Stocks Sink and the Gig Economy Faces Challenges

the warnings from chipmakers and when we might see a recovery. Plus, the gig economy faces a new reality after the labor department proposes some gig workers be classified as employees, sending shares of Uber down more than We're going to talk about what it means for Uberlift, door, dash, and more, and we get a glimpse into Mark Zaggerberg's vision for them be averse. The company is leaning into the virtual

workplace with new partnerships with Zoom and Microsoft. Zuckerberg also unveiling the new Quest pro headset and showing off his

Avatar legs. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been wiped off the chip industry following a worldwide drop in demand for reference Taiwan Semiconductor, the most valuable chip maker in the world, suffering its biggest drop since for more, Let's bring back our Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Alice ujin Ho, who has been of course following all the moves and chips and you know, Lu, we were talking about potential glut in UH supply for months, but it seems to have

taken everyone by surprise, just this idea that we didn't have enough and now we have too much. You know, why? Why is this all happened so fast? Sure? So thanks for having me on again, Emily So So a couple of things, right, um, I think the recessionary environment, the recessionary concerns going to they started to hit the U, the end markets, servers, PCs, UH, TV so on and self worth, any any electronic goods UH that seems to

be pairing that back. And we saw evidence of that last quarter as in with respect to a m D and Intel UH they made their first round of cuts. And I think what's surprised everyone else is that when we thought it was over, there was another round of cuts by Micron as well as a m D. And then layer that on with the geopolitical risk which is also weighing on t SMC. So would you say a downturn in chips is a leading or lagging indicator for

the rest of the technology industry. Sure so, so why don't I take you back into history if we look at pre COVID, UH, the chip makers were an early cycle has always been an early cycle UH industry, and they were the first one to come down once UH COVID hit. But once we figured out that COVID was not going to be bad as bad as initially thought, they were the first ones to come back up. From an evaluation perspective, right, it's gonna take a while for

estimates to to catch up. So I know that there were a couple of rounds of cuts on the chip sector already. But even at fourteen times, it's still not a trough multiple is going back to. It's still seventeen times seventeen percent premium to trough multiple. So there's still maybe another round of learnings. Because to reflect three expectations, which companies are in the worst position based on what chips they make? And what is most you know, in

the most in oversupply? Sure so so, UM, if we think about it from an end market perspective, UH companies that are over indexed on the consumer side are hurt uh if and and one of the reasons why tm SMC is hurt so badly is because some of the leading chip manufacturers rely on t S, MCS, fabs and and think about it, Apple smartphone manufacturers as well as A A M d uh for for their PCs chips.

So those three buckets alone is going to create that lie. Um. I think if you think about companies that that manufactured their own ships, you have companies like analog devices that do not have as much consumer exposure, but they do have a fair amount of consumer exposure as well that may see a negative impact, as well as companies like a video that's already warned on on weakness on the consumer side. All right, uh went, how thank you for

helping us work through all of this new information. Are bloomberk Sen your intelligence analysts appreciate it? Meantime, a new proposal from the Biden administration would classify millions of gig workers as employees rather than independent contractors. That could have extreme repercussions for companies like Uber and Left, which plunged on this news. Let's bring in Bloomberg's Jackie Dablos. So Jackie tell us exactly what this new law involved and

how it would impact the companies that you cover. So the proposal, which is still being considered, UM, is essentially a new outline for how companies can determine whether their workers are independent contractors or employees which carry certain legal and wage benefits. UM, things like dental and medical. We all enjoy those as full time employees. However, uh, independent contractors like careers and delivery drivers just don't have those

same kinds of benefits. So this new proposal is effectively making it easier for companies to look at this certain criteria UM, some of it which has been refined from the Trump era rule that it's replacing, like how integral are workers uh to the business overall? Um? You know, how much control do they have over their earnings? How much control do they have over how they can do their jobs? And these types of questions which are really um, you know, new ones compared to even the Obama era rule.

UM that that it's mirroring. UM, it's effectively more gig worker friendly and Uber Live, Door, Dash, insta cart all have workers that have been clamoring for for these types of benefits, so for them it's certainly a positive. So what happens next. You know, there is a little bit of confusion around, uh, just how much of an impact this is actually going to have. And if you look at the statements that Uber and door Dash and Lift released,

you know, they just weren't surprised. This is something that they were expecting since day one of the Biden administration. But what this really does, it's more of an interpretive guidance. So it's not going to wipe out the gig worker classification system. What it's doing is saying, look, this is how we're going to look on it, look at it from here on out, and it has more ramifications, say and you know, litigation if someone sues one of the

companies for misclassification. This is the basis that can be used now for the companies. You know, we we look at Uber, who's kind of had to deal with this in London when the Supreme Court over there ruled that they had to classify their London drivers as employees. So they're not totally new to kind of the uh, the impact of what it will take if they have to switch the model around a bit, but it's certainly going to be somewhat of a hybrid from what legal experts

UM as well as analysts are are are saying right now. Meantime, Uber's former security chief, in another story dealing with some old legal issues, was found guilty of hiding information in a corporate hack attack dating back to sixteen. You know, a pretty astounding verdict here. What was your reaction to this, What's been the reaction internally and within the industry to this and in terms of what it means for corporate transparency?

You know, Emily, it's funny because that ruling actually, uh, that trial was going ongoing while Uber actually had a recent hack for UM, I don't it was their slack systems that actually been hacked by by some one, and it was incredible to kind of see the UM the different reaction the company had. There was a blog post that outlined, you know, uh, day by day, what the updates were, what the impact were to customer data UM and coming out of that trial, it's really two different Ubers.

Now the Travis Kallinik yours really trickled down into just how the company helped handled corporate transparency. Now under new leadership, you've really seen that shift. The company is really UM I think more focused on just putting everything out on the table, all right, uh so intriguing their blooms. Jacky Javelos will of course follow what's happening with this new law, appreciate it. We build Horizon workrooms as a first step towards a virtual office in the metaverse. It feels more

like being there than any video call. You see more of people's body language, and the spatial audio gives you a sense of each person's place in the room, and you can have side conversations with the people sitting next to you or a gesture without physically being there together. It's hard to fully wrap your head around this until

you get to experience it. Just some of Mark Zuckerberg's vision there for the workplace of the metaverse, and among other news at the Medicannect event, Zuckerberg announced partnerships with Microsoft and Zoom to promote virtual collaboration unmail the fifteen hundred dollar Quest pro headset, and says Meta will add legs soon to avatars. There they are let's bring in food works Kurt Wagner and to Economy founder David Kirkpatrick. So, Kurt,

what are your big takeaways today? Is it the avatar legs? The avatar legs was a pretty easy one to point out and fun obviously a little bit better than just floating around in the metaverse. But now, I mean the headset was sort of the flying ship product that was announced today, This new kind of high end b our device. Um, you know, it's it's as Mark said in that video, it's more tailored towards working professionals. They're kind of going after a higher end clientele than I think they have

with some of their other stuff. But you know, a lot of the technology that they kind of showed off towards the end of the presentation is the stuff, in my opinion, that's most interesting. Uh. You know, this is, for example, like lifelike avatars, right or even uh you know, the ability to kind of use your hand or your wrist as a controller. Um, all of that is very cool, And the problem is it's just years and years away, right,

So now you're asking people to be very patient. You're asking investors to be very patient as they build and work on this stuff. And so I think, you know, that's where the issue comes in. It's not that the technology is not cool, it's just it's really far off. David, the staff dropped almost fo why do you think that is? Well, one way to look at it would be, this is a company with three and a half billion people in a business that's generating like forty billion a year in

after checks profit. That is talking about a business that for which they've sold fifteen million devices and a metaverse product that has three thousand users a day, and that's what the management is putting its primary focus on. It would seem if you're an investor in a company that is has such misguided priorities, I think you would be very disappointed. Is the workplace David ready for metaverse technology? No, not at all. No, it is not. It is not.

It's simply not. We don't want to meet in the metaverse. It's very nice that Zoom and Microsoft have talked meta about possibly making a three D version of their meeting products, but that is not what most people want to do. The company's behaving as if it was a gaming company. I mean everything today was talked about as if it was a company for gaming, the kind of technologies or

gaming technologies. It's kind of a gaming psychology, gaming aesthetics, um, but that isn't really what this company he is, and it's it's a it's a scary, scary situation this company has put itself in, in my opinion, what's your response to that? I think David's right, I mean, as I kind of alluded to their right to tech school, but can they convince investors that it's worth waiting ten years

for right? And and uh, as David points out, like they have a business here that that needs at tension right now, which is the advertising business, right, I mean, they're they're kind of dealing with a real serious threat right here and now with TikTok uh and and young people not necessarily wanted to use their apps. And so when you think about that, that's the current state of the business, and then you look at you know, what the priorities seem to be from Mark Zuckerberg. It doesn't

necessarily align. And I imagine that there are a lot of people, clearly, I guess given the stock movement today that saw this and thought, man, why are they spending so much time and money on this problem when they

have others that they need to be addressing. Now. We spoke to Francis Hogan uh last week, of course, that's Facebook whistleblower, and she had an interesting thought about Cheryl Sandberg leaving the company, and you know the company now, you know, for of course being fully in the hands of of Mark Zuckerberg. Take a listen to what she had to say. You know, Marcus surrounded himself with people who tell him the same kinds of stories over and over again. You know, Facebook is just a mirror. It

doesn't have responsibility. All these things that we're complaining about have always been present. We're just showing them to people who don't. We don't play any role in this. We have no power. David curious what your thoughts are on that. Well, I completely agree with her analysis of how they see this. I mean, to the degree Zuckerberg thinks about the sort of socio cultural impact of the products that he's built.

He's still basically in the mindset of making the world more open and connected is really cool, and he thinks the metaverse is the next stage of that. He doesn't want to take responsibility for the ongoing problems that he is not resolved. And I continue to think that the reason the company changed its name almost exactly a year ago, at the height of Francis Hogan's revelations about numerous misdeeds

and errors and unresolved problems. Was to change the narrative, which, for their to their credit, was very successful as a PR move, but isn't really successful as a business move long term. And now they're stuck with a new name and a sensible direction that isn't really rational. Um. So they have such serious problems. And if any other company had these problems, the CEO would be out. But this is a company with no governance, with a board that

is just a paperboard. Because Zuckerberg completely controls that he can't be fired. He don't. He controls all the shares. I mean, he controls a majority of the shares, so he can do whatever he wants. And that is a very dangerous situation. And it is dangerous for investors to be in this company. Even though it's PE is lower than any other major company tech company by a substantial mark,

it's not a good investment going forward. Well, and that's in part because it's market captives drops so much since uh, Frances how good, And since the company changed its name, this is now a million dollar company. David, how bad would things have to get before Mark Zuckerberg considers something

as as extreme as taking it private? Well, you know, that that's something that I have thought about as a possible remedy for the problems the company has, because then it could address the serious challenges it faces without the stock market breathing down its neck and judging it, you know, with the voting machine of the stock every single day. They have a lot of expensive problems to fix, and it would be a lot better to do it if they were private. But I think it would have to

get a lot a lot worse. I mean, look, the stock is down from almost a trillion to three d and fifty billion now it could go down to two hundred and fifty billion, at which point I don't think it would be irrational for him to consider taking it private since he completely controls it. You know, we talked and seeing so much of their vision for virtual reality. What about augmented reality? How much further does this go? Yeah, well, we saw some glimpses of that in the headset right there.

They're calling it mixed reality, but it's this idea that while you're wearing the headset, you can actually see the world around you. You can overlay graphics or or you know, digital objects on that world, and that's ultimately the vision that Zuckerberg has for a our glasses right that we might wear them to look sort of like reading spectacles. But you'll wear those and that's how you'll interact without more you know, not really a bulky headset. But you know,

I think that David's point here. What's interesting is like Mark Zuckerberg would probably tell you, hey, listen, you're betting on me, right. I've made, for the most part, pretty good business decisions for almost twenty years, um, and that's why he has control and that's why people, you know,

invest in this company. But over the last year or so, I think he's really raised some questions as to whether this is a pet project of his or whether this is actually a good you know, use of of you know, funds and attend and we won't know that for like ten years, and so that's I think the big trouble here is it's hard to say whether or not he's right. Ten years very long time, especially if you're an investor thinking about the near term. Bloomberg's Kurt Wagner and Economy

founder David Kirkpatrick, thank you both. We're gonna be right back with more of Bloomberg technology. This is Bloomberg More allegations in the Elon Musk Twitter battle. Bloomberg has learned that just before the billionaire revived his proposal to buy the social media company, he accused Twitter of ordering a

whistle blower to destroy evidence. According to court filings, Peter Zack Co said he burned ten handwritten notebooks and deleted a hundred computer files at the request of managers as part of a seven point eight million dollar sefferance package. The SEC is weighing an investigation of Yuga Labs, the creator of the popular board Ape yacht club n f T S. Sources say the SEC is deciding whether the n f T should follow the same disclosure rules as stocks.

Board Apes are among the most high profile and f T s and have been traded for as much as two million dollars. The SEC has brought dozens of cases against digital asset managers, including the fifteen million dollar fine to Block five back in February, Welcome Back to Bonebar Technology, and Emily Changing in San Francisco after VC spent years

aggressively buying steaks in cash burning tech startups. The current environment and cretering share prices of even mature tech companies have dimmed the prospects for startups that we're working towards their own I p O s. What does that mean? What does the future hold for them? Let's talk about all that and more with Henry Wards, CEO of the equity management solutions provider Carter. So Carter has some ascinity the insights into these pre I p O companies. Henry,

what's happening inside these companies right now? And what's the mood like? Yeah, sure, it's a tailor two stories. Uh Here, there's a growth stage uh story where a lot of these gross companies are sort of in a frozen capital markets uh rang where they can't raise capital right now because they can't justify the prices that they raised previous rounds at. They're not willing to do down rounds because uh these rounds trigger anti dilution provisions for early investors

and it penalizes management. And so they're kind of stuck in limbo with these high prices that they priced, you know, six months a year ago, but the public markets won't support and they're trying to figure out what to do. In the early stage uh markets, there are a lot more active prices are resetting quickly. We're seeing investors continue to be active. There's a lot of dry powder, and

so it's it's a very interesting market. We see this in our business a lot where early stage ventures still active. There's still a lot of deals happening with growth trade ventures at a standstill. What seeing happening with hiring and layoffs. We had a guest on an investor a few months ago who said he was expecting to see two to three million job cuts across the tech industry. Is that

even close to happening? Not even close? You know, it's really interesting in in h when we saw the massive set of layoffs happening, we saw headcount growth among our customer base grow about seven percent this year. In the first half of this year, we've seen about twelve percent growth rates. So it's not as high as you know, the boom boom years of two, eighteen and nineteen, where we're growing at fifteen depending on the year, but twelve percent somewhere in the middle. It's not as bad as

twenty it's not as great as eighteen and nineteen. But we're still seeing a lot of startups grow, really being led by B two B sas business. So if you look at other sectors like healthcare biotech, they're suffering a little bit more, but B two B SAS continues to trend strongly. So how do you square that with we've heard from so many big tech companies there you know, freezing, hiring slow and hiring down, there being more deliberate. Uh.

Do the numbers translate? Yeah, So if you look what's happening in the public markets that's translating to the private markets is there's you know, in earlier this year, there's sort of a massive capitulation of investors saying, hey, these all these companies are overpriced. We don't know which companies are going to survive, which companies are gonna succeed, which companies aren't, and so they punish the entire TUCH sector. What's happening now is the emergence of investors deciding, well,

they're they're all companies aren't created equal. Some are more, Uh, will will grow better and and and and survive through this period, and others won't. And we have to sift through these companies and decide which ones are gonna be the winners and which ones aren't. And what you're seeing is the bigger companies and even the smaller Companies that are transactional revenue based where the revenue can be volatile, are punished more more by investors than recurring revenue contractual

revenue businesses. So when you look at like the great you know, software business like Salesforce and Snowflake, where they have contractual, recurring revenue and high net dollar retention and high growth rates. Uh, they're doing quite well, they're starting to recover. But you see other transactional businesses or business bad on based on media or other types of revenue models, They're being punished more more severely. And so you're starting to see a sector or sick rotation between the high

quality companies and the lower quality companies. And that's that's trickling into the to the venture world, where you're starting to see investors just be more selective in the business models that they're willing to support, rather than just support anything that seems like a great idea. Meantime, Carter is expanding internationally. I understand you've bought three companies since June.

How are you expanding uh so quickly in the middle of a downturn or is it that you're seeing, um, you know, some potentially opportunistic valuations out there and taking advantage or taking those opportunities as you see them. Yeah, So last year we decided as a board and a company that we were going to get more aggressive internationally. You we've always believed that are the problem we're solving. Its ownership in company is in ownerships to global UH phenomenon,

a global problem that we can solve across the world. Obviously, every region has his own um nuances and regulatory requirements, and we're not experts outside the United States UM. And so what we've seen over the last few years, which has been really exciting for me personally as a founder UH, is all these CARDAU startups in different regions. So we found the card of UK, we found the CARDA of China, we found the car to South Korea. We've found the car to of India. We've been been found the card

of Africa. We've found CARDA in all all regions and I would say almost every developed country now we have some version of a card to Some founder has started a CARDAM for that country, and we've been we've been talking all these founders, and some of these founders we've invested in their rounds um UH to help support them in their region and then others including the three that you mentioned like cap Desk in Europe, Velbon in London,

and then Zen Equity in India. We've actually bought the companies UM after getting to the all the founders and falling in love with the team and the product, and really their goal is to build out what we've built in the United States and build it out, build out for their region and their local market structure, and then start connect these things so that we have a global

platform for for equity management. It's an amazing time right now to do M and A. As prices are resetting, capital becomes more scarce, founders are more willing to look at opportunities to join larger companies. UM. We have a superactive CORPV team. Obviously, as you mentioned, we've done three deals just in the last two quarters which we're really

excited about. Nothing to announce yet, but we've got more in the pipe as we look look across the world and try to find the cart is for every every country in all right, Henry A Ward, CEO of Carter, good to have you back with us. Henry, thank you for stopping by coming up. Code n f T S mean the end of the password era for good. Unstoppable

Domains is next. This is Bloomberg time Now for our Crypto reporter, we're taking a look at diversity in Web three with the leading Web three identity platform, Unstoppable Domains, which just announced a new goal to provide online courses on crypto and Web three and distribute millions in n f t S domains to five million latinos to help

them build and control their digital identity. Senior Vice president and channel chief Sandy Carter joins us Now for more on this, We're gonna talk about that, but first I want to talk about the whole password and user name issue which we've been using ever since the Internet's been around. How is Unstoppable Domains trying to change that? Yeah, thanks

for having me, Emily. Unstoppable Domains presents a digital identity to every user, and that digital identity can be used to log into over four are different applications, also be used to supplement email, do into an encrypted email, as well as build a website. So it completely changes the model on its head. Uses one way to get into an application, and then that digital identity travels with you and that data stays with you, which is such a

powerful proposition. I believe that digital identity and that ownership is not just something that's nice to have, but is a human right. So how realistic is this and how far off is it? A world where we don't have to use use your names and passwords at all? So I think we're just beginning our journey. I like to say Emily that we're in the dial up phase of Web three. There are so many capabilities you can already do with your digital identity and log into a set

of applications, but the field is really limitless. I believe in the future will be storing healthcare data, education records, tickets, driver's license in there. So I think it's the right time to get started playing around and experimenting with your digital identity and to own it now. Since you own it, you don't rent it. It's very powerful to have that today, as we're getting started versus waiting until it's too late. I know you've also been incredibly active getting more women

into Web three. You now have this announcement focused on Latin as you know, talk to us about what this means and how you're hoping to increase diversity in this world. Uh, for you know, you know, an increasingly important population. Yeah, well, you know, we just chatted about how we're early, and because we are so early in this initiative, I think it's really important that we hear all voices. You know, based on data from Mackenzie and from Deloitte, we know

that diversity breeds more innovation. And right now, the population inside of Web three and the metaverse is only eight percent women. So we're not going to get that powerhouse innovation we need if we stay so homogeneous. Back in March eighth of this year, um I announced an initiative called Unstoppable Women of Web three, whose goal is to educate that next generation of women and to help more women come into the space. And because Emily I had so many women asked me for that education in their

own native language. That's why we're announcing today that we're bringing that education to our Latina population and providing them that education in Spanish. Now, you know, we've heard a lot of people in Melinda Gates, for example, has expressed concerns about women backsliding as a result of the pandemic and now a macroeconomic downturn. We've we've heard concerns about

this within the broader tech industry as well. Do you have concerns about women in crypto, women in Web three backsliding or losing some of the progress they've made, you know, given you know these dreadful economic conditions that we're facing. It's interesting. So I met Fortunes Most Powerful Women conference today. I actually got to meet Melinda Gates uh and chat with her some about this. I think that the um the output that's coming out right now in terms of

the amount of interest in Web three. You know, conferences, even this one here, so many questions about what is the metaverse? How can we play, how do we get started? Conferences around the world are just bringing in so much interest. So I think for Web three in the metaverse, I believe that if we can provide the right set of education, that we can really accelerate the number of women in the space. In fact, the number of developers alone in the Web three space is increased by sixty six percent

most recently. So with the interests, I think now is that perfect storm, you know that early days where we can get more women interested understanding what it is so that they can jump in and have a really big impact. And I think now is the time given we are so early, all right, Sandy Carter of Unstoppable Domain, Sandy, thank you for joining us today. Amazon second prime sale of the year. But the question on everyone's mind is is it still a bargain? New research suggests maybe not.

One of the professors behind that research is joining me now for more on this. Jin Jinhung. She a a marketing professor at the University of Florida's Warrington College of Business, along with our very own Brad Storren, who has of course covered Amazon for for decades. So Jen Han, tell us a little bit more about your research. The main thesis seems to be that, uh, these aren't the discounts aren't as big as you might think. This is the

research I can backt with my call. Third San Sekapak at the University of South Carolina and the manship at

the Arizona State University UM. We invested the products sold on Amazon, and we find this a new pattern of pricing you which the seller simentaneously increased price and displays this price, and the make announcement of a prices can so in this way, a price increase is framed as a price lis Cam and seller um Fire saw the discount, and they saw that they get a bargain, but actually they paid them more than the consumer who bothered before

the sailor displayed the discount. Okay, so you're potentially actually paying more for something that you think you're getting at a discount. Brad, Is this, you know, a long time Amazon strategy or is this something new our Yeah? I might call it probably a long time retail strategy. I don't know that it's necessarily unique to Amazon. I I think you can see it in department stores and even

even discount source. The idea of discounting something uh and and and making the discount kind of an illusion inflating the the actual retail prices is I think a tactic across the retail when I think it's probably harder to control at Amazon, given that more than half of those sales are going to be broken by third party sellers who control their own prices. It's probably something that's hard

for Amazon to oversee. Okay, go ahead. You know, it seems like we we saw some lackluster interest this second half of the year, and I'm wondering why that is. Is it because the discounts aren't really discounts. Is it because they already did this once this year? Is it because we're, you know, going into a recession potentially and people just don't have as much money to spend, Jan Hong, I do. What I'm talking about is not that you

didn't get a discount. Is you actually were charged at the higher price when you you were told you get the discount. So usually the seller is played at least price or makeing least by comparison, wouldn't they actually drop price because the price promotion. They may not give you the discount the claim. But in this case, the seller actually increase price and to tell you discount and then day or two days later they will remove. This is discount the claim and the drop price. So this is

a very difference. Brad, talk to us about the actual interest we saw this time around, and you know this this whole idea to split it into prime days. You know, the thought was that would drive more interest. But I wonder if maybe it didn't. It's not necessarily working. I would say, Emily, it's probably a little too soon to uh to say that today was a failure. I mean, remember, this is not a prime day, this is a prime early the sale and it's this new creature. Um, it's

hard to compare it to the summer sale. It's really weird timing, right that no one is holiday shopping gift or at least you're not if you're a normal procrastinator like me. UM. Other big sales days like Cyber Monday and Black Friday are around the corner. The numbers we have really don't tell a consistent story. I think we can both tell that like Twitter mentions and and chatter

about this sale or down. Um. There's one research firm that's saying that basically sales today clovers the research firm were similar to the previous thirty day average. But then you have another firm numerator saying that the average order size his way up and that the big sales, the big sale items are Amazon gift cards and and Echo dots,

the small Alexa devices. So look, if the purpose of this for Amazon is the deep in its relationship with the prime customers and get more prime customers before the holidays to kind of lock shoppers in, then maybe you know they can declare this the success as they move into the holidays. Jan, is there something that you think

needs to happen here based on what you found. You know, there has been a lot of scrutiny of the way Amazon prices uh, certain goods, but you know, not necessarily of the practice that you're talking about in particular, do we need some regulation, Uh, we think the attention is required to this a new practice because the regulation has been focused on the regulation and the self be pricing has been books on illegitiment value of a least price,

you know, whether you use inflated or fake this price. But this is a different practice. This is the manipulation of the timing of least price introduction. So the seller synchronized the pricing increased which a least price introduction and the comparison. So that's a new practice and this is really misleading for consumer. Brad, what's your take on the signals we're seeing about shopping and consumer sentim it right now?

Heading into the holidays, It's it's tough, Emily, Um, You've got um the rising costs of food and fuel inflation. Folks are pulling back. There's no question that you know, overall you are spending over the holidays is slowing down. Adobe. I think that it was going to be about two point five previous years, you know, eight nine percent. Um. Of course it was even higher because of of sort pandemic field fear out of walking into stores and and

retail has been kind of an anvil for Amazon. You've got a very successful advertising business aws of course, um, even even some sort of successful business around third party sellers and commissions. But retail itself, those online stores are they were flat last holiday season. It was down four percent in the last quarter. Um. I think you know Amazon here, which has gottled up share for years decades, is probably not going to be doing that this holiday season.

All right, Bloomers brad Stone along with professor at the University of Florida fascinating research from you. Of course, we're gonna keep watching to see how this Prime Day unfolds and that doesn't. For this edition of Bloomberg Technology Wednesday, we're gonna have Amazon's head of Prime on to talk about Prime Day two point out and a holiday shopping sentiment. And don't forget to check out our podcast wherever you get your podcast time, I wily check in San Francisco. This is Bloomberg