head of the parent company intercontinental exchanges fixed income and data exchange business. sharon bell, a former member of

nyc will be the next chair of the overall stock exchange. kohl's jumping 9%. they're pushing to sell the company or spin off ecommerce division. oil prices are surging along with the stock market today easing worries about the omicron variant helping the crude oil prices gain following six-straight weeks of declines meanwhile, prices at the pump are dropping as well and the national average for a gallon of gasoline dropping 2 cents over the past two weeks to $3.46 per gallon carl, i'll send things back over to you, folks. >> dom, thank you very much. buzzfeed spac merger turning into a buzz kill 94% of the investors in the spac did redeem their shares choosing not to participate in the deal shares were higher and now lower by about 9.5%. leslie picker has that story for us hi, leslie. >> yeah, that's right, carl. it's been a volatile first day of trading for buzzfeed today. as you mentioned, shares surging

nearly 30% at the open, only to plum met to trade lower by 8% currently although the day is still young. buzzfeed marks its debut after completing a merger with a spac known as 890 fifth avenue partners nod to the address of the avengers headquarters. the volatility, though, is the result of a small amount of shares being floated in the market after the spac received an abnormally large amount of redemptions. 94% opted to sell their shares at the ipo price that proportion more than doubled the average redemption rate for spacs this year and means that buzzfeed receives only 16 million dollars in cash. >> having a lot of cash would be nice, but it's important to use your cash in a way that -- where you really are understanding inputs and outputs of your business and investing wisely. and we've been able to do that and be able to -- being able to

have a business that generates cash is more important than just raising a ton of cash. >> that was ceo jonah on squawk box this morning also to note the company will receive gross proceeds in conversion with this merger as well from convertible notes. nbc universal is an investor in buzzfeed now, many public market investors see buzzfeed's debut today as a proxy for market appetite for digital media if that's the case, they may be in for a wild ride guys >> one of jonah's points this morning, leslie, doesn't change our strategy the redemptions that is. i'm not an expert on spacs i see as a means to an end by that he means getting public but also doing an acquisition in concert with that. >> yeah. i thought that was an interesting rational for doing a spac versus other methods for investors and employees if they

so choose to sell their shares down the road. this is certainly a point for spac investors as well as companies that are considering investing in spacs this redemption aspect to a lot of these spacs mean that it does embed this risk that you could have a smaller float on the day that you go public than you initially expected which could lead to less cash on hand, the 16 million as i referenced as well as a more volatile first day of trading lit take a while for that float side to increase which could help match supply and demand a little better but in the meantime, if the first day is any indication, we could be in for a lot of volatility. >> leslie, i wonder, do you think this does anything to the broader spac popularity which we have seen decline a little bit but retail investors really bought into the phenomenon over the last year or so buzz feed is such a big consumerry name that will get a lot of headlines, a lot would be watching this one what does it do to the model and popularity going guard >> yeah. it's a great question. i mean, we have had so many

instances this year of retail names getting a hurt, specially out of the gate. what will be really interesting and i think could provide even more chilling affect on this market is kind of how regulators really play a role here. we saw news this morning about lucid getting a subpoena from the s.e.c. there were headlines just a short while ago related to the spac that trump's planned media and technology company is intending to merge with regard to finra and the s.e.c so once those all kind of play out, i think we'll have a much better understanding with regard to how regulators plan to really look at this space and that's something that i think retail investors should be paying attention to as well. >> yeah. along with watching the ad market and relative strength or weakness there, too. leslie, fascinating. we'll see how it does today. leslie picker. let's stay with investor appetite for risk in this market, joining us this morning, fund strat global advisers tom lee. we love to take tom's

temperature, so to speak i know, tom, we talked about a year-end meltup and now hearing more about december in terms of seasonality but you acknowledge your target is now a tougher call >> yeah, good morning, carl. it absolutely is the s&p lost 200 points in the last ten days. it's down 5% so, from 4,500 to 4,800 is a huge move and it's a big ask, but i think given how much cash has been raised on the sideline because of investor panic around the foed and omicron, i think it's still in play i would say our base case is still we exit 20, 21 above s&p 50,048. >> interesting do you think you need have to things like the vix go back to somewhere in the low 20s before people sense an all clear, or do you think bets are going to get

made in advance of that? >> that's a great question we highlighted in our note this morning that when you look at prime brokerage data and investor gross leverage at the lowest levels all year and if you look at money market funds, institutional investors, raise cash 6x consecutive weeks all of 2021 and so it looks like people panicked because of the fed's pivot in omicron and the vix is another way people bought protection carl, the reality is that the vix could easily make a move back into the mid teens in a matter of weeks. that i think would be coincident with a rally starting. i think, for instance, again i'm not a scientist, but all the incoming anecdotes haven't shown omicron to be more lethal and the fed made what looks like a hoggish pivot and that's immediately priced into credit things get less bad, that's

good, as you know. i think what's in play in the next -- between now and year end is actually a strong rally just, of course, from a much lower level. >> tom, what do you make of investor sentiment overall here and three things i would call out, the strong moves higher on snowflake and okta after earnings and still lower for the month this rally that we're seeing today in names like ibm and apple and then nvidia and amd which have performed so well throughout the year are lower by about 5% >> yeah. jon, i mean, part of the tech head winds this year has been that they were just so good in 2020 so many stocks got earnings growth and strengthened their market position, and had pricing power but then their p.e.s derated. i think that reverses in 2022. to me, the faang complex, high

quality, large cap tech especially leaders i think are going to be things people allocate to in 2022. keep in mind the ten year is at 1.3 something you're paying almost 70 times for a 10-year bond and so i think equities with its sub 20 p.e. is still a great risk/reward. >> and tom, you're referring to there is no alternative, but we are seeing this massive divergence in tech stocks versus valuation and many of the growth names and crypto that's selling off hard have been popular with this newer, younger cohort of investors that may have come to the market in the last 18 months or so. it would seem they're getting burned dispo portion natalie what would be your advice to them >> you know, bitcoin is a hypervolatile and crypto is hypervolatile. that's systemic to that asset class. i do think these draw-downs while they're really painful especially for newer folks,

that's the history of bitcoin. if you look at bitcoin's history, every year bitcoin makes all of its gains in ten days if you don't own bitcoin for those ten days you're down 25% the weekend massacre that happens is painful but that's common and there is still leverage in crypto especially crypto trading and these liquidations are painful but it doesn't change the fact that there's $7 billion people, only about 200 million people actually individuals globally really have a crypto wallet. so it still has exponential growth ahead. >> yeah. nope if you're -- these saturday morning surprises are getting less and less surprising so to speak. tom, we'll talk to you soon. appreciate it. thanks >> great thanks take care. >> tom lee out of the holidays how amazon is beating the supply chain slow down. we have a great piece on that at cnbc.com and now our category of enterprise software names you should know about as some close in on triple-digit gains for the

year that's next. we're back in two.

we are expecting an ipo this week perhaps the $13 billion valuation for hashicorp and for today's thread want to tie that back to a number of public companies that have seen significant growth in the last year we don't talk about these stocks

all that often as a group. they're part of a category sun times called dev ops other ways to play the theme where public companies get lab j frog and pager duty. you may have noticed a number of acquisitions in the space as well from ibm buying red hat to salesforce, slack and micro soft github all of which have been hard hit by the recent selloff. dee, it's sort of hard to get your arms completely around what is and isn't dev ops hashicorp what they really do, another multicloud play, being able to provision things in the cloud, cloud migrations are part of that optimization is part of that but it's a mix of software -- tools that help software developers to make the guts of the enterprise run better >> and guys, this will be really important ipo, right, because it

will test investor appetite and see if perhaps this growth selloff that we have been seeing in public markets is trickling through to private valuations. there's been a ton of money in the space especially enterprise development, dev ops i was looking at their deal table, carl, and they were valued at just over $5 billion in march of 2020, going public at $12.5 billion so that will be an important indication of how investors are feeling and perhaps that ipo window if it's starting to close or chill a little bit given the moves we've seen in tech >> it is interesting i mean, jon, to your point, there's a lot of vendors out there. and it's sort of hard to know which one of them is going to achieve scale as the enterprise tries to consolidate their vendors, but what we do know there's a continued corporate cap-x boom as companies reinvent i.t. that idea is not going away. >> yeah, for sure. there's talk about every company being a software company i don't know about that, but if every company is hiring more software developers, they'll

need some picks and shovels, right? that's part of this dev ops story. >> yeah. meantime shares of ride hailing giant grab, biggest spac this year, have plunged since their debut. jp morgan, though, says now is the time to buy. they initiated overweight today. coming up, reddit founder alexis ohanian will join us. don't go away. ♪ ♪ ♪ 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. uipath. reboot work. ♪♪

care. it has the power to change the way we see things. ♪♪ it inspires us to go further. ♪♪ it has our back. and goes out of its way to help. ♪♪ when you start with care, you get a different kind of bank. truist. born to care. i think you're going to like it here. umm, why is everyone... throwing things at me? look, as cfo it's my job to be ready for whatever's next. that's why i have my finance team, randomly hurl things at me. it's also why we use workday. it gives us insights, so we quickly pivot our strategy, people, planning, you name it. sorry, sir. i will aim straight at your next step. see that you do. would you like some coffee? workday. the finance, hr, and planning system for a changing world. ♪

time for a gut check on which seminame should be your 2022 pick. calling micron one of the best ideas on continued strength in the company's deram city and citi is getting bullish on applied materials thanks to the company's exposure to the metaverse, calling the top semipick above nvidia. both names are in the green for the year, though outperformed by a wide margin up until this month lots more "techcheck" still ahead. ♪ sy ths. ♪

small businesses like yours make gift-giving possible. now, comcast business has an exclusive gift for you. introducing the gift of savings sale. for a limited time, ask how to get a great deal for your business. and get up to a $500 prepaid card with select bundles when you switch to the network that can deliver gig speeds to the most businesses. or get started with internet and voice for $64.99 per month with a 2-year price guarantee. give your business the gift of savings today. comcast business. powering possibilities.

serena williams and husband alexis ohanian of reddit announcing expansion of their tech and media business. julia boorstin joins us with the story and the man. julia? >> well, entertainment tech startup invisible universe wants to be the pixar of the internet, launching characters on social media to then expand on to other platforms. now, last week the company announced a children's book based on serena williams's character. it has more than 3.5 million social media followers most on tiktok then this morning, invisible universe announced new character in partnership with jennifer aniston. one of its other investors, alexis ohanian, founder of reddit and d.c. firm 776 he joins us now

al alexis, thanks for talk to us today. you've been involved with this company since the very beginning. what's the addressable market here what do you see as the full potential? >> look the reason i was so impressed was what invisible universe realized was creating i.p., creating intellectual property was not going to look the way it used to pixar, disney you could be in production for years creating something you just hope people are going to like today in the age of social media, where we have global realtime division, what fans actually want is a relationship with these characters from the very start in the places where they spend the most time social media and this was an obvious first, simply because, you know, i saw the way that the community of my wife's fans in particular were responding to this one doll that she had bought for our daughter. and invisible universe team said hey there's potential to build something that could be in a way the next mickey mouse, but for a

truly internet first, internet native entertainment property. >> so where do these brands go for an internet native property? talk about developing tv shows to sell to the netflix of the world or bringing these characters into the metaverse or mfts, which iknow you're very interested in. >> yes, yeah you know i'm a big believer in all things web 3, and i think we have an opportunity here that's essentially in many ways it's all of the above, right? we're going to have a chance to build relationships with woody and buzz from their very start and i really do believe there's a road map here for giving the biggest fans a chance to really own a piece of it, to own a stake of, you know, characters that they'll grow to really love over time and i do think there are some traditional channels. a book is a great place to start, as wonderful as technology is, so many of us get our start reading, holding a

dead tree, spending time with our family and reading that way. and so i think it may seem inak row nisic, but we will be using pretty old school methods for delivering this, this kind of pretty old school methods for delivering this, as well as new things it's really going to where our fans are >> so the fact that these brands, these characters start on social media, you know, the first thing that comes to mind to me is the fact there's been so much scrutiny of the dangerous impact of social media on kids. particularly on instagram. when you think about having a brand that is so, or brands that are so integrative to social media, how do you think about those risks on kids and how does this play into your larger web three vision for decentralized social media >> yes well at the end of the day, the way the internet is going is cutting out any and all

middlemen that get between the sort of creator and the fan. so as long as you are sitting on one of those two ends, you're going to have ga good time. so in our case, the particular social media channels are not as important as the community and the relationship we're building between ip, between something like qai qai and her fan base. because at the end of the day, those fans will go from one platform to another or i believe, to oyour point ultimately, to a decentralized format where people at the end of day, what they want is that sense of relationship and community those are the biggest themes that exist in web three that make this technology so appealing but for the time being, we're using the distribution channels that are available. i can see this shifting pretty quickly. what's been so important, with qai qai in particular, it's bringing her personality to a lot of people and giving a stor

of friendship, of positivity one of the things that's so special about these characters is that if you look in the comments, you're seeing something that doesn't exist anywhere else in social media. people are being positive and encouraging and fun. it's really power antecdote. >> you're talking about a depth of engage. the way i want to bring this together with what you've been tweeting about yacht club, i see this depth of story and emotional engagement in for example, what disney's got and some of what's created that digital native you've got modern mythology with a lot of these story lines and characters that people keep coming back to whether it's lucas film, marvel.

what's it going to take for you to build that out and are you even interested in building that kind of depth. >> oh, absolutely. i would argue the relationship we have, i'll use myself personally, with luke skywalker, who was limited to a few future films, maybe some books and comics over a very long period of time. the characters we're creating here are characters we see in our feeds every day. we're getting updates from them. they'll respond to us. imagine the feeling of connection a child is going to have getting a response from qai qai. these are the opportunities that we see that definitely feel a little i think weird to those of us on the other side of this digital divide, but at the end of the day, for digital native, this is table sticks this is in a way, ironically, because these characters are clearly fake, they can be more real than the real people who

act fake on these platforms. and there is something kind of poetic to the fact that because everyone is in on it, because everyone understands that yes, obviously, qai qai is not real, that she can deliver a message that's actually more authentic and honest i think especially these days, it's what folks are looking for. >> fascinating times creating new brands. alexis, i hope you'll come back and talk to us more about your vision alexis ohanian, thanks so much >> for sure. thank you for having me. mongo db and coupa both report results in a few hours ckn mont sk and reward, i see one element securing portfolios, time after time. gold. your strategic advantage.