Netflix Growing Again and Women Leaders Quitting

and suddenly pivoted to ads. What's working we'll discuss. Plus, women are leaving the top ranks of companies at higher rates than ever before, according to a new report from McKenzie and lean in what they're calling the Great Breakup later this hour, And what has Zuck been so quiet about Facebook these days? The mediceo seems to be ignoring his flagship social network to focus on luring people into

a vacant virtual world. We're gonna get to all of that in a moment, but first or more on Netflix, I want to bring in Bloomberg's Lucashaw Okay, Luke Lucas are what are the good things you're seeing in this report? Why are we seeing a turnaround before a lot of these new changes have even been put into effect. Well, it's it's growing again. So it added two point four million subscribers in the most recent quarter. That's way above

what they forecast, way above what Wall Street forecast. They also estimated four point five million editions in the fourth quarter. So Netflix is still going to have its worst year in a in a really long time. But people had been jittery because it had shrunk for two quarters in a row. The fact that it's growing again as seen as as a positive sign. The fact that it has all these hit shows that came out in the most

recent quarter also a positive sign. If you wanted to be a bit of a pessimist, you could say, why did they only add two point four million when it had all those hits, And that's that's a legitimate question. But I think there was you know, the the response to its slowdown had been so dramatic that a lot people are just breathing a side relief that it seems

to be back on a more stable trajectory. Now, what do we know about the ad supported tier and how is that impacting your outlook on how much better we can get here? Well, it's gonna release the new tier or start selling it in November. It will cost seven bucks a month. You'll watch about four or five minutes of commercials per hour. Most of the programs that people watch or care about will be available, but not all.

You won't have ads in new movies, you don't have ads and kids programming, although you may have sort of a pre roll add just not ads in the middle of it. Um And so that means that Netflix's add tier is cheaper than HBO, Max's add to, or cheaper than Disney Plus is forthcoming add tier, a little more expensive than some of the smaller rivals. I think people are pretty optimistic that this should boost the company's performance in the years ahead, at the very least give people

a reason not to cancel. But Netflix is saying it doesn't expect to see any material impact on a business in the fourth quarter, more likely in in the coming year. It could, of course, just be trying to manage that infectations. What about when it comes to the content strategy. I mentioned Britain is my favorite show, but but you know it's been a while, and you know they talked about

Monster that the Jeffrey Dahmer's story. What are you seeing as kind of the next generation of big Netflix hits well? I think there's a perception and then there's the reality. Right, there's a perception in the marketplace right now that programming on Netflix has gotten a lot worse, that their funding lots of bad shows, bad movies, and that people have moved on to HBO Max, to Apple TV Plus, to

Disney Plus. And while I think there's some truth to that that, and even Netflix has said that perhaps it's making too much, for the most part, Netflix is still making a lot of shows that people want to watch. It had Movies and The Gray Man and Purple Hearts that people watched. It had Dahmer, which was one of its biggest hits, that had the new season of Stranger Things, that had this Korean show Extraordinary Attorney Woo that was hugely popular. Uh, And so I think you'll see a

lot more of that. Netflix just making a wide range of shows that appeal to people on the coast, of people in the middle of the country, people all over the world. And we'll you over time if if they're doing enough to get people to come in. I think there's also a lot of concern about how much Netflix is spending on marketing, and the company is just starting to adjust its approach there, So what are folks saying in Hollywood? Obviously Netflix isn't doing all of this in

the vacuum. You've got all of the competitors out there making their changes as well well. I think people are, on the one hand, relieve because Netflix's problems had impacted the stock price and the strategy for a lot of its competitors. So even though they are rivals to one another, nobody wants to see Netflix collapse because every other company

basically bet their future on streaming. At the same time, you do hear a lot of sort the whispers and snickers about the quality of programming on Netflix and how it's not as good as it used to be and not as fun as it used to be. Like I said, I think there's some truth to that, but some of that is also just a little bit of kind of

lack of understanding of what people are actually watching. But we'll also see in the next few weeks what the results are like from Warner Brothers, Discovery with HBO, Max, from Disney with Disney Plus. Unfortunately don't really yet numbers for Apple TV and an Amazon broken out, but the positive results for Netflix should be a sign that if you can program. Well, there's still plenty of growth to be had in streaming. So look, obviously, you know we're

in the middle of a major macro economic downturn. You have consumers reevaluating the priorities. How many subscriptions do we really want to have? There's been a big reset in the content business. Where do you think this stands Let's say a year from now, how does this all shake out? Well, the big question is at what point some of these players decide that they'd be better off consolidating. Right. You know you talked about people being more sensitive with how

much they're spending. I think even the most optimistic person would say that people don't want to have to pay for more than four or five streaming services. And there are a number of services going for that mass scale. So does that mean that a paramount plus Warner Brothers, Discovery with HBO, Max, uh, you know, a a peacock from NBC Universal. Do some of those companies consolidate in some way. We've already seen Disney and Fox come together,

We've already seen Viacom and CBS come together. There's been a lot of speculation that at some point there will be bigger deals we just don't know when. All right, Luca Shaw, thank you as always for your analysis and insights here. Appreciate it. Intel self driving technology companies mobilized targeting evaluation far below previous expectations for its I p O Intel and recently lowered and expected valuation of Mobile I from fifty billion to thirty billion due to turbulent

market conditions. Now that's closer to sixteen billion here to discuss our Bloomberg Deal's reporter Crystal Z. So clearly the market condition is not helping here. But what's behind this another another valuation cut? Yeah, So basically I p O takes a long time to prepare. They probably came up with the idea of listening this unit Mobile IE when market was no booming, and right now it's went from

fift to sixteen then sixteen. I would like to say it's not probably the final evaluation launch with the range. I think it could go lower, it could go higher, it could go lower. If we're optimistic, we think it could go higher. But it's not the final evaluation um and we will know next week when they actually do a price to deal. And are you expecting them to to go ahead with this I mean, is there any kind of cold feet on the other side, like, maybe

we shouldn't do this right now. So if the market on the pricing day falls on a day like today where things are doing okay, like they could well go ahead. But everything is market dependent. It could just price on a day where everything is in the red and it would just be a total disaster. And we shall see. But right now I think they have the intention to go ahead with this listing. And what is the exact timeline we should expect a listing next week, perhaps the

middle of the week. There's this question of, you know, the unprofitable I p O and whether that era is coming to an end. And obviously you've covered so many I p o s in boom times and now you're covering the lack thereof you know, how are companies thinking about strategy in terms of what they want to get

out of a public offering. Yeah, so anyone who has raised money in the past year when valuation was still good, when money was still available, will unlikely be looking at an I p O. I think the mentality very much right now is that if you don't have to do it, don't do it. And I'm sure that's what the bankers are advising their clients as well. But if you're a company like Mobile I, where you have a parent company that is looking to return some money, then you would

go ahead with this listing. But for people who have a choice, they will most likely not. So that also give it an interesting power dynamic. If you're an investor and you know that this company needs to go public, you have more pricing power. So how long does the drought last and your view, well, a lot of bankers are saying that we should expect the rest of the year to be quiet, or even the first quarter of three.

So we will likely see some deals coming back meaningfully in the second quarter of twenty three, and it would most likely start with companies that are potentially revenue you positive, or even profitable. The things that we have covered in the last year where they have no revenue of that no profit. Those who have to wait. All right, Crystals, We'll keep checking back in with you and see if

the timeline changes. Thank you. I want to move on to another I p O that's been highly anticipated, that is instat car Let's bring in Adam Burnbaum to discuss. He's the executive director at GP Bullhound, a tech advisory and investment firm with a billion dollars under management. So instacart adam another one that's had you know, massive valuation cuts and believe it was, you know, valued at thirty nine billion dollars at the height of its popularity in

the middle of the pandemic. Now we're down to thirteen billion dollars. What's your expectation with this one. I think, you know, Insta carts in an interesting position because they don't really need the money right now. They've done a few things that are very vering suit when they raised capital and a higher valuation. Secondarily, they got their business models such that they became cash flow positive. And number three is they've evolved their business models so that they

have alternative sources for it. So they have an advertising model which is doing extremely well. All that adds up to they don't need to do a offering right now. The the reason for doing an offering and would just be to get some liquidity to a ten year old companies for some of their employees. But I don't think they need to force to do it. I think there's another there's another dynamic thim that's out there. Emily and

that is interesting. And this is this legislation that's floating around Washington right now, which is the reclassification of gig words. That's something that would have a material impact on the cost structure for these shoppers, going from being independent contractors to being treated as employees. That I think the company is certainly up for it. It's a very well managed company. FIGI does a great is doing a great job, and

so to Prova. And this is a company that went from two hundred thousand shoppers to five hundred thousand shoppers UH during the height of the pandemic. Just a well managed business. But all that's being said is that there's no need right now for them to have to do an I p O in a very very auspicious market department. So are you saying that you think if they have to classify these workers as employees, it's not going to dramatically negatively impact the company that they're prepared for it.

I'm what I'm saying is that I think that they would be able to handle it because I there, because it's gonna but it's going to certainly impact the valuation models that institutions are looking at for sure, And I think that in and of itself is a reason you hold off on rushing into an I p O market when you don't need to do it. It's this is

a consumer facing business. The the aura of an I p O is important, and there's no reason to rush into a market, you know, when you're in an invariument like we're in right now, where there's there's so much read on the screens of institutional investments from past I p O s, you know, you really need to you know, to pull off a transaction successfully. What you really need to do is you have to have everything aligned so you don't need this other variable right now out there

which is impacting their cost structure. So I guess what I'm saying is they don't need to do it right now. I think they're up for the task if that's where the legislation happens. But that's that's far from the FADA

company right now. Well, just talk to Crystal about the era of the unprofitable I p O, which was hugely popular, especially among technology companies instat carts, saying it's turned the corner on profitability, So I imagine that might be one less thing for investors to worry about you know, is the is the era for unprofitable I pos is that over? I think I think I wouldn't say it's you never say never, so I wouldn't say it's over forever, but

I definitely say it's over for the short term. I'd say that, you know, the there's there's a focus and we're seeing this in our business across the board. We do a lot of M and H transactions, We're doing a lot of capital raising. We just raised five hundred million dollars for business. Uh, there's a there's a big focus on more mature models that have provided a pathway to profitability or demonstrating that their that their models are involved.

The days of companies going out with a you know, somewhat somewhat of a pipe tree into the public markets, which frankly they shouldn't have been in the public markets to begin with. I think that at least with the near term, we're not going to see them for a while. So how are you changing your strategy and what are

you telling your clients admits to these evolving conditions. Well, I think what we're what we're telling people is one the M and A market continues to be open, particularly from very very good areas, things like cybersecurity E s G. We do a lot of work with digital analytic businesses and digital transformation companies. These are companies that have core organic growth within their within their addressable markets, which you're

going to continue. What we are telling people is that for those who are considering the I p O market right now in this environment, that is not something that we would strongly recommend. Uh. For sure, it's definitely not some thing it needs to be done. I think that there are you know, in between all this negative discussion, is that still this year we're gonna have a reckoned amount of capital coming into venture venture funds. It's just

going to be more concentrated. Uh. And I just think there's a flight that's just a general flight to quality. So that's what where you know, we're advising people that don't rush ahead to do something unnecessarily, but there's certainly market and there's certainly transactions to be done. The transactions to be done a very very fair valuations for companies that have more sure business models and and have the economics to support. How long do you think the downturn

will last? We're hearing, you know, six months for the I p O window to reopen. I'm hearing from from some other more skeptical folks two to three years before we're out of this. Yeah, it's a it's a great question when you look, when you look at what has happened over a period of time right now, all these valuation models that that institutional buy look at are predicated

on the on an interest rate. When you don't know what that interest rate is gonna be, it's very very hard to build the models accordingly, so you know, you it's it becomes very very challenging when you have a FED that is focused on breaking the back of inflation, and and that's certainly the right thing for them to be doing, but it's hard. It's hard to do that.

I would I think that once you get to a sole period of time in interest rate raisings and you start to see that we're entering into and you start seeing the labor statistics supporting that, I think you're going to see a you're gonna see a a market that's

going to be more receptive. And when markets and when markets start opening to the I p O market, the companies that go out and those environments have to be primo they have to be the best companies in their environment and those and that's really what's traditionally happens in any in any sort of bed I p O market, the market comes back because the best, the best go out there, they work, the institutions start feeling a little bit more comfortable, and then they and then you start

seeing additional companies come out. I would say, you know, to answer your question, uh, I'm thinking mid midtime next year, I would say, you know, Q four no Q one still feels a little early. I would say maybe Q two, Q three start seeing it. And again, you know, the equity capital markets are an environment that's you know, a front owner. So we're gonna be out in front of the economy. You are on the more optimistic side than Adam Burg. Bam g people Hound, thank you. Good to

hear your perspective. Right coming up, Apple drops after a report about iPhone production, plus the company unveils new iPads for the first time in five years. We're gonna talk about how the pandemic has changed the company's approach to tablets. This is Bloomberg. Apple just launched its first fully redesigned entry level iPad in five years, but shares dropped on a report the company will cut production of the iPhone fourteen plus. Let's bring in Bloomberg's Mark German to discuss

marcus report coming from the information. What's your assessment about these production cuts. I'm not sure what else Apple or investors or analysts should really expect when the phone comes out three weeks later than the other variations. It's basically last year's phone, but a little bit bigger. Really no changes, and it's only eight dollars per month, less than the

iPhone four Team Pro Max. There's really not a good reason to buy that nine iPhone fourteen plus when again on installments, a much better phone, the one you're showing on screen right now. It's only eight dollars per month. So if you're already spending nine on the phone, chances are you can spend eleven hundred dollars, especially if you break over break up that difference over twenty four or thirty months. Interesting. You've also got some new reporting on

the iPads. New iPod pads tell us how big a change you're seeing here, and and you know why the change in strategy from Apple. So two new iPads. One is the new iPad Pro with the M two chip. The second is a new entry level iPad. I'll start with the iPad Pro. That will be a lot quicker, smallest update in the history of the iPad Pro. The first one came out seven years ago. They've essentially added

just that faster processor. It's about fift faster. I don't think you're going to see major day to day gains from last year's model. There's a new Apple pencil hover feature you're showing, which now if you take the stylus over the screen, it can sense twelve millimeters away that you're there, so you don't actually have to touch the screen. It's kind of a cool but more of a software based tweak. Now the entry level iPad, I have no

idea why anyone would buy the iPad air. The iPad air with the M one chip six This iPad entry level has the A fourteen chip, so a little bit slower, but for over a hundred dollars less expensive. So I think it's going to be an incredibly hot seller. I think it's going to do well. The question is what is Apple thinking right now with its iPad strategy. It's really all over the place. You have five or six distinct models. You have a lot of overlap in both

pricing and functionality, and capacities and design and colors. The software story is not in good shape. People have been asking for major multitasking improvements for years now. I don't think Stage Manager, which they're launching with iPad O sixteen

and these new iPads next week, is the answer. I think they will do well the holiday season, particularly with the new colorful entry level iPad, but I think they need to give the iPad pro some serious juice, both in terms of hardware and software, and really define what the vision in the future of the iPad is. I think it's going to be bigger screens and Mac like multitasking, but we'll see what they have up their sleeves in twenty three and twenty four. Mark, you never sugre account anything.

That's why we're laughing. Thank you for giving us giving it to a straight Bloomberg s Mark German, as always, Welcome back to Bloomer Technology. I'm Emily Chang in New York. I want to get to what has been dubbed the Great Breakup, which is the phenomenon of women leaders leaving their companies at higher rates than ever before and the gap between women and men leaders quitting that's the largest it has ever been. This is according to Women in

the Workplace study by McKinsey and Lenan dot Org. I want to talk about why we're seeing all of this with McKenzie Senior partner, Lorena and Lena dot Org co founder and CEO, Rachel Thomas. Lorena and Rachel. I'm always looking forward to this report every year, mostly for our progress update, but this one is not so good. Rachel, explain what you mean by the great breakup. Well, it's exactly what you said. For the first time that we've

been tracking. Women leaders are highly ambitious. There's ambitious as men, but they're lee in the company at the highest rate we've ever seen and at higher rates than men. And we already know women are under represented in leadership, so companies cannot afford to lose their precious few women leaders. And to put the scale of this in the perspective for you, Emily, for every woman director who gets promoted, two women directors are choosing to leave their company. That's

one up and two out. And that's a problem. Lorena, you've been working in corporate America for so long. Why is this happening. Well, we see some very persistent headwinds, none of which are going to surprise you, and we see a change in the mindset of women. So some of those headwinds. Emily, we've seen lots of different stabs and cuts every day, but we saw that clearly about women leaders said that someone took credit for their idea

in their meetings. This year, we saw that there were two times more likely than men to be mistaken for someone junior actually kind of undercutting their leaders up and the list goes on, and these are the day to day headwinds. They're also not getting credit for being great people leaders. And so what we see is that when women give more, when they make sure that work works remotely and flexibly, when they actually take care of wellness, when they pay attention to D and I, they rarely

receive credit. So those are some of the headwinds which are signals to women you're not going to advance. And the other thing that I mentioned is women's mindsets are shifting. They're saying, look, I am positively ambitious, I would like to get promoted, I would like another opportunity, and if that means I need to break up with you and go to another company, go to a competitor, go to a smaller company to get that promotion, to get that raise.

I'm willing to bet on myself to do it. And yet far fear or women are being promoted to manager for the eighth year in a row. Uh, you're seeing this, Rachel? Can you explain this to me? Because I feel like we're getting a lot of conflicting information. You know, I've also heard more women are being promoted in a house or that you are are actually seeing that as a potential path to success. Uh, perhaps a more accessible path to success them bringing in new women to leadership roles

from the outside. Rachel, Emily, you're right, eighth year in a row, that broken wrong at that first critical step up to manager is still broken. For every hundred women who were promoted to manager last year, I mean for every hundred men, only eight seven women were in eighty two women of color. And here's why that matters. At the typical company, when you look at the manager level, six managers or men and managers or women, which means

literally there are fewer women to promote. So that's company's first pipe pipeline problem. And now we're talking about their second pipeline problem, which is on top of that, women leaders are leaving. So our message to organizations this year is we've got a really double triple down on holding on to our women leaders and up and coming women leaders. The report uh sites one in four uh C suite leaders as a woman, and only one in twenty is

a woman of color. Um Lorena, our startups doing at all any better of a job than corporate America at getting these numbers up. I wish we could say, yes, Emily, we see pretty consistent lackluster results across any sized company in the United States. And so to give you a flavor of this, if you're a Black woman, if you're a Latino woman, if you're an Asian woman, as you try and climb up, you just face so many challenges. And one thing that's really important to note is women

of color are extremely ambitious. In fact, Black and Asian women want to succeed and rise up to leadership rules the most out of all people in your organization, and yet they face these challenges. So, just as an example, if you are a black woman, you are more likely three times more likely in fact, to be questioned on your credibility, and you know you received the least amount of support from your manager, and all of these things

add up. And in a world where we have one in twenty women of color at the very top, and given all the emphasis that companies have talked about and are aware in terms of racial reckoning, you would think that we would be making more progress. And the fact of the matter is that we're not. Oh, let's talk about the silver linings. You talk about remote work. You mentioned remote work earlier, but given these numbers, Rachel, how is remote work really showing up for women in the workplace.

We know, before the pandemic, all employees in particularly women, really valued flexibility. We also know that companies, many of them, are continuing some commitment to at least a level of flexibility. But when you look at remote in hybrid work, what's really interesting is it's not just about flexibility for women.

They're actually having a better workplace experience and when they're working from home, they're less likely to experience those micro aggressions we often talk about getting mistaken for someone more junior, having someone take credit for your ideas, and those obviously have a huge impact on women. So it's just one stat women with disabilities are half as likely to experience microaggressions when they're working at home at their kitchen table

then when they're when they're working in the office. So certainly, flexibility is not the end all v all answer, but it's important to women because it allows them to fit work into their lives and it's also delivering a better work experience. So let's talk about a plan of action, Lorena. How can companies and managers and leaders use this information to use this as an opportunity to get better exactly? And so what this does is it points a spotlight

on what's not working. And granted, there are a lot of things that are not working, but there are solutions out there. We take a look at better companies, companies that are making more progress year over year. There are a couple of things they do. One, they actually hold themselves and managers accountable. They don't just have dashboards that say that they need to improve, but they actually hold leaders accountable for that in their business reviews, in their

performance evaluations. Another thing that we see is that they empower managers. They give them the tools to do better because certainly the positive intent is there and the last thing is that we see that they do better in practices, so they really go beyond the basics. It's one thing

to have an anti bias training once a year. It's another thing to say, I'm going to have an anti bias observer and I'm going to really bust that bias in the moments that matter, which are performance reviews and evaluations. It's a whole another thing to invest in career development versus just networking on women. Those are just a couple of examples, Emily, but there are some really concrete things that company can do, and I'm extremely optimistic that they

can step forward and do these things. So I have to ask you about, of course, the founder of lenan who started this movement, and that is Cheryl Sandberg. Oh. You know, now just a few weeks ago, uh left after a very long tenure at Facebook, Rachel, what can you tell us about Cheryl's next act? And you know how much more time She's now going to be spending with lenin and focused on these issues that you know,

as part of a movement that really she catalyzed. Yeah, So, first of all, I love the cheryld got to a point in her career where she was ready to leave because we all as women have a right to make choices about her career. As you know so well, Emily, and as she said publicly, she's always been incredibly involved with the Foundation and the work we do and fighting to knock down the BIA season barriers they get in women's way in the workplace, and she's going to continue

to do that. And we are thrilled to have Morna Cheryl Sandberg with us every day and really speaking up on these issues that are so critically important. So, Lorena, last question, there's a lot to be worried about. What can we be optimistic about We should be optimistic about young women. Um So, I'm so glad you asked so. In the survey this year, we founded lot of people wonder women under thirty, gen X, gen Z, what what's they're feeling? And I have some good news on that.

They are so ambitious. They want to be senior leaders and that has increased over the last couple of years. And they have a very clear view in a workplace that works for them and they're going to step up and live into that. And so when we think about the future of women at work, I look at young women and I say, look, that is our future. We have to invest in them, develop them and bring them

up into the senior ranks. All right, mckensley's Lorena ye lenand dot org its co founder and CEO, Rachel Thomas, thank you both, and thank you for the work that you do on this report every year. We appreciate it. Alright. Coming up, why one crypto aventure capitalist is asking the public to public to look at crypto as a technology not a token. That's next. This is Bloomberg. Blockchain is a technology which is real deployed in many places. We deploy it with ink with Onyx, which some of you

were part of and link with. Some of you were part of the JP Morgan coin, which is a stable coin backed by a U. S. Dollar deposit at JP Morgan. And there are a lot of these technologies gonna work. They're gonna replace ledgers, they're gonna make things cheaper. I think banks will be big users of that. And yes it may distant to me a certain part of banking.

So be it that we have that problem, like with technology for the last fifty years and so my issue has always been with what you guys call a cryptocurrency, which I call a crypto token that doesn't do anything, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Diamond last week, doubling down on his disdain for crypto tokens but backing blockchain technology. Earlier, Michael Anderson, co founder of the crypto venture capital firm Framework Ventures, reacted to what Diamond has had to say

on Bloomberg Crypto take a listen. I think you know the part about blockchain being real. He's completely right. Um, there are a number of different application categories that are built on blockchain today. Cryptocurrency and bitcoin just happens to be one of them. N f t s happened to

be another. Um, We're starting to see the rapid innovation of what these concepts can bring about, not just from a cost savings perspective for existing businesses, but new types of economic transactions that can exist in a new ecosystem that can connect into the financial ecosystem. You know, and

you touched on it in the previous segment. But gaming happens to be one of those segments of the market that's just completely new in a new business model for gaming will bring about a huge amount of economic activity. He makes an interesting point about the coins. Michael and

I've always wondered myself. I mean, even if you see the beauty and the blockchain, aside from you know, um faith from the group, what's the reason that these token should be worth a lot of money considering the fact that you don't really need even a full token to get on the blockchain and they're infinitely divisible. Yeah. Well, you know, I think one of the hardest things that we did for ourselves as an industry is called this industry the cryptocurrency industry. Uh, you know what it should

have been. You know, maybe crypto commodities would have been a better monitor for some of these assets, but really it's just a new technology platform. Uh. You know, there are reasons why tokens need to exist in these ecosystems to secure networks. You know, one of the ways that the proof of state ecosystem for Ethereum works is you're taking Ethereum tokens and putting them up as economic security

to validate transactions and provide security in that network. You know, there is a there's a core reason for that, and Ethereum in particular has a number of transaction the amount of transaction revenue that's going through it every single day is tantamount to something that's a massively scalable and profitable company if it were to be traded on the NASTAC

like a salesforce or a work day. UM. So if you if we look at them from that perspective, you know there are assets in this ecosystem that are fundamentally valuable. How how or tell us about some of the businesses you're invested in that are doing actual work with the blockchain that has nothing to do with the value of the token, for example, smart contracts or recording UM events. I mean, what what what can the blockchain do that

that you're actually seeing it? Uh, seeing work in your companies? Yeah. Well, one of the companies that we just announced a large series A fundraise for with Stardust UM Hannah Miller. Hats off to her broke that story earlier today. UM. They just raised a new round of funding UM, which we continued on with our existing investment. What they do is they provide an ecosystem for traditional game developers to develop their games and integrate blockchain. Just with the ease of

integration of an API and and some tooling and some infrastructure. UM. We liken it to be to being sort of the coin base for Web three gaming, where it'll just be the arm ramps for hundreds of developers who are building in this ecosystem who wanted to integrate n f t S. And frankly, the integration of n f t S just represents a new business model for game developers. It's not you know, a speculative fervor as we've seen with MC

gaming so far. The tens of the helpers that are building on top of it are are actually you know, building in succeeding today. Um, and we're just gonna continue to see that, try and continue Frame Work Ventures co founder Michael Anderson. Let's take a look at Facebook now, which some might have think has been abandoned, so to speak, by Mark Socckerberg in favor of this new child Meta.

That's just one interpretation, including from our own Max Chafkin, who wrote this piece for Bloomberg Business Week, focused on what Mark Sockerberg is talking about now and it's not Facebook, it's the metaverse. But is he really ignoring Facebook? I mean, this is a huge platform and it's not just Facebook, it's Instagram. It's what's appen Okay, so Facebook and and what's happened Instagram. This is still the core of Meta's

business UM. And and and to you know, in some extent, they're they're continuing to um, you know, make the trains run on time and try to generate revenue and profit. And and to be clear, this part of the business generates huge amounts of profit. And if you just looked at that part of the business by itself, you'd say, wow,

you know, Mark Zuckerberg is doing a really good job. UM. But then when you sort of look at it in the context of this pivot which is towards the metaverse UM, which happened, you know, a little less than a year ago. Company changed his name of course, away from Facebook UM to this new thing. And then when you look at just like the the comparison of user numbers, right, um, you know, basically three billion people every single day are

coming into Facebook's properties. Uh, that including Instagram. What's happened so on? Uh, it looks like about two hundred thousand people are in Horizon Worlds, which is the flagship virtual world that that Zuckerberg was touting last week at Connect. And that's the kind of product that's a product that like if face, if this happened with some other product that Facebook was offering, they would kill it, you know, instantaneously.

This is the kind of thing Mark zucker I don't think gets up in the morning for you know, two thousand uniques. Um. But of course the company has decided that this is the future and they're pushing towards it. And I would argue pushing towards it, you know, had great risk to the brand and maybe to society in general. Facebook still has a lot of issues, Instagram has issues. We've got an election coming up. If he's not paying so much attention to these platforms, what hope does that

give us that that these problems are going to be fixed? Right? Well, it's important to say, you know, the company would argue that, yes, of course we're paying attention to these things. It's the core of our business. You know. Nick Clay has been elevated to this you know, more important role, you know,

overseeing uh, you know, stuff that includes elections. That said, I think when you go back, say two years ago and look at you know, what the company was talking about, what Mark Zuckerberg was talking about, they were very focused not just on elections, but on the responsibility that Facebook

owes to its to its users to society. Zuckerberg was talking all the time about you know, COVID vaccines, and right now we're talking about, um, you know, getting as many off workers into the metaverse, which, um, which I don't think has anything to do with those um you know, issues of societal responsibility might in fact work against them. And also, um, I'm not sure anyone even really wants that.

I mean, he's they're talking about, um, you know, uh sending workers to the metaverse at a time when most CEOs are trying to get their CEOs back to the office, back in person. So it feels like they're they're working against a bunch of trends and maybe even working against their business. So the question is is this gonna work in the hindsight? Are we gonna you know, is he

gonna be able to look I was right? I mean, is it similar to mobile when Facebook transition to mobile and everybody not everybody, but it seemed like a big leap at the time. Is this the same? Words this different? It's it's certainly possible. And if that happens, I think you know, we will all you know, bow down before you know, Mark Zuckerberg's prognostication because they'll have done this, um,

you know, amazing pivot two times now. A couple of things, you know, one is that that pivot to mobile mobile Cheryl Sandberg was you know, very involved. He had help that maybe he doesn't have today. And and just because he executes one pivot correctly, I'm not sure you can sort of say, well, he's going to execute the next pivot correctly. And the sort of leaks and the news that we've seen coming out of Facebook is not super encouraging.

I mean, this is as as we learned last week and reports from the Verge in the New York Times, Um, Facebook is having trouble keeping its own employees, um, you know interested in its metaverse app, which kind of makes you wonder, how are they going to get other, you know, people who don't actually work for Mark Zuckerberg excited about this. All right, we'll check out Max's latest piece in Bloomberg Business Week. Masks Chafkin. Always good to have you, good

to see you here in person. Thank you, And that does it for this edition of Bloomberg Technology. Coming up Wednesday, we're gonna be talking with the co CEO of Warby Parker and Neil Bloomenthal. Talking about the future of his business after stock has tumbled a bid. Since they're I p O and don't forget to check out our podcast wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Emily Chang in New York today. This is Bloomberg