Major Retail Collapse Could Lead to a Thrift Boom

on well, at least according to Twitter. We'll get the latest inside from inside Twitter, as the company says it is not backing down from that forty four billion dollar takeover from Elon Musk and its retail stocks slide over ongoing inflation fears. What does that mean for the second hand market. I'll be speaking about that with thread Up CEO g Speinehart, including why he expects the secondhand market

to double in the coming years. We'll get to all of that in a moment, but first let's get a look at the markets with our very own lead Ludlow. In this place, I missed most. I left my heart in San Francisco. Wad I mean it's sunny, calm here in San Francisco. The market for some time during Thursday

session looks sunny and calm as well. We call it a choppy day right of trading, or a see saw day, ultimately with down six tents of percent on the SMP half a percentage point four tents of percent on the Nasdaq one. But you contrast that with the declines we saw on Wednesday. Perhaps the market more sanguine but struggling for direction, and ultimately in the last hour or so

of the session we fell away into negative territory. Also interesting to see yield softerter You see the US tenure at two point eight three percent, Bitcoin holding around thirty thousand dollars for token it had fallen, of course, in

the set off we saw on Wednesday. This general risk off sentiment staying in place is that the FED is that inflation, Asian concerns will We also look at Cisco, because corporate earning season continue Cisco pretty steadily holding it declines of thirteen fourteen percent all throughout the session on Thursday, cutting its annual sales forecast, supply chain problems, impact from China, And we're so focused on Cisco because it's really a

proxy or a barometer for corporate spending. When corporate America wants to invest in itself. Cisco tends to do well, so cutting its sales forecast. It's an interesting forward looking one after ours. We're also looking to apply materials Key chip maker of course lower a little lower, actually by around two and a half percent. It have been down as much as five and a half percent. A very

similar story. It gave a tepid forecast for the current quarter and says the supply chain issues around semi conductors are still there. In some cases suppliers are running at fifty percent of capacity. Those are not the things we want to be hearing when we were also worrying about global growth and a recession. Very quickly tailored two big Bloomberg scoops on Thursday that I want to talk about and we will talk about later in the show for

us of all Twitter higher you mentioned it. According to sources inside a meeting and all hands on Thursday, Twitter executives said he the deal with Elon Musque is not on hold. Be there's no such thing as a deal being on hold. Another big scoop, Apple actually one of the big laggards during Thursday session, down two and a half percent, but according to sources at a recent board meeting,

Apple presented its latest virtual reality headset. You know what they look like, you know what I'm holding up, and that's a sign that it might be a new products on the horizon. We need more of those hand gestures

from you add way to make it interactive. Really appreciate it very own at Lulow when is say, of course, on these volatile markets, and welcome in Jason Telber, portfolio manager for New Burger Berman and of course the disruptors E T F. Jason, what do you make quickly just sort of these volatile markets, particularly within your world of technology as well. Well. You know, it's interesting if if you look at tech overall, it's actually outperformed on a

one year basis. We have to remember that tech was really really strong and back half last year, and particularly you know, Microsoft and Apple, which make up a large percentage of the Tech index. The first half of the year has been tougher. There's been some high profile disappointments, you know, Facebook, Meta, Amazon, Netflix, um. But I do think within our universe, within our universe of disruptive companies.

It's been interesting because in the last two days of pretty significant down drafts in the market, we've seen significant outperformance UM, and we have to remember that smid cap Tech and smith Cap Growth specifically has been under a tremendous amount of pressure for the last twelve months, and we may be close to finding a bottom at least on a relative basis. Interesting, So when you talk about some of the smidcap technology companies, I think of a

few headwinds. Rising rates, of course, sort of the classic headwind that we know with some of these long duration assets, and then smaller down the scale, maybe the less healthy the balance sheet. When you're thinking about the fundamentals and growth at any cost does didn't work anymore? How does that sort of impact the way you're looking at these companies. Absolutely, it's a great question, Taylor. You know, we've always been very,

very focused on free cash flow. So even though we're interested in innovative, disruptive companies and you know a lot of their earnings could be out in the future, we also want to see free cash flow as soon as possible, and we want to own businesses there are in really strong strategic positions. So this isn't a fear of missing

out portfolio UM. Within smitcap Growth, there's actually a lot of interesting names that have free cash flow support, So we're talking about two to four percent free cash flow yields companies like zoom Info and Zendesk. Within medical technologies, companies like dex Com, uh Intuitive Surgical, and I think that investors are starting to realize, hey, I've been paying you know, higher and higher multiples for consumer staples companies for safety, They're only really giving me a four percent

free cash flow yield. And the reality is these costs are going to hit them disproportionately. So I think that's what we've been seeing the last two days, is that the real economy stocks are really going to be hurt by inflation. So there's too many investors hiding out there, and we may start to see a rotation to some of these you know, skinny balance sheets, high pricing power, high intellectual property businesses that exist in them in our

disruptor's portfolio. Within that portfolio, how sort of defensive do you feel like you need to be and making sure that you're also cash on the sidelines for better opportunities. But cash, of course, after inflation, is a money loser. Yeah that, I mean, great question. I wouldn't say that. Um, you know, I don't want to make a call on the market. Do have concerns of how is this inflation going to kind of filter through our economy and particularly

hit consumer spending over time. We're obviously already beginning to see that um show up pretty brightly in in you know, raw Store, some Walmart and Target, etcetera. UM So, I would say our portfolio is definitely tilted in the in the in the health care sector, so we do want

to be a little defensive from that standpoint. But even those names, if they're high growth, they are down a lot from where they were, you know, nine twelve months ago, And as I was saying earlier, they're starting to kind of bump up against pretty interesting valuations where you can get you know, to three percent free cashual yields for a company that's growing the top line A And if, if you know, we enter into a kind of stagflationary environment and and real growth becomes elusive, I do think

investors are going to come back to companies like this. Interesting though, I was speaking with Annestesia amorros So earlier by Capital and she said, maybe not always looking at valuations is the best way when you're thinking about investing. How much. Are you really keen valuations versus then just some of the other big technicals and just sort of the mass selloffs and indiscriminate selling where valuations look good

but the market frankly doesn't seem to care. Yeah. I think ultimately, you know, as they say that, you know, the short term markets canting machine machine, long term waing machine, and ultimately valuation is going to matter. You know, one of our companies in the portfolio that I mentioned, zendesk Um, you know, has private equity interests that's been kind of broadly reported. I think you could start to see start start to see more of that in the kind of

disrupted in innovation uh space. So I think we have to stay focused on valuation and owning good businesses that are disruptive. Sounding like a good see a fach hardholder that he is focused on those valuations. I remember as well, and I'm understanding of course what that means. I think when we talk about the bubbles and some of the hysteria in this market, it really was SPACs as well. You know, we understand the disclosures. When you think about an I p O wanting to raise capital, was the

snack spack market. One of the first indications of a little frothy, a little bit over our skis here when we were taking a look at that peak market bubbles. Oh, I mean, I mean, if we look back on this, I think that what happened is during the pandemic UM, it was really these innovative growth companies that had massive estimate revisions because they were kind of leading us through the pandemic. You know, think companies like Zoom, Moderna, bioin Tech, etcetera.

And this just generated a halo on all things innovative and growth. And there's going to be a massive acceleration even once the pandemic is over. UM and and and I think that there there's a lot of herds you know, heard following that goes on in the market. And I think the equity markets are friendly investment banks UH responded by by taking anything public UM that was remotely innovative. A lot of these companies went public way too early.

UM And Frankly, when we look at the fact that you know, small cap growth underperformed large cap growth by twenty five percentage points last year the most. And I think a big part of that is just all the supply that was pushed into the market. Um and and interestingly, if we look at where investors, so households have been

putting money, they've generally been putting it into large cap funds. Right, So you had this mismatch of supply and demand, and that's one of the reasons why I think, you know, kind of the megacps kind of lead in the back half of one while some of these you know, this MidCap space was being decimated quickly. Yeah, no, quickly here, we only have about a minute left, Chase and Curs gets your thoughts on if this is a U S story.

We've heard a lot of calls that China tech, for example, uninvestable. Are you us only focus here within these volatile markets, within the our Disruptors E t F, we only focus or we only owned US listed companies we own like one A d R. I think we own no Chinese stocks. Really appreciate it, Jason Topper Newberger Berman Disruptors E t F portfolio manager, really keeping us up to date on

all things big tech and these volatile markets. Investors are finding shelter from the deepending bear market sell off in the cheapest corners of the U S tech sector and really pulling back significantly significantly from some of the software stocks joining us now Rishie Jewelry f software analysts at RBC Capital Markets. And it's another sort of big day when we think about valuations and re rating of some of the big high flyers, a lot of the high

flyers during the pandemic as well. To kick us off broadly speaking, how are you looking at valuations at this moment? Yeah, and thank you so much for having me. Look, I think we increasingly have to you know, get away from the fraud that we were experienced, uh experiencing for the past two years during the pandemic and and drill more on on free cash flow and profitability and to that extent, I mean, we're seeing some really attractive opportunities out there.

You know, we see some really high quality companies like Zoom infol trading at thirty times cash flow, and and even some of the pandemic darlings that you know, they're going through some struggles, but we see you know, Zoom trading at fifteen times free cash flow. Uh. You know, we see Viva, very high quality company trading at twenty

five times free cash flow. Um. We really like these sort of names and and and think the fact that there's actual valuation support on a profitability basis, uh and and these are names that we think can can do well in any sort of environment and still have a long run way of growth. Um. We are increasingly, though, looking at profitability way more than we used to do

a year ago. And you're spot on. And I'm chuckling a little bit because the previous guests and you are mentioning on a instead of forward pe we're looking at multiples that include cash flow. And I'm wondering because when the E is negative, the math doesn't really work. Is you need a positive number in the denominator? How much of a focus is that e positive earnings instead of negative earnings? Yeah. Look with with SaaS companies, I think free cash flow matters a lot because it's just the

dynamics of how revenue recognition works. Right, there's subscription businesses, and so you have to look at free cash flow rather than earnings. I mean you obviously still have you know, high quality businesses that you can value on earnings. Microsoft, for example, trading at twenty times forward earnings and that's gap earnings at that um. You know, so so you you would definitely have businesses where you can look at earnings.

But the reason we always look at cash flow is number one, it's a it's a metric that is really hard to manipulate like earnings. And number two because of that whole subscription dynamic I just mentioned. What do you make of the big sell off looking at your coverage list Salesforce Microsoft? You know you think Microsoft massive, strong balance sheet, huge free cash flow, as you mentioned, strong

debt rating. The indiscriminate selling that's been going on in the market, what is that telling you about the future path forward for even these super strong, healthy companies. Yeah, I look at I think you hit it on the head. It'sn't It is indiscriminated selling. And I think what is happening is investors are just fearful, right and and and

and it's more the uncertainty that's killing everything. Um. You know, if we were actually in a recession right now, I think there's been a lot lesson certainty, But it's the unknown, as you know, are are we heading into recession? Are we not? Is it going to be like oh eight? Um?

And I think that's what's making investors just sell off everything software, along with the fact that you know, all these stocks benefited during the pandemic um and I think it's time for investors to take a look and say, look, let's separate. You know, really, what are quality businesses from those that that aren't. And you know, where have investors been throwing out the baby with the bathwater? Um? So that's what I really think is happening here. But I

think it is creating some opportunity. What are those opportunities then? For you? Within your coverage list? How are you thinking about the strong companies going forward? Uh? Yeah, Look, we're we're we're bullish on you know Microsoft, right for example, you know, it's pulled back off the highs and trades of a very reasonable valuation. Uh and and it's one of those names that should do well in a even

in a downturn. Right. Viva is another name we like, you know, and in fact, they sell to healthcare, which is itself a very defensive sector. Um HubSpot is another name that we're taking advantage of on the pullback. Right. These are all companies that that have profitability that you can value on cash flow, have multiple growth drivers to to to continue growing, and and you know names again, especially Microsoft and Viva should hold up really well even

in the event of a recession. What about some of the big pandemic winners that you mentioned, Palanteer, Zoom, the video conference company that we know, docu Side, we no longer were able to sign in persons were doing docu sign. Was that just a pull forward revenue that we saw. How consistent do you see that revenue and of course cash flow going forward? Yeah? Absolutely, And and you know, i'll put Palanteer side because we're actually a negative on that name. But but on on Zoom and docu Sign,

I think you're you're absol right. They did pull forward a lot of business and and they're both very focused on their second act. Right. For for Zoom it's Zoom Phone and some of the other adjacencies like rooms and events UM. For for docu sign, it's it's CLM, Contract

Lifecycle Management UM. Their focused on their second act. And I think the again, the uncertainty is what's holding these names back, right, It's why Zoom trades at fifteen times cash flow for what I think is a very quality business that that has you know, good unit economics and

and really great technology. I think it's the best video conferencing technology that exists out there, but all the uncertainty is okay, well, how many other people are left in the world to do video conferencing Once you displace WebEx Uh, then where is there to go? And so as as they can prove that these second and third acts of their business are are for real, uh, then I think we can start to see a rerating on those docks.

The argument has always been companies, even in a recession, even in a pullback, will continue to invest in technology. You've mentioned some of the companies that you really see as a recession proof effectively what companies don't do well in some of those slow down environments. Yeah. Look, I think there's a couple of categories. Number one is going to be any piece of software that is a a

nice to have, not a need to have, right. Um you know, look, I think you can find plenty of categories of software that there's are more discretionary nature that if you know, push comes to shove and you have to unplug them. Um, it's okay, but you can't unplug your e RP, you cannot unplug your CRM, you can't move your workloads off as youre um so so you know, it's the discretionary items that we think are gonna do poorly. And then it's it's companies that are really levered to

you know, the VC back businesses, right. I mean, it's no secret out there. We're seeing a lot of VC you know, funding dry up. We're seeing you know, those companies have to focus on profitability or even seeing layoffs right. And in consumer tech and even some VC backed enterprise software companies uh and and and any software company that is is proportionately exposed to the low end of the market um and to this kind of froth the VC back businesses, we think those ones are definitely at risk

in the downturn. Really appreciate it so smart for cash flow, That's my takeaway. Bristi Gelirias, software analyst at OURBC Capital Markets, coming up, Twitter executives toning down some of the tweets and reassuring employees that the deal with Musk is on and not on hold. We're going to discuss the latest

this Bloomberg time now for a Bloomberg scoop. The Twitter takeover drama continues as executives telling employees that the deal with Elon Musk it is not on hold, and it is moving forward as planned with the agreed upon price. Joining us once again is a very own Bloomberg's at Ludlow ned I wanted to say her just discuss our twins is wedding planning, and the producer said, no, we have to do Twitter. We have to do the story of the day. Right. Well, there's a lot to talk about.

So we're hearing from sources that are in this big meeting, this big old hands that Vigor Gadda, who's the head lawyer, head of policy at Twitter, basically stood up and said, you know, not only is the deal with Elon Musk not on hold, but there's no such thing as a deal being put on hold, literally a quote from within that meeting. And you know this has been an area of intent interests not just for investors or US in

the media, but Twitter users, fans of Elon Musk. And you know this was a move by company executive to reassure Twitter employees that you know, this is going to go ahead and this is what they're working toward. Why they need to even address this, right, Let's go back to basics. Great question. You'll remember that Elon Musk tweeted several days ago that the deal was quote temporarily on hold because he felt that data Twitter had provided in a regulatory fire ng saying less than five percent of

users on the platform were bots was not accurate. He felt that he didn't believe the data and evidence that Twitter had provided, and he wanted to know more, and he stated on Twitter, in classic Elon Musk fashion, that until he had more evidence, the deal was temporarily on hold. Quote.

But remember Bloomberg reporting as well that according to sources in the background, whatever Elon Musk is saying, his advisers, his bankers were getting on with it, you know, working with the other side, working with Twitter to get this deal to happen at the original price, which will remind our audience twenty cents per share to take Twitter private and evaluation forty four billion dollars. A lot of drama continuing to play out, and know that you continue to

keep us up to date here on Twitter. I want to go to potentially a little bit more of a stable growth company here, and that's Apple. We had a great, of course story out here from our very and Mark Roman talking about the headset. I know that you love to do that hand motion and really described that headset for as visually here, but showing it to the board a significant sign of progress. Right, we're talking about a

virtual augmented reality headset. You know, I don't have a prop, but basically sources saying that the latest version of this device was presented to the board recently. The board meets four times a year, but that's a pretty good sign that it's at a stage where it could be real. It could be the next big thing. You look there at that pie chart. Hardware so important for Apple revenue, but the iPhone dominates. What's the next generation of products?

How can they boost services revenue? Were augmented virtual reality is one way of doing that. And so you know, we're hearing that this headset has amazing processing power, the same kind of chip power semiconductor power that it's latest generation of Max has and in previous years they've tested their software on competitor headsets. This is a market dominated by Meta, right, the Facebook parent and it's quest two device.

So can Apple catch up? It's very exciting how to get your hands on the chips first, very appreciate, did very own Bloomberg's at ludlow. It is the single most efficient competitive market in the world. Hands down, we should think about how do we have far more companies be public companies where their success is enjoyed by American investors saving for the retirement or otherwise. And everything that we keep piling onto the list of obligations and responsibilities for

public company discourages that from happy. We've seen thousands of fewer companies in our public markets today than twenty five years ago. And that's really I I hate to say it, but but shame on Washington for for really forcing so many investment opportunities outside of the line of sight of the American investment public. Welcome back to Bloomberg Technology. I'm

Taylor Riggs. That was, of course that l CEO Ken Griffin speaking earlier at the bloom Intelligence Market Structure Conference, talking really here about the dearth of deals that he's seen in the US right now. He also warned how the chaotic markets are also making it harder to look at new deal, new deals and ideas. For more on how this is affecting startups, especially as they try to fundraise. I'm joined by Lisa Blow She is of course founding

partner at Able. Great to have you here talk to us about sort of the volatility that we're seeing in the in the markets and sort of the impact that you're seeing, if at all, on some of the fundraising

as well. Absolutely thanks for having me, Taylor. You know, we're really seeing that some of the later stage v C market, you know, shift, some of that turbulence is really um shifting down a bit um many investors, especially the crossover funds with public and private exposure, they pulled back or they've simply gone pencils down, and we're hearing about flat or down rounds as multiple start to normalize.

We're also seeing significant interest in selling secondary shares in unicorns and a fair number of extension or bridge rounds.

You know, right now the very early stage, the precede two seeds still remains somewhat insulated, but it's really just a matter of time before we see that instability seem into the super early stage, and many of those precede and seed rounds they're upsizing the size of their current reads, you know, for a little more cushion so that they have runway given you know, the macro and certainty that we're seeing in the later stage market, and are you

telling your companies to prepare for a little bit of a slow down, to think about conserving cash, just tightening up your belt and being able to And I was in Boston, I believe it was two days ago when I think one of the vcs that I was speaking to told his companies be prepared to not be able to fundraise for eight teen months. Yeah. Absolutely, I think that's good advice. It's certainly a good um framework in

a way of thinking. You know, our best advice to any founder at as time is to remain incredibly disciplined on your cash furn and to utilize, you know, an R o I driven decision making framework to prioritize and and really, irrespective of the macro environment, we enable have always set you know, the best companies with outstanding metrics, fundamentals and a unique competitive advantage will continue to get funded.

There's still venture funding out there with dollars that will have to be deployed, and they'll go, you know, out to the best the best founders and the best businesses.

You know, and we've also said to our founders, you know, many of them try to optimize for lower dilution and higher valuation, but there may be advantages now to remaining disciplined on valuation to avoid being in a situation where it's hard to clear that valuation at the next round, you know, giving given the continued challenges in the macro environment. So the shift is no longer a unicorn at any cost. Right. Has it been a focus on looking at more or

sooner profitability? Absolutely? Um, you know, I think it's it's no longer. The message is no longer you know, grows at any cost. It is really trying to UM to focus on the fundamentals and to build you know, a strategically competitive business. UM. That's still sort of grounded in in good economics. You know, you talked about it in the slowdown. You'll still get funding for the companies with really strong ideas. Where do you what sectors? Where are

those good ideas? You know? And able we're focused on what we call kind of narrowing the wellness gap, right, that's the delta that's grown over the past two decades as economic indicators such as GDP per capita you know, have gone up into the right UM, while our measures of overall well being, including physical and mental health, have stagnated or decreased. So we're most focused on overlooked or

underserved demographics where there has been historical sigma stigma. So one area that's been very active for US is mental health. You know, we've been invested in spring Health and Alma and Little Otter. One in five US adults and kids suffer from a mental health or substance abuse issue in any given year, but over half have never received treatment. Um,

the stats really speak for themselves. But it's also an opportunity that's right for technological innovation given the significant supply and demand and balance that we see in this sector specifically. So I think it's six counties in the US, including of rural counties, don't have a single psychiatrist, and the number of psychiatrists interesting entering the profession has been trending down, you know. So our thesis is that technology can really

help unlock a lot of value and opportunity there. And I hear you, but also coming out of the pandemic, this also felt like, says a competitive space. I mean, you get up advertisements all the time of all of these different mental health apps here on your phone, so how do you also then differentiate if there is the need. But it also kind of feels competitive as well, yeah, absolutely. You know, I think kind of going back, as I said, we've really focused where we think technology UM can make

a big difference, particularly in the mental health sector. So we've looked at tools that make the mental health providers more efficient in managing their care. You know, we've looked at services and technology that allows personalization for an employee to determine, you know, exactly what care, what mental health

modality is most effective for their needs. We've also looked at a digital services that allow those in world geographies, as I mentioned before, you know, to access quality care virtually. And now that's right, Yeah, no, wonderful. And I think another great thing here I'm ringing in your notes is course backing female entrepreneurs, and they're sort of a big takeaway from the pandemic. It all forced us to stop, slow down and look around at a quality around us.

And certainly in your world you're doing that as well. How are you looking at investing and supporting female entrepreneurs. Absolutely, that's been central to our thesis and our work since Stables inception UM. You know, we have about seventy companies and our current portfolio and six have a female on the founding team. But we've always said that that we really invest in the most talented founders and they just happened to be women. Right, are our sectors that we

focus on, our consumer, their health, their care. Women make the vast majority of purchase decisions, and we as investors, you know, we're really looking and talking a lot about founder product that and we're looking for entrepreneurs that have lived experiences that uniquely qualify them to solve the problem. So, you know, from our perspective, understanding the female point of

view is really critical to success and to scale. And and there has been progress last year, and women raised more venture dollars and executed more exits, greater evaluations than at any point in the past decade, but the percentage share of funding to all female founding teams declined for the second year in the row. So you know, the reality is we need more diverse perspectives, more women in decision making roles at investment firms, because you know, it's

not just it's not just good work, good business. Women on founding teams. You know, those teams perform sixty three percent better than all male founding teams, and women lead teams generate you know, like thirty five percent higher return on investment than all male teams. So this is you know, this is not charity, this is good investment work. Really appreciate it. Good investment work is from Lisa Blow, founding

partner over an Able Ventures. Really appreciative coming up closing the gender gap, something that we were just discussing and now doing that in the digital art world by conversation with well one of the biggest artists in that space. That's next. This is Bloomberg time now for our Crypto Report. I'm so pleased to welcome in while our of course

crypto contributor Snali bask along with Nadia to Lakonikova. She is of course one of the co founders of the feminist protest art collective Pussy Right and an outspoken social activists. Nadia is so great to um have you here with us today. First talk about sort of this new initiative that you have underway and and sort of the more equalizing within the l g B t Q community that

that you're looking for within the crypto world. UM, it's called again Learned Out and they bring together one of the biggest minds and flancers, artists, collectors in the digital arts space to close the gender gap. Artists thinking is that UM crypto digital space promised to build a new world, and a lot of people in this space belief that UM the world has to be more UM open, excessive,

accessible for everyone, UM equitable and UM. We believe that if we bring together in the room one of the most inefntional people in space, people like people see a borde yacht club, grinds, UM, pussy right, a lot of other prominent artists in space UM, than we are going to be able to establish NUMER them and everyone else who's going to come to webs three later going to be following this model of the world that they're going to be able to build where women are equal men.

I'm really curious about diving into that a little more. Your website also for Unicorn, Dow points out some of the issue here and idea that there is not a lot of diversity in the space yet. So when you're getting together with all the members of this taw, how do you defeat this problem and are there challenges to doing so? M We get together on weekly calls, sometimes

we do parties UM. When it comes to UM membership, we try to make sure that we have UM and this equal amount of members, and we have systems in place that help to maintain that, like, for example, we have sponsorship program UM that is sponsored by movie a UM, so there are a number of female artists who are not able to contribute to fifty ease for a seat,

so instead movie based for them. When it comes to in real life mons, UM you know obviously prefer to party with UM girls and all people people, so we also as always maintain UM people who we've watched, people who we invite, so it's like it's never a cryptive

broad party UM. I think this is one of the biggest problems in web scree in crypto that they are called SURE that is created by crypto bros, which is so repulsive for a lot of people from the outside, and then it doesn't allow UM an if season really skill and reach massive option. And what a story. I

mean this was launched in the tenure anniversary. Since you're arrest in Moscow for an anti Putin protest and I'm wondering if you'll talk a little more about the power you found in crypto to bring people together, especially because you were such a big part of what had raised money for Ukraine through the Tao world. UM. I'm always

been connected with the world of technology. Creci believes that not just to be a good effective activists have to be also smart abode what's going on in the tech world. UM so I mm hmm, I'll love to I love to use whatever this world gives us in order to which you've better results. Is an actness. So with the same mindset I came into crypto UM. I started to actually work in the game of last year UM. And but you know, my core UM ethos didn't change really

over the last fifteen years. It started to be feminist

and interpreting in the interstature. And actually fifteen years ago so UM doing the same thing, tried to cheat the same goals, but with new tools and UM for example, when they were grain started in the end of February, were put together ukrained out and I'm one of the co founders of the brained out and we were able to raise seven million dollars just a few days and dispersed those wine in the next twenty four hours and creat allows for UM transparency, speed, UH and efficiency that's

not really seen before. The sort of argument against that though, it's been sort of the high flying n f t S high flying crypto. Oh, it's come down a lot in terms of price. Are you worried about entering and continuing in this market when prices weren't what they were a few months ago. I'm not worried because I'm here for different reasons. I'm looking at scripture as as a tool for activism, and uh, nothing really changed, and that Simpsons.

I also, I also think that there are a lot of UM use cases of Considium applications UM for building better governance models, and the founder of Isyrianthetic Garnity, talks a lot about that. So I'm usually looking forward for deco, playing UM lust for money and crypto and looking at scripted and I think this, this current market allows us to actually take a look at crypt and try to find something better and more interesting, deeper than just UM

you know, means to get rich. You know, speaking of deeper reasons for cryptocurrency, one of the things that you're Dallas talked about is reproductive rights and what you've called the summer rage and in the release out here, so how do you see that playing out for members of the community to really talk about reproductive rights in the

United States. We're working currently on the auctions is UM Christie's and the auction is going to be revolving around the topic of reproductive justice UM and big proportion of what we're going to be able to raise what we're going to be donating to various reproductive justice organizations in the US UM and also we are in conversations with various UM and so various recoundations like Blind Friendhood and When's March to see how we can actually help them

to onboard their members two bops three to hopefully provide them better governance tools and also found aging tools for their goals. Really appreciate it, Nadia to look Nikova of course, and our very own Bloomberg generally Bostic. Really appreciate both of you joining this program. Retail Stock's got a big hit this week as investors worry about consumers paying higher prices in the wake of higher inflation. Join is now is James Riinhardt's CEO of thread Up, the world's largest

online market place for secondhand clothing. And before we get to the inflation conversations, I think the bigger issue underway is well the lack of supply chain issues that at least maybe you're starting to see. Is that one area of at least reprieve for you Yeah, definitely. And we don't have exposure to China, so we don't have to put you to international production. Um. You know, of course we still are dealing with freight and labor costs here

in the US. But certainly it's nice to be in a market where, you know, everything that we're selling back to the American consumer is being sourced domestically from from the American consumer. So that does give us some insulation. Tower talk to us then about inflation, huge concern and you know one of my bigger concerns is if Walmart and Target aren't figuring out how to manage it, how does everyone else do it? How are you doing it? Yeah? I mean I don't think the targeting Walmart and it

told sort of different stories about about the results. I think, Um, you know, for us, ultimately, what we see is a consumer that seems like they're getting a little pinched right

and pinched at the palm, pinched on groceries. Um. You know, you can see this across sort of consumer discretionary spend and so you know, I think what we're seeing is that this is now a time where discount apparel, you know, secondhand apparel can really shine, and so I think, you know, our job is to make sure consumers are aware of the great value that you can get in second hand

and you're really seeing that. I'm looking at your two resell report talking about how the market is expected to grow by a hundred and twenty seven by six How do you sort of make sure that you're meeting your audience, that you have the right inventory that consumers are looking

for at the moment. Yeah, that's the tricky part, right is it is that it requires some investment right now to make sure that we have the products that consumers want to buy and that we're really investing for the consumer of the future, you know, which is young people. Where you're really seeing the growth in Gen Z millennial shoppers is their pursuit of second hand. And I think second hand is now moved from hey, I'm gonna occasionally think about shopping second hand to really being one of

the first places the young people are going. And I think that's a really exciting change for the resale industry. And so we're trying to make sure that that we're there. Uh, you know, as consumers are looking to you know, go back out in the world and return to work. And that's where second and can shine. We were showing a chart here about how the consumers are really looking at

North America. That area is leading the growth, but how much of this is also a global story for future opportunity, Yeah, the global resail industry. This is the first time that we've ever done that as far as are you know, in our resale report was a look at the global trends, and you know, the global trends are really positive. Whether it's whether it's in South America or it's in Europe

or or Australia. Right across the globe, resale is growing and so, you know, I think it suggests that this movement to shop more sustainably is not a US phenomenon. I've said for a long time that the problem we're solving for consumers is a global one, and so I think it's exciting, uh, you know, for us to see that type of global growth. I think the global markets supposed to triple over the next five years, and and obviously that's waited more towards North America the near term. Finally,

here you mentioned sustainability. I'm curious during times when the economics pull back a little bit and consumers are feeling pinched, is it a necessity or is it a desire to actually be sustainable. Yeah, I think what we've been trying to keep top of mind for consumers is that the threat of value proposition is always great brands at great prices.

You know, we certainly believe price and value is the number one consideration at a time like this, but we always add the caveat of like its great brands of great prices in a sustainable way. And I think young people increasingly are saying, hey, I want to change the way on shopping and I do want to be more sustainable, and so I think, you know, now is our time to improve that we can deliver value in a sustainable

way to our consumer. Really appreciate it. Thanks for spending some time with us through it up, CEO James Reinhardt. And of course that does it for this edition of Bloomberg Technology. We're going to be right back here tomorrow. I hear Emily Chang may grace the building and return. We'll have to see if that indeed doesn't work out. Also, though, don't make sure to check out our new podcast. You can find it on the terminal. You can find it online on Apple, Spotify, and I Heart This is Bloomberg.

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