Elon Musk Sows Doubt Over Twitter Deal and Crypto's Crazy Week

is headed. Plus Reid Hoffman joins me for a wide ranging conversation about just where this chaotic market cycle is headed and what it all means for startups, Plus his thoughts on of course Twitter and his former colleague Elon and two hundred billion dollars wiped off the crypto market since it started the sell off, Just how cold little

is crypto winter get and how long will it last? Well, The back and forth from Musk continuing as we said early Friday, he tweets the Twitter deal is temporarily on whole, but as Blue Bloomberg opinions, Matt Levin points out, that's

not actually a thing. He says, Musk signed a binding contract that doesn't allow him to just walk away even if it turns out that spam accounts do represent more than five percent of Twitter users, Musk later saying he's still committed to the deal, but it's all casting doubt on what actually happens to Twitter. For more on this, I'm joined by Jason Goldman. He was part of Twitter's founding team, a board member from two thousand seven, and

also the White House Chief Digital Officer under President Obama. So, Jason, you did not mince words about this in your tweets, and to put it in words appropriate for our television audiences, you say, either way, Twitter faces a not good out come. Why Well, because either Ellen is going to acquire the company and he's shown to be how un serious he is about the whole proposition and his ideas of our when he wants to do with it or un serious, or he walks away from the deal, which is basically

a one sided option that he holds at this point. Uh, and the company has left in a situation that is increasingly chaotic and difficult for them to manage. How big is the bot problem? Really? Though? I mean, does Ellen have a point? No, he doesn't have a point. It's not a serious point, like I think it's fine to report that that's the reason he said the deal was on hold, which is, as Matt Levin points out, isn't a real thing. The bot thing isn't a real thing either.

He we we don't have to look very far to prove that. We know that's not the real reason for what's going on here, because on April Ellen said, if our Twitter bid succeeds, we will defeat the spam bots or die trying. He set himself up to say that he was going to take on this big bot challenge, which I don't think is a significant problem, and now he's saying the exact opposite, which is, well, I'm just going to not try at all to deal with the bots,

you tweeted. We went through a lot of episodes of soul crushing drama in the early days, a lot of itself inflicted. But this really has to be the worst ever, And I'm sorry for all the folks at the company who are somehow expected to just do a job through this mess. We know that a couple of Twitter executives were let go yesterday. The company now has a hiring freeze. They're trying to cut costs, they might rescind some offers.

What's it like being a Twitter employee right now? Well, yeah, I mean the rescind offers is a very serious step, right. I mean, that's people who have accepted a deal with Twitter, turned down other offers potentially, and now being told they don't have a job, and to be told there's a

hiring freeze and you're letting go top executives. That's why Ellen walking away from the deal is also quite bad for the company, because you're now talking about a company that not only has hamstrung itself in terms of its hiring and sent a mixed message employees about what the future is, but you're also dealing with a situa wation where the board of the company has said, we don't have any better ideas than selling to Ellen in terms of what the future should hold. So it's just put

it the company in this very precarious death spiral. Now, Praagle, the curren CEO of Twitter, took some responsibility for the changes that he's making. He said he's not doing this because you know he's a lame duck CEO, or just to keep the lights on, but he's thinking about the health of Twitter's business and preparing for all scenarios. What do you think that means? Do you think if Elon Musk wasn't supposedly buying the company in a matter of months,

that he'd be doing this, right? I mean, I think that's what prog has to say, and and it is his prerogative to have the executive team around him, even if it's for a short period of time. Uh. And you know, I give Prag a lot of credit because comments are a leaked from the town hall a while ago, said, you know, I've only been on this job for months, but I've been at the company for a decade, and yes,

we could have done better to avoid this sale. Unlike a lot of other people on the board or or Jack the founder, who said this is the only way out, Prague took a lot of responsibility to say we could have done better to avoid this outcome. So I think it's fair for him to say now, like, I'm going to position this company in the best way I can to lead to whatever exit or whatever endpoint we're leading towards.

It's just that none of those options are very good when you can't even hire new employees, right now you've got snoop dog jumping into the phrase saying you might have to buy Twitter. Now, what about another scenario here? Somebody else snoop dogg or not? I saw someone ask you about whether Google uh could make sense as a buyer. What about if someone else buys Twitter? Could that happen?

I mean Google's approached the company a number of times I don't know about since the time I left, but we were in conversation with them at least twice when I was there, UH to potentially buy the company. I don't know what the regulatory hurdles are for Google to buy it at this point, and certainly I think it's more difficult for a company like Facebook, who also tried to buy Twitter a number of times, to buy the company.

So it's it's difficult to see those kind of outcomes. Uh. But you know, I think if Ellen walks away and the stock price continues to decline, other options certainly would be on the table. Now speculation has been made that it's Friday. Maybe Elon Musk is just trolling us all. What do you think? Yeah, absolutely, I don't think he's a serious person. Uh, And I don't think the way that he's approached this on bots is serious either. It's certainly not about bots. I think the most credible take

is that he wants to renegotiate the price. Uh, and certainly he's got the board in such a position where they agreed so quickly and said they saw no other options, and Jack said that Ellen's the sole solution to the company's problems. Um that Ellen would be able to say, well, if I'm the sole solution, I'm the only I'm the only option here, then I think I should be able to set the price, particularly as you let off the show. The tech market as declined precipitously since he started buying

up the stock, So I don't think it's serious. I don't think he's serious about bots. I don't think he's been serious on his positions about free speech. I don't think he's been serious on his ideas with putting the out rhythm on get hub, which isn't even a technically sensible idea. I think this is all a way for him to be in the headlines, have people talking about him.

He'd like to own it if he probably can get it for a better price now, but he doesn't really have any ideas what he wants to do with the company, and every additional turn of the crank where he talks about what he wants to do, whether that's the business plan that lead to investors or when he talks to to folks about his free speech ideas, reveals how un seriously or how uncritically he's approached this and I think that is why the company is in such a predicament.

And just to remind our viewers, he tweeted that he's still committed to the deal. He has signed a binding contract. Um. But Jason, always appreciate your opinions and your take on what's happening here. One of the founding members of the early Twitter team, Jason Goldman, thank you coming up. Reed Hoffman, partner at Gravelock, co founder of LinkedIn his thoughts on the market's what it all means for entrepreneurs, and of course his take on Twitter and Elon Musk. He joins me, next,

this is Bloomberg. Trillions have been wiped off public markets in the last few weeks, a lot of the pain coming from tech stocks. Saudi Aramco this week replaced Apple as the world's most valuable company. The turmoil has led to hiring freezes and even layoffs at public and private company. So where are we now in this cycle? And just how bad will it get? I'm joined now by Reid Hoffman, who's been building and investing in tech for decades and

knows a thing or two about ups and downs. He's also the co founder of LinkedIn, of course a partner at Graylock and Out, with an updated version of his number one best selling book, The Startup of You, which came out ten years ago and is being rereleased for a new generation read Always great to have you back here on the show, Always great to be here. We're gonna get to the book, But I want to start

with the mood. Given all of this market turnmoil, valuation cutdowns, trouble fundraising, what is the mood among venture capitalists right now? How dire is it? Well? I definitely think the mood is troubled and expects more volatility becoming rather than less um. But on the other hand, I think that technology is still very strongly the future, and so I think the question isn't oh my god, you know flights from technology. It's more there'll be more volatile fundraising. It won't be

as easy, there won't be as much capital available. Some businesses will be much harder to raise than for others, and so you know, sort that out and be careful about that. Check your balance sheet, you know, check all that. But we still think technology and technology investing is year by year, you know, where we'll see most of the growth and most of the change in industries in the world.

An investor at Active in Capital, Steve Saraceno, told me he thinks millions of people are going to lose their jobs in tech and that it's going to be absolutely shocking for the industry. Do you agree fundamentally, No, But it's not because I don't think their world be A number of companies that have gotten over there ease, have started investing, have burn rates that are far above the revenue,

will do a reset. You know, generally public market companies will have to show that their disciplined and they're operating margins and there and their revenue and so I think you will see layoffs. But the thing is, I think capital still goes. Technology is the future. So I think that for example, people who get laid off in one company might have three other job offers and other companies that action. In fact, our hiring. So it isn't quite that dramatic, uh, you know, like oh my god, there's

gonna be all these people out on the streets. It's actually gonna be there'll be a shuffle for talent and companies shuffling to ones that perhaps have either deeper pozzle capital or more revenue. That's going now. Others have told us they're saying battened down the hatches, cut costs, build what matters. What are you telling your portfolio companies right now? What are the top three bullets? Well, it depends on

the company. So obviously, if you have a place where you have a deep well of capital, good revenue, of good growth. Actually, one of the places where you can tell the strong companies in the week is you keep investing uh into where you're heading. We did the same thing when uh you know, for example, LinkedIn in two thousand and eight. It was like, okay, um, we have a chance to invest in the future here. And so when you have companies that have the ability to make

that play, you take that play. On the other hand, of course, if you say, well we're still figuring out product market fit. We don't quite know how it's gonna go yet, or you know, we don't. We want to maintain our burn rate relative to having extra months to choose our our market which we want to raise future capital. Then be more disciplined about hiring, be more disciplined about expenses, uh, and predict for the future. Is this like two thousand eight?

Is this like the financial crisis or the dot com bust? Or is this something completely different? Well? I think it's different in part because while, for example, there is a real shift in the market obviously everyone last couple of weeks across a number of things, I think there's still a lot of capital that says, Okay, if I were choosing where growth will be, where the future of industries will be, where the future of of kind of a

new revenue streams, new businesses will be. Technology is still it. It just now won't be all technology. If it seems new and interesting, throw money at it, it will be Okay, a little bit more disciplined about Well, actually, this is a good industry of the future. Let's bet on that. Now. In the startup of view, you pioneered this idea that anyone can be an entrepreneur. What is your advice to

a new generation in this environment? About how they take control of their own careers when a lot of people are reevaluating life and work. So the basic ideas careers are now much more like a startup than they are like a career ladder, career escalator. You can call it a jungle, you can call it a jungle gym. You have to actually be maneuverable and flexibility. Adaptability is the

new stability. And so the tool set for entrepreneurs, even if you don't start your own accompany yourself, is the tool set for every professional, for every worker, for every career path. And the book is trying to say, well, here's the basic set of the tool sets if you would like to run your career in this modern entrepreneurial adaptable way. Now, someone else who seems to be at an inflection point in his career is Elon musk taking on the possibility of buying Twitter. I know he's a

friend of yours, he was your colleague at PayPal. How bullish are you on the future of Twitter under Elon Musk? Well, I saw your earlier interview with Jason I thought was very good, by the way, and basically I think everything he was saying about Twitter and Twitter circumstances. Correct. I think it hasn't innovated nearly as much as it could have or perhaps should have, you know, in the last decade, five years, whatever it is. Um, I think one of the great things about Ellen is he is one of

the world's most amazing innovators. I actually do think this is counter of the what Jason was saying, that he has a plan, that it's an interesting plan. Um. Yes, the box thing may or may not be fully on target or not. But actually, in fact, I think he goes. He's an active user, as we can tell in the last couple of days even, and he has a sense

of where the product could go. And Ellen is always a product oriented entrepreneur inventor, and so I think he actually has a plan and has something that he's interested in doing. Um. But I think it's a you know, obviously, the the tweets of where are we going with the deal and so where they're not great for stability within the company and the employees and and knowing what's going on in the future. So you think he's serious. I mean, if you were on the other side of this deal,

wouldn't you be frustrated about all the back and forth. Well, of course you should be frustrated because you know, part of part of being a little bit more like tweet in the morning saying it's on hold, tweet, tweet a little later saying I'm still committed, you know, is you know,

needless thrash on this. On the other hand, I think Ellen, he is also very exciting about you know, kind of like you know, here's here's a person who revitalizes the space industry, you know who you know, brings on the future in green cars and a bunch of other So I think there's a bunch of very interesting things that are possible with the innovation. That's great. I think that the the the volatile tweeting, you know, perhaps much a

little less great. Now we're coming up on almost twenty years since you founded LinkedIn, and I wonder if this could be a moment, the moment where the new new social network of the future gets born. Is the market our users is even Elon Musk saying we need something new. So I think we almost always, you know, like the example, if you said, will there be a new social network five years from now that we don't see right now,

the answer is almost certainly yes. We wouldn't ever necessarily have predicted TikTok coming in, thinking all of all the video stuff is already owned by YouTube. I think we will see it now. The interesting question, of course, part of what my job's about is trying to figure that out and predicted and invested in it early. I do think that Twitter has great potential to it. That's actually one of the things that is most exciting and all this, and I think that the being able to work towards

that potential is huge. But by the way, in terms of a new social network, I think you will see someone in the next five years. Where we'll come from and which country will come from, I think is very much TVD. We're coming up on the anniversary of the Facebook. I p O as well, and you were an early investor. I know that you have been frustrated and you've expressed us with us, you know, with some of Mark Zuckerberg's decision over the last few months, particularly around the whistleblower um.

But what do you think about the vision for the metaverse? Are you bullish on that? Well, so I haven't actually talked to Zuckerberg about that at all. I tend to be a little bit more cautious on the metaverse, thinking of the then off of wide variety things, startups and everything else, just because I think that what we'll first see before we see so deep social applications or work applications, is deep entertainment applications that have a broad based appeal

and interest. And I haven't seen those yet. I've seen, you know, kind of specific ones, and what they've done with Oculus is really amazing, but I think we're still some ways away from that from called mass adoption of the beta verse, or maybe we should call it mass vers adoption or something like that. Now, the metaverse, if it happens, could totally change the way we live and work. What do you think about the future of work? Has the center of gravity gravity permanently shifted to the home

or not. I think almost certainly it has not shifted permanently to the home, because we are social animals as a bunch of people who get their energy by working with other people. You can make decisions more quickly with

everyone in the room. Um, So I think that there will be a return to offices or return to uh, you know, kind of places where people are congregating together in order to work on the other hand, of course, we've had two years of adopting tools for virtual work, and I think that will expand the tool set key talent of UM you know kind of UM you know, kind of zooming in or teams ng in from some other place, being able to have distributed companies that come

together every six weeks, you know, something along those lines. I think all of that is stuff that you're gonna see persists. But I don't think the office is going away. Interesting now, you recently co founded another company yourself called Inflection, focused on the future of AI. Tell us more about this and where you think the future is. Where are you making your bets right now? Well, one of the

things AI is that think going to transform every industry. Um. I think we see line of side truck from some of the amazing work that like for example, Microsoft and open AI are doing with co pilot and get hub. I think you're seeing all kinds of things. And so with Inflection, we thought, Okay, what are the things that we can most do to help give human being superpowers when they're dealing with computers? Are what are the set

of things that enable that to happen? And there's not a lot that we're saying about it yet because uh, you know, we have a specific product idea that we'd like to test and develop out and then kind of, you know, do the aha moment of pulling back the curtains. But it's a it's an AI plus humanity is the theory, all right, Reid Hoffman can't wait to see what else comes of that. Thank you as always for joining us, and of course check out the updated version of Read's book,

Startup of Field. Thank you, Emily. A major change could soon be coming to Apple. Bloomberg has learned the company is testing swapping its lightning charging point port with the more prevalent USB C connector. This would be for future iPhone models. This is a move Apple's making to help conform to looming European regulations. Apples also working on an adapter that would let future iPhones work with accessories designed

for the current lightning connector. Coming up Toast has found the perfect recipe the restaurants software company beating estimates amidst market turmoil, but with rising pressure on consumers. Okay, buck, we'll discuss next. This is blue work. This is Elon Musk being Elon Musk. This is so Elon Musk centric this is him doing what he does, which is stirring up the pot want price about Melon Musk, I think he is angling for a cheaper price. He may have

a problem raising the deck composer here. He certainly has a lot of negotiating leverage right now. I would want to do any pegg I possibly can do to get out of this deal of this price you set right this, This price makes no sense. You know, it is looking very increasingly unlikely to be to be the final bid to the extent rising acquisition for Twitter. UM was not as miss priced as as you know perhaps some other

equities have been. The company is ready to be acquired UM, and I think Elon is, you know, attempting to kind of just slower the price here. Welcome back to bloomber Technology, Emily Changing San Francisco, going to stick with that story and Elon Musk, a billionaire saying he is putting his deal to buy Twitter quote temporarily on hold, then later clarifying he's still committed to the acquisition. What's the markets

take on all this? Bloombergs at Ludlow back with the latest, and we just heard Reid Hoffman, who is a friend of Elon Musk worked with him at PayPal. He thinks Elon Musk is serious and has a plan. He thinks he's serious. He thinks he has a plan. You had a lot of doubt in those voices that we just played across the market. Reality is Twitter stock down nine point seven percent after those tweets, right, That's the biggest drop,

believe it or not since October. But the reason that we're following the share price in this snapshot moment in time is to track how far it's gone from the fifty four dollars twit scents bid that Elon Musk has made for the company. In other words, the spread and coming me into my Bloomberg terminal. Let's take a look at the spread, because we use that as a proxy to gauge wall streets belief of how likely this deal is to proceed in its current form or indeed, if

it's going to happen at all. You see there on the right hand side of your screen. The spread is currently at thirteen dollars for the eighth cents, the gap between current share price and Elon musky cents bid. On Thursday night, it was at nine dollars eleven cents, so we've really widened the spread. And in reality, the market is increasingly telling us that it believes Musk is either trying to reprice the deal like we heard from some of those voices, or he's going to walk away from

this proposal altogether. Bloomberg has been speaking all day long, Emily to merger arbitrage specialists who put the odds of this deal at fort really for zero percent? Can you believe it? That's not high, that's not high. But it's Friday. That's where we're at right now. Let's see where we're out on Monday. Well, let's see what the weekend brings.

First at Ludlow, Thank you. I want to move on now to Toast, the cloud based restaurant software company recently reported their first quarter results, beating expectations on top of giving a positive outlooks, sending shares jumping, a bright spot in the recent spate of tech earnings reports. I want to bring in tost CFO Atlena Gomez from More talk about this and the digital revolution in the restaurant industry.

At Lena, First of all, look, you know you're facing a lot of very difficult macro economic forces here prices going up, consumers under pressure. How is it that Toast is managing to keep strong results coming. Yeah, thank you for having me, Emily. Yeah, we Toast. We posted printed yesterday some great results and beat across all of our metrics.

And really that's a testament to our product resonating in the market price and we're seeing really a secular shift in the restaurant industry where every restaurant is trying to digitize or operate to run more efficiently, and Toast is

well positioned to capture this opportunity. And our Q on results really speak to how well our sales team executed, but really speak to the opportunity ahead for Toast and in the inflationary environment when with costs rising, actually Toast becomes even more valuable because we can help our restaurants be more efficient, help them manage their pricing their menus, have them see line item by line at m detail on their menu items. So we're really excited about the

opportunity ahead. Interesting though, but how much choices do restaurants have right now when the price of food is going up and they've got to pay their bills. How do you see inflation impacting the business your business and the restaurant business over the next few months. Yeah, that's the beauty of the platform, I believe. So we we give we arm our restaurant owners with data insights and performance insight so they can look at their menu items they

can potentially increase their price if they need too. And also we help restaurants be more efficient. It's a margin game for restaurants, right, and so we can help them with our tools be more efficient, whether that's looking giving them hardware to help more run their operation more efficiently, or looking at their menu prices and or optimizing the food the food that they put on their menus. All of that is really what Toast does and actually becomes

more powerful for them during this inflationary environment. Now, Toast went public during the pandemic, and we just saw instat cart file to go public. They've cut their valuation as they navigate this process. What do you make of them? You know, decided to go public now and they're model especially in the macro environment we're facing. Yeah, you know, I think insta cart has always proven to do a really good job of their consumer marketplace. I do think

the market is a bit different. But if they have a good long term plan, just how we think about our opportunity. Uh. Then you know, I think that they can have a successful I p O. But I think it depends to make sure that they have a very long term plan. And we always know there'll be different MATT market backdrops, and that's how we think about our

business as well. We're really focused on the long term play and as long as they really have a good long term strategy, I think that will work well for them. Restaurants and uh, you know, companies like yours are becoming more intertwined with the gig economy and the gig economy's future. And I'm curious what you think about the labor issues that they're facing that we're seeing, especially in a tight

labor market where people are just struggling to make ends meet. Yeah, I now we're seeing we're definitely seeing that as a pain point for our restaurants. And that's where we can really help our help our restaurant owners by leveraging our tools. If they can leverage our tools, we can we can we can actually help them effectively do serve more diners. Uh, even with our platform and so great examples. We had

a restaurant that had eight servers serving ninety diners. A year later with our platform, they served over two diners with nine servers. So it just gives you an example of the power of our platform to help them in this very intense labor market. I also have to ask you worked at Visa in your previous life and what you make of the fact that, you know, crypto payments have been on the rise and bitcoin settled more than

Visa last year. Yeah, you know, I think that that there's a wait and see approach on bitcoin and crypto and and you know, we're paying attention to that, but we'll see how it plays out over time. Alright to CFO Elena Gomez, thank you for sharing, Thank you for having effective with us. Great to have you today. Coming up, we will wrap the weeks that was in crypto, the future of stable coins after the Terra USD debacle, and just how long this crypto winter blasts? This is Bloomberg.

It is time now for our crypto report and wrapping the week in crypto markets that was what a week. As bitcoin plunged as low as twenty six thousand dollars Thursday, two hundred billion dollars in market value has been erased from the entire crypto market, and it's the sell off. To give you an idea, that's almost as much as the annual budget for the entire state of New York,

which is two hundred twenty billion dollars. Our crypto contributors, Snali Bostik is here to put it all in perspective, Shanali, Emily, it's really amazing because you see that much wiped out

of the entire crypto universe. All talking on the heels of what happened in the us T and the Terra ecosystem, but Bitcoin itself, the biggest of the cryptocurrencies, really had fallen here below oh that very highly watched thirty dollar level, and it has gotten a bid here today over six percent of a rise in more than about twenty four hour period, helping bring the global crypto market back up more than six percent as well, but still over a

seven day period. Here you are seeing most cryptocurrencies the top ten at least mostly lower on the seven day period, with the one exception being the other stable coin usd coin, which is much closely, much more closely linked to the dollar. But still, Emily, we're gonna be talking about it for a while. Now, what does the breakdown of the tarot ecosystem mean for defy and crypto rit large Well, and it'll be interesting to look back on this moment as

an inflection point in the broader crypto story. Shanali stay with us. I want to bring in our next guest for his take on all of it. Adam Jackson is the co founder and CEO of freelance Labs, one of the core teams building the brain Trust Network, a user own talent network that matches enterprises with technical and design professionals. Adam, thank you so much for joining us. Okay, so I don't think there's any debate. We are in the middle of a crypto winter. How cold does it get and

how long does it last? Well, look, the winter is here, that the tide is completely out, and I think you know this happens every couple of years in in crypto certainly and in tech more generally. But this is a big sea change we're going to see now that you know, these old systems that people were playing with, these kind of Ponzi economics, a lot of defy that never really generated any value, that was very self referential. It's going away.

And I think we're going to return to you know, this is when the scammers leave the people who are playing games, and you know that all goes away. Everyone's been cashed out because zerrowed out, if you will, And we're gonna go back to fundamental networks, networks that actually drive value for their users. What does value mean moving forward? There's a lot of questions. You know, you think about what Mark Cuban had said and the idea that more

of these crypto assets need to be more sass like. Uh, there's a big question about the utility moving forward for crypto ahead. What are you seeing founders and talent gravitate towards now that some of the bubble has been versed. Yeah, sure, I don't know what crypto being more sas like means exactly, but I'll tell you what the fundamental value system of Web three is is replaced the middleman who extracts more

value than they provide, replace it with software. Right, and so move from overly extractive investor own networks to use your own networks, networks marketplaces that are owned by the people who make their living on them. And so when you compress those big corporate margins, that just a All they do is misaligned incentives between the operator of the

marketplace and the users would make their living. When you swash those down, you give the value back to the people who are actually making their living on the network or the demand side. Right, That's what web free is all about. Use your own networks, growing faster and becoming more valuable than invest your own networks. What do you make it? What's happening with coin base where you know, I'm sure they would say, you know, we're not a

Pozzi scheme, we're not scammers. We're trying to bring some integrity to this market. But you look at the stock totally plummeting over the last several weeks. What's the future for a company like coin base? Yeah, I mean a coin coin Base is certainly not a scam. More upon the scheme, they're incredibly valuable piece of infrastructure in the US. They're one of the most important and easy to use on ramps to the system. Um, They're an absolute staple,

and they're they're not going anywhere. You know, there are there are a critical piece of this infrastructure for for everybody in the US. You know, question, I have to It's like there's these big publicly traded companies like coin base, where there are already massive, massive investors. But what do you think about the VC area where some of these valuations are coming down. What is the propensity for VC dollars to go into new businesses, especially at the early stage,

to help new founders really expand this market in a downturn. Yeah, the downturns are great for building, right. This is when when it's really cold out and everyone has to be disciplined, and everyone's saying, trim your budgets, extend your runway. It's I know it's a bit of a meme, but it's true. It's good advice. And these venture funds, look, they've already been raised, right, I mean these you know, massive like Katie Hans New Fund and these other giant crypto funds.

This money has been raised, it's going to be deployed. But I think we we've all learned a valuable lesson here that you know, some of the stuff just gets a little too crazy. You know, these these self referential business models like you see in play to earn or defy um as well as just these absurd valuations, right, hundreds of millions of dollars first seed stage stuff. You know, party is over, right, time to get back to work.

So where does the money get deployed if the party's over? Well, party, party is over for the crazy stuff, right, And um look I'm guilty too. I was an early investor in Terra. I think Algo stables are the holy grail. I was really hoping it'd work out. I took a beating like the rest of them this week. But but when I say the parties of I mean this this like stuff like that's just so far out there from this is boble perspective. That's not actually providing anywhere any value. Right,

Ponzi economics. Right, that party is over. We need to go back to building networks that give real value to people doing work in the real world. Our our network, brain Trust connects knowledge workers with big clients like Nike and Goldmen Snacks that need them. And because it's owned by the talent, the fees are zero on talent and ten on clients. That's a way better deal for both sides. Right,

talent makes more money, clients budgets go further. When when that's the whole point, Right, that's a fundamentally valuable web three network. What do you make of what's happened with Tera and what it says about the future of quote unquote stable coins. Well, there's there's two types of stable points right there. There's asset backed like U, S, T, T,

H and heather. Those are you know, you could redeem one for a dollar that's hopefully in a bank account somewhere, so if there is a run on the bank, should be okay. Um. Now, that argument against those is they're not censorship proof, they're not decentralized, right, a government could turn them off easily, etcetera. The holy grail is the

algo stable point. That this concept of something that can maintain a peg to the US dollar, um, but not have full dollar backing right and be able to withstand an attack and and a lot of us, you know, this experiment has been played many times, uh, and and a lot of us thought, you know, Tara, maybe maybe the breakout and um, you know, there's a lot of like finger pointing around what did someone attack this or was it some hedge fund in New York and like

the But the answer is it doesn't matter. If there's a flaw on the system, it will be exploited. And that's what happened this week, so I'm sure. I'm sure we'll be tried again. Though, Adam, I'm really curious about the responsibility of the tarot ecosystem now that so many people have lost money. Is it completely invest at your own will here or are there going to be chances to recoup some of these losses in any fashion? Do

they owe anybody anything? You know? Um, I can't speak for them because I'm not part of the core team or l f G or anything like that. I'm just like an early you know, investor in the project, and UM, you know, I look, these are super risky, is right. So many of these things are speculative, and UM, you know you have to understand that and do your research before you go in. I did mine. I understood so

what I was getting into. Um, you know, I think I just read you know a couple of hours ago that um, you know, do Uan and the team are are attempting a restructure to recap the system and hopefully make us t holders more whole. Yeah. I hope it works out. Yeah, I mean it's look, they're not you know, this is not a scam, right, these guys worked hard to make this work and and Um, you know, I wish him the best. We'll see how it plays out. Adam Jackson, co founder and CEO of Freelance Labs and

bloom Version Alibos, thank you both. FIGS. The medical scrubs and accessories companies sank in Friday trade after reporting first quarter results that missed expectations and lowering its guidance. How's the company being impacted by supply challenges, inflation, macro economic turmoil. I want to talk about that and more with FIGS co CEO and co founder Trina Spirit. Trina, thank you so much for joining us. So look, Trina, Um, it's a very different environment than the market that you went

public in. What do you make of investors reaction here? Yeah, I mean it's definitely been an interesting quarter. I mean what we did was we really, um, feel as though we had a great quarter, right, twenty three percent revenue growth with twenty sorry percent revenue growth with twenty percent of Justine bazaw margin. We're really coupling both revenue growth

and profitability in a pretty tough macroeconomic environment. Um, you know, we understand the response, but we feel it is a bit unwarranted just given how we are really well positioned for the long run. How dire are the supply chain challenges you're facing and how are you navigating them? You know, I think this has been going on first quite some time. You know, we've navigated through tough supply chain environment all through one. We've seen a bit more unpredictability in two.

But we feel as though we're really well uh you know positioned. Right We are airing more of our goods in throughout the rest of this year, We're adjusting our product launch calendar, and we're able to really take action so that we can bring in our products for our healthcare professionals who need them so badly right now to get to work and and help us all. As you know, the pandemic even goes on from here, the pandemic, as

you say, it's still with us. What are you hearing from the healthcare community and and and how does that translate into demand? You know, I think from the demand side, we feel really uh great, right, this is a recession result recessor assistant industry. We make non discretionary products. Healthcare pre nessionals need our products to do their jobs and

go to work every day. We're plenishment driven business. Seventy of our business comes from repeat customers, but our healthcare professionals, it's been tough. And you know, our job at FIGS is to celebrate, empower and serve those who serve others. So every day we wake up here, how can we get our products to the people that need them most? And we're going to continue to do that. Now, you're focused on reinventing scrubs for frontline workers, but I wonder

are there opportunities and avenues for growth in the lifestyle category. Yes, I mean, I think that's what's been really interesting about what we've done. Right. We really, before Figs it was a V neck top and a draw string pair of pants. We reinvented the industry with function and comfort and style

uh in fabric technology that none of which existed. And then on the lifestyle side, to your your point, we grew eight that part of our business non scrubs eighty one percent a year every year in the quarter, eighteen percent of our net revenues is everything outside of scrubs, are as, our health care. Our professionals are essentially layering all of our products to go to work, at work, from work, on shift, off shift, had to tell and it's really encouraging to see, uh, that level of growth

across the business. So last quick question, you and your co CEO built this company together. Where to see two women public company ceo is running a company together. What's your advice to other executives other founders in turbulent times like this. Yeah, I think it's too you know, be realistic in the near term and optimistic over the long run. We are very focused on the long term and really our community building incredible products for the most incredible people.

That's what our healthcare professionals are. We call them awesome humans. Uh, and really focus on your mission and your values, which is what Heather and I try to do here every day. Train a spear fixed co CEO and co founder. Thank you for joining. Thank you, And that does it for this edition of Bloomberg Technology Wall Street Week. Coming up next with my colleague David west In and former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and a bunch of other great guests.

They're gonna be talking about Elon Musk and next week Bloomberg Tech Tuesday will be on the road in Boston. We've got a great lineup of guests to talk about what's new in Boston's Silicon Alley and more, have a wonderful weekend. This is Bloomberg,