TikTok's Problematic "Challenges"

to Eric Hippo about their next move. And first on Bloomberg, outgoing CEO, crack of crack, and Jesse Powell talks about why he is stepping down. Also, we'll ask what you thinks about JP morgans. You, Jamie diamond, calling crypto tokens decentralized ponzi schemes. Turning to the two big stories regarding Tiktok, the F D A has issued a warning that a new tiktok challenge could be dangerous, the so called sleepy

chicken challenges, when people cook their chicken in Ni Quill. Meantime, TIKTOK will ban fundraising and all other money making opportunities for politicians and government accounts on the platform here to discuss Bloomberg's Alex barrinkle. Let's start with the challenge. How big did this one have to get for the F D A to weigh in? It got big enough for parents and folks to complain, which is typically what happens

with these companies. Um, the social platforms will play a little bit of whack a mole Um searching down these challenges, these fads. We saw it with a really dangerous tide pod challenge of a few years ago on some of the other social platforms. But this one, emily, Um, the sleepy chicken challenge, it does seem like tiktok snuff this one out. If you search for that term right now in the APP, it sends you to a warning basically

about dangerous challenges and dangerous fads. I will say there are a lot of kind of Um, scary type challenges, weird information that POPs up on the platforms that doesn't always get folks like the FDA to get involved. So clearly this was one that they felt like they needed to jump in on. And Emily, I will say you search for sleepy chicken. Those posts have been taken down.

You search for some names that are misspelled or you had a few letters in there and those words are still up, which I just think illustrates the challenge these platforms have when it comes to locking down a misinformation like this. Yeah, we found some of them but decided not to show them to our viewers for obvious reasons. Um and and perhaps even bigger news, this decision on politicians and governments and not allowing them to make money on the platform. Can you explain how this works? Sure,

of course. TIKTOK came out today basically with a pretty significant expansion of its ban on political ads political content ahead of the U S midterms. In in the past, historically, Tiktok has banned political advertisements from governments, from politicians. Now it's taking that a step further and saying these individuals also cannot fund raise. So there is no soliciting of campaign donations, there's no asking for money if you're a

politician or you're a government or government entity. They also are banning these accounts from accessing any of the money making tools on the platform. That can be things like tipping from users or gifting or things like the Creator Fund, which is a fund Um that pays out users with a lot of followers for the number of views and engagements they get on the APP. So you've heard this argument before, Emily from TIKTOK. You heard Tiktok CEO in front of a Senate panel make this argument last week.

Tiktok likes to attest that they are an entertainment platform, they're not a place for politics. Some of these Um prohibitions and moderating of the of this type of content kind of backs that up. Um, but it is a very notable kind of piece of News, particularly in this election season and as we start to get fired up about the next presidential election, which will come closely on the heels of the mid terms this year and quickly.

How does this compared to what Meta, instagram, you know, twitter, have done in terms of their stance on politicians making money? Absolutely so. TIKTOK and twitter both have completely banned political ads. So there is no kind of money making there. On metas platform, facebook and Instagram, those ads are still able to be up there. I've still seen content on those platforms soliciting donations. So it does seem like Tiktok is

taking a step further than some of its big tech peers. Um. But you know, as this evolves in social media platforms tend to exchange ideas. It will be a place that I'll certainly be watching them more closely, particularly if there's any kind of duff steps with facebook or instagram in this election season. All right, Bloomberg's Alex Barenka. Thank you

very much, Claire. Hippo, one of New York's top venture capital firms, just announced plans to invest two thirty million dollars across a couple of fun that seed at earlier stages. Ben Lair is also back as a full time investor. He Co founded the firm before becoming the CEO of group nine media, which sold to Fox media. Joining me out, Eric Hippo, managing partner at Lara Hippo. Eric, great to

have you back with us. Curious with the fundraising environment was like for these two funds, given a very challenging macroeconomic backdrop. Yes, hi, emily, good to be with you. The majority of these new funds were in fact ways last year. Uh and uh, and you know we have this is our twelfth year. Were these our fund aid and select force or early stage on late stage number eight, late stage number four. So we we we've done quite well and we have very loyal lps. We've we've been

able to capture some new LPS as well. So it hasn't been really it's it's it hasn't been exceptionally hard. Um, I would imagine that today for new funds it would be pretty difficult. So how is the changing macro environment changing your strategy and where you're going to place your bats?

So we, we have are quite well known for our consumer companies, companies like what we parker and Casper and all birds and glassier and many others, Um and, but in the in the more recent years, we've also been very, very focused on B two B, on enterprise software. We're less known for that, but we do over half of our investments in those areas and those are at the moment very exciting and we're looking forward to kind of balancing our humor business with our with our B Two

B business. Now venture capitalists are announcing big funds left and right, but it seems like there's not a lot of places to put this money. I mean, is there just a lot of dry powder sitting on the sidelines. That's, you know, piling up. You know, while valuations come down and the economy resets, there is, there is a record amount of dry powder. As you say. What we're finding is that funding at the seed and Prese level, which is our specialty, uh, you know, continues and the normal,

normal pace series a as well, is Um. You know, our companies are getting funded at the series there, but where things are much slower is in the later stages, series B and beyond, and that's going to do with the fact that late stage investors, Um, are really not sure about how the price, how the value companies. But as soon as the market kind of settles in the later stage, they be plenty of money to be put to work. So are you waiting for valuations to come down?

Is that sort of what I hear you're saying? In in where we invest at the seed valuations have moderated. They haven't yet come down to uh, kind of three levels. But you know, we we take the very long view, uh, and so we invest in a good year and a bad year. You know our companies are going to start maturing years down the road. Um. So we um, you know, we we we find valuations to be more attractive to them, for sure. But more importantly, we have more time to

do our work. There isn't a frenzy than existed last year where people wanted to close their rounds in a matter of days. Now we're back at being able to, you know, close around in a matter of weeks, giving US plenty of time to do our work and our due diligence. So what's your take on you know, I mean another reading from the Fed? Great like seemed to

be continuing. How is that impacting your outlook? The biggest impact for, you know, venture capital at the moment it has to do with the fact that that the I P O market is is dead in the water Um, and so companies that wanted to go public this year are postponing that particular event, and that always has an effect on the M and a market as well. If if the I P O market is slow, the M and a market is slow as well. So, uh, you know,

last year we saw a record amount of liquidity. We returned an absolute record of uh back to our limited partners. This year is much slower, but again, we take the long view. You'll have a down year, you'll have an up here it over a period of time. Uh, it doesn't really matter. Hi, uh, Eric Capo of Laro Harpo. Always going to have you here, Eric. Thank you all right. Coming up, crack and see you. Jesse Powell stepping down. What does it mean for the future of the CRYPTO exchange?

Our conversation with him coming up next. This is Bloomberg. All right, quick check of the markets again. I want to bring back our Ed Ludlow, who's been watching a few more things. And what else is catching your iron? Yeah, I mean there was just so much that happened on Wednesday afternoon. As a reminder, the Fed did raise rates by seventy five basis points, and the Hawk isher prize was where rates go from here. Officials saw four point three percent by the end of four point six PC,

terminal rate going into three or in. And behind me US some kind of the corners of the technology market. Right was the mega caps and some of the U S shares of Chinese list of tech companies that fell the most all told. Look at the NYC Fan Class Index, down two point six percent. And then we talked about why do we keep going on about interest rates and why every day do I stand in front of you and say rates are projected to do this, because higher

rates discount the present value of future profits. For a lot of these tech companies, including the mean stocks, including the nonprofitable sector corners of the tech market, they haven't got any profit anyway. They're trading at very high multiple. So that was an area of the market that we look to. A really interesting part of the market as well. Wednesday was aerospace and defense. You heard President Putin of Russia talking about mobilizing troops and talk about an excitation

of certain parts of Ukraine. Of course that war ongoing. At first defensive in aerospace stocks have been much, much higher, but actually post fed paired their gains to be to a decline of nine percent. Some breaking headlines crossing the Bloomberg terminal in the last few minutes from salesforce, one of the companies you and I do discuss more often m which is up now three in after hours, the company saying it has a four year revenue target of

fifty billion dollars. Why does that matter? Well, to give you some context, in four year twenty one salesforce had

revenue of around thirty five billion dollars. So it's part of their invested day presentation in the Bay area in San Francisco and Wednesday they've been telling investors kind of what their longer term expectations are, and that expectation is to boost revenue, revenue on a four year basis in a very meaningful way, to have fifty billion dollars of sales by four year, twenty six, and I know over the coming days and weeks we'll keep a close eye

on that stock end absolutely. I'm actually interviewing salesforce coast at your Mark Benny off tomorrow at Dream Force. We're going to get his thoughts on the market moves and his broader outlook. I'm also curious what he thinks about the big FIGMA deal, Adoba buying Figma for twenty billion dollars in the middle of a downturn, and it'll be interesting to get his thoughts, given salesforce butts black for twenty seven billion dollars, which I believe was the biggest

tech deal ever at the time. Um and and and and certainly will be interesting to get his thoughts as the Fed continues to make these decisions. Yeah, well, he's not a guy that's short of opinions. Mzy I mean, let's be honest, he's got an opinion and everything, but he's no stranger to M and a either. Not just that deal that you mentioned, but I think that's a mule soft right. And actually salesforce gone a little bit

quiet in recent weeks and months. You and I used to cover them quite a lot pre pandemic period and entering the during the pandemic period, because this is obviously a company that has decent sales, but also it's a really high margin business and at the same time, Benioff is a man of many passion projects and I'm sure you'll discuss those of him too. Absolutely it's going to be a great one coming up on Thursday show Ed.

Thank you. Meantime, as climate week is in full swing in New York, California Governor Gavin newsom spoke about the state's climate challenges and how to avoid blackouts like those we've seen it in past years here in the state. He spoke with my colleague David Weston from the sidelines of United Nations climate action, race to zero and the resilience form supported by Bloomberg Phil anthropies. Take a listen. We were distress tests in the most extreme had no blackouts.

We were challenged, but we kept our wits and we're keeping our agenda and we're maintaining our policy principles. That, I think, will allow us more resilience in the future. So No, I don't think you have to sacrifice one for the other. I would argue not. Transitioning is the bigger risk in the bigger soccer. Transition is an important word in that sentence. It's not all of one or

all the others, because a lot of experts sake. Yes, certainly we have to get to renewables, but you can't just give up, for example, on natural gas that that is actually part of the path for the transition. You do you agree with that? Under percentage bact we were able to keep the lights on because we kept a lot of our ones through cooling plants online. We were able to do backup generators. We are not naive about the situational challenges, but that doesn't mean we' and accelerate.

I'll give you an example. In areas like battery stories, we have the largest installed battery projects on planet Earth. It was two fifty megawats. Two and a half years ago, close to four thousand megawats. Say It's our largest power plant today. That's just in two and a half years. Look at what we can do in five, ten, fifteen years. So I think people are naively assuming we're not capable of doing so much more with the Innovation and entrepreneur

spirit that finds the best of this country. Enormous growth in your battery capacity. You said where you could go. Where do you need to go in order to get to zero emissions? I mean, look, we have very ambitious goals to carbon neutrality, not in at zero. Carbon neutrality is five. We've established interim goals of clean energy on our electricity grid by five and of course we have the ZV man date, which is the most aggressive of any jurisdiction, certainly in the United States one of the

few in the world. So we have to do multiple it is probably six gigawatts a year uh to move things along. And here's how we do it. It's not just putting unprecedented money to back up these technologies and tax and centers, which we have. That the four billion dollars of new incremental investments, setting the most aggressive policies to get the private sector to invest and fill the gaps,

but also the biggest issue that we face. It's time two project deliver, not just from a supply chain perspective, but permitting perspective. The NIMBIISM huge issue, and so we did something profound this year. We have completely knocked out all of those barriers and we put in rigid timelines to get projects permitted and go through a judicial process at their challenge, and that, we think, is a game changer.

Anything I read about this says carbon capture is critical, and I know that's an important part of your strategy. At the same time, how we're really taking carbon capture to scale, to the sale? You needed to be particularly out of the air. Not yet. We have direct our capture a number of companies in California. In fact, they're demonstrating that in Wyoming as we speak. We worked with

the oil industry. You never believe that, since I just to referendum against our efforts on our setbacks, health and safety setbacks. But now carbon capture, sequestration. We want to invest in that and, by the way, that's an important point you're making. We were able to find some balance in that space a few years ago our mental justice community. Others were like no, we don't want to have that conversation. Green hydrogen didn't even want that conversation. So we've been

accelerating on all fronts. Recognize that we need a d risk including, by the way, extending the life of our nuclear plant for five years in order to stress test this grid as we transition, and D risk and look at the issue cost, which is profoundly important. California Governor Gavin Newsom there with Bloomberg David Weston some other stories we're watching, India is wooing chip makers to the country.

Under a new ten billion dollar plan, the government will increase financial incentives for manufacturers upwards of a project's total cost. India is the world's second biggest fobal phonemaker, and one music is tapping a youtube veteran to head the world's third largest record label. Robert Kinkel will become co CEO in January and soul CEO in February. Kinkel has spent the bulk of his career at Youtube, where he led creative and commercial partnerships and helped launch a subscription service.

He was also part of the team and Netflix that introduced original streaming programming and beyond. Meat has suspended Chief Operating Officer Doug Ramsey. He was arrested on charges that he bit a man's nose during a fight after a college football game in Arkansas. This is another blow for the plant based Protein Company, which cut its revenue forecast last month. Welcome back to Bloomberg Technology and Emily Chang in San Francisco. When it comes to the digital revolution,

Latin America is catching up fast. The venture capital firm Atlantic, which backs pre scale in American companies, just published a report showing how the digital economy in that part of the world has skyrocketed as a result of the pandemic. Let's dive deeper into all of this with Atlantico Venture Partner Hugo Bara. He was also vice president of product for Android at Google, worked at chaw me at facebook as well. Hugo, you've worn so many hats Um, so

your perspective is really valuable. What are some key highlights that you learned from this report about the Latin American Digital Economy? I'm curious what surprised you, hiamily, nice to see you. There's definitely a lot to unpack in this Um report that we just published yesterday. Probably the key story, the big headline, which sort of underlying investing, is that the pandemic tech boom has been sticky in Latin America.

This is a huge deal because in the US we saw a bit of a reversal of the historical trend Um, you know, or back to the historical trend in in tech, or as in Latin American particularly Brazil, we've we seem to have sort of jumped ahead of Brazil. E commerce, for instance, is three years sort of ahead of the plan. You know that that sort of growth curve has shifted up three years Um and that obviously has driven a

tremendous amount of activity and acceleration in tech there. And there are some some pretty interesting and borderline absurdum stats that I think are worth talking about. So one of them, this is sort of part of the the e commerce branch, if you will, is is grocery delivery. So groceries delivery in Um in Brazil, as sort of measured by I food, which is the largest player locally, saw a six times jump, like right at the beginning of the pandemic, uh, and

then since that it's grown an extra ten times. Right, so sixty times jump between the beginning of the pandemic and now, and that's basically a sustained sort of new level. Another big one is telemedicine, which is obviously pretty understandable, but virtual appointments in Brazil is measured by one of the League players, a company called connects, the salvaging uh ten next in the first year of the pandemic and

then doubled since that. Right, so it's like a twenty x jump from from the beginning of times, and these are sustained new levels, which is really exciting interesting. You know, I'm curious how this is influencing where you and Atlantico are placing your bets, because you're learning about these new trends. At the same time we're going into a massive macroeconomic

downturn and I wonder how that's uniquely impacting Latin America. Yeah, so I think a few things are shifting and I would probably look at the venture investing scene Um specifically. So you know without a doubt investment has gone down as compared to what happened in and UH in Um as a result of sort of this new economic reality Um, so investments slowed down. In Latin America in particular, we've noticed that foreign investors. They remained active in the region,

but they're pulling back a little. But what's happened is that the local funds are sort of making up the difference, right, and this is directly in response to this sort of lasting tech boom, post pandemic. It's sort of the excitement remains, if you will. So valuations have gone down, Um, but investments, particularly in an earlier stage companies, uh, you know, continues. There's a few other unique things happening that I think are going to continue to do the fuel investment in

a big way. You know, Fintech and left Ham is extremely well developed, I would argue, in some ways much more than in North America. Uh. There's a couple of examples worth mentioning, you know. First off, we saw, you know, one of the most successful Fintech come needs, the largest neo bank in the world, new bank, go public recently. Uh. That's, you know, a world class story. And there's another stat that I think also relates to to the investment climate,

which is what's happening with mobile payments in Brazil. Uh, and and it's IT'S A it's a skyrocketing example. So the central bank launched, launched these sort of new instant payment rails a couple of years ago. It's called picks, uh, and picks is in some ways very similar to U

P I in India, which everybody talks about. But what happened in Brazil that was interesting and different is picks got to a billion transactions per month in just under a year, which was the quarter of the time it took up I to get to that same billion a month. You know transaction level in China, forgive me. In India I need to have six times the population of Brazil. Right. So that changes consumer habits. It makes it a lot easier for e commerce and you know, an offline to online,

online to offline sort of patterns to play out. So that has affected the rate at which uh, that the fintech sector is growing, and it also affects investing in Fintech specifically. You know, given that you've worked at so many big tech companies and you were more recently the head of virtual reality, uh facebook, now Meta. You know, we've seen this big shift in the public markets. Um Investors seem to be really skeptical, skeptical about this whole

metaverse thing. FACEBOOK's market cap is now one six of apples, and I know it's a very different story when you worked there. Do you think this whole metaverse pivot was the right call for Mark Zuckerberg? It's a obviously hugely important question and I am biased because I do believe that virtual and augmented reality are really uh, in the future as sort of the next major competing paradigm. Um. So I think it was the right call. I think the rate of investment, Um, you know, is, I think,

where we could spend some time debating. You know, should it have been half of the investment level, for example,

that it's been so far? Um. But but I have no doubt because kind of history has has kept us Um, you know, objective here that we as a society are going to go through a competing paradigm shift in the next, you know, ten to fifteen years Um, and the companies that have made the early investments, uh, you know, in in in the platforms, in some of the core technologies, are going to be the ones, you know, that have, you know, the the winning horses in the next major

platform race. And and the thing about Meta is that Meta, uh, you know, is starting from much further behind than, you know, Google or apple, because they don't have sort of an operating system of major platform investment in the current competing paradigm, which is mobile and sort of the smartphone economy. Um. So it does require, to a reasonable degree, a disproportional

amount of investment. Like I said, I think that you can the rate of investment, but I think, Um, you know, Strategically Thinking Twenty Years Forwards, Um, I think this will have been the right call. And you know what brought. You've worked in so many different markets. You know, China, India, you know. Now your focus is on Latin America and I know, of course, Um, you were closer to lot in America earlier in your career. You know, there's a lot of concern about the global economy. There's a lot

of concerns about the smartphone market in particular. There's a new iphone out. Do you think people are going to upgrade right now, when you're paying so much more for literally everything from gas to groceries? Are you concerned about the health of the smartphone market? Um, I am, and I have been for a couple of years, because I think the industry has sort of rent out of things

to to to do. You know, have sort of run out of innovation space, Um, and I'm I'm sort of dying for uh, you know, Google and apple to jump on the folding, you know folding phone bandwagon, because I think, Um, that sort of unlocks potential with a new form factor. Um. So I think there's an interesting, pretty high risk that we're going to see stagnation, as you've said, in terms of upgrades for the next couple of years until we see the next major wave of innovation. So, yes, concerned

and watching it closely. All right, appreciate it, Um, and thank you for bringing us those new numbers from Latin America, Atlantic partner and also the CEO of detect, Hugo Barra. Good to have you back. All right. Coming up the TESTOS CO founder on the ethereum merge and what it means for her blockchain, which is about to get an upgrade of its own. This is Bloomberg. In the coming weeks there will be another big upgrade for or blockchain.

The test as protocol approve of state network, widely considered a direct competitor of the Theorem, will undergo its eleventh upgrade. Joining me now Kathleen Brightman, Co founder of Teso. So Kathleen how will your upgrade be different from the ethereum merge?

Oh Um. Well, fundamentally, test this is a cryptocurrency that as a formal mechanism, um, for proposing and ratifying upgrades the protocol, meaning Um upgrades happen seamlessly and without the use of a hard fork, which is, you know, why the etherory merge took so long. It was basically like, in their own words, hurting cats, um with TESSOS. The reason it's been able to upgrade ten times, largely seamlessly, Um, is because basically the blockchain was made with upgrading itself

in mind. So there's a furmal mechanism that makes this process, Um, pretty straightforward and pretty seamless. So Um, tenth time, eleventh, hopefully hitting this Friday. Um. What kind of technical issues are you preparing for, um? and I wonder if perhaps not, because there was all this concern about the eutherium emerge and whether it would go off as plan and it

seems to have been kind of a non event. Yeah, I think this has been an excellent marketing effort on behalf of etheroriums most vocal promoters to make listen to a big kerfuffle Um but actually, if you, if you prepare these things, they tend to go quite smoothly and uh, you know, maybe they'll learn that on their third or fourth time that they upgrade. Are How substantial are your upgrades compared to the etherium, or even that you've done

this ten times? Um. Yeah. So, I mean one are the benefits of Tessa's as kind of a philosophy, in a way of approaching um innovation is that when you have when you have upgrades that happened on a pretty regular cadence or can be proposed a pretty regular cadence, you don't have to to use consulting speak, boil the ocean in one go, Um, and so these types of

things can happen Um, piecemeal. What I mean to say is, you know, the testas consistus Algorithm has been changed wholesale twice, Um and and uh, and has also had a number of different improvements. That of edge towards Um Scaling, which I think is going to be the next big challenge, Um,

for any blockchain, uh, you know, including ethereum of course. Um. But yeah, a lot of these networks don't scale very well, meaning they can't handle a lot of the transactions which is why you see different things like Um congestion and and fees rising, because the cost of Um, you know, going on the blockchain and having computation there is, I guess,

higher as more people use it Um. So scaling and having an approach to scaling Um is something that we've incorporated in the last two upgrades with test this and Inde Kathman do the one that's hitting on Friday. Um introduces some some concepts and some technical capabilities that lean forwards having a lot more people use the blockchain. Now it is climate week and we've been talking a lot

about cryptos energy problems. How much energy does Tesso's use and how have you been working to combat its carbon footprint?

The tests blockchain has been proof of stake since he is an eighteen, meaning well, it was launched with proof of steak, which has a lot less energy usage and a lot of smaller carbon footprint um than proof of work that works, such as Bitcoins, notably Um ethereum transition of course, the proof of steak Um with with their merge Um, and so I think that's been a huge relief because I think it's it's been a fact about the industry which has antagonized a lot of people who

would otherwise be neutral Um. And hopefully with ethereum's transition to proof of steake, that part of the conversation at least starts to dissipate and we can focus on more interesting questions about the crypto crazy space. All right, well, we'll be watching out for your eleventh upgrade soon. Taso's CO founder, Kathleen Brightman, are we're going to have you, Kathleen.

Thanks for stopping by. Jesse Palell, the outspoken, in controversial co founder of Crypto Exchange Krack and, is stepping down as CEO. Pal is known for his bold predict is about the future of Crypto, some of them right here on our show. He's also encouraged any, quote, woke employees at crack and who don't align with the company's culture and values to leave. Um. He's gonna be replaced in

coming months by C O O David Ripley. He'll become the company's chair h and this is the first interview since the announcement outgoing CEO of cracking, Jesse Powell, with us now. So, Jesse, how did you come to this decision? Stepping up, not down? As you say. Yeah, I like to think of it. As you know, I'm taking a higher level role, at the chairman level. Uh, you know how ultimate oversight over the whole company. Um, Dave Ripley will be doing all the hard work for me. So

appreciate that. Thanks, Dave. Um. So yeah, you know, I'm excited for this next chapter. I'm extremely confident in David Ripley and his ability to to lead this company. You know, he's been with us since we were fifty people six years ago, all the way up to, you know, mid three thousand's right now. Um, so you know he's seen it all and I'm just super glad that we have such a deep bench and someone able to to step

up from the inside. And you know, we we came back around to David after running an external search and talking to over a dozen other people and you know, he's still clearly the frontrunner after all that. So I think it's in really great hands and and I'll still be actively involved day to day. Hopefully this will give me more time to go deeper on the product and user experiences, which is what I really enjoy doing. Now, obviously we're in the middle of a massive broader market downturn.

It's definitely bleeding into crypto kraken's market share, according to some estimates, has shrunk by a third. Um. Did that play at all into your moving aside up, uh, stepping up, as you say, at this time? Definitely not. This is something we've been thinking about for over a year. Um. I mean it's a long time coming. I just felt like the time was right with the company being in a very good position right now in terms of our culture,

our engagement of our employees, you know. So after the Jet Ski Program which you mentioned, and all the woke employees left, you know, we ran a survey internally and if people are happier and more engaged and more satisfied than ever. So I think the company is in a great spot. We've we've recently aligned on our five year strategy. Um. So it's just it's just a good time for me to step away. Um, you know, after planning this for a long time. Of course they'll be a transition period.

You know, we're we're looking to hire a new CEO to backfill Dave. So they'll be a bit of a handoff period. Um, but you know, every everything is great. You know, I hate to go out at the bottom of the market. You know, I mean Dave's performance is going to look amazing when things bounce back and I won't get credit for that. But Um, you know, there's never there's never a perfect time. So let's go back

to those woke employees, as you called them. Of course, this was very controversial at the time that you said it, and I'm curious if you faced any backlash or you're worried about facing any black backlash in your future endeavors.

Not at all actually. You know, after that whole thing happened, we had a tremendous amount of support come in, record breaking numbers of job applications coming in and you know, I think a lot of people were just waiting for somebody to say it and they're looking for a place where where they can be themselves and not have to walk on eggshells and, you know, they're looking for a place where they can just get to work and work on important things and not be distracted by, you know,

little petty grievances that people have. And so, you know, I think it actually attracts people and and deters the wrong kind of people that, you know, are really not cut out to be working in a professional environment. Now, Jamie diamond just had this to say about crypto. Take a quick listen. I'm a major skeptic on crypto tokens, which you call currency, like bitcoin. They are decentralized ponzi schemes,

decentralized ponzi schemes. What's your reaction to that? I feel like it's better than the centralized Ponzi scheme, which is the stock market and national currencies. You know, I mean it's an upgrade right. We should be asking the question is it and is it an improvement? You know, you can point out problems with anything, and the question really is, is it not perfect, but is it an improvement over the existing system? And crypto helps a tremendous number of

people in the world. There are tons of unbanked people in the world. It might be hard for Jamie diamond to understand that running a bank in the United States, but there are people, billions of people all over the world that don't have bank accounts or access to financial services, and Cryptos a real lifeline to those people. Now I have to revisit some of your predictions that you made right here. One bitcoin, per Lambeau, I believe you said, you know, to the moon, infinity and beyond. You know

it hasn't gotten there. And how do you reflect on that? And do you think it still will get there? And and you know just how much farther off is a hundred thousand? I do think we'll get there. I look at this Rainbow Chart for Bitcoin. You know we're at the bottom. We're at the, you know, extreme buy territory right now. Um, I bought in again at eighteen thousand. You know, I'm still very long term Wi ish. I still haven't sold a share of my cracking stock in

eleven years. I'm extremely bullish on the company. I'm extremely bullish on Crypto. So, you know, I think the fundamentals just keep getting stronger for crypto. Uh, the user adoption keeps growing, the networks get more secure. You know, we keep proving that we can do these upgrades to to these networks in a secure, uh, in orderly fashion, and so everything just keeps looking better over time. You know, I think the macro environment is playing a big role

in what's happening with crypto now. You know, people don't know if they're gonna be able to afford gas or groceries next week. So that certainly affects one's discretionary income or, you know, ability to invest long term. But you know, aside from the speculative value of Crypto, you know again

it's it's solving real problems for people. It does have a functional use case in in many parts of the world, and so, you know, I think we should look at it more from that perspective, like what is the good will that this is doing? Can we measure this value that the crypto brings to the world by some other means besides like the financial value, you know, the appreciation of the asset, but you know, what problems is it

really solving for people? Um, Jesse Powell, outgoing CEO of crack in, Um, we'll be watching you in your chairman role, Um, and whatever else you do next. Thank you for joining us. That does it for this edition of Bloomberg Technology. Coming up Thursday I'll be interviewing Mark Bennie off at Dream Force, the salesforce co CEO, and I will be with you live, and also the CEO of impossible foods as well. This is Bloomberg