Snap's Sell-Off and Twitter's Upcoming AGM

they go? We will discuss plus Twitter's annual shareholder meeting coming up Wednesday, with Elon Musk still pressing pause on a deal he hasn't tweeted about it recently either, will preview what to expect. And California's landmark law requiring corporate boards to include women is ruled un constitutional. We're going to speak with California First partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom in an exclusive interview, her take on why we need more parity in the boardroom and the research that backs it up.

We will get to all of that in a moment. The first stocks pairing their losses as a rebound in defensive companies offset a slide, and tech shares triggered by that profit warning from Snap shares plunging below the I p O price after cutting their revenue, profit forecast, taking other social media stocks and take more broadly down with it. Jasmine Edinburgh of Insider Intelligence joins us now with more So, Jasmine, just how bad does it get for Snap and the

rest of social media? Well, we will be hard pressed to find any social platform that isn't struggling. In Q two. The headwinds that we were warned about in Q one have really turned into these gale force winds, and Snap along with Meta, are right in the path of this

storm that is brewing now. Snap of course, is blaming macro economic conditions, and while that is certainly part of it, the reality is is that there is no shortage of challenges right now for the social media platforms, whether that's to do with ad targeting and online privacy, whether that is the war in Ukraine that is making advertisers wary of spending on social media, or whether that's the shift in social media usage that is really leaving these established

players playing catch up to a newcomer called TikTok. So would you say TikTok is the one platform that's winning or are these dollars just going away across the board? You know, going back to this storm analogy, if there is one platform that is in the eye of the storm, I would say that that is TikTok. We've actually just released a new forecast at Insider Intelligence that shows that TikTok's AD revenues will more than double this year and in two it's ad revenues in the US is going

to be more than Snapchat and Twitters combined. Would you say that this extends to not just Facebook and Twitter, but also YouTube for example? Will we continue to see what happened with YouTube last quarter again this quarter? Yeah, you know, these struggles really extend across all of social media. Now, YouTube is a major competitor to TikTok as well. Um, it's really Shorts of course, which is it's TikTok clone.

But we're seeing that even you know, time that would be spent on on YouTube, not within shorts, is going towards TikTok. So there's definitely some competition there as well. So yeah, I heard one of the skeptics today saying, look, why should I be worried about all of tech or really the rest of the markets just because Snap missed

its guidance. How would you respond to that well, you know, it is a clear signal within the market that there are these real issues that these social platforms are challenging, are are are struggling with. You know, Snap is certainly not the only one that has to grapple with all of these problems. A lot of the larger ad players,

including Meta, are also dealing with the same ones. And if it's impacting a platform like Snap, which has performed relatively well over the past couple of quarters, you know, it does show some warning signs for the rest of these social platforms as well. Speaking of the rest of these social platforms, we're looking ahead to Twitter's annual shareholder meeting coming up tomorrow. Twitter stuck between Snap and Elon

Musk and this broader market meltdown. What are you expecting to happen at this meeting, Well, I think it will be a pretty tense meeting, you know. I mean the big two big topics, of course, are going to be Musk as well as the macroeconomic conditions that are really putting pressure on the social media platforms. Now, these two

things are separate, but they're also related. The more that Twitter takes a hit, the more fuel Musk has to perhaps renegotiate his position, even walk away from the deal, and if he does that, he will take his lofty plans of making Twitter less reliant on advertising with him.

And that's going to leave Twitter in pretty much the same position that it has been for a long time now, which is under performance, and it's going to be competing with all of these other social platforms, many of which have um larger ad businesses um and in an incredibly turbulent market. All right, Jasmine Enberg insider intelligence. Jasmin always

appreciate how your thoughts here on the show. Thank you. Meantime, another story, we continue to watch Elon Musk's other company, Tesla, isolating thousands of workers in China to make sure they are COVID free. This is part of a large scale plan by the electric car maker to ramp up production

at its planet in Shanghai after weeks of lockdown. These workers are being housed in unused factories and an old military camp, and they'll be allowed to join other workers inside the production bubble after a two to three day quarantine in accordance with government orders. Twitter's annual meeting kicks off Wednesday, and the company continues to find itself and

quite the match. On one side of the ring stands Elon Musk, which with his offer to buy the platform on pause while he investigates the number of fake accounts. On the other, a tech market meltdown in the wake of Snap cutting its forecast to talk about what could come out of tomorrow's meeting. Joining us now Jason Goldman, one of the founding members of Twitter and former White

House Chief Digital Officer under President Obama. Jason, I'm sure you've been through a few Twitter annual meetings and this

will surely be unlike any other. What are you expecting. Yeah, this sort of feels like the Ragnarok of Twitter annual meetings, where there's there's only sort of one option that shareholders are looking for, which is to know that the deal is going to go through, because now the deal price looks like this amazing deal and the rest of the world has melted down, and I think the questions are just going to be can I get my money now?

And can Twitter board really answer that question? I think the most important answer they can assert is that there's no such thing as the deal being on hold that they and this is what the g c F just said in a in a Twitter meeting, the contents of which was leaked that there's no such thing as the deal being on hold. We have a deal for the price that we agreed to, and we are going We are committed to executing this deal, and we will force compliance and execution of this deal if we have to.

So is Elon Musk just blessing? Well, I don't know. I think it's interesting that he's been quiet on Twitter for the last little while about this. I maybe, you know, losing seventy billion dollars of your own net worth by by posting about Twitter proved to be even a little expensive for the world's richest man. Or he just figured he was just creating more work for his lawyers in the inevitable litigation that comes out of this. But I

think that he doesn't. I think sometimes folks think that there's these you know, plans within plans or faints within faints, and there's this five dimensional chess that people are playing. And I really think that Ellen realized that a lot of his argument about why he was buying the company just wasn't holding water, and he was taking heat from so many sides that he realized it would maybe just be better to be a little quiet about this uh

and hope for a better position later. We've also learned more details about just how this deal came about, How it started with Ellen talking to Jack directly, then became a discussion about him joining the board fairly quickly. What do you find most significant about the timeline? I mean, this is all from Twitter's proxy filing. This isn't based on internal reporting or any sort of confidential sources. This is according to Twitter, Twitter's own executives and board and lawyers.

What happened, and what happened according to them, was that Jack and Ellen initiate a conversation on March twenty six to pursue a strategy of Ellen says I'm interested in buying some shares. I wanna uh, and Jack says, okay, let's turn it over to the board and we can

see about getting you on the board. He's puts them in conversation with Parrague and with Brett Taylor, the hand picked folks that Jack has said is going to lead the company to the next level of execution, and they agree to a standstill provision that prevents Ellen for acquiring more shares, and they agree to put Ellen on the board. They execute this agreement with Ellen on the fourth of April. The next day, on the fifth of April, they announced

this deal. The very same day, Jack re enters the picture with Ellen and has a conversation with him in which, according to the filing, he shared his personal view that Twitter would be better able to focus on execution as a private company, and then the deal is completely off to put Ellen on the board, and Ellen says he wants to take it to be a private company. So that that, to me is just a clear backstabbing of the board by the founder when they had a deal

in hand to come to a standstill. So do you think there should be any consequences to that if you believe that, as you're saying Jack backstabbed the board, what I'm saying is that we need to look at we need to look at the comments that Jack has made

here previously. He's always been committed to this notion of Twitter should exist as a protocol and not a platform or a company, and that he's also said later that the board is the is the greatest dysfunction in the history of the company, and that there shouldn't be a CEO. But somehow he convinced himself that he's going to turn over this company to the world's richest man as a way of achieving this glorious decentralized transition to a protocol that to me, that to me just doesn't make a

lot of sense. And there's nothing that Ellen has said that shows that he's committed to Protocol Future. In fact, he published this fairly ridiculous business plan that shows the type of product that he wants to build on the other side of this acquisition. And so I think the questions that I would ask if I were at the shareholder meeting is what was really going on in those conversations between Ellen and Jack and Ellen and the board,

because I think that really affects the shareholder value here. Now, last time you joined us, you said you felt that Twitter faced a not good outcome either way. Do you still believe that, given that the price that Ellen and Twitter agreed on is actually much higher than the price at which Twitter is trading at today, it would be a great outcome for shareholders of Twitter. That's that's undisputed,

And like you know, you can't. I thought Jasmine did a great job table setting sort of the vibe that's out here right now in the valley in terms of what we're headed into. It's very much a two thousand

dot bust feeling in the air. And you know, graybeards like myself are sort of counseling younger folks talking about the last bust as though it was the dust bowl or something, and you know, like when we didn't have crawdad, we ate sand and here's how survive and all this like sort of received wisdom from the last of the last bus. And so there's a lot of there's a lot of feeling that this is would be a great outcome for shareholders. It's, however, not a great outcome for

the product. It's not a great outcome for employees. So because Ellen's plans for what he would do with it have proven to be so un serious that he's just simply shut up about them on Twitter altogether. How worried about are you about the future of social media in general? Given what we just saw with Snap and what Jasmine had to say about slowing user growth, Is that coming

for Twitter? Yes? I I think that's coming. I think that is a real macroeconomic effect, and I think there is some validity to the point that the social media moment that we've had for the last fifteen years is reaching some sort of endpoint, particularly in terms of how it's valued by the stock market, but maybe even just more generally in terms of what users want, and maybe folks migrate instead, and instead of being in these arenas of public combat where you have to contend with you know,

just everyone all at once, maybe folks are looking for more private experiences, are semi public experiences, and maybe there's a new evolution of social media to come. As as someone who's not a shareholder and not employee, this is actually somewhat exciting to me because I think we've been in a frozen moment for social media and user experience and it would be great to see some new experiences

come out of this. And as we know, a lot of the best companies have been built during these downturns have been built in the wake of these big corrections, so that is a potential upside to all of this. All right, well, we will be watching as it all goes down tomorrow at the meeting. Jason Goldman, one of the founding members of Twitter, former White House Chief Digital Officer, are always great to have your colorful metaphors here on

the show, Jason, thank you. Meantime, Walmart and its partner drone Up plan to expand their drone delivery hubs to six states by the end of the year. The idea is that you can have anything you order, from toothpaste, diapers to hot dog buns delivered for three dollars and cents as long as it's under ten pounds. Still, there are big regulatory hurdles. Fa A rules to clear such deliveries have yet to be written. Coming up, Zoom is showing signs it can turn its pandemic boom into post

pandemic growth. We'll talk to the company's CFO, Kelly Steckelberg. Next. This is Gloomberg, a rare bright spot in the markets today, Zoom, which reported progress on customer growth. The video conferencing giant projecting revenue will increase about ten percent in the current current period, better than analysis estimates, but still see its

slowest quarterly sales growth. Joom CFO Kelly Stuckelberg joins us now and Kelly Zoom shares up on the day, which I'm sure is welcome news given almost everything else is in the red. How is it that Zoom has been April to weather these macroeconomic forces that Snap, for example,

has not well. Emily, we are successfully transitioning from being this killer meeting app that everybody came to no one loved during the pandemic, to an indispensable platform that is comprised of not only Zoom Meetings, but also Zoom Phone, which had an amazing quarter. We crossed over the three million seats sold for Zoom Phone as well as Zoom contact Center, our new product it was just recently re

released and had some great customer wins. And then Zoom Rooms, which is going to be a really indispensable part of organization strategy as they're navigating what the future of hybrid work flight looks like and trying to make that as inclusive as possible. So all of that together, um, you know, resulted in a strong quarter. So I wonder if it's

time to get a little bolder. I mean, you did recently purchase Solvy, but you still have six billion dollars in cash on your balance She should we be expecting you to make more deals? Yeah, so we're really excited. Were recently close Solving which will bring conversational AI into our Contact center so welcome to that team. And this is absolutely a really important part of our strategy. As you said, we have a very strong balance sheet and are looking towards M and A to continue to accelerate

both our technology as well as our talent acquisition. And then we also are in the middle of a stock repurchase program. Our board approved a billion dollars that we are executing against um huntering two million of stock with repurchase. Last quarter, you did say you're starting to see the impact of the war on Ukraine on sales in Europe, and I'm wondering if you can give us any more

details on that. Sure, So, we certainly saw some headwinds in our online segment of our business, and largely related to the war in Russian Ukraine as well as FX and so combined we in our guidance we indicated that that's having about a one we sent impact of revenue. And you know this is due to the sanctions that we're seeing as well at in Russia specifically, as well as the overall impact in Europe I think due to uncertainty and that region is certainly having a dampening effect

on our online sayingment of our business. Meantime, Microsoft teams seems to be gaining market share in video conferencing. What's the plan to continue to fend them off? So we have a natively built platform that brings together audio, video, chat, contact center, and all of that brings a lot of value to our customers. And every single day we're focusing on delivering happiness to them by bringing them a lot of value in this natively built platform. And we are

continued to innovate. We are investing and hiring in R and D on a global basis and continuing to listen to our customers and build the products that they need, especially especially in this ever evolving world of work today. And you're also planning to incorporate more AI features, but privacy advocates seem to have a problem with some of

these new ideas. What's been your response to that. So we're really focused on bringing AI into our products to do things like live transcripts, um also analysis after the meeting.

And this is really helpful in terms of one of our new products as well, zoom i Q for sales, and this is really helpful the organizations as they're trying to make their sales teams more productive and make sure that they're focusing on the right things in their meetings, and we are very thoughtful we think about bringing any new feature to the market, and we'll continue to do

so in the area of AI. All Right, Keli Steckelberg, CFO of zoom Kelly, thank you so much for joining us, and I want to give you an update right now on some breaking news coming out of Texas and that devastating shooting at an elementary school and you'll al d Texas. We've just been listening into a press conference by Governor Greg Abbott who confirmed, uh, fifteen people were killed, most of them children, elementary school children. The shooter in eighteen

year old was killed by responding police officers. A couple of those officers were shot but not hurt. Seriously, We're continuing to cover the headlines as we get them coming in from Uvaldi, Texas at that elementary school and an absolutely horrific shooting. More come up next on the show. This is Bloomberg. Welcome back to Bloomberg Technology. We're continuing to cover this breaking news out of Uvaldi, Texas, where fifteen people have been killed by an eighteen year old shooter.

Fourteen of those fifteen dead as we understand it at this point, our elementary school children in addition to a teacher. We're continuing to wait for more details as we have of them. The shooter was shot and killed by police, and we're going to continue to follow this developing story and bring you um more headlines. I do want to get back to the markets now with our Ridika Gupta.

Ridika walk us through the movers on the day. Yes, Emily, well, you do have a down day for US stocks, but we really did see some of those losses start to be a raise towards the end of the session, So you saw the SMP five closing less than one percent lower that we saw some of those defensive sectors starting to perform higher. But of course then AzaC one hundred was the under performer today, being waved down by some

of those heavyweights Tesla Apple. But we did see really that safe Hayden bid coming into the treasury space, so forty portfolio perhaps having a good day to day relatively as we start to see some normalcy coming back in between that correlation. But of course, really what was driving the sentiment surprisingly was snapped and I say surprisingly because it's not the biggest company, and it's not even in the SMP five hundred emily, but it did plunge some

forty or more in fact on that session today. And I did warn about the ad revenues going forward, and it really is that macro environment that it was warning about profit margins, inflation, and of course fears of a slowdown lower consumer demand that could reduce the advertising spending because of course, in terms of recession, that's usually what companies are first to slash their budgets on. And you see that really seeping in into those social media stocks today.

Pinterest down some twenty four percent in today's session, Twitter down as well, these companies social media stocks as a whole today wiping off more than a hundred and sixty billion dollars worth of the market value today. But it's surprising, and I say surprising how surprise investors were in fact, because if I look at all of these names on this board behind me there, they are all down in the double digits on a year to date basis because social media stocks haven't had the best start off to

the year. And you flip up the board, I'll show you a chart really indicating that you see social media group here that is that white line on the chart here. It is now trading back at some of those pre pandemic levels that we saw. And this is quite the change. I mean, it's now trailing the SPA the thing back to the height of the pandemic. Stay at Homestock, social media was really soaring. It really was one of the outperformers,

shall we say. But now with that reopening, with those fears of a slowdown what that could mean for advertising revenues, we see that invest invested sentiment has really started to sour. Emily, indeed,

Ridika Kupta, thank you. Meantime, late last week, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge invalidated a California law that required gender parody on corporate boards set a bill eight to six was signed in the laween by then Governor Jerry Brown, making California the first state to require publicly traded companies to include women on their boards, a law that judge

found to be unconstitutional. Here with me to talk about that and more is California's first Partner, Jennifer Siebelnusom, who was also the co founder of California Partner's Project, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting gender equality and which is tracking the progress and implementation of this bill. Jennifer, thank you so much for joining us. So, first of all, what has been your reaction to this, You know, a court in l A striking this down and a judge saying

that this law is unconstitutional. Well, it's great to be with you. Thanks so much. Look, I mean the law has led to progress. We have around thirteen hundred seats filled in the past few years, um, with women on

public companies in California. We've nearly doubled the numbers of women or we've actually doubled the number the percentage of women on public company boards from fifteen point five percent in to uh this in one we have nearly tripled the number of board seats held by women because we've increased the number of public companies in California as well.

So the law has been a success, um. And you know, I'm a firm believer that policy change leads to shifts and hearts and minds and attitudes and behaviors, and so it's been working. But here you have this law now being overturned. Does this set progress back? And how much? Yeah? Well, first of all, we're appealing the overturn because it ignores the substantial discrimination against women in the selection process to

be on public company boards. We all know and research indicates, UM that the board seats are are typically held by men who have been conditioned or have biases towards UM selecting women candidates for the board. So everything for misperceptions of risks UH to just insular networks and artificially narrow searches, so all of this contributes to UM a bar that is raised in the selection process for women and a bar that is lowered for men in the selection process.

So again I'm I'm confident UM in this appeal UH that another UH court will will see the benefit of this legislation. And again, we only have three in our seats left to fill. And again I'm I'm confident that everyone already sees that when you have more diversity, more women in public company board seats, that there's greater profitability, sustainability, UM, and ultimately it's just better for business all around. I wonder though, if this is part of a disturbing trend

where we're seeing women backsliding. We saw them backslide in the pandemic, you know, on the heels of of of the me too movement. Now we're seeing, you know, company is going through layoffs, heading into a tense macro economic environment. The markets are melting down. Are you concerned that women could be backsliding even more as we speak? So we're

living in really strange times. And again if we look at you know, SMP, UM, uh C, e O, S and and and broadly speaking the board representation and public companies, so s of boards seats are held by men, and of CEOs are are male. And we're living in these times of crisis with incredible economic inequality, climate crisis, public health crisis, is war um, mental health crisis, etcetera, etcetera coming out of this pandemic um. And we're just there's so much um that women haven't had seats at the

tables of power. And so all to me, all signs point to you put more women and with their prospectives and experiences decision making tables, and it's just better for business, and it's better for our society, it's better for the environment, it's better for everyone. All the studies again indicate that women invest in not just profit, but they'll focus on

people and the planet at higher rates than men. Will UM the e s G outcomes of having women sitting on public company boards are substantially greater, so uh, and I'm happy to talk about those in detail. But again, I think this all points to the fact that what the past hasn't been working, and so we need to just keep um supporting and encouraging more women into leadership and giving them seats at the tables where they deserve

to be. And I really think that women are primed to solve some of these complex issues that have um across our economy and society. Today, we're seeing companies increasingly facing pressure to take a stand, whether it's Disney on the don't say gay legislation, or companies in general on the new potential or Row versus Wade to be overturned. What do you think companies should do in the situation,

knowing that these are very polarizing issues. So you're talking to someone who has always sort of believed in the b court model or the as I said, the triple bottom line model. UM that a successful company invests in its employees and provides, you know, family friendly policies and benefits to its employees, and pays its employees equitably. UM

A successful company. Uh, make sure that it's not harming the environment and it's actually leaving the environment and the local community in a better place than it found it. Um so, and it's profitable. Um and so I think that companies need to be bold and lean into their values, just like we're leaning into our values in California. And part of that is, as we all know, the greater the diversity you have around its table, the greater the creativity,

productivity in the better bottom line. And so again, I think Disney needs to be bold. All these companies need to be bold, similar with Whew, we wait. They have to lead and lean in with their values. Governor Newsom, your husband is taking steps to make California kind of a safe haven for abortion, recently proposing allocating a dwive million dollars in the budget toward we productive health. What

more would you like to see California do? Probably speaking, I want California to be the state where working moms want to raise their families. UM. I really, and I think that we're actually taking great strides um in that direction. I'm really proud of the work again that we've been doing with regards to pay equity and women in public company boards. Again, UM, we're leading the nation and now we're world leader when it comes to women in public

company boards. I mean, the strongest people pay laws in the nation, UM. Just as I think we have incredible um UM laws related to sexual harassment and assault, and so I do think that we're creating environments where women can thrive. And we're also so invested in ensuring that kids get the best start in life. So part of my work is also around UM children's mental health and ensuring kids get the best nutrition and spend time outdoors

in our states parks. And I'm also cheering the physical fitness and mental health counsel and so there's a lot coming out of there. Really Again, I'm just really excited for California to be a leader UM in terms of centering women's perspectives and experiences and making sure that their

families really thrive. Well, speaking of children, I have to ask you before you go about this absolutely horrific shooting in Uvaldi, Texas where uh an eighteen year old shooter gunned down fifteen people, fourteen of them we believe to be elementary school students in addition to their teacher. What is what is your reaction to this. Uh, I want to cry. UM, it's horrifying. I'm a mother of four. UM. We guns are a major, major, major problem in our country.

Toxic masculinity is a major, major, major problem in our country. Misinformation is a major major problem in our country. Mental health is a major problem. But guns and ammunition kill people, and they don't belong in the hands of people that UM have extreme beliefs, have a lot of hate. UM are our bigots, are racists, are sexists, are violent offenders. They don't belong in their hands. And semi automagmatic weapons definitely do not belong in their hands. So I'm a

firm believer in common sense gun laws. And again, I think California has been leading the nation, and some conservative judges have been challenging us. But I'm really proud of what we've done and what the governor has done with regards to common sense gun legislation. And I my heart goes out to every child and family member, UM who has been impacted. Uh, it's horrible, Indeed, it is. It is absolutely horrifying. UM. Jennifer Siebel Newsome, California's first partner

co founder of the California partner's project. Thank you for sharing your thoughts here with us, and will continue to bring you more details as we have them. This is Bloomberg. I do want to move on to some of the other stories of the day and our crypto rapport Crypto keeping a low profile in midst of this broader market meltdown,

Bitcoin falling to a daily average below dollars. Bitcoins moves showcasing a fairly strong correlation between cryptocurrencies and other equities, even more so uh than between the coin and tech stocks. This is institutional investors still spooked by that Tara Luna collapse. Kristin Smith from the Blockchain Association Join My colleague Can the Lines earlier in Davos talked about what it all means. I think there are two primary issue shoes that get

the most attention for regulators. The first is having a way to regulate the spot markets. Today crypto exchanges in the US have money transmitter licenses, which isn't exactly directly related to what they do most um. Instead, I think

what we need to see as a single uniform federal regulator. Uh. The other issue is stable coin regulation, and there are many different types of stable coins and having disclosures around what are in those reserves, having audits of those and making that information available to consumers would go a long way towards preventing something like the U s T collapse. Kristen, to what extent do you think that blockchain technology cryptocurrencies

at large have a reputation problem on Capitol Hill? I'm just wondering how much is about perception versus real understanding of how these ecosystems, or what is your sense on how how great the level of understanding really is among lawmakers. You know, we've made a tremendous amount of progress if you compare where we're a year ago to where we

are today. The overall basic level of education and policymakers have about this asset class has written quite a bit the challenges that this is such a fast moving industry that's constantly evolving and constantly changing that it takes a

lot of work for these policymakers to keep up. But I think what policymakers on Capitol Hill realize is that they have constituents in their district that are investing in these assets that are building on top of these block chains, and they're very passionate when it comes to public policy in this space, and so I think we've caught as an industry and as an ecosystem, we've caught the attention of Congress, and with the exception of a few outliers,

most of them are, if not already crypto champions, they are crypto curious and they want to learn about this. So I think incumbent upon us in the industry and in the crypto ecosystem to make sure that they continue to grow and learn and understand. And that's a lot of what we do here at the Blockchain Association. Christ And Smith of the Blockchain Association there with my colleague Kaylee Lines, will have much more on Bloomberg technology. Next this is Bloomberg. I do want to move on to

Amazon Web Services. There's an AWS summit underway now in Washington, d C. Taking a deep dive into how public sector organizations are using and can use the cloud to innovate and enhance their digital transformations. Here to talk about that and more, AWS Vice President of Worldwide Public Sector Max Peterson. Max give us a status check or a report card of sorts on how companies are managing this this digital transformation, especially as we come out of the pandemic. That's a

great question, Thanks Emily. We've had over seventeen thousand people registered to attend the Public Sector Summit here in Washington, d C. To understand exactly that question and a couple of significant ways that people are transforming um public sector business is in terms of speed. Let me give you one quick example. At the in the UH University of British Columbium, they were working to solve the COVID pandemic

problems that we've all had. They had to turn to AWS to be able to provide some immense computing power, and what they were able to do was take six million public records about health information, put him into AWUS where they were able to take these records and take what would have been a lengthy process compressor to eleven days and be able to identify seven new coronavirus variants. That's the sort of power that AWS gives researchers to

understand and solve big problems. You're also announcing a new healthcare accelerator that will look at specific healthcare star ups. What are the goals for AWS when it comes to the healthcare sector specifically. Yeah, that's a great question. The Healthcare Accelerator is really designed to help small businesses who are really innovative get a four week intensive on AWS. We give them cloud credits, we give them technical assistance, we connect them with others in the healthcare industry, all

to create new solutions. We find that these startup accelerators are the things that really generate tremendous new opportunities and solve really big problems in very innovative ways. We're excited to announce it here. This accelerator is focused on health equity in particular, and it's open for applications for now until July one. So you know, I'm so curious for your thoughts on the labor market and how it's shifting now, especially as so many companies are now competing for talent

and companies in the clouds specifically. Are what are the interesting trends that you're seeing. Yes, well, I would start about by saying that there is a well recognized shortage and tech skills, and it's one of the reasons why Amazon took action back in nineteen to announce our program to skill up twenty nine million people with free cloud skills.

By of course, as a result of the pandemic, there was a temporary increase in the difficulty of obtaining and retaining focus, but as we've come out of the pandemic, we're starting to see these return to more normal circumstances.

But I think the key for all of us is to focus on continued skilling, whether it is UH early age like our get I T program which targets UH thirteen fourteen year olds, largely targets women to be able to get them into tech skills, whether it's at the university level thing AWS Academy, or whether it's with states that worked upon workforce training programs. Okay, Max Peterson AWS, Max,

thank you for your views across all of that. At late last week, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge invalidated a California law that required gender parity on corporate boards. Set A Bill eight to six was signed into law in eighteen by then Governor Jerry Brown, making California the first state to require publicly traded companies to include women on their boards, a law that judge found to be unconstitutional.

Here with me to talk about that and more is California's first partner, Jennifer Siebelnusom, who is also the co founder of California Partner's Project, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting gender equality and which is tracking the progress and implementation of this bill. Jennifer, thank you so much for joining us. So, first of all, what has been your reaction to this, You know, a court in l a striking this down and a judge saying that this law is unconstitutional. Well,

it's great to be with you. Thanks so much. Look, I mean, the law has led to progress. We have um around thirteen hundred seats filled in the past few years UM with women on public companies in California. We've nearly doubled the numbers of women or we've actually doubled the number the percentage of women on public company boards from fifteen point five percent in eighteen to uh this in one we have nearly tripled the number of boards seats held by women because we've increased the number of

public companies in California as well. So the law has been a success, um. And you know, I'm a firm believer that policy change leads to shifts and hearts and minds and attitudes and behaviors, and so it's been working. But here you have this law now being overturned. Does this set progress back and how much? Yeah? Well, first of all, we're appealing the overturn because it ignores the substantial discrimination against women in the selection process to be

on public company boards. UH. We all know, and research indicates, UM that the board seats are are typically held by men who have been conditioned or have biases towards UM selecting women candidates for the board. So everything from misperceptions of risks UH to just insular networks and artificially narrow searches, so all of this contributes to UM a bar that is raised in the selection process for women and a bar that is lowered for men in the selection process.

So again I'm I'm confident UM in this appeal UH that another UH court will will see the benefit of this legislation. And again, we only have three in our seats left to fill. And again I'm I'm confident that everyone already sees that when you have more diversity and more women in public company board seats, that there's greater profitability, sustainability UM, and ultimately it's just better for business all around. I wonder though, if this is part of a disturbing

trend where we're seeing women backsliding. We saw them backslide in the pandemic, you know, on the heels of of of the Me too movement. Now we're seeing you know, companies going through layoffs, heading into a tense macro economic environment. The markets are melting down. Are you concerned that women could be backsliding even more as we speak? So we're

living in really strange times. And again, if we look at you know, SMP, UM, C, e O S and and and broadly speaking the board representation and public companies, so of boards seats are held by men, and of

CEOs are are male. And we're living in these times of crisis, this with incredible economic inequality, a climate crisis, public health crisis, is war, um mental health crisis, etcetera, etcetera coming out of this pandemic um and we're just there's so much um that women haven't had seats at the tables of power, and so all to me, all signs point to you put more women and with their perspectives and experiences a decision making tables, and it's just

better for business, and it's better for our society, it's better for the environment, it's better for everyone. All the studies again indicate that women invest in not just profit, but they'll focus on people and the planet at higher rates than men will. UM the E s G outcomes of having women sitting on public company boards are substantially greater. So uh, and I'm happy to talk about those in detail.

But again, I think this all points to the fact that what the past hasn't been working, and so we need to just keep um supporting and encouraging more women into leadership and giving them seats at the tables where they deserve to be. And I really think that women are primed to solve some of these complex issues that

have um across our economy and society. Today, we're seeing companies increasingly facing pressure to take a stand, whether it's Disney on the don't say gay legislation or companies in general on the new potential for a row versus Wade to be overturned. What do you think companies should do in the situation, knowing that these are very polarizing issues. So you're talking to someone who has always sort of believed in the b court model or the as I said,

the triple bottom line model. UM that a successful company invests in its employees and provides you know, family friendly policies and benefits to its employees, and pays its employees equitably. A successful company, uh make sure that it's not harming the environment and it's actually leaving the environment and the local community in a better place than it found it. Um so, and it's profitable. Um. And so I think that companies need to be bold and lean into their values,

just like we're leaning into our values in California. And part of that is, as we all know, the greater the diversity you have around its table, the greater the creativity, productivity in the better bottom line. And so again I think Disney needs to be bold. All these companies need to be bold, similar with Row we way, they have

to lead and lean in with their values. Governor Newsom, your husband is taking steps to make California kind of a safe haven for abortion, recently proposing allocating a million dollars in the budget toward reproductive health. What more would you like to see California do? Probably speaking, I want California to be the state where working moms want to raise their families. UM. I really, and I think that

we're actually taking rate strides um in that direction. I'm really proud of the work again that we've been doing with regards to pay equity and women in public company boards. Again, UM, we're leading the nation and now we're a world leader when it comes to women in public company boards. I mean, the strongest equal pay laws in the nation, UM, just as I think we have incredible um UM laws related to sexual harassment and assault, and so I do think

that we're creating environments where women can thrive. And we're also so invested in ensuring that kids get the best start in life. So part of my work is also around UM children's mental health and ensuring kids get the best nutrition and spend time and outdoors in our states parks and UM. I'm also cheering the physical fitness and mental health counsel and so there's a lot coming out

of there. Really. Again, I'm just really excited for California to be a leader UM in terms of centering women's perspectives and experiences and making sure that their families really thrive. Well, speaking of children, I have to ask you before you go about this absolutely horrific shooting in Yuvaldi, Texas, where uh an eighteen year old shooter gunned down fifteen people fourteen of them we believe to be elementary school students in addition to their teacher. What is what is your

reaction to this? Uh? I want to cry. Um, it's horrifying. I'm a mother of four. UM. We guns are a major, major, major problem in our country. Toxic masculinity is a major, major major problem in our country. Misinformation is a major major problem in our country. Mental health is a major problem. But guns and ammunition kill people, and they don't belong in the hands of people that UM have extreme beliefs, have a lot of hate. UM are are bigots, are racist,

are sexists, are violent offenders. They don't belong in their hands, and semi automagmatic weapons definitely do not belong in their hands. So I'm a firm believer in common sense gun laws. And again, I think California has been leading the nation, and some conservative judges have been challenging us. But I'm really proud of what we've done and what the governor has done with regards to common sense gun legislation. And I my heart goes out to every child and family member,

UM who has been impacted. Uh, it's horrible, indeed, it is. It is absolutely horrifying UM. Jennifer Siebel Newsom, California's first partner co founder of the California Partner's Project, thank you for sharing your thoughts here with us, and I just want to lay out what we know again about this shooting in Uvalde, Texas. Fifteen people killed so far, fourteen

of them children in addition to their teacher. According to the Governor of Texas UH, the shooter was an eight teen year old person who was shot and killed by police. A couple of police were also injured, but they were not killed. UM. We're continuing to follow everything that UH is happening at this UM, the site of this shooting in Uvaldi, Texas, and will continue to bring you more

details as we have them. This is Bloomberg. We're continuing to cover breaking headlines out of the shooting scene in Uvaldi, Texas, where fourteen elementary school students have been killed in addition to their teacher. The shooting suspect and eighteen year old man also killed by police. Again, we'll bring you more details as we have them. I do want to move on to some of the other stories of the day

and our crypto rapport. Crypto keeping a low profile In midst of this broader market meltdown, Bitcoin falling to a daily average below d dollars. Bitcoins moves showcasing a fairly strong correlation between cryptocurrencies and other equities, even more so uh than between the coin and tech stocks. This is institutional investors still spooked by that Tara Luna collapse. Kristin Smith from the Blockchain Association Join My colleague Kayley Lines

earlier in Davos talked about what it all means. I think there are two primary issue shoes that get the most attention for regulators. The first is having a way to regulate the spot markets. Today crypto exchanges in the US have money transmitter licenses, which isn't exactly directly related to what they do most um. Instead, I think what

we need to see as a single uniform federal regulator. Uh. The other issue is stable coin regulation, and there are many different types of stable coins and having disclosures around what are in those reserve is. Having audits of those and making that information available to consumers would go a long way towards preventing something like the Ust collapse. Kristen, to what extent do you think that blockchain technology cryptocurrencies

at large have a reputation problem on Capitol Hill. I'm just wondering how much is about perception versus real understanding of how these ecosystems work. What is your sense on how how great the level of understanding really is among lawmakers. You know, we've made a tremendous amount of progress if you compare where we're a year ago to where we

are today. The overall basic level of education and policymakers have about this asset class has written quite a bit the challenges that this is such a fast moving industry that's constantly evolving and constantly changing, that it takes a

lot of work for these policymakers to keep up. But I think what policymakers on Capitol Hill realize is that they have constituents in their district that are investing in the assets that are building on top of these blockchains, and they're very passionate when it comes to public policy in this space. And so I think we've caught as an industry and as an ecosystem, we've caught the attention of Congress, and with the exception of a few outliers,

most of them are, if not already crypto champions. They are crypto curious and they want to learn about this. So I think it's incumbent upon us in the industry and in the crypto ecosystem to make sure that they continue to grow and learn and understand. And that's a lot of what we do here at the Blockchain Association. Christ And Smiths of the Blockchain Association there with my

colleague Kaylee Lines, will have much more on Bloomberg technology next. UM, I do want to move on to Amazon Web Services. There's an AWS summit underway now in Washington, d C. Taking a deep dive into how public sector organizations are using and can use the cloud to innovate and enhance their digital transformations. Here to talk about that and more.

AWS Vice President of Worldwide Public Sector Max Peter Sin Max give us a status check or a report card of sorts on how companies are managing this digital transformation, especially as we come out of the pandemic. That's a great question. Thanks Emily. We've had over seventeen thousand people registered to attend the Public Sector Summit here in Washington, d C. To understand exactly that question and a couple of significant ways that people are transforming. UM public sector

business is in terms of speed. Let me give you one quick example. At the in the uh University of British Columbium, they were working to solve the COVID pandemic

problems that we've all had. They had to turn to AWS to be able to provide some immense computing power, and what they were able to do was take six million public records about health information, put him into AWS where they were able to take these records and take what would have been a lengthy process, compress it to eleven days, and be able to identify set the new coronavirus variants. That's the sort of power that AWS gives

researchers to understand and solve big problems. You're also announcing a new healthcare Accelerator that will look at specific healthcare startups. What are the goals for AWS when it comes to the healthcare sector specifically, Yeah, that's a great question. The Healthcare Accelerator is really designed to help small businesses who are really innovative get a four week intensive on AWS.

We give them cloud credits, we give them technical assistance, We connect them with others in the healthcare industry, all to create new solutions. We find that these startup accelerators are the things that really generate tremendous new opportunities and solve really big problems in very innovative ways. We're excited to announce it here. This accelerator is focused on health equity in particular, and it's open for applications for now

until July one. So, you know, I'm so curious for your thoughts on the labor market and how it's shifting now, especially as so many companies are now competing for talent and companies in the clouds specifically. Are what are the

interesting trends that you're seeing. Yes, well, I would start off by saying that there is a well recognized shortage and tech skills, and it's one of the reasons why Amazon took action back in to announce our program to skill up twenty nine million people with three cloud skills. Of course, as a result of the pandemic, there was a temporary increase in the difficulty of obtaining and retaining focus. But as we've come out of the pandemic, we're starting

to see these return to more normal circumstances. But I think the key for all of us is to focus on continued skilling, whether it is UH early age like our get I T program which targets UH fourteen year olds, largely targets women to be able to get them into tech skills, whether it's at the university level than at a WS academy, or whether it's with states that worked upon workforce training programs. Okay, Max Peterson AWS, Max, thank you for your views across all of that. This is Bloomberg