China Balloon and Ford's Michigan Plant

down a Chinese by balloon. We talked tech security plus in spite of those rising tensions with China, Ford teaming up with a Chinese company to build a giant EV battery plant in Michigan. Our conversation with Lisa Drake, Ford's vice president of EV Industrialization, and the continued crypto crackdown is putting a binance link token in the crosshairs. More on the potential regulation later this hour, but first we check in those markets and as you say, enthusiasm when

it comes to stocks. At least said I'm looking at one and a half percent higher on the NASAC. Now, remember last week it had its worst sell off this year, so now we're back on it seems as though some of the forward looking consumer expectations for inflation just starled down a bit the data today. We all look for that CPI print, that inflation print tomorrow, ms CI or Country World the next up eight tenths of percent. Europe

had a good risk on rally as well. Two year boring costs basically flat, but we did see some elevation in terms of two your boring costs, mainly thinking that the Fed is going to have to still tackle inflation that's above six percent as we anticipate for tomorrow. Flick it on one risk asset that did not get much love, and it has been crypto. Look, we're down over the

course of two days. I'm looking at the Bloomberg Galaxy INDEXUS looks at the most crypto as a whole, not just of course Bitcoin, but some of the other major traded currencies, and it was on the downward trajectory. The reason ed we all know some worries about the crackdown, yeah, and looking at single names across and as I think the vast majority a t of names were in the green, but there are some interesting stories kind of buried within that.

Microsoft up three percent, continue momentum, but you saw a number of analysts out with notes syfel or Steve Fell for example, out with a by rating and upgraded price target, basically saying this is a transformational year. AI is a part of that. But four year twenty four is when we'll really see Microsoft start to flex twily, up two percent, layoffs another round of cuts seventeen percent, which we'll get into later in the show. But the market cheering that

despite it being an unpleasant conversation you alluded to. It Forward up two point eight percent, finally confirming that scoop from Friday that it is Michigan and it is a partnership with c at L for their latest battery plant for e VS moved to the downside. Tesla down just one percent this Monday, but on a two day basis carrying over from Friday, it's the biggest two day drop

in six weeks. And I just flagged that out because a lot of voices in the market, Caroline kind of looking at that as a as a sort of treading water stock ahead of that CPI print on Tuesday, Well, not treading water at the moment, ed is a lot of the tension our UFOs and before we get to our own Twitter poll around and let's just get your speed with the fact that the US has just shot down it's forth flying objects since China's allegends by balloon

last week, although Secretary State Anthony Lincoln is considering a meeting with China's Foreign Minister Wangi at a security conference later this week. This as Native Secretary General that's En Stolnberg says, China and Russia are increasing surveillance and intelligence against the Alliance. China, but those Russia are increasing their intelligence as activities against natile hours with many different platforms. We see it with satellites, more and more satellites, and

we see them with balloons. That highlights the importance of our vigilance are increased presence, and also that we ramp up and step up how we share intelligence and how we monitor and protect our airspace. A's the international reaction. Let's get the reaction of Bloomberg's Alex Wayne out of Washington. Alex just tell us is this untoward? Is this weird? Or is it the fact that finally people are starting

to shoot them down. We don't have a lot of answers about about what's going on and why US fighter jets are suddenly shooting so many weird objects out of the sky so far. UM. The White House Press Secretary Crane Jehan Pierre did say today that there is quote no indication end quote that it's aliens. So I suppose that explanation is ruled out and we should look for

for a more mundane source for these objects. UM. The Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in Europe today that they have not yet recovered any debris from the objects that were shot down over the weekend, and they were shot down in some pretty remote areas over Lake Huron and in Alaska and our Canada as our as our graphics shows there, these are gonna be difficult places to get to get to recover the reece. I think it's gonna be a while. So we have any answers, that's what

as to what these things are. UM. We do know that they were shot down because they presented a threat to aviation. UH. That's that comes from John Kirby, the U s National Security spokesman, who also spoke at the White House Press briefing today. I guess in part the news flow around this story is driven because for the first time, we're actually all going out and looking for these things. You know, That's the sense that I get from your team's reporting in d C. I mean, there's tie,

it's the broader context, the U S. China relationship. What is happening there? What is the latest on the actions the US have taken and how they viewed that relationship with China. Yeah, well, it's not helping relations with China obviously. The Chinese, of course, accused US of using balloons to spy on them. That was firmly denied by the White

House earlier today. I do think these things are are being discovered because since the Chinese that the alleged Chinese by balloon floated across the US UH North American air defenses have started looking for the objects, and sure enough they're finding them. Um, that doesn't mean they're they're all spied devices from from China or Russia or elsewhere. Um. There there could be more, you know, much more ordinary explanations. Perhaps there are some sort of commercial aircraft or research

aircraft or something that that just got off course. I guess floated too high in the air and and the the Air Force felt like they had to be removed. Bloomberg's alex Wayne Top reporting out of d C. Thank you very much, and Caroline, I've been up for a long time today. I've covered a lot of stories and a lot of shows and as well, I just I just didn't think Monday would have me uttering you fo. And as you know, we're trying to keep our audience out there in the loops. We asked, you know, what

do you guys think about UFOs? Are you worried? Are you concerned? This is the response. This is humanity for you. Of what was a lot of respondents saying not bothered, not bothered. They're more bothered about Rhianna. They're more bothered about Manchester United potentially being brought by Kata they potentially, though, are also realistic head how much is this actually tip for tap? How much is this generally going on over

the skies? How many these sources of objects potentially of being sent over various from US, over to other countries and then back to US surveillance we know is kind of something we live with. Yeah, juries out until they actually find the objects which were shot down. Then then we can talk about UFOs. But let's continue the conversation nonetheless and broaden it to the risks in technology moving forward, which could become a major headwind for the sector. According

to Bank of America. Take a listen. I think the other shooter drop for tech is just the regulatory background when you think about cyber attacked data privacy. This is an issue that's affecting the man and woman on the street. M let's bring in John holt Quist, vice president of Intelligence analysis at Mandy and Security um Google Cloud. John, you've heard all the preamble, the geo political tension UFOs out there. Three, the year of bracing for risk in

whatever form it comes. Well, we see a tremendous amount of you know, activity from all kinds of all the kinds of corners of the earth. We see stuff from the Chinese actors, Russian actors, North Korean actors, and they're

increasingly aggressive and increasingly targeted everyday people. Right We see, for instance, North Korean actors now are carrying out a campaign it's affecting hospitals in the United States and the globe where they're trying to ransom those hospitals for money, right, John Manny and specializes in cybersecurity intelligence, seeing what's out there. What conversations are you having with customers, big corporate customers

about the risk they face. What are they most worried about? Well, you know, I think we see a lot of you know, see a lot of our customers are actually pretty pleased with the intelligence we've been able to give them these days. We were much better than we used to be at seeing what these actors are up to. The problem really is is how do you change your posture, your security posture and actually you know, adapt to the adversary. And

that's a tough job, right. It takes a lot of It takes a lot of work to actually, you know, shift shift your posture every time you actor developed, something like new ransomware or a new tactic is developed. And that's precisely what we have to do. We have to evolve ahead of of these of these actors. John, how much when you're asking your clients and people you talk with when you're going and putting fort leadership out there with reports that you just have done today, for example,

how much is this self inflicted from some companies? How much is it that actually we have the right security to put in place, it's just people aren't putting it in. We're still leaving holes and vulnerabilities. Well, you know, it's it's it's really hard to always be perfect in this in this space. And you know, adversaries absolutely take advantage

of the smallest mistakes, right. I think that's in many of the cases we've seen they have you know, for instance, they take advantage of users who may not understand what they're looking at, or or they may take advantage of misconfiguration for instance. That happens all the time. But really, you know, these are very advanced adversaries and in many cases these are state actors, these are spies. They are

not easy targets. Uh. And we we have we have been forced to essentially continue to raise our game against an adversary that, uh, we shouldn't really have to face. But we do talk to us about how people, how clients feel about their security levels. What are they most worried about? Is it nation state actors or is it activists?

Is it just people wherever they might be based, wanting to do some financial run somewhere in some way runk it for us the anxiety amongst people, Uh, I think, you know, I think it's what's really interesting is that, uh, for every organization, the threat picture has is entirely different, right, And that's why the intelligence is so important. You have to determine who matters the most to you, right uh.

Right now, for instance, we're seeing this campaign of North Korea against hospitals and and and I think hospitals probably didn't consider these actors a threat before, but now they have to reconsider their their entire security posture because of this. UM. I've seen many time, and many times I've seen organizations who thought that Russian State actors were gonna be the you know, be the ones who went after them, and the reality is was Russian criminals were the ones that

caused him the real pain. Uh, using intelligence to actually make those decisions is what gets you ahead of the adversary. Don hold Quest, vice president of Anteligens Andnalysis, and Mandy and just terrific and time the conversation. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Now coming up, could that be a man extinction event coming up for early in mid stage companies. That's what I VPS Tom Laverry thinks.

And we'll ask him next why this is Bloomberg. The inflation will come down, but I think it will stay persistent for a period of time, probably longer than we originally anticipated um when they started bringing interest traits up. I personally am optimistic that we will find a balance point in the five percentage range. That's my personal view. Of course, I'm at this from one person's view, but I also think that that we will end up staying

there for longer. That was Nasdack, chair and CEO Adina Freedman speaking at the Saudi Capital Market Forum in readd and giving her take on rate hikes, inflation, and the I p O pipeline. I want to stick with this conversation and get the private markets take with i VP general partner Tom Lavero and about his prediction for start ups in this landscape. I VP has eight point seven

billion dollars of assets deployed or under management. Tom, you tweeted at the end of January that late twenty three would be a mass extinction event for early to midstage startups. We've had one FED meeting since and we have an inflation print tomorrow. Look we're showing it on the screen. Now. Do you stick with that thesis? Right? Now in this moment, absolutely, I think the trends that I was talking about in that threat are going to persist for at least a

couple of years. LP capital pulling back, a fewer adventure dollars going out. I've heard some things out in the marketplace, and my question, she is, what do these startups do then if they face a mass extinction event. I've heard, for example, some going to their bankers and saying, get someone to buy me because I can't raise funds. My valuation has come down. Is that what's happening right now? I think a lot of startups in the past couple of years that were kind of marginal got funded and

that was an easy money environment. That change, and so we're trying to get out there and tell founders the world has changed, be conservative with your cash. Raise sooner, and you're absolutely right, there's gonna be a lot more M and A as the valuations on these startups come down. The public markets, buyers, the pe buyers are taking notice. Okay, raise sooner in this current environment, Tom, what does that look like? What sort of foundations can you hope for?

What are you being pegged to? Is it profitabilities at revenue it's a good question. It depends on the given startup, but I think as a rule of thumbs, startups go into the red zone on how much cash they have left when they've got about twelve months of cash. So you should be raising before then, ideally, and certainly have your round close by, say six or seven months of cash left at the latest um. And in terms of valuations, listen, the public markets have reset to a place that we

think we view as healthy. It was unhealthy. We had public private companies going fifty a hundred times revenue. Those days are gone, and now if you look at the public markets growth, adjust those and that's a good benchmark for startups. Tom I VP has more than forty years in this game, and you stick around for forty years by being sort of collaborative, by working well with other

players in the space as well. I'm interested in your perspective of what it's like right now when people are coming to you for a check, and how you're treating the earlier investors. I'm hearing time and time again that some of the first checks that are being written and then when you go to the second round, they're they're losing a lot of their power those first early money in their being diluted enormously if they haven't got the money to be able to put in at the same

time as your second round or third round. How are you seeing that evolve. Who's losing out who's winning here? Tom, It's a great question. Our style of investing, we tend to invest in the things that are growing the fastest, and we try and partner with those early stage investors. But I think the early stage investors are paying attention to the markets. They have portfolio companies that are later stage that are about to go public or maybe went public.

So I think we're generally on the same page. Where it gets tricky, of course, is when startups have to raise a new round below the valuation of their last round. That's called a down round, and that's where incentives can diverge from early investors and late investors. We haven't done one of those down rounds because we're really focused on the companies that are growing, But I think we're going to have to grapple with that here in the next

couple of years as well. The whole industry. There's those that delayed funding from last year. I'm hearing that in some cases Series B investors want to see evidence of profit and then you have structured deal. You have a choice, do a structured deal and avoid a downround or do a down round. How do you handle all of those situations? Yeah,

and to be clear, we're not looking for profitability. We want companies to be efficient but also grow and so for us we do mostly Series B and C investing, and we expect companies to be taking pretty significant losses. But what we're focused on is the unit economics. And so what we tell companies is get those unit economics right, and if they get the unit economics right, we can evaluate whether we want to fund them. Tom always such great analysis. Thank you for bringing that Twitter storm onto

the real life of television with us. Tom Lavero, We thank you, my VP general partner, stay well. Meanwhile, Amazon squeezing more money from its own two million small businesses

at sell products on its online marketplace. Now for the first time, Amazon's average cut of each sale surpassed fifty two that's going to a study one marketplace Pulse, which sumples sell the transactions going back to and with online shopping not as strong after pandemic era lockdowns ended, many sellers are now struggling to make money, prompting some to handle shipping themselves and to spend less to advertise on Amazon sites. Plus matters. Chief business officer Marmy Levine stepping

down after more than twelve years with the company. Metro announced that earlier today. Levine has held several possessions at Meta, including head of Global Policy, chief operating officer over at Instagram. Levine will leave her post later this month and depart the company this summer. Her exit, of course, comes at

a time of transition. Let's called it for Meta, which announced in November that it would be cutting more than eleven thousand jobs in the first major workforce production Twilio, it's the latest tech company to slash jobs and sing it again. The software maker is saying it will cut about sevent of workers, just months after a previous major round of layoffs. Now the CEO also is saying they're planning to reduce office space and pair back benefits as

part of the focus on profitability. Here for more is Bloomberg's Roodie Ford and it is notable that they've had to come back and do a second call here. Yeah, this is frightening if you're a tack worker, right, because I think most of us assume that if you get a major layoff as they had was about eleven back in September, you think, if you made it, I'm cool. But no, I mean this show is that if market conditions continue to worse and companies will make additional cuts.

Today this brings it to a total of about twenty six percent of the company, which by my math, I mean, know if I'm wrong, anybody watch him, but I think that is larger than any other large, publicly traded tech company. Yeah, it is an interesting beast, isn't it? Eleven billion dollar market cap even with the cuts head count at sixty six thousand. What I thought was so interesting as well is that they have a found a CEO, Jeff Lawson, and he's addressing his own compensation. What do we learn

about the cutbacks he's making to his own compensation. Yeah, so they didn't make a huge deal of it, but he cut his compensation, and many of us are tempered to say, oh, understanding, ceo. But you gotta remember that's a mounch to about point four percent of the total compensation, right,

I mean, this is not a huge reduction. Um, this is he's still making Uh well, we don't know does new com packages, but compared to one it's about point four percent and he made about fourteen point five million. So we're seeing a lot of CEOs take cuts and compensation. But you've got to remember when it comes to executives, it's not in the base salary, it's in the stock options. I mean, we therefore wonder what several looks like, what benefits and how they support the work, is that they

do have to let go a second time. It seems as though a lot of tech companies have tried to be helpful in that way. Ultimately they'll give the read across for us, Bertie, is this is twally different? Is it more exposed than others or could this be a domino? Twilio has some uniquely unique troubles here. For example, they're unprofitable. I mean we both know that unprofitable tech has been

battered in the current market. Announcer and I think they lost of market value in two But I think, no matter what company you are, if you're seeing this at a second round of layoffs is possible. That's a frightening thing across the market, no question, Hey, Bertie, as you look across the companies that you cover, what what is the kind of commonality between them? Is this it? The

layoffs are due for this year? Are we expecting more? Well, they're a handful of large companies that happened on layoffs. A lot of people have spectleing why Apple hasn't done them, Oracle hasn't done them. UM, I would say that we are not done. We don't know that, but we see reports almost every single day of this person in the company's anxious more layoffs are coming. So I think it

is not put to bed. I think that people should continue to watch um and if market conditions continue to worsen, no one knows, right Bloom Doug's Brady for great reporting, Thank you very much. A crackdown on crypto keeps coming. This time authorities are taking on two pretty key pillars of the ecosystem. Number one, stable coins being most traded crypto tokens out there, and to finance the world's biggest exchange.

Now on this occasion, the New York Finance Regulator wants to stop to the issuance of b u s D that is the third biggest stable coin out there, and also a binance related coin basically is actually issued via US regulated entity called paxos. There's about sixteen billion dollars of them out in circulation. Stable coins keep their value

pegged to another asset, often one US dollar. They're about a hundred thirty billion dollars or stable coins out there, and they're often used as a way of providing you stability. Basically a non volatile crypto asset that often used for parking your funds in between trades. They're kind of like an oil that helps grease the cogs of trading in crypto. Basically, it acts as liquidity. BUSD is particularly important to Binance because it gets US investors an ability to access its

exchange no wonder therefore, investors got worried. You saw Busd fall off of its one dollar pegg. You also saw other Binance tokens like the Binance coin for and in fact, a lot of other crypto assets and crypto related stocks fell hard. Today. Overall, you're seeing nactually US regulators getting pretty busy this year. You've had fines handed out some big exchanges like Cracking, like coin based. You've had Gemini and Genesis, other names will know in this space that

are under investigation all of this as well. Regulators want to get on top of the crypto ecosystem and make sure it's being analyzed. So unless as now are bracing the SERVI scrutiny. So that's so we sound let's dig deeper, put in Mootionari Bassett is here for more and the pack SAS decision tell us the backstory also around where pack SASS is being eyed. That because it's not just the New York regulator but some bigger ones, we understand to other reporting and there are a few different issues

at play here. Let's talk first about the stable coin issue, because you had mentioned here this is one of the largest stable coin it's the third largest in circulation, sixteen billion dollars in circulation. And again it has to relate to binance itself. But again the stable coin industry is provid adds a lot of liquidity to the overall crypto ecosystem, so to the extent that in the past several months we saw lending attacked. Now we're seeing a source of

liquidity in the crypto ecosystem severely attacked. But remember this is not about PASOS, a US regulated New York A Department of Financial Services regulated entity. It's about the relationship between paxos and Binance. So if you look at the Department of Financial Services statement on this, they note they say it's important to note that paxos and b USD was authorized to be issued on the ethery and blockchain, but was not authorized by the Department of Financial Services.

Was the binance peg. It's a form of be token if you well, it's a wrapped version that relies on the stable coin as collateral. Remember we had Emily noel Over at Bloomberg also reporting that Circle has also, separately, according to people familiar with the matter, raised concerns about binances relationship with the stable coin ecosystem. So this is

really one shoot to drop in a larger story. There's a distinction to be made between this and the staking issue that you that we raise against in our in our interview last week, which seems a long time ago. Now what is it? Yeah, the staking issue. Remember it also applies to the Ethereum network if you will as well,

because it's moved to proof of steak. But remember, at the end of the day, the SEC is looking for the ways that the crypto ecosystem falls under investor protection laws that exist, so importantly when we're looking at a separate issue as it pertains to Paxos, we're looking at this issue where that they could be facing compressible lawsuit

from the SEC for violating potential investor protection laws. Now we have not seen any SEC complaints to that effect, but we have seen PASOS issue the statement saying that they categorically disagree with the SEC staff that these would fall under federal securities law and said unequivocentally there are no other allegations. So you see two different regulators extending their authority over the crypto ecosystem, and two very different ways.

The only thing that the Paxo situation has in common with what you saw with the Staking issue is the SEC putting more under their wing in crypto as it pertains to the existing investor protection laws. Bloomberctionalibasse, trific reporting. Thank you. Let's continue the conversation and bringing Clara Medally, director of research at cryptocurrency market data provider Kaiko. Clara, when we think about the pack sovice issue, you believe that there will be a pretty profound impact on stable

coins broadly. What will that impact be? Well, I think one thing that's interesting about the BUSD case is that today bust is mostly just used on Binance and on Binance smart chain, which is the blockchain operated by the exchange. BUSD doesn't really have much use on other cryptocurrency exchanges. So that's why this regulatory action was very much targeted Binance and not necessarily stable coins as a whole, because

Paxos was the one to issue BUSD. However, I don't think this makes other stable coin issues issuers immune, specifically U s t C and U S t T, although it will be very difficult to regulate tether Um simply because the largest stable coin is not actually domicile in the United States. That was a part of the conversation, right Binance positioning b U s D is is a strong competitor to tether their market shares have changed proportionately

over the last few years. Where does that leave us in the relationship between b U s D and tether So this morning we looked at on Binance and we found that of total trade volume on Binance is actually denominated in in bus D. This is up from t at the start of the year, and I think Binance has made a huge marketing push to actually get more users of bus d, So it seems that they were very much not expecting this move, this regulatory enforcement action.

UM and Binance is actually incentivized to have their own stable coin because stable coins are very useful within defy ecosystems. And what I mean by this is binance smart chain and any type of decentralized protocol that is part of the Binance ecosystem. So now that they don't have this lever of growth, essentially we're now left with Tether. Tether today accounts for the vast majority of all trading activity in crypto, so busd actually was a nice counterweight to

Tether's influence UM. As we've seen in crypto, it's never good to have UM all all risk concentrated in a single centralized entity. But I'm afraid that with Tether we sort of have this. Now. Tether can't be regulated in the US because it's not domiciled here. Now finance was using pack sauce that was regulated in the US. Could they issue have a different issue for a bus D somewhere else so that they can ensure they still have a stable coin, but it's not under the legal oversight

of the United States. Yeah, theoretically yes. And I think that's the biggest critique with this type of enforcement action is that it's not getting to the root of the problem, and rather what you would see is actually a type of regulatory arbor charge. That's what we see with all of the exchanges that don't have their headquarters in the United States. Is there simply finding jurisdictions where they can

operate and do what they want. Is that going to be in overall global means of regulating in the near future. As anyone talking with other countries and we we've got any sort of clout other than the SEC, that's a good question. I know that in Europe they they've taken a much broader approach to regulation and actually taken the path of issuing guidance rather than enforcement actions. And so we can already see that there's a large difference across regions.

But I think for now it's going to be very difficult to get a global approach because there will always be jurisdictions that are trying to attract business first um and that always comes with crypto actors that are sort

of looking for the friendliest jurisdictions. We were talking with Snali a few moments ago about the distinction between what we're seeing finance paxos and what we saw last week from the SEC and cracking, And in our conversation with Gary Glensler, what's your read on that specific situation with the SEC basically cracking down on unlicensed security offerings. I think that krack in so cracking had one of the largest centralized staking providers, but it was very different from

what we saw on coin base. But that doesn't mean that coin bas is not immune from a regulatory action against their staking service. But there were key differences and like sort of the nitty gritty of how each one was run, and I think that's what attracted the SEC to first go after crackings. UM. I also think coin bas is likely to put up a fight. They have a lot more to lose in this case because they've actually successfully diversified their revenue into the staking business over

the past year. UM And I think one key thing I want to emphasize is that staking is not like the returns on on your assets that you got with the centralized lenders such as Celsius. It's a lot different. Staking is something fundamental to blockchain technology and specifically the Ethereum blockchain, and so it's actually benefiting most people that

are staking. There's no losers to staking today. Um when you're out there having conversations with players inside the world of crypto and those that are sort of interested by standers, and then those that are regulating. Ultimately, the calling card of many a company, particularly the US, has been we want regulation. Do they like this sort of regulation that they're currently saying, Well, this is regulation by enforcement. I don't think anyone really likes regulation by enforcement. But that

doesn't mean that the industry doesn't like regulation. In fact, after FTX, everyone's expecting this. In fact, it's much needed for any centralized service provider. We're seeing after the Celsius the ft X collapse is that you can't really operate with some degree of regulation or transparency, and it's more the enforcement actions that are catching the industry off guard. Clara,

thank you so much. I will i'll dare anyone and certainly can never dare myself to be as lucid and as I take it as you are am local time for you, so staying up late in Paris, I know crypto never sleeps. Mcclara medally come back soon, we hope. Director of research at KO Yeah, a terrific interview coming up. It's the first time of vehicle designed without human controls has carried passengers on a public road. Will have more on that story next And before we had to break carriage.

You want to take a look at Palenteer. Really interesting the shares surging in after hours for Palenteer. The company recording its first ever quarterly profit in the final three months to get this caroline one cent per share on a gap basis, and it's saying that this year four year twenty three will be its first profitable year. But the market likes it. We're up sixt in after hours.

This is Bloomberg Zooks, the self driving startup owned by Amazon, carried passengers in its fully autonomous vehicle on public roads for the first time last week. The electric vehicle, which does not have a steering wheel, ran a marble long route carrying staff staff well kind of between zoos is two main buildings in Foster City, California. The firm will now operate a shuttle for employees on the same trip while it seeks additional clearances to expand that service to

the public. Let's bring in the company CEO I H Evans, and I I think I'm right and saying you were along for that maiden voyage on a very small stretch of road. I know that you're always very modest about what these kind of things mean, but how close does this bring you to making this a commercial service? First of all, thank you for having me. And look, yeah, modesty is important, being humble is important. But this is a big moment. I'm not going to a downplay it.

I was along for the ride. This is really the beginning of that foundation that from here we add additional operational design domains, more testing, extend our permit to carrying the public, and then on to our first a customer. How much does it matter that you beat crews General Motors is crews to carrying passengers on a public road in a purpose built autonomous vehicle. So, ed, I think

you know me. Well, um, there's a reason I call crews and others fellow travelers as well as competitors, and so we're in a race with the business and creating it. It does feel good though it's been nine years working on this product and getting it out there, and so it does feel good. But this is about zoos and focusing on going to a market. Okay, so take us there going to market. What sort of timeline are we looking at for a paying customer? So first thing is

carrying our our employees. They will teach us a lot about the service. Anytime you carry hundreds and you know a couple of thousand people, you learn a lot about the service. We're also seeing what's going on out there. So look, we're going to continue testing. We're going to continue expanding the operational design domain. We're already breaking on the first I can tell you that thirty five miles an hour feels really great. I can tell you that

the vehicle handle some really interesting scenarios flawlessly. And so it's about making sure we're already and we've said we're going to go to Las Vegas, We're going to San Francisco and continue from there. Oh, come to New York. Meanwhile, I mean the traffic is terrible, unfortunately, A sure, but I'm not afraid of the traffic in New York. But you know, there's nothing called snow. Yea, that's what. We

haven't had any yet. We haven't had any snow. I don't know what's happening with global warming, but it still knows snow in New York and people are worried I should but talk to me about you said, Look, nine years in the making, you've been in the business in February, how many of you actually manufactured? Now, how many do you think you can run up too? Okay, So we've manufactured like in you know, tents. Basically we're building more

as we speak. As far manufacturing, we have a manufacturing facility were in in California right by our headquarters, where we have enough to cover several cities. I Shay, as you know, I've been in that factory with you. I've seen how you make them in a sort of modular package Lego type way. When you came in in fabry tween, I was sort of Caribo line about this earlier. Your principal job was to secure this company's financial future, and

you did it. Amazon bought Zooks. What is Zooks is access to capital like and the parent Amazon had to make a lot of layoffs. Is Zooks having to cut back in a similar way. So, um, Look, the partnership with Amazon has been fantastic. Obviously, we understand that with the macroeconomic environment one needs to be prudent. We are sad that you know, folks are losing their jobs across the industry. It's a small type industry. We all know each other. Zooks has always been prudent. I have actually

an internal phrase that I an ashayism. We don't binge and we don't purge. We're very prudent. We are lucky and fortunate to be in a situations where we're still going to grow this year, but we will continue to be prudent. What is the next big milestone for Zooks? What do we hold you to account on m hmm, Well, getting to the point where we're carrying non Zooks employees. So first, all Zooks employees right now, not everybody can ride. Um by the spring, all Zooks employees will be able

to ride on a continuous basis. And then extending the permit to be able to carry external passengers, and then again that first playing customer. I've told you that that's my big, big personal milestone. You have told me that a number of times. Now will have you back when you achieve it. Zooks CEO Iishie Evans, thank you so much for joining us and bloom Lay Technology. Now staking

in the world of evs. Ford announced the plan to build an EVA battery plant in Michigan in partnership with China's see A t L, a deal that will create about jobs, but which comes at a time of growing tensions between the US and China. I caught up with Ford's vice president of EV Industrialization, Lisa Drake earlier today.

Have listened. You know, as part of that plan for eight percent, we've announced that will build two million units in and if you think about it, this LP battery plant which we have announced will build over four hundred thousand vehicle sets worth of batteries. That's about of that two million, And this battery plant will be be able to build one of the lowest cost types of batteries in the United States, especially when you take into account

production tax credit. So this is a key landmark project for US on our way to eight percent, Lisa, A key landmark. You've had an event there today. Did you invite President Biden to that event? Well, I think you'd have to uh to refer that question to the White House, but I can tell you we've certainly appreciated the White House in the administration and support on the project so far.

At least, so of course we know that the White House has at least been pushing pretty hard here to uh expand I guess the availability not only of course of the cars themselves, but the batteries another technology that we need to make those cars. But of course a lot of questions also about who we partner with. This deal with the Chinese company. I'm sure, as you know, whether it's fair or not, is going to raise a lot of questions here about what we're sharing with that

company with regards to our own homegrown technology. How do you address those criticisms? Well, I'd start with the fact that the l f P technology is very prevalent in the US already. It's in many of our consumer electronics devices. It's actually being imported today and some of our competitor evs, and so the technology exists in the US. This project is really meant to de risk that importation strategy by actually localizing it here, building the technology here in the

United States and in the state of Michigan. And we have the Ford industrial know how and the manufacturing capability that will we will bring to bear, and we're licensing the actual chemistry and the technology from c at L but most of the knowledge base will reside in Michigan

and in the United States. Just keep on coming these EV conversation for the vice president of EV Industrialization at least a Drake there with Romaine in at earlier Meanwhile, Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vina told Bloomberg that the Italian supercar manufacturer is fully on track to unveil its first fully electric vehicle, saying electrification is a new way to provide

customers with a unique driving experience. We had a clear planned We have a lot of competencies in the company to keep their little think it cass from more point of view, from my dynamic, from from performance, it's called the signed So we would the electric turn adding wouldn't be a unique ad void did it go viral and it's still viral today. Sunday super Bowl and Tech along with Rihanna a key player at this year's game, Apple been in big on course of Rihanna's halftime show, ed

I mean she dropped the mic. Extraordinary that she was able to announce pregnancy at the same time as performance. At the same time, it's basically getting on what looked like giant iPhones in the Sky. She did a little bit of product placement with a fency brand. There was a lot of product placement for a lot of other things throughout the course because we're all in it for the ads. Yeah, electric vehicles, we knew this was coming.

The out sean combustion engine vehicles in a ratio of three to one according to Bloomberg any f analysis of the ads at the halftime you had Will Ferrell with General Motors. It was it was cheeky, but we knew it was coming. And we'll see if there's a reaction in this marketplace. Crypto ad in sight, but there was actually I think Google had one for its phone work Day had quite a fun one coming back with what was one of the key signers and kiss like across

the board. I always love the ads As a Brit I'm in it for the halftime. I'm in it for the adverts. Don't use the term rock star unless you're a rock star. Absolutely brilliant. I know you enjoyed it. I'm sure we all did so. Joyous viral moment. We're going to be consuming these videos for years to come. Meanwhile, that does it for this edition of Bloomberg Technology. Tune back in tomorrow C three AI, the CEO Tom Siebel is going to be joining us live five pm New

York time, t PM San Francisco. Don't forget a lot to recap on the podcast apples, Spotify, I Heart, wherever you get your podcasts. For today's episode, This is Bloomberg.