"squawk on the street. "techcheck" starts now. good wednesday morning welcome to "techcheck. i'm carl quintanilla with john fortt. top 22 pick and they all have a different catalyst and price hike for apple and the bear case for robinhood. then meta, twitter, pinterest the latest to pull out of ces. how they're approaching travel and the workplace amid how investors might play some of the new ad opportunities there, john >> we'll start with that trio of

bullish calls on amazon and all the different markets in which the company plays. boy, how do they love amazon let us count the ways. oppenheimer viewing it as a cloud play they favor microsoft saying aws is less stretched from a valuation perspective and ubs looking at the retail side of things analysts write that despite other ecommerce players grabbing market share, they believe growth could reaccelerate to 2023 and they call the stock a top pick as does dana who says consumer technology companies are likely to take a premium spot in the post-covid-19 world. every analyst who covers the company has a buy. not a single sell on the street and just a couple fringe holds, julia. to me, i don't know. if i were an investor in individual stocks which, of course, as a cnbc journalist, i am not that might make me a little uncomfortable that there's so much bullishness i mean, when there's a, mat and

too many buyers and not enough sellers, i don't know. >> yeah, everyone jumping on that band wagon. one thing i thought was so interesting reading all these different notes is so many different places that amazon has strength so many different markets where amazon is dominant, whether you're looking at ecommerce or the strength of aws and, carl, i wonder, is no one talking about anti-trust risk to amazon any more there was a period when we were talking about anti-trust risk to big tech, you know, jeff bezos and amazon were right up there in that conversation and now it seemed like people moved on. >> yeah, it's true a lot of the headlines at least today, guys, are more on concerns reinstating their mask mandate at warehouses and watching the outage of aws on the east coast but the bigger existential questions, we want to continue with stocks at large credit suisse asking what is a

tech stock these days? they point out that nearly a quarter of the ndx is now a nontech related name they talk about how the s&p is defining tech right now. credit suisse chief equity strategist and head of quantitative research jonathan joins us this morning. jonathan, interesting piece and i do wonder what you think it means. what are the big questions you're asking right now? >> well, you know, first of all, we're really bullish on the stock market overall and tech shares in general. in general are not the biggest beneficiaries of all this inflation. but depend when people say tech is doing well or not doing well, it all depends on how they define it and there's no one definition so, if you look at small cap, you know, a smaller cap tech, it's actually really cheap and the earnings growth rates are expected to be much, much faster but they have lagged meaningfully over the last 12 months, especially compared to what we're calling gama.

those big five tech names. google, amazon and the like. and if you look at the more broadly defined tech sector, you get a very different read. but mega cap tech is doing one thing. the average tech company is more beaten up, cheap and might be some really good opportunities over the near term >> so i guess at least on the s&p side, is it a matter of su semantics meaning communication services versus technology or a more material question there >> i think what the folks have done is 40% of the s&p right now is basically tech. and so by putting amazon as a discretionary name and by putting, you know, google and facebook as communication services names, to a certain extent what they're really trying to do is try to break up the tech sector.

but here's the thing, if you are a tech investor, you look at this as one big pull you want to look at it together. we created the context of tech plus and adding all the other stuff that they scattered about. but 40% of the s&p is technology it's a dominant driving force for the overall s&p returns that you're going to get, you know, over the next several years. and the s&p is just trying to stop one sector from being so overwhelmingly large and it just makes it a little more difficult for tech investors to have a single benchmark or way of looking at it. >> this whole thing gets you and one of my pet peeves and, viewers, i apologize, there are many this idea that every company is a tech company every company is not a tech company. i'm not sure how you would define it, but my sense of it is does a company have unique ip technology wise that gives customers a unique advantage you know, versus do they hire a bunch of software developers and

do they use technology to run their business yeah, you know, people can hire, i don't know, a whole bunch of custodial staff but that doesn't make them a cleaning company every company is not a tech company, right >> well, first of all, let's just start with the easy one tesla, you know, we don't think is a tech company. the more we're talking about tech they're an innovative company but not an technology company. more importantly you have every single bank right now saying they're a technology company and every industrial firm is saying look what we're doing with big data that's great users of technology and make them more efficient and that's why the tech companies are doing so well because everyone's adopting it. but, no, there are tech companies and not tech companies. for the most part, these lines are really clear on the differences between the two. we don't ultimately the question is, what do you sell to your customers. if you're selling a microchip, if you're selling a pc or a, you

know, or a cell phone or a software code, you're a tech company. if you are selling auto parts and you have to use technology in what you do, you're an auto parts company. >> yeah, we're seeing all the tech companies fuel every other sector as they increasingly rely on technology. you know, they might not be tech companies themselves jonathan, as you look at the different sectors within tech, i'm wondering if you think they will really move in tandem next year or if you think we'll see a lot of divergence within these different categories sort of the have and have nots in each of these categories. >> no, i think they're going to differ a lot i mean, the big question is how strong do you think the economy and inflation are going to be? if the economy is stronger, it's going to help the parts of the tech sector that look more kind of old economy right. so, those that are in semi conductors and hardware and equipment do better in a world where there's more inflation and

stronger economic growth gdp is in nauvty terms including inflation is over 7% next year that's consensus and if that's the case, then areas like software, which are great long-term plays, they just don't get the leverage from that kind of upside. so, i do think that you're going to see really big differences. i think perhaps the biggest difference, we just have a note that was just published literally 15 minutes ago we squeezed it in so we could talk about it on this call is we looked at the average tech company, which is a much smaller company versus these mega cap names and a huge, huge difference these smaller companies look really poised to do very well over the next 12 months. longer term, the big names, stronger sales growth, they look great. but over the next 12 months in a good economy, the smaller names should do really well. >> finally, jonathan, you know, one thing you've been good about is watching s&p earnings for

next year and a creeping conversation that the street is not keeping pace with what eps may do do you think consensus is catching up? do they need to catch up for next year? >> oh, the analyst estimates are too low. there's not a question we think that they're probably too low by 4% or 5%. first of all, assuming that we don't go forward with this build back america and we don't get the higher taxes on that, that's a benefit. but ultimately when you have really, really strong economies like we have right now analysts just tend to not fully put those numbers in their estimates i mean, this year, you know, the average beat was something like, you know, almost 20% the average beat normally is 4%. and we think that it's not going to be the same next year, but the general pattern is going to be the same. you know, earnings revisions are going to be really strong and earnings surprise is going to be really strong and for a general

investor all that means is the numbers are too low and will go higher >> we'll be talking about that, of course, all through q1, i have no doubt. jonathan, great note great couple notes thanks for sharing talk to you soon >> thank you, have a great holiday. turning now to rising covid cases, companies continuing to make changes surrounding in-person events amazon, meta, twitter and pinterest are the latest to say they will not attend ces over omicron concerns it will put any unvaccinated employees on unpaid leave and a story just crossing on cnbc.com saying all the amazon warehouse employees in the u.s. once again be required to wear face masks at work amid the recent surge in cases. and as many workers remain remote, we also have a new piece on cnbc.com and how google employees have become frustrated about the company culture.

ceo held an all-hands meeting google faces challenges in communicating with its growing workforce and that the pandemic has made things even harder. john, i have to wonder, you know, is there something specific going on at google right now or is this just a really tough time, especially for large companies to communicate with their employees and maintain any sort of culture. >> i think it's a really tough time, julia. i hear not just from large companies, but from small companies. the challenges of maintaining a culture if you're larger, building a culture a lot of the smaller companies have either doubled their workforce or more than doubled it over the past two years if you're a fast growing start up, probably more than half of your workforce has never met a majority of other people in person there's that also the shift in rules. right. you get, you know, the biden administration saying you've got to have everybody vaxed and courts striking that down and upholding it whip lash there and, carl, the

issue of consequences. companies that held off on having vaccine mandates or even really strong incentives and some of them started to bring people back into the office and then omicron hits. and then you've got the issue of, oh, my goodness. what if i have people in the office who have different status and how many tests do i have to do is it worth all that hassle from employees who have been vaccinated so, they're dealing with it. >> yeah, been somepretty good worker sentiment data published this week, julia, and finds generally not that people are burned out from the amount of work itself, it's more about the separation that you have in that relationship between you and your superior, you and your peers. just sort of an unfortunately collateral damage in this period that we're in. >> yeah, we think about all those meetings, brain storming sessions that aren't quite as good when you're not in person

mentorship and all those things that are lost and the goal posts keep changing. meanwhile, still to come, how to play the ad opportunities in the metaverse how companies are continuing to push in the virtual world. "techcheck" is just getting started. it's another day. and anything could happen. it could be the day you welcome 1,200 guests and all their devices. or it could be the day there's a cyberthreat. only comcast business' secure network solutions give you the power of sd-wan and advanced security integrated on our activecore platform so you can control your network from anywhere, anytime. it's network management redefined. every day in business is a big day. we'll keep you ready for what's next. comcast business powering possibilities. as i observe investors balance risk and reward, i see one element securing portfolios, time after time. gold.

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let's get a gut check on apple. raising from 170 a share to 200 which is well above that 3 trillion dollar market cap level around 182, 183 reiterating its buy rating shares are higher this morning fractionally and citi making that upgrade and looking ahead to a potential apple car and apple vr headset and also expecting apple to keep growing on the top line, julia speaking of apple's expected vr headset, that's one of the number of key milestones that are expected next year that could continue to push businesses and consumers into the metaverse. so, first in addition to apple, meta is expected to launch new headset as cambria and mixes virtual elements with the real world. niantic the hit behind pokemon go released augmented glasses it has in the works

ability to bring avatar from one platform to another. now already player me already allows you to create an avatar that works in multiple games and we do expect more companies to follow third, we should expect a lot more augmented reality without special hardware start ups developed live hologram video calls that can be accessed on any web browser or on your phone and this technology called volm metric video uses 30 cameras to capture a person in three dimensional space. i spoke to a hologram through my phone that really felt like he was in the room with me. >> what does it have to do with the metaverse. authenticity one word authenticity the question is will the metaverse be fake people or real people we think it will be real people and we think volume metric is in

the metaverse. >> used from watching converts and other live events. you would be watching them at home on your phone or through your computer. now, the more technology there is like that for ar and vr, the more we are going to see main stream brands like nike, gucci and burberry continue to invest in a presence in the virtual world and selling virtual goods, carl >> interesting and to your point about hardware, julia, it's going to be curious to see whether or not this is driven primarily by sort of leisure consumer, entert entertainment, music that kind of thing or john, enterprise that gets buried in terms of how corperates will use this to onboard new employees and microsoft is a great example of that. >> you have microsoft with the dod deal with really expensive

equipment for the battlefield. you have the more consumer stuff. i don't know, you have straight avatar, julia boorstin and you have curly hair julia borestin can they exist in the same space? >> can i have the same avatar exist in all the verses. let's stay on the metaverse and how companies plan to monetize these opportunities. let's bring in bernie. thanks so much for joining us. you cover roblox and this is a company for so many years people thought it was a game company but in reality we're realizing it is more of a metaverse company. what do you anticipate in the next year in terms of other companies trying to make money on this platform >> yeah, no, it's a great point and the metaverse is right given the engagement we always think monetization will follow and that comes back to the charts dealing with internet usage and advertising dollars following,

as well, too some of the other plays that i think in our coverage that are trying to monetize, one, is shutter stock. shutter stock is the best performing group of our coverage this year and mark zuckerberg video where he's playing cards, one of those avatars is made by turbo squid. we think that's kind of a stealth meta verse play and advertising coming to metaverse going to be mediation strategies and user acquisition strategies and certainly all those kinds of companies are going to be in >> talk to me about advertising companies to the metaverse when i was in decentral land they were selling land and billboards in a couple of these different virtual worlds it seems pretty easy to buy ad space a virtual billboard is different than a targeted web ad but i'm wondering if ad dollars will move into these worlds. right now meta doesn't have any opportunities in its virtual

platforms to advertise >> no, we think they will. so right now you mentioned it on the onset, but there's all these brands evaluating metaverse strategy and the key take away from us or one of the key take aways was their vp of global brands partnership saying that every company is going to have a roblox strategy in three to five years and we certainly think engagement and track the way we think they will, we think that will be happening. so, you're already seeing examples of this whether it's gucci gardens, nike land and those are, you know, that will be shifting the advertising opportunities in roblox where games are just focused on how many roblox can they acquire, $2.7 billion this year we expect roblox on the platform to all of a sudden you're using roblox and other metaverse platforms to see how many handbags and hbo max subscriptions you can sell and all of a sudden that opens up

the metaverse where brands are deciding should they put a dollar on facebook or roblox >> i remember 15 years ago editing magazine pieces about companies that were offering ad inventories and buying and selling ads inside a console and pc games that was an attempt at this back then and didn't really catch on i also remember game consoles trying to pitch themselves as the living room hub. more than just about games they were supposed to be your streaming central, et cetera all of them have pulled back from that because, hey, a lot of money in games i don't see myself as a grown up going into roblox to do anything what are the chances this doesn't play out the way optimists have sketched out. >> intheresting you mentioned that we launched on roblox and two surveys. one focused on 18 to 24 year olds

the users on the platform, the majority of which were under 13 a few years ago and about 50/50 between usage and we wanted to ask 18 to 24 year olds about their usage on teresting thing is social matters and what drives these platforms if you look at consumer spending as you move from 8 to 12 year olds to 13 to 15 year olds your screen time use goes up 2 1/2 hours and right now social networks takes about half of that that is really the opportunity here for roblox and other metaverse platforms to as the social aspect improves and voice becomes a bigger part of the roblox platform and other investments is that they can take some of that share and time spent and therefore we think that leads to monetization opportunities down the road. >> finally, bernie, from an rli standpoint, do the mettic ares, do they require any massagesing

a as they move into the new platform or any digital pitch? >> one of the things we did in our report is reframe what roblox and the metaverse platforms could actually be. you guys mentioned the enterprise opportunity before, you know, that seems like it would be maybe a step too far for roblox at this point so, we really focused on kind of some large, right now consumer spending on media and apparel spending globally and $3.2 trillion of consumer spending in advertising. you know, your guess is as good as mine in terms of how much of that can flow to the metaverse but even a small percentage and i know that's a dangerous game to play if they get 1% but if you put up 15, 30 take rate you're talking about tens of billions of opportunities for the platform

so, that's why the pie is so big. that's why you're seeing all the largest companies in the world going after this opportunity because if it is fulfilling, there's a massive opportunity here >> bernie, thanks so much for joining us with that insight happy holidays to you and we hope we can continue to talk about these topics next year >> absolutely. have a great new year. after the break, triller announcing plans to go public with a merger with seachange international. the ceo is with us next. don't go away. they're back. yes, i hear them. uh-oh. why are these birds so angry?! at least geico makes bundling our home and car insurance easy. we save a lot. i'm going...i'm going. aaaahh!

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voya. be confident to and through retirement. come on everybody, let's get to work. well planned. well invested. well protected. johnny, you're gonna be working with the number one choreographer in redshore city. wrong. i'm trying, he's freaking me out. tippy-toes, tippy-toes, i don't see your tippy-toes. if you could just give me some dance lessons you would be saving my life. ♪ in a sky full of stars ♪ ♪ i think i saw you ♪ [ cheering ] that's my boy. welcome back to "techcheck." i'm carl quintanilla with john fortt and julia borstin. submitting approval a new plant in germany while being investigated for allowing drivers to play video games while behind the wheel stock might be moving more on musk's comments on his own share

sales which have now been enough more on that in a moment let's get a news update with rahel solomon. hi, rahel. >> here's what's happening at this hour. consumer confidence rising to a five-month high. consumers view of current conditions fell slightly but outlook for the next six months improved third quarter economic growth was stronger than previously thought. increased to 2.3% and still the slowest pace in five quarters but this year's economic growth is on track to be the strongest since 1984 existing home sales rose nearly 2% in november. that is less than economists have forecast. median home prices continue to surge, but the annual growth rate dropped below 15% town from 20% increases seen earlier this year carmax quarterly results blowing past estimates although the company stock is down more than 4%. the company also saying that last-quarter strength is continuing into the end of the year and even with today's drop, shares of carmax are still up

nearly 40% this year you're now up to date. john, i'll send it back to you >> rahel, thank you. now two more pieces of news today. one we learned that video platform tiktok pushed google aside to become the most popular website in the world according to new data from latest internet traffic ranking. second somewhat related somewhat not. triller another short form video app announced this morning it is going public not via spack but a reversemerger with a publicly traded company seachange international. that deal, we'll see how much it values triller joining us now is triller ceo. mahi de silva. mahi, welcome. >> pleasure to be here >> there's been some controversy over exactly how many users triller reaches and exactly what its relationship has been with, for example, music publisher

starting with the users, how are you measuring user reach and user engagement from here? >> yeah, user engagement for us is how we help creators help post content, you know, on our apps, on our web experience but also on every platform that they publish content on, including platforms like facebook, instagram, youtube, twitter and others >> right but how many users -- how many users does triller have? >> so in terms of monthly reach, we've talked about in the press release, we touch north of 750 million users on a global basis. >> are you counting, therefore, people who see content that was created via triller creators but not necessarily engaging with

triller's platform i'm trying to understand how you measure users and therefore the value of the platform itself versus just where content is being seen >> yeah, so, keep in mind that our job is to help creators get their content to users everywhere so, that might end up starting on our platform with our creator tools but getting published to a platform like let's say tiktok or instagram but when creators create a click out experience, right, they might use those platforms to get that initial visibility but they want to click out into something that is more than just that clip or that post and we instrument all of that. we measure it, we help bridge that journey from shortform content to long-form content which is typically posted on our platform that's what the content journey

looks like and when we talk about $750 million engagements, we're talking about all of that technology that we deliver to creators to drive user engagement but ultimately gives them the opportunity to monetize that content experience. >> but, mahi, john just mentioned the concerns about the reliability of your metrics and also a lot of concerns about your relationship with the music labels because so much what triller is about is having access to music and universal music group pulled it off the app in february saying triller withheld payments and one of a number of negative headlines with your relationship with the labels how do you address those concerns for investors >> i think you should look at, you know, the press releases that came out at universe music group. we have a great relationship with them. their content is on our platform there's always, you know,

licensing schisms that happen with license holders and that's just a dance that contact companies, you know, play with platforms like us. and that's just a reality of doing business with nem. but we have a great relationship with them. their artists get featured in our events, on our platform and they're all very happy to be part of our ecosystem. >> mahi, i'm curious to know about acquisitions that you made that specialize in b2b events. a lot of what we're talking about seems consumer related but what kind of use might we be talking about? >> great question. so, you know, at triller we host about a dozen flag pole events, whether they're music with our verse's platform or combat, sports related with triller fight club or triad but our b2b platform which is powered by the

fite program hosts about 1,100 events per year. getting owners and content creators an opportunity in a platform to get that content out to consumers everywhere whether it's a ad sponsored experience, pay per view experience or even a subscription experience. so our bbto b business is true t our mission for helping creators get their content out to everyone to help them monetize that content >> then perhaps finally, mahi, if i understand this correctly and triller is most strategically about attracting and retaining sort of high-volume, high-engagement content creators should we expect to have metrics on how many of those creators you are attracting and retaining what the trend is among that group and what the sort of

dollar value of those relationships is >> absolutely. we'll be talking about that but keep in mind what our platform attracts are the who's who of creators influencers, tastemakers across the spectrum. there might be music artists and movie stars, athletes, public figures and our job is to help them engage audiences all over the world. if you just look at, you know, the collection of those creators, they have billions of followers all over the content ecosystem. but many of them are locked up and our job, our platform is to free those users so that the content creators have more control and more agency around that relationship between

themselves, their content and their followers and friends. >> okay. >> well, mahi, looking forward to seeing more data on how that's gone and how that's going as we look at this milestone for you today. mahi de silva ceo of triller, thank you. >> thank you. still to come, the bear case for robinhood. why b of a says the perfect storm is over. that's after a quick break

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let's get a gut check on the ipo market 397 ipos have priced this year, up almost 81% since this time a year ago hitting the highest level since 99 in 2000 wonder what happened in those years. despite the records 64% of this year's listings are trading below, of course, the ipo price. bumble, didi, nerdwallet down and buzzfeed and stocks still trading below $6 a share we're going to have a lot more on robinhood in just a moment when "techcheck" continues

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take a look at robinhood our next guest as a bear underperform price target 22 worried about the number

facfactor actually joining us craig seegenthaler. craig, great to have you appreciate the time. your note goes through a bunch of various risks, regulatory risks, payment for order flow, market shares already high, covid tail winds reversing makes you wonder what could go right at this point. >> carl, i think you're right. this qucompany, first, you havet give them credit zero accounts in 2015 to 23 million accounts now that is three times the size of interactive brokers and gaining on schwab, although their account sizes are small. through those growing pains which includes adding crypto currencies which is they're a pioneer there and also had some issues with disclosure around payment flow and this is the big one. this is what the sec is looking at right now and that is 70% to 80% of revenue every quarter >> yeah, we talked about that,

we talked about that when the stock was 65 i guess is there any reason to think that the regulatory picture has worsened and have they done anything to increase the mote relative to the schwabs of the world who clearly aren't standing still >> no, you're right. so, robinhood was the pioneer of zero commissions on equities that was their major selling point with the model and everybody copied them. everybody adopted this now so, when you look at their capabilities and you look at schwab and you look at interactive brokers and some of their competitors, the competitors offer more things now but robinhood's market is different. 20 to 34 year olds in the united states individuals first-time investors and smaller account sizes around $4,000 and it's different and stock trading app first, a mobile app application and added crypto currency trading which they also offer for free they're trying to improve their

crypto currency offerings right now. they're trying to offer more coins and digital wallets. this could actually help us celebrate growth but, carl, we have growth built into our model although no way it could look like the way it looked like the last five years which we called the perfect storm and they benefitted from the co virx oorx d pandemic sttail winds which ae starting to reverse. >> the guy who started shopify was originally starting a snowboard shop which was going well until it stopped snowing. when it comes to robinhood, what happens if it stops snowing? mainly, will the customer base remain loyal if the markets stop going up, up and away and options trading is not as available. how are we going to know >> so, i mean, listen, a lot of this depends on what the sec decides with both brokers offering crypto and also they're investigating market structure

adverse scenarios with both of those would be very bad for robinhood. it's not what we're baking into our estimates or target prices actually above the stock today, but very adverse scenarios for the firm also, though, to your point, trading volatility and trading activity and retail engagement it's going down. people are going back to work. the stock market is more stable and choppy, not going straight up any more. we also think engagement will be slower what you're probably going to see here, good growth, although slower than it's been. average account sizes are also going to expand as their client gets a little wealthier. what also is going to happen is trading activity will keep normalizing down which is their major profit driver. trading volume is, again, 70% to 80% of their revenues. >> so, craig, certainly robinhood has particular risk around those regulatory issues for payment forward and crypto currency if that is something that is going to impact robinhood's

rivals and position robinhood in this broader universe. who is better positioned considering some of these headwinds? >> yeah, so, when you look at the actual stocks for a second and then stop talking the business and the actual stocks, we think the fed is going to raise rates a bunch of times in the next two years maybe four rate hikes over 12 to 18 months. in that scenario where you get more or less than that but the fed is still raising rates and inflation is high, i want to be outperformed by or long the retail brokers that have a lot of interest rate sensitivity and that's charles schwab and more so with interactive brokers. those two are more exposed to rates. robinhood is almost purely exposed to trading activity, which we think is normalizing down so from an earnings revision stock perspective, we prefer schwab and interactive to robinhood. and that's what our ratings point out there. >> hey, finally, craig, not to make too much of it, is there

any m&a optionality from a legacy financial firm that might take a look at this and figure, well, we're not imaginative enough let's take a look at them as a purchase? >> yeah, so, i think that depends on a bunch of factors. but in the last couple years you saw schwab buy ameritrade and you saw morgan stanley buy etrade and the industry consolidated some bit and there is advantages to having a big bank that has a wealth manager having a digital broker attached to it. you know, one example is you can prevent leakage from some of your wealthier clients kids to competitors. there are big banks out there that have wealth managers could maybe leverage robinhood for the online kind of low-cost, young client base. but that remains to be seen. i think as long as robinhood is growing, they're going to probably want to stay

independent. >> all right craig, appreciate it very much great call i hope you have a good holiday craig seigenthal. still to come, a couple billionaires are all riled up. jack dorsy and b of a. jack dorsy and elon musk throwing cold water on silicon valley's investments that is after the break. gold. your strategic advantage. don't like surprises? [ watch vibrates ] proactive notifications from fidelity keep you tuned in all day long. so when something happens that could affect your portfolio, you can act quickly.

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one more thing elon musk and jack dorsey back in the spotlight, really still in the spotlight these two converging and two ceos associated with two major companies and both like to mix it up on twitter first musk announcing he's done with his tesla share sales and in an interview with the babylon b he's expressing skepticism about web3 and the metaverse >> someone's drafting a freakin' screen to their face all day i'm not one to -- there's no way. i currently am unable to see a compelling metaverse situation or web3 sounds like more marketing than reality i don't get it >> it's a sattire website. is he serious? he seems serious to me it comes as tesla faces new scrutiny the national national

transportation safety board administration and distract of a crash. we'll see what happens with that the stock spiking this morning tesla, that is, up 7% and then there's jack dorsey who has been very vocal on his criticism of web 3 vcs and the metaverse as a concept and talking to sources and has the latest for us. >> now that jack is not twitter's ceo he's acting more like your average twitter user and a pretty angry one at that since you mentioned this yesterday, the dorsey trolling about web3 has continued dorsey is throwing out a con f tradiction and the user-owned decentralized project, but by getting in early vcs have an outsized number of tokens or equity in there for control. some would argue that makes it

centralized in the hands of a lot of these private investors and he really dunks on andrews and horowitz in particular one of the particular players in the space. they poured more than $3 billion into open sea and dapper labs. they're skeptical that block chain in some cases might be a solution looking for a problem elon musk jokes about it here and talks about webabout and has aren't seen it yet these are not built overnight as and vcs are bootstrapping the network. in this web3 model, others have argued they don't need vcs and projects can allow crowd funding and we will see if regulators feel confident and there are actions around the i, kr u boom. dor dorsey is seen as an analyst he's just more focused on the monetary revolution versus any

of these other use cases in case there was any doubt, guys, check out this response to cardi b. bitcoin, he says will replace the dollar at some point back to you. >> well, we'll see about that, and julia, i wonder opensource is also kind of decentralized software in a way, but companies still figured out ways to make money off of it. >> they did, indeed. i have to wonder, carl, whether this is all just a bunch of backlash against the silicon valley vcs who control so much money that's going into the tech giants and not just creating the tech giants and not the decentralized platforms are and just backlash, carl? >> i mean, i think it's interesting that we're seeing this intramural fighting while regulators and the rest of us, john, just sort of watch them duke it out. that will help us improve on price discovery. it is nice, in a way, to have a

disparity of opinion >> if market turbulence continues in 2022, we will look at these squabbles perhaps finally, carl. remember when? yeah >> meanwhile, guys, there will be a host of data tomorrow as we finish the last session of the week let's get to frank holland and the half >> thanks a lot, carl. welcome to "the halftime report." i am frank holland in for scott wapner the relief rally the major indices are on track for weekly gains and we are debating the best moves you can make right now with the investment committee and they're joining me for the hour, stephanie link, sarat, and pete najarian the s&p 500 is about 1% away from an all-time intraday high and it's with that set up, this landscape that we begin this