Robinhood's Investor Index and Iguodala's Tech Bets

me a champion. Andre Iguadoala talks to us about what he's taking from the court to venture capital, my conversation with the basketball star about everything from diversity in tech to n f T s and sports betting. And we all know about board apes, but what about moon birds. That one new to you. We are talking to proof collectives. Kevin rows about the future of n f T. All of that in a moment, But first, robin Hood announcing

a new index. This will offer a snapshot, a monthly snapshot at the top one stocks it's users are holding with the most quote unquote conviction. The company says customer conviction, and a stock will be measured by how highly concentrated it is across portfolios. Robin Hood, head of investment strategy. Stephanie Guild joins us. Now, so talk to us about

the methodology behind this, Stephanie and the end goal. Yeah, I think you know, we've brought in a whole new generation investors or we helped do that, right over twenty

million investors, and with it came a narrative that wasn't fair. Um. You know, we're not just our investors are not just Meme stock holders, and so when we look through the data, we saw that there was actually a lot of really interesting themes and they are holding onto investing in things that are things that you and I might invest in for the long term. UM. And so we wanted to bring that narrative and be able to show it to not only the world, but also give information to our

customers about it. So some of the top stocks are some of the things that we think of as quote unquote meme stocks. What do you think has been unfair about the discussion about what's traded on Robin Hood's platform. Why? I think when you also look at the other ones, right, You've got Amazon, Apple, Um, Google has been at the top.

There's a lot of companies that are in our daily lives, and that's no different than generations of investors have been investing in, right, like the things that you know and use every day. UM. I think the other thing is that you you when you look through a lot of the data below the top ten, what you do see is,

for example, a theme of investing in electric vehicles. And if this year has not shown you anything about the importance of adopting electric vehicles over time, I don't know what what could How do you expect investors to use the data from this index? I think for them it's just a way to say, like what our investors or customers or people like me investing in? What are you know?

How are they positioned relative to me? UM? And right now it's just going to be a snapshot on a monthly basis, But there may be other ways that we can offer it to our customers to help inform them in the future. Right. That was my next question. I mean, could we see it, you know, weekly, daily, hourly UM list of the top ten or top one. I don't know if it's going to be updated that often, but I think we could in the future potentially bring it

in app, for example, and share it with our customers. UM. If you own that particular stock you'll see maybe perhaps with the waiting of that stock is in our own index UM, and maybe even compare your performance to it. You mentioned electric cars. Talk to us about some of the other early data that you're seeing. What are you learning about investors from this data? I think other things I've seen over time, especially when we look back at

the history of the index. It goes back to about j in your UM, is that our customers have been relatively good at timing some of the more tactical things that have been out in the market. For example, in uh, you know, in COVID, they were investing in UM the pelotons for example, and the zooms UM that has dissipated quite a bit. They were investing in mortgage companies, you know, when when interest rates were super low and uh, you know, the housing boom was happening. They were investing in the

likes of Rocket and Wells Fargo. UM. A lot of that stuff has dissipated in the index. And what they're investing in is, i'd say, stuff that's sort of longer term for the future. UM. A lot of for example, financial services companies are not necessarily you know, all the banks that have been around forever. It's a lot of some of the new um you know, new ways that

we might see finance evolve. And that's because our our customers are you know, thirty two years old on average um and so they have time and and why not invest in things that you know longer term can help build wealth. So why introduce this out at a time of a lot of uncertainty in the market going into an economic downturn and you know, obviously a lot of

questions about how the platform is used. I think where we wanted to do it because one, as I said before, like the narrative has been unfair, and our investors aren't just making you know, crazy yolo decisions. A lot of them have learned from this recent downturn and are turning our eye toward how how can I build long term

wealth for myself? And our platform, you know, really helps you get started with that, and we want to grow with our customers, and having this information available to us and being able to track it can also help us understand our customers better and give them what they need over time. All right, Stephanie Guild, Robin Hood's head of investment Strategy, will continue to track those now that they're out. Thank you for joining us to come up how venture

capitalists are changing their strategy amid a market downturn. That's next, This is bloomerk. The economic downturn is slashing startup valuations, leading to smaller I p o s or no our i p o s in some cases, and less venture capital activity. How long does it last? Amber? About Charia of Maverick Ventures, managing director joining us now, Amber, how long do you think it lasts? I've heard two to three years for this downturn. Well, great to have, Great

to be on the show, Emily, thanks for having me. Um. Yeah, I wish I had that crystal ball in terms of how long it will last, but we're certainly in the middle of it now. I think that the catalysts have been, you know, the raising of the interest rates. I think part of the bubble being popped that we were in last year. But I think it's also presents an opportunity for a lot of startups um particularly ones that have have good balance sheets, ones that actually have great unit

econom mix. And I think that's where a lot of folks are focusing now. Is you know, are there real fundamentals that are crving business progress, and that's where I think the attention has shifted away from high grow, high burn and other things that we're really being funded. Last year, so I've heard massive layoffs coming. Valuation right down to what we've seen so far. Isn't the least of it,

would you agree? I think it's started. I think in the beginning of the year there's a big wait and see attitude, you know, would this be a temporary blit with the with with the market's not back really fast. I think in the second half of the year, particularly post summer, I think reality is setting in. I think we have seen many startups take down their burn rate, both in terms of layoffs, contractors, the real estate costs, things of that sort. I think secondly, we've seen a

lot of companies shot up their balance sheets. Uh. And while they do that, they're they're saying, hey, you know, the the path towards profitability is now much more important than the path towards hired growth. I think the and then third thing when you mentioned valuations, I think I think there's a reality setting in that oftentimes for maybe

not the top companies, but for the average startup. Uh. You know, there there's a reality check on the market, and I think what we're seeing there is for a lot of a lot of companies that are good companies with good unit economics and good fundamentals, they're saying, hey, we want to raise a more modest amount of money at a more modest valuation valuation than last year, and

that that that's a great path. But for companies that need money, need capital, I think that's where you're starting to see evaluation declines, structure for deals and things of that sort. Is there a lot of dry powder just sitting on the sidelines because of all these funds that raise so much money and now don't have as many places to deploy it, and our vcs waiting for evaluations to fall further before getting in there is a lot

of drive. I think that's when when when you talked a lot of investors in the private equity space and in the venture capital space, a lot of folks who are very fortunate and raised in the last few years, the pace of capital deployment has slowed down. I think there's two things that are happening um right now, and I'll bifurcate the early stage market and the growth equity markets. In the early stage market. I think business there has continued, um,

you know, as as expected. Um, there's great innovation happening out of a lot of scientific labs, out of a lot of engineers who are leaving, you know, leaving other startups, leaving you know, the big corporations who have their ideas, and that just continues at the normal pace. UM. And there's lots of research saying that in these moments of economic downturn are the time that more resilient companies are

being built. And so that that's why one thing we've seen, I think, on the other hand, on for for more of the kind of the growth equity you know, growth growth stage companies. UM. You know, I think you are seeing um, you know, you're seeing the pay slow down there. I think people want to see better fundamentals and unit economics than than they saw before they hedge fun. Tiger Global was such a big player in in Silicon Valley

over the last few years. It's also been blamed for inflating a lot of these valuations because they had a lot of money to deploy. What do you make of that criticism, Well, I think, um, you know, it's more and more broadly speaking, I think there was a lot of money in the ecosystem last year, whether it's from folks like Tiger or soft Bank or others. UM and what what they what they did was, you know, they

played a very important role in financing these companies. UM. Now what remains to be seen is, you know, the role that they will that they will play and other growth equity players will play in terms of now getting these companies on a path towards profitability, on a path towards and I p O maybe not and maybe not in two but in future years UM and how they adjust their their mindset, how they had us to support that they're giving their portfolio company. I think it's gonna

be very telling actually in the coming years. And so we look forward to working with them and other investors in that realm to see, you know, how you build long term sustainable businesses. That that's the main goal. Gary tan uh formally of Initialized, who's been a guest on this show many times. Uh Is has been tapped to run y Combinator, and you know, of course there's been many Y combinator startups born in a downturn, like Airbnb,

like Stripe. What do you think the future is of a accelerator like y Combinator in a down market when there are other accelerators out there now, many other accelerators trying to do the same thing. It's um. You know, the last two days have been the y Comminator demo days, so we've been you know, knee deep in looking at all the companies in there. Uh. You know, we've had a very strong relationship with y Commonator before. We think

it's one of the round rules of global innovation. UM. Every every six months there's you know, hundreds of companies that present, and you you just have this feeling that there's within that you know, within that realm, there's a couple of bills that are going to be these enduring, industry defining companies. UM. One of the things that we've noticed in this Y Combinator UM, you know, batch from from from this the last couple of days, you can notice certain macro trends and I think this kind of

this discuss your question. One thing that we've gotten very excited about is the increase use of artificial intelligence in companies that are that are in Y Combinator, and I think that's at one of the forefronts of trends in in the coming decade. And if you just we ran the mats earlier today about you know, what percentage of companies are using artificial intelligence to build UM in this y Combinator batch in between AI and machine learning. It's

almost a quarter of companies are doing this. And if you compare this to even to Batchets two years ago, UM, that's a growth of um of companies doing that. And the only time we've seen that before is you know, eight to ten years ago when you started seeing cloud companies and start US being built on the cloud and he started the growth of cloud computing US and and

Google and Microsoft. And so when when you come to think about why combinator, uh, you started seeing these macro trends as all, and I think that's that's really what we're seeing there, all right, Uh, interesting stuff, Amber about a Charia Maverick Ventures managing director, uh and bar thank you for joining us as we're entering a potentially lengthy

economic downturn. I caught up with NBA champion and Mastery Ventures general partner Andre Gudala about where he's placing his bets and how the macro environment is impacting his strategy. To pick a listen for me personally, UM, you know, earlier stage, which is where I'm investing, uh, you know about uh my time and resources. Um, they have been affected as much. So if you look at you know, PRECC series A, UM, they haven't been effected as much.

Whereas the growth stage has been some uncertainty. UM, you've seen a lot of down grounds coming out as of late, and I think those have been affected more than any of the sector. So whore I'm at. The deals are still pretty hot. Everyone's trying to get in you know, UM, you're placing your beds earlier. There's bigger returns, but there's also more risk. So for me, still full of throttle and still chasing the earlier deals. Now, Master, I know you say you want to ensure diversity when it comes

to investing, to governance, to talent. What does that look like to you? And how do you think you can personally influence it given your success as an athlete. I just thinking holding you know, companies like the aggregators, um, you know, making sure that they're doing their uh duty into helping build the pipe line or or just looking

for the right talent. So what we've been able to do is identify a black founded UH talent search firm and using that firm to make sure that we're able to you know, build the right pipelines from you know HBC, use higher education UM institutions UM with a you know, with the talent and making sure that these companies are building the right culture. UM is one thing to you know, hire minorities, but it's another thing to make sure those

minorities are having success within that culture. So you know, you've got to build the right culture so they can have success once they work there. We found that that's been an issue as well. So UM holding these companies accountable is one thing. And you know, building out UM you know projections or building out you know, colors to make sure that you know, this is what it should

look like. You know, this is a percentage of UH minorities that you should have within your companies throughout building your companies as we're invest earlier and seeing them through

and through. I recently spoke to Serena Williams about her for a into venture capital investing, and she she said that a lot of people look at her and think, you know, I'm just doing this as a hobby, but really it's a passion and when it comes to you know, what she can bring to the table from the court, she said, I like winning and I know how to win. What do you think you bring from the court to investing.

That's unique that traditional Silicon Valley venture capitalists don't have well winning in in there similarities in terms of winning, um as the percentage of humans with within the sport or with this just in competing, and I think athletes and venture capital investors, you know, this is really hard to win and it's only a small percent that win at a high clip. In Serena fits right into that. I feel like I've been fortunate enough to be around step area, so I fit into it as well. And

for me, it's just identifying. For me, it's identifying talent, identifying how to make the best use of that talent. You know, I've been in situations where I've been, you know, the focal point of the organization. I've also been in a situation where I've been a six man and we've had success, and so understand how the ego works. Um what I've learned throughout my journey and tech is, you know, the eagle is big in tech, is the same way.

It's big in sports, and you know, you've got some of the brightest UM founders, and you've got some of the brightest vcs, and there's battles and you know, the stakeholders with with the founders in terms of the direction of the company and just being able to make sure that you know, all the eagles are you know, throwing out the window and we're all on the same page, and how do we build a company efficiently, responsibly, um, you know, with the with the consumer uh in mind

as well. You're also the co host of a podcast called Point Forward, where you're interviewing top athletes, musicians, entrepreneurs. You've been making some waves. I believe Joe lake Up said gotten a little trouble with something he said on your podcast. UM, I'm curious what trends you're seeing in the media landscape given this new ability for people like

yourself to just go straight to their audiences directly. Well, I think sports says you can see with some of these um, you know, some of the TV deals and the rights um to you know, whether it's NFL, NBA, UM, and then you just look at the deal the Big Tent did was astronomical you know, a great deal done

by Kevin Warner. Kevin Warren over at UH who runs the Big tent Um, and you started to seeing these sports has become actual media companies with you know, live sports being you can you know, you can pretty much gauge what's your viewership is going to be in how many eyeballs advertisers can come across. And I feel like UM athletes are starting to understand their influence and being

able to leverage their brands as well. And you know, understanding that there there's not just the financial side, but also the branding side of you're going straight to the consumer, which is what streaming is. And you've been able to talk to your fan base and UM, whether it's you're trying to monetize it or just build that base of of of fans. And you know, that's what we talked about Web three, That's what we talked about n f T S and you know, the director consumer part of

the business coming into media and sports as well. Amazon's Prime Video will have exclusive streaming rights starting September fifteenth for Thursday Night Football, kicking off an eleven year, thirteen billion dollar deal that could forever alter the television landscape. This is the first time a streaming service has had exclusive rights to NFL games in the United States, and a big challenge two major networks that have dominated sports

for generations. Here to discuss this, bloombergs Luca Shaw, who wrote about this for blue Berg's Big Take. So, lucas, this is a huge deal. If you want to watch Thursday night football, you're gonna have to go onto Amazon Prime Video. How many viewers is this going to drive for Prime and is the bet going to be worth it? Well? Amazon is estimating that in the first year it will

probably attract about twelve million viewers a week. That's below what the typical third to night broadcast has has attracted, but much higher than I think the number of people using Amazon on your on your average Thursday. I mean, the thing to remember for them is this is a very long term that it's useful. It's you know, they see football both as a benefit for their Prime members.

It's the big reason they're spending billions of dollars on entertainment, and it becomes very hard for us to see if that number really pencils out. But it also could provide a huge boost their advertising business, which has been one of the fastest growing sectors of the company. And you know, football is the hottest property on television. A thirteen billion dollar deal for eleven games a season, is it Is it worth it? Well, am On is paying less than

other broadcasters pay for football. I mean, that's the thing to remember here is that the price of sports rights has gotten absolutely ludicrous over the past several years. Uh, you know, it's I find it really hard to answer that is it worth a question with Amazon, just because it feels like they're playing a different game than most

of these other companies. You know, I think when a CBS paramount by football rates, the bet is that they're that show itself will probably lose money for them, but it brings so many people into CBS that it makes money for them overall. And without football, they would be far less valuable to the cable operators that need to carry the channel. It's not a perfect comparison, but it's a little bit similar to Amazon, where they're spending a

lot of money to bring people into their ecosystem. The problem is that if you want to watch any of these games on a streaming platform, it is kind of confusing. For example, I like baseball on Friday nights. I have to go to Apple, but only on Friday nights, not on any other night. How does that infusion smooth out over the longer term when you have all of these different networks and then all of these different streaming platforms

getting just smaller pieces of a much larger pie. Well, first of all, I can't believe this is the first time I'm hearing that you're a baseball fan, because I'm a huge fan. So it's just good information to have. But baseball is a lot more complicated than the Is it against me? I wouldn't other than the fact that you're probably a giant stand and that is bad for me. So I'm a fan Lucas and Oakland A's fan. I like the Giants when the A's aren't playing them. M

football is a little bit, you see, than baseball. Baseball is on regional sports networks, just on a bunch of different networks. You know, Thursday night football is only going to be on Amazon. There's a little bit of you know, confusion, and that if you're in a bar, you'll be watching direct TV, but nobody's paying attention to how they're getting it. If you're in the market of the team playing. You may be able to watch it on local TV, but

you're right there. This requires a lot of marketing on Amazon's part. You know, they're not used to spending a ton of money to market their entertainment shows. They figured that people who are sort of coming to Amazon anyways will watch the things that they have to offer. Because of how much money they've spent both on football and on their new Lord of the Ring show, they're starting to market in a way that they really happened before.

And the nice thing about it is this will be one of the first times where we get weekly viewership numbers. I think the first time actually where we get weekly viewership numbers from Amazon. So we'll be able to see real time each week how the viewership is and whether it's able to attract an audience that's comparable to TV. And that's what the NFL is gonna on to know.

Right They're making a big bet here. The NFL has only been available on linear networks for the most part for its history, and they've now given one of their flagship programs to a streaming service. It's the first time they've done that. It's really the first time a major sports league in the US has done it, uh, and it is a big test of where we see the future of media going. All right, Bloomberg's Lukasha. You can check out Lucas's big take in Bloomberg Business Week. Obviously

a lot of evolving and moving parts here. I do want to get to some breaking news that is crossing the terminal now. Advisors for Elon Musk have apparently written to Twitter about a separate basis to end that deal, that, of course, forty four billion dollar buyout deal that Musk is trying to walk away from. Uh, Musk saying and his advisor saying, they became aware of facts that they believe serve as a basis for terminating that deal. This is coming in an amended thirteen D filing. We're going

to continue to follow these headlines. They're just crossing the terminal now, but either way, an additional attempt for Elon Musk to get out of buying Twitter. Continuing our conversation on streaming now, I want to bring in George Pine, founder and CEO of Bruin Capital. Bruin has the rights to run NFL game Pass worldwide for the league. So if you want to watch the Super Bowl in Hong Kong,

London or Brazil. It's through game pass. So, George, I know you were listening to our conversation with Lucas earlier. Some people are calling this, uh, you know, move towards more streaming platforms having more sports rights and inflection point, like an inflection point in broadcast history. Do you think it's fair to say that at this point or too soon? Emily? Thanks for having me. I think it's a little too

soon to say that. I'd say they're around the hoop per se, but I don't think it's an inflection point. I think you're seeing more activity. I mean Apple with the NFL, plus Amazon with the Thursday Night Football, Apple with Major League Soccer, but still they're they're kind of not the major moves. No one's in unseeding Fox or CBS or the NBA or the NFL. So I they're around the hoop in a way they haven't been before,

but I wouldn't quite say it's an inflection point. Okay, So how long do you think then that this land grab is going to take to play out? And what does it look like on the other side, do streaming platforms have more power have more power over the sports that you know, so many millions of people want to watch or do. The traditional networks hold onto a lot of that power. Well, I think it's two fold. One, the money's in the old media, right, it's the most

sports of the most valuable thing for old media. I mean, like the top hundred shows on television are sports enormously valuable content. And I break the streamers into two groups. I mean Paramount Plus, Peacock and ESPN Plus those are tied to linear television, and so that's just a champ. We're able to use both streaming and linear in a package. And it's quite different than Amazon and Apple. We're really using it, as Lucas said, almost as a sponsorship a

way that augment their other business. And so Amazon and Apple are quite different than Paramount plus, ESPN Plus and others, let in Peacocks. So there are two strategies, and um, you know, it's more seamless the media side because that content is so valuable. And then on what I call the retail products side, it's still valuable, but it's valuable because it's really driving awareness to another core product. And you could choose stairsay night football or another form of entertainment.

But if you're a media company, sports is irreplaceable and invaluable, and in the value proposition to a media company is far greater than it would be to a retail product. Now Bruin has the rights to NFL game Pass, the league is also pursuing NFL Plus. What's your take on the league pursuing its own streaming platform. I think it's quite right, you know, because they're trying to read the youth there also you have in the next year, the

young consumers are where the streamers are. So if I'm the NFL, I'm trying to reach that audience, whether it's through NFL Plus, will be Sunday, the Sunday ticket package Amazon. Those are critical consumers to grow the game. So I think it's mart to try and have as many touch

points with the consumer, particularly young consumer. It's it's really good and then internationally it's tough to watch NFL all around the world, and so of course NFL game Pass really serves that purpose to feed people NFL content, you know, for us in our case, in one countries. So what does the league making these changes working towards this evolution, What does that mean for game pass and for your business, Well, for us, we're outside of the US, so I think

there's a it's a different approach. Game Pass International is really a growth engine for for international, it's your marketing to consumers, one person at a time. So I think the international and domestic are quite are quite different, different strategies, different objectives. Game Pass International is a very important part of the marketing outside the United States for the NFL, as is uh NFL plus in the US. But it's you have more more resources inside the US and less

outside the US. All right, Well, thank you for joining us ahead of a big football weekend here in the United States. Brewing Capital founder and CEO George Pine, appreciate you stopping by. We're gonna continue our coverage of sports streaming Monday. Marie dono Hue, Amazon vice president of Global Sports Video, just four days out from Thursday Night Football, taking center shade. She's going to join us to talk about Prime Video and this big bet that Amazon is making.

Plus Tonight Bloomberg premiering Bloomberg's of the line up. Kaylee Lines and Damien Sassau are gonna give you the latest on betting trends and talk about the biggest players across the industry. Seven pm Eastern Friday's coming up All Things and f T S and Tech with Proof Collective co founder and cereal tech entrepreneur Kevin Rose. That is next.

This is Bloomberg. It's not known for our crypto report, and I want to take a look now at n f T S with Proof Collective, which recently announced a big raise fifty million dollars led by Andrews and Harrowitz participation. Also from seven seven six that's Alexis Ohanians venture capital firm. I want to talk about what it all means for collectives expansion plans with its co founder and CEO Kevin Rose, who of course also founded the social news site dig

Back in the day. He was a general partner at Google Ventures. A longtime angel investor, he backed Twitter, Facebook, Square, and is the host of the Proof and Modern Fine Finance podcasts. He joins US now along with our crypto contributor Shinnali Bossik in New York. Kevin, welcome, Shanali. Take

it away, Kevin. I'm really curious. Yeah, absolutely, And you know, we're really curious here because obviously there has been this crypto winter, yet you were able to raise a series A here in a world where n f T collections at large having very volatile this year, what is it that makes an n f T collection valuable And how much of it has to do with the community rather than the assets themselves. Yeah, I mean a lot of it is certainly the community and the strength of that community.

And you know how active and engaged they are in what you're building, because you know, as a company, we're just a handful of people, and and really it's how we deputize our community to go out and build on our behalf that makes us so powerful. So I think what you're seeing with what we're doing at Proof with moon Birds is really the birth of kind of decentralized brand in which the community has the keys of the castle. They get to be the ones to go out and decide how to use the i P and how to

monetize it. It's a complete flip of say something like a Disney where they're the ones that hold the i P close to the their own um. They hold it internally and they never really release it. So they are the ones that get to monetize the entire thing. And this is a chance to completely flip that model, flipping the model, but what about what it means relative to other n f T collections. What sets apart moon Birds, for example, from the board apes. Yeah, I mean, I

think you really have to find your community. Like every community inside of the world of p FPS, these profile photo pictures, UM, they have different vibes and different kind of core tenants of what they stand for. We are always this idea of this love of an appreciation of art, this curation with a point of view that's kind of

what we've always uh done at Proof. We're not about getting into this crazy um market of the muddy waters of flipping n f T s or how to quick make a quick five X. And we're long term builders. I mean, we've been doing this for twenty plus years in terms of who we are as entrepreneurs, having built many businesses over that period of time. And you know, many of the members on our team are ex Google and so it's really a level match already that's coming

to the table here to build this business. And I think people have a lot of confidence in who we are UM as that team. You know that this is largely an anonymous space where there's a lot of products and some great projects actually that launched with anonymous founders, but in a world where there's this uncertainty and there can certainly be sometimes what they call rug poles where

you never know if a project is disappears. Uh, you know, six months later, we've kind of put everything out there and said we're serious about this, We're gonna go raise venture capital, and we're gonna be a team that's gonna stick around for many years to come. You know. Critics also say here that if you look at what n f T s are to what extent is their utility behind them? How do they go beyond just being digital

art and into something that has a broader purpose. What do you say to critics like that, Yeah, I mean, I think this is a very new idea and concept for people to wrap their head around, where for the very first time you actually have in something that is a core piece of ownership of a project. So oftentimes, as these projects become more and more popular, value a cruise back to these n f t s as uh

a collectible pieces of art. And that is different in that if you're dealing with a traditional media company, you're just a consumer. Like if you go out and you watch a star Wars movie or you go and and you somehow um participate in that experience. Yes, they're great media experiences, but there's nothing really to walk away with

their that is a part of that project. And here you have these different members of the community coming together and taking this artwork that they actually own and going off and doing very creative things with it so they can they can figure out when and how they want to monetize it, they can remix it, and you're deputizing a community of brand builders to go out there and blow this up and get it more and more exposure in new and creative ways that you never thought possible

as a centralized organization. So the bet here really is to say, we think there's a different way to build a media a business here, and it's not one where it's a handful of people in a boardroom they get to make the decisions. But it's really empowering the community to go out and do big and bold things on our behalf. And we're just kind of the ones that are making sure that the business is running and that we have our delivering solid products in in conjunction with

our community members. Kevin Gibbon, you're so steeped in the earlier social iterations of the Internet. For our viewers who are less crypto native, can you explain why you think blockchain technology and Web three really is the future and what happens to these social platforms like Facebook and Twitter, uh that we all know now in this future? Do they continue to exist? Yeah, it's it's a good question

because there is a lot of um. Certainly the Web three environment and community behind it are a lot more privacy focused, and there is is certainly this idea that we can come in and reinvent a lot of the two technology that's underpinning a lot of these businesses in a way that doesn't put the consumer as the product that doesn't sell their eyeballs, it doesn't sell their personal information. So that's a really exciting new direction to move the Web.

And it's early days. So what we're building here is kind of the infrastructure and underpinnings of all of that, and you'll see that be spread across a whole series

of different categories. So our art and digital collectibles being the obvious one here with n f t s and and rewriting the way that artists get paid with royalties enforceable by the blockchain, and just a lot of really exciting things that are happening there, which I certainly believe that it's pretty clear now that the future of a lot of art is going to go in the form of n f T s. But certainly there's going to be the same reimagination and reinvention of classic Web two

properties in a way that puts the consumer in more control and gives them a piece of that upside. So they're not just a product of a big uh or a massive of like fortune company, but really they are actually part of that ownership via tokens or or or via n f T. So it's a pretty exciting new new change. You know, there's a lot about to happen in the next couple of weeks with ther theory emerge.

I guess my question is do you think the gatekeepers of the Internet today Meta, Twitter, Google, do they survive in this new world or is all this new technology a major threat to them? Certainly there are going to be companies like any major shift like we saw with Web one point o going to Web two point o or whatever it may be, there are companies that that

get it, that understand it at a core level. I would put, um, you know, Jack Dorsey in that camp, right because all the things that they've done at Square uh and everything they're building up block I think that's there. They're an amazing group of innovators. They understand blockchain technology at a very, very core level. Um, there are others that are playing in this realm, meaning that if you take a look at Instagram how they embraced and enabled

n f T s now to be displayed. But it's it's more like a bolton and not really a retooling and rethinking of the product at its core. I don't think long term the kind of bolton we're just gonna do this because it's the hot thing of the week. I don't think that's gonna play well. And it's really not the dramatic change that consumers, at least in the Web three space are looking for. And so um, for me, it's gonna be a lot of new native companies built

from the ground up that tackled these problems. So it's gonna be brand new businesses that are being built right now that will probably in the next two to three

years really emerges some of the early winners. And so you know, I would say the reason we went out and raise this round of financing um within reason is that we believe there's a better way to do a media business, and that really puts the consumers in control of of this um of these assets and really gives them a way to experience and and collect digital collectibles that have never been done before. So that's what's exciting

for us. But that's just one vertical, probably fifteen that the blockchain is going to address and reimagine over the next few years. Fascinating. Well, it's great to hear about what you're doing now, Kevin Rose, CEO and co founder of Proof Collective, along with our very own Shinali Bossic, Thank you for stopping by. A few other stories we are watching. Tesla's considering building a battery grade lithium refinery

on the Gulf coast of Texas. Company has filed a newly public application for tax breaks with the Texas Comptroller's Office, calling the proposed facility the first of its kind in North America. The electric car maker is also evaluating a site in Louisiana, and Amazon sellers are bracing for a bleak holiday shopping season. This is inflation bitten consumers are

curbing their spending. Many merchants who sell more than half of the goods on the Amazon website are concerned they're going to be forced to cut prices to move a mountain of unsold inventory. This is an abrupt change from the previous two years, when sellers were scrambling to get enough products into Amazon warehouses to meet all of that pandemic fuel demand, despite chronic shortages that let them jack up prices. That's a trend we're going to continue to follow.

And that does it for this Friday edition of Bloomberg Technology Monday. Really excited to have Mariad Donahue, Amazon's vice president of Global Sports Video, to talk about their thirteen billion dollar for a into the NFL, and tonight Bloomberg premiering the line up Kaylee Lines and Damian Sasaur. We're going to give you the latest data on betting trends and talk to you the biggest players in the industry. Seven pm Eastern. This is Bloomberg. Have a wonderful weekend.