From the heart of where innovation, money and power Collie in Silicon Valley and beyond. This is Bloomberg Technology with Emily Jay I'm Emily Changes San Francisco and this is Bloomberg Technology. Coming up in the next hour. How a Delaware court could force Musque to seal the deal. From daily fines to allowing Twitter to seize his assets, we will talk about all the ways Musk could be held to his word if he loses what is shaping up
to be an epic legal battle. Plus, Pinceresque gets a big boost from Elliott Management after the activist investor takes a nine percent stake in the company. Shares jumping after hours, and Amazon how to surprisingly strong friend day sales jump with an eight percent from last year and even help rivals get a little more online traffic. Will break down
all the data. All that in a moment. But first, Elon Musk, known for his delight in defying authorities, ordered to complete his forty four billion dollar purchase of Twitter, and he refuses. How could a Delaware court force his hand. That's something that we've been exploring. I want to bring in Bloomber's Kurt Wagner now to discuss Kurt. If you go through a Twitter's complaint, they come out swinging they want to do this forty four billion dollar deal. This
is not posturing or ceremony. They want their forty four billion. Can apport really force Elon Musk to pay up? It sounds like the answers yes. And thankfully our colleagues, who you know cover the cord are are much closer to this, and they had a story today that said there's a few things they could do. They could uh slap a big fine on Elon Musk could right, so the richest, even the richest man in the world might not want
to pay a fine every single day. They could seize his assets was another thing, and obviously that would include Tesla stock um. So I think those are the main probably motivators if you will to do a deal like this, on top of of course actually paying the money, that he also could allow Twitter to seize his assets, which I found interesting. I'm not sure if Twitter would want
to seize his assets at this point. They're trying to make him seize their assets, right, But I find this whole thing, you know, to be incredibly interesting and complicated because think about this, Emily for sixty pages, Twitter was saying, here's a guy who's acting in bad faith. Here is someone who is who's lying, who's misrepresenting, and now we want him to own the company and be everybody's boss. Right.
It's it's a very complicated issue. We pulled some quotes from those sixty pages, and it's actually kind of a riveting read written in a more conversational complaint to be here's one Musk apparently believes that he, unlike every other party subject to Delaware contract law, is free to change his mind, trash the company, disrupt its operations, destroy shareholder value, and walk away. His exit ategy is a model of hypocrisy. And then there's this that he exhibited little interest in
understanding Twitter's process for estimating spam accounts. In a June thirtie conversation with Twitter CFO Net Siegel, he acknowledged he hadn't even read the detailed summary of twitter sampling process provided back in May. Siegel offered to spend time with Musk once again to review it. That meeting never happened despite Twitter's best efforts. What do you make of that? I mean, Twitter went out of its way to show and paint a picture of someone who has lost interest
in this deal. Right, Basically from about June twenty three when Bob Swan, the former i d M CEO who was leading the Musk deal team, he left. From then on through the fourth of July, the company basically said we had trouble getting in touch with him. We tried to have meetings, he wouldn't show up. When he did show up, he wasn't prepared. They're really trying to convey that Ellen really stepped back from this deal, and that's why it's fallen apart, not because of anything that Twitter did.
So here's the thing. Elon Musk doesn't shy away from a fight, and just even with major regulators, so we're not expecting him to just back down. No. And and you know, I've seen some people speculate, well, why don't they come to a settlement, Why doesn't Eilon pay half the price? And and everyone walks away. It's like, can you imagine Elon Musk voluntarily saying, here's twenty billion dollars, Sure, I'll be the loser in this situation. I just have
a tough time imagining that. So it does really feel like it's either going to be forty four billion or nothing. I know that sounds extreme, but it's just hard to imagine a middle ground right now. All right, well, certainly something we slash you will continue to follow, Thank you, Kurt Wagner. Meantime, payments company Stripe has told staffers the private market valuation of the company has dropped more than Stripe's new implied valuation is about seventy four billion dollars,
down from billion and its most recent fundraising. This as the stock prices of Stripes publicly traded Peers continue to plummet. Since the overturning of Roe versus Wade, an employee benefit package might be the only way women seeking abortions can even afford it. Tech giants have responded to the ruling by pledging their support and financial assistance. But how is this all playing out in the aftermath? Joining is now?
Kate Writer, CEO of Maven, a women's and family health clinic that partners with companies like Microsoft, Loreale, and A T and T. Kate, thank you so much for joining us. So look, in one ruling, the rules changed for women across the country. What's happened in the aftermath? What have you seen? You know? Um? We knew this was coming, uh,
you know, ever since XDA in the fall. I think a lot of people in the medical community, um, you know, we're predicting this, and I think what we've heard is we work with a lot of leading health plans and employers with for the ribbons and family health benefits from fertility and maternity, and a lot of them didn't know
what to kind of make of it. The second that the Supreme Court decision was kind of struck down and brought down even the most conservative clients that previously didn't want to take a position stood up and designed kind of employee benefit packages through mayven and other services to support travel across state lines, to support pregnancy options, counseling, and you know a lot of other things. So that was encouraging. So what kind of demand are you and
requests are you seeing from MAVEN members. Are you seeing a surge in requests for reproductive help? I think anxiety, our mental health is up, but I think it's not just MAYVEN members right now. We're also paying attention to maybe providers. So, you know, one of the things that we've been hearing is there's about of US counties don't have an OB G U, I N and a lot of those are in states where they're restricting abortion access. A lot of our clinicians are are are really concerned.
You know, we're hearing people of that are going to move and so that's going to create even more provider shortages. So you know, it's it's both the members but also the providers themselves. Hang on, did you just say of US counties don't have an O, B, G, Y N p US. Isn't that just a basic level of care for any kind of women's health needs? You know, I think one of the reasons I started maybe eight years ago,
if because women's health has always been underserved. A lot of these statistics kind of people didn't really pay as much attention to, but you know, technically are called matrinity care, desserts and um. And you know, I think the the a hog and the medical community is afraid that is going to be even more exacerbated um with you know, with this ruling. So here's the question. There are companies and and and startups like yours that are now potentially
serving women in states where abortion is illegal. How are you navigating that? Well? I think you know what we always think about is the well being of the members or providers or clients is always first and foremost. And we also, of course will always be in compliance with the laws, and so our legal team are the law that's still really uncertain is working over time. I'm to try to understand this, and so you know, we have
to obviously be in compliance. But um, but you know, the well being of a many of our members in those states is uh. You knows, as evidenced by a lot of you know, increase acts for support around emotional well being, around just the uncertainty of even bringing kids up in this world. You know, what what do you say? How do you explain what's going on? Um, you know,
we're seeing all in that on our platform. Meantime, you've got a number of companies that have come out and said we're going to cover travel benefits for employees who need to cross state lines to get an abortion. So, for example, Ubert, Lift, Door, Dash have said they would do this for their employees, But Bloomberg has a story out today saying, well, they're not doing this for their shoppers, or their drivers, or for all of the contractors on
their platform. What do you think the responsibility of these employers are well, I think that we're living in a world where as we see it, it's it's part of
by the employee benefits industry at central robust industry. As we see the less and less services kind of offered by the government companies you know, may even included UM, and a lot of our clients are stepping up to fill a lot of those gaps because at the end of the day, UM, you know, your people are everything when you're growing your business, and so not only are you helping your people, but you know, there is an economic argument for employer, you know, talent attraction and retention
and just kind of creating a good culture so that your you know, your people can be their most productive and their happiest at work. Meantime, there are some states I'm thinking right now about Kentucky that are considering laws that would define life right after fertilization, which would potentially put IVF and fertility treatments in danger. And you're seeing patients, we're hearing that, you're seeing some patients try to move their embryos for example, out of those states. Are you
seeing this? Yes, UM, we do supports the financials around moving the embryos across state lines through you know, our our maybe and wall of benefit. But you know, I think that what we hear of the fertility and community is that that there is still so much uncertainty UM, and so a lot of people just you know, don't know what's going on and are are taking via the embryo. UM.
You know, transfer is precaution. But you know, I will say that hopefully UM that you know, as a lot of this data comes out where this is bad for business and a lot of these states, it's bad for people, it's bad for families, it's bad for women. That UM that that hopefully some of these more extreme bills that are in the state sentence will not get past one of your biggest fears though, I mean, there are so
many cascading issues here. What do you worry about the most? Yeah, I mean, listen, I think that the saddest thing about this is that this just disproportionately affects um you know, already vulnerable patients, right, so lower income women, black women. There's already a maternal health crisis in this country. When you look at even the data coming out of a lot of the states with these trigger laws that are
going to have more restrict of abortion access. The maternal mortality rate is two times that of other states, and so you know already when we are the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world, and we're restricting access even more in in women's health where abortion about one out of four women get abortion in their lifetime. It's a very common procedure and part of standard healthcare in
women's health. That this is just you know, this is going to make our our our our outcomes even worse. It's gonna hurt women, it's gonna hurt families. And I hope that you know that we that quickly states will will get on the right side of this and recognize that this is just healthcare. All right, Kate Writer, CEO of Maven Clinic. Appreciate you sharing your perspective here today for having me all right. Coming up, Amazon pushing to
end to antitrust investigations by the European Union. Could this be a blueprint for big tech compromises around the world. We'll discuss this is Bloomberg Pinters shares jump more than in late trading after Dow Jones reported activist investor Elliott Management has taken a nine percent stick in the company our very own Alex Brenka joins us now to discuss. So why are shares jumping on this news? Yeah, shares are probably jumping on this news because investors are looking
for something to happen at pinterest. Pinterests has had an interesting go of it the last couple of years. Both financially, they're seeing strong at sales um but they're seeing users fall off to the tune of nine percent decline in monthly active users in the last quarter. So this is a company that's kind of been around for a while. There's been a lot of questions as to where does growth come next. You'll recall not too long ago there
were those talks with PayPal for a potential deal. The company has been trying to kind of expand into some more arenas, like into et commerce UM. But between that and UM the longtime CEO stepping back from that role, Uh, it seems like Elliott um sees an opportunity to kind of shake some things up and maybe push for some changes that it's looking for at this business. Interesting. Yeah, huge Shacob from with Ben Silverman leaving after all those years.
Bill Ready, long time former payments executive, who you know worked at brain Tree, which got bought by PayPal um for for many many years taking over. Do we know yet what Bill Ready's plans are. We don't know yet. But this is a guy who, as you mentioned, comes from Google, comes from the ad side, So this is a guy who has spent a lot of his time figuring out how to make money online. So that would be the era that I would expect this company just
continue to focus on. It's also, frankly, again the area that we've seen some pressure on this company and some questions on this company from the analyst and investor commun unity up until now. So, um, whether or not Elliott is on the same kind of brain length as Bill Ready as he takes the helm at Pinterest, I guess
this is a place we will have to see. Um. But if I were looking at his background and saying, hey, what's the most kind of opportune place for him to lean in, it is to try to counteract that user decline with juicing up revenue even more than we saw in the eight percent increase that we saw in the past quarter. All Right, Alex Sparenka, thank you for giving
us that context from l A. Appreciate it. Meantime, Amazon is a step closer to settling to EU antitrust investigations concerning whether the company uses sales data of its own third party sellers to unfairly favor its own products. The European Commission is now asking Amazon's competitors for feedback on a proposed settlement. Amazon says it's engaging constructively. Bloomberg's mat Day covers all things Amazon and joins us. Now, So how big are the compromises that am Amazon is actually
proposing here, Matt, I think they're meaningful. One of the things that opposing is offering kind of a second option to buy a product, you know, not just what am unrecommends, which the vast majority of people just clicked through, but offering a second tier. But I think if you win inside a Seattle and Amazon's office today, they'd say they're fine with this. This doesn't dismantle their marketplace. They can
kind of keep doing business as usual. They just have to promise they're not gonna not gonna break the rules off for sellers another option to get seen. Obviously big tech is facing antitrust regulatory scrutiny around the world. Is what Amazon is doing here potentially a harbinger of compromises to come from others. It's certainly the compromise they'd like
to see. They like this a whole lot more than they would like, UM the antitrust bills being kicked around and in the US Congress, which strike them as much more structural risk for them. They don't want to have to do anything that kind of changes how they run their marketplace UM and their retail websites at its core. And I think this EU think kind of threads that needles for them. Meantime, you're also reporting today that Union Nation efforts at Amazon warehouses in New York are kind
of losing momentum. This after a major victory at least one warehouse in New York. What's happening. Yes, So, the Amazon Labor Union and Upstart Union in Staten Island, they were on top of the world if you go back to April when they won and they got the rights to bargain for workers at one facility. You know, since then, they've lost their second election and they've paused efforts to organize two more places. UM. So a lot of what
they're doing these days is really playing defense. They're trying to kind of hold onto their win in labor board hearings. Amazon it's challenged that first result. So basically, this this outfit that you look like they could do no wrong a few months ago, and it's it's kind of gotten to the hard part of that to put the work in to defend their early games. Chris Mall's who we just saw popping some champagne there, who's been leading this effort.
He also testified, uh at peerings where Amazon has been protesting the win. What happened there? Yeah, he came on. He testifying from a hotel room. He's kind of on a permanent were of other labor groups and and speaking engagements. Amazon works real hard to kind of you know, peg him as as a rule breaker, saying he was on company property and trespassing and all these things, and Smalls kind of it is his best efforts to keep that
at arm's length. It's been a really contentious process so far, a lot of kind of snipping back and forth from the union's lawyers and Amazons what about unionization? Elsewhere? Are we seeing any you know, efforts gaining momentum? There are certainly glimmers. Just in the last couple of weeks, a couple of outfits, one and Upstate New York and one in Kentucky have said they're going to affiliate with the Amazon Labor Union. Kind of remains to be seeing how
far that's gonna go. And there's there's definitely popping up in other places in the country. North Carolina. We've heard about a new effort in the last few weeks. And there's still that race that is too close to call um that an Amazon Union drive in best Mer, Alabama. So definitely still something taking up a lot of tea, sex time and cel Alright, Bloomberg's Matt Day, thanks much
well and other Amazon news. It is official. Jeff Bezos has tweeted the trailer for Amazon's long anticipated Lord of the Ring series coming September. Prime Video will release the drama to subscribers in more than two countries and territories worldwide. The streaming service will upload weekly episodes throughout the season. We will see if it lives up to the hype. Wellcome back to Bloomer Technology and Emily Chang in San Francisco.
I want to get back to the markets and shares of Chinese tech companies dropped after a flood of news, leaving them poise for their steepest weekly losses since March this after report Ali Baba is facing an inquiry in China and connection with a data theft and renewed regulatory concerns. Joining us now a young general partner at Race Capitals.
So what's your take on this kind of fresh round of Chinese regulatory scrutiny on big tech giants which has been ebbing and flowing for the last several years now.
I think all tech companies and founder has been basically walking on eggshells, and there's a lot of different changes of there's different security law, privacy regulatory it's just been very, very tough, um, not just for the Ali Baba and tens and of the world, but also for earlier stage many of them been waiting to get listed in the US.
But all this a lot of the companies that I'm aware of either wanted to go through respect the Chinese company now is changing the course, thinking about Hong Kong, thinking about Shanghai. So it's been really really tough for the tech industry in China. So there are two narratives going on here. One is that you know, China tech is so competitive could supersede the United States. And the other is that the Chinese regulatory crackdown could destroy some
of these Chinese tech companies, which is true. Well, I think that first and foremost, some of the biggest Chinese company, including Ali Baba, like most of their business actually are not even in the US. Many of my friends don't even know what we chat is or Ali pays is all about. So I would say, you know, the big tech giants, the core business still in mainland China is absolutely a parallel universe in terms of tech. Having said that, I think every single new companies are thinking this is
not going overseas. This is about global markets. Similar to buy dance. From day one, they wanted to be international, but the international Chinese version of TikTok is doyene um is a completely different way of operating in terms of product. So a lot of the Chinese company want to do respect international market, comply with international law, but they definitely
have the ambition to be global companies from day one. Well, that brings me to the TikTok that we in the United States now, which is constantly brought up, you know, as you know, doing things better than Facebook and Google and you know all of these US based tech companies, what do you think, Um, there's no better or worse. And obviously in China, UM there's not much of a data privacy as such, so they for in terms of AI, definitely. I think the ability of machine learning in China is insane.
And this is not just for social network in fact, UM for electronic vehicle there's just crazy growth. UM. I saw the news that br D B I D actually now in terms of number of ev s has more than Tesla in some sense. So UM, there's no competition. Just the way you do machine learning in English versus Chinese is quite different. So I don't think it's a it's a it's not a win lose situation. Is really just a parallel universe. In terms of the Internet. What
about Web three, What who's winning? Um, it's definitely not in China. UM there's no no n f T, no bitcoin mining, no crypto trading. UM. It cannot be offered to Chinese citizens. So a lot of many many of my friends in China who is in with three have moved to countries like Singapore or the U a E. Those are some of the hot spot UM. And I think for racing in China could get left behind in
some sense. I think in Risk Capital we certainly meet a lot of founders UM that left China but now in Singapore, so they're single boring company UM, but they want to continue to the company like stepand which fill on salona Um. Many of these changes from the buying US. That's in some sense why f t X have moved from Hong Kong to the Bahamas for similar reason. What
do you make of the crypto volatility right now? We just had a headline cross that coin base is now dropping out of the top ten exchanges in the world by value, and if you look at like the top ten in the world, many of them actually originally native from from China. Regardless the buying US will be okay, Yes, of course f t X, and I think coin bays from to start with less f t X actually started
in Hong Kong. The world in terms of trading users and volume outside the US is actually much larger than the US, so it's not surprising coin Base sooner or later we'll sort of drop below. But having said that top five in terms a number of users, coin basest definitely still top three, but just just in general I saw before I came over. I think the total come by market A trading volume is now back to over UM, so it's not as bad as thirty days ago UM.
But still I think, you know, the rest of the world's, particular in Asia, is now catching up, like beyond just a U S trading volume. Right the question is how long does the winter last? Who knows? All? Right? Edith Young raised capital. Great to have you here and see you in person. Thank you Edith for stopping by. Alright, coming out. Policymakers are rethinking crypto energy rules this amid record high temperatures in Europe and heat waves across the
United States. Our crypto report is coming up to school work. Bitcoin miners in Texas are taking the week off to keep the state's energy grid intact. Right now, Western Europe is undergoing record high temperatures, and most of the US, particularly the South, is preparing for a triple digit heat wave this weekend. Hot weather, the war in Ukraine, supply chain bottlenecks are sending energy costs higher, and that's beginning to impact bitcoin mining. Bloomberg Shonali Bosti joins US now
from New York. How exactly shanally. Is this energy crunch impacting them, Yeah, it's very simple. If they turn off the machines, it's impacting their profit profitability. And remember this is already in a tough year for bitcoin in general, so you have bitcoin related stocks taking a hit just due to the price volatility. Some of them are bouncing back.
As you can see though, Ryant Blockchain is one of those companies very highly tied to mining, and the drop is steeper than you see it a lot of other companies, more than seventies six per cent of a drop there just this year alone, and if you look at Core Scientific, the drop is even bigger. It's a six percent for the year. Just to give you a sense of how big the mining load in Texas is. Over one percent of the total grid capacity being pushed back, represents all
of the industrial scale bitcoin mining. It represents a significant amount of a household worth of energy usage. So it's a very significant movie you've seen here, as we've seen a number of companies moved to Texas to really take advantage of that energy system of the power grid over there, and you are now seeing what that strength can look like when critical infrastructure only comes under pressure all right, so now I stay with us. I want to bring
in Kathleen Brightman. She is the co founder of the blockchain platform Tazos. And Kathleen, I'm so curious how this is playing out from your perspective. You're seeing these minors shutting down their operations in Texas. You know, what does this what does this look like from inside the industry? Well? Um, I think the issue of mining in Texas has been
kind of fraught in both ways. As you might remember. Unfortunately, there are a number of people who um nearly frost to death in Texas earlier this year because of similar issues with their energy grid. And I guess the Quinn Myers and promoters who tout the you know, greatness of of proof of work tend to argue that this is like a battery UM, and it's really, you know, not the case. Like a one way battery is not a
battery UM. And a lot of the strength that has been argued about Bitcoin's proof of work UM is that it's sort of this source that can be tapped into, but in fact it's just you know, kind of a massive suck on on the grid. How do you see this playing out? I mean, I wonder if there's an upside forcing minors just to think about how to make the process more sustainable. Well Um, I co founded a
cryptocurracy called teas, which is proof of stake. Most cryptocurrencies that have launched in the last few years used proof of steak, mostly because it's the best technology in class UM. A lot of the arguments about Bitcoin and its energy uses are mostly because it's kind of like this weird bestigial organ that has been attached to Bitcoin that has a sort of reverence for no good reason um from the people who usually own too much Bitcoin to think
about it otherwise. It's interesting because you see the proof of state concept as it pertains to the ethereum merge as well, and I'm wondering some of the complications around that. How does that complicate this kind of struggle between proof of state versus proof of work and the reliance on
energy as it pertains to it. Well, Um, if you look back at the original working materials for the Etherory Foundations fundraiser, and she has a four team they advertise themselves as imminently transitioning to proof of stake UM, so they've really been talking out of both sides of the mouth of the last few years um when they when they discussed their eminent transition and the virtues and benefits
of of you know, versus proof of worth um. What's interesting actually is ties into sort of the recent market crash in cryptocurrencies, is that there's been this sort of token called state ethereum that's run for the last year. It's from the Ethereum Foundation on what's called a beacon chain, and this is meant to be some sort of test for proofuge stake um. So you can convert your ethereum too if you're in on this chain the state ethereum,
but all the other way around. So in theory it kind of had this ciplationary reward, and so people would borrow ethereum um and by state ethereum uh, and that took a lot of the theory amount of circulation, which arguably increase the price or at least had some sort
of positive effect on the price um. But in reality it's really no different than something like hex, which is which is kind of a Ponzi scheme that's crashed in the last few weeks, which is just a token that basically pays you for freising at the longer you've reason the where you receive so and so earth. But it's just it's all eflation. That's a really big statement, actually, Kathleen, I mean, how do you think about that inflation within ethereum?
And then also kind of the distortion and prices you've seen when you think about what's happening with state ethereum and the broader ramifications that has for the system. Well, if you look at like the last few weeks, there have been a number of different system of crasies UM. We sort of have the cryptocurrency's own version of three hours.
Three hours capital is long term capital management basically, but with crypto UM, a lot of the reason that there's so much contagion in the cryptocurrency space and there's been a lot of I guess bad deliterious effects UM has been largely because they sort of saw things like state the THEORYUM as a sure bet. So it's not dissimilar from this, you know, smartest people in the room having models that are basically predicated no nonsense. You know, how
are you watching the market fall out? Obviously we saw the Celsius bankruptcy filing. We're seeing you know, the crypto winter get colder and colder. You know, what is your sort of prediction about how this continues to play out? Well, as your Bloomberg colleague Joe Wisenthal always says, it can
always go down by um. But you know, for those of us who've been in this industry for quite some time, it's you know, completely unsurprising that something like Celsius would go big grub because you know, economics does have laws that transcend you know the word blockchain. Uh, you know, contra popular belief by some people who monitors and stuff and analyze it. But I do think that, you know, there are some things that were predictable, there are some
things that were less predictable. For example, apparently three Hours Capital made a number of equity investments, and as part of there, um I guess equity investments, they would often offer to manage the treasury for for for some cats. And so that's that's unexpectedly bad. Um, uniquely bad, I
would say, um. But yeah, I mean, I think you've just seen a lot of shakeout from things that just wouldn't have worked, and you really can't make a sustainable protocol or business based on the theory that number will always go up right, which was the most people's risk model going into this all right while we all love quoting Joe Wisenthal Tees US co founder Kathleen Brighten In
and our own Sonali Basic Thank you. This week was Prime Day, and Amazon says that overall savings for members topped to one point seven billion dollars, making it the biggest Prime Day to date. Amazon Prime Day is a two day shopping event here towards Amazon Prime subscribers, where the company and many of its resellers give some of the best discounts of the year on many of their
most popular products. Amazon says that over a hundred thousand items were bought per minute during the two day event, topping three million items in total. The best sellers over the period were premium beauty products Rachel Ray kitchen accessories, car wash accessories, pet products like Greenings, Crest toothpaste and oral By Electric toothbrushes, clothing for kids, and items from Levi's air purifiers, kids lunch boxes, Shark vacuums, and Leandro
sets for the summer. Of course, sunglasses and swimsuits were also very popular for US tech fans. There were also some strong deals leading to a notable number of Apple Watch Series seven and Beats by Dre headphone purchases. This comes as Apple and its retail partners looked a clear inventory for three new Apple Watches coming this fall, and of course Apples Beats by Dre is always working on
new headphones and earbuds. For its part, Amazon also said its own Consume andmer Deck devices were strong sellers during the event. It particularly pointed out the fire TV Echo speakers with Alexa in blank home security devices as doing well. If you missed out on this one's Prime Day, there are early indicators that the company will hold the rare second Prime event this fall, so stay tuned for more details on that. I'm Mark German. This is power On.
Thank you, Mark. I want to stick with Amazon's Prime event and bringing Melissa Verdeck pack few president in a tenure Amazon a veteran, So Melissa, anecdotally, I feel like I got a few more things on Prime Day than usual. I don't know if that is an example of a broader trend. But how did it stack up for you? Yeah? Well, if you notice what he was just talking about in terms of what people are buying, it was different this year.
There is a bigger focus on household essentials and home Usually Prime Day is a big consumer electronics event, they take an item event, But this year I think that we're seeing a lot of inflationary impact where you know, food prices are over twelve percent versus the inflation average of nine percent, so people were coming in looking for deals. Deals were at least thirty percent off in the food space, and so top Items Day won where things like free
delay chips, Amazon Basic trash bags, Cascade dish pods. This is a different year for things like that, So I think that what we're seeing is just the different category shift of what people are actually buying this year. Why did it take so long for Amazon to get it right? I mean, I feel like we've talked about so many Prime Days over the years that we're underwhelming, you know. I think, um, honestly, Amazon did not lead as much with their electronic items or brand when they had heavily
steeply discounted products. Their products were um discounted up to forty eight percent off, so they definitely had a good year with their own private label products in the past. To me, I always thought in simpot I Robot twenty three and media na kits. Those were kind of the big products that they were always pushing. But this year
they did a couple of different things. One was they had better personalization widget, so when you logged into Amazon, you had more personalized UM items that were for you, so that might have been a way that you found things. They also had a better emphasis on influencer marketing UM. In my opinion, that had a hit in the miss. So the hit was they did a much better job of priming influencers off Amazon to drive travic to Amazon UM.
The miss that I saw this year that has just been a continuation of Amazon livestream, So that's kind of their QBC like influencers talking about products and UM. Some of the chatter that I've heard about is you know, people you know didn't really find it productive or engaging, although it was something Amazon called out today and their notes that they had a hundred million views of their live streams. So continues to be something that they focus
on UM. But you know, hopefully they will get a better for Prime Day B two coming in the fall. Let's talk about V two. What do you think they'll learn from this and what are you expecting this fall? You know, that's the beauty of the Amazon. It's this constant hotbed of tests and learns and so um, you know, this personalization, this influencer marketing, the ways that people are buying more products, they're going to learn from that and
they're going to focus on a YouTube. One of the other things I like about the Prime Day in October. They did this in twenty when they moved Prime Day during the pandemic from the summer to the fall, and they moved demand forward and that really spread out, you know, the demand during the whole Q four and the kind of set up, uh, you know, people buying things earlier in Q four. So it has a lot of benefits for Amazon. And something that we haven't talked about as
much is advertising on Amazon. I understand that that was a more interesting story this Prime Day around well every Prime Day, Um, people always spend more money. It was a little bit of a question because itation or raising costs with advertisers come in, but they absolutely did. We actually did a study a sample science a sample sizes some of our clients, and we saw that CPM increased thirty six to semi five percent above normal levels. But
also there were millions more impression volumes. That means it just so much traffic that they're able to take advantage of. Amazon also has this great metric for especially CpG UM companies called new to Brand that that metrics shows, you know, incremental people are coming in and buying their brand. And that was hundreds of basis points. So they don't maybe it's certain. Maybe it's not just that the deals were better, it's that the advertising was also more effective. Yeah, and
it was just a great opportunity. Amazon has a self serve ad platform, so they make it very easy for brands to come in and bid on their keywords on their competitors keywords. Um, so it's a very it's a great way for brands to be able to take advantage of the traffic and be able to drive people to their products. All well, adheres to the insta pot Eliza Bernic, Pact View President, thank you as always for joining us.
Well that doesn't For the sedition of Bloomberg Technology tomorrow, we're gonna be chatting with blockchain guru Anthony pomp Leiano about his employment training business, specifically for crypto. They just raised some new cash and don't forget to check out our podcast You can find it everywhere you get your podcasts, and of course, at bloomberg dot com. This is Bloomberg