Elon Musk's Twitter Deal in Jeopardy

at Sullen Valley. Of course, we will chat with event Bright chairman and co founder Kevin Hearts about the consumer demand of live events, as they've made a big return post pandemic. And we stay in sun Valley and chat with Major League Soccer Commissioner Don Gaba details about the new partnership between MLS and I'm g Arena to double

down on sports. Adding later this hour Johnny us now Billie bergs Ed Ludlow out there in some valley where, of course Elon Musk is meant to be landing soon, right exactly, And the key thrust of that Washington Post report is that Elon Musk's team working on this deal do not believe that the data Twitter is providing about the level of bots on the platform is verifiable. According to the Washington Post reporting that they've stopped engaging with

potential equity partners as part of the financing of the deal. Um, and this is you look at the after hours reaction we saw on Twitter stock down five or six percentage points. This does put the deal in serious doubt, with Elon Musk not yet here in some valley and us about the bots. I thought they just reiterated guidance about them.

I mean this. The timing of this is bizarre and spectacular, frankly, because earlier today Twitter executives briefed that and reiterated that less than five percent of users on the platform are bots. Twitter beliefs, according to these executives, that a third party cannot verify it because it's a mix of publicly and private data that Twitter holes as the operator of the platform, and as has been reported by multiple media outlets, they have been going above and beyond it seems to give

Elon Musk that extra data. Anyway, So if that Washington Post report is to be believed, um, it's going to make for an awkward situation here at the Allen and Co. Conference and an awkward situation end that could last year's right, because I mean, he can't just back out of a deal that he said he didn't need due diligence on anyway,

I think this is really interesting. You know, have been speaking to a lot of folks in the on the mountain bike trails here of some valley, and you know the idea that they put forward is that the reverse termination fee on this deal one billion dollars in either direction, is not straightforward. It's relatively codified what they agreed. The concern would be that Twitter would say, we'll hold on.

We're going to fight this in a legal battle. The other side of that argument is that could be a very long, drawn out, an expensive thing for Twitter to do, which you know, frankly doesn't have the most boastful or fantastic balance sheet or finances. Elon Musque has taken off, according to the jet tracker on Twitter. Sources here tell me that he was expected to come this change his arrival time multiple times. Parags All, the CEO of Twitter,

is here, and Ned Seagal, the CFO, is here. Let's see what happens, Kara, Let's see what happens plenty to come from our own end. Lud Alone, We're pleased to say we're going to be going back to Sun Valley an event. Bright chairman Kevin Harts in a moment. Meanwhile, I's get you up to speed with a verdict in for Remesh Sunny bel Wanni. You remember him, the former president of the ONUS and the ex boyfriend of one

Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of that business. He was found guilty of fraud for his role in the collapse of the nine billion dollar blood testing startup. Thursday's decision comes six months after Holmes was convicted of defrauding investors in the company. It's been six months. Bal Wanni faces as long as twenty years in prison on charges. Let's get

back out to Some Valley. The conference there in Idaho where many of the world's top business leaders are and d gathered to talk Dealsberg said, Ludlow is talking about them, about deals. We've got a special guest there, Yeah, I do. And you know, the conversation in and around Some Valley is is a big picture one about inflation, about recession, about private markets, public markets, startups, venture capitalists. So I'm delighted to be joined by Kevin Hart's of course event

Bright co founder and chairman. Now in the world of venture capital, general partner and co founder of a Star Capital. So given that spiel I just gave explain where we are in the world right now. But will you know, what one would say about an entrepreneur and a in an investor is that I'm not a macro person, but you know have unfortunately I'm all enough to have been through a few cycles, yes, of of ups and downs in in you know, I think we're really just in

the beginning act of of this UM process. I think we uh with with the FED stimulus and the action taken in March, we kind of delayed and pushed out UM and and then now amplified what's what's happening now and that's a very dire outlook on on the economy over the coming years. So let's pivot to your other role, your other life, chairman of event right, And there's there seems to be these two competing currents, right, and and some value kind of captures that we've come out of

a pandemic and now we're concerned about a recession. Right. But people finally for the first time in a long time of getting back together through your event bright lens, how do you see the world? Well, we had in Julia, the CEO, did a brilliant job of navigating us event right through the downturn. We had sold almost five billions and tickets. Uh. In in March, we had negative ticketvolume, meaning there are more refunds uh and Uh Julia really moved insanely quickly to UH to shore up the business

and and raise funding in the public markets. UH. So we feel we've kind of been through what's happened over the last six months back in in March of UH, and we're now seeing the kind of return of the live experience. People are just so hungry to get out, but they're not uh spending you know, we've we've got this inflationary cycle. They're not spending what they used to for like the large concerts that they've maybe traveled to

or so on. Uh, they're going local. And that is really what event right primarily covers is the local events in once community, and they tend to be at a lower price point. And so we're really seeing a great surge based on on that. UH. Brian Testgate Airbnb has pointed out similar phenomenon, and that is that people are are going local. Now that was during COVID, but that habit has has stayed, especially in these inflationary times. Uh So staying local is is really what it's about, and

we think our business as well positioned for it. It's interesting you bring up Airbnb, Brian Chesky. We've seen recessions and financial crises before two thousand, two thousand and eight, and startups, big names came out of that and went on has become giant companies. You know, how do you see? That is the other opportunities here for the next Google, the next Airbnb to emerge. I don't want to sound morose,

but I get a little bit pleased. I get a little bit giddy during like these downturns because it it really separates out the you know kind of tourists, uh you know, those that could come to the valley or go before investors and raised five billion dollars off a plan. This is really when great businesses are formed, when uh you know, people thinking against the grain are starting companies and and will really endure in a capital efficient manner.

And we'll see, absolutely see some great businesses. So putting on my eight Star Capital hats Um. You know, I'm just excited. I'm seeing a pickup of investments coming coming in and we are very excited to find that next Airbnb. I had the good fortune of being a seed investor in Airbnb back in two thousand nine. UM, you got to know Brian Naton Joe and they were scrappy and they were hungry, and it was a recession, and they had what it took to survive, had what it took.

Talking about survival, I hear a lot of competing things over the last few days. Some say keep your power to dry, do not deploy capital because of volatility and public markets they're spooked. Others say, no, I'm going to go out there. I see opportunity. Are there any industries or is any sort of THEMATICUM direction that you're taking with your investment thesis. That's that's uh, that's a very

important question. I've traditionally been really founder focused, so like a Bryan Naton Joe at Airbnb, for example, or a next straordinary team. UM was the investor in pinterest Ben Silverman, who who actually after a dozen years has just stepped down as CEO of it, has built a great business. UM so what what generally happens that the seed stages you you you invest in great people UM and they create these new industries. We are of course very excited

about you know, this stage of aire. We're many chapters into the AI revolution and and there's much more to be done in that UM. Clean tech has risen so quickly UM, and it is very exciting to see something that that can actually drive a real business and and drive real results, but also really help us understand in

UM kind of slow this this environmental issue we're facing today. Uh. So there's a there's a myriad of spaces and and you know, if you just look at back at uh, you know, Elon Musk, who would have ever thought that space would be a segment or there you had to go to Elon you know, I know, well we had to leave it there. Kevin Hart's general partner, co founder of a Star also bent Bright chairman and co founder of course Caroline Great Private Markets Taken What's going on

in the world. It really was and it was a great interview Ed Ludlow, We thank you so much. Let's just for a moment before we of course returned to Ed with his interview on the Major League Soccer Commissioner Don Garba. That's going to be another key focus on the long term partnership with IMG Arena. We're good to be talking again, of course about one Elon Musk, and

let's talk about the Musk deal. Apparently Twitter and serious jeopardy that deal, so says the Washington Post Twitter and our responding saying and it tends to close the deal with the Musque at a greed Terms said that all along of course rear traits. It will continue to share information with Musk, particularly around the bots comments and an email statement. And Judge is also confirming that it is indeed cutting jobs in its talent acquisition team. That was

really previously reported by Reuters. Plenty more on that deal. Some other stuff were to this Bloomberg. Tech giants, including Apple, Microsoft, Google, whe they're actually all facing questions about whether their handover uses personal data to authorities pursuing evidence on abortion seekers, each company bracing for the multi state legal quagma that

will govern privacy in a post row world. Bloomberg's Dina Bass wrote all about this in a fabulous piece for Bloomberg, and we just want to dig in, Dina, and really what are some of the issues legal labyrinth that you're expecting to crop up here. Well, first of all, we

have to remember what's different now than pre row. Now everybody keeps everything online, So there's this digital trail of breadcrumbs that investigators could use if they wanted to get to someone who had had an abortion or someone who help them in any way, which is you know, increasingly

becoming illegal in U. S. States. So the problem is all of these different tech companies, these different apps have little bits of data on you and actually not a little bit of volumes, and the data is in all sorts of different places, and it's going to be governed by a patwork of laws. Because imagine you have a patient who's potentially in Texas. Maybe they're trying to secure abortion drugs from New York. Now, maybe they get an email receipt to their to a Microsoft email account, maybe

they search for those drugs using Google. Those companies are in two different states, and they sort their data in tens of different data centers and other states in the US. The question then becomes if an investigator, if a court wants to get a hold of that data, whose laws

take precedence from a previous reaction function. Now this is a have to reiterate once again an incredibly politically divided and charged conversation that we're having, Dina, and of course about one third of those that answer peace surveys do indeed degree that we should have anti bullshit laws. So we understand basically the division hand. Does it stop and restrain these sorts of tech companies from responding and how they would have done previously? Uh, you know, we don't

know what they're going to do. That's that's part of what we're waiting for. The major tech companies have not been willing to comment to to me or other reporters who have asked them as to whether they'll fight these sorts of data requests. We have some amount of history of what they've done with other types of data requests.

Each of these major companies publishes every six months a report on government data requests and how many they've complied with where they've come from or the national security So we know that the companies like Facebook, like Apple, like Microsoft, Uh, they do comply, like Google, they comply with the majority of requests that they get, but they do fight some. So we've had very high profile cases of both Apple and Microsoft fighting data requests they considered to be unlawful.

What we don't yet know is whether they'll do that in these cases with with women who have abortions or providers. But also what data is protected DNA and like on the HIPPA. I think a period track is on on apps? Is that yet being identified to something that's protected? So a period tracker is does not, as far as I know,

qualified for Hippa. So I think that's part of what people need to realize a lot of things that people consider health data and they think, well, I go to my doctor and I have to sign that form about who it can be released to. A lot of your health data is not under hip, but what Hippo governs health plans and the providers who accept those health plans. Lawyers I spoke to said it may probably also cover a cloud provider if they're providing cloud services storing data

for that health plan. But a period tracker and your your Apple Watch, your fitbit, that's not a Hippo data. And also if you get a court order signed by a judge, that can allow a Hippa entity to release the data anyway, even if it's governed by Hippa. So one of the issue that we're facing here is that we don't really have precedence here, and lawyers that I spoke to, advocates people the Electronic Frontier Foundation think we're in for a number of years of lawsuits to try

to figure out how this is going to go. Dana Bass, we thank you so much as a great story, and let's get to someone who's thinking an awful lot about these sorts of issues. Atlanta Echoitz, founding partner at spring Bank Collective. It invests in early stage companies building the very infrastructure to enable working women families to thrive across the careers. And Alanta, of course, you were former Ofbarma administration, technology policy official across Obarma, Biden transition team, the SEC

and sectary Clinton's office of the State Department. You have a lot of interaction with administration. But now in the funding environment, this is difficult, right, Yeah, and from a difficulty perspective, thanks for having Yeah, so you know, it's

difficult than a whole bunch of ways. Um, you know, with the with the following row, we already had the digital health care companies stepping in kind of overnight to fill in some of the care gap created by these policies, So we thought companies like kill Club with a demand for emergency contraceptions spiked by five thousand percent within just

a couple of days of the overturning of ROW. Patients are clearly worried about being denied access to care, and we've seen some hoarding behavior UM with some of the emergency contraception. You know, we're seeing companies like Hey Jane, a telehealth medication abortion provider, with huge spikes of interest, and we're also needed. We're also starting to see women's health tex players who are UM not necessarily in core

reproductive health, also needing to adapt. So, for instance, maybe a women's health Unicorn that is a digital health platform for women's soldier employers. UM added a wallet app to help users calculate the cost of reproductive procedures and actually

facilitate reimbursements. And at the same time, employers are facing a tremendous amount of uncertainty, not just tech employers, of course, given the US is fragmented health SCARECESM employers have always played a major role in healthcare for American workers, and that's only going to grow. Since fifty percent of Americans

get their health insurance through their employers. So what company you work for has always mattered for your health care, and now where your job is located and where that employer is located, it's gonna have really outside role in the kind of kind and quality of care you can receive,

especially as a woman. And for a lot of these companies, they're just in the earliest days of figuring out what the actual implications are of actually implementing policy to support to support these workers across HR, across healthcare, across their legal team and on the has been of handwringing and concerns and worry and lack of charity. But it feels like there is innovation there as well at this moment um. Absolutely, so, you know, I think women's healthcare companies are going to

continue to innovate. Frankly, they have to innovate in this moment. Over the last couple of years, we've seen an increasing interest in digital health companies that are serving the healthcare needs of women. In one those kinds of companies raised one point four billion, That was two x a year prior. So I think we're gonna keep seeing that energy. You know, I will say, just also follow on on what the

reporter who preceded me with discussing. In terms of these data issues, I still believe there's a tremendous amount of room for innovation. I also think that uncertainty creates a real challenge for innovation. And right now we have really really deep uncertainty around how these policies are going to

play out at the state level. Um. And I think that you know, this is something I've seen both in the government and now as an investor, is an enormous uncertainy around regulation and policy enforcement can really stifle innovation for new players who are trying to solve really important women's health and population help health problems. And of course it creates lots of costs and burdens for consumers, you know,

for instance, the Googles and the Apples of the world. Um. You know, when it comes to challenging potentially some of these data requests undoubtedly have the money and the lawyers to do so. But one imagine, you know, especially if you're a smaller startup, that that could you know, an enormous sort of legal burden, legal liability to put you out of business. One of course, that you yourself backing

certain companies unicorns like Chief for example. You know you've been trying to look, I'm sure, across the US, but now suddenly are we going to see pockets of health innovation suddenly just become in New York, in California rather than perhaps in the Austin's or all the new areas

of technology. Yeah. Absolutely, you know, I think that the Jobbed ruling and some of the subsequent implications at the state level, which of course you're just beginning to play out right now, might make employment and or investment in certain states more or less appealing. So right now, for instance, you know, we're we're always excited about innovations and fertility care to make it more affordable, more accessible for for anyone to build the kind of family that they would

like to build. UM. And right now, if you're an innovator building a venture back company and fertility care, frankly, probably just makes sense to build your company a state like California and New York which will continue presumably to support these business and then not create a lot of uncertainty around the treatment of embryos, the treatment of fertility care. UM. You know, that's just one one example but I think we're going to see that play out across the board

study seconds. You still bullish on the space though, UM, I am absolutely permanently bullish about improving the lives of women, and I will always be bullish about the opportunities in women's health. And one of the important things to remember that when we talked about women's health, that doesn't just

equal reproductive health. It never has. Um you know, women, there's all sorts of health conditions that are enormous, multibillion dollar markets where it impacts women much differently than men, whether it's all time or it's heart disease, type you, diabetes. It wasn't until six that women were even allowed to

participate in clinical research and trial. So I just think reproductive health is obviously a core component of where we can be investing in women's health, but it is so much bigger than that, and we're gonna keep investing and founders are going to keep building amazing hard things. Coming from one of the coolest looking bonds in New York, we thank you at Anna Oh. It's taking time out of a vacation to spend some time with us in

Springbank Collector. Fascinating. Thank you Sam, you for having me. This is putting technology. I'm Caroline Hand in New York. Now the Sun Valley Conferences under way, of course, and I to with many of the world's top business leaders, gathering that to talk deals, to talk you know, masks. And he's also expected that this weekend, of course, when said Ludlow joins us, Now you've got another special guest, and this one, well, people say socco, you and I

would call it football. Oh, we call it football, and that's I get to talk about my two favorite things. Technology and football will call it soccer. Don Garba, major League MLS Commissioner, you struck a deal with Apple, ten year deal stream direct to consumers around the world that want Major League Soccer MLS. Why Apple, Well, you know they're the perfect company for us, you know, innovative, aggressive, ambitious, really thinking hard about what their future is going to

be in the sports streaming place. For us, every game anywhere in the world, on any device is perfect for young and very digitally native fan base or radio percent of our fans are streaming soccer or football anyway, So we couldn't have really picked a better. Well, let me ask you this, why not an Amazon or why not a linear TV package with some of the names you've been associated for the last decade. Well, we'll still have

some linear deals, will announce those soon. So it's the combination of linear and then games that will have in front of the Apple paywall, games on Apple TV Plus, and then most exciting for us, you know, the first global directory consumer subscription channel, as you've mentioned, which is really going to break new ground for how we'll connect with our fans. Whether it's somebody that's watching a game here in Sun Valley, or they're watching it in you know, Spain,

or they're watching it in South America. They're they're the perfect partner to be thinking about how do we become a global league in the most global sport. Apple reportedly paid two fifty million dollars. I don't know whether you can confirm that's accurate. But what are they getting out of this? Is there actually a belief that Apple will grow it's Apple TV Plus or is own subscription audience

because there's a demand for mls. Well, you know, it's a multibillion dollar deal over time, and I mean for them, uh, this is the perfect way for them to be thinking about the live sports experience. For their consumers. Uh so what it meant to them is a is a good question for Apple. As I've mentioned for us when we were thinking about aggregating, all of our content are local games, our youth matches are Second Division which is called MLS

Next Pro. Every game that we have, whether it's in market or out of market, you now have an experience for a fan that is unprecedented, and that for us is really really exciting. Does it bring you a global audience? Without doubt? So, as you know, we we just signed Gareth Bell comes over from Real Madrid. He's playing in Los Angeles, and maybe there's some small Argentinean guy that

might come to our league at some point. So you could think that you'd have as many subscribers and fans in Buenos Aires, or in Barcelona, or in Madrid or in Wales when you sign global players. Were a global league needing a global platform, and this will give us that opportunity to expand the breath and scope of our media business. Football or soccer his corisand soccer. Soccer is

very enormously in North America. Right You've gone from a situation where you're almost at twenty nine teams with the expansion three stadiums dedicated to soccer to now twenty six something like that. Where do you invest next? Is there another deal to be done? What is that? How do you grow to the next It's a great question, you know. It's ten to fifteen billion dollars an investment in the league over the last number of years. A lot of that is in these unique almost cathedrals for the sport,

these twenty six stadiums that you mentioned. We opened up a brand new one in in Nashville, Tennessee, thirty thousand fans. It's sold out every game. Now the move is on content. So how do you invest in delivering the right exp variants with our local UH teams in many ways being content delivery producers for our news service. How do you now think about the next development generation of development of our player pool so that when we have the ability

to develop young players sell them overseas. Big announcement of two XMLS players going to the Premier League today, bringing in young players in their prime that are playing overseas. Being a global player in both the purchasing and selling of players, there's going to be an enormous amount of investment out in the years to come. Two quick questions. The men soccer team going to the World Cup? Does

that boost the MLS? Oh, without doubt. You know, the interest in our league grows with our national team playing in the World Cup. We see those boosts of of interest and energy. Our league was born out of the World Cup. And imagine the rocket fuel that will have leaving leading up to the World Cup. Up beyond the fact that we have so many young American players, forty or fifty of our players will play in for national

teams that will be in the World Cup. So we have players from seventy different countries playing in Major League Soccer more than any other league in the world. The World Cup is the showcase and platform for that. Before I run out of time, there's a chap called Todd Bowley who bought a club called Chelsea, which I've supported for the majority of my life. As you know, he says that the Premier League is undervalued. Our clubs in

the MLS undervalued. Do you know, listen, I think the value in sports has driven by ultimately, you know, what the opportunity is, what people are willing to pay and how have have owners if you will. League has been able to exploit their intellectual property. I do believe our teams are undervalued, and Todd could speak better about what

he thinks about the Premier League. What I'll say is that the future of our league and the future of the sport of America is is so bright and there's so many endless opportunities with the just the overall diversity of of our consumer base, the fact that we'll have more teams in more stadiums our best years, particularly with a new partnership with Apple. I just saw that you now you you've mentioned the new IMG arena sports exactly

what we did. There's so many great inaugural property opportunities that we've not yet even fully exploited. So best days are still ahead. All right, all eyes on American football or soccer and mols commastionon a dongaba. It's just a pleasure to have you here on this show talking football in tech. Caroline, if you're Stafford Bridge right now, ed,

what would you sing? We will follow that? No, I'm not gonna do it on it, Caroline next time, beautiful, So as if you transported us, they're bloodly We thank you so much. Meanwhile, let's talk about a bit more sport, but athletes within it an Apple Watch with a bigger display, larger battery, and a rugged metal casing. Maybe in the works Apple is seeing well, it's said to be building a new version of the smart Watch for extreme sports athletes. Begsmart.

German joins us. Now, no singing, but certainly let's talk about the watch and how big is this market? You know? I think I want to take a step back and figure out why would Apple do something like this. Right, If they're going to create a new high end Apple Watch, a sports edition, they probably want it to not only appeal to that specific market you're mentioning, but everyone, right, So they have the iPhone pros now, the iPad pros,

the AirPods pros, MacBook pros. That lets them charge more money. Right, So what we're gonna see with this extreme sports edition, to your point, is we're going to see more revenue. We're going to see a sp s, We're gonna see the average sales price of the Apple Watch go up for this product. So I think that's why they are doing this, because that market is not so big. Right. But if you look at it more as an Apple Watch Pro than as an Apple Watch Explore or Extreme

Sports edition. Not only are you going to appeal to the market you mentioned, but you're going to appeal to the affluent Apple customer who's willing to spend more on the more advanced product. So talk to us about sort of what features, what areas it's really going to be trying to exploit to lead people in. So you're gonna see a bigger battery, right, So you're gonna have the longest battery life ever on an Apple Watch. You're gonna have a bigger display, so the biggest display ever on

an Apple Watch. You're probably gonna have a titanium case which they use, and what's called the Apple Watch Edition today, so something far more durable, right, three to four times more durable than the normal stainless steel Apple Watch and probably five to seven times more durable than the normal aluminium Apple Watch. Right. You're gonna see more shadow resistant screen. How many times have people knocked their Apple Watch into

a door knob or something else and cracked that screen? Right, So you're gonna see that as well as a new body temperature sensor so you can take your temperature on the watch. It won't give you an exact number based reading, but it may be able to indicate if you have a fever or other type of condition going on that you should might you might want to look more into Mount Gammon, always there with the latest and greatest hits

for what's coming next to the Apple pipeline. We thank you co being up as investors remain pretty gaucious on digital assets. As of course, Crypto Winter. Since we're setting settling in, we are going to be speaking with at least Colleen still Mark on the state of bitcoin startups in particular. This is Bloomberg. It feels like Crypto Winter settling in. Bitcoin higher twenty one thousand on the day, but really, where are we in terms of the nuances.

We're worried a lot about the crypto lenders out there, but what about when you drill down from coin to coin, from ecosystem to ecosystem. Let's talk the bitcoin one in particular. Right now, at least Colleen's with us, founder and managing partner of still Mark, and remind us you're a bitcoin VC firm, You're very much focused on that particular part of the crypto sphere. How is your area, how are

your startups faring at the moment? Well, bitcoin founders tend to be very financially responsible, and so folks have prepared long in advance for the crypto bit coin bear market. In fact, what they're doing now is finding ways to take advantage of it. And so there's two things that are important. One is just to build and follow the

established roadmap. A bear market is a time where you get more resources to dedicate to building because you're not struggling to just keep your head of water with growth.

But the second thing that we can do in a bear market is to take time to really dive into the engagement and adoption metrics from the bowl market or from really any part of the market cycle, and start to understand what users are saying about the product and the protocols that will be the experience of this market for really tough founders in the space, and what we're seeing from our founders and so word of that data earlier, though it might be what is that data telling you

about as and when we exit some sort of crypto winter, what people are going to want, what sort of a shouldn't see, what sort of real use cases are going to be built? Well, frankly, people want the space to continue to mature, So some of the collapses that we're seeing in companies that were making promises that they couldn't keep around yield product or otherwise, UM is starting to drive home the points to folks holding digital assets that

there needs to be more accountability. That's possible in bitcoin, and in fact, Bitcoin was to allow for transparency in the ecosystem because as you know, the Bitcoin blockchain is a public ledger. As an example of something that customers are starting to demand or should you can ask for folks holding your bitcoin to be able to prove those reserves.

We know that some of the platforms that had promised these UM lending based yield returns, we know that some of those platforms are now telling their customers that in fact, they don't have the funds that they said they had. Now with bitcoin, you can and other digital assets, you can actually demand of exchanges or other platforms holding your assets to prove that they do so. And so prooper reserve software is available and customers are beginning to demand it.

The first company to launch to introduce a SAS product and SMB and enterprise SAS product here is so secky out of fidelity and that's fortunately for US, a still marked portfolio company. But we're also seeing another trend, and that's something we see in every bear market, which is folks look about look at the option to be their own bank. That was one of Bitcoin's core promises that you wouldn't have to rely on third parties to custody or to store your funds. You could do it yourself.

That's also very difficult, but we now see in the market the acute pain um and realization of what's at risk if you're not holding your own funds. And so we're seeing consumers recognize the value of that and send funds to companies like, for example, Causa, another still marked portfolio company. And this space is a bit more mature, and so there's many there's several options that you can

use when you have being your own funds. What about those lending protocols were broadly at least and what about yield farming? I mean, is that sort of idea as it stands dead? What ends up being the flourishes out of that well? I think the concept of producing yield from a black box or making promises that can't be backed up um with frankly economic activity that drives the yield.

I think, I hope that that is dead. What we saw in this last full market was the concept of yield generated with a complete lack of economic activity, and in fact, we saw leaders in the defise space explain it as putting money into a black box and taking

out more money. This you know, of course, this is sort of a fantastic proposition that we're now seeing as just something that can't be secured over the long term, and so yield in that way, um, you know, sort of like the hopes and dreams based yield I hope is dead. We will see products mature that can offer real yield based off of economic activity, and an example of that would be the ability to create yield on Lightning network by lending out your position in the network

to others that need it. Of course, it was Sam maguin Freed who referenced that black box on our very own podcast with our own joy Wise and Thal and Tracy Alloway about odd Lots, and and he's gone on to be the white Knight of many of these lending protocols and platforms that have sort of taken a tumble

at least more generally. Are you worried? I know, you've seen bare markets before, but with the lack of activity that we're seeing on the space with does that warry you in any way or are you just still feeling that this is a matter of time in terms of in terms of entrepreneurial activity, we're seeing a flourishment actually, and so we have these really lovely tail ones in the bitcoin space provided by Lightning Network now which is

growing in adoption, as well as something on Lightning Networks Roadmap, which is entered auction of other digital assets to the Lightning network. Most importantly the introduction of stable coins to Lightning Network. That's a tailwind for entrepreneurs in general, including

folks that haven't even gotten started yet. I think of it as I think of it as a similar opportunity as cloud and mobile introduced in two thousand and eight, which we know curried companies like WhatsApp or Uber even to great success through two thousand and eight and beyond, And so that opportunity exists today for innovators at least.

So it's great to catch up with you. Let you get back to the l a sun at last, Colleen, thank you a still monk back to some valley now, Blue Bass, But with Anthony not Is the CEO so far started asking what about the current economic climate? Take a listen. It's a year that's atypical from the standpoint that equity values have come down quite meaningfully. Inflation is obviously on the rise. You also have a very on certain marketplace, and so cash is really king and people

we're on to really conserve their cash. I think it's much more year about partnerships and a year about extending new you know, having partnerships that get extended and deeper, as well as finding new partners to try to advance the business. There's never been a time like this in the last thirty years, and we've had so many you know, conflating factors um so the desire to partner and have

more conversations as higher than ever. What is the investor tone here into such a tough knock for economic environment. Remember you yourself has had or so stock decline in so far, but so have many of the fintech players here. You are recently doing acquisitions yourself. How do you navigate that turmoil and public markets giving you very recently also decided to go public. Yeah, we have to control on what we can control, so we're sticking to our strategy.

You know, we found great success in the last three years despite the fact that our student loan business has been negatively impacted by the more tournament paying federal student loans. We've been all to grow fifty percent last year. We'll grow fifty end this year to one point five billion of revenue and increase our profitability on an ibadad basis from thirty million to a hundred million and seeing really

strong growth in member and products per members. So that's what we can control and ultimately that we'll get valued based on the investors appetite for risk and their long term orientation. Right now, it's hard for investors to see out beyond the next six to twelve months because they're not really sure if we're gonna have a soft landing or more challenging economic environment. And so we're making sure they understand how we're planning our business, what we're prioritizing,

and that we're delivering. Again, what about another area of the market here, I want to pick your brain a little bit on cryptocurrencies. You have a lot of young customers who are looking at new ways of both borrowing, saving, spending, investing and you'd recently announced new crypto products yourself. In the market, we see other brokerages uh pausing withdrawals or other ways that have impacted their consumers really deeply. As a CEO of fintech company, how do you think about

consumer protection in this space and things to watch out for. Yeah, well, the first thing I'd say is our strategy is to be at one stop shop for consumer financial services. So we have everything from loans to one five interest on checking and savings in addition to investing as you mentioned,

as well as a credit card and investing. We also want to be one stop shop, so we offer fractional shares, shares without commissions, our own ETFs, six robo accounts, and the ability to buy thirty currencies and when we launched thirty cryptocurrencies. When we launched them, we literally put every time you go to buy cryptocurrency on our platform a warning that says, this is an unproven asset, it's highly risky,

and you can lose all of your money. Because while there is an appetite to want to invest in these more risky assets, we have an obligation to inform people about the risks of them, and we do that every time they buy ourselves. What about plan old stocks, given that consumers are really feeling the pain right now, do you think that this a mean stock frenzy is over and even just that general interest from that marginal buyer, the the young person looking to invest in that market

for the first time. The invest members that we have are really long term rining invest or is. They're focused on dollar cost averaging through the ups and downs of alatility. They do recurring investments. We offer the six et s that we have so they can actually buy what they like in a diversified way at a low price point. So we do have people that are continuing to invest

in the marketplace despite the fact that markets down. Over of our members say they'll continue investing more about thirty sent of them because they haven't invested enough in their life and the other call it thirty because the market being so attractive. Now that was Bloomberg Shnati bast they're speaking with so far Ceo Anthony not to al right, that was it for this edition of bloom Bag Technology to not forget to check out our podcast though you can find it on the terminal as well as online

on Apples, Spotify, and I heart radio. This is bring back