Tech Layoffs and Musk Bans Ye

the wake of the New York Post report. We have the latest and Uber's CEO says the company is ready for any economic environment with no plans to cut the workforce, as competitors announced layoffs and new names revealed job cuts. First, of course, we've got to take a look at how markets ended Friday. Major technology into companies mostly lower after

what was a pretty hot jobs report. There than has that one actually pairing most of its losses to close down four tenths of one percent, some under performance and chip names really interesting out performance in the US listed shares of Chinese tech companies. Then as that Golden Dragon Index closing up five point four percent, it's highest level since September. The story they're really around the idea we might see some easing of policy in China that would

be supportive for the economy. Of course, yields were a big story on that hot jobs print, but actually the jump we saw on the tenure yield reverse by the time we were finished on Friday afternoon. In terms of individual names, it was some of the mega caps that were hardest hit by that job's report, leading declines on the NASA one hundred. But along with the broadest story, they two pair those those declined the worst performance than has that one hundred Z scaler down as much as percent?

Friday Cloud Security Company, It's forecast tepid. How often has that been the story throughout this earning season, analysts noticing that revenue and billings growth decelerating along with macro headwinds. But the story of the day, of course, jobs, jobs and more jobs. So let's get into all of this and recap the data brutal week as well of layoffs across the technology industry. His Bloomberg's Katie Gray felt, Katie,

what was your read on the print we got Friday morning? Well, at eight thirty am Eastern was a long time ago. So let's just quickly go through the numbers. Hit there. You had two hundred sixty thousand jobs added last month, just shattering expectations. The unemployment rates stayed put at three point seven per cent, that is extremely low. The big thing that stuck out to me that was average hourly earnings month over month. Those rose by point six percent.

That was double the estimates. And that's what really spooked markets early, particularly when it comes to wages, because snack great news for Federal Reserve just trying it's darnedst to cool price pressures without having to break the economy in the process. With that in mind, I mean, you saw a lot of movement early, a big drop the SMP

five hundred in the NASTAC one hundred. Stocks did clawback a lot of those losses, but like you pointed out, you look at the NASTAC one hundred still finished down about four tenths of a percent. Because ed, I don't need to tell you that higher rates typically aren't good for the kind of growth tech names that populate that index. Yeah, I'm glad you said that, because I sit here in this chair and people say to me, this is a technology show. Why are you so focused on the Fed?

It's always about the Fed, right, I guess you know. The outlook for rates is unclear at the best of times. What do we learn from that market reaction about what we might see from the Fed this month and going forward? Well, and you and I speak the same language. It's all about the Fed. And in terms of what the Fed might do at this month's meeting. I mean, we heard from Jerome Peal on Wednesday saying that they could moderate the pace of rate hikes this month. It seems like

that is what markets are sticking with. Because you didn't really see bets change on a fifty basis point move for this month versus seventy five basis points. You did see wagers on how high the terminal rate the end destination for the Federal Reserve. That did nudge up a little bit, but that's also in line with what we heard from Pal on Wednesday, that that could be higher

than their previous forecasts, which we got back in September. Alright, Katy Gray felt happy Friday, get out of there, enjoy your weekend, but we will continue the conversation of bringing John le chief economist for Decision Intelligence Company morning consult for his read on it. John, Welcome to the show Data hot Print for Jobs Friday. What's your interpretation? Yeah, thanks for having me. I mean, I think the headline numbers that things didn't sort of move from the tech

sector into the broader economy. They remain relatively contained. Um, But the twelve month trend is pretty clear at this point we are seeing a slowing rate of jobs growth, probably not quite as slow as the FED would like, but you know, I think going forward there's some room for near term optimism in particularly because these tech layoffs have yet to trickle over and affect the broader economy.

I think it's hard to make sense of a lot of this, right, The data is incongruous with with with the different data points that we're getting every single day, how is it that we're seeing very rapid announcements of layoffs. So I'm thinking, of course, of the challenge of grade data those announcements of layoffs in the tech industry. And yet if you take a step back and look at the broader picture for the US economy, we see a resilient labor market. Where is the disconnected? Yeah, I don't

see a disconnect. I mean we We track the share of tech workers who lost pay or income every week, and we've seen that pretty consistently ticked down over the course of November. In any of our high frequency unemployment data, we don't see dramatic increases in the tech sector. I think what's you know the difference is that these folks who are being laid off are essentially finding jobs very quickly, either in the tech sector or in some other sector

that requires those type of skills. Those skills are really in demand. We still have an imbalance in the economy between supply and demand um and that that sort of limited supply right now is going to allow companies that are underperforming for those workers to be reabsorbed very quickly.

There's an interesting point of personal finance. Like a lot of people that watch this show work in the technology industry, and over the course of the pandemic, they worked at companies that retain staff, paid bonuses helped offset some of the economic hardship. Do you think it's fair to say that those workers from the technology sector that even if they're being laid off, they have a buffer, that they have personal finance cash in the bank that they built

from the pandemic era. Yeah, that's exactly right. That's what all of our research shows that higher income, higher educated workers who have been employed over the course of the pandemic have stashed away enough savings essentially to last at least three months without working um after losing their job. And so I think that's really the security that I have when I think about how might these tech layoffs

affect the broader macro economy. We're not seeing it in terms of broader layoffs, and I don't think we'll see it in terms of a deterioration in spending or consumer credit conditions. Hey, John, I want to go back really quick to that challenge of grade data. A d two thousand or so job cuts announced by the tech sector year to date, but fifty three thousand of them in

the month of November alone. Do you expect that trend to continue through the end of this year and into the next year or is the worst of it over?

You know, it's hard to say exactly. I think what is certainly going to be the case going forward is that you're going to hear about more layoffs in general, because we're entering a period in economic environment where you know, businesses operating conditions are going to be challenged, and you're going to start to see certain companies when in certain companies lose. When you've got a rising tide essentially driven by very low interest rates, high corporate profits, it's easy,

essentially for companies to hide some of their underperformance. When you move into the operating environment where are currently that's going to be exposed and I think that's where you're going to see some of this churn in the labor market was certainly one to watch that you know, we reflected on the screen just then the data that a lot of these cuts coming out here on the West Coast, and that's kind of correlating with the industries that are here.

John Lear, chief economist at Morning consult Thank you for joining us. All right, stick with us because Bloomberg talked to Brooke Jenkins, san Francisco's new d A, about her vision for the city and the future of Teking the Bay Era. She was appointed after her predecessor was recalled. For context, this is the first time a serving d A has been recalled in San Francisco's history. Here's what she had to say about the work her office will do in fighting crime in this city. And how it's

going to impact the economy. I've said, and I made it very clear, all crime is illegal again in San Francisco. There will be some level of consequence for the people who commit those crimes so that we could protect that economic engine that those these retailers, these businesses, they provide jobs, jobs that are residents need in order to support their families.

We can't sit by and allow businesses to feel the need to move to other states because crime is too much of a problem, not only for their business bottom line, but also for their workers who need to be able to come safely to work. And so I'm committed to making sure that we protect those jobs and these businesses because that is what we need in order to remain the beautiful city that we are. Coming out, we'll discuss the latest news out of Twitter and the future of

content moderation on the platform. That's next This is bloom Bug. Here's what's been going viral today. Even Elon Musk's Twitter, there are red lines for permissible content, and Kanye West or now known as ye who calls himself Yea, crossed one of them with a late Thursday night post that prompted the platform to suspend his account. And all of this comes as we're awaiting patiently some news from Elon

Musk regarding Hunter Biden to lots of digests. Let's bring in Bloomberg Sarah Fire, who leads our coverage of big tech here at Bloomberg, Sarah. This is pretty confusing, but let's start with the news of the day. I suppose so far an action by Elon Musk that Yea formerly

known as Kana West, went too far. Give us the details. Well, he posted a swastika, and Elon Musk, who had previously seemed to embrace him even though he's a controversial figure, they have had a history of, you know, semi friendship. And then he said, well, listen, you've gone too far. This isn't love, he said, and he suspended yea um. And I think I think that was certainly shocking for everyone who's been a fan of Yea, even though we've we've heard these reports of his anti Semitic um comments

in the past. But I also think that some of Elon Musk's supporters who thought, well, you're building this version of Twitter where anything goes, where it's a free speech, absolutist environment. We're a little. You're surprised that that he did end up taking action with Gay's posts as opposed to saying, you know, anything goes here on on this new version of Twitter. BuzzFeed reported and shared an image of a screenshot from his account where appeared to show

that the suspension was only for twelve hours. Bloom Bugs not verified that. We don't know, but but I thought that was interesting. The other thing we're waiting for is the launch of this new verification system, Twitter Blue color codes for different entities and individuals. We don't think it's

happened quite yet, but it could happen. You know, verification is so complicated, right because it it is only something that has been available to a select few public official celebrities, journalists, sports figures on the internet who are at risk of impersonation. And what Musk is trying to do with Twitter Blue is let anyone pay for it, and in the process, maybe those people will end up impersonating these brands that

we its just had. The first time they launched it, it it was a total mess because we saw all these major brands from Lately to Nintendo be impersonated and lose value, and we saw advertisers pull their pull their spend. So I'm not surprised that it's delayed. It's it's a tough thing to get right, and um, you know a hard problem to just come at come at this and say anyone can have a blue check as long as they pay dollars. Bloom bug, Sarahfra stay with us just for

a minute. Let's carry on the come to station that I'm bringing. Claire Diaz or Ti. She was formerly Twitter's head of Corporate Social Innovation and Philanthropy two thousand fourteen, currently VC scout for Kleiner Perkins in Latin America. You also wrote a book about Twitter, Twitter for Good. Um, let's start, well, let's start. Let's start on this issue of the day. The decision to suspend Yeah's account Musque does appear to have redlines. You know, the Twitter platform.

You were there for many years, although it's been eight years since you left the company. What is your read on content moderation and policy decisions so far to this point. So I think it's really important to reframe kind of the language we use a little bit. We hear a lot of people talking about content moderation, and I understand that is sort of what we call it, but that really sits within trust and safety. And safety is really important in the connection between free speech and safety. Is

what On does not seem to understand. Uh, you know, I kind of sometimes say, you know, watching Elon building public is kind of a mess because he really doesn't know what he's doing. Right. He's going back to what we thought social media was fifteen years ago and using a lot of that language and a lot of those guidelines. But we've now seen, you know, those of us who've worked at these companies, who've been on these trust and safety teams. There's written books about social media, we know

that those things don't work right. In the early days of Twitter of social media in general, we simply didn't understand that we were creating information silos, that we were a fertile breeding ground for misinformation, and we really didn't understand that certain people were more persecuted than others. When you talk about it, I mean, it is a problem that seems easier to solve from the outside, right. Why why won't we just let everyone say whatever they want

to say? Well, because then it creates a terrible user experience. As you see, must sort of rediscover all the things that you had discovered when you were on Twitter. You know what has been surprising to so far? I'll tell you I was surprised today by him um categorizing harassment as spam. I thought that that was that was an interesting new way of thinking about harassments that maybe actually is is positive. What what what do you think is is you know, becoming a real to him now in

a way that maybe it wasn't before. Well, I mean, some of these things are coming real to him, right, Like he's starting to understand Okay, harassment might actually be a problem in a way I didn't understand it because I am the richest man in the world, and I am a white grow who hasn't had concerns about trust

and safety in a long time in my life. Right, So some of these things maybe he's slowly starting to see sort of the light or gained some empathy on but ultimately it's way too slow and it's not happening. So it's just very concerning for users out there who want to actually use the platform and for advertisements you want to people to use it. I think I'm right in saying many years ago, then known as Kanye West, now known as Ya walked into the building and sent

his first tweet while you were there. Can you give us the details of around that and what happened? Yeah, I remember in the summer of two thousand ten in California, Kanye came in one day, lit up a blunt and then sent his first tweet. And the first tweet, if you go back and look at it is is him spelling Silicon Valley wrong and then following it up with

a joke about women's breast implanoffs. Okay, we'll move on from that subject of of YEA, Generally speaking, you have focused your writing and your time at Twitter on on the platform as a mechanism for social good, and Musque talks about Twitter being the global town square, and he has shared data in recent days about the growth of the platform but also the decline of what what appears to be the decline of hate speech. Are the rainy areas.

You actually agree with Musk on things that he's done, things that he said about the potential for the platform. So I do. I mean, if there's one thing I won't begrudge elon Musk, it's it's it is that he really should be redoing the verification platform and it's good to see him try, although he's failing a lot and

doing things we did ten or fifteen years ago. Verification, since it started in two thousand nine, when you know, a baseball manager was impersonated on Twitter and then sued Twitter as a result, has always been a dumpster fire, and it's always been very complicated, and from the beginning there were not enough staff to handle it. You know, I was one of many people tasked with sort of working out some of the guidelines, and it's never really worked.

So in principle, the idea that people could pay to be verified is actually something I think could be a good idea. It may not be something I would pay for, it may not be something you would pay for, but it is something that many people out there would pay for, and it certainly will ideally reduce the demand. Right anyone who's ever worked at Twitter, ten years later, there's still getting d m s in their in their Twitter feed,

people asking to be verified. Right, So there's a huge demand for it that he can ultimately hopefully capture some of by charging for. Unfortunately, when he launched Twitter Blue last month for the eight dollars seven ninety nine monthly fee, he ran into his own problem of content moderation and

sam bots just going crazy with the service. What do you think about his own content and the way that he's been posting on Twitter in this in this really showman showman like manner, when where every few hours there's another bombshell even today that you know, this this teasing of a big drop of a story that's about to come. I mean, this is this is the way that he's been running in and and perhaps is leading to these higher user numbers or sign ups that that we're seeing

or that he was talking about. Is that a sustainable way to run Twitter? Is that something that um, you know, even if it leads to user growth, would be uh, something you would recommend doing long term. It's absolutely not sustainable, obviously from the side of user growth, but also from the side of advertisers. You know, more than half his advertising budget has drops since advertisers are all pulling out.

I mean, I think it's important to understand what he's doing today on Twitter, with this proposed live chat thing he's supposed to be going live with right now, is really an example of the way he behaves. Um. You know, the last time I was on I compared him to some of my twin children who don't have prefrontal corps cortex is and I feel like he's sort of the

same way. But I mean, what he's doing today is he's trying to get back at the Twitter security and Twitter safety and trust head who was just kicked out, and so this is sort of a revenge saying he's doing. Um you all. Roth went on Kara Switchers podcast and basically discussed what had happened during the Hunter Biden laptop tweet censoring back in the fall of twenty twenty. And so, I mean, now he's just coming out because Rath is now quit and now he's going to go against him.

It's it's the horrible Okay. That was the take from Claire diez Ortiz, formerly Twitter's head of Corporate Social Innovation, and Flamproby. I'dad you did leave Twitter eight years ago and that was your opinion, but you know, many people see you long musk as in the end improving the companies that he works on. It's a wait and see when it comes to Twitter. Also Bloomberg Sarah Fryer, who leads big Tech coverage here, thank you both time for talking tech and look at what's going on in the

world of venture capital and startups. Starting with the Asian crypto exchange zipmex It's about to get acquired by a VC fund for about one billion dollars. Thirty million will be in cash, but the remainder will be in crypto tokens. This is one of the first rescues in Asia since a wave of defaults ripped through the sector and more layoffs. Light Street Capital Management just dismissed some staff focused on bets in private markets. This comes after a steep drop

in the hedge funds tech heavy portfolio. That's according to sources. The firm already shut down in San Francisco office a few months ago. Finally, the defense tech startup and A Rill has raised about one point five billion dollars in a new round, as reported by The Financial Times. The investment values the firm it's seven billion dollars, up from

four point two billion dollars eighteen months ago. And A Hills founder Parmer Lucky plans to use the new funds to build a large defense company using new tech like AI and drones. I think this is one of the most uncertain environments that i've been a part of you know, we it's very difficult to tell where things are going to wind up. I think Europe is certainly going to be weaker and is likely headed into a recession. We're preparing for that. In the US, it's unclear recession might happen,

it might be a soft landing, etcetera. So I think from our standpoint, we want to be prepared for any eventuality. When you look at our marketplace, we are a marketplace business, so we don't have significant fixed costs. UH. In a weaker labor environment, our supply position will tend to get better. We will be a place where more drivers can come

to earn real money. On this last quarter, for example, UH earners earn more than ten billion dollars on our platform up over, So we do think that our marketplace gets more attractive to drivers as it gets more traffic drivers prices come down, and that in turn attracts riders as well. UH. So we think the business model is a good model that can you know, do well in UH in strong economies and can perform in weaker economies.

And I think as a company and as a technology company, we have been relatively forward thinking in making sure that we prepare ourselves for an uncertain world, making sure we're conservative in terms of the investments that we're making, and an investment isn't paying off, pullback employer money where the growth is and I think it's showing in the redls. Welcome back to Bloomdow Technology IDDO in San Francisco. That was Uber CEO Dara Kostrashai last month when asked about

the impact of the potential recession and now. While Door, Dash and Lift slash their staff to reduce costs, Uber says it's not making any cutbacks, at least from a head count perspective costs. He said this week that the company is in a good place and to shift in consumer spending from retail to services is helping bloombirds. Jackie davl Loss covers all of the ride hailing and delivery

companies for US. She's out in d C. Run us through what Darra had to say in the last couple of days, because it's certainly not what we're hearing from the rest of the sector. Absolutely, Uber seems to be one of the rare safe zones right now in Silicon Valley, and the reason for that is because people are still ordering marked up burritos and taking rides to work, And what that really shows is that their customer demand is

is keeping them afloat. They've already gone through a lot of the difficult decisions to cost cut that a lot of companies are having to do now more under the gun of, you know, the specter of an economic recession looming. Um. But Uber actually did that earlier on in the pandemic. If you remember, they had a really tough time cut around six thousand jobs in the course of just a

few months. So I think that cost cutting measures um, they largely got ahead of it and now are relying on that strong customer demand to kind of see them through for for now at least. I want to bring up on the screen some of the things that dark Costra Shaw he was saying at that event in New York, because I find it really interesting. It's it's bullish talk,

it's fighting talk. But at the same time, Jackie, I think I'm right in saying that Uber, you know, all being financially disciplined, there is an element of belt tightening and being conservative when it comes to herring totally. And look, I think when it comes to telegraphing what the potential for layoffs might be. He is still taking somewhat of

a pragmatic approach. Just in the clip that you've played right before this, you know he has said earlier this year that's he's going to slow hiring, which is something that door Dash wasn't considering. UM. You know, back when companies really started, you know, thinking about putting a pause on on hiring and you know, eliminating parts of their workforce. UM. So he was a little bit more cautious even earlier

this year. Now when you take a look at door Dash Tony Shoe, their CEO was very forthcoming when it came to, you know, taking accountability for growing too quickly. UM. In Southeast Asia, you know, Kassel laid off or plans to lay off ten percent of their staff, and their CEO as well said, you know, we too quickly. So I think Uber's move here, UM it really shows that you know, they have been kind of slowing down on the hiring front, but there's other ways to cut costs.

I mean, you know, they hived off their autonomous vehicle research UM and are now really doubling down on on food delivery, which is shown to be pretty profitable for them. You're right that there's some nuance in it, right. The headlines this week have been layoffs, job cuts. You know, in Europe, for example, Intel is movings cut more jobs HP last week, six thousand jobs, up to six thousand

jobs cut over the next three years or so. I thought the nuance in your story about door Dash was important because even coming out of the pandemic, this is a pandemic darling that's continued to grow um and you know, the risk, it seems to me, is that door dash sees its operating expenses just simply outpacing it's growth on

the revenue front, on the growth booking fronts. Is that the equation that Tony's use thinking about exactly, And it's because the market environment and investors focus has really shifted and now it's less about growth and it's more about the bottom line. And that's why you're seeing executives take that tone in earnings calls. They're focused on free cash flow,

they're focused on um their net income. You know, you see a lot of these e commerce companies pointing investors to adjusted earnings figures, which strip out a lot of the stock based compensation and that's what's been moving up, um, these costs you're seeing when you saw a lift cut

of its workforce. It also mentioned um that it was going to shift its strategy when it came to hiring, looking more to Canada and East during Europe, which you know, they don't have stock based comp in their in their packages the way they do here in the US, so different strategies there, um, But it it really does show that the focus is much more on profitability, and doordesh isn't a great example of that. Their customer demand also super strong, but I think they're preparing for a much

rockier period ahead. Okay, Layoffs never a pleasant subject to cover in this industry, whether it's here in San Francisco or out on the East Coast. Bloomberg's Jackie Davlos, thank you for your reporting. Meanwhile, the November job struck a very different picture from what's playing out here in Silicon Valley and the tech sector. This has been the story of the week. What we've been discussing on the show.

The market now expecting the FED to push rates higher and the possibility of a recession is now a much real risk. Joining us to discuss what's going on with jobs in the tech sector. What the sentiment of tech workers is is Carab Brennan a LaMnO, Chief People Officer at laticea software management platform for fast growing businesses in the US and UK. So you've been crunching some numbers, Car, I mean, there's a human side to this story and then there's the workforce side to this story. Um let's

start with the workforce side. You know, what is your interpretation of what we're seeing across the technology set to from a job caught perspective. Well, what's interesting is is what you've been talking about, um in in the past half an hour, is that the headlines are interesting, their eye catching, but really the devil's in the details when you go down a few layers in terms of what's

happening with the layoffs. Fundamentally, what we know and when I'm talking to the other c h R o s that are actually executing these layoffs at places like Meta and door Dash, the actual makeup of the folks and the teams that are being affected tend to be more of your front um, frontline support, your recruiters, your HR folks, folks that were here during the pandemic to really help shore up a level of morale and this this momentum toward growth, and as we're looking toward next year, we

have a lot of people um on the VC side, a lot of financial leadership, a lot of CEO s saying going into the future, we need to be more conservative. I want to send a message around efficiency and effectiveness and our priority will be profitability in the next two years. And this is the start of the action around those sentiments. Is it part of this as well? People just looking

for something new, new jobs? I know that companies are taking that decision out of hands, but there is an element as well that within the tech sector there's opportunities, people are hiring and they're looking to do something new. Yeah, definitely.

I think what some folks are missing is that we let us did a survey a few months ago, and we found that of employees weren't convinced that their company was going to grow in the next twelve months and half of the half of the employees that are in seat don't know if they're going to be able to grow in their careers. So those are the bigger questions that people are leading with when they're making decisions, and

leaders are are thinking about that. They're thinking about I have employees that potentially could have quiet quit in the last year. I want to look back into my org and understand really where people's heads are and drive forward a level of productivity and performance as we go into this potential bear bear environment in the next twelve months. Do you have any read on the attitude towards at home, hybrid working models, or just simply being in the office. Yeah.

What we also know from some of our research is thirty of tech workers are saying that they would not say at their job if they could not be in a hybrid or remote first work environment. We're definitely seeing that play out UM in technology companies. A c h R O often owns the real estate or facilities component, and I can tell you talking amongst my colleagues, UM, we've already planned for not renewing leases, for reducing our real estate footprint. So for us, the debate is over.

The plans are in place, the strategy is moving forward. And I still see headlines where are saying folks are battling it out. We're not, because we know that in order to get the talent that we need to run our businesses, we have to be providing that flexibility. Okay, Lattice, Chief People Officer Cara Brennan, Alamanna, thank you. Now let's head over. It's a Stanford where Bloomberg spoke Thursday with

the CEO of General Motors, Mary Barra. She talks about whether the company thinks it will be able to sell one million e vis in. Here's what she had to say. We made that statement and that set that goal for ourselves that we'll have the capacity to be able to sell a million units in North America and frankly in China.

And we think with the strong product port Bullier, we're going to have at different price points, you know, from from the Cadillac Lyric to the Hummer, the Chevy Silverado, the Gmccrara down to a Chevy Equinox as a Chevy Blazer. We're going to have the products across the market that are going to allow us to achieve that matter. So we think we've got the right plan. This was all in place before the incentive package came as a part of I R A. But we're you know, we think

that will help. But it's doing what it was supposed to. We think it was intended to do. Was to drive the ev adaption. And you know, we've invested a lot in the United States creating jobs, which I think is going to create a stronger economy. So I think it's gonna accomplish the objectives. And you know what happened to be very aligned with the plan we were already execute.

That was Mary barras CEO of General Motors, coming up, the former chair of the f d i C on the need for crypto regulation as US or authorities ramp up their investigation of f t X. This is bloom bug. The reality is like Sam and his cohorts perpetuated a fraud. They used customer money to make bets that he poorly risk managed after he made them, Like, let's forget about the risk management. The problem was he took our money and so he needs to get prosecuted. The authorities need

to dig in and figure out exactly what happened. People will go to jail and should go to jail. We've taken our exchange balances down as a precaution. We've gone through each exchange, talked to the guys that run them, look at the auditing, look at proof of reserves, and we make our best bet right. When you were putting money on exchange, you never expected it to be all at risk, right. Exchanges put a lot of your coins in cold storage. Uh, and then the rest was left

on exchange. So you really thought you only had risk of hacking. Uh. Very few people thought risk of somebody stealing your money. And that's a new risk that people are gonna have to look at a lot, a lot closer.

That was Galaxy Digitals. Mike novegrats his opinion. We should know that no formal charges have been filed against Sam Bankman Freed, but US authorities have set up their invested investigation into his collapse Crypto Exchange f t X. They're asking investors and trading firms that works closely with fd X to hand over information on the company and its key figures, Among them bank Man Freed and the former

head of his Alameda Research Investment arm, Caroline Ellison. Bloomberg spoke with Sheila Bear, former f d i C chair and senior fellow at the Center for Financial Stability about how we regulate crypto. The current regulatory powers are adequate for the best majority of this market, and I would tend to agree with care against her that most of these tokens are securities. There is a bit of a

gap with the CFTC's jurisdiction. They have regulatory power of derivatives, but the cash market, the actual crypto asset itself, they only have enforcement authority, So that is that is a gap that could be fulfilled, but that's a very very small part of the market. Most of these tokens, most of these assets, especially the problematic ones, I think approple we follow under the fallow under the SEC jurisdiction, and

the SEC frankly, just needs to go after them more aggressively. Sheila, what about the controls that were in place for banks carrying out fat transactions on behalf of cryptocurrent companies like f t X. Do you think that they were sufficient? Given your experience, of course as as a banking regulator, so I think that the exposure to the regulated f d i C insured banks was was very very limited. Obviously, they had bank accounts. Everybody's a bank account to do,

you know, your your your regular transactions, payment transactions. But it has not appeared that there was any significant exposure. There's been a lot of press coverage about f t X or news elamated taking a significant investment interest in a small bank in Washington State called Moonstone. They renamed at Moonstone. But as here as I can tell that they hadn't really used the bank for anything, So I don't it just looks like to except they were using banks,

it was regret and better payments. I don't think this affects the banking system at all, um and uh so that that's a good news that it does not really have any kind of impact on mainstream banking or the insured banks that we all rely on for them, you know, checking and savings accounts. But the banks that did work with ft X and alimated, do you think that it was a mistake for them to bring f t X

onto you know? That is that is a really tough question because there's been a big controversy generally about whether regulators should, you know, tell banks you just can't do business with certain entities, you know, certain markets are certain you know, and that's hard to do. I think if a business is legal, then to tell a bank not to do, not to have dealings with them, I think

is hard. And I am unaware that any of the entities doing business with US banks were illegal, So I think it's hard, it's it's it's a very controversially, is to try to use banks to shut insured banks to shut all of this down. That was former fd I c chat Sheila Bear. Meanwhile, the lawyer who represented Bernie Maddof has this advice for Sam Bankman Freed. Zip It Irish Sorkin was lead defense lawyer for Madof seen here, who was the mastermind of one of the greatest Ponzi

schemes of all time. Saukin says SPF is digging himself into a hole with his media apology tour. Sorkin says Bankman Freed should listen to his lawyers and stopped talking immediately. Representatives for bank Man Freed and f t X didn't immediately respond to request for comment on this story. Welcome

to swift Tonomics. That's what happens that when a post COVID demand shock causes ticket sales to go up to forty thousands of dollars, Many Taylor Swift fans were very disappointed when they couldn't get their hands on tickets back in November. The demand was so high that it cost ticket Master's system to fail, and it raised all sorts of questions about the platform's monopoly. But there's more here. Swift Ties, or fans of Taylor Swift, represent a particular

moment in the global economy. They are the supercharged consumer that's willing to spend a lot of money on experiences that they missed out on during the pandemic. Many in this category are gen z s or millennials who come out of the pandemic with historically high levels of savings. They've waited for four years to see their favorite pop star, and they don't mind splurging ten months worth of savings

to see her. It's all because of you, Thank you so som In the early two thousand's, economist Alan Krueger came up with a concept called rockconomics. He uses it to explain the global economy through the lens of the music industry. He often talks about Taylor Swift as somebody who's very cleverly playing with strategies to boost ticket sales. Well,

I think Taylor Swift is an economic genius. But the bigger question of how much longer consumers are going to spend this much money in an economy of highly alarming interest rates is something that swift aconomics can't and for now, economists are going to have to shake it off. Thanks to Marius Kavash for that one. Some other stories we're following In entertainment, Amazon's top media executive is stepping down

as the company begins a restructuring. Jeff Blackburn is retiring at the end of two after twenty four years at Amazon. According to a Memo Center staff today, Blackburn helped the company pivot into streaming and lead the charge on the MGM acquisition as well as the billion dollar Lord of the Rings series. Amazon has been in cost cutting mode due to a sales slow down, and Meta is urging

policymakers to wait before new rules governing the metaverse. A policy paper released by Meta argues that many of the world's existing laws and REGs will also applies activity in the metaverse. Regulators could stymy innovation if they act too quickly, according to the paper, Well that does it. For this edition of Bloomberg Technology, don't forget to check out our podcasts. You can find it on the terminal as well as online on Apple, Spotify, and I Heart Radio. This is bloom Bag h