Netflix Shares Plunge and Uber Drops the Mask

and says two million more will go. We've got the latest earnings from port covered from all angles plus after airlines now Ober and Lift are also dropping masks in the United States after a judge overturned a federal mandate for passengers to cover their faces. We'll talk about how that might impact ride hailings bottom line. And Bitcoin can't seem to break out of that two thousand dollar range,

so can it really be a hedge against inflation. We'll speak with Michael Sailor of micro Strategy, the world's biggest corporate holder of bitcoin, about all this and much more. We'll get to that in a moment, but first, it is a blood bath for Netflix, with a drop and subscribers and a plunge in shares. Bloom Brooks and Ludlow has been pouring through the numbers here and this was

kind of unexpected, yeah, I mean hugely unexpected. Two hundred thousand customers lost in that first quarter of the estimate by Netflix itself was to add more than two million, the Street looking for that as well. The worrying part is the outlook for the second quarter, another loss of customers, two million lost. The outlook was a gain of two point four million, that's the Wall Street can Sense estimate. And in three out of the four regions where Netflix

operates they lost customers. The only exceptions that rule Asian specific. You see what the market thinks about it. We're down and after hours. This is actually the fifth quarter in a row though where there's been a negative reaction to Netflix earning. So you know, none of this we saw coming. But this is pretty profound impact, especially when you consider the market throughout the day on Tuesday, we saw an rally across equities, outperformance in the technology sector relative to

the broader market. And that's the despite yields continues to be elevating. You look at US tenure yield up two point nine four percentage points. Also a risk on mode

with bitcoin getting caught up in it. The other big story, of course, and that I've been tracking Twitter and elon Musk's bid to buy the company Twitter lower On Tuesday, really the big news was Apollo getting in on the act, saying it would partner with musks bid, or according to sources, they were partner with Musk bigs or another private equity firm in the form of a credit backing or preferential equity,

something of that form. And then The New York Post reporting earlier Tuesday that Musk is struggling to get backers, but he could put ten to fifteen billion dollars of his own money in and even do some kind of leverage by out borrowing against the holdings of this Twitter steak. One story, though, We've got to focus on Netflix because it's not just Netflix that's moving in after hours, you look across the streaming space and some of Netflix's peers

we're seeing serious declines. Disney down five per and Paramount now a little changing after ours, but Roku also suffering. Question is is this isolated and just Netflix or is the big growth we saw in streaming throughout the pandemic is that over all right? And we're going to see that in earnings reports to come over the next few weeks, i'd Ludlow, thank you. I want to stick with Netflix and bring in Andre Swanston, longtime entrepreneur and executive in

the streaming business now and s VP at TransUnion. Andre, great to have you back with us. Look, first subscriber loss in a decade? What went wrong? Look? I I don't think it was unexpected uh to a lot of executives across the media entertainment industry that Netflix was gonna have challenges. I've been saying so for the last eighteen months. Um. To have such a large miss, I think is is

a bit surprising. But there's a there's a few core challenges that that I think it's astonishing to me that that Netflix hasn't adjusted, and even in the report that don't seem like they're really looking to I think the first one is there's a lot of talk about the competition from Disney and HBO, Max and Amazon and others. Uh, and I do think that that has some impact, right, um.

But but what people really aren't talking about is is that most of the growth over the last two years and streaming has really been free ad supported solutions UM the Pluto TVs. The two bees, the zoom os, and what the major media companies have done a really good job is that they went and acquired all of those companies.

And so why they while they made acquisitions that versify their business model and streaming, Netflix is still yet to lead, uh, you know, launch any sort of cheaper ad supported or free ad supported tiers. So I think that was one of the main things. Um So inflation hurt them more. Competition hurt them more that I think it will hurt a lot of their competitors. Part of this overall number we're seeing is Russia, and of course we saw Netflix

cutting off service there. I believe it's only about three thousand accounts total, but there's clearly a longer term problem here with two million paid subscribers potentially going in the coming quarter. I mean, why are we not just losses but such deep losses. Well, so, you know, partly because there's nothing that they've done or or mentioned that they're doing to solve these challenges. So the two things they talked to is about the the they're increasing the money

that the investment that they're making into content. You can't really spend your way out of this because there's there's other huge companies that are going and spending billions and billions of dollars as well, So that's not really the challenge. The other thing that Netflix was really good at historically is they probably had a six or seven year head start on when it came to data in terms of

streaming media consumption for television and movie shows. And so what that allowed them to do is in this in essence, play moneyball with content licensing. Now they can't do that because the owners of those content can monetize it themselves. Um. And they mentioned, you know, launching the two thumbs up

button to give them more insight. Um. There's nothing that Netflix can do to claim more data and insight off of their platform that can help them compete with the the the diversity of the data that a company like Amazon has they know what you buy, or Google knows what you search, um uh. And and you know, Apple knows what music you listen to as well, And so I think that's gonna be a real real challenge for them. And and also the investments that they've made into gaming.

You know, they've spent tens of millions of dollars here and hundreds of millions of dollars. The people that they're trying to catch are spending billions of dollars on gaming and going into the metaverse, and so, you know, I think just doubling down and tripling down on what they have been doing over really well over the last decade and thinking that it's going to carry them through the twenties,

um is gonna be. It's gonna be difficult. Our look at show who covers the entertainment business and Netflix for us said there's a hard solution to Netflix's problem. He's not talking about ads. He simply says, make better shows. What about that? No, I I think that that's that's actually the mentality that they pretty much already doubled down on.

If we can poach the biggest producers in the industry, if we can have the greatest TV shows and and and great movies, we can fend off companies like like Disney that have a hundred years of content that they can just keep updating. Um. I think that strategy has are already proven that it doesn't work, or else they wouldn't have had the mist that they did this past

quarter so quickly. Then how contagious do they think this is going to be how much are we gonna see This also reflected in Disney results given you know, yes, a different library, but still they're also relying on new content. Yeah, so I don't think the results will be the same in terms of other companies for a couple of reasons. Um. One,

the other streaming solutions are still new. They're still launching a new market for the first time, so there's still uh potential subscribers that never had the ability to access their content, whereas Netflix has had pretty widespread distributions for

quite some time. So that's one thing. Um. The second thing is everybody else has it diversified, just about has a diversified subscriber model where they're cheaper tears like Hulu or other things where subscribers can get in and pay less to see ads or in fact just completely free tears and the in the ad supported streaming ecosystem, we're seeing massive growth year over year, um, even despite the

weighing of lockdowns in the pandemic. So it doesn't hold true that people just aren't streaming anymore, because the data shows is that that's absolutely not the case. All Right, Well, we're going to continue to cover the story throughout the hour. Andre Swanston of TransUnion, always appreciate your insights on Netflix and the streaming business beyond. No more masks on rides. Uber and Lyft now joining a growing number of major

transport providers and shifting their mask policies. This after a US judge overturned a federal mandate for passengers to cover their faces on Monday. Let's bring in Blue Works Jackie Davalos, who covers both Uber and left for US. So, Jackie, I guess the big question is is this going to mean drivers and riders are more or less inclined to travel?

You know, if you are one of those that have following mask mandates for as long as they've been around the past two years, this may seem like an inconsequential update and policy. But if you're also like me who forgets their mask in a different coat pocket or purse, uh, it might come as a relief and even you know, making more likely to take another ride. For many riders, you know, this has just been something that we've learned

to live with. However, for others, you know, it might bring them off the sidelines after um, you know, perhaps feeling strongly about not wearing masks, on the driver's side. I think that's where we're going to see more of a diverging reaction. It may not be such a slam dunk policy for for driver's supply, because many were already

skittish to come back to the platform. As we've spoken about emily in the past, the driver's shortage, A major reason that has really persisted is because of the heightened concern around the risk of infection by having someone in your car. Uber and Left also now saying riders can ride in the front seat if they want want though of course saying that folks need to be respectful if they still want to wear masks. How much do you think this is actually going to impact Uber and Lifts

bottom lines? You know, when we think about where the companies are today, Uber obviously has more of a buffer with their Uber Eats business, but they've been trying to really bolster that mobility segment. Again, this is only going to help that that rideshare business was already profitable and it could only help their bottom lighting you further if they can boost those levels back to where they were pre pandemic. Now for Lift, this uh, the stakes are

much higher for them given bright hailing is their primary business. UM. When we think about where, um, some of their business comes from, as it relates to airport travel, major airlines loosening their mask mandates and potentially seeing an uptick in flights is only going to help rideshare companies even more. But definitely, you know, ridership has not totally recovered and this could potentially put them a little bit star to

the finish line. And what about Uberpool On their website, Uber is hinting that it's back, but it doesn't show up on the app in the US or Europe. We actually check this. It's a mystery. They've been testing pool strategies here and there. But I spoke with them this morning and the company said, this is not They have

nothing to share. This is not something that's being tested broadly. UM. But I think we will hear from Lift in particular UM in the coming months, especially now that you see cities starting to revise maybe even loosen some of their own mask updates, which goes to show that perhaps pandemic conditions are improving more broadly and rideshare companies are poised to benefit from that. Okay, Bloomberg, Jacki Dagulas We'll see

how this evolves. As always, thank you. Coming up, we're gonna hear from ft X ee O Sam Bankman Freed on all things crypto, from regulation to stable coins to Elon Musk, and is hinted at Twitter takeover that's next. This is Bloomberg f t X founder and CEO Sam Bankman Freed, who was recently profiled in a Bloomberg Big Take on how he plans to give away his fortune, has been vocal about the Musk Twitter controversy and how

blockchain could revolutionize social media. He's spoke earlier with my colleagues Matt Miller and Kaylee Lines and started by talking about crypto regulation and how it could change not only businesses like f t X, but the way traditional Wall Street operates. One of the big things is I think that that may provide a pathway for them to get involved in digital assets. Um. That that's frankly something I'm

excited about here. Um. You know, I think a lot of them have been waiting for uh, you know, clear federal oversight of the space to get involved. Um. I think that there are really interesting applications of other asset classes. Now you have to be careful when you do that, because you have to look at what do existing element cycles look like in you know, traditional agricultural commodities. How would that interface with the system like this. I think

it's an interesting question. I think it's one that you know needs more thought and certainly, you know, we would be looking to start just with doing this for digital assets. Um, but but I do think that that, you know, it would be really interesting to do a deep dive, um, you know, with the CFTC and crucially with the core market participants in those areas about how this could you know,

interface with that. I think when you look at things like treasuries, right, I think tokenized treasuries could be really interesting. I think you could provide transparency and real time settlement of them, getting rid of this sort of like keyser q on T two system that we have for various asset classes, right with securities, where it takes two days to settle a trade, and there's sort of like this amount of uncertainty and risk and and exposure during those

two days. I think it would be really cool to see you real time margining, real time risk, and real time settlement you know, based on tokens of those. So I think there are really interesting applications. Okay, Sam, I want to pivot to another story. We even carefully following Bloomberg for the last couple of weeks, and I know you've been following it. To Elon Musk's bid for Twitter.

We just had a headline crossing from the New York Post that he's willing to invest tend to fifteen billion dollars of his own cash for Twitter, whether or not he eventually succeeds. You have proposed a decentralized model for Twitter. Can you just walk us through that and how you think it will be beneficial to the company. Absolutely, and I think this would be a really really interesting and

important innovation in in uh social networks. Obviously, we'd have to see how it actually played out, but here's the core of it, um right now. One of the big problems with social media is there's lots of platforms, and

all the platforms are completely independent of each other. There's no ability to see a tweet on Facebook if you message him on Facebook, you know, even what'sapp can't rate it, and that that's even the same company, um, And so it's just you know, really messy system where there are uh, you know, there's no interoperability between different platforms. UM. And there's a second problem that you have here is around basically moderation, right, Like what is the moderation policy for

basically all of social media right now? It's like three guys, right, it's a people who run three companies who choose what doesn't doesn't get censored. Um and and we've seen that that is a broken model. Right. We saw a social media choose not to censor um misinformation in and get absolutely roasted for that decision. And then we saw them choose to censor in and get roasted for that decision.

UM and uh. And so here's the core of what I think would be really really exciting, UM would be that you take a blockchain, you put the actual underlying messages directly on the blockchain. UM. And what that means is that any platform in theory could access those same sets of messages. UM. And so whether you're using you know, Facebook, Twitter or whatever, this sort of like you know platform

is they're all drawing on all of the messages. They can all write to this blockchain, they can all read from it, but they are as different interfaces effect of living in the same universe. And one of the cool things that falls out of that is, first of all, you have interoperability between platforms, which solves a lot of these network problems and allow us for more competition because it means new people can enter this space without being

miles behind in terms of you know, user based growth. UM. But the other thing that it means, UM is that when it comes to moderation, you could have different platforms making different decisions, right, and so you could have you know, two people have two different platforms, but each with the same underlying set of message is accessible and so UM, you know, they don't have to deal with this this network effect problem, but which makes slightly different decisions about

what to sensor what not to sensor, UM and uh, you know, and and that can at least give some consumer choice here. It can at least give people, you know, options, Sam, I think it's a fascinating idea. And I also had seen c Z tweet about it UM on the Elon Musk Twitter announcement day. I'm just wondering, have you talked to Ellen about this? But I have not talked directly to to Ellen about this, UM, but I would be excited to UM, I you know, have had some conversations

with you know, people who are investigating this. I think they're they're really cool ideas UM and I would be really excited to be, you know, potentially involved in something here, whether you're looking at UM you know, I thinking, I think the biggest thing would be thinking about how blockchain could be applied here UM, you know, maybe as a test case first. I'd be excited to help on the designing and building of it UM and I, you know, on I you know, potentially helping to manage a network

that that was looking to do this. That was FDx founder and CEO Sam Bankman Fried earlier with Matt Miller and Kaylee Lines on bloom Brooks Cryptos Show, and speaking of Elon Musk and Twitter, the story has been developing day by day. Bloom Brook's Ed Ludlow here with more on the latest at Apollo now weighing a bid for Twitter as well. Yeah, so Bloomberg sources saying Apollo is weighing a lot of options right, Either they back Musqus bid, or they back a bid from others. We know tomer Rather,

for example, is eyeing its own bid for Twitter. One other media reports suggested that Apollo could even go to Twitter and help their defense and say, Yo, let's do something together directly. And as with all deals, you get these usual caveats that the deal may not happen depending on certain circumstances. And I think he heard Kayley allude

to in that piece of tape. The New York Post was kind of the story of the day reporting the Elon Musk is struggling to find backers for his own bid, but ultimately he's considering putting ten to fifteen billion dollars of his own money up front. But he'd still need to find the rest of the financing, of course, because the figure that is currently on the table is a forty three billion dollar valuation of Twitter. Now, one of the big takeaways here at is that investors may need

to buckle up. This could be a long ride. I mean, you know, flight could go on for months, right. Yeah, But we've discussed on this show. All the experts we speak to in the world of M and A say that this is playing out as a textbook scenario for a hostile takeover. There are lots of options, we think, and the New York Post did report this that a tender offer directly to shareholders from Musk could come at

some point in the next ten days. That's great fun for me because I like to get up at four a m e. Sometime in the morning and wait for regulatory filings to come through. And that's how it would be communicated. This is the thing. We have to wait and see how it plays out. But ultimately the kind of hypothesis out there from the street is that Musk is going to have to do this in coordination with a number of parties, and that does give him options. And tomorrow is for twenty, which is, as we know,

one of Elon Musk's favorite days. I mean, are you're going to be staying up all night and waiting for that regulatory filing. I will stay up all day, all night and four twenties also Tesla earnings and when better to announce your intentions for a hostile take over Twitter than the earnings core of your other company. Sure, all right,

ed Ludlow, thank you, We'll be watching well. Florida Governor Rond De Santis has escalated a dispute with Disney, asking the state's legislator to consider terminating special districts where Disney currently has special privileges for example, access to cheaper tax exempt financing. This is the first indication that the standoff between the state and the entertainment giant over school instruction about gender identity and sexual orientation could have consequences for Disney.

This as plunging shares of Netflix has impacted other companies tied to streaming, like Disney, also dropping about five percent after hours. Meantime, Airbnb is not only planning to issue a lifetime band to the guests behind a mass shooting at one of its rentals in Pittsburgh, the company is also reportedly looking to take legal action against them. This according to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. Two teenagers were killed nine others injured at an underage party early Sunday morning.

Back Abnb announced a global ban on all parties and events after a number of violent incidents. It also blocked thousands of rentals at the height of the pandemic due to hosts breaking party rules. Welcome back to Bloomer Technology. I'm emily changing in San Francisco. Well after a decade of meteoric growth that shook Hollywood to its core, and

Netflix has run into a wall. The streaming service losing two hundred thousand subscribers in the first quarter, the first time it has said subscribers since shares plumbing and Late Trading joining us Now Rich Greenfield of Light shed partners. No relation to the shedding of subscribers, Rich, what do you think happens here? Look, I think what happens here is the content is not resonating the way it should.

I mean, while they're making a lot of other excuses, it's hard to look past the fact that when Netflix has had great content, their subscribers have explode it. So it certainly seems like there's a connection between some of their content, especially their film content. They've put probably five billion dollars into the film business and it does not appear to be having the type of impact on subscriber growth that they expected. So they're making a lot of excuses.

There's clearly is the supply chain for TVs impacted? Is there a big problem in connected TV sales? Shore We've seen that with Roku Stock, We've seen that with video Like, We've seen this with other companies. But there is no doubt that a big chunk of this is Netflix content is simply not breaking through the way it has in prior years. Netflix says it's gonna zero in on password sharing and Shonda rhymes to turn things around. Obviously, Bridgerton has been a hit. I'm sure you would agree, But

what what what? What are not? What are they not getting right in content? Remember, there's a lot of competition. I mean, they clearly called out competition, but it's not like even if you look across Disney Plus and Peacock, it's not like there were massive competitive hits this quarter. It's not like, you know, Kulu had to drop up, but there are not I would not say that there

were breakout hits that were really competitively pressuring Netflix. You know, I think the big question investors are grappling with the reason why you see the stock down so much, is the question now becomes was was Read Hastings and team just too optimistic about how big the streaming market was. I mean, we used to talk about six hundred seven, eight hundred million ultimate subscribers. Jason Kyler, who just left Warner Media, was talking about a billion dollar or billion

subscriber opportunity. If two hundred million subscribers is sort of, you know, starting to near the top, that changes everything for how every media company legacy media company, new media company. It changes everything if that's the size of the market. And I think that's the panic you're seeing in the stock is, oh my god, is this is this business model far far smaller than people expected. People were looking at a multiples of where they are now for the upside,

not this being increasingly a ceiling. And Emily, I think one of the big questions out there is is this anyone's fault at Netflix? Like if someone getting fired for this, is there going to be executive shake up because of this? Or is this really just unavoidable and no one's at fault. I think investors are gonna want to know, is someone at fault for this? Do you think someone's at fault? I mean, look, the content clearly hasn't resonated. I think

they're gonna have to explain why they feel confident. And I mean it sounds like from the press release, it definitely sounds like they're ramping investment, they're not pulling back. You don't usually ramp investment and quote unquote double down on content if you don't believe there's a substantial long

term market opportunity. So do they believe that they're gonna get to six seven hundred million subscribers still and it's just not linear the what what Wall Street wants because it's odd and I think it's gonna be scary to Wall Street if they're ramping spend and they're hitting US ceiling, investors are going to panic. That's what they're doing right now. So how much do you think the price hikes for subscribers have had to do with this? And and what

about an AD supported model? Our guest of Andre s Wanston of TransUnion was suggesting that earlier to offset some of these costs. Yeah, look, I um, I know there's a lot of investors that would like them to follow suit on an AD model. UM continue to not be convinced because where an AD model is most successful is the US and developed parts of Europe, which is where Netflix actually is increasingly mature. So the real benefit to doing an AD model UM wouldn't be in places where

there is an ad market. You know, you could say, oh my god, hey in India, would an advertising model help? I mean not really? Right, The r proof of the subscription services pretty low, and there isn't a robust AD market for the streaming services, as companies like Disney no

well with hot stars. So I'm a little skeptical. While I think advertising could you know, create a short term spike and subscribers, I don't think it's the answer, and I think it brings with it a lot of risks and what sort of what makes Netflix unique, especially when you've got companies like Amazon and Apple ad free. So I don't think this is about advertising being the panacea. I think the question is is their content. Can you make enough great content to drive subscribers to five six, seven,

eight hundred million? Is it possible? Or has read Hastings changed his mind that the market opportunity is simply not that big. And if it isn't that big, why in the world are they not cutting back on content expense? Those are gonna be the big questions for the call in you know, half an hour. Could gaming be the panacea or will that just be another money pick? You know, Emily, what's crazy is there's really no mention of gaming at

all in the press release. You know, they actually spent considerable time in the press release last quarter and even on their conference call last time. There's no mention really of gaming. And so the question is, I mean, gaming is obviously the nacy stage. It's very early for them. It's just started nine months ago, so it's it's not as if we can say, you know, why is gaming not working yet? Could gaming be this long term solution. It's possible, but I don't think in the next two years.

I doubt gaming is the catalyst for this. I think the real question is, is you know they lowered price in India. They have very little in terms of subscribers in India. Why is it not growing faster given the amount of spending they've had in India? Is it? Is it just they can't seem to break through. Do they have the wrong content mix or strategy? But subscribers in the eight pack region actually had slower growth year over year in Q one this year than last year despite

lower pricing in one of their biggest markets, India. Sort of hard to understand that. Well, it's certainly a new chapter beginning for Netflix. Le Chad's Rich Greenfeld as always appreciate your quick analysis. Thank you. The question is going to be is it time for the hashtag good luck streaming? Emily? All right, it's see if we can get that trending on Twitter. Risk Thank you? Coming up can bitcoin truly

be a hedge against inflation? We'll be joined by micro Strategy founder and bitcoin bull Michael Sailor to talk about inflation, Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey and much more. He's next. This is Bloomberg time now for our crypto report, and the markets still looking risk averse, with bitcoin sticking in a tight range, providing more fodder for critics who don't think it's a hedge against inflation. Micro Strategy co founder and CEO Michael Sailor might put push back on that idea,

as I would expect him to. Let's bring him in now. Michael, good to have you back with us. You've been saying for a long time now you think bitcoin is the hedge against the dangers of inflation. But what do you make of the fact that it's staying in such a tight range and not not really moving on from that mark. Well, it's all time frame. If you go back two years when micro Strategy bought in uh, it's up by fo and it's dramatically outperformed the NASDAC or gold or any

other asset you could have bought. If you're looking at it in a matter of days or weeks or months, the traders control it. And right now, there's three types of investors in bitcoin. There's the there's the traders, there's the technocrats, and there's the maximalist. Uh. The maximalists are all in myself, Jack Dorsey, we think that bitcoin is an instrument of economic empowerment. So we're just busy educating and we sweep free cash flows into it, but we're

kind of out of the market. Day to day. The market price is set by a tug a war between the technocrats, people that are pro technology and they think it's like the next big tech network like Google or Amazon for money well, and the traders who are just looking at an uncorrelated asset or correlated asset. So right now, both the traders and the technocrats are kind of, you know, scared of risk, and so they've both been in a

bad mood. They had been selling. Uh. What you'll see over time is the technocrats will turn into a good mood and I'll realize that this is the next great big tech network. The maximalist will keep sweeping cash flows. So when does that happen? When does bitcoin break this correlation with risk assets? If ever? Well, uh, I would think that over a four year time frame, you're better

off to be a maximalist or a tech investor. But as long as there's a massively choppy market right uncertainty about FED policy and fear uh in the near term, I think that the traders will probably dominate the price. So you're saying we're gonna have to wait four years for this to happen. No, I think sometime on a day that is very unexpected, the correlation go will go from correlated to risk assets to zero percent. And when that happens, then the traders will reverse the polarity of

their trades, the technologists will start to double down. The maximualis will just enjoy the ride. Okay, I have to ask you about Twitter with you know, as you say, you and Jack Dorsey among the mask maxis. What in a huge crypto community on Twitter, you are one of the most prolific users. What do you make of Elon

Musk's hint at an attempt to take over a hostile takeover? Well, I mean, I think there's obviously there's a lot of frustration everywhere in the world right now that's circulating about and you see that reflected on Twitter, and this is indicative of that, Um, it's a bit above my pay grade to determine how the entire the entire uh chapter ends. It definitely makes for interesting watching. But you're a power user.

Do you want Elon Musk to own Twitter? I think that, uh that Twitter is going to be uh fine, regardless of what happens. I don't think I mind if if he if a Twitter user ended up owning Twitter. I think that'd probably be a fine thing. Have you talked to Jack about this at all? I mean, I know you've been spending a lot of time together. No, No, I'm not really involved in this. It's just this is

not really my, uh my area of expertise. I think I'll let people that are focused upon tech stock investing decide the fate of Twitter. I'm focused on bitcoin, but of course there's a huge crypto community on Twitter, and I'm curious what you think the impact could be on the crypto community, whether or not you think, for example, Twitter should be decentralized. I don't think the Twitter is going to be decentralized regardless of the outcome of all

these discussions. Right now, I think Twitter is a centralized service. I think that the only thing we're sure, we can decentralizes is bitcoin, which has been very successful, but it's a much simpler idea. I think they're trying to decentralize highly functional, high speed applications. That's very challenging and no

one's very successfully done that. Well, yeah, you seem really optimistic about Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's understanding of bitcoin, and I'm curious, even though we might be looking at a longer timeframe for you know, the divorce of of of of bitcoin and UM risk assets, do you think we're at an inflection point when it comes to regulation and mainstream adoption. Yeah? Absolutely, Um. I think April seventh at

American University was a really critical speech. I think it's probably one of the most important speeches of the century because you had a set of deniers, people that said that bitcoin is is a mirage or a Ponzi scheme, and then you had a set of skeptics that said, well, it isn't that, but it's too good to be true, and so some government's going to take it away from you.

And when you have the Sectuary of the Treasury giving a speech explaining what decentralized UH networks are and what digital property is and what's the totiy Knockamoto means to the world. I think it clicks in a lot of people's mind that bitcoin is actually technology that's revolutionary, and it also clicks that no, it's not getting banned. And once you decide it's real technology to improve the world and it's not being banned, you're no longer a denier,

and you can't be a skeptic. So you have to move into the trader camp or the technocrat camp, and eventually everybody ends up as a maximalist if you understand it well enough. So there's a long answer to my next question. But give me the nutshell answer. With the ethereum merge coming up, what changes? What are you predicting or expecting? Yeah, well, they keep pushing it back. But I mean, I think this huge questions about what ethereum is following that merge, and whether it's a security or

whether it's property. And I think a lot of people have implied that staking networks are digital security is not property. So so I just think they're moving into a very uncertain, uncertain chapter of their existence. All right, Michael Sailor of micro Strategy. Always great to have it here, on the show, thanks so much for stopping by. The debut of Crazy

Rich Asians Back In was a huge cultural moment. It helped to usher in more films featuring largely Asian casts, including Parasite, which won the Oscar for Best Picture, and the critically acclaimed Everything Everywhere, All At Once Out Now. Gold House, a nonprofit that was founded to capitalize on the momentum of Crazy Rich Asians, is focused on reshaping

public opinion about the Asian and Pacific islander community. Now they're launching a new accelerator class along with a thirty million dollar fund called gold House Ventures, to take this momentum to Silicon Valley. Joining me now, Eric Fang, generalner at gold House Ventures. Eric, great to have you with us, So tell us a short origin story of gold House

and how that evolved to gold House Ventures. Well, Asians have long lack of voice in America and a unifying organization that bring our why the asked for together and the team here at gold House thought that that was a huge opportunity, so in we launched what has turned out to be the premier collective for Asian thought leaders, creators, influencers and business leaders to band together and promote really three things, unity, success, and representation for our culture in

Silicon Valley in particular, what kind of challenges and stereotypes do you think Asian founders face when they're pitching, when they're trying to raise money. Yeah, that's a great question. Well, um, you know in the technology field, and and that's that's my background. I'm an engineer by trade. Our representation is incredibly strong. Uh, we're about thirty of the overall tech workforce, but if you look at C suites, we are in

the single agents. So I think Asians have been given a lot of opportunity to participate in tech, but not participate at the highest levels. And then when you factor in not Asians, not all Asians are are are the same. You know, we're very very wide diverse culture. Um. So you have East Asians like myself that I think have been afforded lots of fantastic opportunities. But there are women that have been marginalized, Southeast Asians that suffer a lot

of systemic racism and bias against them. And for us as a community, we really need to do better to lift each other up. And that's why gold House is so important as a way to bring everyone together, not just these Asians, not just men, but women, Southeast Asians, people from Indonesia, Cambodi, Vietnam, across the entire community. Uh.

That is really our focus. You've brought in some big name backers and mentors like Tony Schu of door Dash Finance CEO Chong Pung jaws Chen who helped found YouTube. What are they bringing to the table and how are they helping your current class of founder. Well, Um, the number one thing that they do for us as they serve as a example of great representation that can inspire

the next generation of leaders. Uh. Uh, Steve and Tony and c Z incredibly brilliant, successful entrepreneurs, but also reserved. Um also very quiet, humble and Uh. We want to be the megaphone that they may not want to be because it's so important for us to showcase that our people, our community can achieve those levels of success, shadow those bamboo ceilings, breakout and um and really inspire others. So

that's what they bring. They they their success is what we can hopefully build the next generation of great Asian leaders. On top of you're competing with traditional venture capital funds. How will you measure success. Well, that's a really interesting model that we've decided to set up your gold House Ventures. So um, first and foremost, we are a for profit initiative. We have great LPs like Tony I see, like CZ that we want to help deliver a great, great to

return on their capital. We consider it an honor of privilege that they've chosen to give us their capital and it is our responsibility to show great returns of that capital. So for them it is very much a poor profit initiative. But for the gold House Collective, for the general partners like myself and my partner's Megan and being Chen. For us, it is a nonprofit initiative, So all of our fees

and carry actually go back to the nonprofit. So uh, this dual goal, this dual strategy, I think it is very unique to them value and as I like to tell our LPs, we want to make them a lot of money, but we want them to feel good about at the same time. And what that's really opened up the doors for is tremendous support from the community. We have a great not only network of LPs, but we've got investors from top firms like ny A and Upfront Ventures and Excel and general catalysts that want to help

us out their mission oriented in line with us. So I think the really unique thing too that we're doing here is that we're very much making venture a team sport. Um. You know, historically it's been this kind of individual sport, highly competitive, but with gold House Ventures, it is a team sport. We're all working together to really try to improve the future for our community. Quickly, Eric, before you go, I got to ask you about Netflix. You spend a

long time as an executive at Hulu. You know, the streaming business. How bad is this? The fact that we're seeing the first loss of subscribers in a decade, has the streaming business plateau? You know? I think what this is a reminder is how humbling, uh it is that in the hundred year history of entertainment UM, it is still a hits driven business and no one can manufacture hits.

We've seen a lot of books and a lot of different companies try, like Zinga and the gaming space and Netflix in the video space, and no matter how much technology and science and engineering and data that you apply to it, it's still up to the gods, the gods of entertainment to shine good fortune on you. And I think that's what what's reflecting in here. It's not so much the competition and you know, the account sharing. I think it's mostly that where's the next where's the next weigame,

Where's an next bridge, Where's the next big hit? And that's what all entertainment companies are still at the at the whim zone, in the hands of the gods, apparently, Eric Fang Gold House Ventures. Eric. Great to have you back on the show. Thank you. I want to get back to that story of the day Netflix at Ludlow back. We're waiting for that earnings call to begin at water investors gonna be digging into Yeah, a hundred million people and households have Netflix but don't pay for it. Where

are they how do they get around that? As we just had from Mereric content is king, what does the pipeline look like? Two hundred thousand customers lost in the first quarter, four coasts of two million lost in the second quarter. Where are they being lost? Which markets are having pain? Those are the big questions, all right, Uh at Ludlow, waiting for that Netflix earnings call to begin again.

Losing two hundred thousand subscribers, the first time Netflix has lost subscribers in a decade, the company saying two million more to come in the coming quarter. We'll be listening into that call that does it for this addition to Bloomberg Technology. Join us tomorrow we'll be breaking down Tesla results. Steve Wesley, one of the original Tesla board members, will be joining us. And make sure to tune in for

my exclusive conversation with a ws CEO, Adam Salipsky. That conversation happening tomorrow three thirty Eastern twelve thirty Pacific right here on Bluebrick Television. And check out the podcast as always anywhere you get your podcast. I'm Emily Changing in San Francisco. This is bloom