Remote Work and Investing in TikTok

caught in the crossfire. Ukraine's top diplomat, meantime, pushing back on the suggestion of quote positive movement in talks with Russia as they were described by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dimitro Kuliba, speaking exclusively with our very own and Marie Hordern, there was zero progress in talks. So it's hard for me to understand what kind of progress President put In, his referring to the Russian army

is still in Ukraine. They stay continued destroying our killing our children's civilians. And it speaks for one fact only that even if we continued talking with Russia, that does not have an impact on the behavior of Russian army on the ground cool, but also saying ongoing talks aren't impacting Russia's behavior on the ground, adding that a meeting between Putin and Ukraine's president would be helpful. Blueber Josh

wind Grove joins US now from the White House. Josh President Biden earlier saying the U S would defend every inch of NATO territory, even if it meant world War three, but not a single age of Ukraine. Where does this leave Ukraine? That's right. He was speaking to democrats Emily at a gathering in philadelph And of course there's been calls, pressures, questions about whether the U S could do more, donate planes, even set up a no fly zone, and he said, look,

we're going to defend every inch of native countries. Of course Ukraine not one of those. But we're not And even if that means world War three, as you said, we're not going to go to defend every interview Kraine because doing that, giving them offensive weapons, tanks, planes, that sort of thing, in Joe Biden's view, would trigger this

sort of world War three scenario. So pretty start warning and a bit of pushback from him on these sort of long simmering calls we've seen for either planes to be given directly or the setting up of that no fly zone, and so where that leaves him. Of course, he was speaking after announcing a new tronch of of measures. The G seven and other countries are moving to revoke

the most Favored Nation trading status of Russia. That's a big moves, sort of a broad brush move that would allow them to really hike tariffs across the board on stuff they're still importing. And he went a step farther by just saying they're not gonna import some stuff at all, including a Steve who the caviare diamonds, UH and other goods like Russian made vodkas. A bit of a symbolic

strike there. So you continuing to sort of steadily ratchet up sanctions, and even just an hour ago, Emily, we got new new UH specific sanctions on people individuals, including the family of President Putin's spokesperson from the Treasury Department here, So you can see, tick by tick they're trying to increase the pressure, but it's still again using sort of economic sanctions, not not ratching anything up on the military side. So look what kind of pain, additional pain is this

going to inflict on Russia? And is this really going to be what Ukraine needs when the war, the attacks of Embardment shows no sign of showing slowing down. Yeah, I mean it's a great question. And I don't think you're gonna find a lot of people predicting that the end is near. You know, the end, the end of this conflict is near. Of course, people hope for that. Markets seemed to react to President Putin's comments, as you heard from Ukraine's foreign minister, they didn't think there was

any progress at all. But Biden has been bragging about the impact so far. He's saying the ruble is something like two rubles for one U s dollar. He predicted that if and when the Russian stock market ever does reopen, of course has been close for some time now, that it would simply crash collapse, is what President Biden predicted today. So they think they're having impact, they think they're making progress, But you know, there I think they would say that

they don't have a ton of great options. And perhaps you can hear over the microphone. I'm here at the White House, of course, and there is a protest going on out here, uh, signifying the pressure Joe Biden is on, calling on him to do more to help the people of Ukraine. Meantime, the polls are showing that most Americans do support the ban on Russian oil. But here in California, Josh, I'm seeing five six, even seven dollars at the pump.

President Biden's trying to get US oil producers to make more, but they are wary, of course, given the history here. Is he going to be able to do that? Yeah, they're not a lot of sign a bit. A lot of those producers have been scraping by for many years or or worse. You know, they're saying they're finally in a really profitable environment, and they make decisions several months out and they say they don't know what the profitability is gonna look like five six, seven, twelve months down

the road. And our colleagues including Jennifer de Louie and Jordan Fabian have a great piece on the terminal today. But Biden sort of icy history with the oil sector. It's not a BFF situation to say the least. And now he's crawling over to them for help, to try to give them to lower prices and he's not getting a lot of it. So no, we're not looking like we're going to see a lot of relief soon. Part

of that it's because US production remains pretty high. It's just a global production is struggling to meet the mark here with of course Russian oil being removed in part or potentially you know, in full in some countries from the from the supply chain. All right, Josh Wingrow for Bloomberg at the White House. Josh, thank you for all of those updates. Meantime, according to inter Facts, Russian prosecutors have asked a court to ban metas Facebook and Instagram

as extremist. This is the latest move and a growing crackdown on social networks as a digital iron curtain falls across the country. Are Kurt Wagner, who covers Meta for US, joining us now with more. So let's back up a little here, because Meta was in some hot water yesterday for relaxing a policy on violence on the platform, just

for Ukraine. Talk to us about that and how that unfolded. Yeah, so Facebook or Meta has rules around you know, threatening violence, right, wishing violence upon another person, But they said that they're going to relax those rules specifically for Ukraine, so that

Ukrainians can you know, post freely about defending their country. Right, and if they say something about, hey, we want to you know, kill these Russian soldiers who are coming into our city, that would be the kind of thing that you know against Facebook's existing policies might get taken down, and so they want to be able to kind of leave that stuff up kind of in a self defense

type of thing. Um. But of course you can imagine this kind of got very murky very quickly, right, and a lot of people were wondering, well, where do you drug line? Nick Clegg from Facebook came out and said, it's just in Ukraine. It's just a temporary thing, and it does not apply to threats against Russian citizens. It's only something that Ukrainians could say against, you know, for example,

the Russian army and so um. That is one of the things that sparked Russian regulators to then say we want Facebook and Instagram to be blocked in the country. So again Russia calling on authorities in Russia to stop the quote unquote extremist activities of Meta take measures to bring the perpetrators, as they call it, to justice. They're

pitting two nations against each other. That's what they're accusing Meta of here, and Nick Clegg saying, the fact is, if we applied our standard content policies without any adjustments, we would now be removing content from ordinary Ukrainians expressing their resistance and fury at the invading military forces, which would rightly be viewed as unacceptable. Kurt, what do you make of Meta's changing the rules here temporarily? They say

it is quite unprecedented, isn't it? I mean, this whole situation is pretty unprecedented, right, And and the fact that they're kind of willing to review these in real time, to review these, uh for a temporary amount of time, I think it's actually probably a good thing, right. It's it's showing that the company is being responsive to the actual happenings on the ground. Now. Is it a perfect situation,

Absolutely not. But I think it would be worse if they were just simply sitting back and not being willing to acknowledge that this is not just a regular week, right, This is a war happening in Europe and they're trying to adapt on the fly. So I view this actually is as progress for Meta now sitting aside. Whether you think they should be changing the policy or not. I just think the fact that they're trying to be adaptive is probably a good thing for future issues as well. Now,

where does the Facebook stand in Russia now? Is it available? Is it not available? Yeah, Facebook, the core social network has been blocked in Russia for about a week now, and what we've heard from Russian regulators today was that they're planning to block Instagram starting Monday as well, So that would be obviously two of the three services. What's App is also available in Russia as far as I know, will continue to be um. But we have seen now

Facebook also take a stricter stance. They've said they're not going to accept add money from Russian advertisers or Russian businesses. Right, so this is becoming a very um dramatic split between Russia and Meta and it makes me wonder is this something that that they're going to be able to come back together at some point after this war is over, or is this kind of thing where, you know, maybe this is the the end of Russia and Facebook and Instagram operating in Russia. I don't know, but I think

it's not out of the question. Interesting well, of course Facebook has been banned in China's two thousand and eight uh. Interesting implications here for what happens after the war, hopefully there is and after, and how how Facebook will continue to reevaluate its own rules. Kurt Wagner for US, thank

you for that update. Coming up as more companies leave Russia, We're gonna talk to the CEO of Upward, Hayden Brown, about their decision to cut off gig workers in Russia and Belarus and how they're helping freelancers trapped still in Ukraine. This is Bloomberg. With the war in Ukraine raging, many tech companies have been taking a stand by shutting down their operations in Russia in a bid today instance, themselves from the invader and send a message to Vladimir Putin.

One such company's up Work, which decided to suspend their business operations in Russa and Belarus. I want to bring in CEO Haiden Brown for a deep dive on this and Hayden, this was a rather controversial move because it means cutting off gig workers in these countries who may have nothing to do with this war, may not support this war. Why did you decide to do this. Yeah, first and foremost, our hearts go out to everyone in Ukraine and everyone in Russian Belarus who's impacted by this conflict.

This was such a tough decision for us because it really cuts the heart of our business and our heritage in the region, which goes back to the founding days of our business. But for us, the decision was informed by both the geopolitical reality um as well as operational realities on the ground. You know, as we've seen the sanctions unfolding and payments partners of ours that we depend on to pay talent in the region pulling out of

those markets. It has become operationally extremely challenging for us to continue to deliver on our mission and our brand promise to customers in the region. And so with those realities unfolding, it was clear to us what the right call was here, even though it has been incredibly painful for us, because our goal is to serve these customers in every way possible, and so this was a tough one,

but we knew what the right decision was. Do you sympathize with the people in Russia and Belarus who may not want anything to do with this war, but who have a lot whose lives have been upended and livelihoods have been cut off as a result. Absolutely, Emily, I mean, I think they and we find ourselves in a position that none of us could have imagined even weeks ago. And I think Putin has set off this chain reaction of events that all of us are grappling with UH

and it breaks our hearts. So what we've been focused on is, you know, number one, working around the clock to ensure our team members in the region are looked after, to ensure our customers know that things like their profiles, all of the work they've put into building their reputations online are safe and secure and will be there when and if we can resume operations in the region, and or if they end up relocating themselves and able to work in one of the other hundred eighty countries around

the world where we are operational, that they can come online and continue working and not be impacted by this. So absolutely we have been thinking of no one else but our customers and how we can serve them through this. But we are impacted by this crisis as are they, and had to make this very difficult choice. What about your workers in Ukraine. I know you're working to support them. How are you handling that? What the biggest challenges you're

facing there. Yeah, So we launched a feature recently which anyone in the world can use to send money to workers in Ukraine UM just as fee free, basically sending UM buying a project from them and waiving the requirement that they actually deliver on the project. It's kind of like the Airbnb booking a home feature, So we launched that.

We've been messaging to our talent in the region that their reputation scores and their profiles are safe and looked after, so they won't be negatively impacted by disruptions that they may be experiencing in their abilities to work. Uh, and we're working on a number of other things that are specifically targeting their safety well being, you know, check ins that they can be doing with their clients outside of the region, as well as ourselves donating a million dollars

this week to Direct Relief International for humanitarian support. So we've been doing a number of things to make sure that they feel supported and safe as much as we can in terms of their ability to continue working online when and if they can continue to do. So you've got a really interesting view on how global work patterns are shifting in real time. And I know every hour of this war is different. What are you seeing, what trends are you seeing, what's changing. It's a very dynamic situation.

We're certainly seeing and hearing a lot of customers and businesses that we work with who have teams in the region, either on upwork or just their own employees on the ground, are making very swift decisions to move and relocate that talent if the talent is willing to relocate UH. And in many cases, the things that we're doing are trying to help them with payrolling and onboarding that talent onto our platform to help them be able to pay those

people with continuity. UH. In many cases they're looking to spin up alternative talent in parallel to you know, they're continuing to pay their people in the region because everyone is trying to support but also have business continuity with UM talent in other regions that can kind of keep working even as there's uncertainty in terms of how this is going to unfold. So those are some of the

efforts that we're helping UM. You know, our customers with on the ground as they're trying to navigate through this very tough time. All Right, Hayden Brown, CEO of up Work, will be continuing to monitor how you're handling the situation out there. Thank you for giving us some context on your decision. Bloomberg has learned that public health experts at the World Health Organization have begun discussing how and when to call an end to the pandemic. Bloomber's Drew Armstrong

joining us now for more on this story. Is this actually happening, Drew? And is the pandemic really near an end? You know, it's one of these things where for the pandemic to be at an end that's really going to be determined by human behavior and the virus. But one of the things that happened very early on, and I remember it well, January and the WHO declared COVID nineteen um to be a public health emergency of International concern. And you know, that was a real symbolic moment because

it's set off all of these actions, precautions. You know, they race to kind of fight the virus on an international level that has since then really become the North I mean, we have a global vaccine distribution program um countries have really figured out how they want to approach public health restrictions and something that's been an emergency now for two plus years has really kind of been the

way of being. And so now they're starting to talk about, Okay, what are the steps and what are the progress that we need to see to resend an emergency declaration to say They're not there yet. They're still figuring out what that off ramp looks like, but it is a meaningful sign that they're beginning to have this conversation. Well. And while cases have fallen in many places, we're seeing right

now deaths spiking in Hong Kong. China just reported more than a thousand new daily cases for the first time in two years. Are we at a point where this is starting to get worse again? You know? I think one of the truisms of this pandemic has been that, you know this, it did not start everywhere all at once in the same way, and it's not going to

end all at once, everywhere in the same way. We do see places like China and Hong Kong which have used different vaccines which may have different levels of efficacy. Hong Kong in particular, they've had issues vaccinating some of their most elderly vulnerable populations. And so just because the pandemic feels like it's over, you know, here in some part of the United States, doesn't mean it's over everywhere else. Uh, this thing will stutter along for quite a while. I

would expect we will not be done with this. We won't be done with COVID. Code won't go away. They will just receed a little bit more into the background sometimes and come back to the foreground at other times. Quickly, What would this emergency declaration actually mean in practice? You know, more than anything, these emergency declarations are kind of symbolic measures saying, hey, we need to do something about this,

and trying to step up international coordination. I think it would be an acknowledgement that a lot of the structures are in place. Things are working in some cases as they should be. In that the w h O, you know, it does have other things that it needs to focus on. Drew Armstrong for Bloomberg News. Thanks Drew for that update.

Coming TikTok and the War in Ukraine, Ukrainian users taking to the platform to tell tales of their lives and homes being destroyed, but also propaganda thriving what to do about it? That's next. This is Bloomberg, all right. I want to move on now to TikTok, the social media

app known for silly videos, dance moves and tutorials. It's now, of course, also being used to create war means on the ground, updates and testimonials from within Ukraine, but also Russian propaganda and fake testimonials, all in a bid to influence global perspectives on the invasion, leaving the social platforms struggling with how to cope with its new role in geopolitics.

I want to talk about all of this and more with Megan Lloyst, investor at Laro Hippo and founder of gen Z vcs Beck and great to have you with us. What do you make of how TikTok is being used here for better and for worse? For sure? And I think when you think about TikTok, this is how billions of people all over the world are receiving news for the first time about the war, especially gen Z on the On the positive side, right, it can be used

for good. Even just yesterday, the White House brought thirty top Tiktoker's together to just arm them with the right information about what is happening, how the US is thinking about politics and what they should be talking about on

their platforms. And on the flip side, you know, there's obviously misinformation being spread on the platform, and I think TikTok is doing the best they can to to to mitigate that in many ways, such as you know, I think users in Russia, for example, today, they can't live stream, they can't post on TikTok, so there's no one right way to do it. But I do think making sure that you're arming TikTok creators with the right information is

a is a great start. So look, the concern is that TikTok serves a younger generation, and is you know, a younger generation of users around the world going to have the wrong idea of what's really going on in this war. I think it's it's hopeful, actually, I think to see it from the perspective of younger users, like there are gen z citizens on the ground speaking to

what's happening in the war. So even if you're reading news for the first time on an articles and such, you can actually see the experiences from young people that are documenting it in their own way. It can be gen z dark humor, it can be actually the perspective

of soldiers. That is something that's hard to fully discount when you're seeing it through the perspective of people who your own age, and so I think from from that perspective, it's it's actually kind of helpful to see kind of and and feel it in real time from for people who are experiencing it on the ground that you know, they they look like you. Maybe just a week ago they were in school and now they're hiding in bomb shelters and cooking, you know, cooking meals for the first time.

It's it's a it makes it feel much more real, I think to see it from the van to the point of your peers, those testimonials from Ukraine on TikTok have been incredibly powerful. You know, what are you telling your portfolio companies right now about the environment? All of this global economic uncertainty, no one knowing how this or if this war will end. And I think, you know, early stage companies are largely uh, you know, they're protected

from this in many ways. Giving lair Hippo or an early stage venture firm, and so many of our companies are seed series A stage, and so it's not as as as pressing I would say for early stage companies especially, But of course events like this are always impacting the

public markets. But given we're long term oriented investors, uh, you know, I think with any early stage company, focus is very important and keeping focused on so of what you're you know, your core objectives are as a founder, and so we we try to guide them towards that as much as possible. As you look into the future, I mean, you're looking to back the next big thing. Do you see an opportunity for the next TikTok, for a platform that is perhaps more equitable and better at

manage some of these complex issues. I mean, I think I'm a big believer in the democrazation of tools in general. Right, Like we're talking a lot about backing you know, companies that are building tools for creators, people who are uh, you know, making conversation in many ways and building brands

and building influence. Right Like, the next generation of brands, they're they're all content creators and many of them are gen z and so I think, you know, next gen social platforms companies that are building in Web three, for example, and thinking about empowered ownership and incentivization for for for

users is really important. So um, I think on that front, certainly looking at next gend social platforms, but especially I would say in the context of Web three and how you know, how gen zers in particular can be owning and monetizing their content versus farming it out to Web two platforms or like like TikTok, like Facebook, like like Instagram. For example, you started this global community, megan of gen z, investors, founders, angels, students.

What are your priorities here, What are gens ease priorities here? In terms of what needs to be built what should be built? Totally? I think, well, I think the first part is knowledge, right, like making sure that everyone has equal access to opportunity to be able to start businesses as founders and also to be able to to invest and have a say in what are the companies that

are going to be impacting our generation. So even just last week we launched a marketplace to democratize the startup stock right and in you know, a week or so alone, we've saved founders five million dollars in getting started on day one that is real and tangible impact where it doesn't matter if you know, if your your parents worked in finance, if you have a college education, none of

that should matter at the end of the day. And so when I think about sort of what I'm doing with gen zbc S and our mission, it's really to help democratize access in every way and that is through knowledge, it's through opportunities and jobs and UH and through the initiatives that we that we run through gen Z vcs UH and you know, I think having gen Z be a part of the conversation both in starting businesses and investing in those businesses, it's going to play a large

role into like what companies get funded, what businesses are started, and how you're incorporating that gen Z and diverse feedback around the table at every step of the way. So I do think it's it's very important that gen Z is playing a role, but that we're also making it more accessible to everyone. Megan Loyst, investor at Lara Hippo and founder of gen Z FACS. Megan, always great to

have you with us. Thanks. Coming up more on President Bion's executive order on crypto, We're gonna be joined by former State Department veteran and Kurt Crypto VC Tom Tilman or his take gone crypto's war role in the war in Ukraine. This is Bloomberg. Bitcoin is known for its perpetual edge and flows, but even after an eventful past few days, the digital asset is finishing the week practically

in the same place it started. Time now for our crypto report with our crypto contributor Sanale Bostic Sheanale, Why why back to the beginning? Yeah, really back to the beginning, actually lower than when we were just a week ago. And if you look just earlier this week, we had a moment where bitcoins are passed forty dollars. Again, that was a little over three days ago, and heading into the beginning, while we're still seeing a little bit of a lift, we do see bitcoin lower on the twenty

four hour period and over the last three days. So what are we looking at here? We we had all of this excitement, where did it all go? And by the way, when you're talking about bitcoin and you look at the theoryum as well, you see that when the Bitcoin excitement wanes, the other coins have even more of an outflow, So you do see it an even big or drop off in the theory of itself. The one thing you see stable is the stable coins. I wanted to draw attention to it, not only because it's been

stable throughout much of this crisis. Emily, there's also news out on stable coin today, a major hedge fund on Wall Street that is trying to short it and found an artificial way to short it as it faces a regulatory scrutiny. You and I have talked about this before with Marty Chavez earlier this week, that stable coin regulation will be just as important as we think about crypto regulation overall. So a lot of un answered questions for the industry here and as you say, back to where

we started, all right, Shanali, thank you stay with us. Uh, We're gonna come back to President Biden's recent executive order. Now, our next guest to Michael Tilman. He was the head of global policy at Entrees and Horowitz is and is now part of Katie Hans new yet to be named cryptocurrency firm. He's also worked closely with the biggest in politics, Hillary Clinton, President Biden, John Kerry, former President Obama, and worked in collaboration with the World Bank. M I. T.

And governments around the world. So to Mica, you certainly have quite the resume. Really curious for your thoughts on crypto now and how it is being used in geopolitics, the spotlight on cryptocurrency given the war in Ukraine and the concerns about it being used, you know, for illicit activities as well. What does this tell you? Well, this is certainly a heartbreaking moment and our thoughts and prayers

are with the people of Ukraine. I think that for us and for many in the community, are primary concern is how we can help support the Ukrainian people and nation in this moment of need. What we have seen over the last few weeks is a really extraordinary ground swallow of support. We've been in close touch with Minister Alex Boornyayev, who is Ukraine's Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation.

He and others in the Ukrainian government a few weeks back issued a plea to those around the world with digital assets to support them. They posted digital addresses for digital while let's and they have received now a hundred million dollars in support from individuals all around the planet who for the first time in history can give help

directly to assist a government that is in crisis. In the context of this conflict, what we're seeing is that the Ukrainian government is using those resources to purchase non lethal equipment like body armor, rations night vision goggles that are helping to keep their people safe. And it's also proving to be an incredibly important instrument in preserving data.

Distributed data networks like our weave are providing a safe haven for resources and for information that would otherwise come under threat as a result of the Russian invasion, and they're also being used to preserve evidence of war crimes for future prosecution. So certainly the first major conflict in which we've seen Web three tools play a significant role, and fortunately they seem to be proving very useful to

the Cranian people in this moment of crisis. To that point, there's concern crypto could be useful to the Russian people, that wealthy Russians could use cryptocurrency to circumvent sanctions. This at the same time that President Biden, with this executive order, is telling the US government to do more research here to figure out, you know, how the US government should

approach it. You seem pretty optimistic about this executive order. Why, Well, the most important thing to listen to, the most important people listen to, is it relates to sanctions of Asian. Are fins send, the agency of the US government that

is responsible for tracking illicit financial flows. They came out a few days ago and said that they are quite confident that crypto assets and digital assets are not going to be used and are not being used for large scale sanctions of Asian I've had many long discussions with national security and law enforcement agencies this week. They are extremely comfortable with their ability to track illicit flows and field that these instruments are not going to play a

significant role in Russia's ability to circumvent the sanctions. More broadly, the executive order presents a real watershed moment for the community. This is the first time that we have seen a serious whole of government effort on the part of the United States to launch a comprehensive conversation about what we want the future of the Internet to entail. And we

think this is excellent news. What we are finding in our discussions with the leaders in the administration and in Congress is that those who take the time to really dig in and study the potential of these technologies. Come away very encouraged by the array of problems that we have, the potential assault certainly, Please, I'm really curious about something that you started to mention a little earlier, you know, the ability to get help and purchase non lethal weapons here.

You know, obviously this fundraising at such a massive scale has really drawn the attention of many communities here. But I'm wondering here about what the dark side could be too, and what would happen if some of this power to fundraise had gotten into the wrong hands. Well, it certainly is a risk that we need to be very mindful of.

Within the Web three community. What we're seeing right now is that law enforcement and national security leaders are confident in their ability to manage and track illicit transactions that utilize digital assets, and those who are engaging on behalf of open societies are finding an incredibly valuable and potent new set of tools that can help in responding to

this crisis. I remember in two thousand eight I went in alone with Joe Biden to Tubilisi, the capital of Georgia, during the Russian invasion of that country, and as that city was ringed with Russian armor. The then Chairman Biden and I started putting together plans for a one billion dollar relief package that would assist the Georgian people. And what we recognized very quickly on our way home is that it is going to be very tough to get the assets there quickly, in a traceable manner and have

confidence that they were going to be used correctly. All of you will You'll remember that during Iraq we use palettes of hundred dollar bills. This is a quantum leap forward in terms of our ability to transparently move assets into complex emergencies really quickly. Here you know you mentioned, are we even the ability to trace war crimes? Potentially? Is there any evidence that the international uh the i

SEC is able to to actually use it? I mean, is there any evidence that the international community is actually

tracing war crimes via bockchain technologies. Already, in advance of the conflict, you saw the Ukrainian government and leaders in Ukraine stockpiling thousands and thousands of sensitive documents on the r weave platform in order to facilitate future post conflict rebuilding in the event that the hard copies of those doc units would be destroyed and as we speak, there is documentation of atrocities and war crimes going on utilizing

that platform. It's a distributed architecture, which means that it would be virtually impossible for the Russians or other bad actors to eliminate this evidence. And it addresses what has historically been one of the greatest challenges in war crimes prosecution, which is how do you maintain a strong chain of evidence from the time that an atrocity is committed to the time that you're able to bring charges in the Hague. Right to Mica Tillman, We're going to have to continue

this conversation at another time. Really really fascinating things points are raising here to make a Tillman. With Katie Hunt's new cryptocurrency VC firm, we're gonna be following your next moves along with our crypto contributor Shinali Bassi. Coming up, the trial for Sunny Balwani, former Theonis president, an ex boyfriend Elizabeth Holmes. That trial starts now next week. We'll dig into what it means for Holmes as she awaits sentencing.

That's next. This is Bloomberg as Saranos founder Elizabeth Holmes awaits sentencing her ex boyfriend and former president of Paranos, Sonny Baulwani, begins his trial Wednesday. She has accused him of abuse, and the outcome of his trial could give us an indication of the potential sentence time for Holmes herself. I'm want to get the details from our Bloomberg legal reporter Joe rosen Black, who was at the courthouse every

day during Holmes's trial. So, Joel, how could Sonny's case impact what happens with Holmes's sentence here, given that the verdict has already come down. Yeah, well, the vergine has come down, but the judge has delayed her sentencing for a very important reason, and that is that wants to see what role Sonny Balwani played in all of it. So his trial begins on Tuesday. Opening arguments begin on Tuesday.

Jury selection is underway as we speak. Uh, what role he played factors into the judges sentencing of Elizabeth Holmes. So depending on what he finds, what he learns about whether she was more involved than actually her trial representat or showed or was less involved, or whether Sonny was really actually kind of more behind behind the scenes doing more to control her as she alleged whether or not he actually believes some of those allegations that she leveled

at him. That all factors into his sentence of Elizabeth Holmes. Interesting now, as a reminder to our viewers, there were multiple charges that she was found guilty of, multiple charges she was found not guilty of, and multiple charges that the jury couldn't come to a conclusion on. They were at an impass. What happens with some of those other charges. How will the judge and this trial handle those potentially differently? Well, right,

that's that's very interesting. So they are they were indicted, Sunny Bowani and Elizabeth Holmes were indicted as co conspirators. They were boyfriend girlfriend, they were president and CEO. Many people assume at this point that they were as thick as thieves, and that that the Sunny Balwanni just faces basically the same trial. I don't think that's quite the case. Uh. And the charges that that Elizabeth Holmes was vindicated of,

I think will inform this trial. So for example, uh, the jury and Elizabeth Holmes trial found that she wasn't guilty at all of defrauding patients. Well, Sunny boult Wanni was much more in charge of the laboratories, and so he was much more closer. He was closer to the to the results that many employees said, we're fake, We're

just weren't true at all, weren't accurate at all. And so whether or not those charges of patient fraud are how how the government presents those cases and what how Sony defends against them will be different, I think in this trial. I think that's gonna be a much more important part of the trial. Interesting well, Joel, we will of course be watching for your coverage. Uh starting up Middilla next week are Joel Rosen Black Black. Thank you as always for your context there. And that does it

for this edition of Bloomberg Technology. I'm Emily changin San Francisco. I'm heading to Austin this weekend for south By Southwest. Will bring you some of my interviews from south By Southwest next week on the show. Have a wonderful weekend everyone. This is