Adam Neumann's Flow and Peloton's Amazon Partnership

to get in on that too. Plus Peloton on Amazon, the struggling bike maker puts its bikes on the world's largest e commerce site for the first time ever. Could it be the key to ending the slump? Will discuss and how did one of the biggest deals of the year come together. We will go inside the seventy billion dollar Microsoft Activision deal with Microsoft Gaming CEO Bill Spencer here to talk more about Peloton's partnership with Amazon. Is what wish Managing director Dan I s Dan, what do

you make of this? I mean until now you could only get these bikes directly from Peloton. Now you can get them on Amazon. Is it going to open the floodgates? OK. I think it's a starter in the right direction. I mean, the director consumer model. Clearly, it's been an upbuild battle for Peloton, especially coming out of the pandemic. They had to do something, and if you're gonna bet on someone, I think Amazon was the right move. But now it's

an execution story going forward. I think the street really needs to see that. So, you know, obviously Peloton has to work through you know, multiple other issues there, you know working on this. You know, send the bike, you put it together yourself, someone maybe can help you put that bike together. Does that make it all a little complicated? I think it does, And that's part of the problem. They're a typical Peloton buyer. They don't want complexity, they

want simplicity. And obviously they've had some significant misses from product perspective on treadmill and some mothers. Strategically, now they're cutting costs. Look, and I think that's part of the issue too, is that you're in growth mode cut and costs especial the competition come from all angles, gyms and other sort of fitness. I mean, this is clearly going to be a very very bumpy path. I think this is a step, but Obviously it's really baby steps in

terms of what they need to do. How many people are going to buy a Peloton on Amazon that didn't go to Peloton directly, Well, I think it's probably low single digits. And I think it's really more about accessories or maybe part of the ultimate flywheel or ecosystem they're trying to build. It just comes down to that director consumer model. I think writing was in the wall they need to change. Look, I think it's the first step.

I could definitely see some more partnerships down the road, but right now, I mean they're on the white were trying to figure out what could ultimately move growth, and I think when it comes to Amazon, especially, they had their ears open. It made a ton of sent strategically thing for both. What do you make of a speculation about Amazon as a potential buyer here? I think that's

just more speculum. I mean, I would be just flabber gas that if they went after they wouldn't strategically just does not make sense in terms of them going down that route, you know. I think that's why this is more of a partnership. And I think the problem with Peloton now is that the M and A chatter is obviously, you know, falling, and I think it really comes down to strategically what they're gonna do. I I continue to think when it comes to Amazon, it's more partnership and

it really stops there. All right, let's talk a little bit about Tesla shares rising ahead of that three for one stock split. You know, how much of a difference is this really going to make. Obviously to the retail community, they're going to look back August two thousand twenty five for one with the stock since then, you know, but

clearly a different market. But but no doubt. I mean they're doing it at a time that you're really starting to see demand continue to be firm despite oversee in terms of storm clouds, it's really production production story in China. That's the key of the test of story. They do not have never had demand issue. They have a supply issue, and I think that's starting to get rectified. But I do believe the stock split, you know, it really feeds

the appetite or red town. It was a smart move. Meantime, you know, another little Twitter kerfossil between Elon Musk and a customer replying to a customer that was critical of this beta driver assistance feature, Musk basically saying I don't want to hear about it. In so many words, what do you make of this? That's not what you want

to see? I mean, I think Twitter, as we know there has been positive but obviously on degas when there comes to Musk, and especially with more and more scrutiny, you know, from FSD to some of the other areas that we're seeing on test, So you don't want to see this type back and forth. The street just wants the execution production ramp and obviously much more of the software model take hold. And I think that's why things like this becomes sad shaws. But again it's you know,

must goes to be a different drum. That's not going to change, allright, Webbish managing director Dan ives Dan, thank you. The venture capital scene is still in the midst of a big debate about funding and second chances. This after Andreas and Horowitz wrote its biggest check ever to We Were co founder Adam Newman for his new real estate venture Flow, a company portrayed in a recent Forbes article as being awfully close to another company he invested in

two years ago. It's called Alfred, and it's a residential services company that aims to build community by fostering experiences within residential properties. Alfred's co founders join us now, Marcella's Pony and Jessica Beeck Ladies, thank you so much for joining us, as well as Bloomberg's own at Hammond. So let's start here. Marcella, tell us why you founded, Hello Alfred, Why you founded Alfred and the mission of the company today.

That's an easy one. So when jess and I were working long hours and building our careers, one thing we thought about was how do we make the places that we live in anticipate and support us and that ultimately that was a way to keep more women in the workforce. And that vision has evolved a lot to really think about housing as a whole, and for us, Alfred is really about making housing focus on the consumer, putting the

resident at the center of the value chain. And today housing is the largest asset class in the world and therefore should be the largest consumer product, but it's really lacking in terms of the branded experience, real technology, and a focus on the consumer as the end user. So we're excited to disrupt and evolve the industry with industry

players and to give renters more for their renting. Now, the idea of tech enabled property management is getting a lot of attention because, of course Adam Newman just got this big check before we go there. Why do you think this is such a big opportunity, Jessica, So, I think that housing is one of the largest opportunities we have, both because of the lives that it hits. Right, all of us consume housing, and no one's ever looked at it as a consumer product. And at the same time,

I think housing is in crisis. If we look at the asking rents in most markets right now, there's seventy pc higher than they were for what's being paid. And we also have a housing supply problem. We need to build five million more apartments to meet the demand for housing. So, given the impact that it can have on people's lives and the challenges facing it, I think it is right for a lot of attention and a lot of investment

and a vision for what it can be, Jessica. Emily just alluded to the was or rather a sorry, a lot of noise around this space that partly because of what Mr Newman has just announced with his new venture Flow. He had a relationship that previously existed or maybe still exists with al Freedom with you guys. Has founders talked to us a little bit about that, how you got to know him in his family office, and how that

relationship really came to be in the first place. So at Alfred, we've always taken a very collaborative approach for building our business and that started, you know, eight years ago when we started working with our initial landlords and partners.

And among our partners, you know, we don't only count Adam, but we count Grace Star and invest Go, and you know our venture capital partners any A and and Spark And I think the key from our perspective has been to build a business by working with the best in the industry and doing that bottoms up, and that means being part of a broad ecosystem and seeking out people on that ecosystem that sees something that is similar to you and want to have a hand in building that future.

So that's the approach we've taken for the history of how we've built the company, and you know, it's very much for how we met Adam, and obviously Alfred has its own product, unique product. We've just talked about the sort of this idea of owning the future of living. What is it that Alfred does. It is sort of unique and gives it some protection against new competitors potentially coming into the space and looking to disrupt residential real

estate in a similar way. So ed if you look at the apartment space in particular, which is where most of us are actually living, and renters in fact are going to be the majority of home dwellers and future instead of homeowners. So multi family really hasn't evolved since the invention of the elevator. That is like the biggest

innovation that's had the opportunity to disrupt the space. And the reason why we believe that real estate, specificly residential has been so resistant to disruption today it takes only one percent of its budget and applies that towards technology, is because it's incredibly fractured. So to make a change, you can't just attack one part of the problem. You have to look at the entire value chain and you have the aligned stakeholders in new ways that create value

for everyone. So for us, what Alphred does that's so unique. We are the only prop tech company that's ever first really focused on the resident. We started with home management. We earned the right and the trust of consumers to provide services into the home. We then acquired a company that allowed us to build technology and automate the management

of a full building. We then acquired a property manager that gives us full understanding what it takes to drive an asset and so what we're able to do when we put those three things together, which are very different businesses, but we create a fly will and we treat the consumer like they're the king. We add efficiencies with technology.

We automate the entire resident experience from signing your least, paying your rent, booking an amenity, booking a peloton um and it doesn't hurt that we make the owner more money, but we also make the neighborhood around the building more vibrant. We bring services into buildings, and we really think about real estate as it's not just about the rent check. It's about looking at retail and looking at the building itself as a retail center for lifestyle and gaining access

to the consumer wallet. So we're expanding the pie for everyone. We're changing the value chain, and we're doing that because we have these different core competencies that have taken us eight years of really hard work and evolution, building by building, shareholder by Sharyld's holds are building like we have a hundred and fifty thousand units on our platform in fifty two cities across North America and US and Canada, and we're really proud of the resilience we've had to be

able to build well. We believe will be a generation defining company. So Forbes has done some reporting on your experience with Adam Newman and how you know his relationship with the company changed over the last couple of years. His representatives say he believes that the article is inaccurate and that in his family office still support the company. What's your response to that and your assessment of this reporting. So it's a great question, and I think a lot

of people are asking probably similar questions. But the thing that I think is important is not necessarily what's accurate from a reporting perspective, it's what are we really focused on building and what have we done already to get us to this place. I think that this is a huge market and a lot of people see the opportunity here and that is something worth investing behind and investing in and as Marcella said, the thing that we're really focused on and alphad just what we've built today and

where we want to take this in the future. We've only scratched the surface of what's possible in this market. We have a hundred and fifty thou units, but that is small compared to the overall market size, not just in the US but globally. And I think that's really where we should focus the conversation and bring the res versus, whether they are part of our company, are part of other companies, to bear in solving what housing can be

in the future. That said, Mark Andreason wrote in a blog post that Flow aims to build quote the future of living. And if you look at your website on the home page, it says welcome to the future of living. I know that that can mean a lot of things. But how do you feel about that? And and and do you believe there's a conflict of interest here? Well, we know for sure. I think the future. Go ahead? No, go ahead, day, Marcella, Why don't you take I think

the future? Yeah, go ahead. Um, what I was gonna say is that Andreason is a storied firm and fantastic investor and we're excited about the attention that they're bringing to the space. Obviously with the largest check they've ever written, we have raised ourselves a hundred million dollars over eight years UM, and there is a prints between those two numbers UM and we UH do see the opportunity to

continue to expand UM to our investor set. But I don't want to comment on our on other businesses as much as I really want to focus a conversation on ours, Marcella, just on the on the question of funding. And look, obviously and Reeson has put in a very large amount of money now into this space, which should just say have serious appetite here have you guys as Outfred had a conversation with them about getting backing. Is it something you would now look to do? Clearly, as I say,

they are very interested in this space. Yeah, so um, you know, we have lots of investors, We're talking to lots of investors. But one thing I would note is that the company is on a path of profitability and we are a self sustaining company that's been doing we're CRE eight years. This is not an idea that is on a whiteboard. We really feel like we have the horse by the main and there's something really big here. UM. In terms of talking to other investors, especially E s

G investors, we have a ton of appetite. UM. I would say that one thing that I hope UM a positive silver lining that comes out of this is the way we think about venture, especially for female lead companies. Only two percent of venture dollars in the past year have gone to female lead companies, and that's strunk year

over year. And I really want to put um some emphasis here and saying that female lead companies are no less um, the ideas are no smaller, and our ability to execute is no less And I think that there's a huge arbitrage opportunity for backing female founders and especially

in the space. And I believe that the future of living will require lots of collaboration across many different companies, and that that's the new form of disruption, especially where we require so much change across so many stakeholders in a very complicated value chain. Jess, I'd love to give you a chance to weigh in on this question as well.

Obviously we know that you know women are historically underfunded, UH in Silicon Valley have a much harder time raising money, and here we have idea aside, you know, a controversial mail founder getting a very big check. Uh. You know what sort of feelings? Uh what was your reaction to that number? Yeah, I think that. I mean, it's a

great point and it's certainly not lost on us. I think the positive space sort of view of it is it's time for a lot of investment to go into this space, and this is raising the awareness and the visibility of housing and the rented rental residential real estate

market as an opportunity. And I think that size of check, particularly from and Resent hardwhich which is a terrific company, really validates that market and puts a spotlight on what UM you know, I think hasn't been as visible previously. So you know, I think Marcella spoke to some of the um other elements of it. But if we kind of look into the future, we we and take that

as a benefit for sure. Obviously both of you have worked very closely with miss Newman in this company and sort of over that period of time and the relationship now looking at him starting his own business in this space, whether or not it competes directly with what you guys do. What is it going to take for Flow to be successful in this market as it comes in as a sort of as a new entrant. Yeah, I think as with any business entering a market, it really comes down

to understanding the customer. And when we started OFFRED, we started by focusing on the resident and focusing on the way that we could impact their life and give back time past the front door of their home. And that's how we really built the company by listening to what does a resident need, what does a consumer need in the housing market, and how can we begin to deliver that?

And I think that is going to be true of all businesses entering this space UM, and probably not only just for the resident, but how can we make the UM operators, the folks that work in these buildings lives easier? How can we elevate all of the attention in this space just for the benefit of everyone. And listening and really thinking from the consumer perspective and the customer perspective I think is critical for that. So bigger picture, obviously,

we are battling inflation. You've got consumers under pressure. We are potentially going into a recession. You know, how do uss how many people are going to want to pay more for the kind of services you provide. Do you see this as a luxury or necessity? Marcelo I let ye, So I think the really important thing that we are

doing is it's not about increasing rent prices. It's about how do we do things more efficiently, how do we use technology to automate processes, to anticipate needs, to deliver services that allow revenue to come into the building and effectively increasing the size of the pie, not just by

asking a resident to pay more. And we really think that as you see in the rental prices and increases to the rental housing market have been so extreme and there has not been a subsequent increase in the value proposition,

you're still getting those four walls. And what we believe is fundamentally people want to rent a lifestyle and rent a home, and that we can provide that with putting our technology and staffing these buildings a little bit differently, training people to hotel standards, moving property management from a focus on maintenance and rent collection and trash collection to

really how do we make a residence life fantastic? How do we build a community, how do we make people feel a sense of place and a sense of home. So it's not just about how do we jack up the rent prices, it's how do we serve with consumer in a in a better way? All right? The co founders of Alfred Marcellas Opone and Jessica Beck, thank you both so a lot much for joining us. Along with our very own at Hammond. Regulators are taking a cool us look at how Twitter calculates the number of spam

and bought accounts on its platform. In June, the SEC wrote a letter to Twitter CEO asking to disclose the methodology used in calculating the bot situation. In response, Twitter's laws told the SEC that it already adequately discloses the methodology that it uses towards estimate. Has become a central sticking point between the company and Elon Musk, who's looking to walk away from a forty four billion dollar buyout of the platform. Here discuss s Bloomberg's Kurt Wagner. So

Kirt brings us up to speed. Obviously, you know there was another hearing today the whistleblower allegations we learned about yesterday. Now potentially the SEC is involved. How so, yeah, Well, the allegations from the whistle blower kind of hit on two important things. One, as you pointed out what the sec is that, you know, he claims that Twitter has

been lining to shareholders. Right. If the company is indeed hiding the number of bots that make up you know, part of its user base or something like that, that be a securities violation and that could be a huge reason for the SEC to investigate. Now, on the privacy side, a lot of these allegations were also that the company

wasn't doing enough around privacy. Twitter and the FTC gone into a consent to Caree back in two thousand eleven that the company would make all kinds of changes to its privacy practices, and uh, you know, this whistle blower says the company hasn't done that. So now both regulatory agencies essentially have a good reason to it the very least ask Twitter what's going on and see clarification about what this whistle blower claims, what happened at the latest hearing,

and how does it potentially move the ball forward? Well, the two sides have been fighting for a while as to you know, who should be bringing the information about bots forward? Right. Elon Musk and his camp basically say

that Twitter has not been forthcoming. Not only have they not shared the information with him directly, but they're not being willing to put forward employees who do have access to that information or expertise, right, And Twitter, of course is arguing the opposite, Hey, we put everyone forward that needs to be so right now, they're trying to settle

that in court. One of the issues is that Musk's lawyers, you know, they want access to this whistleblower, right They think he certainly qualifies as someone who would be an expert on this kind of stuff. So they're working with the judge right now to basically figure out who does Twitter need to put forward and make available as part of this trial to answer some of those bought questions. Now, obviously we're still learning more about these whistleblower allegations. I'm

curious what you're hearing from your your sources. I'm hearing that you know, Twitter is looking at the same redacted document that you know appears in the Washington Post. There's a lot of information that is you know, not there or that they can't see. Um, what more have we learned about this complaint and the intentions of the person

making the complaint? Yeah, I mean, I can tell you there's a lot of people who work at Twitter now or recently who are not happy with with this, right, and that sounds obvious, but they see this as either unfair or or certainly not reflective of what they truly believe to be happening at the company. And the timing is very suspect, right, because a lot of these claims, uh seemed to echo at least some of the stuff that Elon Musk and his lawyers are saying. And so

there wasn't all hands meeting today with employees. I think management, my understanding, has reiterated a lot of the things that we read in the email from CEO prog Roll yesterday Emily when we were on the show, right that he was basically saying, hey, uh, you know this is false. These allegations don't have any merit to them. But you know, at this point, if you work at Twitter, you're you're just for ust, You're annoyed, right, You're going through this

whole process already. Then this allegation comes on top of it. It just kind of is snowballing right now. I feel like for the company, and I start to sense that when I talk to people who are who are there, who were recently there. Right, It's been going on now quite a while, many months. Okay, Kurt Wagner, thank you

for that update. Appreciate it turning two earnings into its fourth quarter report better than expected, led by the company's small business unit, which year over year, but some of into it's businesses facing headwinds from government changes to the tax system, including part of President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, which allocated money to study the creation of a government run tax filing system. Here to talk about all of that,

Intuits CEO Sassan, Good Darzi Sasan. Let's start with the numbers. Uh, you know, obviously they looked good. Interesting to see the number of small businesses increase coming out of a pandemic. How is this informing your outlook? Hi, Emily, thank you for having me. You know, we're excited about our outlook. You know, when we look at the macro environment, there's two things I would say. One, small businesses do worry

about the economy. Um. However, at the same time, consumer spending is strong, the small business performance is strong, but they're trying to to manage you know, the rising inflation. UM. The costs going up with their supply chain costs going up with workers, so they're they're working through managing all of that, but they're very resilient if I then shift to our platform. It's really why our platform is probably

more mission critical now than ever before. You know, we are not a line item on a small business budget. We are the platform that they use to be able to power their prosperity and and run their business, which is hence reflected in our results, but also reflected in the overall company guidance that we provided and specifically the segment guidance around small business. So we are excited about the future. I'm curious what demand trends you're seeing. You've

got other software venture seeing lengthening sales cycles. I'm wondering if that's something that you're finding as well. We're not seeing that because the small businesses Emily that we serve or either you know, one person shop or all the way up to about a hundred employees, uh and and these small businesses really use our platform to be able to manage their customers, grow their customers, to be able to manage their their cash flow. So these are not

really enterprise sales. So we don't see, um, the cell cycle extending. In fact, what we are seeing is just more reliance on our platform, especially in this environment, to be able to feel their success. I do want to ask about this Inflation Reduction Acts situation. Part of UH. This involves money to study the creation of a government run tax filing program, which could completely disrupt turbo tax,

one of your key products. How much does that concern you? Yeah, Well, first of all, to set context exactly as is your question states, Um, the I R S got about fifteen million dollars to do just a study of what it would take for the I R S to create a tax platform. With that as context, you know, the first thing I would say is free taxes is available to all Americans through private industry, whether it's our US or our competitors. And so from an availability of free tax

free software, it's already available. I think. Secondly, we're big advocates for the consumer. You know, they know the story of their life better than anybody else when it comes to deductions for their their taxes. They really know their story better than anybody else. And and I think we'll have to let the consumer decide, you know, what is most important in terms of where they want the I R S to focus. Is that about the refund experience or is about creating tax software for us? It's really

an immaterial event. It's a non event because free tax software is already available to all Americans and this could yet be another free tax software. So that's the way we see it. That's it. I mean, you have to be planning ahead. Are you thinking about strategy contingency plans

if something like this could come to fruition? Well, really not, because we already have free software that you know, if you look at the last nine years, we've served over a hundred and thirteen million consumers that have filed their taxes for completely free. This past year was about thirteen million customers. So it really doesn't change anything that we are doing. We have a platform that you can do

it yourself, and for certain customers it's free. We also have now a live platform that gives us the ability to serve the assistant market, those that need expertise, which is really our biggest growth driver. So it really doesn't change our strategy at all. And frankly, I think the government has been back and forth for the last twenty five years thinking about exactly this uh, this study and for us, it really doesn't change anything. You also recently

appointed a new leader of the mail Chimp division. Talk to us about the strategy there and how you see this continuing to fit into the business longer term. Yeah, Emily, we're very excited about mail Chimp. You know, the whole reason why we acquired mail Chimp is it plays a role in helping small businesses grow customer base. So it helps them market to new customers on different channels, it

helps them manage their existing customers. And one of the things that you know, we see as a huge opportunity is to how to marry a platform capability that not only helps a small business growth customer base, but manage their cash flow, which is where QuickBooks comes in. And so bringing those two platforms together allows us to have a one stop shop to really fuel the prosperity of

small businesses, and mail Chimp has incredible capabilities. We just appointed a new leader to work hand in hand with the team there, um Ronnie. She has been actually leading our payments group very successfully and now she's going to be leading both mail Chimp and Payments and it's an opportunity to really marry, growing customers, and managing your cash flow in one place. So we're really excited about the

opportunities ahead alright. The CEO of into It, Sasana Darzi, thank you, Sissan for joining us and to have you

back time down for our crypto report. As both Wall Street and the crypto world are waiting to hear from FED chair j Palal at Jackson Hole this Friday, Bitcoin meantime, could be headed for another downward slope, with the largest cryptocurrency down more than fifty percent this year already and sitting in a range of about nineteen to twenty five thousand dollars, Let's bring in Valkri chief investment officer Stephen McClurg for his read on this, along with our own

crypto contributor Shinnali Boss. Thank you both so much for joining us. So, Stephen, do you think bitcoin has further to fall and how far? Like below twenty or not? Absolutely? Thanks for having me well. I do believe that bitcoin has a little bit further that fall. From where it is today, we are pretty close to the bottom, and from here I think in the long run we're gonna be doing just fine. But really everything depends on macro at the moment, inflation as well as what risk I

sets to in a hawk ish FED hawks FED. I think about the letter that Dan moorehead of Pantera, wrote to investors. I got it in my inbox today, and this idea that rates are going much higher than is expected. How is that going to play into where bitcoin goes next? Yeah, so is anytime that liquidity is being taken out of the system, which is what's happening right now, all risk assets will continue to fall. So Bitcoin, luckily and also unfortunately, earlier this year did fall quite a bit due to

some local contagion risks. But Bitcoin is with the first asset to go. We're waiting for the rest of the financial markets to catch up. And by the way, I agree with Dan that we do have a lot further to go as far as rate hikes. We think rate hikes. We think we'll see the FED target rates somewhere between three seventy five and four hundred by the end of the year. So what does this mean for non bitcoin

crypto assets? So what does it mean for etherorium which is about to hit a really pivotal moment in its life cycle? People fall on two sides of the merge. Here you have some that are selling into the merge, some that are kind of Bitcoin maxis here that are really more focused on the benefits that mining provides. How do you feel about this move to proof of stake? Well, I don't necessarily think move to proof of steak is

a great thing for Ethereum in the short run. In the long run it might actually work out, but the Ethereum network is actually more secures the as proof of work, and that's what really makes Bitcoin the most secure network is a long period of time through proof of work where essentially you have computers or validators that are validating transactions all over the world in a decentralized manner. When you move to proof of steak, that that really falls into the hands of a few and those are the

ones that stake their tokens to master nose or validators. Uh. This is how some other more enterprise related block chains work, such as Avalanche or Zilica, where where there's a more enterprise application, but in terms of Ethereum goes the security will you know need to be seen how that's going to work out, because you know, we we think that if you're holding say you know, a million dollar plus n f T and you're relying on the ethereum network and it's changing right now, that may not be a

great place to be right now. Okay, So where are you placing your bets? Obviously, Valkyrie has exposure to you know, the largest cryptocurrencies by market cap. You know, you know which ones are you leaning into and leaning out of? Yeah? Right now, Bitcoin is really the flight to safety for a lot of our funds, and we're we're we're really looking at some of the more established proop of stake protocols are also a great place to be, places like

Avalanche and and Zilica. So these are these are the ones that we're really looking at to uh to move into. We also have active accounts where we can take risk off the table in times of uncertainty like we did at the beginning of this year through through most of the year. So we're really moving out of anything that has too much exposure to eat right now until we see this merge goes through sometime in middle September and into some of some of the safer uh you know,

larger crypto protocols. What about Salana, how do you feel about that? Given more of the n f T ecosystem is also going towards Salana. You think about Magic Eden and the success that they've had there, do you, but also very polarizing in terms of an asset. Do you think that that has any room to benefit as if some of the things you're saying about Ethereum plays out. Yeah, Salanta is really one of those block chains that sacrifice security for speed. Uh, it's still a work in progress.

I don't think it's necessarily a flight to safety, especially if you care about safe security right now. And that's really our biggest fear on Ethereum is will it turn out to be in this in this new entity as a proof of state protocol more like Salano and a lot less like Bigcoin. So so we're cautious on Salano, though we're not selling it. Where does it ari Um

and the year are you selling ethereum? We we we think that Ethereum very well could get back to a thousand or even lower if the merge doesn't go well. If the merge does go is expected and by the way, there's not a whole lot of doubts out there that it won't, but there is a big risk that it will then we can see Atherorum really rally. So we're kind of holding off until September before we make any

big bets on Ethereum. All right, Valkyrie, Chief Investment Officer, thanks for helping us navigate all all the different things you're working through. Stephen mcclerg appreciated along with Bloomberg Hinale bask Microsoft's head of Gaming Phil Spencer says he is optimistic the company's seventy billion dollar deal to buy Activision Blizzard will be approved. If that happens, Spencer will inherit

a video game hit maker with a controversial leader. I spoke with Spencer for a wide ranging inner view in the latest edition of Bloomberg Studio. One point out here some of our conversation. You know, I kind of come at this that big deals should be scrutinized, right. I think that's the role of regulators, why they're in place. I feel good about the progress that we've been making, asking good, hard questions about Okay, what is our intent? What does this mean if you play it out over

five years? Is this constricting a market? I feel good about it. So you're confident the deal is going to happen. I've never done a seventy billion dollar deal, so I don't know what my confidence means. I will say the discussions that we've been had that we've been having seemed positive UM, and we're actively engaged in the conversations trying to be transparent about what our motivations are. Well. Activision

specifically is facing a lot of challenges here. There have been lawsuits, there have been employee walkouts, there have been accusations of sexual harassment, sexual assault. How much did that concern you when you're thinking about this deal. We had access to data for the company before we we announced the acquisition to see what the actual numbers were in

terms of reports. UM, we definitely as a team signed up to say, just like we're on our own journey with Xbox, that we're going to expand that journey if this deal closes. It's a lot of people and a lot of people that will feel very dedicated to and committed to to building a great workplace environment for them. That's true of any of our studios, right. But it's

obviously a conversation that you're going to have. You think about the board of Microsoft and when they're thinking about the deal and they're typing into their search engine activision, what are the headlines that they're coming back and there were questions that we had. We've learned from this, we will continue to learn um and we're committed to that that journey not only for the betterment of our teams,

but our customers, the creators on our platform. We think it's critical to our business success that we make progress here. Is Bobby going to stay on? Yeah, I'm not in a position to make comments about their leadership team. Were in the regulatory phase and and how that will close, Like when the deal closes, then we have say and how they're managed and how it goes. But until that point, I'm not really in position to say. There have been very specific allegations of Bobby being aware of things uh

that happened and not reporting it to the board. What is he communicated to you about what he knew, what he didn't know. The discussions we've had were about the teams where they're at. Can they make the progress they need to make because the closing is a long process. Are they putting in the work that they need to put in two move along their journey? And I believe they're committed to that. When I look at the work that they're doing now, there's always more that can be done.

Activision has divisions that are unionizing. I don't know. Microsoft has said they'll recognize those unions. What does that look like. I've never run an organization that has unions in it, so, but what I can say and working through this, is we recognize workers needs to feel safe and heard and

and compensated fairly in order to do great work. So we thought it was important to make a public statement on that front for workers that are there, that are making decisions about their employment and how they want to you know what that relationship looks like to understand what it would mean if Microsoft was able to close the deal. You can watch my full interview with the Microsoft Gaming CEO, Phil Spencer, coming up nine pm Eastern Time right here

on Bloomberg Television. And that does it for this edition of Bloomberg Technology Thursday. John wou of All the Labs joins us to talk about the latest with Avalanche and the crypto downturn. And don't forget to check out our podcast find it wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Emily Changing in San Francisco. This is Bloomberg