From the heart of where innovation, money and power colli in Silicon Valley and beyond. This is Bloomberg Technology with Emily Jay. I'm Emily changing San Francisco, and this is Bloomberg Technology coming up in the next hour. Isolating Putin and his allies from financial systems. The d o j's newest task force will track the use of crypto to evade sanctions, along with the jets, yachts, and other luxury
assets of Russian oligarchs. Our conversation with US Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco plus Salesforce co CEO Brett Tylor, gives us his view on how the war in Ukraine and global economic uncertainty will impact global business off the back of the company's earnings results, plus how their developer team in Ukraine is faring and finance says the Exchange will
not impose a blanket van on Russian users. A unilateral decision would be unethical, according to its CEO, or that later this hour, the conflict in Ukraine continuing to intensify, and with a Russian air strike hitting Kiev's main radio and television tower, one thing remains clear. The war is also one of control over information. Let's talk about all that and more with Jane Litvineko. She is a Senior Research Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy Store and Scene Center
on Media, Politics and Public Policy. Jane, you're also a reporter and a Ukrainian yourself. Talk to us about the state of Russian disc and misinformation and how it is being used as a weapon right now. Well, I think one important thing to understand is that Russia has been spreading false information about Ukraine for years, uh, and use some of that information as false justification to further invade the country, um, during the war that has been going
on for eight years UM. And part of that mean distorting Ukrainian history, distorting Ukrainian culture and people. But on a more grainual level, it also meant videos uh that purported to show something that they didn't actually show, um, sort of vacantly justification for the war. So would you say that President Putin has been using this as a weapon to build up to this moment? Absolutely. Disinformation is
a huge weapon for the Russian government. We've seen it in fourteen during the annexation of Crimea as well as during the occupation of Eastern Ukraine. We saw during the doubting of NH seventeen and we see it now. And disinformation is a weapon that Putin has been using all around the world UH in an attempt to undermine democracy, which of course the US has felt intimately as well. So how well do you think big tech platforms like
Facebook and Twitter and TikTok are handling this now? We've seen some steps taken in the last couple of days. Certainly it's not nearly enough, is my guest. Right from the tracking that we're doing about the disinformation that we see on social media. UH, there's steps have been good,
but limited and scatter shot. So there has been a ban on our T and Sputnik in Europe, for instance, but we don't see that same uh, that same band worldwide, which raises a series of questions like why um our T and Sputnik of course have huge audiences outside of Europe, including in southern northern America. UM. We also see UM direct television providers attempt to thwart Russian disinformation. UM. But again,
Russia is are very good. Russian disinformers particularly are very good at getting around restrictions on social media, and as a matter of fact, they're very well practiced around that. This is also war that spans social media plot forms. It's not just about the Big three that we're used to North America. It's also about TikTok, It's also about Telegram. There's really no social media network that's untouched by this.
Can you talk to us about how every day Ukrainians are navigating they do they see the difference between information and misinformation? How do they try to separate fact from fiction. There's a gargantuan effort to essentially undermine Russian disinformation, either as it comes in or before it comes in, and there's a few different ways that both Ukrainians and outside
groups are doing this. Uh, the Ukrainian television channel in Ukraine twenty four, which is a few different television channels advanted together to provide around the clock coverage of the war, are debunking disinformation in real time. There's also real information exchange happening between Ukrainians who are filming scenes from the war and are trying to figure out where was the most recent attack, how many was how many were hurt.
And of course we see an open source intelligence community which essentially gathers gathers digital breadcrumbs put those breadcrumbs together for a fuller picture to essentially undermine Russian narratives. And so that is why the Ukrainian voices that we see online have been much more powerful than the Russian disinformation that we see online. Look, we're in the middle of a crisis, a war, right now. What can we do
in this moment? I know that you've pioneered a method that sort of swiftly and excessively debunks some of this stuff. How do we do that instantaneously? You know? I think the main thing is to understand that the spoor is not going to be over tomorrow and we will continue you to see a big flood of videos and images from on the ground all the time, and we need
to be prepared for that. One important thing to remember is that there are reporters who are risking their lives on the ground, both Ukrainian reporters and international reporters to
bring accurate information. I would also say that it's important to be particularly cautious of images and videos that don't have more than one angle because of how many images and videos exist of the different attacks, and de contextualized media in particular is something that has been has been very prevalent, and so I understand that it's an unsatisfying answer to say go to official news sources, But at the moment, an individual will really struggle with the idea
of verifying a single video and whether it's accurate or not, whereas newsrooms are extremely prepared for this and are putting out so the best work they've ever done. All right, Jane hard tat to you. I know, been a difficult several days, but appreciate you shedding some light on this with us today. Jane Livinetko, Harvard Senior Research Fellow, thank you. Coming up Salesforce co CEO Brett Taylor on the back of the company's latest earnings rapport plus his thoughts on
the global uncertainty aheads that's next. This is Bloomberg Salesforce b Well Street estimates for its fourth quarter, with revenue up more than and a strong forecast ahead as the company works to integrate his twenty seven point seven billion dollar acquisition of Slack. Brett Taylor, Salesforce co CEO with me now who was promoted in the last quarter. Brett, great to have you back with us. Look, it's an
inflection point in salesforces history and world history. And I have to ask you about what's going on in Ukraine and geopolitics right now. How concerned are you about what this means for humanity be and the global economy and business. Well, I want to start where you just started, which is humanity. M our hearts go out to the people of Ukraine. Watching this suffering plant in real time in the media
is just horrific. And what we at Salesforce don't really have a presence in the region like everyone, we're trying to show up as humanitarians to help the ufer into the Ukrainian people and all the refugees in the region. UM. Speaking to the economic impact, you know, we're there's a lot of uncertainty in the economy right now, this war in Europe which is horrific, inflation, the supply chain crisis. Despite all of that, the one thing that's enduring is
a really investment in digital technologies. The accelerarization, acceleration of the digitization of the economy that started by the pandemic really continues sort of full speed ahead. UM. And you really saw them in our our record performance this past year, which were so grateful for in the face of all this disruption, which is why we beat our q for our guidance, raised our guidance for next year, and we just continue to see momentum in all aspects of our business.
We've seen a number of companies self sanctioning Apple Netflix to a certain extent. Forward, is that something that Salesforce is considering in the moment. When it comes to Russia, well, as I mentioned Emily, we don't really have a presence in the region. We've never had an office there, we don't have employees there, we don't have a material business there um, So our focus has actually really been on how can we use our business as a platform for change.
We made a one million dollar grant to help with the refugee crisis and help use the suffering. The Ukrainian people have been really hardened to see so many sales Force employees show up and ask how they can help. We have a number of employees with families in the region. We're really trying to help out all of the sales Force family in a time of global crisis and really trying to have the humility to understand what can we do to play our part in the humanitarian crisis. Now
I know you had a strong quarter. M and A has been a key strategy to drive growth. You were the chief architect of this Slack acquisition, and I know you've ruled material M and A for the near future, but could the changing global dynamic change that strategy. Could you be open to it? You know, honestly, we're not interested in material emin A and in your term, and
it's because we're so excited about Slack. You know, we spent the past two years with this global pandemic in different stages of the world, keeping people in their home offices and keeping people away from their offices. Coming out of this pandemic, as people reconnect, this idea that every company needs a digital headquarters to connect their employees and their partners because we are going to be working from anywhere.
And I think that's incredibly exciting. Um. You saw it in just the incredible momentum of the Slack business this past quarter. Slack actually grew their hundred thousand dollar customers forty six percent year every year. This quarter we see such great momentum. That's really my focus and that's the focus of the management team. Now. I know you were listening to the segment earlier. You are also the chair
of Twitter's board. The subject of misinformation and how big tech companies are handling it has been a very big topic. How do you think Twitter is handling Russian diss and misinformation? What more do you think platforms like Twitter and Facebook and TikTok can do well? First, I just want to express my confidence in Prague, the new see of Twitter, and the Twitter management team and helping the company navigate
this crisis. Um. As your previous guests alluded to, these are some of the most complex and sothisticated problems any technology company is facing right now. UM. I think it's also shown the importance of Twitter as a platform for public conversation, as so much of this plays out on the platform. UM So, I know these are incredibly complex and nuanced issues. I really enjoyed the previous segment, and what I can say is I just have faith in Prague and the managing team and Twitter and helping the
company navigate this on behalf of all Twitter stakeholders. Now, last quick question, look, Salesforce shares are down from a high in November. Why do you think there's this disconnect between the optimism I hear from you that I hear from Mark and the stock price. Yeah, we just put up the best year in our company's history, the best clurer raise our guides for this year. I cannot be more excited about the future of salesforces business really across
all parts of our portfolio. We're twenty three years old next week. Our sales cloud grew sev this year and over six billion dollar revenue run rate. Slack is doing well. Organic and organic investments have been never been doing better. And as you know that, I think the stock price will follow. We know we uh you know, show up for our customers, drive performance for the company, show for all of our stakeholders. We believe in the long run,
our stock price will follow. All right, Salesforce co CEO Brett Taylor. Always good to have you, Thank you so much for stopping by. Welcome back to Bloomberg Technology and Emily Check in San Francisco. As we watched the war in Ukraine unfold, companies continue to reevaluate their business ties to Russia in light of the invasion. Apple for Netflix just to name a few. This while many tech companies rely on a deep bench of tech talent in Ukraine itself.
For more on this, I'm joined by Andrea wall Nisi is a general partner at Manhattan Venture Partners of Venture Capital from investing in global pre I p O companies several in Europe, including Klarna and Revolute. Andrea, thank you so much for joining us. A lot of people don't know that Ukraine has a huge developer community. How many of your portfolio company companies rely on developers in Ukraine and how are they being impacted by this? Sure? Sure,
Thanks so much, Emily. So overall, I would say if we look at the global landscape first around the developer talent across the globe, over of the activity in late stage companies has some level of presence in Ukraine and specifically very much so around engineering. And when we look at that breakdown even further, the majority of the UK brings in engineering talent from Ukraine. So that's just incredible.
Realize with our teams which are very much so focused on the late stage pre I p O companies, they have pockets of their engineering product teams that we're seeing are centralized in the Ukraine. And that's nearly half of our larger portfolio companies that are in that late stage and several of them, as you mentioned Revolute Klarna are a couple that are based overseas and are very much so,
you know, boots on the ground and addressing this from there. So, how is this impacting the developer community in Ukraine as far as we know, and how our founders thinking about this when they're trying to stay staffed and scale up their businesses. Yeah, So what I'm seeing as a global message is to be helpful, be empathetic, but be pragmatic and overall with the founders who are really block and
tackling from other global hubs such as the US. Many of them are sending out a massive signal to their developers, to the tech teams that they have overseas, especially in Ukraine, offering any level of support. But what I am also seeing very much so is that founders, executives and board members are being asked to be incredibly realistic around the impact of what's going on. And when I say impact, it's not just in the near term, but over the
next twelve months. How will impact things like the product roadmap, the financial projections and going forward plans of that business and what that means to those teams that were centralized in Ukraine who were spearheading those initiatives. So those are a lot of the discussions that are happening within the boardrooms in the late stage companies. Russia is also a fairly large source of venture capital in tech startups around the world. Are you seeing companies reconsider their ties to
Russian investors? Yeah, So overall, I think the general consensus that we're seeing amongst the late stage and mid stage venture community is that a lot of these relationships across the globe started long before know there was ever the tension that's really risen up, risen up to this level. And so really I think it goes back to the grassroots of what a relationship looks like between a company
and their investors, if that relationship was there prior. You know, Obviously those companies are still harvesting those relationships and realizing what that will look like going forward. UM. For companies that are raising rounds of funding right now, they are having discussions with investors who might be located in Russia in Ukraine and asking whether or not there's going to be any imminent delays, which obviously we're seeing by way
of the banking system. UM around deploying the capital needed is part of rounds of funding. But I don't know if I'm necessarily seeing a complete shift in the relationships. Of course, there are plenty phenomenal people in Russia who obviously had zero, you know, uh intent to see any of this happen. So I don't know if I see a general shift, but it definitely is a scary signal around how the flow of funds works and rounds of
funding going forward. Well, how is fundraising being impacted right now? It certainly seems like global and and fundraising announcements have slowed. Do you do you think we're going to see a slowdown in venture capital invested because of the uncertain macroeconomic environment. Yeah, so, you know, I truly truly stick with the belief that tech is the new gold and the world is going to continue looking a lot more like Ready Player one more than it ever would look like Mad Max going forward,
and it's not slowing down. So with that in mind, I mean, I don't see that there's generally a shift in mindset for a slowdown in venture capital dollars being deployed, but just in terms of the realistic expectations for how companies should be valued, maybe you know, the desire to be a hyper growth company will you know, exist long
after the turmoil ceases. But the realistic expectations are being set around how we should value these businesses and how they should be pegged to their public market comparable business is all right, Andrea wall Nate, thanks for giving us your perspective on all this. Manhattan Venture partners appreciate it well. The conflict in Ukraine and the impact on the global economy top of mind for CEOs around the world, as
we discussed. I spoke earlier with Anthony Nodo, the CEO so FI, which aims to be a one stop shop for customers financial need. He's also paying a close attention to rate hikes and inflation and the impact the war might have on all of that. We spoke with note along with my colleague Matt Miller, take a quick listen to that conversation. So far has a history of living
through tremendous cimlicality and volatility. Um We started two thousand and twenty one with a very different economy and backdrop for the year when we set our goals for the year. We just reported our third consecutive quarter of record revenue growth, up more than We also had a record. Member growth and product growth are really a testament to our one stop shop strategy and our ability to meet our members needs across their entire financial lives and doing it even
more efficiently with a full year profitability. So yes, the environment is very volatile. Rates are going to increase. That's all reflected in our outlook for two thousand and twenty two, and we're calling for over one point five billion of revenue and eighty million dollars of ibadah and seeing really strong growth in our member base and product race here in Q one, in addition to the demand we have for a technology platform with Galleos, so we're benefiting from
secretary trends. We have to absolutely deal with the volatility of the cyclicality of rates and inflation and monetary policy, but it's all part of the normat so far. Now. Obviously there are huge humanitarian concerns given what's happening with Russia's assault on Ukraine. I know you're a veteran yourself, and I'm curious what sort of unique perspective you bring to this about what this means for the world and for global business. It's absolutely try to see that people
have to live in fear. Now that that fear of threat of violence has become a reality. And um, you know, ultimately we have a responsibilit is a country. We have a responsibility as a as a nation to help those that can't help themselves. Obviously, the people of Ukraine are putting up a heck of a fight and um, but they're under armed and under restored relative to a power
like the like Russia, the former Soviet Union. Um. And ultimately, sanctions are the first step, but inherently they will likely have to be more actions down the road. Um. We have to ensure that they have the ability to be a sovereign nation and um and live live a life of freedom relatives of the suppression of the of the Russians. Now, I understand you do hold some crypto and Sophie obviously
offers crypto services. Now what do you read into this kind of decoupling we've seen of bitcoin from global equities and you know why that is indeed happening. Yeah, the trending cryptocurrency. You know, it's an unproven asset. I want to make sure that's clear. It's highly violent. When it's very risky, we do offer it for our members to
be able to buy thirty different cryptocurrencies. We do provide that education and warning that they could lose all their money and recommend they only allocate a small percentage of their assets to it um. But it is an asset that is providing a unique value proposition for a variety of different constituencies, and that's what's really driving the volatility um. The decoupling you're seeing could be driven by a number
of different factors. I really don't want to speculate on what's driving it um, but it is a new asset that people are using to accomplish different objectives, and that has been what's driven the volatility um. We have been very smart about making sure we give people selection, but we also give them the ability to do recurring investments and dollar costs averaging into something that is as volatile as it has been well. And it's the the ability that um so fi users have to invest across platforms
that I find most interesting. I talk with my co anchor, Paul Sweeney, with your head of investment strategy, Liz Young, on a regular basis, and you know, she sells the product like no other. Or how much of a lift did you get from the super Bowl and introducing you know, new customers um to the things that they can do
on so far. Yeah, so the Super Bowl occurred in first quarter of two thousand and twenty two, which we haven't reported yet, but a result yesterday saw a big benefit from having the National Football League Association and the relationship with the Rams and Chargers and Sofi Stadium. We benefited from having twelve home games at the stadium, five of them were on national prime time television, and we're able to reach twenty two million unique households on average
in each one of those games. So the ability to really reach that much of the United States helps drive brand awareness. It helps us become a household brand name, which then drives greater efficiency of all of our promotions and marketing. And that's why we saw such an acceleration in our member growth um that we saw on the quarter to a record of over five or thousand, and an acceleration in the number of new products added at over increase books in her thousand so far Ceo Anthony Noo. There.
You can catch the full interview at Bloomberg dot com. Coming up, Crypto and Sanctions, We're going to dig deeper into how borderless crypto exchanges around the world are complying or not with international laws and regulation as it pertains directly to Russian users. That is next. This is Bloomberg Finance photo sanctions rules very strictly. Whoever it's on the sanctional list, they won't be able to use our platform. Whoever not they can so. UM. We work very closely
with international government regulators very closely to apply sanctions. So, but we view that we do not have, you know, lateral decision power on our own to freeze normal people's accounts. UM. I think that would be UM, that's an ethical for us to do. Finance CEO Chanknjao. They're commenting on new sanctions I want to dig into is for our Crypto
report with our crypto contributor Shenali Bostic. Shenale very significant, especially in the context of what the d o J announced today, this new task force to track the money the assets of Russian oligarchs, including crypto. What are you making of how these crypto exchanges are interpreting what laws they have to comply with. Yeah, and it's interesting. In addition to the Department of Justice, you have Democratic senators also asking the U S. Treasury Department to keep a
close eye on crypto and sanctions across the world. But if you look at some of the biggest exchanges, finance that they comply with sanctions rules. If you take a look at coin Base, which is based in the US, also says that they comply with sanctions rules. So does f t X. But here's the problem at hand, Emily. You have many exchanges across the world where cryptos border lists.
So the question is are there exchanges out there that don't imply with the US and international sanctions and to what extent our regulators U s E Regulators able to get a hold on those exchanges. In addition to recognizing that some of these exchanges may not have the k y C capabilities that's know your customer capabilities and expertise to really track what's going on among their client base. I did ask US Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco about
this earlier. How cryptocurrency exchanges are working with the administration and the Department of Justice to not just uh, you know, get these you know, luxury yachts and jets and apartments, but also track down cryptocurrency. Take a quick listen to what she had to say, we need the cooperation and of right thinking and well behaved cryptocurrency exchanges and other businesses. That has to continue to happen. And if it doesn't, people are going to find themselves. Business are going to
find themselves in our crosshairs. Chinalie, all these exchanges in a difficult position. I mean, how easy is it to
tell if your users are Russian Russian oligarchs or not. Yeah, that's an interesting question here because besides the multitude of exchanges and the chains of transfers that you can see across those exchanges, there's also the pure instance in which you may have a sanctioned individual who theoretically sets up an entity somewhere else, puts it in somebody else's name, puts it in another country, and then makes transactions that way.
So really tracking here the end user is going to be what's difficult across those multitude of exchanges with the staff that they are bringing on. Right, we know that many of these exchanges are really recently bringing on staff at a greater degree, but do they have the tools they need to really track with the end users are At the end of the day. Meantime, I want to get your thoughts on another story that's developing. The SEC now scrutinizing n f T s over illegal crypto illegal
crypto token offerings. What do we know about this? Something that's so interesting about this is that projects that are raising money through n f T s or are other means. Frankly, you this is really the SEC trying to take a look at what projects really replicate traditional securities offerings. We've
seen so many renditions of this. But the reason interesting this is so interesting, Emily is because not only is SEC really trying to liken what's happening in the n f T market to the I p O market, you also have seen this being a market where there have been a lot of rug poles at the end of the day and investors getting duped. So two things really going on here at the same time. Alright, Shannoli boss,
thank you for your reporting on this. More than one billion people around the world visit TikTok every month, and that immense growth has the company facing searing scrutiny. TikTok ceo show to Chew talked about managing US and Chinese regulators on the latest episode of The David Rubinstein Show. Peer to peer conversations in an interview recorded back on
February seventeen, Take a listen. I will approach to all the governments that regulators around the world is to be collaborative and to be very transparent, to be available to explain what we do and who we are and answer any questions that they have. That's the approach we have taken in that approach has been an approach that has been very beneficial for us over the course of the
last few years. You can watch more of that interview with the CEO of TikTok Show to Chew, David Rubinstein Peer to Peer Conversations tonight nine pm in New York on Bloomberg Television. Meantime, Forward will separate it's fast growing e V operations from its legacy combustion engine business in a historic reorganization. Are Ludlow spoke with Ford CEO Jim Farley about that. Take a listen. The most important things
are core ice automotive business. It's very profitable. We made over ten billion dollars last year, but it needs to be a lot more profitable. We think we're gonna have to take about three billion dollars out of our structure costs to make that business come fully competitive on a return basis. Some of that would be quality, a lot of it will be just waste in the system, and we we can't stop there. We have to grow too, and that's why we're committing to two million vehicles on
the on the battery electric side. The last thing is we have to get our bill material down for our evs. We already got about two thousand dollars out of the marquee. We've just been working on it for about eight weeks. There's a lot of opportunity to continue to get the bill of material costs down for evs and that's going to help contribute to that more profitable business and we could use that profits and cash flow to reinvest in growth. Do you have an opportunity to get smart with this right?
Could we see a spinoff of say the battery business, or a spinoff of the autonomous vehicle business, or even debt markets with green bonds? What kind of tools are at your disposal now? Well, look, we did one of the first green bonds in our industry. It went really well.
Why because we tied it to actual green energy vehicle zero mission investments in our plants and the vehicles and boarded the market respond we really like that direction, probably go deeper, Ford CEO Jim Farley there you can check more of that interview at Boomberg dot com. I want to bring in our Ed Ludlow who conducted that interview, and of course Ed you broke that story a couple of weeks ago that Ford was considering this and at the time they denied it. What did Jim Farley have
to say about that? Yeah, Look, Ford is going to do what it can right, which is it has to manage the existing legacy combustion engine business business ring profit out of it and use that money to fund e V growth. They want to be Tesla, but Tesla didn't
have a legacy gas engine business to go off. You're completely right end that they, according to Blueveg sources, did consider a spinoff, and Farley explained on the news conference earlier on Wednesday morning that they looked at it carefully, that's his quote, but in the end they decided that they didn't go for it because they wanted the two individual businesses to be able to share their strengths, have like a symbiotic relationship. Meantime, Forward is one of the
biggest companies we're seeing self shanctioning in Russia. What did he have to say about their decision there, how long that will stand? Yeah, look, he he was very sympathetic with the Ukrainian people. He talked to me about some of the Ukrainian employees that Ford has outside of their building demonstrating sharing their thoughts. So, you know, he just reiterated the action, which is that Ford has paused operations
in Russia. But being honest, those were scaled back anyway, and Ford's been pulling out that market since two thousands of seventeen. The other impact is supply chain. Ford got
hit in one by rising input costs around commodities. That's not getting any better with this situation, right, you look at oil, you look at industrial metals, and Farley did say they'll continue to feel that pain at least in the short term from supply chain disruption well and facing all of these challenges, Ford is to put it lightly far far behind Tesla when it comes to evis what's the assessment on whether they really can become a world
changing company yet again? Yeah, yeah, Look, Farley seems to believe in this plan take profit from the pickup trucks and put it into the future of evs. But remember the other part of the news was they up their commitment for EV investment to fifty billion from thirty billion, and that they want to do two million evs annually by six That is a rapid acceleration of their plans, a bigger commitment, and and it is a greater proportion
of their overall cause. So he could he admitted to me, this is going to be really hard they have to execute. But they have to do this not just to beat Tesla, but to beat their Detroit crosstown rivals like General Motors. All right, Ed Ludlow. Excellent reporting by you, excellent interview with Jim Farley, and of course you can check out at Bloomberg dot com that full interview. That does it.
For this edition of Bloomberg Technology, we're gonna be joined by Migma, president of grab To to talk about the company's latest earning report. Will have much more on the development in Ukraine, the impact on the technology and developer community there. That's coming up tomorrow right here on Bloomberg Technology and em Wichang. This is Bloomberg