Twitter Hits Back at Musk

making bikes in house shares jumping on the news. We're gonna have all the details and funding for crypto startups plummeted last quarter. We'll ask Light Speed Venture partners why they are planning to double down on the blockchain and so coy is Jess Lee will join us to talk about their new plan to hunt for what they call outliers and put one million dollars behind these new ideas. I want to bring in Jason Goldman, now one of the founding members of Twitter and former White House Chief

Digital Officer under President Obama for some insider outsider perspective. Jason, your timing is impeccable. Um look officially this is headed to Delaware court. Does anybody win in the scenario? No matter what happens. Definitely the lawyers win. Uh. You know, the lawyers are excited when they describe a case as being unprecedented and complicated. That's definitely code for there's going to be unprecedented legal fees. So they're they're said, everyone

else is a loser in this. For sure. Elana shown he can't be trusted to execute a signed deal. Uh. The board is shown that they have no confidence along term future of the company and are now going to Delaware to consummate a transaction with a bad faith actor, and the employees are left in limbo wondering what the future of the company will hold. So look last week when this happened, Att Taylor, the chairman of Twitter Boars, said that you know they're committed to closing the transaction. Uh,

they plan to pursue legal action. Now here we are seeing them pursue this legal action. Then that Ev Williams getting into the frame. Obviously, I know you and have worked very closely together in those early days. Responding to Brett saying, I'm sure there are legal and fiduciary reasons you have to say that, But if I was still on the board, I'd be asking if we can just let this whole ugly episode blow over. Hopefully that's the plan and this is ceremony. What do you think the

plan actually is? And is this ceremony? No? I mean at this point that the board has to sue and try to get the agreement agreed to enforce, like they they have no choice as the fiduciary is to do anything but that. Um. I think whatever is I think what I is expressing was I what was? What I agree as well is that I wish the board had had more insight at the beginning of this to realize that they were dealing with someone who just wasn't serious and didn't have a real plan for what to do

with the company. Uh and staid led by Jack, they kind of became besotted with this idea of of Ellen on the company. Uh And you know, the first step of avoiding a trap is knowing that it's there, and the board just simply didn't realize that they were walking into one and striking and deal with Ellen in the first place. So why do you think Ellen actually did this in the first place. You know, there's one venture capitalists who pointed to the idea that he just wanted

to sell some Tesla stock. What do you think the real motivation was. I think he enjoys using Twitter and is addicted to the service and thought for a while it would be it would be fun to own it. I also think if you look at the proxies filing statement that Twitter filed on the deal, that they were they had assigned agreement to just get Ellen on the board and have a standstill agreement where you would own

more no more than fiftent of the company. Uh. And then he had a conversation with Jack on the same day that that agreement was announced, and it quickly pivoted to I should just own the company as a whole.

I think that's one of the reasons why this deal is also likely to settle, is that there's probably a lot of conversations between Ellen and the company in the pre agree meant phase that they don't want to come out in discovery, and so this is something that ultimately I don't think will be decided by the courts, but will be decided in a settlement between lawyers. Okay, but I wonder how this plays out, you know, if Elon Musk still ends up having to hold up his end

of the deal in Twitter quote unquote wins. Is that good for anyone? No, it's not good for anyone the price, it's not good for Twitter. If Elon ends up owning the company because he doesn't have a real plan for what he wants to do with it, he's revealed that over time. It's also worth noting that there were any number of Silicon Valley luminaries that lined up behind Elon

owning the company uh and pledged to be equity partners. Uh. You know, whether that's Andrews and Horowitz or Sekoya or DFJ or Free Speech Advocate, the Guitar Sovereign Wealth Fund, all of those folks have gone remarkably silent in terms of their belief in Elon as the ultimate owner of this company, because in his conversations he showed he wasn't serious about what he would do with it. So Elon

owning it is good. A settlement is unlikely to equal any amount of value that equals the damage done and the real the real problem is that there's actual employees who want to make a better product and want to make the company better for the future, but they just don't have the leadership that will enable them to do that. Let's be clear. I mean, there are so many users, including Elon Musk, who love Twitter, love using Twitter, but you know, Twitter over so many years, just hasn't been

able to parlay that into a significantly bigger business. What would your plan be to increase engagement, to drive more revenue, to increase the number of users. Well, let's be clear, I'm not here auditioning for any any job at Twitter. I think what I think what the board needs to do at at this at the end of this juncture is find new leadership. That's not a job I'm auditioning for. What they I think they need to do is look at what users that have found tremendous value from it

and build engagement around it. I don't think that the company is one silver bullet away or one feature away, UM from fixing that. You're three that it's on um, but it's it's it's obviously something that's always had cultural value and cultural residence, and it's something that I think UH continues to play a role in global politics, in

the global conversation. You know, one one point on that is we've spent months arguing what Ellen has meant about free speech online, and he's slowly evolved that viewpoint from just being mean anything to comply with legal requirements and local regimes. In the meantime, while we've been debating trying to tease out any meaning from what Elon's position on free speech is, Twitter is actually in court in India trying to push back on an authoritarian an authoritarian creep

into free speech laws in that country. And so there's actual, real stakes at play here, and the company is fighting good fights around the world. It's just that they're having to do so now under this cloud of Elon's acquisition. Real stakes. Indeed, Jason Goldman, one of the founding members of Twitter, Former White House Chief Digital Officer Jason as always thank you for your insights. Meantime, bargain hunters might be will underwhelmed by Amazon's two day Prime Day sale.

The annual event began today, but many sellers are minimizing their discounts to cover their own soaring costs. Prime Day helps Amazon lock in shoppers before the holidays and deepen its relationships with existing customers with deals on Amazon gadgets like Echo Now, Peloton making a major strategic shift to cut costs and streamline its strategy. The company will stop building exercise bikes and treadmills at its own factories, a big bet of the former leadership team. Peloton making this

change after several months of turmoil. Shares of the company are down so far this year. Bloomberg Smart German, who of course covers Peloton with us now for more so talk to us about the significance of a pretty dramatic shift here. Mark. This is an end to end overhaul of their all operation. So just to set the scene, let's look at Apple for a second. So Apple obviously designs the iPhone and their other products, but what most people don't know is that they have a third party

called fox Con that manufactures it. Right, so Apple works hand in hand with Fox want to actually build those devices, They don't do it in house. Peloton, however, did both. They built a big portion of their bikes in house using their own facilities, and also contracted out another portion of their devices to different technology manufacturers in Asia, one

called Rexon, one called Quanta, one called Pegatron. So what Peloton is now going to do is they're seizing their in house production operations and they're moving entirely to contract manufacturers. That's going to simplify their entire business model because instead of having two distinct supply chains, they're not gonna have

one supply chain. They're also unfortunately laying off about five seventy workers at their in house facilities, and they also believe this is going to up product quality as there's been some issues there because all of the in house quality control role is going to be in one place. You're not going to be split between two different production development styles. So WILLNUS solve Peloton's problems? That's the question. Well, Peloton has many many problems. This will solve one of them,

I think, right. One of their problems was the ability to gauge supply and demand and tie that to production. Right, So, as we know, Peloton's downfall really happened after they overestimated that demand would continue to occur even as the pandemic slowed down. That left them with an over abundance of inventory and nearly created the company into the ground. We

see what's happened to their stock price. If they had had only contract manufacturers, that probably would have been easier to resolve because now they're not owning all that inventory in house. They're working with a third party and it will give them better supply and demand balance and allow them to better optimize their supply chain. But Peloton's problems go far beyond their supply chain. There's issues with pricing.

There's issues with how much their subscription costs. There's issues of people not wanting to even just buy their equipment. And right there is competition, obviously, Apple Fitness Plus, there's Nordic Track, There's so many other companies. There's Tonal, there's the question if they're even hitting the market with the correct products. Their product development is taking a long time. They've been developing this rowing machine now for almost three

or four years. The Peloton Guide their new TV connected device that has not gone off to a hot start. So to answer your question, this solves one of their problems, but there's many more to go. It's sort of like whack a mole, all right, Bloomberg, Smart German, thank you for sharing your insights there with us. Whack a mole. Indeed, Okay, Shares of Canoe starring at one point doubling in value in Tuesday's session. This after the struggling Electric Vehicles startup

one an order for vans from Walmart. Canoe recently moved its headquarters to Walmart's hometown of Bentonville, Arkansas. In May, the company warned that there was substantial doubt about its long term future, but now at least some investors seem a little more optimistic coming up. There's been a major slowdown in crypto funding this year. We're gonna chat about that, with one venture capitalist doubling down with a new team focused solely on investing in the blockchain, a story we

continue to watch. Delivery company go Puff is cutting ten percent of its workforce and closing dozens of warehouses. This an effort to conserve cash as the economy slows down. The job cuts will effect about people in corporate and warehouse jobs in the United States. Go Puff will shut seventy six warehouses, or about twelve percent of its network. Meantime, Lightspeed Venture Partners just raised seven billion dollars four and

early and grow stage entrepreneurs. The firm also just announced light Speed Faction, a new team fully dedicated to blockchain investments. Venture capitalists have cooled on crypto recently, with Pitchbook reporting a thirty one quarterly decline in crypto investments through June. Bajel so Maya is a partner at light Speed Venture Partners and joins us now from New Delhi. So, obviously you just raised seven billion new dollars in fresh venture capital.

You know, talk to us about the process of raising this funding, especially in a very very difficult macro environment. Yeah, thanks, Emily. Well, you know, I think getting getting this done is really a reflection of the strength of the franchise and and really the quality of founders that we've been fortunate to work with, and an LP base that sophisticated and has seen through multiple cycles, is very committed to the asset class.

And so we're really fortunate to have raised this capital at a time that I think we'll hopefully prove to be a really good vintage for for venture and for founders at a building for the next seven to ten years. So where are you plan to deploy this and how fast given these tumultuous market conditions. Yeah, we typically target a three year new investment period for our funds, Emily, And you know, one of the reasons for the scale of this capital bases over the last twenty years really

in two thousand. Light Speed believed that innovation and technology entrepreneurship would be a global phenomenon, and it was a little bit contrary at that time, but as a result, the firm has built a presence. Today we have seventy investors across twelve offices in six countries, and so there's

a lot of opportunity globally. UM. The scope of the sectors that we invest in has also increased now with with pharma and biotech in addition to enterprise, consumer, fintech, crypto, UM and the growth practice, and so I think we're seeing a lot of opportunity in these areas. Undoubtedly, the market for growth is going to be is already slow and we think will remain that way, but but we'll be patient. So talk to us about the global trends

you're seeing. For example, how are you seeing the you know, slow down impact to startups in India? Is it similar to what we're seeing here in the United States, or you know, are these macro conditions playing out differently around the globe. Yeah, it's a really interesting question. I think what we see is the macro conditions actually play out differently across sectors and differently across countries. So, for example, even within the US consumer has seen some impact really

early on enterprise, not just yet. Obviously, sectors like pharmland biotech will have very different dynamics somewhat similar with countries. You know, in India, for example, I don't think we're going to see a recession. The country is growing at about seven a half percent UM. But what we are seeing, and and we've been used to inflation again in the high single digit UM figures, and and the central bank

is somewhat used to managing that level of inflation. But what we are seeing is is an outflow of foreign investment, as capital moves out of what have perceived as risk your countries and emerging markets, and that has an impact on the financing environment. Four startups more so right now than the macro's light speeds, invested in thirty some companies that are now public companies. How long do you think this downturn lasts? When does the I p O window reopen?

We have thirty seconds. I wish we had a crystal ball. Feels like it's gonna be longer than the previous downturns given the multitude of factors that play emily, So you know we're thinking certainly well into interesting. All right, Bajel Somya, thank you for joining us. I know it's a very early morning for you there in New Delhi. Appreciate you wake up. Light Speed Venture Partners will keep watching. Welcome

back to Bark Technology, Emily Changing in San Francisco. I want to get back to the latest on Twitter and Elon Musk. In the last hour, Twitter has sued Musk and moved to force the world, which is man to consummate is proposed forty four billion dollar buyout of the social media platform. Are at Ludlow back here with the headline. So we've read some of the fine print. Now what is Twitter arguing in this fine Yeah, they're basically saying Musk does not have a right to walk away to

an agreement that had very few conditions. They're saying he agreed to fifty four dollars twenty cents to share forty four billion dollar takeover and that he can't walk away. We have this quote from the court fighting we can

bring up on screen. Musk apparently believes that he, unlike every other party subject of Delaware contract law, is free to change his mind trash the company disrupt its operations, destroy stockholder value, and walk away in twitters basically pointing out words fighting words and just because the stocks generally have fallen down in the sector, including social media socks, he can't just have buyer's remorse is their basic arguments. So does Twitter have a case or who is better? Right?

So most lawyers that were spoken to a Boomberg think that Twitter do. It comes down to material adverse effect. Must's argument is that there wasn't enough information handed over on bots, and this is where the court case is going to be fought. Did they or did they not share enough data? Material adverse effect? Meaning did them withholding data on bots or not sharing enough or what they did share actually alter the value of the deal, and

if it did, the musque could win. But I think most lawyers would see Twitter has a good chance here. All right, thank you for meantime. Sequoia Capital may have a million dollars for your idea the story. Adventure capital firm is now accepting applications for its deed stage catalysts called ARC. They say they're looking to fund outlier founders and teach them how to make their ideas a reality. Justly as a partner at Sequoia Capital and joins us now to tell us more. Just great to have you

with us. So walk us through the vision for ARC and how you think this sets apart what Sequoia is trying to do here. Thanks for having the Emily. ARC is Sequoia's new seed stage catalyst for outlier founders. We offer three things. A million dollar investment from Sequoia as well as seven weeks of programming on foundational company building topics. And you're working alongside a cohort, a community of really

exceptional people around at the same stage as you. Um. The reason we're doing this is we know it takes a lot more than just money to create a category defining company, and we know founders want company building help and Sequoia has had the privilege of working for over

fifty years with some of the best founders. We've tried to do is take all those lessons, all those mistakes, the journey of all the other founders that we've worked with, and boiled them down into foundational company building concepts, everything from product to customer obsession to culture to how to hire. And so that's the seven weeks of of Jampack programming for arc what you can outlier founder and right abbligations are open now until July. That's right, all right, so

you've got a few more days. So when you say outlier founders, what exactly do you mean? Sekoia has done a lot of really innovative things in the past, for example, your Scout program to try to find you know, unearthed new entrepreneurs and new ideas. You know, why do you think you need to do this as well to find those outliers? Hm? You know, the venture market has been continuously evolving over the years, and I think there are a lot more founders coming into the space as investors

and a lot more product thinking and innovation. What can affirm offer beyond money which is actually a commodity and a board member? And so we often think about what do founders need? There are customers, how we work backwards from that and figure out what they need help with and the number one request we get and the number one thing I think Sequoia delivers is help with actual

company building. And so we really tried to boil down everything that we've learned over the years through working with some of the best into the core things that you kind of for example, when I was a founder. There are things I wish I could have one back in time and told my younger self about how to run a company. That is a lot of what ARC teaches. Now, every company gets a million dollars, what is Sequoia's stake and what is the chance for follow on funding? Uh?

So the it varies from a company to company where work. Some are precede to people with an idea uh and then some are actually a little bit further along and we put one million dollars into their existing seed round that maybe they've already rang a race. So it's it's a little bit of a range, um. But the focus is really on the how to build an enduring company, a company that lasts for decades, not just you know, how to get to the next quarter or the next

fundraising milestone. Um. So there's a little bit of of a range. So, given this very tumultuous macro environment that we now find ourselves in, how is that changing what you're looking for, what you're looking to fund at the stage stage or the early stage or the growth stage. I mean, Sequoia really runs the gamut. Yeah, I would say that we've seen um multiple compression and valuations come down.

I don't think we've seen earnings compression yet, and really I think consumers are feeling poorer and that's going to trickle down into the way people spend, in the behavior of UM buyers, both on the consumer side and the enterprise side. That said, Sequoia has been designed to outlast

the cycles in the tech industry. The purposes of our firm is to look beyond those short term fluctuations, and so we're looking for the same thing we were looking for before, which is founders that have a unique insight, who have a lot of grit to endure these ups and downs, as well as just the difficult journey of of starting a company. And we're looking for large markets where you think you can build almost like define a

category from scratch, create a new one. What does Sequoias read on the macro environment right now and how bad this will be for tech? I don't have a crystal ball. That said, I do think that, like I said, we've just started to see multiple compression and not yet earnings compression. I really think people are um. You know, we basically the public market has returned to historical valuations, the revenue multiples,

but earnings have not. I don't think we've seen the full impact of consumers feeling while gas is really expensive, my company had layoffs. I can't buy as much enterprise software, so I think that may still becoming. That's what we've been forecasting for our founders. We called in all hands recently where we we gathered all of our founders and we walked them through what we were seeing in the market, as well as how to think about forecasting, financial planning,

and how to lead in uncertain times. So that's that's what we expect. As for how founders should react, that really depends. It's on a case by case basis. Some founders are in a great cash position and should be

leaning in very aggressively. What we see in these down cycles tends to be that hiring freezes everyone sort of pauses and reflects, and it actually becomes easier to get higher concentration of talent versus before you were competing with the fang companies with every single startup seed stage, everyone was hiring and and now I think for the mission driven for the people who are venturing out of jobs, now, uh, it's actually possible to to get a greater concentration of talent,

and then some folks are in a not so great cash position and may need to take more drastic action. But it's really case by case, and so we walk our founders through all of that. Sequoia is famous for its R I P. Good Times message, which you gave to entrepreneurs in two thousand and eight, the height of the financial crisis. What's the headline of the presentation today or what would it be today? It was called adapting to Endure. It was about how to build those long term,

enduring companies, how to outlive the cycle. The founder of Sequoia, Don Valentine, he he had a license plate that said varoked on it, which is the German word for crazy or insane, and he, you know, some of the wisdom that gets passed down from him as well as to regeneral throughout the partnership has been that tech moves in these cycles, um their four phases. The first, well, the

one we were just in, was called varoked. It is the hype, the excess, the the high multiples like parties, you know when lambeau and then there's a correction, quite sharp correction where people tend tend to freeze and then uh, you know, of course correction and then it slowly comes back, and then it happens all over again. That's sort of what we've been seeing play out over over decades. It

is compressed in certain industries like crypto. I would say the twelve year bull market becomes a four year bull market. But the best companies are often formed in that correction phase. It's the founders who really our mission driven. They want to start their company no matter what they're they're they're courageous, they're brave, they have the grit to alice that they can get that concentration of great talent uh and they

have fewer competitors. So we believe at Tekoia that now is a great time to start a company, and that's why we launched an mark now last year. Sekoia made a big break with tradition to do away with traditional venture capital timelines and in some cases keep money invested longer in companies your portfolio companies going public. Some of these companies have had a tough time in the public markets. Airbnb, Door, Dash,

robin Hood. Is that strategy evolving at all given these tumultuous chimes and our LPs reacting at all are asking for their money back or out sooner. So the purpose of the Sequoia Capital Fund was actually to look beyond those short term fluctuations. It allows us to be the long term partner, the the shareholder, the long term partner, the you know, we don't have to immediately distribute after the I p O to lock in some return for our LPs. It also actually lets this generate superior returns

for our LPs. We get to capture the compounding values. Some of the best companies Google, Cisco, Airbnb, the companies we had the privilege of working with for for a long time. We have a lot of information about how well they're doing and the real like what those founders are truly like, and so we think we're in a better position to manage some of the distributions for LPs. And the founders really love that that we are that long term partner. So the strategy has not changed. Okay, um,

now I have to ask you. You're on the board of all Rays. You mentioned your a founder yourself. There's been a lot of concerns about women backsliding in the pandemic, and I wonder if those concerns continue. Uh, if there's concerned about women backsliding in a downturn. Yeah, this is a deeply personal issue for me. I was a female founder I UM was working on a product targeted at women, and it was very hard to fundraise. I never pitched

a single woman investor, and I made the connection. I realized that the complexion of who makes funding decisions affects what problems and what customers get served in the world by the tech industry. That's part of what motivated me to move to venture and to co found All Rays alongside thirty other amazing women inventure and female founders. Certainly, the percentage of women writers at VC firms has gone up. I think it's moved from nine to in the last

four years. There are some steps forward, However, there are also some steps back overall for women in this country. I think, you know, the overturning of Roe v. Wade is a tragic step backwards. I think a lot is going to fall on the tech industry, on innovative founders, on employers to help move the ball forward for women. All right, Well, appreciate you sharing your thoughts on all of that with us. Obviously, you have a very long history in this industry. Um Sequoia Capitals. J Lee Chess.

Great to have you with us. All right, coming up, bitcoin miners feeling that heat with a Texas power grid near the brink. We're going to talk about the impact of the heat wave in the Lone Star state that has become a hub for digital assets. That's next. This is Bloomberg time now for our crypto report. Joining me now, Blue or Shannali Bostic in the middle of crypto winter, Shanale. Of course, we've been talking about startup funding for crypto falling off. You know, talk to us about the where

the tide is going here? Yeah, I think about the massive disconnector seeing here. Emily, it's you. You have billions of dollars, ten billions of dollars in the first quarter a loan raised for venture capital in the crypto space. But the funding of the startups themselves has really fallen off, and you really started to see that in the second quarter of this year, where funding dropped by thirty one

percent according to pitchbook data. There were some venture capitalists that spoke to Bloomberg that gave more specifics on what that looks like at the seed stage. It's not as dramatic of a drop, but as you're starting to get into Series A and later rounds, you could see a fifty or seventy percent drop in valuations, which is what is making venture capitalists so nervous here. You don't want

to catch a falling knife. So until you see a little bit more stabilization in the industry in terms of or prices will go as well as a shakeout here in terms of the tens of projects that will make it through the cycle, it's going to be hard to see tons of money being put to work that we are seeing some high profile names still being funded. I know you and I, for example, spoke to Magic Eden an n f T marketplace just weeks ago. But again these are one off situations and not the norm in

this environment. How easy is it gonna be to spend this money that that these venture capital funds have raised, Andrews and Narrow, it's Katie Han. We're just talking to Jess Leave from so Koya. Are they gonna be able to put all the money they raised it's a fund

crypto to work. Yeah, it's a great question because you have to see if the definitional definition of crypto will change by any means, are you going to start to put money towards projects that are so Lana based or are you going to put money towards projects that are more Web three based. You see gaming and crypto become a very popular popular environment here, so you can maybe see things start to change in terms of definitions of crypto. But again we're looking at the price the bitcoin. Bitcoin

is of course still king here Emily. When do prices stabilize? Until that happens, it's hard to see massive amounts but to work all right, Shannali Bask, thank you for that update. Over five hundred of the top CEOs in the United States have joined an effort by code dot org urging governors and state education officials to ensure that all US and elementary and high school students have the chance to

study computer science. This comes as demand for talent to fill jobs in cybersecurity, data science, computer programming has skyrocketed. Many of those jobs are unfilled. Joining us for this week's Teconomic segment, Hotti part Toby, founder of code dot org, also a long time investor, tech entrepreneur yourself, You've been doing this now for nine years, nine years trying to get computer science taught in schools. How much progress has there actually been? One we started ten percent of US

schools taught computer science. Now it's at fifty one. So we've now tipped it. So if you're a parent whose school doesn't your child school doesn't teach computer science, you're now in the minority. But we still want to get to the point where a hundred percent of schools teach computer science. And we're also at the point where even with all these schools teaching, and only five percent of high school students study computer science. And we want to

reach every kid. So that's the next decade of work, is to get to every single student in every school. So you've got Mark Zuckerberg, Chryl Sandberg, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pachai, and you know hundreds more who have signed this letter. What will this letter actually accomplish? Well, the first thing I wanted to say is it's it's not surprising to see folks like Tim Cook or Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg saying that schools should teach computer science. What's truly

unique is the company's outside of the tech sector. The leading companies in retail, transportation, finance, even in coffee or toys or you know, Starbucks, Nike, has Bro, these companies, Nordstrom's, Ups, Walgreens are all getting behind computer science to show that computer science is no longer about just jobs of tech companies because every company is becoming a tech company. Every

company has data science needs or cybersecurity needs. So have you gotten a response from lawmakers from the people who have the you know, capability of changing this, of adding this to a school curriculum. We've we have early signs the National Governors Association, all fifty governors are actually getting together tomorrow and we expect by Thursday that they're going to make an announcement on this topic. We don't know exactly what it's going to say, but the early signs

are it's going to be tremendous. I'm hoping to see all fifty governors united behind something about computer science because this is an issue really that everybody can get behind. You've shared your story with us here over the years, but I want to remind our viewers. You know, you grew up in Iran. Your school didn't offer computer science, but you were still able to get access to a computer. It changed your life. If your school had offered computer science.

Do you think your life would have been different. Well, for me, I had a father who was a physicist and a mother who was a computer scientist. So even growing up in post revolutionary Iran during the war, I

was learning to code on my own. But if you think about the most underprivileged kids in today's world, the kids who are getting left behind, what's the one thing we can teach them in school that gives them a pathway ahead, or that even just gives them the confidence that I can build something, I can make something, I can I can change the world. I can be a creator. Kids wants to create, and right now they're becoming creators

on TikTok or Instagram because that's easy. If they knew that they could create apps and create software, there's a whole world of opportunity that we would open up for them as well. There's also the how you know, what are schools getting right when they are trying to deliver this correct kill them and what are they getting wrong? I mean, I've got multiple children in school, and you know there there's there's this thirst for more computer science,

and I even wonder if they're doing it the right way. Yeah, one of the challenges to make sure computer science is taught creatively, so it's not just about like learned, learning these things and memorizing and passing the task for more like what do you want to create? What app do

you want to create? What game? What? Website? To basically draw out the natural creativity, and when it's topped that way, it also brings in diversity into the field because more students are interested in creating stuff than they are just sort of doing wrote work. So how long do you think before we get I'm pretty confident that by the end of the decade we will because there's now multiple states saying that it's going to be required for graduation.

There's now five states that require computer science for graduation from high school. And when you do that, you get to you also fix the gender gap, you fix the racial equity gap. Every student learned. So this is the secret to everything pretty much. Yeah, I mean in South Carolina, for example, it's the first state that required computer science for graduation. There's now more young women in South Carolina learning computer science than the five states surrounding it. Right, Um, well,

it's been wonderful to see your progress over these nine years. Um, and We'll be watching for more. Code dot org founder, how do you parto be? Thank you for joining us here in the studio that doesn't for the sedition of Bloomberg Technology. We've got a big interview coming up Tomorrow. The CEO of IBM, Arvin Krishna, will be with us. We're to talk to him about everything from the downturn to the supply chain and more. You don't want to

miss it. I'm Emily Changing in San Francisco. This is Bloomberg